_The Temple, or A Temple._--I have had an opportunity of seeing the
edition of Chaucer referred to by your correspondent P.H.F. (Vol.
i., p. 420.), and likewise several other black-letter editions (1523,
1561, 1587, 1598, 1602), and find that they all agree in reading "the
temple," which Caxton's edition also adopts. The general reading of
"temple" in the _modern_ editions, naturally induced me to suspect
that Tyrwhitt had made the alteration on the authority of the
manuscripts of the poem. Of these there are no less than ten in the
British Museum, all of which have been kindly examined for me. One
of these wants the prologue, and another that part of it in which the
line occurs; but in _seven_ of the remaining eight, the reading is--
"A gentil maunciple was ther of _a_ temple;"
while _one_ only reads "the temple." The question, therefore, is
involved in the same doubt which I at first stated; for the subsequent
lines quoted by P.H.F. prove nothing more than that the person
described was a manciple in _some_ place of legal resort, which was
not disputed.