#Dialect#: South-Western, with some Midland forms.
#Inflexions#:
VERB: pres. ind. 3 sg. _bloweþ_ _a_ 7, _casteþ_ _a_ 8.
3 pl. _buþ_ _a_ 10, _habbeþ_ _a_ 15.
pres. p. _slyttyng_, _frotyng_ _b_ 59.
strong pp. _yknowe_ _a_ 12, _ysode_ _a_ 30.
NOUN: Note the plural in _-(e)n_, _tren_ 'trees' _a_ 44, 51, 53;
_chyldern_ _b_ 16 is a double plural.
PRONOUN 3 PERS.: pl. _hy_ _a_ 17; _here_ _a_ 61; _ham_ _a_ 23.
Note the unstressed 3 sg. and 3 pl. form _a_, e.g. at _a_
13, 27.
#Sounds#: There is no instance of _v_ for initial _f_, which is
evidenced in the spelling of early South-Western writers like Robert of
Gloucester (about 1300), or of _z_ for initial _s_, which is less
commonly shown in spelling. _u_ for OE. _y_ occurs in _hulles_ 'hills'
_a_ 18 (beside _bysynes_ _b_ 24, where Modern English has _u_ in
spelling but _i_ in pronunciation; and _lift_ (OE. _lyft_) _b_ 39, where
Modern English has the South-Eastern form _left_).
* * * * *
_a_ 2-3. _Mayster... Minerua... hys_: Trevisa appears to have understood
'Minerva' as the name of a god.
_a_ 6-49. Higden took all this passage from Book i of the
twelfth-century Annals of Alfred of Beverley (ed. Hearne, pp. 6-7). The
_Polychronicon_ is a patchwork of quotations from earlier writers.
_a_ 7. _Pectoun._ Higden has _ad Peccum_, and Alfred of Beverley _in
monte qui vocatur Pec_, i.e. The Peak of Derbyshire. _cc_ and _ct_ are
not distinguishable in some hands of the time, and Trevisa has made
_Peccum_ into _Pectoun_.
_a_ 14. _Cherdhol._ Hearne's text of Alfred of Beverley has _Cherole_;
Henry of Huntingdon (about 1150), who gives the same four marvels in his
_Historia Anglorum_, has _Chederhole_; and on this evidence the place
has been identified with Cheddar in Somerset, where there are famous
caves.
_a_ 22. _an egle hys nest_: cp. _b_ 23 _a child hys brouch_. This
construction has two origins: (1) It is a periphrasis for the genitive,
especially in the case of masculine and neuter proper names which had no
regular genitive in English; (2) It is an error arising from false
manuscript division of the genitive suffix _-es_, _-is_, from its stem.
_a_ 36. <_þat_> here and in l. 52 is inserted on the evidence of the
other MSS. Syntactically its omission is defensible, for the suppressed
relative is a common source of difficulty in Middle English; see the
notes to V 4-6, 278-9; X 146; XIV _c_ 54; XVII 66.
_a_ 50. _Wynburney._ Wimborne in Dorset. Here St. Cuthburga founded a
nunnery, which is mentioned in one of Aldhelm's letters as early as A.D.
705. The information that it is 'not far from Bath', which is hardly
accurate, was added by Higden to the account of the marvel he found in
the _Topographia Hibernica_ of Giraldus Cambrensis (vol. v, p. 86 of the
Rolls Series edition of his works).
_a_ 54-64. Higden took this passage from Giraldus, _Itinerarium
Cambriae_, Bk. ii, c. 11 (vol. vi, p. 139 of the Rolls edition).
_a_ 60-1. _be at here aboue_, 'be over them', 'have the upper hand'.
_a_ 63. _Pimbilmere_: the English name for Lake Bala.
_b_ 6-7. _þe Flemmynges._ The first settlement of Flemings in
Pembrokeshire took place early in the twelfth century, and in 1154,
Henry II, embarrassed alike by the turbulence of the Welsh, and of the
new host of Flemish mercenaries who had come in under Stephen,
encouraged a further settlement. They formed a colony still
distinguishable from the surrounding Welsh population.
_b_ 11-12. The threefold division of the English according to their
Continental origin dates back to Bede's _Ecclesiastical History_. But
the areas settled by Bede's three tribes do not correspond to Southern,
Northern, and Midland. The Jutes occupied Kent, whence the South-Eastern
dialect; the Saxons occupied the rest of the South, whence the
South-Western dialect; and the Angles settled in the Midlands and the
North; so that the Midland and Northern dialects are both Anglian, and
derive from the same Continental tribe or tribal group.
_b_ 26. _þe furste moreyn_: the Black Death of 1349. There were fresh
outbreaks of plague in 1362, 1369, 1376.
_b_ 26-42. The bracketed passage is an addition by Trevisa himself, and
is of primary importance for the history of English and of English
education. See the valuable article by W. H. Stevenson in _An English
Miscellany Presented to Dr. Furnivall_, pp. 421 ff.
_b_ 27-8. _Iohan Cornwal, a mayster of gramere._ A 'master of grammar'
was a licensed teacher of grammar. Mr. Stevenson points out that in
1347-8 John of Cornwall received payment from Merton College, Oxford,
for teaching the boys of the founder's kin. His countryman Trevisa
probably had personal knowledge of his methods of teaching.
_b_ 39-40. _and a scholle passe þe se_, 'if they should cross the sea'.
_b_ 47-8. The bracketed words are introduced by Trevisa.
_b_ 50 f. _and ys gret wondur_: _and_ is superfluous and should perhaps
be deleted.
_b_ 58-65. Though still often quoted as a fourteenth-century witness to
the pronunciation of Northern English (e.g. by K. Luick, _Historische
Grammatik der englischen Sprache_, 1914, pp. 40 f.), this passage, as
Higden acknowledges, comes from the Prologue to Book iii of William of
Malmesbury's _Gesta Pontificum_, completed in the year 1125: see the
Rolls Series edition, p. 209.