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Oxford, Bodleian Library Rawlinson C.86 (SC 11951)

Linguistic note: McIntosh, Samuels, and Benskin (1986) and Benskin, Laing, Karaiskos, and Williamson (2013) 1.151 (Norfolk).

‘Northern Passion’

One stanza rhyme royal, followed by four lines (lines 64-67 from Peter Idley’s Instructions [2594]) and four distichs.

Aphorism on difference between fools and wisemen — one couplet

A proverb — one couplet, here isolated, also found incorporated into longer texts

A moralizing couplet

Proverbial statement about gentlemen’s speech — one couplet

On the Redemption — four couplets, with couplet heading

‘The Frere and the Boy’ or ‘The Chylde and hes Stepdame’ — in 6-line stanzas

A warning against the fickleness of Fortune — one couplet, followed by five related couplets

Macaronic verses lamenting the Evils of the Age, temp. Richard II — 236 lines in quatrains, alternately English and Latin lines

On the fickleness of women — thirteen 8-line stanzas with refrain: ‘Pulle of her bellys & let her go flye’ or ‘Then plukkyd y of here bellys & let here fly’

John Lydgate, ‘Dietary’ — ten 8-line stanzas

John Lydgate, ‘Testament’, in five sections—sections 1, 3, and 5 in 8-line stanzas (ababbcbc); sections 2 and 4 in rhyme royal

Appeal of Christ to Man — fourteen 8-line stanzas with the refrain, ‘Quid vltra debui facere’

The Complaint of God — eleven 12-line stanzas (ababababbcbc) with refrain, ‘Whi art þou to þi frend vnkinde’

A lament of the Virgin Mary — twelve 8-line stanzas with the refrain: Quia amore langueo

‘I wiyte my silf myn owne woo’ — eighteen 8-line stanzas with this refrain

A lament of the Virgin Mary — twelve 8-line stanzas. Every second stanza ends with ‘"ffor thy son dyȝed my dere sone dere’

‘Filius regis mortuus est’, the lament of the Virgin Mary — twelve 12-line stanzas

On the Mutability of Man’s Nature due to the Seasons, the Elements, the Complexions, and the Planets

John Lydgate, ‘Song of Vertu’ — thirteen 8-line stanzas with refrain, ‘Who sueth vertu vertu he shall lere’

John Lydgate, ‘Look in thy merour and deeme noon othir wiht’ —
twenty-seven 8-line stanzas (ababbcbc) with this refrain, including Envoy

John Lydgate, Verses against Haste — twenty 8-line stanzas with refrain

Stans Puer ad Mensam, ascribed to Lydgate — fourteen stanzas rhyme royal, with Envoy

John Lydgate, ‘A dyte of womenhis hornys’ — ten 8-line stanzas (ababbcbc) including four-stanza envoy

‘Balade moral of gode counseyle’ (ascribed in one MS to Gower) — five stanzas rhyme royal

’Hors, Goose and Shepe’

Piers of Fulham’s ‘many praty conceytis in love vnder covert termes off fysshyng and ffowlyng’ — in couplets

Colyn Blowbols Testament — 405 lines, generally in couplets

Legend of Good Women

Sir Landeval — 535 lines in couplets

The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell — in 6-line stanzas (aabccb)

?John Lydgate, ‘That now is hay þat sumtyme was grasse’, possibly by Lydgate — seventeen eight-line stanzas (ababbcbc), including envoy, with this refrain

The Treachery of Fortune — four stanzas rhyme royal plus two-line closing couplet

Gilbert Banester, The Tale of Guiscardo and Ghismonda (Version A) — in rhyme royal

A love-poem with involved sestina-like stanza-linking ascribed to Queen Elizabeth — six stanzas rhyme royal

Geoffrey Chaucer, the Clerk’s Tale of the Canterbury Tales —1155 lines in rhyme royal stanzas.

Geoffrey Chaucer, the Prioress’s Prologue of the Canterbury Tales — 35 lines in 7-line, rhyme royal stanzas.

Geoffrey Chaucer, the Prioress’s Tale of the Canterbury Tales — 203 lines in 7-line, rhyme royal stanzas.

The Expedition of Henry V into France

Verses on the kings of England, from William the Conqueror to Henry VI — in couplets