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 %
 
 'HUCHOWN OF THE AVVLE RYALE' 
 THE ALLITERATIVE POET
 
 PUDI-IRHEn BY 
 
 JAMKS M ACLKHOSE AND SO\S, GLASGOV/, 
 {.Uibltslurs to titc Suibcreit)}. 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., I-TU., LONDON. 
 Ne-w York, •   Tlu Macm llan Co. 
 London, • •   Sitnfikin, Ha unit on and Co, 
 Cambridge, •   A'lacnii/ian and Bowes. 
 Edinburgh,   - Douglas and Foiilis. 
 
 MCMIIc
 
 »J > 3^0*^* *-» > -> ^Ji*.*, >>,> »> 
 
 
 ' Huchown of the Awle Ryale' 
 
 the AlHterative Poet : 
 
 A Historical Criticism of Fourteenth Century 
 Poems ascribed to Sir Hew of Eglintoun 
 
 By 
 
 George Neilson 
 
 Author of "Trial by Combat," etc. 
 
 Glasgow 
 James MacLehose and Sons 
 
 Publishers to the University 
 1902 
 
 82487
 
 GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE fSMVERSITV PRESS 
 BV ROBERT MACLEHOSF, AND CO.
 
 
 HOMAGE AND FEALTY 
 TO 
 
 FREDERIC WILLIAM MAITLAND, 
 
 LL.D., D.C.L.
 
 V 
 
 J" PREFACE 
 
 When, more than a couple of years ago, my previous general interest in 
 the alliterative problems was suddenly roused to an acute pitch by the 
 discovery of the importance of a manuscript in the Hunterian Library, a 
 
 . condition of nescience and chaos prevailed among the critics. That very 
 
 ^ many lines were common to certain of the poems had of course all along 
 
 !^ been seen, though the tendency had grown to account for this very lamely 
 
 ^ by contradictory processes. The great lead given by Sir Frederick Madden 
 
 ^ in the recognition of a group as the work of ' Huchown of the Awle Ryale, 
 
 had been for the most part set aside on grounds of dialect and grammar, 
 
 on which the doctors themselves were at sixes and sevens. Methods of 
 
 <>| analysis had gained currency founded on the false notion that a poet's 
 vocabulary must be constant whether his theme is of war or of love, whether 
 he is singing free or is translating, whether he narrates or moralizes. Too 
 large allowance had been made for scribal variation to prove changes in 
 the dialect of scribes ; too little when to discuss unity. The terrible 
 uncertainty of inferences merely philological had been forgotten, and over- 
 weening Philology had betrayed its trust. The more the objections to a 
 great poetic unity were considered on a re-approach to the question, the 
 less did they satisfy the logic of a broad and rational historical criticism, 
 especially as they were found to embody so much argument on discrepancies 
 in style and subject, which would assuredly make it difficult to accept the 
 common authorship of such works as ' Hamlet ' and ' Midsummer Night's 
 Dream,' as the 'Cottar's Saturday Night' and 'Holy Willie's Prayer,' or 
 as 'In Memoriam ' and the 'Charge of the Light Brigade.' 

 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 At an early stage of my own special studies it became apparent that 
 there existed a mass of clear fact, internal and external, far weightier than 
 any argument previously urged, establishing a cross relationship and inter- 
 penetration of the poems, which on any other hypothesis than that 
 of a single author would be a downright miracle. One has heard vague 
 talk of a ' school.' A school of poets of this splendid calibre were indeed 
 worth having; but it has never been produced, and we have waited long, 
 with unrewarded patience, for any suggestion of the constitution and 
 personnel of such a joint-stock company of genius. Critics who have 
 opposed the proposition of a lofty poetic unity, comparable only with 
 Chaucer, have now forfeited any claim to authority ; for, if authority rests 
 upon fulness of knowledge, little indeed can remain to certain of my recent 
 predecessors in alliterative criticism when confronted with the many 
 central facts now revealed, which were completely beyond their ken, and 
 in ignorance of which their judgments were pronounced. 
 
 Besides, the unique and far-reaching evidences, brought to light by two 
 Hunterian MSS. when compared with the poems, must totally alter the com- 
 plexion of the earlier discussions. We approach the poet from a new 
 base — a base of surprising intimacy with his sources and modes of com- 
 position, and even in some degree of his thought. The mystery is lifted, 
 and not only may we discern who and what he was, but we may at the 
 same time see Arthurian romance in the act of growth, and watch, as it 
 were from within, the movement of a glorious intellect in the fourteenth 
 century. For a mystery of chaos about the person and the work, we 
 have now a definite personality and a series of related poems, with which 
 his own life is bound up, and in which he demonstrates himself as one of 
 the dramatic figures, while yet there remains the fascinating psychological 
 problem, to show how the radiant centre of a Scottish poet's inspiration in 
 so many pieces should have been found in English chivalry, refulgent in 
 the fame of the Round Table and Crecy and Poitiers. 
 
 Speaking as a historical student, it may be allowed me to say that 
 nothing in these researches has occasioned such lively satisfaction to 
 myself as the unexpected emergence of the train of allusions to con- 
 temporary historical episodes, which so vastly deepen the sense and add
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 to the marvel of these poems. It will surprise many to find so much of 
 brilliant English chronicle in Morte Arthure^ and other pieces, as to 
 challenge for them, in virtue of their historical realism, a place of oddly 
 romantic authority as secondary documents for the French wars of Edward 
 III. and his gallant son. And there is still more of Morte Arthure to 
 explain by the same processes in history and heraldry as have made the 
 disclosures recorded within. 
 
 The life of Sir Hew of Eglintoun will have to be written some day. 
 Those who desire to have a preliminary collection of charter references 
 and the like to his career will find it in Sir Hew of Eglintoun, a calendar 
 of events in which he was concerned, compiled from original sources by f) o n 
 
 me some months ago, and contributed to the transactions of the Philo- '^^l , , , c^ 
 
 sophical Society of Glasgow. Having a few reprints, 1 have placed 
 them in the hands of my Publishers, so as to be available for any who 
 may seek to check or supplement the sources of the biographical sketch 
 given in the second chapter of the present book. 
 
 My preface must close in grateful expressions to many friends, 
 particularly to Professor John Young, M.D., Keeper of the Hunterian 
 Museum, whose constant helpfulness alone made possible to me the MS, 
 discoveries now recorded. Monsieur F. J. Amours also has been (alike 
 where we agree and where we differ) the most courteous and obliging of 
 fellow-students in the alliterative Uterature. To Mr. J. T. T. Brown, and 
 his sympathetic attitude towards what I may call my ' plot,' as it developed 
 under my hands, I owe almost as much as I do for his fruitful suggestions, 
 offered to me long ago, of the need for work on present lines for the 
 vindication of the disputed poet. 
 
 The present essay has arisen out of two papers read to the Glasgow 
 
 Archaeological Society on 19th April and 15th December, 1900, recast and 
 
 united and extended. The whole is now reprinted from the Proceedings of 
 
 the Society, with a few alterations and additions, including an index, in 
 
 an edition of 300 copies, whereof 250 are for sale. 
 
 G. N. 
 
 34 Granby Terrace, 
 
 Glasgow, Febntary, 1902. 
 
 ff'
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. Identification Problems — Literary and Personal, - - i 
 
 Barbour and Huchown — Rime and cadence — Wyntoun's allusion to 'Huch- 
 own oft' the Awle Ryale ' and his poems — Dunbar's mention of Sir Hew 
 of Eglintoun — Huchown and Hew as names — List of poems discussed. 
 
 2. Huchown and Sir Hew, 8 
 
 Sir Hew's Biography : Knight, Justiciar, Statesman — His visits to Eng- 
 land — Chivalry— Exchequer. 
 
 3. 'Off the Awle Ryale,' -------- 13 
 
 Aula Regis and ' Kingis Haw ' — Importance of the hall. 
 
 4. Huchown's Poems: The Lines of Correlation, - - 14 
 
 Design of book to prove colligation of the poems claimed as Huchown's — 
 Outline of thesis undertaken — Four types of poems. 
 
 5. HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4. I, 16 
 
 Manuscript of Guido de Columpna's De Excidio Troje, and of the De Preliis 
 AlexaiiJri. 
 
 6. 'The Wars of Alexander,' - 17 
 
 An alliterative poem translating the De Preliis — The Alexander Legend — 
 Relation between Hunterian MS. and the alliterative poem — List of 
 singular agreements — Interjected passage from Maundeville's 
 Itinerariuin. 
 
 7. 'The Destruction of Troy,' 23 
 
 An alliterative poem translating Guido — The Troy Legend and Guido's 
 Troja—K MS. recension of 1354, copied after 1356— Parallel rubrics 
 of Hunterian MS. Guido with those of alliterative poem— Date of the 
 poem.
 
 xii CONTENTS 
 
 8. ' Titus and Vespasian ' ; Its Story, Sources, and Date, - 30 
 
 (0 Troy poem followed by Til us : an alliterative poem on the Siege of 
 Jerusalem. (2) Parallels of 7'jttis, Troy, and Alexander — Midnight 
 council of war at Troy transferred to Jerusalem — Sieges of Tyre, Tenedos, 
 and Jerusalem. (3) Date indications : references to French wars of 
 Edward III. and to the Black Death. 
 
 9. ' MoRTE Arthure'j Its Sources, Contents, and Parallels, 40 
 
 (i) An alliterative poem giving a free rendering of Geoffrey of Monmouth's 
 />';-«/— The story and its other sources. (2) Maundeville's Itinerariuni 
 a source. (3) A chapter from sanctuary law. (4) Voetix du Paon 
 greatly used. (5) 7>7//j- used — Shaving ambassadors ; dragon-banner; 
 .arming of Vespasian and of Arthur. (6) Supplementary French sources. 
 (7) Use of Troy and Alexander — Long series of parallels. (8) Events 
 of 1346-64 as sources — Battle of Crecy — Sea-fight of Winchelsea — 
 Warfare in France — Battle near Adrianople — Allusion to 'apparent 
 heir' — Inference of a date circa 1364-5 — Edward III. hero. 
 
 10. The Parlement of the Thre Ages, 67 
 
 (i) S|)ecial tests of unity of authorship and of sequence. (2) Plot of the 
 Parleinent. (3) Its parallels, of identical lines, with G away nc and the 
 Green Knight, Alexander, Trjy, Tilics, and Alorte Arlhure. (4) Main 
 sources of Parlement, including Brut and Voetix du Paon — Plot drawn 
 from Troy — Poetic value of the Parlement. 
 
 11. Huchown's Copy of 'Geoferey of Monmouth,' - - - 85 
 
 Munteriau MS. U. 7. 25 probably the poet's own copy of ' Geoffrey' — Its 
 remarkable autograph rubrications. 
 
 12. Clues to 'Titus' and ' Wynnere and Wastoure,' - - 89 
 
 (I) Tile Dragon in 7>V«5 indicated by rubric of MS. 'Geoffrey.' (2) Plot 
 of Wynnere and Wastoure revealed by other rubrics — Belinus and 
 Brennius — Thomas of Erceldoun — Friars, Bishop, and Pope — King, 
 Judges, and Scharshill — Garter mutlo. 
 
 13. Huchown's Rubrications of 'Geoffrey,' . . . - 99 
 
 Autograph rubrications added to MS., presumably by the alliterative poet — 
 Clues thus furnished, chiefly to Morte Arthure and Erkcnwald — Text 
 of rubrications.
 
 CONTENTS xiii 
 
 PAOE 
 
 14. ' Erkenwald,' 'Awntyrs of Arthure,' and 'The Pearl,' - 105 
 
 (i) F.rheiiwald a singular alliterative poem concerning a buried judge — Its 
 connection with the rubrications of the MS. ' Geoffrey' — The years 482 
 and 1033— The Judge and Dunwallo. (2) The plot of the rimed 
 alliterative Awutyrs drawn from Trentalle SaiicH Gregorii — Same 
 source for Pearl — Stray notes on Cleanness and /ia:/?V«f£— Tabulation 
 of relation betwixt I'rentalle and Awntyrs, Pearl, and Erkenwald. 
 
 15. On System of Verse, Dialect, Characteristics, Date, and 
 
 Nationality, 117 
 
 (i) System of verse — ' Cadence '—Rime and alliteration combined. (2) 
 Dialect : an admixture. (3) Dates for the poems— Allusions to Garter 
 and Round Table. (4) Scottish indications present throughout, but 
 poems not, on the surface, assertively patriotic — Parallel and contrast 
 between them and the work of Barbour. 
 
 16. Diagram of the Argument, - - 127 
 
 (i) The fifteen propositions considered proved— Diagrammatic chart 
 shewing colligation of poems. (2) Application of characteristics of 
 poems to Sir Hew — His armorial bearing. 
 
 17. Galleroun and Golagros— a Decisive Per.sonal Clue, - 131 
 
 Riming alliterative poem Golagros and Gaivayne shewn to contain history 
 thinly veiled— Golagros King John of France — Gawayne the Black 
 Prince — Carcassonne — The white horse — Poitiers. Awjityrs also histori- 
 cal — Arthur Edward HI.; the crowned lady Queen Johanna of Scotland — 
 Galleroun Sir Robert of Erskine — Galleroun's arms and crest — His 
 companion, 'a freke on a Fresone,' identified with Sir Hew — Chivalry 
 and the Table Round— Heraldry in the poems. 
 
 18. Conclusions, - - - 138 
 
 Propositions of the book now numbering eighteen — General estimate of 
 Huchown's achievement— The incomplete inscription Hugo de [ ] 
 completed by the romantic revelation of the companion of Galleroun.
 
 LIST OF FACSIMILES. ETC. 
 
 Didicerat enim linguam eorutii, - - - - 
 
 From Ilunterian MS. of Geoffrey of Monmouth. 
 
 Crumpled fly-leaf, - 
 
 A^ota bene on 'Venna,' * - 
 Woseil note, . - -   _ . . 
 
 Fiery Dragon note, ------ 
 
 Council of war by night, ----.. 
 
 Arthur's St. Mary shield, ----- 
 
 Liichis Imperator^ ...... 
 
 All from Hunterian MS. of Geoffrey of Monmouth. 
 
 Diagram shewing connection of the poems, 
 Arms of Sir Hew of Eglintoun, 
 Seal of Sir Robert of Erskine, used in 135 7-1 359, 
 Erskine Crest, ------- 
 
 i'A(;e 
 87 
 
 to face p. 100 
 
 do. 102 
 
 do. 1 04 
 
 129 
 130 
 '34 
 134
 
 'HUCHOWN OF THE AVVLE RYALE,' THE 
 ALLITERATIVE POET. 
 
 I. Identification Problems, Literary and Personal. 
 
 Once it was the fashion to regard Barbour's Bruce as the beginning ot 
 Scottish poetry. The sources from which it sprang were little if at all 
 considered. One was content to pluck the bluebell without troubling 
 over the soil in which it grew. If it did occur to anybody to ponder for 
 a moment over the relation of Barbour to his time he was thought of as 
 a somewhat artless but faithful chronicler of the deeds of Bruce. Always 
 the estimate was of Barbour as historian. The conception of the literary 
 craftsman had scarcely dawned. But he was a literary craftsman of no 
 common order, well read in medieval Latinity and French. He was a 
 facile and spirited translator as well as an admirable exponent in Scots ot 
 the manner of the French chanson de geste, and The Bruce has the rare 
 distinction of being in the same breath an invaluable and veracious history 
 and a triumph of Scottish literature. 
 
 Great though Barbour's merits are, however, they will not stand a 
 moment's comparison with those of his lofty contemporary, ' Huchown of 
 the Awle Ryale,' whose journey along the tangled pathway of verse probably 
 began somewhat earlier than Barbour's, and the quality of whose poetic 
 achievement far eclipses that of the Archdeacon of Aberdeen. 
 
 Huchown of the Awle Ryale probably soon after his poetic course began 
 made translations, and there are many interesting analogies of theme to those 
 believed to have been selected by Barbour, and known to have influenced 
 his entire work. The most interesting contrast is that while the later poet 
 selected an octosyllabic rime, the earlier adopted alliterative verse, depend-
 
 2 'HUCIIOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE ' [Ch, 
 
 ing for its music on those stresses of repeated letters, or 'cadences* which 
 our wise King James VI. (translating 'cadence') was one day to classify as 
 'tumbling verse' — the '■rim ram rof^ system, designated as northern by 
 Chaucer. A second contrast lies in the fact that as in the Bruce, Barbour 
 left translation and betook himself to the facts of Bruce's life for his theme, 
 Huchown went for his inspiration to history of another sort, to 'history' 
 as recorded in the Briil or Hisioria Briionum of Geoffrey of Monmouth, 
 making that the skeleton and frame for his Morte Arthure, which ranks so 
 high among the contributions to the great Arthurian cycle. 
 
 The analysis of Huchown's work, and the determination of its chrono- 
 logical order or limits, of necessity involve the discussion of the intricate 
 question of the poet's identity. Was Huchown of the Awle Ryale Sir 
 Hew of Eglintoun ? What is Sir Hew's biography ? And what bearing 
 has that biography on the understanding of the poetical work? 
 
 Not till the close of the eighteenth^ century was it proposed to identify 
 Sir Hew of Eglintoun with Huchown. The all-important words about the 
 poet are those of Wyntoun, the chronicler, whose Orygyiiale Cronykil was 
 written about 1420. In looking at the passage about Huchown it is needful 
 to remember that it was no formal biographical sketch or regular bibliography, 
 but a mere parenthesis in the question more engrossing to Wyntoun at the 
 time, whether Lucius Iberius was Emperor or only Procurator. Wyntoun, 
 after an enumeration of Arthur's conquests, obviously paraphrased from Morte 
 Arthure^- relates the demand of tribute from Arthur made by the Roman 
 Emperor Leo — the ' hawtane message,' 
 
 Thai wiittyn in The Bnvte is kend ; 
 
 And Huchown off the Awle Ryale 
 
 In till his Gest Hystorialle^ 
 
 Has tretyd this mar cwnnandly 
 
 Than suffycyand to pronowns am I. 
 
 ( Wyntoun, v. 4292-6. ) 
 
 ' Huchown was apparently not associated with Sir Hew by MacPherson editing Wyntoun 
 in 1795 {Wyntoun, ed. Lainj;, iii. p. 225). See note to the Huchown passage in 
 MacPherson's edition. 
 
 -Wyntoun, v. 11. 4271-89. 
 
 ■' That this denotes Morte Arthure is plain both rom what goes before and from 
 what follows.
 
 i] IDENTIFICATION PROBLEMS 3 
 
 At this point Wyntoun is struck by the thought that somebody may censure 
 him for referring to Leo and not to Lucius Iberius as Emperor. He there- 
 fore offers a gentle apology, and excuse of himself, for not following 
 Huchown and the Ges^ Historialle (that is, Morie Arthure) in this respect, 
 justifying his position by an appeal to authorities — 
 
 As in oure niatere we procede, 
 Sum man may fall this buk to rede 
 Sail call the Autour to rekles, 
 Or argue perchans hys cunnandnes. 
 Syne Huchow iie oft' the Avvle Ryale 
 In till his Gest Hystoryalle 
 Cauld Lucius Iliberius empryourc 
 Quhen King oft' Brettane was Arlhoure. 
 Huchowne bath and the Autore 
 Gyltles ar oflFgret errore — 
 
 because, as Wyntoun goes on to show, certain historians, Martinus Polonus, 
 Vincent of Beauvais, and Orosius 
 
 Cald noucht this Lucyus Empryoure 
 Quhen Kyng off' Brettane was Arthoure ; 
 Bot off" The Bnvte the story sayis 
 That Lucius Hiberius in hys dayis 
 Wes of the hey state Procurature, 
 Nowthir cald Kyng, na Empryoure. 
 
 {^Wyntoun, v. 4297-318.) 
 
 As the Brut had styled Lucius only Procurator, not Emperor, Wyntoun 
 pleaded that he himself was free from blame in not making an Emperor 
 
 of him : 
 
 Fra blame than is the Autore qwyte 
 
 As befor hym he fand to wryte ; 
 
 And men off"gud discretyowne 
 
 Suld excuse and love Huchowne, 
 
 That cunnand was in literature. 
 
 He made the Gret Gest off Arthure 
 
 And the Azuntyre off Gawane [One MS. reads Aventuris.] 
 
 The Pystyll als off Sioete Swsaiie. 
 
 He wes curyws in hys style 
 
 Fayre off" facund and subtille 
 
 And ay to plesans and delyte 
 
 Made in metyre mete his dyte,
 
 4 'HUCIIOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE [Ch. 
 
 Lytill or nowchl nevyrlheles 
 Waveiand fra the .sulhfastncs. 
 Had he cald Lucyus Procuraluie 
 Quhenc thai he cald liyni iMiipyroure 
 Thai liad mare grevyd llie cadcns ' 
 Than had rclevyd ihe sentens. 
 (Wyniotiii, V. 4321-36, compare vol. iii. ai)px. to preface, pp. xxvi-vii.) 
 
 Nothing in this passage, having regard to the conditions evoking it, need 
 incline us to suppose that the Great Gest of Art/iure, the Awntyre of Gawane, 
 and the Pistil of Susan were necessarily the entire volume of Huchown's 
 work. The list, brief as it is, has proved of immense service as grouping 
 three works of three sorts — historic, courtly-chivalric, and religious — in 
 three metres. Critics are now tolerably well united in the identification of 
 two of the poems named. The Pistil, a riming alliterative paraphrase of 
 the story of Susanna and the Elders, is free from all dubiety, and main- 
 tains its existence still under the name ascribed to it by Huchown. The 
 Great Gest of Artkure also is with a considerable measure of agreement, 
 short of unanimity, accepted as the important alliterative romance-history, 
 the Morte Arthure — that ' Gest of Tlie Brufs old story,' which Wyntoun 
 knew right well. The prowess and the fates of Arthur he tells us were there 
 treated of 'curiously' by Huchown. All his fortunes, down to the tragic close, 
 
 (^uhare he and hys Round Tabyll qwyte 
 Wes undone and discumfyle, 
 Huchown has irelyd curyously 
 In Gest of Broyttys auld story. 
 
 {IVyntotui, V. 4363-6.) 
 
 Upon the third poem mentioned by Wyntoun, The Awntyre of Gawane, 
 
 there are conflicting judgments. The great and learned scholar in record 
 
 and romance. Sir Frederick Madden, editing his magnificent text and 
 
 study of .Viv Gaivayne for the Bannatyne Club, thought it was the 
 
 ^ That Wynloun by ' cadens ' means allileralion as opposed lo rime seems cerlain from 
 Rolle of Hainpole, ed. Horslman, ii. 345, wherein a piece of mingled prose and rime largely 
 alliterative is said lo be a 'tretys in Cadence after the begynninge gif hit beo rihl poynled 
 and Rymed in sum slude.' This important passage to which Prof. Carl Horslman kindly 
 directed me is quite in keeping with the antithesis made by Gower, Coiifessio Amantis 
 (ed. Macaulay, bk. iv., 1. 2414) 'of rime and of cadence,' and by Chaucer, House of /■'ante, 
 1. 623, 'In ryme or elles in cadence.' See note, chapter 15, sec. i, below.
 
 i] 'THE GUDE SIR HEW 5 
 
 poem Gaivayne and the Green Knight. My eminent friend, M. Amours, 
 
 editor of the admirable volume of Scottish Alliterative Foenis (Scot. Text 
 
 Soc, 1897) considers that the Awntyre of Gawane was the poem called 
 
 the Aivntyrs of Arthur^ which contains powerful internal evidence of the 
 
 hand that shaped Morte Arthurc. I am in the happy position of at least 
 
 accepting the completeness of M. Amours' proofs that the Aivntyrs of 
 
 Arthur was Huchown's, although bound to dispute his argument against 
 
 Sir Hew of Eglintoun having been Huchown of the Awle Ryale. 
 
 Points for this identification are briefly (i) that the poems fall naturally 
 
 into Sir Hew's lifetime ; (2) that as a brother-in-law of Robert the Steward, 
 
 afterwards Robert II., and a court official under David II. and Robert II., 
 
 he might well acquire the familiar surname ' of the Awle Ryale ' (king's 
 
 or royal hall) ; and (3) that the poetic renown of this Sir Hew, as well 
 
 as the character of his work, is convincingly attested by Dunbar's Lament 
 
 for the Makaris, which, after naming the Englishmen, Chaucer, Lydgate, 
 
 and Gower, returns to tell of Hew of Eglintoun, Andrew of Wyntoun, and 
 
 a third Scotsman as also among the victims of Death. 
 
 He has done petuously devour 
 
 The noble Chaucer of Makaris flouir 
 
 The Monk of Bery and Gower all thre 
 
 Til/tor mortis co)itnrb(xl iiu\ 
 
 The gude Sh- Hew of Eglintoun 
 And eik Heryot and Wyntown 
 He has tane out of this countrie 
 
 Timor mortis coiitiirhat me. 
 
 Various considerations have been advanced against the identification of the 
 good Sir Hew with Huchown. It has been urged that the poems from 
 their religious cast must have been written by an ecclesiastic. The reply 
 appears in the adjective ' the gude,' which tradition had, according to Dunbar, 
 associated with Sir Hew's name. Chiefly objection was taken that 
 Huchown, as a familiar diminutive, implied a quite subordinate rank and posi- 
 tion, and could never have been applied to a nobleman of Sir Hew's standing. 
 But a marriage contract^ of a Scottish lord in 1416 styles him ' Huchon 
 
 ^ Regisincii/ Magiii SigH/i, 1424-1513, No. 17S, continning and incorporating in 1430 
 a deed granted in 1416.
 
 6 'IIUCnOWN OF THE AVVLE KYALE' [Cn. 
 
 Fraser lord of the Lovvet.' There is a distinct body of proof (i) that 
 tlie name Huchown, the old Scottish equivalent of Hugo, was of French 
 origin, derived from Hugutio ; (2) that in Scotland Hew and Huchown 
 were alternative vernacular forms from the end of the fourteenth to the 
 end of the fifteenth century; and (3) that ultimately Hew prevailed. 
 The Frasers of Lovat used the style Huchon in 1416, Huchoune in 1429, 
 but Hew in 147 1. The Campbells of l.oudoun used the style Huchon 
 in 145 1, Huchone in 1454, but Hew in the sixteenth century. Historically 
 Huchown as a Christian name is a distinctively Scottish type receiving in the 
 north a measure of formal and official recognition not apparently shown in 
 English documents of the period.^ The external evidence, although meagre, 
 is thus so distinct and consistent as to point to Sir Hew of Eglintoun 
 and to no other known personage. Moreover, there is abundant indication 
 internally that the author of the poems in question was a person of dignity, 
 at ease in all matters of knightly courtesy and demeanour, and able to 
 touch with authority on delicate questions of courtly precedence. 
 
 Another outstanding difficulty is the contrast of the poet's language with, 
 say, that of Barbour or Wyntoun. And there is contrast not less strong between 
 the tone adopted by Huchown and that of the other two towards England. 
 These contrasts have been held by some to be so great as to make 
 certain of the works impossible for a Scot. Indeed the latest theorists 
 have gone to the heroic extreme of actually claiming Huchown as English : 
 one placing the Awie Ryale at Oxford,- the other announcing the discovery 
 of one 'Hugh the Bukberere ' at Cambridge from 1353 to 1370, whose 
 having been a book porter, in so august a spot, perhaps satisfies the 
 intellect of his talented sponsor as a sufficient reason for advancing his 
 name in the poetic category.^ Many men, many minds ; there has been 
 
 ' For many references and a full discussion see chapter iv. of my Sir Hexv of Eglintoun 
 in the Trausadions of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, 1900-01. 
 
 -See Mr. Henry Bradley in Athenaeum of 22nd December, 1900, and my reply ol 
 iQlh January, 1901. In his rejoinder on 23rd February, 1901, Mr. Bradley appears to 
 admit his inaljility to produce evidence in support of his hyj)othesis. After this frank- 
 ness of course there is no more to say. 
 
 ^ See report of Philological Society meeting (paper by .Mr. Israel Gollancz) in 
 Athenaeum, 23rd November, 1901.
 
 I] THE WORKS DEBATED -j 
 
 no end to the diversity of conclusions, critical, literary, and philological, 
 on the precise dialect of Huchown, and his actual poetical performance. 
 We are brought back to these problems to acknowledge that the Huchown 
 poems, although admittedly containing innumerable signs of northern diction 
 and influence, are yet not in any known and normal Scottish dialect. On 
 the other hand who knows what was the dialect of English used in courtly 
 circles of Scotland under Robert the Bruce ? Such a consideration is 
 itself enough to show that the dialect is not the obstacle to Sir Hew of 
 Eglintoun which some have too hastily deemed. History, moreover, points 
 with pikestaff plainness to a Scot. Philologists despairingly point the other 
 way. When the philologist stands up against history he has a habit of 
 going to the wall. 
 
 To identify the poet is one problem, to settle what were his works is 
 another. Purely alliterative pieces claimed, directly and indirectly, for 
 Huchown before the present enquiry began, included 
 
 Morte Arthure (4346 lines), edited for the Early English Text Society, 
 
 1865; also by Mrs. M. M. Banks (Longmans), 1900: 
 Destruction of Troy (14,044 lines), also edited E.E.T.S., 1869-74: 
 Cleanness (1812 lines), Patience (531 lines), also edited (E.E.T.S.) in 
 Early English Alliterative Poems, 1864. 
 Pieces in alliteration and rime similarly claimed include 
 
 Gaivayne and the Green Knight (2530 Hnes), edited for the Bannatyne 
 Club in Sir Frederick Madden's Syr Gawayne, re-edited E.E.T.S., 
 1864, and reprinted 1869, 1893, and 1897 : 
 Golagros and Gaivayne (1362 lines), Awntyrs of Arthure (715 
 lines), Pistill of Susan (364 lines), all last edited by M. Amours 
 in Scottish Alliterative Poems for the Scottish Text Society, 
 1897: 
 The Pearl (1212 lines), edited E.E.T.S., in Early English Alliterative 
 Poems, 1864; also by Mr. Israel GoUancz (Nutt, 1891). 
 Other purely alliterative poems now discussed include these : — 
 The Wars of Alexander (5677 lines), edited E.E.T.S., 1886: 
 Titus and Vespasian or The Sege of Jerusalem (1332 lines), edited by 
 Gustav Steffler (Marburg, 1891), usually cited within as Titus:
 
 8 'IIUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Cii. 
 
 77/1? Parlement of the Thre Ages (665 lines), Wynnerc and IVasfoure 
 
 (503 lines), both edited for the Roxburghe Club, 1897 : 
 Erkonvald (352 lines) edited in Prof. Carl Horstman's Alfenglische 
 
 Legenden, Neue Folge, Heilbronn, 1881. 
 Three or four other pieces, all short, should have been discussed also. 
 Only where the evidences appear direct and absolute have conclusions on 
 authorship been advanced here. 
 
 2. HUCHOWN AND SiR HeW. 
 
 There having been elsewhere ^ worked out a biographical calendar of the 
 life of Sir Hew of Eglintoun in detail, with full references, no more need 
 now be repeated than serves to present the salient outlines of the 'good 
 Sir Hew's' career. Sprung from an Ayrshire family, his nearest known 
 ancestor (supposed to have been his father, but possibly his grandfather), 
 Ralf of Eglintoun, owner of an estate near Irvine, submitted to Edward 
 I. at the outbreak of the war of Independence, but from 1297 until 1342 
 absolutely nothing has been found recorded of the laird of Eglintoun, or of 
 the youth of Hew. A relationship with the More family, specially connected 
 with the monastery of Sempringham in Lincolnshire, has been treated as 
 suggestive of a possible education in England, a feature of the first half 
 of fourteenth century Scotland far from uncommon. Of such an education 
 there is no direct evidence in Hew's case, but in the course of the present 
 researches - there has emerged, in fourteenth century manuscript, believed to 
 have been from Huchown's pen, not only the fact that the author of the 
 Huchown poems was deeply interested in hostages, but the remarkable hint 
 that he might himself have been a hostage in England and learned ' their 
 language and their manners ' — itjigiiam eorum et mores — there. At no time 
 between 1279 and 1340 was such a thing in the least improbable, and if the 
 
 ' In Sir Hew of Eglintoun above mentioned. 
 
 -See chapter 11 below. This minor point for Huchown's problems was discovered 
 <ifler Sir Htw of Eglintoun was in print,
 
 2] SIR HEW OF EGLINTOUN 9 
 
 inference from the manuscript could be demonstrated to be historically a 
 fact, the long silence about Hew's parents and himself in childhood would 
 be accounted for, while at the same time the difficulty occasioned by the 
 English-ness of the Huchown poems in dialect and tone would simply 
 disappear. As it is, the hostage hypothesis can adduce for itself no single 
 ascertained fact, and its documentary base though most interesting, will 
 carry historically a quite different structure. 
 
 Of Hew's youth nothing is certain. His birth must have been prior to 
 132 1, as he was not knighted until 1342, so that in the latter year he 
 must have attained at least twenty-one, the years o{ knighthood. But as 
 Ralf of Eglintoun, his ancestor, was not a knight, so that Hew did not 
 inherit his rank, he may well have been considerably over one and twenty 
 when he was dubbed by the hand of David H. while on the eve of setting 
 out on an ill-starred expedition into England. 
 
 Already in that year David had invaded England and burnt Penrith, 
 
 passing, no doubt, the poetic Tarn Wadling in course of his march. 
 
 Subsequently, a second time crossing the border, one of his invading 
 
 squadrons, including the newly made knights, fell into an ambush laid by 
 
 Robert of Ogle, with the result that amongst others the knight of Eglintoun 
 
 was captured. 
 
 On bathe the halffis slane war men ; 
 Bot the knychtis the wers had then 
 For thare folk vencust ware ilkane, 
 And fyve knychtis in fycht ware tane, 
 Stwart, Eglyntown and Cragy, 
 Boyde and Fowlartown. Thir worthy 
 Ogill has had till his presowne, 
 And syne delyveryd thame for rawnsoune. 
 
 (i-Vyntoujt, viii. 6003- lO.) 
 
 Sir Hew makes his first appearance in the business records of Scotland 
 in 1347, when he received a grant of a 'relief (a feudal casualty or 
 perquisite) from Robert the Steward, nephew of the King and grandson 
 of Robert the Bruce. In 1348 a charter shews that he was then married 
 to Agnes More, daughter of the late Chamberlain of Scotland, Sir Reginald 
 More. Throughout his whole public career Sir Hew (always styled ' Hugo ' 
 in Latin deeds relative to him, and once ' Mons. Hugh ' in a document in
 
 ,o 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE' [Cii, 
 
 French) was associated with the Steward. The chief house of that family 
 was at Dundonald, and Eglintoun was the adjoining manor. Constantly Sir 
 Hew is found acting as a witness to charters and similar public writings by 
 the Steward. Both the Steward and Sir Hew are found in very freciuent 
 attendance on the King. They of course followed the court. 
 
 Sir Hew not only does not appear to have been either a prisoner or 
 a hostage during the captivity of David l\. after 1346, but public docu- 
 mentary references in 1347 and 1348 prove him to have been in Scotland 
 (luring that captivity. In 1358 he received safe conduct to go to England, 
 as he did again in the beginning of 1359. Associates of his from this 
 time onward were Sir Robert of Erskine and Sir Archibald of Douglas, 
 best known as Archibald the Grim, who, though usually thought of as a 
 soldier, was probably better known to his own time as a diplomatist and 
 judge. At London, in February 1359, Sir Robert of Erskine and Sir Hew 
 appended their signets in the absence of the Great Seal of Scotland to an 
 agreement relative to the liberation and ransom of David H., a prisoner in 
 England from 1346, when he had been captured at Durham. 
 
 In 1360 Sir Hew makes his appearance^ as a Justiciar of Scotland along 
 with Sir Robert of Erskine effecting an agreement of assythment for slaughter 
 in a feud between the Drummonds and Menteiths. 
 
 Meanwhile Sir Hew's first wife must have died, and about 1360 he is 
 found married a second time — to Dame Egidia, a half-sister of Robert the 
 Steward, who granted to him and her an annual-rent of wax. 
 
 Th(i year 1363 was eventful in the intrigue of Anglo-Scottish policy. 
 Towards the end of April Sir Hew had safe conduct to England and 
 Canterbury, and it is suggested that this visit had to do with the great 
 tiltings held during the first five days of May in connection with St. 
 George's Festival and the Round Table of Edward III These celebrations 
 of the Order of the Garter were held at that time. There were also later 
 in the year special celebrations in honour of the fiftietli birthday of 
 Edward III., and Sir Robert of Erskine and Sir Hew were both in London. 
 David II. himself was there also, and on 27th November an agreement 
 
 ^ Booi of Menteith, ii. 239.
 
 2] SIR HEW OF EGLINTOUN II 
 
 was reached between the two kings that, failing heirs-male of the body of 
 David, the King of England should succeed to the kingdom of Scotland. 
 Erskine was a party to this agreement : Sir Hew's position towards it is 
 not clear, bui his knowledge of it must be assumed. The Scottish Parlia- 
 ment, on 4th March, 1364, refused to sanction the agreement. Erskine 
 was sent back to London to negotiate better terms, and a revised provisional 
 agreement was drawn up whereby, failing heirs-male of the body of David II., 
 the throne of Scotland was to pass to a son of the King of England other 
 than the heir-apparent. The prince in view was Lionel, second son of 
 Edward III. David II., a pleasure-loving king, was from about 1358 on- 
 wards hand and glove with his brother-in-law, the English King. He did all 
 in his power in 1363 and 1364 to set aside the rights of the Steward of 
 Scotland as heir to the Scottish throne and to substitute Edward or one of 
 his children. Wyntoun naively hits off the situation : 
 
 The Kyng Davy in Yngland raid, 
 As dfft tym in oys he had, 
 And al Lundoun play him wald he ; 
 For thare was rycht great specialte 
 Betwen hym and the Kyng Edward. 
 
 — IVyutoifn, viii. 7047. 
 
 English policy and Scottish intrigue — for Scotland itself was reluctant — 
 were at work to effect a union in the future, for David II. had no lawful 
 child, and his second wife, Margaret of Logic, was no longer young. In 
 July, 1365, parliament at Perth sanctioned a treaty whereby Scotland 
 should aid England (if invaded) with 1000 men and England should aid 
 Scotland with 500. 
 
 Sir Hew from about 1366 held various offices as Bailie of Cunningham 
 and Chamberlain of Irvine — judgeships as deputy of the feudal lord, with 
 functions of administration accompanying — under the Steward, of whom he 
 was the trusted adviser. These offices were partly judicial, partly financial. 
 The burgh of Irvine lay near to both Dundonald and Eglintoun ; it was a 
 leading seaport of tiie West at that time, and the Steward is known to 
 have been a yachtsman fond of cruising on the Clyde. 
 
 Border treaty negotiation occupied Sir Hew in 1367. Early in 1368
 
 12 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Cii. 
 
 he went to London. That summer he was legislating for the ' Out Isles ' 
 and inspecting royal castles, as well as probably assisting the king in judicial 
 appeals. David II., in 1369, raised an action of divorce against Queen 
 Margaret, in connection with which Sir Hew's passage to France — and 
 probably to Rome or Avignon — between June, 1369, and January, 1370, 
 probably took place. A normal route to Rome in the fourteenth century 
 passed through Lucerne across Mount ' Godard ' into Lombardy, through 
 Como, Milan, Pontremoli, Pietrasanta, Pisa, and Viterbo. (So Adam of 
 Usk ^ travelled, and so journeyed King Arthur's invading army in Morte 
 Arthurs.) Soon after Sir Hew's return the divorce was granted in Scotland 
 — in Lent, 1370. Margaret was maintaining her appeal in 137 1 when David 
 II. died. 
 
 Under Queen Margaret's influence the Steward had been thrust back 
 from his rights. When she fell out with her husband the Steward was 
 restored to his uncle's friendship. On the death of David — though not 
 without a struggle, in which the promptness of success was due to Sir Robert 
 of Erskine — the Steward succeeded to the throne under the title of Robert 
 II. Huchown's life-long patron, friend, and kinsman by marriage now 
 reigned, and his possession of the royal confidence and regard was thence- 
 forward in constant evidence. After the coronation Sir Hew acted as one 
 of a very special privy council - de stain seu modo vivendi ipsitis Regis et etiam 
 Regine, concerning the management of the royal household — a function from 
 which a particular association of his name with the ' Awle Ryale,' or royal 
 palace, may readily have arisen. 
 
 The age was the heyday of chivalry, and a thousand signs shew that the 
 movement which had produced the Round Table in England was active in 
 Scotland too.^ If Edward III. was fond of hawking,* Robert II. was 
 historically no less devoted to tlie chase '' and fond of the sea.'' Perhaps it 
 may be lawful to argue ' Like king, like courtier.' 
 
 ^ Adam of Usk, 72-73. From London to Rome the journey occupied 41 days. 
 ^ Ads Pari. Scot., i. 547. -'This is shewn in Trial by Combat, part vi. 
 
 *Adam Murimuth's Chronicon (Eng. Hist. Soc), 226. 
 ^ Liber Plitscardmsis, i. 311. '^ Exchequer Rolls, iii. 667, etc.
 
 3] THE 'AWLE RYALE * I3 
 
 Financially Sir Hew repeatedly appears as a man of means, from 
 whom his royal brother-in-law did not disdain to borrow. His capacity in 
 money matters, as well as his relationship to the king, no doubt influenced 
 his selection as an Auditor in Exchequer. And it is of peculiar interest to 
 find Archdeacon John Barbour as his colleague. The Stewart influence 
 favoured literature. Sir Hew and Barbour were called to Exchequer 
 office at one time. Barbour in 1373 was an auditor, and in 1374 clerk 
 of audit. The Bruce, written in 1376, contains alliterative quotations^ from 
 The Destruction of Troy, one of the supposed Huchown poems. 
 
 Now, Sir Hew's day was drawing to its close. In June, 1376, he received 
 from Robert a grant of annual-rents in Ayrshire, with special license of mort- 
 main, that is, leave to settle them for religious purposes. There is reason to 
 believe that he made a will providing for masses to be said for his soul in 
 the Abbey of Kilwinning, an establishment adjacent to Eglintoun. Between 
 30th November, 1376, and 3rd February, 1377, Sir Hew died, and probably 
 was laid to rest in Kilwinning Abbey Choir, where at any rate masses 
 are recorded to have been long celebrated for the weal of his soul. 
 
 3. ' Off the Awle Ryale.' 
 
 The briefest recapitulation 2 must suffice to enunciate the proposition that 
 ' the Awle Ryale ' of Wyntoun's odd reference is a vernacular shape of Atila 
 Regis, Regia, or Regalis, and that it was the Aula Regis or king's hall of 
 Scotland, which conferred the personal epithet in question. Aule, a hall, 
 appears in old law-French, and in the Huchown poems themselves such 
 phrases as 'roy reall,' ' dese riall,' and 'sete riall' are in common use. 
 
 On the Continent, in England, and in Scotland the Aula Regis was from 
 an early date the great place of law, subdividing later into a variety of 
 
 1 See my John Barbour, Poet and Translator (Kegan, Paul & Co., 1900), pp. 10, II. 
 
 ^For details and proofs see my Sir Hew of Eglintoun, above referred to, chap. v. 
 The great importance in Scotland attached to the court institutions is strikingly brought 
 out by a document discovered by my friend Miss Mary Bateson in a Cambridge Corpus 
 Christi College MS. (C.C.C.C. 37) containing much regarding offices and functions. It 
 will shortly be edited by her.
 
 l^ 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLF. RVALF' [Ch. 
 
 administrative, financial, and legal jurisdictions. The High Steward held 
 lofty ceremonial authority there, and the Justiciars' place of session was by 
 metaphor of English law, ' as the king's hall ' — sicut auhun regiaiii. The 
 king sat in judgment there, and the king's justiciars sat for him. In Marie 
 Arthure (11. 524-5) the hall is 'the most royal place' of the Round Table. 
 In fourteenth and fifteenth century public documents of Scotland 'Aula 
 Regis,' ' Aula Regia,' ' Kingis Haw,' ' Kingis Hall ' has varied currency as a 
 place of royal dignity and law, with courtly and exchequer as well as judicial 
 functions. With each of these Sir Hew was in direct and sustained con- 
 nection. To each of these also the Huchown poems show a similarly 
 sustained series of relations.^ To conjoin Huchown with Sir Hew and the 
 Awle Ryale with the Court of Scotland appears therefore not merely 
 reasonable ; the facts constrain it. 
 
 4. Huchown's Poems : Tin-: Lines of Correlation. 
 
 Far nobler even tlian the fine problem of the poet's personal identification 
 is that of determining what his actual achievement was — what poems are 
 truly the product of his single superbly appointed pen. To prove unity 
 and correlation where others have failed, or denied, is the purpose of the 
 ensuing chapters. Others before now have argued on the question, but 
 despite the labours of many scholars the real power of the case for the 
 unity of Huchown's poetry has never been perceived, perhaps could not 
 be perceived so long as certain manuscript evidences remained unknown. 
 Resemblances of style and spirit, coincidences of line and phrase, and 
 analogies of alliteration have certainly received attention, but inquiry has 
 not developed a convincing critical basis of approach. For the first time 
 a process of colligation will be applied which claims (i) to associate these 
 
 'For instance, Morte Art/mre shtvi^ the ceremonial side, II. 156, 208-9, 268, 31S6-7 ; 
 the exchequer side, 11. 425, 660-3; ^"<3 ^^^ '^S^' side, 113, 443-64, 665-72, 3140. 
 Ga^uayiie is through and through a court poem. The Azvutyrs of Arlhitrc lias both 
 ceremonial— 11. 440, 491, 635, 649-51— and law— II. 339, 350, 387, 465-?. 597. 635i 646, 
 675-85 (cf. Sir Hew of Eglintoiiti, ch. v.). The Pistill, was it chosen because its 
 theme was a trial with a cross-examination ? A number of points in other poems are 
 brought out incidentally in course of this paper.
 
 4] CORRELATION OF POEMS 15 
 
 resemblances and coincidences and analogies, witli absolute proofs of 
 relation and indebtedness of substance and plot, of incident and phrase, 
 between poem and poem ; (2) to establish the sequence of certain members 
 of the series ; (3) to illustrate the repeated use of the same sources in 
 different parts ; (4) to trace the origins of many passages to the actual 
 manuscript the poet used ; and (5) even to point out in the poet's own 
 handwriting on the margins of his manuscript the primal adumbration of 
 future poetical concepts. 
 
 The argument affirms a clear sequence in four of the five poems first 
 dealt with, based not only on numberless passages of parallel, but on 
 passages which equally involve reminiscence and necessitate conclusions 
 of priority in production. To put an ABC case — let A be a certain 
 manuscript; B C D E F and G be poems of the first set; H be another 
 manuscript ; and I J K L M and N be poems of the second set. P2 and G are 
 historically assigned to Huchown : the rest are anonymous. The argument 
 affirms connection not only of D as directly dependent from C and of E as 
 directly dependent from D, but also of D E and F as clearly related to C 
 and B and to each other, as well as of F particularly with G. It affirms 
 that B and C were translations probably both made from manuscript A, 
 and that indubitably F rose directly out of C 
 
 A in ihis diagrammalic statement is MS. T. 4. i : B, Alexander : C, Troy : D, 'J'i/iis : 
 E, Mortc Ar//iiirc: F, Parlement : G, Gaiuayne: II, MS. U. 7. 25: I, IVynuere and 
 IVastoiire: J, Erkcmuald: K, Aivnlyrs : L, Pearl: M, Cleanness: N, Palienee. 
 
 Of the second set the argument affirms manuscript H with marginal 
 notes to be the centre. It affirms that C, D, E, F, and G of the first set 
 have direct relation to the margins of H. It affirms that of the second 
 set I, J, K, L, M, and N show numerous cross-relations with each other 
 and with the first set. It affirms that the plot of I, not a little of J, and 
 intimations in M are all explained by the margins of H. It affirms other 
 cross-links also, including the indebtedness of J, K, and L to the same 
 legend for their plots. 
 
 Such is the outline of the process of colligation to be seen detailed in 
 the following chapters. The numberless parallels impossible as mere coin- 
 cidences are equally impossible as plagiarisms by one or more poets from
 
 l6 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 Others. Again and again the grouping of sources and plots demonstrates 
 unity. A thousand threads start and meet and cross and unite again in 
 the mighty network, wliich is the proof of one man's authorship of these 
 twelve poems. 
 
 The bold suggestion to prove a sequence in certain of those poems 
 must begin with the admission that serious difficulty attaches to certain of 
 them. Huchown's performances fall into the categories of (i) sheer trans- 
 lation, (2) biblical stories expanded, (3) other religious and allegorical 
 pieces, and (4) historical or quasi-historical poems which are partially 
 adaptations of Latin and French originals added to and combined with 
 each other, but blending into what in sum is essentially new creative 
 effort. Let it not be thought that these four categories represent a chrono- 
 logical process. Yet it will be maintained that two works falling into the 
 first category indubitably preceded two of the fourth, and that these again 
 were followed by one of the third. The two sheer translations in question, 
 which stand at the threshold of the interpretation ot Huchown, are the 
 Wars of Alexander and the Destruction of Troy, and our scrutiny must 
 begin with the probable source of these. 
 
 5. HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I. 
 
 In the Hunterian Library of Glasgow University is contained a royal 
 octavo volume of about 340 folios of parchment written in one hand 
 (probably soon after 1356), and containing text filling 7 in. by 4I in. per 
 page of thirty-six lines. The scribe's name is indicated on fo. 126'' by a 
 red ink note — Novien Scriptoris Ricardus plenus amoris : fframpton. The 
 scribe himself wrote a table of contents on the verso of the fly-leaf: 
 In hoc volumine continentur libri qui subsequenter intitulantur videlicet 
 ^ Liber de historia destruccionis Trojane urbis editus per magistrum 
 
 Guidonem ludicem de Columpna Messana folio primo 
 1 Liber de gestis magni Regis Alexandri tocius orbis Conquestoris 
 
 folio Cxxvij° 
 H Liber qui intitulatur Itinerarium domini Turpini Archiepiscopi Rauen- 
 sis de gestis magni Regis Karoli folio Clxxj°
 
 S] HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, 1 
 
 '7 
 
 H Liber domini Marci Pauli de Veneciis de condicionibus & consue- 
 tudinibus orientalium regionum fol Ciiij'''' xvij° Qui distinguitur in 
 tres libellos quorum primus sic incipit Tempore quo Baldewynus 
 &c. folio Ciiij'"' xviij° Secundus sic incipit In huius libri continencia 
 &c. folio CCxix° Tercius libellus sic Pars tercia libri nostri &c. 
 folio CCxliiij'° 
 
 H Liber fratris Odorici de foro Julij de ritubus & condicionibus Tur 
 coram & Tartarorum folio CClx'" 
 
 H Liber qui intitulatur Itinerarium Johannis Maundeuille militis de 
 sancto Albano in Comitatu Hertford, de mirabilibus diversarum provin- 
 ciarum regionum & insularum Aceciam de diuersis legibus & 
 condicionibus sectis & linguis earundem folio CCiiij''-^ j" 
 
 The copy of Guido de Columpna's Historia destruciionis Trojajie Urbis 
 bears to be a version or edition of 1354. The Maundeville's Itinerarium 
 contains in its text the date 1356. The Liber de gestis magni regis 
 Alexandri is a copy of the De Preliis Alexandri of the Archpriest Leo. 
 Between ff. 29*" and 30 a quaternion of six folios is missing from the MS. 
 
 A series of remarkable correspondences, of which the chief will be set 
 forth in future sections, led to the publication in the Athenaemn, on 12th 
 May and i6th June, 1900, of an essay on ' Huchown's (?) Codex,' in which 
 numerous proofs were advanced for the belief indicated by the title of 
 the paper. To that essay reference may be made for other particulars of 
 a manuscript which is assuredly of profound importance for the study of 
 certain alliterative poems. 
 
 6. ' The Wars of Alexander.' 
 
 Telling the wonderful tale of Alexander the Great — the story not of 
 authentic history, but of Egyptian romance — the Psendo-Callisthenes was a 
 Greek work full of marvels. It put into definite literary shape a mass of 
 the matter floating about in legend concerning a career which had much 
 to astonish and perplex the oriental mind. Afterwards the name of Julius 
 Valerius became attached to a translation of that work into Latin, and yet 
 later a third work called the De Preliis Alexandri gained wide currency.
 
 1 8 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch. 
 
 These two Latin books strtick the fancy of Europe, and being diffused 
 everywhere, helped to create that 'matter' of Alexander which was to 
 furnish a theme for minstrels innumerable. A vast literature grew up 
 extending itself to England and Scotland. The most outstanding contri- 
 bution to it in France was the Romau iVAlixandre by Lambert li Tors 
 and Alexandre de Bernay towards the close of the twelfth century, supple- 
 mented at the very beginning of the fourteenth century by the Vociix dii 
 Paon of Jacques de Longuyon, and by later works which do not concern 
 the present object. Subsequently we shall have occasion to revert to the 
 Voeii.x du Paoii. A rendering of the De Fndiis, the alliterative Wars of 
 Alexander is a translation in a very strict sense, excej)! for an introductory 
 passage in which the theme is proposed in lines noteworthy for their 
 variation from the rest of the poem in that alliterations of successive 
 lines are upon tlie same letter. 
 
 The story ' is of the wizard Anectanabus, the exiled king of Egy[)t, 
 of his becoming the father of Alexander the Great by Olympias, wife of 
 Philip of Macedon, and thereafter of Alexander's own career. He grows 
 up skilled in all scholarly and soldierly accomplishments, and soon sets 
 out on that world-conquering march which, passing from Europe to Asia, 
 led to India, and placed him on a 15abylonian throne. Just as the lime 
 was reached for the final episode — the poisoning and death of the 
 Macedonian conqueror — the defective manuscript abruptly fails us in the 
 middle of the strange list of peoples whom his arms had subdued. In 
 the existing lines the bulk of the tale is duly narrated ; the marvels of 
 Alexander's marches are recorded with much spirit and dignity — his 
 adventures in the wilds by P^uphrates and Tigris, in serpent-haunted 
 deserts and mountains, and in numberless battles with eastern peoples, 
 especially with Darius of Persia and Porus the Indian Prince. Xor less 
 
 ' On ihc legend generally see Prof. Zacher's Pscmloccdlisthencs, 1S67 ; M. Paul Mycr's 
 gical work Alexandre le Grand dans la Lil/Jralnre Francaise, Paris, 1886 ; Dr. W'allis 
 \\\\(k<g<i\ History of Alexander the Great, 1889; Professor Dario Carraroli's La Leggenda di 
 Akssandro Magna, Mondovi, 1892 ; Professor George Saintsbury's Flourishing of Ko in anic, 
 Edinburgh, 1897. The legend wa>. well known in Scotland. See Wyntoun, espcciall\- 
 bk. iv. 1262.
 
 6] MS. 'DE PRELIIS' AND 'WARS OF ALEXANDER' 19 
 
 interesting are his gallant correspondence with the Queen of the Amazons 
 and his exchange of views on social philosophy with Dindinius, the 
 learned Brahmin. 
 
 A few words will recapitulate the singular proofs of direct association 
 between this alliterative poem and the rare, if not, as is at present 
 supposed, absolutely unique manuscript version of the Dc Prcliis 
 Akxandri found in the MS. T. 4, i. of the Hunterian Library in 
 Glasgow University. In editing the alliterative Wars of Alexander 
 (hereinafter styled the Alexander) in 1886, Prof. Skeat remarked upon 
 the large number of variances between its terms and those of the 
 normal Latin texts of the De Preliis. There were unexplained forms of 
 names, discrepancies of the narrative, and peculiar additions to it, which, 
 while sometimes intelligible as idiosyncrasies of the translator, at other 
 times aroused question regarding the textual sources from which the 
 translator worked. Peculiarities included the mention of the name of 
 Anectanabus generally as Anec, Parthia as Panthy, Hellada as Elanda, 
 Cyrus as Cusys, Zephirus as Zephall, Ocean as Mocian, Ceres as Serenon. 
 These forms did not occur in the normal Latin texts. They all occur 
 in the Hunterian MS. among numerous other agreements where Prof. 
 Skeat had noted divergences from the current text. A list ^ follows : 
 
 Fo. 
 
 Hunterian MS. T. 
 
 4, I- 
 
 < 
 
 Wa; 
 
 RS OF 
 
 Alex. 
 
 ,' Line. 
 
 127-9 
 
 Anec 
 
 
 Anec 
 
 
 
 
 passim 
 
 127 
 
 Arlaxenses 
 
 
 Artaxenses 
 
 
 
 
 49 
 
 127 
 
 Tanli 
 
 
 Panthy 
 
 
 
 
 87 
 
 127 
 
 Siches 
 
 
 Sychim 
 
 
 
 
 89 
 
 127 
 
 Bactria 
 
 
 Batary 
 
 
 
 
 93 
 
 128b 
 
 cursus 
 
 
 bounde {cnrsti^). 
 
 See 
 
 Prof. 
 
 Skeat's 427 
 
 
 
 
 note 
 
 
 
 
 
 130b 
 
 Siciliam 
 
 
 Cecile 
 
 
 
 
 2103 
 
 130b 
 
 Ysamiam 
 
 
 Ysanna 
 
 
 
 
 2106 
 
 130b 
 
 Persopulus nuncupaUir in 
 muse 
 
 qua sunt 
 
 Persopole 
 
 
 
 
 2112 
 
 131 
 
 Abrandian, Almndranle 
 
 
 Abandra 
 
 
 
 
 2131 
 
 131 
 
 Biothiam 
 
 
 Wyothy 
 
 
 
 
 2150 
 
 131 
 
 Trigaganles 
 
 
 Tergarontes 
 
 
 
 
 2174 
 
 1 For fuller particulars see my article entitled ' Ihuho^.nls (?) Codex ' in Athenaeum, \2\}c^ 
 May, 1900. Cf. Prof. Skeat's notes to Alexander throughout.
 
 20 
 
 HUCHOVVN Of THE AWLE RYALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Fo. 
 
 HUNTERIAN 
 
 [ MS. T. 4, I. 
 
 * Wars of 
 
 131b 
 
 Zachora 
 
 
 Zacora 
 
 131b 
 
 Cetus 
 
 
 Sechus 
 
 131b 
 
 Cicisterus 
 
 
 Sicistrus 
 
 I3lh 
 
 Ilismon 
 
 
 Hismon 
 
 132 
 
 Clilomacus 
 
 
 Clelomachus 
 
 132 
 
 Satiassageias 
 
 
 Strasageras 
 
 I321) 
 
 Eschilus 
 
 
 Eschilus 
 
 132b 
 
 Domesten 
 
 
 Domystync 
 
 132b 
 
 Serxes 
 
 
 Sexes 
 
 134 
 
 Sicilie 
 
 
 Sycile (for Cilicia) 
 
 "34 
 
 Oriatcr 
 
 
 Oriathire 
 
 134 
 
 Elandam 
 
 
 Elanda (for Ilellada) 
 
 i34'> 
 
 Appoloniades 
 
 
 Appolomados 
 
 134!) 
 
 JNIaciana 
 
 
 Mocian (for Ocean) 
 
 136b 
 
 Puphagonic 
 
 
 Siphagoyne 
 
 136b 
 
 Nostandi 
 
 
 Noslanda 
 
 137 
 
 Rodogoris 
 
 
 Rodogars 
 
 137IJ 
 
 Emulus 
 
 
 Emynelaus 
 
 137I' 
 
 Struma 
 
 
 Slrama 
 
 138 
 
 Anapo 
 
 
 Anepo 
 
 138b 
 
 Serxeii 
 
 
 Sexeres 
 
 140b 
 
 Cusis 
 
 
 Cusys (for Cyrus) 
 
 141b 
 
 Cusi.s 
 
 
 Cusus 
 
 142b 
 
 Byson 
 
 
 Besan 
 
 142b 
 
 Anabiasades 
 
 
 Anabras 
 
 145'' 
 
 Bulrianca 
 
 
 Batriane 
 
 I45l> 
 
 ZephiUis 
 
 
 Zephall 
 
 147 
 
 Balliiaiicis 
 
 
 Bactry 
 
 147 
 
 Addontrucay 
 
 
 Adanttrocay 
 
 147 
 
 mures magni et 
 
 (read ui as in sen- 
 
 [mys] as any mayn foxt 
 
 
 tence just following) vulpes 
 
 
 
 aves magni ut vu 
 
 Itures 
 
 as vowlres 
 
 148 
 
 Exidraces 
 
 
 Exidraces 
 
 148b 
 
 Hemaur 
 
 
 Eumare 
 
 152 
 
 Cerenon, Cernoni [This capital C is 
 easily misread for S.] 
 
 Serenon (for Ceres) 
 
 154 
 
 Acrea 
 
 
 Acrea 
 
 •57 
 
 Prescioca 
 
 
 Preciosa (for Prasiaca) 
 
 158 
 
 Rex Bebricorum 
 
 
 King of Bebrike 
 
 157 
 
 Seraplus 
 
 
 Caraptos (for Caratros) 
 
 '59 , 
 
 I Carator 
 
 
 Caratros 
 
 159b' 
 
 ( 
 
 
 
 162 
 
 Nabuzanda 
 
 
 Nabizanda 
 
 Line. 
 2179 
 2215 
 2234 
 2237 
 2251 
 2298 
 2348 
 
 2352 
 2361 
 2487 
 2512 
 
 2514 
 2529 
 
 2540 
 2759 
 
 2773 
 2819 
 
 2875 
 2884 
 
 2955 
 2994 
 3219 
 3326 
 3428 
 3428 
 3782 
 3800 
 
 3950 
 3927 
 3932 
 
 3945 
 4020 
 
 4103 
 4510 
 
 4720 
 5080 
 
 5151 
 5094 
 5337 
 5343 
 5613
 
 6] 'WARS OF ALEXANDER' 21 
 
 Similarly the list of two-and-twenty kings whom Alexander walled up 
 with Gog and Magog coincides with the Hunterian MS. almost absolutely. 
 Here is the collection giving, first, the name in the MS., and, second, 
 that in the poem: i. Gog, Gogg; 2. Magog, Magogg; 3. Agethani, 
 Agekany; 4. Mageen, Magen ; 5. Camaranani, Camour ; 6. Chaconi, 
 Cacany; 7. Cleathar, Olaathere; 8. Appodinari, Appedanere ; 9. Lumi, 
 Limy; 10. Rarisei, Raryfey ; ir. Bedeni, Bedwyn ; 12. Camante de bello, 
 Clambert ; 13. Almade, Almade ; 14. Gamardi, Gamarody ; 15. Anaffragi, 
 Anafrage ; 16. (probably an alias for the fifteenth king) qui dicitur Rino- 
 cephali, Ser Na]?y (?) ; 17. Tarbo, Tarbyn ; 18. Alanis, Alane ; 19. Phileys, 
 Filies; 20. Artinei, Arteneus; 21. Martinei, Marthyney ; 21. Saltarir, Saltary. 
 
 There are twenty-seven passus in the alliterative poem, nineteen of which 
 
 correspond to divisions at the same points in the Hunterian MS. Not least 
 
 curious is the list of Alexander's conquests found in the Hunterian MS., 
 
 fo. i62-i62b, though wanting in normal versions. It accounts for thirty names 
 
 of provinces found in the catalogue of tributary realms at the end of the 
 
 alliterative poem — those so indicated being here printed in italics : 
 
 PantJuis et Mediis Indus michi servit et Arabs 
 Asinus aliens quoque Mesopotania Persa 
 Italits Ebretis gens aspera Canianeoriim : 
 Ethiopitni gentes Macedonia Grecia Cyprum : 
 ffemineiiin regnum Libinus liberrimus Ysaurus 
 Affrictis et Sardies Smuraus (?) Paniphilia Landus : 
 Effesiin Curux locus simul et Fhiladelphus : 
 Maurus immundus populus ditissimus Monthoch' 
 Anglicus et Scotus Britonum quoque super cateiina : 
 Islandus Flandnts Coruealis et quoque Norgney : 
 Theodomicus ffrancus Guandalia Gallia tota 
 Ispannus sponte michi flexit nunc sua colla 
 Romamis populus ferax et doctus in armis 
 Se michi supponunt [blank'] sine crimine Ritsci 
 Apulus et Colaber simul michi munera donat 
 Sinchus Yrtinus Herinenia barbarus ordo 
 Bu]ga[i]us Albanus venostus Dalmacus Ystir 
 Hitngants et Frigins Bacynt seivicia Bosus. 
 Cun[c]ta michi subsunt, michi Jupiter imperat unus.^ 
 
 ' The foregoing list of peoples is not in the fifteenth century prints of the De Preliis, 
 nor is it in the edition of 1885 by Dr. Gustav Landgraf. Since first printing the list in
 
 22 
 
 'IIUCIIOWN OF THE AWLK RVALli' [Ch. 
 
 Comparison with the poem reveals one striking fact, viz., that of the 
 aUiterative groups or pairs : (i) Flanders and France, (2) Guienne [Garnad] 
 and Greece, (3) Norway and Naverne, (4) Bayonne and Bordeaux, (5) Turkey 
 and Tartary, and (6) Pers and Pamphilia, all in the poem (11. 5656-77), only 
 the first and the last have both their members in the list. The other four are 
 in varying degree intrusions, not translations, thereby giving piquancy to the 
 recurrence of the whole six groups in the Morte Arthiire (11. 30-46 and 572-604). 
 Thus, equally when he was truly translating and when he was amplifying his 
 text, the alliterative poet hit on combinations also found in the Morte Arifiinr. 
 Moreover, although one line in the Alexander poem reads 
 In^land Itaile and Yndc and Ireland coslis, 
 there is no mention of Scotland. The alliterative translator chose to retain 
 England in, thrust Ireland into, and exclude Scotland from the catalogue of 
 realms owing tribute to Alexander. 
 
 Finally, and perhaps of the most significant note, is an intrusion into the 
 
 text of the Alexander, perspicuously commented upon by Professor Skeat. 
 
 The normal Latin text of the De Prc/iis mentions certain rocks of adamant, 
 
 but the alliterative translation adds a feature of its own, viz., two lines 
 
 descriptive of the quality ascribed to those rocks of drawing nails out of 
 
 ship's bottoms. 
 
 If any Nave to it ne3e' that naylid is with iryn 
 Then clevys it ay to the clife canyg and othyre. 
 
 This proposition, as the learned professor acutely noted, thougli absent 
 
 from the Latin text of the De Pre/iis, was in Maundeville's Ithierariuni. 
 
 The value of Professor Skeat's annotation was greatly enlianced when it 
 
 was pointed out that although in the Hunterian MS. of the De Preliis the 
 
 l^assagc about the danger to ships from adamant rocks was absent also, the 
 
 Hunterian MS. included a copy of Maundeville's Itiuerariiiin. These and other 
 
 reasons led to the proposition that the Hunterian codex must have been the 
 
 the Athenaeum I came upon a slightly different version of it in the Advocates' Library MS. 
 18.4.9 i" the poetical Historia Akxandri by Wilkinus of .Spoleto, written in 1236. Regard- 
 ing this poem, M. I'aul Meyer has been most courteous in referring me to sources of infor- 
 mation in addition to those specified in his Alexandre Ic Grand, lome second, p. 40. 
 
 ' This 3 or ' yok ' letter I have rendered as gh, y, g, or z, except in a few special 
 cases where the actual letter was necessary.
 
 7] MS. 'GUIDO' AND 'DESTRUCTION OF TROY' 23 
 
 identical MS. used by the poet, more especially as further correspondences 
 scarcely less extraordinary were found when the copy, which the MS. contained 
 of the De Excidio Troje, was compared with the alliterative poem, the 
 Destruction of Troy. 
 
 7. 'The Destruction of Troy.' 
 
 Like the Alexander., the alliterative Destruction of Troy (henceforth 
 cited as the Troy) is a direct and ordinarily faithful translation. Just as 
 in the East there arose away from history altogether a legendary life of 
 Alexander, so in the East arose also ^ a story of Troy different from Homer's. 
 The blind father of bards had of course told the deathless story from 
 the Greek standpoint. This did not satisfy the craving of some minds 
 for the other side, and the strange books of Dares Phrygius and Dictys 
 Cretensis were produced which in some degree redressed the balance, and 
 so far traversed Homer's path as to exalt Hector at the expense of 
 Achilles, and attribute the stratagem of the horse and the fall of Troy 
 directly or indirectly to the treason of Antenor and Aeneas. These 
 Latin and revised versions passed widely forth : Homer was unknown or 
 forgotten. A French trouvere, Benoit de Sainte More, wrote his Roman de 
 Troie from the Latin sources, and from that romance Guido de Columpna, 
 in the year 1287, made his Latin prose version which at once became a 
 popular history book in the literature of Europe. There was poetic vigour 
 in the prose unquestionably, and its rendering of that picturesque theme, 
 
 The hatayle of Troy that was so stought, 
 
 took hold of Europe as even Dares and Dictys had never done. Thus 
 it came that Huchown's Troy was a product of Guido's Troja, the same 
 work as John Barbour also was soon to be translating, and as John 
 Lydgate, the monk of Bury, was to translate. 
 
 Guido's tale of Troy is fully rehearsed in the 14,044 lines of the alli- 
 terative translation. There are a good many signs of carelessness, perhaps 
 
 ^An excellent sketch of the Troy Cycle in medieval literature is given l)y Dr. C. II. 
 A. Wager in his introduction to The Seegt of Troye (New York, 1S99), edited from MS. 
 Harl. 525, by him.
 
 24 
 
 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 to be allotted equally to the translator and the scribes. Myrion, for 
 instance, is killed no fewer than four times in the course of the interminable 
 battles. The narrative rises and falls, at points showing full of sustained 
 vigour, elsewhere marching somewhat mechanically, but assuredly it has 
 many noble passages, and in general power of language and deftness of 
 epithet is on the merits^ an entirely dignified and worthy rendering. 
 
 The rubrics or subdivisions of the poem proved in a striking pro- 
 portion of cases to be directly associated with the rubrics of the De 
 Excidio Troje contained in the Hunterian MS. These rubrics are, many of 
 them, very special, for an examination of a great number of copies of 
 Guide's book in the MSS. of the British Museum and the Bodleian Library 
 failed to disclose any single one which displayed any such measure of 
 consonance as that exhibited by the Hunterian MS.- 
 
 The correspondences are of the most thorough character, and the 
 
 following comparison of a large body of them will enable the critic to note 
 
 the differences as well as the resemblances. First, however, it is to be said 
 
 that the rendering of Guido used by the scribe was an Italian edition or 
 
 version by Johannulus de Borrezio in 1354, as appears from a colophon 
 
 on fo. 126. 
 
 u 
 " Et e.^o Johannolus {o expuncted and it substituted] de Borrezio Cancellarius ecclesie 
 
 Sancti Victoris de Arsizate Mediolanen. dioc. hoc presens opus in Beate Agnetis festo 
 
 finivi Anno domini miilesimo tricentesimo quinquagesimo quarto pontificatus sanctissimi 
 
 patris et domini nostri domini Innocencii Papa vi. anno secundo Et cicius enim comple- 
 
 vissem nisi quia in Reverendissimi in Xpo. patris et domini mei domini Guill'mi de 
 
 Pusterla permissione divina sancte sedis Constantinopolitan. patriarche cujus familiaris 
 
 minimus existo negociis plurimum vacavi utpote sibi nee inmerito perpetim obligatus. 
 
 This text has very many rubrics of its own. Some of those quoted below 
 are common to other manuscripts as well. Many of them are believed to 
 be peculiar to Borrezio's version, of which meantime no other copy appears 
 to be known. 
 
 ^ I gladly pay homage to the critical taste of my friend, Mr. J. T. T. Brown, in long 
 ago directing me to this alliterative work as containing much high-class poetry despite 
 the adverse verdicts of critics, and as being Huchown's handiwork. 
 
 '^Further particulars are given in ' Huchown's (?) CodQ\,' At henaeii//i, i6th June, 1900.
 
 7] 
 
 'DESTRUCTION OF TROY ^ 
 
 25 
 
 ITUXTERIAN MS. T. 4, I. 
 
 Folio. 
 
 I Incipit prologus . . . 
 
 lb Explicit prologus. Incipit liber de 
 
 casu Troje primo de Peleo rege 
 
 Thessalie inducente Jasonem . . . 
 
 ad vellus aureum adquirendum. 
 4 Incipit liber secundus de . . . Grecis 
 
 applicatis in pertinenciis Troje. . . . 
 
 6 [Passage corresponding to 1. 373.] 
 Qualiter Rex Oetes honorifice Jas- 
 onem . . . recepit et qualiter Medea 
 . . . amore Jasonis fuit capta. 
 
 8 Sicut primo loquitur Jasoni Medea. 
 
 8 Responsio Jasonis ad verba Medee. 
 8b Alia verba Medee ad Jasonem. 
 
 8b Alia responsio Jasonis ad Medeam. 
 
 9 Qualiter Jason et Medea. . . . 
 9 Incipit liber tercius. . . . 
 
 1 1 Res et ipsarum series date Jasoni per 
 
 Medeam pro aureo vellere acquir- 
 
 endo. . . . 
 14b Incipit liber quartus. 
 15 Qualiter Grecorum exercitus Jasonis 
 
 et Herculis Troje . . . civitatem 
 
 illam primo diruerunt. 
 15b Verba Herculis. . . . 
 18 Qualiter Greci . . . intrant ipsam 
 
 urbem. 
 iSb ... Exionam Regis Laumedonte 
 
 filiam. . . . 
 19b De Priamo ... & filiis. . . . 
 2ib De constructione mirabili magni 
 
 Ylion. . . . 
 22b Qualiter Rex Priamus misit Anthen- 
 
 orum legatum ad Grecos pro 
 
 Exiona. . . . 
 24b . . . Incipit liber vj"^ 
 25 Qualiter rex Priamus . . , consulit 
 
 suam mittere gentem . . . pro 
 
 . . . Grecorum offensione (1. 2095). 
 25b Quomodo Priamus hortatur . . . filios. 
 
 Alliterative 'Destruction of Troy.' 
 
 Line. 
 
 Prologue. I 
 
 Explicit Prologue. 98 
 
 Here begynnes the ffirst Boke. How 99 
 Kyng Pelleus exit Jason to get the 
 ffles of Golde. 
 [Lost in text, but supplied from con- 
 tents, p. v.] The ii'' boke how 
 the Grekes toke lond upon Troy. 
 Cawse of the first debate. 
 
 Jason. 373 
 
 The crafte of Medea. 402 
 
 The soden bote love of Medea. 449 
 
 Medea. 521 
 
 The onsuare of Jason to Medea. 551 
 
 Medea. 560 
 
 The onsuare of Jason to Medea. 577 
 
 Medea. 637 
 
 Third Boke : how Medea enformed 665 
 
 Jason to get the fflese of golde.   
 
 Here begynneth the fourth boke. Of loio 
 the dystrucion of the first Troy by 
 Erciiles and Jason. 
 
 Ercules. 1121 
 
 The takyng of the towne. 1353 
 
 Exiona the Kinges doughter Lamy- 1385 
 
 don. 
 
 Off King Pryam and his children. 146 1 
 
 The makyng of Ylion. 1629 
 
 How Antenor went on message to 1780 
 the Grekys. 
 
 Here begynnes the Sext Boke : How 2047 
 Kyng Priam toke counsell to Werre 
 on the Grekys. 
 
 Off counsell of the Kynges children. 2157
 
 26 
 
 'HUCHOWN OF TFIE AWLE RYALE ' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I. 
 
 Folio. 
 
 26 Responsio Hectoris ad Priamum 
 patrem suum et quomodo pru- 
 denter suum dedit consilium. 
 Consilium Paridis. . . . 
 Consilium Deyphobi. . . . 
 28b Consilium Eleni. . . . 
 28b . , . Quid consulit Troiolus. . . . 
 
 29 Quomodo Rex Priamus jubet Paridi 
 
 . . . ut pergat ... in Grccia. . . . 
 29b SicuL loquitur Pethileus. 
 
 [This name is corrupt in many MSS.] 
 
 30 Qualiter Cassandra regis Priami filia 
 
 condolet. . . . 
 32 Qualiter Paris primo vidit Ilelenam 
 
 27 
 
 28 
 
 Alliterative ' Destruction of Troy. 
 
 Line. 
 
 The onsuare and the counsell of 2207 
 Ector to Priam his ffader. 
 
 The counsell of Paris Alexaunder. 2306 
 
 The counsell of Deffebus. 2449 
 
 The counsell of Elinus the Bysshop. 2478 
 
 The counsell of Troylus. 2523 
 
 Tiie ordinaunse for Paris into Grese. 2561 
 
 The counsell of Protheus. 2619 
 
 The sorow of Cassandra the Kyngys 2676 
 
 doughter. 
 
 The fairnes of Elan. 3019 
 
 35b Qualiter Helena. . . . 
 
 36b De Grecis inchoantibus inire consilia 
 
 . . . de raptu Ilelene . . . incipit 
 
 liber viij"^ 
 
 37 Qualiter Agamenon consolatur Mene- 
 
 launi. . . . 
 37b . . . Pollux et Castor paraverunl 
 naufragium. . . . 
 
 38 Descripcio Grecorum qui fuerunt 
 
 super Trojam (1. 3732). 
 40b De numero navium quas Greci dux- 
 erunt . . . liber viiij""^ 
 
 41 Exhortacio Agamenonis contra Grecos 
 et primo voluit habere responsum 
 a deo Appollinis in insula Delphon 
 liber x'"^ 
 
 42b Qualiter ydolatria in mundo primo 
 venit. 
 
 44b Responsum datum Achilli. 
 
 47b Qualiter Agamenon Rex locutus est 
 Grecis de mittendo nuncios Regi 
 Priamo antequam plus procedant 
 Li. xij"s 
 
 50b De Grecis mittentibus Achillcm et 
 Thelaphum pro victualibus eorum 
 exercilui opportunis. Li. xiij"^ 
 
 Elan. 3385 
 
 Eght Boke. Of the counsell of the 3532 
 Grekys ffor recoveryng of Elayne. 
 
 The counsell of Agamynon to Mene- 3584 
 
 lay. 
 The drownyng of Pollux and Castor. 3673 
 
 The shape and colour of the Kynges 3741 
 
 of Grece. 
 Neynt Boke. Of the Nowmbcr of 4029 
 
 Shippes and the Navy of the 
 
 Grekes. 
 Tent Boke. How the Grekes sent 4140 
 
 unto Delphon to have onsware of 
 
 a God of thayre Journay. 
 
 Off Beal! the god and Iklsabub. 4332 
 
 The answare of Appollo to Achilles. 4475 
 xiith Boke. How the Grekys sent 4783 
 
 two Kinges in message to Kyng 
 
 Priam for restitucion of Ihairc 
 
 harme. 
 xiij Boke. How the Grekys sent 5152 
 
 Achilles and Thelefon for vitaill 
 
 for the Ost into Messam.
 
 7] 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF TROY' 
 
 27 
 
 HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I. 
 Folio. 
 53 Descripcio illorum qui in subsidium 
 
 venere Trojanoruni. 
 54b Quomodo Diomedes quedam discreta 
 
 verba profudit de processu. 
 58b De secundo bello. ... Li. xv"^ 
 
 66b De tercio bello . . . Lib. xvi"^ 
 
 681i De quarto bello ... Li. xvij"^ 
 
 70b De quinto bello. ... Li. xviij"^ 
 
 72 De sexto bello . . . Li. xviiij"^ 
 
 74 Nota de inconstancia mulierum. 
 [This does not seem to be in the 
 scribe's hand, but is a coeval 
 owner's ejaculation.] 
 
 75b De septimo bello . . . liber vice- 
 simus. 
 
 77b I lie fuit preliatum per xij dies con- 
 tinue sequentes. 
 
 78 De viijo bello. 
 
 [This is not numbered as a book, 
 and a failure, probably due to this, 
 occurs in the consecutiveness, 
 there being no number xxij in 
 the Latin.] 
 
 81 Qualiter Agamenon mortuo Hectore 
 
 jussit majores Grecorum ad se 
 venire et quomodo loquitur eisdem. 
 
 82 De nono bello . . . liber xxiij""^ 
 
 83 Qualiter ille metuendus Achilles fuit 
 
 allaqueatus amore. 
 
 86 De decimo bello ... Li. xxvj"*^ 
 [begins Induciis igitur datis\ 
 
 87IJ De undecimo bello [begins Sequenti 
 vero die Trojane]. 
 
 Alliterative 'Destruction of Troy.' 
 
 Line. 
 Of the Kynges that come to Troy 5432 
 
 for socur of Priam. 
 The Counsell of Dyamede to stirre to 5590 
 
 the cite. 
 XV Boke. Of the Ordinaunce of the 6065 
 
 Troiens to the secund batell. 
 xvi Boke. Of a trew takyn two 7125 
 
 moneths, and of the third batell. 
 xvij Boke. Of the Counsell of the 7346 
 
 Grekes for the Dethe of Ector 
 
 and the iiij'' batell. 
 xviij'- Boke of the fyvet batell in the 7553 
 
 felde. 
 xix Boke. Of the vi. batell. 781 1 
 
 [LI. S055-67, paragraph on female 
 
 fickleness.] 
 
 The XX Boke. Of the vij"' Batell 8183 
 and Skarmiches. . . . 
 
 Here thai faght twelve dayes to- 8403 
 gedur. 
 
 [This is an exceedingly special sub- 
 rubric. ] 
 
 The xxi Boke. Of the viij Batell. 8421 
 
 [From this point the numbering of 
 the translation and the Latin ceases 
 to correspond.] . = . . 
 
 The counsall of Agamenon after the 8826 
 dethe of Ector. 
 
 Here begynneth the xxij Boke: the S971 
 
 ellevynt Batell of the Cite. 
 The solempnite of the obit of Ector 9089 
 
 and how Achilles fell in the 
 
 momurdotes for luff. 
 Here begynnys the xxiij Boke : of 9400 
 
 the xij and xiij batell. 
 xxiiij Boke : Of the xiiij and xv 
 
 batell of the Cite. 9628
 
 28 
 
 'HUCnOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I. 
 Folio. 
 88 De duodecimo bello [begins Sequenti 
 
 vera die inle?: ] 
 88b Qualiter Achilles respondit Ulixi. 
 
 89b De Icrcio decimo bello . . . Lib. 
 
 89b De quarto decimo bello. 
 90b De quinto decimo bello. 
 
 [The Latin rubrics skip from the 
 
 fifteenth to the eighteenth battle. 
 
 The translating poet therefore is 
 
 somewhat nonplussed.] 
 91b De xviij" bello [begins I/iis igitnr 
 
 diebtis elapsis /etate.'\ 
 
 92b De xviiij bello . . . [begins Belli tempus 
 
 /li/'s]. 
 95 De xx° Ijcllo [begins Sextodecimo igititr 
 
 die.'] 
 
 96b . . , liber xxviij"^ (1. 10790). 
 
 97 De vicesimo primo bello (1. 10863) 
 
 [begins Ad jtissw)i\ 
 97b De vicesimo secundo bello (1. 10913) 
 
 [begins Pantasiled\. 
 98b De vicesimo tercio bello et de morte 
 
 Pantasilee per Pirrum interfecle 
 
 (1. 1 1079) [begins Snperveiiientibiis\ 
 99 De tractatu seu prodicione Civitalis 
 
 Troje Incipit liber xxviiij"^ 
 
 104 De capcione et destruccione Troje et de 
 
 morte Regis Priami et Polisene ejus 
 
 filie. Li. xxx""^ 
 107 Qualiter Agamenon loquitur Grecis . . . 
 
 Alliterative ' Dkstiu'Ction or Troy.' 
 
 Line. 
 
 The answare of Achilles to Ulyxes 
 
 the Kyng. 9743 
 
 XXV Boke : Off the Sextene and the 
 xvij batell. 9864 
 
 Of xviij and the xix batell. 9675 
 
 Here thai faght vij dayes togedur, 
 
 that ys not recont : no batell. 10116 
 
 The xxvi Boke. Of the xviij batell 
 
 of the Cite. 10133 
 
 [In this important rubric the editors 
 of the poem have, as they explain 
 in a marginal note, printed "(xx)" 
 as the number of the battle. Their 
 note is, however, distinct (and 
 accords with the fact of the MS. 
 of the Destruction) in stating that 
 the "MS. has xviii."] 
 
 The dethe of Troilus by Achilles 10252 
 trayturly slayne in the xxj batell. 
 
 Off the xx'' batell. 10629 
 
 [Again editors print ' (xxii) ' but note 
 ' MS. has xx'i.'] 
 
 The xxvij Boke. Of xxj Batell . . . 10788 
 
 The xxij and xxiij l)atell of the Cite. 10950 
 
 Here they faght a moncthe. 11079 
 
 The deth of Pantasilia by Pirrus. 1 1 103 
 
 The xxviij Boke : Of the Counsell of 
 Eneas and Antenor. Of the treason 
 of the Cite. 
 
 The ordinaunce of the trybute. '1717 
 
 The counsell of the Grekes. 
 
 12015
 
 7] 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF TROY 
 
 29 
 
 Folio. 
 1 08b 
 
 HUNTERIAN MS. T. 4, I. 
 
 Alliterative 'Destruction ok Troy.' 
 
 Line. 
 
 The XXX Boke : Of stryfe of Thela- 12165 
 
 mon anil Ulixes and of the dethe of 
 
 Thelamon. 
 
 112 
 
 Qualiter destrucla urbe Troje Thela- 
 
 monius Ajax loquitur contra Vlixem 
 
 occasione Paladii liber tricesimus 
 
 primus. 
 Sequitur quomodo mortuus est Aga- The xxxij Boke : Of the Lesyng that 12552 
 
 115b 
 
 117 
 119I) 
 
 122b 
 
 menon liber xxxij"^ 
 
 [Numbering ot books tallies once more. 
 As to a confusion in the numbering 
 of the books in the alliterative poem, 
 see note by editors (pref. liii-iv) on 
 displacement of two sets of folios of 
 the MS.]. 
 
 Qualiter Horrestes . . . patris . . . 
 necem . . . vindicavit Liber tricesi- 
 mus tercius. 
 
 Sequitur narracio de reditu Ulixis et 
 quid ei in redeundo contingit. 
 
 De reditu Pirri et ejus prospero successu 
 ac de morte sua sequitur narracio Lib. 
 xxxiiij"^ 
 
 was made to Kyng Nawle, and of 
 dethe of his son Palomydon. 
 Off the dethe of Agamynon and the 
 
 exile of Dyamede by there wyvys 12727 
 for this lettur. 
 
 Mere begynnes the xxxiij Boke. How 12937 
 
 Oreste toke vengianse for his fader 
 
 dethe. 
 The xxxiiij Boke. How hit happit 13 106 
 
 Ulixes aftur the sege. 
 The XXXV Boke : Of Pyrrus and of 13388 
 
 his passyng from Troy. 
 Off the coronyng of Pyrrus and of 13635 
 
 his dethe. 
 The xxxvi Boke. Of the dethe of 13802 
 
 Ulixes by his son. 
 
 Qualiter Ulixes mortuus est subse- 
 quenter enarratur : liber xxxv"^ 
 
 Textually, as the various versions of Guido's Historia exhibit few crucial 
 tests for identification of their distinctions, it is not easy to devise methods 
 of decisive collation. Yet a few very cogent instances can be adduced. 
 Besides the mere facts of agreement in so many rubrics, not found in any 
 print or MS. of Guido accessible to me, there is specially the agreement in 
 the numbering of the books above illustrated — a matter on which there is 
 considerable divergence in different texts. In the list of kings whom 
 Hector slew, the poem put ' Archilocus ' (or Arcesilaus) first. All the prints, 
 and the greater number of the manuscripts of Guido, put him fourth 
 or fifth in the list, which comes ultimately from Dares Phrygius (Teubner, 
 1873, praef. ix.). But the Hunterian Guido (fo. 125), like the poem 
 (1. 14,008) places Archilocus first. There are, on the other hand, such 
 elements as the presence of 'Beelzebub' (1. 4357) in the poem, where the 
 Hunterian MS. (fo. 43) has Beelin Aback Bel i. deus Zabuch i. inusca hoc
 
 3© 'HUCHOWN OF THE AVVLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 deus viuscarum — though pnnted editions have ' Beelzebub ' — :which make 
 it possible that the poet-translator had access to more copies than one of 
 this widely current work. Although the very extraordinary correspondences 
 exhibited might not suffice to constitute the proof single-handed, they yet 
 when placed in conjunction with the similar and still more striking corre- 
 spondences of the Alexander with the same Hunterian MS. enable us to 
 start with a presumption little short of absolute that the translator of the 
 Alexander and the translator of the Troy, whether the same person or 
 not, at any rate used the same manuscript — a manuscript the earliest 
 possible date of which is 1356, the year in which the Ifinerarium of 
 Maundeville is, in the text of the MS. itself,^ declared to have been written. 
 
 How the presumption of two translations from the same manu- 
 script stands the test of being carried a degree further to the inference 
 that the user of the MS. was the maker of both translations will best 
 appear from the analysis now to be undertaken of certain poems with the 
 primary view of determining their relation and order of date.^ The Troy, 
 there is good reason to maintain,-^ was quoted in Scotland by Barbour 
 in 137C. 
 
 8. ' Titus and Vespasian,' Its Story, Sources, and Date. 
 (i) The Story and General Sources. 
 
 Indications, which may be left to the critic to accept or reject as he 
 pleases, suggest with some distinctness that the Troy was not written till 
 after the Alexander. While wishing to be taken as comparatively tentative 
 my opinion of the priority of the Alexander to the Troy, I advance as 
 
 ^ A great mystery hangs over Maundeville. This must have been an early cupy : il 
 differs from other texts, and will reward study by some lover of the charming Itinerary. 
 Sir Hew of Eglintoun was in London in 1358. His getting the MS. in that year is not 
 beyond the bounds of legitimate speculation. 
 
 '^It is proper to recall the fact that in editing the Troy Mr. Panton and Mr. David 
 Donaldson argued very forcefully that its translator and the author of Morte Arthure 
 were one. 
 
 " Cf. Troy, 12969-74, 2734-8, 1056-64, and Barbour's Bruce, v. 1-13, xvi. 63-71, and 
 Buik of Alexander, p. 107, 11. 1-12, p. 248, 11. 16-26. See John Barbour, Poet and 
 Translator, 9-13.
 
 8] 'TITUS AND VESPASIAN'; THE STORY 31 
 
 an absolute and unhesitating conclusion the view that the Troy was 
 followed by a poem variously known as the Titus atid Vespasian or as 
 The Sege of Jerusalem, or as the Warris of the Je%vis — henceforward cited 
 as Titus. 
 
 Although critics heretofore have busied themselves with the question of 
 the authorship of the Troy, while some have supposed it to date after 
 Morte Arthicre, while some have given the Troy to Huchown, and while 
 others have refused it, no one has yet set forward^ the great fact of the 
 connection between these two alliterative poems constituted by a third 
 alliterative poem, the Titus, whose authorship till now has not been 
 claimed. It is the key to Morte Arthure, the link which binds it in 
 indissoluble association with the Troy, and determines finally the order of 
 production. 
 
 The Titus found in one MS. in company with a poem in the precise 
 metre of the Pistill of Susan contains in the only available printed text 
 1332 lines, not rimed but alliterative, and has for its theme the miraculous 
 cures of Titus and Vespasian and the siege and overthrow of Jerusalem. 
 Founded as regards its earlier incidents in some degree on blended features 
 of early versions of the singular legend of St. Veronica, such as the Latin 
 Vindicta Salvatoris and the French Destruction de Jerusalem, but largely 
 striking out new lines for itself, the poem soon discloses its direct connection 
 with the Legenda Aurea, many passages of which it freely adapts, though 
 with insertions from undiscovered sources and contributions evidently quite 
 original. Another work clearly drawn upon was the Bellum ludaicum of 
 Josephus, no doubt, as Herr F. Kopka has shown,- in the version of 
 Hegesippus. The story tells, at the opening, how Titus is afilicted with a 
 cancer and his father with a settlement of wasps in his nose, from which 
 he took his name Waspasian ! Titus, eager in his inquiry after physicians, 
 is told by Nathan, a Jew, of the wondrous life of a prophet born in 
 Bethlehem who wrought many a miracle, and who at last, betrayed by 
 Judas, was put to death by Pilate, the provost of Rome. Titus, touched 
 
 ^ The proposition was made in my article ' Huthoivn' (part I.) in Athenaeum, i June 1901 
 2 The Destruction of Jerusalem : ein mittekttglisches alliterierendes Gedicht. Einleitung. 
 Inaugural Dissertation. Breslau 1887.
 
 32 
 
 liUCHOWN OF TIIK AWLK K^■ALE' [Ch. 
 
 by what he hears, breaks out with a sudden expression of sympathy for 
 Christ and censure of His condenmation. Before the words are wholly 
 said the cancer vanishes. The gratefully joyous Tilus turns Christian and 
 is baptised. Vespasian learns of the miraculous healing, and vows that if 
 he too shall be cured he will give his life for Christ. Messengers are sent 
 * that time Peter was Pope and preached in Rome,' and from Palestine 
 there comes Saint Veronica with the veil on which the Saviour's face had 
 left its sacred imprint. When this precious relic reaches the temple at 
 Rome the idols of the heathen faith yet prevalent there crash in pieces. 
 Saint Peter touched with the veil the person of the illustrious patient, 
 ' the wasps went away and all the woe after,' and the glad Vespasian 
 christens the veil after Veronica and calls it the Vernacle. The scene 
 now shifts : Romans set sail to make war on the Jews ; the holy city is 
 besieged ; surrender is demanded in vain, and Vespasian, foiled to some 
 extent by the warlike ingenuity of Josephus, strives long and unsuccessfully 
 to take Jerusalem. Meanwhile Nero dies ; after Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, 
 at last Vespasian is chosen successor. He departs for Rome and leaves 
 the siege to be prosecuted by Titus. Famine and distress accelerate that 
 task; eleven hundred thousand Jews die by sword and hunger; the walls 
 are stormed; and the stubborn defenders starved till their stomachs, as the 
 poet expressively puts it, are 'no greater than a greyhound,' lay down their 
 arms, and doffing their armour, yield their gates 'in their bare shirts.' The 
 jewelled splendours of Solomon's sanctuary are carried away, and as a 
 Jew had sold Christ ' for thirty pennies in a poke,' now the prisoners of 
 Titus, bound together with ropes, were sold — 'thirty Jews in a thrum' — 
 at a penny for thirty. And then the long siege was raised, and the victors 
 'went singing away' homeward to Rome, as ends our poet — 'Now rede us 
 our Lord.' 
 
 (2) The ' Titus^ the ' Troy,' and the ' Alexander: 
 
 This remarkable Titus, in parts of it not taken from any of the Latin 
 or French sources above named, includes more than one passage and 
 not a few single lines which it owes directly to the Troy. Not only so ; in 
 some of those passages and lines there is a double association, for they
 
 8] 
 
 'TITUS'; ITS PARALLELS 
 
 33 
 
 connect with the Alexander also. In particular the language descriptive 
 of the fall and destruction of Jerusalem in the Titus will be shewn to be 
 in part derived from an episode of destruction in the Troy, and more 
 remotely from certain siege descriptions in the Alexander. Premising that 
 the primary thesis is that the Titus is deeply indebted to the Troy let 
 us proceed to the scrutiny of parallels. 
 
 TitHS. 
 
 Alex. 555 Cloudis clcnly Lo-cleve clatird 
 
 unfaiie. 
 Troy 57S7 Cloudis with the clamour 
 claterit above. 
 1984 A rak and a royde w\nde 
 
 rose in hor saile. 
 4312 Both mavvhounus and mau- 
 mettes myrtild in peces. 
 Latin has ydoluni . . . csset 
 ill niimUatim abscissum. 
 8719 Of wepyng and vvayle and 245-6 Than was wepyng antl wo and 
 
 Troy 
 Troy 
 
 54 Cloud es clatcren gon as they cleve 
 wolde. 
 
 54 The racke m\de a rede wynde roos 
 
 in the myddcl. 
 233 The mahoniid and the mametes to- 
 mortled to peces. 
 
 Troy 
 
 Troy 
 
 Alex. 
 Troy 
 Troy 
 Troy 
 
 wryngyng of hondes. 
 8679 . . . wringyng of hond : 
 
 The dit and the dyn was 
 dole to behold. 
 1 347 Of the dite and the dyn was 
 
 dole to beholde. 
 9611 ]\Iyche weping and waile 
 
 wringyng of hond. 
 1902 Hade bir at his bake and 
 
 the bankes levyt. 
 12490 Hadyn bir at there backe 
 
 and the bonke levyt. 
 1 151 Tilded full of torretes and 
 
 toures of defence. 
 1 55 1 iMony toures up lild the toune 
 
 to defende. 
 5825 . . . the might and the 
 
 mayn . . . 
 7619 A thondir with a thicke rayn 
 
 thrublit in the skewes. 
 12496 A thoner and a thicke rayne 
 
 thrublet in the skewes. 
 Latin has in miilta copia 
 
 phiviarum ether in loiii- 
 
 truoruin aggregacionibus. 
 
 wryngyng of hondis 
 With loude dyn and dit for doil of 
 hym one. 
 
 2S8 Hadde byr at the bake and the bonke 
 lefte. 
 
 310 With many a toret and tour that toun 
 to defende. 
 
 505 Bothe the myght and the mayn. 
 
 530 As thonder and thicke rayn throwa- 
 land in skyes.
 
 34 
 
 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Troy 1 195 Speiresuntosprottcssprongen 
 
 oner hedes. 
 Cf. 5783, 6406, 7248, 9666, 
 
 1 1022. 
 Alex. 790 Al to spryngis in sprotis 
 
 speres . . . 
 Alex. 786 . . . spakly with speres. . . . 
 Alex. 789 Sone into shcverand shidez 
 
 shaftez tubristen. 
 
 Awntyrs 501 Schaftis of schene wode thay 
 schevercde in schides. 
 
 Alex. 4766 As gotis out of guttars in 
 
 golanand wcdres. 
 Troy 9406 He gird hym thurgh the 
 
 guttes with a grym spere. 
 Troy 3170 Chaiindelcrs full chefe and 
 
 charbokill stones. 
 T)oy 1 1 141 All the bent of that birr 
 
 blody beronnen. 
 Alex. 1395 Kenely thai kepe with 
 
 castyng of stanes. 
 Alex. 1390 Archers with arowes of atter 
 
 envenmonyd. 
 Troy. 4739-41 Schottyn up sharply at the 
 
 schene wallis 
 With glayves and gomes 
 
 girdyn doun toures 
 Dryven up dartes, gyffen 
 
 depe woundes. 
 
 Latin has crebris sagiltis em- 
 issis letaliier vtilnerant, 
 
 Alex. 1 391 Sholon up sharply at salkez 
 
 on the walks. 
 Alex. 1396 Dryves dartez at our dukez 
 
 deply thaim wounden. 
 Troy 1647 In cornals by course clustret 
 
 oloft. 
 Alex. 1 42 1 And be the kernels wer kest. 
 Alex. 3046 Of aiows and of alblastres 
 
 that all the ayre blynded. 
 
 Titiis. 
 551 Spakly her speres on sprotes they 
 5cden. 
 
 552 Scheldes al schidvvod on scheldres to 
 eleven. 
 
 558 And goutes from golde wede as 
 
 goteres they runne. 
 564 Girdeth out the guttes with grounden 
 
 speres. 
 588 Chair and chaundelers and charbokel 
 
 stones. 
 597 So was the bent ouer brad blody 
 
 byrunne. 
 619 Keptcn kenly with caste the kernels 
 
 alofte. 
 652 And arwes arwely with atlyr en- 
 
 venymyd. 
 664 [ Schoten up scharply to the schene 
 
 walles. 
 
 835 
 
 Dryven dartes a doun geven depe 
 woundes. 
 
 673 Kesten at the kernels clustered toures. 
 
 665 With arwes and arblastes and alle 
 
 that harmc myght. 
 833 With arwes and arblastes and archers 
 
 manye.
 
 8] 
 
 TITUS' AND THE 'TROY^ 
 
 35 
 
 To interrupt a little the monotony of parallel will serve a good purpose 
 if it accentuates the next pair of passages. In the Troy the Greek camp 
 by night is pictured in words which alike in their modicum of adherence 
 to the Latin text they follow, and in their more notable deviations from 
 it, evince a mastery of poetic art and natural description. One feels that 
 the translator's night was more real than Guido's : yet the passage as a 
 whole is not the alliterative poet's : it gives us Guido plus his translator. 
 Accordingly, when we find the same description in the Titus, and at the 
 end of it a further line from another part of the Troy, where that line is 
 indubitably translation, it ceases to be a matter of argument and establishes 
 itself as ascertained fact that without the previous Troy we could have had 
 no Titus. 
 
 Troy 7348-57. 
 When the day ouerdrogh and the derk 
 
 entrid, 
 The slernes full stithly slarand oloft, 
 All merknet the mountens and mores 
 
 aboute, 
 The fowles there fethers foldyn togedur, 
 
 Titus 722-31. 
 By that was the day done, dymned the skyes, 
 
 Merked montaynes and mores aboute, 
 Follies fallen to fote and her fethres rusken. 
 
 Nightwacche for to wake, waits to blow ; The nyght wacche to the walles and waytes 
 
 to blowe, 
 Tore fyres in the tenttes tendlis oloft. Bryght fures aboute betyn abrode in the 
 
 oste ; 
 All the gret of the Grekes gedrit hom Chosen chyventayns out and chiden no mor, 
 
 somyn, 
 Kynges and knyghles clennest of wit, Bot charged the chek-wecche and to 
 
 chambr wenten, 
 Dukes and derfie erles droghen to counsell ; Kynges and knyghtes to cacchen hem rest. 
 In Agamynon gret tent gedrit were all. 
 
 They had met in counsel how to compass Waspasian lyth in his logge, litel he slepith. 
 the death of Hector. Later in the poem 
 Achilles, scheming revenge on Troilus, found 
 no rest in his bed. 
 
 Troy 10096 And lay in his loge litill 
 he sleppit. 
 
 Guido's Latin of these two Troy passages is 
 
 Aspectibus igitur hominum crepusoilo succedente stellis per celi spacium undique 
 patefactis quibus nox que nocet oculis intuencium in aspectibus ceterorum propter sue
 
 o 
 
 6 'HUCIIOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE' [Ch. 
 
 tenebras cecitatis aperte vulg;ivil. Omncs Roges Grecoruni duces et principes in ipsius 
 noctis conticinio in Regis Agamenonis tenlorio conveniiint. 
 
 [Achilles] inquietus sua non appelil claudere lumina in dormicionis consuela quiele. 
 
 The effect of this group of Hnes common to the sieges of Troy and 
 Jerusalem — the aUiterative sieges — stands in Httle need of enforcement. 
 Tlie canon of comparison to which appeal is made is this. Given two 
 passages, one of which must be due to the other ; given that one of them 
 is known translation, although expanded somewhat ; given that the other 
 is not translation ; then if the points in common include things which are 
 real translation, every presumption leads to the conclusion that the trans- 
 lation is tlie source, and therefore the earlier. It seems axiomatic that the 
 Troy lent its night-scene to the Tt'/us. And there are yet other parallels 
 to follow. Elsewhere in a discussion of the same sort the proposition was 
 advanced that a poet who repeated the same line more than once in a 
 poem might not unnaturally be found repeating it in another. In this 
 connection, therefore, it is worthy of observation that one of the lines 
 above quoted occurs in another part of the Troy as well. 
 
 Jrof 7809. Merkil the mounlayns and mores aboute. 
 
 In both instances the darkening of hill and moorland at nightfall is a touch 
 of the translator's own — is exegetic and not literal translation. It is the 
 recurrence of this fact which imports so much more significance into such 
 recurrent lines. Will it not appear strange if from a verse-translation con- 
 taining 14,000 lines, the borrowings in other poems should so often prove 
 to be not of Guido's matter, but of the translator's ? Now we return to 
 our parallels. 
 
 815 Fought right felly foyned with speres. 
 
 Troy 
 
 10287 
 
 Fell was the fight foyning 
 of spears. 
 
 Troy 
 
 4753 
 
 Fell was the feght. . . . 
 
 Troy 
 
 5795 
 
 . . . felly . . . foghtyn . . . 
 
 835 See under 664 above 
 
 Troy 1 1956 When the derke was done 850 When the derk was doun and the day 
 
 and the day sprange. spryngen. 
 
 Alex. 1489 . . . bodworde of blis. . . . 965 . . . bodeword of blys. . . . 
 
 Alex. 1324 And makez a way wyde 998 Made weys throw for wenes and cartes. 
 
 enogh waynez for to mete.
 
 8] 
 
 'TITUS'; JERUSALEM, TENEDOS, AND TYRE 
 
 37 
 
 Titus. 
 Alex. 2264 And thai als fayne alle the 1005 Fayn as the foul of day was the freke 
 
 flote as fowelle of the day. than. 
 
 Alex. 75 ... oute in the wale stremys. 1017 ... over wale stremys. 
 
 Troy 6064 . . . Lord giffe us joye. 1104 ... and God gyve us joy. 
 
 [End of book xiv.] [End of one of the four divisions of 
 
 the poem.] 
 Z'r^y 4751-2 Layn ladders alenght and |ii86 At eche kernel was cry and quasschyng 
 aloft wonnen J of wepne. 
 
 At yche Cornell of the castell ! 1189 Leythe a ladder to the wal and a 
 
 was crusshyng of weppon. 
 Latin has bellicis scalis appositis ktaliter 
 impetiint et dura debellacione Trojanos 
 ■berimunt, 
 Troy 1 1090 Kene was the crie with 
 
 crnsshyng of weppyn, 
 Troy 6924 That the blod out brast. . . . 
 Troy 4755-6 Till thai lept of the ladder 
 
 light in the dyke. 
 The brayne oute brast and 
 
 the brethe levyt. 
 
 lofte clymyth. 
 
 1 194-5 That the brayn out brast at both nose 
 
 thrylles 
 And Sabyn ded of the dynt into the 
 
 diche falleth. 
 [Sabyn had mounted the ladder.] 
 
 Latin has sterniintur a scalis et vohibiliter 1203 Wer ded of that dynt and in the diche 
 
 ruinosi prevenieutes in terra fractis cemi- 
 
 cibus vitavi exalant. 
 
 Alex. 2153 ... fey for defaute enfa- 
 
 myshyd hys oste. 
 Troy 3169 Bassons of bright gold and 
 
 other brode vessell. 
 
 Troy 4774 Mynours then mightely the 
 moldes did serche. 
 
 Troy 4695 Betyne doune the buyldynges 
 
 to the bare erthe. 
 Troy 4777 Betyn doun the buyldynges 
 and brent into erthe. 
 Latin has in facie terre dejectis tain 
 deicienciuin studio qiiani igniuni fanunis 
 voracibus. 
 Alex. 3642 Thretti dais on a throme. . . . 
 
 lyghten. 
 
 1240 
 
 . enfamyed for defaute whan hem 
 
 fode wanted. 
 1 26 1 Bassynes of brend gold and other 
 
 bryght ger. 
 1274 Now masons and mynours hav the 
 
 molde soughte. 
 1279 Till alle the cyte was serched and 
 
 sought al aboute. 
 1257 Doun bete the bilde brenne hit in to 
 
 grounde. 
 1285 Bot doun betyn and brent into blake 
 
 erth. 
 
 1314 Thrytty Jewes in a thrum. 
 
 From these citations an interesting induction conies. Lines of the 
 Titus, containing part of the narrative of the detailed overthrow and deso- 
 lation of the Holy City, reproduce almost verbatim lines of the Troy, 
 
 82487
 
 38 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 all concerning a side-incident of the Trojan story — the assault, defence, 
 capture, and destruction of the castle of Tenedos. 
 
 Titus (a) 664, {i>) 835, (c) 1189, (d) 1186, (e) 815, (/) 1195. 
 
 Troy (a) 4739, (l>) 4741, (c) 4751, (d) 4752, (e) 4753, (/) 4755. 
 
 Tt'/i/s (g) 1 194, (/i) 1274, 1279, (/) 1285. 
 
 Troy (^o-) 4756, (//) 4774, (/)4777- 
 
 Nor ends there the indication from a synthesis of the borrowings, if 
 borrowing it be called. If the fall of Jerusalem points us to Tenedos, it 
 points at the same time to Tyre, for (besides others of minor note) the 
 following lines in the Titi/s connect with the siege of Tyre in the corre- 
 sponding Alexander lines. 
 
 Titus (a) 310, (/.) 998, (e) 652, (d) 664, (e) 619, (/) 835, (g) 673. 
 A/ex. {a) 1 151, (^) 1324, (c) 1390, (d) 1391, (e) 1395, (/) 1396, (g) 1421. 
 
 That siege of Tyre ! It so singularly unites with authentic history the 
 legendary and romantic after-accretion, which through Lambert li Tors was 
 to furnish a Scottish /oa/s dassicus in the reference to it made by John 
 Barbour in his vigorous account ^ of the taking of Edinburgh Castle in 
 the spring of the year of Bannockburn. 
 
 Not the least curious element of the foregoing comparisons of the 
 capture of Jerusalem with that of Tenedos is the fact that the succession 
 of the lines is almost perfectly the same in both. Those of the Titus 
 observe in nine instances out of ten — with only two slight transpositions — 
 the very order of the corresponding lines in the Troy. No one is likely 
 to suggest that such an occurrence is a chance coincidence. Even had 
 the fine scene of the midnight camp been wanting, this matter of Jerusalem 
 and Tenedos and Tyre must itself have sufficed to prove the wonderful 
 linking of the three poems. 
 
 (3) Date Indications. 
 
 Traces of contemporary historical and romance elements in Titus lead 
 to a suggestion of date. One cannot now call the Brut of Geoffrey of 
 
 ' Bruce, x. 705-33-
 
 8] 'TITUS'; ITS DATE 39 
 
 Monmouth a historical source, but the point of view of the fourteenth 
 century was not ours. The poet certainly drew upon the Brut^ for 
 Vespasian's banner with its golden dragon, having under him a four- 
 bladed falchion pointing to the four points of the compass and resting 
 upon a ball of burning gold in sign of conquest of the world. The dragon, 
 moreover, was a special token of the imperial presence — ' ther the lord 
 werred' — and of menace. Both of these ideas are outlined by Geoffrey 
 of Monmouth. Two sources in French romance are probable. References 
 to vows (11. 181, 197, 969, looi) perhaps carry an air of the Voeux du 
 Paon, a poem popular in the middle of the fourteenth century The 
 shaving of the Roman ambassadors (11. 355-78), thus maltreated by the 
 Jews as an insult, is an incident not in the general sources of the Veronica 
 legend, and is in all likelihood a transfer from the French romance of Ogier 
 Danois, in which four ambassadors of the Emperor Charles, sent to claim 
 homage and tribute of Godfrey of Denmark, are sent back shaven and shorn. 
 Yet more decisive is the historical hint to be deduced from the summons 
 to surrender Jerusalem, which is answered by the shaving of the imperial 
 ' sondismen.' The Jews, so acting, were returning scorn for scorn, since 
 they had been called upon to submit to Titus in terms of ignominy : 
 
 Open-heded alle 
 Up her jates to jeld with jerdes on hande 
 Eche whight in a white scherte and no wede cllys ( Titus, 344-6). 
 
 In the end, after their long and tragic defence, they can hold out no 
 
 longer : 
 
 Bot up 3eden her jates and jelden hem alle 
 
 Without brunee and bright wede in her bar chertes (Titus, 1233-4). 
 
 This cannot well have come from any other quarter than from the 
 surrender of Calais in 1347 to Edward III. The 'floynes'- and ' farcostes,' 
 ' cogges,' ' crayers,' and castled ' galees,' which form the fleet of Titus, 
 are anything but Roman ; they quite correspond to the shipping of the 
 third quarter of the fourteenth century. The statement that the Jews on 
 the approach of Titus flew like the Foul Death (' flowen as the foul deth' ) 
 
 ^ Brut, vii. eh. 3, 4. Titus, 387-400. -See Avesbur)' (Rolls Series) 385, for ' fluynes.'
 
 40 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch. 
 
 may point to 1349, but is better interpreted to refer to the visitation of 
 1 361-2. In 1 36 1 it crossed the channel: 
 
 That ilk yere in til Yngland 
 
 The Secund Dede was fast wedand (IVyiitoun, viii., 7135-6). 
 
 It did havoc in Scotland in 1362. There is yet another element 
 
 making for a date about that time. The Black Prince's conquest of 
 
 Aquitaine, ratified by the treaty of Bretigny in 1360, may account for a 
 
 freshened interest in the legend of St. Veronica, whom Frenchmen still 
 
 designate as * the Apostle of Aquitaine.'^ The locality of her cult was 
 
 in Gascony and Guienne and Bordeaux, all then English possessions, and 
 
 all playing a part in the legend and in our poem (11. 26, 70, 190). We 
 
 can hardly date Tifi/s earlier than 1363. In any view the sequence 
 
 established between Alexander, Troy, and Titus will perhaps help us 
 
 when from the Titus — a poem known to Scotland in the fifteenth century - 
 
 — we pass at last to Morte Arthure, believing that we have possessed 
 
 ourselves of its secret. 
 
 9. ' Morte Arthure,' its Sources, Contents, and Parallels. - 
 
 ( I ) The ' Brut ' as General Source. 
 
 A chivalric Arthurian poem, not improbably known to Barbour^ and 
 certainly quoted by Wyntoun ^ {circa 1420), this story is a free rendering of the 
 tale first enshrined in Geoffrey of Monmouth's reliquary, that Brut or Historia 
 Britonum to which for ill and for good British history and British literature 
 stand in so profound a debt.'' The 'Emperor' Lucius Iberius sends to 
 
 ' Saintc Vh'onique, Apotre de P Aqidtaine. 2nd ed. Toulouse, 1877. 
 
 - The opening line of Titits — ' In Tiberius's tyme the trewe Emperour ' — is, as John Leyden 
 had observed, verbatim the opening line of 'Ihe Gyre- Carting printed in Early Popular 
 Scottish Poetry, ed. Laing and liazlilt, 1895, ii. p. 19; also as number cxlviii. in the 
 Hunterian Club print of the Patttiaiytte MS. 
 
 '^ John Barbour, Poet and Translator, p. 12. Besides the facts associating Barbour with 
 the Knight of Eglintoun, the concurrence of sources used by Barbour and liuchown has to 
 be considered. See below, ch. 15 sec. 4. 
 
 '^Wyntoun, bk. v., 11. 4271-4366; Morte ArtJnire, 11. 34-47, etc. 
 
 'Some discussion of this and other sources occurs in P. Branscheid's elaborate essay 
 Quellen des Morte Arthure \n AngUa, viii., Anzeiger, pp. 178-336; Dr. Morilz Trautmann's
 
 9] 'MORTE ARTHURE' AND THE 'BRUT' 41 
 
 England demanding homage and tribute. In response to the insuking 
 embassy, King Arthur crosses the channel, and, after slaying a giant, fights a 
 great battle with Lucius, who falls, and whose body Arthur causes to be 
 conveyed to Rome as the only tribute he is prepared to pay. He then 
 advances into Italy, and is anticipating coronation at Rome when bad 
 news from England constrain him to turn. Mordred, his nephew, left in 
 charge of the realm, has played false, and the king's landing is only effected 
 after a great sea fight in which he is victorious over Mordred and his 
 foreign allies. The battle is continued ashore, and to the great grief of 
 the king, Sir Gawayne falls by Mordred's hand. The traitor then flees 
 to Cornwall, with Arthur in vengeful pursuit. Again there is batde, and 
 all the great names of the Round Table are reckoned on the list of dead. 
 Arthur strikes Mordred a terrible blow which cuts off his sword-hand, and 
 Mordred dies from a thrust of Caliburn driven ' to the bright hilts.' Arthur 
 himself, however, is wounded mortally in the encounter, and the powerful 
 historical alliterative romance ends with the Requiem sung over the hero 
 buried at Glastonbury — Rex quondam rexque futurits. 
 
 In this outline there is little deviation from the vulgate story of Arthur. 
 The poem glorifies Arthur and the knights of his Round Table, most of all 
 perhaps dwelling on the exploits and devotion of his nephew. Sir Gawayne, 
 whose death is the occasion of a passionate lament by the hero-king. This 
 is one of the many insertions made by the poet, although his framework as 
 a whole is a fairly literal translation of the version of Arthur's later career 
 given by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who, however, was not the sole Arthurian 
 authority he employed. The English Brut^ was known in Scotland soon 
 after the middle of the fourteenth century. But the Latin Brut was that 
 used by Huchown. There was, however, a considerable levy made on 
 other works besides the Brut and its offshoots. 
 
 At numerous points dramatic episodes are woven into the plainer thread of 
 
 Der Dichter Huchown und seine Werke m. Anglia, i., 109-49; Dr. Oskar Sommer's 
 Le Morte Darthir, vol. iii. 148-175 ; Mrs. M. M. Banks's edition of Morte Arthur, p. 128 ; 
 and the preface to the Destruction of Troy. These references give no clue to the sources 
 (except the Brut and the Troy) now to be dealt with. 
 
 ^The Bruyt en Engles is quoted by the Scalacronica, p. 3. 
 
 D
 
 42 'IIUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 the Brut, and the Great Gest of Arthure is presented with high and vivid 
 colouring, and with a dignity and stateHness due to the monarch-elect of 
 chivalric romance. It is no detraction from the constructive power of the 
 poet that even at this remote distance of time we can so far enter into his 
 work as to determine with some certainty some at least of his sources. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to particularise the parts of Morte Arthure which 
 come from its stock source, the Brut. What is taken is freely handled, changes 
 are deliberately made, expansion is everywhere, and there are inserted not a 
 it."^ things which are in no sense really exegetical of the Brut. From book ix., 
 chapter 15 of Geoffrey, wherein Lucius sends his letter, to book xi., chapter 2, 
 wherein Arthur, wounded to death, is carried to Avalon, the Brut is the 
 centre and substance of the poem. The particular manuscript of the Brut 
 employed in the making of the poem will be considered by and bye. The 
 value of Morte Arthure as a piece of literary history and as literature turns, 
 however, to no small extent upon its incidental indebtedness to certain other 
 sources which English and German editors and commentators have over- 
 looked. The first of these is one which we may remember as of proved 
 connection with the alliterative Alexander. 
 
 (2) Alaimdevilie's Itinerary. 
 
 We therefore renew our acquaintance with Maundeville. In Morte 
 
 Arthure, when Sir Priamus, badly wounded, becomes the prisoner of 
 
 Gawayne, 
 
 A foylc of fyne golde they fande at his gyrdill, 
 
 That es full of the flour of the fouur well 
 
 That flowes owte of Paradice when the flode ryses. — (11. 2704-6.) 
 
 Of the terrestrial Paradise Maundeville knew that it contained a well with 
 
 four streams carrying precious stones, and lignum aloes, and golden sand. 
 
 The terrestrial Paradise he knew, too, was so high that Noah's flood could 
 
 not reach it.^ 
 
 (3) Fieta or Brae ton. 
 
 Sir Hew of Eglintoun was a Justiciar of Scotland. That he should have 
 
 been acquainted with one or other or both of the classical English legal 
 
 ^ Matnidevilk (Wright), ch. xxx. : MS. T. 4, I, fo. 266 + 69b.
 
 9] 'MORTE ARTHURE' AND SANCTUARY LAW 43 
 
 treatises must be as little surprising as would be his making the personal 
 acquaintance of an English Chief-Justice, say, for example Scharshill, during 
 a visit to or sojourn in London. There is in Morte Art/mre an episode in 
 connection with the ambassadors of Lucius which argues unmistakably a 
 knowledge of the English law of sanctuary as set forth in Bracton's Tractatus 
 de Legibus et Consuetudinihus Ajigliae, written before 1259, or with the Fkta 
 seu Commentarius Juris Anglicani, which — largely drawn from the former 
 work— a judge of the time of Edward I. composed in the Fleet Prison. 
 The episode in question is a supplement of the poet's devising to anything 
 he could have found in the original, for the Brut contains nothing that 
 corresponds. Arthur, after giving the embassy right royal entertainment, 
 changes the tune when the time arrives for diplomatic business. Then he 
 gives haughty answer to be carried back to the Emperor by the embassy. 
 The claim of homage and tribute is contemptuously rejected ; threats are 
 met with threats still more stern; and finally the 'Senatour' is ordered home 
 in uncompromising terms.^ From Carlisle he is to go to the port of 
 Sandwich ; seven days are allowed him for the journey (sixty miles a day is 
 the computation) ; he is to keep by Watling Street all the way, or leave it on 
 pain of death; he must lodge for the night where his day's journey ends; 
 and if after undern of the eighth day he is found in England, unless within 
 the floodmark at Sandwich, he will be beheaded, drawn, and hanged. 
 There can be no disputing the inference that the poet had in his view the 
 text of sanctuary law whereby a criminal who had taken sanctuary and chosen 
 to abjure the realm made his departure from the land. His port of embarcation 
 being chosen, 'there ought to be computed for him,' says Bracton (fo. 135b- 
 136) 'reasonable days' journeys to that port, and he ought to be forbidden 
 to quit the king's highway, and he should tarry nowhere for two nights 
 ... but should ever hold on by the direct road to the port, so that he may 
 be there by his given day. ... If he do otherwise he shall be in peril.' 
 In Fkta (ff. 45-46) the doctrine of Bracton is carried to further detail. The 
 grithman is to pass on his way ' without girdle, unshod, and bare-headed - in 
 
 1 Morte Arthitre, 445-63. 
 
 '^Discinctus et discalceatus capita discooperto in pura tunica tanquam in patibulo 
 suspendendus.
 
 44 'HUCHOWN OF Till: AWLE R\ALE' [Cii. 
 
 kirtle alone like one about to be hanged on the gallows,' and if he stray from 
 the highway he is liable to decapitation if caught.^ 
 
 These texts of law are the best gloss we can desire for the grim 
 direction by Arthur to the senator, whose departure is thus ingeniously 
 conditioned with ignominy by the prescription of exit in tlie manner of a 
 fugitive criminal. The element of the ' kirtle alone ' was familiar to the 
 14th century ; it was used in the Titus repeatedly ; in the Morte Arthure 
 we shall find it too with a context which settles beyond dispute its 
 immediate source now to be brouglit forward. 
 
 (4) Voeux du Paoii. 
 
 This French poem,- after a very entertaining and courtly series of 
 events, gets to its real business in the vows made on the peacock by the 
 various knights of Alexander the Great. Chivalry from the 13th to the 
 15th century laid great store by vows, often of extravagant valour, made 
 on choice or royal dishes at great festivals — vows on the Swan, the 
 Peacock, the Pheasant, or the Heron. Has not La Curne de Sainte- 
 Palaye in the Meiiioires siir fancieniie Chevakrie (ed. Nodier, 1826; i., pp. 
 157, etc., ii., 1-132, etc.) told and quoted and explained so fully as to 
 supersede the need for repetition here? History remembers the vow of 
 Edward I. made on the Swan ^ at Westminster in 1306 at that feast 
 which a contemporary describes as so noble that Britain had never seen 
 its like except that feast at Caerleon in Arthur's time."* It remembers 
 also the vow of the Heron made by Edward HI. and Robert d'Artois in 
 1338, a vow which happily found its metrical chronicler so that it lives in 
 the old French Voeu du Heron.-' It has forgotten, perhaps, that not John 
 Barbour merely but history itself most curiously associated Robert the 
 
 ^ My first note on this sanctuary passage appeared in the Dr. Furnivall Festschrift, An 
 English Miscellany, 1901, p. 384. 
 
 -Students of romance await with very great interest the pubhcation of M. Charles 
 Bonnier's edition of the French text which is urgently necessary for purposes of collation. 
 
 ^ Flores Historiarum, sub anno 1306. Trivet's /^««a/^x (Eng. Hist. Soc), 408. 
 
 * Robert of Brunne, ed. Ilearne, p. 332. Caerleon became Carlisle in Morte Arthure. 
 
 '•' La Curiae, i., 95.
 
 9] 'MORTE ARTIIURE' AND THE 'VOEUX DU PAON' 45 
 
 Bruce with the vow of the peacock, for one of our chroniclers tells 
 that in 1307, after Edward I.'s death, his son's newly created knights 
 made similar vows to conquer King Robert to those made the year 
 before— 'emitted,' says he, ^ 'new vows to the peacock.' But it is time 
 to return from the vow historical to the vow poetic. It was this chivalrous 
 usage that Jacques de Longuyon enshrined in the Vocux du Paon to enrich 
 the Alexander saga, making the various paladins of the great Alexander 
 pledge themselves to perform their several feats of outstanding bravery 
 in the approaching battle with King Clarus of India. One, for instance, 
 swore 'to discomfit the great battale,' another to take a distinguished 
 prisoner, another to strike down the standard of the Indian king. Thus 
 the vows were made, and after much intervening action the poet conducts 
 his readers to the battlefield, where knight after knight goes forward to 
 redeem his undertaking. The 'great battale' is discomfited, the prisoner 
 is taken, the standard is hewn down. All the vows are fulfilled to the letter. 
 'As they deemed to do they did full even' is the apt statement of 
 one - who made an abstract and brief chronicle of the poem. 
 
 The French text of the poem is only now in course of being edited, 
 but an early Scottish translator, who, as I believe myself to have 
 demonstrated, was none other than John Barbour, gave this French poem 
 vigorous and admirable rendering into the Scottish vernacular as The 
 Avowes of Alexander and The Great Battell of Effesoun — these forming 
 the second and third parts of the composite poem of which the first part 
 is The Forray of Gadderis, and of which the general title is The Buik 
 of the most noble and vailzeand Conqueror Alexander the Great, reprinted in 
 1 83 1 for the Bannatyne Club in a very limited edition now grown scarce. 
 That the French poem was well known to Barbour's contemporary and 
 colleague, Sir Hew (if Sir Hew was Huchown), becomes evident from 
 the use to which it is put in Morte Arthure. In the Brut there is no 
 machinery of 'avows' made either by Arthur or his knights; no mention of 
 any particular form of surrender or submission by the rebellious vassal 
 
 1 Bower, Scotichronicon, ed. Goodal, ii. , 240, Novo rege Angliae creato tirones et novi 
 milites de subjectione regis Roberti nova vota cmittuiit pavoni. 
 ^ Faiieinent of the Thre Ages, 1. 567.
 
 46 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE ' [Ch. 
 
 or vanquished enemy ; no mention of any ceremonial by way of amends 
 to satiate the blood-feud or avert future hostility ; no mention of the Nine 
 Worthies. All these features occur in the Voeux du Faoti, and are trans- 
 ferred to and made part of the framework of Morte Arthurc. 
 
 Arthur himself and knight after knight of the Table Round with him 
 make their avows. Arthur will by Lammas pass to Lorraine and Lombardy, 
 mine down the walls of Milan, and sojourn six weeks at Viterbo. King 
 Aungers of Scotland will bring 50,000 men at his own charges, the Baron 
 of Britain the Less will bring 30,000 within a month, the Welsh king will 
 fight with 2000 in the vanguard. Sir Lancelot will tilt with the Emperor 
 and strike him from his steed. Sir Lottez will cleave his way through the 
 enemies' ranks. Sir Ewayne will touch the eagle of the Emperor and dash 
 down his golden banner. All which avows are perfectly accomplished ; 
 'as they deemed to do they did full even.' 
 
 In the Voeux a powerful dramatic situation is presented by the amends 
 and satisfaction which the leading paladins of Alexander offer to the younger 
 Gadifer. In the battle which closes the Forray oj Gaderis {Fiierre de 
 Gadres) the valiant Gadifer had fallen under the spear of Emenydus. 
 Subsequently Cassamus the Auld conducts Gadifer the Young, eldest son 
 of the slain Gadifer, to the camp of Alexander, where he becomes the 
 ally of the Macedonian. But when he discovers the exact position he is 
 somewhat taken aback, and a conflict is imminent between his sense of 
 the duty of revenge on the one hand and the requirements of his new 
 environment on the other. Emenydus generously resolves to remove the 
 last obstacle to harmony in the camp. To the surprise of Alexander, 
 Emenydus and twelve companions march, barefoot, bareheaded, beltless, 
 and in their shirts, to the presence of the young Gadifer, making submission 
 to him by kneeling before him, tendering their swords, which they hold by 
 the points, and reaching the hilts to the man whose blood-feud they thus 
 hope to appease. This submission, which was gratefully accepted by 
 Gadifer, quite evidently supi)lied the idea which more than once appears 
 in Morte Arthure. There are minor examples, but the chief instance is 
 that in which, after the fall of the ' Emperour ' Lucius, senators and knights 
 of Rome beg for mercy.
 
 9] 'MORTE ARTHURE' AND 'TITUS' 47 
 
 Twa senatours ther come and certayne knyghttez, 
 Hodles fro the bethe ouer the holte eyves, 
 Barefote ouer the bente with brondes so ryche, 
 Bowes to the bolde kynge and biddis hym the hikes, 
 Whethire he will hang theym or hedde or halde theym on lyfe, 
 Knelyde before the conquerour in kyrtills allone.^ 
 
 Where could this have come from unless from the Foeux? If it should 
 be answered that the usage was one not ill-known to chivalric courts-martial, - 
 and that its very presence in the Foeux comes from that fact, it will only 
 be necessary to recall the existence of other points of contact. Of these 
 a third and most prominent instance of borrowing is the account of the 
 Nine Worthies — three pagans. Hector, Alexander, and Caesar; three Jews, 
 Joshua, David, and Judas Machabeus ; and three Christians, Arthur, Charle- 
 magne, and Godfrey of Bouillon — whose fates are so aptly introduced in 
 connection with Fortune's wheel in Arthur's vision. 
 
 (5) Ti'/us and Fespasian. 
 Unmistakable are the proofs of the use of the Titus in Morte Arlhure — 
 a use which is of the greatest moment in the line of chronological proofs. 
 Sundry questions have to be asked, and the answers to them set forward 
 and examined.^ 
 
 Why in Morte Arthure (297, 309, 348, 386) are the vows of Arthur 
 
 and his knights made not (as in the French romance they echo) 
 
 on the peacock, but on the Holy Vernacle?^ 
 
 Because, as we have seen, the story of the Vernacle plays so great a 
 
 part in the Titus. As the Vernacle was an integral element of the Titus, 
 
 ^ Hodles, hoodless ; holte eyves, skirts of the wood ; brondes, brands, swords ; biddis, 
 offer. 
 
 ^ See my article on ' The Submission of the Lord of the Isles,' in Scottish Antiquary, 
 XV., 113, and add a Glasgow example, since pointed out to me by my friend Mr. Robert 
 Renwick, in Records of Burgh of Glasgozi' (Burgh Records Soc), 1573-1642, p. 293. Note 
 also Du Guesclin's reference to this form of penitential surrender as recorded in Cuvelier's 
 Vie Vaillant Bert ran du Guesclin, 11. 2457-9. 
 
 •^ Most of these points were set forth in ' Huchown ' (part I.), Atheiueum, 1st June, 1901. 
 
 ■* Because, says Mr. Henry Bradley {Athoucum, 15th June, 1901), the ' words avoioe and 
 vernacle alliterate in z'.' It is indeed a notable reason, the publication of which evinces 
 Mr. Bradley's penetration !
 
 48 'IIUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE' [Ch. 
 
 Vespasian, and Veronica legend, it goes without saying that the Titus did 
 not borrow the Vernacle from Morte Arthure. 
 
 Why in Morte Arthure (2331-35) is it that Arthur by way of doing 
 shame to Rome shaves the senators who came as ambassadors of 
 submission to him after the death of Lucius? 
 
 Because in the Titus (355-378) ambassadors of Rome demanding sur- 
 render of Jerusalem are sent back shaven, ' scorned and shent upon shame 
 wise,' by the indignant garrison. This is not Roman, for with the Romans 
 shaving was a symbol of manumission ; it does not seem to occur in either 
 the ancient or medieval stories of the fall of Jerusalem ; but it is an incident 
 so oriental in character as to be as natural and as much in keeping with 
 the story of Titus and the Jews as at first it seems out of keeping with 
 Arthur and the Romans. Ogier Danois with its shaven ambassadors 
 supplies an exact enough precedent for both poems. 
 
 How comes it that in Morte Arthure (1252, 2026, 2057) there is 
 such insistence on the significance of the dragon banner? 
 
 There is the same insistence in the Titus (278, 325, 387-8, 396-400) 
 concerning it. Perhaps the hint for it in both 2'itus and Morte Arthure 
 came partly from Geoffrey of Monmouth (vii., chaps. 3 and 4) and partly 
 from fourteenth century life or literature, but the allusion of Titus (397) to 
 the dragon as an indication of the royal presence in person and (39S-400) to 
 its menace as precluding any terms short of absolute surrender, harmonises 
 remarkably with the Morte Arthure allusions to the dragon ^ raised to 
 threaten only when Lucius is himself in the field. 
 
 Whence came into Morte Arthure (3353-62) the 'pome' symbol of 
 sovereignty of the earth with the sword as its companion token ? 
 
 It came from the same quarter as produced the four-bladed falchion 
 and the ball of burning gold betokening conquest of 'al the world riche ' 
 
 in Titus (390-395)- 
 
 Whence came into Morte Arthure (900-919) the suggestion of the 
 fine picture of Arthur arming himself for the figlit with the dragon ? 
 
 ^ On this see further my article on 'Raising Dragon' in Scottish Anliqua)-)', xii. 147. 
 But see also chap. 12, sec. 1, below.
 
 9] 
 
 'MORTE ARTHURE' AND 'TITUS' 
 
 49 
 
 In the Titus (734-762) there is a closely analogous picture of Vespasian 
 arming himself, a picture not occurring in the original Latin sources. The 
 two pictures have, moreover, features and alliterations in common. 
 
 Titus. 
 735 [ ' Leverockes ' sing]. 
 738 [Vespasian] busked hym fayr. 
 741 biynye biowded .... brest. 
 741-2 [Vespasian has a breast- pLate of steel 
 
 and gold.] 
 74S A brod schynand scheld on scholdir 
 
 he hongith. 
 750 The glowes of gray steel that wer 
 
 with gold hemyd. 
 
 751 
 
 752 
 
 .... and his hers asketh. 
 
 The gold hewen helme haspeth he 
 
 blyve 
 With viser and with avental devysed 
 
 for the nones 
 A croune of clene gold was closed 
 
 upon lofte 
 Rybande umbe the rounde helm ful 
 
 of riche stones, 
 Pyght prudely with perles into the 
 
 pur corners. 
 
 He strideth on a stif stede and 
 
 striketh over the bente. 
 Stith men in stiropys striden alofte]. 
 Gawayne ami Green Knight, 435 : 
 
 Steppez into stelbawe and strydes 
 alofte. 
 Alex. 778 Striden to stelebowe startyn 
 
 upon lofte. 
 760 His segges sewen hym alle .... 
 
 758 
 [521 
 
 Morte Arthtire. 
 925-30 [Birds sing].^ 
 917 [xVrthur] sterys hym faire. 
 1858 brenys browden brestez .... 
 902 [Arthur has an 'acton with orfraeez. '] 
 
 914 He bracez a brade schelde. 
 
 912 His gloues gaylyche gilte and grauen 
 at the hemmez. 
 (This is repeated at 1. 3462.) 
 914 .... and his brande aschez. 
 90S The creste and the coronall enclosed 
 so faire 
 Wyth clasppis of clere golde couched 
 
 wyth stones 
 The vesare the aventaile enarmede so 
 faire. 
 
 [3462 pighte was full faire 
 
 With perry of the oryent and precyous 
 stones. ] 
 915-6 Bounede hym a broun stede and on 
 the bente hovys 
 He sterte till his sterepe and stridez 
 on lofte. 
 
 . . 919 . . . hys knyghtes hyme kepede . . . 
 
 How comes it that whilst, as we have seen, there are so many lines 
 
 and phrases common to Titus and Troy, and whilst, as we shall see, 
 
 there are so many common to Morte Arthure and Troy, there are 
 
 also so many common to Morte Arthure and Titus'? 
 
 1 An accompaniment perhaps suggested by Perceval le Gallois, 11. 19056-84, M. Amours, 
 Sc. Allit. Poems, pp. 276-7.
 
 5° 
 
 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 
 Titus. 
 
 
 
 283 
 
 . . . floynes aflot farcostcb many 
 
 J 
 
 743 
 
 284 
 
 Cogges and crayers . . . 
 
 738 
 
 287 
 
 . . . tyghten up talsail (? topsail). 
 
 744 
 
 290 
 
 Port Jaf. 
 
 
 1520 
 
 308 
 
 . . . that fauconn wolde strike . . . 
 
 
 788 
 
 387 
 
 . . . dragoun was dressed . . . 
 
 
 786 
 
 451 
 
 Cameles closed in stele. 
 
 
 616 
 
 622 
 
 . . . dewe was donked. 
 
 
 313 
 
 815 
 
 Fought right felly foyned with speres 
 [cf. Troj', 815]. 
 
 
 3690 
 
 859 
 
 . . . torsom (torfour) and tene . . . 
 
 
 1956 
 
 883 
 
 Ride to the rever .... 
 
 
 619 
 
 [A\ 
 
 fi'er in the sense of hawking gruundj. 
 
 
 
 1007 
 
 My wele and my worschup .... 
 
 
 401 
 
 1113-4 
 
 [ Schaftes schedred wer sone and 
 
 
 2169 
 
 As a riming poet is tested by liis rimes, so an alliterator is tested by 
 his alliterations. Here are a few alliterative points of contact. 
 
 Morte Arthure. 
 . . . floynes and fercostez .... 
 Coggez and crayers .... 
 Tytt saillez to the toppe .... 
 Port Jaf.i 
 
 ... as fawcone frekly he strykes. 
 . . . dragone on dreghe dressede . . . 
 Bot coverdc camellez of toures en- 
 
 closyde in maylez. 
 . . . dewe that es daunke . . . 
 Then they falle to the fyghte ffoynes 
 
 with sperys. 
 . . . tene and torfere . . . 
 Rides in by the ryvere . . . (cf. 920- 
 
 925 for connection with hawking ; 
 
 also verb ryvaie 4000). 
 My wele and my wyrchipc . . . 
 . . . Schafte scodyrde . . . (3845 
 
 also). 
 Thrughe brenes and bryghte scheldes 
 
 brestes thyrle. 
 
 This list admits of considerable extension. The arithmetic of citations 
 calls for a word in passing to annotate the fact that in comparing Morte 
 Arthure (4347 lines) with Titus (1332 lines) there is numerically far less 
 chance of similarities between these two than in comparing either with the 
 Troy (14,044 lines). Such at least must be the presumption unless it is 
 disturbed by relations of time or theme which may bring one i)air of poems 
 closer to each other and reveal more resemblances than numerical pro- 
 portions might have led a critic to expect. Those considerations will not 
 be forgotten when we turn to yet other sources of Morte Arthure. 
 
 (6) Supplementary French Sources. 
 That a considerable use is made of French romance in Morte Arthure 
 has been signalised by the borrowings from the Vocux du Faon. For some 
 very slender information regarding others less distinct Branscheid's essay 
 
 scheldes ythrelled 
 Brunyes and bright wede blody by 
 runne. 
 
 1412 
 
 'The Hunterian MS. T. 4, l (f. 266 + 5) spells Portumjaph.
 
 9] 'MORTE ARTHURE'; FRENCH SOURCES 51 
 
 and Sominer's introduction to Malory may be consulted, as well as Mrs. 
 Banks's introduction. 
 
 Two sources not brought forward in any of these discussions may be 
 suggested as possible. The noble and impassioned outburst of Arthur 
 over the body of the slain Gawayne, which he lifts and clasps to his breast, 
 (1. 3952) may be compared with the passage in the Itinerary of the Pseudo- 
 Turpin {^Itmerariiim domini Turpini) found in the Hunterian MS. T. 4, i, 
 where (fo. 184) Charlemagne mourns over the fallen Roland. '■ Karolus 
 Rothlanduin exaiiimatum jacentcni eversiim brachiis positis super pectus in 
 effigie criicis, et irriiens super eum cepit lacrimis gemitibus et singidtibus . . . 
 /ugere,' etc. Not the words of Charlemagne are followed by Arthur, but 
 the echo of their spirit is very close. A second possible and quite sub- 
 sidiary source is Ge/ierydes, to which reference may be made in its late English 
 version (E.E.T.S., 1873), for several points of contact with the Huchown set of 
 poems. Thus the temptation in 11. 477-483 suggests the recurrent machinery 
 of Gawayne and the Green Knight. The steed of Generydes, ' Grisselle,' is 
 the steed ^ of Gawayne in the Awntyrs of Arthtire, just as in another poem 
 Hector's steed, ' Galathe,' appears to have given name - to Gawayne's sword, 
 'Galuth.' The sword of Generydes, ' Claryet,' suggests ^ Arthur's weapon, 
 ' Clarent.' And in one of the battles of Generydes there are * boustous folk ' 
 ' on camelys' who look very like"* the 'boustous churlles' on 'camellez ' who 
 are ranged among the enemies of King Arthur in the army of the ' Emperour. 
 The probability of Generydes being indeed a source is vastly heightened 
 by a direct reference to it in another of the Huchown poems, to be afterwards 
 noticed,^ which is in part a derivative of Aforte Arthure. That there are 
 other French sources, as for instance, for the Priamus and Gawayne encounter, 
 is certain. Ogier Danois, we have seen, probably accounts for the four 
 shaven ambassadors. Not less probably it accounts for the incident of the 
 curative ointment carried by Priamus, which, taken from his girdle after 
 
 ' Generydes, 3301 — Azvniyrs, 547. - Troy, 7780 — Morte, 1387. 
 
 "^Generydes, 3481 — Morte, 4202. 
 
 ^Generydes, 2152-7; Morte, 615-6; ' Bioustious,' the same adjective, occurs in Troy, 
 41 16. 
 
 ^ See ch. 10, sec. 2, below.
 
 52 'IIUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Cii. 
 
 Gawayne has wounded and captured him, makes all the injured knights 
 ' fischehalle ' within four hours (11. 2705-13). In Ogicr Da/iois the giant 
 Brehus has in the buckle of his shield an ointment similarly effective, 
 whereby he at once makes himself, says the romance, ' more sound than a 
 swimming fish.' The victorious Ogier and Gawayne alike possess themselves 
 of the vanquished enemy's ointment. Hence, therefore, seems to have 
 come the suggestion of the encounter of Priamus and Gawayne. Other 
 French sources may be taken to include some version of Feriunbras, the 
 allusion to the relics, the crown of thorns, the lance, the cross, and the 
 nails ^ being in all likelihood brought from that romance. 
 
 (7) The 'Troy' and the 'Alexander: 
 
 Approaching now a series of extensive parallels between Morte Arthure 
 and the Troy one finds it simplest to deal with the Alexander also in the 
 same connection as a subsidiary source connected with the Troy in Morte 
 Artlntre passages as we have already seen it in Titus j^assages. 
 
 One group of parallels to the Alexander is geographical, and has been 
 commented upon by Professor Skeat. At the end of the Alexander there 
 is a singular list of provinces subject to the rule of Alexander the Great. 
 The Latin original has been reprinted above. While this list gives the 
 key to at least thirty-two of the names in the alliterative rendering, it also 
 makes clear the inference that a number of the alliterative names were 
 not in the original Latin. The further comparison of a similar list of 
 names in Morte Arthure with that in the Alexander poems reveals (i) that 
 the former contains pairs occurring in the latter; (2) that these pairs embrace 
 names not in the Latin source of the Alexander; and (3) that thus such 
 combinations and coincidences as * Gyane and Grece,' ' Bayone and Burdeux, 
 or ' Naverne and Norway ' are rendered doubly significant. 
 
 "^ Morte, 3427-29. In Scottish chronicle of 1360 there is mention of these ' tresnoblis 
 precious reHqes.' Sca/aoonica, 195. There is, however, no Hsl of what they were, and 
 it is observable that, while the lists differ in the Fenimbras romances the version used by 
 Barbour {Britce, iii., 459-61) also mentions the crown, the spear, the cross, and the nails. 
 The So-LuJan of Babylon does not name the spear.
 
 9] 
 
 'MORTE ARTHURE,' 'TROY,' AND 'ALEXANDER' 
 
 53 
 
 A/ex. 5674 Flaudres and France . . . 
 {A-cVJityrs of Arthjire 276. firetane and 
 Burgoyne.] 
 
 Alex. 5667 Gyane Garnad nnd Grece and 
 
 Gascony. 
 \_Titiis 26 Gascoyne gat and Gyan,] 
 Alex. 5668 Bayone and Burdeux. 
 Alex. 5672 Norivay thire Navernes aile. 
 
 Alex. 5669 Capidos. 
 
 Alex. 5665 Tiirke, Tuscane, Troy, and 
 Tartary. 
 2190 Thebea. 
 
 Morte Art Jill re. 
 
 34 Flaundrez and Fraunce. 
 
 36 Burgoyne and Brabane and Bretayne 
 
 the lesse. 
 (1018 Burgoyne or Bretayne.) 
 
 37 Gyane and Gothelande and Grece. 
 
 44 
 
 5657 Pers and ramplialie. 
 
 Bayone and Burdeux. 
 Naverne and Norwaye and Nor- 
 maundye. 
 580 Capados. 
 
 582 Tartary and Turky. 
 
 583 Thebay. 
 
 [The next line (584) refers to the Ama- 
 zons, thus showing the Alexander connec- 
 tion. Line 586 too speaks of Babylon, also 
 referable to the Alexander story.] 
 588 Perce and Pamphile. 
 
 The above italicised names from the Alexander occur in the Latin, 
 the others do not, thus making the recurrence of the same pairs in another 
 poem so much the more indicative of a single hand. How this indication 
 gains from extended collation of certain identities of line and alliteration 
 between the poems as undernoted will be too plain to need much argument. 
 
 Troy 2683 Warpet out wordes . . . 
 Troy 207 . . . with daintes ynogh. 
 
 Aumtyrs ^z^() With liche daynteths endor- 
 
 rede . . . 
 Awittyrs 14 Sir Gawane the gay dame 
 
 Gayenour he ledis. 
 Troy 2140 To venge of our velany. 
 Tiliis 20 . . . the vyleny to venge. 
 T?-oy 6537 With thre thousand thro men 
 
 thrivond in armys. 
 Troy 7733 Sparit for no spurse, speddyn 
 
 to the flight. 
 
 Morte Arthitre. 
 
 9 ... werpe owte some worde . . . 
 199 With darielles endordede and daynteez 
 ynewe. 
 
 233 Sir Gaywayne the worthye Dame 
 
 Waynour he hledys. 
 29S Of this giett velany I salle be vengede 
 
 ones. 
 317 Thyrtty thousande be tale thryftye 
 
 in amies. 
 449 . . . spede at the spurs and spare 
 
 not . . .
 
 54 
 
 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLli RVALE 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Troy 2371 Bound up my blonke to a 
 
 bogh evyn. 
 Alex. 5317 For alle the welthe of the 
 
 \ver[l]d. 
 Troy 313 The mighty Massidon Kyng 
 
 Troy 3551 In a swyme and a swogh as 
 he swelt wold. 
 9454 . . . swym as he swelt wold. 
 8046 . . . swonyt in swym as ho 
 swelt wold. 
 Alex. 64 ... dryfes over the depe . . . 
 Troy 14S4 ... a philosoffer a fine man 
 of lore 
 In the syense full sad of the 
 sevyn artes. 
 Troy 23 ... wees that wist . . . 
 
 Troy 2735 • • • fiorisshet with floures. , . 
 
 Troy 12973 Nightgalis with notes. 
 
 Troy 106 1 Swcighyng of swet ayre 
 
 swalyng of briddes. 
 Alex. 4385 The swoghing of . . . swete 
 
 wellis. 
 Troy 8273 Thow dowtles shall dye with 
 
 dynt of my bond. 
 
 Awntyrs 390 ... an anlas. 
 
 Troy 92 ... dede throughe dyntes of 
 
 bond. 
 Awntyrs 442 ... a pavilone of palle that 
 
 prodly was pighte. 
 Pistill of Susan 59 Thei caught for heor 
 
 covetyse the cursyng of 
 
 Cay me. 
 Troy 9406 He gird hym thurgh the 
 
 guttes with a grym speire. 
 Cf. 1232. 
 Troy 7780 . . . Galathe that was the 
 
 gude stede. 
 [Name of Hector's horse.] 
 
 Morte Arthtire. 
 453 Bynde thy blonke by a buske with 
 
 thy brydille evene. 
 541 Ne of welthe of this werlde . . . 
 
 603 The myghtyeste of Macedone . . . 
 
 716 ... swonyng swe[l]te as cho walde. 
 
 761 ... dryfande one the deep. 
 807-8 . . . phylozophirs. . . . 
 
 In the sevyne scyence the suteleste 
 fondene. 
 
 891 Thare was no wy of this werlde that 
 
 wyst. . . . 
 924 The frithez ware floreschte with 
 
 flourez. . . . 
 929 Of the nyghtgale notez the noisez. 
 932 . . . swowynge of watyr and syngynge 
 
 of byrdez. 
 
 1073 For thow salle dye this day thurghe 
 
 dynt of my handez. 
 [Same, 1505, 4228.] 
 1 148 . . . with ane anlace. 
 1277 . . . derely be delt with dynttez of 
 
 handez. 
 1287 Palaisez proudliche pyghte . . . that 
 
 palyd ware. . . . 
 131 1 That ilke cursynge that Cayme kaghte 
 
 for his brothyre. 
 
 1369-70 He gryppes hym a grete spere. . . . 
 Thurghe the guttez into the gorre he 
 gyrdes hyme ewyne. 
 1387 . . . Galuth his gude swerde. . . . 
 
 [Name of Gawayne's sword, probably 
 a transfer from Hector's horse. ]
 
 9] 
 
 'MORTE ARTIIURE'; PARALLELS 
 
 55 
 
 Troy 9061 . . . brest . . . thiilet. 
 
 Troy 3881 ... a litle he stotid. 
 Troy 1 054 1 Swordis out swiftly thai 
 swappit. . . . 
 
 Troy 18S9 And with swappyng of 
 
 swerdys thof be swelt 
 
 wolde. 
 Cf. Troy, notes p. 480-81. 
 Troy 5935 He swappit at hym swithe 
 
 with a swerd felie. 
 [Same, 6921.] 
 Aivntyrs '■yl!^ He swapped him yne at the 
 
 swyre with a swerde kene. 
 Troy I1091 Stedes doun sticked. . . . 
 Alex. 5482 . . . biche sons. . . . 
 Alex. 561 ... and demyd the skewys. 
 Awntyrs (Douce MS.) 53 . . . in the dymme 
 
 skuwes. 
 Awntyrs 293 . . . Rownde tabille losse 
 
 the renowne. 
 Aumtyrs 266 Maye no man stere hym of 
 
 strenghe. 
 Alex. 1324 And makez a way wyde 
 
 enogh. . . . 
 Troy 5932 Make wayes full wide. [Same, 
 
 6513-] 
 Troy 5933 Shot thurgh the sheltrons 
 
 shent of the pepuU. 
 Cf. Troy, 5249. 
 
 He shot thurgh the sheltione 
 
 and shent of hoi knightes. 
 [Same, 6830.] 
 Troy 1 194 Shildes throgh shote shalkes 
 
 to dethe. 
 Troy 6780 Mony shalke thurgh shot 
 
 with there sharpe gere. 
 Troy 67S0 Mony shalke thurgh shot. . . . 
 
 Troy 5820 That hit shot through the 
 shilde and the shire maile. 
 
 Morle Arthiu-e. 
 14 1 3 ... brestes they thirl. . . . 
 
 Cf. 1858. 
 1435 . . . stotais a lyttille. 
 1464-5 Swyftly with swerdes they swappene 
 thereaftyre. 
 Swappez doune fulle sweperlye swel- 
 tande knyghtez. 
 Cf. 2982 And with a swerde swiftly he 
 swappes him thorowe. 
 
 1488 . . . stekede stedys. . . . 
 1723 . . . dogge-sone in 3one dyme 
 schawes. 
 
 1732 Thynke one riche renoune of the 
 
 rounde table. 
 1793 Many steryne mane he steride by 
 
 strenghe of hyme one. 
 1796 Wroghte wayes fulle wyde. . . . 
 
 1 81 3 Schotte thorowe the schiltrouns and 
 scheverede launces. 
 
 1857 Schalkes they schotte thrughe shren- 
 kand maylez. 
 
 Cf. 2545 Thorowe scheldz they schotte and 
 schorde thorowe males.
 
 56 
 
 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Troy 
 
 9433 
 
 Shot thurgh the sheld and 
 the shene mayle. [Same, 
 6401.] 
 
 
 Troy 
 
 8i 
 
 . . . torfer and tene. 
 
 1956 
 
 Troy 
 
 1 197 
 
 All dynnet the dyn and dales 
 aboute. 
 
 2031 
 
 Troy 
 
 6407 
 
 . . . braid out a bvond. . . . 
 
 2069 
 
 Troy 
 
 7458 
 
 Mow siith men and stedes 
 were striken to ground. 
 
 2079 
 
 Troy 
 
 6789 
 
 Mony lyve of lept. . . . 
 
 2084 
 
 A-u'ttty 
 
 rs 502 
 
 So jolyly those gentille mene 
 justede one were. 
 
 2088 
 
 Troy 
 
 7400 
 
 . . bowmen . . . bykirit. 
 
 2095-6 
 
 Troy 
 
 5285 
 
 . . . dede and done out of 
 lyvc. 
 
 2178 
 
 A-wnty 
 
 rs 25 
 
 On a mule as the mylke. 
 
 2287 
 
 Troy 
 
 1089 
 
 Skairen out skoute wacche. . . 
 
 2468 
 
 Alex. 
 
 2175 
 
 He pight doun his pavilion. . . 
 
 2478 
 
 Alex. 
 
 4178 
 
 . . . pavillions of pall. . . . 
 
 
 Alex. 
 
 
 Als fast was he fyschehale . . . 
 Cf. 4282. 
 
 2709 
 
 Troy 
 
 5939 
 
 Slit hyni doun sleghly thurghe 
 the slote evyn. 
 
 2976 
 
 Troy 
 
 6409 
 
 Slit him full slighly to the 
 slote evyn. 
 
 
 Troy 
 
 6955 
 
 Miche slaghl in tlial slade of 
 
 2978 
 
 tho slegh knightes. 
 Cf. Troy, notes p. 481. 
 Troy 5250 Mony doughty were ded 
 thurgh dynt of his hond. 
 Cf. Troy, notes p. 501, also 
 lines. 
 Troy. 7795 And mony deghit that day 
 
 thurgh dynt of his hond. 
 Aiuntyrs 2,^% . . . the dawngere and the 
 
 dole that I in duclle. 
 Tiltis 1 108 Up a buschnient brake. . . . 
 A'ontyrs 340 Undir a seloure of sylke . . . 
 A'i'/f/y/s IT,S . . . whedir that thou salle. 
 
 Pi's/il 11-12 Of Erberi and Alees 
 
 Of alle Mancr of trees. 
 
 Morte Arthnre. 
 [See entry preceding.] 
 
 . . . tene and torfere. . . . 
 
 Alle dynned fore dyne that in the 
 
 dale hovede. 
 Braydez owte his brande. . . . 
 The stede and the steryne man strykes 
 
 to the grownd. 
 . . . somme leppe fro the lyfe. . . . 
 Jolyly this gentille forjusted . . . 
 
 another. 
 . . . bowmene . . . bekerde. 
 That he was dede of the dj-nte and 
 
 done owte of lyfe. 
 Moyllez mylke whitte. . . . 
 Skayres thaire skottefers and theire 
 
 skowtte waches. 
 Pyghte pavyllyons of palle. . . . 
 
 . . freke schalle be fischehalle within 
 foure houres. 
 2976 Sleyghly in at the slotte slyttes hyme 
 thorowe. 
 
 2978 Sixty slongene in a slade of sleghe 
 men of amies. 
 
 3025 Many doughty es dede by dynt of his 
 hondes. 
 Cf. 1073, 1277, 4228. 
 
 3068 To duelle in dawngere and dole 
 
 3125 Thane brekes oure buschement. . . . 
 
 3195 Undyre a sylure of sylke. 
 
 3232 That I ne vviste no waye whedire that 
 
 I scholde. 
 3245 Enhorilde with arborye and alkyns 
 
 trees.
 
 9] 
 
 'MORTE ARTHURE"; PARALLELS 
 
 57 
 
 Troy 7997 . . . dew dankil . . . 
 A^mityrs i6 Withe riche rebanes revers- 
 
 sede. 
 Titus 637 Byes, broches, besauntes. . . 
 
 A'lVntyrs 17 Raylede with rubes one 
 
 royalie arraye. 
 Troy 9038 Slogh horn doun sleghly with 
 
 sleght of his bond. 
 
 [Same, 945I-] 
 Titus 4'/2 . . . savvters seten . . , 
 
 psahnys. 
 A/ex. 4960 Pesan pancere and platis. 
 Tit Its 509 Plate ne pesan. 
 Aiviityrs 15 1 And nowe am I cachede 
 
 owte of kyth in carys so 
 
 colde. 
 Alex. 24 The W3'sest wies ot this 
 
 werd. 
 Troy 10706 . . . and his ble chaungit. 
 Titus 1088 . . . and all hir blode 
 
 chaungeth. 
 Troy 2758 And shope horn to ship. 
 
 2744 ... on the shyre water. 
 Troy 13730 And schunt for no schame 
 but hit schope faire. 
 Cf. Troy, notes p. 474. 
 Troy 943 Sholt thurgh the sheld and 
 
 the shene mayle. 
 T'oy 1264 His shafte all to sheverit the 
 
 shalke was unhurt. 
 Alex. 2091 Derfe dintes and dreghe delt 
 
 and taken. 
 Troy 5810 Launsit as a lyoun. 
 
 Cf. Troy, 10985. 
 Aw7!tyrs6\'j The swerde sleppis on slante 
 and one the mayle slydys. 
 Titus 1014 Wende wepande away. 
 Troy 1328 . . . blody beronyn. 
 
 Cf. Troy, 10424, 11 141. 
 Troy 10757 Ne hope of hor hele in hor 
 hert thoght. 
 
 A/orte Art/iure. 
 3249 . . . downkyngc of dewe. . . . 
 
 3256 And alle redily reversside with re- 
 
 banes of golde. 
 
 3257 Bruchez and besauntez and other 
 
 bryghte stonys. 
 3264 Raylide with rechcd and rubyes 
 
 inewe. 
 3419 For he slewe with a slynge be sleyghte 
 
 of his handis. 
 
 3422-3 . , . psalmes 
 
 That in the sawtire ere sette. . . . 
 3459 A pesane and a paunsone. . . . 
 
 3514 Now am I cachede owtt of kyth with 
 kare at my herte. 
 
 3554 Of all the wyes of this worlde. 
 
 /3559 
 
 14214 
 
 3600-1 
 3716 
 
 . . . alle his ble chaungide. 
 . . . and alle his ble chaunges. 
 
 And thane he schoupe hyme to 
 
 chippe. . . . 
 . . . over the schyre waters. 
 He ne schownttes for no schame but 
 
 schewes fulle heshe. 
 
 3747-9 Thourghe the scheldys so schene 
 schalkes thay towche 
 With schaftes scheverid schorte of 
 
 thas schene launces 
 Derfe dynthys they dalte. . . . 
 
 3832 , . , alles a lyone he lawnches theme 
 
 thorowe. 
 3855 His hand sleppid and slode oslante 
 
 one the mayles. 
 3889 Went wepand awaye . . . 
 3947 . . . al blody bero[n]ene. 
 3972 . . . blody berowne. 
 3959-60 . . . the hope of my hele . . . my 
 
 herte. 
 E
 
 58 
 
 'HUCIIOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Troy 1 5 1 6 
 A-Mutyrs 230 
 
 Troy 3239 
 Troy 313-5 
 
 Titus 720 
 Troy 1 248 
 
 Aw7ilyrs<^z\- 
 
 Alex. 4961 
 
 Soche sikyng and sorow 
 
 sanke in his hert. 
 To niene mc with messes 
 
 grete menskc nowe ii 
 
 were. 
 Thai sholle into shippc the 
 
 schcltrun. 
 Tlie mighty IMassidon King 
 
 master of all. . , . 
 He wan all the world and at 
 
 his wille aght. 
 . . . tresoun and trey. . . . 
 The bourder of his basnet 
 
 brestes in sender. 
 2 He kervet of the cantel that 
 
 covurt the knyghte. 
 Thro his shild and his shil- 
 
 dur a schaftmun he share. 
 Jopone and jesscrand. . . . 
 
 Marie Arlhnre, 
 39S4 ^Vas never sorowe so softe that sanke 
 
 to my herte. 
 4019 Menskede with messes for medc of 
 
 the saule. 
 
 41 16 Schotte to the schiltrones. , . . 
 
 4161 Of allc that Alexander aughte qwhilles 
 he in erthe lengede. 
 
 4193 . . . tresonc and trayne. , . . 
 
 4212 The bordoure of his bacenett he bristes 
 
 in sondire. 
 4232-3 The cantelle of the clere schelde 
 he kcrfes in sondyre 
 Into the schuldyre of the schalke a 
 schaftmonde large. 
 4239 Thorowe jopowne and jesserawnte. . . 
 
 The arguments about dissimilarities in style and vocabulary between 
 Morte Arthure, the Troy, the Alexander, and other poems are so com- 
 pletely undermined by the great facts of connection now for the first 
 time established, that the tedious and invidious task of replying in detail 
 to so many scholars and personal friends is happily unnecessary. That 
 entirely mistaken stress was laid upon divergences of vocabulary, and that 
 supposed distinctions of alliterative system were unwarrantably believed to 
 make unity impossible — these seem now to be self-evident propositions, 
 with every presumption in favour of unity. The earlier arguments were 
 brought forward under conditions now enormously modified and reversed — 
 a body of new positive fact having practically superseded the anterior basis 
 of Huchown's case. 
 
 For Huchown, especially considered as a postulate of unity, the claim 
 now rests not on general or special resemblances of lines or style — always 
 the most slippery of grounds — but on a long and firm series of proved 
 and interlocked connections uniting four poems, Alexander, Troy, Titus, 
 and Morte Arthure.
 
 9] 'MORTE ARTHURE' AND CRECV, 1346 5^ 
 
 (S) Events of 1346-64 as sources. 
 Taking as proved the influence of the French wars on the fabric 
 of Tiiiis one finds a ready test for the chronology of Morte Arthiire} Full 
 of chivalry, must there not emerge in it points of special contact as 
 regards the art of war itself? Let us therefore examine the dispositions 
 of his troops made by King Arthur in his great battle with the ' Em- 
 perour.' In Geoffrey the king has eight squadrons besides his own, 
 and he has no archers. In Morte Arthure the array is quite altered. 
 There are three battalions. The king appoints Sir Valiant 
 
 Cheftayne of the cheeke with chevalrous knyghttez, 
 And sythyne meles with mouthe that he moste traystez, 
 Demenys the medylward menskfuUy hymeselfene, 
 Ffittes his fotemen alles hym faire thynkkes, 
 On fronnte the forebreste, the flour of his knyghtez. 
 His archers on ay there halfe he ordaynede theraftyre 
 To schake in a sheltrone to shotte whene theme lykes : 
 He arrayed in the rerewarde fulle rialle knyghtez, 
 With renkkes renownd of the rounde table. '^ 
 
 Morte Aiihitre, 19S6-94. 
 
 The best possible commentary on this is the battle of Crecy.^ There were 
 three ' battles,' two forming the front line, the third the reserve. ' The 
 men at arms ' (says Mr. Oman)* ' all on foot, were formed in a solid line — 
 perhaps six or eight deep — in the centre of the ' battle.' The archers 
 stood in two equal divisions to the right and left of the men at arms.' 
 Edward's array and Arthur's are thus essentially the same — (i) three 
 'battles,' i.e. the 'cheeke' or ' fronnt,' the middleward, and the rearguard; 
 (2) the flower of the knights on foot in the battlefront ; and (3) the 
 archers on each side of (4) the dismounted men at arms. One may not 
 press such things too far, yet must it be noticed how the bowmen of 
 Britain overbore the 'bregaundez' of the enemy'' just as the archers of 
 
 ' The chief heads of this section, with additional details, are set forth in my article on 
 the subject about to be published in The Antiquary. 
 
 - Cheeke, the ' front ' or vanguard ; meles, addresses ; demenys, arrays ; vienskfitlly, 
 becomingly ; halfe, side ; sheltrone, arrayed body ; renkes, men. 
 
 ^See Murimuth (Eng. Hist. Soc), 165-7; Galfridus le Baker (ed. Giles), 164-7. 
 
 ^ Art of War (Middle Ages), 605. ^ Morte Aithiu-e, 2095-107.
 
 6o 'IIUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 Edward drove back the cross-bowmen of Genoa, who were armed in 
 'brigandines ' of mailJ In the poem- a great charge of horse followed, 
 in which many men were trodden down. This sequence was historical at 
 Crecy also.'^ Nor are there wanting analogies for the threats of no quarter, 
 characteristic of both the battle poetic* and the battle real.'' Surely the 
 test of Crecy is well sustained. 
 
 The 'brigands' introduce themselves to us in Froissart under the year 
 1358 — the infantry of the freebooting mercenary class produced by the 
 English wars in France. The word itself carries a general indication of 
 date corroborated by so many companion facts. 
 
 Turn from land to sea and the same test stands. Consider certain of 
 the characteristics of the great sea fight between Arthur and the allies of 
 Mordred, and place this engagement in its entirety over against the historical 
 sea-fight off Winch elsea, between the English and the ' Espagnols,' on 
 29th August, 1350. And note how every jjoint of the historic battle, 
 (now to be gleaned from divers chronicles, etc., Minot, Murimuth's con- 
 tinuator, Walsingham, Galfridus le Baker, and Froissart) comes blazing into 
 the wonderful poem — the topcastles with the stones and gads of iron, the 
 ' hurdace,' the 'beaver' of Edward and then his helm, the cutting of head 
 ropes, the English archers outshooting the enemy, the storming of the ships, 
 the gay cabins hacked with arrows and bespattered with men's brains, and 
 then the grim end of all when — a momentary lapse of the poet dubbing the 
 Danish enemies of Arthur the ' Spanyolis ' — he tells how to a man they sprang 
 into the sea or stubbornly died upon their decks ; exactly, as the historians 
 assure us, did the Spaniards off Winchelsea, refusing the summons to 
 
 ^Oman's Art of War, 611. The ' biigandinc ' is figured in Demmin's Die 
 JCriegs-cvaffen [cA. Leipzig, 1886), 457-8. The word 'brigand,' originally denoting a 
 footsoldier, was introduced into French in the I4l]i century (Brachet's Diet.). I find it 
 in a letter to King John just before the battle of Poitiers, in 1356. Chandos Herald's 
 Pritice A'oir, cd. Michel, 1883, p. 333. See also Cuvelier's Du Gtiescliii, i. 1584. It is 
 used by Froissart relative to the 'companies' in 1358; also under same year in Scala- 
 cronica, p. 186, and earlier on p. 108. 
 
 - Morte, 2140-52. ^Galf. Ic Jiaker, 165. ^ Jl/orte, 2007, 2203. 
 
 "^Galf. le Baker, 164-5
 
 9] 
 
 'MORTE ARTHURE' and SEA-FIGHT OF WINCHELSEA, 1350 61 
 
 surrender, and meeting death with invincible disdain. This will be niad(. 
 fully apparent from the collation ^ exhibited here. 
 
 Contemporary Chronicles. 
 
 Saxis volantibus a turriculis malorum el 
 pilis vibrantibus . . . classica armalura. 
 
 (Baker.) 
 
 Gros barriaus cle fer forgies at fais tons 
 faitis pour lancier et pour effondrer nefs en 
 lancant de pieres et de calliaus sans nom- 
 Ijre. (Froissart.) 
 
 Thaire hurdis thaire ankers hanged thai 
 on here. (Minot. x. 14.) 
 
 Si se tenoit li rois d'Engleterre ou chief 
 de sa nef vestis d'un noir jake de velviel 
 et portoit sus son chief un noir chapelet 
 de beveres qui moult bien li sevit. 
 
 (Froissart.) 
 
 Et puis mist li rois le bacinet en la tieste 
 et aussi fissent tout le aultre. (Froissart.) 
 
 'With trompes and taburns.' (Minot x. 
 8.) ' Tubis lituis et musix; cornibus suos 
 ad arma concitantes. (Baker.) 
 
 ' When thai sailed westward.' (Minot x. 13. ) 
 
 S'encontrerent de tel ravine que ce sembla 
 uns tempestes que la fust cheus. Et dou 
 rebombe qu'il fisent li chastiaus de la nef 
 dou roy d'Engletene consievi le chastiel 
 de la nef Espagnole par tel maniere que 
 li force dou mas le rompi amont sus le 
 mas 6u il seoit et le reversa en le mer. 
 
 (Froissart.) 
 
 Si acrokierent a cros de fer et de kainnes. 
 
 (Froissart.) 
 
 Hanekin . . . copa le cable qui porte le 
 voile par quoi li voiles chei . . . il copa 
 quatre cordes souverainnes qui gouvrenoient 
 le mas et le voille. (Froissart.) 
 
 Morte ArlJnire (11. 3600-700). 
 The King prepares his ships for battle. 
 ' Drawing up stones ' for projectiles as they 
 lie at anchor, ' the topcastles he stuffed 
 with toyelys,' and with 'gads of steel.' 
 There is a ' hurdace on height ' with helmed 
 knights. The King is bareheaded ' with 
 beveryne lokkes,' his headpiece, however, 
 at hand, and when the anchors are weighed 
 and the engagement begins he dons 'his 
 comely helm.' 
 
 Signal of battle comes when the crews 
 'bragged in trompes.' The wind rises out 
 of the west. 
 
 Ships sail into each other with a crash. 
 ' Sways the mastys ; over falls in the 
 first ' ; men bicker with ' gads of irons.' 
 
 As the ships grapple the seamen ' castys 
 crepers one cross.' 
 
 ' Thane was hede-rapys hewene that 
 helde up the mastes.' (1. 3668.) 
 
 1 Works cited are Poems of Laurence Aliiiot, ed. Hall, pp. 33-4. (Ja/fr/dns le Baker, 
 ed. Giles, pp. 204-5. Froissart, ed. Luce, tome iv., pp. 88-96 (livrc premier, §§ 323-7). 
 Muriinuth, (Eiig. Hist. Soc.) p. iSo. IVahiiigham, sub anno, 1350 In examining 
 Froissart I have had the benefit of notes on Lettenhove's text from my friend Mr. 
 J. T. T. Brown.
 
 62 
 
 liUCHOVVN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Morte Arthure (11. 3690-700). 
 
 ' Archers of England full eagerly shool ' 
 ' till all the Danes were dead and in ihe 
 deep thrown.' (1. 3694.) 
 
 Arthur's men then board and storm the 
 ships ' leaping in upon loft.' 
 
 Mony kaban clevede cabilJs destroyede 
 Knyghlcs and kene men killide the braynes 
 Kidd castells were corven with all theirc 
 
 kene wapen. (11. 3671-3.) 
 
 Spanyolis spedily sprentyde over burdez 
 Alle the kene men of kampe kn}ghles and 
 
 other 
 Killyd are colde dede and castyne over 
 
 burdez. (II. 3700-2.) 
 
 [The ' Spanyolis' of 1. 3700 are Danes in all 
 
 the other allusions to them. 
 
 11. 3528, 3610, 3694.] 
 
 CONTEMI'ORARY CHRONICLES. 
 
 Tercbrarunl landem sagittarii longiore 
 jactu sagittarum illorum balistarios . . . E 
 turribus saxa fulminabant. (Baker.) 
 
 Tunc scalas conscensi nostri in Hesperias 
 naves irruerunt gladiis et securibus obvios 
 truncantes. (Baker.) 
 
 Ibi vidisses sanguine et cerebro naves 
 pictas demiono sagittas in malis velis temo- 
 nibus et castris infixas. (Baker.) 
 
 Hispani . . . quia se reddere noluerant 
 jussu regis Edwardi omnes miserabiliter 
 perierunt. (Murimuth's continuator.) His- 
 pani . . . omnes miserabiliter perierunt 
 alii ferro ccesi alii aquis submersi. 
 
 (Walsingham.) 
 
 In brcvi vasa plena Hispanis vacuabant. 
 
 (Baker.) 
 
 Inopes Hispanos mortuos et languidos in 
 mare projicientes. (Baker.) 
 
 From these passages what follows? That there is more of live chronicle 
 of the fight of Winchelsea in the little finger of Alorte Arthure than there 
 is in the entire body of Laurence Minot's song of Les Espagnols sur Aler : 
 That the poet who in Ti'/us drew upon the surrender of Calais in 1347 
 for poetic colouring, similarly drew in Afor/e Arthure on the battle of Crecy 
 in 1346, and the Spanish sea fight of 1350 : That the Arthur of Morte 
 Arthure is not indirectly Edward 111.: That every presumption therefore 
 points to the poem as a contemporary and chivalric tribute to the founder 
 of the Table Round. 
 
 Crecy, as already shewn, supplied much for Arthur's great battle with 
 Lucius, but it fails entirely to clear away an editorial difificulty and determine 
 the site of the field. What lacks in 1346 we may chance to find in 1359. 
 The romance-battle was fought in the ' vale ' of ' Sessoyne,' which has been 
 supposed to be Sa.xony, but the true understanding of which has long 
 been a problem ^ owing to the topographical impossibilities Saxony involves. 
 
 •Mrs. Banks's notes to Afotie Arthure, 11. 1964, 1977. That • Sessoyne ' is sometimes 
 Saxony is clear enough, being the French 'Sassoignc,' but not so here.
 
 9] 'MORTE ARTIIURE' AND FRENCH WARS 6 
 
 o 
 
 Prior to the battle Arthur had been in Normandy advancing eastward ; 
 Lucius, too, was sojourning not far away by the Seine and Rouen and 
 Paris (11. 1336-40); and after the battle Arthur is again found at Cotentin, 
 still in Normandy. Saxony is not a ' vale,' and is a good seven hundred 
 miles from Normandy. Moreover, the poet's 'vale' has a city; and Arthur's 
 army just before being arranged in order of battle 
 
 ' Forselte ihem the cite appon sere halfez' (1. 1979). 
 
 Now in the year 1359, according to an English author,^ an English 
 'company' did this very thing. Un compaigny dez Engles etiforcerent la vile 
 de Veillye en la vale de Sessoun. French chronicle^ of the same fact calls 
 the place ' Sissone,' and Sissonne still lives as a township in the department 
 of Aisne in Picardy. Huchown's ' vale ' therefore we may assume, after a 
 glance at the map, was here.^ 
 
 The term 'chartire of pes''^ belongs to the same period, having, 
 according to Froissart, been applied to the Treaty of Bretigny in 1360, 
 and having probably become current shortly after. In ATorte Arthur e, in 
 the great sea fight against Mordred and his allies, the king arrays his 
 ships 'alle ryally in rede' (1. 3614). From 1361 we hear of a war vessel ° 
 of Edward III. called 'le Reade Cogge.' 'The genatours of Genne,' 
 and ' bregaundez,' who change sides*' with such promptitude and fight 
 forthwith against their dilatory Roman paymasters, reflect the period of 
 
 ^ Scalacrouica, 185. "^Jehan le Bel, ii. , 239. 
 
 •'It is curious to note the existence of a Crecy (Crecy sur Serre) within a few miles 
 of Sissonne. This was not Edward III.'s Crecy, which is in the adjoining department 
 of Somme, nearer the sea. 
 
 * Alorte Artlmre, 1542, 3059. Compare with Froissart's reference concerning 1360, 
 that of the Graiides Chroniqties de Saint Denis, to toittes les chartcs de la paix in 136S 
 Zeller, Charles V. et Dii Guesclin, 105. 
 
 ^•> Cal. Rot. Pat., 172. 
 
 ^ Morte Arthure, 11. 2096, 2897, 2909, 2920. The 'genatours of Genne' (Genes, Genoa) 
 are thus described in Cuvelier's Dit Guesclin, 11. 11144-5 : 
 
 XX. mile Genevois sur genes chevauchant 
 Qui portoient les dars de coi on va lancant. 
 
 Chandos Herald's Prince Noir {\. 3105) calls them 
 
 Geneleurs hommes a chival.
 
 64 'IIUCIIOWK OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch. 
 
 the Spanish campaigns of the Black Prince ; they are ' true to the life of 
 1360 or thereabout.'^ Certain of the historical personages and places intro- 
 duced enable a closer date-approximation. The King of Cyprus - is one ; 
 he visited England in 1363, and was royally entertained, the King of 
 Scotland visiting Edward III. at the same time. Such things are the 
 political atmosphere of the poem. 
 
 In 1359 the talk of knightly circles, expressed in a well-known chronicle 
 (written in Anglo-French), had been of the passage to France by ' Sand" 
 wiche,' of ' Bar flu,' of 'Sessoun,' of 'Vien,' of ' Millein,' of ' Costentyn,' of 
 ' Paiters,' of ' le markeis of Mise,' of the ' Allemaunz,' of ' Lorrein,' and 
 of 'Reyns,' of ' Troies,' of 'Turry.' In 1360 we hear further of ' Chartres 
 and 'TuUous,' 'Roan,' 'Came,' and ' Provynce.' The brief annals of 1361 
 mention ' Henaw ' and ' Holand ' and ' Denemark,' especially recording that 
 the Danish king had made war on the Easterlings and reconquered much 
 of ' Swetherik ' from the king of ' Norway,' while the king of ' Lettow ' had 
 been made captive by the lords of 'Spruce.' Besides, 'le roy de Cypre' 
 had taken a town in ' Turky ' by assault. In 1362 we hear of 'Spayn,' 
 'Gascoigne,' * Gyene,' ' Normandy,' and ' Burgoyne,' All these, culled from 
 about a dozen consecutive pages of the Scalacronica^ begun in the castle 
 of Edinburgh in 1355, tally with the names which Huchown, supple- 
 menting his original, made place for in Morte Arthure. They shew to a 
 marvel that his geographical embroidery of Arthur's story was taken 
 from the topography of 1359-63, just as we have already seen'* that the 
 stations on Arthur's march Romewards were borrowed from the itinerary 
 of the time. 
 
 Indefinite additions to these evidences might be made from annals of 
 the period, but it is proper to emphasise one or two names which appear 
 
 ' I steal these words from a letter of Prof. W . P. Ker. 
 
 " Morte Arthure, 596; Mi(rimuth {Eng. Ilist. Soc. ), 199; IValsinghaiii, sub anno 1363. 
 
 '" Sialacrouica, 185-202. It is unnecessary to quote the corresponding names in Mortc 
 Arthure, but Sandwich (1. 635) may be noted as a point of Huchown's divergence from 
 Geoffrey, who makes Southampton the port of embarkation. 'Paiters' (Poitiers) is 
 'Peyiers' in Morte (1. 40). 'The Marche of Meyes' in Morte (2417) is well vouched 
 by Scalacronica. ^ Ch. 2 above.
 
 9] 'MORTE ARTHURE' AND EDWARD III. 65 
 
 to make it certain that Morte Arthiire can hardly have been finished 
 before the beginning of 1365. Among the ' Sovvdanes and Sarezenes ' 
 summoned to his banner by Lucius^ are 
 
 Of Babyloyn and Baldake the burlyche knyghtes, 
 
 as well as those of 'Tartary,' and 'Turkey,' and 'Lettow,' while the 
 
 ' Kynge of Cyprys ' with ' all the realls of Roodes ' — evidently Arthur's 
 
 ally — on shipboard in the Mediterranean, lies in wait for the Saracen 
 
 enemy. 
 
 Th? Kynge of Cyprys on the see the Sowdane habydes 
 With all the realls of Roodes arayede with him one. 
 
 So much for poetry : for history we have a great victory over the Turks, 
 gained in November, 1364, when the Grand Master of the Hospitallers of 
 Rhodes and many of his knights were counted among the 5000 Christian 
 dead, while the princes of the other side (as Capgrave translates - Muri- 
 muth's continuator) ' were these : The Soudan of Babilony ; the Kyng of 
 Turkye ; the Kyng of Baldak ; the Kyng Belmaryn ; the Kyng of Tartare ; 
 the Kyng of Lettow — of which iii were slayn.' The king of Cyprus, 
 who had in 1361 captured Satalie by a sea-expedition, was in the end of 
 1364 getting ready a fleet at Venice for a similar exploit against the Sultan 
 of Alexandria.^ There is neither Baldak, nor Lettow, nor Rhodes, nor 
 Cyprus, nor Sultan, in Geoffrey of Monmouth (or in the translations by 
 Layamon and Wace). The grouping, therefore, is a powerful item in the 
 proofs'^ for a date soon after the close of 1364 (in which connection it 
 will not be amiss to recall Sir Hew of Eglintoun's presence in London ^ 
 in May, 1365), before the Cyprian swoop on Alexandria was known. 
 
 1 Mortc, 582-607. 
 
 '^ Murinmfh (Eng. Hist. Soc. ), 201. Capgrave's Chronicle, 223. 
 
 ''Machaut's Prise d'Alexa}tdrie, 11. 640-660, 1540- 1620. Note also Cuvelier's line 
 stating that the king ' Satalie conquist et occist le soudant,' Du Giiesclin, 1. 7443. 
 
 '*Sir Hew of Eglintoun's fatherin-law and brother-in-law both held high position 
 among the Scottish Hospitallers. — Mr. John Edwards in Transac. Glasg. Archaeological 
 Society, new series, vol. iii,, pp. 322, 326. 
 
 5 Safe conduct, dated 20th May, 1365. Rot. ScoL, i., 893'".
 
 66 'HUCIIOW'N OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [CM. 
 
 Finally, to be appealed to as most oddly significant of all the notes of 
 date in Morte Arihure, are the lines (1943-5) in which, after a reprimand 
 followed by an apology to CaJor of Cornwall, his nephew. King 
 Arthur says : 
 
 ' Tharc es none ischewe of us on ihis erlhe sprongenc 
 Thow ail apparanl to be ayere, arc [read or) one of thi childyre 
 Thow arte my sister sone, forsake sallc I never.' 
 
 W'liy should Arthur have made any alternative? Cador was heir. Only 
 because he died in battle before the king was it that not he but his 
 son succeeded — in Geoffrey — to the throne. Why the ' or one of thy 
 children?' It was a singular observation — like an entail — to let fall. 
 There could be only one apparent heir. Scottish history supplies the 
 answer, and points to the intrigue and privy agreements^ of 1363-4, whereby 
 the childless David II. made in so far as in him lay Edward III.- or one 
 of his children heir-apparent to the Scottish Crown. 
 
 By the first convention Edward himself was made inheritor of the crown 
 fiiiling lawful issue of David II. ; the Scottish Parliament rejected the 
 proposal in March, 1364, and the substituted terms arranged that year 
 were that one of King Edward's children other than the heir-apparent 
 to the Crown of England should become the heir-apparent of Scotland. 
 But the Scottish Parliament and people were obdurate, and a chief service 
 of the agreements may be to give us confirmation of the date of Morte 
 Arthure."^ 
 
 ^ See these discussed in my Sir Hew of Eglintoun (Phil. Soc. Glas.), and in note to 
 ch. 12, sec. 2, below. 
 
 -The terms of the first agreement of 27th November, 1363, were: Ou cas que le dit 
 Roi d'Escoce Irespasse du siecle sanz hoir engendre de son corps le devant dit Roi 
 d'Engleterre ou quiconques (|ui alors en seroit Rois et ses hoirs Rois d'Engleterre aient 
 succession heritable du dit roialme d'Escoce {Acts Pari. Scot., i., 493). 
 
 •■ The substituted proposal is contained in a document worn away in pans, but printed 
 thus : Item ou cas que le Roi . . . au present devie sanz heir . . . de son 
 corps et en matrimoigne engendre I'un des filz tlu Koi d'Engleterre qui n'est pas heir 
 apparant d'Engleterre lui succedera . . . oialme et a la coronne de Escoce {Acts 
 rarl. Scot., i., 495.
 
 lo] 'PARLEMENT OF THE THRf AGES' 67 
 
 10. 'The Parlement of the Thre Ages.' 
 
 (i) Tests to be applied. 
 
 The sequence of the four poems already dealt with, and the significance 
 of their mutual relation, will not appear of less account when the quartet 
 is made a quintet — when the series closes in the Parlement of the Thre 
 Ages^ with an outline of its story, an analysis of its textual affinities, and 
 a discussion of a source, little suspected, for its plot. I'ests of each of 
 the preceding four poems have been found in the evidence of each in 
 succession of the use and influence of the poem before, the occurrence 
 of entire lines as well as poetical figures and phrases in each found in 
 one or more of the others, and features not well admitting classification, 
 which bring out as a kind of resume in the later work certain aspects 
 of paraphrase or retrospect of the earlier performances. As applied to 
 The Parlement of the Thre Ages (a poem found in one of Robert of 
 Thornton's priceless manuscripts conjoined with the Titus and with the 
 beautiful Lay of the Truelove-), the tests already seen in operation might 
 not be satisfied by proofs of {a) identity of versification, supplemented by 
 {If) the occurrence of detached lines and phrases held in common by {c) more 
 than one of the antecedent suite. These alone might not serve ; an 
 exacting critic might demand demonstration that concurrently with these 
 things there are in reasonable clearness signs {d) that the author was 
 familiar with the authorities employed in the previous books, {e) that the 
 characteristics and poetical method of the works compared should be 
 analogous, and (/) that the collation should furnish instances not of general 
 merely but of intimate suggestion ot unity of authorship. A tolerably 
 heavy load of responsibility to undertake — a load, be it said, under which 
 the attempt to prove by internal evidence the common authorship of many 
 
 ^ T/ie Parlement of the litre Ages, edited by Israel Gollancz, M.A. (Roxburghe 
 Club, 1S97). To my friend, Prof. W. P. Ker, for introducing me to this book, and 
 lending me his cop)-, I can hardly be grateful enough. 
 
 ^ Edited from the MSS. by Mr. Gollancz — in the Dr. Furnivall birthday volume, 
 An English Miscellany, 1900, under the unsatisfactory title, 'The Qualrefoil of Love,'
 
 68 'IlUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE ' [Ch. 
 
 great pieces of English literature by their acknowledged authors would 
 hopelessly break down ! But he who takes this responsibility of maintaining 
 the claim of Huchown to the Parlement can with a light heart challenge 
 all the tests combined. The Parlement itself supplies all the arms its 
 champions need. It is an alliterative poem {a) of the same measure as 
 the antecedent four, (b) containing whole lines and very many identical 
 phrases, not commonplace, found {c) in various members of the preceding 
 quartet, while {d) it cites or shows close knowledge of Alexander and of 
 Tro\\ of tlie Brut and of the Voeux du Faon, and at the same time it 
 quotes Titus and Aforte Arthtire, and presents clear analogies not only 
 with the Pistill of Sweet Susan, but also — it is of grave moment to remark 
 it — with Gawayfie and the Gree?i Knight. The analogy of {e) poetical mode 
 among the five poems is fairly absolute, passing through a phase of sheer 
 and simple translation to one of expanded paraphrase and narrative, partly 
 independent, resting at many points upon authority, but with constant 
 deviations into originality. Finally, (/) the Parlement binds together the 
 whole range of the work of Huchown in a manner at once intimate and 
 explicit. 
 
 These be large assertions ; and now — after the plot of the story itself 
 — there come the proofs. 
 
 (2) The Plot of the ' Parle me?it: 
 
 The Parlement is a work accessible only in a very limited club edition. 
 The story it tells, therefore, may becomingly be told here in fuller outline 
 than was thought necessary in any other item of the quartet. It opens 
 with a magnificent hunting picture of the stalking of a deer, " In the month 
 of May when mirthes been fele," in which the hero, waiting beside a tree 
 in the woods, caught sight of a hart. Creeping under a crabtree he was 
 about to shoot when a buck that was with the hart sounded the alarm, 
 and the sportsman had to lie low for a while in spite of the gnats which 
 greatly him grieved and gnawed his ' eghne.' Soon as the opportunity 
 came he drew his bow and shot, hitting the hart behind the left shoulder. 
 Then he flayed and disembowelled the prize after the approved rules of 
 venery, which done, he sat down in the warm sunshine and fell asleep.
 
 lo] 'PARLEMENT'; ITS PLOT 69 
 
 As natural in the romance period, the sleep was not wasted, the inevi- 
 table dream came — the dream which is the remainder of the poem. 
 
 'And what I saw in my soul, the sooth I shall tell.' 
 
 He saw three men quarrel. The first was a gallant young noble on 
 horseback clad in green, decked with a chaplet of flowers, his collar and 
 sleeves set with jewels. 
 
 ' The price of that perry were worth pounds full many. ' 
 
 He was thirty years of age, he was young and 'yape,' says our poet, and 
 Youth was his name. 
 
 The second man was a sober personage in grey sitting full of thought 
 about his money, his lands, his rent, and his cattle. He was sixty, and men 
 called him Middle Elbe. 
 
 The third had a hundred years. All in black, bald, blind, white- 
 bearded, crooked, toothless, and pious, he mumbled the Creed and invoked 
 the saints. This was the last of the trio whom the poet made interlocutors 
 in his 'parlement,' and Elde was his name. 
 
 Youth reveals himself carolling in his saddle as he goes, making to 
 his absent lady love a 'high avow.' Middle Elde reproaches him for his 
 extravagance. Youth will none of Middle Elde's worldly wisdom. He 
 will, he retorts, rather make and perform his high avow than own all the 
 gold ever Middle Elde got. Then would he go a-hawking, and he describes 
 in glowing terms the falcon soaring like heaven's angel, to swoop on 
 mallard and heron, which fall beneath the stroke. Next the falconers 
 treat the quarry as the code of falconry reqtiires, and the episode closes 
 when the hoods are put on the hawks, and Youth figures himself on the 
 way home — 
 
 'With ladies full lovely to lappen in mine arms.' 
 The man in russet-grey has just begun angrily to expostulate when the old 
 worthy in black strikes in between to preach a sermon which lasts till nearly the 
 very end of the poem — a sermon which, as one listens to it, grows ever more 
 and more nobly eloquent of the Middle Ages, eloquent of its literature and 
 literary standards, eloquent of the culture of the Scottish Court under the 
 Bruces and the Stewarts, eloquent above all of the majestic poetic stature
 
 70 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch. 
 
 of Huchown of the Awle Ryale. For this sermon, with which Age silences 
 the vain janghng of Youth and Middle Age, this sermon of Elde, wise with 
 the lore of Time, although its moral be the trite moral of Death, yet preaches it, 
 as rarely preached before, by compressing into brief compass the whole romance 
 story of the Middle Ages. It tells of Hector and the heroes of Troy ; tells 
 of Alexander and the worthies whom remote Egyptian fiction and more 
 recent French romance had sent into the field with him ; tells of Caesar 
 and the Tower of London ; tells of gentle Joshua and David the doughty, 
 and Judas Machabeus — 'Jews full jolly and jousters full noble'; then flings 
 itself heart and soul upon King Arthur and Sir Galahad ' the good that 
 the gree wan,' Sir Lancelot of the Lake, Sir Kay, and all the Round Table, 
 with the spotless Sir Gawayne and the frail fair Guinevere. His list of the 
 Noble Nine, after mere mention of Godfrey of Bouillon, concludes with a 
 long passage concerning Charlemagne, mentioning amongst other heroes 
 Roland and Oliver and Ogier the Dane,i and telling that tale of Ferumbras 
 and the Brig of Mantrible, which Barbour,'^ perhaps with some poetic 
 license, placed on the lip of Robert the Bruce to cheer his dispirited 
 followers as they crossed Loch Lomond during the ill-omened campaign of 
 1306. And the sum of all is — the lesson of life as told by him in black 
 from the mighty careers of the foremost warriors of Time — 
 
 ' Now have I named you the names of Nine of the best 
 That ever were in this world wist upon earth, 
 And the doughtiest of deeds in their days' time, 
 But Doughtiness when Death comes ne dare not abide.' 
 
 What was true of prowess in battle the pessimist Elde found also of 
 learning. Aristotle and Solomon and Merlin, these were the wisest of the world, 
 but their wit was powerless against Death. Nor was love, nor beauty 
 itself, exempt. Amadace and Ydoine, Samson and Delilah, Generydes 
 the gentle and Clarionas the clere,^ Eglamour and Christabel, Tristram 
 and Iseult, Dido of Carthage and Candace of Babylon, Penelope and 
 
 ' ' Ogere Deauneys ' (1. 523). For the significance of this and of Generydes mentioned 
 below see ch. 9 above, sections 5 and 6. 
 ^ Priice, iii., 405-465. 
 ^ See reference to Geiioydes in ch. 9 above, sec. 5.
 
 10] 'PARLEMENT'; PARALLELS WITH 'GAWAYNE' 71 
 
 Guinevere — through the glittering catalogue of romance heroes and heroines 
 he marches mournfully to the old old tune — Death will have his way : 
 nothing is certain but Death. At the close Elde the wise commands Youth 
 and Middle Elde to cease their wrangle, for Elde is sire of Middle Elde 
 and Middle Elde of Youth, and he, their sire and grandsire, bids them 
 
 Haves good day for now I go, to grave must me wend, 
 Death dings on my door, I dare no longer bide. 
 
 Here the dreamer — he that had hunted the deer and fallen asleep — heard 
 a bugle blow full loud, and woke to find that the sun had set and "Thus 
 ends the Thre Ages." 
 
 Peradventure we also, if our slumbers in the forest are not too sound, 
 may chance to hear a bugle blow, and mark how the bent echoes with 
 Huchovvn's trumpet note. 
 
 (3) Parallels of the '' Parlemetit.^ 
 
 The hunting scene as a whole and the hawking picture, too, fit to a miracle 
 into the structure of Huchown's work if, as may be assumed (in spite of 
 critical dicta to the contrary), Sir Frederick Madden was right in under- 
 standing Wyntown's reference to the Awntyre of Gawafie as referring 
 explicitly to Gawayne and the Green Knight. In Gawayfie there were 
 described three hunts — respectively of a deer, a boar, and a fox. In the 
 other extant poems there are indeed many passing and often intimate 
 allusions to the chase, but no detailed description. This story in the 
 Parlement, therefore, describing how the deer was shot and how the falcon 
 brought the heron down, is most opportune to fill a gap. These picturesquely 
 technical accounts in no way overlap what the poet has written elsewhere, 
 and yet there are points at which the different references to the deer hunt 
 touch each other so as to reveal identity of workmanship. Mr. Gollancz 
 has well said that these descriptions are supplementary. To reckon them 
 complementary would be still better. The points of contact with Gaivayne 1 
 are special enough to call for treatment by themselves. 
 
 1 Of course I am aware of certain analogies in hunting matters with Sir Tristram, but 
 the present correspondences are verbally exact, and most jntimatQ.
 
 72 
 
 HUCnOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Gawayuc. 
 1455 Haled to hym of her aiewez, 
 hitlen hym oft. 
 1609-10 Braydez out the bovveles . . . his 
 hraches rewardez. 
 1328-9 Serched him at the asay summe 
 that ther were, 
 Two fyngeres thaj- fonde. . . . 
 
 '330 
 
 sesed the erher. 
 
 1332 Sythen rytte thay the foure 
 lymmes and rent off the hyde. 
 
 1337 Then scher thay out the schulderez 
 with her sharp knyvez. 
 
 1355 And the corheles fee thay kest in 
 a greve. 
 
 1330 . . . thay slyt the slot. . . . 
 
 1339 [Object aimed at] to have hole 
 
 sydes. 
 1335 . . . thay gryped ... and 
 
 graythely departed. 
 1347 And that thay neme for the 
 
 noumbles. , . . 
 1 34 1 Ryvez hit up radly ryght to the 
 
 hyght. 
 1608 . . . rendez him ... hi the 
 
 rygge. . . . 
 1357 . . . the fourchez. . . . 
 1353-4 Bothe the hede and the hals thay 
 
 hwen of thenne 
 And sythen sunder thay the 
 
 sydez swyft fro the chyne. 
 1346 And heven hit up al hole. 
 162S Of the were of the wylde swyn. . . 
 
 Parlemcnt. 
 53-4 And I hailed to the hokes. . . . 
 And happenyd that I hilt hym. . . 
 69 Brayde out his bowells my berselett 
 
 to fede. 
 70-71 And I sisilte hym at the assay to 
 
 see how me semyde 
 And he was floreschede full faire of 
 
 two fyngere brode. 
 73-82 And ritte doun at a rase reght to 
 
 the tayle 
 And than the herbere anone aftir I 
 
 makede. 
 I raughte the righte legge before, 
 
 ritt it ther aftir 
 And so fro legge to legge I lepe 
 
 thaym aboute 
 And the felle fro the fete fajTe I 
 
 departede 
 And flewe it doun with my fiste 
 
 faste to the rigge. 
 I tighte owte my trenchore and toke 
 
 of the scholdirs 
 Cuttede corbyns bone and kest it 
 
 awaye. 
 I slitte hym full sleghely and 
 
 slyppede in my fyngere 
 Lesse the poynte scholde pcrche the 
 
 pawnche or the guttys. 
 85-87 I grippede owte the guttes and 
 
 graythede theym besyde. 
 And than the nombles anone name 
 
 I there aftire 
 Rent up fro the rigge reghte to the 
 
 myddis. 
 
 88 . . . the fourches. . . . 
 S9-90 And chynnede hym chefely and 
 choppede of the nekke 
 And the hede and the haulse 
 homelyde in sondree 
 92 And hevede alle into ane hole. 
 99 To wayte it fromc wylde swyne. . . .
 
 lO] 
 
 PARLEMENT': PARALLELS WITH 'GAWAYNE' 
 
 73 
 
 Gawayne. 
 2175 The knyght kachez his caple. 
 1 1 58 The hindez were balden in with 
 
 ' hay' and 'war.' 
 1445 . . . halowed . . . ' hay ' 
 
 'hay.' 
 1655 As coundutes of krystmasse and 
 
 carolez nevve. 
 2525 After the segge and the asaute [of 
 
 Troy]. 
 1584 Braydez out a bryght bront. . . . 
 
 1901 And braydez out the bryght bronde. 
 
 2419 ... Barsabe that much bale 
 
 tholed. 
 2448 The maystres of Merlyn. . . . 
 
 1928 He were a bleaunt. . . . 
 
 2446 Thurgh myght of Morgne la Faye. 
 
 Parlemeiif. 
 189 And thu hafe caughte thi kaple. 
 223 With ' hoo ' and ' howghe ' to the 
 heron. . . . 
 
 254 With coundythes and carolles. 
 
 303 [Troy] cite asseged and sayled. 
 
 371 And brayde owte the brighte 
 brande. . . . 
 
 453 For Bersabee . . . was alle that 
 
 bale rerede. 
 469 That Merlyn with his maystries 
 
 made. . . . 
 482 Fie made a blyot. . . . 
 511 ... Morgn la fay that myche 
 
 couthe of sleghte. 
 
 Lest anybody should urge that these are chance coincidences, I append 
 a brief list of others which connect Gawayne equally with some poems 
 of which we have heard a good deal in this essay. 
 
 Alexander. 
 
 l^Exordiurnl 15 And I forwith yow alle 
 
 ettillis to schewe. 
 Alex. 3020 Was never sene I suppoyse 
 sen the seyge of Troye. 
 778 Stridis into stele bowe stertis 
 apon loft. 
 
 1 540 . . . wodwose and other wylde 
 
 bestes. 
 2617 The cry of the clarions the 
 
 clodez it persyd. 
 
 Tihis. 
 1244 . . . gretter than a grehounde . . . 
 54 Cloudes clateren gon as they cleve 
 wolde. 
 
 Gazvayne. 
 
 \_Exo}-diH/ii'\ 27 Forthi an aunter in erde 
 
 I attle to schawe. 
 
 I Sithen the sege and the assaut 
 watz sesed at Troye. 
 
 435 Steppez in to stel bawe and 
 strydez alofte. 
 Cf. 2060 Steppez he into stirop and 
 strydez alofte. 
 721-2 ... wodwos . . . buUez and 
 
 berez and borez. 
 1 166 ... kry as klyffez haden brusten. 
 
 Gawayne. 
 
 1 171 ... grehoundez so grete . . . 
 2201 , . . clatered in the clyff as it cleve 
 schulde.
 
 74 
 
 'IIUCHOWN OF THE AW'LE RYALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Titus. 
 849-50 . . . with dynnyng of pipis 
 And the nakerer noyse . . . 
 
 3151 
 532-3 
 
 451 
 
 Morie Arthiire. 
 Into Tuskane he toinnez . . . 
 For whyeseste and worthyest and 
 
 wyghteste of haundez. 
 Of all . . . this werlde ryche. 
 . . . one nyghte nedez moste thou 
 
 lenge. 
 
 Ga'vayne. 
 118 Nwe nakryn noise with the noble 
 pipes. 
 
 Gawayne. 
 1 1 Ticius [turnes] to Tuskan. 
 261 The wyzest and the worthyest of the 
 worldes kynde. 
 
 693 . . . alone he lengez on nyghtez. 
 
 Having now left in no doubt the intimate relation between the 
 Parlement and Gmcayfie, we may turn to a general grouping of certain 
 other parallels, reminding ourselves before we begin that the Parlement 
 has only 665 lines, thus offering numerically a much smaller area of com- 
 parison than the greater pieces do. 
 
 Troy 12969 Hit was the moneth of May 
 
 when mirthes begyn. 
 Downkynge of dewe. . . . 
 Burjons of bowes brcthit full 
 
 swete. 
 They threpide with the 
 
 throstills. . . . 
 . . . fayne ... as fowelle 
 
 of the day. 
 Fayn as the foul of day . . . 
 Whan the derk was doun 
 
 and the day spryngen. 
 Troy 1079 Wen the derke was done 
 
 and the day sprange. 
 
 Morte 
 
 3249 
 
 Troy 
 
 2736 
 
 Morte 
 
 930 
 
 Alex. 
 
 2264 
 
 Titus 
 
 1005 
 
 Titus 
 
 850 
 
 10 
 II 
 
 14 
 
 15-6 
 
 Troy 
 
 2378 
 
 . . . sleghly on slepe. . . . 
 
 36 
 
 Morte 
 
 3467 
 
 . . . stalkis . . . stille . . . 
 
 41 
 
 Morte 
 
 3468 
 
 . . . stotays . . . studyande. 
 
 51 
 
 Troy 
 
 8045 
 
 That the blode out brast . . . 
 
 55 
 
 Troy 
 
 10424 
 
 . . . bent blody be-ronnen. 
 
 62 
 
 Titus 
 
 1070 
 
 Ded as a dore nayle. . . . 
 
 65 
 
 Troy 
 
 524 
 
 . . . thro men in threpe and 
 
 104 
 
 
 
 thretyms. . . . 
 
 no 
 
 Titus 269 A bold burne on a blonk . 
 
 Parlement. 
 In the moneth of Maye when mirthes 
 
 bene fele. 
 The dewe . . . donkede. . . . 
 Burgonsand blossomes and tjraunches 
 
 full swete. 
 ... the throstills full throly 
 
 threpen. . . . 
 And iche foule in that frythe fay- 
 
 nere than other 
 That the derke was done and the 
 
 day lightenede. 
 
 . . . sleghe . . . slepe. . . . 
 
 . . . stalkede full stilly. . . . 
 
 . . . stotayde and stelkett. 
 
 That the blode braste owte appon 
 
 both the sydes. 
 . . . brakans were blody by-ronnen. 
 Dede als a door nayle. . . . 
 . . . thre thro men threpden. . . . 
 A bolde beryn on a blonke bowne 
 
 for to ryde.
 
 lO] 
 
 'PARLEMENT'; PARALLELS FROM 'TROY,' ETC. 
 
 75 
 
 Alex. 792 
 
 Awntyrs 510 
 
 Alex. 1538 
 
 Morte 3264 
 
 Awntyrs 1 7 
 Morte 3964 
 
 Morte 3959-60 
 Titus 969 
 
 Than strenys he hys steropes 
 
 and streght up sittes. 
 . . . with trayfoles and 
 
 trewhiffes bytwene. 
 With riche rabies of golde 
 
 railed bi the hemmes. 
 Raylide with reched and 
 
 rubyes inewe. 
 Raylede with rubes . . . 
 My wele and my wirchipe 
 
 of alle this werlde riche. 
 Here es the hope of my hele 
 
 my happyge of armes. 
 My herte. . . . 
 I have heylych heyght. . . . 
 
 Morte 3762-3 
 
 Troy 13824 Had a glaive, a full grym 
 grippit in honde. 
 . . . giyme launce 
 That the growndene glayfe 
 
 graythes in sondyre. 
 Ride to the rever and rer 
 up the foules. 
 
 Titus 
 
 883 
 
 Morte 
 
 6 . . . kayre till his 
 
 courte. . . . 
 Morte 3293 And ladys me lovede to 
 
 lappe in theyre armes. 
 Troy 10097 • • • wandrit and woke for 
 
 woo. . . . 
 Morte 2370 . . . wakkens wandrethe 
 
 and werre. . . . 
 Morte 975 ... dolvene and dede. . . . 
 Morte 2216 Threppede . . . thryttene 
 
 sythis. 
 Morte ITJQ And alle dysfegoures his 
 
 face . . . 
 
 Parleniciit. 
 116 He streghte hym in his steropis and 
 
 stode up rightes. 
 120 With trayfoyles and trewloves of full 
 
 triede perles. 
 128 With full rich rubyes raylede by the 
 
 hemmes. 
 
 175 My wele and my wirchipe in werlde 
 where thou dwellys. 
 
 177 Alle my hope and my hele myn herte 
 
 is thyn owen. 
 
 178 I behete the a hest and heghely I 
 
 avowe. 
 202 With a grym grownden glayfe 
 graythely in my honde. 
 
 208 And ryde to a revere.' . . . 
 217 To the revere with thaire roddes 
 to rere up the fowlis. 
 
 246 . . . kayre to the courte. . . , 
 
 247 With ladys full lovely to lappyn in 
 
 myn armes. 
 257 . , . with wandrynge and wo schalte 
 wake. . . . 
 
 258 . . . dolven and dede. . . . 
 262 . . . threpid this thirtene wyntir. 
 
 284 And all disfeguride my face and 
 fadide my hewe. 
 Cf. 155 Alle disfygured was his face and 
 fadit his hewe. 
 
 ^ This in its hawking connexion is riparia in medieval Latinity. Juxia quandam 
 ripariani falcottttm aucupio se exerceret — is written of Edward HL in Trivet's Aunales 
 (Eng. Hist. Soc), 282.
 
 76 
 
 'HUCIIOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Alex. 5655 Now sail I nevyne yow llie | 297 
 
 names. . . . 
 Morte 3440 Alles nynne of the nobilleste 
 
 namede in erthe. 
 Morte 3496 Ne for no wy of this werlde 298 
 
 that wroghte es one erthe. 
 Awntyrs 639 ... no wy in this 
 
 werlde. . , . 
 Morte 3408 That were conquerours 299. 
 
 kydde and crownnede 
 
 in erthe. 
 
 Troy 1 403 1 
 
 [Both passages referring to the 
 
 ^00 
 
 . . Ector the honourable 
 oddist of knightcs. 
 3879 . . . Ector the eldest. 
 
 Alex. 
 
 III4 
 
 The mody kyng. . . . 
 
 302 
 
 Titus 
 
 1039 
 
 ... the mody kyng. . . . 
 
 
 Gaway 
 
 ne I 
 
 . . . the sege and the assault 
 [Troy]. 
 
 303 
 
 Troy 
 
 9506 
 
 Paris the prise knight. 
 
 30s 
 
 Troy 
 
 14006 
 
 (rubric) 
 
 Thies Ector slough with 
 hond of kynges. 
 
 307-8 
 
 [The list "all of du kynges," lines 
 14006-14021, has eighteen names.] 
 
 Alex. 1814 ... as mervale ware ellis 310 
 
 Troy 668 Thurghe wyles of woman. . . 315 
 
 Gawayne 2415 . . . thtirg wyles of wym- 
 
 men. . . . 
 Troy 1377-8 . . . girdyn doun the wallys 318-9 
 Prowde pales of prise puttyn 
 
 to grounde. 
 
 Troy 
 
 2067 
 
 . . . lure that was light. . . . 
 
 323 
 
 Morte 
 
 2596 
 
 . . . Syr Priamus, a prince 
 is my fadyre. 
 
 324 
 
 Morte 
 
 4345 
 
 Syr Pryamous the prynce. 
 
 
 Troy 
 
 1487 
 
 Was Troylus the true tristy 
 in wer. 
 
 326 
 
 Troy 
 
 9991 
 
 Troiell the tru knight. . . . 
 
 
 Troy 
 
 3818 
 
 Neptolon nobill. 
 
 327 
 
 Parlcment. 
 And 1 schall nevyn yow the names of 
 nyne of the beste. 
 
 That ever wy in tliis werlde wiste 
 appon erthe. 
 
 [Lines 297-8 are almost exactly re- 
 peated 580-1.] 
 That were conquerours full kene and 
 kiddeste of other. 
 
 Nine Worthies.] 
 ... Sir Ector and aldeste of tyme. 
 
 . . . the mody kynge. . . . 
 
 . . . assegede and sayled it [Troy]. 
 
 Paresche the proude knyghle. 
 
 And as clerkes in the cronycle 
 
 cownten the sothe 
 Nowmbren thaym to xix and ix mo 
 
 by tale 
 Of kynges with crounes he killede 
 
 with his handes. 
 . . . als feriy wer ellis. 
 With the wyles of a woman. . . . 
 
 And with the Gregeis of Grece he 
 
 girde over the walles 
 The prowde paleys dide he pullc 
 
 doun to the erthe. 
 . . . lure at the last lighte. . . . 
 ... Sir Priamus the prynce. . . . 
 
 Sir Troylus a trewe knyghte that 
 tristyly hade foughten. 
 
 Neptolemus a noble knyghle.
 
 lo] 'PARLEMENT'; PARALLELS FROM ' MORTE ARTHURE,' ETC. 77 
 
 Troy 5892 Palomedon the prise king. 
 {^Troy 55-65 Reference to Dares and 
 Dytes]. 
 18 [Alexander] aghte . . . alle 
 the wer[l]d ovire. 
 315 [Alexander] wan all the 
 
 world. 
 312 [The pillars of Hercules.] 
 
 Alex. 
 Troy 
 Troy 
 Troy 
 
 881 (rubric) How Jason wan 
 
 the flese of golde. 
 Troy 867 Jason . . . gentill knight. 
 
 Morte 2606 Judas and Josue thise gen- 
 
 tille knyghtes. 
 Titus 782 ... a Jew Josophus the 
 
 gentyl clerke 
 Alex. 3972 Quen Sir Porus saghe his 
 
 princes in the prese faile. 
 Alex. 3998 Porrus as a prince. . . . 
 Morte 4216 lie braydes owte a brand 
 
 bryghte. . . . 
 Gazuayiie 1 584 Braydez out a bryght bront. . . 
 Gazuayiie 1901 And braydez out the bryght 
 
 bronde. . . . 
 Alex. 1831 Sire Alexander athille kyng. 
 
 Alex. 5399 [Alexander styled] oure 
 mode kyng. 
 [Alexander styled Emperor constantly in 
 
 the Alexander.] 
 
 Alex. 2395 Than amed thai to ser 
 Alexander. . . . 
 
 T7-oy 314 The Emperour Alex- 
 
 ander. . . . 
 
 Alex. 561 1 Now bowis furth this bara- 
 tour and Babyloyn he 
 wynnis. 
 [Said of Alexander.] 
 
 Titus 971 And me the 3ates ben jet 
 and 3olden the keyes. 
 
 Titus 1233 Bot up 3eden her jates and 
 3elden hem alle. 
 
 Parlement. 
 328 Palamedes a prise knyghte. 
 331 As Dittes and Dares demeden to- 
 gedir. 
 
 After this sir Alysaunder alle the 
 
 worlde wanne. 
 334 Ercules boundes 
 
 [Referring to the pillars of Plercules.] 
 . . . gentille Jazon the Jewe wane 
 
 the flese of golde. 
 
 jj 
 
 338 
 
 I 365 Sir Porus and his prynces. 
 
 \ 368 For there Sir Porus the prynce into 
 
 \ the presse thrynges. 
 
 37 1 And brayde owte the bright brande. . . 
 
 384 Alexandere oure athell kyng. 
 Cf. 484 Arthure oure athell kynge. 
 
 394 Sir Alexander oure Emperour ames 
 hym to ryde. 
 
 395 And bewes towardes Babyloyne. . . 
 [Said of Alexander.] 
 
 398 While hym the jatis were jete and 
 jolden the keyes. 
 [Repeated 575.] 
 Cf. 535 While hym his jernynge was jett 
 and the jates opynede.
 
 78 
 
 HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Morte 4172 ... drynkles they dye dole 
 was the more. 
 4241 Thai derfe dynt was his 
 dcde and dole was the 
 
 Parloiieiil. 
 400 Thare he was dede of a drynke as 
 dole es to here. 
 
 Titus 
 
 Alex. 
 
 1093 
 
 more. 
 
 . . that doil was to hure. 
 
 1608 The welder of all the werld 
 and worthiest under 
 wylde. 
 
 [Said of Alexander.] 
 
 Cf. 452 There he was dede at that dcde as 
 dole es to here. 
 404 And thus the worthieste of this 
 wcrldc wente to his ende. 
 
 Alex. 
 
 18 That aghte evyn as his 
 awynn alle the wer[l]d 
 ovire. 
 
 Mor/e 576 
 
 Morte 265S 
 
 Morte 2606 
 
 Pistill 2 
 
 Titus 1283 
 
 Morte 2935 
 
 Titus 473 
 Morte T)i,\c)-zo 
 
 Cf. Tro}'i2()6 
 
 Troy 9038 
 
 [See also M 
 page 481.] 
 Titus 1 203 
 Titus 779 
 
 Morte 3413 
 
 Morte 3415 
 
 Araby and Egipt. . . . 
 Sessoyne and Surylande. 
 . . . Josuc . . . gentille. . . . 
 . . . Jezu gentil. 
 Mortar ne made walle. . . 
 . . . the devclle have your 
 
 bones. 
 Of doughty David the king. 
 For he slcwe with a slynge 
 
 be sleyght of his hands 
 Golyas the grette gome 
 
 grymmeste in erthe. 
 Slogh horn downe sleghly 
 
 and slaunge horn to 
 
 grounde. 
 Slogh hom down sleghly 
 
 with sleght of his hond. 
 r. Donaldson's note in Troy, 
 
 Wer ded of that dynt . . . 
 ... the devel have that 
 
 recche. 
 . . . Judas a justere fulle 
 
 nobille. 
 . . . Josue that joly mane 
 .f armes. 
 
 406 Alle Inglande he aughte at his 
 awnn will. 
 
 [Said of Caesar.] 
 Cf. same line repeated (465) con- 
 cerning Arthur. 
 
 418 Arraby and Egipt. . . . 
 
 419 Surry and Sessoyne. . . . 
 
 426 . . . gentil Josue that was a Jcwe 
 
 noble. 
 433 . . . mode walle that made were. . . 
 438 . . . Sathanas unsele have iheire 
 
 bones. 
 441 Than David the doughty . . . 
 444-5 The gretegrym Golyas he to grounde 
 
 broghte 
 And sloghe hym with his slynge and 
 
 with no sleghte elles. 
 
 447 And he was dcde of that dynt the 
 dcvyll hafe that rcche. 
 
 459 ...Jeues full joly and justers full noble.
 
 lo] 
 
 'PARLEMENT'; PARALLELS FROM 'TITUS,' ETC. 
 
 79 
 
 Morte 1 7 
 
 Mor/e 3707 
 
 Morte 1368 
 
 Morle 1 1 52 
 
 Titus 767 
 
 7>-^j' 929 
 
 Morte 304 
 
 Zi'/Kj- 26 
 
 yi/i?^/t' 4309 
 
 Morte 541 
 
 7>v_j/ 10306 
 
 Alex. 1232 
 
 Z'rcj 1 3024 
 
 Morte 2cli2 
 
 Morte 3427-9 
 
 /■iVw^ S 
 
 Titus 497-9 
 
 ^/fjr. 48 
 
 Troy 8315 
 
 Off the ryealle renkys of the 
 
 rowunde table. 
 Thane syr Gawayne the gude 
 
 he has the gree wonnene. 
 Thane syr Gawayne the 
 
 gude . . . 
 Thenne sir Kayous the 
 
 kene . . . 
 . . . thogh ye fey worthe. 
 . . . drepitt the dragon . . . 
 . . . beryne of Bretayne . . . 
 . . . alle Gascoyne gat and 
 
 Gyan . . . 
 And graythes to Glasschen- 
 
 bery the gate at the gay- 
 
 neste. 
 . . . this werlde bot wyr- 
 
 chipe . . . 
 Slough him . . . with sleght 
 
 of his hond. 
 Bot with a swyng of a swerde 
 
 swappez of hys heved. 
 And with the swing of a 
 
 swerde swappit hir to 
 
 dethe. 
 And with a swerde swiftly he 
 
 swappes him thorowe. 
 . . . the crowne that Crist 
 
 bare hymselfene 
 And that lifeliche launce 
 
 that lepe to his herte 
 When he was crucyfiede on 
 
 crose and alle the kene 
 
 naylis. 
 Throw Pylat pyned he was 
 
 and put on the rode. 
 
 Crist one 
 
 That this peple to pyne . . . 
 That preveth his passioun. 
 Than was hym bodword 
 
 unblyth broght . . . 
 And the bodword broght to 
 
 the bold kyng. 
 
 Farlc'iiicnt. 
 468 With renkes full ryalle of his rowunde 
 
 table. 
 473 Bot Sir Galade the gude that the 
 
 gree wanne. 
 475 And sir Gawayne the gude . . . 
 
 477 And sir Kay the kene . . . 
 
 485 . . . till he was fey worthen. 
 
 488 ... a diagon he dreped . . . 
 
 490 . . . beryns of Bretayne . . . 
 
 491 Gascoyne and Gyane gat he . . . 
 
 494 The gates towardes Glassthenbery 
 full graythely he rydes. 
 
 519 ... wirchupe of this werlde . . . 
 
 533 ... he sloghe with his handis. 
 
 551 And one swyftely with a swerde 
 swapped of his hede. 
 
 5534 . . . the corownne that criite had one 
 hede 
 And the nayles anone naytly there 
 aftire. 
 
 555 When he with passyoun and pyne 
 was naylede on the rode. 
 
 558 And than bodworde . . . full boldly. . .
 
 8o 
 
 niUCHOWN OF THE AWLK RVALK ' 
 
 [Cii. 
 
 Morie 1979 Forsette them the cite appon 
 
 sere halfez. 
 7'roy 2416 To have and to hold . . . 
 
 Parlemeiit. 
 574 And that cite he assegede appone 
 
 sere halfves. 
 577 To kepe it and to hold it to hym and 
 
 to his ayers. 
 [A well-known legal phrase answering to 
 the form in Latin deeds, Habenduvi el tenen- 
 dum. '\ 
 
 580-81 [These almost repeat 297-8.] 
 582 And the doghtyeste of dedis in thaire 
 dayes tyme. 
 
 585 Of wyghes that were wysest . . . 
 
 [Introducing Aristotle of 'Alexander's 
 time. '] 
 ,Cf. 610 Theis were the wysest in the worlde. 
 
 594 Virgin thurgh his vertus . . . 
 
 629 And dame Gaynore the gay . . . 
 
 653-4 And ' Haves gud daye ' for now I go 
 to grave moste me wende 
 Dethe dynges on my dore 
 I dare no longare byde. 
 
 663 . . . lugede me in the leves . . . 
 
 664 For dere Drighlyne this daye . . 
 
 665 Marie that is mylde quene . . . 
 
 A summation of these parallels brings results sufficiently striking. Out 
 of 665 lines there are over 120 which contain more or less notable alliterative 
 phrases also found in the antecedent quartet ; over and above are the 
 parallelisms with Gaivayne. Particularly to be observed are 23 lines, 
 practically whole lines, coincident with practically whole lines elsewhere, 
 as under : 
 
 Morte 
 
 3440, 
 
 3496. 
 
 Morie 
 
 3443-4 
 
 in my days ... for dedis 
 
 of amies 
 For the doughtyeste that 
 
 ever was duelland in erthe. 
 
 Alex. 
 
 24 
 
 The wysest wees of the 
 wer[l]de. 
 
 Alex. 
 
 247 
 
 The wysest wees in this 
 wer[l]d. 
 
 Troy 
 
 49 
 
 Virgin the virtuus . . . 
 
 Morte 
 
 233 
 
 Sir Gawayne the worthye 
 Dame Waynour he hledys. 
 
 .4wntyrs 14 
 
 . . . the gay dame Gaye- 
 
 
 
 nour . . . 
 
 Awntyrs 313 
 
 Hafe gud daye . . . 
 
 
 
 I hafe na langare tyme 
 
 
 
 For me buse wende on my 
 
 
 
 waye . . . 
 
 
 
 Unto my wonnynge wane 
 
 
 
 in waa for to dwelle. 
 
 Morte 
 
 454 
 
 Lugge thiselfe undyre lynde. 
 
 Morte 
 
 3800 
 
 For dere Dryghttyne this 
 daye . . . 
 
 Morte 
 
 2872 
 
 [Marie] that mylde qwene . . 
 
 [The 
 
 Lay of 
 
 the Triielove refers to Christ 
 
 as crowning H 
 
 is mother Queen of Heaven.]
 
 lo] 'PARLEMENT'; ITS SOURCES 8i 
 
 Lines of 'Parlement' almost identical with lines of 'Alexander,' 
 'Troy,' 'Titus,' and 'Morte Arthure.' 
 
 Parlement. Alexander. Troy. Tiliis. Morte Arthure. 
 
 Ii6, 128, 368, 551. 1792, 1538, 
 
 3972, 1232. 
 I, II, 318, 326. ^ - - - 12969, 2736, 
 
 1377, 1487- 
 
 16,217,(398,575), 850,883,971 
 
 447. 491- (1203, 779), 26. 
 
 202, 247, 297, - 3762-3, 3293, 3440, 
 
 298, 299. 3496, 340S. 
 
 444-5, 468. 3419-20, 17- 
 
 473> 494- 3707, 4309- 
 
 Surely it is of extreme and final value as part of the great argument 
 with which this treatise began that in this comparison of entire lines, out of 
 the twenty-three four are from the Alexaiider, four from the Troy^ five from 
 the Titus, and ten from Morte Arthure. Falling to be added are the many 
 broken lines distributed in different proportions among the various books in 
 question. To be added also are the special coincidences with Gawayue. 
 And after all these there comes yet another argument of inestimable strength 
 deduced from a -search after the sources of the Parlement, that poem which 
 ends the series of five. 
 
 (4) Main Sources of the '■Parlement.^ 
 
 In examining the hunting scene which opens the poem we saw that 
 Gawayne had been within the poet's view. We shall see where the hunt 
 began. But first it is to be said that besides Gawayjie and Alexander, 
 Troy, Titus, and Morte Arthure, there is unanswerable evidence that the 
 poet used the Brut,^ which he expressly names. ^ Not only so, he also 
 knew and used the other principal authority followed in Morte Arthure, 
 the Voeux du Paon. This appears from his narrating " the Foray of 
 Gadres {Fuerre de Gadres) as well as the whole effect of the Avows of 
 Alexander and Battle of Effesoun as contained in the Voeux du Paon. 
 Dares and Dictys he cites'* — at second hand probably just as he did in 
 
 ^/'ar/., 462-512. ^Prtr/., 407. 3/'<z;7., 332-395. * Pari, t,t,i.
 
 82 'IIUCIIOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Cii. 
 
 the Troy^ — and the De Preliis Aiexatider must be assumed to have been 
 the source of part of the Alexander narrative, including the mention of 
 Queen Candace- and the death of Alexander at the hands of the 'cursed 
 Cassander.'^ A distinct community of authorities between the Parlemcnt 
 and the antecedent poems is thus established — further corroborated by the 
 inclusion in the part relative to Alexander of a confused reference to 
 the Gog and Magog legend comprising a passage about the coming of 
 Antichrist, no doubt taken from Maundeville.'* 
 
 There remains to be stated a yet more remarkable proposition, which 
 is that fundamentally the story of the three ages is an expansion of an 
 episode in the Troy^ and that here once more we have a testimony to the 
 infinite poetic suggestion referable to Guido de Columpna. We return to 
 the hunting scene in the Parkment to recall the facts. The hero is engaged 
 in the chase alone. He ties his dog to a birch tree.'' He sees a hart,'' 
 which he approaches and shoots. After disembowelling the quarry he sits 
 down in the woodland under birch tree boughs with leaves light and green." 
 The sun is so hot that he grows drowsy and sleeps^ — sleeps and dreams 
 a ' dreghe ' dream^ of the strife of three men, one in green, one in gray, 
 and one in black. What was the root from which this powerful story grew ? 
 If I may have faith in the evidences before me the root sprang from Italian 
 seed, no doubt itself in turn a product of the Greek. Paris in the Troy^ 
 like the hero in the Farlevient, went hunting.^^ Outstripping his comrades, 
 he was alone ^^ in the forest — that classic forest which Huchown's translation 
 does not name, but which Guido did, the nemus quod Yda vocatur}'^ 
 
 He sees a hart ^^ too. He gives chase, but it escapes. He has no dog, 
 but his horse, weary with the pursuit, he ties to a bough. ^^ He lies down 
 
 ^ Troy, 60. 2 Pari. , 396. 
 
 "Par/., 401. Cassander is not named in this connection either in Julius Valerius, 
 in (Miclielant's ed.) Romans ifAlixaitdre, pp. 50S-9, or in the Vocux du Paon. lie is so 
 mentioned in the Dc Preliis, at the close where the alliterative translation is missing. 
 
 ^ Maundevilk (Wright), ch. 26, MS. T. 4, i. fo. 266 + 59-591$. 
 
 ^ Pari., 39. ^Parl., 25. "^ Pari., 98, lOO, 661-3. 
 
 ^ Pari., 100. ^ Pari., 101 -2. i" 7;-(7y, 2345. " 7><y, 2358. 
 
 "^Ilunterian MS., T. 4, i. fo. 27. " TVty, 2353. ^-^ Troy, 2371.
 
 lo] 'PARLEMENT'; SOURCE IN 'TROY' 83 
 
 'in a shadow of shene tres,'^ for the sun is hot.^ He sleeps,^ and dreams 
 ' dreghly ' ■* the great dream of the strife of three goddesses — Venus and 
 Juno and Pallas — as arbiter in which he is to determine the award of 
 the golden apple. If he gives it to Juno his reward will be to be 
 ' mightiest on molde,' ^ if to Pallas he will be ' wisest of wit,' ^ if to Venus 
 love will be hisJ 
 
 This is the absolute key of the Parlement — explaining the ideal of Youth 
 with his avows, Middle Elde in his lust for possessions and power, and 
 Elde's lofty sermon drawn from the deeds of the doughty and the lives 
 of the sages, especially Solomon, 
 
 'And he was the wisest in wit that ever wonned in earth.' 
 ' Wisest in wit ' — it was the very phrase of Pallas's bribe. The whole 
 spirit of the two dreams, if not quite the same, at least runs a most 
 singular parallel. 
 
 In the Troy vision (lines 2407-9) the gift offered by Juno comes first : 
 'To be mightiest on molde and most of all other.' 
 
 In the Parlement vision (lines 293-583) Elde begins with the Nine 
 
 Worthies, the warriors whom he then deals with in detail — 
 
 ' Nine of the best 
 That ever wy in this world wist upon earth 
 That were conquerors full kene and kiddest of other.' 
 
 In the Troy vision (lines 2410-12) the gift offered by Pallas comes 
 
 second : 
 
 'Thou shalt be wisest of wit.' 
 
 In the Parlement vision, when the poet has closed his record of the 
 warriors with a sigh, pointing his moral that doughtiness, when death comes, 
 may stay no longer, he tells next (lines 584-611) of the fate of the wise: 
 
 'Of wyghes that were wisest will ye now hear.' 
 And so he preaches of Aristotle and Virgil, Solomon and Merlin, who 
 were fated to die too : 
 
 'These were the wisest in the world of wit that ever yet were, 
 But death wondes for no wit to wend where him likes.' 
 
 1 Troy, 2372-3. 2 Troy, '2'ZlA' Overhild for the hete heng}-ng with leves. 
 
 ^Troy,2yj'i. ^Troy,zy]^. ^ y^/vy, 2408. ^ Troy, 20,11. ' 7'roy, 2414.
 
 84 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Cii. 
 
 In the Troy vision (lines 2413-15) the gift of love offered by Venus 
 comes last. So, last, in the Parlejnent vision comes the stanza (lines 612-630) 
 which is so fine a romance catalogue of lovers. 
 
 A moment given to analysis of the two visions demonstrates that the 
 
 Parle77ient simply adapts the vision of Paris, brings it from the slopes of 
 
 Mount Ida to our own woodlands, where the throstle, the cuckoo, and the 
 
 cushat sing, and the fox, the fulmart, and the hare are denizens. But the 
 
 poet transforms it too, making the pagan dream into a Christian ode on the 
 
 invincibility of death. Great are the gifts of Juno and Pallas and Venus, 
 
 so the pagan dreamer told : ' all vain and vanities and vanity is all ' was 
 
 the sore verdict of pious Elde. 
 
 ' Since doughtiness when death comes ne dare not abide, 
 Ne death wondes for no wit to wend where him likes, 
 And thereto paramours and pride puts he full low, 
 Ne there is riches ne rent may ransom your lives, 
 Ne nought is siccar to yourself ne certain but death.' 
 
 In fine, is not the Parlement simply the dream of Paris reconstituted for 
 
 British latitudes and having appended an old-new moral ? The oak tree of 
 
 the Far/ement grew from Guido's acorn, planted by Huchown in the Troy. 
 
 And the entire body of the narrative points to the same poetic unity, the same 
 
 paternity in Huchovvn's busy brain. The Gaivayne unites with the Troy 
 
 to explain and produce the initial hunting picture. The Voeux du Faon, 
 
 already familiarised in the poet's mind, directly supplies the suggestion of 
 
 the Nine Worthies, contributing much even of the substance of the poem. 
 
 Examining the various contributory sections of the precis of the lives of the 
 
 illustrious Nine, we readily devise a canon of test. Surely if the poet was 
 
 the same as erewhile wrote the other poems we should expect to find in this 
 
 one, that when he touches Hector we should find traces of the Troy, and 
 
 that when he touches Arthur we should find traces of Morte Arthnre. How 
 
 completely the Parlement responds to the test! The 31 lines on Hector 
 
 {Pari., 300-331) touch the Troy by direct reminiscence and repetition of 
 
 special epithets almost every second line. On King Alexander {Pari., 332-404) 
 
 the earlier poem is much less slenderly represented, no doubt because when 
 
 the Parlemcfit was written the poet was drawing on two new sources, the 
 
 Fuerre de Gadres and the Voeux du Faon : still there are characteristic
 
 II] HUCHOWN'S MS. 'GEOFFREY OF MONMOUTH' 85 
 
 touches from the Alexander. Of Caesar we have something, of Joshua 
 something, of David something, of Judas Machabeus something, — all from 
 Morte Arthure, of which these worthies were only a side theme ; while of 
 Arthur, its central theme, we have in 51 lines (462-512), a clear body of 
 matter, including identical lines and not admitting of hostile debate. On 
 Charlemagne, a number of lines from the Alexander, the Troy, the Titus, 
 and the Morte Arthure serve abundantly the purpose of proving the closeness 
 of the ties of association between any one of Huchown's heroes and all 
 the others. Indeed, the Farlefnent enables us to be retrospective, and 
 suppose with considerable probability that Morte Arthure had already drawn 
 for at least three of its lines (3427-g) upon the same version ^ of the romance 
 of Ferumbras and the Sowdan, as was utilised in the Farlemerit. 
 
 If proof by internal evidence is to establish anything, this extraordinary 
 concatenation surely is irresistible. The method of proof adopted is only 
 that which others have already used in a small degree for other works : 
 only here the links are far more numerous, and far more closely drawn 
 together than they have ever been before. To deny difficulties is no part 
 of this argument : the proposition is that adopting the very processes of 
 comparison which commended themselves to some of my predecessors, I 
 reach a broader conclusion than theirs, the logic of which constrains the 
 acceptance of the Parlement as bringing up the rear of the great series of 
 poems which proceeded from one prolific pen. 
 
 II. Huchown's Copy of 'Geoffrey of Monmouth.' 
 
 * Ring by ring,' said the French adage, ' is made the habergeon.' The 
 argument from internal evidence before set forth was complete, and the 
 original papers had both been read, when the prosecution of the quest 
 further resulted in a discovery of immense interest in itself and of prime 
 moment as evidence for the proposition now being discussed. It was the 
 discovery of a MS., of apparently thirteenth-century date, bearing in certain 
 marginal additions to its text in the shape of a running series of 
 
 ^ See note ch. 9, sec. 5, above. The Pari., 11. 553-4, however, mentions only the 
 crown and the nails.
 
 86 «HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 rubrics an extraordinary body of relations to the Huchown poems 
 especially Morte Artliiire. 
 
 Systematically, the setting forth of the grounds of belief for the identi- 
 fication of manuscript U. 7. 25 in the Hunterian Library will best begin 
 with a reminder of the presence in the same library of the manuscript 
 T. 4. I, which disclosed such singular resemblances — (i) between its text 
 of the De Freliis, and the alliterative translation The JVars of Alexander, 
 and (2) between its text of Guido de Columpna, and the alliterative transla- 
 tion The Destructioji of Troy, with (3) the appositeness of the presence 
 of INIaundeville's Itinerarhwi in the manuscript, as compared with the 
 presence of a passage from that work interjected into the Alexatider 
 poem. Also is to be remembered the presence in the same library, which 
 once was the small private collection of MSS. of Dr. William Hunter, of the 
 sole extant copy of the alliterative Troy poem just referred to. The 
 combination induced the thought that a careful scrutiny of other manu- 
 scripts in the same collection might result in the discovery of other books 
 which once had formed part of the great alliterative poet's collection, 
 which once perchance he loved to see stand, like Chaucer's, ' at his 
 beddes head.' By the use of Dr. John Young's manuscript notes for his 
 MSS. Catalogue, and by his kindly furtherance personally of the quest, my 
 search was much facilitated. One day a pair of eager eyes fell on the 
 fateful words. Hie Rex Arthurus litteras Lucij Imperatoris recepit, added 
 at the top of the page in a small and defective copy of Geoffrey of 
 Monmouth's Historia Britonum, the MS. U. 7. 25 in question. The text 
 itself on that page styled Lucius only ' Procurator ' : the rubricator, like 
 Huchown, heightened the dignity : the Latin rubricator wrote ' Imperator ' \ 
 the poet ' Emperour.' With this point the examination of the MS. began. 
 
 This parchment book, about seven inches long by five broad, bound in 
 wooden covers, and having its text in a hand of the thirteenth century, is 
 rubricated more or less throughout in a hand a century later and sharply 
 distinguishable. These rubrications are at the beginning numerous, in black 
 ink, in a small, neat hand, and occupy the sides. About the 38th folio a change 
 is made; there are far fewer rubrications, and now, instead of occupying 
 the side margins, they are, with a very few exceptions on to the end,
 
 II] HUCHOWN'S MS. 'GEOFFREY' 87 
 
 confined to the top and occasionally to the bottom of the pages. Unfor- 
 tunately perhaps for the definite solution of yet other problems of early 
 poetry, a large and important section of the MS. is now lacking — a hiatus 
 which deprives us of the part of Geoffrey containing Merlin's prophecies. 
 Generally the rubrications are simple breviates of the purport of passages 
 in Geoffrey which interested the rubricator. Sometimes this is emphasised 
 by a Nota or a peculiar mark on the margin, twice by a finger pointing, 
 twice by the words Nota bene. How piquant these are ! We are able to 
 satisfy ourselves that the same things particularly interested the alliterative 
 poet, that Nota betie reflects itself at least sometimes in his poems, that other 
 peculiar marks of emphasis also are similarly reflected, and that, while the 
 one Nota bene touches a passage of Geoffrey found, strangely enough, in 
 Titus and Vespasian, the other reveals the plot of a poem, Wynnere and 
 Wastoiire, which years ago the editor of the Parlement of the Thre Ages 
 printed as the work of the same author as the Parlement. And while the 
 one marginal index finger pointed with its fruitful Nota bene to the tale of 
 Brennius and Belinus as the source of Wynnere and JVastoiire, while at 
 the same time it emphasised a peaceful reunion of a king of Scotland 
 with his brother, a king of England (strangely suggestive of the historical 
 reconciliation of David II. with his brother-in-law, Edward III.), the other 
 marginal index finger (fo. 28) pointed, as here shewn, to some hidden 
 
 ofui roa ttttoict^a fttc tetcmlrof oWiie tome imttiF '"V^ 
 filemr.Jtfti .-wcefli^ tUc (i|na tegc peiomi oDtoup i ^^ 
 umreripin m^ talc trnttM-mmc mffofltttt-O^ 
 
 consequence,— perhaps for the poet's own personal history,— of the story of 
 a man who had learned the language and the manners of another people 
 through his having been reared among their hostages. Didicerat enim iifigiiani 
 eorum et mores quia inter Britannicos obsides Ro7ne nutritus fuerat. What did 
 it mean? Was it that Huchown's English style and breadth of English 
 sympathy, his choice of Arthurian themes, which not once but several 
 times touched the Order of the Garter and the Table Round of Edward 
 III., were the result of some sojourn among Scottish hostages in London
 
 88 'HUCIIOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 during the Wars of Independence? So would come a fresh and surprising 
 solvent to the crux of Huchown's problem, which is that of explaining how 
 a poet with themes so devoid of Scottish passion, and so full of a British 
 fervour which might almost be mistaken for English, could have written in 
 a dialect so rich in forms which, if not largely English, are not Scottish, 
 and yet withal could, without inexplicable irony, have had his contem- 
 porary biography written only in Scottish chronicle, and written, too, with 
 admiring sympathy for the author and the man. 
 
 Once I had occasion to declare that, rightly apprehended, a Commonplace 
 Book, although entirely of quotations, was an intellectual self-revelation 
 of peculiar interest, and was, in spite of itself, autobiographical. Here is 
 an analagous case, out of which rises the question. What, do these marginal 
 jottings tell of the rubricator's mind? They tell much: tell (i) of his 
 reverent attitude, (2) of his fondness for moral truths, (3) of his admiration 
 for London, (4) of his eye for courtly ceremonial, (5) of his zest for the 
 chase and for falconry, (6) of his attention to the history of law, (7) of the 
 attraction which religious annals had for him, (8) of liis close study of the 
 tribute question, which has so large a place in the scheme of Morte Arthure, 
 (9) of his special and peculiar interest in the six chapters of Geoffrey which 
 form the bulk of Morte Arthure, (10) of that looseness about proper names, 
 which more than one of the editors of his poems have set down as 
 characteristic of the poet, and (11) of his dramatic sense of the power 
 in such stories as those of Lear and Cordelia, or Brennius and Belinus, 
 or of such episodes as a council of war at midnight under the stars, or 
 as the blazing dragon in Uther Pendragon's time. These marks on the 
 margin are no common gloss ; they are fragments of the alliterative poems 
 in the making, still unfashioned, it is true, but already taking shape in the 
 active imagination of genius in the fourteenth century. 
 
 Whoever will go through the representative body of extracts from these 
 marginals which are to be quoted in a subsequent chapter may gauge for himself 
 the degree of trust assignable to these inferences. Beginning with the fly-leaf, 
 we have the very remarkable jotting of six items copied from the original red 
 ink rubrics of Geoffrey's text — items which are the kernel of Morte Arthure. 
 A few points of correspondence between that poem and the rubricator's
 
 12] CLUES TO 'TITUS' 89 
 
 markings may here be presented. The text names ' Petreius Cotta,' the 
 rubricator calls him 'Petreius Senator,' Huchown calls him 'the Senatour 
 Peter.' The text has 'Guerinus,' the rubricator ' Gerinus,' Huchown 
 ' Geryn.' The text has always ' Modredus,' the rubricator has always 
 ' Mordredus,' Huchown oftenest has ' Mordred.' The text never names 
 the Saracens, the rubricator couples ' Pidis et aliis Sarracerjis,' Huchown 
 puts the ' Sarazenes ' in one line and their allies the ' Peyghtes ' in the 
 next line but two. ' Caius Quintilianus ' of the printed Geoffrey is ' Gains 
 Quintilianus ' in this manuscript text, the rubricator drops the Quintilian and 
 calls him merely 'Gains,' Huchown too dubs him only 'Syr Gayous.' A 
 date, 4482, not in the printed Geoffrey at all, appears in this MS. text, and 
 the date 'five hundred years less eighteen' will strangely emerge in another 
 alliterative poem as we proceed — a poem ^ which contains one of the best 
 told stories of the Middle Ages, and without exception the noblest tribute 
 to the essential ' priesthood ' of law which the early literature of Britain can 
 boast. If these proofs do not serve to convince the alliterative critics, 
 English and Scottish, French and German, that this Hunterian MS. was 
 veritably Huchown's, and Huchown's work a mighty unity, it will be 
 for the wisest of them to attempt the feat of accounting for the miracles 
 of coincidence which the preceding statement only illustrates and does 
 not exhaust — miracles of coincidence, be it said also, which so splendidly 
 confirm the argument, itself of immense power, deduced from internal 
 evidences of unity and correlation. 
 
 12. Clues to 'Titus' and 'Wynnere and Wastoure.' 
 
 (i) The Drag07i in '■Titus! 
 
 Two chief illustrations in detail will suffice to demonstrate the force of 
 the confirmatory argument from the MS. In a previous chapter attention 
 was called to the singular consonance between the Titus poem and Morte 
 Arthure in the insistence upon the significance of the dragon banner. 
 It was then suggested that the idea came from Geoffrey of Monmouth. 
 
 ^ See ch. 14 for notice of Erkenivald. 
 G
 
 9° 
 
 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch. 
 
 With the Hunterian MS. before us the statement admits of absolute defini- 
 tion. On fo. 49 {Geoffrey, viii., 14, 15) ai)pear the marginal additions, 
 
 ' Nota bene : Stella appaniit. 
 De significacione syderis.'^ 
 
 The passage thus marked tells of a ball of fire in tlie likeness of a dragon 
 {globus igfieus in siniiliivdinein draconis), from the mouth of which proceeded 
 two radii, one pointing to France, the other to Ireland, the significance of 
 which, as expounded by Merlin, lay in the future dominion by Uther 
 Pendragon's son over the realms so indicated. 
 
 Turning to the Titus we find that Vespasian's banner is a gaping 
 dragon, having a falchion under his feet, with four keen blades directed 
 to the four points of the world, which, in turn, is denoted by the ball of 
 burning gold on which the dragon stood in sign — 'in forbesyn to the 
 folk ' — of conquest of all the world. Whatever be thought of the signifi- 
 cance of the dragon, the significance of the rubricator's N'ota bene is 
 certainly exceeding plain. 
 
 (2) The plot of ' Wynnere and Wastoure.' 
 
 There was, however, as already observed, another JVota bene among 
 the rubrications. Let us look at it also, as the second detailed illustration 
 of the constructive value of these marginal marks as of a truth Huchown's 
 own comment on himself. Opposite the tale of the dispute and impend- 
 ing battle between Brennius — king from Humber to Caithness — and Bel- 
 inus — king south of the Humber — occurs a note of the very highest 
 historical and literary consequence. Its theme is the reconciliation of the 
 two contending nionarchs by the dramatic interposition of their mother, 
 Convenna, to whom the rubricator by a verbal slip, not unusual with 
 him, refers as Venna — a mistake occasioned by the word being divided in 
 the MS. text, ' Con- ' at the end of one line and ' venna ' at the beginning 
 of the next. 
 
 Hie Venna viater eo7-u7n concordiatn inter eos fecit et valde miraculose. 
 Nota bene. IS* 
 
 ^The second note (De significacione syderis) strikes me as written in a different and 
 later hand, but see facsimile.
 
 12] 'WYNNERE AND WASTOURE'; ITS PLOT 
 
 91 
 
 Scottish readers can hardly fail to remember that Sir Hew of Eglintoun 
 was a party to the arrangement of peace, and of a very friendly under- 
 standing between Edward III. and David II. in 1359. II David II. was 
 rather a failure as Brennius, at any rate the Belinus of the part, Edward 
 III. was his brother by marriage. There is more than mere curiosity in 
 this point, for an important element in the tinal peace footing of 1363 
 and 1364 seems to be singularly echoed in a couple of lines ^ of Morte 
 Artlmre. Letting that pass, however, we shall find the rubricator's Nota 
 bene guiding us with exceeding directness to the solution of another 
 alliterative problem — the authorship of Wynnere and Wastonre. The 
 learned editor of The Parlement of the Thre Ages had good grounds for 
 his opinion that the unity of authorship of that poem and of Wy?inere 
 and JVastottre, which he printed in the same Roxburghe Club volume, 
 was ' well nigh indisputable.' Seven reasons were assigned by Mr. Gol- 
 lancz for this conclusion, especially the occurrence of whole lines common 
 to both poems, of passages strongly reminiscent of the same poetical 
 conceptions, of certain negligences of historical detail, and of a remarkable 
 sameness of style evincing high pictorial power. Mr. GoUancz did not 
 know that the Parlemetit had grown out of the Troy poem, nor was he 
 
 ^ After a quarrel with Cador, Arthur warmly apologises, and, commending Cador 
 as one of the doughtiest that was ever dubbed, he says {Morte, 1943-4) • 
 
 ' Thare es none ischewe of us on this erthe sprongen ; 
 Thou arte apparant to be ayere are ( read or) one of thi childyre.' 
 
 There is here either a most remarkable coincidence or else there is a direct allusion — 
 as I believe — to the negotiations of 1363 and 1364. On 27th Nov., 1363, it was 
 agreed that, failing heirs male of the body of David II., the King of England should 
 succeed to the kingdom of Scotland {Acts Pari., Scotland, i., 493). In 1364, this pro- 
 posal having been rejected by the Scottish Parliament, a second agreement was substi- 
 tuted, under which, failing heirs male of the body of David II., the kingdom should 
 pass to a son of the king of England other than the heir-apparent {Acts Pari., Scot., 
 i., 495). In fact, David II. had no issue; under the first agreement, so far as David 
 II. and his Privy Council had power, Edward III. was David's heir-apparent, under 
 the second the heir was one of Edward's children — Lionel. As to this curious intrigue 
 and Sir Hew of Eglintoun's connection with it, see my paper, Sir Heiv of Eglintoun 
 above referred to, also some previous comments above, end of ch. 9.
 
 92 
 
 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 aware that Wastoure and Wynnere, as personifications, were the literary 
 heirs of Brennius and Belinus. 
 
 /;/ ' Geoffrey of Monmouth. ' 
 The armies of Brennius and Belinus are 
 about to join battle (iii. 7) 
 
 when their mother, Convenna, intervenes. 
 
 She reminds them that she had suckled 
 both. 
 
 Thus a concord is effected. 
 
 They cross the sea to make war on France 
 together (iii. 8) and afterwards conquer 
 Rome (iii. 9). 
 
 /w 'lV)>)niere and Wastoure.^ 
 The hawberked and helmed armies oi 
 Wynnere and Wastoure are in schiltrums 
 on either holt with only a lawn betwixt them, 
 on the point of battle (11. 50-54) 
 
 when ' the king of this kythe ' (Edward 
 III.) wearing the garter bids them stop 
 (11. 69-107), sending the message by a young 
 baron (the Black Prince), who wears three 
 feathers (1. 117). 
 
 The two commanders obey and mention 
 to the royal messenger that they know 
 well that the king ' clothes us both and 
 has us fostered and fed these five and 
 twenty winters' (II. 197-207) 
 
 The king receives them by the hand ' as 
 hinds of our house both ' (11. 208-212) 
 
 After a long debate between the two (after 
 the medieval pattern of Wine against Water) 
 the king bids Wynnere ' wend over the 
 wale stream ' by Paris to the Pope (11. 
 460-1), and wait a summons to arms and 
 knighthood when the king goes to war 
 at Paris. 
 
 Wastoure is sent to the east end of Lon- 
 don, but the poem is incomplete, so that 
 the probable final concord of Wynnere and 
 Wastoure is not extant. 
 
 (3) Wy7inere and Wastoure : its sense and date. 
 
 The poem contains the oldest known vernacular rendering oi Honi soit 
 
 qui vial y pense. 
 
 ' And alle was it one sawe appon Ynglysse tonge 
 Hethyng have the hathell that any harme tkynkes.'' 
 
 Like Gawayne (which ends with this motto in French, Hony soyt qui 
 mal pence), like Morte Arthure, and like the Awtityrs of Arthure, this
 
 12] 
 
 •WYNNERE AND WASTOURE'; ITS SENSE 
 
 93 
 
 piece is unquestionably of the Garter or Round Table group. It helps 
 to make clearer why Sir Hew of Eglintoun's visits to England between 
 1358 and 1369 were so frequently about the time of special tournaments 
 and chivalric functions^ at the court of Edward III., who in Wynuere 
 and Wastoiire^ just as in Morte Arthiere, shines as a stately figure of 
 chivalry. That it connects English and Scottish history is therefore obvious, 
 and the fact that it rises out of the story of Brennius, a northern king, is 
 in admirable keeping with its quotations from the prophecies of no less 
 a Scottish personage- than Thomas of Erceldoune. 
 
 ^ Safe conducts on the nth of May, 1358 [Rolitli Sco/iac, i., 823''), 26th April, 1363 
 (Ibid., i., 872), 5th December, 1363 (Ibid., i., 876), and 20th May, 1365 (Ibid., 893^), may 
 be adduced as instances. See the biographical calendar under these dates in my paper, 
 Sir Hew of Eglintouii, above mentioned. 
 
 2 Thomas's Prophecies. 
 
 La countessede Donbardemandaa Thomas 
 de Essedoun quant la guere d'Escoce pren- 
 dreit fyn e yl la repoundyt e dyt : 
 
 Wyiincrt- and IVasfoitre. 
 
 When hares kendles o the herston For nowe all es Witt and Wyles that we 
 
 When Wyt and Wille werres togedere with delyn 
 
 . . . . Wyse wordes and slee and icheon wryeth 
 
 When laddes weddeth lovedis othere (11. 5-6) 
 
 And hares appon herthestones schall hurcle 
 
 in hire fourme 
 And eke boyes of blode with boste and 
 
 with pryde 
 Schall wedde ladyes in londe and lede hir 
 
 at wille 
 Thene dredfulle domesdaye it drawethe 
 neghe aftir (11. 13-16) 
 
 Thomas's prophecies are quoted by Dr. J. A. H. Murray in the introduction 
 (p. xviii.) to his Thomas of Erceldoune. See also Scott's Border Minstrelsy, in in- 
 troduction to ballad of Thomas the Rymer ; also Laing's Early Fop. Scot. Poetry, 1S95, 
 i., 88; and cf. the variant in Reliquiae Antiquae, i., 30. 
 
 The antithetical use of ' ladde ' as above appears several times in Wynnere and 
 IVastoure (11. 375, 378, 388), e.g. ' Woldest thou hafe lordis to lyfe as laddes on fote.' 
 Compare the disparaging use of ' ladde ' in Mortc Arihure, 3535, 4094.
 
 94 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE' [Ch. 
 
 England and Scotland are thus alike contributory to this little poem, 
 and Wales is doubly so, for besides the initial service of Geoffrey in 
 furnishing the plot, there is a further debt to Walter Map in furnishing 
 the manner of debate between Wynnere (or Thrift) and Wastoure (or 
 Extravagance) — a debt which the Hunterian MS. again compels us to 
 recognise. A few leaves further on than the Nota bene of the Venna 
 passage there begins, at the bottom of fo. 3, and is continued at the 
 bottom of {{. 3o''-38, a copy^ of the famous Dialogus inter Aquam et Vinum. 
 The alternate stanzas have Vifiian and Aqua set against them respectively, 
 and the personified Waste and Thrift in the fourteenth-century English poem, 
 although bodied forth with an actuality and lifelike vigour undreamt of in the 
 pale abstractions of the twelfth-century Latin dialogue, yet may owe something 
 of their art to the latter, the more ancient ' flyting ' of Wine against Water. 
 The poet achieved a great success in his personifications. Youth, Middle 
 Elde, and Elde in the Parlemetit are not more superb examples of this 
 than are Wastoure and Wynnere. The German doctor who damned the 
 translator of the Troy with the faint praise of being a clever versifier 
 declared that he was no poet. ' Ein dichter war er nicht.' '^ We have now 
 a thousand new reasons to think that the translator was not only a poet, 
 but a poet indeed. The allegory of the Parlement and the allegory of 
 Wynnere and Wastoure rank among the few vivid concrete and poetic 
 realisations of abstract portraiture achieved in English literature. 
 
 Perhaps the critics who may be of a different mind will be good enough 
 to name a single superior example. And there is a point of view which 
 is not to be passed over. This man, whether he was Sir Hew of Eglintoun 
 or not, was international ; if not directly connected with hostages he certainly 
 held dear the peace and union of the North and South ; an archetype to 
 his creative effort was the reconciliation of a Scottish and an English 
 
 ' There are a good many minor variants from llic version given in Wright's Poems 
 of Walter j\/a/es, p. 87, and in particular this rendering does not contain lines 99 
 to 146 and 151 to 154 of Wright's edition of the piece. The handwriting of this poem 
 does not seem to be the same as the rubricator's, and that it was added after the 
 rubrications is evident, for instance, from the relative position of the two on fo. 36. 
 
 '^Zur Destruction of Troy, by Wilhelm Bock (Halle, 1883), p. 13.
 
 12] 'WYNNERE AND WASTOURE'; ITS SENSE 95 
 
 king ; he quoted Scottish prophetic utterances ; his models and style, on 
 the other hand, were English; much of his thought and sympathy was 
 English too ; of English law and legal history the note impressed itself 
 equally on his copy of Geoffrey and on his own poems ; Morte Arthure 
 shews a buoyant picture of the kings of Scotland and of Wales as Arthur's 
 most gallant allies; the sum of all is that in the body of early poetry 
 claimed for Huchown we have a superb tribute to the solidarity of the 
 literature of English speech, — a noble plea for the literary unity of both 
 sides of Tweed. Whatever be the outcome of the discussions about his 
 identity, so much at least appears to be the certain reading of his life. 
 
 Historical tests are usually the only safe basis for dating literary work. 
 Few of the Huchown poems contain such historical evidences except in so 
 far as the ascertainment of sources goes to establish a point of time, 
 Wynnere and Wasioiire in this respect belongs to a category of its own, 
 being of a relatively early period and clearly explicable by the side light 
 of church history. This allegorical poem of narrative and ' flyting ' — an 
 impending combat ending in a litigation — was assigned to circa 1350 by 
 Mr. Gollancz on grounds ^ palpably untenable, and crucially failing to 
 explain a main feature of the action of the poem. Although the great 
 scene of the armies gathered over against each other came from Belinus and 
 Brennius these heroes of ancient Britain give no clue to the bannered 
 pomp of the two hosts drawn from France, Lombardy, Spain, England, 
 and Ireland ranged under banners of black and green and white, with 
 
 ^ Only three need be discussed : ( i ) that the reference to ' five and twenty winters ' 
 (1. 206) points to the 25th year of Edward III. ; (2) that the mention of the Friars and 
 the Pope (11. 460-70) points to the Statute of Provisors in 1351 ; and (3) that Scharshill 
 (1. 317) is referred to 'evidently as Chief of Exchequer,' and therefore ante 1350 
 when he became Chief Justice of the King's Bench. The answers are : (1) that the five 
 and twenty winters at the most can mean no more than that the date was after 1351, the 
 King's 25th year ; (2) that there is no hint whatever of the Statute of Provisors or its 
 theme; and (3) that a reference to a judge in connection with breach of the peace ('his 
 pese to distourbe') cannot possibly indicate the baron of Exchequer, but points necessarily 
 to some judicial episode later than 1350, but before 5th July, 1357, when he ceased ad 
 tempus to be Chief Justice. (Dugdale's Origiiies Juridiciales.) Besides, the episode in 
 question must have preceded the poem alluding to it, so that the latter may well date some 
 months later than July, 1357.
 
 96 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 heraldic insignia of bibles (each with bulla appended) and judges' heads, 
 galleys and hoarheads and buckles not admitting ready interpretation in 
 detail. The poet leaves no doubt, however, that the first banner is Papal, the 
 second that of certain Judges, and other four those of the Four Orders of the 
 Friars^the Franciscans, Dominicans, Austins, and Carmelites — in reference 
 to whom hints are thrown out about their wealth, their confessional privileges, 
 and their commerce. True to himself, the poet thought the fairest banner 
 that of the Augustine Order, for they were special, ' Our Lady to serve.' 
 
 When the enigma of this threatened conflict of European armies under 
 opposing banners (1. 52) is confronted with '■circa 1350' as the date of the 
 poem, the impending battle is unintelligible as a historical allusion. Another 
 date makes the meaning at once a matter of the simplest demonstration. 
 Apply ^ circa 1358,' and the problem is solved. The battle just about to 
 begin is partly the ^ magna controversia,' the 'gret strif between Archbishop 
 Fitzralf of Armagh, the renowned ' Armachanus,' primate of Ireland, with 
 the secular clergy of England at his back, against the Four Mendicant 
 Orders — the world-moving plea before the Pope and the Consistorial 
 Court at Avignon which started in 1356, and in which the Irish primate 
 made his ' most solemn proposition ' before Pope Innocent VI. on 8th 
 November, 1357, in reply to the papal summons issued the year before. 
 The proposition, duly noted in English and Scottish chronicle,^ assailed 
 the Friars for many shortcomings, including extravagance and abuse of 
 confessional rights. This controversy (which endured until close on the 
 archbishop's death in 1360) supplies, when taken along with Brennius and 
 Belinus, the assured suggestion of the embattled banners of the Friars 
 and the Pope in the poem. Our poet thus made pictorial use of the 
 mighty question of the Friars which very soon in Wycliffe's hands was 
 to be pressed to more practical issues.'^ Unlike William of Langland, 
 
 ' Murimuth, Eng. Hist. Soc, 191, 193. Further accounts are given in Capgrave's 
 Chronicle, 2i8 ; Bower's Scotichronicon, ii., 360; Knyghton in Decent Scriplores, 2625 
 Walsingham, sub anno 1358; Fleury's Histoiie Ecclesiastique, ed. 1840, livre xcvii., ch. 
 36; Wolfius's Leclionuni Memorabilium, ed. 1600, i.. 642; Barnes's Edward III., year 
 1358. 
 
 2 Wycliffe's famous treatises, the Trialogus and that 'Against the Orders of the 
 Friars,' were sequels to the onslaught by 'Armachanus.'
 
 12] 'WYNNERE AND WASTOURE'; SENSE AND DATE yy 
 
 our poet carefully refrains from personal entry into the fray, and strikes 
 no direct stroke against the Friars whom Langland was so scathingly to 
 denounce. Besides, the suspended fray had suggestion more direct still. 
 
 For this poem a date between 1356 and 1360 was needed — a date to 
 fit the controversy, a date before 1360, because an allusion to the war 'at 
 the proude pales of Paris the riche ' (11. 497-9) as still in progress must 
 precede the peace of Bretigny in 1360, a date not much later than 1357 
 because of its allusion to Scharshill, evidently as Chief Justice. History 
 makes perfectly clear why the poet set Pope, judges, friars, and Scharshill 
 in the field all at one time. The contemporary annalists were doing the 
 same thing, recording under the year 1358 both the 'gretstrif itself and 
 Scharshill's share in another disturbance of that eventful period. Walsing- 
 ham, Knyghton, and Capgrave, as well as the Anglo-Scottish Scalacronica 
 all tell of this further embroilment, which accounts for the hostile banners of 
 pope and judges, with the mention of Scharshill in the poem. The men of 
 Bishop Lyle of Ely, who was a Dominican friar, burnt a manor of Lady 
 Blanche of Wake, who complained to the king.^ She charged against the 
 bishop that her houses had been burnt by his dependants " encontre la Pees 
 et la Lei de la terre," and one of her servants murdered. Justices were 
 assigned to hear the cause, and the bishop, being found guilty, was delivered 
 over to his episcopal brethren to be kept in custody, and his ' temporal- 
 ties ' were seized,- he being ' atteint de transgression incontre le peace.' On 
 this the Pope was appealed to. He espoused the bishop's cause, expostu- 
 lated ^ with the king, and excommunicated the justices, one of whom, we 
 learn from Knyghton, was Scharshill. Serious disturbances ensued from 
 this conflict of legal and ecclesiastical authority, and extremes involved 
 included the violent exhumation of the excommunicated dead. ' Mech 
 manslauth felle in this matere' says Capgrave.^ King Edward's inter- 
 
 ^ Rotuli Parliamentorum, ii. 267. 
 
 ^ Ktiygkton in Decern Scriptores, 2620; Year Books (Maynard, 1679) for Trinity term 
 29 Edw. III., p. 41. Tlie Scalacronica, p. 177, is interestingly technical in its account 
 of the matter. 
 
 ^ See bull of i Aug., 1358, in Rymer's Foedera. 
 
 "* Capgrave's Chronicle, 218.
 
 ^8 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE' [Ch. 
 
 vention was therefore equally indignant and energetic. It needs no telling 
 
 how completely these episodes annotate Wastoure's words in the poem : 
 
 And thies beryns one the bynches with howes [hoods] one loft 
 
 That bene knowen and kydde for clerkes of the liestc 
 
 As glide als Areslotle or Austyn the wyse 
 
 That alle schent were those schalkes and Scharshull it wiste 
 
 That saidc I prikkedc with powere his pese to distourbe. LI. 314-18. 
 
 The trouble evidently was not appeased when the poem was written. Not 
 until near the beginning of 1359^ apparently, was the incident closed by 
 the Pope's withdrawal of the judges' excommunication. - 
 
 Every finger points,-^ therefore, to circa 1358. That the poet chose 
 not to define more exactly the troops and banners of opposing Church and 
 State, and left something to the imagination of his audience, was natural 
 enough when the strifes of friars and bishop, judges and pope were the 
 topic of the hour. The thing as a whole is clear; no reasonable criticism 
 would exact a detailed historical application at the foot of every letter. 
 Wynnere and Wastoure^ with its direct citation of the Garter motto (1. 68) 
 is a Round Table poem easily referable to some chivalric celebration among 
 the many of the years 1358 and 1359, of which the English annalists'* have 
 a good deal to say. Sir Hew of Eglintoun was in London early in 1358. 
 He was again there in the beginning of 1359. Perhaps like his master, 
 
 ^ Knyghton, 2620. The chronology here is, however, a Httle confusing. 
 
 2 Was the e.xcommunication the reason for the appointment in July, 1357, of Thomas 
 de Seton as Capitalh Justiciarins ad teiitptis loco Willeliiti dc Sharcshiiin (Dugdale's 
 Ofigines Jiiridicales. ) This seems very probable, and the words ad tciiipits suggest that 
 Scharshill was only suspended in 1357, not removed. In 1368, when lie died after re- 
 ception as a friar minor, he is in Eulogiiim Historiarum, iii. , 334, entitled capitalis jiisti- 
 tiarius, but it can hardly be inferred that he had resumed that office. 
 
 •'See Athenaeum, 3 Aug., 7 Sept. and 26 Oct. 1901, for the original discussion of this 
 date. Mr. Gollancz's replies of 24 Aug. and 14 Sept. 1901, lend no support to his date 
 ^ circa 1350,' words which in his last letter he seems to (lualify as now meaning 'before 
 1357.' The fact that not one but several chroniclers put the episode of the friars in 
 the same year with the incident of Scharshill, and that year 1358, appears conclusive of 
 the historical soundness of my favour for circa 1357-8, or as I now prefer to say more 
 definitely, circa 1358. On the banners, see further ch. 15, sec. 3, and end of ch. 17. 
 
 ■* Knyghton in Decern Scriptores, 2617-8; Murimuth, 191. liulogitun Historiarum, 
 iii., 227 ; Brut, t^t, Edw. III.
 
 13] RUBRICATIONS OF 'GEOFFREY' qc^ 
 
 David II., on whom he was in personal attendance on the latter of these 
 occasions, he may have made his quarters, where David II. was, with the 
 Friars Preachers,^ and so have been at the very heart of the affair when 
 courtly and chivalric society was watching, not without amusement, the 
 front of battle lower in the great debate. 
 
 13. Huchown's Rubrications of 'Geoffrey.' 
 
 For this chapter the rubricator of the Hunterian ' Geoffrey of Mon- 
 mouth ' already described, the manuscript U. 7. 25, shall speak for him- 
 self of his cordial relationship with Huchown and his poems — shall shew 
 his bonds of association with Gawayne, with the Troy, with the Titus, 
 with Morte Arthurc, with Wynnere and Wastoiire, and with the moving 
 story of Saint Erkenwald and the dead judge who lay so long uncor- 
 rupted in the foundations of St Paul's. From the beginning of the MS. 
 to folio 55b only selections are given; from folio 55b to folio 8ib, where 
 the original MS. now ends, the rubrications are given complete. They 
 are all in black ink, thus contrasting with the original rubrics, which are 
 incorporated in the text and are in red. 
 
 The series of black ink rubrications starts as a crumpled fly-leaf, with 
 a note of six heads, all concerning King Arthur. 
 
 Verba Arthuri ad suos. 
 
 Responsio Hoeli. 
 
 De responsione Anguseli regis Albanie. 
 
 De congregacione regis Arthuri. 
 
 De edicto Lucij Hiberij. 
 
 De Itinere Arthuri contra Romanos. \See fcusiinik.'\ 
 
 This jotting is in black ink and is all that is written on the fly-leaf of 
 parchment forming the first — an extra— leaf of the MS. The above six 
 items have been taken by the black ink rubricator from the original 
 
 'On nth May, 1358, Sir ITevv had safe conduct to Westminster. /\ot. Scof., i., 823. In 
 the winter of 1358, David II. was staying with the Friars Preachers in London. Knyghton 
 in Decern Scriptores, 2619. On 21st Feb., 1359, the king's seal and that of Sir Hew, were 
 both appended to a document at the Friars Preachers, London. Bain's Calendar, iv., 27.
 
 lOo 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 series of rubrics in red ink forming part of the original text of ff. (i2b, 63, 
 (iT^b, and 64 of tlie MS., or in the printed Geoffrey, ix. 16, 17, 18, 20, x. i, 2. 
 They, of course, constitute the mainspring of Marie Arthure, of which it is 
 perhaps not too much to say this jotting was a prehminary. They are on 
 a leaf by themselves. Those that follow are the black ink marginal 
 rubrications of the folios mentioned in connection with each. 
 
 fo. 7. (Galf. i. 12).^ Hie columpnas Ileiculis [/)'/v^//c.f tV jr(;(7V] pelierunt. 
 Tl>. Hie Corineus neinora pelil causa venandi ubi magnum feeit conflictum. 
 <)l>. (i. 15). Hie naves ingreditur Brutus. 
 10/'. (i. 17). De civitate Londoniensi. 
 
 Hie BruUis eivitalcm eonstruxit et illam Trojani novani vocavil que jjostea Tiinovantuni 
 
 dicta fuil. 
 (ii. i). Hie Brutus Lond. sepelilur. [Sec Erkcnwald, in Hurslmann's Allenglischc 
 
 Legenden, Neue folge, Heilbronn, 1881, p. 266, line 25.] 
 12. (ii. 7). Hie primus [£l>raiicus] post Brutum classem in Gallias duxit. 
 I2d. (ii. 8). Rex Ebraucus xx. filios genuit quorum primogenitus Brutus \'iride scutum 
 
 vocatus est. 
 1 3- 1 3*^. Opposite the story of King Lear and liis daughters two grotesque face lines are 
 
 drawn on the margin — not part of the original scribe's work. 
 15/'. (ii. 17). Hie Dunvallus rex hostes sues caute devicit. 
 15/'. Hie leges primo in Anglia celebranlur inter Britones. 
 
 De fugitivis. 
 15/^.^ Hie rex est murtuus eui Bellinus el Brennius succederunl et regnum inter se diviserunt. 
 
 ^ Fo. 7 is the folio of the MS. Galf. i. 12, is book i. chapter 12, of the printed Geoffrey, 
 Galfridi Monumetensis Historia Bri/onum, ed. Giles. 1844. 
 
 ^ On fo. i\h, at the end of the passage, which in tlie printed Geoffrey is lib. ii., cap. 15, 
 there is in this MS. text (not the rubricator's work, but the text itself) an important variant 
 in the shape of a note of date, not in the print. Just one chapter before the reign of 
 Dunvvallo mention is made of the date of the building of Rome — Anno ab origine miiiidi, 
 iiij cccc Ixxxii. As bearing on an interesting point of poetical chronology, it is necessary to 
 quote here two other passages of the original MS. text not in the printed Geoffrey. On 
 ff. 1(5-2, at the end of what in the printed book is lib. i. , cap. 2, the following stands part of 
 the text : 
 
 Anno ante Incarnaciotiein doinini m c Ivij et ante condicionem Rome cce Ixxx vi et ab origine 
 niundi iij cccc xlix annis peractis Eneas cum Ascanio filio diffugiens Italiam navigio adivit. 
 
 Similarly as part of the text on fo. 19, at end of lib. iij., cap. 9, of the printed book it is 
 written to record the date of the capture of Rome by Brennius and Belinus : 
 
 Anno a condicione sua ccc Iv et ante Incarnacionem Domini ccc Ix 
 
 These inconsistent equations may enable the chronographic reader to achieve the marvel 
 of reconciling them and transmute into terms of the era B.C. the year of the world 4482, to 
 which poetic importance attaches.
 
 HUNTKRIAN MS. U. 7. 25. 
 
 '^4<^4-«4>iun'''1^=5d 
 
 Crumpled Fly-Lkaf. 
 
 
 A'('/<7 /'(7/c ON 'Vknna,' fo. 17. 
 
 '!%\< ^atu- ;iUto txt jjtt^n. t -utiftauir ta futottu oft man^ Iwm 
 
 \aJX -t^Mlnnto mtrcu n|ftsu ^cnii utno faxC-Afff^^ j 
 
 ^no 'ac\V 
 
 H'wtvV NOTE, fo. 44/'. 
 
 d 
 
 [These facsimiles made from photographs taken by Mr. S. Fiiigland, 
 Photographic Department Glasgow University, are reduced by one-tenth 
 from the original.]
 
 13] RUBRICATIONS OF 'GEOFFREY' loi 
 
 i6l>. (iii. 3). Hie applicuit Brennius in Albanian!. 
 
 i6 (l6). (iii. 5.) Hie Bellinus leges instiUiit eL eonfiimavit. [The story of Dunwallo is the 
 
 key to the poem of Erkemvald. Compare lines 25, 207, 208-13, 216, 227, 230 
 
 (Dunwallo reigned 40 years), 228 (a temple was built for Dunwallo's laws). Compare 
 
 rubricator's notes quoted above with these lines ; also compare some further references 
 
 appended to other rubrics, and see next chapter.] 
 16 (16^). (iii. 6). De foituna et probitate Brennii fratris Regis Bellini. 
 17. (iii. 7). Hie iterato Brennius in Britanniam applicuit congressum habiturus cum 
 
 Bellino Rege fratre suo. 
 
 Hie Venna mater eorum concordiaai inter eos fecit et valde miraculose. Nota 
 
 bene IS^ [See facsimile.'] 
 
 [This note of reference to the story of Brennius and Belinus supplies the plot ot 
 JVj'finere and Wasloitrc.] 
 ijb. Hie facti sunt amici Bellinus et Brennius. 
 (iii. 8). Hie Bellinus omnes ffrancorum regulos devicerunt. 
 
 \%b. (iii. 9). Hie obsides Rome civitatis ante portas ejus patibulo affixerunt. [y)/i9;-A', 3589.] 
 19. (iii. 10). Hie Bellinus ex hac vita migravit. [See note at end of the Erkcnwald 
 
 section of next chapter.] 
 22. (iii. 20). Ludgate. 
 22/'. De nobilitate et probitate Regis Cassibellaunus. \Sic. The name is written large 
 
 by the rubricator. See Parle inent, 315 ] 
 23- (iv. 3). Hie Thamesis Julius applicuit. 
 
 Hie adest Cassibelluanus. [Sic.'] 
 25/'. (iv. 8). De epistola Androgei ad Julianum missa. [Julianum for Julium.] 
 
 26. (iv. 9). De xxx^^ obsidibus missis ad Julianum per Androgeum. 
 
 27. Hie tractatur de pace et concordia inter Julium et Cassibell. 
 
 2"]!). (iv. 10). Hie primo tributum de Britannia dabatur Julio Imperatori. 
 
 De concordia facta inter Julianum et Cassibell. et de veetigale reddito. 
 
 28. (iv. 13). Hie Hamo princeps milicie Claudii usus est dolo. 
 
 A finger is drawn opposite the sentence in the text : Didicerat enim 
 linguam eorum et mores quia inter Britannicos obside Rome nutritus fueiat. 
 
 [See cut, ch. 11. Note that this is the third rubric indicating special interest in 
 hostages. ] 
 30. (iv. 17). Sermo de Scocia. 
 
 303. (iv. 19). Hie templa deorum diluuntur et evacuata. [Erkemvald, 15, 16.] 
 
 30^. Hie constituuntur tres Metropolitani in Anglia. [This explains the references to 
 Triapolitane in Erkeii%i<ald, 31, 36. Lucius did this according to Geoffrey. London, 
 York, and Caerleon were the three Triapolitanes.]^ 
 32/^ (v. 5). Tempore Asclipiodoti persecucio Diocliciani Lnperatoris in Christianos in 
 
 regno Britannie. 
 33. De passione Sancti Albani et aliorum martirum in Britannia. 
 
 1 At the bottom of ff. 30(^-38 is, in a changed hand, the copy of the Dialogns of Wine and 
 Water mentioned above ch. 12, sec. 3.
 
 I02 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Ch. 
 
 33(5. (v. 6). Hie Constantiniis ex Helena uxore sua filium generavit quern Constantinum 
 
 vocavit. 
 34. (v. 8). Constantinus Rex Britannic monarchiam Rome et tocius niundi optinuit. 
 
 {Morte Arlhure, 282-3.] 
 39. (vi. 2). Hie Romana potestas totam Britanniam de atroei oppressione suorum 
 
 inimieorum liberavit. 
 
 Nota : semper fuit Albania spelunea proditorum. [Note Morie Artkure, 32.] 
 40^. (vi. 4). Hie Guctelinus London, metropolitanus in minorem Britanniam hoc est 
 Nota quod ffranciam transfretavit postulans Alcironei Regis ibidem subsidium. \_Morte 
 ffrancia minor Artkure never mentions Aimorica, preferring ' Bretayne the lesse.' See 
 Britannia vo- lines 36, 304.] 
 eatur. 
 42. (vi. 7). Hie proditor ille Vortigernus dolose pro Pietis et aliis Sarracenis misit ut 
 
 terram Britannie occupnrent. [No ' Saraeens ' in Geofirey ; Morie Arf/iure, 3530, 
 
 3533, associates Picts and Saraeens.] 
 43*5. (vi. 10). In isto capilulo traetatur de Hengisto et Horso : adventus Barbarorum qui 
 
 diem Mercurium Woden lingua eorum vocabant quern lingua nostra Wodenesdai 
 
 nominamus. [Sic. Heathenism of Hengist's days noted in /-^rkeiiwald, 7.] 
 44/5. (vi. 12). Hie legati secum duxerunt quantoplures paganos unaeum Rouwenna filia 
 
 Hengisti que Regi [Vortegirno] dando poeulum dixit Wosail. 
 
 Sermo de Woseil. [Belshazzar is made to use this word with the same technical 
 
 propriety, Cleanitess, 1508.]^ [See facsiviile.'] 
 
 fo. 49. (viii. 14). Hie Merlinus de sidere mirabili vatieinavit apparente Wyntoniam. 
 
 Nota bene : slella apparuit. 
 (viii. 15). De signifieaeione syderis. [This fully explains the dragon passage in Titus, 
 
 387-403, and is a clue to Morte Artkure, 2057, etc.] [See facsimile.^ 
 
 50. (viii. 18). Tri(]uetra-like mark opposite sentence, At ubi Aretos temonem vertere 
 
 eepit preccpit Uther eonsules suos atque principes ad se vocari ut consilio eorum 
 
 traetaret. [This exactly parallels the councils of war by night in I'roy and Titus. 
 
 Ch. 8, sec. 2, and ch. 12, sec. i, above.] [See facsimile. "X 
 
 53/'. (viii. 23). Triquetra-Iike mark opposite last two sentences of viii. 23, Malo tamen 
 
 semimortuos . . . vivere. 
 55(5. (ix. 3). De Arthuro Rege Britonum. 
 
 ' Fo. 46/^ has at the bottom in the same hand as added the Dialogus on ^i. 30(5-38 
 
 the lines : — 
 
 Quid de mundo seneiam nolo declarare, 
 
 Et de illis qui sciunt mundum titillare. 
 
 Siquis mundi vieia querit indagare 
 
 Infinitum numerum tedet numerare. 
 
 Bed proclamat Salomon audiant mundani 
 
 Omnia sunt vanitas forma sub inani 
 
 Qui terrenis inhiant nonne sunt insani : 
 
 Qui sane considerant immo sunt hii vani.
 
 i 
 
 HUNTERIAN MS. U. 7. 25. 
 
   ' ' -^——^^ 
 
 )a-A? motd « cmr gilo^ tgnwf-i* fitntitmoittc W[<staip^^ 
 
 iturs %nTf- t-\«.vtntno:tt tamcf fminrtlwf-if ftg:inftM^ 
 '^ ipawtrritsttp vfaro ftfr v^^fl't Tixr otirt wtTuJtCcn'5j 
 
 fcani I liatnteui pcttf- n mtntinp ntnojt ^ttf- feaiJL' 
 
 igr twwtcjnUnu-flft -f tpe m ^tcrni urnmr-ttr (>(jUo.ti? ) 
 
 ]tu m WtDy' tio cnfWVittwta r t mmm mr- tt5XCttr» " 
 dnf ^mmitn^'Te -iQit frottCil»' fignifimr-i tgnwl wmL;^ 
 
 VftUcbtr-i^ 5 wt)?^igmfimrftUa- mt* fan twpwmt^'^ 
 ma tm ttr tc nwhctanfmc ttCm^iW.^^^^'^^- 
 
 \ 
 
 FIERY DRAGON note, fo. 49.
 
 13] RUBRICATIONS OF 'GEOFFREY' 103 
 
 56. (ix. 4). Hie Arthurus cum paganis Saxonibus viriliter dimicavit. 
 
 De clipeo Arthuri. [Gmtfaj'ne, 649 ; A/or/e Arthure, 3649.] 
 
 De gladio ejus nomine Caiihurno. \Mor!e Arihiirc, 4230.] \_Sce facsimile.'] 
 ^66. De victoria Arthuri contra paganos. 
 
 •57. (ix. 6). De stagno mirabili Ix insulas continente ad quod pagan! fugerunt. 
 (ix. 7). De stagno Lumonoy. 
 
 57*^. (ix. 8). Hie Rex Arthurus ecclesias per paganos de^truetas renovavit et totum 
 regnum suum Britannie in pace stabilivit. 
 
 58. (ix. 10). Hie Arthurus totam Hiberniam et omnes Rages Insulanos sibi subjugavit qui 
 
 omnes vectigal ei dederunt. [.]/orie At-thitre, 30, 31.] 
 
 <y%h. (ix. II). Hie Arthurus Northwegiam Daciamque sibi subjugavit. 
 
 [illor/e Aiihiire, 44, 46.] 
 
 59. (ix. 11). Hie Rex Arthurus cum ffullone Rege ffrancie bellum dueUum commisit. 
 
 [A/orie Artluire, 3345, uses the nearly orthodox form ' Frolle.'] 
 59(5. (ix. 12). Hie Rex Arthurus tocius Gallic partes in ix annis subjugavit tenuitque 
 I'arisius curiam suam legesque ibi statuit et confirmavit et in Britanniam 
 reversus est. 
 fo. 60. Hie Arthurus ad suum convivium omnes Reges principes et duces proceres et nobiles 
 
 invitavit inferius nominates. \^lMortc Arthure, 75.] 
 
 60/'. (ix. 13). Hie Arthurus in Regem Britannie et Gennora in Reginam coronantur. 
 
 \_Morte Arihiii-e, 84, has 'Gaynour.'] 
 
 61. Hie magnum festum et laudes Deo in coronaeione Arthuri et Regine celebrantur. 
 
 6ih. (ix. 15). Hie Rex Arthurus litteras Lucij Imperatoris recepit. [Morte Arthure, 86, 
 also calls him ' Emperour ' : the Latin of Geoffrey has ' Procurator.'] \_Sec facsiuii/e.'] 
 
 62. Hie Arthurus consilium habuit super sibi mandatis per Imperatorem. 
 
 {^Morte Arthure, 243.] 
 62/^ (ix. 16). Hie Rex Arturus sanxivit tributum de Lucio Cesare sibi dari. 
 
 [Morte Arthure, 275.] 
 
 63. (ix. 17). Consilium Arthuri de Romanis quomodo eos subjugaret. 
 
 6^h. (ix. 18). Promissio facta Regi Arthuro per Reges principes duces comites barones sibi 
 subditos de hominibus ad arma contra Imperatorem. Hie eongregat exercitum suum. 
 
 \ Morte Arthure, 2S8-394.] 
 
 d-^b. (ix. 19). In exereitu regis Arthuri duo reges. [There are more than two kings in 
 Geoffrey, but in Moiie Arthure, 288, 320, as here, there are only two.] 
 Summa hominum armatorum c iiij'^'^ iij niillia et ee preter pedites in exereitu Arthuri. 
 
 64. (x. i). Hie Lucius Imperator contra Arthurum Regem exercitum suum parat. Summa 
 
 exercitus Imperatoris iiij^'^' millia. [Morte Arthure, 625.] 
 
 64. In exereitu Imperatoris sunt ix reges duo duces cum ceteris ducibus sibi subjugatis. 
 
 64/'. (x. 2). Hie Rex Arthurus sompnum vidit et de quodam gigante in Monte Miehaeli 
 rumores audivit. [Morte Arthure, 756-843.] 
 
 65. (x. 3). Hie gigas Helenam neptim duels Hoeli suo fedo coitu peremit. Arthurus ut 
 
 cum eo congrederetur montem petiit. [Morte: Arthure, 855.] 
 
 65/^ Hie Rex Arthurus cum gigante magnum habuit eongressum et ipsum interfecit. 
 
 \Morte Arthure, 892-1160.]
 
 I04 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 66. (x. 4). Hie Rex Aithurus misit Imperatoii ut a finibus Gallic rccederet ubi coram 
 Imperatore Walganus nepos Arturi Gaium nepotem Imperatoris peremit. [The rubri- 
 cator here calls 'Gains Quintilian' simply 'Gains' (the printed Geoffrey calls him 
 'Gains Quintilianus') ; similarly Movie Arthure, 1346-1385, knows him only as 'Syr 
 Gayous.'] 
 
 66. A peculiar mark is put opposite the sentence in Geoffrey (x. 4) about Gaius Quintilianus, 
 
 saying that ' Britones magis jactantia atque minis habundare quam audacia et probitate 
 valere.' \Mortc Arthure, 134S, did not fail to use this passage.] 
 
 (idb. Hie Boso de Vado Boum Gcrinus Carnotensis et Walganus nepos Arturi cum Romanis 
 ignorante Arthuro certamen habuere. \_l\Ioj-te Arthure, 1 378- 1531.] 
 
 67. De magno conflictu Romanorum et Britonum. 
 
 67Z1. Hie Petreius Senator captus est et regi presentatus et victoriam Britones optinuerunt. 
 [The rubricator in naming Geoffrey's ' Petreius Gotta' drops the 'Gotta,' calling him 
 ' Petreius Senator.' Similarly Mor-te Arthure, 14 19, 1476, 1519, 1543, calls him only 
 'the Senatour Peter.'] 
 
 68. (x. 5). Hie Romanos captivos Parisius Britones miserunt et in itinere magnum con- 
 
 flietum habuerunt et de Romanis victoriam. \_Morle Arthure, 161 7- 1879.] 
 
 (i%b. (x. 6). De Lucio quomodo Lengriam civitatcm cum exercitu suo ingredere disposuit 
 hesitans cum Arthuro prelia committere. [^Morte Arthure, 1957.] 
 
 69. (x. 7). De Arthuro quomodo disposuit se cum exercitu suo Imperatorem precedere ut 
 
 cum eo conflictum habeat suos consoians et victoriam promisit. 
 
 \Morte Arthure, 1973-2005.] 
 
 69. Arthurus rex habens sub se Reges terdenorum regnorum. 
 
 69/'. (x. 8). Hie Lucius Imperator revocata audacia suos coniortavit et exercitum suum 
 disposuit contra Regem Arthurum. [Morte Arthure, 2020.] 
 
 70. Hie conflictum magnum inierunt. \_Moi-te A7-thure, 2058-2255.] 
 70/'. (x. 9). De conflictu Romanorum et Britonum. 
 
 71. De ingenli conflictu inter Britones et Romanos. 
 
 Tib. (x. 10). De bello Arthuri inter ij)sum et Lucium Imperatorem. 
 
 [Morte Arthure, 2240.] 
 
 72. (x. 11). De bello Arthuri inter ipsum et Lucium Imperatorem. 
 
 T2b. (x. 12). Hie Arthurus victoriam potitus est et Lucius Imperator inter turmas 
 peremptus est. [Morte Arthure, 2244-2255.] 
 
 72^. Opposite the sentence telling of the death of Lucius the wfird ' Amen ' is marked in 
 early pencilling. 
 
 73. (x. 13). De sepultura mortuorum in conflictu. Hie Arthurus preccpit corpus Lucii 
 Imperatoris ad Senatum deferre Romanorum dicens quod aliud trilnitum de Britannia 
 dari non deberet. [Morte Arthure, 2290-2351.] 
 
 73/^. (xi. i). De bello inter Regem Arthurum ct Mordrcdum nepotem suum proditorem. 
 
 [Morte Arthure, 3713.] 
 
 74. (xi. 2). De bello Arthuri et Mordredi proditoris nepotis sui. 
 
 [Morte Arthure, 4175.] 
 
 75. Hie corruit ille proditor Mordred cum multis aliis et Arthurus victoria adeptus est 
 ct lelaliter vulneralus est. [Morte Arthure, 4251-4241.]
 
 HUNTICKIAN MS. U. 7. 2;. 
 
 ■^ aptr.' ^Ktl^ir v^^ oftAtf fttoC^mr- {ninvtt ^ fcito 
 cftn- ttr <*(att> aw ifftawr-^ m twftvf tmipton? farcm^ 
 CatiuTOWC na cum Itj ^wcm ttgif-taflnriJ m ^ oWi 
 
 Council ok War bv Night, Tkiquetka Mark, I'o. 5c 
 
 v]j?m^«f^ aTi3$l^US' f\v<><V.f*. A?v,-.* %nr 
 
 A 
 
 Arthur's St. Maky Sihkld and Calikurn, fo. 56. 
 
 
 Lucius Imperator, fo. 61 1.
 
 14] 'ERKENWALD' 105 
 
 75. Hie disposuit inclitus Rex Arthurus Rcgnum Constantino cognato suo filio Candoris 
 ducis Cornubie. [Morte Arthine, 4317. The Latin text has Candor, like the rubric. 
 The poet follows the orthodox form Cador.] 
 
 75/'. (xi. 8). De Britannia quomodo per paganos uit totaliter desolata. 
 
 76. (xi. 9). De ingenti lamentacione Britonum et divisione regni et quomodo Britones 
 diadema regni amiserunt. 
 
 76/'. (xi. 12). De missione sancti Augustini a beato Gregorio papa in Britannia tota 
 Xianitate iterato carente ad predicandum fidem qui cum audire nolebant. 
 
 \_Erkenwahl ■, 12.] 
 76/'. De Augustino. 
 
 77. Pagani Britannie et Xiani certamen inierunt ubi multi sancti monachi martirizantur 
 propter fidem. 
 
 77/'. (xii. i). De pace et concordia inter Caduanum regem et Ethebridum. 
 
 78. (xii. 3). De discordia Caduallanum et Edwynum inter quos divisum fuerat Britannie 
 regnum. 
 
 78/'. (xii. 4). De Edwino quomodo Cadvallanum in fugam convertit et de infortimio 
 Cadwallani. 
 Nota de Pellito qui de volatu avium cursuque stellarum edoctus. 
 
 79. Quomodo Brian regis Cadwallani armiger scidisset frustrum proprie carnis et dedit 
 regi ad vescendum. Hie venit rex ad regem Salomonem. 
 
 79/'. (xii. 5). Hie rex Salomon Britannie infortunia lamentavit et regi Cadwallano 
 
 auxilium promisit. 
 So. (xii. 6). Hie Brianus transfretavit ut Pellitum de Yspania augurem et magum 
 
 Edwyni regis perimeret. Hie in portu Hamonis applicuit. 
 80/^. (xii. 7). Hie Brianus Pellitum magum regis Edwyni interfecit. 
 81. (xii. 8). Hie Cadwallo cum exercitu suo applicuit et cum Peando congressus est et 
 
 Cadwallo subicitur et Edwynum Regem interfecit et sic victoria potitus est. 
 81. (xii. 9). liic omne genus Anglorum a finibus Britannie rex Cadwallo expulsit, 
 81/;. (xii. 10). Hie sanctus Oswaldus rex Northanhumbrorum a rege Peanda per- 
 
 emptus est. 
 
 14. ' Erkenwald,' 'Awntyrs of Arthure,' and 'The Pearl.' 
 
 (i) ^ Erke?t7vald.' 
 Mention has been made of the tale of the dead judge found, after a 
 thousand years and more, sleeping his last long sleep in the base of the 
 heathen temple which preceded St. Paul's.^ Now is to be shown the connec- 
 tion of that Erkenwald poem with the Hunterian MS., along with its no less 
 
 ^The Miracula Sancti Erkemvald MS., Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, does not 
 at all account for the detailed and romantically specific story. Miss Mary Bateson most 
 obligingly put herself to the trouble of examining this MS. for me. 
 
 H
 
 io6 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 interesting cross-relationship to the Awntyrs of Arthure and The Pearl. But 
 first let us briefly recall the story of the poem itself. In digging the foundations 
 of the 'mynster' there is unearthed in a stone coflin the body of a man royally 
 crowned, sceptred, and clad, and in marvellous preservation. His face 
 was fresh, and his cheek and lip as rosy as though he merely slept. Great 
 wonderment and speculation arose ; they searched all the libraries for a 
 week, but no clue to the buried king could be found. Erkenwald that 
 time was bishop. He had been absent in the rural part of his diocese, 
 and was brought back by the strange news. Guided in his action by 
 heavenly grace, robed in pontificals, with a goodly company of lords and 
 barons and the Mayor of the city, lie proceeded with all solemnity to the 
 minster. After celebrating mass he passed to the tomb where the corse 
 lay. There, in the name of Jesus, he addressed the dead, conjuring liim 
 to tell who he was and how he came to be buried so. There was a pause, 
 then the body moved, and 'dreary' words came forth, in which the dead 
 man declared that he 
 
 'Was never kynge ne cayser ne yet no knyght' nothyr,' 
 
 but had once been a judge in the city under a 'prince of parage.' He 
 continued : 
 
 1. 205 ' The lenglhe of my lyving here that is a levvid date 
 Hit is to meche to ony mone to make of a noumbre. 
 After that Brvitus this hurghe had buggid one fyrste 
 Noght bot fife hundred yere ther aghtene wontyd, 
 Before that kynned your Criste by cristene acounle 
 
 210 A thousand yere and thritty mo and yet threnene aght, 
 I was ane heir of anoye in the New Troie, 
 In the regne of the riche kynge that rewlit us thene, 
 The bolde Bretone ser Belyne, ser Beryng was his brothite, 
 Many one was the busmare bodene home bitwene 
 
 215 For hor wrakeful werre (juil hor wrathe lastyd ; 
 Then was I juge here enjoynyd in gentil lawe.' 
 
 Lrwid, unskilful ; to meche, too much ; Intggid, built ; threnene, a form of thrynne, 
 three; oye, grandson, but here?; busmare, insult; bodene, offered. 
 
 ' Compare Wynnere and Wastoure, 327 : ' Ne es nothir keyscr ne kynge ne knyghte 
 that the folowes.'
 
 14] 'ERKENWALD'; THE STORY 107 
 
 But the answer roused the more surprise, and the bishop pressed to know 
 how it was that one who had not been a king should have been buried 
 with crown and sceptre. 
 
 1. 221 ' Biknowe the cause 
 
 Sithene thou was kidde for no k}Tig quy thou the crown weres? 
 
 Quy haldes thou so heghe in honde the Septra 
 
 And hades no londe of lege men ne life ne lyme aghtes. ' 
 
 Biktiowe, declare ; sitheite, since ; kidde, known ; quy, why ; ne life ne lyme aghtes, 
 had not royal power over life and limb of subjects. 
 
 It is a question to which we must return^this dilemma of the crown 
 — but the noble answer that came is what concerns us now : 
 
 1. 225 ' " Dere ser" qualh the dede body " devyse the I thenke 
 
 Al was hit never my wille that wroght thus hit were. 
 
 I was deputate and domesmane under a duke noble 
 
 And in my power this place was putte al-to-geder 
 
 I justifiet this joly toun one gentil wise, 
 230 And ever in fourme of gode faithe more thene lourty wynter. 
 
 The folke was felouse and fals and frowarde to reule. 
 
 I hent harmes ful ofte to holde home to right 
 
 Bot for wothe ne wele ne wrathe ne drede 
 
 Ne for maystrie ne for mede ne for no monnes aghe, 
 235 I remewit never fro the right by resone myne awene, 
 
 For to dresse a wrange dome no day of my lyve, 
 
 Declynet never my consciens for covetise one erthe 
 
 In no gynful jugement no japes to make. 
 
 Were a renke never so riche for reverens sake, 
 240 Ne for no monnes manas ne meschefe ne routhe, 
 
 None gete me fro the heghe gate ^ to glent out of ryght 
 
 Als ferforthe as my faithe confourmyd myn hert. 
 
 Never viy 7vill, this not my doing ; depilate ana domesman, judge deputy (of the 
 duke) ; this place, the temple ; felonse, felonious ; hent, received ; ivothe, read 7uoch, a term 
 of old Scots law, see chapter ' De wrang et woch negando' in Scots Acts Pari., i., 742; 
 aghe, awe; reineiuit, removed; dresse dome, give judgment; gynful, deceitful; japes, 
 follies ; renke, man ; routhe, sympathy ; glent, to go aside. 
 
 * For this curious phrase compare Morte Arthure, 450, and Fleta, 45 (referred to above, 
 ch. 9 sec. 3). A recta via non se divertet , . . et tunc interdicatur ei ne viavi 7-egiajn 
 exeat.
 
 io8 'IIUCIIOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE' [Ch. 
 
 Tliaghe had bene my fader bone, I bede hym no wranges, 
 
 No fals favour to my fader thaghe lellc hyme be hongyt. 
 245 And for I was ryghtwis and rekene and redy of the laghe, 
 
 Quene I deghed for dul denyed alle Troye. 
 
 Alle menyd my dethe the more and the lasse, 
 
 And thus to bounty my body thai l)uriet in golde, 
 
 Claddene me for the curtest that courte couthe then holde, 
 250 In mantel for the mekest and monlokest one lienche, 
 
 Gurdene me for the governour and graythist of Troie, 
 
 Furrid me for the fynest of faithe me withinne, 
 
 For the honour of myne honeste of heghest enprise 
 
 Thai coronyd me the kidde kyng of kenc justises 
 255 That ever was tronyd in Troye, other trowid ever shulde, 
 
 And for I rewardid ever right thai raght me the septre."' 
 
 Bone, boon (if my father were to be the gainer) ; bede, offered ; rekene, worthy ; laghe, 
 law ; deghed, died; denyed, read dinned ; Troye, i.e. New Troy, London ; vienyd, mourned ; 
 bounty, shew goodness; curtest, most courteous; vionlokest, manliest; gurdene, girded; 
 tronyd, enthroned (but perhaps troaved, believed, heard of) ; raght, reached. 
 
 A further question as to the preservation of his body and the untainted 
 briUiancy of his robes, accompanied by the suggestion that he had been 
 embalmed, elicited from the strange witness the reply : 
 
 265 ' " Nay bisshop" quoth that body " enbawmed wos I never, 
 Ne no monnes counselle my clothe has kepyd unwemmyd, 
 Bot the riche kynge of resone that right ever alowes 
 And loves al the lawes lely that longene to trouthe, 
 And more he menskes mene for mynnynge of ryghtes 
 
 270 Then for al the meritorie medes that men one molde usene. 
 And if renkes for right thus me arayed has, 
 He has lant me to last that loves ryght best."" 
 
 Unwemmyd, unstained ; kynge of resone, God ; menskes, graces ; viynnynge, minding ; 
 renkes, men ; lant, lent, granted it. 
 
 Was it only a poet's ideal, this great epitaph of an upright judge? May 
 it not have been for such a conception of the majesty of justice that a certain 
 
 ^ Surely it was magnificently said. Bracton the great English lawyer, quoting the Digest, 
 wrote (fo. zb, 3) : ^ Jus dicitur ars ban et aequi cujus inerito quis nos sacerdotes appellat ; 
 iustitiam namqtie colimus et sacra jura minist7-a?inis.^ Our poet is of the kin of Bracton, 
 who, as has been finely expressed, ' feels that he is a priest of the law, a priest forever after 
 the order of Uipian.' Pollock and Maitland's History of English Im~v (ist ed.), i., 187.
 
 14] 'ERKENWALD'; A MS. SOURCE 109 
 
 Justiciar of Scotland was long after remembered as 'the good Sir Hew'? 
 But to return to the tale, only to glance at its close. The dead judge had 
 been a pagan ; he was none of the number bought with the Saviour's blood 
 on the rood ; and he was an eternal exile from bliss, whose soul lay in sorrow 
 and darkness. Men wept to hear the words. The tears of Erkenwald 
 dropped on the dead man's face, and the bishop baptised him in the name 
 of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whereupon a further marvel befell. The 
 dead lips opened once more to praise Christ ; the baptism had ' slaked all his 
 tene ' ; he had seen a light flash in heaven ; and the unbarred spirit now 
 entered there, where a marshal 'with menske aldergrattest ' ushered him in. 
 And then, 'as soon as the soul was seised^ in bliss,' the fair countenance 
 faded and failed, and the corse shrank into blackened dust. Bishop and 
 people marched forth in procession ; there was wonder and mourning and 
 mirth ; and all the bells in the burgh ' birred ' at once. 
 
 Tokens of the most explicit character on the one hand associate this 
 strange, powerful, and beautiful poem with the Hunterian MS. Dealing first 
 with the lines just printed, it will be noted that the MS., fo; lob, has a rubric 
 applicable to line 207. The Belinus and Brennius lines (213-215) scarcely 
 require comment, as they so explicitly render into verse the rubrics in ff. 16 (16Z') 
 and 17, to which Wytmere and Wastoure owes such allegiance. Observable 
 specially is the use of the term of King to Belinus and of king's brother to 
 Brennius equally in the Latin rubric and the alliterative poem. 
 
 Unquoted lines no less clearly bear out the connection with the MS., as 
 will be seen by turning to the references in the last chapter : 
 
 /. 7 For hit hethene had bene in Hengyst dawes 
 
 That the Saxones unsaght hadene sende hyder. 
 [Rubric, fo. 43^, 44.] 
 
 15 He turnyd temples that tyme that temyd to the develle. 
 
 [Rubric, fo. 30^.] 
 
 25 Now that Londone is nevenyd hatte the New Troie, 
 
 The metropol and the mayster-tone hit evermore has bene. 
 [Rubric, fo. 40/'.] 
 
 ^ The same legal figure of seisin in heaven occurs in Fcarl, 417.
 
 no 'IIUCIIOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Cii. 
 
 31 The third temple hit was told of Triapolitanes. 
 
 36 That was the temple Triapolitane as I tolde ere. 
 
 [Rubric, fo. 30^^, accounts for 'Triapolitane.']^ 
 
 The last example may be taken as a particularly intimate association. 
 The rubricator more than once carefully noted the metropolitan standing 
 of London. The poet dwells on it too. In yet higher degree curious and 
 striking is an arithmetical agreement. 'J'he MS. enables us to check the 
 dead judge's computation of his own date — a computation which, not without 
 justification, he reckoned too much for any man to make ! Perhaps he was 
 right in respect of irreconcilable MS. chronology, and of some confusion 
 between the reigns of Belinus and his father. The date itself, notwithstanding 
 the judge's caution, is poetically clear — in the light of the Hunterian MS. 
 
 Although the printed Geoffrey of Monmouth has no such date, the 
 Hunterian MS. has a date Anno Mundi, 4482, forming part of the text just 
 one chapter before the accession to the throne of the father of Brennius 
 and Belinus. It has another date, 3449. The interval between these is 
 1033 years. The date given by the dead judge in Erkenwald was: 
 
 Noght bot fife hundred yere ther aghtene wontyd, 
 
 A thousand yere and thritty mo and yet threnene aght. 
 
 That is, 482 years, or 500 — 18, after the building of London ; the year 
 1033 before Christ. Let us check this by the Hunterian MS., which, 
 with its [4]482 — 3449=1033, accounts, by its legendary arithmetic, not 
 only for the 482, but also for the 1033. 
 
 In fact, through the marginal notes of the MS. and the text itself, we 
 are enabled to explain some other things which the poem leaves obscure. 
 Dunwallo, so Geoffrey of Monmouth vouches, not only made the Molmutine 
 laws (one of which, dc fiigiiivis, concerned sanctuary, a subject on which 
 we know that the author of Morie Arthure was learned), but did sound 
 and strenuous justice. When he died, after forty years' rule — the ' forty 
 winters' of the poem — he was buried in London near the temple of concord, 
 
 ^ A parallel may be observed: Alex. 1458. Erkenwald, 105. The bodeworde to the 
 And bodword to the bischop broght bischop was broght one a quile. 
 
 of his come.
 
 14] 'AWNTYRS OF ARTHURE ' m 
 
 which, as the dead judge also indicates, had been consecrated by Dunwallo 
 to his laws.^ The dead judge is therefore a poetic equation of Dunwallo 
 himself. And the judge's crown and burial in gold ? Dunwallo, as Geoffrey 
 tells us, made for himself a golden diadem,- and when his son and suc- 
 cessor Belinus died his ashes were laid in a case or coffin of gold.^ 
 
 (2) ^ Awntyrs of Arthure^ and '■ PearV 
 
 M. Amours in editing the Awntyrs supplied many admirable elucida- 
 tions in the introduction and notes. As regards the sources, however, 
 one he missed — the most important. The first part of the poem is beyond 
 doubt an adaptation of the Trentalle Sancti Gregorii, a legend, of which 
 an English poetical translation of the fourteenth century has been edited 
 by Dr. Furnivain in 1866, and with a double text by Herr Kaufmann^ 
 in 1889. The substance of the legend is to be found in the 
 Gesta Romanorum,^ but in form differing materially from the story in the 
 English poem. The English author begins by saying, ' A nobuUe story 
 wryte y fynde ' — words from which its character as translation is a perhaps 
 uncertain inference. However that may be, the author of the Awntyrs 
 knew the Trentalle story in the same shape as it has in the English 
 poem. It is not difificult to show the indebtedness. 
 
 IMS. U. 7, 25, fo. 15^: Text. 
 
 Kiibi-icalor' s Note. In diebus itaque ejus lalronum niuciones cessabant ; raplorum 
 
 Ilic rex est mortuus sevitie obUnabantur ; nee eral usquam cjui violenliam alicui 
 cui Bellinus et Bren- ingererel. Denique ut inter alia quadraginta annos post sumptum 
 nius succederunt et diadema explevisset defunctus est et in urbe Trinovanto prope 
 regnum inter se divi- templum concordie sepultus, quod ipse ad coniirmationem legum 
 serunt construxerat. 
 
 2 [Dunwallo] fecit sibi diadema ex auro. Galf. , ii. 17. 
 
 '^\Rubricator's Notc.'\ \Text.'\ Postrenio cum suprema dies ipsum ex hac vita rapuis- 
 
 Hic Bellinus ex hac set combustum est ejus corpus et pulvis in aureo cado reconditus 
 vita migravit. quem in urbe Trinovanto. . . locaverunt. Galf., iii. 10, MS. U, 
 
 7, 25, fo. 19. 
 
 ^Political Religious and Love Poems, E.E.T.S., 1866, p. 83. 
 
 ^ Trentalle Saitcti Gregorii herausgegeben von Albert Kaufmann (Erlangen, 1889). 
 
 ^ Gesia Romanoruiii, ed. Heritage, E.E.T.S., pp. 250, 384, 489, 503.
 
 112 
 
 'HUCHOWN OF THF AVVLE RYALE ' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Trenlalle Samli Gregorii. 
 A yrisly liend-likc creature all aflame 
 appears to Gregory at mass. (11. 46. 55.) 
 
 Gregory ' halsed ' it through God's mighi 
 to tell why it disturbed him so. (11. 63, 68.) 
 
 It answers, 
 Lere ' (1. 72). 
 
 ' I am thy modur that the 
 
 ' I lived in lust wickedly.' (1. 89.) 
 
 Gregory replies : ' Tell me now, mother, 
 if anything may help, — bedes or masses?' 
 (11. 95-97-) 
 
 The ghost answers that it might be well 
 with her : 
 
 Who so truly would take a * trentalle 
 
 Of ten chief feasts of the year 
 
 To sing for me in this manner. (11. 104-6.) 
 
 Gregory is glad, and promises that the 
 masses shall be sung. Me bids his mother 
 reappear ' this time twelvemonth ' to report 
 her condition. (11. 131-8. ) 
 
 Gregory never forgot his masses on the 
 days assigned (11. 144-5). 
 
 Then an angel carries her oft' to heaven 
 (1. 186). 
 
 Awntyrs. 
 A howling and ' grisly ghost ' all a-glow, 
 w ilh a load at her neck, appears to Gaynore 
 (Guinevere). (11. 117-25.) 
 
 Gawayne conjures it by Christ to say 
 whence it came and why it walks thus. 
 (1. 133- ) 
 
 It asks for Gaynore, and tells her ' I bare 
 thee of my body ' (1. 204). 
 
 By that to-takenyng thou trow 
 I broke a solemn avow ^ 
 That none wist but I and thou 
 And therefore dule I dree (11. 205-8). 
 Gaynore says, ' Tell me now soolhly what 
 may save, and I shall seek the saints for thy 
 sake.' (11. 209-10.) 
 The ghost answers : 
 
 Were thirty ' trentalles ' done 
 Betwixt undem and noon 
 My soul were salved full soon 
 And brought into bliss. (11. 218-21.) 
 Gaynore promises : 
 Now hear heartily on hand I best thee to 
 
 hold 
 With a million of masses (11. 235-6). 
 
 [The ghost makes some prophecies not in 
 the Trentalle.\ 
 
 Gaynore causes the masses to be read and 
 sung (11. 703-6). 
 
 The ghost glides away (1. 325). 
 
 Here the parallelism of the Awntyrs with the Trentalk stops, and the 
 sole remark to be made is to point out how the alliterative poet by the 
 
 ^ This merest hint — of the incest which makes the legend of Gregory repulsive — 
 illustrates two things. First, it shows the refining touch of Iluchown's hand in respect 
 of his leaving the rest unsaid. Secondly, it proves that Iluchown knew more of the legend 
 than appears in the English version of the Trentalle. The Gesta Romanorum form of the 
 story accounts, by its reference to the tokens, for the allusion to privy knowledge which in 
 the present poem appears meaningless. Besides, the toad, not in the English version, duly 
 occurs in the Latin form of the story. See Herrtage's Gesta, p. 503, and Kaufmann's 
 Trenlalle, p. 26.
 
 Ml 'PEARL' 113 
 
 change of a single name deepened the power ot the story he found in the 
 legend of Gregory. For Gregory he substituted Guinevere, made her the 
 subject to whom so terrible a lesson of the pains of adultery was delivered, 
 and so with remarkable aptness, although indirectly and with delicacy, added 
 to the moral. For surely to associate such a dread warning as this with the 
 frail queen, who lives in romance history with her radiance so stained, was a 
 touch of art. And we are not yet done with the Trentalle. Perhaps the 
 reader has already noticed that whilst Gregory conjured his mother's ghost by 
 God's might to explain itself, and Gawayne conjured the ghost of the mother 
 of Gaynore by Christ to tell why it walked the earth, the good bishop in the 
 Erkenwald had likewise bidden the dead judge, in the name of Jesus, 
 say : 
 
 In worlde quhat wegh thou was and quy thou thus ligges (1. 185). 
 
 So in the Trentalle in obedience to the invocation 
 
 The gost answered with drury chere (1. 71), 
 
 while in Erkemvald the dead body stirs 
 
 And with a dreiy dreme dryves owte wordes 
 Thurghe sum lant goste (11. 191-2). 
 
 Critics who are able lightly to call such things coincidences, and pass on, 
 will please consider if the following also came by chance. The Trentalle 
 story was not at an end where the Awntyrs left it ; nor was the alliterative 
 poet's borrowing account closed when all the masses for the soul of 
 Guinevere's mother had been sung. He had a use for what of the Trentalle 
 yet remained. 
 
 Trentalle. Pearl. 
 
 Twelve months after the appearance of In The Pearl the father, visiting the 
 
 the ghost, as Gregory stood at mass, g^ve of his two-year-old daughter, falls 
 
 He sawe a fulle swete syghte asleep there, and in a dream of heaven 
 
 A comely lady dressed and dyghte sees her ' in hir araye royale ' wearing a 
 
 That alle the worlde was not so bryght crown high pinnacled with pearl (11. 191- 
 
 Comely crowned as a qwene (11. 152-5). 207), 'a coroun of grete tresore' (1. 237). 
 
 Her hare is as glysnande golde (1. 165). 
 
 Nygh for joy he swooned (1. 158). ^o man could have been gladder. His 
 
 'joy,' he says, was much the more (1. 234).
 
 114 
 
 'IIUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' 
 
 [Cii. 
 
 He mislakcs her for ihc Virgin Mary, 
 addressing her as 
 
 Lady, (|\vene of heven 
 
 Modyr of Ihesu, mayde Marye (11. 162-3), 
 liul she explains 'I am thy mother,' and 
 tells him that she owes her bliss to the 
 virtue of his prayers. 
 
 Trentalle. Pearl. 
 
 Though he recognises her he cannot un- 
 derstand why his daughter should be a 
 queen (1. 474), a difficulty to which he 
 returns (1. 486), saying that he could have 
 understood her being made a countess's 
 maid (countes damysel) or a lady of less 
 array (11. 489-91), 
 
 Bol a quenc hit is to dere a date ! (1. 492) 
 He had asked her : 
 Arte thou the <|uene of hevenz blwc ? 
 
 (I. 423) 
 — whom all honour, 
 
 Marye that grace of grewe 
 That ber a barne of vyrgyn flour ? 
 
 (11. 425-6.) 
 
 The child, after addressing the Virgin as 
 ' Makelez moder and myryest may ' (11. 
 434- 5) > explains how the Lamb of God 
 when he took her to himself had crowned 
 her queen (1. 4 1 5). She then unfolds the 
 mystery of 
 
 The court 01 the kyndom of God alyve 
 
 (1. 445). 
 wherein each one that arrives becomes 
 either a queen or a king, and the Virgin 
 is the Empress (haldez the empyre) over 
 all, 
 
 For ho is quene of cortaysye (1. 447- 
 456). 
 
 That criticism will be purblind indeed which cannot now see several 
 things — the colligation of the proofs of unity ; the lies of the legend of 
 the Trentalle with the alliterative Aivntyrs and Pearl and Erkemvald; 
 clearest possible relations of plot in these three poems side by side with 
 slender, yet not the less distinct, verbal identities of text in each with the 
 Trentalle ; and at the same time the poet's quaint deference, even when he 
 has visions of paradise, to the rules of precedence of the Awle Ryale. 
 ' Why do you wear a crown ? ' was Erkenwald's question to the dead 
 judge. 'Why do you wear a crown?' was the father's question to his 
 
 [The dilemma of the crown and other 
 courtly peculiarities of Pearl are dealt with 
 in Scottish Antiquary, Oct., 1901.]
 
 14] 'AWNTYRS,' 'PEARL,' AND 'ERKENWALD' CONNECTED 115 
 
 lost pearl. And the question ^ — which is of the very essence of each 
 poem — comes from the same source as suggested the ghostly interview 
 of Guinevere. 
 
 ^A few further words may well be devoted to The Pearl, Cleanness, and Paiieine, 
 a trio of pieces found in the same MS. with Gawayne and the Green Knight. Dr. 
 Richard Morris, editing the trio, advocated the claims 01 the poet-tianslator of the Troy 
 to their authorship {Early English Alliterative Poems, E.E.T.S., pref, ix.), although 
 denying that that poet-translator could have been Uuchown. Reference may be made 
 to the excellent reasons assigned in his preface for this association between the Troy 
 and the three pieces in question. It is unnecessary to comment at this stage on the 
 other part of his opinion. I endorse and accept Dr. Morris's proofs of unity of 
 authorship, relying on my own manifold fresh arguments as to Huchown's personality. 
 Mr. Gollancz, in his beautiful edition of the Pearl, also holds it and Cleanness and 
 Patience to be from the same hand. His preface, concluding with a guess at the 
 authorship and the inevitable denial ot Huchown, interestingly covers a good deal ot 
 the general field of alliterative discussion. I append a few stray notes of correspondence 
 between the three poems and the other works now under comparison. In Cleanness 
 (II. 1015-43) the description ot the Dead Sea is taken bodily from the Itinerariicm 
 of Maundeville (ch. ix. of Wright, fo. 266 -1- 21 of MS. T. 4, i), with possibly a line 
 or two due to Hegesippus. In Cleanness also Belshazzar's sacrilegious table jewellery 
 is described in terms borrowed from chapter xx. Oi the Itinerariiim. Similarly, the 
 allusion to Ararat and its Hebrew name {Cleanness, 447-8), comes from Maundeville, ch. 
 xiii., although the spellings in MS. T. 4, i, 10. 266 -f 32''', are 'Ararath' and 'Tain.' On 
 the many points of similarity in phrase in these poems with the other pieces I am content 
 to mention two or three. 'The pure popland hourle ' of Patience, 319, is matched by 
 'the pure populand hurle ' of Alexander, 11 54. 'Noah that oft nevened the name' 
 of Cleanness, 410, compares with ' Naw hafe I nevened yow the names' of Parleinent, 
 580. 'The chef of his chevalrye he chekkes to make' (Cleanness, 1238) resembles 'And 
 chefyd hym nott 01 chevalry chekez oute of nombre' (Alexander, 3098). Extremely 
 interesting is a line probably taken from reminiscence of the Troy: 
 
 ' Belfagor and Belyal and Belssabub als ' [Cleanness, 1526). 
 ' Sum Beall sum Belus sum Bell the god 
 Sum Belphegor and Belsabub as horn best likes' (Troy, 4356-7). 
 
 A good parallel from Titns is: 
 
 Cleanness, 14 13. ' And ay the nakeryn noyse notes of pipes.' 
 Titus, 848-9. ' With dynning of pipis 
 
 And the nakerer noyse.' 
 Tittis, 1 174-5. ' • . . and pypys with nakerers and grete noyce. . . .' 
 For nakers (Fr. ttacaire) see Miiriiniith, p. 156, sonantibiis tubis et nachariis. 
 '"Wassayl," he cryes ' (Cleanness, 1508), said of Belshazzar, again effects a cross-
 
 ii6 
 
 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 The critic's task will be simplified by a parallel tabulation of lines in these 
 poems shewing consecutive use of Trenta/le in all three. 
 
 Siihjet 
 
 i. 
 
 
 
 Trentalle. 
 
 A-iOntyrs. 
 
 Pearl. 
 
 Erkenwald. 
 
 Darkness, 1. 50 
 
 1. 75-6 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 ' Grisly ghosl,' . 
 
 
 
 
 55-61 
 
 105-15 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Conjuration, 
 
 
 
 
 63 
 
 133 
 
 — 
 
 179 
 
 Christ, 
 
 
 
 
 66 
 
 133 
 
 — 
 
 180 
 
 'Why'? . 
 
 
 
 
 69 
 
 136 
 
 — 
 
 185-8 
 
 ' Dreary ' speech, 
 
 
 
 
 71 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 191-2 
 
 Mother, . 
 
 
 
 
 72 
 
 203 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Confession, 
 
 
 
 
 83-92 
 
 205-8 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Prayers, . 
 
 
 
 
 95-97 
 
 209-10 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 ' Trentals,' 
 
 
 
 
 104 
 
 218 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Promise, . 
 
 
 
 
 . 131-8 
 
 235 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Fulfilment, 
 
 
 
 
 144 
 
 708 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Supposed Queen, 
 
 
 
 
 152-5 
 
 — 
 
 191-229 
 
 r [king] 1 
 1 98, 222 f 
 
 Joy, 
 
 
 
 
 158 
 
 — 
 
 234 
 
 — 
 
 ' Queen of heaven,' 
 
 
 
 
 162 
 
 — 
 
 423 
 
 — 
 
 Mary 'Mother,' 
 
 
 
 
 163 
 
 — 
 
 425-35 
 
 — 
 
 Crowning, 
 
 
 
 
 155 
 
 — 
 
 480 
 
 254 
 
 In hell, . 
 
 
 
 
 172 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 292 
 
 Released, 
 
 
 
 
 186 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 335 
 
 How could an imitator ur any imaginable ' school ' of poets, as distinguished 
 from an individual, have hit on such a unity of system? It includes 
 absolute indebtedness of ground plan in each poem, along with minor 
 verbal transfers in each, a singular exhaustion ot the entire content of 
 Trentallis plot {Pearl resuming the thread precisely where the Awntyrs 
 dropped it), and finally an observance of the same consecutive order as in 
 the original through all three alliterative adaptations of the Trefita/le, two of 
 which swell the multiplied coincidences by ending^ with the opening line. 
 
 connection with the rubrication scniio de zuosei/ a.bo\e noted (ch. 13) on fo. 44b. of the MS. of 
 Geoffrey. Compare also 
 
 ' Lyfte laddres ful longe and upon lofte wonen' {Cleanness, 1777). 
 
 ' Layn ladders alenght and oloft wonnen ' {Troy, 4751). 
 Siege descriptions, shipping, storms, weather, hall and court in all the poems all lend 
 points in the same direction. 
 
 ^ Awyntrs, 11. I, 1212. Pearl, 11. i, 715.
 
 15] VERSE SYSTEM 117 
 
 15. On System of Verse, Dialect, Characteristics, Date, and 
 
 Nationality. 
 
 (i) System of Verse. 
 
 The words of Wyntoun have a particular value in respect that they point 
 to three poems differing in theme, character, and metrical construction. 
 Morte Arthure, styled by Wyntoun the Great Gest of Arthnre, is a historical 
 romance, or rather a romantic history, and is like the Alexander, the Troy, 
 the Titus, the Parknient, Wynnere and Wastoure, Erkenwald, Cleanness, and 
 Patience, a work in unrimed alliteration. One thus appreciates the more the 
 technical propriety of Wyntoun's reference to ' cadens ' as a vital element 
 of Huchown's performances, for ' cadence ' seems to have been the term 
 applied to alliteration as distinguished from rime. Indeed, the life-story 
 of this old system of verse, once sole possessor of the field of English speech, 
 with its sudden interruption and disuse followed by the fourteenth century 
 revival of it, may all be inferred from the Romance-word ' cadence ' found 
 linked with it first in an alliterative prose tractate in imitation of Richard 
 Rolle of Hampole, who, in at least one learned opinion, was a force in its 
 •English revival.^ The word 'Cadence' is there contrasted with ' Ryme,' a 
 contradistinction followed by Chaucer as well as by Gower.- When, therefore, 
 Wyntoun excuses Huchown's ' Emperour ' because ' Procuratour ' would have 
 ' grieved the cadence,' the allusion is specific. ' Cadence ' was the only mode 
 used in most of the poems, including Morte Arthure. But Wyntoun also 
 alludes to Huchown's 'metre,' a word connoting rime as well as measure, 
 and accordingly certain of the poems exemplify the combination of alliteration 
 
 ^The passage referred to is in 'A talkyng 01 the love of God' (Horstman's Rolle of 
 Hampole, ii., 345) : ' Men schal fynden lihtliche this tretys in Cadence after the bigj'nninge 
 gif it bee riht poynted and Rymed in sum stude.' The piece is accordingly partly alliterative 
 and partly in rime. Rolle of Hampole's Melum Contemplativortwi is written in alliterative 
 Latin verse and prose. Horstman's Hampole, ii., introd. xviii.-xxii., has many specimen 
 passages. Prof. Horstman has sthere tated his view as to the influence of Hampole in 
 the words : ' As a writer he took up the old traditions 01 the north : he revived the 
 alliterative verse.' 
 
 - See note ch. i above.
 
 Ii8 «HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' [Ch. 
 
 and rime. Gawayme and the Green Knight is chiefly in unrimed alliteration, 
 but has four half or tag-lines riming abab at the end of each of the hundred 
 and one stanzas. The Awntyrs of Arthnre is likewise alliterative, but rimed 
 throughout in a stanza of nine full lines and four half lines, all riming thus, 
 ababababcdddc. In the Pistill of Susan the same rime and almost the very 
 same structure obtain, the only difference being that the ninth line is a 
 ' bob ' of only two syllables. The Pearl stands by itself as less systemati- 
 cally alliterative, and as using octosyllabic iambics in stanzas of twelve lines, 
 riming ababababbcbc. M. Amours has said ^ that Morte Arthure is above 
 all the other poems distinguished by the numerous series of consecutive 
 lines having the same alliterative letter. This is an effective contrast, but 
 that both the consecutive and not-consecutive systems were alike available 
 to the poet is seen from the exordium of the Alexander with its 22 lines 
 alliterating on five letters, compared with the rest of the poem in which 
 the consecutive mode is discarded. 
 
 Two other poems fall to be mentioned here. One is .5"/. John the 
 Evangelist,- closely resembling the structure of the Awntyrs of Arthure 
 and riming ababababccdccd. This poem of 264 lines, which some critics 
 think belongs to Huchown,^ is certainly from one of Huchown's sources, 
 the Legenda Aurea, being a translation of the legend of St. John in that 
 monumental mingling of piety and romance. The second poem is one 
 of haunting sweetness and beauty, the authorship of which will not long 
 remain in doubt after the argument of this essay has received its due. It 
 is the tender and musical Lay of the Truelove, styled by Mr. GoUancz 
 the 'Quatrefoil of Love.' It is, as Mr. (iollancz records, written in a 
 northern dialect and in the precise metre and rime, ababababcdddc, of the 
 Pistill of Susan. Moreover, M, Amours acutely noted, in editing the 
 A7c>ntyrs of Arthnre, that it was a favourite device of the poet who wrote 
 Gawayne and Pearl and Patieiice to end the jjocm with its opening line. 
 
 ' Sc. Allit. Poems, Ixvii. 
 
 2 Horstman's Altenglisclum Legenden, neuo folge (Heilbronn, 1881), p. 467. 
 
 ■''My friend, Mr. J. T. T. Hrown, maintains this view, with whicli my own coincides. 
 There are many parallels of diction and matter to support it.
 
 15] DIALECT 119 
 
 •a peculiarity,' he said, 'which has not been noticed elsewhere.' Accordingly, 
 M. Amours reckoned it noteworthy that in the Aiviityrs also this peculiarity ^ 
 should be found. To the list falls to be added the Lay of the Truelove. 
 A fact so significant of art as this, along with the close consonance of verse 
 structure and rime system, is enough to discredit as the sheerest empiricism 
 the verdict of Mr. Henry Bradley,- that the Pistill and the Awntyrs were 
 originally written in alliterative long lines unrimed, and as we now have them 
 are ' paraphrases or watered-down versions by a northern man who retained 
 the original diction so far as the alteration of metre would permit.' The 
 proposition is grotesque — a reckless philological forlorn hope. 
 
 (2) Dialect. 
 All requisite allowance being made for a considerable percentage of 
 scribal change, the dialect (some would say dialects) of the Huchown poems 
 must constitute a problem on which it is hard to educe any certainty except 
 the one, that the dialect shows a blending of peculiarities. Professor Skeat 
 concluded^ that the Alexande?- 'was probably written in a pure Northum- 
 brian dialect.' Mr. Donaldson, editing the T?'oy, concluded "* that that work 
 'was originally in the Northumbrian dialect,' stating at the same time that 
 Morte Arthure ' was certainly of Northern origin.' Dr. Morris did not agree ; 
 he held Morte Arthure to be in a Northumbrian dialect south of the Tweed, 
 and assigned the Troy along with Pearl, Clea?mess, and Patience to the West 
 Midland dialect.^ M. Amours found '^ that the rimes of the Aivntyrs of 
 Arthure and of the Pistill of Susan 'betoken a Northern origin.' The 
 Parlement and Wynnere and Wastoure Mr. Gollancz assigns to the west of 
 England. Mr. Henry Bradley is quite positive" that Morte Arthure, the 
 Pistill, and the A7tintyrs were all originally written in West Midland dialect, 
 but were subsequently northernised by editorial scribes. A very fair state- 
 ment of the case was perhaps that made long ago by Mr. Donaldson who, 
 
 ^ Scott. Allit. Poems (Sc. Text), p. 364. ^ AtkencEuni, 12th Jan., 1901. 
 
 ^ Alex., pref., xxiii. * Troy, pref., Ixi., 
 
 ^ Early Eng. Allit. Poetns, pre.., ix. ; Mo7ic Arthure, ed. Perry, 1865, pref., ix. 
 ^ Sc. Allit. Poems, pref., Ixx. "^ Athen^um, I2th Jan., 1901.
 
 I20 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE ' [Ch. 
 
 speaking of the Troy^"" declared that the elements of the work were Northern 
 and West Midland, but that their combination was so irregular as to permit 
 the idea that they presented a mixture of dialects. This is not far from the 
 belief of the present essayist. The dialect of these alliterative poems shows, 
 like that of the Kingis Quair, a difficult admixture of Northern and Southern 
 forms, and conduces to the inference that the poet's education and his later 
 career must have been such as to reconcile the apparent anomaly. Anglo- 
 French influences, then predominant in court circles, must have tended to 
 make the speech of the aristocracy lean decisively, even as it does to-day, 
 towards the southern model. 
 
 (3) Dates for the Poet?is. 
 
 Absolute and relative points of fixity for dates are not many. Maun- 
 deville's latin book, written in 1356, is the first. The Alexander, quoting 
 Maundeville, could not have been written before 1356. The Troy most 
 probably followed the Alexander, and was quoted by Barbour in 1376. 
 These two extreme dates comprised between them for Huchown a couple 
 of crowded decades of earnest study and glorious achievement. 
 
 IVynnere and IVastoure, poetically grouping facts which English annalists 
 record under 1358, certainly belongs to that time. It admits of suggestion 
 that as a Garter poem complimentary to Edward III., and containing a 
 translation of the well known motto of the Order, it may have been 
 composed for the high festival of the Round Table held in the early 
 summer of 1359, and evidently attended by Sir Hew of Eglintoun. 
 
 Gawayne, with its beautiful story of temptation resisted, has for its 
 pictorial conclusion the Garter motto in French. The suggestion of Mr. 
 Gollancz that the story has to do with the amorous relations of Edward 
 III. and the Countess of Salisbury may or may not be plausible,^ 
 but certainly he has good ground for maintaining a connection with 
 the story of the origin of the Garter. Indeed the relationship 
 with the chivalric Orders is more intimate than has yet been pointed 
 out. Gawayne, setting off to keep tryst and fulfil his adventure with 
 
 1 Troy, pref., Ix. "^ Pearl, intro. xli.
 
 15] DATES OF 'GAWAYNE' AND OTHER POEMS 121 
 
 the Green Knight, wears a 'cote' (1. 2027) which is 'furred' (2029). 
 
 He 'doubles' about his thigh the love-lace 'drurye,' or 'gordel of the grene 
 
 silke' (2033-5) w^th 'pendauntez' (2038) which his fair temptress gave. 
 
 At the end of his adventure when he parts with the Green Knight he 
 
 wears this crosswise on his left arm — 
 
 A-belef^ as a bauderyk bounden bi his syde 
 
 Loken under his lyfte arme the lace with a knot (11. 2486-7). 
 
 These are the very technicalities of fact. When Henry IV., just before his 
 
 coronation in 1399, made knights, they wore green ' cottes ' — so Froissart- 
 
 tells — which were ' fourrees,' and each knight ' sur la senestre espaule' wore 
 
 'un double cordeau de soye blanche a blanches houpells pendans.' And 
 
 from other sources we know that this kind of ' lacs,' or ' druerie ' as it was 
 
 styled in France, was in England one of the fixed stigmata of knighthood 
 
 and bore the name of ' las.' ^ Only the tinctures here differ from 
 
 Froissart's. The 'gordel' (O. Fr. cordel) is the bend of green, 
 
 A bende, a-belef hym aboute, of a bryght grene, 
 
 which became the badge of the Round Table in Gawayne (1. 2517). It 
 
 is of special note as the point of focus for the plot of that poem. We 
 
 must remember it likewise as present in Wynnere and Wastoj/re. Over 
 
 against the papal standard with its bibles and bullae 
 
 Another banere is upbrayde with a bende of grene 
 
 With thre hedis whiteherede with howes on lofte (11. 149-50). 
 
 The hint perfectly consorts with history : Edward III., represented by 
 the Round Table badge, is on the side of the three excommunicated judges 
 whom, in 1358, he protected from the pope and his bulls against the 
 judges and others. The banner symbolises the union of royal and 
 judicial authority which the pope defied. The one poem is thus the 
 decisive explanation of the other, and probably they are not far apart 
 in time. Gaway?ie has been assigned to 1360, a date with which there 
 
 ^A-belef, slantwise, across. 
 
 ^Cf. Chroiiicqtie de la Traison et Mori de Richart Deux. (Hist. So.), p. 225; Titles 
 of Honor, ed. 163 1, p. 820. Cf. as to garter Galf. le Baker, 203. 
 
 ■*See Laborde's Glossaire Francais dii Moyen Age, words 'druerie' and 'lacs' (laz, 
 laqs) : Upton, De Re Militari, cap 3, quoted by Ducange voce ' stigma,' 
 
 I
 
 122 'IIUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE ' [Ch. 
 
 is no great need to quarrel, although I incline to place it earlier, perhaps 
 before the production of IVyfinere and Wastoiire. This would put it on 
 the calendar of 1358 or 1359. In early 1358 there were great Round 
 Table functions, and either then or very shortly afterwards Sir Hew was 
 in London. But a noteworthy feature of the poem is its recurrent allusion 
 to New Year's Day,^ a vital part of the story, which gives rise to the 
 belief that it may have been written for a New Year festival. 
 
 These poems seem to be the earliest of the series on the chronology 
 of which the facts yield clues. Of Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience, Mr. 
 Gollancz's estimate- of 1360 is probably not far wrong, although these 
 pieces, like the Alexa?ider, shew use of Maundeville, only written in 1356. 
 Erke?iwald and the Awnlyrs of Arthure are inseparable from Pearl when 
 sources are considered, and there is no external evidence of the order 
 of production. A glance at their relations with the Trentalle inclines one 
 to suppose that the Aivntyrs may have preceded Pearl. Let us, in the 
 absence of other data, suppose that the Alexander, certainly post 1356, 
 was written circa 1361 ; and the Troy a year later. 
 
 The Titus and Vespasian, like the Alexander, utilised Mainideville, and 
 by its mention of the Foul Death suggested 1363 as a possible date. Its 
 vows are hints of the influence of the Voeux djt Paon. Morte Arthure, 
 utilising Maundeville also, and developing the Voeux du Paon, has yielded 
 very many and intimate historical evidences converging towards a date 
 at the close of 1364 or beginning of 1365. Again we have here a 
 Round Table poem honouring loftily Edward III., and again we have 
 Sir Hew in London in May, 1365, a time that suits. 
 
 The date circa 1350, which has been editorially suggested for the 
 Parle»ie?it of the Thre Ages, is out of the question. Obviously it is yet 
 later than Morte Arthure, in that while reminiscent of Maundeville and 
 the Voeux du Paon it quotes Gawayne, Alexander, Troy, Titus, and 
 Morte Arthure, and is itself a dream, springing from a dream-episode in 
 the Troy. 
 
 Between 1365 and 1376 there was ample time, but perhaps the extra 
 
 ^ Ga2vay7ie, II. 60, 105, 2S4, 454, 1054, 1669. - Pearl mUo., xlii.
 
 15] CHARACTERISTICS 123 
 
 number of the reminiscent lines of community with Morte Arthure hints 
 rather 1365-70 than 1370-76. 
 
 / (4) Characteristics and Nationality. 
 
 Our poet's general characteristics have been incidentally touched at 
 frequent points already — his courtly and ceremonial leanings and observance 
 of etiquette, his love of ship-scenes and the chase, his lapidary interest in 
 jewels, his purity and loftiness of soul, his piety and religiosity of spirit. His 
 themes, it may be observed, while ranging widely over history and romance, 
 never make love a centre. 
 
 When we turn to the question of indications of nationality in the treatment 
 of his material, the difficulty at once arises that a poet has no call to declare 
 his nationality, and that in consequence, where dialect is doubtful, we have 
 many puzzles of early literature to solve. Language is often the only test, 
 and philology has assuredly not yet perfected its critical apparatus.^ In 
 the present case inferences from dialect are sharply complicated by the 
 contradiction of history. On Huchown's language definite stress cannot be 
 laid to prove his origin, and his themes not being directly historico-patriotic 
 in the sense of, say, Barbour's Bruce ^ or Minot's poems, the data are 
 particularly few and slender. 
 
 Externally, the record of Huchown is wholly Scottish ; this is by far the 
 master-key of his mystery. The Troy appears to be quoted by John Barbour 
 in 1376. The Morte Arthure is discussed by Wyntoun in 1420, while other 
 pieces of Huchown's are mentioned in the same passage. No early author 
 in England, on the other hand, has ever named Huchown or recognised his 
 poetical industry, notwithstanding that English scribes have copied the poems 
 and Malory incorporated in his prose much of Huchown's Arthurian matter. 
 
 ^ It is just possible, however unlikely, that in the words ' and Scharshull it wiste ' (and 
 Scharshill knew it — said relative to a disturbance of the peace) in Wynnere and IVastoure, 
 317, there may be a clue to the youthful career of Sir Hew of Eglintoun. Scharshill 
 was in Scotland attending to matters in Edward Balliol's parliament in 1332 (Bain's 
 Calendar, iii., 1065). At that time many Scottish families were retiring into England 
 because of the civil war in Scotland (Bain's Cal., iii., 1065-84). 
 
 - Note, however, that even in Barbour's Legettds of the Sajiits the express indications 
 of nationality otherwise than from language are very few.
 
 124 'HUCHOWN OF TIIK AWLE RVALE ' [Ch. 
 
 Huchown's great romance-history, Morte Arthi/re, might well have been 
 written by an Englishman, whether regard is had to its language or its tone ; 
 but here and there are touches, subtle and penetrating, that suggest an author 
 with a keen interest in Scotland and sympathy for peace and alliance between 
 north and south. Chief is that already pressed — the veiled reference to the 
 heir-apparent. But the general political scheme, if it may be so called, of 
 Morte Arthure puts the Scottish leanings of its author in the clearest light. 
 In Geoffrey of Monmouth, King Anguselus, as an ally of Arthur, is postponed 
 to Hoel of Armorica ; there is no separate king of Wales, and there are some 
 six kings of island realms. Hoel furnishes 10,000 men-at-arms; Anguselus 
 only 2,000. Arthur himself made up the total of armoured horse to 60,000. 
 The six island kings furnished six times 20,000 foot. Turning now to the 
 rubrication (by Huchown) of this place in the Brut^ we find noted In exercitu 
 regis Arthtiri duo reges — an inaccurate memorandum, for there were eight 
 kings, not two. But Morte Arthure, like the rubric, has only two. The 
 King of Armorica, or, as Huchown preferred to style it. Little Britain or 
 Britain the Less, sinks in Morte Arthure to ' baron of Britain the little,' ^ 
 though he brings 30,000 knights to Arthur's banner. And precedence before 
 him is taken by the King of Scotland with 50,000 men, while the gallant 
 King of the Welsh brings 2,000. Could a Scottish poet contributing, let us 
 say, a Round Table poem for the festival of the Order of the Garter, at 
 which his own king was an honoured guest, well have done better? 
 
 In the direction hinted tends also the curious allusion in Morte Arthure 
 to the heir-apparent, 
 
 ' Thou art apparent to lie heir, or one of thy childer,' 
 a line which betrays a knowledge of the intrigue between the Kings of England 
 and Scotland in 1363-64, constituting part of a reconciliation in the earlier 
 stages of which, at any rate. Sir Hew of Eglintoun had definitely a helping 
 hand. Besides, there are localities mentioned in Morte Arthure, and still 
 more in the Awniyrs of Arthure, which reveal some intimacy with Scotland. 
 On the later poem, M. Amours,'- examining the topographical allusions, finds 
 
 ^ Barones de Britannia was a term of state in this period. See instance in truce of 
 1343, MurimtUh (Eng. Hist. Sec), 142. 
 '^ Scot. Allit. Poems, introd., Ixxiij.
 
 i5l NATIONALITY 125 
 
 it an 'obvious inference that the poet knew his ground in Scotland and on 
 the Border, and drew on his imagination for localities further south.' 
 
 In the Alexander poem, the exclusion of Scotland from the conquests 
 of the Macedonian may be an accident, but may be a straw which indicates 
 the current. 
 
 If it be asked who Huchown's chief hero was, the answer is ready — it 
 was Gawayne 'off the west marches,' as he calls him once, although we 
 know that more than once he really denotes the Black Prince.^ Gawayne, it 
 is scarcely necessary to urge, was well known in romance history as the lord 
 of Galloway. So early and sober an author as William of Malmesbury ^ 
 tells of the discovery of the sepulchre of ' Walwen,' who had reigned in 
 ' Walweitha.' Huchown's provinces of Cunningham and Kyle, in which his 
 own lands and the Steward's territory lay, were of old within the limits of 
 the Province of Galloway. However his interest in Gawayne arose, 
 Huchown went beyond his predecessors in the many-sidedness of his praise 
 for valour and purity, for grace and courtesy. 
 
 Then, what of Belinus and Brennius as indications of nationality? 
 Are we to take it as of no note that this pair of brothers, kings of North 
 Britain and South, are not only mentioned in Morte Arthure and Erke/iwa/d, 
 but supply the plot of Wynnere and IVastoitrel Rather must we not 
 remember their reconciliation as a type to the poet of the peace he sought 
 between two lands? 
 
 And Thomas of Erceldoun ? Must we respect it as a natural pre- 
 sumption that anybody but a Scot would in that age have been found 
 quoting these weird prophecies — prophecies which again had to do with 
 the very theme of Belinus and Brennius, the feud of South and North? 
 
 Last of all, let us look at a singular parallel. Sir Hew of Eglintoun 
 had, immediately upon the accession of Robert II. to the Scottish throne, 
 become a privy councillor of his royal brother-in-law. Shortly afterwards 
 he appears as an auditor in exchequer, an important financial post. A 
 colleague is the Archdeacon of Aberdeen, known of all men in our day as 
 John Barbour, the poet of The Bruce. If these men sat together in the 
 Scottish Aiila Regis, and if the poetic Huchown was the auditorial Sir 
 
 ^ Morte Arihure, 2954. 2 q^^i^ Regiim (Eng. Hist. Soc), 466.
 
 126 
 
 •IIUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Hew, the question may well ensue — What are the proofs, if any, of 
 literary contact ? The first item of the answer is constituted by the 
 alliterative quotations made by Barbour from the Troy, and the traces, 
 somewhat indefinite, it is true, of borrowings from Morte Arthure} The 
 second item is, that historically Huchown's name stands for ever linked 
 with the ' Awle Ryale ' of Barbour's period by virtue of the epithet Wyn- 
 toun appended. The third is the singular coincidence of sources — especially 
 of The Bruce — .employed by Barbour with those of Huchown. Huchown was, 
 presumably, the older man ; he certainly was of much higher social dignity 
 than Barbour; he was a man of large means. It is much more natural to 
 suppose that Huchown influenced Barbour than the converse. However it 
 was, here are facts oddly connecting the modes of work and the Quellen. 
 
 Huchmvn 
 Translates Guide's Troja, and frequently 
 refers to the story. 
 
 Epitomises the Fiierre de Cadres. 
 
 Makes large use of the Voeiix du Paoii. 
 Epitomises the Voeiix. 
 Repeatedly sings the praises of the Nine 
 Worthies. 
 
 Epitomises the romance of Feruinbras in 
 a shape resembling the Sowdan of Babylon. 
 
 Uses the Legenda Aurea in Tiltis for ' The 
 Sege of Jerusalem ' and for ' St. John the 
 Evangelist.' 
 
 Bases his greatest poem, Morte Arthure, 
 on the Brut. 
 
 Cites and quotes the KoinaiDit of the Kosc. 
 
 Barbour 
 
 Partly translates the Troja in the Troy 
 fragments. 
 
 Also quotes a passage from it in the 
 Bruce, i., 521-528. 
 
 [See r^y John Barbour, Poet and Trans- 
 lator, pp. 4, etc.] 
 
 Epitomises the Fuerre de Cadres in Bruce. 
 
 Also abridges and translates the Fuerre. 
 
 Makes large use of the Voeux du Paon. 
 
 Translates [me judice) the Voeux in full. 
 
 Celebrates the Nine in Bruce and in the 
 Buik of Alexander. 
 
 Is suspected of writing the ' Ballad of the 
 Nine Nobles.' 
 
 Makes Robert the Bruce epitomise Ferum- 
 bras in apparently the same version. 
 
 Translates from the Legenda Aurea the 
 account of the siege, and the life of St. John. 
 
 Bases his important poem, the Stewart is 
 Ori°yuale, on the Brut. 
 
 Also cites and quotes it. Legends of the 
 Saints, prologue, 1. 5. 
 
 ^ The Troy fragments show few alliterative phrases ; Bruce has many, so has the Buik oj 
 Alexander ; the Legends of the Saints, again, has very few. The inference may be hazarded 
 that Huchown's influence, 1372-1377, is the explanation.
 
 i6] DIAGRAM OF ARGUMENT 
 
 127 
 
 Hiicho-un BarboH)' 
 
 Quotes the^ prophecies of Thomas of Cites and quotes 'Thomas of llersildoune,' 
 
 Erceldoun, IVyiuiere and VVastoure, 5, 13-15. Brtue, ii., 86. 
 
 Uses the Scriptures as a source, Pistill, Does the same. 
 
 Pearl, etc. 
 
 Refeis (like Chaucer) to St. Julian, Ga- \<ii{ttx'i\.o'i\..}vXvAx\, Legends of the Saints, 
 
 vjayne, 774. xxv., 15. 
 
 Some of these are commonplaces ; the majority quite other than so. 
 The comparison suggests the improbability of two men, not brought into 
 contact, displaying any such parallelism in their authorities. The one in 
 alliteration, the other in rime ; the one by far the loftier, profounder, 
 more powerful, and more original genius, the other perhaps the luckier in 
 that he chose Robert the Bruce for his theme— these are the twin spirits 
 of Scottish fourteenth century literature from the Exchequer table of the 
 Awle Ryale. Always we must return to Wyntoun's testimony ; and that is 
 what Wyntoun and the Exchequer records tell. 
 
 16. Diagram of the Argument. 
 
 (i) As regards the Works. 
 
 The evidences which have now been submitted are, it must be repeated, 
 for the most part wholly new. They include the following propositions, set 
 forward and proved for the first time : 
 
 1. Relationship of Alexander and Troy through Hunterian MS. T. 4, i, 
 indicating a very possible community of origin from the same 
 manuscript source, on which, however, no vital part of this argu- 
 ment is dependent. 
 
 2. Direct borrowing in Titus of a complete scene and a siege picture 
 from the Troy. 
 
 3. Direct borrowing in Morte Arthure from Titus over and above its 
 known connection with and borrowing of many lines from Troy. 
 
 4. Adaptations in Morte Arthure from the Voeux de Paon. 
 
 5. Consistent indebtedness throughout of the Parlement to Gawayne, 
 
 Troy, Titus, and Morte Arthure. 
 
 6. The plot of the Parlement drawn from Troy. 
 
 7. Maundeville's Itinerarium (of which a copy is in MS. T. 4, i)
 
 128 'HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE' [Ch. 
 
 used as a minor source in Alexander, Morte Ar/hure, Parlement, 
 Pearl, and Cleanness. 
 
 8. Extraordinary consequence of the Hunterian copy of Geoffrey of 
 
 Monmouth, MS. U. 7, 25, especially of its rubrications. 
 
 9. Plot of Wynnere and Wastoiire thus revealed in Geoffrey, along 
 
 with important clues to other poems, especially Morte Arthtire, Titus, 
 and Erkemvald. 
 
 10. Brennius and Belinus as poetic factors in Huchovva's work. 
 
 11. The historical setting of Wynnere and Wastoure explained, and the 
 significance in evidence of the ' bend of green.' 
 
 12. Erkemvald considered in itself as a legal monument and in its 
 relation to other poems and to the MS. of Geoffrey. 
 
 13. Trentalle Sancti Gregorii a common source of the first half of 
 Awntyrs of Arthure, of Erkemvald, and of the Pearl. 
 
 14. Considerations from military, political, and geographical elements on 
 the date of Morte Arthure. 
 
 15. An autobiographic suggestion from the MS. of Geoffrey on the 
 series of poems and on the nationality of the poet. 
 
 So varied, although so convergent, are the processes of reasoning which 
 point to a single author that they can only be briefly summarised by a 
 diagram here. The direction of the argument had to be determined some- 
 what by the chance of earlier impressions tending at first as the knowledge 
 originally available dictated, but altering and extending its line in conse- 
 quence of subsequent information. Perhaps this diagrammatic chart will 
 be explanatory not so much of the course which has been steered by the 
 argument as of the cross-connections established by cables laid down in 
 the poet's own works. 
 
 Poems that draw from the same sources draw from one another. 
 
 Poems connected with the special rubrics of the same unique MS. 
 draw from one another. 
 
 The author of the last poem on the diagram, if not Huchown, must 
 have had extraordinary zeal as disciple or industry as plagiarist if he wove 
 into his short text so much of other men's labours that his poem is linked 
 from end to end with practically the entire cycle of the Huchown poems.
 
 16] 
 
 CONNECTION OF POEMS 
 
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 'HUCHOWN OF Tin: AWLl', RVALE ' 
 
 [Cii. 
 
 Put the same point another way. Take Morte Arthure. What rational 
 basis other than common authorship will explain its ties with Troy, Titus, 
 Wynnere and JVastoure, and the Awufyrs of Arthure ? 
 
 Or consider the lines which radiate in the diagram from the MS. of 
 Geoffrey and which in so many different poems meet the lines travelling 
 from the Parkment or the Gawayne. 
 
 (2) As regards the Poet. 
 
 Arms of Sir Hew of Eglintoun.i 
 That the poet was familiar with courtly usages ; had special legal 
 knowledge and sympathy ; had the highest conception of the grandeur 
 of justice, especially ' in gentil wise ' ; was versed in ships and in the 
 chase ; had access to current information of state ; had pondered deeply 
 the case of Brennius and Eelinus ; loved the peace and union of North 
 and South and deplored 'busmar'; gave Scotland precedence of dignity 
 in Morte Arthure; kept Scotland out of subjection in the Alexander; 
 made the Scot Sir Gawayne his constant hero; had special interests in 
 the Round Table and its celebrations; knew London, Carrick, Kyle, and 
 Cunningham, the West Marches and the land 'fro Humbyre to Hawyke'; 
 used several of the special authorities employed by John Barbour ; in 
 especial knew the prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoun; was much alive to 
 
 ^One of the many notes Mr. Gollancz has not got on the Pearl is that Sir Hew of 
 Eglintoun's armorial bearing was ' three annulets stoned ' (three rings of gold each set 
 with a single jewel). Bain's Calendar, iv., ilii; Woodward and Burnett's Heraldry, 
 1892, plate xix. Nisbet's Heraldry, i., 22$, describes the arms as gules, three annulets 
 or, stoned azure. See Gawayne, 181 7.
 
 17] 'GOLAGROS' HISTORICAL 131 
 
 matters lapidary; understood the Watling Street way from the north to 
 Canterbury ; likewise knew the itinerary to Rome ; was acquainted with 
 the sword-point formulary of assythment for manslaughter; knew about 
 'fermes'and ' audytours,' chancellors and chamberlains, as well as 'justices 
 of landes,' whose duty was to 'justify wele';^ somehow knew also that it 
 was proper for royalty that 'its kydde castells be clenlyche arrayede';^ 
 had breathed the air of camps and chivalry, and mingled with nobles, and 
 statesmen, and ambassadors, and kings — all these and fifty other such 
 characteristics of the poet directly and indirectly fit the known story of 
 'the gude Sir Hew of Eglintoun.' 
 
 17. Galleroun and Golagros — A Decisive Personal Clue.^ 
 
 The Awntyrs of Arthure is generally conceded to Huchown. Golagros 
 and Gaivayne was reckoned his by Sir Frederick Madden as it contains so 
 many elements of similitude. M. Amours, re-editing the poem in his Scottish 
 Alliterative Poems, acknowledges that the vocabulary is of the 14th century, 
 although assigning the piece from its existing form to a later date. Briefly, 
 it seems clear to me that Sir Frederick Madden was right and that some 
 modernization of the language is due to the Scottish printers through whom 
 the sole known version of the poem has been preserved. No commentator on 
 the Atuntyrs and Golagros has noticed these four points in connection with 
 them (i) their complete parallelism of allegory, (2) the close, \i quasi, historical 
 character of both, (3) the distinct evidence of date in the Awntyrs, and (4) the 
 appositeness amounting to necessity of that date also for Golagros. 
 
 The Awntyrs, as we have seen, draws the plot of its first half from the 
 Trentalle. The greater part of Golagros comes from the French romance 
 of Perceval le Gallois (11. 16331-624, 18209-19446), which, as has long been 
 known, was utilised in the shaping of Gawayne and the Green Knight. 
 But it is the supplementing of these sources by very lightly shrouded con 
 
 '^ Morte Arthure, 425, 660-664. 
 
 "^ Morte Arthure, 654. Sir Hew was one of a commission of four knights appointed 
 in 1368 ad quatuor cast)-a regis visitanda. Acts Pari. Scot., i., 504. 
 
 ^This chapter is an insertion made after all the previous part was in paged proof. The 
 discovery it contains was made at the eleventh hour.
 
 132 'IIUCIIOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE' [Cn. 
 
 temporary allusions which is the vital fact for due criticism. These occur 
 mainly in the second half of the A^antyrs, and are perhaps more pervasive 
 of Golagros throughout. In the Golagros poem the fact in substance is 
 that Golagros represents King John of France, Arthur is Edward III., 
 Gawayne is the Black Prince, and the duel is the battle of Poitiers, while 
 the white horse is that ridden by the French king on that ill-fortuned day. 
 The Awntyrs contains a reference, of a significance until now unobserved, 
 to the Erlis sone of Kent, which pins down the production to a date not 
 earlier than 1358 and not later than 1360. The poem has allusion to events 
 of the summer of 1358. Here again Arthur is Edward III. and Gawayne 
 is the Black Prince, while Galleroun is a historical and allegorical repre- 
 sentative of Scotland. Neither poetical nor political allegories are designed 
 to be free of occasional mistiness of treatment, but these inferences on 
 Golagros and Galleroun are inevitable and beyond critical doubt. Nor is 
 this all. A rare and happy chance of record has made possible the 
 decisive interpretation of an allusion in the Aimiiyrs (italicised below) as 
 autobiographical of the poet himself, confirming the sense deduced from 
 the poem, fixing its date, and settling the personal identity of the immortal 
 Huchown. First, let us look at Golagros, remembering that King John, 
 although a prisoner, was feted and feasted in 1358 and 1359. 
 
 Conlemporary History. Golagros and Gawayne. 
 
 Edward III., at war with King John of King Arthur sends Gawayne as his mes- 
 
 France, commissions Black Prince to take senger to a fortified city beyond sea (42) 
 
 homage of Atjuilaine [Rymer, 4th Aug., with towers and baUled walls and castle (44). 
 
 1355). Landing at Bordeaux, a walled city Gawayne is welcomed by its lord Spyna- 
 
 with castle, the Prince is welcomed by its gros, who offers him 30,000 men (197). 
 
 famous Caplal de Buch, John de Grailly The army, marching over the mountains 
 
 (Chandos Herald's /'rmc^A^'w', 11. 524, 616, (230-5), reaches a cast le with thirty-three 
 
 678), and other barons of Gascony, who towers, on a rock, double dyked, on a river 
 
 march with the Prince in his expedition side near the sea (233-50). Spynagros, who 
 
 across mountainous territory to Carcassonne, knew the land well (344)> guides and counsels 
 
 a castled city with many towers (now fifty- Gawayne (261, 341, etc.). The castle has a 
 
 four) on a rock, double walled [Galf. U circular keep— ' the round hald ' (371). 
 
 Baker, 235), on the river Aude, near the Golagros, lord of the castle, refuses homage 
 
 Mediterranean. The Captal's local know- (452). 
 
 ledge was helpful in the selection of the route Heavy fighting, after an interval, ensues 
 
 (Moisant's Prince Noir, 28). Carcassonne (600-880). 
 is considered through the middle ages to be
 
 17] 
 
 AWNTYRS' HISTORICAL 
 
 Contemporary History. 
 impregnable. It has its chief stronghold in 
 a great circular tower built in the thirteenth 
 century — la grosseharbacane. Violletle Due's 
 La Citd'de Carcassonne, pp. 20, 70, figs. 11,15. 
 The city will not submit ( Galf. le Baker, 236, 
 3-6 Nov. ,1355), adhering to its lord, King John. 
 
 After various battles King John — at 
 Poitiers in 1356 — royally armed meets the 
 Prince. At the battle John rides a white 
 horse. Estoit li roys de Franche monttis 
 sour vng blaiicq conrssicr (Amiens MS. of 
 Froissart quoted in V o\a.m' s /ehan le Bel, ii., 
 302). He fights heroically, but is overcome. 
 
 He is summoned to surrender, and does so 
 after some trouble about taking him to the 
 Prince. 
 
 Golagros and Gawayjie. 
 
 After simdry combats Golagros, armed 
 in gold and rubies (886), mounted on a 
 white horse (895), encounters Gawayne and 
 fights heroically, but is overcome (1024). 
 
 Summoned to surrender (1032) and come 
 to the King (1070), he refuses till conditions 
 are adjusted, under which he agrees to be 
 a prisoner while seeming to be captor (i 102). 
 
 Gawayne goes off apparently captive to 
 the castle of Golagros (1125), where at 
 supper Golagros waits in person at table 
 upon his seeming prisoner. ^ 
 ' He gart schir Gawyne upga ' (i 150- 1 160). 
 
 Golagros then does fealty (1216, 1324). 
 
 Fortune's wheel is uncertain (1225), as 
 Hector, Alexander, Caesar, David, Joshua, 
 Judas, Samson, and Solomon knew (1235). 
 
 'Schir Lyonel' (124S) and Gawayne con- 
 duct Golagros to Arthur who is gladder than 
 of the rents as far as Roncesvalles (1313). 
 
 Golagros does homage (1323) and pro- 
 mises fealty if due (1325). 
 
 There was a week's feasting on the river 
 Rhone (1345). 
 
 Arthur releases Golagros from allegiance 
 (1358). 
 The light of passing events, reflected in a degree comparatively vague 
 in Golagros, shines with brilliant distinctness on Galleroun and reveals at 
 last what we have waited for so long. 
 
 Contemporary History. Awntyrs of Arthure. 
 
 Edward III., on 9th May, 1358, grants To Arthur in his hall rides up to the dais 
 
 ^ Neither the white horse nor the table incident occurs in Perceval. 
 
 Taken to the Prince's tent he is enter- 
 tained to supper where the Prince seats him 
 at table, refuses to sit himself, and per- 
 sonally waits upon his prisoner. 
 
 Cf. Morte Arthure, 3260-3432. 
 
 Lionel was not made duke of Clarence 
 until 1362. 
 
 No such homage was done. Cf. Awntyrs, 
 642. 
 
 Cf. Alorte Arthure, 424. The Prince had 
 in 1355 lieen within fifty miles of the Rhone. 
 
 Not historical. Cf. Awntyrs, 675.
 
 134 
 
 IIUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RYALE ' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Contemporary History. 
 safe conduct to his sister, ' the lady Johanna ' 
 [Queen of Scotland] to visit him. On same 
 day he grants safe conduct also to Sir 
 Robert of Erskine {Rotuli Scotiae, i. , 822). 
 The object in view is to procure respite in 
 payment of the ransom of David II., to 
 which all estates in Scotland were stringently 
 obliged by treaty of Berwick in 1357. 
 
 The well known Erskine coat of arms is 
 Argent a pale sable (Woodward's Heraldry, 
 346) and a well known Erskine crest is the 
 boar head (Burke's Odinary). Sir Robert's 
 own crest in 1357 and 1359 appearing on his 
 seal was a boar's head' (Laing's Supple- 
 mental Catalogue 0/ Seals). 
 
 The ancient crest of the surname of Erskine 
 was a hand holding a dagger. Douglas, 
 Peerage, ii., 206, plate 12. 
 
 i % 
 
 y 
 
 ->^ 
 
 Seal of Sir Robert of Erskine 
 used i.m 1357 and 1359. 
 
 A^vntyrs of Arthure. 
 
 a lady (1. 345) wearing a crown (371) and 
 leading a knight (344) for whom she be- 
 speaks reason and right (350). 
 
 The knight's shield armorial is Argent, 
 boar heads sable. 
 
 His shelde on his shulder of silver so shene 
 With here [other MS. bare] hedes of blake 
 
 browed ful bolde [other MS. burely and 
 
 baulde] '' (11. 384-5). 
 
 The knight's name is Clalleroun and his 
 horse carries on its chamfrein a dagger — 
 An anlas of stele (1. 390). 
 
 Erskine Crest. 
 
 Immediately following the knight, whose 
 name is Galleroun, comes a most interesting 
 personage, occupying a unique place in the 
 
 ' I am informed by the authorities of the Record Office that my friend, Mr. Joseph 
 Bain, in his invaluable Calendar, iii., 1660, and iv. , 27, erred in slating that the crest 
 was a bear's head. My official informant assures me that there is ' no doubt that the 
 crest is a boar's head.' A cut from a cast of the seal is here presented. 
 
 -There can be no doubt that hare here, as in Morte Art/iure (1. 3123), is for boar, not 
 bear. Galleroun's coat is derived from Erskine's by adopting the colours argent and 
 sable, and setting the Erskine crest as a charge into the field in place of the pale.
 
 17] 
 
 GALLEROUN AND SIR HEW 
 
 135 
 
 Contemporary History. 
 
 Immediately after the safe- conducts of the 
 Queen and Sir Robert there is granted 
 another to Sir Hew of Eglintoun, dated 
 nth May, 1358. 
 
 Presumably Sir Hew travelled with the 
 royal party to London. 
 
 It is Sir Hew's first safe-conduct and may 
 have been his first visit to the Court of 
 England {Rotiili Scotiae, i., 823). 
 
 Mural decorations (with tablettes, etc.) of 
 new work at Windsor are a glory of the time 
 (Walsingham, anno 1344, Leland's Collec- 
 tanea, tomeii., 377. Cf. Gawayne, 763-803). 
 
 Erskine belongs to the west of Scotland, 
 his patrimony being in Renfrewshire, Init 
 owned lands in Cunningham, in Kyle, near 
 Loch Lomond, in the Lennox, in Lenzie, and 
 in Lothian {Rotitli Magni Sigilli, 1306-1424, 
 pp. 31, 84, 108-9; Douglas, Peerage, ii. 207). 
 
 Galloway had only been so far recovered 
 in 1356 ( Wyntoun, viii., 6597). Edward HI. 
 had charter of it {Rot. Scot., i., 788) from 
 Edward Balliol. 
 
 Thomas of Holland assumed the title of 
 Earl of Kent in 1 358 ^ ; he died in December, 
 1360. His son was Thomas, who became 
 earl in 1360 (Coxe's notes to Chandos 
 Herald's Prince Noir, 11. 141, 158S ; Cam- 
 den's Britanttia, ed. Gibson, 213). 
 
 The Black Prince had griffons among his 
 badges {Royal Wills, 73; cf. Morte, 3869, 
 3946). The Queen, Philippa of Hainault, 
 was the French King's niece. 
 
 Scotland had fought keenly but been over- 
 come at Durham, when David II. was 
 captured. 
 
 Scotland has pledged itself in 1357 for 
 100,000 marks for the ransom of the King. 
 For this the youthful heirs of the best blood 
 in Scotland are held as hostages. Erskine's 
 son is one of them {Rotuli Scotiae, i., 812). 
 
 Awntyrs of Arthitre. 
 poem. The passage quoted is all there is 
 about him. 
 
 A FREKE ONE A FREiio.\ E hi i?i folowed in fay. 
 The fresone was afered for dred of that fare. 
 For he was seldene wonte to se 
 The tablet flurd, 
 Siche ganien ne gle 
 Sagh he never are (398-403). 
 
 These lines bear the stamp usual to an 
 author's indirect reference to himself. A 
 ' freke ' is a common term for a man. 
 
 The Knight has come from the west of Scot- 
 land (420) to claim back lands there which 
 Arthur has wrongfully won in war (421). 
 They consist of west country lands in Carrick, 
 Cunningham, Kyle, Lomond, Lennox, and 
 Lenzie, but extend also to Lothian. 
 
 Galleroun demands duel, which Gawayne 
 undertakes, and the lists are prepared (477). 
 
 The King commanded krudely [other MS. 
 kindeli] the erlis sone of Kent 
 
 Curtaysly in this case take kepe to the 
 knight (482-3). 
 
 Gawayne's arms are griffons and he is 
 lord of Wales (509, 666-7). Queen Guine- 
 vere was ' born in Burgundy ' (30). 
 
 There is a fierce duel, and Galleroun is 
 vanquished and he surrenders (640). 
 
 He . submits and gives up his ' renttis 
 and reches ' (646). 
 
 ^The Nat. Diet. Biog. gives this as 1359.
 
 I 36 
 
 HUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE' 
 
 [Ch. 
 
 Aivntyrs of Arthur e. 
 Galleroun is oppressed by his adversary, 
 and the lady implores (619) Guinevere, who 
 implores Arthur " to make concord (625). 
 
 Arthur does so, and procures the release 
 of Galleroun's lands (672-6). 
 
 He is released (675) with a reservation 
 about his lingering a while to make repair 
 to the Round Table (684) of which he is 
 made a knight (701). 
 
 Contemporary History. 
 
 Edward HI., on 12th February, 1359, ex- 
 pressly states that to the earnest and oft 
 repeated request ' of his sister Johanna was 
 due his agreeing to respite stern action - 
 for the Scottish failure to meet the ransom. 
 
 Erskine and Sir Hew attest in London on 
 2ist Feb., 1359, David H.'s acknowledg- 
 ment of Edward's concession of respite 
 (Bain's Cal., iv., 27). 
 
 David H.'s release, under treaty of Ber- 
 wick in 1357, had very stringent conditions 
 for his return if the instalments of ransom 
 were not duly paid. David often repaired 
 to the Round Table ; so did Erskine him- 
 self, who seems to have been accomplished 
 in lilting (Nicolas, Orders of Knighthood, 
 i., 14; Bain, iv. , 93; Rot. Scot., i., 892). 
 Erskine's ver>' significant visits to England 
 about St. George's Day are noted below. 
 
 Thus there are marrow bones of true history in Golagros and the 
 Awntyrs. Superb and dramatic as are the annals of Hterary research, it 
 may be questioned if they contain any revelation more marvellous and 
 pictorial than this of the Knight of Eglintoun, then young in his poetical 
 career, riding on his startled Frisian steed, with Queen and Chamberlain, 
 as they approach the court of Edward III. 
 
 The boar's head marshals the way to a complete understanding of the 
 place of the Round Table poems. In the Aw/ityrs it associates with them 
 in the most pointed manner that powerful Scottish baron, justiciar, 
 chamberlain, officer of state, and soldier, Sir Robert of Erskine. Its 
 occurrence about the same time also at the Christmas feast in Gaicayne 
 (11. 1616-54), is not casual, but carries a touch of heraldic allegory. When 
 
 ' Nous a la grande et diligente requeste et instance de nostre tres chere soere Dame 
 Johane, compaigne du dit Sire David, que nous ad sur ce meinte foiz supplie, de nostre 
 grace especiale grauntons [etc.] (Rotuli Scot., i., 835, 12th February, 1359). 
 
 "^ Forfeiture would have made matters very risky and unhappy for the hostages under 
 the treaty. The hostage rubrics of GeoftVey (ch. 13 al)ove) are notes of Scottish anxiety. 
 
 ^The intervention of ' Waynour ' (1, 625) may have come from that of ' Venna' between 
 Belinus and Brennius.
 
 17] ERSKINE AND THE ROUND TABLE i-,y 
 
 again it confronts us on a banner in IVynnere and Wasioure (1. 175), and 
 on a shield in Golagros (1. 605), the inference deepens that the whole 
 Round Table set is connected with Sir Robert as well as with Sir Hew, 
 whose entire career ran alongside Erskine's. Year after year from 1358 
 onward — in 1362, 1363, 1365, 1368, 1369, 1370, and 1373 — Erskine pro- 
 cures safe-conduct to travel into England (sometimes Sir Hew does so at 
 the same time) a week or two before St. George's festival ^ — countenancing 
 most circumstantially the statement that the prototype of Galleroun was 
 either admitted a Knight of the Garter or was otherwise closely concerned 
 with that proudest brotherhood of chivalry. His personal accomplishment 
 in knightly arms may be inferred from his once- carrying north with him 
 a ' ketil-hat,' his appearing once as a commander of a troop, and his 
 position as castellan ot David H's. fortresses. He stood in high favour 
 with Edward HI. as we know from the gift made to him of a rich gold 
 cup 2 in 1363. Year after year, too, we find his safe-conducts timed so 
 as to let him spend Christmas in England — for instance ■* in 1361, 1363, 
 and 1367 — again a fact probably indicative 01 the good graces towards 
 him 01 the English king. 
 
 Between the two, the celebrations of the Round Table and the Christmas 
 festivities, it is easy to find natural room for the poems ot Erskine's friend 
 and colleague Sir Hew, some of them romances of the Table Round, 
 appropriate to the honour of the king of chivalry, Edward HI., and the 
 Black Prince, not forgetting now and then that of the knight (concerning 
 whom one of them was written) whose crest was a boar's head."' Thus 
 at last history vindicates itself, and the mystery of Huchown and his 
 alliterative poems remains a mystery no more. 
 
 ^ Rotnli Scoiiae, 862, 872, 890, 917, 928, 937, 955. 
 
 - Rottili Scotiae, i., 892. -'Bain's Cal., iv., 93. 
 
 * Kotuli Scotia,; i., 859, 877-8, 916-7. At the last reference Erskine's son's arms and 
 armour make a striking analogy to those in Gawayue^ 574-83. 
 
 '■' The heraldic discovery on which this chapter is based has led to others which explain 
 the unidentified Friars' banners in IJyu/iere and Wastoure. The first banner has six 
 galleys of sable, each with a brace (or bend) and two buckles. The galleys sable indicate 
 John of the Isles (Woodward's Heraldry, cd. 1892, p. 367), and the bend and two 
 buckles his wife, Margaret de Vaus {Registrum Magni Sigilli, 1306-1424, p. 48), whose 
 
 K
 
 l-,8 'HUCHOWN OF TIIK AWLK KVALE' [Ch. 
 
 1 8. Conclusions. 
 
 To the fifteen leading propositions formerly tabulated, the preceding 
 chapter now adds : 
 
 1 6. An allegorically historical sense in Golagros a?td Gmvayne strangely 
 parallel to that of the second half of the Awniyrs of ArtJiure: 
 
 17. The demonstration of the inner yet obvious meaning of both poems: 
 
 18. A beautiful and decisive personal revelation by the poet himself. 
 To review and assemble (although in the baldest, crudest, and most 
 
 disorderly fashion) the detached sections of this long involved and ill-stated 
 argument, chiefly in the shape of successive series of parallelisms, has been 
 a task of the greatest magnitude, inasmuch as, for the first time, the general 
 features of a supreme poet fall to be set on the canvas. It is not to be 
 disguised that the countenance which begins to show itself with growing 
 definiteness through the curtain of the fourteenth century is of no common 
 
 grandfather bore a bend with two 'cinquefoils (?),' which perhaps were buckles (Bain's 
 Calendar, ii., p. 545). There were, by legend, six kings of the Isles [Calf. Moiiumet. 
 ix., 19), and the Scottish lordship of Man was held by service of six galleys (Earl of 
 Haddington's MS. Adv. Lib., 34. 2. i [pagination series at end] pp. 34*-5*). The second 
 banner is yet more interesting. With both 'brerdes' (or liordures) of black and a balk (or 
 void) like the sun in the middle, it plainly denotes the Balliol orle with field of silver (,Roll 
 of Carlaverock, ed. Wright, 25). The third banner has three boar heads, and is that eithei 
 of Sir Robert Erskine or of Sir John Gordon, a distinguished Scottish soldier {Wy^itozm, 
 X., ch. 2), whose arms were three boar heads (Woodward's Heraldry, 227), who was 
 taken prisoner at Poitiers, and who was in England in 1357 and 1358 {Rot. Scot., i., 808, 
 824). The fourth banner, argent with a belt buckled, gives us Norman Lesley's argent a 
 bend with three buckles (Woodward, plate, p. 376). John of the Isles and Edward Balliol 
 were both included in the Berwick treaty of 1357 i^Rot. Scot., i., 812-814). The peace thus 
 negotiated embraced ' le yle de Manne.' The Queen and Erskine have their safe-conducts 
 to London on 9th May, 1358, Sir Hew and Lesley on the lith {Rot. Scot., i., 822, 823). 
 The arms are not exact and the tinctures are altered, but probably no herald will dispute 
 the likelihood of these identifications. Thus Wyiniere and IVastoiire conveys hints of a 
 surprising variety of strifes and concords in fields both sacred and secular, Scottish and 
 English. The two allies of Edward IH., Jt)hn of the Isles and Edward Balliol, are thus 
 slily presented along with two of his Scottish adversaries, Gordon (or Erskine) and Lesley. 
 The last named was taken prisoner by the English in France in 1359 {Scalacronica, 190), 
 and distinguished himself under the King of Cyprus in the descent on Alexandria in 1365 
 (Bower, ii., 488).
 
 i8] CONCLUSIONS 139 
 
 type ; it is the countenance of an immortal who ranks among the great 
 formative forces in the hterature of the English tongue, who, while Chaucer 
 was still (to public intents) silent, had ransacked the storehouses of Latin, 
 French, and English, in the quest of material for romantic narrative, and 
 who no less than Chaucer set his seal forever on the literary art of his 
 own generation and of the generations to follow. The hand which seeks 
 to unroll a little further Wyntoun's brief scroll of Huchown's achievement 
 may well tremble as it deals with a task so weighty, for either these pages 
 are a vain and credulous figment, or Huchown's range and grasp in romance 
 place him as a unique and lofty spirit, comparable in respect of his greatness 
 only with Walter Scott. Rut great and sweet as is the personality and 
 interesting as is the evolution of Scott, and superior far as he was to Huchown 
 in original romance, the time at which Huchown lived invests him with a 
 historical note which our wizard story-teller may not claim. In Huchown 
 we have a superb craftsman of letters in the fourteenth century, albeit the 
 latest Dictionary oj National Biography knows him not. 
 
 Away in that remote time, what was his achievement ? He found, so 
 far as we can conceive, little in the way of native Scottish literature. What- 
 ever his motives — and we can well enough surmise that his poetic leanings 
 were quickened by Court applause — he applied himself to a lofty and mighty 
 task. His equipment must have been excellent, as the standard of the time 
 went. Certainly he was, as he himself said of the pious /Eneas, ' Of literature 
 and language learned enow,' an easy master of Latin and French, and 
 recondite in the English tongue, with a tendency not uncommon among poets 
 towards archaism. It seems fairly reasonable to hold that his earlier pieces 
 include, along with the Wars of Alexander^ a number of pieces on Scriptural 
 themes. The Pisiill of Susan is the story of Susanna and the Elders, 
 paraphrased from the Vulgate in an amplified manner. Cleanness is a 
 Scriptural poem, which singularly chooses for its illustration a marine 
 subject, the story of Noah, powerfully told. Patience likewise is somewhat 
 incongruously illuminated by another marine story, that of Jonah, his stormy 
 voyage, and the whale. The Destruction of Troy was not a task likely to 
 have been undertaken by a mere tyro of poesy, but required an experienced 
 and ready versifier, as its facility of execution fully attests.
 
 l^o MIUCHOWN OF THE AWLE RVALE' [Cii. 
 
 But it is in the works which follow the Troy that the evolution of this 
 poetic genius may best be traced — traced with a measure of certainty which 
 would have been impossible but for the license of the fourteenth century 
 poets to use, not once but once and again, the same figures, phrases, and 
 lines. Huchown, like many, perhaps like most, early writers, English, Scots, 
 or French, when he had a thing to say a second time had no shame in 
 saying it in identical terms with the first. The same threads, now bright and 
 now of sober grey, reappear in more than one of his many-coloured patterns. 
 The thing was inevitable in the work of a poet of large production. Yet 
 in Huchown, as editors long ago noted, his distinction is his endless minor 
 variation, even in the repeated phrases. To the fact that he did so repeat 
 we owe our chief means of identifying his work. These repetitions are 
 carried over from the sheer translations, like the Alexa?ider and the Troy, 
 to the more independent products, Ti/tis and Vespasiaft is amongst the 
 latter, in large degree an original performance, combining and adapting 
 various incidents and descriptions not belonging to the story as he found 
 it. The plainsong of Huchown's note came, like Chaucer's, from traditional 
 themes, though each made the composition his own by nobly distinctive 
 chords. It was the privilege of the trouvere often to be content to echo 
 what he found, but the masters were ever wont to mend and combine as 
 well as to find. Much more rarely did they ' make.' The methods of 
 composition, by mingled translation, adaptation, and creation, are all present 
 in Morte Art/ii/re, and the amplifications count for far more than the original 
 narrative. Some of the additions are inventions of the poet's own, but for 
 the most part he did not invent — he adapted. The Parlement of the Thre 
 Ages belongs, as it seems to me, to the close of his career, and forms, as 
 it were, his testament, for does it not sum up his past course through all 
 his themes — through Alexatider, Troy, Titus, and Morte Arthuref Besides, 
 does it not, for a second time, utilise, as had been done in Morte Arthure, 
 its chief authorities, the Brut and the Voeux du Pcion ? 
 
 And Gawayne and tJte Green Knight also was remembered when the 
 Parlement was put together by a man who by 1376 was probably old — 
 Gaivayne, which Wyntoun attributed to Huchown, and which also has 
 so many identical passages or lines of close resemblance to Alexatider,
 
 i8J ESTIMATE J41 
 
 Troy, Titus, Morte Arthure, and the Parlemenf, especially the Parlement. 
 Nor may it be forgotten, as Sir Frederick Madden and others have not 
 failed to notice, that the unique MS. of Gaivayne has the incomplete 
 superscription, 
 
 Hugo de 
 on its opening page.^ 
 
 Now let us note the distinguishing feature of Gmvayne, that beautiful 
 poem in praise first of chivalric purity, and second — and only second — ot 
 knightly valour and courtly grace. On the other hand, it handles with 
 delicate dexterity a trying theme of temptation, from which the chastity 
 of its hero emerges without a stain. There is not room here to discuss 
 the multiplied evidences of the connection of this poem with the Honi 
 soit qui tnai y petise motto of the Garter. It is such as to make the poem 
 a derivative of the incident of English court history which gave rise to the 
 most illustrious Order of the age of chivalry. As a poem it is full of the 
 life and practice of courtly circles, as strong in its ceremonial and state as 
 in woodcraft and love of the chase and of arms. Deeply and finely religious 
 in tone, Gawayne removes all difficulty of understanding how a poet could 
 take themes so diverse as Arthur, and Erkenwald, and Susanna, and could 
 so linger over the hunt in the Parlement and the hawking scene in Wyiuiere 
 and Wastoure. Through all, whether translation, paraphrase, or original 
 piece — without one ignoble or questionable line, such as the wit of Chaucer, 
 Dunbar, and Burns made them impotent to resist — there shines a soul of 
 translucent purity. Posterity, which does not hit upon its epithets by 
 chance, has fitly remembered the knight of Eglintoun as ' the gude 
 Sir Hew.' Perhaps future generations will recognize him as the supreme 
 exponent of British chivalry in its triple ideals of earnest purity, of courtesy, 
 and of valour. 
 
 Law in its relation to literature fills a role ot no small distinction. 
 Finer testimony to legal aptness for literary study need not be sought 
 than Chaucer's making his Man of Law, alone of the goodly company in 
 
 ^This is presented in raisi/nile in Madden's Syr Gaivayiic, introd. ii., and discussed 
 by him on p. 302.
 
 142 MIUCHOWN OF TIIK AWI.K RVALK" [Cii. 
 
 the Canterbury Tales, have authoritative knovvleilge ' and a shrewd, critical 
 opinion of the whole series of Chaucer's poems. This was indeed a 
 pleasant compliment to the accidental accomplishments of a member of 
 the profession. It was not what we have in Erkenwald, a tribute 
 to the nobility of justice, the kingliness of the function of the 
 upright and gentle judge. That such a tribute, eloquent with a certain 
 high and solemn emotion, should have come from a poet earlier than 
 Chaucer, from a Man of Law before the Canterbury pilgrimage, enhances 
 the import of this well-told medieval tale. Medieval of course it is, but 
 it is Medievalism in exce/sis. The poem, too, links with the Pearl on 
 the one hand and the Awntyrs of Arthure on the other in a manner to 
 reveal the power and grace of the mind which could from the somewhat 
 gross Trentalle of St. Gregory pluck such fruit. 
 
 What shall we of this generation accept as Huchown's signal merit and 
 contribution to our literary or our national history ? Even were he not 
 Hew of Eglintoun he is the unanswerable proof of the culture of the 
 period, revealing the breadth and depth of its romance learning and the 
 variety of one man's resources, ranging from such Latin works as the De 
 Preliis and Hegesippus, and such medieval literature as Guido's De Excidio 
 Trojae, Maundeville's Itinerary, and the historical story-book of the Brut, 
 to whole cycles of French romance on Alexander and Arthur and Charle- 
 magne, and the galaxy of heroes and heroines whom each of these led in 
 his ever-growing train. Considered merely as a poetic unity, and without 
 his personal name, he is a noble link between the literature of the Continent 
 and that of our island, imitating yet no slave, learned yet no pedant, 
 borrowing freely yet transfusing what he borrowed in the tire of what he 
 gave — an international student who learnt much from French literary art, 
 but who out of his Latin and French materials drew English poems of 
 which the power is all his own. And being (alike according to the 
 apparent voice of early chronicle and the result of recent research) a 
 Scottish lawyer and courtier, Sir Hew of F^glintoun, a mighty singer of 
 Cunningham unheard of by the bard of Kyle, he remains tor the literature 
 
 I Inlroduclioii to the Man of Laws prologue.
 
 i8] THE POET'S PLACE 
 
 143 
 
 of English speech all these things, and at the same time is immeasurably 
 more, completing and antedating by his own magnificent example the 
 evidence of Barbour and Wyntoun to the culture of the Scottish court 
 under the Bruces and the Stewarts, and lending stately promise to that 
 national literature which, with independent destiny, was to be at once a 
 thing apart and an integral portion of the common glory of English literature. 
 Looked at whole, he is a personality whose magnitude challenges the highest, 
 while the obscurity of his personal life, almost completely hidden (had it 
 not been for his manuscript of Geoffrey of Monmouth and his own price- 
 less miniature of himself in the Awntyrs of Arthure) behind a few brief 
 intimations of his public functions as courtier and judge, heightens by its 
 contrast the splendour of a mighty spirit and the marvel of a unique career. 
 Who could have dreamed that portrait so meagre and accidental as that of 
 the companion of Galleroun would, after five centuries, admit of recognition? 
 Who could have hoped that after such an interval records would be found 
 to overcome the reticence of a poet about himself? Mountain and moor 
 have darkened round his name and memory ; he sleeps in a forgotten 
 grave ; but the west winds have long been whispering that we should yet 
 find him wearing a kingly diadem and buried in gold.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Alexander legend, i 7 : Roman d Alixandre, 
 18; in Parkment, 82, 84, 85. 
 
 Alexander, Wars of, 7 ; agreements with 
 Hunterian MS., 19; borrowing from 
 Maundeville, 22 ; geographical parallels 
 with Morte, 22, 52, 53 ; used in Parle- 
 >/ient, 84 ; its consecutive alliterations on 
 same letter, 118. 
 
 Arming of Artiiur, 48 ; of Vespasian, 49 ; 
 of Gauayne, 137. 
 
 Assythment, 10, 46, 47, 131. 
 
 'Awle Ryale ' explained, 5, 12, 13, 14 ; its 
 bearing on the poems, 114, 125-6, 130, 
 
 I3i> I35> 136, 141- 
 
 Awniyrs of Arlkiire, 5, 7 ; parallels with 
 Titns and Morte, 34, 53-58, and Parle- 
 men/, 75-80; Gawayne's steed, 51 ; plot 
 partly from TrentalU, 111-112, llius con- 
 necting with Pearl and Erken'iVald, 114, 
 116; specialty of ending, 116, 118, 119; 
 plot partly from Anglo-Scottish history, 
 •33-7 '• identification of Arthur and 
 Gawayne, liie crowned lady, Galleroun 
 and the ' freke on a fresone' 133-6; fmal 
 j)roof of Iluciiowns personality, 135, 
 136, 137- 
 
 Balliol, Edward, his arms on banner in 
 Wynnere, 13S. 
 
 Barbour, John, composition or Briue, 1,2; 
 colleague of Sir Hew, 13, 45, 125 ; 
 translates Guido, 23, 126; quotes Troy, 
 30 ; refers to siege of Tyre, 38 ; trans- 
 lates I'oeiix dii Paon, 45 ; his parallel 
 use of Iluchown's authorities, 126; his 
 nationalism, 123. 
 
 'Beelzebub' in Troy, 29; in Cleanness, 
 
 115- 
 Belinus and Brennius, their place in 
 
 A'li'nlyrs, 136; Mortc, lOI ; W'ynnerc, 
 
 9O1 91 > 93; Erkenwald, 106, 109; the 
 
 poet's standpoint, 125, 128. 
 Bend 01 green, 121, 128. 
 Black Prince, 40 : his campaigns in 
 
 Aquitaine, etc., 40, 64, 125, 132 ; l)attlc 
 
 of Poitiers, 1 33. 
 Borrezio, Johannulus de, edits Guido in 
 
 1354, 24. 
 
 Cadence, a term tor alliteration, 3, 117. 
 Cleanness, 7, 15, 115, 129. 
 Correlation of poems, 15, 129. 
 Crecy in Mortc, 59, 60. 
 
 Uares and Dictys, 23, 81. 
 
 David II. knights Sir Mew, 9; his cap- 
 tivity, 10; iiis relations with Edward III., 
 II ; his treaty \sitli Ildward, 11, 66, 91,
 
 INDEX 
 
 M5 
 
 124; presence in London, 64, 98, 99; 
 his action of divorce, 12 ; his fortunes 
 poetically reflected, 91, 135-6. 
 
 Diagram of argument, 129. 
 
 Dialect of poems, various views on, 119; 
 
 conclusion that it was an admixture, 
 
 120. 
 Dialogiis inter Aqiiavi et Vintiin in Hun- 
 
 terian MS. of 'Geoftrey,' 94, 101. 
 Dragon in Titus and Morte, 48, S9, 90 ; in 
 
 MS. 'Geoffrey,' 102. 
 Dunbar, William, his Lai)ient *'or the 
 
 iMakaris, 5. 
 Dunwallo and the dead judge in Erken- 
 
 wald, III. 
 
 Edward III.; his Round Table, 10, 12; 
 his relations with David II., 11, 66, 91 ; 
 love of hawking, 12 ; episodes in his 
 history frequently utilised by the poet 
 (Crecy, Calais, Winchelsea, French wars, 
 Scottish negotiations), 39, 59, 60, 62, 
 63) 64, 91, 124, 132-6; a hero in Morte 
 Arthnre, 62, 122; in Wyimerc, 93, 121 ; 
 in Ga-ii'ayne, 120; in Golagros, 132 ; and 
 in Awntyrs, 133-6. 
 
 Eglintoun family, 8. 
 
 Eglintoun, Hew of: his identification with 
 Huchown, 5, 130, 135 ; sketch of his 
 biography, 8-13 ; native of Ayrshire, 8 ; 
 knighted, 9 ; taken prisoner in England, 
 9; marries daughter of Chamberlain, 9 ; 
 associated with Sir Robert of Erskine, 
 10; visits London with him, 10, 135; mar- 
 ries Egidia, half-sister of Robert the 
 Steward, 10 ; relation to negotiations ol 
 '363-4 with Edward III., 11 ; a justiciar, 
 etc., 10, II ; goes to Rome, 12; member 
 of Privy Council, 12; man of means, 13; 
 holds office at Exchequer, 13 ; associated 
 with Barbour, 13 ; death and burial, 13 ; 
 identified by internal evidence with 
 Huchown, 135 ; significance of his visits 
 
 to London, 10, 65, 93, 98, I35> '3^. I37; 
 his arms, 130. 
 
 Erceldoun, Thomas of, his prophecies 
 quoted in IVynnere and Wasloure, 93, 
 125. 
 
 Erkenwald, 8 ; connection with MS. 
 'Geoftrey,' 10x3-105; the story, 105-109; 
 its tribute to law, 107-8 ; relation to 
 Belinus and Brennius, 109 ; the dead 
 iudge's chronology, loo, no; Dunwallo, 
 III ; connection with Trentalle, 113, 114, 
 116, and thus with A'wutyrs and Pearl, 
 114, 116, 122, 142. 
 
 Erskine, Sir Robert of, justiciar and cham- 
 berlain of Scotland, 10, 11, 12 ; his share 
 in negotiations of 1358-9, 134, 135, 136, 
 137 ; and in those of 1363-4, 66, 91, 
 124; identified as ' Galleroun,' 134; an 
 associate of Sir Hew, 10, 12, 134-7. 
 
 Fleta, 43, 107. 
 
 ' Foul Death ' in Vitus, 39, 122. 
 
 Galleroun in the Aiuntyrs identified, 134. 
 
 Garter. See Round Table. 
 
 Gainayne and the Green Knight, 7 ; plot 
 partly from Perceval le Gallois, 131 ; its 
 temptation scenes, 51 ; parallels with 
 Parlement, 71-73, 80, 81, and with 
 Alexander, Titus, and Morte, 73, 74 ; 
 its Garter connection, 120 ; consonance 
 with history, 12 1 ; the bend of green, 
 121, 128 ; dale of poem, 1 21-2 ; words 
 ' Hugo de [ ]' on MS., 141. 
 
 Generydes, 51. 
 
 Geoffrey of Monmouth's ' Brut,' 3 ; trans- 
 lated, 41 ; Huchown's copy of 'Geoffrey,' 
 85 ; its rubrications, 86-89, 90, 94 ; 
 transcripts from it, 99-105; their con- 
 nection with Erkenwald, 100, lOI, 102, 
 105, 109, no. III ; with Wynnere, loi ; 
 with Aivntyrs, 136; with Troy, I02 ; 
 with Titus, 102; with Morte, 99-105; 
 with Gawayne, 103 ; with Cleanness, 
 102, 115.
 
 146 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gog and Magog, 21, 82. 
 
 Gohigros and Ga'i'ayiie, 131 ; partly from 
 Perceval le Gal his, 131 ; partly frt)m 
 Anglo-French histoiy, 132-4; Golagros, 
 King John of France, 132 ; events of 
 campaigns in 1355 6 referred to, includ- 
 ing march to Carcassonne and battle of 
 Poitiers, 132-3; its date about 1359, 
 
 132. 
 
 Guido de Columpna's Dt- Excidio Trojae, 
 Hunterian MS. of, 16, 17 ; the legend, 
 23; correspondences of MS. and allitera- 
 tive Troy, 25-29 ; source of Parlemcnf, 
 82. 
 
 Hawking, 12, 71, 105, 130, 141. 
 
 Heir-apparent, 66, 91. 
 
 Heraldry in the poems, 39, 90, 96, 103, 
 121, 130, 134, 137, 138. 
 
 History in the poems: surrender of Calais 
 in Titus, 39 ; Crecy, Winchelsea, and 
 wars of Edward HI. in Morte, 57-65 ; 
 Black Prince's campaigns, 40, 64 ; Judges 
 and Pope in Wynnere, 96, 121, 137 ; 
 King of Cyprus, 65 ; battle at Adrianople, 
 65. See vocibtts Edward HI., Heraldry, 
 and Round Table. 
 
 Hostages, poet's interest in, 8, 87, loi ; 
 interest explained, 135, 136. 
 
 Huchown of the Awle Ryale : compared 
 with Barbour, 2, 3, 126 ; his identifica- 
 tion as Sir Hew of Eglintoun, 3 ; Wyn- 
 toun's references, 3, 4 ; Dunbar's 
 supposed reference, 5 ; objections to 
 identification, 5, 6; Huchown not a 
 disparaging name, 6; works ascribed, 7 ; 
 Sir Ilew's biography, 8-13, 30, 65, 98, 
 130, 135-7 ; poems discussed, passim ; 
 Hunterian MSS. probably used by him, 
 16, 85 ; his rubrications of ' Geoffrey of 
 Monmouth,' 99105; his error about 
 Lucius Imperator, 3, 4, 86, 103 ; his 
 interest in hostages, 87, loi, 136; Sir 
 Hew's visits to London in 1358 and 1359, 
 
 30, 98; Huchown's allusion to the 
 visit of 1358, 135 ; his legal sympathies, 
 42, 43, 100, loi, 106-S, no, 121; his 
 interest in Belinusand Brennius, 93, loi, 
 106, 109, 125, 128, 136; his verse 
 system, 117; dialect, 119; nationality, 
 1 23-7 ; quoted by Barbour, 30; relations 
 towards Barbour, 126; personal charac- 
 teristics, 130; knowledge and love of the 
 sea, 60-62, 65, 130, 139; reveals him- 
 self in Awntyrs of Arthure, 135 ; his 
 poetical achievement estimated, 139; the 
 incomplete inscription, Hugo de [ ], 
 
 141 ; the poet's significance, 142. 
 
 ' Hugo de [ ], 141. 
 
 Hunterian MSS.: T. 4. i (Guido, De 
 Preliis, and .Maundeville), 16, 19, 21, 
 22 ; Destruction of Troy, alliterative 
 poem, 23 ; U. 7. 25 (Geoffrey of Mon- 
 mouth), 85-90, 99-105. 
 
 Hunting, 12, 68, 71, 72,82, 100, 130, 141. 
 
 Isles, John of the, his arms on banner in 
 VVynticre, 138. 
 
 Jdriisakin, Sege of. See Titus. 
 John, King of France, 132, 133. 
 
 Kent, earl's son of, 132, 135. 
 
 Law, notes of, 14, 42, 66, 91, 108, 130, 
 
 131- 
 
 Lay of the Truelove, 67, 1 18, 119. 
 Lesley, Norman, 138. 
 Lombardy, 12. 
 
 Lucius Iberius, Emperor or Procurator, 3, 
 4, 86, 103. 
 
 Madden, Sir Frederick, 5, 71, 131. 
 
 Maundeville's Itinerarium, 17, 30; used in 
 Alexander, 22; in Morte, 42, 122; in 
 Parlcinent, 82; in Cleanness. 115, 122. 
 See also 15, 127, 129.
 
 INDEX 
 
 147 
 
 Morte Arthnre, referred to by Wyntoun, 
 4, 5 ; edition, 7 ; account of poem, 40 ; 
 additions made to matter in Brut, 42 ; 
 borrowings from Maundeville, 42 ; Flcta, 
 42 ; Voeux dii Paoii, 44 ; Titus, 47 : 
 other French sources, 50 ; Troy and 
 Alexander, 52, and from history, 59-66 ; 
 used largely for the Parhment, 74-85 ; 
 its relations and composition, 15, 40, 
 129, 130, 140; its connections with MS. 
 Geoffrey, 85-89, 95, 99-105. 
 
 Nationality of poet discussed, 123 127 ; 
 
 settled, 136. 
 Nine Worthies in Morte, 47 ; in Parle- 
 
 ttient, 70, 84; in Golagros, 133. 
 
 Ogier Danois, a source of Titus, 39, 48, 
 51, and of Morte, 48, 51, 52; mentioned 
 in Parlemcnt, 70. 
 
 Parallels. See Troy, etc. 
 
 Parlement of the Thre Ages, 8 ; its author- 
 ship tested, 67; the story, 68-71 ; parallels 
 from Ga-wayne, 71-74, and from A^vntyrs, 
 Alexaiuier, Troy, Titus, and Morte, 
 73-81 ; proportions of these parallels, 
 81 ; sources of poem, 81 ; main 
 source of plot, 82-84 ; relative date as 
 regards the other poems, 84 ; later than 
 1365, 122 ; diagram, 129. 
 
 Patience, 7, 115, 139. 
 
 Pearl, 7; its plot, 113-114; notes, 115, 
 116; its relations, 15, 129. 
 
 Pistill of Susan, 7, 14, 68, 129. 
 
 Pseudo- Callisthenes, 1 7. 
 
 Quid de niundo senciam, 102. 
 
 Rome, itinerary to, 12 ; adapted in ^ forte, 
 
 12, 64 ; knowledge of, 131. 
 Round Table, 10, 12 ; an important factor 
 
 in the poems, 41, 62, 98, I20, 121, 132, 
 
 1.36, 137- 
 
 St. John the Evangelist, 118. 
 Sanctuary law, 42-44, 107, no. 
 Scalacronica, 63, 64, 97. 
 
 Shaving of ambassadors, in Titus, 39, and 
 
 in Morte, 48. 
 Ships : in Titus, 39 ; in Morte, 60-62, 65 ; 
 
 in Cleanness, 139; in Patience, 139. See 
 
 also 100, 130. 
 Stewart family, 10 ; Sir Hew's association 
 
 with, 10. 
 
 Tarn Wadling, 9. 
 
 71tus and Vespasian, edition, 8 ; follows 
 Troy, 31 ; story and sources, 31 ; key of 
 Morte, 31 ; parallels from Troy and 
 Alexander, 32-38 ; council of war by 
 night, 35; fall of Jerusalem and Tenedos 
 and Tyre, 37 ; shaven ambassadors, 39 ; 
 poem known in Scotland early, 39 ; date, 
 39, 40 ; used for Morte, 47-50, and Par- 
 lement, 74-81 ; uses MS. 'GeofiVey,' 89, 
 102. 
 
 Trentalle Sancti Gregorii: a source or 
 Awntyrs, ill ; of Pearl, 113; and of 
 Erkemvald, 116. 
 
 Troy, Destruction of, edition, 7 ; corre- 
 spondences with Ilunterian ' Guido,' 
 24- 30; used in Titus, 32-38 ; Moiie, 
 52-58 ; Parlement, 68 ; and Cleanness, 
 115 ; quoted by Barbour, 122 ; date of, 
 30, 122, 139. 
 
 Troy legend, 23. See Guido. 
 
 Robert II. (formerly Steward of Scotland), 
 12; favours literature, 13. 
 
 X'ernacle legend, 31 ; in Vitus, 39, 47. 
 Veronica legend, 31, 39, 47.
 
 148 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Vocitx dii I'aon, account uf, 44 ; IranslaLcd 
 by Barbour, 45 ; a source of Morle, 
 44-47 ; of Parlenioit, Si ; perhaps of 
 Titus, 122. 
 
 IVynnere and Wasioure, 8 ; significance 01 
 ' Venna ' rubric, 90 ; authorship, 91 ; 
 plot from 'Geoffrey,' 92, 99, loi, 128, 
 129; its Garter connection, 93, 137-8; 
 quotes Thomas of Erceldoun, 93, 125, 
 127; relation to Belinus and Brennius, 
 
 93, 125; follows model of medieval 
 'tlyling,' 94, 95; considerations as to 
 date, 95 ; allusion to Scharshill and 
 other judges, 95, 97, 98, 121 ; the 
 bannered armies, 95 ; controversy of 
 the Friars, 96 ; Bishop of Ely, Judges, 
 and Pope, 97 ; conclusion as to date, 
 98, 120, 137-8; its relations, 129; its 
 heraldry, 137-8. 
 Wyntoun's references to Huchown, 3, 4,71 .
 
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