JOHN AUDELAY, THE COUNSEL OF CONSCIENCE: FOOTNOTES

[X.] TRUE LIVING
1 I desire not the death of a sinner. Compare Ezechiel 33:11 (dicit Dominus Deus nolo mortem impii sed ut revertatur impius a via sua, et vivat, “saith the Lord God, I desire not the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way, and live"), Ezechiel 18:32 (quia nolo mortem morientis dicit Dominus Deus revertimini et vivite, “For I desire not the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God, return ye and live"), and Ezechiel 18:23. This Latin line serves as the refrain in God’s Address to Sinful Men. Compare also Marcolf and Solomon, lines 790–92; Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, line 115 (see explanatory note to lines 114–17); and The Vision of Saint Paul, explicit.

2 The seven works of mercy; compare Matthew 25:31–46. Audelay treats the subject elsewhere: God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 164–71, and Seven Works of Mercy.


XI. MARCOLF AND SOLOMON
1 Concerning a loveday [i.e., accord] between friars and secular priests.

2 This is the catholic faith. From the Athanasian Creed.

3 Fear the Lord, and keep his commandments. Compare Ecclesiastes 12:13.

4 It shall be punished here, or afterwards always work evil

5 And mend here their misdeeds, and hear matins and mass

6 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with the Lord. Compare 1 Corinthians 3:19. Compare also Audelay’s Conclusion, incipit.

7 If anyone love me, he will keep my word. John 14:23; compare John 14:15.

8 The voice of the people [is] the voice of God. Compare Isaias 66:6.

9 They want those who should lead and teach them to act wisely.

10 Where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also. Compare Matthew 6:21, Luke 12:34.

11 Avert thy eyes, so that they may not see vanity. Compare Psalm 118:37, which has meos, “mine," instead of tuos, “thy."

12 What nature has given, no one will be able to take away. Proverb.

13 The son will not bear the iniquity of the father [and the father will not bear the iniquity of the son: the justice of the just shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him], but everyone shall bear his own burden. Compare Ezechiel 18:20; Galatians 6:5.

14 How was Abel any the worse, though Cain his born brother

15 Depart from me, ye malignant: [and I will search the commandments of my God]. Psalm 118:115.

16 Thou hast rebuked the proud. They are cursed who decline from thy commandments. Compare Psalm 118:21.

17 His girdles equipped with silver, his dagger hangs by

18 Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity. Ecclesiastes 1:2; compare Ecclesiastes 12:8.

19 Religion pure and unspotted [James 1:27]. This is my commandment: that you love one another [John 15:12]. For the phrase ut diligatis invicem, see also John 13:34, 15:17; 1 Thessalonians 4:9. Audelay repeats the phrase at Marcolf and Solomon, line 268.

20 Each person should have his share according to his need

21 Serve ye the Lord with fear: and rejoice unto Him with trembling. Compare Psalm 2:11.

22 [And they read in the book of the law of God] distinctly and plainly [to be understood: and they understood when it was read]. 2 Esdras 8:8.

23 And keep their pauses and their periods — else might they get no reward

24 Compare Isaias 29:13; Matthew 15:8.

25 Take knowledge from your conscience, for there it is joined

26 Compare Psalm 40:2, Blessed is he who understands above all the needy and the poor.

27 Their matins, their mass, for them (the patrons), they read and sing

28 Give your things while they are yours; after death then they are not yours

29 And call the clergy to your counsel, who bear Christ’s key. Compare Matthew 16:19.

30 Lines 250–52: Therefore they bless their birth and the bodies that bore them / For they know well in their conscience it (i.e., their lives) was their treasure; / For all their lordship and their lands, it passes as a flower

31 The one who perseveres to the end will be saved. Compare Matthew 10:22.

32 And knelt humbly upon his knees before his blessed band of apostles

33 [That] you love one another. John 13:34, 1 Thessalonians 4:9; see Marcolf and Solomon, line 169a.

34 Honor your Lord with your substance. Compare Proverbs 3:9.

35 Do you not withdraw from Holy Church [the alms] your fathers have given before

36 Who withdraw [from] the goods of Holy Church

37 What good does it do a person if he gains the whole world as his profit? Compare Matthew 16:26, Luke 9:25. The passage also appears in Marcolf and Solomon, line 364a.

38 Thus have I comforted you, fellows, and counseled you from care

39 Suddenly was [he] sent to hell with many a foul fiend

40 The reference is to Jesus’ parable of the rich man and the poor man Lazarus, Luke 16:19–25, to which Audelay also alludes in Marcolf and Solomon, lines 536–39, and God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 241–46.

41 The one who exalts himself will be humbled. Compare Luke 14:11, Luke 18:14.

42 They must ground themselves first in grace, make themselves known

43 It is not an honor but a burden to receive the name of honor. Perhaps influenced by Ovid, Heroides 9.31, non honor est sed onus (punning on honor and onus). The tag also heads Cur mundus, copied at the end of the manuscript by Scribe B.

44 For you are chosen for chief (i.e., high office) and made here governor

45 My council is not with the wicked. Written by Scribe B.

46 Thus these prelates, by the lords’ privilege, deprive [Holy Church]

47 Keep my laws, says the Lord. Written by Scribe B. Compare Leviticus 18:5, 19:19, and 20:22.

48 What good does it do a person if he gains the whole world as his profit? Written by Scribe B. Compare Matthew 16:26, Luke 9:25. The passage also appears in Marcolf and Solomon, line 286a.

49 Lines 365–66: Think on the cursed covetous man that to himself did say: / “Eat and drink and make merry; the world is at your will!" Ecclesiastes 8:15.

50 If any man will come after me, let him deny himself[, and take up his cross, and follow me]. Matthew 16:24; compare Luke 9:23.

51 Love peace and truth, says the Lord Almighty. Compare Zacharias 8:19–20: “only love ye truth and peace. Thus saith the Lord of hosts."

52 If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and have not charity[, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal]. 1 Corinthians 13:1.

53 That you are foolish and unlearned, and you cannot read

54 You are my friends if you do what I command you. Compare John 15:14.

55 Speak and have [reward], I promise you; seek and you shall find. Compare Matthew 7:7.

56 Lines 456–59: If you [good Christians] were to give them money without making them beg [for it], / They would neither beg nor borrow, thus I dare wager; / And [if you were to] provide for them their household and housing, / [They would] neither buy nor build — I advise you to try [this]!

57 The hired worker is worthy of his wages. But I am a beggar and poor. The first sentence echoes Luke 10:7 (dignus enim est operarius mercede sua, “the labourer is worthy of his hire"), and also 1 Timothy 5:18. The second sentence is the beginning of Psalm 39:18, used again in Marcolf and Solomon, line 481a.

58 Some men speak about these innocent [ironic] friars that have no conscience

59 So to beguile the innocent people and insult God — alas! —

60 But I am a beggar and poor[: the Lord is careful for me. Thou art my helper and my protector: O my God, be not slack]. Psalm 39:18. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 468a.

61 Brethren, we would not have you ignorant of the truth. Compare 2 Corinthians 1:8, which omits veritatem: non enim volumus ignorare vos fratres. The phrase echoes a standard exhortation used by Paul; compare also Romans 1:13, 11:25; 1 Corinthians 10:1, 12:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:12.

62 Of such who recognize their own guilt, against me they cast [accusations]

63 I would like to say more, / But [they] are jealous of a certain one (Audelay himself?). The odd phrase of line 507 mixes French and Latin: sont jaloux cuiusquam. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 701.

64 Beware of false prophets[, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves]. Matthew 7:15.

65 Be ye [therefore] merciful, as your Father [also] is merciful. Compare Luke 6:36.

66 To no man rendering evil for evil[. Providing good things, not only in the sight of God, but also in the sight of all men]. Romans 12:17; compare 1 Thessalonians 5:15, 1 Peter 3:9.

67 Think on the loathsome Lazarus, [who] was taken into Abraham’s bosom

68 The reference is to the story of Lazarus, Luke 16:19–25; compare Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon, lines 292–99, and God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 241–46.

69 To read and not understand is as to be neglectful (punning on legere and intellegere).

70 To a kitchen clerk (i.e., a lord’s servant), or into the chancery

71 And assign the farming of their [Church-granted] property to a bailiff

72 The one who enters into the sheepfold except through the door, he is a thief and robber. Written by Scribe B. Compare John 10:1.

73 Or [it will be clear that] you entirely despise the laws of God

74 Divide [your] wealth into three parts for the Church. Written by Scribe B.

75 Embrace discipline, lest at any time [the Lord] be angry[, and you perish from the just way]. Written by Scribe B. Psalm 2:12.

76 Were it not for giving support to the friars and their preaching

77 Lines 605–06: Their deeds demonstrate clearly that they feel no love / Or goodness toward either God or other men

78 It is for brethren always to dwell together in unity. Compare Psalm 132:1, which omits semper: habitare fratres in unum.

79 Lines 666–70: That common people, who should love and learn the law of God, / Shall be wholly disregarded by curates, who, on account of their avarice, / Preach only about their tithes, I tell you truly. / And if the laity speak the truth (i.e., in criticism of the clergy), they are disgraced straightway, / And [the clergy] lie to the common people and say, “It is Lollardy!"

80 Woe to you who say that evil is good and good is evil. Compare Isaias 5:20.

81 Believe me, a [true] Lollard will be exposed by his deeds

82 Rebuke the unquiet, because they would not understand that they might do good. The first part is found in 1 Thessalonians 5:14, and the rest paraphrases Psalm 35:4.

83 Lines 693–96: Yet if they [the parishioners] fail or refuse to pay bribes (lit. shillings), immediately forthwith [the clergy] complain, / [And] command them to bring their tithing in Christ’s name, / Or else they will serve them a letter of judgment (i.e., a formal accusation of heresy or excommunication); / It seems to the innocent soul that they [the clergy] have no charitable love

84 Do you wish [to know] the truth? This odd phrase must be French: Voulez vérité vous? Compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 507.

85 See to it, leaders of the church, that you do not damn Christian souls for the sake of profit

86 Without any fear to amend their dooms

87 A bishop must be without blame [compare 1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:7], and he must correct the leaders of the church. Just so will he answer in the presence of the highest Judge.

88 Lines 717–18: Although the bishops call the laity to [account in] their consistory court, / They grant clemency (literally mercy) to them for money and bribes

89 Incline my heart to your testimonies, God, and not to covetousness. Compare Psalm 118:36.

90 And call it “permutation," to disturb the surrounding regions

91 It causes unrest in Holy Church, and makes only discord

92 No man can serve two masters. Matthew 6:24; compare Luke 16:13. See also line 745.

93 Who may serve two lords, and both to their satisfaction

94 Whenever you do this, do it in memory of me. The one who dares to celebrate the Lord’s office (i.e., the eucharist) for the sake of temporal profit of any kind, is indeed like the traitor Judas who did not hesitate to sell Christ to the Jews for 30 denarii. Therefore, the one who approaches the Lord’s body like this, in an unworthy way, receives it and the Lord’s blood not for salvation, but for judgment — and rightly so. And so let no one do this for the sake of profit lest in his punishment he become like the traitor Judas to his friends. Written by Scribe B. Compare 1 Corinthians 11:24–29, with Judas’ treason inserted (see Matthew 26:14–16, 27:3, 27:9). Compare also Marcolf and Solomon, line 831a.

95 If they should [sing] for Christ’s sake, immediately then they complain [for payment]

96 Just as water quencheth a fire, so do alms extinguish sins. Compare Ecclesiasticus 3:33.

97 Observe: concerning confession and the sacrament of the altar. Written by Scribe B.

98 Be subject to all human creatures for the Lord’s sake. Compare 1 Peter 2:13. Written by Scribe A.

99 Unless they show you a good example to the soul’s health

100 Lines 802–05: For [do] as they teach you to do, / If they themselves also do it; / If not, I advise you to go [separately] from them, / And declare them untrue

101 [And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And] whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, [it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven]. Matthew 16:19; compare Matthew 18:18. See also Marcolf and Solomon, lines 238, 961a, and Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 199.

102 They [other clergy] may administer your holy rites, I tell you truly

103 Observe that, according to the decrees and constitution of the church, every person of either sex is obliged to make confession to his own priest once a year at least, unless he has permission or a dispensation, or a privilege from his superior

104 Whoever will have eaten . . . or drunk of the cup of the Lord unworthily. Compare 1 Corinthians 11:27, and see Marcolf and Solomon, line 753a.

105 Nothing is impossible with God. Compare Matthew 19:26, Mark 10:27, Luke 1:37, 18:27.

106 Who may deprive it of its power and stop its light

107 Faith has no reward. The phrase derives from a homily by Gregory the Great, cited by Peter Lombard: Fides non habet meritum cui humana racio prebet experimentum, “Faith has no reward for which human reason offers proof" (Homil. 26 in Evang.).

108 Lines 903–04: Then [you shall] fight with the Fiend again, and have the victory / And do him disgrace and shame, [and] forever confusion

109 Have mercy on me, God, because I am weak. Compare Psalm 6:3.

110 But he opposes all that is [prepared] to please him

111 Impose not too easy penance, nor too strict in any case

112 Go in peace, sin no more. Compare Mark 5:34, Luke 7:50, Luke 8:48 for vade in pace, John 8:11 for vade . . . amplius noli peccare (which omits in pace).

113 While Mercy with his meekness turns Truth to remission

114 The one who is forearmed will not be deceived. Compare Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 182a.

115 But entirely bluster forth unblessed, as Bayard the blind (a horse)

116 The grace of the Word, which, just as the pope says to a bishop, the bishop says to the secular priests who receive the power of binding and of loosening and have the care of souls: “Brothers in Christ, I hand to you the care of the souls of your parishes (dioceses) so that you may respond on my behalf and on our behalf before the highest Judge on the Day of Judgment." Compare Matthew 16:19, 18:18. See also Marcolf and Solomon, lines 238, 805a, and Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 199.

117 Mercy and truth have given blessing to themselves; peace and justice have kissed. Compare Psalm 84:11, and see Marcolf and Solomon, line 940, and God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 144a–51.

118 Whose end is good, is himself entirely good. Peter Lombard cites this aphorism: Cuius finis bonus est, ipsum quoque bonum est, “Whose end is good, is itself also good" (Boethius, II. De Differentiis topicis). Audelay uses his version as a proverbial tag, repeating it at Audelay’s Conclusion, line 39a.

119 But if this draught is drawn well, your gown will be ruined

120 If I speak the truth, why do you not believe me? The one who is from God hears the words of God. Therefore you do not hear because you are not from God. Compare John 8:46–47.


XVI. SEVEN BLEEDINGS OF CHRIST
1 Concerning the pouring out of Christ’s blood for the forgiveness of sins

2 Joseph of Arimathea. See Matthew 27:57–60, Mark 15:43–45, Luke 23:50–53, John 19:38–42.


Latin Verse Prayer Anima Christi sanctifica me
1 Audelay uses this line elsewhere as a refrain; see God’s Address to Sinful Men and Dread of Death.


Latin Prose Prayer Tu Domine per has sanctissimas penas tuas
1 Thou, Lord, by these thy most blessed torments, which I am unworthy even to recall, and by thy holy cross, free me from the torments of hell and deign to lead me, unworthy though I am, whither thou brought the thief crucified with thee, thou who live and reign. Audelay alludes elsewhere to the thief redeemed by Christ (Luke 23:42-43); see Prayer on Christ’s Passion, lines 31–35, and Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, lines 25–30.


XIX. SEVEN WORDS OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS
1 Concerning the seven words of Christ hanging on the cross

2 Eloi, lamma sabacthani? [My God, why hast thou forsaken me?] Mark 15:34; compare Matthew 27:46.

3 Lines 74–75: Into your hands, Lord, / I commend my spirit. Compare Luke 23:46.

4 [Here] ends the seven words of our Lord Jesus Christ


Latin Prose Prayer Adoramus te Christe et benedicimus
1 We worship thee, Christ, and we bless thee because of thy holy cross

2 Behold the Lamb of God. Behold the One who takes away the sins of the world. Behold our God, behold the righteous God. Behold God of the living and the dead. Behold the life of the living, the hope of the dying, the salvation of all believing in thee, whom we adore, whom we glorify, whom we bless. Let us praise the Lord Almighty, Father and Son with the Holy Spirit, and let us exalt him above forever. Be [our] helper and protector and defender, O Judge most kind and glorious. Amen


XXI. VIRTUES OF THE MASS
1 Concerning the virtues of the mass, [and] how we are to hear mass

2 Lines 217–22: Saint Augustine says [that] for souls here / If you were to hear a thousand [masses], / [Or] have sung a [single] mass, / It is neither more nor less, / For every soul receives a mass; / It pleases God that this be so. On the sense of this stanza, compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 92–94.

3 Matthew 14:17–21, Mark 6:38–44, Luke 9:13–17.


Saint Gregory’s Indulgence
1 How the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Saint Gregory in such an image


Prayer for Forgiveness
1 How Jesus on the cross prayed to the Father for his enemies. A prayer


XXIII. VISITING THE SICK AND CONSOLING THE NEEDY
1 Concerning the visitation of the sick and consolation of the wretched

2 Lines 88–89: Unless you yourself succor your soul, / Your executor may not [do this for you]

3 Compare Matthew 9:13, Mark 2:17, Luke 5:32, and also Audelay’s God’s Address to Sinful Men, line 24a.

4 Matthew 16:19; compare Matthew 18:18.

5 Lines 300–20 paraphrase the Apostles’ Creed. Compare Salutation to Christ’s Body, lines 17–36.

6 Lines 336–38: Compare Luke 6:37, also used in God’s Address to Sinful Men, line 160a, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 442a.

7 [Here] ends the visitation of the sick and the consolation of the wretched


XXIIII. POPE JOHN’S PASSION OF OUR LORD
1 Concerning the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ and concerning the canonical hours

2 Passion of Christ, fortify me. This is the fifth line of the familiar prayer Anima Christi sanctifica me, which is copied earlier in MS Douce 302 (fol. 9r). It is also used as a refrain in Dread of Death.

3 The veil thereof, was torn in two. Compare Matthew 27:51, Luke 23:44–45.

4 And crowned with thorns by the Jews, thy foe


Seven Hours of the Cross
1 Here begin the canonical hours of the passion of Jesus Christ

2 Wisdom of the Father, divine Truth. From the hymn Patris sapiencia (see explanatory note).

3 At prime (6 a.m.) they led Jesus out; to Pilate they did bring him

4 Lines 21–24: They blindfolded him, they buffeted him, and bound him against the law / And spit in his fair face — his countenance might no man know! / And stripped him all naked, / And cast lots for his coat soon. Compare Matthew 27:30, Mark 15:19 (line 22), Matthew 27:28 (line 23), and Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:34, and John 19:23 (line 24).

5 “Crucify!" they kept shouting at the hour of terce. Compare Matthew 27:22, Mark 15:14, John 19:6.

6 Because of the torment he was thirsty; then they gave him vinegar to drink. Compare John 19:28–29.

7 Lines 43–44: “Ah, woman, lo! Here [is John] your son; / Take her [Mary] as your mother, John." Com­pare John 19:26–27.

8 Lines 47–49: His spirit cried “Eloy [my God]" to the Father of most might. / A blind knight [Longinus] with a sharp spear thrust him to the heart. / The stones broke to pieces, the earth did quake, the sun its light had lost. Compare Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34 (line 47), John 19:34 (line 48), and Matthew 27:51 (line 49).


XXV. OUR LORD’S EPISTLE ON SUNDAY
1 Concerning the epistle of our Lord Jesus Christ regarding the Lord’s day. Written by Scribe B.

2 Hear these things, all peoples: the Lord Jesus Christ wrote this letter with his own hands and sent it to the city of Gaza where I, Peter, accepted the first episcopate. Written by Scribe A.


XXVI. THE VISION OF SAINT PAUL
1 [Here] begins the narration in which Michael led Paul to hell. It must be inquired who first asked that souls have rest in hell, i.e., the apostle Paul and the archangel Michael. The day of the Lord is the chosen day

2 Bind bundles together to be burnt, like with like. The beginning of this sentence derives from Matthew 13:30 (and is discussed by Easting, “‘Choose yourselves,’" p. 174). This line expands the stanza from thirteen lines to fourteen.

3 These things says the Lord God: “Return to me, for I have redeemed thee. I do not wish the death of a sinner, but rather that he turn and live." For he called the Canaanite and the publican to repentance, and also the one who wept for [her] sin. And so you also, unbelievers, come and hear, because I will teach you the fear of the Lord (see explanatory note). Written by Scribe A.


XXVII. THE LORD’S MERCY
1 Concerning the Lord’s mercy. Written by Scribe B.


God’s Address to Sinful Men
1 I desire not the death of a sinner. Compare Ezechiel 33:11.

2 I am God, judge and just, and I give to each one according to his deeds. Compare Psalm 7:12, Psalm 61:13, Proverbs 24:29, Romans 2:5–6.

3 I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance. Compare Luke 5:32, Matthew 9:13, Mark 2:17. Compare also Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 166–69.

4 There is more joy in heaven over one [sinner that doth penance, than upon ninety-nine just, who need not penance]. Compare Luke 15:7, 15:10.

5 Hand me over to death for your sakes so that with me . . .

6 Thus you need to fast for your sins and for the love of the passion of Jesus Christ

7 When you fast, you repress your sins and raise your mind, etc. Preface for the Third Sunday in Lent. Written by Scribe B.

8 Penitents, being penitent and not being scoffers, if you are penitent, imitate [good] morals, correct your life, and turn to the Lord, according to Augustine. Augustine, Sermo 393 (PL 39.1713–15).

9 Because a sin could never be atoned for unless satisfaction for the deed is rendered

10 Mercy and truth have met each other; justice and peace kiss. Compare Psalm 84:11, and compare also Marcolf and Solomon, line 974a.

11 Forgive and it will be forgiven you. Compare Luke 6:37, and compare also Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 336–38, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 442a.

12 Give alms and everything [will be] clean for us. Compare Luke 11:41.

13 Lines 164–71 refer to the seven works of mercy; compare Matthew 25:31–46, and also True Living, lines 173–85, and Seven Works of Mercy.

14 The soul that sinneth, the same shall die. Compare Ezechiel 18:4 and 18:20.

15 Lines 241–46 refer to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, Luke 16:19–25. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 292–99, 536–39.


Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience
1 There is no surer evidence than the demonstration of the eyes

2 The one who is forearmed is not deceived. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 974a.

1 Judge not, and you shall not be judged: [condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you shall be forgiven. Give, and it shall be given to you: good measure, and pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall they give into your bosom. For] with the same measure that you shall measure, it shall be measured to you. Compare Luke 6:37–38. Audelay refers to this passage elsewhere: Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 336–38, God’s Address to Sinful Men, line 160a.


Latin Prose Colophon Finito libro
fcf1 The book is finished. Praise and glory be to Christ. The book is called The Counsel of Conscience, thus is it named, or The Ladder of Heaven and the Life of Eternal Salvation. This book was composed by John Audelay, chaplain, who was blind and deaf in his affliction, to the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ and to serve as a model for others in the monastery of Haughmond. In the year 1426 A.D. May God be propitious to his soul. Compare Audelay’s Conclusion, lines 39a and 52a.

JOHN AUDELAY, THE COUNSEL OF CONSCIENCE: EXPLANATORY NOTES

Abbreviations: CT: Chaucer, Canterbury Tales; NHC: Northern Homily Cycle; NIMEV: The New Index of Middle English Verse, ed. Boffey and Edwards; For manuscript abbreviations (ED, A, D, G, L, V), see the Introduction.

[X.] TRUE LIVING          [W1]

True Living expounds the way of the true Christian life. In what remains of the poem, Audelay stresses several basic tenets: the Ten Commandments, the sanctity of celibacy and marriage vows, the seven works of mercy, the five wits, the doctrine of free will, the virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the Golden Rule. Though not alliterative like Marcolf and Solomon, it belongs to the same truth-telling genre, expressing bold criticisms of the clergy while offering a comprehensive verse instruction. (For a survey of the sothsegger tradition, see Wawn, “Truth-Telling," pp. 270–87.)

Written in taut 13-line stanzas,the composition of True Living probably predates most other works in MS Douce 302 because it seems that Audelay mined it for other compositions. The poem evidently aided the making of seven extant poems: The Vision of Saint Paul (one stanza), God’s Address to Sinful Men (three stanzas), Chastity of Wives (six stanzas), Four Estates (one stanza), Ten Commandments (three stanzas), Seven Works of Mercy (five stanzas), and Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost (three stanzas).

The beginning of MS Douce 302 — up to nineteen folios (Fein, “Good Ends," p. 98n3) — is gone, and as a result this first poem in the manuscript lacks its opening. The piece is also incomplete at the end. Pickering, “Make-Up," p. 119, was first to notice that the 4-line marginal verse inserted by Scribe B on fol. 2rb refers the reader to the misplaced ending of the poem. The topic of this conclusion was Doomsday. For an unknown reason it was copied on an earlier leaf, which is now lost.

[Fols. 1ra–2rb (acephalous). IMEV *39; Suppl., NIMEV *1492.5 (erroneously described as a “treatise on the Deadly Sins and their remedies"). Hand: Scribe A in black. Meter: Twenty 13-line stanzas, ababbcbc₄d_2-3eee_3-4d_2-3, survive, with one stanza extended in length (lines 143–59). This poem begins imperfectly because several leaves have been lost from the opening of the manuscript. Editions: Halliwell, pp. 1–10, 82; E. Whiting, pp. 1–10, 225–26.]

13–25 Audelay reuses this stanza (adapting its meter) in The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 340–52.

20 This line inspires the work’s modern title.

23 what deth that ever he dy. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 682.

55 spase ham to repent. E. Whiting, p. 225, notes that this phrase derives from the mass. The formula appears frequently in Audelay’s verse, e.g., True Living, line 125; Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 26 and 74; and Song of the Magnificat, line 45.

65–115 These four stanzas on marriage may be compared to Mirk’s sermon on marriage in Festial (Erbe, Mirk’s Festial, pp. 289–93). On correspondences between Mirk and Audelay, see Powell, “John Audelay and John Mirk." See also Marcolf and Solomon, lines 709–13.

78–103 These two stanzas are the basis for Audelay’s Chastity of Wives carol. Six of the carol’s seven stanzas (that is, twenty-four lines) are crafted directly from these twenty-six lines.

108 schenchypus. The verb shendshipen, “disgrace, embarrass, confound," appears rarely in Middle English. The MED records it only twice, and Audelay’s use is the earlier one.

109 lotoby. See MED lote-bi, n.(a), “lover, paramour, concubine," from loten v.(1), “to lie concealed, lie low."

119 kynde. Audelay uses this word often to assert the basis for right human action. It is particularly prominent in this poem and Marcolf and Solomon. Simpson, “Saving Satire," pp. 402–03, discusses how both Audelay and Langland advocate “a theology of communal practice inspired both by conscience and by natural (i.e. ‘kyndly’) sympathy."

120 nother. The usual term in MS Douce 302 is no nother, while variations of this particular line recur several times in Audelay’s verse with that phrase, leading Halliwell and E. Whiting to emend here (unnecessarily) to no nother. Compare The Remedy of Nine Virtues, line 55; God’s Address to Sinful Men, line 111; Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 414; and Seven Deadly Sins, line 32.

127 Yeff ye wyl mend that ye do mysse. As E. Whiting notes, p. 225, this phrase is ubiquitous in Audelay’s verse. Here he links it with a favorite biblical phrase, in which God declares he does not wish the death of a sinner (Ezechiel 33:11, and also Ezechiel 18:23, 18:32). Compare the use of this passage elsewhere in Audelay’s works: Marcolf and Solomon, lines 790–92; Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, line 115; The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 365a–b; and God’s Address to Sinful Men (where it is the refrain). The biblical verse is also invoked in a Suffolk priest’s 1429 confession of Lollardy (Shinners and Dohar, Pastors and the Care of Souls, p. 280).

130–33 These lines are repeated in Audelay’s Four Estates, lines 1–4. Audelay advocates a social philosophy that each person must maintain the estate that falls to him. He frequently repeats this idea as an injunction. It informs the burden of two other carols (Four Estates and Virginity of Maids — “Kepe your state and your degré"). See also True Living, line 62; Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 48–49; Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 110; Song of the Magnificat, line 37; and Chastity for Mary’s Love, line 28.

143–59 The length of this stanza is extended by four lines. While it might seem that Scribe A omitted five final lines of one stanza and four first lines of another, the uninterrupted enumeration of the Ten Commandments and Audelay’s use elsewhere of the lines found in this stanza (see next two explanatory notes) argue for its being original.
143–54 These lines supply three stanzas of Audelay’s Ten Commandments: lines 143–46 = carol lines 1–4; lines 147–49 = carol lines 8–10; and lines 151–54 = carol lines 15–18. As in the carol Audelay adds backbiting (lines 149–50) and leaves out covetousness.

156–59 These lines are something of a formula for Audelay. Compare The Remedy of Nine Virtues, lines 73–75, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 244–46, and it is interesting to note the correspondence of line 158 with Ten Commandments, line 23, showing further how Audelay reworked True Living for his carols.

173–79 These lines enumerating the seven works of mercy are repeated in Seven Works of Mercy, lines 1–4, 8–10, and see also God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 164–73, where lines 170–71 = True Living, lines 175–76. Audelay used other lines to construct more of this carol (see below, explanatory notes to True Living, lines 238–43, 251–58).

186–93 In topic, though not in wording, compare Audelay’s Five Wits.

203–07 On the doctrine of free will, compare The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 216–22, and also references in The Remedy of Nine Virtues, lines 32, 69; Five Wits, line 9; and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 219–21, 397–99.

212–33 Several of these lines are repeated in three stanzas of Audelay’s Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost: lines 212–15 = carol lines 22–25, lines 225–28 = carol lines 29–32, and lines 229–31 = carol lines 36–38.

231 Audelay cites the Golden Rule often; compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 12, 543; The Remedy of Nine Virtues, line 60; and Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost, line 38.

238–43 These lines are repeated by Audelay in God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 197–202. Lines 238–41 match his Seven Works of Mercy, lines 15–18.

251–58 These lines are repeated as a whole stanza in God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 213–20, and they form two stanzas of Seven Works of Mercy, lines 22–25, 29–32.

263 Pickering, “Make-Up," p. 119, proposes that the marginal verse following True Living (Instructions for Reading 1) indicates that this poem lacks its ending, that is, a description of Doomsday. The ending is indeed abrupt, and the discourse has progressed to a Judgment Day scenario.



INSTRUCTIONS FOR READING 1          [not in W]

These verses are written partially in the margin by Scribe B, indicating a sequence for the reader and demonstrating that at least thirteen folios are absent from the front of MS Douce 302. E. Whiting prints the instructional rubric in her introduction but omits it from the main text of poems. Halliwell, pp. 82–83, comments: “These four verses were probably dictated by Audelay, and go far to prove that the MS. was the first copy made. The leaf referred to is lost with the commencement."

[Fol. 2rb. NIMEV 3324.55. Hand: Scribe B in red (squeezed between other items); a large blue paraph has been inserted beside these lines. Meter: Two tetrameter couplets. Editions: Coxe, p. 50; Halliwell, pp. 10, 82–83; E. Whiting, p. vii.]

1 come in here. These words support Pickering’s idea that Scribe B is referring the reader to a misplaced ending of True Living, which by scribal error (“the defawte of the wrytere") was copied earlier in the manuscript (“Make-Up," p. 119). Compare Scribe B’s use of the phrase “here cum in" to insert a Latin heading in Marcolf and Solomon (see textual notes for Marcolf and Solomon, lines 345–46).

2 wrytere. This word seems to refer to the scribe, but it could refer to Audelay as author and compiler of the anthology.



XI. MARCOLF AND SOLOMON          [W2]

Marcolf and Solomon is the lengthiest poem in MS Douce 302, and in recent years it has become the one most intensely studied, i.e., by Green, “Marcolf the Fool"; Simpson, “Saving Satire"; Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon"; Green, “Langland and Audelay"; and others. John the Blind Audelay here presses a case for social complaint, admonishing each of the religious orders — monks, friars, and secular clergy — and exhorting them to honor their holy vows and duties. Its narrative veil is that Marcolf (or Marcol) the fool speaks truth to the king (Solomon), pointing out society’s irrational ills so that the state (through its ecclesiastical officers) may recover harmony and good sense. Readers have set it in the truth-telling tradition of Mum and the Sothsegger (e.g., Wawn, “Truth-Telling," especially p. 281). Its date has been much discussed, and a degree of consensus has arisen that it was written after Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409, and perhaps near the time of Oldcastle’s rising (1414; for a brief history, see Goldberg, Medieval England, pp. 233–37, especially p. 234). Regarding Marcolf and Solomon’s politics and theology, Simpson locates it in the “gray area" between Lollard protest and orthodox reform, though, unquestionably, Audelay sees himself making complaint within the bounds of conservative moral teaching and the Church’s long-standing institutions. Despite the poem’s litany of complaints, Citrome identifies its “real message" to be “that priests are absolutely indispensible to the pursuit of salvation, and their authority is unimpeachable" (Surgeon, p. 90).

Alliterative in style and fervid in its spiritual call, this poem is often compared to Piers Plowman, an analogy that originated from Pearsall’s assertion that Langland’s poem “profoundly influenced" Audelay’s (Old English and Middle English Poetry, p. 249). Pearsall has now modified his stance, proposing instead that Marcolf and Solomon is the product of a general climate of religious ferment and dissent (“Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," pp. 147–49). Meanwhile, Green and Simpson argue that even as Marcolf and Solomon reflects the religious controversies of Lancastrian England, the work itself remains deeply evocative of Langland’s poem. The two texts share alliterative style, apocalyptic manner, and even some verbal markings, while they differ in general outlook: Langland is more openly a social reformer while Audelay asks for correction to occur within the established institutions and hierarchies of the Church, as, at the same time, he urges the laity to speak out about dangerous abuses. He prods the orders to uphold their vows to God, abandon their internal squabbles, and unite in their common work to save souls. In the explanatory notes below, I list several of the passages in Piers Plowman (ed. Schmidt) that critics have compared to passages in Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon.

Marcolf and Solomon is written in an alliterative 13-line stanza, a form that bridges, on one hand, the nonalliterative 13-line type that Audelay uses for True Living, The Remedy of Nine Virtues, Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, The Vision of Saint Paul, Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, and Audelay’s Conclusion, and, on the other, the dense alliterative strophes (11- and 13-line) found in Paternoster and Three Dead Kings. Having a style that resides somewhere between these poles, Marcolf and Solomon is most allied in metrical terms to the single interpolated stanza Over-Hippers and Skippers found in the extract of prose at the end of the manuscript, and to the salutations in 9-line alliterative stanzas to Saint Bridget and Saint Winifred, in which the 13-line form is reduced by one quatrain.

Another important stylistic feature of Marcolf and Solomon is the heading of most stanzas with an epigram in Latin. More often than not, these passages are biblical in origin, and they provide keys to understanding Audelay’s professional credo as he asserts his feelings about the roles of the ecclesiastical orders. Often they quote Scripture in an abbreviated fashion. In such cases, I provide the Douay-Rheims Bible verse in full in the footnotes because it frequently offers the poet’s complete register of meaning.

Despite Marcolf and Solomon’s satisfying ending (closure by Marcolf and then a signature stanza from Audelay), readers need to keep in mind that the poem may not have its full conclusion. This fact puts something of a check on Stanley’s suggestion that the poem’s length could be numerologically significant: “exactly one thousand [lines] (in seventy-seven stanzas), followed by an autobiographical stanza" (“Verse Forms," p. 118n49). While Stanley’s argument is intriguing, especially in light of evidence elsewhere of numerological structure (see explanatory notes to Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy), there is a good possibility that Marcolf and Solomon suffers loss at the end: its last line is written as the catchphrase to the next quire, which is missing (see explanatory note to line 1013). What we have stops at the base of the last column of a verso, without an explicit (and technically without even the last line of the stanza). The next item, The Remedy of Nine Virtues, begins in medias res, with many intervening works missing. Therefore, because four folios are lost after fol. 7v, one cannot be at all certain that Marcolf and Solomon is complete.

In this edition I have divided Marcolf and Solomon into sections, with headings appearing in boldface, in order to highlight the movements and shifts in Audelay’s sometimes rambling argument. The headings derive from the analysis of Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," pp. 142–43. Major themes covered by Audelay include: spiritual naturalness and unnaturalness (the theological concept of kynd, also invoked by Langland); the inherent goodness of societal estates and religious orders; the individual and spiritual corruption of those who live in covetyse; the humility of the righteous; the imperative to speak truth; the nature of wisdom and folly (with frequent allusion to Ecclesiastes); the sacred keys given to the clergy — originally to Saint Peter — to loose and bind; the establishment of clerical peace and harmony, which Audelay terms a loveday; the ecclesiastical duty to save souls and call people away from error (sometimes labeled “Lollard"); and the necessity of maintaining a clean, shriven conscience.

[Fols. 2rb–7vb (ends imperfectly). IMEV, NIMEV 947. MWME 9:2981 [61]. Hands: Scribe A, poem (black) and the majority of the Latin stanza headings (red); Scribe B, in red, incipit, eight Latin stanza headings (three on fol. 4rb, three on fol. 5va, and two on fol. 6va), explicit, and drawings and marginal indicators to point out specific passages (lines 350–51, 532–33, 697–701). Ordinatio: Scribal signals for colored initials (which were not inserted) appear at lines 92, 118, and 170; an ambiguous notation appears at line 378; and Scribe B inserts “Nota" before his inserted heading for line 780. Audelay Signature: Line 1008 (Scribe A); compare line 503. Initial: Large G in blue with red filigree (three lines high). Meter: Seventy-eight alliterative 13-line stanzas, ababbcbc₄d_2-3eee_3-4d_2-3, survive. Putter, “Language and Metre," p. 517, and Green, “Langland and Audelay," pp. 157–58, comment on the poem’s alliterative metrics; Stanley, “Verse Forms," p. 118n49, proposes a numerological length. Editions: Halliwell, pp. 10–51, 83–87; E. Whiting, pp. 10–46, 226–33.]
 

Incipit The translation of the first heading (Scribe B’s incipit) follows Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 141, who identifies the theme of the poem as “the desire that friars (rectores fratres) and secular priests (rectores ecclesie) should work together harmoniously for the benefit of those laymen who are in their care." Pearsall challenges Simpson’s view (“Saving Satire," p. 397) that the poem addresses the relationship between clergy and laity. For the translation of concordia as “loveday," compare Marcolf and Solomon, explanatory note to line 390, and lines 392–93, 622, 973–74.

1–9 On hearing God’s counsel by reading the Bible, compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 211–12, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 352–55. Simpson argues that Audelay’s opening “defence of scriptural truth" runs “parallel with Lollard positions" (“Saving Satire," p. 395).

12 On Audelay’s frequent citation of the Golden Rule, see the explanatory note to True Living, line 231.

13 kynde. For Simpson, “Saving Satire," pp. 402–03, Audelay’s “theological emphasis on kindliness" offers an “essential connection" to Langland; compare Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 144. The term is also prominent in True Living (see explanatory note to line 119).

13a The stanza heading is drawn from the Athanasian Creed. For a translation of the creed from the Sarum Breviary, see Shinners and Dohar, Pastors and the Care of Souls, pp. 151–52.

19 crysum. The reference is to one’s christening service.

26–27 The stanzas are linked here by concatenation, a stylistic feature normally reserved for more ornate alliterative stanzaic verse, such as Three Dead Kings.

32 obey obedyans. Audelay repeats or varies this phrasing at Marcolf and Solomon, lines 176, 288, and Salutation to Saint Bridget, line 182; in each of those instances, obeying “obedyans" refers to keeping one’s sworn monastic vows.

40 On the Marcolf and Solomon tradition of the cunning fool with license to speak harsh yet truthful sayings to the king in power, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 66–69.

42–43 The proverb “In wele beware ore thou be woo" appears in Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 218, and as the burden for Audelay’s Seven Deadly Sins (see explanatory note). There is an echo of it in Marcolf and Solomon, line 949, too. On the currency of the phrase, see Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," pp. 147 and 151n29.

53 take good eme. This phrase is one of Audelay’s clerical tags for issuing a moral warning; compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 679, 997, The Remedy of Nine Virtues, line 90, and Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 391. See MED yeme, n.(b).

55 Compare Three Dead Kings, lines 111–13. A recurring alliteration on the letter l in lines 53, 55, 57, and 80, with semantic prominence given to the like-sounding words leve, love, and lyve, gives this stanza a musical effect that approximates the thematic alliteration found in The Four Leaves of the Truelove (Fein, Moral Love Songs, pp. 180–96), another moral poem in 13-line stanzas.

58 Soferayns. E. Whiting defines this word as “betters," but it is a synonym for God, as in Marcolf and Solomon, line 199.

59 kyndlé know . . . treu as ané ston. The proverbial simile appears in Mary Flower of Women, line 22. On “kyndely" knowing, compare Piers Plowman B.1.142 (Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 403), and see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 13.

66–69 On Audelay’s use of the dialogic tradition of Marcolf (a rustic, truth-telling fool) and Solomon (a wise king in want of counsel), see E. Whiting, p. 226; Green, “Marcolf the Fool"; Simpson, “Saving Satire," pp. 399–401, especially p. 400n40; and Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," pp. 139–40. On the Latin tradition itself, see Bradbury, “Rival Wisdom." Here the trope works more as a framing device (it concludes at lines 988–89) than as a sustained fiction (it revives only at lines 92, 391, and 417). Green, p. 575n47, observes that the poem embeds other references to fools, folly, and kings as equals to knaves (lines 81, 465–68, 562, and 849). He also speculates about who Audelay had in mind as the addressee: “we might naturally wonder whom Audelay envisages as playing Solomon to his Marcolf. Surely Henry V, who was only twenty-four at his accession is a doubtful candidate, and his son, the infant Henry VI, even more so. By far the best bet (and another reason for believing that Audelay composed his Marcolf poem sometime between 1410 and 1413) would seem to be Henry IV" (Green, p. 567). Simpson, p. 402, points out a likeness to the “lunatyk" in Piers Plowman B.Prol.123–24 and C.9.107–14, but Pearsall, p. 146, refutes the comparison, noting that Audelay’s Marcolf is merely a “flimsy mask."

70 Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 400, notes how the speaker Marcolf shifts the burden of public truth-telling to Solomon, here and at lines 94, 392–94, and 421–22, with the whole text ultimately attributed to Solomon, saying what he was exhorted to say by Marcolf (lines 988–89). See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 430–42.

71 lanternys of lyf. Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 394, suggests that this line may evoke the title of the Lollard tract The Lanterne of Light (c. 1409–15); compare also Marcolf and Solomon, lines 104 and 630, the idea always being directed critically at parish priests, whose light should burn brightly for the laity. See too Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," pp. 142–43. Citrome detects in this passage Audelay’s concern “with his own troubled conscience" (Surgeon, pp. 84–85).

78 Here horne is eblaw. Proverbial, meaning “exposed publicly." Compare Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women, line 1383, “Have at thee, Jason! Now thyn horn is blowe!" See B. Whiting and Whiting, Proverbs, H485.

81 foly. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 66–69.

85 unkynd. Compare Piers Plowman B.5.269, where Coveitise is called an “unkynde creature" (Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 403).

89 secatour. For other warnings by Audelay not to entrust one’s affairs to an executor, see Marcolf and Solomon, line 258; Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 71–73, 89, 99, 345–47; and On the World’s Folly, lines 58–60. Executors were proverbially untrustworthy and thievish. Halliwell, p. 84, quotes the saying “Two secaturs and an overseer make three thieves." The commonplace occurs in Piers Plowman C.2.192 and C.6.143 (Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 146). For more instances, see E. Whiting, pp. 227 and 229, and MED secutour, n.

92 On the Marcolf and Solomon frame, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 66–69.

94 On Solomon as the public satiric speaker, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 70.

95 Forrest, Detection of Heresy, p. 165, points to this line on proud priests as evidence of a widespread belief that “heresy would be manifested and revealed." Audelay repeats the line elsewhere to refer to corrupt friars and heretics; see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 678–88.

101–04 Audelay asserts that were the priesthood to do its duty with parishioners, and avoid all avarice, then the laity would return home to religious truths, and turn away from (by implication) heretical views. On the anti-Lollard resonance in Audelay’s metaphor of light, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 71.

105–08 On the natural goodness of animals, compare True Living, lines 91–93, and see the citations provided by E. Whiting, p. 227.

109 Compare Piers Plowman B.18.204 (Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 403).

123 Bayard for bryd ne fore brend. Bayard is a horse’s name (MED baiard, n.[1]; see also Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, 1.218–24). Elsewhere, Audelay invokes a proverb about blind Bayard (Marcolf and Solomon, lines 952 [explanatory note], 993, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 381). The expression for bryd ne fore brend is a crux with little useful commentary. To make sense of the expression (which feels proverbial), I take bryd to be MED breid, n.(1)1(b), “rashness," and brend as the past participle as noun of MED brennen, v.5a(c), “passion." E. Whiting’s definition of brend as “brent-goose" does not seem to fit the context, through there may be an obscure proverb evoked here: “for bird nor for brent-goose." See also the suggestion for brend in the MED under brend, ppl. as n.(a) “brindled or brown color; a horse of this color," with a citation of Audelay’s line. How this definition makes sense of the line is unclear, and the MED does not offer any help as to the meaning of bryd.

131–43 pore prest . . . unkynde. Audelay describes a humble and genuinely good priest whose very virtue is maligned by those who “smelle a Lollere in the wynd," as Chaucer puts it in the Epilogue to the Man of Law’s Tale (CT II[B¹]1173). Many have commented on this passage: see, e.g., Green, “Marcolf the Fool," p. 568; Simpson, “Saving Satire," pp. 398, 401; Bennett, “John Audelay: Life Records," pp. 42–43; Powell, “John Audelay and John Mirk," p. 90; Pickering, “Make-Up," p. 118; and Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," pp. 143–44. Forrest, Detection of Heresy, pp. 167–68, points to lines 131–33 to illustrate the difficulties inherent in the detection of heresy in Audelay’s time. Catto, “Religious Change under Henry V," p. 105, observes how the “refutation of Lollardy was an important part of the agenda of contemporary theologians." On Audelay’s anti-Lollardism, see also the explanatory notes to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 669–88, 678–88, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 248–60.

144–52 Audelay displays considerable skill as a satirist in this portrait of the corrupt yet richly companionable cleric Sir John. Commentaries on this passage include: Halliwell, p. 84; E. Whiting, p. 227; Simpson, “Saving Satire," pp. 398 (a “brilliant and sustained example of Chaucerian ironic satire"), 401; Bennett, “John Audelay: Life Records," pp. 31, 42–43 (perhaps Audelay draws here a self-portrait of his life with the Lestranges in London); and Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 142 (a “wonderfully comic stanza" exhibiting “an unexpected gift for traditional anticlerical satire").

146 orglus. See MED orgel, n.(2), “A kind of musical instrument," with a possible pun on orgel, n.(1), “Pride, haughtiness, presumption."

148–49 ner a parsun or a vecory. E. Whiting, p. 227, captures the socially pretentious idiom embedded in this passage, translating it as: “you would never take this fine fellow for a parson or a vicar; he is a gentleman!"

150 baslard. See MED baselard, n.(1), “A kind of (fashionable) dagger, curved or straight, worn in an (ornamental) sheath at the girdle." On priests wearing forbidden baselards, see citations provided by E. Whiting, pp. 227–28. Compare also Piers Plowman B.15.121, 124 (Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 146; Green, “Langland and Audelay," p. 156).

151 pautener. See MED pautener(e, n.(2), “A purse, bag, pouch." E. Whiting, p. 228, translates this line as “from his open purse, everyone is paid, or satisfied."

172–82 E. Whiting’s note, p. 228, identifies these lines as regulations drawn from the rule of Saint Benedict.

176 obey obedyans. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 32. One may also observe how the vocalic alliteration of line 174, on a(-b), finely parallels the alliteration on o(-b) in line 176.

183–87 Simpson, “Saving Satire," pp. 401, notes the successive, unmarked changes in third- and second-person address that occur here and “across the whole poem," arguing that “the strategy of rapid, unannounced changes of address is clear: formally Marcol creates a sense of both potential inclusion and present fragmentation, which is a formal response to the state of the Church as he sees it."

190 hold up youre houshold and youre housyng. This line exhorts monks to maintain their monasteries, monastic standards, and familial structures; see MED houshold, n.1b. The command is paralleled in later passages that (1) exhort alms to support the households of friars (Marcolf and Solomon line 458); and (2) request that livings and “households" be granted only to secular clergy who are suitably educated (Marcolf and Solomon, line 567). Compare also Marcolf and Solomon, line 583, where Audelay asks that secular clergy reside and openly maintain a household in their parishes.

196–98 On this complaint over how poorly some monks sing psalms and recite prayers on behalf of souls, compare the 13-line stanza Over-Hippers and Skippers appearing at the end of MS Douce 302. The metrics of Over-Hippers and Skippers matches Marcolf and Solomon, and it could even be a stanza now lost from the longer poem (Fein, “Thirteen-Line Alliterative Stanza," p. 64). See also explanatory note to Cur Mundus, line 40.

203 no lykyng ne no lust. Compare Piers Plowman B.16.32, C.11.82, C.13.152, C.16.211 (Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 151n26).

210–11 On God speaking through Holy Writ, compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 1–9 (explanatory note), and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 352–55.

215 mese. The meaning wanted here and at line 809 is “dispute, make division," a figurative usage for a verb meaning “divide up (into portions)," usually in reference to food (see OED mess, v.; MED messen, v.[2]). The MED assigns Audelay’s mese to mesen, v., “to soothe, placate, relieve of grief," but the lexicographers query Audelay’s term as a mistake for masen, v., “to be confused or bewildered." E. Whiting follows the first meaning in glossing it as “moderate," but this meaning ill suits the context.

235–43 Green, “Langland and Audelay," p. 157, offers a scansion of these lines, noting that “Audelay . . . has a number of defective lines with only three lifts, a situation that is very rare in Langland."

236 Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 400, notes the boldness of this line, and Green, “Marcolf the Fool," p. 568, comments that Audelay “evidently found the guise of the plain-speaking churl a useful cover."

237–40 Pearsall, Old English and Middle English Poetry, pp. 249–50, cited this passage in his early argument for a profound influence of Piers Plowman upon Audelay’s poem. He has now modified that stance, seeing in Audelay’s verse the “more widespread and resonant tradition" of complaint, satire, and prophecy with apocalyptic overtones, as found in The Simonie, Piers Plowman, and numerous religious-didactic poems (Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 148). Compare too Marcolf and Solomon, lines 990–91.

238 beryn Cristis kay. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 805a (explanatory note), 869, 961a, and Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 199.

242 Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 391, notes that this “trenchant criticism" of both temporal and spiritual laws makes it likely that Marcolf and Solomon was composed later than Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409; he goes on to propose that the poem was written “in the ambience of the Oldcastle Rising of 1414." See also explanatory notes to lines 501 and 503.

250 A line similar to this one appears at Marcolf and Solomon, line 289.

255 Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," pp. 145–46, notes that this exhortation — to continue to endow the Church as one’s fathers did (found also at Marcolf and Solomon, line 274) — contrasts directly to Langland’s position (which leans toward the later Lollard position) not to break up estates to give to wealthy clergy (Piers Plowman C.5.163, C.17.56–58).

258–59 Compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 73, and On the World’s Folly, lines 58–59. For Audelay’s opinion that one should take care of one’s own soul before death and not entrust it to others, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 89.

274–86 In this critique of disendowment, Green, “Marcolf the Fool," p. 575n42, sees Audelay underscoring his orthodoxy. See also explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 255.

279 Stanley, “True Counsel of Conscience," p. 155, compares the collocation of counsel and care to Three Dead Kings, lines 35, 89.

280 This line resembles Marcolf and Solomon, line 316, and Salutation to Saint Bridget, line 22.

281 cheré fayre. The proverbial phrase denotes transient joys. See MED cheri, n.2(a), the citations given there, and others provided by Halliwell, p. 85, and E. Whiting, p. 229.

287 covens. For the meaning “fellows," only in Audelay, see MED covine, n.1(b).
287–91 Green, “Marcolf the Fool," compares these lines to John Ball’s letters, noting in particular a phrase found there: “knoweth your freende fro your foo" (pp. 570, 575n43, 575n45).

288 obey obedyens. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 32.

289 A similar version of this line appears at Marcolf and Solomon, line 250.

290 Compare Piers Plowman B.18.204 (Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 403).

291 kyndlé. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 13.

315 ground. Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 394, detects in this word, repeated at lines 330, 355, 651, and 785, a Lollard resonance.

316 This line resembles Marcolf and Solomon, line 280, and Salutation to Saint Bridget, line 22.

330 grounde. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 315.

330–31 Green, “Langland and Audelay," pp. 158–59, notes the directness of address (“Then loke thou"), as if from a pulpit, and compares this tendency to Langland’s rhetorical style, e.g., in Piers Plowman B.10.207–08.

342 Saynt Thomas. Thomas Becket, martyred archbishop of Canterbury, was revered for his strong stance on behalf of the Church against pressure from secular powers. Compare Audelay’s Saint Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury (and see explanatory notes). Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 146, notes this line as another instance of Audelay’s strict orthodoxy.

344 E. Whiting, p. 230, notes that “This line must refer to the boldness of lords and lewd men who interfere in the secret business of the chapters." The verb mon is the auxiliary “must, shall," as asserted by Stanley, “Alliteratitive Three Dead Kings," pp. 269–70, but disputed by Putter, “Language and Metre," p. 505, who reads it as Middle English mannen, “take charge" or “to people, occupy." See also the explanatory note to Three Dead Kings, line 78.

355 ungroundid. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 315.

369 Compare Piers Plowman B.7.183 (Green, “Langland and Audelay," pp. 158, 167), and C.1.166, C.3.159, C.9.333 (Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 151n26).

390 loveday. The term refers to a day appointed for a meeting between enemies, set for the purpose of striking a reconciliation. See MED lovedai, n., and compare Marcolf and Solomon, burden (explanatory note), and lines 393, 974, and Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, line 46. Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," pp. 146–47, contrasts Audelay’s sincere plea for harmony to the more cynical uses of the term found in Chaucer (General Prologue, CT I[A]258) and Langland (Piers Plowman C.3.196, C.5.158, C.11.17). See also Chaucer’s House of Fame, line 695; and Kathleen Kennedy, “Maintaining Love through Accord," pp. 166, 174n4.

391–94 On the Marcolf and Solomon frame, see explanatory notes to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 66–69 and 70.

393 Detecting “Audelay’s legitimation of satire," Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 403, compares this line to Piers Plowman B.11.101–02. On the term loveday, see explanatory notes to Marcolf and Solomon, incipit and line 390.

394 favele. See MED favel, n., “Flattery, insincerity; duplicity, guile, intrigue," with this note: “The figure of Favel, with these characteristics, was created by Langland in Piers Plowman. All other uses of the figure and the term seem to be derived from this source." Compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 1005, and Piers Plowman A.2.23, A.2.114, B.2.42, and B.2.166. For other comments, see Halliwell, pp. 86–87; E. Whiting, pp. 230 (the idiom curry favel) and 233; Barney, “Allegorical Visions," p. 128 (the term in Piers Plowman); and Green, “Langland and Audelay," p. 155.

408 This line is similar to Marcolf and Solomon, line 612.

409 cumberment. See MED combrement, n.(c), “sinning, sinfulness," for which this line by Audelay is cited.

410 clene kalender. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 614.

417 On the Marcolf and Solomon frame, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 66–69.

420 clergé. Audelay or the scribe evidently intends one to understand by this word the meaning of Old French clergise: “Learning, knowledge, scholarship" (MED, n.1).

421–22 On Solomon as the public satiric speaker, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 70.

426–30 Although speaking in the voice of the rustic Marcolf, who exhorts the powerful king to speak the truth, Audelay seems here to declare his own poetics of truth-telling: blurt it out and do not lie, because God is the ultimate knower of Truth and one’s ultimate audience. He adds that if you cover up the truth, you will appear ignorant and illiterate. If you do tell the truth, it is possible that you will offend people, so you should ask them, both politely and piously, to excuse you, because, presumably, they too wish truthful things to be openly exposed. As is typical, Audelay shows more fear of God’s judgment than of man’s. Compare these lines to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 443–46 (cited by Wawn, “Truth-Telling," p. 281, who sets Audelay’s poem in the truth-telling tradition of Mum and the Sothsegger).

430 four oordyrs. The four mendicant orders are the Augustinians, the Carmelites, the Dominicans, and the Franciscans. The phrase is standard; see MED ordre, n.9(b).
430–42 This stanza offers praise of the fraternal founders. Compare Audelay’s Saint Francis. Since Solomon is supposed, at line 988, to have been speaking the poem, line 430 may be the beginning of Solomon’s speech (Pickering, “Make-Up," p. 133n17).

443–44 Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 147, comments that Audelay’s “[g]nomic and proverbial-sounding expressions have sometimes a Langlandian ring," and he cites for comparison Piers Plowman C.3.424, C.4.88–89.
443–55 On this fervent advocacy of truth-telling, see explanatory note to lines 426–30. Green “Marcolf the Fool," p. 570, hears “a particular kind of political potency" in this whole stanza, especially if it is to come from the mouth of “the anarchic Marcolf," but, in fact, it may not (see explanatory note to lines 430–42). Simpson, “Saving Satire," pp. 400–01, believes that in lines 440–46 Marcolf “brilliantly capitalizes on an account of mendicancy to justify his own satire of the friars" as his exhortations become “simultaneously a direction to friars and to the satirist of friars." For Pearsall’s refutation of Simpson, see explanatory note to lines 456–68.

452 Asay thi frynd or thou have nede. See E. Whiting, p. 231, for other instances of this proverbial expression.

456–68 This stanza on friars projects, for Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 143, a tone of “enigmatic irony." According to Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 402, “Both Langland and Audelay are . . . orthodox critics of ecclesiastical covetousness, whose principal target is the friars, and whose principal solution to the problem of mendicancy is a ‘fyndyng’ [compare Piers Plowman B.20.384]." Countering Simpson’s argument, Pearsall,“Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," pp. 141–45, finds Audelay’s treatment of friars to be distinctly unlike Langland’s: “Where for Langland the friars’ systematic practice of begging is what inevitably leads to scandalous abuse, for Audelay it is the proper traditional basis of their livelihood" (p. 145).

458 On Audelay’s concern that each ecclesiastical order properly maintain its household, see the explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 190.

465–68 On how these lines relate to the Marcolf frame, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 66–69.

469–81 Audelay’s attack is upon covetous abuses committed by individual friars, who are therefore like Judas because for monetary gain they pervert the fraternal traditions. See Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," pp. 142, 143, 145; and Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 396.

473 On Judas’s treason, compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 753a and 758; Prayer on Christ’s Passion, lines 4–5; O Deus qui voluisti, lines 4–5 and 18; Virtues of the Mass, lines 103–08; Seven Hours of the Cross, lines 13–18; and The Vision of Saint Paul, line 234.

485 Compare Piers Plowman C.13.8, C.21.67 (Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 151n26).

490–95 These lines may allude directly to Piers Plowman. If so, Audelay seems here to respond to antifraternal satirists such as Langland (with his figure of the plowman) by offering a gentler counterargument: that society should support with its charity the institution of fraternal mendicancy while condemning those individual friars who commit covetous acts.

495–503 Forrest, Detection of Heresy, p. 144, reads these lines as pertaining to a “latent suspicion of mendicants" as heretics: “Audelay’s desire that his readers beware of false prophets, both mendicant and Lollard, is indicative of the early fifteenth-century atmosphere in which anti-heresy legislation could be misinterpreted as pertaining to the friars." There is an ominous and secretive quality to this stanza. Audelay appears to feel liable to attack for speaking against covetous clergy. Scribe B sharpens this sense when he emends Scribe A’s wold, line 499, to hold.

501 to stond at a stake. Green, “Marcolf the Fool," p. 566, sees this direct reference to the burning of heretics (compare line 676) as an indicator of the poem’s date: “The specificity . . . suggests that it was composed after the promulgation of the statute De Heretico Comburendo and the death of the Lollard William Sawtry in 1401, and quite possibly after John Badby’s gruesome death in 1410, but its references to the dangers of Lollardy and its dark hints that clerical venality and discord might offer an occasion for popular rebellion would surely have been rendered less urgent by Oldcastle’s abortive rising at St Giles’ Fields on January 10, 1414." See also explanatory notes to lines 242 and 503.

503 Blynd as Y am. Audelay drops the mask here. The present tense verb am leads Green to conclude that Audelay was blind in the period to which he dates the poem, 1410–13. It is possible, however, that references to Audelay’s blindness (as well as some of the signature stanzas) were edited into poems during the compiling of MS Douce 302. On the dating of Marcolf and Solomon, see explanatory notes to lines 242 and 501, and discussions by Green, “Marcolf the Fool," pp. 566–67; Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 391; Meyer-Lee, “Vatic Penitent," pp. 65–66; Pickering, “Make-Up," pp. 118–19; and Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 140. Compare also Audelay’s second signature at the end of the poem (line 1008).

504–06 These lines recur in Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 374–76.

507 On this insertion of a mixed Latin-French line, see E. Whiting’s note, p. 231, and compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 701 (explanatory note).

526 soulehele. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 798. Soulehele is the stated purpose for Audelay’s The Counsel of Conscience, the larger “book" to which this poem apparently belongs. See explanatory notes to Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 105 and 248–60.

533 Scribe B inserts here in red ink a marginal illustration of a pointing hand, hence emphasizing Audelay’s edict against hypocrites preaching. The idea that a person will be judged by his deeds is a commonplace in Audelay, though Forrest, Detection of Heresy, p. 165, points to line 533 as directed at the detection of heresy; see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 678–88.

534 E. Whiting, p. 231, notes that this line provides “an awkward paraphrase" of the Latin heading.

543 On Audelay’s frequent citation of the Golden Rule, which appears in the first stanza of Marcolf and Solomon, see the explanatory note to True Living, line 231.

549 bescherewd. MED bishreuen, v.2(a): “To make wicked, deprave, corrupt."

560 to Oxford to scole. Halliwell, pp. 85–86, adds this note: “These curious lines have already been quoted by Mr. James Heywood in his edition of the Merton College Statutes."

562 On how these lines relate to the Marcolf frame, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 66–69.

566 personache. See MED personage, n.(2), “A benefice or maintenance granted to a parson; property or residence associated with a parson’s benefice; parsonage." On Audelay’s concern that households be properly maintained by the ecclesiastical orders, see the explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 190.

583 houshold. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 190.

612 This line is similar to Marcolf and Solomon, line 408.

614 clene calender. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 410.

622 Thai schuld never be at dyscord. See explanatory notes to Marcolf and Solomon, incipit and line 390.

630 lanterns lyght. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 71.

644 the treuth of here toung. The phrase true of [one’s] tongue occurs frequently in Piers Plowman (Green, “Langland and Audelay," pp. 158, 166).

651 ground of al goodnes. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 315.

664 Compare Piers Plowman C.9.107–14 (Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 402).

669–88 On Audelay’s anti-Lollardism, see explanatory notes to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 131–43, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 248–60. For comments specifically on lines 669–76, see Green, “Marcolf the Fool," p. 568; Simpson, “Saving Satire," pp. 399, 401 (the “stanza is unquestionably an attack on the broad brush and draconian punishment of anyone who dares to criticize the Church"); and Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 144 (“Audelay warns of the dangers faced by laymen who speak out and tell the truth").

676 On this reference to the burning of heretics, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 501.

678–88 This interesting stanza describes the deeds that mark a Lollard, with Audelay also declaring that heretics will be judged — principally by God — by their own actions and words. He notes how unmistakably Lollardy may be detected, because the heretic “refuses his obligations to the Church, to worship the Cross, or to attend services" (Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 144). Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 401, observes that “the stanza is, plausibly, less an attack on Lollardy than on those who would persecute Lollards." Forrest sees here the reconfiguration of an existing debate, that is, the “latent suspicion of mendicants" as heretics: “Audelay’s desire that his readers beware false prophets, both mendicant and lollard, is indicative of the early fifteenth-century atmosphere in which anti-heresy legislation could be misinterpreted as pertaining to the friars" (p. 144). It is noteworthy that Audelay elsewhere applies the wording of line 678 to wicked priests and friars (see Marcolf and Solomon, lines 95, 533), thus showing that, as Forrest puts it, “heresy would be manifested and revealed" for persons of any office or profession (p. 165). Hudson, Premature Reformation, notes, though, that Audelay’s attitude seems relatively tolerant — “Audelay’s only response to these crimes is to forbid his flock to pray for their perpetrators" (p. 435); she compares Audelay’s statement to the behavioral latitude granted to someone like Margery Kempe. The stanza itself is short by one line, and Stanley, “Verse Forms," p. 118n49, proposes a numerological reason. His explanation may, however, be flawed because it is possible that the poem lacks its full ending; one cannot know for certain how many lines it originally possessed (see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 1013).

679 take good eme. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 53.

682 on what deth he dye. The word deth (MS deþ) may be a mistake for dey (“day"); compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 355, but see also True Living, line 23.

693 Slus is a plural form for the monetary unit shilling (MED shilling, n.1[a]). Schof is the preterite of the verb shouven and means “reject, refuse." See E. Whiting’s note, p. 231.

695 sorche. This verb, unattested elsewhere in Middle English, is queried in the MED under sorchen and is supposed to be either derived from Old French sorchëoir, v., “to fall on, attack," or an error for Middle English serchen, v.2(a), “to seek out." The meaning given by the lexicographers for Audelay’s word is “to inflict (excommunication on sb.)."

701 The French of this line is similar to the mixed Latin-French of line 507; both seem whispered conspiratorially, as if simultaneously hiding and betraying a secret. Marcolf/Audelay may be alluding to a specific scandal involving illicit sexual behavior. Lechery, which is personified at the end of the stanza, can buy its way out of punishment from the consistory courts.

705 Mede the maydyn. Lady Mede is an allegorical figure who represents the seductive corruption of money and reward in society; she appears in Passus 2 and 3 of Langland’s Piers Plowman, e.g., B.2.20 (Hudson, “Legacy of Piers Plowman," p. 262; Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 403). Her appearance twice in Audelay’s works (here and On the World’s Folly, line 17) may derive from a common cultural usage or from Audelay’s direct knowledge of Langland’s work. For differing opinions on this question, see Green, “Langland and Audelay," and Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon."

709–13 Audelay deplores the fact that priests will sanction divorce, against God’s law, for the sake of money. For Audelay’s views on marriage, see also True Living, lines 65–115, Virginity of Maids, and Chastity of Wives.

718 Compare Piers Plowman B.6.39–40 (Green, “Langland and Audelay," p. 154).

728 castun in the new fayre. The phrase new fayre seems to denote a place of corrupt modern practice; see MED feire, n.1(b), where the instances, one from Piers Plowman and one from a Lollard text, refer to the “new fair," perhaps an event in London, as a site of immoral diversion. E. Whiting, p. 232, discusses the term as an idiom referring to bartering, seeing in the passage a condemnation of curates who make deals for multiple benefices. Compare Piers Plowman B.5.321 (Green, “Langland and Audelay," pp. 154–55) and C.6.377 (Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 146).

730 permetacion. The MED defines Audelay’s word as “the exchange of offices or benefices." See permutacioun, n.(b). The next line makes it clear that he condemns a contemporary practice of holding multiple benefices. Compare Piers Plowman B.Prol.29 (Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 403) and C.3.33 (Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 146).

731 pluralytis. The MED defines pluralite, n.(c), as follows: “the simultaneous tenure by one cleric of more than one benefice; especially ones in which he has spiritual charge of people in a district." Audelay even blames the pope for permitting this abuse. Pollard, Late Medieval England, p. 209, provides a succinct description of the practice.

753a This Latin heading is written by Scribe B. On Judas’s treason, compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 473, 753a, and 758; Prayer on Christ’s Passion, lines 4–5; O Deus qui voluisti, lines 4–5 and 18; Virtues of the Mass, lines 103–08; Seven Hours of the Cross, lines 13–18; and The Vision of Saint Paul, line 234.

779a Scribe B inserts what seems to be a marker of topic (“confession and the sacrament of the altar") beside Scribe A’s typical liturgical/biblical heading.

780–805 In arguing for the poem’s “para-Lollardy," Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 395, notes here how the fictional voice of the poem “sometimes encourages lay disobedience of sorts: after one stanza (beginning at line 780) encouraging obedience, Marcol changes his tack rather in the next: do as the curates command, he directs his lay readers, but ‘do not as þei don’, unless they practice what they preach." See also Green, “Marcolf the Fool," p. 575n42; Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 140.

785 grownd of al goodnes. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 315.

790–92 These lines echo one of Audelay’s recurrent biblical allusions (from Ezechiel 18:23, 18:32, 33:11), one which may have had a special resonance in regard to the correction of Lollards. See explanatory note to True Living, line 127.

798 soulehele. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 526, and see explanatory notes to Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 105, 248–60.

805a This heading invokes the biblical passage (Matthew 16:19) traditionally understood to sanctify papal and priestly authority as granted directly from Christ. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 238, 869, 961a, and Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 199. See also Simpson, “Saving Satire," pp. 396–97, and Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," pp. 140–41.

809 mese. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 215.

820 Audelay’s dictum to the laity to be shriven at least once a year adheres to orthodox practice (see Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 146).

828–31 The sense of these lines is: They (i.e., the curates) must answer, by law, for your soul if you are confessed; however, if you don’t confess, you will have to answer for yourself, and be doomed.

832–96 These stanzas expound orthodox doctrine. Audelay “defends the efficacy of the mass, even when celebrated by a sinful priest, and gives an orthodox account of transsubstantiation" (Green, “Marcolf the Fool," p. 575n42; see also Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 393; Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 141). Compare Audelay’s Devotions at the Levation of Christ’s Body and Virtues of the Mass.

848 defouteryng. For this word meaning “faltering, failure," related to either defauten or falteren and found only in Audelay, see MED defoutering, ger.

849 On how these lines relate to the Marcolf frame, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 66–69.

858–83 On Audelay’s exposition of the Trinity in terms of the sun, compare Piers Plowman B.17.204–44 (Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 403; Green, “Langland and Audelay," pp. 160–61). One should also compare Audelay’s metaphorical similitude to that in another 13-line alliterative poem, that is, the exposition of the Trinity and Mary by means of a botanical conceit, in The Four Leaves of the Truelove (Fein, Moral Love Songs, p. 180–96).

869 louse and bynde. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 805a.

897–922 Citrome offers a penetrating analysis of the medical metaphor elaborated in these two stanzas, noting how the medieval distinction between surgeon and physician is played out theologically. The stanzas compare “the urgency of confession to that of surgical treatment, and the total authority of the priest over matters of the soul to the surgeon’s over those of the body. . . . While the ‘surgeon’ of the first stanza is clearly the priest, the implied physician of the second is none other than Jesus Christ, or Christus Medicus" (Surgeon, pp. 90–92).

902 penetawnsere. Compare Piers Plowman C.22.320 (Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 146). See also E. Whiting, p. 232; Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 393.

917 know kyndlé. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 13.

923–44 These lines were reworked by Audelay when he composed God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 137–59 (Pickering, “Make-Up," p. 130).
923 wayt. “Take heed, consider." See MED waiten, v.1b(b) and 2b(a).

925 yeesy penans. Compare God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 113, 139.

927–28 Audelay’s belief in the salvific effect of the Paternoster is enacted by its actual presence (Paternoster, an alliterative English exposition of the prayer’s seven points) towards the end of MS Douce 302.

937–43 This brief allegory of the Four Daughters of God (Psalm 84:11), which is developed further in lines 974a–80, comprises the climactic moment of Audelay’s poem — itself being a general call for harmony (i.e., a loveday; see explanatory notes to Marcolf and Solomon, incipit and line 390) among the ecclesiastical orders so that they may direct full energy toward their sacred joint purpose, the saving of souls. Audelay repeats the trope in God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 144a–51 (borrowing from Marcolf and Solomon). The figure holds importance in Piers Plowman (Passus B.18 and C.20), where it delivers the climax of the Harrowing of Hell scene (Alford, “Design of the Poem," pp. 56–58). E. Whiting, p. 232, provides more citations on the Four Daughters of God.

938–39 Audelay’s treatment of the allegory is not without problems, which may be problems of scribal transmission. In line 938, Audelay seems to render the Daughter Mercy (Misericordia) as a doublet: “Mercy and grace"; in line 939, the sense would be better if rest were cest, i.e., “kissed" (compare Psalm 84:11). Similar problems exist, however, in God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 147–48, which is apparently a direct reworking of this passage: there Grace, not Peace, appears with Mercy as one of the Daughters. Faced with these discrepancies, I have let the manuscript readings stand without emendation. The rendering of the biblical text is much more precise at Marcolf and Solomon, lines 975–82.

949 For the proverb resonating in this line, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 42–43.

952 blustyrne . . . Bayard. Here and at Marcolf and Solomon, line 993, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 381, Audelay uses a proverb about blind Bayard, a horse, “blustering forth" as a figure for blind recklessness (s.v. MED baiard, n.(1)(c), and blusteren, v.2). The proverb may have held a special resonance for Blind Audelay. References to blind Bayard as a “blusterer" also occur in Piers Plowman B.5.514 and Cleanness, line 886. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 123 (another reference to Bayard).
952–56 Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 381–85, appears to be a reworking of these lines.

961a On this invocation of Matthew 16:19, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 805a.

963–65 Of this passage, Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 401, comments: “The whole poem announces itself as requiring interpretive skill."

974 loveday. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 390.

975–87 Compare Piers Plowman B.18.418–23a (Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 403; Pearsall, “Audelay’s Marcolf and Solomon," p. 142). On the Four Daughters of God in Audelay’s poem, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 937–43.

987a This proverb is also appears in Audelay’s Conclusion, line 39a (explanatory note), at the end of MS Douce 302.

988–89 On Solomon as the ultimate speaker of this poem, see explanatory notes to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 66–69, 70, 430–42.

990–91 On Audelay’s prophetic and apocalyptic tone, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 237–40.

993 Bayard the blynd. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 952.

997–99 These lines resemble The Remedy of Nine Virtues, lines 90–93, and Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 391–94. On the phrase take good eme in line 997, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 53.

1001 Of this line, Green, “Marcolf the Fool," pp. 570–71, comments: “Though [Audelay] is quick to boast of the risks he is taking . . . I think it highly unlikely that he really believed he was putting his life in danger by criticizing the ecclesiastical hierarchy; nor can he really have imagined that Marcolf’s persona could have offered him much protection even if he had been. Though the persona is maintained with reasonable consistency, he is quite ready to drop it on occasion (i.e., at l. 503) and he signs off the poem with a version of his usual signature." See also Simpson, “Saving Satire," pp. 392, 400; and Citrome, Surgeon, pp. 92–93.

1003 parté. Simpson, “Saving Satire," p. 395, comments: “Marcol . . . implies that each ‘party’, including the lay party, has a legitimate voice and deserves to be heard."

1005 Favel. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 394.

1008–13 On Audelay’s self-naming here and at line 503, see Meyer-Lee, “Vatic Penitent," pp. 65–66, who proposes that “all mention of Audelay’s blindness represents material added during the compilation of the codex" and that “virtually all acts of self-naming were also included during this process." See also explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 503.

1013 The last line is written as the catchphrase (and thus it is formally lacking from the stanza). The next folio (the beginning of a new quire) is missing. If the poem is complete, then the missing next recto would have contained only its last line. That the scribe would have deliberately ended his copy of the poem in this manner is unlikely.



[XV.] THE REMEDY OF NINE VIRTUES          [W3]

Audelay crafts this poem from a Latin source, Novum virtutes, a text loosely associated with Richard Rolle (Horstmann, Yorkshire Writers, 2:455). The poem purports to reveal nine chief virtues handed down by Christ himself, and thus, like Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday and God’s Address to Sinful Men, it is couched as an address by God to humanity. E. Whiting, p. 233, estimates that at least five stanzas are missing at the beginning, where it seems that four leaves are gone from the manuscript. The text here begins with the sixth virtue. The nine virtues are: (1) to give alms, (2) to weep for Christ’s Passion, (3) to suffer a word for Christ, (4) to break sleep to say orisons, (5) to have compassion, (6) to say no word of backbiting, (7) to give good counsel, (8) to pray, and (9) to love God. Because the poem as we have it opens with the detail of going barefoot in the street in penance (a detail also found in the source and analogues), Bennett, “John Audelay: Life Records," suspects that the missing folios had a political resonance recalling the outrage of 1417, which may account for their removal (pp. 41–41, 47; see also Bennett, “John Audley: Some New Evidence").

[Fol. 8ra–b (acephalous). IMEV *71; Suppl., NIMEV *3780.5. MWME 7:2537–38 [157]. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, explicit in red. Audelay Signature: Line 102 (Scribe A). Meter: The poem has eight 13-line stanzas, ababbcbc₄d₂eee_3-4d₂. Latin Source: Novum virtutes, extant in MS Caius College 140, fol. 132r. Middle English Verse Analogues: “Nine Points" (Horstmann, Yorkshire Writers, 2:455–56; NIMEV 1188); “A Good Lesson of IX Vertewis" (Bowers, “Middle English Poem"; NIMEV 212). Middle English Prose Analogues: “Points Best Pleasing to God" (Horstmann, Yorkshire Writers, 1:110–12, from MSS Vernon, Rawlinson C.285, and Harley 1704). Editions: Halliwell, pp. 51–54, 87–88; E. Whiting, pp. 46–49, 233.]

14 On Audelay’s special interest in the sin of slander and backbiting, which he habitually adds to the Ten Commandments, see the explanatory note introducing Ten Commandments.

17 stydest. For the sense “strive toward a higher or more perfect spiritual, moral, or intellectual state," see MED stien, v.6(a).

32 fre choyse. On the doctrine of free will in Audelay’s works, see the explanatory note to True Living, lines 203–07.

43 E. Whiting, p. 233, notes that “The reference is to the pillar hermits of whom St. Simeon Stylites was the most famous."

44 rayssors. MED rasour(e, n.(c), “an instrument of torture."

51–102 E. Whiting, p. 233, notes that this portion of the poem does not appear in the analogues. Much of it does appear, however, in other Audelay poems (see explanatory notes below). For example, most of the last two stanzas resurface in Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy.

60 On Audelay’s frequent citation of the Golden Rule, see the explanatory note to True Living, line 231.

73–76 These lines are formulaic; compare True Living, lines 156–59, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 244–46.

77–89 This is Audelay’s typical signature stanza. Compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 378–90; Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, lines 196–208; The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 353–65; and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 495–507. The closest match to lines 85–89 is to be found in Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 490–94.

80 salutary. The MED cites this line as the only known instance of the noun salutari, “remedy."

90–97 These lines are repeated in Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 391–98. Lines 90–92 are similar, too, to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 997–99. On the phrase take good eme in line 90, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 53.

99–102 Compare On the World’s Folly, lines 61–66; Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, lines 202–08; and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 504–07. Line 99 also appears in Salutation to Saint Bridget, line 204. On the word laust in line 99, see MED losen, v.3(1a), “to free, untie, let loose," with Audelay’s line cited among the examples.



XVI. SEVEN BLEEDINGS OF CHRIST          [W4]

This piece is an indulgence prayer on the name of Jesus, comprised of three introductory stanzas, fifteen stanzas in address to Jesus, and five instructional stanzas. Its purpose is to bring “remedy" for the seven deadly sins by means of reciting the seven bleedings of Christ, methodically matched to the sins and then to seven tokens of the Crucifixion. Woolf, English Religious Lyric, pp. 222–23, notes the confused history of this theme and others “firmly rooted in the emotive meditation on the Passion." Hirsh, Boundaries of Faith, pp. 91–110, especially pp. 99–100, describes the ways the theme was featured in indulgences. One of the venerated tokens is the Veronica cloth (lines 67–72) so prominently hailed later in MS Douce 302 (fol. 27va) by a drawing, a salutation, and a prayer (all of which also carry an indulgence). The worshiper is to follow a reading of Seven Bleedings of Christ with a recitation of fifteen Paternosters and fifteen Aves. Moreover, one should recite it every day; and — to “be sekyr" of salvation — one should teach it to “another mon" (lines 134–35). The structural likeness between this lyric and the popular indulgence prayer the Fifteen Oes — sometimes associated with St. Bridget, sometimes with Rolle — is striking. As in the prose prayer, there are fifteen addresses to Jesus (each prefixed “O") with a prescribed recitation of fifteen Paternosters and fifteen Aves to achieve a specific outcome. On the Fifteen Oes, see Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 218, 249–56. On devotion to the Holy Blood elsewhere in Audelay, also carrying an indulgence, see Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, lines 89–120.

The analogous poem printed by Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century, consists of eight stanzas with stanzas 1–6 matching Seven Bleedings of Christ, stanzas 4–10. The wording is often quite similar and the meter is the same. Wrath and Envy have been reversed, as in the fourteenth-century poem printed by Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century (see explanatory note to lines 19–60). The evidence suggests that there was a common Latin original for this prayer

[Fols. 8rb–9ra. IMEV (“An orison of the Wounds and the ‘Arms of Christ’ by Audelay"), NIMEV 292. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, incipit and explicit in red. Initials: Large A in blue with red filigree (three lines high). In many stanzas beginning “O Jhesu," the initial black O is marked in red (stanzas 4–16); the O of line 58 is so marked by accident. Meter: Twenty-three 6-line stanzas, aa₄b₃cc₄b₃. Middle English Analogue (stanzas 4–10 only): “A Prayer by the Wounds against the Deadly Sins" (Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century, pp. 95–97 [no. 62]). Editions: Halliwell, pp. 55–60, 88; E. Whiting, pp. 50–54, 233–34.]

19–60 This petition for deliverance from the seven sins in a meditation upon seven holy occurrences parallels the petition in Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, lines 5–12. To these seven stanzas on the seven deadly sins, compare “A Prayer to be delivered from the Deadly Sins" (Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century, pp. 218–19 [no. 123]), an indulgence prayer that appears to be translated from the same source. The verse form is the same, but the wording is different. A Paternoster and an Ave are to be said between each stanza. The second petition is for deliverance from Wrath, while in Audelay it is for deliverance from Envy. The last petition is for Charity; in Audelay it is for deliverance from Wrath. For other variants on what was probably a widespread indulgence, see Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century, pp. 283–84, and E. Whiting, pp. 233–34. On Audelay’s treatment of the seven deadly sins elsewhere in MS Douce 302, see Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, lines 5–12; Prayer of General Confession, lines 5–8; Seven Deadly Sins, lines 1–24; and Childhood, lines 1–15.

67–72 Compare Salutation to the Holy Face, lines 1–7, the drawing next to it, and the prose prayer that follows it, Deus qui nobis. That salutation and image also appear to function as an indulgence.

93 The tradition of the blind “knyght" Longinus tells of his piercing the side of Christ during the Crucifixion and regaining eyesight when touched by drops of Christ’s blood. The story is based on John 19:24 and the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, and it influenced the Holy Grail legend of Arthurian romance. For Blind Audelay, the story may carry a personal resonance. Compare Prayer on Christ’s Passion, line 24; O Deus qui voluisti, line 30; Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 68; and Seven Hours of the Cross, line 48.

103–09 This stanza contains an extra line.

110–17 The saying of a specified number of Paternosters and Aves, along with daily recitation, indicates the status of this piece as carrying an indulgence. Compare the Passion poem printed by Bühler, “Middle English Prayer Roll," pp. 558–61, where each stanza is punctuated with “Pater noster ave Maria," as well as similar forms described by Hirsh, Boundaries of Faith, pp. 96–100. Audelay emphasizes the spiritual efficacy of the poem: it is a tool for salvation. Compare too the indulgence prayers on the instruments of the Passion printed by R. Morris, Legends of the Holy Rood, pp. 170–96. On the arma Christi tradition, see Robbins, “‘Arma Christi’ Rolls"; Gray, “Middle English Illustrated Poem," pp. 187; Hirsh, Boundaries of Faith, pp. 124–49, especially pp. 129–36; and A. Nichols, “O Vernicle."

XVII. PRAYER ON CHRIST’S PASSION          [W5]

The first half of this poem (lines 1–24) translates loosely the Latin verse prayer O Deus qui voluisti, which is soon to follow (on fol. 9rb).

[Fol. 9ra–b. IMEV, NIMEV 2452. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, incipit in red. Initials: Small O in red and blue (one and a half lines high). The black initial letters of stanzas are marked in red, with one error: the D of line 29 is marked instead of the A of line 31. Meter: Seven 6-line stanzas, aa₄b₃cc₄b₃. Editions: Halliwell, pp. 60–61, 88; E. Whiting, pp. 54–56, 234.]

4–5 On Judas’s treason elsewhere in MS Douce 302, see Marcolf and Solomon, lines 473, 753a, and 758; O Deus qui voluisti, lines 4–5 and 18; Virtues of the Mass, lines 103–08; Seven Hours of the Cross, lines 13–18; and The Vision of Saint Paul, line 234.

16–17 Compare O Deus qui voluisti, line 25, and Seven Hours of the Cross, lines 21–22.

23 Compare O Deus qui voluisti, line 29; Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, lines 61–62; Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 51; and Seven Hours of the Cross, line 39.

24 By tradition Longinus thrust the spear into Christ’s side. On the tradition of blind Longinus in Blind Audelay’s works, see the explanatory note to Seven Bleedings of Christ, line 92, and compare O Deus qui voluisti, line 30; Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 68; and Seven Hours of the Cross, line 48.

31–35 Audelay alludes elsewhere in this section of the manuscript to the thief redeemed by Christ; see Tu Domine and Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, lines 25–30.

37–38 This is a mnemonic formula. Compare Instructions for Prayer 1, Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, line 109, and Instructions for Prayer 8.

XVIII. THE PSALTER OF THE PASSION          [W6]

The seven items under this numeral and heading together form a devotional prayer sequence designed to bring remission of sin to the petitioner. It mixes prayers with instructions, building up to and then focusing on the details of Christ’s persecution and suffering. Its seven parts are:

(1) English instructions for prayer (four lines);
(2) A well-known Latin hymn and prayer, Anima Christi sanctifica me;
(3) More English instructions for prayer (two lines);
(4) A short Latin verse prayer (four lines), petitioning Christ naked on the cross for mercy (to be substituted for the Paternoster and Ave);
(5) More English instructions for prayer with a rosary (along with hours of the Virgin and saying the Creed);
(6) A Latin prayer in remembrance of the Passion, seemingly to be recited with a rosary (the scribe denotes its mnemonic repetition by copying it twice);
(7) A final prayer in Latin prose petitioning for deliverance from the pains of hell, in the name of Christ’s pains on the cross.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRAYER 1          [W6]

[Fol. 9rb. IMEV, NIMEV 3888. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, incipit (for everything under the numeral XVIII.) in red. Ornament: These four lines are underlined in red and marked with a blue paraph in the left margin. I have kept the underlining, though not in red. Meter: Two tetrameter couplets. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 56.]

1 Wele is him that wele can is a formula used by Audelay at the beginning or end of a devotion that leads to remission of sin. Compare Prayer on Christ’s Passion, line 37; Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, line 109; and Instructions for Prayer 8.

LATIN VERSE PRAYER ANIMA CHRISTI SANCTIFICA ME          [W6]

Audelay opens the devotion with a familiar Catholic hymn (Daniel, Thesaurus Hymnologicus, 1:345). He omits the seventh line and changes the eleventh line. The fifth line, “Passio Christi conforta me," resurfaces elsewhere in Audelay’s poetry, becoming the refrain for Dread of Death and appearing in Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 9. On the prayer’s use in medieval English devotions, see Duffy, Marking the Hours, p. 28.

[Fol. 9rb. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, initial letter of each line marked in red. Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 56 (lines 5–16), 234.]

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRAYER 2          [W6]

[Fol. 9rb. Not in IMEV, NIMEV. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, red mark on I (initial made by Scribe A). Meter: One tetrameter couplet. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 56 (lines 17–18).]

LATIN VERSE PRAYER O PENDENS DUDUM          [W6]

[Fol. 9rb. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, red mark on O (initial made by Scribe A). Edition: E. Whiting, p. 56 (lines 19–22).]

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRAYER 3          [W6]

[Fol. 9rb. Not in IMEV, NIMEV. Hand: Scribe A, poem in black. Meter: Three tetrameter couplets. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 57 (lines 23–28).]

LATIN VERSE PRAYER O DEUS QUI VOLUISTI          [W6]

Audelay translates this Latin prayer loosely in his Prayer on Christ’s Passion, which appears earlier on fol. 9ra–b. It is a memorized recitation, in which lines 15–26 replicate, roughly, lines 1–14. The initials of lines 6 and 13 are not tipped in red because Scribe A did not begin these lines with capital letters.

[Fol. 9rb–va. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, half of the initial letters marked in red (i.e., lines 1–5, 7–12, 14–17); red paraphs mark lines 1 and 15. Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 57–58 (lines 29–58), 234.]

1–26 Compare Prayer on Christ’s Passion, lines 1–20.

4–5 On Judas’s treason, repeated at line 18, compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 473, 753a, 757; Prayer on Christ’s Passion, lines 4–5; Virtues of the Mass, lines 103–08; Seven Hours of the Cross, lines 13–18; and The Vision of Saint Paul, line 234.

27–30 Compare Prayer on Christ’s Passion, lines 21–24.

LATIN PROSE PRAYER TU DOMINE PER HAS SANCTISSIMAS PENAS TUAS          [W6]

[Fol. 9va. Hands: Scribe A, in black; Scribe B, red marks on T and Q (in Qui) (initials made by Scribe A). Edition: E. Whiting, p. 58.]

XIX. SEVEN WORDS OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS          [W7]

Woolf, English Religious Lyric, p. 222, praises the genuine meditative spirit expressed in this poem: “Audelay’s style has a tender lucidity that catches excellently the force of so much love, whilst gently relating it to the meditator’s prayer." She also summarizes the Latin devotional tradition of Seven Words in works attributed to Bede, Arnold of Bonneval, and Bonaventure. See also Barratt, “Prymer and Its Influence," pp. 276–78; and Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 248–49. In the poem the number seven mystically and mnemonically guides the devotion, a template that occurs elsewhere in The Counsel of Conscience, i.e., in Seven Bleedings of Christ and Seven Hours of the Cross. Most stanzas have an anaphoric first line — “O, Jhesu" — as a salutation, evocative of fifteenth-century cults of the Holy Name. The instruction to adorn the poem saying seven Paternosters and seven Aves (lines 97–101) indicates that it is to an indulgence.

The stanzas are composed in pairs:

1–2. Introduction, with a pairing of the seven words to the seven sins (i.e., the sins to be remitted);
3–4. Luke 23:34, and a petition for God to forgive the petitioner’s enemies;
5–6. Luke 23:42–43, and a petition for grace as was received by the two thieves;
7–8. John 19:26–27, and a petition for compassion;
9–10. Matthew 27:46/Mark 15:34, and a petition for mercy;
11–12. John 19:28–29, and a petition for contrition through weeping and a thirst for everlasting life;
13–14. Luke 23:46, and a petition for one’s spirit to be commended into God’s hands;
15–16. John 19:30, and a petition for gaining heaven upon death;
17–18. A reminder to say seven Paternosters and seven Aves, and to seek confession, contrition, and satisfaction;
19. Conclusion, reminding the reader that worship of these words will bring remission of sin.

[Fol. 9va–10ra. IMEV, NIMEV 2468. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, incipit and explicit in red. Initial: Large O in blue with red filigree (three lines high). Meter: Nineteen 6-line stanzas, aa₄b₃cc₄b₃. Latin Source: “De septem verbis Christi in cruce," attributed to Bede (PL 94.562) and standard in books of hours (Woolf, English Religious Lyric, pp. 220–22). Middle English Analogues: “A Prayer on the Words of Christ on the Cross" (Person, Cambridge Middle English Lyrics, pp. 6–8 [no. 4]); “The Seven Words from the Cross" (Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XVth Century, pp. 142–44 [no. 96]). Editions: Halliwell, pp. 62–66, 88; E. Whiting, pp. 58–62, 234–35.]

5–12 This petition for deliverance from the seven deadly sins in a meditation on seven things parallels the petition in Seven Bleedings of Christ, lines 19–60 (see explanatory note).

25–30 Audelay alludes elsewhere in this section of the manuscript to the thief redeemed by Christ; see Prayer on Christ’s Passion, lines 31–35, and the Latin prayer Tu Domine.

40–42 Compare Seven Hours of the Cross, lines 42–44, and Day of Saint John the Evangelist, lines 7–16.

45 dere derlyng. Compare Day of Saint John the Evangelist, line 7.

50–54 Compare Seven Hours of the Cross, line 47.

62–63 Compare Prayer on Christ’s Passion, line 23; O Deus qui voluisti, line 29; Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 51; and Seven Hours of the Cross, line 39.

74–75 Compare Dread of Death, line 50.

85 Compare Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 54.

109–10 These lines are a mnemonic tag. Compare Prayer on Christ’s Passion, lines 37–38, Instructions for Prayer 1, and Instructions for Prayer 8.

XX. DEVOTIONS AT THE LEVATION OF CHRIST’S BODY          [W8]

The entire sequence is called a “salutation" in Scribe B’s incipit (fol. 10ra) and explicit (fol. 10va), and he assigns it the numeral XX. Halliwell omits this sequence from his edition, but Ella Keats Whiting felt it to be “of interest because of the instruction it gives for the celebration of the sacrament" (p. 235). This mostly vernacular, liturgically based exercise seems designed for a layperson’s instruction. It consists of:

(1) Instructions to the layperson on how to prepare oneself in mind and gesture (kneeling); (2) A salutation to Christ’s body (to be said or read during the Levation itself); (3) Further instructions on how one’s utterance of the next prayer will bring remission of sin; (4) A prayer for pardon (to be said after the Levation); (5) A prayer of adoration (in Latin prose); (6) A prayer of praise and benediction (in Latin verse).

The sequence progresses through the sacrament, spiritually advancing the participant in prayer and wonder, from English to Latin. One may compare the service depicted here to an explication of the Levation during mass found in The Lay Folks Mass (Simmons, Lay Folks Mass Book, pp. 38–60). The prayers found there do not resemble those recorded here by Audelay, who seems to lead this devotion in his capacity as chaplain. The whole sequence is very like those dedicated to Christ and the saints found in the salutations section of MS Douce 302. It is evidently positioned here as a preface to the next poem, Virtues of the Mass. One may also compare this sequence to Audelay’s exposition of the mass in Marcolf and Solomon, lines 832–96. On salutations and prayers conjoined with didactic instructions for following the mass — a subject also worked by Lydgate — see Rubin, Corpus Christi, pp. 155–63, especially p. 160, and on the Levation specifically, pp. 63–82.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRAYER 4          [W8]

[Fol. 10ra. IMEV, NIMEV 4052 (both indexes combine this item with the next three items). Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, incipit in red (referring to entire sequence XX) and underlining of poem in red. Initial: Large W in blue with red filigree (three lines high). Meter: One 6-line stanza, aa₄b₃cc₄b₃. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 62 (lines 1–6).]

SALUTATION TO CHRIST’S BODY          [W8]

Called a salutation by Scribe B’s incipit for section XX, this poem may be compared to the series of salutary poems later in the manuscript (fols. 22v–27v). It is metrically unlike any other poem in the Audelay manuscript. A shift to septenary a-lines occurs in stanzas 3–5, where the articles of belief are affirmed. Compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 300–20, a paraphrase of the Apostles’ Creed.

[Fol. 10ra–b. Not in IMEV, NIMEV as a separate item (see 4052). MWME 7:2559–61 [204]. Hand: Scribe A, poem in black. Initials: Scribe A’s black initials T and A in lines 14–15 are marked in red. Meter: Seven 8-line stanzas, aaa_4-7b₃ccc₄b₃, with “Haile" anaphora in many a- and c-lines. Middle English Analogues: Verse prayers on the Levation are numerous; see IMEV, p. 763, s.v. “Levacion prayers." Many are gathered in Robbins, “Levation Prayers," pp. 131–46. One occurs in the Vernon Manuscript (Horstmann, Minor Poems of the Vernon MS, p. 25). Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 62–64 (lines 7–62).]

7 Halnere. See MED aumener, n. (1), “One who distributes alms for another; an official distributor of alms; a servant at a meal who distributes food," with this line cited among the examples.

26 An early reader (whose style is unlike that of either of the scribes) highlights the word assencion (or perhaps all of lines 25–28) by drawing a sleeved hand pointing upward at it, in the right margin. This drawing seems to point to the sacred moment of Levation, a point that marks the center of the poem as well. The drawing is the best-formed of several small, crude figures made by the same hand on fols. 3rb, 5rb, 6rb, 7rb (a flower?), 9rb, 10rb, 11rb, 13rb (a vertical line), 18rb (marking the climax of Vision of Saint Paul, lines 236–40), 27vb, and 28va. On the nonscribal hands in the manuscript, see the textual notes.

36 gloryouse face. Compare Salutation to the Holy Face, which dramatically expresses this idea accompanied by a drawing.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRAYER 5          [W8]

[Fol. 10rb. IMEV unnumbered (p. 186); not in NIMEV as a separate item (see 4052). Hand: Scribe A, poem in black. Meter: One 8-line stanza, aaa₄b₃ccc₄b₃. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 64 (lines 63–70).]

PRAYER FOR PARDON AFTER THE LEVATION          [W8]

[Fol. 10rb–va. Not in IMEV, NIMEV as a separate item (see NIMEV 4052). Hand: Scribe A, poem in black. Meter: Three 6-line stanzas, aa_4-7b₃cc₄b₃. Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 64–65 (lines 71–88).]

1–5 O Lord Jhesu Crist . . . Hongyng on cros. These words open Prayer for Forgiveness in the sequence that follows Virtues of the Mass. Audelay’s Prayer for Forgiveness is the only piece listed in the IMEV and NIMEV with the first words “O Lord Jhesu Crist," suggesting that this prayer opening is an Audelay mannerism.

LATIN PROSE PRAYER ADORAMUS TE CHRISTE ET BENEDICIMUS          [W8]

[Fol. 10va. Hand: Scribe A, prayer in black. Initials: The black initials A (Adoramus) and E (Ecce) are marked in red. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 65.]

LATIN VERSE PRAYER LAUDES DEO DICAM PER SECULA          [W8]

[Fol. 10va. Hands: Scribe A, prayer in black; Scribe B, explicit (referring to the entire sequence XX) in red. Initials: The black initial Q (Qui) is marked in red, as are the A, M, and N of A. M. [E.] N. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 65 (printed as prose).]

XXI. VIRTUES OF THE MASS          [W9]

Audelay’s Virtues of the Mass is a verse sermon that expounds the utility of the mass if properly observed. Rubin calls it a “religious poem and a manual in one." She notes how Audelay “gives the participant in communion an active role, reciting the Pater noster and the Ave Maria; he also surveys the rudiments of knowledge codified by Pecham in the Lambeth Council of 1281" (Corpus Christi, p. 108). Audelay’s emphasis upon lay participation may be compared to similar instructions promulgated in verse and prose by orthodox churchmen of the early fifteenth century — e.g., Lydgate, Mirk, and the compilers of the Vernon Manuscript and the Lay Folks Mass Book; for more sentiments of this type, see the “Schematic Approach to the Mass" (late 1470s) found in “A York Priest’s Notebook" (Shinners and Dohar, Pastors and the Care of Souls, pp. 154–55; compare pp. 165–70). Audelay’s beliefs about the mass, also expressed in Marcolf and Solomon, lines 832–96, are thus informed by traditional Church doctrine. The concern for propriety exhibited by him and other writers existed in a contemporary context of rituals growing more elaborate: “the mass was becoming more and more of a spectacle and less and less of a communion" (Beckwith, Christ’s Body, p. 36; see also Catto, “Religious Change under Henry V," especially p. 109; and Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 91–130). On social conflict over the mass in late medieval society, amid Wycliffite disputes about transubstantiation, see Beckwith, especially pp. 33–37.

As sermon, Audelay’s poem contains an oft-told, amusing exemplum about a man of great piety (here Augustine of Canterbury, not bishop of Hippo) who is able to see a devil record the sinful words of gossips during mass. Because there is so very much to record, the devil quickly runs out of parchment. Seeing the frustrated devil’s slapstick antics (he tugs at the parchment with his teeth and bangs his head against the wall), the great man laughs aloud — a scandalous thing to do during mass. The devil is here named Ruffin, as in Harley 3954; the same devil-name surfaces in the alliterative stanza Over-Hippers and Skippers copied later in Audelay’s manuscript. In other sources the recording demon is usually Tutivillis. While the Vernon poem cites numerous authorities on the virtues of the mass, e.g., Ambrose, Augustine, Bede, Bernard, Gregory, and Jerome, the primary figure in Audelay’s version is Augustine (Bede and Bernard are just mentioned), with Gregory granting the final pardon enacted by one’s hearing the poem (lines 410–11). In Audelay’s telling of the exemplum, Gregory, who sent Augustine to England to convert the English (lines 274–82) is also Augustine’s questioner. One may note that Haughmond was an Augustinian house, and that Augustine seems to be designated a member of the order.

Audelay’s Virtues of the Mass contains many 12-line stanzas derived from a source shared with the West Midland Vernon analogue (c. 1390), but the passages not corresponding to the Vernon poem are generally composed in 6-line stanzas. (On the 12-line stanza of the Vernon “How to Hear Mass," see Fein, “Twelve-Line Stanza Forms," p. 394.) The Audelay passages not found in the Vernon poem are: lines 31–36, 67–86, 91–168, 205–10, 223–52, and 352–414. The late fifteenth-century version found in MS Harley 3954, in East Midland dialect with some Northernisms, is closer to Audelay’s Virtues of the Mass than to Vernon. Putter, “Language and Metre," pp. 505–06, 510, suggests that Audelay and Harley derive from a common antecedent. There is, nonetheless, much variation between them. The Harley version consists of fifty-three 6-line stanzas. In that version stanzas 30–44 deliver the exemplum, which is formally marked off with an incipit (Narracio seint augustinum) and explicit (finis).

[Fols. 10va–12rb. IMEV, NIMEV 1986 (mistakenly counts “fifty-three 6 line st."); compare IMEV 1988, 4276. MWME 7:2557 [197], 9:3265. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, incipit and explicit in red. Initials: Large L in blue with red filigree (three lines high). Black O (Or) of line 30 is marked in red. Meter: Sixty-nine 6-line stanzas, aa₄b₃cc₄b₃, with thirty-six stanzas combinable as 12-line stanzas, aa₄b₃cc₄b₃dd₄b₃ee₄b₃, indicating the form of Audelay’s model. Analogues: “How to Hear Mass," in fifty-seven 12-line stanzas (aa₄b₃cc₄b₃dd₄b₃ee₄b₃), Vernon MS, fols. 302va–303vc (Simmons, Lay Folks Mass Book, pp. 128–47; Furnivall, Minor Poems of the Vernon MS, pp. 493–511); London, BL MS Harley 3954, fols. 74r–76r (unedited, except for an extract corresponding to lines 271–348; see Wright and Halliwell, Reliquiae Antiquae, 1:59–60). Editions: Halliwell, pp. 66–81, 88; E. Whiting, pp. 65–79 (lines 50–414 misnumbered), 235–37.]

1–12 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 2 (lines 13–24).

3 helth. The references here and in line 10 to the healing powers of the mass reinforce Audelay’s stated purpose for his book The Counsel of Conscience, that is, soulehele (see explanatory notes to Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 105, 248–60).

13–24 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 3 (lines 25–36).

25–30 Compare “How to Hear Mass," half of stanza 4 (lines 37–42).

37–42 Compare “How to Hear Mass," half of stanza 7 (lines 33–84).

41 For another admonition on how to say mass, compare the alliterative stanza Over-Hippers and Skippers that appears later in the Audelay manuscript, and also Marcolf and Solomon, lines 196–98, and The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 83–88 (explanatory note).

43–54 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 9 (lines 97–108).
43–65 Rubin, Corpus Christi, p. 108, summarizes the “stock of benefits accruing from the mass" that Audelay lists here: “the company of angels all day, freedom from the threat of being struck blind on that day or suffering death, and from the need for food or drink." E. Whiting, p. 236, calls the image of line 47, of angels painting the faces of mass-goers, a “meaningless line," but it is like a tale in Handlyng Synne in which a priest knows the worthiness of those receiving the sacrament when God transforms their faces to pure brightness, or black, or red, or swollen, etc. This exemplum appears in the Vernon Manuscript (Horstmann, Minor Poems of the Vernon MS, pp. 206–07) and in Speculum Sacerdotale (Weatherly, pp. 123–25).

55–66 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 10 (lines 69–73).

67 The emphasis upon Augustine’s authority is a feature of this poem; lines 66–86 do not appear in the Vernon text.

79–84 Rubin, Corpus Christi, p. 108, summarizes these lines: “Belief in the sacrament is stressed, as well as proper kneeling at the sacring with clasped hands and with thoughts intent on Christ."

87–90 Compare “How to Hear Mass," part of stanza 6 (lines 69–72).

103–08 “Here, the reader is reminded that the eucharist was founded at the Last Supper by Christ and that Judas had received it unworthily" (Rubin, Corpus Christi, p. 108). On Judas’s treason, compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 473, 753a, 758; Prayer on Christ’s Passion, lines 4–5; O Deus qui voluisti, lines 4–5, 18; Seven Hours of the Cross, lines 13–18; and The Vision of Saint Paul, line 234.

124 Compare the exposition of these seven points in Paternoster.

138–43 Audelay enumerates the Ten Commandments in True Living, lines 143–54, as well as in Ten Commandments.

160–62 Audelay repeats these verses at lines 364–66.

169–80 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 12 (lines 133–44).

181–92 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 13 (lines 145–56). Compare, too, line 181 to Vernon’s “Of Austin, Ambrose, Bernard, and Bede" (line 91).

193–204 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 22 (lines 253–64).

211–16 Compare “How to Hear Mass," second half of stanza 14 (lines 163–68).

217–22 Compare “How to Hear Mass," first half of stanza 14 (lines 157–62). In line 217 Saint Augustine is substituted for the Vernon text’s Saint Jerome. E. Whiting offers this translation: “St. Austin says that for a thousand souls, if thou wouldst here (on earth) sing a single mass, it counts for neither more nor less than a mass for every soul." Compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 92–93.

253–64 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 11 (lines 121–32).

265–76 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 24 (lines 277–88). The reason for Saint Augustine’s order of silence during the mass will be illustrated by the upcoming exemplum, which demonstrates how devils record every word said. On the pastoral tradition of the recording demon, see Jennings, “Tutivillus"; Lee, “‘This is no fable,’" pp. 743–60; and Rubin, Corpus Christi, p. 154.

275 gyn. See MED ging(e, n.1(b), “a body of retainers or followers, a retinue, household." E. Whiting glosses the word as “kin," a less likely derivation and meaning.

277–88 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 25 (lines 289–300).

283 The word the is used as an article in the phrase the Austyn, not as a second-person pronoun, as E. Whiting’s punctuation indicates. Compare line 311. Audelay refers to Augustine as a monk, that is, “the Austin" and thus as one who shares the name of the order of monks residing in Haughmond Abbey.

289–300 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 26 (lines 301–12).

298–342 Augustine and Gregory appear in the Vernon version as well, but the actors differ in the analogues; see E. Whiting, p. 237. Analogues appear in Robert of Brunne’s Handlyng Synne (Furnivall, pp. 290–93, lines 9261–9314) and The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry (Wright, pp. 41–42, amidst several more exemplary tales about the mass’s virtues). For further commentary, see Fein, “Thirteen-Line Alliterative Stanza," p. 72n14–15; and Greene, Early English Carols, p. 443, note to no. 372, stanza 3.

301–12 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 27 (lines 313–24).

309 grone. The manuscript reading grame does not rhyme and anticipates the same word in the next line. The Vernon reading is adopted here.

311 the Austyn. See explanatory note to line 283.

313–24 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 28 (lines 325–36).

325–36 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 30 (lines 349–60).

337–48 Compare “How to Hear Mass," stanza 31 (lines 385–96).

349 Compare “How to Hear Mass," line 370.

364–66 These lines repeat Virtues of the Mass, lines 160–62.

411 This statement that Saint Gregory has established a pardon for those who hear “this sermon" prepares for the next item in MS Douce 302, Saint Gregory’s Indulgence.

XXII. FOR REMISSION OF SINS          [W10]

This sequenced item, which follows directly from the ending of Virtues of the Mass, is identified as carrying an indulgence sanctioned by Saint Gregory the Great, pope from 590 to 604. Numbered XXII by Scribe B, it is a soul-cleansing devotional exercise designed to lessen one’s time in purgatory. The sequence is composed entirely in English couplets. Its sections are differentiated by underlining, paraphs for stanzas or divisions, Latin rubrics, and three large initials. The first twenty-two lines are underlined in red, and paraphs mark Saint Gregory’s Indulgence as two 10-line stanzas, followed by a couplet of instruction. In all, there are five sections:

(1) An introduction (underlined in red), explaining how what follows carries an indulgence established by Saint Gregory when Christ’s figure appeared before him; (2) An instructional couplet (also underlined in red) asking the participant to pray the next item with sincerity; (3) A standard prayer of confession; (4) A second instruction to pray devoutly; (5) A prayer for forgiveness.

SAINT GREGORY’S INDULGENCE          [W10]

In the left margin Scribe B has written in red: here within for / . . . eye [or eyd] a fygur[e]. This partially cut-off fragment appears to be the remnant of an instruction directed to the reader; it may refer the reader to the drawing on fol. 22va, or to some other image now lost. It is an indication that Audelay had an image in mind to accompany this sequence.

[Fol. 12va. IMEV, NIMEV 3834. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, all lines underlined in red, and incipit in red. Initial: Large A in blue with red filigree (three lines high). Meter: Ten tetrameter couplets, marked by blue paraphs as two 10-line stanzas. Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 79–80 (lines 1–20).]

incipit The word papa is written in red after Gregorio and deleted in black ink. Because there is no evidence elsewhere in the book of a later hand with a reformist agenda, I take this deletion to be by Scribe B. Compare textual note to Latin Instructions Quicumque hanc salutacionem, line 2.

1–4 “According to the legend, Pope Gregory, while celebrating Mass in the church of Santa Croce in Gerusaleme in Rome, had experienced a vision of Christ, seated on or standing in his tomb, displaying his Wounds and surrounded by the Implements of the Passion. The legend almost certainly derives from an early medieval Byzantine icon displayed in the church of Santa Croce, which had a chapel dedicated to St Gregory" (Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 238; compare pp. 108–09). The story developed into the image of Christ as the Man of Sorrows, “appearing naked on the altar bleeding into the chalice" (Rubin, Corpus Christi, p. 310). It also developed as a devotion (often illustrated), offering promises of indulgence and effectively popularized in primers (Barratt, “Prymer and Its Influence," pp. 268–71). For specimens of the image, see Duffy, Marking the Hours, pp. 27, 39, 43, 72.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRAYER 6          [W10]

[Fol. 12va. Not in IMEV, NIMEV as a separate item (see 3834). Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, both lines underlined in red and marked by a red paraph. Meter: One tetrameter couplet. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 80 (lines 21–22).]

PRAYER OF GENERAL CONFESSION          [W10]

This Middle English prayer survives in many variants and copies. For another version in seven manuscripts, see NIMEV 3231; a copy of this variant appears in the Vernon Manuscript (Horstmann, Minor Poems of the Vernon MS, pp. 19–20; Patterson, Middle English Penitential Lyric, pp. 50–53, 162–63), where it opens (in twenty-two couplets) a longer poem of confession. There is a good degree of minor verbal variation among the manuscripts, but the rhymes tend to be consistent.

[Fol. 12va–b. IMEV, Suppl., NIMEV 3233. Brown, Register of Middle English Religious and Didactic Verse, 1:114. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, incipit in red. Initial: Medium S in blue with red filigree (two lines high). Meter: Nineteen tetrameter couplets. Other MSS: Cambridge, CUL Ii.6.43, fols. 90v–91v (twenty couplets; Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century, pp. 109–10, 271–72 [no. 87]); London, BL MS Addit. 47663 (L), fol. 84r (eighteen couplets; Furnivall, Minor Poems of the Vernon MS, pp. 785–86); olim Fellowes, fol. 166v (sold Sotheby’s, July 6, 1964, lot 231). Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 80–81 (lines 23–60), 237–38.]

2 Coubabil. Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century, pp. 271–72, notes that surviving copies of the Prayer of General Confession divide into two groups: those with the word copable at this point, and those with the word gulti. The Vernon version belongs to the latter group. The three manuscripts listed above belong, with MS Douce 302, to the copable group.

5–8 The Vernon text arranges the sins differently: “In Pruide, in Envye, In lecherye, / In Sleuþe, In Wraþþe, In Glotenye, / In al þis worldus Couetyse" (Horstmann, Minor Poems of the Vernon MS, p. 19, lines 5–7). On Audelay’s treatment of the seven deadly sins elsewhere, see explanatory note to Seven Bleedings of Christ, lines 19–60.

6 The poem printed by Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century (based on the Cambridge and London manuscripts), has the order of sins reversed: “yn glotonye, yn lecherye" (p. 109, line 6).

10–16 On sinning with the five wits, Patterson notes a parallel passage in a prose confession from an Office of the Visitation of the Sick: “I knowleche to god and to owre lady seynte marie and to alle þe halwen of heuene, that I have senned, with mowth spoken, with feet goon, with eyen seyen, with eren hered, with nose smelled, with herte þowht, and with al myn senful body myswrowth" (Littlehales, English Fragments, p. 8, qtd. Patterson, Middle English Penitential Lyrics, p. 162 ). Compare Audelay’s Five Wits, and see also E. Whiting’s note, p. 238.

24 Audelay uses this line elsewhere, in contexts of sincere petition, in Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, line 20, and Saint Winifred Carol, line 164.

30 The poem printed by Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century, inserts a couplet after this line: “For sennes þat ich habbe / yn al my lyue hider-" (p. 110, lines 31–32).

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRAYER 7          [W10]

[Fol. 12vb. Not in IMEV, NIMEV. Hand: Scribe A, poem in black. Meter: One tetrameter couplet. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 81 (lines 61–62).]

PRAYER FOR FORGIVENESS          [W10]

Audelay concludes the sequence for remission of sins with this prayer for forgiveness, written in a “stanza" of five couplets, as was Saint Gregory’s Indulgence (see above). The scribe inserts a blue paraph to the left of the initial O, as he did earlier for Saint Gregory’s Indulgence and Instructions for Prayer 6. The entire sequence is fitted onto one page (fol. 12va–b), and the final Amen (written by Scribe A) closes the devotion.

[Fol. 12vb. IMEV, NIMEV 2489. Brown, Register of Middle English Religious and Didactic Verse, 1:114. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, incipit in red. Initials: Medium O in red (two lines high). Black A (Amen) after line 10 is marked in red. Meter: Five tetrameter couplets. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 81 (lines 63–72).]

XXIII. VISITING THE SICK AND CONSOLING THE NEEDY          [W11]

In this poem the concept of “visiting" involves both a pastoral consolation of the “needy" and the metaphysical afflictions God rains upon the sinful soul. The inspiration from Anselm, mentioned often (lines 1, 105, 119, 380), seems to be his office for visiting the dying, Admonitio morienti et de peccatis suis nimium formidanti (PL 158.685–88). Several stanzas appear to be borrowed from other poems by Audelay (as indicated below). Citrome, Surgeon, pp. 93–94, notes how “This poem conflates two common genres, the consolatio (consolation) and the visitation of the sick, both of which presented physical affliction as issuing directly from God."

In structure this work displays symmetry: stanzas 1–15, upon the hardship yet value of being afflicted in this life, as a means to expiate one’s sinfulness, with Peter, Mary Magdalene, and Thomas made the exemplars of God’s mercy extended to sinners; stanza 16 (the center), on Peter exalted as heaven’s gatekeeper and on the establishment of Holy Church and her priests; and stanzas 17–31, on the tenets and sacraments of Holy Church as the way to salvation. The basic message is to be prepared for “soden deth" (line 395) and to trust the Church’s teachings and servants, not leaving the welfare of one’s soul to one’s executors. Audelay’s use of a symmetrical structure, however fleeting in effect, in a poem of thirty-one 13-line stanzas shows him to be working consciously within a tradition reserved primarily for 13-line alliterative poems (see explanatory note to lines 196–204). This fact offers some insight on Audelay’s thoughtful metrics, and particularly on his craftsmanlike knowledge of verse styles matched to content.

[Fols. 12vb–14va. IMEV, NIMEV 2853. MWME 7:2568 [219]. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, incipit and explicit in red. Marginal symbols (possibly misplaced paraphs) appear at lines 202 and 229. Initials: Large S in blue with red filigree (three lines high). Black A (Amen) in line 403 is marked in red. Audelay Signature: Line 390 (Scribe A). Meter: Thirty-one 13-line stanzas, ababbcbc₄d₃eee_3-4d₃. Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 82–94, 238–39.]

9–13 Audelay repeats these lines in Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, lines 178–82, and The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 258–61.

29–34 These lines are virtually identical to Audelay’s Conclusion, lines 16–21.

48–49 On Audelay’s attitude about social rank, see the explanatory note to True Living, lines 130–33.

71–73 For the sentiment of this passage, that one should take care of one’s own soul and not trust others to care for it after one’s death, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 89.

87–91 See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 89.

89 For other warnings by Audelay not to trust one’s affairs to an executor, see Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 99, 345–47, and Marcolf and Solomon, line 89 (explanatory note).

92–94 A single mass during one’s lifetime is more effective than a thousand after one’s death. Compare Virtues of the Mass, lines 217–22, which may refer to the same tenet, though the wording is somewhat different.

99 On executors, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 89.

106–13 Citrome notes in these lines echoes of Audelay’s many autobiographical references to his own afflictions, as well as signs of the “uneasy interdependence" that connects spiritual sin to bodily illness (Surgeon, p. 94).

145 For this reference to Mary Magdalene being forgiven, E. Whiting, p. 239, cites Luke 7:47, which occurs in the story of the sinful woman anointing Jesus’ feet (Luke 7:37–50); this unnamed woman was often associated with Mary Magdalene (mentioned later, at Luke 8:2). Compare The Vision of Saint Paul, explicit (and explanatory note).

156–64 These lines and the sense of the whole stanza recur in God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 33–39, where the reference to Luke 15:7 is explicit.

161 Four score is eighty men, but Luke 15:7 references ninety-nine men.

170–78 These lines repeat a stanza in Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 157–65. Line 171 is a formula that recurs in other contexts; compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 207; Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 102; and The Vision of Saint Paul, line 332.

196–204 Audelay designs this poem so as to create this central stanza — on the foundation of Holy Church and its priesthood — flanked by fifteen stanzas on either side. It is quite interesting to note Audelay’s deployment of an older tradition in Middle English 13-line stanzaic verse: the opening of a portal at the center of the poem. In The Four Leaves of the Truelove, the event is the Harrowing of Hell. In The Dispute between Mary and the Cross, it is the rebirth of mankind through Mary during the Harrowing. Here, Christ opens the gate of heaven, with Peter made porter. See my discussion in Fein, “Form and Continuity in the Alliterative Tradition," and in my editions of The Four Leaves of the Truelove and The Dispute between Mary and the Cross (Fein, Moral Love Songs).

199 louce and bynd. The words evoke the biblical passage seen to sanctify priestly authority as granted directly from Christ. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 238, 805a, 961a.

202 A scribal symbol in the margin, resembling a paraph, is inserted to the left of this line, which occurs at the exact center of the poem. The same symbol appears next to line 229.

209–11 With the Church established and heaven’s gates opened, the joy expressed in these lines follows the tradition described above (explanatory note to lines 196–204). In keeping with this sacred joy, Audelay evokes the cross in line 211: “Est and west, north and south." This line recalls one like it at the exact center of Thomas of Hales’ Love Rune (Fein, Moral Love Songs, p. 35, line 100; Fein, “Roll or Codex?" p. 18).

218 he token. The idea that God plants sacred signs in nature to betoken his impending judgment recurs in Audelay’s The Counsel of Conscience; compare On the World’s Folly, lines 31–42, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 57–58.

229 A scribal symbol resembling a paraph marks this line in the left margin. The same symbol appears next to line 202.

287–94 On these lines, Hirsh, Boundaries of Faith, p. 100n20, comments: “Audelay’s linking of Christ’s blood with the Eucharist and with redemption is graceful and conventional, insisting upon the salvational nature of the Passion, as well as the biblical linking of sacrifice and salvation." Compare, too, Audelay’s Seven Bleedings of Christ.

295–96 And beware. . . that uncriston be. Forrest, Detection of Heresy, p. 72, detects in these lines an echo of Chancery proceedings against heresy, which prodded the reporting of heretics to the authorities.

345–47 On executors, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 89.

355 that day when ye schul dee. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 682.

378–90 This is Audelay’s typical signature stanza. Compare The Remedy of Nine Virtues, lines 77–89; Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, lines 196–208; The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 353–65; and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 495–507. The last two stanzas of Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy borrow closely from the last two stanzas of The Remedy of Nine Virtues.

391–98 Compare The Remedy of Nine Virtues, lines 90–97. Lines 391–93 are similar, too, to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 997–99. On the phrase take good eme in line 391, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 53.

BLIND AUDELAY’S ENGLISH PASSION          [W12–W14]

Blind Audelay’s English Passion carries an indulgence much like the other devotional sequences in The Counsel of Conscience. It consists of:

(1) Instructions (underlined in red) readying the reader for the whole sequence; (2) A meditation on the vanity of the world; (3) A meditation on the Passion according to the Gospel of John, closing with worship of the five wounds of Christ, to be followed by a recitation of five Paternosters, five Aves, and the Creed (this poem is said to carry an indulgence granted by Pope John XXII of Avignon); (4) A prayer explicit; (5) A meditation on the Seven Hours of the Cross.

Audelay provides the title for this section in Audelay’s Prayer Explicit to Pope John’s Passion. At this point in the manuscript, Scribe B’s guideposts do not entirely agree with the program set out by Scribe A. Scribe B underlines instructions in red, but he does not insert a new numeral, as would be expected by internal signs that Audelay here introduces a devotional sequence honoring the Passion and bringing remission of sins. Instead, Scribe B’s numeral heads Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, the longest item in the sequence.

Audelay uses a generic term to name the sequence — it is a “Passion" (Instructions for Reading 2, line 3) — and later he will repeat the term and call the sequence his own composition in English (Audelay’s Prayer Explicit to Pope John’s Passion, lines 2–3). It is unusual for Scribe B not to follow the program evidently in place when Scribe A began his work. The error seems the result either of inadvertency or of a confusing layout. Scribe B assigns a numeral to Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord because of its visual prominence; it possesses the only large blue-and-red initial in the series. Thus, by layout, Instructions for Reading 2 and On the World’s Folly join as a preface (on fol. 14va–b, with only a red initial I squeezed into a margin) to Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord (opening on fol. 15ra), and the two subsequent red initials on fol. 15v (“O Jhesu" and “Crist") aid one’s meditative progress to Seven Hours of the Cross.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR READING 2          [W12]

The instructions preface the rest of the sequence, referring to its parts.

[Fol. 14va–b. IMEV unnumbered (p. 213); not in NIMEV. Brown, Register of Middle English Religious and Didactic Verse, 1:114. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, all lines underlined in red. Initial: Large I in black (three lines high, set in the margin at the base of fol. 14va). Meter: Three tetrameter couplets, with red paraphs marking lines 1 and 5. The rhymes may borrow from those of the next item. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 94 (these lines are not numbered).]

3 this Passion. The phrase refers to the whole sequence and most particularly to Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord.

4 This line advertises Seven Hours of the Cross by citing its eighth line.

6 This line summarizes On the World’s Folly, lines 7–15.

ON THE WORLD’S FOLLY          [W12]

Despite E. Whiting’s presentation of this poem in 3-line stanzas, Scribe B’s red paraphs and flourishes, and the syntactical breaks, indicate strophes of 6 lines. Stanza 1 is in Latin, and stanza 2 translates the Latin. Most of the English stanzas employ similar rhyme-sounds, that is, a-rhymes on -e or -ay; b-rhymes on -on, -yn, or -ent. This poem opens the meditation by asking the meditant to reject worldly desires because God’s laws are “turnyd up-so-doun" (line 13). Later the poet refers to “Mede, that swet maydyn" (line 17), a phrase that suggests Audelay’s familiarity with Piers Plowman.

[Fol. 14vb–15ra. IMEV, NIMEV 1211 (both indexes list line 5 as the first line). Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, line 3 in red. Initials: The black initial letters of all lines except lines 1 and 3 (which is all in red) are marked in red. Audelay Signature: Line 72 (Scribe A). Meter: Twelve 6-line stanzas, aa₄b₃aa₄b₃. Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 94–97 (the Latin lines are not numbered), 239.]

17 Mede, that swet maydyn. Lady Mede is an allegorical figure that may derive from a common cultural usage or from direct knowledge of Langland’s work. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 705.

25–27 Variants of these lines also occur in Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 110–12, and Ten Commandments, lines 29–32.

31 he. E. Whiting notes that “several illegible letters [are] interlined after he," but the letters here are legible: he token is corrected by Scribe B to hede õe tokyn. This appears to be a rare instance in which Scribe A’s copy is better. Scribe B may have intended to write þe for õe and expects an to be read as and: “Here may you see and heed the token." I have retained the copy of Scribe A, as did E. Whiting.
31–42 Natural portents of God’s judgment (he tokyn and trew tokyn) are a recurrent element in Audelay’s works; compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 218, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 57–58.

58–60 For Audelay’s opinion that one should take care of one’s own soul before death and not entrust it to others, see explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 89.

67–72 This stanza is a condensed variant of Audelay’s signature stanza. Compare lines 67, 71–72, to Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, lines 205, 207–08, and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 504, 506–07, and see also The Remedy of Nine Virtues, lines 101–02.

XXIIII. POPE JOHN’S PASSION OF OUR LORD          [W13]

Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord is to become part of one’s daily spiritual discipline. It is a meditative exercise focused upon the Passion as told in the Gospel of John, the “central text of the Good Friday liturgy" (Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 237), with a few standard details from the other Gospels. It ends by turning the worshiper’s thoughts to the five wounds, and it is to be concluded by a saying of five Paternosters, five Aves, and the Creed (lines 105–20). He or she is also to pair it with the next poem, Seven Hours of the Cross, another mental re-enactment of the Passion, for the two are linked in Scribe B’s incipit, in Scribe A’s Instructions for Reading 2, and by the numeral given to both pieces. Seven Hours of the Cross ends, likewise, as a means for “ful remyssion" (line 85). As further evidence of the connection, the Vernon analogue to Seven Hours of the Cross ends by referring to an indulgence granted by Pope John (see explanatory note to Seven Hours of the Cross, lines 82–90).

[Fol. 15ra–va. IMEV, NIMEV 2764 (both indexes combine this item with Audelay’s Prayer Explicit to Pope John’s Passion). MWME 7:2571–73 [227]. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, first stanza (lines 1–8) underlined in red, and incipit in red. Initials: Large P in blue with red filigree (three lines high), and medium O in red (two lines high), with face drawn in it (line 89). Meter: Fifteen 8-line stanzas, ababbcbC₄, with two refrains interchanged: “al hit was for love of thee" and “on thi Passion to have peté." The last stanza does not have either refrain. Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 97–101, 239–40.]

incipit The incipit, written by Scribe B, sets this item in sequence with the next item.

1 XXII. The manuscript reading, xij, is erroneous and has here been emended (though the error may be Audelay’s). The reference is to John XXII, pope at Avignon from 1316 to 1334. On this indulgence, see Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 237–38.

9 Compare Anima Christi sanctifica me, line 5, and Dread of Death.

16 Used here as a refrain, this line occurs in God’s Address to Sinful Men, line 45, and it is echoed in several Middle English lyrics that voice Christ’s emotional appeal to humankind from the cross. See, for example, Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century, pp. 2 (no. 3, line 5), 67 (no. 51, line 4), and 227 (no. 127, line 28).

17 Gospel of Jon. The order of events follows the Passion as told in John 19, with exceptions at lines 30, 57–63, which come from the other Gospels.

41–46 This gruesome detail is common in medieval Passion plays, though it is not found in the Gospels.

50–52 Compare Prayer on Christ’s Passion, line 23; O Deus qui voluisti, line 29; Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, line 40–42; and Seven Hours of the Cross, line 39.

65–66 Compare Seven Hours of the Cross, lines 50–51.

67 On the tradition of blind Longinus in Blind Audelay’s works, see the explanatory note to Seven Bleedings of Christ, line 92, and compare Prayer on Christ’s Passion, line 24; O Deus qui voluisti, line 30; and Seven Hours of the Cross, line 48.

89 The red initial O has a face drawn inside it, as elsewhere when a prayer opens with an address to God. Compare Salutation to Jesus for Mary’s Love, line 91, and Deus qui beatam Annam, line 1. The poem turns at this point to a consideration of the five wounds (compare Audelay’s Seven Bleedings of Christ) and the indulgence created when they are addressed by five Paternosters, five Aves, and the Creed.

110 On Audelay’s conservative attitude on upholding one’s station, see the explanatory note to True Living, lines 130–33.

AUDELAY’S PRAYER EXPLICIT TO POPE JOHN’S PASSION          [W13]

[Fol. 15va. Not in IMEV, NIMEV as a separate item (see 2764). Hand: Scribe A, poem in black. Audelay Signature: Line 2 (Scribe A). Meter: Two tetrameter couplets. Edition: E. Whiting, p. 101.]

SEVEN HOURS OF THE CROSS          [W14]

This poem follows the canonical division of the seven stages of the Passion, an ancient Christian trope appearing frequently in medieval English literature (Woolf, English Religious Lyric, pp. 234–37; Barratt, “Prymer and Its Influence," pp. 272–76; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 225, 237). The first and last stanzas are Audelay’s original compositions; the second through ninth stanzas are based on Latin originals, which Audelay translates into English verse. Audelay has used the first lines of Latin stanzas for his headings. In addition to the Vernon poem, which bears persistent though loose verbal similarities to Audelay’s poem, other Middle English treatments of the topic can be found in Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century, pp. 39–44 (no. 30), 50–51 (no. 34; see also R. Morris, Legends of the Holy Rood, pp. 222–24), and 69–70 (no. 55). Seven Hours of the Cross represents the second time in The Counsel of Conscience that Audelay positions a seven-part mnemonic meditation at the end of a long devotional Passion sequence; earlier in MS Douce 302, Seven Words of Christ on the Cross followed The Psalter of the Passion. Compare also Seven Bleedings of Christ.

[Fols. 15va–16ra. IMEV, NIMEV 623. Hand: Scribe A, poem and incipit in black, and Latin stanza headings in red. Initial: Medium C in red (two lines high), with quatrefoil drawn in it. Meter: Ten 9-line stanzas, aaaa₇b₃ccc₄b₃. Latin Source: Simmons, Lay Folks Mass Book, pp. 83, 85, and 87. Middle English Analogues: Vernon MS “The Hours of the Cross," in fourteen 8-line stanzas, aaaa₇b₃b₇cc₄ (Horstmann, Minor Poems of the Vernon MS, pp. 37–42); “York Hours of the Cross" (Simmons, Lay Folks Mass Book, pp. 82, 84, 86). Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 101–04, 240.]

1 Red initial C has a quatrefoil drawn inside it. With the O of Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 89, this ornament brings meditational focus to fol. 15v.

8 This line is cited in the fourth line of Instructions for Reading 2.

9a–14 The heading alludes to an anonymous fourteenth-century Latin hymn: “Patris sapiencia, veritas diuina, / Deus homo captas est hora matutina, / A notis discipulis cito derelictus, / A iudeis traditus, venditus, afflictus" (Simmons, Lay Folks Mass Book, p. 83, lines 8–11). Lines 10–14 paraphrase the hymn itself, which was well known by English readers because books of hours incorporated it into the Office of the Virgin and from there it was adapted to vernacular primers (Woolf, English Religious Lyric, p. 235; Barratt, “Prymer and Its Influence," pp. 272–76). Littlehales, Prymer or Lay Folks’ Prayer Book, p. 15, prints a specimen: “The wisdom of þe fadir, / þe treuþe of þe hiõ king, / God and man was takun / In þe morenyng. / Of hise knowun disciplis / Soone he was forsak; / Sold & put to peyne, / Mankynde saaf to make." For another Middle English version, see Simmons, p. 82, lines 12–17.

13–18 On Judas’s treason, compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 473, 753a, 757; Prayer on Christ’s Passion, lines 4–5; O Deus qui voluisti, lines 4–5, 18; Virtues of the Mass, lines 103–08; and The Vision of Saint Paul, line 234.

39 Compare Prayer on Christ’s Passion, line 23; O Deus qui voluisti, line 29; Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, lines 61–62; and Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 50.

42–44 Compare Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, lines 40–42, and Day of Saint John the Evangelist, lines 7–16.

47 Compare Seven Words of Christ on the Cross, lines 50–54.

48 On the tradition of blind Longinus in Blind Audelay’s works, see the explanatory note to Seven Bleedings of Christ, lines 92, and compare Prayer on Christ’s Passion, line 24; O Deus qui voluisti, line 30; and Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 68.

50–51 Compare Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, lines 65–66.

57 Cited by Woolf, English Religious Lyric, p. 236.

82–90 The pronoun shifts from he/him to ye in this stanza (line 88). The Vernon analogue provides a concluding stanza (in a shortened 6-line form) that connects the piece to an indulgence granted by Pope John: “Þe Pope Ion haþ graunted: A ful feir pardoun / To alle þat siggen þis Matyns: Wiþ good deuocioun: / A õer in purgatorie: Of Remissioun, / So þat heo ben clene i-schriuen: Wiþ verrey Contricioun, / Þorwh Grace. / God send us lyues fode: And in heuene a place. AMEN" (Horstmann, Minor Poems of the Vernon MS, p. 43, lines 113–18). On this indulgence, see Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 237–38.

XXV. OUR LORD’S EPISTLE ON SUNDAY          [W15]

The archetype of this poem had a widespread distribution in the Middle Ages, according to Priebsch, ranging from Latin, Welsh, Old English, Old French, and Old Czech. Thirteenth-century English chronicles record its use by Abbot Eustace of Flay, a religious reformer and preacher of the crusade, as an eccentric instrument of popular devotionalism (W. R. Jones, “Heavenly Letter," pp. 166–75). The only verse version in Middle English is this one by Audelay, though the tradition does appear in an anonymous sermon edited from Durham University Library MS Cosin V.IV.2 by V. M. O’Mara (Study and Edition of Selected Middle English Sermons, pp. 115–40). Priebsch prints a Latin text from an English manuscript (Royal 8.F.vi) that must be closely related to Audelay’s own source text. Only a few points in Audelay’s poem do not correspond to material in this Latin copy, and some of these gaps were probably supplied by his actual source. The tradition is that the letter descended from Christ’s own hand directly to Saint Peter named bishop, sometimes of Antioch, sometimes of Nimes, sometimes of Gaza. Audelay’s version derives from the Gaza tradition. Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday explains the importance of Sunday in God’s own stern voice. Many manuscripts pair this text with The Vision of Saint Paul, as does Audelay. Latin texts of these two works appear side by side in MS Royal 8.F.vi, with the Visio (fols. 23r–24r) preceding the Epistle (fol. 24r–v). This fifteenth-century manuscript was copied by an English scribe who signs himself Thomas Brewse. It contains sermons, miracles, tales, and homilies (some set in England) chiefly in Latin with some English notes.

Two other works in The Counsel of Conscience adopt the speaking voice of God: The Remedy of Nine Virtues and God’s Address to Sinful Men (the work that follows The Vision of Saint Paul).

[Fols. 16ra–17ra. IMEV, NIMEV 2324. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black, and long incipit (fol. 16ra, base) in red; Scribe B, short incipit (fol. 16rb, top) in red. Initial: Large N in blue with red filigree (three lines high). Audelay Signature: Line 208 (Scribe A). Meter: Sixteen 13-line stanzas, ababbcbc₄d₃eee₄d₃. Latin Source: “Second Redaction of the Epistle," as found in London, BL MS Royal 8.F.vi, fol. 24r (Priebsch, “John Audelay’s Poem," pp. 400–06). Editions: Priebsch, “John Audelay’s Poem," pp. 397–407; E. Whiting, pp. 104–11, 240–41.]

incipits The order of incipits is reversed because the one by Scribe B provides the topical “title" for the piece, while Scribe A’s incipit provides an introduction spoken by “Peter of Gaza." One can compare the double incipit for the Salutation to Jesus for Mary’s Love and the long incipit and explicit for The Vision of Saint Paul.

1–13 These lines paraphrase and expand Scribe A’s incipit. They do not appear in the Latin text of MS Royal 8.F.vi, which opens with a phrase similar to Scribe B’s incipit: “Incipit epistola de Cristo filio dei et de sancto die dominico."

46 loveday. See explanatory note to Marcolf and Solomon, line 390.

86–91 This passage does not appear in the Latin text of MS Royal 8.F.vi.

99 word of wordis. “forever and ever, to all eternity." The MED provides many examples of this Middle English phrase deriving from translation of the Vulgate phrases “in saeculum," “in saeculum saeculi," “in saecula saeculorum"; see world, n. 6. (b). Audelay uses the phrase elsewhere in Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, line 142; God’s Address to Sinful Men, line 259; and Song of the Magnificat, line 91.

114–17 This is a difficult passage, but the emendation of Priebsch and E. Whiting (for for fro in line 114) does not help it significantly. The idea expressed comes from one of Audelay’s favorite biblical phrases, in which God declares he does not wish the death of a sinner (Ezechiel 33:11, and also Ezechiel 18:23, 18:32). Compare the Nolo mortem peccatoris refrain in God’s Address to Sinful Men, the parallel use of this biblical passage in the The Vision of Saint Paul, explicit, as well as its occurrences in True Living, line 128, and Marcolf and Solomon, line 790. Interestingly, the passage is cited in a Suffolk priest’s 1429 confession of Lollardy (Shinners and Dohar, Pastors and the Care of Souls, p. 280).

142 word of wordis. See explanatory note to Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, line 99.

144–48 These lines do not appear in the Latin text of MS Royal 8.F.vi. Priebsch locates a corresponding passage in “the corrupt Todi MS" (“John Audelay’s Poem," p. 405), which he does not further identify.

170–205 These three stanzas do not correspond to anything in the Latin text.
170–82 This stanza on the joys of heaven contains elements found in other Audelay 13-lines poems. The closest corresponding stanza is The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 249–61. Compare lines 174–75 to The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 253–54, and God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 253–54; and lines 178–82 to The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 258–61, and Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 9–13.

196–208 This is Audelay’s signature stanza. Compare The Remedy of Nine Virtues, lines 77–89; Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 378–90; The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 353–65; and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 495–507.

XXVI. THE VISION OF SAINT PAUL          [W16]

The Vision of Saint Paul is Audelay’s translation from Latin of “the most influential of all the medieval accounts of journeys to the otherworld" (Easting, “‘Choose yourselves,’" p. 170; see also Silverstein, Visio Sancti Pauli). Many other Middle English writers also translated this popular narrative, including one poet whose work appears in the Vernon Manuscript (see below). Amid many warnings in The Counsel of Conscience about the pains of hell, this piece makes them visually real, as gazed upon by an astonished Paul, a figure to whom Audelay gives prominence elsewhere. The apostle is invoked in the first poem that survives in MS Douce 302, True Living, line 215, for his letter on faith, hope, and charity (as safeguards against Doomsday), and again in the last item of The Counsel of Conscience, Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 16, where Paul’s visitation of blindness seems a model for Audelay’s own condition. Paul’s journey through hell is led by the archangel Michael. One may note that a feather-winged effigy of Michael stands between the outside arches of the chapter house in the remains of Haughmond Abbey. There he is depicted holding a shield and a cross-staff, with which he pierces a dragon at his feet.

The poem possesses an unusually long incipit and explicit, both written by Scribe A, and there is no opening initial. These departures from normal layout may be part of the way in which Audelay formally joins this piece to Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday. The linkage was traditional: with both pieces moralizing upon the value of the Sabbath, their Latin texts appear side by side in other manuscripts. The long incipit of the Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday along with the long incipit and explicit for The Vision of Saint Paul may also suggest a shared exemplar. While Audelay’s Latin original can be speculatively reconstructed, no known manuscript has been shown to match all its features (Easting, pp. 170–71). Audelay also adds many lines of his own — 155 out of 365 by Easting’s estimate. His general method is “to start a new stanza with a new movement in the Latin, but then to elaborate in the later part of the stanza, perhaps when the demands of the rhyme scheme make it easier to invent freely than to translate faithfully" (Easting, p. 177).

As with Seven Hours of the Cross, The Vision of Saint Paul has an analogue in the Vernon Manuscript, a 346-line poem in tetrameter couplets (fols. 230rc–231ra; R. Morris, Old English Miscellany, pp. 223–32), but in this case verbal correspondences are negligible. Seven Audelay stanzas — including his signature stanza and another borrowed from True Living — have no parallel in the Vernon text. The narrative affinities may be charted as follows:

Audelay Stanza      1 (1–13) 2 (14–26) 3 (27–39) 4 (40–52) 5 (53–66) 6 (67–79) 7 (80–92) 8 (93–105) 9 (106–18) 10 (119–31) 11 (132–44) 12 (145–57) 13 (158–70) 14 (171–83) 15 (184–96) 16 (197–209) 17 (210–22) 18 (223–35) 19 (236–48) 20 (249–61) 21 (262–74) 22 (275–87) 23 (288–300) 24 (301–13) 25 (314–26) 26 (327–39) 27 (340–52) 28 (353–65)

Vernon Lines V 1–12 V 13–20 V 37–54 V 21–36 V 55–86 V 87–102 V 103–14 *** V 115–28 V 129–50 V 151–62 V 163–72 V 173–88 V 189–200 V 201–14 V 215–30 V 231–54 *** V 255–72 *** V 273–90 V 291–314 V 315–30 V 331–40 *** *** *** ***

[Fols. 17ra–18vb. IMEV, NIMEV 3481. MWME 2:646 [320d]. Hand: Scribe A, poem in black, long incipit and long explicit in red. Audelay Signature: Line 365 (Scribe A). Meter: Twenty-eight 13-line stanzas, ababbcbc₄d₃eee₄d₃. A nonrhyming Latin line is inserted in the fifth stanza, breaking the pattern. Latin Prose Source: “Vision of Saint Paul Latin Redaction IV," as found, e.g., in London, BL MS Harley 2851 (Brandes,“Über die Quellen," pp. 44–47; Perman, “Henri d’Arci," pp. 316–19; for a translation, see Barber and Bate, Templars, pp. 111–15). Gardiner, Medieval Visions of Heaven and Hell, pp. 179–94, surveys scholarship on the tradition, which appeared in many cultures and languages. Other Versions in Middle English: Three in verse, two in prose (Easting, Annotated Bibliographies, pp. 31–42). Editions: R. Morris, Old English Miscellany, pp. 210–22; E. Whiting, pp. 111–23, 241–42.]

21–26 Easting notes that these lines are added by Audelay: “Presumably, Audelay is being sufficiently careful here that we should also match up heads and tongues with gluttony, and hands and feet with sloth" (“‘Choose yourselves,’" p. 173).

30 stod on a lye. See MED lei(e, n.2(g), “on fire, ablaze, alight," for which Audelay’s line is cited.

36–51 Audelay here converts a Latin narrative passage into the archangel Michael’s direct speech.

37 monslers. This word, meaning “manslayers," is added by Audelay, and “one might claim it is a significant (uncensored?) moment, given Audelay’s involvement in his patron’s fatal fracas in St. Dunstan’s in the East on Easter Sunday 1417" (Easting, “‘Choose yourselves,’" p. 173).

39 deseredyn. See MED disheriten, v.1(a). “To dispossess (sb.) of an inheritance." E. Whiting’s gloss of the word — “desired" — is incorrect.

43 broudun. See MED brouden, v.1(b), “to writhe, twist." The MED provides only three instances of the verb’s appearance, one being this one and another by Lydgate.

49 Audelay speeds up the revolutions of the whirling, burning wheel from one thousand per day, in the source, to one thousand per hour (Easting, “‘Choose yourselves,’" p. 174; Barber and Bate, Templars, p. 112).

54–56 “This demonic scene of sheep-eating fish is less surreal when the Latin shows that Audelay may have missed a crucial link" (Easting, “‘Choose yourselves,’" p. 174): in the Latin the fish are likened by simile to wolves that devour sheep (Barber and Bate, Templars, p. 112). Compare Vernon: “Of hem tok I no more kep, / But as a lyun doth of a schep" (lines 63–64). While the word chep seems best explained as a translation of oves, one might perhaps construe Audelay’s sense to be “as if it were a bargain (i.e., cheap)." The difficulty with this solution is that in Audelay’s day chep was a noun only (MED chep, n.1(a), “bargaining, dickering"), and it generally had to appear in a phrase such as to god chepe to denote “at low cost."

83–88 Easting notes that there is much elaboration by Audelay throughout this section, and especially here on “the unneighborly prevention of others from hearing Mass by chattering" (“‘Choose yourselves,’" p. 175). On Audelay’s concern for the problem of disrespect shown for God’s service, compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 196–98; Virtues of the Mass, lines 40–42; Over-Hippers and Skippers, lines 1–13; and the explanatory note to Cur Mundus, line 40.

139–44 Here Audelay elaborates on “unchaste girls who slew their infants" (Easting, “‘Choose yourselves,’" p. 177), and he is somewhat less harsh than the Latin writer. Audelay portrays such girls as victims whom the devil blinds with despair. This softens somewhat the Latin original, rendered in lines 135–38, where they abjure penance and throw their infants to both hounds and pigs (Barber and Bate, Templars, p. 113).

146 kamels. The tantalized fast-breakers ride camels in Audelay and also in some Latin versions. The mistranslation of “super canalia amnis" (above channels of water) was therefore something that Audelay inherited and did not invent. See Easting “‘Choose yourselves,’" p. 177; Barber and Bate, Templars, p. 113.

165 neclygent mon. Easting, “‘Choose yourselves,’" explains that many texts indicate that the man was a negligent bishop; Audelay may be changing this detail, or he may have had a exemplar that lacked the word episcopus (p. 178).

173 gret payn. The phrase needs to be construed as superlative: “greatest pains." See Easting, “‘Choose yourselves,’" p. 179.

209 The emphasis on the church’s necessary sacraments is added by Audelay.

216–35 This passage is Audelay’s longest addition within the body of the narrative (Easting, “‘Choose yourselves,’" pp. 180–81). In the original, Michael speaks a one-line sentence. On the doctrine of free will (line 218) in Audelay’s works, see the explanatory note to True Living, lines 203–07.

234 On Judas’s treason, compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 473, 753a, 757; Prayer on Christ’s Passion, lines 4–5; O Deus qui voluisti, lines 4–5, 18; Virtues of the Mass, lines 103–08; and Seven Hours of the Cross, lines 13–18.

236–40 An early reader, probably the same one who noted the climax of Audelay’s Levation sequence, has marked this passage with two large xs in the left margin. See explanatory note to Salutation to Christ’s Body, line 26.

249–61 This stanza on the rejoicing of those in heaven is Audelay’s addition, and he builds it from units used in other 13–line poems in The Counsel of Conscience, especially the companion poem Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday. Compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 10–13; Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, lines 174–75, 179–83; and God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 253–54.

275–87 Lines 277 and 282 are Audelay’s own additions. He is elaborating on the depth of Christ’s sacrifice for humankind and God’s own appeal for human repentance. By filling out this stanza with God’s direct address to people, Audelay appears to be preparing for the content of the next poem in the The Counsel of Conscience series: God’s Address to Sinful Men. He is also borrowing from a lyric tradition of Christ’s appeal from the cross; in Middle English, see, for example, Brown, Religious Lyrics of the XIVth Century, pp. 2 (no. 3, line 5), 67 (no. 51, line 4), 227 (no. 127, line 28), and In a Valley of This Restless Mind (Fein, Moral Love Songs, pp. 57–86). Compare also Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, lines 49–56.

293–300 On the Sunday respite, see Silverstein, Visio Sancti Pauli, pp. 79–81.

314–26 E. Whiting, p. 241, claims that this passage is not found in the Latin, but Easting, “‘Choose yourselves,’" pp. 171, 182, shows that it is.

317 The number 4,140 is a corruption of 144,000 (Apocalypse 7:4). Easting, "Choose yourselves," p. 182, discusses how this number was often garbled in transmission. Compare the number of slain innocents in Audelay’s Day of the Holy Innocents, line 13 (and explanatory note).

340–52 This stanza corresponds to True Living, line 13–25.

353–65 This is another variation of Audelay’s usual signature stanza. Compare The Remedy of Nine Virtues, lines 77–89; Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 378–90; Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, lines 196–208; and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 495–507. Lines 361–65 also occur in Audelay’s Conclusion, lines 35–39.

explicit This item, written by Scribe A, appears at the base of fol. 18vb. I therefore include it with The Vision of Saint Paul, varying from E. Whiting, who made it the incipit for God’s Address to Sinful Men. It serves usefully as a bridge between the two works, concluding the vision of hell’s pains with God’s promise that sinners can be saved. It also has God speak in direct address, using the words from Ezekiel 33:11 (“I do not wish the death of a sinner, but rather that he turn and live") that will be the refrain of the next poem. Note too that God speaks in direct address in The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 275–87. Audelay uses the Ezekiel passage frequently (see explanatory note to Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, lines 114–17). The poet here references numerous other biblical passages. Compare Isias 45:22: “Return to me, for I have redeemed thee"; Mark 3:18: “For he called the Cananaean and the publican to repentance"; and Psalms 33:12: “And so you also, unbelievers, come and hear, because I will teach you the fear of the Lord." The reference to “the one who wept for [her] sin" alludes to Mary Magdalene (compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 145, and explanatory note). The final sentence of this long explicit readies the reader for the next item: “And so you also, unbelievers, come and hear."

XXVII. THE LORD’S MERCY          W17–W18]

Scribe B’s incipit and numeral at the top of fol. 19ra seem intended to embrace the final three works of The Counsel of Conscience and provide a topical name for this closing movement:

(1) God’s Address to Sinful Men; (2) Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience; and (3) Finito libro colophon.

With the spectacles witnessed in The Vision of Saint Paul creating a point of emotional climax, the rest of The Counsel of Conscience reminds the reader of God’s mercy — first, as granted to sinners in general, and then, more directly, as will be delivered to Audelay and to users of his book. The lack of a distinguishing large initial to signal the beginning of Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience connects it visually to God’s Address to Sinful Men, though the two poems are metrically different.

GOD’S ADDRESS TO SINFUL MEN          [W17]

Combined with Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, this piece frames The Vision of Saint Paul with God’s direct injunctions and appeals. (For another piece adopting God’s voice, see The Remedy of Nine Virtues.) It also prefaces Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, highlighting the broad final movement of The Counsel of Conscience in which Audelay’s exhortations for penance merge with a personal belief that his own physical afflictions betoken God’s mercy. Lacking about forty percent of its original length (because of a missing folio), this poem contains many phrases and passages found elsewhere in Audelay’s works. While the sequence of composition cannot be fully ascertained, it does seems likely that this work borrows from True Living (as do several carols), the apparently earlier work (see Pickering, “Make-Up," pp. 129–30). There are also many interesting correspondences with Marcolf and Solomon.

[Fols. 19ra–20rb. IMEV, NIMEV 171. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black and Latin stanza headings in red; Scribe B, incipit (for everything under the numeral XXVII) and one stanza heading (on fol. 19rb) in red. Initial: Large A in blue with red filigree (three lines high). Meter: Thirty-three 8-line stanzas (with several missing; see explanatory note to line 189), ababbcbC₄, with a Latin refrain: “Nolo mortem peccatoris." One irregular 12-line stanza (lines 221–32) rhymes ababababbabA₄ with all b-lines in Latin. Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 123–33, 242–43.]

8 On Audelay’s frequent use of this biblical passage, compare True Living, line 128; Marcolf and Solomon, line 790; Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, line 115; and the explicit to The Vision of Saint Paul. It may hold a contemporary resonance in regard to correction of Lollards; it occurs in a confession of heresy made by a Suffolk priest in 1429 (Shinners and Dohar, Pastors and the Care of Souls, p. 280).

33–39 These lines also appear in Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 157–64.

45 Audelay uses a variant of this line elsewhere as a refrain; see explanatory note to Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 16. Compare also The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 275–87.

52 The importance of Sunday as God’s own day is the central topic of Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday and an important subsidiary topic in The Vision of Saint Paul, where the souls in hell receive a Sunday reprieve from torment.

84–87 Citrome notes the tension inherent in these lines on God’s vengeance upon the unrepentant, written by the chaplain whose ailments remain unabated (Surgeon, p. 95).

98 Noting “the cultural primacy of the rhetoric of confession" pervasive in Audelay’s works, Citrome cites this symbolic action of kneeling before the priest as enjoined by manuals of confession (Surgeon, p. 87).

113 esy penans. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, line 925; the proper administration of penance is further developed in God’s Address to Sinful Men, lines 137–44, a passage borrowed from Marcolf and Solomon.

137–59 These three stanzas derive from two stanzas of Marcolf and Solomon. Lines 137–43 correspond to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 923–28; lines 145–51 to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 936–44; and lines 153–59 to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 931–35.

145–51 On the trope of the Four Daughters of God (Psalm 84:11), which is a bit confused here (Peace, not Grace, should be one of the Daughters), see the explanatory notes to Marcolf and Solomon, lines 937–43, 938–39.

170–71 These lines correspond to True Living, lines 175–76. On the seven works of mercy theme, compare, more broadly, True Living, lines 173–79, and Seven Works of Mercy, lines 1–4, 8–10.

189 The loss of a folio after line 189 indicates that an estimated twenty-two stanzas are missing.

197–220 Here Audelay borrows quite directly from True Living, lines 238–58; compare also Seven Works of Mercy, lines 15–32.

213–20 Audelay borrows these lines from True Living, lines 251–58, and they also appear as two stanzas of Seven Works of Mercy (lines 22–25, 29–32).

233–39 For the legend of Saint Martin, bishop of Tours, see Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, 2:292–300. The story alluded to here tells of Martin cutting his cloak in two in order to share it with a poor stranger, whom he learns later by a vision was Christ himself (2:292). On this story as a reinforcement to the seven works of mercy, see Goldberg, Medieval England, p. 230.

253–54 Compare Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, lines 174–75, and The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 253–54.

259 word of wordis. “forever and ever, to all eternity." The MED provides many examples of this Middle English phrase deriving from translation of the Vulgate phrases “in saeculum," “in saeculum saeculi," “in saecula saeculorum"; see world, n. 6. (b). Audelay uses the phrase elsewhere in Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, lines 99, 142, and Song of the Magnificat, line 91.

AUDELAY’S EPILOGUE TO THE COUNSEL OF CONSCIENCE          [W18]

This poem possesses a rudimentary chanson d’aventure framing device at lines 27 and 482, and this frame draws attention to what may be Audelay’s plan for structural elegance: an introduction (two stanzas), a main body (thirty-five stanzas), a conclusion (two stanzas). He uses symmetry by stanza count in at least one other 13-line poem, Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy (see explanatory notes for that poem). In the central stanza of Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience (lines 248–60), Audelay defends himself from charges of Lollardy, feeling himself beseiged by “Godis enmys" (line 249). The chanson d’aventure opening is a feature of Three Dead Kings (appearing later in MS Douce 302) and other Middle English poems in the 13-line stanzaic tradition (e.g., The Four Leaves of the Truelove, Summer Soneday, Awntyrs off Arthure). It is also, of course, the opening mode for Piers Plowman, Pearl, and many short lyrics (catalogued by Sandison).

The poem is important both for the presence of many autobiographical details — matched in the manuscript only by the Finito libro colophon and Audelay’s Conclusion — and for its naming of the manuscript to this point: The Counsel of Conscience or The Ladder of Heaven (lines 417–48). The poem serves as an encouragement to those who seek “soulehele" (line 105), the same term used, interestingly, by the compiler of the Vernon Manuscript to characterize its contents.

[Fols. 20rb–22vb. IMEV, NIMEV 1200. Hands: Scribe A, poem in black; Scribe B, Latin stanza headings in red. Initials: None, but see explanatory note to line 27. Audelay Signatures: Lines 6, 507 (both by Scribe A). Meter: Thirty-nine 13-line stanzas, ababbcbc₄d₃eeed_3-4. Edition: E. Whiting, pp. 133–49, 243.]

1 This poem begins with no capital or break from the preceding poem, except for the change in meter, which is marked in red at lines 10 and 12 here and in the succeeding stanzas (as are all 13-line stanzas in the manuscript). There is an indicator for a break at line 27. Citrome reads this opening line as marking a transition from the last poem, with Audelay framing himself as “interced[ing] with God on behalf of his sinful race to prevent an impending onslaught of divine vengeance. . . . [The line] suggests not only an author bringing an extended project to a close but a man at the end of life settling his affairs" (Surgeon, p. 95).

14–26 Citrome comments: “In this single passage Audelay rationalizes his illness in three distinct ways: as an example to others to reform their lives, as a manifestation of Christ’s mercy, and as an early purgatory here in the world" (Surgeon, p. 96). On the idea of illness as an earthly purgatory, compare Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 478–79, and the explanatory note to Childhood, lines 43–46.

27 This line reads as the opening of a chanson d’aventure, and line 482 indicates the frame’s closure. That Audelay depicts himself supine upon a bed, visited by a divine messenger with a prophetic warning, evokes the feel of a dream vision. A marginal mark indicates that a large initial was to appear at the head of this stanza. The same mark appears beside completed initials on fols. 15r and 16r.

57 hye tokenyng. The idea that God plants sacred signs in nature to betoken his impending judgment recurs elsewhere in Audelay’s The Counsel of Conscience; compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 218, and On the World’s Folly, lines 25–36. Later in Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience these signs are taken as the signs of Doomsday foretold in Luke 17:24–30 (see lines 185–208).

105 soulehele. This term (also given in Latin, Salus anime) is the title applied to the Vernon Manuscript by its compiler (Doyle, “Shaping," p. 3). Pearsall, Old English and Middle English Poetry, takes its sense there to be “a comprehensive library of religious reading for every use" (p. 140), which is much like the aim of Audelay’s The Counsel of Conscience. The term was widespread in devotional and literary use; see MED soule-heil, n., and soule-hele, n. Compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 526, 798; Virtues of the Mass, line 3 (explanatory note); and Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 248–60 (explanatory note).

110–12 Variants of these lines also occur in On the World’s Folly, lines 25–27, and Ten Commandments, lines 29–32.

115 Audelay reiterates this grouping of “word, will, deed, and thought" — the four “treasures" that we take with us when we die — two more times in Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, at lines 146 and 281; twice in Salutation to Saint Bridget, at lines 35 and 38; Chastity for Mary’s Love, line 7; Virginity of Maids, line 1; and Dread of Death, line 32.

146 On “word, will, deed, and thought," see the explanatory note to Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 115.

154 Falling into sin through “frailty" is a formulaic thought for Audelay. Compare Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 300; Salutation to Jesus for Mary’s Love, line 71; Song of the Magnificat, line 77; and Salutation to the Holy Face, line 13.

155 gren. See MED grin(e, n.(b), “a trick, strategem, deceit; temptation."

157–65 These lines repeat a stanza in Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 170–78. Line 158 is a formula that occurs in other contexts; compare Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 207; Pope John’s Passion of Our Lord, line 102; and The Vision of Saint Paul, line 332.

185–208 See explanatory note to Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 57.

202–03 The incompleteness of these lines is peculiar. E. Whiting notes that they cannot be read because of an “imperfection in the parchment" (p. 139). The absent words would occupy the space where there is a sewn hole. Scribe A avoided the patched hole entirely when he wrote text on fol. 21va. However, when he had earlier arrived at this point on fol. 21rb, it appears that he left the lines incomplete. The lacuna may itself enact the terror of beholding the signs of Doomsday. Scribe B does not add any corrections, and there are signs of erasure to the right of the sewn hole.

218 This proverb is the burden for Audelay’s Seven Deadly Sins (see explanatory note), and it also underlies Marcolf and Solomon, lines 42–43.

220–21 “Heaven or hell — it’s your choice." Audelay repeats this idea later in the poem, at lines 398–99. On Audelay’s discussions of free will elsewhere, see explanatory note to True Living, lines 203–07.

244–46 Audelay uses this formula in True Living, lines 156–59, and The Remedy of Nine Virtues, lines 73–75.

248–60 This stanza is the central one of Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience. It points to the orthodoxy that Audelay claims for himself and his writings (and especially, here, for the works contained in The Counsel of Conscience). It is intriguing that Audelay has used the concept of seeking soulehele (see explanatory note to line 105) to describe his endeavor, because that earlier vast compendium of “Sawlehele," the Vernon Manuscript, seems to have been likewise an effort to affirm the Church’s true teachings against a rising Lollard threat (Blake, “Vernon Manuscript," pp. 58–59; Heffernan, “Orthodoxies’ Redux," pp. 79–80). Audelay speaks elsewhere, especially in Marcolf and Solomon, lines 131–43, 669–88, of how different true belief is from Lollardy, and how dangerous it has become to speak out fervently in defense of authorized Church teachings. Hudson, Premature Reformation, characterizes Audelay’s position here — that “enthusiasm for virtue" might be taken for Lollardy — as an “extreme" stance among early fifteenth-century clerical writers (pp. 22–23).

281 On “word, will, deed, and thought," see explanatory note to Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 115.

300 On the formula of falling into sin through frailty, see explanatory note to Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, line 154.

321 Jean Beleth, a twelfth-century Parisian doctor of divinity, was the author of Rationale divinorum officiorum (PL 202.1–166; see also Douteil, Iohannis Beleth). Orthodox English preachers of the fifteenth century frequently cited Beleth as an authority on Church ritual and liturgical observance; see, for example, Speculum Sacerdotale (Weatherly, pp. xxvii–xxx); and Wenzel, Latin Sermon Collections, pp. 61, 320.

352–55 On God speaking through Holy Writ, compare Marcolf and Solomon, lines 1–9 (explanatory note), 210–11. Audelay’s rhetorical style, amply salted with Scripture, exemplifies this belief.

374–76 These lines occur in Marcolf and Solomon, lines 504–06.

381 Audelay uses the proverb about blind Bayard (a horse) “blustering forth" as a sign of someone’s recklessness. The comparison here is to Audelay himself as blind prophetic poet. The proverb also occurs in Marcolf and Solomon, lines 952 (explanatory note) and 993.
381–85 These lines occur in Marcolf and Solomon, lines 952–56.

398–99 See explanatory note to Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 220–21.

417–18 The Cownsel of Conseans . . . The Ladder of Heven. Audelay names his “book" here. The makeup of MS Douce 302 indicates that this dual title refers to all the preceding matter, apparently, that is, everything contained on fols. 1r–22v, the first section of the manuscript. The colophon repeats this dual title.

478–79 On Audelay’s notion that his illness constitutes an early purgatory, see the explanatory note to Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, lines 14-26.

482–85 Lines 482–83 close the chanson d’aventure frame initiated at line 27, and they also refer directly to Audelay’s daily existence in an abbey “here be west," that is, Haughmond Abbey, as identified in the Finito libro colophon. Audelay portrays himself as a sick man who, although bedridden, is often wakeful and stricken in conscience (i.e., lacking in “rest"). In this state he diligently and dolorously “makes" his book. Compare Audelay’s Conclusion, lines 40–52. Line 484 appears in Dread of Death, line 43. Haberly uses these four lines to preface an illustrated woodcut edition (Alia Cantalena de Sancta Maria by John Awdlay) of Audelay’s Jesus Flower of Jesse’s Tree. Haberly’s accompanying woodcut depicts the poet supine in his bed with a monk-scribe seated next to him, writing at a desk.

489–90 Citrome sees an emphasis on Christ’s righteous vengeance (rather than mercy) in this passage; he also reads the passage as highly personalized to Audelay’s situation as an ill old man (Surgeon, p. 97).

495–507 This stanza is another variant of Audelay’s signature stanza. Compare The Remedy of Nine Virtues, lines 77–89; Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, lines 378–90; Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, lines 196–208; and The Vision of Saint Paul, lines 353–65.

499 quoth. It is possible that the word and meaning intended here is cowth, “am able to do"; compare the similar wordings of The Remedy of Nine Virtues, line 81; Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, line 382; Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, line 200; and The Vision of Saint Paul, line 357.

LATIN PROSE COLOPHON FINITO LIBRO          [W18]

[Fol. 22vb. Hand: Scribe B, in red. Ornament: The final word “Amen" is written on a banner, which is drawn around it. Audelay Signature: Written by Scribe B. Edition: Coxe, pp. 50–51; Halliwell, p. vi; E. Whiting, p. 149.]

Finito libro. Sit laus et gloria Christo. These words are a tag frequently written by scribes when the copying is done (Schaff, Middle Ages, p. 550); compare Audelay’s Conclusion, line 39a.
Cuius anime propicietur Deus. Compare Audelay’s Conclusion, explicit.

JOHN AUDELAY, THE COUNSEL OF CONSCIENCE: TEXTUAL NOTES

The following notes record readings of the manuscript at those points where other editors have made different assessments of the textual evidence, as well as at points of important physical detail.

In general, Scribe A copied texts, and Scribe B later added incipits and explicits and acted as proofreader. Wherever Scribe B played a significant, uncharacteristic role in the textual copying, the affected lines are noted. Not noted, however, are the many correcting marks made by the scribes. Wherever final readings are determinate, those readings are adopted without comment. On how the scribes divided their work on particular items, see the explanatory notes.

Modernized editions with altered spellings and wordings (Chambers and Sidgwick 1907, Davies, Haberly, Sisam and Sisam, and Sitwell) are not recorded in the textual notes. Hands that date later than those of the two scribes are also not recorded. In MS Douce 302 there are two significant early hands, both probably medieval:

(1) An inexperienced writer who copies stray phrases in the margin (fols. 16rb, 16va, 29ra, 34rb, and 35ra).

(2) A doodler, whose simple drawings and occasional crosses appear most frequently on upper recto pages, b-column, perhaps to record his reading progress (fols. 3rb, 5rb, 6rb, 7rb, 9rb [two marks], 10rb, 11rb, 13rb, 18rb [the climax of The Vision of Saint Paul], 27vb, and 28va). The involvement of this reader is evident in his drawing of a sleeved hand pointing to the word “assencion" in Salutation to Christ’s Body, line 26 (fol. 10rb), a line that marks the raising of the host in the Levation.

There are also two modern readers whose hands appear on the pages of MS Douce 302:

(1) A reader who notes the correspondence of True Living, line 78, and Chastity of Wives, line 8, by inserting in fine-line black ink the cross-reference in the margins of fols. 1rb and 30va. This may be the same hand that numbers the folios in the upper right-hand corners. It may also be the hand that “corrects" the reading Hontis in Three Dead Kings, line 11.

(2) A reader who marks texts in pencil, using left-hand marginal crosses and long vertical squiggles to highlight passages of interest. This reader was perhaps an early cataloguer. He is especially interested in political comments and in Audelay’s self-identifications in signatures and autobiographical moments. His hand pervades the book, appearing beside the texts of True Living, Marcolf and Solomon, Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy, Instructions for Reading 2, Audelay’s Prayer Explicit to Pope John’s Passion, Our Lord’s Epistle on Sunday, The Vision of Saint Paul, Audelay’s Epilogue to The Counsel of Conscience, Song of the Magnificat, Salutation to Saint Bridget, Saint Winifred Carol, King Henry VI, Joys of Mary, Virginity of Maids, Chastity of Wives, Dread of Death, Saint Francis, Over-Hippers and Skippers, An Honest Bed, Paternoster, Three Dead Kings, and Audelay’s Conclusion.

In addition to these extraneous hands, the book contains a few marks of early ownership. Erased notes on fol. 35rb (visible by ultraviolet light) record that a Coventry minstrel named William Wyatt once possessed the book, and that he passed it on to an Augustinian canon named John Barker in Launde, Leicestershire. These transactions likely took place in the fifteenth century. On fol. 35v, which looks like an original outside cover of the book, the name “John" appears many times amid doodles and verse jottings unrelated to the contents of MS Douce 302. A much later owner was late eighteenth-century bibliophile Richard Farmer, master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, whose handwritten sheet catalogue was bound with the book in 1803 by Francis Douce, its next owner. Douce contributed the woodcut pasted into the back inside cover of the bound book, which makes reference to Three Dead Kings (Fein, “Life and Death," pp. 90–91; Fein, “John Audelay and His Book," pp. 5, 24n13). Later, in 1834, Douce’s vast collection of manuscripts, charters, books, and antiquarian holdings transferred to the Bodleian Library, Oxford. A detailed history of ownership and printed descriptions of MS Douce 302 is provided in Fein, “John Audelay and His Book," pp. 4–15.

Abbreviations: C: Cumming; CS¹: Chambers and Sidgwick 1910; CS²: Chambers and Sidgwick 1911; Di: Dickins (lexical comments); Do: Doyle; F¹: Fein 1985; F²: Fein 1994; G¹: Greene 1962; G²: Greene 1977; Ha: Halliwell; Hi: Hirsh 2005; K: Kaiser; M: McIntosh (lexical comments); Mo: R. Morris 1872; MS: Douce 302; P: Priebsch; Pu: Putter; R: Robbins 1959; S: Sandys; Sa: Saupe; Si: Silverstein 1971; SJ: Storck and Jordan; St: Stanley 2009 (lexical comments); T: Turville-Petre 1989; W: Whiting.


[X.] TRUE LIVING          [W1]
9 comaundment. So MS, Ha. W: comanndment.

13 mon. MS: me. Ha, W: men.

19 Ther. So MS, Ha. W: þe.

23 deth. So MS, W. Ha: dey.

26 sodom, into. So MS, W. Ha: sodomi to.

53 sacrement. So Ha, W. MS: sacremet.

61 choson. So MS, W. Ha: chosen.

68 womon. So MS, W. Ha: wemon.

83 Evan . . . evan . . . evan. So Ha, W. MS: euran . . . euran . . . euran (ra abbreviation written above eun).

87 ayres. So MS (ayrs corrected to ayres by Scribe B). Ha, W: ayrs.

93 houne. So MS, W. Ha: honne.

96 fleschely. So Ha, W. MS: flschely.

120 nother. So MS. Ha, W: no other.

135 ressayvd. So MS. Ha, W: ressayued.
sacrement. So Ha, W. MS: sarcement.

167 brennyng. So Ha, W. MS: brennyg.

178 cunnyng. So Ha, W. MS: cunnyg.

195 wittis. So MS. Ha, W: wyttis.
bynn welle. So MS (interlined by Scribe B). Ha: hym well. W: byn well.

201 Bott. So MS, W. Ha: Better.

218 chif. So MS (erasure before word), W. Ha: the chif.

241 the. So Ha, W. MS: de.

255 weleway. So MS (letter a after second e has been erased). Ha, W: weleaway. Compare God’s Address to Sinful Men, line 217, and Seven Works of Mercy, line 29.


INSTRUCTIONS FOR READING 1          [not in W]
3 thirtenth. MS: xiii.


XI. MARCOLF AND SOLOMON          [W2]
1 lernyng. So Ha, W. MS: lernyg.

2 fyndon. So MS, Ha. W: fynden.
Holé. So Ha, W. MS: hele.

17 Criston. So MS. Ha, W: Cristen.

19 crysum. So W. MS: criysum (ri and m abbreviated). Ha: crysun.

29 schuln. So MS. Ha, W: schulun.

30 schale. So MS (e abbreviated). Ha, W: schal.

37 grauntud. So MS, W. Ha: grauntid.

43 wo. So MS, W. Ha: won.

50 forwarde. So Ha, W. MS: fowarde.

52a meum. So Ha. MS, W: meam.

58 Soferayns. So MS, Ha. W: soferayn.

64 rewarde. So MS. Ha, W: reward.

70 Do. The initial D is marked with red.

81 foluyn. So MS (u written by Scribe B). Ha: fowyn. W: foloyn.

91a Averte. So MS (er abbreviated), W. Ha: Ante.

92 A marginal indicator for a large initial appears at the opening of this line.

97 reume. So Ha, W. MS: reuerme (er abbreviated).

110 comaundmentis. So MS, Ha. W: comanndmentis.

111 ale. So MS (e abbreviated). Ha, W: al.
Hwere. So MS (h inserted by Scribe B). Ha, W: were.

114 your. So Ha, W. MS: õoõ.

118 A marginal indicator for a large initial appears at the opening of this line.

125 prest. So MS (re abbreviated), W. Ha: prist.

129 ale. So MS. Ha, W: al.

133 lekon. So MS. Ha, W: likon.

143 beth. So Ha, W. MS: boþ.

143a declinant a mandatis tuis. So W. MS: declinat amantis. Ha: declinant amantis.

147 spend. So MS (e abbreviated), W. Ha: spund (Ha, W read the same abbreviation as e at line 146; compare textual note to line 748).

150 selver. So MS. Ha, W: silver.

153 schale. So MS (e abbreviated). Ha, W: schal.

156 Y pray. So MS, Ha. W: Y-pray.

157 vanité. So MS (i dotted), Ha. W: vanete.

165 fulfyle. So MS (e abbreviated), W. Ha: fulfyl.

169a Relegio. So MS, W. Ha: Religio.

170 A marginal indicator (I) for a large initial appears at the opening of this line.

173 penawns. So W. MS, Ha: penaws.

181 lest. So Ha, W. MS: leost (o interlined).

197 hom. So MS. Ha, W: ham.

199 Sovereyns. So MS, Ha. W: souereyn.

200 praysy. So MS, Ha. W: prayse.

208a A Latin heading inserted in the left margin is trimmed away and mostly lost; only the fragmentary phrase remains.

211 redon. So MS. Ha, W: reden.
speke. So MS, Ha. W: spekes.

219 comawndoun. So MS (final n abbreviated); Ha, W: comawndon.

221a intellegit. So MS, W. Ha: intelligit.

223 sokeron. So MS. Ha: sokere. W: sokeren.

226 yclunggun. So W. MS, Ha: ycluggun.

228 ale. So MS (e abbreviated). Ha, W: al.

240 Y dred. So MS, W. Ha: That did.
reeme. So MS (e interlined). Ha, W: reme.

244 ye. So Ha, W. MS: õef.

246 farewelle. So MS (final e abbreviated). Ha, W: farewell.

258 mon. So Ha, W. MS: mom (extra minim).

265 ale. So MS, W. Ha: word omitted.

266 sayd. So MS (y inserted by Scribe B). Ha, W: sad.

273a Scribe A writes this heading before line 248, and then indicates that it should be moved to this location. Ha, W do not detect this scribal correction.

280 ale. So MS (e abbreviated). Ha, W: al.

289 bodys. So W. MS: bodyius. Ha: bodyms.

293 is. So MS, Ha. W: his.

301 visis ale. So MS, W. Ha: visibal.

302–12 you leede . . . sodenly. Lines written by Scribe B.

303 vanygloré. So MS. Ha, W: vaynglorie.

319 fore. So MS, W. Ha: for.

321 lytyl. So W. MS, Ha: lyty. Lines 320–21 are written around a hole in the parchment.

325 Anon gurd. So MS, W. Ha: and gud.

329 covernour. So Ha, W. MS: coverour.

332 devour. So Ha, W. MS: dedevour.

338 Line written by Scribe B.

342 Thomas. So Ha, W. MS: Thomans (n abbreviated).

345–46 Scribe B writes these lines vertically in the margin, adding in red here com in.

346 thrale. So MS (e abbreviated). Ha, W: thral.

350–51 Marginal drawing of hand with pointing finger highlights these lines.

358 gestlé. So MS, Ha. W: gostle.
holénes. Scribe A’s a is corrected to o by Scribe B in red ink.

384 myry. So Ha, W. MS: myrþ.

388 ey ever encresse. MS, Ha: eõever encresese. W: õever encrese.

405 covetyse. MS, Ha, W: govetyse. Emended for alliteration.

431 four bernes. So Ha, W. MS: iiii. be...nes (erasure).

447 unkynd. So Ha, W. MS: unnkynd(second n abbreviated).

449 have, Y thee. So MS. Ha: Have I the. W: haue þe.

450 ale. So MS. Ha, W: al.

452 Asay. So MS, Ha. W: Assay.

457 say. So MS (first letter is uncertain), Ha. W: lay.

462 prayes. So MS, Ha. W: prayers.

463 governyng. So Ha, W. MS: goveryng.

468a Dingnus. So MS. Ha, W: Dignus.

476 Redelé. So W. MS, Ha: Rededele.

488 wyttlé. MS, Ha: wytle and wyttle. W: wytle.

489 Here mys and here. So MS, W. Ha: Her mys and her.

499 agayns. So Ha, W. MS: aõang.
hold. So MS (w corrected to h). Ha, W: wold.

506 han. So MS (n abbreviated), Ha. W: ham.

507 sonn gelo cuiuscam. So MS, W. Ha: songe locum acam.

512 ye. So MS, Ha. W: wen õe.

532–33 The scribe inserts here a marginal illustration of a pointing hand.

533a Nulli. MS, Ha, W: nullum (m abbreviated).

534 wyle. So MS (e abbreviated). Ha, W: wyl.

535 Wyle. So MS (e abbreviated). Ha, W: Wyl.

538 ale. So MS, Ha. W: al.

543 Do. So Ha, W. MS: Doer (er abbreviated).

549–55 These lines are heavily corrected by Scribe B.

550 daunse. So MS, W. Ha: daunce.

551 Fore. So MS, Ha. W: For.

554 att. MS: at att (att is in Scribe B’s hand). Ha: and att. W: al att.

559a neclegere. So MS. Ha: non legere. W: nec legere.

573 A black marginal mark by Scribe A seems to indicate that the heading is to be inserted; it was later supplied by Scribe B.

577 ye. So MS (õe), Ha. W: þe.

579 gef. So MS. Ha, W: õif.

580 soulys. So Ha, W. MS: souly.

586 A black marginal mark by Scribe A seems to indicate that the heading is to be inserted; it was later supplied by Scribe B.

598a irascatur. So MS. Ha, W: nascatur.

599 A black marginal mark by Scribe A seems to indicate that the heading is to be inserted; it was later supplied by Scribe B.

624a Erant. So Ha. MS, W: Erat.

628 ale. So MS (e abbreviated). Ha, W: al.

642 tak. So MS. Ha: toke. W: tok.

652 ale. So MS. Ha, W: al.

654 dystory. So MS. Ha: dystroy. W: dystry.

676a Ve vobis. So MS, W. Ha: De vobis.

686 One scribe marks the position of the omitted line, but it is not supplied.

688a intelligere. So Ha, W. MS: intellere.

691 ale. So MS, W. Ha: al.
reprevyng. So Ha, W. MS: repreuyg.

697–701 Scribe B inserts here a large marginal drawing of a horn to signal the passage.

701a Christianas. So Ha, W. MS: Christiani.

706 neyre. So Ha. MS: neyõe. W: next.

714a vult. So Ha, W. MS: vlt.

739 take. So MS. Ha, W: tak.
mo. So W. MS, Ha: more.

747 Yit. So MS, Ha. W: õif.

748 ben. So MS (e abbreviated), Ha. W: bun (Ha, W read the same abbreviation as e at line 146; compare textual note to line 147).
rekynyng. MS: rekynyg. Ha: rekenys. W: rekenyng.

753a This Latin heading is written by Scribe B on eight lines that were left blank by Scribe A; the final words are squeezed in.
meum. So MS (second m abbreviated). Ha, W: mei.
temperale. So MS (er abbreviated). Ha, W: temporale.
simulis. So MS. Ha, W: similis.

754 I fynd. These words are inserted by Scribe B.

756 Yef. So MS. Ha, W: Õif.

773 ressayve. So MS, Ha. W: reassayue.

779a Scribe B inserts what seems to be a marker of topic (“confession and the sacrament of the altar") beside Scribe A’s typical liturgical/biblical heading.
Nota. So MS (written in margin). Ha, W: omitted.

779b Dominum. So MS (abbreviated dm), W. Ha: suum.

780 ale. So MS. Ha, W: al.

795 sauus. So MS (us abbreviated). Ha, W: saus.

797 doun. So MS (n abbreviated), Ha. W: don.

808 sacrementte. So MS. Ha, W: sacremente.

813 telle. So MS, Ha. W: tell.

818a constitucionis. So W. MS: constituconis (both ns abbreviated). H: constitutiones.

828 fore youe. MS, W: fre õoue. Ha: fre õeve.

834 his owne. So MS (i dotted). Ha, W: hes owne.
ressayvs. So MS (ressayus), W. Ha: ressayns.

838 auuctoreté. So MS. Ha: auctoreté. W: aunctorete.

860 Bohold. So MS. Ha, W: Behold.

864 Ho. So MS, Ha. W: He.

882 have. So MS, Ha. W: hane.

925 Engeyne. So MS, Ha. W: Engoyne.

933 qwensche. So MS. Ha: quench. W: quenche.

938 dele and tok. So MS (written by Scribe B over an erasure, & interlined). Ha: ale tok. W: dele to (reading deletok).

943 turrne Treth. So MS. Ha: turne treuth. W: turrnes treuþ.

954 Frerys. Ha, W; MS: F...erys. (r under an erasure).

964 have. So MS, Ha. W: hane.

993 Blust. So MS. Ha, W: Bluster.

1000a quia. MS (ui abbreviated), Ha, W: qui.

1001 trouth. So MS, Ha. W: treuþ.

1003 heere. So MS (re interlined). Ha, W: here.

1004 ne lykyng. So MS. Ha, W: no lykyng.

1012 ma. So MS, Ha. W: may.

1013 The last line is written as the catchphrase. The next folio (the beginning of a new quire) is missing.


[XV.] THE REMEDY OF NINE VIRTUES          [W3]
11 curst truly. MS: cursetrly. Ha: cursed trly. W: cursed truly.

45 my. MS, Ha, W: me.

67 body. So Ha, W. MS: bedy.


XVI. SEVEN BLEEDINGS OF CHRIST          [W4]
2 seven. So Ha, W. MS: seue.

48 seyled. So MS, Ha. W: soyled.

61 strong. So Ha, W. MS: storng.

91 Spere. So MS, W. Ha: spore.

94 contricion. So Ha, W. MS: cotricion.


XVII. PRAYER ON CHRIST’S PASSION           [W5]
incipit Scribe B inserted the wrong incipit (“De salutacione corporis Christi"; see Salutation to Christ’s Body), crossed it out, and then wrote the correct one.


LATIN VERSE PRAYER O DEUS QUI VOLUISTI          [W6]
16 redemcionem. So W. MS: redemconem.

20 Anni. So MS. W: Ann.

30 vulnerare. So W. MS: vilnerare.


LATIN PROSE PRAYER TU DOMINE PER HAS SANCTISSIMAS PENAS TUAS          [W6]
1 indignis. So MS. W: indignus.
latronem. So W. MS: latrone.
vivis. So W. MS: vivi.
regnas. So W. MS: regnans.


XIX. SEVEN WORDS OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS           [W7]
1 cros. So MS, Ha. W: croys.

4 tho. So MS, Ha. W: þe.

8 Glotony. So W. MS, Ha: glotonry.

14 elé. So MS, W. Ha: els.

61 thou. So Ha, W. MS: omitted.
Citio. So W. MS, Ha: cicio.

62 drynke. So MS, Ha. W: drynk.

73 spiritualy. So MS, W. Ha: specialy.

75 Comendo. So MS, W. Ha: Commendo.

80 antwyn. So MS, W. Ha: entwyn.

93 oure. So MS, Ha. W: houre.

104 very. So MS, W. Ha: every.

108 schenchip. So MS, W. Ha: scenchip.

114 remyssion. So MS, W. Ha: remyssioun.


XX. DEVOTIONS AT THE LEVATION OF CHRIST’S BODY          [W8]
incipit Christi Jhesu. So MS. W: Ihesu Christi.


INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRAYER 4          [W8]
1 seyst. MS, W: scyst.


SALUTATION TO CHRIST’S BODY          [W8]
16 Carnacion. So W. MS: carnacon.

17 lady. So MS, W (reads lidy).

26 assencion. So W. MS: þou assencion.

29 everé. So W. MS: euer (er abbreviated).

49 ai. So MS. W: ay.
Governowre. MS, W: couernowre. Emended for alliteration.

51 seke. So MS. W: sek.


INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRAYER 5          [W8]
7 fynd ewretyn. So MS. W: fynde wretyn.


LATIN PROSE PRAYER ADORAMUS TE CHRISTE ET BENEDICIMUS
incipit benedecimus. So MS. W: benedicimus.

text vivorum et. So W. MS: vivorum &e &.
benignissime. So W. MS: bengnissime.


LATIN VERSE PRAYER LAUDES DEO DICAM PER SECULA
7 A. M. E. N. So W. MS: A. M. N.


XXI. VIRTUES OF THE MASS          [W9]
33 synys. So MS, W. Ha: synnys.

40 mon. So MS. Ha, W: men.

49 lest. So MS, W. Ha: lost.

51 W misnumbers this line as 50 and continues the error until the end of the poem.
In thi. So MS (in interlined). Ha, W: Thi.

54 Sothlé. So MS, W. Ha: Soyle.

55 yeve. So MS, W. Ha: yene.

56 schreve. So MS, W. Ha: schrene.

58 day. So W. MS, Ha: eday.

90 discipilis. So MS (second i interlined). Ha, W: disipilis.

92 prestis. So MS (re abbreviated), W. Ha: pristis.

117 spesialy. So MS, W. Ha: specialy.

127 worchipis. So Ha, W. MS: wo ...chipis (a dark blot obscures the r).

141 Crist. So Ha, W. MS: cristis (final s erased).

142 ham. So MS, W. Ha: tham.

146 schew. So Ha, W. MS: sechew.

184 he. So MS (interlined), W. Ha: be.
wold. So MS (w interlined), W. Ha: hold.

187 expone hit opres. So MS, W. Ha: exponere habit opus.

193 yo. So MS, W. Ha: you.

210 en. So MS (n abbreviated), Ha. W: in.

223 herst. So MS, W. Ha: herist.

232 ye. So MS, W. Ha: he.

239 masse. So MS, W. Ha: mass.

245 syngyng. So W. MS, Ha: synyng.

246 ever. So Ha, W. MS: eu (lacks er abbreviation).

252 bryng. So MS, W. Ha: bring.

258 be. So Ha, W. MS: b.

260 Lese. So MS (written in left margin by Scribe B), W. Ha: omitted.

261 Half. So MS, W. Ha: Lese.

265 bedth. So MS (bedþ). W: bed (reads bedn); Ha: bede.

266 ye. So W. MS, Ha: he.

280 dernes. So MS, W. Ha: dirnes.

285 Cospel. So MS, W. Ha: gospel.

286 red. So MS, W. Ha: rod.

292 witin. So MS. Ha, W: within.

295 that he ded. So MS (written over an erasure; ded is difficult to read). Ha: ther he did; W: þat he dyd.

297 speke. So MS, W. Ha: speek.

298 teth. So MS, W. Ha: tethe.

299 as. So MS (corrected from aice), W. Ha: alfe.

300 began. So MS, W. Ha: bigan.

303 marbys stone. So MS, W. Ha: marbystone.

309 grone. MS: grame, Ha, W. See explanatory note.

311 the. So MS, Ha. W: þen.

312 myldelé. So MS, W. Ha: mysdele.

314 wytles. So W. MS, Ha: wytytles.

325 adevyd. So MS, W. Ha: adenyd.

326 stoned. So W. MS, Ha: stonede.

332 wyndow. So Ha, W. MS: wydow.

334 Tho. So MS, W. Ha: The.

338 everé masse. So MS, W. Ha: evenmasse.

355 hard. So MS, W. Ha: hand.

356 proferbe. So MS (ro abbreviated), W. Ha: prefende.
prove. So Ha. MS: preve (re abbreviated); W preue.

359 to. So MS, W. Ha: for to.

368 wemen. So MS, W. Ha: women.

369 Cristyndam. So MS, W. Ha: Crystyndam.
an han. So MS (han interlined), W. Ha: an omitted.

379 seven to. So MS (vii to), W. Ha: unto.

404 parfyte. So MS (ar abbreviated), W. Ha: perfyte.

412 schal. So Ha, W. MS: sch.

413 Jhesu. So MS, W. Ha: Jeshu.

414 bryng. So MS, W. Ha: bring.


SAINT GREGORY’S INDULGENCE          [W10]
incipit Gregorio in tale. So W. MS: Gregorio in papa in tale (papa marked for deletion, probably by Scribe B; see explanatory note).

9 nowmbur. So W. MS: nowbur.

10 Twenty thousand. So MS (abbreviated Xx Ml). W: Xx.iij. Compare The Vision of Saint Paul, line 317.


INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRAYER 6          [W10]
2 confession. So W. MS: confessicion.


PRAYER OF GENERAL CONFESSION          [W10]
5 Pride. So W. MS: pridy (ri abbreviated, d interlined).

29 hereof. So MS. W: here oft.


PRAYER FOR FORGIVENESS          [W10]
1 O Lord. So W. MS: O ord (Scribe B inserts a capital O instead of an L).


XXIII. VISITING THE SICK AND CONSOLING THE NEEDY          [W11]
40 boonys. So MS (first o interlined). W: bonys.

41 What. So W. MS: wkat.
boone. So MS (first o interlined). W: bone.

59 payn. So W. MS: pan.y (n. interlined).

89 cecatoure. So MS. W: cekatoure.

91 When. So W. MS: werhen (er abbreviated).

106 agayns. So W. MS: aõayng.

148 Thomas. MS: tohnaias. W: Tohmas.

153 With watere. MS: Wt atere. W: Watere.

164 Bot. MS, W: Boþ.

171 his. So W. MS: hisis.

214 dight. So W. MS: diþõt.

219 lyght. MS: layõt or lgyõt (a or g interlined). W: lygõt.

224 penans. So W. MS: penas.

225 wil. So W. MS: and wil.

230 Jugement. So W. MS: in jugement.

241 And to. So MS (& to written in left margin by Scribe B). W: To.

298 not borne. So MS. W: borne.

299 redemcion. So W. MS: redemcon.

301 thorghe. So W. MS: þoõõe.

315 Sone. So MS. W: Son.

321 conclucion. So W. MS: coclucion.

361 prayers. So MS. W reads praye... but the letters ers are visible in the manuscript.

376 grete cause. So MS. W: cause grete.

398 amend it. So MS. W: amend.


INSTRUCTIONS FOR READING 2          [W12]
1–6 W does not number these lines.

4 mon. MS, W: men.


ON THE WORLD’S FOLLY          [W12]
1–6 W does not number the Latin lines and prints the poem in 3-line stanzas, but the scribe’s paraphs indicate 6-line stanzas.

3 Videte. Written in red in the right margin by Scribe B.

15 And. Written by Scribe B; the black F of Fore is marked in red.

31 he tokyn. So W. MS: hede õe tokyn. See explanatory note.

36 hathe be. Written by Scribe B.


XXIIII. POPE JOHN’S PASSION OF OUR LORD          [W13]
1 A marginal indicator for a large initial appears at the opening of this line.
XXII. MS: xij, W. See explanatory note.

18 entent. So W. MS: enten.

31 a rodde. So MS (de interlined). W: rodds.

33 hed. So MS. W: had.

67 knyght. So W. MS: kynõt.


SEVEN HOURS OF THE CROSS          [W14]
3 synus. So MS. W: synnus.

12 dyspilis. So MS. W: dysiplis.

36a conclavatus. So W. MS: conclauatis.

41 Hongyng. So W. MS: Honyng.

48 knight. So W. MS: knõt.
throst. So W. MS: thrast.

50 senterio. So MS. W: sentorio.

66 prophcy. So MS. W: prophecy.

67 mynyng. So MS, W (reads mynyg).

84 contricion. So W. MS: contricon (ri abbreviated).


XXV. OUR LORD’S EPISTLE ON SUNDAY          [W15]
incipits The two incipits appear in reverse order in the manuscript. See explanatory note.
sivitatem. So MS (first i written over a c), W. P: scivitate.

1 A marginal indicator for a large initial appears at the opening of this line.

13 perdecion. So MS, W. P: perdicon.

16 syrus. So MS, W. P: Syris.

33 That the. So W. MS: þat þat þe.
swolewd. So MS. P, W: swolewed.

40 seris. So MS, W. P: Siris.

47 bryng mon. So MS, W. P: bring men.

61 serys. So MS, W. P: Sierys.

68 alle. So MS, W. P: all.

71 generacions. So MS, W. P: generacons.

80 ale. So MS, W. P: al.

88 alle. So MS, W. P: all.

90 schale. So MS, W. P: schal.

102 lobors. So MS. P, W: labors.

114 fro. So MS. P, W: for.

122 knouth. So MS, W. P: knov.

134 the. So MS, W. P: þus.

144 then. So MS (interlined by Scribe B). P, W: omitted.

150 honlé. So MS, W. P: houle.

153 prophetus. So W. MS: prohetus.
postlius. So MS. P: postlis; W: postilus.

155 holy. So MS, P. W: hole.
ther. So MS, W. P: þat.

160 wike. So MS. P, W: wik.

162 in. So W. MS, P: of in.

164 toke. So MS (ke interlined by Scribe B), W. P: tok.

190 Sounonday. So W. MS: sounoday. P: Suneday. 202 thonke. So MS. P, W: thonk.


XXVI. THE VISION OF SAINT PAUL          [W16]
16 wemen. So MS. Mo, W: women.

22 then. So MS, W. Mo: þon.

25 lechory. So MS, W. Mo: lechery.

59 mancion. So MS. Mo, W: moncion.
ordent ther. So MS, W. Mo: þer ordent.

79 lyvus. So MS, W. Mo: lyues.

80 armus. So MS, W. Mo: armes.

99 them. So MS (m abbreviated), Mo. W: þe.

121 blake. So MS. Mo, W: blak.

157 thrust. So MS, Mo. W: þurst.

179 quod. So MS (abbreviation), Mo. W: quoþ.

182 payns. So MS, W. Mo: payne.

216 Quod. So MS (abbreviation), Mo. W: Quoþ.

224 wrat. So MS, W. Mo: wrath.

227 disperacion. So MS (er abbreviated), W. Mo: disparacion.

230 synnud. So Mo, W. MS: synund (second n abbreviated).

241 anglis. So MS, W. Mo: angelis.

253 hert. So MS, W. Mo: ne hert.

268 Loke. So MS, Mo. W: omitted.

305 worthenes. So MS, W. Mo: worthines.

309 thonke. So MS. Mo, W: thonk.

311 worchipful. So MS, W. Mo: worch it ful.

313 schale. So MS. Mo, W: schal.

317 Four thousand a hundred. So MS (Iiii. Ml. a C.), Mo, W.

318 hunder. So MS, Mo. W: hunderd.

319 bekynyng. So Mo, W. MS: bekynyg.

334 have. So MS, Mo. W: hane.

341 fore. So MS, Mo. W: for.

explicit Whiting prints this explicit (in the hand of Scribe A) with the next item.


GOD’S ADDRESS TO SINFUL MEN          [W17]
1 Alle. So MS. W: All.

36 four score and twenty. MS: iiij score and xxy (y may be deleted). W: iiij score.

37 nedis. So MS. W: þer is.

57 with. So W. MS: we.

101 Hwen. So W. MS: Hwom.

114 injoyns. MS, W: inyoyns.

120a secundum Augustinum. So MS (inum abbreviated). W: omitted.

123 confusion. So W. MS: cofusion.

125 yf. So MS (õf). W: õif.
levyng. So MS. W: leuying.

137 curatours. So MS. W: curateours.

144a This Latin heading is mistakenly written by Scribe A at the base of the stanza, as noted by W. Compare line 152a.

148 Ryghwysnes. So MS. W: ryghtwysnes.

151 mo. So MS. W: mot.

152a This Latin heading is mistakenly written by Scribe A at the base of the stanza, as noted by W. Compare line 144a.

182 your. So W. MS: õour õour.

189 A folio is missing at this point in the manuscript.

202 cowntys. So W. MS: cowtys (tys interlined).

220 playn. So W. MS: plany (n interlined).

225 Querite. So MS (e corrected to i). W: Querete.

231 sene. So MS. W: sone.

238 clothyd. So W. MS: cloþy.
iwys. So MS. W: i-wis.

242 lying. So W. MS: ly.


AUDELAY’S EPILOGUE TO THE COUNSEL OF CONSCIENCE          [W18]
1 A change in meter marks the beginning of this poem, but there is no enlarged initial.

27 A marginal mark indicates that a large initial was to appear at the head of this stanza.

30 nyght. So MS, W (reads n ...t).

34 overe. So MS. W: ouer.

38 covetyse. So W. MS: couese.

41 fryght. So W. MS: fyõt.

78 soche. So MS. W: seche.

92 spirytualy. MS: spiytualy. W: sprytualy.

104 forth. So W. MS: foreþ.

106 ston. So MS. W: stond.

109 pra. So MS. W: pray.

144 loke. So MS. W: lok.

146 thoght. So W. MS: oþoõt.

147 whent. So MS. W: when.

156 covetys. So W. MS: covety.

166 wil not. So W. MS: wil.
twice. MS: ii.

172 deth. So MS. W: doþ.

199 amende. So MS. W: amend.

200 takyns. So MS. W: tokyns.

202–03 These verses are incomplete, apparently because of a sewn hole in the parchment.

312 don. So W. MS: dn.

340 levyng. So W. MS: leyng.

366 lebors. So MS. W: labors.

407 wold. So W. MS: wol.

491 lordis. So W. MS: lordist.

505 reverens. So W. MS: reuers.