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How to Hear Mass
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| Text name: | How to Hear Mass |
| Alternative names: | A Treatise of the Manner and Mede of the Mass; Her techeþ þys tretys þenne / Hou mon scholde here hys masse; Young and old More and less; How a Man Should Hear Mass |
| Content: | The poem How to Hear Mass explains the proceeding of a Catholic mass and gives directions for the behavior of laymen. It includes some interesting anecdotes, such as the story of two women who were talking too much during a mass and were consequently overheard by the Devil. |
| Genre/subjects: | religious observance, mass, instructions, treatise |
| Dialect of original composition: | Northern The only manuscript witness of the poem is the famous Vernon manuscript. "The Vernon MS. [...] is patched together from the copies of at least two different scribes, who have altered the original according to their several dialects. [...] But amidst the jumble of dialects, there is no difficulty in recognising the Northumbrian as having been the dialect of the original, the northern forms being retained, when they rhymed with a word, which did not readily admit of being changed." (Simmons 1879: 362-3) "There can be no doubt that [the text] has been very much mutilitated, were it only in the process of southernizing the northern dialect." (ibid: 361). For example, the text sometimes includes the northern second person singular ending -es for -est (e.g. þou gas l. 104). It sometimes preserves long a (hame l. 578) "because a rhyme to shame did not readily present itself" (ibid: 363). |
| Date of original composition: | 1303-1390 As Furnivall (1901: 501) points out, the anecdote beginning in l. 288, "Before St. Augustin came to England ... ," is not found in The Lay-Folk's Mass-Book, which the poem is partially based on. The passage is, however, contained in Brunne's Handlying Synne, which was begun in 1303. If Handlyng Synne was the source for this passage, 1303 may serve as a terminus post quem for the composition of the poem. The date of the manuscript, generally believed to be c. 1390, functions as its terminus ante quem. Simmons believes that the date of composition falls within the earlier portion of this time span, writing, "I am disposed to think that the original must be at least a century older, and that our text is a confused and very fragmentary copy" (1879: 361). However, a period of transition of one hundred years seems to be too great. There is little evidence for a complex history of transmission for the text. The poem includes the verb melen 'speak' in line 656, Ne more þer-of to mele wiþ mouþe., which, according to the MED occurs "[c]hiefly N & WM after mid 14th century." Other texts in the Vernon manuscript were composed at around the middle of the fourteenth century, e.g. Joseph of Aramathie. None of the conservative features of the text, such as the contraction of not+is to nys (l. 151), the imperative beo 'be' (line 129) and the pronoun heo for 'she' (e.g. line 224), force a point of origin in the beginning of the fourteenth century. Therefore, a textual transmission of c. fifty , rather than c. one hundred, years may yield a more realistic estimate for the date of the original. Some lines "which do [...] not occur in Audelay or the Harleian MS. (l. 436 - 448), may have been a later insertion, with tacit reference to Wycliff's translation of the Bible, and Lollard dissatisfaction at the gospel being read in an unknown tongue" (Simmons 1879: 361). |
| Suggested date: | 1355 |
| PCMEP period: | 3 (1350-1420) |
| Versification: | "aabccbddbeeb, tail-rime" (Wells 1916: 356) one prefatory four-line stanza, fifty-seven 12-line stanzas "The metre is that which was called "cowee" or versus caudati [...]. It was so called from having kowes, pendants or tails - that is, shorter lines between the couplets, - which are "coupled" or rhyme together." (Simmons 1879: 361, for more detail, ibid 361-2) |
| Index of ME Verse: | 4276 (IMEV), 4276 (NIMEV) |
| Digital Index of ME Verse: | 6871 |
| Wells: | 6.19 |
| MEC HyperBibliography: | Treat.Mass |
About the edition and manuscript base:
| Edition: | Simmons, Thomas Frederick. 1879. The Lay Folks’ Mass Book. EETS o.s. 71. London: Trübner & Co. 128-47. |
| Manuscript used for edition: | Oxford, Bodleian Library, Eng. poet. a.1 (SC 3938-42) [Vernon MS], f. 302va2-303vc |
| Online manuscript description: | Summary catalogue of Western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, no. 3938-3942 Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Vol. 3, no. 676) A catalogue of Western manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries and selected Oxford colleges Manuscripts of the West Midlands 1300-1475 (item 333) Digitized manuscript at the Digital Bodleian |
| Manuscript dialect: | West-Midlands The two scribes of the Vernon Manuscript have been identified as Worcestershiremen. Specifically, the manuscript may have been produced near Bordesley Abbey, a Cistercian house (McIntosh et al. 1986: 249-50). |
| Manuscript date: | s. xiv-ex The Vernon manuscript is dated c. 1390-1400. The manuscript was produced in "Saec. XIV ex. (after 1382)" (Pächt & Alexander 1973: 61). The online version of the Middle English Dictionary dates the manuscript to "c1390." The manuscript had previously been dated somewhat earlier, "1370-1380" (Wells 1916: 356) or "1375" (Simmons 1879: 361). |
About the file:
| File name: | M3.HowHearMass |
| ID: | HowHearMass,w.x.y.z: w=page, x=line, y=token, z=stanza{[Stanza_1]-[Stanza58]} |
| Word count: | 4,043 |
| Token count: | 292 |
| Line count: | 688 (684 + an initial quatrain) |
Other:
| General notes: | Simmons (1879: 128-47) prints the poem as appendix 4 in his edition. Furnivall (1901: 493-511) is another edition. The text shows strong affinities to the poem The Lay-Folk's Mass-Book (Simmons 1879: 2-60), IMEV 3507, DIMEV 5537. A later abridged version of the poem is IMEV 1986, DIMEV 3242. Simmon's 1879 edition often indicates half-lines with mid-dots. They have been removed in the electronic text file. The initial quatrain is sometimes regarded as an independent poem. It is listed independently in the DIMEV as no. 2007. Furnivall's 1901 edition omits it and consequently has only 684 lines. The poet sometimes announces a prayer but often they are not actually found in the text. "The liturgical prayers are mostly omitted in MS. Vernon, either because prayers of that kind were given before in MS. Vernon, or because the uses were different in different churches" (Furnivall 1901: 493). For example, after line 484, the poet announces (and prematurely apologizes for) an English rendition of the Creed, but it is not actually inserted into the manuscript. |
| Remarks on parses: | The line breaks follow the regular metre as in Simmons' (1879: 128-47) edition. There is little secondary literature on this poem. In particularly, there does not appear to be a translation or commentarial glossary for the text. The two editions of the text (Simmons 1879; Furnivall 1901) merey provide rough, paraphrasing interpretations for a few lines in the margins. Simmons also has a glossary for the most complicated words, e.g. l. 98 "amebesaas" 'misfortune.' This is unfortunate since many passages are hard to interpret and parse. The following notes therefore provide detailed comments on lines that are particularly difficult and explain why certain parsing decisions were made in the electronic text file. ll. 8-10 Hit was mad for soule hele, // þe Pater noster wiþ dedes fele // And deprofundis Is on. The syntactic relations in this passage are unclear. The three lines are split up into two tokens. The first one is then uncontroversial. "It [=the mass?] was made for the health of the soul." The second token is less unequivocal. dedes 'deeds' should probably be corrected to bedes 'prayers' (Furnivall 1901: 493). The predicate of the token seems to be Is on 'is one.' The predicate 'one' is difficult to understand because the subject of the preceding token is probably "the mass" while "the Pater Noster" and the "De profundis" are a prayer and a psalm respectively. Further, since these are two phrases, the verb should agree in plural, but surfaces as singular Is. Finally, the prepositional phrase "with many prayers" is also hard to interpret because "the Pater Noster" is one specific prayer, not many. The token parses And deprofundis as an appositive gapped main clause. This takes care of the singular number agreement. The prepositional phrase is parsed on the clause level. The intended meaning is 'The Pater Noster, among many prayers - and also the De Profundis - is one (example of something that heals the soul)." ll. 41-43 What mon wolde now suffre so, // His sone I-slayen and hedde no mo, // But ʒif he miʒte lyue a-ʒeyn. A literal translation reads, "What man would now suffer so // his son slain and had no more // but if he might live again," and the intended meaning appears to be "What man would, in a case like this, put up with so much suffering, when his son is slain, and when he does not have him any longer, except if his son might live again?" The second line is problematic for the parse since it seems disfluent. The words His sone I-slayen is parsed as a verb-first conditional with an empty verb "be", meaning 'were his son slain.' The disfluency and hedde no mo is parsed as a parenthetical matrix clause with a *pro* subject, whose reference should be inferred from the subject of the direct question "what man", i.e. some man. Its object is "his son" from the preceding conditional. A comment CODE in the clause explains this unusual parse as well. ll. 47-50 Whon þou dost a dedly synne, // Al þe while þat þou dwellest þer-Inne, // þou puttest to his payn, // þe same he suffred for vr sake, The syntactic link of the fourth line is debatable. Furnivall gives a semi-colon after the third line, indicating that there should be a token boundary here. That would result in the meaning "When you do a deadly sin // all the while that you dwell therein // you add to his pain" (with put in MED sense 13c). Simmons, however, places a full stop one line later, which would add an explicit direct object to put "... // you add to his pain // the same that he suffered for our sake." The parsed file follows Simmons in taking þe same he suffred for vr sake as the object of puttest. ll. 51-52 þen most merci a-mendes make // Boþe wiþ miht and mayn. The problem is about the proper interpretation of þen. The core meaning of the lines is probably something like "greatest mercy, i.e. Christ's Crucifxion, makes amends, i.e. atones for mankind's sins." The word þen could be an accusative determiner. That would make "the most mercy" the object of "make". Hence, the meaning would be "Amends make the greatest mercy." This seems unlikely because of the garbled meaning and because accusative determiners should be very rare by the second half of the fourteenth century. The word could be the temporal adverb "then", meaning "Then, the greatest mercy make[s] amends." The verb-final word order would be quite stilted, but could result from poetic licensing. The word could be a subordinator. The sentence would then mean "... the same he suffered for our sake // when the greatest mercy ma[de] amends," linking the lines to the previous token. Note, however, that the same token also includes innovative Whon as a temporal subordinator, which may make the conservative reading of þen as a subordinator unlikely. The "then" and "when" interpretations are also problematic because they would result in bad subject-verb agreement. The verb make does not appear to be singular since the text usually uses the suffix -eþ for the third person singular ending. Perhaps one could argue that the only plural noun in the line, a-mendes, is then the subject. In this case, the meaning would be "Amends make the greatest mercy." The meaning would be quite unclear and virtually all attestations of "amends" in the MED show the noun heading an object noun phrase. In short, the "then" and "when" interpretations are problematic as well. It is conceivable that þen is comparative "than" dependent in some way on the adjective same, meaning "the same [...] as ... ." This seems to be an unlikely interpretation because the meaning would be very obscure. Ruling out all other possibilities, the only conceivable reading of þen seems to be a conjunctive adverb, 'therefore' (MED, sense 3). If the clause is interpreted as an imperative, the agreement violation can be avoided too. This is the interpretation used for the parse in the electronic text file. The meaning of the token is intended as "Therefore, greatest mercy, make amends, both with might and vigor." The phrase "greatest mercy" is annotated as a vocative. The text uses non-temporal "then" relatively often (ll. 50, 59, 177). Here, and in the other instances, the adverb does not receive a -TMP extension because its interpretation is not temporal. l. 59 ...be Mayster most The word be is interpreted as imperative 'be,' "... be the greatest master!" Other interpretations, like preposition 'by,' are also conceivable. l. 77 On þe hext þing to here, The beginning of stanza 8 is parsed with the last lines of stanza 7 even though both Simmons (1879) and Furnivall (1901) have a full stop before the line. It is assumed to depend on tent ... take (MED sense 3) in l. 73 "take heed", "pay attention", meaning "if you take heed // ... // to learn about the highest thing." ll. 78-80 And þe lihtest for to lere, // For lewed men In lare. // Hou þat ʒe schul ʒor seruise say, // Simmons interprets "it is easy for the unlearned to learn." This seems to suggest that lihtest should be translated as 'easiest.' But this seems problematic because there is no copula in the sentence to allow for the structure "And [it] is the easiest to learn ... ." Therefore, the parse used in the electronic file assumes that þe lihtest is an unusual spelling of impersonal listen, MED, "it is pleasing for you." This makes l. 79 very hard to interpret. It could mean something like, "as far as laymen are concerned." ll. 128-130 And ʒif þou may not do so, // I rede beo vnderne ar þou go, // Or elles be heiʒ midday. Simmons (1879: 405) takes beo and be as the imperative of "to be." The predicate of "be" seems to be unexpressed, maybe something like "there, at the mass." A good interpretation would be "And if you may not do so (i.e. go to a mass in the morning), I advise be [there] at the third hour [...] // or else be [there] at midday." An empty ADVP-LOC containing only * is included in the structure. This is an unusual parse not found elsewhere. l. 170 Haue we no doute of vr dole, The structure is parsed as an imperative clause with an overt subject, meaning "let's have ... ." ll. 176-179 Serteynliche wiþ-outen lees // Of sum of hem þen wol I sees // For þing þat may be-falle // ʒif I drouʒ hem on lengþe, Simmons provides the interpretation "for I foresee if I only cited some at length" (1879: 133) and the note for sees, "1 sing. northern, I see" (ibid. 434, explicit reference to northern dialect on page 363). Despite these aids, the lines remain very hard to understand. The parse assumes that sees is not in fact a finite form of "(fore)see" but the infinitive "cease" with the Of-phrase as its complement. The 1st person ending -s does not show up regularly in the poem. Further, if the form is finite, it seems hard to link wol to it. The intended meaning of the parse is thus, "Certainly, without deceit // I may therefore abstain from some of them [= the proverbs by all the authorities, previous lines] // because of a thing that might happen // if I cited them at length." l. 204 To don vuele he biddes þe do: The sentence means, "To do evil, it [=your nature] bids you do." The initial non-finite clause is tagged as IP-INF-ADT. ll. 260-265 Whiche þat ʒe wole preye fore, // þauh ʒe do for mony a score // At a Masse ʒe may; // Alle þo þat ʒe nempne nouʒt, // But only þenke in ʒor þouʒt // þat ʒe wolde fore pray, Like many other passages of the poem, these lines could be parsed in several ways and both the meaning and the syntactic relations are not entirely obvious. The parse assumes that the first line is not one free relative "Whatever you want to pray for", but rather an imperative "Pray for that which you want." The second line in an adverbial clause, "even if you do this [=pray] for a large number [of things you want]". The first two lines form one token. The third line does not have an overt main verb, but it is not clear how to make it syntactically dependent on either the preceding or following material. It is therefore parsed as an independent token, "At a mass, you are allowed [to pray for a lot of things]" with a an empty main verb, (VB *). The meaning of the last three lines is not absolutely clear, but it seems natural to parse them as one token. The intended interpretation is one that takes the last line as a definition of a "prayer", roughly, "All those [things] that you do not name [=i.e. speak out loud], // but that you only think in thought // that, you want to pray for [i.e. that is what a prayer is]". It is possible that this interpretation, and hence the syntactic structure that it implies, is wrong. ll. 290-292 Also witnesseþ seynt Austine, // þat furst wit in Engelond gan lene, // And preche þe treuþe bi-gon. The tense on witnesseþ is assumed to be present even though this makes bad sense since St. Augustine is dead. The line introduced by that could either be an adverbial clause ("so that first wisdom in England began to remain"), but then it is hard to link the third line to the token. It could also be a relative clause ("[Augustine] who first began to give wisdom in England"), which makes it easier to link the third line to the token. The second interpretation is therefore used for the parse. ll. 362-363 Foul þei fond þer I-sched, // As blac as pich was I-spred Literally translated, these lines mean, "Filth they found there shed // as black as pitch was spread." The parse includes a token boundary after "pitch." The subject of the second token is annotated as *con* even though it is co-referential with the subject of the preceding small clause ("filth ... found shed") not with the subject of the preceding main clause ("they found there..."). l. 364 þer was neuer fend blod mihte blede, This line means literally, "There was never fiend blood might bleed." The parse includes a relative clause without any relativizers. The intended meaning is "There was never a fiend who might bleed blood." l. 377 At þe wyues gon þei witen The word at is problematic. It is tagged as a conjunction, CONJ. The intended interpretation is "And the women, they began to understand ... ." ll. 437-438 And whi ʒe schulde þis lessun lere, // Herkneþ alle and ʒe may here. Normally, imperative + and-clause conditionals (e.g. "Come here, and I will help you") are treated as two tokens. However, the fronting of the wh-clause in this sentence makes such an analysis impossible. Instead, the imperative is treated as an parenthetical. As a result, there is an unusual clause-medial conjunction ("And [why you should learn this lesser] - listen all - and you shall learn _ "). (Very similar reasoning applies to line 436.) ll. 465-466 Seiþ þat we schal don non oþer // In his pistel whose redes. It is not clear how to link the last words of these lines, whose redes, a free relative meaning "whosoever reads [it]", to the rest of the sentence. The meaning seems to be "... says that we should not do otherwise in his letters - as anybody who reads it can see." The free relative is split off and parsed as its own fragmentary token, (FRAG). ll. 604-609 So gostly he comes a-geyn // Vn-to god for to preyen // Sum special grace hym sende // For al þe folk þat þer wore, // Whuch þat he haþ preyed fore, // þat a Masse may mende. The parse used in the electronic text file assumes that the third line is a complement infinitival clause of preyen and that the For prepositional phrase in the fourth line depends on grace. The that-clause in the last line is assumed to function as the complement of "pray" in the relative clause in the preceding line. The intended meaning is "Thus spiritually cleansed, he [=the priest] comes again // in order to pray to God // to send him special grace // for all the people who were there, // for who he prayed // that a mass would amend [them]." However, these lines allow many parses. For example, The For phrase could depend on "comes" in the first or "pray" in the second line. The final that-clause could be a consecutive adverbial clause etc. ll. 620-623 I con not wonder wel ryme // On latin ʒou to lere. // But noþeles I wol assay // As neiʒ þe text as euer I may. These lines pose several problems. Firstly, wonder could be one of any number of possible word classes. In the electronic text file, it is parsed as an adverb, meaning "exceedingly (well)." The meaning of "On latin" is unclear and is interpreted as "out of Latin (into English)." The non-finite clause ʒou to lere is regarded as a purposive clause "in order to teach you." Finally, the syntax of the last two lines is unclear. Simmons provides the following interpretation, "But I render it into English as well as I can." Following this interpretation, the parse includes an empty to-infinitive, (TO *) (VB *), which is probably recoverable from ryme "to compose in metre" from the previous token. The meaning of the four lines is meant to be, "I cannot particularly well make verses // out of Latin in order to teach you. // But nevertheless I will atempt // [to rhyme] the text as closely as I ever may." This list is not comprehensive. Other passages are hard to interpret as well. However, other passages are often less problematic since they either show genuine ambiguity, which is always resolved with one particular parse, or they are complicated only in terms of meaning, not syntax. |
References
Furnivall, Frederick J. 1901. The Minor Poems of the Vernon MS. Part II. (With a few from the Digby Mss. 2 and 86). EETS o.s. 117. London: Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. (available online)
McIntosh, Angus, Samuels, Michael L. & Benskin, Michael. 1986. A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press.
Pächt, Otto & Alexander, Jonathan J G. 1973. Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Volume 3. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (available online)
Simmons, Thomas Frederick. 1879. The Lay Folks’ Mass Book. EETS o.s. 71. London: Trübner & Co. (available online)
Wells, John E. 1916. Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050-1400. New Haven, CT: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. (available online)