[4]. heȝilich, with honour; gloriose in the MS. version. MS. Harley 322 has hegliche and translates cito; the Cambridge MS. hehtlic, wrongly rendered eternaliter as though it represented ēcelīce; Zupitza explains it as the adverb of higð, ME. on hihðe, in haste; MS. Harley 153 reads hehliche, rendered alte.
[5]. xpistes bur: comp. ‘Maria, Dei thalamus,’ Anselm 303/5; ‘Ave, de cuius intimo | Christus processit thalamo, | in sole tabernaculum | fixit, qui regit saeculum,’ Mone, ii. 234/69-72, which shows that this use of the word came from Psalm xviii. 6 ‘In sole posuit tabernaculum suum et ipse tamquam sponsus procedens de thalamo suo exultavit ut gigas ad currendam viam.’ For xp = Χρ, Chr, see Traube, Nomina Sacra, 156 ff.
[6]. The translation in some of the MSS. is ‘virginalis puritas, matris flos.’ Godric has in mind, ‘Ave mater per quam via | Immaculata patuit | Quia (Qui à in text) Deo flore | Virginitas effloruit,’ Anselm, 306/93-6; ‘Ave coeleste lilium | Per florem cuius unicum,’ &c., id. 305/153, 4. Christ then is the Virgin’s pure offspring, the mother’s flower to whom the next two lines are addressed, and þe in l. 8 (which Zupitza rejects) presents no difficulty. The abandonment of the vocative for a new subject is artless. The first half of 7 corresponds to, ‘O Christe, proles Virginis | Patris compar altissimi | Per tuae mortis merita | Dele nostra peccamina,’ Anselm, 303/22-5, and the second to ‘Ave mater cuius partus | Deus in coelis habitat | In sanctorum dum mentibus | Dulcedine sua regnat,’ id. 306/111-4.
[9]. scamel, from L. Lat. scamellum, dim. of scamnum, step, stool; it often means the little stool for the hands of cripples, but it is also synonymous with scabellum, which in the phrase scabellum pedum occurs nine times in the Vulgate, with the meaning footstool. In two of these, Psalms xcviii. 5, cix. 1, the Surtees Psalter translates by schamel, Eadwine’s Canterbury Psalter by scæmol, the Paris Psalter by sceamul, the earliest Eng. Prose Psalter by shamel, the Lambeth Homilies (OEH i. 91/11) by fot-sceomele. Comp. ‘Vor þi alle þe halewen makeden of al þe worlde ase ane stol (scheomel, C; schamel, T) to hore uet, uorto arechen þe heouene,’ Ancren Riwle, 166/15, 6. Psalm cix. 1 ‘Dixit Dominus Domino meo: Sede a dextris meis, donec ponam inimicos tuos, scabellum pedum tuorum,’ is quoted five times in the New Testament, and there may be a reference to it here. Zupitza suggests that l. 10 is based on ‘Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis. In manibus portabunt te, ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum,’ Psalm xc. 11, 12; but on þis erðe itredie is a weak representation of offendas ad lapidem. Now we are told by Reginald that the angels who bore the spirit of Burgwen halted ‘supra Altaris crepidinem,’ and the Harleian MS. has, more definitely, ‘eam super Altaris crepidinem statuerunt.’ The scamel is simply the footpace of the altar on which she has been set. Reginald’s version points in this direction, ‘Sancta Maria super scamni sedile me deduxit’; as also Geoffrey’s paraphrase, ‘Ne pede calcarem terre contagia nudo (a. l. mundo), | Sic mea me domina deduxit sancta Maria.’ The meaning then is, I have been conducted to this altarstep in such a way that I should not touch this earth with my bare foot. I am divinely protected and lifted above the world. And Godric understood, ‘statim intellexit quod anima sororis suae super coelestibus Angelorum choreis esset associata’ (p. 145).
[11]. Nicholaes occurs in AS. Chron. E. 1067 as Nicolaes. It corresponds to Nicolaus, which in the Latin hymns is always four syllables, and so, I think, it must be here.
godes druð: comp. ‘dilectus Dei Nicholaus,’ Aberdeen Breviary; ‘amicus Dei,’ York Breviary, ii. col. 106; ‘et amico Dei magno | Nicolao condole,’ Anselm, 307/168, 9; ‘godes drut,’ Be Domes Dæge, 18/290.
[12]. hus does not rhyme and has no reference to anything in the legend of S. Nicholas. But he was invoked by sailors in peril (York Breviary, ii. 105), and we are told that Godric would often interrupt a conversation by saying ‘Quaeso, fratres, oremus; quia ecce, navis in pelago periclitatur,’ and that, ‘facta oratione, iterum consuevit adjicere, “Nunc navis mea applicuit”’ (Reginald, p. 130). If huð might be restored here, as an un-umlauted form of hȳð, harbour, on the evidence of to huþe = ad portum, quoted in Bosworth-Toller from the Lambeth Psalter, it would correspond to ‘O beate Nicolae, | Nos ad maris portum trahe’; ‘Gloriose Nicolae, | Ad salutis portum trahe’ of the Sequence. tymbre can mean provide, prepare, see Minot, vi. 2.
[13]. Zupitza connects this line with druð, but its position requires it to be taken with tymbre or bring, at means from, by the merits of (NED i. 529 †11). The singular piety of the infant Nicholas is told in all his legends, ‘quarta et sexta feria tantum semel (= semel tantum) sugebat ubera,’ Aurea Legenda, ed. Graesse, p. 22; ‘Qui in cunis adhuc iacens | Servando ieiunia | a papilla coepit summa | promereri gaudia,’ in the Sequence. And he was helpful in his tomb, ‘Ex ipsius tumba manat | unctionis copia | quae infirmos omnes sanat | per eius suffragia.’
Manuscript: ... Harley 322 B.M.,
B.M,