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The New Morgan Manuscript of Titus and Vespasian
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Under their number 1881, Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins listed ten manuscripts which contain the romance of Titus and Vespasian written in couplet form. Since the publication of the Index, however, at least two more manuscripts of this work have come to light, the Earl of Derby (Knowsley Hall) codex and another recently acquired by the Pierpont Morgan Library. The present investigation concerns the latter manuscript, for which the following description may be supplied:
M 898, collection: The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Manuscript on vellum (5 5/8 ⋉ 3 7/8 inches). Collation: a-m8 n5, wanting al = 100 leaves. 20 lines. Written (black ink with chapter headings or résumés in red, and rubrication in blue) in England in the fifteenth century. Bound in nineteenth-century brown morocco by F. Bedford. With the book-plate of Sir Henry Hope Edwardes (his library was sold at Christie's, 20 May 1901).
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1961
References
1 The Index of Middle English Verse (New York, 1943), p. 296.
2 Sold at Christie's (Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd., London) on 19 October 1953, lot 301. The incipit and the description indicate that this is a manuscript of the “long-version.” This manuscript is now in the library of Mr. James M. Osborn of New Haven, Conn.
3 The original “guide-letters” for the convenience of the rubricator are often visible underneath the painted-in initials.
4 Cf. Seymour de Ricci, English Collectors of Boohs & Manuscripts {1530-1930) (Cambridge, 1930), p. 177.
5 English Vernacular Hands from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Centuries (Oxford, 1960), p. 20. The script also has points of similarity with the hand displayed on his Plate 22.
6 Titus & Vespasian, or The Destruction of Jerusalem, in Rhymed Couplets (London, 1905).
7 Edited by Rudolf Fischer, “Vindicta Salvatoris,” Archill fiir das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaluren, cxi (1903), 285–298 and cxii (1904), 25–45. The manuscript is described in detail by Montague Rhodes James in Biblio-theca Pepysiana, a Descriptive Catalogue of the Library of Samuel Pepys (London, 1914–23), iii, 65–67, citing the editor as Rudolph Fricker.
8 For a full description of Additional 10036, see H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1883–1910), i, 187–189, and pp. xxvii-xxx of Herbert's edition of the romance.
9 Earliest recorded use of sanative (a remedy) by OED is c. 1440.
10 Written as two lines in the MS.
11 The same hand has written the first three lines only on the folio signed i4.
12 Written as three prose lines in the MS. Compare, also, Brown-Robbins 1151.
13 Pepys lines 1724/25 read (and almost identically in M, f5):
To bi seruice I schal [wol M] me jeue
I prey be lord jif hit be bi wylle
These correspond to lines 2552 and 2591 of Herbert's text.
14 Dr. C. E. Wright, Deputy Keeper of Manuscripts in the British Museum, kindly informs me that the inserted leaf (folio 16) contains the lines corresponding to 2557–94 inclusive of the Roxburghe Club edition. This raises an interesting and unusual problem, which only a thorough study and detailed comparison of the original manuscripts may be able to explain. Both and PM at this point omitted thirty-eight lines—but they are not the same fines. All three MSS agree in omitting thirty-four fines (2557-90), but PM have four lines not originally in (2591-94), and that MS originally included four lines (2553-56) not present in PM. See Addendum.
15 Both M (k3) and (Herbert, p. 171, ii. 1) omit lines 3773/74, but they do have the other four. One may also cite two examples (apparently of dittography), where the slips in are not carried over into the other two MSS:
My levé freend for hem sende ban
I prey be sire bat I had herd
With Jesu Crist how bei ferd (Herbert, 2080/82)
I prey be send for hem ban pat I my3t her dedes here Wib Jheju crist howe bei fere (M, el)
I pray be bat bou sende for hem ban I praye be bat I had yherde
With Jesu cn'st howe bat bei ferde (P, 11. 1254/56)
Herbert cites no variants for B here. The other example concerns lines 2377/78 of Herbert's text:
pat if man shulde to helpe be broght With mannes deth he most be boght Here Pepys (line 1550) has “brouzt” for “bouzt” in the second line above, an error not found in M (e8v) and apparently not in B.
16 It is most unlikely that a professional scribe (such as the one who wrote the Morgan manuscript) would have supplied the rubrics under his own initiative. It must be presumed, I think, that they were present in the “Vorlage” which he was copying.
17 At least no variants are cited by Herbert to indicate that contains any extra lines after his line 4376.
18 For lines 617/18 of Fischer's edition, and M (cl) have:
Wherfor Syr wibout reson Haueb [Haue M] nozt me in suspeccyon Here, Herbert prints no variants for his lines 1433/34:
Wherfore sire by noo resoun
Haveth me in noon suspectioun For Herbert's line 3204, P. (1. 2338) and M (hS) agree in the reading: “Wib ioye and myrbe gret plente,” while (Herbert, p. 145, ii. 1) has: “With murbe gret plente.” At Fischer's Unes 2781/82, M (i8) provides the identical reading:
But it be any pryue cristen-man
Late J-turned to god ban The corresponding lines in Herbert (3661/62) are quite different, and the recorded variants do not show that has the same rhyme words.
19 These lines correspond to 3501/10 of Herbert's text, though BMP all omit lines 3503/4 of the Roxburghe Club edition. Fischer lines 2629/36.
20 Fischer's line 1428.
21 Line 1639 of Fischer's text.
22 Frequently also, holds with in opposition to M. Thus, in line 2148, reads: “Thanwol I bee of frenschip hede” (Herbert, p. 98, n. 4) with which (line 1320) agrees exactly; here M (e3) has: “pan wol I shewe be frenshiphede.” Again, Fischer's lines 1179/80 offer:
For I wyst I had him forgo
Therfor in hert me was wo
B (Herbert, p. 92, ii. 1) agrees verbatim with this, but M (d7v) provides the text:
ffor wel I wyste I schulde him forgo
perfor in hert me was wo.
23 Elsewhere (p. xli), Herbert remarks: “First, the omission of the Life of Judas (II. 4487–4884) by alone, out of the six MSS. (for Add. 36983 is included here), raises the question whether this formed part of the original poem, or was inserted in a later and expanded version.” With the discovery of two more “short-text” manuscripts, the proportion given above is materially altered.
24 Some lines, of course, may have been accidentally omitted in the shorter version.
25 Herbert, p. 221, ii. 3, shows that also omits the third and fourth lines of this quotation. It will be recalled that breaks off at line 4010.
26 Occasionally, Herbert's text preserves the gross errors of his original; thus, for example, Saint Clement appears as “Sire Clement” in 11.4961,4983,4999, and 5023, though most manuscripts correctly have “Seynt.”
27 To this writer anyway, the shorter text often provides a more satisfactory and smoother rendering than that printed by Herbert. Compare, for example, his lines 5055/62 with the text printed below (M, n1v-n2) :
As we in storye mowe rede & fynde pere were J-heled bobe lame & blynde And after him reigned tytus his sonne Emperoure of rome gret of renown pat euer 3itte was so I holde As men in gestys haue J-tolde Hit witnesseb bat he was alweyes Of ziftes bob good & curteys.
28 Of Additional MS. 10036, Herbert writes (p. xxix): “It is much to be regretted that this MS. is so imperfect, for it is one of the two earliest extant copies of the poem, and the text, though abridged (see below), seems fairly good. The scribe is exceptionally uniform in his orthography and inflections.” The latter sentence is also applicable to the Morgan manuscript.