THE AVOWYING OF ARTHUR: FOOTNOTES

1 Lines 243-44: No matter how fierce he (the boar) might be, / The bold hunter waits him out

2 Lines 981-82: With good will, keep them firmly under supervision, / Meek and mild at home (at their meals)

3 Therefore, as far as jealousy is concerned, be assured

4 Lines 1054-55: By no means were we able to fulfill / Our need for meat and drink

5 Lines 1059-60: And [I] replied in a stern manner, / 'I will not, by the Cross!'

THE AVOWYNG OF ARTHUR: NOTES

Abbreviations: Ir = Ireland MS; R = Robson's edition; FH = French and Hale's edition; B = Brookhouse's edition; D = Dahood's edition. See Select Bibliography for these editions.


1 He that made us on the mulde. This first line of Avowyng virtually repeats the final line of the poem (That made us on the mulde), linking its beginning to its ending and emphasizing the symmetries of structure. Such echoic repetition occurs as well in Awntyrs (see lines 1 and 714-15 and notes), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Patience.

2 fair. FH: fare.

13 wice. R, B: wite.

22 Kyndenesse and. Ir: Kyndenesse of; I emend for sense.

24 wayt men and wise. D emends to waythmen (i.e., "hunters") wise.

25 thay. Ir: tha; FH, B emend to thay; D retains Ir's reading.

29 Carlele. Many of the Arthurian verse romances, and especially those involving Gawain, name Carlisle as a habitual northern court for the Knights of the Round Table. The mention of Inglewood Forest (line 65) and Gawain's vow to keep watch at the Tarn Wathelene (line 132) further localize the action in Cumberland. Ragnelle, Carlisle, Awntyrs, Greene Knight, as well as the ballad versions of the first two, all mention Carlisle as the seat of Arthur's court, as do Malory, Lancelot of the Laik, and the two poems on Arthur's death, the Stanzaic Morte Arthur and the Alliterative Morte Arthure.

40 bandus. D emends to boundus for sake of rhyme.

43 moue. R, FH, B: mone. The letter formation makes either "u" or "n" plausible; I follow D's reading.

46 offellus. Ir: of fellus; D reads the latter as one word, and so makes sense of the line.

48 frith. R, B read frithe. R and B frequently read final scribal stroke as "e"; I have usually indicated such readings only where at least one other edition agrees.

54 he. B prints be without explanation.

61 luffe. D emends to lusse in this line, and to tusse and busse in lines 62 and 63. While his emendations are ingenious and to a large degree persuasive, they are not necessary. The manuscript readings make more than minimal sense, and the position of the three words as rhymes gives their forms additional authority.

74 Bowdewynne of Bretan. I assume that the popular romances mean this character to be identical with the "Byschope Bawdewyn" who appears in Carlisle, in the same way that Malory seems to understand Sir Baudwen of Bretayne and "the ermyte [hermit], sir Bawdewyn of Bretayne" as the same person. See line 914 and note below, and Carlisle, line 28 and note.

78 buirnes. The three strokes that make up "ui" can be read as several possible letter combinations; R, B give biurnes here and at 703. The spelling at line 563 (burne) confirms the present reading.

79 alle. B, D read all.

83 hunter. Here and at line 105 the word ending is abbreviated; at line 113 the full form is given as hunter. Though the usual scribal spelling for this termination is -ur (as in undur, sekur, wyntur, and so on), I follow D in expanding the word as hunter.

100 rafte. Ir: raste, so R, B; I follow emendation of FH, which D prints without comment.

101 rennyng. Ir: rengnyng, with a mark under the first g to indicate excision.

110 Butte sette my hed. FH emends to I sette my hed. The hunter uses an emphatic phrase, similar to "I'll stake my neck on it."

118 Myne avow make I. Arthur's vow and the subsequent hunt apparently have no specific sources in other romances, though boar hunts occur in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and other popular narratives.

127 make your avowe. The act of making a public vow (or boast, or "gab"), often in competition with other knights, occurs in twelfth-century chansons de geste such as Le Pelerinage de Charlemagne (perhaps imitated in Cornwall), as well as in a well-known scene in Jacques de Longuyon's Les Voeux du Paön [The Vows of the Peacock], an early fourteenth-century romance. On the connection of vows to chivalric practice and literary portrayals, see Gail Orgelfinger, "The Vows of the Pheasant and Late Chivalric Ritual," pp. 611-43 in The Study of Chivalry, ed. Howell Chickering and Thomas H. Seiler, TEAMS publications (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 1988); Orgelfinger provides translations of vows made by actual and fictional knights, as well as a full discussion of their contexts.

131 Tarne Wathelan. The Tarn Wathelene was a lake within Englewood Forest; see line 29 above and note, and Awntyrs, line 2 and note.

132 To wake hit all nyghte. Gawain's vow to watch, or carry out an all-night "wake," at the Tarn implies a willingness to encounter supernatural forces. The ghost of Guenevere's mother rises to meet Gawain and Guenevere from the Tarn in Awntyrs. Gawain meets strange foes at water crossings in other romances, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Chrétien's Yvain (and in the Middle English version, Ywain and Gawain).

133 ff. Kay's windy recklessness, and his seemingly inevitable humiliation, are a stock motif in popular Arthurian romances; in the present volume, this pattern occurs in Carlisle, Carle, Gologras, Turke, and Marriage.

135 Quoso. Ir, D: Quose. I emend the form since it is inconsistent with scribal spelling, though it is at times difficult to distinguish scribal e from o; compare note at line 160.

137 ff. Baldwin's vows, offered merely to close off the exchange, have a proverbial ring, and recall a number of literary and folk traditions; D (p. 33) connects them specifically to the cycle of the Three Wise Counsels, a widespread motif of three oaths or admonitions.

143 Ne. R, FH, B read Ir as Ne; D gives Ore without comment.

149 bore. FH: bare.

150 wythoutun any. Ir: wyth any; FH, B, D all emend for sense. I follow D's scribal spelling.

151 fore. D emends to fare.

156 Sum that. FH emends to Quer that.

160 The Ir: Tho; so R, B; FH emends for sense. D reads apparent o here and elsewhere as e.

165 hold. D, arguing that scribal e and o are difficult to distinguish from one another, reads held, which fits the rhyme slightly better.

168 spillutte hom on gode spede. Ir: spillutte on hom gode spede. I emend the word order on the basis of sense and syntax since spill almost never occurs as a verbal phrase with a preposition, and on (or in) (good) speed is a common phrase (see OED, speed sb. 7a).

193 spanos. D: spanes.

196 sekir. FH reads seker.

204 he myghte evyr hit fele. D, following suggestion of FH, emends to he evyr hit feld, for the sake of rhyme and meter.

206 He sturd. I understand the subject here to be Arthur, caught in his saddle as his horse falls to the ground. It would be possible, however, to take He as referring to the mount, with the implication that the horse never returned from the hunt.

207 Jhesu. Here and at line 1145 D reads Iesu.

212 ware. D emends to were.
218 Squithe. D reads Squith.

227 victoré. R, B read vittore.

229 wroth. B: wrote.

231 Medieval religious exposition and popular narrative both connect the devil (and the eternal fires of hell) with kitchens and cooking.

243 nevyr. B: hevyr.

250 hade. Ir: hade, though unclear (so R, FH); B: made; D: had (without comment).

254 ff. Arthur's eagerness to brittun him corresponds to the "assay" or breaking of the deer, described in detail in Ragnelle (lines 46 ff., and line 48 and note), Carlisle (line 31 and note), and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (lines 1325 ff.). The ritual of butchering is not simply a matter of technical knowledge, but a display of the rule-bound nature of the hunt that makes it a hallmark of aristocratic identity; Arthur's performance here, within the precincts of the royal forests, is an exemplary demonstration of his kingly demeanor.

258 Colurt. B: Tholurt. The precise meaning of this verb is not clear, though it would appear to describe some feature of the ritual butchering - perhaps the removal of the head, or the carving of the shoulders; the word occurs again (colurt) at line 482.

263 thonge. Ir: yonge; so R, FH, B, D. D's long discussion of the crux reaches no conclusion, and I emend (according to suggestion in FH) to thonge as offering the best sense.

266 hur. R, B read her.

267 Sayd. FH reads Says.

273 ff. This stanza clearly lacks one quatrain, with the consequence that the Avowyng's perfectly symmetrical division into two parts (lines 1-572, and lines 573-1048) is off by four lines. Burrow and Johnson have drawn attention to this feature of the poem's structural meaning.

275 for. Ir: fro; I follow emendation of FH.

279 birde. FH: brede.

280 Ho. R, FH, B read Ho; D reads He and emends to Ho.

286 all. R, FH read alle.

295 biurde. D: buirde, but scribal spelling at lines 458, 463 (byurde) makes biurde preferable here (so R, FH, B) and in other occurrences at lines 508, 734, 987, 998, and 1141.

297 skille. B, D: skill. Here and elsewhere D reads the characteristic final flourish by the scribe as without significance, and so prints skill; the flourish here differs very little from other cases - e.g., tille (line 285) and its rhymes, or Quille (line 286) - and so I follow earlier editors in retaining final e in some cases where D has rejected it. Compare also lines 966, 967, where omission of final e seems scribal.

298 atte thi wille. Scribal letter forms and strokes are especially hard to distinguish in the final phrase; R: at thi wille; FH: atte thi wille; B: at the will; D: atte thi will.

300 that. Ir: the; so R, B, D. FH emends to that.

305 tother. FH reads tothur.

307 ff. Sir Menealfe of the Mountayn / My gode fadur highte. No other character, knightly or otherwise, named Menealfe occurs in medieval Arthurian literature. D notes the possible components (man + elf), and this resonant hybrid connects Menealfe with other Arthurian opponents, like Sir Gromer Somer Jour in Ragnelle and Turke, who seem to have preternatural or folk antecedents. D also points out that the encounter at the Tarn or lake resembles Celtic ford combats, though these proliferate in chivalric romance, as when Gawain faces strange opponents at almost every water crossing in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: "At uche warthe other water ther the wyghe passed, / He fonde a foo hym byfore, bot ferly it were" (lines 715-16: At each ford or stream where he passed, it was a wonder if he did not face a foe in front of him). See also note on line 132 above. The syntax and word formation leave the meaning of line 308 unclear: it can mean "Menealfe my godfather named [me]" (as D interprets the line), or "Menealfe my good father was named," implying an hereditary title of sorts and an identical name for the present speaker (as understood here).

310 Ledelle. D identifies this with Liddel Strength (or Liddel Mote), a fortification about ten miles north of Carlisle, on the Liddel River, at the border of Scotland and England.

311 I felle. Ir: he felle, corrected from hur selle; R, FH, D, give the former, B the latter. I emend to I to maintain the first-person character of the statement and the continuity of the speech (which D repunctuates).

313 ff. Menealfe's "talk," which leads to fighting and bloodshed, is itself another clear instance of the knightly speech acts that are at the center of Avowyng. Menealfe's words deliberately offended the honor of the woman's kin, leading to combat and the "capture" of the woman.

319 wurch. R, B: wurche.

333 wonun. So Ir, followed by R, B, D; FH: wonnen.

335 of his othir. Ir: of othir; I follow emendation suggested by FH.

349 Torne. D: Terne, for the sake of rhyme and phonology.

350 thorne. D reads therne.

351 yorne. D reads yerne.

352 there. D emends to thare.

355 lawes. This word has presented problems to readers, since its conventional meaning does not seem appropriate here. The form does not invite emendation because of its position in the rhyme. FH suggests the meaning "surety," or it might be possible to construe it as a reference to Gawain's reputation as "fyne fader of nurture" (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, line 919), the father or source of the laws of courtesy. D's solution is to see lawes as a plural of laa (line 405).

378 The tother. Ir: To tother, so R, FH, B; I follow D's emendation, reflecting scribal phrasing at lines 517 and 799.

380 hit cheve. Ir: hit chevis, so R, FH, B; I follow D in emending for rhyme.

381 kithun. Ir: kithum; so R, B, D. FH reads kithiun. I emend to normalized form, as in line 417.

382 aythir. B: authir.

385 thay. Ir: tha, so R, D; FH, B emend.

390 Squithe. D reads Squith.

394 raunnsun. R, B, D read the ambiguous set of minims as rauunsun; FH gives raunnsum. I offer what seems the more likely scribal spelling.

417 kithun. Ir: kithum; I emend as in line 381.

       thayre. Ir: thay, so R; FH, B, D emend.

419 togedur. So R, B, D; FH adds final e which is not legible.

421 ther. Ir: that, so R, B; FH, D emend.

422 from. R, B read fro.

425 ff. Kay's taunting of Menealfe here, earlier at lines 393 ff., and later at lines 429 ff. and 445 ff., constitutes a vivid if ungracious example of the linkage between knightly honor and speech acts. Kay "talkes . . . him tille" with "wurdes kene" (lines 448, 453) in order to assert his superiority over the fallen knight, if only through Gawain's agency. Gawain's own reserve and his implicit rebuke of Kay (lines 433 ff. and 449 ff.) demonstrate his own understated courtesy. See lines 313 ff. and note.

432 for tente. B glosses as "intent," which seems not at all to fit the context. D reads the two words as one, fortente, and glosses as "utterly lost." I understand tente as from the same root (meaning "lost"), but as past participle used as adjective; see OED, tine v.2, and tint p.pl.a.

442 harmes. FH reads hapnes (i.e., "chances").

472 Hit. Ir: His; so R, FH, B, D. I emend for the sake of sense and idiom.

477 Next to this line at the right margin the scribe has written Primus Passus, and then left a gap of two lines to indicate a break. A similar rubric occurs at line 765 (see note). These markers divide Avowyng into sections of 476, 288, and 384 lines, perhaps indicating convenient performance sessions. They do not, however, correspond to the striking structural divisions of the poem, in particular to the decisive break at the precise mid-point (line 573). See introduction and lines 273 ff. and note.

481 funde. So Ir, R, B, D; FH emends to fande for rhyme.

482 hande. Ir: hunde, so R, B; FH, D emend.

489 Kay the venesun. Ir: Kay to the venesun, with to marked for excision.

491 ff. The conjunction here of the birde and the brede that To Carlele thay bringe as trophies suggests clearly the status of this nameless woman as a marker of chivalric honor among famous men. Menealfe first told Kay how he had "wan" her (line 316), provoking Kay to try to win her for himself. After ransoming Kay, Gawain gladly agrees to a second course "For hur for to fighte" (line 416); when he wins, he consigns the woman's fate to the judgment of Queen Guenevere (lines 454 ff.), though she remains in Menealfe's custody. As the prize of Kay's and Gawain's forest adventures, she is bracketed here with the dead meat of the King's hunt. Though noble and a "fayre may" (line 446), she stands as a direct counterpart to the laundress exchanged among the five hundred soldiers in Baldwin's barracks story (lines 909 ff.).

499 anturis. The scribe's letter combinations are sometimes ambiguous, especially -rus and -ris (e.g., berus, line 529); here, however, the compression of the writing seems to indicate anturis, though FH gives anturus.

503 wonun. FH: wonnen.

511 wyth a mylde chere. B: wyth mylde chere, omitting the article.

516 thou me sayn. D emends to thou mon sayn (i.e., "you must say"), for the sake of sense.

529 berus. FH reads beris.

530 ladise. B: ladies.

537 ff. Menealfe's submission to the judgment of Queen Guenevere recalls the situation of the knight-rapist of Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale (a version of the Ragnelle story), whose fate is determined by Arthur's Queen and her ladies.

542 werre. B: were.

567 The. FH reads Tho.

571 priveabull. The scribe abbreviates the prefix, and the indistinct scribal spelling has produced a variety of editorial readings. R: preuabulle; D: preueabull; FH: priueabull; B: preuabull. I follow FH in expanding according to the scribal spelling at line 19.

573 ar. FH reads are.

573 ff. The first test of Baldwin's vows, the ambush devised by Kay, parallels episodes in Malory and other popular romances.

584 How best myghte be. Just what Arthur wishes for here is unclear: how he might best find out the meaning of Baldwin's oath, or what plan would be most satisfactory, or how things might be arranged for the best in general, are all plausible readings for the line.

589 comande. R, B read couande.

591 no wrunge. D emends to no schande (i.e., "shame") to preserve the rhyme.

599 fele. I take this as a form of fellen, "to overcome or kill," as in line 311, felle, rather than as a form of fele, "to feel or perceive." The constraints of the rhyme help to account for the unusual spelling, and what amounts to a double negative in none . . . but complicates the lines' meaning. The import is, "Any one of you, no one excepted, he may overcome, whom he happens to light upon."

610 gowuns. R, B: gownus.

610 ff. The decision by Kay and his five accomplices to wear Gay gowuns of grene in setting up the ambush of Baldwin suggests that they intend to disguise themselves; their further attempt to cover themselves with capes, as uncowthe men, confirms this. The choice of green costumes may correspond to the conventional garb of highwaymen and forest outlaws like Robin Hood, who are said to dress in green. In any case, the unchivalrous assault in uneven numbers, the attempt to hide (line 621), and the assumption of an ignoble identity (uncowthe men) make clear that this is not, like the combats between Kay and Menealfe and Gawain and Menealfe, a knightly encounter; see also line 643 and note.

622 se. R, FH, B: so; D reads se (FH's suggested emendation).

623 Come. B: Thome, mistaking (as at line 258) the scribe's initial C.

632 adrede. Ir: dredus, so R, FH, B. D emends to drede; I follow FH's suggested emendation.

643 herdmen hinde. FH glosses as "gentle retainers"; B glosses neither word; D's separate glosses give "valiant knights." This seems not a compliment, but fighting words on Baldwin's part as he prepares to fight six antagonists; as an insult, it strips these disguised knights who far outnumber him of any claim to noble status, and deprives them of any possible honor in the combat that ensues. Baldwin's affront is an instance of the specialized insult to honor that precipitates and defines chivalric conflict; Sir Menealfe refers to this earlier (line 313 f.): "So I talket hom tille / That muche blode conne I spille." MED, hine n., gives only one instance of the spelling hind (in a Chaucer text); by the sixteenth century this was the common spelling, and the contemptuous phrase hired hines, often in association with herdis or herdsmen, was common in Middle English.

659 folde. Ir: foldes. I follow D in emending to folde for the sake of rhyme.

668 In hie in. B: In his in.

671 Bawdewin. Ir: Bawewin; R, B: Bawdewin without note; FH, D emend to Bawdewin.

687 Als squithur. D emends to Als squith as for the sake of grammatical convention.

691 before none. Here and at lines 719 and 1061, I take none to mean not "noon," but "none," one of the seven canonical hours (or prescribed times of daily prayer), often used colloquially to designate a time of day. None was the ninth hour (counting from matins at 6 a.m.), or 3 p.m., so that before none would indicate early afternoon rather than late morning.

701 ff. The test of Baldwin's largesse resembles the spectacle of public courtesy portrayed in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Carlisle, and the two episodes of Gologras, though these other romances make the event as much a test of the guest's courtesy as of the host's.

703 buirne. R, B: biurne.

710 cummawunde. D reads commawunde.

712 there. D emends to thare for the sake of rhyme.

715 For thi wareson. FH glosses as "on your eternal welfare"; Arthur's injunction here seems to be much more limited, referring to his own favor.

765 The scribe again indicates a division in the narrative; "fitte" occurs in popular narratives as the equivalent of "passus" (see line 477 and note). It marks a division or apportioning of the story, though whether it signals a less decisive turn than "passus" (as D remarks, line 476 and note) seems unclear.

777 on him logh. In a chivalric shame culture, any public gesture constitutes socially meaningful behavior. To laugh aloud might therefore either be an act of gracious inclusiveness (as in the recurrent laughter of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), or of scornful exclusion. That Baldwin laughs on him - privately - removes his act from the public forum of chivalric honor; this stands in contrast, for example, to the spectacle of the speech act Arthur has just performed, "wyth a blythe chere" and "opon highte."

781 ff. The far-fetched prank that Arthur devises to test Baldwin's private courtesy appears to be an inversion of the bed trick. Rather than secretly introducing a substitute for the anticipated lover on the wedding night (as when Isolde induces Brangane to take her place in bed with King Mark), Arthur's trick consists in an overt supplanting of the husband in the marital act. Though the retainer has spent the entire night in Baldwin's wife's bed, rendering her technically unfaithful, there are no sexual relations. The situation resembles the test imposed by the Carle of Carlisle, who puts Gawain in bed with his own wife (Carlisle, lines 445 ff.), and to a lesser extent Lady Bertilak's "capture" of Gawain in bed in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which takes place while her lord (like Baldwin) is off on a hunt.

787 best. D reads beste.

808 litill rechs. FH reads litille reche.

818 ful. B: full.

821 Undo. Ir: Unto; emended as in the present text by all editors.

827 ff. This statement by Baldwin's wife combines her wish and determination; reversing the lines, she says in effect, "In faith, if I have any sway in the matter, tonight you should not be (any) more near to me (than you are right now)."

829 dur. FH reads dore.

830 B misnumbers line 831, so that from here to end his numeration is off by one line; references to B in these notes are to actual (not misnumbered) lines.

837 Sayd. D reads Sayde.

856 dede. B: ded.

876 And buckes. FH: And x buckes (ten bucks), indicating in a note that the Roman numeral is uncertain.

879 sende. Ir: sonde, so R, FH, B. D claims this is an ambiguous letter form, and reads as sende. I emend for sense.

       aftur. R, B: after.

895 Baldwin's remark implies that he sees here no obligation to redress an insult to his honor. Arthur's elaborately staged "infidelity" - in which the wife literally spends the night in bed with another man - attempts to compromise Baldwin's manly honor as a husband. Baldwin rejects the public character of the act - in which his wife's conduct would be an extension of his own social identity - insisting instead that it is a private matter, where she acts as a free agent on her own behalf. This seeming rejection of the values associated with a chivalric honor culture turns out not to be an assertion of women's autonomy, but (in the brutally misogynistic anecdote that follows) an assertion of women's ungovernable treachery.

900 I. Ir: Y. I have similarly normalized the first-person singular pronoun at line 992.

903 And ich syn schall be sene. I take this to be a statement of anti-feminist domestic prudence on Baldwin's part, not a moralizing claim for eternal justice (as FH, D).

909 sitte. D emends to sette on phonological grounds.

909 ff. Versions of Baldwin's anecdote of the murderous laundresses occur in a fabliau, and in John of Garland's Parisiana poetria (ed. Traugott Lawler [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1974]). John (c. 1195 - c. 1258) was born in England and taught at Paris and Toulouse; the Poetria apparently dates from between 1220 and 1235. John provides a twelve-line summary of the story in prose, and then uses this plot to compose what he designates a representative instance of tragedy in verse, running one hundred twenty-six lines in hexameters (Lawler, pp. 136-43, with facing translation and notes).

914 Costantyne. There are two notable Constantines in Arthurian legend: one is Arthur's grandfather, the other the son of Sir Cador. I assume Baldwin's remark does not confuse Constantine with Arthur's father, but simply means "a generation or two ago." In Malory, before leaving for the campaign against Lucius, Arthur appoints as his two regents "Sir Baudwen of Bretayne, an auncient and an honorable knyght" and "Sir Cadore," father of "Sir Constantyne that aftir was kynge, aftir Arthurs dayes" (Works, p. 195). This link between Baldwin and Constantine's father in one version of Arthurian chronicle may account for the association between Baldwin and the other Constantine (Arthur's grandfather) mentioned here. Carlisle also mentions a "Syr Costantyn" among its roster of Arthurian knights (line 44 and note).

922 leding. See OED, leading sb.1, 2, for the technical sense of this word as "command" in a martial context.

943 sayd. FH reads says.

944 oure. D reads our.

951 uch. R, FH, B: uche.

956 Ho. D reads He and emends to Ho, the reading of R, FH, B.

965 that. Ir: ther, so R; B: the; FH, D emend to that.

966 fall. R, FH read falle.

967 all. R, FH read alle.

971 ich. R, FH, B read iche.

976 ho. D emends to tha to preserve consistency of number.

980 lende. Ir: lenge; so R, FH, B. I follow D's emendation, for the sake of rhyme.

982 atte hor mete. R, B read atte her mete.

983 And thryvandly. Ir: Thryvandly. I follow FH in adding the conjunction to preserve continuity. See note on line 984.

984 Joy. Ir: And joy. I follow FH in removing and to beginning of previous line. See note on line 983.

985 jelius. FH: jeluis.

996 hur. FH reads hire.

998 bryghte. D prints brighte without comment.

999 fur. FH reads far.

1003 The double negative seems here to underscore that the nameless knight was neither in proximity to the wife's naked body, nor anywhere near any particular part (naked syde) of her body.

1007 thinges. FH reads thingus.

1009 thou. B: u, apparently missing the initial letters.

1010 Ne. FH reads No.

1011 evyr. FH, B indicate that the first two letters are indecipherable (as they are on microfilm), and emend; D states that the letter impressions are visible on the parchment, and gives this as his reading.

1013 ff. This moralizing story on the fate of the timid apparently has no specific source.

1019 feloys. D reads feloys; R, FH, B read foloys and emend.

1040 Throgh. R, FH, B read Throghe; I follow D in not reading final e.

1051 D punctuates to make this line part of Arthur's speech. My punctuation makes it the beginning of Baldwin's reply to the king.

1051 ff. The episode of the duped emissary has many parallels; D (p. 33) points out examples from classical history and poetry, and from medieval chronicles and tales.

1057 come in a. in appears inserted above line in Ir; R, B: come a.

1077 for on day. B reads for one day.

1079 messyngere. FH: messungere.

1081 mete. Ir, FH: me; R, B, D emend for sense to mete. D offers a phonological justification for the seeming off-rhyme.

1090 nyf red. FH emends to ner red (i.e., "nor red"), a more common form of the phrase.

1098 Castell. R, FH: Castelle; though again the scribe's final flourish is ambiguous, I follow the reading of B and D.

1099 mury. R, B: mirry.

1102 hethin. R, B: hethinne; FH reads hethinn. I follow D's reading.

1105 calle. D reads call without comment.

1106 Sethin. Here, and in the following line, editors differ in their reading of sethin and sythin as in hethin (line 1102).

all. R, FH read alle.

1107 befall. R, FH read befalle.

1110 to a syghte. FH, B, D take this phrase to mean "in plain view"; I take it to mean "on a site." Lydgate uses a similar spelling; see OED site sb.2, 1.a.

1113 Mete laynes mony lakke. A proverbial line (noted also by D); see B. J. and J. W. Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly Before 1500 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1968), M472.

1126 all. R, FH read alle.

1128 con square. Ir: con squere, so R, FH, B. I follow D in emending to square for the sake of rhyme, though not in dropping con.

1131 Tabull. R, FH read Tabulle.

1133 all. R, FH read alle.

1134 myrthe. D: myrth, without comment.

1137 Sayde. FH: Sayd.

1139 muche. D: much, without comment.

1143 holdin. Editors differ in their readings here; see lines 1102, 1106 and notes, as well as scribal and editorial confusion at lines 333, 381, 417, and so on.

1146 all. R reads alle.

1147 all. R, FH read alle.

1148 This final line substantively repeats the first line of Avowyng, giving the poem a circular structure; see line 1 and note.