Disciplina Clericalis/Preface

by William Henry Hulme

PREFACE

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The present edition of Peter Alphonse's Disciplina Clericalis is intended to be a preliminary study for the fuller treatment of the subject which I promised several years ago to give in one of the volumes of the publications of the Early English Text Society, but which has not yet been completed. At the outbreak of the war I was in England reading and collecting materials from every possible source. But this work, necessarily broken off in the very midst of things, could not be taken up again during the last five years: so the matter rests where it was left in the summer of 1914. I hope, however, that it will be possible to resume the necessary search after analogues and originals of the various tales of the collection in both ancient and mediaeval literatures at no distant date and to carry it to a successful conclusion in the prospective EETS edition. The edition which is now presented will in the nature of things reach only a limited number of students and readers. But it will be of great practical value, I hope, to all who are interested in the study of mediaeval folk-tales generally, as well as of Peter Alphonse's collection in particular, since it offers a convenient and, it is intended, reliable text of the Middle English version as a much needed basis for all further editorial work.

My interest in the Disciplina began some years ago while I was engaged in collecting materials for the EETS edition of the Middle English Harrowing of Hell and Poetical Gospel of Nicodemus. But the identification of this unheralded, unrubicated piece in the Worcester Cathedral Ms. was immediately due to the interest and suggestion of Mr. J. A. Herbert (at that time Assistant in the Department of Manuscripts, now Keeper of Manuscripts, in the British Museum), to whose kindness and courtesy I have so frequently been a debtor in recent years.

Since the EETS edition will be amply provided with Introduction, Notes, and Glossarial Vocabulary, in addition to, in all probability, a reprint of the Latin version of the Cambridge University Library Ms. li, 6, 11 in parallel columns with the Middle English, the "critical apparatus" has been for the most part omitted from this edition. Besides, the lack of space in these publications makes it incumbent on the editor to compress the introductory materials into the smallest practicable compass. No attempt has accordingly been made to treat any phase of the broad subject exhaustively,—not even to give a full bibliography of the literature on the subject. But the titles of a few of the most important works of both a general and a specific character are given, in which the eager student will probably find virtually all the literature on the Disciplina Clericalis, as well as on mediaeval tales and fables, recorded.

I have tried to give, in the proper connection (printed in solid type in the text, or occasionally in the footnotes) free English translations from the original Latin for all the lacunae of any consequence in the Middle English text, whether they occur as parts of, or complete, individual tales, or as omissions from the connecting dialogues. In making the translations I have had the generous assistance for corrective purposes of Professor Platner of the department of Latin, which enabled me, I trust, to retain the sense and something of the interest of the original without a superfluity of errors. One missing tale has been supplied from the Middle English Alphabet of Tales (No. VII), another from Caxton's Aesop (No. XII).

In the text an effort has been made to reduce correction and emendation to a minimum, and the essential features of the manuscript have, it is hoped, been preserved. Spelling and capitalization have been altered only when it was felt necessary for the understanding of the text. The punctuation is, on the other hand, entirely my own, that of the Ms. being such as would frequently confuse the reader and convey a wholly false meaning. The abbreviations of the manuscript have not been indicated by the usual italic type; they are comparatively few in number and include, in the main -er, -is, n (m), and u,—but all of them only occasionally. And even a large percentage of the abbreviations present occur at the ends of lines. Isolated instances of the early English thorn (for th), which occur mostly at the ends of lines, have been printed as th. Additions to the Ms. text are indicated by brackets.

In general, what was said about the word forms and language of 'The Mending of Life' (see Western Reserve Studies, vol. I, No. 4, p. 27f) applies equally well to those features of the Disciplina Clericalis. New word-forms occur from time to time which the exigencies of translation required and for the same reason the sentence structure would probably often be found different from that of 'The Mending of Life'. But these peculiarities will receive full treatment in the EETS edition.