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rr t5t THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREEOF DOCTOROF PHILOSOPHY OF TIM, UNIVER- DITY OF LONDON. .ý fýa AN ANGLO NORMAN METRICAL 11BRUT" OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY (British Uusnum Mu E 3028) erton° . 19 3 ice. VERNON PHILIP UNDERWt00D;, BEST COPY AVAILABLE Variable print quality AN ANGLO-NORMAN METRICAL "BRUT" OF THE 14th CENTURY. (British Uuseum Ms-Egerton 028 "i ßYNOP8IS 1 Introduction I, The Uanuacript .... page Description (1) date (5), of me, . miniatures (6) related res (12) II, Locality. Origin 18 of ..., Influence of English on Anglo- Norman (18), orthographical feat- pres (25), historical (35)" III, The "Brut". 42 .... Comparison with other texts (42), methods of abridgment (48), additions (55), sources (58), possible successor (63). IV, 65 The Chronicle .... Unreliability (65), treatment of contemporary events (73), author's tendencies (74). 78 V, Language .... Phonetics ( 8), orthography (89), morphology 100}, syntax (125), 131) vocabulary . 136 VI, Versification .... Observance of French rules (136), irregularity (140}, opining on Angl o- Norman versification (148); aim of in Waoe (155) Eng- changes , possible lish influence (15 ), alliteration (162), enjambement (164), rhyme (165 ). Text 175 .... .... .... Notes .... .... .... 239 Glossary 241 .... .... Index Proper Names 242 of .... Bibliography 249 Index 250 .... .... .... 1 INTRODUCTION 1. THB MANUSCRIPT The British Museum me Egerton 3028 contains: (a) 'part of an abridgment of the Brut of Wace, with a contin- uation into the reign of Edward III (ff. 1 to 63 inclusive); (b) a version of the Destruction de Rome, in similar style of writing, miniatures and language, (ff. 64-83) ; (o) a version of the Roman de Fierabras, also in similar style (ff. 84-118). It was acquired by the Museum in 1920 from a member of the Cornish family Pendarves, to'whioh it had evidently passed-by inheritance from the library of one of the Luttrells, of Dunster Castle, Somerset. Narcissus Luttrell, annalist and antiquarian, who died in 1732, inscribed his elaborate monogram, suppoodd to contain all the letters of his name, on the verso of the present first folio, with the date 1693. On the recto, in a hand which seems his, we read: "A Cronicle of England called Brutus in Frenche verse. " Above the miniature on the verso of f. 63 is the inscription in an earlier hand, mutilated by subsequent ýI I "La 1 Sarazin Fiorenbras file trimming; ..... Dpagne et on le tempo du Char 1c: In the hand f. 83 an ay'ne ." same on veriio, opposite the beginning of the Fierabras proper, we read! "La Romance de ficr^nbrao d'Alieandre file de Laban d' ie paigne ." Written on vellum, in ringle column, the me is of small format (19,5 x 12c-, a), reduced from its original size by the trimm ink; noted above, Possibly done-when the nineteenth-century bindin-; was '.,ut on, A r.*'. 'zi. ture depicting some ;. n2ident related in the text occupies rouchly hal: of the recto of each folio except ff. 65 rnd 85, both of which follow next but one after a full-jags picture at the beginning of the Destruction and the Pierabrac. The writing is a rather elaborate English band of about the middle of the fourteenth century, and is on the whole careful; it is well preeerved, apart from six lines at the top of the first folio, and a number of words here and there -shic'n are effaced by stains due to the gilding of the miniatures. In theca cacao the apparently correct reading is given in the copy of the text. Larger initiale in red, of fairly :1x;, imnt: frequent occurrence, divide the work into a.ragrapho ; they have :` beeil for in three pl;. cec, (vv. 1Z0;, 1691,834 ) , oaten though in the last ease i. small v (the rlies. iný letter), of the oi: e and colour of the ordirui:: j text, has been inserted in the midd] e of the apace "Loft. Numerale are gonevaily in Roman oharact : -."z, and the frequent abbreviations are quite of nori type: 9, ac is by full .il ei ov a occasional apellin-u, renreoente awn or cun; Gingt, gnat, kn"t, knrt, ^. qn'"t, clet, all. but ' se! d occur, as , raunt, pant , uant , ooj appe r in full, theso abbreviations have been further grant, k, clant. This course see: aAu: ititied by the _-ant fact tioArrelatives are invariably tiiritten i, LA, ae, ke, and that nun is º rare in this text. I and j are as a rule carefully indicated by a small flourish above, and for f laur ishes final letters fondness is shown , ornamented of a line and so on. The inverted semi-colon (') occurs frq uently, goner 1l; ß in proximity to direct speoch, after "diet il" etc, The writer is also partial to a left hand marginal sign consisting of two V=LU parallel inclined dashes; these often seem to nar c off paragraphs, sense-groups, or sentences, but they also occur frequently 4 where it is difficult to explain their function. The rrw is incomplete. It begins with the end of Cymbeline'a reign, correaPondding to v. 5,000 of V7ace'a Brut, (ed. Le 1 ux de Lincy). or v. 4,883 of the edition P.af- I WbdnW made by OpOA-. T. Arnold. The Brit ich Muc eum Cat alo ue of Additions to the Department of Manuacripto 1916 - 1920 therefore suggests that it lacks five gatherin{, a of eight leaves, or about 2,080 lines. Over 10,000 lines of Waoe are here abridged into 2,914 lines, with an additional 354 lines bringing the "history" up to the time of the ms. The fragment beginn on the Xrreoent f. 2, and the six -! effaced linen on f. 1. will not be found till v. 387 of our text. This arises from a bad aooembly of the ms at some otage of its hietoyy, probably when the first part of the Brut, and perhaps the original binding, were loot. r. 1e should take the place of f. 8, which ohould. follow 1.2, really the. beginning of our fragment. The eatcIv-, ordo at the foot of f. l. b then come in their correct place at the end of a gathering if, as suggested, a number of complete gatherings has been lost. This disarrangement is evidently of ancient date, as the present f, 1. bears { - lp- evory sign of long wear, Presumably without fly- leaf of bindin The value of the mss from:: a literary and philological viewpoint is increased by the to1ereb1e certainty with which it can be dated. The writing, from oomI xioon with dated documento in ouch manualo ao Fn lioh Court Ham, (Johnson and Janlcinson), aeemo to belong to the latter faxt of the firot half of the fourteenth century. The eond. uding linen refer to the reign of Edward 111 "qe ore est. " The king bas already begun hie invasion of French territory: "Cil ad grant guere xm comencd ..; Encuntre le Roi de Franc-o an ca terre. " The date of composition should therefore be cubco: -,uont to July l338, when Edward and his forces landed at Antwerp. If "en as terre" is not used loosely 2a of Flandern, it should date in fact from Edward's actual croocinof-the French frontier at Ruironfoace late in 1339. The me ends with a prayer for victory such aas aggreooore uoually elecit from their churches, but there is no mention of the king's great naval victory at Sluys on June 25th 1340. Ac ouch an event would not doubt have found. a large place in the patriotic ending of the poem it is natural to conclude that Sluyo had not been won wehen the me wau 6 written, or at least composed. The limiting dates for composition therefore appear to be July 1338 and June 1340. That given by the Catalogue for the conclusion of the chronicle, (1338) thus seems rather early, and the evidence most favourable to the end of 1339 or the beginning of 1340. As the writing seems contemporary with the latest facts recorded, it is more than possible that the scribe wac also the author of the chronicle. Obscure linen and downright errors, as distinct from i' egularities regular in Anglo-Norman, are very few, and the quality of the versification which follows the end of VCace's story hardly ouggesta talent likely to be rare in a scribe. The miniatures have great curiosity value, as well as artistic and historical interact. Comparison with the fine work of marry contemporary ,, lioh artiste seems to justify the comment of the Catalogue, "they are not beautiful but very , inter©oting. Closer examination, however, shows in them rare skill in drawing and composition, and it is rather the crude colouring which convoys an unfavourable first im Fression. jon'e Professor Tocill. opinion is that they are of great excellence, in fact unique. They seem to have been intended originally as pen-and-irk drawings. The drawing is firm and clean, the drapery well rendered, and ignorance of proportion and perspective is only a common fault of the time. Some of the pictures, for example the coonon of fighting euch as those on ff. 5 and 18, are particularly good and full of action. * The faces of the men, with their wavy noses. the interrogative arc of the brow and the rather thick lips faintly curved in a smile or distressfully drawn, an occasion domandu, are of a uniform ugliness which is at leant distinctive. Thu colouring and gilding, however, are rauch below the standard of the drawing. Hair and boards are usually a rusty purple, though come yellowish blonde appear, and even one or two blueboards, notably Joseph, in the Nativity on f.

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