Linguistic Evidence for the Priority of the French Text of the Ancrene Wisse

92 Pages·1974·6.197 MB·English

by  Berta Grattan Lee

JANUA LINGUARUM
STUDIA MEMORIAE
NICOLAI VAN WIJK DEDICATA
edenda curat
C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD
Indiana University
Series Practica, 242

LINGUISTIC EVIDENCE FOR
THE PRIORITY OF THE FRENCH TEXT
OF THE ANCRENE WISSE
Based on the Corpus Christi College Cambridge 402
and the British Museum Cotton Vitellius F VII Versions
of the Ancrene Wisse
by
BERTA GRATTAN LEE
Indiana State University
1974
MOUTON
THE HAGUE . PARIS
© Copyright 1974 in The Netherlands.
Mouton & Co. Ν. V., Publishers, The Hague.
No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm,
or any other means, without written permission from the publishers.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 74-77155
Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., The Hague
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction 7
2. Vocabulary 19
3. Proper Names 32
4. Negatives 40
5. Morphology 52
6. Word Order 64
7. Recapitulation 77
Bibliography 83
Index of Forms 85
Index of Authors and Subjects 89

1
INTRODUCTION
At some time and at some place in twelfth or thirteenth century England, a man,
whose identity and status have long been the subject of controversy, wrote a work
whose title is also in question. It is a guide for three young and high-born sisters
who decided to forsake the world to live an enclosed life as religious recluses. The
three young ladies, but not their names, are known from the fourteen surviving
manuscripts, of which eight are in English, two are in Latin, and four are in French.1
The same material is also incorporated into a work which was widely disseminated
on the continent and which was translated into English, from the French, and
published in 1493.2 Even more virulent than the other arguments about this much
debated religious rule have been those concerning the question of the original
language in which it was written — English, Latin, or French.
James Morton is given credit for inventing the title Ancren Riwle3 in 1853 when
he edited the Cotton Nero Α. XIV, the first of the manuscripts to be published.4
He was influenced, says Francis P. Magoun, Jr., by "the Latin title Regulae in-
clusarum, added in the seventeenth century" to the manuscript.6 Morton said,
"This is the original and proper title of the work."6 However, the only one of the
manuscripts which included a title was Corpus Christi College Cambridge No. 402.'
That title was Ancrene Wisse, "the way or mode of the life of recluses".8 Distinctions
have been made, as by James Hall,9 between Ancren Riwle for an original version
and Ancrene Wisse as the name of a revised text.10 E. J. Dobson concludes, however,
that "only a few years at most can separate the Cleopatra MS., which as originally
written was essentially the 'unrevised' text, and the Corpus M.S."11
The question of the authorship is not so easily solved. The author has been
identified as a Dominican friar,12 a bishop,13 a saint,14 a second bishop,18 and a
secular priest.18 He is assumed to have lived in Sempringham,17 in Salisbury,18 at
Kilburn,19 and at Tarrent-Kaines.20 He died in 1189,21 1237,22 or 1315.23 It appears
that there is no present solution to the problem of his identity.
The text, however, makes many of these ideas seem unlikely. Examples of liturgy
and quotations from sermons used within the work indicate a date no earlier than
the end of the twelfth century.24 Dobson prefers a time "after the Lateran decrees
had become known in England, even possibly after the Council of Oxford of 1222".28
As he sees it, a process of revision ensued soon after the first version, "culminating
8 INTRODUCTION
in the correction and revision of the Cleopatra MS. and the making of the Corpus
version about 1228-30, followed almost immediately by the writing of the Corpus
MS. itself as a fair copy of the revised text".28 N. R. Ker, because of the mention
of Dominican and Franciscan friars, concurs "that the date of writing is likely to be
after rather than before 1225".27
The question of the original language of the Ancrene Wisse has been debated
since 1696.28 In 1705, Wanley concluded that the work was first written in Latin.29
Planta agreed, but Morton felt that errors in the Latin presupposed a previously
existing English Vernacular text.30 Matzner31 and Wulker32 essentially agreed that
the Oxford text was a translation from the English. Bramlette, in 1893, reopened
the whole controversy with his decision that the Latin was the original.33 In 1914,
G. C. Macaulay denied that conclusion.34 Charlotte D'Evelyn made a fresh study
of the two manuscripts in 1949 and concluded that "Latin was not the original
language of the Ancrene Riwle".3δ Her work seems to be accepted as definitive.
No one has yet dared to state quite so definitely that French was not the original
language of the Ancrene Wisse. M. Dominica Legge defines the problem:
By the end of the thirteenth century translations and adaptations into English were made
on a considerable scale; the gap between the writing of a work in Anglo-Norman and
its translation into English became narrower and narrower. Whether the Ancrene
Riwle is based on an Anglo-Norman original is a matter for doubt; it is remarkable
that it should have been written or even translated into English as early as the first
half of the thirteenth century, but it should not be forgotten that the English version
was deemed insufficient, and several later Anglo-Norman translations, or retranslations,
were made of it. All through the thirteenth century Anglo-Norman more than held
its own; it was only in the fourteenth that English really became a serious rival as a
literary medium.3®
In 1914, Macaulay made a careful comparison of the French and English texts and
arrived at a long series of readings which proved, he thought, that the French was
clearer than the English.37 He has since been attacked by Hall, Dymes, and Samuels.
Hall's conclusion is that the "English has all the vigour and raciness of an original
work, while the French gives the impression of being unidiomatic and wanting in
spontaneity".38
Dorothy M. E. Dymes, after disagreeing with Macaulay on various readings,
asserts that the use of an English proverb "points to an English original". The proverb
is worth examining. She quotes the English from Cleopatra MS.:
euer is the eie
to the wude leie
and the halte bucke
climbeth thereuppe39
Macaulay suggests that the proverb may originally have been based on "the idea
of an enclosed wood in which the does are kept apart from the bucks".40
The concept of "one eye to the wood" occurs several times in the French and
INTRODUCTION 9
English versions, with substantially the same meaning each time. In one case, a
hypothetical young man has just confessed his love to the anchoress, has apologized
for letting her know of it since he had every intention of keeping it a secret, and
swears that he will never mention it again. The rest of the passage is quoted from
Vitellius :
Eie lui pardoune pur ceo qil parle beel. Dunke parlent daltre chose, mes touz iours
est loil aloeur de bois, touz iours est li queors a la parole deuant.41
(She forgives him because he speaks well. Then they speak of other things, but always
is the eye fixed on the wood, always is the heart on the speech before.)
The sense there follows that of an early French proverb:
Les amoureux ont toujours un oeil aux champs et l'àutre à la ville.42
(The amorous have always one eye toward the fields and the other towards the city.)
In other words, the desire is always to escape to the privacy of the fields, or the
woods, as the case is here.
Another French proverb is quoted almost verbatim in both the English and the
French texts:
a muche wind alib alute rein.43
(a great wind goes down with a little rain.)
Vn grant vent est abatu par vne petite pluie.44
(A great wind is abated by a little rain.)
Maloux gives the proverb in active form rather than passive:
Petite pluie abat grant vent.45
(A little rain abates a great wind)
The texts are obviously quoting that proverb.
Since there were relatively few anchoresses, it seems likely that, in one case, the
author was rewriting an old saying for his purposes. The passage appears in both
Corpus and Vitellius:
From mulne & from chepinge. from smippe & from ancre hus me tidinge bringet··46
(From mill and from market, from forge and from anchoress' house, people bring
tidings.)
del molyn et del marchee. de la forge et de la mesone la recluse, porte len nouele.47
(From mill and from market, from the forge and from the house of the recluse, people
carry news.)
There was a similar old French saying:
Au four et au moulin, on sait les nouvelles.48
(At the furnace and at the mill, the news is known.)
The proverbs offer interesting sidelights, but they can hardly be regarded as decisive
evidence for the native language of the work. Proverbs can move from language
to language and, unfortunately, prove little.
10 INTRODUCTION
Dymes also cites English plays on words as proof of English origin.48 She has
failed to notice plays on words in the French. Two are particularly interesting.
They are both from Vitellius:
Seez large vers eus. tout soiez vous escharse et dure vers vous meismes. Issi fet qe
bien corne, tourne lestreit del corn vers sa bouche demeyne. et le large vers hors.50
(Be generous toward them. Without exception be stingy and hard towards yourself.
Thus he who well blows the horn. He turns the narrow part of the horn toward his
own mouth and the large part outward.)
The point, of course, is that large means both generous and wide. The Corpus
version misses that point but manages a different play on words by two meanings
of the words nearowe:
beop large toward ham. bah 3e nearowe beon & hearde to ow seoluen. Swa deb b well
blaweb- went te nearewe of b horn to his ahne mup. ant utward p wide.61
(be generous toward them. Though you stingy are and hard to yourself, thus does
who well blows — turns the narrow of the horn to his own mouth and outward the
wide.)
The substitution of wide for large spoils the play on words.
There is another play on words in the French that is so impossible in any other
language that it seems it must be an original. It is, "Il tourne hontage a honur",62
which means that "he turns shame to honor". The English is a literal rendering of
the same meaning: "He wendef) scheome to menske".53 It misses wholly the surprise
of the completely different meanings of honur and hontage, which begin alike.
Samuels repeats Dymes' points about word play and proverbs and then makes
a somewhat sweeping assertion about alliteration:
But in the majority of cases of alliteration in the Ancrene Riwle the French corresponds
word for word with the English whether all the alliterating words are required by
the sense or not. Only rarely does the French have any corresponding alliteration,
while many of the English phrases belong to a tradition extending back to the Primitive
Germanic period.54
"Willes and Waldes",55 which Morton translates as "purposefully", undoubtedly
fulfills the "primitive Germanic" specification. An English translation of the French
reads more specifically: "tout de gre et ascient"56 becomes "altogether willing and
in accord".
Samuels has overlooked many phrases in which both the French and the English
are alliterative. There are, for instance, these examples:
chivalers et cleers67
(knights and clerks)
Cnihtes. & clearkes58
(Knights and clerks)
That is almost a repetition of the same elements. However, there are other examples
which differ greatly in the French and the English: