¹ A Study of the Miracle of Our Lady Told by Chaucer's Prioress, Chaucer Soc., ser. 2, xlv; Sources and Analogues of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, ed. W. F. Bryan and G. Dempster (Chicago, 1941), pp. 447–485.

² For convenience of reference a list follows of the known texts of groups A and C, the two groups with which this study is most particularly concerned. The numbering follows that of Brown in Sources and Analogues, pp. 447–448, 450.

GROUP A

1. Bibl. Publ. de Vendôme MS. 185, ed. H. Isnard, Bulletin de la Soc. archéol. scientifique et littéraire du Vendomois, xxvi (1887), 194–196 (printed in Brown's Study of the Miracle of Our Lady, pp. 1–2). 13th-cent. MS.

2. Bibliothèque nationale MS. Lat. 18134, fol. 142 (Study, pp. 3–4). 13th-cent. MS.

3. Gautier de Coincy, Les Miracles de la Sainte Vierge, ed. M. l'Abbé Poquet (Paris, 1857), cols. 555–572 (printed from MS. Harley 4401 in Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Chaucer Soc, ser. 2, v (1888), 251–276). 14th-cent. MS., but written early in the 13th cent.

4. Caesarius of Heisterbach, Libri VIII Miraculorum, ed. A. Meister, Romische Quarlal-schrift, xiii Supplementheft (Rom, 1901), pp. 189–191 (Study, pp. 5–6). Written early in 13th cent.

5. John of Garland, Miracula Beate Virginis, Royal MS. 8. C. iv, fol. 21, col. 1 (Study, p. 7). Late 13th-cent. MS.

6. Thomas Cantimpré, Bonum universaledeApibns, Lib. ii. cap. xxix, par. 13, ed. G. Col-vener (Douay, 1605), p. 289 (Study, p. 8). Written in mid-13th cent.

7. S. Petrus Celestinus Papa V, De miraculis Beatae Mariae Virginis, ed. M. de la Bigne, Max. Bibl. velerum Patrum elAnliq.Script, ecclesiasl. (Lugduni, 1677), xxv, 813–817 (Study, p. 9; the text is based on No. 1). Written in late 13th cent.

8. B. M. Egertonms. 1117,fol. 176^v (Study, pp. 9–10). End of 13th or early 14th cent. MS.

9. Mariu Jartegnir, Pergaments Codex, 11, Royal Library Stockholm, ed. C. R. Unger, Mariu Saga (Christiania, 1871), p. 779 (Study, pp. 10–11). Beginnning of 14th cent. MS.

10. Thomas Bromyard, Summa predicanlium, sub voce “Maria”, iij. Text printed by W. O. Ross, “Another Analogue to the Prioresses Tale”, MLN, l (1935), p. 307. Written 1370–80.

11. Sidney Sussex Coll. MS. 95, Lib. ii, cap. 83 (Study, pp. 12–16). 15th-cent. MS.

12. Pelbart of Themeswar, Stellarium corone Beate Virginis, Lib. xii, pars ultima, cap. 1, ed. Hagenaw (1501) (Study, pp. 17-18). Written 1483.

13. Hague Kon. Bibl. MS. X, 64 (new no. 70, ii, 42), foi. 48c (Study, p. 19). 15th-cent. MS.

GROUP C

(Brown prints all the C versions, except the Prioress' Tale, in Sources and Analogues, pp. 467–485.)

1. Corpus Christi Coll., Oxford, MS. 32, foi. 92. Mid-13th-cent. MS, but written c. 1200–16.

2. Friar William Herebart, Phillipps MS. 8336, foi. 205'. Early 14th-cent. MS.

3. B. M. Add. MS. 11579, foi. 5V. Early 14th-cent. MS.

4. B. M. Royal MS. 12. E. I, foi. 170. Early 14th-cent. MS.

5. Vernon version (Bodleian MS. 3938). Written c. 1375.

6. Chaucer's Prioress' Tale, Written c. 1386-87.

7. Sidney Sussex Coll. MS. 95, Lib. ii, cap. 84. 15th-cent. MS.

8. Sidney Sussex Coll. MS. 95, Lib. ii, cap. 87. 15th-cent. MS.

9. Alphonsus a Spina, Fortalicium fidei, ed. B. Richel (Basil, c. 1475).

10. Trinity Coll., Cambridge, MS. 0. 9. 38, foi. 37. Late 15th or early 16th-cent. MS.

³ Study, p. 111.

⁴ Sources and Analogues p. 460.

⁵ Such historical incidents to furnish the Jewish elements in the miracle were available from the time of Socrates, the church historian about 415, who records an instance of child-murder by the Jews at Inmestar in Syria; and throughout the Middle Ages such stories as those of the murders of William of Norwich, Harold of Gloucester, and Hugh of Lincoln were widely circulated. For lists of these incidents see A. Jessopp and M. R. James, eds. The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich by Thomas of Monmouth (Cambridge, 1896), introd., p. lxxiv; W. W. Skeat, ed. Chaucer (Oxford, 1893), p. xxii. R. K. Root, The Poetry of Chaucer (Boston, 1906), p. 194, says that Kembster lists 52 such murders to 1650. The very nature of the Cult of the Virgin in the Middle Ages with its worship of the Mother of Christ indicates the reason for the popularity of the theme of a son's death, the grieving of the mother, and his restoration to her by the Virgin.

⁶ Study, p. 53.

⁷ We find among the popular miracles the story of the sterile mother who was given a son by the Virgin; the boy died but was restored to the mother upon her lamentations to Mary. This miracle appears, e.g., in The Stella Maris of John of Garland, ed. E. F. Wilson (Cambridge, Mass., 1946), no. 4. A later version of this miracle, found in B. M. Add. MS. 39996 (Phillipps MS. 9803), and printed by R. W. Tryon, “Miracles of Our Lady in Middle English Verse”, PMLA, XXXVIII (1923), 352–353, is especially interesting because of its close parallels to some of the texts of our miracle, especially those of Group A. This version also resembles Chaucer's tale in making the child a seven-year-old, a detail attributed to Chaucer by Brown (Study, pp. 112–113), in the development of the miracle of the boy killed by the Jews.

The common motif of reward for praising the Virgin in song is used in the story of the clerk who sang Gaude dei genelrix faithfully and was promised eternal bliss by the Virgin when he lay dying of a fever. See H. Kjellman, La Deuxième Collection Anglo-Normande des Miracles de la Sainte Vierge (Paris, 1922), pp. xlv and 86–88. The eyesight of the composer of Gaude Maria was restored to him in a miracle when he sang his song to the Jews. See Brown, Study, p. 72.

⁸ The William of Norwich story, as it is recorded by Thomas of Monmouth, seems to be similar in various places to some of the narratives of Group A, indicating perhaps the direct influence of this account of Jewish atrocity upon the Group A versions of the miracle as well as upon the Group C tales with their tragic endings. The present writer is now engaged in a more thorough investigation of these relationships.

⁹ For a full discussion of these details see Brown, Study, pp. 54–55.

¹⁰ Brown did not include All among the analogues of the Ur-Gautier branch; he believed that it, along with A 9, developed as a third stem of the parent A version. Although All contains a few scattered similarities to the Ur-Caesarius versions, it seems more likely that it is derived from the Ur-Gautier tradition, perhaps even from Gautier's poem.

¹¹ Study, p. 73.

¹² For a full discussion see ibid., pp. 76–86.

¹³ Ibid., p. 61.

¹⁴ C 3—“Ave regina”; C 4—“Sancta Maria”; C 7—“Gaude Maria”—probably a reversion to Group A.

¹⁵ C 8 was probably taken directly from C 1 since it is almost identical in incident and phrasing throughout.

¹⁶ Brown (Sources and Analogues, p. 457) included C 1 and C 8 as members of the magical object group because of their attempt to account for the child's being able to sing with a cut throat by stating that an angel commissioned by the Lord may have been the agent of the singing. (Note Brown's statement, p. 464, following a detailed list of similarities between Chaucer and C 1, that “the Prioress' Tale shows no special points of agreement with any versions outside the ‘magical object’ group.”) Because of the simplicity in most respects of the C 1-type of story and the early date of C 1, it seems probable, however, that C 1 and C 8 represent the earliest tradition of Group C from which later developed the more elaborate versions of both the liturgical and magical object groups.

¹⁷ Sources and Analogues, pp. 463–464.

¹⁸ Ibid., 461–462.

¹⁹ All page references from Group C are from Sources and Analogues.

²⁰ All references from Group A are from Brown's Study, unless otherwise stated.

²¹ Sources and Analogues, p. 453.

²² J. Strange, éd., 2 vols, in one (Coloniae, 1851), II, 31–33.

²³ The first three parallels between C 9 and 10 and Chaucer were noted by Brown in Sources and Analogues, pp. 463–464, but this similarity, as well as the following comparisons in this paper, he did not mention.

²⁴ A 11 also recalls vividly this scene of the distressed mother.

²⁵ It is true that C 1 reflects that “Dolor autem & tristicia filii reparabant ei uires quas etas consumpserat.” But it must be remembered that in the expanded beginning of this version the author explains that the child goes to the house of the wealthy man to bring food to his mother “ex nimia corporis & etatis inbecillitate.” The sentence quoted from C 1 then would seem merely to be an explanation by the writer of this particular text of how such a feeble one was able to set out on a search for her son.

²⁶ Sources and Analogues, pp. 463–464.

²⁷ Although the alms theme appears in C 1, the change is so great in making the mother too old and feeble to come any longer to the wealthy table to be refreshed, and so different is the manner by which it is incorporated into the narrative that it is probably an individual innovation rather than a derivation from the alms motif of the Ur-Gautier tradition.

²⁸ Study, p. 111.

²⁹ Ibid., p. 73.