Sir Isumbras in London, Gray’s Inn, MS 20: A Revision

Abstract

This article provides a corrected and augmented transcription of the earliest extant fragment of the Middle English romance of Sir Isumbras in London, Gray‘s Inn, MS 20, a fragment that has been badly in need of attention since its first publication — with many silent emendations and scarcely any discussion — in 1918. A fresh study of the language of this fragment and its companion, a fragment of the South English Legendary St Anastasia copied by the same scribe, establishes the scribal dialect as south-west midland, placing this later fourteenth-century manuscript in interesting literary company. A line-by-line assessment of the text’s complex relationship to other witnesses sheds new light on the transmission history of this most popular of popular Middle English romances.