WYCLIF (?), OF WEDDID MEN AND WIFIS AND OF HERE CHILDREN ALSO, FOOTNOTES
Title: Here, Their.
2 gostly, spiritual.
7 dom, judgment.
10 saad, true.
11 avoutrie, adultery.
13 wite ye not, do you not understand; enemyté, enmity.
15 gostly, spiritually.
22 conseyved, conceived.
26 heretikis, heretics.
27 lesyngis, falsehood.
28 metis, food.
29 heriyng, praising.
32 dom, judgment.
33 dampned, condemned.
34 lettith, hinders.
36 ponyschide, punished.
37 but, except.
42 schenden, shun.
47 kynde, nature.
48 here, their; discrecion, reason.
50 povert, poverty.
51 bihestis, promises; here, their.
52 doren, dare; leven, leave; stat, sinful condition.
53 mortherynge, murdering.
63 sclaundren hemselfe, slander themselves.
64 fend, fiend.
68 hem, himself.
70 owith, ought.
75 siche, such.
79 enemyté, enmity.
82 defoulen, defile; letten hem, obstruct them.
83 comyn wymmen, prostitutes.
84 kunnynge, knowing; hote, arrogant, proud.
85 coragious, lascivious.
88 muk, filthy behavior.
89 nyse, foolish.
95 skillis, reasons.
101 the thother, the other.
102 make, mate.
103 goode wille, intent.
108 anentis, with respect to.
110 devours, divorce.
111 departe atwyn, separate.
118 oweth, ought; suget, subject.
119 here, their.
123 tiffynge, adorning; her, herself.
124 peisible, peaceable.
125 bonere, good; riche, admirable.
127 clepynge, calling.
131 covenable abite, appropriate dress.
132 writhen here, braided hair; margery stones, pearls.
133 bihetynge, pledging.
138 skille, reason.
143 benynge, meek; underlont, underling.
145 suynge, drinking; techynge, informed.
146 ben underlont, be subservient.
153 wem, blemish.
159 greet, noble; but i-saye, but [only] visible (expressed).
161 drede, fear; obeischith, be obedient.
164 nyle, refrain.
166 lore, law.
174 jectouris, boasters; contré, strife
175 meyné, household members; brollis, brats.
177 moten, must.
178 amende, reprimand.
179 owen, ought.
181 thewis, mode of conduct.
185 hestis, behests.
186 Biheste, Promise.
187 holden, obliged.
192 geverne, govern; wittis, senses.
194 hestis, comandments.
203 knowen, know.
208 jeestis, stories.
210 craftis, skills.
211 losengerie, debauchery.
214 unnethis, scarcely.
218 sleeris, slayers.
226 homly in houshod, those belonging to the household.
230 maunmetis, pagan idols.
239 spised alle, spiced ale.
240 gestis, guests.
249 meyné, household.
250 cavyllacion, spurious arguments.
258 grane, trap.
259 stiren, provoke.
261 costy, costly.
262 anentis, concerning.
269 but yif, unless.
280 sclaundrith, slanders.
283 curleris, peddlers.
284 holouris, fornicators.
286 ypocritis, hypocrites, i.e., corrupt priests.
293 grucchen, lament.
294 axen, ask.
296 woodnesse, madness.
301 dom, authority (dominion, judgment).
306 domes, judgments.
310 mot, must.
311 askape unpeyned, escape unpunished; prevé, secretive.
312 agenstonde, stand against.
314 lese, lose.
315 wot, knows.
316 staat, condition.
318 bleckid, blackened.
320 panter, snare.
322 bedrede, bedridden.
323 herberwe hem, provide lodging for them.
WYCLIF (?), OF WEDDID MEN AND WIFIS AND OF HERE CHILDREN ALSO, SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Manuscripts
Bodleian Library MS Bodley 938 (SC 3054), fols. 62a-73a (early fifteenth century).
Cambridge University Library MS 756, fols. 3a-16a (late fourteenth century).
British Library MS Additional 24202, fols. 29a-33b (late fourteenth century).
Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 296, fols. 224-35 (late fourteenth century). [Base text for this edition.]
Critical Edition
Arnold, Thomas, ed. Select English Works of John Wyclif. Vol. 3. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1871. Pp. 188-201. [Based on Cambridge MS Corpus Christi 296.]
Selections
Vaughan, Robert, ed. Tracts and Treatises of John de Wycliffe, D.D. with Selections and Translations from His Manuscripts and Latin Works. London: Blackburn, 1845. Pp. 58-59.
Winn, Herbert E., ed. Wyclif: Select English Writings. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929. Pp. 105-07.
Related Studies
Aston, Margaret. "'Caim's Castles': Poverty, Politics, and Disendowment." In The Church, Politics and Patronage in the Fifteenth Century. Ed. R. B. Dobson. Gloucester: A. Sutton, 1984. Pp. 45-81.
---. Lollards and Reformers: Images and Literacy in Late Medieval Religion. London: Hambledon Press, 1984.
---. "Wyclif and the Vernacular." SCH Subsidia 5 (1987), 281-330.
Hargreaves, H. "Sir John Oldcastle and Wycliffite Views on Clerical Marriage." Medium Aevum 42 (1973), 141-45.
Hudson, Anne. The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988.
---. Lollards and Their Books. London: Hambledon Press, 1985.
Kenny, Anthony, ed. Wyclif in His Times. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.
Lambert, Malcolm. Medieval Heresy: Popular Movements from Bogomil to Hus. London: Blackwell, 1977; rpt. 1992.
Matthew, F. D., ed. The English Works of Wyclif Hitherto Unprinted. EETS o.s. 74. London: Trübner & Co., 1880. [Does not contain "Of Weddid Men."]
McFarlane, K. B. Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.
---. John Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Nonconformity. London: The English Universities Press, 1952; rpt. 1966.
Murdoch, Vaclav. The Wyclyf Tradition. Ed. Albert Compton Reeves. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1978.
Robson, John Adam. Wyclif and the Oxford Schools: The Relation of the "Summa de ente" to Scholastic Debates at Oxford in the Later Fourteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961.
Stacey, John. John Wyclif and Reform. London: Lutterworth Press, 1964.
Workman, Herbert B. John Wyclif: A Study of the English Medieval Church. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1966.
WYCLIF (?), OF WEDDID MEN AND WIFIS AND OF HERE CHILDREN ALSO, NOTES
Abbreviations: Ar: Thomas Arnold; MS: Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 296.
1-4 The Wycliffite author reviews an orthodox interpretation of holy wedlock as spiritual bond between Christ and the Church as well as a bond between a man and a woman. While the first form of marriage, described as gostly (line 2), is spiritual, i.e., between Christ and Holy Church, the second, used for actual marriage, is described in both physical and spiritual terms, bodily or gostly (line 3), leaving room for the possibility of marital chastity, in the manner of Joseph and Mary.
5 prophete Osie. See Hosea 1:19. One of the twelve prophets, Hosea was commanded by God to marry Gomer, a prostitute; his prophecy is often understood to be about unhappy marriage both on the literal and figural levels, i.e., Israel's turning away from God as the unfaithful wife turns away from her husband. According to David L. Jeffrey, "Medieval commentary focuses largely on the connection between Gomer's adultery and Israel's idolatry, seeing the main force of the book contained in Hosea's warnings against idols and false gods (e.g., 4:17), a theme associated with Hosea by John Gower in his Mirour de l'omme." See A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1992), pp. 364-65.
8 first matrimoyne and best. There is no ambiguity in the author's priorities. He clearly puts spiritual marriage first despite the fact that he supports clerical marriage and speaks extensively about spousal relations and family life.
11 worschipen false goddis. It is not surprising that this is mentioned early in the treatise since false images are one of Wyclif's primary objections to orthodox practices.
12 Seynt Jame seith. See James 4:4. James is called the "lesser" to distinguish him from James the "greater," famous for pilgrimage to Compostela. The passage is from his epistle: "Adulterers, know you not that the friendship of this world is the enemy of God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of this world becometh an enemy of God" (4:4).
25 turned watir into wyn. The treatise reads the Wedding of Cana episode in John's Gospel (2:1-11) as an affirmation of the married state.
26 summe heretikis. The author seems to think of himself as orthodox on the subject of marriage.
gevenge. Ar reads gevinge.
31 as Seynt Poul seith. 1 Timothy 4:1.
31-34 One of the goods of marriage is to procreate enough to maintain the numbers of angels and saints and to prevent fornication.
34 lettith. Ar reads letiith.
36 ponyschide. Ar emends to poniscide.
41 false. Ar omits final -e.
43 in doynge and othere. Ar notes that the author does not understand this phrase in the Vulgate. The sense is "in name only."
48-49 to have the heritage holly. The treatise implies that children who were not loved were forced into religious life while the heritage went to the favored child, often the firstborn son. The author then explains why forcing children into religious life is a bad practice.
55-56 clene virgynité is moche betre. This is the same line of reasoning espoused by other orthodox theologians of the Middle Ages, Jerome, for instance.
58 Jon Evaungelist. Traditionally held to be the author of the Book of Revelation, this John is thought also to have been present at the Crucifixion.
Seynt Austyn and Jerom. Sts. Augustine and Jerome are represented together as promoting the same principle, though Augustine's The Good of Marriage is a treatise written to offset Jerome's overemphasis on virginity as a higher state of being. Nonetheless, the ambivalence on the subject of marriage even from Augustine affects later writers. G. G. Coulton remarks in Five Centuries of Religion, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1929), pp. 443-44: "The Augustinian theory of original sin necessarily implied a low view of the marriage state. Augustine forged this theory in the heat of controversy; and medieval orthodoxy frequently followed him into his least flattering conclusions. They held a sort of dualism which, in spite of occasional lip-homage to matrimony, never hesitated to exalt virginity as the nobler state. Here, as on many other points of the monastic ideal, St. Jerome's words are epoch-making and are passed from generation to generation of medieval writers as a classical commonplace: 'Marriage peoples the earth, but virginity peoples heaven' (Patrilogia Latina, vol. 23, col. 246)."
60-61 And therefore Poul gaf no comaundement. MS: And therefore gaf no comaundement. Poul is written in the margin.
69 Ar inserts a chapter break here.
75 Tobie. This refers to several passages in the Book of Tobias in which Tobias the younger receives a warning from the angel Raphael: "For they who in such manner receive matrimony, as to shut out God from themselves, and from their minds, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding; over them the devil hath power" (6:17).
77 yonge man and an olde bareyne widewe. The phrase resonates with Chaucer's Wife of Bath and her fifth husband, Jankyn. Since procreation is a good of marriage, a union in which the widow is old and barren constitutes a perversion of scriptural edicts despite Sara's mature and barren state. Sara, of course, was not a widow.
78 muk. The MED points to a range of meanings suggesting a negative opinion of material possession: "animal or human excrement," "dung," "manure," "dirt," "filth," "sewage," "putrescence" merge into "property," "possession," "wealth," "worldly gain." Herbert B. Workman sees this treatise on marriage as "a good specimen of Wyclif's teaching with its emphasis on ethics. . . . Nothing could be better than his protest against the marriage of a young man and an old widow 'for love of worldly muck'. . . ." See John Wyclif: A Study of the English Medieval Church, p. 45.
85-86 to his wif in Goddis lawe, and make here a gentil womman. This phrase is found at the bottom of the MS, where it is designated an addition by a mark placed in the margin.
91 myghtty men marien here children. The meaning of marien is to "marry off" or arrange the marriage of children, usually without their consent. The author seems to suggest that this is also a social practice among certain members of the English aristocracy. The passage is perhaps subversive of arranged marriages, where lords give their children in marriage without the children's consent or love, where they "feynen for drede" (line 92), that is, agree with their parents' wishes only out of fear.
97 to kepe his wif fro lecherie of othere men. The author's emphasis differs slightly from that of Paul and Augustine when he reminds his audience that a husband's duty is to protect the sexual integrity of his wife.
104-08 Following Augustine and others, the treatise advocates spiritual marriage, using the Virgin Mary and Joseph as the paradigm of marital affection.
110 fals devours. Medieval "divorce" differs from modern divorce in that the former means what contemporary family law defines as "separation," though the living arrangement would not allow either to remarry.
117 Ar inserts a chapter break here.
118-19 The relation between husband and wife, i.e., that the wif oweth to be suget to the housbonde, and he owith to reule his wif, is scriptural, reiterated by many New Testament writers, including Peter, Paul, and Timothy. See note to lines 145 ff.
119 ff. St. Peter's sayings derive from 1 Peter 3:1-7:
1) In like manner also, let wives be subject to their husbands: that, if any believe not the word, they may be won without the word, by the conversations of the wives.
2) Considering your chaste conversation with fear.
3) Whose adorning, let it not be the outward plaiting of the hair, or the wearing of gold, or the putting on of apparel:
4) But the hidden man of the heart in the incorruptibility of a quiet and a meek spirit, which is rich in the sight of God.
5) For after this manner heretofore, the holy women also who trusted in God adorned themselves, being in subjection to their own husbands.
6) As Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughter you are, doing well and not fearing any disturbance.
7) Ye husbands, likewise dwelling with them according to knowledge, giving honour to the female as to the weaker vessel and as to the co-heirs of the grace of life, that your prayers be not hindered.
121 wonnen. MS: wymmen. Ar makes the emendation.
129 Seynte Poul spekith. 1 Timothy 2:8.
132 writhen here. Braided hair. In defining writhen, a form of writh, the OED cites this text which appears originally in 1 Timothy: "In like manner, women also in decent apparel, adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety, not with plaited hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly attire" (2:9). Note the similarity between this passage and the passage from 1 Peter cited above.
margery stones. Called "margarite," these "stones" (pearls) are listed in many lapidaries, which were popular in late medieval England. In the Peterborough Lapidary, the margarita is described as "chef of al stons ŝat ben wy3t & preciose, as Ised [Isidore] seyŝ. And it haŝe ŝe name margarita for it is founde in shellis which ben cokelis or in mosclys & in schellfyssh of ŝe see; ŝis bredyng is schellfyssh, & it is genderd of ŝe dewe of heuen, which dewe ŝe schell fissh receyueŝ in certen tymes of ŝe 3er of ŝe which dew margarites comen." The Peterborough Lapidary is found in a collection called English Mediaeval Lapidaries, ed. Joan Evans and Mary S. Serjeanson, EETS o.s. 190 (London: Oxford University Press, 1933), p. 108.
136 pistel to Corynthis. St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians: "Let women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted them to speak but to be subject, as also the law saith" (14:34). The second passage (lines 145 ff.) reads as follows: "But if they would learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church" (14:35).
141 Writt. Ar reads writ.
146 ff. The marital hierarchy which equates men with Christ, women with Holy Church, is consistent with scriptural metaphors. See especially Ephesians 5:22-33.
152 and holy; and made it clene. MS: And holy and made it clene. The phrase is written at the bottom of the MS with an insertion mark in the margin.
157 For we ben membris of his body. The author is referring to the mystic body of Christ, i.e., those who believe and participate in Christianity.
164 and that thou be longe. MS: and that belonge.
166-67 See Ephesians 5:22 and explanatory note to lines 145 ff. Also Colossians 3:18.
172 withoute resonable cause. This phrase was left open to interpretation by writers of canon law. Husbands were expected to govern their wives reasonably.
Ar inserts a chapter break here, as directed by marks in the MS.
174 jectouris of contré. MED cites this particular line under gettour, from the verb getten. Contra is a scholastic formula for the assertion of opposing arguments.
175 brollis. A pejorative term for an unruly child.
179 togidre. Ar reads togedir.
183 Poul biddith. This refers to Ephesians 6:1-3: "Children, obey your parents, for it is just. Honour thy father and thy mother; which is the first commandment with a promise. That it may be well with thee and that thou mayest be long upon the earth."
184 God comaundith in the olde lawe. The reference returns to the authority of the Old Testament, which the author elaborates in his explanation of God's promise to Moses to liberate his people (see Exodus 3:3-10).
186 Lond of Biheste. Promised Land. The author recalls Exodus to illustrate his point on how a father should go about teaching his children. For a discussion of Lollard education see Anne Hudson, The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History, chapter 4.
192 geverne. Ar reads governe.
225 Seynt Poul spekith. 1 Timothy 5:8.
236 Chapter break.
242 see. Ar reads se.
244 word of Seynt Poul. 1 Corinthians 7:29. Ar often includes a final -e on Paul's name.
252 and lecherie. Ar omits this phrase.
267 holden. Ar reads bolden.
271 Seynt Jon with the gildene mouth. The reference is to John Chrysostom whose rhetorical skills were legendary by Wyclif's time. Another reference to Chrysostom appears in Prohemy of a Mariage Betwixt an Olde Man and a Yonge Wife, and the Counsail, also included in this volume.
276 profrid. Ar reads proprid.
282 wifis geven here husbondis goodis. Almsgiving was a charitable activity, but wives, thought to be overly generous to the wrong people, were admonished and advised to use discretion.
283 othere curleris. There is a word crossed out before curleris in MS.
290 preve. Ar has prive.
306 Amen. This marks the original end of the treatise according to Ar.
307 ff. A late addition perhaps, this ending emphasizes the necessity for ordre. It continues in the same hand.
309 auctour. Ar reads auctor.
320 ydelnesse is the develis panter. A proverbial expression. See Whiting I16 ( a long entry). Compare the Prologue to Chaucer's The Second Nun's Tale, especially VIII(G)7-13.