• The Antifeminist Tradition: Introduction

College MS O.9.38, fols. 28r-28v), and R (Rome College MS English 1405 olim 1306, fol. 75v). For a description of R, see Klinefelter, "Newly Discovered," pp. 3-6; and Robbins, "Middle English Diatribe," pp. 131-46. Since the version in R has

• Interludium de clerico et puella

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:

• 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

• Sir Launfal: Introduction

Fellows, Jennifer, ed. Of Love and Chivalry: An Anthology of Middle English Romance London: Dent, 1993. Pp. xviii-xx; 199-229. French, Walter Hoyt, and Charles Brockway Hale, eds. Middle English Metrical Romances. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1930. Pp. 345-80. Rickert, Edith, trans.

• John Lydgate (?), Prohemy of a Mariage Betwixt an Olde Man and a Yonge Wife, and the Counsail

easily caught. The old friend would be inclined to align himself with the noble beasts particularly as a lover; he would tend to think of himself as a hawk rather than a kite. The philosopher shows his old friend the

• The N-Town Plays: Play 3, Cain and Abel

of Adam and Eve, The Middle English Metrical Paraphrase of the Old Testament (line 236), Cursor Mundi (line 1073), the Cornish Creation, and Towneley (2/326). Schapiro ("Cain's Jaw-Bone") sees this par­ticular image in English art from the eleventh through the

• Lydgate, Bycorne and Chychevache

to be certain (John Lydgate, pp. 179–80 and 191n34). 8 Chichevache . . . Bycorne. From Old French Chiche Vache (“Lean Cow”; the Middle English word chiche or chinche had the meanings of “miserly,” “stingy,” or “greedy”), a monster in

• Charles d'Orleans, Fortunes Stabilnes: Introduction

[Includes nine English lyrics.] Steele, Robert, and Mabel Day. The English Poems of Charles of Orleans. 2 vols. EETS o.s. 215, 220. London: Oxford University Press, 1941, 1946; rpt. as one vol., 1970. Watson-Taylor, George. Poems Written in English by

• The Life of St. Thaïs: Introduction

of course, for God, for there is no place that is hidden from the eyes of divinity." When the old man heard this, he said to her, "So you know there is a God?" When Thaïs answers in the affirmative,

• Longer South English Legendary Life of St. Frideswide

of OldEnglish grammar than the recurrent use of "that" with neuter nouns (see textual note to line 13). Then, a form of the definite article that preserves the distinctive n of the masculine singular accusative in OldEnglish, is

• The Northern Homily Cycle: Homily 19, Annunciation

EXPLANATORY NOTES Abbreviations: MED: Middle English Dictionary; NHC: Northern Homily Cycle; NIMEV: The New Index of Middle English Verse, ed. Boffey and Edwards; OF: Old French; Whiting: Whiting, Proverbs, Sentences and Proverbial Phrases from English Writings Mainly Before 1500. For

• The Life of St. Thaïs

Our scribe uses here the Norman form of the Old French word for captive. Compare Chaucer's use of the same word in The Pardoner's Tale, in the self-description of the Old Man as "a restelees kaityf" (CT VI[C]728), and in

• Item 32, Maidstone’s Seven Penitential Psalms: Introduction

“vernacular theology” faced scrutiny after Arch­bishop Arundel’s anti-Lollard Constitutions of 1409, see Watson, “Censorship and Cultural Change in Late-Medieval England.” 12 Pearsall, for example, writes of the “occasional vigour” of the translation (OldEnglish and Middle English Poetry, p. 135).

• The Northern Homily Cycle: Homily 12, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany

Alphabet of Tales, ed. Banks; NEHC: Gerould, North English Homily Collection; NHC: Northern Homily Cycle; NIMEV: The New Index of Middle English Verse, ed. Boffey and Edwards; OE: OldEnglish; OED: Oxford English Dic­tionary; PL: Patrologia Latina, ed. Migne; Tubach:

• The Poems of Laurence Minot 1333-1352: Introduction

(Robbins, "Poems of Humphrey Newton," p. 123) might also have composed lyrics of similar style and interest (Pearsall, OldEnglish and Middle English, p. 226). Perhaps Minot should be thought of, at least in his youth, as a versifying esquire

• The Trials and Joys of Marriage, Introduction

the bawdiness of its sexual humor. The paucity of English works in this genre has prompted medieval scholars to find plausible explanations. Keith Busby, for instance, suggests that French traditions permeated English society so thoroughly that there was no need

• Audelay, Carol Sequence

pp. 211–12, 255; Silverstein, English Lyrics, pp. 105-06 (no. 84); Greene, Early English Carols, pp. 219–20, 442 (no. 369). Modernized Editions: Sisam and Sisam, Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse, pp. 391–93 (no. 160); Davies, Medieval English Lyrics, pp. 170–71,

• Audelay, Carol Sequence

pp. 211–12, 255; Silverstein, English Lyrics, pp. 105-06 (no. 84); Greene, Early English Carols, pp. 219–20, 442 (no. 369). Modernized Editions: Sisam and Sisam, Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse, pp. 391–93 (no. 160); Davies, Medieval English Lyrics, pp. 170–71,

• Audelay, Carol Sequence

pp. 211–12, 255; Silverstein, English Lyrics, pp. 105-06 (no. 84); Greene, Early English Carols, pp. 219–20, 442 (no. 369). Modernized Editions: Sisam and Sisam, Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse, pp. 391–93 (no. 160); Davies, Medieval English Lyrics, pp. 170–71,

• Audelay, Carol Sequence

pp. 211–12, 255; Silverstein, English Lyrics, pp. 105-06 (no. 84); Greene, Early English Carols, pp. 219–20, 442 (no. 369). Modernized Editions: Sisam and Sisam, Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse, pp. 391–93 (no. 160); Davies, Medieval English Lyrics, pp. 170–71,