Digital Index of Middle English Verse: No. 4149

DIMEV 4149

IMEV 2619.2

NIMEV 2619.2

Of all works in this world that ever were wrought

Commemoration of Geoffrey Barber who built a bridge near Abingdon, A.D. 1457 — twenty-three quatrains (abab) and two couplets, with alliterative phrases

Author(s): Richard Fannande ironmonger of Abingdon (attrib.)

Subjects: commemorative verse; historical poems; Barber, Geoffrey

Versification: — four-line, two-line — abab, aa

Inscriptions:

1.Source: Abingdon, Berkshire, Christ’s Hospital, Governor’s Archives, Object 13 (MS), ‘Forman’s Monument’

First Lines:

Of all werkys in this worlde that ever were wrought
Holy Chirche is chefe ther children been chersid
For be baptim these barnes to blisse been i brought
Thorough the grace of God and fayre refresshed…

Last Lines:

…Now God geve us grace
To folowe treuthe even
That we may have a place
In the blysse of heven. AMEN.

Note: The poem is followed by a rebus: ‘Take the ferst letter of youre foure fader with A the worker of wex and I and N the colore of an asse set them togeder and tel me yf you can what it is than Richard Fannande Iremonger hathe made this tabul and set it here in the yere of King Herry the sexte xxxvite’. The transcriptions are derived from Hanna (2013)

XHanna, Ralph. “The Bridges at Abingdon: An Unnoticed Alliterative Poem.” Yee? Baw For Bokes: Essays on Medieval Manuscripts and Poetics In Honor of Hoyt N. Duggan. Ed. Michael Calabrese and Stephen H. A. Shepherd. Los Angeles: Marymount Institute Press, 2013. 31-44

. The monument is inscribed on membrane now glued to stretched canvas.

Editions:

Hearne, Thomas. The Itinerary of John Leland the Antiquary. Oxford: at the Theatre, 1710, 1769, 1770: 7.79.

Ashmole, Elias. The Antiquities of Berkshire. 3 vols. London: E. Curll, 1719: 1.127-34.

Leland, John. Itinerary. Thomas Hearne, ed. 9 vols. 2nd ed. Oxford: at the Theater, 1745: 7.74-7.

Parker, John Henry. Some Account of Domestic Architecture in England from Richard II to Henry VIII. 2 vols. Oxford: John Henry and James Parker, 1859: 1.41-44.

Little, Francis. A Monument of Christian Munificence; or an Account of the Brotherhoos of the Holy Cross, and of the Hospital of Christ in Abingdon. Ed. Claude Delaval Cobham. Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1871; 2nd ed. 1872.: Appendix A. ‘Richard Forman’s Ancient Monument’, Framed and Preserved in the Hall of Christ’s Hospital, Abingdon’, pp. [121]-3.

Smith, Lucy Toulmin. The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543. 3 vols. London: 1907-10: 5.116-18.

Hanna, Ralph, ed. “The Bridges at Abingdon: An Unnoticed Alliterative Poem.” Yee? Baw For Bokes: Essays on Medieval Manuscripts and Poetics In Honor of Hoyt N. Duggan. Ed. Michael Calabrese and Stephen H. A. Shepherd. Los Angeles: Marymount Institute Press, 2013. 31-44: 39-44.