DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61385#0085
Chapter VII.— Concerning Guy, Earl of Warwick. Ixxix
edc. eadmuncl afeling .... sweorda ecgum. ymbe brunanburh.
bordwecd clufanl Graphic details of the vigorous pen picture,1 2 native
characteristics of the skill of the O.E. poet, are lost to the M.E.
poem. The mysticism of chivalry replaces the vivid energy of the
ancient warrior. The later interest centers in the romantic and
sentimental story of Eelice. In these immediate details O.E. history
does not support M.E. narrative. Fact does not fail in providing
the contest. It is described by a series of historians, Wigornensis,
Dunelmensis, Malmesbury, Huntingdon, Brompton, Gaimar, but its
valiant Warrior Guy is not once mentioned. Guy, the memorable
hero, is deficient in every O.E. reference to the battle. On the other
hand the M.E. historian did not hesitate to add to the account of the
contest manifold embellishments of his own invention.
The working of the material into the Guy tradition seems not to
have been coincident with the event. Lydgate alone on ground of
traditional literature, an unreliable authority, on support of unreliable
historian, ascribes specific source to the M.E. Guy saga. The earliest
literary form is attributed by Lydgate to Cornubiensis in a
“ translacioun
out of the latyn maad by the crony eleer
callyd of old Gerard Cornubyence. str. 724
the XI. chapitle of his historyal book.” str. 733
Lydgate’s authority is Hearne, Chronicon sive Annates prioratus de
Dunstable, Appendix XI. Girardi sice Giraldi Cornubiensis historia
Guidonis de Warwick, e cod. MS. in Bibliotheca Collegii Magdalenen-
sis descripta (Oxford). Cornubiensis has been identified as Giraldus
Cambrensis (1146—1216), author of a History of England, see
Tanner, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica. Fabyan, New Chronicles
of England and France, p. 185, quotes Lydgate’s verse as follows :
called of olde Gyrardus Cambrense. Morley, to the contrary, English
Writers, vol. iii. p. 276, ascribes the romance to Walter of Exeter, a
Cornish Franciscan named by Bale, Catalogus II., p. 44 : Gualterus
de Excestria: apud S. Carocum in Cornubia manens vitam scripsit
Guidonis, inclyti olim Warwicensis comitis, libro uno. A. Tanner,
Die Sage von Guy von Warwick, pp. 33—34, tries to prove that
1 Historical point of the saga is the battle by which the W. S. king dLthel-
stan with his brother Edmund, aided by the Mercians, defeated the Danes,
combined in forces with the Scotch, at a place, probably Brunanburh, on the
western coast of England, in the year 937 (?), Green, Conquest of England, p.
254; Wiilker, Grundriss, 339—342.
2 Guy’s combat recalls to the editor the Battle of Malden with its Viking
hero rather than the Battle of Brunanburh.
edc. eadmuncl afeling .... sweorda ecgum. ymbe brunanburh.
bordwecd clufanl Graphic details of the vigorous pen picture,1 2 native
characteristics of the skill of the O.E. poet, are lost to the M.E.
poem. The mysticism of chivalry replaces the vivid energy of the
ancient warrior. The later interest centers in the romantic and
sentimental story of Eelice. In these immediate details O.E. history
does not support M.E. narrative. Fact does not fail in providing
the contest. It is described by a series of historians, Wigornensis,
Dunelmensis, Malmesbury, Huntingdon, Brompton, Gaimar, but its
valiant Warrior Guy is not once mentioned. Guy, the memorable
hero, is deficient in every O.E. reference to the battle. On the other
hand the M.E. historian did not hesitate to add to the account of the
contest manifold embellishments of his own invention.
The working of the material into the Guy tradition seems not to
have been coincident with the event. Lydgate alone on ground of
traditional literature, an unreliable authority, on support of unreliable
historian, ascribes specific source to the M.E. Guy saga. The earliest
literary form is attributed by Lydgate to Cornubiensis in a
“ translacioun
out of the latyn maad by the crony eleer
callyd of old Gerard Cornubyence. str. 724
the XI. chapitle of his historyal book.” str. 733
Lydgate’s authority is Hearne, Chronicon sive Annates prioratus de
Dunstable, Appendix XI. Girardi sice Giraldi Cornubiensis historia
Guidonis de Warwick, e cod. MS. in Bibliotheca Collegii Magdalenen-
sis descripta (Oxford). Cornubiensis has been identified as Giraldus
Cambrensis (1146—1216), author of a History of England, see
Tanner, Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica. Fabyan, New Chronicles
of England and France, p. 185, quotes Lydgate’s verse as follows :
called of olde Gyrardus Cambrense. Morley, to the contrary, English
Writers, vol. iii. p. 276, ascribes the romance to Walter of Exeter, a
Cornish Franciscan named by Bale, Catalogus II., p. 44 : Gualterus
de Excestria: apud S. Carocum in Cornubia manens vitam scripsit
Guidonis, inclyti olim Warwicensis comitis, libro uno. A. Tanner,
Die Sage von Guy von Warwick, pp. 33—34, tries to prove that
1 Historical point of the saga is the battle by which the W. S. king dLthel-
stan with his brother Edmund, aided by the Mercians, defeated the Danes,
combined in forces with the Scotch, at a place, probably Brunanburh, on the
western coast of England, in the year 937 (?), Green, Conquest of England, p.
254; Wiilker, Grundriss, 339—342.
2 Guy’s combat recalls to the editor the Battle of Malden with its Viking
hero rather than the Battle of Brunanburh.