INTERLUDIUM DE CLERICO ET PUELLA, SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuscript

British Library MS Additional 23986, vellum roll, verso side (early fourteenth century).


Editions

Bennett, J. A. W., and G. V. Smithers, eds. Early Middle English Verse and Prose. Second edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968. Pp. 196-200.

Chambers, E. K. The Mediaeval Stage. 2 vols. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1903. Pp. 324-26.

Cook, Albert Stanburrough, ed. A Literary Middle English Reader. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1915; rpt. 1943. Pp. 476-80. [Cook entitles the play "The Cleric and the Maiden" and adds scene divisions and stage directions.]

Dickins, B., and R. M. Wilson. Early Middle English Texts. London: Bowes & Bowes, 1956. Pp. 121-22.

Wright, Thomas, and James Orchard Halliwell, eds. Reliquiae Antiquae. Scraps From Ancient Manuscripts, Illustrating Chiefly Early English Literature and the English Language. 2 vols. London: John Russell Smith, 1845. Vol. 1, pp. 145-47.


Related Studies

Axton, Richard. "Popular Modes in the Earliest Plays." In Medieval Drama. Ed. Neville Denny. London: Edward Arnold, 1973. Pp. 13-39.

---. European Drama of the Early Middle Ages. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1975.

Busby, Keith. "Dame Sirith and De Clerico et Puella." In Companion to Early Middle English Literature. Ed. N. H. G. E. Veldhoen and H. Aertsen. Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1988. Pp. 69-81.

Gayley, Charles M. Representative English Comedies. London: Macmillan Co., 1903. Pp. xiii-xviii.

Heuser, W. "Das Interludium de Clerico et Puella und das Fabliau von Dame Siriz." Anglia 30 (1907), 306-19.

Miller, B. D. H. "Further Notes on Interludium de Clerico et Puella." Notes and Queries 208 [n.s. 10] (1963), 248-89.

Moore, Bruce. "The Narrator within the Performance: Problems with Two Medieval 'Plays.'" In Drama in the Middle Ages: Comparative and Critical Essays: Second Series. Ed. Clifford Davidson and John H. Stroupe. New York: AMS Press, 1991. Pp. 152-67.

Nicoll, Allardyce. Masks, Mimes, and Miracles: Studies in the Popular Theatre. London: Cooper Square, 1963. Pp. 171-75.

Richardson, Frances E. "Notes on the Text and Language of Interludium de Clerico et Puella." Note and Queries 207 [n.s. 9] (1962), 133-34.

INTERLUDIUM DE CLERICO ET PUELLA, NOTES

Abbreviations: B&S: J. A. W. Bennett and G. V. Smithers; Co: Albert Cook; MS: British Library MS Additional 23986, vellum roll, verso side.

The incipit appears as follows: Hic incipit Interludium de clerico et puella.

2 Saynt Michel. B&S assert that "there seems to be no very specific point in this invocation" (p. 372), yet the invocation of this particular saint seems appropriate to the themes of the play and forms a rather suggestive subtext. The archangel Michael fights in a cosmic battle against Satan in the Book of Revelation. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Saints, ed. David Hugh Farmer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), in a second-century text called The Testament of Abraham, "Michael is the principal character whose intercession is so powerful that souls can be rescued from Hell. Perhaps this passage inspired the offertory antiphon formerly used for the Roman liturgy for the dead" (pp. 300-01). Michael was also the patron saint of cemeteries; his cult was so powerful that by the end of the Middle Ages in England alone there were 686 churches dedicated to him.

4 nother. MS: nouer.

5 Wel . . . to life. B&S detect a "unique parallel to an idiom found in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale III, iii, 124 and The Merchant of Venice, II, ii, 55 which is synonymous with well-to-do and well-to-pass and is constructed on the same syntactic pattern" (p. 372).

7 Leonard. St. Leonard was a sixth-century hermit who became the patron of pregnant women and prisoners of war and other such captives. As patron saint of captives and prisoners, he became particularly popular in England, where his cult inspired more than 177 churches and shrines. See the Oxford Dictionary of Saints, p. 264. N.b. Chaucer's reference to St. Leonard's nunnery in House of Fame: "On pilgrymage myles two / To the corseynt Leonard, / To make lythe of that was hard" (lines 116-18). See B. C. Koonce, Chaucer and the Traditions of Fame: Symbolism in the House of Fame (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), pp. 70-71. The Legenda Aurea gives an etymology to his name: Leonardus means "the perfume of the people," from leos, people, and nardus, which is a sweet-smelling herb; and Leonard drew people to himself by the sweet odor of his good renown. See Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Reading on the Saints, vol. 2, trans. William Granger Ryan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) p. 243. This applies well here, since Puella is concerned about her reputation in the eyes of God.

10 hers. MS: s.

12 losyd. MS: losye. Co has losyt.

wile. Co emends to hire, based on his reading of line 1384 in the Childhood of Jesus (c. 1300); "Elles we leosez bothe ore ywile and huyre."

14 this. MS: ys.

hi. In this poem's dialect the scribe frequently aspirates vowels - hi/hy for I/Y (see also lines 17, 22, 58, 61, and 81); hic for ich ("I") (lines 39, 41, 67, and 74); hay for ay (line 18, where the "hay weilaway" means "alas alas"); ham for am (line 22); hand for and (line 24); hif for if (line 16); hers for arse (line 10); hever for ever (line 59); and hup for up (line 64); or lisps on consonants such as s > sh in Damishel (line 1); t > th in Certhes (line 22); and d > dh in dedh (line 43) or ledh (line 44). In some instances he drops h as in efne for hefne (line 25) and aly for haly (line 84). See B&S's discussion of the dialect, pp. 370-72.

16 micht. MS: miche.

the. MS: ye.

17 sory. B&S emend to sorw. Co retains sory, as have I. See also line 36.

25 moder of efne. MS: y mod efne.

32 bytech. MS: by tethy.

33 neulic. MS: neulit.

36 canstu. MS: yu canstu.

37 Mome. The MED defines the term as "an aunt, also affectionate term of address for [an] older woman." It can also mean "old woman." B&S suggest that it is an adaptation of the Old High German muome which means "maternal aunt" (p. 373). The name corresponds to "Dame" Sirith and partly explains why scholars insist on a softening of her character.

38 San Dinis. St. Denis was the first bishop of Paris, having been sent to convert France by Gregory of Tours. He built a center of Christianity on an island in the Seine where he was eventually martyred by decapitation, his body thrown into the Seine. Over his tomb was built the abbey of St. Denis.

41 hauntes MS: haus. Abbreviated, with hole in the MS between u and s.

42 lydy. Co emends to led.

47 Malkyn. According to the MED, this name has pejorative implications meaning "servant woman," "young woman of the lower classes," or "a woman of loose morals." See Chaucer's Introduction to The Man of Law's Tale, where lost time is compared to "Malkynes maydenhede, / Whan she hath lost it in hir wantownesse" (CT II[B1]30-31).

Y wene. MS: or mene.

62 Riche. MS: Richc. Co emends to Riche, as have I; B&S follow MS.

63 wat. MS: vat.

67-68 B&S (p. 373) detect either a corrupt rhyme word or a lacuna of two lines or more that rhyme with lam (line 67) and love (line 68).

75 De profundis. Derived from Psalm 130, this phrase is used in the Office of the Dead.

76 yn. MS: y. B&S's emendation.

79 B&S: "The rhyme words here show that a line has been omitted, and the contextual inadequacy of 80 that it was after this line" (p. 373).

80 thay. MS: Hay.

82 henged. MS: heng'.

83 onne me. B&S emend to me on. Co emends to me onne.