Chapter XI: Part 11

_a_ 6-49. Higden took all this passage from Book i of the twelfth-century Annals of Alfred of Beverley (ed. Hearne, pp. 6-7). The _Polychronicon_ is a patchwork of quotations from earlier writers.

_a_ 7. _Pectoun._ Higden has _ad Peccum_, and Alfred of Beverley _in monte qui vocatur Pec_, i.e. The Peak of Derbyshire. _cc_ and _ct_ are not distinguishable in some hands of the time, and Trevisa has made _Peccum_ into _Pectoun_.

_a_ 14. _Cherdhol._ Hearne's text of Alfred of Beverley has _Cherole_; Henry of Huntingdon (about 1150), who gives the same four marvels in his _Historia Anglorum_, has _Chederhole_; and on this evidence the place has been identified with Cheddar in Somerset, where there are famous caves.

_a_ 22. _an egle hys nest_: cp. _b_ 23 _a child hys brouch_. This construction has two origins: (1) It is a periphrasis for the genitive, especially in the case of masculine and neuter proper names which had no regular genitive in English; (2) It is an error arising from false manuscript division of the genitive suffix _-es_, _-is_, from its stem.

_a_ 36. <_þat_> here and in l. 52 is inserted on the evidence of the other MSS. Syntactically its omission is defensible, for the suppressed relative is a common source of difficulty in Middle English; see the notes to V 4-6, 278-9; X 146; XIV _c_ 54; XVII 66.

_a_ 50. _Wynburney._ Wimborne in Dorset. Here St. Cuthburga founded a nunnery, which is mentioned in one of Aldhelm's letters as early as A.D. 705. The information that it is 'not far from Bath', which is hardly accurate, was added by Higden to the account of the marvel he found in the _Topographia Hibernica_ of Giraldus Cambrensis (vol. v, p. 86 of the Rolls Series edition of his works).

_a_ 54-64. Higden took this passage from Giraldus, _Itinerarium Cambriae_, Bk. ii, c. 11 (vol. vi, p. 139 of the Rolls edition).

_a_ 60-1. _be at here aboue_, 'be over them', 'have the upper hand'.

_a_ 63. _Pimbilmere_: the English name for Lake Bala.

_b_ 6-7. _þe Flemmynges._ The first settlement of Flemings in Pembrokeshire took place early in the twelfth century, and in 1154, Henry II, embarrassed alike by the turbulence of the Welsh, and of the new host of Flemish mercenaries who had come in under Stephen, encouraged a further settlement. They formed a colony still distinguishable from the surrounding Welsh population.

_b_ 11-12. The threefold division of the English according to their Continental origin dates back to Bede's _Ecclesiastical History_. But the areas settled by Bede's three tribes do not correspond to Southern, Northern, and Midland. The Jutes occupied Kent, whence the South-Eastern dialect; the Saxons occupied the rest of the South, whence the South-Western dialect; and the Angles settled in the Midlands and the North; so that the Midland and Northern dialects are both Anglian, and derive from the same Continental tribe or tribal group.

_b_ 26. _þe furste moreyn_: the Black Death of 1349. There were fresh outbreaks of plague in 1362, 1369, 1376.

_b_ 26-42. The bracketed passage is an addition by Trevisa himself, and is of primary importance for the history of English and of English education. See the valuable article by W. H. Stevenson in _An English Miscellany Presented to Dr. Furnivall_, pp. 421 ff.

_b_ 27-8. _Iohan Cornwal, a mayster of gramere._ A 'master of grammar' was a licensed teacher of grammar. Mr. Stevenson points out that in 1347-8 John of Cornwall received payment from Merton College, Oxford, for teaching the boys of the founder's kin. His countryman Trevisa probably had personal knowledge of his methods of teaching.

_b_ 39-40. _and a scholle passe þe se_, 'if they should cross the sea'.

_b_ 47-8. The bracketed words are introduced by Trevisa.

_b_ 50 f. _and ys gret wondur_: _and_ is superfluous and should perhaps be deleted.

_b_ 58-65. Though still often quoted as a fourteenth-century witness to the pronunciation of Northern English (e.g. by K. Luick, _Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache_, 1914, pp. 40 f.), this passage, as Higden acknowledges, comes from the Prologue to Book iii of William of Malmesbury's _Gesta Pontificum_, completed in the year 1125: see the Rolls Series edition, p. 209.

XIV

_a_ 2. _Bannokburn._ Minot's subject is not so much the defeat of the English at Bannockburn in 1314, as the English victory at Halidon Hill on 19 July 1333, which he regards as a vengeance for Bannockburn.

_a_ 7. _Saint Iohnes toune_: Perth, so called from its church of St. John the Baptist. It was occupied by the English in 1332 after the defeat of the Scots at Dupplin Moor.

_a_ 13. _Striflin_, 'Stirling'.

_a_ 15. Hall suggests that this refers to Scotch raids on the North of England undertaken to distract Edward III from the siege of Berwick.

_a_ 19 f. _Rughfute riueling... Berebag_: nicknames for the Scots, the first because they wore brogues (_riuelings_) of rough hide; the second because, to allow of greater mobility, each man carried his own bag of provisions instead of relying on a baggage train.

_a_ 22. _Brig_ = _Burghes_ l. 25, 'Bruges'. At this time Scots, English, and French had all close connexions with the Netherlands. Observe that John Crab, who aided the Scots in the defence of Berwick (note to X 15), was a Fleming.

_a_ 35. _at Berwik._ Berwick fell as a result of the battle of Halidon Hill which the Scots fought with the object of raising the siege. For an earlier siege of Berwick, in 1319, see No. X.

_a_ 36. _get_, 'watch', 'be on the look out' (ON. _gǽta_).

_b_ 5-6. Calais was at this time a convenient base for piracy in the Channel.

_b_ 19. _A bare_: Edward III, whom Minot often refers to as 'the boar'.

_b_ 24-6. In preparation for the long siege Edward III had built a regular camp beside Calais.

_b_ 32. _Sir Philip._ Philip de Valois, Philip VI of France (1293-1350). His son, John Duke of Normandy (1319-64), who succeeded him in 1350, is of good memory as a lover of fine books. Two are mentioned in the notes to XI _a_ 25 ff. and XI _b_ 234. A splendid copy of the _Miracles de Notre Dame_, preserved until recently in the Seminary Library at Soissons, seems also to have been captured with his baggage at Poitiers, for it was bought back from the English by King Charles V. Another famous book produced by his command was the translation of Livy by Bersuire, with magnificent illuminations. The spirit of the collector was not damped by his captivity in England from 1356-60, for his account books show that he continued to employ binders and miniaturists, to encourage original composition, and to buy books, especially books of romance. See _Notes et Documents relatifs à Jean, Roi de France_, &c., ed. by Henry of Orleans, Duc d'Aumale (Philobiblon Soc., London 1855-6).

_b_ 40. _þe Cardinales._ Pope Clement VI had sent cardinals Annibale Ceccano bishop of Frascati, and Etienne Aubert, who became Pope Innocent VI in 1352, to arrange a peace between France and England. But the English were suspicious of the Papal court at Avignon, and accused the cardinals of favouring the French cause.

_b_ 82. _Sir Iohn de Viene._ Jean de Vienne, seigneur de Pagny (d. 1351), a famous captain in the French wars.

_c_ 5 f. 'They (friends) are so slippery when put to the test, so eager to have <for themselves>, and so unwilling to give up <to others>.'

_c_ 14. _And_, 'if'.

_c_ 47. King John of France was captured at Poitiers in 1356 and held in England as a prisoner until the Treaty of Bretigny in 1360. See note to XIV _b_ 32.

_c_ 54. Note the omission of the relative: 'which recked not a cleat for all France', and cp. ll. 43-4, XIII _a_ 36 (note).

_c_ 59. _his helm_, 'its helm'—the bar by which the rudder was moved.

_c_ 61. 'The King sailed and rowed aright'; on _him_, see note to XV _g_ 24.

_c_ 83. _An ympe_: Richard II.

_c_ 90. _sarri_: not in the dictionaries in this sense, is probably OFr. _serré_, _sarré_, in the developed meaning 'active', 'vigorous', seen in the adv. _sarréement_.

_c_ 103-4. 'If we are disloyal and inactive, so that what is rarely seen is straightway forgotten.'

_c_ 108. 'Who was the fountain of all courage.'

_c_ 111. _los_, 'fame'.

_d_ 1. SCHEP: here means 'shepherd', 'pastor', a name taken by Ball as appropriate to a priest.

_Seynte Marie prest of Ȝork_, 'priest of St. Mary's of York' (cp. note to I 44), a great Benedictine abbey founded soon after the Conquest; see Dugdale, _Monasticon Anglicanum_, vol. iii, pp. 529 ff. _Marie_ does not take the _s_ inflexion, because it has already the Latin genitive form, cp. _Mary-ȝet_ X 163.

_d_ 2. _Iohan Nameles_, 'John Nobody', for _nameless_ has the sense 'obscure', 'lowly'.

_d_ 6. _Hobbe þe Robbere._ _Hob_ is a familiar form for _Robert_, and it has been suggested that _Hobbe þe Robbere_ may refer to Robert Hales, the Treasurer of England, who was executed by the rebels in 1381. But _Robert_ was a conventional name for a robber, presumably owing to the similarity of sound. Already in the twelfth century, Mainerus, the Canterbury scribe of the magnificent Bible now in the library of Sainte-Geneviève at Paris, plays upon it in an etymological account of his family: _Secundus_ (sc. _frater meus_) _dicebatur Robertus, quia a re nomen habuit: spoliator enim diu fuit et praedo_. From the fourteenth century lawless men were called _Roberts men_. In _Piers Plowman_ Passus v (A- and B-texts) there is a confession of 'Robert the Robber'; and the literary fame of the prince of highwaymen, 'Robin Hood', belongs to this period.

_d_ 14. _do wel and bettre_: note this further evidence of the popularity of _Piers Plowman_, with its visions of _Dowel_, _Dobet_, and _Dobest_.

XV

_a_ 8. _Þe clot him clingge!_ 'May the clay cling to him!' i.e. 'Would he were dead!'

_a_ 12. _Þider_: MS. _Yider_, and conversely MS. _Þiif_ 23 for _Yiif_ 'if'. _y_ and _þ_ are endlessly confused by scribes.

_b_ 1. _Lenten ys come... to toune._ In the Old English _Metrical Calendar_ phrases like _cymeð... us to tune Martius reðe_, 'fierce March comes to town', are regular. The meaning is 'to the dwellings of men', 'to the world'.

_b_ 3. _Þat_: construe with _Lenten_.

_b_ 7. _him þreteþ_, 'chides', 'wrangles' (ON. _þrǽta_?). See the thirteenth-century debate of _The Thrush and the Nightingale_ (_Reliquiae Antiquae_, vol. i, pp. 241 ff.), of which the opening lines are closely related to this poem.

_b_ 11. _Ant wlyteþ on huere wynter wele_, 'and look at their winter happiness (?)'. This conflicts with _huere wynter wo_ above; and the explanation that the birds have forgotten the hardships of the past winter and recall only its pleasures is forced. Holthausen's emendation _wynne wele_ 'wealth of joys' (cp. l. 35) is good.

_b_ 20. _Miles_: a crux. It has been suggested without much probability that _miles_ means 'animals' from Welsh _mīl_.

_b_ 28. _Deawes donkeþ þe dounes._ Of the suggestions made to improve the halting metre the best is _þise_ for _þe_. The poet is thinking of the sparkle of dew in the morning sun; cp. _Sir Gawayne_ 519 f.:

_When þe donkande dewe dropeȝ of þe leueȝ
To bide a blysful blusch of þe bryȝt sunne._

_b_ 29-30. 'Animals with their cries (_rounes_) unmeaning to us (_derne_), whereby they converse (_domes for te deme_).' For the weakened sense of _deme_ (_domes_) see note to V 115.

_c_ 30. _Wery so water in wore_: the restless lover (l. 21) has tossed all night like the troubled waters in a _wore_; cp. _I wake so water in wore_ in another lyric of the same MS. It has been suggested that _wore_ = Old High German _wuor_ 'weir'; but the rimes in both passages show that the stem is OE. _wār_, not _wōr_.

_d_ 2. _the holy londe_: because Ireland was _par excellence_ 'the Land of the Saints'.

_f._ I am obliged to Professor Carleton Brown for the information that this poem is found, with two additional stanzas, in MS. 18. 7. 21 of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh; and that the full text will be published shortly in his _Religious Lyrics of the Fourteenth Century_.

_f_ 4. _bere_ (OE. _bȳr_) riming with _fere_ (OE. _(ge)fēra_) indicates a South-Eastern composition.

_g_ 1. _Scere Þorsday_: Maundy Thursday, the eve of Good Friday.

_g_ 1-2. _aros_: _Iudas_: the alternative form _aras_ may have given the rime in the original, but it is not justifiable to accept this as certain and so to assume an early date of composition for the poem. Morsbach, _ME. Grammatik_, § 135, n. 4, quotes a number of parallel rimes with proper names, and the best explanation is that _o_ in _aros_ still represented a sound intermediate between _ā_ and _ǭ_, and so served as an approximate rime to _ā̆_ in proper names.

_g_ 6. _cunesmen_: as _c_ and _t_ are hard to distinguish in some ME. hands, and are often confused by copyists, this reading is more likely than _tunesmen_ of the editors—Wright-Halliwell, Mätzner, Child, Cook (and _N. E. D._ s.v. _townsman_). For (1) _tunesman_ is a technical, not a poetical word. (2) In a poem remarkable for its terseness, _tunesmen_ reduces a whole line to inanity, unless the poet thinks of Judas quite precisely as a citizen of a town other than Jerusalem; and in the absence of any Biblical tradition it is unlikely that a writer who calls Pilate _þe riche Ieu_ would gratuitously assume that Judas was not a citizen of Jerusalem, where his sister lived. (3) Christ's words are throughout vaguely prophetic, and as Judas forthwith _imette wid is soster_—one of his kin—_cunesmen_ gives a pregnant sense. [I find the MS. actually has _cunesmen_, but leave the note, lest _tunesmen_ might appear to be better established.]

_g_ 8. The repetition of ll. 8, 25, 30 is indicated in the MS. by 'ii' at the end of each of these lines, which is the regular sign for _bis_.

_g_ 16. 'He tore his hair until it was bathed in blood.' The MS. has _top_, not _cop_.

_g_ 24. _In him com ur Lord gon._ In the MS. _c'ist_ = _Crist_ has been erased after _Lord_. Note (1) the reflexive use of _him_, which is very common in OE. and ME. with verbs of motion, e.g. _Up him stod_ 27, 29; _Þau Pilatus him com_ 30; _Als I me rode_ XV _a_ 4; _The Kyng him rod_ XIV _c_ 61; cp. the extended use _ar þe coc him crowe_ 33, and notes to II 289, V 86: (2) the use of the infinitive (_gon_) following, and usually defining the sense of, a verb of motion, where Modern English always, and ME. commonly (e.g. _ȝede karoland_ I 117; _com daunceing_ II 298), uses the pres. p.: 'Our Lord came walking in'.

_g_ 27. _am I þat?_ 'Is it I?', the interrogative form of _ich hit am_ or _ich am hit_. The editors who have proposed to complete the line by adding _wrech_, have missed the sense. The original rime was _þet_: _spec_, cp. note to I 240.

_g_ 30. _cnistes_: for _cniste_ = _cnihte_ representing the OE. gen. pl. _cnihta_. On the forms _meist_ 6, _heiste_ 18, _eiste_ 20, _bitaiste_ 21, _iboust_ 26, _miste_ 29, _cnistes_ 30, _fiste_ 31, all with _st_ for OE. _ht_, see Appendix § 6 end.

_h_ 17-18. Difficult. Perhaps 'The master smith lengthens a little piece [sc. of hot iron], and hammers a smaller piece, twines the two together, and strikes [with his hammer] a treble note'.

_h_ 21-2. _cloþemerys... brenwaterys_: not in the dictionaries, but both apparently nonce names for the smiths: they 'clothe horses' (for by the end of the fourteenth century a charger carried a good deal of armour and harness), and 'burn water' (when they temper the red-hot metal).

_i_ 4. _Þat_: dat. rel. 'to whom'; cp. VI 64. But _lowte_ is sometimes transitive 'to reverence'.

_i_ 6. This line, at first sight irrelevant, supplies both rime and doctrine. See in Chaucer's Preface to his _Tale of Melibeus_ the passage ending:

_I meene of Marke, Mathew, Luc and John—
Bot doutelees hir sentence is all oon._

An erased _t_ after _Awangelys_ in the MS. shows that the scribe wavered between _Awangelys_ 'Gospels' and _Awangelystes_.

_i_ 7. _Sent Geretrude_: Abbess of Nivelle (d. 659), commemorated on March 17. She is appropriately invoked, for one or more rats make her emblem.

_i_ 11. _Sent Kasi._ I cannot trace this saint, or his acts against the rats. But parallels are not wanting. St. Ivor, an Irish saint, banished rats from his neighbourhood _per imprecationem_ because they gnawed his books; and the charm-harassed life of an Irish rat was still proverbial in Shakespeare's day: 'I was never so berhymed' says Rosalind (_As You Like It_, III. ii) 'since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat'. In the South of France the citizens of Autun trusted more to the processes of the law, and brought a suit against the rats which ended in a victory for the defendants because the plaintiffs were unable to guarantee them safe conduct to the court (see Chambers, _Book of Days_, under Jan. 17). Even in such little things the Normans showed their practical genius:—A friend chancing to meet St. Lanfranc by the way inquired the cause of the strange noises that came from a bag he was carrying: 'We are terribly plagued with mice and rats', explained the good man, 'and so, to put down their ravages, I am bringing along a cat' (_Mures et rati valde nobis sunt infesti, et idcirco nunc affero catum ad comprimendum furorem illorum_). _Acta Sanctorum_ for May 28, p. 824.

XVI

#Dialect#: Yorkshire.

#Inflexions#:

VERB: pres. ind. 2 sg. _þou royis_ 99, _þou is_ 360; beside _þou
hast_ 69.
3 sg. _bidis_ 23, _comes_ 57.
1 pl. _we here_ 169.
2 pl. _ȝe haue_ 124.
3 pl. _þei make_ 103, _þei crie_ 107, _dwelle_
(rime) 102 ; beside _musteres_ 104, _sais_
108.
imper. pl. _harkens_ 37, _beholdes_ 195; but _vndo_ 182.
pres. p. _walkand_ 53 (in rime); beside _shynyng_ 94.
strong pp. _stoken_ 193, _brokynne_ 195, &c.
Contracted verbal forms are _mase_ pres. 3 pl. (in rime)
116, _bus_ pres. 2 sg. 338, _tane_ pp. 172.
PRONOUN 3 PERS.: pl. nom. _þei_ 21; poss. _thare_ 18, _þer_ 20;
obj. _þame_ 9; but _hemselue_ 307.
The demonstrative _þer_ 'these' 97, 399, is Northern.

#Sounds#: _ā_ remains in rimes: _are_: _care_ 345-7, _waa_: _gloria_ 406-8, _lawe_: _knawe_ 313-15, _moste_ (for _māste_): _taste_ 358-60; but _ō̮_ is also proved for the original in _restore_: _euermore_: _were_ (for _wǭre_): _before_ 13 ff.

#Spelling#: In _fois_ (= _fǭs_) 30, the spelling with _i_ indicates vowel length.

* * * * *

17. _were_: rime requires the alternative form _wǭre_.

39. _Foure thowsande and sex hundereth ȝere._ I do not know on what calculation the writer changes 5,500, which is the figure in the Greek and Latin texts of the Gospel of Nicodemus, in the French verse renderings, and the ME. poem _Harrowing of Hell_. Cp. l. 354.

40. _in þis stedde_: the rimes _hadde_: _gladde_: _sadde_ point to the Towneley MS. reading _in darknes stad_, 'set in darkness', as nearer the original, which possibly had _in þister(nes) stad_.

49. _we_: read _ȝe_ (?). For what follows cp. Isaiah ix. 1-2.

59. _puplisshid_: the rime with _Criste_ shows that the pronunciation was _puplist_. Similarly, _abasshed_: _traste_ 177-9. In French these words have _-ss-_, which normally becomes _-sh-_ in English. It is hard to say whether _-ss-_ remained throughout in Northern dialects, or whether the development was OFr. _-ss-_ > ME. _-sh-_ > Northern _-ss-_ (notes to I 128, VII 4).

62. _þis_: read _His (?) frendis_: here 'relatives', 'parents' (ON. _frǽndi_); see Luke ii. 27.

65-8. Luke ii. 29-32.

73-82. Matthew iii. 13-17, &c.

75. _hande_: the rime requires the Norse plural _hend_ as at l. 400; cp. XVII 255, IV _a_ 65 (foot-note).

86 ff. Cp. Matthew xvii. 3 ff., Mark ix. 2 ff.

113. _Astrotte_: cp. 2 Kings xxiii. 13 'Ashtoreth, the abomination of the Zidonians'. I cannot identify _Anaball_ among the false gods.

115. _Bele-Berit_: Judges viii. 33 'the children of Israel... made Baal-Berith their god'. For _Belial_ see 2 Cor. vi. 15.

122-4. A common misrendering for 'Be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors', Psalm xxiv. 7.

125 ff. postulate a preceding _et introibit rex glorię_, which the writer has not been able to work into the frame of his verse.

128. _a kyng of vertues clere_ = _dominus virtutum_, rendered 'Lord of Hosts' in Psalm xxiv. 10.

154-6. _ware_: _ferre_: the rime indicates some corruption. _ware_ probably stands for _werre_ 'worse'. The Towneley MS. has _or it be war_.

162. John xi.

165. John xiii. 27.

171 ff. 'And know he won away Lazarus, who was given to us to take charge of, do you think that you can hinder him from showing the powers that he has purposed (to show)?' But it is doubtful whether _what_ is a true relative. Rather 'from showing his powers—those he has purposed (to show)'.

188. _I prophicied_: MS. _of prophicie_ breaks the rime scheme.

190. Psalm cvii. 16 'For he hath broken the gates of brass, and cut the bars of iron in sunder.'

205 ff. The rimes _saide_: _braide_: _ferde_: _grathed_ are bad. For the last two read _flaide_ = 'terrified', and _graid_, a shortened form of _graithed_.

208. _and we wer moo_, 'if we were more', 'even if there were more of us'.

220. _as my prisoune_ might be taken closely with _here_: 'in this place as my prison'. The Towneley MS. has _in_ for _as_. Better would be _prisoune<s>_ 'prisoners'.

240. _wolle_: read _wille_ for the rime.

241. _God<ys> sonne_: MS. _God sonne_ might be defended as parallel to the instances in the note to XVII 88.

256. Apparently, 'you argue his men in the mire', i.e. if Jesus is God's Son, the souls should remain in hell because God put them there. But the text may be corrupt.

267 ff. Cp. Ezekiel xxxi. 16, &c.

281 ff. _Salamon saide_: Proverbs ii. 18-19 taken with vii. 27 and ix. 18. It was hotly disputed in the Middle Ages whether Solomon himself was still in hell. Dante, _Paradiso_, x. 110, informs a world eager for tidings that he is in Paradise: but Langland declares _Ich leyue he be in helle_ (C-text, iv. 330); and, more sweepingly, coupling him with Aristotle: _Al holy chirche holden hem in helle_ (A-text, xi. 263).

285-8. Perhaps a gloss on Job xxxvi. 18 'Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke: then a great ransom cannot deliver thee.'

301. _menys_, the reading of the Towneley MS. is better than _mouys_, which appears to be a copyist's error due to the similarity of _n_ and _u_, _e_ and _o_, in the handwriting of the time.

308. Judas hanged himself, according to Matthew xxvii. 3-5; Acts i. 18 gives a different account of his end. _Archedefell_: Ahithophel who hanged himself (2 Samuel xvii. 23) after the failure of his plot against David.

309. _Datan and Abiron_: see Numbers xvi.

313-16. 'And all who do not care to learn my law (which I have left in the land newly, and which is to make known my Coming), and to go to my Sacrament, and those who will not believe in my Death and my Resurrection read in order—they are not true.'

338. _þou bus_, 'you ought'; _bus_, a Northern contracted form of _behoves_, is here used as a personal verb, where _þe bus_, 'it behoves thee', is normal. See note to XVII 196.

360. _moste_: read _maste_ to rime with _taste_.

371. _Of þis comyng_: the Towneley MS. reading _of Thi commyng_ is possible.

378-80: Corrupt. The copy from which the extant MS. was made seems to have been indistinct here. The Towneley MS. has:

_Suffre thou neuer Thi sayntys to se
The sorow of thaym that won in wo,
Ay full of fylth, and may not fle_,

which is more intelligible and nearer Psalm xvi. 10:

_Nec dabis sanctum tuum videre corruptionem._

405. _louyng_: 'praise', cp. IV _a_ 24 (note).

XVII

#Dialect#: Late Yorkshire.

#Vocabulary#: Northern are _then_ 108 (note), and _at_ 'to' 235.

#Inflexions#:

VERB: pres. ind. 2 sg. _thou spekis_ 206.
3 sg. _ligis he_ 84; _he settis_ 92; _(God)
knowes_ 202.
1 pl. _we swete or swynk_ 195.
2 pl. _ye carp_ (in rime) 360.
3 pl. _thay ryn_ (in rime) 277, 357; beside
_has_ 345, _renys_ 351.
pres. p. _liffand_ 73, _bowand_ 76, _wirkand_ 120 (all in
rime); beside _lifyng_ 47, 48; _standyng_ 416; _taryyng_
497.
strong pp. _rysen_ 442; _fon_ 'found' 503 is a Northern
short form.
PRONOUN 3 PERS.: sg. fem. nom. _she_ 186;
pl. _thay_ 27; _thare_ 75; _thaym_ 31. (MS. _hame_ 143 is
miswritten for _thame_.)

#Sounds#: OE. _ā_ appears as _ǭ_ in rime: _old_: _cold_: _mold_ (OE. _móld_) 60-2, and probably _dold_: _old_ 266-70; _sore_: _store_: _therfor_: _more_ 91-4; but elsewhere remains _ā_, e.g. _draw_ (OE. _drăgan_): _knaw_ 245-6. The spelling with _o_ is the commoner.

See notes on _emong_ 400; _grufe_ 463.

#Spelling#: Note the Northern spellings with _i_, _y_ following a vowel to indicate length: _moyne_ 'moon' 6, _bayle_ 'bale' 26, _leyde_ = _lede_ 48; and conversely _farest_ 'fairest' 79, _fath_ 'faith' 330.

* * * * *

The maritime associations of the play of _Noah_ made it a special favourite with the Trinity House guild of master mariners and pilots at Hull; and some of their records of payments for acting and equipment are preserved, although the text of their play is lost (Chambers, _Mediaeval Stage_, vol. ii, pp. 370-1):

_anno_ To the minstrels, 6d.
1485. To Noah and his wife, 1s. 6d.
To Robert Brown playing God, 6d.
To the Ship-child, 1d.
To a shipwright for clinking Noah's ship, one day, 7d.
22 kids for shoring Noah's ship, 2d.
To a man clearing away the snow, 1d.
Straw for Noah and his children, 2d.
Mass, bellman, torches, minstrels, garland &c., 6s.
For mending the ship, 2d.
To Noah for playing, 1s.
To straw and grease for wheels, ¼d.
To the waits for going about with the ship, 6d.
1494. To Thomas Sawyr playing God, 10d.
To Jenkin Smith playing Noah, 1s.
To Noah's wife, 8d.
The clerk and his children, 1s. 6d.
To the players of Barton, 8d.
For a gallon of wine, 8d.
For three skins for Noah's coat, making it, and a rope to
hang the ship in the kirk, 7s.
To dighting and gilding St. John's head, painting two
tabernacles, beautifying the boat and over the table,
7s. 2d.
Making Noah's ship, £5. 8s.
Two wrights a day and a half, 1s. 6d.
A halser [i.e. hawser] 4 stone weight, 4s. 8d.
Rigging Noah's ship, 8d.

* * * * *

10. _is_: read _es_ for the rime. Cp. note to I 128-9.

42. _and sythen_: MS. _in sythen_. Cp. note to VI 36.

49. _syn_: 3 pl. because _euery liffyng leyde_ is equivalent to a plural subject 'all men'.

52. _coueteis_: MS. _couetous_.

56. _alod_: a shortened form of _allowed_, apparently on the analogy of such words as _lead_ infin., _led_ pa. t. and pp. For a parallel see note to I 254-5.

57. _Sex hundreth yeris and od_: the _od_ thrown in to rime, as Noah was exactly 600 years old according to Genesis vii. 6.

66. _and my fry shal with me fall_: 'and the children <that> I may have' (?).

88. _for syn sake_: 'because of sin'. Until modern times a genitive preceding _sake_ usually has no _s_, e.g. _for goodness sake_. The genitive of _sin_ historically had no _s_ (OE. _synne_), but the omission in a Northern text is due rather to euphony than to survival of an old genitive form. Cp. _for tempest sake_ I 177.

108. _then_: 'nor', a rare Northern usage, which is treated as an error here in England and Pollard's text, though it occurs again at l. 535. Conversely _nor_ is used dialectally for _than_.

109. _Hym to mekill wyn_: 'to his great happiness'.

137. _take_: 'make', and so in l. 272.

167-71. _knowe_: _awe_. The rime requires _knāwe_ or _ǭwe_.

191. 'The worse <because> I see thee.'

196. _what thou thynk_: 'what seems to you best', 'what you like'; _thou thynk_ for _thee thynk_—the verb being properly impersonal; see notes to XVI 338 and VI 192.

200. _Stafford blew_: from the context this line might mean 'you are a scaremonger', for blue is the recognized colour of fear, and it might be supposed that 'Stafford blue' represents a material like 'Lincoln green'. But Mätzner is certainly right in interpreting the line 'you deserve a beating'. _Stafford blew_ would then be the livid colour produced by blows. The reference, unless there is a play on _staff_, is obscure.

202. _led_: 'treated'.

211. _sory_: the rime requires _sary_.

220. _Mary_: the later _marry!_ = 'by (the Virgin) Mary!' cp. l. 226. So _Peter!_ 367 = 'by St. Peter!'

246. _to knaw_: 'to confess'.

247-8. _daw to ken_: 'to be recognized as stupid', 'a manifest fool'.

272. _castell_: note the rime with _sayll_: _nayll_: _fayll_, which may be due to suffix substitution on the analogy of _catail_ beside _catel_ 'cattle'. For _take_ see note to 137.

281. _chambre_: the rime points to a by-form _chamb(o)ur_, but the uninflected form is awkward. Cp. _thre chese chambres_ 'three tiers of chambers' 129, where the construction is the same as the obsolete _three pair gloves_.

289-92. Read _lider_, _hider_, _togider_.

292. _must vs_: cp. l. 334 and note to VI 192.

298. 'There is other yarn on the reel', i.e. there is other business on hand.

320. _brether sam_: 'brothers both'. Some editors prefer to read _brother Sam_ 'brother Shem'.

336 ff. Chaucer refers to the quarrels of Noah and his wife in the _Miller's Tale_ (ll. 352 ff.):—

_'Hastou nat herd', quod Nicholas, 'also
The sorwe of Noe with his felaweshipe
Er that he myghte brynge his wyf to shipe?
Hym hadde be levere, I dar wel undertake,
At thilke tyme, than alle his wetheres blake,
That she hadde had a shipe hirself allone.'_

The tradition is old. In the splendid tenth-century Bodleian MS. Junius 11, which contains the so-called Caedmon poems, a picture of the Ark shows Noah's wife standing at the foot of the gangway, and one of her sons trying to persuade her to come in.

370. _Yei_ is defensible; cp. l. 353. _Þe_ 'the' has been suggested.

383. _Wat Wynk_: an alliterative nick-name like _Nicholl Nedy_ in l. 405.

400. _emong_: OE. _gemang_, here rimes as in Modern English with _u_ (OE. _iung_: _tunge_: _lungen_), cp. note to VI 109 ff.; but in ll. 244-7 it rimes with _lang_: _fang_: _gang_—all with original _a_.

417. <_floodis_>. Some such word is missing in the MS. Cp. ll. 454 f. and 426.

461. _How_: MS. _Now_. The correction is due to Professor Child. Initial capitals are peculiarly liable to be miscopied.

463. _grufe_: a Northern and Scottish form of the verb _grow_. The sb. _ro_ 'rest' 237 sometimes has a parallel form _rufe_.

525. _stold_: for _stalled_ 'fixed'. Note the rime words, which all have alternative forms _behald_: _bald_: _wald_.

APPENDIX

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

§ 1. GENERAL. Gower's work shows that at the end of the century Latin and French still shared with English the place of a literary language. But their hold was precarious.

Latin was steadily losing ground. The Wiclifite translation of the Bible threatened its hitherto unchallenged position as the language of the Church; and the Renaissance had not yet come to give it a new life among secular scholars.

French was still spoken at the court; but in 1387 Trevisa remarks (p. 149) that it was no longer considered an essential part of a gentleman's education: and he records a significant reform—the replacement of French by English as the medium of teaching in schools. After the end of the century Anglo-French, the native development of Norman, was practically confined to legal use, and French of Paris was the accepted standard French.

English gained wherever Latin and French lost ground. But though the work of Chaucer, Gower, and Wiclif foreshadows the coming supremacy of the East Midland, or, more particularly, the London dialect, there was as yet no recognized standard of literary English. The spoken language showed a multiplicity of local varieties, and a writer adopted the particular variety that was most familiar to him. Hence it is almost true to say that every considerable text requires a special grammar.

Confusion is increased by the scribes. Nowadays a book is issued in hundreds or thousands of uniform copies, and within a few months of publication it may be read in any part of the world. In the fourteenth century a book was made known to readers only by the slow and costly multiplication of manuscripts. The copyist might work long after the date of composition, and he would then be likely to modernize the language, which in its written form was not stable as it is at present: so of Barbour's _Bruce_ the oldest extant copies were made nearly a century after Barbour's death. Again, if the dialect of the author were unfamiliar to the copyist, he might substitute familiar words and forms. Defective rimes often bear witness to these substitutions.

Nor have we to reckon only with copyists, who are as a rule careless rather than bold innovators. While books were scarce and many could not read them, professional minstrels and amateur reciters played a great part in the transmission of popular literature; and they, whether from defective memory or from belief in their own talents, treated the exact form and words of their author with scant respect. An extreme instance is given by the MSS. of _Sir Orfeo_ at ll. 267-8:

Auchinleck MS.: _His harp, whereon was al his gle,
He hidde in an holwe tre;_

Harley MS.: _He takeþ his harpe and makeþ hym gle,
And lyþe al nyȝt vnder a tre;_

Ashmole MS.: _In a tre þat was holow
Þer was hys haule euyn and morow._

If the Ashmole MS. alone had survived we should have no hint of the degree of corruption.

And so, before the extant MSS. recorded the text, copyists and reciters may have added change to change, jumbling the speech of different men, generations, and places, and producing those 'mixed' texts which are the will-o'-the-wisps of language study.

Faced with these perplexities, beginners might well echo the words of Langland's pilgrims in search of Truth:

_This were a wikked way, but whoso hadde a gyde
That wolde folwen vs eche a fote._

There is no such complete guide, for the first part of Morsbach's _Mittelenglische Grammatik_, Halle 1896, remains a splendid fragment, and Luick's _Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache_, Leipzig 1914-, which promises a full account of the early periods, is still far from completion. Happily two distinguished scholars—Dr. Henry Bradley in _The Making of English_ and his chapter in _The Cambridge History of English Literature_, vol. i, Dr. O. Jespersen in _Growth and Structure of the English Language_—have given brief surveys of the whole early period which are at once elementary and authoritative. But for the details the student must rely on a mass of dissertations and articles of very unequal quality, supplemented by introductions to single texts, and, above all, by his own first-hand observations made on the texts themselves.

Some preliminary considerations will be helpful, though perhaps not altogether reassuring:

(i) A great part of the evidence necessary to a thorough knowledge of spoken Middle English has not come down to us, a considerable part remains unprinted, and the printed materials are so extensive and scattered that it is easy to overlook points of detail. For instance, it might be assumed from rimes in _Gawayne_, _Pearl_, and the Shropshire poet Myrc, that the falling together of OE. _-ang-_, _-ung-_, which is witnessed in NE. _among_ (OE. _gemang_), _-monger_ (OE. _mangere_), was specifically West Midland, if the occurrence of examples in Yorkshire (XVII 397-400) escaped notice. It follows that, unless a word or form is so common as to make the risk of error negligible, positive evidence—the certainty that it occurs in a given period or district—is immeasurably more important than negative evidence—the belief that it never did occur, or even the certainty that it is not recorded, in a period or district. For the same reason, the statement that a word or form is found 'in the early fourteenth century' or 'in Kent' should always be understood positively, and should not be taken to imply that it is unknown 'in the thirteenth century' or 'in Essex', as to which evidence may or may not exist.

(ii) It is necessary to clear the mind of the impression, derived from stereotyped written languages, that homogeneity and stability are natural states. Middle English texts represent a spoken language of many local varieties, all developing rapidly. So every linguistic fact should be thought of in terms of time, place, and circumstance, not because absolute precision in these points is attainable, but because the attempt to attain it helps to distinguish accurate knowledge from conclusions which are not free from doubt.

If the word or form under investigation can be proved to belong to the author's original composition, exactness is often possible. In the present book, we know nearly enough the date of composition of extracts I, III, VIII, X, XI _a_, XII, XIII, XIV; the place of composition of I, III, X, XI _a_, XII, XIII, XVI, XVII (see map).

But if, as commonly happens, a form cannot be proved to have stood in the original, endless difficulties arise. It will be necessary first to determine the date of the MS. copy. This is exactly known for _The Bruce_, and there are few Middle English MSS. which the palaeographer cannot date absolutely within a half-century, and probably within a generation. The place where the MS. copy was written is known nearly enough for IV _b_, _c_, XII, XIV _e_, XV _b_, _c_ (possibly Leominster), XVI, XVII; and ME. studies have still much to gain from a thorough inquiry into the provenance of MSS. Yet, when the extant copy is placed and dated, it remains to ask to what extent this MS. reproduces some lost intermediary of different date and provenance; how many such intermediaries there were between the author's original and our MS.; what each has contributed to the form of the surviving copy—questions usually unanswerable, the consideration of which will show the exceptional linguistic value of the _Ayenbyte_, where we have the author's own transcript exactly dated and localized, so that every word and form is good evidence.

Failing such ideal conditions, it becomes necessary to limit doubt by segregating for special investigation the elements that belong to the original composition. Hence the importance of rimes, alliteration, and rhythm, which a copyist or reciter is least likely to alter without leaving a trace of his activities.

§ 2. DIALECTS. At present any marked variation from the practice of educated English speakers might, if it were common to a considerable number of persons, be described as dialectal. But as there was no such recognized standard in the fourteenth century, it is most convenient to consider as dialectal any linguistic feature which had a currency in some English-speaking districts but not in all. For example, _þat_ as a relative is found everywhere in the fourteenth century and is not dialectal; _þire_ 'these' is recorded only in Northern districts, and so is dialectal. Again, _ǭ_ represents OE. _ā_ in the South and Midlands, while the North retains _ā_ (§ 7 b i): since neither _ǭ_ nor _ā_ is general, both may be called dialectal.

If a few sporadic developments be excluded because they may turn up anywhere at any time, then, provided sufficient evidence were available,[29] it would be possible to mark the boundaries within which any given dialectal feature occurs at a particular period: we could draw the line south of which _þire_ 'these' is not found, or the line bounding the district in which the Norse borrowing _kirke_ occurs; just as French investigators in _L'Atlas linguistique de la France_ have shown the distribution of single words and forms in the modern French dialects.

[Foot-note 29: Sufficient evidence is not available. If in the year 1340 at every religious house in the kingdom a native of the district had followed the example of Michael of Northgate, and if all their autograph copies had survived, we should have a very good knowledge of Middle English at that time. If the process had been repeated about every ten years the precision of our knowledge would be greatly increased. For the area in which any feature is found is not necessarily constant: we know that in the pres. p. the province of _-ing_ was extending throughout the fourteenth century; that the inflexion _-es_ in 3 sg. pres. ind. was a Northern and North-Midland feature in the fourteenth century, but had become general in London by Shakespeare's time. And though less is known about the spread of sound changes as distinct from analogical substitutions, it cannot be assumed that their final boundaries were reached and fixed in a moment. There is reason to regret the handicap that has been imposed on ME. studies by the old practice of writing in Latin or French the documents and records which would otherwise supply the exactly dated and localized specimens of English that are most necessary to progress.]

Of more general importance is the fixing of boundaries for sound changes or inflexions that affect a large number of words, a task to which interesting contributions have been made in recent years on the evidence of place-names (see especially A. Brandl, _Zur Geographie der altenglischen Dialekte_, Berlin 1915, which supplements the work of Pogatscher on the compounds of _street_ and of Wyld on the ME. developments of OE. _y_). For example, on the evidence available, which does not permit of more than rough indications, OE. _ā_ remains _ā_, and does not develop to _ǭ_, north of a line drawn west from the Humber (§ 7 b i); _-and(e)_ occurs in the ending of the pres. p. as far south as a line starting west from the Wash (§ 13 ii); farther south again, a line between Norwich and Birmingham gives the northern limit for _Stratton_ forms as against _Stretton_ (§ 8 iv, note).[30] The direction of all these lines is roughly east and west, yet no two coincide. But if the developments of OE. _y_ (§ 7 b ii) are mapped out, _u_ appears below a line drawn athwart from Liverpool to London, and normal _e_ east of a line drawn north and south from the western border of Kent. Almost every important feature has thus its own limits, and the limits of one may cross the limits of another.

[Foot-note 30: The evidence of place-names does not agree entirely with the evidence of texts. _Havelok_, which is localized with reasonable certainty in North Lincolnshire, has _(a)dradd_ in rimes that appear to be original, and these indicate a North-Eastern extension of the area in which OE. _strǣt_, _drǣdan_ appear for normal Anglian _strēt_, _drēda(n)_. This evidence, supported by rimes in Robert of Brunne, is too early to be disposed of by the explanation of borrowing from other dialects, nor is the testimony of place-names so complete and unequivocal as to justify an exclusive reliance upon it.]

What then is a ME. dialect? The accepted classification is

{ South-Western = OE. West Saxon
Southern {
{ South-Eastern = OE. Kentish

{ East Midland }
Midland { } = OE. Mercian
{ West Midland }

Northern = OE. Northumbrian

with the Thames as boundary between Southern and Midland, and the Humber between Midland and Northern. And yet of five actual limiting lines taken at random, only the first coincides approximately with the line of Humber or Thames.

Still the classification rests on a practical truth. Although each dialectal feature has its own boundaries, these are not set by pure chance. Their position is to some extent governed by old tribal and political divisions, by the influence of large towns which served as commercial and administrative centres, and by relative ease of communication. Consequently, linguistic features are roughly grouped, and it is _a priori_ likely that London and Oxford would have more features in common than would London and York, or Oxford and Hull; and similarly it is likely that for a majority of phenomena York and Hull would stand together against London and Oxford. Such a grouping was recognized in the fourteenth century. Higden and his authorities distinguish Northern and Southern speech (XIII _b_); in the Towneley _Second Shepherds' Play_, ll. 201 ff., when Mak pretends to be a yeoman of the king, he adopts the appropriate accent, and is promptly told to 'take outt that Sothren tothe'. In the _Reeves Tale_ Chaucer makes the clerks speak their own Northern dialect, so we may be sure that he thought of it as a unity.

But had Chaucer been asked exactly where this dialect was spoken, he would probably have replied, _Fer in the North,—I kan nat telle where_. A dialect has really no precise boundaries; its borders are nebulous; and throughout this book 'Southern', 'Northern', &c., are used vaguely, and not with any sharply defined limits in mind. The terms may, however, be applied to precise areas, so long as the boundaries of single dialect features are not violently made to conform. It is quite accurate to say that _-and(e)_ is the normal ending of the pres. p. north of the Humber, and that _u_ for OE. _y_ is found south of the Thames and west of London, provided it is not implied that the one should not be found south of the Humber, or the other north of the Thames. Both in fact occur in _Gawayne_ (Cheshire or Lancashire); and in general the language of the Midlands was characterized by the overlapping of features which distinguish the North from the South.

From what has been said it should be plain that the localization of a piece of Middle English on the evidence of language alone calls for an investigation of scope and delicacy. Where the facts are so complex the mechanical application of rules of thumb may give quick and specious results, but must in the end deaden the spirit of inquiry, which is the best gift a student can bring to the subject.

§ 3. VOCABULARY. The readiness of English speakers to adopt words from foreign languages becomes marked in fourteenth-century writings. But the classical element which is so pronounced in modern literary English is still unimportant. There are few direct borrowings from Latin, and these, like _obitte_ XVI 269, are for the most part taken from the technical language of the Church. The chief sources of foreign words are Norse and French.

(_a_) #Norse.# Although many Norse words first appear in English in late texts, they must have come into the spoken language before the end of the eleventh century, because the Scandinavian settlements ceased after the Norman Conquest. The invaders spoke a dialect near enough to OE. to be intelligible to the Angles; and they had little to teach of literature or civilization. Hence the borrowings from Norse are all popular; they appear chiefly in the Midlands and North, where the invaders settled; and they witness the intimate fusion of two kindred languages. From Norse we get such common words as _anger_, _both_, _call_, _egg_, _hit_, _husband_, _ill_, _law_, _loose_, _low_, _meek_, _take_, _till_ (prep.), _want_, _weak_, _wing_, _wrong_, and even the plural forms of the 3rd personal pronoun (§ 12).

It is not always easy to distinguish Norse from native words, because the two languages were so similar during the period of borrowing, and Norse words were adopted early enough to be affected by all ME. sound changes. But there were some dialectal differences between ON. and OE. in the ninth and tenth centuries, and these afford the best criteria of borrowing. For instance in ME. we have _þouȝ_, _þof_ (ON. _þō̆h_ for _*þauh_) beside _þei(h)_ (OE. _þē(a)h_) II 433; _ay_ (ON. _ei_) 'ever' XVI 293 beside _oo_ (OE. _ā_) XV _b_ 7; _waik_ (ON. _veik-r_) VIII _b_ 23, where OE. _wāc_ would yield _wǭk_; the forms _wǭre_ XVI 17 (note) and _wāpin_ XIV _b_ 15 are from ON. _várum_, _vápn_, whereas _wēre(n)_ and _wĕppen_ V 154 represent OE. (Anglian) _wēron_, _wēpn_. So we have the pairs _awe_ (ON. _agi_) I 83 and _ay_ (OE. _ege_) II 571; _neuen_ (ON. _nefna_) 'to name' XVII 12 and _nem(p)ne_ (OE. _nemnan_) II 600; _rot_ (ON. _rót_) II 256 and _wort_ (OE. _wyrt_) VIII _a_ 303; _sterne_, _starne_ (ON. _stjarna_) XVII 8, 423 and native _sterre_, _starre_ (OE. _steorra_); _systyr_ (ON. _systir_) I 112 and _soster_ (OE. _sweostor_) XV _g_ 10; _werre_, _warre_ (ON. _verri_) XVI 154 (note), 334 and native _werse_, _wars_ (OE. _wyrsa_) XVI 200, XVII 191; _wylle_ (ON. _vill-r_) V 16 and native _wylde_ (OE. _wilde_) XV _b_ 19.

Note that in Norse borrowings the consonants _g_, _k_ remain stops where they are palatalized in English words: _garn_ XVII 298, _giue_, _gete_ (ON. _garn_, _gefa_, _geta_) beside _ȝarn_, _ȝiue_, _for-ȝete_ (OE. _gearn_, _giefan_, _for-gietan_); _kirke_ (ON. _kirkja_) beside _chirche_ (OE. _cirice_). Similarly OE. initial _sc-_ regularly becomes ME. _sh-_, so that most words beginning with _sk-_, like _sky_, _skin_, _skyfte_ VI 209 (English _shift_), _skirte_ (English _shirt_), are Norse; see the alliterating words in V 99.

There is an excellent monograph by E. Björkman: _Scandinavian Loan-Words in Middle English_, 1900.

(_b_) #French.# Most early borrowings from French were again due to invasion and settlement. But the conditions of contact were very different. Some were unfavourable to borrowing: the Normans, who were relatively few, were dispersed throughout the country, and not, like the Scandinavians, massed in colonies; and their language had little in common with English. So the number of French words in English texts is small before the late thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. Other conditions made borrowing inevitable: the French speakers were the governing class; they gradually introduced a new system of administration and new standards of culture; and they had an important literature to which English writers turned for their subject-matter and their models of form. Fourteenth-century translators adopt words from their French originals so freely (see note at p. 234, foot), that written Middle English must give a rather exaggerated impression of the extent of French influence on the spoken language. But a few examples will show how many common words are early borrowings from French: nouns like _country_, _face_, _place_, _river_, _courtesy_, _honour_, _joy_, _justice_, _mercy_, _pity_, _reason_, _religion_, _war_; adjectives like _close_, _large_, _poor_; and verbs _cry_, _pay_, _please_, _save_, _serve_, _use_.

Anglo-French was never completely homogeneous, and it was constantly supplemented as a result of direct political, commercial, and literary relations with France. Hence words were sometimes adopted into ME. in more than one French dialectal form. For instance, Late Latin _ca-_ became _cha-_ in most French dialects, but remained _ca-_ in the North of France: hence ME. _catch_ and _(pur)chase_, _catel_ and _chatel_, _kanel_ 'neck' V 230 and _chanel_ 'channel' XIII _a_ 57. So Northern French preserves initial _w-_, for which other French dialects substitute _g(u)_: hence _Wowayn_ V 121 beside _Gawayn_ V 4, &c. (see note to V 121). Again, in Anglo-French, _a_ before nasal + consonant alternates with _au_:—_dance_: _daunce_; _chance_: _chaunce_; _change_: _chaunge_; _chambre_ XVII 281: _chaumber_ II 100. English still has the verbs _launch_ and _lance_, which are ultimately identical.

As borrowing extended over several centuries, the ME. form sometimes depends on the date of adoption. Thus Latin _fidem_ becomes early French _feið_, later _fei_, and later still _foi_. ME. has both _feiþ_ and _fay_, and by Spenser's time _foy_ appears.

The best study of the French element in ME. is still that of D. Behrens: _Beiträge zur Geschichte der französischen Sprache in England_, 1886. A valuable supplement, dealing chiefly with Anglo-French as the language of the law, is the chapter by F. W. Maitland in _The Cambridge History of English Literature_, vol. i.

§ 4. HANDWRITING. In the ME. period two varieties of script were in use, both developed from the Caroline minuscule which has proved to be the most permanent contribution of the schools of Charlemagne. The one, cursive and flourished, is common in charters, records, and memoranda; see C. H. Jenkinson and C. Johnson, _Court Hand_, 2 vols., Oxford 1915. The other, in which the letters are separately written, with few flourishes or adaptations of form in combination, is the 'book hand', so called because it is regularly used for literary texts. Between the extreme types there are many gradations; and fifteenth-century copies, such as the Cambridge MS. of Barbour's _Bruce_, show an increasing use of cursive forms, which facilitate rapid writing.

The shapes of letters were not always so distinct as they are in print, so that copyists of the time, and even modern editors, are liable to mistake one letter for another. Each hand has its own weaknesses, but the letters most commonly misread are:—

_e_ : _o_ e.g. _Beuo_ for _Bouo_ I 59; _wroche_ for _wreche_ II 333; _teches_ IV _b_ 60, where _toches_ (foot-note) is probably right; pesible (MS. _posible_) XI _b_ 67.