A Note On A Christian Mannes Bileeve, Robert Holcot’s Convertimini, and ‘Lere You Vnkynde Man’ (NIMEV 1846 / DIMEV 3042)

ORCID iD: 0000-0001-8939-3629
ISSN: Print 2754-4575
ISSN: Online 2754-4583
DOI: 10.57686/256204/28

© 2023 Nicole D. Smith
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY)

In the introduction and commentary to my recent edition of the Middle English explanation of the Apostles’ Creed, known as A Christian Mannes Bileeve (hereafter CMB), I noted that Robert Holcot’s Convertimini, a collection in Latin of moral appeals used by preachers for their homilies, furnishes the source of the CMB’s exemplum of birds dying in the woods during the Passion week.¹ Since the publication of the edition, I have come to the conclusion that this Latin exemplum in Convertimini directly influences the Middle English peroration that concludes the vernacular exemplum in CMB. Furthermore, verbal parallels exist between the peroration and the unique Middle English quatrain preceding the exemplum, ‘Lere you vnkynde man to be kynde’.² This note thus demonstrates the CMB-writer’s reliance on Robert Holcot’s sermon materials not only as the source for the vernacular exemplum but also as the inspiration for the entire sequence of lyric, exemplum, and peroration as it appears in CMB.

In using Holcot’s sermon materials to inform this sequence, the CMB-writer provides evidence that Latinate homiletic materials had far-reaching influence on a variety of genres used to encourage pious reflection in private devotional settings. Such a move differs from the popular public practice to use verses in sermons to emphasize doctrine, noted by A. J. Fletcher and S. Wenzel respectively.³ As Fletcher notes, homilists would procure poetry to command attention and to make eternal consequences pleasurably memorable in their sermons. Wenzel, too, highlights poetry’s power to distill lessons in ways that can be easily recalled, and he is not surprised to see these mnemonic verses ‘spill over’ into other genres than the sermon.⁴ Such verses succinctly summarize pithy points that needed to be internalized and, according to Wenzel, they ‘very often borrow from such earlier reductions and collections directly’.⁵ In the case of CMB, the unique lyric ‘Lere you vnkynde man to be kynde’ appears to derive from a peroration that Holcot crafted to summarize a central lesson from a Latin exemplum. By placing a vernacular explanation of the Creed in creative conversation with a Latin text like Holcot’s Convertimini, the CMB-writer asks readers to rethink the argument that Latin and Middle English exist often as distinct binaries that are placed habitually in competition.⁶ Instead of understanding ‘clericus–laicus’, ‘father-tongue–lingua materna’, ‘auctoritas–experientia’ as ‘symbolic dichotomies’ that distinguish Latin from English, readers of CMB might instead perceive the work as offering a bridge between these pairings across language, genre, and space.⁷ In this way, CMB demonstrates that Latin homiletic materials influence creative writers producing vernacular texts for private devotion designed, as is the case of CMB, specifically for women.⁸

Because CMB is relatively unknown, I reproduce lines 500–37, which present the sequence of the original verse (which is written without line-breaks or any other distinguishing marks in all of the MSS), the vernacular exemplum (a translation and expansion of Holcot’s Latin), and its peroration. The sequence appears at the end of CMB’s explanation of the fourth Article of the Faith, ‘He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried’. Alluding to Romans 6:23, in which Paul notes that the wages of sin is death, CMB positions animal behaviour in relation to humanity’s better ability to register love, kindness, and gratitude to set up the following sequence of lyric, exemplum, and peroration. Note that I underline verbal similarities, at the introduction and conclusion of the exemplum, use accent marks (&;grave; ´) to indicate insertions by the scribe, provide glosses in brackets, and embolden the lyric, which precedes the start of the exemplum. I have also preserved the tendency of the scribe of Washington D.C., Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections MS 4 to use the single grapheme ‘y’ for both ‘y’ and ‘þ’, a practice that was popular for texts copied or produced in northern England in the late-fourteenth and early-fifteenth centuries.⁹ The text reads:

And Paule sais yat rewarde of synne is ded [death], ye whilk ded first bygan in Abel his maystrye forto kynde yat come to him for syne of his fader. If yat Adam so long tyme murned for ye deed [death] of Abell, ye whilk ded he wist byfell for his syne, wid vnmetely more skill Cristen man augh to murne sore and hertly wepe ye ded of Ihesu Crist, yat for his syne so mekely dyed on ye rode and so schomfully was pynned. If yat best yat is skilfull als man, ye whilk man is skilfull of kynde, ne may noght stire ye forto haue pite and reuth of ye pyne and ye ded of Ihesu Crist. Lere you vnkynd man to be kynde, of beste yat haues no skil of kynde, hou you dos scham to yi kynde, bot you to Ihesu Crist be kynde.

It was ane Englysch man yat went in pilgremage to ye Haly Londe forto wite forto lede him and schew him ye wnders [wonders] of yat land of ye whilk yis was ane. Ye Sarazyne broght him into a fayre wod yat was alle sett wid fayre hegh trees. Yis pilgryme when he was in yis wod he stode still and listende if yat he might se any foulel [fowl] syng bot none he herde ne sagh stirand. He stode long and bihelde ye faire trees and ye faire bogthes [boughs] and, als he yhus scharpely loked, he sagh ly mony faire briddes deed in yhe bogthes sp`r´erde out yaire wenges of ye maner of a croice. When ye pilgreme sagh yis, he frayned at ye Sarazyne what yat it might be mene yat so many briddes in ye bogthes lien ded and so made croice [cross] of yhamseluen. Ye Sarazyne andswerd yat thurghtout alle ye yere were grett plente of foulthes [fowl] meryly sigand [singing] bot in yat fouretennynght yat ye grett prophete dyed yhan were yai ale deed, and yen yat tyme yat yis pilgryme sagh yis was ye Passiun comen in yen said ye Sarazyne to ye pilgryme. After he said yat ye Cristen men recken ye last sounday yat was yen come in ye Passiun of ye prophete als ye telle, and yen bigan alle yher foulthes to dye and sall yus lye alle fulle fourtene days and ye fyfftene day, yat ye calen Pasch day, yai sall rysen agayne to ye lyfe and schul synge and make mirth foryhi he said yat als yat tyme yat is in ye first Sounday of ye Passiun yai murnned to yhe ded for ye prophete, yai whickende agayne wid him to ye lyfe and sithen alle ye yere yai lyuen in yis wod wid luuely song, mirth, and ioy.

Sithen yen yat beste yat wantes kyndly skill, swilk takenyng of luue schewed to oure louerd Ihesu Crist, of murnyng and of pite, wid vnmetely more skil, man yat haues skil of kynd augh to luue Ihesu Crist and haue reuth and pite of his ded and yat shewe in vttre beryng for non oither creature ne non oither enchesun tholed Crist ded on ye rode bot for man one (ll. 510–37).

While Holcot’s Latin exemplum does not appear in CMB, it stands as the source for the above vernacular account and appears to influence both this peroration and the lines directly preceding the exemplum. Holcot’s version reads as follows:

Erat quis anglicus ad terram sanctam profectus qui multum fuit curiosus ad videndum mirabilia. Conduxit quemdam saracenum ut sibi ostenderet aliqua. Inter que hoc vnum accidit: quod cum transiret quoddam nemus pulchrum habens arbores pulchras et proceras nullam tamen auem audivit cantantem et respiciens vidit super ramos aues pulchrimas et plures mortuas iacentes, alis expansis ad modum cruces. Cumque quereret anglicus a saraceno causam illius rei, respondit saracenus: per totum annum in isto nemore est habundancia avium magna et eorum cantus suavissimus, sed in ebdomata passionis qua propheta magnus passus est, omnes moriuntur et etiam tunc ebdomata passionis. & ait saracenus: domenica in passione incipiunt mori & domenica ad quindecimam [diem], scilicet in die pasce, reviviscunctur & tamen resumunt quasi suam mortem usque ad mortem condolentes; pro sua resureccione fiunt gaudentes. Si hic faciunt aues animalia irrationabilia multa magis homo cum sit rationalis saluatori suo compati deberet. Pro nulla enim creatura nisi pro solo homine passus est sed inter alias creaturas homo maiorem ingratitudinem ostendit domino nam in passione sua alie creature passe sunt.

[There was an English man who departed to the holy land who was very curious to see wonders. He hired a certain Saracen so that he might show him some (wonders). Among them this one happened: that when he crossed a certain beautiful wood having beautiful, tall trees, he heard however no bird singing and looking about he saw on the branches beautiful birds and many lying dead, wings spread out in the manner of a cross. When the Englishman asked the Saracen the cause of this event, the Saracen responded: ‘Through the entire year in that wood there is a great abundance of birds and from them the sweetest song, but in the week of the Passion that great prophet suffered, all die even at that time in the week of the passion’. The Saracen said: ‘On the Sunday in the Passion they begin to die and on Sunday the fifteenth day, namely on Easter day, they are restored to life. Nevertheless, they take up, as it were, His death, grieving to the point of death; because of His resurrection they are made joyful. If bird animals without reason act this way, how much more ought humankind to grieve for its Savior. Indeed, He suffered for no creature save humankind alone, but among all creatures humankind showed a greater ingratitude to the Lord for at his Passion all of His other creatures suffered’.]¹⁰

The CMB-writer translates and adapts Holcot across peroration, exemplum, and lyric to encourage intimate and personalized devotion on the core tenets of the faith. At the conclusion of the vernacular exemplum, the CMB-writer presents a peroration that revisits the topic of ‘bestial’ behaviour since the exemplum has shown that birds mourn the death of Christ by dying themselves and return to life with joy and merriment upon Christ’s resurrection. Imaginatively repeating ‘skil’ and ‘kynde’, the scribe recalls the play on those same words in ‘Lere you vnkynd man to be kynde’, in which the lyric instructs the unkind man to ‘be kynde’ in comparison to the beast who does not possess any natural reason (‘of beste yat haues no skil of kynde). CMB returns to this same theme after the exemplum: ‘Sithen yen yat beste yat wantes kyndly skill, swilk takenyng of luue schewed to oure louerd Ihesu Crist of murnyng and of pite, wid vnmetely more skil, man yat haues skil of kynd augh to luue Ihesu Crist and haue reuth and pite of his ded and yat shewe in vttre beryng’ (ll. 533–36) [Seeing that, then, that animal, which lacks natural understanding, showed such an indication of love to our Lord Jesus Christ out of mourning and of pity with immeasurably more expertise, man, who has natural understanding, ought to love Jesus Christ and have compassion and pity concerning his death and thus show that in his physical bearing]. The mention of an animal that lacks natural understanding [wantes kyndly skill (l. 533)] and man who has it [man yat haues skil of kynd (l. 535)] appears to be a translation and expansion of Holcot’s ‘Si hic faciunt aues animalia irrationabilia multa magis homo cum sit rationalis saluatori suo compati deberet’ [If bird animals without reason act this way, how much more ought a person, who is rational, grieve for his Savior]. While Holcot briefly differentiates birds from humankind, the CMB-writer overlooks ‘birds’ [aues] and focuses on ‘animalia’ [beasts]. Then, CMB compares ‘beasts’ to ‘man’, with the former lacking intellectual faculties and the latter possessing natural reason. This difference communicates an analogous message that humans should behave more reasonably than animals. Despite the lack of direct translation between ‘birds’ in the Latin and ‘beasts’ in the English, the chiasmus-like construction between ‘animalia irrationabilia […] homo cum sit rationalis’ in Holcot’s Convertimini appears in CMB in the form of ‘yat beste yat wantes kyndly skill’ and ‘man yat haues skil of kynd’, as if the CMB-writer were taking a cue from Holcot. If that is indeed the case, then the verbal echo and analogous rhetorical construction suggest a through-line that begins with Holcot’s exemplum, extends to the peroration, and even informs the lyric ‘Lere you vnkynde man’.

Given the verbal parallels between animal and human behaviours in response to Christ’s crucifixion, the path from Holcot to ‘Lere you vnkynde man’ seems to run backwards from the peroration at ll. 533–37 to the lyric and its preceding remarks at ll. 503–09. Both peroration and introductory remarks to the lyric note that the Christian responds ‘wid vnmetely more skil’ (ll. 503, 534–35) to Christ’s death. The directive that man should ‘haue reuth and pite of [Christ’s] ded’ (ll. 535–36) is echoed in inverse order and slightly expanded prior to the lyric: man should ‘haue pite and reuth of ye pyne and ye ded of Ihesu Crist’ (ll. 506–07). Both instances describe Christ on the cross: his death ‘on ye rode’ (l. 537) or that he died ‘on the rode’ (ll. 504–05). And there is a verbal echo of mourning: in the peroration, there is mention ‘of murnyng and of pite’ (l. 534) and before the lyric, there is a suggestion for the Christian to ‘murne sore and hertly wepe’ (ll. 503–04) at Christ’s death. Where the peroration begins with a comparison of beast to human and encourages a demonstration of love, the remarks prior to the lyric operate conversely: they begin with human behaviours and then extend to animal tendencies. In particular, CMB compares Adam’s longing for Abel to a Christian’s longing for Christ as an analogy for the difference between human and animal responses to the crucifixion. Through the repetition of ‘skil’ and ‘kind’, CMB notes that a Christian has ‘vnmetely more skill’ (l. 503) [immeasurably more reason] than Adam, and therefore ought ‘to murne sore and hertly wepe ye ded of Ihesu Crist’ (ll. 503–04) [to mourn and genuinely weep at the death of Jesus Christ]. The CMB-writer then crafts the following conditional phrase to highlight the faculty of reason [skil] that allows the Christian — as opposed to the Old Testament Adam — to grieve appropriately for Christ’s death: ‘If yat Adam so long tyme murned for ye deed of Abell, […] wid vnmetely more skill Cristen man augh to murne sore and hertly wepe ye ded of Ihesu Crist […].’ (ll. 502–04) [If Adam mourned the death of Abel for so long, then with immeasurably more reason the Christian ought to mourn and weep over the death of Christ]. The CMB-writer furthermore emphasizes the differences between a human’s reason and a beast’s lack thereof through repeating a syntactical variation of ‘skil’: ‘If yat best yat is skilfull als man, ye whilk man is skilfull of kynde, ne may noght stire ye forto haue pite and reuth of ye pyne and ye ded of Ihesu Crist’ (ll. 505–07) [If that animal that is reasonable like man, who possesses natural understanding, might you not be moved to have pity and sorrow for the pain and death of Jesus Christ]. Highlighting ‘beast’ and ‘skill’ as key concepts, the CMB-writer then turns to the lyric and exemplum as if to use different forms and genres to reinforce the lesson of human kindness.

Poetry’s partnership with exemplum in a work of private devotion allows for a map of salvation to be drawn across forms and genres with a clear path from Holcot to the lyric by way of the Middle English peroration. The text presents a unique lyric with metrical irregularity that plays on multiple meanings of the word, ‘kynde’, to redeliver a comparison between animal and human behaviours, culminating in appropriate comportment towards God:

‘Lere you vnkynde man to be kynde,
of beste yat haues no skil of kynde.
Hou you dos scham to yi kynde!
Bot you to Ihesu Crist be kynde’ (ll. 507–09)

[Learn to be natural/benevolent, unkind man,
apart from a beast that is without instinctive moral feeling.
How you shame your fellow human beings!
Be obedient/dutiful to Jesus Christ].

This quatrain makes explicit a play on four discrete denotations of Middle English ‘kind’: man must learn to be ‘kynde’ — either ‘well disposed towards one’s kin’ (MED, ‘kinde’, adj, 4a) or ‘benevolent’ (MED, ‘kinde’, adj, 5a) — because if a beast has no natural understanding (MED, ‘skil’, n, ‘kinde skil’, 1b) then how can man, who possesses such rationality, behave in such a way that shames his own kindred (MED, ‘kinde’, n, 10c)? As the quatrain exhorts, one should be obedient, loving, and faithful to Christ (MED, ‘kynde’, adj., 4a, 5a, or 6b). This sentiment echoes that of the phrase immediately preceding the lyric: ‘If yat best yat is skilfull als man, ye whilk man is skilfull of kynde, ne may noght stire ye forto haue pite and reuth of ye pyne and ye ded of Ihesu Crist’. Like this aforementioned phrase, the lyric uses words, such as ‘bestes’ and ‘skil of kynde’, to appeal for kindness towards Christ.

By including the differentiation between man and beast at the conclusion of the exemplum, where Holcot inserts his, and also at its introduction, the CMB-writer enacts syntactically the reminder advanced by the work more broadly. Both instances measure the ‘kindly skill’ of a ‘beast’ against that of man whose natural understanding should prompt him to ‘haue reuth and pite of [Christ’s] ded [death]’ (ll. 535–36). The language appears nearly verbatim in the statements that both open and close the exemplum: man is ‘skilfull of kynde’ (l. 506) at the introduction to the exemplum and has ‘skil of kynde’ (l. 535). Given these and the other aforementioned verbal similarities between the lyric, exemplum, and summary of human kindness at the exemplum’s end, it would appear that Holcot’s Latin exemplum serves as inspiration for ‘Lere you vnkynd man’. Recognizing Holcot’s Convertimini as a basis for both a popular exemplum and a unique verse reveals that Latin sermon materials, like those in Convertimini, were used as creative impulses for works extending to private devotion.

1 A Christian Mannes Bileeve: Edited from Washington, Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections, MS 4, ed. by Nicole D. Smith (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2021), pp. xlii and 37–38. The exemplum is #639 in Frederic C. Tubach, Index Exemplorum: A Handbook of Religious Tales, FF Communications, 204 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1969), p. 53. For Holcot’s Convertimini and its manuscript witnesses, see Beryl Smalley, ‘Robert Holcot, O. P.’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 26 (1956), pp. 5–97 (pp. 8–9); and A Christian Mannes Bileeve, ed. by N. Smith, pp. xliv–xlvi.

2 ‘Lere you vnkynde man to be kynde’ is catalogued as NIMEV 1846 in Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, A New Index of Middle English Verse (London: British Library, 2005) and DIMEV 3042 in DIMEV: Digital Index of Middle English Verse, ed. by Linne R. Mooney, D. W. Mosser, Elizabeth Solopova, and others https://www.dimev.net [accessed 18 October 2022]. I have previously corrected the source of ‘Lere you vnkynde man to be kynde’ in ‘Middle English Lyrics, Homo vide, and A Christian Mannes Bileeve’, Notes & Queries, 62 (2015), 17–22. DIMEV 3042 lists only two of the four sources for the lyric: Cambridge, University Library, Ii.1.2, f. 127ra–127rb (heretofore abbreviated as C); and Washington D.C., Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections, MS 4, f. 72v (abbreviated as Lc). Missing are London, British Library, Harley MS 978, f. 94r–v (abbreviated as H) and London, Lambeth Palace, MS 3597, f. 85v (abbreviated as Lp).

3 A. J. Fletcher, Late Medieval Popular Preaching in Britain and Ireland: Texts, Studies, and Interpretations, Sermo: Studies on Patristic, Medieval, and Reformation Sermons and Preaching, 5 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), pp. 273–305 and S. Wenzel, Verses in Sermons: Fasciculus morum and its Middle English Poems, The Medieval Academy of America, Publication 87 (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1978), pp. 63–65. The seminal study is G. R. Owst, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England: A Neglected Chapter in the History of English Letters and the English People, 2nd edn (Oxford: Blackwell, 1961; repr. 1966).

4 S. Wenzel, p. 65.

5 S. Wenzel, p. 69.

6 Nicole D. Smith, ‘The Thinking Heart of Female Spirituality and the Apostles’ Creed in A Christian Mannes Bileeve’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 48.2 (2018), 227–60 (pp. 228, 237); Fiona Somerset and Nicholas Watson, “Preface: On Vernacular,” in The Vulgar Tongue: Medieval and Postmedieval Vernacularity, ed. by Fiona Somerset and Nicholas Watson (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), ix–xiii; and Nicholas Watson, ‘The Idea of Latinity’, in Medieval Latin Literature, ed. by Ralph J. Hexter and David Townsend (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 124–48 (pp. 139–40).

7 N. Smith, ‘The Thinking Heart of Female Spirituality’, p. 228; for ‘symbolic dichotomies’, see Watson, ‘The Idea of Latinity’, p. 139.

8 The textual transmission of CMB reveals the interests of both pious aristocratic laywomen and female religious communities since the provenances of all MSS, except C, include connections with women readers: H belonged to and was likely made for Dame Anne Wingfield of Harling, a devout laywoman who names herself as a sister at the Priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) at Campsey (Suffolk), the Abbey of the Annunciation of the BVM at Bruisyard (Suffolk), with the Austin (Augustinian) Friars of Norwich, the Gray Friars of Babbewell (Franciscan, near Bury) and at the House of Syon (Middlesex, Abbey of St Savior, BVM; and St Bridget, Bridgettine Nuns); Lp has been connected to Margaret Olney and her husband Sir Thomas Throckmorton, and it includes a medieval signature, Elyzbeth, who may be either Elizabeth Baynham, second wife to Sir Robert Throckmorton (son of Margaret Olney and Thomas Throckmorton), or Elizabeth, Sir Robert’s sister, who became the last abbess of Denney from 1512–39; Lc, a composite MS including the hands of three scribes and the last gathering written about a decade after the others, came to a Benedictine house of nuns in Yorkshire. Although the MS once belonged to Sir James Harrington (Dean of York Minster, d. 1512), its contents suggest a female audience — the Middle English Rule of St Benedict, adapted for nuns, includes a colophon indicating that a Benedictine nun commissioned the translation from the French and nouns and pronouns have been adapted to include ‘dameseles’, ‘yonge nunnes’, and ‘yonge ladies’. The dialect of CMB in the last gathering makes it plausible that James Harrington’s aunt and benefactress, Joan Pilkington, acquired the MS and brought it with her to the Benedictine Priory at Nun Monkton where CMB was added and Pilkington lived the rest of her days. While C’s provenance does not appear to include women (save for the inscription, ‘Mr Juells and his wiues’, in a later hand), its dialect places it firmly within a geographical region that includes the Benedictine nunnery at Ickleton. Immediately outside the dialect region are three houses with connections to the other CMB MSS: the White Friars (Carmelites) of Cambridge, ten miles to the north and the house for which Dame Anne Wingfield of Harling was a foundress; Denney, twenty miles to the north where Elizabeth Throckmorton (possible owner of Lp) was the last Abbess; and Castle Hedingham, ten miles east where Lucy de Vere (whose portrait may be inscribed in Lc) was foundress and first prioress. See A Christian Mannes Bileeve, ed. by N. Smith, pp. xii, xix–xx, xxiii–xxiv, xxviii; and N. Smith, ‘Middle English Lyrics, Homo vide, and A Christian Mannes Bileeve’, p. 22.

9 See M. Benskin, ‘The Letter <þ> and <y> in Later Middle English, and Some Related Matters’, Journal of the Society of Archivists, 8 (1982), 13–30 (pp. 14–15 and 22); and A Christian Mannes Bileeve, ed. by N. Smith, p. liv.

10 A Christian Mannes Bileeve, ed. by N. Smith, p. 37.