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Middle English Gospel Glosses and the Translation of Exegetical Authority

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2016

A. B. Kraebel*
Affiliation:
Trinity University, San Antonio, TX

Abstract

The non-Wycliffite Middle English commentaries on the Synoptic Gospels in MSS London, British Library Egerton 842 (Matt.), Cambridge, University Library Ii.2.12 (Matt.), and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Parker 32 (Mark and Luke) are important witnesses to the widespread appeal of scholastic exegesis in later fourteenth-century England. They appear to have been produced by two different commentators (or teams of commentators) who worked without knowledge of one another's undertakings but responded similarly to the demand for vernacular biblical material. The commentary on Matthew represents a more extensive effort at compilation than the Mark and Luke texts, and, in his elaborate prologue, the Matthew commentator translates the priorities of scholastic Latin criticism even as he tailors his writing to meet the perceived needs of his English readers. Especially when considered alongside the Wycliffite Glossed Gospels, these texts illustrate further the variety and richness of vernacular biblical commentary composed in the decades following the important precedent of Richard Rolle's English Psalter.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University 

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References

1 See principally Dove, Mary, The First English Bible: The Text and Context of the Wycliffite Versions (Cambridge, 2007).Google Scholar This essay began as a paper delivered at the Medieval Translator conference at the Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, in July 2013, where I was able to benefit from the generous feedback offered by Copeland, Rita, Johnson, Ian, Minnis, Alastair, and Russell, Arthur. Likewise, I am indebted to Andrew Cole, Michael Sargent, and Fiona Somerset for their insightful commentary on both the essay and the edition. And my thanks, finally, must be extended to the British Library and Cambridge University Library for permission to reproduce images of manuscripts in their collections.Google Scholar

2 Dove, Mary, ed., Earliest Advocates of the English Bible: The Texts of the Medieval Debate (Exeter, 2010), xixxx.Google Scholar

3 See, for example, the Twelve Cambridge Tracts ( Earliest Advocates , 89142), which bring together Middle English texts on biblical translation from Wycliffite and non-Wycliffite sources.Google Scholar

4 In Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History (Oxford, 1988), 414, Anne Hudson claims that, at most, the Matthew commentary “could be conservatively Wycliffite”; in Hudson, Anne and Gradon, Pamela, eds., English Wycliffite Sermons (Oxford, 1983–96), 4:325, we are told that it is “not clearly of Wycliffite origin.” For the non-Wycliffite authorship of the commentaries on Mark and Luke, see Lawton, David, “Englishing the Bible, 1066–1549,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature , ed. Wallace, David (Cambridge, 1999), 477; and Lawton, , “The Bible,” in The Oxford History of Literary Translation in English, vol. 1, To 1550 , ed. Ellis, Roger (Oxford, 2008), 219.Google Scholar On the movement of texts and literary priorities from north to south, see especially the recent work of Hanna, Ralph, “The Transmission of Richard Rolle's Latin Works,” The Library , 7th ser., 14 (2013): 313–33; and Hanna's, discussion of the textual history of A Tretyse of pe Stodye of Wysdome pat Men Clepen Beniamyn, in Introducing English Medieval Book History: Manuscripts, Their Producers, and Their Readers (Liverpool, 2013), 30–58.Google Scholar

5 On the Glossed Gospels, see Hargreaves, Henry, “Popularising Biblical Scholarship: The Role of the Wycliffite Glossed Gospels,” in The Bible and Medieval Culture , ed. Lourdaux, W. and Verhelst, D. (Leuven, 1979), 171–89; Hudson, , Premature Reformation, 247–59; and Hudson, , “The Variable Text,” in Crux and Controversy in Middle English Textual Criticism , ed. Minnis, A. J. and Brewer, Charlotte (Cambridge, 1992), 49–60.Google Scholar

6 According to A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English , ed. McIntosh, Angus et al., 4 vols. (Aberdeen, 1986), the dialect of the CUL manuscript can be localized to Nottinghamshire (LP 164), and Egerton, though not the subject of a full linguistic profile, is said to be localizable to northwest Nottinghamshire (1:109).Google Scholar

7 Jolliffe, P. S., A Check-List of Middle English Prose Writings of Spiritual Guidance (Toronto, 1974), no. H.33 (p. 103); the other extant manuscript of the Milicia is BL Arundel 286, fols. 20r–81v. The text has been edited by Murray, Valerie, “An Edition of a Tretyse of Gostly Batayle and Milicia Christi,” 2 vols. (DPhil diss., University of Oxford, 1970). An edition based only on the Arundel text has been published by Evans, Michael, appendix IV to “An Illustrated Fragment of Peraldus's Summa of Vice: Harleian MS 3244,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 45 (1982): 14–68, at 47–68.Google Scholar

8 CUL is lacking a quire between fols. 40 and 49 (Matt. 5:22–6:9) and another between fols. 136 and 145 (Matt. 24:36–26:1), as well as one leaf after fol. 167. Egerton is lacking what appears to have been five leaves at the beginning of the first quire (before what is now fol. 1: preface-Matt. 4:10) and single leaves each between fols. 27 and 28 (Matt. 5:39–42), 94 and 95 (10:40–11:11), 118 and 119 (14:3–14:8), 124 and 125 (15:23–15:28), 149 and 150 (19:1–19:8), 185 and 186 (24:24–24:30), and 225 and 226 (26:67–26:74). The verso of fol. 206 bis (the second of two folios labeled 206) ends in the middle of a lengthy discussion following Matt. 28, and catchwords indicate that the next quire should begin with the continuation of that discussion (“and þat þe wickid / see as it is”). Instead, the new quire begins with the commentary on Matt. 26 (see above on the arrangement of the text). It seems likely that the lost material would have been short, perhaps a single folio. Even as it stands, Egerton contains more of the discussion after Matt. 28 than does CUL. Finally, it should be noted that a single leaf has been added to Egerton after fol. 117, in the hand of the main scribe, providing commentary on Matt. 13:51–53 that had been dropped due to eye-skip on 117v.Google Scholar

9 The Pauline Epistles Contained in MS. Parker 32 , ed. Powell, Margaret Joyce, EETS, e.s., 116 (London, 1916). For descriptions of the manuscript, see ibid., ix–xxi; and James, M. R., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1912), 1:64–65. See also Rand, Kari Anne, The Index of Middle English Prose: Handlist XX: Manuscripts of the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Woodbridge, UK, 2009), 4–5.Google Scholar

10 The Linguistic Atlas localizes the dialect of the Parker Gospel glosses to Nottinghamshire (LP 110) and the Epistles to Lincolnshire (LP 550). Linguistic Atlas , 1:62, misidentifies the contents of the two parts of the manuscript.Google Scholar

11 Forshall, Josiah and Madden, Frederic, eds., The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal Books, in the Earliest English Versions Made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and His Followers (Oxford, 1850), 1:ixx; and Paues, , A Fourteenth Century English Biblical Version (Cambridge, 1904), xxvi–xxvii. In The Lollard Bible and Other Medieval Biblical Versions (Cambridge, 1920), 310–12, Deanesly, Margaret also seems to base her remarks entirely on the work of Forshall and Madden.Google Scholar Paues (xxvii n1) incorrectly suggests that CUL Ii.2.12 contains multiple prologues, addressing Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and from this she infers the existence of a lost commentary on the last Gospel. As is made clear in appendix 1, the prologue to Matthew in CUL does compare the four Gospels, but it is specifically a prologue to Matthew alone. The prologues to Mark and Luke survive only in Parker 32, and there is no prologue specific to John.Google Scholar

12 The Glossed Gospels thus appear to adapt a form seen in certain manuscripts of Peter Lombard's influential Latin Psalter commentary. In Glossed Books of the Bible and the Origins of the Paris Booktrade (Woodbridge, UK, 1984), 2122, Christopher de Hamel suggests that this was merely a transitional form of the Lombard's commentary, “probably not used after 1200” (22 n45), but various manuscripts from ca. 1200 and later do preserve the mise-en-page, e.g., BL Burney 346, BL Harley 11, BL Add. 17380, and BL Royal 3 C. I. (My thanks to Arthur Russell for bringing these examples to my attention.) This mise-en-page also survives in the early modern printed edition of the Lombard (Paris, 1541), on which the text in PL 191 is based.Google Scholar

13 See Hanna, , “Yorkshire Writers,” Proceedings of the British Academy 121 (2003): 101–2; and idem, The English Manuscripts of Richard Rolle: A Descriptive Catalogue (Exeter, UK, 2010), xxx–xxxi.Google Scholar

14 On this mise-en-page, see Sargent, Michael G., “The Anxiety of Authority, the Fear of Translation: The Prologues to The Myroure of oure Ladye (forthcoming).Google Scholar

15 In “The Illustrations of Corpus Christi College MS 32: ‘Þe Glose in Englissche Tunge,’” in Image, Text, and Church, 1380–1600: Essays for Margaret Aston , ed. Clark, Linda et al. (Toronto, 2009), 3767, Ann Eljenholm Nichols suggests that glossed Mark and Luke in Parker 32 could have been prepared in the first instance for an audience of nuns. Note likewise that Rolle's, English Psalter may have been composed with an anchoress, Margaret Kirkeby, as its first audience. See the discussion in Watson, Nicholas, Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority (Cambridge, 1991), 242 and 329 n11; and Allen, Hope Emily, Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole, and Materials for His Biography (New York, 1927), 187–88.Google Scholar

16 Aberdeen, University Library MS 134, fol. 55v; quoted in Sargent, , “The Anxiety of Authority.” Cf. Blunt, John Henry, ed., The Myroure of oure Ladye, EETS, e.s., 19 (London, 1873), 70. Blunt's edition is based on Richard Fawkes's 1530 printing of the Myroure (STC 17542).Google Scholar

17 The Psalter or Psalms of David, and Certain Canticles, with a Translation and Exposition in English by Richard Rolle of Hampole , ed. Bramley, Henry Ramsden (Oxford, 1884), 4.Google Scholar

18 Such marginal citations appear frequently in Latin commentaries from the twelfth century onward, seen, for example, in the exegesis of Gilbert of La Porrée and, again, the Lombard. For examples, see Hamel, de, Glossed Books of the Bible , plates 9 and 10. For discussion, see Gross-Diaz, Theresa, The Psalms Commentary of Gilbert of Poitiers: From Lectio Divina to the Lecture Room (Leiden, 1996), 49–51; and Smith, Lesley, The Glossa ordinaria: The Making of a Medieval Bible Commentary (Leiden, 2009), 124–28. As both Gross-Diaz and Smith indicate, these marginal citations appear in some Carolingian commentaries as well as in later scholastic ones.Google Scholar

19 See, for example, the marginal reference to Augustine in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS Parker 32, fol. 73vb, which echoes the note in the text: “Seynt Austyn seys þat þis is not þo same lessoun.” Google Scholar

20 Alternatively, , Nichols, (“The Illustrations,” 46) suggests that the scholarly apparatus was reduced in Luke because the translator believed it would have been inappropriate for the “simple wit” of his audience — apparently a decision he reached after completing the glossed translation of Mark; at p. 57, Nichols offers another alternative, namely that the scribe of Parker has omitted the citations found in his source in order to leave room for the marginal illuminations that she describes. It could also be the case that, if the Parker Mark and Luke are indeed by the same exegete (or team of exegetes), notes identifying the sources of glosses were present in their copy of the Glossa on Mark but absent in their Glossa on Luke.Google Scholar

21 The text is quoted from London, BL Egerton 842, fol. 14v; cf. CUL Ii.2.12, fol. 38va .Google Scholar

22 BL Egerton 842, fol. 14v; cf. CUL Ii.2.12, fol. 38vb .Google Scholar

23 For an example of a citation added in a later hand, see the marginal “Claudius” in CUL Ii.2.12, fol. 21va. For examples of citations in Egerton 842 but omitted in CUL Ii.2.12, see the marginal “Bede,” “Yuo,” and “Ierom” in BL Egerton 842, fols. 1r, 3v, and 5r, respectively.Google Scholar

24 Dove, , ed., Earliest Advocates (n. 2 above), 177.Google Scholar

25 In the prologue to the short version of John in the Glossed Gospels, the author notes that he has only provided the names of the authorities, not identifying the texts in which the glosses occur, “remyttinge to þe grettir gloos writun on Ioon” (that is, presumably, the lost long recension of glossed John) “where and in what bokis þes doctors seyen þes sentences” (Dove, , ed., Earliest Advocates , 186).Google Scholar

26 See Thomae Aquinatis, S., Doctoris Angelici, Catena Aurea in Quatuor Evangelia , 9th rev. ed., 2 vols. (Turin, 1938). As Hudson (Premature Reformation [n. 4 above], 250) notes, however, Thomas's commentary was not used by the compilers of the long version of the Wycliffite glossed Matthew, which may suggest that this version antedates the other Glossed Gospels. Google Scholar

27 Nichols, , “The Illustrations” (n. 15 above), especially at 57–64.Google Scholar

28 Nichols, (“The Illustrations,” 42) appears to suggest that Ps.-Chrysostom's Opus imperfectum in Matthaeum is the primary source for the glossed Matthew; my comparison of the texts shows that this cannot be the case. In The Lollard Bible (n. 11 above), 310, Deanesly states that all three non-Wycliffite commentaries offer “a gloss translated mainly from Peter Lombard.” She cites Forshall, and Madden, , The Holy Bible (n. 11 above), 1:x, but no such assertion is found there.Google Scholar

29 I have consulted the Glossa as it appears in Biblia sacra cum Glossa ordinaria nouisque additionibus , ed. Feruardent, François, 6 vols. (Venice, 1603). For its notes on these verses, see Biblia sacra, vol. 5, sig. d2r. Of course, the early printed editions of the Glossa are now known occasionally to depart from the manuscript tradition, but in these cases I have also been unable to find the relevant glosses in various English manuscripts of the Glossa, e.g., Cambridge, Trinity College B.1.11, here fol. 22r. For Thomas's glosses on these verses, see Catena Aurea, 1:79: “Vel civitatem, carnem quam assumpserat nuncupat” (attributed to Hilary); and “Et bene modius dicitur res corporalis, sive propter retributionem mensurae … sive quia temporalia bona, quae corpore peraguntur, circa dierum mensuram, quam significat modius, inchoantur, et transeunt” (attributed to Augustine).Google Scholar

30 London, BL Egerton 842, fol. 3v. CUL Ii.2.12, fols. 32vb–33ra, offers no substantive variants.Google Scholar

31 Commentarius in Evangelium Iohannis , ed. Jeauneau, Édouard and Hicks, Andrew, CCM 166 (Turnhout, 2008), 93: “Quaeritur quid baptisma Iohannis his qui ab eo baptizati sunt profuit? … Quid ergo contulit? Magnum quidem. Quantum enim cathecuminis nondum baptizatis doctrina fidei prodest, tantum Iohannis baptisma baptizatis in eo, priusquam baptisma Christi subirent, profuit. Iohannes quippe paenitentiam praedicabat et baptismum Christi praenuntiabat et in cognitionem ueritatis, quae mundo apparuit, attraxit. Nonne similiter cotidie ministri faciunt ecclesiae? Erudiunt primo uenientes ad fidem; deinde peccata eorum redarguunt; deinde remissionem omnium peccatorum in baptismate promittunt; ac sic ad cognitionem et dilectionem ueritatis eos attrahunt.” Google Scholar

32 Catena Aurea , 2:412; Summa Theologiae, Blackfriars Edition (London, 1964–76), 53:4. Of the two quotations of this gloss in Thomas's works, that in the Catena is slightly closer to what the Matthew commentator appears to have translated: “Quantum catechumenis nondum baptizatis prodest doctrina fidei, tantum profuit baptisma Joannis ante baptismum Christi: quia sicut ille praedicabat poenitentiam et baptismum Christi nuntiabat, et in cognitionem veritatis quae mundo aparuit attrahebat: sic ministri Ecclesiae primo erudiunt venientes ad fidem, post peccata eorum redarguunt, deinde in baptismo Christi remissionem promittunt, et sic in cognitionem et dilectionem veritatis attrahunt.” The quotation in the Summa omits the phrases “venientes ad fidem” and “et sic … attrahunt.” Google Scholar

33 Most notably, Thomas in both cases lacks the opening phrase that the Middle English translator includes: “Quaeritur quid baptisma Iohannis his qui ab eo baptizati sunt profuit?” Then again, Thomas in both cases omits the rhetorical question, “Nonne similiter cotidie ministri faciunt ecclesiae?” substituting instead, “Quia sicut ille praedicabat … sic ministri Ecclesiae primo erudiunt,” and in this case the Middle English translation corresponds to Thomas's Latin. It therefore seems likely that Thomas and the Middle English glossator share a common source, an intermediary between their writings and Eriugena's original.Google Scholar

34 Hudson, , Premature Reformation , 252–53.Google Scholar

35 BL Add. 41175, fol. 2r.Google Scholar

36 Catena Aurea , 1:2: “Vel ideo librum hunc generationis nominat, quia haec est totius dispensationis summa, et radix bonorum omnium, Deum hominem factum esse” (attributed to Chrysostom); “In Isaia autem legimus: Generationem ejus quis enarrabit? Non ergo putemus Evangelistam Prophetae esse contrarium ut quod ille impossibile dixit esse effatu, hic narrare incipiat: quia ibi de generatione divinitatis, hic de Incarnatione dictum est” (attributed to Jerome); “In hoc autem quod dicit, Jesu Christi, regale et sacerdotalem in eo exprimit dignitatem” (attributed to Hrabanus Maurus). For the analogue of the second gloss in the Opus imperfectum, see PG 56:612: “Et quomodo dicit Isaias propheta, Et generationem ejus quis enarrabit? Sed ille divinam generationem ejus inenarrabilem esse pronuntiat, iste autem carnalem exponit.” Google Scholar

37 BL Egerton 842, fol. 15v; cf. CUL Ii.2.12, fol. 39r.Google Scholar

38 Catena Aurea , 1:80: “Vel lucerna Christi ponitur in candelabro, id est in ligno per passionem suspensa” (attributed to Hilary); “Id est sic illuminate docentes ut non vestra tantum audient verba, sed et opera videant; et quos illuminaveritis per verbum quasi lux, condiatis per exemplum quasi sal” (attributed to Chrysostom).Google Scholar

39 Nothing from Leo is cited in Thomas's comments on this verse (cf. Catena Aurea , 1:3536). The in-text citation at this point in CUL reads: “And Leo seis þat þei” (that is, the Kings) “myght not go ageyn be Herowde, þat is be þe way of ded, þe wilk he seis efter þe worschippyng of Crist bere wiþ þem þe gyftis of gostly life. Gostly in þis þat þe kyngs done when þei ar amonest of God þei schew to vs what vs owes to do.” (Recall that the Egerton copy is lacking this portion of the text.) The most likely source is the sermons of Leo the Great (in this case, those on Epiphany), though no obvious parallel passages have been forthcoming.Google Scholar

40 A similar observation is made by Nichols, , “The Illustrations” (n. 15 above), 42.Google Scholar

41 In addition to his use of the Catena Aurea, see nn. 47, 49, and 51 below.Google Scholar

42 On these prologues, see Chapman, John, Notes on the Early History of the Vulgate Gospels (Oxford, 1908), 217–53; and Chadwick, Henry, Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church (Oxford, 1976), 102–9.Google Scholar

43 For the full Latin text of the prologue with glosses, see Biblia sacra (n. 29 above), vol. 5, sigs. p7v–p8v. The two glosses translated by the English commentator, treated as a separate paragraph below in appendix 2, lines 15–18, read: “Beda. Marcus Petri discipulus rogatu Romanorum evangelium scripsit, ut quod Petrus verbo praedicaverit conservaretur in perpetuum literatum memoria…. Hieronymus. Quattuor Evangelia unum sunt et unum quattuor. Itaque et Marci liber dicitur evangelium et similiter aliorum, quia unum omnia et omnia unum.” Google Scholar

44 For the text of this prologue, see Biblia sacra , vol. 5, sig. a8r. See Light, Laura, “French Bibles c. 1200–30: A New Look at the Origins of the Paris Bible,” in The Early Medieval Bible: Its Production, Decoration, and Use , ed. Gameson, Richard (Cambridge, 1994), 164–65.Google Scholar

45 “Designantur etiam evangelistae quattuor figuris, quae non sunt deceptoriae, sed iucundi mysterii sibi consciae. Matthaeus in homine intelligitur, quia circa humanitatem Christi principaliter immoratur. Marcus in leone, quia agit de resurrectione. Lucas in vitulo agens de sacerdotio. Iohannes in aquila scribens sacramenta divinitatis.” Google Scholar

46 On the intentio auctoris in scholastic prologues, see Minnis, A. J., Medieval Theory of Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes in the Later Middle Ages , (2nd ed. 1988; repr. Philadelphia, 2010), 1516, 19–21, and passim.Google Scholar

47 Cf. the Latin prologue to the Matthew commentary in BL Royal 4 A. XVI, quoted in Glunz, H. H., History of the Vulgate in England from Alcuin to Roger Bacon (Cambridge, 1933), 321: “Praemissis igitur omnibus, quae utiliter praemittenda esse cognovimus, quid quattuor evanglistae communiter intendant videamus. Omnium communis intentio est unam commendare personam veri Dei et hominis, simulque nos instruere per ea quae gessit in homine, ut deposita imagine veteris hominis de caetero portemus imaginem celestis, quatinus in eum credendo et firmiter bona promissa certa spe expectando et illum salutis nostrae auctorem diligendo conregnare possimus in superno solio.” Google Scholar

48 The notion that Matthew originally wrote in Hebrew is found in the preface to Jerome's Matthew commentary, often included in late-medieval glossed Bibles, ( Biblia sacra , vol. 5, sig. 6va), and in Thomas's preface to Matthew (Catena Aurea, 1:xxxiv–xxxv).Google Scholar

49 Again, cf. the Latin prologue in Royal 4 A. XVI, quoted in Glunz, , History of the Vulgate , 321–22: “Dicitur tamen Matthaeus iste ob eorum causam, qui ex circumcisione crediderant, evangelium scripsisse. Nolebant enim, quamvis in Christo renati, a carnalibus observantiis ex toto revelli. Intendit ergo specialiter eos a carnali legis et prophetarum sensu ad spiritualem, qui Christo est, erigere, quatinus sacramenta fidei Christianae tanto securius perciperent, quanto haec non alia quam quae prophetae praedixerant, impleta esse viderent.” Google Scholar

50 This earlier passage is drawn from the Catena Aurea , 1:2: “Judaeis enim Evangelium scripsit, quibus superfluum erat exponere divinitatis naturam, quam cognoscebant: necessarium autem fuit eis mysterium Incarnationis ostendere. Joannes autem cum gentibus Evangelium scripsit, quae non cognoscebant si Deus Filium habet; ideo necessarium fuit primum illis ostendere quia est Filius Dei Deus; deinde quia carnem suscepit.” Google Scholar

51 Ibid.: “Consuetudo enim Hebraeorum est ut voluminibus ex eorum principiis imponant nomina, ut est Genesis” (attributed to Hrabanus). But note that, while the Middle English exegete suggests that the titles of the Gospel and Genesis speak to their content as a whole, Thomas maintains that the titles are based only on the material with which the books open. Cf. Glunz, , History of the Vulgate , 322: “Et notandum quia secundum materiam exordii libro suo nomen imposuit more Hebraeorum, sicuti liber Genesis ab exordio nomen accepit.” Google Scholar

52 On the ordo artificialis and the ordo naturalis, see Minnis, , Theory of Authorship , 2223.Google Scholar

53 Catena Aurea , 1:xxxiii: “In conscribendo Evangelio, quod divinitus ordinatum esse credendum est, ex numero eorum, quos ante passionem Dominus elegit, primum ultimumque locum duo tenuerunt: primum Matthaeus, ultimum Joannes, ut reliqui duo, qui ex illo numero non erant, sed tamen Christum in illis loquentem secuti erant tamquam filii amplectendi, ac per hoc in loco medio constituti, utroque ab eis latere munirentur” (attributed to Augustine).Google Scholar

54 See, for example, Richard Ullerston's assertion that he “intends to lean on the exposition” of Nicholas of Lyre throughout his commentary on the ferial canticles (“hinc est quod suae expositioni intendi inniti in hoc opere”), quoted in Kraebel, , “The Manuscript Tradition of Richard Ullerston's Expositio Canticorum Scripturae,” Mediaeval Journal 3, no. 1 (2013): 6364.Google Scholar

55 Dove, , ed., Earliest Advocates (n. 2 above), 177. For similar examples from the prologues and epilogues to other versions of the Glossed Gospels, see 172, 180, 184, and 186. In the posthumously published “The Lollards' Threefold Biblical Agenda,” in Wycliffite Controversies , ed. Bose, Mishtooni and Hornbeck, Patrick (Turnhout, 2011), 211–26, Dove argues that, while Wycliffite writers have often been portrayed as favoring the “bare” text of Scripture, stripped of the apparatus of scholastic commentary, such exegesis was in fact central to their program.Google Scholar

56 Bramley, , ed., Psalter (n. 17 above), 5. It seems possible that Rolle could be the source or inspiration for the similar passage in the CUL Matthew prologue.Google Scholar

57 Dove, , ed., Earliest Advocates , 762. For a discussion of these summary portions of the Later Version Prologue, see Somerset, Fiona, Feeling Like Saints: Lollard Writings after Wyclif (Ithaca, NY, 2014), 173–79.Google Scholar

58 Paues, , ed., Biblical Version (n. 11 above), 118. For further discussion of this frame, see Lawton, David, “Voice after Arundel,” in After Arundel: Religious Writing in Fifteenth-Century England , ed. Gillespie, Vincent and Ghosh, Kantik (Turnhout, 2011), 136–37 and 150–51.Google Scholar

59 This text was first identified by Ker, N. R., “A Middle English Summary of the Bible,” Medium Aevum 29 (1960): 115–18; and described further by Fowler, David C., “A Middle English Bible Commentary (Oxford, Trinity College, MS 93),” Manuscripta 12 (1968): 67–78. The text has been edited by Reilly, Robert, “A Middle English Summary of the Bible: An Edition of Trinity College (Oxon) MS 93” (PhD diss., University of Washington, 1966). It is discussed further by Somerset, , Feeling Like Saints, 179–202. My thanks to Ian Johnson for bringing this text to my attention.Google Scholar

60 See Biblia sacra (n. 29 above), vol. 5, sig. a6v.Google Scholar

61 The phrase is Palmer's, Nigel, from “Latin and Vernacular,” in Boethius: His Life, Thought, and Influence , ed. Gibson, Margaret T. (Oxford, 1981), 391.Google Scholar

62 Morey, James, Book and Verse: A Guide to Middle English Biblical Literature (Urbana, IL, 2000), 332.Google Scholar

63 Reproduced by permission, © British Library Board.Google Scholar

64 Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.Google Scholar