¹ Wynkyn de Worde's Abbey of the Holy Ghost corresponds to the work by that title printed by Horstman, i, 321-337, but it is, in the incunable, inserted into the Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost (Horstman, i, 337-362). Most of the text of Horstman's Abbey appears in the de Worde print after the “Explicit carta,” (Horstman, i, 340). Thus, de Worde prints Horstman's Charter to this point; then (sig. a3) inserts almost all of the Abbey; and (on sig. b1^v) continues with the rest of the Charter. A full description of the new Wynkyn de Worde edition may be found in the writer's “The First Edition of The Abbey of the Holy Ghost,” Studies in Bibliography, vi (1953-54), 101-106.

² The first mention of the MS. to appear in print seems to be the notice in a bookseller's catalogue of Feb. 1925 (P. J. and A. E. Dobell, Catalogue 42, item 18). Thereafter the manuscript apparently disappeared from sight till acquired by the Morgan Library.

³ The following works are cited in shortened form in this paper: Hope Emily Allen, Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, (New York, 1927); Thomas Arnold, Select English Works of John Wyclif (Oxford, 1869-71); Carl Horstman, Yorkshire Writers; Richard Rolle of Hampole and his Followers (London, 1895-96); and John Edwin Wells, A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1400 (New Haven, 1926) and nine supplements.

⁴ Morgan MS. 861 omits, for example, the following passages printed by Horstman: 96.17-98.21 (at bottom of f. 29); 98. up 2-99.28 (at Une 2 of f. 30^r); and 102.30-104.5 (at line 21 of f. 31^v). The text in the MS. ends at the “Amen” printed at 105.14.

⁵ Capitals are supplied in accordance with modern practice, while the sometimes erratic punctuation has been standardized to conform with the scribe's apparent intention. Paragraphs (¶) are reproduced as they appear in the MS.

⁶ Printed by Arnold (iii, 82-92). The present tract may possibly be the “pre-existing commentary” which Arnold believed Wyclif may have used. For a different view, see Samuel A. Ives, “The Genuine and Unpublished Version of Wyclif's Treatise on the Ten Commandments,” Rare Books, iii (New York: H. P. Kraus, 1942), 3-9.

⁷ Ed. Thomas F. Simmons and Henry E. Nolloth, EETS, OS. 118 (1901), pp. 33-57.

⁸ Compare for example the Speculum Christiani (ed. Gustaf Holmstedt, EETS, OS 182 (1933), pp. 16-39) and The Book of Vices and Virtues (ed. W. Nelson Francis, EETS, OS 217 (1942), pp. 1-6).

⁹ “A Middle-English MS in the Bibliothèque Ste. Geneviève, Paris,” PMLA, xlii (1927), 862-864.

¹⁰ Matthew 19.16-17 and Luke 10.25.

¹¹ The Biblical citations are not exactly the same as they occur in either version of the so-called Wyclif Bible, though they are closer to that rendering attributed to John Purvey. The quotation from Exodus 20.1-6 was also used by Wyclif in the treatise on the Ten Commandments (Arnold, iii, 82-92), though this passage differs both from those in M 861 and in the ME Bible. In the Purvey version (Forshall and Madden, The Holy Bible .. . in the Earliest English Versions made … by John Wycliffe and his Followers [1850], i, 238), the text reads: “And the Lord spak alle these wordis, Y am thi Lord God, that ladde thee out of the lond of Egipt, fro the hous of seruage. Thou schalt not haue alien goddis bifore me. Thou schalt not make to thee a grauun ymage, nethir ony licnesse of thing which is in heuene aboue, and which is in erthe bynethe, nether of tho thingis, that ben in watris vndur erthe; thou schalt not herie tho, nether thou schalt worschipe; for Y am thi Lord God, a stronge gelouse louyere; and Y visite the wickidnesse of fadris in to the thridde and the fourthe generacioun of hem that haten me, and Y do mercy in to a thousynde, to hem that louen me, and kepen myn heestis.”

¹² As an editorial note to the Lay-Folks' Catechism (p. 115) points out, the query “Who breaks this Commandment” is raised for each section and conforms to a tradition which survived through Archbishop John Hamilton's Catechism of 1552. The several sets of “breakers” in the present text are identical with those in the L-F Catechism except as indicated in n. 23. The Catechism, however, merely lists the “breakers” without giving the Biblical texts that support or enlarge upon these selections.

¹³ The reference is, of course, to the Leviathan (Job 41.25) and occurs in both Wyclif versions (ii, 733) in these words: “he is king vpon (ouer) alle the sones of pride.” In the Catechism we find the same extract in this connection: “þe fynd ys prince of alle þe childryn of pride” (p. 33).

¹⁴ These two words are omitted in the MS. but are included in the Catechism (p. 35). The following quotation is also found in Wyclif's treatise (Arnold, iii, 83- “as Poul seiþ þat averyce is service of mawmetis”) and in the tract on the Decalogue printed by W. N. Francis (EETS, OS 217, pp. 318-319—“An Auerous mon. or a couetous: is þraldam of maumetes”).

¹⁵ This extract agrees almost verbatim with Wyclif's in his treatise (Arnold, iii, 84), and both differ from the two Bible versions. The Speculum Christiani (p. 20) has: “A man mych swerynge schal be filled wyth wykydnes, and veniaunce schal not departe frome his hows,”

¹⁶ Wyclif (Arnold, iii, 85) quotes: “In sixe daies þou worche, and in þe sevenbe day is reste of þe Lord God. In þat day þou schalt do no servile werk, ne no werk of synne, þou, ne þi sone, ne þi douþter, ne þi servaunt, ne þin hand-mayden, ne þi werk-beest, ne þe straunger in þin hous. For in sixe daies God made hevene and erþe, and al þat is þerinne, and restide in þe sevenbe day.” (Exodus 20.9-11).

¹⁷ MS. has “miache”? The extract comes from Micah 2.1 (not c.° iij) and reads in the earlier Wycliffite version thus (iii, 716): “Woo to , that thenken vnprofitable thing, and wirchen yuel in þoure couchis; in the morew thei don it, for the hond of hem is God.”

¹⁸ Numbers 16.27-33.

¹⁹ Compare the comment on 1 John 3.15 by St. Augustine cited by Thomas Hibernicus in his Manipulus florum, example “d” of Ira (Piacenza: Jacobus de Tyela, 5 Sept. 1483, sig. 13^v).

²⁰ The extract suffers from excessive cutting. In the earlier version of the Bible (iii, 281), the passage from Isaiah 33.1 reads: “Wo! thou that robbest; whether and thi self shalt not be robbid? and thou that dispisist, whethir and thiself shalt not be dispised? Whan thou shalt han ful endid robbing, thou shalt be robbid.”

²¹ The citation is incorrect, as the text comes from Acts 20.29-30. The Purvey version (iv, 568-569) offers: “Y woot, that aftir my departyng, rauyschinge wolues schulen entre in to , and spare not the flok; and men spekinge schrewid thingis schullen rise of silf, that thei leden awei disciplis aftir hem.”

²² MS. reads “hous hous.”

²³ The ninth and tenth Commandments of Catholic belief are combined by one version (L) of the Lay-Folks' Catechism (p. 55) into a single group (as in the Protestant Catechism of today). The L-F Catechism here cites three “breakers”: those that covet in their hearts, those that covet both in heart and do so in deed, and those that take pleasure in wrongful coveting. The text of the Morgan MS. follows the order of Exodus at the close, in which regard it agrees with Archbishop Thoresby's Catechism (T of the L-F Catechism). The Wycliffite adaptation (L of the L-F Catechism) takes the sequence of Deuteronomy (5.21), though it alone lists the “breakers.” Thus M 861 follows Thoresby as to order but agrees with the Wycliffite adaptation in listing the violators of the Commandments. For the ninth and tenth Commandments of the Morgan MS., one “breaker” is cited in each case; thus this text omits only a single one of all those listed in the Lay-Folks' Catechism.

²⁴ The same Biblical citation is used in this connection (though as the ninth Commandment) by the Speculum Christiani (p. 34) and by the Book of Vices and Virtues (p. 5).

²⁵ Compare Exodus 7.19 to 12.30.