A study and a partial edition of the Anglo-Norman verse in the Bodleian manuscript Digby 86

Thesis

The Bodleian manuscript Digby 86 was written during the thirteenth century. It contains verse and prose texts,in Latin, French and English, on religious and secular subjects. It is one of the earliest common place books compiled in a secular setting. It contains unique copies of several French and English poems, and the earliest known copies of several more. More than half of the manuscript is written in French. There is a strong bias towards religious and didactic texts. Most of the known authors of the texts belonged to the secular clergy. The shorter Anglo-Norman poems in the manuscript are particularly interesting, and nine of them are edited here. Of the nine poems, four are devotional, and each of these has survived in at least four manuscripts; five- are secular, and none of these has survived incomplete form in any other manuscript. None of the nine poems is referred to in the standard work on Anglo-Norman literature, M.D.Leqqe's Anglo-Norman Literature and its Background, and although they are not all remarkable literary achievements, they are all interesting either for poetic merit, or for their literary affiliations, or for the metrical and linguistic forms displayed. The Bone preere a nostre Seinqnour Jhesu Grist (l) is a contemplative and penitential prayer to Christ. It is adapted from a Latin prayer attributed to St.Edmund of Abingdon, which has survived only in MS Bodley 57. The Latin prayer has not been edited, and is not listed in the standard reference works. The Chauncoun de noustre Seinqnour (II) is composed in an intricate metrical form, and this has been obscured in previous editions. The language is sophisticated, and the style blends elements of the secular love lyric with conventional formulas of devotion. Les Avés noustre Dame (III) consists of three parts, salutations of the Virgin, a prayer of the Five Joys, and a Litany of the Saints, and it has often been listed as three separate poems. But this goes against the manuscript tradition, and it should probably be regarded as one composite whole. It has survived in eight different versions, whereby two manuscripts contain two versions each, and one version is a continental 'normalized 1 text. One of the versions has not previously been identified, because in it the first eight stanzas are missing. [Continues in thesis]

Authors: Meier-Ewert, C; Meier-Ewert, Charity

• Publication date: 1971
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anglo-Norman poetry; History and criticism