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The Exemplum of the Penitent Usurer
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
It has been generally recognized by students of the mediæval drama, that certain of the moral tales found in collections of exempla and in commonplace books influenced indirectly the morality play. This inference seems to be drawn as much from evidence of the dramatic possibilities inherent in specific exempla as from evidence of their widespread popularity. An example of a didactic story with such dramatic adaptability is offered by the tale of the penitent usurer. Its theme, the struggle between demons and angels for the soul of man, seems to foreshadow the conflict-between-the-vices-and-virtues type of morality. The number of mss., moreover, which have survived, proves that the tale was disseminated throughout England and the Continent, and therefore would be easily accessible to playwrights in search of dramatic material. Furthermore, the same inference may be drawn from the analogy between plays embodying favorite miracles or fabliaux and morality plays probably based upon popular exempla. For, although no scholar has hitherto shown the dependence of any extant morality play upon a specific exemplum, yet it is almost inconceivable that well-known didactic tales, obviously suited to dramatic purposes and extensively circulated in collections of exempla and in commonplace books, should not have been used by the makers of moral plays.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1918
References
1 Cf. Elbert N. S. Thompson, The English Moral Plays in the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, New Haven, Ct., 1910, vol. xiv, pp. 298–303.
2 In an article upon the Authorship of the Alphabetum Narrationum, printed in the Library for January, 1905, Mr. J. A. Herbert writes, “Towards the end of the century [i. e., the thirteenth] three large collections of exempla were formed by different compilers, arranged under subject-headings in alphabetical order …. the Speculum Laicorum …. the Tractatus exemplorum de abundantia adaptorum ad omnem materiam in sermonibus, secundum ordinem alphabeti …. the Alphabetum Narrationum,” and that “the latter half of the thirteenth century was prolific in such works.”
3 Alessandro D'Ancona, Sacre Rappresentazioni dei secoli XIV, XV e XVI raccolte e illustrate, Firenze, 1872, vol. ii, p. 33, “L'edizione originale è così descritita dal Batines, Bibl., p. 23:—‘Incomincia la Rappresentatione di Sancto Antonio della Bar ba romito: et prima langio lo annvntia—Fa parte del tomo ii della Raccolta del sec. xv, dove occupa 22c.—In fine si legge soltanto: Finis.‘”
4 F. J. Furnivall, Edmund Brock, W. A. Clouston, Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Publications of the Chaucer Society, 2nd Series, 7, 10, 15, 20, 22, London, 1872–87, pp. 433–434.
5 Cæsarii Heisterbacensis monachi ordinis Cisterciensis Dialogas Miraculorum, ed. Josephus Strange, Coloniae, Bonnae, et Bruxellis, 1851.
6 J. A. Herbert writes in his Catalogue of Romances in the Department of MSS. in the British Museum, London, 1910, vol. iii, p. 348, “The Dialogus Miraculorum was completed in or very soon after 1222: see Dist. x, capp. 41, 48, etc.”
7 Cf. ibid., vol. iii, p. 349, with reference to the authorship of the story of the Merciful Knight, found in the Dialogus Miraculorum, Dist. viii, cap. 21.
8 The first angel quotes the sixth verse; the second angel quotes only the first sentence of the seventh verse; the second part of the seventh and the first pant of the eighth verses are recited by the third angel, while the fourth concludes with the remainder of the eighth verse.
9 This verse from Luke xv, 10 is not quoted accurately.
10 An Alphabet of Tales, ed. Mary M. Banks, Early English Text Society, Original Series, vol. 127, pp. 503–504, London, 1905.
11 Jacob's Well, ed. Dr. Arthur Brandeis, Early English Text Society, Original Series, London, 1900, vol. 115, pp. 138–141.
12 Dr. Carleton Brown kindly brought these mss. to my notice.
13 Miss C. R. Borland kindly procured for me a rotograph of these folios.
14 Louise Dudley, Egyptian Elements in the Legend of the Body and Soul, Baltimore, 1911, ch. ii, pp. 18–31.
15 Aloys Meister, Die Fragmente der Libri VIII Miraculorum des Cæsarius von Heisterbach, iii, 16, pp. 145–146 in the Römische Quartalschrift für christliche Alterthumskunde und für Kirchengeschichte, Dreizehntes Supplementheft, Rom 1901.
16 Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints as Englished by Wm. Caxton, London, 1900, vol. iv, pp. 247–248. This is apparently an analogue of the tale of the drowned sacristan.
17 H. L. D. Ward, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of MSS. in the British Museum, London, 1893, vol. ii, p. 633. The story of the revivification of the woman in the diocese of Langres occurs in the Speculum Historiale, vii, 117.
18 Bibliothèque Nationale Latin ms. 5268, 49, iii, 8.
19 Ward, l. c., ii, p. 632.
20 Anglia, iii, p. 323. The text is here printed from Lambeth ms, 432.
21 The couplets in the Ad. ms. and the translation in the Alphabet of Tales are written in the Northern dialect, while the couplets in the Magd. and C. C. C. C. mss. and the translation in Jacob's Well are preserved in the Midland dialect.
22 Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis, auctore Joanne Lelando, Oxonii, 1709, cap. cdxi, p. 370.
23 Bibliotheca Britannica-Hibernica, auctore Thoma Tannero, Londini, 1748.
24 Tanner, ibid., p. 407, writes: “Holcothus [Robertus] sive Haldecotus Dominicanus, Avoniae borealisd alumnuse, nunquam aut labori, aut oleo pepercit, quo literas tandem, quarum amore totus conflagrabat, assequeretur.f
- d.
d. Seu Northamptonae addit ms. Trin.
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e. Apud Holcot in agro Northamptoniensi natus. Fuller, Ch. Hist. iii. 95. Familia hujus cognom. apud Buckland (agr. Berch.) floruit; sed ex margine libri A. Wood. Ms. Pits. et nota ms. praefixa fuit distincta. Vide Ashmol. ms. 850.
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f. In coenobio sui ordinis Oxon. educatus, et ibi tandem SS. theologiae doctor, et ejusdem facultatis publicus professor. Bale. Pits. Cave. MCCCXXXI—II. II kal. Apr. fr. Rob. Holcote ordinis Minor. admissus erat ad audiendas confessiones. Memoramd. Henr. Burghers episcopi Lincoln.“
25 Ibid., p. 408, “Obiit, autore Trittemio, ex peste; s sepultus est Avonae mediterraneae.
- s.
s. Peste extinctus est, in lectione septimi capitis in Ecclesiasticum Anno MCCCXLIX. Bal. v. 84. Pits. p. 463. seq. Wharton. Append . . . Cave Hist. lit. p. 35.“
26 H. O. Coxe, Cat. Cod. MSS. qui in Colleg. Aulisque Oxon., Pars ii, pp. 36–37 of Catalogue Codicum MSS. Collegii B. Mariae Magdalenae, Oxonii 1852.
27 M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the MSS. in the Library of Corpus Christi College Cambridge, vol. ii, p. 248, Cambridge, 1912.
28 Ibid., p. 250.
29 Early English Text Society, Original Series, vol. 115, p. xiii.
30 The Library, January, 1905, pp. 94 ff.
31 Meister, l. c., p. xix, writes, “Es genügt darauf hinzuweisen, dags Strange seine Ausgabe auf nur vier (sechs) Handschriften des Dialogus basiert hatte, während mir bis jetzt über 50 mehr oder minder vollständige bekannt geworden sind. Diese grosse Anzahl heute noch vorhandener Handschriften des Dialogus lässt die Vermutung zu, dass uns noch verhältnismässig viel mehr verloren gegangen ist.”
32 Herbert, A Catalogue of Romances im the Dept. of MSS. in the British Museum, vol. iii, p. 352, Brit. Mus. Add. ms. 18346, § 23 and p. 620, Brit. Mus. Add. ms. 18364, § 184.
33 Herbert in the Library, 1905, pp. 94–95 writes, “About the beginning of the thirteenth century preachers began to see the importance of making their sermons appeal more directly and forcibly to their hearers; and the practice of using exempla to illustrate arguments, or to fix the attention of a drowsy audience, began to become general. This tendency received a mighty impetus from the foundation of St. Dominic's order of Friars Preachers, but was not confined to them—among the foremost preachers of the new school were the canon Jacques de Vitry and the parish priest Odo of Cheriton, and the Friars Minor of St. Francis did not lag far behind their rivals. Popular preaching was, however, the special study of the Dominicans, and most of the books designed for the assistance of preachers emanated from them.”
34 The Dunois Horae (H. Y. Thompson, Fifty MSS. i, p. 56, no. 65), “A picture of the scene with scrolls upon which are inscribed the words spoken by the dying (man, and the demons and the angels.” James in A Descriptive Catalogue of the MSS. in the Library of St. John's College, Cambridge, 1913, p. 313, ms. 264, § 10, f. 120, writes: “Office of the Dead. In C. foreground a young man in scarlet tunic lined with fur, and blue hose, etc., his hair (or head dress) spreading very wide, in the form of gold leaves. He looks to L., where Death, a skeleton-corpse in a shroud holding two darts, is smiting him on the breast with one of them. On R. lies his nude corpse in a coffin. Above, his soul, nude, in the air. Two angels in silver take it by the arms: one is armed with a long cross-spear. Two black devils seize the legs of the soul. The ground and trees are yellow-green. The figures of Death, the youth, the corpse, the angels, demons and soul have all blank scrolls.” Brit. Mus. Add. ms. 37049, § 8, “Drawing of a death-bed with dialogue (on scrolls) between the Soul, Death, the Devil, an Angel, St. Mary, Christ and God the Father; e. g. Soul,
O hope in nede þou helpe me.
Gods moder I pray to þe. f. 19.
Cotton ms. Faust. B. vi., § 22. Cf. also Stowe ms. 39, f. 32b.