BALLAD OF A TYRANNICAL HUSBAND, FOOTNOTES

BALLAD OF A TYRANNICAL HUSBAND, NOTES

Abbreviations: MS: Chetham Library MS 8009, fols. 370-372; W&H: Thomas Wright and James Orchard Halliwell.

1-8 The first two stanzas serve as a prologue in defense of women. The exhortation to Christ as the "joy" of his mother is a conventional invocation with a particularly appropriate emphasis on the Virgin Mary. It would certainly appeal to an audience of women as has been suggested for the manuscript in which this narrative is found. See Rhiannon Purdie, "Sexing the Manuscript." Other items found in the manuscript include "Life of St. Dorothy," "Assumptio sancte marie," "Lyff of Seynt Anne," "Lyf of Seynt Katherin," "Liber Catonis," Torrent of Portyngale, "A Lamentation of Our Lady," "A Prayar of Oure Lady," Beves of Hamptoun, Ipomadon, "A Good Boke of Kervyng and Nortur," "The Book of the Duke and the Emperour," and "The Namys of Wardeyns and Baylyffs" [of London, 1189-1217].

8 songe. MS: song.

9 Lystyn good serrys. After having made concessions to the much maligned women and those who would find fault and blame, the poet constructs a male audience.

10 By. Or about? There seems to be an omniscient speaker here.

17 befelle. MS: befell. W&H have added final -e, no doubt for consistency.

20 denner. The noontime meal, when the farm hands come in to eat, as opposed to supper at the end of the day.

21 The goodman an hys lade. That the husband has an apprentice/helper while the wife must do all the housework herself is not unusual, since according to Judith M. Bennett, "the husband's work took on primary importance; the wife's work both supplemented and conformed to the demands of the husband's tasks" (Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender & Household in Brigstock Before the Plague [New York: Oxford University Press, 1987], p. 119). A plowman's job resembled that of a farmer: plowing the fields, sowing seeds, harvesting crops, though the plowman worked for the lord of the manor and rented out his land. Because a plowman did humble work, his occupation was used as a metaphor for the good Christian, the most famous example in Middle English being William Langland's Piers Plowman.

goodman. A synonym for "the head of the household," which does not necessarily define his moral standing. Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" reflects the term's traditional meaning.

22 goodwyfe. MS: goodwyf. Goodwyfe is a common generic term for a married woman. See How the Goode Wife Taught Hyr Doughter, included in this volume.

she. MS: se.

38-40 The husband's assumptions about women's work are part of a masculine ideology that presumed the inferiority of domestic work not necessarily because it was gendered feminine but because it was less strenuous and demanding of physical strength than agricultural chores could be.

43 smalle. MS: small. W&H have added final -e.

45 cheylde. Since there are other children mentioned in line 51, this child is probably a nursing infant. It was not uncommon for unweaned children to be taken into the conjugal bed.

50 play. Further evidence that the husband does not consider domestic chores "real" work but rather something done for sport.

56 goslyngs that gothe on the grene. The green is a common area which all can use. Some might have a goose girl to look after the flock to make sure all get home, but the goodwife, having no servant, has to be in two places at once.

57-60 I brew . . . spyn het on the wheylle. It was common for women to brew beer as well as be in charge of the baking. Witness Margery Kempe's failed attempt in her autobiography. Preparation of flax and wool was time-consuming and arduous work done in stages during which time the raw material was progressively refined until the threads could be spun on a wheel by hand. See the dame in The Wright's Chaste Wife, who gets help for the multiple tasks through her clever entrapment of men to do her bidding.

58 heylle. MS: heyll. W&H have added final -e.

59 keylle. MS: keyll. A final -e in the preceding line and in lines 57 and 60 determines the need for consistency here.

68 yere. W&H have conjectured and added the word.

69 Whan I have so donne, I loke on the sonne. The goodwife does all this before the sun comes up.

72 that. W&H have omitted this word in the line.

81 The husband proposes a role reversal to which the wife acquiesces without hesitation. Perhaps she relishes the change despite the hard labor.

88 alle. MS: all. W&H have added final -e in this line and the next.

That she needs to prepare everything for him before she goes off to plow suggests his unfamiliarity with the tasks at hand.

93 fulle. MS: full. The word appears with a final -e in the next line in the manuscript. W&H have imposed consistency.

112 The balladeer calls for ale before proceeding further - a common and practical convention.

The poem is unfortunately unfinished but leaves an enticing gap for an audience to fill.