SINGING FROM THE BOOK: AN ANALYSIS OF THE MIDDLE ENGLISH AND LATIN LULLABY LYRICS IN HARLEY 913 By CYNTHIA A. ROGERS Bachelor of Arts/Science in English Oklahoma State University Stillwater, OK 2008 Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate College of Oklahoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS July, 2008 SINGING FROM THE BOOK; AN ANALYSIS OF THE MIDDLE ENGLISH AND LATIN LULLABY LYRICS IN HARLEY 913 Thesis Approved: Merrall Llewelyn Price Thesis Adviser Randi Eldevik Edward Jones Allen Scott A. Gordon Emslie Dean of the Graduate College ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The expertise and patience of my committee members have been a source of unending support in the pursuit of my research and writing. Merrall Llewelyn Price, my committee chair, has given unstintingly of her time to comment on drafts and listen to me work through my arguments in conversations with her. It is not every advisor who relishes working through codicological details—I am quite aware how much I have to thank her for. Randi Eldevik holds a special place in this project since it was in her class more than a decade ago that I first encountered the "Lollai" lyrics. Her expertise in Latin and Middle English has made this a much cleaner work than it otherwise would have been. Certainly all the errors in the translations are mine, and the moments of clarity are due to her assistance. Allen Scott from the Music Department at OSU has always greeted my appearance in his office with good humor and enthusiasm, no matter how exotic or mundane my questions were. Edward Jones gave me excellent advice about working in the field with manuscripts, and it was literally on his recommendation that the British Library let me in the door of the manuscript room. This work could not have been written without the generous financial support of my research from Oklahoma State University, in the form of two Robberson Summer Research Scholarships (2004, 2007) and the Women's Faculty Council Award for Research (2004). These scholarships allowed me to spend two weeks in London in 2004 iii studying at the University of London's Summer Paleography courses and doing primary research on Harley 913 at the British Library. The second Robberson in 2007 allowed me to attend the University of Toronto's Medieval Summer Latin program and to do secondary research at their Pontifical Institute's non-circulating research library. I am also grateful to the British Library for permission to use reproductions of pages from MS Harley 913 in my thesis, and for graciously waiving their usual use- charges. Finally, I am grateful for the love and support of my family and extended family of friends. Literally, it has taken a village to get me through this process. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................1 The Christ Child Lullaby Tradition......................................................................1 Scholarship and Questions ...................................................................................2 Overview.............................................................................................................2 Apparatus ............................................................................................................4 II. PROVENANCE....................................................................................................5 Physical Description ............................................................................................6 Composition, Compilation, and Manufacture.......................................................7 Franciscan Connections .......................................................................................9 History of Ownership.........................................................................................10 III. LITERATURE REVIEW...................................................................................12 IV. DISARRANGEMENT OF THE MANUSCRIPT ..............................................19 Current Order of Harley 913 ..............................................................................22 Reconstruction Based on the Text, Booklet Similarities, and Vellum Fold-patterns...................................................................................25 Vellum Fold Pattern Analysis ............................................................................26 Proposed New Reconstruction of Harley 913 and Notes on Quires.....................31 The Purposes of the Rebinder ............................................................................40 Further Study.....................................................................................................42 V. "LOLA, LOLA:" AN ANALYSIS OF THE LATIN LULLABY ........................43 Classical and Medieval Punctuation Uses...........................................................43 Application to "Lola, Lola"................................................................................45 Goliardic Meter .................................................................................................49 Capitalum and Paragraphus Marks ...................................................................54 An Opposing Argument.....................................................................................57 Thematic Analysis of "Lola, Lola" and its Precursors.........................................57 v Chapter Page VI. AN ANALYSIS OF THE MIDDLE ENGLISH LYRIC "LOLLAI, LOLLAI:" 63 Comparison of Punctuation................................................................................63 Viewing the First Two Stanzas as a Translation .................................................67 Metrical Analysis...............................................................................................71 Was the Latin Lullaby Originally Longer? .........................................................74 The Addition of Verses......................................................................................75 Analysis of Grimestone's "Lullay" .....................................................................79 The Grimestone Lyric's Meter and Punctuation..................................................80 Speculations on the Relationship Between the Grimestone Harley Lullabies......83 Lullaby Tradition Lineage..................................................................................84 Descendants.......................................................................................................86 APPENDICES.........................................................................................................89 A. Middle English "Lollai, lollai" Transcription and Translation........................89 B. Latin "Lola, Lola" Transcription and Translation...........................................94 C. Grimestone's "Lullay, Lullay"Transcription and Translation..........................98 D. English Translation of Heuser's Comentary from Die Kildare-Gedichte ...... 100 E. Glossary of Specialized Terms..................................................................... 104 WORKS CITED.................................................................................................... 111 NOTES.................................................................................................................. 117 VITA........................................................................................................................... ABSTRACT................................................................................................................ vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1 Folio 63V- "Lola" Fragment .............................................................................46 2 Folio 32R- Beginning of "Lollai"......................................................................65 3 Folio 32V- End of "Lollai"................................................................................66 vii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION The Christ Child Lullaby Tradition The medieval lullaby "Lollai, lollai, whi wepistou so sore" gives a mother's words as she soothes a crying baby. At the same time she sings lulling sounds to quiet the baby, she acknowledges that he has reason to weep, for the world is harsh and his life will be full of suffering. If one hears her words as being from the Virgin Mary to the Christ child, another layer of poignancy is added. The child has chosen to come to save mankind from their sins, but that does not change the fact that at the moment of the lullaby, omnipotent God has become a baby who cries in his cradle and needs comfort from his mother. This paradoxical image is so compelling that similar lullabies continued to be written for hundreds of years. Some of them are still sung in churches today at Christmas time. "Lollai" has long been considered the great-grandmother of this tradition, the oldest of all the lullaby lyrics. The song is preserved in a fourteenth-century Franciscan friar's little traveling book that he carried in his pouch. It is in company with other songs, theological treatises, a list of Franciscan holdings, satires, and sermon materials—a miscellaneous wealth that must have been useful to the friar that copied it into his book. Since the Franciscans took vows of poverty, they carried very little with them in their walking journeys, hence the tiny size of the book. The friar probably traveled from place to place in eastern Ireland preaching and