by Karl Reichl and Walter Sauer

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PREFACE

The original motivation for compiling the present concordance was literary. Ever since Milman Parry's studies on formulaic diction in the Iliad and the Odyssey, the statistic evaluation of formulas and formulaic expressions, not only in the Homeric poems but also in medieval works like the Old English Beowulf or the Old French Chanson de Roland, has played an important role in the debate about the orality of Classical and medieval poetry. For the formulaic analysis of literary texts concordances like that by G. L. Prendergast of the Iliad, by J. B. Bessinger of the Anglo- Saxon poetic corpus, or by J.J. Duggan of the Song of Roland have become indispensable tools. One of the hallmarks of the Middle English popular romance is its formulaic style. Although editors of Middle English romances have occasionally compiled lists of formulaic expressions, repeated phrases and tags, a precise formulaic analysis of these texts is difficult in the absence of published concordances. It was with a view to supplying sufficient data for a formulaic analysis of Middle English popular romances that concordances of seventeen Middle English romances, comprising a total of about 30,000 lines, were compiled at the Institute of Communication Sciences and Phonetics at the University of Bonn in the 1980s. Meanwhile, concordances of at least some groups of Middle English romances, such as the Breton lays and those treating the `matter of England', have become available, and we felt that it might be of use to add to these concordances by editing a selection of our material.

The present concordance is that of a comparatively homogeneous group of non-cyclical Middle English romances: Sir Eglamour of Artois, Le Bone Florence, Sir Isumbras, Octavian, The King of Tars, and Sir Tryamowr. These are all romances composed in tail-rhyme stanzas, sharing a common story-pattern. Their plot is basically that of separation and reunion: husband and wife are separated, often as a result of malicious slander, but the wife's innocence is vindicated in the end and the couple (and their children) are finally reunited. These romances have taken a number of characteristic motifs (like that of the children abducted by animals) from the legend of St. Eustace; they are also related to the various folktales of the calumniated and of the patient wife. In Middle English literature, the best known representative of this story-pattern is Chaucer's 'Tale of Constance' ('The Man of Law's Tale') in his Canterbury Tales. Although the original aim of compiling this concordance was literary, the use of the present concordance is, of course, not limited to formulaic analysis. Apart from the investigation of style and lexis, a number of syntactic phenomena can also be studied with the help of this concordance. In order to ensure a maximum of usefulness and reliability all texts have been checked against the manuscripts and re-edited according to a unified set of principles (see p. iv); homonyms have been distinguished; and the lexical material is given in full (including definite and indefinite articles, proper names etc.). Line-numbers refer to the texts in the following editions:

Sir Eglamour of Artois: F. E. Richardson, ed., Sir Eglamour of Artois, EETS OS, 256 (London, 1965); MS London, British Library, Cotton Caligula A.II.

Bone Florence: C. F. Heffernan, ed., Le Bone Florence of Rome, Old and Middle English Texts (Manchester, New York, 1976); MS Cambridge, University Library, Ff. 2.38.

Sir Isumbras: M. Mills, ed., Six Middle English Romances (London, 1973), pp. 125- 147; MS BL Cotton Caligula A. II.

Octavian (Northern version): Mills, Six Middle English Romances, pp. 75-124; MS CUL Ff.2.38.

The King of Tars: J. Perryman, ed., The King of Tars, Middle English Texts, 12 (Heidelberg, 1980); MS Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates' MS 19.2.1 (Auchinleck MS).

Sir Tryamowr: A. J. Erdmann Schmidt, ed., Syr Tryamowre. A Metrical Romance with Introduction, Glossary and Notes, Ph.D. Thesis Amsterdam (Utrecht, 1937); MS CUL Ff.2.38.

The texts have been re-edited from the MSS according to the following editorial principles: The MS spelling has been homogenized in that <è> and <ç> have been replaced by and , respectively; <3> has been rendered as , or according to its phonetic value; i and , as well as and , have been normalized according to their consonantal or vocalic value. Flourishes in the script of scribes have been ignored; abbreviations have been silently expanded. Capitalization has been normalized (capital letters having been used at the beginning of sentences and lines and for names). We have generally followed the punctuation given in the reference-editions cited above; Le Bone Florence has, however, been re-punctuated. Prefixes etc. which are written separately in the MSS have been linked with the word to which they belong (as in before for MS be fore); compounds have been hyphenated or written as one word, basically according to Modern English practice.

Principles of Lemmatization

Although this concordance has been compiled mechanically, a good deal of manual editing has also gone into the compilation. The most salient difference between an entirely machine-produced concordance and our concordance is that homonyms (homographs) have been given separate lemmata. This was done in order to facilitate the use of the concordance. The lemma THE, for instance, occurred in the machine-produced version of the concordance in 2483 lines. A user of the concordance interested in verbs or pronouns would no doubt find it cumbersome to have to search all these lines for occurrences of the verb the, 'thrive', or of the pronoun the, 'thee'. We have therefore listed the 17 occurrences of the verb the, the 2322 occurrences of the definite article, and the 144 occurrences of the pronoun the under three separate headings. In distinguishing homonyms, there was no attempt on our side to provide a full semantic and grammatical analysis of the lexical material compiled. When homonyms belong to different word classes, as in the case of the, they are simply distinguished from one another by indicating their word class: THE [v], THE [art], and THE [pron]. When they belong to the same word class their word class symbol is numbered, as in LEVE [v1], LEVE [v2], and LEVE [v3]. Here the first verb corresponds to Modern English 'leave', the second to 'live', and the third to 'believe'. The latter information is, however, not given. We felt that the user will appreciate being spared the task of having to separate these homonyms, but will otherwise be capable of deciding for himself which is which, without needing a semantic gloss.
In differentiating homonyms, the following abbreviations have been employed:

[n] noun (including proper nouns)
[v] verb (including the verb to be)
[ppl] participle
[adj] adjective
[adv] adverb
[art] article (definite and indefinite)
[pron] pronoun
[num] numeral
[prep] preposition
[conj] conjunction
[int] interjection
[Latin] a Latin word
[French] a French word

The lexemic distinctions made are based on the MED or, for words not yet covered by the MED, on the OED. Only in one point have we not followed the MED. The MED differentiates between the adjectival and the adverbial use of a word, between the function of a word as adverb and preposition, or between the use of a word as adverb and conjunction. Thus some occurrences of ar (`ere') in our concordance would have to be characterized as adverbs, some as prepositions, and some as conjunctions. We are of the opinion that it was not our task to enter into the minutiae of Middle English grammar by establishing distinctions like these; it seemed more appropriate to separate ar as a form of the verb `to be' from the adverb/preposition/conjunction ar, leaving the latter analysis to the user of the concordance. There are, hence, only two lemmata AR in the concordance, AR [v] and AR [adv/prep/conj]. Although not differentiated, word classes like 'adverb', 'preposition', and 'conjunction' are nevertheless given in the case of homonyms. This applies also to words where one of these word classes might occur only once. The noun in, 'inn', for instance, is distinguished from the preposition in; although only one or two of the 655 occurrences of the latter in are adverbs, the second lemma IN is nevertheless characterized by [adv/prep]. No distinction has, however, been made between adjectives and substantivized (or partially converted) adjectives, such as ded, dedd in phrases corresponding to Modern English 'the quick and the dead'; these words have only received the label [adj]. Similarly, no difference is made between the use of verbs like can as full verbs ('to know') and as auxiliary verbs ('to be able to'); can is, however, set off from can as a variant of the 'inchoative' (or simply pleonastic) verb gan, and we have hence two lemmata, CAN [v1] ('to know' + 'to be able to') and CAN [v2] ('to begin'). Doubtful cases have, as far as possible, been treated with discretion. According to the OED, 'woe' in 'him is woe' is a noun, but an adjective in 'he is woe'. Consequently, wo in Isumbras 76 hym were wo would have to be classified as [n], while wo in Tryamowr 255 sche were wo as [adj]. Here (as in the case of woo) the substantival and the adjectival use of wo, whose distinction is in any case difficult and controversial, have not been separated into different lemmata. We have also left the various occurrences of that unanalysed. It would certainly have been interesting to distinguish between that as demonstrative pronoun, as relative pronoun, and as conjunction; but in doing so we would have had to go into the syntactic analysis of the texts concorded, anticipating and possibly prejudicing the results a syntactician might derive from the concordance. Finally, we have assumed that users of this concordance will generally be familiar with the graphemic conventions of Middle English and will themselves be able to trace the often numerous spelling variants of lexemes. Any other solution would have entailed an undue amount of cross-referencing.

Emendations

All emendations are marked by an asterisk in the concordance. We have been very conservative in emending MS readings; most of the emendations proposed have been taken over from the editions cited above. The following is a list of lines in which emendations occur:

Eglamour:

0104 She myght be *myn [MS expunged] at myn endyng -
0154 'And I myght turne *unto [MS vtto] lyve,
0178 She takes *her [MS he] leve at the knyght
0300 The prise he blewe full *schrylle [MS schyrlle].
0417 With *swerd [MS swere] scharpe and felle;
0512 When Marras the gyaunt cometh *ham [MS han]
0688 *Sche [MS Sch] prayes her gentyllwymmen so fre
0796 When *they [MS the] remeved that fowle thyng
0807 *In [MS I] a schyp alone;
0913 'A fayrer *thyng [MS thhyng] sawe I never non,
1001 All that *ordur [MS odure] of knyght woll have
1031 What armes the chyld bare ye schal *here [MS he],
1294 The lady letted for no *schame [MS schane]:
1342 This old *erl [MS erld], Sir Prynsamour,
1363 Mynstrelles *come [MS cone] fro fer lond:

Florence:

0344 *Tyber [MS Tyger] hyt hyght, Y undurstande,
0660 And fared as he wolde *wede [MS wode];
0797 Wythowten belle or *procescyon [MS procescoun],
0907 To *hyr [MS hys] speche answeryd he noght,
0955 *The [MS ye] godys forbode that thou spare,
0996 And *wedd [MS om.] them wyth a rynge.
1230 That they *in [MS they] castell fande;
1246 Soche a nave *as [MS or] ther was oon
1328 '*Ane [MS and] of yow schall bye thys blundur
1428 And seyde ofte, `*Weleawaye [MS wele a saye]!
1440 To God and Mary *feyre [MS om.] and free:
1474 Chorle, God *gyf [MS yf] the schames dedd,
1713 To them then *can [MS expunged] sche helde,
1988 That wolde have had hur hys leman *wroght [MS to a wroght],
2179 Be hyt nevyr so *slylye [MS slylylye] caste,

Isumbras:

0185 And bare hym to wode to his *brother [MS brothe],
0206 All *them [MS the] thowght rede golde they syghe,
0229 To the galye ganne they *wynne [MS wende];
0267 'Syr,' he *seyde [MS sey], 'nay.
0350 And forth he *walketh [MS wakketh] in that lond
0389 *They [MS the] seyde, 'Com swynke as don we -
0435 And blessed *hym [MS for], sothe to sayn;
0441 And ledde *hym [MS om.] to an hygh mownteyne;
0573 *Teres [MS theres] he lette down falle.
0726 And all *that [MS om.] with hym were.
0757 The *bestes [MS beste] were both wylde and wode;

Octavian:

0003 Of whome Y wyll yow *kythe [MS lythe];
0045 Hys londe to *yeme [MS yene] and ryght.
0075 Yf yow nothyng *ylle [MS to ylle]!
0215 He askyd *what [MS when] manyr jugement
0578 Clement seyde, 'Longe *ye [MS y] may hym holde,
0579 Or *ye [MS y] hym selle may.
0627 Hyt was *not [MS om.] taryed that nyght.
0672 As the squyer had *hym [MS hym hym] teyght.
0934 Men may see be hys *brenie [MS breme] bryght
1009 The byrde bryght as golde *bye [MS hye]
1065 The traytur was so *breme [MS preme].
1226 Of that tythynge *forto [MS for that] lythe,
1262 A braunche of *olefe [MS clefe] for to have
1326 Full fele dud he *then [MS them] falle.
1358 To the batell *forto [MS for that] fare,
1408 The Crystyn party become so *thyn [MS than]
1509 And *bremely [MS brenely] can he bere.
1598 He rode thorow them *als [MS om.] he was wode,
1660 They dyght them wyth *brenies [MS bremus] bryght

The King of Tars:

0018 Of princes proud *in [MS and] play.
0094 And ar he yive his douhter the *tille [MS tlle]
0095 Thine hertblod he will *spille [MS splle],
0141 With helme *and [MS om.] hauberk of meile.
0147 Opon the king *to [MS to to] wende.
0247 '*Fader [MS fder],' sche seyd, 'withouten duelling
0405 Noither for fo no *frende [MS frede]
0502 And while sche was in the temple *ther [MS om.]
0557 Of harp and fithel and of *gest [MS grest]
0597 Amorwe *no [MS na] aneve;
0791 And thonked our levedi *with [MS om.] joies five
0800 *Sche [MS and] schewed him the child and spac,
0847 And in hir bodi nam flesche and *blod [MS bld];
0972 To *Tars [MS tras] he gan fare.
0976 He teld the king alle *that [MS that that] cas;
1043 Thai schul be heveded *everichon [MS eruerichon],
1101 Amonges hem gun *drive [MS drriue];
1145 He thought the king *of [MS om.] Tars to slo
1199 That helme and heved *fleyye [MS expunged] in the feld
1217 That *he [MS e smudged] nas sleyn in that tide
1226 Of *Sarrazins [MS sarrains] bothe blo and blac,
1232 Into a stede thai *weren [MS wereen] ybrought

Tryamowr:

0095 That whethyr he leve *or [MS expunged] dye,
1123 They fonde *hym [MS om.] be a watur-syde,
1202 *Were [MS wery] redy armed in that place,
1510 Wyth swerdys scharpe *they [MS the] faght faste,

This concordance has been produced using the Oxford Concordance Programme. Over the years a number of students at the University of Bonn have been active in mastering the Oxford Concordance Programme and in typing the texts in machine-readable form; we gratefully acknowledge their work.