Medieval Writers and their Work This page intentionally left blank J. A. Burrow Medieval Writers and their Work Middle English Literature 1100–1500 SECONDEDITION 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein OxfordNewYork AucklandCapeTownDaresSalaamHongKongKarachi KualaLumpurMadridMelbourneMexicoCityNairobi NewDelhiShanghaiTaipeiToronto Withofficesin ArgentinaAustriaBrazilChileCzechRepublicFranceGreece GuatemalaHungaryItalyJapanPolandPortugalSingapore SouthKoreaSwitzerlandThailandTurkeyUkraineVietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork ©J.A.Burrow2008 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished1982 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Dataavailable TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby ClaysLtd.,StIvesplc ISBN978–0–19–953204–9 13579108642 Preface This book offers neither a history nor a survey of Middle English literature:asurveymaybefoundinTheCambridgeHistoryofMedieval EnglishLiterature,editedbyDavidWallace(1999),andDerekPearsall providesahistoryoftheverseinOldEnglishandMiddleEnglishPoetry (1977).Thepresentbookisdesignedasanintroduction.Attheriskof givinganexaggeratedimpressionofthestrangenessofMiddleEnglish writings, I have concentrated on some of the chief differences which confrontareaderofmodernliteraturewhenheorshefirstapproaches them: differences in the notion of literature itself (Chapter1), in the circumstances under which writings were produced and received (Chapter2), in the types of writing produced (Chapter3), and in the kinds of meaning to be found in them (Chapter4). Chapters 1 and 5 also attempt to characterize the Middle English period in relation to earlierandlaterperiodsofEnglishliterature. Texts are quoted from the editions cited in the Bibliography. Bible quotations are from the Authorized Version. Translations of Dante’s DivineComedyaretakenfromtheversionbyC.H.Sisson(1980). I would like to thank Stephen Medcalf, Alastair Minnis, Charles Runacres, John Scattergood, Thorlac Turville-Petre, and many stu- dentsandcolleaguesforgivingmeideasandadvice. ForthepresentneweditionIhavereviewedthetextthroughoutand rewritten parts of it, as well as bringing references cited in the notes andbibliographyuptodate. This page intentionally left blank Contents 1 Theperiodandtheliterature 1 2 Writers,audiences,andreaders 25 3 Majorgenres 59 4 Modesofmeaning 90 5 TheafterlifeofMiddleEnglishliterature 125 Notes 139 Bibliography 147 Index 152 This page intentionally left blank 1 The period and the literature I The phrase ‘Middle English’ has an academic and somewhat unidio- maticflavour.Itwasfirstcoinedtodesignateaperiodinthehistoryof theEnglishlanguage.Historicalphilologistsinthenineteenthcentury, most of them German, liked to see in the history of a language three phases: Old (alt-), Middle (mittel-), and New or Modern (neu-). This triadicschemefittedthehistoryofEnglishquitewell.OldEnglishcould only be the language of pre-Conquest, Anglo-Saxon England. New Englishpresumablyextendedbackfromthepresentdaytothebegin- ning of modern times—say, the first Tudors. In between lay Middle English.ThiswasdistinguishedfromOldEnglishchieflybyasimplified systemofinflexionandavocabularyenrichedfromFrenchandScan- dinavian sources, and from Modern English by inflexions still further simplifiedandavocabularyfurtherenrichedanddiversified,especially fromLatin.Onthestrengthofchangessuchasthese,philologistsfixed thebeginningsofMiddleEnglishintheperiod1100–1150anditsend around1450–1500.1 Philologyandliteraryhistorybeingtwindisciplines,itisnotsurpris- ingthatliteraryhistorianswerequicktoadopttheconceptof‘Middle English’. The three or four hundred years in question soon came to be seen also as a literary period. It seemed natural to consider the workssurvivingfromthesecenturies—AncreneWisseandTheOwland the Nightingale, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Cloud of Unknowing,theCanterburyTalesandMorteDarthur—asrepresentatives not only of a stage in the English language, but also of a stage in the development of English literature. Yet this usage cannot be accepted without question, even in a book such as this, committed by its title to the concept of Middle English Literature. Literary historians are accustomed to borrow like jackdaws from other disciplines when it comes to defining and naming periods. They use, for instance, the reignsofkingsandqueens:‘Jacobeandrama’,‘Victorianpoetry’.The statusofsuchborrowedlabelsmustalwaysbequestionable,evenwhen they are borrowed, as in the case of ‘Middle English’, from a disci- pline more closely related to literary studies than is political history.