[23] The Trentall of St. Gregory. The Old French text has been edited by P. Meyer, Romania, xv. 281–283. The English versions, of which the first seems to be taken from this, are found in the following MSS.: (A) Vernon MS. fol. 230, ed. Horstmann, Engl. Stud. viii. 275–277, and The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS. i., E.E.T.S. 98, 1892, pp. 260–268; Vernon MS. fol. 303, variants given in Horstmann’s ed. for E.E.T.S.; MS. Cotton Caligula A II., ed. Furnivall, Political, Religious, and Love Poems, E.E.T.S. 15, 1866, pp. 83–92, reprinted by Horstmann, E.E.T.S. pp. 260–268; MS. Lambeth 306, variants given by Furnivall; a critical text with variants of the four was made by A. Kaufmann, Trentalle Sancti Gregorii, Erlanger Beiträge, iii. 29–44, 1889. (B) MS. 19, 3, 1, Advocates’ Libr., Edinburgh, ed. Turnbull, The Visions of Tundale, 1843, pp. 77 ff., and Bülbring, Anglia, xiii. 301–308; MS. Kk. I, 6, Camb. Univ. Libr., ed. Kaufmann, pp. 44–49. Kaufmann in his introduction discusses the relations of the versions. See further Varnhagen, Anglia, xiii. 105 f. Another legend of Gregory in popular fiction is treated by Bruce in his edition of De Ortu Waluuanii, Publications Mod. Lang. Ass. xiii. 372–377. The story in the Gesta Romanorum to which Luzel, i. 83, note, refers is this rather than our tale.
[24] i. 83 and 90, notes.
[25] Or. und Occ. iii. 99 f.
[26] See Das Märchen vom gestiefelten Kater, Leipzig, 1843; Benfey, Pantschatantra, i. 222; Grimm, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, iii. 288; Liebrecht, Dunlop’s Geschichte der Prosadichtungen, 1851, p. 286; Polívka, Arch. f. slav. Phil. xix. 248; etc.
[27] Chapter vi.
[28] An unnecessarily nauseating reason is given by one of them (Act i. sc. i.), but this seems to be of Massinger’s invention.
[29] P. 8.
[30] It is interesting also to note that a Viennese dramatist of our own day has adapted Massinger’s drama, retaining a vague reminiscence of the thankful dead. The curious may see Der Graf von Charolais by Richard Beer-Hofmann, 1905.