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  CENTRE
  for
  REFORMATION
  and
  RENAISSANCE
  STUDIES

  VICTORIA
  UNIVERSITY

  TORONTO




  FIFTEENTH CENTURY
  PROSE AND VERSE




  _AN ENGLISH GARNER_

  FIFTEENTH CENTURY
  PROSE AND VERSE


  WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
  ALFRED W. POLLARD


  WESTMINSTER
  ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO., LTD.
  1903



Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE.




PREFACE


Of the contents of the present volume about a half now appears in the
ENGLISH GARNER for the first time. Professor Arber (whose ready
acquiescence in my meddlings I wish cordially to acknowledge) had
gathered his good corn wherever he could find it without concerning
himself with the claims of the different centuries; and his specimens of
Lydgate and Hoccleve, Robin Hood Ballads, and trials for Lollardy,
needed as much more added to them to make up a homogeneous volume in the
arrangement now adopted. My additions consist of some Christmas Carols,
a Miracle Play, a Morality, and a number of the interesting prologues
and epilogues of William Caxton; also two extracts on the art of
translation and the need for its exercise, and some depositions in a
theatrical lawsuit. The extracts are of the end of the fourteenth
century, but are germane to our period as heralding the numerous
translations by which it was distinguished; the lawsuit is of the
sixteenth century, but throws light on the transition from municipal to
private enterprise in theatrical matters which had then been for some
time in progress. As these pieces are included for their matter, not for
their style, I hope they will not be considered intrusions in a volume
essentially devoted to the fifteenth century, though the extracts on
translation have led me in my Introduction to an excursus on the
authorship of the Wycliffite translations of the Bible, which can only
be excused on the pleas that Purvey and Trevisa both lived on into the
fifteenth century, and that it was in the early years of that century
that the Bibles were most in circulation.

In editing my texts I have availed myself of the help of the edition of
the play of the Coventry Shearmen and Tailors in Professor Manly's
_Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama_ (Ginn, 1897), of Dr. Henri
Logeman's _Elckerlijk and Everyman_ (Librairie Clemm, Gand, 1892), of
Professor Ewald Fluegel's transcript of the Balliol College Carols
published in the Festschrift presented to Professor Hildebrand in 1894,
of the Caxton Prefaces printed in Blades's _Life of Caxton_, of Mr.
Henry Plomer's transcript of the pleadings in Rastell _v._ Walton in
vol. iv. of the Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, and of
Forshall and Madden's Wyclif Bible. In Professor Arber's text of the
Robin Hood Ballads I have ventured to make a few corrections by the
light of the excellent edition (based on the work of Professor Child),
printed by Professor Gummere in his _Old English Ballads_ (Ginn, 1894).
That of Hoccleve's _Letter of Cupid_, originally printed from Urry's
text, has been revised with the aid of the collations published by
Professor Skeat in his _Chaucerian and Other Pieces_. Professor Arber's
other texts are reprinted substantially as they stood.

In accordance with the plan adopted throughout the _English Garner_, the
extracts in this volume are given in modern spelling. I should have
preferred myself to re-write them in the educated spelling of their own
period, which would offer no obstacle of any kind to a modern reader.
Not only, however, for the sake of uniformity, but because I am so
convinced that this is the right method of dealing with badly spelt
texts that I wish the experiment to be made for the first time by a
better philologist than myself, I have fallen back on modern spelling.
Whatever its disadvantages, they seem to me as nothing compared with the
absurdity of preserving in texts printed for the second, third, and
fourth time the vagaries of grossly ignorant scribes. In the play of the
Shearmen holiness is spelt _whollenes_, merry _myrre_, voice _woise_,
signification _syngnefocacion_, celestial _seylesteall_, and so on.
These spellings are as demonstrably wrong as those of _consepeet_
(concipiet) and _Gloria in exselsis_, with which the scribe favours us.
It is ungracious to find fault with Professor Manly after appropriating
some of