Manuscripts do more than simply preserve literary texts. As Nichols and Siegfried remind us, they provide both the material contexts, such as writing materials, ink, script, layout, inscriptions, and gatherings, and also the intertextual contexts, namely the other works with which the text under study was assembled. All of these features in turn may "yield information, over and above that implied in the texts themselves, about the text's audience, its purpose, and even the intention an individual scribe may have had in producing this particular copy."(1) And, as we shall see, new information may also be gleaned about a manuscript's ownership, provenance, and the circumstances of its production and dissemination.

Scholarship on the two earliest Robin Hood poems -- Robin Hood and the Monk and Robin Hood and the Potter -- has largely ignored their manuscript contexts. (2) With a few exceptions, scholars have not considered the two Cambridge University Library manuscripts, Ms Ff.5.48 ("Monk") and Ee.4.35.1 ("Potter") as sources of information about the production and dissemination of the Robin Hood legend before the advent of printed texts. (3) A fresh examination of the manuscript containing Robin Hood and the Potter is yielding important new information not only about the ownership, locale, date, language and dialect, and provenance of the manuscript but also about the social class of the audience, its ideology, and literary tastes.

The last page, folio 24b, contains the inscription, Iste liber constat Ricardo Calle, and a nearly full-page merchant's mark. Like a cattle-brand, a merchant's mark uniquely identified a tradesman's goods. They also were used as personal marks or signatures, as witnessed by surviving examples in or on stained glass, monumental brasses, signet rings, and stone capitals, lintels, and fascia. One of the commoner forms is the "reversed 4" design, which F. A. Girling suggests evolved from the symbol of the Agnus Dei. (5) Girling reproduces 130 different variations of the same basic design. Of these the closest examples come from Norwich, Norfolk, ranging in date from 1425 to 1588. While similar in design, each mark is unique and can be used to identify its individual owner. Of particular interest is the mark (p. 13, row one, fifth from the left), dated 1550, belonging to a Henry Bacon. With the exception of the initials HB on either side of the staff, it is identical to the mark in the Cambridge manuscript. A second published source of marks is Edward Elmhirst's Merchants' Marks, which, like Girling's book, reproduces hundreds of examples, noting their owners' names, locations, date, and media. Elmhirst also reproduces Henry Bacon's mark, but this time it is identical to the one in the manuscript (see no. 53 on p. 5). He notes that the mark was carved on Bacon's house in Norwich, and is dated 1566. (6)

Who was Henry Bacon? And what relation, if any, was he to the "Ricardo Calle" of the inscription? Born about 1480 in Framlingham, Suffolk, Henry Bacon was a prominent grocer and gildsman in Norwich. In the 1540s he was active in civic affairs, having served as a councilor, alderman, and auditor of the Gild of St. George. (7) His connection to "Calle" is explained by the fact that he married Alice Call (died 1573), daughter of Robert Call of Framingham. (8) The Call family lived in Framlingham since the early fourteenth century, and many family members were in the trade as grocers. It appears likely that the marriage of Henry Bacon and Alice Call represented the union of two merchant families, symbolized by the combination of the Call family mark with Henry Bacon's initials. (9) Predeceased by her husband, Alice left her house in Norwich (probably the very one with the inscribed merchant's mark) to her fourth daughter, Margaret, whose husband, Nicholas Sotherton, purchased the Call's estate at Little Melton.(10)

As a member of the Call family of grocers, Alice apparently inherited the family's mark, but, it is important to observe, she did not own the Cambridge manuscript. For the owner of the manuscript, we have to turn to another branch of the family, that of Robert's brother Richard Call, who can now be identified as the "Ricardo Calle" of the manuscript inscription. Richard Call (c. 1431 to after 1504) is well-known to readers of the Paston letters as the bailiff or estate manager for John Paston I and his two sons (both confusingly named John) during the last half of the fifteenth century. Call's life and activities are richly documented in 105 Paston letters and papers, including 23 autograph documents: the earliest reference to him dates from July 1453 (Davis #147), and the latest is November 1503 (Davis #845). (11) Born about 1431 at Bakton, Norfolk, Richard was the son of John Call, grocer, from Framlingham, Suffolk. (12) They were small landholders and later in the trade as grocers. Young Richard Call went into service with John Paston I upon the recommendation of the Duke of Norfolk, whose seat was in Framlingham (Davis #65). Call served as a devoted and trusted servant under two generations of Paston patriarchs, John I, and later his two sons John II and John III for nearly half a century. Rising to the position of chief bailiff or estate manager, Call was actively involved in the Pastons' extensive business and legal matters. He negotiated leases and collected rents from tenants (Davis #55, #168); he sold land and woods (Davis #214); he bought and sold commodities and horses (Davis #71, #364); he kept accounts, inventories, and indentures in his own hand (Davis #66, #248, #336); he delivered letters and other documents; he attended various legal hearings on behalf of the family (Davis #155); he transported money and silver to various family members (Davis #237, #319); and he wrote numerous letters on behalf of family members and himself (Davis #56, #156, #417). The family was shocked, however, when they discovered that Call and their daughter, Margery, had secretly exchanged vows, which under church law constituted a legal marriage. John Paston III expressed the family's outrage when he wrote that Call "shold neuer haue my good wyll for to make my sustyr to selle kandyll and mustard in Framly[n]gham" (Davis #332). Although Margery became estranged from her mother and brothers for a time, Call continued to handle some of their business affairs. Richard and Margery had three sons: John, William, and Richard. After Margery's death, at some time before 1482, Call married Margaret Trollopp of Edingthorpe, and had two additional sons Andrew and John. According to a Chancery Proceeding, Call was still alive between 1500 and 1515. (13)

The theory that Richard Call of Bakton might have been the signatory of the manuscript's inscription has been raised and then rejected by several scholars because the script used does not match any known sample of Richard Call's handwriting. (14) My examination of the original letters and documents in the British Library confirms that the inscription is not Call's signature, but I wonder if this is sufficient cause to reject him as the original owner of the manuscript? Why couldn't the inscription have been added by one of the scribes? Or, more likely, why couldn't it have been added later, as John Marshall suggests, by one of the two descendants named Richard? Although the case for Richard Call I is largely circumstantial, I think that there is ample evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was not only the original owner but the very person who took an active role in the selection of texts to be copied by an unknown scribe.

First of all, Call had a personal device or seal. In a letter dated May 3, 1465 (Davis #179), Margaret Paston informed her husband about the Duke of Suffolk's attack on their manor at Hellesdon: "I have put youre evydens (evidence) that com owte of the abbay in a seck, and enseylyd hem vnder Richard Call ys seall" (Italics mine). In addition, Call signed one of surviving Paston documents De Ricardo Calle (Davis #683) and, although the Latin signature does not match the handwriting of the manuscript inscription, we need not reject him as the original owner. Furthermore, as seen in the inventory, dated 1465, of property stolen in the Duke of Suffolk's raid on the Paston manor at Hellesdon (Davis #195), Call owned at least one other book: "Gere taken owte of the Chauntre of Richard Calle. Item, boke of Frensh, price iij s. iiij d." Finally, he had dealings with a number of the Paston scribes and textwriters, ranging from the professional scribe, William Ebesham, who wrote John II's "Great Book," to the semi-professional and amateur copists James Gloys, a priest, James Gresham, John Pampyng, and John Wykes. (15) In spite of the fact that he did not write the manuscript or sign his name in the inscription, Richard Call was, as further evidence will prove, the original owner of Cambridge Ee.4.35.1.

When we consider some additional new information about the date of the manuscript and its later history, the links to Richard Call I are further strengthened. The manuscript contains a datable event that coincides with the appropriate time and place of Richard Call, if not with Call himself. Folio 14 preserves an itemized list in English of the meat, fowl, and fish served at a royal wedding. The Cambridge catalogue identifies the event: "This was most probably the marriage of Margaret Tudor, sister of Henry VIII, which took place at Edinburgh, August 8, 1503." (16) This identification with its date of 1503 has clearly influenced the dating of the manuscript to c. 1500. There is, however, another earlier royal wedding that had much closer ties to the Pastons and possibly to Richard Call himself. To cement an alliance with Burgundy, King Edward IV (1461-83) offered his youngest sister in marriage to Charles Duke of Burgundy. The marriage took place on July 3, 1468 in Bruges, the capital of Charles' Flemish territory. (17) As the Paston letters make clear, both Paston brothers (John II and John III) attended the wedding as members of the princess's retinue. In a letter dated July 8, 1468, John Paston III describes the wedding to his mother; he uses two phrases, "my Lady Margaret" and "owt of Inglond," that also appear in the rubric of the list of dishes in the Cambridge manuscript: "Thys ys the expences off fflesche at the mariage off mey Ladey Marget þt sche had owt off Eyngland." In addition, he specifically mentions "hyr dener."(18) Was Richard Call present at this wedding? Although the letter is somewhat ambiguous on this point, John III mentions that he sent five shillings "by Callys man" to buy his son such "ger" as he needs for school. If Call's servant was in Bruges with John III, then Call himself could not have been far behind. Even if Call wasn't in Bruges, as a grocer and estate manager he would have been very interested in preserving the list of commodities, particularly if the Paston manors under Call's supervision supplied at least some of the listed livestock. Although the list is not in his handwriting, Call not only kept similar accounts himself (Davis # 645, #703) but he used the same listing technique by Item (Davis #683, #759). (19) If the list of the "expences of fflesche" refers to this royal wedding, the link to Richard Call I, rather than to one of his later descendants, both also named Richard, is greatly strengthened. Furthermore, assuming that the list was copied into the Cambridge manuscript shortly after the event it memorializes, the date of the manuscript will also have to be reconsidered -- its terminus ante quem now being 1468, and not 1503.

Is the language and dialect of CUL Ee.4.35.1 consistent with a Norfolk place of origin? Since the manuscript texts do not exhibit the "highly dialectal colouration" typical of Norfolk, Richard Beadle excluded the manuscript from his "Handlist of Later Middle English Manuscripts Copied by Norfolk Scribes." (20) The features of this "idiosyncratic and readily recognizable spelling system" include x- representing the initial consonant in xal ("shall") andxuld ("should'); qw- and qh- representing the initial sounds in qweche ("which") and qher ("where"); and the spellings of the words ryth ("right"), myte ("might") and browth ("brought"). Beadle concludes that "a combination of some or all of these features, with a number of others, serves to render the Norfolk form of the East Anglian dialect quite conspicuous in manuscripts copied during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and they persisted in use amongst locally-trained copyists until well into the sixteenth."(21) While it is true that several of the distinctive dialectical forms - notably x- and qw- -- are lacking in the Cambridge manuscript (22), other East Anglian forms, including the spelling of ryth and myte, are in fact present, which strongly reinforces my claim for the Norfolk origin of the manuscript. Using the data assembled in A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (LALME), Lister Matheson has analyzed the dialectal features in my transcription of the manuscript, and has offered specific comments keyed to the numbered items in the LALME Questionnaire, to the appropriate Linguistic Profiles (denoted by county abbreviation and number of the LP), and to the appropriate Dot Maps (Dms). (23) Matheson's general conclusion is as follows:

The language is little influenced by the standardization that increasingly affected many scribes and educated writers in the second half of the fifteenth century (although many educated but non-professional writers, such as Cardinal Wolsey in his letters, continued to use local spelling forms even in the sixteenth century). The dialect of the present texts appears to be East Anglian, more likely from southern Norfolk than Suffolk. There are occasional forms that may reflect a Southwestern stratum or admixture; one notes that several such forms are similar to forms found in Norfolk or Suffolk, and may, therefore, have survived for that reason. (24)

The manuscript exhibits a mixture of semi-professional and amateurish features. As Julia Boffey observes, the "main hand is reasonably practiced as there is rubrication, some flourishing of letters, and provision of brace-lines linking rhyme words such as one might expect of a scribe of moderate competence." On the other hand, "the varying numbers of lines to the page and the confusion of explicit for incipit at the beginning of The Cheylde and hes Stepdame on folio 6b look rather amateurish." Boffey concludes that the manuscript could have been written by someone used to writing, not a professional scribe but perhaps one of the household clerks in the Paston's employ. (25) Melissa Furrow also noticed the amateurish quality of The Cheylde and hes Stepdame, ff. 6b-13b, one of texts she edited in her Ten Fifteenth-Century Comic Poems. (26) It thus appears that the manuscript is a homemade miscellany, and as such the texts chosen to be copied reflect the interests, social aspirations, and even the life-events of its patron and owner, Richard Call.
 

Mercantile interests:

Self-improvement:

There is material too dealing with religious instruction and practice, ranging from "How to find Easter day," "The seven virtues against the seven deadly sins," and "Kepe well X and bewar of vij" to "The X commandments," "The Nine steps of dying and repentance," the "Reasons for hearing Mass," and four short Biblical quotations from Proverbs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus. The four quotations from Wisdom 1:4, Ecclesiasticus 14:5, and Proverbs 21:23 and 26:28 are examples of a didactic form of scripture known as wisdom literature. The short aphoristic sayings were intended to be learned, if not memorized, by a young person. Focused on the individual rather than the group, the sayings have a powerful moral purpose -- to teach one the fundamentals of morality, e.g., the virtues of truthfulness, integrity, self-discipline, justice, and common sense, and they often "show by way of contrast the failure in life that awaits the fool." (33)

There are also two vernacular tales with explicit moral messages. The Adulterous Falmouth Squire, ff. 1a-2b, is a cautionary tale told by the son of an adulterer who is given a tour of hell and heaven by an angel. While in hell he sees "smoke and ffeyr," "maney gostys glowyng on glede," and "hys ffather how he brened, and bey the members how he heyng." After confessing that he "dyd they mothyr wrong," the father begs his son to warn every man against breaking his wedlock. (34) The Miracle of the Lady who buried the Host, ff. 3a-5a, instructs the reader in the reality of transubstantiation, or the belief that the body of Christ is literally present in the Host or unleavened bread. This catechesis is taught by an exemplum in which a knight's wife, who initially denies the reality of the Eucharist, is converted when the Host she secretly buries under a pear tree miraculously turns into the Christ Child. (35) In sum, these texts comprise a short anthology of edifying materials, suitable for a young man seeking to learn the meaning of a good life and how that life must be lived.
 

That Richard Call was a devout Christian can be readily seen in many of his surviving letters, but none so revealing as the famous letter to his wife Margery (Davis #861). In addition to nineteen references to God, Call quotes or paraphrases several Biblical passages, two of which are similar to those cited in the Cambridge manuscript on f. 24a. Two of the Biblical passages warn against maladicta or malicious speech:

Fals tonge loveyt no trowyt and a sclether tongue wercheyt meche sorow

[Proverbs 26:28, A deceitful tongue loveth not truth: and a slippery mouth worketh ruin]

He that kepys well hes mowte and hes tonge he kepyt hes sowle fro angwyssh

[Proverbs 21:23, He that keepeth his mouth and his tongue keepeth his soul from distress]

As Call's letter to Margery makes clear, he believes that he was the victim of unfounded suspicions and rumors: "And many an on-trewe tale was made to you of me, weche God knowyth I was neuer gylty of." (Davis #861)

Love interest:

Call's courtship of Margery Paston is paralleled in Robin Hood and the Potter, in that Robin, in disguise as a yeoman potter, is courting a woman -- the sheriff's wife -- of a higher social class. The poem must have struck a special resonance for Call, who no doubt recognized the difference in social rank between the lowly potter and the gentrified sheriff's wife. The fact that Robin's love object is married symbolized both the family's and society's opposition to the match. Standing in Call's way is Margery's mother, who is represented by a character in another poem in the Cambridge manuscript - the wicked stepmother in The Cheylde and hes Stepdame. Here the male protagonist, Jake, is confronted with a spiteful woman -- his father's second wife. After a series of comical events in which Jake seeks revenge again his evil stepmother, he, like Richard Call, is summoned to ecclesiastical court where he is examined by a church official. And the official rules in favor of Jake. Unlike Call, Jake was reconciled in the end with his stepmother, while there is no evidence that Call was ever accepted back into the family. He is noticeably absent from Margaret's will of 1482 (Davis #230).
 

Political and legal intrigue:

The contents of the manuscript are precisely the types of literary, religious, and educational texts that one would expect a young man hoping to rise in the world to possess. They suggest a time early in Call's courtship of Margery Paston when he held out hope that if he improved his means, manners, and morals he would be acceptable to her family.

40 An imperfect Poeme of the 10 comaundements.
 

Erroneously applied to the manuscript as a whole, the title refers to only one of the sixteen texts -- a list of the Ten Commandments of f. 6. (40) The inaccurate title probably accounts for the fact that previous scholars missed the connection with Richard Call and the Pastons. What has escaped notice until now is that Knyvett's daughter, Katherine, married Edmund Paston, grandson of Sir William Paston, in April 1603. (41)

We now have a firm geographical fix not only on the Cambridge manuscript but on one of the early and important Robin Hood texts. From its language and dialect, as well as from its close connections to the Calls and the Pastons, we now know that the manuscript was compiled in Norfolk. While it has not been possible to identify the main scribe, I hope that a more diligent search of the Paston documents will result in the copyist's identification.

The Norfolk localization is also significant because we can now add the manuscript to the small but growing number of Robin Hood sightings in that area. Chief among these is John Paston II's letter of April 16, 1473 (Davis #275) in which he conveys the news to his brother that one of his servants, William Woode, has "goon in-to Bernysdale" - that is, departed without his permission to Robin Hood's imaginary haunt in the West Riding of Yorkshire. John laments his leaving because he has not only lost a good servant but a family-sponsored actor in the plays of "Seynt Jorge" and "Robynhod and the shryff off Notyngham." Twenty-one lines of text from this Robin Hood play have miraculously survived on one side of a single sheet of paper, now Trinity College Library Cambridge MS R.2.64. On the other side of the page are accounts of money received by John Sterndalle during the fifteenth regnal year of King Edward IV (c. 1475). While scholars have long suspected a Paston connection, John Marshall, in a clever piece of detective work, convincingly argues that John Paston II was the patron of the play, if not its composer. (42)

We also have a firmer temporal fix on the manuscript, its terminus ante quem being 1468, the date of the royal marriage in Bruges, and not 1503. As a result, the customary date assigned to Robin Hood and the Potter will now have to be changed.

We are now able to place Robin Hood and the Potter into a more precise social context than was possible before. The parallels between the biography of its owner and the poem suggest a closer connection between literature and life than has been previously assumed in this instance. Richard Call collected, and had copied for him, texts that had a personal resonance or relevance. 

The manuscript in which Robin Hood and the Potter survives was not owned by a minstrel, a priest or clerk, or a gentleman but by a member of the rural yeomanry, a manorial servant with strong mercantile credentials, the ability to read and to write, and high social and economic aspirations. (43)

As recorded in the inventory of property stolen in the Duke of Suffolk's raid on the manor of Helleston (Davis #195), Richard Call's book in French was removed from his chamber. This suggests that books were considered the personal property of a single individual, representing a secondary stage of consumption or private reading. Given the risque nature of one of the texts - The Cheylde and hes Stepdame --, I have to wonder how widely the full contents were shared with his family.

Finally, as noted at the beginning, there is another poem - Robin Hood and the Monk - surviving in a unique manuscript copy in Cambridge University Library. It occupies folios 128b to 135b of MS Ff.5.48, and, like Ee.4.35.1, it has received only passing comments in Robin Hood scholarship. It remains to be seen what new insights can be garnered by a close study of that manuscript.

I would like to thank the following individuals for help of various kinds: Andrew Ayton, Richard Beadle, Julia Boffey, Melissa Furrow, Thomas Hahn, David Hepworth, Norman Hinton, Laura Hodges, Lister Matheson, Stephen Knight, Robert E. Lewis, Colin Richmond, and Jayne Ringrose. An earlier version was presented at The Second International Conference of Robin Hood Studies (Nottingham, July 1999).

1. Stephen G. Nichols and Siegfried Wenzel, The Whole Book: Cultural Perspectives on the Medieval Miscellany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), p. 1.

2. Discussions of both poems are to be found in: Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vol. III (New York: Folklore Press, 1957), pp. 94-9, 108-09; R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor, Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw (London: Heinemann, 1976; revised edn Stroud: Sutton, 1997), pp. 9, 113-15, 123-5; David C. Fowler, A Literary History of the Popular Ballad (Durham: Duke University Press, 1968), pp. 80-4; Douglas Gray, "The Robin Hood Poems," Poetica, 18 (1984), 1-19; rpt. in Stephen Knight, Robin Hood: An Anthology of Scholarship and Criticism (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999), pp. 3-37; J. C. Holt,Robin Hood, 2^nd revised edn (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), pp. 28-30, 33-4; Maurice Keen, The Outlaws of Medieval Legend, revised paperback edn (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987), pp. 116-27; Stephen Knight, Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), pp. 52-60; Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren, Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales, TEAMS Middle English Texts Series (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), pp. 31-6, 57-61; and Jeffrey L. Singman, Robin Hood: The Shaping of the Legend (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998), pp. 19-20.

3. With the exceptions of Dobson and Taylor, Knight, and Knight and Ohlgren, it is not clear who among the other scholars and critics listed above examined the original Cambridge manuscripts. Surprisingly, F. C. Child relied upon transcripts prepared by W. W. Skeat (III, 95, 108).

4. The following list of textual contents is drawn from: a) A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, 5 vols. + index (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1856-67; vol. II (1867), 167-69; an unpublished handwritten description by Mr. Pink, a former librarian at Cambridge University Library; Melissa M. Furrow's description in her edition of Jack and his Stepdame [Ten Fifteenth-Century Comic Poems (New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1985), pp. 75-77]; and d) my examination of the manuscript in July, 1999. The IMEV citations refer to the numbered entries in The Index of Middle English Verse, ed. Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943, and the Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse, ed. Rossell Hope Robbins and John L. Cutler, (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965).

1. The Adulterous Falmouth Squire, ff. 1a-2b (IMEV 2052, no. 2)

2. Miracle of the Lady who buried the Host, ff. 3a-5a (IMEV 622)

3. How to find Easter day, f. 5a (3 lines inserted at bottom of page) (IMEV 1502, no. 2)

4. The vij vertwys agyn the vij dedley synys, f. 5b (IMEV 469, no. 1)

5. Kepe well x bewar off vij, f. 5b (3 lines inserted at bottom of page) (IMEV 1817, no. 3)

6. I had mey god and mey ffrende (a warning against lending money to a friend), f. 5b (4 lines inserted at bottom of page) (IMEV 1297, no. 2)

7. The X commandments, f. 6a (IMEV 3685, no. 2)

8. The cheylde and hes stepdame, ff. 6b-13b (IMEV 977, no. 3)

9. Thys ys the exspences of fflesche (a list of the dishes served at a wedding banquet, f. 14a (unique copy)

10. Robyn Hode and the Potter, ff. 14b-19a (IMEV 1533; unique copy)

11. The Kynge and the Barker, ff. 19b-21a (IMEV 4168)

12. Arithmetical question, f. 21a (5 lines inserted at bottom of page) (unique copy)

13. Proverb: On light, right, and might, f. 21a (4 lines inserted at bottom of page) (IMEV 3532)

Ff. 21b-22a are blank

14. The Lytylle Childrenes Lytil Boke, ff. 22b-23b (IMEV 1920, no. 2)

15. Reasons for Hearing Mass. In Latin, f. 24b

16. Nine steps of dying and repentance, f. 24a (IMEV 4035, no. 9)

17. Four Biblical quotations, f. 24a

18. Inscription + merchant's mark, f. 24b

The differences in the inks used and the orientation of the texts indicate that some of the texts were added after the original copying was completed. The main text (Hand A) was used throughout except for: item 3 (Hand B on lower portion of f. 5a); items 5 and 6 (Hand B on the lower portion of f. 5b); item 13 (Hand C in black ink on the lower portion of f. 21a); item 15 (Hand D? in Latin on the top portion of f. 24a; item 16 (Hand E? on f. 24a); and item 18 (Hand F, the ownership inscription on f. 24b). While the main text of Hand A was written on ruled lines, the added passages were written on a slight angle in the blank spaces at the bottoms of the folios. Although it cannot be determined exactly when the texts were added, the presence of these additions supports my claim that the manuscript was handed down from owner to owner in the same family.

5. F. A. Girling, English Merchants' Marks (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 14.

6. Edward M. Elmhirst, Merchants' Marks (London, 1959), p. 17. Upon examining the manuscript under ultra-violet light, I discovered the faint impression of another merchant's mark in the upper margin of folio 2b. There is no exact match in Elmhirst or Girling, but it is similar to the mark owned by Balls, grocer of Norwich, 1509 (Girling, plate 11, row 3, no. 60).

7. Mary Grace, The Records of the Gild of St. George in Norwich, 1389-1547, Norfolk Record Society ix (1937), 147-57.

8. Charles S. Romanes, The Calls of Norfolk and Suffolk: Their Paston Connections and Descendants (London: Privately printed for the editor by T. and A. Constable, 1920), pp. 16-17.

9. "It seems that merchants frequently went into partnership with each other...[and] in such cases a mark was formed embodying all or part of the mark of each partner." Girling. p. 23.

10. Romanes, The Calls of Norfolk and Suffolk, pp. 17-18.

11. The Paston documents are cited by the item numbers in Norman Davis's magisterial edition,Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971).

12.Romanes, The Calls of Norfolk and Suffolk, pp. 10-15.

13. Romanes, The Calls of Norfolk and Suffolk, p. 34.

14. The name "Ricardo Calle" is the Latin dative form of "Richard Call." The inscription contains the common formula ("iste liber constat," "this book belongs to") denoting ownership, and it is usually written in the hand of the owner, and hence it is considered a signature. The inscription on folio 24b, however, does not, as Julia Boffey and Carol Meale observe, appear to match any known sample of Richard Call I's handwriting in the Paston documents ["Selecting the Text: Rawlinson C. 86 and Some other Books for London Readers," pp. 160-61, note 54, inRegionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts: Essays celebrating the publication of A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English, ed. Felicity Riddy (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991]. This is also the independent conclusion of Melissa M. Furrow, who observes that the spelling of the manuscript is "markedly different" from Call's as seen in his letter to Margery Paston (Davis #861); see Ten Fifteenth-Century Comic Poems (New York: Garland Publishing, 1985), pp. 76-77. While John Marshall agrees with Boffey and Meale's finding, he goes on to suggest that the manuscript could have belonged instead to Sir John Paston's nephew or great nephew; that is, Richard Call I's third son or his brother John's son, both named Richard; see "'goon in-to Bernysdale': The Trail of the Paston Robin Hood Tale," Leeds Studies in English, New Series xxix (1998), pp. 215-16, note 78.

My examination of the original letters and documents in the British Library confirms that the inscription is not Call's signature, but I wonder if this is sufficient cause to reject him as the original owner of the manuscript? Why couldn't the inscription have been added by one of the scribes of the MS? Or, why couldn't it have been added later, probably by one of the two descendants named Richard?

15. For a list of clerks employed by the Pastons, see Norman Davis, lxxv-lxxix.

16. A Catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, 5 vols. (Cambridge: University Press, 1856-67; vol. II, pp. 167-69.

17. Davis xlvii. See also Richard Barber, The Pastons: A Family in the Wars of the Roses (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1999), pp. 140-41; Otto Cartellieri, The Court of Burgundy (New York: Haskell House, 1970), pp. 157-63; Frances and Joseph Gies, A Medieval Family: The Pastons of Fifteenth-Century England (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), pp. 196-99; John Foster Kirk, History of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, 3 vols. (London: John Murray, 1863), vol. I, pp. 468-78; Ruth Putnam, Charles the Bold: Last Duke of Burgundy 1433-1477 (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1908), pp. 189-96. A first-person account of the elaborate wedding festivities was described in detail by Olivier de la Marche, Mémoires, 4 vols., ed. H. Beaune and J. d'Arbaumont (Paris 1883-88); vol. III, 101 ff.

18. Davis # 330.

19. The list in Davis #645 was added by Call to a space in a letter dated September 24, 1461. It consists of a series of named individuals followed by the liturgical date (i.e., Natalis Domini), the item (pro ovibus, in pane, pro feno) or labor supplied, and the amount in pounds, shillings, and pence). The account is signed De Ricardo Calle. The account in Davis #703, also in Latin, is a list of Paston manors, followed by the names of the tenants, the liturgical date, and the amounts received. The Cambridge list is in English and consists of 24 categories of livestock and their quantities or weights. All of the items - oxen, sheep, pigs, hogs, calves, hares, chickens, swans, pheasants, and carp - would have been readily available on the Paston manors.

20. Richard Beadle, "Prolegomena to a Literary Geography of Later Medieval Norfolk," inRegionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts, ed. Felicity Riddy (Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991), pp. 89-107.

21. Beadle, pp. 91-92.

22. The absence of these spellings need not exclude Norfolk as the place of origin. A survey of the Paston letters, written by fourteen members of the family and dated from 1425 to 1500, reveals that only three family members - William II, Clement, and Walter - used these distinctive spellings in their autograph letters. See Davis # 82, 89, 99, 114, 115, 116, 118, 402, 404.

23. Angus McIntosh, M.L. Samuels, Michael Benskin, eds., A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English, 4 vols. (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Ptess, 1986).

24. For a detailed linguistic and dialect analysis, see the Appendix by Lister Matheson. William Worcester, 1415 to 1482, would seem to be a prime candidate as the copyist of the Cambridge manuscript. Born in Bristol, he spent over twenty years in East Anglia as the secretary of Sir John Fastolf, who resided at Caister Castle, Norfolk until his death in 1459. Three of his letters to John Paston I survive (Davis # 496, 498, 506) as well as one written in his hand for John Paston (Davis #53). His handwriting, however, does not match that of the Cambridge manuscript (see Davis, plate xvi). For a detailed treatment of Worcester's career, see K. B. McFarlane, "William Worcester: A Preliminary Survey," pp. 196-221 in Studies Presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson, ed. J. Conway Davies (London: Oxford University Press, 1957); see also, The Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xxi (Oxford, 1949-50), 912-14. Another candidate is John Wykes, another one of the Paston estate servants, whose spelling - especially the preference for y instead of e - is similar to the Cambridge manuscript, but the sample reproduced in Davis (plate xx) does not match the manuscript either; see Davis, p. lxxviii. 

25. Before I was able to examine the original manuscript in Cambridge in July 1999, Dr. Julia Boffey kindly volunteered to do so on my behalf. I am quoting from her email message of December 9, 1998.

26. In her email message of November 11, 1988, Dr. Furrow answered a number of my queries about the manuscript, which she had examined closely while preparing her edition of Jack and his Stepdame (entitled The Cheylde and hes Stepdame in CUL Ee.4.35.1).

27. The proverb, which appears in a total of eight manuscripts, was added to the bottom of folio 5b by Hand B. Thus, it was added after the main text was written, but how much later cannot be determined. See IMEV 1297 and Supplement, p. 154.

I had mey god (goods) and mey ffrende

lent mey good to mey ffrende

axyd mey god off mey ffrende

I lost me good and mey ffrende.

28. Hand A added the arithmetical question to the blank space following the Kynge and the Barker on folio 21a:

In Ynglond ther ys a schepcote the wyche schepekote hayt ix doryes and at yevy dorstandet ix lamys and ewy ram gat ix ewys and yevy ewe hathe ix lambys and yevy lambe hayt ix hornes and evy horne hayt ix tyndes and what ys the some of all thes selle?

29. In the Kynge and the Barker, folios 19a-21b, a proud tanner and dealer in cow-hides has a chance encounter with the King of England, who is out hunting deer. Asking for directions, the king, who goes unrecognized throughout the story, invites the tanner to ride with him and requests news from him. The tanner then complains about the high cost of leather hides. The king then asks if the tanner knows Lord Basset, and he answers that such a person never bought any shoe leather from him. The king then asks if he has heard any gossip about the lord from his servants, and the tanner replies that they like him well. Upon arriving at Lord Basset's place, the tanner, believing the lord to be the king, kneels down but forgets to lower his hood. The king then invites the tanner to go hunting with him, and upon reaching the chase he requests that they exchange horses. Suspecting that the king plans to steal his cow-hides, he piles them on the king's horse and sits on top of them. And as the tanner rides away, the horse, seeing the dangling cow-horns, thinks that he had the devil on his back, and bolts away until he dashes under a low hanging branch, causing the tanner to hit his head and fall to the ground. Laughing aloud, the king swears by Saint John and Saint James that, except for his dame, he has never seen such a horseman! After the hunt, they exchange horses again, and the tanner is glad that he has his own again. Before parting, the king, still unrecognized, thanks the tanner for his service and rewards him by placing one-hundred shillings in his purse.

For a detailed summary of the genre and the texts of three versions, including this one, see F.J. Child, volume 5, 67-87. Since Child's version of The Kynge and the Barker differs in some details from the original, it is again evident that he did not examine the Cambridge manuscript.

30. The Cheylde and hes Stepdame, ff. 6b-13b, written in the main Hand A, survives in five manuscripts and in five early prints (IMEV 977 and Supplement, p. 114). Also known as The Frere and the Boy and Jack and his Stepdame, the text from Bodleian Library, Rawlinson C. 86 was used as the copytext for Melissa M. Furrow's edition, pages 67-153, in Ten Fifteenth-Century Comic Poems. Summary of the version in Cambridge Ee.4.35.1: A man in this country had three wives. By his first wife he had a son, Jake, but his step-mother, who dislikes him, often does him evil by depriving him of food. She often askes her husband to put the cursed boy away. The husband refuses, saying that he is too young ,and urges her to wait until the boy can earn better wages. One day when the boy is sent out to the fields to work he soon discovers that his dinner was poor. While on his way home, he meets an old man who asks for food. Upon giving him the food, the man responds by giving the boy three gifts or wishes. The first gift is a bow that will never miss the mark. The second gift is a pipe that causes those hearing it to dance. And the third gift causes the humiliation of his step-mother - whenever she stares him in the face, she uncontrollably lets "a blast go" so "all that may her here." As the boy returns home he blows his pipe and his beasts follow him by the sound. Sitting down to supper, the boy begins to eat a chicken's leg when his step-mother stares at him disapprovingly. Suddenly she lets a fart, much to the amusement of everyone present. And, when she again stares at the boy, she lets another "pelet" fly. Afterwards she complains about the cursed knave to her friend, Friar Capias, who agrees to meet the boy in the field the next day and to beat him. The boy, now identified as "Leytell Geynkyn" or "Jake," suspecting the worst, plays a trick on the friar. To entice the friar to go into some thorny bushes, he shoots a bird with his magic bow; once inside, Jake blows his pipe causing the friar to leap and dance about, tearing his clothes and scratching his face in the process. Jake stops only when the friar promises not to harm him. When the stepmother sees the friar's injuries, she complains to her husband, who asks "What hast thow do to the ffreyr?" The boy replies that he did nothing but blow on his pipe. When the father asks to hear the pipe, the friar demands that someone tie him to a post in the middle of the hall so that he "schall not ffall." As soon as Jake begins playing, everyone rises from their supper and begins leaping and dancing. As soon as the stepmother stares at Jake, she began to fart uncontrollably. And the friar knocks his head against the post and rubs his skin against the ropes. Down the street the neighbors, hearing the boy pipe, run out of their houses naked and leap about. When they all finish dancing, the friar ordered the boy to appear in ecclesiastical court. On Friday the court is busy -- there are wills to read and "fair women" to judge. Standing before the official, the friar accuses Jake of necromancy, while the stepmother adds that the boy is a witch. All of a sudden the stepmother 's tail begins to blow loudly, and the onlookers laugh. The friar then explains to the official that the boy has a magic pipe that causes people to dance. Asking to see the pipe, the official tries to blow it but it doesn't make a sound. He then orders Jake to play the pipe, and upon doing so they all begin dancing wildly -- the official bangs his shins, the clerks injure their ankles and backs, and some throw their books against the wall. The official begs Jake to stop playing, promising to give him whatever he wants. After Jake stops playing, the official blesses him and gives him twenty shillings. Jake goes home never to be mistreated by his step-mother again, and he grows up to become a worthy merchant -- "a man of gret degre."

31. The text of Robin Hood and the Potter is a unique copy of a lost copy-text of unknown date and provenance. The story preserves the tradition, common in earlier outlaw tales such asHereward the Wake, Eustache the Monk, and Fouke fitz Warin, in which the outlaw, having adopted the disguise of a tradesman or artisan, goes into town or the enemy camp in order to reconnoiter and/or humiliate his enemy. As in Robin Hood and the Potter, the outlaw successfully entices the lord or sheriff into the forest where he is robbed. The outlaw thereby demonstrates his intellectual and moral superiority to his enemies, who sometimes also include gullible and naive commoners; see Thomas H. Ohlgren, Medieval Outlaws: Ten Tales in Modern English (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998), pp. xxvi-xxviii. Interestingly, the people of Norfolk were singled out as being particularly stupid, and this tradition may lie behind the naive townspeople in the poem who eagerly buy Robin Hood's pots, not realizing that the sale is part of his stratagem to ingratiate himself to the sheriff and his wife. For a brief discussion of theDescriptio Northfolchiae, see A.G. Rigg, A History of Anglo-Latin Literature 1066-1422 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 234-35.

Summary of Robin Hood and the Potter: Hiding in the forest (Sherwood?) near a highway, Robin and his men make their living in part by charging road-toll to passers by. Upon being stopped, a potter prefers to fight rather than pay. Wielding a two-handed staff the potter knocks Robin to the ground and he yields. Robin then proposes that they exchange clothing so that he can go into Nottingham, presumedly to sell the pots, but, as we soon discover, his real intention is to trick and to humiliate the sheriff. Robin not only wins the archery tournament and 40 shillings, gets a free dinner at the sheriff's expense, robs the sheriff of his horse and gear, but, to add insult to injury, flirts with the sheriff's wife right under his nose. Richard Call would have also appreciated Robin's trick of selling the pots at ridiculously low prices in order to ingratiate himself to the sheriff's wife.

32. Kate Mertes, "Aristocracy," in Fifteenth-century Attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval England, ed. Rosemary Horrox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; rpt. 1996), pp. 42-60. For representative samples of courtesy books, see F. J. Furnivall, ed., Early English Meals and Manners EETS 32 (1868), and F. J. Furnivall, ed., Caxton's Book of Curtesye EETS extra series 3 (1868).

33. Walter A. Elwell, ed., Encyclopedia of the Bible, Vol. 2 (London, 1988), p. 2150.

34. The story is found in eight manuscripts (IMEV 2052 and Supplement, p. 240). An additional six manuscripts contain the prologue, Lamentacio Peccatoris (IMEV 172 and Supplement, p. 22). The opening 67 verses are missing due to the loss of the opening leaf in the Cambridge manuscript.

In the Prologue in Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 61, Sir William Basterfeld, the first-person narrator, addresses "all crysten men," including his brother, warning them against the sins of vainglory, swearing, gluttony, sloth, and especially lechery. Speaking from hell, where he is burning in fire and gnawed by toads and snakes, he confesses that he led a life of lechery, sparing neither maid nor his wife. Because he refused to repent, he will burn forever in hell. He begs his brother to think on his death, and pray to heaven's king to save him on judgment day. No lord, no justice, no man of law can help him, only God.

In the story, an unnamed narrator asks the audience to heed his "talkynge." He warns against the seven sins, and adultery in particular. Wedlock, the first sacrament, lasts until judgment day, and if you take another man's wife you will bring three souls to hell-fire. To illustrate his point, he relates the example of two brothers who dwell in Falmouth. The elder one has a wife, but he has every woman he can until the devil catches him with his crook. After both brothers are killed in a fight with their enemies, the elder one goes to hell, while the younger goes to paradise. The elder's son, while praying at his father's grave, is taken to hell by an angel to see his father, who is hanging by his genitals while fiends torment him. When his son asks him why he is being punished, the father confesses that he sinned against his fair, good wife. He also laments that no saint or angel can rid him of his pain. Predicting that his son will become a priest, he warns him not to pray for him for seven years. Before the son departs, the father asks him to warn every man against breaking his wedlock. Leading the child out of that wretched place, the angel then takes the boy to a fair mansion with crystal gates and golden walls. He hears angels and minstrels singing, as well as birds. Upon a green hill he sees a tree -- the one forbidden to Adam in Paradise -- that bleeds whenever a sinful person comes near it. The angel then leads him upon a plain where he sees a shining tent in which is sitting a man whom the angels honored. "Lo child," said the angel, "this is your uncle, your father's brother, in heaven. So your father might have been had he been kind to wedlock., but he has gotten himself endless hell in the deep dungeon." Therefore, mankind, keep yourself from mischief, and you will go straight to bliss.

35. The miracle of the Virgin is found in four manuscripts (IMEV 622).

The wife of a knight does not believe that Christ's body is literally present in the Host ("fforme of bred") -- that is, she denies the miracle of transubstantiation. On Easter Day the lady goes to church, but during Holy Communion she hides the Host between her breasts. Carrying it home, she folds it in a kerchief and casts it in a chest. After half a year she buries the Host under a pear tree in an arbor beside her hall. During the Christmas feast the pear tree begins to sprout white and red blossoms, followed by ripe pears. The bishop then orders a squire to break off one of the limbs, only to discover that it bleeds red blood. When the limb is replaced it grows back on the tree. Upon delving down to the roots, the bishop finds a child with red wounds, who blesses everyone present. The lady sighs and says "alas." The child turns away his face and will not look on that lady, who beseeches the bishop to shrive her for her misdeeds. The bishop shrives her and tells her to think on him who was crucified. The bishop then carries the blessed body to the altar where he forms him into bread. The lady receives her God then.

36. Davis, pp. xliv-xlvi. See also Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century: Fastolf's Will (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

37. D.J. McKitterick, The Library of Sir Thomas Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe, c. 1539-1618 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Library, 1978), p. 37.

38. McKitterick, p. 22, 36-37.

39. McKitterick, p. 27.

40. McKitterick, p. 162.

41. McKitterick, p. 17. See also Ruth Hughey, The Correspondence of Lady Katherine Paston, 1603-1627, Norfolk Record Society, vol. xiv (1941), pp. 32-33. Sir Edmund Paston, knight, of Paston, Norfolk, 1585-1632, was the son of Christopher Paston (died 1611) and grandson of Sir William Paston. Edmund married Katherine Knyvett (1578-1628) on April 28, 1603 and had two sons, William and Thomas.

42. For scholarship on the Paston connection to the play, see E.K. Chambers, The Medieval Stage, 2 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1903; I, p. 177; R.B. Dobson and J. Taylor,Rymes of Robyn Hood (London: Heinemann, 1976; reprinted Sutton, 1998, pp. 203-4; David Wiles, The Early Plays of Robin Hood (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1981), pp. 35-6; Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren, Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997), pp. 269-74; and John Marshall, "'goon in-to Bernysdale': The Trail of the Paston Robin Hood Tale," Leeds Studies in English, New Series xxix (1998), 202.

43. For a detailed discussion of mercantile themes in the early Robin Hood poems, see my essay, "The 'Marchaunt' of Sherwood: Mercantile Ideology in A Gest of Robyn Hode," pp. 175-90 inRobin Hood in Popular Culture, edited by Thomas Hahn (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2000).
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Introduction

The following comments on the dialect provenance of CUL MS Ee.4.35.1 are based on an analysis of the language of the several texts that are found in the MS, using the Questionnaire, maps, and Linguistic Profiles contained in The Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English, 4 vols. (Aberdeen, 1986), abbreviated below as LALME.
 

The cursive hand of the manuscript combines both anglicana and secretary letter-forms and probably belongs to the late fifteenth century; one might adduce the shape of the "h"s as pointing to the fifteenth rather than the sixteenth century. The informality of the hand and the high frequency of errors suggest strongly that the volume was an amateur production. 
 

Selected Dialectal Features
 

The following are specific comments on certain relevant dialectal features of the language (selected from a fuller inventory of forms; not all forms are listed for every item), keyed to the numbered items in the LALME Questionnaire and to appropriate Linguistic Profiles (denoted by county abbreviation and number of the LP) and Dot Maps (DMs). Dominant forms are given without parentheses around them. Single parentheses around a form indicate a lesser frequency than the dominant form; double parentheses indicate a rare or unique form. Similarly, single or double parentheses around the number of an LP indicate the relative frequency of a designated form within that LP.
 

6. IT het ((hett)) ((yt)) 

Cf. het Stf ((726)); Sur ((5730)); et Nfk ((58)) 4041; -et Nfk (735) (4622) ((4670)), Sfk ((8450)) (see LALME, vol. 4: 9). See also DMs 24, 26. A significant form suggesting Nfk.
 

10. SUCH seche

Also Nfk 659 4624 (4668), Sfk 639 8350 (8450) (see LALME, vol. 4: 17). See also DM 67. A common form in Nfk and Sfk. 
 

11. WHICH wyche 

Also Nfk 58 (67) 649 (659) ((671)) (4066) 46622 (4665), Sfk 6161 8450 8492 (see LALME, vol. 4: 21). A common form in Nfk and Sfk.
 

12. EACH echone ((-ychone)) 

Also Sfk 4568; echon appears in Nfk ((645)) (4646) ((4663)), ecchon in Nfk 4646, and ychon in Nfk 671 (see LALME, vol. 4: 23-26). .
 

13. MANY maney 

Also Som 5180; manye Nfk and Sfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 27). Perhaps interesting in view of a possible William Worcester connection or influence, since Worcester came from Bristol and Southwestern forms are occasionally found in texts, such as Stephen Scrope's Mirror of the World, that are associated with Worcester's literary interests.
 

15. ANY eney (eny) 

Also eney Ex ((6200)) Hrf ((7391)); eny is common in Sfk and Nfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 29). See DMs 98, 100. See comment on item 13.
 

16. MUCH meche ((mekyll))

The spelling meche is common in Nfk and Sfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 29); mekyll is found in Nfk, Sfk (8430) (8440). See DMs 101, 103, 105, 111, 115.
 

17. ARE beyt 

Also Ex 6021; beit Ex 6021, Wor 7721 (see LALME, vol. 4: 32-33). Perhaps cf. DM 128. See comment on item 13.
 

24. WILL sg., pl. wel

Also (sg.) Sfk (8350) (8360), Nfk 621 638 (669) 734 4103 (4290) 4569; (pl.) Nfk 4648; in addition, wele pl is common in Nfk and is found in Sfk 4231 (8380) 8450 (see LALME, vol. 4: 43-45). See also DM 162. Significant forms that suggest Nfk perhaps rather more than Sfk.
 

33. IF yeffe (yeff) (yef) 

The spelling yeffe is dominant in Som 5180, Dvn 5060, Wrk 4685; yeff occurs in Dvn (5040), as well as elsewhere; yef is found in Sfk 8371, Nfk 4570, as well as elsewhere; yefe occurs in Nfk (4066) (see LALME, vol. 4: 60). See also DMs 209, 210. See comment on item 13.
 

38. ERE ar 

Also Nfk 4670, Sfk (8350), and other areas; or is the usual form for Sfk and Nfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 69). See also DM 232.
 

41. WHILE wheyle 

Cf. wheyl Nfk (4662), wheyl-þat Nfk 4662; while is the common form in Sfk, and whil is the normal form for Nfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 75).
 

45. NOT not ((nat)) 

The spelling not is the usual form for Sfk and Nfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 83). See also DM 276.

53. MIGHT vb meythe, meyt

The form meyth occurs in Dvn (5050); other -e- forms are also found in Dvn; meyte Nfk ((4290)) (cf. mey th sb., f. 4a, line 3); meyte Ex 6321 (see LALME, vol. 4: 94). See also DMs 334, 336. See comment on item 13.
 

55. WHEN when (whan)

Both spellings are common throughout Nfk and Sfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 102-03).
 

59. 3 SG. PRES. INDIC. -es

LALME, vol. 4: 108, records this ending as fairly common in Nfk, as least as a variant, and in Sfk ((772)) ((4568)). One should keep in mind that the optimum dates for LALME are from 1350 to 1450 and that this is a progressive form, so its general appearance in a manuscript of late date is not totally abnormal.
 

77. BE ppl. byn 

Also Nfk 4290 ((4624)) 4662 4670 (see LALME, vol. 4: 124).
 

91. BUT bot (but)

The form bot occurs in Sfk 8430 and is also found in Nfk, though but is the usual form for both Nfk and Sfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 139). See also DM 375.
 

92. BY bey, by ((be))

The spelling be is found in both Nfk and Sfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 139-40).
 

104. DO pt. sg. dyd, ded 

Both forms occur in Nfk and Sfk, as well as elsewhere (see LALME, vol. 4: 153).
 

114. EVIL yeffell

This precise form is not listed in LALME, vol. 4: 162-63; yeuel occurs in Som (5260), yeuele in Hrf (7391), and yevel in Wlt 5311. See also DM 981.
 

124. FIRE ffeyr

The spelling feyr occurs in Sfk (4635), Nfk (642) ((669)) 4280 (4564) ((4569)) (4570) 4629; feir occurs in Nfk (642) 4569 4647 (see LALME, vol. 4: 170).
 

137. GIVE geffe (gyffe) ((gefe)); ppl. geffe 

The ppl. form is paralleled in Dvn 5071; some g- forms occur in Nfk and Sfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 181-85).
 

142. HAVE haffe ((a)) 

The reduced form a is common in Nfk and Sfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 189). See also DM 1007.
 

151. HILL hell 

The suffixed form hell- is found in Ex and in Sfk 8350; helle occurs in Ex and in Sfk 6140 (see LALME, vol. 4: 198). See also DM 993. See comment on item 13.
 

152. HIM hem ((hym)) 

The form hem is found in Nfk and in Sfk 4266 4635 (see LALME, vol. 4: 198). See also DM 1129.
 

153. HITHER hether 

Also in Nfk 4662, Chs 750 (see LALME, vol. 4: 199). See also DMs 443, 444. 
 

173. LOVE loffe (loue-)

The form loffe for the noun is recorded only in Li ((510)) ((905)), NME (484), for the verb in Li 913. The form lofe for the noun occurs in Nfk 4633 4663 (and elsewhere) and for the verb in Nfk ((58)) 4663 (and elsewhere); loue is common for noun and verb in both Nfk and Sfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 213-14). 
 

196. OLD wolde (olde) 

LALME, vol. 4: 228, records wold in Lei 299 and woold in Lei (299). See also DM 1183. It may be significant that the seven instances of wolde occur in The Cheylde and Hes Stepdame.
 

211. SEE pt. saw, sey

The form sey is common in Nfk and Sfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 246).
 

243. UNTIL tell 

Also Dvn 9400, Kt 9470, Sur 5740; til and tyl are the usual forms in Sfk and Nfk (see LALME, vol. 4: 273-74. See comment on item 13.
 

Other forms of dialectal interest that deserve comment include:
 

HIS hes (his). The form hese occurs primarily in Nfk. See DM 1131.
 

EAT pr. het, pt. yet. Cf. DM 1172, where the addition of unetymological initial 'h' is shown as occurring in Nfk as well as elsewhere.
 

-th for final -t; for example, methe 'meat,' methe 'meet,' neyth(e) (beside neyt, neyt) 'night,' reythe 'right.' See DM 1176, where this feature is shown as almost exclusively Nfk.
 

General Conclusions
 

The language is little influenced by the standardization that increasingly affected many scribes and educated writers in the second half of the fifteenth century (although many educated but non-professional writers, such as Cardinal Wolsey in his letters, continued to use local spelling forms even in the sixteenth century). The dialect of the present texts appears to be East Anglian, more likely from southern Norfolk than Suffolk. There are occasional forms that may reflect a Southwestern stratum or admixture; one notes that several such forms are similar to forms found in Norfolk or Suffolk, and may, therefore, have survived for that reason.