Finally, Alex. 4518, 'pat hathill at on hize sittis,' is almost certainly imitated from the Gawain-poet, with whom, as we have seen, such periphrases for God are characteristic and distinctive. This is a plain indication that the author of The Wars is the borrower, a relationship that the late date1 of The Wars, which there is no good reason for doubting, would in any case require.

2

The most obvious case of imitation of the Gawain-poet is that in Death and Life. Unmistakable evidences of the influence of Piers Plowman on Death and Life, especially in the treatment of the allegory, were long ago pointed out by Skeat. That the poet of Death and Life was also familiar with Purity, and indebted to its author for a number of phrases, may be seen from the lines cited in the notes. In addition to these proofs of borrowing from the Gawain-poet, the dependence of Death and Life is patent from the use of the peculiar absolute construction which was characteristic of the former. This appears in the two lines: 86 & shee the most gracyous groome that on the ground longed 157 & shee the ffoulest ffreake that formed was euer.

This construction occurs nowhere, I believe, in the whole range of alliterative verse, except in these two poets.

It may be stated with certainty, then, that the works of the poet of Purity, though preserved to us in only one manuscript, were known and admired by his fellow-craftsmen in the composition of alliterative verse. And there is a satisfaction in realizing that the authors of Death and

1

Wells (p. 103) says 'of date 1400-1450 or about 1450.'

In the introduction to Death and Life in Hales and Furnivall, Bishop Percy's Folio Manuscript 3. 49-55. Cf. Hanford and Steadman, Death and Life (North Carolina Studies in Philology 15. 246-8).

3

See notes on 11. 195, 223, 242, 521, 1267. Pat. 32 is reflected in Death and Life 107: 'Dame Mirth, & Dame Meekenes & Dame

Mercy the hynd.'

'Cf. p. xvii.

Life and the pretentious Wars of Alexander, and probably others, recognized in this poet, as we do to-day, a skilled artist in a difficult form of verse, and a master of poetic expression.

IV. DATE

The works of the author of Purity are vaguely assigned to the last half, generally the last forty years, of the fourteenth century. Morris' final judgment placed the poems about 13602; Trautmann thought that 1370 or 1380 would be more probable3; Ten Brink believed that the poet wrote in the sixties or seventies. But apart from the evidences of the manuscript (c. 1400)5 and the language, little positive evidence has been adduced for the more precise dating of the poems within the period 1360-1400. The attempts to date Gawain by means of a possible connection with the Order of the Garter' are worthless, as this connection now

1 For the probable influence of the Gawain-poet on Piers Plowman, see pp. xxix ff. Cf. Gollancz (Camb. Hist. 1. 373): 'So far as we can judge from these extant poems, the most gifted poet of the school was the author of Sir Gawayne and the Grene Knight: he may well have been regarded as the master, and his influence on more northern poets, and on alliterative poetry generally, may explain in part, but not wholly, the parallel passages which link his work with that of other poets of the school, who used the same formulae, the same phrases and, at times, repeated whole lines, much in the same way as poets of the Chaucerian school spoke the language of their master.'

5 Cf. p. vi.

Fick, Zum Mittelenglischen Gedicht von der Perle (Kiel, 1885), p. 3.

'Gollancz (ed. Pearl, p. xlii) suggests 1360, certainly later than 1345, the probable date of foundation of the Order; cf. Schofield, English Literature from the Norman Conquest to Chaucer (1906), pp. 215, 217. Isaac Jackson (Angl. 37. 395-6) dates precisely 1362, when Lionel became Duke of Clarence.

appears extremely improbable. If The Pearl, as seems reasonably certain, was influenced by one of Boccaccio's eclogues of about 1360, The Pearl must have been written at least several years after that date. The indubitable dependence of Purity on the French version of Mandeville's Travels, probably written in 1355 or 1356, although the oldest (French) manuscript is dated 1371, led C. F. Brown3 to say that it is scarcely possible that the Mandeville was known in England before this latter date.' But as there is no reason why an earlier manuscript than the oldest one extant might not have strayed over to England, the poet's borrowing from Mandeville demonstrates only that Purity was written after 1355-6.

Various attempts have been made to arrive at a more definite date for Purity and Patience by establishing some relationship between them and Piers Plowman. Trautmann's suggestion that certain passages in the homiletic poems were written under the influence of Piers Plowman was elaborated by Miss Thomas.5 Her arguments are such as this: 'that the first six portions of Bible history treated in Cleanness (Purity) . . are all found as episodes in Piers Plowman.' C. F. Brown, in discussing the inconclusiveness of Miss Thomas' evidence, points out that 'when one considers that more than a score of Biblical episodes might be reckoned up in the pages of Piers Plowman, it does not seem very significant that there should be

1 Cf. Hulbert, Mod. Phil. 13. 710 ff.

2 Schofield, Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass. 19. 203 ff.

4

'Publ. Mod. Lang. Ass. 19. 153.

Über Verf., p. 32.

Sir Gawayne, pp. 27-32. The passages compared are: Piers B. 13. 384, Pat. 9; Piers B. 10. 342, 11. 310, 14. 191-2, 214-7, 259, 270-1, 274, Pat. 1-8, 35-53, 525-31; Piers B. 16. 97-126, Pur. 1085-1105; Piers B. 15. 455-7, Pur. 55 ff.; Piers B. 1. 109-25, Pur. 205-24; Piers B. 9. 129, Pur. 285; Piers B. 14. 39-44, Pur. 530-7.

Bubl. Mod. Lang. Ass. 19. 123, n. 2. In this note Brown criticizes other points in Miss Thomas' argument.

several episodes common to both poems.' The few verbal similarities which Miss Thomas was able to find are utterly worthless as indications either of borrowing or of reminiscence. Such an expression as wylde worme (z) (Piers Plow. B. 14. 41, Pur. 533) occurs also in Awntyrs of Arthure (Douce MS. 216), and in any case might as well be borrowed by the author of Piers Plowman as by the author of Purity. The evidence for dating Purity after 1377, the date of the B-version of Piers Plowman, is therefore entirely insufficient.

Recently, in his edition of Patience, Bateson, though he brought forward no new evidence, was inclined to accept the theory of some relationship between Piers Plowman and the Gawain-poet, but he disagreed with Miss Thomas in assuming that it was Purity and Patience that influenced the B-author of Piers Plowman (1377). The only important evidence in these discussions of the possible relationship between the Gawain-poet and the author(s) of Piers Plowman is the connection between the virtues of Poverty and Patience which both poets emphasize. It is not unlikely that the persistent recurrence of this idea in the B-version of Piers may be due to the importance attached to it in Patience. If this influence be admitted, Patience must be dated before 1377.

1

A verbal similarity more important than any hitherto

1 Pp. xxiv-viii. Bateson's acceptance of Manly's theories regarding the separate authorship of Piers Plowman led him, in the appendix to his first edition of Patience, to propound some very bold and highly complicated arguments for the more accurate dating of the poems. In his second edition he has wisely abandoned these theories, and with his modified views of the relationship between the Gawain-poet and Piers Plowman I thoroughly agree.

2 Cf. Pat. 35 ff. Note that the B-version says (10. 340-2): 'And patriarkes and prophetes and poetes bothe preyseden pouerte with pacience.' Bateson (pp. xxvii-viii) refers to the association of the two virtues by Augustine and the Franciscans.

pointed out is the line which occurs in the famous episode of the belling of the cat in Piers Plowman:

Pur. 1638 And þe byze of bry3t golde abowte þyn nekke. Piers Plow. C. 1. 178 Bere byzes of bryst gold al about hure neckes,

where the B-version (Prolog. 161) has:

Beren bizes ful brizte abouten here nekkes.

This remarkable resemblance is the more noteworthy since the line in Purity is a literal translation of the Vulgate torquem auream circa collum tuum (Dan. 5. 16). It might be deduced from this that the C-version must have revised the B-version, and made it conform more exactly to the line in Purity, which must be the original, since the poet is here simply translating his source. But the present uncertainty about the manuscripts of Piers Plowman prevents the acceptance of the B-text at its face value. Whatever the exact nature of the relationship of the B and C versions may be, it seems plain that Piers Plowman is here imitating Purity.

More definite conclusions may be reached concerning the relative chronology of the four works of the Gawain-poet, although even on this point there has been flat disagreement among scholars. According to Ten Brink, the order of the poems was Gawain, Pearl, Purity, Patience.1 But this arrangement was closely associated with, and is really dependent upon, the purely fictitious life of the poet that Ten Brink attempted to reconstruct. It is unnecessary, at this date, to show that Patience offers no ground for supposing its author 'an aging poet who has felt the pains of poverty and privation." We know nothing of the

2 Ibid. 1. 351. Gollancz still clings in his hypothetical biography of the poet to Ten Brink's order (Camb. Hist. 1. 369-70; Encycl. Brit., 11th ed., under Pearl; Preface to ed. of Patience); but he states it cautiously and only as a probability. For criticism of