The seven principal virtues : an edition
Date
1981
Authors
Butler, Richard Michael
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Abstract
A hitherto unpublished poem on the seven Principal Virtues is preserved, in slightly differing versions, in Harley MS. 3954 and in Cambridge University Library MS. Ii 4.9. This poem, here called 'The Seven Principal Virtues', is the subject of the present edition.
Neither of the extant versions of 'The Seven Principal Virtues' appears to be the original. However, because substantive variants between the two versions are few, a single edited text will be presented. The Harley MS. version. will serve as copy-text. A faithful transcription of this version will be presented; apparent scribal errors will be emended, and omissions will be supplied from the Cambridge MS. version. The edition will follow the format prescribed by the Early English Text Society, as outlined in its Notes for Editors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).
With the exception of one Latin poem in the Cambridge MS., both manuscripts are written in what might be described as a uniform late Middle English. The two manuscripts contain a number of more or less well-known works in prose and verse. The manuscripts have in common 'The Seven Principal Virtues' and three other didactic poems written in a similar style: a poem on the seven Virtues versus the seven Deadly Sins, a poem on the seven Works of Mercy, and a poem on the seven Sacraments. These four 'shared' poems appear in the same order in the two manuscripts. In addition, there are four other didactic poems of similar style in the Cambridge MS., three preceding and one following the aforementioned group of four.
Both the four poems in the Harley MS. and the eight poems in the Cambridge MS. appear to form a distinct sequence within the respective manuscripts. Evidence suggests that the sequential arrangement of poems apparent in the two extant manuscripts was present in a hypothetical lost original, that the poems were ·originally meant to be read in relationship .to one another, and that all but one of the poems in the sequence as presumed in the hypothetical lost original were by the same author.
A review of the history of the literature of the seven Virtues and of ecclesiastical events and didactic literature immediately preceding and contemporary with the composition of 'The Seven Principal Virtues' leads one to expect the present poem to appear within some sort of sequential matrix, in company with other didactic poems. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to consider editing 'The Seven Principal Virtues' without some reference to the poems which accompany it in manuscript.
The combination of internal and external evidence suggests that 'The Seven Principal Virtues' and, by implication, its companion pieces in the hypothetical original sequence, were probably written by a parish priest some time between 1325 and 1425.