• The Trials and Joys of Marriage, Introduction

for Chaucer. But, McCracken argues, the rhymes are equally against authorship by either Hoccleve or Lydgate, concluding: "There were certainly more poets at work in this period than we know about." Caroline F. E. Spurgeon, Five Hundred Years of Chaucer

• Audelay, Poems and Carols: Introduction

— Chaucer, Hoccleve, Lydgate, Gower, Langland, the anonymous works of Cotton Nero A.x. — and it differs according to the criteria one chooses. One may, for example, examine an author’s own statements. When in the lyric “Adam Scriveyn” Chaucer puts

• Spurious Links

more to the tale, only he chose not to relay it. 8 The word spell is used only once by Chaucer, appropriately in his parody of popular verse romances, Sir Thopas (CT VII, 893). Squire-Wife of Bath Link 11-12 Not

• A Gest of Robyn Hode: Introduction

40). This is a good deal more cautious than Gutch's confident statement that the poem dated "from the time of Chaucer or before" (1847, I, vii), which Child was implicitly criticizing. Nevertheless his words have been taken as confirmation of

• The Northern Homily Cycle: Prologue

why the present work begins with the first Sunday of the Advent of the Lord PROLOGUE: EXPLANATORY NOTES Abbreviations: CT: Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; NHC: Northern Homily Cycle; NIMEV: The New Index of Middle English Verse, ed. Boffey and Edwards; For

• Lydgate, Mumming at Windsor

Knights of the Order of the Garter. The hall was repaired and rebuilt by Richard II, under the supervision of Chaucer, then clerk of the king’s works. 12 Cloudovee. Clovis I (c. 466–511) was king of the Franks, who, according

• Lydgate, Of the Sodein Fal of Princes in Oure Dayes

Lydgate, Of the Sodein Fal of Princes in Oure Dayes Return to Menu of TEAMS Texts Copyright Information for this edition (t-note) 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 rectum (see note) habit fate was obliged

• Codex Ashmole 61: Item 8, Dame Courtesy

Item 9, Latin Epigram, text Codex Ashmole 61: Item 8, DAME COURTESY Item 8, DAME COURTESY: EXPLANATORY NOTES Abbreviations: CT: Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales; MED: Middle English Diction­ary; Whiting: Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences and Proverbial Phrases. Title No title or incipit.

• William Dunbar: The Complete Works: Introduction

Buke of the Howlat. Ed. Richard Holland. In Longer Scottish Poems, ed. Bawcutt and Riddy, 1987. Pp. 43-84. Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Riverside Chaucer. Gen. ed. Larry D. Benson. Third ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1987. The Chepman and Myllar Prints:

• Havelok the Dane: Introduction

scholarly text with more intensive textual/cultural notes than F compares English with French culture and romance with epic; discusses how Chaucer uses romance.] Bradbury, Nancy Mason. "The Traditional Origins of Havelok the Dane." Studies in Philology 90 (1993), 115-42. [Employs

• Jack Upland: Introduction

Series 14. Vol. 1. London: Longmans, Green, 1861. Skeat, Walter W., ed. Jack Upland. In The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Vol. 7: Chaucerian and Other Pieces. Oxford: Clarendon, 1897. Heyworth, P. L., ed. Jack Upland. In Jack Upland, Friar

• Robin Hood and the Bishop

backwards onto horses, then driving them from town, see Thomas Hahn and Richard W. Kaeuper, "Text and Context: Chaucer's Friar's Tale," Studies in the Age of Chaucer 5 (1983), 67-101. See also A True Tale of Robin Hood, lines 101-04.

• Item 21, Sir Corneus: Introduction

Item 21, Sir Corneus: Introduction Return to Menu of TEAMS Texts Copyright Information for this edition this vein of humor has not lasted as well as others. But medieval and Renaissance audiences clearly found cuckoldry highly amusing, an

• Sir Orfeo: Introduction

Auchinleck Manuscript," Speculum 26 (1951), 652-58. 2 See Laura Hibbard Loomis' articles: "Chaucer and the Breton Lays of the Auchinleck Manuscript," Studies in Philology 38 (1941), 14-33; "Chaucer and the Auchinleck Manuscript: Thopas and Guy of Warwick," in Essays and

• Item 18, The Knight Who Forgave His Father’s Slayer: Introduction

Item 18, The Knight Who Forgave His Father’s Slayer: Introduction Return to Menu of TEAMS Texts Copyright Information for this edition historical record, natural lore, biblical episodes, and the kind of miraculous story pre­sented here all served as

• Richard II's Reign and the Peasants' Revolt: The Letter of John Ball (Royal MS)

robbers or thieves). See Chronicon Henrici Knighton, p. 135; Strohm, Hochon's Arrow, p. 44; Derek Pearsall, The Life of Geoffrey Chaucer (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), p. 144. 12 do wel and bettre. An allusion to Piers Plowman's famous Vita de Dowel,

• John Lydgate: Beware (The Blynde Eteth Many a Flye)

doth rasour or sheres. Perhaps related to the saying, "To make one's beard" (i.e., "to trick"). See Whiting B116, and Chaucer, House of Fame (lines 689-91). 25 Al is not gold that shineth. Proverbial; see Whiting G282. 26 Thaire galle

• Lydgate, Troy Book: Envoy

TROY BOOK, ENVOY: NOTES Lydgate shifts from couplets into the English stanza, sometimes referred to as rhyme royal, used by Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde. 1 sours. MS: flour. 4 the worthi nyne. The Nine Worthy are chivalric heroes representing

• Bevis of Hampton: Introduction

story of Troilus and Criseyde is developed by a writer such as Chaucer can at least be suggestive of what we mean here. In composing Troilus and Criseyde, Chaucer meticulously translated blocks of narrative from the Italian Il Filostrato written

• Item 16, The Debate of the Carpenter’s Tools: Introduction

Item 16, The Debate of the Carpenter’s Tools: Introduction Return to Menu of TEAMS Texts Copyright Information for this edition many of these names are unat­tested elsewhere or only dimly recognizable from medieval glossaries and docu­ments. But the