Early English Meals and Manners Part 14

Then came the necessary comparison of Russell's Boke with the _Boke of Curtasye_, edited by Mr Halliwell from the Sloane MS. 1986 for the Percy Society. Contrasts had to be made with it, in parts, many times in a page; the tract was out of print and probably in few Members' hands; it needed a few corrections[15], and was worthy of a thousand times wider circulation than it had had; therefore a new edition from the MS. was added to this volume. Relying on Members reading it for themselves, I have not in the notes indicated all the points of coincidence and difference between this Boke and Russell's. It is of wider scope than Russell's, takes in the duties of outdoor officers and servants as well as indoor, and maybe those of a larger household; it has also a _fyrst Boke_ on general manners, and a _Second Book_ on what to learn at school, how to behave at church, &c., but it does not go into the great detail as to Meals and Dress which is the special value of Russell's Boke, nor is it a.s.sociated with a writer who tells us something of himself, or a n.o.ble who in all our English Middle Age has so bright a name on which we can look back as "good Duke Humphrey." This personality adds an interest to work that anonymity and its writings of equal value can never have; so that we may be well content to let the _Curtasye_ be used in ill.u.s.tration of the _Nurture_. The MS. of the _Curtasye_ is about 1460 A.D., Mr Bond says. I have dated it wrongly on the half-t.i.tle.

_The Booke of Demeanor_ was "such a little one" that I was tempted to add it to mark the general introduction of handkerchiefs. Having printed it, arose the question, 'Where did it come from?' No Weste's _Schoole of Vertue_ could I find in catalogues, or by inquiring of the Duke of Devonshire, Mr W. C. Hazlitt, at the Bodleian, &c. Seager's _Schoole of Vertue_ was the only book that turned up, and this I accordingly reprinted, as Weste's Booke of Demeanor seemed to be little more than an abstract of the first four Chapters of Seager cut down and rewritten. We must remember that books of this kind, which we look on as sources of amus.e.m.e.nt, as more or less of a joke, were taken seriously by the people they were written for. That _The Schoole of Vertue_, for instance--whether Seager's or Weste's--was used as a regular school-book for boys, let Io. Brinsley witness. In his _Grammar Schoole_ of 1612, pp. 17, 18, he enumerates the "Bookes to bee first learned of children":-- 1. their Abcie, and Primer. 2. The Psalms in metre, 'because children wil learne that booke with most readinesse and delight through the running of the metre, as it is found by experience. 3. Then the Testament.' 4. "If any require any other little booke meet to enter children; _the Schoole of Vertue_ is one of the princ.i.p.all, and easiest for the first enterers, being full of precepts of ciuilitie, and such as children will soone learne and take a delight in, thorow the roundnesse of the metre, as was sayde before of the singing Psalmes: And after it _the Schoole of good manners_[16], called, _the new Schoole of Vertue_, leading the childe as by the hand, in the way of all good manners."

I make no apology for including reprints of these little-known books in an Early English Text. _Qui s'excuse s'accuse_; and if these Tracts do not justify to any reader their own appearance here, I believe the fault is not theirs.

A poem on minding what you say, which Mr Aldis Wright has kindly sent me, some Maxims on Behaviour, &c., which all end in _-ly_, and Roger Ascham's Advice to his brother-in-law on entering a n.o.bleman's service, follow, and then the Poems which suggested the _Forewords_ on Education in Early England, and have been partly noticed in them, p. i-iv. I have only to say of the first, _The Babees Boke_, that I have not had time to search for its Latin original, or other copies of the text. Its specialty is its attributing so high birth to the Bele Babees whom it addresses, and its appeal to Lady Facetia to help its writer. Of the short alphabetic poems that follow,--_The A B C of Aristotle_,--copies occur elsewhere; and that in the Harleian Ma.n.u.script 1304, which has a different introduction, I hope to print in the companion volume to this, already alluded to. _Vrbanitatis_, I was glad to find, because of the mention of _the booke of urbanitie_ in Edward the Fourth's Liber Niger (p. ii. above), as we thus know what the Duke of Norfolk of "Flodden Field" was taught in his youth as to his demeanings, how mannerly he should eat and drink, and as to his communication and other forms of court. He was not to spit or snite before his Lord the King, or wipe his nose on the table-cloth. The next tracts, _The Lytylle Chyldrenes Lytil Boke or Edyllys Be_[17] (a t.i.tle made up from the text) and _The Young Children's Book_, are differing versions of one set of maxims, and are printed opposite one another for contrast sake. _The Lytil Boke_ was printed from a later text, and with an interlinear French version, by Wynkyn de Worde in '_Here begynneth a lytell treatyse for to lerne Englisshe and Frensshe_.' This will be printed by Mr Wheatley in his Collection of Early Treatises on Grammar for the Society, as the copy in the Grenville Library in the Brit. Mus. is the only one known. Other copies of this Lytil Boke are at Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Oxford. Of two of these Mr David Laing and Mr Henry Bradshaw have kindly given me collations, which are printed at the end of this Preface. Of the last Poem, _Stans Puer ad Mensam_, attributed to Lydgate-- as nearly everything in the first half of the 15th century was-- I have printed two copies, with collations from a third, the Jesus (Cambridge) MS.

printed by Mr Halliwell in _Reliquiae Antiquae_, v. 1, p. 156-8, and reprinted by Mr W. C. Hazlitt in his _Early Popular Poetry_, ii. 23-8.

Mr Hazlitt notices 3 other copies, in Harl. MS. 4011, fol. 1, &c.; Lansdowne MS. 699; and Additional MS. 5467, which he collated for his text. There must be plenty more about the country, as in Ashmole MS. 61, fol. 16, back, in the Bodleian.[18] Of old printed editions Mr Hazlitt notes one "from the press of Caxton, but the only copy known is imperfect. It was printed two or three times by Wynkyn de Worde. Lowndes mentions two, 1518, 4to, and 1524, 4to; and in the public library at Cambridge there is said by Hartshorne (_Book Rarities_, 156) to be a third without date. It is also appended to the various impressions of the _Boke of Nurture_ by Hugh Rhodes." This _Boke_ has been reprinted for the Early English Text Society, and its _Stans Puer_ is Rhodes's own expansion of one of the shorter English versions of the original Latin[19].

The woodcuts Messrs Virtue have allowed me to have copies of for a small royalty, and they will help the reader to realize parts of the text better than any verbal description. The cuts are not of course equal to the beautiful early illuminations they are taken from, but they are near enough for the present purpose. The dates of those from British Museum MSS. are given on the authority of trustworthy officers of the Ma.n.u.script Department. The dates of the non-Museum MSS. are copied from Mr Wright's text. The line of description under the cuts is also from Mr Wright's text, except in one instance where he had missed the fact of the cut representing the Marriage Feast at Cana of Galilee, with its six water-pots.

The MS. of Russell is on thick folio paper, is written in a close--and seemingly unprofessional--hand, fond of making elaborate capitals to the initials of its t.i.tles, and thus occasionally squeezing up into a corner the chief word of the t.i.tle, because the _T_ of _The_ preceding has required so much room.[20] The MS. has been read through by a corrector with a red pen, pencil, or brush, who has underlined all the important words, touched up the capitals, and evidently believed in the text.

Perhaps the corrector, if not writer, was Russell himself. I hope it was, for the old man must have enjoyed emphasizing his precepts with those red scores; but then he would hardly have allowed a s.p.a.ce to remain blank in line 204, and have left his Panter-pupil in doubt as to whether he should lay his "white payne" on the left or right of his knives. Every butler, drill-serjeant, and vestment-cleric, must feel the thing to be impossible. The corrector was not John Russell.

To all those gentlemen who have helped me in the explanations of words, &c.,--Mr Gillett, Dr Gunther, Mr Atkinson, Mr Skeat, Mr c.o.c.kayne, Mr Gibbs, Mr Way, the Hon. G. P. Marsh--and to Mr E. Brock, the most careful copier of the MS., my best thanks are due, and are hereby tendered. Would that thanks of any of us now profiting by their labours could reach the ears of that prince of Dictionary-makers, Cotgrave, of Frater Galfridus, Palsgrave, Hexham, Philipps, and the rest of the lexicographers who enable us to understand the records of the past!

Would too that an adequate expression of grat.i.tude could reach the ears of the lost Nicolas, and of Sir Frederic Madden, for their carefully indexed Household Books,--to be contrasted with the unwieldy ma.s.s and clueless mazes of the Antiquaries' _Household Ordinances_, the two volumes of the Roxburghe _Howard Household Books_, and Percy's _Northumberland Household Book[21]!_--They will be spared the pains of the special place of torment reserved for editors who turn out their books without glossary or index. May that be their sufficient reward!

3, _St George's Square_, N.W.

16 _Dec._, 1866.

HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER.

Mr C. H. Pearson has referred me to a most curious treatise on the state of Duke Humphrey's body and health in 1404 (that is, 1424, says Hearne), by Dr Gilbert Kymer, his physician, part of which (chapters 3 and 19, with other pieces) was printed by Hearne in the appendix to his _Liber Niger_, v. ii. p. 550 (_ed. alt._), from a MS. then in Sir Hans Sloane's Collection, and now _Sloane_ 4 in the British Museum. It begins at p.

127 or folio 63, and by way of giving the reader a notion of its contents, I add here a copy of the first page of the MS.

Incipit dietariu{m} de sanitatis custodia p{re}inc.l.i.tissi{m}o p{r}incipi ac metuendissimo d{omi}no, d{omi}no humfrido, duci Gloucestrie, Alijsq{ue} p{re}claris t.i.tulis insignito, Sc{r}iptu{m} & co{m}pilatu{m}, p{er} ven{er}abile{m} doctore{m}, Magistru{m} Gilbertum Kymer, Medicinar{um} p{ro}fessorem, arciu{m} ac ph{ilosoph}ie Mag{ist}r{u}m & in legib{us} bacallariu{m} p{re}libati p{r}incipis phisicu{m}, Cui{us} dietarij[A]

c{ol}l{e}cc{i}o{n}em (?) dilucidancia & effectu{m} viginti s.e.x existu{n}t capit{u}la, q{u}or{um} {con}seque{n}t{er} hic ordo ponit{ur} Rubricar{um}[B].

[Textnotes: A: The letters are to me more like cl, or c{ol}l than anything else, but I am not sure what they are. B: The MS. runs on without breaks.

[Transcriber's Note: Marker [A] is printed at the end of "dietarij", but must be intended for the following word.]]

Cap{itulu}m 1^m est ep{isto}la de laude sanitat{is} & vtilitate bone diete.

Cap{itulu}m 2^m est de illis in quib{us} consist.i.t dieta.

Cap{itulu}m 3^m de toci{us} co[r]p{or}is & p{ar}ciu{m} disposi{ci}one.

Cap{itulu}m 4^m est de Ayer{e} eligendo & corrigendo.

Cap{itulu}m 5^m de q{ua}nt.i.tate cibi & potus sumenda.

Cap{itulu}m 6^m de ordine sumendi cibu{m} & potu{m}.

Cap{itulu}m 7^m de temp{or}e sumendi cibu{m} & potu{m}.

Cap{itulu}m 8^m de q{ua}nt.i.tate cibi & potus sumendoru{m}.

Cap{itulu}m 9^m de pane eligendo.

Cap{itulu}m 10^m de gen{er}ib{us} potagior{um} sumendis.

Cap{itulu}m 11^m de carnib{us} vtendis & vitandis.

Cap{itulu}m 12^m de ouis sumendis.

Cap{itulu}m 13^m de lacticinijs vtend{is}.

Cap{itulu}m 14^m de piscib{us} vtendis & vitand{is}.

Cap{itulu}m 15^m de fructib{us} sumendis.

Cap{itulu}m 16^m de co{n}dime{n}t{is} & sp{eci}ebus vtendis.

Cap{itulu}m 17^m de potu eligendo.

Cap{itulu}m 18^m de regimi{n}e replec{i}o{n}is & inanic{i}onis.

Cap{itulu}m 19^m de vsu coitus.

Cap{itulu}m 20^m de excercic{io} & q{u}iete.

Cap{itulu}m 21^m de sompni & vigilie regimi{n}e.

Cap{itulu}m 22^m de vsu acc{ide}nciu{m} anime.

Cap{itulu}m 23^m de bona {con}suetudi{n}e diete tenenda.

Cap{itulu}m 24^m de medic{in}is vicissim vtendis.

Cap{itulu}m 25^m de adu{er}sis nature infortunijs p{re}cauendis.

Cap{itulu}m 26^m de deo semp{er} colendo vt sanitate{m} melius tueatur.

["Unpacked" text, omitting signs of abbreviations or ligatures:]

Incipit dietarium de sanitatis custodia preinc.l.i.tissimo principi ac metuendissimo domino, domino humfrido, duci Gloucestrie, Alijsque preclaris t.i.tulis insignito, Scriptum & compilatum, per venerabilem doctorem, Magistrum Gilbertum Kymer, Medicinarum professorem, arcium ac philosophie Magistrum & in legibus bacallarium prelibati principis phisic.u.m, Cuius dietarij colleccionem (?) dilucidancia & effectum viginti s.e.x existunt capitula, quorum consequenter hic ordo ponitur Rubricarum.

Sharon Turner (_Hist. of England_, v. 498, note 35) says euphemistically of the part of this treatise printed by Hearne, that "it implies how much the Duke had injured himself by the want of self-government. It describes him in his 45th year, as having a rheumatic affection in his chest, with a daily morning cough. It mentions that his nerves had become debilitated by the vehemence of his laborious exercises, and from an immoderate frequency of pleasurable indulgences. It advises him to avoid north winds after a warm sun, sleep after dinner, exercise after society, frequent bathings, strong wine, much fruit, the flesh of swine, and the weakening gratification to which he was addicted. The last (chapter), 'De Deo semper colendo, ut sanitatem melius tueatur,' is worthy the recollection of us all." It is too late to print the MS. in the present volume, but in a future one it certainly ought to appear.

Of Duke Humphrey's character and proceedings after the Pope's bull had declared his first marriage void, Sharon Turner further says:

"Gloucester had found the rich dowry of Jacqueline wrenched from his grasp, and, from so much opposition, placed beyond his attaining, and he had become satiated with her person. One of her attendants, Eleanor Cobham, had affected his variable fancy; and tho' her character had not been spotless before, and she had surrendered her honour to his own importunities, yet he suddenly married her, exciting again the wonder of the world by his conduct, as in that proud day every n.o.bleman felt that he was acting incongruously with the blood he had sprung from. His first wedlock was impolitic, and this unpopular; and both were hasty and self-willed, and destructive of all reputation for that dignified prudence, which his elevation to the regency of the most reflective and enlightened nation in Europe demanded for its example and its welfare.

This injudicious conduct announced too much imperfection of intellect, not to give every advantage to his political rival the bishop of Winchester, his uncle, who was now struggling for the command of the royal mind, and for the predominance in the English government. He and the duke of Exeter were the illegitimate brothers of Henry the Fourth, and had been first intrusted with the king's education. The internal state of the country, as to its religious feelings and interest, contributed to increase the differences which now arose between the prelate and his nephew, who is described by a contemporary as sullying his cultivated understanding and good qualities, by an ungoverned and diseasing love of unbecoming pleasures. It is strange, that in so old a world of the same continuing system always repeating the same lesson, any one should be ignorant that the dissolute vices are the destroyers of personal health, comfort, character, and permanent influence."[24]

After narrating Duke Humphrey's death, Turner thus sums up his character:--

"The duke of Gloucester, amid failings that have been before alluded to, has acquired the pleasing epithet of The Good; and has been extolled for his promotion of the learned or deserving clergy. Fond of literature, and of literary conversation, he patronized men of talent and erudition.

One is called, in a public record, his poet and orator; and Lydgate prefaces one of his voluminous works, with a panegyric upon him, written during the king's absence on his French coronation, which presents to us the qualities for which, while he was living, the poet found him remarkable, and thought fit to commend him."

These verses are in the Royal MS. 18 D 4, in the British Museum, and are here printed from the MS., not from Turner:--

[Fol. 4.]

Eek in this lond--I dar afferme a thyng-- Ther is a prince Ful myhty of puyssau{n}ce, A kynges sone, vncle to the kynge Henry the s.e.xte which is now i{n} frau{n}ce, And is lieftenant, & hath the gouernau{n}ce Off our breteyne; thoruh was discrecion He hath conserued in this regiou{n}

Duryng his tyme off ful hih{e}[A] prudence Pes and quiete, and sustened riht{e}.[A]

?it natwithstandyng his n.o.ble prouyde{n}ce He is in deede prouyd a good knyht, Eied as argus with reson and forsiht; Off hih{e} lectrure I dar eek off hym telle, And treuli deeme that he doth{e} excelle

In vndirstondyng all othir of his age, And hath gret Ioie with clerkis to co{m}mune; And no man is mor expert off language.

Stable in studie alwei he doth contune, Settyng a side alle chau{n}ges[B] of fortune; And wher he loueth{e}, ?iff I schal nat tarie, With{e}oute cause ful loth{e} he is to varie.

Duc off Gloucestre men this prince calle; And natwithstandyng his staat & dignyte, His corage neuer doth appalle To studie in bookis off antiquite; Therin he hath{e} so gret felicite Vertuousli hym silff to ocupie, Off vicious slouth to haue the maistrie.[25]

And with his prudence & wit his manheed Trouthe to susteyne he fauour set a side; And hooli chirche meyntenyng in dede, That in this land no lollard dar abide.

As verrai support, vpholdere, & eek guyde, Spareth non, but maketh{e} hym silff strong To punysshe alle tho that do the chirch{e} wrong.

Thus is he both manly & eek wise, Chose of G.o.d to be his owne knyht{e}; And off o thynge he hath a synguler[C] price, That heretik dar non comen in his siht{e}.

In cristes feith{e} he stant so hol vpriht, Off hooli chirche defence and [c]hampion To chastise alle that do therto treson.

And to do plesance to oure lord ih{es}u He studieht[D] eu{er}e to haue intelligence.

Reedinge off bookis bringth{e} in vertu,-- Vices excludyng, slouthe & necligence,-- Maketh{e} a prince to haue experience To know hym silff i{n} many sundry wise, Wher he trespaseth, his errour to chastise.

[Text Notes: A: These _e_-s represent the strokes through the _h_-s.