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A Middle English Prayer to St. Mary Magdalen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Rossell Hope Robbins
Rossell Hope Robbins*
Affiliation:
Katsbaan Onderheugel, Saugerties, New York
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Extract

In the recent massive sweep of in-depth research on the hymns and prayers to St. Mary Magdalen, one little Middle English poem of the second half of the fourteenth century has been overlooked. It should now be added to the total European corpus as the English representative, the sole versified prayer to this saint before 1500. The poem is written as prose on a blank page (fol. 100v) in Harley MS 667, a collection of over eighty Latin (and French) statutes and charters, local as well as national, like Custume de Gavelkynde (fol. 84r, in French), Tractates de Bastardia (fol. 213r), Statutum de Scaccario (fol. 248r), or Officium Senescalli sive Ballivi (fol. 275v), and is followed by a Latin collect and a Latin rubric for a pardon.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 24 , 1968 , pp. 458 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Garth, Helen Meredith, Saint Mary Magdalene in Mediaeval Literature, The Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science LXVII No. 3 (Baltimore 1950) 339–452; Bruckberger, Raymond Leopold, Marie-Madeleine , Paris, , 1952 [devotional work but has bibliography]; Szövérffy, Joseph and Wynne, W., ‘Typology in Medieval Latin Hymns: Notes on Some Features in the Mary Magdalen, Martha, and Lazarus Legends,’ Medievalia el Humanistica 12 (1958) 41–51; Benoit, Fernand, ‘Le Culte de Marie-Madeleine,’ Annales du Midi 71 (1959) 178–282; Saxer, Victor, he Culte de Marie Madeleine en Occident des origines à la fin du moyen âge (Paris 1959) 2 vols. (and in Bibliotheca Sanctorum 1967); Szövérffy, Joseph, “‘Peccatrix quondam femina”: A Survey of Mary Magdalen Hymns,’ Traditio 19 (1963) 79–146. For the purposes of this article there is nothing relevant in Eggert, Carl E., ‘The Middle Low German Version of the Legend of Mary Magdalen,’ JEGP 4 (1902) 132–214; Knoll, Friedrich Otto, Die Rolle der M. M. im geistlichen Spiel des Mittelalters (Berlin 1934); Misrahi, Jean, ‘A Vita Sanctae Mariae Magdalenae in an Eleventh-Century Manuscript,’ Speculum 18 (1943) 335–9; Cohen, G., ‘Marie-Madeleine dans le drame religieux français du moyen âge,’ Convivium 24 (1956) 141–63.Google Scholar

2 Brown, Carleton and Bobbins, Rossell Hope, The Index of Middle English Verse (New York 1943) No. 2993. In the MS there are colons at the end of each line of verse.Google Scholar

3 [Wanley, H., Casley, D., et alii,] A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum (London 1808) 1.401–2. Medieval Essex, Essex Record Office No 36 (Chelmsford 1962) suggests that ‘ymage’ refers to wall paintings in churches.Google Scholar

4 Saxer, , op. cit 2.363.Google Scholar

5 Szövérffy, , art cit 91–4, 114.Google Scholar

6 Hoepffner, E., ‘Une prière à sainte Marie-Madeleine,’ Romania 53 (1927) 567.Google Scholar

7 Szövérffy, , art cit 119.Google Scholar

8 Cf. Horstmann, Carl, The Early South–English Legendary, EETS 87.466 (vv. 160–2): and to sike men heo wa[s] ful glad: to beon heore soule leche Mani on to cristinedom: heo brouhte, and out of sunne, Fram lecherie und hore-dom: ϸoru schrift, to loye and alle wunne. Also cf. Benoit, , Annales du Midi 71.281 (‘sa fonction hospitalière’).Google Scholar

9 Serjeantson, Mary S., Bokenham's Lives of Holy Women, EETS 206, e.g., p. 139 (vv. 5067–70): To ϸat holy wumman, wych, as I gesse Is clepyd of apostyls ϸe apostyllesse, Blyssyd Mary mawdelyn y mene, Whom cryste from syn made pure and clene.Google Scholar

10 Ibid. 172.Google Scholar

11 Sonet, Jean S.J., Répertoire d'Incipit de prières en ancien français (Genève 1956) Nos. 331, 773, 877, 1098, 1135, 1306, 1328, 1334, 1535, 1569, 1578, 1637, 1778, 1865, 2124, 2219, 2345, 2373, nearly all unpublished.Google Scholar

12 Saxer, , op. cit, n. 1 supra, I, Planche VI. In Bodl. SC 41869, Top. Eccles. d. 5, fols. 91r-v, Mabel Quiller Couch (ca. 1893) gives about 65 churches in England dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen; see also Bodl. Eng. liturg. d. 5, fol. 102r .Google Scholar

13 Saxer, , op. cit. II. 364. For the Gaude see Franc. Jos. Mone, Lateinische Hymnen des Mittelalters (Freiburg 1855) 3. 421, No. 1060 (ad laudes), Gaude pia Magdalena. Google Scholar

14 James, Montague Rhodes, The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. A Descriptive Catalogue (Cambridge 1900) 1.359–61. Memoriae include Trinity, Sts. Mary Magdalen, Christopher, Thomas, George, and Katherine; this last includes the English acrostic poem (Katirin), Index No. 588, printed Robbins, Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, rev. ed. (Oxford 1955) 273.Google Scholar

15 Cotton Titus A. xxvi consists of several disparate late gatherings in French, Italian, and Latin; but the main ME contents, fols. 145r–207r, are earlier. ME prose Life of St. Catherine and Seven Sleepers, fols. 180r–204v; St. Julian, fols. 204v–207r. The Life of St. Mary Magdalen begins on fol. 174r: ‘Gode men and wemen ye schall her of the lyffe of Marye Magdaleyne that was soo holy A woman that Our lord Ihesus Cryste after his modir louffed he beste and moste of all women for sche was fformed in tyme of grace ϸat dyd grete pennawnce for her synnes and be grace Retornyd Agayne in doyng of pennawnce and Repentaunce that Sche had for her synnes whiche is a spectacle to all synners that woll lewe ther synnes. And be men ther of schall come to the grace [of] God and soo dyd this woman. And therfore schall ye her.’ Google Scholar

16 Not included, because of late date, either in Index, or in Robbins and Cutler, John L., Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse (Lexington Ky. 1965). Warner, Sir George and Gilson, Julius P., Catalogue of Royal and King's Manuscripts in the British Museum (London 1921) 1.281–3, dismiss it as ‘a scrap of English in a fifteenth-century [sic] hand.’ Google Scholar

17 Index No. 1814; MacCracken, , EETS cvii. 134–5.Google Scholar

18 Prayers, , in order listed, Index Nos. 3671, 2566, 915 and 2445, 531, 2606, 2812, 2513, 1050 (ballade), 2399, 3115, 4243; ten saints, 529.Google Scholar

19 Schirmer, Walter F., John Lydgate (London 1961) 187.Google Scholar

20 Index Nos. 3031 (Godric), 894, 3244, 1058, 413, 1084 (Audelay), 1049, 3072 (Ryman). Others: Angels (914, 2593, 3027), Edmund (1085), George (2902), Helena (2892), John Baptist (528), John Evangelist (2443, 3669), Katherine of Sinai (1813), Mary Magdalen (2993), Robert (Supplement 1038.5, 1048.8, 1078.5), Sebastian (537), Thomas of Canterbury (538 and 1233, antiphon). In addition, two mid-sixteenth-century prayers to St. Winifred in Rylands Lib. Lat. 165, Supplement 854.5 and 1808.5, with various prose devotions, quite late texts, but medieval in style. Not included are a few general hymns or carols definitely not penitential.Google Scholar

21 Index No. 2593. For full description of MS see Falconer Madan and Craster, H. H. E., A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Oxford 1922) 2 Part I, 295–7.Google Scholar

22 Index No. 537. For a ME and a Latin prose prayer to St. Sebastian, see Bodl. SC 21575, Douce 1, a mid-fifteenth-century collection of Latin and ME prayers and devotions for private use; at fol. 81va ME prose prayer, followed by ME couplet rubric, Supplement No. 2659.6: Google Scholar Of the blessed martire saynt Sebastyane Whos greuous paynes none tell can and a Latin prayer; similar introductory couplet to Latin prayer for St. Roch, fol. 81v, Supplement No. 2659.3. For notice of other prayers in this MS see Gray, Douglas, ‘The Five Wounds of Our Lord,’ N & Q 208, n.s. 10 (1963) 50–1. Rubrics and prayers also in sister MS, olim Amherst 20, now Thomson (Portland, Oregon), fols. 13v, 14v; see A Brief Account of the Theological MSS. in the Library of Halliwell, J. O., Esq., Brixton Hill, 1854, No. 5; de Ricci, Seymour, Handlist of… MSS … Lord Amherst of Hackney, 1906; Sotheby Sales Cat. 1909, Item 673. See also Hirsh, John C., ‘Two English Devotional Poems of the Fifteenth Century,’ N & Q 213 n.s. 15 (1968) 4–11.Google Scholar