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Anglo-Norman Books of Courtesy and Nurture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

H. Rosamond Parsons*
Affiliation:
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

Extract

If the Normans were, as ten Brink has called them, the foremost representatives of chivalry, they certainly had good measure of instruction to fit them for the part. Among the flood of Anglo-Norman didactic literature which has come down to us, we find a number of treatises on manners for the benefit of budding chivalry; they differ from the many Continental Arts d'aimer in that they are mostly written for quite young boys, and the elaborate doctrines of courtly love are replaced by practical details of a page's service, mingled haphazard with moral precepts of a more general nature. Even when the pupil is considered as having emerged from pagehood and attained to the dignity of a lover, we never exchange an atmosphere of reality and common-sense for the complex artificiality of the first part of the Roman de la Rose, any more than we approach the literary grace and finish of that poem. The little Norman pages were instructed in no fantastic chivalry, such as bound the heroes of the romances, but in a doctrine calculated to assure their success in this world, without endangering their chances in the next.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1929

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References

Note 1 in page 383 J. Vising, Anglo-Norman Language and Literature, Oxf. 1923, No. 247, in the detailed catalogue of works.

Note 1 in page 392 Ed. A. Chr. Thorn, Lund 1921.

Note 2 in page 392 Hans Gross, Handbuch für Untersuchungsrichter als System der Kriminalistik, 7th edition, Leipzig, 1922.

Note 3 in page 392 J. Collyer Adam, Criminal Investigation, London, 1924.

Note 4 in page 392 Ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith and Paul Meyer, Les Contes Maralisés de Nicole Bozon, Paris, 1889.

Note 1 in page 420 MS Deu.

Note 2 in page 421 MS jolivifs.

Note 3 in page 422 Corr. parlances.

Note 4 in page 423 MS recever.

Note 5 in page 424 Corr. Et de ceo seiez b. a.

Note 6 in page 425 MS ta.

Note 7 in page 425 MS nelz.

Note 8 in page 425 MS doit.

Note 9 in page 425 MS quidrai.

Note 10 in page 425 MS derra.

Note 11 in page 425 MS ses.

Note 12 in page 426 MS as.

Note 13 in page 426 MS assert.

Note 14 in page 426 MS ta.

Note 15 in page 426 Corr. les.

Note 16 in page 427 MS nult.

Note 17 in page 427 MS Einploier.

Note 18 in page 427 MS donor.

Note 19 in page 427 MS le.

Note 20 in page 427 Corr. devez.

Note 21 in page 427 Corr. detrere.

Note 22 in page 427 Corr. En.

Note 1 in page 432 Corr. Auque.

Note 2 in page 432 MS qui.

Note 3 in page 433 MS estable.

Note 4 in page 434 “thi frend” written over the top in different hand and ink.

Note 5 in page 435 MS C. env. e. de l'e.

Note 6 in page 435 Corr. pouetz.

Note 7 in page 436 Corr. merciera.

Note 8 in page 437 “Par tens viande les donez” added in different hand and ink.

Note 9 in page 437 “le fetez” added in different hand and ink.

Note 10 in page 437 MS te iaqueyntez.

Note 1 in page 438 MS detirer.

Note 2 in page 439 Corr. ou.

Note 3 in page 441 MS voilez nurir.

Note 4 in page 441 MS Les Ieez e.

Note 1 in page 454 Ed. Marcel de Fréville, Soc. des Anc. Textes Franç., 1888.

Note 2 in page 454 Ed. Josef Kremer, Ausg. u. Abh. aus dem Geb. der rom. Phil. no. 39, 1887.

Note 3 in page 454 Works, ed. Jacob Ulrich, Berlin, 1889.

Note 4 in page 454 Ed. Anatole de Montaiglon, 1854.

Note 5 in page 455 Ed. Aug. Doutremont, Bibliotheca Normannica, 1890.