Ralph Hanna - Editing Medieval Texts - An Introduction, Using Exemplary Materials Derived From Richard Rolle, - Super Canticum - 4-Liverpool University Press (2015)

e x et e r m e di eva l t e xts a n d stu di es
Series Editors: Vincent Gillespie and Richard Dance

Founded by M.J. Swanton and later co-edited by Marion Glasscoe
Editing Medieval Texts
An Introduction,
Using Exemplary Materials Derived from
Richard Rolle, ‘Super Canticum’ 4
Ralph Hanna
LIV ERPOOL UNIV ERSITY PR ESS

First published in 2015 by
Liverpool University Press
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Copyright © 2015 Ralph Hanna
The right of Ralph Hanna to be identified as the author of this book has
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Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a
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Contents
Foreword vii
Preliminary: On Editions 1
1 Collecting the Witnesses 17
2 Finding a Copy-text and Transcribing it 29
3 Comparing the Witnesses, or Collation 39
4 The Examination of the Variants 45
5 Annotation 99
Richard Rolle, ‘Super Canticum’ 4: Edition, Collation,

and Translation 107
Appendix: Additional Manuscript Descriptions; the Manuscripts
and the Text 141
Notes 161
Index 179
Foreword
I wrote this book, designed for students new to the enterprise, because
I recalled my early frustrations at trying to edit texts transmitted in
medieval and early modern manuscripts. And although the practical
experience of examining a number of such texts has given me a certain
measure of confidence in my skills, one frustration still remains. This
is the absence of any practical handbook for beginners, one that might
show what is at stake in the process of editing a text and what steps one
might take to address the attendant difficulties.
Central to the whole argument here is ‘experience’. There is nothing
‘scientific’ or ‘objective’ about the production of reading texts of medieval
works, only an assessment of probabilities guided by one’s acquired
knowledge. Of course, most of the knowledge that might be on display
here has not been my own. I owe a very great deal to two teachers
who directed my work early on, E.  Talbot Donaldson and Richard
S.  Sylvester. I owe much more to a sequence of collaborators, people
with whom I have joint-edited texts over the years and from whom,
as we argued variant by variant, I have derived vastly more instruction
than I could possibly have given in return: M.  C.  Seymour, Robert
A.  Pratt, Hoyt N.  Duggan (and Robert M.  Adams, and the rest of the
Piers Plowman Electronic Archive team), David A.  Lawton, and Traugott
Lawler. Traug, in particular, will probably find this volume intensely
amusing in its various flailings; an expert Latinist and an extraordinarily
organised thinker, he would have done the whole with greater authority,
clarity, and acumen.
I have also profited from intensely critical readings the script has
received. In addition to the customary incisiveness of the series editors,
Vincent Gillespie and Richard Dance, I am particularly grateful for three
viii e d i t i n g m e d i e va l t e x t s
readings, all producing extensive suggestions about both content and

presentation, from Nicholas Perkins, Thorlac Turville-Petre, and Sarah
Wood. Of course, given my intellectual stubbornness, many of their fine
suggestions have gone unheeded, and I am solely responsible for what
remains.
Finally, I am grateful to my editor, Helen Gannon, and the rest of the
team at Liverpool University Press for converting my work into attractive
published form. In particular, Rachel Clarke – who set two of my earlier
volumes – has utterly outdone herself this time. Her exquisite care with
the text and apparatus has been a joy to see.
Preliminary:
On Editions
Editions of any sort are integral to that trans-historical contact that

underpins modern study. The human sciences depend upon documentary
access, and on a general belief that our access to such documents is
accurate. The model for producing such a formalised presentation of
a text derives from the reproduction of historical documents: one first
finds, and then accurately transcribes what remains, most typically a
unique record (for example, a charter conveying land to a monastery).
This renders this portion of the archive available for those interpretative
acts which render historical study possible.
What of texts in more than one copy, which includes the archive
accessed by those in literary studies across a range of languages, as well as
philosophy, theology, law, and other disciplines? The difficulty might be
illustrated by the medieval history of that most central cultural text, the
Latin Bible. To put matters crassly, its source was believed unimpeachable,
the text a revelation from God herself. But copies of the Bible might
vary widely, because, by definition, they are the product of the errant
human agents who had been responsible for promulgating the text. The
standard text, called the ‘Vulgate Bible’, had been produced by St Jerome
in Palestine at the turn of the fourth and fifth centuries. However, the
majority of circulating copies, and the usual text, was that promulgated
from Paris during the thirteenth century, and in the intervening 800
years, widespread (and well-recognised) variation had entered the text.
How was one to find what the author might have intended? Or to correct
whatever version one might have received?1
Here in the pre-print era there was a particular difficulty. In general,
print produces identical copies of the same (although there are always
matters of detail).2 Since the coming of the press, published editions have
2 e d i t i n g m e d i e va l t e x t s
typically followed a line of least resistance. When a text is reprinted, it

customarily follows that in an earlier edition, and print texts most usually
offer a vertical succession of textual forms – the later ones typically
introducing variations not the property of earlier ones. As a result,
finding what the author had intended, editing these, is a relatively simple
procedure; one discovers the latest edition in which the author can be
said to have been involved, and follows it, unless certainly wrong (e.g.,
an obvious typographical error).3
In contrast, texts circulating in manuscript present particular difficulties.
Relative to the total surviving archive, the number of authorially supervised
copies is minuscule.4 For many texts – of which Jerome’s Bible might
stand as an example – the textual evidence is exceedingly belated; the
most central and popular medieval texts went on being copied by hand
for centuries after composition. Moreover, in the absence of authorial
supervision, the auspices behind various copies remain obscure; unlike the
press, a fixed business operation relying upon non-portable equipment/
machinery, manuscript copying is a particularly exiguous operation and
one difficult to place.
Anyone who could write and who had an interest might copy, and for
any variety of reasons (not all of which would correspond with modern
notions of fidelity to a source, e.g., a medieval copyist might choose to
reproduce a single extracted passage of interest, rather than a whole text).
Manuscript books only rarely provide explicit statements of date, source,
motivation, or (even later) ownership.5 They remain mysterious, needing
to be interrogated in themselves. And any text in manuscript, often quite
overtly, is mar(r)(k)ed by signs of disruption, e.g., rhymes that do not
rhyme, sentences that make no sense because lacking any verb. And when
laid side by side, these problems multiply – since no two copies of any
text, even ones copied from the same materials or from one another, are
ever identical.6 What is one to do? What would constitute a useful text
of a medieval work?
There is a further complication inherent in this question: useful to
whom? Like manuscripts produced for potentially individualised purposes,
all editions are motivated. But they do not always share identical
motivations, and are driven by varying considerations, both practical and
theoretical. The practical concerns the issue of audience and/or use-value:
who is this for? Unlike medieval scribes, who may have written only for
their own later enjoyment or edification, editors are engaged in some
form of communication with others, and how they conceive those others
determines what they choose to present and how they choose to present
p r e l i m i n a r y: o n e d i t i o n s 3
it. Merely an obvious example: an edition of a medieval text designed for

student use requires considerably more glossing of unfamiliar words than
one intended for university professors. Producing a student text might
thus involve a corresponding further decision, e.g., placing glosses on the
text page, marginally, line by line, rather than, as is traditional in editions
for scholars, as a single alphabetical listing at the end of the book.
But such a matter, which concerns annotating the text, is largely the
secondary product of a decision earlier taken. For it avoids the question
of what the text is, or is to be. While this decision is not separable
from the conception of an audience, it is equally a theoretical concern,
and one often in the history of presenting texts, the subject of consid-
erable argument (and acrimony).7 Given that there may be a myriad of
potential manuscript copies of any text (uncounted thousands of the Latin
‘Vulgate Bible’, for example), what is the object that the edition should
present? Any available copy? The fullest copy? A particularly interesting
manuscript version? A particularly interesting form of the text? The oldest
copy? The best text available (perhaps from some chosen sample)? A text
constructed from all the copies one can find? How? I will examine each
of these alternatives in turn.
In terms of the history of textual presentation, the first alternative,
presenting some available copy, has a certain aboriginal prominence. This
was, so far as one can see, the procedure adopted by all early printers
of medieval texts, and began during the incunable period (before 1500),
when print books and manuscripts were being produced simultaneously
and in competition with one another. Initially, the behaviour merely
represented contemporary practice; it replicated the activity of medieval
scribes, who, in a situation of non-centralised book-production, typically
presented whatever text they could find.
A very early English avatar of the procedure involves England’s first
printer, William Caxton, and his editio princeps of Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales (c.1476/7, STC 5082). Like any fifteenth-century book-producer,
Caxton found himself a copy and printed it. But at least some of his
readers objected and claimed the text was not Chaucer’s poem as they
knew it; Caxton could not have discovered, without considerable detailed
checking, that his chosen manuscript represented a narrowly and belatedly
disseminated form of the text. Repentant, the printer produced a second
edition (1483, STC 5083), presumably using a copy supplied by his
critics – which in the event turned out to be another rendition of the
non-representative version he had published in the first place.8
But this is a procedure of interest not simply because it provides this
diverting historical anecdote. One could argue that, in many circum-

stances, some text for consultation is better than no text at all. Indeed,
this procedure was deliberately adopted by the founding editors of the
Early English Text Society, the continuing font of sophisticated Old
and Middle English textual studies. The Society had been founded to
help implement the programme of the Philological Society, which was
engaged in producing a historical dictionary of English from the Norman
Conquest. For this reason, any available medieval text was potentially
useful as an illustration of past English usage, and the most important
thing was having them produced speedily. This would allow the editors of
what would become the Oxford English Dictionary to scan printed volumes
in their search for obsolete words and their usages.9 The results could,
obviously enough, be erratic – and many early editors could not read
the manuscripts they purported to present10 – but the result, within the
goal imagined, was perfectly adequate, and many early EETS productions
still remain the only printed versions of their texts and thus editions of
first recourse.
But more than ease and speed might be involved here. Editing any
available manuscript text is a procedure perfectly justifiable theoretically.
Caxton’s behaviour is revelatory of the argument. He made Chaucer’s
text available, and he made it available in a historically reputable form
(even if not the best form some portion of his readers might imagine).
In essence, Caxton provided the print reader of 1476/7 a text comparable
to that available to any contemporary manuscript reader. In the circum-
stances in which medieval texts were produced, the single manuscript
– of whatever quality – was The Text, for some circle of readers (and
their inheritors). Caxton thus replicated the experience available to
everyone else.
This represents a perfectly plausible mode of procedure, even today,
when we have a much broader (and more fully historicised) sense of
texts than Caxton or any of his readers could ever have done. It thus is
an ongoing and reputable editorial model, perfectly useful, for example,
in preparing reading editions for students, the production of what might
be called a ‘representative text’. But the procedure is of potentially much
wider use. For example, numerous manuscripts have a particular inherent
interest, for any variety of reasons; thus, any of their contents might
deserve a single-source presentation predicated upon this single important
copy. For example, there are books famous because they provide extensive
collocations of texts, one-volume libraries, whose texts might be perceived
as of special centrality. Likewise, some books may be important for their
provenance, their production or ownership by a prominent or interesting

individual, and the form of some text s/he received thus of potential
interest.11
At the same time, pursuing the view that the single manuscript offers
a genuine reading experience of a historically justifiable variety – what
any reader of manuscript got – might be seen as inherently problematic.
Because Caxton’s source manuscript has disappeared, we cannot know
with what exactitude he had reproduced the materials he had inherited.
But most likely, in spite of his claim that the original copy ‘by me was
nothyng added ne mynnysshyd’, he had silently exercised some editorial
judgement. For example, no manuscript copy is ever entirely free of
errors, and Caxton will have almost certainly silently corrected many
of the most obvious examples. But we have no way of knowing what
these corrections were, the extent to which Caxton actually could have
recognised scribal mistakes, or the extent to which he might have subjected
his printed text to stylistic emendations to make it more appealing to his
intended audience. A certain, and unascertainable, amount of caprice, if
you will, underlies the printed text.12
Assuming his reliance on but a single textual source, Caxton could
only correct his text into its printed form on two bases. These were a
sense for anomaly, a perception that some passages weren’t sensible in the
form communicated; and a knowledge of what Middle English written
usage (and Chaucer’s usage in particular) should have looked like. In both
instances, he had to depend on his intelligence alone – which is not, as
we shall see, an inconsiderable power. But, until his interlocutors forced
on him a second edition, it does not seem to have occurred to him that
intellect could be guided by other sources – that is, knowledge of more
than one manuscript of Chaucer’s poem. The differing forms these might
potentially provide – which his readers recognised – might have directed
him in correcting the single copy he initially presented readers.
Recognising this prospect may offer other ways of pursuing textual
presentation. In the situation of medieval texts, relatively few texts, and
after the Norman Conquest almost no important ones, actually survive
in unique copies.13 Multiple copies are the rule, and these should offer
comparative evidence useful in assessing the value of the text provided by
any individual rendition. Rather than simply the unaided personal acumen
that I have ascribed to Caxton in the preceding paragraph, additional
copies should offer evidence that would point to the vicissitudes of any
single one. Thus, comparison might highlight and allow one to remove
its idiosyncrasies.
One obvious subset of a single manuscript presentation suggests

itself on this basis. In the Middle Ages, texts frequently were tailored
for consumption, sometimes overtly through excerption, sometimes
inadvertently through accidental omissions or intrusions. One useful
version of the single manuscript presentation thus might be styled ‘the
most complete version’. This would satisfy our modern desire – foreign
to some range of medieval users – for believing that one only comments
upon texts on the basis of some full access to them. Producing a ‘complete
version’ requires that one compare some selection of potentially useful
copies in a gross way; the basis for determination here is simply what
copy might have the fullest text.
This procedure, of course, casts some doubt on the justification I have
already offered for single-manuscript presentations. That was predicated
upon the presumption that the single copy imitated a normative medieval
reading experience in its reliance upon a single textual source. An edition
predicated upon the most complete copy, of course, offers a reading that
is still ‘medieval’ in general outline, yet qualifiedly so. Comparison to
show the copy ‘most complete’ would reveal that not all readers were so
blessed; the experience of reading a complete text allows what one might
call ‘selective medieval access’, what the most fortunate medieval readers
will have recognised as the text.14
However, once the comparative move appears, other forms of single-text
presentation also suggest themselves. Numerous studies of circulating
medieval texts have uncovered intriguingly deviant copies of various literary
works. These represent, in the main, occasions where the individual scribe
engaged creatively with whatever copy he had received, reformulating it
for his own purposes. For example, one scribe in the B tradition of Piers
Plowman, responsible for the copy in Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS
201, not only intruded into his text lines and readings from other versions
of Langland’s poem, but also redivided the text and here and there provided
whole passages of his own manufacture.15 Books like these should be of
intense interest for the information they provide about reception, what
intelligent medieval readers made of the texts they were provided. They
are ripe candidates for single-manuscript editorial presentations.
The person responsible for Corpus 201 is something of a one-off. But
some such individuals actually produced copies made, not for personal
use, but a more general circulation. For example, in the 1870s, Richard
Morris produced what is still the only edition of the early fourteenth-
century Yorkshire Bible-history Cursor Mundi.16 In his edition, Morris
offered, not a single manuscript, but a sequence of them, presented in
parallel. Three of these were remarkably similar, but the fourth (which
appears along the right edge of the page-openings) deviated remarkably
from the remainder. Morris did not know, but more recent scholars have
shown, that the text provided by this fourth copy, Cambridge, Trinity
College, MS R.3.8, exists in a range of further manuscripts and represents
a distinct revision of the poem. It was constructed for use in locales far
removed from that where Cursor Mundi was originally composed. This,
again, offers another instance of a ‘recension’ or ‘adaptation’, where a
single manuscript presentation might well be desirable.17
I’ll return to Morris and his Cursor Mundi in a moment, after considering
yet two further alternatives for a single-manuscript edition. One procedure
would offer an edition that simply chose to follow the oldest available
copy. This would adopt a common-sense view that such a version would
be closer to the source of the text than any competitors; given its age,
it should have experienced a shorter period of transmission, each stage
of which might predictably distance the text from the source. Thus, it
should provide an inherently better rendition of the text. This view is
enshrined in an ancient editorial proverb, ‘Recentiores deteriores’ (the
more recent copies are of lesser quality). Again, an edition predicated on
such a text would provide what I have called qualified medieval access,
a text that circulated in the Middle Ages, but one which, because of its
antiquity, may not have been generally available to medieval readers.
Unfortunately, like much ‘common sense’, the proverb neither addresses
the common situation, nor is it sensible. In the relatively anonymous
situations that enshroud the production of medieval manuscripts, one has
no real assurance about the nature of a scribe’s sources. A late copyist
might be perfectly capable of hitting upon a very old book for his
source-text (and thereby produce a copy, whatever its actual apparent
date, of ‘ancient’ status). Further, the most frequently copied texts might
change very rapidly through persistent early copyings, which may show
greater deviations than many later ones. For example, two relatively early
copies of The Canterbury Tales – Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS
198; and Petworth House (Sussex), Lord Leconfield, MS 9 – offer signifi-
cantly more idiosyncratic readings than a range of later manuscripts that
have actually been derived from them. Similarly, the earliest surviving
copies of another very popular text, Walter Map’s ‘Dissuasio Valerii’,
on inspection turn out to be the most deviant renditions of this parody
attack on marriage.18
A further single-text alternative would involve printing simply the ‘best
copy’. This is a technique particularly prominent in francophone contexts
because of the great influence of Joseph Bédier.19 That is, following some
survey of available copies, the editor chooses the one that appears most
generally complete and reliable. Like other single-manuscript presen-
tations I have described, this form of edition seeks to offer a qualified
medieval experience. Just as most medieval readers will have done, it
relies upon a single manuscript; its reflection of the medieval situation
remains qualified, because, just as with ‘the most complete manuscript’
edition, it provides a copy generally more satisfactory than what would
have been available to the great range of medieval readers.
An attentive reader will, however, have noticed at this point a logical
problem. Many varieties of single-text editions I have mentioned are
engaged in a silent presupposition, in the case of Bédier’s ‘best text’
edition no longer tacit. For example, in the case of books written by
redacting scribes, one can identify the interesting copy, deserving of
single-manuscript presentation, only by having a prior sense of what one
might designate a ‘normative text’. One recognises the Corpus Piers and
the Trinity Cursor as interesting only because they are manifest deviations
from some silenced or pre-existing norm. This norm represents the text
in its general circulation, for example, as communicated in the three
relatively similar copies of Cursor that Morris provided alongside the
uniquely deviant Trinity.
Bédier’s ‘best text’ edition raises this issue even more stringently. How
might an editor come to such a determination? How would s/he decide
that one version was uniquely superior? The ‘best text’, unlike the Corpus
Piers or Trinity Cursor, is such precisely because it is representative of the
general transmission of the work in question. What would make any single
copy stand out as ‘better’ than the remainder of this more or less extensive
set of manuscripts? There is only one evident basis for such a decision: that,
in a wide range of instances, the editor prefers the readings provided by
this copy as superior to those in some range of others. In other words, some
comparative gesture has preceded the determination to rely upon a single
copy. But, quite typically, editors who present ‘best texts’ never reveal what
the specific readings used for the comparison were. Nor do they, except
in situations of obvious discontinuity and senselessness, where their ‘best’
manuscript demands correction, offer any indication of a range of readings
where the manuscript might not be ‘best’ at all.
Thus, inherent in ‘best text’ presentation is some discontinuous effort
at selectivity. A manuscript deserves ‘best text’ presentation because some
of its readings have been selected as preferable to others on offer in
other copies. But designating one text ‘best’ does not address the issue of
whether it is always so (a ‘perfect’ text, rather than a ‘best’ one). Thus,

implicit in the procedure is some measure of non-selectivity, of simply
accepting whatever the book provides, in some undesignated range of
instances, irrespective of what might know from other copies.
Equally, ‘best’ here must stand for a claim that other versions of
single-text presentation generally do not pursue – that all copies
communicate, at some remove, a single source, something that one could
associate with an underlying original version. That is the only reason
why one might believe any single reading ‘better’ than any other – that
it reflects something one would associate with an author, rather than
the vicissitudes of transmission. However silently, ‘best text’ editions are
claiming that they produce something more like the single source of all
copies than one would get, were one only to provide the readings of any
single arbitrarily chosen manuscript.
At this point, I return to Richard Morris’s Cursor Mundi, mentioned
above for its providing a deviant copy, Cambridge, Trinity College, MS
R.3.8, associated with a distinct ‘version’ of the text. Over the course of
a very long poem, Trinity stands out as being uniquely different from all
the remainder. However, Morris’s presentation of three additional books
in parallel clearly indicates that they were not the same – although over
the course of the full text, never so deviant from one another as is Trinity.
Suppose one takes, for example, twenty lines from the (very famous)
prologue, lines 21–40 (EETS OS 57 (1874), 12–15), and compares what one
finds across the four versions Morris presents. For this purpose, use as a
standard Morris’s left-hand column, which presents British Library, MS
Cotton Vespasian A.iii, and mark the deviations of the other three copies.
For convenience and brevity, I refer to each manuscript by an abbreviation
(called a sigil, ‘a little sign’); in order across Morris’s page-opening, these
are V = Vespasian, F = Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Fairfax 14; G =
Göttingen Universitätsbibliothek, MS theol. 107; T = Trinity.
A certain amount of the difference one observes is only apparent, or
cosmetic. Consider the following examples:
line 26: for VG þam, F reads ham, T reads hem
line 28: for VFG draghus, T reads draweþ
line 30: for VFT wrath (i.e., wroth ‘angry’), G reads wroght
line 34: for VFG ilka, T reads vche a
line 37: for V coms, T reads com (FG omit the word)
In every case, these differences among the copies reflect the status
of Middle English as a language, that it had no ‘standard form’, but
comprised a sequence of dialects. These offered variant forms for a rich
variety of items, both grammatical and lexical. The scribes, who represent
different speech communities (the multiple copies thus indicate that this
text travelled), simply write that form that is usual in their locale for the
item in question. Thus, a spelling in th- (here the obsolete letter ‘thorn’)
for the objective form of the pronoun ‘them’ was originally restricted to
northern and eastern England – and never appears in Chaucer; elsewhere,
people wrote a form in h-.20 These are spellings that communicate the
same semantic substance and are the product of the dissemination of
Cursor Mundi; none of them affects the sense of the poem. Such spelling
variants are customarily described as ‘accidental’ features of the text, and
they are ignored in favour of other variations, called ‘substantive’, that
is, affecting the sense.
If you have tried to keep track of all the differences between the four
copies, and have now excluded the spelling variations of the preceding
paragraph, you will still be left with a rich amount of material. By my
count, there are just over twenty occasions, more than one per line, on
which one or another copy (and frequently more) offers a reading that
deviates from the remainder. Perhaps the most glaring example, which
my count takes as a single instance of variation, occurs at lines 31–2,
where each manuscript offers differing material:
V: O chastite has lichur leth | On charite ai werrais wreth
F: of chastite ys licchour loþ | wit charite ys werrour wroþ
G: Of chastite has lecchour lite | Charite again wreth wil smite
T: Of chastite þe lecchoure haþ lite | Charite aȝeyn wraþþe
wol flite21
It is fairly clear in this instance that all four copies are trying to reproduce
the same materials (and that, as is evident elsewhere, T and G resemble
each other more regularly than they do the other two copies). Yet it is
equally evident that the four copies go about this task of reproduction
variously. How does one handle this situation, or any of the other
twenty-odd examples in the sample that resemble it in kind? Given their
similarity, how might one go about discovering the single thing that each
manuscript reproduces in various forms?
This is the business of a kind of edition differently conceived than
any of those I have discussed heretofore, one that is usually called a

‘critical edition’. Such a work presents all the evidence relevant to the
text in question and undertakes a detailed effort at ascertaining its value.
Ultimately, it presents a textual version that, on the basis of the evidence
provided, might be perceived as more proximate to the single source
underlying all the copies than that provided by any single manuscript. In
some sense, the procedures involved in such a scholarly construction are
implicit in all the theoretical moves presented above: e.g., how would one
know what the ‘best’ manuscript was, were one not to undertake some
critical study of the total survival? And the procedures involved might
be seen as underpinning the other editorial options I have mentioned,
whether an edition overtly voices them or not.
Like all intellectual constructs, a ‘critical edition’ is far from immune to
critique. First, as I have already implied, the procedure subjects medieval
texts to an operation alien to them; in the Middle Ages, people were
largely content with single copies (although, like Caxton’s disgruntled
readers, they may have been well aware of their potential deficiencies).22
Instead, a ‘critical edition’ uses techniques developed in the early modern
period and initially associated with the presentation of the Bible and of
classical literary texts. Thus, this is a procedure imposed from without
on materials for which it may frankly be ill-suited.
I would simply note in passing that this appears to me scarcely a
crippling critique, indeed a logical ‘category error’. Editions exist to allow,
as I stated at the outset, trans-historical contact with an accurate version
of materials emanating from another historical situation altogether, and
with a selected conception of an audience. Thus, editing anything is to
engage in a statement about modern scholarly expectations and needs.
While practitioners must always be conscious of possibly non-historical
impositions on their materials, the presentation of any text always falsifies
some part of that text’s history. Indeed, every textual exhibit, every
copy, represents the text – which is to say it is non-identical with it
(by definition, a representation is not the thing itself ), and any modern
edition merely offers a further representation.
One might further want to rephrase this objection in a silly, yet
revealing, form. Modern editions engage in one overt and particularly
blatant falsification of what they represent, seldom mentioned in editorial
discussions: they presume to recast a manuscript into the form of print
(or, these days, binomial code). Thus, for example, although the medieval
scribe might use three different forms for the letter s in his copying,
the modern reader will see only ‘s’, indifferently for all of them. This
(mis)representation, absolutely essential for the communication every

editor seeks, may expose one silent presumption of the interest in single-
manuscript presentation. At some residual level, insistence upon the
single manuscript witness espouses a naive view that one might have
unmediated contact with the medieval past, in this case through the
surviving artefact. But, from an editorial view, in which manuscripts
provide only yet further representations of whatever they convey, such
an opinion is particularly difficult to sustain. The single manuscript is
every bit as much a ‘representation’ of its sources as the modern edition,
of any stripe.23
Second, and more seriously, because of its assessment of the totality of
the evidence, a critical edition never follows any single manuscript in all
its detail. Such an edition is thus alienated from the recall of any precise
medieval situation. The result of the process is overtly eclectic, and it
subordinates, often beyond recovery, the evidence provided by any single
manuscript. On the other hand, as I have outlined above, one might
allege that one can know in any fullness the mediations undertaken in
the single medieval witness only by the comparative gesture, undertaken
in a ‘critical edition’, of laying it beside other surviving examples.
Finally, a ‘critical edition’ produces a version for which there is no
extant medieval evidence. At the most extensive and ambitious, an editor
seeks to produce, if not what the author intended to write, then the
source of all copies, the now lost text that left its maker’s hands for
transmission. Moreover, in its pursuit of information about the original
authorial text, such an edition can accommodate at best only sporadically
perhaps the most interesting manuscript avatars, texts like the Corpus
Piers or the Trinity Cursor. This is a loss unavoidable in the procedure
(the intrusive copy by definition has rejected some part of its source
materials). However, as I have already indicated, the comparative moves
that construct a critical edition are implicit in identifying and discussing
any detail in such a book.
Rather broadly, all critical editions require an ordered sequence of tasks.
Whatever the text concerned, these remain generically similar, although
they may involve various ‘local options’, dependent upon circumstances.
(The most abiding dictum of textual criticism is ‘all situations, beginning
with the individual variant, are unique’.) This sequence may be divided
into five categories, fixed in their order, and to be discussed as such in
the following pages:
1. Collecting the witnesses. As I suggest above, a critical edition surveys
all the evidence for the transmission of a given work. This necessitates an
initial bibliographical search effort, the attempt to find all relevant sources
of information that might shed light on the text.
2. Finding a copy-text and transcribing it. Having assembled the
witnesses, one needs to find a version of the text to use as a tentative
template and to produce an accurate copy of it.
3. Comparing the witnesses, or collation. Once one has an accurate
copy for use, one needs systematically to compare it with all other
relevant copies (as I just now encouraged you to do with twenty lines of
Cursor Mundi). This procedure, called ‘collation’, will produce a mass of
competing readings, variations of all sorts, the evidence upon which the
text will be constructed.
4. The examination of the variants. This is the traditional term for the
analysis, variation by variation, of the assembled evidence. Ideally, at its
conclusion, one will have identified in each instance a single reading as
that of the source underlying all the copies; this reading one will insert
within the tentative template copy already produced. At the completion
of this examination, the corrected template will have the status of ‘the
original’ or ‘the authorial text’.
5. Annotation. No text can stand without a considerable amount of
explanation. For example, it is unlikely that the language of the text will
be pellucid to all readers at all points; thus, some explanation of difficulties
will be required. Similarly, with very few texts indeed does ‘examination’
of the variants provide clear guidance at every point; textual problems,
including the possibility that more than one reading might be that of
the source, require comment. And, customarily, editors look at those
sources utilised by the author in composing his work. In some instances,
they offer powerful direction in the ‘examination’ of the variants;24 in
others, they suggest idiosyncratic authorial decisions, ultimately germane
to textual interpretation. Editions frequently draw attention to these, and
a variable range of other features.
Finally, although it largely involves the shuffling of materials already
assembled, there is a sixth step:
6. Arranging the materials into a conventional and reader-friendly
form for submission to a press.
A final note: Three pages ago, I left you hanging, having introduced a
single textual conundrum, chosen from among twenty such in a brief
passage extracted from Cursor Mundi. That was probably grossly unfair,
and I now apologise for my rudeness. As a conciliatory gesture, I offer
at least a brief explanation of one variation uncovered at that time, a
foretaste of Chapter 4 below, where I discuss ‘examination of the variants’
at great length (and will discuss all the remaining examples from this
passage; see pp. 94–5). Here are the relevant variants, the readings of
Cursor Mundi, lines 31–2, again:
V: O chastite has lichur leth | On charite ai werrais wreth
F: of chastite ys licchour loþ | wit charite ys werrour wroþ
G: Of chastite has lecchour lite | Charite again wreth wil smite
T: Of chastite þe lecchoure haþ lite | Charite aȝeyn wraþþe
wol flite
I would argue that most of the visible variation stems from a single
word, the leth that appears in rhyme uniquely in V. In this instance (as
in very many others), I should think that V comes closest of all four
copies to an accurate representation of the single source underlying all
the others. (That is to say that a ‘best-text’ edition of this passage might
well choose to present it alone.) The spelling leth represents the Middle
English Dictionary’s lētthe n.; this word means ‘hostility’, and thus the
line means ‘The lecherous man is hostile to chastity’. However, if one
reads the MED entry with care, one sees that, although fairly widely
attested in the thirteenth century, this word appears to have been passing
out of use in the early fourteenth, when Cursor Mundi was composed.
Moreover, the only usages later than that here occur in a text, ‘Castle-
ford’s Chronicle’, composed very near where Cursor was, in Yorkshire.
This lexical item may well have been a restricted dialect term from early
in the fourteenth century, and thus may have been unintelligible to some
range of the poem’s copyists. Simply on these lexicographical grounds,
the word probably represents a ‘harder’ reading – thus, one more likely
than its competitors to have given rise to the rest than the reverse. (For
further discussion of this concept, see p. 84.)
F has recognised the V reading for what it was, but has substituted
for the difficult noun leth its common adjective partner, the now slightly
archaic modern word loath, ‘hostile’. In contrast, G and T agree in offering
a word of similar shape, the common noun presented in MED as lı̄te n.3,
‘little’ (i.e., ‘has little to do with’?). Unfortunately, this choice does not
rhyme with the word wrath, ‘anger’, and both scribes have felt compelled
to seek alternative ways of conveying the sense implicit in that word in

order to preserve the poem’s couplet form. All the copies, in a general
way, reproduce V’s sense for the second verse, ‘Anger always wages war
upon charity’. (T’s flite is the word MED presents as flı̄ten v., ‘to contend’.)
The differing behaviours of F and GT in the first rhyme exemplify
commonplace forms of scribal substitution (discussed further at pp. 75–7,
81–2). F offers a glossing rough synonym (as it does a second time, in
providing the noun ‘warrior’ for the perhaps difficult verb ‘wage war
upon’). The other two manuscripts offer a ‘homoeograph’, a word of
similar shape. However, the scribe who initially provided lite may not
have been responsible for the remaining adjustments to the couplet. These
may reflect ‘scribal smoothing’, the activities of a scribe who has received
a text rendered anomalous through a prior error – here the failure of
rhyme – and who attempts to repair what he has received so that it
provides plausible continuity and sense. One might suspect that T here
retains the form passed on by such a ‘second-generation’ corrector and
that G provides an ‘easier’ verb, another homoeographic substitution, in
the commonplace smite. (For further examples of ‘[second-generation]
smoothing’, see pp. 65 (line 122), 66 (153), 70 (177), 79 (176), 83–4 (27),
87 (114), 90 (102) and n. 110.)
chapter 1
Collecting the Witnesses
The note with which my introduction has concluded offers a salient moral.
It is certainly possible to discuss textual criticism and the production of
edited texts abstractly, as a theoretical endeavour.25 But it is always more
efficacious and more pointed to work with a concrete example. Thus,
this book is predicated upon documenting the procedures involved in
producing an edited text of an important medieval English work not
heretofore printed. For this purpose, I have chosen a brief and relatively
simple Latin text.
In the early 1330s, a major English literary figure, the Yorkshire hermit
Richard Rolle, produced a commentary on the biblical Song of Songs.
Like many commentators on this work, Bernard of Clairvaux among
them, Rolle found the text intensely engaging, and, as a result, he never
commented upon the entire biblical book (and did not intend to do
so). Although the commentary is reasonably extensive (around eighty
typewritten pages), Rolle did not get past the third verse of the first
chapter of the Canticle.26
Rolle’s total output was prodigious, in both English and Latin. He,
not Chaucer, was the first person writing in English to be recognised as
an auctor (author, and thus authority). Yet, since the coming of print, his
availability to readers has been limited. Only excerpts from the English
texts appeared in early printings, and these works only achieved wide
dispersal through EETS in the 1860s. Only recently have they been
available in any critically edited form, while the full transmission of
only one of the Latin works has ever been critically examined.27 In
this situation, the state of the commentary on the Song is perhaps not
surprising. If one wants to read this text in something like its original
form, one’s most available recourse is a manuscript version. There is
an obscure unpublished dissertation, with transcription of a single

manuscript copy, and the more available alternative, a sequence of
printed editions, all dependent upon one produced in 1535(!), presents an
excerpt only.28
At the same time, in the Middle Ages this was a culturally generative
text, a minor classic. In one form or another, upwards of seventy
manuscripts – the majority of these in English translation with versions
of the excerpt first printed in 1535 – testify to Rolle on the Canticle. As
this total will imply, the excerpt printed – and widely communicated in
manuscript – was culturally central: Rolle was the English font of and
inspiration for a popular devotion, veneration of ‘the name of Jesus’. In
the course of the fifteenth century, this became an officially recognised
subject for pious meditation and contemplation, assigned its own feast day
in the liturgical calendar.29
As I have noted, Rolle’s full commentary on the Song is extensive,
much too long for a detailed initial investigation. But one of its seven
segments, the commentary on ‘Oleum effusum nomen tuum’ (Thy name
is as oil poured out, Cant. 1:2), runs to only about 300 lines, and will
provide my exemplary exhibit here. This textual segment is half again as
extensive as that printed in 1535 (and more than twice as long as any of
the versions in English). It is useful for two reasons. First, its popularity
depends, not simply upon the devotion it inspired, but on the fact that
it gives an extraordinarily compact introduction to Rolle, elaborating
many prominent themes of his writing – mystical ecstasy, fiery love and
song, personal experience as modelling readerly experience.30 Second,
any findings about the state of the text here should offer clues as to how
one might approach any edition of the full commentary on the Song,
never yet printed.
At the same time, whatever Rolle’s utter centrality to English spirit-
uality, the decision to offer a manual of editorial procedure for English
readers focused on this Latin text might be thought to require justification.
To quote Colin Lucas, former Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University,
‘Allow me to disabuse you of that notion’.
First of all, it scarcely needs stating that the most basic research tool
for any medievalist is some level of Latin competence. Perhaps nowhere is
this more true than in medieval England, where any literate person was,
in some measure, trilingual – with varying competences across Latin,
French (perhaps in more than one form), and English (not to mention
possible acquaintance with one or another Celtic language). As a result,
‘medieval English literature’ must be understood as something other than
collecti ng th e w itn esses 19
the customary rota (Chaucer, Gawain-poet, Langland, Gower, Lydgate,

Kempe, Malory) familiar in undergraduate English syllabi. Rather it is
properly ‘British’ or ‘Hiberno-British’ and includes the productions of
insular individuals in any language. (For example, John Duns Scotus
bears the name of his Berwickshire village, and ‘St Richard’ Fitzralph
came from Dundalk in the Irish Pale.)31
Second, Latin’s primacy ensures that it provides the norm of medieval
‘literate’ behaviour. This remains the case, whatever the widely noted
growth of vernacular literacy in the later Middle Ages (the now largely
discredited ‘Triumph of English’ narrative). Such a ‘literate norm’ extends
to all textual behaviours – both the making of books and the copying of
their texts. These activities involve, as commonplace, gestures of vastly
greater sophistication (and often, confusion) than any vernacular efforts.
Latinate textual production – whether it be in the form books take
or the handling of a single textual conundrum – displays a richness
(and often, insouciance) well in excess of vernacular examples, which
remain, in any case, imitative of Latinate behaviours. What one can
learn from engagement with any Latin text, even relatively simple
ones, like the Rolle commentary we will examine below, provides
immediately transferable skills relevant to virtually any medieval
English context.
The foundational claim of a critical edition is that it has examined and

assessed all the relevant evidence for the text. As a result, the editor
must find and examine all the copies of the work to be presented. As
a procedure, given that manuscript collections are often only sparely
catalogued (and sometimes not at all), this always remains at best an
approximative procedure, rather than an achievable goal. Copies the
editor should or might have known often turn up after the event.32
More seriously, the locution ‘relevant evidence’ is itself approximative.
While the ‘Vulgate Bible’ provides an extreme example, the most
culturally central medieval texts often exist in hundreds of copies. An
editor might exhaust a very long period visiting libraries simply to examine
all the witnesses in a cursory way – and would then be at the beginning
of much more extensive work chronicled below, comparing copies and
so forth. Obviously, some tasks involve too much world and time. For
some texts, an edition must make only selective use of the archive, on
some arguable and clearly stated principles, and offer a provisional text
of carefully delineated scope.33
Within such limits, however, one must undertake a bibliographical

search for one’s copies. For this procedure, a variety of tools is of at
least initial helpfulness. Medieval texts, in any language, are customarily
known from their ‘incipits’ (from Latin incipit ‘it begins’, often used by
medieval scribes in their headings to individual works, e.g., ‘Hic incipit
Oleum effusum’ ‘Here the text “Oleum effusum” starts’). The incipit
consists of the opening phrases of a work – usually a half-dozen words
are sufficient to identify most works in most languages. The incipit to
Rolle’s commentary on the Song is ‘Suspirantis anime deliciis eternorum’;
that of the textual segment under examination here, ‘Expulsus a paradiso
pro transgressione’; that of the printed excerpted form, ‘Oleum effusum
nomen tuum … Nomen Ihesu venit in mundum et statim’ (see further
n. 48).
A very large number of reference sources presents alphabetised lists
of incipits, with references to those manuscripts containing works with
identical opening phrases. In some measure, these obviate beginning in
the most obvious way – reading the catalogues of manuscript collections,
or consulting their indexes, which routinely identify authors and works
(by modern title), and often include their own index of incipits. Because
these catalogues are such obvious sources, the constructors of incipit
indexes will most likely have been there first.
The coverage provided by incipit indexes is, however, uneven. For texts
composed in Anglo-French (but not continental French texts in English
circulation), Ruth Dean’s guide, cited in n. 31, is probably definitive.
Similarly, coverage for English texts is very good, although not nearly
so complete. Every pre-Conquest English text, even exiguous glosses, is
noted in N.  R.  Ker’s Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon. In
Middle English, the presentation of verse texts is most complete, begun
in Brown and Robbins’s Index of Middle English Verse and continued in a
variety of supplements, of indifferent quality.34 One might offer a single
caveat on using these materials, one of general applicability: the editors
of such works read ‘incipits’ and not full texts; as a result, they quite
routinely fail to recognise that materials given separate entries often
represent only chunks of or pieces extracted from longer works indexed
elsewhere.35
Middle English prose has lagged behind verse in these cataloguing
procedures. For materials in print, Lewis, et al., Index of Printed Middle
English Prose gives a good account.36 In spite of its title, this bibliography
contains extensive lists of manuscript copies. The title also obscures the
fact that ‘printed’ does not mean ‘edited’; Walter Hilton’s important Scale
of Perfection appears here, for example, because printed in the incunable

period, but there is no modern edition.
For prose texts as yet unprinted, there are only fragmentary aids.
Primary, but limited to religious texts, is P.  S.  Jolliffe’s excellent account.
Moves toward an Index of Middle English Prose to parallel Brown-Robbins
on verse have appeared sporadically since the early 1980s. These volumes
typically survey a single manuscript collection (or small group of them),
and they provide extensive indexes, as well as lists of copies not noted
by past researchers.37
Unfortunately, given the example I intend to use here, pursuing
manuscript copies of Latin works is fraught with difficulties. The field is
simply too large and diverse to submit to centralised handling. For named
insular authors, one’s first recourse is to Richard Sharpe’s immensely
helpful account (see, again, n. 31); at its head (pp. xxix–xxxvii), it provides
an extensive list of finding tools for Latin texts. Moreover, Sharpe has
laid all these under contribution in his listing, and the book is replete
with cross-references to any variety of useful materials. Sharpe routinely
cites standard editions (where editors must list their copies), accounts in
the standard reference tools, and often offers his own lists of copies. This
is a work richly informative – so long as one pursues a text by a named
individual. For anonymous works, one is forced to consult Sharpe’s
exhaustive list of references: for example, on texts of moral theology,
‘Bloomfield’ (see Sharpe, p. xxx).
In the case of Rolle, and of his commentary on the Song, one is richly
provided by the work of a very great scholar, indeed in many ways the
founder of English manuscript studies. This is Hope E.  Allen, who spent
more than a decade in libraries seeking to find what Rolle had written (in
the face of many ebullient misattributions) and where copies of the works,
nearly all of them unedited at the time of her study, were to be found.
Allen was indefatigable, and protracted experience of her work indicates
that she was very nearly impeccable in her reports on the contents of
British libraries, and perspicacious in accounts of continental ones (where
she obviously spent much less time).
Allen’s account of the manuscripts of Rolle’s commentary on the
Song occurs at Writings Ascribed, 64–8. Her report offers a solid, if not
unproblematic, basis on which to proceed. The ‘Super Canticum’, in her
account, has an extensive and diverse circulation. At 64–6, she identifies
fourteen more or less full copies of the entire text. But, in addition, she
knows two discrete Latin traditions in which part or all of that portion
of the text to be discussed here appears as an excerpt (testimony to
routine medieval reading and writing practices discussed above). In ten

further manuscripts, a portion of the text, about two-thirds of the whole,
routinely entitled (on the basis of the verse commented here) ‘Oleum
effusum’, appears as an isolated excerpt (66–7). In another nine copies, the
same textual chunk appears, with other portions of the commentary, in a
‘compilation’ always attached to a truncated version of Rolle’s Incendium
amoris (64, 213–22 passim). In addition, Allen discovered four copies of a
Middle English translation comprising portions of the excerpted version
(68). She also knew a further translated version, again selections from
the excerpt denominated by its incipit, ‘Oleum effusum’ (63, 406); this,
which appears within the still unedited collection of tracts called The Pore
Caitif, enjoyed the most extensive circulation of any form of the text, at
least forty copies. And although they do not appear in this discussion,
Allen’s account of Rolle transmission includes other excerpted selections
from the text.38
The overwhelming majority of copies then is incomplete and selective
in their presentation. Moreover, these excerpted versions must be seen as
secondary. All of them must derive from some copy of the full text, this
element singled out for separate reproduction. It remains unclear whether
this extracting operation is a procedure that occurred only once, or
whether diverse excerpted forms represent separate forays into an original
to retrieve the desired passage anew. While these represent the majority
circulation of the text, their nature is such as to preclude their telling
anything about the authorial text. Since derived, the textual forms they
communicate will be those of some portion of the full manuscripts, which
offer direct testimony to Rolle’s intentions. Thus, while the excerpted
forms are intensely interesting (and not least so because most examples
are in English), they represent a problem that may be deferred pending
consideration of the full text. By examining it, one should be able to
identify their source, and, from it, be able to assess this form of textual
communication. (See further, pp. 92–4, below.)
So one begins by examining Allen’s list of full copies of Super Canticum.
Two qualifications upon its usefulness are immediately apparent. First,
two of Allen’s copies, while they will be valuable for anyone editing the
full text of this commentary, are of no use for the textual segment to be
discussed here. In Allen’s account, the majority of copies of Rolle on the
Song do not present the full text, and this segment is absent from her
Hereford and Lambeth copies (nos 5 and 9). So an editor of the selection
‘Oleum effusum’ need not worry with these.39
Second, Allen published her work in 1927, and she identified copies by
their then current locations. In three instances, this information is passé,

and the manuscripts need to be traced to their contemporary owners. The
library of Sir Leicester Harmsworth, cited as the owner of Allen’s MS 14,
was dispersed in a series of sales in 1945. This copy can be found quickly,
on the basis of Allen’s recording that it belonged to the Augustinian
canons of St Mary Overy, Southwark. The volume should thus appear in
the standard reference list of books associable with medieval institutions,
Ker’s Medieval Libraries of Great Britain – and does so, in Watson’s MLGB,
Supplement (63; see n. 5), with a correct current shelf mark; it is now Yale
University, Beinecke Library, MS Marston 243. Allen’s MS number 10
is no longer at Castle Howard, Cumberland. But this is a collection of
historical importance; it was described in the Reports of, and continues
to be tracked by, the Commission for Historical Manuscripts. A glance
at the CHM’s most recent report on the state of collections indicates that
the book was donated to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City
in 1955; it is now Morgan MS M.872. Finally, number 13, at the John
Rylands University Library, Manchester, Allen knew only by an accession
number, not a modern shelf mark. It can be tracked (a bit fortuitously,
since the published record is incomplete) in the library’s list of accessions,
and is now MS Lat. 395.40
These activities render Allen’s account useful for an editor’s purposes.
One can now exclude from the study two books that lack this textual
segment, and one knows where to go to examine the three for which
Allen had offered no longer current information. But what about the
completeness of Allen’s list? Even believing in her general trustworthiness
for British collections, is her account still usefully complete?
Here one runs up against a basic problem – that Allen’s account is so
good that no one has really tested or tried to extend it.41 So far as I can
see, only one standard bibliographical tool, Friedrich Stegmüller’s grand
Repertorium Biblicum, an account of all biblically based texts, including
commentaries, has made an independent effort at finding copies. Partic-
ularly given the breadth of the field on which he reports, Stegmüller did
a fine job; he found all of Allen’s full copies, as well as an assortment
of her excerpted versions. A few of Rolle’s recent editors, to whom I
will return, have uncovered oddments here and there, Rolle texts Allen
overlooked, in the main copies of the specific works that they intended
to present.42
At least three additions to Allen’s lists here are relevant. One of these I
discovered completely serendipitously. I spent the academic year 2011/12
as a research scholar in Cambridge, Massachusetts; as part of this stay,
I engaged in a little library tourism and read the Harvard University

Library catalogues in search of manuscripts of potential interest. In
the process, I found, and examined, Harvard’s Houghton Library, MS
lat. 165, with the last four segments of Rolle’s commentary. This is a
book Allen could not have known in 1927; it only came to the library,
apparently from an uncatalogued British private collection, through the
London bookseller Maggs, in 1939. But I needn’t have relied on such
serendipitous procedures and could have known of the book on a basis
other than random chance.43
On the other hand, a bit of systematic catalogue-searching uncovers
two further potentially useful copies, one Allen should have known
– and unaccountably didn’t. The cause of the omission is unclear, but
in her examination of manuscripts at Lincoln Cathedral Library, Allen
overlooked completely one relevant book, MS 229. This copy had been
included in every past catalogue of the Lincoln collection, and it was duly
noted, as including a copy of Rolle’s widely dispersed Emendatio Vitae,
in the catalogue contemporary with her searches.44 Appended to Rolle’s
Emendatio is that piece of Rolle’s commentary on the Canticle with which
we are concerned. But this fragment deserves primary scrutiny in an
edition, for, unlike either the excerpt version(s) or that included in ‘the
compilation’, it contains the entire text of part 4 of the commentary,
beginning ‘Expulsus’ (not the ‘Oleum’ of the truncated excerpt versions).
It thus represents a form of the text derived from a full copy potentially
not evidenced in the excerpt tradition, and its readings are thus, at least
potentially, of primary value.
A second fragmentary copy Allen could not have known also appears
following a copy of Emendatio Vitae. It completely escaped notice because
not formally part of a manuscript collection at all. But, as its discoverer,
Neil Ker, knew, one great repository of medieval manuscript materials
is the bindings of early modern printed books. In the 1570s, a binder
cannibalised a large Rolle anthology, probably a discarded Merton
College book, for binding materials; the opening of ‘Super Canticum’
4 survives among these leaves, in the printed book now Merton 58.c.8.
Again, like the copy at Lincoln, it begins ‘Expulsus’ and thus does not
represent the excerpt versions; its usefulness is limited, however, for it
includes only about one-sixth of the full text (ending at line 51 of the
edition below).
Thus, the best search I can accomplish produces this list of copies, to
which I now assign a set of preliminary sigla (recall p. 9) and references
to basic discussions:
J Cambridge, Jesus College, MS Q.D.4 ( James 46)

[Described: Montague R.  James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the
Manuscripts in the Library of Jesus College (1895; repr. Cambridge,
2009), 70–6.]
C2 Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library,

MS Lat. 165
[Described: Laura Light, Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance
Latin Manuscripts in the Houghton Library, Harvard University,
MRTS 145 (Binghamton, NY, 1995), 248–54.]
D Dublin, Trinity College, MS 153

[Described: Marvin L.  Colker, Trinity College Library Dublin:
Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval and Renaissance Latin
Manuscripts, 2 vols (Aldershot, 1991), 1:270–1.]
L2 Lincoln Cathedral, MS 229

[Described: R.  M.  Thomson, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of
Lincoln Cathedral Chapter Library (Cambridge, 1989), 188–9.]
V London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian E.i

H London, British Library, MS Harley 5235
M Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Lat. 395
Y New Haven, CT, Yale University, Beinecke Library, MS
Marston 243 [‘Harmsworth’]
[Described: Barbara A.  Shailor, Catalogue of Medieval and
Renaissance Manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript
Library, Yale University, vol. III, Marston Manuscripts, MRTS 100
(Binghamton, NY, 1992), 461–4.]
P New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.872 [‘Castle Howard’]

[Described: ‘The Transmission of Richard Rolle’s Latin Works’,
The Library, 7th ser. 14 (2013), 313–33, at 333, with references to
the library’s online description.]
B Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 861

[Cf. Allen, Writings Ascribed, 22–34.]
L Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 528

B2 Oxford, Balliol College, MS 224A
[Described: R.  A.  B.  Mynors, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of
Balliol College, Oxford (Oxford, 1963), 222–3.]
C Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 193

[Described: R.  M.  Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the
Medieval Manuscripts of Corpus Christi College Oxford (Cambridge,
2011), 96–7.]
M2 Oxford, Merton College, pb 58.c.8

[Described: Neil R.  Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries,
4 vols (Oxford, 1969–92), 3:665–6; the text preceding ‘Super
Canticum’, unidentified by Ker, is an excerpt from the opening
of Book 2 of James of Milan/ps.-Bonaventura, Stimulus Amoris.]
S Oxford, St John’s College, MS 127

[Described: Ralph Hanna, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western
Medieval Manuscripts of St John’s College, Oxford (Oxford, 2002),
178–9.]
To these, any editor of Rolle’s full commentary on the Song would need
to add the following:
H2 Hereford Cathedral, MS O.viii.1
[Described: R.  A.  B.  Mynors and R.  M.  Thomson, Catalogue
of the Manuscripts of Hereford Cathedral Library (Cambridge, 1993),
53.]45
L3 London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 536 [abbreviated]

[Described: Montague R.  James and Claude Jenkins, A
Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Lambeth
Palace, 5 parts, in 2 vols (Cambridge, 1930–2), 2:737–9.]
For those manuscripts without published modern descriptions (VHMBL),

and for some palaeographical discussion of the other copies, see the
Appendix.
To this search, one might append a further cautionary note. Allen’s
pursuit of Rolle manuscripts was an entirely positive one. That is, she listed
only what she could find that was definitively Rolle. She did not tell her
readers about the (predictably) large amount of material that she scanned
and rejected as offering no evidence for the texts of the hermit. Allen
counted upon her silence to communicate the irrelevance of a variety of
leads one might pursue. For example, her account includes no comment
on a reference one might derive from Brepols’s very useful online list of
Latin incipits, In Principio, to a copy of a text beginning ‘Oleum effusum’
at Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 314, fol. 190v. A quick check
reveals that this cannot be Rolle; the manuscript was constructed before
his birth, c.1300 (and the reference, derived from Montague R.  James’s
catalogue, is to a piece of Thomas Gallus of Vercelli’s commentary on
the Song).
One cannot very much fault Allen for this oversight. But it introduces
confusions and retracings of her steps that might well be obviated. For
example, Allen certainly visited the library of Merton College, Oxford,
where she found three copies of Emendatio Vitae, one in the College’s MS
68. In that process, she must have seen in this book a commentary on
a text Rolle also commented, the nine readings from the Office of the
Dead, and recognised this not to be the hermit’s work, but an anonymous
parallel version. Thus, no reference to the manuscript occurs in Allen’s
account of Novem Lectiones.46
Unfortunately, when he recently catalogued Merton College
manuscripts, R.  M.  Thomson did not recognise Allen’s working methods.
Although he marked this text as ‘ps.-Richard Rolle’, he treated it as if it
were another copy of Rolle’s Novem Lectiones, with reference to Moyes’s
standard edition. (He cannot have made any effort to align the two
texts, which differ markedly.) As a result of this misleading reference,
every future scholar engaged with Novem Lectiones will be drawn to this
manuscript and this text, and will have wasted time only to repeat Allen’s
wise, if silent, exclusion.47
It is thus worth indicating, at the head of any edition, the extent of
one’s search procedures, and, following the model of Medieval Libraries of
Great Britain, any confusingly similar texts one has rejected as offering
relevant evidence. I have already drawn attention to the manuscript at
Corpus Christi; here I mention briefly two further examples of books one
might think contained a copy of Rolle’s text but that need not be pursued.
As his item 10600, Stegmüller’s Repertorium includes a further example
of a text beginning ‘Oleum effusum’; again, like the book at Corpus
Christi, this cannot be Rolle’s, but from an anonymous commentary on
the Canticle composed before his birth (but perhaps one Rolle knew),
in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS Lat. 15571.
A further reference from the Bibliographie annuelle appears more
promising, to a Rollean ‘Expositio s. Cantica’ in Jena, Thüringer Univer-
sitäts- und Landesbibliothek, MS El. f. 22. But closer inspection reveals
that this reference is marked as ‘s. CanticaVT’ (i.e., ‘veteris testamenti’)
and refers to Rolle’s reading of the ‘canticles’ conventionally attached
to his Latin and English Psalters, not to the ‘Super Canticum’ at all.
Although not germane here, it is a reference worth storing, an example of
a continental copy of the hermit’s works Allen overlooked; it is otherwise
unnoted in any published list of Latin Psalter manuscripts.48
chapter 2
Finding a Copy-text
and Transcribing it
Pretty obviously, at the centre of any edition stands a reproduction of the

text in question. This represents that primary contact with an audience
that any editor seeks. It allows that audience to read and puzzle over the
document, and it provides them with a handy reference system, should
they wish to quote the work in the course of some discussion. But where
should this representation of ancient documents for modern use come
from?
For the various types of editions predicated upon single manuscripts
and discussed above, the answer to this question is easy. One has selected
a manuscript as being of special interest or as representative, and one
simply copies it out and presents it in print or code. But a ‘critical edition’,
predicated upon a range of copies, clearly demands more complex
procedures. How would one decide what version of the text to place
before readers?
At least initially, the answer to the question is relatively straightforward.
Just as in a single-manuscript edition, one wants to provide one’s readers
with a single continuous textual source. But, faced with a range of copies,
fifteen of them in the case of Rolle’s ‘Super Canticum’, section 4, one
would seem to have a plethora of choices. How would one adjudicate
between claims for one manuscript or another in these circumstances?
An initial response would return to one specific type of single-
manuscript edition discussed above, that predicated upon ‘the most
complete copy’. If one seeks a single continuous source for presenting
the text, it is plainly unintelligent to seize upon something manifestly
incomplete as the basis for operations. To do so means that, at a minimum,
one will have to supplement what one has written from another source –
and would immediately raise the question of why one had not followed
that more complete version in the first instance.49 Thus, initially, one
looks for a copy that, on general inspection, appears to be a relatively
complete version of the text to be presented.
For Latin texts, presented in a largely standardised spelling inculcated
by centuries of grammar school practice, the procedure might be seen as
relatively uncomplicated. Although Latin texts certainly admit variation
in spelling – and particularly variations from what constitutes ‘the
[artificial] norm’ of classical Latin – these are relatively minimal.50 In
this circumstance, one simply finds a convenient relatively full copy. (Its
actual fullness depends, to a certain extent, on the results of detailed
‘examination’, the subject of Chapter 4.) But for the non-‘grammatically
governed’ texts in other languages such is not the case. Here the editor
must address a further range of issues.
These, speaking generally, are predicated upon a convention underlying
all modern editions known as ‘the theory of copy-text’. Promulgated by a
great bibliographer, Walter Greg, this addresses an issue we have already
seen with Cursor Mundi, and more pressing in non-grammatical medieval
vernacular culture than in the early modern print context that Greg
sought to address.51 The language in which various manuscripts of a work
are written may differ wildly between copies, as well as between copies
and what one might determine as the language of the source underlying
them all. How does one accommodate these diverse ‘accidental’ readings
(recall the discussion at pp. 9–10, above) in one’s textual account?
Greg argued that an edition should strive to reproduce, as closely as
possible, those accidentals that might be associated with the text’s author
or common source. For a text with a known author, the procedure
might be considered reasonably straightforward; one attempts to discover
authorial usage and selects for the norm of one’s presentation that copy
that reproduces it most faithfully.52 For other texts, one needs to identify
the underlying usage of the source as narrowly as possible, e.g., by the
analysis of rhymes in verse texts, and follow that copy that most closely
(which is to say, not necessarily identically) reproduces it.
Thus, editing vernacular texts adds a second requirement to that
of finding a relatively complete copy on which to base one’s presen-
tation. Among possible candidates for providing the forms of the text,
one preferably chooses one not only complete but one also indicative of
something like the underlying forms of the common source. Thus, for
example, an English text written by someone from the North of England,
like Rolle, ideally calls for the presentation of the text in forms provided
by a Northern manuscript.
f i n d i n g a c o p y-t e x t a n d t r a n s c r i b i n g i t 31
This insistence upon forms analogous to those in the source of all

copies may introduce a serious juggling act. Frequently, given that
many manuscripts are incomplete (through lost leaves and other sorts of
damage), it may lead to awkward compromises. For example, the first
text I ever edited, the romance called ‘The Awntyrs of Arthur at Tarn
Wadling’, is certainly Northern in origin. Unfortunately, only one of
the four surviving copies actually reproduces forms consonant with that
locale, and it is, regrettably, the most fragmentarily preserved of all four
relevant books. In the circumstances, in my edition I opted for a relatively
colourless yet complete version of the poem as my copy-text.
Greg offered one important caveat to his procedure, often overlooked
in discussions but of vital importance. He insisted that the choice of a
copy-text was not a substantive decision, but merely a choice among the
range of accidentals, the spellings and grammatical forms, in which the
text might be presented. Once chosen, the copy-text existed to provide
the continuous spelling forms of the text, those arguably most proximate
to those of the common source, nothing more. Its substantive readings
were of no inherent value, certainly no more so than those of any other
copy – and, like those of any other copy, of no value until proven to
be so. To ascribe value to the substantive readings is to indulge in what
later scholars have called ‘the tyranny of copy-text’, the illogical belief
that having chosen one textual version for presentation on one set of
grounds – the accidentals or spelling forms it presents – one can rely on
it for other features, in this instance neither interrogated nor examined.
The copy-text only determines the form of presentation, not necessarily
the content to be presented, arrived at by other means (discussed in
Chapter 4).
This formulation produces one awkwardness, and a further complication
in the procedure. Copy-text, or some text, is necessary from the outset as
a system for presenting readers with a version to read and for organising
the evidence on which that version is based. However, the identification
of this presentation form does not offer any examination of that form’s
value as a witness to the source. It is thus perfectly possible that, in the
course of analysing the full textual evidence, one’s previously chosen
copy-text will turn out to require particular attention and intervention
to bring it into line with evidence provided by other copies.
Thus, there is a further constraint on all copy-text editing, that the
procedure should result in the presentation a ‘good(ish)’ copy, one generally
accurate and requiring a relatively minimal amount of correction. This is,
of course, a fact one cannot know in advance. This requirement does not
reflect any exceptionally intellectual proposition. It is, like many things

about editions, simply a statement about ‘reader-friendliness’ – that it is
preferable, if at all possible, not to shock the reader by a reading text
weighted down with diacritical notations.53
Thus, you can only choose provisionally as you begin, particularly
with a text never heretofore edited.54 But you should be aware that it is
always possible that you did not initially make the best choice, the one
that requires the least editorial intervention to provide a reading copy.
If this proves to be the case, you may be forced to change this mode of
presentation and to choose a different textual form as the basis of the
edition. This prospect is not a thorough disaster, although it will require
a considerable amount of detailed adjustment of various features of the
edition. Such adjustments, besides being tedious, are worrisome. It is not
only scribes who fail to reproduce received materials accurately. As the
opening of the Rolle text edited here points out, the capacity to err has,
since Adam, defined the human condition, and the adjustments required
to exchange one copy-text presentation for another are a potential source
for compromising editorial error. You need always to remember that you
yourself are just as susceptible to inaccuracies of presentation at every
level as are those sources that your edition is striving to judge and to
assimilate.55
Having chosen a single witness as copy-text, you then need to get
its content into a form on which you can work. This involves making
a careful copy of the chosen manuscript from the original. One sits
down with the book, or a clear facsimile of it (whether film or digitised
image), and copies its readings into a provisional copy-text form. Given
that today all editions are set into type from computer files, this step
is best accomplished by entering the textual readings directly into
your word-processing programme. (Copying by hand and subsequently
key-stroking that transcription into computer-language is a waste of one’s
time and energy. It also potentially offers a further opportunity for the
capacious generation of editorial error.) But do be wary; if you have a
‘spell-check’ programme, it may think that it knows better than you
the forms you should be entering. Disable it promptly. Once you have
entered the text, you should proofread it carefully against the original
from which you copied it.56
I would advise proofreading only once at this stage. In the process of
detailed comparison with other copies, you will probably discover places
where you misconstrued your copy-text (and correct those mistakes then).
Moreover, when the edition is set into type, you will have to proofread it
carefully once again against the manuscript source; any change of medium
(including upgrading your computer software midstream) potentially
introduces errors not present in the original. On the same grounds of
wasted expenditure that I have mentioned with regard to an intermediary
handwritten transcription, you should consider those two iterations, if
done carefully, a sufficient check on the accuracy of your transcription.
With a medieval text, copy-text presentation involves one procedure
alien to Greg’s, and following him, Gaskell’s discussions. Greg’s copy-text
was designed to determine how one would present some features of
detail, for example, what one could tell about the principles of capitali-
sation and of punctuation in the source underlying all copies. These
are certainly relevant issues, when dealing with works from the early
modern period onwards, but not with a medieval text. All modern
copy-text editions of medieval texts impose on their materials modern
word-division (usually, in ambiguous cases, predicated on an appeal to an
authority like the Oxford Latin Dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary)
and modern punctuation.57
Thus, at this very first step, one immediately will produce a reading
version substantially detached from the manuscript that one is simulta-
neously purporting to reproduce. A careful late medieval scribe copying a
prose work like Rolle’s ‘Super Canticum’ will often provide capital letter-
forms at the heads of textual divisions, and he may further signal these
breaks by a drop of red ink applied to the capital or by a coloured ‘paraph’
(the sign ¶) or by both. But he may also capitalise common nouns within
sentences, and he may break the text in places we would find awkward
or misleading. In addition, he may offer punctuation – a punctus or dot at
the end of a statement (likely preceding a ‘paraph’ and/or capital), a form
resembling an inverted semicolon (called a ‘punctus elevatus’) between
clauses, a slant-bar (or solidus or virgula) at other points, involving less
marked pauses.58 You may note these features as you initially transcribe,
for they often offer provocative hints as to the sense of what one is
copying. But, ultimately, they will need to be removed from the edited
text in favour of modern capitalisation and pointing. As Parkes points
out on many occasions, medieval punctuational systems serve a primarily
‘rhetorical’ function, whereas modern systems are generically different,
signs of ‘grammatical’ function.59
Transcribing a manuscript is frequently an adventure, and, as one’s
proof-reading will reveal, although apparently a straightforward procedure,
one difficult to get perfectly correct. Here a Latin text, like Rolle on
the Canticle, poses particular challenges. Perhaps the most immediately
visible feature of the Latinate ‘literate familiarity’ I have mentioned earlier

is the form in which the language is transcribed. Probably the generali-
sation of techniques developed in copying from dictation (particularly,
one suspects, copying lectures in school situations), Latin scribes utilise a
vast array of abbreviated forms in copying any text. Indeed, at times one
may feel that, as a show both of professionalism and of respect for their
readers’ intelligence, Latin scribes feel an imperative never to write out
any word in full. For a modern reader, and especially for a beginning
Latinist, the effect is profoundly estranging, yet a capacity for dealing
with the usual modes of reproducing Latin will stand one in good stead
in any context. (As I have already argued, other, less lush systems of
abbreviated presentation have been imitated/derived from Latinate use.)
There is, however, a general guide to the usual procedures – a cheaply
priced volume every manuscript scholar and editor should own. Produced
by Adriano Cappelli, this alphabetical dictionary of Latin abbreviated
forms collects the most common ‘reduced spellings’ one will find in any
Latin manuscript.60 Many of these are common to scribes anywhere in
Europe copying Latin (and frequently other) texts, e.g., the convention
that one never writes in full the prefix (and sometimes preposition)
‘per(-)’. Rather, one writes simply the letter ‘p’ and places a horizontal
line through its descending stroke. This example, however, illustrates the
need for close scrutiny of what one copies, for scribes infrequently write
the prefix and preposition ‘pro(-)’ in full either. In this case, they cross
the descending stroke with an ovoid loop.61
One may illustrate the procedures and the difficulties from a scribe
with whom we will have to deal in editing Rolle’s commentary on
the Song. This is the individual who, in 1409–11, produced the largest
surviving miscellany grouping Rolle’s Latin works, MS Bodley 861 (B).
For these purposes, you should look at the published plate from the book,
a bit of fol. 108.62 This provides a more useful sample than offering a bit
of transcription from this scribe’s version of Rolle on the Canticle because
there is a ready published version for comparison. You can check your
transcription of the second column in Watson’s image against Deanesly’s
edition of Incendium Amoris. There the passage the scribe copies here
appears at 181, from five lines up on the page, to 182, six lines into
chapter 14.
In the following presentation, I identify letters the scribe does not write
out by underlining them. (Italic font works just as well for highlighting
abbreviated forms.) This marking will remind you of ambiguities, and
they may be of use as you survey the other manuscripts, not all of which
will have abbreviated in exactly the same places (and thus may provide
unambiguously clear forms). But the underlines or italics will need to
be removed when you come to present the text formally; copy-text
editing presumes a text without such markings. Places where you remain
uncertain what the scribes may have intended deserve recording, so that
you can later write a textual note on the problem (see further Chapter 5).
In this form, here is my rendition of this bit of Bodley 861 (in the
transcription, | marks the ends of the separate lines):
[ne]cessaria est solitudo extra strepitum et cantum et cantum63
cor | poralem ad hoc vt quis illud sonorum gaudium capiat
| et retineat iubilando et canendo alibi aperte indi | cat
Elongaui inquit fugiens et mansi in solitu | dine Conatur
enim in hac vita igne sancti spiritus inardes | cere et in amoris
gaudio captus et consolatus diuinitus | exultare Perfectus enim
solitarius in diuino amore | vehementer ardet et dum supra se
in excessum mentis per | contemplacionem rapitur vsque ad
canorum iubilum et so | num celicum gaudens subleuatur Et
talis quippe assi | milatur seraphyn ardens vtique intra se caritati
in | comparabili atque constantissima cuius cor configuratum |
igni diuino vrensque et lucens superferuide fertur in | amatum
Et siquidem assumetur subito post hanc vitam | ad summas
sedes celicolarum vt in loco luciferi sere | ne subsistat quia tam
ardens amore ultra quam | apperiri potest solam conditoris sui
gloriam quesi | uit et humiliter incedens nec supra peccatores
se exaltauit |
Beatus64 Iob inter flagella edoctus a spiritu | sancto multiplicem
sanctorum heremitarum commendacionem | in vnum
complectitur dicens Quis dimisit | onagrum liberum et cetera
Primo ergo commendata li | bertate gracie cum dicit quis
dimisit onagrum Secundo a | carnalium affectuum disposicione
cum ait et vincula eius65
In spite of his tiny script (Watson’s image is life-sized), the scribe is carefully
communicative. While abbreviated material occurs with great intensity,
much more so than in any vernacular text you are apt to investigate,
nearly all of this ‘speed writing’ is very simple and could be readily
paralleled, in kind, in most Middle English manuscripts. For example, the
scribe regularly refuses to write out n/m; he uses a 2-shaped mark above
the line to indicate -ur and a small loop for -er; he has a full-sized loop
for terminal -us. All these one can readily parallel in English, as well
as such further examples as per ‘per’/‘par’ and a vowel above the line to
indicate supply of an r (infa = infra); here such marks simply appear more
frequently than in vernacular materials. A few examples would be rare
in English or French materials, but integral to the presentation of Latin,
e.g., e with a line above it to indicate est, or the crossed ‘2-shaped’ r’s
after a or o to indicate the Latin genitive plurals -arum and -orum. The
exceptions to this rule of familiarity – and Cappelli’s great usefulness –
concern the here relatively sporadic full-word abbreviations, e.g., ‘sci spc’,
‘gliam’, ‘pcctores’, ‘gre’.66
Unfortunately, Cappelli does not provide a universal panacea of use
to the neophyte in all situations. As his title indicates, Cappelli specif-
ically limits his report to abbreviations he uncovered in surveying scribes
writing Latin in Italy and writing Italian. And, of course, no matter how
many books he surveyed, it was impossible for him to see everything.67
Moreover, Cappelli made no effort to survey those manuscripts of most
interest to English readers, ones produced by scribes from the British
Isles. Thus, one reasonably frequently runs upon something for which
Cappelli provides no guidance. What is one, for example, to make of a
form, regrettably common in British Latin manuscripts, like ‘comdas’?
In all varieties of Latin and the vernaculars, a bar-stroke above a letter
means, ‘Supply a nasal, usually “n”, sometimes “m”, occasionally “u”,
here, reader’.68 The same sign in ‘comdas’ represents an analogy, in this
case the extended instruction, ‘Supply all the rest of this word until the
next (unwritten) nasal, reader’. The intent is to have one understand that
the text reads ‘com(m)endas’.
Some, but fortunately very few, situations may force one to use one’s
imagination. For example, at Lambeth Palace Library, MS 330, fol. 38, a
scribe copies a passage discussing idol-worshipers, and comments upon
what he refers to as those figures’ ‘mia’. As a quick check of Cappelli
will indicate (see 218, col. 2), virtually everywhere in Europe this form
represents the word misericordia, ‘pity or mercy’. That cannot be what the
scribe intends; the passage is arguing (as one might expect) that idolatry
is the greatest of sins, about which one can say nothing good. I remain
uncertain exactly what the scribe intended here, but I suspect that he
(awkwardly in this instance) follows the local British rule regarding ‘the
common mark of abbreviation’, the ‘supply a nasal’ rule, and his reader
was supposed to understand the word mania ‘madness’. Indeed, the scribe
may have felt that the context rendered this the obvious choice (since
he subsequently cites Wisdom 14:28 with ‘insaniunt’, i.e., idolaters are
mad), and that no one would confuse the form with an instruction, ‘read
misericordia’.
For the purposes of this edition, presenting the fourth section of Rolle’s
‘Super Canticum’, I have initially followed one of the shortcut methods
mentioned above (see n. 54). I own an electronic copy of Murray’s edition
of Rolle’s text (see n. 28), and I have noted her approval of Dublin, Trinity
College, MS 153 (D) as a copy more complete than others she surveyed
when preparing her single manuscript text (see xliii–xlv). Indeed, at the
start, I provisionally adapted her report of this manuscript’s readings as a
template on which to begin. I did, however, fairly immediately arrange
a visit to Trinity College Library, where I examined the manuscript and
carefully proofread Murray’s report against the original. This examination,
in the main, ratified her account of the text, but I corrected in my
transcription a few places where she had strayed. For example, at lines 79
and 80 of the text I print below, Murray had transcribed the manuscript’s
‘oe’ as ‘omnem’, not the ‘omne’ intended (see Cappelli 248, col. 1); at line
263, she should have expanded the ‘Psalta’ she prints as the uncapitalised
‘psalmista’ (‘the psalmist, author of Psalms’, i.e., David) (cf. Cappelli 292,
col. 1). With this corrected transcription in hand, I was now ready to
venture forth and collect the extant evidence for Rolle’s text.
chapter 3
Comparing the Witnesses,

or Collation
Once one has one’s corrected transcription in hand, one can begin
to assemble the evidence on which the edition will be based. This is
composed of the readings of all the manuscripts, the comparative material
by which one’s copy-text might be verified – or revealed as requiring
correction. The procedure for amassing this material, known as ‘collation’
(literally, bringing the copies together or side by side) – although not
analysing it – is extremely straightforward.
One simply reads the copy-text, word by word, against every other
relevant version. Wherever one finds a substantive deviation between
them, one notes it. This word-by-word comparison will generate a
relatively vast amount of data, what is known as a ‘corpus of variants’.
From this wad of material, the editor will pass on to assess the value
of these diverse readings, word by word – and from that assessment,
construct the edited text.
As a procedure, this seems simple enough. But again, just as in
transcribing, accuracy is key. Just as with your transcription, you will
need to check every manuscript at least twice, a second time to verify
that you have noticed everything that might be relevant, and that you
have copied all these details correctly.
But recording and keeping track of all the data you unearth may prove
difficult. The obvious way to have everything would involve transcribing
each of the manuscripts and using highlighters or coloured pens to identify
variations. But this strikes me as a monumental amount of work and still
leaves one, in the case of Rolle’s ‘Super Canticum’, trying to cope with
fourteen separate files of materials.
Here Manly and Rickert, in their extensive edition of Chaucer’s
Canterbury Tales offered a very convenient halfway house and described
in extensive detail a procedure useful for a beginner.69 These editors were

dealing, in the main, with Chaucer’s relatively short verse-lines. They
assigned to each verse an index card and wrote their full copy-text out
across the top. Below this, they left the card blank, with space to enter
the readings varying from their copy-text – those transmitted otherwise
in each individual copy. They compared each card in turn with the
individual manuscripts from which they derived readings.
One doesn’t, as the Chaucer editors did, have to content oneself with
index cards. One can – and the extra size will help eliminate obscurities
of your penmanship, as you write in variations – use full sheets of A4,
for example. Obviously, when you recopy the text across the top of your
sheet, you must be certain you have done so correctly; every recopying
potentially introduces errors into your account. If you follow such a
procedure, you will end up with a sequence of pages like the following
examples, covering the first four lines of the text printed below (I have
simply created a grid by entering the sigla of the individual copies in
their alphabetical order):
1 Expulsus a paradiso pro transgressione diuini precepti in

B de
B2
C diuine
C2 diuine
H [lacks the text until line 111]
J [lacks the text until line 111]
L
L2
M
M2
P
S
V
Y
c o m pa r i n g t h e w i t n e s s e s , o r c o l l a t i o n 41
2 pomo vetito primus parens cum tota posteritate sua astrictusque

B
B2 vetico
C
C2 om.
H
J
L om.
L2 om.
M -que]quia
M2
P om.
S strictusque
V
Y om.
3 mortis debito in infimis istius mundi miserijs subito se sensit

B
B2
C
C2 om.
H
J
L om.
L2 om.
M
M2
P om.
S
V
Y om.
4 dilabi et volens nolens labori tedioso mancipari verum cum

B tamen
B2 mancipatur
C tediose mancipatur*70 tamen
C2 delabi
H
J
L
L2
M
M2 laboriosi tedio
P -tamen cum
S tamen
V om.
Y delabi
As you can see, this format allows an instant visual indication of variation
at any point in the text. As you move on, after having entered the relevant
materials from all the copies, to the next stage, the assessment of the
evidence, you will be able to see concisely and unambiguously what it
is at stake in any reading.
This display will stand you in good stead as you edit. But, obviously
enough, you cannot present the evidence for the text to readers in this
form. Moreover, you may find, as you consider your evidence, working
from 300 separate sheets a bulky procedure. (And just imagine what
might happen, were you to misplace or lose one.) However, there is a
ready and compact way of reproducing this material, one you may find
more attractive and efficient than this more elaborate display. Ultimately,
you will have to convert your corpus of variants into this form in any case
(and this discussion will pre-empt materials that should logically appear
much later, when one thinks of preparing the edition for the press). As an
example of this handling, consider this evidence, Kane and Donaldson’s
reproduction of the variants for the first line of Piers Plowman B, ‘In a
somer seson whan softe was þe sonne’:
1 a] om. F somer] someres HmG softe] set HmCr71
c o m pa r i n g t h e w i t n e s s e s , o r c o l l a t i o n 43
This represents a displayed collation, in a standardised format. The

variants are displayed in the order in which they appear in the line,
and each entry follows the same format: the spelling in the form of the
printed copy-text, followed by a bracket, with the readings that diverge
from it following, each identified by the sigla assigned the manuscripts
showing that reading. Notice that the readings precede the sigla; they are
the primary evidence to be displayed. The compact display is facilitated
by choosing the path of minimalism – not only the briefest possible
presentation, limited to a single word, where possible, but also a narrow
range of clear yet abbreviated forms, here om., rather than spelling out
‘omit(s)’ or ‘omitted’.72
Were one to have more than a single variant reading for each item, one
would produce an extended version of this basic form, with the differing
readings separated by commas. Thus, were you to imagine a manuscript
X of the Piers Plowman line that read ‘winter’ instead of ‘somer’, you
would extend the second note above to read ‘somer] someres HmG,
winter X’. And, to avoid confusion, you need to attend carefully to the
full line; words like ‘a’, ‘and’, and ‘the’ often appear more than once, and
you must make sure you indicate which example involves your variant.
(This is indicated by superscripts, ‘a1’ and ‘a2’, ‘the first use of a’ and ‘the
second use of a’, for example.)
Each of these specific entries is called a ‘lemma’, from Greek lemma
(plural lemmata). This word, the past participle of a verb ‘to take’, means
‘something received’, here specifically ‘the standard form of the text’, and
identifies the material to the left of the bracket. No lemma has ontological
status; it merely provides a convenient form of display of the evidence
(and the process of editing the text, when you might replace a copy-text
reading with something else, may lead to its reformulation).
Moreover, you should notice – particularly evident with a vernacular
text like Piers – that presenting variation lemma by lemma, as I promised
you earlier (p. 12), significantly estranges you from the text of all the
manuscripts except your chosen copy-text. You can only reconstruct
Kane and Donaldson’s Hm by substitution, reading back the printed text
and inserting the recorded variants at appropriate points, to see that it
read: ‘In a someres seson whan set was þe sonne’. Moreover, even that
reconstruction would still misrepresent the manuscript. The collation
records only substantive variation, and one has no idea what spellings
are actually present in Hm, when it does not vary substantively. The
estrangement is even worse in the case of Kane and Donaldson’s Cr. Since
the display records only substantive variation, the editors only promise
that Cr reads substantively as Hm does; it might actually have ‘sett’ or

‘sette’, or even ‘setted’.
So you may find it convenient to reduce your collation sheets into a
draft approximating the form in which they will be printed. This would
make a handy computer file for reference – and, suitably emended, for
eventual publication. Carefully copying from your first four collation
sheets,73 you would then produce this convenient summary:
1 a] de B diuini] diuine CC2
2 vetito] vetico B2 tota] om. C2LL2PY astrictus-] strictus- S
-que] quia M
3 in] om. C2LL2PY
4 dilabi] delabi C2Y volens] om. V labori tedioso] laboriosi
tedio M2 tedioso] tediose C mancipari] C, mancipatur B2C*
cum] tamen BCS, -tamen cum P
(In this example, of course, given the standardised forms of Latin,
the actual misrepresentation of the spellings in any individual copy is
probably minimal.) For the full results, to the analysis of which we will
now turn, see the collation affixed to the edition at the end of this study
(pp. 109–39).
chapter 4
The Examination
of the Variants
‘Examination’ is the process by which one moves from the ‘raw materials’,
as it were, the diverse forms revealed by collation, to an edited text
of the work in question. Historically, this process has been central to
discussions – and often a subject of great acrimony. Collating any text
throws up variations: how does one decide which one, if any, actually
represents the common source? (You may recall the note at the end of
my introduction, pp. 13–15, in which I offered a skeletal analysis of an
example from Cursor Mundi.)
Simply considering the matter abstractly, there would appear two
ready courses to follow. The first might be defined as ‘taste’, the second
‘attestation’. In the first instance, one chooses, on the basis of whatever
inner standards occur to one, the reading that one likes best. There might
be various ways of articulating such standards, ranging all the way from
considerations apparently rational, for example, the lexical argument I
brought to bear on the reading from Cursor, to ones frankly intuitive,
one’s particular fascination with a certain word, for example. A procedure
like this probably guided most editors down to the eighteenth century,
notoriously reticent about their practices.
The limitations on operating in this fashion are fairly obvious.
Individuals of intelligence and good intent may obviously display different
‘tastes’. Thus, the prospect opened by this way of proceeding has always
been perceived as falling well short of ‘critical’. Inherently, it implies every
person his/her own editor, a range of varying editions, and no agreement
about the nature of the text or of its transmission. Unfortunately, as we
will see, this may prove an unavoidable danger.
On the other hand, one might attempt to assess the strength of
support for any single textual reading. How many manuscripts provide
this version? What does one think of their general reliability? The term
‘attestation’ refers to the strength of support for any given reading: how
many manuscripts attest to (offer a witness for) this textual version? This
opens the possibility that one should simply examine the collation on a
numerical basis. In this scenario, any reading attested in but a single copy
is probably wrong; those attested by a majority of the witnesses likely
correct. One would simply weigh numerical attestation and insert into
one’s text the most popular reading.
Such a procedure may be comforting to the advocates of Western
democracy, but the great innovations of nineteenth-century textual
theory indicated its short-sightedness. These have always been associated
with a German scholar, Karl Lachmann and with his identification
of a ‘scientific’ form of editing. Lachmann’s great contribution was to
demolish the argument that a proper text might be constructed on the
basis of majority attestation. His demonstration equally indicated that
there was a way to reduce the imposition of ‘taste’ on any editorial
situation (Lachmann hoped to eliminate it altogether).74
Lachmann seized upon and developed a basic perception about the
manuscript reproduction of texts. He started with the startlingly obvious,
but editorially unexploited, fact that any person copying a text in
manuscript had a source for his transcription, conventionally known as
‘the exemplar’. Thus, when a scribe copied, he was not an entirely free
agent, but constrained by the materials representing the text that he had
received. He could only transmit what was before him, the reading of his
exemplar, and he could not readily assess its actual value with respect to
the remainder of the text’s transmission. As a result, much of any scribe’s
rendition of any text is not his own, but inherited; he will pass on the
readings of his source, whether erroneous or otherwise.75 In Lachmann’s
formulation, the scribe is perceived as a machine for generating deviations
from what has been received. He will transmit indifferently the readings
of the exemplar, whatever their relation to the ultimate source (and those
readings have been generated in exactly the same way as he makes his
own copy), and his innovations will consist only of his adding further
mistakes to the mix.
Viewing matters in this way, one can contextualise variant readings,
to the great detriment of numerical procedures (the one scribe, one vote
mode of constructing a text). Suppose one has five manuscripts, A, B, C,
D, E. Suppose further that, in a given lection, they offer two different
readings, reading a and reading b. But imagine further that the five copies
represent only two different sources, one of them conveying reading a and
t h e e x a m i n a t i o n o f t h e va r i a n t s 47
the other reading b. If such is the case, whatever the number of copies
attesting either reading, there is no numerical superiority at all, and the
reading with minority attestation is every bit as likely to be correct as
that more widely diffused.
One can illustrate the situation with a pair of diagrams:
(a) A has reading a BCDE have reading b
A derives from BCDE derive from
source α76 source β
(b) AB have reading a CDE have reading b
AB derive from CDE derive from
source α source β
In this example, the two competing readings reflect only two textual
sources. As a result, the numerical superiority visible in the surviving
copies, BCDE or CDE, is in fact only apparent. All of those apparently
majority copies represent only a single source of readings, just as does
A alone or, in the second diagram, AB. Whatever the visible majority
attestation for the reading, the original reading – that of a hypothetical
copy that precedes the two sources α and β – cannot be determined by
majority rule. Indeed, in such a circumstance the editor would be thrown
back on an argument from ‘taste’ in choosing one reading or another as
that of the original.
On the other hand, imagine a situation involving three possible sources
for the text, α and β, but also γ. Consider then the following hypothetical
diagram:
A has reading a B has reading a CDE have reading b
A derives from B derives from CDE derive from
source α source β source γ
In this instance, one would have guidance as to the probable reading of
the original – and guidance detrimental to the rule ‘Follow the majority
of copies’. With three sources, where any two agreed (and regardless
of the number of copies attesting each source), that agreement would
imply that their reading was that of the original. In this example, AB
agreement in reading a will outweigh any appeal to the greater number
of surviving copies that offer reading b. (Notice that the argument does
not reject numerical logic, although it does refine it.)
This example involves an obvious problem that I want to defer for a
moment. How, if it agrees with A, does one know that B derives from
a different source? Why do we not have the same situation as illustrated
in diagram (b) above, where AB testifies to but a single source for both?
Before turning to this question, it is worth pointing out two assumptions
that underlie this Lachmannian analysis.
Suppose that, for the sake of argument, we assume that, in all my
invented examples, the majority of manuscripts transmits an incorrect
reading, that A or AB are right in every instance. Then, first of all,
the examples assume that every error occurs just once in every textual
tradition – that is, that CDE read as they do because they follow their
common ancestor and reproduce it faithfully in its mistakes. To proceed,
the analysis must preclude the consideration of alternative scenarios, for
example, in the last diagram that DE accurately reproduce γ, but that C’s
source read as α and β and that this scribe has accidentally fallen into the
same error that was present already in γ.
Second, the example assumes that every scribe analysed is following a
single source, and that he reproduces that source more or less accurately.
This would preclude the following scenario in my example of three
underlying sources of readings: that B’s source β actually had read just as
did γ. However, in this hypothetical scenario, the scribe responsible for
B did not follow what he actually read but ‘corrected’ what he received
by some means, and thus, his copy came to resemble α.
These two processes, neither of which was prominent in Lachmann’s
analysis, might be seen as potentially qualifying the force of his demonstration.
Indeed, both procedures precluded by the analysis are so widely attested in
scribal work that they have traditional names. Lachmann’s first assumption,
that readings universally descend from a source manuscript, and thus
that all common errors must be referred to that source, is countered
by evidence for ‘(accidentally) convergent variation’ or ‘convergence of
variant readings’. This refers to the prospect that errors are often trivial and
predictable and thus might be made independently by a variety of hands.
Lachmann’s second assumption, that scribes rely upon a single source, is
opposed by ‘conflation’, scribal reliance on diverse sources of readings and
their transmission of the text on some selective ‘mix-and-match’ basis. Such
behaviours, which we will find amply illustrated by readings in Rolle’s
‘Super Canticum’, qualify Lachmann’s showing. But they very far from
undermine it fully, and his demonstration of the limitations of numerical
attestation remains extremely important.
These qualifications noted, we might return to the question I posed
three paragraphs ago: how would one go about determining that a range
of copies shared or did not share common source materials? Again,

Lachmann’s handling of this question was exemplary, if not altogether
logically compelling. Having identified a method for reducing reliance
on numerical attestation, Lachmann imagined that all texts descended
according to a common typology. The author presumably had a draft
version of his work; this he passed on to a scribe who would make a
clean and clear version, to be used for producing further copies. As these
proliferated, later scribes might copy from anything convenient; their
productions, reliant on an earlier range of copies (the now lost α, β, γ
…), are, in this formulation, the manuscripts that survive for us to base
our editions upon.
This situation is conventionally displayed in a diagram, what is called
a stemma codicum ‘a tree (stem) of the manuscripts’.77 Customarily, such a
diagram has a form like:
O (the author’s copy)
O1 (the scribal copy from it for distribution)78
α β γ … (the exemplars or ‘hyparchetypes’ underlying existing copies)
A B C D E … (the existing copies themselves)
At the top of the diagram, O was presumably perfect and free of blemish.
But at each subsequent level, as the text underwent successive copyings, it
failed to remain stable. No human agent can copy for a sustained period
without altering what s/he has received (recall n. 55), most generally
through haste or other inadvertence, and, for Lachmann, the rule of
textual traditions was universally one of textual degeneration. Every
copying might introduce something new, and the text accrued progressive
variations. ‘Variation’ is a neutral term, but textual criticism is freighted
with a language heavily moral (as is my use of ‘degeneration’ in the last
sentence). Insofar as the readings of existing copies A … do not reproduce
what was in O, they replicate only that most ubiquitous human failure,
‘error’. One might recall the incipit of the Rolle work we are editing,
‘Expulsus a paradiso’.
Thus, Lachmann identified ‘transmission’ with the generation of error
– and as my analysis above indicates, the generation of specific errors
uniquely at specifically definable stages of transmission. As a result,
the goal of editing became defined as the identification of error and
its assignment to a specific transmissional stage. (Correct readings show
nothing except the continuing preservation of what was in O, and,
although they obviously form the printed edition, are of no help in

analysing transmission.) In my examples above, I have concentrated on a
single specific reading; Lachmann’s hope was that the very many variant
readings scattered through any text would enable the editor to identify
the stages by which it had been transmitted. That is, rather baldly, he
hoped that, following my previous example with three hyparchetypes, the
erring agreement of CDE would occur many times in the course of the
text and would testify to these three scribes’ dependence upon the single
prior textual source γ. The three copies CDE then could be treated as if
they represented but a single one (their hyparchetype γ).
The stemma I have presented above is an illustrative tool. Lachmann
sought to convert it into an editorial tool. This would automatically
identify erroneous readings as just one part of a complex textual descent,
and would thus remove both ‘numerical attestation’ and ‘taste’ from
the editorial equation. To accomplish this goal, he had to convert the
illustration I have presented above into a flow chart, to draw lines that
would join the various witnesses to the text, real and hypothetical, in a
historical order.
Here, key was the concept of ‘error’. That is, the various forms of the
text could only be linked with one another by the fact that they shared
common errors. Each of these, as I have argued above, had in theory to
have occurred only once, in some discrete textual situation; each example
then will have been automatically transmitted to all copies that rely on
that erroneous version (descend from that textual moment).
But perhaps you will already have glimpsed an underlying problem
here. ‘Variation’ is neutral, a perception that things are not the same;
‘error’ is a moral judgement that something is wrong. One can only
construct a stemma, which will identify errors as it were automatically,
as the property of an isolated portion of the tradition, on the basis of
recognising errors. But how does one identify errors that enable one to
construct the stemma in the first place?79
Essentially, Lachmann finessed this logical difficulty. Some errors are
particularly gross – for example, omissions of material. And, obviously
enough, a scribe limited to one copy for his text, when faced with an
exemplar that has omitted a textual chunk, has no notion that such
a disruption has occurred. He will simply reproduce the same lacuna,
and so will every other scribe who has relied on the same materials.
Thus, Lachmann argued that, if one might identify some range of gross
disruptions of this type, one could assign the surviving copies to various
stages of transmission. For example, all scribes who share the same
omission must have followed the same exemplar/archetype. On this basis,

some of A … might be distributed among the various α … and readings
peculiar to them identified as most likely produced in the transmission of
their exemplars. This would enable an editor to fill in the diagram with
lines of descent and would place each surviving witness as testimony only
to some portion of the transmission:
O (the author’s copy)
O1 (the scribal copy from it for distribution)
α β γ (the hyparchetypes)
A B C D E … (the existing copies themselves)

At this point, however, a further logical difficulty emerges. Lachmann’s
argument represents a massive example of the logical error petitio principii,
‘begging the question’. That is, Lachmann is asking ‘how may one identify
wrong readings anywhere in the text’? But the select sample on which
this query is answered responds to a different question altogether. That
is, Lachmann sought to construct his stemma by identifying ‘gross errors’
or ‘obvious errors’. But his argument assumes that these actually are
something else, what one might designate ‘typical or typifying errors’.
Rather than being outstanding for their grossly erratic reproduction, the
errors identified are being used as if the normal case. It is far from clear
that such is in fact true, although it may be. As we will see in repeated
instances below, many errors are simply generated by the act of copying
itself, and thus might be made many times quite independently of one
another, i.e., represent ‘convergent variation’ – and omissions are a classic
example of such failures.80
Lachmann’s perception about the state of manuscripts and their possible
relation to editions was an astute one. But the operations by which
he actuated these perceptions always seem less than compelling. Here
another logical problem raises its head. Lachmann wanted to construct
a diagram that would facilitate editorial decision-making and remove
from it ‘taste’. But he never quite recognised that the procedure for
constructing the diagram actually rested upon that same ‘taste’ he sought
to exclude. The notion of ‘gross error’ necessary for constructing a stemma
represents an interpretation, not a fact. Moreover, it is as circular as some

of Lachmann’s other procedures: giving decision-making to the diagram
required a prior decision predicated upon human judgement alone. In
essence, the taste that the whole procedure was developed to exclude
always remained present.
This analysis will demonstrate the obvious: that no one has yet discovered
an objective or logical method for dealing with the transmission of texts.
Indeed, the history of editors imitating Lachmann implies that the last
thing editors actually wanted was an editorial tool that removed the
faculty of editorial judgement.81 More to the point, the basic perquisites
for the task had been trenchantly (if arrogantly) stated more than a century
before Lachmann by the great classicist Richard Bentley (1662–1742).
Bentley delivered the famous dictum, ‘Nobis et ratio et res ipsa
centum codicibus potiores sunt’. Literally, ‘For me (although note the
regal plural) both reason and the thing itself are more powerful than a
hundred manuscripts’. The conclusion to this statement rejects attestation
as being of any value at all; in constructing a text, Bentley claims to be
prepared to ignore what even one hundred manuscripts report. As we
will see later, I think this rejection unduly precipitate, even as I would
acknowledge it as a good general rule for editing, although not many
other worthy purposes.
In place of attestation, Bentley places ‘reason and the thing itself ’.
The first should be obvious enough; Bentley simply believes that one
must use one’s intelligence, exercise judgement, and choose between
competing readings as to which is most likely to represent the common
source. Here one imagines that ‘reason’ includes a number of things
one might not associate with that august psychic faculty – for example,
good taste, a capacity for languages and for their expected patterns of
usage, one’s experience of the author being edited and one’s sense of
things s/he might or might not have said. But, however one chooses to
inflect Bentley’s ‘ratio’, his statement indicates that editorial choice relies
largely on individual judgement, and that, consequently, in opposition to
Lachmannian hopes, editing is not a science but an art form.82
Bentley conjoins ‘reason’ with res ipsa ‘the thing itself ’, an idea yet more
inchoate. I think, in a broad way, Bentley must have been gesturing here
at what one might call ‘the local textual situation’. If one accepts that
interpretation, the claim he is making is that, given a particular reading
in some textual context, and given the variation that that context has
inspired, good judgement would find a proper solution, the reading of
the source that has generated all the variation. And it would do so,
following Bentley’s rejection of attestation, irrespective of the number of

manuscripts presenting readings of various degrees of plausibility. Indeed,
‘ratio’ brought to bear on ‘res ipsa’ would determine the plausibility of
any specific variant, given the context.
This, I think, is another claim for experienced judgement. Bentley
must have in mind that given certain sequences of copying in manuscript,
certain kinds of errors are predictable (although never necessary), and
that one can identify these expected deviations on their face and use
them to guide one to a reading of their source. This reading of Bentley’s
pronouncement undoubtedly stimulated George Kane, whose careful
analyses of the ways in which error might be generated made possible
his editions of Piers Plowman. Essentially, Kane identified, in contrast to an
authorial modus dictandi, a scribal modus scribendi that would both explain
specific errors that might be removed and indicate how they pointed to
a correct prior reading.
Ultimately, if one believes with Bentley (or Housman or Kane) that
experience and judgement edit texts, one has no need of a stemma, or
for any of the logical divagations that mark Lachmann’s development of
the tool. But, at the same time, one must understand that one’s sequence
of editorial choices will automatically create such a device. The readings
one rejects from the authorial text are far from valueless. All of them
contribute evidence to an informed sense of manuscript relations and will
enable one to construct an account of the historical descent of the text.
Following Bentley, as its goal ‘examination’ seeks to identify errors by
explaining their genesis from other, ‘anterior’ readings. As an ideal, one
seeks to explain how every variant reading might have emerged from the
ongoing textual context and the range of variation there exhibited. Such
explained readings then are no longer merely ‘variant’ but ‘erroneous’.
This process remains an ideal: some variation resists clear explanation
(and many variants may throw up multiple potential explanations). In
what follows, I will run through an extensive range of examples from
‘Super Canticum’ 4; my hope is that what emerges from the extensive
lists I will initially provide offers a possible template, a sequence of forms
of scrutiny that might be applicable in other textual situations. On the
whole, constructing Rolle’s text proves relatively straightforward and
simple, the work transmitted with relative accuracy. What follows forms
a basic guide to a range of commonplace scribal behaviours, which are
susceptible to various kinds of categorisation.
The lists thus offer copious exemplification, my effort to provide you
with a facsimile experience at the assessment of textual variation. All the
examples invite you to return the abstracted variants in the collation to

this text (pp. 109–39) – which, after all, represents only a formal display
of the evidence – to their textual contexts. The fullest lists I provide,
those that deal with errors mainly mechanical, persistently demonstrate
how ongoing textual context produces variation.
At the same time, the lists remain only exemplification – and an
extensive intrusion into the ongoing argument I mount. You might well,
as an initial reading experience, choose to skip over most of their detail
and follow the overall argument mounted here. You can then return to
the examples for detailed consideration, as you seek analogues for your
discoveries in editing some other text. (This after all provides one way
of bringing experience to bear on a new context.)
One undertakes the process of ‘examination’ by reversing those procedures
I have previously outlined. In constructing the collations, the variant corpus,
one has read each manuscript mechanically against the chosen copy-text D.
Now one returns to the constructed collation and reads each entry in
it critically, against the sense conveyed by the copy-text, the competing
variants provided at each point by the full range of copies, and the specific
textual context in which observed variation occurs. Thus you will find it
imperative to consult repeatedly the text and collation at many points.83
But for someone unfamiliar with editorial thinking and with Rolle’s text,
this procedure may appear utterly chaotic; hence the following discussion
attempts to order your scrutiny, to suggest categories of examination that
will be of universal, rather than merely local applicability.
In this procedure, a stemma is the product of, not the guide to, editing
the text; it follows from identifying errors on the basis of ‘et ratio et res
ipsa’. But the possible usefulness of what one might construct on the
basis of editorial judgement will emerge at every point; in the subsequent
discussion of Rolle on the Canticle, we will examine readings, as we
exclude them as probably erroneous, for any information they might shed
on the transmission of the text lying behind the various surviving copies.
And in the course of this discussion, we will summarise and perhaps
extend these findings. Until that point, we will be engaged in trying to
judge the variants on their own merits, in seeing how they might have
developed and deciding which of them might best represent Richard
Rolle, rather than one or several of Rolle’s scribes.
Before beginning any formal analysis, I draw attention to one detail that
emerged in my collation of Rolle’s ‘Super Canticum’ 4. That is, over the
entire run of the text, two of the manuscripts, H and J, proved virtually
identical. A very clear example of this 99 per cent+ agreement occurs
in lines 205–23 of the text. There, as the printed collation indicates, H
presents fourteen variations from the copy-text D; twelve of these are
unique, one shared with B2 only. The text of J is identical with that
of H at every one of these fourteen points. One should infer that one
of the manuscripts has actually been copied from the other, given the
dating of the hands, probably J from H (which it thus reproduces very
nearly exactly).84
This represents a situation in which the rule that one must collate all
representatives of the text is in abeyance. If one manuscript has been
copied from another that also survives, any valuable readings it includes
will already, because noted as readings in its surviving source, form part
of the variant sample to be considered. And any deviations from the
source copy (they are nearly non-existent in J, perhaps five readings in all
of lines 111–298 of our text) will represent individual errors produced in
this copying. While editors always include a reference to such a volume,
they treat it as a codex eliminandus (a manuscript to be eliminated [from
textual consideration]), of no independent value. Thus, I cite no readings
from J either in the collations or in this discussion, and you should always
understand that citations of H implicitly mean ‘H and its copy J’.
Unlike J, the collations offer a full report on the readings of the
two brief copies (‘Super Canticum’ 4 only), L2 and M2. However, I
have chosen, in the interests of clarity and efficiency, to suppress any
mention of them in the following discussion. As any examination of
the collation will show, both these copies reproduce (frequently with
additional deviations) materials adequately illustrated from other sources.
The abundant evidence of erroneous common readings in C2 and Y (and
more distantly, L and P) extends to L2 and M2 as well.
Because they have played such a large role in past editorial discussions, we
will begin with the most readily noticeable and grossest variants thrown
up in collating our selection from Rolle’s ‘Super Canticum’. These occur
in situations where one manuscript or another is deficient in content,
where it lacks materials generally the property of the remainder. These
include prominently the following examples, the great majority from
the incantatory repetitive opening portions of Rolle’s text. In each case,
I present the reading you will find in the collation to the Rolle text,
followed by a marked presentation of the context in which this error
occurs. These markings will serve to indicate how the individual scribes
in question, identified by their sigla, probably came to omit materials:
5 nec2 … debuit] om. C2LPY
potuit nec angelus debuit
14–15 set … set] set S
set deus eternus … set in deitate
61–2 nomen tuum … nomen tuum] om. M
in cordibus nostris nomen tuum cum pro nobis voluisti oleum
effusum vocare nomen tuum
63–4 reficiat … perficiat] reficiat M
nos reficiat hoc oleum nos perficiat
64–5 impinguet … impinguet] impinguet V
nos impinguet hoc oleum delectet oleum autem peccatoris non
impinguet
66–7 datur … datur] datur C2LMPY, and cf. 67 datur] om. B2
caritas nobis datur misericordia nobis datur
71 Hoc1 … oleum 2] Hoc M
oleum effusum hoc oleum medicinale hoc oleum spirituale
73 refectos perficiens] om. B perficiens perfectos] om.
B2 perducens perductos] om. C, respectively:
reficiens refectos perficiens,
refectos perficiens perfectos,
and ad celum perducens perductos glorificans
79 oleum1 … oleum 2] oleum MY
quere hoc oleum reperire hoc oleum
and reperire … oleum3] om., added as a later corr. at the page foot D
hoc oleum, reperire hoc oleum, retine hoc oleum et habes
81 diuicias habes] om. S
vis habes habes diuicias habes delicias
110 oleum … tuum] om. BC
oleum effusum nomen tuum oleum effusum nomen tuum
115 tuum … tuum] tuum P
nomen tuum nisi Ihesus est nomen tuum
129 cor … super] om. V, a similar omission also in C (see

below)
ut signaculum super cor meum ut signaculum super
brachium meum
141–2 amore … amore] amore V
quia amore Ihesu langueo deficit caro mea et cor meum
liquescit in amore desiderando
161 proculdubio … eris] om. C
facere volueris proculdubio gloriosus et laudabilis victor eris
184 gaudium 2 … gaudium3] gaudium V
hoc gaudium consummatum hoc gaudium gloriosum
187 diligunt … presenti] om. M
ergo gloriabuntur omnes qui diligunt nomen tuum utique
gloriabuntur in presenti per gracie, perhaps from having
confused qui with pnti (cf. Capelli 277–9 passim)
206–7 Ambulaui … Ihesum] om. V and 207–8 Cucurri …
Ihesum] om. H; in a sequence of sentences, whose second
clauses end identically, et non inueni Ihesum, cf. the
discussion of transpositions below for a more widely attested
example
231 et tamen mortem] tamen H
et tamen mortem non, i.e., et tn mortem n
236 luxuriosis … peccare] peccare B2, and similarly C2HLPY
ve vobis luxuriosis ve denique omnibus peccare volentibus
264 te1 … te2] te HP
super te omnes qui querunt te, assisted by the additional echo
-er … -er-
All these instances represent a single kind of mechanical error,
elaborately and astutely analysed long ago by Eugène Vinaver.85 It is not
ahistorical to imagine scribes’ behaviour on the basis of our own in similar
circumstances. Rather typically, when we copy, two distracting activities
proceed simultaneously: we move visually between our source/exemplar
and our copying surface (including a computer keyboard and screen), and
we recall, and usually repeat to ourselves sotto voce, the materials to be
transmitted, so that we can re-inscribe them.86
This is a doubly distracting activity, and one in which it is very easy

to get caught up amiss. Most typically, we keep our places, even as we
regularly look away from the exemplar copied to the text we are copying,
by recalling a ‘key word’. This is typically where we stopped ‘taking up
copy’, the end of that segment we momentarily remember so we can
retranscribe it. But in a repetitive text, where the same word may occur
more than once in brief compass, it is very easy to return to the exemplar
at the wrong example of one’s ‘key word’, one further along in the text.87
When that happens, you will have omitted a textual segment of greater
or lesser length, and that is the accident that has befallen the scribes in
every instance cited above.
As the examples indicate, there are two ways of returning to ‘the
wrong same (place)’, the wrong example of the ‘key word’. Many of the
examples I cite reflect what is called homoeoarchy, ‘similar beginnings
(of words)’, for instance, the omissions prompted by repeated nomen (tuum)
in 61–2 or repeated impinguet 64–5. But a surprising number of examples
represent homoeoteleuthon, ‘similar endings’, sometimes involving very
slight stimulus. Consider, for example, the minimal motivation behind
the errors in line 5, prompted by successive forms of the perfect tense
ending in -uit, or in line 161, owing to repetition of the future perfect
termination of volueris in the simple future eris, or in line 236, with the
completely fortuitous leap between two dative plural forms in -bis and
-bus. A variety of the other examples, for instance, that in 63–4 or the
multiple snafus in 73, mediate between these extremes.88
The sequence of diverse errors in line 73 is further revelatory. One
can see retrospectively that this textual sequence should have stimulated
the observed errors, yet simultaneously the actual commission of an error
cannot be predicted. Here the same sequence has prompted a variety of
omissions; similarly, at 206–8 H and V respond erroneously yet diversely
to the same sequence, as do a number of other scribes who correct an
initial similar error through transpositions (see pp. 61–2, 73–4).
Two of the readings cited above (and an additional example not there
noted) are not quite so neat as the remainder. The majority involve an
exact ‘skip’ between identical materials. In contrast, consider:
129 cor … brachium] om. C, i.e., super cor meum, ut
signaculum super brachium meum
182 sacietas … desiderium] desiderunt H, i.e., desiderant, quia
sic saciantur ut sacietas non tollat desiderium et sic desiderant
et desiderium non tollat sacietatem
187 diligunt … presenti] om. M, i.e., ergo gloriabuntur omnes

qui diligunt nomen tuum utique gloriabuntur in presenti per
gracie infusionem
In all three examples, the context is surely repetitive, but the omission
is not clearly a simple mechanical procedure, a jump from like to like.
Here one might consider that the scribes may simply be stimulated by
what one might call ‘notional homoeoarchy’, a sense that repeated ideas
or vocabulary suggest that material has already been copied (and thus
may be ignored).89 The second example might even represent deliberate
suppression, the scribe confused by the difficulty of Rolle’s point.
All these examples reflect some momentary inattentiveness or
distraction, and, as I will demonstrate below, they can be fairly
immediately eliminated as casting any doubt on the majority text. Yet,
although eliminated, the information they provide should not entirely be
ignored. The errors offer primary evidence of what Bentley meant by ‘et
ratio et res ipsa’, here a preliminary vague insight into the trustworthiness
of individual copies. Almost no copy of ‘Super Canticum’ is immune
to errors of this sort, but nearly 60 per cent of the sample comes from
three witnesses, CMV. As a preliminary perception, one might mentally
star these sigla and feel a particular doubt about other situations in which
these copies offer evidence conflicting with others. Such situations may
display the same inattentiveness blatantly on offer here.
Yet further, the situation in these three copies might be seen as
radically differing and quite individual. M, whose omissions unduly swell
the sample above, appears legitimately insouciant – and perhaps deeply
untrustworthy. But the situation elsewhere is very different. V appears
probably the most carefully produced of all the copies, including having
been subjected to often finicky proofreading against its exemplar.90 Given
these procedures, it is unlikely that the accomplished scribe is directly
responsible for these mistakes; they probably have been inherited from
his exemplars, and say nothing about his actual performance.
In contrast, although C has been fitfully corrected in earlier portions
(C* in the collations), none of these gestures actually improved the
text. The corrector addressed none of C’s omissions; further, some of
his ‘emendations’ correspond to errors found elsewhere (cf. lines 44, 79)
and may point to the corrector’s source copy. But on three occasions,
all involving substantial excisions (lines 52, 57, 65), the ‘corrector’,
apparently not understanding the text before him, cancelled perfectly
good readings. In line 52 he appears not to have seen how to repair
a single-word omission unique to C, and in line 57 may have been

flummoxed, as was M, by the copy from which he was offering
corrections. Not all acts that overtly convey scrupulousness are equally
thoughtful.
Equally, one might be aware of shared omissions. These might imply
some reliance of the copies concerned on the same tradition of exemplars
(ultimately the same hyparchetype). However, following on my arguments
above, which imply that omissions are inherent in the activity of copying
and thus might be made independently on several occasions, this
information should be considered with some tentativeness. These might
only represent examples of that ‘accidental convergence’ I have mentioned
above. A conclusive demonstration of the point: the Yorkshire scribe
Robert Thornton shows an omission at line 129 comparable to that in
CV listed above; but he is copying an English version of ‘Oleum effusum’
only resembling the Latin because a painstakingly literal translation (see
EETS 329, page 3, lines 20–1).
One should notice that C2LPY is the only combination of copies that
occurs more than once here – three times, perhaps information doubly
compromised, because relatively ill attested. (One might notice as well
their conjunction once with M, more distantly B2, at 66–7, and with H
at 236. But equally, given M’s persistence in individual omissions, that
may be a thoroughly accidental conjunction.) One might be alerted to
look for further examples of common error involving at least C2LPY (and
perhaps B2HM as well), and to see these as reflective of but a single facet
of the transmission, rather than readings widely distributed and worth
extended attention.
In the examples discussed above, scribes, under the attraction of
surrounding copy, return to their exemplars too far along and consequently
omit materials. But repetitive sequences are capable of exercising the
opposed impulse – to return to copy at a similar reading, but one too
far back in the text, or anticipating one further on. Consequently, the
scribe presents twice what had occurred only once in his exemplar. Pretty
obviously, this behaviour happens much less frequently than does outright
omission. As a general rule, scribes are apt to remember what they
copy and quickly recognise (and correct) the resulting error, and, while
inadvertently capable of omitting materials from their source, reluctant
to augment the author. But this lapse does happen on at least a handful
of occasions in ‘Super Canticum’ 4:
52 tuum] adds the repeated 50–2 ita … tuum V
125 prestat consolamen] prebet solacium H, recalling the clause

from 122, but notice also solacium C2Y
236 luxuriosis] adds ue uobis superbis C2, repeating an earlier
portion of the sentence
249 inuenitur] adds Inuento autem Ihesu V, i.e., returning to
copy briefly at inuenitur Inuento autem Ihesu 252 (where the
phrase appears again in V)
268 elegit] adds speciale C, anticipating 269–70 elegit speciale
(where the scribe writes the word again)
These examples raise a vexing issue, the potential reversibility of

editorial argument. Repetitive contexts do not affect attentive scribes,
but they might affect the inattentive in one of two ways, to repeat, as
well as to omit. Thus, at some level, all such readings are, in logical
terms, ambiguous as to what they represent. They can, however, be
distinguished in a variety of ways, most obviously, for example, when
an omission renders nonsense what is presented sensibly in other copies,
e.g., the varying omissions in line 73.
Similarly (and this is neither cheating, blatant recourse to the interpre-
tative, nor circular), the text often offers clear indications of what was
intended. For example, at lines 205–9, sentences have been both omitted
(cf. 206–8 VH above) and re-ordered. But these sentences form the first
element in an extended rhetorical repetition at 211–19 (cf. ‘non inueni
… inueni’). At this latter point, whatever the amount of local variation,
there is no visible textual disruption in any copy. One can thus rely upon
this ‘clear’ echo, in which the order ‘Circuiui … Ambulaui’ is fixed
in all copies, to dismiss the varying orders in a minority of the copies
in 205–9 (in all of which ‘Ambulaui’ appears later). V’s reading in 207
indicates the processes underlying the sentence-orders of the manuscripts;
the similarity of ‘Circuiui’ and ‘Cucurri’ has left scribes confused as
to which element they had copied last, and (usually) they repair their
misperceptions fairly promptly.
The example at 205–9 raises a closely related issue, here in gross form.
Compare another reading from V, here lines 85–6:
iniunge caput tuum letificabitur et vere scio quod totum corpus
tuum letificabitur,
where the printed text reads:
inunge caput tuum et vere scio quod totum corpus tuum

letificabitur.
This rendition probably began as a homeoarchic error, the scribe intially
omitting c--- tuum … c--- tuum. However, in this instance the scribe has
righted himself and managed to include the full text (although in the
process repeating ‘letificabitur’). Arguably a similar procedure underlies
the more widely attested example in the ordering of sentences at 205–9,
scribes having returned to copy at the wrong example of ‘et non inueni
Ihesum’, but then relatively immediately realising that they had left out
one member of the argument and supplying it in the first convenient
instance.91
The result is, of course, the transposition of materials. This behaviour,
like the inadvertent omission of textual chunks, is endemic in scribal
copying, and its underlying mechanisms similar to those triggering
omissions, as the last paragraph implies.92 In copying, the scribe reads a
bit of the exemplar, momentarily remembers it, and then transfers what
he recalls to his copy. In omission, he forgets the precise location of his
keyword in the exemplar. But, similarly, he can fail to recall accurately,
as he comes to copy, the precise order in which elements appeared in the
exemplar. This is particularly likely to have occurred in situations where
the scribe ‘takes up’ too much text for reproduction, and thus recalls it
slightly inaccurately.
The collation will demonstrate that such deviations occur with very
great frequency, about ninety-five times in all. The greater number of
these, unlike the examples above, are utterly minuscule. Most frequently,
transposition simply involves reversing the position of two words in the
sentence, and the text is otherwise absolutely accurate. Another frequent
trigger for this variant representation reflects parallel elements joined by
a conjunction; in such cases, rather than copying ‘A and B’, the scribe
reproduces ‘B and A’, again with no other textual variation.
Of the ninety-five instances of transposition, about half are isolated,
the property of a single manuscript – and thus pretty certainly erroneous.
Because these are entirely individual, they are apt to have been produced
by the scribe of the instant copy. (Their isolation shows that they cannot
have been inherited from a shared hyparchtype, since they would then
appear elsewhere.) But they are not utterly valueless as evidence; again,
like omissions, they provide a rough guide for our expectations about
the accuracy of any individual scribe, how much trust might be reposed
in his report elsewhere. Here the variation throws up some interesting
confirmations of evidence.
In some copies, errors of this sort are virtually absent. None at all (!)
occurs in B and V. There is but a single example in L (141), C2 (171), and
the truncated S (37); two examples in C (37, 79) and potentially the same
in D (116, 174, although the first may be associated with an omission). All
these copies might be noticed as potentially reproducing their exemplars
with great accuracy (and consequently their agreements with other copies
in transposition provide powerful hints about the transmission history
behind them). In contrast, three copies are distinctly sloppy: Y has eleven
individual transpositions (13, 68, 106, 148–9, 184, 192, 228, 229, 235–6,
270–1, 291); M and P eight each (P at 14, 28, 92, 167, 172, 252, 267,
295; M at 35, 126, 198, 237, 254, 273, 278, 287–8) – the three account
for nearly one-third of total sample, whether individual or agreeing with
other copies. Between these extremes fall B2 (4×, at 80, 87, 169, 229) and
H (6×, at 130, 164–5, 197, 210, 234, 241).
Many editors ignore transpositions altogether. After all, in whatever
order, we have the whole text here. Again, because the variation can occur
unpredictably in virtually any situation, it is perfectly apt to represent
passing hiccups in scribal work of completely independent genesis (further
possible ‘accidental convergence of the variants’). While one might decide,
as many editors do, not to present such data in a printed collation (it
is a lot of clutter, not to any particularly productive end), one cannot
really ignore it. Such small glitches offer potential information about the
possible descent of the text; manuscripts displaying persistently identical
transpositions are very apt to have derived them from a common source.
We will explore this possibility further at pp. 73–4.
As I suggest, transpositions usually are minuscule textual disruptions,
far removed from the gross omissions with which I began this discussion.
But a wide range of further often tiny textual variations reflects the same
procedures as those underlying omission and repetition of large units.
Writing is a repetitive task, and just as repeated phrasal or clausal elements
may produce omission or repetition, very small repetitive actions may
have similar micro-effects. Consider simply two examples:
3 in] om. C2LPY, i.e., in infimis
39 deus2] deus est C2LPY
In the first of these, the scribe has been presented with the repetitive
sequence in in-, and has written only half of it. In the second, having
just written deus est, the scribe repeats it. In these tiny instances, the very
repetition involved in physical copying, reproducing the same pen-strokes,
produces alternatively textual omission or textual addition.
Analysing large omissions and repetitions thus provides a ready analogy

for any variety of smaller oddments. I offer copious illustrations of the
procedures involved, indeed all the examples I find thoroughly clear-cut.
Here is a list of clearly repetition-driven omissions:
3 in] om. C2LPY, i.e., in infimis
4 volens] om. V, i.e., uolens nolens, with the initial two minims
taken as n-, not u/v-
14 set et] set BCPSV (similarly B 152), and 23 set] om. BC, i.e.,
set et
25–6 virginem inviolatam] inuiolata V, i.e., potentially florem
virginalem inuiolatam
40 te] om. S, i.e., de te
43 deus] later corr. D, i.e., ille magnus deus angelos
51 dampnatum] dapnatum D, i.e., dampnatum
55 deus2] om. V, i.e., te deus deus
and the comparable deus tuus] om. M, i.e., deus deus tuus. Here
the same sequence gives rise to differing forms of the same basic
error.
58 spiritualium] om. S, i.e., carismatum spiritualium (the
reading transposed for clarity; the scribe has anticipated the
ending of the text’s second word)
66 in] om. M, i.e., dum in, i.e., d followed by five minims,
i.e., two minims (u) + three (m), but here followed by a further
three minims, dropped as repetitive
69 et2] om. BCV, i.e., an effort at reducing exact repetition, Et
hoc est nomen tuum et hoc est opus tuum
71 est] om. V, to accommodate the statement to the biblical
verse and to surrounding uses of ‘nomen’ and ‘oleum’ lacking
verb
73 ad celum] om. M, accomodating the phrase to the
accusative plural + participle of the surround; notice the reverse
error, a mechanical addition to the same ends at B 74
76 O] om. B2CC2LMSY, i.e., O oleum

78 plurima] plura CL2Y, plra P (thus probably plurima?), i.e.,
the sequence plurima frustra, the subsequent disyllabic word
having potentially the same termination
79 hoc oleum 2] C, canc. C*, om. B2 oleum3] om. M, i.e., hoc
oleum … hoc oleum … hoc oleum; compare with all these the
example 86 esse > eciam discussed below (p. 79)
94 anima] later corr. D, i.e., deuota anima est in qua
97 suo] om. C2LPY, i.e., suo calculo coram summo iudice
103 in] om. Y, i.e., et in te
104 in] om. C2LPY, i.e., in nobis, although there is also a
question of sense (‘within us’?/‘for us’?) (cf. the discussion of
suppressed prepositions, p. 82)
110 nomen] om. C2, i.e., effusum nomen tuum, probably
stimulated by end of a section and rushing to get there
114 id est] om. C2LY, i.e., id est … quid est, reducing
repetition, in anticipation that the phrase occurs later; for the
later addition dicitur, see p. 87
120 nomen2] om. H, i.e., omne nomen nomen, but here also
stimulated by the line-break in the manuscript, which reads
‘nomen | altissimum’;93 cf. V 200 below and C 89 in the next
list
122 nomen Ihesu] Iesus M, i.e., autem nomen, with secondary
‘smoothing’ to convert the genitive ‘Ihesu’ into the necessary
nominative
124 in omni] omnium B omni] om. H, i.e., differing responses
to the sequence, michi in omni, perhaps in the abbreviated
forms m i ī oi
128 mea] om. H, i.e., a mente mea
129 ut1] om. C2LY, another example of reducing repetition,
i.e., ut signaculum … ut signaculum, but equally plausibly fortis
est ut
144 dulcore] dulore C, i.e., proximate letters beginning with

comparable strokes, dulcore (cf. 76 above, and the variant for
line 71 in the next list for the reverse error)
145 miserere] misereri Y, i.e., miserere miseri
153 servitutem] uirtutem C2Y, i.e., seruitutem, confusing the
initial s(er?) with u, and again with smoothing to a recognised
form
155 canticum] cantus C, cantum LY, i.e., canticum, construed
as cantitum or cancicum, an example of the fairly common
confusion of c with t (and vice versa)
157 et non] nec C2Y, i.e., responding to the possible repetition
nec decipere … et non desipere
160 facere] om. V, i.e., fideliter facere (cf. the similar 169
spiritali] spiritari V, in the phrase spiritali replet)
162 obliuiscaris] a minim short D, dropped amid a sequence,
perhaps under attraction of the subsequent inflection
165 in mente] om. C2Y, i.e., in mente retentum, the scribe
mishearing his own repetition to himself
173 conabatur] conatur B2HMP, i.e., conabatur, cf. reverse
intrusion into verbs of b-forms answering context in the next
list
181 semper2] om. H, reducing repetition, i.e., angeli semper
vident et semper videre
195 egenis] om. BC, i.e., habetis egenis dederitis
196 in] om. V, i.e., tales in Ihu, in i..n, a succesion of i+two
minims
200 fructuosum] om. V, i.e., est fructuosum et V, here
stimulated by an additional distraction, since the boundary
between lines falls between est and et in this copy
203 non] om. B2H, i.e., -icans non
204 quippe] quidem B2C2HLMP, quidam Y, i.e., quippe
gloriam et vitam
205 Circuivi] Circui B2, i.e., Circuiui

218 ligatum] om. B2, i.e., Ihesum ligatum flagellatum
227 cupientes] cupientem Y, i.e., beatam spem nec cupientes
adventum
229 oculi] vestri oculi BC, oculi vestri B2C2HLMPYcep,
arguably an error in copy-text, i.e., oculi uestri, perhaps
stimulated by predictable abbreviated forms, i.e., ocli uri
230 creditis] om. Y, i.e., videtis creditis
231 et tamen mortem] tamen H, i.e., et tn mortem, also
misunderstanding the apparent repetition
232–3 facti estis] om. V, i.e., abhominabiles facti estis; cf. 233
estis] om. D, i.e., facti estis omnes
234 totus] om. B2, i.e., totus cetus (see also the next and
p. 86)
239 vestra] om. B2C2HLPY prava] om. BC, i.e., illa vestra
praua
247 debemus] demus B, debes B2, cf. 173 above
250 paupertatem] paupertem B2, i.e., paupertatem
251 in] om. B2C2HM, i.e., uia in qua, perhaps also motivated
by some preference for the sense ‘by which’, rather than ‘in
which’ (see p. 82)
261 nostro] om. H, anticipating later cor nostrum
264 super te] om. Y, i.e., super te omnes qui querunt te
270 enim] om. H, i.e., hoc enim nomen, i.e., hoc .n. nn, hoc
n n
272 celicum] celum Y, i.e., celicum
273 O3] om. B2 O nomen3] om. L, i.e., reducing repetition, or
in the latter case dulce nomen O nomen
280 quod] om. B2C2HLMPY, i.e., quod quadam, see further
293 and p. 79
283 cur] om. B2, i.e., mirabar cur

285 me2] om. C2L, i.e., et ne me; similar are the next and
the adjacent 284 in] om. H (in nocte, perhaps supported by a
preference for the dative of time)
288 in] om. C, i.e., manus in me, i.e., two sequences of three
minims each
293 qui] om. B iam] om. B, i.e., qui quodammodo iam
293 ecce] om. B2H, i.e., et ecce, but perhaps a more
deliberated objection to the interjection
296 et2] om. P 297 eciam] om. H, differing variants generated
by the same sequence, et eciam
And here is the much less extensive sequence of short clearly echoic
additions:
39 deus2] deus est C2LPY, an echo of deus est in the
preceding question
44 apparens] adds in terris C2Y, adds homo in terris P
homines] adds in terris C*, i.e., in celis humilis apparens in
terris
47 ut] ut et P, i.e., et iam ut humanum et
53 tua] adds sua C, addition canc. C*, i.e., tua sua sumus,
stimulated by the same strokes anticipated in sua sumus
64 oleum 2] add nos B2C2LPSY, i.e., hoc oleum nos inpinguet;
hoc oleum nos
66 effusum] adds nomen tuum (expunged) L, i.e., O dulce
nomen oleum effusum nomen tuum, as well as recalling the
full statement of the verse, e.g., lines 52 and 62; similarly 68
effusum] add nomen tuum C2LPY, but equally notice the
reverse variant at 71 in the preceding list
71 medicinale] medicinabile V, i.e., anticipating the repetition
of similar pen-strokes, medicinabile
74 perductos] adds ad celum B, i.e., ad celum perducens
perductos ad celum
83 saciaret] sanaret saciaret M, probably a case where the

scribe has been uncertain of the reading of his exemplar and has
offered the reader alternative interpretations
89 quia] adds S’ ? B sic] sic | sic C, i.e., text is ‘quia sic’,
which both scribes double (B arguably should be transcribed
‘scilicet sic’, perhaps offering a resolution of ambiguous spelling
in his examplar (sc), and C either reproducing it, or losing track
of the word to be copied next at a line boundary; cf. 186
95 desiderabile] desiderabilis S, anticipating the subsequent
carnalibus
100 est] after effusum C2L, om. M effusum] adds est PY, in
the latter instance an echo of the previous use (and the former
variant perhaps an example of minor omission, these scribes
suppressing the repetition)
103 solo] solum SP, attracted to following letandum
103 letandum] letabundum V, i.e., repetition of strokes,
letabundum (and letabundum)
127 memoria] in memoria Y, i.e., three minims intruded
before a word beginning with three minims
133 sanetur] sanaretur C2LPY, i.e., mederetur … sanetur
137 caro] adds enim P, i.e., enim non, .n. n
139 Ihesus] adds Vel P, i.e., Ihs Ul/Vl, echoing the strokes in
the previous abbreviated form
141 nunciabit] annunciabit B2C2MP, extending the sequence
of minims at the head of the root
143 igne] ignem LPY, an echo of preceding defixum
144 absorbetur] absorbebitur BC, i.e., absorbebitur
146 sum] ero cum P, probably the scribe’s confusion over
whether his exemplar read sum or cum, and an effort at allowing
his readers to choose between the possibilities
150 Ihesu] repeats C
160 debilitatur] debilitabitur CC2HLPVY, i.e., (as in 144),
an echo of earlier strokes (the ascenders) in the word

debilitabitur
177 amplius] autem plus C2LY, plus H, i.e., quanto plus …
tanto amplius, but the erring scribes have also construed the
head of amplius as if it were ‘.a.’, i.e., autem, and thus the
reading is a result of ‘second generation smoothing’
184 hoc2] hoc est MY, i.e., Hoc est … hoc … hoc
185 fruemur] perfruemur B2HMP, an echo of following
perenniter; the subsequent fruentes] perfruentes B2H represents a
‘second-generation’ variant designed to accommodate the error
to the repetitive construction
186 saciabimur] repeats across a line boundary L
214 itinere] in itinere PY, i.e., the echo in itinere
220 non2] non enim Y, i.e., n .n.
222 et] et in Y, i.e., 7 ī (see further, p. 78)
226 decepti] de decepti Y, i.e., fraude de decepti
233 Omnes] adds autem B, i.e., omnes autem angeli
249 solacio] solacione H, i.e., in solacione mundi or in
solacione(m) mundi, attraction to a common letter sequence
276 aut1,2] aut in M, where both prepositions echo the three
minims at the head of mente; the proximate variation, aut1] om.
B2HP might well appear in the preceding list as an example of
suppressed repetition
290 set] esse set C2LMPY, adds esse after non 289 H, probably
an echo from the end of the preceding noun, i.e., muliere
prompting muliere ee
The lesson to be derived from these multiple small errors, of whatever

stripe, is that context is magnetic. Scribes are routinely attracted by
surrounding copy, to which they can respond variously. They are engaged
in a handicraft procedure – and one for which they are, one should
always recall, being remunerated. Time is indeed money, and no text
has ever been communicated with the utter scrupulousness with which
an editor, whose interests are other (no one ever got rich editing texts),
has committed himself to approaching it.
It is worth noticing a second feature at work here. This is a further
analogue to comments I have offered above on the question of transposed
words. A number of mistakes in these two lists, predominantly examples
of omitted words, look as if they might have been stimulated by the
sounds of the words involved. Here a particularly pregnant example
appears in line 158, where all other issues aside, the scribes write the
wrong graphic form for two words probably homophones in late medieval
Latin:
si vis nec decipi nec decipere, si vis sapere et non desipere
desipere] decipere B2CHPY
In discussing copying above, I have suggested that when scribes ‘take up’
materials from their exemplars, they (like us) may silently repeat what
they have absorbed as they make their new copy. But this procedure
introduces a new source of distraction. Rather than just recalling visually
what was present in the exemplar (or not), the scribe may orally/aurally
contaminate what he has seen, mishear his own voice. Much copying may
be, as it were, ‘from dictation’, and in some instances the scribe may be
responding to his own inner repetition as if hearing someone else read
aloud indistinctly. In the lists above, the examples of omission in lines 78,
97, 157, 160/169, 165, and 195, as well as the addition in line 249 might
be analysed as reflective of such a situation.
These lists implicitly identify a wide swath of the variant sample as
errors every bit as mechanical as largescale omissions. Again, just as in the
case of omissions, they offer evidence as to the care, and the awareness of
possible misrepresentation on the part of individual scribes. A very great
number of these items are individual, the product of momentary inatten-
tiveness by a single scribe (i.e., attested in but a single copy of ‘Super
Canticum’) – and are largely to be considered erroneous on that basis.
You should of course notice that one example, the omission of vester in
line 229, occurs in D, the copy-text chosen for the edition. One needs
to flag this reading. Since D is providing copy-text only, the forms of
editorial presentation, it has no substantive authority. When one comes to
produce a final text for readers, this place needs to be emended so that
the edited D reflects the evidence provided by other copies.
In these terms, the readings offer some rough indication of scribes
who might seem usually trustworthy and others whose performance is a
little more slipshod. From the lists above, you will see that omission is
more prevalent across all the manuscripts than is insertion (or doubling
readings); there are over sixty examples of the former, thirty-five to forty
of the latter. Within these parameters, one can tabulate the individual
scribes’ unique lapses:
omissions insertions
B 4 2
B2 8
C 4 (once C*) 2
C2 1
[D] 1
H 9 1
L 1 2
M 5 2
P 1 4
S 2 1
V 9 2
Y 5 4
Here there is only one surprise. Just as in larger readings, V and M
appear to be particularly, although here not uniquely, deviant from the
remainder; again, such a finding implies that one should probably regard
their unique variations with suspicion. However, in this survey, their
failures are challenged by those of three other copies, B2, H, and Y, the
first pair with a large number of minor omissions. One might recall that
Y earlier showed a strong tendency to individual transposition and that
B2 and H, while not so excessive, were certainly more prone than most
copies to similar errors. On the whole, one might wish to discount the
individual offerings of any of these five copies.
But a quite substantial portion of these sets of minor omissions and
additions reflects variation shared by more than one copy. Just as with
omissions, since all these examples are designated as errors, these may be
construed as potentially information about ‘attestation’, possible evidence
that some manuscripts are actually derived from the same exemplar.
In total, there are just over forty of these small readings that appear
in more than one copy. Throughout this sample of erroneous readings,
clusters of copies occur repeatedly, whether in isolation or in the presence
of other books sharing the same error. Of twenty-five small omissions,

sixteen appear in at least two of the group C2LY; these same copies also
share ten of the eighteen small additions. Not quite so persistent but
still noteworthy is a sequence of errors common to at least two of the
three texts B2HM, nine small omissions and four small additions. We
might also infer that these two persistently errant groups share a common
anterior source, since members of both occur together as extended groups
of copies in omissions at 72, 204, 239, and 280; in additions at 14, 64,
100, and 160. And with them, in some relation, P occurs with C2LY in
three omissions and seven additions, with B2HM in one omission and
two additions, with both groups in three omissions and one addition.
As in our previous surveys, BCDV and the truncated S show a notable
isolation from these profuse agreements in error; in such a context, the
three omissions and two additions common to BC are almost certainly
noteworthy, and apt to reflect a common source.94
All the materials presented so far point to a single type-source of
variation in scribal copying. A very large amount of variation between
manuscripts reflects no substantive engagement with the text at all. Just
like modern fledgeling palaeographers, encouraged simply to transcribe
what they see and not, at least initially, to engage with what it means,
the scribes are most frequently impervious to content and simply proceed
at their job of transferring one manuscript’s contents into a new book.
Many of their most persistent misrepresentations are generated by context,
repetitions that are inherent in the text itself. These range all the way
from the repeated strokes that form a sequence of letters in a word up
to repeated phrases and clauses. It proves impossible in the procedure to
avoid what one might call ‘the attraction to neighbouring copy’.
The issue of the ‘neighbouring copy’ is also germane to a topic
introduced briefly above, that of transposition. In my initial discussion,
I suggested that a good deal of this misrepresentation might stem from
faulty recall of a sequence of words from the exemplar as the scribe
repeated these to himself while copying. But again, ‘attraction to copy’
has a role to play here, as the following two examples, each the property
of but a single textual witness, will indicate:
37 est tuum] trs. C, i.e., quantum est tuum puerperium
87 nemo illud] trs. B2, i.e., quia nemo illud novit
Above, I provided a list of such single-text vagaries, many potentially
analysable as examples of such attraction. Now, having reached some
tentative findings about the relations of the witnesses to the text, the
patterns of attestation most widely observed, I return to consider examples
of transposition that are shared by multiple copies of ‘Super Canticum’.
As my earlier discussion (pp. 62–3) indicates, there are just over forty
examples of shared transpositions of material. At this point, you will
probably not be surprised to discover that about half of them are of
narrow distribution, the property of pairs of manuscripts – and by now,
familiar pairs. The most prominent grouping of texts sharing transpo-
sitions is BC, which occurs on ten occasions (141–2, 159, 220, 228, 229
twice, 237, 260, 277, 292–3). Given that the two manuscripts virtually
lack individual examples, this almost certainly points to their mutual
derivation from the same exemplar.
Beyond this set of agreements, C2L appears thrice (100, 131, 229–30),
and B2 shows a tendency to share such readings, with M at 159, 291;
with H at 170, 189, 209; with P at 198. If one looks for groups of three
texts sharing transposed readings, only one group stands out, C2LY on
six occasions (25, 121, 135, 140, 164, 185 – and C2PY 105); B2HP occurs
twice (154–5, 277). Indeed virtually all of the remaining sample falls into
place, if one assumes C2LY are the core of some group, evidenced by
eight readings, viz. C2LY +P 6x (8, 43, 56, 99, 105, 137), +M once (159),
+MP once (94). Similarly, B2HP +M occurs on four occasions (126, 153,
196, 227).95 And one can notice the participation of these two groups in
larger variations: in 116 C2LY agree with DV, but B2HMP with BC; and
these two extended groups join against BCDV in 297–8 (and, lacking
B2L, share various transpositions at 169). In 228 C2PY agree with B2HM
and V.
Summarising the results so far: there seems clear evidence that Rolle’s
‘Super Canticum’ has two separate lines of transmission. On the one hand,
there is BCDV (and probably the truncated S, since it shows no signs of
belonging with the more errant remainder), with BC independent within
it. On the other, there is a large overlapping group, both C2LMPY and
also B2HMP – which certainly sets B2H apart, most probably with M.
The state of P is not so clear cut, and it may be a ‘conflated’ manuscript
(recall p. 48), one that has drawn its readings from multiple copies – here
two forms of the closely related B2+ and L+. This probably offers an
adequate demonstration of attestation across all the manuscripts, and we
probably do not need to return to this issue again – although further
discussion will throw up considerably more evidence by which it might
be refined. But, on this basis, one could offer the following stemma codicum
indicating the descent of Rolle’s text:
Rolle’s original (O)
α β
γ δ ε
BC D V S (B2 [HJ]) M P L (C2Y)
One might notice that this diagram indicates that the various ‘short
versions’ of the text are clear derivatives from fuller ones – HJ explicitly
from an hyparchetype that they shared with full copies B2 and M, C2LY
from the ancestor of that full copy β (which inferentially included all
those erroneous readings widely dispersed in the extant manuscripts).
Finally, two transpositions are quite widespread in the tradition. At line
174, every copy except D (including V, which has not heretofore appeared
in the discussion of transpositions) reads illi potest. Here the copy-text
D probably errs, and if one chooses to include transposed readings, the
lection should be flagged up so that it might be corrected in the edition.
At line 228, V again appears; in this instance, it is one among a group
that places hic 2 after scitis; this includes the recognisable core B2HM but
also C2PY. One might be more sceptical about including this reading in
the text immediately, although it remains possible that in the apparently
related BC+D (but here joined by L), scribes have deferred the adverb,
both to distance it from the earlier use but also under the alliterative
attraction of haberi. Not all editorial problems are so readily soluble as
omissions and additions; mark this reading as a conundrum, and defer it
for later consideration.
Although ‘attraction’ explains a vast number of variations in the
reproduction of texts, it is not the sole, nor certainly the most interesting,
motive underlying textual difference. Although frequently indifferent to
textual content, as they probably should be, scribes routinely engage with
the text and offer variant renditions on the basis of their responses to it,
whether conscious or unconscious. While these may often be confusing
(and sometimes downright perplexing), similar mechanisms underlie the
great majority of these intrusions.
Rather generally, one here observes, as I pointed out in discussing a
reading from Cursor Mundi (pp. 13–15), ‘the substitution of similars’. That
is, scribes offer near approximations of what they should have copied
from their examplar, what appears to them a relevant related word.
Customarily, this activity involves one of two differing mechanisms of
approximation to the received text. In the first, the scribe substitutes
similar semantic elements, words that fulfil the same functions (and may
lack much distinction in meaning, e.g., the perpetual variation between
‘the’ and ‘that’ in English medieval texts). One might consider the effect
as one of active ‘glossing’ of what has been received. A second variety
of substitution, of frequent occurrence in situations of scribal bafflement
or confusion, attempts to reproduce the letter-shapes the scribe perceives;
it results in ‘homoeographs’, words of similar shape, but non-identical
lexical content.
I initially illustrate these features through a large group of related
examples that hover somewhat indistinctly between the two differing
activities I have just described. One can begin with a relatively
unambiguous, but persistent variation that marks many copies of Rolle
on the Song:96
13 ergo] igitur PM (amid a larger variant), om. C
70 Igitur] Ergo P
104 namque] adds ergo P
108 ergo] igitur S
114 ergo] om. H
144 Hinc] om. BC and adds igitur after Ihesu B
171 igitur] ergo CB2PHce
179 igitur] ergo BCHc
186 Ergo] Igitur B2, om. Hp
191 Ergo] Igitur B
202 Ergo] Igitur B2
211 ergo] igitur p
219 Ergo] om. H
241 ergo] om. V, igitur p
242 igitur] ergo c
248 ergo] igitur p

277 Igitur] Ideo Hp, Ergo c
278 ego] ergo LC2YPp
291 ergo me] trs. B2Mce, me P, me igitur p
And more attenuated examples occur at 29, 82, and 295 (in the last
variant, the ‘Office’ reads ‘ergo’ for the ‘vere’/‘vero’ attested in all the
copies discussed here).
Clearly, the scribes show a certain sporadic indifference to what they
have received. ‘Ergo’ and ‘igitur’ mean pretty much the identical thing
(‘therefore’, as does ideo in the variant from line 277). Further, as a marked
logical hiccup, one could think either one of the words unnecessary
(and Rolle does seem awkwardly and overly insistent on offering such
connectives). Moreover, in most Latin manuscripts, the reproduction
of the two words appears much the same, since their most customary
unambiguous reproduction is as the abbreviated forms go and gi, respec-
tively. But, in addition, either adverb could be represented by simply the
form g.97
Indeed, even the lengthy list of variants I have provided above may
understate the amount of variation in the manuscripts. On a substantial
number of occasions, I have not been able to offer absolutely certain
transcriptions of the manuscript readings, since all the scribes are prone to
provide ambiguous g or g′; in such circumstances, I have simply assumed that
the scribe is reproducing the form of copy-text. Moreover, as the example
from line 278 above illustrates, even go does not provide an unambiguous
graphic symbol, since it might, as it has done here, be confused with any
commonplace abbreviated form with single letter plus above-line ‘o’ (here
eo ‘ego’; cf. the confusions with uo/vo ‘vero’ in 29 and 295).98
Ultimately, one can do little with this set of variants, except to record
them – so far as it is possible to recognise the forms in manuscript as
legitimately variant. In general, except for its persistence, the variation
is relatively isolated, a property of individual copies.99 But even were
one to encounter a situation of relatively balanced attestation, where
about half the copies might read ergo and about half igitur, and where the
groupings did not follow those probably shared exemplars we have thus
far discovered, I think this should be considered an ‘indifferent variation’.
This term refers to readings of roughly even merit, and readings one can
think of no clearly defined error-generating process to distinguish in
terms of ‘priority’ or ‘anteriority’. (The terms indicate that one reading
has clearly generated the other.) This is a unique situation in copy-text

editing, in which the copy-text is allowed to determine the substantive
form of an edition, even in the face of variation. In such a situation, even
though the reading may be in doubt, one allows the copy-text to stand
as the representation of the source.
This example of variation should be bracing for beginners. It should be
reassuring to recognise that medieval scribes, even very competent ones,
seem to have experienced the same difficulties we do. Indeed, a large
tranche of variations in the text, although isolated in their occurrence and
scarcely the more usual case, can be ascribed to the copyists’ failure to
recognise the intention of the graphic representations in their exemplars
and, as a result, substituting for one common abbreviated form another
similar one. Merely one preliminary taster would concern a pair of similar
abbreviations I warned you about at p. 34 while discussing transcription,
per and pro. Look at the variants recorded at lines 28, 64, 135, 245, and
296, all indicating places where these forms proved difficult for individual
scribes. (For the first two of these, see further, pp. 81 and 89, below.)
But similar problems persist in a rich variety of contexts. For example, et
‘and, also’ is typically represented by 7-shaped ‘tironian nota’ (a shorthand
abbreviation that goes back to antiquity, and Cicero’s secretary Tiro, its
alleged inventor). But the partly synonymous eciam ‘also’ is rarely written
in full, but is represented by the same sign with a line above it. Examples
of the resulting potential for confusion are rife; see the collations to lines
28, 77, 102, 172, 283, 284, 295.
This particular misperception (or confusing rendition) underlies several
more complicated errors scattered through the manuscripts. For example,
in line 297, H has apparently read the sequence et eciam as if it were et et,
and suppressed the second usage. At lines 185 and 213 various scribes have,
as occurs surprisingly frequently, confused the sign for et, with its 7-shape,
with the abbreviation ī ‘in’. In line 188, four scribes view the sequence
et in, apparently perceive it as in in, and suppress the conjunction in the
process of correcting what appears a ‘clearly’ repetitive error (similarly
Y at 103). As an example of the reversibility of this error, contrast the
reading in line 219, where the scribe of H, apparently confused as to what
was intended, manages to resolve his doubts by providing both forms, et
in (similarly Y at 222).
On the evidence of the collation, at any given point, almost any, even
of the most common abbreviated ways of rendering Latin, might appear
obscure. Assorted contexts throw up gaffes one might not have expected,
for example, an ignored or inserted 2 (so that the passive is reproduced as
an active verb, or vice versa) at lines 102 (see further, p. 90), 106, 117, 144,
and 238. Similar are examples of the ignored ′ to indicate -er-: int′no/in
tuo 107; amau′imus, with assimilation (‘smoothing’) of resulting amammus
to present tense amamus at 176; or t′orem taken as an example of the ‘go
to the next nasal’ abbreviation for timorem at 271; cf. further lines 16, 88,
149, 232, and 293. The common demonstrative ille, whose ambiguous
abbreviated form ie might also indicate iste, causes occasional problems
(lines 6. 62, 87, 98, 212, 241, 259, and 295). Even the ‘common mark of
abbreviation’ sometimes disappears or gets intruded quite arbitrarily, as
in lines 80, 116 (see further, pp. 90–1), 117, 131, 155(!), 169, 203, and 217.
And the very frequent abbreviated forms represented by q in combination
with some other stroke often confuse (especially V; see lines 2, 80 twice,
93, 139, 176, 189, 204, 228, 230, 231, 248, 280).100
At least some of these simple mistakes are cloaked by what appear to
be more sweeping textual variations. For example, consider 132 Attamen]
actum B2.101 At bottom, this is the same error as appears in 4 cum] tamen
BCS or 37 est tuum] tu non est B. In the first of these two parallel
examples, the scribe behind BCS has read tn for the cu of his exemplar,
and in the second B has interpreted tu u as if tu n.102 Similarly, in line
132, B2 has perceived the form attn as actu; confusion of c and t, differen-
tiated only by the flat transverse bar of the latter, is endemic in medieval
texts of all types and in all languages. Likewise, both variants in line 86
(verum esse] omne V; esse] eciam C2LM) began with scribes misreading
the abbreviation ee (esse), in the first case as oe (omne), in the second
with the minor omission e (most usually ‘est’). What appears a major (and
widely dispersed) lexical substitution 211 circuiui] quesiui B2C2HLMPY
probably reflects a form written with the initial high loop that usually
indicates con-, misconstrued by the single scribe who probably underlies
all those copies (β) as some form of abbreviation involving q.103
Perhaps surprisingly, only occasionally do scribes thoroughly misrep-
resent those shorthand abbreviations of full words that so typify the
copying of medieval Latin. At 57 deitas] ditans, M apparently construed
the abbreviated ditas as containing an instruction to supply ‘the common
mark’. Elsewhere, one could notice only a limited list of potential
examples:
152 affectum] affeccionem C2LY
188 gracie] glorie C2L (similarly P in 161)
206 cupidinem] cupiditatem B2C2HLMPY
206 deliciarum] diuiciarum C2DY104

234 vester] vere B2H
247 debemus] demus B, debes B2
248 set] scilicet H
One should be happy for the scrupulousness of V’s corrector at 203 (see
n. 89).
In total, about eighty erroneous readings involve confusions about
abbreviated forms. The majority of these, something over 70 per cent
of the sample, appear as isolated glitches, peculiar to a certain difficulty
in managing copy in a single scribe’s work. Unique examples occur 6×
in B2, 10× in H, and 10× in M. Where more than one manuscript
transmits the same misperception, there is ample testimony to ‘convergent
variation’, scribes engaged in making the same error quite independently
of one another. After all, forms like qui and quod are ubiquitous in
medieval Latin, and, given the number of examples I have cited, scribes
are perfectly capable of misconstruing them on multiple occasions. For
one clear example, consider 176 quod] quia VC2LY. I have already noted
V’s potential for confusion in these contexts, and his misperception here
is entirely independent of the error in the three remaining copies, who
– given the evidence I have already cited – have simply inherited this
reading (and reproduce it faithfully) from an earlier scribe who made
the same mistake as V. Indeed, considering these mishaps in isolation, L
and C2 stand out as particularly careful in reproducing what they had
received; L contains no unique mishandlings of this sort, and C2 but one
(and there is but a single one in C also).
Thus, precisely because there is ample room among these readings for
coincidental convergence, shared readings, especially when they involve
scribes who appear individually careful, offer potentially powerful confir-
mation of relations among copies already identified. Among smaller
groupings, C2LY agree four times (once with V), C2Y three times, and
C2L once; on another occasion, all three join with P. In contrast, the
challenged scribes B2HM equally cluster, B2H four times, B2M twice,
B2HM once, B2HP once (and on another occasion with V), MP thrice,
B2P and B2HPY once each. Nearly all the remainder of the sample is
comprised of occasions where the two groups join, all probably additional
testimony to their common derivation from the same hyparchetype.
In contrast, one might notice again that the tendency does not extend
to BCDVS, even though, excepting C and D, all these copies have four
or five individual mishandlings of this type. There are only four isolated
agreements of manuscripts from this group, three of them involving the
pair BC (lines 4, 107, 139, 176), and on another six occasions these usually
isolated copies agree with those more prolifically erroneous (BSV + B2M
in lines 102, 171, 176, 188; BC + B2 in 213, 284), yet further examples
of ‘convergent variation’. But these readings, of whatever sort and distri-
bution, only rarely seem worth any notice, except as confirmation of
evidence already available elsewhere as to manuscript relations. In only
two cases, do any of these variations strike me as potentially correct: 28
pro/permittis and 116 Imples] implens CB2C2HMPVY (i.e., the sentences
joined everywhere except BDL).
This survey clears away a great deal of what may be seen as underbrush
in the collations. On the whole, Rolle’s text has been copied reasonably
accurately everywhere for major substantive readings, but very frequently
copied hastily. These various exclusions (predictable copying errors) leave
us the diminished residue, where any major textual problems might be
expected to occur. However, much of this variation might itself be seen
as underbrush as well – persistent minor variation only differentiated from
the minor omissions and additions discussed above insofar as that it is
potentially ‘motivated’. That is, whether consciously or not, individual
scribes choose to approximate what they see before them, rather than take
care over what we would identify as utter accuracy of rendition.
Here one might take as a typifying case 144 deitatis] diuinitatis B2HMP,
potentially a difficulty with whole-word abbreviation, i.e., ditatis.105 But
other readings might suggest a different interpretation of the variation,
e.g., 201 Christo] deo B2C2HLMPY, and compare the further variants
at lines 43, 144, 265, 291, 295, 297–8. All these readings involve glossing
substitutions whereby any term indicating ‘God’ may serve as well as
any other.
It is an editor’s obligation to examine and thereby explain every variant.
This is far from an exact procedure, but one has to attempt to eliminate
all competing readings from the printed text. Many of these appear to
be bits of inattention comparable to clearly accidental examples already
analysed, e.g., three early examples unique to B2:
2 vetito] vetico B2, either an accidental dissimilation of c/t
or a homeographic reproduction of a word the scribe did not
understand
11 peracto] peracta B2, a non-grammatical exchange of

case-endings (the scribe not seeing that the participle modifies
the belated misterio 12)
16 reuelata] reuoluta B2, another homoeograph, the scribe
having associated the form with a verb of comparable shape
There are quite a vast number of such irritating oddments. Just as in their
sporadic handling of ergo and igitur, scribes make routine substitutions for a
wide range of items. For example, in giving the incipit of our text, Allen
cites ‘Expulsus de paradiso’; she has here followed B, the most extensive
anthology of all Rolle’s Latin, without realising that it has substituted one
preposition for another, a variation reasonably frequent in a variety of
loci across all the copies. Conjunctions are frequently dropped, especially
when et appears within a parallel series, or in coordinating constructions
where the meaning is clear. Similarly, est may appear or be suppressed.
Often the exact demonstrative involved shows minor variation (including
such a misunderstanding as 40 quod] hoc C2LPY, not just ‘that name’ but
the interrogative ‘what name?’), as does the form for negation (alternation
of nec and non). Both verb tenses and nominal/adjectival inflections show
variation fairly routinely. Alternations in forms with prefixes, usually verbs,
are particularly frequent (59, 125, 141, 159, 175, 176, 185 twice, 238, 257,
277, 285, although see further the discussion of the first of these at p. 90).
But the error, unique to MPY in line 25, edidisti ‘you have constructed’]
dedisti ‘you have given’, is clearly a bridge too far, a homoeograph, where
the scribes did not recognise the verb. (Contrast the care of the V corrector
in 230 eruit] erunt V, corr. by erasure V*.)
In only a few such instances can one attach any specific kind of
motivation to the variation. One example would appear the widespread
alternation between effundere and infundere in early portions of the text.
In this instance, some copyists appear to wish to distinguish between
the Jesus of the verse in the Canticle, who is ‘poured out’ and the effect
his ‘effusion’ has upon the individual Christian. In Latin of this stripe,
infundere ‘to pour into, infuse’ is the verb that customarily describes the
action of divine grace upon the individual (cf. line 188).106
In a number of dispersed examples, individual scribes prove committed
to more correct grammar-school Latin than their source, e.g., the tendency
to suppress ‘solecistic’ prepositions in favour of the ‘proper’ ablative of
means (e.g., cum 20, in 251, in 284). In line 169, after the ‘verb of motion’
vertere, many scribes offer accusative in fastidium instead of ablative in
fastidio. Similarly, in line 235, a number of scribes attempt to impose a
‘logical’ or ‘proper’ sequence of tenses and write the future, rather than
the present, after an earlier verb in the future (cf. also the emphatic future
intruded in 224). On one occasion, 34 tuo] add ori BC, two scribes insert
a gloss that they hope specifies an otherwise allusive referent. This may
be a deliberate act of bowdlerisation, since context seems to indicate that
the neuter ‘to you(r)’ allusively refers, not to a kiss but to singular ‘ubero’,
the child’s sucking (cf. ‘ubera’ twice in line 30, ‘mamillas’ 35). Probably
similar is 74 stola] sue stola C2LPY, where these scribes otiosely insist
that immortality is a divine property, and thereby momentarily obscure
the continuing point that Jesus, sharing his power, deserves praise for
‘pouring out’ to men gifts they did not deserve.
The scribes are often well aware of biblical or liturgical locutions and
assimilate the text to such rhetoric:
102 hoc exilio] seculo C2L, hoc seculo PY, deadening the
allusion to banishment from paradise into the contrast ‘this
world’/‘the next world’, although perhaps originally an aural
mistake
141 dilecto] add meo B2MP, to echo a locution frequent in
the Song, e.g., 5:1–2
168 internam] eternam C2LMY, attracted to the phrase
requiem eternam, from the opening of The Office of the Dead, a
ubiquitous devotional text
211 suauiter] om. H, to produce the simple (and generalising,
thus missing the point) terra viuencium ‘the land of the living’,
more common than the actual allusion to Job 28:13 Rolle
intended
219 cruci affixum] cru|cifixum V, crucifixum C2Y107
227 eternam mortem] trs. B2HMP, assimilated to common
liturgical vitam eternam
261 mundi] adds concupiscencijs P, i.e., mundi concupiscencijs
et carnis, inspired by the commonplace triad derived from 1 John
2:16 (‘omne quod in mundo concupiscentia carnis est …’)
Perhaps the most amusing, yet not very problematic, of these is the
particularly daft rendition:
27 homine paris] nomine patris B2C2LMPY, i.e., ‘you give
birth to God in a man’ (the verb parallel to concipis 24) construed

as ‘[you do not conceive] a man but God, in the father’s name’.
This error may reflect ‘second generation smoothing’; given the
prevalence of the noun nomen in early portions of the text, a
single scribe may have made a rhyming substitution, creating
nonsense, then ‘repaired’ in a later copying.
These examples all offer evidence for a scribal desire to reproduce the
commonplace, rather than the text before them. Readings like these
underlie a fundamental (and very ancient) rule of textual criticism, and
one supporting the proposition that there is a universal scribal usus
scribendi: ‘Durior lectio potior’ (the harder reading is the more powerful).
The basis for this general rule is the feeling that authors are distinguished
by language use both pro- and e-vocative. In contrast, scribes, when
faced with the difficult, often substitute more readily comprehensible
locutions.
A prominent class of these ‘reversions to the commonplace’ deserves
special consideration. This, partly overlapping with the issue of omissions,
concerns the rendition of biblical citations in the text. These appear across
the manuscripts variously, including fairly widespread variations in the
length of what is presented. What is an editor to do with these?
Here one might attend to a feature that appears to be carried over
from the ultimate source of all copies, the notation ‘etc.’ in line 256; it
is present everywhere except in the potentially related B2HMP. This
notation implies that the reader is to understand that the whole verse
is at issue, even if it is not formally cited. The reader should intuit the
continuation of Ps. 118:10, ‘… ne repellas me a mandatis tuis’ (let me not
stray from thy commandments).
An examination of Rolle’s usual practice (recall, for example, the
handling of the citation from Job in the practice transcription at p. 35)
indicates his willingness to signal the biblical text in truncated forms
like this. And, worse still: he frequently provides unmarked citations,
some of them less than verbally exact – either recalled from memory,
or intended to be allusions only (rather than specifically exact citations).
This might imply that inexact biblical reproduction was a feature of the
original authorial ‘Super Canticum’.
Rolle’s reliance on an educated reader who might remember full biblical
contexts has an unfortunate editorial effect. If readers are to remember,
the supremely literate scribes (they do make their bread from contact with
texts, and materials biblically based are the most widely disseminated,
thus copied, in the Middle Ages)108 might also recall fuller contexts than
their exemplars provided. In a gesture of explicitness and reader-friend-

liness they may be engaged in providing either fuller citations than they
had discovered in their exemplars, or ones truncated (and intended to be
allusive). Examples of the procedure, where truncated variations occur
include:
256–7 et2 … suo] om. B2LM, etc. C2HPY; cf. Ps. 3:5
258 nocte … deceptus] om. B2M, nocte etc. C2Y, nocte L, et
nocte etc. P; cf. Ps. 76:3
On the basis of our prior discussion of manuscripts that seem persis-
tently to agree, these reproductions might well be the product of a single
exemplar in the tradition. Both examples involve the core C2LY, supple-
mented by the plausibly connected B2HM and P. More limited in its
attestation is an analogous example, 141 Ihesu] om. C2Y, where the scribes
reassert the biblical version of Cant. 5:8.
On the other hand, much more frequently, individual scribes seem
to add materials to citations presented in shorter forms elsewhere. They
provide full or more exact biblical citations, where the majority do not:
111 tuum] add et BC
170 omnes] in te omnes B2MP; cf. Ps. 5:12–13, with ‘in te’
177 me edunt] trs. B2C2HMPY 178 esuriunt] esurient
B2C2LMPY (abbreviated and ambiguous BCH) me] om. C2 me
bibunt] trs. BB2CHP siciunt] sicient B2C2LMPY (abbreviated and
ambiguous BCH)
258 manibus] add meis BB2CC2LMPVY; which is part of the
modern text of Ps. 76:3109
The first example above represents an intrusion that may be a memory
of some form of biblical text. However, ‘et’ is absent from the modern
Vulgate version of Cant. 1:2, which reads simply ‘ideo adoluscentule’, as
the majority here, nor is this cited as a variant in the standard Stuttgart
edition. It thus is presumably a clarifying addition common only to this
pair, and an error that further supports their possible derivation from a
common exemplar.
In the third example, the copy-text D, as well as V, presents the verbs
in the present tense, not the future recorded in the Vulgate and most
copies here; cf. Ecclus. 24:29. That comparison will show that, in addition,
the Vulgate has ‘edunt me’ and ‘bibunt me’, as do a minority of copies,
arguably asserting biblical form. Here one should consider that Rolle is
citing by memory and inexactly.
Given that the second example is attested only in three isolated copies,
two certainly related (and note lines 185–6, where the repetition of the
verse universally lacks ‘in te’), only the fourth seems at all likely to reflect
a possible authorial reading. Notice that this is very likely to represent
another minor omission, i.e., manibus meis, and a further potential mistake
in the copy-text D. However, the word is not particularly necessary for
the sense and certainly capable of having been supplied by one or more
scribes. Again, this is a reading to flag for possible inclusion in the final
edited presentation of the copy-text D.
This variation again confirms our developing hypothesis about
attestation and the possible relation of the copies. Disregarding line 258,
there are a total of nine variations in these renditions of biblical materials.
On five occasions, the majority of B2HM and C2LY, with P, transmit
these errors (L lacks one and H three of these errors). The reading at
177, in conjunction with the isolated one in 141, would imply that C2Y
are a pair apart from L, and in this context, P agrees twice with B2M/H
apart from C2LY, but its reading, perhaps accidentally, is closer to C2LY
than to B2M in line 258. Further, one might notice here that V always
reads as the copy-text D (and in most instances H, less frequently BC,
with them). While this situation arguably represents no error at all, but
transmission of a probably authorial text, the persistence with which
BCDV read apart from the most frequently attested variation implies, by
default, that these copies provide a separate line of transmission. Again,
BC appear a pair on the basis of agreement not simply at 111 but also in
their shared abbreviated forms at 178.
Only a small group of variations turns out to deserve any extended
discussion, the majority of these non-mechanical omissions of one sort
or another:
2 tota] om. C2LPY: The adjective probably either suppressed
as otiose or assimilated to a commonplace legalism. But other
examples occur involving the suppression of one among a
sequence of multiple adjectival modifiers, e.g., at line 239 ‘ab
illa vestra praua’: vestra] om. B2C2HLPY praua] om. BC (cf. also
line 234).
15 moriens] om. M: In a copy with many small omissions,
probably dropped in balancing the clauses and momentarily
ignoring later ‘permanens’.
29 congruit] competit M rege] om. BC: The first substitutes a

more active (yet less challenging) verb for that of other copies;
the second may be purely mechanical (eterno … osculum) or
may seek a statement broader and less qualified.
31 ubera tua] om. V: Probably only a mechanical omission, in
a copy marked with such, i.e., meliora … ubera tua vino.
33 lac] om. M: Like line 2 above, suppression of what might
be considered obvious.
90 calculum, calculo] collobium, collobio C2LPY, but the
root correctly reproduced in lines 97–8: A clear homoeographic
approximation for a (perhaps abbreviated) reading the scribe
behind these related copies did not recognise.
112 adoratur] oderatur B, odoratur L, adoletur P: the BL
reading is almost surely correct and represents an example
of a durior lectio. The majority of the manuscripts presents
homoeographs, perhaps a sequence of independent substi-
tutions. The reading in P, of similar genesis, is revelatory; this
scribe apparently offers a nonsensical form predicated upon a
glossing substitution (cf. Anglo-Latin redolencia, redolesco).
This is a classical ‘bracketing’ situation, where correct
‘odoratur’ is signalled in two ways (and thus ‘bracketed’).
The majority scribes offer a homoeograph (a spelling that
resembles the right reading); in contrast, P provides a gloss.
Without reading earlier portions of Rolle’s commentary,
where the discussion takes up the idea of fragrance, one can
confirm the reading as plausible on the basis of the biblical
text, e.g., ‘fragrantiae’ (Cant. 1:1), ‘in odorem unguentium
tuorum’ (1:3) and possible associations with persistent use of
word ‘suauiter’ here.
114 salutare] add dicitur C2LY: A ‘second-generation
smoothing’, occasioned by earlier id est] om. C2LY.110
201 illam] illum B: This reading may deserve a text-note;
B has opted for a personal object, ‘Jesus’, but the other
manuscripts read ‘who does not desire salvation’ (illam =
salutem). But following the etymology proffered in line 114,
the ‘nomen Ihesu’ ‘means “salvation”’.
216 in deserto] om. C2LY, indefesse p, in allusion to the

Temptation of Matt. 4:1–4. The reading of the print implies
that the word may have appeared in an unfamiliar abbreviated
form (cf. Cappelli 337, col. 1; and 338, col. 2 for the form
to represent ser-). In the printed version p this is taken to
be f with a mark of abbreviation. f and s are fairly routinely
confused, since the former is differentiated from the latter only
by a short cross. C2LY probably are engaged in suppressing a
reading they could not figure out how to communicate. Like
line 112 and my next example, this one indicates how one
might use ‘the disposition of the variants’, the full corpus, to
arrive at the mechanism by which a reading emerged.
217 solum] solus BDV, oliueti H: The second, inobvious
variant (‘the mount of Olives’) may be explained by recalling
113 speratur] corr. later from operatur C2. Some exemplars
appear to have had the round ‘sigmoid’ s- in initial position;
just as in C2 113, the scribe here has confused that form with
o and produced a homoeograph on that basis. He at least
understood, as C2LY in the preceding variant did not, that
Rolle was referring to specific events in the gospels – although
here probably Matt. 14:23 (to which BDV have assimilated the
reading, another biblically inspired ‘easier’ rendition), not Matt.
26:30.
228 queritis] sequimini M: Assimilated to an earlier form in
-mini, and intruding the more common idiom ‘follow a path’.
247 scilicet BC] videlicet B2C2DHLMPVY: One or other
reading represents substitution of similars (and probably
represents further misunderstanding of abbreviated forms, .s.
and vȝ). But the variation is utterly indifferent (the adverbs are
readily interchangeable), and D should stand as copy-text.
Finally, we must recall the rule of copy-text. Readings of D have
heretofore typically been treated as neutral. They are the forms we are
provisionally using as a norm to arrange the variant evidence. But, as I
have earlier pointed out, choosing D as copy-text does not mean that
its substantive readings are sacrosanct. I have omitted from the account
above a variety of relatively small deviations, from which no copying of
any text is immune (items analogous to B2’s vetico, cited p. 81); these are
frequently called lapsus calami (slips of the pen) and include oddments like:
In 162 obliuiscaris, the scribe has a tiny omission, writing one minim
too few in an extended sequence of the strokes.
At 51 dampnatum, the scribe forgets to add a mark of abbreviation to
indicate the first m, having felt he had finished the word when he added
the same stroke above the final -u; in contrast, at 269 solitudine, he
supplies the same mark (to produce solitudinem), when he should not have.
As I have noted above (p. 78), in 64 perficiat, the scribe writes the
abbreviation for pro-, rather than correct per-; a further example of this
error (in line 28, and not unique to D) receives more extended discussion
below.
In 214 fatigatum, he is attracted by the last vowel he has written and
produces the ungrammatical fatigatam.
In 233, amid an extended run of nominal plurals in -i and a sequence
of forms ending in -s, he forgets to supply the (fairly obvious) verb estis.
You will recall from earlier discussions a range of places where I have
suggested that copy-text readings might be queried:
112 adoratur D+B2CC2HMSVY] oderatur B, odoratur Le,
adoletur P (just above)
174 potest illi D] trs. BB2CC2HLMPVY (only of interest, if
one enters transpositions, p. 63)
206 diuiciarum D+C2Y] deliciarum BB2CHLMPV (p. 80)
217 solus D+BV] solum CB2C2LMPY, oliueti H, assimilation
to biblical reading (just above)
229 oculi D+V] vestri oculi BC, oculi vestri B2C2HLMPY
(pp. 67 and 71)
258 manibus D] add meis BB2CC2LMPVY, absent in larger om.
H (pp. 85–6)
In addition, there are around a dozen places where D communicates
a clearly minority reading and deserves further scrutiny:
28 permittis D+LY] promittis BB2CC2MPSV (p. 78)
The variants clearly represent confusion between the very similar
abbreviated forms. D’s sense is suspect and the reading probably echoic
of permanens later in the line. Rolle intends, ‘you promised/vowed (to
God) to be a virgin, and he made you a mother also’. LY agreement with
D again shows accidental convergence of the variants.
59 conformaret D+B] reformaret B2CC2LMPSVY (p. 82)

The variants obviously reflect substitution of prefixes. Here DB might
appear a durior lectio: ‘bring the image we have defaced into conformity
with yours’. In the remainder, the phrase has been assimilated to the
common pulpit and devotional usage, ‘to reform the divine image (in
man)’. However, Rolle regularly shows himself conversant with such
routine locutions (cf. the discussion at pp. 102–3), and reformare appears
routinely in this context elsewhere in the commentary. Not all ‘harder’
readings are, ipso facto, convincingly ‘stronger’.
96 scribetur D+C2LPVY] scribitur all others; but cf. earlier in
the same line, scribit] scribetur C2LPVY.
Within the sequence of readings ‘scribitur … scribit … scribitur’, these
appear independent scribal efforts at differentiating repetition, and one
should emend D.
102 imprimat D+BB2MSV] imprimetur C, imprimas C2LPY
The sense required here seems to me clear, ‘May your name be
imprinted’ – and is approximated in C’s future. (Were nomen the subject
of an active verb, as in D+, one would expect a se somewhere in the clause
– and indeed, one might have been assimilated into nostris, i.e., nostris
se – an alternate emendation one could offer here.) The reading remains
difficult because of the profuse variation (‘res ipsa’, the confirmation of
readings) on offer for what seems a non-problematic statement. But the
majority implies that the abbreviation 2 (-ur) had dropped out of most, if
not all, exemplars, as in D+. The reading imprimas thus represents ‘second
generation smoothing’; the single scribe behind C2+ (ε) has understood
the basic sense and tried to retain nomen as active subject (‘O name, you
may imprint’). This may be an error that had appeared in the archetype
of all copies, and C, intuiting the sense, may be offering intelligent repair.
116 verbum est D] est verbum dei BCB2HMP, verbum dei est
C2LVY
The variation is perhaps indifferent, as an open allusion to John 1, with
the majority offering a clarifying gloss. However, I am swayed by the
volume of attestation here, and D should be emended.
116 Imples D+BL] implens B2CC2HMPVY (p. 79)
As I noted above, either the majority have intruded the common mark
of abbreviation or the minority missed it out. I think that the minority

is apt to be correct here, however; the discussion shifts between general
statement (referring to Jesus in the third person) to two sentences of
direct address. Cf. the adjustment in ‘person’ to the verb in MP 117,
a secondary acknowledgement of the difficulty created by joining the
two sentences (another instance of noticing the ‘confirmation of the
variants’).
228 hic2 D+BCL] after scitis B2C2HMPVY (p. 75)
An issue of transposition, and probably indifferent variation.
237 redditur D+V] reddetur BB2CC2HLMPY
Contextually, the future, a reference to the Last Judgement, is preferable,
and D should be emended.
274 glorificum D+H] gloriosum BB2CC2LMPV (and cf. Y 273)
This variant must be evaluated together with the earlier error, glorificum
advanced in the sentence in B2C2LM, who are here arguably differen-
tiating a repetition; but that error in turn implies that DH may show
attraction, mirificum echoed in glorificum. Here I would insert the majority
reading.
278 Cum D+B2C2HLMPY] Dum BCV
Majuscules (capital letters) are forms that do not appear frequently, and
consequently challenge scribal recognition procedures. Here the form
has provoked a glossing substitution; given that the passage describes a
single past experience (and uses the pluperfect), Cum ‘when, at the time
that’ is marginally more sensible than Dum ‘while, during the time that’.
285 loquela B2C2HLMPVY] loquele BC, smudged D
In the sequence ‘sine mora uel loquele iuxta’, BC appear to have
unconsciously differentiated the ending from a sequence of -a’s, in a
context of other repetitions. The form isn’t grammatical and should
accord with preceding mora. But, in any event, although it is unclear
whether the now illegible form in D actually agreed with the pair, the
reading requires correction.
295 vere D+BLM] vero CC2HPVY
On the whole, the variation is indifferent, and D should be retained
as copy-text.
You might note that, on the whole, this final analysis again shows the
descent of D as apart from the majority of copies. Moreover, that status is
confirmed by the few occasions on which other copies share D’s readings,
whether in error or otherwise. The few examples surveyed here continue
to indicate the manuscript’s close affiliation with BCV (and perhaps S).
A final note on ‘examination’: I think one could describe Rolle’s
‘Super Canticum’ 4 as a text reasonably well transmitted. At almost every
point (cf. the discussion of line 102 above), at least one manuscript –
and usually the overwhelming majority – provides a reading one might
readily identify as the source of all competing variants. However, you
should be aware that such is not always the case. On widely dispersed
occasions, all copies of a text will present either nonsense or readings
for which you cannot imagine your author might be responsible.111 These
represent instances in which the editor’s only option is ‘conjecture’, an
effort to hypothesise a sensible reading. Perhaps the nearest approach to
such a situation in this text occurs in line 112, where one might never
have noticed ‘adoratur’ as erroneous, had all manuscripts provided that
reading. But even with universal attestation for ‘adoratur’, one might
be forced to pause here. Were one to check the literal Middle English
translation of ‘Oleum effusum’, one would discover the reading ‘smellys’
(EETS 329, pp. 2 and 3, line 3), and this would direct you to what Rolle
had in fact written.
This completes our examination of the authorial text of Rolle’s ‘Super

Canticum’. However, two ancillary tasks, one long promised, properly
belong here. The first, which I once again defer to the end, is to offer a
parallel analysis of the variants I long ago encouraged you to extract from
twenty lines of Cursor Mundi. Prior to that discussion, however, I take up
an issue again engaging the variant corpus analysed above: what can it
tell one about the genesis of derived versions of Rolle’s text, the various
widely distributed excerpted copies that I mentioned in Chapter 1?
Analysing these depends, not on the edited text, but the assembled
variant corpus. One seeks to discover whether the four relevant texts –
the compilation (c), the print (p), and the two English versions – can
be narrowly associated with some portion of the transmission of the full
text. Here it does not matter whether any single variant is correct/Rolle’s
reading; one only seeks to identify that particular set of variants that
might be seen as underlying the various abbreviated versions.112
The variants recorded in ‘the compilation’ show that it is clearly derived
from H( J), or more broadly B2H( J). In those variants that underlie this
textual version, there is one striking evidentiary stream. This indicates,
not simply M’s adhesion to B2H( J), but also that P may belong more
securely with these three copies than it does with LC2Y. Compare the
variants at lines 125, 126, 141, 144, 153, etc., all reproduced in c, as well
as a few examples where only P or H( J)P offers readings also in c (lines
169, 198, 236, 264). But given P’s equal adherence to LC2Y, it remains
possible, and can only be decided on the basis of analysing the full ‘Super
Canticum’, that P has been produced through conflation, the comparison
of readings of more than one β copy (see further, pp. 158–9). Likewise,
the print has been derived – in this case, much more clearly, from a copy
resembling H( J).
This finding implies a further conclusion about these shortened
versions. (I will take up further specifically manuscript-based points in
the Appendix.) Both c and p share with H( J) two features. First, they
begin their renditions of ‘Super Canticum’ 4 only at line 111; second,
their presentations of ‘Super Canticum’ do not include that text alone
but appended excerpts from elsewhere, primarily from Rolle’s Incendium
Amoris. In the truncated p, this reproduction of H( J) is exact, only the
commentary (4.111–298) followed by both chapter 15 of the Incendium
and the fifth portion of Rolle’s text that follows this selection from
Incendium in H( J). On the other hand, c shows most extensive selective
procedures – the complete commentary on the Song from 4.111, as well as
additional passages from Incendium (and elsewhere). But the confirmation
of c suggests that, in its gross form, although not its extent, this may
also represent a collection that began life as an extended imitation of the
materials already provided in H( J).
The two English translations of ‘Super Canticum’ 4 – both heavily
abbreviated – have been derived from sources differing from either Latin
excerpt tradition. The version that appears in The Pore Caitif appears to
be derived from precisely a single copy, in this case M. Evidence for
such a narrow association comes from a handful of readings, of restricted
Latin transmission but always involving that manuscript (see the parallels
to lines 168. 211, 228, 235, 239, and 274). On only one occasion (the
parallel to line 173) does this version offer a reading not present in M
(just as the parallel to line 172 provides a variant that excludes B2C2LY
as a possible source of this version). This finding requires one qualifi-
cation. Many manuscripts of The Pore Caitif are much older than is the
extant manuscript M, and both the Middle English text and M’s rendition
must depend on a now-lost copy current around 1400 (recall n. 75).
Given M’s provenance, discussed in the Appendix, this will probably have
been a London or Westminster book.
On the other hand, the Northern English translation of ‘Oleum
effusum’ has very different origins from the remainder of the excerpt
versions. Here a clear indicator of its source appears in the parallel to
line 211, ‘I rane abowte’ (EETS 329, p. 7, line 109); this clearly answers
BCDV circuiui, and indicates, in avoiding the variant quesiui, that unlike
the other excerpted versions, none of B2C2HLMPY can be this version’s
source. A range of further variants indicates that this version of Rolle’s
commentary can only have been derived from an α-type manuscript,
e.g., the parallels to lines 112, 116, 160, 176, and 224 (lines 3, 7, 56, 75,
and 122 of the text printed in EETS 329). So uniquely, this abbreviated
textual form likely reflects access to a Latin version containing the full
‘Super Canticum’ 4.
Finally, we will return to the Cursor Mundi example postponed long
since. If you performed the exercise I suggested at pp. 9–10, you should
have remaining the following corpus of variations:
20 serekin] mony F, diuers GT 23 Sanges sere] Mony
songes T selcuth] diuers GT 25 ilkon is] mony are T
26 likes] liked G 29 o] om. GT 30 And pride] Þe proude
F 33 may scilwis] men may F, may ilk man G, may men oft
T 35 Of ] And T alkyn] iche FGT man] men T schal]
may FGT 36 He … rote] trs. phrs. F fettes] takes G, has T
37 coms] om. FG 38 Wers1] Of wers F it] om. FT
39 Þat] And þat F speke] say GT o … ilke] þus o þis T
40 Bytakens] hit takenes F me and þe] þe and me T
To these readings, one might add both F’s reversal of two couplets (31–4)
and 25 frankys] frenche FGT. To deal with these first: F’s transposition
provides a classic example, like those discussed above (pp. 61–2) of a
partial omission corrected quite immediately; the scribe initially skipped,
returning to copy at 32 wreth, not the correct 30 wrath; however, he quickly
recognised his mistake and provided the initially omitted materials out
of order. Frankish and French, while the words register no substantive
difference, do have separate lexicographical entries and thus probably
should get a notice in the collation; this variation is indifferent, and an
editor should follow whatever manuscript s/he has chosen as copy-text.
The remainder of the sample exemplifies a variety of situations already
discussed above. This provides the salutary lesson that the ‘rules’ of scribal
behaviour (really, the mechanisms by which one can observe scribes
copying) are universal, and repeated across all languages. They differ
in effects and specifics only insofar as they are prompted by the forms
mandated by the grammar of the individual language.
Thus, we find now familiar behaviours like variation of verb tense (26)
or auxiliary (35 fourth variant); similar variation of singular and plural
(25); presence/absence of preposition, conjunction, or pronoun (29, 30, 35
first variant, 38 both variants, 39), minor transpositions (23 first variant,
33, 36, 40 second variant), alternations among demonstratives (35 second
variant). Such minutiae comprise about half the sample. A substantial
part of the remainder is motivated, as was the example I cited long
ago from lines 31–2, by language overtly dialectical (here the author’s
Northernisms). Efforts at synonymous substitutions for Northern lexicon
occur in lines 20, 23 (both variants), 33, and perhaps 40 (first variant);
similar in motivation, but lacking overt dialectical basis are the variations
inspired by 36 fettes and 39 speke.
That leaves only a handful of examples that would seem to require any
detailed discussion. The omitted preposition in line 29 may indicate GT
opting for a simpler, and less convincing construction of the sentence.
In the other copies, right most likely represents the noun ‘righteousness,
justice’, a ‘harder reading’, rather than the potentially automatic antonym
to wrang GT provide. The omitted verb in line 37 probably has been
dropped inadvertently through anticipation of the second element in a
repetitive construction. In 39, T’s reluctance to transmit Northern ilk has
extended to its homonym ilk ‘the same’ (OE ælc and ilca, respectively),
but has also triggered a repetitive echo, analogous to Latin variation
between set and set et discussed above; þis generates an intrusive þus.
Finally, 35 man] men T may not be a substantive variant at all; Middle
English has an impersonal pronoun, like modern German man ‘one,
people’, customarily represented me(n), and this may be an explicit variant
spelling (cf. the variation in line 33).
One last task remains. You have prepared your text in order to facilitate
an audience’s access to the author’s words. You need now to revise your
copy-text so that it is prepared for that public consumption. First of all,
check through it one more time; make sure your modern pointing and
capitalisation accords with what, in your best sense, your author sought
to communicate.
You must then prepare a final version, complete with all the editorial
apparatus you have generated in the course in your study. Your edition
will be set into type in a standard format, exhibited in the finished text of
Rolle’s ‘Super Canticum’ 4 at pp. 108–39. This offers the final, edited text,
customarily in a larger type-face, at the top of the pages. Below this, the
evidence for the text, your collations of all the witnesses, appears, always
in smaller type. If you choose, as editors of medieval Latin often do, to
provide a translation, it will appear on the pages facing those on which
the text is disposed. Since they must face each other across an opening,
it is traditional to have the text on odd-numbered pages, the translation
on even-numbered ones.
To this point, you will have been working with your copy-text
transcription, only adorned with those ‘accidentals’ that convert manuscript
forms to modern usage. Now, as I promised you long ago (pp. 31–2), you
must convert your copy-text into an edited version, your best account of
what your author originally wrote. This requires that you mark the text
to communicate to your reader those activities you have performed on
it, in accord with ‘ratio et res ipsa’. In the case of Rolle’s commentary on
the Song, you must introduce into the copy-text D those various changes
discussed at the end of our ‘examination’ of the variants (pp. 88–91).
All editors follow at least one convention in communicating their
activity to readers. At any point in the copy-text where you have added
materials, whether a single letter or a full word or phrase, or changed
the copy-text by offering a letter that did not appear in it, you must
present that material within square brackets. Thus, in line 28 of the
Rolle edition, the copy-text D provided the reading ‘permittis’, which we
have decided is erroneous. Its replacement, the proper form ‘promittis’,
must be explicitly presented to your reader as your reading, not that of
copy-text, thus ‘[pro]mittis’. You should carry through to the end of the
text, marking all such instances.
But what about the handling of line 269? There the copy-text provides
‘solitudinem’, an error we have replaced with proper ‘solitudine’. Here
there is nothing to put in brackets; rather than augmenting the copy-text,
we have removed one letter from it. Most editors do not mark such
omissions. However, omission changes copy-text just as much as addition
does; moreover, a reader should not be left to ferret in the collations
simply to find that you have left something out in silence. Thus, I think
that you should indicate this in the text; for these purposes, I insert a ‘+’
before omissions; doing so seems to me to show honesty.113 Finally, again
in distinction with usual practice, I would mark the one transposition I
admit to the text, in line 174. Here I simply place in brackets the first
letter of illi; this mark will send interested readers to the collations, where
they can find that, although retaining copy-text D in full, I have adjusted
its word-order slightly.
Second, you will recall your irritations and difficulty at using the
collation I provided for you to work with. When we began collating
Rolle’s ‘Super Canticum’, we compared the copies and recorded their
variants in alphabetical order. This was an appropriate initial gesture
because the neutral conventionality of this ordering would prevent us
from ascribing any particular value to any copy before the evidence had
been examined. However, the process of editing the text, examining the
various witnesses, has discovered both the probable relationships among
copies and the relative value of each in determining the text.
The editorial presentation of a collation relies upon this discovery
procedure. Such a collation presents the readings of the witnesses in a
fixed order. Customarily, this is predicated upon two criteria. First, the
most useful copies should be prioritised; second, related copies should be
grouped. In the edition here, D is always presented first in the collations;
not only was Murray right to use it for copy-text as ‘most complete copy’,
but it is also the most generally reliable (although not universally perfect)
one. In collation order, D is followed by its fellow descendants from α – in
order, BCVS. In general, these are considerably less prone to vary, much
less to err, than even the most accurate copy descending from β (probably
B2). The two related copies BC are placed first, and the attenuated S
last. These are succeeded by the representatives of β, arranged in terms
of their interrelationship and the degree to which they deviate from the
edited text, viz. B2HMPLC2YL2M2 (the two copies with only ‘Super
Canticum’ 4 at the end). Some editors might present this information
in slightly abbreviated form, by assigning a single sigil to frequently
repeated erroneous groups of copies. Here LC2Y occur so frequently (and
erroneously) that one might present their combined readings simply as ε
(the sigil we assigned on p. 75 to the single hyparchtype from which all
three copies descend).114
You must undertake this conversion process carefully and recheck your
work to make sure you have not made errors reordering the sigla. If we
return to the variants for the first four lines of the text I earlier cited as
a sample of a collation (p. 44), it would now have the form:
1 a] de B diuini] divine CC2
2 vetito] vetico B2 tota] om. PLC2YL2 astrictus-] strictus- S
-que] quia M
3 in] om. PLC2YL2
4 dilabi] delabi C2Y volens] om. V labori tedioso] laboriosi
tedio M2 tediosio] tediose C mancipari] C, mancipatur

C*B2 cum] tamen BCS, -tamen cum P
But notice that we have made adjustments to the text. To continue with
the example cited above, in line 28, the text no longer reads ‘permittis’,
but ‘promittis’, and, as a consequence, we also need to adjust the collation.
We must reverse the lemma and the variant, and consequently revise the
list of copies that display a variant reading. The revised form should be
on the order of either ‘promittis] permittis DLY’, or (some editors would
prefer this more explicit extended form) ‘promittis] BCVSB2MPC2,
permittis DLY’. The latter rendition clearly indicates that the text has
been emended, and it indicates concisely all sources of the correct reading,
before passing on to the rejected form of the copy-text and a few other
copies. Were you to have made a conjectural emendation anywhere in the
text (as we did in line 102), you should use this second form to present
the evidence on which you based it (and should probably star this lemma
as reporting a reading hypothetical only and cite the exact spellings of
the variants in every copy). At this point, you will at last have a prepared
text that you are ready to send to a publisher.115
Here I would insert a final caveat, particularly important if you are
editing a prose text (verse is always lined). Your publisher’s formatting
almost certainly will not match that created in your computer files as
you transcribed, collated, and emended your copy-text. Thus, your prose
text will acquire a new lineation during the publication process. As a
result, you will be faced, during the transformation of your edition to
printed form, with some very elaborate conversion processes, and you
must perform them very carefully. (These will extend to your collation,
as well as your notes.) Most specifically, do insure that where you have
cited things like ‘et1’ in your collation, that the note has been checked
carefully against the relined text (where now there may be only one
example of ‘et’ in the line as printed – or alternatively, several examples,
among which your original ‘et1’ now is the second or third usage, and
the reference will require alteration to indicate this).
chapter 5
Annotation
Conventional discussions of textual editing pay a great deal of attention

to readings and stemmata, very little to explanation. However, the respon-
sibility of an editor extends far beyond setting his or her text. Editions
provide what are considered ‘first order research tools’, those books to
which all students go first for solutions to basic questions about the text.
On the whole, the disparity between versions of the same text edited
by various hands is not great, but editions differ markedly in terms
of their helpfulness to readers. Since you will have spent a very great
deal of time examining variants and establishing a text, you should do
everything possible to explain, both to open your text to the reader and
to provide him or her with a basic range of information that will enable
its intelligent consumption.
There are conventions governing the way in which editors present this
basic information. On the whole, by tradition, these mandate a separable
order of presentation, and there is a generally understood imperative to
avoid interpretative statements. (No edition need include anything like
a critical reading of the text; many are disparaged for having attempted
to do so.) Most particularly, annotation answers a fixed rota of tasks and
these are presented dispersed in different places in the published volume.
This piecemeal provision of explanation, which re-enforces the absence
of interpretative statements, has always seemed to me a hangover from
a Lachmannian belief that the text presented is in some way ‘objective’
or ‘scientific’. Dispersed annotation stands as a signal that no whole
consciousness has intruded between the reader and access to ‘medieval
words’. As I have indicated above, this view is silly; the text only
comes to us through a process that has required the intrusion of many
consciousnesses, at whatever level of engagement. Moreover, deciding

what deserves annotation is clearly an interpretative decision.
The most immediate level of annotation explains the constructed text
itself. This material, disposed as notes to the specific lines and words of
the edited text, has two forms. An editor must explain specific textual
difficulties that need to be drawn to the reader’s attention, including
all alterations to the copy-text, places where sets of readings might be
considered indifferent (and the copy-text followed faut de mieux), and
difficult usages of words, etc. Other notes should address problems more
overtly literary, for example identifying specific extra-textual gestures,
e.g., citations. This material, by convention, appears as a line-ordered
series of short notes (written in expository prose) following the text.
Some editors find it convenient to split the two tasks and offer two sets of
notes, one for matters purely textual, a second for citations and allusions.
We have generated the material for notes specifically textual in the
preceding chapter. There I have presented the task of establishing or
constructing a text as a heuristic search through the whole collation,
with an accompanying analysis of variation and its implications for seeing
how the text has been transmitted. To construct such notes, one needs to
extract the important moments from that chapter, most particularly the
material on difficult readings at its end, and arrange these as a numerical
sequence answering the textual presentation.
A second category of note specifically textual concerns difficult verbal
usages in the text. In the case of Rolle’s ‘Super Canticum’, and more
generally of many medieval Latin texts, this is not apt to be problematic.
(Medieval Latin is a grammatically acquired language, and ‘school
standards’ tend to govern usage.) But vernacular texts regularly throw
up oddments that will merit some extended discussion, even in the use
of very common items. For example, the possessive form ‘its’ is, by and
large, an early modern coinage for earlier his. But the Middle English
poem Patience in line 12 reads, ‘Sunderlepes for hit dissert’ (variously for
its merit) and requires some form of annotation. Although such a detail
is purely linguistic and part of the form in which the text is transmitted,
an editor needs to imagine a reader’s response and needs (your own
hesitations and confusions as you went about editing provide a useful
guide here) and attempt to fulfil these.116
The sequence of textual notes should also address the author’s extratextual
allusions. In some instances, the editor is obliged to provide readers with
the background information necessary to understand the work’s historical
context. For example, any reader of Piers Plowman passus 2–4 needs to be
a n notat ion 101
aware that Lady Meed’s flamboyant tactics probably allude to activities

of Edward III’s mistress Alice Perrers.117 Rather obviously, offering your
readers such detail requires your familiarity with a range of studies that
may be quite removed from the variant-sorting that constructed your
text.
Rolle, of course, addresses timeless religious truths, and historical
information is not particularly germane to the text we are editing here.
However, an editor should be aware of and communicate to readers a
range of religious materials that underlie ‘Super Canticum’ 4 (and that
Rolle probably expected his target audience to recognise). At least one
minimal gesture here would be to identify all Rolle’s overt biblical
citations. In her dissertation, Murray made an excellent start at this; for
example, her first five identifications include:
20 etc. Cant. 1:2; 31 Cant. 1:1 (discussed in the preceding
segment of Rolle’s text); 41 Phil. 2:10; 44 Phil. 2:6; 55 Ps. 44:8.
This material, like your commentary on textual matters, should be cited
by line notes keyed to the published version. (Here I have inserted the
references into my facing-page translation.) In medieval theological texts,
it is also conventional to offer at the rear of the book an index, in biblical
order, of all biblical citations.
But how much more must you do? One problem concerns Rolle’s
thorough internalisation of scripture, to a degree that is very easy to miss.
Murray, for example, notices allusions at line 127 to Ps. 72:26, at 194–6
to Col. 3:17 or 1 Cor. 10:31, at 205–9 to Cant. 3:1–2, and at 210–11 to
Job 28:13. An owner of the copy of The Pore Caitif in Bodley 938 made
a number of marginal notes to further allusive materials, for example at
line 181 ‘prima Petro primo Matt. 18’ (= 1 Peter 1:12, Matt. 18:10) or at
line 183 ‘Gregorius’ (= apparently, Homeliae in Evangelia 1.20.4, Patrologia
Latina 76:1161–2). In my translation, I have flagged a further example that
escaped both (line 237 echoes Matt. 6:2 and 5), and one might also cite
line 91, as an echo of the famous opening of the Meditationes ascribed to
Bernard of Clairvaux (and frequently circulating in Rolle manuscripts),
‘Multi multa sciunt et seipsos nesciunt’ (Patrologia Latina 184:485).
More extensively and seriously, how far is Rolle’s presentation here
‘original’? To what extent is he actually only recycling earlier sources?
This problem is particularly acute, given that the Song of Songs is a
much commented text and, as Renevey points out (see n. 26), the English
author had absorbed a good deal from a range of predecessors. Here
specifically one might wish to consider citing analogues from the classic
account, Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermones in Cantica; the portions broadly

relevant to the text edited here appear at Patrologia Latina 183:842–64.
(You might particularly want to note repeated detail and forms of
argument paralleled in Bernard’s sermons 14.6–8, 15.1–8, 16.2 and 13–15,
17.5–8, 18.1–6, 19.1–2 (at least). As Moyes pointed out, Rolle is particularly
apt to have known this text because he was born and his early career
associated with the neighbourhood of a great house of Bernard’s order,
the Cistercians of Rievaulx.118 But there is a further problem: Bernard
established a Cistercian tradition of commenting on the text, e.g., by
the Englishman John of Ford; and, as has been widely recognised since
Allen, at least some of Rolle’s mystical vocabulary is directly derived
from another Englishman, the canon Richard of St Victor, who also
commented the text.119
However much of this material you decide to research and include is
largely down to your capacity for hard graft and your sense of what your
readers need (and will tolerate). But if your researches become particularly
extensive, the materials you uncover may require a various dispersal.
Locutions you take to be direct echoes/reminiscences of earlier writers
will go into the specific series of textual notes, but you may also need
to prepare a more or less extensive general statement concerning Rolle’s
indebtednesses for your introduction.
And there is a broader context to consider as well. Although in the
text we are editing Rolle offers a sometimes stridently individual view
of the Christian life, he equally expects his readers to know certain
commonplaces of Christian instruction. Not all of these will be pellucid
to modern readers and probably should receive at least passing discussion
in the textual notes. If nothing else, such references might indicate to
readers the alternation between the provocative and the commonplace
that marks ‘Super Canticum’. I offer here a few examples that I hope
might be suggestive.
At line 164, Rolle claims that the name of Jesus ‘affecciones extirpat
venenosas’ (plucks up/roots out poisonous desires). This might seem
merely a bland metaphorical usage. Yet equally it is sustained by the
immediately following ‘uirtutes plantat, caritatem inserit’. Both statements
allude to a commonplace late medieval religious metaphor, that spiritual
improvement, growth in virtue, resembles the cultivation of a garden.
This metaphor might be associated with another, subject of a rather more
distanced allusion at lines 58–9, ‘donis spiritualium carismatum’ (gifts of
spiritual graces). Earlier at the head of section 3 of ‘Super Canticum’,
Rolle has the fuller allusion, ‘doctrine euangelij donis fragrant spiritus
a n notat ion 103
septiformis’ (the teachings of the gospel smell sweet with the sevenfold
gifts of the [Holy] Spirit’, D p. 133). This alludes to another vegetative
metaphor, extensively developed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
as a model of the spiritual life, ‘And there shall come forth a rod out of
the root of Jesse’ (Isaiah 11:1–3).120
This example indicates that helpful annotation relies on a broad
range of knowledge, including (at least ideally) some acquaintance with
the remainder of your author’s work. In that spirit, I adduce another
passage from elsewhere in the Canticle commentary, a place where Rolle
‘bares the device’. Early in part 7, he comments of those who wish to
join the angels in heavenly rapture, ‘Nil aliud videbantur agere, nisi
vigilijs, ieiunijs, leccionibus, et oracionibus, celestibusque meditacionibus
inseruire’ (they appeared to do nothing other than devote themselves
to vigils, fasting, holy readings and prayers, as well as meditations on
heavenly things, D p. 208). This statement actually cites (and reorders)
a famous pronouncement concerning the duties of monks. Through
the citation, Rolle effects a ‘routinisation’ of an earlier ‘charisma’. He
assumes to himself, but through himself to an audience in secular society,
a discipline earlier restricted to the cloister and cell. The citation underlies
the commentary’s heady amount of self-reference, as well as a series of
discussions attacking monastic exclusivity.121
By convention, the introduction takes up the broadest information that
situates the text, and your edition. This introductory statement typically
includes, in this order, discussions of:
The sources used in the edition, the manuscripts of the text; this
material, largely filling in detailed published accounts of many of the
books, I here defer to the Appendix. It is possible to edit texts well
without being an accomplished palaeographer, and you may wish to let
published descriptions stand in for your own detailed researches. However,
the presentation of the sources has a logic integral to the presentation of
the text; it is a general bibliographical rule that the physical form and
context in which a text has been transmitted, broadly communicated
in a manuscript description, provides evidence of potential editorial
importance.122
Ascription and dating: Here you need to explain the evidence
for ascribing the text to an author, and the place that it holds in his
oeuvre. It is particularly important that you undertake this task with
anonymous writings (for those of major authors, this information often is
simply ‘general common knowledge’). Literary history, to a large extent,
depends upon this information, as gathered and presented by editors;
for anonymous works, you should indicate as narrowly as possible the

time-range and the place from which the text appears to emerge. This
will allow scholars to assess how the text might fit into some narrative
account of the development of medieval literature generally, or of some
genre within it.
As the last paragraph implies, Rolle’s commentary on the Canticle does
not present problems in this respect. First of all, the text is authorially
signed:
Vere scio quod illi qui in congregacione et tumultu morantur
quanta dulciflua amoris suauitate qui solus est ardeat omnino
non sciunt. Et qui multum solitus est discurrere eterni amoris
dilicias penitus probatur ignorare. Ego Ricardus vtique
solitarius heremita vocatus hoc quod noui assero, quoniam
ille ardencius Deum diligit qui igne Sancti Spiritus succensus,
a strepitu mundi et \ab omni/ corporali sono quantum potest
discedit. Hec est igitur causa quare omnis vir vere contem-
platiuus iugiter solitudinem appetit (D p. 128).123
The commentary has conventionally been taken as an early, perhaps Rolle’s
initiatory, work, probably composed in the early to mid-1330s. While
Allen’s logic for this placement – biographical references to inception (here
notably lines 278–81) – probably represents a now outmoded literalism,
this dating has been widely accepted (e.g., by Watson, Richard Rolle and
the Invention of Authority).
The third task of an introduction is key in the presentation of vernacular
texts and frequently the only information that allows some placement of
their composition. Editions of such works require some discussion of
authorial language, insofar as that is recoverable. The great tool here
for Middle English is the linguistic atlas usually referred to as LALME.
Anyone seriously engaged with Middle English texts and manuscripts
needs to know how to use this monumental (yet frequently opaque)
work.124
The final three sections of the introduction should engage with subjects
already treated above. First, you must decide how extensively you wish to
treat your author’s sources and how full an account is appropriate. Next,
you must explain in a coherent form the relationship of the witnesses
to the text, and thus the relative value you ascribe to each of them.
This material will also serve as a general statement of how you have
approached editing the text.125 Finally, you must explain the protocols
that underlie the present edition, particularly the rules of presentation
a n notat ion 105
you have followed. In undertaking all these procedures, you would do

well to survey the presentations adopted by past editors (typically those
in recent EETS editions are exemplary); they will suggest to you ways
of presenting data – and indeed, categories of data you might not have
thought to present.
I have already discussed above the back matter, materials to follow the
text. This includes the one or two sequences of textual notes I have already
described. In addition, vernacular texts require a glossary, predicated on
some consistent principle. For shorter texts, the glossary customarily
forms a glossed concordance to the text,126 but more abbreviated accounts,
especially for longer works, are quite acceptable. For example, you might
enter only those words that exhibit significant changes of form or meaning
since the Middle Ages; likewise, for a very long text, you might limit
your display of readings to the first five uses (perhaps with additional
references to notes discussing any problematic later examples).
Once you have determined the scope of the glossary, you must
construct it. Conventionally, the effort begins (using either index cards
or an expansible computer file) by going through the text, entering
every word in the text, its part of speech (and as necessary, grammatical
form, e.g., the plural of nouns or the past tense of verbs), the line in
which it appears – and taking care to record all the various spellings.
You must then provide the glosses proper, definitions under each entry
that will account for every use in the text. (For this purpose, you will
have to consult other editions or a historical dictionary like the Oxford
English Dictionary or Middle English Dictionary. At least at the start, you are
probably well advised to check every word of the text; as you become
more proficient, you will be able to fill in many entries more or less
automatically.)
Given the frequent vicissitudes of vernacular spelling systems,
constructing a glossary is itself an art, and far from a mechanical procedure.
First of all, you must accommodate a medieval alphabet (Latin has only
twenty-three letters, later Middle English twenty-six, but not identical to
ours) to modern conventions. This requires that in your final version you
disambiguate medieval i and u/v and distribute the items appropriately
between modern i and j and modern u and v (and sometimes w) in your
alphabetical order. Commonplace medieval þ needs to be integrated with
th, and less frequent ȝ grouped after g. And you must follow medieval
practice and treat y, when it represents a vowel, as equivalent to i and
group only consonantal examples under y.
As a courtesy to your reader, you should present each separate word
under that form most similar to the entry in historical dictionaries and
in that form most frequent in the text. Thus, you should always by
preference head your entry with the nominative singular of nouns and
the infinitive of verbs, if these occur. Davis’s glossary to Gawain will
provide a model for the delicate balancing act each entry will probably
require. You should display all the forms that appear in the text, as well as
aligning with them all the senses appropriate to each individual usage.127
For particularly difficult or contested uses, you should probably mark your
glossary with a cross-reference to the textual note that you should already
have written on the problem. Finally, just as you have aided your reader
by citing the most common form of each word, you need also to alert
him or her through cross-references to related items and to items treated
out of alphabetical sequence. (For example, bad or bood will appear under
your entry biden ‘abide’, of which both forms represent the past tense,
and you should have a reference in the appropriate place to direct your
reader to the actual entry that discusses them.)
Conventionally, texts that include many proper names index them
separately following the glossary; and your index of biblical passages (or
more broadly of fontes, works Rolle appropriated, e.g., bits of Bernard or
Richard of St Victor), would follow at the end of the volume.128
As you are now certainly aware, editing texts is demanding, yet also
foundational and potentially exciting work. Go out and try it. Blessings.
Richard Rolle, ‘Super Canticum’ 4:
Edition, Collation, and Translation
A Note on Collations
C* = the later correcting hand of C; similarly, V* = the later
correcting hand of V
c = the compilation, e = the extract version, p = the 1536 Cologne
print, O = the Office (cited only at 283, 284, 292, 295, 297)
108 r i c h a r d r o l l e , ‘s u p e r c a n t i c u m ’ 4
Our first parent, with all his descendants, was banished from paradise
for his transgressing God’s precept about the forbidden apple, and bound
by the debt of death, he perceived himself suddenly to fall in the lowest
miseries of this world, and to be assigned to tiresome labour, whether
he wished it or not. Truly neither this man might redeem himself, nor
ought an angel, who was not a man, to have done so. It is certainly
apparent that he alone should be powerful enough to perform that
redemption who might be conceived and born as a true man without
sin, and remain without sin. If someone indeed began to seek such a
one among men, he would labour in vain, since excepting Christ, he
would find no one such.
[10] Therefore the son of God was sent into the virgin’s womb, so that
he might appear to the world having assumed flesh; and so that, having
fulfilled the mystery of the passion and the resurrection, he might draw
man, seized from the jaws of the devil, to the heavens with him. He
is therefore the single one who might redeem us lost ones, because he
exists not just as a man without sin but as eternal God as well. Dying in
human form, although without guilt, while remaining immortal in his
divinity, he justly laid low our furious enemy and, having revealed the
glory of his resurrection, by the merit of such a victory, he laid open
an entryway to the heavenly paradise for those who believe in him and
love him. Therefore the church, contemplating him and wondering at
the mercy of such goodness, says with immense joy, ‘Thy name is as oil
poured out’ (Cant. 1:2).
[20] O singular virgin, O ineffable mother, this oil is poured out
through you,
r i c h a r d r o l l e , ‘s u p e r c a n t i c u m ’ 4 109
Incipit exposicio super + secundum versiculum Cantici Canticorum. p. 147
Expulsus a paradiso pro transgressione diuini precepti in

pomo vetito primus parens cum tota posteritate sua, astrictusque
mortis debito, in infimis istius mundi miserijs subito se sensit
dilabi et volens nolens labori tedioso mancipari. Verum cum
nec seipsum homo redimere potuit nec angelus debuit, qui homo 5
non fuit, constat profecto quod ille solus hanc redempcionem
potens esset facere qui concipi et nasci verus homo sine peccato
potuit et manere. Talem quippe si quis inter homines querere
incipit, frustra laborat, quia preter | Christum nullum inuenit. p. 148
Mittitur ergo Dei filius in vterum uirginis ut assumpta 10
carne mundo appareat, et peracto passionis et resurreccionis
misterio ereptum hominem de faucibus demonis ad celestia secum
tollat. Hic est ergo solus qui nos perditos redimere potuit, quia
non tantum homo sine peccato set et Deus eternus existit. In
humanitate quamuis inculpabilis moriens set in deitate immortalis 15
permanens, iuste hostem nostrum prostrauit callidum et reuelata
resurreccionis gloria, tante victorie merito celestis paradisi
credentibus et amantibus introitum patefecit. Hunc igitur
ecclesia, intuens et tante benignitatis misericordiam admirans,
cum immenso gaudio dicit, Oleum effusum nomen tuum. O virgo 20
singularis, O mater ineffabilis, istud per te effusum est oleum,
1–110 om. Hcep

1 a] de B diuini] diuine CC2 2 vetito] vetico B2 tota] om. PLC2YL2
astrictusque] strictusque S -que] quia M 3 in] om. PLC2Y 4 dilabi] delabi
C2Y volens] om. V labori tedioso] laboriosi tedio M2 tedioso] tediose C
mancipari] C, mancipatur C*B2 cum] tamen BCS, -tamen cum P 5 nec1]
om. and non added after redimere PL2, om. LC2YM2 nec2 … debuit] om. PLC2Y,
debuit set non potuit deus autem potuit M2 5–6 nec2 … fuit] om. L2
6 ille] om. MPLC2YL2M2 ille solus] solus iste B2 7 esset] esse B2
8 potuit] after homo 7 PLC2YL2M2 et] om. L2 quis] after homines PC2L2M2,
om. Y inter] intra P 9 inuenit] inueniet YM2 10 ut] a C, corr. C*
11 peracto] peracta B2 et2] om. SLC2L2 et resurreccionis] om. M2
13 Hic … solus] Hic igitur solus est MP est] after solus B2LC2L2M2 ergo]
om. C, after solus Y quia] qui M2 14 tantum homo] trs. P et] om. BCVSP
14–15 set … set] set S 15 moriens] om. M set] om. L2 deitate] adds tamen L2
16 prostrauit] prosternit M callidum] callicum P reuelata] reuoluta B2
18 Hunc] Hinc VS 20 cum] om. PLC2YL2M2 21 singularis] singlaris S
this oil that heals humankind throughout the world! O Mary, of how
much praise are you worthy, you who have poured out not just the oil by
which we are refreshed, but also the light by which we make our way;
indeed, you have also constructed for us that joy in which we rejoice.
O merciful mother, intact virgin, who, while you long for your virgin
flower to be preserved inviolate, you conceive in your chaste organs –
and not just some man, but you bring forth God in man. O wondrous
maiden, you take a vow of virginity and, while remaining a virgin, you
are also made a mother. In truth, it is fitting for you, O lady, to seek
and to receive a kiss from the eternal king, you also who have earned
his mouth to suck from you, and truly so, ‘For thy breasts are better than
wine’ (Cant. 1:1). O blessed breasts, which the eternal creator did not
refuse to suck, and from them to draw milk, as infants customarily do. O
mother, chosen and truly glorious, with what delights you flowed when
that mouth of the eternal father applied his mouth to you, and caressed
your breasts with his tender fingers. You console the weeping one, but
you look forward to the sporting one.
[36] O wondrous mother, tell us, your servants, how much and how
great is your offspring, whom the stars serve, whom kings adore, whom
angels announce as the saviour of the world. Is he not God? Is he not both
God made from God, and light made from light, and now man made
from you, his mother? And what is his name, so great and to be wondered
at in which ‘every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on
earth, and under the earth’ (Phil. 2:10)? O tiny child to be wondered at!
quod in toto orbe terrarum sanat genus humanum. O Maria, quanta

laude es digna, que non solum oleum quo reficimur set et lumen
quo gradimur effudisti, immo et gaudium in quo letamur | nobis p. 149
edidisti. O pia mater, intacta virgo, que dum florem virgi- 25
nalem inuiolatam seruari appetis, castis concipis visceribus et
non quemcunque hominem set Deum in homine paris. O miranda
puella, virginem te esse p[ro]mittis et virgo permanens, eciam
mater efficeris. Tibi vero, O domina, congruit ab eterno rege
osculum petere et accipere, que eciam os eius meruisti lactare 30
et merito, quia meliora sunt vbera tua vino. O beata vbera que
eternus conditor non renuit sugere, et ab illis secundum morem
infancium lac haurire. O mater electa et vere gloriosa quantis
affluisti delicijs cum illud os eterni patris os suum tuo appli-
cuit et tenellis digitis mamillas contrectauit. Consolaris 35
flentem set expectas alludentem. O mater admirabilis, dic nobis
tuis seruulis quale et quantum est tuum puerperium, cui astra
deseruiunt, quem reges adorant, quem saluatorem mundi angeli
annunciant. Numquid Deus est? Vtique Deus de Deo, lumen | de p. 150
lumine, et nunc homo de te sua matre? Et quod eius nomen, tam 40
magnum et mirandum in quo omne genu flectetur celestium
terrestrium et infernorum? O mirandum paruulum! Infans
22 sanat] sanauit M2 23 es] corr. later from est B oleum] om. L2 set] om. BC
et lumen] colum est L2 lumen] lumine LY 24 gradimur] gredimur L immo]
om. L2 in] om. PLC2YL2M2 25 edidisti] om. C2, dedisti MPYL2M2
intacta virgo] trs. LC2YL2M2 virgo] om. P 25–6 virginalem inuiolatam]
inuiolata V 26 inuiolatam] inuolam B2, inviolatum P, immolatum L2, om. M2
seruari] seruare (? -ar’) BCMYM2 (clearly CMYM2) et] om. BC, ut B2
27 homine paris] nomine patris B2MPLC2YL2M2 28 virginem te] trs. P
promittis] permittis DLY et] ut B2 eciam] om. S, et B2P 29 vero] ergo Y
congruit] competit M rege] om. BC 30 que] om. L2 eciam] et SP
31 vbera tua] om. V 32 conditor] om. M2 33 infancium] infancie M2
lac] om. M 34 affluisti delicijs] delicijs (adds vere M2) affluxisti (affluvisti? P)
B2MPLC2YL2M2 illud os] om. L2 patris] adds filius L2 tuo] add ori BC
35 et tenellis] trs. M contrectauit] contractauit PC2YL2M2 Consolaris]
Consolas (with following blank space) S 37 est tuum] tu non est B, trs. C
tuum puerperium] trs. S 39 Deus2] deus est PLC2YM2, de est L2
40 te] om. SL2 matre] mat’ (= mater?) Y quod] hoc PLC2YL2M2
eius nomen] trs. BCSPLC2YL2M2 41 et] tam M mirandum] admirandum PL2
in] canc. C* flectetur] flectitur VB2PLYL2M2, flectatur M
The infant rolling about in his crib-clothes is the great God, ruling the
angels in heaven, and appearing meek so that he may save men. ‘He
thought it not robbery to be equal with God’ (Phil. 2:6). At the same
time as he fell, Satan had wished in his pride to seize equality with the
divine majesty. And now so that he may destroy pride, both human
and devilish, eternal God through a wondrous and deep mystery, is
born from a worldly mother, suffers and dies so that we may be saved.
Therefore, his name, which we seek, is shown in his deeds.
[50] O good Jesus, your deeds accord with your name. For just as you
save the condemned race of men, so is ‘your name as oil poured out’.
Anointed you have come to us so that you might anoint us, for having
anointed yourself, our head, with oil, you bring it about that we, who
are your limbs, are participants in your fullness. Hence the prophet says
appropriately, ‘God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness
above thy fellows’ (Ps. 44:8). Christ’s humanity is so abundantly anointed
with this oil, because the godhead did not disdain both to pour into us
with full spate the joy of the graces and to fully reform in us with gifts
of spiritual graces his likeness that we had besmirched.
[59] O merciful Jesus, pour this oil into our entrails; write your name
in our hearts. Since you wished your name to be called oil poured out
for us, give us that oil to taste, to love, to embrace. May this oil restore
vagiens in cunabilis est ille magnus \Deus/ angelos regens in

celis, humilis apparens vt saluet homines. Non rapinam
arbitratus est se esse equalem Deo, quemadmodum ille cadens 45
Sathanas per superbiam rapere voluerat cum diuina maiestate equali-
tatem. Et iam ut humanam et diabolicam confundat superbiam,
eternus Deus miro et profundo misterio ex temporali matre nascitur,
patitur, moritur ut nos saluemur. Ergo nomen eius quod querimus
in opere demonstratur. O bone Ihesu, secundum nomen tuum ita et 50
opus tuum. Nam vnde saluas da[m]pnatum genus humanum, inde est
oleum effusum nomen tuum. Vnctus ad nos venisti vt nos vngeres, quia
impinguato in oleo te capite nostro, nos qui membra tua sumus
plentitudinis tue facis | esse participes. Vnde per prophetam p. 151
congrue dicitur, Vnxit te Deus, Deus tuus, oleo leticie pre 55
consortibus tuis. Hoc oleo tam abundanter vncta est Christi
humanitas, quia deitas non indignit vt eciam in nobis gaudium
graciarum affluenter infunderet et donis spiritualium caris-
matum similitudinem violatam plene [re]formaret. O Ihesu pie,
infunde in visceribus nostris hoc oleum; scribe in cordibus 60
nostris nomen tuum. Cum pro nobis voluisti oleum effusum
vocari nomen tuum, da nobis illud oleum ad gustandum, ad aman-
dum, ad amplectendum. Hoc oleum nos reficiat; hoc oleum nos
43 est] om. S est ille] trs. PLC2YM2, ille et L2 Deus] a later corr. D, dominus P
44 apparens] add in terris C2YL2M2, adds homo in terris P homines] adds in
terris C* Non] non autem per P, Non autem LC2YL2M2 45 se esse] trs. M2
cadens] om. P 46 per] \qui/ per C* voluerat] voluerit PC2YL2M2 cum] in
MPC2YL2M2 47 Et1] set PL2 ut] ut et P 49 saluemur] adds \per eum/ C*
50 ita] sic BC 51 vnde] ubi P, bene M saluas] ends M2 dampnatum]
dapnatum D 52 nomen] non meum Y tuum] adds the repeated 50–2 ita …
tuum V Vnctus] Ductus L2 vngeres] om. C, and nos quia canc. C*
53 inpinguato] inpugnato L tua] adds sua C, addition canc. C* 54 plenitudinis]
plenitudine Y facis] adds facias C, facis canc. C*, facies S Vnde] Vnde et
CVSB2M 55 Deus2] om. V Deus tuus] om. M 56 vncta est] after oleo
PLC2YL2 57 quia … indignit] canc. C* deitas] ditans M eciam] om. C
58 affluenter infunderet] trs. L2 spiritualium] om. S 59 similitudinem
violatam] trs. L2 reformaret] conformaret DB 60–1 cordibus nostris] trs. L2
61–2 nomen tuum … nomen tuum] om. M 62 illud] istud V ad2] ac L2
63 ad] et C2, et ad L2 amplectendum] am|amplectendum B, amplectandum M
reficiat] perficiat V nos2] om. L2 63–4 reficiat … perficiat] reficiat M
us; may it bring us to perfection; may it anoint us; may it delight us.
However, this oil may not anoint the head of me, a sinner. O sweet
name, oil poured out, for so long as it is preached in this world, it gives
us charity, it gives us mercy, it promises us eternal salvation. Therefore
oil poured out is joy given to us, a solace we can breathe in, a help that
can dwell in us.
[69] And this is your name, and this is your work. Delightful name,
salvific work! Therefore your name is oil poured out. This oil is healing,
this oil is spiritual. This oil heals the diseased, ornaments those brought
to health, refreshes those ornamented, perfects those refreshed, draws
those perfected to heaven, glorifies those drawn, crowns those glorified
with the garment of immortality. O pleasant oil, O loveable name, with
which the whole world is sprinkled with a sweet scent – indeed, by it
heaven rejoices in pleasure. O desirable oil, for it makes not just man
but God rejoice.
[77] So why do you flee this, O man, seeking so many things? You
trouble yourself in vain about frivolities. Seek out this oil, discover this
oil, hang on to this oil, and you have all good. You should know nothing
further than that you desire this, because, having got it, you have all
that you wish. You have riches, you have delights, you have honour,
p[er]ficiat; hoc oleum nos impinguet; hoc oleum delectet. Oleum

autem peccatoris non impinguet caput meum. O dulce nomen 65
oleum effusum, quia dum in mundo predicatur, caritas nobis datur,
misericordia nobis datur, saluacio eterna promittitur. Ergo
oleum effusum est gaudium nobis datum, solacium inspiratum,
adiutorium inuisceratum. Et hoc est nomen tuum, et hoc | est p. 152
opus tuum! Nomen delectabile, opus salubre! Igitur nomen 70
tuum est oleum effusum. Hoc oleum medicinale, hoc oleum
spirituale. Oleum egrotos sanans, sanatos adornans, ornatos
reficiens, refectos perficiens, perfectos ad celum perducens,
perductos glorificans, glorificatos immortalitatis stola coronans.
O suaue oleum, O amabile nomen, quo totus mundus odore respergitur, 75
immo et quo celum suauitate iocundatur. O oleum desiderandum,
quod non solum hominem set et letificat Deum. Vt quid discurris,
O homo, querendo plurima? Frustra turbaris circa vana. Quere
hoc oleum, \reperire hoc oleum, retine hoc oleum/, et habes omne
bonum. Nescies vltra quid desideres, quia hoc te habente, omne 80
quod vis habes. Habes diuicias, habes delicias, habes honorem,
64 perficiat] proficiat D impinguet] inpungnet L oleum2] add nos

SB2PLC2YL2 64–5 impinguet … impinguet] impinguet V
65 non … meum] canc. C* impinguet] impinget B, inpungnet L
66 effusum] adds nomen tuum (expunged) L in] om. M caritas] adds plena L2
datur] C, infunditur C* 66–7 datur … datur] datur MPLC2YL2 67 datur]
paratur S, om. B2 68 effusum] add nomen tuum PLC2YL2 (after est Y)
69 et2] om. BCVL2 70 Igitur] Ergo P 71 est] om. V Hoc1 … oleum2]
Hoc M medicinale] medicinabile V 72 egrotos] egrotes BB2, egretos Y
adornans] saluauans L2 ornatos] adornatos B2 73 refectos perficiens] om. B
perficiens perfectos] om. B2 ad celum] om. M perducens] om. C, ducens C2
74 perductos] om. C, adds ad celum B, et perductos B2 stola] sue stola
PLC2YL2 76 immo] om. BC O] om. CSB2MLC2YL2 77 et] eciam B2M
Deum] ipsum deum L2 discurris] discuras B2MPC2YL2 78 querendo]
querenda Y plurima] plura LC2YL2, plra P (thus perhaps plurima?)
79 oleum1 … oleum2] oleum YM reperire] adds reptum C*, reperi PC2
reperire … oleum3] a later corr. at the page foot D retine] after oleum1 C
hoc oleum2] C, canc. C*, om. B2 hoc oleum3] om. L2 oleum3] om. M
habes] habebis PYL2 80 Nescies] Nescis S, Nesciens M ultra quid] trs. B2
quid] quem S quia] qui V omne] omnem C 81 diuicias habes] om. S
you have the company of the saints. What more indeed might the most
avid man seek, than that his appetite should be filled with abundance?
Indeed that man is blessed who has available all that he wishes. Therefore
anoint your head with this oil, and I know truly that your entire body
will rejoice.
[86] But perhaps you do not believe that what I say is true. Therefore
try it out just a bit, and you will discover that I am being truthful, for
no one knows it, unless he has received it. Therefore, conquer yourself;
conquer the devil; conquer the world, for Christ will give to one who
triumphs in this way ‘the hidden manna and a white counter, and in the
counter, a name written, which no man knoweth, but he that receiveth
it’, as it says in the Apocalypse (2:17). Many people know many things,
they have sought many things, they have owned many things, but he
alone knows the name of eternal life who receives this oil written in
charity. A faithful and devout soul is one in which this desirable name,
unknown to carnal men, is written. It is God who writes it, and it is
written by divine love. The man who passes away from this, and who
does not show that name written in his counter before the highest judge,
certainly proves himself damned – his counter not white, but dirty and
darkened.
[99] Therefore, O merciful Jesus, your name is oil poured out, so that it
may be poured out in us. And thus may the name of your image and likeness
habes sanctorum societatem. Quid amplius eciam cupidissimus

quereret, quem appetitus sui saciaret abundan|cia? Talis vtique p. 153
beatus esset cui omne suppetit quod vellet. Hoc igitur oleo
invnge caput tuum, et vere scio quod totum corpus tuum 85
letificabitur. Forsitan non credis verum esse quod dico.
Ideo experire modicum et inuenies me veracem, quia nemo illud
nouit nisi qui accepit. Vince ergo te ipsum; vince diabolum;
vince mundum, quia sic vincenti dabit Christus manna abscon-
ditum et calculum candidum et in calculo nomen scriptum, quod 90
nemo nouit nisi qui accipit, ut dicitur in Apocalipsi. Multi
multa nouerunt, multa quesierunt, multa habuerunt; set ille
solus vite eterne nouit nomen qui illud accipit scriptum
per caritatis oleum. Fidelis et deuota \anima/ est in qua illud
nomen desiderabile et a carnalibus incognitum scribitur. Deus 95
est qui scribit; diuinus amor est per quem scr[i]bitur. Qui
hinc discedit et illud nomen in suo calculo coram summo iudice
scriptum non representat, profecto ille calculus non candidus | set p. 154
immundus et obscurus dampnabilem demonstrat. Igitur O Ihesu
pie, est oleum effusum nomen tuum ut in nobis effundatur. 100
Et sic nomen ymaginis et similitudinis tue in cordibus
82 amplius eciam] ergo | amplius Y eciam] et S, om. PC2L2 cupidissimus]

cupidicius LC2, cupdicius Y, cupidius L2 83 quereret] adds nisi C* saciaret]
sanaret saciaret M, saciare Y 84 omne] nomen M suppetit] suppeteret L2
85 tuum … tuum] tuum V, and adds 85–6 tuum1 … letificabitur after
letificabitur 86 86 verum esse] omne V esse] eciam MLC2L2, om. Y
87 me] om. MY nemo illud] trs. B2 illud] istud V 88 accepit] accipit
CV, acceperit C2YL2 89 quia] adds S’ ? B sic] sic | sic C 90 calculum,
calculo] collobium, collobio PLC2YL2 91 accipit] accepit SB2MLC2, as a corr.,
app. from the correct reading Y ( from 93?) in] om. P 92 nouerunt … quesierunt]
trs. verbs P 93 qui] quia M accipit] accepit MY, acceperit PL2 94 anima] a
later corr. D anima est] trs. MPLC2YL2 95 desiderabile] desiderabilis S
a] om. S 96 amor est] trs. L2 scribitur] scribetur DVPLC2YL2 97 suo]
om. PLC2Y 98 representat] representit ? C*, presentat M ille] om.
PLC2YL2 calculus non candidus] calculum non candidum L2 99 immundus]
mundus V, \in/mundus V* immundus et obscurus] trs. adjs. PLC2Y, adds eum
P, obscurum immundum atque L2 dampnabilem] dampnabile S
99–100 Ihesu pie] trs. SYL2 100 est] om. M, after effusum LC2L2 effusum]
add est PY effundatur] infundatur BCPLC2Y 101 et2] om. P
be imprinted in our hearts to this extent, that so long as we are pilgrims

in this exile, it may continually sustain us to love you alone, to seek you
alone, and to rejoice in you alone. For here we know that this oil has
been poured out in us when our mind, burning with the heat of your
love, is delighted only by your name. This oil is poured out, not so that
it may dissipate and be wasted, but so that it may shade us from our
own fleshly fire and may make us joyful with an inner solace. Therefore
oil poured into the elect heart grows great; the name withheld grows
sweet. May it anoint the lover; may it feed the one who holds onto it.
Therefore ‘thy name is as oil poured out’.
[111] ‘Thy name is as oil poured out; therefore young maidens have
loved thee excessively’. The name of Jesus comes into the world, and
immediately oil poured out is smelled. One seizes this oil because it
offers the hope of eternal salvation. In truth, Jesus means ‘saviour’ or
‘salvation’. Then what is ‘thy name is as oil poured out’, if not ‘Jesus
is thy name’? This name is oil poured out because Jesus is the word
of God made flesh. You fulfil in work what you are called by name.
Truly, you save man, you whom we call saviour; therefore Jesus is your
name. O wonderful name! O delightful name! This is the name that is
above all names, the highest name, without which no one may hope
nostris imprimat[ur], quatinus eciam dum in hoc exilio peregrinamur

ad te solum amandum, querendum, et in te solo letandum iugiter
nos sustollat. Hinc namque scimus quod hoc oleum in nobis
effunditur quando mens feruore amoris tui ardens in solo tuo 105
nomine delectatur. Effunditur oleum non ut euanescat et
consumatur, set ut nos ab estu carnali obumbret et interno
solacio letificet. Grandescit ergo oleum infusum in cor
electum; dulcescit nomen retentum. Inpinguat diligentem;
depascit retinentem. Ergo oleum effusum nomen tuum. 110
Oleum effusum nomen tuum; ideo adolescentule dilexerunt te
nimis. Nomen Ihesu venit in mundum et statim [o]doratur oleum
effusum. Oleum capitur quia eterna saluacio | speratur. Ihesus p. 155
vero, id est saluator uel salutare. Quid est ergo oleum
effusum nomen tuum, nisi Ihesus est nomen tuum? Hoc nomen est 115
oleum effusum, quia Ihesus verbum [Dei] est incarnatum. Imples in
opere quod uocaris in nomine. Vere saluas hominem tu quem
vocamus saluatorem; ergo Ihesus est nomen tuum. O nomen
admirabile! O nomen delectabile! Hoc est nomen quod est
super omne nomen, nomen altissimum, sine quo non speret quis 120
102 *imprimatur] imprimat DBVSB2M, imprimetur C, imprimas PLC2YL2

eciam] om., blank space S, et MP hoc exilio] hoc seculo PYL2, seculo LC2
103 letandum] letabundum V in] om. Y solo] solum SPL2 104 namque]
adds ergo P scimus] simus V, s\c/imus V* hoc] om. BVCSB2 in] om. PLC2YL2
105 effunditur] effusum dicitur BC, infunditur PLC2YL2 amoris tui] trs.
PLC2YL2 solo tuo] trs. PC2YL2 106 delectatur] delectetur PY Effunditur]
Effundit MPC2Y, Effudit L2 non ut] trs. Y 107 interno] in tuo BVC
108 ergo] igitur S infusum] effusum PC2YL2 110 oleum … tuum] om. BC
nomen] om. C2 internal rubrics: Incipit tractatus eiusdem super oleum effusum
nomen tuum B2, Capitulum C2, a large capital Y 111–298 om. S
111 effusum] adds est L2 tuum] add et BC 112 et] om. B2 odoratur (in
Le only)] adoratur DCVB2HMC2YL2, oderatur B, adoletur P 113 effusum]
infusum B2 speratur] corr. later from operatur C2 114 id est] om. LC2YL2
salutare] adds dicitur LC2YL2 ergo] om. H 115 tuum … tuum] tuum P
116 verbum Dei est (in VLC2YL2 only)] verbum est D, est verbum dei
BCB2HMPce, est verbum p est incarnatum] trs. L2 Imples] implens
CVB2HMPC2YL2ce 117 uocaris] inuocaris C2, vocatur MPc saluas] saluans
Mc tu] om. B2HMcep 118 vocamus] uocas B2 120 super] supra c
nomen2] om. H (nomen | altissimum) speret] sperat L2
for salvation. This name is pleasant and joyous, offering the human heart
true solace.
[122] Moreover, the name of Jesus is a jubilee-song in my mind, a
heavenly sound in my ear, a honey-flowing sweetness in my mouth. So
it is no wonder if I love that name that offers me consolation in every
hardship. I would not know how to pray or how to meditate, were the
name of Jesus not resounding in me. I know no joy that is not mixed
with Jesus. Anywhere I have been, wherever I have sat, whatever I have
done, the memory of the name of Jesus does not withdraw from my
mind. ‘I have put it as a seal upon my heart, and as a seal upon my arm,
for love is strong as death’ (Cant. 8:6). Just as death annihilates all men,
so love conquers all things. Eternal love has conquered me, not so that it
might kill me, but so that it might give me life. And what’s more, it has
wounded me so that it might heal me; it has pierced my heart so that it
might be healed to its very depths. And now conquered, I succumb to it;
I scarcely live because of my joy. I nearly die, because in my corruptible
flesh I am not strong enough to sustain such abundant pleasure of so
great a majesty. The most delightful sweetness glides into my mind and,
so long as it makes it drunk, my flesh fails. My soul may not fail of its
strength, so long as it is seized with such joys in rejoicing.
[138] But whence does this joy come to me, if not from Jesus? The
name of Jesus taught me to sing, and it illuminated my mind with the
heat of uncreated light. Hence I sigh and I call out, ‘Who will tell the
salutem. Hoc nomen est suaue et iocundum, humano cordi verum

prebens solacium. Est autem nomen Ihesu in mente mea cantus
iubileus, in aure mea sonus celicus, in ore meo dulcor mellifluus.
Vnde non mirum, si illud diligam nomen quod michi in omni angustia
prestat consolamen. Nescio orare, nescio meditari, nisi resonante 125
Ihesu nomine. Non sapio gaudium quod Ihesu non est mixtum. Quo-
cunque fuero, vbicunque sedero, quicquid egero, memoria nominis
Ihesu a mente mea non recedit. Posui illud ut signaculum super
cor meum, ut | signaculum super brachium meum, quia fortis est ut p. 156
mors dileccio. Sicut mors omnes perimit, ita amor omnia 130
vincit. Deuicit me eternus amor, non ut me occidat set ut
viuificet. Attamen uulnerauit me ut mederetur; transfixit
cor meum ut medullitus sanetur. Et iam victus succumbo; vix
viuo pre gaudio. Pene morior, quia non sufficio in carne
coruptibili tante maiestatis perferre tam affluentem suauitatem. 135
Illabitur menti mee dulcedo deliciosissima et dum inebriat illam,
cadit caro. Non potest non a sua uirtute deficere dum tantis
gaudijs rapitur anima iubilare. Set vnde michi iste iubilus,
nisi quia Ihesus? Nomen Ihesu me canere docuit, et feruore in-
create lucis mentem illustrauit. Inde suspiro, clamo, Quis 140
121 nomen est] trs. HMPce nomen … iocundum] est nomen etiam
iucundum p est suaue] trs. LC2YL2 122 nomen Ihesu] Iesus Mp cantus]
adds et L2 123 celicus] celitus M 124 Vnde] ut C2YL2 diligam nomen]
trs. p in omni] omnium B omni] om. H 125 prestat consolamen] prebet
solacium H ( from 122) consolamen] solamen B2MPLcep, solacium C2Y
126 Ihesu nomine] trs. M Ihesu2] after est B2HMPcep 127 vbicumque]
quocunque B2Hcp memoria] in memoria Y 128 mea] om. He recedit]
recedat c ut] in B2H signaculum] Angulum P 129 cor … super] om. V
cor … brachium] om. C meum1] me B ut1] in H, om. LC2YL2, et ut p
est] om. BCLC2YL2 130 mors omnes] trs. Hp 131 Deuicit] Deuincit B2
me1] om. P ut me] trs. LC2L2, me ut | ut Y 132 Attamen] actum B2 ut] ut
michi P mederetur] moderetur H 133 sanetur] sanaretur PLC2YL2 victus]
utus (corr. later) C2 134 viuo] vio B2 pene] et pene B2HMPcp sufficio]
sufficam ? B 135 perferre] proferre B2HPYce, after affluentem LC2Y
affluentem] effluentem B2 136 deliciosissima] dulciosissima B2 137 cadit
caro] trs. PLC2YL2, adds enim P non2] om. B2He, after virtute p 138 iste
iubilus] est iubilus iste H 139 quia] qui VC Ihesus] adds Vel P Ihesu me]
om. p feruore] feruorem c 140 suspiro] suspirans p suspiro clamo] trs. LC2Y,
clamo inde suspiro L2 clamo] et clamo H
beloved that I languish for love’ of Jesus (Cant. 5:8)? My flesh fails, and
my heart melts in love, in desiring Jesus. My whole heart, planted firmly
in the desire for Jesus, is turned into the fire of love, and it is soaked
with the sweetness of the godhead to its core. Here, O good Jesus, have
mercy upon the miserable one; reveal yourself to the languishing one;
heal the wounded one. If you should come, I will be healthy. I do not
feel that I am sick, except in my languishing for your love. My spirit
breathes seeking Jesus, whom it loves; it is seized by his love, whom alone
it desires. For my mind, touched by the highest sweetness, pants so that
it may grow hot with love of its creator, so long as it strives to retain
continuously the sweetest name of Jesus within it. Here indeed violent
love rises up, and whatever it truly touches, it nearly seizes to itself. This
love sets the emotions on fire, it binds thought, but in addition it draws
the whole man to its service.
[153] Truly, Jesus, your name is desirable, loveable, and comforting.
Such pleasant joy may not be conceived, so sweet a song may not be
heard, nor may one meditate upon so delightful a solace. Therefore,
whoever you are who prepare yourself to love God, if you wish neither
to deceive nor to be deceived, if you wish to know and not to lack
knowledge, if you wish to stand and not fall, remember to hold this
name Jesus in your memory continually. Your enemy will fall while you
nunciabit dilecto quia amore Ihesu langueo? Deficit caro mea

et cor meum liquescit in amore desiderando Ihesum. Cor | totum p. 157
in desiderio Ihesu defixum in igne amoris conuertitur et
dulcore deitatis funditus absorbetur. Hinc, O bone Ihesu,
miserere miseri; ostende te languenti; medere uulnerato. Si 145
veneris, sanus sum. Infirmum me non sencio, nisi languens
amore tuo. Respirat animus meus Ihesum querens, quem diligit,
cuius amore capitur, quem solum concupiscit. Anhelat namque
mens superno dulcore tacta amore conditoris incalescere, dum
nomen Ihesu dulcissimum in se iugiter nititur retinere. Hinc 150
quippe vehemens amor insurgit et quodcunque vere tangit penitus
ad se rapit. Inflammat affectum, ligat cogitacionem, set et
totum ad suam seruitutem trahit hominem. Vere Ihesu desiderabile
est nomen tuum, amabile et confortabile. Non potest tam suaue gaudium
concipi, non potest tam dulce canticum audiri, nec tam delectabile 155
solacium me|ditari. Igitur quicunque es qui ad amandum Deum te p. 158
preparas, si vis nec decipi nec decipere, si vis sapere et non
desipere, si vis stare et non cadere, hoc nomen Ihesu in
memoria iugiter memento tenere. Hostis cadet, tu stabis; hostis
141 nunciabit] annunciabit B2MPC2cep dilecto] adds meo B2MPcep

Ihesu] om. C2YL2 Ihesu langueo] trs. L 141–2 amore … amore] amore V
caro … meum] trs. phrs. BC 143 defixum] fixum P igne] ignem PLY
conuertitur] corr. by erasure ( from conuertuntur?) V 144 dulcore] dulore C,
dulcor P deitatis] diuinitatis B2HMPL2cep funditus] funditur M absorbetur]
absorbebitur BC Hinc] om. BC and adds igitur after Ihesu B 145 miserere]
misereri Y medere] et medere Y 146 veneris] venis p sum] ero cum P
languens] languentem p 147 tuo] om. P 148–9 namque mens] trs. Y
149 superno dulcore] trs. C2YL2 dulcore tacta] om. c incalescere] incalescit
B2HML2cep 150 Ihesu] repeats C 151 quippe] om. C, que C*
quodcunque] quemcunque Y 152 affectum] affeccionem LC2YL2
et] om. B 153 seruitutem] uirtutem C2YL2 hominem] after totum B2HMPce,
after suam p 154–5 tam … audiri] tam dulce canticum audiri (audire H) tam
suaue gaudium (om. Hcep) concipi B2HPcep 155 dulce] dulcis ? BC
canticum] canti|cum D, cantus C, cantum LY nec] nec with mark of
abbreviation M 157 et non] nec C2YL2 158 desipere] decipere CB2HPYc
159 iugiter] after memento BC, after Ihesu 158 B2M, om. LC2YL2 memento
tenere] trs. MLC2YL2 tenere] retinere BCMLC2YL2c, adds memento Hce
cadet] cadit HMce
will stand; your enemy will grow weak while you become strong. And
if you choose to do this faithfully, without doubt you will be a glorious
and praiseworthy conqueror. Therefore seek the name of Jesus; hold on
to it, and you will not forget it. For nothing else extinguishes flames,
however savage, or destroys evil thoughts, plucks up poisonous desires,
exiles from us over-elaborate and vain pursuits. This name Jesus, if you
hold it faithfully in mind, uproots vices, plants virtues, sows charity,
pours in a taste of heavenly things, lays waste to discord, re-establishes
peace, shows an inner peace, obliterates completely the trouble of fleshly
desires, turns all earthly things into distastefulness, fills the lover with
spiritual joy, so that it may justly be said, ‘And all they that love thy
name shall glory, for thou wilt bless the just’ (Ps. 5:12–13).
[171] Hence indeed the righteous man deserved to be blessed, since
he loved the name of Jesus truly. But he is also called righteous, because
he tried to love Jesus faithfully. Therefore, what may be lacking for
the man who continuously desires to love the name of Jesus fully?
Indeed he loves and he desires to love, because we know that the love
of God to consist of this process, that ever the more that we have loved,
the more fully we burn to love. Hence it is said, ‘They that eat me,
debilitatur, tu fortificaberis. Et si hoc fideliter facere volu- 160

eris, proculdubio gloriosus et laudabilis victor eris. Quere
ergo nomen Ihesu; tene illud et non obliu[i]scaris illius. Nichil
enim ita seuas extinguit flammas, cogitaciones destruit malas,
affecciones extirpat venenosas, occupaciones a nobis alienat
curiosas et vanas. Hoc nomen Ihesu fideliter in mente retentum 165
vicia eradicat, uirtutes plantat, caritatem inserit, saporem
celestium infundit, discordiam vastat, pacem reformat, quietem
internam exhibet, carnalium desideriorum molestiam prorsus delet,
omnia terre|na vertit in fastidio, amantem spiritali replet p. 159
gaudio ut merito dicatur, Et gloriabuntur omnes qui diligunt 170
nomen tuum, quoniam tu benedices iusto. Inde igitur iustus
benedici meruit, vnde nomen Ihesu veraciter amauit. Set et
ideo iustus dicitur, quia Ihesum fideliter diligere conabatur.
Quid ergo [i]lli potest deficere qui nomen Ihesu incessanter
cupit adamare? Amat autem et amare desiderat, quia tali modo 175
amorem Dei consistere nouimus quod quanto plus amauerimus,
tanto amplius amare inardemus. Dicitur enim, Qui me edunt,
160 debilitatur] debilitabitur CVHPLC2YL2ce tu] et tu B hoc] hec C2

facere] om. V 161 proculdubio … eris] om. C gloriosus] graciosus P
162 tene] et tene V et] om. Y non] ne B2Hp obliuiscaris] a minim short D
163 extinguit flammas] trs. L2 destruit malas] trs. L2 164 affecciones]
effecciones H extirpat venenosas] trs. LC2YL2 alienat] after vanas 165 L2
164–5 venenosas … vanas] venenosas occupationes (v. o. trs. p) curiosas et vanas
a nobis alienat Hp 165 in mente] om. C2YL2 167 celestium infundit] trs. P
168 internam] eternam MLC2YL2 169 omnia] adds autem p terrena …
fastidio] terrena in fastidium vertit HML2, in fastidia (fastidium ce) vertit Pce,
omne (adds terrenorum later in margin) fastidium uertit C2, omnium terrenorum
fastidium vertit Y vertit] after fastidio B2p in] om. C fastidio] fastidium V
amantem] amat B2H spiritali] spiritari V 170 gaudio] after spiritali 169
B2Hep Et] om. LC2YL2 omnes] in te omnes B2HMPL2cep 171 nomen
tuum] trs. C2 tuum] adds domine Y igitur] ergo CB2HPce 172 nomen
Ihesu] trs. P et] eciam B2, om. LC2YL2 173 conabatur] conabitur V,
conatur B2HMPcep 174 illi potest] trs. D 175 adamare] amare
B2HMPLC2YL2cep amare] amari c 176 nouimus] agnouimus B2HPcep
quod] quia VLC2Y amauerimus] amamus BC 177 amplius] plus Hp, autem
plus LC2Y, autem L2 amare] amore p inardemus] inardescimus PL2 me
edunt] trs. B2HMPC2YL2cep
yet hunger; and they that drink me, yet thirst’ (Ecclus. 24:29).
[178] Therefore the love of Jesus is delightful and desirable in itself.
Therefore the delight will not depart from the man who desires to love
continuously the one whom angels delight to see before them. The angels
always see God, and they always desire to see him, because they are
fulfilled in such a way that their fullness does not take away their desire,
and they desire in such a way that their desire does not take away their
fullness. This is full joy; this is fulfilled joy; this is glorious joy, by which
we fulfilled will enjoy in perpetuity and without distaste and by which
we enjoying will be fulfilled without any diminution forever. Therefore
‘All they that love thy name shall glory’. They will be glorified both in
the present through the infusion of grace, and in the life to come by the
vision of glory. And thus they will be glorified because they love your
name. Truly, if they had not loved, they would also be unable to be
glorified. And those who love more will rejoice more, for glory develops
out of love. Therefore the man who does not love will be eternally
deprived of glory.
[192] Here there are many wretched worldlings who believe that they
will rejoice with Christ. But because they do not love the name of Jesus,
they will lament without end. Whatever you have done, even if you
have given everything you have to the poor, unless you have loved the
name of Jesus, you labour in vain. For only those are able to rejoice in
Jesus who have loved him in this present life. However, there is no doubt
adhuc esuriunt; et qui me bibunt, adhuc siciunt. Ergo per se

delectabilis et desiderabilis est amor Ihesu. Non igitur gaudium
illi deerit qui illum in quem angeli desiderant prospicere 180
iugiter amare cupit. Angeli semper vident, et semper videre
desiderant, quia sic saciantur vt sacietas non tollat desiderium
et sic desiderant | ut desiderium non tollat sacietatem. Hoc est p. 160
gaudium plenum, hoc gaudium consummatum, hoc gaudium gloriosum, quo
saciati sine fastidio fruemur perenniter et quo fruentes 185
sine diminucione saciabimur sempiterne. Ergo gloriabuntur
omnes qui diligunt nomen tuum. Vtique gloriabuntur in presenti
per gracie infusionem, in futuro per glorie visionem. Et
ideo gloriabuntur, quia nomen tuum diligunt. Profecto si non
diligerent, eciam gloriari nequirent. Et qui plus diligunt 190
plus gaudebunt, ex dileccione namque procedit gloria. Ergo qui
non diligit expers glorie eternaliter erit. Hinc multi mundanorum
miseri putantes se cum Christo gaudere, set quia nomen
Ihesu non diligunt, dolebunt sine fine. Quicquid egeritis, et
si omnia que habetis egenis dederitis, nisi nomen Ihesu dilexeritis, 195
frustra laboratis, nam soli tales in Ihesu letari poterunt
qui in hac presenti vita illum amauerunt. Qui autem se | vicijs p. 161
178 esuriunt] esurient B2MPLC2YL2p (abbreviated and ambiguous BCH)

me] om. C2 me bibunt] trs. BCB2HPL2cep, bibent me Y siciunt] sicient
B2MPLC2YL2p (abbreviated and ambiguous BCH) se] om. Y 179 delectabilis,
desiderabilis] delectabile, desiderabile p amor] nomen Hp igitur] ergo BCHc
180 illi] om. p in] om. H quem] quo L2 181 semper2] om. H 182 quia]
et P sacietas … desiderium] desiderunt H, desiderant ce, desiderent p
184 gaudium plenum] trs. Y gaudium2 … gaudium3] gaudium V hoc2] hoc
est MY 185 sine fastidio] after perenniter LC2YL2 fruemur] perfruemur
B2HMPcep et] in B2HPce, om. p fruentes] perfruentes B2Hp, fruente
LC2YL2 186 diminucione] fastidio p saciabimur] repeats over line boundary LY,
repeats L2 Ergo] Igitur B2, om. Hp 187 diligunt … presenti] om. M
188 gracie] glorie LC2L2, \gracie/ (later) H infusionem] add et BCMLC2YL2
189 quia] qui B2HC2Yce, omnes qui L2 nomen tuum] after diligunt
B2HMPcep 190 eciam] et L2c 191 namque] om. V Ergo] Igitur B
192 eternaliter] eternalis Pc erit] after expers Y, after glorie L2 mundanorum]
modernorum P 193 set] om. BCp 194 diligunt] diligant L2 egeritis]
egerimus L2 195 egenis] om. BC 196 nam] non H, Ideo p soli tales] trs.
L2 in] om. V letari] after tales B2HMPcep 197 hac] om. Y presenti vita]
trs. H
whether those who soil themselves in vices and poisonous delights are
exiled from the glory of God. And so everyone should understand that
because the name of Jesus is salvific, it is also fructuous, and glorious.
Therefore who will be saved who does not love salvation? Or who
will carry the fruit in Christ’s presence who has not had the flower?
Therefore the man who has not loved the glorifying name of Jesus will
not see glory. The impious will be borne away lest he should see the
glory of God. In contrast, the righteous seek glory and life, and they
find it in Jesus whom they have loved.
[205] I rambled about through the desire for riches, and I did not find
Jesus. I walked through the whirlpool of delights, and I did not find
Jesus. I ran through the lust of the flesh, and I did not find Jesus. I sat
with the crowd of those who enjoy themselves, and I did not find Jesus.
In all these situations, I sought Jesus, and I did not find him, because I
discovered through his grace that he is not found in the land of those
who live in delights.
[211] Therefore I turned into another way, and I rambled through
poverty, and I found Jesus, born a poor man in this world, set in a
cradle and wrapped in cloths. I walked through the endurance of
harsh things, and I found Jesus, tired from his journey; afflicted with
hunger, thirst, and cold; soaked with reproaches and insults. I sat
alone, making myself a solitary, and I found Jesus fasting in the desert,
et venenosis delectacionibus inquinant, nulli dubium quin a

gloria Dei expulsi sunt. Cognoscant itaque vniuersi quia
nomen Ihesu salutiferum, est fructuosum et gloriosum. Quis 200
ergo habebit salutem qui non amat illam? Aut quis coram Christo
portabit fructum qui non habuit florem? Ergo nec gloriam
videbit qui nomen Ihesu glorificans non dilexit. Tolletur impius
ne videat gloriam Dei. Iusti quippe gloriam et vitam querunt
et inueniunt illam in Ihesu quem dilexerunt. Circuiui per diuici- 205
arum cupidinem et non inueni Ihesum. Ambulaui per d[el]iciarum
voraginem et non inueni Ihesum. Cucurri per carnis lasciuiam et
non inueni Ihesum. Sedi cum multitudine gaudencium et non inueni
Ihesum. In hijs omnibus quesiui Ihesum et non inueni illum,
quia innotuit michi per suam graciam quod non inuenitur in terra 210
suauiter viuencium. Diuerti ergo per aliam viam et | circuiui p. 162
per paupertatem et inueni Ihesum, pauperem in mundo natum, in
presepio positum et pannis inuolutum. Ambulaui per asperorum
toleranciam et inueni Ihesum itinere fatigat[u]m, fame, siti,
frigore afflictum, opprobrijs et contumelijs saturatum. Sedebam 215
solus, faciens me solitarium, et inueni Ihesum in deserto ieiunantem,
198 venenosis] after se 197 HPcep, after delectacionibus M 199 Dei] de V,

de\i/ V* itaque] vtique B2HYp 200 fructuosum] om. (est|et) V
201 illam] illum B Christo] deo B2HMPLC2YL2cep 202 Ergo] Igitur B2
nec gloriam] gloriam non B2HPLC2YL2cep 203 videbit] habebit p qui]
nisi H glorificans] glorificatus Hp non] om. B2H Tolletur] Vnde dicitur
Tolletur p impius] ipsius V, corr. by erasure and rewriting mark of abbreviation V*
204 quippe] quidem B2HMPLC2L2cp, quidam Y gloriam] adds dei L2
205 in] om. c Circuiui] Circui B2, a large capital as punctuation Y
206 cupidinem] cupiditatem B2HMPLC2YL2ce deliciarum] diuiciarum DC2Y
206–7 Ambulaui … Ihesum] om. V 206–8 in the order Sedi … Ambulaui …
Cucurri HLC2YL2 (H om. the third), Cucurri … Ambulavi … Sedi Pce
207 Cucurri] Circuiui V 207–8 Cucurri … Ihesum] om. H 209 hijs
omnibus] trs. B2Hp omnibus] iob3 ? B et] set V 210 michi] om. B2 suam
graciam] trs. H inuenitur] inuenietur LYL2 211 suauiter] om. H Diuerti]
adds me e ergo] adds me C, igitur p aliam] illam Y circuiui] quesiui
B2HMPLC2YL2cep 212 per] om. H Ihesum] illum H 213 presepio]
presepe B2Y et] in BCB2c, om. Hp 214 itinere] in itinere PY fatigatum]
fatiga|tam D 215 frigore] et frigore Hcp afflictum] adds et Y 216 in
deserto] om. LC2YL2, indefesse p
praying alone in the mountain. I ran through pain and penance, and I
found Jesus bound, scourged, wounded, given gall to drink, fixed to the
cross, hanging from the cross, dying on the cross. Therefore Jesus is not
to be found among rich men, but among poor ones; not among those
who delight, but among the penitent; not among the lustful and those
who enjoy themselves, but in harsh circumstances and among those who
weep; not in a crowd, but in solitude.
[223] So the evil man does not find Jesus, because he does not seek
him where he is; he tries to seek Jesus in the joy of this world, where
he is never found. O worldlings and wretched men of flesh, you have
truly failed to gain the joy of God and, deceived by demonic trickery,
you neither look for blessed hope, nor desire the coming of the glory of
the great God. But you will justly be subjected to eternal death, because
you seek here the life that you know you are unable to have here. Your
eyes are blinded; rather, the devil has torn them completely out, because
you do not believe the thing that you see, when you recognise that
you are a dying thing and nevertheless do not fear death. You are in
confusion, for God has rejected you. You have made yourselves cursed,
detestable, abominable. All the holy angels and lovers of Christ will be
filled with immense joy, when that whole reprobate troop of yours is
condemned to eternal fire.
in monte solu[m] orantem. Cucurri per penam et penitenciam et

inueni Ihesum ligatum, flagellatum, uulneratum, felle potatum,
cruci affixum, in cruce pendentem, in cruce morientem. Ergo
Ihesus non inuenitur in diuitibus set in pauperibus, non in 220
deliciosis set in penitentibus, non in lasciuis et gaudentibus
set in amaris et flentibus, non in multitudine set in solitudine.
Malus vtique Ihesum non inuenit, quia vbi est illum non querit; in
mundi enim gaudio Ihesum querere nititur ubi nunquam inuenitur.
O mundani et carnales miseri, | vere frustrati estis a gaudio Dei 225 p. 163
et fraude decepti diabolica, non expectantes beatam spem nec
cupientes aduentum glorie magni Dei, set merito eternam mortem
paciemini, quia hic vitam queritis quam scitis non posse hic
haberi. Excecati sunt oculi [vestri]; immo pocius diabolus illos plene
eruit, quia nec hoc quod videtis creditis, quando morientem 230
cernitis et tamen mortem non timetis. Confusi estis, quoniam
Deus spreuit vos. Maledicti, execrati, abhominabiles facti
[estis]. Omnes angeli sancti et amatores Christi immenso gaudio
replebuntur, quando ille totus cetus vester reprobus eterno igni
217 monte] mo te Y solum] solus DBV, oliueti H orantem] adorantem Y,

orantem adorantem L2 penitenciam] V* by erasure, original uncertain
218 ligatum] om. B2, adds et Y uulneratum] et uulneratum H 219 cruci
affixum] cru|cifixum V, crucifixum C2YL2 in2] et in H in cruce2] et P
Ergo] om. H 220 non inuenitur] trs. BC non2] non enim Y 221 set]
om. C 222 et] et in Y solitudine] solicitudine Y 223 vtique] quidem H,
itaque c 224 querere] querens P inuenitur] inuenietur BCVP (in|uenietur
V) 225 O] a large capital as punctuation Y a] om. BCH 226 decepti] de
decepti Y decepti diabolica] trs. L2 227 cupientes] cupientem Y
eternam mortem] trs. B2HMPcep 228 quia] qui C2Y quia hic] trs. Y hic
vitam] trs. BC queritis] sequimini M quam] quem L2 hic2] after scitis
VB2HMPC2YL2cep 229 Excecati] adds enim M oculi vestri] oculi DV,
vestri oculi BC pocius diabolus] trs. BC diabolus illos] trs. B2 illos] eos YL2
plene] om. H, after nec 230 YL2 229–30 illos … nec] eos eruit qui nec plene
LC2 230 eruit] erunt V, corr. by erasure V* quia] qui Y nec] adds plene P
creditis] om. Y quando] quoniam B morientem] morientes cotidie L2
231 et tamen mortem] tamen H quoniam] quando Y 232 spreuit]
spernit ? HY execrati] adds et H, excecati Y, excaecati et p 232–3 facti estis]
om. V 233 estis] om. D Omnes] adds autem B immenso] in menso Y
234 totus] om. B2 totus cetus] trs. Hp vester] vere B2Hp igni] igne M
[235] Woe to you rich men, woe to you proud men, woe to you
lecherous men, finally woe to all of you wishing to sin, for behold, your
reward will be given you. From the beginning of the world, the torment
of hell is prepared for you. Truly, I know that you are not able not to
descend into it, because neither the promise of the joy of heaven nor the
threat of hellish torment may call you back from that perverse behaviour
of yours. Therefore you say ‘we will be saved’ in vain, since you never
stop hating him, without whom you cannot have salvation. Therefore the
name of Jesus brings salvation and must necessarily be loved by anyone
who desires to be saved. For whoever does not love Jesus – and he also
clearly lacks faith – and who considers himself to be saved accuses himself
as worthy of damnation.
[246] Accordingly, one should note that there are three strengths of
love, that is to seek him whom we ought to love; to entreat so that we
may be heard; and to persevere in love. Therefore let us seek Jesus, but
in that path by which he is found, not in the joy of the world, but in
the church of God. Let us seek him through penance, through voluntary
poverty, through lowness and meekness, for truly this is the path in which
he is found. And having found Jesus, so that we may love and be loved
faithfully, let us entreat him in our heart through holy meditation, in our
mouth through devout and eager prayer, in our hands through proper and
dampnatur. Ve vobis diuitibus, ve uobis superbis, ve uobis 235

luxuriosis, ve denique omnibus peccare volentibus, quoniam
ecce vobis merces redd[e]tur. Infernale tormentum ab origine
mundi vobis preparatur. Vere scio quod non potestis in illud
non descendere, quia ab illa vestra praua consuetudine | nec p. 164
gaudium celi nec tormentum inferni vos possunt reuocare. Vt 240
quid ergo frustra dicitis ‘Saluabimur’, cum illum odire non
desinitis sine quo salutem habere non potestis. Est igitur
nomen Ihesu salutiferum et necessario ab omni saluacionem
cupiente diligendum. Qui namque Ihesum non amans se saluari
reputat, profecto eciam fide carens, seipsum dampnabilem 245
accusat. Proinde notandum est quod tres sunt vires amoris:
querere videlicet quem amare debemus; exorare ut exaudiamur; et
perseuerare in amore. Queramus ergo Ihesum, set in via qua
inuenitur, non in solacio mundi set in ecclesia Dei. Queramus
eum per penitenciam, per paupertatem voluntariam, per humili- 250
tatem et mansuetudinem, quia vere hec est via in qua in-
uenitur. Inuento autem Ihesu, ut fideliter amemur et amemus,
exoremus eum in corde per sanctam meditacionem, in ore per
deuotam et ardentem oracionem, in manibus per rectam et bonam
235 dampnatur] damnabitur B2HMPLC2YL2cep 235–6 superbis …

luxuriosis] trs. nouns YL2 236 luxuriosis] adds ue uobis superbis C2 luxuriosis
… peccare] peccare B2p denique … peccare] uobis peccare HPYL2ce, peccare
LC2 237 ecce … merces] merces vobis BC, ecce merces vobis M reddetur]
redditur DV 238 preparatur] paratum B2Hcep, preparatum MPLC2YL2
239 vestra] om. B2HPLC2YL2cep praua] om. BC 240 possunt] possit M,
potest p 241 ergo] om. V, igitur p frustra dicitis] trs. H saluabimur]
subsanabimur P illum] illud B2Hp 243 necessario] necessarium B2HPYL2ce
ab] om. B2p saluacionem] saluacione V 244 cupiente] cupienti ad B2p, adds
ad H, cupientemque Y 245 profecto] perfecto B2, pro facto ? C2 246 est]
om. B sunt] om. BC 247 debemus] demus B, debes B2 videlicet] scilicet BC
exaudiamur] audiamur Yc 248 ergo] igitur p set] om. BC, scilicet Hp
via qua] quali via L2 qua] in qua Pc, quali LC2Y 249 inuenitur] adds
Inuento autem Ihesu ( from 252) V solacio] solacione H 250 eum] ergo eum L2
paupertatem] paupertem B2 per2] et HMp 251 et] per B2HPYL2e hec est]
after quia p est via] trs. ce in] om. B2HMC2cep (cf. 248) 252 amemur et]
amemur B2Me, ametur HLC2YL2c et amemus] trs. P amemus] adds et C
253 eum] om. L2, enim p 254 rectam et bonam] trs. adjs. M
good works. Concerning the first it is said: ‘With my whole heart I have
sought after thee, etc.’ (Ps. 118:10). Concerning the second: ‘I have cried
to the lord with my voice, and he hath heard me from his holy hill’ (Ps.
3:5). Concerning the third: ‘I sought God with my hands lifted up to
him in the night, and I was not deceived’ (Ps. 76:3). And having sought
and found Jesus in this way, let us persevere with him in true charity
and proven patience, so that we fix our whole heart constantly in Jesus,
our creator and redeemer. And so long as we do so, having conquered
the diseases of the world and the flesh, we may taste pleasantly the joy of
the highest contemplation, so that we may justly say with the psalmist:
‘Let all that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee; and let such as love
thy salvation say always, The Lord be magnified’ (Ps. 39:17).
[265] Truly he who loves God’s salvation tirelessly preserves the name
of Jesus in himself. Nor indeed do I wonder if a tempted man should
fall, if he does not place the name of Jesus in his long-lasting memory.
It’s no wonder that the man who chooses the name of Jesus as special
for himself makes a secure choice if he persists in solitude for God. For
this name cleanses the conscience; it readies the heart so that it is bright
and clean; it drives out the night-time terror; it pours in the fire of
love; it raises up the mind even to heavenly melody; it puts attacking
devils to flight. O good name! O sweet name! O wondrous name!
operacionem. | Pro primo dicitur, In toto corde meo exquisiui 255 p. 165
te, et cetera. Pro secundo, Voce mea ad Dominum clamaui, et
exaudiuit me de monte sancto suo. Pro tercio, Deum exquisiui
manibus [meis] nocte contra eum et non sum deceptus. Sic quoque Ihesu
quesito et inuento, perseueremus cum illo per veram caritatem
et probatam pacienciam ut dum in Ihesu redemptore et conditore 260
nostro totum cor nostrum constanter defigimus, deuictis mundi
et carnis contagijs, superne contemplacionis gaudium suauiter
degustemus, ut merito dicamus cum psalmista, Exultent et letentur
super te omnes qui querunt te; et dicant semper: Magnificetur
Dominus qui diligunt salutare tuum. Vere ille salutare Dei 265
diligit qui in se nomen Ihesu infatigabiliter custodit. Non
miror quippe si temptatus ceciderit qui nomen Ihesu in
memoriam perennem non ponit. Ille nimirum secure elegit pro
Deo in + solitudine persistere qui nomen Ihesu sibi elegit
speciale. Hoc enim nomen con|scienciam purgat, cor clarum et 270 p. 166
mundum preparat, terrorem nocturnum excutit, ardorem amoris
infundit, mentem vsque in celicum melos subleuat, demones
infestantes fugat. O bonum nomen! O dulce nomen! O nomen
255 In] om. Hp exquisiui] quesiui C2Y 256 et cetera] Et B2p, om.
HMPL2ce Secundo] adds dicitur Y 256–8 clamaui … deceptus] om. p
256–7 et2 … suo] om. B2MLL2e, etc. HPC2Yc 257 exquisiui] corr. from
quesiui (perhaps original) Y 257–8 pro … deceptus] om. H 258 meis] om. Dp
nocte … deceptus] om. B2Mce, et nocte etc. P, nocte LL2, nocte etc. C2Y
259 veram] illam BC 260 probatam pacienciam] trs. e redemptore et
conditore] trs. nouns (conditorem C) BC 261 nostro] om. H totum] om. at line
break Y constanter] om. Hcep, constans Y mundi] adds concupiscencijs P
263 ut] et M cum] om. Y 264 super te] om. Y te1 … te2] te HPcep
qui querunt] querentes B2 265 Dominus] deus V 267 miror quippe] trs. P
quippe] om. L2 temptatus] om. p 268 perennem] om. P ponit] posuit c
elegit] adds speciale C ( from 270) pro] qui pro PC2YL2 269 solitudine]
solitudinem D persistere] persistit PC2Y, existit L2 sibi] om. B2 sibi elegit]
trs. p 270 enim] om. H 270–1 clarum et mundum] trs. adjs. Yp
271 terrorem] timorem Mp excutit] exontit Y 272 mentem] adds suam Y
celicum] celum Y celicum melos] melum celicum B2HPep, trs. c
273 bonum] boe (= bone?) H nomen2] adds gloriosum H, adds glorificum Yc
O3] om. B2 O nomen3] om. L, O with nomen after glorificum 274var M
O name bearing salvation! O glorious name! O name to be desired! Also

evil spirits may not do harm, wherever they guess that the name of Jesus
is continuously evoked either in the mind or by mouth. Therefore that
name should be embraced, loved, and held fast in long-lasting memory.
[278] When I had perceived my proper purpose and, having put aside
worldly garments, had determined to serve God more than man, in the
beginning of my conversion an event befell one night. While I was resting
in my bed, a certain young woman appeared to me, a very pretty one
whom I had seen before and who loved me with an excessive but good
love. When I had become aware of her and wondered why she had come to
me, in my solitude as well as in the night, suddenly and without any delay
or speech, she intruded herself next to me. I perceived this, and fearing
lest she should entice me to evil, I said that I wished to rise and to bless us
with the sign of the cross while calling on the holy trinity. But she pressed
herself against me so forcefully that I could not feel either my mouth able
to speak or my hand able to move. Seeing this, I guessed that there was
no woman here, but a devil sent to test me in the form of a woman.
Hence I turned to God, and once I had said in my mind, ‘O Jesus, how
mirificum! O nomen salutiferum! O nomen glori[os]um! O

nomen desiderabile! Ibi utique non possunt maligni spiritus 275
nocere vbi perpendunt nomen Ihesu iugiter aut mente aut ore
nominari. Igitur amplectendum est, amandum, et perenni
memoria retinendum. Cum ego propositum singulare persepissem
et relicto habitu seculari, Deo pocius quam homini deseruire
decreuissem, contigit quod quadam nocte in principio conuersionis 280
mee, michi in stratu meo quiescenti, apparuit quedam iuuencula
valde pulcra, quam ante videram et que me in bono amore non
modicum diligebat. Quam cum intuitus essem et mirarer cur in
solitudinem ad me eciam in nocte uenerat, subito sine mora uel
loquel[a] | iuxta me se inmisit. Quod ego senciens et ne me ad 285 p. 167
malum alliceret timens, dixi me velle surgere et nos signo
crucis benedicere inuocata sancta Trinitate. At illa tam
fortiter me strinxit ut nec os ad loquendum nec manus in
me sentirem ad mouendum. Quod videns, perpendi ibi non muli-
erem set diabolum in forma mulieris me temptasse. Verti 290
ergo me ad Deum et cum in mente mea dixissem, ‘O Ihesu, quam
274 mirificum] glorificum o (om. P) nomen mirificum B2MPLC2L2ep

gloriosum] glorificum DH O3] et BC, om. VPLYL2ce 276 aut1] om.
B2HPcep aut1,2] aut in M 277 nominari] after iugiter 276 B2HPcep Igitur]
Ideo Hp, Ergo c amplectendum] complectendum B2P amplectendum est
amandum] amandum est amplectendum (adds est C) BC est] est et e
amandum et] et amandum ac p perenni] adds gloria ac e 278 Cum ego]
Dum ego BCV, Cum ergo PLC2Yp propositum singulare] trs. M persepissem]
perse|pissem D 279 relicto] relictu/relicta ? B deseruire] adds quam
homini C, seruire P 280 quod] om. B2HMPLC2Yc 281 apparuit] adds
michi B2 282 in] om. P 283 et] om. B, eciam Ovar mirarer] mirabar
B2HMPLC2YL2ce cur] om. B2, qualiter Pc, cum YL2 284 solitudinem]
solitudine VO eciam] et CH in] om. H venerat] venerit p sine] et sine
B2HMPLC2YL2cep uel] sine p 285 loquela] smudged D, loquele BC
inmisit] misit BC, inmiscuit L2 me2] om. LC2YL2c, after malum 286 p
286 signo] signaculo Y 287 At] after benedicere L2 tam] om. H
287–8 tam … strinxit] strinxit me tam fortiter M 288 me] after illa 287
B2HPLC2L2cep ut] quod L2 ad] in B2 in] om. C 290 set] adds esse after
non 289 H, esse set MPLC2YL2cep 291 ergo me] trs. B2Mce, me P, me
igitur p Deum] dominum H cum] om. B2Hp mente mea] trs. Y
dixissem] dixi B2Hp
precious is your blood’, I began now to be able to move and to impress

in my chest the sign of the cross with a finger. And behold: immediately
she totally disappeared, and I gave thanks to God, who freed me.
Thenceforth I have sought to love Jesus truly, and the more that I have
advanced in loving him, the more sweetly and pleasantly the name of
Jesus has savoured to me, and indeed has not left me until the present
time. Therefore may the name of Jesus be blessed forever.
preciosus est sanguis tuus’, cruce imprimens in pectore cum

digito qui quodammodo iam mobilis esse inciperet, et ecce
subito totum disparuit et ego gracias Deo egi qui me liberauit.
Deinceps \vere/ Ihesum amare quesiui et quanto in amore eius 295
profeci, tanto nomen Ihesu michi dulcius et suauius sapiebat et
eciam usque hodie non recedit a me. Ergo benedictum sit nomen
Ihesu in secula seculorum.
292 cruce] crucem B2YHO imprimens] impremens Y cum] om. HPce

292–3 in … digito] trs. phrs. BC 293 qui] om. B iam] om. B esse inciperet]
incepit esse B2Hp, esse incepit MPLC2YL2ce ecce] om. B2Hp 294 totum]
totus (later) H et] set H 295 vere] vero CVHPC2Ycep, om. L2, ergo O
Ihesum amare] trs. P Ihesum] deum LC2YL2 et] eciam PC2Yc eius] illius B,
after quanto L 296 profeci] profecti V, perfecti M, perfeci P, perfici ce
tanto] tantum L2 et2] om. P 297 eciam] om. H recedit] recessit pOvar
297–8 benedictum … Ihesu] sit nomen domini (domini Ihesu B2, Ihesu
MPC2L2ce) benedictum B2HMPLC2YL2cep 298 seculorum] add Amen (and
om. Ideo at the head of the next section) HMPC2, adds Amen Y
Appendix:
The Manuscripts
As I point out above, any edition requires a bibliographical description of

the witnesses to the text. As my initial listing of relevant manuscripts of
‘Super Canticum’ 4 indicates, this task has been performed very well for
most of the copies. However, there are omissions, and I fulfil my editorial
responsibility by here describing those five copies without published
formal descriptions. The examples I offer here differ in format and detail
from many of the published accounts of other copies; they deliberately
offer you a model for the kinds of information useful for literary readers.
Here I adopt one form of abbreviation formal catalogues would avoid:
I cite Rolle’s works in bold-face and by title only – references to some
editions appear in nn. 26–8 and 42.
B Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 861

s. xv in. (parts of text 1 dated 1410–11, and other indications imply
1409–11). Paper, folded in folio; there are two stocks, one of very limited
use:
A Leopard: identified by Allen as Briquet 3552 (dated 1408,
with numerous variants in wide French use 1400–10); but more
narrowly Piccard 15, ii (Raubtiere), nos 1354–67, paper from
Troyes or Champagne, probably specifically his nos 1361–4,
recorded from Arnhem 1411: the sole stock of quires 1–2, 5–14,
and two sheets in quire 3: 72 full sheets and four unwater-
marked halfsheets.129
B Unicorn: one of Piccard 10 (Fabeltiere), nos 1561–1615, all
very similar marks, again associated with Troyes, in wide use
1396 × 1410: the sole stock of quire 4 and four sheets in quire
3: ten full sheets.
Fols ii (numbered iii–iv) + 168. Overall 290 mm × 210 mm (writing
area 220–225 mm × 150–165 mm, up to 170 mm in Booklet 1). With the
exception of fols 128vb/28–132ra, later additions, written in a single very
cursive anglicana with secretary a and rather pointy secretary ductus. In
double columns, around 60–5 lines (68 at fol. 133r) to the page.
contents
Booklet 1 = fols 1–50
[1] fols 1ra–49ra: The Latin Psalter. The text ends halfway down
49ra and rest of fol. 49, and 49v–50v are blank, a quarter of fol. 49
cut away. In mid-text, fol. 7v marked in red ‘15 quarternus’,
fol. 8rv blank. This note implies that the first quire had been
prepared for some other use and has subsequently been refolded
to receive this text.
[a] fol. 7v foot (in the same red ink as the notation of the
fifteenth quire): ‘Ric’ Hampul heremita et vita perfecta | Mitto
thesaurum dulcius super aurum | In nomine Ihesu scriptum sit
custoditum’.
This section is firmly dated at a number of points, all pointing
to copying from autumn 1410 to late spring 1411. It is thus
nearly the latest material in the book (see Booklet 4), and the
position of the materials here has been dictated by the tradition
of transmission. A number of other insular copies of the Latin
Psalter place it as the first text, and in a separate production
unit.
collation 114 2–412. All leaves in first half of each quire originally
signed with letter and numeral, both roman and arabic; catchwords. Signed
a–d (but ‘quaternus 2’ and ‘quaternus 3’ also appear on the appropriate
quires). Some of these have been signed twice, partly in red (and some
double signatures alternate between roman and arabic numerals). On
occasion, the leaf numbers are original but the quire signature clearly a
later addition, an indication that the ordering of the whole was deferred
until after copying had been completed.
a ppe n di x: t h e m a n uscr i p ts 143
decoration Unique to this portion is the notation ‘Ihesus maria’

at the head of each side, in the first few leaves of quire 3 repeated at the
foot as well. In early portions (to fol. 17v), red paraphs at verse-heads.
Scattered marginal drawings of the sacred heart throughout the volume.
[2] fols 51ra–81rb: Melos Amoris. Fol. 80v is blank in mid-text,

with notation ‘Fac saltum ad dexteram’. Chapter numbers added
in a different ink, but probably the scribe’s hand.
[3] fols 81rb–90rb: Super Canticum.
[b] fol. 84 foot: three verses, the initial pair, ‘Sicut amor domini
…’ as Hans Walther, Proverbia sententiaeque Latinitatis medii aevi
…, 6 vols (Göttingen, 1963–69), no. 29571a.
[4] fols 90rb–93rb: Super Psalmum XX m, with red heading.
[c] fol. 93rb: ‘Spiritus fuit speciosus corpore dulcis in uerbo et
conuersacione ideo valde amabilis discipulis suis fuit’.
[d] fol. 93rb: ‘Non sit affectus tuus inclinatus vel ligatus corporali
creature si uis incorporeo deo perfecte vniri’.
Two short theological notes added by scribe following the
explicit.
[5] fols 93rb–99va: Contra Amatores Mundi. The incipit identifies
this as ‘secundus liber Ricardi … de amore dei …’; and the
colophon ‘Finis libri secundi et tercius liber dicitur de incendio
amoris qui sic incipit “Admirabar …”’.
[6] fols 99va–100va: the (‘half ’-)Compilation. Almost universally
attached to the ‘short version’ of Incendium Amoris, here the
second part only, ignoring the selections from ‘Super Canticum’
already reproduced, with some materials in a long page-foot
note, fol. 99v, marked for insertion; see Deanesly, Incendium
188–9 n. 6. The same materials occur similarly in Durham
Cathedral Library, MS B.iv.35.
[7] fols 100va–101vb: ‘Novem virtutes’; cf. the English texts
grouped as Jolliffe, Check-List, I.12 (106–8).
[8] fols 101vb–102vb: Judica Me Deus A, here with note ‘Hec

Ric’ heremita dicit in libro quem habuit heremita de Tanfeld
die veneris natali domini sancti Iohannis 1409 Et nudus pedes
40 mill ibat’ [identified by Allen as 27 December 1409]; the
note also appears (abbreviated, without the date or reference
to the hermit’s walking) in the same position in D. The same
radically abbreviated form of ‘Judica A’ also appears in P and
in Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 35 (c), neither with the
note.
[9] fols 102vb–122ra: Incendium Amoris, with designation, in
red next to the heading, as ‘liber 3’. Fol. 122rb and the verso
blank at the end.
At the head of fol. 103r–v, a pasted-in label in the scribal
hand, printed Allen, Writings Ascribed, 31, indicating the scribe’s
dispatch of a portion of this segment, perhaps all of quires 5–8
(cf. further fol. 143r–v and the ‘Additional commentary’).
collation 5–1012. All leaves in the first half of each quire signed
with letter and roman numeral (arabic in quire 8); no catchwords. The
signatures run a–f, although many appear a later supply, in some cases the
quire-letter in red (quires 9–10). Hence, fol. 51 has ‘7’ and ‘a j’ (but the
remainder ‘a’ only); fol. 63 has ‘d’ and ‘b j’ (but the remainder ‘b’ only);
fol. 75 has ‘f ’ and ‘c j’ (but the remainder ‘c’ only).
decoration Plain three- and four-line blue lombards in items 5
and 9 at chapter divisions, along with roman chapter numbers in red.
Unusually in the book (but cf. item 18, below), item 9 elaborately treated,
divided into periods by red-ink virgulae, some with red-slashed capitals.
Scattered red-slashed capitals at sentence openings on fols 89–90.
[10] fols 123ra–128rb: Super Apocalypsim. There are only two

written lines on fol. 128rb.
[11] fols 128va–132ra: Emendatio Vitae, breaking off in chapter 11
(Spahl, 222/121); only two words on fol. 132, and the remainder
of the leaf blank. The scribe responsible for the remainder has
copied only to 128vb/28 (Spahl, 170/17), i.e., just over a column
(his script much smaller and packed), and the remainder of the
text has been provided in a series of short stints by various

hands, s. xv med.
collation 1110. All leaves in the first half of the quire signed with
letter and roman numeral, both ‘a’ and (in red) ‘o’. No catchword.
[12] fols 133ra–137va: An anonymous commentary on the Canticle,

inc. ‘Materia huius operis sunt fideles existentes ante aduentum
Cristi …’, Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum, no. 7307.1 (5:98)
and 9313 (6:280) (cited only from a manuscript in The Hague).
[13] fol. 137vab: Alcuin, ‘De decem verbis legis’, inc. ‘Dat
deus moysi legem innocencie nostre et cogitacionis sue …’;
Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum, no. 1085.1 (8:261), ed. Patrologia
Latina 113:250 ff. (in the ‘glossa ordinaria’). The text has been
squeezed in to fill blank portions of the leaf; the actual incipit
is at the head of fol. 137vb, and the text then oozes down the
page, partly in long lines but concluding in double columns.
[14] fols 138ra–141va: Super Threnos. The remainder of the final
side is blank.
collation 1212 (probably lacks 7, 8 [both thin stubs], and 12, all
blanks?). All leaves in the first half of the quire signed with letter and
roman numeral. Signed ‘a’, although on the first leaf has been altered to
‘h’; no catchword.
Given the two indications of date here, fol. 137v (in the colophon to
item 12) 5 August 1411; and fol. 141 (in the upper right corner) 2 May
1410, the quire seems to have begun as item 14 only.

In this section, only about 55 lines to the column. Fol. 142, outside the
signature system and not clearly attached to fol. 165, appears to have been
an outside leaf with recto exposed.
[15] fol. 142: John de Caulibus, Meditationes Vite Christi, ch. 3,
ed. M.  Stallings-Taney, Corpus Christianorum, continuatio
medievalis 153 (Turnhout, 1997), 15–18. The verso originally
blank, now with pentrials; the leaf is marked ‘Ihesus Maria’
at the head; at the foot, ‘Explici Mortis amara rapis imperialis

apex’.
[16] fol. 143ra–va: Super Oracionem Dominicam. At the head of
fol. 143r–v, a pasted-in label, in the scribal hand, printed Allen,
Writings Ascribed, 33, indicating the scribe’s dispatch of this
portion (cf. fol. 103r–v and the ‘Additional commentary’).
[17] fols 143va–146va: Super Symbolum Apostolicum. The
remainder of fol. 146 and fol. 147rv are blank. Two incomplete
(and partly erroneous) dating formulas at the end of the text
(see Allen, Writings Ascribed, 33), between them a portion of the
passage from Incendium Amoris 15 also added on fol. 99v, here
only extending to ‘consummatus quiescit’ (Deanesly, Incendium,
189 n. 6/3).
[18] fols 148ra–165ra: Super Novem Lectiones. The remainder
of the last leaf is blank and about half the leaf has been torn
away; following those verses conventional at end of this text,
there is an additional set of four, ‘Malus est amor quo aliud in
mundo …’, not in Walther.
collation 1324 (the first and last not clearly conjugate). All leaves in
the first half of the quire, except the first, signed with letter and roman
numeral; signed ‘a’, with no catchword. The label answering that at the
head of item 9 is attached to first signed leaf.
decoration Opening portions of item 18 (to fol. 154v), like item
9, with red-slashes and red virgula to divide periods; again, at larger
divisions here, three- and four-line plain blue lombards.
[19] fols 166ra–vb: the commentary on the Athanasian Creed

occasionally ascribed to Rolle, but in fact Bruno of Würzburg,
ed. Patrologia Latina, 142:561–8.
[20] fols 167rab: Super Magnificat. The verso and the following
fol. 168rv are blank.
collation 144 (lacks 3). The first two leaves are signed, the first
‘k’, second probably ‘l’ in red; the quire was probably originally a six, as
there appears an excised bifolium following 167, at the centre.
binding Plain brown leather over millboard, rather pitted; a flowered

fillet with corner fleurs-de-lis on both boards, probably s. xvi/xvii, on
five bands (rebacked). Fols i–ii, 169–170 modern paper binding leaves, one
of those at the head probably conjoint with the pastedown. Fols iii–iv
are old vellum flyleaves from an earlier (Worcester Cathedral) binding;
see further ‘Provenance’.
provenance Fol. iii has an inscription indicating ownership by
Worcester Cathedral in 1590, i.e., the book is not conclusively part of
the cathedral priory’s medieval collection, but accepted as such at Ker,
Medieval Libraries, 208 (see n. 5). For similar marks in Worcester books, a
number removed to the Bodleian Library before 1611, see Ivor Atkins and
N.  R.  Ker, eds, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Wigorniensis
Made in 1622–1623 (Cambridge, 1944), 13. Fol. iii has the old shelf mark
‘MS Supra M.129’ and other recognisable Bodleian marks; fol. iv v has
another old shelf mark ‘P.6.13’.
further commentary The description follows Allen, Writings
Ascribed, 22–34, with fuller indications of dating than those provided
in Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts, as no. 119 (1:22),
plate 265 in vol. 2 (see n. 62). In addition to Watson’s illustration, there
is also a reduced image of a full leaf (fol. 123v), at Marzac, Richard Rolle
de Hampole, facing 81 (the captions of the two plates here have been
reversed), transcribed in her edition at 124/1–128/30 (see n. 26).
As a note on one bit of the Psalter commentary (fol. 10), printed Allen,
Writings Ascribed, 24, indicates, the scribe had apparently been dispatched
on a prolonged search for Rolle materials, inferentially from some western
locale (the note refers to ‘australibus’, as well as to Hampole and Richmond
in Yorkshire). The intact labels at fols 103 and 143 record his dispatch of
completed portions of the work as separable chunks to an unidentified
director. The bound form of the book (from which signatures and the
reference to ‘quaternus 15’ indicate portions are missing) represents a post
factum imposition on the materials he provided. This perhaps explains
the state of Emendatio Vitae here; the scribe recognised that he need not
waste much time on a text almost ubiquitously disseminated (about 120
surviving copies), and left it to others to complete his work.
The separability of the book’s chunks appears to have been ongoing,
and it explains certain features in the ‘Super Canticum’ provided in
another manuscript, H2. On fol. 106v, H2 runs directly, with no break,
from a point early in Incendium Amoris 19 into the penultimate section
of ‘Super Canticum’. In a brilliant intuition, Roger Mynors compared
this situation with the disposition of the texts in B. He discovered that

this faulty juncture in H2 corresponds with two quire boundaries in B:
the break in Incendium matches the end of B quire 9, and the inception
of ‘Super Canticum’, the head of B quire 7 (fols 110vb and 87ra, respec-
tively). The scribe of H2 was plainly copying from B, certainly in loose
quire form; in the absence of catchwords here, he had no notion of what
portion of what text was to follow the end of a quire (and may not have
had a full set of those at his disposal). On this basis, the text in H2
cannot be independent of that already present in, and collated from, B,
and the manuscript should be considered, like J, a codex eliminandus, of
no editorial value for ‘Super Canticum’. (See pp. 54–5.)
Indeed, virtually all of H2 may be derived from B – excepting the
copy of Emendatio Vitae, a late supply in B. H2 shows some transpositions
of text-order and readjustment of booklet-boundaries, reducing B’s six
units to a more manageable four. But textual juxtapositions and clusters
of contents items are remarkably similar across the two books. Moreover,
the two share a common interest in a four-part ordering of selected
contents, and the order suggested in H2 has been followed in C – closely
related to B in our text, and perhaps also – yet not so demonstrably as
H2 – directly derivative of it (and thus again, pending further research,
perhaps another codex eliminandus).
L Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 528

s. xiv/xv or xv in. Parchment, some of it heavy and substandard, e.g.,
fol. 54. Heavily water- damaged along the upper edge, the top two-three
lines usually flaking away and illegible. Fols ii (foliated 1–2) + 95 (foliated
3–97) + i (fol. 98, with its following unnumbered broad stub). Overall
265 mm × 180 mm (writing area usually about 210 mm × 130 mm,
but some individual hands show marked variation, e.g., fols 56–64,
190–200 mm × 125 mm). Copied by a succession of hands, several writing
quite well-formed anglicanas; one each for booklets 1 and 2 (the latter
closely resembling the hand of booklet 4), one for items 3–4, succeeded
by much the best hand (fols 42–45, comparable to ‘Adam Pynkhurst’),
the remainder of booklet 3 in a succession of variously informal varieties,
some secretary-coloured (esp. in ductus), one particularly grotesque large
anglicana on fol. 64. Usually in 42 or 43 long lines to the page (fols
56–63v, 34 lines and fol. 64, 36 lines).
contents
[1] Fols 3–11: Emendatio Vitae. At the end, a large ‘ihesus est
amor meus | Maria Ihesus Iohannes’, the verso blank.
collation 18+1 (+9). Unsigned and no catchword.
decoration On fol. 3 a full bar-border in red, blue, and green with
flowers and sprays (on the initial, see ‘Provenance’, below). The text is
divided by two-line alternate unflourished red and blue lombards.
[2] fols 13–23: Judica Me Deus, complete, called ‘confessiones’

in the contents table. Fol. 12 is blank, with a list of topics
treated on fol. 12v; at the end, fol. 23v is blank, with [b] added
at the head.
[a] fol. 23, following ‘Expliciunt confessiones’: a further
paragraph, ‘Dominus ait Iudeis adducentibus adulteram qui sine
peccato est …’ (cf. Judica B1, Daly’s edition, 19).
[b] fol. 23v: (eaten away at the head) ‘… donauauit peccata et
quod restat <..> laudo institutum si queam assequi tuum <et?>
uno stultus es qui es’.
collation 212. Again unsigned and no catchword.
decoration The text is divided by two-line red lombards and red
paraphs.
Booklet 3a = fols 24–33
[3] fols 24–33v: Super Canticum, the last four sections only. This
is the last of an opening sequence of one-quire units, perhaps
designed to allow flexible ordering of materials. The decorated
catchword here shows this unit, although perhaps originally
distinct, as ‘partially codicised’, i.e., joined to the remainder.
collation 310. No signatures; a catchword, red-slashed and within
a red and green floral box.
Booklet 3b = fols 33–77
[4] fols 34–41v: Contra Amatores Mundi, chs 4, 5, and 7 only.

The text was overlooked in the contents table, as if a contin-
uation of the preceding, a fact that may account for Allen’s
statement that the two are ‘joined’. But item 3 has its normal
conclusion, followed by ‘Amen’, underlined in red, and fol. 34
begins with a slightly enlarged red-slashed majuscule. The
scribe may have intended the decorative catchword at fol. 33v,
obviously including the incipit ‘Anima’, to have the status of
a rubric.
[5] fols 42–77: Super Novem Lecciones.
collation 4–710 88 (lacks 5–8, cancels, now thick stubs). No
signatures; catchwords boxed (none at fol. 73v; that at 63v in the same
hand as that at 43v, arguably provided by that accomplished scribe, perhaps
director of this segment with multiple copyists).
decoration At the opening of item 3, a four-line red and blue
lombard and crude border (not enclosing the foot of the text-column).
The text is divided by one-line red and blue lombards at openings. Early
on, some blue paraphs, but mostly red-slashed capitals and red underlining
of biblical citations.
[6] fols 78–97v: Incendium Amoris.

collation 9–1010. No signatures; the catchword at fol. 87v within
a drawing of a grotesque.
decoration At the head, a four-line red and blue lombard with
part bar-border in red and blue. The text is divided by some blue paraphs
and red-slashed capitals.
binding In the customary Laudian brown calf over millboard,
with Laud’s arms gold-stamped on both boards, s. xvii. At the front,
fols 1–2 two medieval parchment binding leaves, a contents table
(fol. 2) and picture of a Dominican kneeling before Rolle (fol. 2v); one
medieval parchment binding leaf (fol. 98) and the stub of its conjoint at
the end.
provenance On fol. 1, an inscription of gift from a Franciscan John

to a John and Agnes Stone, ‘<I>n christo sibi karissimis Iohanni ston et
agneti consorti sue frater Iohannes Fratrum Minorum in anglia Minister
et seruus salutem’. Cf. PRO, E 210/4188 and 4288 with a deed whereby
John Stone and Agnes his wife confer a tenement in Haverfordwest
1408/9 (other deeds from Devon and Taunton may imply they were
representatives of a South-western family); from the 1470s and 1480s,
there are London records of a Robert Stone and his sister Agnes, e.g.,
C 1/66/319. At the foot of fol. 97v, the signature of William Le Neve,
Clarencieux Herald (1592–1661), with his painted arms. Le Neve has
apparently altered the initial on fol. 2 to include William Laud’s arms
as archbishop of Canterbury (with Canterbury impaling his personal
blazon). The customary Laudian inscription with date 1639, fol. 2v.
V London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian E.i

s. xv in. Parchment. Fols ii (foliated 1–2) + 254 (foliated 3–254, followed
by two unnumbered leaves) + i (foliated 255). Overall 250 mm × 170 mm
(writing area 165–170 mm × 110 mm). Written in elegant textura, usually
semiquadrata (anglicana a, 8-shaped -s). In 33 or 34 long lines to the page.
contents
[1] fols 3–68v: ps.-Bonaventura ( James of Milan), Stimulus
amoris, ed. Bibliotheca franciscana ascetica medii aevi 4, 2nd
edn (Quaracchi, 1949).
[2] fols 69–78: Bonaventura, De triplici via, sive incendium amoris,
ed. Opera Omnia, 10 vols (Quaracchi, 1882–1902), 8:3–27.
[3] fols 78–95v: Super Canticum, sections 1–4.
[4–5] fols 95v–97: the hymn ‘Jesu dulcis memoria …’, and a
prayer to the Name of Jesus, ‘O bone Jesu …’ (from Anselm
of Bec, Meditatio 2, ed. Patrologia Latina, 158:724–5), both items
ascribed to Bernard of Clairvaux.
[6] fols 97–99: Super Canticum, section 5.
[7] fols 101v–76: Speculum humane salvationis, Hans Walther, Initia
Carminum ac Versuum Medii Aevi Posterioris Latinorum, 2nd edn
(Göttingen, 1969), nos 169 and 15390, here ascribed to ‘frater
Amandus’; preceded by a contents table, fols 100–101.
[8] fols 176–182: ps.-Bede? (here ascribed to Bernard), ‘De

meditatione passionis Christi per septem diei horas’, ed. Patrologia
Latina, 94:561–8.
[9] fols 182v–196v: the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, ed.
H.  C.  Kim, Toronto Medieval Latin Texts 2 (Toronto, [1973]).
[10] fols 196v–202: ps.-Bernard, ‘Planctus beate Mariae virgine’,
inc. ‘Quis dabit capite meo’, ed. Thomas H.  Bestul, Texts
of the Passion: Latin Devotional Literature and Medieval Society
(Philadelphia, 1996), 165–85.
[11] fols 202–204v: ps.-Bernard, ‘Meditacio de compassione
Christi’, inc. ‘Caput meum doleo (4 Reg. 4:19). Caput meum
Christus est …’, cited as unique, Bestul, Texts, 190 (no. 22).
[12] fols 204v–219v: Bonaventura, Lignum vitae, ed. Opera Omnia,
8:68–86.
[13] fols 219v–230v: ‘De spiritu Guidonis’, ed. Gustav Schleich,
The Gast of Gy, Palaestra 1 (Berlin, 1898); for English versions,
C.  Horstman, Yorkshire Writers, 2 vols (London, 1894–95),
1:292–333.
[14] fols 231–236: ps.-Augustine (here ascribed to Bernard),
‘Speculum peccatoris’, ed. Patrologia Latina, 40:983–92 (cf. Allen,
Writings Ascribed, 317–18).
[15] fols 236–238v: Bridget of Sweden, ‘The fifteen Os’.
[16] fols 239–253: ps.-Bernard of Clairvaux, Meditationes, ed.
Patrologia Latina, 184:405–508.
[a] fols 253–254v: Augustine, epistle to Cyril on St Jerome, ed.
Patrologia Latina, 22:281 ff.; added on blank leaves, in secretary,
s. xv3/4.
collation 1–218 22–2410 25–318. All leaves in the first half of each
quire originally signed, with either letter or arbitrary sign and roman
numeral; many cut away, and a later imposed set (sometimes, e.g., fol. 196,
running to the second leaf of the central bifolium). A rather erratic series
of sequences, but quires 6–9 = b, –, c, d; and 10–23 = c–g, –, h–l, –,
m–n in the original series; and quires 16–31 = b, –, d–r in the later one.
Proximate to the signatures, regular marks of correction (c2) by the leaf,
the corrections frequently executed by erasure (see the collations).
decoration Begins opulently, but decreases in formality throughout

the volume. At the head, large champs with floral infill in blue and violet
on gold grounds, initially 13–14 lines high and with bordering vine-work
(e.g., fol. 27), but only eight lines on fols 78 and 105v, after which they
cease. At the openings of later texts and at internal divisions, three-line
blue lombards with good red flourishing. Sporadic use of alternate red
and blue paraphs to divide the texts, but generally unprovided, since the
scribe has punctuated very carefully.
binding Modern British Library binding. Fols 1–2 are medieval
flyleaves, fol. 2v with a contents table for the whole volume (omitting
item 2); at the rear, fol. 255 probably also represents medieval binding
materials, a double-column leaf from a canon law commentary, s. xiii ex.
provenance Part of the collection assembled, s. xvi2, by Henry Savile
the elder of Banke, Halifax; see Andrew G.  Watson, ‘The Manuscripts
of Henry Savile of Banke’, Medieval Manuscripts in Post-Medieval England
(Aldershot, 2004; orig. 1969), IX 43–44 (no. 130). Many of Savile’s books
came from the now-dispersed libraries of Northern monasteries, and
certainly, items 9 and 13, popular enough in that region to achieve Middle
English versions, might imply such a Northern provenance. Stronger
confirmation is provided by a citation from ‘Super Canticum’ 4 that
escaped Allen, at Dublin, Trinity College, MS 277, p. 547 (cf. Writings
Ascribed, 402–3). This is quite brief (lines 231–42 of the edition here), but
the Trinity text avoids all the several errors of the β manuscripts while
sharing with Vespasian 232–3 facti estis] om. (partly corrected with ‘facti’
interlined). The Trinity MS includes materials that would associate it
with York City.
H London, British Library, MS Harley 5235, fols 1–16

s. xiv ex. or xiv/xv. Parchment. Fols 16. Overall 220 mm × 155 mm
(writing area 170–175 mm × 110–115 mm). After some short stints in
various hands, written from fol. 3v/25 in a single anglicana formata. In
35–7 long lines to the page.
contents
[1] fols 1–11v: Emendatio Vitae.
[2] fols 11v–13v: Super Canticum, section 4 (from line 111 only).
[3] fols 13v–14v: Incendium Amoris, ch. 15.

[4] fols 14v–16v: Super Canticum, section 5.
collation 112 24. No signatures or catchwords.
decoration At the heads of the texts, two-line unflourished red
lombards. Headings in the text ink underlined in red. The text divided
by red-slashed capitals, with occasional red paraphs or virgule.
binding Modern British Library.
provenance No information.
further commentary But one segment in a manuscript comprised
of fragments from various sources. As Allen sees, same sequence recurs
in the derivative J.
M Manchester, John Rylands University Library,

MS Lat. 395, fols 1–92
s. xv3/4. Paper and parchment, two paper sheets inside one of parchment,
folded in quarto, so that the parchment appears as the inner and outer
bifolia; on a single paper-stock:
Hand, a small example, most closely resembling Piccard 17, nos 140
(dated 1438), 146 (1439), and 154–6 (1448–49), all probably French; see
also Briquet nos 11099–101 (dated 1440–66) (two sheets each in quires
1–7, only one visible watermark pair in quire 4 [fols 40+43], and the final
quire apparently without watermark)
Fols 92. Overall 210 mm × 140 mm (writing area 150 mm ×
95–105 mm). Written in secretary, the hand of William Ebesham. In
29–32 long lines to the page. For discussion, see A.  I.  Doyle, ‘The Work
of a Late Fifteenth-Century Scribe, William Ebesham’, Bulletin of the John
Rylands Library 39 (1957), 298–325.
contents
[1] fols 1–32: Super Canticum.
[2] fols 32–67v: Incendium Amoris, with the (‘half ’-) Compilation.
[3] fols 67v–89: Contra Amatores Mundi.
[4] fols 89v–92: a sequence of Latin theological notes, formally
presented, and including two brief selections from Judica Me
Deus (cf. Doyle’s comments on this collection at 308, 311). Most

of fol. 92 is blank.
[5] Fol. 92v: a Latin prayer, inc. ‘Domine deus meus quomodo
ausus sum te alloqui vilissima creatura’.
collation 112 (lacks 1) 2–712 812 (lacks 10–12, excised blanks, now
stubs). Catchwords in the gutter, red-boxed. All leaves in the first half
of each quire apparently signed with letter and roman numeral, nearly
all cut away, quires 1–5 = –, a–d.
decoration At textual divisions, blue lombards with red flourishing,
up to six lines at the heads (e.g., fol. 67v), usually two lines. The text
divided by regular paraphs, alternating red and blue, as well as some
red-slashed capitals; biblical citations and headings underlined in red.
binding Rather elaborate example of s. xix, from the Spencer
Library.
provenance Although the volume provides no explicit information,
Doyle demonstrates that most of Ebesham’s later work was produced for
monks of Westminster abbey, where he was a lodger.
further commentary The remainder of the volume is extraneous,
although certainly bound with this portion for an indeterminate period
(the cut that excised the leaves after fol. 92 also appears on fol. 93). This
subsequent segment (fols 93–140, 145) appears marginally later (some
portions at least, post-1480) and reflects different production procedures. In
contrast to the single paper in the Rolle portion, the later segment uses at
least five stocks, one unwatermarked; the most readily identified of these,
a Dog, resembles Piccard 15, iii (Vierfüssler), nos 1426–8, 1451–2, 1459,
paper produced in Champagne and recorded 1480–86. In this portion,
parchment leaves appear only as wrappers on the outsides of quires, not
(as in the Rolle portion) at their centres as well. And decoration here
is considerably less ornate, indeed nearly non-existent. Integral to this
portion of the volume is a printed text, Caxton’s edition of John Russell,
Propositio ad Carolum ducem Burgundiae (c.1476, STC 21458, fols 141–144),
and, as Doyle points out, a second Caxton print was removed from the
volume, s. xviii ex.
As I have indicated (n. 119), this bibliographical evidence is provided

to direct and supplement judgements about the text communicated by
any single copy. In that spirit, I offer here a few very general gestures
in that direction. (It would, after all, require perhaps twenty pages of
print to analyse with any degree of thoroughness the processes that have
produced B.)
The most general perception one might offer about the manuscripts
here concerns their contents. All of them, including the books described
by other cataloguers, represent efforts at ‘author anthologies’, attempts
to gather the works of an outstanding religious writer. However, the
evidence provided by the books implies that this was far from an easy
task. The productions are largely discontinuous, an indication that
Rolle’s works were separably transmitted and that joining them required
extensive search procedures (most explicitly recognised in B). For further
discussion, see ‘The Transmission of Richard Rolle’s Latin Works’, The
Library, 7th ser. 14 (2013), 313–33. At p. 326 there, I offer fascicular outlines
for B, B2, H2, P, and M2; also exemplifying this feature, but the earlier
presentation requiring some correction, are D (only two fascicles), L
(presented here as originally five, rather than four, fascicles), S (actually
four fascicles; see the discussion below). Of course, the two-quire H also
represents some form of fragmentary reproduction. Other books used
in this edition further exemplify these features: C2, fols 93–113 (= part
II) was originally a separate production (like H), although extended; in
J, the Rolle materials appear at the head of a section distinct from the
rest of the volume, fols 74–145;130 and Y contains two fascicles (quires
1–5, fols 4–43; quires 6–13, fols 44–107). Of the seventeen manuscripts
transmitting Rolle’s ‘Super Canticum’, a full baker’s dozen show this
feature (and only C, L2, L3, and M are fully continuous, only C and M
arguably pre-planned collections).
Yet it is not only the production of whole books that displays fragmen-
tation. In the essay, I analysed a portion of the transmission of Judica Me
Deus, to the end of showing the various scribes’ discontinuous access
to that text. The commentary on the Canticle, although matters are
complicated by the equally wide diffusion of the derivative ‘compilation’,
offers materials for a similar analysis. Simultaneously, the very existence
of the ‘compilation’ indicates much the same procedures of piecemeal
acquisition.
The complete ‘Super Canticum’ appears only in BB2CDM, most of it
(and certainly from a full-text version) in V; and allowing for its conden-
sation, L3. This form of transmission includes the first three divisions of
the text. The attestation can be presented in tabular form. Here I divide
the fourth section we have been editing into the two portions separable
in transmission (lines 1–110 and the remainder), and I present in brackets

materials of belated supply, to be discussed more fully below. (On the
state of H2, here ignored, see the the ‘Additional commentary’ in the
description of B above.)
Parts present 1 2 3 41 4 2 5 6 7
B x x x x x x x x
B2 x x x x x x x x
C x x x x x x x x
C2 x x x x x
D x x x x x x x x
H x x
J x x
L x x x x x
L2 x x
L3 x x x x
M x x x x x x x x
M2 x [?]
P [x] x x x x x
S x x x x [x] [x]
V x x x x x x
Y x x x x x
One might, on this contents basis alone, have predicted features that
only emerged definitively from full collation of the copies. That is, their
contents offer sufficient justification for believing the transmission of
C2LY and of HJ connected (as well as the connection of the latter with
the textual form transmitted in the early prints). Equally, one might
notice that the transmission of sections 1–41 is ubiquitous across the α
transmission (although it was not totally foreign to β and appears in B2M,
but only those).
Here one might further adduce those abbreviated versions of ‘Super
Canticum’ that have featured only peripherally in this study, L3 and
Ashmole 751. One might infer that both, on the basis of their containing
materials from parts 1–3 of the work, probably represent further derivatives
of α. Not enough of this portion of L3 survives for analysis, but Ashmole,

although its reproduction of part 4 disconcertingly begins at line 111 – as
do the majority of β copies – offers emphatic evidence for α readings.131
These virtually universally show the scribe of this ‘commonplace book’
for private use excerpting from a copy very like BC (and perhaps specif-
ically like the latter). In addition to providing the rare correct odoratur
in line 112 (as B and L), he agrees in a stream of BC errors.132 In line
252, he has a variant otherwise unique to C; in 160 and 161, variants
found in C in convergent error with other copies. A quite modest
number of convergent errors with other texts occur, e.g., 125 solamen,
159 retinere, 170 supplied in te, and 276 aut2] aut in. Leaving aside its
frequent suppression of full sentences, variation clearly individual is fairly
minimal, about fifteen errors that cannot be paralleled in other copies
(particularly impressive, given the scribe’s determination not to copy the
whole, a decision which might be taken to imply a disinterest in accurate
representation).
This priest/scribe happens to be more narrowly placeable than any of
the other copyists. Because he transcribes English materials, his language
can be mapped, and its placement in West Yorkshire shows his proximity
to Rolle’s ‘home territory’, the house of Cistercian nuns at Hampole.
Indeed, this might go some way toward explaining specific connections
with C, since as Thomson points out in his catalogue description, that book
originally appears to have come from Pontefract, another locale adjacent
to Hampole. (One should note, however, that proximity – although it
insured a relatively accurate text of this portion of ‘Super Canticum’ –
did not provide one absolutely accurate in all respects.) Although I treat
the book peripherally here, this examination indicates that the full text
probably should receive closer study to ascertain whether, as initially
appears, it should be treated as another codex eliminandus, or, given its
extent, as a primary witness to the text (assigned sigil A).
The two copies I describe above as containing ‘materials of belated
supply’ require some additional comment. In Chapter 4, we found P’s
affiliations broadly, yet not precisely, localisable; at times, it appears closely
connected with C2LY, at others with B2HM, and occasionally in unique
resemblances to ‘the compilation’. On two occasions above (pp. 74, 93), I
have suggested that the scribe may be engaged in combining two forms
of the text (an example of that ‘conflation’ discussed at p. 48).
Here one might wish to reformulate Allen’s description of the text in P.
In this copy, fols 43v–60 present as a continuous block all those materials
that comprise ‘the compilation’ – including that sequence’s excerpts from
Incendium Amoris and from Anselm of Bec, alien to ‘Super Canticum’.

These materials are preceded (fols 42–43v) by section 41, just as they are in
C2LY, and succeeded, beginning on a new page, by section 2 of ‘Super
Canticum’ (fols 60v–63). As elsewhere in the manuscript, the scribe proves
himself adept at finding materials to fill out texts he knew or discovered
to be incomplete (see the article cited above, pp. 322–3).
The scribe clearly had access to ‘the compilation’, as well as, at the end
of this stint, some full version of ‘Super Canticum’ (a collation against
all copies of section 2 would be needed to determine whether it was
an α or β copy). But given his propensity for gathering complete texts
from diverse sources, it would appear that he had started copying with
a version only as extensive as that contained in C2LY, i.e., beginning at
the head of section 41. This he appears to have used, not simply to fill
out the copy of ‘the compilation’ he had recognised as incomplete, but
also as a source of readings to supplement that version, his primary text,
on an eclectic basis. Hence his copy displays ‘conflation’, indicated by
its reasonably constant alternations between readings that appear derived
from C2LY and those derived from B2H( J)M (those copies closest to that
from which ‘the compilation’ was derived). In the collation, individual
agreements with c indicate most strikingly the scribe’s basis for his text.
These unique agreements offer one further insight about the P scribe’s
procedures. One of the two sources from which I derive the readings
presented as c is Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 35. Perhaps as much
as half a century before that book was produced, P shows reasonably
persistent access to the same manuscript sources. As I note above in the
description of B (item 8), these two manuscripts share (with others) a
deviant copy of Judica Me Deus, and they display comparable efforts at
remedying its deficiencies. They also share the same (or a very similar)
exemplar for the weakly transmitted Rolle text called ‘Mulierem fortem’
(six surviving copies).
Thus, ‘Super Canticum’ in P was produced by gathering two or more
copies, and a similar situation, although without local conflation of
readings, seems to have obtained in S. This book, like L, was produced
by a team of scribes, copying in some loose association. As part of this
procedure, one scribe copied in a separable booklet or fascicle the short
version of Incendium Amoris, and another scribe, in another separable
fascicle ‘Super Canticum’. In his note at the end of the fourth section of
the text (fragmentary, lines 1–110 of this edition only) on fol. 68v, this
second scribe states that the remainder of the text has been copied above
– in the conventional position of ‘the compilation’, following the short
version of Incendium Amoris. But the two copyists were not in touch with
one another, and the first scribe had never done this work, which would
have begun where the second scribe leaves off.
However, fol. 68v is the last page in a brief (here four-leaf ) quire, a
quite typical way of planning a neat end to a fascicle. The published
catalogue description of S requires some amendment: the final quire of
the entire manuscript (fols 69–78) actually forms a separate fourth booklet
and is probably in a different hand, certainly the first five folios or so in
a different ink, from the remainder. This quire includes the sixth and
seventh sections of ‘Super Canticum’, along with the extra materials that
typify ‘the compilation’, and that the note on fol. 68v indicates the second
scribe believed had been copied earlier.
This manuscript’s final quire thus represents a repair predicated on
the discovery that the scribe responsible for the Incendium had not
quite completed his job. ‘Super Canticum’ here probably combines two
different sources as large separate blocks, splitting at fols 68v/69. Down
to that point, the text is likely consistent with what we have uncovered
about lines 1–110 here and provides a derivative of α; one would predict
that the materials in the final quire probably (only detailed collation can
determine with certainty) are not relevant to ‘Super Canticum’ at all
and represent ‘the compilation’. And whatever the effort at completeness
of representation, no one here copied most of the fourth segment of
the commentary, nor any of the fifth. (The manuscript thus, quite
accidentally, offers a mirror image, an exact supplement to the truncated
productions transmitted in H and, from it, J.) Like the scribe of P, only
able to provide section 2, and missing out sections 1 and 3 altogether,
the committee that produced S found assembling this text, once it had
been dismembered, an insuperable feat.
Notes
1 On Jerome’s composition and early transmission (with ample indication of the

role of transmitters in shaping the text), see Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, ‘The Latin
Bible’, The New Cambridge History of the Bible From the Beginnings to 600, ed. James
C. Paget and Joachim Schaper (Cambridge, 2013), 505–26, at 514–22. And further,
E. F. Sutcliffe, ‘Jerome’; and Raphael Loewe, ‘The Medieval History of the Latin
Vulgate’, The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 2, The West from the Fathers to the
Reformation, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Cambridge, 1969), 80–101 and 102–54, respec-
tively; as well as the complex (yet oversimplified) account, H. H. Glunz, History
of the Vulgate in England from Alcuin to Roger Bacon (Cambridge, 1933).
2 For example, ‘press-variants’, corrections made in the course of the print
run; see Percy Simpson, Proof-reading in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries (Oxford, 1935; repr. 1970).
3 For an informative series of examples, with full discussions, see Philip Gaskell,
From Writer to Reader: Studies in Editorial Method (Oxford, 1978; New Castle, DE,
1999).
4 For a survey of English examples, see Richard Beadle, ‘English Autograph
Writings of the Later Middle Ages: Some Preliminaries’, Gli autografi medievali.
Problemi paleografici e filologici. Atti del Convegno (Erice, 25 settembre–2 ottobre 1990), ed.
Paolo Chiesa and Lucia Pinelli (Spoleto, 1994), 249–68 – and, for the phenomenon
generally, his 2013 Lyell Lectures, ‘Aspects of Late Medieval English Autograph
Writings’.
5 There are exemplary partial guides to both dated books and to institutional
collections. For the former – scribes often date their work, although only rarely
say anything about its circumstances – see the catalogues of ‘dated and datable
manuscripts’ from British collections, produced by Andrew G. Watson and
P. R. Robinson (and see n. 62, below). For surviving books from institutional
collections, see N. R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving
Books, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 3 (London,
1964), with Andrew G. Watson’s MLGB, Supplement to the Second Edition, Royal
Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 15 (London, 1987). Much less frequently
162 n o t e s t o pag e s 2 – 5
surveyed private collections are partially represented in Susan H. Cavanaugh,

‘A Study of Books Privately Owned in England, 1300–1450’, University of
Pennsylvania PhD dissertation, 1985.
6 Cf. the difficulties of analysing three books produced side by side described
in George Kane and E. Talbot Donaldson (eds), Piers Plowman: The B Version
(London, 1975), 35–7, 40–2; and Brian P. Davis, ‘The Rationale for a Copy of
a Text: Constructing the Exemplar for British Library Additional MS 10574’,
Yearbook of Langland Studies 11 (1997), 141–55.
7 For a selective but exemplary list of classic discussions, see George Kane
(ed.), Piers Plowman: The A Version (London, 1965), 53–4 n. 3. These will repay
protracted study, and extensive further materials are signalled in D. C. Greetham,
Textual Scholarship: An Introduction, Garland Reference Library of the Humanities
1417 (New York, 1992).
8 For Caxton’s account, see The Prologues and Epilogues of William Caxton, ed.
W. J. B. Crotch, Early English Text Society 176 (London, 1928), 90–1 (hereafter I
refer to this series simply as EETS); for the development of that version of the text
Caxton reproduced, see Charles A. Owen, The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales
(Cambridge, 1991), 57–8. Earlier in this paragraph, STC refers to the standard
listing of pre-1640 British prints: Alfred W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, revised
by Katherine F. Panzer, et al., A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England
… 1475–1640, 2nd edn, 3 vols (London, 1976–91).
9 Cf. Frederick J. Furnivall’s cosily insouciant explanation of the genesis of
Hymns to the Virgin and Christ …, EETS OS 24 (London, 1867), vii–viii.
10 For example, George Panton and David Donaldson (eds), The ‘Gest Hystoriale’
of the Destruction of Troy …, EETS OS 39, 56 (London, 1869–74), their numerous
difficulties with the manuscript outlined in Hiroyuki Matsumoto, The Destruction
of Troy …, Society for Early English and Norse Electronic Texts (SEENET) 4,
CD-ROM (Ann Arbor, MI, 2001). See further, Chapter 2.
11 Here, visual reproduction of the manuscript itself – initially photographic,
now digital images, with accompanying transcriptions – has long been the
preferred vehicle. For an early example, see Beowulf: Autotypes of the Unique Cotton
MS. Vitellius A.XV …, ed. Julius Zupitza, EETS OS 77 (London, 1882). The great
anthologies known as ‘The Vernon Manuscript’ (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS
Eng. poet. a.1) and ‘The Auchinlech Manuscript’ (Edinburgh, National Library of
Scotland, MS Advocates’ 19.2.1) have long been available photographically – and
now digitally. For an ‘association copy’, in this instance, Boccaccio’s autograph
notebook, see Lo Zibaldone Boccaccesco mediceo laurenziano (Plut. xxix–8): riprodotto
in facsimile, ed. Guido Biagi (Florence, 1915).
12 Here ‘Caxton’ of course stands for a company, all those engaged in the book’s
production. Just as we have no way of knowing what editorial ministrations were
in play, we don’t know who among the team may have been responsible for what,
e.g., the compositors may have corrected obvious small mistakes as they typeset.
n o t e s t o pag e s 5 –10 163
13 There are, of course, exceptions, for example, Walter Map’s De nugis curialium
or the notorious Middle English Ormulum, in Bodleian Library, MSS Bodley
851 and Junius 1, respectively; or much of the Middle English alliterative corpus
(again, apparently produced for a narrow coterie).
14 However, the fullest text may, in the light of broader knowledge, turn out
to represent a unique example of scribal thoroughness, the intrusion of relevant
materials from elsewhere. Cf. the different accounts of a text in Bodleian Library,
MS Hatton 12 fuller than that of the only other copy at Hope E. Allen, Writings
Ascribed to Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole … (New York, 1927), 276–7; and
at Richard Rolle: Uncollected Verse and Prose with Related Northern Texts, EETS
329 (Oxford, 2007), lviii–lx. (This edition quite deliberately offers a range of
differing editorial presentations, choices motivated by the nature of the surviving
materials.)
15 Kane and Donaldson (n. 6, above) provide a list of passages added by the scribe
(pp. 222–3). These idiosyncrasies were first critically discussed by James Weldon,
‘Ordinatio and Genre in MS CCC 201’, Florilegium 12 (1993), 159–75. They render
this copy an almost overdetermined choice for digital reproduction in the first
volume of the Piers Plowman Electronic Archive, ed. Hoyt N. Duggan, et al.,
CD-ROM (Ann Arbor, MI, 2000).
16 Cursor Mundi (The Cursur o the World): A Northumbrian Poem of the XIVth
Century in Four Versions …, 7 vols, EETS OS 57, 59, 62, 66, 68, 99, 101 (London,
1874–93).
17 Now provided by Sarah M. Horrall et al. (eds), The Southern Version of Cursor
Mundi, 5 vols (Ottawa, 1978–2000). The distinctive differences of Trinity and
the other copies stimulated the only protracted study of Middle English regional
vocabulary, Rolf Kaiser, Zur Geographie des mittelenglischen Wortschatzes, Palaestra
205 (Leipzig, 1937). The Trinity copy of Cursor is far from the only Northern text
subjected to such offices (and apparently by the same hands); cf. Angus McIntosh,
‘Two Unnoticed Interpolations in Four Manuscripts of the Prick of Conscience’,
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 77 (1976), 63–78.
18 The proverb may well often be true of classical texts, where more than a
millennium may separate various manuscript witnesses. However, one can point
to many counter-examples, like Bodleian Library, MS Canonicus Class. Lat. 41
(c.1100), with thirty-four lines from Juvenal’s sixth satire (customarily inserted
after 6.345) that escaped every other scribe in a copying tradition that goes back
to the ninth century (and fragmentarily, to the sixth).
19 See Joseph Bédier, La Tradition manuscrite du Lai de l’ombre: réflexions sur l’art
d’éditer les anciens textes (Paris, 1929; repr. 1970).
20 This variation reflects Viking settlement; areas of heavy Norse influence
have the Scandinavian form in th-, while the native Old English survives as
h-. The other examples display similarly common variations, in order: different
forms for the third person singular present of verbs; a common ‘East Anglian’
164 n o t e s t o pag e s 10 –18
spelling in which -ght appears as -th (e.g., myth ‘might’); varying forms for the
word ‘each’; and different forms for the plural present of verbs.
21 Notice that F has an additional (unique) variation, its scribe having copied
lines 33–4 ahead of lines 31–2.
22 There is a good deal of evidence for such fastidiousness. For example,
commentaries on texts often point out variant readings (and frequently adjudicate
between them). Similarly, variations in the ‘Vulgate Bible’ were recognised in
widely circulated lists of ‘corrections’ and a number of Jerome’s readings, although
accurately communicated, emended through comparisons of the received text
with the ‘veritas Hebraica’, the readings of selected Hebrew manuscripts.
23 Cf. the arguments mounted by Louise O. Fradenburg, ‘“Voice Memorial”:
Loss and Reparation in Chaucer’s Poetry’, Exemplaria 2 (1990), 169–202.
24 See, for example, Donaldson’s analysis, ‘Canterbury Tales, D 117: A Critical
Edition’, Speaking of Chaucer (London, 1970), 119–30, where an editorial intuition
is confirmed by a reading from Jerome that Chaucer here reproduces. One might
also compare the handling of ‘The Lessouns of Dirige’ and the ‘Vitae patrum
translations’ in Richard Rolle Uncollected (n. 14, above).
25 This is largely the mode of procedure in the standard handbooks, Paul
Maas, Textual Criticism (Oxford, 1958); M. L. West, Textual Criticism and Editorial
Technique Applicable to Greek and Latin Texts (Stuttgart, 1973); and in the genial
introduction to the process, R. B. C. Huygens, Ars Edendi: A Practical Introduction
to Editing Medieval Latin Texts (Turnhout, 2000). These seek to provide instruments
applicable across any range of situations.
26 For general introductions to Rolle and his work, see, pre-eminently, Allen,
Writings Ascribed (n. 14) and Nicole Marzac, Richard Rolle de Hampole (1300–1349):
Vie et œuvres, suivies du Tractatus super Apocalypsim (Paris, 1968). For critical studies,
see Nicholas Watson, Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority (Cambridge,
1991) and, particularly germanely here, Denis Renevey, Language, Self and Love:
Hermeneutics in the Writings of Richard Rolle and the Commentaries on the Song of Songs
(Cardiff, 2001).
27 For most of the English works, see Richard Rolle Prose and Verse, ed.
S. J. Ogilvie-Thomson, EETS 293 (Oxford, 1988); for the influential English
Psalter, one must rely on manuscript, the only edition, The Psalter or the Psalms
of David …, ed. H. R. Bramley (Oxford, 1884) being inadequate. Only Rüdiger
Spahl’s De emendatione vitae. Eine kritische Ausgabe … (Göttingen, 2009) surveys
the manuscripts (in this case, extensive) critically; the earlier editions, partic-
ularly those of the central ‘treatises’, e.g., The Incendium Amoris of Richard Rolle of
Hampole, ed. Margaret Deanesly (Manchester, 1915), present ‘best texts’ and offer
no assessment of manuscript variation.
28 For the edition, in this case a ‘most complete text’ version presenting a
single copy, see Elizabeth M. Murray, ‘Richard Rolle’s Comment on the
Canticles, Edited from MS. Trinity College, Dublin 153’ (Fordham University
n o t e s t o pag e s 18 –2 2 165
PhD dissertation, 1958). I remain grateful to Michael Van Dussen for providing
me with a copy of Murray’s work. For the prints, as representative of which I
customarily cite that produced in Cologne in 1536, see Allen, Writings Ascribed,
11–14. The only other modern efforts are A. Wilmart, ‘Le “Jubilus” sur le nom
de Jésus dit de Saint Bernard’, Ephemerides Liturgicae Pars Prior 57 (1943), 272–80
(a text ‘tout nu’ of one excerpt version); and Y. Madan, ‘Le Commentaire de
Richard Rolle sur les prémiers versets du Cantique des Cantiques’, Mélanges de
Sciences Religieuse 7 (1950), 311–25 (half of ‘Super Canticum’ 1, lightly corrected,
from MS Bodley 861, with facing-page French translation).
29 See R. W. Pfaff, New Liturgical Feasts in Late Medieval England (Oxford,
1970), 62–83.
30 Cf. Allen’s enthusiastic comments, Writings Ascribed, 64.
31 For the most convenient introductions to these riches, see Richard Sharpe, A
Handlist of Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540, Publications of the
Journal of Medieval Latin 1 (Turnhout, 1997); and Ruth J. Dean, Anglo-Norman
Literature: A Guide to Texts and Manuscripts, Anglo-Norman Text Society, occ.
pub. 3 (London, 1999).
32 See, for example, ‘Another Manuscript of Walter Map’s “Dissuasio Valerii”’,
Journal of Medieval Latin 24 (2014), 277–83; or Katherine Zieman’s discovery of a
copy of Rolle’s English ‘Oleum effusum’, overlooked by both Allen and Richard
Rolle Uncollected, in British Library, MS Additional 11748, fols 140–143. And see
(alas) n. 128.
33 See ‘Editing Texts with Extensive Manuscript Traditions’, Probable Truth:
Editing Medieval Texts from Britain in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Vincent Gillespie
and Anne Hudson (Turnhout, 2013), 111–29.
34 See N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford,
1957, 1990); Carleton Brown and Rossell H. Robbins, Index of Middle English
Verse (New York, 1943), with supplement (Lexington, KY, 1966). A revised New
Index (London, 2005) is rife with errors and omissions.
35 For example, the extensive materials in Brown-Robbins’s supplement as
nos 557.3 and 827.8 are fragmentary renditions of no. 245, and nos 2671 and 3478
excerpts from the same source.
36 See R. E. Lewis, et al., Index of Printed Middle English Prose (New York, 1985).
37 See P. S. Jolliffe, A Check-List of Middle English Prose Writings of Spiritual
Guidance (Toronto, 1974); and, for example, Linne R. Mooney, Manuscripts in the
Library of Trinity College Cambridge, Index of Middle English Prose Handlist 11
(Cambridge, 1995).
38 For ‘The Pore Caitif ’, see Jolliffe, Check-List, 65–7 (his text ‘B’); bits of this
version are published as part of the discussion of the other English translation, at
Richard Rolle Uncollected (n. 14), liv–vii, 2–11, 131–4, 165–9. See further Michael
G. Sargent, ‘A Source of the Poor Caitiff Tract “Of Man’s Will”’, Mediaeval
Studies 41 (1979), 535–9. Allen recognised (58) that three manuscripts of ‘The
166 n o t e s t o pag e s 2 2 –27
Office’, a liturgy prepared in anticipation of Rolle’s canonisation, include, as

their seventh lection, a brief excerpt, lines 278–98 of the edition below; see
The Officium and Miracula …, ed. Reginald M. Wooley (London, 1919), 36–7.
The Office alleges that this selection was taken from Rolle’s autograph, but it
shows minimal variation from the full versions of the text (one example cited,
p. 77). Allen also knew, but discussed separately (Writings, 94, 398) another set of
excerpts, in this case considerably more extensive than elsewhere, in Bodleian
Library, MS Ashmole 751. For this book, see the description at The English
Manuscripts of Richard Rolle: A Descriptive Catalogue (Exeter, 2010), 225–8; the
discussion at Pursuing History: Middle English Manuscripts and Their Texts (Stanford,
CA, 1996), 28–9; and the Appendix, pp. 157–8.
39 Allen’s account of her manuscript 12, which indicates the absence of this
segment of the text, is slightly misleading. The scribe does omit that portion
(from line 111) that appears as part of ‘the compilation’; however, preceding this
omission, he has copied the full ‘Super Canticum’ from its head, including the
first 110 lines here. See further the Appendix (pp. 159–60).
40 See Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Guide to the Location of
Collections Described in the Reports and Calendars Series 1870–1980, Guides to Sources
for British History 3 (London, 1982), 11–12; and Bulletin of the John Rylands Library
12 (1928), 609.
41 Although both I and Richard Sharpe cite Marzac (n. 26), her account (38–40,
177–87 passim) simply rearranges Allen’s and offers no new information.
42 See Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi, 11 vols (Madrid, 19[5]0–80),
nos 7307–8 (5:97–9). The most extensive additions to Allen’s lists appear in Spahl’s
edition of De emendatione vitae (n. 27) and in Malcolm R. Moyes’s Richard Rolle’s
Super Novem Lectiones Mortuorum …, 2 vols, Elizabethan and Renaissance Studies
92/12 (Salzburg, 1988), a ‘best text’ edition.
43 It appears in C. U. Faye and W. H. Bond, Supplement to the Census of
Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada (New York,
1962) at 237–8 (as do Marston 243 and a further Harmsworth manuscript, now
Bloomington, Indiana University Library, MS Poole 20, at 92 and 179, respec-
tively), as well as in Laura Light’s catalogue, or the notice of her account in the
extremely useful ongoing bibliography of manuscript studies, Bibliographie annuelle
du Moyen-Âge Tardif 8 (1998), 507 (no. 3495).
44 See Reginald M. Wooley, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Lincoln Cathedral
Chapter Library (London, 1927), 164–5. Following the advice of the dean of British
manuscript scholars, A. I. Doyle, Spahl refers to the book (and its copy of this
text) at 64–5 and passim (see n. 27).
45 However, see the further discussion in the Appendix (pp. 147–8), and cf.
pp. 54–5.
46 See Writings Ascribed, 234 and notice the silence of her account of Novem
Lectiones manuscripts, overlooking any reference to this book, at 132.
n o t e s t o pag e s 27 –3 2 167
47 See A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts of Merton College, Oxford
(Cambridge, 2009), 71.
48 See Stegmüller 7:157–8; and Bibliographie annuelle 15 (2005), 516 (nos 3961–2);
and cf. Deanesly’s scrupulousness at Incendium 27 (see n. 27), where she specifically
excludes from consideration the similar canticles in Oxford, Magdalen College,
MS lat. 115. The potential confusion among diverse texts beginning ‘Oleum
effusum’ is entirely predictable. When an incipit includes a biblical passage,
one is very often faced with a variety of texts alluding to the same locus, e.g.,
various sermons that begin by citing the preacher’s text; today it is customary to
supplement these non-specific opening citations with the opening words of the
text proper, but not everyone follows this relatively clear convention.
49 Although such embarrassments are reasonably well chronicled, e.g. Richard
Morris’s edition of the most widely disseminated Middle English poem, The
Pricke of Conscience (Stimulus Conscientiae): a Northumbrian Poem … (Berlin, 1863).
Morris hit upon an unusually good manuscript for presentation, but only in the
course of copying it did he discover that it lacked nearly a quarter of the text and
required supplementation from other sources.
50 Thus, medieval Latin scribes may hesitate between offering classical ‘nihil’
and ‘mihi’ or the forms ‘nichil’ and ‘michi’. When they write the word in full,
they will most likely show ‘set’, rather than classical ‘sed’. And for a wide range
of words, e.g. ‘eciam’ for ‘etiam’, they will reproduce classical ‘t’ as ‘c’ (and ‘ct’
as ‘cc’). But such variation is largely cosmetic, expected, and relatively unprob-
lematic, even such an example as ‘wlt’ for classical ‘vult’ (or the actual source of
the spelling, ‘uult’, with ‘double u’).
51 W. W. Greg, ‘The Rationale of Copy-Text’, Studies in Bibliography 3 (1950–51),
19–36 (reprinted in Gottesman and Bennett; see n. 82).
52 But even with a well-attested author, the procedure may not be altogether
pellucid; see Greetham, ‘Challenges of Theory and Practice in the Editing of
Hoccleve’s Regement of Princes’, Manuscripts and Texts: Editorial Problems in Later
Middle English Literature, ed. Derek Pearsall (Cambridge, 1987), 60–86.
53 Such thinking at least partially underlies Ogilvie-Thomson’s decision,
in Richard Rolle Prose and Verse (n. 27) to follow Longleat House, Marquess of
Bath, MS 29 as copy-text. Although it was written in Ireland (and thus in a
language frankly estranging), the text is substantially more complete and less
deviant than that of any competing Northern copy. Cf. Ogilvie-Thomson’s
comments on Cambridge University Library, MS Dd.v.64, a Northern copy in
language arguably very similar to Rolle’s own and used by Hope E. Allen as the
basis of her earlier edition, The English Writings (Oxford, 1931, et seq.), e.g., at
lx–lxii.
54 With others, you can use a standing edition as an organisational system,
as did John M. Manly and Edith Rickert in their monumental The Text of
the Canterbury Tales …, 8 vols (Chicago, 1940). But equally, in such instances,
168 n o t e s t o pag e s 3 2 –3 4
one will find from previous editors’ discussions guidance about the relative
accuracy of a wide range of manuscripts and their potential suitability as a copy
text.
55 It is an utter impossibility, as West points out, Textual Criticism, 23–4 (see
n. 25), for any human to copy accurately any sequence of text over a protracted
period. (West is here drawing examples from Oxford finals scripts, holograph
documents in which the authors are presumably exercising their most careful
behaviour. The discussion of which this is a part draws attention to many features
of scribal copying, the subject of Chapter 4.) I think sorrowfully of the numerous
typographical errors I have had to correct out of various drafts of this book –
where I knew what I wanted to say, but hadn’t – simply because of predictable
slips between the composing mind and the errant eye and fingers. And, of course,
some of these will have escaped my ministrations (and provide you with moments
of amusement).
56 Given the potentially wide distribution of one’s manuscripts among far-flung
libraries, it is convenient to work from facsimile. But, at some point, you must
go and visit all your copies – and particularly your copy-text. Imaging, however
good it is, still only represents – and often misleadingly (digitisation throws
up apparent details that on ocular inspection turn out to be vagaries of the
reproduction process itself ). At least one proof-reading of your copy-text must
be against the original.
57 For what follows, see the sagest remarks I know on the subject of transcription,
M. B. Parkes, English Cursive Bookhands: 1250–1500 (Oxford, 1959; London, 1979;
Aldershot, 2008), xxviii–xxx.
58 For the most distinguished discussion of medieval systems, see Parkes,
Pause and Effect:An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West (Aldershot,
1992).
59 Parkes offers similar observations about medieval rules for word-division.
Particularly in vernacular texts, until the end of the Middle Ages, prepositions are
frequently not separated from their following objects, yet (confusingly) prefixes
frequently are written separately from the word of which, according to modern
usage, they form a part. For further discussion of the procedures, see Paul Saenger,
Space Between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading, Figurae (Stanford, CA, 1997)
(but ignore Saenger’s comments on silent reading, which are inaccurate; the
technique was well known in antiquity, long before anyone put spaces between
words).
60 Lexicon Abbreviaturarum: Dizionario di Abbreviature latine ed italiane, 6th edn
(Milan, 1967, et seq.).
61 For these, see Cappelli, Lexicon, 256, col. 2; and 257, col. 1.
62 See Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c.435–1600
in Oxford Libraries, 2 vols (Oxford, 1984), 2:plate 265 (cf. the discussion at no. 119,
1:22).
n o t e s t o pag e s 35 –36 169
63 Notice the dots beneath this two-word repetition; the scribe has ‘expunged’
it (removed it by using ‘points’). He has recognised his error and corrected it;
you are to understand this as an instruction to ignore the words so marked.
A number of other scribal signals deserve internalising, e.g. double ticks //…//…
above successive words or phrases indicate that one is to understand the items so
marked as to be transposed or reversed; frequently arbitrary signs at the head of
text added marginally and within the text indicate the placement of materials to
be inserted, etc.
64 The three-line capital signals the opening of a new chapter; this the scribe
has numbered ‘XV’ in the margin; as you can tell from Deanesly’s text, he has
imposed a set of divisions on his work with Incendium not that of the printed
text.
65 Translate: [And that] isolation, extracted from noise and bodily song, is
necessary for someone to seize this joy of sounds and to preserve it in both
rejoicing and singing, [David] shows clearly in another place, where he says, ‘I
have gone far off flying away, and I abode in the wilderness’ (Ps. 54:8). Thus he
continually attempts in this life to burn with the fire of the Holy Spirit, and seized
and consoled with the joy of love, to rejoice in the divinity.
Thus the perfect hermit burns violently in divine love, and so long as he is
rapt above himself by contemplation into an ‘access of spirit’, he is raised up
rejoicing even so far as the joy of [angelic] songs and heavenly sound. And indeed
such a person is made like the seraphim, truly burning within himself with an
incomparable and most continuous charity, for his heart, burning with divine fire
and enlightened with excessive fervour, is shaped and borne into the one whom
he loves. And such a person will be suddenly taken up after this life to the highest
seats of the heaven-dwellers, so that he peacefully remains in the place of Lucifer.
For such a person, so burning in his love beyond what [words] may disclose, has
sought only the glory of his creator and advancing with meekness, has not exalted
himself above sinners.
15. Holy Job, who was taught by the Holy Spirit amid his torments, joins
together in a single verse a multiple praise of holy hermits when he says, ‘Who
hath sent out the wild ass free[, and who hath loosed his bonds? To whom I
have given a house in the wilderness, and his dwellings in the barren land]’ ( Job
39:5–6). Thus first he praises the generosity of grace when he says, ‘Who hath sent
out the wild ass free?’ Second, he praises his freedom from the rule of his fleshly
emotions when he says, ‘And [who hath loosed] his bonds?’
66 See Cappelli, Lexicon, 344, col. 1, with 358, col. 1; 151, col. 1; 264, col. 2
(where, on the basis of several analogous examples, you must intuit what the
accusative plural form should be); and 154, col. 1, respectively. On the origins and
development of forms like these, see Parkes, ‘Tachygraphy in the Middle Ages:
Writing Techniques Employed for Reportationes of Lectures and Sermons’, Scribes,
Scripts and Readers … (London, 1991), 19–33.
170 n o t e s t o pag e s 36 – 4 9
67 Hence the existence of such a work as Auguste Pelzer, Abréviations latines
médiévales: supplément au Dizionario di Abbreviature latine ed italiane de Adriano
Cappelli (Louvain and Paris, 1964).
68 The representation of ‘u’ in this fashion is at least plausible, because the letter
is written with exactly the same strokes, two minims, as is ‘n’.
69 See Manly and Rickert (n. 54), 2:1–10 (as well as the subsequent editorial
discussion at 12–20).
70 C has been subjected to a series of corrections in a later hand. The general
collation rule is to report the last reading, including corrections, one can ascribe
to the copyist. (Cf. my acknowledgement of the expunction by the original scribe
in the model transcription from MS Bodley 861 above.) But such later materials,
also prevalent in the carefully corrected V (which may in this instance be the
scribe or an associate), need to be marked. They may not represent the same
source as the rest of the copy and may require special treatment. Cf. the more
explicit marking of this reading in the arranged corpus of variants presented
below; C’s original reading agreed with most copies, but the correction is a
reading that appears elsewhere in but a single account, perhaps something like
what the C corrector had in hand.
71 See Kane and Donaldson, Piers Plowman: The B Version, 227.
72 In my collations, I add one form Kane and Donaldson do not use. Where, as
frequently, copies reproduce a pair of words in an order reversed from the copy
text, I signal this with ‘trs.’, i.e., ‘the words are transposed’. And I offer extended
analogous forms for simple larger transpositions, e.g., trs. phrs., ‘the pair of phrases
here are transposed’.
73 Remember, once again, that you are functionally engaged in refomulating
your materials and perfectly capable of making mistakes at it. Even the most adept
nod; Kane and Donaldson misrepresent their very first lemma, for F actually
begins ‘Al in somer’, the initial ‘A’ a large painted example with illustration.
74 The standard discussion is Sebastiano Timpanaro, trans. Glenn W. Most,
The Genesis of Lachmann’s Method (Chicago, 2005; first published Florence, 1963).
Timpanaro indicates that ‘associated with Lachmann’ might be more accurate
than seeing him as sole innovator.
75 Thus, when one says ‘(the scribe of ) X’, one means not just the scribe of the
immediate manuscript, but all his predecessors back to the source.
76 It is conventional to use Greek letters to represent non-surviving, but
logically posited copies, i.e., the lost ‘exemplars’ of surviving manuscripts.
In editorial discussions, these copies intermediate between the source (the
‘archetype’ or original copy) and the surviving manuscripts are customarily called
‘hyparchetypes’ (‘lower’ sources for the text).
77 You should notice that this replays an organic/evolutionary developmental
model widespread in nineteenth-century discussions of all sorts. Stemma/
tree is after all a metaphor. Here the model has probably been imported from
n o t e s t o pag e s 4 9 – 5 7 171
well-developed philological discussions, diagrammatic accounts of the descent of

languages. Cf. Michel Foucault’s analysis, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of
the Human Sciences (London, 1970, et seq.), 321–74 passim.
78 Frequently known as the ‘last common ancestor’ of all the surviving copies,
or the ‘archetype’ underlying all surviving copies (cf. n. 76).
79 This is, of course, a classic example of the so-called ‘hermeneutic circle’,
in which the presumed given that will allow interpretation to proceed has
presupposed the outcome that it seeks to discover. See the brief discussion,
Jonathan Culler, The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction (London,
1981), 66.
80 Although these might be distinguished from copies that derive from a single
damaged exemplar, e.g., one that has lost a leaf or the like. In such a case, the
error will resist mechanical explanation.
81 This is Joseph Bédier’s ‘loi surprenant’ (astounding rule) – that virtually
every editor he surveyed had constructed a stemma of only two branches. In this
situation, as I point out above, one can only create a prior source text on the
basis of ‘taste’ alone. It was on the basis of this discovery that Bédier offered his
‘best-text’ edition as an alternative (see pp. 7–9 and n. 19).
82 Bentley’s influence on the two greatest editors of the twentieth century,
A. E. Housman and George Kane, might be described as capacious. For the
former, see most trenchantly ‘The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism’,
Art and Error: Modern Textual Editing, ed. Ronald Gottesman and Scott Bennett
(London, 1970), 1–16; for Kane, particularly A Version, 115–72 (full citation in
n. 7), see the next paragraphs. Housman’s prefaces to two of his editions offer
similar analyses and are justly famous: D. Iunii Iuvenalis Saturae (London, 1905;
Cambridge, 1931, 1935); and M. Annaei Lucani Belli civilis, libri decem (Oxford,
1926, 1927, 1930).
83 In the discussion here, as a way of not prejudicing the discussion, I cite the
various copies in the same alphabetical order in which they were arranged on
the collation sheets described above. Although I recognise that it is extremely
confusing, the printed collation relies upon a different ordering; for the logic
underlying that presentation, see p. 97.
84 Both manuscripts also include a copy of Rolle’s Emendatio Vitae; Spahl, De
emendatione vitae, 98–100 passim, demonstrates clearly that here again J has copied
directly from H. This raises an important issue worth bearing in mind: one can
learn a great deal about an individual scribe’s behaviour from surveying how he
operates across a range of texts, not just in that text one is committed in editing.
Cf. ‘“Documentum Roberti Grosehede”: An Unpublished Early Lollard Text’,
Journal of the Early Book Society 13 (2010), 265–74 passim.
85 Eugène Vinaver, ‘Principles of Textual Emendation’, Studies in French
Language and Mediaeval Literature Presented to Professor Mildred K. Pope (Manchester,
1939), 351–69.
172 n o t e s t o pag e s 5 7 – 65
86 For some evidence that medieval scribes repeated the text to themselves –
and heard wrongly what they were supposed to be writing, see the analysis of
examples p. 71.
87 This is especially the case, if one is not marking one’s place in the exemplar
with some external device, like a rule or a piece of paper. As moderns committed
to accuracy, we probably do this routinely, but the evidence provided above would
indicate that at least two of the scribes engaged in copying ‘Super Canticum’,
those responsible for M and V, did not.
88 E.g., in line 73, did B return to the second present participial ending -ciens,
rather than the first, and B2 to the second repetition of past participle -ctos? Or
were they prompted more substantively, by the repeated roots -ficiens and -fectos?
One cannot always be certain what the prompting mechanism was, but its effects
are evident and easily explained.
89 Cf. also the correction at 65 in C, where the correcting scribe apparently
worked from a manuscript where omission was stimulated by the repetition
oleum … meum.
90 The proofreading is signalled in the regular mark ‘c2’ at the foot of rectos,
i.e., ‘corrigitur’ (it has been corrected; cf. Cappelli, Lexicon, 40, col. 2 (ce =
corrige); 61, col. 2 (cordi = corrigendi), as well as frequent interventions in the
text, often by erasure. For an indication of the scrupulousness of these procedures,
see line 203, where the scribe interpreted ipius (ipsius) as īpius, and the corrector
carefully erased the m of impius and provided the appropriate mark of abbreviation
over p. V is also the most elaborately produced of all the copies, with very
large painted initials (at least at the head); it stands as a warning that quality of
production and quality of text may be quite independent and produce radically
different assessments.
91 From our modern point of view one might see this behaviour as ‘dishonest’
(a further example of moralising language attached to errors). Certainly, although
immediately returning to proper copy, no scribe has here stopped to indicate that
he might be misrepresenting his exemplar. But this activity should scarcely be
perceived as turpitudinous, only a different criterion of accuracy than that we
would impose: in such examples, the scribe has properly fulfilled his office by
insuring the full transmission of content. Its order is simply not so important to
him as it is to us.
92 Further evidence supporting such an interpretation might be drawn from
a variety of small readings where one copy (or more) transposes materials and a
second (group) omits a portion of them, e.g., the variants in lines 8, 43, 82, 100,
159, and 229.
93 The bar ‘|’ following ‘nomen’ indicates that this reading extends across a
line-break. Having to begin a new writing line is so basic a copying feature that
one might take it for granted. However, sporadically persistent evidence indicates
that returning to the left margin to resume copying distracted scribes, and it often
n o t e s t o pag e s 65 – 8 4 173
seems to have stimulated either omissions or repetitions. As a result, I mark such

broken readings ‘|’ at every relevant point in the collation.
94 These five books appear elsewhere only in CS agreement with others at
76, VC with others at 160. Given the small number of occasions on which
corrections occur here, C* seems to have derived materials from a manuscript
clearly unrelated with its original source; notice the agreements in omission with
B2 at 79 and in addition with C2PY at 44.
95 If these examples reflect a common source for all four manuscripts, one has
to assume that, on occasion, one of the group has independently transposed a
reading received by all, and has accidentally managed to return to the reading
transmitted by the majority of copies. Such behaviour offers further evidence of
the persistent reversibility of error, as well as a rather backhanded refutation of
Lachman’s belief that a scribe can only add error to the text.
96 To indicate the persistence of this variation, I have extended the customary
collation slightly, to include the derived versions of the text, the excerpted version,
the compilation, and the print.
97 See Cappelli, Lexicon, 147–8 passim.
98 See Cappelli, Lexicon, 114, col. 2; 384, col. 2.
99 In the few widely attested instances, now familiar groups of variants are
repeated, B2HP in 171 (with C, cf. PM in 13), BC (with H) in 179 (and cf. 144),
LC2PY in 278, B2M in 291.
100 In line 230, for example, B reads qn as if it were qm, and Y offers the reverse
misperception in the following line.
101 The reading also appears, quite independently, in J, as one of that manuscript’s
handful of deviations from its exemplar H.
102 Analogous to this second example is 52 nomen] non meum Y. Unlike most
of the scribes of this text, who abbreviate nomen as n n, this one scribe twice writes
the form nom, at this point apparently misperceived as n m.
103 See Cappelli, Lexicon, 40, cols 1–2 for this form in abbreviations for circ-
(and note his indexing words beginning with con- apart from those beginning
with c- at 68–85). The ubiquitous late medieval English abbreviated form for
demonstrative/relative que is q, Cappelli, Lexicon, 301, col. 2.
104 But perhaps just an echo stimulated by the use in the preceding sentence
– just as 247, cited here but also discussed above p. 67, may reflect inadvertent
omission. One cannot always be certain which of several motivating forces might
be responsible for some errors.
105 See Cappelli, Lexicon, 97, col. 2 (deitatis, divina).
106 See further Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones in Cantica 18.1, Patrologia Latina,
183:859, and pp. 101–2.
107 V’s error may be an accidental individual lapse and may only by chance
correspond with what appears a motivated substitution in C2Y.
108 Not just Bibles proper, but service books of all kinds (including those for
174 n o t e s t o pag e s 8 4 –101
unsupervised private prayer, ‘Books of Hours [of the Blessed Virgin]’, the most
ubiquitously surviving medieval book). Especially in the case of the liturgically
central Psalter, which Rolle commented twice and cites repeatedly, one can
assume common verbally exact knowledge.
109 And for a further tiny example, see the discussion of line 217, p. 88.
110 Another example of smoothing involving most of the same books appears at
268–9: pro … persistere] qui pro … persistit C2YP. Having intruded the relative
pronoun, the construction was perceived to require a following finite verb.
111 Such examples, of course, form a universal case in texts that survive in only
one witness, where one’s evidentiary basis is severely constrained and one might
be thought at the mercy of a single scribe. For example, in Richard Holland’s
Scots Buke of the Howlat 963 (there are two copies, but both offer close renditions
of the same source), one reads ‘I couth nocht won into welth wreth wast’, where
the last two syllables are senseless and where, this being an alliterative long-line,
at least two syllables near the end have been completely lost.
112 I here ignore the excerpt versions, of which I have collated one sample;
as I have earlier pointed out, these might be drawn from anywhere and may be
completely independent of one another.
113 I adopt this ‘cross-sign’ as a derivative of the ‘obolus’ (†), used by classical
scribes and readers to mark lines in their texts they found defective beyond repair
– and thus an indication of something missing.
114 Were one to adopt such a procedure here, then a variant in common to
C2LMY might appear represented as Mε.
115 Although I have discussed them only very briefly here, my collation
includes full references to readings of the compilation, an excerpt version, and
the printed ‘Oleum effusum’. The sigil c assigned to the first marks the agreement
of two copies, Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 35; and Bodleian Library, MS
Laud misc. 202. As a sample of excerpted versions, e marks readings attested by
Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 16. Finally, as I have already indicated, p identifies
the variants in the version printed at Cologne in 1536.
116 While ‘Super Canticum’ is fairly unproblematic, certainly far from all Rolle’s
output is, most notoriously Melos Amoris, alliterative Kunstprosa, sprinkled with
coinages and nonce-uses. For the possessive hit, see Patience, ed. J. J. Anderson,
Old and Middle English Texts (Manchester, 1969), 50 n.12. ‘Imagine a reader’s
response’ in the concluding sentence will again remind you that annotation is
every bit as much an interpretative art as editing the text has been.
117 The great Victorian scholar Walter W. Skeat truly knew everything (he had
edited most of the central Middle English canon) and is still the model annotator
every editor would like to be. See here his comments, The Vision of William
Concerning Piers the Plowman …, 2 vols (Oxford, 1886, et seq.), 2:31–2 C 3.9n. Of
course, you would need to update Skeat here; see, for example, G. A. Holmes,
The Good Parliament (Oxford, 1975), passim.
n o t e s t o pag e s 10 2 – 5 175
118 See Novem Lectiones, 1:27–53 (see n. 42).

119 Cf., for example, the incipit to Richard’s commentary, ‘Postquam a paradisi
gaudiis expulsum est genus humanum, in istam peregrinationem vitae praesentis
veniens, caecum cor a spirituali intellectum habet’ (Patrologia Latina, 196:405) with
the opening of the segment we have been editing.
120 For extensive discussion, particularly emphasising the ubiquitous Somme
le roi of Fr Laurence of Orleans, see Rosemond Tuve, Allegorical Imagery: Some
Medieval Books and their Posterity (Princeton, NJ, 1966), esp. 57–143.
121 Cf. the Scottish Carthusian Adam of Dryburgh, ‘De quadripertito exercitio
cellae’ 15: ‘Haec quatuor capita referimus ad totidem sanctae religionis exercitia,
in quibus ipsa consistit totius ordinis nostri forma. Sunt autem lectio, meditatio,
oratio, actio: quatuor haec, major autem horum est oratio’ (Patrologia Latina,
153:826). This thematic background underlies the inevitability of manuscript
associations of ‘Super Canticum’ 4 and the excerpted Incendium Amoris, ch. 15,
where Rolle evokes similar themes (and associates them, as lines 278–80 here do,
with his ‘conversion’).
122 For a classic statement, see Fredson Bowers, Bibliography and Textual Criticism,
The Lyell Lectures 1959 (Oxford, 1964).
123 Translate: ‘In truth, I know that those who remain in a noisy group do not
know at all with how great a delight in sweetly flowing love a solitary may burn.
And whoever is accustomed to run about a good deal shows his almost complete
ignorance of the delights of eternal love. I Richard, also known as the hermit
solitary, know what I claim, for the person who kindled by the fire of the Holy
Ghost, distances himself, so far as he can, from the noise of the world and from
every physical sound, loves God with a greater fire. This is the reason why every
truly contemplative man continually desires solitude’.
124 Angus McIntosh, M. L. Samuels, and Michael Benskin, A Linguistic Atlas of
Late Mediaeval English, 4 vols (Aberdeen, 1986). For the most useful general guide
to using the work, see Benskin, ‘The “Fit”-Technique Explained’, Regionalism in
Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts, ed. Felicity Riddy (Cambridge, 1991), 9–26;
and the fine further example, Ipomadon, ed. Rhiannon Purdie, EETS 316 (Oxford,
2001), xxxvii–xlvii. The atlas is now available online, with tools enabling you
to apply Benskin’s technique to your own text, at http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/ihd/
elalme/elalme.html.
125 For one example, dealing with a complicated tradition, see EETS 342,
lxi–lxxi.
126 A great model for such is provided by J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon
(eds), rev. Norman Davis, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 2nd rev. edn (Oxford,
1966), 159–230; and Davis also produced another splendid example, explaining
the texts in J. A. W. Bennett and G. V. Smithers (eds), Early Middle English Verse
and Prose (Oxford, 1966, et seq.). These are glossaries from which you can learn
an enormous amount; they were produced at a time when Middle English editors
176 n o t e s t o pag e s 10 5 – 56
were required to provide (and discuss) not just the meaning, but the etymology
of every word in the text – an activity no longer deemed necessary. (You may be
happy to hear that labour-saving changes do occur, even in this most conservative
of studies.)
127 For another fine and informative example, see Richard Dance in Ancrene
Wisse …, vol. 2, EETS 326 (Oxford, 2006), 329–471.
128 Cf. For example, Davis’s list of proper names in Sir Gawain, at 231–2; or the
more elaborate indexes at EETS 342, 405–13.
At this point, recall n. 32. While this volume was in production, I uncovered
another copy of ‘Super Canticum’ 4. This appears on the flyleaves from an
earlier binding in Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 5943, fols iv–v
(a partial bifolium at the rear) and ii–iii (another at the front). For a description,
see J. S. Ringrose, Summary Catalogue of the Additional Medieval Manuscripts in
Cambridge University Library (Woodbridge, 2009), 212–14. This form of the text
is ambiguous in nature; the text begins ‘Expulsus’ at the head of fol. iv ra, and
might represent either the full ‘Super Canticum’ 4 as an independent excerpt (as
in L2M2) or odd leaves from a full text, where this section began on a new leaf.
In any event, this is an abandoned effort; except for line-ends, only fols iv rv and
iirv have been written, and the blank conjoint portions of the bifolia show that
copying of the remainder of the quire was never completed. The text ends at the
foot of fol. iivb with 248 amore. So far as a quick survey reveals, this copy offers no
readings one would consider seriously for an edited text; for example, it shares
the same transposition of sentences at 206–8 as appears in HLC2YL2, and has 211
quesiui, like all β copies.
129 Paper is conventionally identified on the basis of its watermarks, usually
(as here) with reference to C.-M. Briquet, Les filigranes: Dictionnaire historique des
marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1292 jusqu’en 1600: A facsimile of the 1907
edition …, ed. Allan Stevenson, 4 vols (Amsterdam, 1968); and Gerhard Piccard,
Die Wasserzeichenkartei Piccard im Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart: Findbuch, currently 17
vols in 25 (Stuttgart, 1961– ).
130 Because James’s description is unusually fragmentary here, I append a few
notes on this portion of the book:
s. xv in. (c.1420?). Overall 175 mm × 130 mm (writing area 130 mm ×
85 mm). In 23–6 long lines to the page. Written in anglicana with secretary
g. Contents:
[1] fols 74–95v: Emendatio Vitae;
[2] fols 95v–100v: Super Canticum, section 4 (from line 111 only);
[3] fols 100v–103v: Incendium Amoris, chapter 15;
[4] fols 103v–107 v: Super Canticum, section 5;
[5] fols 108–116v: Robert Grosseteste, sermon 83; see S. Harrison Thomson,
The Writings of Robert Grosseteste (Cambridge, 1940), 181;
[6] fols 116v–126v or 127: ‘Quicunque vult confiteri ad salutem anime
n o t e s t o pag e s 156 – 8 177
sue debeat dolere de omnibus peccatis’, an unidentified model confession,

degenerating into notes at the end 126v–128;
[7] fols 128–136: the history of the oil of mercy and the cross, with
continuation life of Judas, Stegmüller, Repertorium, 74.9 (1:27);
[8] fols 136v–137 v: ‘[E]loquia domini eloquia casta (Ps. 11:7). Octo sunt
benedicciones; septem impetrantur per vij. peticiones in oracione dominica’,
perhaps excerpted from Odo of Cheriton’s commentary on the Pater Noster,
with the same introductory verse (see Sharpe, Handlist, 404); the remainder
to the end a sequence of theological notes, distincciones, etc.
collation 1–98. No signatures, leaves ordered by regular catchwords
on versos of all leaves in the first half of the quire; catchwords.
131 The scribe offers no materials from part 5 of ‘Super Canticum’ and only a
couple of paragraphs worth of part 7. But, elsewhere, his excerption was extensive,
and he routinely became increasingly involved with each of the sections of the
text, thus most of the second halves of parts 1 and 2 (and close to 70 per cent
of parts 3 and 6). From our portion of the text, he offers lines 111–31 (three
or four scattered sentences omitted), 144–45, 156–278 (another eight or nine
scattered sentences omitted). On this basis, the textual portions he offered reflect
a personal programme and only by accidental convergence happen to correspond
with portions reproduced in the β tradition.
132 In lines 144, 159, 179 (shared with H), 195, 220, 224 (shared with VP), 225
(shared with H), 228, 229 (twice), 237, 246, 247, 248, 260–1, and 277.
Index
Important Editorial Discussions and Editorial Terms and Topics
accidentally convergent variation, see editions, types of

convergent variation ‘best copy’ 7–9
accidentals/accidental variation ‘critical’ 10–13, 19
9–10, 29–33 ‘interestingly deviant copy’ 6
annotation, conventions of 99–106 ‘most complete copy’ 6
anteriority 78 ‘oldest copy’ 7
archetype, see last common ancestor ‘recension’ or ‘adaption’ 6
attestation 45–8, 72, 156–7 single ‘available’ or ‘representative’
aural contamination 71, 73, 83 manuscript 3–5
exemplar 46
Bédier, Joseph 8, n.81
Bentley, Richard 52–3 Gaskell, Philip n.3
bracketing 87 glossing (synonymous substitution)
15, 76, 81, 87, 95
codex eliminandus 55, 147–8, 158 Greetham, D. C. nn.7, 52
collation 39–44; ordering and Greg, Walter 30–1
reporting variants within the
printed collation 97–8 ‘harder reading’, see durior lectio
conflation 48, 74, 93, 158–9 homoeoarchy 58
conjecture 92 homoeographs (substitution of similar
convergent variation 48, 60, 63, spellings) 15, 76, 82, 87
80–1, 89–90, 158, nn.107, 131 homoeoteleuthon 58
copy-text 29–33, 71 Housman, A. E. n.82
Huygens, R. B. C. n.25
Donaldson, E. Talbot 42–3, nn.6, hyparchetypes n.76
15, 24
durior lectio 14, 84, 87, 90, 95 incipit 20
indifferent variation 77–8, 88, 91,
echoic readings, see repetition 94, 100
Kane, George 42–3, 53, nn.6–7, 15, repetition 60–1, 63, 68–70, 95
82
Lachmann, Karl 46–52, n.95 (second generation) smoothing 15,
65, 66, 70, 79, 83–4, 87, 90, n.110
lapsus calami 88 sigil 9
last common ancestor 49, nn.76, 78 Skeat, Walter W. n.117
lemma 43 sounds, see aural contamination
line-breaks 66, 69, n.93 stemma codicum 49–51, 53–4, 74–5
substantives/substantive variation
Maas, Paul n.25 10, 29–33
Manly, John M. and Edith Rickert substitution 14–15, 75–8; see also
39–40, n.54 glossing, homoeographs
marking the text for emendations
and omissions 96 transposition 62–3, 73–4, 94
omission 55–8, 63–8 Vinaver, Eugène 57
Parkes, M. B. nn.57–9, 66 West, M. L. n.25

i n dex 181
Readings of ‘Super Canticum’ 4 Discussed in Detail
1 a 82 66 in 64; effusum 68
2 vetito 81; tota 86 66–7 datur … datur 56
3 in 63–4 67 datur 56
4 volens 64; cum 79 68 effusum 68
5 nec2 … debuit 56 69 et2 64
11 peracto 81 70 Igitur 76–7
13 ergo 76–7 71 Hoc1 … oleum2 56; est, ad
14 set et 64 celum 64; medicinale 68
14–15 set … set 56 73 refectos perficiens, perficiens
15 moriens 86 perfectos, perducens
16 reuelata 82 perductos 56
19 deus2 63 74 perductos 69; stola 83
20 cum 82 76 O 65
25 edidisti 82 78 plurima 65
25–6 virginem inuiolatam 64 79 oleum1 … oleum2, reperire …
27 homine paris 83–4 oleum3 56; hoc oleum 65
28 promittis 81, 89 81 diuicias habes 56
29 congruit, rege 87 83 saciaret 69
31 ubera tua 87 85 tuum … tuum 61–2
33 lac 87 86 verum esse, esse 79
34 tuo 83 87 nemo illud 73
37 est tuum 73, 79 89 quia 69
39 deus2 68 90 calculum, calculo 87
40 te 64; quod 82 94 anima 65
43 deus 64 95 desiderabile 69
44 apparens 68 96 scribetur 90
47 ut 68 97 suo 65
51 dampnatum 64, 89 100 est, effusum 69
52 tuum 60; vngeres 59–60; 102 hoc exilio 83; imprimat 90
nomen n.102 103 in 65, 78; solo, letandum 69
53 tua 68 104 in 65; namque 76–7
55 deus (tuus) 64 107 interno 79
57 quia … indignit 60; deitas 79 108 ergo 76–7
58 spiritualium 64 110 oleum … tuum 56; nomen
59 conformaret 90 65
61–2 nomen tuum … nomen 111 tuum 85
tuum 56 112 adoratur 87, 89, 92, 158
63–4 reficiat … perficiat 56 113 speratur 88
64 oleum2 68; perficiat 89 114 id est 65; ergo 76–7;
64–5 impinguet … impinguet 56 salutare 87
65 non … meum n.89 115 tuum … tuum 56
116 Imples 81, 90–1; verbum est 184 gaudium2 … gaudium3 57;
90 hoc2 70
120 nomen2 65 185 fruemur, fruentes 70; et 78
122 nomen Ihesu 65 186 saciabimur 70; Ergo 76–7
124 in omni 65 187 diligunt … presenti 57, 59
125 prestat consolamen 61 188 infusionem 78; gracie 79
127 memoria 69 191 Ergo 76–7
128 mea 65 195 egenis 66
129 cor … super 57; cor … 196 in 66
brachium 58–9; ut1 65 200 fructuosum 66
132 Attamen 79 201 Christo 81; illam 201
133 sanetur 69 202 Ergo 76–7
137 caro 69 203 non 66
139 Ihesus 69 204 quippe 66
141 nunciabit 69; dilecto 83; 205 Circuiui 67
Ihesu 85 206 cupidinem 79; deliciarum
141–2 amore … amore 57 80, 89
143 igne 69 206–7 Ambulaui … Ihesum 57, 61
144 dulcore 66; absorbetur 69; 207–8 Cucurri … Ihesum 57, 61
Hinc 76–7; deitatis 81 211 ergo 76–7; circuiui 79;
145 miserere 66 suauiter 83
146 sum 69 213 et 78
150 Ihesu 70 214 itinere 70; fatigatum 89
152 affectum 79 216 in deserto 88
153 seruitutem 66 217 solum 88, 89
155 canticum 66 218 ligatum 67
157 et non 66 219 Ergo 76–7; in2 78; cruci
160 facere 66; debilitatur 70 affixum 83
161 proculdubio … eris 57 220 non2 70
162 obliuiscaris 66, 89 222 et 70, 78
165 in mente 66 224 inuenitur 83
168 internam 83 226 decepti 70
169 terrena … fastidio 82 227 cupientes 67; eternam
170 omnes 85–6 mortem 83
171 igitur 76–7 228 hic2 75, 91; queritis 88
173 conabatur 66 229 oculi 67, 89
174 illi potest 75, 89 230 creditis 67; quando n.100
176 amauerimus 79; quod 80 231 et tamen mortem 57, 67;
177 amplius 70 quoniam n.100
177–8 the biblical citation 85–6 232–3 facti estis 67, 89
179 igitur 76–7 233 Omnes 70
181 semper2 66 234 totus 67, 86; vester 80
182 sacietas … desiderium 58–9 235 dampnatur 82–3
i n dex 183
236 luxuriosis … peccare 57 271 terrorem 79

237 redditur 91 272 celicum 67
239 vestra praua 67, 86 273 O3 67
241 ergo 76–7 274 glorificum 91
242 igitur 76–7 276 aut1,2 70
247 debemus 67, 80; scilicet 88 277 Igitur 77
248 ergo 77; set 80 278 ego 77; Cum 91
249 inuenitur 61; solacio 70 280 quod 67
250 paupertatem 67 283 cur 68
251 in 67, 82 284 in 68, 82
256 etc. 84 285 me2 68; loquela 91
256–7 et2 … suo 85 288 in 68
258 nocte … deceptus 85; 290 set 70
manibus 85–6, 89 291 ergo me 77
261 nostro 67; mundi 83 293 qui, iam 68
264 te1 … te2 57; super te 67 295 vere 91
268 elegit 61 296 et2 68
270 enim 67 297 eciam 78

Ralph Hanna - Editing Medieval Texts - An Introduction, Using Exemplary Materials Derived From Richard Rolle, - Super Canticum - 4-Liverpool University Press (2015)

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e x et e r m e di eva l t e xts a n d stu di es

Series Editors: Vincent Gillespie and Richard Dance

LIV ERPOOL UNIV ERSITY PR ESS

Richard Rolle, ‘Super Canticum’ 4: Edition, Collation,

readings, all producing extensive suggestions about both content and

Editions of any sort are integral to that trans-historical contact that

typically followed a line of least resistance. When a text is reprinted, it

it. Merely an obvious example: an edition of a medieval text designed for

diverting historical anecdote. One could argue that, in many circum-

provenance, their production or ownership by a prominent or interesting

One obvious subset of a single manuscript presentation suggests

whether it is always so (a ‘perfect’ text, rather than a ‘best’ one). Thus,

any of those I have discussed heretofore, one that is usually called a

(mis)representation, absolutely essential for the communication every

to seek alternative ways of conveying the sense implicit in that word in

Collecting the Witnesses

an obscure unpublished dissertation, with transcription of a single

the customary rota (Chaucer, Gawain-poet, Langland, Gower, Lydgate,

The foundational claim of a critical edition is that it has examined and

Within such limits, however, one must undertake a bibliographical

of Perfection appears here, for example, because printed in the incunable

routine medieval reading and writing practices discussed above). In ten

their then current locations. In three instances, this information is passé,

I engaged in a little library tourism and read the Harvard University

J Cambridge, Jesus College, MS Q.D.4 ( James 46)

C2 Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library,

D Dublin, Trinity College, MS 153

L2 Lincoln Cathedral, MS 229

V London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian E.i

P New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.872 [‘Castle Howard’]

B Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 861

L Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 528

C Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 193

M2 Oxford, Merton College, pb 58.c.8

S Oxford, St John’s College, MS 127

L3 London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 536 [abbreviated]

For those manuscripts without published modern descriptions (VHMBL),

Pretty obviously, at the centre of any edition stands a reproduction of the

This insistence upon forms analogous to those in the source of all

reflect any exceptionally intellectual proposition. It is, like many things

visible feature of the Latinate ‘literate familiarity’ I have mentioned earlier

Comparing the Witnesses,

in extensive detail a procedure useful for a beginner.69 These editors were

1 Expulsus a paradiso pro transgressione diuini precepti in

2 pomo vetito primus parens cum tota posteritate sua astrictusque

3 mortis debito in infimis istius mundi miserijs subito se sensit

4 dilabi et volens nolens labori tedioso mancipari verum cum

This represents a displayed collation, in a standardised format. The

that Cr reads substantively as Hm does; it might actually have ‘sett’ or

of copies shared or did not share common source materials? Again,

although they obviously form the printed edition, are of no help in

omission must have followed the same exemplar/archetype. On this basis,

O1 (the scribal copy from it for distribution)

A B C D E … (the existing copies themselves)

represents an interpretation, not a fact. Moreover, it is as circular as some

following Bentley’s rejection of attestation, irrespective of the number of

examples invite you to return the abstracted variants in the collation to

129 cor … super] om. V, a similar omission also in C (see