• The N-Town Plays: Play 18, Magi

says to them Play 18, MAGI: EXPLANATORY NOTES Abbreviations: MED: Middle English Dictionary; PL: Patrologia Latina, ed. Migne; S: N-Town Play, ed. Spector (1991). In comparison to the other English Magi plays, this N-Town version is relatively eco­nomical and efficient.

• Codex Ashmole 61: Item 7, Stans Puer ad Mensam

if thou be callyd, For dred of repreve were as ever thou gos. Ne never moke non old man thofe he be old, For sych uncurtasy may cause thee to have foys. When thou haste dyned be redy to ryse

• John Gower, The Minor Latin Works: Introduction

see Appendix 1) takes note, Gower's achievement in writing substantially in all three primary languages of his time -- Anglo-French, English, and Latin -- was a source of pride to others and, undoubtedly, to him too: into the final years

• Floris and Blancheflour

their qualities were listed in lapidaries, books of stone lore, of which several in Middle English survive and even one in OldEnglish; see English Mediaeval Lapidaries. 676 At the welle heved ther stant a tre. This "Tre of Love"

• Lancelot of the Laik

"la bele Jaiande," the wife of Brunor. The similarity between her name and the English word "giant" may have cause some confusion, as in the English Prose Merlin, where Galehaut is referred to as "the son of the Geaunt" (EETS

• Sir Tristrem

of every nation" of the old law and the new. Such a reading might be achieved without emendation if "thede" is taken as a genitive form. The OldEnglish "thed," from which the Middle English word derives, is a feminine

• Lydgate, Mummings and Entertainments: Introduction

1415 pageants. For their attribution to Lydgate, see Withington, English Pageantry, 1:132 ff., and the references there. 4 For a discussion of “pageant” as synonymous with “picture,” see Edwards, “Middle English Pageant ‘Picture’?”; Pearsall, John Lydgate, p. 183, discusses tableau

• The Northern Homily Cycle: Homily 52, Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

Homily Collection”; MED: Middle English Dictionary; NHC: Northern Homily Cycle; NIMEV: The New Index of Middle English Verse, ed. Boffey and Edwards; OE: OldEnglish; OED: Oxford English Dic­tionary; OF: Old French; OI: Old Irish; ON: Old Norse; Tubach: Index

• The Life of St. Benedict

of an American robin. Dr. Christine Rauer informs us that the English blackbird and thrush belong to the same ornithological family, Turdus, of which throstel/thrush is the common English name (see Webster's Deluxe Unabridged Dictionary, second ed. [New York: Dorset

• John Wyclif (?), Of Weddid Men and Wifis and of Here Children Also

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,

• The Tournament of Tottenham

MS English 590F; FH = French and Hale edition, in Middle English Metrical Romances (1964); G = Garbáty edition, in Medieval English Literature (1984); H = London, British Library, MS Harley 5396; S = Sands edition, in Middle English Verse

• Hereward the Wake

women's laps. Among them was a jester playing a lute, abusing the English race and performing antics in the middle of the hall meant in imitation of English dancing, who eventually demanded in payment from their lord something which had

• Sir Orfeo

Steward in the Middle English Sir Orfeo," Trivium 7 (1972), 54-60. Several scholars assume that Orfeo's good judgment is evidenced by the ordination of the good steward: A. M. Kinghorn, "Human Interest in the Middle English Sir Orfeo," Neophilologus 50

• The Greene Knight

standing att the gate, And went forth, as I weene, And kneeled downe before the King, Saith, "In lifes dayes old or younge, Such a sight I have not seene! "For yonder att your gates right," He saith, "Heer is

• The Northern Homily Cycle: Homily 46, Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

Cycle; NIMEV: The New Index of Middle English Verse, ed. Boffey and Edwards; OF: Old French; ON: Old Norse; Tubach: Index Exemplorum, ed. Tubach; Whiting: Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly Before 1500. For manuscript abbreviations

• The N-Town Plays: Play 21, Christ and the Doctors

that blyssyd may — In what governauns is she brought? How is sche rewlyd be nyght and day? JHESUS An old man Joseph, as I yow say, Her weddyd be meracle onto his wyff, Her for to fede and kepe

• The Pride of Life

Queen speaks privately with the messenger THE PRIDE OF LIFE: NOTES Abbreviations: CT: Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; MED: Middle English Dictionary; OED: Oxford English Dictionary; s.d.: stage direction; Whiting: Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences, and Pro­verbial Phrases. 4 Although the fragmentary manuscript of

• Second Book of Kings (2 Samuel)

in English Literature, ed. Jeffrey; HS: Peter Comes­tor, Historia Scholastica, cited by book and chapter, followed by Patrologia Latina column in paren­theses; K: Kalén-Ohlander edition; MED: Middle English Dictionary; NOAB: New Oxford Annotated Bible; OED: Oxford English Dictionary; OFP: Old

• Lydgate: Saint Austin at Compton

of Joseph of Arimathea was a move in that direction), but Bede and most of the English churches awarded the title "Apostle of the English" to Pope Gregory himself. At St. Augustine's, Canterbury, however, whose hagiographic traditions may be reflected

• The N-Town Plays: Play 8, Joachim and Anne

Annunciation as had previously been done, but with the story of Joachim and Anna" (English Mystery Plays, p. 161). N-Town is the only one of the English cycles to devote a play to the moment; it sets off the miraculous