tales that are in stanzas are early, and nearly all that are in the usual couplets are late. We have seen that this is known to be true in the case of the Second Nun's Tale, that it is highly probable in the case of the Clerk's Tale (of which more hereafter), and there is nothing against it in the case of the Monk's Tale, written in the same metre as a poem which is said to have been his very first, or nearly so, if there be any truth in the statement that it was written for the use of the Duchess Blanche, who died in 1369. At the same time, I suppose Palamon and Arcite' to have been written in stanzas, so that the present metre of the Knight's Tale presents no difficulty. Of course it will be understood that there is, in these stanzatales, some of Chaucer's latest work, but I shall presently shew that this late work is easily picked out. 6 The above canon is due to no fancy, but to the simple fact, that Chaucer cannot be proved to have used his couplets till he was well advanced in composition. Indeed, it has always been remarked that no English poet before him ever dreamt of such a metre, and it has been a source of wonder, for hundreds of years, whence he derived it. To say that it was derived from the French ten-syllable verse is not a complete solution of the mystery; for nearly all such verse is commonly either in stanzas, or else a great number of successive lines are rimed together. What we desire is to find a specimen of French ten-syllable verse in which only two successive lines are rimed together; and these, I believe, are rather scarce. After some search I have, however, fortunately lighted upon a very interesting specimen, among the poems of Guillaume de Machault, a French writer whom Chaucer is known to have imitated1, and who died in 1 See Specimens from Chaucer's Book of the Duchess as compared with some from Machault's Remède de Fortune in Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 47, where he quotes from Étude sur G. Chaucer, by M. Sandras, p. 290. The obligations to the Remède de Fortune are somewhat doubtful (Trial Forewords, p. 115): but there are other instances which go to shew that Chaucer had read Machault; see Professor Ten Brink's note (at the same reference) and the last note in Tyrwhitt's notes to the Canterbury Tales. 1377. In the edition of Machault's poems edited by Tarbé, Reims and Paris, 1849, p. 89, there is a poem of exactly this character, of no great length, but fortunately dated; for its title is Complainte écrite après la bataille de Poitiers et avant le siège de Reims par les Anglais' (1356-1358). The first four lines run thus: 'A toy, Henry, dous amis, me complain, Pour ce que ne cueur ne mont ne plein 1; The last couplet (the second line of which has two examples of the fully-sounded final e) is as follows :— 'Et que jamais ne feray chant ne lay, Now as Chaucer was taken prisoner in France in 1359, he had an excellent opportunity for making himself acquainted with this poem, and with others, possibly, in a similar metre which have not come down to us. It is also almost certain that the earliest attempt to use this metre in English was made by Chaucer, in his Legend of Good Women, commenced, according to Professor Ten Brink, in the year 1385 (Furnivall's Trial Forewords, p. 111). Surely this date is one of considerable importance; for we at once derive from it the probability that all of the Canterbury Tales written in this metre were written after 1385, whilst those not in this metre were probably earlier. With this to guide us, I can now proceed to discuss separately such of the Canterbury Tales as are printed in the present volume. Man-of-Law Head-link. This is an important passage, as it gives the date (April 18) of one of the days of the pilgrimage, and a list of the Tales which Chaucer meant to include in his Legend of Good Women. These points are discussed in the 1 Observe particularly this rime of complain with plein. This shews whence Chaucer derived such rimes as seke, seke; Prol. 17, 18. There is a poem of 92 lines called Le Dit de la Harpe, printed in Bartsch's Crestomathie Française, p. 408, in which more than half the rimes are of this character. notes to II. 3 and 61, which see. The metre, by the canon, shews late or new work, as the subject-matter proves. Prologue to the Man of Law's Tale. The metre would, by the canon, indicate early work, yet it is obviously not so. The truth is that the Man of Law's Tale is, in itself, of early workmanship, but was revised for insertion amongst the Tales, the Prologue being added at the time of revision. Lines 131– 133 may be taken to mean, in plain English, that 'I, the poet, should be in want of a Tale to insert here, and should have to write one, only fortunately I have one by me which will do very well.' The 'Merchant' who 'taught' Chaucer the Man of Law's Tale was his industrious younger self1. Shipman's Prologue, Tale, and End-link. All in the poet's latest and best manner. Prioress's Tale. The real Prologue to this Tale is contained in the Shipman End-link, B 1637-1642. What is now called the Prologue is, more strictly, a Proem; and the Tale itself is, more strictly, a Legend, or (as the author calls it) a 'song'; B 1677. The Legend is in the same style as the Life of Saint Cecile, and probably belongs to the same period. The Proem closely resembles that to the Life, and contains a similar invocation to the Virgin Mary: it seems to have been partly adapted from an old Proem, now represented by ll. 1657-1677, though 1. 1663 has been altered or re-written. The two first stanzas, ll. 1643-1656, belong to the new or revised work, as shewn by the introduction of the words 'quod she' (1644), and the line 'To tell a storie I wol doon my labour' (1653). At the end of 1. 1656 I have inserted a short stroke, by way of marking off the new work from the old. The Tale itself is taken from a source similar to that of the Legend of Alphonsus of Lincoln, a story reprinted by the Chaucer Society from the Fortalitium Fidei; Lugdun. 1500, For further notes, see Specimens of English, Part II, ed. Morris and Skeat, p. 346, and my edition of the Man of Law's Tale. The French original by Nicholas Trivet has lately been published by the Chaucer Society. fol. ccviii. In another edition, printed in 1485, the Legend of Alphonsus is said to have been composed in 1459, and it is stated to be the work of a Minorite friar, whose name, according to Hain and others, was Alphonsus a Spina. The story is, that a widow residing in Lincoln has a son named Alphonsus, ten years of age, who goes daily to school, singing 'Alma Redemptoris' as he passes through the street where the Jews dwell. One day the Jews seize him, cut out his tongue, tear out his heart, and throw his body into a filthy pit. But the Virgin appears to him, gives him a precious stone in place of a tongue, and enables him to sing 'Alma Redemptoris' for four days. His mother seeks and finds him, and he is borne to the cathedral, still singing. The bishop celebrates mass; the boy reveals the secret, resigns the precious stone to the bishop, gives up the ghost, and is buried in a marble tomb. A similar legend is narrated concerning Hugh of Lincoln; see note to B 1874. In Originals and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, pt. iii. (Chaucer Society, 1876) is the story of The Paris Beggarboy murdered by a Jew, printed from the Vernon MS., leaf 123, back. It is well told, and has some remarkable points of agreement with the Prioresses Tale. It clearly identifies the hymn Alma Redemptoris Mater as agreeing with the second anthem mentioned in the note to 1. 1708 of Group B, which is translated by 'Godus Moder, mylde and clene, Heuene ate and sterre of se, Saue pi peple from synne and we [woe].' The same work contains a similar story, in French verse, of a boy killed by a Jew for singing Gaude Maria; from MS. Harl. 4401. Tyrwhitt's account of the Prioress's Tale is as follows: 'The transition from the Tale of the Shipman to that of the Prioresse is happily managed. I have not been able to discover from what Legende of the Miracles of Our Lady the Prioress's Tale is taken. From the scene being laid in Asia, it should seem, that this was one of the oldest of the many stories which have been propagated, at different times, to excite or justify several merciless persecutions of the Jews, upon the charge of murthering Christian children. The story of Hugh of Lincoln, which is mentioned in the last stanza, is placed by Matthew Paris under the year 1255. In the first four months of the Acta Sanctorum by Bollandus, I find the following names of children canonized, as having been murthered by Jews: xxv Mart. Willielmus Norvicensis, 1144; Richardus, Parisiis, 1179; xvii Apr. Rudolphus, Bernæ, 1287; Wernerus, Wesaliæ, anno eodem; Albertus, Poloniæ, 1598. I suppose the remaining eight months would furnish at least as many more. See a Scottish Ballad (Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, i. 32) upon one of these supposed murthers. The editor [Percy] has very ingeniously conjectured that " Merryland" in verse 1 is a corruption of 'Milan.' Perhaps the real occasion of the Ballad may have been what is said to have happened at Trent, in 1475, to a boy called Simon. The Cardinal Hadrian, about fifty years after, mentioning the Rocks of Trent, adds-" 'quo Iudæi ob Simonis cædem ne aspirare quidem audent; Praef. ad librum de Serm. Lat. The change of the name in the Song, from Simon to Hugh, is natural enough in this country, where similar stories of Hugh of Norwich and Hugh of Lincoln had been long current.' The Ballad alluded to is called 'The Jew's Daughter' by Percy, and is to the effect that a boy named Hugh was enticed to play and then stabbed by a Jew's daughter, who threw him into a draw-well. His mother, Lady Helen, finds him by hearing his voice. I may add that the story of Hugh of Lincoln, and a picture of the martyrdom of Simon at Trent, are given in an excellent chapter concerning the Jews in Manners, Customs, and Dress during the Middle Ages, by P. Lacroix, pp. 434-455. A last word as to the metre. The question has been raisedWhence did Chaucer derive his seven-line stanza? M. Sandras (Étude sur G. Chaucer, pp. 76, 288) answers-From Guillaume de Machault, and quotes a stanza to shew this. The answer is |