La Vie Seint Edmund le Rei, poeme anglo-normand du xiie siecle.

Abstract

Denis Pyramus. Edited by HILDING KJELLMAN. (Goteborgs Kungl. Wetenskapsoch Vitterhets-Samhdlles Handlingar. Femte Foljden, Ser. A, Band IV, No. 3.) Goteborg. 1935. Kr. 10. Historical and religious interest combined to draw attention early to the Life of St Edmund, composed by the poet Denis Pyramus in approaching old age as a make-weight to the frivolous ditties and serventeis of his earlier court days. Such interests are not, however, sufficient in themselves to enable editors to deal adequately with mediaeval texts, although unfortunately English historians have often thought so, and this, thefourth modern edition of the poem, is consequently by no means superfluous, for here for the first time the text is published by a scholar of distinction, fully equipped for his task on the linguistic side. Herr Kjellman is conversant with the work of his predecessors and has utilised it with discretion; but he has profited most, he tells us, by the 'excellent articles' contributed to the subject by the American scholar Henry E. Haxo,l and by the diplomatic edition of the unique manuscript made as early as 1888 by the learned Swedish Professor Axel Erdmann. The present edition contains a 'critical' text of the poem and an exact copy of the diplomatic edition, and these texts are preceded by a full and interesting introduction, historical, metrical and linguistic, and followed by useful critical and elucidatory notes and a good glossary. The linguistic introduction comprises sections on vocabulary and syntax as well as on pronunciation and flexions. In his interesting study of the sea-terms used by the author2 Herr Kjellman introduces new matter, and succeeds in elucidating the use of the term luf in Old French and the words hallos and holgurdines, found only in this text. The connexion suggested between hallos and Provengal calup, galupa, strengthens the possibility of a connexion between the author and the continental courts of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.3 With the editor's conclusions about the author I am in substantial