THE LITTLE CHILDREN’S LITTLE BOOK
MSS. Harl. 541, fol. 210, and Egerton 1995, about 1480. Sub-title Edyllys be. Edyllys may be the O. E. æthele, German edel, meaning noble; but the sentence is then incomplete. Ends “Quod Whytyng.” Whether he was author or scribe I do not know, more probably the latter. I have kept the rhyme in this version, because it is at once shorter and more interesting than the other.
p. [16]. Seven Arts. The quadrivium: arithmetic, music, geometry, astronomy; and the trivium: grammar, rhetoric, logic.
p. [16]. When Gabriel ... meet. It is interesting to note that a medieval writer connected courtesy with the worship of Mary, even although he includes no precepts which touch upon what we call chivalry to-day.
p. [16]. Villainy. The French equivalent of churlishness; what Russell calls “simple conditions.”
p. [17]. Beginning ... think. This kind of rhyme, not uncommon in the fifteenth century, seems to indicate a pronunciation as in the cockney nothink.
p. [17]. Mess. Here food, but sometimes table (Latin mensa), and again group of people at a table, as used still in the expression “officers’ mess.”
p. [17]. Fault. Text: that thy salt holds—which the rhyme shows to be corrupt.
p. [18]. Work. Text: keep—changed for the rhyme.
p. [18]. Fingers, i.e., not with thy knife? Or has a negative been omitted?
p. [19]. No drop be seen. So Chaucer’s Prioress. See Introduction, p. [xvi].
p. [19]. Behind no man’s back. There was perhaps originally an idea of greed, or, it may be, of possible tampering with the drink, behind the prohibition.
p. [20]. Jill. From Gillian, once a common name for women.
p. [20]. The same. Text: in same (German zusammen) together.
p. [21]. Cumbered with no fiends. This fear was very real in the Middle Ages, and was fostered by such stories as Robert the Devil, Sir Gowther, and ballads of supernatural beings.