[44] The MS. in which the work is preserved dates from about 1340, but is probably copied from an earlier one.
"Corps teste et hanapel
Body heuede and heuedepanne
Et peil cresceant sur la peal.
And here growende on the skyn," etc.
[46] How close the resemblance is between the two works may be judged by the following quotations:
Par le gel nous avons glas,
Et de glas vient verglas. (Nominale.)
Pur le gel vous avomus glas,
Et pluvye e gele fount vereglas. (Bibbesworth.)
And it is in words almost identical with those of Bibbesworth that the author describes the difference in the meaning of some words according to their gender:
La levere deit clore les dentz.
The lippe.
Le levere en boys se tient de deynz.
The hare.
La livre sert a marchauntz.
The pounde.
Le livere aprent nous enfauntz.
The boke.
[47] The earliest of these MSS. dates from the second decade of the fourteenth century. These epistolaries are found in the following MSS.: Harleian 4971 and 3988, Addit. 17716, in the Brit. Mus.; Ee 4, 20 in Cantab. Univ. Library; B 14. 39, 40 in Trinity Col. Camb.; 182 at All Souls, Oxford, and 188 Magdalen Col. Oxford (cp. Stürzinger, Altfranzösiche Bibliothek), viii. pp. xvii-xix. The Introductions to these letters were edited in a Griefswald Dissertation (1898), by W. Uerkvitz.
[48] Stengel, op. cit. pp. 8-10.
[49] Romania, iv. p. 381, xxxii. p, 22.