The author of one of the legends of the Holy Cross says,
This tale, quether hit be il or gode,
I fande hit writen of the rode.
Mani tellis diverseli,
For thai finde diverse stori.[57]
Capgrave, in his legend of St. Katherine, takes issue unmistakably with his source.
In this reknyng myne auctour & I are too:
ffor he accordeth not wytz cronicles that ben olde,
But diversyth from hem, & that in many thyngis.
There he accordeth, ther I him hold;
And where he diversyth in ordre of theis kyngis,
I leve hym, & to oder mennys rekenyngis
I geve more credens whech be-fore hym and me
Sette alle these men in ordre & degre.[58]
Except when this mistrust is made a justification for divergence from the original, these comments contribute little to our knowledge of the medieval translator's methods and need concern us little. More needful of explanation is the reference which implies that the English writer is not working from a manuscript, but is reproducing something which he has heard read or recounted, or which he has read for himself at some time in the past. How is one to interpret phrases like that which introduces the story of Golagros and Gawain, "as true men me told," or that which appears at the beginning of Rauf Coilyear, "heard I tell"? One explanation, obviously true in some cases, is that such references are only conventional. The concluding lines of Ywain and Gawin,
Of them no more have I heard tell
Neither in romance nor in spell,[59]
are simply a rough rendering of the French
Ne ja plus n'en orroiz conter,
S'an n'i vialt manconge ajoster.[60]
On the other hand, the author of the long romance of Ipomadon, which follows its source with a closeness which precludes all possibility of reproduction from memory, has tacked on two references to hearing,[61] not only without a basis in the French but in direct contradiction to Hue de Rotelande's account of the source of his material. In Emare, "as I have heard minstrels sing in sawe" is apparently introduced as the equivalent of the more ordinary phrases "in tale as it is told" and "in romance as we read,"[62] the second of which is scarcely compatible with the theory of an oral source.
One cannot always, however, dispose of the reference to hearing so easily. Contemporary testimony shows that literature was often transmitted by word of mouth. Thomas de Cabham mentions the "ioculatores, qui cantant gesta principum et vitam sanctorum";[63] Robert of Brunne complains that those who sing or say the geste of Sir Tristram do not repeat the story exactly as Thomas made it.[64] Even though one must recognize the probability that sometimes the immediate oral source of the minstrel's tale may have been English, one cannot ignore the possibility that occasionally a "translated" saint's life or romance may have been the result of hearing a French or Latin narrative read or recited. A convincing example of reproduction from memory appears in the legend of St. Etheldred of Ely, whose author recounts certain facts,