Two New Sources for Frederic Tubach’s Index Exemplorum 639 and Further Justification for Robert Holcot as a Source of A Christian Mannes Bileeve

Abstract

In the introduction to the edition of the Middle English explanation of the Apostles’ Creed, known as A Christian Mannes Bileeve (hereafter CMB), I note that Robert Holcot’s Convertimini, a compilation of examples used by preachers, stands as the source for the exemplum of birds dying in the woods during the Passion week.1 This example is catalogued as entry 639, ‘Birds die in Passion Week’, in Frederic Tubach’s Index Exemplorum, a handbook of 5,400 religious exempla culled from thirty-seven different medieval collections.2 There, Tubach describes a Saracen leading an Englishman to a wood where they witness dead birds that will resurrect at Easter. He cross-references J. A. Herbert’s Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum to provide only two sources of that avian story: Holcot’s Convertimini and John Mirk’s ‘Sermon on Corpus Christi’ from his collection of homilies known as the Festial.3 This note adds two additional instances of this same example to Tubach, thus bringing the total number of medieval texts using the reference to birds dying in the woods during the Passion to four. The first of these new sources is CMB, a 12,000-word Middle English explanation of the Apostles’ Creed dating from the late fourteenth century, which uses the example in CMB’s section on the fourth article of the faith, Passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus et sepultus [He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and buried] to foreshadow the miracle of Christ’s resurrection.4 The second is British Library MS Harley 2247, a fifteenth-century collection of Temporale sermons that includes a revised version of Mirk’s Corpus Christi sermon. There the homilist positions the exemplum as a mnemonic device to encourage heartfelt remembrance of Christ’s crucifixion.5 This note also provides additional clarification that the example in Holcot’s Convertimini—and not Mirk’s Corpus Christi sermon or its revision in Harley 2247 (both identified in the edition, and the latter not named in Tubach)—is the ultimate source of the exemplum as it appears in CMB.