A thirteen-line alliterative stanza on the abuse of prayer from the Audelay MS.

Fein, Susanna Greer

John Audelay's broad familiarity with the alliterative style can be surmised by perusing the contents of the Audelay MS (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 302),(1) but an important piece of evidence has yet to be recognized and described. Embedded in a prose extract (taken from Richard Rolle's Form of Living; see Appendix) there appears a fragment of interpolated alliterative verse (f. [32.sup.v]. This recovered lyric, in form a thirteen-line stanza, may derive from a lengthier, now lost work. In subject it is about the abuses of prayer, and it contains a clerical warning about two devils, who are named by the author as Titivillus and Rofyn, a demonic partnership that records verbal infractions committed against God. The prose context for the rhyme, which contains a verbal 'trigger' that is repeated within the passage, suggests that the interpolation represents a snatch of verse recalled from memory, presumably by the blind poet himself.

By the time of the redaction of the Audelay MS (c. 1426), John Audelay's career as capellanus to Richard Lestrange, Lord of Knockin (Shropshire), had settled from an earlier active service in the lord's retinue into quiet retirement at Haughmond Abbey as priest of the Lestrange family chantry.(2) The poet appears to have supervised the book-making endeavour: a single copyist wrote out nearly all of the poetry and prose, creating an anthology of Audelay's writings, and a second hand (the 'corrector') then inserted incipits, colophons, marginal notations and corrections which, taken together, convey a strong sense that the author had direct control of the volume.(3) Autobiographical details emerge from the poetry and colophons, with frequent ascriptions to Audelay as poet. A picture emerges of a man afflicted by age, retired from worldly affairs, deeply repentant of errors made in his earlier life, and suffering impairments of both sight and hearing. The verse appearing in the volume, tending towards a repetitive didacticism, falls well short of greatness, but readers have remarked upon a certain sweet fervour, akin to George Herbert, in the finer carols and salutations to saints.[4] And even as a lesser poet Audelay carries historical distinction: he is one of very few identifiable authors of alliterative verse, and he is the earliest named carol writer.(5)

The Audelay MS also commands the attention of those interested in the English alliterative tradition because it preserves, uniquely, two authentic poems from the school, one of them a striking example written in the dialect of the Gawain poet (De tribus regibus mortuis, f.[34.sup.r-v]).(6) Scholars do not ascribe these two pieces to John Audelay. Displaying an intricate craftsmanship, redolent of an earlier generation when such verse flourished, these poems easily exceed the chaplain's less polished, loosely composed productions.(7) Nonetheless, even though Audelay did not write them, he very likely was the one responsible for the placement of these two anonymous poems in the volume.

To judge from his dialect, Audelay was born and educated north of Shropshire, probably in Staffordshire, roughly where the town of Audley lies outside Stoke-on-Trent.(8) One can surmise that an earlier period of Audelay's life, that is, some portion of the 1380s and 1390s, was spent in the north-west Midlands - a time and vicinity witnessing the emergence of a high alliterative style. Fifteenth-century records indicate Audelay's familiarity with noble circles, he himself possibly being one of the 'baronial Audleys of Heighley'.(9) It is tempting to consider that he might have come into contact with the northwestern households commissioning alliterative verse, or even with some poets who practised it. Whether or not he had direct contact with actual sources, his probable origins suggest that the verse forms of the alliterative poets, stylish in his youth, had a continuing influence upon Audelay's literary talents and tastes.

Such a set of circumstances would offer an explanation for the presence of De tribus regibus mortuis in the Audelay MS. A poem striking for its technical virtuosity, it may be a piece Audelay knew from his younger days. As a sign of high regard for the poem, Audelay has positioned it strategically at the end of the manuscript, to accompany other 'last things' pertaining to a theme of preparedness for death. The Rolle extract - and with it the interpolated alliterative stanza - appears in this section of the manuscript as well, and the stanza may likewise derive from an earlier active association with alliterative verse.

A few of Audelay's personal productions further confirm one's sense that the poet's knowledge of the alliterative method was intimate, if not entirely adept in execution. A lengthy poem by Audelay, entitled De concordia inter rectores fratres et rectores ecclesie (ff. [2.sup,r]-[7.sup.v]), exhibits a profound debt to Piers Plowman in its attempt to adopt the prophetic manner and alliterative rhythm distinctive of Langland's style.(10) A salutation to St Winifred, opening 'Hayle! Wenefryd, pat worchipful with pi vergenete' (ff. [26.sup.v]-[27.sup.r]), also displays Audelay's methodical use of alliterative diction. In assimilating Langland's colloquial cadences, Audelay borrowed from the long-line style, but in strophic form he also experimented with the stanzaic alliterative tradition. The two non-Audelaian alliterative poems belong to that branch of the movement, a separate development that produced, in the north Midlands and the north, accomplished works like The Pistel of Swete Susan, Somer Soneday, The Awntyrs off Arthure and several York plays. Indeed, the thirteen-line stanzas of Audelay's own De concordia combine the influence of Langland and someone like the De tribus regibus mortuis poet. The interpolated stanza also conforms to the more compact, aristocratic thirteen-line style, which was typically marked by fine interplays of sound, sense and form.(11)

The short interpolation appears towards the end of the Rolle extract. Most of it is written as prose, with the last five lines marked off as verse. Upon close inspection, one discovers the whole passage to be verse: a scribe has punctuated with heavy dots the line divisions within the 'prose' section. The insertion of spurious lines into the Rolle text was probably inspired by the word 'rabul' in the prose, which also occurs towards the end of the addition ('rabulde', in the eighth line of the stanza). The portion written by the scribe as prose (the long lines) concludes in a bob-and-wheel, written out as verse. When the interpolation is reconstructed as a full stanza, the rhymes unifying the long lines become obvious. The result is a thirteen-line alliterative stanza, unique to this manuscript.(12)

Combining echoes of Langland's satiric style with the low comedy of devils in the mystery plays, the stanza reverberates with alliterative collocations for the wastrels who mumble their orisons, and it spells out the dual tasks of the demons Titivillus and Rofyn, who delight in these persons' verbal lassitude:

Ouer-hippers and skippers, moterers and mumlers - Tytyuyllis tytild here wordus and takes ham to hys pray; 3apers and ianglers, haukeers and hunters - pe hole seruys of God pai schend when pay say. Rofyn wyl rede hom ful redely in his rolle anoder day, When pay ben called to here cowntis and to here rekenyng - Hou pay han sayde here seruys, pe Prince of Heuen to pay, Butt rabulde hit fforthe vnreuerently by caus of hyyng, Without dewocion: Fore better hit were stil to be, Pen to say Godys seruys vndewoutly; Pai scornen God ful sekyrle, And han his maleson.

The reconstructed stanza reveals a rhyme pattern of ababbcbcdeeed, a strophic form corresponding to Audelay's alliterative De concordia. In Audelay's own work, here and elsewhere, one can find, too, a similar recurrent concern with the abuses of prayer.(13)

In manuscript the interpolated section has suffered an unusual degree of correction - with many erasures - by the second hand, and it is written in a crabbed fashion, as though the first scribe had tried to squeeze it into a small space and the corrector took special responsibility for its accuracy. One can imagine the stanza to be a bit of verse stored in Audelay's memory, called up specifically for recitation after Rolle's word 'rabul' in a similar context. The corrector's diligence may indicate the old poet's deliberate second attempt to reproduce the remembered stanza faithfully.

The passage depicts the devils acting in collusion to tempt and then claim the sinners of mouth, who neglect their prayers and the holy service. While Titivillus, the devil of idle talk, seduces wayward souls (his 'prey') by 'tittling' impious chatter into their ears,(14) Rofyn records their utterances to be later recited on Doomsday.(15) The pairings of sinners begin with those who recite prayers carelessly, either omitting portions ('ouer-hippers and skippers')(16) or speaking indistinctly ('moterers and mumlers); both of these lapses pertain especially to clerics who say mass, because of the participants' dependence upon their prayers, as in the fears expressed by the dreamer in Piers Plowman:

Wherfore I am afered of folk of holy kirke, Lest pei ouerhuppe, as oopere doon in office and in houres. Ac if pei ouerhuppe, as I hope no3t, oure bileue suffisep, As clerkes in Corpus Christi feeste syngen and reden That sola fides sufficit to saue wip lewed peple.(17)

The next pairings represent more vigorous infractions, the chattering '3apers and ianglers' and the worldly 'haukeers and hunters', who literally mutilate the holy service with their inattentive words.(18) The sinners' lack of devotion 'scorns' God; in return they will receive God's own curse. The devils' almost comic performances are similar to acts of dictation and scribal redaction, filtered through the hapless sinners, with a keen contrast felt between the sinners' heedless, mumbling prayer and the devils' careful verbal accounts, as they take their 'pray' (the word is surely a pun).(19) It is far better to be silent than to take the Lord's service in vain.

While Audelay's own verse seldom displays such imaginative flair and compressed subtlety, there is something of his style here, especially in the diction and casual neglect of alliteration, for example, in the third staves of the sixth and eighth lines. The subject of saying prayers properly is certainly one he held dear, and among the known references to the recording devil (normally Titivillus, when he is named at all), this demon is called Rofyn only in the Audelay MS.(20) Audelay's long alliterative poem upon fraternal abuses is itself incomplete in manuscript, so the possibility exists that the stanza belongs to it, although I would tend to doubt it. Even with the overt similarities to many of Audelay's favoured themes, this pithy stanza on devilish antics is aesthetically distinct from Audelay's rambling and repetitive harangue against the lax ecclesiasts. We are more likely witnessing a fragment of an earlier, lost work that fed Audelay's imagination and helped to inspire his own poetic endeavour.

Although we cannot hope to determine with certainty whether the recovered stanza is Audelay's creation or remembered from elsewhere (or a bit of both), the subject of the interpolation does itself belong to a long-standing tradition of pulpit oratory upon the dangers of reciting prayers poorly, recorded in its earliest manifestation in Jacques de Vitry's Sermones vulgares (c- 1225). An oft-repeated Latin couplet carried proverbial force in many collections of exempla dating from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries:

Fragmina verborum Titivillus colligit horum Quibus die mille vicibus se sarcinet ille.(21)

These verses frequently accompany a story of a sack-bearing devil, which survives in an English translation from the fifteenth century, linking the devil Titivillus to ecclesiastics who abuse the holy service: a holy man witnesses the devil shouldering a heavy sack full of 'sillapis & wordis pat er ouerhippid, & also versis of pe salter & wurdis er mombled pat pir prestis & pies clerkis hase stolne in pis matyn-while.(22) In what Margaret Jennings calls an 'oblique development' of the English tradition, vernacular epithets for the perpetrators of the verbal infractions enter the Latin sermon literature, as in John Bromyard's fourteenth-century Ordo clericalis:

Ecclesie tres sunt qui servitium male soluunt Forschippers, momelers, overlepers, non bene psallunt.(23)

By the late fifteenth century one finds the list expanded to:

Ionglers cum Jappers, Nappers, Galpers, quoque jura; Momlers, Fforskippers, Over(r)enners, sic Overhippers. Fragmina verborum TUTIVILLUS colligit horum.(24)

The alliterative poet of the interpolated stanza has fashioned a lively alliterative catalogue from what was a conventional list of popular epithets for those who abuse prayer. If the stanza does indeed preserve a favourite clerical saying, one can easily understand Audelay's apt recall of the passage after Rolle's word 'rabuld' in the same context.

The precise reason for a scribe's insertion of the passage within the prose of Richard Rolle cannot be fully known. Even so, by pinpointing the features of the interpolation, we can enlarge the existing record of late mediaeval English alliterative verse. The Audelay stanza upon those who abuse prayer becomes another bit of evidence for piecing out a history of an interesting poetic movement.

APPENDIX

An Extract from Richard Rolle, The Form of Living (Lines 329-98),

MS Douce 302, f. 32

The Form of Living was Richard Rolle's last work, written in 1348-9 for the instruction of Margaret Kirkby, a young recluse.(25) It survives in some forty-four manuscripts, fifteen of which contain extracts rather than the complete treatise. These extracts exhibit no particular pattern for selection, so it would appear that different compilers chose passages to suit their individual interests. Assigned the heading 'De peccatis cordis' (derived from the opening phrase), the piece in the Audelay MS mentions neither Rolle nor the treatise.

In terms of the Rolle manuscripts that divide The Form of Living into chapters, the Audelay extract represents a little less than half of the sixth chapter. According to Dennis Rygiel's breakdown of the treatise's structure, it expounds what defiles a person, one of the 'fowre thynges' to understand in order to be 'ryght disposed' to conform one's will to God.(26) Specifically it is a threefold catalogue of sins according to their physical points of origin: sins of the heart, of the mouth and of the deed.(27) This work and the next prose item in the manuscript, An honest bed,(28) together comprise a two-part section of prose, which has been assigned its own introductory verses and scribal section number (XXXV).

Except for the interpolation, the Douce 302 extract is fairly faithful to Rolle's text.(20) Many variants are shared by other manuscripts of Form, but no surviving manuscript looks like a direct source for Douce 302. These shared variants almost all correspond to readings that exist somewhere within a group of only seven manuscripts ([DBFLdB.sup.2]ChHa), each of which falls within S. J. Ogilvie-Thomson's proposed Dd descent.(30) One can reasonably conclude that the Douce exemplar was related to this group. The Rolle text has lost one line due to an eyeskip upon the word 'reuerens' (line 24, a variant shared with another manuscript), and a second one possibly to the same kind of error (line 49, apparently unique to Douce 302, in which a scribe appears to have skipped from 'many' to 'done', and wrote the word 'mone'). The word 'il(e)', which (according to Ogilvie-Thomson's edition) represents Rolle's original adjective, has been habitually rendered 'euyl'.(31) There are several non-substantive variants that do not affect the sense.(32)

The textual notes offered here present only the substantive variants or errors in reference to Ogilvie-Thomson's base-text (abbreviated O-T).(33) Most of these variants are shared with other manuscripts, but several also appear to be unique to Douce 302. Those already noted by Ogilvie-Thomson are designated 'unique', while those omitted from her select list of variants are designated 'apparently unique'. Two apparently unique readings may also represent correct forms (lines 47 and 49). Shared variants are provided only in reference to the seven closest manuscripts.(34)

For ease of comparison, the transcription adopts the divisions and punctuation of the Ogilvie-Thomson edition. The Rolle text in Douce 302 conforms to these divisions with one exception: a new section begins with 'The circumstances' (line 46), not with 'And' (line 49). Significant scribal features are cited in the textual notes, especially the presence of hand 2, the 'corrector. Expanded abbreviations are indicated by italics. The only one needing special notice is the ending | -ion', which is often spelled out; the occasional abbreviation |-on' has thus been expanded to |-ion' to conform to the scribe's spelling elsewhere. Rubricated initials occur at the opening of sections (lines 6, 23, 34, and 46 (a mistake)). The first initial |T' is the only one ornamentally formed in both blue and red inks; the rest are simply in red.

[f. 32r] Rede thys offt, butt rede hit sofft,

 And whatt pou redust, for3eete hit no3t;
 For here pe soth pou maght se
 What fruyte comep of py body.
5 De peccatis cord[is]

These synnys of pe hert arne pese: euyl po3tes, evel delytis, ascentyng to syn,

dissire of euel, wykkid wyll, euyl suspessions, vndeuocion (3if pou let pyn hert

ene tyme be ydil without ocupacion in pe worchipyng of pi God); evol loue,

erroure, fleschele afexion to pi fryndis, or to oper pat pou louyst, ioy in one mons 10 euel fare (weper pay bene enmyes ore non); dispite of pore men or of synful, to

honore ryche men fore her reches, vnconabil ioy of one word vanetes, sorow

fore pe losse of wordis catel, vnpolomodnes, perplexete (pat is deute what is to

do, and wot no3t, fore eueremon oup fore to be sekyr what he schal do, whot he

schal lefe), obstenacion in euyl, noy to do good, angur to Gode, sorow pat he did 15 no more [e]wol, or pat he dud no[3]t pat lust or pat wyl of his lust-flesche pe

wyche he my3t haue done, vnstabilnes of po3t, pyne of pena[n]ce, ypocrece,

loue to plese man, [f. [32.sup.v] dred to plese hom, schame of good dede, ioy of euyl

dede, synglere wit, couetys of worchyp, of dyngnete, or to be holdyn better pen

oper, ore rysere, or fayrer, or to be more dred, vayn-glore of one goodys of kynd 20 or of happe ore of grace, schame of pore fryndys, pride of ryche kyn ore of

gentyl (ffore al we are elyche fre before Godys face, bot our dedys makyp ouse

better or worse pen oper), dyspyte of good cownsel and of good techeng.

The synys of pe moup aren pese: to swere of-syp, foresweryng, schawnd of

Crist ore of one of his sayntis, to nemne his name without reuerens, backbytyng, 25 glosyng, stryuyng, thretyng, sowyng of dyscord, tresown, false wyttenes, euyl

cownsel, skornyng, vnbuxumnes with worde, to turne good dede to euyl fore to

make hom behold evel pat dop hom good (we how to turne our ne3tbore dedys

into pe best, nott in pe worst), exityng ene mon to wrap, to repreuyn oper of pat

he dop himselue, veyn speche, mochil speche, to speke way-wordys and ydul or 30 wordys pat were ne nede, bostyng, polyschyng of wordys, defendyng of synne,

cryyng in la3tur, mowys to make on one mon, to syng seculer songys and loue

hom of paromowrs of wordys wanete, to preyse evol dedys, to syng more ffore

praysyng of men pan fore pe worchyp of God.

The synys of dede ar pese: glotony, lechore, dronkones, symone, wychecraft, 35 brekyng of pe hole dayse, sacrelege, to resayue Godys body in dedle synne,

wetyngle bre[k]yng of vowys, apostasey, neclegens in Godys seruys, to 3if evyl

ensampyl of evyl dede, to hurte one mon vpon his, bode or on his goodis or in

his fame, peft, ravayn, vseure, dyssayte, in sellyng of ry3twysnes, to herkyn evyl,

to 3if to harlottis, to withhold nessessaryes fro pe bode or to 3if hit outrage, to 40 begyn a pyng pat is aboue oure my3t, conscent to syn, fallyng efft in synne,

ffynyng of more good pen we haue fore to seme holear or conyngere ore wyser

pen we are, to holdyn pe ofyse pat we fulfyl no3t to, ore pat may no3t be holdyn

withoutyn syn, to lede karalys,(35) to bryng vp a new gyse, to be rebel to his

soferens, to defoule hom pat has lasse, to synne in sy3t, in herynge, in smellynge, 45 in towchyng, in handylyng, in 3iftis, wy3tis, wayus, syngnys, bekeny[n]gys,

wrytyngys; receyue. The circumstans pat ar tyme, stede, maner, nombyr, person,

dwellyng, helde (pese make on pe synne more oper lasse), to couet to syn or he

be temptid, to constrayne him to synne.

And oper mone: not thynkyng on Godd, ne dredyng, ne louyng, ne ponkyng 50 him of his good dedys, to do no3t all ffore Godys lue pat he dop, to sorow, no3t

fore his syn as he schuld do, to dysplesen no3t to ressayue grace, 3ef he haue

ressayuyd grace, to vse hit no3t as him no3t, ne kepe hit no3t, to turne at pe

inspyracion of God, to conferme not his wyl to Godys wyl, to 3if not his entent

to his prayers, bot rabul on and rechep neuer how pai bene saxd: [Ouer-hippers 55 and skier moterers and mumlers - . Tytyuyllis tyild here ordus and takes ham to

hys, pray; 3apers and ianglers, haukeers and hunters - pe hole seruys of God pai schend

when pay say. Rofyn wyl rede hom ful redely in his rolle anoder day, When pay hen called

to here cowntis and to here rekenyng - Hou pay han sayde here seruys, pe Prince of

Heuen to pay,. Butt rabulde hit fforthe vnreuerently by caus of hyyng, 60 Without dewocion:

Fore better hit were stil to be,

pen to say Godys seruys undewoutly;

pai scornyn Godful sekyrle,

han his maleson.]

65 To do neclegens pat he is holdyn to do pro3 avowe ore comawndment ore is

enioynde in penans, to draw along pat is to done sone, hauyng no ioy of his

no3tbore prophete as him houpe, sorowyng no3t of his evol fare, wyche-ston[d]yng

no3t a3ayns temptaciones, fore3ifyng no3t hom Pat haue done him harme, kepyng

no3t troup to his ne3tbors as he wold he dud to him, and 3ildyng him no3t a 70 good dede fore anoper 3if he may, amendup not hom pat synnep before his ene,

peesyng no3t striues, techyng hom no3t pat are vnkonyng, comfford hom no3t

pat are in sorowe ore in sekenes. Dese synns and oper moo makyn men foule in

pe sY3t of God.

[Q]uicumque insbexerit.

TEXTUAL NOTES

(1-4) Rede thys offt] IMEV 2795; hand 2 (5 ) De peccatis cordis] hand 2; runs into right margin with letters after

cord cut Off

(6) pe] ap arently unique; oure O-T
(8) ocupacion] followed hy erasure

worchipyng] apparently unique; loue and pe praysynge O-T

evol loue] unique omission; il dreed, il loue O-T (10) euel farel [DBFLDB.sup.2]ChHa et alia; ilfare, sorowe in har welfare O-T

enmyes] hand 2, written over erasure (11) her] r interlined, hand 2

vnconabill FHa et alia; vnconuenable O-T

word] worldis O-T (12) losse of] B et alia; omitted O-T

wordis catel] BFLD et alia; world O-T

deutel dout O-T (13) no3t] 3 interlined, hand 2

whot] Ld et alia; and what O-T (14) to Gode] unique; to serue God O-T (15) ewol] wol (scribal error); ille O-T (reads Do wel)

no3t] no..t (letters are obscure)

wyl] [DBLdB.sup.2]Ha et alia; lykynge O-T

lust-flesche] apparently unique; fleishe O-T (16) penance] pena..ce (letters are obscure) (17) plese hom] apparently unique; displese ham O-T (18) wit] MS wt; witte O-T worchyp] apparently unique; honour or O-T dyngnete] first n abbreviated; cf.spelling syngnys in line 51. (19) rysere] richer O-T (20) fryndys) letters ry have an extra stroke between them, as though the scribe first wrote fro and then turned the o into y (21) gentyl] ge written by corrector bot] bot if O-T ouse] FLdCh et alia; any O-T (22) or] followed by erasure (23) schawndl sklaundrynge O-T (24) sayntis] apparently unique; halowes O-T reuerens] line omitted; error shared with Ch only; reuerence, gaynsigge and stryue ayeyns sothfastnes, gruch ayayns God for any anguys or noy or tribulacioun pat may befalle in erth, vndeuoutly and without reuerence sei and hire Godis seruice O-T (25) glosyng, stryuyng, thretyng] variant shared with FLd only; flattrynge,lesynge, myssiggynge, wreyynge, disfamynge, cursynge, menacynge O-T (26) worde] hand 2 turne] DBFLdCh et alia; lap O-T (28) wrap] apparently unique; ire O-T (29) mochil speche] LdCh et alia; moche speche, fool speche O-T to speke way-wordys and ydul] apparently unique; speke idel wordes O-T (30) bostyng] [DBFLdB.sup.2] Ch et alia; roosynge O-T (31) in] [DLdB.sup.2] ChHa et alia; and O-T (emended from in) mowys to make] DBFLdChHa et alia; mowe O-T (32) hom of paromowrs of wordys wanete] apparently unique; ham O-T (33) fore be worchyp] apparently unique; omitted O-T (35) Godys body] [DBFLdB.sup.2] Ha et alia; God O-T (36) wetyngle] apparently unique; omitted O-T brekyng] brelyng MS neclegens] variant shared with FLd only; dissolucioun O-T evyl] error shared with [B.sup.2] only; omitted O-T (40) my3t] alia; powere or myght O-T conscent] apparently unique; custume O-T (41) ffynyng] feynynge O-T (42) fulfyl] apparently unique; suffice O-T (43) to be] [DBLdB.sup.2]ChHa et alia; omitted O-T (44) soferens] suffrayne O-T has] apparently unique; han D; ben O-T (records D han) (45) handylyng] FLd et alia; handlynge, swelighynge O-T wy3tis] unique; omitted O-T bekenyngys] bekenygys MS, [LdB.sup.2] et alia; biddynges O-T (46) receyue] agrees with most MSS; reteyne O-T (emended from receyue) The] decorated capital T, beginning of new section pat ar] BHa et alia; pe which ben O-T (47) dwellyng] FLd et alia; dwellynge, connynge O-T pese] apparently unique and correct, pese O-T (emended from yere) on] omitted O-T (48) him to] followed hy erasure (49) And oper mone] apparently unique, probably a scribal error, Opre many synnes bene per of omyssioun, whan men leuen pe good pat pei shold done O-T not thynkyng] apparently unique and correct; interlined, hand 2; nat pynkynge O-T (emended from pat pynkynge) (50) good dedys] apparently unique; benfaites O-T do] interlined, hand 2 (51) dysplesen] apparently unique; dispose hym O-T (52) ressayuyd] variant shared by F only; taken O-T turnel variant shared by [BB.sup.2] only; turne nat O-T (53) [his.sup.2] DFLdCh et alia; omitted O-T (54) how] apparently unique, Ha et alia read hou that; bot that O-T (54-64) Ouer ... maleson] Unique interpolation; lines 61-7 written as prose, but the end of each line is punctuated with a heavy dot (55) takes] s interlined, hand 2 (56) hys pray] interlined, hand 2 hunters] followed by erasure hole] followed hy erasure (57) anoder day] noder day interlined, hand 2 called] in margin, hand 2 (58) rekenyng] written over erasure, hand 2 sayde] de interlined, hand 2 (58-9) pe ... hyyng] written over erasure, hand 2 (final g is by hand I) (65) neclegens) error shared (coincidentally?) with T only; negligently O-T [do.sup.2] BLdCh et alia; omitted O-T (66) along] BFLD et alia; aleynth O-T (67) him houpe] varsiant shared with Ld only; of his owne O-T evoll followed by erasure wyche-stondyng] MS wyche stonyng, wyche inserted, hand 2; standynge O-T (70) ene] eighen O-T (71) striues] i interlined, hand 2 (72) sekenes] Ld et alia; sekenesse or in pouerte or in penaunce and in prisone O-T (72-3) in pe sy3t of God] addition shared with Ch only; omitted O-T (74) Quicumque inspexerit] lacks initial Q; hand 4; Braswell reads first word incumque.

NOTES

I thank the Keeper of Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library for permission to print the Douce 302 Rolle text. Kent State University has provided generous support for this study, through the Research Council and the Institute for Bibliography and Editing. For helpful advice I am also indebted to A. S. G. Edwards, A. I. Doyle, Derek Pearsall, Sarah Ogilvie-Thomson, David Raybin and an anonymous reviewer. (1) See The Poems of John Audelay, ed. Ella Keats Whiting, EETS, os 184 (Oxford, 1931). Whiting's edition omits the prose of Douce 302 (ff. [32.sup.r] - [33.sup.v]), which has subsequently remained obscure and unprinted. (2) On Audelay's career, see Poems of Audelay, ed. Whiting, pp. xiv-xvi; and Michael Bennett, |John Audley: some new evidence on his life and work', Chaucer Review, 16 (1981-2), 344-5 5. (3) On Audelay's apparent authority over the contents and the likelihood that he dictated at least some of the material to the two scribes, see Poems of Audelay, ed. Whiting, pp. viii-x, xv; and J. Ernst Wulfing, |Der Dichter John Audelay und sein Werk', Anglia, 18 (1896), 178. The degree of Audelay's blindness and how it affected the copying of Douce 302 are vexed questions that this study does not propose to resolve. Certainly most of the manuscript, including the Rolle text, seems to have been based upon written exemplars. But the personalizing nature of many of hand 2's insertions elsewhere in the book suggest that the poet's ear and voice were in the background, hearing the verse read to him, correcting errors orally, and composing new verses directed to the reader. The interpolation of a verse snippet within the established Rolle text illustrates further the mixed written/oral quality of the book. (4) For some favourable appraisals of Audelay's verse, with comparisons to Herbert, see Rosemary Woolf, The English Religious Lyric in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1968), pp. 7, 222, 296, 336; Elizabeth Salter,Fourteenth-Century English Poetry: Contexts and Readings (Oxford, 1983), pp. 17-18; and Philippa Tristram, Figures of Life and Death in Medieval English Literature (New York, 1976), p. 222. (5) On Audelay's collection of twenty-five carols (ff. [27.sup.v]-[32.sup.v]), see E. K. Chambers, English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1945), pp. 85-6, 88, 92-4, 103-4; and The Early English Carols, ed. Richard Leighton Greene, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1977), pp. xxx, clvi, 343-4, 372, 403, 418, 420, 428-9, 436, 442, 450-1, 459, 475-6. The carols have been edited separately in E. K. Chambers and F. Sidgwick, |Fifteenth-century carols by John Audelay', The Modern Language Review, 5 (1910), 473-91; 6 (1911), 68-84. The Audelay MS is also notable for containing the only recorded instance of minstrel ownership in all the carol manuscripts: see The Early English Carols, ed. Greene, p. 317; and Andrew Taylor, |The myth of the minstrel manuscript', Speculum, 66 (1991), 65-6, 73. (6) The second poem is The Pater Noster (ff. [33.sup.v] - [34.sup.r]). These two poems appear in Whiting's edition (poems 53 and 54; pp. 214-23). (7) On their unknown authorship, see Poems of Audelay, ed. Whiting, pp. xxiv-xxvii; and Angus McIntosh, |Some notes on the text of the Middle English poem De tribus regibus mortuis', RES, n.s. 28 (1977), 386. (8) McIntosh, |Some notes', p. 386 n. 1. (9) Bennett, |John Audley', p. 345. (10) Derek Pearsall, Old English and Middle English Poetry (London, 1977), p. 249. (11) On stanzaic alliterative verse, see ibid., pp. 185-8. (12) For a list of poems in the thirteen-line stanza, see Thorlac Turville-Petre, "'Summer Sunday", "De tribus regibus mortuis", and "The Awntyrs off Arthure": three poems in the thirteen-line stanza', RES, n.s. 25 (1974), 3-13. (13) See, e.g., 2.196-208, and compare 18.353-72. The aa/bb pattern of alliteration occurring in the stanza is relatively common in the thirteen-line tradition: cf. |Reuers and rebanes, with gownne and with gyde, / Bendys and botonys, felettis and fare, / Golde one paire garlandis, perry and pryde ...' (The Quatrefoil of Love, ed. Israel Gollancz and Magdalene M. Weale, EETS, os 195 (Oxford, 1935), p. 16 (lines 457-9)). (14) Titivillus seeks out the gossips in church in a fifteenth-century poem, |On chattering in church' (Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century, ed. Carleton Brown (Oxford, 1939; repr. 1952), p. 277)). He is also the vice figure in the morality play Mankind (c. 1465-70), where the acting role doubles with that of Mercy (Medieval Drama, ed. David Bevington (Boston, Mass., 1975), p. 901). In that play, too, Titivillus is a |tittler', that is, a whisperer to sinners, prompting their idle misbehaviours: |I shall go to his ere and tityll therin' (line 557). The evidence for Titivillus' literary origins in sermon exempla is well laid out in Margaret Jennings, CSJ, |Tutivillus, the literary career of the recording demon', Studies in Philology, 74 (1977), 1-95. (15) Elsewhere Audelay warns that if one speaks in church devils will record every word (9.270-2), and he names Rofyn as the devil who writes down the chatter of gossips during mass (9.29l-302). In Audelay's further account the devil's antics cause St Augustine (the only person able to see him) to laugh aloud during mass. An earlier version of this comic tale appears in the Vernon MS (The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS. Part II, ed. F.J. Furnivall, EETS, OS 117 (Oxford, 1901), p.104), but the demon is named neither there nor in other analogues (The Knight of La Tour-Landry, Handlyng Synne: see Poems of Audelay, ed. Whiting, p.237). Derived from Latin forms, the name Rofyn appears in English in the thirteenth century (MED, s.v. |ruffin' n.) and, in Audelay's day, occurs in the Chester Tanners' Play |The Fall of Lucifer' (The Chester Mystery Cycle, 1, ed. R. M. Lumiansky and David Mills, EETS, ss 3 (Oxford, 1974), p. 11). (16) The prefix |ouer-' applies to both |hippers' and |skippers': see MED, s.vv. |overhippen' v.(a), and |overskipper' n.; cf. Promptorium parvulorum (c. 1440), ed. A. L. Mayhew, EETS, ES 102 (Oxford, 1908): |Ovyr hyppen, or ovyrskyppen ... : omitto' (col. 324). (17) B xv.385-9 (Piers Plowman: The B Version, ed. George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson (London, 1975), p. 5 57). In Audelay's day such criticism of the clergy might hint of Lollardy, a charge about which the chaplain felt sensitive and which he emphatically denies (e.g., 2. 133, 2.500-3, 2.669-88, 18.248-60): see Anne Hudson, The Premature Reformation (Oxford, 1988), p. 22. Compare similar views on hypocritical shows of devotion in the Lollard tract The Lanterne of [Li.sub.3] t, for the possession of which a John Claydon of London was burned in 1415. The anonymous author cites how |preiars in pe fendis chirche maken miche noise mumling wip her lippis' and how Scripture is properly read in church |wipouten corrupting or ouere-hipping of lettir word or sillable' (The Lanterne of [Li.sub.3] t, ed. Lilian M. Swinburn, EETS, os 151 (Oxford,1917), pp. 50-1, 56). (18) On the collocations in this line, compare Piers Plowman B x.31: | And Iaperis and Iogelours and langleris of gestes'; and see MED, s.v. |hauken' v.(1)(a). (19) Cf. MED, s.vv. |preie' n.(1), |request, a prayer', and |preie' n.(2), |prey', with numerous examples under 3(c) and (d) of devils |taking' humans |to their' prey. Elsewhere in Douce 302 Audelay refers to |fyndis pray' (24.116; Whiting unnecessarily emends |pray' to |fray', p. 175). The irony of those who pray (|pray-ers') becoming prey is similar to the irony of hunters becoming the hunted, a trope that appears also in De tribus regibus mortuis. On the figurative use of hunting, see Turville-Petre, |Three poems', pp. 5-12; and cf. Chaucer's Monk's reference to the text |That seith that hunters ben nat hooly men'(I.178): The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson (Boston, Mass.,1987), p. 26. (20) Jennings, |Tutivillus', p. 87; on Rofyn's first appearance in Douce 302, see n. 15 above. (21) Jennings, |Tutivillus', pp.11-20. (22) An Alphabet of Tales, ed. Mary MacLeod Banks, EETS, OS 126, 127 (Oxford, 1904-5), p. 104. (23) Jennings, |Tutivillus', pp. 18-19. (24) London, British Library, MS Lansdowne 763 (c. 1460); cited ibid., p.19. (25) Rolle died in 1349, and Margaret Kirkby became a recluse on 12 December 1348. The treatise is thus dated in the last year of his life. See John A. Alford, |Richard Rolle and related writings', in Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres, ed. A. S. G. Edwards (New Brunswick, NJ, 1984), pp. 36, 43; and R. E. Lewis, N. F. Blake and A. S. G. Edwards, Index of Printed Middle English Prose (New York, 1985), pp. 124-5 (no. 351). (26) Dennis Rygiel, |Structure and style in Rolle's The Form of Living', Fourteenth Century English Mystics Newsletter, 4.1 (1978), 8. For the chapter divisions, see English Writings of Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole, ed. Hope Emily Allen (Oxford, 1931; repr. 1963), where the extract appears on pp.97-9. (27) The catalogue was borrowed, and altered slightly, by the authors of two English pastoral manuals: the Speculum Christiani (c. 1360-80), ed. Gustaf Holmstedt, EETS, OS 182 (London, 1933), pp. 76-90; and Jacob's Well (c. 1400-25), ed. Arthur Brandeis, EETS, OS 115, pt I (London, 1900), pp. 294-6. Rosamund S. Allen, Richard Rolle: The English Writings (New York, 1988), p.217 n. 26, identifies Rolle's source to be Hugh of Strasbourg's late thirteenth-century Compendium theologicae veritatis. A similar catalogue exists in Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum naturale, XXXI.92-3: see Morton W. Bloomfield, The Seven Deadly Sins (East Lansing, Mich., 1952), p. 126. On the relationship between the Speculum Christiani and Rolle's Form, see Vincent Gillespie, |The evolution of the Speculum Christian?, in Latin and Vernacular Studies in Late Medieval Texts and Manuscripts, ed. A. J. Minnis (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 50-1, 61. (28) Recently edited from Oxford, University College, MS 123 in A. I. Doyle, |Lectulus noster floridus. an allegory of the penitent soul', in Literature and Religion in the Later Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of Siegfried Wenzel, ed. Richard G. Newhauser and John A. Alford (Binghamton, NY, 1994), pp. 179-90. See Robert R. Raymo, |Works of religious and philosophical instruction', in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1500, ed. J. Burke Severs and Albert E. Hartung, 8 vols (Hamden, Conn., 1967-89), VII, 2334-5, 2542; and P. S. Jolliffe, A Check-List of Middle English Prose Writings of Spiritual Guidance (Toronto, 1974), pp. 113-14 (1.35). (29) The existence of the interpolation was noted in Richard Rolle: Prose and Verse, Edited from MS Longleat 29 and Related Manuscripts, ed. S. J. Ogilvie-Thomson, EETS, OS 293 (Oxford, 1988), p. xliii; and by Laurel Braswell, The Index of Middle English Prose, Handlist IV: A Handlist of Douce Manuscripts containing Middle English Prose in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 70-1. Neither recognized it as an alliterative stanza. (30) The seven manuscripts are: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Digby 18 (D), and Bodley 110 (B); Chelmsford, Beeleigh Abbey, Foyle MS (F); Oxford, Bodleian Library, MSS Laud Misc. 210 (Ld), and Bodley 938 ([B.sup.2]; Manchester, Chetham's Library, MS 6690 (Ch); and London, British Library, MS Harley 1022 (Ha). For the manuscripts of Form, see Richard Rolle, ed. Ogilvie-Thomson, pp. xvi-xvii, xxxvi-xliv; for a recension and the Dd descent, see ibid., p. Ixi. The Dd group of manuscripts supports all but one of the shared variants, the exception being |neclegens' at line 65, shared (probably by coincidence) with Cambridge, Trinity College MS B 14.38 (T). (31) This substitution, which occurs fifteen times ([6.sup.1], [6.sup.2], [7.sup.1],[7.sup.2]], 8, 10 ,14, 15 (scribal error |wol'), 17, 25, 26, 27, 32, 38,67), could perhaps provide a clue as to the exemplar of the Douce 302 Rolle passage. The variant is unfortunately one not included in Ogilvie-Thomson's listings, which were limited for practical reasons (Richard Rolle, ed. Ogilvie-Thomson, p. xcvi). A full critical edition of Rolle's Form of Living does not yet exist and is much to be desired. On the textual difficulties remaining for an editor, see Rosemarie McGerr's review, Speculum, 66 (1991), 944. (32) Douce 302's minor variants (excluded from my textual notes) fall into the following categories: (a) Omissions (21 bot [if], 27 [for] to, 28 best [and], 38 herkyn [of], 49 louynge [hym], 51 grace [and] (b) Additions (9 pi, 13 and, 13 [fore.sup.2], 34 The, 35 pe, 38 in, 43 a, 45 [in.sup.1] 45 [in.sup.2], 47 on, 49 And) (c) Inverted words or phrases (10 men / or of synful, 32 syng / more, 50 ffore Godys loue / pat he dop, 69 [to] him / no3t, 71 hom / [no3t.sup.1], 71 hom / [no3t.sup.2]); (d) Verbal forms or inflexions (6 arne, 6 ascentyng, 18 be, 19 dred, 21 are, 21 makyb, 23 aren, 23 schawnd, 24 nemne, 27 behold, 27 dop, 27 how, 28 exityng, 30 were, 30 defendyng, 34 ar, 38 herkyn, 42 are, 42 holdyn, 47 make, 50 do, 51 do, 54 rechep, 65-6 is enioynde, 67 wyche-stondyng, 68 haue, 69 wold, 70 amendup, 70 synnep,71 are, 71 comfford, 72 are); (e) |To' added, usually in a verbal construction (10, 24, [26.sup.1], [31.sup.2], [32.sup.1], [32.sup.2], 35, 36, 37, 38, [39.sup.1], [39.sup.3], [39.sup.4], [39.sup.5], [42.sup.1],[43.sup.1], [43.sup.2], [44.sup.1] [44.sup.2], [48.sup.1], [50.sup.1], [50.sup.2], [51.sup.1], [52.sup.1], [52.sup.2], [53.sup.1], [53.sup.2], [65.sup.1]) (f) Singular nouns made plural (7 suspessions, II vanetes, 19 goodys, 69 ne3tbors) (g) Plural nouns made singular (9 oper, 18 dede, 26 dede, 27 ne3tbore, 37 dede, 43 gyse, 67 ne3tbore) (h) Substitutions (6 These [The], pyn [pi], 8 in [of], 10 non [no], 12 fore [of], 22 of [with], 28 into [in], 30 ne [nat], 34 of [in], 37 vpon [in], 37 on [in], 47 oper [or], 49 on [of], 66 [to.sup.1] [and], 72 oper moo [many other]), and the recurrent substitution of |euyl' for |ille' (see note 31 above). (33) Longleat House, MS 29, owned by the marquess of Bath, collated with Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley e mus. 232. C. Horstmann prints the versions of Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, MS Dd.5.64 and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson C. 285, in Yorkshire Wtiters: Richard Rolle and his Followers, I (London, 1895), pp. 21-4. H. E. Allen edits CUL Dd.5.64, collated with Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson A.389 (English Writings of Rolle, pp. 82-119). (34) For a more complete (select) list of variants, see Richard Rolle, ed. Ogilvie-Thomson, pp. 104-8. My collation derives from this editor's textual notes, and it no doubt overlooks features that an independent review of all variants would turn up. (35) The condemnation by Rolle of singing secular songs (line 31), and of leading others in carol dancing (line 43), is noteworthy in the Audelay MS, which preserves the Shropshire poet's carols. Apparently the compiler, if he attended at all to this portion of Rolle's counsel, felt that the manuscript's largely pious group of such songs fell outside the hermit of Hampole's reprobation. On later church prohibitions against carolling, see The Early English Carols, ed. Greene, pp. lxxiii-lxxiv.