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'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
THE ALLITERATIVE POET
PUBLISHED RY
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW,
{JnbU&hcrs to the Snil]ei'sit|).
MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.
Ne^ York, • TJie Macmlian Co.
London, - Sim^kin, Hamilton and Co.
Catiihridset Mactnillan and Bowes.
Edinburgh:, • Douglas a?id Foulis,
' Huchown of the Awle Ryale '
the Alliterative Poet :
A Historical Criticism of Fourteenth Century
Poems ascribed to Sir Hew of Eglintoun
By
George Neilson
Author of "Trial by Combat,'' etc.
Glasgow
James MacLehose and Sons
Publishers to the University
1902
T
GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BV ROBERT MACLEHOSF. AND CO.
HOMAGE AND FEALTY
TO
FREDERIC WILLIAM MAITLAND,
LL.D., D.C.L.
PREFACE
When, more than a couple of years ago, my previous general interest in
the alliterative problems was suddenly roused to an acute pitch by the
discovery of the importance of a manuscript in the Hunterian Library, a
condition of nescience and chaos prevailed among the critics. That very
many lines were common to certain of the poems had of course all along
been seen, though the tendency had grown to account for this very lamely
by contradictory processes. The great lead given by Sir Frederick Madden
in the recognition of a group as the work of ' Huchown of the Awle Ryale,
had been for the most part set aside on grounds of dialect and grammar,
on which the doctors themselves were at sixes and sevens. Methods of
analysis had gained currency founded on the false notion that a poet's
vocabulary must be constant whether his theme is of war or of love, whether
he is singing free or is translating, whether he narrates or moralizes. Too
large allowance had been made for scribal variation to prove changes in
the dialect of scribes ; too little when to discuss unity. The terrible
uncertainty of inferences merely philological had been forgotten, and over-
weening Philology had betrayed its trust. The more the objections to a
great poetic unity were considered on a re-approach to the question, the
less did they satisfy the logic of a broad and rational historical criticism,
especially as they were found to embody so much argument on discrepancies
in style and subject, which would assuredly make it difficult to accept the
common authorship of such works as ' Hamlet ' and ' Midsummer Night's
Dream,' as the 'Cottar's Saturday Night' and 'Holy Willie's Prayer,' or
as ' In Memoriam ' and the ' Charge, of the Light Brigade.'
viii PREFACE
At an early stage of my own special studies it became apparent that
there existed a mass of clear fact, internal and external, far weightier than
any argument previously urged, establishing a cross relationship and inter-
penetration of the poems, which on any other hypothesis than that
of a single author would be a downright miracle. One has heard vague
talk of a ' school.' A school of poets of this splendid calibre were indeed
worth having; but it has never been produced, and we have waited long,
with unrewarded patience, for any suggestion of the constitution and
personnel of such a joint-stock company of genius. Critics who have
opposed the proposition of a lofty poetic unity, comparable only with
Chaucer, have now forfeited any claim to authority ; for, if authority rests
upon fulness of knowledge, little indeed can remain to certain of my recent
predecessors in alliterative criticism when confronted with the many
central facts now revealed, which were completely beyond their ken, and
in ignorance of which their judgments were pronounced.
Besides, the unique and far-reaching evidences, brought to light by two
Hunterian MSS. when compared with the poems, must totally alter the com-
plexion of the earUer discussions. We approach the poet from a new
base — a base of surprising intimacy with his sources and modes of com-
position, and even in some degree of his thought. The mystery is lifted,
and not only may we discern who and what he was, but we may at the
same time see Arthurian romance in the act of growth, and watch, as it
were from within, the movement of a glorious intellect in the fourteenth
century. For a mystery of chaos about the person and the work, we
have now a definite personality and a series of related poems, with which
his own life is bound up, and in which he demonstrates himself as one of
the dramatic figures, while yet there remains the fascinating psychological
problem, to show how the radiant centre of a Scottish poet's inspiration in
so many pieces should have been found in English chivalry, refulgent in
the fame of the Round Table and Crecy and Poitiers.
Speaking as a historical student, it may be allowed me to say that
nothing in these researches has occasioned such lively satisfaction to
myself as the unexpected emergence of the train of allusions to con-
temporary historical episodes, which so vastly deepen the sense and add
PREFACE ix
to the marvel of these poems. It will surprise many to find so much of
brilliant English chronicle in Morte Arthure, and other pieces, as to
challenge for them, in virtue of their historical realism, a place of oddly
romantic authority as secondary documents for the French wars of Edward
III. and his gallant son. And there is still more of Morte Arthure to
explain by the same processes in history and heraldry as have made the
disclosures recorded within.
The life of Sir Hew of Eglintoun will have to be written some day.
Those who desire to have a preliminary collection of charter references
and the like to his career will find it in Sir Hew of Eglintoun, a calendar
of events in which he was concerned, compiled from original sources by
me some months ago, and contributed to the transactions of the Philo-
sophical Society of Glasgow. Having a few reprints, I have placed
them in the hands of my Publishers, so as to be available for any who
may seek to check or supplement the sources of the biographical sketch
given in the second chapter of the present book.
My preface must close in grateful expressions to many friends,
particularly to Professor John Young, M.D., Keeper of the Hunterian
Museum, whose constant helpfulness alone made possible to me the MS.
discoveries now recorded. Monsieur F. J. Amours also has been (alike
where we agree and where we differ) the most courteous and obliging of
fellow-students in the alliterative literature. To Mr. J. T. T. Brown, and
his sympathetic attitude towards what I may call my ' plot,' as it developed
under my hands, I owe almost as much as I do for his fruitful suggestions,
offered to me long ago, of the need for work on present lines for the
vindication of the disputed poet.
The present essay has arisen out of two papers read to the Glasgow
Archaeological Society on 19th April and isth December, 1900, recast and
united and extended. The whole is now reprinted from the Proceedings of
the Society, with a few alterations and additions, including an index, in
an edition of 300 copies, whereof 250 are for sale.
G. N.
34 Granby Terrace,
Glasgow, February, 1902.
CONTENTS
PAGE
1. Identification Problems— Literary and Personal, i
Barbour and Huchown — Rime and cadence — Wyntoun's allusion to ' Huch-
own off the Awle Ryale ' and his poems — Dunbar's mention of Sir Hew
of Eglintoun —Huchown and Hew as names — List of poems discussed.
2. Huchown and Sir Hew, 8
Sir Hew's Biography ; Knight, Justiciar, Statesman — His visits to Eng-
land — Chivalry — Exchequer.
3. 'Off the Awle Ryale,' 13
Aula Regis and ' Kingis Haw ' — Importance of the hall.
4. Huchown's Poems : The Lines of Correlation, 14
Design of book to prove colligation of the poems claimed as Huchown's —
Outline of thesis undertaken — Four types of poems.
5. Hunterian - MS. T. 4. I, 16.
Manuscript of Guido de Columpna's De Excidio Troje, and of the De Preliis
Alexandri.
6. 'The Wars of Alexander,' 17
An alliterative poem translathig the De Preliis — The Alexander Legend —
Relation between Hunterian MS. and the alliterative poem— List of
singular agreements — Interjected passage from Maundeville's
Itinerariiini.
7. 'The Destruction of Troy,' 23
An alliterative poem translating Guido — The Troy Legend and Guido's
Troja — A MS. recension of 1354, copied after 1356 — Parallel rubrics
of Hunterian MS. Guido with those of alliterative poem — Date of the
poem.
CONTENTS
8. ' Titus and Vespasian ' ; Its Story, Sources, and Date, 30
( I ) Troy poem followed by Titus : an alliterative poem on the Siege of
Jerusalem. (2) Parallels of Titus, Troy, and Alexander — Midnight
council of war at Troy transferred to Jerusalem — Sieges of Tyre, Tenedos,
and Jerusalem. (3) Date indications : references to French wars of
Edward III. and to the Black Death.
9. ' Morte Arthure ' ; Its Sources, Contents, and Parallels, 40
( I ) An alliterative poem giving a free rendering of Geoffrey of Monmouth's
Brut — The story and its other sources. (2) Maundeville's Itinerarium
a source. (3) A chapter from sanctuary law. (4) Voeux du Paon
greatly used. (5) JTjVmj used — Shaving ambassadors ; dragon-banner;
arming of Vespasian and of Arthur. (6) Supplementary French sources.
(7) Use of Troy and Alexander — Long series of parallels. (8) Events
of 1346-64 as sources — Battle of Crecy — Sea-fight of Winchelsea —
Warfare in France — Battle near Adrianople — Allusion to 'apparent
heir' — Inference of a date circa 1364-5 — -Edward III. hero.
10. The Parlement of the Thre Ages, - - 67
(i) Special tests of unity of authorship and of sequence. (2) Plot of the
Parlement. (3) Its parallels, of identical lines, with Gawayne and the
Green Knight, Alexander, Troy, Titus, and Morte Arthure. (4) Main
sources of Parlement, including Brut and Voeux du Paon — Plot drawn
from Troy — Poetic value of the Parlement.
11. Huchown's Copy of 'Geoffrey of Monmouth,' - 85
Hunterian MS. U. 7. 25 probably the poet's own copy of ' Geoffrey '^Its
remarkable autograph rubrications.
12. Clues to 'Titus' and ' Wynnere and Wastoure,' 89
(i) The Dragon in Titus indicated by rubric of MS. ' Geoffrey.' (2) Plot
of Wynnere and Wastoure revealed by other rubrics — Belinus and
Brennius — Thomas of Erceldoun — Friars, Bishop, and Pope — King,
Judges, and Scharshill — Garter motto.
13. Huchown's Rubrications of 'Geoffrey,' - - 99
Autograph rubrications added to MS. , presumably by the alliterative poet —
Clues thus furnished, chiefly to Morte Arthure and Erkenwald — Text
of rubrications.
CONTENTS
PAGE
14. 'Erkenwald,' 'Awntyrs of Arthure,' and 'The Pearl,' 105
(l) Erkenwald a singular alliterative poem concerning a buried judge — Its
connection with the rubricalions of the MS. ' Geoffrey' — The years 482
and 1033 — The Judge and Dunwallo. (2) The plot of the rimed
alliterative Awntyrs drawn from Trentalle Sancti Gregorii — Same
source for Pearl — Stray notes on Cleanness and Patience — Tabulation
of relation betwixt Trentalle and Awntyrs, Pearl, and Erkenwald.
15. On System of Verse, Dialect, Characteristics, Date, and
Nationality, i r 7
(i) System of verse — 'Cadence' — Rime and alliteration combined. (2)
Dialect : an admixture. (3) Dates for the poems — Allusions to Garter
and Round Table. (4) Scottish indications present throughout, but
poems not, on the surface, assertively patriotic — Parallel and contrast
between them and the work of Barbour.
16. Diagram of the Argument, - 127
(i) The fifteen propositions considered proved — Diagrammatic chart
shewing colligation of poems. (2) Application of characteristics of
poems to Sir Hew — His armorial bearing.
17. Galleroun and Golagros — A Decisive Personal Clue, 131
Riming alliterative poem Golagros and Gawayne shewn to contain history
thinly veiled — Golagros King John of France — Gawayne the Black
Prince — Carcassonne — The white horse — Poitiers. Awntyrs also histori-
cal — Arthur Edward IH.; the crowned lady Queen Johanna of Scotland —
Galleroun Sir Robert of Erskine — Galleroun's arms and crest — His
companion, ' a freke on a Fresone,' identified with Sir Hew — Chivalry
and the Table Round — Heraldry in the poems.
18. Conclusions, 138
Propositions of the book now numbering eighteen — General estimate of
Huchown's achievement — The incomplete inscription HUGO DE [ ]
completed by the romantic revelation of the companion of Galleroun.
LIST OF FACSIMILES, ETC.
Didicerat enim linguam eorum,
From Ilunterian MS. of Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Crumpled fly-leaf,
Nota bene on 'Venna,'
Woseil note,
Fiery Dragon note,
Council of war by night,
Arthur's St. Mary shield,
Lucius Imperator,
All from Hunterian MS. of Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Diagram shewing connection of the poems.
Arms of Sir Hew of Eglintoun,
Seal of Sir Robert of Erskine, used in 1357-1359,
Erskine Crest,
87
to face p. 100
do. 102
do.
104
129
130
134
134
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE,' THE
ALLITERATIVE POET.
I. Identification Problems, Literary and Personal.
Once it wais the fashion to regard Barbour's Bruce as the beginning ot
Scottish poetry. The sources from which it sprang were little if at all
considered. One was content to pluck the bluebell without troubling
over the soil in which it grew. If it did occur to anybody to ponder for
a moment over the relation of Barbour to his time he was thought of as
a somewhat artless but faithful chronicler of the deeds of Bruce. Always
the estimate was of Barbour as historian. The conception of the literary
craftsman had scarcely dawned. But he was a literary craftsman of no
common order, well read in medieval Latinity and French. He was a
facile and spirited translator as well as an admirable exponent in Scots of
the manner of the French chanson de geste, and The Bruce has the rare
distinction of being in the same breath an invaluable and veracious history
and a triumph of Scottish literature.
Great though Barbour's merits are, however, they will not stand a
moment's comparison with those of his lofty contemporary, ' Huchown of
the Awle Ryale,' whose journey along the tangled pathway of verse probably
began somewhat earlier than Barbour's, and the quality of whose poetic
achievement far eclipses that of the Archdeacon of Aberdeen.
Huchown of the Awle Ryale probably soon after his poetic course began
made translations, and there are many interesting analogies of theme to those
believed to have been selected by Barbour, and known to have influenced
his entire work. The most interesting contrast is that while the later poet
selected an octosyllabic rime, the earlier adopted alliterative verse, depend-
2 ' HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch,
ing for its music on those stresses of repeated letters, or 'cadences' which
our wise King James VI. (translating 'cadence') was one day to classify as
' tumbling verse ' — the ' rim ram rof system, designated as northern by
Chaucer. A second contrast lies in the fact that as in the Bruce, Barbour
left translation and betook himself to the facts of Bruce's life for his theme,
Huchown went for his inspiration to history of another sort, to 'history'
as recorded in the Brut or Historia Britonum of Geoffrey of Monmouth,
making that the skeleton and frame for his Morte Arthure, which ranks so
high among the contributions to the great Arthurian cycle.
The analysis of Huchown's work, and the determination of its chrono-
logical order or limits, of necessity involve the discussion of the intricate
question of the poet's identity. Was Huchown of the Awle Ryale Sir
Hew of Eglintoun? What is Sir Hew's biography? And what bearing
has that biography on the understanding of the poetical work?
Not till the close of the eighteenth^ century was it proposed to identify
Sir Hew of Eglintoun with Huchown. The all-important words about the
poet are those of Wyntoun, the chronicler, whose Orygynale Cronykil was
written about 1420. In looking at the passage about Huchown it is needful
to remember that it was no formal biographical sketch or regular bibliography,
but a mere parenthesis in the question more engrossing to Wyntoun at the
time, whether Lucius Iberius was Emperor or only Procurator. Wyntoun,
after an enumeration of Arthur's conquests, obviously paraphrased from Morte
Arthure^ relates the demand of tribute from Arthur made by the Roman
Emperor Leo — the 'hawtane message,'
That writtyn in The Brwte is kend ;
And Huchown off the Awle Ryale
In till his Gest Hystorialk^
Has tretyd this mar cwnnandly
Than sufiycyand to pronowns am I.
( Wyntoun, v. 4292-6. )
^ Huchown was apparently not associated with Sir Hew by MacPherson editing Wyntoun
in 1795 (Wytiloun, ed. Laing, iii. p. 225). See note to the Huchown passage in
MacPherson's edition.
2 Wyntoun, v. 11. 4271-89.
•' That this denotes Morte Arthure is plain both from what goes before and from
what follows,
I] IDENTIFICATION PROBLEMS 3
At this point Wyntoun is struck by the thought that somebody may censure
him for referring to Leo and not to Lucius Iberius as Emperor. He there-
fore offers a gentle apology, and excuse of himself, for not following
Huchown and the Gest Historialle (that is, Morte Arthure) in this respect,
justifying his position by an appeal to authorities —
As in oure matere we precede,
Sum man may fall this buk to rede
Sail call the Autour to rekles,
Or argue perchans hys cunnandnes,
Syne Huchowne off the Awle Ryale
In till his Cest Hystoryalle
Cauld Lucius Hiberius empryoure
Quhen King off Brettane was Arthoure.
Huchowne bath and the Autore
Gyltles ar off gret errore —
because, as Wyntoun goes on to show, certain historians, Martinus Polonus,
Vincent of Beauvais, and Orosius
Cald noucht this Lucyus Empryoure
Quhen Kyng off Brettane was Arthoure ;
Bot off The Brwte the story sayis
That Lucius Hiberius in hys dayis
Wes of the hey state Procurature,
Nowthir cald Kyng, na Empryoure.
(Wyntoun, v. 4297-318.)
As the Brut had styled Lucius only Procurator, not Emperor, Wyntoun
pleaded that he himself was free from blame in not making an Emperor
of him :
Fra blame than is the Autore qwyte
As befor hym he fand to wryte ;
And men off gud discretyowne
Suld excuse and love Huchowne,
That cunnand was in literature.
He made the Gret Gest off Arthure
And the Awntyre off Gawane [One MS. reads Aventuris.]
The Pystyll als off Swete Swsane.
He wes curyws in hys style
Fayre off facund and subtille
And ay to plesans and delyte
Made in metyre mete his dyte,
4 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE [Ch.
Lytill or nowcht nevyrtheles
Waverand fra the suthfastnes.
Had he cald Lucyus Procuiatuie
Quhene that he cald hym Empyroure
That had mare grevyd the cadens '
Than had relevyd the sentens.
(Wynioun, v. 4321-36, compare vol. iii. appx. to preface, pp. xxvi-vii.)
Nothing in this passage, having regard to the conditions evoking it, need
incline us to suppose that the Great Gest of Arthure, the Awntyre of Gawane,
and the Pistil of Susan were necessarily the entire volume of Huchown's
work. The list, brief as it is, has proved of immense service as grouping
three works of three sorts — historic, courtly-chivalric, and religious — in
three metres. Critics are now tolerably well united in the identification of
two of the poems named. The Pistil, a riming alliterative paraphrase of
the story of Susanna and the Elders, is free from all dubiety, and main-
tains its existence still under the name ascribed to it by Huchown. The
Great Gest of Arthure also is with a considerable measure of agreement,
short of unanimity, accepted as the important alliterative romance-history,
the Morte Arthure — that 'Gest of The Brut's old story,' which Wyntoun
knew right well. The prowess and the fates of Arthur he tells us were there
treated of 'curiously' by Huchown. All his fortunes, down to the tragic close,
Quhare he and hys Round Tabyll qwyte
Wes undone and discumfyte,
Huchown has tretyd curyously
In Gest of Broyttys auld story.
( Wyntoun, v. 4363-6. )
Upon the third poem mentioned by Wyntoun, The Awntyre of Gawane,
there are conflicting judgments. The great and learned scholar in record
and romance, Sir Frederick Madden, editing his magnificent text and
study of Syr Gawayne for the Bannatyne Club, thought it was the
' That Wyntoun by ' cadens ' means alliteration as opposed to rime seems certain from
Rolle of Hampole, ed. Horstman, ii. 345, wherein a piece of mingled prose and rime largely
alliterative is said to be a ' tretys in Cadence after the begynninge gif hit beo riht poynted
and Rymed in sum stude.' This important passage to which Prof. Carl Horstman kindly
directed me is quite in keeping with the antithesis made by Gower, Confessio Amantis
(ed. Macaulay, bk. iv., 1. 2414) 'of rime and of cadence,' and by Chaucer, House of Fame,
1. 623, 'In ryme or elles in cadence.' See note, chapter 15, sec. I, below.
i] 'THE GUDE SIR HEW 5
poem Gawayne and the Green Knight. My eminent friend, M. Amours,
editor of the admirable volume of Scottish Alliterative Poems (Scot. Text
Soc, 1897) considers that the Awntyre of Gawane was the poem called
the Awntyrs of Arthur, which contains powerful internal evidence of the
hand that shaped Morte Arthure. I am in the happy position of at least
accepting the completeness of M. Amours' proofs that the Awntyrs of
Arthur was Huchown's, although bound to dispute his argument against
Sir Hew of Eglintoun having been Huchown of the Awle Ryale.
Points for this identification are briefly (i) that the poems fall naturally
into Sir Hew's lifetime; (2) that as a brother-in-law of Robert the Steward,
afterwards Robert II., and a court official under David II. and Robert II.,
he might well acquire the familiar surname ' of the Awle Ryale ' (king's
or royal hall) ; and (3) that the poetic renown of this Sir Hew, as well
as the character of his work, is convincingly attested by Dunbar's Lament
for the Makaris, which, after naming the Englishmen, Chaucer, Lydgate,
and Gower, returns to tell of Hew of Eglintoun, Andrew of Wyntoun, and
a third Scotsman as also among the victims of Death.
He has done petuously devour.
The noble Chaucer of Makaris flouir
The Monk of Bery and Gower all thre
Timor mortis conturbat me.
The gude Sir Hew of Eglintoun
And eik Heryot and Wyntown
He has tane out of this countrie
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Various considerations have been advanced against the identification of the
good Sir Hew with Huchown. It has been urged that the poems from
their religious cast must have been written by an ecclesiastic. The reply
appears in the adjective ' the gude,' which tradition had, according to Dunbar,
associated with Sir Hew's name. Chiefly objection was taken that
Huchown, as a familiar diminutive, implied a quite subordinate rank and posi-
tion, and could never have been applied to a nobleman of Sir Hew's standing.
But a marriage contract ^ of a Scottish lord in 141 6 styles him 'Huchon
'^ Registrum Magni Sigilli, 1424-1513, No. 178, confirming and incorporating in 1430
a deed granted in 1416.
6 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
Fraser lord of the Lovvet.' There is a distinct body of proof (i) that
the name Huchown, the old Scottish equivalent of Hugo, was of French
origin, derived from Hugutio; (2) that in Scotland Hew and Huchown
were alternative vernacular forms from the end of the fourteenth to the
end of the fifteenth century; and (3) that ultimately Hew prevailed.
The Frasers of Lovat used the style Huchon in 1416, Huchoune in 1429,
but Hew in 147 1. The Campbells of Loudoun used the style Huchon
in 145 1, Huchone in 1454, but Hew in the sixteenth century. Historically
Huchown as a Christian name is a distinctively Scottish type receiving in the
north a measure of formal and official recognition not apparently shown in
English documents of the period. ^ The external evidence, although meagre,
is thus so distinct and consistent as to point to Sir Hew of Eglintoun
and to no other known personage. Moreover, there is abundant indication
internally that the author of the poems in question was a person of dignity,
at ease in all matters of knightly courtesy and demeanour, and able to
touch with authority on delicate questions of courtly precedence.
Another outstanding difficulty is the contrast of the poet's language with,
say, that of Barbour or Wyntoun. And there is contrast not less strong between
the tone adopted by Huchown and that of the other two towards England.
These contrasts have been held by some to be so great as to make
certain of the works impossible for a Scot. Indeed the latest theorists
have gone to the heroic extreme of actually claiming Huchown as English :
one placing the Awle Ryale at Oxford,^ the other announcing the discovery
of one 'Hugh the Bukberere' at Cambridge from 1353 to 1370, whose
having been a book porter, in so august a spot, perhaps satisfies the
intellect of his talented sponsor as a sufficient reason for advancing his
name in the poetic category.^ Many men, many minds ; there has been
^ For many references and a full discussion see chapter iv. of my Sir Hew of Eglintoun
in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, 1900-01.
^See Mr. Henry Bradley in Athenaeum of 22nd December, 1900, and my reply 01
I9lh January, 1901. In his rejoinder on 23rd February, 1901, Mr. Bradley appears to
admit his inability to produce evidence in support of his hypothesis. After this frank-
ness of course there is no more to say.
^ See report of Philological Society meeting (paper by Mr. Israel Gollancz) in
Athenaeum, 23rd November, 1901.
I] THE WORKS DEBATED 7
no end to the diversity of conclusions, critical, literary, and philological,
on the precise dialect of Huchown, and his actual poetical performance.
We are brought, back to these problems to acknowledge that the Huchown
poems, although admittedly containing innumerable signs of northern diction
and influence, are yet not in any known and normal Scottish dialect. On
the other hand who knows what was the dialect of English used in courtly
circles of Scotland under Robert the Bruce ? Such a consideration is
itself enough to show that the dialect is not the obstacle to Sir Hew of
Eglintoun which some have too hastily deemed. History, moreover, points
with pikestaff plainness to a Scot. Philologists despairingly point the other
way. When the philologist stands up against history he has a habit of
going to the wall.
To identify the poet is one problem, to settle what were his works is
another. Purely alliterative pieces claimed, directly and indirectly, for
Huchown before the present enquiry began, included
Morte Arthure (4346 lines), edited for the Early English Text Society,
1865; also by Mrs. M. M. Banks (Longmans), 1900:
Destruction of Troy (14,044 lines), also edited E.E.T.S., 1869-74:
Cleanness (181 2 lines). Patience (531 lines), also edited (E.E.T.S.) in
Early English Alliterative Poems, 1864.
Pieces in alliteration and rime similarly claimed include
Gawayne and the Green Knight (2530 lines), edited for the Bannatyne
Club in Sir Frederick Madden's Syr Gawayne, re-edited E.E.T.S.,
1864, and reprinted 1869, 1893, and 1897 :
Golagros and Gawayne (1362 lines), Awntyrs of Arthure (715
lines), Pistill of Susan (364 lines), all last edited by M. Amours
in Scottish Alliterative Poems for the Scottish Text Society,
1897:
The Pearl (121 2 lines), edited E.E.T.S., in Early English Alliterative
Poems, 1864; also by Mr. Israel GoUancz (Nutt, 1891).
Other purely alliterative poems now discussed include these : —
The Wars of Alexander (5677 lines), edited E.E.T.S., 1886:
Titus and Vespasian or The Sege of Jerusalem (1332 lines), edited by
Gustav Steffler (Marburg, 1891), usually cited within as Titus;
8 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
The Parkment of the Thre Ages (665 lines), Wynnerc and Wastoure
(503 lines), both edited for the Roxburghe Club, 1897 :
Erkemvald (352 lines) edited in Prof. Carl Horstman's Altenglische
Legenden, Neue Folge, Heilbronn, 1881.
Three or four other pieces, all short, should have been discussed also.
Only where the evidences appear direct and absolute have conclusions on
authorship been advanced here.
2. HuCHOWN AND SiR HeW.
There having been elsewhere ^ worked out a biographical calendar of the
life of Sir Hew of Eglintoun in detail, with full references, no more need
now be repeated than serves to present the salient outlines of the 'good
Sir Hew's' career. Sprung from an Ayrshire family, his nearest known
ancestor (supposed to have been his father, but possibly his grandfather),
Ralf of Eglintoun, owner of an estate near Irvine, submitted to Edward
I. at the outbreak of the war of Independence, but from 1297 until 1342
absolutely nothing has been found recorded of the laird of Eglintoun, or of
the youth of Hew. A relationship with the More family, specially connected
with the monastery of Sempringham in Lincolnshire, has been treated as
suggestive of a possible education in England, a feature of the first half
of fourteenth century Scotland far from uncommon. Of such an education
there is no direct evidence in Hew's case, but in the course of the present
researches ^ there has emerged, in fourteenth century manuscript, believed to
have been from Huchown's pen, not only the fact that the author of the
Huchown poems was deeply interested in hostages, but the remarkable hint
that he might himself have been a hostage in England and learned ' their
language and their manners ' — linguam eorum et mores — there. At no time
between 1279 and 1340 was such a thing in the least improbable, and if the
' In Sir Hew of Eglintoun above mentioned.
^ See chapter 1 1 below. This minor point for Huchown's problems w^s discovered
after Sir Hew of Eglintoun was in print,
2] SIR HEW OF EGLINTOUN 9
inference from the manuscript could be demonstrated to be historically a
fact, the long silence about Hew's parents and himself in childhood would
be accounted for, while at the same time the difficulty occasioned by the
English-ness of the Huchown poems in dialect and tone would simply
disappear. As it is, the hostage hypothesis can adduce for itself no single
ascertained fact, and its documentary base though most interesting, will
carry historically a quite different structure.
Of Hew's youth nothing is certain. His birth must have been prior to
1321, as he was not knighted until 1342, so that in the latter year he
must have attained at least twenty-one, the years of knighthood. But as
Ralf of Eglintoun, his ancestor, was not a knight, so that Hew did not
inherit his rank, he may well have been considerably over one and twenty
when he was dubbed by the hand of David II. while on the eve of setting
out on an ill-starred expedition into England.
Already in that year David had invaded England and burnt Penrith,
passing, no doubt, the poetic Tarn Wadling in course of his march.
Subsequently, a second time crossing the border, one of his invading
squadrons, including the newly made knights, fell into an ambush laid by
Robert of Ogle, with the result that amongst others the knight of Eglintoun
was captured.
On bathe the halfEs slane war men ;
Bot the knychtis the wers had then
For thare folk vencust ware ilkane,
And fyve knychtis in fycht ware tana,
Stwart, Eglyntown and Cragy,
Boyde and Fowlartown. Thir worthy
Ogill has had till his presowne,
And syne delyveryd thame for rawnsoune.
{iVyntoun, viii, 6003-10.)
Sir Hew makes his first appearance in the business records of Scotland
in 1347, when he received a grant of a 'relief (a feudal casualty or
perquisite) from Robert the Steward, nephew of the King and grandson
of Robert the Bruce. In 1348 a charter shews that he was then married
to Agnes More, daughter of the late Chamberlain of Scotland, Sir Reginald
More. Throughout his whole public career Sir Hew (always styled ' Hugo '
in Latin deeds relative to him, and once ' Mons. Hugh ' in a document in
B
lo 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
French) was associated with the Steward. The chief house of that family
was at Dundonald, and Eglintoun was the adjoining manor. Constantly Sir
Hew is found acting as a witness to charters and similar public viTitings by
the Steward. Both the Steward and Sir Hew are found in very frequent
attendance on the King. They of course followed the court.
Sir Hew not only does not appear to have been either a prisoner or
a hostage during the captivity of David H. after 1346, but public docu-
mentary references in 1347 and 1348 prove him to have been in Scotland
during that captivity. In 1358 he received safe conduct to go to England,
as he did again in the beginning of 1359. Associates of his from this
time onward were Sir Robert of Erskine and Sir Archibald of Douglas,
best known as Archibald the Grim, who, though usually thought of as a
soldier, was probably better known to his own time as a diplomatist and
judge. At London, in February 1359, Sir Robert of Erskine and Sir Hew
appended their signets in the absence of the Great Seal of Scotland to an
agreement relative to the liberation and ransom of David H., a prisoner in
England from 1346, when he had been captured at Durham.
In 1360 Sir Hew makes his appearance ^ as a Justiciar of Scotland along
with Sir Robert of Erskine effecting an agreement of assythment for slaughter
in a feud between the Drummonds and Menteiths.
Meanwhile Sir Hew's first wife must have died, and about 1360 he is
found married a second time — to Dame Egidia, a half-sister of Robert the
Steward, who granted to him and her an annual-rent of wax.
The year 1363 was eventful in the intrigue of Anglo-Scottish policy.
Towards the end of April Sir Hew had safe conduct to England and
Canterbury, and it is suggested that this visit had to do with . the great
tiltings held during the first five days of May in connection with St.
George's Festival and the Round Table of Edward III These celebrations
of the Order of the Garter were held at that time. There were also later
in the year special celebrations in honour of the fiftieth birthday of
Edward III., and Sir Robert of Erskine and Sir Hew were both in London.
David II. himself was there also, and on 27th November an agreement
' Book of MmUith, ii. 239.
2] SIR HEW OF EGLINTOUN ii
was reached between the two kings that, failing heirs-male of the body of
David, the King of England should succeed to the kingdom of Scotland.
Erskine was a party to this agreement : Sir Hew's position towards it is
not clear, but his knowledge of it must be assumed. The Scottish Parlia-
ment, on 4th March, 1364, refused to sanction the agreement. Erskine
was sent back to London to negotiate better terms, and a revised provisional
agreement was drawn up whereby, failing heirs-male of the body of David II.,
the throne of Scotland was to pass to a son of the King of England other
than the heir-apparent. The prince in view was Lionel, second son of
Edward III. David II., a pleasure-loving king, was from about 1358 on-
wards hand and glove with his brother-in-law, the English King. He did all
in his power in 1363 and 1364 to set aside the rights of the Steward of
Scotland as heir to the Scottish throne and to substitute Edward or one of
his children. Wyntoun naively hits off the situation :
The Kyng Davy in Yngland raid,
As offt tym in oys he had,
And at Lundoun play him wald he ;
For thare was rycht great specialte
Betwen hym and the Kyng Edward.
— Wyntoun, viii. 7047.
English policy and Scottish intrigue — for Scotland itself was reluctant —
were at work to effect a union in the future, for David II. had no lawful
child, and his second wife, Margaret of Logie, was no longer young. In
July, 1365, parliament at Perth sanctioned a treaty whereby Scotland
should aid England (if invaded) with 1000 men and England should aid
Scotland with 500.
Sir Hew from about 1366 held various offices as Bailie of Cunningham
and Chamberlain of Irvine — judgeships as deputy of the feudal lord, with
functions of administration accompanying — under the Steward, of whom he
was the trusted adviser. These offices were partly judicial, partly financial.
The burgh of Irvine lay near to both Dundonald and Eglintoun ; it was a
leading seaport of the West at that time, and the Steward is known to
have been a yachtsman fond of cruising on the Clyde.
Border treaty negotiation occupied Sir Hew in 1367. Early in 1368
12 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
he went to London. That summer he was legislating for the 'Out Isles'
and inspecting royal castles, as well as probably assisting the king in judicial
appeals. David II., in 1369, raised an action of divorce against Queen
Margaret, in connection with which Sir Hew's passage to France — and
probably to Rome or Avignon — between June, 1369, and January, 1370,
probably took place. A normal route to Rome in the fourteenth century
passed through Lucerne across Mount ' Godard ' into Lombardy, through
Corao, Milan, Pontremoli, Pietrasanta, Pisa, and Viterbo. (So Adam of
Usk^ travelled, and so journeyed King Arthur's invading army in Morte
Artkure.) Soon after Sir Hew's return the divorce was granted in Scotland
— in Lent, 1370. Margaret was maintaining her appeal in 1371 when David
II. died.
Under Queen Margaret's influence the Steward had been thrust back
from his rights. When she fell out with her husband the Steward was
restored to his uncle's friendship. On the death of David — though not
without a struggle, in which the promptness of success was due to Sir Robert
of Erskine — the Steward succeeded to the throne under the title of Robert
II. Huchown's life-long patron, friend, and kinsman by marriage now
reigned, and his possession of the royal confidence and regard was thence-
forward in constant evidence. After the coronation Sir Hew acted as one
of a very special privy council ^ de statu seu modo vivendi ipsiiis Regis et etiam
Hegine, concerning the management of the royal household — a function from
which a particular association of his name with the 'Awle Ryale,' or royal
palace, may readily have arisen.
The age was the heyday of chivalry, and a thousand signs shew that the
movement which had produced the Round Table in England was active in
Scotland too.* If Edward III. was fond of hawking,* Robert II. was
historically no less devoted to the chase ^ and fond of the sea.'' Perhaps it
may be lawful to argue ' Like king, like courtier.'
^ Adam of Usk, 72-73. From London to Rome the journey occupied 41 days.
^Acts Pari. Scot., i. 547. ^This is shewn in Trial by Combat, part vi.
*Adam Murimuth's Chronicon (Eng. Hist. Soc), 226.
^ Liber Pluscardensis, i. 311. ^ Exchequer Rolls, iii. 667, etc.
3] THE -AWLE RYALE' 13
Financially Sir Hew repeatedly appears as a man of means, from
whom his royal brother-in-law did not disdain to borrow. His capacity in
money matters, as well as his relationship to the king, no doubt influenced
his selection as an Auditor in Exchequer. And it is of peculiar interest to
find Archdeacon John Barbour as his colleague. The Stewart influence
favoured literature. Sir Hew and Barbour were called to Exchequer
office at one time. Barbour in 1373 was an auditor, and in 1374 clerk
of audit. The Bruce, written in 1376, contains alliterative quotations ^ from
The Destruction of Troy, one of the supposed Huchown poems.
Now, Sir Hew's day was drawing to its close. In June, 1376, he received
from Robert a grant of annual-rents in Ayrshire, with special license of mort-
main, that is, leave to settle them for religious purposes. There is reason to
believe that he made a will providing for masses to be said for his soul in
the Abbey of Kilwinning, an establishment adjacent to Eglintoun. Between
30th November, 1376, and 3rd February, 1377, Sir Hew died, and probably
was laid to rest in Kilwinning Abbey Choir, where at any rate masses
are recorded to have been long celebrated ibr the weal of his soul.
3. ' Off the Awle Ryale.'
The briefest recapitulation ^ must suffice to enunciate the proposition that
' the Awle Ryale ' of Wyntoun's odd reference is a vernacular shape of Aula
Regis, Regia, or Regalis, and that it was the Aula Regis or king's hall of
Scotland, which conferred the personal epithet in question. Auk, a hall,
appears in old law-French, and in the Huchown poems themselves such
phrases as ' roy reall,' ' dese rial),' and ' sete riall ' are in common use.
On the Continent, in England, and in Scotland the Aula Regis was from
an early date the great place of law, subdividing later into a variety of
'See my Jo/m Barbour, Poet and Translator (Kegan, Paul & Co., 1900), pp. lo, II.
^For details and proofs see my Sir Hew of Eglintoun, above referred to, chap. v.
The great importance in Scotland attached to the court institutions is strikingly brought
out by a document discovered by my friend Miss Mary Bateson in a Cambridge Corpus
Christi College MS. (C.C.C.C. 37) containing much regarding offices and functions. It
will shortly be edited by her.
14 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
administrative, financial, and legal jurisdictions. The High Steward held
lofty ceremonial authority there, and the Justiciars' place of session was by
metaphor of English law, ' as the king's hall ' — sicut aulam regiani. The
king sat in judgment there, and the king's justiciars sat for him. In Morte
Arthure (11. 524-5) the hall is 'the most royal place' of the Round Table.
In fourteenth and fifteenth century public documents of Scotland 'Aula
Regis,' ' Aula Regia,' ' Kingis Haw,' ' Kingis Hall ' has varied currency as a
place of royal dignity and law, with courtly and exchequer as well as judicial
functions. With each of these Sir Hew was in direct and sustained con-
nection. To each of these also the Huchown poems show a similarly
sustained series of relations.' To conjoin Huchown with Sir Hew and the
Awle Ryale with the Court of Scotland appears therefore not merely
reasonable; the facts constrain it.
4. Huchown's Poems : The Lines of Correlation.
Far nobler even than the fine problem of the poet's personal identification
is that of determining what his actual achievement was — what poems are
truly the product of his single superbly appointed pen. To prove unity
and correlation where others have failed, or denied, is the purpose of the
ensuing chapters. Others before now have argued on the question, but
despite the labours of many scholars the real power of the case for the
unity of Huchown's poetry has never been perceived, perhaps could not
be perceived so long as certain manuscript evidences remained unknown.
Resemblances of style and spirit, coincidences of line and phrase, and
analogies of alliteration have certainly received attention, but inquiry has
not developed a convincing critical basis of approach. For the first time
a process of colligation will be applied which claims (i) to associate these
'For instance, Morte Arthurt siifxs the ceremonial side, 11. 156, 208-9, 268, 3186-7;
the exchequer side, II. 425, 660-3; ^"'^ ^^ XegaX side, 113, 443-64, 665-72, 3140.
Gawayne is through and through a court poem. The Awntyrs of Arthure has both
ceremonial— 11. 440, 491, 635, 649-51— and law— 11. 339, 350, 387, 465-7, 597, 635, 646,
675-85 (cf. Sir Hew of Eglintoun, ch. v.). The Pistill, was it chosen because its
theme was a trial with a cross-examination ? A number of points in other poems are
brought out incidentally in course of this paper.
4] CORRELATION OF POEMS 15
resemblances and coincidences and analogies, with absolute proofs of
relation and indebtedness of substance and plot, of incident and phrase,
between poem and poem ; (2) to establish the sequence of certain members
of the series ; (3) to illustrate the repeated use of the same sources in
different parts ; (4) to trace the origins of many passages to the actual
manuscript the poet usedj and (5) even to point out in the poet's own
handwriting on the margins of his manuscript the primal adumbration of
future poetical concepts.
The argument affirms a clear sequence in four of the five poems first
dealt with, based not only on numberless passages of parallel, but on
passages which equally involve reminiscence and necessitate conclusions
of priority in production. To put an A B C case — let A be a certain
manuscript; B C D E F and G be poems of the first set; H be another
manuscript ; and I J K L M and N be poems of the second set. E and G are
historically assigned to Huchown : the rest are anonymous. The argument
affirms connection not only of D as directly dependent from C and of E as
directly dependent from D, but also of D E and F as clearly related to C
and B and to each other, as well as of F particularly with G. It affirms
that B and C were translations probably both made from manuscript A,
and that indubitably F rose directly out of C.
A in this diagrammatic statement is MS. T. 4. I : B, Alexander : C, Troy : D, Tilus :
E, Morte Arthure : F, Parlement : G, Gawayne : H, MS. U. 7- 25 : I, Wynnere and
Wastoure: J, Erkenwald: K, Awntyrs : L, Pearl: M, Cleanness: N, Patience.
Of the second set the argument afiEirms manuscript H with marginal
notes to be the centre. It affirms that C, D, E, F, and G of the first set
have direct relation to the margins of H. It affirms that of the second
set I, J, K, L, M, and N show numerous cross-relations with each other
and with the first set. It affirms that the plot of I, not a little of J, and
intimations in M are all explained by the margins of H. It affirms other
cross-links also, including the indebtedness of J, K, and L to the same
legend for their plots.
Such is the outline of the process of colligation to be seen detailed in
the following chapters. The numberless parallels impossible as mere coin-
cidences are equally impossible as plagiarisms by one or more poets from
l6 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
others. Again and again the grouping of sources and plots demonstrates
unity. A thousand threads start and meet and cross and unite again in
the mighty network, which is the proof of one man's authorship of these
twelve poems.
The bold suggestion to prove a sequence in certain of those poems
must begin with the admission that serious difficulty attaches to certain of
them. Huchown's performances fall into the categories of (i) sheer trans-
lation, (2) biblical stories expanded, (3) other religious and allegorical
pieces, and (4) historical or quasi-historical poems which are partially
adaptations of Latin and French originals added to and combined with
each other, but blending into what in sum is essentially new creative
effort Let it not be thought that these four categories represent a chrono-
logical process. Yet it wUl be maintained that two works falling into the
first category indubitably preceded two of the fourth, and that these again
were followed by one of the third. The two sheer translations in question,
which stand at the threshold of the interpretation of Huchown, are the
Wars of Alexander and the Destruction of Troy, and our scrutiny must
begin with the probable source of these.
5. HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I.
In the Hunterian Library of Glasgow University is contained a royal
octavo volume of about 340 folios of parchment written in one hand
(probably soon after 1356), and containing text filling 7 in. by 4J in. per
page of thirty-six lines. The scribe's name is indicated on fo. 126'' by a
red ink note — Nomen Scriptoris Ricardus plenus anioris : frampton. The
scribe himself wrote a table of contents on the verso of the fly-leaf:
In hoc volumine continentur libri qui subsequenter intitulantur videlicet
H Liber de historia destruccionis Trojane urbis editus per magistrum
Guidonem ludicem de Columpna Messana folio primo
I Liber de gestis magni Regis Alexandri tocius orbis Conquestoris
folio Cxxvij"
II Liber qui intitulatur Itinerarium domini Turpini Archiepiscopi Rauen-
sis de gestis magni Regis Karoli folio Clxxj"
S] HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I 17
II Liber domini Marci Pauli de Veneciis de condicionibus & consue-
tudinibus orientalium regionum fol Ciiij.'" xvij° Qui distinguitur in
tres libellos quorum primus sic incipit Tempore quo Baldewynus
&c folio Ciiij'* xviij" Secundus sic incipit In huius libri continencia
&c. folio CCxix" Tercius libellus sic Pars tercia libri nostri &c.
folio CCxliiij'"
H Liber fratris Odorici de foro Julij de ritubus & condicionibus Tur
coram & Tartarorum folio CClx°
II Liber qui intitulatur Itinerarium Johannis Maundeuille militis de
sancto Albano in Comitatu Hertford, de mirabilibus diversarum provin-
ciarum regionum & insularum Aceciam de diuersis legibus &
condicionibus sectis & linguis earundem folio CCiiij"* j°
The copy of Guido de Columpna's Historia destructionis Trojane Vrbis
bears to be a version or edition of 1354- The Maundeville's Itinerarium
contains in its text the date 1356. The Liber de gestis magni regis
Alexandri is a copy of the De Preliis Alexandri of the Archpriest Leo.
Between ff. 29'' and 30 a quaternion of six folios is missing from the MS.
A series of remarkable correspondences, of which the chief will be set
forth in future sections, led to the publication in the Athenaeum, on 12th
May and i6th June, 1900, of an essay on ' Huchown's (?) Codex,' in which
numerous proofs were advanced for the belief indicated by the title of
the paper. To that essay reference may be made for other particulars of
a manuscript which is assuredly of profound importance for the study of
certain alliterative poems.
6. ' The Wars of Alexander.'
Telling the wonderful tale of Alexander the Great — the story not of
authentic history, but of Egyptian romance — the Psendo-Callisthenes was a
Greek work full of marvels. It put into definite literary shape a mass of
the matter floating about in legend concerning a career which had much
to astonish and perplex the oriental mind. Afterwards the name oi Julius
Valerius became attached to a translation of that work into Latin, and yet
later a third work called the De Preliis Alexandri gained wide currency.
1 8 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
These two Latin books struck the fancy of Europe, and being diffused
everywhere, helped to create that ' matter ' of Alexander which was to
furnish a theme for minstrels innumerable. A vast literature grew up
extending itself to England and Scotland. The most outstanding contri-
bution to it in France was the Roman d'Alixandre by Lambert li Tors
and Alexandre de Bernay towards the close of the twelfth century, supple-
mented at the very beginning of the fourteenth century by the Vomx du
Paon of Jacques de Longuyon, and by later works which do not concern
the present object. Subsequently we shall have occasion to revert to the
Voeux du Paon. A rendering of the De Preliis, the alliterative Wars of
Alexander is a translation in a very strict sense, except for an introductory
passage in which the theme is proposed in lines noteworthy for their
variation from the rest of the poem in that alliterations of successive
lines are upon the same letter.
The story 1 is of the wizard Anectanabus, the exiled king of Egypt,
of his becoming the father of Alexander the Great by Olympias, wife of
Philip of Macedon, and thereafter of Alexander's own career. He grows
up skilled in all scholarly and soldierly accomplishments, and soon sets
out on that world-conquering march which, passing from Europe to Asia,
led to India, and placed him on a Babylonian throne. Just as the time
was reached for the final episode — the poisoning and death of the
Macedonian conqueror — the defective manuscript abruptly fails us in the
middle of the strange list of peoples whom his arms had subdued. In
the existing lines the bulk of the tale is duly narrated ; the marvels of
Alexander's marches are recorded with much spirit and dignity — his
adventures in the wilds by Euphrates and Tigris, in serpent-haunted
deserts and mountains, and in numberless battles with eastern peoples,
especially with Darius of Persia and Porus the Indian Prince. Nor less
1 On Lhe legend generally see Prof. Zacher's Pseudocallisthenes, 1867 ; M. Paul Myer's
great work Alexandre le Grand dans la Littirature Franfaise, Paris, 1886 ; Dr. Wallis
]iy\Age's History of Alexander the Great, 1889; Professor Dario Carraroli's La Leggenda di
Alessandro Magna, Mondovi, 1892 ; Professor George Saintsbury's Flourishing of Romance,
Edinburgh, 1897. The legend was well known in Scotland. See Wyntoun, especially
bk. iv. 1262.
6] MS. 'DE PRELUS' AND 'WARS OF ALEXANDER'
19
interesting are his gallant correspondence with the Queen of the Amazons
and his exchange of views on social philosophy with Dindimus, the
learned Brahmin.
A few words will recapitulate the singular proofs of direct association
between this alliterative poem and the rare, if not, as is at present
supposed, absolutely unique manuscript version of the De Preliis
Alexandri found in the MS. T. 4, i. of the Hunterian Library in
Glasgow University. In editing the alliterative Wars of Alexander
(hereinafter styled the Alexander) in 1886, Prof. Skeat remarked upon
the large number of variances between its terms and those of the
normal Latin texts of the De Preliis. There were unexplained forms of
names, discrepancies of the narrative, and peculiar additions to it, which,
while sometimes intelligible as idiosyncrasies of the translator, at other
times aroused question regarding the textual sources from which the
translator worked. Peculiarities included the mention of the name of
Anectanabus generally as Anec, Parthia as Panthy, Hellada as Elanda,
Cyrus as Cusys, Zephirus as Zephall, Ocean as Mocian, Ceres as Serenon.
These forms did not occur in the normal Latin texts. They all occur
in the Hunterian MS. among numerous other agreements where Prof.
Skeat had noted divergences from the current text. A list ^ follows :
Fo.
Hunterian MS.
T.
4, I.
'Wars OF Alex.' Line.
127-9
Anec
Anec passim
127
Artaxenses
Artaxenses 49
127
Panti
Panthy 87
127
Siches
Sychim 89
127
Bactria
Batary 93
128b
cursus
bounde (cursus). See Prof. Skeat's 427
note
130b
Sicilian!
Cecile 2103
130b
Ysamiam
Ysanna 2106
130b
Persopulus
muse
nuncupatur
in
qua sunt
Persopole 21 12
131
Abrandian,
Abandrante
Abandra 2131
13'
Biothiam
Wyothy 2150
131
Trigagantes
Tergarontes 2174
'For fuller particulars see my article entitled ' Ihtchown's (?) Codex ' in Athenaeum, 12th
May, 1900. Cf. Prof. Skeat's notes to Alexander throughout.
20
'HUCHOWN OP THE AWLE RVALE'
[Ch.
Fo.
HUNTERIAN
MS. T. 4, I.
' Wars of Alex,
131b
Zachora
Zacora
131b
Cetus
Sechus
131b
Cicisterus
Sicistrus
131b
Ilismon
Hismon
132
Clitomacus
Cletomaclius
132
Satrassageias
Strasageras
132b
Eschilus
Eschilus
132b
Domesten
Domystyne
132b
Serxes
Sexes
134
Sicilie
Sycile (for Cilicia)
134
Oriater
Oriathire
134
Elandam
Elanda (for Hellada)
134b
Appolomades
Appolomados
134b
Maciana
Mocian (for Ocean)
136b
Puphagonie
Siphagoyne
136b
Nostandi
Nostanda
137
Rodogoris
Rodogars
137b
Emulus
Emynelaus
137b
Struma
Strama
138
Anapo
Anepo
138b
Serxeri
Sexeres
140b
Cusis
Cusys (for Cyrus)
141b
Cusis
Cusus
142b
Byson
Besan
142b
Anabrasades
Anabras
i4Sb
Butrianca
Batriane
i4Sb
Zephilus
Zephall
147
Battriancis
Bactry
147
Addontrucay
Adanttrocay
147
mures magni et
(read ut as in sen-
[mys] as any mayn foxes
tence just following) vulpes
aves magni ut vultures
as vowtres
148
Exidraces
Exidraces
148b
Hemaur
Eumare
152
Ceienon, Cernoni [This capital C is
easily misread for S.]
Serenon (for Ceres)
154
Acrea
Acrea
157
Prescioca
Preciosa (for Prasiaca)
158
Rex Bebricorum
King of Bebrike
157
Seraptus
Caraptos (for Caratros)
159
Carator
Caratros
159b
162
Nabuzanda
Nabizanda
Line.
2179
2215
2234
2237
2251
2298
2348
2352
2361
2487
2512
2514
2529
2540
2759
2773
2819
287s
2884
295s
2994
3219
3326
3428
3428
3782
3800
3950
3927
3932
3945
4020
4103
4510
4720
5080
5151
5094
5337
5343
5613
6] 'WARS OF ALEXANDER' 21
Similarly the list of two-and-twenty kings whom Alexander walled up
with Gog and Magog coincides with the Hunterian MS. almost absolutely.
Here is the collection giving, first, the name in the MS., and, second,
that in the poem: i. Gog, Gogg; 2. Magog, Magogg; 3. Agethani,
Agekanyj 4. Mageen, Magen ; 5. Camaranani, Camour; 6. Chaconi,
Cacany; 7. Cleathar, Olaathere; 8. Appodinari, Appedanerej 9. Lumi,
Limy; 10. Rarisei, Raryfey ; 11. Bedeni, Bedwyn; 12. Camante de bello,
Clambertj 13. Almade, Almade; 14. Gamardi, Gamarody; 15. Anafifragi,
Anafrage; 16. (probably an alias for the fifteenth king) qui dicitur Rino-
cephali, Ser Najjy (?); 17. Tarbo, Tarbyn ; 18. Alanis, Alane; 19. Phileys,
Filies; 20. Artinei, Arteneus; 21. Martinei, Marthyney; 21. Saltarir, Saltary.
There are twenty-seven /awM in the alliterative poem, nineteen of which
correspond to divisions at the same points in the Hunterian MS. Not least
curious is the list of Alexander's conquests found in the Hunterian MS.,
fo. i62-i62b, though wanting in normal versions. It accounts for thirty names
of provinces found in the catalogue of tributary realms at the end of the
alliterative poem — those so indicated being here printed in italics :
Panthus et Medus Indus michi servit et Arabs
Asinus Cilicus quoque Mesopotania Persa
/talus Ebreus gens aspera Camaneorum :
Ethiopum gentes Macedonia Grecia Cyprum :
ffemineum regnum Libinus liberrimus Ysaurus
Affricus et Sardus Smuraus (?) Pamphilia Landus :
Effesim Curux locus simul et Philadelphus :
Maurus immundus populus ditissimus Monthoch'
Anglicus et Scotus Britonum quoque super caterina ;
Islandus Flandrus Coruealis et quoque Norguey :
Theodomicus ffrancus Guandalia Gallia tota
Ispannus sponte michi flexit nunc sua coUa
Romanus populus ferax et doctus in armis
Se michi supponunt {blankl sine crimine Rusci
Apulus et Colaber simul michi munera donat
Sinchus Yrtinus Hermenia barbarus ordo
Bulga[r]us Albanus venostus Dalmacus Ystir
Hungarus et Frigius Bacynt servicia Bosus.
Cun[c]ta michi subsunt, michi Jupiter imperat unus.^
' The foregoing list of peoples is not in the fifteenth century prints of the De Preliis,
nor is it in the edition of 1885 by Dr. Gustav Landgraf. Since first printing the list in
2 2 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
Comparison with the poem reveals one striking fact, viz., that of the
alliterative groups or pairs : (i) Flanders and France, (2) Guienne [Garnad]
and Greece, (3) Norway and Naverne, (4) Bayonne and Bordeaux, (5) Turkey
and Tartary, and (6) Pers and Pamphilia, all in the poem (11. 5656-77), only
the first and the last have both their members in the list. The other four are
in varying degree intrusions, not translations, thereby giving piquancy to the
recurrence of the whole six groups in the Morte Arthure (11. 30-46 and 572-604).
Thus, equally when he was truly translating and when he was amplifying his
text, the alliterative poet hit on combinations also found in the Morte Arthure.
Moreover, although one line in the Alexander poem reads
Ingland Itaile and Ynde and Ireland costis,
there is no mention of Scotland. The alliterative translator chose to retain
England in, thrust Ireland into, and exclude Scotland from the catalogue of
realms owing tribute to Alexander.
Finally, and perhaps of the most significant note, is an intrusion into the
text of the Alexander, perspicuously commented upon by Professor Skeat.
The normal Latin text of the De Preliis mentions certain rocks of adamant,
but the alliterative translation adds a feature of its own, viz., two lines
descriptive of the quality ascribed to those rocks of drawing nails out of
ship's bottoms.
If any Nave to it ne3e^ that naylid is with iryn
Then clevys it ay to the clife cairyg and othyre.
This proposition, as the learned professor acutely noted, though absent
from the Latin text of the De Preliis, was in Maundeville's Itinerarium.
The value of Professor Skeat's annotation was greatly enhanced when it
was pointed out that although in the Hunterian MS. of the De Preliis the
passage about the danger to ships from adamant rocks was absent also, the
Hunterian MS. included a copy of Maundeville's Itinerarium. These and other
reasons led to the proposition that the Hunterian codex must have been the
the Athenaeum I came upon a slightly different version of it in the Advocates' Library MS.
18.4.9 i" th^ poetical Historia Alexandri by Wilkinus of Spoleto, written in 1236. Regard-
ing this poem, M. Paul Meyer has been most courteous in referring me to sources of infor-
mation in addition to those specified in his Alexandre k Grand, tome second, p. 40.
1 This 3 or ' yok ' letter I have rendered as gh, y, g, or i, except in a few special
cases where the actual letter was necessary.
7] MS. 'GUIDO' AND 'DESTRUCTION OF TROY' 23
identical MS. used by the poet, more especially as further correspondences
scarcely less extraordinary were found when the copy, which the MS. contained
of the De Excidio Troje, was compared with the alliterative poem, the
Destruction of Troy.
7. ' The Destruction of Troy.'
Like the Alexander, the alliterative Destruction of Troy (henceforth
cited as the Troy) is a direct and ordinarily faithful translation. Just as
in the East there arose away from history altogether a legendary life of
Alexander, so in the East arose also ^ a story of Troy different from Homer's.
The blind father of bards had of course told the deathless story from
the Greek standpoint. This did not satisfy the craving of some minds
for the other side, and tfie strange books of Dares Phrygius and Dictys
Cretensis were produced which in some degree redressed the balance, and
so far traversed Homer's path as to exalt Hector at the expense of
Achilles, and attribute the stratagem of the horse and the fall of Troy
directly or indirectly to the treason of Antenor and Aeneas. These
Latin and revised versions passed widely forth ; Homer was unknown or
forgotten. A French trouvere, Benoit de Sainte More, wrote his Roman de
Troie from the Latin sources, and from that romance Guido de Columpna,
in the year 1287, made his Latin prose version which at once became a
popular history book in the literature of Europe. There was poetic vigour
in the prose unquestionably, and its rendering of that picturesque theme.
The batayle of Troy that was so stought,
took hold of Europe as even Dares and Dictys had never done. Thus
it came that Huchown's Troy was a product of Guido's Troja, the same
work as John Barbour also was soon to be translating, and as John
Lydgate, the monk of Bury, was to translate.
Guido's tale of Troy is fully rehearsed in the 14,044 lines of the alli-
terative translation. There are a good many signs of carelessness, perhaps
'An excellent sketch of the Troy Cycle in medieval literature is given by Dr. C. H.
A. Wager in his introduction to The Seege of Troye (New York, 1899), edited from MS.
Harl. 525, by him.
24 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
to be allotted equally to the translator and the scribes. Myrion, for
instance, is killed no fewer than four times in the course of the interminable
battles. The narrative rises and falls, at points showing full of sustained
vigour, elsewhere marching somewhat mechanically, but assuredly it has
many noble passages, and in general power of language and deftness of
epithet is on the merits ^ an entirely dignified and worthy rendering.
The rubrics or subdivisions of the poem proved in a striking pro-
portion of cases to be directly associated with the rubrics of the De
Excidio Troje contained in the Hunterian MS. These rubrics are, many of
them, very special, for an examination of a great number of copies of
Guido's book in the MSS. of the British Museum and the Bodleian Library
failed to disclose any single one which displayed any such measure of
consonance as that exhibited by the Hunterian MS.^
The correspondences are of the most thorough character, and the
following comparison of a large body of them will enable the critic to note
the differences as well as the resemblances. First, however, it is to be said
that the rendering of Guido used by the scribe was an Italian edition or
version by Johannulus de Borrezio in 1354, as appears from a colophon
on fo. 126.
u
"Et ego Johannolus \p expuncted and u substituted] de Borrezio Cancellarius ecclesie
Sancti Victoris de Arsizate Mediolanen. dioc. hoc presens opus in Beate Agnetis festo
finivi Anno domini millesimo tricentesimo quinquagesimo quarto pontificatus sanctissimi
patris et domini nostri domini Innocencii Pape vi. anno secundo Et cicius enim comple-
vissem nisi quia in Reverendissimi in Xpo. patris et domini mei domini Guill'mi de
Pusterla permissione divina sancte sedis Constantinopolitan. patriarche cujus familiaris
minimus existo negociis plurimum vacavi utpote sibi nee inmerito perpetim obligatus.
This text has very many rubrics of its own. Some of those quoted below
are common to other manuscripts as well. Many of them are believed to
be peculiar to Borrezio's version, of which meantime no other copy appears
to be known.
' I gladly pay homage to the critical taste of my friend, Mr. J. T. T. Brown, in long
ago directing me to this alliterative work as containing much high-class poetry despite
the adverse verdicts of critics, and as being Huchown's handiwork.
^Further particulars are given in ' Huchown's (?) CoAt^,' Athenaeum, i6th June, 1900,
7]
'DESTRUCTION OF TROY'
25
HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I.
Folio.
I Incipit prologus . . .
lb Explicit prologus. Incipit liber de
casu Troje primo de Peleo rege
Thessalie inducente Jasonem . . .
ad vellus aureum adquirendum.
4 Incipit liber secundus de . . . Grecis
applicatis in pertinenciis Troje. . . .
6 [Passage corresponding to 1. 373.]
Qualiter Rex Oetes honorifice Jas-
onem . . . recepit et qualiter Medea
. . . amore Jasonis fiiit capta.
8 Sicut primo loquitur Jasoni Medea.
8 Responsio Jasonis ad verba Medee.
8b Alia verba Medee ad Jasonem.
8b Alia responsio Jasonis ad Medeam.
9 Qualiter Jason et Medea. . . .
9 Incipit liber tercius. . , .
1 1 Res et ipsarum series date Jasoni per
Medeam pro aureo vellere acquir-
endo. . . .
14b Incipit liber quartus.
15 Qualiter Grecorum exercitus Jasonis
et Herculis Troje . . . civitatem
illam primo diruerunt.
15b Verba Herculis. . . .
18 Qualiter Greci . . . intrant ipsam
urbem.
l8b . . . Exionam Regis Laumedonte
filiam. . . .
19b De Priamo ... & filiis. . . .
2ib De constructione mirabili magni
Ylion. . . .
22b Qualiter Rex Priamus raisit Anthen-
orum legatum ad Grecos pro
Exiona. . . .
24b . . . Incipit liber vj"=
25 Qualiter rex Priamus . . , consulit
suam mittere gentem . . . pro
. . . Grecorum offensione (1. 2095).
25b Quomodo Priamus hortatur . . . filios.
Alliterative 'Destruction of Troy.'
Line.
Prologue. I
Explicit Prologue. 98
Here begynnes the ffirst Boke. How 99
Kyng Pelleus exit Jason to get the
files of Golde.
[Lost in text, but supplied from con-
tents, p. v.] The ii** boke how
the Grekes toke lond upon Troy.
Cawse of the first debate.
Jason. 373
The crafte of Medea. 402
The soden bote love of Medea. 449
Medea.
The onsuare of Jason to Medea.
Medea.
The onsuare of Jason to Medea.
Medea.
Third Boke ; how Medea enformed
Jason to get the fiflese of golde.
Here begynneth the fourth boke. Of
the dystrucion of the first Troy by
Ercules and Jason.
S2I
560
577
637
665
Ercules.
1121
The takyng of the towne.
1353
Exiona the Kinges doughter Lamy-
1385
don.
Off King Pryam and his children.
1461
The makyng of Ylion.
1629
How Antenor went on message to 1780
the Grekys.
Here begynnes the Sext Boke : How 2047
Kyng Priam toke counsell to Werre
on the Grekys.
Off counsell of the Kynges children. 2157
26
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I.
Folio.
26 Responsio Hectoris ad Priamum
patrem suum et quomodo pru-
denter suum dedit consilium.
27 Consilium Paridis. . . .
28 Consilium Deyphobi. . . .
28b Consilium Eleni. . . .
28b . , . Quid consulit Troiolus. , . .
29 Quomodo Rex Priamus jubet Paridi
. . . ut pergat ... in Grecia. . . .
29b Sicut loquitur Pethiteus.
[This name is corrupt in many MSS.]
30 Qualiter Cassandra regis Priami filia
condolet. . . .
32 Qualiter Paris primo vidit Helenam
Alliterative 'Destruction of Troy.
Line.
The onsuare and the counsell of 2207
Ector to Priam his flfader.
The counsell of Paris Alexaunder. 2306
The counsell of Deffebus. 2449
The counsell of Elinus the Bysshop. 2478
The counsell of Troylus. 2523
The ordinaunse for Paris into Grese. 2561
The counsell of Protheus.
2619
The sorow of Cassandra the Kyngys 2676
doughter.
The fairnes of Elan. 3019
3Sb Qualiter Helena. . . .
36b De Grecis inchoantibus inire consilia
. . . de raptu Helene . . . incipit
liber viij"^
37 Qualiter Agamenon consolatur Mene-
laum. . . .
37b . . . Pollux et Castor paraverunt
naufiagium. . . .
38 Descripcio Grecorum qui fiierunt
super Trojam (1. 3732).
40b De numero navium quas Greci dux-
erunt . . . liber viiij"=
4 1 Exhortacio Agamenonis contra Grecos
et primo voluit habere responsum
a deo AppoUinis in insula Delphon
liber x"=
42b Qualiter ydolatria in mundo primo
venit.
44b Responsum datum Achilli.
47b Qualiter Agamenon Rex locutus est
Grecis de mittendo nuncios Regi
Priamo antequam plus procedant
Li. xij''^
sob De Grecis mittentibus Achillem et
Thelaphum pro victualibus eorum
exercitui opportunis. Li. xiij"^
Elan. 3385
Eght Boke. Of the counsell of the 3532
Grekys ffor recoveryng of Elayne.
The counsell of Agamynon to Mene- 3584
lay.
The drownyng of Pollux and Castor. 3673
The shape and colour of the Kynges 3741
of Grece.
Neynt Boke. Of the Nowmber of 4029
Shippes and the Navy of the
Grekes.
Tent Boke. How the Grekes sent 4140
unto Delphon to have onsware of
a God of thayre Journay.
Off Beall the god and Belsabub.
4332
The answare of AppoUo to Achilles. 4475
xiith Boke. How the Grekys sent 4783
two Kinges in message to Kyng
Priam for restitucion of thaire
harme.
xiij Boke. How the Grekys sent 5152
Achilles and Thelefon for vitaill
for the Ost into Messam.
7]
■DESTRUCTION OF TROY'
27
HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I.
Folio.
53 Descripcio illorum qui in subsidiutn
venere Trojanorum.
54b Quomodo Diomedes quedam discreta
verba profiidit de processu.
58b De secundo bello. ... Li. xv"=
66b De tercio bello . . . Lib. xvi"^
68b De quarto bello ... Li. xvij"'
70b De quinto bello.
Li. xviij"s
72 De sexto bello ... Li. xviiij"^
74 Nota de inconstancia mulierum.
[This does not seem to be in the
scribe's hand, but is a coeval
owner's ejaculation.]
75b De septimo bello . . . liber vice-
simus.
77b Hie fuit preliatum per xij dies con-
tinue sequentes.
78 De viij" bello.
[This is not numbered as a book,
and a failure, probably due to this,
occurs in the consecutiveness,
there being no number xxij in
the Latin.]
81 Qualiter Agamenon mortuo Hectore
jussit majores Grecorum ad se
venire et quomodo loquitur eisdem,
82 De nono bello . . . liber xxiij"^
83 Qualiter ille metuendus Achilles fuit
allaqueatus amore.
86 De decimo bello ... Li. xxvi"=
[begins Induciis igitur datis\.
87b De undecimo bello [begins Sequenti
vera die Trojane\,
Alliterative 'Destruction of Troy.'
Line.
Of the Kynges that come to Troy 5432
for socur of Priam.
The Counsell of Dyamede to stirre to 559°
the cite.
XV Boke. Of the Ordinaunce of the 6065
Troiens to the secund batell.
xvi Boke. Of a trew takyn tvifo 7125
moneths, and of the third batell.
xvij Boke. Of the Counsell of the 734^
Grekes for the Dethe of Ector
and the iiij" batell.
xviij'- Boke of the fyvet batell in the 7553
felde.
xix Boke. Of the vi. batell. 7811
[LI. 8055-67, paragraph on female
fickleness.]
The XX Boke. Of the vij"' Batell 8183
and Skarmiches. . . .
Here thai faght tvifelve dayes to- 8403
gedur.
[This is an exceedingly special sub-
rubric]
The xxi Boke. Of the viij Batell. 8421
[From this point the numbering of
the translation and the Latin ceases
to correspond.]
The counsall of Agamenon after the 8826
dethe of Ector.
Here begynneth the xxij Boke : the 897 1
ellevynt Batell of the Cite.
The solempnite of the obit of Ector 9089
and how Achilles fell in the
momurdotes for luff.
Here begynnys the xxiij Boke : of 9400
the xij and xiij batell.
xxiiij Boke : Of the xiiij and xv
batell of the Cite. 9628
28
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I. Alliterative 'Desteuction of Troy.'
Folio. Line.
88 De duodecimo bello [begins Sequenti
vera die inter. "l The answare of Achilles to Ulyxes
88b Qualiter Achilles respondit Ulixi. the Kyng. 9743
89b De tercio decimo bello . . . Lib.
xxvij"^
89b De quarto decimo bello.
gob De quinto decimo bello.
[The Latin rubrics skip from the
fifteenth to the eighteenth battle.
The translating poet therefore is
somewhat nonplussed.]
91b De xviij" bello [begins Hiis igitur
diebus elapsis letate,'\
92b De xviiij bello . . . [begins Belli tempus
hiis\,
95 De xx" bello [begins Sextodecimo igitur
die,'\
96b . . , liber xxviij''^ (1. 10790).
97 De vicesimo primo bello (1. 10863)
[begins Ad jussum\.
97b De vicesimo secundo bello (1. 10913)
[begins Pantasiled].
98b De vicesimo tercio bello et de morte
Pantasilee per Pirrum interfecte
(1. 1 1079) [begins Superuenientibus\.
99 De tractatu seu prodicione Civitatis
Troje Incipit liber xxviiij"=
104 De capcione et destruccione Troje et de
morte Regis Priami et Polisene ejus
filie. Li. xxxii^
107 Qualiter Agamenon loquitur Grecis . . .
XXV Boke : Off the Sextene and the
xvij batell. 9864
Of xviij and the xix batell. 9^75
Here thai faght vij dayes togedur,
that ys not recont : no batell. loi 16
The xxvi Boke. Of the xviij batell
of the Cite. ioi33
[In this important rubric the editors
of the poem have, as they explain
in a marginal note, printed " (xx) "
as the number of the battle. Their
note is, however, distinct (and
accords with the fact of the MS.
of the Destruction) in stating that
the "MS. has xviii."]
The dethe of Troilus by Achilles 10252
trayturly slayne in the xxj batell.
Off the xx" batell. 10629
[Again editors print ' (xxii) ' but note
' MS. has xx'V]
The xxvij Boke. Of xxj Batell . . . 10788
The xxij and xxiij batell of the Cite. 10950
Here they faght a monethe. 11079
The deth of Pantasilia by Pirrus. 1 1 103
The xxviij Boke : Of the Counsell of
Eneas and Antenor. Of the treason
of the Cite.
The ordinaunce of the trybute. 1 1717
The counsell of the Grekes.
12015
7]
'DESTRUCTION OF TROY'
29
Folio.
lo8b
115b
117
iigh
122b
HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I.
Qimliter destructa urbe Troje Thela-
monius Ajax loquitur contra Vlixem
occasione Paladii liber tricesimus
primus.
Sequitur quomodo mortuus est Aga-
menon liber xxxij"^
[Numbering ot books tallies once more.
As to a confusion in the numbering
of the books in the alliterative poem,
see note by editors (pref. liii-iv) on
displacement of two sets of folios of
the MS.].
Qualiter Horrestes . . . patris . . .
necem . . . vindicavit Liber tricesi-
mus tercius.
Sequitur narracio de reditu Ulixis et
quid ei in redeundo contingit.
De reditu Pirri etejus prospero successu
ac de raorte sua sequitur narracio Lib.
xxxiiij"'
Alliterative ' Destruction of Troy.'
Line.
The XXX Boke : Of stryfe of Thela- 12165
mon and Ulixes and of the dethe of
Thelamon.
The xxxij Boke : Of the Lesyng that 12552
was made to Kyng Nawle, and of
dethe of his son Palomydon.
Off the dethe of Agamynon and the
exile of Dyamede by there wyvys 12727
for this lettur.
Here begynnes the xxxiij Boke. How 12937
Oreste toke vengianse for his fader
dethe.
The xxxiiij Boke. How hit happit 13 106
Ulixes aftur the sege.
The xxxv Boke : Of Pyrrus and of 13388
his passyng from Troy.
Off the coronyng of Pyrrus and of 13635
his dethe.
The xxxvi Boke. Of the dethe of 13802
Ulixes by his son.
Qualiter Ulixes mortuus est subse
quenter enarratur : liber xxxv"!^
Textually, as the various versions of Guide's Historia exhibit few crucial
tests for identification of their distinctions, it is not easy to devise methods
of decisive collation. Yet a few very cogent instances can be adduced.
Besides the mere facts of agreement in so many rubrics, not found in any
print or MS. of Guido accessible to me, there is specially the agreement in
the numbering of the books above illustrated — a matter on which there is
considerable divergence in different texts. In the list of kings whom
Hector slew, the poem put ' Archilocus ' (or Arcesilaus) first. All the prints,
and the greater number of the manuscripts of Guido, put him fourth
or fifth in the list, which comes ultimately from Dares Phrygius (Teubner,
1873, praef. ix.). But the Hunterian Guido (fo. 125), like the poem
(1. 14,008) places Archilocus first. There are, on the other hand, such
elements as the presence of 'Beelzebub' (1.- 4357) in the poem, where the
Hunterian MS. (fo. 43) has Beelin Aback Bel i. deus Zabuch i. musca hoc
3o 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
deus muscarum — though printed editions have ' Beelzebub ' — which make
it possible that the poet-translator had access to more copies than one of
this widely current work. Although the very extraordinary correspondences
exhibited might not suffice to constitute the proof single-handed, they yet
when placed in conjunction with the similar and still more striking corre-
spondences of the Alexander with the same Hunterian MS. enable us to
start with a presumption little short of absolute that the translator of the
Alexander and the translator of the Troy, whether the same person or
not, at any rate used the same manuscript — a manuscript the earliest
possible date of which is 1356, the year in which the Itinerarium of
Maundeville is, in the text of the MS. itself, ^ declared to have been written.
How the presumption of two translations from the same manu-
script stands the test of being carried a degree further to the inference
that the user of the MS. was the maker of both translations will best
appear from the analysis now to be undertaken of certain poems with the
primary view of determining their relation and order of date.^ The Troy,
there is good reason to maintain,^ was quoted in Scotland by Barbour
in 1376.
8. 'Titus and Vespasian,' Its Story, Sources, and Date.
(i) The Story and General Sources.
Indications, which may be left to the critic to accept or reject as he
pleases, suggest with some distinctness that the Troy was not written till
after the Alexander. While wishing to be taken as comparatively tentative
my opinion of the priority of the Alexander to the Troy, I advance as
' A great mystery hangs over Maundeville. This must have been an early copy : it
differs from other texts, and will reward study by some lover of the charming Itinerary.
Sir Hew of Eglintoun was in London in 1358. His getting the MS. in that year is not
beyond the bounds of legitimate speculation.
'It is proper to recall the fact that in editing the Troy Mr. Panton and Mr. David
Donaldson argued very forcefiiUy that its translator and the author of Morte Arthure
were one.
' Cf. 7roy, 12969-74, 2734-8, 1056-64, and Barbour's Bruce, v. 1-13, xvi. 63-71, and
Buik of Alexander, p. 107, 11. I-I2, p. 248, 11. 16-26. See John Barbour, Poet and
Translator, 9-13.
8] 'TITUS AND VESPASIAN'; THE STORY 31
an absolute and unhesitating conclusion the view that the Troy was
followed by a poem variously known as the Titus and Vespasian or as
The Sege of Jerusalem, or as the Warris of the Jewis — henceforward cited
as Titus.
Although critics heretofore have busied themselves with the question of
the authorship of the Troy, while some have supposed it to date after
Morte Arthure, while some have given the Troy to Huchown, and while
others have refused it, no one has yet set forward^ the great fact of the
connection between these two alliterative poems constituted by a third
alliterative poem, the Titus, whose authorship till now has not been
claimed. It is the key to Morte Arthure, the link which binds it in
indissoluble association with the Troy, and determines finally the order of
production.
The Titus found in one MS. in company with a poem in the precise
metre of the Pistill of Susan contains in the only available printed text
1332 lines, not rimed but alliterative, and has for its theme the miraculous
cures of Titus and Vespasian and the siege and overthrow of Jerusalem.
Founded as regards its earlier incidents in some degree on blended features
of early versions of the singular legend of St. Veronica, such as the Latin
Vindicta Salvatoris and the French Destruction de Jerusalem, but largely
striking out new lines for itself, the poem soon discloses its direct connection
with the Legenda Aurea, many passages of which it freely adapts, though
with insertions from undiscovered sources and contributions evidently quite
original. Another work clearly drawn upon was the Bellum ludaicum of
Josephus, no doubt, as Herr F. Kopka has shown,^ in the version of
Hegesippus. The story tells, at the opening, how Titus is afflicted with a
cancer and his father with a settlement of wasps in his nose, from which
he took his name Waspasian ! Titus, eager in his inquiry after physicians,
is told by Nathan, a Jew, of the wondrous life of a prophet born in
Bethlehem who wrought many a miracle, and who at last, betrayed by
Judas, was put to death by Pilate, the provost of Rome. Titus, touched
' The proposition was made in my article ' Huchown' (part I. ) in Athenaeum, i June 1901
2 The Destruction of Jerusalem : ein mittelenglisches alliterierendes Gedicht. Einkitung.
Itiaugural Dissertation. Breslau 1887.
32 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
by what he hears, breaks out with a sudden expression of sympathy for
Christ and censure of His condemnation. Before the words are wholly
said the cancer vanishes. The gratefully joyous Titus turns Christian and
is baptised. Vespasian learns of the miraculous healing, and vows that if
he too shall be cured he will give his life for Christ. Messengers are sent
' that time Peter was Pope and preached in Rome,' and from Palestine
there comes Saint Veronica with the veil on which the Saviour's face had
left its sacred imprint. When this precious relic reaches the temple at
Rome the idols of the heathen faith yet prevalent there crash in pieces.
Saint Peter touched with the veil the person of the illustrious patient,
'the wasps went away and all the woe after,' and the glad Vespasian
christens the veil after Veronica and calls it the Vernacle. The scene
now shifts : Romans set sail to make war on the Jews ; the holy city is
besieged; surrender is demanded in vain, and Vespasian, foiled to some
extent by the warlike ingenuity of Josephus, strives long and unsuccessfully
to take Jerusalem. Meanwhile Nero dies; after Galba, Otho, and Vitellius,
at last Vespasian is chosen successor. He departs for Rome and leaves
the siege to be prosecuted by Titus. Famine and distress accelerate that
task; eleven hundred thousand Jews die by sword and hunger; the walls
are stormed; and the stubborn defenders starved till their stomachs, as the
poet expressively puts it, are ' no greater than a greyhound,' lay down their
arms, and doffing their armour, yield their gates ' in their bare shirts.' The
jewelled splendours of Solomon's sanctuary are carried away, and as a
Jew had sold Christ 'for thirty pennies in a poke,' now the prisoners of
Titus, bound together with ropes, were sold — ' thirty Jews in a thrum ' —
at a penny for thirty. And then the long siege was raised, and the victors
'went singing away' homeward to Rome, as ends our poet — 'Now rede us
our Lord.'
(2) The 'Titus,' the 'Troy,' and the 'Alexander.'
This remarkable Titus, in parts of it not taken from any of the Latin
or French sources above named, includes more than one passage and
not a few single lines which it owes directly to the Troy. Not only so ; in
some of those passages and lines there is a double association, for they
8]
'TITUS'; ITS PARALLELS
33
connect with the Alexander also. In particular the language descriptive
of the fall and destruction of Jerusalem in the Titus will be shewn to be
in part derived from an episode of destruction in the Troy, and more
remotely from certain siege descriptions in the Alexander. Premising that
the primary thesis is that the Titus is deeply indebted to the Troy let
us proceed to the scrutiny of parallels.
Akx.
555
Troy
5787
Troy
1984
Troy
43«2
Troy
8719
8679
1347
9611
Troy
1902
12490
Alex.
1151
Troy
1551
Troy
5825
Troy
7619
12496
Cloudis clenly to-cleve clatird
unfaire.
Cloudis with the clamour
claterit above.
A rak and a royde wynde
rose in hor saile.
Both mawhounus and mau-
mettes myrtild in peces.
Latin has ydolum . . . esset
in minutatim abscissum.
Of wepyng and wayle and
wryngyng of hondes.
. . . wringyng of hond :
The dit and the dyn was
dole to behold.
Of the dite and the dyn was
dole to beholde.
Myche weping and waile
wringyng of hond.
Hade bir at his bake and
the bankes levyt.
Hadyn bir at there backe
and the bonke levyt.
Tilded full of torretes and
toures of defence.
Mony toures up tild the toune
to defende.
. . . the might and the
mayn . . .
A thondir with a thicke rayn
thrublit in the skewes.
A thoner and a thicke rayne
thrublet in the skewes.
Latin has in multa copia
pluviarum ether in toni-
truorum aggregacionibus.
Titus.
54 Cloudes clateren gon as they cleve
wolde.
54 The racke myde a rede wynde roos
in the myddel.
233 The mahomid and the mametes to-
mortled to peces.
245-6 Than was wepyng and wo and
wryngyng of hondis
With loude dyn and dit for doil of
hym one.
288 Hadde byr at the bake and the bonke
lefte.
310 With many a toret and tour that toun
to defende.
505 Bothe the myght and the mayn.
530 As thonder and thicke rayn throwa-
land in skyes.
34
■HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Troy 1 195 Speiresuntosprottessprongen
ouer hedes.
Cf. 5783, 6406, 7248, 9666,
1 1022.
Alex. 790 Al to spryngis in sprotis
speres . . .
Alex. 786 ... spakly with speres. . . .
Alex. 789 Sone into sheverand shidez
shaftez tobristen.
Awntyrs 501
Alex. 4766
Troy 9406
Troy 3170
Troy 1 1 141
Alex. 1395
Alex. 1390
Troy. 4739-41
Alex. 1391
Alex. 1396
Troy 1647
Alex. 1 42 1
Alex. 3046
Schaftis of schene wode thay
scheverede in schides.
As gotis out of guttars in
golanand wedres.
He gird hym thurgh the
guttes with a grym spere.
Chaundelers fiill chefe and
charbokill stones.
All the bent of that birr
blody beronnen.
Kenely thai kepe with
castyng of stanes.
Archers with arowes of atter
envenmonyd.
Schottyn up sharply at the
schene wallis
With glayves and gomes
girdyn doun toures
Dryven up dartes, gyffen
depe woundes.
Latin has crebris sagittis em-
issis letaliter vulnerant,
Shoton up sharply at salkez
on the walles.
Dryves dartez at our dukez
deply thaim wounden.
In cornals by course clustret
oloft.
And be the kernels wer kest.
Of arows and of alblastres
that all the ayre blynded.
Titiis.
551 Spakly her speres on sprotes they
3eden.
552 Scheldes at schidwod on scheldres to
eleven.
558 And goutes from golde wede as
goteres they runne.
564 Girdeth out the guttes with grounden
speres.
588 Chair and chaundelers and charbokel
stones.
S97 So was the bent ouer brad blody
byranne.
619 Kepten kenly with caste the kernels
alofte.
652 And arwes arwely with attyr en-
venymyd.
664
835
' Schoten up scharply to the schene
walles.
Dryven dartes a, doun geven depe
woundes.
673 Kesten at the kernels clustered toures.
665 With arwes and arblastes and alle
that harme myght.
833 With arwes and arblastes and archers
manye.
8]
'TITUS' AND THE 'TROY'
35
To interrupt a little the monotony of parallel will serve a good purpose
if it accentuates the next pair of passages. In the Troy the Greek camp
by night is pictured in words which alike in their modicum of adherence
to the Latin text they follow, and in their more notable deviations from
it, evince a mastery of poetic art and natural description. One feels that
the translator's night was more real than Guido's : yet the passage as a
whole is not the alliterative poet's : it gives us Guido plus his translator.
Accordingly, when we find the same description in the Titus, and at the
end of it a further line from another part of the Troy, where that line is
indubitably translation, it ceases to be a matter of argument and establishes
itself as ascertained fact that without the previous Troy we could have had
no Titus.
Troy 7348-57. Titus 722-31.
When the day ouerdrogh and the derk By that was the day done, dymned the skyes,
entrid,
The sternes full stithly starand oloft, Merked montaynes and mores aboute,
All merknet the mountens and mores
aboute,
The fowles there fethers foldyn togedur, Foules fallen to fote and her fethres rusken,
Nighlwacche for to wake, waits to blow ;
Tore fyres in the tenttes tendlis oloft.
All the gret of the Grekes gedrit horn
somyn,
Kynges and knyghtes clennest of wit.
The nyght wacche to the walles and waytes
to blowe,
Bryght fures aboute betyn abrode in the
oste;
Chosen chyventayns out and chiden no mor,
Bot charged the chek-wecche and to
chambr wenten,
Dukes and derffe erles droghen to counsell ; Kynges and knyghtes to cacchen hem rest.
In Agamynon gret tent gedrit were all.
They had met in counsel how to compass Waspasian lyth in his logge, litel he slepith.
the death of Hector. Later in the poem
Achilles, scheming revenge on Troilus, found
no rest in his bed.
Troy 10096 And lay in his loge litill
he sleppit.
Guido's Latin of these two Troy passages is
Aspectibus igitur hominum crepusculo succedente stellis per celi spacium undique
patefactis quibus nox que nocet oculis -intuencium in aspectibus ceterorum propter sue
36 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
tenebras cecitatis aperte vulgavit. Omnes Reges Grecorum duces et principes in ipsius
noctis conticinio in Regis Agamenonis tentorio conveniunt.
[Achilles] inquietus sua non appetit claudere lumina in dormicionis consueta quiete.
The effect of this group of lines common to the sieges of Troy and
Jerusalem — the alliterative sieges — stands in little need of enforcement.
The canon of comparison to which appeal is made is this. Given two
passages, one of which must be due to the other; given that one of them
is known translation, although expanded somewhat; given that the other
is not translation; then if the points in common include things which are
real translation, every presumption leads to the conclusion that the trans-
lation is the source, and therefore the earlier. It seems axiomatic that the
Troy lent its night-scene to the Titus. And there are yet other parallels
to follow. Elsewhere in a discussion of the same sort the proposition was
advanced that a poet who repeated the same line more than once in a
poem might not unnaturally be found repeating it in another. In this
connection, therefore, it is worthy of observation that one of the lines
above quoted occurs in another part of the Troy as well.
Troy 7809. Merkit the mountayns and mores aboute.
In both instances the darkening of hill and moorland at nightfall is a touch
of the translator's own — is exegetic and not literal translation. It is the
recurrence of this fact which imports so much more significance into such
recurrent lines. Will it not appear strange if from a verse-translation con-
taining 14,000 lines, the borrowings in other poems should so often prove
to be not of Guido's matter, but of the translator's ? Now we return to
our parallels.
Titus.
Si 5 Fought right felly foyned with speres.
835 See under 664 above
850 When the derk was doun and the day
spryngen.
965 . . . bodeword of blys. . . .
998 Made weys throw for wenes and cartes.
Troy
10287
Fell was the fight foyning
of spears.
Troy
4753
Fell was the feght. . .
Troy
5795
. . . felly . . . foghtyn . . .
Troy
1 1956
When the derke was done
and the day sprange.
Alex.
1489
. . . bodworde of blis. . . .
Alex.
1324
And makez a way wyde
enogh waynez for to mete.
8]
'TITUS'; JERUSALEM, TENEDOS, AND TYRE
37
Alex. 2264 And thai als fayne alle the
flote as fowelle of the day.
Alex. 75 ... oute in the wale stremys.
Troy 6064 . . . Lord giffe us joye.
[End of book xiv. ]
Troy 4751-2 Layn ladders alenght and
aloft wonnen
At yche Cornell of the castell
was crusshyng of weppon.
Latin has bellkis scalis appositis letaliter
impetutU et dura debelladone Trojanos
■berimunf.
Troy 1 1090
1005
1017
1 104
[186
1189
Titus.
Fayn as the foul of day was the freke
than.
. . . over wale stremys.
. . . and God gyve us joy.
[End of one of the four divisions of
the poem.]
At eche kernel was cry and quasschyng
of wepne.
Ley the a ladder to the wal and a
lofte clymyth.
with
Kene was the crie
crusshyng of weppyn,
Troy 6924 That the blod out brast. . . .
Troy 4755-6 Till thai lept of the ladder
light in the dyke.
The brayne oute brast and
the brethe levyt.
Latin has sternuniur a scalis et vohihiliter
ruinosi prevenientes in terra fractis cervi-
cibus vitavt exalant.
Alex. 2153 . . . fey for defaute enfa-
myshyd hys oste.
Troy 3169 Bassons of bright gold and
other brode vessell.
Troy 4774 Mynours then mightely the
moldes did serche.
Troy 4695 Betyne doune the buyldynges
to the bare erthe.
Troy 4777 Betyn doun the buyldynges
and brent into erthe.
Latin has in facie terre dejectis tarn
deidenciuvi studio quam ignium flammis
voracibus.
Alex. 3642 Thretti dais on a throme 1314 Thrytty Jewes in a thrum. , . .
From these citations an interesting induction comes. Lines of the
Titus, containing part of the narrative of the detailed overthrow and deso-
lation of the Holy City, reproduce almost verbatim lines of the Ti-oy,
1 194-5 That the brayn out brast at both nose
thrylles
And Sabyn ded of the dynt into the
diche falleth.
[Sabyn had mounted the ladder.]
1203 Wer ded of that dynt and in the diche
lyghten.
1240 . . . enfamyed for defaute whan hem
fode wanted.
1 26 1 Bassynes of brend gold and other
bryght ger.
1274 Now masons and mynours hav the
molde soughte.
1279 Till alle the cyte was serched and
sought al aboute.
f 1257 Doun bete the bilde brenne hit in to
grounde.
1 1285 Bot doun betyn and brent into blake
erth.
38 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
all concerning a side-incident of the Trojan story — the assault, defence,
capture, and destruction of the castle of Tenedos.
Titus (a) 664, (d) 83s, (c) 1189, (d) 1186, (e) 815, (/) 1195.
Troy (a) 4739, (^) 4741, (c) 4751, (<^ 47S2. («) 4753. (/) 4755-
Titus (g) 1 1 94, (A) 1274, 1279, (/) 1285.
Troy (g) 4756, (/i) 4774, (0 4777.
Nor ends there the indication from a synthesis of the borrowings, if
borrowing it be called. If the fall of Jerusalem points us to Tenedos, it
points at the same time to Tyre, for (besides others of minor note) the
following lines in the Titus connect with the siege of Tyre in the corre-
sponding Alexander lines.
Titus (a) 310, (d) 998, (c) 652, (d) 664, (e) 619, (/) 835, (g) 673.
Akx. (a) 1151, (d) 1324, (c) 1390, (d) 1391, (e) 1395, (/) 1396, (g) 1421.
That siege of Tyre ! It so singularly unites with authentic history the
legendary and romantic after-accretion, which through Lambert li Tors was
to furnish a Scottish iocus dassicus in the reference to it made by John
Barbour in his vigorous account ^ of the taking of Edinburgh Castle in
the spring of the year of Bannockburn.
Not the least curious element of the foregoing comparisons of the
capture of Jerusalem with that of Tenedos is the fact that the succession
of the lines is almost perfectly the same in both. Those of the Titus
observe in nine instances out of ten — with only two slight transpositions —
the very order of the corresponding lines in the Troy. No one is likely
to suggest that such an occurrence is a chance coincidence. Even had
the fine scene of the midnight camp been wanting, this matter of Jerusalem
and Tenedos and Tyre must itself have sufficed to prove the wonderful
linking of the three poems.
(3) Date Indications.
Traces of contemporary historical and romance elements in Titus lead
to a suggestion of date. One cannot now call the Brut of Geoffrey of
^ Bruce, x. 705-33.
8] 'TITUS'; ITS DATE 39
Monmouth a historical source, but the point of view of the fourteenth
century was not ours. The poet certainly drew upon the Brut'^ for
Vespasian's banner with its golden dragon, having under him a four-
bladed falchion pointing to the four points of the compass and resting
upon a ball of burning gold in sign of conquest of the world. The dragon,
moreover, was a special token of the imperial presence — ' ther the lord
werred' — and of menace. Both of these ideas are outlined by Geoffrey
of Monmouth. Two sources in French romance are probable. References
to vows (11. 181, 197, 969, looi) perhaps carry an air of the Voeux du
Paon, a poem popular in the middle of the fourteenth century The
shaving of the Roman ambassadors (11. 355-78), thus maltreated by the
Jews as an insult, is an incident not in the general sources of the Veronica
legend, and is in all likelihood a transfer from the French romance of Ogier
Danois, in which four ambassadors of the Emperor Charles, sent to claim
homage and tribute of Godfrey of Denmark, are sent back shaven and shorn.
Yet more decisive is the historical hint to be deduced from the summons
to surrender Jerusalem, which is answered by the shaving of the imperial
'sondismen.' The Jews, so acting, were returning scorn for scorn, since
they had been called upon to submit to Titus in terms of ignominy :
Open-heded alle
Up her 3ates to 3eld with jerdes on hande
Eche whight in a white scherte and no wede ellys { Titus, 344-6).
In the end, after their long and tragic defence, they can hold out no
longer :
Bot up 3eden her 3ates and 3elden hem alle
Without brunee and bright wede in her bar chertes (Titus, 1233-4).
This cannot well have come from any other quarter than from the
surrender of Calais in 1347 to Edward III. The 'floynes'^ and 'farcostes,'
' cogges,' ' crayers,' and castled ' galees,' which form the fleet of Titus,
are anything but Roman; they quite correspond to the shipping of the
third quarter of the fourteenth century. The statement that the Jews on
the approach of Titus flew like the Foul Death (' flowen as the foul deth' )
'^ Brut, vii. ch. 3, 4. Titus, 387-400. ' See Avesbury (Rolls Series) 385, for ' fluynes.'
40 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
may point to 1349, but is better interpreted to refer to the visitation of
1361-2. In 1361 it crossed the channel:
That ilk yere in til Vngland
The Secund Dede was fast wedand (IVyntoun, viii., 7135-6)-
It did havoc in Scotland in 1362. There is yet another element
making for a date about that time. The Black Prince's conquest of
Aquitaine, ratified by the treaty of Bretigny in 1360, may account for a
freshened interest in the legend of St. Veronica, whom Frenchmen still
designate as ' the Apostle of Aquitaine.'^ The locality of her cult was
in Gascony and Guienne and Bordeaux, all then English possessions, and
all playing a part in the legend and in our poem (11. 26, 70, 190). We
can hardly date Titus earlier than 1363. In any view the sequence
established between Alexander, Troy, and Titus will perhaps help us
when from the Titus — a poem known to Scotland in the fifteenth century ^
— we pass at last to Morte Arthure, believing that we have possessed
ourselves of its secret.
9. 'Morte Arthure,' its Sources, Contents, and Parallels.
(i) The 'Brut' as General Source.
A chivalric Arthurian poem, not improbably known to Barbour' and
certainly quoted by Wyntoun * {circa 1420), this story is a free rendering of the
tale first enshrined in Geoffrey of Monmouth's reliquary, that Brut or Historia
Britonum to which for ill and for good British history and British literature
stand in so profound a debt.'' The 'Emperor' Lucius Iberius sends to
'^ Sainte Vironique, Apotre de V Aquitaine. 2nd ed. Toulouse, 1877.
''■ The opening line of Titus — ' In Tiberius's tyme the trewe Emperour ' — is, as John Leyden
had observed, verbatim the opening line of The Gyre-Carling printed in Early Popular
Scottish Poetry, ed. Laing and Hazlitt, 1895, ii. p. 19 ; also as number cxlviii. in the
Hunterian Club print of the Bannatyne MS.
'^ John Barbour, Poet and Translator, p. 12. Besides the facts associating Barbour with
the Knight of Eglintoun, the concurrence of sources used by Barbour and Iluchown has to
be considered. See below, ch. 15 sec. 4.
* Wyntoun, bk. v., 11. 4271-4366; MoHe Arthure, 11. 34-47, etc.
^Some discussion of this and other sources occurs in P. Branscheid's elaborate essay
Quellen des Morte Arthure in Anglia, viii., Anzeiger, pp. 178-336 ; Dr. Moritz Trautmann's
9] 'MORTE ARTHURE' AND THE 'BRUT' 41
England demanding homage and tribute. In response to the insulting
embassy, King Arthur crosses the channel, and, after slaying a giant, fights a
great battle with Lucius, who falls, and whose body Arthur causes to be
conveyed to Rome as the only tribute he is prepared to pay. He then
advances into Italy, and is anticipating coronation at Rome when bad
news from England constrain him to turn. Mordred, his nephew, left in
charge of the realm, has played false, and the king's landing is only effected
after a great sea fight in which he is victorious over Mordred and his
foreign allies. The battle is continued ashore, and to the great grief of
the king. Sir Gawayne falls by Mordred's hand. The traitor then flees
to Cornwall, with Arthur in vengeful pursuit. Again there is battle, and
all the great names of the Round Table are reckoned on the list of dead.
Arthur strikes Mordred a terrible blow which cuts off his sword-hand, and
Mordred dies from a thrust of Caliburn driven ' to the bright hilts.' Arthur
himself, however, is wounded mortally in the encounter, and the powerful
historical alliterative romance ends with the Requiem sung over the hero
buried at Glastonbury — Rex quondam rexque futurus.
In this outline there is little deviation from the vulgate story of Arthur.
The poem glorifies Arthur and the knights of his Round Table, most of all
perhaps dwelling on the exploits and devotion of his nephew, Sir Gawayne,
whose death is the occasion of a passionate lament by the hero-king. This
is one of the many insertions made by the poet, although his framework as
a whole is a fairly literal translation of the version of Arthur's later career
given by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who, however, was not the sole Arthurian
authority he employed. The English Brut'^ was known in Scotland soon
after the middle of the fourteenth century. But the Latin Brut was that
used by Huchown. There was, however, a considerable levy made on
other works besides the Brut and its offshoots.
At numerous points dramatic episodes are woven into the plainer thread of
Der Dichter Htuhawn und seine Werke in Anglia, i., 109-49; Dr. Oskar Sommer's
Le Morte Darthur, vol. iii. 148-175 ; Mrs. M. M. Banks's edition of Morte Arthur, p. 128 ;
and the preface to the Destruction of Troy. These references give no clue to the sources
(except the Brut and the Troy) now to be dealt with.
'The Bruyt en Engles is quoted by the Scalacronica, p. 3.
D
42 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
the Brut, and the Great Gest of Arthure is presented with high and vivid
colouring, and with a dignity and stateliness due to the monarch-elect of
chivalric romance. It is no detraction from the constructive power of the
poet that even at this remote distance of time we can so far enter into his
work as to determine with some certainty some at least of his sources.
It is hardly necessary to particularise the parts of Morte Arthure which
come from its stock source, the Brut. What is takenis freely handled, changes
are deliberately made, expansion is everywhere, and there are inserted not a
few things which are in no sense really exegetical of the Brut. From book ix.,
chapter 15 of Geoffrey, wherein Lucius sends his letter, to book xi., chapter 2,
wherein Arthur, wounded to death, is carried to Avalon, the Brut is the
centre and substance of the poem. The particular manuscript of the Brut
employed in the making of the poem will be considered by and bye. The
value of Morte Arthure as a piece of literary history and as literature turns,
however, to no small extent upon its incidental indebtedness to certain other
sources which English and German editors and commentators have over-
looked. The first of these is one which we may remember as of proved
connection with the alliterative Alexander.
(2) Maundeville's Jtinerary.
We therefore renew our acquaintance with Maundeville. In Morte
Arthure, when Sir Priamus, badly wounded, becomes the prisoner of
Gawayne,
A foyle of fyne golde they fande at his gyrdill,
That es full of the flour of the fouur well
That flowes owte of Paradice when the flode ryses. — (11. 2704-6.)
Of the terrestrial Paradise Maundeville knew that it contained a well with
four streams carrying precious stones, and lignum aloes, and golden sand.
The terrestrial Paradise he knew, too, was so high that Noah's flood could
not reach it.^
(3) Fleta or B radon.
Sir Hew of Eglintoun was a Justiciar of Scotland. That he should have
been acquainted with one or other or both of the classical English legal
''■Maundeville (Wright), ch. xxx. : MS. T. 4, I, fo. 266 + 69b.
9] 'MORTE ARTHURE' AND SANCTUARY LAW
43
treatises must be as little surprising as would be his making the personal
acquaintance of an English Chief-Justice, say, for example Scharshill, during
a visit to or sojourn in London. There is in Morte Arthure an episode in
connection with the ambassadors of Lucius which argues unmistakably a
knowledge of the English law of sanctuary as set forth in Bracton's Tradatus
de Legibus et Consuetudinibus AngUae, written before 1259, or with the Fkta
seu Commentarius Juris Anglicani, which — largely drawn from the former
work — a judge of the time of Edward I. composed in the Fleet Prison.
The episode in question is a supplement of the poet's devising to anything
he could have found in the original, for the Brut contains nothing that
corresponds. Arthur, after giving the embassy right royal entertainment,
changes the tune when the time arrives for diplomatic business. Then he
gives haughty answer. to be carried back to the Emperor by the embassy.
The claim of homage and tribute is contemptuously rejected; threats are
met with threats still more stern ; and finally the ' Senatour ' is ordered liome
in uncompromising terras.^ From Carlisle he is to go to the port of
Sandwich ; seven days are allowed him for the journey (sixty miles a day is
the computation) ; he is to keep by Watling Street all the way, or leave it on
pain of death; he must lodge for the night where his day's journey ends;
and if after undern of the eighth day he is found in England, unless within
the floodmark at Sandwich, he will be beheaded, drawn, and hanged.
There can be no disputing the inference that the poet had in his view the
text of sanctuary law whereby a criminal who had taken sanctuary and chosen
to abjure the realm made his departure from the land. His port of embarcation
being chosen, 'there ought to be computed for him,' says Bracton (fo. 13 sb-
136) 'reasonable days' journeys to that port, and he ought to be forbidden
to quit the king's highway, and he should tarry nowhere for two nights
. . . but should ever hold on by the direct road to the port, so that he may
be there by his given day. ... If he do otherwise he shall be in peril.'
In Fleta (ff. 45-46) the doctrine of Bracton is carried to further detail. The
grithman is to pass on his way ' without girdle, unshod, and bare-headed ^ in
1 Morie Arthure, 445-63.
^Discinctus et discalceatus capite discooperto in pura tunica tanquam in patibulo
. suspendendus.
44 'HUCHOWN OF THP: AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
kirtle alone like one about to be hanged on the gallows,' and if he stray from
the highway he is liable to decapitation if caught.^
These texts of law are the best gloss we can desire for the grim
direction by Arthur to the senator, whose departure is thus ingeniously
conditioned with ignominy by the prescription of exit in the manner of a
fugitive criminal. The element of the 'kirtle alone' was familiar to the
14th century ; it was used in the Titus repeatedly ; in the MorU Arthure
we shall find it too with a context which settles beyond dispute its
immediate source now to be brought forward.
(4) Voeux du Paon.
This French poem,^ after a very entertaining and courtly series of
events, gets to its real business in the vows made on the peacock by the
various knights of Alexander the Great. Chivalry from the 13th to the
15th century laid great store by vows, often of extravagant valour, made
on choice or royal dishes at great festivals — vows on the Swan, the
Peacock, the Pheasant, or the Heron. Has not La Curne de Sainte-
Palaye in the Memoires sur tancienne Chevalerie (ed. Nodier, 1826; i., pp.
157, etc., ii., 1-132, etc.) told and quoted and explained so fully as to
supersede the need for repetition here? History remembers the vow of
Edward I. made on the Swan^ at Westminster in 1306 at that feast
which a contemporary describes as so noble that Britain had never seen
its like except that feast at Caerleon in Arthur's time.* It remembers
also the vow of the Heron made by Edward IH. and Robert d'Artois in
1338, a vow which happily found its metrical chronicler so that it lives in
the old French Voeu du Htron? It has forgotten, perhaps, that not John
Barbour merely but history itself most curiously associated Robert the
' My first note on this sanctuary passage appeared in the Dr. Furnivall B'estschrift, An
English Miscellany, 1901, p. 384.
^Students of romance await with very great interest the publication of M. Charles
Bonnier's edition of the French text which is urgently necessary for purposes of collation.
^ Flores Historiarum, sub anno 1306. Trivet's /4««a/« (Eng. Hist. Soc), 408.
* Robert of Brunne, ed. Hearne, p. 332. Caerleon became Carlisle in MorU Arthure.
" La Curpe, i., 95.
9] 'MORTE ARTHURE' AND THE 'VOEUX DU PAON'
45
Bruce with the vow of the peacock, for one of our chroniclers tells
that in 1307, after Edward I.'s death, his son's newly created knights
made similar vows to conquer King Robert to those made the year
before— ' emitted,' says he, ^ 'new vows to the peacock.' But it is time
to return from the vow historical to the vow poetic. It was this chivalrous
usage that Jacques de Longuyon enshrined in the Voeux du Paon to enrich
the Alexander saga, making the various paladins of the great Alexander
pledge themselves to perform their several feats of outstanding bravery
in the approaching battle with King Clarus of India. One, for instance,
swore 'to discomfit the great battale,' another to take a distinguished
prisoner, another to strike down the standard of the Indian king. Thus
the vows were made, and after much intervening action the poet conducts
his readers to the battlefield, where knight after knight goes forward to
redeem his undertaking. The 'great battale' is discomfited, the prisoner
is taken, the standard is hewn down. All the vows are fulfilled to the letter.
'As they deemed to do they did full even' is the apt statement of
one ^ who made an abstract and brief chronicle of the poem.
The French text of the poem is only now in course of being edited,
but an early Scottish translator, who, as I believe myself to have
demonstrated, was none other than John Barbour, gave this French poem
vigorous and admirable rendering into the Scottish vernacular as The
Avowes of Alexander and The Great Battell of Effesoun — these forming
the second and third parts of the composite poem of which the first part
is The Forray of Gadderis, and of which the general title is The Buik
of the most noble and vailzeand Conqueror Alexander the Great, reprinted in
1 83 1 for the Bannatyne Club in a very limited edition now grown scarce.
That the French poem was well known to Barbour's contemporary and
colleague. Sir Hew (if Sir Hew was Huchown), becomes evident from
the use to which it is put in Morte Arthure. In the Brut there is no
machinery of ' avows ' made either by Arthur or his knights ; no mention of
any particular form of surrender or submission by the rebellious vassal
' Bower, Scotichronicon, ed. Goodal, ii. , 240, Novo rege Angliae create tirones et novi
milites de subjectione regis Robert! nova vota cmittuiit pavoni.
* Farlement of the Thre Ages, 1. 567.
46 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
or vanquished enemy ; no mention of any ceremonial by way of amends
to satiate the blood-feud or avert future hostility ; no mention of the Nine
Worthies. All these features occur in the Voeux du Paon, and are trans-
ferred to and made part of the framework of Morte Arthure.
Arthur himself and knight after knight of the Table Round with him
make their avows. Arthur will by Lammas pass to Lorraine and Lombardy,
mine down the walls of Milan, and sojourn six weeks at Viterbo. King
Aungers of Scotland will bring 50,000 men at his own charges, the Baron
of Britain the Less will bring 30,000 within a month, the Welsh king will
fight with 2000 in the vanguard. Sir Lancelot will tilt with the Emperor
and strike him from his steed. Sir Lottez will cleave his way through the
enemies' ranks. Sir Ewayne will touch the eagle of the Emperor and dash
down his golden banner. All which avows are perfectly accomplished;
'as they deemed to do they did full even.'
In the Voeux a powerful dramatic situation is presented by the amends
and satisfaction which the leading paladins of Alexander offer to the younger
Gadifer. In the battle which closes the Forray oj Gaderis (Fuerre de
Gadres) the valiant Gadifer had fallen under the spear of Emenydus.
Subsequently Cassamus the Auld conducts Gadifer the Young, eldest son
of the slain Gadifer, to the camp of Alexander, where he becomes the
ally of the Macedonian. But when he discovers the exact position he is
somewhat taken aback, and a conflict is imminent between his sense of
the duty of revenge on the one hand and the requirements of his new
environment on the other. Emenydus generously resolves to remove the
last obstacle to harmony in the camp. To the surprise of Alexander,
Emenydus and twelve companions march, barefoot, bareheaded, beltless,
and in their shirts, to the presence of the young Gadifer, making submission
to him by kneeling before him, tendering their swords, which they hold by
the points, and reaching the hilts to the man whose blood-feud they thus
hope to appease. This submission, which was gratefully accepted by
Gadifer, quite evidently supplied the idea which more than once appears
in Morte Arthure. There are minor examples, but the chief instance is
that in which, after the fall of the ' Emperour ' Lucius, senators and knights
of Rome beg for mercy.
9] 'MORTE ARTHURE' AND 'TlTUS' 47
Twa senatours ther come and certayne knyghttez,
Hodles fro the bethe ouer the holte eyves,
Barefote ouer the bente with brondes so ryche,
Bowes to the bolde kynge and biddis hym the hiltes,
Whethire he will hang theym or hedde or halde theym on lyfe,
Knelyde before the conquerour in kyrtills allone.'
Where could this have come from unless from the Voeux ? If it should
be answered that the usage was one not ill-known to chivalric courts-martial,^
and that its very presence in the Voeux comes from that fact, it will only
be necessary to recall the existence of other points of contact. Of these
a third and most prominent instance of borrowing is the account of the
Nine Worthies — three pagans. Hector, Alexander, and Caesar; three Jews,
Joshua, David, and Judas Machabeus ; and three Christians, Arthur, Charle-
magne, and Godfrey of Bouillon — whose fates are so aptly introduced in
connection with Fortune's wheel in Arthur's vision.
(5) Titus and Vespasian.
Unmistakable are the proofs of the use of the Titus in Morte Arthure —
a use which is of the greatest moment in the line of chronological proofs.
Sundry questions have to be asked, and the answers to them set forward
and examined.^
Why in Morte Arthure (297, 309, 348, 386) are the vows of Arthur
and his knights made not (as in the French romance they echo)
on the peacock, but on the Holy Vernacle ? *
Because, as we have seen, the story of the Vernacle plays so great a
part in the Titus. As the Vernacle was an integral element of the Titus,
^ Hodles, hoodless ; holte eyves, skirts of the wood ; brondes, brands, swords ; biddis,
offer.
'^See my article on 'The Submission of the Lord of the Isles,' in Scottish Antiquary,
XV., 113, and add a Glasgow example, since pointed out to me by my friend Mr. Robert
Renwick, in Records of Burgh of Glasgow (Burgh Records Soc), 1573- 1642, p. 293. Note
also Du Guesclin's reference to this form of penitential surrender as recorded in Cuvelier's
Vie Vaillant Bertran du Gtiesclin, 11. 2457-9.
' Most of these points were set forth in ' Huchown ' (part I.), Athenceum, 1st June, 1901.
* Because, says Mr. Henry Bradley (Athenceum, 15th June, 1901), the ' words avawe and
vernacle alliterate in w.' It is indeed a notable reason, the publication of which evinces
Mr. Bradley's penetration !
48 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
Vespasian, and Veronica legend, it goes without saying that the Titus did
not borrow the Vernacle from Morte Arthurs.
Why in Morte Arthure (2331-35) is it that Arthur by way of doing
shame to Rome shaves the senators who came as ambassadors of
submission to him after the death of Lucius?
Because in the Titus (355-378) ambassadors of Rome demanding sur-
render of Jerusalem are sent back shaven, 'scorned and shent upon shame
wise,' by the indignant garrison. This is not Roman, for with the Romans
shaving was a symbol of manumission ; it does not seem to occur in either
the ancient or medieval stories of the fall of Jerusalem ; but it is an incident
so oriental in character as to be as natural and as much in keeping with
the story of Titus and the Jews as at first it seems out of keeping with
Arthur and the Romans. Ogier Danois with its shaven ambassadors
supplies an exact enough precedent for both poems.
How comes it that in Morte Arthure (1252, 2026, 2057) there is
such insistence on the significance of the dragon banner?
There is the same insistence in the Titus (278, 325, 387-8, 396-400)
concerning it. Perhaps the hint for it in both I'itus and Morte Arthure
came partly from Geoffrey of Monmouth (vii., chaps. 3 and 4) and partly
from fourteenth century life or literature, but the allusion of Titus (397) to
the dragon as an indication of the royal presence in person and (398-400) to
its menace as precluding any terms short of absolute surrender, harmonises
remarkably with the Morte Arthure allusions to the dragon ^ raised to
threaten only when Lucius is himself in the field.
Whence came into Morte Arthure (3353-62) the 'pome' symbol of
sovereignty of the earth with the sword as its companion token?
It came from the same quarter as produced the four-bladed falchion
and the ball of burning gold betokening conquest of 'al the world riche'
in Titus (390-395).
Whence came into Morte Arthure (900-9 19) the suggestion of the
fine picture of Arthur arming himself for the fight with the dragon ?
^ On this see further my article on ' Raising Dragon ' in Scotlish Antiquary, xii. 147.
But see also chap. 12, sec. i, below.
9]
'MORTE ARTHURE' AND 'TITUS'
49
In the Titus (734-762) there is a closely analogous picture of Vespasip.n
arming himself, a picture not occurring in the original Latin sources. The
two pictures have, moreover, features and alliterations in common.
Morle Arthure.
925-30 [Birds sing].^
917 [Arthur] sterys hym faire.
1858 brenys browden brestez ....
902 [Arthur has an ' acton with orfraeez. ']
914 He bracez a brade schelde.
Titus.
735 ['Leverockes' sing].
738 [Vespasian] busked hym fayr.
741 brynye biowded .... brest.
741-2 [Vespasian has a breast-plate of steel
and gold.]
748 A brod schynand scheld on scholdir
he hongith.
75° The glowes of gray steel that wer
with gold hemyd.
751 .... and his hors asketh.
752 The gold hewen helme haspeth he
blyve
With viser and with avental devysed
for the nones
A croune of clene gold was closed
upon lofte
Rybande umbe the rounde helm ful
of riche stones,
Pyght prudely with perles into the
pur corners.
758 He strideth on a stif stede and
striketh over the bente.
[521 Stith men in stiropys striden alofte].
Gawayne and Green Knight, 435 :
Steppez into stelbawe and strydes
alofte.
Alex. 778 Striden to stelebowe startyn
upon lofte.
760 His segges sewen hym alle ....
912
914
908
His gloues gaylyche gilte and grauen
at the hemmez.
(This is repeated at 1. 3462.)
.... and his brande aschez.
The creste and the coronall enclosed
so faire
Wyth clasppis of clere golde couched
wyth stones
The vesare the aventaile enarmede so
faire.
[3462 pighte was full faire
With perry of the oiyent and precyous
stones. ]
915-6 Bounede hym a broun stede and on
the bente hovys
He sterte till his sterepe and stridez
on lofte.
919
. hys knyghtes hyme kepede .
How comes it that whilst, as we hav^e seen, there are so many lines
and phrases common to Titus and Troy, and whilst, as we shall see,
there are so many common to Morie Arthure and Troy, there are
also so many common to Morte Arthure and Titus}
' An accompaniment perhaps suggested by Perceval le Gallois, 11. 19056-84, M. Amours,
Sc. Allit. Poems, pp. 276-7.
so 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
As a riming poet is tested by his rimes, so an alliterator is tested by
his alliterations. Here are a few alliterative points of contact.
Titus. Morte Arthurs.
283 . . . floynes aflot farcostes many -v 743 . . . floynes and fercostez ....
284 Cogges and crayers ... I 738 Coggez and crayers ....
287 . . . tyghten up talsail (? topsail). J 744 Tytt saillez to the toppe ....
290 Portjaf. 1520 Portjaf.i
308 . . . that fauconn wolde strike . . . 788 ... as fawcone frekly he strykes.
387 . . . dragoun was dressed . . . 786 . . . dragone on dreghe dressede . . .
451 Cameles closed in stele. 616 Bot coverde camellez of toures en-
closyde in maylez.
622 . . . dewe was donked. 313 . . . dewe that es daunke . . .
815 Fought right felly foyned with speres 3690 Then they falle to the fyghte ffoynes
[cf. Troy, 815]. with sperys.
859 . . . torsom (torfour) and tene . . . 1956 . . . tene and torfere . . .
883 Ride to the rever .... 619 Rides in by the ryvere . . . (cf. 920-
[Rever in the sense of hawking ground]. 925 for connection with hawking ;
also verb ryuaie 4000).
1007 My wele and my worschup .... 401 My wele and my wyrchipe . . .
1 1 13-4 Schaftes schedred wer sone and 2169 . . . Schafte scodyrde . . . (3845
scheldes ythrelled also).
Brunyes and bright wede blody by 1412 Thrughe brenes and bryghte scheldes
runne. brestes thyrle.
This list admits of considerable extension. The arithmetic of citations
calls for a word in passing to annotate the fact that in comparing Morte
Arthure (4347 lines) with Titus (1332 lines) there is numerically far less
chance of similarities between these two than in comparing either with the
Troy (14,044 lines). Such at least must be the presumption unless it is
disturbed by relations of time or theme which may bring one pair of poems
closer to each other and reveal more resemblances than numerical pro-
portions might have led a critic to expect. Those considerations will not
be forgotten when we turn to yet other sources of Morte Arthure.
(6) Supplementary French Sources.
That a considerable use is made of French romance in Morte Arthure
has been signalised by the borrowings from the Voeux du Paon. For some
very slender information regarding others less distinct Branscheid's essay
'The Hunterian MS. T. 4, i (f. 266 + 5) spells Portumjaph.
9] 'MORTE ARTHURE'; FRENCH SOURCES 51
and Sominer's introduction to Malory may be consulted, as well as Mrs.
Banks's introduction.
Two sources not brought forward in any of these discussions may be
suggested as possible. The noble and impassioned outburst of Arthur
over the body of the slain Gawayne, which he lifts and clasps to his breast,
(1. 3952) may be compared with the passage in the Itinerary of the Pseudo-
Turpin {Itinerarium domini Turpini) found in the Hunterian MS. T. 4, i,
where (fo. 184) Charlemagne mourns over the fallen Roland. '■ Karolus
Rothlandum exanimatum jacentem eversum brachiis positis super pectus in
effigie cruets, et irruens super eum cepit lacrimis gemitibus et singultibus . . .
lugere,' etc. Not the words of Charlemagne are followed by Arthur, but
the echo of their spirit is very close. A second possible and quite sub-
sidiary source is Generydes, to which reference may be made in its late English
version (E.E.T.S., 1873), for several points of contact with the Huchown set of
poems. Thus the temptation in 11. 477-483 suggests the recurrent machinery
of Gawayne and the Green Knight. The steed of Generydes, ' Grisselle,' is
the steed ^ of Gawayne in the Awntyrs of Arthure, just as in another poem
Hector's steed, ' Galathe,' appears to have given name ^ to Gawayne's sword,
' Galuth.' The sword of Generydes, ' Claryet,' suggests ^ Arthur's weapon,
' Clarent.' And in one of the battles of Generydes there are ' boustous folk '
' on camelys ' who look very like * the ' boustous churlles ' on ' camellez ' who
are ranged among the enemies of King Arthur in the army of the ' Emperour.
The probability of Generydes being indeed a source is vastly heightened
by a direct reference to it in another of the Huchown poems, to be afterwards
noticed,* which is in part a derivative of Morte Arthure. That there are
other French sources, as for instance, for the Priamus and Gawayne encounter,
is certain. Ogier Danois, we have seen, probably accounts for the four
shaven ambassadors. Not less probably it accounts for the incident of the
curative ointment carried by Priamus, which, taken from his girdle after
' Generydes, 3301 — Awntyrs, 547. ^ Troy, 7780 — Morte, 1387.
^ Generydes, 3481 — Morte, 4202.
* Generydes, 2152-7 ; Morte, 615-6 ; ' Bioustious,' the same adjective, occurs in Troy,
41 16.
^See ch. 10, sec. J,, below.
52 'MUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch.
Gawayne has wounded and captured him, makes all the injured knights
'fischehalle' within four hours (11. 2705-13). In Ogier Danois the giant
Brehus has in the buckle of his shield an ointment similarly effective,
whereby he at once makes himself, says the romance, ' more sound than a
swimming fish.' The victorious Ogier and Gawayne alike possesfe themselves
of the vanquished enemy's ointment. Hence, therefore, seems to have
come the suggestion of the encounter of Priamus and Gawayne. Other
French sources may be taken to include some version of Ferumbras, the
allusion to the relics, the crown of thorns, the lance, the cross, and the
nails ^ being in all likelihood brought from that romance.
(7) The 'Troy' and the 'Alexander.^
Approaching now a series of extensive parallels between Morte Arthure
and the Troy one finds it simplest to deal with the Alexander also in the
same connection as a subsidiary source connected with the Troy in Morte
Arthure passages as we have already seen it in Titus passages.
One group of parallels to the Alexander is geographical, and has been
commented upon by Professor Skeat. At the end of the Alexander there
is a singular list of provinces subject to the rule of Alexander the Great.
The Latin original has been reprinted above. While this list gives the
key to at least thirty-two of the names in the alliterative rendering, it also
makes clear the inference that a number of the alliterative names were
not in the original Latin. The further comparison of a similar list of
names in Morte Arthure with that in the Alexander poems reveals (i) that
the former contains pairs occurring in the latter; (2) that these pairs embrace
names not in the Latin source of the Alexander; and (3) that thus such
combinations and coincidences as ' Gyane and Grece,' ' Bayone and Burdeux,
or ' Naverne and Norway ' are rendered doubly significant.
^ Morte, 3427-29. In Scottish chronicle of 1360 there is mention of these ' tresnoblis
precious reliqes.' Scalacronica, 195. There is, however, no list of what they were, and
it is observable that, while the lists differ in the Ferumbras romances the version used by
Barbour {Bruce, iii., 459-61) also mentions the crown, the spear, the cross, and the nails.
The Sowdan of Babylon does not name the spear.
9]
'MORTE ARTHURE,' 'TROY,' AND 'ALEXANDER'
53
Alex. 5674 Flandres and France . . .
[Auintyrs of Arthtire 276. Bretane and
Burgoyne.]
AUx. 5667 Gyane Garnad and Grece and
Gascony.
[ Titus 26 Gascoyne gat and Gyan. ]
Alex. 5668 Bayone and Burdeux.
Alex. 5672 Aoi-z'jay thire Navemes alle.
Alex. 5669 Capidos.
Alex. 5665 Tm-ke, Tuscane, Troy, and
Tartar}'.
2190 TTiebea.
5657 Pers and Pamphalie.
Morte Arthure.
34 Flaundrez and Fraunce.
36 Burgoyne and Brabane and BretajTie
the lesse.
1018 Burgoyne or BretajTie. )
37 Gvane and Gothelande and Grece.
38 Bayone and Burdeux.
44 Xaveme and Norwaj-e and Nor-
maundye.
580 Capados.
582 Tartary and Turky.
583 Thebay.
[The next line (584) refers to the Ama-
zons, thus showing the Alexander connec-
tion. Line 586 too speaks of Babylon, also
referable to the Alexander story.]
588 Perce and Pamphile.
The above italicised names from the Alexander occur in the Latin,
the others do not, thus making the recurrence of the same pairs in another
poem so much the more indicative of a single hand. How this indicatioij
gains from extended collation of certain identities of line and alliteration
between the poems as undernoted will be too plain to need much argument.
Troy 2683 Warpet out wordes . . .
Troy 207 . . . with daintes ynogh.
Awntyrs ^t^'q With riche daynteths endor-
rede . . .
Awntyrs 14 Sir Gawane the gay dame
Gayenour he ledis.
Troy 2140 To venge of our velany.
Titus 20 . . . the vyleny to venge.
Troy 6$yj With thre thousand thro men
thrivond in armys.
Troy ITil Sparit for no spurse, speddyn
to the flight.
Morte Arthure.
9 . . . werpe owte some worde . . .
199 With darielles endordede and daj'nteez
ynewe.
233 Sir Gaywayne the worthye Dame
Waynour he hledys.
298 Of this grett velany I salle be vengede
ones.
317 Thyrtty thousande be tale thryftye
in armes.
449 . . . spede at the spurs and spare
not . . ,
54
'HUCHOWX OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Troy 2371 Bound up my blonke to a
bogh ev)Ti.
Alex. 5317 For alle the welthe of the
wer|l]d.
Troy 313 The mighty Massidon Kyng
Troy 3551 In a swyme and a sw<^h as
he swelt wold.
9454 . . . swym as he swelt wold.
8046 . . . swonrt in swym as ho
swelt wold.
. . dryfes over the depe . . .
Akx.
Troy
64
1484
Morte Arthure.
453 Bynde thy blonke by a boske with
thy biydille erene.
541 Ne of welthe of this werlde . . .
603 The myghtyeste of ilacedone . . .
716 . swon)-ng swe{l]te as cho walde.
761 ... dryiande one the deep.
. a philosofier a fine man 807-8 . . . phylozophirs.
of lore
In the syense fhll sad of the
seryn artes.
Troy 23 ... wees that wist . . .
Troy 2735 . . . floiisshet with flonres. . .
In the sevyne scyence the suteleste
fondene.
891 Thare was no wy of this weride that
wyst. . . .
924 The frithez ware floreschte with
flourez. . . .
929 Of the nyghtgale notez the noisez.
932 . . . swo»')'nge of watyr and syngynge
of biTdez.
Troy \2Kf]-i Nightgalis with notes.
Troy 1061 Swoghyng of swet ayre
swalyng of briddes.
Alex. 4385 The sw<^hing of . . . swete
wellis.
Troy 8273 Thow dowtles shall dye with 1073 For thow salle dye this day thmghe
dynt of my bond. dynt of my handez.
[Same, 1505, 4228.]
Awntyrs 390 ... an anlas. 1 148 ... with ane anlace.
Troy 92 ... dede throughe dyntes of 1277 . . . derely be delt witb dynttez of
bond. handez.
Awntyrs 442 ... a pavilone of palle that 1287 Palaisez prondliche p^^te . . . that
prodly was pighte. palyd ware. . . .
PistiU of Susan 59 Thei caught for heor 131 1 That ilke curs)-nge that Cayme ka^te
covetyse the cursyng of for his brothyre.
Cayme.
Troy 9406 He gird hym thmgh the 1369-70 He gryppes hym a grete spere. . .
guttes with a grym speire. Thn^he the guttez into the gorre he
Cf. 1232. gyides hyme ewyne.
Troy 7780 . . . Galathe that was the 1387 . . . Galatb his gnde swerde. . . .
gude stede. [Name of Gawayne's sword, probably
[Name of Hector's horse.] a transfer from Hector's horse.]
9]
'MORTE ARTHURE'; PARALLELS
55
Troy 9061
brest
thirlet.
Troy
3881
. a lide he stodd.
Troy
10541
Swordis oat swiftly thai
swappiL .
Troy
1889
And with swaj^jyug of
swerdjs thof be swelt
wolde.
Cf. Troy, notes p. 480-81.
Troy
5935
He swappit at hym swithe
with a sweid felle.
[Same, 6921.]
Aumtyrs Sl±
He swapped him yne at the
swyre with a swerde kene.
Troy
11091
Stedes donn sticted. .
Alex.
5482
. . . biche sons. . . .
Alex.
561
. . . and demyd the skewys.
A-amtyrs (Donee MS. j 53 ... in the djmme
sknwes.
A-amtyrs 11^^
. . . Rownde tabille losse
the renowne.
A-amtyrs ibf)
Maye no man stere hym of
strengfae.
Alex.
1324
And makez a way wyde
encgh. . . .
Troy
5932
Make wayesfiill wide. [Same,
6513]
Troy
5933
Shot thnrgh the sheltrons
shent of the pepnll.
C£ Trey, 5249.
He shot thmgfa the sheltrone
and shent of hor kni^tes.
[Same, 6830.]
Troy
"94
Shildes throgh shote shalkes
to dethe.
Troy
6780
Mony shalke tfanigh shot
with there sharpe gere.
Troy
6780
Mony shalke thmg^ shot. . . .
Morie Arthure.
1413 . . . brestes they thirL . .
Cf. 1858.
1435 . . . stotais a lyttilie.
1464-5 Swyftly with swerdes th^ swappene
thereaftyre.
Swappez donne fiille sweperlye swel-
cande knj^tez.
Cf. 2982 And with a swerde swiftly he
swappes him thorowe.
1488 . . . stekede stedys. .
d(^ge-sone in jone dyme
scbawes.
1732 Thynke one riche renonne of the
rotmde table.
1793 Many steiyne mane he steride by
strenghe of hyme one.
1706 Wrc^hte wayes liille wyde. . . .
181 3 Schotte thorowe the schiltronns and
sdiererede lannces.
1857 Schalkes they schotte thioghe shren-
kand maylez.
Cf. 2545 Thorowe scheldz they schotte and
schorde thorowe malps
Troy 5820 That hit shot throogh the
shilde and the shire maile.
56
•HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Troy 9433 Shot thurgh the sheld and
the shene mayle. [Same,
6401.]
Troy 81 ... torfer and tene.
Troy 1 197 All dynnet the dyn and dales
aboute.
Troy 6407 . . . braid out a brond. . . .
Troy 7458 How stith men and stedes
were striken to ground.
Troy 6789 Mony lyve of lept. . . .
Awntyrs 502 So jolyly those gentille mene
justede one were.
Troy 7400 . . Ipowmen . . . bykirit.
Troy 5285 . . . dede and done out of
lyve.
Awntyrs 25 On a mule as the mylke.
Troy 1089 Skairen out skoute wacche. . .
Alex. 2175 He pight doun his pavilion. . .
Alex. 4178 . . . pavillions of pall. . . .
Alex. Als fast was he fyschehale . . .
Cf. 4282.
Troy 5939 Slit hym doun sleghly thurghe
the slote evjm.
Troy 6409 Slit him full slighly to the
slote evyn.
Troy 69SS Miche slaght in that slade of
tho slegh knightes.
Cf. Troy, notes p. 481.
Troy 5250 Mony doughty were ded
thurgh dynt of his hond.
Cf. Troy, notes p. 501, also
lines.
Troy. 7795 And mony deghit that day
thurgh djmt of his hond.
Awnlyrs ^iS . . . the dawngere and the
dole that I in duelle.
Ti/us 1 108 Up a buschment brake. . . .
Awntyrs 340 Undir a seloure of sylke . . .
Awntyrs 1 35 ... whedir that thou salle.
Pistil 11-12 Of Erberi and Alees
Of alle Maner of trees.
Morte Arthure.
[See entry preceding.]
1956 . . . tene and torfere. . . .
2031 Alle dynned fore dyne that in the
dale hovede.
2069 Braydez owte his brande. . . .
2079 The stede and the steiyne man strykes
to the grownd.
2084 . . . somme leppe fro the lyfe. . . .
2088 Jolyly this gentille forjusted . . .
another.
2095-6 . . . bowmene . . . bekerde.
2178 That he was dede of the dynte and
done owte of lyfe.
2287 Moyllez mylke whitte. . . .
2468 Skayres thaire skottefers and theire
skowtte waches.
2478 Pyghte pavyllyons of palle. . . .
2709 . . . freke schalle be fischehalle within
foure houres.
2976 Sleyghly in at the slotte slyttes hyrae
thorowe.
2978 Sixty slongene in a slade of sleghe
men of armes.
3025 Many doughty es dede by dynt of his
hondes.
Cf. 1073, 1277, 4228.
3068 To duelle in dawngere and dole
3125 Thane brekes oure buschement. . . .
3195 Undyre a sylure of sylke.
3232 That I ne wiste no waye whedire that
I scholde.
3245 Enhorilde with arborye and alkyns
trees.
9]
'MORTE ARTHURE'; PARALLELS
0/
Troy 7997 . . . dew dankit ^ . .
Awntyrs i6 Withe riche rebanes revers-
sede.
Tiius 637 Byes, brochee, besauntes. . .
Awntyrs 17 Raylede with rubes one
royalle arraye.
Troy 9038 Slc^h hom doun sleghly with
sleght of his bond.
[Same, 9451.]
Titus 472 . . . sawters seten . . .
psalmys.
Alex. 4960 Pesan pancere and platis.
Titus 509 Plate ne pesan,
Awntyrs 1 5 1 And nowe am I cachede
owte of kyth in carys so
colde.
Alex. 24 The wysest wies ot this
werd.
Troy 10706 . . . and his ble chaungit.
Titus 1088 . . . and all hir Mode
chaungeth.
Troy 2758 And shope hom to ship.
2744 ... on the shyre water.
Troy 13730 And schunt for no schame
but hit schope faire.
Cf. Troy, notes p. 474.
Troy ■ 943 Shotl thurgh the sheld and
the shene mayle.
Troy 1264 His shafte all to sheverit the
shalke was unhurt.
Alex. 2091 Derfe dintes and dreghe delt
and taken.
Troy 5810 Launsit as a lyoun.
Cf. Troy, 10985.
Avmtyrs di"] The swerde sleppis on slante
and one the mayle slydys.
Tittis 1014 Wende wepande away.
Troy 1328 . . . blody beronyn.
Cf. Troy, 10424, 11 141.
Troy 10757 Ne hope of hor hele in hor
hert thoght.
A/orte Arlhure,
3249 . . . downkynge of dewe. . . .
3256 And alle redily rcversside with re-
banes of golde.
3257 Bruchez and besauntez and other
bryghte stonys.
3264 Raylide with reched and rubyes
inewe.
3419 For he slewe with a slynge be sleyghte
of his handis.
3422-3 . . . psalmes
That in the sawtire ere sette. . . .
3459 A pesane and a paunsone. . . .
3514 Now am I cachede owtt of kyth with
kare at my herte.
3554 Of all the wyes of this worlde.
fsSSQ ■ • • ^"s fi'S ble chaungide.
j 4214 ... and alle his ble chaunges.
3600-1 And thane he schoupe hyme to
chippe. . . .
, . . over the schyre waters.
3716 He ne schownttes for no schame but
schewes fuUe heghe.
3747-9 Thourghe the scheldys so schene
schalkes thay towche
With schaftes scheverid schorte of
thas schene launces
Derfe dynthys they dalte. . . .
3832 , . . alles a lyone he lawnches theme
thorowe.
3855 His hand sleppid and slode oslante
one the mayles.
3889 Went wepand awaye . . .
3947 . . . al blody bero[n]ene.
3972 . . . blody berowne.
3959-60 . . . the hope of my hele ... my
herte.
E
S8
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Troy 15 16 Soche sikyng and sorow
sanke in his hert.
Awntyrs 230 To mene me with messes
grete raenske nowe it
were.
Troy 3239 Thai shotte into shippe the
scheltrun.
Troy 313-5 The mighty Massidon King
master of all. . . .
He wan all the world and at
his wille aght.
Titus 720 . . . tresoun and trey. . . .
Troy 1248 The bourder of his basnet
brestes in sender.
Awntyrs ^21-2 He kervet of the cantel that
covurt the knyghte.
Thro his shild and his shil-
dur a schaftmun he share.
Alex. 4961 Jopone and jesserand. . . .
Morte Arthure.
3984 Was never sorowe so softe that sanke
to my herte.
4019 Menskede with messes for mede of
the saule.
41 16 Schotte to the schiltrones. . . .
4161 Of alle that Alexander aughte qwhilles
he in erthe lengede.
4193 . . . tresone and trayne. . . .
4212 The bordoure of his bacenett he bristes
in sondire.
4232-3 The cantelle of the clere schelde
he kerfes in sondyre
Into the schuldyre of the schalke a
schaftmonde large.
4239 Thorowe jopowne and jesserawnte. . .
The arguments about dissimilarities in style and vocabulary between
Morte Arthure, the Troy, the Alexander, and other poems are so com-
pletely undermined by the great facts of connection now for the first
time established, that the tedious and invidious task of replying in detail
to so many scholars and personal friends is happily unnecessary. That
entirely mistaken stress was laid upon divergences of vocabulary, and that
supposed distinctions of alliterative system were unwarrantably believed to
make unity impossible — these seem now to be self-evident propositions,
with every presumption in favour of unity. The earlier arguments were
brought forward under conditions now enormously modified and reversed —
a body of new positive fact having practically superseded the anterior basis
of Huchown's case.
For Huchown, especially considered as a postulate of unity, the claim
now rests not on general or special resemblances of lines or style — always
the most slippery of grounds — but on a long and firm series of proved
and interlocked connections uniting four poems, Alexander, Troy, Titus,
find Morte Arthure,
9] 'MORTE ARTHURE' AND CRECY, 1346 59
(8) Events of 1346-64 as sources.
Taking as proved the influence of the French wars on the fabric
of Titus one finds a ready test for the chronology of Morte Arthure} Full
of chivalry, must there not emerge in it points of special contact as
regards the art of war itself? Let us therefore examine the dispositions
of his troops made by King Arthur in his great battle with the 'Em-
perour.' In Geoffrey the king has eight squadrons besides his own,
and he has no archers. In Morte Arthure the array is quite altered.
There are three battalions. The king appoints Sir Valiant
Cheftayne of the cheeke with chevalrous knyghttez,
And sythyne meles with mouthe that he moste traystez,
Demenys the medylward menskfully hymeselfene,
Ffittes his fotemen alles hym faire thynkkes,
On fronnte the forebreste, the flour of his knyghtez.
His archers on aythere halfe he ordaynede theraftyre
To schake in a sheltrone to shotte whene theme lykes :
He arrayed in the rerewarde fulle rialle knyghtez,
With renkkes renownd of the rounde table.^
Morte Arthure, 1986-94.
The best possible commentary on this is the battle of Crecy.^ There were
three ' battles,' two forming the front line, the third the reserve. ' The
men at arms ' (says Mr. Oman)* ' all on foot, were formed in a solid line —
perhaps six or eight deep — in the centre of the 'battle.' The archers
stood in two equal divisions to the right and left of the men at arms.'
Edward's array and Arthur's are thus essentially the same — (i) three
'battles,' i.e. the 'cheeke' or ' fronnt,' the middleward, and the rearguard;
(2) the flower of the knights on foot in the battlefront ; and (3) the
archers on each side of (4) the dismounted men at arms. One may not
press such things too far, yet must it be noticed how the bowmen of
Britain overbore the 'bregaundez' of the enemy ^ just as the archers of
' The chief heads of tliis section, with additional details, are set forth in my article on
the subject about to be published in The Antiquary.
^ Cheeke, the ' front ' or vanguard ; meles, addresses ; demenys, arrays ; menskfully,
becomingly ; halfe, side ; sheltrone, arrayed body ; renkes, men.
'See Murimuth (Eng. Hist. Soc), 165-7; Galfridus le Baker (ed. Giles), 164-7.
* Art of War (Middle Ages), 605. * Morte Arthure, 2095-107.
6o 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch.
Edward drove back the cross-bowmen of Genoa, who were armed in
' brigandines ' of mail. ^ In the poem ^ a great charge of horse followed,
in which many men were trodden down. This sequence was historical at
Crecy also.^ Nor are there wanting analogies for the threats of no quarter,
characteristic of both the battle poetic* and the battle real.^ Surely the
test of Crecy is well sustained.
The 'brigands' introduce themselves to us in Froissart under the year
1358 — the infantry of the freebooting mercenary class produced by the
English wars in France. The word itself carries a general indication of
date corroborated by so many companion facts.
Turn from land to sea and the same test stands. Consider certain of
the characteristics of the great sea fight between Arthur and the allies of
Mordred, and place this engagement in its entirety oyer against the historical
sea-fight off Winchelsea, between the English and the 'Espagnols,' on
29th August, 1350. And note how every point of the historic battle,
(now to be gleaned from divers chronicles, etc., Minot, Murimuth's con-
tinuator, Walsingham, Galfridus le Baker, and Froissart) comes blazing into
the wonderful poem — the topcastles with the stones and gads of iron, the
' hurdace,' the ' beaver ' of Edward and then his helm, the cutting of head
ropes, the English archers outshooting the enemy, the storming of the ships,
the gay cabins hacked with arrows and bespattered with men's brains, and
then the grim end of all when — a momentary lapse of the poet dubbing the
Danish enemies of Arthur the ' Spanyolis ' — he tells how to a man they sprang
into the sea or stubbornly died upon their decks ; exactly, as the historians
assure us, did the Spaniards off Winchelsea, refusing the summons to
^Oman's Art of War, 611. The 'brigandine' is figured in Demmin's Die
Kriegswaffen (ed. Leipzig, 1886), 4S7-8. The word 'brigand,' originally denoting a
footsoldier, was introduced into French in the 14th century (Brachet's Diet.). I find il
in a letter to King John just before the battle of Poitiers, in 1356. Chandos Herald's
Prince Noir, ed. Michel, 1883, p. 333. See also Cuvelier's Du Guesclin, 1. 1584. It is
used by Froissart relative to the 'companies' in 1358; also under same year in Scala-
cronica, p. 186, and earlier on p. 108.
2 Morte, 2140-52. ^ Galf. le Baker, 165. '' Morte, 2007, 2203.
« Galf. le Baker, 164-5
9J 'MORtE ARtllURE' AND SEA-FIGHT Ot WINCHELSEA, 1350 61
surrender, and meeting death with invincible disdain. This will be made
fully apparent from the collation ^ exhibited here,
Morte Arthitre (11. 3600-700).
The King prepares his ships for battle.
' Drawing up stones ' for projectiles as they
lie at anchor, ' the topcastles he stuffed
with toyelys,' and with 'gads of steel.'
There is a ' hurdace on height ' with helmed
knights. The King is bareheaded ' with
beveryne lokkes,' his headpiece, however,
at hand, and when the anchors are weighed-
and the engagement begins he dons ' his
comely helm.'
Contemporary Chronicles.
Saxis volantibus a turriculis malorum et
pilis vibrantibus . . . classica armatura.
(Baker.)
Gros barriaus de fer forgies et fais tous
faitis pour lancier et pour effondrer nefs en
lan9ant de pieres et de calliaus sans nom-
bre. (Froissart.)
Thaire hurdis thaire ankers hanged thai
on here. (Minot. x. 14.)
Si se tenoit li rois d'Engleterre ou chief
de sa nef vestis d'un noir jake de velviel
et portoit sus son chief un noir chapelet
de beveres qui moult bien li sevit.
(Froissart. )
Et puis mist li rois le bacinet en la tieste
et aussi fissent tout le aultre. (Froissart.)
' With trompes and taburns.' (Minot x.
8. ) ' Tubis lituis et musEe cornibus suos
ad amia concitantes. (Baker.)
'When thai sailed westward.' (Minotx. 13.)
S'encontrerent de tel ravine que ce sembia
uns tempestes que la fust cheus. Et dou
rebombe qu'il fisent li chastiaus de la nef
dou roy d'Engletene consievi le chastiel
de la nef Espagnole par tel maniere que
li force dou mas le rompi amont sus le
mas 6u il seoit et le reversa en le mer.
(Froissart.)
Si acrokierent a cros de fer et de kainnes.
(Froissart. )
Hanekin . . . copa le cable qui porte le
voile par quoi li voiles chei . . . il copa
quatre cordes souverainnes qui gouvrenoient '
le mas et le voille. (Froissart.)
Signal of battle comes when the crews
'bragged in trompes.' The wind rises out
of the west.
Ships sail into each other with a crash.
' Sways the mastys ; over falls in the
first ' ; men bicker with ' gads of irons. '
As the ships grapple the seamen ' castys
crepers one cross.'
' Thane was hede-rapys hewene that
helde up the mastes.' (1. 3668.)
^ Works cited are Poems of Laurence Minot, ed. Hall, pp. 33-4. Galfridus le Baker,
ed. Giles, pp. 204-5. Froissart, ed. Luce, tome iv., pp. 88-96 (livi'e premier, §§ 323-7).
Miirimulh, (Eng. Hist. Soc.) p. 180. Walsiiigham, sub anno, 1350 In examining
Froissart I have had the benefit of notes on Lettenhove's text from my friend Mr.
J. T. T. Brown.
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE '
[Cr.
Contemporary Chronicles.
Terebranmt tandem sagittarii longiore
jactu sagittarum illorum balistarios . . . E
turribus saxa fulminabant. (Baker.)
Tunc scalas conscensi nostri in Hesperias
naves irruerunt gladiis et securibus obvios
truncantes. (Baker.)
Ibi vidisses sanguine et cerebro naves
pictas demiono sagittas in malis velis temo-
nibus et castris infixas. (Baker.)
Hispani . . . quia se reddere noluerant
jussu regis Edwardi omnes miserabiliter
perierant. (Murimuth's continuator.) His-
pani . . . omnes miserabiliter perierunt
alii ferro csesi alii aquis submersi.
(Walsingham. )
In brevi vasa plena Hispanis vacuabant.
(Baker.)
Inopes Hispanos mortuos et languidos in
mare projicientes. (Baker.)
Morte Arthure (11. 3690-700).
' Archers of England full eagerly shoot '
' till all the Danes were dead and in the
deep thrown.' (1. 3694.)
Arthur's men then board and storm the
ships ' leaping in upon loft. '
Mony kaban clevede cabills destroyede
Knyghtes and kene men killide the braynes
Kidd castells were corven with all theire
kene wapen. (11. 3671-3.)
Spanyolis spedily spreni yde over burdez
AUe the kene men of kampe knyghtes and
other
Killyd are colde dede and castyne over
burdez. (11. 3700-2.)
[The ' Spanyolis' of 1. 3700 are Danes in all
the other allusions to them.
11. 3528, 3610, 3694.]
That there is more of live chronicle
From these passages what follows ?
of the fight of Winchelsea in the little finger of Morte Arthure than there
is in the entire body of Laurence Minot's song of Les Espagnols sur Me?- :
That the poet who in Titus drew upon the surrender of Calais in 1347
for poetic colouring, similarly drew in Morte Arthure on the battle of Crecy
in 1346, and the Spanish sea fight of 1350 : That the Arthur of Morte
Arthure is not indirectly Edward 111.: That every presumption therefore
points to the poem as a contemporary and chivalric tribute to the founder
of the Table Round.
Crecy, as already shewn, supplied much for Arthur's great battle with
Lucius, but it fails entirely to clear away an editorial difficulty and determine
the site of the field. What lacks in 1346 we may chance to find in 1359.
The romance-battle was fought in the ' vale ' of ' Sessoyne,' which has been
supposed to be Saxony, but the true understanding of which has long
been a problem 1 owing to the topographical impossibilities Saxony involves.
' Mrs. Banks's notes to Morte Arthure, 11. 1964, 1977. That ' Sessoyne ' is sometimes
Saxony is clear enough, being the P'rench ' Sassoigne,' but not so here.
9] 'M6RTte ARTHDRE' AND FRENCH WARS 63
Prior to the battle Arthur had been in Normandy advancing eastward ;
Lucius, too, was sojourning not far away by the Seine and Rouen and
Paris (11. 1336-40); and after the battle Arthur is again found at Cotentin,
still in Normandy. Saxony is not a ' vale,' and is a good seven hundred
miles from Normandy. Moreover, the poet's 'vale' has a city; and Arthur's
army just before being arranged in order of battle
' Forsette them the cite appon sere halfez' (1. 1979).
Now in the year 1359, according to an English author,^ an English
' company ' did this very thing. Un compaigny dez Engles enforcerent la vile
de Veillye en la vale de Sessoun. French chronicle ^ of the same fact calls
the place 'Sissone,' and Sissonne still lives as a township in the department
of Aisne in Picardy. Huchown's 'vale' therefore we may assume, after a
glance at the map, was here.^
The term 'chartire of pes'* belongs to the same period, having,
according to Froissart, been applied to the Treaty of Bretigny in 1360,
and having probably become current shortly after. In Morte Arthure, in
the great sea fight against Mordred and his allies, the king arrays his
ships 'alle ryally in rede' (1. 3614). From 1361 we hear of a war vessel^
of Edward III. called 'le Reade Cogge.' 'The genatours of Genne,'
and 'bregaundez,' who change sides ^ with such promptitude and fight
forthwith against their dilatory Roman paymasters, reflect the period of
^ Scalacronica, 185. ^Jehan le Bel, ii., 239.
"It is curious to note the existence of a Crecy (Crecy sur Serre) within a few miles
of Sissonne. This was not Edward III.'s Crecy, which is in the adjoining department
of Somme, nearer the sea.
* Morte Arthure, 1542, 3059. Compare with Froissart's reference concerning 1360,
that of the Grandes Chroniques de Saint Denis, to toutes les chartes de la paix in 1 368
Zeller, Charles V. et Du GuescUn, 105.
^Cal. Rot. Pat., 172.
^ Morte Arthure, 11. 2096, 2897, 2909, 2920. The 'genatours of Genne' (Genes, Genoa)
are thus described in Cuvelier's Du Guesdin, 11. 1 1 144-S :
XX. mile Genevois sur genes chevauchant
Qui portoient les dars de coi on va lancant.
Chandos Herald's Prince Noir (\. 3105) calls them
Geneteurs hommes a chival.
64 'iiUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
the Spanish campaigns of the Black Prince ; they are ' true to the life of
1360 or thereabout.'! Certain of the historical personages and places intro-
duced enable a closer date-approximation. The King of Cyprus ^ is one ;
he visited England in 1363, and was royally entertained, the King of
Scotland visiting Edward III. at the same time. Such things are the
political atmosphere of the poem.
In 1359 the talk of knightly circles, expressed in a well-known chronicle
(written in Anglo-French), had been of the passage to France by 'Sand"
wiche,' of ' Barflu,' of ' Sessoun,' of ' Vien,' of ' Millein,' of ' Costentyn,' of
'Paiters,' of 'le markeis of Mise,' of the 'Allemaunz,' of 'Lorrein,' and
of 'Reyns,' of 'Troies,' of 'Turry.' In 1360 we hear further of 'Chartres
and 'TuUous,' 'Roan,' 'Came,' and 'Provynce.' The brief annals of 1361
mention ' Henaw ' and ' Holand ' and ' Denemark,' especially recording that
the Danish king had made war on the Easterlings and reconquered much
of ' Swetherik ' from the king of ' Norway,' while the king of ' Lettow ' had
been made captive by the lords of ' Spruce.' Besides, ' le roy de Cypre '
had taken a town in 'Turky' by assault. In 1362 we hear of 'Spayn,'
'Gascoigne,' ' Gyene,' 'Normandy,' and 'Burgoyne.' All these, culled from
about a dozen consecutive pages of the Scalacronica^ begun in the castle
of Edinburgh in 1355, tally with the names which Huchown, supple-
menting his original, made place for in Morte Arthure. They shew to a
marvel that his geographical embroidery of Arthur's story was taken
from the topography of 1359-63, just as we have already seen* that the
stations on Arthur's march Romewards were borrowed from the itinerary
of the time.
Indefinite additions to these evidences might be made from annals of
the period, but it is proper to emphasise one or two names which appear
1 1 steal these words from a letter of Prof. W. P. Ker.
' Morte Arthure, 596; Mnrimuth (Eng. Hist. Soc), 199; Walsingham, sub anno 1363.
' Scalacronica, 185-202. It is unnecessary to quote the corresponding names in Morte
Arthure, but Sandwich (1. 635) may be noted as a point of Huchown's divergence from
Geoffrey, who makes Southampton the port of embarkation. 'Paiters' (Poitiers) is
'I'eyters' in Morte (1. 40). 'The Marclie of Meyes' in Morte (2417) is well vouched
by Scalacronica. ''Ch. 2 above,
93 'MORTfe A-RTHURE' ANI? EDWARD III. 65
to make it certain that Morte Arthure can hardly have been finished
before the beginning of 1365. Among the ' Sowdanes and Sarezenes '
summoned to his banner by Lucius ^ are
Of Babyloyn and Baldake the biirlyche knyghLes,
as well as those of 'Tartary,' and 'Turlcey,' and 'Lettow,' while the
' Kynge of Cyprys ' with ' all the realls of Roodes ' — evidently Arthur's
ally — on shipboard in the Mediterranean, lies in wait for the Saracen
enemy.
The Kynge of Cyprys on the see the Sowdane habydes
With all the realls of Roodes arayede with him one.
So much for poetry : for history we have a great victory over the Turks,
gained in November, 1364, when the Grand Master of the Hospitallers of
Rhodes and many of his knights were counted among the 5000 Christian
dead, while the princes of the other side (as Capgrave translates ^ Muri-
muth's continuator) ' were these : The Soudan of Babilony ; the Kyng of
Turkye ; the Kyng of Baldak ; the Kyng Belraaryn ; the Kyng of Tartare ;
the Kyng of Lettow — of which iii were slayn.' The king of Cyprus,
who had in 1361 captured Satalie by a sea-expedition, was in the end of
1364 getting ready a fleet at Venice for a similar exploit against the Sultan
of Alexandria.^ There is neither Baldak, nor Lettow, nor Rhodes, nor
Cyprus, nor Sultan, in Geoffrey of Monmouth (or in the translations by
Layamon and Wace). The grouping, therefore, is a powerful item in the
proofs* for a date soon after the close of 1364 (in which connection it
will not be amiss to recall Sir Hew of Eglintoun's presence in London ^
in May, 1365), before the Cyprian swoop on Alexandria was known.
'^ Morte, 582-607.
^ Murimutk (Eng. Hist. Soc), 201. Capgrave's Chronicle, 223.
'Machaut's Prise iPAlexandrie, 11. 640-660, 1540-1620. Note also Cuvelier's line
stating that the king ' Satalie conquist et occist le soudant,' Du Gtiesclin, 1. 7443.
*Sir Hew of Eglintoun's father- in-law and brother-in-law both held high position
among the Scottish Hospitallers. — Mr. John Edwards in Transac. Glasg. Archaeological
Society, new series, vol. iii. , pp. 322, 326.
'Safe conduct, dated 20th May, 1365. Kot. Scot., i., 893'.
66 'hUchown o'f the AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
Finally, to be appealed to as most oddly significant of all the notes of
date in Morte Arthure, are the lines (1943-5) in which, after a reprimand
followed by an apology to Cador of Cornwall, his nephew. King
Arthur says :
' Thare es none ischewe of us on this erthe sprongene
Thow art apparant to be ayere, are (read or) one of thi childyre
Thow arte my sister sone, forsake salle I never.'
Why should Arthur have made any alternative? Cador was heir. Only
because he died in battle before the king was it that not he but his
son succeeded — in Geoffrey — to the throne. Why the 'or one of thy
children ? ' It was a singular observation — like an entail — to let fall.
There could be only one apparent heir. Scottish history supplies the
answer, and points to the intrigue and privy agreements ^ of 1363-4, whereby
the childless David II. made in so far as in him lay Edward II I. ^ or one
of his children heir-apparent to the Scottish Crown.
By the first convention Edward himself was made inheritor of the crown
failing lawful issue of David II. ; the Scottish Parliament rejected the
proposal in March, 1364, and the substituted terms arranged that year
were that one of King Edward's children other than the heir-apparent
to the Crown of England should become the heir-apparent of Scotland.
But the Scottish Parliament and people were obdurate, and a chief service
of the agreements may be to give us confirmation of the date of Morte
Arthure.^
^ See these discussed in my Sir Hew of Eglmtoun (Phil. Soc. Glas.), and in note to
ch. 12, sec. z, below.
^The terms of the first agreement of 27th November, 1363, were: Ou cas que le dit
Roi d'Escoce trespasse du siecle sanz hoir engendre de son corps le devant dit Roi
d'Engleterre ou quiconques qui alors en seroit Rois et ses hoirs Rois d'Engleterre aient
succession heritable du dit roialme d'Escoce {Acts Pari. Scot., i., 493).
■' The substituted proposal is contained in a document worn away in parts, but printed
thus : Item ou cas que le Roi . . . au present devie sanz heir . . . de son
corps et en matrinioigne engendre I'un des filz du Roi d'Engleterre qui n'est pas heir
apparant d'Engleterre lui succedera . . . oialme et a la coronne de Escoce (Acts
Pari. Scot., i., 495.
'PARLfiMENt OF THE THRE AGES' 67
10. ' The Parlement of the Thre Ages.'
(i) Tests to be applied.
The sequence of the four poems aheady dealt with, and the significance
of their mutual relation, will not appear .of less account when the quartet
is made a quintet — when the series closes in the Parlement of the Thre
Ages^ with an outline of its story, an analysis of its textual affinities, and
a discussion of a source, little suspected, for its plot. Tests of each of
the preceding four poems have been found in the evidence of each in
succession of the use and influence of the poem before, the occurrence
of entire lines as well as poetical figures and phrases in each found in
one or more of the others, and features not well admitting classification,
which bring out as a kind of resume in the later work certain aspects
of paraphrase or retrospect of the earlier performances. As applied to
The Parlement of the Thre Ages (a poem found in one of Robert of
Thornton's priceless manuscripts conjoined with the Titus and with the
beautiful Lay of the Truelove^), the tests already seen in operation might
not be satisfied by proofs of {a) identity of versification, supplemented by
{b) the occurrence of detached lines and phrases held in common by {c) more
than one of the antecedent suite. These alone might not serve; an
exacting critic might demand demonstration that concurrently with these
things there are in reasonable clearness signs {d) that the author was
familiar with the authorities employed in the previous books, (e) that the
characteristics and poetical method of the works compared should be
analogous, and (/) that the collation should furnish instances not of general
merely but of intimate suggestion ot unity of authorship. A tolerably
heavy load of responsibility to undertake — a load, be it said, under which
the attempt to prove by internal evidence the common authorship of many
^ The Parlement of the Thre Ages, edited by Israel Gollancz, M.A. (Roxburghe
Club, 1897). To my friend, Prof. W. P. Ker, for introducing me to this book, and
lending me his copy, I can hardly be grateful enough.
^Edited from the MSS. by Mr. Gollancz — in the Dr. Furnivall birthday volume,
An English Miscellany, igoo, under the unsatisfactoiy title, 'The Quatrefoil of Love.'
68 'HUCHOWX OF THE AWLE RYALE [Ch.
great pieces of English literature by their acknowledged authors would
hopelessly break down ! But he who takes this responsibility of maintaining
the claim of Huchown to the Parlement can with a light heart challenge
all the tests combined. The ParUment itself supplies all the arms its
champions need. It is an aUiterative poem (a) of the same measure as
the antecedent four, (b) containing whole lines and very many identical
phrases, not commonplace, found («•) in various members of the preceding
quartet, while (rf) it cites or shows close knowledge of Alexander and of
Tnn, of the Brut and of the Vceux du Piwn, and at the same time it
quotes 71/us and AforU Arthure, and presents clear analogies not only
with the Pisli/l of Szcert Susan, but also — it is of grave moment to remark
it — with Ga-wayne ami the Green Knight. The analogy of {e) poetical mode
among the five poems is fairly absolute, passing through a phase of sheer
and simple translation to one of expanded paraphrase and narrative, partly
independent, resting at many points upon authority, but with constant
deviations into originality. Finally, (/) the Parkment binds together the
whole range of the work of Huchown in a manner at once intimate and
explicit.
These be large assertions ; and now — after the plot of the story itself
— there come the proofs.
{2) The Pbt of the 'Parlement'
The Parlement is a work accessible only in a very limited club edition.
The story it tells, therefore, may becomingly be told here in fuller outline
than was thought necessary in any other item of the quartet. It opens
with a magnificent hunting picture of the stalking of a deer, "In the month
of May when mirthes been fele,"" in which the hero, waiting beside a tree
in the woods, caught sight of a hart. Creeping under a crabtree he was
about to shoot when a buck that was with the hart sounded the alarm,
and the sportsman had to lie low for a while in spite of the gnats which
greatly him grieved and gnawed his 'eghne.' Soon as the opportunity
came he drew his bow and shot, liitting the hart behind the left shoulder.
Then he flayed and disembowelled the prize after the approved rules of
venery, which done, he sat down in the warm sunshine and fell asleep.
lo] 'PARLEMENT'; ITS PLOT 69
As natural in the romance period, the sleep was not wasted, the inevi-
table dream came — the dream which is the remainder of the poem.
'And what I saw in my soul, the sooth I shall tell.'
He saw three men quarrel. The first was a gallant young noble on
horseback clad in green, decked with a chaplet of flowers, his collar and
sleeves set with jewels.
' The price of that perry were worth pounds full many. '
He was thirty years of age, he was young and 'yape,' says our poet, and
Youth was his name.
The second man was a sober personage in grey sitting full of thought
about his money, his lands, his rent, and his cattle. He was sixty, and men
called him Middle Elde.
The third had a hundred years. All in black, bald, blind, white-
bearded, crooked, toothless, and pious, he mumbled the Creed and invoked
the saints. This was the last of the trio whom the poet made interlocutors
in his ' parlement,' and Elde was his name.
Youth reveals himself carolling in his saddle as he goes, making to
his absent lady love a 'high avow.' Middle Elde reproaches him for his
extravagance. Youth will none of Middle Elde's worldly wisdom. He
will, he retorts, rather make and perform his high avow than own all the
gold ever Middle Elde got. Then would he go a-hawking, and he describes
in glowing terms the falcon soaring like heaven's angel, to swoop on
mallard and heron, which fall beneath the stroke. Next the falconers
treat the quarry as the code of falconry requires, and the episode closes
when the hoods are put on the hawks, and Youth figures himself on the
way home —
' With ladies full lovely to lappen in mine arms. '
The man in russet-grey has just begun angrily to expostulate when the old
worthy in black strikes in between to preach a sermon which lasts till nearly the
very end of the poem — a sermon which, as one listens to it, grows ever more
and more nobly eloquent of the Middle Ages, eloquent of its literature and
literary standards, eloquent of the culture of the Scottish Court undej- the
Bruces and the Stewarts, eloquent above all of the majestic poetic stature
70 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
of Huchown of the Awle Ryale. For this sermon, with which Age silences
the vain jangling of Youth and Middle Age, this sermon of Elde, wise with
the lore of Time, although its moral be the trite moral of Death, yet preaches it,
as rarely preached before, by compressing into brief compass the whole romance
story of the Middle Ages. It tells of Hector and the heroes of Troy ; tells
of Alexander and the worthies whom remote Egyptian fiction and more
recent French romance had sent into the field with him ; tells of Caesar
and the Tower of London ; tells of gentle Joshua and David the doughty,
and Judas Machabeus — 'Jews full jolly and jousters full noble'; then flings
itself heart and soul upon King Arthur and Sir Galahad 'the good that
the gree wan,' Sir Lancelot of the Lake, Sir Kay, and all the Round Table,
with the spotless Sir Gawayne and the frail fair Guinevere. His list of the
Noble Nine, after mere mention of Godfrey of Bouillon, concludes with a
long passage concerning Charlemagne, mentioning amongst other heroes
Roland and Oliver and Ogier the Dane,i and telling that tale of Ferumbras
and the Brig of Mantrible, which Barbour,^ perhaps with some poetic
license, placed on the lip of Robert the Bruce to cheer his dispirited
followers as they crossed Loch Lomond during the ill-omened campaign of
1306. And the sum of all is — the lesson of life as told by him in black
from the mighty careers of the foremost warriors of Time —
' Now have I named you the names of Nine of the best
That ever were in this world wist upon earth,
And the doughtiest of deeds in their days' time,
But Doughtiness when Death comes ne dare not abide.'
What was true of prowess in battle the pessimist Elde found also of
learning. Aristotle and Solomon and Merlin, these were the wisest of the world,
but their wit was powerless against Death. Nor was love, nor beauty
itself, exempt. Amadace and Ydoine, Samson and Delilah, Generydes
the gentle and Clarionas the clere,' Eglamour and Christabel, Tristram
and Iseult, Dido of Carthage and Candace of Babylon, Penelope and
^ ' Ogere Deauneys ' (1. 523). For the significance of this and of Generydes mentioned
below see ch. 9 above, sections 5 and 6.
' Bruce, iii. , 405-465.
^ See reference to Generydes in ch. 9 above, sec. 5.
10] 'PARLEMENT'; PARALLELS WITH 'GAWAYNE' 71
Guinevere — through the glittering catalogue of romance heroes and heroines
he marches mournfully to the old old tune — Death will have his way :
nothing is certain but Death. At the close Elde the wise commands Youth
and Middle Elde to cease their wrangle, for Elde is sire of Middle Elde
and Middle Elde of Youth, and he, their sire and grandsire, bids them
Haves good day for now I go, to grave must me wend,
Death dings on my door, I dare no longer bide.
Here the dreamer — he that had hunted the deer and fallen asleep — heard
a bugle blow full loud, and woke to find that the sun had set and " Thus
ends the Thre Ages."
Peradventure we also, if our slumbers in the forest are not too sound,
may chance to hear a bugle blow, and mark how the bent echoes with
Huchown's trumpet note.
(3) Parallels of the ^ Parlement.^
The hunting scene as a whole and the hawking picture, too, fit to a miracle
into the structure of Huchown's work if, as may be assumed (in spite of
critical dicta to the contrary), Sir Frederick Madden was right in under-
standing Wyntown's reference to the Awntyre of Gawane as referring
explicitly to Gawayne and the Green Knight. In Gawayne there were
described three hunts — respectively of a deer, a boar, and a fox. In the
other extant poems there are indeed many passing and often intimate
allusions to the chase, but no detailed description. This story in the
Parlemetit, therefore, describing how the deer was shot and how the falcon
brought the heron down, is most opportune to fill a gap. These picturesquely
technical accounts in no way overlap what the poet has written elsewhere,
and yet there are points at which the different references to the deer hunt
touch each other so as to reveal identity of workmanship. Mr. Gollancz
has well said that these descriptions are supplementary. To reckon them
complementary would be still better. The points of contact with Gawayne ^
are special enough to call for treatment by themselves.
' Of course I am aware of certain analogies in hunting matters with Sir Tristram, but
the present correspondences are verbally exact, and most intimate.
72
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Gatvayne.
14S5 Haled to hym of her arewez,
hitten hym oft.
1609-10 Braydez out the boweles . . . his
braches rewardez.
1328-9 Serched him at the asay summe
that ther were,
Two fyngeres thay fonde. . . .
[330
. sesed the erber.
1332 Sythen rytte thay the foure
lymraes and rent off the hyde.
1337 Then scher thay out the schulderez
with her sharp knyvez.
1355 And the corbeles fee thay kest in
a greve.
1330 . . . thay slyt the slot. . . .
1339 [Object aimed at] to have hole
sydes.
1335 . . . thay gryped . . . and
graythely departed.
1347 And that thay neme for the
noumbles. ...
1341 Ryvez hit up radly ryght to the
byght.
i5o8 . . . rendez him . . . bi the
fygge- • • ■
1357 . . . the fourchez. . . ,
1353-4 Bothe the hede and the hals thay
hwen of thenne
And sythen sunder thay the
sydez swyft fro the chyne.
1346 And heven hit up al hole.
1628 Of the were of the wylde swyn. . .
Parlement.
53-4 And I hailed to the hokes. . . .
And happenyd that I hilt hym. . .
69 Brayde out his bowells my berselett
to fede.
70-71 And I sisilte hym at the assay to
see how me semyde
And he was floreschede full faire of
two fyngere brode.
73-82 And ritte doun at a rase reght to
the tayle
And than the herbere anone aftir I
makede.
I raughte the righte legge before,
ritt it ther aftir
And so fro legge to legge I lepe
thayra aboute
And the felle fro the fete fayre I
departede
And flewe it doun with my fiste
faste to the rigge.
I lighte owte my trenchore and toke
of the scholdirs
Cuttede corbyns bone and kest it
awaye.
I slitte hym full sleghely and
slyppede in my fyngere
Lesse the poynte scholde perche the
pawnche or the guttys.
85-87 I grippede owte the guttes and
graythede theym besyde,
And than the nombles anone name
I there aftire
Rent up fro the rigge reghte to the
rayddis.
88 . . . the fourches. . . .
89-90 And chynnede hym chefely and
choppede of the nekke
And the hede and the haulse
homelyde in sondree
92 And hevede alle into ane hole.
99 To wayte it frome wylde swyne. . , .
10]
'PARLEMENT': PARALLELS WITH 'GAWAYNE'
73
Gawayne.
2175 The knyght kachez his caple.
1158 The hindez were halden in with
' hay ' and ' war. '
144s . . . halowed . . . ' hay '
' hay.'
1655 As coundutes of krystmasse and
carolez newe.
2525 After the segge and the asaute [of
Troy].
1584 Braydez out a bryght bront. . . ,
1901 And braydez out the bryght bronde.
2419 . . . Barsabe that much bale
tholed.
2448 The maystres of Merlyn. . . .
1928 He were a bleaunt. , . .
2446 Thurgh myght of Morgne la Faye.
Parlement.
189 And thu hafe caughte thi kaple.
223 With ' hoo ' and ' howghe ' to the
heron. . . .
254 With coundythes and caroUes.
303 [Troy] cite asseged and sayled.
371 And brayde owte the brighte
brande. . . .
453 For Bersabee . . . was alle that
bale rerede.
469 That Merlyn with his maystries
made. , . .
482 He made a blyot. . . .
511 ... Morgn la fay that myche
couthe of sleghte.
Lest anybody should urge that these are chance coincidences, I append
a brief list of others which connect Gawayne equally with some poems
of which we have heard a good deal in this essay.
Alexander.
[Exordium] I J And I forwith yow alle
ettillis to schewe.
Alex. 3020 Was never sene I suppoyse
sen the seyge of Troye.
778 Stridis into stele bowe stertis
apon loft.
1540 . . . wodwose and other wylde
bestes.
2617 The cry of the clarions the
clodez it persyd.
Tittis.
1244 . . . gretter than a grehounde . . .
54 Cloudes clateren gon as they cleve
wolde.
Gawayne.
[Exordium] 27 Forthi an aunter in erde
I attle to schawe.
I Sithen the sege and the assaut
watz sesed at Troye.
435 Steppez in to stel bawe and
strydez alofte.
Cf. 2060 Steppez he into stirop and
strydez alofte.
721-2 ... wodwos . , . bullez and
berez and borez.
1 166 . . . kry as klyfifez haden brusten.
Gawayne.
1 1 71 ... grehoundez so grete . . .
2201 , . . clatered in the clyff as it cleve
schulde.
74
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Titus.
849-50 . . . with dynnyng of pipis
And the nakerer noyse . . .
3«Si
532-3
4SI
Morte Arthure.
Into Tuskane he tournez . . .
For whyeseste and worthyest and
wyghteste of haundez.
Of all . . . this werlde ryche.
. . . one nyghte nedez moste thou
lenge.
118
II
261
693
Gawaytie.
Nwe nakryn noise with the noble
pipes.
Gawayne.
Ticius [turnes] to Tuskan.
The wyzest and the worthyest of the
worldes kynde.
. . . alone he lengez on nyghtez.
Having now left in no doubt the intimate relation between the
Parkment and Gawayne, we may turn to a general grouping of certain
other parallels, reminding ourselves before we begin that the Parlement
has only 665 lines, thus offering numerically a much smaller area of com-
parison than the greater pieces do.
Morte
3249
Troy
2736
Morte
930
AUx.
2264
Titus
1005
Titus
850
Troy 12969 Hit was the moneth of May I
when mirthes begyn.
Downkynge of dewe. ... 10
Buijons of bowes brethit full 1 1
swete.
They threpide with the 14
throstills. . ; .
. . . fayne ... as fowelle 15-6
of the day.
Fayn as the foul of day . . .
Whan the derk was doun
and the day spiyngen.
Troy 1079 Wen the derke was done
and the day sprange.
. . . sleghly on slepe. ... 36
. . . stalkis . . . stille - • • ) 41
. . . stotays . . . studyande. J 51
That the Mode out brast . . . 55
. . . bent blody be-ronnen. 62
Ded as a dore nayle. ... 65
. . . thro men in threpe and 104
thretyms. ... no
269 A bold bume on a blonk . . .
Troy
2378
Morte
3467
Morte
3468
Troy
804s
Troy
10424
Titus
1070
Troy
524
Titus
Parlement.
In the moneth of Maye when mirthes
bene fele.
The dewe . . . donkede. . . .
Burgons and blossomes and braunches
full swete.
... the throstills fiill throly
threpen. . . .
And iche foule in that fiythe fay-
nere than other
That the derke was done and the
day lightenede.
. . . sleghe . . . slepe. . . .
. . . stalkede full stilly. . . .
. . . stotayde and stelkett.
That the Mode braste owte appon
both the sydes.
. . . brakans were blody by-ronnen.
Dede als a door nayle. . . .
. , . thre thro men threpden. . . .
A bolde beryn on a blonke bowne
for to lyde.
10]
'PARLEMENT'; PARALLELS FROM 'TROY,' ETC.
75
Alex. 792 Than strenys he hys steropes
and streght up sittes.
Awntyrs 510 ... with trayfoles and
trewlufies bytwene.
Alex. 1538 With riche rabies of golde
railed bi the hemmes.
Morte 3264 Raylide with reched and
rubyes inewe.
Awntyrs 17 Raylede with rubes . . .
Morte 3964 ily wele and my wirchipe
of alle this werlde riche.
Morte 3959-60 Here es the hope of my hele
my happyge of armes.
My herte. . . .
Titus 969 I have heylych heyght. . . .
Troy 13824 Had a glaive, a full grym
grippit in honde.
Morte 3762-3 . . . gryme launce
That the growndene glayfe
graythes in sondyre.
Titus 883 Ride to the rever and rer
up the foules.
Morte 6 . . . kayre till his
courte. . . .
Morte 3293 And ladys me lovede to
lappe in theyre armes.
Troy 10097 • • • wandrit and woke for
woo. . . .
Morte 2370 . . . wakkens wandrethe
and werre. . . .
Morte 97S . . . dolvene and dede. . . .
Morte 2216 Threppede . . . thryttene
sythis.
Morte 2770 And alle dysfegoures his
face . . .
Parlement.
u6 He streghte hym in his steropis and
stode up rightes.
120 With trayfoyles and trewloves of full
triede perles.
128 With full rich rubyes raylede by the
hemmes.
175 My wele and my wirchipe in werlde
where thou dwellys.
177 Alle my hope and my hele myn herte
is thyn owen.
178 I behete the a best and h^hely I
avowe.
202 With a grym grownden glayfe
graythely in my honde.
208 And ryde to a revere.^ . . .
217 To the revere with thaire roddes
to rere up the fowlis.
246 . . . kayre to the courte. . . .
247 With ladys full lovely to lappyn in
myn armes.
257 . . . with wandrynge and wo schalte
wake. . , ,
258 . . . dolven and dede. . . .
262 . . . threpid this thirtene wyntir.
284 And all disfeguride my face and
fadide my hewe.
Cf. 155 Alle disfygured was his face and
fadit his hewe.
^ This in its hawking connexion is riparia in medieval Latinity. Juxta quondam
ripariam falconum aucupio se exerceret — is written of Edward HL in Trivet's Annates
(Eng. Hist. Soc), 282.
76
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Alex.
S6SS
Now sail I nevyne yow the
names. . . .
297
Morte
3440
AUes nynne of the nobilleste
namede in erthe.
Morie
3496
Ne for no wy of this werlde
that wroghte es one erthe.
298
Awntyrs 639
. . . no wy in this
werlde. . , ,
Morte
3408
That were conquerours
kydde and crownnede
in erthe.
299.
[Both passages referring
to the
Troy
1403 1
. . . Ector the honourable
oddist of knightes.
300
3879
. . . Ector the eldest.
AUx.
1114
The mody kyng. - . .
302
Titus
1039
. . . the mody kyng. . . .
Gawayne 1
. . . the sege and the assault
303
[Troy].
Troy
9506
Paris the prise knight.
30s
Troy
14006
(rubric)
Thies Ector slough with
hond of kynges.
307-8
[The list "all of du kynges," lines
14006-14021, has eighteen names.]
Alex. 1814 ... as mervale ware ellis
Troy 668 Thurghe wyles of woman. . .
Gawayne 2415 . . . thui^ wyles of wym-
men. . . .
310
31S
Parlement.
And I schall nevyn yow the names of
nyne of the beste.
That ever wy in this werlde wiste
appon erthe.
[Lines 297-8 are almost exactly re-
peated 580-1.]
That were conquerours full kene and
kiddeste of other.
. Sir Ector and aldeste of tyme.
. . . the mody kynge. . . .
. . . assegede and sayled it [Troy].
Paresche the proude knyghte.
And as clerkes in the cronycle
cownten the sothe
Nowmbren thaym to xix and ix mo
by tale
Of kynges with crounes he killede
with his handes.
. . . als ferly wer ellis.
With the wyles of a woman. . . .
Troy 1377-8
. . . girdyn doun the wallys 318-9
Prowde pales of prise puttyn
to grounde.
323
324
Troy
2067
. . . lure that was light. . . .
Morte
2596
. . . Syr Priamus, a prince
is my fadyre.
Morte
4345
Syr Pryamous the prynce.
Troy
1487
Was Troylus the true tristy
in wer.
Troy
9991
Troiell the tru knight. . . .
326
And with the Gregeis of Grece he
girde over the walles
The prowde paleys dide he puUe
doun to the erthe.
. . . lure at the last lighte. . . .
... Sir Priamus the prynce. . . .
Sir Troylus a trewe knyghte that
tristyly hade foughten.
Troy 3818 Neptolon nobill.
327 Neptolemus a noble knyghte.
lo] 'PARLEMENT'; PARALLELS FROM ' MORTE ARTHURE," ETC. 77
Troy
[ Troy
Alex.
Troy
Troy
Troy
5892
55-65
iS
315
312
Troy 867
Morte 2606
Titus 782
Alex. 3972
Alex. 3998
Morte 4216
Gawayne 1584
Gawayne 1901
..4 to. 1 83 1
Alex.
Palomedon the prise king.
Reference to Dares and
Dytes].
[Alexander] aghte . . . alle
the wer[l]d ovire.
[Alexander] wan all the
world.
[The pillars of Hercules.]
(rubric) How Jason wan
the flese of golde.
Jason . . , gentill knight.
Judas and Josue thise gen-
tille knyghtes.
... a Jew Josophus the
gentyl clerke
Quen Sir Porus saghe his
princes in the prese faile.
Porrus as a prince. . . .
He braydes owte a brand
biyghte. . . .
Braydez out a bryght bront. . .
And braydez out the bryght
bronde. . . .
Sire Alexander athille kyng.
5399 [Alexander styled] oure
mode kyng.
[Alexander styled Emperor constantly in
the Alexander.']
Alex. 2395 Than amed thai to ser
Alexander. . . .
Troy 314 The Emperour Alex-
ander. . . .
Alex. 56 1 1 Now bowis furth this bara-
tour and Babyloyn he
wynnis.
[Said of Alexander.]
Titus 971 And me the Jates ben jet
and 3olden the keyes.
Titus 1233 Bot up 3eden her jates and
3elden hem alle.
Parlement.
328 Palamedes a prise knyghte.
331 As Dittes and Dares demeden to-
gedir.
332 After this sir Alysaunder alle the
worlde wanne.
334 Ercules boundes
[Refe-ring to the pillars of Hercules.]
338 . . . gentille Jazon the Jewe wane
the flese of golde.
j 36s Sir Porus and his prynces.
\ 368 For there Sir Porus the prynce into
V the presse thrynges.
37 1 And brayde owte the bright brande. . .
384 Alexandere oure athell kyng.
Cf. 484 Arthure oure athell kynge..
394 Sir Alexander oure Emperour ames
hym to ryde.
395 And bewes towardes Babyloyne. .
[Said of Alexander.]
398 While hym the jatis were 3ete and
3olden the keyes.
[Repeated 575.]
Cf. 535 While hym his jernynge was jett
and the Jates opynede.
78
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Parlement.
Morte 4172 . . . drynkles they dye dole 400 Thare he was dede of a drynke as
was the more. dole es to here.
4241 That derfe dynt was his
dede and dole was the
more.
Titus 1093 . . . that doil was to hure. Cf. 452 There he was dede at that dede as
dole es to here.
Akx. 1608 The welder of all the werld 404 And thus the worthieste of this
and worthiest under werlde wente to his ende.
wylde.
[Said of Alexander.]
Alex.
18 That aghte evyn as his
awynn alle the wer[l]d
ovire.
Morte
576
Morte
2658
Morte
2606
Pistill
2
Titus
1283
Morte
293s
Titus
473
Morte 3^ig-20
Araby and Egipt. . . .
Sessoyne and Surylande.
. . . Josue . . . gentille. . . .
. . . Jezu gentil.
Mortar ne made walle. . .
. . . the develle have your
bones.
Of doughty David the king.
For he slewe with a slynge
be sleyght of his hands
Golyas the grette gome
grymmeste in erthe.
Slogh hom downe sleghly
and slaunge hom to
grounde.
Slogh hom down sleghly
with sleght of his bond.
[See also Mr. Donaldson's note in Troy,
page 481.]
Wer ded of that dynt . . .
... the devel have that
recche.
. . . Judas a justere fuUe
nobille.
, . . Josue that joly mane
.f armes.
Cf. Troy 1296
Troy 9038
Titus
Titus
1203
779
Morte 3413
Morte 3415
406
418
419
426
433
438
441
444-S
Alle Inglande he aughte at his
awnn will.
[Said of Caesar.]
Cf. same hne repeated (465) con-
cerning Arthur.
Arraby and Egipt. . . .
Surry and Sessoyne. . . .
. . . gentil Josue that was a Jewe
noble.
. . . mode walle that made were. . .
. . . Sathanas unsele have theire
bones.
Than David the doughty . . .
The grete grym Golyas he to grounde
broghte
And sloghe hym with his slynge and
with no sleghte elles.
447
And he was dede of that dynt the
devyll hafe that reche.
459 • • ■ Jeues full joly and justers full noble.
10]
'PARLEMENT'; PARALLELS FROM 'TITUS,' ETC.
79
Morte 17
Morte 3707
Morte 1368
Morte 1 1 52
Titus 767
Troy 929
Afo^-^if 304
Titus 26
jMj;-<e 4309
Morte 541
TVty/ 10306
^/cA-. 1232
Troy 1 3024
^(??-/« 2982
Morte 3427-9
7V;«j 8
Titus 497-9
^/^j;. 48
ri^ay 8315
Off the ryealle renkys of the
rowunde table.
Thane syr Gawayne the gude
he has the gree wonnene.
Thane syr Gawayne the
glide . . .
Thenne sir Kayous the
kene . . .
. . . thogh ye fey worthe.
. . . drepitt the dragon . . .
. . . beryne of Bretayne . . .
. . . alle Gascoyne gat and
Gyan . . .
And graythes to Glasschen-
bery the gate at the gay-
neste.
. . . this werlde bot wyr-
chipe . . .
Slough him . . . with sleght
of his hond.
Bot with a swyng of a swerde
swappez of hys heved.
And with the swing of a
swerde swappit hir to
dethe.
And with a swerde swiftly he
swappes him thorowe,
. . . the crowne that Crist
bare hymselfene
And that lifeliche launce
that lepe to his herte
When he was crucyfiede on
crose and alle the kene
naylis.
Throw Pylat pyned he was
and put on the rode.
Crist one
That this peple to pyne . . .
That preveth his passioun.
Than was hym bodword
unblyth broght . . .
And the bodword broght to
the bold kyng.
Parlement.
468 With renkes full ryalle of his rowunde
table.
473 Bot Sir Galade the gude that the
gree wanne.
475 And sir Gaw'ayne the gude . . .
477 And sir Kay the kene . . .
485 . . . till he was fey worthen.
488 ... a dragon he dreped . . .
490 . . . beryns of Bretayne . . .
491 Gascoyne and Gyane gat he . . .
494 The gates towardes Glassthenbery
full graythely he rydes.
519 ... wirchupe of this werlde . . .
533 ... he sloghe with his handis.
551 And one swyftely with a swerde
swapped of his hede.
553-4 . . . the corownne that criste had one
hede
And the nayles anone naytly there
aftire.
555 When he with passyoun and pyne
was naylede on the rode.
558 And than bodworde . . . full boldly.
'HUCHOWN OF, THE AWLE RY^LE'
[Ch.
Morte 1979 Forsette them the cite appon
sere halfez.
Troy 2416 To have and to hold . . .
MorU
3440,
3496.
Morte
3443-4
in my days ... for dedis
of armes
For the doughtyeste that
ever was duelland in erthe.
Alex.
24
The wysest wees of the
wer[l]de.
Alex.
247
The wysest wees in this
wer[l]d.
Troy
49
Virgin the virtuus . . .
Morte
233
Sir Gawayne the worthye
Dame Waynour he hledys.
.iwntyrs 14
... the gay dame Gaye-
nour ...
Awntyrs 313
Hafe gud daye . . .
I hafe na langare tyme
For me buse wende on my
waye . . .
Unto my wonnynge wane
in waa for to dwelle.
Morte
454
Lugge thiselfe undyre lynde.
Morte
3800
For dere Dryghttyne this
daye ...
Morte
2872
[Marie] that mylde qwene . .
[The
Lay of
the Truelffve refers to Christ
as crowning His mother Queen of Heaven.]
Parleinent.
574 And that cite he assegede appone
sere halfves.
577 To kepe it and to hold it to hym and
to his ayers.
[A well-known legal phrase answering to
the form in Latin deeds, Habendum et tenen-
dum.']
580-81 [These almost repeat 297-8.]
582 And the doghtyeste of dedis in thaire
dayes tyme. .
585 Of wyghes that were wysest . . .
[Introducing Aristotle of 'Alexander's
I time.']
ICf. 610 Theis were the wysest in the worlde.
594 Virgin thurgh his vertus . . .
629 And dame Gaynore the gay . . .
653-4 And ' Haves gud daye ' for now I go
to grave moste me wende
Dethe dynges on my dore
I dare no longare byde.
663 . . . lugede me in the leves . .
664 For dere Drightyne this daye .
665 Marie that is mylde quene . . .
A summation of these parallels brings results sufficiently striking. Out
of 665 lines there are over 120 which contain more or less notable alliterative
phrases also found in the antecedent quartet ; over and above are the
parallelisms with Gawayne. Particularly to be observed are 23 lines,
practically whole lines, coincident with practically whole lines elsewhere,
as under :
lo] 'PARLEMENT'; ITS SOURCES 8 1
Lines of 'Parlement' almost identical with lines of 'Alexander,'
'Troy,' 'Titus,' and 'Morte Arthure.'
Parlement. Alexander. Troy. Titus. Morte Arthure.
Il6, 128, 368, SSI. 1792, 1538,
3972, 1232.
1,11,318,326. - - 12969,2736,
i377> 1487-
16, 217, (398, S75). - -8so,883,97i
447. 491- - (1203, 779), 26.
202, 247, 297, 3762-3. 3293. 3440,
298, 299. 3496, 3408.
444-S, 468. - - . 3419-20, 17.
473> 494- - - 3707, 4309-
Surely it is of extreme and final value as part of the great argument
with which this treatise began that in this comparison of entire lines, out of
the twenty-three four are from the Alexander, four from the Troy, five from
the Titus, and ten from Morte Arthure, Falling to be added are the many
broken lines distributed in different proportions among the various books in
question. To be added also are the special coincidences with Gawayne.
And after all these there comes yet another argument of inestimable strength
deduced from a search after the sources of the Parlement, that poem which
ends the series of five.
(4) Main Sources of the 'Parlement.'
In examining the hunting scene which opens the poem we saw that
Gawayne had been within the poet's view. We shall see where the hunt
began. But first it is to be said that besides Gawayne and Alexander,
Troy, THus, and Morte Arthure, there is unanswerable evidence that the
poet used the Brut} which he expressly names.^ Not only so, he also
knew and used the other principal authority followed in Morte Arthure,
the Voeux du Paon. This appears from his narrating ^ the Foray of
Gadres (Fuerre de Gadres) as well as the whole effect of the Avows of
Alexander and Battle of Effesoun as contained in the Voeux du Paon.
Dares and Dictys he cites* — at second hand probably just as he did in
'/"a;-/., 462-512. ^Parl.,/\0T. 'Pari., 3S2-3gs. * Pari., 331.
82 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
the Troy^ — and the De Preliis Alexander must be assumed to have been
the source of part of the Alexander narrative, including the mention of
Queen Candace^ and the death of Alexander at the hands of the 'cursed
Cassander.'^ A distinct community of authorities between the Parlement
and the antecedent poems is thus established — further corroborated by the
inclusion in the part relative to Alexander of a confused reference to
the Gog and Magog legend comprising a passage about the coming of
Antichrist, no doubt taken from Maundeville.*
There remains to be stated a yet more remarkable proposition, which
is that fundamentally the story of the three ages is an expansion of an
episode in the Troy, and that here once more we have a testimony to the
infinite poetic suggestion referable to Guido de Columpna. We return to
the hunting scene in the Parlement to recall the facts. The hero is engaged
in the chase alone. He ties his dog to a birch tree.^ He sees a hart,^
which he approaches and shoots. After disembowelling the quarry he sits
down in the woodland under birch tree boughs with leaves light and green.'
The sun is so hot that he grows drowsy and sleeps^ — sleeps and dreams
a ' dreghe ' dream' of the strife of three men, one in green, one in gray,
and one in black. What was the root from which this powerful story grew ?
If I may have faith in the evidences before me the root sprang from Italian
seed, no doubt itself in turn a product of the Greek. Paris in the Troy,
like the hero in the Parlement, went hunting.^" Outstripping his comrades,
he was alone ^^ in the forest — that classic forest which Huchown's translation
does not name, but which Guido did, the nemus quod Yda vocatury^
He sees a hart ^^ too. He gives chase, but it escapes. He has no dog,
but his horse, weary with the pursuit, he ties to a bough.^* He lies down
lyVoj/, 60. "^ Pari., y)().
'^ Pari., 401. Cassander is not named in this connection either in Julius Valerius,
in (Michelant's ed.) Romans tPAlixandre, pp. S°8-9, or in the Voeux du Paon. He is so
mentioned in the De Preliis, at the close where the alliterative translation is missing.
"^ Maundevilk (Wright), ch. 26, MS. T. 4, i. fo. 266 + 59-59*.
^ Pari, 39. ^Parl., 25. '^ Pari., 98, 100, 661-3.
^Parl, 100. ^ Pari., 101-2. ^"Troy, 2345. " Troy, 2358.
"Ilunterian MS., T. 4, 1. fo. 27. " Troy, 2353. " Troy, 2371.
lo] 'PARLEMENT'; SOURCE IN 'TROY' 83
' in a shadow of shene tres,' ^ for the sun is hot.^ He sleeps,^ and dreams
'dreghly'* the great dream of the strife of three goddesses — Venus and
Juno and Pallas — as arbiter in which he is to determine the award of
the golden apple. If he gives it to Juno his reward will be to be
'mightiest on molde,'^ if to Pallas he will be 'wisest of wit,'^ if to Venus
love will be his.'^
This is the absolute key of the Parlement — explaining the ideal of Youth
with his avows, Middle Elde in his lust for possessions and power, and
Elde's lofty sermon drawn from the deeds of the doughty and the lives
of the sages, especially Solomon,
'And he was the wisest in wit that ever wonned in earth.'
'Wisest in wit' — it was the very phrase of Pallas's bribe. The whole
spirit of the two dreams, if not quite the same, at least runs a most
singular parallel.
In the Troy vision (lines 2407-9) the gift offered by Juno comes first :
' To be mightiest on molde and most of all other. '
In the Parlement vision (lines 293-583) Elde begins with the Nine
Worthies, the warriors whom he then deals with in detail—
'Nine of the best-
That ever wy in this world wist upon earth
That were conquerors full kene and kiddest of other.'
In the Troy vision (lines 2410-12) the gift offered by Pallas comes
second :
'Thou shalt be wisest of wit.'
In the Parlement vision, when the poet has closed his record of the
warriors with a sigh, pointing his moral that doughtiness, when death comes,
may stay no longer, he tells next (lines 584-611) of the fate of the wise:
'Of wyghes that were wisest will ye now hear.'
And so he preaches of Aristotle and Virgil, Solomon and Merlin, who
were fated to die too :
'These were the wisest in the world of wit that ever yet were,
But death wondes for no wit to wend where him likes.'
^ Troy, Z372-3. ^ Troy, 2374. Overhild for the hete hengyng with leves.
2 Troy, 2378. * Troy, 2379. ^ Troy, 2408. " Troy, 241 1. ' Troy, 2414.
84 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
In the Troy vision (lines 2413-15) the gift of love offered by Venus
comes last. So, last, in the Parkment vision comes the stanza (lines 612-630)
which is so fine a romance catalogue of lovers.
A moment given to analysis of the two visions demonstrates that the
Parkment simply adapts the vision of Paris, brings it from the slopes of
Mount Ida to our own woodlands, where the throstle, the cuckoo, and the
cushat sing, and the fox, the fulmart, and the hare are denizens. But the
poet transforms it too, making the pagan dream into a Christian ode on the
invincibility of death. Great are the gifts of Juno and Pallas and Venus,
so the pagan dreamer told : ' all vain and vanities and vanity is all ' was
the sore verdict of pious Elde.
' Since doughtiness when death comes ne dare not abide,
Ne death wondes for no wit to wend where him likes,
And thereto paramours and pride puts he full low,
Ne there is riches ne rent may ransom your lives,
Ne nought is siccar to yourself ne certain but death.'
In fine, is not the Parkment simply the dream of Paris reconstituted for
British latitudes and having appended an old-new moral ? The oak tree of
the Parkment grew from Guido's acorn, planted by Huchown in the Troy.
And the entire body of the narrative points to the same poetic unity, the same
paternity in Huchown's busy brain. The Gawayne unites with the Troy
to explain and produce the initial hunting picture. The Voeux du Paon,
already familiarised in the poet's mind, directly supplies the suggestion of
the Nine Worthies, contributing much even of the substance of the poem.
Examining the various contributory sections of the prkcis of the lives of the
illustrious Nine, we readily devise a canon of test. Surely if the poet was
the same as erewhile wrote the other poems we should expect to find in this
one, that when he touches Hector we should find traces of the Troy, and
that when he touches Arthur we should find traces of Morte Arthure. How
completely the Parkment responds to the test! The 31 lines on Hector
(Pari., 300-331) touch the Troy by direct reminiscence and repetition of
special epithets almost every second line. On King Alexander {Pari., 332-404)
the earlier poem is much less slenderly represented, no doubt because when
the Parkment was written the poet was drawing on two new sources, the
Fuerre de Gadres and the Voeux du Paon : still there are characteristic
II] HUCHOWN'S MS. 'GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH' 85
touches from the Alexander. Of Caesar we have something, of Joshua
something, of David something, of Judas Machabeus something, — all from
Morte Arthure, of which these worthies were only a side theme; while of
Arthur, its central theme, we have in 51 lines (462-512), a clear body of
matter, including identical lines and not admitting of hostile debate. On
Charlemagne, a number of lines from the Alexander, the Troy, the Tiius,
and the Morte Arthure serve abundantly the purpose of proving the closeness
of the ties of association between any one of Huchown's heroes and all
the others. Indeed, the Parlement enables us to be retrospective, and
suppose with considerable probability that Morte Arthure had already drawn
for at least three of its lines (342^-9) upon the same version ^ of the romance
of Ferumbras and the Sowdan, as was utilised in the Parlement.
If proof by internal evidence is to establish anything, this extraordinary
concatenation surely is irresistible. The method of proof adopted is only
that which others have already used in a small degree for other works :
only here the links are far more numerous, and far more closely drawn
together than they have ever been before. To deny difficulties is no part
of this argument : the proposition is that adopting the very processes of
comparison which commended themselves to some of my predecessors, I
reach a broader conclusion than theirs, the logic of which constrains the
acceptance of the Parlement as bringing up the rear of the great series of
poems which proceeded from one prolific pen.
II. Huchown's Copy of 'Geoffrey of Monmouth.'
'Ring by ring,' said the French adage, 'is made the habergeon.' The
argument from internal evidence before set forth was complete, and the
original papers had both been read, when the prosecution of the quest
further resulted in a discovery of immense interest in itself and of prime
moment as evidence for the proposition now being discussed. It was the
discovery of a MS., of apparently thirteenth-century date, bearing in certain
marginal additions to its text in the shape of a running series of
'See note ch. 9, sec. 6, above. The Pari., 11. 553-4, however, mentions only the
crown and the nails.
86 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch.
rubrics an extraordinary body of relations to the Huchown poems
especially Morte Arthure.
Systematically, the setting forth of the grounds of belief for the identi-
fication of manuscript U. 7. 25 in the Hunterian Library will best begin
with a reminder of the presence in the same library of the manuscript
T. 4. I, which disclosed such singular resemblances — (i) between its text
of the De Preliis, and the alliterative translation The Wars of Alexander,
and (2) between its text of Guido de Columpna, and the alliterative transla-
tion The Destruction of Troy, with (3) the appositeness of the presence
of Maundeville's Itinerarium in the manuscript, as compared with the
presence of a passage from that work interjected into the Alexander
poem. Also is to be remembered the presence in the same library, which
once was the small private collection of MSS. of Dr. William Hunter, of the
sole extant copy of the alliterative Troy poem just referred to. The
combination induced the thought that a careful scrutiny of other manu-
scripts in the same collection might result in the discovery of other books
which once had formed part of the great alliterative poet's collection,
which once perchance he loved to see stand, like Chaucer's, 'at his
beddes head.' By the use of Dr. John Young's manuscript notes for his
MSS. Catalogue, and by his kindly furtherance personally of the quest, my
search was much facilitated. One day a pair of eager eyes fell on the
fateful words, Hie Rex Arthurus litteras Lucij Imperatoris recepit, added
at the top of the page in a small and defective copy of Geoffrey of
Monmouth's Historia Britonum, the MS. U. 7. 25 in question. The text
itself on that page styled Lucius only ' Procurator ' : the rubricator, like
Huchown, heightened the dignity : the Latin rubricator wrote ' Imperator ' ;
the poet ' Emperour.' With this point the examination of the MS. began.
This parchment book, about seven inches long by five broad, bound in
wooden covers, and having its text in a hand of the thirteenth century, is
rubricated more or less throughout in a hand a century later and sharply
distinguishable. These rubrications are at the beginning numerous, in black
ink, in a small, neat hand, and occupy the sides. About the 38th folio a change
is made; there are far fewer rubrications, and now, instead of occupying
the side margins, they are, with a very few exceptions on to the end,
n] HUCHOWN'S MS. 'GEOFFREY' 87
confined to the top and occasionally to the bottom of the pages. Unfor-
tunately perhaps for the definite solution of yet other problems of early
poetry, a large and important section of the MS. is now lacking— a hiatus
which deprives us of the part of Geoffrey containing Merlin's prophecies.
Generally the rubrications are simple breviates of the purport of passages
in Geoffrey which interested the rubricator. Sometimes this is emphasised
by a Nota or a peculiar mark on the margin, twice by a finger pointing,
twice by the words Nota bene. How piquant these are ! We are able to
satisfy ourselves that the same things particularly interested the alliterative
poet, that Nota bene reflects itself at least sometimes in his poems, that other
peculiar marks of emphasis also are similarly reflected, and that, while the
one Nota bene touches a passage of Geoffrey found, strangely enough, in
Titus and Vespasian, the other reveals the plot of a poem, Wynnere and
Wastoure, which years ago the editor of the Parlement of the Thre Ages
printed as the work of the same author as the Parlement. And while the
one marginal index finger pointed with its fruitful Nota bene to the tale of
Brennius and Belinus as the source of Wynnere and Wastoure, while at
the same time it emphasised a peaceful reunion of a king of Scotland
with his brother, a king of England (strangely suggestive of the historical
reconciliation of David II. with his brother-in-law, Edward III.), the other
marginal index finger (fo. 28) pointed, as here shewn, to some hidden
cfoi toji ttttoict^a <nr \mx(ii(0( oMite tome mutd?
^wccpm acoefflt- tile (i}wa taegepauimi aafaupi
umro-'ipii, ttid^ talc ufnctttg-twrnK OtStxamt'de^
consequence, — perhaps for the poet's own personal history, — of the story of
a raaTi who had learned the language and the manners of another people
through his having been reared among their hostages. Didicerat enim linguam
eorum et mores quia inter Britannicos obsides Rome nutritus fuerat. What did
it mean? Was it that Huchown's English style and breadth of English
sympathy, his choice of Arthurian themes, which not once but several
times touched the Order of the Garter and the Table Round of Edward
III., were the result of some sojourn among Scottish hostages in London
88 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE ' [Ch.
during the Wars of Independence? So would come a fresh and surprising
solvent to the crux of Huchown's problem, which is that of explaining how
a poet with themes so devoid of Scottish passion, and so full of a British
fervour which might almost be mistaken for English, could have written in
a dialect so rich in forms which, if not largely English, are not Scottish,
and yet withal could, without inexplicable irony, have had his contem-
porary biography written only in Scottish chronicle, and written, too, with
admiring sympathy for the author and the man.
Once I had occasion to declare that, rightly apprehended, a Commonplace
Book, although entirely of quotations, was an intellectual self-revelation
of peculiar interest, and was, in spite of itself, autobiographical. Here is
an analagous case, out of which rises the question, What do these marginal
jottings tell of the rubricator's mind? They tell much: tell (i) of his
reverent attitude, (2) of his fondness for moral truths, (3) of his admiration
for London, (4) of his eye for courtly ceremonial, (5) of his zest for the
chase and for falconry, (6) of his attention to the history of law, (7) of the
attraction which religious annals had for him, (8) of his close study of the
tribute question, which has so large a place in the scheme of Morte Arthure,
(9) of his special and peculiar interest in the six chapters of Geoffrey which
form the bulk of Morte Arthure, (10) of that looseness about proper names,
which more than one of the editors of his poems have set down as
characteristic of the poet, and (11) of his dramatic sense of the power
in such stories as those of Lear and Cordelia, or Brennius and Belinus,
or of such episodes as a council of war at midnight under the stars, or
as the blazing dragon in Uther Pendragon's time. These marks on the
margin are no common gloss ; they are fragments of the alliterative poems
in the making, still unfashioned, it is true, but already taking shape in the
active imagination of genius in the fourteenth century.
Whoever will go through the representative body of extracts from these
marginals which are to be quoted in a subsequent chapter may gauge for himself
the degree of trust assignable to these inferences. Beginning with the fly-leaf,
we have the very remarkable jotting of six items copied from the original red
ink rubrics of Geoffrey's text — items which are the kernel of Morte Arthure.
A few points of correspondence between that poem and the rubricator's
12] CLUES TO 'TITUS' 89
markings may here be presented. The text names 'Petreius Cotta,' the
rubricator calls him ' Petreius Senator,' Huchown calls him ' the Senatour
Peter.' The text has 'Guerinus,' the rubricator 'Gerinus,' Huchown
' Geryn.' The text has always ' Modredus,' the rubricator has always
' Mordredus,' Huchown oftenest has ' Mordred.' The text never names
the Saracens, the rubricator couples '■ Pidis et aliis Sarracems,' Huchown
puts the ' Sarazenes ' in one line and their allies the ' Peyghtes ' in the
next line but two. ' Caius Quintilianus ' of the printed Geoffrey is ' Gaius
Quintilianus ' in this manuscript text, the rubricator drops the Quintilian and
calls him merely 'Gaius,' Huchown too dubs him only 'Syr Gayous.' A
date, 4482, not in the printed Geoffrey at all, appears in this MS. text, and
the date ' five hundred years less eighteen ' will strangely emerge in another
alliterative poem as we proceed — a poem ^ which contains one of the best
told Stories of the Middle Ages, and without exception the noblest tribute
to the essential ' priesthood ' of law which the early literature of Britain can
boast. If these proofs do not serve to convince the alliterative critics,
English and Scottish, French and German, that this Hunterian MS. was
veritably Huchown's, and Huchown's work a mighty unity, it will be
for the wisest of them to attempt the feat of accounting for the miracles
of coincidence which the preceding statement only illustrates and does
not exhaust — miracles of coincidence, be it said also, which so splendidly
confirm the argument, itself of immense power, deduced from internal
evidences of unity and correlation.
12. Clues to 'Titus' and 'Wynnere and Wastoure.'
(i) The Dragon in ' Titus'
Two chief illustrations in detail will suffice to demonstrate the force of
the confirmatory argument from the MS. In a previous chapter attention
was called to the singular consonance between the Titus poem and Morte
Arthure in the insistence upon the significance of the dragon banner.
It was then suggested that the idea came from Geoffrey of Monmouth.
^ See ch. 14 for notice of Erkenwald.
G
go 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
With the Hunterian MS. before us the statement admits of absolute defini-
tion. On fo. 49 {Geoffrey, viii., 14, 15) appear the marginal additions,
' Nota bene : Stella apparuit.
De significacione syderis."
The passage thus marked tells of a ball of fire in the likeness of a dragon
{globus igneus in similiiudinefn draconis), from the mouth of which proceeded
two radii, one pointing to France, the other to Ireland, the significance of
which, as expounded by Merlin, lay in the future dominion by Uther
Pendragon's son over the realms so indicated.
Turning to the Titus we find that Vespasian's banner is a gaping
dragon, having a falchion under his feet, with four keen blades directed
to the four points of the world, which, in turn, is denoted by the ball of
burning gold on which the dragon stood in sign — 'in forbesyn to the
folk ' — of conquest of all the world. Whatever be thought of the signifi-
cance of the dragon, the significance of the rubricator's Nota bene is
certainly exceeding plain.
(2) The plot of ' Wynnere and Wastoure!
There was, however, as already observed, another Nota bene among
the rubrications. Let us look at it also, as the second detailed illustration
of the constructive value of these marginal marks as of a truth Huchown's
own comment on himself. Opposite the tale of the dispute and impend-
ing battle between Brennius — king from Humber to Caithness — and Bel-
inus — king south of the Humber — occurs a note of the very highest
historical and literary consequence. Its theme is the reconciliation of the
two contending monarchs by the dramatic interposition of their mother,
Convenna, to whom the rubricator by a verbal slip, not unusual with
him, refers as Venna — a mistake occasioned by the word being divided in
the MS. text, 'Con-' at the end of one line and 'venna' at the beginning
of the next.
Hie Venna mater eoitim concordiam inter eos fecit el valde miraculose,
Nota bene. 13"
I The "second note (De significacione syderis) strikes me as written in a different and
later hand, but see facsimile.
12] 'WYNNERE AND WASTOURE'; ITS PLOT
91
Scottish readers can hardly fail to remember that Sir Hew of Eglintoun
was a party to the arrangement of peace, and of a very friendly under-
standing between Edward III. and David II. in 1359. If David II. was
rather a failure as Brennius, at any rate the Belinus of the part, Edward
III. was his brother by marriage. There is more than mere curiosity in
this point, for an important element in the final peace footing of 1363
and 1364 seems to be singularly echoed in a couple of lines ^ of Morte
Arthure. Letting that pass, however, we shall find the rubricator's Nota
bene guiding us with exceeding directness to the solution of another
alliterative problem — the authorship of Wynnere and Wasioure. The
learned editor of The Parkment of the Thre Ages had good grounds for
his opinion that the unity of authorship of that poem and of Wynnere
and Wastoure, which he printed in the same Roxburghe Club volume,
was ' well nigh indisputable.' Seven reasons were assigned by Mr. Gol-
lancz for this conclusion, especially the occurrence of whole lines common
to both poems, of passages strongly reminiscent of the same poetical
conceptions, of certain negligences of historical detail, and of a remarkable
sameness of style evincing high pictorial power. Mr. GoUancz did not
know that the Parlement had grown out of the Troy poem, nor was he
'After a quarrel with Cador, Arthur warmly apologises, and, commending Cador
as one of the doughtiest that was ever dubbed, he says {Morte, 1943-4) '•
' Thare es none ischewe of us on this erthe sprongen ;
Thou arte apparant to be ayere are ( read or) one of thi childyre.'
There is here either a most remarkable coincidence or else there is a direct allusion
as I believe — to the negotiations of 1363 and 1364. On 27th Nov., 1363, it was
agreed that, failing heirs male of the body of David II., the King of England should
succeed to the kingdom of Scotland (Acts Pari., Scotland, i., 493). In 1364, this pro-
posal having been rejected by the Scottish Parliament, a second agreement was substi-
tuted, under which, failing heirs male of the body of David II., the kingdom should
pass to a son of the king of England other than the heir-apparent (Ads Part., Scot.,
i-. 495)- I" f3,ct, David II. had no issue ; under the first agreement, so far as David
II. and his Privy Council had power, Edward III. was David's heir-apparent, under
the second the heir was one of Edward's children — Lionel. As to this curious intrigue
and Sir Hew of Eglintoun's connection with it, see my paper. Sir Hew of Eglintoun
above referred to, also gome previous comments above, end of ch. 9.
92
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
aware that Wastoure and Wynnere, as personifications, were the literary
heirs of Brennius and Belinus.
In ' Geoffrey of Monmouth. '
The armies of Brennius and Belinus are
about to join battle (iii. 7)
when their mother, Convenna, intervenes.
She reminds them that she had suckled
both.
Thus a concord is effected.
They cross the sea to make war on France
together (iii. 8) and afterwards conquer
Rome (iii. 9).
In ^Wynnere and Wastoure.^
The hawberked and helmed armies 01
Wynnere and Wastoure are in schiltrums
on either holt with only a lawn betwixt them,
on the point of battle (U. 50-54)
when 'the king of this kythe' (Edward
III.) wearing the garter bids them stop
(11. 69-107), sending the message by a young
baron (the Black Prince), who wears three
feathers (1. 117).
The two commanders obey and mention
to the royal messenger that they know
well that the king ' clothes us both and
has us fostered and fed these five and
twenty winters' (11. 197-207)
The king receives them by the hand ' as
hinds of our house both ' (11. 208-212)
After a long debate between the two (after
the medieval pattern of Wine against Water)
the king bids Wynnere ' wend over the
wale stream ' by Paris, to the Pope (II.
460-1), and wait a summons to arms and
knighthood when the king goes to war
at Paris.
Wastoure is sent to the east end of Lon-
don, but the poem is incomplete, so that
the probable final concord of Wynnere and
Wastoure is not extant.
(3) Wynnere and Wastoure : its sense and date.
The poem contains the oldest known vernacular rendering of Honi soit
qui tnal y pense.
' And alle was it one sawe appoh Ynglysse tonge
Hethyng have the hathell that any harme thynkes.^
Like Gawayne (which ends with this motto in French, Hony soyt qui
mat pence), like Morte Arthure, and like the Awntyrs of Arthure, this
12] 'WYNNERE AND WASTOURE'; ITS SENSE
93
piece is unquestionably of the Garter or Round Table group. It helps
to make clearer why Sir Hew of Eglintoun's visits to England between
1358 and 1369 were so frequently about the time of special tournaments
and chivalric functions ^ at the court of Edward III., who in Wynnere
and Wastoure, just as in Morte Arthure, shines as a stately figure of
chivalry. That it connects English and Scottish history is therefore obvious,
and the fact that it rises out of the story of Brennius, a northern king, is
in admirable keeping with its quotations from the prophecies of no less
a Scottish personage ^ than Thomas of Erceldoune.
'Safe conducts on the nth of May, 1358 (Koluli Scotiae, i., 823*), 26th April, 1363
(Ibid., i., 872), Sth December, 1363 {Ibid., i., 876), and 20th May, 1365 {Ibid., 893''), may
be adduced as instances. See the biographical calendar imder these dates in my paper,
Sir Hew of Eglintoun, above mentioned.
■■^ Thomas's Prophecies. Wynnere and Wastoure.
La countessede Donbardemandaa Thomas
de Essedoun quant la guere d'Escoce pren-
dreit fyn e yl la repoundyt e dyt :
When hares kendles o the herston For nowe all es Witt and Wyles that we
When Wyt and Wille werres togedere with delyn
Wyse wordes and slee and icheon wryeth
When laddes weddeth lovedis othere (11. 5-6)
And hares appon herthestones schall hurcle
in hire fourme
And eke boyes of Mode with boste and
with pryde
Schall wedde ladyes in londe and lede hir
at wille
Thene dredfuUe domesdaye it drawethe
neghe aftir (11. 13-16)
Thomas's prophecies are quoted by Dr. J. A. H. Murray in the introduction
(p. xviii.) to his Thomas of Erceldoune. See also Scott's Border Minstrelsy, in in-
troduction to ballad of Thomas the Rymer; also Laing's Early Pop. Scot. Poetry, 1895,
i., 88; and of. the variant in Reliquiae Antiquae, i., 30.
The antithetical use of 'ladde' as above appears several times in Wynnere and
Wastoure (II. 375, 378, 388), e.g. 'Woldest thou hafe lordis to lyfe as laddes on fote.'
Compare the disparaging use of ' ladde ' in Morte Arthure, 3535, 4094.
94 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
England and Scotland are thus alike contributory to this little poem,
and Wales is doubly so, for besides the initial service of Geoffrey in
furnishing the plot, there is a further debt to Walter Map in furnishing
the manner of debate between Wynnere (or Thrift) and Wastoure (or
Extravagance) — a debt which the Hunterian MS. again compels us to
recognise. A few leaves further on than the Noia bene of the Venna
passage there begins, at the bottom of fo. 3, and is continued at the
bottom of ff. 3o''-38, a copy^ of the famous Dialogus inter Aquam et Vinum.
The alternate stanzas have Vinum and Aqua set against them respectively,
and the personified Waste and Thrift in the fourteenth-century English poem,
although bodied forth with an actuality and lifelike vigour undreamt of in the
pale abstractions of the twelfth-century Latin dialogue, yet may owe something
of their art to the latter, the more ancient ' flyting ' of Wine against Water.
The poet achieved a great success in his personifications. Youth, Middle
Elde, and Elde in the Parkment are not more superb examples of this
than are Wastoure and Wynnere. The German doctor who damned the
translator of the Troy with the faint praise of being a clever versifier
declared that he was no poet. ' Ein dichter war er nicht.' ^ We have now
a thousand new reasohs to think that the translator was not only a poet,
but a poet indeed. The allegory of the Parkment and the allegory of
Wynnere and Wastoure rank among the few vivid concrete and poetic
realisations of abstract portraiture achieved in English literature.
Perhaps the critics who may be of a different mind will be good enough
to name a single superior example. And there is a point of view which
is not to be passed over. This man, whether he was Sir Hew of Eglintoun
or not, was international ; if not directly connected with hostages he certainly
held dear the peace and union of the North and South ; an archetype to
his creative effort was the reconciliation of a Scottish and an English
^ There are a good many minor variants from the version given in Wright's Poems
of Walter Mapes, p. 87, and in particular this rendering does not contain lines 99
to 146 and 151 to 154 of Wright's edition of the piece. The handwriting of this poem
does not seem to be the same as the rubricator's, and , that it was added after the
rubrications is evident, for instance, from the relative position of the two on fo. 36.
^Zur Destruction of Troy, by Wilhelm Bock (Halle, 1883), p. 13.
12] 'WYNNERE AND WASTOURE'; ITS SENSE 95
king; he quoted Scottish prophetic utterances; his models and style, on
the other hand, were English; much of his thought and sympathy was
English too ; of English law and legal history the note impressed itself
equally on his copy of Geoffrey and on his own poems; Morte Arthure
shews a buoyant picture of the kings of Scotland and of Wales as Arthur's
most gallant allies; the sum of all is that in the body of early poetry
claimed for Huchown we have a superb tribute to the solidarity of the
literature of English speech, — a noble plea for the literary unity of both
sides of Tweed. Whatever be the outcome of the discussions about his
identity, so much at least appears to be the certain reading of his life.
Historical tests are usually the only safe basis for dating literary work.
Few of the Huchown poems contain such historical evidences except in so
far as the ascertainment of sources goes to establish a point of time,
Wynnere and Was/oure in this respect belongs to a category of its own,
being of a relatively early period and clearly explicable by the side light
of church history. This allegorical poem of narrative and ' flyting ' — an
impending combat ending in a litigation — was assigned to circa 1350 by
Mr. Gollancz on grounds ^ palpably untenable, and crucially failing to
explain a main feature of the action of the poem. Although the great
scene of the armies gathered over against each other came from Belinus and
Brennius these heroes of ancient Britain give no clue to the bannered
pomp of the two hosts drawn from France, Lombardy, Spain, England,
and Ireland ranged under banners of black and green and white, with
^ Only three need be discussed : ( i ) that the reference to ' five and twenty winters '
(1. 206) points to the 25th year of Edward III. ; (2) that the mention of the Friars and
the Pope (11. 460-70) points to the Statute of Provisors in 1351 ; and (3) that Scharshill
(1. 317) is referred to 'evidently as Chief of Exchequer,' and therefore ante 1350
when he became Chief Justice of the King's Bench. The answers are : (i) that the five
and twenty winters at the most can mean no more than that the date was after 1351, the
King's 25th year ; (2) that there is no hint whatever of the Statute of Provisors or its
theme; and (3) that a reference to a judge in connection with breach of the peace ('his
pese to distourbe') cannot possibly indicate the baron of Exchequer, but points necessarily
to some judicial episode later than 1350, but before 5th July, 1357, when he ceased ad
tempus to be Chief Justice. (Dugdale's Origines /uridi dales.) Besides, the episode in
question must have preceded the poem alluding to it, so that the latter may well date some
months later than July, 1357.
96 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
heraldic insignia of bibles (each with bulla appended) and judges' heads,
galleys and boarheads and buckles not admitting ready interpretation in
detail. The poet leaves no doubt, however, that the first banner is Papal, the
second that of certain Judges, and other four those of the Four Orders of the
Friars — the Franciscans, Dominicans, Austins, and Carmelites — in reference
to whom hints are thrown out about their wealth, their confessional privileges,
and their commerce. True to himself, the poet thought the fairest banner
that of the Augustine Order, for they were special, ' Our Lady to serve.'
When the enigma of this threatened conflict of European armies under
opposing banners (1. 52) is confronted with ^ circa 1350' as the dale of the
poem, the impending battle is unintelligible as a historical allusion. Another
date makes the meaning at once a matter of the simplest demonstration.
Apply 'circa 1358,' and the problem is solved. The battle just about to
begin is partly the ' magna controversial the ' gret strif ' between Archbishop
Fitzralf of Armagh, the renowned ' Armachanus,' primate of Ireland, with
the secular clergy of England at his back, against the Four Mendicant
Orders — the world-moving plea before the Pope and the Consistorial
Court at Avignon which started in 1356, and in which the Irish primate
made his ' most solemn proposition ' before Pope Innocent VI. on 8th
November, 1357, in reply to the papal summons issued the year before.
The proposition, duly noted in English and Scottish chronicle,^ assailed
the Friars for many shortcomings, including extravagance and abuse of
confessional rights. This controversy (which endured until close on the
archbishop's death in 1360) supplies, when taken along with Brennius and
Belinus, the assured suggestion of the embattled banners of the Friars
and the Pope in the poem. Our poet thus made pictorial use of the
mighty question of the Friars which very soon in Wycliffe's hands was
to be pressed to more practical issues.^ Unlike William of Langland,
' Murimuth, Eng. Hist. Soc, 191, 193. Further accounts are given in Capgrave's
Chronicle, 218; Bower's Scotichronicon, ii., 360; Knyghton in Decent Serif tares, 2625
Walsingham, sub anno 1358; Fleury's Histoire Ecclesiastique, ed. 1840, livre xcvii., ch.
36; Wolfius's Lectionum Alemorabilium , ed. 1600, i., 642; Barnes's Edward III., year
1358-
^Wycliffe's famous treatises, the Trialogus and thai 'Against the Orders of the
Friars,' were sequels to the onslaught by 'Armachanus.'
12] 'WYNNERE AND WASToURe'; SENSE AND DATE g>j
our poet carefully refrains from personal entry into the fray, and strikes
no direct stroke against the Friars whom Langland was so scathingly to
denounce. Besides, the suspended fray had suggestion more direct still.
For this poem a date between 1356 and 1360 was needed — a date to
fit the controversy, a date before 1360, because an allusion to the war 'at
the proude pales of Paris the riche ' (11. 497-9) as still in progress must
precede the peace of Bretigny in 1360, a date not much later than 1357
because of its allusion to Scharshill, evidently as Chief Justice. History
makes perfectly clear why the poet set Pope, judges, friars, and Scharshill
in the field all at one time. The contemporary annalists were doing the
same thing, recording under the year 1358 both the 'gretstrif itself and
Scharshill's share in another disturbance of that eventful period. Walsing-
ham, Knyghton, and Capgrave, as well as the Anglo-Scottish Scalacronica
all tell of this further embroilment, which accounts for the hostile banners of
pope and judges, with the mention of Scharshill in the poem. The men of
Bishop Lyle of Ely, who was a Dominican friar, burnt a manor of Lady
Blanche of Wake, who complained to the king.i She charged against the
bishop that her houses had been burnt by his dependants " encontre la Pees
et la Lei de la terre," and one of her servants murdered. Justices were
assigned to hear the cause, and the bishop, being found guilty, was delivered
over to his episcopal brethren to be kept in custody, and his ' temporal-
ties ' were seized,^ he being ' atteint de transgression incontre le peace.' On
this the Pope was appealed to. He espoused the bishop's cause, expostu-
lated^ with the king, and excommunicated the justices, one of whom, we
learn from Knyghton, was Scharshill. Serious disturbances ensued from
this conflict of legal and ecclesiastical authority, and extremes involved
included the violent exhumation of the excommunicated dead. ' Mech
manslauth felle in this matere' says Capgrave.* King Edward's inter-
' Rotuli Parliamentorum, ii. 267.
^ Knyghton in Decern Scriptores, 2(i2a ; Year Books (Maynard, 1679) for Trinity term
29 Edw. III., p. 41. The Scalacronica, p. 177, is interestingly technical in its account
of the matter.
'See bull of i Aug., 1358, in Rymer's Foedera.
■•Cai^rave's Chronicle, 218.
98 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
vention was therefore equally indignant and energetic. It needs no telling
how completely these episodes annotate Wastoure's words in the poem :
And thies beryns one the b5mches with howes [hoods] one loft
That bene knowen and kydde for clerkes of the beste
As gude als Arestotle or Austyn the wyse
That alle schent were those schalkes and ScharshuU it wiste
That saide I prikkede with powere his pese to distourbe. LI. 314-18.
The trouble evidently was not appeased when the poem was written. Not
until near the beginning of 1359^ apparently, was the incident closed by
the Pope's withdrawal of the judges' excommunication.^
Every finger points,^ therefore, to circa 1358. That the poet chose
not to define more exactly the troops and banners of opposing Church and
State, and left something to the imagination of his audience, was natural
enough when the strifes of friars and bishop, judges and pope were the
topic of the hour. The thing as a whole is clear; no reasonable criticism
would exact a detailed historical application at the foot of every letter.
Wyniure and Wastoure, with its direct citation of the Garter motto (1. 68)
is a Round Table poem easily referable to some chivalric celebration among
the many of the years 1358 and 1359, of which the English annalists* have
a good deal to say. Sir Hew of Eglintoun was in London early in 1358.
He was again there in the beginning of 1359. Perhaps like his master,
' Knyghton, 2620. The chronology here is, however, a little confusing.
^Was the excommunication the reason for the appointment in July, 1357, of Thomas
de Seton as Capitalh Justiciarius ad tempus loco Willelmi de ShareshulH (Dugdale's
Origines furidicales. ) This seems very probable, and the words ad tempus suggest that
Scharshill was only suspended in 1357, not removed. In 1368, when he died after re-
ception as a friar minor, he is in Eulogium Historiarum, iii., 334, entitled capUalis jtesti-
iiarius, but it can hardly be inferred that he had resumed that office.
^ See Athenaeum, 3 Aug., 7 Sept. and 26 Oct. 1901, for the original discussion of this
date. Mr. GoUancz's replies of 24 Aug. and 14 Sept. 1901, lend no support to his date
'circa 1350,' words which in his last letter he seems to qualify as now meaning 'befofte
1357.' The fact that not one but several chroniclers put the episode of the friars in
the same year with the incident of Scharshill, and that year 1358, appears conclusive of
the historical soundness of my favour for circa 1357-8, or as I now prefer to say more
definitely, circa 1358. On the banners, see further ch. 15, sec. 3, and end of ch. 17.
■* Knyghton in Decern Scriptores, 2617-8; Murimuth, 191. Eulogium Hisloriarum,
iii., 227 ; Brut, 33 Edw. III.
13] RUBRICATIONS OF 'GEOFFREY' 99
David II., on whom he was in personal attendance on the latter of these
occasions, he may have made his quarters, where David II. was, with the
Friars Preachers,^ and so have been at the very heart of the affair when
courtly and chivalric society was watching, not without amusement, the
front of battle lower in the great debate.
13. Huchown's Rubrications of 'Geoffrey.'
For this chapter the rubricator of the Hunterian ' Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth' already described, the manuscript U. 7. 25, shall speak for him-
self of his cordial relationship with Huchown and his poems — shall shew
his bonds of association with Gawayne, with the Troy, with the Titus,
with Morte Arthure, with Wynnere and Wastoure, and with the moving
story of Saint Erkenwald and the dead judge who lay so long uncor-
rupted in the foundations of St Paul's. From the beginning of the MS.
to folio 5sb only selections are given; from folio 55b to folio 8ib, where
the original MS. now ends, the rubrications are given complete. They
are all in black ink, thus contrasting with the original rubrics, which are
incorporated in the text and are in red.
The series of black ink rubrications starts as a crumpled fly-leaf, with
a note of six heads, all concerning King Arthur.
Verba Arthuri ad suos.
Responsio Hoeli.
De responsione Anguseli regis Albanie.
De congregacione regis Arthuri.
De edicto Lucij Hiberij.
De Itinere Arthuri contra Romanos. \See facsimile^
This jotting is in black ink and is all that is written on the fly-leaf of
parchment forming the first — an extra — leaf of the MS. The above • six
items have been taken by the black ink rubricator from the original
•On nth May, 1358, Sir Hew had safe conduct to Westminster. Rot. Scot., i., 823. In
the winter of 1358, David II. was staying with the Friars Preachers in London. Knyghton
in Decern Scriptores, 2619. On 21st Feb., 1359, the king's seal and that of Sir Hew, were
both appended to a document at the Friars Preachers, London. Bain's Calendar, iv., 27.
too 'MUCMOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
series of rubrics in red ink forming part of the original text of ff. 62b, 63,
633, and 64 of the MS., or in the printed Geoffrey, ix. 16, 17, 18, 20, x. i, 2.
They, of course, constitute the mainspring of Morte Arthure, of which it is
perhaps not too much to say this jotting was a preliminary. They are on
a leaf by themselves. Those that follow are the black ink marginal
rubrications of the folios mentioned in connection with each.
fo. 7. (Galf. i. 12).' Hie columpnas Herculis [Brutus et socit] petierunt.
7*. Hie Corineus neinora petit causa venandi ubi magnum fecit conflictum.
9*. (i. 15). Hie naves ingreditur Brutus.
10b. (i. 17). De civitate Londoniensi.
Hie Brutus eivitatem eonstruxit et illam Trojam novam vocavit que postea Trinovantum
dicta fuit.
(ii. i). Hie Brutus Lond. sepelitur. [See Erkeuwald, in Horstmann's Altenglische
Legenden, Neue folge, Heilbronn, 188 1, p. 266, line 25.]
12. (ii. 7). Hie primus [Ebraucus\ post Brutum classem in Gallias duxit.
\2b. (ii. 8). Rex Ebraucus xx. filios genuit quorum primogenitus Brutus Viride scutum
vocatus est.
13-134. Opposite the story of King Lear and his daughters two grotesque face lines are
drawn on the margin — not part of the original scribe's work.
15*. (ii. 17). Hie Dunvallus rex hostes suos caute devicit.
I s*. Hie leges primo in Anglia celebrantur inter Britones.
De ftigitivis.
15^.' Hie rex est mortuus cui Bellinus et Brennius succederunt et regnum inter se diviserunt.
' Fo. 7 is the folio of the MS. Galf. i. 12, is book i. chapter 12, of the printed Geoffrey,
Galfridi Monumetensls Historia Brilonum, ed. Giles. 1844.
2 On fo. 144, at the end of the passage, which in the printed Geoffrey is lib. ii., cap. 15,
there is in this MS. text (not the rubricator's work, but the text itself) an important variant
in the shape of a note of date, not in the print. Just one chapter before the reign of
Dunwallo mention is made of the date of the building of Rome — Anno ab origine mundi,
uTj cccc Ixxxii. As bearing on an interesting point of poetical chronology, it is necessary to
quote here two other passages of the original MS. text not in the printed Geoffrey. On
ff. \b-2, at the end of what in the printed book is lib. i., cap. 2> the following stands part of
the text :
Anno ante Incarnacionem domini in c Ivij et ante condicionem Rome ccc Ixxx vi et ab origine
mundi iij cccc xlix annis peractis Eneas cum Ascanio filio diffugiens Italiani navigio adivit.
Similarly as part of the text on fo. 19, at end of lib. iij. , cap. 9, of the printed book it is
written to record the date of the capture of Rome by Brennius and Belinus :
Anno a condicione sua ccc Iv et ante Incarnacionem Domini ccc Ix
These inconsistent equations may enable the chronographic reader to achieve the marvel
of reconciling them and transmute into terms of the era B.C. the year of the world 4482, to
which poetic importance attaches.
HCNTKRIAN MS. V. 7. 25.
C'KlMI'l.KD 1-'I,V-LKAI''
Nv/a I'l'lic ON ' X'ICNNA,
^?}3ul.> tit 'l^uoatmlo tumv-sntitT^tlrattD miHi rd!am6ciM?^^ft'i
jj^niMf -^r" . "iwncnaT.-ttttTmitc Kn^rtVttgt inlwnu toft-ttr^n^;
jprj. -aiiA f. i'".. tiii c*fim'i i nonof mtltrrt a .^UnmlEr uttcvtr\#cntr
S^^v'^^i jra .< : iliO trt ptitni -t Uufl4ufr ra (trt«tu of* mflntf ImtnL ;
'* UCt -ftMliinio (Utttu n^ )rttnii UTttO fcfS('AflrDCttf ] ^.. j
I
^uo •SiW-'-fJ
■y
WOSL'N NOTE, fo. 44/',
[These facsimiles made from photo.^raphs taken by Mr. S. Fingland,
Photographic Department Glasgow University, are reduced by one-tenth
from the original.]
13] RUBRICATIONS OF 'GEOFFREY' loi
itb. (iii. 3). Hie applicuit Brennius in Albaniam.
i6 (i6). (iii. 5.) Hie Bellinus leges instituit et confirmavit. [The story of Dunwallo is the
key to the poem of Erkenwald. Compare lines 25, 207, 208-13, 216, 227, 230
(Dunwallo reigned 40 years), 228 (a temple was built for Dunwallo's laws). Compare
rubricator's notes quoted above with these lines ; also eompare some further referenees
appended to other rubrics, and see next chapter.]
16 (l6i). (iii. 6). De fortuna et probilate Brennii fratris Regis Bellini.
17. (iii. 7). Hie iterato Brennius in Britanniam applicuit congressum habiturus cum
Bellino Rege fratre suo.
Hie Venna mater eorum concordiam inter eos fecit et valde miraculose. Nota
bene IS" [See facsimile.']
[This note of reference to the story of Brennius and Belinus supplies the plot ot
Wynnere and Wastouie.]
17*. Hie facti sunt amiei Bellinus et Brennius.
(iii. 8). Hie Bellinus omnes fiirancorum regulos devieerunt.
\%b. (iii. 9). Hie obsides Rome civitatis ante portas ejus patibulo affixerunt. \_Morte, 3589.]
19. (iii. 10). Hie Bellinus ex hac vita migravit. [See note at end of the Erkenwald
section of next chapter.]
22. (iii. 20). Ludgate.
22^. De nobilitate et probitate Regis Cassibellaunus. [Sic. The name is written large
by the rubricator. See Par lenient, 315]
23- (iv- 3)- Hie Thamesis Julius applicuit.
Hie adest Cassibelluanus. [Sic]
25*. (iv. 8). De epistola Androgei ad Julianum missa. Qulianum for Julium. ]
26. (iv. 9). De xxx'^ obsidibus missis ad Julianum per Androgeum.
27. Hie traetatur de pace et eoncordia inter Julium et Cassibell.
27^. (iv. 10). Hie primo tributum de Britannia dabatur Julio Imperatori.
De Concordia facta inter Julianum et Cassibell. et de vectigale reddito.
28. (iv. 13). Hie Hamo princeps milicie Claudii usus est dolo.
A finger is drawn opposite the sentence in the text : Didicerat enim .^
linguam eorum et mores quia inter Britannicos obside Rome nutritus fuerat.
[See cut, ch. 11. Note that this is the third rubric indicating special interest in
hostages.]
30. (iv. 17). Sermo de Scoeia.
jpb. (iv. 19). Hie templa deorum diluuntur et evacuata. [Erkenwald, 15, 16.]
30*. Hie constituuntur tres Metropolitani in Anglia. [This explains the references to
Triapolitane in Erkenwald, 31, 36. Lucius did this according to Geoffrey. London,
York, and Caerleon were the three Triapolitanes.]'
32^. (v. S). Tempore Asclipiodoti persecucio Diocliciani Imperatoris in Christianos in
regno Britannie.
33. De passione Sancti Albani et aliorum martirum in Britannia.
' At the bottom of ff. 30^-38 is, in a changed hand, the copy of the Dialogus of Wine and
Water mentioned above ch. 12, sec. 3.
I02 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
33^. (v. 6). Hie Constantinus ex Helena uxore sua filium generavit quem Constantinum
vocavit.
34. (v. 8). Constantinus Rex Britannie monarchiam Rome et tocius mundi optinuit.
\_Morte Arthure, 282-3.]
39. (vi. 2). Hie Romana potestas totam Britanniam de atroci oppressione suorum
inimicorum liberavit.
Nota : semper fuit Albania spelunea proditorum. [Note Morte Arthure, 32.]
4oi. (vi. 4). Hie Guetelinus London, metropolitanus in minorem Britanniam hoc est
Nota quod fifranciam transfretavit postulans Aldronei Regis ibidem subsidium. \_Morte
ffraneia minor Arthure never mentions Armoriea, preferring ' Bretayne the lease.' See
Britannia vo- lines 36, 304.]
catur.
42. (vi. 7). Hie proditor ille Vortigernus dolose pro Pietis et aliis Sarraeenis misit ut
terram Britannie oecup.irent. [No ' Saracens ' in Geoffrey ; Morte Arthure, 3S30,
3533, associates Picts and Saracens.]
43(5. (vi. 10). In isto capitulo tractatur de Hengisto et Horso : adventus Barbarorum qui
diem Mercurium Woden lingua eorum vocabant quem lingua nostra Wodenesdai
nominamus. \Sic. Heathenism of Hengist's days noted in Erkenwald, 7.]
44(5. (vi. 12). Hie legati secum duxerunt quantoplures paganos unaeum Rouwenna filia
Hengisti que Regi [Vortegirno] dando poculum dixit Wosail.
Sermo de Woseil. [Belshazzar is made to use this word with the same technical
propriety, Cleanness, 1508.]^ [See facsimile.]
fo. 49. (viii. 14). Hie Merlinus de sidere mirabili vaticinavit apparente Wyntoniani.
Nota bene : Stella apparuit.
(viii. JS). De significacione syderis. [This fully explains the dragon passage in 7'itus,
387-403, and is a clue to Morte Arthure, 2057, etc.] [See facsimile.']
50. (viii. 18). Triquetra-like mark opposite sentence, At ubi Arctos temonem vertere
cepit precepit Uther eonsules suos atque prineipes ad se vocari ut consilio eorum
traetaret. [This exactly parallels the councils of war by night in Troy and Titus.
Ch. 8, sec. 2, and ch. 12, sec. I, above.] [See facsimile.]
53^. (viii. 23). Triquetra-like mark opposite last two sentences of viii. 23, Malo tamen
semimortuos . . . vivere.
55A. (ix. 3). De Arthuro Rege Britonum.
^ Fo. 46^. has at the bottom in the saine hand as added the Dialogus on ff. 30^-38
the lines : —
Quid de mundo senciam nolo declarare,
Et de illis qui sciunt mundum titillare.
Siquis mundi vicia querit indagare
Infinitum numerum tedet numerare.
Sed proclamat Salomon audiant mundani
Omnia sunt vanitas forma sub inani
Qui terrenis inhiant nonne sunt insani :
Qui sane considerant immo sunt hii vani,
HUNTEKIAN M.S. II.
^■>T);l(f'fi Sr^^i.uHt?
JKBu dapC Til cum mjr^ftjwnnt^JJ on ffBrt?rom« <«SBri?-
J^amnMfymrmAgmmWf % rtttmaof hot crtno <»ro):_
"md!> tasul a tmr ^(S)? ipntf f (itrntKusiticflMromf ^orf^
JBtf-icr (»c«f 43(tfrt)5r-fi msm-^tmttf \misniannffttinl?'_
hw^.ugtnf- i-Vi>!mno:rt tawf rminfllwrir figrijSCfliiit
CCftaiTmr ttittp ffttro ftifc ^mfft rw onH-mtuiftccn'j-i
ti_&iimniaimxfciii^ iitfjnnfljarV^i fr'rtgrtbqftilC;
I ^tttmi^mntew pftS- n mmmtc rnnwe ^ttlKaf IfenjpLl
ifttrefiswl)firTtrQ-.t)Ttnfe-iwia fignifitftml^cOTlajf'j;.
kt^iasL featcr- «^ ur i iJttnna ouof «m«^: lofW^JP'f
y ^radwti*tftnutitmt.WoTilf mflratcmpetttuptaw'
■ _Mt wlfltndturtiitr$'Dmn»ntt imttpdWlf o «\>at« pJ
"iS. fttUattccT' ftftitw y oat n(ftnWfimc inkv ftdm^oftSl
..TO m 'hofliijx no tnffcmrVttwiaftmmmcnr-ttjxcttr
;(urf emanmt-Te -toil ft:)itrii»' figmftmr-ttgnnttmcB
tub &fic.&4j>f mir n tifttf gsTiicmift f^agn p<W5ir:
»>tr f fiUu fimmi -t pornnHtimu-tnT prat ofn q .yiv^icr; j
Wbcbtt-Jftf 5 tavtt'fiijm&carftUa cm" fll« ttttponfrcgtg, |
^ „. , _^ ^;. T Jtriicf m t)iUMc rti tcrenf rfn timi j^'Mt-tiHiSi' . .
__ wAtTH «r tt mrtncwrtf TJia trtettc-tfua: (tcttcnraf ?L —
'I ) ' i
/■•//■: A- V DKACON .\oTK, fo.
13] RUBRICATIONS OF 'GEOFFREY' 103
56. ~ (ix. 4). Hie Arthurus cum paganis Saxonibus viriliter dimicavit.
De clipeo Arthuri. [Gaivayne, 649 ; Morle Arthiire, 3649.]
De gladio ejus nomine Caliburno. [Mor/e Arthure, 4230.] \,See facsimile.l
56^. De victoria Arthuri contra paganos.
57. (ix. 6). De stagno mirabili Ix insulas continente ad quod pagani fugerunt.
(ix. 7). De stagno Lumonoy.
S7i5. (ix. 8). Hie Rex Arthurus ecclesias per paganos destructas renovavit et totum
regnum suum Britannic in pace stabilivit.
58. (ix. 10). Hie Arthurus totam Hiberniam et omnes Reges Insulanos sibi subjugavit qui
onines vectigal ei dederunt. [Morte Arthure, 30, 31.]
58*. (ix. II). Hie Arthurus Northwegiam Daciamque sibi subjugavit.
[Morte Arthure, 44, 46.]
59. (ix. II). Hie Rex Arthurus cum ffuUone Rege ffrancie bellum duellum commisit.
{Morte Arthure, 3345, uses the nearly orthodox form ' Frolle.']
59^. (ix. 12). Hie Rex Arthurus tocius Gallic partes in ix annis subjugavit tenuitque
Parisius curiam suam legesque ibi statuit et eonfirmavit et in Britanniam
reversus est.
fo. 60. Hie Arthurus ad suum convivium omnes Reges principes et duces proceres et nobiles
invitavit inferius nominatos. [Morte Arthure, 75.]
(x>b. (ix. 13). Hie Arthurus in Regem Britannic et Gennora in Reginam coronantur.
[Morte Arthure, 84, has ' Gaynour.']
61. Hie magnum festum et laudes Deo in coronacione Arthuri et Regine celebrantur.
(>\b. (ix. 15). Hie Rex Arthurus litteras Lucij Imperatoris recepit. [Morte Arthure, 86,
also calls him ' Emperour ' : the Latin of Geoffrey has ' Procurator.'] [See facsinnle.'\
62. Hie Arthurus consilium habuit super sibi mandatis per Imperatorem.
[Morte Arthure, 243.]
62i5. (ix. 16). Hie Rex Arturus sanxivit tributum de Lucio Cesare sibi dari.
[Morte Arihure, 275.]
63. (ix. 17). Consilium Arthuri de Romanis quomodo eos subjugaret.
63*. (ix. 18). Promissio facta Regi Arthuro per Reges principes duces comites barones sibi
subditos de hominibus ad arma contra Imperatorem. Hie congregat exereitum suum.
\ Morte Arthure, 288-394.]
63A. (ix. 19). In exercitu regis Arthuri duo reges. [There are more than Xyna kings in
Geoffrey, but in Morte Arthure, 288, 320, as here, there are only two.]
Summa hominum armatorum c iiij"* iij millia et cc preter pedites in exercitu Arthuri.
64. (x. I). Hie Lucius Imperator contra Arthurum Regem exereitum suum parat. Summa
exercitus Imperatoris iiij'"' millia. [Morte Arthure, 625.]
64. In exercitu Imperatoris sunt ix reges duo duces cum ceteris ducibus sibi subjugatis.
643. (x. 2). Hie Rex Arthurus sompnum vidit et de quodam gigante in Monte Miehaeli
rumores audivit. [Morte Arthure, 756-843.]
65. (x. 3). Hie gigas Helenam neptim ducis Hoeli suo fedo coitu peremit. Arthurus ut
cum eo congrederetur montem petiit. [Morte Arthure, 855.]
65^. Hie Rex Arthurus cum gigante magnum habuit congressum et ipsum interfecit.
[Morte Anhure, 892-1160.]
I04 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
66. (x. 4). Hie Rex Arthurus misit Imperatori ut a finibus Gallie recederet ubi coram
Imperatore Walganus nepos Arturi Gaium nepotem Imperatoris peremit. [The rubri-
cator here calls ' Gaius Quintilian ' simply ' Gaius ' (the printed Geoffrey calls him
' Caius Quintilianus') ; similarly Morte Arthwe, 1346-1385, knows him only as ' Syr
Gayous. ']
66. A peculiar mark is put opposite the sentence in Geoffrey (x. 4) about Gaius Quintilianus,
saying that ' Britones magis jactantia atque minis habundare quam audacia et probitate
valere.' [Moric Arthure, 1348, did not fail to use this passage.]
tbb. Hie Boso de Vado Boum Gerinus Carnotensis et Walganus nepos Arturi cum Romanis
ignorante Arthuro certamen habuere. [Morte Arthure, 1378-1531.]
67. De magno conflictu Romanorum et Britonum.
67^. Hie Petreius Senator captus est et regi presentatus et victoriam Britones optinuerunt.
[The rubricator in naming Geoffrey's ' Petreius Gotta ' drops the 'Cotta,' calling him
' Petreius Senator. ' ?i\ra\i3x\y Morte Arthure, 11)19,1476, 1519, 1 543, calls him only
' the Senatour Peter.']
68. (x. 5). Hie Romanes captivos Parisius Britones miserant et in itinere magnum eon-
flictum habuerunt et de Romanis victoriam. [Morte Arthure, 1617-1879.]
68^. (x. 6). De Lucio quomodo Lengriam civitatem cum exercitu suo ingredere disposuit
hesitans cum Arthuro prelia committere. [Morte Arthure, 1957.]
69. (x. 7). De Arthuro quomodo disposuit se cum exercitu suo Imperatorem precedere ut
cum eo conflictum habeat suos consolans et victoriam promisit.
[Morte Arthure, 1973-2005.]
69. Arthurus rex habens sub se Reges terdenorum regnorum.
69*. (x. 8). Hie Lucius Imperator revocata audacia suos conrortavit et exercitum suum
disposuit contra Regem Arthurum. [Morte Arthure, 2020.]
70. Hie conflictum magnum inierunt. [Morte Arthure, 2058-2255.]
70^. (x. 9). De conflictu Romanorum et Britonum.
71. De ingenti conflictu inter Britones et Romanes.
71^. (x. 10). De bello Arthuri inter ipsum et Lucium Imperatorem.
[Morte Arthure, 2240.]
72. (x. 11). De bello Arthuri inter ipsum et Lucium Imperatorem.
72^. (x. 12). Hie Arthurus victoriam potitus est et Lucius Imperator inter turmas
peremptus est. [Morte Arthure, 2244-2255.]
12b. Opposite the sentence telling of the death of Lucius the word ' Amen ' is marked in
early pencilling.
73. (x. 13). De sepultura mortuorum in conflictu. Hie Arthurus precepit corpus Lucii
Imperatoris ad Senatum deferre Romanorum dieens quod aliud tributum de Britannia
dari non deberet. [Morte Arthure, 2290-2351.]
73^. (xi. 1 ). De bello inter Regem Arthurum et Mordredum nepotem suum proditorem.
[Morte Arthure, 3713.]
74. (xi. 2). De bello Arthuri et Mordredi proditoris nepotis sui.
[Morte Arthure, 4175.]
75. Hie corruit ille proditor Mordred cum multis aliis et Arthurus victoria adeptus est
et letaliter vulneratus est, [Morte Arthure, 4251-4241.]
HUNTICKIAN \rS. V. 7. 2;.
I :_Jtto«r«ttu>w,iffratcr'^mlwlWtra^!am?fe - .,
L fomitnm' an mm in ^oioa trgrt titffim? oi« ^ o(ti» _ -
Ci)L'.\( iL i)F W'AK iiv Night, TkiQrKTKA Mark, fo. 50.
i; Cifllbttrno 5imno opnmo^intluu atidUmvitfetoita'' *^^j9fig*;;^|.'
Akthuk's St. Makv .Shii.ld and Calihurn, fo. 56.
,'y.,;-^ > '•--1 /AF ' - *.- , /«
__ — u:^
Lucius Imi'kkjVtor, fo. 61/'.
14] 'ERKENWALD' 105
75. Hie disposuit incUtus Rex Arthurus Regnum Constantino cognato sue filio Candoris
ducis Cornubie. [Morle Arthure, 4317. The Latin text has Candor, like the rubric.
The poet follows the orthodox form Cador.]
75^. (xi. 8). De Britannia quomodo per paganos uit totaliter desolata.
76. (xi. 9). De ingenti lamentacione Britonum et divisione regni et quomodo Britones
diadema regni amiserunt.
^(>b. {xi. 12). De missione sancti Augustini a beato Gregorio papa in Britannia tota
Xianitate iterato carente ad predicandum fidem qui eum audire nolebant.
[Erkenwald, 12.]
76^. De Augustino.
77- Pagani Britannic et Xiani certamen inierunt ubi multi sancti monachi martirizantur
propter fidem.
77i5. (xii. i). De pace et concordia inter Caduanum regem et Ethehridum.
78. (xii. 3). De discordia Caduallanum et Edwynum inter quos divisum fuerat Britannic
regnum.
78^. (xii. 4). De Edwino quomodo Cadvallanum in fugam convertit et de infortunio
Cadwallani.
Nota de Pellito qui dc volatu avium cursuque stellarum edoctus.
79. Quomodo Brian regis Cadwallani armiger scidisset frustrum proprie carnis et dedit
regi ad vescendum. Hie venit rex ad regem Salomonem.
79^. (xii. 5). Hie rex Salomon Britannic infortunia lamcntavit et regi Cadwallano
auxilium promisit.
80. (xii. 6). Hie Brianus transfrctavit ut Pellitum de Yspania augurem et magum
Edwyni regis perimeret. Hie in portu Hamonis applicuit.
80^. (xii. 7). Hie Brianus Pellitum magum regis Edwyni interfecit.
81. (xii. 8). Hie Cadwallo eum cxcrcitu suo applicuit et cum Peando eongrcssus est et
Cadwallo subicitur et Edwynum Regem interfecit et sic victoria potitus est.
81. (xii. 9). Hie omne genus Anglorum a finibus Britannic rex Cadwallo cxpulsit.
81^. (xii. 10). Hie sanetus Oswaldus rex Northanhumbrorum a rege Peanda per-
emptus est.
14. 'Erkenwald,' 'Awntyrs of Arthure,' and 'The Pearl.'
(i) 'Erkenwald.'
Mention has been made of the tale of the dead judge found, after a
thousand years and more, sleeping his last long sleep in the base of the
heathen temple which preceded St. Paul's.' Now is to be shown the connec-
tion of that Erkenwald poem with the Hunterian MS., along with its no less
^The Miracula Sancti Erkenwald MS., Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, does not
at all account for the detailed and romantically specific story. Miss Mary Bateson most
obligingly put herself to the trouble of examining this MS. for me.
H
io6 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch.
interesting cross-relationship to the Awniyrs of Arthure and The Pearl. But
first let us briefly recall the story of the poem itself. In digging the foundations
of the 'mynster' there is unearthed in a stone coffin the body of a man royally
crowned, sceptred, and clad, and in marvellous preservation. His face
was fresh, and his cheek and lip as rosy as though he merely slept. Great
wonderment and speculation arose; they searched all the libraries for a
week, but no clue to the buried king could be found. Erkenwald that
time was bishop. He had been absent in the rural part of his diocese,
and was brought back by the strange news. Guided in his action by
heavenly grace, robed in pontificals, with a goodly company of lords and
barons and the Mayor of the city, he proceeded with all solemnity to the
minster. After celebrating mass he passed to the tomb where the corse
lay. There, in the name of Jesus, he addressed the dead, conjuring him
to tell who he was and how he came to be buried so. There was a pause,
then the body moved, and 'dreary' words came forth, in which the dead
man declared that he
' Was never kynge ne cayser ne yet no knyght' nothyr,'
but had once been a judge in the city under a 'prince of parage.' He
continued :
1. 205 ' The lengthe of my lyving here that is a lewid date
Hit is to meche to ony mone to make of » noumbre.
After that Brutus this burghe had buggid one fyrste
Noght bot fife hundred yere ther aghtene wontyd,
Before that kynned your Criste by cristene acounte
210 A thousand yere and thritty mo and yet threnene aght,
I was ane heir of anoye in the New Troie,
In the regne of the riche kynge that rewlit us thene,
The bolde Bretone ser Belyne, ser Beryng was his brothire,
Many one was the busmare bodene home bitwene
215 For hor wrakefiil werre quil hor wrathe lastyd ;
Then was I juge here enjoynyd in gentil lawe.'
Lewid, unskilful ; to meche, too much ; buggid, built ; threnene, a form of thrpine,
three; oye, grandson, but here?; busmare, insult; bodene, offered.
' Compare Wynnere and Wastoure, 327 : ' Ne es nothir keyser ne kynge ne knyghte
that the folowes.'
14] 'ERKENWALD'; THE STORY 107
But the answer roused the more surprise, and the bishop pressed to know
how it was that one who had not been a king should have been buried
with crown and sceptre.
1. 221 ' Biknowe the cause
Sithene thou was kidde for no kyng quy thou the crown weres?
Quy haldes thou so heghe in honde the septre
And hades no londe of lege men ne life ne lyme aghtes. '
Biknowe, declare ; sithene, since ; kidde, known ; quy, why ; ne life ne lyme aghtes,
had not royal power over life and limb of subjects.
It is a question to which we must return— this dilemma of the crown
— but the noble answer that came is what concerns us now :
1. 225 ' " Dere ser" quath the dede body "devyse the I thenke
AI was hit never my wille that wroght thus hit were.
I was deputate and domesmane under a duke noble
And in my power this place was putte al-to-geder
I justifiet this joly toun one gentil wise,
230 And ever in fourme of gode faithe more thene lourty wynter.
The folke was felouse and fals and frowarde to reule.
I hent harmes ful ofte to holde home to right
Bot for wothe ne wele ne wrathe ne drede
Ne for maystrie ne for mede ne for no monnes aghe,
235 I remewit never fro the right by resone myne awene,
For to dresse a wrange dome no day of my lyve,
Declynet never my consciens for covetise one erthe
In no gynful jugement no japes to make.
Were a renke never so riche for reverens sake,
240 Ne for no monnes manas ne meschefe ne routhe,
None gete me fro the heghe gate ^ to glent out of ryght
Als ferforthe as my faithe confourmyd myn hert.
Never my will, this not my doing ; deputate ana domesman, judge deputy (of the
duke) ; this place, the temple.; felouse, felonious ; hent, received ; wothe, read woch, a term
of old Scots law, see chapter ' De wrang et woch negando' in Scots Acts Pari., i., 742;
aghe, awe ; remewit, removed ; dresse dome, give judgment ; gynful, deceitful ; japes,
follies ; renke, man ; routhe, sympathy ; glent, to go aside.
' For this curious phrase compare Morte Arthure, 450, and Fleta, 45 (referred to above,
ch, 9 sec. 3). A recta via non se divertet , . . et tunc interdicatur ei ne viam regiam
exeat.
io8 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
Thaghe had bene my fader bone, I bede hym no wranges,
Ne fals favour to my fader thaghe telle hyme be hongyt.
24S And for I was tyghtwis and rekene and redy of the laghe,
Quene I deghed for dul denyed alle Troye.
AUe menyd my dethe the more and the lasse,
And thus to bounty my body thai buriet in golde,
Claddene me for the curtest that courte couthe then holde,
250 In mantel for the mekest and monlokest one benche,
Gurdene me for the governour and graythist of Troie,
Furrid me for the fynest of faithe me withinne,
For the honour of myne honeste of heghest enprise
Thai coronyd me the kidde kyng of kene justises
25s That ever was tronyd in Troye, other trowid ever shulde,
And for I rewardid ever right thai raght me the septre."'
Bone, boon (if my father were to be the gainer) ; bedl, offered ; rekene, worthy ; laghe,
law ; deghed, died; denyed, read dimud ; Troye, i.e. New Troy, London ; menyd, mourned ;
bounty, shew goodness ; curtest, most courteous ; monlokest, manliest ; gurdene, girded ;
tronyd, enthroned (but perhaps trarwed, believed, heard of) ; raght, reached.
A further question as to the preservation of his body and the untainted
brilliancy of his robes, accompanied by the suggestion that he had been
embalmed, elicited from the strange witness the reply :
265 ' " Nay bisshop" quoth that body " enbawmed wos I never,
Ne no raonnes counselle my clothe has kepyd unwemmyd,
Bot the riche kynge of resone that right ever alowes
And loves al the lawes lely that longene to trouthe.
And more he menskes mene for mynnynge of ryghtes
270 Then for al the raeritorie medes that men one molde usene.
And if renkes for right thus me arayed has.
He has lant me to last that loves ryght best." ' ^
Unwemmyd, unstained ; kynge of resone, God ; menskes, graces ; mynnynge, minding ;
renkes, men ; lant, lent, granted it.
Was it only a poet's ideal, this great epitaph of an upright judge ? May
it not have been for such a conception of the majesty of justice that a certain
' Surely it was magnificently said. Bracton the great English lawyer, quoting the Digest,
wrote (fo. 2b, 3) : 'Jus dicitur ars ban ei aequi cujus merito quis nos sacerdotes appellat;
mstitiam namque colimus et sacra jura ministramus.' Our poet is of the kin of Bracton,
who, as has been finely expressed, ' feels that he is a priest of the law, a priest forever after
the order of Ulpian.' Pollock and Maitland's Histoiy of English Law (ist ed.), i., 187.
14] 'ERKENWALD'; A MS. SOURCE 109
Justiciar of Scotland was long after remembered as 'the good Sir Hew'?
But to return to the tale, only to glance at its close. The dead judge had
been a pagan ; he was none of the number bought with the Saviour's blood
on the rood ; and he was an eternal exile from bliss, whose soul lay in sorrow
and darkness. Men wept to hear the words. The tears of Erkenwald
dropped on the dead man's face, and the bishop baptised him in the name
of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whereupon a further marvel befell. The
dead lips opened once more to praise Christ ; the baptism had ' slaked all his
tene'; he had seen a light flash in heaven; and the unbarred spirit now
entered there, where a marshal 'with menske aldergrattest ' ushered him in.
And then, 'as soon as the soul was seised ^ in bliss,' the fair countenance
faded and failed, and the corse shrank into blackened dust. Bishop and
people marched forth in procession; there was wonder and mourning and
mirth; and all the bells in the burgh 'birred' at once.
Tokens of the most explicit character on the one hand associate this
strange, powerful, and beautiful poem with the Hunterian MS. Dealing first
with the lines just printed, it will be noted that the MS., fb. 10b, has a rubric
applicable to line 207. The Belinus and Brennius lines (213,-215) scarcely
require comment, as they so explicitly render into verse the rubrics in ff. 16 (16^)
and 17, to which Wynnere and Wastoure owes such allegiance. Observable
specially is the use of the term of King to Belinus and of king's brother to
Brennius equally in the Latin rubric and the alliterative poem.
Unquoted lines no less clearly bear out the connection with the MS., as
will be seen by turning to the references in the last chapter :
/. 7 For hit hethene had bene in Hengyst dawes
That the Saxones unsaght hadene sende hyder.
[Rubric, fo. 43*, 44.]
15 He turnyd temples that tyme that temyd to the develle.
[Rubric, fo. 30*.]
25 Now that Londone is nevenyd hatte the New Troie,
The metropol and the mayster-tone hit evermore has bene.
[Rubric, fo. 40^.]
'The same legal figure of seisin in heaven occurs in Pearl, 417.
no 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
31 The third temple hit was told of Triapolitanes.
36 That was the temple Triapolitane as I tolde ere.
[Rubric, fo. 30*, accounts for 'Triapolitane.']^
The last example may be taken as a particularly intimate association.
The rubricator more than once carefully noted the metropolitan standing
of London. The poet dwells on it too. In yet higher degree curious and
striking is an arithmetical agreement. The MS. enables us to check the
dead judge's computation of his own date — a computation which, not without
justification, he reckoned too much for any man to make ! Perhaps he was
right in respect of irreconcilable MS. chronology, and of some confusion
between the reigns of Belinus and his father. The date itself, notwithstanding
the judge's caution, is poetically clear — in the light of the Hunterian MS.
Although the printed Geoffrey of Monmouth has no such date, the
Hunterian MS. has a date Anno Mundi, 4482, forming part of the text just
one chapter before the accession to the throne of the father of Brennius
and Belinus. It has another date, 3449. The interval between these is
1033 years. The date given by the dead judge in Erkenwald was :
Noght bot fife hundred yere ther aghtene wontyd,
A thousand yere and thritty mo and yet threnene aght.
That is, 482 years, or 500 — 18, after the building of London; the year
1033 before Christ. Let us check this by the Hunterian MS., which,
with its [4J482 — 3449 = 1033, accounts, by its legendary arithmetic, not
only for the 482, but also for the 1033.
In fact, through the marginal notes of the MS. and the text itself, we
are enabled to explain some other things which the poem leaves obscure.
Dunwallo, so Geoffrey of Monmouth vouches, not only made the Molmutine
laws (one of which, de fugitivis, concerned sanctuary, a subject on which
we know that the author of Morte Arthure was learned), but did sound
and strenuous justice. When he died, after forty years' rule — the 'forty
winters' of the poem — he was buried in London near the temple of concord,
^ A parallel may be observed : Alex. 1458. Erkenwald, 105. The bodeworde to the
And bodword to the bischop broght bischop was broght one a quile.
of his come.
14] 'AWNTYRS OP ARTHURE ' m
which, as the dead judge also indicates, had been consecrated by Dunwallo
to his laws.i The dead judge is therefore a poetic equation of Dunwallo
himself. And the judge's crown and burial in gold ? Dunwallo, as Geoffrey
tells us, made for himself a golden diadem,^ and when his son and suc-
cessor Belinus died his ashes were laid in a case or cofifin of gold.^
(2) ' Awftiyrs of Arthur e' and 'Pearl.'
M. Amours in editing the Awntyrs supplied many admirable elucida-
tions in the introduction and notes. As regards the sources, however,
one he missed — the most important. The first part of the poem is beyond
doubt an adaptation of the Trentalle Sandi Gregorii, a legend, of which
an English poetical translation of the fourteenth century has been edited
by Dr. Furnivall* in 1866, and with a double text by Herr Kaufmann*
in 1889. The substance of the legend is to be found in the
Gesta Romanorum,^ but in form differing materially from the story in the
English poem. The English author begins by saying, ' A nobulle story
wryte y fynde ' — words from which its character as translation is a perhaps
uncertain inference. However that may be, the author of the Awntyrs
knew the Trentalle story in the same shape as it has in the English
poem. It is not difficult to show the indebtedness.
1 MS. U. 7, 25, fo. IS^ : Text.
/fabricator's Note. In diebus itaque ejus latronum mucrones cessabant ; raptorum
Hie rex est mortuus sevitie obturabantur ; nee erat usquam qui violentiam alicui
cui Bellinus et Bren- ingereret. Denique ut inter alia quadraginta annos post sumptum
nius succederunt et diadema explevisset defiinctus est et in urbe Trinovanto prope
regnum inter se divi- templum concordie sepultus, quod ipse ad confirmationem legum
serunt construxerat.
^[Dunwallo] fecit sibi diadema ex auro. Galf., ii. 17.
^[Rtibricator's Note.'] [Text.] Postremo cum suprema dies ipsum ex hac vita rapuis-
Hic Bellinus ex hac set combustum est ejus corpus et pulvis in aureo cado reconditus
vita migravit. quem in urbe Trinovanto . . . locaverunt. Galf., iii. 10, MS. U,
7, 25, fo. 19.
^Political Religious and Love Poems, E.E.T.S., 1866, p. 83.
^ Trentalle Sancti Gregorii herausgegeben von Albert Kaufmann (Erlangen, 1889).
^ Gesta Romanorum, ed. Herrtage, E.E.T.S., pp. 250, 384, 489, 503.
112
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Trentalle Sancti GregoHi.
A grisly fiend-like creature all aflame
appears to Gregory at mass. (11. 46. 55.)
Gregory ' halsed ' it through God's might
to tell why it disturbed him so. (11. 63, 68.)
It answers, 'I am thy modur that the
bere ' (1. 72).
' I lived in lust wickedly.' (1. 89.)
Gregory replies : ' Tell me now, mother,
if anything may help, — bedes or masses?'
(11- 95-97-)
The ghost answers that it might be well
with her :
Who so truly would take a ' trentalle
Of ten chief feasts of the year
To sing for me in this manner. (11. 104-6. )
Gregory is glad, and promises that the
masses shall be sung. He bids his mother
reappear ' this time twelvemonth ' to report
her condition. (11. 131-8.)
Gregory never forgot his masses on the
days assigned (11. 144-5).
Then an angel carries her off to heaven
(1. 186).
A howling and ' grisly ghost ' all a-glow,
with a toad at her neck, appears to Gaynore
(Guinevere). (11. 117-25.)
Gawayne conjures it by Christ to say
whence it came and why it walks thus.
(1. 133- )
It asks for Gaynore, and tells her ' I bare
thee of my body ' (1. 204).
By that to-takenyng thou trow
I broke a solemn avow '
That none wist but I and thou
And therefore dule I dree (11. 205-8).
Gaynore says, ' Tell me now soothly what
may save, and I shall seek the saints for thy
sake.' (11. 209-10.)
The ghost answers :
Were thirty ' trentalles ' done
Betwixt undem and noon
My soul were salved full soon
And brought into bliss. (11. 218-21.)
Gaynore promises :
Now hear heartily on hand I hest thee to
hold
With a million of masses (11. 235-6).
[The ghost makes some prophecies not in
the Trentalle.^
Gaynore causes the masses to be read and
sung (11. 703-6).
The ghost glides away (1. 325).
Here the parallelism of the Awntyrs with the Trentalle stops, and the
sole remark to be made is to point out how the alliterative poet by the
' This merest hint — of the incest which makes the legend of Gregory repulsive —
illustrates two things. First, it shows the refining touch of Huchown's hand in respect
of his leaving the rest unsaid. Secondly, it proves that Huchown knew more of the legend
than appears in the English version of the Trentalle. The Gesta Romanorum form of the
story accounts, by its reference to the tokens, for the allusion to privy knowledge which in
the present poem appears meaningless. Besides, the load, not in the English version, duly
occurs in the Latin form of the story. See Heritage's Gesta, p. 503, and Kaufmann's
Trentalle, p. 26.
14] 'PEARL' 113
change of a single name deepened the power of the story he found in the
legend of Gregory. For Gregory he substituted Guinevere, made her the
subject to whom so terrible a lesson of the pains of adultery was delivered,
and so with remarkable aptness, although indirectly and with delicacy, added
to the moral. For surely to associate such a dread warning as this with the
frail queen, who lives in romance history with her radiance so stained, was a
touch of art. And we are not yet done with the Trentalle. Perhaps the
reader has already noticed that whilst Gregory conjured his mother's ghost by
God's might to explain itself, and Gawayne conjured the ghost of the mother
of Gaynore by Christ to tell why it walked the earth, the good bishop in the
Erkenwald had likewise bidden the dead judge, in the name of Jesus,
say:
In worlde quhat wegh thou was and quy thou thus ligges (1. 185).
So in the Trentalle in obedience to the invocation
The gost answered with drury chere (1. 71),
while in Erkenwald the dead body stirs
And with a drery dreme dryves owte wordes
Thurghe sum lant goste (11. 191-2).
Critics who are able lightly to call such things coincidences, and pass on,
will please consider if the following also came by chance. The Trentalle
story was not at an end where the Awntyrs left it ; nor was the alliterative
poet's borrowing account closed when all the masses for the soul of
Guinevere's mother had been sung. He had a use for what of the Trentalle
yet remained.
Trentalle, Pearl.
Twelve months after the appearance of In The Pearl the father, visiting the
the ghost, as Gregory stood at mass, grave of his two-year-old daughter, falls
He sawe a fulle swete syghte asleep there, and in a dream of hfeaven
A comely lady dressed and dyghte sees her 'in hir araye royale' wearing „.
That alle the worlde was not so bryght crown high pinnacled with pearl (11. igi-
Comely crowned as a qwene (11. 152-5). 207), 'a coroun of grete tresore' (1. 237).
Her hare is as'glysnande golde (1. 165).
Nygh for joy he swooned (1. 158). Nq man could have been gladder. His
'joy,' he says, was much the more (1. 234).
114
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE '
[Ch.
He mistakes her for the Virgin Mary,
addressing her as
Lady, qwene of heven
Modyr of Ihesu, mayde Marye (11. 162-3),
but she explains 'I am thy mother,' and
tells him that she owes her bliss to the
virtue of his prayers.
TrentalU. Pearl.
Though he recognises her he cannot un-
derstand why his daughter should be a
queen (1. 474), a difficulty to which he
returns (1. 486), saying that he could have
understood her being made a countess's
maid (countes damysel) or a lady of less
array (11. 489-91),
Bot a quene hit is to dere a date ! (1. 492)
He had asked her :
Arte thou the quene of hevenz blwe?
(1. 423)
— whom all honour,
Marye that grace of grewe
That ber a barne of vyrgyn flour ?
(11. 425-6.)
The child, after addressing the Virgin as
' Makelez moder and myryest may ' (11.
434"S)i explains how the Lamb of God
when he took her to himself had crowned
her queen (1. 415). She then unfolds the
mystery of
The court 01 the kyndom of God alyve
(1. 445),
wherein each one that arrives becomes
either a queen or a king, and the Virgin
is the Empress (haldez the empyre) over
all,
For ho is quene of cortaysye (1. 447-
456).
That criticism will be purblind indeed which cannot now see several
things — the colligation of the proofs of unity; the ties of the legend of
the Trentalle with the alliterative Awntyrs and Pearl and Erkenwald;
clearest possible relations of plot in these three poems side by side with
slender, yet not the less distinct, verbal identities of text in each with the
Trentalle ; and at the same time the poet's quaint deference, even when he
has visions of paradise, to the rules of precedence of the Awle Ryale.
' Why do you wear a crown ? ' was Erkenwald's question to the dead
judge. 'Why do you wear a crown?' was the father's question to his
[The dilemma of the crown and other
courtly peculiarities of Pearl are dealt with
in Scottish Antiqttary, Oct., 1901.]
14] 'AWNTYRS,' 'PEARL,' AND 'ERKENWALD' CONNECTED 115
lost pearl. And the question ^ — which is of the very essence of each
poem — comes from the same source as suggested the ghostly interview
of Guinevere.
'A few further words may well be devoted to The Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience,
a. trio of pieces found in the same MS. with Gawayne and the Green Knight. Dr.
Richard Morris, editing the trio, advocated the claims 01 the poet-translator of the Troy
to their authorship {Early English Alliterative Poems, E.E.T.S., pref., ix.), although
denying that that poet-translator could have been Huchown. Reference may be made
to the excellent reasons assigned in his preface for this association between the Troy
and the three pieces in question. It is unnecessary to comment at this stage on the
other part of his opinion. I endorse and accept Dr. Morris's proofs of unity of
authorship, relying on my own manifold fresh arguments as to Huchown's personality.
Mr. Gollancz, in his beautiful edition of the Pearl, also holds it and Cleanness and
Patience to be from the same hand. His preface, concluding with a guess at the
authorship and the inevitable denial ot Huchown, interestingly covers a good deal ot
the general field of alliterative discussion. I append a few stray notes of correspondence
between the three poems and the other works now under comparison. In Cleanness
(11. 1015-43) the description ot the Dead Sea is taken bodily from the Itinerarium
of Maundeville (ch. ix. of Wright, fo. 266-)-2l of MS. T. 4, I), with possibly a line
or two due to Hegesippus. In Cleanness also Belshazzar's sacrilegious table iewellery
is described in terms borrowed from chapter xx. o* the Itinerarium. Similarly, the
allusion to Ararat and its Hebrew name {^Cleanness, 447-8), comes from Maundeville, ch.
xiii., although the spellings in MS. T. 4, l, 10. 266 + 32*, are 'Ararath' and 'Tain.' On
the many points of similarity in phrase in these poems with the other pieces I am content
to mention two or three. 'The pure popland hourle' of Patience, 319, is matched by
'the pure populand hurle' of Alexander, 1154. 'Noah that oft nevened the name'
of Cleanness, 410, compares with ' Naw hafe I nevened yow the names ' of Parlement,
580. 'The chef of his chevalrye he chekkes to make' (Cleanness, 1238) resembles 'And
chefyd hym nott 01 chevalry chekez oute of nombre' (Alexander, 3098). Extremely
interesting is a line probably taken from reminiscence of the Troy:
' Belfagor and Belyal and Belssabub als' (Cleanness, 1526).
' Sum Beall sum Belus sum Bell the god
Sum Belphegor and Belsabub as horn best likes' (Troy, 4356-7).
A good parallel from Titus is:
Cleanness, 1413. ' And ay the nakeryn noyse notes of pipes.'
Titus, 848-9. ' With dynning of pipis
And the nakerer noyse.'
Titus, 1174-5. ' ■ . . and pypys with nakerers and grete noyce. . . .'
For nakers (Fr. nacaire) see Murimuth, p. 156, sonantibus tubis et ndchariis.
'"Wassayl," he cryes' (Cleanness, 1508), said of Belshazzar,- again effects a. cross-
ii6
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
The critic's task will be simplified by a parallel tabulation of lines in these
poems shewing consecutive use of Trentalle in all three.
Pearl.
Subject,
Darkness,
' Grisly ghost,' .
Conjuration,
Christ, .
'Why'? .
' Dreary ' speech,
Mother, .
Confession,
Prayers, .
' Trentals,'
Promise, .
Fulfilment,
Supposed Queen,
Joy.
' Queen of heaven,'
Mary 'Mother,'
Crowning,
In hell, .
Released,
Trentalle.
. 1. SO
SS-61
63
66
69
71
72
. 83-92
95-97
104
131-8
144
152-5
1S8
162
163
15s
172
186
Awntyrs.
1. 75-6
105-15
133
133
136
203
205-8
209-10
218
235
708
191-229
234
423
425-35
480
Erkenwald,
179
180
185-8
191-2
r [king] \
198,
222/
254
292
335
How could an imitator or any imaginable ' school ' of poets, as distinguished
from an individual, have hit on such a unity of system? It includes
absolute indebtedness of ground plan in each poem, along with minor
verbal transfers in each, a singular exhaustion ot the entire content of
Trentallis plot {Pearl resuming the thread precisely where the Awntyrs
dropped it), and finally an observance of the same consecutive order as in
the original through all three alliterative adaptations of the Trentalle^ two of
which swell the multiplied coincidences by ending ^ with the opening line.
connection with the rubrication sermo de woseil above noted (ch. 13) on fo. 44b. of the MS. of
Geoffrey. Compare also
' Lyfte laddres ful longe and upon lofte wonen' (Cleanness, l^^^).
' Layn ladders alenght and oloft wonnen' (Troy, 4751).
Siege descriptions, shipping, storms, weather, hall and court in all the poems all lend
points in the same direction.
^ Awynirs, 11. I, 1212. Pearl, 11. i, 715.
IS] VERSE SYSTEM 117
15. On System of Verse, Dialect, Characteristics, Date, and
Nationality.
(i) System of Verse.
The words of Wyntoun have a particular value in respect that they point
to three poems differing in theme, character, and metrical construction.
Morte Arihure, styled by Wyntoun the Great Gest of Arthitre, is a historical
romance, or rather a romantic history, and is like the Alexander, the Troy,
the Titus, the Parlement, Wynnere and Wastoure, Erkeuwald, Cleanness, and
Patience, a work in unrimed alliteration. One thus appreciates the more the
technical propriety of Wyntoun's reference to ' cadens ' as a vital element
of Huchown's performances, for ' cadence ' seems to have been the term
applied to alliteration as distinguished from rime. Indeed, the life-story
of this old system of verse, once sole possessor of the field of English speech,
with its sudden interruption and disuse followed by the fourteenth century
revival of it, may all be inferred from the Romance-word ' cadence ' found
linked with it first in an alliterative prose tractate in imitation of Richard
RoUe of Hampole, who, in at least one learned opinion, was a force in its
English revival.! The word 'Cadence' is there contrasted with ' Ryme,' a
contradistinction followed by Chaucer as well as by Gower.^ When, therefore,
Wyntoun excuses Huchown's ' Emperour ' because ' Procuratour ' would have
' grieved the cadence,' the allusion is specific. ' Cadence ' was the only mode
used in most of the poems, including Morte Arthure. But Wyntoun also
alludes to Huchown's 'metre,' a word connoting rime as well as measure,
and accordingly certain of the poems exemplify the combination of alliteration
■'The passage referred to is in 'A talkyng 01 the love of God' (Horstman's Rolle of
Hampole, ii., 345) : ' Men schal fynden lihtliche this tretys in Cadence after the bigynninge
gif it bee riht poynted and Rymed in sum stude.' The piece is accordingly partly alliterative
and partly in rime. _ Rolle of Hampole's Melutn Contemplativortim is written in alliterative
Latin verse and prose. Horstman's Hampole, ii., introd. xviii.-xxii., has many specimen
passages. Prof. Horstman has j(there stated his view as to the influence of Hampole in
the words : ' As a writer he took up the old traditions 01 the north : he revived the
alliterative verse.'
"^ See note ch. i above.
ii8 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
and rime. Gawayne and the Green Knight is chiefly in unrimed alliteration,
but has four half or tag-lines riming abab at the end of each of the hundred
and one stanzas. The Awntyrs of Arthure is likewise alliterative, but rimed
throughout in a stanza of nine full lines and four half lines, all riming thus,
ababababcdddc. In the Pistill of Susan the same rime and almost the very
same structure obtain, the only difference being that the ninth line is a
'bob' of only two syllables. The Pearl stands by itself as less systemati-
cally alliterative, and as using octosyllabic iambics in stanzas of twelve lines,
riming ababababbcbc. M. Amours has said^ that Morte Arthure is above
all the other poems distinguished by the numerous series of consecutive
lines having the same alliterative letter. This is an effective contrast, but
that both the consecutive and not-consecutive systems were alike available
to the poet is seen from the exordium of the Alexander with its 22 lines
alliterating on five letters, compared with the rest of the poem in which
the consecutive mode is discarded.
Two other poems fall to be mentioned here. One is St. John the
Evangelist^ closely resembling the structure of the Awntyrs of Arthure
and riming ababababccdccd. This poem of 264 lines, which some critics
think belongs to Huchown,' is certainly from one of Huchown's sources,
the Legenda Aurea, being a translation of the legend of St. John in that
monumental mingling of piety and romance. The second poem is one
of haunting sweetness and beauty, the authorship of which will not long
remain in doubt after the argument of this essay has received its due. It
is the tender and musical Lay of the Truelove, styled by Mr. Gollancz
the 'Quatrefoil of Love.' It is, as Mr. Gollancz records, written in a
northern dialect and in the precise metre and rime, ababababcdddc, of the
Pistill of Susan. Moreover, M. Amours acutely noted, in editing the
Awntyrs of Arthure, that it was a favourite device of the poet who wrote
Gawayne and Pearl and Patience to end the poem with its opening line,
'^ Sc. Aim. Poems, Ixvii.
^ Horstman's Altenglischen Legenden, neue folge (Heilbronn, 1881), p. 467.
' My friend, Mr. J. T. T. Brown, maintains this view, with which my own coincides.
There are many parallels of diction and matter to support it.
IS] DIALECT 119
' a peculiarity,' he said, ' which has not been noticed elsewhere.' Accordingly,
M. Amours reckoned it noteworthy that in the Awntyrs also this peculiarity^
should be found. To the list falls to be added the Lay of the Truelove.
A fact so significant of art as this, along with the close consonance of verse
structure and rime system, is enough to discredit as the sheerest empiricism
the verdict of Mr. Henry Bradley,^ that the Pistill and the Awntyrs were
originally written in alliterative long lines unrimed, and as we now have them
are ' paraphrases or watered-down versions by a northern man who retained
the original diction so far as the alteration of metre would permit.' The
proposition is grotesque — a reckless philological forlorn hope.
(2) Dialect.
All requisite allowance being made for a considerable percentage of
scribal change, the dialect (some would say dialects) of the Huchown poems
must constitute a problem on which it is hard to educe any certainty except
the one, that the dialect shows a blending of peculiarities. Professor Skeat
concluded ^ that the Alexander ' was probably written in a pure Northum-
brian dialect.' Mr, Donaldson, editing the Troy, concluded * that that work
'was originally in the Northumbrian dialect,' stating at the same time that
Morte Arthure ' was certainly of Northern origin.' Dr. Morris did not agree ;
he held Morte Arthure to be in a Northumbrian dialect south of the Tweed,
and assigned the Troy along with Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience to the West
Midland dialect. ^ M. Amours found ^ that the rimes of the Awntyrs of
Arthure and of the Pistill of Susan 'betoken a Northern origin.' The
Parlement and Wynnere and Wastoure Mr. GoUancz assigns to the west of
England. Mr. Henry Bradley is quite positive '' that Morte Arthure, the
Pistill, and the Awntyrs were all originally written in West Midland dialect,
but were subsequently northernised by editorial scribes. A very fair state-
ment of the case was perhaps that made long ago by Mr. Donaldson who,
'^ Scott. Allit. Poems (Sc. Text), p. 364. "^ Athenceum, 12th Jan., 1901.
^ Alex., pref., xxiii. '^ Troy, pref., Ixi.,
^ Early Eng. Allit. Poems, pre.., ix. 5 Morte Arthure, ed. Perry, 1865, pref., ix.
'' Sc. Allit. Poems, pref., Ixx. "^ Athenceum, 12th Jan., 1901,
I20 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch.
speaking of the Troy,'^ declared that the elements of the work were Northern
and West Midland, but that their combination was so irregular as to permit
the idea that they presented a mixture of dialects. This is not far from the
belief of the present essayist. The dialect of these alliterative poems shows,
like that of the Kingis Quair, a difficult admixture of Northern and Southern
forms, and conduces to the inference that the poet's education and his later
career must have been such as to reconcile the apparent anomaly. Anglo-
French influences, then predominant in court circles, must have tended to
make the speech of the aristocracy lean decisively, even as it does to-day,
towards the southern model.
(3) Dates for the Poems.
Absolute and relative points of fixity for dates are not many. Maun-
deville's latin book, written in 1356, is the first. The Alexander, quoting
Maundeville, could not have been written before 1356. The Troy most
probably followed the Alexander, and was quoted by Barbour in 1376.
These two extreme dates comprised between them for Huchown a couple
of crowded decades of earnest study and glorious achievement.
Wynnere and Wastoure, poetically grouping facts which English annalists
record under 1358, certainly belongs to that time. It admits of suggestion
that as a Garter poem complimentary to Edward III., and containing a
translation of the well-known motto of the Order, it may have been
composed for the high festival of the Round Table held in the early
summer of 1359, and evidently attended by Sir Hew of Eglintoun.
Gawayne, with its beautiful story of temptation resisted, has for its
pictorial conclusion the Garter motto in French. The suggestion of Mr.
GoUancz that the story has to do with the amorous relations of Edward
III. and the Countess of Salisbury may or may not be plausible,^
but certainly he has good ground for maintaining a connection with
the story of the origin of the Garter. Indeed the relationship
with the chivalric Orders is more intimate than has yet been pointed
out. Gawayne, setting oflf to keep tryst and fulfil his adventure with
' Troy, pref., Ix. ^ Pearl, intro, xli.
15] DATES OF 'GA WAYNE' AND OTHER POEMS 121
the Green Knight, wears a 'cote' (I. 2027) which is 'furred' (2029).
He ' doubles ' about his thigh the love-lace ' drurye,' or ' gordel of the grene
silke' (2033-s) with 'pendauntez' (2038) which his fair temptress gave.
At the end of his adventure when he parts with the Green Knight he
wears this crosswise on his left arm —
A-belef' as a bauderyk bounden bi his syde
Loken under his lyfte arme the lace with a knot (11. 2486-7).
These are the very technicalities of fact. When Henry IV., just before his
coronation in 1399, made knights, they wore green 'cottes' — so Froissart^
tells — which were 'fourrees,' and each knight 'suf la senestre espaule' wore
'un double cordeau de soye blanche a blanches houpells pendans.' And
from other sources we know that this kind of ' lacs,' or ' druerie ' as it was
styled in France, was in England one of the fixed stigmata of knighthood
and bore the name of 'las.'^ Only the tinctures here differ from
Froissart's. The ' gordel ' (O. Fr. cordel) is the bend of green,
A bende, a-belef hym aboute, of a bryght grene,
which became the badge of the Round Table in Gawayne (1. 2517). It
is of special note as the point of focus for the plot of that poem. We
must remember it likewise as present in Wynnere and Wastoure. Over
against the papal standard with its bibles and bullae
Another banere is upbrayde with a bende of grene
With thre hedis whiteherede with howes on lofte (11. 149-50).
The hint perfectly consorts with history: Edward III., represented by
the Round Table badge, is on the side of the three excommunicated judges
whom, in 1358, he protected from the pope and his bulls against the
judges and others. The banner symbolises the union of royal and
judicial authority which the pope defied. The one poem is thus the
decisive explanation of the other, and probably they are not far apart
in time. Gawayne has been assigned to 1360, a date with which there
"^A-belef, slantwise, across.
^Cf. Chronicque de la Traison et Mart de Richart Deux. (Hist. So.), p. 225 ; Titles
of Honor, ed. 1631, p. 820. Cf. as to garter Galf. le Baker, 203.
" See Laborde's Glossaire Fran^ais du Moyen Age, words ' druerie ' and ' lacs ' (lar,
laqs) : Upton, De lie Militari, cap 3, quoted by Ducange voce 'stigma.'
I
122 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
is no great need to quarrel, although I incline to place it earlier, perhaps
before the production of Wynnere and Wastoure. This would put it on
the calendar of 1358 or 1359. In early 1358 there were great Round
Table functions, and either then or very shortly afterwards Sir Hew was
in London. But a noteworthy feature of the poem is its recurrent allusion
to New Year's Day,* a vital part of the story, which gives rise to the
belief that it may have been written for a New Year festival.
These poems seem to be the earliest of the series on the chronology
of which the facts yield clues. Of Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience, Mr.
GoUancz's estimate^ of 1360 is probably not far wrong, although these
pieces, like the Alexander, shew use of Maundeville, only written in 1356.
Erkenwald and the Awntyrs of Arthure are inseparable from Pearl when
sources are considered, and there is no external evidence of the order
of production. A glance at their relations with the Trentalle inclines one
to suppose that the Awntyrs may have preceded Pearl. Let us, in the
absence of other data, suppose that the Alexander, certainly post 1356,
was written circa 1361 ; and the Troy a year later.
The Titus and Vespasian, like the Alexander, utilised Maundeville, and
by its mention of the Foul Death suggested 1363 as a possible date. Its
vows are hints of the influence of the Voeux du Paon. Morte Arthure,
utilising Maundeville also, and developing the Voeux du Paon, has yielded
very many and intimate historical evidences converging towards a date
at the close of 1364 or beginning of 1365. Again we have here a
Round Table poem honouring loftily Edward III., and again we have
Sir Hew in London in May, 1365, a time that suits.
The date circa 1350, which has been editorially suggested for the
Parlement of the Thre Ages, is out of the question. Obviously it is yet
later than Morte Arthure, in that while reminiscent of Maundeville and
the Voeux du Paon it quotes Gawayne, Alexander, Troy, Titus, and
Morte Arthure, and is itself a dream, springing from a dream-episode in
the Troy.
Between 1365 and 1376 there was ample time, but perhaps the extra
^ Gawayne, 11. 60, 105, 284, 454, 1054, 1669. '^ PearlmiYo. , xlii.
IS] CHARACTERISTICS 123
number of the reminiscent lines of community with Morte Arthure hints
rather 1365-70 than 1370-76.
(4) Characteristics and Nationality.
Our poet's general characteristics have been incidentally touched at
frequent points already — his courtly and ceremonial leanings and observance
of etiquette, his. love of ship-scenes and the chase, his lapidary interest in
jewels, his purity and loftiness of soul, his piety and religiosity of spirit. His
themes, it may be observed, while ranging widely over history and romance,
never make love a centre.
When we turn to the question of indications of nationality in the treatment
of his material, the difficulty at once arises that a poet has no call to declare
his nationality, and that in consequence, where dialect is doubtful, we have
many puzzles of early literature to solve. Language is ofteri the only test,
and philology has assuredly not yet perfected its critical apparatus.^ In
the present case inferences from dialect are sharply complicated by the
contradiction of history. On Huchown's language definite stress cannot be
laid to prove his origin, and his themes not being directly historico-patriotic
in the sense of, say, Barbour's Bruce ^ or Minot's poems, the data are
particularly few and slender.
Externally, the record of Huchown is wholly Scottish ; this is by far the
master-key of his mystery. The Troy appears to be quoted by John Barbour
in 1376. The Morte Arthure is discussed by Wyntoun in 1420, while other
pieces of Huchown's are mentioned in the same passage. No early author
in England, on the other hand, has ever named Huchown or recognised his
poetical industry, notwithstanding that English scribes have copied the poems
and Malory incorporated in his prose much of Huchown's Arthurian matter.
' It is just possible, however unlikely, that in the words ' and ScharshuU it wiste ' (and
Scharshill knew it — said relative to a disturbance of the peace) in Wynnere and tVastoure,
317, there may be a clue to the youthful career of Sir Hew of Eglintoun. Scharshill
was in Scotland attending to matters in Edward Balliol's parliament in 1332 (Bain's
Calendar, iii., 1065). At that time many Scottish families were retiring into England
because of the civil war in Scotland (Bain's Cat., iii., 1065-84).
^ Note, however, that even in Barbour's Legends of the Saints the express indications
of nationality otherwise than from language are very few.
124 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
Huchown's great romance-history, Morte Arthure, might well have been
written by an Englishman, whether regard is had to its language or its tone ;
but here and there are touches, subtle and penetrating, that suggest an author
with a keen interest in Scotland and sympathy for peace and alliance between
north and south. Chief is that already pressed— the veiled reference to the
heir-apparent. But the general political scheme, if it may be so called, of
Morte Arthure puts the Scottish leanings of its author in the clearest light.
In Geoffrey of Monmouth, King. Anguselus, as an ally of Arthur, is postponed
to Hoel of Armorica ; there is no separate king of Wales, and there are some
six kings of island realms. Hoel furnishes 10,000 men-at-arms ; Anguselus
only 2,000. Arthur himself made up the total of armoured horse to 60,000.
The six island kings furnished six times 20,000 foot. Turning now to the
rubrication (by Huchown) of this place in the Brut, we find noted In exercitu
regis Arthuri duo reges — an inaccurate memorandum, for there were eight
kings, not two. But Morte Arthure, like the rubric, has only two. The
King of Armorica, or, as Huchown preferred to style it, Little Britain or
Britain the Less, sinks in Morte Arthure to ' baron of Britain the little,' ^
though he brings 30,000 knights to Arthur's banner. And precedence before
him is taken by the King of Scotland with 50,000 men, while the gallant
King of the Welsh brings 2,000. Could a Scottish poet contributing, let us
say, a Round Table poem for the festival of the Order of the Garter, at
which his own king was an honoured guest, well have done better?
In the direction hinted tends also the curious allusion in Morte Arthure
to the heir-apparent,
'Thou art apparent to be heir, or one of thy childer,'
a line which betrays a knowledge of the intrigue between the Kings of England
and Scotland in 1363-64, constituting part of a reconciliation in the earlier
stages of which, at any rate. Sir Hew of Eglintoun had definitely a helping
hand. Besides, there are localities mentioned in Morte Arthure, and still
more in the Awntyrs of Arthure, which reveal some intimacy with Scotland.
On the later poem, M. Amours,^ examining the topographical allusions, finds
' Barones de Britannia was a term of state in this period. See instance in truce of
1343, Murimuth (Eng. ITist. Soc), 142.
^ Scot, Allit. Poems, introd., Ixxiij.
IS] NATIONALITY 125
it an 'obvious inference that the poet knew his ground in Scotland and on •
the Border, and drew on his imagination for localities further south.'
In the Alexander poem, the exclusion of Scotland from the conquests
of the Macedonian may be an accident, but may be a straw which indicates
the current.
If it be asked who Huchown's chief hero was, the answer is ready — it
was Gawayne 'off the west marches,' as he calls him once, although we
know that more than once he really denotes the Black Prince.^ Gawayne, it
is scarcely necessary to urge, was well known in romance history as the lord
of Galloway. So early and sober an author as William of Malmesbury^
tells of the discovery of the sepulchre of ' Walwen,' who had reigned in
' Walweitha.' Huchown's provinces of Cunningham and Kyle, in which his
own lands and the Steward's territory lay, were of old within the limits of
the Province of Galloway. However his interest in Gawayne arose,
Huchown went beyond his predecessors in the many-sidedness of his praise
for valour and purity, for grace and courtesy.
Then, what of Belinus and Brennius as indications of nationality?
Are we to take it as of no note that this pair of brothers, kings of North
Britain and South, are not only mentioned in Morte Arthure and Erkenwald,
but supply the plot of Wynnere and Wastoure} Rather must we not
remember their reconciliation as a type to the poet of the peace he sought
between two lands?
And Thomas of Erceldoun? Must we respect it as a natural pre-
sumption that anybody but a Scot would in that age have been found
quoting these weird prophecies — prophecies which again had to do with
the very theme of Belinus and Brennius, the feud of South and North?
Last of all, let us look at a singular parallel. Sir Hew of Eglintoun
had, immediately upon the accession of Robert II. to the Scottish throne,
become a privy councillor of his royal brother-in-law. Shortly afterwards
he appears as an auditor in exchequer, an important financial post. A
colleague is the Archdeacon of Aberdeen, known of all men in our day as
John Barbour, the poet of The Bruce. If these men sat together in the
Scottish Aula Regis, and if the poetic Huchown was the auditorial Sir
'^ Morte Arthure, 2954. ''■ Gesta Regiim (Eng. Hist. Soc), 466.
126
'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Hew, the question may well ensue — What are the proofs, if any, of
literary contact? The first item of the answer is constituted by the
alliterative quotations made by Barbour from the Troy, and the traces,
somewhat indefinite, it is true, of borrowings from Morte Arthure?- The
second item is, that historically Huchown's name stands for ever linked
with the ' Awle Ryale ' of Barbour's period by virtue of the epithet Wyn-
toun appended. The third is the singular coincidence of sources — especially
of The Bruce — employed by Barbour with those of Huchown. Huchown was,
presumably, the older man; he certainly was of much higher social dignity
than Barbour; he was a man of large means. It is much more natural to
suppose that Huchown influenced Barbour than the converse. However it
was, here are facts oddly connecting the modes of work and the Quellen.
Barbour
Partly translates the Troja in the Troy
fragments.
Also quotes a passage from it in the
Bruce, i., 521-528.
[See ray John Barbour, Poet and Trans-
lator, pp. 4, etc.]
Epitomises the Fuerre de Gadres in Bruce.
Also abridges and translates the Fuerre.
Makes large use of the Voeux du Paon.
Translates (rnejudice) the Voeux in full.
Celebrates the Nine in Bruce and in the
Buik of Alexander.
Is suspected of writing the ' Ballad of the
Nine Nobles.'
Makes Robert the Bruce epitomise Feruin-
bras in apparently the same version.
Translates from the Legenda Aurea the
account of the siege, and the life of St. John.
Huchown
Translates Guido's Troja, and frequently
refers to the story.
Epitomises the Fuerre de Gadres.
Makes large use of the Voeux du Paon.
Epitomises the Voeux.
Repeatedly sings the praises of the Nine
Worthies.
Epitomises the romance of Ferumbras in
a shape resembling the Sowdan of Babylon.
Uses the Legenda Aurea in Titus for ' The
Sege of Jerusalem ' and for ' St. John the
Evangelist.'
Bases his greatest poem, Morte Arthure,
on the Brut.
Cites and quotes the Romaunt of the Rose.
Bases his important poem, the Stewartis
Ori^ynale, on the Brut.
Also cites and quotes it. Legends of the
Saints, prologue, 1. 5.
1 The Troy fragments show few alliterative phrases ; Bruce has many, so has the Buik oj
Alexander ; the Legends of the Saints, again, has very few. The inference may be hazarded
that Huchown's influence, 1372-1377, is the explanation.
i6] DIAGRAM OF ARGUMENT 127
Huchown Barbour
Quotes the] prophecies of Thomas of Cites and quotes 'Thomas of Hersildoune,'
Erceldoun, Wynnere and Wastoure, 5, 13-15. Brtue, ii., 86.
Uses the Scriptures as a source, Pistill, Does the same.
Pearl, etc.
Refeis (like Chaucer) to St. Julian, Ga- Refers to St. Julian, Z«^is«(/f »/■/;& 5a2K/j,
■Wayne, 774. xxv., 15.
Some of these are commonplaces ; the majority quite other than so.
The comparison suggests the improbability of two men, not brought into
contact, displaying any such parallelism in their authorities. The one in
alliteration, the other in rime; the one by far the loftier, profounder,
more powerful, and more original genius, the other perhaps the luckier in
that he chose Robert the Bruce for his theme — these are the twin spirits
of Scottish fourteenth century literature from the Exchequer table of the
Awle Ryale. Always we must return to Wyntoun's testimony ; and that is
what Wyntoun and the Exchequer records tell.
16. Diagram of the Argument.
(i) As regards the Works.
The evidences which have now been submitted are, it must be repeated,
for the most part wholly new. They include the following propositions, set
forward and proved for the first time :
1. Relationship of Alexander and Troy through Huuterian MS. T. 4, i,
indicating a very possible community of origin from the same
manuscript source, on which, however, no vital part of this argu-
ment is dependent.
2. Direct borrowing in Titus of a complete scene and a siege picture
from the Troy.
3. Direct borrowing in Morte Arthure from Titus over and above its
known connection with and borrowing of many lines from Troy.
4. Adaptations in Morte Arthure from the Voeux de Paon.
5. Consistent indebtedness throughout of the Parlement to Gawayne,
Troy, Titus, and Morte Arthure.
6. The plot of the Parlement drawn from Troy.
7. Maundeville's Itinerarium (of which a copy is in MS. T. 4, i)
128 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
used as a minor source in Alexander, Morte Arthure, Farkment,
Pearl, arid Cleanness.
8. Extraordinary consequence of the Hunterian copy of Geoffrey of
Monmouth, MS. U. 7, 25, especially of its rubrications.
9. Plot of Wynnere and Wastoure thus revealed in Geoffrey, along
with important clues to other poems, especially Morte Arthure, Titus,
and Erkenwald.
10. Brennius and Belinus as poetic factors in Huchown's work.
11. The historical setting of Wynnere and Wastoure explained, and the
significance in evidence of the ' bend of green.'
12. Erkenwald considered in itself as a legal monument and in its
relation to other poems and to the MS. of Geoffrey.
13. Trentalle Sancti Gregorii a. common source of the first half of
Awntyrs of Arthure, of Erkenwald, and of the Pearl.
14. Considerations from military, political, and geographical elements on
the date of Morte Arthure.
15. An autobiographic suggestion from the MS. of Geoffrey on the
series of poems and on the nationality of the poet.
So varied, although so convergent, are the processes of reasoning which
point to a single author that they can only be briefly summarised by a
diagram here. The direction of the argument had to be determined some-
what by the chance of earlier impressions tending at first as the knowledge
originally available dictated, but altering and extending its line in conse-
quence of subsequent information. Perhaps this diagrammatic chart will
be explanatory not so much of the course which has been steered by the
argument as of the cross-connections established by cables laid down in
the poet's own works.
Poems that draw from the same sources draw from one another.
Poems connected with the special rubrics of the same unique MS.
draw from one another.
The author of the last poem on the diagram, if not Huchown, must
have had extraordinary zeal as disciple or industry as plagiarist if he wove
into his short text so much of other men's labours that his poem is linked
from end to end with practically the entire cycle of the Huchown poems.
i6]
CONNECTION OF POEMS
129
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'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Put the same point another way. Take Morte Arthure. What rational
basis other than common authorship will explain its ties with Troy, Titus,
Wynnere and Wastoure, and the Awntyrs of Arthure 1
Or consider the lines which radiate in the diagram from the MS. of
Geoffrey and which in so many different poems meet the lines travelling
from the Parlement or the Gawayne.
(2) As regards the Foet.
Arms of Sir Hew of Egi.intoun.i
That the poet was famihar with courtly usages ; had special , legal
knowledge and sympathy; had the highest conception of the grandeur
of justice, especially 'in gentil wise'; was versed in ships and in the
chase; had access to current information of state; had pondered deeply
the case of Brennius and Belinus; loved the peace and union of North
and South and deplored 'busmar'; gave Scotland precedence of dignity
in Morte Arthure; kept Scotland out of subjection in the Alexander;
made the Scot Sir Gawayne his constant hero; had special interests in
the Round Table and its celebrations; knew London, Carrick, Kyle, and
Cunningham, the West Marches and the land ' fro Humbyre to Hawyke ' ;
used several of the special authorities employed by John Barbour; in
especial knew the prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoun; was much alive to
1 One of the many notes Mr. Gollancr has not got on the Pearl is that Sir Hew of
Eglintoun's armorial bearing was ' three annulets stoned ' (three rings of gold each set
with a single jewel). Bain's Calendar, iv., iiii; Woodward and Burnett's Heraldry,
1892, plate xix. Nisbet's Heraldry, i., 225, describes the arms as gules, three annulets
or, stoned azure. See Gawayne, 1817,
2
17] 'GOLAGROS' HISTORICAL 131
matters lapidary; understood the Watling Street way from the north to
Canterbury; likewise knew the itinerary to Rome; was acquainted with
the sword-point formulary of assythment for manslaughter; knew about
'fernies' and ' audytours,' chancellors and chamberlains, as well as 'justices
of landes,' whose duty was to 'justify wele';i somehow knew also that it
was proper for royalty that 'its kydde castells be clenlyche arrayede';^
had breathed the air of camps and chivalry, and mingled with nobles, and
statesmen, and ambassadors, and kings— all these and fifty other such
characteristics of the poet directly and indirectly fit the known story of
' the gude Sir Hew of Eglintoun.'
17. Galleroun and Golagros — A Decisive Personal Clue.^
The Awntyrs of Arthure is generally conceded to Huchown. Golagros
and Gawayne was reckoned his by Sir Frederick Madden as it contains so
many elements of similitude. M. Amours, re-editing the poem in his Scottish
Alliterative Poems, acknowledges that the vocabulary is of the 14th century,
although assigning the piece from its existing form to a later date. Briefly,
it seems clear to me that Sir Frederick Madden was right and that some
modernization of the language is due to the Scottish printers through whom
the sole known-version of the poem has been preserved. No commentator on
the Awntyrs and Golagros has noticed these four points in connection with
them (i) their complete parallelism of allegory, (2) the close, if quasi, historical
character of both, (3) the distinct evidence of date in the Awntyrs, and (4) the
appositeness amounting to necessity of that date also for Golagros.
The Awntyrs, as we have seen, draws the plot of its first half from the
Trentalle. The greater part of Golagros comes from the French romance
ol Perceval le Gallois (11. 16331-624, 18209-19446), which, as has long been
known, was utilised in the shaping of Gawayne and the Green Knight.
But it is the supplementing of these sources by very lightly shrouded con
'^ Morte Arthure, 425, 660-664.
^ Morte Arthure, 654. Sir Hew was one of a commission of four knights appointed
in 1368 ad quatuor castra regis visitanda. Acts Pari. Scot., i., 504.
' This chapter is an insertion made after all the previous part was in paged proof. The
discovery it contains was made at the eleventh hour.
132 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
temporary allusions which is the vital fact for due criticism. These occur
mainly in the second half of the Awntyrs, and are perhaps more pervasive
of Golagros throughout. In the Golagros poem the fact in substance is
that Golagros represents King John of France, Arthur is Edward III.,
Gawayne is the Black Prince, and the duel is the battle of Poitiers, while
the white horse is that ridden by the French king on that ill-fortuned day.
The Awntyrs contains a reference, of a significance until now unobserved,
to the Erlis sone of Kefit, which pins down the production to a date not
earlier than 1358 and not later than 1360. The poem has allusion to events
of the summer of 1358. Here again Arthur is Edward III. and Gawayne
is the Black Prince, while Galleroun is a historical and allegorical repre-
sentative of Scotland. Neither poetical nor political allegories are designed
to be free of occasional mistiness of treatment, but these inferences on
Golagros and Galleroun are inevitable and beyond critical doubt. Nor is
this all. A rare and happy chance of record has made possible the
decisive interpretation of an allusion in the Awntyrs (italicised below) as
autobiographical of the poet himself, confirming the sense deduced from
the poem, fixing its date, and settling the personal identity of the immortal
Huchown. First, let us look at Golagros, remembering that King John,
although a prisoner, was feted and feasted in 1358 and 1359.
Contemporary History. Golagros and Gawayne.
Edward III., at war with King John of King Arthur sends Gawayne as his mes-
France, commissions Black Prince to take senger to a fortified city beyond sea (42)
homage of Aquitaine {Rynier, 4th Aug., with towers and battled walls and castle (44).
1355)- Landing at Bordeaux, a walled city Gawayne is welcomed by its lord Spyna-
with castle, the Prince is welcomed by its gros, who offers him 30,000 men (197).
famous Captal de Buch, John de Grailly The army, marching over the mountains
(Chandos Herald's ./VwzireiVffzV, 11. 524, 616, (230-5), reaches a castle with thirty-three
678), and other barons of Gascony, who towers, on a rock, double dyked, on a river
march with the Prince in his expedition side near the sea (233-50). Spynagros, who
across mountainous territory to Carcassonne, knew the land well (344), guides and counsels
a castled city with many towers (now fifty- Gawayne (261, 341, etc.). The castle has a
four) on a rock, double walled (Golf, le circular keep — ' the round hald' (371).
Baker, 235), on the river Aude, near the Golagros, lord of the castle, refuses homage
Mediterranean. The Captal's local know- (452).
ledge was helpful in the selection of the route Heavy fighting, after an interval, ensues
(Moisant's Prince Noir, 28). Carcassonne (600-880).
is considered through the middle ages to be
17]
•AWNTYRS' HISTORICAL
133
Contemporary History.
impregnable. It has its chief stronghold in
a great circular tower built in the thirteenth
century — la grossebarbacane. Viollet le Due's
La Citlde Carcassonne, pp. 20, 70, figs. 1 1 , 1 S-
The city will not submit {Galf. le Baker, 236,
3-6Nov.,i355),adheringtoitslord,K.ingJohn.
After various battles King John — at
Poitiers in 1356 — royally armed meets the
Prince. At the battle John rides a white
horse. Estoit li roys de Franche montis
sour ung blancq cmirssier (Amiens MS. of
Froissart quoted in Polain's Jehan le Bel, ii. ,
302). He fights heroically, but is overcome.
He is summoned to surrender, and does so
after some trouble about taking him to the
Prince.
Golagros and Gawayne.
After sundry combats Golagros, armed
in gold and rubies (886), mounted on a
white horse (895), encounters Gawayne and
fights heroically, but is overcome (1024).
Summoned to surrender (1032) and come
to the King (1070), he refuses till conditions '
are adjusted, under which he agrees to be
a prisoner while seeming to be captor (1102).
Gawayne goes off apparently captive to
the castle of Golagros (1125), where at
supper Golagros waits in person at table
upon his seeming prisoner. ^
'He gart schir Gawyne upga' (1150-1160).
Golagros then does fealty (12 16, 1324).
Fortune's wheel is uncertain (1225), as
Hector, Alexander, Caesar, David, Joshua,
Judas, Samson, and Solomon knew (1235).
'Schir Lyonel' (1248) and Gawayne con-
duct Golagros to Arthur who is gladder than
of the rents as far as Roncesvalles (1313).
Golagros does homage (1323) and pro-
mises fealty if due (1325).
There was a week's feasting on the river
Rhone (1345)-
Arthur releases Golagros from allegiance
(1358).
The light of passing events, reflected in a degree comparatively vague
in Golagros, shines with brilliant distinctness on Galleroun and reveals at
last what we have waited for so long.
Contemporary History. Awntyrs of Arthure.
Edward III. , on 9th May, 1 358, grants To Arthur in his hall rides up to the dais
^ Neither the white horse nor the table incident occurs in Perceval.
Taken to the Prince's tent he is enter-
tained to .supper where the Prince seats him
at table, refuses to sit himself, and per-
sonally waits upon his prisoner.
Cf. Morte Arthure, 3260-3432.
Lionel was not made duke of Clarence
until 1362.
No such homage was done. Cf. Awntyrs,
642.
Cf. Morte Arthure, 424. The Prince had
in 1355 been within fifty miles of the Rhone.
Not historical. Cf. Awntyrs, 675.
134
HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE'
[Ch.
Contemporary History.
safe conduct to his sister, ' the lady Johanna '
[Queen of Scotland] to visit him. On same
day he grants safe conduct also to Sir
Robert of Erskine (Koiuli Scotiae, i., 822).
The object in view is to procure respite in
payment of the ransom of David II., to
which all estates in Scotland were stringently
obliged by treaty of Berwick in 1357.
The well known Erskine coat of arms is
Argent a pale sable (Woodward's Heraldry,
346) and a well known Erskine crest is the
boar head (Burke's Odinary), Sir Robert's
own crest in 1357 and 1359 appearing on his
seal was a boar's head' (Laing's Supple-
mental Catalogue oj Seals).
The ancient crest of the surname of Erskine
was a hand holding a dagger. Douglas,
Peerage, ii., 206, plate 12.
Seal of Sir Robert of Erskine
used in 1357 and i359.
Awntyrs of Arthure.
a lady (1. 345) wearing a crown (371) and
leading a knight (344) for whom she be-
speaks reason and right (350).
The knight's shield armorial is Argent,
boar heads sable.
His shelde on his shulder of silver so shene
With here [other MS. bare] hedes of blake
browed ful bolde [other MS. burely and
baulde] 2(11.384-5).
The knight's name is Galleroun and his
horse carries on its chamfrein a dagger —
An aulas of stele (1. 390).
Erskine Crest.
Immediately following the knight, whose
name is Galleroun, comes a most interesting
personage, occupying a unique place in the
' I am informed by the authorities of the Record Office that my friend, Mr. Joseph
Bain, in his invaluable Calendar, iii., 1660, and iv., 27, erred in stating that the crest
was a bear's head. My official informant assures me that there is ' no doubt that the
crest is a boar's head.' A cut from a cast of the seal is here presented.
2 There can be no doubt that bare here, as in Morte Arthure (1. 3123), is for boar, not
bear. Galleroun's coat is derived from Erskine's by adopting the colours argent and
sable, and setting the Erskine crest as a charge into the field in place of the pale.
17]
GALLEROUN AND SIR HEW
135
Contemporary History.
Immediately after the safe-conducts of the
Queen and Sir Robert there is granted
another to Sir Hew of Eglintoun, dated
nth May, 1358.
Presumably Sir Hew travelled with the
royal party to London.
It is Sir Hew's first safe-conduct and may
have been his first visit to the Court of
England (Rotuli Scotiae, i., 823).
Mural decorations (with tablettes, etc.) of
new work at Windsor are a glory of the time
(Walsingham, anno 1344, Leland's Collec-
tanea, tomeii., 377. Cf Gawayne, 763-803).
Erskine belongs to the west of Scotland,
his patrimony being in Renfrewshire, but
owned lands in Cunningham, in Kyle, near
Loch Lomond, in the Lennox, in Lenzie, and
in Lothian (Rotuli Magni Sigilli, 1 306- 1424,
pp. 31, 84, 108-9; Douglas, Peerage, ii. 207).
Galloway had only been so far recovered
in 1356 ( Wyntoun, viii., 6597). Edward III.
had charter of it (Rot. Scot., i., 788) from
Edward Balliol.
Thomas of Holland assumed the title of
EarlofKentin 1358^; he died in December,
1360. His son was Thomas, who became
earl in 1360 (Coxe's notes to Chandos
Herald's Prince Noir, 11. 141, 1588 ; Cam-
den's Britannia, ed. Gibson, 213).
The Black Prince had griffons among his
badges (Royal Wills, 73; cf. Morle, 3869,
3946). The Queen, Philippa of Hainault,
was the French King's niece.
Scotland had fought keenly but been over-
come at Durham, when David II. was
captured.
Scotland has pledged itself in 1357 for
100,000 marks for the ransom of the King.
For this the youthful heirs of the best blood
in Scotland are held as hostages. Erskine's
son is one of them (Rotuli Scotiae, i., 812).
Awntyrs of Arthure.
poem. The passage quoted is all there is
about him.
A FftEKE ONE A FitEsoNE him folowcd in fay.
The fresone was aferedfor dred of that fare.
For he was seldene wonte to se
The tablet fluri,
Siche gavien ne gle
Sagh he never are (398-403).
These lines bear the stamp usual to an
author's indirect reference to himself. A
' freke ' is a common term for a man.
The Knight has come from the west of Scot-
land (420) to claim back lands there which
Arthur has wrongfully won in war (421).
They consist of west country lands in Carrick,
Cunningham, Kyle, Lomond, Lennox, and
Lenzie, but extend also to Lothian.
Galleroun demands duel, which Gawayne
undertakes, and the lists are prepared (477).
The King commanded krudely [other MS.
kindeli] the erlis sone of Kent
Curtaysly in this case take kepe to the
knight (482-3).
Gawayne's arms are griffons and he is
lord of Wales (509, 666-7). Queen Guine-
vere was ' born in Burgundy ' (30).
There is a. fierce duel, and Galleroun is
vanquished and he surrenders (640).
He submits and gives up his ' renttis
and reches ' (646).
'The NcU. Diet. Biog. gives this as 1359.
136 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
Contemporary History. Aiontyrs of Arthure.
Edward III., on 12th February, 1359, ex- . Galleroun is oppressed by his adversary,
pressly states that to the earnest and oft and the lady implores {619) Guinevere, who
repeated request' of his sister Johanna was implores Arthur* to make concord (625).
due his agreeing to respite stern action''
for the Scottish failure to meet the ransom.
Erskine and Sir Hew attest in London on Arthur does so, and procures the release
2ist Feb., 1359, David H.'s acknowledg- of Galleroun's lands (672-6).
ment of Edward's concession of respite
(Bain's Cal., iv., 27).
David H.'s release, under treaty of Ber- He is released (675) with a reservation
wick in 1357, had very stringent conditions about his lingering a while to make repair
for his return if the instalments of ransom to the Round Table (684) of which he is
were not duly paid. David often repaired made a knight (701).
to the Round Table ; so did Erskine him-
self, who seems to have been accomplished
in tilting (Nicolas, Orders of Knighthood,
i., 14; Bain, iv., 93; Rot. Scot., i., 892).
Erskine's very significant visits to England
about St. George's Day are noted below.
Thus there are marrow bones of true history in Golagros and the
Awntyrs. Superb and dramatic as are the annals of literary research, it
may be questioned if they contain any revelation more marvellous and
pictorial than this of the Knight of Eglintoun, then young in his poetical
career, riding on his startled Frisian steed, with Queen and Chamberlain,
as they approach the court of Edward III.
The boar's head marshals the way to a complete understanding of the
place of the Round Table poems. In the Awntyrs it associates with them
in the most pointed manner that powerful Scottish baron, justiciar,
chamberlain, officer of state, and soldier. Sir Robert of Erskine. Its
occurrence about the same time also at the Christmas feast in Gawayne
(11. 1616-54), is not casual, but carries a touch of heraldic allegory. When
' Nous a la grande et diligente requeste et instance de nostre tres chere soere Dame
Johane, compaigne du dit Sire David, que nous ad sur ce meinte foiz supplie, de nostre
grace especiale grauntons [etc.] (Rotuli Scot., i., 835, 12th February, 1359).
^ Forfeiture would have made matters very risky and unhappy for the hostages under
the treaty. The hostage rubrics of Geoffrey (ch. 13 above) are notes of Scottish anxiety.
^ The intervention of ' Waynour ' (1. 625) may have come from that of ' Venna ' between
Belinus and Brennius,
17] ERSKINE AND THE ROUND TABLE 137
again it confronts us on a banner in Wynnere and Wastoure (1. 175), and
. on a shield in Golagros (1. 605), the inference deepens that the whole
Round Table set is connected with Sir Robert as well as with Sir Hew,
whose entire career ran alongside Erskine's. Year after year from 1358
onward — in 1362, 1363, 1365, 1368, 1369, 1370, and 1373 — Erskine pro-
cures safe-conduct to travel into England (sometimes Sir Hew does so at
the same time) a week or two before St. George's festival^ — countenancing
most circumstantially the statement that the prototype of Galleroun was
either admitted a Knight of the Garter or was otherwise closely concerned
with that proudest brotherhood of chivalry. His personal accomplishment
in knightly arms may be inferred from his once^ carrying north with him
a 'ketil-hat,' his appearing once as a commander of a troop, and his
position as castellan ot David H's. lortresses. He stood in high favour
with Edward HI. as we know from the gift made to him of a rich gold
cup^ in 1363. Year after year, too, we find his safe-conducts timed so
as to let him spend Christmas in England — for instance* in 1361, 1363,
and 1367 — again a fact probably indicative 01 the good graces towards
him 01 the English king.
Between the two, the celebrations of the Round Table and the Christmas
festivities, it is easy to find natural room for the poems ol Erskine's friend
and colleague Sir Hew, some of them romances of the Table Round,
appropriate to the honour of the king of chivalry, Edward IH., and the
Black Prince, not forgetting now and then that of the knight (concerning
whom one of them was written) whose crest was a boar's head.^ Thus
at last history vindicates itself, and the mystery of Huchown and his
alliterative poems remains a mystery no more.
^Ratuli Scotiae, 862, 872, 890, 917, 928, 937, 955.
'^ Rotuli Scotiae, i., 892. 'Bain's CaU, iv., 93.
^Rotuli Scotiae, i., 859, 877-8, 916-7. At the last reference Erskine's son's arms and
armour make a striking analogy to those in Gawayne, 574-83.
* The heraldic discovery on which this chapter is based has led to others which e.xplain
the unidentified Friars' banners in Wynnere and Wastoure. The first banner has six
galleys of sable, each with a brace (or bend) and two buckles. The galleys sable indicate
John of the Isles (Woodward's Heraldry, ed. 1892, p. 367), and the bend and two
buckles his wife, Margaret de Vaus (Registrum Magni Sigilli, 1306- 1424, p. 48), whose
K
138 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALK' [Cii.
18. Conclusions.
To the fifteen leading propositions formerly tabulated, the preceding
chapter now adds :
16. An allegorically historical sense in Golagros and Gawayne strangely
parallel to that of the second half of the Awntyrs of Arthure :
17. The demonstration of the inner yet obvious meaning of both poems;
18. A beautiful and decisive personal revelation by the poet himself.
To review and assemble (although in the baldest, crudest, and most
disorderly fashion) the detached sections of this long involved and ill-stated
argument, chiefly in the shape of successive series of parallelisms, has been
a task of the greatest magnitude, inasmuch as, for the first time, the general
features of a supreme poet fall to be set on the canvas. It is not to be
disguised that the countenance which begins to show itself with growing
definiteness through the curtain of the fourteenth century is of no common
grandfather bore a bend with two ' cinquefoils (?),' which perhaps were buckles (Bain's
Calendar, ii., p. 545). There were, by legend, six kings of the Isles (Galf. Monuiiiet.
ix., 19), and the Scottish lordship of Man was held by service of six galleys (Earl of
Haddington's MS. Adv. Lib., 34. 2. i [pagination series at end] pp. 34'-s''). The second
banner is yet more interesting. With both ' brerdes ' (or bordures) of black and a balk (or
void) like the sun in the middle, it plainly denotes the Balliol orle with field of silver (Roll
of Carlaverock, ed. Wright, 25). The third banner has three boar heads, and is that either
of Sir Robert Erskine or of Sir John Gordon, a distinguished Scottish soldier {Wyntmm,
X., ch. 2), whose arms were three boar heads (Woodward's Heraldry, 227), who was
taken prisoner at Poitiers, and who was in England in 1357 and 1358 (Rot. Scot., i., 808,
824). The fourth banner, argent with a belt buckled, gives us Norman Lesley's argent a
bend with three buckles (Woodward, plate, p. 376). John of the Isles and Edward Balliol
were both included in the Berwick treaty of 1357 {Rot. Scot., i., 812-814). The peace thus
liegotiated embraced 'le yle de Manne.' The Queen and Erskine have their safe-conducts
to London on 9th May, 1358, Sir Hew and Lesley on the nth (Rot. Scot., i., 822, 823).
The arms are not exact and the tinctures are altered, but probably no herald will dispute
the likelihood of these identifications. Thus Wytmere and Wastoure conveys hints of a
surprising variety of strifes and concords in fields both sacred and secular, Scottish and
English. The two allies of Edward III., John of the Isles and Edward Balliol, are thus
slily presented along with two of his Scottish adversaries, Gordon (or Erskine) and Lesley.
The last named was taken prisoner by the English in France in 1359 (Scalacronica, 190),
and distinguished himself under the King of Cyprus in the descent on Alexandria in 1365
(Bower, ii., <^88),
i8] CONCLUSIONS 139
type; it is the countenance of an immortal who ranks among the great
formative forces in the Hterature of the English tongue, who, while Chaucer
was still (to public intents) silent, had ransacked the storehouses of Latin,
French, and English, in the quest of material for romantic narrative, and
who no less than Chaucer set his seal forever on the literary art of his
own generation and of the generations to follow. The hand which seeks
to unroll a little further Wyntoun's brief scroll of Huchown's achievement
may well tremble as it deals with a task so weighty, for either these pages
are a vain and credulous figment, or Huchown's range and grasp in romance
place him as a unique and lofty spirit, comparable in respect of his greatness
only with Walter Scott. But great and sweet as is the personality and
interesting as is the evolution of Scott, and superior far as he was to Huchown
in original romance, the time at which Huchown lived invests him with a
historical note which our wizard story-teller may not claim. In Huchown
we have a superb craftsman of letters in the fourteenth century, albeit the
latest Dictionarv of National Biography knows him not.
Away in that remote time, what was his achievement ? He found, so
far as we can conceive, little in the way of native Scottish literature. What-
ever his motives — and we can well enough surmise that his poetic leanings
were quickened by Court applause — he applied himself to a lofty and mighty
task. His equipment must have been excellent, as the standard of the time
went Certainly he was, as he himself said of the pious .^neas, ' Of literature
and language learned enow,' an easy master of Latin and French, and
recondite in the English tongue, with a tendency not uncommon among poets
towards archaism. It seems fairly reasonable to hold that his earlier pieces
include, along with the Wars of Alexander, a number of pieces on Scriptural
themes. The Pistill of Susan is the story of Susanna and the Elders,
paraphrased fi-om the Vulgate in an amplified manner. Cleanness is a
Scriptural poem, which singularly chooses for its illustration a marine
subject, the story of Noah, powerfully told. Patience likewise is somewhat
incongruously illuminated by another marine story, that of Jonah, his stormy
voyage, and the whale. The Destruction of Troy was not a task likely to
have been undertaken by a mere tyro of poesy, but required an experienced
and ready versifier, as its facility of execution fully attests.
I40 'HUGH OWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
But it is in the works which follow the Troy that the evolution of this
poetic genius may best be traced — traced with a measure of certainty which
would have been impossible but for the Hcense of the fourteenth century
poets to use, not once but once and again, the same figures, phrases, and
lines. Huchown, like many, perhaps like most, early writers, English, Scots,
or French, when he had a thing to say a second time had no shame in
saying it in identical terms with the first. The same threads, now bright and
now of sober grey, reappear in more than one of his many-coloured patterns.
The thing was inevitable in the work of a poet of large production. Yet
in Huchown, as editors long ago noted, his distinction is his endless minor
variation, even in the repeated phrases. To the fact that he did so repeat
we owe our chief means of identifying his work. These repetitions are
carried over from the sheer translations, like the Alexander and the Troy,
to the more independent products, Titus and Vespasian is amongst the
latter, in large degree an original performance, combining and adapting
various incidents and descriptions not belonging to the story as he found
it. The plainsong of Huchown's note came, like Chaucer's, from traditional
themes, though each made the composition his own by nobly distinctive
chords. It was the privilege of the trouvbre often to be content to echo
what he found, but the masters were ever wont to mend and combine as
well as to find. Much more rarely did they ' make.' The methods of
composition, by mingled translation, adaptation, and creation, are all present
in Morte Arthure, and the amplifications count for far more than the original
narrative. Some of the additions are inventions of the poet's own, but for
the most part he did not invent — he adapted. The Parkment of the Thre
Ages belongs, as it seems to me, to the close of his career, and forms, as
it were, his testament, for does it not sum up his past course through all
his themes — through Alexander, Troy, Titus, and Morte Arthure} Besides,
does it not, for a second time, utilise, as had been done in Morte Arthure,
its chief authorities, the Brut and the Voeux du Paon ?
And Gawayne and the Green Knight also was remembered when the
Parlement was put together by a man who by 1376 was probably old —
Gawayne, which Wyntoun attributed to Huchown, and which also has
so many identical passages or lines of close resemblance to Alexander^
i8] ESTIMATE 141
Troy, Titus, Morte Arthure, and the Farkment, especially the Parlement.
Nor may it be forgotten, as Sir Frederick Madden and others have not
failed to notice, that the unique MS. of Gawayne has the incomplete
superscription,
Hugo de
on its opening page.^
Now let us note the distinguishing feature of Gawayne, that beautiful
poem in praise first of chivalric purity, and second — and only second — ot
knightly valour and couftly grace. On the other hand, it handles with
delicate dexterity a trying theme of temptation, from which the chastity
of its Jiero emerges without a stain. There is not room here to discuss
the multiplied evidences of the connection of this poem with the Jloni
soil qui mal y pense motto of the Garter. It is such as to make the poem
a derivative of the incident of English court history which gave rise to the
most illustrious Order of the age of chivalry. As a poem it is full of the
life and practice of courtly circles, as strong in its ceremonial and state as
in woodcraft and love of the chase and of arms. Deeply and finely religious
in tone, Gawayne removes all difficulty of understanding how a poet could
take themes so diverse as Arthur, and Erkenwald, and Susanna, and could
so linger over the hunt in the Parlement and the hawking scene in Wynnere
and Wastoure. Through all, whether translation, paraphrase, or original
piece — without one ignoble or questionable line, such as the wit of Chaucer,
Dunbar, and Burns made them impotent to resist — ^^there shines a soul of
translucent purity. Posterity, which does not hit upon its epithets by
chance, has fitly remembered the knight of Eglintoun as 'the gude
Sir Hew.' Perhaps future generations will recognize him as the supreme
exponent of British chivalry in its triple ideals of earnest purity, of courtesy,
and of valour.
Law in its relation to literature fills a role ot no small distinction.
Finer testimony to legal aptness for literary study need not be sought
than Chaucer's making his Man of Law, alone of the goodly company in
^This is presented in jacsiiiiUe in Madden's Syr Gawayne, introd. li., and discussed
by him on p. 302.
144 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch.
the Canterbury Tales, have authoritative knowledge^ and a shrewd, critical
opinion of the whole series ot Chaucer's poems. This was indeed a
pleasant compliment to the accidental accomplishments of a member of
the profession. It was not what we have in Erkenwald, a tribute
to the nobility of justice, the kingliness of the function of the
upright and gentle judge. That such a tribute, eloquent with a certain
high and solemn emotion, should have come from a poet earlier than
Chaucer, from a Man of Law before the Canterbury pilgrimage, enhances
the import of this well-told medieval tale. Medieval of course it is, but
it is Medievalism in excelsis. The poem, too, links with the Fearl on
the one hand and the Aumtyrs of Arthure on the other in a manner to
reveal the power and grace of the mind which could from the somewhat
gross TrentaUe of St. Gregory pluck such fruit.
What shall we of this generation accept as Huchown's signal merit and
contribution to our literary or our national history? Even were he not
Hew of Eglintoun he is the unanswerable proof of the culture of the
period, revealing the breadth and depth of its romance learning and the
variety of one man's resources, ranging from such Latin works as the De
Preliis and Hegesippus, and such medieval Uterature as Guido's De Excidio
Trojae, Maundeville's Itinerary, and the historical story-book of the Brut,
to whole cycles of French romance on Alexander and Arthur and Charle-
magne, and the galaxy of heroes and heroines whom each of these led in
his ever-growing train. Considered merely as a poetic unity, and without
his personal name, he is a noble link between the literature of the Continent
and that of our island, imitating yet no slave, learned yet no pedant,
borrowing freely yet transfusing what he borrowed in the fire of what he
gave — an international student who learnt inuch from French literary art,
but who out of his Latin and French materials drew English poems of
which the power is all his own. And being (alike according to the
apparent voice of early chronicle and the result of recent research) a
Scottish lawyer and courtier, Sir Hew of Eglintoun, a mighty singer of
Cunningham unheard of by the bard of Kyle, he remains lor the literature
1 Introduction to the Man of Law's prologue.
i8] THE POET'S PLACE 143
of English speech all these things, and at the same time is immeasurably
more, completing and antedating by his own magnificent example the
evidence of Barbour and Wyntoun to the culture of the Scottish court
under the Bruces and the Stewarts, and lending stately promise to that
national literature which, with independent destiny, was to be at once a
thing apart and an integral portion of the common glory of English literature.
Looked at whole, he is a personality whose magnitude challenges the highest,
while the obscurity of his personal life, almost completely hidden (had it
not been for his manuscript of Geoffrey of Monmouth and his own price-
less miniature of himself in the Awntyrs. of Arthure) behind a few brief
intimations of his public functions as courtier and judge, heightens by its
contrast the splendour of a mighty spirit and the marvel of a unique career.
Who could have dreamed that portrait so meagre and accidental as that of
the companion of Galleroun would, after five centuries, admit of recognition ?
Who could have hoped that after such an interval records would be found
to overcome the reticence of a poet about himself? Mountain and moor
have darkened round his name and memory; he sleeps in a forgotten
grave ; but the west winds have long been whispering that we should yet
find him wearing a kingly diadem and buried in gold.
INDEX.
Alexander legend, 1 7 ; Roman d" Alixandre,
18; in Parhment, 82, 84, 85.
Alexander, Wars of, 7 ; agreements with
Hunterian MS., 19; borrowing from
Maundeville, 22 ; geographical parallels
with Morte, 22, 52, 53 ; used in Parle-
ment, 84 ; its consecutive alliterations on
same letter, 118.
Arming of Arthur, 48 ; of Vespasian, 49 ;
of Gawayne, 137.
Assythment, lo, 46, 47, 131.
'Awle Ryale' explained, 5, 12, 13, 14 ; its
bearing on the poems, 114, 125-6, 130,
"31. 13s. 136. 141-
Awntyrs of Arthure, 5, 7 ; parallels with
Titus and Morte, 34, 53-58, and Parh-
ment, 75-80 ; Gawayne's steed, 51 ; plot
partly from Trentalle, 1 1 1- 1 12, thus con-
necting with Pearl and Erkenwald, 1 14,
116; specialty of ending, 116, 118, 119;
plot partly from Anglo-Scottish history,
'33-7 ; identification of Arthur and
Gawayne, the crowned lady, Galleroun
and the ' freke on a fresone ' 133-6; final
proof of Huchown's personality, 135,
136, 137-
Balliol, Edward, his arms on banner in
Wynnere, 138.
Barbour, John, composition 01 Bruce, l, 2 ;
colleague of Sir Hew, 13, 45, 125 ;
translates Guido, 23, 126 ; quotes Troy,
30 ; refers to siege of Tyre, 38 ; trans-
lates Voeux du Paon, 45 ; his parallel
use of Huchown's authorities, 126 ; his
nationalism, 123.
' Beelzebub ' in Troy, 29 ; in Cleanness,
IIS-
Belinus and Brennius, their place in
Awntyrs, 136 ; Morte, lOI ; IVynnere,
90> 9i> 93 ; Erkenwald, 106, 109 ; the
poet's standpoint, 125, 128.
Bend or green, 121, 128.
Black Prince, 40 ; his campaigns in
Aquitaine, etc., 40, 64, 125, 132; battle
of Poitiers, 1 33.
Borrezio, Johannulus de, edits Guido in
I3S4> 24'
Cadence, a term tor alliteration, 3, 117.
Cleanness, 7, 15, 115, 129.
Correlation of poems, 15, 1 29.
Crecy in Morte, 59, 60.
Dares and Dictys, 23, 81.
David n. knights Sir Hew, 9 ; his cap-
tivity, 10 ; his relations with Edward HI.,
u ; his treaty with Edward, 11, 66, 91,
INDEX
MS
124 ; presence in London, 64, 98, 99 ;
his action of divorce, 12 ; his fortunes
poetically reflected, 91, 135-6.
Diagram of argument, 129.
Dialect of poems, various views on, 119 ;
conclusion that it was an admixture,
120.
Dialogus inter Aquam et Vimtm in Hun-
terian MS. of ' Geofirey,' 94, loi.
Dragon in Titus and Morie, 48, 89, 90 ; in
MS. 'Geoffrey,' 102.
Dunbar, William, his Lament ^or the
Makaris, 5.
Dunwallo and the dead judge in Erken-
wald. III,
Edward III. : his Round Table, 10, 12 ;
his relations with David II., 11, 66, 91 ;
love of hawking, 12 ; episodes in his
history frequently utilised by the poet
(Crecy, Calais, Winchelsea, French wars,
Scottish negotiations), 39, 59, 60, 62,
63, 64, 91, 124, 132-6; a hero in Marte
Arthure, 62, 122; in Wynnere, 93, 121 ;
in Gawayne, 120 ; in Golagros, 132 ; and
in Awntyrs, 133-6.
Eglintoun family, 8.
Eglintoun, Hew of: his identification with
Huchown, 5, 130, 135 ; sketch of his
biography, 8-13 ; native of Ayrshire, 8 ;
knighted, 9 ; taken prisoner in England,
9 ; marries daughter of Chamberlain, 9 ;
associated with Sir Robert of Erskine,
10; visits London with him, 10, 135; mar-
ries Egidia, half-sister of Robert the
Steward, 10 ; relation to negotiations ot
1363-4 with Edward III., 11 ; a justiciar,
etc., 10, II ; goes to Rome, 12; member
of Privy Council, I2; man of means, 13;
holds office at Exchequer, 13 ; associated
with Barbour, 13 ; death and burial, 13 ;
identified by internal evidence with
Huchown, 135 ; significance of his visits
to London, 10, 65, 93, 98, 135, 130, 137;
his arms, 130.
Erceldoun, Thomas of, his prophecies
quoted in Wynnere and Wastmire, 93,
I2S-
Erkenwald, 8 ; connection with MS.
'Geoffrey,' 100-105; the story, 105-109;
its tribute to law, 107-8 ; relation to
Belinus and Brennius, 109 ; the dead
Judge's chronology, 100, no; Dunwallo,
III ; ^connection with Trentalle, 113, 114,
116, and thus with Awntyrs and Pearl,
114, 116, 122, 142.
Erskine, Sir Robert of, justiciar and cham-
berlain of Scotland, 10, 11, 12 ; his share
in negotiations of 1358-9, 134, 135, 136,
137 ; and in those of 1363-4, 66, 91,
124 ; identified as ' Galleroun,' 134 ; an
associate of Sir Hew, lo, 12, 134-7.
Fleta, 43, 107.
' Foul Death ' in Titus, 39, 122.
Galleroun in the Awntyrs identified, 134.
Garter. See Round Table.
Gawayne and the Green Knight, 7 ; plot
partly from Perceval le Gallois, 131 ; its
temptation scenes, 51 ; parallels with
Parlement, 71-73, 80, 81, and with
Alexander, Titus, and Morte, 73, 74 ;
its Garter connection, 120 ; consonance
with history, 121 ; the bend of green,
121, 128; date of poem, 121-2; words
'Hugode[ j'onMS., 141.
Generydes, 51.
Geoffrey of Monmouth's ' Brut,' 3 ; trans-
lated, 41 ; Huchown's copy of 'Geoffrey,'
85 ; its rubrications, 86-89, 9°! 94 ;
transcripts from it, 99-105 ; their con-
nection with Erkenwald, 100, loi, 102,
105, 109, no. III ; with Wynnere, loi;
with Awntyrs, 136 ; with Troy, 102 ;
with Titus, 102; with Morte, 99-105;
with Gawayne, 103 ; with Cleanness,
102, 115.
146
INDEX
Gog and Magog, 21, 82.
Golagros and Gawayne, 13 1 ; partly from
Pei-ceval le Gallois, 131 ; partly from
Anglo-French history, 132-4 ; Golagros,
King John of France, 132; events of
campaigns in 1355-6 referred to, includ-
ing march to Carcassonne and battle of
Poitiers, 132-3; its date about 1359,
132.
Guido de Columpna's De Excidio Trojae,
Hunterian MS. of, 16, 17 ; the legend,
23; correspondences of MS., and allitera-
tive Troy, 25-29 ; source of Parlentent,
82.
Hawking, 12, 71, 105, 130, 141.
Heir-apparent, 66, 91.
Heraldry in the poems, 39, 90, 96, 103,
121, 130, 134, 137, 138.
History in the poems : surrender of Calais
in Titus, 39 ; Crecy, Winchelsea, and
wars of Edward HI. in Morte, 57-65 ;
Black Prince's campaigns, 40, 64 ; Judges
and Pope in Wynnere, 96, 121, 137 ;
King of Cyprus, 65 ; battle at Adrianople,
65. See vocibus Edward HI., Heraldry,
and Round Table.
Hostages, poet's interest in, 8, 87, loi ;
interest explained, 135, 136.
Huchown of the Awle Ryale : compared
with Barbour, 2, 3, 126 ; his identifica-
tion as Sir Hew of Eglintoun, 3 ; Wyn-
loun's references, 3, 4 ; Dunbar's
supposed reference, 5 ; objections to
identification, 5, 6; Huchown not a
disparaging name, 6; works ascribed, 7 ;
Sir Hew's biography, 8-13, 30, 65, 98,
130, 135-7 ; poems discussed, passim ;
Hunterian MSS. probably used by him,
16, 85 ; his rubrications of ' Geoffrey of
Monmouth,' 99-105; his error about
Lucius Imperator, 3, 4, 86, 103; his
interest in hostages, 87, loi, 136 ; Sir
Hew's visits to London in 1358 and 1359,
30, 98 ; Huchown's allusion to the
visit of 1358, 13s ; his legal sympathies,
42, 43, 100, toi, 106-8, no, 121; his
interest in Belinus and Brennius, 93, lOi,
106, 109, 125, 128, 136; his verse
system, 117; dialect, 119; nationality,
123-7; quoted by Barbour, 30; relations
towards Barbour, 1 26 ; personal charac-
teristics, 130; knowledge and love of the
sea, 60-62, 65, 130, 139; reveals him-
self in AiJbntyrs of Arthure, 135 ; his
poetical achievement estimated, 139; the
incomplete inscription, Hugo de [ ],
141 ; the poet's significance, 142.
' Hugo de [ ], 141.
Hunterian MSS. ; T. 4. i (Guido, De
Preliis, and Maundeville), 16, 19, 21,
22 ; Destnution of Troy, alliterative
poem, 23 ; U. 7. 25 (Geoffrey of Mon-
mouth), 85-90, 99-105.
Hunting, 12, 68, 71, 72,82, 100, 130, 141.
Isles, John of the, his arms on banner in
Wynnere, 138.
Jerusalem, Sege of. See Titus.
John, King of France, 132, 133.
Kent, earl's son of, 132, 135.
Law, notes of, 14, 42, 66, 91, 108, 130,
131-
Lay of the Truelove, 67, 1 18, 119.
Lesley, Norman, 138.
Lombardy, 12.
Lucius Iberius, Emperor or Procurator, 3,
4, 86, 103.
Madden, Sir Frederick, 5, 71, 131.
Maundeville's Itinerarium, 17, 30J used in
Alexander, 22 ; in Morte, 42, 122 ; in
Parlement, 82; in Cleanness, 115, 122.
See also 15, 127, 129.
INDEX
147
Morte Artimn, referred to by Wyntoun,
4, 5 ; edition, 7 ; account of poem, 40 ;
additions made to matter in Brut, 42 ;
borrowings from Maundeville, 42; Fleta,
42 ; Voeux du Paon, 44 ; Titus, 47 ;
other French sources, 50 ; Troy and
Alexander, 52, and from history, 59-66 ;
used largely for the Parlement, 74-85 ;
its relations and composition, 15, 40,
129, 130, 140; its connections with MS.
Geoffrey, 85-89, 95, 99-105.
Nationality of poet discussed, 123-127 ;
settled, 136.
Nine Worthies in Morte, 47 ; in Parle-
ment, 70, 84; in Golagros, 133.
Ogier Danois, a source of Titus, 39, 48,
51, and oi Morte, 48, 51, 52; mentioned
in Parlement, 70.
Parallels. See Troy, etc.
Parlement of the Thre Ages, 8 ; its author-
ship tested, 67; the story, 68-71 ; parallels
from Gawayne, 71-74, and from Awntyrs,
Alexander, Troy, Titus, and Morte,
73-81 ; proportions of these parallels,
81 ; sources of poem, 81 ; main
source of plot, 82-84 >^ relative date as
regards the other poems, 84 ; later than
1365, 122 ; digram, 129.
Patience, 7, 115, 139.
Pearl, 7; its plot, 113-114; notes, 115,
116; its relations, 15, 129.
Pistill of Susan, 7, 14, 68, 129.
Pseudo-Callisthenes, 17.
Quid de muiido senciam, 102.
Rome, itinerary to, 12 ; adapted in Morte,
12, 64 ; knowledge of, 131.
Round Table, 10, 12 ; an important factor
in the poems, 41, 62, 98, 120, 121, 132,
136, 137-
St. John the Evangelist, Ii8.
Sanctuary law, 42-44, 107, 1 10.
Scalacronica, 63, 64, 97.
Shaving of ambassadors, in Titm, 39, and
in Morte, 48.
Ships : in Titus, 39 ; in Morie, 60-62, 65 ;
in Cleanness, 139; in Patience, 139. See
also 100, 130.
Stewart family, 10 ; Sir Hew's association
with, 10.
Tarn Wadling, 9.
Titus and Vespasian, edition, 8 ; follows
Troy, 31 ; story and sources, 31 ; key of
Morte, 31 ; parallels from Troy and
Alexander, 32-38 ; council of war by
night, 35 ; fall of Jerusalem and Tenedos
and Tyre, 37 ; shaven ambassadors, 39 ;
poem known in Scotland early, 39 ; date,
39, 40 ; used for Morte, 47-50, and Par-
lement, 74-81 ; uses MS. ' Geoffrey,' 89,
102.
Treutalle Sancti Gregorii : a source 01
Awntyrs, III; of Pearl, 113; and of
Erkmwald, 116.
Troy, Destruction of, edition, 7 ; corre-
spondences with Hunterian ' Guido,'
24- 30; used in Titus, 32-38 ; Morte,
52-58 ; Parlement, 68 ; and Cleanness,
115; quoted by Barbour, 122; date of,
30, 122, 139.
Troy legend, 23. See Guido.
Robert II. (formerly Steward of Scotland),
12; favours literature, 13.
Vernacle legend, 31 ; in Titus, 39, 47.
Veronica legend, 31, 39, 47.
148
INDEX
Voaix du Paon, account of, 44 ; translated
by Barbour, 45 ; a source of Morle,
44-47 ; of Parlement, 81 ; perhaps of
Tiitis, 122.
Wynnere and Wastoure, 8 ; significance ot
' Venna ' rubric, 90 ; authorship, 91 ;
plot from 'Geoffrey,' 92, 99, loi, 128,
129 ; its Garter connection, 93, 137-8 ;
quotes Thomas of Erceldoun, 93, 125,
127; relation to Belinus and Brennius,
93, 125 ; follows model of medieval
'flyling,' 94, 95; considerations as to
date, 95 ; allusion to Scharshill and
other judges, 95, 97, 98, 121 ; the
bannered armies, 95 ; controversy of
the Friars, 96 ; Bishop of Ely, Judges,
and Pope, 97 ; conclusion as to date,
98, 120, 137-8; its relations, 129; its
heraldry, 137-8.
Wyntoun's references to Huchown, 3, 4,7 1 .
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
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