The Universal Use Of The French Language At The Time Would Be An Argument
In Favour Of The Original Text Being In This Tongue, If Corrupt Proper
Names, Abbreviations In The Latin Text, Etc., Did Not Make The Fact Still
More Probable.
The story of the English version, as it is told by Messrs.
Nicholson and
Warner, is highly interesting: The English version was made from a
"mutilated archetype," in French (Warner, p. x.) of the beginning of the
15th century, and was used for all the known English manuscripts, with the
exception of the Cotton and Egerton volumes - and also for all the printed
editions until 1725. Mr. Nicholson[23] pointed out that it is defective
in the passage extending from p. 36, l. 7: "And there were to ben 5
Soudans," to p. 62, l. 25: "the Monkes of the Abbeye of ten tyme," in
Halliwell's edition (1839) from Titus C. xvi, which corresponds to Mr.
Warner's Egerton text, p. 18, l. 21: "for the Sowdan," and p. 32, l. 16,
"synges oft tyme." It is this bad text which, until 1725,[24] has been
printed as we just said, with numerous variants, including the poor
edition of Mr. Ashton[25] who has given the text of East instead of the
Cotton text under the pretext that the latter was not legible.[26]
Two revisions of the English version were made during the first quarter of
the 15th century; one is represented by the British Museum Egerton MS.
1982 and the abbreviated Bodleian MS.
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