Yet they are of great interest and must take an important place amongst English contributions to the Cycle of Troy. in a thick oak-bound

The M. S. itself is contained volume, consisting of some 276 folios, closely and clearly written in a hand-writing of the 15th century. It formed part of the library of Archbishop Laud, and from a halfobliterated entry on the last page something may be learned of its ownership at a much earlier date. The inscription runs as follows:

Wylliam Phylyp
Chambyrleyn

of london å XIIII°

The Guildhall records preserve the entry of the election of William Philip to the Office of Chamberlain of London on S. Matthew's Day, 14 Edw. IV., he being a goldsmith by profession. He was probably brother to Sir Matthew Philip, LordMayor of London in 1463, also a goldsmith, by company and trade, whose will was proved in 1475, the year named in the inscription. The family may have belonged to Herne, for Sir Matthew had estates in that place, and he was buried, with his wife Christine, in Herne Church; possibly both he and William were sons of a William Philip of Herne who died in 1458.

It is impossible to say whether at the time the M.S. came into the hands of the Chamberlain the poem had already begun to be attributed to the authorship of Lydgate.

A note on the first page, in a handwriting later than that of the M.S. itself, states that in the year 1424 Guido's Historia Troiana was translated thus into English by "John Lydgate, monke of Bury".

Warton pointed out the small likelihood that Lydgate should either >transform his own composition into the short minstrel metre, or write two lengthy poems on the same subject. The style of the poem is certainly different from Lydgate's, a simple, straightforward almost bald narrative.

If the theory of Lydgate's authorship be dismissed, the possibility still remains that the preservation of the poem in its present form was due to its being regarded as his. On the other hand, Ten Brink is of opinion) that "the popularity

1) ten Brink's History of English Literature II 224 (1893).

of the Troy Book in England was largely due to Chaucer's Troilus". One would prefer to believe that the present version of the tale deserved and enjoyed some popularity before either Troilus and Creseide was written or Lydgate's work overshadowed its lesser light. The pains and labour required in transcribing a composition of such length would hardly have been expended upon an entirely unknown or unacceptable poem.

§ 2. Date of the Poem,

Undoubtedly several versions of the Troy Tale existed in England prior to Chaucer and Lydgate, notably those of the Hunter M. S. and of M. S. Harley 525 in the British Museum. To these must be added the Oxford poem. Warton indeed assigns it to the reign of Henry VI, but internal evidences are in favour of the earlier date. Putting aside the question of language and dialect, the general style of the poem impresses the reader as more archaic than Chaucer to a degree for which the author's inferiority in literaly skill is not enough

to account.

There

The manner in which the Troilus and Cresseida episode is treated is worth some attention in this connection. are three references to the story, but they are scarcely more than references, and the tale is nowhere told so fully as in Guido, upon whose Historia, as may presently be shown, the whole poem is based. These three passages are fair examples of the style of the poem and are given in full.

(1) He [Diomedes] toke his [Troilus'] hors and lad away
He sente it to the semely may

Until Cresseide pat fair womman
That sumtyme was Troyle lemman
A bischopis douzter that het Calcas
That sumtyme byschop in Troye was
Her mayster byschop of the lawe.

But he was ferd of that sawe
That ther god Saynt Appollo
In Delos yle had sayd him so

He sayde that Troye scholde be distroyed
He was therfore ful sore anoyed

1

He durst not wende to Troye azeyn
For ferd he scholde have ben sclayn
He dwelled stille with the gregeis
Among her ost as Dares sais

Or elles to lese his lyff he wende
Aftir his doughter theder he sende
He prayed the kyng diomedes
In here message and ulixes

When thei delyuered the kyng thoas
For the fader of Polydamas

That thei wolde preye kyng Priamus
To sende hir hom fro sir Troylus
Priamus graunted her prayeres
And sent hir hom withoute dangeres
And diomedes loued here sithen

In hir loue was he so writhen

That he myght not his wille refrayn
And suffred for hir sithen payn

To hir therfore Troylus stede he send

In token of loue and to presend

f. 125.

(2) He fel him [Diomedes] fro his hors swonande
Among her hors ded neyhande

When he was thus on grounde ylayd
Troyle ful foule him missayd

For Brixaida that was his leff

He reuyled him as he were a theff.

f. 198.

(3) Bryxeida that louely was

The Biscopes doghter calcas
That fair louely womman

That sumtyme was sir Troyle lemman
When the tydandes to hir was seyde
That diomedes in bed was layde
Azeyn hir fadur comaundement
To vysite him ful ofte sche went
For sche wiste he toke the falle
Of Troyle that was hir specialle
Sche wiste wel in hir thoght

Of Troyle scholde sche neuer haue noght

Sche hoped neuer of him mariage
Sche chaunged hir wil & corage
Doghti Troyle sche gan forsake
To diomedes sche gan hir take

Sche sayde sche wolde with him dele.
For any man whan he hadde hele
For to him sche gaff all hir talent
For he hadde mechel on hir yspent
And loued hir wel and sche him als
As wymmen doth that often ben fals.

f. 200.

In (2) and (3) it will be seen that the author follows Guido in calling his heroine by the name of Bryxeida or Brixaida. In (1) the name is apparently Cresseide; but in the M.S. the words "Until Cresseide that" are re-written, in another hand, over the place where something has previously been erased.

Probably the author here, as in the other passages, made use of Guido's name Brixeida. The alteration was no doubt due to some one less scrupulous than the original copyist and anxious to correct what must have seemed, to any acquainted with Chaucer's poem, a mere illiterate mistake.

No earlier date than the beginning of the 15th century can well be assigned to the existing copy; it may have been made at a moment when the interest in the old Troy Tale was newly stirred by Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, but with regard to the original date of composition of the poem it is hard to believe that any writer coming after Chaucer would have continued to use the name Brixeida (Lydgate, though he follows Guido, does not) or still more that he could have refrained from giving the now famous episode at least as fully as it appears in Guido. Either the fame of Chaucer had not reached our author, a conclusion one hesitates to draw about the writer of so considerable a poem, and so assiduous a reader of romance; or his work belongs to the years before 1378-83.

It is tempting to define the period yet more exactly and to point to the mention of florins in the possession of the citizens of Troy, as unlikely before 1343 when Edward introduced the coin into English currency:

§ 3. Relation of the Poem to Guido's Historia Troiana.

M. Aristide Joly, in his study of the Roman de Troie already referred to, raised the question whether the Troy Tale of the Laud M.S. was based directly upon the Latin of Guido de Columnia or upon a French version of his Historia Troiana.

There can be no doubt that Guido's work is, in some shape or another, the basis of the English poem. The author refers to it in two passages:

(a) Dares the heraud of Troye sais

And dites that was of the gregeis
For thei were every day in the feld
And alle here dedis thay beheld

And as thei were thei wreten hem bothe
Thei nolde not lette for leef ne lothe

The sothe to say withoute les

Of gode Ector and Achilles

And of alle the gode lordes echon

And of alle here dedis schal lakke non

And aftir hem come Maister Gy

That was of Rome a Notary
And fond her bokes in athenes
Aftirwardes when it was pes
And turned it of grew into latyn
And wrot it faire in parchemyn
In the manere as I schal telle
Hende now herken to my spelle.

(b) Witnes heres her of Dares

And Tites also withoute les

On ayther syde were thei heraudes
In wham myzt be no fraudes

Thei were ther bothe euen & morn
Dares was of Troye born

f. 2.