#Manuscripts:# As for Sawles Warde. The text of this extract is from the
Royal MS.
#Editions:# Morton, James, The Legend of St. Katherine of Alexandria,
Abbotsford Club, London, 1841 (text from MS. Titus D 18, with variants
from the Royal MS.). Hardwick, Charles, An Historical Inquiry touching
Saint Catharine of Alexandria: to which is added a Semi-Saxon Legend,
Cambridge, 1849 (text from MS. Titus). Einenkel, Eugen, The Life of
Saint Katherine, London 1884 (text based on the Royal MS. with readings
of all the manuscripts, the Latin original and an English translation):
also as Appendix to The Life and Martyrdom of Saint Katherine of
Alexandria, Roxburghe Club, 1884.
#Literature:# (1) =Of the present version.= Einenkel, E. (see p. 493/7);
*Stodte, H. (see p. 493/9); Victor, Otto, Zur Textkritik und Metrik der
frühmittelenglischen Katharinenlegende, Bonn, 1912; Luick, Karl, Anglia,
Beiblatt, xxiii. 226-35 (review of Victor’s dissertation); Bartels, L.
(see p. 450/23). (2) =Of the Legend in general.= Knust, H., Geschichte
der Legenden der h. Katharina von Alexandrien und der h. Maria
Aegyptiaca, Halle, 1890; Varnhagen, H., Zur Geschichte der Legende der
Katharina von Alexandrien, Erlangen, 1891; id., Zur Geschichte der
Legende der Katharina von Alexandrien, Erlangen, 1901.
#Source:# The most widely spread of the Latin lives of the Saint, called
by Varnhagen the Vulgata, and printed opposite the English text by
Einenkel. Varnhagen’s tract dated 1891 gives a good account of all the
Latin versions and their sources.
#Phonology:# This is of the same type as that of MS. A of the Ancrene
Wisse and of MSS. B, R of Sawles Warde. Noteworthy are cang 88 with _a_
for #a# before a lengthening group, and therefore a loan-word; wastum 24
with _a_ for #æ# after #w#; icuret 25 participle of ME. curen,
derivative of #cyre#; dale 33 from #dāl#, not #dǣl#; medschipe 79
(#gemǣdd# pp.); teeð 64 with doubled vowel for length; roðeren 21
(reoderen B) from #hrȳðer# through ruðeren L 8106 (roþere O); awariede
48, 82, wariet 67 without _i_-umlaut of #ea#; horte 38 French writing
for heorte; steðeluest 24 _u_-umlaut of #a#; woorld 97 probably
miswritten for weorld (weorlde B); hersumin 49 representing
*#hēarsumian# without umlaut; storede 4 French writing for steorede from
#stēoran# without umlaut; scheop 73, 80, 103 (#scēop#). Dreien 12 is
#dragan# with _å_-umlaut of #a#; for plohen 36 see 360/19; slaht 67 is
Anglian #slæht#; seheliche represents *#gesegenlic#, Li has geseen;
rewfule 55 has _ew_ from #ēow#. A glide _e_ is added in halewunde 78,
ludere 69; _e_ is lost in ȝeinde 54, wettres 93; #e# is _u_ in halewunde
78 (#hālwende#) through an intermediate _i_; #o# is _u_ in þrittuðe 15.
In ȝurinde 54 #r# has been lost, #d# is _t_ in wurðmunt 73 (wurðmund T);
_ð_ in cweðen 45 is from the singular; _ð_ is lost in wurgin 19, wurgið
93 (wurðgin B, ME. derivative of #wierðig#); _ȝ_ is written for #g# in
ȝeinen 60 (OWScand. gegna); initial #h# is lost in lowinge, ludinge 48,
remes 55.
#Accidence:# This has been sufficiently described in the texts mentioned
above. Noteworthy is heoren 85, perhaps the earliest instance of the
form with _n_ added from min, þin.
#Vocabulary:# Scandinavian are bule 21, crokes 43 with its derivative
crokinde 87, euene 20, ȝeinen 60 (keinen T), (god)lec 98, 101, hap 62,
keisere 60, lates 35, menske 45, witer(liche) 96: possibly hird 53,
ȝeinde 54. French are lay 55, mawmez 21, mawmetes 48: possibly cang 88,
crauant 45.
#Dialect:# As for Sawles Warde.
#Style:# What has been said about the arrangement of Sawles Warde in
Layamonic verse applies to Einenkel’s distribution of SK in Otfridic
verse, which Trautmann, the discoverer of Otfrid’s verse in England,
afterwards recognized as Layamon’s. It produces such strange divisions
as, ‘þet an engel ne com | lihtinde, with swuch | leome, from heouene,’
666-8; ‘He haueð iweddet him to | mi meiðhad mit te ring,’ 1507, 8; ‘to
habben ant to halden þe | cwic, þen to acwellen þe,’ 1867, 8; ‘ant heo
duden; drohen hire | wið uten þe burhȝetes,’ 2173, 4, and such rhythms
as, ‘hwet he warpe a word aȝein ow,’ 643; ‘for hwas nome ich
underneome,’ 765; ‘ant kénest of ow álle óf þe créft,’ 814; ‘ant cweðe
ham al sker up,’ 867, with many others. There is a parallel to SK in the
OHG. Himmel und Hölle printed as verse in MSD i. 67. It is described by
Einenkel (p. xxi) as ‘a poem which, curiously enough, is in its unrhymed
form unique in O.H.G., and forms the only perfect analogy to our three
legends and to numerous other Old and Middle English poems of the same
class,’ while Steinmeyer (MSD ii. 162) is of opinion that to treat it as
verse and so create an unique rhymeless poem in the earliest German
literature is a very doubtful proceeding.
#Introduction:# This is the first version of the Legend extant in
English. It was followed by six other redactions in Middle English, all
in verse: they are enumerated and traced to their originals in
Varnhagen’s tract of 1901.
1. #Maxence#: a mistake of the Latin original and of its source, Simeon
Metaphrastes, for Maximinus, as correctly given in the Menologium
Basilianum (Hardwick, p. 11). Galerius Valerius Maximinus was raised to
the rank of Caesar by his uncle, the Emperor Galerius, and made governor
of Syria and Egypt in 303 A.D. He died in 313. See 138/16. #as#, as
being: comp. 122/180, 131/103, 139/15, 141/49, 142/57, 145/105, 108.