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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Attempts to name the author of Pearl, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the two homiletic poems found in MS. Cotton Nero A x. have so far failed. Neither the Scottish Huchown of the Awle Ryale, nor the Londoner Ralph Strode, can well be accepted on the strength of any evidence yet available. But though the name of the poet has escaped detection, much has been learned about him. The thoughtful reader of his works will recognize a man intimate with the Bible and with the writings of the Church Fathers, and one concerned with the theological problems that occupied men's minds in the late fourteenth century. To a strong religious and moral bent there is added a love of romance and the pomp and brilliance of the life in a noble household. The poet's skill in argument and his familiarity with the life and manners of the nobility have led Professor Osgood to the belief that he was a clerk who had studied at Oxford or Paris. Professor Gollancz draws a charming picture of the young man listening to the romantic tales of the minstrels in a great hall, and himself eager to emulate them. The man we seek, then, is an unusual combination of theologian and minstrel, a student of sacred and profane literature, and a close observer of the religious and secular life of the time. Such a man I propose to name as the probable author of the poems before us.
1 Carleton Brown, PMLA, xix, 115–153.
2 Pearl, Introd., p. liii.
3 CHEL, i, 330.
4 “Inventarium omnium librorum pertinencium ad commune armariolum domus Ebor. ordinis fratrum heremitarum Sancti Augustini factum in presencia fratrum Johannis de Erg(h)ome Johannis Ketilwell Ricardi de Thorpe Johannis de Appilby Anno domini MCCCLXXII in festo nativitatis virginis gloriose, ffratre willelmo de staynton tunc existente priore.” Trinity College, Dublin, MS. No. 359, published by M. R. James, Fasciculus J. W. Clark Dicatus (Cantab., 1909), pp. 2–96.
5 See Tolkien and Gordon's note to line 2460.
6 PMLA, xix, 177–179; xxiv, 598–607.
7 PMLA, x, 242–248.
8 Lives of this distinguished friar may be found in Bale, Illustrium Maioris Britanniae Scriptorum (1548), p. 212; Chronica Ordinis Fratrum Eremitarum Sancii Augustini fratre Joseph Pamphilo (Rome, 1581), p. 92; Pits, Relationes Historicae de Rebus Anglicis (1619), pp. 679–680; and in Tanner, Bibliotheca (1748), p. 263.
9 T. Wright, Political Songs and Poems (1859), i, 123–215.
10 Wright, i, xxix.
11 See Burton, Monasticon Eboracensia (York, 1758), pp. 238, 250.
12 “In primis do et lego animam meam Deo et beatae Mariae et omnibus Sanctis, corpus vero meum ad sepeliendum in ecclesia beatae Mariae de Bridlington … Item magistro Radulpho fratri meo unum ciphum argenti cum cooperculo argenti. Item domino Johanni fratri meo unum ciphum argenti cum pede cum cooperculo deaurato et unum lavatorium argenti et deauratum. Item domino Roberto fratri meo unum ciphum argenti cum cooperculo,” Testamenta Eboracensia, Surtees Soc. (1836), Vol. 4., pp. 34, 35.
13 A. B. Emden, An Oxford Hall in Medieval Times (1927), p. 49. Another Ralph de Erghome, also an Oxford man, was bishop of Salisbury, 1375–88, and of Bath and Wells, 1388–1400.
14 Cf. the suggestion that the Mortimers, Bohuns, and Beauchamps seem probable patrons of the alliterative poets. Hulbert, Mod. Phil., xxviii, 405–422.
15 Dugdale, Baronage (1675), i, 184; John Duncumb, Collections towards the History and Antiquities of the County of Hereford, (1804), i, 127–133; Am. Hist. Rev., i, 414–35, 631–49.
16 “Pro quo est notandum quod rex illo tempore posuit se ad otium et quietem, et ordinavit festum Sancti Georgii, congregans sibi bonos milites Angliae, ut essent in illa societate propter opera sua strenua et bellicosa, sicut narratur quod rex Arthurus fecit in tempore suo, et vocavit milites illos de rotunda tabula,” Commentary on Dist. 1. cap., 7 of the Prophecy of John of Bridlington.
17 Gollancz, Pearl (1921), Introd., p. xxxv.
18 Cf. my analysis of the Parson's Tale, MLN, xliii, 229–234.
19 PMLA, xix, 160.
20 Cf. Cargill and Schlauch, PMLA, xliii, 105–123.
21 Tolkien and Gordon, pp. xxii-xxiii. This poem contains 2530 of the 6085 lines in the four poems.
22 Osgood, Pearl, Introd., p. xii; Menner, Purity, Introd., p. lviii; Gollancz, Patience, 2nd ed., Preface, p. 6; Oakden, Alliterative Poetry in Middle English, pp. 85, 86.
23 E. V. Gordon, “Scandinavian Influence in Yorkshire Dialects,” Trans. of the Yorkshire Dialect Soc., Part xxiv, Vol. iv, pp. 16, 18.
24 Oakden, loc. cit.
25 Nos. 33, 49, 74, and 137 in Gilson's edition, Trans. of the Biblio. Soc., ix, 127–210.
