Early English Meals and Manners

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The Babees Book, Aristotle’s ABC, Urbanitatis, Stans Puer ad Mensam, The Lytylle Childrenes Lytil Boke, For to serve a Lord, Old Symon, The Birched School-Boy, &c. &c.

with some Forewords on Education in Early England.

Edited by FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL, M.A., Trin. Hall, Cambridge.

London: Published for the Early English Text Society by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Limited, Dryden House, 43, Gerrard Street, Soho, W. 1868.

Committee of Management:

Director: DR. FREDERICK J. FURNIVALL, M.A. Treasurer: HENRY B. WHEATLEY, Esq. Hon. Sec.: W. A. DALZIEL, Esq., 67 VICTORIA ROAD, FINSBURY PARK, N. Hon. Secs. for America: { North & East: Prof. G. L. KITTREDGE, Harvard Coll., Cambr., Mass. { South & West: Prof. J. W. BRIGHT, Johns Hopkins Univ., Baltimore.

LORD ALDENHAM, M.A. ISRAEL GOLLANCZ, M.A. SIDNEY L. LEE, M.A., D.Lit. Rev. Prof. J. E. B. MAYOR, M.A. Dr. J. A. H. MURRAY, M.A. Prof. NAPIER, M.A., Ph.D. EDWARD B. PEACOCK, Esq. ALFRED W. POLLARD, M.A. Rev. Prof. WALTER W. SKEAT, Litt.D. Dr. HENRY SWEET, M.A. Dr. W. ALDIS WRIGHT, M.A. (With power to add Workers to their number.)

Bankers: THE UNION BANK OF LONDON, 2, PRINCES STREET, E.C.

The Early English Text Society was started by Dr. Furnivall in 1864 for the purpose of bringing the mass of Old English Literature within the reach of the ordinary student, and of wiping away the reproach under which England had long rested, of having felt little interest in the monuments of her early language and life.

On the starting of the Society, so many Texts of importance were at once taken in hand by its Editors, that it became necessary in 1867 to open, besides the Original Series with which the Society began, an Extra Series which should be mainly devoted to fresh editions of all that is most valuable in printed MSS. and Caxton’s and other black-letter books, though first editions of MSS. will not be excluded when the convenience of issuing them demands their inclusion in the Extra Series.

During the thirty-nine years of the Society’s existence, it has produced, with whatever shortcomings, an amount of good solid work for which all students of our Language, and some of our Literature, must be grateful, and which has rendered possible the beginnings (at least) of proper Histories and Dictionaries of that Language and Literature, and has illustrated the thoughts, the life, the manners and customs of our forefathers and foremothers.

But the Society’s experience has shown the very small number of those inheritors of the speech of Cynewulf, Chaucer, and Shakspere, who care two guineas a year for the records of that speech: ‘Let the dead past bury its dead’ is still the cry of Great Britain and her Colonies, and of America, in the matter of language. The Society has never had money enough to produce the Texts that could easily have been got ready for it; and many Editors are now anxious to send to press the work they have prepared. The necessity has therefore arisen for trying to increase the number of the Society’s members, and to induce its well-wishers to help it by gifts of money, either in one sum or by instalments. The Committee trust that every Member will bring before his or her friends and acquaintances the Society’s claims for liberal support. Until all Early English MSS. are printed, no proper History of our Language or Social Life is possible.

The Subscription to the Society, which constitutes membership, is £1 1s. a year for the ORIGINAL SERIES, and £1 1s. for the EXTRA SERIES, due in advance on the 1st of JANUARY, and should be paid by Cheque, Postal Order, or Money-Order, crost ‘Union Bank of London,’ to the Hon. Secretary, W. A. DALZIEL, Esq., 67, Victoria Rd., Finsbury Park, London, N. Members who want their Texts posted to them, must add to their prepaid Subscriptions 1s. for the Original Series, and 1s. for the Extra Series, yearly. The Society’s Texts are also sold separately at the prices put after them in the Lists; but Members can get back-Texts at one-third less than the List-prices by sending the cash for them in advance to the Hon. Secretary.

-> The Society intends to complete, as soon as its funds will allow, the Reprints of its out-of-print Texts of the year 1866, and also of nos. 20, 26 and 33. Prof. Skeat has finisht Partenay; Dr. McKnight of Ohio King Horn and Floris and Blancheflour; and Dr. Furnivall his Political, Religious and Love Poems and Myrc’s Duties of a Parish Priest. Dr. Otto Glauning has undertaken Seinte Marherete; and Dr. Furnivall has Hali Meidenhad in type. As the cost of these Reprints, if they were not needed, would have been devoted to fresh Texts, the Reprints will be sent to all Members in lieu of such Texts. Though called ‘Reprints,’ these books are new editions, generally with valuable additions, a fact not noticed by a few careless receivers of them, who have complained that they already had the volumes. As the Society’s copies of the Facsimile of the Epinal MS. issued as an Extra Volume in 1883 are exhausted, Mr. J. H. Hessels, M.A., of St. John’s Coll., Cambridge, has kindly undertaken an edition of the MS. for the Society. This will be substituted for the Facsimile as an 1883 book, but will be also issued to all the present Members.

JULY 1904. The Original-Series Texts for 1903 were: No. 122, Part II of The Laud MS. Troy-Book, edited from the unique Laud MS. 595 by Dr. J. E. Wülting; and No. 123, Part II of Robert of Brunne’s Handlyng Synne, and its French original, ed. by Dr. F. J. Furnivall.

The Extra-Series Texts for 1903 are to be: No. LXXXVIII, Le Morte Arthur, in 8-line stanzas, re-edited from the unique MS. Harl. 2252, by Prof. J. Douglas Bruce (issued), No. LXXXIX, Lydgate’s Reason and Sensuality, edited by Dr. Ernst Sieper, Part II, and English Fragments from Latin Medieval Service-Books, edited, and given to the Society, by Mr. Henry Littlehales.

The Original-Series Texts for 1904 will be No. 124, t. Hen. V, Twenty-six Political and other Poems from the Digby MS. 102, &c, edited by Dr. J. Kail, and No. 125, Part I of the Medieval Records of a London City Church (St. Mary-at-Hill), A.D. 1420-1559, copied and edited by Mr. Henry Littlehales from the Church Records in the Guildhall, the cost of the setting and corrections of the text being generously borne by its Editor. This book will show the income and outlay of the church; the drink provided for its Palm-Sunday players, its officers’ excursions into Kent and Essex, its dealing with the Plague, the disposal of its goods at the Reformation, &c., &c., and will help our members to realize the church-life of its time. The third Text will be Part I of An Alphabet of Tales, a very interesting collection, englisht in the Northern Dialect, about 1440, from the Latin Alphabetum Narrationum by Etienne de Bésançon, and edited by Mrs. M. M. Banks from the unique MS. in the King’s Library in the British Museum; the above-named three texts are now ready for issue. Those for 1905 and 1906 will probably be chosen from Part II of the _Exeter Book_--Anglo-Saxon Poems from the unique MS. in Exeter Cathedral--re-edited by Israel Gollancz, M.A.; Part II of Prof. Dr. Holthausen’s Vices and Virtues; Part II of Jacob’s Well, edited by Dr. Brandeis; the Alliterative Siege of Jerusalem, edited by the late Prof. Dr. E. Kölbing and Prof. Dr. Kaluza; an Introduction and Glossary to the Minor Poems of the Vernon MS. by H. Hartley, M.A.; Alain Chartier’s Quadrilogue, edited from the unique MS. Univ. Coll. Oxford MS. No. 85, by Mr. J. W. H. Atkins of Owen’s College; a Northern Verse Chronicle of England to 1327 A.D., in 42,000 lines, about 1420 A.D., edited by M. L. Perrin, B.A.; Prof. Bruce’s Introduction to The English Conquest of Ireland, Part II; and Dr. Furnivall’s edition of the Lichfield Gilds, which is all printed, and waits only for the Introduction, that Prof. E. C. K. Gonner has kindly undertaken to write for the book. Canon Wordsworth of Marlborough has given the Society a copy of the Leofric Canonical Rule, Latin and Anglo-Saxon, Parker MS. 191, C.C.C. Cambridge, and Prof. Napier will edit it, with a fragment of the englisht Capitula of Bp. Theodulf. The Coventry Leet Book is being copied for the Society by Miss M. Dormer Harris--helpt by a contribution from the Common Council of the City,--and will be publisht by the Society (Miss Harris editing), as its contribution to our knowledge of the provincial city life of the 15th century.