SELIM
Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature
Revista de la Sociedad Española de Lengua y Literatura Inglesa Medieval
Nº 8, 1998
Patriciæ Shaw Memoranda
CONTENTS
ARTÍCULOS — ARTICLES
Blake, Norman Francis (University of Sheffield): The Literary Development of the Reynard story in England.
9
Galván Reula, Fernando (University of Alcalá de Henares): Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck.
35
Sola Buil, Ricardo J. (University of Alcalá de Henares): Landscape and
description of the natural world in Chaucer.
77
Conde Silvestre, Juan Camilo (University of Murcia): Spanish words in
Medieval English lexicon: Sources and problems.
91
Valdés Miyares, Rubén (University of Oviedo): Griselda's sisters: wifely patience and sisterly rivalry in English tales and ballads.
101
Olivares Merino, Eugenio (University of Jaén): I be not now he that ye
of speken: Middle English Romances and the Conventions of
Fin’amors.
117
Cruz Cabanillas, Isabel de la (University of Alcalá de Henares): Studies
in the language of some manuscripts of Rolle’s Ego Dormio.
147
1
Bueno Alonso, Jorge Luis (University of Vigo): Psychology, space/
time and ecology in The Wife's Lament.
157
Alonso Almeida, F. (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria): ‘As it
ys seyde to fore’. Some linguistic evidence in the process of
compiling Middle English medical recipes.
171
Serrano Reyes, Jesus (University of Córdoba): The Chaucers in Spain:
From the wedding to the funeral.
193
Salvador Bello, Mercedes (University of Sevilla): The arrival of the
hero in a ship: A common Leitmotif in OE regnal tables and the
story of Scyld Scefing in Beowulf.
205
Fernández Guerra, Ana (University Jaume I): Middle English origins of
present-day distinction in the pronunciation of word-final or
pre-consonantal sequences -or, -oar, -oor, -our.
223
Ruiz Moneva María Angeles (University of Zaragoza): Compound
nouns in the Old English period: Ælfric’s Lives of Saints. Functional and pragmatic approaches.
239
Editors’ note
259
*†*
ARTICLES
THE LITERARY DEVELOPMENT OF
THE REYNARD STORY IN ENGLAND
The most significant aspect of Reynard the fox in medieval England is what
little impact his story had on the literature of the period; and even in the art
field the Reynard story is hardly a frequent feature in manuscript illumination
or carving. It is only with the publication of William Caxton’s Reynard the
Fox in 1481 that a full version of his story is found in Middle English.
However, there are indications that Reynard’s exploits were known in
England, and it is appropriate to consider first those few traces that he left
before Caxton’s time. In what follows it should be borne in mind that parts of
the Reynard story may have been known in French or Latin versions in medieval England and that representations of foxes and other animals which
owe their symbolism to the Reynard stories are found in various forms.
The earliest text with a complete fox story is a poem of 295 lines, now
known as The Fox and the Wolf. Probably written c.1250, it survives in a
single manuscript. It reproduces the outlines of the story found in branch IV
of the Roman de Renart, which is usually assumed to be its source, though
there are significant differences between the English poem and the Roman.
The two animals in The Fox and the Wolf are introduced as ‘a fox’ and ‘a
wolf’, though the names Reneward and Sigrim (from Isegrim) occur incidentally. Two features near its end set the English poem apart from the Roman: the
fox does not eat any hens when he enters the barn in which they sleep, and
his attempts to persuade Chanteclere the cock to come down from his perch
are unsuccessful. The fox leaves the barn hungry and disappointed. Although this scene has similarities with that in the Roman, it has some differences. One is the wolf’s confession. The wolf in the English version says he
once found the fox in bed with his wife, which suggests seduction, whereas
in branch Va of the Roman the wolf claims that the fox had raped his wife.
Norman Blake, Selim 8 (1998): 9—34
Norman F. Blake
Though this poem may be an adaptation of branch IV of the French
Roman, it also drew on other branches. The English poet treated the Roman
very differently from the German and Flemish adaptors who took over much
more of the French text into their works to reflect the overall approach of the
Roman. The English poem, however, is relatively brief, introduces the animals
without names, and refers to their names only incidentally. In these respects
it is more like a fable than the Roman which is a conte à rire. The English
poem contains two halves: in the first the fox is unable to deceive Chanteclere
to make him come down from his perch, but in the second he is able to
deceive the wolf, who jumps into the bucket and thus lets the fox escape from
the well. The Fox and the Wolf may thus be a fable illustrating the dangers of
deceit with a warning to its readers not to be taken in by plausible villains.
Collections of fables, mainly in Latin but occasionally in French, were
available in England and may have provided the impetus for this poem, even
if the story came from the Roman.
Another short poem, now called A Song on the Times also found in a
single manuscript, introduces the fox and the wolf. This poem, usually dated
to the early fourteenth century, is a complaint about the perversion of justice
through bribery. In it the lion is the king of the beasts, the fox and the wolf
are his courtiers, and the simple ass represents the lowest class. The fox, wolf
and ass are accused of various crimes in the lion’s court such as stealing
sheep and poultry. The fox and wolf bribe the king and so escape any punishment, whereas the ass does not and is found guilty, even though as a
grass-eating animal he had assumed his innocence would be self-evident.
Although the animals are not named, the roles they play echo what is found
in the Roman, though that can hardly be a direct source. This poem, too, is
more of a metrical fable than anything else.
The best known work about the fox in medieval English is Chaucer’s
Nun’s Priest’s Tale, part of his Canterbury Tales, written towards the end of
the fourteenth century. The Canterbury Tales survives in over eighty
manuscripts and has been frequently edited since the first edition issued from
William Caxton’s press c.1476. The story of the fox and his exploits with
Chanteclere have remained a feature of English literary life because of the
popularity of this work, which may have inhibited further developments of
the Reynard story in England. In Chaucer’s tale, Chanteclere is flattered by
the fox, Daun Russell, into shutting his eyes while he sings loudly; as soon
6
The literary development of the Reynard story in England
as he does so, the fox seizes him by the throat and rushes off with him
towards his lair. The fox’s theft is proclaimed by Chanteclere’s wife, and a
posse of people set off in pursuit of the fox. Chanteclere notices this and
suggests to the fox that he should utter a speech of defiance to his pursuers.
As soon as he starts to do so, Chanteclere escapes from the fox’s mouth and
flies to a branch of the nearest tree. Attempts by the fox to entice him down
fail, and so the fox has to depart empty-handed. The tale finishes with a
suggestion that it is more than just a story of a fox and a cock:
But ye that holden this tale a folye
As of a fox or of a cok and hen,
Taketh the moralitee, goode men.
Many scholars have seen in this message a warning against the sin of
flattery with an indication as to how one can learn from one’s mistakes. Such
a message is typical of fables, though similar ones are not uncommon in other
literary forms.
Chaucer seems to have used two main sources: a version of the fable
about the fox and the cock as told briefly in the Fables of Marie de France
and the story as told in the Roman. It is, however, quite possible that
Chaucer himself was familiar with neither of these sources, which may have
been combined in a version of the fable as found in a preacher’s handbook of
exempla. For preachers in the Middle Ages collected illustrative stories like
this one to serve as possible examples with which to embellish their sermons,
as such stories provided both the excitement of the narrative as well as the
moral which the tale illustrated. Nevertheless, some passages in the tale are
verbally so close to equivalent passages in the Roman that Chaucer may
have had access to a manuscript version of the Roman, even though
evidence for the circulation of the Roman in England is slight. It is possible
that Chaucer had access to the version of the Reynard story known as
Renart le Contrefait, but evidence to confirm this hypothesis is lacking.
It is with Caxton’s edition of Reynard the Fox in 1481 that the Reynard cycle
becomes available in English. Before this time, as we have seen, stories about
the fox, the wolf and the cock were known in England and sometimes
7
Norman F. Blake
appeared in English writings, but there was no full account of the fox and his
adventures as found in the Roman de Renart and other European literatures.
As Caxton is such an important person as regards the dissemination of the
Reynard story, it is desirable to say a few words about his career.
Born in the first quarter of the fifteenth century, Caxton was apprenticed
as a mercer to William Large, who became in 1439 the Lord Mayor of London.
The London mercers were the primary driving force of the Merchant
Adventurers Company, that association of merchants responsible for the
trade between England and the Continent through which so many fortunes
were made. On finishing his apprenticeship, Caxton joined in this trade and
spent most of the middle years of his life on the Continent, particularly in
present-day Belgium and Holland. He became Governor of the English Nation
at Bruges about 1462, a position which implies status and wealth in the officeholder. Caxton remained in this office until he left Bruges for Cologne in 1471.
As a merchant Caxt on principally dealt in finished cloth, though he would
also have handled a wide range of other goods including manuscripts.
Flanders was at that time one of the most important centres for the
production of manuscripts, and many of them found their way to England
through the Merchant Adventurers. The booktrade across the Channel was
well established. In 1469 Caxton started to make a translation of a French text,
and since this was the first translation he made it was done presumably with
an eye to future publication. Printing had not by this time reached the Low
Countries, but it was established in Cologne. It was there that Caxton went in
1471 to acquire a printing press and its secrets. He stayed in Cologne for
eighteen months before returning to Bruges where he set up a press and
printed his own translation of the History of Troy, the first book to be printed
in English. In 1476 he moved his press and publishing business to England
where he set up a shop at Westminster. He continued to translate and print
books there until his death in 1492.
The majority of books translated and printed by Caxton were French texts
in prose which were available in manuscript or printed form in the Low
Countries and France. They included romances, religious works and didactic
material. His edition of Reynard the Fox is different since it is a translation of
the Dutch prose Van den Vos Reinerde; it is the only work translated and
printed by Caxton which was not in French or Latin. Since the Roman was
still available and read at this time, the question arises why Caxton should
8
The literary development of the Reynard story in England
have translated a work from Dutch rather than from French. The question
must be asked since Dutch was not a courtly language and a work translated
from that language would have none of the fashionable status conferred on a
book translated from French. Although he often includes information about
his choice of a particular text in its prologue or epilogue, he does not do so in
this case. However, from what we know of Caxton’s working practices, we
may assume that he would have translated a French text if he had one suitable for his purposes. He may have known the Roman, but he is unlikely to
have translated that because it is in verse. He printed poems, but he made no
verse translations. He may have been unfamiliar with the Roman altogether,
though that seems somewhat improbable in view of its wide circulation on the
Continent. It seems likely that he knew of the Dutch prose version and that
appeared to be the most convenient text to translate, because it was in prose
in a language he knew well.
This Dutch prose version had been printed in 1479 by Gerard Leeu at
Gouda, and is in its turn a prose adaptation of the Dutch poem Reinaert II.
This poetic version contained material which is not basically part of the
Reynard story, such as the parable of the man and the snake, and it also reused in its second half episodes found in the earlier part so that this
continuation is repetitive and somewhat long-winded. This difference
between the first part which is racy and light and the continuation which is
laboured and wordy may still be detected in Caxton’s translation. After his
return to England Caxton maintained contact with the publishing houses on
the Continent and many books printed in France and the Low Countries were
translated and printed by him very quickly, as is true of this book. It is not improbable that a copy of the Gouda edition was in Caxton’s hands at
Westminster within three to six months of its appearance. Presumably he decided that as a new–ly published text it was likely to be of interest to his readers. There was no English competition, though the popularity of the
Canterbury Tales and the occasional use of the name Reynard both by
Chaucer and other authors suggest that English people knew sufficient about
the fox and his escapades to make an edition of Reynard the Fox financially
viable.
Caxton appears not to give details of the book’s printing; at the end of his
colophon he merely states:
9
Norman F. Blake
For I haue not added ne mynusshed but haue folowed as nyghe as
I can my copye whiche was in dutche and by me william Caxton
translated in to this rude and symple englyssh in thabbey of westmestre. Fynysshed the vj daye of Iuyn the yere of our lord
M.CCCC.Lxxxj and the xxj yere of the regne of kynge Edward the
iiijth
As Caxton seems to refer only to the translation, it is widely assumed that
his fynysshed refers to the completion of the translation and not to the printing. So most bibliographical works list Reynard the Fox as c.1481. But
‘finished’ can be used by Caxton to mean either the translation or the printing, and the latter may be more appropriate here, because we know that he
finished translating Mirror of the World on 8 March 1481 and Siege of
Jerusalem on 7 June 1481. As there would be insufficient time for him to finish translating Reynard the Fox on 6 June 1481, it is reasonable to accept the
printing was concluded on that day.
The story of Reynard the Fox follows the normal pattern. The wolf, the
hound and the cat complain to Noble the Lion about the fox, who is not present at court. Various messengers are sent to summon him, but they are
tricked and humiliated by him. Eventually the fox comes to court and there
confesses; he is condemned to death. As he faces death he deceives the lion
with a story of hidden riches and is able to incriminate the wolf and the bear
through his lies. The wolf and the bear have their shoes plucked off and
given to Reynard. He then leaves the court, ostensibly as a pilgrim, but it is
not long before he is back to his old tricks. He kills the hare and sends his
head back to the lion with the ram, who is so foolish as to implicate himself in
the death. At the court various animals come to Noble the lion to complain
about Reynard, just as had happened at the beginning of the story, for this
stage marks the beginning of that continuation which was first added in
Reinaert II. Eventually Reynard comes back to the court to answer the
charges made against him and he carries all before him with the help of the
ape. But then the wolf complains against the fox and challenges him to a dual.
The fox, who follows the advice of the ape as to how he should prepare
himself and fight, finally overcomes the wolf despite the latter’s superior size
and strength. Through this victory which is achieved by dubious means the
10
The literary development of the Reynard story in England
fox regains the king’s friendship and departs with honour from the court.
There then follows an injunction to understand the book in the correct way:
in lyke wyse may it be by this booke that who that wyl rede this
mater though it be of iapes and bourdes yet he may fynde therin
many a good wysedom and lernynges By whiche he may come to
vertue and worship.
This was the version which was to remain popular in England for many
years to come. Even so, it should be remembered that other versions of the
story were known in fables, and it was only gradually that Caxton’s story
would drive the other forms out.
To underline this last point, the Morall Fabillis by Robert Henryson, a
Scottish poet who died about 1508, appeared shortly after Caxton’s work. It is
a collection of versified fables, each of which concludes with a moral. Among
the fables in this collection are those of the fox in the well, the prosecution of
the fox, and the fox and the herrings. All reflect stories found in the Roman,
but the Scottish version often contains details which not found there. This is
not surprising since Henryson drew on a wide range of sources, including a
French Isopet or poetic version of Aesop’s Fables, Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s
Tale and Caxton’s edition of Reynard the Fox. Some of the names given to
the animals in Henryson are significant. The fox is called Lawrence, a name
characteristically applied to foxes in Scotland, but the wolf is known as
Waitskaith, a name found elsewhere only in Caxton’s Reynard the Fox,
though there it is not clear what animal it refers to. Henryson had a variety of
sources, English, Scots and French, upon which he could draw, and it ia
noteworthy that even after Caxton’s time he still considered it worthwhile to
write fables using episodes from the Reynard story.
During the Middle Ages England knew of the Reynard story mainly through
fables and examples used in sermons and other didactic literature. It is doubtful if the full cycle of the story as found in the French Roman and hence in
many other European literatures was known to many in England, if it was
known at all. It was only with the publication of Caxton’s Reynard the Fox
that a full version of the cycle became available in English. Since this version
was available in a printed edition, it must soon have become relatively well
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Norman F. Blake
known, for it is probable that Caxton printed at least two hundred copies of a
book like this. An obvious sign of its influence is its use by the craftsman
who made the misericords in Bristol Cathedral in 1528, though the artist may
have used a later edition of this work rather than Caxton’s editio princeps.
This is the first time in England that the Reynard cycle was used to form the
basis of a series of carvings or paintings by an English artist. As we shall see
Caxton’s text was frequently reprinted and modernised over the years to come; his version remained the one known to English people. At the same time
editions of the Canterbury Tales were constantly produced, and so the
Nun’s Priest’s Tale also enjoyed a wide readership. It was from these two
texts that English people in the following centuries appreciated the story of
the fox.
Before going on to discuss the way in which Caxton’s edition was reprinted and adapted by later publishers, it is important to say a few words about it.
The text is a translation from Dutch and when he made the translation Caxton
took over many Dutch words and spellings from his original. Some of these
forms are attributed to carelessness or haste, as when Caxton’s edition has
end for ‘and’. Others may have been deliberately introduced because Caxton
was ignorant of an English equivalent as when he introduces the word
forwynterd in the sense of ‘reduced to straits by the winter’. Normally Caxt on
does try to use English spelling conventions for Dutch words, but
occasionally the Dutch forms are retained. The Dutch verb ruymen is normally spelt in Caxton’s edition as rome, but once he has the form ruymed.
Naturally these Dutch words and spellings tended to be eliminated in later
editions. Caxton’s version is divided into forty-three chapters, a division
which follows that found in the Gouda edition. Later versions will make alterations to this organisation. Finally Caxton’s edition contains no illustrations,
as is also true of the Gouda edition although illustrations were not uncommon
in manuscript versions of the Roman and in many early printed books.
Indeed, it might be said that the illustrations were one of the features which
helped to make printed editions of the Reynard story popular. Caxton had not
started to use woodcuts by this date and so there are none in his 1481
edition.
All editions of the Reynard story in England up to 1550 follow Caxton’s
version fairly closely in most respects. It is possible that other editions were
printed which have left no trace, but this remains mere speculation. Caxton
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The literary development of the Reynard story in England
himself produced a second edition of Reynard the Fox in 1489. This second
edition is in almost all particulars identical with the first. It survives in a single
copy now in the Pepys Library, Magdalene College Cambridge. Its main point
of interest is that it lacks a couple of leaves at the end and these have been
supplied in a seventeenth-century hand. The question is whether this
addition represents what was in Caxton’s edition or whether it is an antiquarian reconstruction of the sort of thing Caxton might have included in his
epilogue. The latter seems the more likely theory, and this addition probably
exhibits seventeenth-century interest in Caxton and the Reynard story. An
edition by Richard Pynson from the last five years of the fifteenth century
survives in a single copy found in the Douce bequest at the Bodleian Library,
Oxford. It too lacks some of its final leaves which might have told us more
about the time and circumstances of the edition. Caxton’s second edition and
Pynson’s first edition are not illustrated and both are reprints of Caxton’s first
edition and maintain its features closely. Naturally they make alterations to
the spellings and to the words borrowed from Dutch, although such changes
are not many.
Although it does not survive, it has been suggested that Wynkyn de
Worde, Caxton’s foreman and successor in the publishing business, published an edition of Reynard the Fox about 1499. This is an important edition
because it introduced woodcuts into a printed English version. The existence
of this edition can be deduced from the existence of the woodcuts which are
found in later editions of the text, for it must be remembered that there was a
great deal of co-operation among early printers who sold or hired out woodcuts to one another. Woodcuts represented a capital investment which
needed to be re-couped. If a series of woodcuts was used only in a single
edition, that would make their use very expensive. So they were re-used in
many editions of the same text and even included in quite different texts for
which they had not been designed. It has been shown that there originally
existed a series of forty-three woodcuts and that these must have belonged
to Wynkyn de Worde. The fact that there were forty three is significant, for
the early editions of Reynard the Fox contained forty-three chapters. There
was one woodcut for each chapter; and it was usual for printers to put a
woodcut at the head of each chapter. The woodcuts for de Worde’s edition
were based on those produced by the Haarlem master for the Antwerp edition
of Reinaert de vos published by Gerard Leeu about 1487.
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Norman F. Blake
A second edition by Pynson survives in some fragments in the National
Library of Scotland. From its type it is dated to between 1501 and 1505. These
fragments represent an edition which was illustrated with woodcuts, and the
woodcuts are from de Worde’s. Little else is known about the edition
because of its fragmentary state. The same applies to de Worde’s second edition of Reynard the Fox, usually dated c. 1515, which survives in a fragment
in Cambridge University Library. This edition was illustrated with the same
series of woodcuts used in de Worde’s first and Pynson’s second edition.
Woodcut illustration appears to have become the accepted norm in editions
of Reynard the Fox. Both these editions probably contained the standard
forty-three chapters with one illustration per chapter and reproduced the text
as found in Caxton’s editions with some modernisation and updating. As a
general principle it may be suggested that any new edition was based on the
most recent edition immediately before it. Hence improvements and changes
in the language of one edition are likely to be reflected in all subsequent editions. The vocabulary of these editions shows a distinct trend of modernisation. Words in Caxton’s 1481 edition which reflect Dutch words in the Gouda
text are gradually replaced: romed gives way to voyded and skrabbyng to
scrapynge. Even older English words are replaced as they are accepted as
being archaic: wende becomes thought, and fordele becomes vauntage. Less
common phrases, some of which imitate Dutch, are replaced by more
idiomatic phrases: she said se wel to is changed to she bad hym take hede,
and to fote becomes on fote.
The last edition of this early phrase of Reynard the Fox in England is that
published by Thomas Gaultier in 1550 which survives in several copies. This
maintains the model of forty-three chapters and is in most respects simply a
modernised copy of Caxton’s original version. It was produced in octavo instead of folio as previous editions had been, and this might suggest that the
nature of the text was changing - or rather the way publishers saw it. The
smaller format might suggest that this was a book which was popular in its
appeal. Caxton produced books for the upper end of the vernacular market books which would appeal to the reading tastes of a fashionable clientele.
Gradually Reynard the Fox came down in the world and was being presented
as a text you could take around in your pocket and which had pictures to decorate the story and widen its appeal. This may mark the beginning of its ap-
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The literary development of the Reynard story in England
peal more as a children’s book or as a book which was more suitable for a less
refined audience.
The next edition, which I have not seen since it is in private hands, has no
name of publisher or date of printing. The type used suggests a date about
the middle of the sixteenth century. More importantly from a textual point of
view this edition is close to that published by Gaultier in 1550. Most of the
linguistic changes found in Gaultier are also found in this edition, but the
printer has made additional changes as well. This suggests that the edition is
later than 1550, since as we have seen changes made in one edition appear in
subsequent editions. It is recorded in the Stationer’s Register that editions of
Reynard the Fox were printed in 1560 by William Powell and in 1586 by Edward Allde, though neither of these editions is now extant. So it may well be
that this anonymous edition is one of these two missing editions; if so, it is
likely to be the former. This anonymous edition differs in some important
ways from preceding ones. Where early editions had contained forty-three
chapters, this one contains fifty-eight; and where early edition had fortythree illustrations, this contains fifty-five. This edition therefore marks the
end of what might be called the first phase of Reynard the Fox production in
England. Although the text is substantially unchanged, modifications are
now being made to the presentation of the material - and these modifications
herald even more substantial changes which will be introduced in subsequent
editions. It is not clear why this edition has fifty-eight chapters, though it
does allow for more woodcuts to be introduced. Of the fifty-five woodcuts,
nine are found twice so there are only forty-six different pictures. These are
divided into thirty-five tall (12.5 cm high and 9 cm wide) and eleven wide (7.5
cm high and 11 cm wide) woodcuts. Some of these wide woodcuts repeat
illustrations found among the tall ones and are presumably copies of them.
The thirty-five tall woodcuts are part of the series which belonged to Wynkyn de Worde and were used to illustrate his editions, and faults in the woodcuts can be found both in the de Worde editions and in this anonymous edition. In other words, the woodcuts had been handed down among the publishers of Reynard the Fox so that they remained available for new editions.
This contributes to a sense of continuity and sameness among the early editions.
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Norman F. Blake
In the seventeenth century numerous editions of Reynard the Fox continue
to appear, though there are striking changes to record. What is noteworthy is
that so many editions were issued, since Reynard the Fox is not a book normally associated with the literary development and taste of this century. We
need to remember that each century continues to produce books which occupy a low level of literary visibility and which inhabit, as it were, a substratum of the literary scene. Books at this level were perhaps more popular and
common than those which figure in the literary histories of the period. The
earliest seventeenth-century edition to have survived is that by Edward Allde about 1620 in London. There may have been editions prior to it, but none
have survived or are otherwise recorded. This edition was reprinted, often
with revisions, regularly during the seventeenth century, for editions have
been recorded for 1629, 1640, 1654, 1656, 1662, 1681, 1694, 1699 and 1701.
Furthermore continuations or sequels to the story are found. A Continuation,
or, Second Part, of … Reynard the Fox appeared for the first time in 1672,
and this sequel was added to the first part and issued together with it in 1681.
In this second part the author killed off Reynard, and so when someone else
wanted to issue a new continuation, it had to be about Reynard’s son, who
was called Reynardine. The fortunes of this son, in a work called The Shifts of
Reynardine The Son of Reynard the Fox, was first made public in 1684. This
development of a hero’s activities by creating a son who carries on in much
the same way as his father is a typical publishing expedient of this century.
This development does not exhaust the seventeenth century’s response to
the story of Reynard the fox, for in addition to these editions, that century
saw the publication of a versified version by John Shurley and the appearance of at least five abridged accounts. It is time now to look at these various
developments in greater detail.
The 1620 edition marks many important changes in the presentation of the
Reynard story. The book is offered under the title The Most Delectable
History of Reynard the Fox, and the title page refers to the story being
‘Newly corrected and purged from all the grosenesses both in Phrase and
Matter’ as well as ‘Augmented and Inlarged with sundry excellent Moralls
and Expositions vpon euery seuerall Chapter’. It is indeed this emphasis on
morality which is the most noticeable feature of the text. This point is emphasised in a new Epistle to the Reader which is inserted at the beginning of
the volume. This contains the following comments:
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The literary development of the Reynard story in England
Thou hast here (courteous & friendly Reader) the pleasant and delightfull History of Reynard the Foxe, which in an humble & lowe
style (coutched to the natures of Beasts it treateth on) beareth in it
much excellent Morallitie & hidden wisdome, worthy both thy regard in reading and thine applycation in the course & comercement
of thy life and actions, for the ayme at which it bendeth is the
ouerthrowe of vice and the aduancement of the good & vertuous.
Now forasmuch as hitherto it hath flowne into the world (like
Sybilla’s loose papers) couered with much obscurity & darknes, I
haue for thy more ease and contentment, to euery seuerall Chapter
annexed the Morals and expositions of such darke places as may
either holde thy Iudgement in seeking to winde out of a laborinth
so dark & curious.
As the editor notes here, each chapter is provided with a moral. This
moral is added in a smaller type in the margin, at some convenient point for
the printer. As some idea of what these morals are like I include that which is
attached to the first chapter dealing with the court of Noble the Lion and the
attack of various animals upon Reynard.
Howsoeuer a vicious man perswads him self to escape punishment
by absenting himselfe from the presence of the Maiestrate, yet he
deceiues himselfe, & by his contempt, animates his enemies to be
more bolde in their compaintes against him; as appeares heere by
the Wolfe who (althogh worse than the Fox) yet armed with his
absence and the seasonablenes of the time for free libertie of
speech, takes opportuntiy to say the worst he can against him, &
by the example makes others of fearefull nature doe the like. And
therefore let no wise man shrinke from his iust triall, but either defend his owne Innocence, or else submit to mercy, for dead men
and absent finde slacke Aduocates.
No one reading the 1620 edition can avoid these morals, and so the story
is presented in a quite different way. The tale was being made respectable.
The editor of this edition also modernised the language of the work.
Although this was a process which had been going on since the first edition,
this time there was a more thorough revision of the language so that the tale
was made more contemporary in its tone. The story line was unchanged, but
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Norman F. Blake
the packaging has been improved. This can be seen from the opening, which
in Caxton read:
It was about the tyme of penthecoste or whytsontyde/ that the
wodes comynly be lusty and gladsom/ And the trees clad with
leuys and blossoms and the ground with herbes and flowris swete
smellyng and also the fowles and byrdes syngen melodyously in
theyr armonye.
In the 1620 text this opening has now become:
About the Feast of Penticost (which is commonly called
Whitsontide) when the Woods are in their lustyhood and
gallantry, and euery Tree cloathed in the greene and white liuory of
glorious Leaues and sweet smelling blossomes, and the earth
couered in her fairest mantle of Flowers, which the Birdes with
much ioy entertaine with the delight of their harmonious songs.
Here words like gallantry and mantle as well as adjective and noun combinations like glorious Leaues, fairest mantle and harmonious songs give the
passage a seventeenth-century feel in its style. The passage is much longer
than that found in Caxton because it has been expanded and elaborated.
The 1620 edition differs from earlier ones in it organisation into chapters.
Caxton’s version and most subsequent editions had forty-three chapters. The
1620 edition has arranged these into twenty-five chapters by regrouping
much of the material. This edition is also provided with woodcuts, but for the
most part they are the same woodcuts which had been used in earlier editions. They are scattered throughout the text, and do not necessarily occur
immediately after the chapter-heading: they include both the wide and the tall
varieties. New woodcuts were not provided. The appearance of the same
woodcuts and the general similarity of the text make the continuity between
the 1620 edition and previous ones quite marked. The editions which followed in the seventeenth century were almost exact reprints of the 1620 edition so that there is little to record in the development of the story until the
publication of the first continuation in 1672. That continuation is anticipated
in the 1620 edition, which concludes with the comment ‘But if all thinges sute
to my wisht imagination, I shall then be encouraged to salute the world with a
Second part, clad in some neater English, deeper matter, and if not more, yet
18
The literary development of the Reynard story in England
euery whit as pleasant Morals’. There is no reason to suppose that the
sequel was composed by the editor of the 1620 edition, whether that was
Edward All-de or someone else.
A Continuation, or, Second Part of the Most Pleasant and Delightful
History of Reynard the Fox was published by Richard Brewster in 1672,
though the author is unknown. This edition is provided with woodcuts, but
they are all from the original series found in the first part and consequently
are not always very appropriate as illustrations of the new story. This continuation is about two-thirds of the length of the first part; it is divided into
thirty-two chapters; and it is provided with marginal comments to highlight
the morality of individual episodes. The story is concerned with Reynard as a
crafty courtier and hence differs in tone from the original version. Caxton’s
translation and its subsequent modernisations dealt with the evils of
everyday life, for Reynard was presented more as an ordinary citizen than as
a courtier. He had to answer to the king for his actions, but his evil deeds
were mostly perpetrated outside the court. The continuation is rather more
political since it focusses on corruption in high places, and it may even
contain veiled references to contemporary political happenings. The
continuation is narrower in its moral focus, which aims at probity in the
ministers of the crown rather than at good behaviour among the population
generally.
The story develops as follows. Reynard is made the chief favourite of
Noble the lion and uses this power quite shamelessly to promote his own interests. He has Isegrim promoted to chief prelate in succession to Bellin the
ram who was executed in the first part, even though Isegrim is totally unfitted
for his position. The bear and the cat plan Reynard’s death because of
Isegrim’s elevation, of which they are jealous, but they both drop their plans
when Reynard extends patronage to them as well. Reynard uses his position
to enrich himself with the aim of ultimately usurping the throne. He suborns
many nobles with this wealth, and when he judges the time right he calls an
assembly at which he proposes an armed rebellion against Noble. The plot is
betrayed by the leopard and the panther, and Noble acts quickly to quell the
rebellion. Many rebels are captured and Reynard is besieged in his castle Malepardus. After a spirited resistance he is captured, tried for treason, found
guilty and duly executed. As may be realised from this brief synopsis, the tale
is very different from that of the first part. Although in some ways better or-
19
Norman F. Blake
ganised and more cohesive in tone and morality, it is rather lifeless in its characterisation. The animals have become little more than dull allegorical figures.
The liveliness of the folktale which is so much a feature of the first part is
missing. Furthermore, Reynard himself is no longer a swaggering and cunning rogue who is never at a loss for a way to extricate himself from a difficult
situation. In the continuation he is little more than a crooked courtier who
tries to outwit his king, but is caught out. At his trial he offers no defence; he
is a character without spirit or interest. It is difficult to imagine many readers
succumbing to the attraction of sin from reading this continuation.
In 1684 the second sequel to the story of Reynard the fox appeared under
the title The Shifts of Reynardine The Son of Reynard the Fox. This volume
was also published by Edward Brewster, though the author is unknown. As
the first sequel ended with the death of Reynard, this continuation deals with
his son. The volume is divided into thirty-three chapters, which come to
about the same length as Caxton’s original version, but it contains no woodcuts. The author is apparently different from the person who wrote the first
sequel. No doubt the story of Reynardine is meant to parallel that of his father Reynard, and he certainly perpetrates some unpleasant deeds, but his
sheer zest for evil can in no way match that of his father. He is rather a pale
reflection of his father, and it may well be that the seventeenth century was
too concerned with morality to be able to portray evil convincingly. The story
also loses much of its medieval flavour because the names have been
changed. Most of the original continental names have been abandoned to be
replaced either by English ones or by names which have more than a touch of
Augustan allegory in them. When Reynardine assumes the role of doctor, he
calls himself Doctor Pedanto.
The story proceeds like this. Before Reynard died, he gave his wealth to
his sons, Reynardine and Volpus, enjoining on them the duty to revenge him
on Firapel and Sly-look who had betrayed him and caused his death. Volpus
is soon killed, but Reynardine goes to another country where he becomes a
novice in the monastery at Manton. He is expelled for stealing, but keeps his
habit and is able to exploit his dress by selling indulgences to the gullible.
Losing the habit in a trap, he decides to return to his own country, where he
is advised by the ape to become a doctor. In due course Firapel falls ill, and
Reynardine treats him with an overdose so that he dies, and so achieves his
first revenge. He quarrels with the ape, who denounces him publicly, and so
20
The literary development of the Reynard story in England
he is forced to flee. But he has his ears and tail cut off by a mountebank, and
is so unrecognisable that he can return to his own country once more where
he takes service with Sly-Look under the name Crabron. He poisons Sly-Look
to complete the revenge for his father. He makes such a show of sorrow for
his master’s death that the king makes him one of his purveyors. He is able to
maintain this position for a time by eliminating those who could betray him.
Ultimately he is unmasked, and he makes a full confession under torture.
When he is on the scaffold he manages, as his father had done, to win a
reprieve through a lieing speech. He continues his escapades for a time, but
is caught again and finally executed after another confession about his whole
life. The king decrees that all foxes will be banished for ever, but this kind of
edict cannot be enforced. However, Reynardine does not have the same interest for readers that his father had. It may be that the rather tame conclusion
in which morality is ultimately justified undermines some of the previous
wickedness. That wickedness itself never manages to capture the spirit and
flavour of the original story, although some of the episodes are clearly modelled on that version. There is ultimately a lack of inventiveness and imagination. The delicate balance between the human and animal kingdom is dis rupted as the animals become increasingly allegorical manifestations of human failings.
If these sequels indicate that the Reynard story was becoming more
popular, the opposite is suggested by the appearance in 1681 of a verse
adaptation by John Shurley. This edition was printed by T and G Passinger in
London. It has two title pages. The second refers to ‘The most delightful
History of Reynard the Fox: in Heroic verse, much Illustrated and Adorned
with Allegorical Phrases and Refined English, containing much Wisdom and
Politics of State, under the Fabling Discourse between Birds and Beasts, with
a Moral Explanation of each hard and doubtful Place or Part, being not only
Pleasant but Profitable, as well to the Learned of the Age, as others’. There
then follows the Epistle to the Reader, which is signed by John Shurley.
Among other things this epistle claims:
In this piece as in a Crystal Mirror, may the Politick Statesman see
his shadow, the flattering Courtier learn how to behave himself,
and time his Adulations as occasion offers it self, in order to find
best acceptance and acquire the ends he aims at. … wherefore
knowing that such pleasant Fables are acceptable to most, I have
21
Norman F. Blake
presumed to put them into Heroic Verse, in the sweetest, still, and
smoothest language now in vse, what has been formerly written of
this kind, having been old English, composed of harsh and unintelligible words, but in this explained by moral, and largely augmented, suitable to the times.
The text contains about 4,000 lines of Augustan verse arranged in twentyfour chapters. Each chapter heading is followed by a verse argument before
the text itself begins. There are some woodcuts, but these have been grouped
together in twos and threes. Each chapter has a moral, which as in the 1620
edition is placed in the margin. The moral to chapter one is:
In what kind so ever a wicked man imagines to escape just punishment by absconding from Justice, yet he only flatters himself
with what will not avail him, and gives his enemies leave by his
absence to magnifie his Crimes and render them greater than indeed they are, as in this is made manifest.
The moral is clearly based on that found in the seventeenth-century prose
editions. In order to get some idea of the style of the verse, I quote the opening lines of this new version:
About the Feast of Pentecost, when all
The Suns’ bright rays shone on this earthly Ball,
When Trees were in their gaudy Liv’ry dress’d,
And smiling Flowers each fragrant Field possess’d,
When balmy Sweets perfum’d the gentle Air,
And blosming Spices scented from afar.
Here the Augustan style becomes more marked. Almost every noun has
an adjective to qualify it, and that adjective is often bisyllabic and ends in ing or -y. The balance between smiling Flowers and fragrant Field in line
four is typical of much verse written at this time. The effect is to raise the
general tone and literary merit of the story, though the narrative retains its essential characteristics for it has been borrowed from the prose accounts of
the period. The poem ends with an attack on the flattery of servile courtiers
whose presence detracts from true wisdom in courts.
22
The literary development of the Reynard story in England
A second verse rendering was published in London in 1706 where it was
printed for John Nutt. Its title is The Crafty Courtier: or the Fable of Reinard
the Fox: Newly done into English Verse. The versifier is unknown, but he
used as his source the Latin version of Hartmann Schopper, first published in
1567 and based on the Low German text of 1498. The text is divided into four
books, containing 37, 9, 14 and 12 chapters respectively. Each chapter has an
argument at its beginning, and the last two books have general introductions.
There is also a conclusion. No morals are attached to the text, though the
whole is understood to be a moralistic and satiric work. The text covers the
same story as told by Caxton, but differs in some respects because of its
different source. The names of the animals are different: the cat is usually
Malkin, the badger Grevincus, and the king is referred to as Caesar. Court life
and politics are the primary aims of his satire, but the author has literary
pretensions. His opening with its echo of Virgil gives a good idea of the style
and approach:
Nor Arms I sing, nor of Adventurous Deeds,
Nor Shepherds playing on their Oaten Reeds,
But civil Fury, and invidious Strife,
With the false Pleasures of a Courtiers Life.
To whom ye Muses, will my Theme belong,
And whom, shall I invoke to aid my Song?
During the course of his work he refers to such authors as Chaucer, John
Dennis, Congreve, and Samuel Butler. He exhibits his poetic expertise by
writing some parts, particularly the exempla in book 3, in octosyllabic stanzas
usually rhyming aaabcccb. He sets the courtier’s life against the idyllic life of
the countryman, here named Collin:
Happy, Ah COLLIN! in thy humble State,
They oftner envy Thee, than Thou the Great.
It is in fact a typical eighteenth-century attack on the life of the court as
compared with the country, though it is strange to see it clothed within the
story of Reynard the fox. The conclusion, when it comes, is absolutely expected:
23
Norman F. Blake
Plain is the Lesson of our humble Tale:
That Fraud, and Flattery at Court prevail.
However, because this work was taken from a different source its effect
on the development of the story in English was restricted. An adaptation of
this version by David Vedder was published in 1852, but otherwise it appears
to have had little impact on English accounts of the fox.
The end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth
witnessed the production of abridged versions of the Reynard story. These
editions are usually small and portable, and probably represent a further
stage in the popularisation of the story. Their number is uncertain because
they have not yet been studied bibliographically. What may be the earliest is
The Most Pleasant History of Reynard the Fox printed for J Conyers in the
last quarter of the seventeenth century, perhaps about 1685. This abridgement was made by taking the first part of the Reynard story up to his first release by the lion and the final chapter as the subject matter. A different abridgement was made by adding to this first part an account of Reynardine, the
son of Reynard, which is introduced as a second part. The latter appears to
have been the more common form, and I shall examine a version produced about 1700. It could be said that these abridgements became the standard form
of the Reynard story in the eighteenth century and drove the 1620 text off the
market.
Although an abbreviated version, the edition produced in 1700 still tries
to appeal on literary and cultural grounds. It has the title The History of
Reynard the Fox and Reynardine his Son. In Two Parts. It adds to this ‘With
Morals to each Chapter, explaining what appears Doubtful or Allegorical: and
every Chapter illustrated with a curious Device, or Picture, representing to the
Eye all the material Passages. Written by an eminent Statesman of the German
Empire, and since done into English, Dutch, French, Italian, &c.’ The
reference to the German original could well mislead the unwary that it lay
immediately behind this edition, whereas of course it lay over two centuries
before. The adaptor has included a preface to the reader, which contains the
following comments:
Here, as in a Mirror, the politick Statesman may see his Counterfeit,
the flattering Parasite how to carry himself even, and sail with all
24
The literary development of the Reynard story in England
Winds; the Powerful and Mighty, how weak it is to rely wholly on
Strength, when they have a subtle Enemy to deal with; and those
that trust fawning Friendship, are convinc’d, that in Adversity but
few will stand by them: … Therefore receive it not as a Trifle, but
as a Work of Weight and Moment, which cost much sound
Judgment and Labour in Compiling, and being done into English, it
varies little from the Original.
This preface is signed ‘D.P.’, which in some editions appears as ‘P.D.’,
though it is not known to whom this refers. The book itself is small, approx. 7
x 11 cm, and contains 168 pages. Over two-thirds of the text is devoted to
Reynard with the rest to Reynardine. Part one has eight chapters, and part
two seven. Each chapter has a title, a woodcut, the text and a moral. The
woodcuts are naturally small, though they reproduce the subjects of those
found earlier. The morals can be lengthy, that for chapter one being:
By this we see however wicked Men flatter ’emselves with escaping unpunish’d by hiding ’emselves from Justice, yet it the more
proves their Guilt, by inboldening, in their absence, their Enemies
to complain against ’em. Which is demonstrated by the Wolf, who,
as guilty as the Fox, nevertheless takes this time to make his
Complaints against him; and so gives Encouragement to others,
who in all likelihood otherwise would not have done it. The
Brock’s pleading for the Fox, denotes, that rich Men and Flatterers,
tho’ never so vicious, rarely want any Advocate to excuse ’em,
tho’ they shame ’emselves in doing it, as the Brock did, when the
Cock appear’d with his fresh Complaint against the Fox, &c.
It can be seen that this is based on the morals introduced into the 1620
edition. There is little that is new in this edition, though when the Cock brings
in his dead wife the adaptor breaks into some wretched verse:
Coppel, Chanticleer’s dear Wife,
Who by a Traytor lost her Life;
Pray come with him, you to weep are able,
For her, whose unjust Death was lamentable.
Perhaps one might also add that the printing of this and similar editions
shows many infelicities, as though it was set up in a hurry or by apprentices.
25
Norman F. Blake
From page 48 speeches are given in italics, though this is not so before. The
whole of chapter 2, part 2, is in italics (pp.124-9). The final part of the text
(pp.157-68) is printed in a smaller type as though to accommodate all the text
in a set number of pages. The effect is of a book which is cheap and popular.
In the eighteenth century the Reynard story takes another step towards
popular dissemination by the appearance of chapbook versions. Chapbooks
are small editions, usually of no more than twenty-four pages, in which a
story is abbreviated to its bare bones so that the work can be sold cheaply.
The style of such chapbooks is not necessarily low or vulgar; on the
contrary, some of them try to aim at a more elevated style. They were also
published in different parts of the country to be sold at local fairs and other
gatherings. Because they were produced cheaply in a small format, not many
of them survive because they must in many cases have been read out of
existence. At least two editions of the Reynard chapbook are extant today.
One was published in London, in Bow Lane, about 1750. Its title page
contains the title, The History of Reynard the Fox, a woodcut depicting the
lion sitting in judgement which is based on earlier models, and the reference
to the place of printing and publication; there is no date. The volume consists
of twenty-four pages, and the material is divided into ten chapters. The story
is confined to the first part, which corresponds to the original Reinaert I, but
it is considerably reduced. The style is by no means popular, as the opening
reveals:
It was when the woods was cloathed with green attire, and the
meadows adorned with fragrant flowers, when birds chaunted forth
their harmonious songs, the Lion made a great feast at this palace
of Sanden, and issued a proclamation for all the beasts and birds to
come thereto without delay, on pain of his contempt.
The link with earlier versions is clear enough. There are in this volume a
few woodcuts, but not one for each chapter. The pictures were less important
now than they had been.
The other example was printed in Newcastle about 1780, it is generally
believed. This is still a chapbook, but rather more elaborate than the London
example. The volume has two title pages. The first has the title The most
26
The literary development of the Reynard story in England
pleasant History of Reynard the Fox, to which it adds the comment ‘Giving
an Account of the many cruelties committed by him, and the complaints made
to the King: his being summoned to court, where he was tried and condemned to die, and his getting a reprieve; with the many stratagems he used
to obtain his life, &c.’ This is followed by the woodcut of the king in judgement, and the note ‘Printed in this present Year.’ The second page is blank;
the third has the title again followed by the chapter heading and text. It contains in all twenty-four pages and is divided into twelve chapters. The story,
as can be seen from the subtitle, is the same as that found in the London
chapbook. It is not a reprint of that version, because the style has been elevated, as may be seen by comparing its opening with that of the London text:
It was when the woods were cloathed with green attire, and the
meadows adorned with delicate and fragrant flowers, and birds
sweetly chanting forth their harmonious songs in the entrance of a
fine delicate spring, the Lion, king of beasts, intending to celebrate
the feasts of Orpheus in great state and ceremony, and keeping
open Court in his stately palace of Sanden, sent forth his royal
proclamation.
Like the previous chapbook this one contains no morals, and has no elaboration of the story at all. It may be said to have reduced the story to its basic
narrative, though presented in an elevated style, which was allowed to stand
by itself without any moralising promptings from the editor.
From the middle of the nineteenth century a variety of different trends can be
detected in the development of the Reynard story in English. Perhaps the
most important is the emergence of translation once again. After Caxton’s
initial translation of the Dutch version, only the verse version of 1706 made
use of a continental original. From 1840 onwards translations of Continental
versions became more common. This is partly because of Goethe’s reworking
of the original story and the immense reputation which Goethe and his work
had throughout Europe. Goethe’s text was translated and adapted into
English versions frequently during the second half of the nineteenth century.
It would probably be true to say that these adaptations of Goethe were aimed
at the more literary end of the market and reclaimed some of the ground which
27
Norman F. Blake
had been lost as the intended readership of Reynard’s exploits had sunk in
both class and age.
It is important to note that translations from other languages were not
common. Translations from Dutch occur only in the twentieth century, and
then reflect an academic curiosity more than anything else. There is no
translation in English of the Roman de Renart at all, even though the Roman
is the original version of the story. It cannot be just because the Roman is in
verse, though that may be a contributory cause, or because of its length. It
may be because it was too medieval and amoral for the nineteenth century.
More importantly perhaps, a good edition of the Roman was not made until
the present century, and that must have been the major deterrent for most
would-be translators.
Another trend was the continuation of adaptations of the Reynard story;
they occur in a variety of forms. Some are metrical re-tellings. Others are
school versions. There are even versions written in words of one syllable for
use in elementary reading. Presumably the exciting pace of the narrative and
the general moral reading which had become attached to it in so many versions made it a work suitable for classroom use. This applied throughout the
English-speaking world, for many of these versions were made in America.
As an example of this genre, we may consider a very early version of this
schoolbook trend by considering a version printed by Edward Ryland about
1775. This volume has the title The pleasant and entertaining history of
Reynard the Fox represented in a moral light. It contains new copperplates
specially made for the volume, though the subjects are the same as those
found in the earlier woodcuts. This volume contains an introduction and each
of the twelve chapters contains a moral at the end. Though the story itself is
in prose, the introduction and the morals are in couplets, written in a condescending tone to the young. The following is taken from the introduction:
Attend, ye youths, of infant mold,
To what the following sheets unfold!
And let each little rip’ning maid,
Con o’er the morals here display’d; …
Pray don’t imagine, little readers,
We in the Fox’s cause are pleaders;
Too well we know his subtle ways
28
The literary development of the Reynard story in England
To give the wily culprit praise;
So print his various pranks to shew,
What Foxes on two legs may do;
However, the tone of the moral verse is not repeated in the prose narrative
which is an elevated version of the story as handed down in other texts as
the opening passage reveals:
In that pleasant season of the year, when nature, proud to display
her own beauties, puts on her best attire, cloathing the woods in
green, inspiring the warblers of the grove to sing, and painting the
meads and plains with flowers; at this happy time, the noble Lion
annually invited all his subjects to court, to enjoy luxuriant festivity.
What the young readers were to make of this is not clear. The editor may
have felt able to compose morals in verse, but he could not adapt the level of
his story to children’s tastes.
However, not all the metrical adaptations should be regarded as primarily
intended for instructional purposes. One of the most familiar is of course the
version by John Masefield, poet laureate, known as Reynard the Fox or The
Ghost Heath Run which was published in 1921 together with illustrations by
G D Armour. This poem has very little connection with the Reynard story as
it had been passed down from Caxton’s first edition, for it describes a hunt
and some of the ensuing events and consequences. It merely illustrates the
attraction which Reynard had for many readers and how that quality could be
exploited in different ways.
The most significant development was the onset of antiquarianism which
brought with it a desire to go back to the roots of a particular literary genre so
that the original version of a given story could be brought into circulation
once more. This trend coincided with the growth in the mania for collecting
incunabula so that the prices paid for Caxtons increased considerably. Hence
many scholars wanted to strip away the accretions of the intervening centuries to present Caxton’s text as it had been published in 1481. The earliest
reprint of Caxton’s text in modern times was that by W J Thoms for the Percy
Society in 1844. In 1878 Edward Arber produced a diplomatic reprint in his
English Scholar’s Library. Other private presses also produced versions of
29
Norman F. Blake
Caxton’s edition. The Kelmscott press issued an edition by H Sparling in 1892
and a privately printed version was produced for Bibliotheca Curiosa in 1894
in a text prepared by E Goldsmid. These editions attempted to reproduce
Caxton’s text faithfully, though they achieved this aim only with limited
success. Many of them, for example, produced the text in a modernised
spelling and punctuation, and the level of accuracy in them sometimes left
something to be desired. It was only in the present century that the text has
been reproduced accurately with the original spelling and punctuation. The
version published by the Early English Text Society in 1970 accomplished
this aim, and so Caxton’s edition is once again available. A facsimile of
Caxton’s second edition has been produced recently, but as yet there is no
facsimile of his first edition. Generally speaking the renewed scholarly interest
in Caxton’s Reynard the Fox has tended to drive adaptations off the market,
though school versions are still occasionally produced.
N. F. Blake
University of Sheffield
*†*
30
MALORY REVISITED:
FROM CAXTON TO STEINBECK1
Malory's work is, after Chaucer's, the most popular literary work from the
Middle Ages that has been present among generations of readers for more
than five centuries. The theme I want to address in this paper is closely related to the nature of Malory's work as a compiler, adapter, abridger, condenser,
rearranger, or translator --whatever the reader prefers to call him. But I am not
going to discuss Malory's own efforts, success and failures in his task with
the "Frensshe bookes" and his debated "originality", something that has
been done with great proficiency by many scholars since the nineteenth century.2 My aim here is much more modest and can be described as an attempt
to situate Malory's work in the context of its reception throughout the centuries, and particularly during the 20th century, when a new Malory has emerged
as a consequence of the editions of his work. Because, as Larry Benson said
more than thirty years ago now (Benson, 1968: 81), Malory's work is "a critical
'discovery' of the twentieth century", or as D. S. Brewer also wrote in 1970,
alluding to Benson's statement (Brewer, 1970: 83): "The work of the last
twenty years is greater than that of the preceding half millenium".
The nature of Malory's work itself is controversial, as is well known; and
as the reader may have noticed, I have been referring to Malory's work in
singular, in the general sense of an author's oeuvre, thus avoiding the men1 This paper was written as a response to Professor Patricia Shaw's invitation to par-
ticipate in the 8th International Conference of Selim, that took place at the
University of Castellón in September 1995. It has remained unpublished, and now I
wish to offer it here as a homage to her memory. I also wish to acknowledge the financial support received from the Spanish Ministry of Education, that allowed me
to do research for the writing of this paper at Harvard University in 1993 and 1994
(Project codes 93-179 and 94-197).
2 For a brief, but detailed, discussion of Malory's use of his sources see Life, 1980:
10-14; a greater emphasis on Malory's originality is found in the collection of essays edited by D. Thomas Hanks, Jr., 1990 (see specially Hanks's essay "Malory,
the Mort[e]s, and the Confrontation in Guinevere's Chamber", pp. 78-90).
Fernando Galván, Selim 8 (1998): 35—76
Fernando Galván
tion of the work proper: is it Morte Darthur, a single, although complex, work
in the Caxtonian version, or is it rather what Vinaver has called simply
"Malory's Works, a group of eight different and independent tales"?
Although no real consensus seems to have been achie ved in this 'unity' debate,1 I think most would agree today with Vinaver's position rather than with
the more traditional one represented by Caxton's edition. We cannot forget,
however, as C. S. Lewis put it so accurately on the occasion of Vinaver's
version of the Winchester manuscript (Life, 1980: 135), that "The new Works
of Malory is the restoration; but the cathedral, our old familiar Caxton, is still
there. We should all read the Works; but it would be an impoverishment if we
did not return to the Morte". Notice also, much more recently, the defense
made by James W. Spisak of Caxton's version in his own edition (Spisak,
1983),2 as well as his brief comments on this issue in the Introduction to his
edition of Studies in Malory (Spisak, 1985: 9-10).
Moreover, another feature of Malory's work that I think is worthwhile
emphasizing on this occasion is that this characteristic of the work itself has
been essential in its transmission through the centuries. I mean that --perhaps
more than many other works-- Malory's Morte Darthur (let's call it like that,
even though it may be misleading) has been read and known by millions of
readers in these five centuries in adapted forms and under so many guises
that the work itself seems to have acquired a life of its own, as if it were
something independent from the form that the author gave it. That is, Morte
Darthur has been read, perhaps by a majority of readers, not in the compilation, adaptation or translation that Malory made of his "Frensshe bookes",
but through other compilations, adaptations and translations made by many
other authors.3 What has happened in Spanish may be an indication of what
has normally been Malory's fate also in English and other languages. Notice,
then, that the first faithful translation (the only one that we can really call a
translation) is published in Spanish in 1985: Muerte de Arturo, by Francisco
1 See Merriman, 1973, specially pp. 186-88 for a bibliography on this controversy;
as well as Life, 1980: 15-19.
2 Notice, however, that a severe criticism of this edition has been written by
Toshiyuki Takamiya, revealing many inaccuracies in Spisak's text (Takamiya,
1985).
3 Notice that the first edition, by Caxton, is indeed a compilation itself, responding to
Caxton's interests and aims as a publisher; see on this Elizabeth Kirk, 1985: 275295.
32
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
Torres Oliver, in a complete edition in three volumes published by Ediciones
Siruela. But of course, Malory's tales were known to many readers in Spanish
before, through at least two previous literary adaptations: one from 1914 by
Manuel Vallvé, entitled Los caballeros de la tabla redonda; leyendas
relatadas a los niños, published in Barcelona by Araluce in an illustrated
edition of 128 pages, which is a translation based on Malory as well as on
Tennyson's Idylls of the King; and a second one from 1963, due to Pilar
Grimaldo Tormos: Los caballeros de la tabla redonda, published by Teide
also in Barcelona, in a 78-page juvenile edition with illustrations. All this
naturally without forgetting Walt Disney's adaptations (in film and book
formats) of T. H. White's stories, or many other Hollywood (and more recently also European) film adaptations of the Arthurian tales, some derived
from Malory as well as from his French sources.
Another source is one that I'll tackle later, John Steinbeck's version, The
Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976), translated into Spanish by
Carlos Gardini in 1979 and reprinted on numerous occasions since then: in
1980, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1992, 1993, 1994, by different publishing houses: Editorial Sudamericana, Edhasa, Salvat and Círculo de Lectores.
Two distinguished Malory scholars have contributed decisively in mapping this picture of a multifaceted work in a continuous process of change
and adaptation: first Page West Life in her splendid 1980 book Sir Thomas
Malory and the Morte Darthur. A Survey of Scholarship and Annotated Bibliography, and second and more important in this aspect, ten years later,
Barry Gaines in his 1990 astonishing and extraordinarily documented Sir
Thomas Malory. An Anecdotal Bibliography of Editions, 1485-1985. Most
of what I have tried to do in these pages would not have been possible at all
without these two works, which are certainly two basic milestones in Malory
scholarship.
Malory's work was popular very early. Its publication by Caxton in 1485
was soon followed by several editions; between 1485 and 1634 no less than
five complete editions with woodcut illustrations were published: two by
Wynkyn de Worde (1498 and 1529), one by William Copland (1557), another
by Thomas East (c. 1578) and finally another one by William Stansby (1634)
(for a detailed study of Malory's editions, see Gaines, 1969, 1974, 1984, as well
33
Fernando Galván
as Gaines, 1990: 3-46). Evidence of the popularity of the book is also provided
by references to it during this period, some harshly critical from a moral
perspective, such as Roger Ascham's comments in The Scholemaster (1570),
and others favourable to it, as Sir Philip Sidney's praise in his Defence of
Poesie.1 During the second half of the seventeenth century and the
eighteenth century Malory was not reedited, although he was not completely
forgotten by educated people. The proof is that Thomas Warton, for
instance, and others mention his work (see Gaines, 1990: 13). The book was
published again in the early nineteenth century; in 1816 two different editions
were produced, both based on the Stansby edition (1634). One was edited by
Alexander Chalmers and published by Walker and Edwards in 2 volumes;
although this edition was basically a reproduction of Stansby's text, it was
very popular, and no less than 5000 books were produced (2500 2-volume
sets); among its readers we can mention, for example, Wordsworth, Keats,
and Tennyson. The second edition was better edited in three volumes by
Joseph Haslewood, who took care in correcting some errors in Stansby's edition and in avoiding what he considered immoral passages; but it was not successful, since Chalmers's edition was generally preferred. Of course many
other editions and reprints followed, most of them in slightly modernized
spelling: thus by Robert Southey (1817, although the edition proper was the
work of William Upcott, since Southey was only responsible for the Introduction and Notes); by Thomas Wright (1858, rpt. in 1866, 1889, 1893 and
1897); by Edward Strachey (1868, rpt. with revisions in 1868, 1869, 1891, and
later; this edition was extensively corrected by Strachey, who eliminated
1 Cf. Roger Ascham's words in The Scholemaster: "In our forefathers tyme, whan
Papistrie, as a standyng poole, couered and ouerflowed all England, fewe bookes
were read in our tong, sauying certaine bookes of Cheualrie, as they sayd, for pastime and pleasure, which, as some say, were made in Monasteries, by idle Monkes,
or wanton Chanons: as one for example, Morte Arthure: the whole pleasure of
which booke standeth in two speciall poyntes, in open mans slaughter, and bold
bawdrye: In which booke those be counted the noblest Knights, that do kill most
men without any quarell, and commit fowlest aduoulteries by sutlest shifts: as Sir
Launcelote, with the wife of King Arthure his master: Syr Tristram with the wife of
king Marke his vncle: Syr Lamerocke with the wife of king Lote, that was his own
aunte. This is good stuffe, for wise men to laughe at, or honest men to take pleasure
at. Yet I know, when Gods Bible was banished the Court, and Morte Arthure receiued into the Princes chamber. What toyes, the dayly readyng of such a booke,
may worke in the will of a yong ientleman, or a yong mayde, that liueth welthelie
and idlelie, wise men can iudge, and honest men do pitie"; as well as Sir Philip
Sidney's in Defence of Poesie: "I dare undertake, Orlando Furioso, or honest king
Arthure, will never displease a souldier" (quoted in Gaines, 1990: xi).
34
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
some immoral words, phrases and even passages, in order to make the book
available to all readers, children included, and was by far the most popular
complete edition of Malory's work in the 19th century); by H. Oskar Sommer
(1889-1891); by Ernest Rhys (about 1892); by F. J. Simmons (1893-94, rpt. in
1909 and 1927 with additions); and by Israel Gollancz (1897).
On the other hand, the twentieth century has been, as I said earlier, the
time for the "discovery" of Malory's work, with a new (modernized) edition by
Alfred W. Pollard (1900, with many reprints since then); a reprint of the 1893
edition by F. J. Simmons, published in 1906 by Dent (known as the Everyman
edition), as well as many other reprints of 19th-century editions by Rhys, by
Southey, or even earlier, as A. S. Mott's edition in 1933 of Wynkyn de
Worde's folio of 1498. But the best editions in this century are naturally those
by Eugène Vinaver based on the Winchester manuscript: 1947, 1948 (1st ed.),
1954 and 1967 (2nd ed.), which has been considered by most scholars the
standard definitive edition, and has been reprinted several times later: 1971,
1973,1 until recently, when P. J. C. Field produced a revised edition (1990), the
3rd edition of Vinaver's version. However, we cannot forget other editions
based on Caxton's version, which have also been well published and
distributed, such as those by Janet Cowen (1969) for Penguin Books; R. M.
Lumiansky (1982) for Charles Scribner's Sons, which also uses the
Winchester manuscript and Vinaver's edition; and James W. Spisak (1983).
I have mentioned so far only the complete editions, but although these
give a good idea of the popularity of Malory's work in the 16th, 17th, 19th and
20th centuries, they constitute but a partial proof of this popularity. That a
work of the extension of Morte Darthur was edited and reprinted so many
1 Notice that each of these two editions was printed in two different versions, one in
3 volumes, with extensive commentaries by the editor, and another in a single volume, with the complete text but very few commentaries and explanations. The first
edition consists of: The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, in 1947, by the Clarendon
Press of Oxford (3 vols., cxv + 1742 pp. ), which was reprinted with corrections in
1948, and Malory: Works, in 1954, by Oxford University Press (xviii + 919 pp. ).
The second edition is: Malory: Works, in 1967, by the Clarendon Press of Oxford
(3 vols., rpt. with corrections and additions in 1973), and Malory: Works, in 1971,
by Oxford University Press (xv + 811 pp. ).
35
Fernando Galván
times in its entirety says a lot, I think, of the value it has had for many generations of readers; but another aspect of Malory's reception during this period
is the huge amount of abridgments, selections and adaptations, which have
been probably much more effective in popularizing Malory's tales. A substantial contribution to this popularity is certainly due to versions and
adaptations for children. As Barry Gaines has commented (Gaines, 1990: xi),
T. S. Eliot, for instance, referred to a juvenile version of Malory which "was in
my hands when I was a child of eleven or twelve. It was then, and perhaps
has always been, my favorite book". John Steinbeck also explained his
attraction towards this book; he tells that Shakespeare and Pilgrim's
Progress came to him at the time he was a very little boy through his uncles
and his mother's milk, but that his first experience as a reader was through
Malory, a Malory in old spelling but a simplified Malory nevertheless. These
are his words (Steinbeck, 1976: xi):
[…] one day, an aunt gave me a book […] I stared at the black print
with hatred, and then, gradually, the pages opened and let me in.
The magic happened. The Bible and Shakespeare and Pilgrim's
Progress belonged to everyone. But this was mine --It was a cut
version of the Caxton Morte d'Arthur of Thomas Malory. I loved
the old spelling of the words --and the words no longer used.
Perhaps a passionate love for the English language opened to me
from this one book. I was delighted to find out paradoxes --that
cleave means both to stick together and to cut apart; that host
means both an enemy and a welcoming friend; that king and gens
(people) stem from the same root. For a long time, I had a secret
language --yclept and hyght, wist-- and accord meaning peace,
and entente meaning purpose, and fyaunce meaning promise. […]
Many other testimonies could be added to this, but I don't think it's
necessary. Steinbeck's fascination for Malory, which later in his life was to
exert a great influence on his own work, is just another example of the vigour
of Malory's presence in contemporary life and literature. But what is relevant
and I wish to emphasize now is that this influence, the heritage represented
by Morte Darthur, is very often indirect because --as in T. S. Eliot or
Steinbeck-- the first (and for many, only) contact that most readers have had
with Malory's work is not any of the complete editions of his tales, but some
other version, simplified, abridged, modernized, etc.
36
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
Despite the general availability of complete editions in each generation,
many readers have had access to Malory through a version or adaptation of
the original text, designed basically to shorten its length. The information
gathered by Gaines about abridgments and selections, as well as adaptations,
is impressive. I don't have naturally the space here to discuss all this in detail,
but let me give at least a general account of it, so that I can pass then to
analyse one particular case more attentively.
The distinction between abridgments or selections on the one hand, and
adaptations on the other is not easy to make, and occasionally different authors classify particular texts in diverse categories. Thus Page West Life, for
instance, gives as the first abridgment the famous 19th century edition by
James T. Knowles (1862), The Story of King Arthur and His Knights of the
Round Table, while Barry Gaines includes this title in "adaptations". I will follow here Gaines's classification, which seems to me more reasonable and transparent, as he is much more informative in his descriptions of each item than
Life.
Gaines presents fifty different abridgments, selections or editions of single tales, although this number refers to completely different editions, not to
reprints or slightly different versions of the same edition, which are many
more and are also registered by Gaines in detail.
Both abridgments and adaptations start by the middle of the 19th century,
as a way of familiarizing ordinary readership (and specially --although not
exclusively-- children) with Malory's work. Many of them were originated by
the popularity obtained by Tennyson's Idylls of the King (1859 --1st set:
"Enid", "Vivien", "Elaine" and "Guinevere"-- and 1872 --virtually the complete edition, with the exception of "Balin and Balan", published in 1885--).
The first abridgment registered by Gaines is by Edward Conybeare (1868),
entitled La Morte D'Arthur: The History of King Arthur. The editor explained
(see Gaines, 1990: 47) that the length and confusion in the structure of the
original text constituted at that time "insuperable obstacles to popularity",
and consequently his purpose was to abbreviate and rearrange the original
text to make it more attractive to contemporary readers. This meant that
"coarse passages" were cut out and that the whole structure was changed, in
a new division in books and chapters, although no new material was intro-
37
Fernando Galván
duced. This procedure was the one generally followed in the best abridgments of the 19th century, such as Sidney Lanier's The Boy's King Arthur
(1880), Henry Frith's King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table (1884),
Ernest Rhys's Malory's History of King Arthur and the Quest of the Holy
Grail (1886), and Charles Morris's King Arthur and the Knights of the Round
Table (1891).1
Lanier's edition (1880) was specifically addressed to children, as is shown
by the title. Thus, some parts of the narrative were cut out, in order to avoid
(quoted by Gaines, 1990: 49) "monotonous repetitions of adventure and of
combat", as well as those parts concerned with the love relationship between
Lancelot and Guenever, and Tristram and Isolde, while the fact that Galahad
was Lancelot's son by Elaine, and Mordred Arthur's son by his sister was obscured. This edition was a big success, to the extent that by 1 May 1899
(almost twenty years later) sixteen reprints had been made, which amounted
to 12,900 copies; and only five years later, by September 1904, this figure was
20,700. But of course its success cannot be measured by numbers alone,
although these tell much about the popularity of Lanier's edition; it is also
important to notice, for instance, that it was through this edition that Mark
Twain was first acquainted with the Arthurian theme, which he was going to
develop later in his well known book A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's
Court.2 On top of that, let me add that it was Lanier's edition the one which
was translated into Greek (1956) and Hebrew (1966), so that the first versions
of Malory's work in these languages came through this abridgment (for
details on these translations, see Gaines, 1990: 130-131).
Frith's abridgment (1884) follows a similar line, cutting out aspects that did
not seem convenient for children; as the author states in the introduction to
his edition (quoted by Gaines, 1990: 53): "Writing for boys, we have preserved all the vigour and valour of the action, and as much of the original as
our limits permitted, with a due regard to good taste and their improvement".
1 See Lanier (1880) (more versions of this edition, with different illustrations, fol-
lowed: 1917, 1950, 1960…); Henry Frith (1884) (more versions, with other illustrations, followed this edition: 1912, 1928, 1932, 1955); Ernest Rhys (1886); and
Charles Morris (1891) (other versions followed: 1896, 1908).
2 On this work and its significance in Twain's oeuvre, see H. Bruce Franklin (1992),
Jane Gardiner (1992); Lyall Powers (1985); Gary Scharnhorst (1989); and Mary
Lyndon Shanley & Peter G. Stillman (1982).
38
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
Rhys's edition (1886), however, was not addressed specifically to an infantile audience, so that the abridgment responded to other purposes, mainly
to make the story more clearly available and its reading more pleasant to 19th
century readers, who otherwise might feel confused and dissuaded by an
archaic language. Thus seven of Caxton's twenty-one books were cut out,
and the spelling was revised in order to facilitate the comprehension of old
vocabulary and phrases.
Finally, Morris's edition (1891) was also a modernized version, published
initially in three volumes and later in one and two-volume format (1896 and
1908 respectively). It was this edition the one that T. S. Eliot read as a child,
as can be ascertained from the copy with his signature that is kept in
Harvard's Houghton Library. The treatment followed is summarized by Morris
himself with these words (quoted by Gaines, 1990: 55):
In attempting to adapt this old masterpiece to the readers of our
own day, we have no purpose to seek to paraphrase or improve on
Malory. To remove the antique flavor would be to destroy the spirit of the work. We shall leave it as we find it, other than to reduce
its obsolete phraseology and crudities of style to modern English,
abridge the narrative where it is wearisomely extended, omit repetitions and uninteresting incidents, reduce its confusion of arrangement, attempt a more artistic division into books and chapters, and by other arts of editorial revision seek to make easier reading, while preserving as fully as possible those unique characteristics which have long made it delightful to lovers of old literature.
As a partial conclusion, then, we can state that most nineteenth-century
abridged editions responded to these motives: 1) cuts in particular episodes
which were considered morally inappropriate for children, to whom many of
these editions were addressed; 2) modernization of spelling and language in
order to make the text more easily available to modern audiences; 3) rearrangement of books and chapters, so that the development of Malory's narrative were clearer; and 4) frequent use of illustrations, with the same aims.
Some of these features are also shared by twentieth-century editions, particularly by those conceived as school texts for secondary schools. These
versions were occasionally enriched with questions for classroom use, and
39
Fernando Galván
were also very often illustrated. Examples of these are many, but let me quote
some of the most successful: one is Selections from Malory edited by Agnes
M. Mackenzie (1915), with introduction notes and glossary. Another one is
Dorothy M. Macardle's Selections from Le Morte D'Arthur of Sir Thomas
Malory (1917); although this edition follows the original diction, it rearranges
passages and chapters, and adds questions and exercises, as well as a
glossary and notes, since the aim was (quoted by Gaines, 1990: 62) "to give a
consecutive and dramatic story in a small compass; to indicate, by means of
notes, the imagined environment, and to suggest (by questions) how the
story may be made the theme of a term's work in oral and written composition,
recitation, play-making and acting". Not specifically designed to teach, but
also addressed to young audiences, was Uriel Waldo Cutler's Stories of King
Arthur and his Knights (1904), which was very popular and has been
reprinted many times,1 to the extent, for example, that the first Polish version
of Malory's work (1937) was a translation from Cutler's abridgment (details in
Gaines, 1990: 133; it is based on the 1933 edition published by Harrap). Cutler
explained in his introduction (quoted by Gaines, 1990: 59) that he had tried to
choose "such stories as best represent the whole [and had modified] these
only in order to remove what could possibly hide the thought, or be so crude
in taste and morals as to seem unworthy of the really high-minded author of
five hundred years ago", and added furthermore: "It aims also so to condense
the book that, in this age of hurry, readers may not be repelled from the tales
merely because of their length". This kind of rewriting of Malory for young
readers was also carried out by Henry Burrowes Lathrop in his abridgment
Malory's King Arthur and his Knights (1911), where (quoted by Gaines, 1990:
60) "the morally barbaric or otherwise unsuitable parts have been omitted".
Other abridged editions which have been very popular throughout the
century, are Alfred W. Pollard's version The Romance of King Arthur and his
Knights of the Round Table (1917), with famous illustrations by Arthur
Rackham, and Philip Allan's The Noble Tale of the Sangreal (1920), which is a
faithful version of Caxton's Books 13 to 17 in modern spelling, punctuation
and paragraphing. A curious selection of the end of the 1920s is Women of
the Morte Darthur by Ann D. Alexander (1927), which comprised twelve love
1 Reprints in 1905 and 1914 by George G. Harrap (London), and also by Harrap but
in different format in 1911 (Tales from Malory) and 1933 (King Arthur and his
Knights), as well as by Thomas Y. Crowell in 1924 and 1941.
40
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
stories from Malory's work, which present (quoted by Gaines, 1990: 64)
"many types of femininity […], from the light woman to the saint, but the
good predominate; for the Morte d'Arthur folks are true children of the Age
of Faith, and with very few exceptions, struggle heroically to follow in the
footsteps of the Knight of Bethlehem".
Another kind of abridgment or selection of Malory's text, which is a privative feature of 20th century editions, is that oriented to university education,
or to a general adult reader, most of them produced after World War II. These
were mainly selections of one or several tales, which normally preserved the
totality of each tale, without any kind of emendation except occasional modernization of spelling. Good illustrations of this type of edition are several by
Brian Kennedy Cooke: King Arthur of Britain (1946), Sir Lancelot (1951), The
Holy Grail (1953), and The Quest of the Beast (1957). He was not really
editing complete tales, but selections from several parts of Malory's work
concerned with the topic of each of his versions; his aim was to fight against
the vision of Malory given by 19th-century eds. for children, which he
strongly deplored with these words (quoted by Gaines, 1990: 67):
a lamentable fashion arose towards the end of the last century of
producing insipid special versions for children, illustrated with
two-dimensional dummies in pasteboard armour, which kindly but
undiscerning aunts and uncles could pick up without effort on the
Christmas bookstalls. These things came between the late
Victorian or Edwardian child and Malory. And so the great work,
which has some claim to be regarded as the earliest novel in our
language, has fallen into some neglect.
But surely better examples of this kind of selected editions are those by
well known philologists, such as Eugène Vinaver or D. S. Brewer.
Vinaver not only produced the best complete edition we have today of
the Winchester manuscript; he also edited several independent tales, such as
The Tale of the Death of King Arthur (1955), following his 1947 3-volume edition, and King Arthur and his Knights (1956), which was initially constituted
by a selection of modernized fragments and later, in 1968, was reprinted with
revisions and the addition of the complete last tale. R. T. Davies also pub-
41
Fernando Galván
lished a selected edition, in a modernized version: King Arthur and his
Knights (1967), which follows Vinaver's first edition (1947). Other scholarly
editions, addressed to a university audience, are those by D. S. Brewer (1968)
and P. J. C. Field (1977). Brewer edited in 1968 the last two books in a
modernized version, with the title The Morte Darthur. Parts Seven and Eight,
which was --as Gaines has shown-- a reprint of the corresponding parts in
Vinaver's first edition. P. J. C. Field edited the same tales: Le Morte Darthur:
The Seventh and Eighth Tales (1977), although Field preserved the original
spelling, without any modernization. Both editions are characteristically
thought for university study, with additional material such as introductions,
notes, commentaries and glossaries (Brewer's is published as a volume of the
collection of York Medieval Texts, edited by Elizabeth Salter and Derek
Pearsall, and Field's was printed in "The London Medieval and Renaissance
Series", under the general editorship of A. V. C. Schmidt).
I have been alluding so far to abridgments or selections. But a substantial
amount of other versions of Malory's work have been in print since the early
19th century, versions that should be called "adaptations", since the editors
have not merely rearranged, cut, and modernized spelling, punctuation and
paragraphing, as in these selections I have been discussing. In the adaptations, their authors have introduced new material, have re-written Malory,
have combined Caxton's text or the Winchester manuscript with other texts,
etc. The number of adaptations gathered by Gaines in his Bibliography is
impressive, especially if we consider that he has made a selection, disregarding many texts, such as all poetic adaptations and screen plays. He has left
out of his selection well known books which in one way or another have
nurtured on Malory, works that have been extremely influential in spreading
the popularity of the Arthurian tales, such as Tennyson's Idylls, Twain's A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court or T. H. White's The Sword in
the Stone, The Once and Future King, etc.1 These, and others, are not
1 For details on the extensive bibliography produced on Tennyson's adaptation, see
specially Roger Simpson (1990), particularly chapter 5: "Tennyson and the
Arthurian Revival", pp. 190-254; and also the editions by Christopher Ricks
(1969), and by John Pfordresher (1973) (see the "Introduction", pp. 1-64, for a
detailed study of the genesis and development of the Idylls). On T. H. White's
adaptations the bibliography is also large; cf. C. M. Adderley (1992); Martin
Kellman (1991); Adrienne Kertzer (1985); Alan Macdonald (1993); Marilyn K.
42
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
included because Gaines considers they have gone far beyond Malory, and
that they are not truly adaptations of Morte Darthur but rather "recreations"
of the Arthurian cycle, Malory not being its fundamental source.
Well, even after all these exceptions, the number of adaptations collected
by Gaines is 100; but again this figure does not reflect the whole number of
editions and reprints, since some of these works were frequently reprinted
and republished in slightly different form, under different titles some times,
with other illustrations, occasionally even with some changes in the text, etc.
The great majority of these adaptations are again mainly addressed to
young audiences, although a few are also thought for adult readers. That is
the case, for instance, of the first adaptation collected by Gaines in the nineteenth century, which was a classic in the period, surely influenced by the
popularity of Tennyson's Idylls: James Thomas Knowles's The Story of King
Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table (1862), which was reedited, with
many changes and diverse illustrations, throughout the nineteenth century
and even during the first half of the twentieth. Knowles used Caxton's text
and simplified it, occasionally adding material from Monmouth and other
sources; he modernized the style and naturally, as we have seen with the
other Victorian versions (quoted by Gaines, 1990: 78), "suppressed and
modified where changed manners and morals have made it absolutely necessary to do so for the preservation of a lofty original ideal".
But most adaptations are indeed addressed to children, are accompanied
by illustrations and experience frequent reprintings and further adaptations.
Some were so popular and so successful as William Thomas Stead's version
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (1899), in the famous series
"Books for the Bairns", which in a later arrangement by Robert S. Wood (n.
d.) was the basis for the first translation of Malory's work into French (Mlle.
Latappy, 1910). Other adaptations were specially designed for boys and girls
in the primary school, being written by influential education authorities in the
Nellis (1983); Florence Field Sandler (1992); Evelyn Schroth (1983); Evans Lansing
Smith (1991); William E. Tanner (1993); and Sylvia Townsend Warner & Trevor
Stubley (1988). See also some doctoral dissertations on this topic: Susan Elizabeth
Chapman (1990); Angela Lindley (1990); Meredith Jane Ross (1986); and Jimmie
Elaine Thomas (1983).
43
Fernando Galván
early 20th century: thus Dr. Edward Brooks's version The Story of King
Arthur and the Knights of the Table Round (1900), Brooks being the
Superintendent of Schools of Philadelphia; or James Baldwin's Stories of the
King (1910), since this James Baldwin was superintendent of Indiana primary
schools and editor of school books at the American Book Company.
Also very popular as reading for children were Mary MacLeod's version
The Book of King Arthur and his Noble Knights (1900), reprinted extensively
both in Britain and the United States until the mid-sixties;1 or Andrew Lang's
The Book of Romance (1902), which has been republished in different formats
and titles: Tales of the Round Table, Tales of King Arthur and the Round
Table, etc. (see Andrew Lang, 1903, 1905, 1967 and 1968); or the version
written and illustrated by Howard Pyle: The Story of King Arthur and his
Knights, originally published in installments in the children's magazine St.
Nicholas (November 1902-October 1903), and later reprinted in a variety of
titles and formats, the latest collected by Gaines being published in 1984.2
This version by Pyle has been extraordinarily popular, and even Mark Twain -who was obviously familiarized with the Arthurian tales-- wrote this about
these stories: "They were never so finely told in prose before. And then the
pictures --one can never tire of examining them and studying them. Long ago
you made the best Robin Hood that was ever written and your Morte
d'Arthur is going to be another masterpiece. It was a great idea. I am glad that
it was born to you".3 The success of the first editions of this title was so
great, that Pyle added other volumes later: The Story of the Champions of the
Round Table (1905), The Story of Sir Launcelot and his Companions (1907),
and The Story of the Grail and the Passing of Arthur (1910) (All these titles
1 Details about its numerous reprints and further adaptations and abridgments
(sometimes under different titles) are provided by Gaines, 1990: 84-87.
2 The Story of King Arthur and his Knights, written and illustrated by Howard Pyle,
St. Nicholas, 30 (November 1902-October 1903), New York, Scribners. Reprints as
a book are numerous: 1903 (by Charles Scribner's Sons in New York and by George
Newnes in London, of which three facsimile editions have appeared in New York:
one in 1965 by Dover, another in 1978 by Marathon, and the third in 1984 by
Scribner's); also in The Howard Pyle Brandywine Edition 1853-1933, which is a
facsimile reprint with a frontispiece in color and a note by W.J. Aylward, a former
Pyle pupil, with pen decorations by Robert Ball, New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1933. More recent reprints, under diverse titles and with different illustrations, are Pyle (1965, 1969 and 1979).
3 Quoted in Howard Pyle: Diversity in Depth, Wilmington, Delaware Art Museum,
1973, p. 8, cited by Gaines, 1990: 94.
44
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
have been reprinted on numerous occasions later, some of them very recently: there are facsimile reprints published by Scribner's Sons in 1984 and
1985). His intentions were very clear:
I wish to represent in my book all that is noble and high and great,
and to omit, if it is possible, all that is cruel and mean and treacherous. Unfortunately the stories of chivalry seem to be very full
not only of meanness and of treachery, but of murder and many
other and nameless wickednesses, that discolor the very noblest of
the characters --such, even, as the character of king Arthur himself
… So I try to represent those which are known in the best possible
light (quoted in Charles D. Abbott, 1925: 128, cited by Gaines, 1990:
93-94).
Other adapters for children worthwhile mentioning are Mary Macgregor,
whose version Stories of King Arthur's Knights (1905) has been for a very
long time one of the most popular among very young children; or Henry
Gilbert's King Arthur's Knights (1911) published extensively in different series by Nelson;1 or Blanche Winder's Stories of King Arthur (1925), reprinted
until the late sixties (other editions following that of 1925, both in Great
Britain and the United States, were produced in 1935, 1937, 1968, etc.); or
finally two versions by the most famous children's writer, Enid Blyton: one
entitled The Knights of the Round Table, initially addressed to older children
in 1930 and reissued again in 1950,2 and a second one called King Arthur and
his Knights (1939) which is a much more simplified version for very young
children (only 64 pages).
The adaptations are so many and so diverse that I cannot refer to all of
them; there are several editions in simplified versions for foreign learners (in
Longman and Macmillan), for blind people in braille, and scripts for television
1 Several reprints by Nelson & Sons, with some changes and slightly different titles:
1914, 1925, 1928, 1929, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1940, 1952. This book (or diverse versions of it) have been included in Nelson's series such as "Honour Books",
"Nelson's Classics", "Classics Series", "Winchester Classics Series", "Parkside
Classics Series", "School Classics Series", and "Favourite Books". A facsimile
reprint of the first edition was produced by Bracken Books in London in 1985.
2 This was reissued under the same title but with different illustrations: The Knights
of the Round Table, retold by Enid Blyton, illustrated by Kathleen Gell, London,
Latimer House, 1950, 96 pp.
45
Fernando Galván
series on the character of King Arthur, etc.1 However, the most interesting
adaptations from a literary point of view are perhaps those not specifically
addressed to young audiences; among these, let me quote the following,
which are relatively recent and have acquired a certain popularity: Keith
Baines's Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, a modernized version,
which was published with an introduction by Robert Graves (1962), John
Steinbeck's The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights (1976), Rosemary
Sutcliff's trilogy The Lights Beyond the Forest: The Quest for the Holy Grail
(1979), The Sword and the Circle; King Arthur and the Knights of the Round
Table (1980) and The Road to Camlann (1982), and Marion Zimmer Bradley's
The Mists of Avalon (1983).
For obvious reasons, John Steinbeck's adaptation has received some attention from critics and scholars specialized in Steinbeck's production, although not much --as far as I know-- from those working on Malory.2 Let me
briefly examine what has been done on this.
First, the work done by Steinbeck and his aims. The American writer felt
always fascinated with Malory's work, from the time he was nine years old
and received a copy of a simplified version of Morte d'Arthur,3 as I mentioned earlier. The interest in Malory surely left a deep influence on his own
work early in his career, as has been proved by scholars such as Warren
French, Joseph Fontenrose and Arthur F. Kinney, particularly with reference
to Tortilla Flat (Steinbeck himself pointed to the parallel with Morte
D'Arthur in the preface he wrote for this novel), but not only in relation with
1 For details about these adaptations, cf. Gaines, 1990: 111, 115, 116, 122 passim.
2 The main reviews and comments on Steinbeck's work are the following ones, taken
from Life, 1980: 73: P. L. Adams (1976a and 1976b); Edmund Fuller (1976); J.
Gardner (1976); G. A. Masterton (1976 and 1977); M. S. Cosgrave (1977); Cynthia
Johnson (1977); Derek Mahon (1977); Diana Rowan (1977); T. A. Shippey (1977);
M. C. Williams (1977); and John Ditsky (1978). More recent essays are Laura F.
Hodges (1992); Andrew Welsh (1991); and Mary C. Williams (1984). See also note
19 for a discussion on the influence exerted by Malory on Steinbeck's other works.
3 Perhaps a copy of Dr. Edward Brooks's The Story of King Arthur and the Knights of
the Table Round For Boys and Girls (1900); cf. Steinbeck's words in a letter to Mr.
and Mrs. David Heyler, Jr. (19 November 1956): "There has not been an edition of
this since 1893, the Dent edition of Caxton, except for a cut version called the Boy's
King Arthur in about 1900 which was the one I cut my teeth on. And there is no
rendering of it into modern English" (in Steinbeck & Wallsten, 1975: 540).
46
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
Tortilla Flat, since this interest is also present in other works of fiction: Cup
of Gold, In Dubious Battle and Of Mice and Men.1
Steinbeck's fascination with Malory was so strong that he contemplated
for many years a very ambitious plan: to rewrite Morte D'Arthur for the sake
of those who found Malory unpalatable to contemporary taste. I quote his
own words, when he explained exactly what he intended:
[…] in our day, we are perhaps impatient with the old words and
the stately rhythms of Malory. My own first and continuing enchantment with these things is not generally shared. I wanted to
set them down in plain present-day speech for my own young
sons, and for other sons not so young --to set the stories down in
meaning as they were written, leaving out nothing and adding
nothing-- perhaps to compete with the moving pictures, the comicstrip travesties which are the only available source for those
children and others of today who are impatient with the difficulties
of Malory's spelling and use of archaic words. If I can do this and
keep the wonder and the magic, I shall be pleased and gratified. In
no sense do I wish to rewrite Malory, or reduce him, or change him,
or soften or sentimentalize him. I believe the stories are great
enough to survive my tampering, which at best will make the
history available to more readers, and at worst can't hurt Malory
very much (1976: xiii).
According to this, then, Steinbeck was pursuing none of the usual aims
characteristic of the abridgments and adaptations I have briefly examined before, i. e., he did not want to rewrite properly, in the sense of reducing the
original, or changing what he did not consider "appropriate", or softening or
sentimentalizing the text, as many 19th- and also 20th-century authors had
done. His purpose was not moral, nor educational in the strict sense of the
1 Cf. Warren French (1961); Joseph Fontenrose (1963); Arthur F. Kinney (1965); as
well as No. 5 of Steinbeck Monograph Series, entitled Steinbeck and the Arthurian
Theme, edited by Tetsumaro Hayashi for The John Steinbeck Society of America
(English Department, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana, 1975). This volumen
contains the following essays: Warren French, "Steinbeck's Use of Malory", pp. 411; Arthur Kinney, "Tortilla Flat Re-Visited", pp. 12-24; Roy S. Simmonds, "A
Note on Steinbeck's Unpublished Arthurian Stories", pp. 25-29, and "The
Unrealized Dream: Steinbeck's Modern Version of Malory", pp. 30-43; as well as
"A Selected Bibliography: Steinbeck and the Arthurian Theme" by Tetsumaro
Hayashi, pp. 44-46.
47
Fernando Galván
word. He simply wanted to put Malory's language "in present-day speech".
Well, that is what he says he tried to do. What did he finally achieve? What
is the result of many years of work on Malory, because he was concerned -even if not working on it continuously-- at least from 1956 (notice his letter to
Mr. and Mrs. David Heyler, Jr. quoted earlier in note 18) to almost the end of
his life in 1968?
Although he was worried and tried to work in this project during a period
of about 12 years, Steinbeck never finished it, and what he wrote was not
published by him, but was only posthumously edited by his friend Chase
Horton in 1976 under the title The Acts of King Arthur and his Noble
Knights. Moreover, it seems that the text which was published does not collect the totality of work completed by Steinbeck on Malory's version, since a
Steinbeck scholar, Roy S. Simmonds, studied for his 1975 paper "A Note on
Steinbeck's Unpublished Arthurian Stories" (1975a) the typescript of what
Steinbeck had called Arthur, and the description he makes of it does not coincide with the final version edited by Horton.
Steinbeck's book (from now onwards Acts) comprises seven chapters; the
titles are: "Merlin", "The Knight with the Two Swords", "The Wedding of
King Arthur", "The Death of Merlin", "Morgan le Fay", "Gawain, Ewain, and
Marhalt", and "The Noble Tale of Sir Lancelot of the Lake". The first six
chapters, although the titles are not exactly the same, correspond to the six
chapters into which Vinaver divided the first tale in his edition of the Works,
that is, "The Tale of King Arthur"; and the seventh is naturally a rendering of
the third tale in Vinaver's edition, "A Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake".
However, Roy S. Simmonds mentions in his paper an eighth chapter, the
longest of all, entitled "The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney", which would correspond logically to the following (fourth) tale in Vinaver's edition. Chase
Horton did not include this in his edition of Acts and does not even mention
it, despite the fact that Simmonds had obviously examined it, and two copies
of this typescript are preserved, one (the original) being held by McIntosh
and Otis, Inc., and the other, a carbon copy, is found in the University of
Texas at Austin, in the Pascal Covici-John Steinbeck collection held by the
Humanities Research Center (see Simmonds, 1975a: 25-26). It seems evident,
then, that Steinbeck was following Vinaver's edition, and that he probably did
not have the intention of working on the second romance, "The Tale of the
Noble King Arthur That Was Emperor Himself Through Dignity Of His
48
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
Hands", according to Vinaver because (quoted by Simmonds, 1975a: 26) "the
omission of the second romance is perfectly justifiable on the grounds that
stylistically it is far too archaic to lend itself to the same treatment that
Steinbeck had given the other sections".
What kind of work did Steinbeck do, then? How could he do it, was he a
scholar, could he read and understand the original text? These are questions
that can be answered briefly before we pass to examine his achievements.
I have already commented on his aims, quoting his own words from the
Introduction to the book. Let me now quote him again, from a letter of 19
November 1956 to his literary agent Elizabeth Otis, where he explains clearly
his method:
I'm going to make a trial run --not removing all of the old forms, nor
all the Malory sentence structure, but substituting known simple
words and reversing sentences which even now are puzzling.
There are several things I will not do. I will not clean it up.
Pendragon did take the wife of Cornwall, and that is the way it was.
I think children not only understand these things but accept them
until they are confused by moralities which try by silence to
eliminate reality. These men had women and I'm going to keep
them. On the other hand, I am going to keep the book and chapter
heads and in these I shall keep the Malory-Caxton language intact.
I think it is going to be fun to do.
When I have some of it done, I shall with an opening essay tell of
my own interest in the cycle, when it started and where it went -into scholarship and out again on the other side. In this essay I
shall also try to put down what I think has been the impact of this
book on our language, our attitudes, and morals, and our ethics.
[…]
One other thing I do not want to do. There are many places in this
book which are not clear, as poetry is not clear. They are not literal.
I don't intend to make them clear or literal. I remember too well my
own delight in conjecture (Steinbeck, 1976: 297).
About Steinbeck's knowledge of Middle English and his expertise in
scholarship there is some controversy; some critics have pointed that he was
49
Fernando Galván
(Frazier, 1969, cited by Simmonds, 1975a: 27) "rather less-read than he
claimed". But a scholar of the reputation of Eugène Vinaver no less, who met
Steinbeck on numerous occasions and was familiar with his project on
Malory, has written judgments like the following ones; referring to his scholarship he said:
He was […] very modest about it, and anxious to learn as much as
he could. He knew his Malory very well indeed, and it was a fascinating experience to talk to him about it. He could see in Malory
certain things that the so-called experts have consistently failed to
see, for instance the stylistic discrepancies between the various
parts of the work, indicative of its gradual growth.1
On Steinbeck's version specifically, Vinaver wrote:
It is an admirable piece of prose --both Steinbeckian and Malorian-and would make a much more attractive book than any other
adaptation I know of Malory's romances … It would have been
wonderful to have his version of the Death of Arthur story, which
is the finest of them all.2
It seems that Vinaver had seen some 100 pages of the total amount of
about 500 that Steinbeck completed before his death and his judgement was
very favourable. In another letter to Roy S. Simmonds, Vinaver added that the
drafts he read were "by far the best thing of its kind written in English since
the fifteenth century".3
Steinbeck himself insisted several times that his work on Malory was to
be his greatest achievement and that he had been preparing for it almost all
his life. In a letter to his boyhood friend John Murphy dated 12 June 1961 he
put it very clearly, foreseeing even the impossibility of the task:
All my life has been aimed at one book and I haven't started it yet.
The rest had all been practice. Do you remember the Arthurian
1 Eugène Vinaver, in a letter to Roy S. Simmonds, dated 25 July 1970, quoted in
Simmonds, 1975a: 27
2 Eugène Vinaver, in a letter to Roy S. Simmonds, dated 1 August 1972, quoted in
Simmonds, 1975a: 27.
3 Eugène Vinaver, in a letter to Roy S. Simmonds, dated 25 July 1970, quoted in
Simmonds, 1975b: 43.
50
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
legend well enough to raise in your mind the symbols of Launcelot
and his son Galahad? You see, Launcelot was imperfect and so he
never got to see the Holy Grail. So it is with all of us. […]
The setting down of words is only the final process. It is possible,
through accident, that the words for my book may never be set
down but I have been working and studying toward it for over
forty years. Only the last of the process waits to be done --and it
scares the hell out of me (Steinbeck & Wallsten, 1975: 859).
In short, then, Steinbeck's work was not an improvisation. He was fully
conscious of what he was doing, of the difficulties involved, and tried to prepare himself for the task. His interest was so genuine that after the discovery
and subsequent publication by Vinaver of the Winchester manuscript he
studied the text and met the Manchester professor in 1957 to discuss his
plans. He even visited Glastonbury and was so fascinated with the place that,
with the help of the playwright Robert Bolt, rented a cottage (Discove
Cottage) in the area, and in March 1959 arrived in England with the purpose
of writing his version of Malory. As he wrote to Vinaver, explaining his purpose in setting in Somerset:
To hear the speech and feel the air, to rub hands on the lithic tactile memories at Stonehenge, to sit at night on the untouristed eyrie
at Tintagel and to find Arthur's mound and try to make friends with
the Cornish fayries and the harsh weirds of the Pennines. That's
what I want, so that my book grows out of its natural earth
(Steinbeck & Wallsten, 1975: 605).
He and his wife stayed in the cottage for seven months; Steinbeck wrote
there approximately 2000 words per day, although a good deal of what he
wrote went to the waste paper basket (about 500 pages according to his own
information) (see Simmonds, 1975b: 39). What Steinbeck did with Malory after
this British visit is difficult to know with accuracy because he was very
reluctant to talk about his work,1 although there are many passing references
in his letters of subsequent years to this work in progress.1
1 As he said to Michael Ratcliffe in an interview for the Sunday Times ("Cutting
Loose at Sixty: by John Steinbeck", Sunday Times, 16 December 1962, p. 20), he
had been working on Malory for several years, but "I don't like to talk about it, as
51
Fernando Galván
What is no doubt of great interest is to see through some of these letters
the process of rewriting Malory, how the original plan was evolving when
Steinbeck encountered the natural difficulties of adapting the 15th century
language to contemporary English. I'll allude to some of this when I examine
the text. In writing to Vinaver while in Discove Cottage (27 August 1959)
Steinbeck feels frustrated when faced to the difficulty of the task (Steinbeck
& Wallsten, 1975: 648):
I have a dreadful discontent with any efforts so far. They seem
puny in the face of a hideous subject and I use the word in a
Malorian sense. How to capture this greatness? Who could improve on or change Launcelot's "For I take recorde of God, in you I
have had myn erthly joye--" There it is. It can't be changed or
moved. Or Launcelot's brother Ector di Maris --"Thou were the
curtest knight that ever bare shelde! And thou were the trewest
frende to thy lover that ever bestrayed hors and thou were the
truest lover of a synful man that ever loved woman--" Good God,
who could make that more moving? This is great poetry, passionate and epic and with also the stab of heartbreak. Can you see the
problem? Do you know any answer?
I have no space here to delve into detailed analysis of Malory's and
Steinbeck's prose, so I shall have to give simply an outline of the difficulties
that Steinbeck had to face in order to rewrite Malory without being unfaithful
to his prose and to the spirit of the work. I have found extremely useful two
books which I think contain the best analyses done on Malory's language: P.
J. C. Field's Romance and Chronicle. A Study of Malory's Prose Style (1971)
and Mark Lambert's Malory. Style and Vision in "Le Morte Darthur" (1975).
It would be very fruitful to study some of the devices examined by Field and
when I do I put it by, but it isn't going to be like T. H. White, that I do know"
(quoted by Simmonds, 1975b: 40).
1 See his letters, specially those to his agent Elizabeth Otis and to Chase Horton included in the Appendix of Chase Horton's edition of the Acts (pp. 297-364), but
also the numerous letters addressed to many other friends and people collected in
Elaine Steinbeck' & Robert Wallsten's edition of Steinbeck. A Life in Letters (1975):
pp. 540, 541-42, 544, 551, 552-54, 575-80, 591-92, 593-94, 598-99, 604, 611, 62124, 627-28, 632, 634, 635, 638, 640, 642, 647, 648, 649-50, 656, 749, 792-93, 794,
821-823, and 825.
52
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
Lambert and compare them with what Steinbeck did in his Acts because it
would tell us much of what we miss when we read this sort of adaptations.
Certainly, a common point between Malory and Steinbeck that can be
perceived at first sight is the effort carried out by the American writer to preserve the simplicity so characteristic, and so much praised by critics, in
Malory's prose. Steinbeck's language in the Acts is generally direct, clear, as
he uses a simple vocabulary and a straightforward syntax. In this he coincides with the features of Malory's style described so convincingly by Field
in his book: both in narration and in description, as well as in dialogue,
Steinbeck seems to be fighting to preserve the values of the original text,
without falling into clumsiness. Notice, for instance, how he solves this passage in Malory, which Field cites as an instance of Malory's abusive use of
coordination to the extent that today it sounds childish or very primitive, or -as Field puts it (Field, 1971: 41)-- "sub-literate" (Vinaver, 1971: 67, quoted by
Field, 1971: 41):
Than the kynge and the quene were gretely displeased with sir
Gawayne for the sleynge of the lady, and there by ordynaunce of
the queene there was sette a queste of ladyes uppon sir Gawayne,
and they juged hym for ever whyle he lyved to be with all ladyes
and to fyght for hir quarels; and ever that he sholde be curteyse,
and never to refuse mercy to hym that askith mercy.
Steinbeck's version is of course very simple, but avoids the extremes of the
original (Steinbeck, 1976: 87):
The king and queen were displeased with him for killing the lady.
Then Guinevere set an eternal quest on Gawain that during his
whole life he would defend all ladies and fight in their cause. And
she further commanded that he should be courteous always and he
should grant mercy when it was asked.
Steinbeck's effort at simplification and clarity is so extraordinary that
eventually he avoids even the simple hypotactic constructions characteristic
of Malory. See, for instance, another passage discussed by Field, who has
pointed to the use of the adverbial clause of time to open a sentence, which is
followed then by "abusive" coordination; Steinbeck's version is even simpler,
avoiding any hypotaxis whatsoever:
53
Fernando Galván
And as kynge Arthure loked besyde hym he sawe a knight that
was passyngely well horsed. And therewith kynge Arthure ran to
hym and smote hym on the helme, that hys swerde wente unto his
teeth, and the knyght sanke downe to the erthe dede (Vinaver,
1971: 22-23, quoted in Field, 1971: 41).
Arthur saw a knight nerby well mounted on a good horse, and he
ran at him and drove his sword through helmet and teeth and brain,
and Arthur led his good horse to King Ban […] (Steinbeck, 1976:
28)
However, Steinbeck occasionaly also likes to expand. As evidence of this,
and of his ability to render dialogue and combine it with description, notice
the following passage, which tells of the meeting of Gawain and Ettard. This
excerpt --according to Field (1971: 138-139)-- is unique in Malory for its
transformation of the meeting between both characters in the sources used
by Malory, and also for its remarkable diction. The deliberate ambiguity in the
use of language both by Ettard and by Gawain is strongly suggestive of
these characters, and marks clearly the process of seduction. Notice how
Steinbeck also makes use of this ambiguity in his version, renders fifteenthcentury colloquial language into equivalent contemporary idiom and recreates the whole scene with additional details:
"Truly," seyde she, "that is grete pyté for he was a passynge good
knyght of his body. But of all men on lyve I hated hym moste, for I
coude never be quytte of hym. And for ye have slayne hym I shall
be your woman and to do onythynge that may please you."
So she made sir Gawayne good chere. Than sir Gawayne sayde
that he loved a lady and by no meane she wolde love hym.
"Sche is to blame," seyde Ettarde, "and she woll nat love you, for
ye that be so well-borne a man and suche a man of prouesse, there
is no lady in this worlde to good for you."
"Woll ye," seyde sir Gawaye, "promyse me to do what that ye may
do be the fayth of your body to gete me the love of my lady?"
"Yee, sir, and that I promyse you be my fayth."
54
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
"Now," seyde sir Gawayne, "hit is yourself that I love so well;
therefore holde your promyse. "
"I may nat chese," seyde the lady Ettarde, "but if I sholde be forsworne." (Vinaver, 1971: 102, quoted by Field, 1971: 138-139)
"That is true," Ettarde said. "He was a wonderful fighting man -but I hated him because I could not be rid of him. He cried and
wept and moaned like a sick calf until I wished him dead. I like a
man of decision. Since you have slain him for me, I shall grant you
anything you wish." And Ettarde blushed when she said it.
Now Gawain looked at her and saw that she was fair, and he remembered his faithless little damsel with loathing, and his vanity
cried out for conquest. He smiled with confidence. "I will hold you
to your promise, my lady," he said and he was pleased to see her
cheeks turn rosy with excitement. She led him to her castle and set
a bath for him with scented water, and when he was clad in a loose
robe of purple cloth, she gave him food and wine and sat beside
him so that her shoulder touched him. "Now tell me what you wish
of me?" she said softly. "You will find I pay my debts."
Gawain took her hand. "Very well," he said. "I love a lady, but she
does not love me."
"Oh!" Ettarde exclaimed in confusion and jealousy. "Then she is a
fool. You are a king's son and a king's nephew, young, handsome,
brave. What ails your love? No lady in the world is too good for
you. She must be a fool." She looked into Gawain's smiling eyes.
"As my reward," he said, "I want your promise that you will do
anything in your power to get me the love of my lady."
Ettarde controlled her face to conceal her disappointment. "I don't
know what I could do," she said.
"Do I have your promise, on your faith?"
"Well --yes--yes. I promise, since I promised. Who is the lady and
what can I do?"
Gawain looked long at her before he replied, "You are the lady, you
are my love. You know what you can do. I hold you to your
promise. "
55
Fernando Galván
"Oh!" she cried. "You are a trickster. No lady is safe with you. You
have laid a trap for me."
"Your promise!"
"I suppose I cannot help myself," said the lady Ettarde. "If I
should not give you what you ask I would be false to my oath, and
I hold my honor above my life, my love.” (Steinbeck, 1976: 147-148)
More considerable expansions are found in Steinbeck's version of the
third tale, "A Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake", where a simple paragraph
in Malory becomes several pages in Steinbeck's prose. This, as one Steinbeck
scholar (John Ditsky) has commented, is an effect of the natural impatience
felt by the novelist with the tiresome task of literal translation. It is then when
Steinbeck behaves exactly like Malory with his "Frensshe bookes",
introducing new material --thus contravening his own initial purpose-- and
freely imagining new episodes. His innovations are occasionally rather bold,
as when he introduces references to his own personal life and friends. This
critic, John Ditsky, has drawn our attention over the following passage in
Malory and Steinbeck (second chapter of the first tale):
And there sir Kay the Senesciall dud passyngely well, that dayes
of hys lyff the worship wente never frome hym, and sir Hervis de
Revel that dud merveylous dedys of armys that day with Arthur
(Vinaver, 1971: 47).
Sir Kay fought so well that day that the memory of his deeds has
lived forever. And Sir Hervis de Revel of the line of Sir Thomas
Malory distinguished himself, as did Sir Tobinus Streat de
Montroy (Steinbeck, 1976: 61).
As Ditsky explains, this intruder Sir Tobinus Streat is none other than
"Steinbeck's old crony from earlier days in California, Webster F. ("Toby")
Street". Ditsky adds (Ditsky, 1978: 634): "What finer tribute to a former college roommate and drinking companion --the man who turned over to him the
idea for To a God Unknown when he himself had been unable to work it into
a satisfactory play-- than to place him in print and eternal glory, fighting
alongside King Arthur, and with distinction?".
56
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
Nevertheless, Steinbeck is constantly returning to his source, and his fidelity to Malory's text is manifest in strict quotation. That is, sometimes he
does not translate; he merely reproduces some sentences from the original.
Thus at the end of some chapters (second and third chapters of the first tale,
and the end of the third tale), as well as within his text, when an episode is
finished. He then appropriates Malory's words, used in italics, and simply
quotes: "Here begynnith the fyrst batayle that ever Sir Gawayne ded after he
was made knyght" (Steinbeck, 1976: 83), or "And thus endith the adventure
of Sir Gawayne that he did at the mariage of Arthure" (Steinbeck, 1976: 87);
also when Malory employs his typical device of the narrator who seeks the
reader's complicity: "Now leve we thes knyghtes presoners, and speke we of
sir Lancelot de Lake that lyeth undir the appil-tre slepynge" (Steinbeck, 1976:
226), and even in longer passages:
Now turn we back to yonge Syr Gaherys who rode into the manor
of Syr Tarquin slayne by Lancelot. And there he found a yoman
porter kepyng many keyes. Than sir Gaherys threw the porter unto
the grounde and toke the keyes frome hym; and hastely he opynde
the preson dore, and there he lette all the presoners oute, and
every man lowsed other of their bondys (Steinbeck, 1976: 265).1
Evidently, Steinbeck tried to avoid archaic vocabulary and phrases, but in
so doing he also had to abandon manners of expression which were typically
medieval and that we consider today not even as "devices" but rather as
"mis takes". For Lambert, however, these presumed infelicities of medieval
and Malorian style are (Lambert, 1975: 1) "as respectable and functional as
any other rhetorical or stylistic devices", and should be taken into account as
relevant features of the style of the period.
One of these "mistakes" is the device Lambert calls "confirmation", that is
(Lambert, 1975: 8), "a marked similarity between the vocabularies of narrator
and character or of different characters in a relatively short passage". This is
characteristic of medieval prose, and has an important role in the interplay of
direct and indirect styles. As an illustration of how Steinbeck dealt with this
1 The original is slightly different in the beginning, but not much different; Vinaver's
edition reads: "And so they departed frome Gaherys; and Gaherys yode into the
maner, and there he founde a yoman …" (the rest is exactly the same) (Vinaver,
1971: 159).
57
Fernando Galván
kind of device, let us examine the following passage, briefly abridged by
Lambert, in the first tale:
So after the feste and journeye kynge Arthur drewe hym unto
London. And soo by the counceil of Merlyn the kyng lete calle his
barons to counceil, for Merlyn had told the kynge that the sixe
kynges that made warre upon hym wold in all haste be awroke on
hym and on his landys; wherfor the kyng asked counceil at hem al.
They coude no counceil gyve, but said they were bygge ynough.
"Ye saye well," said Arthur, "I thank you for your good courage;
but wil ye al that loveth me speke with Merlyn? Ye knowe wel that
he hath done moche for me, and he knoweth many thynges. And
whan he is afore you I wold that ye prayd hym hertely of his best
avyse." Alle the barons sayd they wold pray hym and desyre hym.
Soo Merlyn was sente for and fair desyred of al the barons to gyve
them best counceil. "I shall say you," said Merlyn. …"What were
best to do in this cause?" said al the barons. "I shall telle you,"
said Merlyn, "myne advys. There ar two bretheren beyond the see.
… Wherfor this is my counceil: that our kyng and soverayne lord
sende unto the kynges Ban and Bors by two trusty knyghtes with
letters wel devysed, that and they wil come and see kynge Arthur
and his courte to helpe hym in hys warrys, that he wolde be
sworne unto them to helpe hem in theire warrys agaynst kynge
Caludas. Now what sey ye unto this counceyle?" "Thys ys well
councelde," seyde the kynge (Vinaver, 1971: 13, quoted by
Lambert, 1975: 12-13).
And this is Steinbeck's version:
Then Arthur rested his knights and feasted them. And after a time,
when all was in order, he marched back to London and called a
general council of all his loyal barons. Merlin foretold that the six
rebellious lords would continue the war with raids and forays into
the realm. When the king asked his barons what he should do,
they answered that they would not offer their advice but only their
strength and loyalty.
Arthur thanked them for their courage and support, but he said, "I
beg all of you who love me to speak with Merlin. You will know
what he has done for me. He knows many strange and secret
58
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
things. When yo are with him ask him for his advice about what we
should do. "
The barons agreed to this, and when Merlin came to them, they
begged for his help.
"Since you ask I will tell you," Merlin said. […] "What should we
do then?" cried the barons. "What is our best course?"
"This is my advice to you," said Merlin. "Across the Channel in
France there are two brothers […] I suggest that our king should
choose two trusty knights and send them with letters to the Kings
Ban and Bors, asking their help against his enemies and promising
them that he will help them against King Claudas. Now what do
you think of this suggestion?"
King Arthur said, "It seems good advice to me." [My emphasis]
(Steinbeck, 1976: 17-18)
We can appreciate that Steinbeck has avoided the repetitive style of
"confirmation", preferring elegant variation, although he retains a lesser degree of repetition, as in the case of the word advice.
Many other features could be mentioned: the use of adjectives, the stock
phrases, the level of formality in speech, the descriptions, the creation of
landscape and setting, etc. But suffice it for the time being to give an idea of
the accomplishments and shortcomings of Steinbeck's adaptation. Further
and more detailed analyses and comparisons between Malory's and
Steinbeck's prose are still needed, but my impression is that Steinbeck was
not completely wrong in what he was doing. Thus I cannot share the disappointment felt by some critics, like Gaines, who says (Gaines, 1990: 121) he is
"left with a sense of a vision unfulfilled and a quest incomplete". True, his
version was not faithful, was not a strict translation into modern idiom of
Malory's text, and was also far from being the sort of "re-creation" practised
by that character in a famous Borges' tale, Pierre Menard, who re-wrote
chapters from Don Quixote through the apparently simple procedure of
copying, in the 20th century, word by word, what Cervantes had written in
the 17th.
59
Fernando Galván
It seems that Steinbeck, as he was progressing in his writing, felt more
and more imbued with Malory's spirit, and treated his text as the English
writer had done with his French sources. Steinbeck's merit is, in this respect,
higher than many other adapters before him, who simply wanted to simplify
and accommodate the text to specific audiences (mostly children). Steinbeck
was really re-writing Malory, treating him almost as an equal, as a fellow
novelist, although always from a position of respect and worship. He did not
try to sentimentalize him, to soften him, to make him something different from
what he was, as had been done by preceding adapters. He simply tried to be
Malory again writing in the twentieth century, no simple task indeed!
Let me finish with a quotation from one letter by Steinbeck sent to Chase
Horton in March 1959, which I think summarizes very well Steinbeck's
awareness of what he was doing (Steinbeck, 1976: 330):
Malory wrote the stories for and to his time. Any man hearing him
knew every word and every reference. There was nothing obscure,
he wrote the clear and common speech of his time and country. But
that has changed --the words and the references are no longer
common property, for a new language has come into being. Malory
did not write the stories. He simply wrote them for his time and his
time understood them. And so you know, Chase, suddenly in this
home ground, I was not afraid of Malory any more nor ever will be
again. This does not lessen my admiration but it does not inhibit
me either. Only I can write this for my time. And as for place --the
place has become not a little island set in a silver sea, but the
world.
And with that, almost by enchantment the words began to flow, a
close-reined, taut, economical English, unaccented and unlocalized. I put down no word that has not been judged for general understanding. Where my time cannot fill in, I build up, and where my
time would be impatient with repetition, I cut. So did Malory for his
time. It is just as simple as that and I think it is the best prose I
have ever written. I hope this is so and I believe it.
Fernando Galván
Universidad de Alcalá
60
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
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Scharnhorst, Gary 1989: Mark Twain and the Millerites: Notes on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. American Transcendental
Quarterly, 3, 3: 297-304.
Schroth, Evelyn 1983: Camelot: Contemporary Interpretation of Arthur in
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Shanley, MAry Lyndon & Peter G. Stillman 1982: Mark Twain: Technology,
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Shippey, T. A. 1977: Times Literary Supplement, 29 April: 536.
Simmonds, Roy S. 1975a: A Note on Steinbeck's Unpublished Arthurian
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68
Malory revisited: from Caxton to Steinbeck
London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 2 vols., xxxix + 383;
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Spisak, James W. 1983: Caxton's Malory. A New Edition of Sir Thomas
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Fernando Galván
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Wright, Thomas 1858: La Mort d'Arthure, edited from the text of the edition
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*†*
71
LANDSCAPE AND DESCRIPTION OF
THE NATURAL WORLD IN CHAUCER
for Patricia Shaw
So spoke the sage in his heart; he sat apart in thought.
Good is he who keeps faith: nor should care too fast
Be out of man’s breast before he first know the cure:
A warrior fights on bravely. Well is it for him who seeks forgiveness,
The Heavenly Father’s solace, in whom all our fastness stands.
(The Wanderer)
I
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Gen 1:1).
Then God separated light from darkness, day from night, heaven
from earth. Waters were gathered together in one place and the dry
land appeared. And in the earth God put vegetation, fruit trees, living creatures according to their kinds. In the waters He put great
sea monsters and living creatures according to their kind and birds
which fly above the earth and the sea. In the firmament made two
lights, a great light to rule the day and a lesser light to rule the
night, and signs for seasons and for days and years. And God saw
that it was good ( Gen 1: 1-25), and He created the landscape. Then
God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let
them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every
creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." (Gen 1:26). So God
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created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them. (Gen 1:27).1
At this step we realise two things, and I presume it is more or less the
same in other books dealing with the creation of the world, for instance
Ovid’s Metamorphosis. First that God created from Chaos an ordered world, a
world which has all the basic elements of any landscape. This opposition
between chaos and order is sometimes represented by philosophers, historians and literary writers with different landscape archetypes ( uncultivated
versus cultivated, court and forest, etc.) Second that once landscape was created man and woman were created too and put in it to dominate and take
profit of it, but , at the same time, to belong to it. Both this landscape and
man/woman are universal emblems for the world and for humankind, and
drawing an analogy we reach the conclusion that any one of us is linked to,
belongs to and is identified by a specific landscape. So the starting point is
this distinction between an ideal universal landscape and the personal landscape of our natural world. We need a landscape to write our private and singular narrative and although the description in Genesis can be read as allegorical it is also real, it is the landscape, we see in front of our eyes and are
partially part of it.
The book of Genesis goes on and it says: “And the LORD God planted a
garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed
(Gen 2:8). A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided
and became four rivers. (Gen 2:10). But God forbade man and woman to eat
from the tree of life. They did not obey the commandment and ate from that
tree and therefore “the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to
till the ground from which he was taken. (Gen 3:23). Here we are in front of a
different landscape, we are in front of a religious landscape and all the
actions, reactions, sins and punishments refer to this symbolic way of life.
From now on in the Bible we will find these two different perspectives in
landscape, the real, natural, even historical journey of man/woman through
visible with our senses landscape, and the allegorical, symbolic, inner landscape. All our lives are divided between these two visions of a landscape, be1 The quotations from the Bible are taken from the Revised Version.
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Landscape and description of the natural world in Chaucer
tween a promised land “flowing with milk and honey”. (Deut 11:9), to which
we want to return, or “forty years in the wilderness” to test us and to know
what is in or heart (Deut 8:2), and our daily, hard life of work and suffering in
the natural world, in the natural landscape. There are many other landscapes
in the Old and New Testaments which in an allegorical, spiritual manner refer
to different steps in religious life, though they are not relevant now to our
approach, nevertheless we should bear in mind.
Let us go now a step further and take some Classical references. We can
clearly state that Greek and Latin literature have a due point of reference in
landscape, and with landscape classical writers show their permanent relationship between man/poet and known and unknown world.
The Homeric poems, yet having a clear tone as songs to the greatness of
a given economic and social class, the nobility, contain landscape elements
that denote the importance that the Greek man gives to his environment.
Those elements are evident and strong in Odysseia (The Odyssey) , the voyage of Ulysses in search of his homeland which includes a series of wonderful elements and the special conditions of the marine world, but also in Ilias
(The Iliad), where a struggle between the prime elements, the water, the wind,
the fire, the earth, represented by the Hellenic divinities will serve the first
Greek philosophers to explain the operation of Nature. Hesiod, especially in
Labores et Dies (Works and Days), brings a first break with Homer’s
grandiose and epic world. The individualism bursts out for the first time in the
literary world, and the natural environment is described as a source, not only
of inspiration for the man serving the gods, but also for the man serving the
land. One of the writers who developed an archetypal description of the ideal
and bucolic landscape was Theocritus. In his Idyllia (Idyls) are framed the
basic elements of pastoral poetry which have been widely imitated and
emulated in Western literature: shepherds, goatherds, places of tranquillity
and infinite silence, linked with his sentimental and material worries.
Theocritus will be followed by the great Latin masters, Horace, Tibullus,
Propertius, Virgil and Ovid and landscape acquires a central role in their
works emphasising the mixture of an objective scene and the expression of
their inner feelings.
As we know Latin writers during August era suffered great political hardships and strict censorship on the part of the emperor.
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In Corpus Tibullianum, attributed to Tibullus, the topic of love and disillusion is seen adorned by a singular landscape, simple and free from worries
and wealth. Horace describes in his love poems the topic of the locus
amoenus, a place in which his feelings, marked by the change of the seasons,
are extreme when he sings to the beloved one. Two particular examples I will
like to mention are Virgil and Ovid. Virgil was on the point of being expropriated of his lands to be given to the soldiers in reward for the war. Ovid was
actually expropriated and banned out of Rome; he lived part of his lifetime on
exile. In Virgil and Ovid we see the two opposite faces of landscape as a
reflection of the political and personal situation at that time. Virgil, in spite of
the confiscation of lands after the civil wars, thanks the Prince August for not
taking his properties and expresses in a happy and bucolic landscape his new
personal situation. In the other side Ovid represents in his elegies the
sadness of the exile and his terrible and dark description of the Black Sea
expresses the fear that produces to him to live in so a different territory from
his beloved Rome. Virgil and Ovid see their individual state of affairs
expressing their feelings and fears in The Eclogues1 , the former and in
Tristium2 , the latter.
1 MELIBOEUS: “Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi / siluestrem tenui
musam meditaris auena: / nos patriae finis et dulcia linquimus arua. / nos patriam
fugimus: tu,Tityre, lentus in umbra / formosan resonare doces Amaryllida siluas.”
(You, Tityrus, 'neath a broad beech-canopy, reclining, on the slender oat rehearse
your silvan ditties. I from my sweet fields, and home's familiar bounds, even now
depart. Exiled from home am I; while, Tityrus, you sit careless in the shade, and, at
your call,"Fair Amaryllis" bid the woods resound.)
2 TRISTIUM. LIBER PRIMUS IV: “Tingitur oceano custos Erymanthidos ursae /
Aequoreasque suo sidere turbat aquas; / Nos tamen Ionium non nostra findimus aequor / Sponte, sed audaces cogimur esse metu. / Me miserum! quantis increscunt
aequora uentis, / Erutaque ex imis feruet arena uadis! / Monte nec inferior prorae
puppique recuruae / Insilit et pictos uerberat unda deos. / Pinea texta sonant, pulsu
stridore rudentes, / Ingemit et nostris ipsa carina malis. / Nauita confessus gelidum
pallore timorem, / Iam sequitur uictus, non regit arte ratem. / Vtque parum ualidus
non proficientia rector / Ceruicis rigidae frena remittit equo, / Sic, non quo uoluit,
sed quo rapit impetus undae, / Aurigam uideo uela dedisse rati.” (The guardian of
the Erimanthy Bear bathes in the ocean and with its influx agitates the waters of the
sea. We, however, sail the Jonic Sea and not by our will, but fear compels us to be
bold. Unhappy of me! How with impetuous winds grow the waters and even the
extracted sand from the deepest abysses boils! A wave, curled as a mountain, assaults the prow and the bent stern and flogs the images of the gods represented in
her. Resound the beaten pine flanks of the vessel and we hear the tackles crunching,
and the same vessel groans to our misfortunes. The pilot, revealing the panic in his
pallor face, relinquishes expired the impulse of the ship and with his skill cannot
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Landscape and description of the natural world in Chaucer
In both writers we appreciate two different perspectives which express
“real world” in two different levels: the daily life and the fictional, “literary”
level. Consequently we have two different landscapes, or we may say two
different views of the same landscape. The physical description which have
all the elements we saw in the book of Genesis, the forest, the birds, the cattle, the sea, the storm, the light, the darkness, etc., and the psychological description full of happiness and beatitude in Virgil and full of anxiety and fear
in Ovid. In fact both quotations build up a literary pattern of landscape to
which we can refer, and indeed do it, when we want to define, in Literature,
character, plot and mood, among other things.
II
So we see how both in the Bible and in the Classical references the
archetypal landscape is a way and means of interpreting life, but also literature and art. But what is more important the study of the literature and its relationship to landscape and Nature must take into account those references
that present not only recognition, but also mediation. Every literary expression is a response to some needs and social conditions, individual and historical of the era in which appears and the form that adopts reflects, in some
way, the form that the society, the individual and the historical propose for
their own consolidation. The ideological critique unveils the ways in which
the use of the landscape masks or forgets social and political aspects. On the
other hand the intellectual history has sought the property of various forms
of landscape to express a given historical period. When these periods are
critical the writers and artists favour or are opposed to the renovations or to
the revolutions using landscape to show the effects in the social scene.
Art that can be “read” through reference to a body of shared iconographical knowledge whose meanings are no longer public but arise from a private
encounter between the viewer and the work of scene. We build up a sympathy and preference or a rejection, we adopt a positive or a negative attitude in
front of specific, real, landscapes. We describe the landscape “as we see it”
not “as it is”. But, sometimes, even this perception that we believe personal
govern it yet. And as a auriga intimidated abandons the reins, that no longer serve
him, on the hard cervix of the horse, thus I see the untied sails of the ship go, not
where he wants, but where the pulse of the waves drags them.)
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and subjective is also mediated by given conventions and perspectives.
Literary, artistic genre is one of those conventional perspectives. Literary
genre has its conventions and rules, and forces us to accept as plausible and
adequate to the genre specific landscapes. Deviation from those generic rules
produces either a reinterpretation or a rejection of that genre.
From the period of the invasions landscape is presented as a vital reality
that adopts different ways in different literary expressions. If we had to establish a brief taxonomy we would talk of three groups:
a. - the epic and lyric poetry
b. - the chronicles and histories
c. - the travel and exploration reports.
In the epic or lyric poetry, either of religious or pagan character, given to
the importance of the presence of Christian feeling and thought in it, we can
see the influence of the biblical archetype and the description of the landscapes is strongly shaded by the values of good and evil, purity and sin,
loneliness and pardon, the idea of life as a pilgrimage full with obstacles that
one must surpass to reach the Celestial Jerusalem, as we read in The Seafarer,
The Wanderer, Bewoulf, St Andreas, Juliana, Judith, etc. On the other hand,
we see how poetry shares the personal attitudes expressed by Virgil and Ovid
when they describe landscape as an image of individual fate and destiny.
If we except the Historia by Bede, most of the chronicles written in the
Old English period reflect the vital hardships of the peoples who conquer and
invade unknown lands. In this sense there is no evident influence of the
archetypes mentioned above, though it would be worth checking the degree
of similarity and/or difference with Greek and Roman histories and chronicles.
The description of the landscape corresponds, then, to the vital tour that the
invading hosts take along the conquered land, introducing occasionally
supernatural or magic aspects close to the epic vision. In the case of Bede,
his Historia, in many cases is written shaded by the religious feeling that impregnates it and so the influence of the biblical archetype is clear.
Much more interesting are the exploration and travel reports since they
come from the traveller or reporter’s personal point of view, that is to say
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Landscape and description of the natural world in Chaucer
from a subject. Brevity and accuracy are rules in these pieces of prose and
they must offer a synthesis of what is seen and heard, using some conventional standard patterns, or formulas as in poetry, that will allow the receiver of
the report a tight comprehension and perception of what is being described
to him. An excellent example of this sensibility in front of an unknown land is
Othere’s report to king Alfred in which Othere describes his experiences and
impressions in his trip to the North Sea. If we look at it briefly, the first thing
we find is a axial coincidence between space and time describing geographically the visited coasts, so that the traveller’s references are always the cardinal direction in which they are and the time elapsed in travelling them. The
second descriptive criterion uses waters and winds, seen as positive or negative elements according to if they favour or not the traveller and explorer’s
way through. Here we realise how the medieval archetype of the “homo viator” is appearing and, consequently the confrontation between movement
and settlement, between enclosed and open spaces, between court, town and
country. Nevertheless the reporter, Othere, emphasises the oppositional patterns:
deserted, bare land versus cultivated
hunting versus agriculture
non linguistic communities versus linguistic
primitive versus civilised
Since Ohthere’s aim is to inform Alfred about his forbears’ place of origin,
the final social evaluation, about possession and dispossession, transforms
landscape into a field and forest ready to be manipulated and used by man
and so the reporter offers us a “marked” vision of that landscape. This is also
the case, for instance, of the 12th century trip chronicle written by Gerald of
Cambriae, Topographiae Hibernicae, in which Gerald uses this same
opposition, primitive/civilised, this time with a political value, since making of
Ireland a primitive and uncivilised country that fact justifies the English
invasion lead by Henry II as an invaluable benefit in the education and
culture of that land.
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The Norman invasion and the medievalization of the literature and culture
of the islands stress also the codification of the elements that build them up,
and among these elements is the landscape. Two characteristics prevail and
are pre-eminent in the use of the landscape as a "pattern" in medieval
literature. In the first place the link of a specific landscape model with the
motive or topic that governs the literary form, either be it lyric or narrative.
While courtly literature calls to mind life at court, the forest is an archetypal
landscape in which the knight’s adventure is validated emphasising the unknown and unrefined1 . As relevant examples we may mention, the topic of
love, the topic of the adventure and the dream-vision motive. In second place
the alternation and contraposition of landscapes with given spaces, that is to
say the contraposition, for example of the closed space, the castle, and the
open space, the forest. As an example we may mention the landscapes in Sir
Orfeo, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers the Plowman and Pearl. In
all those cases landscape is made into a formula or group of formulas that
favour or contribute to frame the tension, the atmosphere, and even define
the properly said literary genre. But, also, in all those cases landscape has an
objective quality and be what they might be its situational modification can
be defined and recognised as literary “patterns”, narrative or lyric, that very
rarely express a subjective pose and attitude. Nevertheless we accept
Corinne’s stand that in Sir Gawain and The Green Knight there is a move to
social and moral realism and the forest is both real and fantastic, “ a fictional
landscape poised midway between ernest and game”(155).
In the 14th century due to the economic and social change, a change in
the artistic taste and literary perception happens. "Gothic" realism and naturalism together with the appearance of the economic subject give way to the
literary subject. In this situation the writers of the period reinforce their literary creations with necessary doses of subjectivy. Almost unimportant in
John Gower and in the Pearl-poet. Scarce in Piers the Plowman where the
sleeper and dreamer when he awakes is identified with a real family and place,
it is no doubt in the prose of John of Mandeville and John of Trevisa, in
1 Corinne J. Saunders in her book The Forest in Medieval Romance: Avernus,
Borceliande, Arden. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993, examines the development of
this landscape as an instrument of revelation of the human psyche in romance literature in Medieval and Renaissance periods.
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Landscape and description of the natural world in Chaucer
theatre in Prima and Secunda Pastorum and in Chaucer mainly in The
Canterbury Tales where the use of landscape acquires its modern function.
In Chaucer the treatment of landscape undergoes the customary review of
all the literary material affected by the characteristic realistic pose in this
medieval author. It is true, that this progressive "simplification" of landscape
towards an expression of it in relation to the "modernisation" of the narrative
character and of the narrative itself is not exclusive of Chaucer. The search
for a greater reflection of reality or "mimesis" in romance as well as in the
Briton lay or in lyric poetry deprives landscape of its pattern connotations or
arquetypic marks and endows it with a particularity that only affects to a
character, to a situation or to a narrative. However, the change is not absolute, but partial and is mixed with the traditional uses known.
In this way we observe that the descriptive standards of landscape are
kept in The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame and Troilus and
Criseyde. In the first, since it is an allegorical romance with an elegiac tone,
the forest and the hunt are the landscape settings that point to the literary
genre, but the use of a “real” dog -also a deviation from the bestiary traditionas a guide that leads the poet through the forest and the realistic final strokes
that wake up the dreamer and reminds the reader/listener of the time of the
day, consequently, of the medieval felling of the passing of time, are innovative elements in the use of natural world. In The House of Fame we see a
double "deviation" of landscape pattern in one of the best known literary
conventions: the dram-vision". Here the dreamer is not “cotextualised” by the
usual spring setting, but by desert and, furthermore, the desert here is not
presented as place of retirement and pray, according to the biblical model,
neither as the untilled land according to the romance model. Here the desert
and the winter issues the difficulty that surrounds the road towards the unknown and ephemeral: fame.
In Troilus and Criseyde with its mixing of trojanisation, medievalisation
and gothicism the innovation is much weaker, and the author focuses his attention on the renewal of characters and their psychological study. There are,
nevertheless, details that confirm a will of realistic use of the landscape, but it
is in the central sequence, that in which Criseyde is cheated and seduced,
where Chaucer incorporates an element of landscape, rain, as a singular and
specific part of this narrative.
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The variety in way and function is much more evident in The Canterbury
Tales and also absence or minimalism. The interest is centred on the subject,
to whom is given frequently a proper name and who is usually identified with
profession, craft and trade. Except for the presence of landscape in its
traditional way in rare instances as in the "opening" of the General Prologue,
in the "fairy tale" told by the Wife of Bath, in the oak where death is leaning
in The Pardoner’s Tale, in most of the collection landscape has modern, realistic function. For instance as a body metaphor in the description of the
Squire in The General Prologue:
Embrouded was he, as it were a meede
Al ful of fresshe floures, whyte and reede
Syngynge he was, or floytynge, al the day;
He was as fressh as is the month of May (GP 89-92)1
or in the Miller's Tale when Alisoun is compared to a pearl-tree (MT 3248) or
that she “…koude skippe and make a game,/As any kyde or kalf folwynge his
dame.” (MT 3259-60). Sometimes landscape is used as a definition of craft,
profession and trade: The Yeoman was “a forster”, (GP 117) a man of the
forest; the Shipman “knew alle the havenes” (GP 407), and the Miller “Ther
gooth a brook, and over that a brigge,/Upon the whiche brook ther stant a
melle;” (RT 3922-23). Other times landscape describes the “personal habitat”
of a character placing her or him in social rank and status: The Maunciple was
living in a house “…ful faire upon an heeth;/ With grene trees shadwed was
his place”. (GP 606-607); or at the beginning of the Nun’s Priest’ Tale when
we read that an old and poor widow “Was whilom dwellyng in a narwe
cotage,/Biside a grove, stodyng in a dale. (NPT 2822-23). As knowledge of
Nature and natural phenomena, as the poor scholar of the Miller’s Tale that
could foresee if being asked at certain times “Whan that men sholde have
droghte or elles shoures,”(MT 3196) or the Host using all these elements as a
time reference and break of the travel. The sun si getting down. It is late and
the Host knows that because landscape shadows are changing
Oure Hooste saugh wel that the brighte sonne
1 All references have been taken from Larry D. Benson, ed. The Riverside Chaucer.
Oxford: OUP, 1989.
82
Landscape and description of the natural world in Chaucer
The ark of his artificial day hath ronne
The ferthe part, and half an houre and moore,
And though he were nat depe ystert in loore,
He wiste it was the eightetethe day
Of Aprill, that is messager to May;
And saugh wel that the shadwe of every tree
Was as in lengthe the same quantitee
That was the body erect that caused it.
And therfore by the shadwe he took his wit
That Phebus, which that shoon so clere and brighte,
Degrees was fyve and fourty clombe on highte,
And for that day, as in that latitude,
It was ten of the clokke, he gan conclude,
And sodeynly he plighte his hors aboute. (ML’s Prologue 1-15)
Or it can be used as a place for pleasure and relax opposite to town. We
realise that if we listen to the Wife of Bath’s words:
And so bifel that ones in a Lente
So often tymes I to my gossyb wente,
For evere yet I loved to be gay,
And for to walke in March, Averill, and May,
Fro hous to hous, to heere sondry talys-That lankyn clerk, and my gossyb dame Alys,
And I myself, into the feeldes wente. (WT 543-549)
or opposite to norm and discipline the Monk was “An outridere, that lovede
venerie,”(GP 166). There are more examples, but I would like to finish with an
image in the Knight’s Tale that in some way is emblematic of this new
function that landscape is acquiring to Chaucer’s modern eyes. The scene
describes the funeral pyre in which Arcite’s corpse is going to be burn. To
build up the pyre the “medieval” forest is destroyed an so is the archetype.
The duke Theseus willing to honour Arcite is looking for the right place to
build the funeral pyre and finally he reaches the conclusion that the best
place is the place in the forest in which Palamon and Arcite first fought each
other for Emily’s love:
And at the laste he took conclusioun
That ther as first Arcite and Palamoun
83
Ricardo Sola
Hadden for love the bataille hem bitwene,
That in that selve grove, swoote and grene,
Ther as he hadde his amorouse desires,
His compleynte, and for love his hoote fires,
He wolde make a fyr in which the office
Funeral he myghte al accomplice. (KT 2857-2864)
He orders to cut down the old oaks -the romantic, “knightly” oak of the
Book of the Duchess- and make of them wood to feed the fire:
And leet comande anon to hakke and hewe
The okes olde, and leye hem on a rewe.
In colpons wel arrayed for to brenne.
His officers with swifte feet they renne
And ryde anon at his comandement. (KT 2865-2869)
A few lines further the destruction of the archetypal landscape is fully accomplished and all kinds of trees and plants are cut down and thrown into the fire, so many in quantity and kind that the author decides not to count them all:
Heigh labour and ful greet apparaillynge
Was at the service and the fyr-makynge,
That with his grene top the hevene raughte;
And twenty fadme of brede the armes straughte-This is to seyn, the bowes weren so brode.
Of stree first ther was leyd ful many a lode.
But how the fyr was maked upon highte,
Ne eek the names that the trees highte,
As ook, firre, birch, aspe, alder, holm, popler,
Wylugh, elm, plane, assh, box, chasteyn, lynde, laurer,
Mapul, thorn, bech, basel, ew, whippeltree-How they weren feld shal nat be toold for me; (KT 2913-2924)
And the gods of the forests, the nymphs and the fawns, and the beasts and
the birds are expelled from paradise, from that romantic world, and the bare
ground turns pale under the bright and burning sunlight, the light of modernity:
Ne hou the goddes ronnen up and doun,
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Landscape and description of the natural world in Chaucer
Disherited of hire habitacioun,
In which they woneden in reste and pees,
Nymphes, fawnes and amadrides;
Ne hou the beestes and the briddes alle
Fledden for fere, whan the wode was falle;
Ne how the ground agast was of the light,
That was nat wont to seen the sonne bright; (KT 2925-2932)
In conclusion, the description of landscape and natural world in AngloSaxon poetry is impersonal, the sea, the cliffs, the rocks, the forests are the
suitable setting for the story or the epic narrative. Yet in the elegiac poetry we
appreciate a slight reference and connection between the mood of the first
person speaker and the weather, the rough sea, etc., described in the poem.
These two ornamental functions, let us say, in the description of landscape
and natural world still persist in medieval poetry at large but when we get to
the 14th century, landscape is part of character and characterization, a feature
that allows us to identify the author and, consequently, his work, his pose
and his style. Landscape identifies the narrative and the narrative materials,
identifies real places through which the incidents of the characters occur,
marks the tempo and tone of the story. Sometimes landscape has the function
of showing the traditional uses mentioned above in which pattern was more
important than authorial originality, but also contributes to highlight the fact
that mediation on the part of the author and reception on the part of the
reader is more effective and relevant. Landscape is an instrument of meaning
and very frequently we do not see it as it is but as “he” wants us to see it.
And, finally, landscape is a reference which marks evolution and change in
form, subject, theme and purpose.
Ricardo J. Sola Buil
Universidad de Alcalá
REFERENCES
Bieler, L. 1992: Historia de la Literatura Romana. Biblioteca Universitaria
Gredos. I. Manuales, 5. Berlín: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1965. Madrid:
Ed. Gredos.
85
Ricardo Sola
Corinne J. Saunders 1993: The Forest of Medieval Romance: Avernus,
Broceliande, Arden. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
Horacio 1990: Odas y Épodos. Eds. & Trans. Manuel Fernández-Galiano &
Vicente Cristóbal. Madrid: Cátedra.
-––– 1996: Odas y Épodos. Ed. & Trans. Vicente Cristóbal. Colección El
Libro de Bolsillo. Madrid: Alianza Editorial.
Francisco R. Adrados, ed. & trans. 1990: Líricos Griegos. Elegíacos y
Yambógrafos Arcaicos (Siglos VII-V a. C.). Vols. I & II. 3rd. ed.
Colección Alma Mater de Autores Griegos y Latinos. Madrid: CSIC.
Ovide 1968: Tristes. Ed. & Trans. Jacques André. Collection des Universités
de France. Paris: Société d´Édition Les Belles Lettres.
––– 1992: Tristes. Pónticas. Ed. & Trans. José González Vázquez. Biblioteca
Clásica Gredos, 165. Madrid: Ed. Gredos.
Theocritus 1986: Idyllia. Ed. & Trans. A. S. F. Gow. V. I. Cambridge: CUP.
Vergili Maronis, P. 1983: Opera. Ed. R. A. B. Mynors. Scriptorum
Classsicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis. Oxford: OUP.
Virgilio Marón, P. 1990: Bucólicas. Geórgicas. Apéndice Virgiliano. Eds. &
Trans. J. L. Vidal, Tomás de la Ascensión Recio García & Arturo Soler
Ruiz. Biblioteca Clásica Gredos, 141. Madrid: Ed. Gredos.
Zumthor, Paul 1993: La Medida del Mundo. La Representación del Espacio
en la Edad Media. Madrid: Cátedra, 1994. trad. del francés La mesure
du monde.Représentation de l'espace au Moyen Âge. Seuil.
*†*
86
SPANISH WORDS IN MEDIEVAL ENGLISH LEXICON:
SOURCES AND PROBLEMS1
The cultural and economic importance of the Spanish-Arabic community
throughout the Middle Ages is reflected in the number of loan-words which,
mainly through French and Latin, entered the western European languages in
this period. Some of these words also found their way into the linguistic varieties used in England between the years 1000 and 1500.2 In spite of this impact, there are relatively few studies devoted to tracing the lexical relationship
between medieval England and Spain, probably due to both, the indirect
1 This is an updated version of a paper read at the fifth International Conference of
the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (León, September
1992). I appreciate and acknowledge the comments by some colleagues who were
present at the talk, particularly Dr Andrew Breeze and the late Professor Patricia
Shaw. In addition to the latter’s well-known contributions to English and
Comparative Literature, Professor Shaw had always a keen interest in diverse aspects of the cultural history of the English language. In the panels that she chaired at
SELIM and AEDEAN conferences she was always alert to lectures and papers on
this subject and very often raised interesting questions and topics for discussion.
Throughout her publications on medieval and renaissance English literature she
regularly pointed to linguistic aspects of the texts she shrewdly analysed. In addition, she thoroughly studied the influence of the Spanish language on seventeenth
century English (1979) and, in a recent article (“The Presence of Spain in Middle
English Literature”, 1992), pointed to the literary, historical and linguistic connections between both countries in the period from 1150 to 1485.
2 See Taylor (1934) where, together with a long list of place and personal names,
other common words of Spanish, Arabic or Spanish-Arabic etymology are mentioned, among others: acton (1300), admiral (1205), alchemy (1362), alchitram
(1325), alconde (1486), alcoran (1366), algorism (1340), alembic (1374), aliade
(1450), alkali (1386), alkanet (1326), almacantar (1391), almagest (1386), almanac
(1388), almury (1391), amber (1398), azimuth (1391), barbican (1300), beduin
(1400), bezoar (1477), borage (1265), borax (1386), brazil (1386), buckram
(1340), cable (1205), caliph (1393), camphor (1313), caraway (1390), cipher
(1399), cotton (1381), dragoman (1300), elixir (1386), fustian (1200), garble
(1393), jazerant (1400), lemon (1400), mancus (799), maravedi (1430), marcasite
(1425), marzipan (1494), nadir (1391), olibanum (1398), quintal (1401), realgar
(1386), saffran (1200), soldan (1297), syrup (1398), taffeta (1373), tartar (1386),
zenith (1387), etc See also: Serjeantson (1935), Steiger (1963) and Breeze (1991).
Juan Camilo Conde, Selim 8 (1998): 91—100
Juan Camilo Conde
nature of this relationship and the problems which the analysis of linguistic
borrowings in a medieval context are likely to raise. Among these words,
cordwain and cork stand out because they deriv e from one of the earliest romance varieties which survived in the central areas of the Iberian peninsula
populated by the Arabs: this language was known as musta'rib by the
Moslems and, later on, ‘mozárabe’ in Castilian romance. It is the aim of this
article to trace the origin, development and introduction of these ‘mozárabe’
words into Middle English, and to illustrate some of the problems which affect the study of medieval lexicon.
Lexical borrowing in a medieval context is not merely a process whereby
gaps in the overall vocabulary of a language are filled, nor simply the result of
the whims and desires for prestige, snobbism or exoticism by some members
of a speech community (Rothwell 1980: 118; Hoad 1987: 51). The scholar who
studies medieval lexicology and, particularly, the exchange of words from one
language to another, must face a threefold problem. Firstly, the number of
unpublished and undiscovered manuscripts impinges on the usefulness of
etymological dictionaries, which, by definition, are as useful as their source
material allows them to be. Secondly, the absence of sources and the lack of
information on the kind of text where some words might have occurred makes
it difficult to trace their chronological, geographical and stylis tic distribution.
Finally, it is obvious that the linguistic circumstances of the medieval world
cannot be properly understood nowadays, when we still tend to make all the
information available fit into pre-established categories, which sometimes
may not reflect accurate historical situations: for instance, the equation of
language and nationality did not wholly prevail in the Middle Ages, and the
neogrammarian tenet which grounds the study of borrowing on the
behaviour of bilingual speakers, must be extended into the domain of social
multilingualism prevalent throughout Europe in the period (Haugen 1950:
210).
Such complications are reflected in the history of the two words we are
dealing with. The romance world where they come from must be viewed as a
vast linguistic area where new varieties kept arising out of, at least, three
different sources: a latin substratum, common to all of them, substrata and
adstrata particularly related to each variety - such as Arabic in the case of the
romance languages of Spain - and, finally, the influence of the "dialects" on
one another, which functioned, therefore, as superstrata in a sort of interac-
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Spanish words in medieval English lexicon: sources and problems
tive relationship (Baldinger 1963: 62-91; Iordan and Manoliu 1972: 144-145).
The process leading to the formation of the Spanish-Arabic word corcho/corcha, where English cork comes from, clearly illustrates the abovementioned issue. The connection of corcho to ‘mozárabe’ seems to be
proved by the palatal articulation in vulgar Latin, [p], of an original velar
plosive (< cortice) (Galmes de Fuentes 1983: 325). But the common usage of
this word in Spain was preceded by the substitution of the etruscan suber,
applied globally to the cork tree, by the synonyms cortex or quercus in those
communities, which, linked to the Roman empire, esteemed the bark of that
tree as a source of economic profit (Bertoldi 1947: 132-140). Moreover, the
relation of corcho and Latin cortex is not direct. Corominas and Pascual
(1980: s.v.) state that the romance word derives ultimately from the short
Indoeuropean root * ker(t); this vocalic quantity should have favoured a
process of diphthongization in mozárabe, which did not take place. The
appearance of a monophthong [o] has led them to think of the influence of
the Arabic adstratum in its final shape. Rohlfs does not seem to agree with
them when he states that the origin of corcho is the metathesis of Latin
quercus into vulgar Latin * cerquus, and that the interference of another
word, probably cortex, favoured the velarization of the root vowel from [e] to
[o] (1979: 204-207). As a final instance of the linguistic mixing which defines
the romance world in medieval times it is worth mentioning the hybrid form
alcorque, where the Arabic article is combined with the evolution of the
blended pair * cerquus - cortex in Castilian.
A further problem which complicates the study of medieval lexicon is the
natural fact that it is constantly affected by semantic changes which extend
or simplify the original meaning. Thus, the initial reference of cordoban/cordouan to "… someone or something from Cordoba" is reduced after a process of metonymy to ‘leather’ and, particularly, the skin of goats
tanned and manufactured in that town (Corominas and Pascual 1980: s.v.).
The later use of this material by shoe- and harness-makers and its collocation
in the thirteenth century with the noun çapatos/çapatas (texts 1 and 2)
favoured in the fourteenth another process of metonymy which restricted its
meaning from the material to the object (text 3).
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Juan Camilo Conde
(1) 1252: Çapatos de cordobán entallados et a cuerda vi pares por i mr.
los meiores (Cortes de Sevilla, 127).
(2) 1351: Por el par de los çapatos de calça de buen cordonan et bien
solados dos mrs. (Cortes de Valladolid, II. 82).
(3) 1386: La doçena de los cordouanes doze mrs. (Cortes de Jerez,
I.71)1
The study of the introduction of these two words from Arabic Spain into
Norman Britain seems to be methodologically founded on the concepts of
cultural and linguistic contact between speech communities. However, these
notions must be handled with care when they are applied to medieval lexicon.
Neither political and economic, nor cultural and scientific relations worked on
a one-to-one basis between two groups of people, but should be included in
an international context. It is sufficient to mention, in order to prove the point,
that the commercial exchange of Spanish oil, dyes, salt and wine with English
wool and cloth depended on the maritime routes that linked the
Mediterranean and the North Sea through Andalusia and were under the
control of Genoese and Venetian seafarers (Childs 1978). At the cultural and
scientific levels, it is also interesting to notice the role the Santiago route
played in spreading French loanwords in the romance dialects of Castile,
Aragon and La Rioja. Corcho and cordoban/cordovan were not, however,
words which could have found their way into English as a result of scientific
or humanistic and cultural contacts. Since they were linked to very specific
goods, they probably entered Middle English thanks to the indirect trade
relations between Spain and England through France and Barcelona. Both
products were part of Arabic commerce from the beginning of its expansion in
the eighth century. Cordoban was exported from Al-Andalus to Europe as a
luxury good used in the manufacture of shoes. Corcho, at first also an item of
luxury, seems to be linked to the trade of glass commodities which reached
northern Europe from the Syrian coasts. The French markets would have
particularly helped to introduce these products and the words referring to
1 Medieval Spanish texts are taken from Castro (1921: 343) and Corominas and
Pascual (1980). The abbreviations used by these authors to identify each original
text are also supplied after the quote.
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Spanish words in medieval English lexicon: sources and problems
them into England, together with the Norman variety used as official
language after the conquest in 1066.
In spite of the initially "exotic" nature of these products,1 the application
to historical linguistics of subjective labels such as prestigious or exotic must
be cautious. The ideas put forward by Hope in his article "Loanwords as cultural and lexical symbols" (1962) are worth mentioning in connection with
this. The author diminishes the function of the explanations which account
for "psychological climates of borrowing" and defends a purely linguistic
study of vocabulary, assuming that there are cultural and commercial relations between two communities of different importance, and concentrating on
how the new contexts of usage mould and change the original meaning of
words in the recipient language.
There are three different entries in The Oxford English Dictionary for the
words related to mozárabe cordoban: cordovan (with a number of orthographical variants such as corduban, cordovant and cordevan), cordwain (cordewane, cordewayne, cordwane, etc) and the agentive noun cordwainer
(cordewaner, cordewenere, corduener, cordeweyner, cordwiner, etc). Even
though the first one is the most directly related to the Spanish romance, it is
not attested in writing until the late sixteenth century, in Percivall's Spanish
Dictionary (1591) (Murray, et al eds. 1933: s.v). It is interesting to point out,
however, that Percivall uses cordouan to define the word taperados ("the inside of a cordouan skin turned outwards") and this may suggest either that
the word already possessed this form years before its inclusion in the dictionary, or else, as I think, show the influence of Castilian on the author: he
knew the language and, in the context of a bilingual Spanish-English dictionary, reshaped the original word cordwain so as to link it to its proper etymology.
The forms cordwain and cordwainer are documented in England from the
beginning of the thirteenth century. Although the first evidence is provided
by official texts, like lists of goods and prices, as well as population censuses
1 In fact, as Professor Shaw remarked in the above-mentioned article, the word cord-
wane in Middle English texts always had the connotation of a luxurious, exotic
product - ‘the very finest leather’ - This seems to be confirmed in texts (8) and (14)
of the brief corpus offered in this article, where cordwain shoes are respectively
used by bishops and by the knight Sir Thopas in consonance with their social position and, in the second case, with “the rest of his costly rear” (Shaw 1992: 44).
91
Juan Camilo Conde
written in an extremely concise style, there are some determiners and prepositions of French origin (le and de) which allow the scholar to conclude that
for more than two centuries - up to 1380 - none of them had broken with the
original Norman French context expected in these documents (texts 4, 5, 6, 7
and 8).
(4) 1281: Barth, le Cordewaner (Fransson Surn. 130).
(5) 1310: In 12 pellibus de Cordewain empt., 13s. 6d. (Account Rolls of
the Abbey of Durham).
(6) 1312: Coreum de Cordewan viiij d. (Wills and Inventories from the
Registry of Durham).
(7) 1359: De chescune dozeyne de cordewane (Ipswich Domesday (1),
188).
(8) 1380: Bischopes wole kepe her feet cleene wiÍ sccarlett and
cordewanere (Cursor Mundi, 21975).1
The form that the word cork adapts in Middle English reflects a process
of contamination of the original mozárabe corcho with the Spanish-Arabic
hybrid alcorque and the Latin etymon quercus. This word is also documented in Anglo-Norman and Latin texts until the end of the fourteenth century (texts 9, 10 and 11) (Kurath and Kuhn, 1956: s.v.):
(9) 1303: De Arnaldo pro bord et cork (Gras. Eng. Syst. 216)
(10) 1342: Navis carcatat erat in eisdem partibus cum sale et cork
(Chancery Inquis, file 148 (22)).
(11) 1417: In diuersis peciis Maeremii, peciis de Corke (For. Acc. 8 Hen.
V D/1 dorso).
1 Medieval texts in Anglo-Norman and Middle English are taken from Kurath and
Kuhn (1956 s.v.) and Murray et al. (eds. 1933: s.v.). The abbreviations used by
these authors to identify each original text are also supplied after the quote.
92
Spanish words in medieval English lexicon: sources and problems
An important landmark in the history of these words in Middle English is
that they appeared as individual entries in the first English-Latin dictionary
published in England: The Promptorium Parvulorum. The popularity of this
work can be inferred from its preservation in six manuscripts since 1440 and
from the fact that it was printed at least five times during the first quarter of
the sixteenth century. The dictionary answered the demand for a list of
English words with their Latin equivalents and grammatical information on
gender and case by the parvulii - novices - who started to learn Latin (Way
ed. 1843: 12). Thus, the “Ad Lectorem” of one of the issues printed by
Winkyn de Worde (1510) explains:
… thys boke is thus ordened for to fynde a laten after any maner of
worde in englysshe for them that wyl lerne to wryte or speke latyn,
and because that no man or chylde herafter have any diffyculte
more to serche for any latyn or englysshe worde (Starnes 1954: 5).
In column 425 of the Promptorium there is the English entry sowtare, to
which the synonym cordynare is added; both words are equated to the Latin
masculine nouns sutor/sutoris (shoemaker) and allutarius/allutarij
(shoemaker). Column number 94 includes the synonyms cordwayn and ledder which are explained by the feminine Latin noun alluta/allutæ (fine
leather) and again cordwar, equivalent to allutarius/allutarii. As far as cork
is concerned, this word appears in column 95 in the compounds cork-tre and
cork-bark; the former is explained by the feminine Latin noun
suberies/suberietis [sic] (cork tree), while the latter is equated to cortex/corticis (cork bark) (Mayhew ed. 1908).
An apparent reason which may lie behind the appearance of these two
words as specific entries in The Promptorium Parvulorum is that they were
widely used in English at all communicative levels before the year 1400. This
hypothesis can be supported by the use of the word cordewan in the
Coventry cycle of Mystery Plays (1400) (text 12) and of cordwaners in the
York one (1415) (text 13) (Kurath and Kuhn, 1956: s.v.):
93
Juan Camilo Conde
(12) 1400: Off ffyne cordewan a goodly peyre of long pekyd schon
(Coventry Mystery Plays, 241).
(13) 1415: Cordwaners (York Mystery Plays, Introd. 243)
(14) 1390: Sir Thopas, his schoon of Cordewane (Sir Thopas, 21).
If we believe that Mystery Plays reflect the colloquial levels of communication in Middle English, we may understand that these words were already
widely used at oral levels late in the period. However, there is also evidence
that these could still be qualified as learned words, restricted to formal or official contexts: this is suggested by the necessity for the compiler of the
Promptorium to clarify their meaning by means of the synonyms ledder and
sowtare, or by the widespread idea that the entries of the dictionary have
their origin in those of previous Latin-English glossaries which were reversed
without any regard as to their real usage in the English language.
The dilemma is far more complicated in the case of cork. Cordwain is attested in literary works such as the poem Cursor Mundi (1380) (text 8) or the
romance Sir Thopas (1390) (text 14), which may point to the way the word
followed from Latin or Norman-French to Middle English; but the first written
evidence of cork is The Promptorium Parvulorum itself. Nevertheless, it is
used in compound words in the dictionary and by 1450 it had already
changed its meaning to refer to objects manufactured with that material (texts
15 and 16) (Kurath and Kuhn 1956: s.v.) This process may confirm that cork
was already widely used years before the edition of the Promptorium.
(15) 1450: Ye schall make your flotes in thys wise; take a feyr corke yat
ys clene with oute many hoolys (Treat fish., 16; Bk. St. Albans).
(16) 1463: That no Marchaunt bryng into this reame … tawed Bootes,
Schoen, galoches or Corkes (R. Parl. 5, 507a).
It seems, finally, that the conclusions which may be drawn from the data
contained in etymological dictionaries are sometimes misleading when his torical linguists try to evaluate the extension of usage of a linguistic borrowing
94
Spanish words in medieval English lexicon: sources and problems
in the medieval period. This can be so in the case of cordwain and cork,
which may be qualified both as learned words restricted to some levels of
communication and as common ones used in everyday conversation; there is
proof to support both options. The lack of some manuscripts which could
confirm one possibility or the other, the multilingual context in which the
words were used, and the vague assessment of the concepts contact,
prestige, formality and informality in the period are some of the problems
which impinge on the study of medieval lexicon and, therefore, complicate
their exact description.
Juan Camilo Conde Silvestre
University of Murcia
REFERENCES
Baldinger, K. 1963: La formación de los dominios lingüísticos de la península ibérica, Gredos, Madrid.
Bertoldi, B. 1947: La Iberia en el sustrato étnico-lingüístico del Mediterráneo
Occidental. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 1: 128-140.
Breeze, A. 1991: Old English ealfara, pack horse: a Spanish-Arabic loanword.
Notes and Queries, 38: 15-17.
Castro, A. 1921: Unos aranceles de aduanas del siglo XIII. Revista de
Filología Española, VIII: 1-29, 325-356.
Childs, W. R. 1978: Anglo-Castilian Trade in the Late Middle Ages,
Manchester University Press, Manchester.
Corominas, J. and J. A. Pascual 1980: Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, Gredos, Madrid.
Galmes de Fuentes, A. 1983: Dialectología mozárabe, Gredos, Madrid.
Haugen, E. 1950: The analysis of linguistic borrowing. Language, 26: 210-231.
95
Juan Camilo Conde
Hoad T. F. 1987: Developing and using lexicographical resources in Old and
Middle English. In Dictionaries of English (Ed. R. W. Bailey),
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Hope, T. E. 1962-63: Loanwords as cultural and lexical symbols. Archivum
Linguisticum, 14: 111-121; 15: 29-42.
Iordan, I. and M. Manoliu 1972: Manual de lingüística románica, Gredos,
Madrid.
Kurath, H. and S. M. Kuhn 1956-1992: Middle English Dictionary, University
of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor.
Mayhew, A. L. ed. 1908: The Promptorium Parvulorum. The First EnglishLatin Dictionary, Kegan Paul, London.
Murray, J. A. H. et al. eds 1933: The Oxford English Dictionary (13 vols.),
Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Rohlfs, G. 1979: Estudios sobre el léxico románico, Gredos, Madrid.
Rothwell, W. 1980: Lexical borrowing in a medieval context. Bulletin of the
John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 63: 118-143.
Serjeantson, M. S. 1935: A History of Foreign Words in English, Routledge
and Kegan Paul, London.
Shaw, P. 1979: Noticias y conocimientos de la lengua española en la
Inglaterra del siglo XVII. In Estudios ofrecidos a Emilio Alarcos
Llorach (vol. IV), Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de
Oviedo, Oviedo, 325-347.
Shaw, P. 1992: The Presence of Spain in Middle English Literature. Archiv fur
das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 229.1: 41-54.
Starnes, T.D. 1954: Renaissance Dictionaries. English-Latin, Latin-English,
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London.
*†*
96
GRISELDA’S SISTERS: WIFELY PATIENCE AND
SISTERLY RIVALRY IN ENGLISH TALES AND BALLADS
The present study is aimed at two widespread themes in traditional English
narratives: the twin sisters separated at birth who vie with each other for the
same man, a tale which is best known in medieval literature as the Lay Le
Freine, and that of the patient wife, well-known in English through Chaucer’s
The Clerk’s Tale. Both stories seem to have common mythological roots,
marked folktale features, and a long survival in popular ballads. After tracing
a possible genealogy and analysing the variants so as to show how the two
stories are related, we will account for the significance of their themes within
English culture.
1. HAZEL TREE AND ASH TREE: A TALE OF ORIGINS
The oldest extant version of our stories in English is the Lay Le Freine
copied in the Auchinleck MS (c. 1330), which is a translation of Marie de
France’s twelfth-century lay Fresne. Its Spanish editor Ana María Holzbacher
(1993: 37) calls it an example of ‘feminine docility’ in love. Indeed, the heroine
Fresne is always obedient to the man (Gurun) who takes her from the convent
near which she had been abandoned as baby inside an ash tree (‘fresne’ in
Marie´s French), even when, after years of cohabitation, he decides to
degrade her from lover to servant, in order to marry a rich lady called Le
Codre (Marie’s French for ‘hazel tree’). In one of the passages missing in the
English version,1 Sir Gurun’s feudatories compare the two ladies using the
metaphor of trees:
1 These passages are usually supplied by English editors in Henry W. Weber’s trans-
lation of Old French in counterfeit Middle English. See Sands, ed. 1986: 244, lines
341-8.
Rubén Valdés, Selim 8 (1998): 101—115
Rubén Valdés
Sire, funt il, ci pres de nus
Ad un produme per a vus;
Une fille ad, ki est sun heir:
Mut poëz tere od li aveir!
La Codre ad nun la damesele;
En cest païs nen ad si bele.
Pur le freisne que vus larrez
En eschange le codre avrez;
En la codre ad noiz e deduiz,
Li freisnes ne porte unke fruiz! (Holzvbacher, ed. 1993: 152, lines
331-40. My italics)
They oppose the two ladies by reminding their lord that, unlike ash trees,
hazel trees are fruitful of nuts and delight (‘la codre ad noiz e deduiz’), an allusion to the fact that La Codre has a wealthy father (‘un produme’), whose
heiress she is (‘un fille ad, ki est sun heir’), and so Gurun will have many
lands through her (‘mut poëz tere od li aveir!’), whereas he had none of
Fresne (‘li freisnes ne porte unke fruiz!’), whose family and fortune are unknown. Fortunately La Codre turns out to be Fresne’s twin sister, and, as
Fresne is recognised by her rich family, the lord marries her.
The metaphor of trees must be central to the meaning of the lay Fresne. It
was probably a very old motif by the time Marie translated (or so she claimed)
her lays from the Breton language. In his imaginative search for the feminine
sources of bardic poetry Robert Graves (1961: Chapter 15) refers to a conflict
between the hazel as the Irish tree of eloquence and wisdom, and the ash tree
of Woden, the Germanic god of wisdom. Thus the conflict between hazel and
ash reproduces the clash between Celtic and Germanic cultures that took
place in France as well as Britain. Both trees are Wednesday (‘Woden’s-day’,
a word suggesting the final victory of Germanic culture and its ash tree) in
Graves’ reconstructed tree-calendar. As for the reason why two trees should
vie for wisdom, it may be sought in a more recent quest for the Great Goddess
that Graves and many other poets recreated: Anne Baring and Jules Cashford
(1991: 498) trace the problem back to the Biblical dissociation of the Tree of
Knowledge from the Tree of Immortal Life by the father-god Yahweh. The
dissociation and subsequent Fall from Eden is, in Baring and Cashford’s
view, a key stage in the setting up of a patriarchal imagery that weakened and
distorted an original goddess myth, wherein there was only one tree with two
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Griselda’s sisters: wifely patience and sisterly rivalry
qualities, and therefore no conflict. Whether we agree entirely with such
mythological explanations or not, the fact remains that the confrontation
between women for marriage is, as we shall see, a recurrent theme in
traditional narratives, and that it might have originated in a founding myth of
patriarchy: the splitting of twin trees of the same root or family by a powerful
lord, god, or husband, for whom the sister-trees spend all their feminine
wisdom and energy.
The tree metaphor of the lay Fresne was forgotten in the English tradition,
as in the course of the fourteenth century French ceased to be a major literary
medium in England,1 and the word ‘fresne’ (or ‘freine’, as it was written in
England) became meaningless. The variants of tale are often surpris ing and
tend to distort it beyond recognition. For instance, the only Spanish version
of Fresne is the ‘Romance de Espinelo’, in which the separated twins are
brothers (not sisters) and the hero is named after the ‘espino’ (‘thorn tree’
instead of ash tree) where he was abandoned. The closest post-medieval
English cognate of both the story and the name of ‘Freine’ is the ballad of
‘Fair Annie’ [Child 62D], dated as late as 1769.2 In this ballad the old motif of
the twins separated at birth by their mother to avoid shame has dis appeared,
though in some variants [Child 62F], perhaps to follow the fashion of many
contemporary ballads, they add the explanation that the heroine had been
abducted by a Scottish lord. But, as in the medieval lays, the conflict between
the sisters for the man is solved when they recognise each other and the one
just arrived renounces the lord and shares the family’s ship-loads of gold
with Fair Annie, so that he can find her acceptable as his bride.
In a more distant analogue of the story, ‘The Twa Sisters’ [Child 10], the
sisters’ rivalry goes to the extreme of murder. In some variants [Child 10A]
the elder sister murders the younger as they see their father’s ship come sail1 The state of French in relation to English as a cultural vehicle is reflected in the
Auchileck MS, many of whose items, such as the Lay Le Freine are English poems
translated from French, and one item (20. Xxvi. ‘The Sayings of the Four
Philosophers’) in macaronic Anglo-Norman French. This suggests that the producers of the MS expected its readers to be vaguely familiar with French. See The
Auchinleck Manuscript, ed. D. Pearsall and I.C. Cunningham (London: The Scholar
Press / The National Library of Scotland, 1979).
2 Our ballad references are all to The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5 vols.,
ed. by F.J. Child (1882-1898; reprt. New York: Dover, 1965). Ballads are cited with
their number of order and the letter of variant in Child’s classification between
square brackets: [ ].
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Rubén Valdés
ing in (perhaps the father was going to deprive the elder daughter of her
rights of primogeniture because he liked the younger one better?). In others
[Child 10B, C, D, etc.] the motive is explicit, for a suitor has given the elder a
gold ring but the younger his true love: he would marry the heiress but love
the fairer one. The questions of inheritance and dowry become dramatically
decisive in the ultimate, violent, confrontation between sisters.
2. PATIENCE REWARDED: THE ORDER OF PATRIARCHY
The popular tale of Griselda seems to answer a question that Fresne left
behind: what would happen if the other sister did not come and give the heroine the necessary dowry and portion of their father’s land? What if the lord
actually married the heroine despite her poverty? The answer is in patient
suffering. As Peter Burke (1994: 164) sums it up, in traditional culture ‘Most
popular heroines were objects, admired not so much for what they did as for
what they suffered.’ In Patricia Shaw’s memorable classification of the roles
of women in medieval English literature (1989: 210), the first principal role of
young women is ‘that of the patient and longsuffering wife, the victim,
frequently, of the machinations of an older man or woman.’ When it is older
women that victimise the heroine, they are Professor Shaw’s ‘lither ladies’,
‘the precursors, therefore, of the Snow White and Cindirella bogey-women
familiar to us from childhood’ (ibid). When they are men, they are often the
heroine’s own husband.
Medieval culture made an analogy between a wife’s relation to her husband and (the soul of) man’s relation to God, and the Christian model of patience with God is Job. In The Canterbury Tales Job is first cited ironically in
the Wife of Bath’s role-reversal, when she has got the upper hand of her husband Wilkyn: ‘Syth ye so preche of Jobes patience. / Suffreth alwey, syn ye
so wel kan preche’ (III.436).1 The biblical figure appears in another ironic
context when the Fiend mentions him to the Summoner in the Friar’s Tale
(III.1491). But it is in the Clerk’s Tale that Job’s figure becomes central, since
Grisilde’s patience his associated with his, when the Clerk argues that
women’s humility and patience is always greater than men’s (IV.932). The
1 Line quotations of The Canterbury Tales refer to The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry
D. Benson (Oxford: OUP, 1988).
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Griselda’s sisters: wifely patience and sisterly rivalry
wisdom of women about patience and its high cost is confirmed in The Tale
of Melibee as his wife Prudence advises him not to wreak rash vengeance
upon the men who have just beaten her up and wounded his daughters
(VII.999). Finally, the Parson’s Tale makes Job a more universal exemplum of
penitence (X.176). In sum, Job may be the model of man’s patience and
humility towards god, but it is wives that best understand these virtues, despite Chaucer’s remarks on the impossibility of finding real Griseldas any
more (IV.1177-1188). Indeed, Professor Helen Cooper (1989: 191) has noted
that Chaucer’s Grisilde, in comparison with some analogues to the tale
specifically designed as allegories to show God’s treatment of the soul,
‘makes the husband less an analogy for God than a contrast to him.’
Furthermore, by heightening the pathos of her situation, the master poet encourages readings like that of E. T. Hansen (1992: 191), according to which
Walter’s own self-confident role as husband is severely disturbed:
Galled by the unbearable way in which this woman eludes his
tyranny by refusing to resist and define it, he can only torture her
again and again, seeking to determine her elusive identity as well
as his own, to find the other Griselda, someone he can master in
order to find himself.
Griselda’s fortitude transcends the weakness and submission patriarchy
expected of wives, therefore undermining the god-husband’s identity. He
virtue (and Hansen reminds us of the connection of the word with Latin vir,
‘man’) makes her like patriarch Job, manly, strong.
A subversion of patriarchal roles continues in various degrees
throughout the ballad versions of Griselda’s story, and most explicitly in
‘Child Waters’ [Child 63] when the pregnant heroine Ellen dresses up as a
page boy to face the tests her man will put her through.1 Nevertheless, the
suffering of such heroines perhaps leaves the symbolic order of patriarchy
more insecure and laden with guilt, but formally intact. Tales and ballads of
the Griselda type probably kept their illustrative effect as role models for
1 The motif of cross-dressing is very common in ballads, and also in medieval ha-
giography. For men it had a mystical meaning, while for women it was more a
practical device to overcome the limitations society imposed on them. See Caroline
W. Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to
Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987: 291).
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Rubén Valdés
patient wives, along with their potential for deconstructing those models.
Likewise, they might present exempla of what godly husbands should not be,
or, for that matter, of what God should not be, by making too Satanic ‘the
godlike, otherworldly character of Child Waters, without which his testing of
fair Ellen would be intolerable’ (Fowler 1968: 181). Yet, whether he is a god or
a demon, he stays in power.
Some ballads which bear certain similarities to ‘Child Waters’ might be
regarded as re-writings of it from women’s point of view, since they all seem
to belong to the period after minstrels and poets had been largely replaced by
women in the oral transmission of ballads. The outstanding example is, of
course, Mrs Brown of Falkland, whose repertory included also versions of
‘Fair Annie’ and ‘Child Waters’ (but these two can be traced, as we have
seen, to earlier times), as well as a ballad like ‘Willie o Douglas Dale’ [Child
101A], which Fowler (1968: 302) considered in some respects ‘an anti-“Child
Waters”’, because a noble lady elopes with a man of lower degree and he is
the one to serve her in submission to all her whims. Others deal with lost
patience and revenge. In ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet’ [Child 73] he
hesitates wavers between the fortune of the nut-brown girl and the beauty of
Fair Annet; finally, the jilted nut-brown girl stabs Fair Annet at the altar.
Finally, in ‘Lord Thomas and Lady Margaret’ [Child 260], she poisons him.
As in the case of the story of rival sisters, in the stories of patient brides
there is a tragic extreme in which the tensions that patriarchy both generated
and tried to contain, break out murderously.
3. FOLKTALE PATTERNS: KINDRED STORIES
For a comprehensive view of the narrative aspects of English tales of suffering wives in their medieval and post-medieval stages, it will be useful to
compare the narrative form of Lay le Freine and ‘Fair Annie’ on the one
hand, and The Clerk’s Tale and ‘Child Waters’ on the other. That the four
stories are related is illustrated by Fowler (1968: 105 and 283) in his suggestion that ‘Fair Annie’ may be an epitomised version of ‘Patient Griselda’
(rather than of Fresne) sung by sixteenth and seventeenth-century minstrels.
This relationship becomes most apparent when they are reduced to their bare
narrative structure. Propp’s morphology (1968) has been applied to Child´s
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Griselda’s sisters: wifely patience and sisterly rivalry
collection of ballads (Beatie 1978; Buchan 1991), proving that they fit into
common folktale patterns.1 It will be noticed that the ballads, by focusing on
the emotional core and on pure narrative action, tend to reduce the story to
essentials by making most of the circumstances and motivations implicit, instead of explaining them. Some of these, particularly the dowry, are cultural
motivations that the logic of Propp’s morphology brings to the fore as latent
or virtual functions of the narrative:
Lay le Freine
Fair Annie
1. Initial situation (a). The envious wife [Preliminary functions, here presented
of a knight accuses another lady of lay- in lower case letters, are not essential,
ing with two men because she bore so the ballad doesn’t include any]
twins.
4. Violation (d). The knight rebukes his
wife for speaking calumnies lest they
should be cursed for this violation of
good conduct.
9. Preliminary misfortune (i). Her slander brings about the punishment of
bearing twins herself.
10. Villainy / Lack (A). The mother asks
the midwife to get rid of one of the twins
so as to avoid shame. [This abandonment will cause the heroine’s lack of
dowry and so her poor marriage
prospects.]
[The reason for the heroine’s separation
from her rich family is not told in most
ballads (and when it is, it seems to be a
late addition, like her abduction by a
Scottish lord in Child 62F), but her lack
of dowry is essential to understand her
plight.]
11. Mediation (B). The midwife intercedes to spare the baby’s life.
1 For the aims of the present study we prefer this analysis according to themes and
motifs to one based on structure and formula, such as David Buchan, The Ballad
and the Folk (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972) or Flemming G. Andersen,
Commonplace and Creativity: The Role of Formulaic Diction in Anglo-Scottish
Traditional Balladry (Odense: Odense University Press, 1985).
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Rubén Valdés
12. Contrary Action (C). The baby girl
is abandoned inside an ash tree near a
convent with her mother’s cloak and
ring.
13. Departure (). A knight falls in love The ballad begins by telling that Fair
with Freine and takes her to live with Annie has given her maidenhood and
him ‘as if she had been his wedded wife’ borne children to her lord,
(line 310).
14. Testing (D). The knight, following Who has now decided to take a rich
the advice of his counsellors, takes a rich wife. She is suffering as she and her
wife, Le Codre.
children watch the bride’s ship.
The ultimate ordeal is having to prepare She has to lay the tables for the wedeverything for the wedding, even the ding banquet and even to make the
bed.
bridal bed.
15. Reaction (E). She endures it all in She endures her suffering alone, but she
silence and behaves as a perfect servant cannot help crying and taking her harp
and hostess, and lays her own cloak on to sing her lament.
the bridal bed to make it look richer and
worthy of her lord.
27. Recognition (Q). Freine’s repentant Her sister the bride recognises her, remother sees the cloak and realises who nounces to the marriage and gives her
she is
gold.
28. Exposure (Ex). The mother confesses.
31. Wedding / Reward (W). The wedding [Fair Annie now has a proper dowry]
is annulled so that the lord can marry
Freine.
In comparison with these straightforward narratives, Chaucer’s tale of
Griselda and its ballad counterpart are more elaborate, novelistic treatments of
the same source of drama, namely, the inequality of man and woman in
society, sex and marriage. The theme of the twin sisters separated at birth is
replaced in Griselda’s story by her separation from her own children, her
daughter replacing Freine’s sister as the lord’s new bride. In ‘Child Waters’
the theme disappears altogether, and it is the lord’s mother that recognises,
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Griselda’s sisters: wifely patience and sisterly rivalry
not her noble birth, but the fact that she is giving birth to the lord’s first child,
and that he is to marry her.
The Clerk’s Tale
Child Waters (Percy folio MS)
1. Initial situation (a). Walter, marquis
of Lombardy, is convinced by his
councellors to take a wife so as to have
a descendant.
2. Reconnaissance (e). He sees beautiful Fair Ellen tells Child Waters she is
Grisilde and will have no other, even pregnant of him.
though her father old Janicula is poor.
8. Complicity (h). She subjects herself He offers her two counties for their son
to the morganatic wedding by pledging to inherit, but she’d rather have his
absolute obedience.
love.
10. Villainy / Lack (A). Her promise Her refusal of his offer leaves her at his
(and her lack of marriage portion) whim, for he doesn’t seem willing to
leaves her at his mercy.
marry.
13. Departure (). She leaves her fa- Walter makes a journey north allowing
ther’s home to marry Walter.
Ellen to follow him dressed up as his
foot-page.
14. Testing (D). Some years later, longing to test her constancy, he removes
from her their daughter, then their son,
and later still he announces he will cast
her off and take a wife of higher birth.
She runs barefoot after his horse, then
he makes her swim across a deep, cold
river, and then tells her that the fairest
lady in the town they are reaching will
be his paramour. Waters’ sister pities
the foot-page and asks her brother to
let ‘the boy’ sleep with her, but he
refuses Ellen all comfort and tells her to
go to town and fetch him a prostitute.
15. Reaction (E). She endures all the Ellen endures all the hardship despite
ordeals with patience and without any her advanced pregnancy & sleeps
complaint.
meekly at the foot of Waters’ bed.
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Rubén Valdés
18. Task (M). Before being expelled,
Grisilde must prepare the household
for Walter’s new wedding and even give
her opinion about his new bride.
In the morning, he orders Ellen to go
down to the stable and see to his
horses. There her childbirth starts and
she must suffer it alone.
19. Solution (I ). As Grisilde says she
has never seen a lovelier bride and
humbly begs him not to put his new
wife to trials as he did to herself, he is
at last moved to pity.
Waters’ mother hears Ellen’s moans,
calls him and, as he sees the woman’s
suffering, endurance and love, he is
moved to pity her.
27. Recognition (Q). Walter tells (Waters and his mother recognise Ellen
Grisilde that his new bride was actually as the his own child’s rightful mother)
their daughter whom he said he had
killed, and the page she brought their
son.
31. Wedding / Reward (W). Grisilde’s Waters tells Ellen he will marry her at
rags are now definitely replaced by rich once.
robes, and her father and children are
restored to their rights.
Thus reduced to their episodic structure, the four tales appear to be related and make up a type of their own. Among the widespread story types
that Stith Thompson (1977: 117-8) classified, it is ‘The substituted bride’ that
most closely resembles ‘Fair Annie’, but not ‘Child Waters’, which has very
few analogues outside Britain (see Child, vol.II: 84), except in other versions
of the very popular tale of Griselda. The type called ‘The Black and White
Bride’ (type 403 in Aarne & Thompson 1981: 132-4) has a limited resemblance
to our ballads, but it involves magic, a wicked stepmother, and more
importantly, a fierce competition between two brides. Virtually the same applies to type 510, ‘Cinderella and Cap o’ Rushes’ (ibid: 175). Only the Griselda
story itself (type 887, ibid: 302) really bears a close correspondence with all
four of the studied versions, its hallmarks being the godlike man who puts his
woman to terrible tests, its realism (no magic is involved), and the fact that
women’s co-operation prevails over their rivalry.
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Griselda’s sisters: wifely patience and sisterly rivalry
4. RECURRENT THEMES AND THEIR CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
The extremes of ‘Fidelity and Innocence’ (the epigraph under which
Aarne and Thompson classify the Griselda type of tale) and the heroine’s rebellion in later ballads such as ‘Lord Thomas and Lady Margaret’ [Child 260]
is finely balanced by the women’s positive action in ‘Child Waters’ and ‘Fair
Annie.’ In the oldest versions of the Griselda story, including Petrarch’s,
Chaucer’s and the broadsides in Pepy’s collection, it is Griselda’s patience
alone that wins the day. In ‘Fair Annie’, however, her life is saved by a kind
midwife, her rights as wife are saved by her sister’s recognition (and in the
lay by her mother’s confession). In ‘Child Waters’ the lord’s sis ter first
intercedes for her in vain,1 and it is eventually his mother that, by urging him
to go down to the stable and find Ellen in labour, practically makes Waters
take responsibility for Ellen and their new-born infant:
And that beheard his mother deere,
Shee heard her there monand.
She sayd, ‘Rise up, thou Childe Waters,
I think thee a cursed man.
For in thy stable is a ghost,
That grievouslye doth grone:
Or else some woman laboures of Childe,
She is soe woe-begone.’ [Child 63A, stanzas 37-38]
With these words Waters’ mother seems to suggest that either he accepts
the existence of the pregnant woman, or the curse of guilt will torment him like
a ghost. Far from being a wicked would-be mother-in-law, his mother is the
one who brings to an end the heroine’s ordeals. Undoubtedly the intervention of women like Mrs Brown of Falkland in the transmission of the story
also put an end to its heroine’s loneliness against her man.
By Chaucer’s time Griselda’s patience was regarded as dead and buried in
with her in Italy. Yet society changed only to confirm the inequality of men
and women in marriage, patriarchy being reinforced by the culture of
Protestantism in Britain. The existence of at least two different seventeenth1 Not in all versions. In Mrs Brown of Falkland’s version [Child 63B] it is Waters’
mother than suspects the foot-page’s fat belly.
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Rubén Valdés
century printings of the Griselda story in broadside form, previous to the first
version of ‘Child Waters’, confirms the continual popularity of the theme.
The end of these broadsides completely overlooks Chaucer’s envoy, making
Grissel’s husband the Marquis celebrate her as a role model:
The Chronicles of lasting fame,
Shall evermore extol the fame,
Of patient Grissel
My most constant wife.1
No less remarkable is the parallel existence of broadside ballads such as
‘A warning for all desperate Women. By the example of Alice Dauis who for
killing of her husband was burned in Smithfield …’ or ‘The vnnatural Wife:
Or, The lamentable Murther of one goodman Dauis, Lockesmith …’, or ‘Anne
Wallens Lamentation, For the Murthering of her husband John Wallen…’.2
Meanwhile Puritan treatises such as William Gouge’s Of Domesticall Duties
(1622) hammered on the idea that ‘The wife’s first duty was obedience, an
obedience based not merely on logical acceptance, but on her deep belief in
the naturalness of her subordination to her husband’ (Sharpe 1997: 67).
Likewise Cleaver’s extremely popular marriage treatise explained that the wife
must obey, for ‘if she be no subject to her husband, to let him rule all
household, especially outward affaires: if she will make head against him, and
seeke to haue her owne waies, there will be doing and vndoing. Things will
goe backwarde, the house will come to ruine’.3 Shrewish wives and scolds
who did not suffer in silence like Griselda were privately disciplined by their
husbands, or publicly derided in cucking and charivari.
Such ideas and the stories they inspired rest upon certain marriage rites
and customs. As early as the twelfth century the Anglo-Norman ceremony of
marriage included the confirmation of the bride’s dowry, her father’s handing
her over to the bridegroom, and the groom’s imposition of his ring on her
1 Final lines of both ‘A most excellent and vertuous Ballad of the patient Grissell’ and
‘An Excellent New Ballad of Patient Grissel’, in The Pepys Ballads: Facsimile
Volume I, ed. W.G. Day (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1987), pp. 34-35 and 520-521.
2 Ibid, pp. 120-127.
3 Robert Cleaver, A Godly Forme of Household Government for Ordering of Priuate
Families, According to the Directions of Gods Word (London: Printed by Thomas
Creede for Thomas Man, 1603), p. 88.
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Griselda’s sisters: wifely patience and sisterly rivalry
(Brooke 1989: 248-9), similar to the lord’s gift to his vassal in the feudal ceremony of homage. In the same context the principle of primogeniture was established, under which both the elder and the younger children suffered, according to Lawrence Stone (1979: 71): ‘The latter normally inherited neither
title nor estate … and they were therefore inevitably downwardly mobile …
As for the elder sons, their entrepreneurial drive was sapped by the certainty
of the inheritance to come.’ There are echoes of the resulting tensions between younger and elder sisters sublimated in the generous renunciation of
one for the other in ‘Fair Annie’ and, in the opposite extreme, in the fratricide
of ‘The Twa Sisters.’ In addition, it followed from the dowry system, ‘which
governed the structure of the English family at all levels of the propertied
classes from the sixteenth century on through the nineteenth century’, that
the head of the family, normally the father, had ‘great power in controlling the
marriages of his children, since he alone could provide the necessary
portions for his daughters’ (Stone: 72). So far as social history can be learned
from the rich hoard of Scottish songs, Mary Hamilton (1995: 105) tells us that
‘there were many more songs of tenderness in marriage than of strife.’ The
business side of marriage, however, the bargaining and scheming with
daughters’ tochers (dowries), is also widely demonstrated by the words of
several songs, and so are the hardships of the tocherless girl (Hamilton: 86
and 88-90). As the modern dichotomy between money and interest did not
exist (Stone: 70), a bride without dowry was rather worthless for a man of
property. Hence the cruelty of husbands to their wives in Griselda stories:
first attracted to them by the girl’s beauty, that is, by lust, they subsequently
made her compensate with human worth for what she had not been able to
provide materially as a bride. As a result, the humble feminine creature has to
prove morally, even physically in her sheer endurance, superior to the god.
To sum up, Griselda type stories in their various aspects not only dramatise the culture of wifely obedience and sisterly rivalry, but also imagine some
solutions and alternatives within their patriarchal order. The continuity of
their themes from the Middle Ages to the Modern period suggests that the
Renaissance did not involve a very substantial change in popular mentalities.
The themes reveal key facets of traditional women’s culture across a long
time span: their attitudes to the sort of marriage to which they were confined,
the drama of winning a husband either through submissiveness or fierce
109
Rubén Valdés
competition, of resisting the ordeals of sexual inequality, sometimes thanks to
the co-operation among women, other times through the heroine’s endurance. In the last analysis, the stories throw into disarray patriarchal notions of ‘the weak sex’, showing that this tag actually referred to the disadvantageous social condition involved by the dowry system.
Rubén Valdés
University of Oviedo
REFERENCES
Aarne, Antti & Stith Thompson 1961: The Types of Folktale. Suomalainen
Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki.
Baring, Anne & Jules Cashford 1991: The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of
an Image. Arkana / Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Beattie, Bruce A. 1978: Traditional Structures and the Structure of Tradition:
A Functional System of Ballad Classification. Ballads and Ballad
Research. Ed. Patricia Conroy. University of Washington Press,
Seattle.
Benson, Larry D. ed. 1988: The Riverside Chaucer. OUP, Oxford.
Brooke, Christopher 1989: The Medieval Idea of Marriage. OUP, Oxford.
Buchan, David 1991: Talerole Analysis and Child’s Supernatural Ballads. The
Ballad and Oral Literature. Ed. Joseph Harris. Harvard University
Press, Cambridge, Mas.
Burke, Peter 1994 (1978): Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. The
Scolar Press, Aldershot, Hants.
Child, F. J. ed. 1965 (1882-1898): The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 5
vols. Dover, New York.
Cooper, Helen 1989: Oxford Guides to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. OUP,
Oxford.
Fowler, David C. 1968: A Literary History of the Popular Ballad. Duke
University Press, Durham, N.C.
Graves, Robert 1961: The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic
Myth. Faber, London.
Hamilton, Mary 1995: Clarsach, Cramasie and Crowdie: A Social History in
Scottish Song. Bonspiel Books, Montrose, Angus.
110
Griselda’s sisters: wifely patience and sisterly rivalry
Hansen, E.T. 1992: Chaucer and the Fiction of Gender. University of
California Press, Berkeley.
Holzbacher, Ana María ed. 1993: María de Francia: Los Lais. Sirmio,
Barcelona.
Propp, Vladimir 1968: Morphology of the Folktale. University of Texas Press,
Austin.
Sands, Donald B. ed. 1986 (1966): Lay Le Freine. Middle English Verse
Romances. University of Exeter Press, Exeter.
Sharpe, J. A. 1997 (1987): Early Modern England: A Social History 15501760. Arnold, London.
Shaw, Patricia 1989: Loathly Ladies, Lither Ladies and Leading Ladies: The
Older Woman in Middle English Literature. Articles and Papers of the
First International Conference of the Spanish Society for English
Mediaeval Language and Literature (SELIM). Ed. P. Shaw, A. Bravo,
S. González & F. García. Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad
de Oviedo, Oviedo.
Stone, Lawrence 1979: The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 15001800. Penguin, Harmondsworth.
Thompson, Stith 1977 (1946): The Folktale. University of California Press,
Berkeley.
*†*
111
‘I BE NOT NOW HE ? AT ÁE OF SPEKEN’:
MIDDLE ENGLISH ROMANCES AND
THE CONVENTIONS OF FIN’ AMORS
In his English translation of A. Capellanus’ Arte Honeste Amandi1 (the medieval treatise on the rules of the so called fin’amors),2 J. J. Parry states that
this text was never rendered into English during the Middle Ages (1941: 24).
This fact might well support a point of view held by some scholars according
to which fin'amors (as it was conceived in France from the XIth to the XIIIth
century) never existed in England.3 This new concept of love was born
1 The Liber de arte honeste amandi et reprobatione inhonesti amoris (or, simply, De
Arte amandi) was a three volume treatise written by André le Chapelain (c. 118486). It has been preserved in a XIVth century manuscript now kept in the National
Library of Paris. The first Latin edition of this text dates from the begining of the
XVIth, Tractatus amoris. A later one (1610) was entitled de Erotica seu amatoria.
The best Latin modern edition was published in 1892; see: E. TROJEL. Andreae
Capellani regii Francorum De amore Libri Tres. Havniae: Libraria Gadiana. This
treatise was translated into French twice during the 13th century; Guillaume de
Lorris drew upon it for the Roman de la rose. The Liber codifies the whole doctrine
of fin’amors, containing practically all the elements of the cult. We know little
about this Andreas Capellanus. He is thought to have been a chaplain at the court of
Marie, Countess of Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, at whose request
André wrote the Liber.
2 I will use fin'amors, rather than courtly love –from G. Paris’ “amor courtois”
(“Etudes sur les romans de la Table Ronde” 1883: 519)– for Provençal poets never
used the second term, but rather the first: “The adjetive fin, fis, from Latin fides, had
the sense of faithful, honest, sincere, true” (Valency 1958: 142).
3 Such was the opinion of M. Valency, who claimed that “true love was really never
at home in England” (1958:188). Much in the same vein we find Gist's words: “It is
true that the complete outline of the convention does not often appear in the
English romances” (1947:106). Recently, D. Burnley has stated that “a literature
illustrating full compliance with the code described by Paris and Lewis turns out,
upon cool reflection, to be absent from England before the end of the fourteenth
century” (1998:150). Burnley also makes reference to the opinion held by Reuters
(REUTERS, A.H. 1991. Friendship and Love in Middle English Metrical
Romances. Frankfurt, p. 195), who “comments on the difficulty of finding anything
resembling courtly love in Middle English romance before the time of Chaucer”
Eugenio Olivares, Selim 8 (1998): 117—146
Eugenio Olivares
among Provençal aristocracy at the beginning of the XIth century,1 but seldom did it permeate into lower levels of society, the middle classes or the
peasantry. The love of a woman became the only pursuit in the life of the
knight and a quasi-religious ethic was built around this quest.
In 1883 G. Paris published a most influential article on Arthurian literature
in which he provided the first explanation of how this new ethic manifested in
French Arthurian literature, focusing on Chrétien de Troyes’ Lancelot. Love
was always illicit and furtive, a man-woman relationship in which the first was
permanently in a position of inferiority, subject to the whims of the lady. The
lover was always ready to fulfill every deed she asked in order to become
worthy of the lady’s love. Love was, to sum up, a virtuous art, a religion
(Paris 1883: 459-534). Forty years later, C.S. Lewis held true to Paris’ definition
when he offered what seems to be the best known systematization of the
basic principles of this philosophy of life: “Humility, Courtesy, Adultery, and
the Religion of Love” (1936: 12). Fin’amors was erected as a kind of parallel
religion, framing and giving sense to all aspects in the knight’s life. In a more
or less implicit way, the love for a lady (usually and preferably married) is
presented as superior to the love of God, in such a way that all the virtues of
the lover, especially his humility and his courtesy, are subject to this
devotion. The lady, often mute, is placed on a pedestal, beautiful to behold
and refined, unattainable, and, therefore, always desired.2 Whether this ideal
was simply a literary convention or it was really practised in the so called
courts of love, I will not say. The truth is that it found an inmediate echo both
in Provençal love lyrics and in the roman courtois, the classic type of which
are Chrétien de Troyes’ five romances, written between 1170 and 1190. Plainly
speaking, medieval romance began in the XIIth century when clerks, working
for aristocratic patrons, often ladies of royal birth such as Eleanor of
Aquitaine and her daughters (Marie de Champagne and Matilda, wife of
Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony), began to write for a leisured and refined
(1998:174, n. 5). However, I do not think Chaucer himself fully represented the
conventions of fin’amors, either (Olivares Merino 1998: 208-14).
1 Peter Dronke opposed this assumption of novelty and claimed that “’the new feeling’ of amour courtois is at least as old as Egypt of the second millennium B. C.,
and might indeed occur at any time or place (…) [It] is not confined to courtly or
chivalric society, but is reflected even in the earliest recorded popular verse of
Europe” (1968: xvii).
2 Fin’amors is for me, above all, the most accomplished manifestation of the masculine erotic ideal (Olivares Merino 1998: 74-77).
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Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
society. Like the courtly lyric, romance was a vehicle for the new aristocratic
feelings: in most of them, at considerable length, the authors narrated the
necessary interaction between chivalry and love.
Due to the many contacts between the main countries of western Europe,
soon Germany, Italy or Spain adopted this new fashion, each country gradually producing a good number of troubadours and romance writers to satisfy
the taste of the new European courts. English poets also imitated the new
conventions. Their case, however, presents a distinctive and particular typology. Leaving aside for now the issue of English love lyrics, the purpose of
the present paper is to demonstrate how in England the rules of French
fin’amors were never fully reflected in Middle English romances.
I. THE QUEEN OF TROUBADOURS GOES TO ENGLAND: AN AUSPICIOUS
START
Several circumstances might have favoured the proliferation of the conventions of fin'amors among XIIth century English aristocracy. All of them merge
into one of the most influential characters of the Eurpoean late Middle Ages,
Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204), the granddaughter of William IX of
Aquitaine, the first known troubadour. This woman exercised an unquestionable influence in the development and popularisation of the new courtly sensibility in France. She was the great patron of the two dominant poetic
movements of the time: the courtly love tradition, conveyed in the songs of
the troubadours, and the historical matter of Britain, best represented in
Chrétien de Troyes’ roman courtois. One might well expect that the marriage
of this queen with Henry of Plantagenet (1152), the heir to the English throne
(proclaimed king in 1154 as Henry II), could probably contribute to the
spreading of the new literary fashion in the British isles as she would later on
do in France, while holding her court at Poitiers (1170-74), ruling the duchy in
the name of Richard Coeur de Lion, her younger son. Eleanor was probably
the one who propitiated the combination of those elements that best define
the roman courtois: fin’amors, chivalry and Celtic myths (Pernoud 1995: 116).
When she was about 13 years old, her child imagination was probably
amazed by the stories told by the Welsh or Breton jongleur Breri (or
115
Eugenio Olivares
Bleheris), known to have been at Poitiers (c. 1135)1 . These narrations, mainly
from Celtic traditions, were about heroes who suffered from spells and tests
of their fairy mistresses (Barron 1987: 31). Once in England, she again heard
about Celtic heroes, mainly Arthur and his warriors, this time in an epic
setting: Geoffrey of Monmouth had long ago written his Historia Regum
Britanniae (c. 1136). To these raw materials the queen would add courtliness
and fin’amors.
The presence of the Queen of Troubadours in England did not pass
unnoticed in the literary circles of Henry II’s court. Exactly as it would happen in Poitiers later on, she was a patroness, a source of inspiration and an
influence in poetic creation. All the authors writing for her would certainly include in their texts those elements of the new love fashion she found so enjoyable.
Thomas of Britain wrote his Tristam and Ysolt under her inspiration,2 perhaps definitely for her.Wace dedicated to her his Brut,3
and it is generally believed that she is the noble lady to whom
1 R. S. Loomis summed up in 1956 much of the information concerning this conteur,
together with the sources (see: Loomis, R. S. 1956. Wales and the Arthurian
Legend. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 193-95). For a more recent account
on Breri, see: Gallais, P. 1967. “Bleheri, la cour de Poitiers et la difusion de récits
arthuriens sur le continent”. Actes du VIIe congrés national de littérature comparée.
Paris: Didier.
2 The Anglo-Norman poet known only as Thomas of Britain wrote a courtly version
of the Tristan story (1150-70). According to R. S. Loomis, Thomas’ Tristam and
Ysolt was not written for Eleanor but for her husband Henry II (1963: 84). However
Thomas’ attempt to resolve the tragic conflict in favour of the sovereignty of passion, turning the magic potion into a mere symbol, seems to suggest Eleanor’s
complicity rather than her husband’s.
3 Wace (c. 1100-after 1174) was born in Jersey but he was sent to France for his upbringing. In 1155 he finished his Roman de Brut, a poem probably dedicated to
Eleanor. This we conclude from the information contained in the Brut (1190), a
version of the latter written by Layamon (fl. XIIth century), a priest from
Worcestershire. When refering to the sources of his text, he makes the following
statement: “Boc he nom pe pridde, eide per amidden,/ pa makede a Frenchis clerk
Wace wes ihoten, pe wel coupe writen,/ and he hoe ¥ef pare æ?elen Ælienor/ pe wes
Henries quene pes he¥es kinges” (Layamon 1989: ll. 14-23). Wace certainly knew
the tastes of the Queen and his text is adorned with the elements of the new courtly
fashion (Loomis 1963: 40); as Barron puts it, Wace coloured his text “faintly as
roman courtois” (1987: 134).
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Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
Benoît de Sainte-More dedicated his romance of Troy.1 (Parry
1941: 13)
Leaving aside the three poets in Parry’s quotation,2 it is also worth noting
that the most relevant French writers of the time went to England. The
troubadour Bernard de Ventadour (+1195?), whose poetry is considered the
finest in Provençal language, is known to have traveled throughout England
around 1152 or 1155. The rumours about his love affair with Eleanor will never
be fully proven, but it seems they made her second husband uneasy. In one
of her frequent visits to Poitiers, Eleanor welcomed Bernard (recently expelled
from Ventadour) in her court, where he would stay for some time. Henry II
himself “invited” him to leave Poitiers and go to England.3 The earliest
1 Benoît de Sainte-Maure (also spelled Sainte-More) was a XIIth century poet, prob-
ably from Sainte-Maure, near Poitiers. He is the author of an Old French poem in
about 30,000 octosyllabic couplets, the Roman de Troie (c. 1165), the subject of
which was given by Henry II to the poet who, then, dedicated his text to Eleanor
(Barron 1987: 49). Benoît’s poem, a travesty of the story told in Homer’s Iliad, is
an immense Baroque tapestry of Greek lore and fable. His is the first version of the
Troilus and Cressida story. Benoît’s poem was widely popular in its day and it
analyzed various forms of love: the rape of Helen by Paris; Medea’s desertion by
Jason; Briseida parted from Troilus and seduced by Diomedes; and, finally,
Polyxena wooed by Achilles (Barron 1987: 111-12).
2 The names of two minor authors should also be added to the list of those writing in
Henry II’s and Eleanor’s court, Béroul and Philip of Thaon (Pernoud 1995: 11617), though a direct link between them and the queen can not be established. Béroul,
a Norman poet, also wrote a Tristan poem (c. 1190), very possibly in England
(Barron 1987: 49). The cleric Philippe de Taon (early XIIth century) had enjoyed
the patronage of the English king Henry I (1069-1135). He provides one of the first
examples of “scientific” writing in Anglo-Norman literature: the Cumpoz or
Comput, a kind of ecclesiastical calendar. He also wrote a lapidary and a bestiary,
both allegorical. His Bestiary, a typical Romanesque genre, is full of knights and
ladies (Pernoud 1995: 117). It seems, however, that the author dedicated it, not to
Eleanor, but to Henry I’s second wife, Adeliza or Adelaide of Louvain (Barron
1987: 48; Burnley 1998: 126). The name of another author can still be included here,
one mestre Thomas, a clerk associated with the court of Henry II. He is the author
of the Romance of Horn (Burnley 1998: 11), from which King Horn derived. As in
the cases of Béroul and Philip of Thaon, an explicit connection with Eleanor can not
be made. For an edition of Thomas’ romance, see: POPE, M. K. (ed.). 1955-64. The
Romance of Horn by Thomas. 2 vols. Anglo-Norman Texts 9-10, 12-13. Oxford.
3 Eleonor had just returned to Poitiers and there was a rumour concerning the love
between Bernard and the queen. R.Pernoud wonders: “¿Se molestaría Enrique, como
antes Eble de Ventadour, por los homenajes que el trovador rendía a la reina?
¿Llevaría por esto a Bernard a Inglaterra, prefiriendo poner el mar entre la reina y el
poeta? Es lo que habría de insinuar, el siglo siguiente, su biógrafo, Uc de saint-Circ”
(1995: 113). Walter Map (1140?-1209?), a clerkman at the service of Henry II, did
not have a very favourable opinion on Eleanor. It is remarkable that he should refer
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Eugenio Olivares
known French woman poet, Marie de France (+1216?),1 must have spent
some time in England –for she knew English (Larrington 1995: 20)– where she
probably wrote her literary works, all of them in French: the Lais (before
1189), the Fables (Ysopets) and a version of St. Patrick's Purgatory
(Espurgatoire of Saint Patrice, after 1189). From her three surviving texts, the
twelve brief Lais are especially relevant for the present purpose. As Barron
has claimed, some (if not all) of these short stories, combining the central
topics of courtly love poetry and chivalric spirit –everything adorned with
the magic halo of Celtic influence–, were written in England. Besides, this
same critic concludes, “Henry II was most probably the King to whom Marie
of France dedicated her lais” (Barron 1987: 49).2 In light of this assumption,
one might reasonably suppose that Marie de France also met Queen Eleanor.
Finally, Chrétien de Troyes (fl. 1165-80) himself, the creator of the roman
courtois, is likely to have spent some time in England, for it seems it was
there where he wrote his first romance, Erec et Enide (1170), at the behest of
Henry II, to support his son Geoffrey’s claim to the throne of Brittany by
stressing the “link” between the latter and King Arthur.3 The poet from
to her, when she was the queen-mother, in the following terms: “Cui successit
Henricus Matildis filius, in quem iniecit oculos incestos Alienor Francorum regina,
Lodouici piisimi coniux, et iniustum machinata diuorcium nupsit ei, cum tamen
haberet[ur] in fama priuata quod Gaufrido patri suo lectum Lodouici participasset”
(“To him Henry, son of Matilda, succeeded, and upon him Eleanor, queen of the
French, the wife of the most pious Louis, cast her unchaste eyes, and contrived an
unrighteous annulment, and married him, though she was secretly reputed to have
shared the couch of Louis with his father Geoffrey”) (Map 1994: 474-77). For
further allegations made against Eleanor and her misconduct, see: John of Salisbury.
1956. Hist. Pontificalis. Ed. M. Chibnall. Nelson’s medieval texts, pp. 52-53, 61;
Richard of Devizes. 1963. Chronicle. Ed. J. T. Appleby. Nelson’s medieval texts,
pp. 125-26.
1 What little is known about her is taken or inferred from her writings and from a possible allusion or two in the works of contemporary authors. The most plausible
identification of her historical identity is that she was the illegitimate daughter of
Godefroy d’Anjou and that she became abbes of Shaftesbury around 1181. Her surname, de France (first used by Claude Fauchet in a line in the epilogue to her fables
[1581]), suggests that she was probably of French birth, rather than of French descent, i.e. a member of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy (Larrington 1995: 20).
2 However, it is sometimes thought that this was Henry II’s son, the Young King
(died in 1183).
3 Kibler states that the coronation of Erec at Nantes on Christmas Day presents similarities with a historical event that took place in England. In 1169 Henry II held a
court with the purpose of marrying his third son, Geoffrey, to the daughter of
Conan IV of Brittany, Constance. It also took place in Nantes and in Christmas
Day. Apart from this, “The guest list at the coronation of Erec includes barons from
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Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
Troyes certainly met Eleanor, either in England or in one of the Queen’s stays
in Poitiers, being so impressed by Henry II’s wife that he might well have
found in her the inspiration for Erec et Enide (Pernoud 1995: 152). Both Marie
de France and the poet from Troyes were very popular in England and, as
Sanders writes, “The works of both poets seem to have circulated both
widely and over a long period” in that country (1994: 40).
Eleanor’s second husband, ten years younger than her, could not help
feeling himself seduced by the figure of King Arthur, a kind of British messiah, as Geoffrey of Monmouth had depicted him in his Historia Regum
Britanniae: this Breton chief became a model for all Christian knights, his
fabled court the materialization of the feudal ideal of social harmony. Henry II
was particularly moved by the Arthurian legend: at his command some excavations were carried out in Glastonbury. A rumour spread that Excalibur,
the sword of the king, had been found there. Indirectly, Henry II contributed
to kindle the interest of his people for those stories that narrated the deeds of
the Knights of the Round Table, deeds that would soon be adorned with love
adventures and refined manners in the pages of Chrétien de Troyes’ romances, the very core of the Arthurian canon. This fascination for the figure
of King Arthur did remain through the XIIIth century and found a most accomplished manifestation in the person of Edward III: “His new order of
Chivalry [the Order of the Garter, founded in c. 1344] was a belated realization
of long cherished military ideals and long fostered literary images” (Sanders
1994: 39).
Certainly, it goes without saying that Henry II and his wife Eleanor exercised such a wide and generous patronage,1 that the courtly romance
all corners of Henry II’s domains” (Kibler 1991: 6). Besides, the thrones on which
Arthur and Erec were seated, both gifts from Bruianz des Illes, had leopards
sculptured in their arms. Leopards were the heraldic animals in Henry II’s royal
arms and Bruianz des Illes has been identified as Brian of Wallingford, the King’s
best friend (Kibler 1991: 6). But the presence of Henry II’s England seems not to be
confined solely to Erece et Enide: “References to English cities and topography,
especially in Cligés but indeed in all his works, show that the Britain of King
Arthur was the England of King Henry II Plantagenet” (Kibler 1991: 5). For other
scholars who have pointed out Chrétien de Troyes’ links with the court of Henry
II, see: Cohen, G. 1931: Chrétien de Troyes et son oeuvre. Boivin, Paris, pp. 82, 89;
Holmes, U. T. Jr. 1937: A History of Old French Literature from the Origins to
1300. Linker, Chapel Hill, p. 164.
1 Eleanor’s daughters, Marie of Champagne and Alix, were equally (if not more) influential (Parry 1941: 13). Under Marie’s command, Chrétien de Troyes wrote his
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Eugenio Olivares
tradition rapidly spread in the late XIIth century; the great courts of Europe
were so cosmopolitan surely thanks to the periods of peace Europe was
enjoying.1 But this was not the case in England: “Of all the genres of romanz
only the full-blown roman courtois is missing [in England], though it seems
unlikely that it would have been less welcome in Eleanor’s English court than
at Poitiers” (Barron 1987: 49). Eleanor’s England might well have been a suitable audience for those romances in which the love of ladies (often married)
was the only goal in the life of the knight; romances which the Lady of the
Castle well described to Sir Gawain in the following terms:
For to telle of pis teuelyng of pis trwe knyftez,
Hit is pe tytelet token and tyxt of her werkkez,
How ledes for her lele luf hor lyuez han auntered,
Endured for her drury dulful stoundez,
And after wenged with her walour and voyded her care,
And broft blysse into boure with bountes awen–
(Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tolkien 1967: ll. 1514-519)
However, leaving aside the romance-chronicle Brut by Layamon (c. 1220),
the first Middle English romance (King Horn) was not written until c. 1225,
when this genre was already beginning to show signs of a decline from its
original form. It was not until the lower classes, who knew no French,
“became more literate and prosperous that they created a considerable demand for written records of the romances which pleased them”, texts that
were obviously written in Middle English (Loomis1963: 133). Relying on the
preserved manuscripts, it must be concluded that the “matter of Britain” was
not taken into England (exception again made of Layamon’s Brut) until the
XIVth century, with great appeal to English readers then.2 Nevertheless,
Lancelot, one in which he was told to reflect the most accomplished type of a
fin’amors relationship, the adulterous love between Artur’s wife, Guinevere, and
Lancelot, the best and most loyal of his knights.
1 Focusing only in the “matter of Britain”, apart from Chrétien de Troyes five French
romances (1170-90), many romances were written in Germany: the Parzival (c.
1200) by Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan und
Isolde (c. 1210) (Barron 1987: 237-38). In another German text, we find the
archetypal Tristan romance: Eilhart von Oberge's Tristant (c. 1170-80).
2 Generally speaking, let us point the following romances or groups of them: a) Ywain
and Gawain (1300-50), which is a version of Chrétien de Troyes’ Yvain; and Sir
Perceval of Galles (1300-40). b) Four Breton lays in English: Sir Orfeo (c. 1300);
Sir Degare (1300-25); Emare (c. 1400); and, finally, Thomas Chestre’s Sir Launfal
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Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
neither at that moment nor before did the ethos of fin’amors –ultimately defined by its quasi-religious intensity, its adulterous connotations and its joyful unfulfillment– widely satisfy the taste of the English romance readers.
What follows is an attempt to explain the referred dearth.
II. THE LOVE TOPIC IN ENGLISH ROMANCES
Romance, the most accomplished literary reflection of French courtly culture,
soon spread to other parts of Western Europe. England, as stated before, saw
a later flourishing of the genre, though the fashion would last until the end of
the Middle Ages: many French romances were adapted into verse and prose
from the late XIIIth to the XVth and even XVIth centuries. In general terms,
the subjects dealt with were those found in French romance.1 In any case, it
is necessary to talk about adaptations (or very liberal versions), imitations,
naturalizations or reflections of the French models, but never mere
translations. Besides, from a formal point of view, English romances present a
richer variety of verse forms: from the almost exclusive mode of the rhyming
couplets, there is a shift into a remarkable diversity of metrical styles.2 In this
sense, Barron concluded that English romances show a modified conception
(late XIVth century). c) The Gawain romances (XIVth and XVth centuries), including Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (l375-1400). d) Alliterative Morte Arthure
(1350-1400); the stanzaic Morte Arthur (c. 1400); and Malory’s Morte Darthur(c.
1470). A full account of the development of the “matter of Britain” in England is
given by Barron (1987: 132-76).
1 I mean the three types of historical materials broadly defined as the “matter” of
Rome (legends from classic antiquity); the “matter” of France (the deeds of
Charlemagne and his knights or the fight against the invading Muslims); and, finally,
the “matter” of Britain (the adventures of King Arthur and his knights). Barron also
talks about the “Matter of England”, made up of a body of national legend of the
Germanic stock (1987: 63-88). Among the most outstanding romances from this last
(and less known) group, we find King Horn (c. 1225), Havelok the Dane (c. 1290),
The Tale of Gamelyn (c. 1350-70) and Athelston (c. 1355-80).
2 R. S. Loomis makes a two-fold division of Middle English romances: “the rimed
English romances” (1963: 131-46) and “the alliterative English romances” (1963:
147-165). More recently, Inés Praga has preserved the same distinction, giving a detailed account of possible variations (1985: 244-46). M. Mills does not make explicit reference to this two-fold division and he rather points out the range of metrical forms. He mentions various kinds of couplets, various types of alliterative lines
and, finally, various stanza patterns. Among these, he singles out the short
rhyming-couplet and the twelve-line tail-rhyme stanza, as the most popular (1973:
viii).
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of the genre, different, but by no means inferior to the French models: “The
result is an even greater variety of form and content” (1987: 57). This
statement is further tinged by Sanders, when he defines English romances as
“simpler in form and more direct in address than their originals” (1994: 41).
Therefore, it is fairly justified to conclude that there are “some distinctively
English modes of romance-writing” (Mills 1973: vii). Among these original
features of English romance corpus, I would like to focus on the way in which
the love topic is presented.
Love vs. action: Being not a marginal topic, it is by no means the central
aspect of the stories. In roman courtois (best exemplified in Lancelot by
Chrétien de Troyes) the whole narration depends on the relationship between
the knight and the lady (it being developed along the patterns of fin’amors,
as first systematized by A. Capellanus); this is hardly the case in the English
texts. Love in them, though important, is not exclusively the primary concern
of the plot: courage, heroism and military prowess are relevant in and of
themselves, not merely as the necessary attributes of the perfect fin’amans.
As A.B. Taylor concluded: “They [English romance readers] liked to have a
love theme running through a romance, but not as the supreme topic,” (1930:
250). M.A. Gist (1947: 8) restates K. Lippmann’s opinion when she claims that
the ethics of English romances are not French, but Anglo-Saxon.1 The stress
falls, rather than on love, on “courage, steadfastness, truthfulness, honor,
prowess, nobility (edelmut), generosity, and manhood (menske)”. The same
opinion is held by J. Fellows:
The modern connotations of the term “romantic” might lead us to
expect that love between the sexes is the primary focus of these
narratives, but this is not normally the case. Such love provides
the motive force for Florys and Blauncheflour alone among the romances in this volume. This is not to say that love and marriage do
not play an important part in most romances, but usually they subserve other themes such as the hero’s growth to maturity (King
Horn, Syr Tryamowre), or are seen in relation to knightly prowess,
1 See: Lippmann, K. Das ritterliche Persönlichkeitsideal in der mittelenglischen
Literatur des 13 und 14 Jahrhunderts. Leipzig: Meerane in Sachen, 1933, pp. 5672. See also: Schücking, L. L. Die englische Literatur in Mittelalter. Handbuch der
literaturwissenchaft 4. Ed. O. Walzel. Wildpark-Postdam, 1927, pp. 66.
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Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
honour (The Erle of Tolous) and loyalty (Amis and Amiloun).
(1993: vii)1
English readers preferred rather strength, courage, marvellous incidents,… that to which we refer to nowadays as action. In 1924, Laura H.
Loomis conducted a survey of those Middle English romances that did not
wholly fit within the traditional story-cycles or “matters”(those of Rome,
France and Britain).2 The result of her research was a new thematic subdivision: “’Romances of Love and Adventure’”; “’Romances of legendary
English heroes’”; and “’Romances of Trial and Faith’” (Mills 1973: vi).
Loomis’ division was by no means a clear-cut one, since she pointed out that
the three ethos often appeared in different sections of the same romance. Be
it as it may, the heroic or edifying modes seem to prevail over the chivalrous
(the essence of which is love), without wholly supressing it (Mills 1973: ix).
In order to exemplify what is being said, let me briefly focus on two romances in which love is one of the central concerns of the narration, particularly in the second text: King Horn (c. 1225) and Floris et Blancheflur (c.
1250). In the first case, the story is not primarily a love-story, but one in
which the overall structure is determined by the hero’s three basic motifs:
“Horn’s need to prove himself as a man and a knight, to avenge his father’s
death and to regain his patrimony” (Fellows 1993: ix). Horn is in love with
Rymenhild but their final union subserves the last of the aforementioned motifs: it is a kind of culmination to Horn’s success in regaining his royal status
(Fellows 1993: ll. 1279-90). Besides, anticipating the argumentation that follows in the next heading, the relationship between the lovers frustrates two of
the fundamental features of fin’amors: the lovers eventually marry and, besides, the reader often has the impression that it was Rhymenhild who was
courting Horn and not the other way around! In Floris et Blancheflur the
reader certainly finds a more French-like treatment of love: it is pasionate and
1 It is necessary to account for the exceptions to this statement. The theme of a
knight who undertakes adventures to prove to his lady that he is worthy of her
love, a typical task of the fin’amans, is mainly represented in two romances:
Ipomedon (1174-90) of Hue de Rotelande and the referred Florys and Blauncheflour
(c. 1250). The first one, as M. Mills remarks, is “unusual in its full-scale treatment
of the refinements of chivalrous love” (1973: viii). The second one, even more so,
focuses on passionate love to the exclusion of other values and considerations
(Fellows 1993: xi).
2 See: LOOMIS, L. H. 1924. Medieval Romance in England. New York.
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Eugenio Olivares
seems to exclude other values and considerations, even the religious and the
chivalric. Nevertheless, the author omits or condenses passages of descriptions, reflections and dialogues and he concentrates rather on practical
action.1 In light of this, G. Barnes stated that love is here subordinated to the
engine by which Floris achieves his goal (1984: 10-25).
Love vs. ‘fin’amors’: Once it is remarked that love is not the main concern
in English romances, a further clarification should also be made. When
English romance writers describe the love of the hero, it is not presented according to the strict precepts of fin’amors as usually happens in the roman
courtois. English romance readers would rebel against many of the conventions of this fashion: the lengthy descriptions of wooing scenes, the refinement and delicacies of knights and ladies or, at times, the sugary submission
of the knight-lover were not much to the taste of the English audience. For
English romance writers, as for their readers, love might be a most ennobling
human feeling, but the pursuit of it was by no means an obsession or a kind
of pathology. In a sense, the conception of love in English romances is more
naturalistic, less endowed with quasi-mystic connotations, as in the French
case. Common sense and rationality are, in general terms, preserved in the
minds of the lovers, who never let themselves be fully carried away by uncontrolled passion. King Horn’s love for Rymenhild is less sublime than that
of Lancelot for Guinevere, but at the same time more realistic and closer to the
everyday life of readers.2 In 1938, a study conducted by Donnell Van de
Voort was published.3 It dealt with the treatment given to love in Medieval
1 Ywain and Gawain (entre 1300 y 1350) exemplifies the present statement, since it
is an adaptation (never a translation) of Chrétien de Troyes’ Ywain. The almost
7000 lines in the French text are transformed into little more than 4000 in the
English version. This drastic reduction is achieved by the simplification, if not
supression, of the wooing episodes and delicacies of the courtly system: “The
poem is clearly the work of a minstrel catering for the sober, realistic audience of a
provincial baron's hall, an audience whose sensibilities and sympathies were not
adjusted to Chrétien’s elaborate and subtle representations of courtly love or to
high- flown chivalric sentiment. The elegant and dilatory court romance of Chrétien
has become in the hands of the English minstrel a rapid-paced story of love and
gallant adventure” (Friedman and Harington 1964: xvii).
2 This is also one of the main differences between Provençal and English love lyrics
(Olivares Merino 1998: 204-07).
3 See: Love and Marriage in the English Medieval Romance. Nashville: Privately
Printed.
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Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
English romances and it has remained for decades an influential work. M. A.
Gist summarized Voort’s opinion on the present issue in the following terms:
“in the ethics of sex and marriage the English romances do not follow the
French pattern of courtly love” (1947: vii). Already in the 70’s, H. A. Kelly
also made reference to Voort’s text, sharing with this author the view that
“those parts of the code of courtly love relating to a system of idealized immorality have no place in the English prose or metrical romances” (1975: 21).
Five years before, R. Woolf had stated that “Love can be said to be the chief
subject of the romances. This love, however, is not courtly love” (1970: 274).1
Love vs. adultery: In King Horn and Floris et Blancheflur, marriage is
presented as the perfect (and desireable) culmination of a true love relationship. When A. Capellanus stated that the first rule of love was “Marriage is
no real excuse for loving” (1941: 184), he was establishing a pattern that many
other romances were to follow, Chrétien de Troyes’ Lancelot and the Prose
(or Vulgate) Lancelot (XIIIth century) being the most emblematic ones.
English romances rarely presented their heroes enrolled in adulterous love
relationships. As early as 1947, G. Mathew stated that “In fiction romantic
love was very rarely associated with adultery”(71). French romances in which
illicit love was somehow legitimated (Flamenca, Joufrois, Châtelain de
Coucy,…),2 did not appeal to English readers, who rather preferred a less
problematic treatment of the love theme.3 In Sir Degrevaunt (late XIVthe
1 M. A. Gist reports J. E. Wells’ opinion (A Manual of the Writings in Middle
English. New Haven, 1916, pp. 1-2) when he described English romances as less
sophisticated, more sincere and democratic (1947: 2) A. McI. Trounce defined
English romances as “popular and religious in subject-matter, and lively in tone”
(1932: 102). Equally conclusive is B. Ford, when he writes about “the lack of an
audience interested in the refinements of amour courtois” (1976: 161).
2 The provençal Flamenca (c. 1234) is, probably, the most outstanding. It is a poem
of more than 8,000 lines in which a lady by ingenious devices eludes the vigilance of
her jealous husband: no book in medieval literature had more quickness of intellect
or was more instructive about the manners of polite society in the XIIIth century.
The theme of “outwitting of the jealous husband”, common in the fabliaux (short
verse tales containing realistic, even coarse detail, and written to amuse), is
frequently found in XIIIth-century romance and in lighter lyric verse. It occurs also
in the Châtelain de Coucy, where it is combined with a more tragic, sophisticated,
and far-fetched theme, that of the dead lover’s heart served by the jealous husband
to the lady.
3 “for many the amusements of secular life, especially stories of amorous intrigue
(according to the strictest doctrine incompatible with true piety), were equally en-
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Eugenio Olivares
century), the hero’s love for Melydor is described following many of the
conventions of fin’amors, but both marry at the end; the same happens in
William of Palerme (c. 1350). Finally, the heroes in Sir Torrent of Portyngale
(c. 1400), Sir Eglamour of Artois (c. 1350) and Sir Triamour (late XIVth
century) respectively marry Desonel, Cristabelle and the King of Hungary’s
daughter (Mathew 1947: 132-3).1
The dearth of English romances starred by Lancelot or Tristan, the two
adulterous lovers par excellence, is also symptomatic of this uneasiness with
illicit love affairs. Queen Guinevere’s lover appears in only four English texts,
all of them written in the XVth and XVIth centuries. The first one is the
stanzaic Morte Arthur (c.1400). The anonymous north-Midlands poet did not
want to modify the love between Lancelot and Arthur’s wife, a literary
documented historical fact, but he made a lot out of it. Whereas Chrétien de
Troyes described its beneficial effects and the writer of the Prose Lancelot
created “a frank glorification of idealized adultery” (Loomis 1963: 92), the
English poet dramatized the consequences of the affair: “is such a love compatible with the dynastic ideal which Arthur embodied for an age which condemned sexual relations with the wife of the ruler as treason?” (Barron 1987:
144). In Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory (c. 1470), Lancelot’s role is
again essentially defined by the conflict between his love for Guinevere and
his loyalty to his lord (Barron 1987: 151), a dilemma that leads to Arthur’s
dolorous death. Although based on French romances (mainly the Vulgate
Cycle [first third of the XIIIth century]), Malory's account differs from his
models in its emphasis on the brotherhood of the knights rather than on
fin’amors and on the conflicts of loyalty (brought about by the adultery of
grossing. But, as said earlier, few specimens of this literature contraverted, and most
maintained conventional medieval morality more or less strongly” (Ford 1976: 96).
1 The Awntyrs of Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne was included by Madden in his 1839
compilation of Gawain-romances. In this text, composed in half or late XIVth
century (Wells 1926: 61), the anonymous poet describes Gawain and Guinevere riding together, when suddenly a storm breaks. The Queen’s mother’s ghost appears
to them, dreadful to see, just to warn Guinevere about the dangers of fin'amors,
which have led her to her present state: “This es it to luffe pamoures, and luftis, and
litys,/ That gerfe me lyghte and lenge so lawe in pis lake” (Madden 1839: ll. 200-1).
The Adulterous Falmouth Squire is a short narration which, being supposedly based
in real events, enjoyed great popularity in XIVth century England. A boy
insistently claims the grace of knowing whether or not his dead father has saved his
soul. He is taken to Heaven and then to Hell, where he sees his father suffering
terribly for he was an adulterer (Stone 1971: 82-8).
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Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
Lancelot and Guinevere) that finally destroy the fellowship. Only two late
poems bear the name of the Queen’s lover: the Scottish verse romance
Lancelot of the Laik (1482-1500), clearly derived from the Vulgate-Lancelot
and, well into the XVIth century, the ballad Sir Lancelot du Lake.1 Finally, it
is worth remarking that in the most accomplished English Arthurian romance,
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Lancelot only appears once, referred to in
a long list of Arthurian knights (l. 553).2
Tristan’s case is even more telling, since (apart from Malory’s references
to him) he is the subject of only one romance, Sir Tristrem (late XIIIth century), that derives from Thomas of Britain’s version of the legend.3 In the
Middle English text, the anonymous author avoids the courtly embellishments of his source, while delaying the meeting of the lovers for one third of
the narration. Tristan is not a passionate lover, but “a good knight whose career is blighted by a fatal error”, his affair with Isolde (Barron 1987: 154).
III. THE REASONS
1 There might also be other reasons, more irrational, to understand the unpopularity
of Lancelot in England. We can not forget that Arthur and his knight are all English
characters, whereas Lancelot du Lac was French, according to Malory’s Le Morte
Darthur, born in Bayonne, in the Aquitaine region. As narrated in the the Prose or
Vulgate Lancelot, after the death of his father, King Ban of Benoic, Lancelot was
carried off by the enchantress Vivien, the Lady of the Lake, who in time sent him to
Arthur's court. Plainly speaking, the English audience would not find much pleasure
in reading the amorous adventures of a French knight who went to the Arthurian
court and seduced the King’s wife!
2 I have already analysed the implicit contrast established by the Pearl-poet between
Gawain and Lancelot (Olivares Merino 1998: 239).
3 The legend was given the form in which it has become known to succeeding generations in about 1150-60 by an otherwise unknown Old French poet whose work, although lost, can be reconstructed in its essentials from surviving versions based
upon it. The main French versions (both fragmentary) are by the Anglo-Norman
poet Thomas (c. 1170) and the Norman Béroul (rather later and possibly
composite. From these versions it can be inferred that the archetypal poem told the
story of an all-absorbing passion caused by a magic potion, a passion stronger than
death, yet unable to triumph over the feudal order to which the heroes belong. The
story ended with Iseult's death in the embrace of her dying lover and with the
symbol of two trees growing from the graves of the lovers and intertwining their
branches so closely that they could never be separated. Thomas of Britain’s poem
was used by Gottfried von Strassburg in Tristan und Isolde (c. 1170-80), as well as
being the source of the Old Norse, Italian, and Middle English versions of the story.
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Eugenio Olivares
So far I have stated that, as far as the presentation of the love topic is
concerned, Middle English romances depart from their French models in the
following aspects: the non exclusivity of love in the plots, the lack of interest
in the refinements of fin’amors and, finally, the rejection of adulterous affairs.
I would like to propose some reasons to account for these differences. Many
more might surely be added, but I consider these to be the most relevant
ones.
The Anglo-Norman background: One important difference between continental and Anglo-Norman literature is that the Fourth Lateran Council of
1215 led to an outpouring of doctrinal and devotional works for the laity in
England not paralleled in France.1 Religious houses caused lives of native
saints to be written, and the nobility had a taste for romances about imaginary English ancestors, the matter of England. Thus social and political differences prevented Anglo-Norman literature from being a mere imitation of its
French counterpart. Focusing on the present purpose, it is necessary to take
into account the attitude of Anglo-Norman romance writers in order to better
understand the special treatment given to the issue of love in Middle English
romances, for in many cases the first ones provided direct sources for the
latter.2 Anglo-Norman literature had its fair shair of romances. Apart from the
XIIth century versions of the Tristan story by Thomas and Béroul, in this
same century some romances were composed in the form of the chanson de
geste; for example, Romance of Horn, by Master Thomas, a text from which
1 The fourth Lateran Council, the 12th ecumenical council (1215), generally consid-
ered the greatest council before Trent, was years in preparation. Pope Innocent III
desired the widest possible representation, and more than 400 bishops, 800 abbots
and priors, envoys of many European kings, and personal representatives of
Frederick II (confirmed by the council as emperor of the West) took part. The purpose of the council was twofold: reform of the Church and the recovery of the Holy
Land. Many of the conciliar decrees touching on Church reform and organization
remained in effect for centuries. The council ruled on such vexing problems as the
use of church property, tithes, judicial procedures, and patriarchal precedence. It
ordered Jews and Saracens to wear distinctive dress and obliged Catholics to make a
yearly confession and to receive Communion during the Easter season. The council
sanctioned the word transubstantiation as a correct expression of eucharistic
doctrine. The teachings of the Cathari and Waldenses were condemned. Innocent
also ordered a four-year truce among Christian rulers so that a new crusade could be
launched.
2 See: Crane, S. 1986. Insular Romance: Politics, Faith, and Culture in Anglo-Norman
and Middle English Literature. Berkeley, California; and Weiss, J. 1992. The Birth
of Romance: An Anthology. London.
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Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
both the Middle English King Horn (c. 1225) and Horn Childe and Maiden
Rimnild (c. 1320) were independently derived (Fellows 1993: viii). Yet another
Thomas wrote the Roman de toute chevalerie, an independent version of the
Alexander romance and the source of the Middle English romance King
Alisaunder (c. 1300). In the XIIIth century the more courtly type of romance
reappeared in Amadas et Idoine and in Amis et Amiloun, perhaps derived
from the same source as the Middle English poem Amis and Amiloun (late
XIIIth).
C. B. West made a clarification which is very useful for my present concern: “the idea of marriage separated from love remains foreign to them
[Anglo-Norman poets]” (1938: 168). Leaving aside the referred Tristan stories
(both written under the patronage of Eleanor), continental fin'amors was seen
by Anglo-Norman poets, elsewhere prosaic, practical, insensitive, showing
no enthusiasm nor sense of beauty, with a certain degree of suspicion. Love,
that irrational, blind and joyful force that subdues every other consideration,
is defined in an Anglo-Norman text in the following terms (in Latin, AngloNorman and Middle English):
Amor est quedam mentis insania
Que vagum hominem ducit per devia;
Sitit delicias et bibit tristia,
Crebris doloribus commiscens gaudia.
Amur est une penseé enragiée
Ke le udif humme meyne par veie deveye,
Ke a seyf de delices et ne beyt ke tristece.
Love is a selkud wodenesse
That the ideal men ledeth by wildernesse,
That thurstes of wilfulscipe,
And drinket sorwenesse,
And with lomful sorewes menget his blithnesse
(Meyer 1876: 383).
The moral background: When analysing the genesis of Provençal love
poetry, it has elsewhere been pointed out that it was the moral relaxation in
the Provence that conditioned the development of fin’amors precisely there
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Eugenio Olivares
and not, initially, in Northern France.1 The situation in England was very different, for there the influence of a very active Church was felt everywhere.
Even running the risk of oversimplification, R.W. Ackerman draws the following conclussion:
But more importantly, all education above the elementary level, the
grammar school in particular, was and continued to remain under
the aegis of the Church and was oriented toward the preparation of
priests. Again, from the parish church itself flowed and endless
stream of dogma and moral exhortation. These Christian influences
were of primary significance to all aspects of medieval culture, and
an understanding of them is crucial to a student of Middle English
literature. (1966: 38)
Something similar might be said concerning the end of the period that is
being dealt with, for, as W.A. Pantin remarked, “With all the faults and scandals of the times, and they were many, it was at the same time a profoundly
religious period” (1955: 1-2).2 The moralising purpose of many English romances is now better understood, as is the fact that many of them present
affinities with hagiographic narrations: Sir Launfal [end XIVth c.], Erl of
Toulous [c. 1400], Emare [c. 1400], Sir Gowther [c. 1400] or Sir Orfeo [c.
1300], etc).3 M. A. Gist, after highlighting that English romances were characterized by “didactic intention and conscious piety” (1947: 2), goes on to
claim that some of the episodes in French romance were embarrassing for the
1 “The contrast between the two moralities (…) perhaps provides us with the key to
the problem of social geography presented by these new preoccupations with romantic love. (…) It is beyond dispute, on the other hand, that in the South the
Church, especially during the first feudal age, was less rich, less cultivated, less active than in the northern provinces. No great works of clerical literature, no great
movements of monastic reform emanated from that region. (…) it was also no doubt
the reason why the higher ranks of the laity, being less subject to clerical influence,
were relatively free to develop their own secular morality” (Bloch 1961: 310).
2 In a less enthusiastic manner, H. S. Bennet states that “Chaucer’s England was
Catholic England, … The world in which Chaucer grew up accepted the Church and
its teaching” (1990: 12).
3 “[The romances] were usually pious in their sentiments and often religious in their
purport, even though the actions and emotions they displayed did not always
accord with the orthodox Christian ethical code. In fact, there was frequently no
great difference between many medieval romances (in the sense of amorous
adventures) and the equally numerous tales of saints and sinners” (Ford 1976: 87).
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Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
English audiences (1947: 7-8).1 The moral conflicts arising from a too serious
concern for the precepts of fin’amors should not be underestimated as a
factor conditioning the peculiarities of Middle English romance. As
Robertson reminds us, “that lechery or amorous passion is a destructive of
chivalry is a commonplace of medieval thought from the twelfth century onward among both religious and secular writers on the subject” (1968: 7).
Therefore, the lack of interest in the refinements of courtly love might betray
a certain degree of uneasiness with some of the implications (especially
adultery) and intricacies of this code, since they brought about serious moral
objections. A historical document from XIVth century England might well illustrate this point. In 1346, after the English victory at Crécy, Thomas
Bradwardine2 gave a sermon in St. Paul’s Cathedral in which he explained the
reasons for the French defeat:
Embracing a seventh error, they [the French] seem to emulate antique pagans worshiping Hymen or Cupid, the god of carnal love.
Soldiering in Venus, associating themselves with the retinue of
Aphrodite, they think the vigour of their audacity to be probity,
victory, or triumph. But they say that no one can be vigorous unless he is amorous, or loves amorously, that no one can fight
strenuously to excess unless he loves to excess. But how profane
is this foolishness, how false, insane, and wild!…They labor
strenuously in arma to make for themselves a name like the name of
the greatest upon earth…And why do they wish such a name?
That they may be loved by foolish women. …And who gives them
the payment and reward for their labors? Who, except for the god
for whom they fight, to whom they devote themselves, and whom
they worship? And what payment or reward do they get for their
1 Gist also mentions A. H. Billings (see: A Guide to English Metrical Romances. New
York, 1901, p. xx), who defined English romances as more passionate and less lascivious (1947: 2).
2 Thomas Bradwardine (c. 1290-1349) was archbishop of Canterbury, theologian, and
mathematician. Bradwardine studied at Merton College, Oxford, and became a
proctor there. In about 1335 he moved to London, and in 1337 he was made chancellor of St. Paul’s Cathedral. He became a royal chaplain and confessor to King
Edward III. In 1349 he was made archbishop of Canterbury but died of the plague
soon afterward during the Black Death. Bradwardine's most famous work in his day
was a treatise on grace and free will entitled De causa Dei (1344), in which he so
stressed the divine concurrence with all human volition that his followers concluded
from it a universal determinism. Bradwardine also wrote works on mathematics.
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Eugenio Olivares
pride? Public and inmense disgrace. And for their lechery? A
stinking and intense burning. (Robertson 1968: 6)1
Popular audiences: Aware of the differences between French and English
romances, A.B. Taylor claimed that, in general terms, English romances were
basically aimed at the common working folk (1930: 81), who were less learned
(or interested) in the refinements of fin’amors and certainly preferred to read
about heroic deeds and fiery battles:
Stories of courtly love make no appeal to the lower classes of any
country, and to all classes of Englishmen, inheriting a strong vein
of Puritanism from the Anglo-Saxon stock, chastity would be a
highly reverenced virtue: Since most English romances were fashioned to suit the lower classes, it is not surprising that where
Tristam is the subject of one, and Lancelot only of two, Gawain is
the hero of ten. (1930: 81)
Since the Norman ruling classes were (well into the XIIIth century) French
speaking, the obvious consequence would be to claim that Middle English
romances were written only for those who were literate in English, the lower
classes. It has also been argued that, as romances tend to appear in moral and
didactic compilations, “they too would appeal to an audience of limited
sophis tication anxious for instruction and moral edification” (Barron 1987:
74).2 The level of material production of the great majority of romance
collections also seems to suggest humble audiences. The modest manuscript
compilations in which most English romances are preserved stands in open
contrast with the richly illuminated French texts.3 Though it would be an error
to immediately identify the quality of the manuscripts containing romances
with the social status of their patron or owner, it is remarkable that only two
of these manuscripts might be associated with readership drawn from the
1 See: Sermo Epinicius. Ed. H. A. Oberman and J. A. Weisheipl, Arch. d'hist. doct. e.
litt. d.m.a., XXV (1958), pp. 323-4.
2 For example, the British Library MS Harley 2253, the Auchinleck MS (National
Library of Scotland), the Thornton MS 91 (Lincoln Cathedral Library) or the
British Library Cotton Nero A.x. (Barron 1987: 54-55). C. M. Meale provides a
complete index of manuscripts containing Middle English romances (1994: 227-28).
3 Few manuscripts fall into the cathegory of de luxe. From them, only four contain illustrations: British Library Cotton Nero A.x.; Oxford, Bodleian Library Bodley MS
264; New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 876; and British Library Harley
MS 326. (Meale 1994: 213).
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Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
nobility: the Bodley 264 (1994: 214-15) and the Harley 326.1 Therefore,
medievalists have almost unanimously referred to “a popular English
audience to whom the style and conventions of roman courtois would have
been alien but whose pious and sentimental tastes approved the moral
rectitude of the hard-working hero, a model apprentice-boy, and the idealized
picture of monarchic rule” (Barron 1987: 73).2 What all these scholars mean
when talking about lower classes, audiences of limited sophistication or
popular English audiences should be finally clarified. Generallly speaking,
they make reference to a wide spectrum of English society: from the ranks of
rural gentry to the merchant élite of London -including wealthy merchants’
wives, whose literacy in English is occasionally assumed (Meale 1994: 212).
The bourgeoisie, “anxious for edification but also for the type of
entertainment favoured by their social superiors” (Barron 1987: 54), seems to
conform the main body of English romance readers. The opening lines of
Havelok the Dane appeal to an audience of “gode men/ Wiues maydnes and
alle men”, a clear reference to the gender of the potential readers, but one that
places them “firmly in the middle classes” (Meale 1994: 209). Most of the
compilations including romances seem to have been written for them. This
fact will provide Middle English romances with one of their most outstanding
peculiarities: marriage as the culmination of love relationships. The remainder
of the section will deal with this issue.
Bourgeois marriage and the rejection of adultery: Through out this analysis, I have gradually arrived at the XIVth and XVth centuries, the two periods when the majority of the Middle English romances were written. This is
now the England of Chaucer, the Gawain poet and Malory. The bourgeoisie
has become the most powerful social group; if England is still a rural country,
1 Apart from these two, only the Longleat MS 257 might be associated with the no-
bility (Meale 1994: 215).
2 Recently, C. M. Meale has challenged the assumption that, since romances were
written in Middle English, they were only aimed at readers of low birth. She claims
it is not possible to state that those for whom works in English were written were
of a different class or were any less sophisticated in their tastes than those reading
in Anglo-Norman. Equally, we should not assume that everyone of gentle status
would necessarily know French and not English (Meale 1994: 210-11). For this
scholar, all different social groups read romance in Middle English, the gentry too
(Meale 1994: 220).
133
Eugenio Olivares
the cities have become centres both of population and economic power. The
inhabitants of these cities constitute a heterogeneous mass, of whose diversity the Canterbury Tales provide ample evidence. Nevertheless, these
townpeople had two things in common: they made their living by practicing
medieval arts and crafts and they occupied an intermediate position in the
economic and social scale between the aristocratic landlords and the peasantry in the open country. As a response to this, the English aristocracy
failed to define themselves as a separate élite, gradually opening its ranks to
those of lower social standing.
One of the consequences of the increasing weight of the middle-classes is
particularly telling for the present purpose: marriage achieves a social importance that had not been so apparent in the previous decades. The union between man and woman had too often been viewed as a suitable way to unify
kingdoms, to end feuds or to increase a family’s fortune. It would be naive
not to take into account all these factors in the conformation of bourgeois
marriage, but a change did nonetheless take place. The XIIth century is a
turning point in the doctrinal systematization of Christian marriage. It was
then that the sacramental character of the marital union was definitively confirmed.1 Besides, the personal consent and the free choice of the individuals
was a sine qua non requisite for the validity of the union. This had always
been a given in the canonical regulation of Christian marriage, but new emphasis was now being made on this condition, especially from the XIIth
century onwards.2 All these innovations contributed to conform a revitalised
conception of marriage in XIVth century England:
1 See: Howard, G. E. A History of Matrimonial Institution. 3 vols. Chicago, 1904. I, ,
vol. I, pp. 291-99. It was in the two Ecumenic Councils of Lyon (1245 and 1274)
that the Church ratified that Marriage was one of the Seven Sacraments; this had already been anticipated in the Synod of Verona (1184). A text by Saint Paul might
well underline the sacramental nature of Marriage, Ephesians V, 22-32. Especially
relevant to assert the early certainty of the sacramentality of Marriage are the testimonies by St. Agustin (De bono coniugali, c. 24: PL 40, 394; and De nupt. et concup. 1, c. 7: PL 44, 424) and by the Pope St. Leon I Magnus (Epistola 92 ad
Rusticum, 4: PL 54, 1204). The Eastern Church had long ago assumed the sacramental status of Marriage.
2 For long, the practise imposed by the ruling aristocracy had given little or no importance to personal free consent, particularly that of the wife. There are early records
that testify how the Church Fathers condemned this practise; this is the case of St.
John Chrysostom or St. Agustin. In his Homily LXXIII, In Matthaeum (PG 58,
678), the first one complains about those husbands who are only moved by eco-
134
Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
By the time that is of interest to this study the western Church had
arrived at a general theory and description of the ends and practice
of marriage… These included an understanding of the purposes
and agreement on the main qualities of marriage, a set of regulations establishing a capacity of the individual and the couple, extremely important notions of consent as that which constituted the
marital bond, and formalities for the public exchange of this consent. (Sheehan 1971: 229)
The truth is the courtly conception of love had left a deep imprint in the
middle-class mentality. This love, a sublime feeling giving sense to human
existence, was viewed as the basis of married life rather than its opposition.
Now that personal consent had been repositioned at the centre of the marital
bond, marriage for love was the ideal culmination of man-woman relationships: “At least within this milieu a conventional theory of marriage assumed
that it was not only compatible with romantic love but ideally an expression
of it” (Mathew 1947: 131).1 And so, these middle-class readers, who apparnomic interests when looking for a wife, as if it was all a matter of buying or selling,
rejecting thus God’s gift. When choosing a wife, the saint goes on, the future
husband must only take into account the virtues of the woman, her kindness, piety
and abnegation; these will be the real treasures for him. St. Agustine writes something similar in his Enarratio in Psalmum LV (PL 36, 658). The truth is, as Gist
points out, that other Church Fathers were not so insistent on personal consent
(1947: 17). During the XIIIth century personal consent was given its necessary importance. St. Thomas Aquinas stated that the absence of personal consent or its
forcefulness annulled the union (Summa Theologiae, Part III (supplement), Q. 45,
Art. 4; Q. 47, Art. 1). In the moral treatise Handlyng Synne by Robert of Brunne,
much blame is put on those who force others to marry against their will: “Yn pys,
do fo men ful ylle/ pat wedden any afens here wylle;/ Here wyl behouep to-gedre
consente,/ Are pe prest do pe sacrament./ Ne pou ne shalt (not) do py myft/ pat two
be weddyd wyth vnryft” (R. of Brunne 1901 & 1903: ll. 11165-170).
1 Similarly, though in a more didactic and doctrinal context, the treatise “How the
gode man taught hys sone” (its present form dated at the end of the XIVth century)
shows how a father advises his son to marry for love and to take care of his wife,
since she will be his companion. This idea is also found in some moral treatises by
Wyclif, particularly in “of weddid men and wifes” and “good Wyfe wold a
Pylgremage” (Mathew 1947: 129; for an edition of Wyclif’s texts, see: Arnold,
Thomas. Select English Works of John Wyclif. Oxford: 1871). From all these texts
we may well conclude that the widely held assumption was that, in marriage, the
husband was his wife’s lover and friend, but also her master. Mutual service and respect were assumed to be the guides for the success of the relationship, though the
wife’s submission was never questioned; the best formulation of this can be read in
Chaucer’s “The Franklin's Tale” (Benson 1987): “Thus hath she take hir servant
and hir lord-/ Servant in love and lord in mariage;/ Thanne was he bothe in lordshipe
and servage;/ Servage? Nay, but in lordship above,/ Sith he hath bothe his lady and
135
Eugenio Olivares
ently would not have otherwise had interest in matters of chivalry, were also
reading romances in which heroes fell in love with heroines (with little attention paid to the refinements of “courtliness”) and eventually married them.
Adultery seldom appeared, for it added no glamour to the affair.1 A clarification is required now in order to avoid a too naive presentation of middle class
readers. It is true that the fabliaux, one of the most popular middle-class literary forms, were built around the comical possibilities of adulterous affairs,
cuckholds and sexually active women. The average bourgeois reader might
well have spent a good time reading these narrations in which adultery was
central element. Nevertheless, it was always assumed that they were nothing
more than a comical, saucy tale: this is one thing, but to sanctify, to idealise, a
love relationship which is illicit was quite another.
his love;/ His lady, certes, and his wyf also/ The which that lawe of love acordeth
to” (ll. 792-8). Another illustrating example is provided in Caxton’s The Book of the
Knight of the Tower, translated from the French XIVth century Livre du Chevalier
de la Tour. After advising his daughters that they should never oppose their
husbands in public, he goes on to say that the wise wife, if her husband has made a
mistake, “when she shall fynd hym alone and tyme/ but that she may wel
reprehende hym and aduyse hym in shewyng curtoysly that he had wrong and vnright with hym/ And yf he be a man resonable/ he shal conne her thanke/ And yf he
be other/ yet hath not she done but her parte/ For right so shold a wyse woman do”
(Capitulo[sic]/ xvij. Caxton 1971: 35). All these notions are very much influenced
by Pauline doctrine on Marriage, as expounded in his Letter to the Ephesians:
“Mulieres viris suis sicut Domino, quoniam vir caput est mulieres, sicut et Christus
caput est ecclesiae, ipse salvator corporis. Sed ut ecclesia subiecta est Christo, ita et
mulieres viris in omnibus. Viri, diligite uxores, sicut et Christus dilexit ecclesiam et
seipsum traddit pro ea, ut illa santificaret mundans lavacro aquae in verbo, ut exhiberet ipse sibo gloriosam ecclesiam non habentem maculam aut rugam aut aliquid
eiusmodi, sed ut sit sancta et immaculata. Ita et viri debent diligere uxores suas ut
corpora sua. Qui suam uxorem diligit, seipsum diligit; nemo enim umquam carnem
suam odio habuit, sed nutrit et fovet ean sicut et Christus ecclesiam, quia membra
sumus corporis eius. Propter hoc relinquet homo patrem et matrem et adhaerebit
uxori suae, et erunt duo in carne una. Sacramentum hoc magnum est; ego autem dico
de Christo et ecclesia! Veruntamen et vos singuli unusquisque suam uxorem sicut
seipsum diligat; uxor autem timeat virum” (V, 22-33).
1 D. W. Robertson reports which the penalties for adultery were in late medieval
England: “In late fourteenth-century London, for example, a man and a woman
taken in adultery were required to be shaved, except for two inches of hair around
the head, taken to Newgate Prison, and thence paraded publicly through the streets
accompanied by minstrels more than half way across the city to be incarcerated in a
small prison in the middle of Cornhill called the Tun” (1968: 1-2). M. A. Gist goes
on to mention even capital punishment: “The impression is given that death, administered either by due process of the law or by private revenge, was the usual
penalty. Nevertheless such severity is not typical of the Medieval Law” (1947:
111).
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Middle English romances and the conventions of Fin’ Amors
IV. CONCLUSION
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written in the background described
in the present paper. In this romance, the anonymous author faces a problem
that caused some degree of uneasiness to English writers: they enjoyed the
conventions of fin’amors but at the same time they disliked some of its implications; W. O. Evans well explained this dichotomy when, referring to the
use that English authors made of the French love code, he claimed that “the
essentials are lacking, but the incidentals are present”(1966: 149). The
Gawain-poet guides his readers through an epoch of splendour and magnificence. Along the corridors, halls and chambers of Camelot and Hautdesert,
the audience has plenty of time to admire the glory and beauty of courtly society. But there is also another setting, uncourtly and wild, in which Gawain is
about to finish the days of his life: the Green Chapel. This gloomy place is the
embodiment of all the threats and dangers latent, unseen, in the courtly
system: Gawain has to go there since the court accepted the Green Knight’s
awkward Christmas Game; Gawain will die there if he does not escape from
the subtle web that the lady has knitted with her courtesy.
The narrator’s feelings about the type of society described in courtly romances are contradictory: admiration and mistrust. With the exception of
Chaucer’s scattered incursions in the romance-genre, the Gawain-poet goes
beyond any other English romance writer in the description of the ethics of
fin’amors; at the same time, he best shows its contradictions. One of the most
relevant (and enjoyable) features of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the
tension between the aforementioned focal points: on the one hand, the possible immoral implications of the courtly love code; on the other, the poet’s
apparent satisfaction in the use of its glamour and beauty. Between the two
poles, ready to be literally cut in two in a Solomon’s like decision, Gawain, a
courtly and Christian knight. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight best illustrates one of the “problems that so much occupied the English mind: the relations of Courtesy and Love with morality and Christian morals and the Eternal
Law” (Tolkien 1984: 105)
A more accurate understanding of English romance will be achieved only
if the features and modes of this literary corpus are analysed with some de-
137
Eugenio Olivares
gree of independence from its French counterpart. Besides, it is also necessary to approach it keeping in mind the fact that, for all the reasons presented
here, love was never viewed as either the only reason for man’s life, or a kind
of ethic in itself. For the English mind, much more practical, the consequences
of loving too much or without any other consideration made it a not very
suitable life pursuit: Gower, a fin’amors enthusiast but a moralist too, in his
Confessio Amantis, always advised “such a weie/ As love and reson wolde
acorde” (1978: Book VIII, ll. 2022-023). In a process that culminated in the
XIVth and XVth centuries, the common sense of the bourgeoisie rejected the
values of the roman courtois. However, quite often, putting in practice the so
called “suspension of disbelief”, they enjoyed travelling to those days in
which heroes ignored the annoying advice of Reason and made a religion of
woman’s devotion. The lovers gently burn in a bright immolation, while the
reader admires, pities and, perhaps, condemns,…all at the time; but before
closing the book, he will always be reminded that everything has been but a
tale, for the heart is not the best counsellor in life. This is the final tuition we
get from Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde –after a devout compliance with the
rules of the courtly code.
Eugenio M. Olivares Merino
University of Jaén
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*†*
141
STUDIES IN THE LANGUAGE OF SOME
MANUSCRIPTS OF ROLLE’S EGO DORMIO1
INTRODUCTION
Ego dormio was written by Richard Rolle of Hampole, a hermit in
Yorkshire, who was born about the year 1300 at Thornton Dale, near
Pickering. He lived, then, between c. 1300-1349 and is particularly known
because of his various religious writings. No extant copy of his writings goes
back farther than the last quarter of the fourteenth century. Ego dormio was
allegedly written for the spiritual enhancement of a lady. In some of the
manuscripts the text is addressed to a friend or a nun, but in others there is
no addressee. Although we are ignorant of who the recipient of this treatise
could be, recently it has been suggested it might have been written for a
secular lady, possibly Margaret of Kirby (Ogilvie-Thomson, 1988: lxvii &
Watson, 1991: 330).
There are several extant manuscripts of Ego dormio of which the most
relevant ones are kept in:
1. London, The British Library:
Arundel 507
Additional 22283 (Simeon MS)
Additional 37790
2. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Library Dd V 64
Magdalene College, Pepysian 2125
3. Oxford, The Bodleian Library:
1 My thanks to Dr Jeremy Smith, from the University of Glasgow, who read a draft
of this paper and improved it with useful suggestions. Any shortcomings, of course,
remain my own.
Isabel de la Cruz, Selim 8 (1998): 147—156
Isabel de la Cruz
Rawlinson A 389 which contains two different versions of
the same text, usually known as Rawlinson 1 and
Rawlinson 2
English Poet a 1 (Vernon MS)
There are some others in:
The Library of the Marquess of Bath: Longleat 29
Dublin, Trinity College Dublin: MS 155
London, Westminster School: MS 3
Paris, Bibliotheque Sainte Geniève: MS 3390
Tokyo: Takamiya 66. This manuscript, which is referred to by
Allen (1931) as the Gurney MS, because it was owned by
Hudson Gurney of Keswick Hall in the 19th century, was
on extended loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum in
Cambridge and was then known as Bradfer-Lawrence 10
(e.g. in Amassian 1979, Amassian & Lynch 1981 and
Ogilvie-Thomson 1988 appears with this name).
However, it is now in the possession of Professor
Takamiya from University of Tokyo, so we will refer to it
as Takamiya 66.
All these texts are written in English. There is just one Latin translation of
Ego dormio which is extant in manuscript Gonville and Caius College 140/180.
Many of the English texts have much in common, as some of the most
important works by Rolle can be found in the same manuscript. The text in
Cambridge University Library Dd V 64 has often been considered the most
authoritative. In fact, it is the most widely used for editions:
- Allen (1931: 61-72) used it emended with reference to Rawlinson 1;
- Horstmann (1895: 50-61), which used the same manuscripts as Allen, but
also emended with Rawlinson 2, Bodleian English Poet a 1, and British Library
Arundel 507;
- Ogilvie-Thomson (1988: 26-33), transcribed the manuscript Longleat 29,
though.
Apart from the publications mentioned above, no editions have been
made from the other manuscripts in the British Library, Magdalene College,
Trinity College Dublin, Westminster School (London), Bibliotheque Sainte
Geniève (Paris) or Tokyo (Takamiya 66).
144
Studies in the language of some mss of Rolle’s Ego Dormio
For the Latin text Amassian and Lynch (1981) used the only extant
manuscript in Latin and compared it with the edition made by Allen based on
Cambridge University Library Dd V 64. A modernized version of the text can
be read for instance in Heseltine (1930: 89-100) and Colledge (1962: 143-154).
In this article I will concentrate on three of the English manuscripts:
Cambridge University Library Dd V 64, Longleat 29 and Trinity College
Dublin 155. The last differs from the others in a very significant way.
Although the question of source manuscript has not been completely solved,
in most manuscripts the text is basically the same with minor textual variations. The ones which modify the original text considerably are: Trinity Colleg
Dublin 155, Takamiya 66 and Pepysian 2125 slightly. We cannot date Ego
dormio exactly but, as Rolle seemed to have died in 1349, the text must have
been written sometime before. Allen considers the approximate date could be
1343 when Rolle used alliteration for his Gastly Gladnesse (1931: 60). The
th
manuscripts I am going to deal with were either copied in the late 14
th
century: Cambridge University Library Dd V 64; beginning of the 15 : Trinity
th
College Dublin MS 155 or some time later in the 15 century (second quarter
of the century): Longleat 29.
Since the span of time from the first to the last one is not so wide, one
should not expect the text to differ, but for the local varieties used by the different scribes who copied them. In this way, linguistic variation between them
is likely to reflect the choice of different regional forms by scribes coming
from several parts of the country. As Laing (1992: 568) has suggested “texts
surviving from the same period in more than one version can be of great help
to the historical dialectologist”, since the comparison of different copies of a
single text turns out to be an excellent way of identifying dialectal
discriminants. The more parallel texts there are available, the better, as they
are likely to help in supplying a full range of dialectal discriminants.
However, in addition to the language, which I will be referring to later, the
Trinity College Dublin MS 155 diverges from the others in a number of ways.
Apart from some passages which are obviously deviant, like the omis sion of
some lines appearing in the other manuscripts, the lyrics also show
differences: the first lyric is divided into two, a new lyric is inserted almost at
the end of the text and the second lyric is omitted altogether, so the text ends
before the others. And what is unique about Trinity College Dublin MS 155 is
145
Isabel de la Cruz
that the text departs in such a way from the others that it cannot be considered just a copy, but a version of the original one. The meaning is preserved,
but there are many omissions, interpolations and unique variants. The reasons adduced by Ogilvie-Thomson for this alteration is that it seems to be an
attempt to adapt it for a male person. So, there are many masculine pronouns
in the expansions, and the details of women´s clothing and the referencies to
wooing, marriage or virginity have been either modified or eliminated (OgilvieThomson 1988: lxx). That explains why syster, which appears in Cambridge
University Library Dd V 64 and Longleat 29, is replaced with frend in Trinity
College Dublin 155.
METHODOLOGY
The text in Trinity College Dublin MS 155 has been read from the original
manuscript, photocopies and microfilm and the other two from enlarged microfilm-prints. Reliable printed editions have also been used, such as the one
made for the Early English Text Society by Ogilvie-Thomson from MS Longleat 29 and Allen’s edition from Cambridge University Library DdV64.
The methodology follows the original guidelines established by
McIntosh and Samuels in conjunction with the production of A Linguistic
Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (1986: I, 7). This way, several items are
selected to collect the different forms. The chosen items comprise four
classes of evidence: 1) purely graphological, like the use of thorn or th in
words like thai/pai; 2) phonological, to examine some specific features like
velarization versus palatalization as in whilk /which; 3) morphological, where
the ending for the third person singular can be in thorn or -th/-s, as in
hath/has and 4) lexical: poison/venym. (The latter feature is not so much
represented in the text, as being such a short passage it shows not many
different synonyms for the same concept).
As mentioned in the introduction, Rolle was born in the North of England,
so the typical features of the Northern dialect should be expected in his
writings, such as the use of Scandinavian pronouns for the third person
plural, ending -and in present participles, preservation of Old English long a,
-s ending for the inflection of verbs in the third person singular and plural,
etc. However, by reading, editing and analysing the language contained in
the three manuscripts, it soon became clear the fact that the features in some
146
Studies in the language of some mss of Rolle’s Ego Dormio
of the texts were far from the Northern origin of the author. Thus, not taking
anything for granted, I tried to find the answer to questions like: What kind of
distributions are we going to find for the reflexes of Old English /y(:)/, u, i or
e? or Do the h-forms occur for the third person pronoun?
It is widely accepted now the existence of Mischsprache, which is characterised by the combinations of forms for the same item. According to the the
group of Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities working on the Middle
English Dialect project, who were the first to realize how medieval scribes
treated the language of their originals, one of the three things may happen
(Benskin & Laing 1981: 56, McIntosh & Samuels 1986: I, 13):
A) The scribe makes a literatim copy, that is to say, he may leave the language as it appears in the original manuscript without making any alterations.
B) He converts the language into his own dialect.
C) He makes something between A and B.
They pointed out how infrequent the first case was, so one can well imagine a scribe copying Ego Dormio and adding a few dialectal forms into the
original, as scribes were used to translating between one variety into
another. Subsequently, medieval scribes preserved some of the original forms
of the manuscript, while they converted or translated others into the dialect
to that part of the country they came from or they were working in. I seek to
explain why the scribes of these manuscripts made the spelling choices that
they did and to attain this purpose, it was useful to select some functional
words, like: as, if, when, the, though, through, etc., but also other lexical units
that can provide useful data from which to deduce which variety of Middle
English the scribe is using. Thus, verbs in the third person singular, present
participles and other words which can determine the dialect, such as the
presence of velarization versus palatalization in words like mykel versus
much, the reflexes of Old English long a, as in holy and other items which can
be productive, such as sal versus shall, etc. are used as test items.
By focusing on those features that are dialectally distinctive and that are
essential to tell the difference between one Middle English variety from another, I tried to investigate the spelling practices of these three medieval
copyists of Ego Dormio to discover the individual scribal practices of each of
them and see whether any conclusions about the provenance of the scribe
could be drawn.
147
Isabel de la Cruz
FINDINGS
It is a well-known fact that the demand for some books during the fourteenth century (and late thirteenth century) was such that the old scriptorium
system was unable to cope with a wider readership. Outside workers had to
be hired to increase the speed of copying texts and these scribes produced
manuscripts with their own spelling systems, carrying out a scribal translation from one dialect into another.
There is evidence that such scribal translations became more and more
common as the Middle English period progressed. The reason given by Smith
(1992: 55) is that “literacy in the vernacular was becoming much more
widespread in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In such circumstances,
the old monastic orthography and the discipline associated with it must have
been impossible to sustain. New spelling systems, based upon practices developed in individual schools and parishes rather than on those of a few
monastic centres, came into use”. However, there is still no spelling norm to
imitate, which explains the spelling variants found in the different areas.
By reading the text it soon became evident that scribal translations increased, as the Middle English period progressed and the old scriptoriumsystem broke down (Benskin & Laing 1981: 88-91). Regional orthographies
exerted influence because there was no fixed spelling-norm to imitate, and the
standardisation of written English in the modern sense did not arrive until
printers provide a normative model in the sixteenth century.
Some of the scribal spelling practices can be perceived in the following
table, where the modern English equivalent is given next to the form which
appears in the manuscript. The first form reflects the most common spelling
found while the frequency of the other forms varies from just one instance to
several. The items were selected according to the criteria established before,
so we could have evidence of every feature (graphological, phonological and
grammatical):
ITEM
self
as
if
both
but
CUL Dd V 64
self
als
if
bath
bot
Longleat 29
self
as
if, jf
bothe, both
bot
148
TCD 155
selfe
as
?if
bope
but
Studies in the language of some mss of Rolle’s Ego Dormio
the
it
his/him
they
them
their
thy
some
when
though
through
which
such
much
pe
it
hys/hym
pai
pam
peir, pair
pi, py(n)
some
when, whan
tho
thorow
whilk
swilk
mykel
pe, the
hit
his/hym
pai, pay, pei
ham
har
pi, thi, py(n)
sum
when
though
progh, throgh
whiche, whoche
suche
mich, mych(e)
church
flesh
shall
Present participles
-and/ing
kyrke
flesch(e)
sal
byrnande, feland,
havand, liftand,
suffrand,
praying,
thynkyng, syngyng, etc.
haldes
chirch
flesche, fleishe
shal
brennynge, standyng, sittynge,
goynge, doynge,
dremynge, etc.
haly
lufe, lofe
evel, evyl
bisy/bisynesse,
bysy
myrth
lyst
gif(e)
thing
holy
loue
euel
besy/besyness, bisy,
bisiness
myrth, mirth
lust(e)
gif, gyf, yif
thyng(e), pynge
3rd person sg. -s/th
holy
love
evil
busy/busyness
mirth
lust
give
thing
holdeth
CONCLUDING REMARKS
149
pe
hit (it)
his/hym, him
pei
hem
her
pi
some
when, whan
pou?
pour?, poru?
whoche
suche
muche(l),
michel, myche
churche
flesche
schal
breininge
/brennynge,
sittynge,
goynge,
doynge, etc.
aske°, knowep
(exception are:
holdes,
schewes)
hol(l)y
luf(e), loue
yuel (euel)
bisy, bysy,
bysynesse
myrpe, murpe
lust
?if, ?efe
ping, pyng
Isabel de la Cruz
Obviously, all these characteristics demonstrate that the language of
some of the texts is far from being that of Yorkshire. The team of the
Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English analysed some folios belonging
to these manuscripts: In the case of Trinity College Dublin 155 they reached
the conclusion that because of the linguistic features of the text, it was
copied in Staffordshire. Regarding Longleat 29, they did not analyse this
piece, but many others by Rolle and decided it was copied according to the
style in Ireland. Previously McIntosh and Samuels (1968) had suggested that
the language was Anglo-Irish. Ogilvie-Thomson (1988: xxxiv), however,
argues that the language shows some of the typical characteristics of this
kind of language but many others are absent. For this reason, she concludes
that “the sum of these features points out to the standard fifteenth-century
literary language based on the East Midland dialect(s), with sprinkling of
South-Eastern form. The scribe’s flexibility in all but a few Anglo-Irish criteria
suggests that he had left his native country some time before, retaining only
traces of his original linguistic habits” (1988: xxxv). In respect with Cambridge
University Library Dd V 64 MS, which is in one hand but variable in language, they did not analyse this specific text, but just the translation by
Richard Misyn of Rolle’s Incendium Amoris and Emendatio Vitae. This
manuscript seems to preserve Northern forms better than the others.
Regarding the other two manuscripts Jeremy Smith from the University of
Glasgow, in personal communication, let me know a different possibility:
According to him, these variable forms may indicate the emergence of a
colourless language. Even if colourless language is a concept that has not
been clearly defined so far, it refers to a usage that, although it is not a standard, is not particularly distinctive in regional terms, that is, forms which are
not regionally specific.
To conclude we can well claim, as Ogilvie-Thomson (1988: lxxiv) had
suggested, Trinity College Dublin 155 and Longleat 29 could have been
copied from a common ancestor, because both show the same deviant expression and because they seem to share more features, linguistically speaking, than Cambridge University Library Dd V 64 does, such as:
1) the palatalization of some groups (church, whoche, such, much) versus
the velarization found in Cambridge University Library Dd V 64 (kyrke, whilk ,
swilk, mykel);
150
Studies in the language of some mss of Rolle’s Ego Dormio
2) the rounding of Old English long a into o (holy, hold) versus the
preservation of <a> in the other manuscript;
3) the use of Old English pronouns reflexes for the third person plural in
the possessive and object form (ham, hem and har, her), while this feature is
not present in the Cambridge University Library Dd V 64;
4) present participles always in -ing, rather than -and: breninge, sitting;
although Cambridge University Library Dd V 64 shows both, the number of and forms is superior to that of -ing forms;
5) verbs in the third person singular in -th, rather than -s: like in contenes
(with two exceptions in Trinity College Dublin MS: holdes and schewes).
Apart from the similarities found between Trinity College Dublin and
Longleat manuscripts, there are also some differences between the two, both
textually and linguistically, like the reflexes of Old English /y(:)/ in words like
lust, mirth, evil and others. However, they seem to have more features in
common, which are not shared by the other manuscript, as I have tried to
demonstrate above.
Isabel de la Cruz Cabanillas
Universidad de Alcalá
REFERENCES
Allen, H. E. 1927: Writings ascribed to Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole
and materials for his biography. Heath and Co., New York & Oxford
University Press, London.
Allen, H.E. 1931: English Writings of Richard Rolle. Alan Sutton, Gloucester.
Amassian, M. G. 1979: The Rolle Material in Bradfer-Lawrence Ms 10 and its
Relationship to other Rolle Manuscripts. Manuscripta, 23, 67- 78.
Amassian, M. G. & Lynch, D. 1981: The Ego Dormio of Richard Rolle in
Gonville and Caius MS. 140/80. Medieval Studies, 43, 218- 249.
151
Isabel de la Cruz
Benskin, M. & Laing, M. 1981: Translations and Mischsprachen in Middle
English manuscripts, Benskin, M. & Samuels, M. L. eds. So meny
people longages and tongues. Philological essays in Scots and mediaeval English presented to Angus McIntosh. Middle English Dialect
Project, Edinburgh, 55-106.
Colledge, E. 1962: The Mediaeval Mystics of England. John Murray, London.
Gilmour, J. 1956: Notes on the Vocabulary of Richard Rolle. Notes and
Queries, 201, 94-95.
Heseltine, G. C. 1930: Selected works of Richard Rolle, hermit. Longmans,
London.
Horstman, C. 1895: Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole and his
Followers. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London. 2 vol.
Laing, M. 1992: A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English: the value of texts
surviving in more than one version. Rissanen, M. et al. eds. History of
Englishes. New Methods and Interpretations in Historical Linguistics.
Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 566-581.
McIntosh, A. & Samuels, M. L. 1968: Prolegomena to a study of medieval
Anglo-Irish. Medium Aevum, xxxvii, 1-11.
McIntosh, A.; M. L. Samuels et al. 1986: Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval
English (LALME) Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen. 4 vol.
Ogilvie-Thomson, S. J. 1988: Richard Rolle: Prose and Verse edited from MS
Longleat 29 and related manuscripts. [EETS.], Oxford University
Press, Oxford.
Smith, J. J. 1992: The Use of English: Language Contact, Dialect Variation,
and Written Standardisation During the Middle English Period.
Machan, T. W. & Scott, Ch. T. eds. English in Its Social Contexts.
Essays in Historical Sociolinguistics. Oxford University Press,
Oxford, 47-68.
Watson, N. 1991: Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.
*†*
152
EALD IS ? ES EORÎ SELE, EAL IC EOM OFLONGAD:
PSYCHOLOGY, SPACE / TIME AND ECOLOGY
IN THE WIFE'S LAMENT
1. PRELIMINARY WORDS
If we consider any given poetic text through the practical bases of the last
analytical level of the theoretical triad of Literary Anthropology1 , we are finally faced with a series of parametres which are responsible for the building
of the Weltanschauung hidden in the text. If the revised text is The Wife's
Lament -one of the most relevant extant poems belonging to the Old English
elegiac discourse-, after a carefull abstraction of its (para)linguistic rituals and
symbols 2 , it could be said that its thought-world spins around the three
parametres we intend to describe in the present article: Psychology,
Space/Time and Ecology.
2. THE PERSONAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPRESSION
Considering the text as a whole, the personal/psychological expression
stated in the poem is highly important, being one of its most relevant thematic
parametres. We find a female poetic narrator -as it happened to be the case
with Wulf and Eadwacer- who, from the very beguinning of the poem, wants
1 To enhance any theoretical/practical aspect of Literary Anthropology the reading of
our previous analysis (specially 1996, 1997 & forthcoming c) is recommended. The
bibliographical references listed there are also very useful.
2 The Wife's Lament receives a full literary anthropological treatment in the fifth
chapter of a forthcoming volume (University of Vigo Press). This volume presents
the definitive results of the research that we have been carrying out during the last
three years. Partial excerpts of these results have been offered in several articles
(Bueno forthcoming a, b & c) whose reading is recommended. For preliminary results of The Wife's Lament Bueno 1998: 344-390 can also be consulted.
Jorge Luis Bueno, Selim 8 (1998): 157—170
Jorge Luis Bueno
us to perceive that the expression of her mental distress, of her suffering,
constitutes the thematic core of her poetic discourse:
Ic pis giedd wrece
minre sylfre siÍ.
hwæt ic yrmpa gebad,
niwes oppe ealdes,
A ic wite wonn
bi me ful geomorre,
Ic pæt secgan mæg,
sippan ic up weox,
no ma ponne nu.
minra wræcsipa.1 (1-5)
These first five lines have an introductory character2 as a way of presenting the topic which builds the text (Greenfield 1969: 166, Strauss 1981: 270272). The personal character of both the psychological expression and the
misfortunes which are going to be presented is set clear from the very beguinning if we consider how the personal pronoun is used in these lines.
Repetition of first person singular pronominal forms -shown in bold type in
the previous quotation- does not happen at random. They mark the personal
intention of the narrated discourse. From the first lines in which a psychological description is made -"geomorre", "siÍ", "yrmpa", "wite", "wonn"-, the
female narrator is setting the boundaries of her discourse, establishing a personal/psychological background for its development. Thus, from a reflection
on her own present sadness -and having warned us about the presentness
("niwes", "nu") and the pastness ("ealdes") of the misfortunes of her
ongoing narration-, she thinks about her past personal sufferings in the lines
following the introduction:
Ærest min hlaford gewat heonan of leodum
ofer ypa gelac;
hæfde ic uhtceare
hwær min leodfruma
londes wære.
1 Trans: "I sing this song about myself, full sad,/My own distress, and tell what hard-
ships I/Have had to suffer since I first grew up,/Present and Past, but never more
than now;/I ever suffered grief through banishment (Hamer 1970: 73)". All the
translations offered in this article are Robert Hamer's. If it is not indicated otherwise
all subsequent translations come also from Hamer's edition. The Anglo-Saxon text
have been always taken from Krapp & Dobbie's edition (1936: 210-211)
2 Devoting the first lines to develop a short introduction of the themes of the poem is
a well known poetic tool which appears very frequently in Anglo-Saxon poetry.
Karl Wentersdorf (1981: 493-494) points out many cases of this usage: The Battle
of Brunanburh, The Fates of the Apostles, Vainglory, and The Wanderer. In the
Germanic tradition Hildebrandslied is also quoted as an example.
154
Psychology, space / time and ecology in The Wife’s Lament
Îa ic me feran gewat
folgaÍ secan,
wineleas wræcca,
for minre weapearfe.
Ongunnon pæt pæs monnes
magas hycgan
purh dyrne gepoht,
pæt hy todælden unc,
pæt wit gewidost
in woruldrice
lifdon laÍlicost,
ond mec longade.
Het mec hlaford min
herheard niman,
ahte ic leofra lyt
on pissum londstede,
holdra freonda.
Forpon is min hyge geomor,
Ía ic me ful gemæcne
monnan funde,
heardsæligne,
hygegeomorne,
mod mipendne,
morpor hycgendne.
Blipe gebæro
ful oft wit beotedan
pæt unc ne gedælde
nemne deaÍ ana
owiht elles;
eft is pæt onhworfen,
is nu * * *
swa hit no wære
freondscipe uncer.
Sceal ic feor ge neah
mines felaleofan
fæhÍu dreogan.
Heht mec mon wunian on wuda bearwe,
under actreo
in pam eorÍscræfe. 1 (6-28)
As these lines show, the female narrator basically chooses an almost exclusively psychological point of view to describe her past remembrances. The
narrated facts are described as long as they cause mental distress and
suffering to her, and to express that is the key point of her poetic discourse.
So, her husband's exile worries her -"uhtceare"-, her own departure is also
distressing -"wineleas wræcca, for minre weapearfe"-, the plans that have
been set to bring them apart are also responsible for her suffering -"lifdon
1 Trans: "For since my lord departed from this people/Over the sea, each dawn have I
had care/Wondering where my lord may be on land./When I set off to join and serve
my lord,/A friendless exile in my sorry plight,/My husband's kinsmen plotted
secretly/How they might separate us from each other/That we might live in
wretchedness apart/Most widely in the world: and my heart longed./In the first
place my lord ordered me/To take up my abode here, though I had/Among these
people few dear loyal friends;/Therefore my heart is sad. Then had I found/A fitting
man, but one ill-starred, distressed,/Whose hiding heart was contemplating
crime,/Though cheerful his demeanor. We had vowed/Full many a time that nought
should come between us/But death alone, and nothing else at all./All that has
changed,,and it is now as though/Our marriage and our love had never been,/And far
or near forever I must suffer /The feud of my beloved husband dear./So in this forest
grove they made me dwell,/Under the oak-tree, in this earthly barrow (op. cit.: pp.
73, 75)".
155
Jorge Luis Bueno
laÍlicost, ond mec longade"-, and all the following situation is giving us a past
context in which the female poetic narrator has suffered from mental and
psychological distress that has saddened her -"Forpon is min hyge geomor"-.
The past facts described through psychological means lay increasing emphasis on the narrator's mental state, emphasis which keeps on increasing in the
following lines, when we go back to present time:
Eald is pes eorÍsele,
eal ic eom oflongad,
sindon dena dimme,
duna uphea,
bitre burgtunas,
brerum beweaxne,
wic wynna leas.
Ful oft mec her wrape begeat
fromsip frean.
Frynd sind on eorpan,
leofe lifgende,
leger weardiaÍ,
ponne ic on uhtan
ana gonge
under actreo
geond pas eorÍscrafu.
? ær ic sittan mot
sumorlangne dæg,
pær ic wepan mæg
mine wræcsipas,
earfopa fela;
forpon ic æfre ne mæg
pære modceare
minre gerestan,
ne ealles pæs longapes pe mec on pissum life begeat.1 (29-42)
In the natural environment in which she has been forced to live -whose
thematic connotations will be dealt with later on-, the poetic narrator insists
on expressing her present anguish. The loneliness she lives in, the remembrance of her loved one, her longing state, make her present situation a dis tressing moment. That is why she suffers, and through that psychological
expression she shares her suffering with us. In the following lines there is a
small change of tone which adds an element that has already appeared in
other poems (Bueno 1997, Bueno forthcoming b & c): extrapolation/universality.
1 Trans: "Old is this earth-cave, all I do is yearn./The dales are dark with high hills up
above,/Sharp hedge surrounds it, overgrown with briars,/And joyless is the place.
Full often here/The absence of my lord comes sharply to me./Dear lovers in this
world lie in their beds,/While I alone at crack of dawn must walk/Under the oak-tree
round this earthly cave,/Where I must stay the length of summer days,/Where I may
weep my banishment and all/My many hardships, for I never can/Contrive to set at
rest my careworn heart,/Nor all the longing that this life has brought me (op. cit.: p.
75)".
156
Psychology, space / time and ecology in The Wife’s Lament
A scyle geong mon
heard heortan gepoht,
blipe gebæro,
sinsorgna gedreag,
eal his worulde wyn,
feorres folclondes,
under stanhlipe
wine werigmod,
on dreorsele.
micle modceare;
wynlicran wic.
of langope
wesan geomormod,
swylce habban sceal
eac pon breostceare,
sy æt him sylfum gelong
sy ful wide fah
pæt min freond siteÍ
storme behrimed,
wætre beflowen
DreogeÍ se min wine
he gemon to oft
Wa biÍ pam pe sceal
leofes abidan.1 (42-53)
At the beginning of these lines the narrator moves away from her individuality to make a general philosophical statement. Thus, she informs the
young men about the importance of having a very strong character to positively endure -"blipe gebæro"- sufferings and misfortunes of all kind when
they appear. From a position of knowledge -as she has described her own
feelings-, she warns us that anyone can be subject to pain, that the narrated
feelings can be shared by anyone, either contemporary hearers or present
day readers. After describing -also from a psychological viewpoint- her husband's distress in his exile dwelling (46b-52a), the poem ends with the same
philosophical tone as these final excerpt began: "Wa biÍ pam pe sceal/of
langope leofes abidan". That is to say, all the things we have been told by
the female narrator can be shared by all those who are in her state. The
universality of this poetic discourse is -in our opinion- one of the main
reasons for our present interest in the poem.
The emphasis set on her mental state -and on her husband's in the last
lines-, the extreme density of the narrated emotions or the psychological expression of the reactions to those emotions, clearly reveal that the personal/psychological expression is the basic thematic parametre of The Wife's
1 Trans: "A young man always must be serious,/And tough his character; like wise he
should/Seem cheerful, even though his heart is sad/With multitude of cares. All
earthly joy/Must come from his own self. Since my dear lord/Is outcast, far off in a
distant land,/Frozen by storms beneath a stormy cliff/And dwelling in some desolate abode/Beside the sea, my weary-hearted lord/Must suffer pitiless anxiety./And
all too often he will call to mind/A happier dwelling. Grief must always be/For him
who yearning longs for his beloved (op. cit.: p. 75)".
157
Jorge Luis Bueno
Lament , and interacts as such with the other two we have found, binding
thus the poem's conceptual world.
3. SPACE / TIME: DISTANCE, MENTAL JOURNEY AND EVERLASTING
PRESENT
The space/time perceptions obtained in The Wife's Lament compose a
very interesting parametre because both concepts are perfectly inserted
within the thematic structure of the poem and interact with the rest of its existing parametres.
As far as the space concept is concerned, we can talk about a double
real/metaphorical perspective, just as the one found in The Seafarer,
although less marked. The real perspective is more directly observed in the
text, and it shows greater thematic relevance. All through the poem, there is a
constant insistance on expressing a certain sense of physical separation of
both lovers, caused by two real journeys: the husband's seafaring -"Ærest
min hlaford gewat heonan of leodum/ofer ypa gelac (6-7)"-1 , a classical
paradigmatic exile topic, and the wife's journey on his search -"Îa ic me feran
gewat folgaÍ secan (9)"-.2 The dread of separation has always been present in
the female narrator's mind, and has been responsible for a good deal of her
distressing state:
Ongunnon pæt pæs monnes
purh dyrne gepoht,
pæt wit gewidost
lifdon laÍlicost,
magas hycgan
pæt hy todælden unc,
in woruldrice
ond mec longade.3 (11-14)
When physical separation has already taken place, we can say that anguish and grief come as a result from their being appart, hence the important
connection between space and psychology.4 In fact, when the female
1 Trans: "For since my lord departed from this people/Over the sea (op. cit.: p. 73)".
2 Trans: "When I set off to serve and join my lord (op. ict: p. 73)".
3 Trans: "My husband's kinsmen plotted secretly/How they might separate us from
each other/That we might live in wretchedness apart/Most widely in the world: and
my heart longed (op. cit.: p. 73)".
4 Note that in Wulf and Eadwacer this space/psychological connection also took
place (Bueno forthcoming c). Another example of this connection appears in the
Old Norse poem HelreiÍBrynhildar (Renoir 1977: 4)
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Psychology, space / time and ecology in The Wife’s Lament
narrator is talking from the loneliness of her new natural background, one of
the things that distress her mostly is the memory of such absence, of their
not being together: "Ful oft mec her wrape begeat / fromsip frean (32b-33a)".1
Thus, the distressing mental state results directly from the separation
both from her husband and from the rest of human beings, because she is
without her "hlaford/felaleofan" and "wineleas", that is, without friends, with
no people who can relieve her isolation and her anxiety. The use of dual
pronouns "unc" (12, 22), "uncer" (25) and "wit" (13, 21) is reinforcing the
feeling of closeness, of the spacial/spiritual union that exists between the
narrator and her husband, and emphasizing the painful separation of
something so strongly joined (Renoir; 1977: 15). Here is where the
metaphorical perspective appears, the journey carried out through memory
with the mind when remembering her husband and the time passed with him
(Green;1983: 128), a remembrance of past happiness which is often strengthen
when contrasted with her present anguish (32b-33a). The imagination serves
the poetic narrator as a powerful loophole from her natural isolation, not only
by remembering her husband's absence and the past happier times but also
by imagining her husband's present sufferings in the icy places depicted at
the end of the poem. He is also using the mind to remember happier
dwellings-"he gemon to oft/wynlicran wic (51b-52a)"-.2 Thus, both
perspectives are combined in one single thematic aim establishing a very
clear connection between space and psychology, because it is the separation
what causes and modulates her suffering and her mental/psychological
distress, expressed all through the poem.
The time perception in The Wife's Lament is built around a contextual
present -a given "now", a "nu"- from which several past references are made.
However, it is in the present circumstances where the text lays its emphasis
(1-5, 29-53), from the very beginning:
Ic pis giedd wrece
minre sylfre siÍ.
hwæt ic yrmpa gebad,
niwes oppe ealdes,
bi me ful geomorre,
Ic pæt secgan mæg,
sippan ic up weox,
no ma ponne nu.
1 Trans: "Full often here/The absence of my lord comes sharply to me (op. cit.: p.
75)".
2 Trans: "And all too often he will call to mind/A happier dwelling (op. cit.: p. 75)".
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Jorge Luis Bueno
A ic wite wonn
minra wræcsipa.1 (1-5)
It is true that several past deeds are told (6-28), as they are highly interesting to express the reasons for present suffering -so both temporal perspectives are combined-, but, although "niwes oppe ealdes" sufferings are narrated,
it is the present psychological expression -the "nu"- what draws the
narrator's attention, because her suffering has never been greater than at the
present moment. Even in the middle of the past narration the present psychological expression is mentioned -"Forpon is min hyge geomor (17b)"-. That
insistance on the present, on the expression of current anguish, seems to be a
negation of the future, and on the ongoing verses some critics (Green 1983:
125-129) have placed the female narrator trapped in a sort of "everlasting present":
? ær ic sittan mot
pær ic wepan mæg
earfopa fela;
pære modceare
ne ealles pæs longapes
sumorlangne dæg,
mine wræcsipas,
forpon ic æfre ne mæg
minre gerestan,
pe mec on pissum life begeat.2 (37-41)
It seems that the days are repeating this neverending cycle, that there is
nothing but more long summer days in which to keep on being lonely sat to
remember past sufferings. In this sense,The Wife's Lament presents a basically present time perception, which emphasizes the closeness of expressed
deeds and provides an easier and faster identification with the feelings
transmitted. We think that the interaction between psychology and space
(distance as a cause for suffering, hence the importance of the psychological
expression) / time (present, as it is the background for the psychological expression) perceptions is a very clear fact, which contributes to the building of
the conceptual world of the poem.
1 Trans: "I sing this song about myself, full sad,/My own distress, and tell what hard-
ships I/Have had to suffer since I first grew up,/Present and Past, but never more
than now;/I ever suffered grief through banishment (op. cit: p. 73)".
2 Trans: "Where I must stay the length of summer days,/Where I may weep my banishment and all/My many hardships, for I never can/Contrive to set at rest my careworn heart,/Nor all the longing that this life has brought me (op. cit.: p. 75)".
160
Psychology, space / time and ecology in The Wife’s Lament
4. ECOLOGY: NATURE AS BACKGROUND
The natural element plays an important role as a background for the psychological expression narrated in the poem, interacting with the other
parametres that build the conceptual world of The Wife's Lament. There are
two moments -both framed within the present-time part of the text (29-53)- in
which this is very clearly seen. The first one covers the part in which the
poetic narrator thinks about her present emotional situation (29-41), totally
placing her psychological expression in a very precisely depicted natural atmosphere:
Heht mec mo n wunian
under actreo
Eald is pes eorÍsele,
sindon dena dimme,
bitre burgtunas,
wic wynna leas.
fromsip frean.
leofe lifgende,
ponne ic on uhtan
under actreo
? ær ic sittan mot
pær ic wepan mæg
earfopa fela;
pære modceare
ne ealles pæs longapes
on wuda bearwe,
in pam eorÍscræfe.
eal ic eom oflongad,
duna uphea,
brerum beweaxne,
Ful oft mec her wrape begeat
Frynd sind on eorpan,
leger weardiaÍ,
ana gonge
geond pas eorÍscrafu.
sumorlangne dæg,
mine wræcsipas,
forpon ic æfre ne mæg
minre gerestan,
pe mec on pissum life begeat.1 (27-41)
The detailed physical definition of the place, of the natural background, is
by no means unconscious, bearing in mind the great amount of terms -shown
in bold type- used to describe the environment. In a process of particularization carried out through the text, the poetic narrator moves from the general 1 Trans: "So in this forest grove they made me dwell,/Under the oak-tree, in this
earthly barrow./Old is this earth-cave, all I do is yearn./The dales are dark with high
hills up above,/Sharp hedge surrounds it, overgrown with briars,/And joyless is the
place. Full often here/The absence of my lord comes sharply to me./Dear lovers in
this world lie in their beds,/While I alone at crack of dawn must walk/Under the oaktree round this earthly cave,/Where I must stay the length of summer days,/Where I
may weep my banishment and all/My many hardships, for I never can/Contrive to
set at rest my careworn heart,/Nor all the longing that this life has brought to me
(op. cit.: p. 75)".
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Jorge Luis Bueno
"on wuda bearwe"- to the particular -"actreo", "eorÍscræfe", "eorÍsele"-,
clearly stating the place as she states the expression of her feelings explicitly.
Many terms for the psychological expression appear in the quoted excerpt underlined-, connecting thus nature with psychology. In the woods, in that
very cave in which she lives 1 , the poetic narrator reveals her thoughts to us,
and every descriptive element of nature is linked with its psychological correlate. Thus, it could be said that the protective environment provided by nature, conditions, worsens, and makes real the narrator's state of mind, because terms such as "dimme" and "brerum bewaxne" characterize the background and describe metaphorically the narrator's mental distress (Green
1983: 125).
The second moment is placed at the final lines of the text, when the poetic
narrator depicts in her mind the unfavourable natural environment her husband has arrived to by sea:
sy ful wide fah
feorres folclondes, pæt min freond siteÍ
under stanhlipe
storme behrimed,
wine werigmod,
wætre beflowen
on dreorsele.
DreogeÍ se min wine
micle modceare;
he gemon to oft
wynlicran wic.2 (46b-52a)
The narrator gives us the traditional wintry germanic locus, both adverse
and icy, as the natural background for her exiled husband in a distand land "fah feorres folclondes"-. As it happened before, this natural background
helps to increase her husband's sufferings. Thus, in this cold unfavourable
environment -"under stanhlipe storme behrimed"- her husband expresses his
1 Some critics have been very worried about discovering the exact meanings of the
terms "actreo", "eorÍscræfe" or "eorÍsele". Emily Jensen (1990) and Joseph Harris
(1977) have devoted some articles to discuss it and Karl Wentersdorf (1981) offered
a very good summary of the basic meanings given to these terms and their connections with sanctuaries, caves, places for shelter, etc. All of them quote Tacitus' descriptions in Germania of several underground buildings used by the Germanic
tribes as places for storage and/or shelter.
2 Trad: "Since my dear lord/Is outcast, far off in a distant land,/Frozen by storms beneath a stormy cliff/And dwelling in some desolate abode/Beside the sea, my wearyhearted lord/Must suffer pitiless anxiety./And all too often he will call to mind/A
happier dwelling (op. cit.: p. 75)".
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Psychology, space / time and ecology in The Wife’s Lament
psychological distress, his grief -"DreogeÍ se min wine/micle modceare"-, and
tries to remember happier places using his mind as we saw before. After
seeing this, we can conclude that the natural environment inThe Wife's
Lament appears as a background for the narrator's psychological expression and for her husband's, through her-, increasing and conditioning such expression. We believe that the interaction between the different parametres
that build the thought-world of the poem -psychology, space/time and ecology- has been more than evident.
5. CONCLUSION
As it happens with almost every Anglo-Saxon elegiac poem, the interpretative difficulty of some of their parts has forced the critics to offer a wide
variety of readings and interpretations. The Wife's Lament is also a good example of this feature, and there have been many opinions about the narrator's
character -male/female, despite being this fully established up to now, there
are some differing voices-, the speaker who acts in the poetic discourse -if it
is a woman with one, two or three different men-, the good or bad behaviour
of the husband towards his wife, the kind of building hidden under the terms
"actreo", "eorÍscræfe", "eorÍsele", or the possible Christian allegoric condition of the poem1 . As it happened with other elegies too -i.e. Wulf and
Eadwacer-, searching for sources of the original story is a very difficult task,
and in most occasions the allocation of a given source is a matter of unprovable guesswork until the mentioned texts appear2 . In the end, following Jane
Curry's words (1966: 189), "we are forced back to the poem". The analysis of
the conceptual world in The Wife's Lament has shown us its building parameters, and has stated the importance of the psychological expression for its understanding. This eminently personal-featured psychological expression is
1 Jane L. Curry (1966) and Lee Ann Johnson (1971) offer very good summaries of all
these interpretations. We refer the reader to both articles for full bibliographic references. For a vast majority of critics, some of these views -specially the christian/alegorical one- are somewhat biased, because they look for excessive complexity
in a text that is not so complex in our opinion. We think that this complexity-to-befound distract the critics from what the text really offers.(Curry 1966: 187).
2 It is true that there are many analogue texts for The Wife's Lament. Stanley
Greenfield (1969: 165), Jane L. Curry (1966) and Dorothy Bray (1995) revise those
most frequently used by critics. However, there are cases in which critics hazard a
connection with a text that has as many differences as points in common, hence the
extreme difficulty of using not very clear sources to build textual interpretations.
163
Jorge Luis Bueno
the central point of the text, always in interaction with the other two parameters: space/time and ecology.
Everything in the text is placed to make us see the expression of the narrator's distress, feelings, and sufferings, as something that forms part of human experience. The prominent thematic centre in The Wife's Lament is the
expression of several personal emotions, which could be universally shared by means of our swift identification with them- by those who face the text.
We do not deny the existence of other provable interpretations and/or meanings, but it is equally undeniable -if you follow what has been exposed in this
article- that these three parameters, with the psychological one playing the
leading role, are the most directly inferable from the text and the responsible
for the building of its conceptual world.
Curiously enough, some critics (e.g. Green 1983: 125-126, Jensen 1990:
453) have pointed out that the paratactic structure of line 29 -Eald is pes
eorÍsele, eal ic eom oflongad- would combine the age of the cave (Nature/Ecology) with the deep intensity of the narrator's suffering (Psychological Expression) and the space/time span of both. So, in one single line we are faced
with the three parametres which build the thought-world of this text, according to the interpretation herein stated. This peculiar fact encourages us
even more to keep on considering them as the three thematic bases upon
which The Wife's Lament offers -and had been offering since it was first sungits poetic weltanschauung to those who cared about reading or hearing the
everlasting beauty of its lines.
Jorge Luis Bueno Alonso
University of Vigo
WORKS CITED
Bolton, W. F. 1969: The Wife's Lament and The Husband's Message: A
Reconsideration Reconsidered. Archiv für das Studium der neueren
Sprachen und Literaturen, 205: 337-351.
Bray, D. A. 1995: A Woman's Loss and Lamentation: Heledd's Song and The
Wife's Lament. Neophilologus, 79: 147-154.
164
Psychology, space / time and ecology in The Wife’s Lament
Bueno Alonso, J. L. 1996: La Lingüística Estilístico-Estadística como base del
estudio antropológico del texto". Martín Vide, C. ed. Lenguajes
Formales y Lenguajes Naturales XII. Barcelona, PPU: 401-406
Bueno Alonso, J. L. 1997: Anthropology and Old English: Linguistic,
Symbolic and Conceptual Bases of The Wanderer. Giménez Bon, M. &
Olsen, V. eds. Proceedings of the IXth International Conference of
the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature.
Zarautz/Zaragoza, Itxaropena/Pórtico Librerias: 32-41.
Bueno Alonso, J. L. 1998: Aportaciones a la hermenéutica antropológicoliteraria: bases lingüísticas, simbólicas y conceptuales de la poesía
elegíaca del Inglés Antiguo. Oviedo, University of Oviedo, Ph. D.
Dissertation.
Bueno Alonso, J. L. 1999 (forthcoming b): Proxemics, Chronemics, Passing of
Time and the Psychological Expression of the Self ('Ic') as key elements of The Seafarer's Thought-World: A Literary Anthro-pological Reappraisal. Bringas, A., González, D., Pérez, J., Rama, E & Varela,
E. eds.Woonderous Lytterature - SELIM Studies in Medieval English
Literature. Vigo, University of Vigo Press, ISBN 84-8158-122-4.
Bueno Alonso, J. L. 2000a (forthcoming a): Verbal and Nonverbal
Communication in The Seafarer. Navarro, P. & Hornero, A. eds.
Proceedings of the Xth International Conference of the Spanish
Society for Medieval English Language and Literature. Zaragoza,
University of Zaragoza Press/Institución Fernando El Católico.
Bueno Alonso, J. L. 2000b (forthcoming c): New Trends, Old Paths or Vice
Versa: A Literary Anthropological Approach to Wulf and Eadwacer.
Selim 7: 51-82.
Chase, D. 1986: The Wife's Lament: An Eighth Century Existencial Cry.
University of South Florida Quarterly, 24. 3-4: 18.20.
Curry, J. L. 1966: Approaches to a Translation of the Anglo-Saxon The Wife's
Lament. Medium Aevum, XXXV. 3: 187-198.
Fitzgerald, R. P. 1963: The Wife's Lament and the Search for the Lost
Husband. Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 62: 769-777.
Green, M. 1983: Time, Memory and Elegy in The Wife's Lament. Green, M. ed.
The Old English Elegies: New Essays in Criticism and Research.
Rutherford, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press: 123- 132.
Hamer, R. 1970: A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse. London, Faber & Faber: 7375
Harris, J. 1977: A Note on eorÍscræf/eorÍsele and Current Interpretations of
The Wife's Lament . English Studies, 58: 204-208.
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Jorge Luis Bueno
Howlett, D. R. 1978: The Wife's Lament and The Husband's Message.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, LXXIX: 7-10.
Jensen, E. 1990: The Wife's Lament eorÍscræf: Literal or Figural Sign?.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, XCI: 449-455.
Johnson Jr, W. C. 1983: The Wife's Lament as Death-Song. Green, M. ed. The
Old English Elegies: New Essays in Criticism and Research.
Rutherford, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press: 69-81.
Johnson, L. A. 1971: The Narrative Structure of The Wife's Lament. English
Studies, 52: 497-501.
Krapp, G. & Dobbie, E.V.K. eds. 1936: The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records III:
The Exeter Book. New York, Columbia University Press.
Leslie, R. F. ed. 1988: Three Old English Elegies: The Wife's Lament, The
Husband's Message, The Ruin. Manchester, Manchester University
Press.
Mitchell, B. 1972: The Narrator of The Wife's Lament: Some Syntactical
Problems Reconsidered. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 73: 222-234.
Renoir, A. 1977: A Reading of The Wife's Lament. English Studies, 58: 4-19.
Strauss, B. R. 1981: Women's Words as Weapons: Speech as Action in The
Wife's Lament. Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 23: 268285.
Wentersdorf, K. P. 1981: The Situation of the Narrator in the Old English
Wife's Lament. Speculum, 56: 492-516.
*†*
166
‘AS IT YS SEYDE TO FORE’.
SOME LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE
IN THE PROCESS OF COMPILING
MIDDLE ENGLISH MEDICAL RECIPES 1
1. INTRODUCTION
The aim of this paper is to describe the compilation of fifteenth-century
English medical recipes. My main interest is to unravel those devices used by
medieval compilers and scribes to arrange recipes in the medical manuscript
book. The material used for such a study consists of one of the receptaria
contained in MS Hunter 185 (folios 17r-62r).
The work is organised as follows: first, I describe medieval English medical books, then I present a description of MS Hunter 185. After that, I introduce the framework of discourse analysis (Brown & Yule 1996) which I intend
to apply in the data analysis which deals with the organisation of recipes.
2. MEDIEVAL ENGLISH MEDICAL BOOKS
Medieval English medical books are indexed normally according to two main
parameters: their contents, and the needs of the audience. The first parameter
is adopted in Robbins (1970), in which the medical material is classified into
three different groups: prognosis, diagnosis and treatment. This classification
does not completely satisfy our expectations, since, in the case of remedy
books, for instance, these often contain recipes belonging to the three
1 I would like to thank Mercedes Cabrera and Alicia Rodríguez for the painstaking
work of reading earlier drafts of this article.
Francisco Alonso, Selim 8 (1998): 171—191
Francisco Alonso
groups. Thus, this indexing procedure results in a continuous repetition of
the same recipe books in the three cataloguing groups.
The second parameter, the audience, seems to be a more plausible criterion for indexation, because the audience required specific type of books
which, depending on what the reader expects from them, showed a particular
use of language and a specific structure. In this sense, Voigts (1982) proposes the division of the Middle English medical material into two main
groups. These groups are (a) remedybooks, and (b) learned treatises. The
first group constitutes the bulk of medical books which contain handy
information about the treatment of particular sicknesses in easy-to-follow
steps. These steps present a fairly simple structure and plain language1 ,
which sometimes included the use of Latin and Anglo-Norman. The audience
of this group is larger than that of learned treatises, as Norri (1992: 33) points
out: “Vernacular remedy books have often been associated with lay healers,
but these books were also owned by university-trained physicians.” Learned
treatises, however, were directed to a more limited type of audience such as
university scholars. These books are based on classical and medieval medical
tradition, and many are written in Latin.
However, Latin was steadily being replaced by English by the fifteenth
century 2 , partly due to the growth of an incipient middle class bourgeoisie
that demanded books of a more practical nature for their own instruction
(Parkes 1973: 563). Thus, the need for translations and new written material in
English was urgent, if we consider that this middle class population owned
very little knowledge, if any, of the Latin language. This insufficient knowledge of Latin was mainly due to the lack of proper instruction in that language, and whenever fifteenth-century people were instructed in Latin, the
methodology was oriented towards a specific use, and hence the instruction
was far from integral, as claimed by Rodríguez Álvarez in her description of
fifteenth-century elementary schools (1997: 39):
El latín que se daba era mínimo, simplemente se pretendía que los
niños pudieran leerlo y pronunciarlo correctamente para poder leer
1 For a detailed study of the structure and the language of the Middle English recipe,
see Alonso Almeida (forthcoming).
2 For the process of “Englishing” of medical material, see Voigts (1995: 184).
168
Linguistic evidence in the compiling of Middle English medical recipes
textos devocionales y cantar himnos, pero la gramática y el significado de los textos carecía de importancia.
As said above, the remedybooks were aimed at a larger readership. Thus,
the number of these books was quantitatively significant, as can be seen by
the extant copies in British and American Libraries 1 . This group has certainly
enjoyed much editorial attention as pointed out by Voigts (1982: 47) if
compared with learned treatises. However, research in this area mainly includes studies on the description of the contents and the structure of these
books and their indexing, but there is still much to be done on the writing of
the medieval medical receptarium, at least, from a linguistic perspective.
3. MS HUNTER 185, FF. 17R-62R
MS Hunter 185 is a Middle English medical recipe book which also contains a
flora medica and an alphabetical list of simples. The manuscript is housed at
the Glasgow University Library (Hunterian Collection, University of Glasgow,
Glasgow). There is no evidence of authorship, or of ownership; although,
according to Young and Aitken (1908: 132), on the vellum fly-leaf, there is
what seems to be “probably the autograph of Henry Swinburne, B. C. L.
(1560-1623).”
MS Hunter 185 was written by different scribes, all of them using late
fourteenth-century Anglicana, and Anglicana Formata. The folios object of
this study are written by a single scribe using Anglicana Formata throughout.
These folios present rubricated running titles and brown upper cases at the
beginning of recipes in order to show the ordinatio. These visual aids are
fundamental for the understanding of medical recipe compilations, since they
constitute evidence of the scribe’s effort to show the thematic arrangement of
recipes, as we will see later on in this paper.
Folios 17r-62r contain a number of medical recipes written in English and
very few in Latin. The nature of the recipes is varied, and they are organised
generally following the traditional capitem ad pedem structure-type, that is,
therapeutic remedies for the head are given at the beginning, and this is fol1 See Voigts (1995) and Schmidt (1994).
169
Francisco Alonso
lowed by remedies for the eyes, the nose, the mouth, and other parts of the
body up to the toes. The remedies presented are mainly waters, oils, plasters,
salves, ointments, drinks, laxatives, and powders among others.
4. FRAMEWORK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
In the analysis of the linguistic strategies used to compile recipes, I follow the
discourse analysis model proposed in Brown & Yule (1996(1983)), henceforth
B&Y (1996). Such model constitutes a significant contribution to text analysis
for it provides points of view from previous discourse analysis theories, and
offers clear descriptions of the strategies involved in the writing of discourse.
Substitution, ellipsis and referential expressions are the devices which appear
recursively in MS Hunter 185 as a way to establish textual cohesion. Let us
move on to the description of the aforementioned devices according to B&Y
(1996).
Substitution and ellipsis are described as those techniques whose
relationship with other parts of the texts “forces the reader … back into the
text to look for a previous expression to substitute, in the case of
substitution, or to provide, in the case of ellipsis” (1996: 193). Thus, the use
of those two strategies creates cohesive relations among different parts of
the texts, since the reader needs the reference given elsewhere within the text
so as to fully understand the intended message. In order to illustrate these
two concepts, let us concentrate on the following two examples taken from
B&Y (1996: 193):
(1a) Jules has a birthday next month. Elspeth has one too.
(1b) Jules has a birthday next month. Jules has too.
The examples above show instances of substitution and elision. The word
one in (1a) is not understood by the reader unless he goes back to the previous sentence for reference. Thus, one stands for birthday, establishing a
relation of dependence of the second sentence on the first one. In the same
vein, in (1b), the omission of any pro-form which stands for birthday makes
the reader to go back into the text in order to interpret the message conveyed
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Linguistic evidence in the compiling of Middle English medical recipes
in the second sentence, linking both sentences by means of a dependence
relationship.
The referential elements which may posit any interest for this study is
anaphora. Anaphora describes the relationship of two elements within the
text where the second refers to the first element back in the text for interpretation (B&Y1996: 192). The following exemplifies this point:
(2) Look at the sun. It’s going down quickly.
The previous example illustrates how the use of the anaphoric pronoun it
links the second sentence to the one before. Thus, the reader must go back in
the text to be able to interpret such anaphoric pronoun. This time the referent
is the word sun which is included as said above in the previous sentence.
5. ORGANISATION OF RECIPES IN MS HUNTER 185, FF. 17R-62R
After the introduction of the description of the manuscript and the linguistic
theoretical framework to be used here, let us turn to the analysis of the compilation of recipes. I analyse the extralinguistic strategies which link recipes in
the manuscript, then I focus on the linguistic strategies which have the same
linking purpose. Chart 1 below illustrates graphically the manifestation of
both extralinguistic and linguistic linking strategies.
In chart 1, the extralinguistic strategies in MS Hunter 185 are represented
by means of the dotted arrow, which corresponds to the marginalia, and the
bold type-face, which corresponds to the rubrics. The linguistic strategies
comprise the organisation of recipes from head-to-toe structure, which is here
represented by means of an arrow, and the subgroupings of recipes with a
same topic, here represented by boxes. In addition, linguistic strategies include the use of referential expressions within the recipe boxes, which I describe in the chart by means of curved two-headed arrows and parentheses;
and the use of cross-references in the manuscript, represented in the chart by
means of dotted two-headed arrows.
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Francisco Alonso
The presence of these strategies in MS Hunter 185 are analysed below. I
shall begin by presenting the extralinguistic elements, and finally, I will move
on to the analysis of the linguistic elements.
Chart 1
Key: RxA: Recipes Group A
RxB: Recipes Group B
RxC: Recipes Group C
Linguistic strategies:
from-head-to-toe organisation Ø ellipsis
thematic boxes ( ) reference particles
co-reference (anaphora, ellipsis , substitution)
cross-referential expressions
Extralinguistic strategies:
marginalia
bold type-face rubrics
5.1. EXTRALINGUISTIC ELEMENTS
The organisation of the topic from head to toe requires visual techniques
which help to reduce the time employed by the reader to locate the information needed. Those techniques are the use of rubricated running titles, and a
marginal apparatus.
The former facilitate the search of specific information. The entire title is
written in red ink, including the key word, which indicates the recipe contents. It should be also noted that, in many cases, the title may contain up to
four lines. Besides, occasionally the title does not offer any indication of the
purpose of the recipe. In the manuscript studied here, we can see how this
represented a serious problem for the reader, as shown by the fact that the
reader has underlined the key word in a long title and in the recipe body text 1 :
(3)
1 Transcriptions mine. Abbreviations have been silently expanded throughout.
Original spelling and punctuation have been retained in the transcription. Bold typeface indicates rubrics.
172
Linguistic evidence in the compiling of Middle English medical recipes
A good medicyne for to stanche blood whan
ne a master veyne is cutte & pe wounde be large
Tak a pese of salt beef pe leue & non
of pe fatte a muche as wil in pe wounde
& let hit be leyd in pe hote asschis in pe
fuyre • & let roste it til it be pur¥ hoot / &
also hoot pruste hit in to pe wounde • &
bynde hit faste • & hit schal staunche a
noon • & neuere steyne more vp warantise
(MS Hunter 185, f.35r, ll. 2118-2126)
(4)
Here it tellip wharfore pis oynement
is good This plaster is good for olde
brusoures & for akyng of lymmes hit
destruyep an hard posteme & it is soueraynely good for broken bones pe
surgerens of Salerne vsep it for alle (…)
(MS Hunter 185, f. 49r, ll. 2784-2789)
In (3), the reader makes clear what the recipe is for by means of underlining in a different coloured ink the key word veyne in the title. In (4), the reader
must read through the whole recipe if he wants to know the use of the plaster
described. This is the reason why the reader underlines the string good for
broken bones pe.
The latter, to indicate the location of specific pieces of information, is also
a useful way to identify recipes. This visual aid consists in the addition of
keywords, numbers, signs, or even, drawings to the margins of the
manuscript, in order to indicate the purposes of a particular recipe. In MS
Hunter, marginal notes also seem to have been added by readers rather than
by the scribe himself. This observation follows from my own preliminary
palaeographical studies. The following examples illustrate this point1 :
(5)
Also for pe / scabbes of a mannes body • Tak horho / ne celya
doyne & warmot & sorel / de boys & helena campana • an
& seep hem in faire / rennyng water • til half be wasted &
1 Heads in the manuscripts are here represented by the “face” symbol.
173
Francisco Alonso
t
perwi h / wassch hem euery day wel ones til pe seke / be
hool pourgh pe • grace of god Also for / scabbes in a mon or
in a womman § / Tak pe rote of horshelue & seep it in /
water til hit be nessche & tak olde sche / pes talwe & medle
hem wel to gedre / in a mortere & do it in a lynnen clop / &
anoynte pe sore a gayn pe fuyre & / he schal be hol Also
anoper for pe same / Tak horhoue & seep it in rennynge /
t
water til half be wasted & wessche pe / seke perwi h pe
t
water as hoot as he may /suffre • & anoynte hem wi h pe
t
water oyne / ment pa is made of pese herbes Tak / pe rote of
pe rede dokke and of celi- / doyne & wermot also & sorell
a
de boys / an & bray hem to gedre & tempre hem / to gedre
t
t
wi h mayes boter & make an / oynement per of & pa wil
hele eny maner / of scabbes certayn Also an other for /
scabbes § Tak pe rededokke rotis & pym / purnell &
scabiose & sorell de boys & / selydoyne & stampe hem &
t
tempre hem to / gedre wi h mayes boter & fry¥e hem / wel to
gedre & streyne hem in to a clene / vessell & perto a good
quantite of powder / of brymstone & fry¥e • hit wel to gedre
t
til / it be cold & perwi h anoynte pe seke til he / be hol
(MS Hunter 185, ff. 23v-24v)
(6)
For schorned heuedes and scattede / heuedes Tak poo dolyon ij
handfules / ar he be floured pe while he is tendre & / sep
hym wel in to a potel of strong ly¥e / til half be wasted &
panne let wessche pe / schaled hed in strong pisse ry¥t hoot
& schaue / clene of pe scalles & let no¥t for no bledyng / &
panne make a plaster of pe poo delyon & / let hit on pe hed
wel warme & so let it ly / a day & a ny¥t & panne tak it of
& tak rye / mele & rennyng water & mak a pap ri¥th /
t
pykke & spred it on a clop pa wil ouer sprede pe / sore &
ley it on pe sore hed & let it lye iij day / es • & iij ny¥t or it
be remeued & tak it panne / of & wessche pe hed in strong
pisse a ¥eyne / & schaue it clene to pe flessch & tak rede /
oynones as mony as wil suffice for a plaster / ouer pe sore &
let boyle hem wel in water / & stampe hem & tempre hem vp
t
t
wi h jus of Cala /mynte & tempre hem vp wi h olde barewes /
grece faire j molte & j pured & vse pis last til / pe seke hed
be hool for pys wil hele it sy / kyrly pourgh godes grace
(MS Hunter 185, f. 27r)
174
Linguistic evidence in the compiling of Middle English medical recipes
(5) illustrates the remedies for the head highlighted by means of drawing a
head in the margins, so that the reader interested in this specific bit of information can identify it in a very specific area of the text rather than having to
read through the whole manuscript. (6), which also shows remedies for the
head, presents another drawing which could be identified as a head, though,
in this case, its shape is less well outlined than in the previous example.
These two drawings are attributed to a sixteenth-century owner of the book
who presented it to one of his friends’ son who suffered from “a sore hedde”,
possibly a scabby head, as indicated on the fly-leaf verso. Thus, the book’s
owner could have drawn the heads to indicate where to identify these
specific remedies.
Having analysed the extralinguistic elements, let us move on to the following where I analyse the linguistic strategies which assist in the compilation of recipes in MS Hunter 185.
5.2. LINGUISTIC ELEMENTS
A first glance at the organisation of recipes in MS Hunter 185 reveals a thematic organisation which arranges recipes from head to toe, in an attempt to
establish some order to what apparently owns none. Thus, the scribe offers
remedies for the head in the first place, followed by remedies for the eyes, the
nose, etc., and groups them according to their therapeutic function. This
grouping, in turn, facilitates the consultation of the material in a short amount
of time, since the reader can follow those lexical items which refer to the parts
of the body in a descendant order.
The ‘from-head-to-toe’ technique shows the organisation of the information by contents, but sometimes the lack of tabula to indicate where to find
specific information related to a particular sickness rendered the searching
task a difficult one. It should be noted at this point the practical nature of
these books normally resorted to in order to find urgently therapeutic solutions to cast out states of sickness.
However, this type of organisation is, to a certain extent, arbitrary, and
scribes very often ignored it in their own books. This irregularity in the or-
175
Francisco Alonso
ganisation lies in the fact that scribes inserted recipes, say, for prognostication in between remedies for scabbed hands and headache, as seen below:
(7)
For wertes in mannes hondes
or wommanes hondes oper in oper places •
Anoynte pe wertes whereuere pei be…
For to
wite ¥if a man schal lyue or dy¥e
pat is jwounded Take pe jus of …
…
For pe hedache
Tak & seep verueyne & beteyne & …
(MS Hunter 185, ff. 24v-25v, ll. 1650-1683)
In relation to the thematic organisation, thematic subgroups can be also
found. These subgroups (boxes in chart 1) are characterised by the presence
of referential devices, namely co-reference (represented in chart 1 by means
of a double-sided arrow) and cross-reference (represented in chart 1 by
means of a dotted double-sided arrow). The former applies to those devices
which establish a connection among the different recipes of a same group.
The latter refers to those elements which connect recipes which may even belong to different groups. These elements are described below.
5.2.1. RECIPE GROUPS
As indicated above, recipes are normally grouped thematically, so that
remedies for a specific sickness are gathered together. These recipes are
tightly linked by means of cohesive ties, mainly anaphora, substitution and
ellipsis as can be seen below.
Co-referential ties in recipe groups are given in the title of the recipes, and
the understanding of the contents of the second and following recipes
176
Linguistic evidence in the compiling of Middle English medical recipes
depends on the first recipe in a given group, both in the case of anaphora and
ellipsis. The following instance exemplifies this aspect1 :
(8)
For pe wormes in a mannes body pat men
clepyth lubrikes Tak beteyne & sauen &
dry¥e hem & make poudere of hem & let pe
seke drynke perof in hoot water & also sone as
pe poudere is doune in to pe body it wil
slee pe wormes & brynge hem oute sykerly
For pe same Tak syngrene & feperfoye
& myntes & stampe hem & ¥ef hem drynke
For pe same Tak & drynke stancrop
with wormot
(9)
For to sle trenchis in a man
nes body Tak fayre bakoun & diseit smale
morcelles pe mountance of a litel messe
& tak a good handful of beteyne & wassch
it clene & grynde it smale & take pe potel
of gotes melke & do it in a fayre vessel &
do perto py bakoun & py beteyne • let hem
sepe to gedre til py bakoun be j • now¥ & let
pe seke ete pat mete warme & he schal be
hool certeyne For pe same Tak a saucer
ful of jus of calamynte & as muche of
Centorie & of hony & of vynegre ana & pe
ferpe part of a sponeful of salt & medle al
pys to gedre & loke pat pey be ri¥t salt &
boyle hem a litel ouer pe fuyre & do hem in a
clene vessel & let pe seke vse perof fastyng a
saucerful at ones & pe same day at vnderne
& an oper at none & he pat schal vse pis medi
cyne let hym be fastyng til mydouere noon
& he schal be hool
(MS Hunter 185, ff. 40v-41r, ll. 2377-2405)
*
*
*
1 From now on, I will include the following symbol * in the examples in order to in-
dicate where a new recipe within a group begins.
177
Francisco Alonso
In the previous recipes (examples in (8) and (9)), we can see how they are
connected thematically by means of the string for pe same. In order for the
reader to understand the purpose of the recipe, he must go back to the first
recipe in the group for reference. Thus, in (8), pe same refers back to the
previous title in full For pe wormes in a mannes body pat men clepyth lubrikes, which exemplifies substitution and ellipsis. Substitution consists here
in the replacement of the entire meaning of the title in the first recipe by the
word same, which is semantically identical, though the structure of the title of
the first recipe is rather more complex than the pronominal string pe same,
which is formed by a simple noun phrase. Ellipsis is understood here in the
sense that the head of the noun phrase pe same lacks an element of the nominal category such as the word sickness, or even the hyperonym thing.
(9) also exemplifies a case of substitution and of ellipsis. In this sense, pe
same stands for For to sle trenchis in a mannes body. The word same refers
back to the entire title, and also the head of the noun phrase pe same is filled
here by a pronoun, exactly in the same fashion as in (8). The fact that the
recipes whose titles are For pe same needs the presence of a first title in full
may be interpreted as their being less effective than the first one, though
there is little evidence that the scribe intended so.
Sometimes, the title of the second and the following recipes in a group
includes the Latin word Item ‘the same’. The interpretation of this Latin element, which manifests a new case of substitution, is found both in the first
recipe of the group and in the very same title where it is included:
(10)
Item for hym pat is scoldet on his
pyntel pat is y clepid pe potegal § Tak
a lynnen clop pat is clene and wassche & brenne
it & make powder perof & tak oyle of egges
& anoynte pe sore & put pe powder in pe
holes when pei bep anoynted & pat schal
helpe hem & make hem hool §
(MS Hunter 185, ff. 42r-42v, ll. 2471-2477)
In this example, the Latin word Item refers back to line 2449 in the manuscript For scoldyng of a mannes pyntel. In addition, in this case, the
178
Linguistic evidence in the compiling of Middle English medical recipes
reference for the word item is also found later in the same title, as the purpose
of the recipe is repeated by means of a relative clause pat is scoldet on his
pyntel. Thus, the reader does not have to go back into the text for reference.
Many other recipes are introduced by means of the word also, which, in
addition to representing an example of economy in language, it also stands as
another case of substitution, and to some extent, of ellipsis, as can be seen in
the following example:
(11)
For pe emeraudes
so pat pei haue none grete pappes §
Tak welle cresses & stampe hem & steue
hem in • a pot with oute water & make a plaster
& ley to pe emeraudes § Also for pe same
*
Tak litarge of golde & make powdere
perof & tempre hit vp with oyle of violet
& make a plaster & ley perto Also for pe same / *
Tak moleyne • & styue hit in good red
wyn & make a plaster & ley perto § Also
*
Tak Rewe & louache of eyper j lyke me
che & grynde hem in a mortere & put perto
hony & fry¥e hem to gedre & mak a plaster
& ley per to as hoot as he may suffre &
alle pese medicynes bep gode for pe emeraudes
(MS Hunter 185, ff. 46r, ll. 2639-2654)
In the previous recipes, the word also might be well replaced by the string
“another medicine” or “another remedy”. In the second and third recipes in
(11), also is followed by for pe same which, as seen above, stands for
information given in the title of the first recipe For pe emeraudes so pat pei
haue none grete pappes. In the last recipe in this group, the title also is an
example of substitution and ellipsis. Substitution here lies in the fact that it
stands for the whole title in the first recipe, and the element which is elliptical
is for pe same, whose meaning is included in also.
The anaphoric pronoun another is also part of some of the titles of the
recipes included in MS Hunter 185. The following example illustrates the
anaphoric use of another in our recipes:
179
Francisco Alonso
(12)
For to make a buyle
drawe to gedre and brek § Tak galbanum
& clense it at a fuyre & make per of a plaster
& ley per to ij dayes or it be remoued Also
*
an other for pe same Tak a rosted ox
non • & pe lylye rote & souredokkes & stampe
hem to gedre with barewes grece & with oyle of
olyue & make a plaster & ley to pe sore
(MS Hunter 185, f. 23r, ll. 1594-1601)
In this example, an other refers to a new recipe which is good for to make
a buyle1 drawe to gedre and brek , thus linking thematically the second
recipe in the group to the first one. There is also the elision of the word
medicine which normally collocates with the word another in the occurrences
of the former in MS Hunter 185, as seen in lines 1581-1582 Also an oper
medicyne which constitutes the first instance of the words <an oper> and
<medicyne> in the manuscript.
So far, the use of substitution, ellipsis, and anaphora have been
described, especially those cases which serve the function of creating
thematic groups of recipes within the receptarium, thus forming a clearer
structure which gives shape to the remedybook. Below, I shall describe the
use of other dis course particles which link recipes belonging to different
groups, mainly by means of cross-references (represented in chart 1 by
means of a dotted double-sided arrow), and which also favour cohesion
within the recipe book.
5.2.2. LINKING THE RECIPE GROUPS
We have seen previously how recipes are tightly linked in groups by means
of anaphora, ellipsis, and substitution. These devices show a high degree of
frequency. However, linking particles, which establish connection among the
different groups of recipes, are less frequent; though, admittedly, they still
1 <Buyle> ‘swelling’.
180
Linguistic evidence in the compiling of Middle English medical recipes
play a significant role in the process of compilation of recipes. These particles
constitute evidence of a serious attempt to perform editorial work by the
scribe. In other words, the presence of these particles shows that the scribe
knew, and could handle, the material he was compiling to such an extent that
he was able to establish cross-references among recipes 1 .
Beforesaid (ll. 1338-1339) and its variants before j seid (l. 1413), jsayde
aboue (l. 1593); and as it is seide be fore represent the majority of the internal
cross-reference expressions employed by the scribe to make reference to recipes given earlier in the receptarium. The following instances exemplify this
point2 :
(13)
For pe sa
me a plastyr Tak smalache wermot
hony salt vynegre ana a saucerful & perto
a quancyte of Ry¥emele & boyle hem to
gedre & make a plastyr on a clop & ley
to pe sore & vse pis plaster & pe drynke be
foresaid & pou schalt be hool •
(MS Hunter 185, ff. 17r-17v, ll. 1333-1339)
(14)
Also for pe felon
pat makep the to swelle Take beteyne &
camamylle heyhoue & egremoyne • ana
an hanful & wessche hem & stampe hem
wel • & take hertes grece & lyue hony of eyper
a quantite & do perto barly mele half a quartron
& frye hem wel to gedre • & let schaue pe
hed & ley pe plaster a boue • as • hot as pe
seke may suffre • & ¥ef hem to drynke plan
1 Traditionally, receptaria are considered to be characterised by adaptation and accre-
tion (Voigts (1982: 44), Norri (1992: 34), Taavitsainen (1992: 329)); the latter implies some sort of pilling up of recipes as mere records of therapeutic knowledge.
Thus, the presence of these internal cross-references support the idea of an
incipient editorial work by the scribe who carefully connects recipes in our
manuscript. Also, by means of these cross-references the scribe avoids the
repetition of already-stated information such as how to mix the products in order to
produce the medicine.
2 Italics highlights the examples I refer to in the text.
181
Francisco Alonso
tayne pe same drynke pat is jsayde a boue
for pe hed ache
(MS Hunter 185, f. 23r, ll. 1584-1594)
(15)
Also an other for pe same Tak
pullyole de montayne pat is to say
hillwort or brodewort a good handful
& wessch hit clene & schere hit smal
& do it in a mortere • & grynde hit smal &
do perto half an vnce of poudere of peper
& an vnce of poudere of comyn & med
le hem to gedere haluendel be wasted
& do perto also a potel of good wyn &
penne • seep it as it ys seyde to fore &
let pe pacient vse pis after mete & not
before & but ones after none & at eue
last & algate hoot & he schal be hool
(MS Hunter 185, ff. 33v-34r, ll. 2062-2074)
(16)
Also for pe emaraudes a good
medicyne / • Tak a stool with a sege as
hit is saide before for pe fluxe & ri¥t so
vse pis medicyne for pe emaraudes
as of pe hote tiles per he takep frank
encens he schal take poudere of myrre
& of encense • ana & ¥ef he haue grete
pappes bynde a boute pe pappes a rede
selkys pred faste bi pe grounde & kerue
a wey pe pappes a boue pe prede • &
pus serue hym ry¥t boldelich & tak an •
handful of wermot & wassch hit & stampe
it & fry¥e hit with oyle of olyue & make
a plaster & ley perto as hoot as he may
suffre • & a noon as he be on his bed & a
morwe vse pis stool with pe sege & with
pese powdres & with jnne iij dayes he
schal be hool on warantise bote loke
pat he haue pis plaster durynge iij ny¥tes
or iiij at pe moste •
(MS Hunter 185, ff. 45v-46r, ll. 2620-2639)
182
Linguistic evidence in the compiling of Middle English medical recipes
In (13), the scribe offers a remedy for the fistula; this remedy is the second in his group and consists in the making of a plaster to cure the sick. In
this case, this treatment must be applied together with a drink described in
the previous recipe in the manuscript. Instead of rewriting the making of the
drink, the scribe uses the string pe drynke beforesaid which forces the reader
to go back in the receptarium to find the information he needs. This time the
location of such information represents an easier enterprise, since the reader
looking for information on fistula might have read the previous recipe as well,
since it is located just before it.
However, two related recipes may sometimes be well aprt, as can be seen
in (14) which contains information on swellings. Here, the scribe connects
this recipe with another found in lines 1573 to 15751 by means of the string pe
same drynke pat is sayde aboue for pe hed ache. As one may suppose, the
expression is sayde aboue is rather unspecific for any reader to find successfully the drink the scribe refers to. Thus, the scribe adds the complement for
pe hed ache in order to make clear the drink that should be prepared.
(15) seep as it ys seyde to fore finds its referent in the previous recipe in
the manuscript. The reader is told to perform the same action with the ingredients as in the previous recipe, that is, the ingredients must be soaked in
“good wyn from a potel” (l. 2057).
Finally, (16) shows a similar use of cross-reference expressions, where the
reader must look back into the text in order to find the referent. In this case,
the reader is told to use the same type of chair with a hole (normally used to
help pregnant women when they give birth) which is described in a previous
recipe in lines 2247-2249: “Tak a stool with a sege pat is closed al a bowte &
tak an hoot tyle pat is glowyng hoot & ley hit vnder pe sege & let pe seke
sitte doun on pe sege & make pe sege on pis manere”. This recipe is found
nearly 400 lines earlier in the receptarium, which indicates that the reader
must locate the information without any other aid, save for the title in rubrics
in line 2246 Also for pe fluxe.
1 Lines 1573-1575 reads: “Also here is for pe felon Tak & drynk plantayne & make
powdere of pe same & ley per to.”
183
Francisco Alonso
Sometimes, the reader is given more precise indications of where to find
specific information:
(17)
For to
make a drynke for alle manere of feuer oper
posteme & for alle sekenesse pat is in mannes
body pat euer may be holpe with eny medicyne
Tak euery day a quantite of pe powdere
in pe recet be fore pat makep mencyoun
of pe dropsie in pe wombe & tak jsope
Rose maryne • violet verueyne • Beteyne
herbe jon • Monsere Red planteyne pe
whiche is a powdere anance Sauge
ffeperfoye • & ache ana an • handful & was
sche clene pyn herbes & do hem in to a
mortere • & stampe hem a litel • & do hem in to
an erpen pot … (MS Hunter 185, ff. 54r-54v, ll. 3029-3051)
In this example, the scribe indicates the reader where to find the information to produce the medicine to help the sick to overcome a state of fever. As
happened in some of the examples described above, the recipe the scribe
refers to is found very early in the text. Thus, the scribe gives specific details
to the reader so that he can find quickly the information required. In fact, the
extra information given here pe dropsie in pe wombe coincides word-for-word
with the rubricated title of the recipe the scribe mentions: “For pe dropsie in
pe wombe & in pe feet…” (ll. 2559-2561). This may greatly benefit the reader
in his search for this information.
In MS Hunter 185, the reader must also look forward, rather than backwards, into the text to find the information required. The only instance of this
type is the following:
(18)
For to restore a¥eyn pe wombe whenne
it is solible § Tak an handful of
hennecresses seed anoper of weybrode & gryn
de hem in a mortere penne frye hem wel to
gedre with schepes talwe & frank encens
184
Linguistic evidence in the compiling of Middle English medical recipes
& make a plaster & ley to his nauel also hot
as he may suffre • & let hym vse pis pat
is jtolde next after
(MS Hunter 185, f. 37v, ll. 2239-2246)
In this case, the string pat is jtolde next after compels the reader to go
forward in the receptarium to find the second part of the treatment for the
womb which is presented in the following recipe: “Also for pe fluxe” (l. 2246).
6. CONCLUSIONS
The present study illustrates the strategies used by the medieval scribe of
MS Hunter 185 to connect medical recipes in a manuscript. Such strategies include the use of specific visual elements, and the use of grammatical devices
such as anaphora, substitution, ellipsis, and cross-references. As shown
above, one of the aims of linking recipes is to create subgroups of recipes
which cover particular information for specific sicknesses. Thus, the scribe
employs systematically the expressions also, an other, item, for pe same in
the titles so as to group recipes with a similar therapeutic function. Also, as
seen earlier, by using such expressions in the second and following recipes in
a given group, the scribe only needs to write in full the first title of the first
recipe in that group; in this way, he avoids the repetition of the entire title in
subsequent recipes.
The use of internal cross-references, such as bifore saide, also sheds
light to the process of compilation of recipes in the Middle Ages. These
cross-references show that scribal work in the construction of the medical
receptarium was far beyond the random compilation of recipes. Quite on the
contrary, cross-references constitute an indication that the scribe knew his
material well, and hence that he was able to establish connections among the
recipes. It should be also noted that the scribe supplies extra-information in
strings like as it is seide be fore or before j seid by adding phrases such as for
pe fluxe or for pe hed ache, which clearly define the recipe he refers to. The
inclusion of such phrases depends on the relation of proximity between the
recipes involved: the larger the distance between recipes, the longer the
cross-reference.
185
Francisco Alonso
The information included in this paper represents just the starting point
towards further research in the field of linking particles in Middle English
recipe collections. The use of specific lexical items with linking function
among recipes has been ignored here, but constitutes another area of
research which might enlighten our understanding of medieval recipe
compilations.
Francisco Alonso Almeida
Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
REFERENCES
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Middle-English Recipe Medical Discourse. Revista de lenguas para
fines específicos 5/6.
Brown, G. and G. Yule. 1996 (1983): Discourse Analysis. (Cambridge
Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Norri, J. 1992: Names of Sicknesses in English, 1400-1550: An Exploration
of the Lexical Field. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Helsinki.
Parkes, M. 1973: The Literacy of the Laity. In David Daiches and A. Thorlby
(eds.) The Mediaeval World. Aldus Book, London. 555-557.
Robbins, R. H. 1970: Medical Manuscripts in Middle English. Speculum, 45:
393-415.
Rodríguez Álvarez, A. 1997: Documentos notariales vernáculos del condado
de Durham (Siglo XV): estudio y edición. Servicio de Publicaciones
de la Universidad de Córdoba y Servicio de Publicaciones de la
Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Córdoba.
Schmidt, K. A. R. 1994: The Index of Middle English Prose and Late Medieval
English Recipes. English Studies, 75.5: 423-429.
Taavitsainen, I. 1994: On the Evolution of Scientific Writings from 1375 to
1675: Repertoire of Emotive Features. In F. Fernández et al. (eds.)
Papers from the 7th International Conference of English Historical
Linguistics. John Benjamins Publishing Co, Amsterdam and
Philadelphia. 329-342.
186
Linguistic evidence in the compiling of Middle English medical recipes
Voigts, L. 1982: Editing Middle English Medical Texts: Needs and Issues. In
Levere, Trevor Editing Texts in the History of Science and Medicine.
Garland, New York and London, 39-68.
Voigts, L. 1995: Multitudes of Middle English Medical Manuscripts, or the
Englishing of Science and Medicine. In M. Schleissner (ed.)
Manuscript Sources of Medieval Medicine. A Book of Essays.
Garland Publishing, New York and London. 183-195.
Young, J. and P. H. Aitken. 1908: Annotated Catalogue of Manuscripts in the
Hunterian Library. James Maclehose and Sons, Glasgow.
*†*
187
THE CHAUCERS IN SPAIN:
FROM THE WEDDING TO THE FUNERAL
Chaucer Life-Records1 was the culmination of the extraordinary labours
to attempt to cover Chaucer's biography. This handsome volume will be for
many years the point of departure of any work on the poet's life. Since this excellent work was published in 1966, some books and articles have been published on this subject. Although there are significant and important contributions among them, such as Chaucer and his world (1978) by Derek Brewer,
Chaucer: his Life, his Works, his World (1981) by Howard 2 , and The Life of
Geoffrey Chaucer (1993) by Derek Pearsall3 some questions naturally still remain: the exact day of the poet's birth, his activity from 1360 to 1366 and nearly everything about his domestic life. "The problems of writing a life of Chaucer" 4 cannot lead us to the frustration of a natural wish to know everything
about his life. We know that, as Derek Pearsall (1993: 2) says in answer to the
question as whether it is worth writing a new biography of the poet:
1 I am chiefly grateful to Professor Martin M. Crow whose opinion on the most im-
portant results of this paper, after reading some of my works on Chaucer and Spain,
has encouraged me. All quotations are from Crow Martin M. & Calir C. Olson C.,
Chaucer Life-Records (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966). All quotations are from this
edition and the references to this volume will be incorporated into the text, under
the abbreviation Life-Records.
2 D. R. Howard, Chaucer: his Life, his Works, his World. New York: E.P. Dutton,
1981. I am very grateful to Martha S. Waller, retired Professor of Butler University,
for sending me Howard's references to Philippa Chaucer from this book, and for her
advice and corrections on this article.
3 I do not know how to express my gratitude to both these great scholars for their
correspondece connected with some of my research on this subject. I have been
greatly inspired by D. Pearsall’s The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer (Oxford: Blackwell,
1993), and D. Brewer’s Chaucer and his world (Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer, 1978).
4 This is the title of Derek Pearsall's paper in the VII SELIM. (Spanish Society for
Mediaeval English Language and Literature), Conference held in Cáceres, 1994.
Jesus L. Serrano Selim 8 (1998): 193—203
Jesús L. Serrano
there are many who would think not, arguing one or more of the
following: that it cannot be done, that it is not worth doing and
that it has been done.
Many aspects of Chaucer's biography can give controversy such as the
identify of the real father of Thomas Chaucer1 , the existence of two
Philippas 2 or, even, the existence of two Chaucers 3 , although, so far as I
know, his identity has never seriously been questioned.
It is not the intention in this paper to invent a part of a biography, unsupported by real evidence, in order to fill some gaps in the poet's biography.
This paper is concerned with Chaucer's marriage and the connection between
the Chaucers and Spain. I will try to show how there were two important
years for Chaucer's marriage: in 1366 the poet was in Spain and this was also
the year of the wedding; in 1387 Philippa Chaucer was in Spain and it was
1387, the year she died. I am going to support my work on historical data from
two sources: Chaucer Life-Records and Ayala's Chronicles4 . The results of
this verification will not provide the unanswerable documentary evidence
but, I hope, they can be a contribution to a new starting point which can lead
us to a better knowledge of Chaucer's life.
I.- 1366: CHAUCER WAS IN SPAIN AND MARRIED PHILIPPA
The publication of a short article by Suzanne Honoré-Duvergé5 revealing
that Chaucer visited Spain with a safe-conduct, granted by the king of
Navarre, cast some light on the obscurity of the period from October 1360 to
1 For a biography and discussion see K. B. McFarlane, "Henry V, Bishop Beaufort
and the Red Hat, 1417-1421", EHR 60 (1945), pp. 316-348, 332-337; J. A. F.
Thomson, "John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk," Speculum, 54 (1979), pp. 528-42; E.
A. Greening Lamborn, "The Arms on the Chaucer Tomb at Ewelme", Oxoniensia, 5
(1940), pp. 78-93.
2 For this possibility, see D. Pearsall, op. ct., p. 35.
3 For this possibility, see, A. C. Baugh, "Chaucer the Man", Companion to Chaucer
Studies, edited by Beryl Rowland. London: O.U.P, 1968, p. 1.
4 J. L. Martín, ed., Pero López de Ayala. Crónicas ( Barcelona: Planeta, 1991). All
quotations are from this edition. The references to this book will be incorporated in
the text under the abbreviation Crónicas.
5 S. Honoré-Duvergé, "Chaucer en Espagne? (1366)", Recueil de Travaux offert & M.
Clovis Brunel , II (Paris: 1955), pp. 9-13.
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The Chaucers in Spain
June 1366. But, we cannot deduce (from this document) any clear reason for
his journey.
Several possible explanations have been suggested. Suzanne HonoréDuvergé believes "that Chaucer may have joined the forces of Trastamara
and taken part in the military campaign"1 There is a mistake in this opinion,
as was pointed out by Thomas Garbaty in his important article "Chaucer in
Spain, 1366: Soldier of Fortune or Agent of the Crown".2
If it can be accepted that one can accept that Chaucer came to Spain to
take part in that campaign, he did so, of course, on the side of Peter, the
Cruel, who was allied with Edward III whose military forces were led by his
son the Black Prince.
Another possibility was offered by Crow and Olson suggesting that
Chaucer was an ordinary pilgrim to the shrine of St. James. Baugh however,(1968: 56) rejects both possibilities and when, referring to the second
one, he states that "English pilgrims to Compostela habitually went to La
Coruña, in Galicia, by sea." 3
This argument is not strong enough to reject Crow and Olson's opinion:
pilgrims also went to Galicia by the "French route"4 .
Chaucer may have been sent on a diplomatic mission: to negotiate with
the king of Navarre, Charles II, the passage of the English military forces
through his territory, but this was quite unlikely. The safe-conduct was valid
from February 22 to May 24 of 1366, and the agreement with the king of
Navarre was in 1367.5
1 Albert C. BAUGH, op. ct., p. 56
2 I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude to Professor Thomas J. Garbaty, who
sent me his article published in MLN, 5, (1967) and encouraged me to work on this
subject.
3 Albert C. Baugh, Chaucer the Man", Companion to Chaucer Studies, ed. Beryl
Rowland (London: OUP, 1968).
4 See Vázquez de Parga, J. M. Lacarra, & Uria, Peregrinaciones a Santiago, (Madrid:
1948).
5 "…el rey de Navarra fuese para Pamplona, e estovo allí, e fizo otros tratos con el
rey Don Pedro e con el príncipe de Gales en esta manera: que el rey de Navarra les
diese el paso por el puerto de Roncesvalles," (Crónicas, p. 331) "The king of
Navarre went to Pamplona and stayed there and made other treaties with king Peter
and with the Prince of Wales as follows: that the king of Navarre would allow them
free entry to enter through the mountain pass of Rouncesval."
191
Jesús L. Serrano
None of the above possibilities is supported by historical documents.
However, this is my hypothesis: Chaucer went to Spain to persuade the
English knights to abandon Henry of Trastamara so that the English military
forces would fight on the side of king Peter. Baugh (1968: 69) and Pearsall
(1993: 53) suggest the same idea but with no document to support it. And
Baugh even casts doubt on Chaucer's success in his mission:
his misssion was a last minute attempt to make contact with the
Gascon knights and seek to detach them from the enterprise.
Whether he ever caught up with them is doubtful.
If we follow the steps of Hugh of Calveley, the most important English
knight in the Companies on the side of Henry of Trastamara, in Ayala's
Chronicles, we can find the answer.
Calveley had been a decisive help for the English victory in the struggle
for Brittany and had begun to invade Castile on March 13661 .
Ayala (1991: 331-333) tells how Henry of Trastamara, who had invaded
Castile and was proclaimed king of Castile, was aware of the Black Prince's
proposals: "… que avía ya nuevas del príncipe de Gales como venía a
ayudar al rey don Pedro… e esto fue en el mes de febrero deste año." 2
Peter, the Cruel, had fled from Seville to Galicia and finally to Bayonne
asking for the Black Prince's help. It is significant that the period which covered Chaucer's safe-conduct was from February 22 to May 24, and in February
Henry of Trastamara had news about the Black Prince's departure to Castile.
Calveley had been successful in his attack on Calahorra in "early March".
Was Chaucer’s mission successful? Ayala (1991: 341) answers the question:
… Mosen Hugo de Caureley, que era un caballero inglés con quatrocientos de caballo de su compaña, que tenía consigo de
1 "Early in March Calveley opened the attack by turning north and following the
course of the Ebro, passed through the southern tip of Navarre, and reached Alfaro
in Castilian territory. When the town refused to surrender he pushed on to
Calahorra." Baugh, "Chaucer the Man" , p. 65.
2 " They had heard about how the Prince of Wales was coming to help king Peter.…
and this happened in February of that year."
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The Chaucers in Spain
Inglaterra, partió del rey don Enrique, e fuese para Navarra, por
quanto su señor el Príncipe de Gales venía de la otra parte, e non
podía ser contra el. E el rey don Enrique, como quier que sopo que
el dicho mosén Hugo partía del, e le pudiera facer algun enojo, non
lo quiso facer, teniendo que el dicho caballero facía su debdo en se
ir a servir a su señor el príncipe, que era fijo de su señor el rey de
Inglaterra.1
Chaucer's arguments convinced not only Sir Calveley but Henry of
Trastamara himself. And Ayala's Chronicles reafirm this success: Sir Calveley
not only abandoned Henry of Trastamara but also he took part in the battle of
Nájera against him2 , and some days after the victory of Nájera he, as a reliable
person at the Black Prince's service, was sent as a messanger to the king of
Aragon3 . Chaucer's success is beyond all doubt.
Was Philippa one of Chaucer's three companions, "not separately identified" who went with him to Spain in 1366? There is no record to prove it, we
only can deduce a positive answer from other historical data. We know that
Philippa is named as Chaucer's wife in a transaction on the Receipt Roll under
21 December 1381 (Life-Records, p. 77). Crow and Olson (1966: 68) say that:"
1 (Crónicas, p. 341) " The knight Hugo of Carvely, who was an English knight with
four hundred cavalrymen from England, abandoned king Henry, and went to
Navarre because his lord, the Prince of Wales was coming from the other direction
and he could not fight against him. And when king Henry knew that this Hugo had
left him, and he could have done him some harm, nevertheless he did not wish to do
so, considering that this knight was doing his duty by his lord the Prince, who was
the son of the king of England."
2 "De la parte del rey don Pedro fue ordenada la batalla en esta guisa. Todos vinieron
a pie, e en la avanguardia venía el duque de Alencastre, hermano del príncipe, que
decían don Juan, e mosén Juan Chandós, que era condestable de Guiana por el
príncipe, e mosén Raúl Camois, e mosén Hugo de Caureley, e Mosén Oliver, señor
de Clison, e otros muchos caballeros e escuderos de Inglaterra e de Bretaña."
(Crónicas, 344). "On the side of king Peter the battle was planned as follows: everyone was on foot, and the Duke of Lancaster, who was called John, the Prince's
brother, was in the vanguard with the knight John of Chandos, who had been appointed by the prince the military chief of Guiana, and Raul Camois, and Hugo of
Calveley, and Oliver, lord of Clison, and many other knights and squires from
England and Brittany."
3 "Otrosí el príncipe de Gales envió luego al rey de Aragón por mensajero a mosén
Hugo de Caureley, un caballero de Inglaterra a tratar con él sus amistades,"
(Crónicas, 360). "And afterwards the Prince of Wales sent Hugo of Calveley, a
knight from England, as a messanger to the king of Aragon to draw up a treaty of
friendship with him."
193
Jesús L. Serrano
The recipient of these annuity payments of 1381 had borne the name
Philippa Chaucer when the annuity was granted on 12 September 1366."
We know that one " Philippa Chaucer una domicellarum camere
Philippe regine Anglie" (Life-Records, p. 67) received an annuity of ten
marks on 12 September 1366. So, as Pearsall (1993: 50): says " she was given
her husband's surname". And once again Crow and Olson (1966: 68) provide
a valuable clue to support my hypothesis:
The maiden name of the wife occurs so frequentley in grants and
payments made soon after marriage as to suggest that Philippa
Chaucer had been married long enough by 12 Sep. 1366 to be already identified in the court as Geoffrey Chaucer's wife.
If "Chaucer had been married long enough by 12 Sep. 1366", was he
married in the period of his safe-conduct (February 22 to May 24)? There are
only three months from June to September. Was this period of time "long
enough as to be identified in the court as Geoffrey Chaucer's wife? If we
think that a positive answer to these two questions is a reasonable argument,
the possibility that Philippa Chaucer's was in Spain in 1366 becomes more
plausible. In any case, I belive, as Crow and Olson (1966: 68) that "Chaucer
must have married her on or before 12 September 1366 unless her maiden
name was Chaucer". This 1366 was the year of Chaucer's stay in Spain and
the year of his wedding: an important year in his life.
II.- 1386-87: PHILIPPA CHAUCER WAS IN SPAIN AND DIED OF
PESTILENCE
This conflict was to be the origin of John of Gaunt's claim to the Crown of
Castile and Leon because, as it is well known, he married Constance of
Castile, Pedro's daughter in 1371, and this was his most important link to
Spain. His efforts to realise succeed in this clain would last sixteen years. The
history of this period of time is included in Ayala's Chronicles. The last
attempt was in 1386 when the Duke arrived at Galicia on 25 July, with his
family:
Dende a pocos días llegáronle nuevas al maestre Davis cómo el
duque de Alencastre era aportado con pieza de navíos e de gentes
en la villa de la Coruña, que es en Galicia, día de Santiago, e cómo
194
The Chaucers in Spain
tomara y algunas galeas que falló del rey de Castilla, e que la gente
que el dicho duque traía eran mil e quinientas lanzas, e otros tantos
archeros, e todo de muy buena gente. E traía consigo su mu jer
doña Constanza, que era fija del rey don Pedro, e una fija que avía
della, que decían doña Catalina. E traía otras dos fijas que el duque
oviera primero de otra mujer con quien fuera casado antes, fija de
otro duque de Alencastre e conde de Dervi que fuera antes que
dél, e a la mayor decían doña Phelipa, la cual casó entonce con el
maestre Davis que se llamaba rey de Portugal, segund adelante
diremos, e a la otra decían doña Isabel, la cual casó entonce con un
caballero que venía con el duque, que decían mosén Juan de
Holanda, que fuera hijo de la princesa e de mosén Thomas de
Holanda, e era entonce mosén Juan de Holanda en esa cabalgada,
e el duque de Alencastre fízole su condestable.1
If Philippa was in Constance's service, she ought to have been at her service in Galicia in 1386. Her husband's daughters were to marry important men
and her own daughter Catherine would marry Henry III of Castile.
Constance's need of household chores might be important enough to get rid
of Philippa, who was not only granted but highly esteemed by her as Crow
and Olson (1966: 86) clarify when they explain that the term "` nostre bien
ame damoysele' is applied elsewhere in the register of John of Gaunt to
ladies in immediate attendance upon the Duchess Constance. 2
Furthermore, her son Thomas Chaucer was probably of the party.
1 (Crónicas, p. 614) "the Grand Master Davis had news a few days previously of
how the Duke of Lancaster had arrived with ships and militarymen in the town of
La Coruña, which is in Galicia, the day on St. James, and how he took some ships
of the king of Castile, and among the soldiers there were 1500 lancers and a like
number of archers and all of them were good. And he brought with him his wife
Constance, who was the daughter of king Peter and a daughter who had been born of
her, who was called Catherine, and he brought two other daughters the Duke had of
another woman whom he had previously married, who was the daugther of the
former Duke of Lancaster and Earl of Derby; the elder daugther was called Philippa,
who married the Grand Master Davis, who was called king of Portugal, as we shall
tell later on, and the other daughter was called Elisabeth, who then married a knight
who came with the Duke, who was called John of Holland, who was son of the
princess and Thomas of Holland, because the Duke of Lancaster had made him his
military chief."
2 For further clarification, see the reference to the annuity of ten pounds granted to
Philippa Chaucer on 30 August 1372 in Chaucer Life-Records, pp. 85-86.
195
Jesús L. Serrano
There is no record to prove that the Duke of Lancaster was Chaucer's patron1 but there some records to demonstrate a close connection between the
Chaucers and John of Gaunt:
* Philippa Chaucer received an annuity on 30 August 1372 for attendance upon the Duchess Constance and some gifts from 1373 to
1382.
* Geoffrey Chaucer and his wife received an annuity from Gaunt on 13
June 1374.
I agree with Derek Pearsall (1993: 83) when he comments on the Chaucers'
annuity from Gaunt, in 1374, and says that "the annuity most probably
continued to be paid until Gaunt's death in 1399". Although it is true, as he
says, that "there is no documentary evidence of any futher personal
connection between the poet and the prince", I think that, if there is
anything, we would find it connected with the Duke of Lancaster's intervention in Spain. We know that there are no records of Ga unt's grants to Philippa
after the gift on 6 May 1382 because, indeed, there are no records of any kind
of Gaunt's household expenses since the Register broke off in 1383.
I think it is important to focus attention on the last and most important
record concerning Philippa Chaucer's connection with The Lancaster House:
her admission to the fraternity of Lincoln Cathedral. This admission does not
only imply her relationship with her nephews (John Beaufort and Thomas
Swynford), as it seems natural, but the imp ortance of a " bien ame damoysele" (Life-Records, p. 86) in Gaunt's household. This important ceremony
was held on 19 February 1386.
Regarding Gaunt's campaign in Spain in 1386 Derek Pearsall (1993: 142)
thinks that "Philippa was not of the party. In 1386 she was probably residing
more permanently with her sister in Lincolshire."
1 John of Gaunt styled himself "roy de Castille et de Leon duc de Lancastre" in all
documents from 1372 to 1388 and as I will try to show in a forthcoming article in
the Chaucer Review, Chaucer supports this claim in The Book of the Duchess when
he defines him as "this kyng" (1314).
196
The Chaucers in Spain
Where was Philippa Chaucer? I consider that the strong negative "was
not of the party", in Pearsall's opinion, is weakened by the uncertainty of
"probably residing…" We know that her sister Katherine Swynford sometimes dwelt at her manor in Kettlethorpe and that some of her payments were
received in Lincolshire by a sheriff (Life-Records, p.77) in 1379. I believe that
her relationship with Gaunt's mistress does not imply a relief of her duties in
connexion with her "immediate attendance upon the Duchess Constance"
just when Gaunt was very much interested in using his wife as a coin of
exchange. It is well known, however, that John of Gaunt lost interest in
Constance of Castile after returning from Spain in 1389. Pearsall (1993: 142),
himself, says that,
During the early 1380s, Philippa probably shared her life between
the household of her husband and that of the Duchess Constance,
who spent more time with her husband now that his hopes of a
throne in Spain were his main political ambition.
Can 1386 be included in these "early 1380s" taking into account that
Gaunt's "hopes of a throne in Spain" were supported now by the king and by
a subsidy of Parliament?
On the other hand, "in June 1386, Geoffrey and Philippa received an assignment upon William Barwell, who had been sheriff of Worcestershire in
1383," (Life-Records, p. 335) but this does not imply that Philippa Chaucer
was there. It is not significant that, the fact that:
After June 1386 Chaucer's payments were always in cash drawn at
the exchequer by his own hands until, after the surrender of his
annuity to John Scalby, he received a pro rata payment in
February 1389 by the hands of Scalby. (Life-Records, p. 335)
Gaunt and the king of Portugal decided that they would stay in Galicia
from 25 July 1386 until the following summer. But instead of increasing their
power by making preparations for the attack they were defeated, before
fighting, by the worst enemy: "pestilence". Therefore they did not wait until
the summer, and in March 1387 they invaded Castile. Ayala narrates the situation
197
Jesús L. Serrano
Después que entró en Castilla, siempre ovo grand mortandad en
sus compañas, en guisa que perdió muchas gentes de las suyas; e
segund se sopo por cie rto, morieron trescientos caballeros e
escuderos, e muchos archeros e otras gentes.1
Philippa Chaucer might have been among these "otras gentes", and probably died in Spain or Portugal of "pestilence". We do not have any record of
her death but if, as Pearsall (1993: 25) says as regrads those who died of
plague, " there were not enough living to bury the dead, and there were certainly not enough priests to give all the dying the last sacraments" it would
be very difficult to find any record, mainly knowing how elusive Chaucer was
about autobiographical references in his poetry.
Martin M. Crow and Clair C. Olson (1966: 84) conclude that:
Because for several terms Philippa Chaucer had drawn her annuity
through her husband and because Geoffrey Chaucer drew only his
own Michaelmas instalments on 7 November 1387, it would appear
that her death ocurred sometime between 18 June 1387, when she
drew her last payment, and 7 November of that year.
I hope that the new information drawn from our conclusion would help
from now on in future research concerning this subject.2
Jesús Luis Serrano Reyes
University of Córdoba
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baugh, A. C. 1968: Chaucer the Man. Companion to Chaucer Studies, ed.
Beryl Rowland. London: OUP.
1 (Crónicas, p. 627) " After entering Castile, there was a large number of victims
among his entourage, so that he lost many of his people, and as it was well known,
three hundred knights and squires and many archers and other people died."
2 I am preparing a new article with the valuable help of Professor William Askins,
who has provide new and important data to complete this research. The most striking and convincing data may be the finding of a record to support the hypothesis of
Philippa's death in Spain.
198
The Chaucers in Spain
Brewer, D. 1978: Chaucer and his World. Suffolk: Boydell & Brewer.
Crow, M. M. & Clair Olson, eds. 1966: Chaucer Life-Records. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Garbaty, T. J. 1967: Chaucer in Spain, 1366: Soldier of Fortune or Agent of the
Crown? Modern Language Notes 5: 81-87.
Honoré-Duvergé, S. 1955: Chaucer en Espagne? (1366). Recueil de travaux
offert a M. Clovis Brunel 2: 9-13.
Howard, D. R. 1981: Chaucer: his Life, his Works, his World. New York: E. P.
Dutton.
Martín, J. L. ed. 1991: Pero López de Ayala. Crónicas. Barcelona: Planeta.
Pearsall, D. 1993: The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer. Oxford: Blackwell.
*†*
199
THE ARRIVAL OF THE HERO IN A SHIP:
A COMMON LEITMOTIF IN OE REGNAL TABLES
AND THE STORY OF SCYLD SCEFING IN BEOWULF1
1. INTRODUCTION
Anglo-Saxon genealogical regnal lists have traditionally been regarded as an
extremely valuable report of political and historical events.2 They have also
aroused considerable interest as they have usually been viewed as a cultural
phenomenon of the mythical period of the Invasions. Indeed, Germanic legendary figures contained in them are very much responsible for the great deal
of critical debate that they have provoked. However, like Germanic lore in OE
literature, genealogical tables are rather controversial and obscure. For
example, when similar regnal tables from different sources are compared, they
have usually puzzled critics as they seem to lack coherence in many cases.3
Besides, it is generally assumed that the numerous mythical characters
mentioned in these lists are presented in a rather eclectic and artificial way.
As regards formal order, the last scholarly viewpoint is that genealogical lists
were compiled according to concrete organizational criteria.4 As for the
thematic content of Anglo-Saxon genealogical tables, far from presenting
random legendary material, they were skilfully created in the taste of wellkown mythical and symbolical motifs which were similar to those employed in
earlier or contemporary literary works.5
1 I want to thank Prof. Mª José Mora (University of Seville) for her kind
contribution to this paper providing ideas and bibliography.
2 One of the most complete works on the subject is by Sisam. See also Dumville.
3 Plummer already noted some of the discrepancies found in genealogical lists stating:
"it is lost labour to try and reconcile these inconsistencies" (1899: 2).
4 For instance, Hill (1988) has demonstrated that the layout of some regnal lists re-
sponds to consistent numerical patterns that derive from Germanic folk-lore.
5 See, for example, Davis for a thorough analysis of the cultural background of OE
genealogical tables.
Mercedes Salvador,Selim 8 (1998): 205—221
Mercedes Salvador
It is precisely on this second issue that this paper will concentrate as it
aims at demonstrating the existence of a basic leitmotif that is present in OE
regnal tables as well as in the opening passage of Scyld Scefing in Beowulf: a
legendary hero who comes from the sea in a boat, conquers a land and finally
becomes a king, consequently founding a dynasty. This thematic pattern is
recognizable in the stories of some of the mythical characters that shape up
Anglo-Saxon genealogies: Hengest and Horsa, Cerdic and Cynric, and Scyld
and Sceaf. The study of these legendary figures also reveals that there are
several literary devices which are recurrent in their stories such as the use of
alliteration for both the heroes' names and the place of landing, as well as the
strong metaphorical load that is always present in their names. Finally, this
paper will analyze the co-occurrence of this genealogical material in King
Æthelwulf's pedigree to illustrate how the mythical and symbolical features
present in royal lists were manipulated in order to legitimize a monarch's right
to reign.
2. HENGEST AND HORSA: THE JUTISH TRADITION
The genealogical line of Hengest and Horsa is recorded in various sources as
the comparative tables offered by Chambers show (199). According to the
Laud Chronicle (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud 636), these two brothers
came to Britain invited by King Vortigern to help him fight the Picts.
However, the ones that initially were allies turned out to be enemies, so that
Hengest and Horsa ended up conquering the land. The Chronicle then
relates how Hengest--after Horsa's death in battle--became king, and was
succeeded by his son Æsc. In the entry for the year 449, the Laud Chronicle
draws their ancestry back to Woden asserting their continental origin:
Of Angle comon se á syÍÍan stod westig betwix Iutum ond Seaxum,
East Angla, Middel Angla, Mearca, ond ealla Norphymbra. Heora
heretogan wæron twegen gebroÍra, Hengest ond Horsa pæt wæron
Wihtgilses suna. Wihtgils wæs Witting, Witta Wecting, Wecta
Wodning. Fram pan Wodne awoc eall ure cynecynn, ond SuÍanhymbra eac.1
1 The edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle cited throughout this paper is from
Plummer (1892). The translation of the passages quoted is from Swanton. “From
Angeln, which has stood waste ever since between the Jutes and the Saxons, came
202
A common Leitmotif in OE regnal tables
In his Historia Ecclesiastica (i.15), Bede narrates the arrival of Hengest
and Horsa.1 He likewise acknowledges them as the founders of a dynasty of
kings and gives them a pedigree carried up to Woden, which is identical to
the one provided in the Laud Chronicle:
Duces fuisse perhibentur eorum primi duo fratres Hengist et Horsa,
e quibus Horsa postea occisus in bello a Brettonibus hactenus in
orientalibus Cantiae partibus monumentum habet suo nomine
insigne. Erant autem filii Uictgisli, cuius pater Uitta, cuius pater
Uecta, cuius pater Uoden, de cuius stirpe multarum prouinciarum
regium genus originem duxit.2
The apparently simple legend of Hengest and Horsa reveals significative
connotations if it is regarded in its metaphorical dimension. Apart from constituting the typical couple of brothers with similar names--such as Romulus
and Remus--the fact that both OE hengest and horsa mean the same (i.e.
horse) is noteworthy.3 Plummer considers the possibility that Hengest and
his son's name Æsc could be "abstractions from 'yÍ-hengest' and 'æsc' in the
sense of ship" (1899: 11). Similarly, Davis interprets the name Hengest in the
the East Angles, Middle Angles, Mercians, and all the Northumbrians. Their commanders were two brothers, Hengest and Horsa, that were sons of Wihtgils.
Wihtgils was Witta's offspring, Witta Wecta's offspring, Wecta Woden's offspring.
From that Woden originated all our royal family, and [that] of the Southumbrians
also.” (Swanton 13)
1 Further in the same work (ii.5), Bede mentions Hengest as the ultimate ancestor of
Æthelberht of Kent. The same pedigree is extended to Woden in Anglian genealogical tables as illustrated, for example, in the list found in Cotton Vespasian B.vi
(Dumville 31): “Aepelberht [>] Uihtreding / Uihtred [>] Ecgberhting / Ecgberht [>]
Erconberhting / Erconberht [>] Eadbalding / Eadbald [>] Epilberhting / Epilberht [>]
Iurmenricing / Iurmenric [>] Oes[…] / Oese [>] Ocging / Ocga [>] Hengesting /
Hengest [>] Uitting / Uitta [>] Uihtgilsing / Uihtgils [>] Uegdaeging / Uegdaeg [>]
Uodning / Uoden [>] Frealafing.”
2 All the references to Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica are from Colgrave and Mynors.
“Their first leaders are said to have been two brothers, Hengist and Horsa. Horsa
was afterwards killed in battle by the Britons, and in the eastern part of Kent there
is still a monument bearing his name. They were the sons of Wihtgisl, son of Witta,
son of Wecta, son of Woden, from whose stock the royal families of many kingdoms claimed their descent.” (49-51)
3 There are plenty of examples in myth and literature in which the names of heroic
founders are echoed by place-names. In this sense, the story of the brothers
Hengest and Horsa reminds that of Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of
Rome. Similarly, Brut is considered the founder of Britain in Geoffrey of
Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and many other works.
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sense of "stallion," "denoting the attributes essential to their chosen profession: speed, strength, virility" (27). According to this, he argues that Hengest
is associated with Woden since the Scandinavian cult of this god implied
"the worship and sacrifice of stallions" (27). However, Plummer's idea seems
more accurate if we bring to mind the text of the Laud Chronicle concerning
the arrival of the two brothers: "Ond on peora dagum gelaÍode Wyrtgeorn
Angelcin hider ond hi pa coman on prim ceolum hider to Brytene on pam
stede Heopwinesfleot." 1 Considering that the term hengest is used in compounds such as mere-hengest and yÍ-hengest, which are typical kennings for
ship, it can be inferred that the names of Hengest and Horsa were probably
intended as metaphorical allusions to the ones who came in a sea-horse.
The mention of the place of landing which either alliterates or bears a certain resemblance with the heroes' names is another relevant aspect to take
into account. In the case of Hengest and Horsa, this place of arrival is
"Ypwinesfleot," according to the Parker version of the Chronicle, which obviously does not alliterate with the heroes' names. However, in the Laud ms.
the spelling of this place-name is "Heopwinesfleot," which suggests a deliberate attempt to make it alliterate with Hengest and Horsa.2
3. CERDIC AND CYNRIC: THE WEST-SAXON TRADITION
The account of the arrival of Cerdic and Cynric as narrated in the Chronicle
also contains all the thematic elements that have been discussed so far. To
begin with, Cerdic and Cynric constitute the usual alliterative couple of
heroes.3 Like Hengest and Horsa, they came from the Continent in ships and
were considered the founders of a royal house as recorded in the Parker
Chronicle (year 495): "Her cuomon twegen aldormen on Bretene, Cerdic ond
1 "In their days Vortigern invited the Angle race here and they then came here to
Britain in three ships at the place Ebba's Creek" (Swanton 13).
2 Like the legendary heroes, these original places also become mythical. Plummer es-
tablishes the equivalent of this landing place with "Ebbsfleet in Thanet" noting that
this was "the landing-place of Augustine at a later time" (1899: 10). He also adds:
"If the Saxons really landed there, then the origin alike of our nationality and our
Christianity is closely bound up with that little spot" (1899: 10). Thus, it is not
striking to find it as the legendary place where the founders of one of the AngloSaxon dynasties first landed.
3 Wheeler also points out that "the names of the kings and princes whose battles are
recorded [in the Chronicle] usually occur in pairs. Sometimes the names of the pairs
are alliterative" (170). Among these, he cites Cerdic and Cynric.
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A common Leitmotif in OE regnal tables
Cynric his sunu, mid v scipum in pone stede pe is gecueden Cerdicesora, ond
py ilcan dæge gefuhtun wip Walum." 1 The Chronicle reports how Cerdic and
Cynric conquered Wessex and, as in the case of Hengest and Æsc, Cerdic
became king and so did his son Cynric.
The list of their ancestry traced back to Woden is also presented in the
Parker Chronicle under the year 552:
Cerdic wæs Cynrices fæder, Cerdic Elesing, Elesa Esling, Esla
Giwising, Giwis Wiging, Wig Freawining, Freawine Freopogáring,
Freopogar Branding, Brand Bældæging, Bældæg Wodening.2
Thus, as in the case of Hengest and Horsa, Cerdic's genealogical line in
the Chronicle links the latter with a continental ancestor of the Woden lineage and, thus, confers him the authority to reign and be the founder of the
West-Saxon dynasty of the Gewissae.
The high degree of elaboration of this genealogical list is clearly recognizable if the list is displayed as presented by Chambers (316):
[Cynric Cerdicing],
Elesa Esling,
GiWis Wiging,
Freawine FriÍugaring,
Brond Bældæging,
Cerdic Elesing,
Esla GiWising,
Wig Freawining,
FriÍugar Bronding,
Bældæg Wodening
As Hill states, "the historical genealogies follow the principle that every
son's name should alliterate with that of his father. This was in fact customary
1 "Here [i.e. in 495] two chieftains, Cerdic and Cynric his son, came to Britain with 5
ships at the place which is called Cerdic's Shore and the same day fought against the
Welsh" (Swanton 14).
2 “Cerdic was Cynric's father; Cerdic Elesa's offspring, Elesa Esla's offspring, Esla
Gewis' offspring, Gewis Wig's offspring, Wig Freawine's offspring, Freawine
Frithugar's offspring, Frithugar Brand's offspring, Brand Bældæg's offspring,
Bældæg Woden's offspring.” (Swanton 16). This Gewis mentioned in Cerdic's
pedigree is the one who would give the name "Gewissae" to the West-Saxon dynasty as recorded in Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica (iii.7). This name is also included
in the prologue of Snorri's Edda together with a list of names which is similar to that
in the Chronicle: "Odin's second son was called Beldegg, whom we called Baldr
…His son was Brand, his son Friodigar, whom we call Frodi, his son was Freovin,
his son Wigg, his son Gewis, whom we call Gavir" (Trans. by Faulkes 1986: 4).
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among the Anglo-Saxon royal families" (1988: 164). The result of this is that
the alliterarive pattern of Cerdic's genealogy--as shown in the Parker
Chronicle under the years 494, 552, and 597--has been established in pairs to
the extent that Chambers asserted that it was very similar to poetic structure.1
This served Chambers to claim the authenticity of this genealogy:
Like the mnemonic lists in Widsith, these lines are probably very
old. Their object is clearly to connect the founder of the West-Saxon royal house with Woden … The lines must go back to times
when lists of royal ancestors, both real and imaginary, had to be arranged in correct verse; times when such things were recorded by
memory rather than by writing. They are preliterary, and were
doubtless chanted by retainers of the West-Saxon kings in
heathen days. (316-17)
However, this alliterative pattern clearly points to an artificially created
pedigree following the poetic rules rather than a list of actual ancestors. In
this sense, this table is a clear sign of the literary elaboration with which genealogical lists were produced.
The names of Cerdic and Cynric also contain symbolical connotations
that provide information about how genealogies were skilfully fabricated.
Plummer comments that the name Cerdic has a Celtic origin:
It is curious to find the traditional founder of the West-Saxon
kingdom, the source to which all West-Saxon pedigrees are traced,
bearing the name Cerdic, Certic, so like the Welsh Ceredig, Ceretic.
(1899: 12)
It would not be very surprising if this name had been taken from a Welsh
legendary chieftain; probably genealogists were aware of the fact that this
name had been adopted from the Celtic tradition so that they contrived a way
to assimilate it. Thus, Cynric, Cerdic's son, constitutes a suspiciously
genuine West-Saxon name which was surely intended to provide credibility
to the presence of Cerdic's name in West-Saxon regnal lists. It must be borne
in mind that the transformation of a continental chieftain into an Insular king
1 As indicated by Chambers, "Every line attains double alliteration in the first half,
with one alliterating word only in the second half" (316).
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A common Leitmotif in OE regnal tables
had to be supported genealogically; otherwise the origin of his kingship
would be dubious.
Plummer similarly argues that the name Cynric may have originated in the
necessary transition from alderman to king: "it is possible that the name Cynric is an abstraction from this establishment of the 'cynerice'" (1899: 13). It can
also be inferred that the etymology of this name could well point to the one
who belongs to a cyn, in other words, the one of noble stock.1 Thus, the insertion of an originally Welsh name would be supported with the succession
of a West-Saxon name alliterating with Cerdic, and a very suggestive meaning--binding the origins of kingship to that dynasty--which would conceal
the Celtic provenance of Cerdic. As with Hengest and Horsa, the genealogist
justified the right to kingship elaborating a pedigree which claimed that the
new monarch came from the glorious ascendancy of the Continent. The
credibility thus depended on the genealogist's skilful use of the mythical material.
As regards the place-name, the manipulation is again quite evident since
the Chronicle tells us that Cerdic and Cynric landed at a place called
Cerdicesora, a name that not only alliterates but also contains the name of
the so-called mythical founder.2 In sum, as in the case of Hengest and Horsa,
the account of the arrival of Cerdic and Cynric combines all the elements that
denote the existence of the leitmotif that was defined above.
1 The etymology of Cynric conjures up the story of King Cynewulf who was mur-
dered by his relative Cyneheard as narrated in the Chronicle (year 755). The conflict
to legitimize political power is well-represented in the suspicious emphasis of the
two characters' names with cyn. Furthermore, this episode ends with the chronicler's
insistence that both characters were of noble lineage: "ond hiera ryhtfæderencyn
gæp to Cerdice" (as found in ms. A) ["and their direct paternal ancestry goes back to
Cerdic" (Swanton 48)].
2 They are also said to have fought the Britons at Cerdicesford (year 508 and 519)
and Cerdicesleag (year 527, Cerdicesford in ms.E). A similar pattern can be found
in the account of Ælle's arrival (year 477): "Her cuom Ælle on Breten lond, ond his
iii suna Cymen, ond Wlencing, ond Cissa mid iii scipum, on pa stowe pe is nemned
Cymenesora…" ["Here Ælle and his 3 sons, Cymen and Wlencing and Cissa, came
to the land of Britain with 3 ships at the place which is named Cymen's Shore…
(Swanton 14)]. Also, in the entry for the year 501, there is a further interesting passage in which the name of one of the chieftains is contained in a place-name:" Her
cuom Port on Bretene ond his ii suna Bieda ond Mægla mid ii scipum on pære
stowe pe is gecueden Portesmupa…" ["Here Port and his 2 sons, Bieda and Mægla,
came with 2 ships to Britain at the place which is called Portsmouth …" (Swanton
14)].
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4. SCYLD AND SCEAF: THE SCANDINAVIAN ANCESTRY IN REGNAL
LISTS AND BEOWULF
As a result from the invasions of Danes and their subsequent establishment
in the British Isles, antiquarians surely perceived the necessity to incorporate
Scandinavian legendary material to OE genealogical lists. Thus, Scyld and
Sceaf compose the third pair of heroes with alliterating names that is usually
included in many regnal tables, and is obviously the most explicit representative of the myth of the hero coming in a boat.1 As Murray indicates, "by the
late ninth and tenth centuries Scef and Scyld were regarded as the ancestors
of the West-Saxon dynasty" (103).
Like Cerdic and Cynric, Scyld and Sceaf are usually associated in a fatherson relationship.2 The symbolical content of this myth is extremely rich to the
extent that it has also found a place in epic literature. Thus, the opening lines
of Beowulf present the story of Scyld Scefing who arrived in a boat when still
a child and would later become king of the Danes:
Him Ía Scyld gewat to gescæphwile
felahror feran on frean wære.
Hi hyne pa ætbæron to brimes faroÍe,
swæse gesipas, swa he selfa bæd,
penden wordum weold wine Scyldinga;
leof landfruma lange ahte.
………
1 Chambers offers a broad discussion of all the sources and varying motifs in which
this myth is present (68-86). Murray analyzes the connection between Beowulf and
the figures of Scyld and Sceaf as Danish ancestors of the West-Saxon kings in order
to question the early date and Anglian origin that are sometimes ascribed to the
poem.
2 Chadwick affirms that the connection between Scyld and Sceaf is a product of genealogical lists as "originally Scyld had nothing to do with Sceaf" (277). Likewise,
he considers that Scefing is not a surname neither a patronymic given the lack of
evidence of Sceaf as a personal name in OE. However, the presence of a certain
Sceafa as king of the Longobards in Widsith (32) made Chambers consider the possibility that this could be the reference to the historic king upon whom the legend
later developed (311). Furthermore, the existence of the Scandinavian counterpart of
Scyld, Skjoldr (the eponymous ancestor of the skjoldungar) also supports the idea
that all these names stem from older legends that were later incorporated to works
such as the Skjoldunga saga and the prologue to Snorri's Edda (see Faulkes 1978-79
on this issue). For these reasons, it is not surprising to find Scyld and Sceaf as
independent characters in genealogical lists.
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A common Leitmotif in OE regnal tables
Nalæs hi hine læssan lacum teodan,
peodgestreonum, pon pa dydon
pe hine æt frumsceafte forÍ onsendon
ænne ofer yÍe umborwesende.(26-46)1
This passage from Beowulf describes Scyld's funeral in a boat, surrounded by weapons and treasures. As Chambers states "Scyld Scefing then,
like Tennyson's Arthur, comes from the unknown and departs back to it"
(70).2 Chambers's words are the most accurate to explain the importance of
the Scyld episode: Scyld's mysterious origin is intended to express his quasidivine nature. The Beowulf-poet--as well as genealogists in general--was
aware of the fact that a mythical founder of a dynasty could not be born and
die as a normal human being.
After the description of Scyld's funeral,
the poem goes on with the account of his descendant Beaw whose son
Halfdan would in turn continue the royal line founded by Scyld.3 In this
sense, the Beowulf-poet was surely following the pattern set by early historical sources and genealogical lists. As Campbell had already noted:
The beginning of Beowulf indeed shows affinity with the genealogical literature which was so popular in the early Old English
period. The Beowulf poet made his epic spring from a genealogy …
(1971: 290)
According to this, the Scyld passage in Beowulf can be considered as a
genealogical prelude which is meant to supply authority and credibility to the
events that are about to be narrated. This does not necessarily mean that
Scyld was a real person but the Beowulf-poet knew that he could make the
story more interesting if he related the main characters to important royal
houses and historical or legendary figures that were surely known to the au1 The text of this passage is from Dobbie's edition. As translated by Chickering (49-
51): “Scyld then departed at the appointed time, / still very strong, into the keeping
of the Lord. / His own dear comrades carried his body / to the sea's current, as he
himself had ordered, / great Scylding lord, when he still gave commands; / the nation's dear leader had ruled a long time. / … … … / No lesser gifts did they provide
him / --the wealth of a nation-- than those at his start / who set him adrift when
only a child, / friendless and cold, alone on the waves.
2 This story also recalls the arrival and departure of Lohengrin in a boat drawn by a
swan.
3 For a thorough analysis of the mythical figures contained in Æthelwulf's genealogy,
see Chadwick.
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dience. In Murray's words, "a poem beginning in the manner of Beowulf
would be bound, and surely would be intended, to catch the attention of an
audience or patron with West-Saxon connections" (107). This idea is supported by the fact that the names of some of the characters mentioned in the
starting lines of Beowulf are found in several royal lists. The Scyld Scefing
episode seems to arise from a conscious or unconscious equation present in
the mind of the author and the audience of Beowulf, as well as in the minds of
genealogists: the nobler the pedigree of a character or a king proved to be,
the nobler his acts would be.
As with the preceding cases, the Scyld Scefing story is related to an alliterative place-name which is regarded as the original continental realm of this
legendary king. The reference to the land of Scedenig appears in Beowulf
(1686) although it is not directly associated with the Scyld Scefing passage.1
However, Scedenig suspiciously alliterates with Scyld Sceafing providing a
connection which is explicit in other accounts of this legend. For example, in
the 10th-century Chronicle of Æthelweard a place called Scani has been
identified with Scedenig:
Ipse Scef cum uno dromone aduectus est in insula oceani que dicitur Scani, armis circundatus, eratque ualde recens puer, et ab incolis illius terrae ignotus. Attamen ab eis suscipitur, et ut familiarem
diligenti animo eum custodierunt, et post in regem eligunt.2
Similarly, William of Malmesbury's De Gestis Regum Anglorum (12th
century) provides a version of this legend in which a place known as
Scandza is directly associated with a mythical king Sceaf:3
Sceldius [fuit filius] Sceaf. Iste, ut ferunt, in quandam insulam Germaniae Scandzam, de qua Jordanes, historiographus Gothorum, lo-
1 According to Klaeber, it is the "name of the southernmost part of the Scandinavian
peninsula (Skane), applied to the Danish realm" (439).
2 The edition and translation of this passage is from Campbell (1962): “And this
Sceaf arrived with one light ship in the island of the ocean which is called Skaney,
with arms all round him. He was a very young boy, and unknown to the people of
that land, but he was received by them, and they guarded him with diligent attention
as one who belonged to them, and elected him king” (33).
3 Despite the lack of alliteration as regards Scani and Scandza, the closeness with the
heroes' names is obvious.
210
A common Leitmotif in OE regnal tables
quitur, appulsus navi sine remige, puerulus, posito ad caput frumenti manipulo, dormiens, ideoque Sceaf nuncupatus … (ii.116)1
Although no early version of the Scyld-Sceaf myth has been preserved,
and Scedenig in Beowulf is not linked to the opening episode, Æthelweard
and Malmesbury present a story with certain fixed elements that also appeared in the preceding myths and cannot be held fortuitous.
The names of the two characters involved in this myth also present clear
emblematic features. For example, the expression "posito ad caput frumenti
manipulo" (with a handful of corn at his head) from Malmesbury's version
adds significant connotations to the name Sceaf. Chambers argues that this
name could have originally referred to an ancient pagan corn-god.2 With regard to this, Hill argues that scyld (MnE shield) and sceaf (MnE sheaf) compose the emblematic representation of the Anglo-Saxon coronation formula
"pax et habundantia salutis" according to which Scyld Scefing is the one
"who brought the protection of the shield (pax) and the prosperity of the
sheaf (abundantia)" (41).
5. THE CONFLATION OF THE THREE GENEALOGICAL TRADITIONS:
KING ÆTHELWULF'S PEDIGREE
The genealogical tradition evolved so that the scope of the lists was enlarged
when it was convenient. This is the case of King Æthelwulf's pedigree in
which the genealogist's aim to establish the authority of the monarch over a
multicultural society is evident. Thus, the Parker Chronicle (year 855) illustrates how the main genealogical traditions--together with the list of Biblical
1 The Latin edition is from Stubbs and the translation quoted is by Stevenson: “Sceld
[was the son] of Sceaf, who, as some affirm, was driven on a certain island in
Germany called Scandza (of which Jornandes, the historian of the Goths, speaks), a
little boy in a skiff without an attendant, asleep with a handful of corn at his head,
whence he was called Sceaf …”(97)
2 Chambers mentions the example of the god of Vegetation, Sämpsa Pellervoinen, in
the Finnish Kalevala as a possible parallel (84-85). He also points out that OE
beow--Scyld Scefing's son in Beowulf--means "grain": "it is highly probable that
Beow (grain) the descendant of Sceaf (sheaf) was originally a corn divinity or corn
fetish…" (87).
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patriarchs1 --are conflated in the royal pedigree of Æthelwulf, Alfred the
Great's father:
Ond se Æthelwulf wæs Ecgbrehting, Ecgbryht Ealhmunding, Ealhmund Eafing, Eafa Eopping, Eoppa Ingilding; Ingild wæs Ines
bropur West Seaxna cyninges … Ond hie wæron Cenredes suna,
Cenred wæs Ceolwalding, Ceolwald Cupaing, Cupa Cupwining,
Cupwine Ceaulining, Ceawlin Cynricing, Cynric Cerdicing, Cerdic
Elesing, Elesa Esling, Esla Giwising, Giwis Wiging, Wig Freawining, Freawine Fripogaring, Fripogar Bronding, Brond Bældæging,
Bældæg Wodening, Woden Fripowalding, Fripuwald Freawining,
Frealaf Fripuwulfing, Fripuwulf Finning, Fin Godwulfing, Godwulf
Geating, Geat Tætwaing, Tætwa Beawing, Beaw Sceldwaing,
Sceldwea Heremoding, Heremod Itermoning, Itermon Hrapraing, se
wæs geboren in pære earce; Noe, Lamach, Matusalem, Enoh,
Iaered, Maleel, Camon, Enos, Sed, Adam. primus homo et pater
noster est Christus, Amen.2
One of the most relevant features in this list is the fact that Sceldwa--a variant form of Scyld--is connected genealogically to Noah, although they are
separated by three other ancestors. Since the story of Scyld Scefing in Beowulf tells us of a hero who comes in a boat over the sea and becomes the king
of a nation, the parallel with Noah's story is quite evident. Being one of the
Biblical patriarchs, Noah is the visible head of a genealogical line, and the
founder of a new race of men after the Flood. With regard to this, Hill argues
1 The Biblical names that appear in this list are drawn from Adam's descent in Luke
iii.36-38, not from Genesis v, as was generally assumed before Magoun pointed it
out.
2 “And that Æthelwulf was Egbert's offspring, Egbert Ealhmund's offspring,
Ealhmund Eafa's offspring, Eafa Eoppa's offspring, Eoppa Ingeld's offspring; Ingeld
was the brother of Ine, king of Wessex …and they were the sons of Cenred; Cenred
was Ceolwald's offspring, Ceolwald Cutha's offspring, Cutha Cuthwine's offspring,
Cuthwine Ceawlin's offspring, Ceawlin Cynric's offspring, Cynric Cerdic's offspring, Cerdic Elesa's offspring, Elesa Esla's offspring, Esla Gewis' offspring, Gewis
Wig's offspring, Wig Freawine's offspring, Freawine Frithugar's offspring, Frithugar
Brand's offspring, Brand Bældæg's offspring, Bældæg Woden's offspring, Woden
Frithuwald's offspring, Frithuwald Freawine's offspring, Freawine Frealaf's
offspring, Frealaf Frithuwulf's offspring, Frithuwulf Finn's offspring, Finn
Godwulf's offspring, Godwulf Geat's offspring, Geat Tætwa's offspring, Tætwa
Beaw's offspring, Beaw Sceldwa's offspring, Sceldwa Heremod's offspring,
Heremond [sic] Itermon's offspring, Itermon Hrathra's offspring--he was born in the
ark: Noah, Lamech, Methuselah, Enoch, Jared, Mahalaleel, Cainan, Enos, Seth,
Adam the first man, and our father who is Christ. Amen.” (Swanton 66)
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A common Leitmotif in OE regnal tables
that the direct connection between Noah and Scyld stems from the widespread apocriphal belief that Noah had a fourth son who was born in the ark:
an Anglo-Saxon antiquarian would not have had to invent the concept that Noe had a fourth son; the conception was current. And
such an antiquarian, perhaps influenced by the story that Scef or
Scylf was brought to his people as an infant on a boat, hypothesized that the first ancestor of their kings was indeed born(e) on a
boat--the ark of Noe. (1986: 383)
In this respect, it is interesting to quote the last part of Æthelwulf's genealogical list in mss. B and C of the Chronicle (London, British Library,
Cotton Tiberius A.vi and Cotton Tiberius B.i), in which a son of Sceaf is directly made Noah's offspring without the intermediary characters recorded in
the Parker version: "Itermon HaÍraing, Hapra Hwalaing, Hwala Bedwiging,
Bedwig Sceafing, id est filius Noe, se wæs geboren on pære earce Noes." 1
But this association is even more evident in the genealogical lists from
Cotton Tiberius B.v (late 10th century) and the so-called Textus Roffensis II
(12th century). In both texts Sceaf occurs as Noah's son: "Se Scef wæs Nóes
sunu and he wæs inna Íære earce geboren." 2
The similarity of the name Shem (Noah's son in Genesis) to Sceaf surely
provoked the parallelism. Genealogists deliberately established this direct
connection between Noah and Sceaf because they noticed the emblematic
possibilities of associating the two stories. It is clear that the intention was to
equate Sceaf to the Biblical patriarch and thus raise him to the category of a
sort of Germanic patriarch.
The fact that the genealogical tables discussed above are drawn for
Æthelwulf, Alfred the Great's father, is very significative. These pedigrees are
included in a similar way as an introduction to Asser's biography of King
Alfred. Since Asser's genealogical introduction was intended to exhibit the
credentials of a pan-Germanic leader of "the Angles and the Saxons" as well
1 "Itermon Hathra's offspring, Hrathra Hwala's offspring, Hwala Bedwig's offspring,
Bedwig Scef's offspring, that is the son of Noah: he was born in Noah's ark"
(Swanton 67).
2 This Scef was Noah's son and he was born in the ark (my trans.). The text is from
Cotton Tiberius B.v, as edited by Chambers (203). An almost identical version is
found in Textus Roffensis II.
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Mercedes Salvador
as of "all the Christians" (Keynes and Lapidge 67), this is a very good example of how genealogies were manipulated in order to legitimize a king's right
to rule. Asser's intention was to present Alfred as a great authority among
authorities since his pedigree sums up all the traditions mentioned above. His
West-Saxon ancestry is well represented by Cerdic, Cynric and Gewis.
Furthermore, Sceldwa appears as a representative of the Danish share of
Alfred's pedigree, and the Biblical characters provide a Christian background
to the genealogical list.
Even though the connection with Hengest is wanting here, Alfred's Jutish
blood is declared in the mention of his maternal descent from Osburh, who is
said to be "descended from Goths and Jutes" (Keynes and Lapidge 67). The
genealogical material contained in Alfred's pedigree thus makes him the perfect monarch and asserts his authority as king of all the Angles and the
Saxons. Compared to the other pedigrees in the Chronicle, Alfred's ancestry
is the one that presents a higher degree of elaboration and manipulation since
genealogists were aware of the fact that Alfred had to be distinguished from
the kings who had preceded him.
6. CONCLUSIONS
The study of these three myths in Anglo-Saxon regnal lists and the opening
passage of Beowulf has proved that there is a recurrent thematic pattern
which presents the story of the heroes (or the hero) who arrive from northern
lands in a boat and become the ancestors of Anglo-Saxon dynasties. The
Beowulf passage, the Chronicle accounts, and the genealogical lists
analyzed share several common traits such as the alliterative names of the
mythical figures and place-names, and the strong symbolical connotations of
the onomastic material. In this sense, this paper has demonstrated the so far
neglected literary scope of genealogical tables which are very close to the
uses of Germanic lore in OE poetry. We could even affirm that genealogical
regnal tables actually constitute schematic representations of the same myths
that are found in Beowulf and other Anglo-Saxon poems.1 Finally, the analy1 Similarly, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle--despite its being a collection of annals, i.e.
written to describe historical facts--has also proved to be endowed with literary features.
214
A common Leitmotif in OE regnal tables
sis of Æthelwulf's genealogical list shows the conflation of the three traditions and the implicit presence of the thematic leitmotif of the hero's arrival in
a boat in the connection with Noah.
To what extent genealogists were dealing with historic characters is
something that is extremely difficult to prove. Yet the important point is that
these mythical heroes were alive in the minds of the authors of regnal lists as
well as in the minds of the audience of Beowulf who associated them with
Germanic legends that could help consolidate a king's ancestral authority.
Mercedes Salvador Bello
University of Seville
REFERENCES
Campbell, A. (ed. & trans.) 1962. The Chronicle of Æthelweard. London: Nelson's Medieval Texts. The Use in Beowulf of Earlier Heroic Verse.
Campbell, A. 1971. The Use in Beowulf of Earlier Heroic Verse. England
Before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources Presented to
Dorothy Whitelock. Peter Clemoes and Kathleen Hughes (eds.). CUP.
Chambers, R. W. 1959. Beowulf: an Introduction to the Study of the Poem.
Supplement by C. L. Wrenn. Cambridge: CUP.
Chickering, Howell D. 1977. Beowulf: A Dual Language Edition. New York:
Doubleday.
Colgrave, B. and R.A.B. Mynors (eds. and trans.) 1969. Bede's Ecclesiastical
History of the English People. Oxford: Clarendon.
Davis, Craig R. 1992. Cultural Assimilation in the Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies. Anglo-Saxon England 21: 23-36.
Dobbie, Elliott Van Kirk (ed.) 1953. Beowulf and Judith. The Anglo-Saxon
Poetic Records, vol. IV. New York: Columbia UP, 1953.
Dumville, David 1977: Kingship, Genealogies, and Regnal Lists. Early
Medieval Kinship. P. H. Sawyer and I. N. Wood (eds.). Leeds:
University of Leeds Press: 72-104.
Faulkes, Anthony 1978-79. Descent from the gods. Medieval Scandinavia
11: 92-127.
Faulkes, Anthony (trans.) 1987. Edda. Anthony Faulkes London: Dent.
215
Mercedes Salvador
Hill, T. D. 1986. Scyld Scefing and the Stirps Regia: Pagan Myth and
Christian Kingship in Beowulf. Magister Regis: Studies in Honor of R.
E. Kaske. A. Groos et al. (eds.). New York: Fordham University Press:
37-47.
Hill, Thomas D. 1987. The Myth of the Ark-Born Son of Noe and the WestSaxon Royal Genealogical Tables. Harvard Theological Review 80:
379-383.
Hill, Thomas D. 1988. Woden as "Ninth Father": Numerical Patterning in
Some Old English Royal Genealogies. Germania: Comparative
Studies in the Old Germanic Languages and Literatures. Daniel G.
Calder and T. Craig Christy (eds.). Exeter: Brewer: 161-74.
Keynes, Simon and Michael Lapidge (eds.) 1983. Alfred the Great.
Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Klaeber, Fr. (ed.) 1950. Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg. Lexington:
Heath.
Magoun, F. P. 1951. King Æthelwulf's Biblical Ancestors. Modern Language
Review 46: 249-50.
Malmesbury, William 1887-89. De Gestis Regum Anglorum. William Stubbs
(ed.). London: Rolls Series 90, vol. I.
Murray, Alexander Callander 1981. Beowulf, the Danish Invasions, and Royal
Genealogy. The Dating of Beowulf. C. Chase (ed.). Toronto:
University of Toronto Press.
Plummer, Charles (ed.) 1892 and 1899. Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel.
Oxford: Clarendon, 2 vols.
Sisam, Kenneth 1953: Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies. Proceedings of the
British Academy 39: 300-307.
Stevenson, Joseph (trans.) 1854. The History of the kings of England. The
Church Historians of England, vol.III. Seeleys.
Stubbs, William (ed.) 1887-89. De Gestis Regum Anglorum. London: Rolls
Series 90, vol. I.
Swanton, M. J. (trans.) 1996. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. London: Dent.
Wheeler, G. H. 1921. The Genealogy of the Early West Saxon Kings. English
Historical Review 36: 161-71.
*†*
216
MIDDLE ENGLISH ORIGINS
OF PRESENT-DAY DISTINCTION
IN THE PRONUNCIATION OF WORD-FINAL
OR PRE-CONSONANTAL SEQUENCES
OR, OAR, OOR, OUR
Word-final or pre-consonantal sequences OR/ORE, OAR, OOR, OUR [and
AR when the preceding sound is /w/], as in (1),
(1) for, more, roar, floor, four;
form, horse, board, court;
quarter, warden; etc.
may be pronounced, at least, in three different ways:
• The usual pronunciation by RP speakers (whether from Britain or
elsewhere) is long open /O:/, alternating with the conservative (or
oldfashioned) RP /Oë/, that used to replace the r-lengthening by
/ë/ as in (2) [cf. Jones 1960; Gimson 1970; Wells 1982; etc.]:
(2) for [fO:]-[fOë], more [mO:], [mOë],
horse [hO:s]-[hOës], boar [bO:]-[bOë],
board [bO:d]-[bOëd], etc.
• In some regional accents (London, most of Canada, etc.) one can
hear, in the above spelling sequences, close [o(:)], either short or
long, as in (3):
Ana Belén Fernández, Selim 8 (1998): 223—238
Ana Belén Fernández
(3) horse [ho:s ]-[hOërs]-[hòës]; borne [bo:n]-[bOrn]-[bOën]; etc.
(in Cockney: door [dO:wë]), etc.
Notice that in popular London or Cockney, however, sometimes they are
realised in open syllables as [O:wë].
• Finally, there are other accents —Birmingham, Scottish and provincial Irish English and especially American English, including US
South and Western New England, the Caribbean regions of
Guyana and Barbados, etc.— in which some of the words with
those spelling sequences are pronounced with an open vowel [O:]
and some with a close vowel [o(:)], even when the pronunciation of
the “r” has been reduced to [ë], as exemplified in (4):
(4) horse [hO:s ]-[hOrs]-[hOës] × hoarse [ho:s ]-[hors]-[hoës]
born [bO:n]-[bOrn]-[bOën] × borne [bO:n]-[bOrn]-[bOën]
Wells (1982: 159-162) classifies the words containing those sequences in
two sets 1 :
– The NORTH set, “comprising those words whose citation form
contains the stressed vowel [O:] in RP and the sequence [ÚOr] in
GenAm, or rather in that variety of GenAm which retains the opposition between [Or] and [or]” (Wells 1982: 159)2 ; and
– The FORCE set, "comprising those words whose citation form contains the stressed vowel [O:] in current mainstream RP and the sequence [or] in GenAm, or rather in that variety of GenAm which
retains the opposition between [Or] and [or]" (Wells 1982:160).3
1 You can see the complete list of words belonging in each set in the Appendix.
2 Most of them followed by a consonant (subset b); only very rarely are they word-
final (subset a) or prevocalic (subset c) [See appendix].
3 Distributionally, the words belonging in this set may appear in word-final position
(subset a), preconsonantically (subset b: (bi) with current mainstream RP [O:], and
(bii) with oldfashioned RP [Oë ]), and prevocalically (subset c). For convenience I
218
ME origins of -or, -oar, -oor and -our sequences
The contrasting values of both vowels in General American —open [O] in
the NORTH set, close [o] in the FORCE set— can be observed in maps 43-44
and 45, respectively, of Kurath and McDavid’s (1961) study on pronunciation
in the Atlantic states.
As I am sure that the difference in pronunciation must reflect a historical
opposition between the two sets of words, this paper will try to identify the
Middle English sources of such present-day dialectal distinction.
1. /O::/ VERSUS /o:/ AS A PRESENT-DAY DIALECTAL VARIANT
Wells states that, historically,
– The vowel in the North set "usually derives from Middle English
short /O/ plus /r/, via pre-r lengthening'', the usual spellings being
" OR" and, after "w", also " AR" (Wells 1982: 159); and that
– The vowel in the Force set "usually derives from Middle English
long /O:/ […] in the environment of a following /r/, now lost in RP
and other non-rhotic accents except prevocalically. Less commonly
it derives from Middle English /o:/ or /u:/, also before /r/", the usual
spellings being "OR, ORE, OAR", and sometimes "OOR, OUR"
(Wells 1982: 161).
We surely remember that historical [O:], as well as [o:] or [u:] could be
easily recognised in many words of the Force set exhibiting the vocalic digraphs " OA" (e.g. boar), "OO" (e.g. floor), and " OU" (e.g. four) —all in subsets (a) and (bii), except for hoary in subset (c)—, since they normally
correspond to an underlying Middle English long vowel (whether open or
close).
A long open vowel, resulting from Middle English Open Syllable
Lengthening (MEOSL), could also be ventured in words such as adore
(subset a), oral and glorious (subset c), and other French and Latin borrowings. [Analogically extended, perhaps, to the open syllable vowel of borrowings after the MEOSL, as in boron, flora, stentorian, etc. in subset c].
reproduce, in the Appendix, Wells’ lists of words belonging in each set (some 250 words
altogether. Note that shorn appears in both sets).
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Ana Belén Fernández
And it should also be remembered that the past participles borne, shorn,
sworn, torn, worn (subset bi) which originally contained "-e-" between "-r-"
and "-n" were also subject to the same lengthening.
But many examples in subset (bi), where the context fails to indicate
length in Middle English, offer serious difficulties.
As far as the North set is concerned, the historical short [O] can be intuitively recognised in the majority of the words (subset b). In fact, the spelling
" OR" (or "AR" preceded by [w]), in checked syllables, usually corresponds
to an underlying short vowel: either originally (native words and early
borrowings) or analogically (later borrowings).
But the historical short [O] of subset c is certainly hard to admit, since we
all remember that the spelling " AU" usually corresponds to a historically long
vowel.
Besides, it seems rather strange that a good number of words which are
structurally so similar, if not identical, could have such a different vowel. The
table in (5) shows some of these striking structural similarities: the first
column showing apparently historical short [O] (and open [Or] in many present-day General American areas); the second, historical long open [O:] (a
close [or] in the same areas of present-day General American):
(5)
FORCE (historical [O:])
NORTH (historical [O])
afford (OE –forÍian), ford (OE),
port (OE), sword (OE), sport (14),
fort (14), report (14), support (14)
deport (15), export (15),
import (15), horde (16)
short (OE), resort (14),
snort (14),tort (14),
assort (15), consort (15)
lord (OE), cord (12), order (13),
fortune (13), fortunate (13),
corporal (14), porpoise (14),
mortal (14), chord (15), …
porter (13), proportion (14)
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ME origins of -or, -oar, -oor and -our sequences
stork (OE), York, fork (OE),
organ (13), cork (14),
pork (13)
gorge (14)
torch (13), scorch (15),
north (OE),
forge (14)
porch (13)
forth (OE)
horse (OE), gorse (OE)
remorse (14)
force (13), divorce (14)
[The numbers (13), (14), (15) indicate the century in which the borrowing was
introduced in English.]
But perhaps intuitions of the kind and more or less accurate recollections,
or even the surface structure similarities we have just seen are not enough.
Maybe we should turn to what the specialists in the field of Middle English
and Early Modern English have said about this. Let us then take a look at
their explanations in order to identify the real Middle English sources of such
a dialectal distinction.
2. THE DOCTRINE OF M IDDLE ENGLISH SPECIALISTS
Certain monographs and handbooks (and even dictionaries) of Middle
English offer sample transcriptions of some of the words listed in Wells’
North and Force sets.
Bliss (1952-53: 541) exemplifies his well-known monographic study (on
vowel-length in Middle English borrowings from Anglo-Norman) with some
of the words appearing in Wells’ sets, as can be observed in (6):
(6) (North set): coµ?rde ‘cord’, cooµ?rse ‘corpse’, foµ?rme ‘form’,
oµ?rdre ‘order’ and scoµ?rne ‘scorn’;
(Force set): despoµ?rte ‘(di)sport’, fo µ?rce/foµrce, fo µ?rge/foµrge,
foµ?rt, poµ?rche/poµrche ‘porch’, poµ?rk, poµ?rt, and soµ?rt.
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Ana Belén Fernández
According to Bliss, long vowels in these and other similar items were due
to the Anglo-Norman lengthening of short vowels before [r] (though variant
pronunciations with a short vowel could have survived as well). But —when
the long vowel was preceded by the voiceless labial plosive and fricative [p,
f] (e.g. force, porch)— one could find open and close variants, which reflect
the present-day dialectal distinctions we are talking about.
If Bliss’s assumption is correct, then, we must understand that
• Anglo-Norman borrowings with final or pre-consonantal “OR” had at
least two pronunciations (= one with a short and another with a
long vowel); and those containing that sequence in the post-labial
position as many as three pronunciations. While
• native words with the same sequence, plus Old English borrowings
must have had only the pronunciation with short [o], no matter
whether the vowel was preceded by a labial or not.
Let us take a look now at some of the standard Middle English grammars:
In Luick’s (1921: §413) and Wright’s (1928: §200) we find very few borrowings from Wells’ sets; just the ones mentioned in (7), which coincide totally with Wells’ historical characterisation of both sets:
(7) (North set): fo‰¬rce, co‰¬rse ‘corpse’, fo‰¬rge, go‰¬rge,
po¬‰rk, po‰¬rt (all with [O:] due to lengthening before [r + C]);
(Force set): ordre, and the native corn, horn, hors, norÊ, stork,
storm, Êorn (all with short [O])
Mossé (1952), as well as Brunner (1963) and Weinstock (1968), simply ignore
the so-called Anglo-Norman lengthening I have just mentioned. In the
glossary (at the end of his grammar) Mossé does not indicate length in words
belonging in Wells’ Force set such as the ones in (8):
(8) afforce, disport/desport, forÊ, schorne (p.part. of sche¬‰re), etc.
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ME origins of -or, -oar, -oor and -our sequences
Berndt’s (1960) section, devoted to length in borrowings from French,
includes the words listed in (9) [taken from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales]:
(9) (North set): acord, exhorte(n), forke, forme, fortune, horn, hors,
lo¬rd/lord, mortal, ordre, recorde, remorse
(Force set): po‰¬rc, po‰¬rte, co‰¬rse/coors ‘corpse’(Wells’ N
word), born, divorce, fo¬rs (also fo‰¬rs), forth, …
But he fails to account for the narrowing of long open [O:] to long close
[o:] before final and pre-consonantal [r]. His remarks only concern the rais ing
of long open [O:] in other contexts in words such as fool, move, prove, etc.
And finally, Jordan and Crook’s (1974) account seems to me absolutely
confusing. Thus their transcriptions in §227 include the present-day North
set and Force set words listed in (10):
(10) (North set): cors ‘corpse’, gorge, ordre ‘order’, torche ‘torch’
(all with short [O])
(Force set): divorce, fors/force, pork, port (with short [O]); but
coors, divorce, fors, forge (“probably with [o:]”).
Apparently, in native Force set words, long close [o:] is found in the
neighbourhood of labials and also before the homorganic cluster “RD”; but
shortness prevails before “RN” and “RTH”.
3. THE DOCTRINE OF EARLY M ODERN ENGLISH SPECIALISTS
Regular histories of English usually ignore vowel length in this type of words
or they mention it only in passing.
Thus, Wyld (1927: 133) writes about “ME [o] preserved in close syllables
… [e.g. force]. Prins (1974: 116) quotes force to exemplify the preservation of
Old French short [o] in Middle English. And Brunner (1962: 342) concedes
that a long vowel may have been pronounced in force and port.
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Ana Belén Fernández
Only Ekwall (1975) admits that “before r-groups vowels in French words
were often long in Middle English and early Modern English …” offering an
incomplete classification of examples with long open [O:] and long close [o:]
which roughly agrees with Wells’ North and Force sets, respectively, as
shown in (11):
(11) North set (with [O:]): corn, for, horse, morning, short, thorn;
absorb, orb(it), cord, order, torch, gorge, organ, scorn,
Force set (with [o :]): divorce, force, remorse, porch, forge, pork,
fort, port (plus derivatives like support), sport …
As for the very well-known monographic studies on Early Modern
English I will mention only two: Dobson’s study of English Pronunciation
from 1500 to 1700, and Kökeritz’s study on Shakespeare’s language.
Dobson (1966) assumes that, in some of Wells’ Force set with short or
long close [o]:
— The short [o] of the past participles representing the torn-type
(boren, pl. borne, etc.) may be due to an occasional lack of Middle
English lengthening because of the following syllabic “– EN ” (§13.
2a). Whereas
— The long close [o:] of the forÍ-type (ford, sword, etc.) was due to
the voiced homorganic cluster [rÍ] or [rd] (§16 nn. l and 2).
Words adopted from French, however, which were pronounced with a
close [o(:)] or open [O(:)] when a labial precedes, as in (12), must have had
“either [o:] or [O:] beside [o]” in Middle English:
(12) force, forge, fork, form, fort, perform, porch, pork; port, report,
sport (also: §13.2b ii).
But when no labial preceded, only two variants —with short open or with
long open [O(:)]— existed, as in (13):
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ME origins of -or, -oar, -oor and -our sequences
(13) cord, cork, cor(p)se, sort, resort, scorn, etc.
In his well-known study of the language of Shakespeare, Kökeritz (1953:
254) indicates several variants in the Middle English pronunciation of “OR”
plus consonant:
— [u] in corpse, perform (Wells’ North set) or in forth (Wells’ Force
set)
— Short [O] and long close [o:] in afford and ford (Wells’ Force set)
And he claims, besides, that Shakespeare’s rhymes such as the ones reproduced in (14) indicate that ‘early Modern English “OR” is linked with ME
o¬‰r and o¬r’:
(14) horse (North set) : force (Force set)/remorse (North set); short
(North set) : report/sport (Force set); etc.
After this rather long excursus, can we reach any safe conclusion with regard to our issue here? Perhaps only that the data and the doctrine found in
regular histories of English —as well as in specialised monographic studies
[on Middle and early Modern English]— do complicate (rather than solve)
our issue; i.e. the Middle English sources of short [O] for Wells’ North set of
words and long [O:] for Wells’ Force set (both pronounced [O:] in current
main stream RP; but [Or]-[Oë] and [or]-[oë] in GenAm and certain other variants of English.
4. A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION
As stated above, words containing the diagraphic spellings “OUR, OOR,
OAR” [and perhaps also those with the spelling “OR” which experienced a
Middle English Open Syllable Lengthening) do not seem to present much of a
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Ana Belén Fernández
problem. But words with word-final or pre-consonantal “OR(E)” are certainly
problematic.
But —if we are to take into account the contradictory evidence just mentioned1 (cf. 2 & 3 above)— one should conclude that “-OR” and
“OR+consonant” had three different pronunciations, namely [O], [o:] and
[O:], since the “o” in this sequence could be either short or long; and, if long,
either close or open.
In the case of close [o:] (which occurred after an initial labial plosive or
fricative, in words such as fo¬rce, fo¬rge, po¬rch, etc.), one wonders,
besides, why did it fail to produce the present-day Standard English [uë] as in
boor(s), moor(s), poor(s), spoor(s), etc., in which the root vowel was originally long.
In the following lines, I will try to hypothesise (in a brief summary) what
did actually happen in Middle English to the sequences we are dealing with.
• Practically all words with present-day spellings “OAR, OOR, OUR”
(whether final or pre-consonantal), as well as prevocalic “OR”, belong in the Force set, and are certainly long in Middle English.
• Words with pre-consonantal “OR” (=having either long or short
vowel in Middle English) may belong in either set. Therefore
Wells’ North or Force sets —reflecting present-day dialectal varieties of English— can hardly be primarily attributed to Middle
English differences in vowel quantity.
• Words with pre-consonantal “OR”, exhibiting present-day quality
distinction, however, (i.e. Wells’ North set with open [O] and
Force set with close [o]) may reflect vowel-quality distinction in
Middle English.
We should observe that, in practically all words belonging in the Force
set the final or pre-consonantal “OR” is preceded by a labial obstruent (either
[p], [b], [f], very rarely [v] and [w]). A possible impact of the labial consonant
1 Actually, it seems to me that Middle English data contained in Kökeritz (1953),
Dobson (1968), Cercignani (1981), etc., are not fully reliable, since the authors of
those monographs reconstruct earlier pronunciations based not on Middle English
but on Early Modern English sources.
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ME origins of -or, -oar, -oor and -our sequences
on the subsequent vocalic distinction seems to be ignored in most histories
of English, as well as in many specialised Middle English grammars (Wright,
Brunner, Luick, Ekwall, Mossé, etc.). As I have just pointed out, however,
Middle English quantity distinction is only valid when the “OR” reflects an
Old English long vowel or a vowel lengthened in an open syllable in Middle
English. Thus, in force (an Old French borrowing, ultimately from vulgar Latin
fortia), the pre-r lengthening of Old-French/Anglo-Norman words would
originate fo¬‰rs(e); and the subsequent post-labial raising (and narrowing),
fo¬rs(e). The latter could explain the dialectal variants 1 .
Other original short vowels in checked syllables continued being short
throughout Middle English, and later shortenings (second half of 13th century) before consonant clusters (except “ld, mb, nd, ng”) affected items such
as eorpe > erthe ‘earth’, earnian > erne ‘earn’, etc. And so the new long
vowels in checked syllables were also liable to similar shortenings. Therefore,
native words such as afford, ford, forth … —as well as foreign words like
divorce, force, fort— must have been affected by this subsequent
shortening, since it seems reasonable to believe that regular Middle English
speakers did not actually discriminate between native and foreign items with
similar phonological structures. With cultivated speakers, however, the
shortening perhaps did not completely abolish the contrast of vowel pronunciation in words such as the ones in (15):
(15) north (original short open [O]),
sort (vowel lengthened to [O:]),
ford (vowel directly lengthened to [o:],
force (vowel lengthened to [O:] and then raised to [o:]).
All this could explain why so many linguists ignore long Force set variants, some of which also differed in quality from short North set variants.
I think, therefore, that the present-day contrast between vowels in words
with the pre-consonantal sequence “or” cannot be determined by a Middle
1 Neither the pre-r lengthening nor the post-labial raising/narrowing did affect
Standard English; actually Middle English [or], [o:r], [Or] and [O:r] would merge in
[O:] in current mainstream RP.
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Ana Belén Fernández
English long or short vowel, as Wells does. Consequently, two tentative hypothesis could be formulated:
1.— The present-day dialectal contrast between North set and Force
set words with final or pre-consonantal sequence “or” reflects the
Early Middle English quality distinction after non-postlabial and
postlabial consonant of the vowel “o” (open and close respectively), no matter whether the vowel experienced lengthening before “r + consonant” or not.
2.— The new quality distinction of the vowel (if actually produced)
must have been allophonic. Actually, applying the shortening rule
to the four words in (15), we would obtain the results expressed in
(16):
(16)
Early Middle English word
North set
ho‰rs so¬‰rt
fo¬rt
fo¬rs
[sOrt]
[fort]
[fors]
[hOrs] [sOrt]
[fort]
[fors]
Shortening before cons. cluster
Result in late Middle English
Force set
Although highly hypothetical, the explanation I have just put forward offers
several advantages:
First of all, it accounts for today’s contrast between words of the sorttype and those of fort-type above, as well as for the grouping of words such
as horse (native) and sort (French borrowing) in the same set.
Secondly, since the difference is only allophonic, the Middle English
rhymes between words such as north and forth (belonging in different sets)
can be regarded as correct.
And, on top of that, my hypothesis seems to produce a good input to the
rule of Early Modern English lengthening before “r + C”, a process which
restored the original phonemic contrast after ‘short open [O]’ became a ‘long
open [O:]’ and ‘short close [o]’ became a ‘long close [o:]’, as in (17), a dis tinction which survives in certain present-day dialectal variants of English, as
Wells (1982: 160, 162) reflects in his North and Force sets.
228
ME origins of -or, -oar, -oor and -our sequences
(17) [O] > [oµ?] ——> [hOrse], [nOrth], [soµrt], etc.
[o] > [o:] ——> [fo:rt], [fo:rs], etc.
Further questions may be raised, of course. One may be that the phonological structure of some of the North set words [for example the ones mentioned in (18)], is so similar (if not identical) to those of subset (bi) in the
Force set, that they should belong together:
(18) North set: porpoise, fortify, fortress, fortune, fortunate, importunate, mortal, mortar, border, …
Force set: proportion, porter, portrait, Borneo, divorce, …
All of them are certainly French borrowings with “–or–“ preceded by a
labial plosive or fricative, all of them have two or more syllables and their [o]
was originally unstressed. Moreover, the narrowing impact of the labial nasal
[m] is not evident in several North words such as morn, remorse; and the
presence of coarse and hoarse in the Force set seems hard to explain. And,
besides, some words —e.g. fork, form, etc.— had short and long forms in
Middle English, so their inclusion in the Force set must be due to the operation of Early Modern English phonological rules, which were also responsible
for the distribution of North vs. Force words borrowed into English after
1500.
But these questions are not within the scope of this paper1 .
Ana B. Fernández Guerra
Universitat Jaume I (Castellón)
REFERENCES
Berndt, R. 1960. Einführung in das Studium des Mittelenglischen. Halle
(Saale): Niemeyer.
1 To answer them we must refer to Modern English rather than to Middle English
sources.
229
Ana Belén Fernández
Bliss, A. J. 1952-53. Vowel-quantity in Middle English borrowings from
Anglo-Norman. Archivum Linguisticum 4: 121-147, 5: 22-47.
Brunner, K. 1962. Die englische Sprache. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
Brunner, K. 1963. An outline of Middle English grammar. (Trans. G.
Johnston). Oxford: Blackwell.
Cercignani, F. 1981. Shakespeare’s works and Elizabethan pronunciation.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Dobson, E. J. 1968. English pronunciation 1500-1700. (2nd ed.) Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Ekwall, E. 1975. A history of Modern English Sounds and Morphology.
(Trans. and ed. by A. Ward). Oxford: Blackwell.
Fernández, F. 1993. Historia de la lengua inglesa. Madrid: Gredos.
Gimson, A. C. 1970. An Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. Bristol:
E. Arnold.
Jones, D. 1960. An Outline of English Phonetics. Cambridge: Heffer
Jordan, R. and E. Crook. 1974. Handbook of Middle English Grammar:
Phonology. The Hague: Mouton.
Kökeritz, H. 1953. Shakespeare’s pronunciation. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Kurath, H. and R. I. McDavid, Jr. 1961. The pronunciation of English in the
United States. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Luick, K. 1921. Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache I. Leipzig:
Tauchnitz.
Mossé, F. 1952. A handbook of Middle English. (Trans. A. J. Walker).
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins.
Prins, A. A. 1974. A History of English Phonemes. (2nd ed.) Leiden: Leiden
University Press.
Weinstock, H. 1968. Mittelenglisches Elementarbuch. Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter.
Wells, J.C. 1982. Accents of English. I. Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Wright, J. and E. M. Wright. 1929. An Elementary Middle English Grammar.
London: Oxford University Press.
Wyld, H. C. 1927. A Short History of English. London: Murray.
230
ME origins of -or, -oar, -oor and -our sequences
A PPENDIX
NORTH WORDS
(a)
or, for, nor, Thor;
war;
(b)
Thorpe. assort, cavort, consort, distort, exhort, resort, retort, short, snort,
tort, cork, fork, stork, torque, York; scorch, torch; morph; gorse, horse, remorse;
orb, absorb; accord, chord, cord, lord, record, George, gorge;
corm, form, reform, storm; adorn, born, corn, horn, morn, porn, scorn,
shorn, thorn; corpse;
porpoise, torpid, torpor, fortify, fortunate, fortune, important*, corporal,
importunate, mortal, mortar, shorten, tortoise, orchestra, orchid, Dorking,
torture, forfeit. morpheme, morphia, morphine, orthodox, torso;
orbit, order, border, ordinary, organ, organism, organize, Morgan;
dormer, Mormon, normal, ornament, corner, forward, fortress;
quart, quarter, quartz, sward, swarm, swarthy, warble, ward, warden,
wardrobe, warlock, warm, warmth, warn, warp, Warsaw, wart;
(c)
aura, aural, Laura, Taurus.
*The adjective important: “in accents other than GenAm usually a FORCE
word.” (Wells 1982: 160)
231
Ana Belén Fernández
FORCE WORDS
(a)
ore, adore, afore, before, bore, chore, core, crore, deplore, explore, fore, galore, gore, ignore, implore, more, ore, pore, restore, score, shore, snore, sore,
spore, store, swore, tore, whore, wore, yore;
boar, hoar, oar, roar, soar;
floor, door;
four, pour;
(bi)
deport, export, fort, import, port, report, sport; support, pork, porch,
forth, divorce, afford, ford, horde, sword, forge, borne, shorn, sworn, torn,
worn, portent, porter, portrait, proportion, Borneo;
(bii)
coarse, hoarse, board, hoard, boarder;
court, fourth, course, resource, source, mourn**, courtier, mourning;
(c)
oral, adorable, angora, aurora, borax, boron, choral, Dora, fedora, flora, floral, glory, gory, moron, Nora(h), porous, story, thorax, torus, Tory,
censorious, euphoria, gloria, glorious, Gregorian, historian, laborious,
memorial, meritorious, moratorium, notorious, pictorial, pretorian, stentorian, thorium, uxorious, Victoria(n), other words in ‘-orial’,
hoary, uproarious.
**The items mourn and mourning “also sometimes with RP /uë/, GenAm
/ur/.” (Wells 1982: 162).
*†*
232
COMPOUND NOUNS IN THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD:
FUNCTIONAL AND PRAGMATIC APPROACHES
IN ÆLFRIC’S LIVES OF SAINTS1
Compound nouns, which by definition imply a condensation of information, seem to be particularly important at the stage of the Old
English period, because the predominant synthetic tendencies of
the language and the comparative scarcity of prepositions may
have fostered such formations. Together with this primarily syntactic phenomenon, an additional but not less important factor in
the development of compounds can also be found. They are cognitively or functionally grounded, and their use has to do as well
with the evolution of the English language, which progressively
tends to reflect more complex ideas and thoughts. All this can be
analysed under functional approaches, whose overall framework is
the study of language as a means of communication, as well as
under the perspectives opened by relevance theory, based upon
the study of the existing relationships between communicative
efforts and effects. In this paper, the issue of compound nouns
during the Old English period will be developed on the basis of
two of Ælfric’s Lives of Saints.
1. INTRODUCTION. THE STATE OF THE ART . COMPOUND NOUNS IN
THE PERSPECTIVE OF FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR
Functional grammar has opened new approaches to the study of communication, precisely because, in clear opposition to the previous tradition of formal
grammars, it concentrates upon the study of communication: language is thus
1 Originally, this paper was part of a research project, "Compound nouns in a func-
tional grammar of English", directed by Dr. Javier Martín Arista and financed by the
University of Zaragoza. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1995
edition of the annual International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval
English Language and Literature.
Angeles Ruiz, Selim 8 (1998): 239—258
Angeles Ruiz
regarded as a fundamental tool of social interaction, and consequently, it is
studied in the actual settings where it is produced. Moreover, it is not a self contained, formal and abstract entity, but an organised system devised to
achieve its main purpose: communication.
In the same way, language is not regarded as an autonomous system, but
one of its main functions is to reflect and influence the particular cosmovision
shared by its speakers. Language refers to the world, and any linguistic item
is used to refer to a corresponding entity of the real world with which this
unity is correlated.
At this stage, it may be worth remembering that DIK’s grammar is basically founded upon the assumption that language is an instrument of social
interaction, and that the study of the language system must depart from and
start with the framework of language use. Grammar, then, aims to explain the
functioning of the language as it is used in communication.
In the perspective of Functional Grammar, reference acquires a central
importance because the ultimate end of linguistic expressions is to describe a
certain state of affairs. Language represents a possible way of codification,
among many, of the ways in which the real world or cognitive environment is
perceived and conceptualised by speakers. This accounts for the fact that the
core of the syntactic functions expressed in and above the sentence is in fact
constituted by semantic functions. In other words, the syntactic organisation
of the message conveys a certain meaning to which it is subdued. Syntax
gives a certain structure to a basic material that is in fact the root of any
communicative act, a certain content. Moreover, this content has to be placed
under the wider contexts where it is produced.
The noun plays a very important role in the organisation of the perception
of reality, as it refers to "those aspects of our experience which we perceive
as things or entities." (Downing, A. & P. Locke, 1992: 406). It is probably the
most important lexical item to define the main focus of the communicative
interaction. If communication is aimed to be effective, it will be relevant for its
participants, with a view to achieving the maximum possible communicative
effects with the least, minimum processing efforts. (Sperber, D. & D. Wilson,
1986). The information offered in the act of communication is intended by the
speaker to be easily processed by the listener, and to achieve this, the former
234
Compound nouns in the OE period
estimates "the Addressee’s antecedent capacities for identifying the
intended referent." (DIK, 1978: 55).
Stated in terms of relevance, and assuming conditions of optimal relevance,1 this implies that the speaker conveys his / her message in such a way
that the listener can receive it with the least possible effort, and that the message will achieve the maximum possible communicative effects. In any case,
the information provided in communication is directly and strongly related to
the participants' interests and assumptions of one another, and it can be
doubted whether the success or failure of communication is to be charged
exclusively to the communicator, as these authors seem to claim. Concretely,
Sperber and Wilson point out the following:
… Communication is an asymmetrical process anyhow. (…) It is
left to the communicator to make correct assumptions about the
codes and contextual information that the audience will have accessible and be likely to use in the comprehension process. The responsibility for avoiding misunderstandings also lies within the
speaker, so that all the hearer has to do is go ahead and use whatever code and contextual information come most easily to hand.
(Sperber and Wilson, 1995: 43).
As for compound nouns, they imply, by definition, a condensation of the
information, because the procedure of the formation of compound nouns entails the suppression of superfluous elements, such as prepositions, which
do not add any significant information. This is the main reason why many authors establish the difference between content words and formal words. In
terms of relevance theory, it might be stated that the use of compound nouns
aims at maximal relevance, because the information processed will be the
1 The presumption of optimal relevance may be said to be a condition of the principle
of relevance. The latter states that "Every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance". (Sperber and Wilson, 1995:
158). As for the presumption of optimal relevance, it may be said to be a consequence of the responsibility of the speaker for the success of communication, which
these authors also assume, creating thus a controversial asymmetry of the communicative process. It goes as follows: "(a): The set of assumptions I which the communicator intends to make manifest to the addressee is relevant enough to make it
worth the addressee's while to process the ostensive stimulus. b) The ostensive
stimulus is the most relevant one the communicator the communicator could have
used to communicate I". (Sperber and Wilson, 1995: 158).
235
Angeles Ruiz
highest possible, and this will be achieved with the lowest possible number
of elements. Due to the complexity that this construction may acquire if there
is a lot of premodification, it may require further processing efforts.
Compound nouns are particularly important as a part of the more general
issue of word formation. Old English, as a synthetic language, indicates the
relationship between words not with prepositions, but by means of inflections. The scarcity of prepositions may foster the tendency towards the formation of compounds, and more concretely, of compound nouns, which
could be expanded through these prepositions.
In a functional grammar such as Dik’s work, (1978), the status of the noun
is closely linked to the aspects of reference. Thus, a term is defined as “any
expression which can be used to refer to an entity or set of entities in some
world." (1978: 55); (1989: 89).. This definition clearly reflects DIK’s view of
language as a means to refer to the world, and not being an autonomous,
self-contained unit: “The semantic functions which characterize the argument
positions of a predicate frame have been devised in such a way as to
correlate partially with the typology of SoAs”. (1989: 89). Besides, it will be
the actual context that will define the reference of a definite expression, as a
term has a set of potential referents, from which only some are referred to in a
communication act. The analysis of compounds put forward by Dik rejects a
reductionistic approach in which the meaning of a compound can be
explained as the sum of the meaning of its parts. (1978: 56 ff.). This further
allows us to account for the fact that not always will a compound be open to
several interpretations, but the meaning of the terms that form it will constrain
the actual interpretation which the expression may acquire in a certain
context. The actual instance given by Dik, pregnant women, (1978: 56),
clearly rejects a summatory analysis of "pregnant" + "women": It is only
women that can be pregnant, and therefore, an explanation such as "persons
who are pregnant and female" would be clearly redundant. However, the
same is not applied to a second possible interpretation, "persons who are female and pregnant": It is only women that can be pregnant, but obviously,
not all women are pregnant; the latter would only be a subset. This further
shows that the meaning of a compound expression cannot be expressed as
the atomistic sum of the meaning of its parts. On the contrary, the
combination of several significant units constructs a new meaning, which is
formed on the basis of each of them, and yet is different either from each of
236
Compound nouns in the OE period
them or all of them together. Among each of the members a close relationship
of meaning can be established, by which the Head and the Modifiers located
nearer to it offer the most significant information.
There seems to be a functional, cognitive reason for the tendency
towards the formation of compounds, which would apply for compound
nouns. This has to be included within the general search for relevance, and
for the easiest way to process the information. As DIK points out,
It is easier to perceive, process and store complex information
when this information is presented in chunks of increasing internal
complexity. (1978: 212)1
The formation of compound nouns may foster an easier processing of information, because thanks to the avoidance of superfluous elements, the latter tends to be stored in internally complex groups. Moreover, this perspective has advanced many present - day approaches, of the eighties and the
nineties, on discourse processing.
Thus, the treatment given by Downing & Locke (1992), to compound
nouns relates them to the classifiers, which are characterised as those elements which restrict "the class of entity named by the head noun to a subclass". (1992: 453). As these authors point out, most of them are nouns, and
in those cases "when the semantic relation between a classifier and a noun is
very cohesive, they are sometimes fused as a compound denoting a single
referent". (Ibid.). In these cases, the classifier is regarded as fused with the
entity.
Furthermore, these authors regard compound nouns as a relationship of
degree, which will depend on how close the relationship between the elements that form it may be (1992: 478). This entails that the link established
between both entities may oscillate between either a subclassification, or being both terms a class in their own right. In any case, this will mean that there
does not seem to be a sharp, discrete distinction compound versus not com1 This assumption will be highly influential in most models of cognitive linguistics,
and relevance is no exception here: the concept of encyclopaedic entry, which refers
to "information about the extension / denotation of a concept", contains factual
assumptions and also assumption schemas, "which an adequate context may
convert into full - fledged assumptions". (p. 88).
237
Angeles Ruiz
pound, but, on the contrary, as the authors say, "compounding (…) constitutes a cline of associations and degrees of semantic cohesiveness." (Ibid.).
The definition of compounds entails then an aspect of gradation or degree,
which would be influenced by the way in which they are perceived by language users.
Much of the theory of Downing & Locke can be said to be based upon
Halliday’s work, as the authors themselves state. In fact, Halliday’s
Functional Grammar has been acknowledgedly influential. Thus, the term of
classifier is firstly distinguished by this author in the experiential structure of
the nominal group. (1985: 161). It may either be an adjective or a noun. In the
latter case, it gives way to the compound noun. From the point of view of the
logical macrofunction, which represents the logic - semantic relations encoded in reality, the modifiers of the noun may antecede it or else be postponed. If they are forming a compound with the Nucleus or Head, they both
will admit modification that affects them all.
Indeed, the general relationship established by the members of a compound noun can be said to be one of classification. Thus, the second element
is classified in terms of the first (Quirk et al, 1985: 1568), in such a way that
the second constituent is thematic and bears the main significative content as
well as the main stress.
These same tendencies can be applied to the formation of compounds in
the Old English period. In fact, the Present Day formation of compounds
draws back to the origins of the language, and confers a certain uniformity to
language evolution itself, in the sense that the Modern English formation
continues the tendencies of the past. In any case, the formation of compounds constitutes an important source for the improvement of resourcefulness of vocabulary.
What is characteristic about compounds is that in many ways they function as a single word. In a compound, the first component receives the main
stress. Semantically, the meaning of the compound is different from the sum
of each of the parts forming it. The relationship established between the
members of a compound can be very varied, but the most commonly implied
relations tend to be of resemblance, function, purpose or finality, instrument,
etc. Compounding is moreover one of the most productive resources of lexi-
238
Compound nouns in the OE period
cal formation in English, which is maintained throughout its history, and
which can also be found in other Germanic languages.
2. THE FORMATION OF COMPOUNDS IN THE OLD ENGLISH PERIOD.
In contrast to what happened from the Middle English period onwards, during the stage of Old English the expression of new concepts and ideas was
expressed having recourse to the already existing resources in the language.
The introduction of words from other languages was but scarce, and it was
even preferred to apply old words to new concepts. As Albert C. Baugh and
Thomas Cable put it,
The language in this stage shows great flexibility, a capacity for
bending old words to new uses. By means of prefixes and suffixes
a single root is made to yield a variety of derivatives, and the range
of these is greatly extended by the ease with which compounds are
formed. (1951: 64)
(…) the remarkable capacity of Old English for derivation and word
- formation, and what variety and flexibility of expression it
possessed. It was more resourceful in utilizing its native material
than Modern English, which has come to rely to a large extent on
its facility in borrowing and assimilating elements from other languages. (1951: 65).
This tendency towards the formation of compounds seems to be characteristic of Germanic languages, as it is present not only in Old English, but
also in Modern German, for instance. In any case, the use of compounds
conferred the language a wide range of expression. In the case of Old English,
the language could testify and name the new objects, concepts and ideas
through native expressions, although the former were being introduced
precisely as a result of the contacts of the Anglo - Saxons with the peoples
that successively came to inhabit the island:
As a result of this capacity, Old English seems never to have been
at a loss for a word to express even the abstractions of science,
theology and metaphysics, which it came to know through contact
239
Angeles Ruiz
with the church and Latin culture. (Baugh, A. C. & T. Cable: 1951:
65).
Another factor which contributed to the formation of compounds during
the Old English period was the synthetic character of the language, although
the analytic tendencies of the use of prepositions were already present.
(Fernández, F., 1982: 209). In any case, the abundance of inflections is considered definitory of the Old English Period, to the extent that it can also be
known as the Period of Full Inflections. In this sense, as it will be seen in the
analysis of the corpus, some compounds in Old English are formed precisely
through the absence of prepositions. Moreover, this tendency still continues
in the present times, although instances of constructions of Old English can
be found, which are formed by N + N and which may be expressed through
prepositions later on.
In compound nouns, both a main and a secondary accent can be distinguished. There is a main word, which, at least in Modern English, tends to be
located at the end of the nominal group. This feature would need further testing to establish whether this is also the case in the Old English Period.
In any case, it seems clear that in either stage of the development of the
language the grammatical function and the semantic category of the group is
provided by the Nucleus of the construction, which tends to be located at the
end. In the same way, in a complex Noun Phrase, those words which have a
closer relationship with the Nucleus tend to be located in the nearest possible
position to it. Sometimes, the relationship established between the words
forming a compound noun may become so close that they are regarded as a
single word.
The relationship between the words forming the compound is not fixed or
equally established for all compounds; on the contrary, this link is open to
definition: thus, for example, the members of a compound may be equivalent
in meaning to a relation of addition: "AB" = A + B, although this will not
always be the case: for instance, WUR? MYNTE = WEOR? + MYNTE,
worth + mind, although the meaning that it has is "honour, dignity". The actual meaning is somehow related to the words that form it: the connotations
are positive, in both cases they refer to a positive attitude or quality of behaviour and feelings; and yet the meaning of the comp ound adds peculiar
shades of meaning, or even develops new connotations that are not offered
240
Compound nouns in the OE period
by the separate parts themselves. The " new " meaning may even be completely different altogether: ex: FLOTMEN, literally, it would mean something
like "the men of the sea”. However, in the text where it is found its meaning is
rather "the pirates”. Of course, in addition to this feature of the nature of
compounds, the contextual factors which exert influence upon the meaning
and usage of an expression should also be taken into account.
Fernández (1982: 515) remarks that the composition of words as a lexical
process, by means of the combination of forms or elements already existing in
the language, is very frequent since the Old English Period. The commonest
ways or procedures to form compound nouns during this period, according
to the above mentioned author, are:
- Noun + Noun
- Adjective + Noun
- Adverb + Noun
In any case, in any of these formations, - as well as those other formations
of words giving way to categories such as adjectives or adverbs - this lexical
procedure tends to follow the principles inherited from the Germanic language. The latter is even still felt nowadays not only in English, but in languages such as German. As we have already remarked, the second element or that located at the right hand side of the group - is the most important one,
both lexically and syntactically.
3. TOWARDS A TYPOLOGY OF THE COMPOUND NOUN IN THE OLD
ENGLISH PERIOD: ÆLFRIC‘S ST. OSWALD, KING AND MARTYR AND
ST. EDMUND, KING AND MARTYR
Before going into the analysis of the compound nouns that appear in the
texts under analysis, with a view to establishing a possible typology of the
compound noun in the Old English period, let us synthesise the main features
of the compound noun, according to what has been discussed in the
previous section.
A compound noun is a construction that involves two nouns, in a special
relation of modification, characterised by the fact that this combination of
241
Angeles Ruiz
words functions in many respects like a single word. In contrast to what happens with other noun phrases, the compound is treated as a single word, and
the first component receives the main stress. Semantically, compounds are
treated as single units, and not just as the sum of some units or contents. In
this way, they are different from other relations of modification.
It can be assumed that the parts forming a compound cannot be
separated, that is, that the possible addition of other modifiers will affect all
the members of the compound as a whole. Thus, another possible way to
recognise a compound will be its semantic unity and its distributional
cohesiveness.
All these assumptions about compound nouns will be next applied to Old
English, on the basis of the corpus formed by Ælfric's St. Oswald and St.
Edmund.
After the detailed analysis of both works, the following constructions will
be discussed:
- noun + suffix, adjective + suffix
- noun + noun
- noun + noun in apposition
- determiner + adjective + noun
- genitive + noun
- prefix + noun.
Instances of each of these constructions, found in the above mentioned
texts, and analysed in this paper, are given in Appendix I.
4. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF THESE CONSTRUCTIONS
A) NOUN + NOUN
As can be observed from the words found in the text, an important part of
this group is formed by words which designate place names (toponyms) and
names of peoples associated with these places. Some instances are: Scotlande, Norphymbra, Englalande, Dorcanceaster,…. In many cases these words
242
Compound nouns in the OE period
have only undergone slight variations in their evolution towards the Modern
English period. The names are interesting, because these place names constitute today a sign, or even a relic, of the various peoples that inhabited the
British isles, and tell us about them. In some of them a foreign element can
also be appreciated: ex.: wintanceastre, from Latin castra - orum. This further
shows that the loanwords taken by the language may also become affected
by the processes undergone by the latter. These words really come to form
part of the language, and so, they are subjected, at least potentially, to all the
changes and transformations that the words in the language may undergo.
This also shows that the flexibility of English to accept new words that
become fully incorporated to the language is already present in the earliest
stages of its development, even though during the Old English period the
most widespread tendencies are based on composition and derivation.
Similarly to what happens in Modern English, where the most widely
spread tendency is that the Nucleus of the compound noun phrase tends to
be displaced towards the end of the group, the situation is also present in the
Old English period. Many instances where this occurs can be given as examples, such as: Wintanceastre, Maserfelda, Angelcynn, etc.
Sometimes, the meaning of the compound is related to the meanings of
the units forming it. Thus, for example, Romebyrig (the city of Rome).
However, in some other occasions a new meaning is created altogether: pa
mynstermenn (the monks), pa flotmen (the privates).
The forms adopted by the Modern English counterparts are varied, and
not always do they coincide with the corresponding Old English forms. The
following may be given as examples:
OLD ENGLISH
ÆLMIHTIGAN
WORULDCARA
BISCEOPSTOLE
GODES LOF
FORM
MODERN ENGLISH
PRONOUN + ADJECTIVE
- ALMIGHTY
NOUN + NOUN
- WORDLY CARES
NOUN + NOUN
- EPISCOPAL SEE
- BISHOPRIC
GENITIVE + NOUN
- LOVE OF GOD
- DIVINE LOVE
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FORM
PRONOUN + ADJECTIVE
ADJECTIVE + NOUN
ADJECTIVE + NOUN
NOUN +
SUFFIX ,DERIVATION
OF - CONSTRUCTION
ADJECTIVE + NOUN
Angeles Ruiz
GODES WILLAN
GENITIVE+ NOUN
- WILL OF GOD
- DIVINE WILL
OF - CONSTRUCTION
ADJECTIVE + NOUN
As it can be noticed, in the last two examples at least two possible
Modern English constructions come easily to mind. Therefore, these two
constructions seem to appear in complementary distribution.
In some cases, the corresponding Modern English evolution of the Old
English compounds has given way to the consideration of one of the present
forms as either a prefix or a suffix. This is the case of - CEASTER, present
here in words such as Dorcanceaster or Wintanceastre. In any case, either
formation has been very productive in the history of the language.
Sometimes, processes of derivation are also present. This is the case of
words such as: godnysse, yfelnysse, wodnysse, cynedom, etc. This formation
is also present in the Modern English period. Strictly speaking, it is not a case
of composition, but rather of derivation, because it implies a change in the
morphological category of the word. In this case, an adjective is added a
suffix, by means of which a noun is formed. However, the resulting noun is a
complex unit, because it is the outcome of some definite semantic processes.
The use of both Saxon and loan forms combined in compounds is also
noticeable. An example may be Halig Sanct. This further shows that even at
this stage the English language showed a great flexibility. These forms may
appear in complementary distribution.
B) A DJECTIVE + NOUN
In both texts an important number of constructions formed by a noun and an
adjective can be found. It can be assumed that the possible relationships established between a noun and an adjective are not fixed or constant, there is
not a constant relationship between both, but, on the contrary, instances can
be found where the adjective conveys a lexical meaning which is important
for the predication given by the noun.
Cases such as sum swipe gelµred munuc, halige rædinge, pam læwedum
folc, heofonan rice or Laidanus se æpela bisceop, show a very close
relationship between the adjective and the noun. It can be noted that in all
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Compound nouns in the OE period
these examples the adjective carries a heavy significative content, without
which the predication held by the noun is far from complete. The adjectives,
in cases such as these, offer a meaning which is necessary to understand and
recognise the precise, concrete reference that the noun has in that particular
context. Moreover, the qualities or features predicated by the adjective are
felt as permanent. Therefore, the adjective in cases such as these does not
qualify the content expressed by the noun, but helps to define its content, in
such a way that the meaning of the noun cannot be properly understood
without the adjective.
All these features point to a gradation in the lexical relationship between
the adjective and the noun that form the nominal group, from those cases in
which the adjective expresses intrinsic features of the noun to those in which
the information provided by the adjective is merely additive. Therefore, the
syntactic construction of noun + noun can be considered to comprise both
compound nouns and expressions which would not be regarded as such, and
further shows that syntax cannot be studied as a self - contained unit, independently of the other linguistic aspects. Among these, the semantic and
pragmatic layers influence the way in which syntax is organised. This is
probably the ultimate reason that accounts for the above fact, which moreover contradicts those approaches for which it is the function of the word
that determines its form.
C) NOUN + NOUN IN APPOSITION
In this structure, a nominal group is modified by another nominal group. Both
of them tend to be co - referential. However, this structure is different from
compound nouns in some and important ways. Thus, in some contexts one of
the nominal groups could be eliminated, and as long as the reference can be
clearly identified, no significant changes in meaning would be produced.
Moreover, some modifiers could be added, and only affect one of the nominal
groups, but not the other. Therefore, it can be concluded that this structure is
different from that of compound nouns.
D) GENITIVE + NOUN
By definition, the genitive is the case which is used to modify the noun, thus
forming a group. However, although in some contexts, they function in ways
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Angeles Ruiz
similar to compound nouns, the referents of both words may be different.
Moreover, either of the words of the genitive construction may accept modification which does not refer to the whole group.
E) PREFIX + NOUN
Although it works in a similar way to the formation of compound nouns, this
construction is not really a compound noun, because there is only just one
possible concept, and not two concepts or ideas which are co - referential, as
is the case in compound nouns.
CONCLUSIONS
In the analysis which has just been carried out, we have tried to test the hypothesis that compound nouns are important in the Old English period because they offer a great condensation of the information to be processed, and
they also allow the suppression of superfluous elements, such as
prepositions or conjunctions. The structure of the language during this
period also fosters the formation of compound nouns.
The authors consulted, inscribed all of them in the trends of Functional
Grammar or Pragmatics, seem to coincide on the idea, which we have tried to
follow, that there cannot be a sharp distinction between compounds and not
compounds. It seems more reasonable, then, to speak of a gradation in the
constructions. Furthermore, as it will be further commented below, compound
nouns (and, by extension, any other grammatical category or phenomenon )
cannot be adequately studied by the exclusive basis of syntax. From the
analysis carried out in this work, we assume that a compound as a linguistic
structure is mainly defined by the actual meaning that it has for the language
users in the context where it can be located.
The fact that there is not a one - to one correspondence between the compound noun in the Old English period with the possible meanings that it expresses, and that several forms may be distinguished, demonstrates that syntax alone is unable and insufficient to account for the relationships established between words. All these relationships are semantically motivated,
depending on the relationship that is expressed, and refer to the external, ob-
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Compound nouns in the OE period
jective world, which, on the one hand, defines and shapes language, and on
the other hand, is defined and shaped by it.
Furthermo re, the relationships expressed by compound nouns are also
pragmatically motivated, in the sense that language users refer by means of
them to a variety of states and relationships between these states. The
achievement of an economic, as well as productive expression is probably the
point at issue here. In any case, both the codification and de - codification of
these expressions call for strategies of the processing of information, such as
those referred by Brown & Yule (1983) as bottom - up and top - down
processing. These techniques, which have been adapted from the computational modelling of language understanding, refer to the ways in which words
relate to the context in which they appear, and how this influences meaning is
processed and understood. As these authors point out:
We can think of our processing of incoming discourse as the combination of (at least) two activities. In one part of the processing,
we work out the meanings of the words and structure of a sentence
and build up a composite meaning for the sentence. (i. e. bottom up processing). At the same time, we are predicting, on the basis of
the context plus the composite meaning of the sentences already
processed, what the next sentence is most like to mean. (i.e. top down processing). (1983: 234, bold types as in original)
These two models can be applied to compound nouns, insofar as they are
designing entities or categories which are sensitive to be processed mentally
by language users.
If we think about the bottom - up processing of compound nouns, we
think about the way they are formed up by several nouns or other categories
which contribute with their meanings to the formation and outcome of a new,
different meaning altogether.
But at the same time, a compound noun has an internal meaning, contained by the units it has, and is further specified by the group that it forms;
its meaning is also contained by the discourse context which creates expectations relating to discourse content. This is so because in the functional approach that is being followed in the present work, the linguistic elements are
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Angeles Ruiz
not considered in isolation, but related to one another, to the context and situation and to the linguistic users.
Thus, the meaning of a compound is bound to modify and at the same
time be motivated by the context in which it is found.
But in the same way, we may assume that the compound noun, because
of its structure, is also likely to call for a specific processing. The compound
noun entails a condensation, in some way a package of information that is
stored and de - codified: we would like to refer again to the above commented
assumption already introduced by DIK in 1978:
It is easier to perceive, process and store complex information
when this information is presented in chunks of increasing internal
complexity. (1978: 212).
As we referred above, this assumption has been crucial in the development of theories dealing with the processing and storing of information.
In the case of compound nouns, when finding one in a text, we would
firstly try to recognise it as a complex structure on the basis of our previous
experience of such unities, or, in any case, by contrasting it with simpler
units. Even an intuitive perception of it would recognise a certain complexity.
We would also recur to our background or world knowledge.
The final conclusion that can be reached is that compound nouns call for
a specific organisation of the information, which may be characterised by
“the left branching“ of the decodification of information. This is present in
Old English, and still continues throughout the history of the language.
However, this tendency is particularly reinforced by the inflected nature of
the language at this stage. In the texts under analysis, this is especially manifest in toponyms, and words of highly symbolic content. We assume that the
same is true of the Old English period as a whole. It is also remarkably interesting how the procedures of noun compound formation are applied not only
to original, genuine Anglo - Saxon words, but the process often involves
some of the comparatively few loanwords that can be found in the language.
This already shows the perhaps at this stage still incipient receptivity of the
English language to foreign words.
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Compound nouns in the OE period
Mª Ángeles Ruíz Moneva
University of Zaragoza
REFERENCES
Alexander, L. G. 1988: Longman English Grammar. Longman, London.
Baugh, A. & T. Cable. 1951: A History of the English Language. Routledge &
Kegan Paul, London.
Brown, B. & B. Yule. 1983: Discourse analysis. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
Dik, S. C. 1978: Functional Grammar. Foris Publications, Dordrecht.
Dik, S. C. 1989: The Theory of Functional Grammar. Part I. The Structure of
the Clause. Foris Publications, Dordrecht.
Downing, A. & P. Locke. 1992: A University Course in English Grammar.
Prentice - Hall, Hertfordshire.
Drosdovski, G. 1984: Duden. Die Grammatik. Dudenverlag, Mannheim.
Fernández, F. 1982: Historia de la Lengua Inglesa. Gredos, Madrid.
García Arranz, A. 1986: Manual de Gramática Inglesa Comparada. Edi - 6,
Madrid.
Halliday, M. A. K. 1985: An Introduction to Functional Grammar. Edward
Arnold, London.
Martín Arista, J. 1994: Estudios de Gramática Funcional. Mira Editores,
Zaragoza.
Needham, G. I. ed. 1966: Ælfric’s Lives of the English Saints. Methuen,
London.
Quirk, R. et al. 1985: A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language.
Longman, London.
Quirk, R. et al. 1989: A University Grammar of English. Longman, London.
Seymour, M. C. 1974: Translations from the Old English. Econoprint, Ltd.,
Edinbourgh.
Sperber, D. & D. Wilson. 1995 (1986): Relevance. Communication and
Cognition. Blackwell, London.
Skeat, Walter. ed.1966: Ælfric’s Lives of Saints. Oxford University Press,
Oxford.
Sweet, H. 1976: The Student's Dictionary of Anglo - Saxon. The Clarendon
Press, Oxford.
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APPENDIX I
- LIST OF THE INSTANCES FOUND IN THE TEXT ANALYSED WHICH
EXEMPLIFY EACH KIND OF COMPOUND FORMATION
ST. OSWALD
1. NOUN + SUFFIX, ADJECTIVE + SUFFIX
- Yfelnysse, ecnysse, forhaefednysse, gesceadwisnysse, cynedom,
wodnysse, godnysse, untrumnysse.
2. NOUN + NOUN
- Englalande, Norphymbra, Scotlande, æftergengan (preposition +
noun), wurpmynte, Almihtigan, Heofonfeld, pa heafodmenn,
woruldcara, wipersaece, wealhstod, Easterdaege, Norphymbra
land, Norphymbriscum, heofonan rice, uhtsange, hwilwend, handbredum, Romebyrig, bisceopstole, Dorcanceaster, Wintanceastre,
Maserfelda, Myrcena folc, se hæpena cyning, Norphymbra rice, his
bropor heafod, Bebbanbyrig, pa mynstermenn, for menniscum
gedwylde, sunnbeam, wæter wanhalum, wealweode, maessepreost,
Myrcena lande, Gleawceaster.
3. NOUN + NOUN IN APPOSITION
- Eadwine his eam, Norphymbra cyning
- Brytta cyninge, Cedwalla geciged
- Sum bisceop fram Romebyrig, Birinus gehaten
- Penda, Myrcena cyning
4. (DETERMINER) + ADJECTIVE + NOUN
- Sum æpele cyning, pysne repan cyning, Oswold se eadiga, pone
modigan feond, wip pysne repan cyning, pone walhreowan cyning,
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Compound nouns in the OE period
pone modigan feond, haele rædinge, pam læwedum folce, pam
lifigendan Gode, pam gesæligan cyninge, munuclicre drohtnunga,
mid welwillendum mode, pam wipersæce, se geleaffulla cyning, mid
blipum mode, pam læwedum folce, Aidanus se æpela bisceop, pes
gebletsode swypra hand, se ælmihtiga Gode, pa hwilwedlican
gepincpu, ealle Westsexena land, se geleaffulla Oswold, pam
halgan Birine, pa Oswold cyning, pam halgan Birine, pam halgan
Oswolde, Halig Sanct, Heofonlic leoht, healic sunnbeam, sum
wegfarende mann, of pam halgan duste pæaere deorwurpan stowe,
pæaet halige dust, pam hælende Criste, sum halig cyning, pæs
halgan reliquium, on halig wæter, pam halgan treowe, halgum
weorcum, alip Gode, pone halgan wer.
5. GENITIVE + NOUN
- Godes willan, pæs Papan raede, pæs Haelendes naman, Godes lof,
his lifes geendunge, Oswoldes slege, Sancte Petres Mynstre,
Godes aenglas.
6. PREFIX + NOUN
- Geferum
ST. EDMUND
1. NOUN + SUFFIX, ADJECTIVE + SUFFIX
- Gereccednysse, welwillendnysse, rihtwisnysse, waelhreownysse.
2. NOUN + NOUN
- Swurdbora, eadmod, Norphymbra lande, heafodmen, eadmod,
Easenglum, manrµdene, se ærendraca, wintersetl, goldhordas, uderkyning (Prep + noun), landleoda, flotmen, heretogan, Hælende
Criste, se flothere, pæaet landfolc, pam gebædhuse, haligdome,
Romebyrig, on folclicre spræce, God ælmihtig, on Domesdæge
peowdome, Angelcynn, on Englalanda, ælmihtig God, pam Halgan
Gaste.
3. NOUN + NOUN IN APPOSITION
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- Eadmund se ædiga
- Eastengla cyning
- Hingwar, se arlease flotman
4. (DETERMINER) + ADJECTIVE + NOUN
- Sum swype gelæred munuc, Sancte Benedictes stowe, Dunstane
aercebisceope, Eadmund se eadiga, mid æpelum peawum, pone
ælmihtigan God, to bysmorfollum leahtrum, pa Deniscan leode, pe
Westsexena cyning, pa unwittigan cild, pa fyrmestan heafodmen,
beotlic ærende, pine digelan goldhordas, pam repan Hingware, for
pam faerlican gelimpe, pas earman landleoda, ful cene, æfter minum
leofum pegnum, for minum agenum earde, pinum repan hlaforde,
haepenum heretogan, to Hælende Criste, pone waelhreowan
Hinguar, pone geleaffullan cyning, to anum erpfæstum treowe, mid
sopan geleafan, se anrædum geleafan, pæt heafod pæs halgan
Eadmundes, pone halgan lichaman, pone heofonlican God, pæs
ecan wuldres, se mildheorta God, ungesælige peofas, pam arwurpan halgan, yfelum deape, for pam wurpfullan halgan, on pone
lifigendan Crist, his heofonlican Fæder.
5. GENITIVE + NOUN
- Eadmundes swurdbora, Sancte Benedictes stowe, on Æpelredes
cyninges dæge, for pæs cyninges life, Cristes gebysnungum, heora
hlafordes lic, purh Godes wissunge, Cristes peowdome, Drihtness
halgena.
*†*
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EDITORS’ NOTE
Professor Patricia Shaw (Tunbridge Wells 1931 — Oviedo 1998), chaired the
Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature from 1988
when the society was formally created until her untimely death in 1998. This
volume of our Journal is devoted to her memory and Selim wishes to thank all
the scholars, friends and disciples who have contributed to conform the
pages that we have been able to gather here in the hope that professor Shaw
would have liked it.
In these times of confusion, ingratitude, selfishness and disbelief (like
many others) we would like to rephrase a classical adagium: De magistriis
nihil nisi bonum.
The editors
Explicit hoc totum
pro Xpto da mihi potum
*†*
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