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London, Lambeth Palace Library 853

Linguistic note: McIntosh, Samuels, and Benskin (1986) and Benskin, Laing, Karaiskos, and Williamson (2013) 1.118 (‘…elements of S Hunts, E Northants or N Beds variously predominate’).

‘Veni coronaberis’, a song of Christ to the Virgin Mary — nine 8-line
stanzas

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

A Complaint of Christ — sixteen 8-line stanzas (ababbcbc) with the refrain, ‘Quia amore langueo’

A Song of Love to Jesus — fourteen 8-line stanzas (abababab)

‘Be my Coumfort Crist Ihesus’ — seven 12-line stanzas with this refrain

Ave regina celorum — six 8-line stanzas (ababbcbc), each with Latin final line

A salutation of the Virgin Mary — five monorhyming quatrains

Richard de Caistre’s hymn — twelve quatrains

‘The ABC of Aristotle’ with a Prologue in unrhyming alliterative verse

Cur mundus militat… — twenty couplets

Erthe upon Erthe

The Creed — fourteen quatrains

The XVI Points of Charity — fourteen 8-line stanzas

The Ten Commandments — twelve quatrains

Keep Well Christ’s Commandments — thirteen 8-line stanzas with refrain

‘Do Merci bifore thi Judement’ — eight twelve-line stanzas (ababababbcbc) with this refrain

The Hours of Man’s Life — ten 8-line stanzas with the refrain: ‘þis worlde is but a vanyte’

‘Reuertere’ — fifteen 8-line stanzas

‘Merci Passith Riȝtwisnes’, a dialogue between a sinner and Mercy — twenty 8-line stanzas

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

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

A song of the Love of Christ, a direct translation of Rolle’s Incendium Amoris, ch. xl, xli — in monorhyming quatrains with medial rhyme

‘How the Good Wiif tauȝte Hir Douȝtir’ — in stanzas of 5 long lines with internal rhyme, generally with a concluding phrase ‘My leef child’; sometimes instead set out as 4-line stanzas without this concluding phrase

‘God send us Pacience in oure Old Age’ — eight 12-line stanzas

‘Se what oure Lord Suffride for oure Sake’ — ten 8-line stanzas

’The Myrrour of Mankind’ — eighty-two 8-line stanzas (abababab)

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

A Father’s Instructions to his Son — two 12-line (ababababcdcd) and one 14-line stanzas

‘Þe Deuelis Perlement’ — sixty-three 8-line stanzas

Verse incipit to John Lydgate’s ‘Dietary’ — one couplet

John Lydgate, ‘Dietary’, in disarranged order as follows: stanzas 2, 1, 8, 9, 3, 6, 5, l0 — stanzas 4 and 7 wanting

Precepts in -ly — usually two quatrains, but sometimes in expanded versions

‘How the Wyse Man Tawght His Son’ — nineteen 8-line stanzas (ababbcbc)

William Lychefelde, ‘Complaint of God’ — sixty-eight 8-line stanzas (abababab)

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