Editorial note — M.A., TRIN. HALL. CAMB.; MEMBER OF COUNCIL OF THE PHILOLOGICAL AND EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETIES; LOVER OF OLD BOOKS. (continued 3)
Reading edition
Prof. Brewer has, I find, printed these Statuta in his most interesting and valuable Monumenta Franciscana, 1858, p. 582-6. He differs from Mr Brock and me in reading drunkelewe (drunken, in Chaucer, &c.) as ‘drunke, lewe,’ and vessels as ‘bossels,’ and in adding e’s1 to some final g’s. He says, by way of Introduction, that, “Though entitled Ordinances for the Household of Bishop Grostete, this is evidently a Letter addressed to the Bishop on the management of his Household by some very intimate friend. From the terms used in the Letter, it is clear that the writer must have been on confidential terms with the Prelate. I cannot affirm positively that the writer was Adam de Marisco, although to no other would this document be attributed with greater probability. No one else enjoyed such a degree of Grostete’s affection; none would have ventured to address him with so much familiarity. Besides, the references made more than once by Adam de Marisco in his letters to the management of the Bishop’s household, greatly strengthen this supposition. See pp. 160, 170 (Mon. Francisc.). The MS. is a small quarto on vellum, in the writing of the 15th century. It is in all probability a translation from a Latin original.”
* The T of T the is used as a paragraph mark in the MS. Italics partly added by transcriber; see Corrigenda.
1. In this he is probably right. The general custom of editors justifies it. Our printers want a pig-tailed or curly g to correspond with the MS. one.