''a Goliard's Feast and the Metanarrative of Harley 2253''

Carter Revard

A Goliard's Feast and the Metanarrative of Harley 2253In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 83 fasc. 3, 2005. Langues et littératures modernes - Moderne taalen litterkunde. pp. 841-867.

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Revard Carter. A Goliard's Feast and the Metanarrative of Harley 2253. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 83fasc. 3, 2005. Langues et littératures modernes - Moderne taal en litterkunde. pp. 841-867.

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A Goliard's Feast and the metanarrative

ofHarley2253

Carter Revard

1. Introduction The present essay offers a new edition and translation of an Anglo-Norman

text that has gone almost undiscussed, either for itself or for its place and role in a trilingual manuscript of great importance, BL MS Harley 2253 (see Fein : 2000). This poem, Quant voy la revenue d'yver, which will here be titled (for reasons that will become apparent) A Goliard's Feast, is a self-satirizing dramatic monologue of a Glutton or Goliard. (l) A Continental French version of it was copied into a contemporary manuscript of Burgundian provenance that is now Burgerbibliothek Bern, cod. 354, indicating that the poem circulated more widely than has been appreciated by scholars, who in discussing MS Harley 2253 have focused mainly on its Middle English texts, especially the famous "Harley Lyrics" (see Brook : 1968). Other texts in Harley 2253 — especially Anglo-Norman ones — also circulated in Ireland, England, and on the Continent, showing that the scribe who gathered those texts was no mere provincial scrivener, but could access and copy matter from those wider regions. Moreover, he has chosen and arranged this and the other texts within Harley 2253 so that, in reading the whole anthology, we observe that it has a dialectic metanarrative — an overall "story" that controls its thematic sequencings and oppositional arrangements of texts. Seeing how this metanarrative shaped the compilation and copying of Harley 2253, we realize the manuscript was constructed for, and used as, a household book in a particular tradition: that leading from the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alfonsi to the

(1) The poem is titled "Tavern Song" by Dean (1999, p. 87): "A song about the trials of winter and the joys of the tavern and good food (with long lists of meat and fish), ending 'e je m'en voys donks dormyr.' Written as prose, with irregular rhyme-scheme, it is difficult to reduce to form. Lines seem intended to be of four, five, or six syllables. Capital letters with or without paragraph marks appear to mark the song into ten stanzas of irregular length. It fills two columns of 45 and 46 11.: the editor made 243 [recte, 143] verses of it." The editor Dean cites is Wright (1842, pp. 13-18). She refers to but does not discuss the Continental French version in Bern, Burgerbibliothek cod. 354 (fols. 1 12v-l 14r), printed by Méon (1823, 1, pp. 301-305). She calls the Harley 2253 poem "a celebration of seasonal food and drink," noting that its stanzaic form is "hard to elicit..., both because it is written in long lines with the ends of verses and stanzas only occasionally indicated and because the rhymes are often obscured, since it is an Anglo-Norman copy of a continental French original" (p. 330, and fh. 8). See (Dove : 1970 and 2000).

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Decameron and the Canterbury Tales. (2) The present essay, then, begins with a discussion of one poem, A Goliard's Feast, and broadens out to offer a "reader' s- eye view" of Harley 2253 as a household anthology.

A Goliard's Feast was first printed (untitled) by Thomas Wright in 1842, the Continental version of it in 1 823 by D. M. Méon with the title La Devise aux Lecheors. In Harley 2253 the poem is written as prose, and its irregular rhyme- scheme makes line-breaks doubtful; as I have made them, the Harley 2253 version has 161 lines. Hagen, in his Catalogue of Cod. 354, divides the texts into three groups: Group One (fols. 1-175) has 75 texts titled Dits et Fabliaux; Group Two (fols. 184-205) has a single text, Roman de VII Sages de Rome; and Group Three (fols. 206-74) contains only Li romanz de parceval by Chrétien de Troyes. (3) So Cod. 354 contains 175 fols, of fabliaux and dits, and 100 of "romances" — one of the latter being a didactic frame-story collection of exempla, the other a long courtly romance of the Grail Knight. It is therefore like certain other manuscript anthologies — that is, a planned mix of fabliau and romance — that I have discussed elsewhere, and some of its fabliau / dit items occur also in the manuscripts considered in that essay: besides Harley 2253, these include Paris, BN MSS 837 and 19182; Bodleian MS Digby 86; and the Carmina Burana (Revard : 2000a, pp. 261-278).

For instance, we find A Goliard's Feast in both cod. 354 and Harley 2253, and Harley 2253 contains an Α-N version of Le chevalier qui fist les cons parler, whose Continental French version is in cod. 354. In cod. 354 is a debate between Hueline and Eglantine over the merits as courtly lovers of Knights and Clerics; in Harley 2253, a debate between sensual Gilote and virgin Johane; opening lines of these debates are quite similar, and Gilote has a knight as lover and provides a

(2) For Petrus Alfonsi see (Tolan : 1993). For "oppositional thematics" in Chaucer see (Cooper : 1997). For Disciplina Clericalis as model for the Harley 2253 anthology, and for "oppositional thematics" as a key to Harley 2253, see (Revard : 1982, 1999, 2000 and 2001); also (Nolan : 2000, pp. 289-292). With Tolan (1993, p. 16), I believe Andreas Capellanus's The Art of Courtly Love in its dialogue format and sic et non dialectic shows the influence of Petrus Alfonsi, and the texts in Harley 2253 are so arranged that the reader encounters frequent use of sic et non examples and pro-and-con exempla of love and lovers. Nolan (2000, pp. 291-92) says of quires 12, 13, and 14, "the principles of hierarchy, contrariety, and exemplary mirroring... seem to have entered into the ordering of Harley 2253", and the principles apply well in quires 5-11 and 15. I have elsewhere (MMLA, St. Louis 1998, a paper under revision for publication) discussed relations of the manuscript's "political / timely" poems to its "lyrical / "timeless" ones; see note 19 below.

(3) The contents of Bern cod. 354 are listed by Hagen (1875, pp. 338-345). He describes it as a quarto dating from the fourteenth century containing at present 274 folios, adding: Post f. 13 habetur unum folium sine numeratione et post f. 55 et 135 desunt singuli vel pluri quaterniones. F. 136-75 ponenda ante f. 56 (cf. custodemf. 175b). Folia 206 et 207 vacant. Fuit Henrici Stephani et Goldastii. Codicem descripsit Jubinal in libro cui titulus est: Lettre au directeur d'artiste, Paris, 1838. (I am most grateful to the director and staff of the Bern Burgerbibliothek for supplying me with a microfilm copy of cod. 354 to examine for the present study.) See also (Noomen et Van Boogaard : 1996), (Rossi : 1985), (Rychner : 1984) and (Nolan : 2000).

A GOLIARD 'S FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 843

cleric as lover for Johane, whereupon the two of them like Apostles preach the gospel of sensual love throughout England and Ireland and convert the multitudes to their doctrine and practice. There are similar debates between two women in Digby 86 as well as in Paris, BN MS fr. 837 — in which we hear, as it were, the grandmothers of the Wife of Bath. (4)

Of the debate-poems in Harley 2253, however, the Debate of Summer and Winter (5) is the one crucial to a right reading not only of A Goliard's Feast, but of the whole anthology. It is the second of two Anglo-Norman poems that make up Quire 5 (fols. 49-52), which the scribe has set at the very beginning of the portion of Harley 2253 that he has copied (fols. 49-140). Close reading shows that the debate between its two great opposites, far from being inconclusive as one might expect, is won by Summer — because Summer, as he truly claims, has been sent from Paradise to make the world good for its inhabitants, whereas Winter, as he finally admits, descends from Lucifer, well known to be "of the North". Yet Winter truly observes that Summer brings in his train flies, toads, and snakes — and, as I have elsewhere argued, (*) the scribe expected sophisticated readers (helped by a Nun's Priest, as it were?) to understand that these "flies, toads, and snakes" correspond to the pains and perversions of earthly love — such as we see beautifully exemplified in the manuscript's famous lovesongs. The truly Paradisal songs of the heaven-sent Summer, of course, are those of divine love, especially those of the Virgin Mary, but also of all women — so the scribe has emphasized in the other Anglo-Norman poem, ABC à femmes, which he has placed first of all, just ahead of the Debate of Summer and Winter.

(4) The opening lines of Hueline et Eglantine (cod. 354) and Gilote et Johane (Harley 2253) are:

Berne 354 Harley 2253 Ce fu en mai, el tans d'esté En mai par vne matyne sen a la juer que l'aunt herbe creit o pre. . . en vn vert bois rame vn jevene cheualer

si oyd deus femmes entremedler For the two women-debates see (Dean : 1999), pp. 111-112, items 193 {Gilote et Johane) and 194 (L 'Estrif de Deux Femmes, also known as Le Dit de la Folle et de la Sage, with Anglo-Norman version in Bodleian MS Digby 86 and Continental version in Paris, BN MS fr. 837). For the debate of chaste/ unchaste women in Digby 86 see (Corrie : 1997 and 2000). Digby 86 contains Le Chastoiment d'un Père a son Fils, an AN redaction of the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alfonsi, as well as two ME adaptations from it, Dame Sirith and Fox and Wolf; for the Chastoiment see (Dean : 1999), pp. 148-149; for Digby 86 and its contents, see (Tschann and Parkes : 1996). Very useful discussions of Harley 2253 and Digby 86 are found in (Hines : 1993), which are greatly enhanced and extended in a forthcoming book, Voices in the Past, English Literature and Archœology (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer, 2004), chapter 3, pp. 71-104.

(5) For the Debate of Summer and Winter in Harley 2253 (Dean : 1999, p. 85, item 146), and some Continental analogues in Latin and vernacular languages, see (Reichl : 2000); for an edition / translation of it, see (Bossy : 1987), pp. 2-15.

(6) In a paper delivered April 5, 2003, to the conference on Manuscripts of the West Midlands at the University of Birmingham. It is being considered for publication.

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A very different text, which resembles and helps us understand the wintry sluggard of A Goliard's Feast, is a manual in AN verse made for teaching and using the French language, written in the later 13C by Walter de Bibbesworth. His manual was copied by the Franciscan friar William Herebert into BL MS Additional 46919 in early 14C, probably in Hereford — just twenty miles south of Ludlow, where Harley 2253 was being copied (with A Goliard's Feast) not much later. Herebert also copied into Additional 46919 culinary recipes in Middle English that translate the AN recipes copied by the scribe of Harley 2253 into a second manuscript (BL MS Royal 12.C.XÜ) that he compiled over the years 1316- 1349. (7) These recipes bear indirectly on our reading of A Goliard's Feast — a glutton's self-satirizing monologue.

Reading A Goliard's Feast, as with other such self-satirizing poems, (8) we do not at first realize the speaker's nature: in lines 1-10 (for the text, see Appendix One), we hear a complaint against winter's return by someone with whom we can be fully sympathetic, so at first we are fellows of the speaker, sharing his discomfort with winter's cold, his delight in a crackling fire. But as he goes on (lines 11-16), a tone of self-indulgence creeps in, a hint of slothfulness, such insistence on comfort and ease that the speaker begins to sound like a sluggard, turning in his bed like a door on its hinges. At first this is only a hint, a very slightly excessive insistence on just the RIGHT kind of fire, and surely we listeners agree that the fire he imagines is just the kind we too would like in our bedrooms: "a faggot in the hearth dry and smokeless, which brightens everything, and turns to embers".

But now the poem's speaker begins to luxuriate, to bask, and scratch himself — and (at this point a reader may fall out of sympathy) we notice that he is not too clean, that indeed (as he confides) he stinks, and his clothes are lousy; a doubt suddenly intrudes as to whether the bedclothes are all that clean. He insists that he loves clean linen, but we begin to suspect what we are hearing from him is more daydream than reality: "for the flesh really stinks, and it's badly clothed" (lines 19-

(7) For London, British Library MS Additional 46919, see the Catalogue of Additional Manuscripts in the British Museum (1950). For Bibbesworth's Trétiz de Langage see (Dean : 1999), pp. 160-161, item 285, and (Rothwell : 1990).

(8) Within Harley 2253, such poems include Satire on the Consistory Courts (f. 70v) and Man in the Moon (f. 1 14v), which with other "confessional satires" are discussed in (Revard : 2001), pp. 359-406. Readers of Harley 2253 were meant to recognize others of its texts as self-satirizing monologues — the most important example being the speeches of Winter in the Debate of Summer and Winter, echoed in A Goliard's Feast, though space forbids illlustration of this. Others, I suggest, include the Song of Lewes (f. 58v), the Song ofTrailbaston (f. 1 13v), the Jongleur d'Ely et le Roi d'Angleterre (f. 107v), and the ME "Harley Lyric" With longyngy am lad. The Jongleur is a key (as I argue in a forthcoming essay) to the scribe's inclusion of fabliaux, and to his intended ways of reading those with other texts in Quires 12, 13, and 14, just as the ABC à femmes and the Debate of Summer and Winter are keys to the scribe's selection and arrangement of texts in Quires 5 through 9.

A GOLIARD 'S FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 845

20). He almost recovers from this in lines 21-24, when he says how much he loves the morning, and might have regained our sympathy had he just referred to the vigorous activities that winter brings — hunting, for instance, or any kind of sociable activity appropriate for a man in winter. But instead, like the much greater Sir Gawain who slept in at the Castle of Hautdesert until his host's beautiful wife came to wake and tempt him, this poem's homme moyen sensuel turns back (lines 25-33) to his bed and fire, confiding to us his love of clean linen fresh from the laundry, of warm bed-covers and fur-lined clothes — and then sneers at unfurred robes as low-class!

So he is lazy, he stinks, he is low-class yet a snob, and his mind is wholly on high-class luxuries that we must suspect he himself is too poor to possess. And now his monologue lets us see one reason why he lacks money for luxuries: he loves dice, particularly the kind that will roll right for him (lines 34-38).

At this point , the Anglo-Norman and Continental versions of his monologue differ significantly. Lines 38-43 of Bern cod. 354 may be translated: "When I get up to piss / in the morning, / I'm really pained / When I see the steam [presumably rising from warm urine into the cold air] / being formed / into icicles ". The Anglo- Norman text omits reference to going out into the snow to urinate, and its text looks as if it has been somewhat lamely redacted to cover the omission. Perhaps, if the poem were originally in Continental French, and if the Harley 2253 scribe's redaction was chosen as a humorous "bad example" monologue that could nevertheless be used for teaching French to young persons, the scribe toned down the raunchiness of the original poem to suit such a "PG-13 audience".

In the next lines (45-54), the speaker turns from the joys of a solitary bed to the delights of feasting, and we realize that this Goliard has here begun to describe a life of gluttonous feasting — beginning (1. 47) with a loin of roast pork, well fattened (pris en bone pasture), which he fastidiously notes he does not want charred. (A further divergence between the two texts occurs at this point — lines 49 through 55 — and while the sense is much the same, lineation and text- sequence differ so that in my edition I have re-located the lines of cod. 354 so that they correspond to the order of the lines as copied into Harley 2253.)

By line 56, when the Goliard has told us the kinds of spiced wine he loves, and how much more he likes wine than "smoke-tinged beer" (cervoyse enfumée), we understand that the poem is a Goliard' s daydream of loafing and gourmandizing: he is a lazy, self-indulgent, but clever glutton who is imagining, in winter, the warm fires, wines and endless dishes of food, the warm clothes and bedding that he wants to enjoy, now and — as the rest of the poem shows — throughout the year. He is certainly like Langland' s Glutton, but he has a higher- class sensibility — not for him the smoky beer that Glutton swills. I think he resembles the Arch-Poet, haunting the hall as well as the tavern: he refers at line 88 to vyn de haute persone, and in lines 157-8 refers to a large house with both a cold-cellar and a high sun-room. He tells us (Harley text, lines 57ff.) that he loves

846 CARTER REVARD

the tavern well, that he spiced his drinks there with galingale, zedoary, and hot pepper (in this he is like Langland' s Glutton, who loved the pepper and spices that Gossip put into his ale). He speaks of putting mustard on his salted meat at Christmastime (64-66), then launches into a list of all the game-fowl and domestic fowls he wants to eat (lines 67ff.) — and we see that in the latter two-thirds of the poem (57-161) his listing of these, and of the meat and fish and fowl dishes he drools over, very much resembles Walter de Bibbesworth's Tretiz, a manual for teaching French to young people in England so they could fit into the upper classes, who spoke French. (10) In one of the poems copied into Harley 2253, Urbain le Courtois (ff. 112r-113v), the courtly Urbain advises his son that while he is of young and tender age, his father wants him to have the best noreture ("breeding"), and to that end, Urbain says (f. 1 12r, col. iii, 15-20):

Je vueil tot al primour I want, first of all, que sages seiez e plein de doucour. that you be sensible and very kindly. Seiez debonere e corteis, Be well-behaved and courteous, e que vous sachez parler fraunceis and you must learn to speak French, quar molt es langage alosee for the language is very highly esteemed de gentil houme e molt amee by gentlefolk, and much loved.

A final and perhaps the most important point about this poem is that when this Goliard refers to three seasons of the Christian year, it is always and only in terms of what dishes he wants to be gourmandizing in each holy season. He speaks of Christmas (line 65), of Lent (line 1 1 1), and of Easter (136). No medieval reader could have missed the irony of this glutton's making sacred feasts into secular gluttony. This irony the scribe has foregrounded by copying A Goliard' s Feast into his manuscript on a page (f. 55r) facing the end of the Vita Sancti Ethelberti (f. 54v), and overleaf from the Harrowing of Hell (f. 55v). The final lines of the Vita describe how, in the dark of the third night after Ethelbert was martyred, his ghost appeared in a brilliant light to a certain man named Brythfrid, and commanded him to go to Ethelbert' s sepulture, take up the corpse, and bring it to Hereford for burial there. As Brythfrid and a companion were bearing the corpse to Hereford, a certain blind man, not knowing who were passing, cried out, "O Ethelbert, servant of god, help me!" and straightway received his sight — the first of many miracles at the tomb, around which Hereford Cathedral was built.

Consider, then, the scribe's handiwork on folios 54v and 55r: having finished copying this sacred narrative, in which a saint's corpse and spirit shine forth into the darkness the brilliant light of holiness, and a blind man receives his sight, the scribe turns to the facing page and copies the monologue of a glutton in darkness, thinking of a smokeless wood-fire for his hearth: a sensualist for whom the sacred feasts of the Church, and the festivals of its saints, are merely occasions for gluttony — or, as Chaucer's Pardoner put it, Wombe is his God, "the Belly is his God". Yet the scribe then turns the leaf and copies The Harrowing of Hell·, the story of how Christ, having suffered shame and dreadfully painful death for

A GOLIARD '5 FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 847

sinners like the Goliard, went down to Hell and took from the clutches of Satan the souls of all the righteous dead.

This surely is not a scribe working only to copy neatly, or haphazardly choosing and randomly placing the texts he has chosen. This is certainly, as Neil Ker long ago showed, "an educated scribe" — one who showed even in small details that he was highly educated and extremely careful in what he wrote. The telling detail Ker used to show it, is that in a hundred and eighty pages of his work, the scribe only once wrote out the name of Jesus with an h:

The scribe wrote 'ihesu' at f. 49 / 29. Elsewhere the word, if written in full, is without the h. By the fourteenth century the spelling without the h is uncommon and the sign of an educated scribe. Most scribes appear to have been ignorant of what grammarians like Huguitio and Brito had said about the value of the h in the abbreviation of iesus (Ker : 1964, p. XIX).

Who, then, might this educated, precise, and very intelligent scribe have been? We know he was a Ludlow-area literary and legal scrivener and

conveyancer, because 41 legal deeds in his handwriting have been identified, each internally dated and located, all written in or within a few miles of Ludlow over the years from December 1314 to April 1349. We may also with some confidence infer that he was a chaplain, because he also owned (and copied items into) BL MS Harley 273, which contains a Psalter in French made for use in Ludlow, as well as the Manuel des Péchés, of which he copied the final portion in 1314-15. The Manuel was a handbook such as episcopal constitutions prescribed, providing doctrinal and sermon materials needed by parish priests in teaching, preaching, and confessional work, and it is reasonable to infer that the scribe was a household and perhaps a parish chaplain; certain items he copied into Harley 273, for instance, suggest that he was trained in hearing confessions. (9)

A legal scrivener and chaplain needed to know (and might have taught) French and Latin, and Harley 2253 looks like a trilingual book that the scribe, as such a household chaplain, compiled to use both for entertainment and for teaching and devotional uses. He could well have included the Goliard' s Feast both to delight and to teach, which might be why it so much resembles Bibbesworth's Tretiz, which Friar Herebert had included in his own trilingual preaching-and- teaching anthology, Additional 46919. As Rothwell says (1990, p. 1),

Bibbesworth's Tretiz was written in order to provide anglophone landowners in late thirteenth-century England with French vocabulary appertaining to the management of their estates in a society where French and Latin, but not yet English, were the accepted languages of record. The terminology... is limited to the sphere of country life and pursuits,

(9) (Revard : 2000b), with plates of 41 dated legal documents in this scribe's hand, whose changes of handwriting from 1314 to 1349 allow us to date his work on the Manuel des Péchés to the years 1314-15.

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although the author's predilection for using homynyms... often brings into his exposition terms outside the strict limits of this single register.

We may add that the acquisition of French was important not merely for the practical and administrative management of estates, but for climbing the social ladder, an aspect very well illustrated by the careers of the Paston family — for instance, of William Paston II (1436-1476), whose Memorandum on French Grammar from his time as student at Cambridge survives. Acquiring further lands and fees, rising to serve as trustee and administrator for nobles, marrying up (William married a daughter of the Duke of Somerset), and advancing his family's fortunes and status, all were very closely connected with his learning the French language — in which were conducted much of the business and pleasure of the nobility and gentry, and therefore of the lawyers who aspired to and sometimes reached the status and wealth of gentry and even nobility. William flourished a hundred years later than did the Harley 2253 scribe, but the Paston family's careers, including their book-ownership and reading, are relevant to that of the scribe of Harley 2253. Books owned, borrowed, and acquired by the Pastons show that a book like Harley 2253 might have been prized by such a Ludlow-area family in the 1330s and 1340s. (10)

As for the verbal closeness of Bibbesworth's Tretiz to the Goliard's Feast, that may be illustrated by the passage in which Bibbesworth is providing the learner with terms for weather, when he writes of winter (Herebert's copy in Add. 46919 f. 8v col. 2, with his ME glosses):

freyd est de yuer lorre [ME gloss: the eyr ofwynter — i.e,. l'aure] un deumayl vous est moustre [ME gloss: a redles] En yuer quant lorre chaunge & le temps deuient si estrange, & a maint home fait fort endurer [ME gloss: dreiheri] Pur le destroit del yuer kaunt en yuer lorre chaunge When winter's air doth change vn verge creest estraunge a verge groweth — strange, verge saunz verdour a verge without greenery, Saunz foille & saunz flour — with neither flower nor leafery — kaunt vendre Testée, but when summer comes around, La verge ne ert ia trouée. the verge is no longer found. Red me thys redles, what may hyt bee? Ceo est un esclarril en fraunceys, On yszikel en engleys.

(10) (Davis and Ivy : 1962) and (Davis : 1971, pp. 150-153). As for books among the Pastons, in June 1472 John Paston HI (writing to his brother, Sir John) mentions that the Earl of Arran is staying in London at the George Inn in Lombard Street, and has a book belonging to John's sister Anne: "He hath a book of my syster Annys of the Sege of Thebes. When he hathe doon wyth it he promysyd to delyuer it yow. I preye yow lete Portlond brynge the book horn wyth hym. Portlond is loggyd at the George in Lombard Stret also," and in July 1472 John writes again to complain that their mother's priest James Gloys "seyth that ye comandyd hym to delyueer the book of vij Sagys to my brodyr Water, and he hath it" (Davis : 1971, pp. 575 and 576).

A GOLIARD 'S FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 849

In his Tretiz, Bibbesworth often uses humor as a teaching aid, and here he uses the device of a riddle posed in Middle English to make sure his students learn the French word esclarril for the English word icicle. He is also fond of pointing out homophones and homonyms, and having some fun with what happens when learners make mistakes with these. He makes play for instance with the verb tonner, "thunder," and in the Goliard's soliloquy we find a couplet rhyming the verb form tonne "thunders" and the noun tonne, "wine-cask" in both Bern cod. 354 (11. 54-5) and Harley 2253 (11. 84-5), which seems adapted from Bibbesworth.

Harley 2253, the household book that the scribe designed, is wide-ranging, in the tradition of the Disciplina Clericalis, with its texts similarly arranged in sic et non fashion so as to "define" each other by dialectic opposition ,(n) He chose, and sequenced, texts that cover a wide spectrum of themes, genres, forms, in Latin, French, and Middle English: political protest and social satire, amorous and religious lyrics and contrafacta, devotional and didactic materials, saints' lives and fabliaux, debates, the romance of King Horn, prophecy, dream-interpretations, a travel guide to the Holy Land with notes on how visits to certain places can shorten the pilgrim's time in Purgatory. The portion in this scribe's hand begins with an ABC pour les femmes, and clearly the anthology was made for women as well as men. A Goliard's Feast is surely a comic/ didactic piece — a self- satirizing monologue that, catchy and memorizable, is a great device for teaching household French. It seems meant both to teach and to delight, as is the book that contains it. This was an intellectually alert and vigorous household of sophisticated tastes.

As for when the scribe copied A Goliard's Feast and other texts into Harley 2253, by comparison with his dated legal deeds, A Goliard's Feast (and most of Harley 2253) appears to have been written about 1340. Besides Harley 2253 and Harley 273, a third manuscript compiled and in large part copied by him is known: BL MS Royal 12.C.XÜ, one of whose interesting Anglo-Norman texts is the "ancestral romance" of Fouke le Fitz Waryn, copied in two stints, the first about 1326-30, the second in the late 1330s or early 1340s (12). Harley 273, which he had acquired by 1315, is primarily a chaplain-preacher's handbook, adapted (as its Calendar shows) for use in Ludlow, and the fact that its Psalter is in French

(11) This point is important in considering the scribe's siting of texts in the whole manuscript. For dialectic opposition see (Revard : 2000b), (Nolan : 2000), and (Cooper : 1997); particularly apt are lines quoted by Nolan (p. 292, n. 8) from Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose 21543-552. The doctrine that we know everything by knowing its contrary was a commonplace, as we may see in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde when Pandarus expounds it to Troilus (Book 1, lines 624-45): see (Benson : 1987), p. 482 and notes pp. 1028-29. This doctrine/ principle controls, I think, the sequencing of texts in such anthologies as Harley 2253 and the Canterbury Tales. For Disciplina Clericalis: (Tolan : 1993), pp. 73-91, 132-162. (12) For facts in this paragraph see (Revard : 2000b), pp. 65-73.

850 CARTER REV ARD

suggests he was a secular chaplain, rather than a monk or friar who would presumably have wanted it in Latin. Besides its texts for celebrating religious offices, it also contains (as mentioned above) the Manuel des Péchés, a book made for parish priests and chaplains to use in preaching, hearing confessions, and teaching the faith to parishioners. But it contains, further, a copy of the Household Rules written by Bishop Grosseteste for the Countess of Lincoln as a guide to management of a large noble household and demesne — a text useful for a cleric- chaplain who aspired to becoming the Steward of such a household, for which the legal and accounting skills of this scribe (evidence of which we see in his 41 legal charters) might have fitted him.

Although both Harley 273 and Royal 12.C.XÜ, like Harley 2253, are trilingual, with a similarly wide range of texts, they are not the same kind of anthology. Harley 273, as above remarked, is a a chaplain-preacher-lawyer's book. In Royal 12.C.XÜ, the assemblage of diverse texts can be seen to fall into separate booklets, but overall these seem to have been acquired or copied by accretion rather than arranged in planned sequences. The texts, not all in this scribe's hand, were acquired over some years as wholes or in blocks, and those copied by this scribe fall more or less haphazardly into miscellaneous "piles." Royal 12.C.XÜ, in other words, looks like a kind of commonplace book, the scribe's personal miscellany of material useful or interesting to him at various times in his life and career. Until recently, his third book, Harley 2253, was judged by editors and critics to be much the same kind of miscellany. (13) His arrangement of Harley 2253, however, must be understood as not a miscellany, nor even a neat anthology of variegated materials, but a work carefully arranged and neatly planned, comparable to the Disciplina Clericalis, the Decameron, or the Canterbury Tales, lacking only the frame scheme that would have made this obvious to the scholars who have failed to see it: in those folios copied by this scribe (ff. 49-140), he clearly has so placed his texts that they tacitly "comment on" and "change the meanings of' each other, as can be shown by looking closely at almost any sequence of texts, whether or not they are in the same quire. The analogy would be to two chemical elements — sodium and chlorine, for instance. Separately, sodium

(13) An excellent reception-history of Harley 2253 is found in (Fein : 2000), pp. 1-15. Stemmler (2000) concludes (p. 113): "Harley 2253 is neither a miscellany — a somewhat arbitrary, casual collection of texts — nor a well-wrought book carefully made up of mutually corresponding parts. Rather, it is an anthology, a careful collection selected as representative specimens of various genres." See, for further discussion, (Revard : 1982), and the other essays cited in note 2 above, which demonstrate more juxtaposing and networking in the manuscript than Stemmler allows for. More recently, other scholars are recognizing that Harley 2253 is a special kind of anthology: see The Yearbook of English Studies, 33 (2003) for five essays on pp. 1-79: (Taylor : 2003), (Scahill : 2003), (Cartlidge : 2003), (O'Rourke : 2003), and (Corrie : 2003). Most recently, in a essay published after the present one was completed, Lerer (2003) has cited my work and applied it to a discussion of Harley 2253 as anthology (see esp. pp. 1255-1259 and notes 8 and 9, p. 1265).

A GOLIARD 'S FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 851

is a highly active, combustible, poisonous metal, while chlorine is a deadly gas — but together they are sodium chloride, common table salt, essential to life, giving food its savor.

The Ludlow area in 1300-1350 was well suited to a sophisticated household with readers who could appreciate such a book. The town and region were a resonating chamber for national and international crises, many of whose actors were persons from the area: courtly nobles, notably Mortimers and Talbots of Richard's Castle, FitzWarins of Shropshire and Hampshire, LeStranges of Herefordshire and Shropshire, FitzAlan earls of Arundel, and Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, first earl of March; high-status clerics, especially the bishops of Hereford Adam Orleton and Thomas Charlton who were royal administrators for Edward II and Edward III; friars, monks and hospital clergy, chaplains and lawyers and household priests; and wealthy wool-merchants / franklins helping to fund the start of the Hundred Years' War. One of the scribe's likely patron families, the Ludlows of Stokesay, rose in the period 1294-1314 from mercantile to knightly and castled status: the Patent Rolls show that in the 1260s Nicholas Ludlow was Prince Edward's merchant and in 1272-94 Nicholas' son Laurence was merchant for Edward I; Laurence drowned in 1294 while taking the King's wool to Flanders. His son Sir William Ludlow became lord of Hodnet Castle and honorary Steward of Montgomery Castle in right of his wife Matilda Hodnet; Sir William's son, Sir Laurence, and grandson Sir John, fought as knights in Scotland and France for Edward III. The Ludlows of Stokesay had ties to baronial Marcher families, especially the FitzWarins, the LeStranges, and the FitzAlan earls of Arundel. They were therefore not friendly, during the period 1322-30, with Roger Mortimer of Wigmore, Queen Isabella's lover and the first Earl of March, who held Ludlow Castle until he was hanged in 1330, but they may have been on good terms with Roger's widow Joan, their son Edmund, and their grandson Roger, who were important figures in Ludlow; the grandson Roger was raised at court, fought at Crécy, became a Garter Knight as well as second Earl of March, and had a generally stellar career. In short, Ludlow had clerics, courtiers, nobles, gentry and bourgeoisie who moved in courtly circles on national affairs, traveled to the Continent including Avignon, and moved much around England on matters of legal, courtly, and clerical business. (14)

This mobility is the more interesting since, as Mary Dove has pointed out, A Goliard's Feast circulated on the Continent as well as in England, while another AN text found only in Harley 2253, the ABC des femmes, has a ME avatar in the Auchinleck Manuscript, compiled and copied in London c. 1327-40, thus almost

(14) Spatial limits prevent documentation here on these families and their roles in local and national history. See (Hines : 2004) for much detail on the Ludlows of Stokesay.

852 CARTER REVARD

precisely contemporary with Harley 2253. (15) Consider, also, that other texts copied into Harley 2253 circulated not only within the SWMidlands but far beyond: England, Ireland, and France. Its Anglo-Norman Lament for Simon de Montfort turns up in an Irish Franciscan manuscript (Trinity College Dublin MS 347); other Anglo-Norman devotional and didactic texts found in Harley 2253, Royal 12.C.XÜ, and Harley 273 resemble those in a manuscript linked to Waterford in Ireland, Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 405 (studied by K. V. Sinclair, without noting resemblances); Harley 2253' s Latin/ French Against the King's Taxes is found in a Cistercian cartulary (alongside copied charters, some contemporary with Harley 2253) from Whalley Abbey in Ribblesdale; a macaronic poem (titled Proverbia Trifaria in the edition of Isabel Aspin) copied by the Harley 2253 main scribe into the first quire of BL MS Royal 12.C.XÜ is found also in another Irish manuscript, Trinity College Dublin MS 517; the Irish Franciscan MS Harley 913, of c. 1330 A.D., contains ME analogues and textual overlaps; and not only did A Goliard's Feast, in a Continental French version from early 14C, circulate in France, but so did some of the Harley 2253 fabliaux (16). Further, as

(15) See (Dove : 2000, p. 331 and note 10). The AN and ME texts are printed side by side in (Holthausen : 1902), and discussed by Mary Dove (1970, pp. 50-60). She prints the two texts pp. 95-102. For the ME text see (Pearsall and Cunningham : 1977), item 42, fols. 324-5, (Hanna : 2000) and (Turville-Petre : 1996), pp. 108-41. The Auchinleck compiler's inclusion of an ME version of the Anglo-Norman ABC des femmes (itself uniquely extant in Harley 2253) shows not only that the poem circulated between Ludlow and London (where Auchinleck was copied), but that the ME translator knew and used the very diction of the Harley Lyrics: compare, for instance, the first surviving line of the Auchinleck ME, Bot fais men make herfingres fold with Ribblesdale 55 (fyngres heo hathfeir tofolde), with the Old Man's Prayer 21 (Nou y may no fynger foldé) and 1. 40 (ant mey no fynger felde); and with Blow Northern Wind 23 (ant fyngres feyre forte folde). See (Franklin : 1986). Whoever translated Harley's AN ABC into Auchinleck's ME worked in the same poetic milieu, using the same lexical and phrasal repertoire, as did the composer(s) of the "Harley Lyrics"; and the London and WMidl scribes were clearly in touch with each other. A full study of relations between Auchinleck's texts and those gathered by the scribe of Harley 2253, including those in his other two books, BL MSS Harley 273 and Royal 12.C.xii, would illuminate the London / Ludlow literary circuit.

(16) See (Shields : 1972); for Trinity College Dublin MS 347 see (Colker : 1991, pp. 710-740. That the Whalley Abbey (Cistercian) cartulary contains a copy of Against the King's Taxes was pointed out in 1986 by J. R. Maddicott; see (Scattergood : 2000, esp. pp. 163-169). For the macaronic poem in Royal 12.C.xii, see (Aspin : 1953), and for the newly discovered version of it in TCD 517 see (Pope : 1981). For MS Harley 913, besides (Cartlidge : 2003), see (Lucas : 1995), who confirms that Harley 913 is probably of Franciscan provenance, linked to the towns of Waterford and of New Ross. One text in Harley 913 that resembles the Harley 2253 Goliard's Feast is the 190-line The Land of Cockaygne (pp. 46-55), and in her notes (pp. 174-180), Lucas cites clues that this poem's English-speaking author "had access to literary sources in English, French, and Latin," such as the 13C French fabliau of Cocagne (presumably that in Paris, BN fr. 837), and references to an abbas Cucaniensis in the drinking songs of the Carmina Burana, as well as to the twelfth century Confessio of Golias himself. For Irish circulation of Anglo-Norman texts, and their gathering into a manuscript linked to Waterford in Ireland, see (Sinclair : 1984). Sinclair notes of CCCC 405 (p. 222): "some volumes, once separate entities, may well have been originally

A GOLIARD 'S FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 853

detailed study by Frances McSparran has confirmed, ME texts in Harley 2253 came from all over England, as their ME dialects show (McSparran : 2000). We would be much mistaken, then, to think that Harley 2253 was only a set of rare pieces in a cultural cul-de-sac.

As for the literacy its scribe must have expected of his readers, three instances may be briefly cited. Consider, first, the final stanza in one of the best- known of the ME "Harley Lyrics," Annote and John. Annote, the lady who has been praised in the poem's earlier stanzas, is presented as a healer, someone with powers as magical and helpful as those of the gems, flowers, medical plants and remedies to which she is compared, (see Revard : 1999) Then its final stanza compares her to nine heroines and heroes of Welsh, French, and Germanic romances (25 17). The audience of this lyric were therefore expected to know a very

copied in the South- West of England and later conveyed to Waterford where they subsequently fell into the hands of the Knights Hospitaller"; he notes that Herebert's Additional 46919 is part of the Franciscan mix and dimensions of the manuscript milieu (p. 229, n. 56). To Sinclair's discussion we may add, first, that at least one scribal hand in CCCC 405 is precisely contemporary with and writes a cursive legal script much resembling that of the main scribe of Harley 2253; and second, as just mentioned, there is significant overlap between some texts this hand copied into CCCC 405 and some copied by the main scribe of Harley 2253 into that or the two others which he assembled, owned over a long period, and partly copied: BL MSS Harley 273 and Royal 12C.xii. Moreover, the scribe copied into CCCC 405 legal documents just like those which the main scribe of Harley 2253 produced in his work as legal scrivener. Further discussion of this overlap is reserved to a separate study.

(17) Brown (1932, pp. 226-228) identifies the poet's Régnas (1. 42) as Ragna, the wise woman of the Orkneyingers Saga, and Tegeu (1. 43) as one of three chaste ladies, one of the three fair ladies of King Arthur's court, wife of Caradoc who saved him from a serpent that had fastened itself upon him, and owner of one of the Thirteen Treasures of the Isle of Britain which fell into the possession of Merlin — a magical mantle which would not serve any woman who had violated her marriage or her virginity. Wyrwein (1. 43) he suggests is Garwen or Earrwen, one of three mistresses of King Arthur in the Mabinogion; Byrne (1. 44) may be Bjorn of the Orkneyingers Saga; Wylcadoun (1. 45) is perhaps Guilliadun, "the princess who became enamoured of Eliaduc" in Marie de France's Lai d'Eliduc. Ffloyres (1. 46) may be the lady Floripas in Sir Ferumbras, whose magic girdle "exempted all who wore it from the effects of hunger and thirst"; Cradoc (1. 47 is the knight who only, at Arthur's court (having a chaste wife), was able to carve the boar's head; Hilde (1. 48), of the ThidriL· Saga,was daughter of King Artus of Bretangenland; and Jonas (1. 50) may be Jonaans, the son of King Celidoine of Scotland who went to Wales and married a daughter of King Moroneu — and who in Lestoire del Saint Graal is described as cheualiers preus et hardi, et essouchera moult sainte église. See, further, (Matonis : 1988) and (Saint Paul : 1992), who traces Tegeu back into the Welsh Triads and the French Livre de Caradoc.

Borrowing of romances by ladies and knights at court is documented by (Vale : 1982, pp. 48-50), citing the 1322-41 "roll of issues and receipts from the privy wardrobe at the Tower" that is now BL Add. MS 60584; see, further, (Revard : 1997). In 1327, clerics and agents of four great ladies — three co-heiresses to Gilbert Clare, Earl of Gloucester, and the fourth their older half-sister — were given religious service-books and romances: Elizabeth Clare de Burgh received four romances; her sister Margaret, Countess of Cornwall, widow of Piers Gaveston, also got four romances; their older half-sister Isabella, widow of Maurice Berkeley, received six romances; and their cousin Margaret, widow of Bartholomew de Badlesmere, was given two romances. Knights at

854 CARTER REVARD

wide range of romances and recognize at once the names of their central figures. They held, as it were, baccalaureate degrees in European literature, while the scribe — though apparently but a minor lawyer — was a highly educated cleric whose trilingual anthology shows that the Ludlovian audience in his household were au courant with the best contemporary and recent poetry in French and English. A second instance of such literacy (as Professor Keith Busby has pointed out to me) is found in the scribe's Anglo-Norman redaction of a fabliau that was popular on the Continent, Le chevalier qui fist les cons parler (18). In Harley 2253, but not in any of the Continental versions, there is a parodie allusion to Sire Ely as (or Sire Elyot) and his boat, which apparently is meant to evoke the Chevalier au Cygne — the Swan Knight and his boat, in the Old French Crusade Cycle: that is, the scribe expected the audience of a bawdy fabliau to catch and be amused by this glancing parodie reference to a chanson de geste (19)

And finally, as third instance, this scribe made sure to include a range of historical poems so that his anthology's readers would be well versed in recent and contemporary history — just as Richard Firth Green has shown courtiers were supposed to be (20). Harley 2253, once we read it as this scribe made it to be read,

court were also handed liturgical and didactic books and romances: Sir Thomas Wake of Liddell had three romances (two covered in white leather, one in red); John de Bohun, Earl of Hereford, got a Brut in Latin and one romance; the two executors of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, got three romances (and one Bestiary); Sir John Montgomery had two romances; and Sir Roger Swinerton received four romances. Queen Isabella herself borrowed nine books, one being Renart, another Raoul de Houdenc's Le Roman de Méraugis de Portlesguez, a third the Romance of Perceval. She also borrowed a French translation of the Old Testament, another of Vegetius' On the Art of War, and what may have been Wace's Le Roman de Rou. See (Green : 1980) on literacy at court: the evidence of Harley 2253 points to such literacy also among some lesser households. (18) (Noomen et van den Boogaard : 1986), pp. 45-173, 412-29; and (Short and Pearcy : 2000),

pp. 25-28. (19) (Mickel and Nelson : 1977 and 1985). Volume II provides an essay by Geoffrey M. Myers

on the manuscripts of the Old French Crusade Cycle, in which he points out (pp. XLVIII-LII) that British Library MS Additional 36615, though "executed by several scribes at the end of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, possibly in South Normandy", contains on fol. 83v a charm against illness in French prose that is "written in a characteristic English hand of the first quarter of the fourteenth century" — and on f. 164v what may be this same hand has written "some advice on a herbal stimulant" and a different hand has written in what may be a scrap of the Riote du monde that could be related to another text in Harley 2253, Le roi et le Jongleur d'Ely. (20) Green (1980, pp. 71-100), examines books, literacy, and reading practices in courts and

noble households. Useful discussion of the political poems in Harley 2253 is found in (Scattergood : 2000), but though he examines their relation to historical events he does not observe that the scribe has so placed them within the anthology's dialectic as to re-configure our understanding of them. I have discussed this reconfiguring of political meanings in (Revard : 2001) as also in (Revard : 1998), and in papers being revised toward publication: "Protest Poems of 1264- 1349: Scribe, Patrons, and Social/ Literary Milieu" (32nd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 11, 1998), "The Political Poems of MS Harley 2253 and the

A GOLIARD 'S FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 855

brings us into a bower with people whose courtly, devout, and earthy conversations would have been enjoyed by Chaucer, or Langland, or the Pearl Poet — and, I suggest, were enjoyed by clerics and courtiers, merchants and franklins and lawyers, friars and nuns and monks, who were living in, doing business in, or passing through the Ludlow area from 1314 to 1349.

2. References AND : STONE (Louise) and ROTHWELL (William), Anglo-Norman Dictionary

(London : The Modern Humanities Research Association, 1977-1992). ASPIN (Isabel), Anglo-Norman Political Poems (Oxford : Blackwell, "Anglo-

Norman Text Society, XI", 1953). BENSON (Larry), ed. The Riverside Chaucer (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1987). BOSSY (Michel- André), Medieval Debate Poetry: Vernacular Works (New York :

1987). BROOK (G. L.), ed. The Harley Lyrics, 4th ed. (Manchester : University Press,

1968). BROWN (Carleton), English Lyrics of the XHIth Century (Oxford : 1932). Cartlidge (Neil), "Festivity, Order, and Community in Fourteenth-Century

Ireland: The Composition and Context of BL MS Harley 913", The Yearbook of English Studies, 33 (2003), pp. 33-52.

COLKER (Marvin L.), Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval and Renaissance Latin Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, introd. O' Sullivan (William), 2 vols. (Aldershot, Hants, England : Scolar Press, 1991).

COOPER (Helen), "Sources and analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: reviewing the work", Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 19 (1997), pp. 204-209.

CORRIE (Marilyn), "The Composition of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Digby 86", Medium JEvum, 66 (1997), pp. 236-349.

CORRIE (Marilyn), "Harley 2253, Digby 86, and the Circulation of Literature in Pre-Chaucerian England", in (Fein : 2000), pp. 427-443..

CORRIE (Marilyn), "Kings and Kingship in British Library MS Harley 2253", The Yearbook of English Studies, 33 (2003), pp. 64-79.

DAVIS (Norman), ed. Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, vol. 1 and vol. 2 (Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1971 and 1976).

English National Crisis of 1339-41" (Midwest Modern Language Association, St. Louis, Missouri, November 1998); on April 4, 2003, "How the Harley Scribe Got Around England and France" (at a University of Birmingham conference on Manuscripts of the West Midlands); and on April 30, 2003, to the medieval seminar of Paul Strohm (Tolkien Professor, Oxford University). In the last two, much fuller consideration was given to the interrelations of French, English, and Latin texts throughout Harley 2253.

856 CARTER REV ARD

Davis (Norman) and Ivy (G. S.), "MS. Walter Rye 38 and its French Grammar", Medium JEvum, 31 (1962), pp. 110-124

Dean (Ruth), Anglo-Norman Literature, a Guide to Texts and Manuscripts (London : Anglo-Norman Text Society, 1999).

DOVE (Mary), A Study of Some of the Lesser-Known Poems of British Museum MS Harley 2253 (Cambridge doctoral dissertation, 1970).

DOVE (Mary), "Evading Intimacy: The French Secular Verse", in (Fein : 2000), pp. 329-349.

Fein (Susanna), ed. Studies in the Harley Manuscript: The Scribe, Contents, and Social Contexts of British Library MS Harley 2253 (Kalamazoo, Michigan : Medieval Institute Publications, 2000).

Franklin (Michael), '"Fyngres heo hath feir to folde': Trothplight in some of the Love Lyrics of MS Harley 2253", Medium Aivum, 55 (1986), pp. 176-187.

Green (Richard F.), Poets and Princepleasers (University of Toronto Press, 1980).

HAGEN (Hermannus), Catalogus Codicum Bernensium (Bern : 1875). Hanna (Ralph), "Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript", in PEARSALL

(Derek), ed. New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript Studies (York : York Medieval Press, 2000), pp. 91-102.

HlNES (John), The Fabliau in English (London : Longman, 1993). HOLTHAUSEN (F.), "Die Quelle des mittelenglischen Gedichtes 'Lob der Frauen'",

Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 108 (1902), pp. 288-301

KER (N. R.), ed. Facsimile of British Museum MS. Harley 2253 (Oxford : Early English Text Society, No. 255, 1964).

Lerer (Seth), "Medieval English Literature and the Idea of the Anthology", Publications of the Modern Language Association, 118 (October 2003) 5 pp. 1251-1267.

LUCAS (Angela), Anglo-Irish Poems of the Middle Ages (Dublin: The Columba Press, 1995).

Matonis (A. T. E.), "The Harley Lyrics: English and Welsh Convergences", Modern Philology, 86 (1988), pp. 1-21.

McSparran (Frances), "The Language of the English Poems: The Harley Scribe and his Exemplars", in (Fein : 2000), pp. 391-426.

MÉON (D. M.), Nouveau Recueil de fabliaux et contes Inédits, 2 vols. (Paris : 1823).

MlCKEL (Emanuel J., Jr.) and NELSON (Jan Α.), eds. The Old French Crusade Cycle, I, La Naissance du Chevalier au Cygne and II, Le Chevalier au Cygne and La Fin d'Elias (University, Ala. : University of Alabama Press, 1977 and 1985).

NOLAN (Barbara), "Anthologizing Ribaldry: Five Anglo-Norman Fabliaux", in (Fein : 2000), pp. 289-327.

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NOOMEN (Willard) et VAN DEN BOOGAARD (Nico), éd. Nouveau Recueil Complet des Fabliaux, 3 et 9 (Assen-Maastricht : Van Gorcum, 1986 et 1996).

OFD : HiNDLEY(Alan), Langley (Frederick) and Levy (Brian J.), eds. Old French— English Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2000).

O'ROURKE (Jason), "English and Latin Text in Welsh Contexts: Reflections of a Multilingual Society in National Library of Wales MS Peniarth 12", The Yearbook of English Studies, 33 (2003), pp. 53-63.

Pearsall (Derek) and Cunningham (I.C.), eds. The Auchinleck Manuscript (London : Scolar Press, 1977).

POPE (Nancy), "An Unlisted Variant of IMEV 2787", Notes and Queries, 226 (1981), pp. 197-199.

REICHL (Karl), "Debate Verse", in (Fein : 2000), pp. 219-239. REVARD (Carter), "Gilote etJohane: an Interlude in BL MS Harley 2253", Studies

in Philology, 79 (1982), pp. 122-146. REVARD (Carter), "Courtly Romances in the Privy Wardrobe," in Mullally

(Evelyn) and THOMPSON (John), eds. The Court and Cultural Diversity (Cambridge : D. S. Brewer, 1997), pp. 297-308.

REVARD (Carter), "The Outlaw's Song of Trailbaston," in OHLGREN (Thomas), ed. Medieval Outlaws: Ten Tales in Modern English (Stroud : Sutton, 1998).

REVARD (Carter), "Annote and Johone, MS Harley 2253, and The Book of Secrets", English Language Notes, 36 (March 1999) 3, pp. 5-19.

Revard (Carter), "From French Fabliau Manuscripts and MS Harley 2253 to the Decameron and the Canterbury Tales", Medium JEvum, 69 (2000a), pp. 261- 278.

REVARD (Carter), "Scribe and Provenance", in (Fein : 2000b), pp. 21-1 10. REVARD (Carter), "The Papelard Priest and the Black Prince's Men: Audiences of

an Alliterative Poem, ca. 1350-1370", Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 23 (2001), pp. 359-406.

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ROSSI (Luciano), "À propos de l'histoire de quelques recueils de fabliaux: Le Code de Berne", Le Moyen Français, 13 (1985), pp. 58-94.

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Rychner (Jean), "Deux Copistes au travail: Pour une étude textuelle globale du manuscrit 354 de la Bibliothèque de la Bourgeoisie de Berne", in (Short : 1984), pp. 187-218.

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Sc AHILL (John), "Trilingualism in Early Middle English Miscellanies: Languages and Literature", The Yearbook of English Studies, 33 (2003), pp. 18-32.

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SCATTERGOOD (John), "Authority and Resistance: the Political Verse", in (Fein : 2000), pp. 163-202.

Shields (H.), "The Lament for Simon de Montfort: an Unnoticed Text of the French Poem", Medium JEvum, 41 (1972), pp. 202-207.

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SHORT (Ian) and Pearcy (Roy), eds. Eighteen Anglo-Norman Fabliaux (London : Anglo-Norman Text Society, "Plain Text Series, 14", 2000),

Sinclair (K. V.), "Anglo-Norman at Waterford: the Mute Testimony of MS Cambridge C.C.C.405", in (Short : 1984), pp. 219-38.

STEMMLER (Theo), "Miscellany or Anthology? The Structure of Medieval Manuscripts: MS Harley 2253, for Example", in (Fein : 2000), pp. 1 1 1-121.

Taylor (Andrew), "Manual to Miscellany: Stages in the Continental Copying of Vernacular Literature in England", The Yearbook of English Studies, 33 (2003), pp. 1-17.

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WRIGHT (Thomas), Specimens of Lyric Poetry, Temp. Edw. I (London : Percy Society, 1842).

3. Texts and translation: La Devise aus Lecheors (Bern, Burgerbibliothek cod. 354, ff. 112v-114r) and Λ Goliard's Feast (BL MS Harley 2253, f. 55r)

Bern, cod. 354 (OF) Harley 2253 (Anglo-Norman)

(fol. 1 12v, col. 2, 1. 24) (fol. 55r, cols. 1-2) 1] Qant H douz tans se remue, 1] Quant voy la reuenue

When the good weather's gone When I see the return Que je voi la venue d'yuer, qe si me argue

so that I see the coming of Winter, which so makes me feel D'iv(er) qui si m'argue, qe ly temps se remue,

of winter which so oppresses me, that the weather's changing, Lors ai(n) buche fandue (21) lors aym buche fendue,

(21) The MS reading is, I believe, fandue, though Méon prints fendue.

A GOLIARD'S FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 859

then I love a split log, 5] Charbon clicant,

the coals clicking, Tison flanbant,

firebrand flaming, Feu d'ecoche mossue:

mossy stump ablaze, (fol. 11 3t, col. 1 line 1)

De joie en chant. for joy I sing of it —

Dex! je l'ain tant, my God! I love it so,

10] Cuer et cors m'esvertue. heart and body grow strong.

Qant vient au cochier, When I go to bed,

Certes m(ou)lt m 'agree what greatly pleases me's

Fomille en fagot, hearth with faggot

Soiche sanz fumee, dry and smokeless,

15] Qui tost m'esprant which brightens everything

Et brese rant (23). and turns to embers.

Et je rai de grant moult sovant And I scratch very often

Lo piz et l'eschinee my chest and back,

Car la char bien paiie for the flesh really stinks

20] E de dras mal vestue. and it's badly clothed.

Ne quiert autre jornee, I long for another day

Et por la chalor sue when by the heat pursued

Tant que hors est issue, so much, the cold's kicked out

La froidure est alee, and is gone away,

25] C'est deliz There's great delight

de boens liz

then I love a split log, 5] charboun clykant,

the coals clicking, tysoun flambaunt,

firebrand flaming, feu de souche meisue (22)

mossy trunk ablaze,

de ioie chaunt I sing for joy,

quar ie l'eym tant, for I love it so,

1 0] tot le cors me tressue. I sweat from head to toe.

Quant vient acochier, When I go to bed,

certes molt me agree what greatly pleases me's

fagot en fournil a faggot in the hearth

secche sauntz fumee, dry and smokeless,

15] qe tost esprent which brightens everything,

e brese rent. and turns to embers.

E je me degrat molt souent and I scratch very often

le pys e l'eschyne, both chest and back,

quar la char bien pue for the flesh really stinks

e de draps mal vestue. and it's badly clothed.

Aymé molt la Jörne, I do love the morning,

quar quant pur chalour se sue for when by heat pursued the cold

taunt qe fors soit issue is chased out of doors

la freydour e alee, and is gone away,

25] ceo est moun délit it's my delight

de auer beau lit —

(22) Wright prints meis ne, which does not make sense; the scribe split the word, writing meis at the end of 1. 4, and ue at the beginning of 1. 5. Bern cod. 354 mossue ("mossed") clarifies: the ecoche (f. 1 12v, final word) is a mossy log or stump — a "Yule Log"? Harley 2253 readers would have understood that the split word was meisue, "mossy". (23) MS & brese rant.rant; Méon prints Et brese rent.

860 CARTER REV ARD

in a splendid bed De dras blanchis

its blanched linen Qui sevent la buee.

fresh from the laundry. Tainte coverture

A dirty coverlet 30] C'est desconfiture;

is misery, Lange sanz foreure —

clothes without fur lining, De celui n'ai-je cure,

For that I do not care — Car il n'est preu!

it's so low-class! Tant ain lou feu

So much I love the fire 35] Qu[ant] je voi la froidure, (24)

when I see the cold, A lui me veu.

to that [fire] I'll be heading. Miauz ain lo feu

I like the fire even better Que deus dez de tersure!

than two dice fixed for cheating. Qant je lief a pissier (25)

When I get up to piss 40] A la matinee,

in the morning, Certes mult m'est grief,

it really gripes me Qant voi la fumee

when I see the steam [from my urine] Au verreglaz

into icicles Atorner faz.

is being formed. 45] Haste menu au broaz (26)

Broiled on a small spit Del porcel mall o[s]tee

to have a splendid bed, de dras blaunchys

its blanched linen fleyre la buee.

fragrant with laundry-steam. La tenue couerture

A thin coverlet 30] c'est ma desconfiture;

is my misery; lange sauntz foreure —

clothes without fur lining, de celi n'ai-je cure,

for that I do not care — quar il n'est preuz —

it's so low-class! Mieux aym les feus:

I love the fire still better 35] quant ie voy la refroidure,

when I see cold return, a ly m'en vou.

to that I'll be heading. Mieux aym son iou

I like its play still better qe dous deez detorsure!

than two dice fixed for cheating! Quant l'yuer s'esteynt

When winter's quenched 40] par la matynee

by the morning certes molt me greuee

it really pains me — lanoyfe la gelee

the snow and rime

mes en verglaz into icicles

atourner faz. are being formed.

45] Menues hastes en bruaz On small spits for broiling

de pourcel madle ostee

(24) MS Q, which Méon expands in the usual way as Que. The Bern scribe usually abbreviates Qui or Que (lines 15, 28, 35, 38, 53, 54), but writes out Quant (lines 1,11, 39, 42, 55, 57, 63, 76). Harley's Quant gives better sense, however. (25) LI. 39-44 of Bern cod. 354 differ much from 11. 39-44 of Harley 2253. Perhaps the Harley

scribe's redaction was made for teaching French to a "PG-13" audience; Bibbesworth's Tretiz refers to les enfauntz whom his manual is made for. (26) OF bruaz, bruillaz, brou[i\llaz "mist, fog," in OFD does not make sense here; nor does

bruaz "fog," in AND. My translation desperately assumes that Bern's broaz and Harley's bruaz come from the verb bruiller in the sense "broil" (AND), for which the OFD gives the form brusler.

A GOLIARD'S FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 861

some boar-meat's roasted — Prise en une pasture,

taken in a good pasturage — La longe sans arsure,

the loin uncharred, Tote ai ma teneure

I've given all my possessions 50] Por bon morsel donee 50]

for a choice helping, Por boen more

for one good bite, Por fort raspez

for strong table-wine, Que je ain miauz assez

that I love much more 54] Que cervoise enfumée.

than smoke-tinged beer. [For lines 55-80, see below, after 55]

line 108]

82] Taverne ai moult amee, I've loved the tavern well,

N'est pas droit que la hee, no reason I should hate it —

Tote ai m'amore donee I gave my whole heart to

85] A savor destranpee 60] that well-spiced brew

De garingal, with galingale,

De citoal, with zedoary,

Et en chaude pevree — and with hot pepper —

Ne fait pas mal and there'd be no harm

90] EntorNoal 65] around Christmas-time

Mostarde o char salee. from mustard with salted meat.

some boar-meat's roasted — pris en bone pasture,

taken in good pasturage la loygne sauntz arsure,

the loin unburnt, en la broche botee,

thrust on the spike, quar c'est ma noreture!

for that's my kind of life! Tout ay ma tenure

I've given all my holdings for en bon morsel donee,

one splendid serving, en bon clare,

with honeyed claret en fort raspee

and strong table-wine q'eym mieux d'assez

that I love much more que ceruoyse enfumée!

than smoke-tinged beer! Tauerne ay molt amee,

I've loved the tavern well, n'est pas droit que la hee,

no reason I should hate it — tout ay m'amour donee

I gave my whole heart to en sauour destempre —

that well-spiced brew en gauigaut (27),

with galingale, en cetewaut (M),

with zedoary, mys en chaudee peuere — (29)

and with hot pepper, too — ne fet pas mal

and there'd be no harm entour noal

around Christmas-time mostarde oue char salee.

from mustard with salted meat.

(27) Bern garingal is the standard form for the spice galingale. Harley ganigaut (which might be read as ganigant, ganigaut, gavigaut or gavigant) is an enigma. (28) AND gives cedewale, cet-, ce tuai; cetenaud, citon-, "zedoary." Presumably Harley has w for

u. This is the spice called setewall in Middle English texts. (29) In Piers Plowman, the taverner gives Glutton hot pepper for his drink.

862 CARTER REVARD

Anes, malarz, Oues e madlarz (30), Ducks, drakes, Wild geese and drakes,

Plu[njon]s et bla[r]ies, plongons e blaryes (31), diving ducks and coots, diving ducks and coots,

Chapons, chenevas, chapouns, chaneuaus (32), capons, ?woodlarks?, capons, Twoodlarks?,

95] Gelines rosties, 70] gelynes rosties, roasted hens, roasted hens,

Grues, haïrons, cygnes, poons, cranes, herons, swans, peacocks,

Et gente et raille, cerceles, iauntes wild geese and rails, teals, wild geese,

Et morillons — e morillons — and black ducks. and black ducks —

100] Et porcel enfarcie: 75] e purcel enfarcie, and piglet stuffed. and piglet stuffed.

La lange ai moult amee La loyngne entrelardée The loin I've always loved the interlarded loin

(30) MS. Oues; Wright prints Qués, perhaps misled by the rubric slash through capital O, taken as tail of a Q. Friar William Herebert, in the Tretiz he copied into ff. 2r-14v of London, British Library MS. Additional 46919, provided glosses in Middle English for many of its Anglo-Norman words. On f. llr, where Bibbesworth is teaching the names of birds, line 1 reads Ci vient uolaunt vn ouwe roser, "here comes flying a wild goose," and Herebert has written above vn ouwe its ME gloss, a wilde gos. (I am grateful to the British Library for providing access to Additional 46919, and providing a microfilm of it for further study.)

(31) Méon prints Pluvious et blaies but the scribe wrote plunions = OFD plonjon "diver, coot." In Friar Herebert's Tretiz (n. 30 above), on f. 5r col. 2 (3rd line from bottom) he gives le plounczoun (where cz represents the voiced alveolar fricative), and glosses it the douke, as he does again on f. lOv col. 2, 1. 18, where he glosses ane as enede and plounczoun as douke. Reference is thus probably to a diving duck and not a coot. However, Bern cod. 354 clearly reads blaies, and Harley 2253 reads blaryes, both meaning "coot, moorhen." Yet, Herebert's Bibbesworth (f. llr col. 1, lines 1-3) reads: Ci vient uolaunt vn ouwe roser, [vn ouwe glossed a wilde gos, "a wild goose" vn blarret a lui acumpaigner, [v« blarret glossed a bernak, "a barnacle goose" Et mieux serroye de vn blarret pen [blarret pen glossed bernak ifed, "barnacle

goose's feather" (for a pen?) que ne serroye de char de fren [defren glossed of a rok Perhaps, therefore, we should emend both blaies and blaryes to blarrets "barnacle geese." (32) (Harley): I cannot decipher either the Bern 354 chenevas or the Harley 2253 chaneuaus/

chauenaus. OFD chanevas, "canvas," could not point here to the duck named "canvasback," which is a North American species that (says OED) did not get that name until 18th century. My "woodlarks" is a desperate guess. Could the dish be roasted kid, cheuereaus? Friar Herebert's copy of Bibbesworth's Tretiz describes vne graunt mangerye (a great feast) that includes a boar's head and goes on in lines 7-9 and 13-14 (Herebert's ME glosses in brackets):

Des gruwes [cranes] poouns [pecokes] & cynes [swannes] Cheuereaus [kides] purceaus [pigges] & gelynes Puis auoient conyns en grauee ffeisaunz ascyes & perdriz Gryues alouwes [larken] & plouers rostis.

A GOLIARD 'S FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 863

De cerf entrelardée of a buck in grease:

Veneison ne haz mie (34), Γ ve not disdained a bit of venison,

Chevroil de dain, [ve]lee A fallow buck, or veal,

105] Ne bon ansor botee nor good ????? put into

En fort poivre flatee — strong peppercorns crushed —

Et lo jambon and a ham

De fresche salaison just freshly cured

109] M'a randue la vie. has saved my life. [Now here are lines 55-81, set

beside their Harleian versions.] 55] Qant il pluet et il tonne,

When it rains and thunders, Et je sui lez la tone,

and I'm beside the cask Qui totjorz me foisone

which always has plenty for me 58] Lieute aucun —

in some special place — Vin de haute persone

Wine from noble cellar, 60] C[onine] larde.

a fat rabbit — Fox est qui lo secoue

He's crazy who'd refuse Fromaiche ros,

a bit of soft cheese Qant rosti ay,

when I have toasted it, Et je H faicorone

and I'd make it a crown. 65] Je ain poi grosillier

I love, then, red-currant Nuilles et oublees,

little wafers and biscuits Roisoles, gaufres dorées

rissoles, golden waffles.

de ce[rf] (33) ay molt amee. of a buck I've always loved:

Venesoun ne haz mie, I've not disdained a bit of venison,

ne char de cerf venee, nor flesh from the hunted hart

80] ne daym ne porcke, uelee, or fallow buck, nor pork, veal,

vne pome flestrye. a dried apple.

Jamboun Ham

de fresche salesoun just freshly cured

mi ad rendu la vie. has saved my life.

85] Quant ie su leez la tonne, When I'm beside the cask, (??)

e yl ploit e yl tonne, and it rains and it thunders,

tout adees ma fosoyne — there's always plenty for me —

vyn de haute persone, of high-class wine,

lèvre encine, conin lardée — chine of hare, a fat rabbit —

90] molt est fous qe saonne (35) he's crazy who'd refuse

formage rees a bit of soft cheese

quaunt rostie ay, when I have toasted it,

e ie le faz coroune and I'd make it a crown.

E pu[i] (36) grosoiller and then red-currant

95] nuilles e oblees, little wafers and biscuits,

royssolees e guaffres rissoles and waffles,

e tostiz doreez. toasted golden.

(33) MS cele. (34) Méon prints ne lee, which I cannot make sense of. (35) OFD saorter, seoner rebut, challenge (a witness, etc.), dismiss (case, court). (36) MS pur.

864 CARTER REVARD

Perdriz, ploviers Partridge, plover,

Colons, ramiers, doves and wild pigeons,

70] Fasans, viecos — 100] pheasants, woodcocks —

Boen mangier a, good eating those,

En endoilles salées! with salted sausage!

Je tien a fol qui done I take him for a fool who puts

Son gaje en enprisone his goods in hock

75] Por tripes enfumées; for scorched tripe —

Et qant ce vient a none 1 05] and when the noon-hour comes,

Mes ostes m'a'raisone: mine Host has a word with me:

Encontre nuit to guard against the night

Tot par déduit all for our delight

80] Lo chaudun cuit a hotpot full

En chastaignes parées. 110] of peeled chestnuts. [For lines 82-108 see above,

following line 53] 110] En caresme a Pantree

When Lent is come, Ain mult perche parée (37),

I really love skinned perch, Truite et tanche enversee

trout and tench turned over En souchie gitee,

and thrown into broth.

Perdriz, plouers, Partridge, plover,

coloms croysers, pigeons from the dovecote,

Le wydecoks est bon mangiers woodcock's good eating,

e andoilles lardes! and sausages crisp-fried!

le tienke pur fol qe doune I take him for a fool who puts

son auer enprisonee his goods in hock

pur tripes enfumes — for scorched tripe —

quar quaunt reuient a noun for when I wake at noon

my hoste m'a resoune mine Host has a word with me

si dit qu'il ad trouée he says that he's just found,

countre la nuyt to guard against the night

vn chaudon quit a hotpot full

a chasteyn paree. of peeled chestnuts.

En quaresme a l'entre, When Lent is come,

lors eym perche paree, then I love skinned perch,

la tenche enuersee, a tench turned over,

e en souz botee

immersed in broth.

(37) Lines 112-14 (Harley) and 111-13 (Bern): Two puzzles: first, the lexical meaning of Bern souchie and Harley souz; second, understanding the culinary actions referred to by enversee in 111- 1 12 and gitee / botee in 1 12-1 13. Enversee is past participle of enverser "overturn," while gitee (ppl. of jeter) means "thrown," and botee (ppl of boter) means "pushed, thrust, jostled." The Goliard describes taking a tench (and, in Bern, a trout), preparing it by splitting it open and gutting, turning it over, and heaving it into souchie I souz . What is this suchte / souzl AND gives sus' "juice" and cites a gloss as hec mucida in succiduo: groin de pork en suz; OFD gives as culinary meaning of souz "pork broth": the Goliard imagines trout or tench cooked in pork broth. But he is imagining Lenten dishes, so the Menagier de Paris may be pertinent: it cites a broth for cooking fish which "is like a pork broth (soux)" but whose essential ingredient is sage.

A GOLIARD'S FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 865

Fresche plaïz, Fresh plaice,

115] Et poison friz, and fresh fish

Et enguille salee with salted eel,

Gastiax rostiz, toasted wastel-bread

Menuz braïz lightly grilled,

Et flamiche salee. and Flemish custard-tart with

salt. 120] [DjarOnehejepas

Dace I don't despise, Fandu a congnie

split with a hatchet, Ne enguille de gort,

nor eel from the weir-trap De sa piau voidie.

peeled from its skin. Congre n'esturjon,

Conger and sturgeon, 125] Alose, brame ne gardon,

shad, bream and roach, Vandoise, letansee,

gudgeon, carp, Escrivice paree,

crayfish peeled, Bon foie (42) sor tostee,

good liver on toast, 130] ne roches, ne lampré,

De roie refroidee and cold, boiled skate,

130] Etmasquerel and mackerel

Fres e novel, new-caught and fresh,

Et li autre bon morsel and the other dainty morsels

1 1 5] Harang, plays, Herring, plaice,

e peschoun fresche and fish that's fresh

e alosee (38) en pastee, and shad in pastry,

gastieu rostiz, toasted wastel-bread,

menu brayz, lightly grilled,

120] e flamiche (39) salee. and Flemish custard-tart with salt.

Dars ne heez-je mie, Dace I don't despise,

fenduz de quonie — split with a hatchet —

anguille de gors eel from the weir-trap

de sa pieu veudie. peeled from its skin.

125] Conger, estorgoun, Conger and sturgeon,

Luz, salmoun, pike, salmon,

vendoise (4I), brème, ne gerdon, gudgeons, bream and roach,

ne morue ou l'aille cod with garlic,

ne creuice pelle, crayfish peeled,

roach and lamprey, ne raye refreide,

and cold.boiled skate, ly makerel

and mackerel freshe e nouel,

new-caught and fresh, et tot cist autre bon morsel

and all those other dainty morsels

(38) AND alose "alosa, shad," or aloser p.p. "renowned, esteemed". Shad in pastry is a common dish, so reference here is more likely to shad. (39) ANDflamice, -iche "flawn, custard tart"; OFD flamiche "type of Flemish cake or tart." It is

still served with salt. (40) MS bar; Méon prints Bar; the Harley 2253 scribe's Dars "dace" suggests that Dar is the

correct reading for cod. 354 here. (41) OFD vendoise, "bream (or similar freshwater fish)". The Harley scribe must have

distinguished vendoise from bream, however, since he lists both in his line 126. I have not been able to decipher the Bern letansee — carp or gudgeon? (42) I assume foie is liver of some kind.

866 CARTER REVARD

M'ont la borse voidee. 135] that have emptied my wallet.

Qant Pasques repaire, When Easter arrives,

135] Joie ne me lait taire — for joy I can't keep quiet —

Flaons, pastez voil faire flawns and pasties I order up,

Por la costume a traire, just to follow tradition.

Manju moston 140] I devour mutton

Au gras rongon: of the fat-kidneyed kind,

140] L'angnel faz forz traire 1 skin a lamb right out

De son pelicon. of its fleece.

L'antancion I set my mind

m'est au poivre deffaire. 145] on peppering it just right.

Droit est que l'an ait It's proper that one have

145] Gras bues en poree, fat beef in stew,

Et tendre poucin, and tender young chicken,

Oue en ranc gardée. goose kept in the stable

Au tans novel C4) 150] In the new season (spring),

m'ont la bourse veydee. that have emptied my wallet.

Quant la Pasche repoire, When Easter arrives,

ie m'y last tayre — I just can't keep quiet — tart e flaon faz fere,

tarts and flawns I order up, pur la saison retrere.

in the spirit of the season. Molt aym motoun

I do love mutton, a gras reynoun:

the fat-kidneyed kind, e l'aignel faz fors trere

I skin a lamb right out de pelicoun.

of its fleece, m'entencioun

and set my mind met au poyvre défère.

on peppering it just right. Droyz est qe l'en eyt motoun,

It's right to have mutton en porree pucyns,

with leek potage and chicken, en verynz (43),

[in a glass dish??] oue en franke garde, goose kept in the cow-shed. Atant nouel

In the new season

(43) For Harley 2253 verynz — which has no equivalent in Bern — I can only find in OFD and AND verrin etc., "glass". If line 147's en porree pucyns means "leek soup with chicken", I do not see how the soup itself could be glass or like glass. In (Rey : 1993), the entry for verin says it derives (attested 1389) from Latin veruina "long javelin," a diminutive of very "spit for roasting," adding that it is a word of Picard origin. The oue en ranc gardée of Bern 147 and the oue en franke garde of Harley 149 may be a goose kept, presumably for fattening, in a stable or cowshed. The Glutton seems here to imagine mutton, stewed chicken, and a fat roast goose. (44) In Au tans novel we seem to have OFD tens novel or saison novele "springtime": the poet

has turned from imagining the post-Lenten feasting of an Easter season to the gormandizing he associates with the arrival of spring, and I assume the dish described in line 149, la teste en rost apres I 'oel, is a roasted sheep's (or could it be a boar's?) head, served after the roast goose (J'oel, Vowel, Bern 149, Harley 152). However, the Harley 2253 version, Atant nouel/ ius de tuel/ la teste en rost apres I 'owel, is hard to decipher: perhaps the roasted head is brought in under a tuel = mappe, serviette^ Or perhaps ius = "yoke" and tuel "pipe" ?

A GOLIARD'S FEAST AND THE METANARRATIVE OF HARLEY 2253 867

La teste en rost apres l'oel (45) the head roasted after the goose

150] Et la paste salee. and the pasty salted.

Joie ne me lait taire Joy won't let me refrain

Por la costume a traire — from keeping up the custom,

Pie de porc en socie pig's feet in broth

En froit solier in a cold cellar

155] Que d'erbe fais jonchier, which with herbs I strew

M enuement podree lightly spiced

ius de tuel under the napkin

la teste en rost apres Fowel, the head roasted after the goose,

e gras cheueryl larde and a fat kid in lard

ne me doit pas desployre need not displease me

1 55] pur le manger retrere — for getting back to feasting —

pee de porcke en socie pigs' feet in broth

a froit celer, from cold cellar

e haut soler, and high sun-room herbe mugier with nutmeg-cloves

1 60] menuement poudre — lightly sprinkled —

161] e ie m'envoys donks dormyr! then I can get to sleep!

(45) AND uel, uiel, mvel; ...oel, oewel... "equal"; OFD ivel (adjective) "same, equal, alike," and (adverb) "equally, evenly." Une oelle = brebis ("sheep"); oel, oelle = "goose." Perhaps in line 148 one en franke garde (Harley; 1. 146 in Bern oue en ranc gardée), the reference is to a roasted goose that had been kept enclosed and fattened in the table or cow-shed, and in lines 150-51 (Harley) or 150 (Bern), the dish being brought in is a roasted sheep's head: early on, when Easter season brings the end of Lenten fare, a fat roast goose is served; then in the new season, a roasted head of sheep or boar is brought in. A possible parallel here is the gluttonous Friar in Chaucer's Summoner's Tale: asked by the rich man's wife what he would like to eat, he first specifies very dainty fare — a capon's liver, and a small slice of what our Slothful Glutton has referred to (line 11 7) as gastieu rostiz, "toasted wastel-bread" — and then calls for an entire roasted boar's head. Such sequence, and its effect — finicky gourmet turns wolfish gourmand — may be what the poet intended us to hear from our Slothful Glutton.