Table Of Content64-3339
NOVELLI, Cornelius, 1930-
SIR GOWTHER. [An Edition].
University of Notre Dame, Ph.D., 1963
Language and Literature, general
University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan
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Copyright by
CORNELIUS NOVELLI
1965
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SIR GOWTHER
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Department of English of the
University of Notre Dame in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
by
Cornelius Novelli, M. A.
Director
Department of English
Notre Dame, Indiana
June, 1963
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ii
PREFACE
The present edition of Sir Gowther is undertaken with
the purpose of presenting fully and accurately the two
versions of the poem found in Middle English manuscripts,
together with such textual and literary comment as may
be useful in extending a reader's knowledge of the poem.
The only critical edition of Sir Gowther is that of
Karl Breul.'*’ Breul bases his text on the version in MS.
Advocates 19.3.1, supplying some readings from the version
in MS. Royal 17.B.XLIII. However, he also makes addi
tions and emendations with no basis in either version,
sometimes to obtain an improved reading, sometimes
apparently only to regularize the meter. The text as
Breul presents it, then, is at variance with both MSS.
An important objection to Breul's text arises from
the fact that the narrative in each of the MSS has dis
tinct traits. The story in the Royal version, as Breul
and others have noted, seems to have been told for an
audience of some refinement and culture. The Advocates
^Sir Gowther (Oppeln, 1886), hereafter referred to
as Breul.
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version is more robust and is marked by more alliteration.
Further, the dialectal traits vary widely in the two MSS.
Kaluza, one of the early reviewers of Breul's edition,
suggests that Breul might well have included at least
2
substantial portions of the Royal MS.
Moreover, since the time of Breul's edition a great
deal of research has been done on Middle English and its
dialects, much of which work is now coming to culmination
in the Middle English Dictionary. Some of the findings,
applied to the poem, have served to clear up difficult
or obscure readings. Other findings have been of value,
if not in determining more precisely the place and date
of origin of the poem, at least in confirming Breul's
conclusions.
The literary study is undertaken in the light of
attempts during the past few decades to arrive at a
critical understanding of the popular Middle English
3
romances. Trounce, in hxs extended study, was the
first to apply systematically to the tail-rhyme romances
2
Review of Sir Gowther, Englische Studien, XII
(1889), 78-83.
^A. Mcl. Trounce, "The English Tail-Rhyme Romances,"
Medium Aevum, I (1932), 87-108, 168-182? II (1933), 34-57,
189-198; III (1934), 30-50? hereafter referred to as
Trounce, "Tail-Rhyme Romances."
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iv
the assumption,that, within their conventional type, they
might achieve literary excellence. it should he noted,
however, that this edition does not attempt to present a
definitive critical treatment of Sir Gowther. certain
elements in the poem— e_.g.. , the handling of the incubus
and fatherhood motifs, the anomaly of the hero's baptism,
and the identification of the hero with St. Guthlac—
invite further study along lines other than those fol
lowed by Trounce.
The principal materials used in the present study
were photographic copies of relevant portions of both
manuscripts. Transcripts for use as working copies were
made of these photographic copies, and card indexes were
then made of the words in each version. Research was
done principally in four areas: language, literary
history, critical evaluation, and background. These
proved to be in many ways interrelated, and although the
sections of the study were completed in about the same
order in which they appear, investigation of a single
point often led from one area to another. In an attempt
to eliminate errors, all final checking has been done
against the photographic copies.
I should like to express my thanks to Le Moyne
College, and particularly to the Reverend John V. Curry,
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V
S. J., Chairman of the English Department, for financial
assistance in the form of several grants. I appreciate
too the help of Miss Catherine Kenna and other members
of the college library staff in obtaining materials
from other libraries. To my advisors, Professor
Mortimer J. Donovan and Professor William Holmes Bennett,
I owe a debt of gratitude both for instruction in the
past and for advice and encouragement on the present
project. This study is gratefully dedicated to my wife.
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vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE....................................... il
I. INTRODUCTION .............................. 1
A. DESCRIPTION OF M S S ................... 1
B. LANGUAGE............................. 2
ADVOCATES PHONOLOGY................... 2
ADVOCATES ACCIDENCE................... 9
ROYAL PHONOLOGY....................... 14
ROYAL ACCIDENCE....................... 17
VOCABULARY........................... 20
C. DIALECT AND D A T E ..................... 22
D. STORY TYPE AND HISTORY............... 28
E. LITERARY S T U D Y ....................... 54
F. BIBLIOGRAPHY.......................... 73
II. SIR GOWTHER................................ 83
A. ADVOCATES AND ROYAL TEXTS.............. 83
B. TEXTUAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES......... 158
C. GLOSSARY.............................. 171
VITA........................................... 186
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. THE MANUSCRIPTS
Sir Gowther is extant in two manuscripts.
R. MS. Royal 17.B.XLIII (British Museum) is on
vellum.^ It dates from about the last quarter of the
2
fifteenth century. Sir Gowther begins on folio 116a
and ends on folio 131b. The MS also contains The
Travels of Sir John Mandeville, St. Patrick* s Purgatory:
the Vision of William Staunton, The Vision of Tundale,
and a short religious poem beginning "Com home agayne /
3
Com home agayne / Mi nowine swet hart."
A. MS. Advocates 19.3.1 (National Library of
4
Scotland) is on paper. This MS also dates from about
5
the last quarter of the fifteenth century. Sir Gowther
occupies folios 11a through 28a. The MS is 432 pages
Sir George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson,
Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and
King* s Collections in the British Museum (1921), II, 234.
2,,Plan and Bibliography," Middle English Dictionary,
ed. Hans Kurath and Sherman M. Kuhn (Ann Arbor, 1954),
I, 43; the dictionary will hereafter be referred to as
MED.
3
^Warner and Gilson, _op. cit. , pp. 233-234.
Breul, p. 1.
5"Plan and Bibliography," MED, I, 43.
1
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2
long and contains a variety of material, including
Lydgate1s Stans Puer ad Mensam and a portion of his
g
Life of Our Lady, and Sir Isumbras. Scribes1 names
7
are "heege," "hyheg," and "Iohn howghton"; the
g
latter wrote most of the MS.
B. LANGUAGE
ADVOCATES PHONOLOGY
1. Some rhymes indicate unrounded OE _a in the original:
tane/nan 3, bothe/wothe/skathe 83, yare/mare 117,
wothe/bofre/lofre/rafre 596, rase/was 639, wast/qost
9
717. One rhyme indicates rounded OE _a: doo/to/
10
sloo/woo 179.
2. Rhymes provide no sure evidence of the exact sounds
of OE ae ? (i-umlaut of OE a_) and OE ea. It seems
likely that S 2 becomes a closed sound before point
consonants, both S 2 and a§ rhyming with each other
6
H. S. Bennett, Chaucer and the Fifteenth Century
(Oxford, 1948), p. 165.
^Rossell Hope Robbins, Historical Poems of the
XlVth and XVth Centuries (New York, 1959), p. 390.
^Bennett, op. cit., p. 165.
^In takon/anon/bon/mon 608, takon is either merely
a scribal error for tane, or else perhaps an attempt to
approximate the following -on (originally -an) rhymes;
tane/nan 3 was allowed to remain.
10lf come 440 was originally sone (Breul, p. 186,
n. 456) , as seems likely, then OE a^ may also be assumed
to have been rounded in ton/bon/won.
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