which indicate such a date are: the ornamental peitrel of the Green Knight’s horse, hung with pendants 168; and that the Gringolet 601; the square-toed sabatounȝ worn by Gawain 574; the fret worn by the lady 1738; the numerous pinnacles of the castle 796. See the notes of these passages.
The only feature of the language of the poem which gives any indication of the date of composition is the pronunciation of final unaccented -e. The rhymes show an inconsistent pronunciation. In 413 to þe : soþe, 2355 waþe : ta þe, the final -e of soþe (dat.) and of waþe (ON. váði) was certainly pronounced, and from the regularity of rhymes of words in -e throughout the poem it appears that -e of the infinitive, of the indic. and subj. pl., of the pa. t. of weak verbs, and of the pl. of adjectives was usually pronounced. On the other hand there are rhymes showing that final -e was sometimes dropped; for example:
- payne (infin.) 1042 rhyming with Gawayn;
- fayn (adj. pl.) 840: Gawayn;
- to graunte 1841: seruaunt;
- myȝt (pa. t.) 201: lyȝt.
Evidently final -e was in process of being dropped; but as verse usage is more conservative than colloquial speech, final -e in the poet’s spoken dialect may have been comparatively rare. The chronology of the loss of final unaccented -e is not known certainly, but the process seems to have been complete by c. 1400, to judge from the spelling of the Ireland MS. and the metre of The Destruction of Troy.
The criteria, such as they are, point to a date in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, the latest possible date being determined by that of the manuscript, c.. 1400. The most definite indication that the
