THE LIFE OF SAINT KATHERINE, BOOK 4: FOOTNOTES

1 Lines 8-9: From different portions of God's law

2 Worse than one would want a person to do to him

3 Lines 370-71: Because of the indignation / He would incur for not playing his part in the festivities

4 I am not familiar with their religious practices

5 They attribute it (their sickness) to his vengeance

6 Stay quietly in your chambers; there is no alternative

7 That people of all religions shall convert to his religion

8 Lines 493-95: [The memory of her marriage] is so impressed on her heart / That no fickle weathervane of worldly desires will / Blow it away

9 Who will proceed straight from their coffins to heaven

10 Do not blame them for wanting to leave [and thus not escorting you back to the temple]

11 Lines 564-65: Which may neither advance / Your causes nor alleviate your distress

12 Astonished by her beauty [and] partly by what she wanted of him

13 Lines 646-47: If they were themselves created, how can they be gods? / A god is supposed to be eternal

14 Lines 722-24: You might have seen by the end of her speech, / Many people disposed otherwise / Than they were before

15 Lines 738-40: It was an evil hour when I made the mistake of allowing her to speak

16 Lines 760-62: you know / That you should bow down and for your beauty / Thank him if for nothing else

17 All virtue proceeds from Your worthiness

18 Lines 1222-23: They will lose the confidence / With which they used to call upon their gods

19 Just what has our reward got to do with you?

20 Lines 1340-41: I have a teaching (Christianity) to uphold that is truer [than paganism] / And that leads more directly to an understanding of creation

21 Lines 1459-60: I began my disputation here by speaking of my Lord of heaven

22 So that people should proceed through them to a higher devotion

23 Lines 1550-51: No meat is served at your table / Until your god has been given the tongue

24 With rhetorical flourishes and ornaments, as you are accustomed to do

25 Lines 1622-23: If you explored philosophy's secret recesses, / You would find that all the planets were created

26 Lines 1807-10: And if you do not want to believe this thing, / You may believe only [that] you shall never know it, / [Namely] the time and manner of this mysterious occurrence. / Your learning is too inferior to reveal it

27 Lines 1824-27: For indeed those Christians / Who had just rendered service to the idols / Now wail out of deep repentance, / Judging that they deserve a severe penance

28 Lines 2007-08: Since there are so many gods [referred to in Christian books], why cannot Jupiter and Juno, his wife, be counted among them?

29 Lines 2056-58: Read that book (Scripture) more attentively and you will see that those ignorant prophets were damned for their false beliefs, every last one of them

30 Lines 2222-23: Moreover, you say that He (the Father) did this (the Incarnation)

31 Lines 2253-57: It is shown by faith and logic / That the Son was responsible for implementing the Incarnation, / But the grace and providence that conveyed mercy through the Incarnation, / Those were attributable to the Trinity as a whole

32 Lines 2297-2300: There was nothing to do after they failed to perturb her when they spoke of the descent of Christ, whether there were two or one [persons in the flesh], and of the emanation of the Holy Spirit

33 Lines 2327-28: For having supported so long their false religion

THE LIFE OF SAINT KATHERINE, BOOK 4: NOTES

1 ff. These erdely dwellers . . . Are lykened to the bees. Virgil's comparison of human society to a bee-hive in Georgics 4.3 was frequently quoted by medieval political theorists and well known in Capgrave's day.

23 MS: For that thei here thowte they have delectacyoun. I am accepting the reading of MS Arundel 396, which makes more sense.

78-148 In the tyme of Costus . . . in Rome al alone. Capgrave's rather garbled account of events during the late third century - which will not be found in standard history books - can be summarized as follows: Maximinus Galerius, Maximian, and Diocletian were co-rulers of the Roman empire. After Maximian and Diocletian resigned, Maximinus appointed three sub-emperors: Maximinus to rule the East; Severus to rule Lombardy, Tuscany, and Germany; and Constantine to rule Britain. Maximinus Galerius was killed in battle and the Romans chose his sub-emperor Maximinus' son Maxentius (Katherine's nemesis) to be the new Roman emperor. Unhappy with this arrangement, Maximinus set out for Rome but died en route. Equally unhappy, Severus waged war against Maxentius but was eventually killed by his own soldiers. Maxentius remained emperor of Rome until his excesses and iniquities drove the Roman people to rebellion.

119 Salysbury playn. Location of Stonehenge, legendary burial place of King Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon; Arthur's successor, Constantine; and 450 Breton nobles killed by the Saxons in the fifth century.

290 with gunnes and wyth myne."Gunne" refers to a machine used to cast missiles during a siege. A"myne" was a tunnel dug to undermine a fortification.

310 used. Not in MS.

381 There was no matens seyd, servyse, ne pryme. Capgrave is referring to the liturgical offices that were recited daily in religious houses.

389 some. Not in MS.

395-96 Saturne . . . With his sekyll in hand. Saturn was conventionally represented with a sickle because, after settling in Italy (see below, lines 638-40), he taught the Italians how to reap grain with that tool.

406 I owe him non, for maumentrye I despyse. A playful jab at contemporary lovers, who, in the parlance of romances and love lyrics, were still Cupid's servants.

468 All tho myshappys whech were seyd before. An allusion to the dire predictions made by Katherine's lords during the Marriage Parliament of Book 2.

478-79 now is the hour / Whech sche behestyd. See 3.1478-87.

551 With mace. In this context,"mace" refers to a rod of office.

586 With bath of picth and beverych of lede. Methods of torture.

633 Rede in your boke. A possible allusion to the Hierâ Anagraphe (c. 300 B.C.) of Euhemerus of Sicily, which proposed that the gods were men who were only after their deaths reputed to be divine. Augustine of Hippo refers to Euhemerism at several points in his City of God. Most of Katherine's assaults on Maxentius's religion - the scandalous behavior of the gods, their outrageous rituals, and so forth - appear to have derived from the first seven books of the City of God. For a fifteenth-century discussion of Euhemerism, see The Assembly of Gods, lines 1707-08.

636 telle. MS: telles.

676 woundis fyve. A reference to the five wounds the crucified Christ received on his hands, feet, and side.

752 ye. Not in MS.

876-89 He hite hir . . . / . . . now take. Maxentius iterates and elaborates on these promises in 5.372-420. His promises and Katherine's response constitute one of the most memorable scenes in most versions of Katherine's passion.

1063 Why. Crossed out in MS.

1125 chese. Not in MS.

1143 in prison. Not in MS.

1163 And as Thu graunted Thin apostles here. Matt. 10:17-20, Mark 13:9-11, Luke 12:11, 21:12-15.

1185 As Thu graunted Ester to plese hir Assuere. Esther 4-5 relates that, in an attempt to save the Jews from destruction, Esther risked death by approaching her husband, King Ahasuerus, unsummoned in the inner court of his palace.

1195 voutes sevene. Capgrave may be thinking of images in popular prayer books, or Books of Hours, which often represent martyrs standing in multi-vaulted prison cells.

1233-34 a trew messagere / And as no feyned spyryte. Demons were notorious for impersonating angels on their visits to imprisoned saints, as in the legend of the virgin martyr Juliana.

1268 he. Not in MS.

1271 new Ulix. Representations of Ulysses as a crafty, scurrilous deceiver with a golden tongue (in the tradition of Ovid's Metamorphoses) were common in the Middle Ages.

1344 Phylystyoun. Philistion was a physician identified with the Sicilian school of medicine founded by Empedocles in the fifth century BC.

1371 philosophye. MS: philophye.

1499-1512 thei be but figures / Representyng othir manere thing . . . schuld go therby. This scholar is using the same arguments that the Church used to defend images and statues of Christ and the saints from Lollard claims that venerating such representations amounted to idol-worship. For a popular statement of this orthodox Catholic argument, see Thomas Hoccleve's 1415 "Address to Sir John Oldcastle," in Hoccleve's Works: The Minor Poems, ed. Frederick J. Furnivall and I. Gollancz, EETS e.s. 61, 72-73 (London: Oxford University Press, 1892, 1925), vol. I, p. 21, lines 409-24. It is perhaps not surprising that Katherine does not refute this argument but rather changes the subject.

1534 Vulcane was cruell and yet was he cokholde. For a pithy account of how"cruell" Vulcan took vengeance on his wife, Venus, and her lover, Mars, see Book 4 of Ovid's Metamorphoses. This topic is a favorite among medieval vernacular writers.

1587-88 These lines are reversed in the MS with a mark that they should be read in the order in which I have placed them.

1592 The Kyng of Thebes a book had hir sent. Augustine criticizes the allegorization of the Roman Pantheon in his City of God, primarily in Books 6-7. He attributes that allegorization to Marcus Terentius Varro, whose work on theology (The Antiquities) is unfortunately lost. I thank Chris Manion for suggesting Varro as the author of Katherine's book.

1667 ff. In her instruction of the unenlightened through the figure of the Trinity, Katherine alludes to a common doctrinal practice. Compare St. Cecile's instruction of Tiburce in Chaucer's Second Nun's Tale (VIII [G] 333-41). The length and complexity of her exposition, however, is unprecedented in any Middle English saint's life.

1674 creature. MS: creatour.

1723-25 He that reysyde Lazare fro the grave . . . He that Petyr in the see dyd save. See, respectively, John 11 and Matthew 14.

1724 four dayes. Both MSS Rawl. poet. 118 and Arundel 168 read that Lazarus lay in the grave for"fourti [Ar. Fourty] dayes." I have emended"fourti" to"four," an emendation supported by MSS Arundel 396 and Arundel 20 as well as by John 11:39.

1729-31 He that so mervelously onto heven gan glyde . . . mervayles. Mark 16:19.

1748 leke. MS: loke.

1752-57 Sybylle . . . nevyr sey nay. Capgrave is quoting the so-called Tiburtine Sibyl, whose pronouncement is quoted, among other places, in Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend, trans. William Granger Ryan, 2.170. For a discussion of the medieval Sibylline tradition, see Bernard McGinn, "Teste David cum Sibylla: The Significance of the Sibylline Tradition in the Middle Ages," in Women of the Medieval World, ed. Julius Kirshner and Suzanne F. Wemple (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), pp. 7-35.

1844 Be armes, bones, and be blode. The emperor, ironically, is swearing by Christ.

1871 marred. MS: marreth.

1882 thousandis fyve. The allusion is to the feeding of 5,000 in John 6:1-14.

1951-52 Youre prophete seyde . . . / bete and bynde. Psalms 2:9.

1972 In the tre was joy bore and in the tre woo. An allusion to Christ's cross (redemp-tion) and to the Tree of Knowledge (the fall).

1975 MS has a chapter heading indicated at this line.

1986-88 I red in a Crysten prophete . . . that ye be goddes alle. Psalms 82:6. The Old Testament was considered an integral part of the Christian tradition, its prophets and scholars deemed fundamentally Christian thinkers.

2000 Baal. References to Baal, a Phoenician god worshipped by wayward Israelites, occur frequently in the Old Testament. The"thre hundred prophetis" spoken of in lines 2001-02 may allude to 1 Kings 18:19 and 18:22, which mention 450 (not 300) prophets devoted to Baal.

2024-50 And be nature is He God . . . that auctorité. Jaroslav Pelikan explains the distinction made by various medieval theologians between Jesus, who was God's natural son, and the saints or faithful (called "gods" in Psalms 82:6), who were God's adopted sons, in The Growth of Medieval Theology (600-1300) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), pp. 55-56.

2032 And sones of Him that syttith hyest. Katherine is supplying the portion of Psalms 82:6 that the pagan scholar omitted in his allusion (line 1988).

2055-57 Thoo same prophetis . . . thei dampned were. 1 Kings 18:40 relates that, after winning a contest with the prophets of Baal, the prophet Elijah rounded up his 450 rivals and killed every one of them.

2080 comoursly. This word is not attested in the MED, though three of the four Katherine MSS give that reading. Horstmann emended it to"concoursly," but the MED cites only the noun"concours," meaning an agreement or a flocking/ crowding together. MS Arundel 20 reads"anon."

2082 Noys. Bernardus Silvestris develops this concept at length in his Cosmographia.

2158-77 Of oure ladies clennes in hir concepcion / . . . sittith thus hye. In answering Ariot's objection, Katherine affirms the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, namely, that Mary was miraculously conceived without the "original sin" that Adam and Eve passed on to their descendants. That teaching was highly controversial during the later Middle Ages (in part for the reason Ariot puts forward - how could a woman whose parents had inherited original sin be sinless herself?). Mary's Immaculate Conception was endorsed by the 1439 Council of Basle, though the legitimacy of the Council was later contested.

2179-84 His comyng was lich the sune schynyng bryth . . . cam down here. This simile was commonly employed by both poets and theologians to describe Mary's conception of Jesus. See Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex (New York: Knopf, 1976), p. 44; and Gail McMurray Gibson, The Theater of Devotion: East Anglian Drama and Society in the Late Middle Ages (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 146. For an example of the simile in Middle English devotional lyrics, see "Marye, mayde mylde and fre," in Middle English Marian Lyrics, ed. Karen Saupe (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1998), p. 165, lines 73-76.

2194-96 It is ful hard swech thingis forto ryme . . . to the Incarnacion. Capgrave may be needling conservative clerics who declared that doctrine should not be discussed in the vernacular. He concedes that it is hard to discuss matters like the Incarnation "in langage of oure nacion" (line 2195) - all the more so when one is trying to rhyme - but instead of curtailing his treatment of those topics, he embellishes his putative source with "othir auctouris" (line 2199). See the note to 3.1428.

2235 coude. Not in MS.

2262-68 Davyd . . . whan he thristid sore . . . bare this thing. 1 Chronicles 11:15-19.

2278 dilatacion. MS Rawl. poet. 118 reads"delectacion"; the other MSS read"dilatacion."

2281 That myth it here if that hem list. This reading is significantly different from the readings of Arundel 398 ("That men myght plod in hir, if that hem lyst") and Arundel 20 ("that men myght plode in hyre yff that hyme lyste,") which suggest (rather daringly ) that readers consult Scripture for themselves. Arundel 168 reads"That men myght plede in here, if that hyme list."

2341 It is ful convenient that we shuld do soo. The scribe of MS Arundel 20 apparently disagreed that this would be an appropriate place to end Book 4, for he finishes narrating the philosophers' martyrdom before beginning Book 5.