EMPERATOR FELICIANUS, FOOTNOTES

1 regnyd, reigned.

4 ordeyned, planned; Happyng, It just so happened.

5 see, sea.

8 y-do, done.

9 yede, went.

10 cowde, could; nigromauncer, magician.

11 biyende, across; wite, [like to] know.

12 crafte, magic.

15 travayle, work.

17 afore, before.

19 hielie, familiarly.

20 what skile, for what reason.

22 holpyn, helped.

24 merveile, amazement.

25 hore, whore; y-be, been.

27 mowe, might.

29 Yis, Yes.

31 can, knows.

32 sotilté, subtlety; nigromancien, magician.

33 anoon, soon; arowis, arrows; shete, shoot.

34 brest, burst; wordle, world.

35 do aftir, follow.

36 Do of, Take off.

37 bad, commanded.

38 myrour, mirror.

40 myster-man, sorcerer.

42 bowe2, duck.

43 smytene, shot.

46 strook, stroke.

48 i-be, been.

53 trowe, attest to.

59 scheter, shooter; swapte, ducked.

65 mede, reward.

67 fond, found; yede, went; meyre, mayor.

68 howe, what.

69 statys, nobles.

70 emsampill, example; veniaunce, sin.

71 faire endid his liffe, lived out his life well.

74 wordle, world.

75 yen, eyes; prowde, pride.

77 gostely, spiritually.

79 scil. (scilicet), that is to say; grucchith, complains.

84 which, who.

85 dartys, arrows.

91 prelatis, prelates.

94 enjoyned, bound.

98 encresing, increasing; peyne, pain.

99 bymenyth, means.

100 discrecion, discretion; jebet, gibbet.

103 devidid, divided.

105 per, through.

106 Ad quam nos et vos perducat, &c., To which He leads us and you, etc.

EMPERATOR FELICIANUS, NOTES

The manuscripts used for the Gesta Romanorum excerpts in this edition are Harley 7333 and BL Additional 9066. The first of the narratives - Emperor Felicianus - appears in Harley 7333; Godfridus appears in both Harley 7333 and BL Additional 9066, and The Punished of Adulterers appears only in BL Additional 9066. The number order here is consistent with Sydney Herrtage's EETS edition (see Select Bibliography) which contains the contents of both manuscripts which are highly abbreviated. Unless indicated otherwise, I have followed earlier editions in their interpolations of missing dipthongs, syllables, or individual letters. Abbreviations: Har: Harley 7333; Add: BL Additional 9066; Herr: Sydney Herrtage.

1 Felician. Though the Gesta Romanorum was understood by its medieval audience as "history," the Emperor's name is not historical. Etymologically related to the Latin felicitatis meaning "beatification, or capable of beatification," in English it more generally means "felicity" or "happiness." In the Latin text Titus reigns.

4 that she ordeyned for hire husbonde to be ded. This phrase echoes in lines 9-10: "ordeyned for his deathe." Herr cites the Latin text which implies that the husband, knowing of his wife's propensity for infidelity decides to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land: Nec de adulterio desistere volebat. Miles vero cum hoc vidisset, contristatus est valde in animo suo et cogitabat terram sanctam visitare. ("Nor did she wish to put an end to the adultery. The knight saw this, sorrowed greatly in spirit, and decided to visit the Holy Land"). An amusing parallel of such male defensive practice may be found in Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Prologue, where her fourth husband goes on pilgrimage, then dies (some say mysteriously) on his return.

Happyng. The meaning of this suggests that the pilgrimage is not coincidental. The Latin text says Accidit (It happened).

10 nigromauncer. Necromancer, a term that came to be associated with sorcery and witchcraft, originally referred to someone who prognosticated events by means of communication with the dead. A medieval tradition of necromancers includes not only Merlin, King Arthur's wizard, and Nectanabus, a magician to Alexander the Great, but also the much revered Roman poet Virgil. Virgil's prophecies, like those of Merlin and Nectanabus, were looked upon with suspicion by some medieval writers in part because of the poet's association with the pre-Christian Sibyl. Other medieval poets, like Dante for instance, extol Virgil's virtues, hence Virgil's association with the realm of the dead, makes him an appropriate candidate for guiding Dante the Pilgrim through the Inferno. Interestingly enough, though Virgil is not named in this particular Gesta narrative in others included in the Anglo-Latin collection he is explicitly identified. For a comprehensive discussion of the poet's reputation in the Middle Ages, see Domenico Comparetti, Vergil in the Middle Ages, trans. E. F. M. Benecke (Hamdon, Conn.: Archer Books, 1966). For a recent general discussion of necromancy see Richard Kieckheffer, Forbidden Rites: A Necromancer's Manual of the Fifteenth Century (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).

16 dyd make an ymage of erthe. The Anglo-Latin text says that clerks make images de cera (of wax). Image making by any unauthorized person was considered sacrilege by the church, yet the boundary between devotional "magic" - liturgical prayer and eucharistic practices - and the magic of wizards and necromancers is blurred. According to Richard Kieckheffer, a "'clerical underworld' capable of various forms of mischief, including necromancy . . . seems to have been the primary locus for this explicitly demonic magic" (p. 12). Chaucer's House of Fame provides an example of the natural magic or "science" of creating images:

And clerkes eke, which konne wel
Al this magik naturel,
That craftely doon her ententes
To make, in certeyn ascendentes,
Ymages, lo, thrugh which magik,
(Lines 1265-70)

Natural magic and necromancy also figure prominently in The Franklin's Tale when the lovesick and desperate Aurelius, in order to win Dorigen's love, employs a magician to make Brittany's ominous coastal rocks disappear.

19 hielie. Herr points out the Latin word, intime (familiarly), which suggests that the necromancer knows his client's innermost thoughts.

21 be. Har: by. The expression be ded, according to Herr, is of Eastern origin and occurs repeatedly in this narrative as well in other narratives belonging to the Anglo-Latin group.

23 purveith. Herr suggests a verb in the past tense - purveide - since the Latin text reads providit.

24 he had grete merveile. The knight's surprise at learning about his wife's plot against him is consistent with culturally determined attitudes toward wives as being incapable of carrying out criminal acts against their husbands. When women were found guilty of spousal homicide in late medieval England, their punishment went beyond the usual for ordinary homicide; they were not only charged with murder, but with petty treason, making the murder of a husband a crime against the crown.

38 myrour. The mirror or speculum is a multi-dimensional symbol in the Middle Ages. Most often it referred to the reflection of divine order in the world, or the distortion of it by immoral human action; it also served as an emblem of the Virgin Mary. In necromancy any reflective object - bowls, polished fingernails, crystals - could be useful to conjure up demons. This category of divination was condemned periodically. "In 1311 the bishop of Lincoln instructed one of his officials to investigate conjuring spirits in their fingernails and in mirrors, as well as in stones and rings" (Richard Kieckheffer, p. 97). In the Latin text the speculum politum is described as sacram scripturam.

54 cryed. Herr notes that the Latin text reads clamat which has a wider range of meaning including "lamented," "worried," "complained."

66 the knyght went hom. The Latin text complicates the action: domi venisset, uxor eius obviam ei venit, et cum gaudio eum recepit. Miles vero per plures dies dissimilabat; tandem . . . ("the knight went home; his wife went to meet him and received him with joy. The knight was not himself for days until finally. . .") [the quote is continued in line 67 following.] 

67 the meyre of the towne. The Latin text - a continuation of the quote above - complicates this scene by substituting the knight's in-laws, other clerics, and a judge for the mayor of the town: pro parentibus uxoris misit et ait eis: Carissimi, hec est cause, quare misi pro vobis: hec est filia vestra, uxor mea, que adulterium sub me commisit et, quod peius est, in mortem meam machinata est. Illa vero cum iuramento negavit. Miles incepit et totum processum clerici recitavit. Quod si non creditis, venite et videte locum, ubi clericus sepultus est. Eos ad cameram suam duxit et corpus clerici sub lecto eius invenerunt. Iudix est vocatus et sententiam dedit, ut ipsa igni combureretur; et sic factum est, et pulvis post per aerem dispergitur. ("he called the parents of his wife and said to them: My friends, here is the reason I have sent for you: here is your daughter, my wife, who has committed adultery under me and what is worse has orchestrated my death. She denied this under oath. The knight then began to relate all the actions of the clerk. Should you not believe this, come and see the place where the clerk is buried. He led them to the chamber and dragged the body of the clerk from under his bed. A judge was called and sentenced her to be burned and when done her ashes dispersed into the air.")

69 herte. Herr notes that the Latin corpus which more generally means "body," "substance," and "physical matter" is limited to a single body part here.

72 Moralitee. The moral differs in the Latin text. The emperor is Jesus Christ, the knight is man, the wife, flesh, the wise man, the clerk, the necromancer, the devil (though he is more often referred to as clericus, e.g., Clericus est diabolus). The bow is avarice, the arrow, pride. Just as Lucifer has tempted Adam, so too has he tempted the knight; without the help of the wise man his soul would have been doomed.

79 The equation of the necromancer with the devil derives, Herr thinks, from the Latin diabolus.

81-82 Caro concupiscit . . . . Galatians 5:17.

85 who. An interpolation defining the relative clause. Herr has that.

85-86 the devill, beginnith to schete an arowe att the ymage. According to George Ferguson's Signs & Symbols in Christian Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954), arrows, though generally used "to suggest a spiritual weapon dedicated to the service of God," also serve as "an instrument of war and death figures in the portrayals of many saints" (p. 304. Sts. Sebastian and Ursula are examples). Here the necromancer equates with both death and fiend. The arrow can also serve as a symbol of the plague. An interesting use of the image of archer, bow and arrows occurs in John Gower's Vox Clamantis where the poet takes the position of archer shooting his arrows into the world. Presenting himself as social critic, poet, preacher, and prophet, Gower points out the corruption in late medieval England by shooting his barbs into an image of a world turned upside down. The image of the archer with his bow and arrow also signified the preacher whose responsibility it was to point out his parishioners' sins.

89 putte downe thyn hed. Herr notes that this is "a mistake of the translator, or more probably of the transcriber"(p. 445). In the Latin text it reads: oportet te deponere vestimenta tua (it behoves you to lay down your clothes).

101 Apostill. The line spoken here, i.e., Suspendium elegit anima mea ("My soul hangs suspended"), is not found in the New Testament, according to Herr, but rather the Book of Job. The quotation is found in 7:15 in the form of a question: Qua mobrem elegit suspendium anima mea, et mortem ossa nea. (For what reason is my soul suspended and my bones dead?)

105 spirit. Har: sprit.

106 Ad quam nos et vos perducat, &c. "To which He leads us and you (and so forth)," or, as translated in a later text: "To the whiche He us brynge, that is kynge everlastinge" (p. 164). Perhaps this alludes to Tobias 10:11, Angelus Domini sanctus sit in itinere vestro, per ducatque vos incolumes . . . . (And the blessed angel of God shall lead you unharmed in your journey.)