I gladly take the present opportunity of acknowledging my very great obligation to Prof. Koelbing, from whom I have received ample assistance throughout the whole of this work. It would be absolutely impossible to me entirely to discriminate his part from mine. He carefully revised the introduction, notes, and the glossary, before they went to press, and after they came from it, and he looked several times through the proofs of the text. Nor am I less indebted to Mr. Joseph Hall at Manchester, who not only kindly read the proofs of the text with the MS. in the Chetham Library, but also contributed some valuable notes, which are marked by his name. The Director has added the head-lines and side-notes.
Footnotes to Introduction
[1.] Halliwell says, Preface v f.: ‘It is very incorrectly written, and the copy of the romance of Torrent of Portugal, which occupies 88 pages of the book, contains so many obvious blunders and omissions, that it may be conjectured with great probability to have been written down from oral recitation.’
[2.] The rhymes with tane and with John are not quoted, as these words occur also as tone and Johan; they are, therefore, of no use in fixing the sound of the â.
[3.] On this term see Octavian, ed. Sarrazin, p. xxxviii.
[4.] See Warton’s opinion upon the legendary origin of many romances, History of Engl. Poetry, London, 1824, I. p. ccxliv: ‘Many romances were at first little more than legends of devotion, containing the pilgrimage of an old warrior. At length, as chivalry came into vogue, the youthful and active part of the pilgrim’s life was also written. The penitent changed into the knight-errant.’ Sometimes, of course, the opposite change may have taken place, as for instance is probably the case with the story of the two faithful friends, Amis and Amiloun (cf. Koelbing, Amis, p. lxxxi), and with the story of Robert the Devil (cf. Sir Gowther, ed. Breul, p. 74).
[5.] See the edition of The worthie Hystorie of Plasidas, 1566, by H. H. Gibbs, for the Roxburghe Club, 1873.
[6.] Guill. d’Engleterre, ed. Fr. Michel, Chron. Anglo-Norm., III. 39-172. On the authorship of this poem see C. Hofmann, Sitzungsberichte der Münch. Akad., 1870, II. p. 51, and P. Meyer, Romania, VIII. p. 815 f.
[7.] Die gute Frau, ed. E. Sommer in Haupt’s Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, II. 389.