Digital Index of Middle English Verse: No. 2782

DIMEV 2782

IMEV 1655

NIMEV 1655

Jack Trueman doth you to understand

Jack Trueman’s Epistle on the Abuses of the Age — eleven irregular lines

Title(s): Epistle on the Abuses of the Age

Subjects: letters; abuses, of the age; evils of the time; chronicles, verse in; Peasants’ Revolt (1381)

Versification: — irregular

Manuscript Witnesses:

1.Source: London, British Library Cotton Claudius E.III, f. 269

First Lines:

Jakke Trewman doth yow to vnderstande
That falsenesse and gyle haue regned to lang…

Last Lines:

…And clerkus for welthe worthe hem woo
God do bote for nowe is tyme

Note: Written as prose.

2.Source: London, British Library Cotton Tiberius C.VII, ff. 174-174v

Transcription:

Iakke Trewman doþ ȝow to understande
þat falsnes and gyle haviþ regned to long
and trewþe hat bene sette under a lokke
and falnet regneth in euerylk flokke
No man may come trewþe to
but he syng de dedero
Speke spende and spede
quoth Ion of Banthon
and þerfore synne fareth as wylde flode
trew love is away þat was so gode
and clerkus for welthe worche hem wo
God do bote for now is tyme

Note: Transcription from Martin (1995)

XMartin, Geoffrey Howard. Knighton’s Chronicle, 1337-1396. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995

, 222. Written as prose.

Editions:

Stow, John. The annales, or, Generall chronicle of England. Londini: Impensis Thomae Adams, 1615: 294.

Lumby, Joseph Rawson, ed. Chronicon Henrici Knighton, vel Cnitthon, Monachi Leycestrensis. 2 vols. Rolls Series 92 (1889-95); repr. Kraus, 1965: 2.139.

Eberhard, Oscar. Der Bauernaufstand vom Jahr 1381 in der englischen Poesie. Anglistische Forshungen 51 Heidelberg: Winter, 1917: 20.

Lindsay, Philip, and Reginald Groves. The Peasants’ Revolt, 1381. London, New York: Hutchinson, 1950: 87.

Hilton, Rodney Howard, and Hyman Fagan. The English Rising of 1381. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1950: 102.

Dobson, R. Barry. The Peasant’s Revolt of 1381. London: Macmillan, 1970: 382.

Hanawalt, Barbara, ed. Chaucer’s England. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992: 194.

Martin, Geoffrey Howard. Knighton’s Chronicle, 1337-1396. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995: 222.

Pettitt, Thomas. ‘Divers toyes mengled’: essays on medieval and Renaissance culture = Etudes sur la culture européenne au Moyen Age et à la Renaissance: en hommage à André Lascombes. Michel Bitot, Roberta Mullini, and Peter Happé, eds. Tours: Publication de l’Université François Rabelais, 1996: 55-68: 58.

Pearsall, Derek, ed. Chaucer to Spenser: An Anthology of Writings in English 1375-1575. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999: 228.

priven: verb To deprive (sb.) of (sth.), deny (sb. sth.); ppl. prived, bereaved, bereft of, deprived of; without; (b) ~ of (from), to deprive (sb. of sth.), deny (sth. to sb.), exclude (sb. from sth.); prived of (from), deprived of (sth.), bereft of; lacking, without; ben of god priving, be a robber of goods; (c) to depose (sb.), dismiss; ~ of (from), deprive (sb.) of (power, kingdom, etc.), remove or dismiss (sb.) from (office or position); (d) to take (sth.) away; prevent (sth.), deny, oppose; weaken (the body); -- also without obj. MED