LONGER SOUTH ENGLISH LEGENDARY LIFE OF ST. FRIDESWIDE, FOOTNOTES

1 Her teacher was called Ailgive, who was a very good woman

2 Before this child was fully grown, her mother departed from this life

3 Lines 24-25: And abandoned her inheritance and all worldly business, / And afterward in this church, in order to please our Lord

4 More good deeds than she did, men knew no woman to do

5 Lines 40-42: " . . . The prints (steps) here of my feet that you have desired for a long time." / Now, do you not hear how slyly the villain (rascal/devil) knew how to contrive [a lie]? / Now may miserable luck fall on his head and on the company [of devils] behind [him]!

6 Lines 45-46:"Wretch," she said, "how dare you thus to promise other people / Something that you cannot reach yourself at all? . . . "

7 Lines 47-50: " . . . But you lost that through your sinful pride, / And I and everyone else would still be with you, / Sinful woman as I am, had not our Lord redeemed us, / To whom you [dare to] compare yourself! But you lie - you are no such thing"

8 Lines: 53-54: Let everyone say, "Now to hell with him, amen, / And may he never come in good circumstances into either church or hall!"

9 Lines 59-60: And lie with her carnally and take away from her also / Her nun's habit that she had solemnly received

10 I am betrothed to the King of Heaven. I will not violate my religious allegiance

11 Lines 69-72: With force they wanted to seize her then, and take [her] to the king, / But they were all suddenly blinded, right then and there. / Then might they be somewhat tamed and leave their violence; / They wished then they hadn't come there, despite all their proud appearance

12 Lines 77-78: Then they went back soon and reported before the king / How their sight was taken away because of their deed(s)

13 The king behaved as if he were mad, and swore a very great oath

14 Lines 81-85: "Since she has thus rejected me, I will commit a [sexual] wrong against her; / And when I have done all the lechery I desire with her, / I will give her to whoever wants her - [to] flagrant and bold lechers, / [So] that when she leaves me, she will be [a] common whore!" / He leaped upon his palfrey and took the way forward

15 Lines 97-98: He could seek for a very long time, but he was always at a disadvantage! / And he was exceedingly angry, because he didn't know where to find her

16 Wherever he went, he could say, "Watch out, here comes the blind [man]!"

17 And, since his eyes were lost in this way on account of his wrongdoing

18 Afterward toward Oxford she took the path homeward

19 And entreated Saint Frideswide that she should advise them about it

20 Lines 123-24: Then sprang up a very beautiful spring, very clear and pure, / That provided them all sufficient water [so] that they dared not complain

21 To his hands, so that he couldn't throw it away whatever he did

22 Among those who work on Sunday, too few are treated in this way!

23 That people of Oxford soon in great numbers came to meet her

24 This leper called out incressantly and cried for mercy and help

25 It seems to me that the virgin committed no sin, even though she was in a religious order

26 On St. Luke's Day, the Saturday, she had a grave (pit) made

27 And died at the exact time that the angel had told her before

28 And buried in the same place that she had chosen previously

29 Where there has often been great healing (deliverance) for love of her

LONGER SOUTH ENGLISH LEGENDARY LIFE OF ST. FRIDESWIDE, EXPLANATORY NOTES

3 Aboute seve hondred yer and sevene and twenti. This dating of her birth follows Latin Life B, but is presumably an error. Latin Life A actually gives 727 as the year of Frideswide's death, and most authorities accept this tradition.

6 Didan . . . Saffride. On the names, see explanatory and textual notes to line 3 of the shorter account. As Thompson points out, the version being edited here does not identify Frideswide's father as a king, but only as "Sire Didan" (21), a prosperous Christian gentleman who may be intended as a good example for fathers in general.

12-15 This account departs from both Latin Lives A and B, as well as from the shorter SEL account, by omitting the details about Frideswide's learning the Psalms and about the austerities of her daily life. In place of those monastic virtues, Frideswide is here credited with having exerted a holy influence on her father by persuading him to remain celibate after his wife's death (a decision not mentioned at all in the other accounts) and to devote much of the family inheritance to building a religious institution (a decision usually attributed elsewhere to his own initiative).

16 an chirche. See explanatory note to line 14 of the shorter account.

16-18 These lines can be read as saying either that the institution founded by Frideswide's father had a single church with a threefold dedication to the Virgin Mary, the Trinity, and All Saints, or that it had two or three separate churches with their own dedications. Blair claims that there were precedents for both patterns.

20 blake canouns. St. Frideswide's monastery was refounded in the early twelfth century as a house of Augustinian (or Austin) canons.

22 He feffede is doughter therwith. That is, he presented her with the lands that provided an annual income for the monastery. Latin Life A provides a little detail on these lands, quoted above in explanatory note to line 14 of the shorter account.

31-54 On the conventional aspects of this story, see explanatory note to lines 23-36 of the shorter account. The present account follows its source, Latin Life B, in giving an unusually extended and dramatic version of the debate between the saint and the devil. But it also adds some colorful touches of its own to the story - including the rhetorical question to the audience in line 41 and the curses on the devil in lines 42 and 53-54. This kind of exuberant story-telling, which invites listeners in effect to hiss the villains and cheer for the heroes, seems to have been a common feature in medieval popular literature. There are a number of additional examples in this text (see below, lines 71-72, 105-06, 136, 154, 174, and their notes) and more in some versions of the stanzaic Life of Margaret (see the explanatory notes to that text, lines 75, 243, 263, and 271-72).

41 the screwe. The noun shrew was used in Middle English to refer to a wide range of evil or injurious creatures and things, including devils, malignant planets, vices, and bad ideas, as well as wicked or troublesome human beings of either sex. According to the OED, it was not until the seventeenth century that the word came to be associated primarily with scolding women.

56 To the kyng he wende of Englond. By establishing this connection between the first two episodes in the legend, the longer SEL account makes it impossible to mistake the king for an ordinary suitor with whom a lay listener might sympathize. His desire for Frideswide is instigated by the devil, and what he has in mind is defined from the start not as marriage (as seems to be the case in the shorter account), but as the violation of the holy virgin. On the possible identity of this king, who cannot be the ruler of England as a whole, see explanatory note to line 39 of the shorter account.

63-78 For the conventions being used in this episode, see notes to lines 41-56 of the shorter account.

71-72 Like the curses against the devil earlier in this text, these lines seem designed to encourage a listening audience to participate emotionally in the narrative, deriving satisfaction from the villains' punishment and the lesson they were forced to learn.

87-90 In this text, as Thompson has noted, there is no angelic warning and no angelic boatman. Frideswide still escapes by the grace of God, but more can be attributed to her own initiative than in the shorter account.

90 Benteme. Also spelled "Bentone" (below in this text, line 109). Another town on the Thames, about 13 miles west of Oxford. The modern English form is "Bampton." Note the geographical difference from the shorter account, which had her supposedly hiding in Binsey woods.

95-108 This part of the narrative is noticeably clearer and more dramatic than in the shorter account. In this text the residents of Oxford either cannot or will not help the king find Frideswide, and he is about to retaliate against the city itself when he is miraculously struck blind. In short, Oxford has become identified with Frideswide. The miraculous punishment of the persecutor (who, unlike his messengers, is never healed) saves both the saint and her city, and no subsequent king dares to challenge her protection.

105-06 The colloquial exclamations in these lines seem to invite the audience to laugh at the sudden reversal of the king's fortunes.

108 Ther ne dar no kyng in Oxenford . . . come. There is at least one historical reference to this superstition: the chronicler Thomas Wykes reports that Edward I refused in 1275 to enter Oxford, although the city was already decorated in his honor and awaiting his arrival, because he was afraid of St. Frideswide's curse (Annales monastici, ed. H. R. Luard, vol. 4, pp. 263-64; cited by Michael Prestwich, Edward I [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997], p. 101).

111-26 This episode, first found in Latin Life B, seems to have served at least two purposes for Robert of Cricklade and the Priory of St. Frideswide in Oxford. As Blair explains, it resolves an obvious geographical error in the earlier Latin life, which had placed Binsey wood in Bampton, by explaining Frideswide's travels to one from the other, and it also serves to buttress the Priory's claim that the chapel and well in Binsey had always belonged to their monastery (pp. 84-85).

112 Bunseie. Binsey is a village less than two miles from Oxford with the remains of what may have been a monastic settlement. Blair suggests that Frideswide's community in Oxford may have used it as a retreat house (pp. 91-92).

117-24 The miracle in which the saint provides water for her complaining followers by appealing to God closely resembles a story in the well-known Life of St. Benedict by Gregory the Great (Gregory's Dialogues, II.5). Gregory's version, in turn, was modelled after the Biblical story in which Moses miraculously produced water from a rock in the wilderness (Exodus 17:1-7, Numbers 20:2-13) when the people of Israel were complaining of thirst.

127-36The miraculous punishment and later healing of the young man who was trying to work on Sunday, in violation of the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, is omitted from the shorter SEL account but appears in both Latin Lives of Frideswide. Its inclusion here suggests that the author of the longer SEL account, at least, regarded Sabbath-breaking as a problem that was still current in his own society. Indeed, line 136 places additional emphasis on this problem by inviting the audience to join in the wish that God would intervene more often to punish Sabbath-breakers.

141-53 Like Latin Life B, which it follows, this account gives a much longer and more dramatic narrative about the leper's healing than the version in the shorter SEL account and its source, Latin Life A. Here Frideswide encounters the leper in the context of her festive return to Oxford - a joyous occasion that is discordantly interrupted by his insistent cries for a kiss. The Latin version of this scene places great emphasis on the leper's repulsive appearance, explaining that his repulsiveness allows Frideswide to kiss him without any risk to her vow of chastity. The Middle English text chooses instead to emphasize the great modesty of the virgin saint and the embarrassment she feels at being thus publicly forced to kiss the man and to reveal her saintly power of healing at the same time.

160-64 Being given such advance notice of the date on which she will die places Frideswide in the privileged company of such earlier saints as John the Evangelist, Mary Magdalen, and Benedict. The date of her death, the fourteenth calends of November, falls on October 19.

168-69 Latin Lives A and B both explain that she had her grave prepared ahead of time because she knew she would die on Sunday and did not want anyone to be obliged to work on that day.

170 Our Loverdes flesc and Is blod. Medieval saints' legends rarely miss an opportunity to emphasize the importance of receiving the Eucharist as part of one's preparation for death.

172-76 Being escorted to heaven by a company of holy virgins, headed by two of her greatest predecessors in this vocation, is another privilege which the legend uses to suggest St. Frideswide's stature as a saint. Latin Life B explains the choice of Katherine and Cecilia by calling them "the virgins whom she most venerated"; but this is an obvious anachronism in the case of Katherine, whose cult seems not to have been known at all in England until the eleventh century.

174 ther was a suete sight! Another exclamation that seems intended to encourage the audience to participate vicariously in the narrative.

180-82 The miraculous fragrance is of course another proof of Frideswide's sanctity. A similar phenomenon is reported at the time of Mary Magdalen's death; see the early SEL version of her legend below, lines 618-19 and 638-39, and the explanatory note on the former lines.

183-84 Into hire owe churche . . . that heo wilnede byvore. Like Latin Life B, which it follows, this account says nothing about the translations of Frideswide's relics, the first and most important of which occurred in 1180. Blair uses the omission as evidence that Latin Life B must have been written before that date, since Prior Robert or his successor would certainly have mentioned the translation if it had already taken place.

185-86 Since chanorie in this context probably means a community of canons and priorie means a house of regular canons, governed by a prior, the difference of meaning between these two rhyme words is not easy to see. Presumably one of them is intended to refer to the building or buildings in which the canons live, and the other either to the men themselves or to the form of religious life they are following.

LONGER SOUTH ENGLISH LEGENDARY LIFE OF ST. FRIDESWIDE, TEXTUAL NOTES

Abbreviations: A = Bodleian Library MS Ashmole 43 (SC 6924), fols. 155v-157v [base text]; B = Bodleian Library MS Bodley 779 (SC 2567), fols. 280v-282r; J = British Library MS Cotton Julius D.9, fols. 273v-275v; P = Magdalene College, Cambridge MS Pepys 2344, pp. 430-34.

9 vif. "Five." In the Southern dialect of the Legendary spirants (f) at the head of morphemes are voiced (v). Thus we find vif for "fif" ("five"); "vol" for "fol" (fully, line 13); "vor" for "for" (lines 25, 36, 67, 75, 78, 81, 107, 129, 134, 138, 141, 142, 146, 151, 187, 188); "vaste" for "fast" and "vasting" for "fasting" (lines 27, 96, 129, 133); "thervore" for "therefore" (line 29); "vair" for "fair" (lines 31, 66, 115, 123, 153, 185); "vorth" for "forth" (lines 35, 39, 148); "vorgeve" for "forgive" (line 74); "vorlore" for "forelore" (lost, lines 47, 78); "verde," "vare" for "fared," "fare" (lines 79, 158); "vorsake" for "forsake" (line 81); "ver" for "far" (line 119); "bivore" for "before" (lines 160, 166, 167, 184); "vel" for "fel" (line 162); and "underveng" for "underfeng" ("received," line 170).

11 Ailgive. Latin Life A gives this name as "Ælfgiva," which sounds like an authentic Anglo-Saxon name, "Ælfgifu"; the later Latin Life simplifies it to "Algiva."

13 that lif. This text preserves some inflected forms of the definite article from Old English - including the neuter form that with the historically neuter nouns lif, "child" (line 14), "maide" (lines 43, 75, 111), "folc" (lines 73, 99, 139, 141, 143), and "hous" (line 181).

43 maide. A: made.

47 Emended from the reading in A, Ac that thou vorlore were. The line is much harder to construe with the inclusion of were, and none of the other MSS has it (B: omits; P: while; and J: wolle.).

84 vorsaketh. A: vorsakth. heo. A: he.

85 then wei. A more conspicuous relic of Old English grammar than the recurrent use of "that" with neuter nouns (see textual note to line 13). Then, a form of the definite article that preserves the distinctive n of the masculine singular accusative in Old English, is correctly used here to modify wei, a masculine noun that is the direct object of the verb nom. There are several similar examples below in this text: "then wei" (line 111), "then Sonedai" (line 135), "then tyme" (line 137), "then Saterday" (line 168). Further examples occur in the early SEL version of the Mary Magdalen legend; see textual note to line 405 of that text, below.

93 A appears to have another word here, possibly wel.

95 kyng. A: kyn.

105 tame. A: came.

112 Bunseie. "Buneseia" in Latin Life B; "Bunsey," "Benseye," and "Biniseye" in other SEL MSS.

122 hem. Inserted in the margin in A.

123 cler. A: crer.

187 botnynge. Emended from bonynge, the reading in A, on the authority of B, J, and P.