¹ G. C. Macaulay, Complete Works of John Gower, “edited from the manuscripts, with introductions, notes, and glossaries” (Oxford, 1899-1901), 4 vols. All subsequent reference to this text will be to Macaulay only.

² Studies in Philology, xlv (1948), 454-471.

³ With slight adaptation this is the paper read at the meeting of English Section I of the Modern Language Association at the meeting in Boston, 28 Dec. 1952. The research for it and the writing of it were done while I was a Guggenheim Fellow.

⁴ “John Gower in His Most Significant Role,” Univ. of Colorado Studies, Series B (Studies in Humanities), ii, iv (1945), 52-61.

⁵ Macaulay, iv, Vox Clamantis, Bk. i, Ch. xiii, 11. 1075-78; i, xiv, 11. 1155-60; i, xviii, ll. 1757-60. There is not anywhere in Book i the least intimation of Froissart's boy hero.

⁶ Ibid., i, xx, ll. 1963-83. Dr. Eric W. Stockton, Jr., in his translation of Vox Clamantis (Harvard unpub. diss., 1952) gives the following version of these lines: “This once used to be called the island of Brut, an exile. Diana gave it to him out of pity. The people of this land are wild. Their way of life involves far more quarreling than love. Because this people sprang from different tribes, it has faults of a varied nature. They are fair in form, but see, they have more fierceness than a wolf's cruel nature. They do not fear laws, they overthrow right by force, and justice falls in defeat because of their violent warfare. This rough, pernicious people devises more treachery, crime, fighting, uproar, and harm than laws. This land, which bloodshed and slaughter and wars always control, was born of mixed stock. The unsightly fields bring forth bitter wormwood, and by their fruit the land shows how harsh it is. [Yet] I do not think there [would] be a worthier people from sunrise to sunset, if there were mutual love among them.”

Since Vox Clamantis is basic for any study of Gower in 14th-century relationships and since Latin is almost a closed book for many seeking a comprehensive introduction to the poet, the publication of this sensitively accurate, firmly-knit prose version, with its helpful notes and concise introduction, is a prime desideratum. A translation of Cronica Tripertita, Gower's integral sequel, should be included with it. I acknowledge with pleasure my indebtedness to his translation for checking my own.

Cf. for I, 1963-83, vii, xxiv, ll. 1289-1302 for Gower's lyric cry expressing his love for England and his concern over her destiny because of errors and divisions. Cf. also ibid., vii, xxi, ll. 1162-82 concerning the brutish quality of all people who do not observe reason.

⁷ Macaulay, iii, Confessio Amantis, viii.2971-3105, introduced with a Latin quatrain embodying the essence of the long prayer in English. This is a change from the earlier version, in which he expresses allegiance to Richard, prays for him, and commends him as king because he embodies the ideals for a ruler Gower had presented earlier in detail, in Book vn. Analogous and even more pointed is Chap. vii of Book vi of Vox Clamantis. This is the chapter preceding the long epistle to Richard (Chaps. viii-xviii), in two versions: in the former, excusing him because of his youth, in the latter, exhorting and condemning him because of his corruption. Lines 493-498 are Gower's echo of the old man of the Island. I paraphrase them: For God is a witness to the statement that kingdoms divided among themselves will perish. I believe these words. As many as rule kingdoms can see their part in the lot: whatever errors the great commit, the people must atone for.

⁸ Macaulay, iv, 346: “Nota consequenter carmen super multiplici viciorum pestilencia, vnde tempore Ricardi Secundi partes nostre specialius inficiebantur”; for the text, see pp. 346-354.

⁹ “Contra demonis astuciam in causa Lollardie,” ibid., iv, 346. The title is the same in all the 4 contemporary MSS. which Macaulay makes the basis for his standard text here.

¹⁰ For the above packed summary I am indebted to H. G. Richardson, “Heresy and Lay Power under Richard II,” EHR, li (1936), 1-28. Here, to my knowledge, is the best brief, documented survey for the period included.

¹¹ CT, M of L's Endlink, 1179. For “shipman” here (e.g., Skeat or Robinson edition) instead of “summoner” of J. M. Manly and Edith Rickert, Text of the Canterbury Tales (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1940), iii, 230, see R. A. Pratt, “The Order of the Canterbury Tales,” PMLA, lxvi (1951), 1141-67; specifically, for “shipman,” 1145-57, cogent and convincing argument.

¹² Macaulay, iv, 348, 89-92. This I paraphrase as follows: In King Richard's time the Lollards sow anew schisms concerning those things which pestilence has engendered. Let the administrator charged with oversight of the churches hinder the tares in their beginnings and purge them lest one rose perish.

^∗ See under Du Cange, Glossarium, “Cultor ecclesiæ.” As more easily accessible I give the reference from W.-H. Maigne D'Arnis, the one volume summary, Lexicon Manuale ad Scriptores Mediœ at Infimœ Latinitatis (Paris, 1890), loc. cit.: cultor ecclesiœ, id est, cultor seu procurator agrorum ecclesiæ.

¹³ Text, Macaulay, iv, 362-364. Macaulay's basic text here is MS. All Souls College, Oxford, 98, the same as he employs for Vox Clamantis. As I indicate in the body of my article, he compares the heading or title in this MS. with three others, which he describes in some detail in his introductory notes to Volume iv. He writes concerning All Souls, with particular reference to Vox Clamantis (iv, lxi): “This MS. was certainly written and corrected under the direction of the author, and remained for some time in his hands, receiving addition from time to time.” With reference to all four MSS. which he employed for collation of the title here Macaulay writes (iv, lix-lx): “They are proved to be original copies, not only by the handwriting of the text, which in each case is distinctly of the fourteenth century, but also by the fact that they all have the author's corrections written over erasure, and in several cases the same hand is recognizable throughout.” Though he is writing here primarily concerning the four MSS. of Vox Clamantis, he refers as well in this passage (p. lix) to the “other Latin poems,” including O Deus immense.

¹⁴ I am happy to acknowledge the assistance of Professor Thomas J. Grace, S.J., Boston College, in checking my examination.

¹⁵ Macaulay, iv, 419. He here suggests the interpretation, citing also Gower's employment of the clause dum vixit under Quia unusquisque, etc., Text, iv, 360. All Souls, 136.

¹⁶ J. H. Baxter and Charles Johnson, Medieval Latin Word-List from British and Irish Sources (Oxford, 1934), loc. cit.

¹⁷ Vox Clamantis, vii, xxv, ll. 1469-70:

¹⁸ See Gaillard T. Lapsley, “The Parliamentary Title of Henry IV,” EHR, xlix (1934), 423-449, 577-606 (p. 579 for use of this passage from O deus immense, ll. 84-86); reprinted in Crown, Community and Parliament in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 1951), pp. 273-340 (p. 307). He uses it in connection with the week of the deposition of Richard II, and the accession of Henry IV, 30 Sept.-6 Oct. 1399. This is only a slight detail but it does by implication support the conclusions which I had reached as to date and occasion of the events that form the contents of the poem, with Gower's reflective commentary on them. This is a fitting place to add that Karl Meyer in John Gower's Beziehungen zu Chaucer und König Richard II (Bonn, 1889), pp. 29-32, from using MSS. then known to him but primarily from interpretation of the poem in historical relationships, cogently relates it to Richard II and the close of his reign.

¹⁹ An excellent and brief convenient summary of this is T. F. Tout's Chapters in Administrative History of Mediaeval England (Manchester, 1928), iv, 56-69; for Richard's last weeks, incorporating modern scholarship, see Bernard L. Manning, “England: Edward III and Richard II,” Cambridge Medieval History of England (Cambridge, 1932), vii, xv, 480-481; for the reign as a whole, see Anthony Steel, Richard II (Cambridge, 1941), a sane and well balanced estimate. Cf. also Lapsley, op. cit., passim.

²⁰ See M. V. Clarke and V. H. Galbraith, “The Deposition of Richard II” (the Dieulacres Chronicle), John Rylands Library Bull., xiv (1930), 125-165; Gaillard Lapsley, op. cit., passim.

²¹ Vol. iii of Eulogium Historiarum … ad annum Domini mccclxvi a Monacho Quodam Malmesburensi Exaratum. Accedunt Continuationes … mccccxiii, ed. F. S. Haydon (London, 1863), p. 382: “Adulatorum tuorum infimorum tua semper donaria postulantium consiliis adhaesisti, et eos promovisti. Sanum consilium, dominos praecipuos, consanguineos tuos, quia volabunt tuam proterviam compescere, sicut per statua regni potuerunt et in periculo regni debuerunt, injuste occidisti, et posteritatem eorum tyrannice extinguere quoque [?] statuisti.”

²² Ibid., p. 382: “Regnum non rexisti sed spoliasti thelonea notabiliter, elevando tallagia annuatim extorquendo, non utilitatem regni, quam nunquam procurasti, sed avaritiam tuam satiendam et superbiam ostendendam.”

²³ Op. cit., p. 283. See Rot. Parl, iii, 417-422, for the 33 charges (gravamina).

²⁴ Especially pertinent here is the statement of S. B. Chrimes, English Constitutional Ideas in the Fifteenth Century (Cambridge, 1936), p. 39: “A great part of the constitutional history of England in the mediaeval period might be said (if such sayings have any value) to be a commentary, not upon Magna Carta, but upon the simple fact of the king's crying need for counsel and ever more counsel.”

²⁵ Op. cit., pp. 263-264. Also, see esp. Tout, op. cit., p. 56.

²⁶ Chronicon Adae De Usk A.D. 1377-1421. Ed. with a translation and notes by Sir Edmund Maunde Thompson (London, 1904), p. 30: “Sancti Mathei festo, ad byennium decapitacionis comitis Arundelle, in dicta turri, ubi rex Ricardus in custodia fuerat, ipsius cene presencium notator interfuit ipsius modum et gesturam explorando, per dominum Wyllelmum Beauchamp ad hoc specialiter inductus. Ubi et quando idem rex in cena dolenter retulit confabulendo sic dicens: ‘O Deus! hec est mirabilis terra et inconstans, quia tot reges, tot presules, totque magnates exulavit, interfecit, destruxit, et depredavit, semper discenscionibus et discordiis mutuisque invidiis continue infecta et laborans.‘ Et recitavit historias et nomina vexatorum a primeva regni inhabitacione.” Translation, as given above, p. 182.

²⁷ The following statement from T. F. Tout, iv, 66, illustrates what I have here written. But of much more significance, it interprets also the attitude and point of view of Gower as revealed in his writings and as representing middle-class, conservative England of his day: “Perhaps one of the most important results of fourteenth-century administrative development was this extension of the governing class from a limited ring of great tenants to the wider circle of lesser landholders, who, both in central parliaments and in local offices, were sometimes able to say the decisive word in the struggles between the crown and the magnates. The larger the governing class, the more conservative was its outlook. Its cry was always for a restoration of the good old ways which had prevailed in a highly idealized or purely imaginary golden past. The most radical proposals made by it were for practical reform in details.”