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Equine Quartering in the Owl and the Nightingale

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Kathryn Huganir*
Affiliation:
Nebraska State Teachers College at Wayne

Extract

Gadow was the first commentator to notice a connection between certain terms in The Owl and the Nightingale and the language of the law courts, and Atkins was the first to make a detailed study of this phase of the poem. The present commentator has added elsewhere a number of significant details. Both Atkins and the present writer have sought an explanation of the use of the diction and procedure of the courts of the twelfth century in the fact that the arbiter of the debate, Nicholas of Guildford, was connected with the judiciary, either secular or ecclesiastical. Since the evidence presented was somewhat fragmentary and inconclusive, the writer has pursued the present study to establish a connection between the judicial usage of the age, including the penalties inflicted upon the guilty and some passages in the poem, which apparently have not hitherto been noted in this connection.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , December 1937 , pp. 935 - 945
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1937

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References

1 W. Gadow, ed. Das Mittelenglische Streitgedicht Eule und Nachtigall, Berlin Diss. 1907, Palaestra (1909), vv. 5, 550, notes.

2 J. W. H. Atkins, ed. The Owl and the Nightingale (Cambridge, 1922), Introd. liii ff. Also notes on verses 140, 273, 398, 472, 544, 547, 550, 675, 748, 1088, 1093, 1096, 1101, 1215, 1264, 1492, 1649, 1734.

3 Kathryn Huganir, “The Owl and the Nightingale,” Sources, Date, Author (Phila., 1931), pp. 154 ff.

4 Op. cit.

5 PMLA, xliv, 338.

6 Ibid.

7 J. W. H. Atkins, op. cit., Intro., p. lxii.

8 Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, ed. J. G. Frazer (London, 1921), iii, 5, i.

9 Harleian Miscellany (London, 1809), pp. 111, 112. I am indebted to Professor Hobart Coffey of the University of Michigan for this and the following reference.

10 Frederick H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation, p. 60. See note 9 supra.

11 Thomas R-Ybarra, Bolivar (New York, 1929), p. 30. I am indebted to Professor Arthur S. Pease of Harvard University for this reference.

12 F. S. Lear, “Crimen Laesae Maiestatis in Lex Romana Wisigothorum,” Speculum, iv, 78.

13 Jordanes, De Getarum Origine et Rebus Gestis in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, ed. Mommsen, p. xxiv; Saxo Grammaticus, Gesta Danorum, ed. Alfred Holder (Strasburg, 1886), viii, 279.

14 La Chanson de Roland, ed. T. A. Jenkins, rev. ed. (New York, 1929), vv, 3964 ff.

15 Ibid., Introd., p. xliv.

16 Benoit de St. More, Roman de Troie, Societé des anciens textes français, ed. Léopold Constans (Paris, 1904–1908).

17 E. Henderson, Verbrechen und Strafen in England während der Zeit 1066–1307, Berlin Diss. 1890, p. 17.

18 Ibid.

19 Lambert li Tors and Alexandre de Bernay, Li Romans d'Alexandre, ed. H. Michelant (Stuttgart, 1846).

20 Renaus de Montauban, ed. H. Michelant (Stuttgart, 1862).

21 Chrestien de Troyes, Cliges, ed. W. Foerster, Romanische Bibliothek (Halle, 1888), p. 39.

22 Girart de Roussillon, ed. W. Foerster, Romanische Studien, v, 145.

23 Raimbert de Paris, La Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche, ed. J. Barrois (Paris, 1842).

24 C. G. Coulton, Chaucer and His England (London, 1908), p. 188.

25 Ibid., p. 259.

26 Ibid., p. 195.

27 Ibid., p. 127.

28 Ibid., p. 250 n.