All page references in Arabic numerals refer to the main text, located in a separate file. Parenthetical Roman numerals do not correspond to the editor’s section headings, but the text summary is generally similar to the appropriate headnote.
The following poems are taken from a well known manuscript in the Cottonian collection, marked Nero A. x, which also contains, in the same handwriting and dialect, a metrical romance,[1] wherein the adventures of Sir Gawayne with the “Knight in Green,” are most ably and interestingly described.
Unfortunately nothing can be affirmed with any certainty concerning the authorship of these most valuable and interesting compositions. The editor of “Syr Gawayn and the Green Knight” considers that Huchowne, a supposed[2] Scotch maker of the fourteenth century, has the best claims to be recognised as the author, inasmuch as he is specially referred to by Wyntown as the writer of the Gret gest of Arthure and the Awntyre of Gawayne.
I do not think that any certain conclusions are to be drawn from the Scotch historian’s assertion. It is well known that more versifiers than one during the fourteenth century attempted romance composition in the English language, having for their theme the knightly deeds of Arthur or Sir Gawayne. These they compiled from French originals, from which they selected the most striking incidents and those best suited to an Englishman’s taste for the marvellous. We are not surprised, then, at finding so many romance poems treating of the exploits of the same hero, and laying claim to be considered as original productions. In Scotland, Huchowne’s works might no doubt have been regarded as the standard romances of the period, but that they were the only English gests is indeed very doubtful.
The Early English alliterative romance, entitled the Morte Arthure, published from a manuscript in Lincoln Cathedral by Mr. Halliwell,[3] is considered by Sir F. Madden to be the veritable gest of Arthure composed by Huchowne. An examination of this romance does not lead me to the same conclusion, unless Huchowne was a Midland man, for the poem is not written in the old Scotch dialect,[4] but seems to have been originally composed in one of the Northumbrian dialects spoken South of the Tweed.[5]
The manuscript from which Mr. Halliwell has taken his text is not the original copy, nor even a literal transcript of it. It exhibits certain orthographical and grammatical peculiarities unknown to the Northumbrian dialect which have been introduced by a Midland transcriber, who has here and there taken the liberty to adapt the original text to the dialect of his own locality, probably that one of the North Midland counties, where many of the Northumbrian forms of speech would be intelligible.[6]
A comparison of the Arthurian romance with the following poems throws no light whatever upon the authorship of the poems. The dialect of the two works is altogether different, although many of the terms employed are common to both, being well known over the whole of the North of England. The grammatical forms (the best test we can have) in the poems are quite distinct from those in the Morte Arthure, and of course go far to prove that they do not proceed from the pen of the same writer.
The Editor of “Syr Gawayn and the Green Knight” acknowledges that the poems in the present volume, as now preserved to us in the manuscript, are not in the Scottish dialect, but he says “there is sufficient internal evidence of their being Northern,[7] although the manuscript containing them appears to have been written by a scribe of the Midland counties, which will account for the introduction of forms differing from those used by writers beyond the Tweed.”
Now, with regard to this subsequent transcription of the poems from the Scotch into a Midland dialect,—it cannot be said to be improbable, for we have abundant instances of the multiplication of copies by scribes of different localities, so that we are not surprised at finding the works of some of our popular Early English writers appearing in two or three forms; but, on the other hand, a comparison of the original copy with the adapted transcriptions, or even the reading of a transcribed copy, always shows how the author’s productions have suffered by the change. Poetical works, especially those with final rhymes, of course undergo the greatest amount of transformation and depreciation. The changes incident upon the kind of transcription referred to are truly surprising, and most perplexing to those who make the subject of Early English dialects a matter of investigation.