From the Deliberations of the Trinity, the Creation of the World, and the Fall of Man, his poem covers the whole of Old Testament history as well as the story of the Redemption; and passing on to the Finding of the Cross, and then to the Last Judgment and the Life to Come, closes with praise of her in whose honour it was written. The Author. The poet takes up the cudgels on behalf of the English language. There are rhymes enough, he says, written for Frenchmen; but one ought to use the speech that is best understood, and the speech of the English nation is English. Seldom was, for ani chance, Praised Inglis tong in France. Me think we do tham non outrage. Among the works which are clearly due to the direct influence of our author, may be mentioned the York and the Towneley Plays of the next century; and it would seem not unreasonable to believe that the masterly way in which he put his views into practice, influenced largely the rapid growth of vernacular literature that immediately followed him. The Work. The Cursor Mundi is the work of an artist. One finds in it no hotchpotch of the numerous sources from which it was taken it follows throughout a carefully measured plan. The style is clear and flowing, vigorous yet restrained; so that not even the enormous length of the poem (wellnigh 30,000 lines) need alarm the modern reader. The poet uses mainly the four-stressed line, and that with a freedom and ease not inferior to Chaucer's own. He has chiefly employed the rhymed couplet; but he varies by the occasional introduction of series of rhymes. In one passage he uses the dignified septenarius with great skill: to another he gives solemnity by introducing the rhyme-form a abccb. As a craftsman he has no equal until Chaucer. Some of the sources of the Cursor Mundi have been established by modern research. Chief among them are the Vulgate, the Apocryphal Gospels, and the then famous Historia Scholastica of Peter Comestor of Troyes. The author was familiar also with the whole range of contemporary literature, French and English, grave and gay, as well as with the whole ecclesiastical literature of his age. But one finds in the Cursor no trace of laborious translation: the vast store of knowledge it shows has undergone sifting and re-forming in the author's own mind, has become part of himself. One feels that no matter what new sources of his work may yet be discovered, the originality and the genius of the poet will remain unimpugned. RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE.-One of the most remarkable personalities in the history of English thought is that of Richard Rolle, the greatest of the early English Mystics. 1 everybody. In Life. He was born about the year 1300, at Thornton, in the North Riding. his nineteenth year he abandoned theological studies at Oxford for the life of a hermit : "in solitudine Christus loquitur ad cor." A friend of his father's gave him food and raiment, and a cell on his estate. Here he spent four years in contemplation, until— as he tells us—he saw Heaven with the eye of the mind, and received the gift of the divine "warmth" and "sweetness," and, rarest gift of all, the knowledge of the "celestial harmony." After this he was "like Cain, a wanderer on the face of the earth," moving about Yorkshire from cell to cell wherever he found a welcome. Views. His efforts to induce others to "leave vanities and the snares of ruin and to "soar from vice to Life," were not greatly successful. The laity had no use for his doctrine of caritas; and there is little wonder that the Church had still less use for a man who, Catholic as he was at heart, yet sought no place in the ecclesiastical system, and even dared to teach that "God alone is the hermit's abbot, prior, and provost." And so he determined to write. Works.—His earliest works were lyrics, in praise of Christ and the Virgin. The following selections are typical : 7 The joy that men hase sene, es lyckend tyl the haye Richard wrote freely in both Latin and English, and he made in both a striking use of alliteration. He soon began to write prose also. He recorded his theory of the anchorite's life in two long Latin works, the Melum Contemplativorum and the De Incendio Amoris, and in many short treatises. He wrote a Latin commentary on the Psalter, and numerous prayers, sermons, and meditations. After years of wandering he had settled down near Ainderby. Twelve miles from his cell dwelt another anchorite, Margaret Kirkby, "dilecta sua discipula," whom he loved "perfecta caritatis affectione," and for whose sake perhaps he began to write in English. At any rate two of his best-known English works were written for her, the long epistle entitled The Form of Perfect Living, and a new commentary on the Psalter. From his cell near Ainderby he seems to have acted as spiritual correspondent to other Yorkshire recluses. One of his English epistles, that entitled I sleep and my heart wakes, is addressed to a nun of Yeddingham. This letter is an interesting example of Richard's style and method. With religious rhapsody he can combine simple common-sense. Of paternosters and aves he writes: "Take not tent that thou say many, bot that thou say hom wele." Style. His prose style is remarkable. Its rhythm is everywhere striking, but over and over again he carries on the argument in alliterative verse, sometimes for long passages: "Al perisches and passes that we with eghe see. It wanes into wrechednes, the welth of this worlde. Robes and riches rotes in the dike. Prowde payntyng slakes into sorow. Delites and drewrys [love] stynk sal ful sone.' In the second part of I sleep, he introduces a long passage of three-stressed verse, rhyming a bab. Another English letter is addressed to a nun of Hampole. Towards the end of his life Richard moved to South Yorkshire, and he died at Hampole in 1349. It may have been there that he wrote the poem on which his literary reputation has hitherto chiefly rested. "The Pricke of Conscience."-The Pricke of Conscience is a poem in seven books, dealing with the life of the soul, on earth, before the judgment seat, and in the world to come. It is the work of a man well read in the learning of his age, and possessed of complete command of thought and expression. In spite of the subject-matter, the swing of some of the verse reminds one of Barbour. The latest critics, however, dispute the authorship of this work. Should they prove right, the reputation of Richard Rolle of Hampole can nevertheless bear the loss. Conclusion. He was an inspiration to writers of English down to the time of Wyclif. Numerous works of the 14th and early 15th centuries were ascribed to or founded on him. His fame indeed was his literary downfall; for the Lollards fathered some of their productions on him, and so ruined his repute both as writer and as saint. Yet he remains a spiritual ancestor of Wyclif and of the author of Piers Plowman. ROBERT MANNYNG OF BRUNNE.-Shortly before the author of the Cursor Mundi conceived the idea of popularizing knowledge for his fellow-Northerners, similar useful work had been done for the laity of East Anglia. "Handlyng Synne."-In 1303 Robert Mannyng of Brunne had begun to make a book on Englyssh tonge" for "alle crystyn men undir sunne," particularly for the "lewed men" of Bourne and Sempringham. As men like to listen to rhymes and stories, they had best spend their time, he says, in hearing decent ones. So he made it his business to provide a long collection of stories both edifying and amusing. Handlyng Synne is an exceedingly free translation of the Anglo-Norman Manuel des Pechiez of William de Waddington. The main body of the poem, dealing with the Seven Deadly Sins, is preceded by reflections on the commandments, and followed by illustrations of the Seven Sacraments and Shrift. However, the title covers the subject-matter accurately enough, for as Robert himself states, wherever you open the book you will find sin. Criticism of Life. An attempt to summarize any of these pleasing tales would only spoil them; but a few short passages and phrases taken at random may serve to indicate the author's style. Men and women should not be proud of their hair. They may arrange their locks and pat them into place; but at home, not at the masse in the cherche." The author objects strongly to "bearded buckys" and to women who use powder to "make hem feyrere than God hem made." As for those who borrow clothes for a dance, That pore pryde, God hit lothes, That makes hem proude of other mennys clothes. Tournaments lead to pride and covetousness, envy and lechery; and furthermore, when a man has been led into such venture-by some woman, of course, So is he beat there, for her love, That he may not sytte hys horse above. Robert disapproves of miracle plays, except in the church; and with great relish he tells of the evil fate of minstrels and players. As for other social diversions, Dynners are oute of skyl and resoun Dances, karols and summer games, Some wene that kyssyng is no synne, This custoum ys also perylous, To lede a man to the alehouse; To do 2 hym drynke out of resoun, Or make hym drunke, that is tresoun. Style. The normal versification of Handlyng Synne may be seen well enough in the above quotations. 1 Done. But the poet does not hesitate to vary with a freer metre, e.g. Brunyng the bysshop of seynt Tolous, The lordes answere was sumwhat vyle, 2 Make. "The Story of England."-Thirty-five years later our author finished his second contribution to popular education. This is his Story of England, a rhymed chronicle based on Wace's Brut and on Pierre de Langtoft's Chronicle, but containing additions from other current histories as well as from the author's own observation. The Story of England is perhaps from the point of view of style an advance on Robert of Gloucester, but in other respects it falls behind the earlier chronicle. The interesting contemporary history which it offers is due mainly to Langtoft. Robert Mannyng's literary reputation may therefore rest upon his earlier work. PROSE, DIDACTIC VERSE, SONGS, MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS, ETC. Prose.--English prose in the period between the Peterborough Chronicle and Richard Rolle is not striking either in extent or in quality. It is entirely religious, and to a great extent mere translation from Latin or French; but as illustrating English habits of thought and the development of English syntax it may be reckoned "native literature." It is confined to the South of England, and seems to be associated with Gloucester and Canterbury; but its authors are unknown, except that indefatigable translator into the English of Kent, Dan Michel of Northgate, whose Ayenbite of Inwyt (Remorse of Conscience) was completed at Canterbury in 1340. Of all this early prose, special interest attaches to certain South-Western treatises written for women: the Lives of SS. Katherine, Juliana, and Margaret, encomiums of virginity; the amusing anti-connubial Hali Meidenhad; and the Ancren Riwle, which in spirit, style, and treatment stands in a class by itself. Narrative and Didactic Verse.-The "Southern Legends" have been referred to above in connection with Robert of Gloucester. A few somewhat earlier poems, written in the same form and style, have come down to us-e.g., The Woman of Samaria, The Passion of Our Lord, and the more famous Poema Morale. In Doomsday and Death we find the same common metre, but in rhyming fours instead of pairs. A good deal of this didactic and moralizing verse is in lyrical form, as for example in Sinners Beware, The Duty of Christians, and several versions of the Debate of the Body and the Soul. A specimen (modernized) may be in place: Naked in sooth, and bare, Shall doff and leave behind. Lyrical metres were chosen also by William of Shoreham (c. 1320) for a good part of his four or five thousand lines of exposition and instruction. |