Preserved uniquely in Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania MS Codex 196 and edited here for the first time, the “Lament of St. Anselm” (DIMEV 6291) presents an apparently incomplete Middle English verse adaptation of Anselm of Canterbury’s Latin prose meditation, the so-called “Lament for Virginity Unhappily Lost” (“Deploratio virginitatis male amissae”). The Latin dates from the end of the eleventh century, while the poetic translation (based on the dating of the manuscript) was composed c. 1400. The Middle English poet begins with four stanzas describing the threat of damnation at the Last Judgment, before introducing St. Anselm as an exemplary penitent figure (f. 118v/38), one whose “ful holy lyf” and pious “stodye” authorize the subsequent text (119r/2 and 4). Significantly, the Middle English poet does not present Anselm as the author or writer of the lament, but rather as its original performer: the saint “on a day ... made his mone” in the form recorded by the poet (119r/5 and 23). The lament itself begins in the middle of a stanza (119r/25), ensuring that it could not circulate apart from the translator’s original frame. Owing to the freeness of the adaptation, it is unclear how many stanzas have been lost from the end of the poem (including, perhaps, a resumption of the frame), just as it is difficult to determine whether the abrupt ending of the text at the end of f. 120v reflects the scribe’s incomplete exemplar or simply his decision to stop copying.
This digital edition was prepared as part of an advanced undergraduate seminar on Middle English lyric poetry, led by Andrew Kraebel in the Fall of 2017. After learning how to read medieval English bookhands, students collaboratively transcribed and edited the text from Penn 196, and then they annotated their edition in TEI markup language to be presented on this site. These students are: Claire Alderson, Dillon Bishop, Julia Camp, Katherine Devney, Emily Garrett, Grace Holt, Nicole Jozefiak, Zack Klein, David Menchaca, Kathy Millar, Jessica Phillips, Daniel Rothschild, Chelsea Runacres, Tiana Sanchez, and Emily Wood.
In Diplomatic view, the text is presented without the expansion of abbreviations and with the separation of prefixes (e.g. “for-sake”) reflecting the scribe’s spacing in the manuscript. (Scrolling over these words will reveal their more familiar forms.) Material deleted by the scribe is highlighted in red, while letters and words only visible under UV light or in multispectral images are highlighted in gray. In Interpretative view, expanded abbreviations are given in italics, and material deleted by the scribe is contained in double square brackets. Editorial emendations are only visible in this view, revealed by scrolling over a word given in red (e.g. f. 119v/8). Spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been standardized, according to the conventions of modern English, in both views.
Work on this edition will be ongoing. Among other things, a description of the manuscript will be added, the text-image link will be expanded, more “hot spots,” with interpretive information about the poem, will be included, and a modernized English version will be prepared and presented on the site. Trinity students are encouraged to email Dr. Kraebel (akraebel@trinity.edu) to discuss the possibility of a directed reading course in Fall 2018 to undertake some of this work.