The Babees' Book: Medieval Manners for the Young: Done Into Modern English

Part 1

Produced by Turgut Dincer, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

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THE NEW MEDIEVAL LIBRARY

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The engraved title on the reverse of this page was adapted by Miss Blanche C. Hunter from B.M. Add. MS. 31240, f. 4.

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THE BABEES’ BOOK:

MEDIEVAL MANNERS FOR THE YOUNG: DONE INTO MODERN ENGLISH FROM DR. FURNIVALL’S TEXTS BY EDITH RICKERT

CHATTO AND WINDUS: LONDON NEW YORK: DUFFIELD & CO. 1908

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All rights reserved

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION xi

THE BABEES’ BOOK 1

THE A B C OF ARISTOTLE 9

URBANITATIS 11

THE LITTLE CHILDREN’S LITTLE BOOK 16

THE YOUNG CHILDREN’S BOOK 21

STANS PUER AD MENSAM 26

HOW THE GOOD WIFE TAUGHT HER DAUGHTER 31

HOW THE WISE MAN TAUGHT HIS SON 43

JOHN RUSSELL’S BOOK OF NURTURE 47

THE BOOK OF COURTESY 79

SYMON’S LESSON OF WISDOM FOR ALL MANNER 122 CHILDREN

HUGH RHODES’S BOOK OF NURTURE 126

Part 2

FRANCIS SEAGER’S SCHOOL OF VIRTUE 141

RICHARD WESTE’S SCHOOL OF VIRTUE, THE SECOND 157 PART, OR THE YOUNG SCHOLAR’S PARADISE

NOTES 179

FOOTNOTES 204

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ILLUSTRATIONS

THE SCHOOL OF ARISTOTLE Cotton, MS. Aug. A. Frontispiece 5, fol. 103.

“DE LA DISPUTATION Q’ FIST CATHON A SOY 44 MESMES ET CONTRE SON CORPZ A SA MORT” Royal MS. 16 G. viii., fol. 324.

“CY PARLE DUNE GRANT FESTE QUE LE ROY RICHARD 54 DENGLETERRE FIST A LONDRES” Royal MS. 14 E. iv., fol. 265b.

“IF THOU BE A YOUNG INFANT” Harl. MS. 621, 85 fol. 71.

JOHN OF GAUNT RECEIVES A CIVIC DEPUTATION 112 Royal MS. 14 E. iv., fol. 169b.

“WHO SPARETH THE ROD, THE CHILD HATETH” B.M. 126 Add. MS. 31240, fol. 4.

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INTRODUCTION

NEARLY forty years ago, Dr. Furnivall collected for the Early English Text Society “divers treatises touching the Manners and Meals of Englishmen in former days.” Some of these were published in 1868, under the title The Babees’ Book, and others, chiefly of later date, in 1869, under the title Queene Elizabethes Achademy.

These two volumes, with their introductions and illustrative matter, to my mind present the most vivid picture of home life in medieval England that we have. Aside from their general human interest, they are valuable to the student of social history, and almost essential to an understanding of the literature of their time. The whole fabric of the romances was based upon the intricate system of “courtesy” as here set forth, and John Russell furnishes an interesting comment on Chaucer and his school, as do Rhodes and Seager and Weste on the writers of the sixteenth century. Finally, among these treatises, there is many a plum by the way for the seeker of proverbs, curious lore, superstitions, literary oddities. And as comparatively few people have time or inclination to worry through antiquated English, Dr. Furnivall has long wished that the substance of his collections might be presented in modern form. Therefore this little volume has been undertaken.

Doubtless unwritten codes of behaviour are coeval with society; but the earliest treatises that we possess emphasize morals rather than manners. Even the late Latin author known as Dionysius Cato (fourth century?), whose maxims were constantly quoted, translated, imitated, and finally printed during the late Middle Ages, does not touch upon the niceties of conduct that we call manners; wherefore one John Garland, an Englishman educated at Oxford, who lived much in France during the first half of the thirteenth century, felt bound to supplement Cato on these points. His work, entitled Liber Faceti: docens mores hominum, precipue iuuenum, in supplementum illorum qui a moralissimo Cathone erant omissi iuuenibus utiles, is alluded to as Facet in the first piece in this volume, and serves as basis for part of the Book of Courtesy.

But, earlier than this, Thomasin of Zerklaere, about 1215, wrote in German a detailed treatise on manners called Der Wälsche Gast. And in 1265, Dante’s teacher, Brunetto Latini, published his Tesoretto, which was soon followed by a number of similar treatises in Italian.

While we need not hold with the writer of the Little Children’s Little Book, that courtesy came down from heaven when Gabriel greeted the Virgin, and Mary and Elizabeth met, we must look for its origin somewhere; and inasmuch as, in its medieval form at least, it is closely associated with the practices of chivalry, we may not unreasonably suppose it to have appeared first in France. And although most of the extant French treatises belong to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, a lost book of courtesy, translated by Thomasin of Zerklaere, is sometimes held, on good grounds, to have been derived from French, rather than from Italian.

In any case, such of the English books as were not taken immediately from Latin, came from French sources. To be sure, there is a Saxon poem, based it would seem on Cato, though by no means a translation, called A Father’s Instructions to his Son; but this, although it is greatly exercised about the child’s soul, takes no thought for his finger-nails or his nose.

It is not, therefore, surprising to find that nearly all English words denoting manners are of French origin—courtesy, villainy, nurture, dignity, etiquette, debonaire, gracious, polite, gentilesse, &c., while to balance them I can, at this moment, recall only three of Saxon origin—thew (which belongs rather to the list of moral words in which Old English abounds), churlish and wanton (without breeding), both of which, significantly enough, are negative of good manners.

The reason for the predominance of the French terms is simply that “French use these gentlemen,” as one old writer puts it; that is, from the Conquest until the latter part of the fourteenth century the language of the invaders prevailed almost entirely among the upper classes, who, accordingly, learned their politeness out of French or Latin books; and it was only with the growth of citizenship and English together, that these matters came to be discussed in this latter tongue for the profit of middle-class children, as well as of the “bele babees” at Court.

We must suppose, from numerous hints and descriptions, that an elaborate system of manners and customs prevailed long before it was codified. The Bayeux tapestry (eleventh century) shows a feast, with a server kneeling to serve, his napkin about his neck, as John Russell prescribes some four hundred years later.

The romances again, alike in French and in English, describe elaborate ceremonies, and allude constantly to definite laws of courtesy. Now and again we find a passage that sets forth the ideal gentleman. Young Horn, for example, was taught “skill of wood and river” (hunting and hawking), carving, cup-bearing, and harping “with his nails sharp.” Child Florent showed his high birth by his love of horse, hawk, and armour, and by his contempt of gold; but he was not thought ill-mannered to laugh when his foster-father and mother fell down in their attempt to draw a rusty sword from its scabbard! Chaucer’s Squire might well have been brought up on a treatise similar to those included in this volume:

“Well could he sit on horse and fairly ride; He could songs make and fair could he indite, Joust and eke dance, and well portray and write.

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Courteous he was, lowly, and serviceáble, And carved before his father at the table.”

But the Prioress outmatched him, having possibly learned her manners in the French of “Stratford-atte-Bowe,” in Les Contenances de la Table, or some such thing:

Part 3

“At meatë well y-taught was she withal, She let no morsel from her lippës fall, Nor wet her fingers in her saucë deep: Well could she carry a morsel, and well keep, That no dropë did fall upon her breast; In courtesy was set full much her lest. Her over-lippë wipéd she so clean, That in her cup there was no farthing seen Of grease, when she drunken had her draught. Full seemëly after her meat she raught, And certainly she was of great desport, And full pleasant, and amiable of port; And painéd her to counterfeitë cheer Of court, and to be stately in mannér, And to be holden digne of reverence.”

These maxims were versified that they might be the more easily remembered, as we know from various expressions, notably “Learn or be Lewd” (ignorant), which occurs at the end of several pieces. In 1612 the principle was stated explicitly, “because children will learn that book with most readiness and delight through the running of the metre, as it is found by experience.” And the fact that versified treatises on manners formed part of the schooling of that day, brings up the subject of medieval education.

In the first place, this cannot be understood until we have set aside our modern ideas of master and servant. The old point of view is picturesquely summed up in a pamphlet of 1598, quoted by Dr. Furnivall.

“Amongst what sort of people should then this serving-man be sought for? Even the duke’s son preferred page to the prince, the earl’s second son attendant upon the duke, the knight’s second son the earl’s servant, the esquire’s son to wear the knight’s livery, and the gentleman’s son the esquire’s serving-man. Yea, I know at this day gentlemen, younger brothers that wear their elder brother’s blue coat and badge, attending him with as reverent regard and dutiful obedience as if he were their prince or sovereign. Where was then in the prime of this profession Goodman Tomson’s Jack, or Robin Rush, my Gaffer Russet-coat’s second son? The one holding the plough, the other whipping the cart-horse, labouring like honest men in their vocation. Trick Tom the tailer was then a tiler for this trade; as strange to find a blue coat on his back, with a badge on his sleeve, as to take Kent Street without a scold, or Newmarket Heath without a highwayman. But now, being lapped in his livery, he thinketh himself as good a man, with the shears at his back, as the Poet Laureate with a pen in his ear.”

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