No More Learning

Lastly, like so much of the rest of medieval work, the romance
moves largely amidst abstractions. It avoids close touch with the
concrete: for instance, no reflection is found of the struggles of the
Commons for parliamentary power, or even of the national strivings
against papal dominion. The problems of actual life are carefully
avoided; the material treated consists, rather, of the fanciful
problems of the courts of love and situations arising out of the
new-born chivalry.
The romance has many defects, in spite of all its attractions and
the immense interest it arouses both intrinsically and historically.
It sins in being intolerably long-winded and in being often devoid
of all proportion. A story may drag wearily on, long after the
last chapter has really been written, and insignificant episodes
are treated with as much concern as those of pith and moment.
Further, it makes demands upon the “painful” reader, not only by
its discursiveness and love of digression, but also by the minuteness
of its descriptions, relentlessly complete, which leave nothing to the
imagination. “The art of the pen is to rouse the inward vision. . .
because our flying minds cannot contain a protracted description. "
This truth was far from being appreciated in the age of the school.


## p. 319 (#339) ############################################

319
General Defects
men, with their encyclopaedic training. The aristocratic tone of
the romance, moreover, tends to become wearisome by its very
monotony. Sated with the sight of knights and ladies, giants and
Saracens, one longs to meet an honest specimen of the citizen
class; but such relief is never granted. To these and other short-
comings, however, the medieval eye was not always blind, though
romances continued to be called for right up to the end of
the fourteenth century and, indeed, after. Chaucer, with his
keen insight and strong human sympathies, had shown himself
aware of all these absurdities, for, in his Sir Thopas, designed
as a parody on the romance in general, these are the points
on which he seizes. When he rambles on for a hundred lines
in Sir Thopas without saying much, he is quietly making the
first point of his indictment. He is exaggerating the discur-
siveness and minuteness he has found so irksome. And, in the
second place, he ridicules the aristocratic monotone by introducing
a bourgeois note into his parodied romance. The knight swears
an oath on plain "ale and bread”: while, in the romantic forest
through which he is wandering, lurk the harmless “buck and hare,”
as well as the homely nutmeg that flavours the ale. The lapse from
romance is sufficiently evident and the work silently embodies
much sound criticism. The host, with blunt remark, ends the
parody, and in him may be seen a matter-of-fact intelligence
declaiming against the faults of romance.
But, with all its shortcomings, the romance has a peculiar
interest from the modern standpoint in that it marks the begin-
ning of English fiction. In it is written the first chapter of the
modern novel. After assuming a pastoral form in the days of
Elizabeth, and after being reclaimed, with all its earlier defects,
in the seventeenth century, romance slowly vanished in the dry
light of the eighteenth century, but not before it had flooded
the stage with astounding heroic plays. The later novels, how-
ever, continued the functions of the earlier romances when they
embodied tales of adventures or tales of love whether thwarted or
triumphant. Nor is Richardson's novel of analysis without its
counterpart in this earlier creation. He treated love on psycho-
logical lines. But charming love-problems had exercised the minds
of medieval courtiers and had subsequently been analysed in the
romances after the approved fashion of the courts of love. It is
only in the case of the later realistic novel that the origins have
to be sought elsewhere—in the contemporary fabliaux, which
dealt, in a ready manner, with the troubles and the humours of
a lower stratum of life.


## p. 320 (#340) ############################################

CHAPTER XV
PEARL, CLEANNESS, PATIENCE AND
SIR GAWAYNE
AMONG the Cottonian manuscripts in the British Museum, a
small quarto volume, numbered Nero A. x, contains the four Middle
English poems known as Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir
Gawayne and the Grene Knight. The manuscript is in a hand
which seems to belong to the end of the fourteenth or the early
years of the fifteenth century; there are neither titles nor rubrics,
but the chief divisions are marked by large initial letters of blue,
flourished with red; several pictures, coarsely executed, illustrate
the poems, each occupying a full page; the writing is “small,
sharp and irregular. " No single line of these poems has been
discovered in any other manuscript.
The first of the four poems, Pearl, tells of a father's grief for a
lost child, an infant daughter who had lived not two years on earth.
In a vision he beholds his Pearl, no longer a little child, transfigured
as a queen of heaven; from the other bank of a stream which
divides them she instructs him, teaches him the lessons of faith and
resignation and leads him to a glimpse of the new Jerusalem. He
sees his “little queen” in the long procession of maidens; in his
effort to plunge into the stream and reach her he awakes, to find
himself stretched on the child's grave-
Then woke I in that garden fair;
My head upon that mound was laid,
there where my Pearl had strayed below.
I roused me, and felt in great dismay,
and, sighing to myself, I said:-
“Now all be to that Prince's pleasure" 1,
Naturally arising from the author's treatment of his subject,
many a theological problem, notably the interpretation of the
parable of the vineyard, is expounded. The student of medieval
theology may find much of interest in Pearl, but the attempt to
read the poem as a theological pamphlet, and a mere symbolical
allegory, ignores its transcendent reality as a poet's lament. The
1 The renderings into modern English, throughout the chapter, are from the
writer's edition of Pearl, 1891,


## p. 321 (#341) ############################################

Sources of Pearl
321
personal side of the poem is clearly marked, though the author
nowhere directly refers to his fatherhood. The basis of Pearl is to
be found in that verse of the Gospel which tells of the man “ that
sought the precious margarites; and, when he had found one to his
liking, he sold all his goods to buy that jewel. ” The pearl was
doomed, by the law of nature, to flower and fade like a rose; there-
after it became a "pearl of price"; "the jeweller” indicates clearly
enough the reality of his loss.
A fourteenth century poet, casting about for the form best
suited for such a poem, had two courses before him: on the one
hand, there was the great storehouse of dream-pictures, The
Romaunt of the Rose; on the other hand, the symbolic pages
of Scripture. A poet of the Chaucerian school would have chosen
the former; to him the lost Marguerite would have suggested an
allegory of “the flour that bereth our alder pris in figuringe," and
the Marguerite would have been transfigured as the type of
truest womanhood, a maiden in the train of love's queen, Alcestis.
But the cult of the daisy seems to have been altogether unknown
to our poet, or, at least, to have had no attraction for him. His
Marguerite was, for him, the pearl of the Gospel; Mary, the
queen of heaven, not Alcestis, queen of love, reigns in the
visionary paradise which the poet pictures forth. While the main
part of the poem is a paraphrase of the closing chapters of the
Apocalypse and the parable of the vineyard, the poet's debt to The
Romaunt is noteworthy, more particularly in the description of
the wonderful land through which the dreamer wanders; and it can
be traced here and there throughout the poem, in the personifica-
tion of Pearl as Reason, in the form of the colloquy, in the details
of dress and ornament, in many a characteristic word, phrase
and reference; "the river from the throne,” in the Apocalypse,
here meets "the waters of the wells" devised by Sir Mirth for the
garden of the Rose. From these two sources, The Book of Revela-
tion, with its almost romantic glamour, and The Romaunt of the
Rose, with its almost oriental allegory, are derived much of the
wealth and brilliancy of the poem. The poet's fancy revels in
the richness of the heavenly and the earthly paradise; but his fancy
is subordinated to his earnestness and intensity.
The chief episodes of the poem are best indicated by the four
illustrations in the manuscript.
In the first, the author is represented slumbering in a meadow,
by the side of a beflowered mound, clad in a long red gown, with
falling sleeves, turned up with white, and a blue hood attached
E. L. I. CH. XV.


## p. 322 (#342) ############################################

322 Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
round the neck. Madden and others who have described the
illustrations have not noticed that there are wings attached to
the shoulders of the dreamer, and a cord reaching up into the
foliage above, evidently intended to indicate that the spirit has
“sped forth into space. ”
In the second, there is the same figure, drawn on a larger scale,
but without the wings, standing by a river. He has now passed
through the illumined forest-land:
The hill-sides there were crowned
with crystal cliffs full clear,
and holts and woods, all bright with boles,
blue as the blue of Inde,
and trembling leaves, on every branch,
as burnished silver shone-
with shimmering sheen they glistened,
touched by the gleam of the gladesl:
and the gravel I ground upon that strand
was precious orient pearl.
The sun's own light had paled before
that sight so wondrous fair.
In the third picture, he is again represented in a similar position,
with hands raised, and on the opposite side is Pearl, dressed in
white, in the costume of Richard II's and Henry IV's time; her
dress is buttoned tight up to the neck, and on her head is a crown.
In the fourth, the author is kneeling by the water, and, beyond
the stream, is depicted the citadel, on the embattled walls of which
Pearl again appears, with her arms extended towards him.
The metre of Pearl is a stanza of twelve lines with four accents,
rimed according to the scheme ababababbebe, and combining
rime with alliteration; there are one hundred and one such
verses; these divide again into twenty sections, each consisting of
five stanzas with the same refrain-one section exceptionally
contains six stanzas. Throughout the poem, the last or main word
of the refrain is caught up in the first line of the next stanza.
Finally, the last line of the poem is almost identical with the first,
and rounds off the whole. The alliteration is not slavishly main-
tained, and the trisyllabic movement of the feet adds to the ease
and music of the verse; in each line there is a well-defined caesura.
Other writers before and after the author used this form of metre;
but no extant specimen shows such mastery of the stanza, which,
whatever may be its origin, has some kinship with the sonnet,
though a less monumental form, the first eight lines resembling
the sonnet's octave, the final quatrain the sonnet's sestet, and the
i patches of light.


## p. 323 (#343) ############################################

Cleanness and Pearl
323
whole hundred and one stanzas of Pearl reminding one of a great
sonnet-sequence. As the present writer has said elsewhere-
the refrain, the repetition of the catchword of each verse, the trammels of
alliteration, all seem to have offered no difficulty to the poet; and, if power
over technical difficulties constitutes in any way a poet's greatness, the author
of Pearl, from this point of view alone, must take high rank among English
poets. With a rich vocabulary at his command, consisting, on the one hand,
of alliterative phrases and “native mother words," and, on the other hand, of
the poetical phraseology of the great French classics of his time, he succeeded
in producing a series of stanzas so simple in syntax, so varied in rhythmical
effect, now lyrical, now epical, never undignified, as to leave the impression
that no form of metre could have been more suitably chosen for this elegiao
themel.
The diction of the poem has been considered faulty by reason
of its copiousness; but the criticism does not appear to be just.
It should be noted that the author has drawn alike from the
English, Scandinavian and Romance elements of English speech.
The attention of scholars has recently been directed to
Boccaccio's Latin eclogue Olympia, in which his young daughter,
Violante, appears transfigured, much in the same way as Pearl in
the English poem; and an ingenious attempt has been made to
prove the direct debt of the English poet to his great Italian
contemporary. The comparison of the two poems is a fascinating
study, but there is no evidence of direct indebtedness; both
writers, though their elegies are different in form, have drawn
from the same sources. Even were it proved that such debt must
actually be taken into account in dealing with the English poem, it
would not help, but rather gainsay, the ill-founded theory that would
make Pearl a pure allegory, a mere literary device, impersonal
and unreal. The eclogue was written soon after the year 1358.
The second poem in the MS, Cleanness, relates, in epic
style, three great subjects from scriptural history, so chosen as to
enforce the lesson of purity. After a prologue, treating of the
parable of the Marriage Feast, the author deals in characteristic
manner with the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,
and the fall of Belshazzar. The poem is written in long lines,
alliterative and rimeless, and is divided into thirteen sections of
varying length, the whole consisting of 1812 lines.
The third poem is a metrical rendering of the story of Jonah,
and its subject, too, as in the case of Cleanness, is indicated by its
first word, Patience. Though, at first sight, the metre of the two
poems seems to be identical throughout, it is to be noted that the
1 Introduction to Pearl (1891).
21-2


## p. 324 (#344) ############################################

324 Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
lines of Patience divide into what may almost be described
as stanzas of four lines; towards the end of the poem, there is
a three-line group, either designed so by the poet or due to
scribal omission. The same tendency towards the four-lined stanza
is to be found in parts of Cleanness, more especially at the be-
ginning and end of the poem. Patience consists of 531 lines;
it is terser, more vivid and more highly finished, than the
longer poem Cleanness. It is a masterly paraphrase of Scripture,
bringing the story clearly and forcibly home to English folk of
the fourteenth century. The author's delight in his subject is
felt in every line. In Cleanness, especially characteristic of the
author is the description of the holy vessels—the basins of
gold, and the cups, arrayed like castles with battlements, with
towers and lofty pinnacles, with branches and leaves portrayed
upon them, the flowers being white pearl, and the fruit flaming
gems. The two poems Cleanness and Patience, judged by the
tests of vocabulary, richness of expression, rhythm, descriptive
power, spirit and tone, delight in nature, more especially when
agitated by storm and tempest, are manifestly by the same author
as Pearl, to which poem, indeed, they may be regarded as pendants,
dwelling more definitely on its two main themes-purity and sub-
mission to the Divine will. The link that binds Cleanness to Pearl
is unmistakable. The pearl is there again taken as the type of
purity:
How canst thon approach His court save thou be clean ?
Through shrift thou may'st shine, though thou hast served shame;
thou may'st become pure through penance, till thou art a pearl.
The pearl is praised wherever gems are seen,
though it be not the dearest by way of merchandise.
Why is the pearl so prized, save for its purity,
that wing praise for it above all white stones?
It shineth so bright; it is so round of shape;
without fault or stain; if it be truly a pearl.
It becometh never the worse for wear,
be it ne'er so old, if it remain but whole.
If by chance 'tis uncared for and becometh dim,
left neglected in some lady's bower,
wash it worthily in wine, as its nature requireth:
it becometh e'en clearer than ever before.
So if a mortal be defiled ignobly,
yea, polluted in soul, let him seek shrift;
he may purify him by priest and by penance,
and grow brighter than beryl or clustering pearls.
If there were any doubt of identity of authorship in respect
of the two poems, it would be readily dispelled by a comparison
of the Deluge in Cleanness with the sea-storm in Patience.


## p. 325 (#345) ############################################

Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight 325
Cleanness and Patience place their author among the older English
epic poets. They show us more clearly than Pearl that the poet
is a “backward link” to the distant days of Cynewulf; it is with
the Old English epic poets that he must be compared, if the special
properties of these poems are to be understood. But in one gift
he is richer than his predecessors—the gift of humour. Earlier
English literature cannot give us any such combination of didactic
intensity and grim fancy as the poet displays at times in these
small epics. One instance may be quoted, namely, the description
of Jonah's abode in the whale:
As a mote in at a minster door, so mighty were its jaws,
Jonah enters by the gills, through slime and gore;
he reeled in through a gullet, that seemed to him a road,
tumbling about, aye head over heels,
till he staggers to a place as broad as a hall;
then he fixes his feet there and gropes all about,
and stands up in its belly, that stank as the devil;
in sorry plight there, 'mid grease that savoured as hell
his bower was arrayed, who would fain risk no ill.
Then he lurks there and seeks in each nook of the navel
the best sheltered spot, yet nowhere he finds
rest or recovery, but filthy mire
wherever he goes; but God is ever dear;
and he tarried at length and called to the Prince. . . .
Then he reached a nook and held himself there,
where no foul filth encumbered him about.
He sat there as safe, save for darkness alone,
as in the boat's stern, where he had slept ere.
Thus, in the beast's bowel, he abides there alive,
three days and three nights, thinking aye on the Lord,
His might and His mercy and His measure eke;
now he knows Him in woe, who would not in weal.
A fourth poem follows Cleanness and Patience in the MS-
the romance of Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight. At a glance
it is clear, as one turns the leaves, that the metre of the poem is
a combination of the alliterative measure with the occasional in-
troduction of a lyrical burden, introduced by a short verse of
one accent, and riming according to the scheme ababa, which
breaks the poem at irregular intervals, evidently marking various
stages of the narrative. The metre blends the epic rhythm of
Cleanness and Patience with the lyrical strain of the Pearl. The
illustrations preceding this poem are obviously scenes from
medieval romance; above one of the pictures, representing a
stolen interview between a lady and a knight, is a couplet not
found elsewhere in the MS:
Mi mind is mukel on on, that wil me noght amende:
Sum time was trewe as ston, and fro schame couthe her defende.


## p. 326 (#346) ############################################

326 Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
The romance deals with a weird adventure that befell Sir
Gawain, son of Loth, and nephew of king Arthur, the favourite
hero of medieval romance, more especially in the literature of the
west and northern parts of England, where, in all probability,
traditions of the knight lived on from early times; the depreciation
of the hero in later English literature was due to the direct influence
of one particular class of French romances. Gaston Paris, in
Volume xxx of L'Histoire Littéraire de la France, 1888, has
surveyed the whole field of medieval literature dealing with Sir
Gawain; according to his view, the present romance is the jewel of
English medieval literature, and it may, perhaps, be considered
the jewel of medieval romance. To Madden belongs the honour
of first having discovered the poem, and of having brought
it out in his great collection, Syr Gawayne. . . Ancient Romance
poems by Scottish and English Authors relating to that celebrated
Knight of the Round Table, published by the Bannatyne Club,
1839. The place of Sir Gawayne in the history of English metrical
romances is treated of elsewhere? ; in the present chapter Sir
Gawayne is considered mainly as the work of the author of Pearl.
The story tells how on a New Year's Day, when Arthur and
his knights are feasting at Camelot, a great knight clad in green,
mounted on a green horse, and carrying a Danish axe, enters
the hall, and challenges one of Arthur's knights; the conditions
being that the knight must take oath that, after striking the
first blow, he will seek the Green Knight twelve months hence
and receive a blow in return. Gawain is allowed to accept
the challenge, takes the axe and smites the Green Knight so that
the head rolls from the body; the trunk takes up the head,
which the hand holds out while it repeats the challenge to Gawain
to meet him at the Green Chapel next New Year’s morning, and
then departs. Gawain, in due course, journeys north, and wanders
through wild districts, unable to find the Green Chapel; on
Christmas Eve he reaches a castle, and asks to be allowed to
stay there for the night: he is welcomed by the lord of the
castle, who tells him that the Green Chapel is near, and invites
him to remain for the Christmas feast. The lord, on each of
the three last days of the year, goes a-hunting ; Gawain is to
stay behind with the lady of the castle; the lord makes the
bargain that, on his return from hunting, each shall exchange
what has been won during the day; the lady puts Gawain's
honour to a severe test during the lord's absence: he receives a
1 See Chapter X111.


## p. 327 (#347) ############################################

The Sources of Sir Gawayne 327
kiss from her ; in accordance with the compact, he does not fail to
give the kiss to the husband on his return; there is a similar
episode on the next day when two kisses are received and
given by Gawain ; on the third day, in addition to three kisses,
Gawain receives a green lace from the lady, which has the
virtue of saving the wearer from harm. Mindful of his next
day's encounter with the Green Knight, Gawain gives the three
kisses to his host, but makes no mention of the lace. Next
morning, he rides forth and comes to the Green Chapel, a cave
in a wild district; the Green Knight appears with his axe;
Gawain kneels; as the axe descends, Gawain flinches, and is
twitted by the knight; the second time Gawain stands as still
as a stone, and the Green Knight raises the axe, but pauses ; the
third time the knight strikes him, but, though the axe falls on
Gawain's neck, his wound is only slight. Gawain now declares
that he has stood one stroke for another, and that the compact
is settled between them. Then the Green Knight reveals
himself to Gawain as his host at the castle ; he knows all that
bas taken place. “That woven lace which thou wearest mine
own wife wove it; I know it well; I know, too, thy kisses, and
thy trials, and the wooing of my wife; I wrought it myself. I
sent her to tempt thee, and methinks thou art the most faultless
hero that ever walked the earth. As pearls are of more price
than white peas, so is Gawain of more price than other gay
knights. " But for his concealing the magic lace he would have
escaped unscathed. The name of the Green Knight is given
as Bernlak de Hautdesert; the contriver of the test is Morgan
le Fay, Arthur's half-sister, who wished to try the knights, and
frighten Guinevere; Gawain returns to court and tells the story;
and the lords and ladies of the Round Table lovingly agree to
wear a bright green lace in token of this adventure, and in honour
of Gawain, who disparages himself as cowardly and covetous.
And ever more the badge was deemed the glory of the Round
Table, and he that had it was held in honour.
The author derived his materials from some lost original; he
states that the story had long been “locked in lettered lore. ”
His original was, no doubt, in French or Anglo-French. The
oldest form of the challenge and the beheading is an Old Irish
heroic legend, Fled Bricrend (the feast of Bricriu), preserved in
a MS of the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth
century, where the story is told by Cuchulinn, the giant being
Uath Mac Denomain, who dwelt near the lake. The Cuchulinn


## p. 328 (#348) ############################################

328 2
Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
episode had, in due course, become incorporated in Arthurian
literature. The French version nearest to the Gawain story
that has so far been pointed out was discovered by Madden in
the first continuation by Gautier de Doulens of Chrétien's Conte
del Graal, where the story is connected with Carados, Arthur's
nephew, and differs in many important respects from the English
version of the romance. There is much to be said in favour
of Miss Weston's conclusion that “it seems difficult to understand
how anyone could have regarded this version, ill-motived as it is,
and utterly lacking in the archaic details of the English poem,
as the source of that work. It should probably rather be
considered as the latest in form, if not in date, of all the
versions. " There is, of course, no doubt whatsoever that we
have in the French romance substantially the same story, with
the two main episodes, namely, the beheading and the test at
the castle ; our poet's direct original is evidently lost-he, no
doubt, well knew the Conte del Graal—but we are able to judge
that, whatever other source he may have used, he brought his
own genius to bear in the treatment of the theme. It would
seem as though the figure of Gawain, “the falcon of the month
of May,” the traditional type and embodiment of all that was
chivalrous and knightly, is drawn from some contemporary knight,
and the whole poem may be connected with the foundation of
the order of the Garter, which is generally assigned to about
the year 1345. From this standpoint it is significant that at
the end of the MS, in a somewhat later hand, is found the
famous legend of the order : honi soit qui mal (y) penc; just as a
later poet, to whom we are indebted for a ballad of the Green
Knight (a rifacimento of this romance, or of some intermediate
form of it), has used the same story to account for the origin of
the order of the Bath. The romance may be taken not to have
been written before the year 1345.
The charm of Sir Gawayne is to be found in its description of
nature, more especially of wild nature; in the author's enjoyment
of all that appertains to the bright side of medieval life; in its
details of dress, armour, wood-craft, architecture; and in the artistic
arrangement of the story, three parallel episodes being so treated
as to avoid all risk of monotony, or reiteration. As a charac-
teristic passage the following may be quoted :
O'er a mound on the morrow he merrily rides
into a forest full deep and wondrously wild;
high hills on each side and holt-woods beneath,
with huge hoary oaks, a hundred together;
" of the Baline rear 1340: to be found


## p. 329 (#349) ############################################

The Question of Authorship
329
hazel and hawthorn hung clustering there,
with rough ragged moss o’ergrown all around;
unblithe, on bare twigs, sang many a bird,
piteously piping for pain of the cold.
Under them Gawayne on Gringolet glideth,
through marsh and through mire, a mortal full lonesome,
cumbered with care, lest ne'er he should come
to that Sire's service, who on that same night
was born of a bride to vanquish our bale.
Wherefore sighing he said: “I beseech Thee, O Lord,
and Mary, thou mildest mother so dear!
some homestead, where holily I may hear mass
and matins to-morrow, full meekly I ask;
thereto promptly I pray pater, ave,
and creed. "
He rode on in his prayer,
And cried for each misdeed;
He crossed him ofttimes there,
And said: “Christ's cross me speed! ”
But, much as Sir Gawayne shows us of the poet's delight in his
art, the main purpose of the poem is didactic. Gawain, the knight
of chastity, is but another study by the author of Cleanness.
On the workmanship of his romance he has lavished all care,
only that thereby his readers may the more readily grasp the
spirit of the work. Sir Gawain may best, perhaps, be under-
stood as the Sir Calidor of an earlier Spenser.
In the brief summary of the romance, one striking passage
has been noted linking the poem to Pearl, namely, the com-
parison of Gawain to the pearl ; but, even without this reference,
the tests of language, technique and spirit, would render identity
of authorship incontestable; the relation which this Spenserian
romance bears to the elegy as regards time of composition
cannot be definitely determined; but, judging by parallelism
of expression, it is clear that the interval between the two poems
must have been very short.
No direct statement has come down to us as to the authorship
of these poems, and, in spite of various ably contested theories,
it is not possible to assign the poems to any known poet. The
nameless poet of Pearl and Gawayne has, however, left the
impress of his personality on his work; and so vividly is this
personality revealed in the poems that it is possible, with some
degree of confidence, to evolve something approximating to an
account of the author, by piecing together the references and other
evidence to be found in his work. The following hypothetical
biography is taken, with slight modification, from a study published
elsewhere!
1 Introduction to Pearl, p. xlvi.


## p. 330 (#350) ############################################

330 Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
The poet was born about 1330; his birthplace was somewhere
in Lancashire, or, perhaps, a little more to the north, but not
beyond the Tweed ; such is the evidence of dialect. Additional
testimony may be found in the descriptions of natural scenery
in Gawayne, Cleanness and Patience. The wild solitudes of the
Cumbrian coast, near his native home, seem to have had special
attraction for him. Like a later and greater poet, he must,
while yet a youth, have felt the subtle spell of nature's varying
aspects in the scenes around him.
Concerning the condition of life to which the boy belonged
we know nothing definite; but it may be inferred that his
father was connected, probably in some official capacity, with
a family of high rank, and that it was amid the gay scenes
that brightened life in a great castle that the poet's earlier
years were passed. In later life, he loved to picture this home
with its battlements and towers, its stately hall and spacious
parks. There, too, perhaps, minstrels' tales of chivalry first
revealed to him the weird world of medieval romance and made
him yearn to gain for himself a worthy place among contem-
porary English poets.
The Old English poets were his masters in poetic art; he had
also read The Romaunt of the Rose, the chief products of early
French literature, Vergil and other Latin writers; to “Clopyngel's
clean rose” he makes direct reference. The intensely religious
spirit of the poems, together with the knowledge they everywhere
display of Holy Writ and theology, lead one to infer that he
was, at first, destined for the service of the church ; probably, he
became a “clerk,” studying sacred and profane literature at
a monastic school, or at one of the universities; and he may
have received the first tonsure only.
The four poems preserved in the Cottonian MS seem to belong
to a critical period of the poet's life. Gawayne, possibly the
earliest of the four, written, perhaps, in honour of the patron to
whose household the poet was attached, is remarkable for the
evidence it contains of the writer's minute knowledge of the
higher social life of his time; from his evident enthusiasm it
is clear that he wrote from personal experience of the pleasures
of the chase, and that he was accustomed to the courtly life
described by him.
The romance of Gawayne contains what seems to be a personal
reference where the knight is made to exclaim : “It is no marvel
for a man to come to sorrow through a woman's wiles ; so was
Adam beguiled, and Solomon, and Samson, and David, and many


## p. 331 (#351) ############################################

Hypothetical Biography of the Poet 331
more. It were, indeed, great bliss for a man to love them well,
and love them not—if one but could. ”
Gawayne is the story of a noble knight triumphing over the sore
temptations that beset his vows of chastity: evidently in a musing
mood he wrote in the blank space at the head of one of the
illustrations in his MS the suggestive couplet still preserved by
the copyist in the extant MS. His love for some woman had
brought him one happiness—an only child, a daughter, on whom
he lavished all the wealth of his love. He named the child
Margery or Marguerite; she was his “Pearl”_his emblem of
holiness and innocence; perhaps she was a love-child, hence his
privy pearl. His happiness was short-lived ; before two years
had passed, the child was lost to him ; his grief found expression
in verse; a heavenly vision of his lost jewel brought him comfort
and taught him resignation. It is noteworthy that, throughout
the whole poem, there is no single reference to the mother of the
child; the first words when the father beholds his transfigured
Pearl are significant:
“O Pearl," quoth I,
"Art thou my Pearl that I have plained,
Regretted by me alone” [“bi myn one”].
With the loss of his Pearl, a blight seems to have fallen on
the poet's life, and poetry seems gradually to have lost its
charm for him. The minstrel of Gawayne became the stern
moralist of Cleanness and Patience. Other troubles, too, seem
to have befallen him during the years that intervened between
the writing of these companion poems. Patience appears to be
almost as autobiographical as Pearl; the poet is evidently
preaching to himself the lesson of fortitude and hope, amid
misery, pain and poverty.
Even the means of subsistence seem
to have been denied him. “Poverty and patience,” he exclaims,
“are need's playfellows. "
Cleanness and Patience were written probably some few years
after Pearl; and the numerous references in these two poems to the
sea would lead one to infer that the poet may have sought distrac-
tion in travel, and may have weathered the fierce tempests he
describes. His wanderings may have brought him even to the
holy city whose heavenly prototype he discerned in the visionary
scenes of Pearl.
We take leave of the poet while he is still in the prime of
life; we have no material on which to base even a conjecture as
to his future. Perhaps he turned from poetry and gave himself


## p. 332 (#352) ############################################

332 Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
entirely to theology, always with him a favourite study, or to
philosophy, at that time closely linked with the vital questions
at issue concerning faith and belief. If the poet took any
part in the church controversies then beginning to trouble
men's minds, his attitude would have been in the main conser-
vative. Full of intense hatred towards all forms of vice, especially
immorality, he would have spoken out boldly against ignoble
priests and friars, and all such servants of the church who,
preaching righteousness, lived unrighteously. From minor tradi-
tional patristic views he seems to have broken away, but there
is no indication of want of allegiance on his part to the authority
of the church, to papal supremacy and to the doctrine of Rome;
though it has been well said recently, with reference to his
general religious attitude, that it was evangelical rather than
ecclesiastical.
It is, indeed, remarkable that no tradition has been handed
down concerning the authorship of these poems; and many
attempts have been made to identify the author with one or
other of the known writers belonging to the end of the fourteenth
century. Perhaps the most attractive of these theories is that
which would associate the poems with Ralph Strode, Chaucer's
“philosophical Strode,” to whom (together with “the moral
Gower") was dedicated Troilus and Criseyde. According to
a Latin entry in the old catalogue of Merton College, drawn up
in the early years of the fifteenth century, Strode is described as
“a noble poet and author of an elegiac work Phantasma
Radulphi. ” Ralph Strode of Merton is certainly to be identified
with the famous philosopher of the name, one of the chief logicians
of the age. It is as poet and philosopher that he seems to be
singled out by Chaucer. Phantasma Radulphi might, possibly,
apply to Pearl ; while Gawayne and the Grene Knight might
well be placed in juxtaposition to Troilus. An Itinerary of the
Holy Land, by Strode, appears to have been known to Nicholas
Brigham ; further, there is a tradition that he left his native
land, journeyed to France, Germany and Italy, and visited Syria
and the Holy Land. His name as a Fellow of Merton is
said to occur for the last time in 1361. Strode and Wyclif
were contemporaries at Oxford, as may be inferred from an
unprinted MS in the Imperial library in Vienna, containing
Wyclif's reply to Strode's arguments against certain of the
reformer's views. The present writer is of opinion that the
philosopher is identical with the common serjeant of the city


## p. 333 (#353) ############################################

Theories of Authorship
333
a
of London of the same name, who held office between 1375 and
1385, and who died in 1387. But, fascinating as is the theory,
no link has, as yet, been discovered which may incontestably
connect Strode with the author of Pearl, nor has it yet been
discovered that Strode came of a family belonging to the west
midland or northern district. The fiction that Strode was a monk
of Dryburgh abbey has now been exploded.
Some seventy years ago, Guest, the historian of English
rhythms, set up a claim for the poet Huchoun of the Awle
Ryale, to whom Andrew of Wyntoun refers in his Orygynale
Cronykil.
Guest regarded as the most decisive proof of his theory the
fact that, at the void space at the head of Sir Gawayne and the
Grene Knight in the MS, a hand of the fifteenth century has
scribbled the name Hugo de; but little can be inferred from
this piece of evidence; while the lines by Wyntoun tend to connect
the author with a set of poems differentiated linguistically and in
technique from the poems in the Cotton MS. But this is not the place
to enter into a discussion of the various problems connected with
the identity of Huchoun: it is only necessary here to state that, in
the opinion of the writer, the view which would make Huchoun
the author of Pearl, Gawayne and the Grene Knight, Cleanness
and Patience is against the weight of evidence. By the same
evidence as that adduced to establish Huchoun's authorship
of these poems, various other alliterative poems are similarly
assigned to him, namely, The Wars of Alexander, The Destruction
of Troy, Titus and Vespasian, The Parlement of the Thre Ages,
Wynnere and Wastoure, Erkenwald and the alliterative riming
poem Golagros and Gawane.
According to this view, The Parlement of the Thre Ages
belongs to the close of the poet's career, for it is supposed
to sum up his past course through all his themes—through
Alexander, Troy, Titus and Morte Arthure. But this theory,
that, on the basis of parallel passages, would make Huchoun
the official father of all these poems, in addition to those which
may be legitimately assigned to him on the evidence of Wyntoun's
lines, fails to recognise that the author of The Parlement of
the Thre Ages, far from being saturated with the Troy Book
and the Alexander romances, actually confuses Jason, or Joshua,
the high priest who welcomed Alexander, with Jason who won the
golden fleece.
* See the Chapter on Huchoun in Volume a.


## p. 334 (#354) ############################################

334 Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawayne
Probably the work of four or five alliterative poets comes
under consideration in dealing with the problem at issue. To
one poet may, perhaps, safely be assigned the two poems The
Parlement of the Thre Ages and Wynnere and Wastoure, the
latter from internal evidence one of the oldest poems of the
fourteenth century, and to be dated about 1351: it is a precursor
of The Vision of Piers Plowman'. The former poem recalls the
poet of Gawayne, more especially in its elaborate description of
deer-stalking, a parallel picture to the description of the hunting
of the deer, the boar and the fox, in Gawayne.
The alliterative poem of Erkenwald comes nearer to the
work of the author of Cleanness and Patience than any other of
the alliterative poems grouped in the above-mentioned list. It
tells, in lines written either by this author himself or by a very
gifted disciple, an episode of the history of the saint when he
was bishop of St Paul's; and, in connection with the date of its
composition, it should be noted that a festival in honour of
the saint was established in London in the year 1386.
Internal evidence of style, metre and language, appears to
outweigh the parallel passages and other clues which are adduced
as tests of unity of authorship in respect of the Troy Book, Titus,
The Wars of Alexander and Golagros. For the present, these may
be considered as isolated remains which have come down to us of
the works of a school of alliterative poets who flourished during
the second half of the fourteenth and the early years of the
fifteenth century. So far as we can judge from these extant
poems, the most gifted poet of the school was the author of Sir
Gawayne and the Grene Knight: he may well have been regarded
as the master, and his influence on more northern poets, and on
alliterative poetry generally, may explain in part, but not wholly,
the parallel passages which link his work with that of other poets
of the school, who used the same formulae, the same phrases
and, at times, repeated whole lines, much in the same way as poets
of the Chaucerian school spoke the language of their master.
.
* See Chapter 1, Volume 1, Piers the Plowman, p. 37.


## p. 335 (#355) ############################################

CHAPTER XVI
LATER TRANSITION ENGLISH
LEGENDARIES AND CHRONICLERS
It is significant, both of the approaching triumph of the
vernacular, and of the growing importance of the lower and middle
classes in the nation, that some of the chief contributions to our
literature during the two generations immediately preceding that
of Chaucer were translations from Latin and Norman-French,
made, as their authors point out, expressly for the delectation
of the common people. Not less significant are the facts that
much of this literature deals with the history of the nation, and
that now, for the first time since the Conquest, men seemed to
think it worth while to commit to writing political ballads in the
English tongue.
The productions of this time, dealt with in the present
chapter, fall into two main classes, religious and historical,
the former comprising homilies, saints' lives and translations
or paraphrases of Scripture, and the latter the chronicles of
Robert of Gloucester, Thomas Bek of Castleford and Robert
Mannyng, the prophecies of Adam Davy and the war songs of
Laurence Minot. The two classes have many characteristics in
common, and, while the homilists delight in illustrations drawn
from the busy life around them, the historians seldom lose an
opportunity for conveying a moral lesson.
The earliest of the three chronicles mentioned above was
written about 1300, and is generally known by the name of
Robert of Gloucester, though it is very uncertain whether he
was the original author of the whole work. It exists in two
versions, which, with the exception of several interpolations in
one of them, are identical down to the year 1135. From this
point the story is told in one version, which may be called the
first recension, in nearly three thousand lines, and in the
other, the second recension, in rather less than six hundred.


## p. 336 (#356) ############################################

336
Later Transition English
From an investigation of the style it has been supposed that
there was a single original for lines 1_9137 of the Chronicle,
that is to say, to the end of the reign of Henry I, composed in the
abbey of Gloucester, and that, at the end of the thirteenth
century, a monk, whose name we know from internal evidence to
have been Robert, added to it the longer continuation. This must
have been made after 1297, as it contains a reference to the canoni-
sation of Louis IX of France, which took place in that year.
Then, in the first half of the fourteenth century, another writer
found the original manuscript, added the shorter continuation,
and also interpolated and worked over the earlier part.
In any case, there can be little doubt that the Chronicle was
composed in the abbey of Gloucester. The language is that of
south Gloucestershire; and Stow, who may have had access to
information now lost, speaks in his Annals (1580) of the author as
Robert of Gloucester, or Robertus Glocestrensis. The detailed
acquaintance with local affairs shown by the writer of the longer
continuation proves that he lived near the city, while we have his
own authority for the fact that he was within thirty miles of
Evesham at the time of the battle ably described by him. But,
in the earlier part of the Chronicle, also, there are traces of
special local knowledge, which, apart from the dialect, would
point to Gloucester as the place of its origin.
The poem begins with a geographical account of England,
borrowed from Geoffrey of Monmouth, Henry of Huntingdon
and the life of St Kenelm in the South English Legendary.
Next, Nennius, or, perhaps, Geoffrey of Monmouth, is followed
for the genealogy of Brutus, the legendary founder of Britain;
and, from this point down to the English conquest, Geoffrey of
Monmouth is the chief authority. The compiler is, however, by
no means a slavish translator, and he treats his original with
considerable freedom. Thus, he sometimes elaborates, giving the
speeches of historical personages in a fuller form, while, on the
other hand, he frequently omits long passages. But the episodes
which stand out in the memory of the reader-the stories of
Lear, of the “ virgin-daughter of Locrine" and of Arthur, are
also those which arrest us in the Latin original.
Although it has sometimes been stated that the author of this
part of the Chronicle was indebted to Wace, it seems very doubtful
whether the work of his predecessor was known to him. Such
lines as those which hint at the high place taken by Gawain
among Arthur's knights, or make mention of the Round Table,


## p. 337 (#357) ############################################

Robert of Gloucester 337
may be due to verbal tradition, which was especially rife in the
Welsh marches. The coincidences are certainly not striking
enough to justify the assertion that the Gloucester Chronicle owed
anything to the Geste des Bretons, though W. Aldis Wright has
shown that the writer of the second recension was acquainted
with Layamon's version of Wace's poems.
For the history of England under the Old English and Norman
kings, the chief authorities consulted were Henry of Huntingdon
and William of Malmesbury, the former being followed in the
narration of events, and the latter in the descriptions and anecdotes
of famous characters. Occasionally, other sources are drawn
upon; for instance, the story of the duel between Canute and
Edmund Ironside is from the Genealogia Regum Anglorum of
Ailred of Rievauls, and another work by the same author, the
Vita Edwardi Regis et Martyris is, probably, the chief authority
for the life and death of Edward the Confessor. For the reigns
of Henry II and Richard I the life of Thomas à Becket in the
South English Legendary and the Annales Waverlienses supplied
some material, the former furnishing almost word for word the
accounts of the constitutions of Clarendon and of the death
of the saint. Some passages seem to depend on folk-songs; and
there are others, such as the account of the misfortunes which
befell the duke of Austria's land in revenge for his imprisonment
of Richard I, that may be due to tradition. On the whole, however,
the Chronicle does not supply much that is fresh in the way of
legendary lore.
From the beginning of the reign of Henry III the poem be-
comes valuable both as history and literature. The writer, whom
we may now certainly call Robert, was, as we have seen, either an
eye-witness of the facts he relates, or had heard of them from
eye-witnesses. He had, moreover, a distinct narrative gift, and
there are all the elements of a stirring historical romance in his
story of the struggle that took place between the king and the
barons for the possession of Gloucester. Not less graphic is the
description of the town and gown riot in Oxford in 1263. We
are told how the burgesses shut one of the city gates; how
certain clerks hewed it down and carried it through the suburbs,
singing over it a funeral hymn ; how, for this offence, the rioters
were put in prison; and how the quarrel grew to such a height
that the citizens came out armed against the scholars. Robert
relates with evident enjoyment the discomfiture of the former,
and the vengeance taken by the clerks on their foes—how they
E. L. I. CH. XVI.
22


## p. 338 (#358) ############################################

338 Later Transition English
plundered their shops, burned their houses and punished the
mayor, who was a vintner, by taking the bungs from his casks,
and letting the wine run away. But, he adds, when the king
came and heard of all this mischief, he drove the clerks out of
the town, and forbade their returning till after Michaelmas.
Picturesque as such passages are, they are less valuable than
the powerful description of the battle of Evesham and the death
of Simon de Montforty a passage too well known to call for
further reference.
The form of this Chronicle is no less interesting than its theme.
Its metre is an adaptation of the two half-lines of Old English
poetry into one long line, one of its nearest relations being
Poema Morale. In spite of the well-marked caesura, a relic of
the former division into halves, the line has a swinging rhythm
especially suited to narrative verse and the poem is of metrical
importance as showing the work of development in progress!
It was not long after Robert had added his continuation to the
Gloucester Chronicle that Thomas Bek of Castleford composed
a similar work in the northern dialect. The unique MS of this
chronicle is preserved at Göttingen, and is as yet inedited. The
work contains altogether nearly forty thousand lines, of which
the first twenty-seven thousand are borrowed from Geoffrey of
Monmouth, while the remainder, extending to the coronation of
Edward III, are derived from sources not yet defined. The metre
is the short rimed couplet of the French chroniclers
Mention has already been made of the South English Le-
gendary, a collection of versified lives of the saints in the same
dialect and metre as those of the Gloucester Chronicle. The fact
that certain passages from these lives are incorporated in the
Chronicle has led to the conclusion that one person was respon-
sible for both; but, as we have seen, the Chronicle is probably the
work of three hands, if not of more, and it is impossible to say
anything more definite about the authorship of the Legendary
than that it had its origin in the neighbourhood of Gloucester
towards the end of the thirteenth century, and that more than
one author was concerned in it. The oldest manuscript (Laud
108 in the Bodleian) was written after 1265, and is dated by
its editor, Horstmann, as belonging to the years 1280—90.
It is probable, however, that it had been in band a considerable
time. As the number of saints' days increased, it was found
couvenient to have at hand homiletic material for each festival;
See Saintsbury, History of English Prosody, i, 67.


## p. 339 (#359) ############################################

The South English Legendary 339
and, as no single monastic library would contain manuscripts of all
the independent lives required, these had to be borrowed and
copied as occasion served. This was a task too great for any one
man, and it is most probable that the monks at Gloucester had been
gathering the legends together for some years, and that a number
of them contributed towards the first redaction. This would
partly account for the unequal merit of the lives, some of which
display much more literary and poetic feeling than others. But,
in considering this point, it must be remembered that the charm
of any particular story depends largely on its original source ;
even the clumsy pen of a monkish translator could not wholly
disguise the beauty of such legends as that of St Francis.
Although the collection is of the most varied description, and
comprises the lives of saints of all countries and of all ages down
to the time of compilation, the best-told legends are those of.
native saints; and, as the style of these is not unlike that of the
author of the longer continuation of the Gloucester Chronicle,
it is possible that they may be by him. Among them may be
especially mentioned the very vivid account of the career and
murder of St Thomas of Canterbury, which displays considerable
dramatic power, and the life of St Edmund of Pontigny (arch-
bishop Edmund Rich, who died in 1240), which treats of events
that were still fresh in men's minds and, like the Gloucester
Chronicle, betrays a great admiration for Simon de Montforte
The same predilection, it may be noted, is evident in the life of
St Dominic, where Sir Simon, “that good and gracious knight,"
is commended for having lent his support to the order of preaching
friars.
Some of the lives, such as those of St Kenelm and St Michael,
are made the vehicle of secular instruction, and contain curious
geographical and scientific disquisitions, the latter being especially
valuable for its light upon medieval folk- and devil-lore and for its
cosmology. The most interesting of all the lives are those connected
with St Patrick and St Brendan. The story of Sir Owayn's visit
to purgatory shows all the characteristic Celtic wealth of imagina-
tion in the description of the torments endured. Nothing could
be more terrible than the lines which describe him as “ dragged
all about in a waste land, so black and dark that he saw nothing
but the fiends, who drove him hither and thither and thronged
around him. ” And, on the other hand, nothing could be more
charming in its strange mystic beauty than the story of St
Brendan's sojourn in the Isle of Birds, and his interview with the
22—2


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340
Later Transition English
penitent Judas, permitted, in recompense of one charitable deed,
to enjoy a little respite from the pains of hell.
While the monks of Gloucester were thus busy with hagiology,
similar activity was exhibited in the north of England, according
to Horstmann in the diocese of Durham, though the preva-
lence of midland forms in the texts points to a district further
south. There exists in many manuscripts, the earliest of which,
in the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh, seems to have
been written at the beginning of the fourteenth century, a cycle
of homilies, in octosyllabic couplets, covering the whole of the
Sundays in the church year. Two of the later manuscripts
(Harleian 4196 and Tiberius E. VII), both written about 1350,
contain also a cycle of legends for use on saints' days.
Considerable diversity is shown in the recensions of the
homilies; the Edinburgh MS opens with a prologue, in which
the author, like many writers of the time, carefully explains
that his work is intended for ignorant men, who cannot under-
stand French; and, since it is the custom of the common people to
come to church on Sundays, he has turned into English for them
the Gospel for the day. His version, however, is not a close
translation; it resembles Ormulum in giving first a paraphrase
of the Scripture, and then an exposition of the passage chosen;
but, in addition to this, there is also a narracio, or story, to
illustrate the lesson and drive the moral home. These stories are
often quite short, sometimes mere anecdotes, and are derived from
the most diverse sources : sometimes from saints' lives, some-
times from Scripture and sometimes from French fabliaus. The
homilist is an especial lover of the poor, and one of his most
striking sermons is that for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, on
the subject of Christ stilling the waves. The world, says he, is
but a sea, tossed up and down, where the great fishes eat the
small; for the rich men of the world devour what the poor earn
by their labour, and the king acts towards the weak as the whale
towards the herring. Like Mannyng of Brunne, the writer has a
special word of condemnation for usurers.
The Harleian manuscript is, unfortunately, imperfect at the
beginning, so that it is impossible to say whether it ever contained
the prologue; while the MS Tiberius E. VII was so badly burned
in the Cottonian fire that the greater part of it cannot be de-
ciphered. These manuscripts, however, show that the homilies
had been entirely worked over and rewritten in the half century
that had elapsed since the Edinburgh version was composed.


## p. 341 (#361) ############################################

Homilies and Legends 341
The plan of paraphrase, exposition and narration is not always
followed, and, so far as Easter Sunday, the stories are taken
chiefly from Scripture. From this point, however, they depend on
other sources, and they are especially interesting when compared
with the contents of other northern poems of the same period. The
legend of the Holy Rood, for instance, which runs like a thread
through Cursor Mundi, is given at great length, and so, also, is
the graphic story of Piers the usurer, which occurs in Handlyng
Synne. Among the stories is the well-known legend of the monk
who was lured by a bird from his monastery, and only returned
to it after three hundred years, when everything was changed,
and no one knew him.
The legends which follow these homilies are much more re-
stricted in scope than those of the southern collection, and are
confined chiefly to lives of the apostles or of the early Christian
martyrs, St Thomas of Canterbury being the only English saint
represented. But, while the Gloucester Legendary seems to have
been intended only as a reference book for the preacher, the
northern series shows the lives in a finished form, suitable for
reading or reciting in church. The verse is polished, limpid and
fluent, betraying, in its graceful movement, traces of French
influence, while, at the same time, it is not free from the tendency
to alliteration prevalent in northern poetry. The writer had
a genuine gift of narration, and possessed both humour and
dramatic power, as is shown by the story of the lord and lady
who were parted by shipwreck and restored to one another by
the favour of St Mary Magdalene; and, like most medieval
homilists, he excels in the description of horrors-of fiends
“blacker than any coal,” and of dragons armed with scales as
stiff as steel. Sometimes, a little homily is interwoven with the
story; and one passage, which rebukes men for slumbering or
chattering in church, resembles a similar exhortation in Hand-
lyng Synne. The section on the "faithful dead,” also, seems
to be in close dependence on that work. Three of the stories
told occur in close juxtaposition in Mannyng's book; and a
reference to the story of Piers the usurer, which is mentioned
but not related, probably because it had already found a place
in the homilies, points to the conclusion that the compiler was
well acquainted with the work of his predecessor.
The desire to impart a knowledge of the Scriptures to men
who could understand only the vernacular likewise prompted the
author of the Northern Psalter, a translation of the Psalms in
ivell acquainted with art a knowledge Qar likewise promptime in


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342
Later Transition English
vigorous, if somewhat rough, octosyllabic couplets, composed
about the middle of the reign of Edward II. One of the three
manuscripts in which it exists belonged to the monastery of
Kirkham, but the language is that of a more northerly district,
and the author probably lived near the Scottish border.
Further evidence of literary activity in the north of England
during this period is given by Cursor Mundi, a very long poem,
which, as its name implies, treats of universal rather than
local history, and, like the cycles of miracle plays which were
just beginning to pass out of the hands of their clerical inventors
into those of laymen, relates the story of the world from the
creation to the day of doom. It opens with a prologue, which
is, practically, the author's “apology” for his undertaking. Men,
he says, rejoice to hear romances of Alexander and Julius
Caesar, of the long strife between Greece and Troy, of king
Arthur and Charlemagne. Each man is attracted by what
he enjoys the most, and all men delight especially in their
“paramours"; but the best lady of all is the Virgin Mary, and
whosoever takes her for his own shall find that her love is ever
true and loyal. Therefore, the poet will compose a work in her
honour; and, because French rimes are commonly found every-
where, but there is nothing for those who know only English, he
will write it for him who “na Frenche can. "
With this explanation the author embarks on his vast theme,
which he divides according to the seven ages of the world, a
device copied from Bede. He describes the creation, the war in
heaven, the temptation of Eve, the expulsion from Paradise, the
history of the patriarchs and so on through the Bible narrative,
sometimes abridging, but more often enlarging, the story by long
additions, drawn from the most diverse authorities, which add
greatly to the interest of the narrative. One of the most in-
teresting of these additions is the legend of the Holy Rood:
this is not told in a complete form in one place, but is introduced
in relation to the history of the men who were connected with
it. In place of the prophecies there are inserted two parables,
probably from Grosseteste’s Château d'Amour; and the poet
then goes on to tell with much detail of the youth of Mary, the
birth of Christ and His childhood. Then follow the story of His
life as given by the evangelists, His death and descent into hell,
the careers of the apostles, the assumption of the Virgin and a
section on doomsday. The author concludes with an address
to his fellow-men, begging them to think upon the transitory


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Cursor Mundi
343
nature of earthly joys, and a prayer to the Virgin, commending
his work to her approval.
The humility betrayed in the concluding lines is all the more at-
tractive because, as his poem shows, the writer was an accomplished
scholar, extremely well read in medieval literature. His work,
indeed, is a storehouse of legends, not all of which have been
traced to their original sources. His most important authority
was the Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor; but he used
many others, among which may be mentioned Wace's Fête de la
Conception Notre Dame, Grosseteste's Château d'Amour, the
apocryphal gospels, a south English poem on the assumption of
the Virgin ascribed to Edmund Rich, Adso’s Libellus de Anti-
christo, the Elucidarium of Honorius of Autun, Isidore of Seville
and the Golden Legend of Jacobus a Voragine.
The popularity of Cursor Mundi is witnessed by the large
number of manuscripts in which it is preserved, and it has
many qualities to account for this. In the first place, the
author never loses sight of his audience, showing great skill
in appealing to the needs of rude, unlettered people whose
religious instruction must, necessarily, be conveyed by way of
concrete example. He has a keen eye for the picturesque; his
description of the Flood, for instance, may be compared with the
famous passage in the alliterative poem, Cleanness, and he lingers
over the episode of Goliath with an enjoyment due as much to
his own delight in story-telling as to a knowledge of what his
hearers will appreciate; there is a strong family likeness between
the Philistine hero and such monsters as Colbrand and Ascapart.
The strong humanity which runs through the whole book is one of
its most attractive features, and shows that the writer was full
of sympathy for his fellow creatures.
The whole poem shows considerable artistic skill. In spite of
the immense mass of material with which it deals, it is well
proportioned, and the narrative is lucid and easy. The verse
form is generally that of the eight-syllabled couplet ; but, when
treating of the passion and death of Christ, the poet uses
alternately riming lines of eight and six syllables; and the
discourse between Christ and man, which follows the account of
the crucifixion, consists largely of six-lined mono-rimed stanzas.
Of the author, beyond the fact that he was, as he himself
states, a cleric, nothing whatever is known. Hupe's theory,
that his name was John of Lindebergh, which place he identifies
with Limber Magna in Lincolnshire, is based on a misreading of


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344 Later Transition English
an insertion in one of the manuscripts by the scribe who copied
it; and all that can be affirmed with any confidence is that
the author lived in the north of England towards the end of
the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century. Some of
the later manuscripts show west midland and even southern
peculiarities, but this is only another testimony to the wide-spread
popularity of the poem.
The most skilful story-teller of his time was Robert Mannyng
of Brunne, who, between 1303 and 1338, translated into his
native tongue two poems written in poor French by English
clerics. These two works were William of Wadington's Manuel
des Pechiez, written, probably, for Norman settlers in Yorkshire,
and a chronicle composed by Peter of Langtoft, a canon of the
Augustinian priory of Bridlington.
Unlike most monastic writers, Mannyng supplies some valuable
information about himself. In the prologue to Handling Synne,
his version of the Manuel des Pechiez, he tells us that his name
is Robert of Brunne, of Brunnëwake in Kestevene, and that he
dedicates his work especially to the fellowship of Sempringham,
to which he had belonged for fifteen years. He also tells us the
exact year in which he began his translation—1303. This informa-
tion is supplemented by some lines in his translation of Langtoft's
chronicle. Here he adds that his name is Robert Mannyng of
Brunne, and that he wrote all this history in the reign of
Edward III, in the priory of Sixille. We gather, also, from an
allusion in the narrative, that he had spent some time at
Cambridge, where he had met Robert Bruce and his brother
Alexander, who was a skilful artist.
These particulars have been elucidated by the labours of
Furnivall. Brunne was the present Bourne, a market town
thirty-five miles to the south of Boston, in Lincolnshire;
Sempringham, where was the parent house of the Gilbertine
order, is now represented by a church and a few scattered houses;
Sixille, or Six Hills, is a little hamlet not far from Market Rasen,
and here, too, was a priory of the Gilbertines.
Of William of Wadington, the author of the Manuel des
Pechiez very little is known. In the prologue to his work, how-
ever, he begs his readers to excuse his bad French, because he
was born and bred in England and took his name from a town
in that country. The apology is not altogether superfluous, for
his grammar is loose, and forms that were archaic even in the


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Handlyng Synne
345
thirteenth century are of frequent occurrence. His versification
is also poor, and, though his normal form is the octosyllabic
couplet, he does not hesitate to introduce lines of six, or even
of ten, syllables. His English audience, however, was not critical,
and the popularity of the manual is attested by the number of
manuscripts, fourteen in all, which have survived. Most of these
belong to the thirteenth century, and Mannyng's translation, as
we have seen, was begun in 1303.
The English version begins with an introduction of the usual
style, setting out the plan of the work, and stating the object
of the author in making the translation. He has put it into
English rime for the benefit of ignorant men, who delight in
listening to stories at all hours, and often hearken to evil tales
which may lead to their perdition. Therefore, he has provided
them in this book with stories of a more edifying description.
His instinct for selecting what he feels will interest the un-
learned is at once revealed by his omission of the long and dull
section in which Wadington dwells on the twelve articles of faith.
Theory attracts him little, and he proceeds at once to the first
commandment, illustrating it by the dreadful example of a
monk, who, by his love for an Eastern woman, was tempted to
the worship of idols. Then comes a notable passage, also in
Wadington, against witchcraft, and, in expansion of this, is given
the original story of how a witch enchanted a leather bag, so that
it milked her neighbour's cows, and how her charm, in the mouth
of a bishop (who, of course, did not believe in it) was useless.
Thus he treats of the ten commandments in order, keeping
fairly closely to his original, and generally following Wadington's
lead in the stories by which he illustrates them. This occupies
nearly three thousand lines, and the poet then enters upon the
theme of the seven deadly sins.
Mannyng seems to have found this a congenial subject,
and the section throws much light on the social conditions
of his time. Tournaments, he says, are the occasion of all the
seven deadly sins, and, if every knight loved his brother, they
would never take place, for they encourage pride, envy, anger,
idleness, covetousness, gluttony and lust. Furthermore, mystery
plays—and these lines are highly significant as throwing light on
the development of the drama at the beginning of the fourteenth
century-are also occasions of sin. Only two mysteries may be per-
formed, those of the birth of Christ and of His resurrection, and
these must be played within the church, for the moral edification of
the people. If they are presented in groves or highways, they are


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346 Later Transition English
sinful pomps, to be avoided as much as tournaments; and priests
who lend vestments to aid the performance are guilty of sacrilege.
One of the best stories in the book, the tale of Piers, illustrates
the wickedness and repentance of one of the hated tribe of
usurers. It is also in illustration of this sin that the grotesque
story occurs of the Cambridge miser parson who was so much
attached to his gold that he tried to eat it, and died in the attempt.
In respect of the sin of gluttony, not only the rich are to be
blamed; most people sin by eating too much; two meals a day
are quite sufficient, except for children, and they should be fed
only at regular hours. Late suppers, too, are to be avoided,
especially by serving men, who often sit up and feast till cock-
crow.