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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
In the following pages are presented hitherto unprinted texts of the Miracles of Our Lady in Middle English Verse, together with some discussion of the groups in which they appear, with particular regard to their relationship to the principal Latin collections of Miracles of the B. V. In considering the antecedents and the existing relationships of the Middle English versions, one must take as a starting point the results achieved by Mussafia and Ward in their monumental studies of the Legends of the Virgin, which deal especially with the Latin collections, from which presumably the English texts derive, either directly or indirectly. Though the researches of these scholars have been constantly drawn upon in discussing the materials here assembled, it has not seemed necessary in every case to trouble the reader by citing page references to their works, since the material contained in them is so systematically arranged that it is easily accessible. In citing MSS. containing English texts of the Miracles, I have availed myself of the MS descriptions contained in Carleton Brown's Register of Middle English Religious and Didactic Verse.
1 Sitzungsb. Kaiserl. Akad. der Wiss., Wien (Phil.-Hist. Classe) Band CXII. 917, CXV. 5, CXIX, Abhandl. 9, CXXII, Abhandl. 8.
2 Catalogue of Romances, Dept. of MSS. in the Brit. Mus., Vols. I and II H. L. D. Ward; Vol. III, J. A. Herbert.
3 Printed for the Bibliographical Society, Oxford, Part I, 1916, Part II, 1920.
4 In regard to the date of these MSS. and their relation to other MSS. of the South English Legendary, see Carl Horstmann, Altengl. Leg. Paderborn, 1875, pp. x-xiii; South English Leg., E. E. T. S., Orig. Ser., 87 pp. x-xi. Horstmann regards MS. Laud 108 as representing the oldest form of the South English Legendary. The study of this collection by Beatrice Daw Brown, still unpublished, does not altogether confirm Horstmann's opinion in this matter.
5 The legends appear in the Legenda Aurea as follows:
Cap. LI De annuntiatione
2 Saved by Learning Two Words
3 Devil in Service
Cap. CXIX. De assumptione
3 B. V. to Devil instead of Victim
5 Jew Boy
Cap. CXXXI De nativitate 9 Theophilus.
6 Mussafia, op. cit., Band CXIX, Abhandl. 9, pp. 26-35.
1 MS. godnisse struck out, wikkednesse inserted above in a different hand.
2 is letters apparently tampered with by later hand:
1 MS. þat for þo.
2 MS. hi come hi come ride.
3 MS. Siri sire quaþ.
1 MS. blurred.
1 There is an interesting analogy between the situation described here and that depicted in the opening lines of the miracle, “The Boy Slain by the Jews,” as told by Chaucer's Prioress. The Vernon “Jew Boy” narrative begins:
2 (a) The Cotton MS. simply states that the boy was instructed in letters with the Christian children. Cf. Harley and Vernon:
Harley: “A gywes child in o tyme while bi olde dawe Wiþ cristene childerne ofte pleide as childerne wolleþ ***jut fawe.”
Vernon: “þe Cristene childern in a Crofte
I-mad them hedden a wel feir plas.
þer-Inne a Jewes child ful ofte
Wiþ hem to pleyen I-sont he was.“
(b) In the Cotton version, after the rescue the boy does not describe his sensations while in the oven. Cf. Harley and Vernon:
Harley: “Me was neuere so murie in no stede as me haþ
Her ibeo.“
Vernon: “Of alle þe Murþes þat I haue had
In al my lyf it hider-to
Ne was I neuere of gleo so glad
As aftur I was In þe houene I-do!“
3 Versions of this miracle occur in Cotton MS. Cleop. C. X. fol. 130; Adgar, Egerton MS. 612, fol. 10, col. 2; S. Germ. No. 86.
4 Carleton Brown, in his Miracle of Our Lady by Chaucer's Prioress, Chaucer Soc. Public's., ser. 2, No. 45, prints the text of this miracle, p. 104, an account of the Vendôme Collection, p. 2; a list of the Vendôme miracles, Appendix, p. 136.
5 Ed. by Carl Neuhaus (Die lat. Vorlagen zu den alt. fr. Adgarschen Marien-Leg, Heilbronn 1886) from Arundel MS. 346, which supplies the defects in Cott. Cleop. C. X.
