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Five New Gretham Sermons and the Middle English Mirrur

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2021

Charlton G. Laird
Charlton G. Laird*
Affiliation:
University of Idaho, Southern Branch
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Extract

Among the treasures in the Henry E. Huntington Library is a copy of Robert de Gretham's Le miroir, ou les évangiles des domnées, which has some importance for the Anglo-Norman original, and more for the relationship of the Miroir to the Middle English translation, known as the Mirrur. The manuscript (now HM 903) has been known for some time, but it was not listed by Vising or Russell nor employed by Miss Aitken in her extracts from the Miroir. It is bound with a copy of the Manuel des Pechiez, so that it occupies folios 68-205 of the present manuscript book. The copy is fragmentary at the beginning and accordingly was misbound, with a rubric and an illumination at the top of what appeared to be the first folio; the proper sequence of folios is 140-205, 68-139.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 57 , Issue 3 , September 1942 , pp. 628 - 637
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1942

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References

Notes

1 First Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (London, 1874), p. 45b; William H. Robinson, Catalogue Number 12 (London, 1925), No. 384; Seymour de Ricci, Census of the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada (New York, 1935), i, 77; MLN, lv (1940), 601-603. Stanford Studies in Language and Literature (1941), pp. 109-110. Doubtless there is a description in E. J. Arnould, Le Manuel des Péchés, étude de littérature anglo-normande (xiiie siècle) (Paris, 1940), a work of which few copies escaped occupied France.

2 Johan Vising, Anglo-Norman Language and Literature, Language and Literature Series (London, 1923); Josiah Cox Russell, Dictionary of Writers of Thirteenth Century England: Special Supplement No. 3 to the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research (London, New York, Toronto, 1936).

3 Marion Y. H. Aitken, Etude sur le miroir ou les évangiles des domnées de Robert de Gretham, suivie d'extraits inédits (Paris, 1922). For briefer extracts see Romania, xv (1886), 298; xxxii (1903), 29; xlii (1913), 145; Z. r. Ph., i (1877), 543.

4 Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Middleton preserved at Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire; Historical Manuscripts Commission, lxix, 220.

5 This passage is printed by Miss Aitken. The correspondences of HM 903 with the printed extracts is as follows:

From the passage printed by Miss Aitken as 15619-16114, lines 15663-15968 are wanting from HM 903. The matter printed as 17485-17604 is probably out of order in HM 903, since there the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity appears before the twenty-first.

6 Aitken, op. cit., pp. 15-16.

7 The symbols for manuscripts are those adopted by Miss Aitken.

An asterisk represents essential agreement between HM 903 and another manuscript; a question mark usually indicates some similarity between HM 903 and more than one other manuscript. The correspondences with variants used by Miss Aitken are as follows: 1570, W1—ti pensers t'afole, U—ti sens t'afole, W2L—tis pensers est fole, HM—tis pensers tafole; 1625, W1U—ki nus aveie, W2L—ki nus aie, HM—qe nos auaie; 2883, W1—e sul le veir mult haium, U—del sul veer hysdour avum, W2L—E sul de veer aucun kaum, HM—Et soul de veer haur auomes; 1692, W1—sevrer, U—pur veer, W2L—Mes les regnes chacun par ser, HM—Mes les regnes trestut parter (t written over an erasure); 1473, W1—li uns, U—li message, W2L—li melz, HM—le messages; 2826, W1U—nurreture humaine, W2—nature humaine, L—nature d'hume, HM—humaine nature; 5342, W1U—seinz lius, W2—sec, L—set, HM—ou il eiuz sei mist; 2817, W1U—centurion, W2L—centuir, HM—senturione; 1679, W1U—de pais, W2L—pais, HM—de pays; 2466, W1U—foler, W2L—folaier, HM—folaier; 963, W1U—Tost foillist l'arbe e tost flurist, W2L—Tost flurist l'arbe e tost fiestrist, HM—Tost fuillist larbre tost flurist; 1301, W1U—les queors, W2—les oilz, HM—le quer; 13419, W1—Ki l'escripture ne suit ne vout, U—suivre ne vout, W2L—ne set no ot, HM—ne croire ne volait; 2444, W1U—ne si ordes ne si mesfaiz, W2L—ne si horribles li mesvaiz, HM—Ne si oribles lez mesfaitz; 4687, W1U—einzne degre, W2L—eine grez, HM—ain degrez; 4933, W1U—dunc n'est co, W2L—dunc est il, HM—dunque prent; 10198, W1—si un seigneur li mandast rien/De un commandement terrien, U—Si si sires terrien/Li commandast aucune rien, W2L—si si freres li mandast rien/Dunt il ad seigneur terrien, HM—Si cil siur li mandast rien/De qi il ad son honour terrien; 13436, W1U—demande nul rien, W2L—requis nule rien, HM—nonn demande rien; 3364, W1U—alargir, W2L—alaisser, HM—alez; 3460, W1U—semaille, W2L—semence, HM—semat; 9997, W1U—de volunte, W2L—en verite, HM—en verite.

8 Aitken, op. cit., pp. 154-157; Paul Meyer, Romania, xv (1886), 302-305.

9 Li has been altered from u.

10 The l was written in by a later hand.

11 Des Ewangels brefment has been written over an erasure.

12 A space has been erased, and “del leypon” written in. There would have been room for “Robert” or “Gretham,” but not for “Robert de Gretham.”

13 Frederick E. Warren, The Sarum Missal in English (London, 1913), ii, 24.

14 This line has been written over an erasure.

15 Warren, op. cit., i, 105.

16 At least four manuscripts are extant: Corpus Christi College 282, Pepys MS. 2498, Harley 5085, and Holkham Hall 672. Cf. respectively Montague Rhodes James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College (Cambridge, 1912), 2 vols.; —–, Bibliotheca Pepysiana, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Library of Samuel Pepys (Cambridge, 1914-23), 3 parts; Hope Emily Allen, Mod. Phil., xiii (1916), 741-742; Alfred J. Horwood, The Manuscripts of the Right Honourable the Earl of Leicester, Holkham Hall, Norfolk; Ninth Report of the Commission on Historical MSS., Appendix, ii (1884), pp. 364-372. Cf. also Margaret Deanesly, The Lollard Bible and other Medieval Biblical Versions (Cambridge, 1920), p. 316; Gerald Robert Owst, Preaching in Medieval England, an Introduction to Sermon Manuscripts of the Period ca. 1350-1450 (Cambridge, 1926), pp. 241-242; A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum with Indexes of Persons, Places, and Matters (London, 1808-1812), 4 vols.; Seymour de Ricci, A Handlist of Manuscripts in the Library of the Earl of Leicester at Holkham Hall abstracted from the Catalogues of William Roscoe and Frederic Madden and annotated etc. (Oxford: Bibliographical Society, 1932).

17 James, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Corpus Christi College, ii, 48.

18 Ibid.

19 Unfortunately, the Prologue has been lost from HM 903.

20 I hope to compare the works when microfilm are available again.