Caxton's Book of Curtesye

E-text prepared by Greg Lindahl, Linda Cantoni, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Printed at Westminster about 1477-8 A.D. and Now Reprinted, with Two Ms. Copies of the Same Treatise, from the Oriel Ms. 79, and the Balliol Ms. 354
Edited by
Editor of 'The Babees Book, Etc.' ('Manners and Meals in Olden Time'), Etc. Etc.
London: Published for the Early English Text Society by Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press, Amen House, E.C. 4
1868 (reprinted 1882, 1898, 1932)
On this latter point Mr Skeat writes:
The Oriel copy is evidently the best. Not only does it give better readings, but the lines, as a rule, run more smoothly; and it has an extra stanza. This stanza, which is marked 54, occurs between stanzas 53 and 54 of the other copies, and is of some interest and importance. It shows that Lidgate's pupil, put in mind of Lidgate's style by the very mention of his name, introduces a ballad of three stanzas, in which every stanza has a burden after the Lidgate manner. The recurrence of this burden no doubt caused copyists to lose their place, and so the stanza came to be omitted in other copies. Its omission, however, spoils the ballad. Both it and the curious lines in Piers Ploughmans Crede,
For aungells and arcangells / all Þei whijt vseÞ And alle aldermen / Þat ben ante tronum ,
i.e. all the elders before the throne, allude to Rev. iv. 10. This Crede passage has special reference to the Carmelites or White Friars.
The first two leaves of the Oriel copy are misplaced inside out at the end; but this is not the only misarrangement. The poem has evidently been copied into this MS. from an older copy having a leaf capable of containing six stanzas at a time ; which leaves were out of order. Hence the poem in the Oriel MS. is written in the following order, as now bound up, Stanzas 11 (l. 5)-18, 25-30, 37-42, 19-24, 49-54, 31-36, 43-48, 55-76, 8-11 (l. 4), 4 (l. 5)-7, 1-4 (l. 4).