We may, I think, safely conclude that the lines above given were the commencement of the cantilene teatrales turpes et seculares, which the good bishop wished to deprive his clergy of all excuse for singing, by providing them with pious hymns to the same airs; thinking, I suppose, like John Wesley in after years, it was a pity the devil should monopolise all the good tunes. I shall merely add that the author of the Latin poetry seems to have been Richard de Ledrede, who filled
the see of Ossory from 1318 to 1360, and was rendered famous by his proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteller for heresy and witchcraft. (See a contemporary account of the "proceedings" published by the Camden Society in 1843; a most valuable contribution to Irish history, and well deserving of still more editorial labour than has been bestowed on it.) I have copied the old English and Norman-French word for word, preserving the contractions wherever they occurred.
I shall conclude this "note" by proposing two "Queries:" to such of your contributors as are learned in old English and French song-lore, viz.,
1. Are the entire songs, of which the above lines form the commencements, known or recoverable?
2. If so, is the music to which they were sung handed down?
I shall feel much obliged by answers to both or either of the above Queries, and
"Bis dat, qui cito dat."
James Graves.
Kilkenny, Nov. 1. 1850.