The author of this engaging lyric calls it a “little true sermon” (line 2), but for modern readers of early Middle English, it is more than that: a rare, wry comedy of the human condition, cleverly and artfully composed. The poet preaches of the need for all sinners to repent, while his vignette of an English village bustling with life radiates not so much despair as a sense of bemusement with the unending generational cycles of human weakness. The Watkins, Wilkins, and Malkins who inhabit the town pursue their desires in ways a preacher must judge ungodly, yet their antics brim with the transgressive vitality one finds in fabliau. Brewers and bakers overcharge for weak goods, adolescents defy parents, and a foolish girl finds herself with child.

The poem is written in long-line couplets that Morris printed as four lines despite their lack of internal rhymes. The couplets fall semantically into pairs, and I present the poem, accordingly, in sets of four long lines, even though stanza divisions are not indicated by either scribe. A pithy sermon-within-a-sermon on the subject of Adam’s Fall (lines 9–16) is written in four octosyllabic couplets. Thus, in departing from the surrounding meter of long septenary lines, it stands as a separate and distinct unit. It is, in essence, a precise eight-line lesson — the “little true sermon” — for which the rest of the poem is the exemplum displaying mankind’s fallen condition. For recent commentary on A Little Sooth Sermon, see Hahn, “Early Middle English,” p. 81; and Fein-Children, pp. 224–26. The version in MS Cotton Caligula A.ix is viewable at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Cotton_MS_Caligula_A_IX(Opens in a new tab or window).

[Fol. 185r–v. NIMEV 1091. DIMEV 1773. Heffernan, MWME, 11:4046–47, 4264–65 [12]. Quire: 4. Meter: 54 lines in couplets. Most lines are septenary with strong caesuras; lines 9–16 are octosyllabic couplets without caesuras. Layout: Long lines with medial and end punctuation, except for lines 9–16, which are short lines written with only end punctuation. The sole colored capital is the enlarged opening letter H on Herkneþ. Editions from MS Jesus 29: Morris, pp. 187–91; Kaiser, p. 284; Fein-Children, pp. 215–17, 224–26. One other MS: London, BL, MS Cotton Caligula A.ix, fols. 248v–249r (Wright, pp. 80–84; Morris, p. 186–90). Extract from MS Jesus 29: Sisam and Sisam, eds., The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse, pp. 11–12. Translation: Adamson, trans., A Treasury of Middle English Verse, pp. 4–7.]