Vol. 3 No. 9 July 1983

Vol. 3 No. 9 July 1983 The Centre for English Cultural Tradition and Language I THE CENTRE FOR ENGLISH CULTURAL TRADITION AND LANGUAGE The Centre for English Cultural Tradition and Language is a research institution \;V hich acts as a national repositary for material on all aspects of language and cultural tradition throughout the British Isles. Located at the University of Sheffield, where it forms part ofthe Department ofEnglish Language, it has close links with the Department ofLinguistics and the Division ofContinuing Education at the University and also the Departments ofFolklore, English and Linguistics at the Memorial University ofNewfoundland. The Centre aims to stimulate interest in language and cultural tradition, encourage the collecting and recording of traditional material through individual contributors, societies and organisations, colleges and schools, and provide a forum for discussion on all aspects oflanguage and tradition. Through its Archives, the Centre co-operates with local libraries, museums, record offices, societies and organisations, to draw attention to our traditional heritage through publications, courses, lectures, displays and exhibitions. - Material gathered in the form oftaperecordings, written reports, questionnaires, manuscripts, books and printed sources, and items of material culture, is deposited in the Centre' s Archives, providing a basic resource for reference and research. The Archives include · a reference library of books, periodicals, original monographs, dissertations, pamphlets and ephemera. In addition the Audiovisual section ofthe Archive includes photograph~ , slides and illustrations as well as some 2,000 audio-tapes and over 600 films and videotapes. The Archives include detailed information on regional and social dialects, slang and colloquialism, blason populaire, occupational vocabulary, proverbs and sayings. In the area offolklore studies the Centre holds a substantial body ofdata on childlore, custom and belief, traditional narrative, music, dance and drama Special collections include: The Russell Wortley Collection (traditional dance and custom); the Edgar M Wagner Collection (European folkdance and topographial films); the Richard Blakeborough Collection (Yorkshire folklore and local history); the Geoffrey Bullough Collection (nineteenth century literature); microfilms oftheAlex H elm, Maurice M Barley andJames Maddison Carpenter collections (traditional drama and custom); copies ofthe papers ofT. Fairman Ordish (traditional drama); recordings and copies offield notebooks for the English and Welsh section ofthe Atlas L inguarum Europae; copies of the workbooks for the Survey of English D ialects. The Centre's material culture collection, housed in its Endcliffe Exhibition Hall, includes a wide variety of items representative of urban and rural traditional occupations, pastimes, arts and crafts. Special collections include basketmaking, knifegrinding, silversmithing and filecutting, in addition to handicrafts, furniture and domestic equipment. A selection of exhibitions is available for hire. In association with colleges ofeducation , schools and other interested groups and individuals throughout the British Isles, the Centre sponsors and directs numerous projects in the general field ofchildren 's language and folklore such as the role of tradition in teaching linguistic and social skills to children. In addition a systematic investigation oftraditional verbal social controls is being conducted- attention being concentrated on the verbal constraints used by adults in controlling the behaviour of children. Material is being assembled for a wide range of projects in the field of traditional drama, with special reference to geographical distribution and textual variation, context of performance and the influence of chapbook texts. A close liaison with the Traditional Drama Research Group has also been established. In the field of folklife the Centre is conducting a nationwide study of the traditional lore and language of food, and assembling a collection of English costume. The Archives continue to gather information on occupational vocabularies and traditions, calendar and social customs and the rites of passage and on various aspects of belief, traditional health systems, and the lore of cosmic phenomena, plants and animals. Local and aetiological legends, anecdotes and jokes are also well represented. Bibliographies and machine-readable files are being prepared on various aspects of English language and cultural tradition. The Centre contributes to both the postgraduate and undergraduate programmes in the Department ofEnglish Language at the University ofSheffield. The Department offers undergraduate courses in Folklore and Contemporary English, and postgraduate students may read for the degrees ofM .A., in Modern English Language and English Cultural Tradition (by examination and dissertation) and M.A., and Ph.D. in Language and/or Folklore (by dissertation). The Centre is also actively involved in the M .A. course in African Studies offered by the department ofEnglish Literature. The Centre also has responsibility for the University Certificate Course in English Cultural Tradition offered by the Division of Continuing Education. Each year a variety of conferences is sponsored by the Centre. In addition to hosting the annual Traditional Drama Conference, it has hosted conferences on Fieldw ork in Folklore and Oral H istory; Language Van.eties; Perspectives on Contemporary L egend; 13th M eeting of the European Ballad Commission. WORKING WITH AND THROUGH CECTAL The Centre relies greatly on voluntary help at all levels. Ifyou are interested in any aspects ofthe Centre's activities you are invited to write for further information to: The Director, Centre for English Cultural Tradition and Language, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, SlO 2TN. (Tel: 0742-78555, Ext.6296). Vol. 3 No.9 July 1983 Contents "Amor vincit omnia" and the Prioress's Brooch Robert E Jungman 1 Travellers' Cant, Shelta, Mumpers' Talk David Birch 8 and Minklers' Thari Love and Marriage Customs of the Venetia Newall 30 Jamaican Community in London The Farmworker and "The Farmer's Boy" Michael Pickering 44 Towards a Linguopoetic Study of Texts Olga Akhmanova 65 & Velta Zadornova Children's Halloween Customs in Sheffield E Beck 70 Reviews 89 The Centre for English Cultural Tradition and Language ©The Centre for Engl i sh Cultural Tradition and Language, University of Sheffield, 1 983 ISSN No. 0307- 7144 No part of this journal may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission from the Editor. ,. Amor vine it omnia" and the Prioress's Brooch Robert E Jungman Few scholars would disagree with Florence H Ridley when she says that Chaucer's introductory portrait of the Prioress in the "Prologue" to The Canterbury Tales is "obviously ambiguous." 1 This ambiguity, involving an incongruous combination of the ecclesiastical with the courtly, is established immediately at the beginning ofthe portrait, when Chaucer tells us that Ther was also a Nonne, a PRIORESSE, That of hir smylyng was ful symple and coy, (lines 118-19) and continues throughout the portrait, even to the last two lines, which describe the Prioress's coral rosary with its golden brooch, On which ther was first write a crowned A, And after Amor vincit omnia. (lines 161-2) The ambiguity ofthe concluding couplet is particularly striking, as John Livingston Lowes long ago pointed out when he commented, "Which of the two loves [earthly or heavenly] does 'amor' mean to the Prioress? I do not know; but I think she thought she meant love celestial."2 Later critics, of course, have not always agreed with Lowes. 3 Because the inscription on the brooch seems to offer such a good clue to the Prioress's character, many scholars have sought to explain the meaning of this inscription, without, however, paying much attention to its source. The phrase "Amor vincit omnia" has been traced to line 69 of Virgil's Tenth Eclogue: "omnia vincit Amor." That Virgil's Eclogues were known in fourteenth century England is shown by Bruce Harbert in his discussion of MS Auct. F. 1. 17 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.4 This early fourteenth century English manuscript is typical, says Harbert, of the collections ofLatin poetry which circulated widely in the later Middle Ages. These manuscripts usually combined classical and medieval Latin poems side by side, so it comes as no surprise when we see Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics as item no. 3 in MS Auct. F. 1. 17, sandwiched between Matthew of Vendome's Tobias (twelfth century) and a collection of poems attributed to Mar bod ofRennes (also twelfth century). This collection is followed by a number of poems about or by Virgil (including the Aeneid), as well as by other classical and medieval poets. Yet we must be careful not to attribute too quickly the inscription on the brooch to Virgil's Eclogue, since as Harbert points out, the fact that so wide a range ofauthors was available to Chaucer makes it more difficult for us to identifY the sources ofhis knowledge about ancient history and mythology. Details which modern readers most 1 readily associate with a classical author may have come to Chaucer from a medieval source.5 In the case ofthe Prioress's inscription, Richard Hoffman indicates that Chaucer could have come across the motto in the Speculum Historiale ofVincent ofBeauvais.6 In particular, the phrase appears as no. 21 in a list of quotations, which Vincent calls "Flosculi Virgilii" (Spec. His.,

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