I.—Shul and Shal In The Chaucer Manuscripts

Abstract

Before we may hope to solve some of the problems which confront the student of Chaucer we must gain a clearer understanding of the relationship in which the extant mss. stand to the text written by the poet's own hand. In the hope of throwing some light upon this relationship it occurred to the present writer to apply to all the Chaucer mss. thus far printed a very obvious grammatical test by noting their usage in the case of the plural present indicative of the verb shullen. The use of this test first suggested itself as a result of my observation that in these forms there is a curious variation among different mss., and even in the same ms. in different portions of Chaucer's text. These reversals of usage in the same ms. are best illustrated in Camb. Gg. 4, 27, for this manuscript contains not only the Cant. Tales, but also Troilus, the Parl, of Foules, and the Legend of G. W. In the Parl, of F. one finds the plural of the present indicative written schul eight times and schal only once; in Troilus, on the other hand, there are no less than forty-one schal's as against eight schul's. Much the same ratio is found in the Legend, which has eleven schal's and only two schul's. Moreover, among the several tales of the Canterbury collection this manuscript shows marked difference of usage, swinging abruptly from six to two in favor of schal in the Man of Law's Tale to nine to one in favor of schul in the Wife of Bath's Tale, which immediately follows. Similar examples of reversal of usage in these forms might be cited in nearly all the printed mss. Such alternations between schal and schul on the part of the same scribe are evidently due to variations in the mss. from which he was copying. In other words, the responsibility for this variation in usage does not rest upon the scribes of the extant mss.,—though they may have added to the confusion already existing. It is clear, then, that this confusion between shul and shal must proceed, either from scribes intermediate between Chaucer and the extant copies or—from Chaucer himself.