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[Transcriber’s Note:

This e-text includes a few characters that will only display in UTF-8
(Unicode) text readers, including

  ȝ (yogh)
  œ (oe ligature)

There are also a few lines of Greek, and some rarer characters:

  ſ (long s, used in one short selection)
  ł (l with bar, also used only in one selection)
  m̅ (m with overline, used only in the Boke of Nurture)

If any of these characters do not display properly, or if the quotation
marks in this paragraph appear as garbage, make sure your text reader’s
“character set” or “file encoding” is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You may
also need to change the default font. As a last resort, use the Latin-1
version of the file instead.


This very long book has been separated into independent units, set off
by triple rows of asterisks:

  [1] Early English Text Society (information and list of titles)
  [2] Introductory pages with full table of contents
  [3] General Preface (“Forewords”)
  [4] Preface to Russell, _Boke of Nurture_
  [5] Collations and Corrigenda
    (see beginning of “Corrigenda” for details of corrections)
  [6] John Russell’s _Boke of Nurture_ with detailed table of contents
  [7] Notes to _Boke of Nurture_
    (longer linenotes, printed as a separate section in original text)
  [8] Lawrens Andrewe on Fish
  [9] “Illustrative Extracts” (titles listed in Table of Contents)
    and Recipes
  [10] _Boke of Keruynge_ and _Boke of Curtasye_, with Notes
  [11] _Booke of Demeanor_ and following shorter selections
  [12] _The Babees Book_ and following shorter selections
  [13] Parallel texts of _The Little Children’s Boke_
    and _Stans Puer ad Mensam_
  [14] General Index (excluding Postscript)
  [15] Postscript “added after the Index had been printed”
  [16] Collected Sidenotes (section added by transcriber: editor’s
    sidenotes can be read as a condensed version of full text)

Each segment has its own footnotes and errata lists. Readers may choose
to divide them into separate files. The following notes on text format
apply to all texts and will not be repeated in full.

_Italics and other text markings:_

Italicized letters within words, representing expanded abbreviations,
are shown in the e-text with braces (“curly brackets”): co{n}nyng{e}.
Readers who find this added information distracting may globally delete
all braces; they are not used for any other purpose. Whole-word italics
are shown in the usual way with _lines_. Superscripts are shown with ^,
and boldface or blackletter type with +marks+.

_Page Layout:_

In the original book, each text page contained several types of
secondary material printed in all four margins. The HTML version of
this e-text offers a closer approximation of the original appearance.

_Headnotes_ appeared at the top of alternate pages, like subsidiary
chapter headings. In longer selections they have been retained and
moved to the beginning of the most appropriate paragraph; some are
also grouped at the beginning of a selection to act as a detailed
table of contents.

_Footnotes_ were numbered separately for each page. In this e-text,
general footnotes are numbered sequentially and grouped at the end of
the selection. In some selections, text notes (glosses or variant
readings) are marked with capital letters [A] and are kept in small
groups near each passage. Footnotes in the form [[10a]] are additional
notes from the editor’s Corrigenda. Footnotes with symbols [10*] are
_footnotes to footnotes_.

_Sidenotes_ were generally added by the editor to give translations
or summaries. In this e-text, they are always collected into full
sentences. In some verse selections, sidenotes appear immediately
_before_ their original location, with no further marking. In other
selections-- including all prose passages-- sidenotes are collected
into longer paragraphs and placed _after_ the text they refer to. These
will be identified either by line number or by lower-case letters [a]
showing their original location.

Sidenotes in the form [Fol. 10b] or [Page 27] are shown inline, within
the body text. Numbered notes printed in the side margin were generally
treated as footnotes or text notes.]


       *       *       *       *       *
           *       *       *       *
       *       *       *       *       *


  Early English Text Society.

  Original Series, 32.


  Early English Meals and Manners:

  John Russell’s Boke of Nurture,
  Wynkyn de Worde’s Boke of Keruynge,
  The Boke of Curtasye,
  R. Weste’s Booke of Demeanor,
  Seager’s Schoole of Vertue,

  The Babees Book, Aristotle’s ABC, Urbanitatis,
  Stans Puer ad Mensam, The Lytylle Childrenes Lytil Boke,
  For to serve a Lord, Old Symon, The Birched School-Boy,
    &c. &c.

  with some
  Forewords on Education in Early England.


  Edited by
  FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL, M.A.,
  Trin. Hall, Cambridge.

  London:
  Published for the Early English Text Society
  by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Limited,
  Dryden House, 43, Gerrard Street, Soho, W.
  1868.

  [_Re-printed 1894, 1904._]




  Early English Text Society

  Committee of Management:

  Director: DR. FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL, M.A.
  Treasurer: HENRY B. WHEATLEY, Esq.
  Hon. Sec.: W. A. DALZIEL, Esq., 67 VICTORIA ROAD, FINSBURY PARK, N.
  Hon. Secs. for America:
   { North & East: Prof. G. L. KITTREDGE, Harvard Coll., Cambr., Mass.
   { South & West: Prof. J. W. BRIGHT, Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore.

    LORD ALDENHAM, M.A.
    ISRAEL GOLLANCZ, M.A.
    SIDNEY L. LEE, M.A., D.Lit.
    Rev. Prof. J. E. B. MAYOR, M.A.
    Dr. J. A. H. MURRAY, M.A.
    Prof. NAPIER, M.A., Ph.D.
    EDWARD B. PEACOCK, Esq.
    ALFRED W. POLLARD, M.A.
    Rev. Prof. WALTER W. SKEAT, Litt.D.
    Dr. HENRY SWEET, M.A.
    Dr. W. ALDIS WRIGHT, M.A.
        (_With power to add Workers to their number._)

  Bankers: THE UNION BANK OF LONDON, 2, PRINCES STREET, E.C.

The Early English Text Society was started by Dr. Furnivall in 1864 for
the purpose of bringing the mass of Old English Literature within the
reach of the ordinary student, and of wiping away the reproach under
which England had long rested, of having felt little interest in the
monuments of her early language and life.

On the starting of the Society, so many Texts of importance were at once
taken in hand by its Editors, that it became necessary in 1867 to open,
besides the _Original Series_ with which the Society began, an _Extra
Series_ which should be mainly devoted to fresh editions of all that is
most valuable in printed MSS. and Caxton’s and other black-letter books,
though first editions of MSS. will not be excluded when the convenience
of issuing them demands their inclusion in the Extra Series.

During the thirty-nine years of the Society’s existence, it has
produced, with whatever shortcomings, an amount of good solid work for
which all students of our Language, and some of our Literature, must be
grateful, and which has rendered possible the beginnings (at least) of
proper Histories and Dictionaries of that Language and Literature, and
has illustrated the thoughts, the life, the manners and customs of our
forefathers and foremothers.

But the Society’s experience has shown the very small number of those
inheritors of the speech of Cynewulf, Chaucer, and Shakspere, who care
two guineas a year for the records of that speech: ‘Let the dead past
bury its dead’ is still the cry of Great Britain and her Colonies, and
of America, in the matter of language. The Society has never had money
enough to produce the Texts that could easily have been got ready for
it; and many Editors are now anxious to send to press the work they have
prepared. The necessity has therefore arisen for trying to increase the
number of the Society’s members, and to induce its well-wishers to help
it by gifts of money, either in one sum or by instalments. The Committee
trust that every Member will bring before his or her friends and
acquaintances the Society’s claims for liberal support. Until all Early
English MSS. are printed, no proper History of our Language or Social
Life is possible.

The Subscription to the Society, which constitutes membership, is £1 1s.
a year for the ORIGINAL SERIES, and £1 1s. for the EXTRA SERIES, due in
advance on the 1st of JANUARY, and should be paid by Cheque, Postal
Order, or Money-Order, crost ‘Union Bank of London,’ to the Hon.
Secretary, W. A. DALZIEL, Esq., 67, Victoria Rd., Finsbury Park,
London, N. Members who want their Texts posted to them, must add to
their prepaid Subscriptions 1s. for the Original Series, and 1s. for the
Extra Series, yearly. The Society’s Texts are also sold separately at
the prices put after them in the Lists; but Members can get back-Texts
at one-third less than the List-prices by sending the cash for them in
advance to the Hon. Secretary.


-> The Society intends to complete, as soon as its funds will allow, the
Reprints of its out-of-print Texts of the year 1866, and also of nos.
20, 26 and 33. Prof. Skeat has finisht _Partenay_; Dr. McKnight of Ohio
_King Horn_ and _Floris and Blancheflour_; and Dr. Furnivall his
_Political, Religious and Love Poems_ and _Myrc’s Duties of a Parish
Priest_. Dr. Otto Glauning has undertaken _Seinte Marherete_; and Dr.
Furnivall has _Hali Meidenhad_ in type. As the cost of these Reprints,
if they were not needed, would have been devoted to fresh Texts, the
Reprints will be sent to all Members in lieu of such Texts. Though
called ‘Reprints,’ these books are new editions, generally with valuable
additions, a fact not noticed by a few careless receivers of them, who
have complained that they already had the volumes. As the Society’s
copies of the _Facsimile of the Epinal MS._ issued as an Extra Volume
in 1883 are exhausted, Mr. J. H. Hessels, M.A., of St. John’s Coll.,
Cambridge, has kindly undertaken an edition of the MS. for the Society.
This will be substituted for the Facsimile as an 1883 book, but will be
also issued to all the present Members.

JULY 1904. The Original-Series Texts for 1903 were: No. 122, Part II of
_The Laud MS. Troy-Book_, edited from the unique Laud MS. 595 by Dr.
J. E. Wülting; and No. 123, Part II of Robert of Brunne’s _Handlyng
Synne_, and its French original, ed. by Dr. F. J. Furnivall.

The Extra-Series Texts for 1903 are to be: No. LXXXVIII, _Le Morte
Arthur_, in 8-line stanzas, re-edited from the unique MS. Harl. 2252,
by Prof. J. Douglas Bruce (issued), No. LXXXIX, Lydgate’s _Reason and
Sensuality_, edited by Dr. Ernst Sieper, Part II, and _English Fragments
from Latin Medieval Service-Books_, edited, and given to the Society, by
Mr. Henry Littlehales.

The Original-Series Texts for 1904 will be No. 124, t. Hen. V,
_Twenty-six Political and other Poems_ from the Digby MS. 102, &c,
edited by Dr. J. Kail, and No. 125, Part I of the _Medieval Records of
a London City Church_ (St. Mary-at-Hill), A.D. 1420-1559, copied and
edited by Mr. Henry Littlehales from the Church Records in the
Guildhall, the cost of the setting and corrections of the text being
generously borne by its Editor. This book will show the income and
outlay of the church; the drink provided for its Palm-Sunday players,
its officers’ excursions into Kent and Essex, its dealing with the
Plague, the disposal of its goods at the Reformation, &c., &c., and will
help our members to realize the church-life of its time. The third Text
will be Part I of _An Alphabet of Tales_, a very interesting collection,
englisht in the Northern Dialect, about 1440, from the Latin _Alphabetum
Narrationum_ by Etienne de Bésançon, and edited by Mrs. M. M. Banks from
the unique MS. in the King’s Library in the British Museum; the
above-named three texts are now ready for issue. Those for 1905