''■w-^ 'M.m ^^ ■■\'wm V' . "ts-^S^' "M^M^IS...-^^^: rJif'^ ^^; .i^''>^; ^ v;^*:-:./ 1^:^^*^ Sli^'J ■^T^3?tXfaL-^^iA. - "fe^.m: Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027365273 Cornell University Library PQ 1501.P35 1921 Perlesvaus Hatton manuscript 82, branch 3 1924 027 365 273 SJfF llmopraltg of QHjiraso PERLESVAUS Hatton Manuscript 82, Branch 1. A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPAKTMENT OF ROMANCE LANGUAGES BY JOHN THOMAS LISTER Stft (SaUegiatr Prroa GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY MENASHA, WIS. 1921 fK^wG'^z TO G. H. L. PREFACE This edition of Branch I of the Oxford manuscript, Hatton 82, of the Perlesvaus represents the material furnished by the editor to complete the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the department of Romance Languages in the University of Chicago. A few pages have been added to make the notes more nearly complete, but in other respects the material remains the same as when presented and approved as a dissertation. This subject was suggested by Professors Nitze and Jenkins of the University of Chicago, and the editor takes this occasion to express to them and to Professor Karl Pietsch his sincere gratitude for valuable suggestions and criticisms. He wishes especially to thank Professor Nitze for the loan of photographic copies of all the manu- scripts of this romance. Expression of appreciation for courtesies so generously extended to him is due and is hereby o£Eered by the editor to the librarians of the University of Chicago, Newberry Library, and Harvard University. J. T. L. College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, October 1920. CONTENTS PAGE I. Introdxjction 1 1. MSS of the Romance 1 2. Description of MS 2 3. Language of copyist of MS 0, Branch 1 3 II. Argument of MS O, Branch I 7 III. Literary Notes 12 IV. Text of MS O, Branch 1 31 V. Variants of Branch I as Found in the MSS Be., C, B and P 56 VI. Bibliography 86 I. INTRODUCTION 1. MSS of the Romance When in 1866 Charles Potvin brought out his edition of the Perlesvaus, based on the Brussels MS, he said (pp. 354-356): "TTn seul MS connu ressemble au ndtre; c'est un MS de Beme, signals depuis long temps par Zinner. Mais il ne contient que deux fragments qui repr£sentent & peine laseptiimepartieduToman.etquinesuffisentpasienfairecomprendielaportte. . . . Les fragments de Beme prouvent que notre copie ne fut pas unique et, comme ils toat plus lisible et beaucoup plus corrects, rien ne s'oppose 4 ce que nous en croyions la note final de notre manuscrit. . . Ce manuscrit est tris fautif , et le copiste semble nous expli' quer pourquoi, lorsqu'il dit qu'il peut i peine distinguir la Uttre de I'original. II est & regretter que les feuillets de Beme ne soient pas complets; nous aurions At les publier de pr£f£rence. Si une version plus correcte £tait d£couverte, ce roman o£Fre assez d'intir£t pour qu'on en publie une seconde, une meilleure £dition." Since Potvin's time other MSS of the Perlesvaus have been dis- covered, and now it is possible to have the romance in what we may assume is a complete form. A new edition, now in the process of preparation, will be based on the most satisfactory MS of the Perles- vaus, known as Hatton 82 of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and will be supplied with variants of the other MSS and a literary and linguistic study of the romance. The present work may be con- sidered as a preliminary step in that direction. In performing the difficult but extremely interesting task of transcribing the entire text of the Hatton 82 (O) MS, I have had access not only to a photographic copy of this MS but also to like copies of the Berne (Be) MS, the Chantilly (C) MS, the B. N. f. 1428(P) MS, and the printed text of the Potvin edition of the Brussels (B) MS. As I am practically in control of all the known MS material of the ro- mance, by collating the MS with the others indicated above I am able to offer for publication a text which, it is hoped, is in the main correct. An effort has been made to preserve the physiognomy of the O MS as far as possible. Whenever the editor for the purpose of emending the text has added any material he has enclosed it in brackets, and whenever he has deemed anything superfluous he has enclosed it in parentheses. Variants, as found in tie other MSS, are given in this excerpt of the O MS, so that it will be possible from the text and the variants of the other MSS to reconstruct the text of any of the MSS mentioned above. 2 Perlesvaus: Hatton Manuscript 82, Branch 1 2. Description of MS O As all the MSS used in the preparation of this edition of the Perlesvaus have already been described by Stengel (Stuttg. litt. Verein cxvi, and Revista di Filologia Romanza I, 192), Wechssler (Zeitschrift fiir romanische Philologie XX, 1896, p. 80), and Nitze (The Old French Grail Romance, Perlesvaus, Baltimore, 1902, pp. 4- 6), the remarks which are here niade concerning the Hatton 82 are meant to be merely supplementary. The MS is in the handwriting of about the middle of the 13th century (Nitze, I.e. p. 4), and is 469 m (lOj^ in.) by 180 m (7M in.). Folio one has two columns, and folio eighty-eight has three and one- fourth, while ff. two to eighty-seven inclusive have each four columns. Of the three hundred forty-nine and one fourth columns of which the MS is composed, one hundred and sixty-two have forty-seven lines each, forty-two have forty-six lines each, and the others vary from jthirty-seven to forty-nine lines each — one having thirty-seven, one fifty, and less than ten having as many as forty-nine — the number of lines totalling approximately fifteen thousand eight hundred eighty. The MS is in good condition save that the lower corner of one sheet of the vellum is lacking, a loss which makes defective columns c and d of folio twenty-six and columns a and b of folio twenty-seven. The text for this defective part has been made up entirely from the other MSS. The text of MS O is in most cases legible. Para- graphs are indicated by indentations of the jnargin, but capital letters at the beginning of the paragraphs are either entirely omitted (as is usually the case), or placed in miniature either in their proper places (rare) or on the margin. The handwriting of several different copyists is to be seen in the manuscript. It is quite probable that in a systematic study of the language of the whole MS it would be found that a change of copyist does not mean a change in dialect. It is evident, however, that to come to any definite conclusions in regard to the language of the text as a whole it would be necessary to study in detail the language of each copyist. As such an undertaking is beyond the scope of the present work and is reserved for the complete edition based on the O MS, the present editor has limited himself to indicat- ing here some of the linguistic peculiarities of the first copyist, making* use not only of the nineteen pages which contain the first "branche," but the entire work of the first copyist which covers a little less than one-fifth of the whole romance. Perlesvaus: Hqtton Manuscript 82, Branch 1 3 3. Language of Copyist of MS O, Branch I Ahhreviations A. et N. Aucassin et Nicolette par Hermann Suchier, 8th ed., Paderbom, 1913. Chev. as deus esp. Li Chevaliers as deus espees, ed. Foerster, Halle, 1877. G. de D. GuUlaume de Dole, par G. Servois, Paris, 1893. M.-L. Historische Grammatik der franzosischen Sprache von W. Meyer-Lilbke, I, Heidelberg, 1908. M.L.N. Modem Language Notes. M.P. Modem Philology. P.M.L.A. Publications of the Modern Language Association. S.-B. Schwan-Behrens, Grammaire de I'Ancien Franfais, Traduction Franfaise par Oscar Bloch, Leipzig, 1913. V.T. Les Voyelles Toniques du Vieux Franfais par Hermann Suchier, Traduction par Ch. Guerli der Guer, Paris, 1906. Zfr.P. Zeitschrift ftir romanische PhUologie. In general, the copyist has been careful to observe the rules of grammar. Rarely is he guilty of using an objective form where he should have employed a nominative, and vice versa. For the voca- tive he uses the nominative form, although at times he has a dif- ferent form for a proper name used in address (cf. Cahu, 2b 39). In the matter of spelling he seems to hesitate, spelling some words in two,' and in rare cases as many as three, different ways. For example he writes: anemis — ennemi; ame — arme — enme; huis — uis; ge — je; ving — vig; hermite — ermite; pres (preposition) — prez (ad- verb); annuieuse — ennuieuse; poor — pooir; et — 7— e; que il — quil — qil; que — qe; heuvre — aeuvre. We find c instead of q or qu in cuida, cuit, c'onques, c'on; but qart and carz. More often a nasal vowel is followed by n than by m: flanbe, chanbre, nonbrer. He is very persistent in the use of e for ai, in any position except before a nasal consonant: mes, let, edier, mauvese; but frain, desfaint. For ou and au he used o. Sometimes v is found at the end of a word: Diev, recev, escv. 1) dovent, 1 a 17; connosire, 7 b 30; besogne, 6 d 3; chosist, 3 b 3; eslongniez 11 d 14, are cases in which o is used instead of oi. From S-B (229 Rem.) we learn that "En picard et dans les dialects du(sic) Test et du sud, on rencontre o au lieu d'oi . . . et avec une extension qui n'a pas encore ete d^limitee avec precision." In public docu- ments we find 6o^ (LiUe, 1271), OTor (Aisne: Saint-Quentin, 1219), deveroent, formains, tnemore, seroent, soent, verr'oent, chanonnes, avoent, danwent, pooent (Luxembourg beige: Houffalize, 1272, Orval, 1288), cognossant (Lorraine allemande: Metz 1272), hors (Voges: Senones, 1286), assavor, avor (Bourbonnais, 1301) (cf. S-B. HI, pp. 19, 26, 27,- 30, 37, 61). Meyer-Lubke (§ 85, p. 80) mentions this trait: "Auch 4 Perlesvaus: Hatton Manuscript 82, Branch 1 innerhalb des M-Gebietes finden sich mancherlei besondere Entwickelimgen, von denen hier nur die namentlich im Pikardischen vorkommende zu o bemerkt werden soil, da sie sich schon in der alteren Literatur zeigt, und im deutschen Fratuos, Kontor Oire Sputen gdassen hat." In pooir, S b 11, and foirie, 10 a 28, we have inverse cases, in which oi is used in place of 0. 2) Breleingne, 1 a 31. Matzke (P.M.L.A. XXI, 1905, pp. 679 ff.) concludes that -aigne became phonetic -eigne in the twelfth century, just as -ain gave -ein after 1250. But an eastern pronunciation -aigne in enseigne seems to have penetrated sporadi- cally into the north and west, -aigne gave eigne regularly. 3) mengier (