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The Missing Link: An Edition of the Middle English ‘Ypotis’ from York Minster MS XVI.L.12

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Tanya Gardiner-Scott
Tanya Gardiner-Scott*
Affiliation:
Mount Ida College
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Extract

The Middle English Ypotis, a ‘wise child’ dialogue poem deriving from the third century A.D. Latin Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi via the French L'Enfant sage versions, exists in fifteen texts. Fourteen of these are edited in scattered collections published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; the fifteenth, from the York Minster MS XVI.L.12 fols. 58r–69v (Yk), is the only one hitherto unavailable. Surprisingly enough, it has never been the subject of a full critical edition.

Type
Articles
Information
Traditio , Volume 46 , 1991 , pp. 235 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © The Fordham University Press 

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References

1 See the, ‘Table of MSS, Editions, and Sigla Used' for complete bibliographical details. For convenience I have also tabulated J. Sutton's sigla, listed in ‘Hitherto Unprinted Manuscripts of the Middle English Ipotis,’ PMLA 31 (1916) 115–17, and have reproduced her stemma, substituting my sigla for hers. I have used F. L. Utley's dating of the various MSS from ‘Dialogues, Debates and Catechisms,’ in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1500 (ed. Hartung, A. C.; Bridgeport 1972) III 740. I have also tentatively added the two earliest fragments of manuscript (dating from the early fourteenth century when the poem was written) to her diagram.Google Scholar

2 I am indebted to the Dean, Chapter, and Librarian of York Minster for permission to publish this text. Google Scholar

3 See Barr, B., ‘The Minster Library,' in Aylmer, G. E. and Cant, R., A History of York Minster (Oxford 1977) 487–539, for further details.Google Scholar

4 Variants from York Minster MS XVI.L.12 are printed in The Lay Folks Catechism (eds. Simmons, T. F. and Nolloth, H. E., EETS o.s. 118; 1901).Google Scholar

5 Conversation with Bernard Barr, June 1981.Google Scholar

6 See Horstmann, C., Altenglische Legenden: Neue Folge (Heilbronn 1881) 341.Google Scholar

7 See Sutton, , op. cit. 153–60, and Gruber, H., Zu den mittelenglischen Dialog Ipotis (Berlin 1887) 25.Google Scholar

8 See Dix, G., The Shape of the Liturgy (Westminster 1943) 260ff. for further information.Google Scholar

9 Sutton uses this example in her argument against Vn as a ‘good’ base text. Google Scholar

10 For debate on the features of Lollard texts, see A. Hudson, The Premature Reformation (Oxford 1988) 7–59, 120–277. On page 424, Hudson states that Yk is orthodox; yet, as R. Kendall states in The Drama of Dissent (Chapel Hill 1986), ‘the momentous shift in the nature of Christian doctrine … is often marked by the deceptive sense of continuity between the devotional literature of the Wycliffites and their adversaries’ (20). See also Kendall, , op. cit. 34–36; Aston's, Aston's Lollards and Reformers (London 1984) 125–126; McFarlane's, K. B. Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights (Oxford 1972) 201–204; and Sixteen Points on Which the Bishops Accuse the Lollards and The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards, both in Hudson's, Hudson's Selections from English Wycliffite Writings (Cambridge 1974).Google Scholar

11 Regarding the Lollard de-emphasis on humanity as being in any way deserving of salvation, Kendall states, ‘The elaborate expositions of God's friendship with men, which permeate popular sermon literature of the period, are noticeably absent in the writings of the Lollards. Friendship implies a common ground of interest, ability, and understanding. What could man offer God that was not tainted with his wretchedness?’ (op. cit. 22). Hudson, (The Premature Reformation) states, ‘It is at least arguable that in some cases … negative evidence may be significant… . It would be unrealistic to think that any Lollard text can be measured simply by … lists… . Any tendency to doubt … the existing ecclesiastical hierarchy or part of the true church … opens suspicion of heresy’ (15, 21–22).Google Scholar

12 I dedicate this paper to Dr. Marilyn Channel-Purdy, colleague and dear friend. Google Scholar