[A] I prefer the term ‘Anglo-Norman’ to ‘Anglo-French,’ partly because it is the established and well-understood name for the language in question, and partly for the reasons given in Paul’s Grundriss der germ. Philologie, vol. i. p. 807. It must however be remembered that the term indicates not a dialect popularly spoken and with a true organic development, but a courtly and literary form of speech, confined to the more educated class of Society, and therefore especially liable to be influenced by continental French and to receive an influx of learned words taken directly from Latin. The name implies that in spite of such influences it retained to a great extent its individuality, and that its development was generally on the lines of the Norman speech from which it arose.

[B] The references to the Balades and Traitié are by stanza, unless otherwise indicated.

[C] But the same word in other connexions is a monosyllable, as q’ils lées en soiont 28132, and rhymes with magesté, degré, &c., 27575, 28093, 28199.

[D] We have in Mir. 6115 Oseë dist en prophecie, and so too Oseë 11018, Judeë 20067, and Galileë 29239, but Galilée in rhyme with retrové 28387.

[E] Cp. Romania, xii. 194. I am much indebted to M. Paul Meyer’s notes on the Vie de S. Grégoire, as well as to his other writings.

[F] See Sturmfels in Anglia, viii. 220, and Behrens, Franz. Studien, v. 84. I take this opportunity of saying that I am indebted both to the former’s Altfranz. Vokalismus im Mittelenglischen and to the latter’s Beiträge zur Geschichte der französischen Sprache in England.

[G] Those who quote eschiue, siue, as from Gower, e.g. Sturmfels, in Anglia, ix, are misled by Ellis.

[H] Tanner remarks, ‘est tamen nescio quid in nominibus mysterii et, ut ita dicam, conspiratio, utpote unius ab altero pendentis.’ Biblioth. p. 336.

[I] A list of poems in which this stanza is used is given in Romania, ix. 231, by M. Gaston Raynaud.

[J] Under this head I do not include the termination (-ont or -ent) of the 3 pers. pl. pres. tense, which was apparently to some extent accented, see ll. 1265, 1803, 1820, &c., and in one stanza even bears the rhyme (20294 ff.).

[K] Perhaps, however, dame was in these cases really a monosyllable, as apparently in Mir. 6733, 13514, 16579.

[L] It must not be assumed however that the text of the Roxburghe Club edition accurately represents that of the MS. If such variations as autre (for lautre), ii. l. 21, En qui iv. 17, De vii. 6, Nest pas vii. 13, xiv. 7, &c., prendre x. 20, et uns xv. 15, El fait xvi. 18, and so on, are unnoticed in this edition, that is not owing to the negligence of the present editor, but because they are not in fact readings of the MS.

[M] For example B gives us the following variations in the first two balades:

There are more bad mistakes here in two balades than in the whole text of the Traitié as given by any one of the four best MSS. On the other hand, ‘creatoris’ in the heading of the first balade, and ‘homme’ (for ‘lomme’) in ii. 11, are mistakes of the German editor.

[N] MS. Camb. Univ. Add. 3035

[O] Owing to the loss of a part of the leaf (f.12) on which the Latin occurs, the text of ll. 9-12 and of the first prose quotation which follows is imperfect. It runs thus:

The missing words are supplied from other copies of the same lines, which are found in a somewhat different arrangement in the All Souls’ and Glasgow MSS. of the ‘Vox Clamantis’ (the prose quotations in the latter only).

[P] faciat Glasg. faciet Trent.