Grateful Dead Research Articles

Memoirs of Fellows of the Mediaeval Academy of America

IN the death of Professor Gerould mediaeval studies have lost a distinguished scholar and an inspiring teacher. Those who have been so fortunate as to know him will recall his personal charm, much of which he communicated to his writings, without however sacrificing accuracy to geniality. He was born in Goffstown, New Hamsphire, on 4 October 1877, the son of the Reverend Samuel Lankton Gerould and Laura Etta (Thayer) Gerould. In his twenty-second year he graduated from Dartmouth College. He then went to England, and enrolled as a student at Oxford, where he received the Bachelor of Letters degree in 1901. In that year he was appointed Reader in English at Bryn Mawr, and later Associate in English Philology. In 1905 he was called to Princeton as Assistant Professor of English, one of the group of brilliant young men assembled by Woodrow Wilson in the establisbment of the preceptorial system. He was made full professor in 1916, and Holmes Professor of Belles-Lettres, Princeton's oldest endowed chair, in 1938. He retired as Professor Emeritus in 1946. In the year 1918 he served as Captain in the United States Army. In 1910 he married Miss Katherine Fullerton, well known as an essayist and storyteller of distinction. The home of the Geroulds was a delightful and hospitable place, and it was blessed by the advent of two children. He was also happy in his long and intimate association with a prominent Fellow of the Mediaeval Academy, Robert Kilburn Root. In 1902 he edited the North English Homily Collection, and in 1908 published an exhaustive study: The Grateful Dead, the History of a Folk-Story. Particularly noteworthy was his volume Saint's Legends (1916). As he noted in the preface, no study of these legends in relation to one another and to their historical background had hitherto been made. Later he essayed another difficult task in The Ballad of Tradition (1932). These books are all noteworthy for clear and graceful exposition and expert handling of scholarly problems. His last work, Chaucerian Essays (1952), was the crown of his long interest in that poet. He had a versatile mind, contributing articles on a variety of subjects to magazines and journals, editing extracts from English literature of different periods, and also the poems of James Thomson. Between 1917 and 1925 he wrote several novels, and later two useful books on the art of fiction. As a Fellow of the Mediaeval Academy since 1926 he was active in its development. At the time of his death he was President of the Fellows. He was a former vice-president of the Modern Language Association, and carried on important administrative duties at Princeton. He died in Asheville, North Carolina, on 10 April 1953. Altogether he had a very active and fruitful life, and his academic work, both as a writer and a teacher, was in accord with the highest tradition of the humanities in American scholarship. GEORGE R. COFFMAN E. BALDWIN SMITH WILLIAM W. LAWRENCE, Chairman

Memoirs of Fellows of the Mediaeval Academy of America

IN the death of Professor Gerould mediaeval studies have lost a distinguished scholar and an inspiring teacher. Those who have been so fortunate as to know him will recall his personal charm, much of which he communicated to his writings, without however sacrificing accuracy to geniality. He was born in Goffstown, New Hamsphire, on 4 October 1877, the son of the Reverend Samuel Lankton Gerould and Laura Etta (Thayer) Gerould. In his twenty-second year he graduated from Dartmouth College. He then went to England, and enrolled as a student at Oxford, where he received the Bachelor of Letters degree in 1901. In that year he was appointed Reader in English at Bryn Mawr, and later Associate in English Philology. In 1905 he was called to Princeton as Assistant Professor of English, one of the group of brilliant young men assembled by Woodrow Wilson in the establisbment of the preceptorial system. He was made full professor in 1916, and Holmes Professor of Belles-Lettres, Princeton's oldest endowed chair, in 1938. He retired as Professor Emeritus in 1946. In the year 1918 he served as Captain in the United States Army. In 1910 he married Miss Katherine Fullerton, well known as an essayist and storyteller of distinction. The home of the Geroulds was a delightful and hospitable place, and it was blessed by the advent of two children. He was also happy in his long and intimate association with a prominent Fellow of the Mediaeval Academy, Robert Kilburn Root. In 1902 he edited the North English Homily Collection, and in 1908 published an exhaustive study: The Grateful Dead, the History of a Folk-Story. Particularly noteworthy was his volume Saint's Legends (1916). As he noted in the preface, no study of these legends in relation to one another and to their historical background had hitherto been made. Later he essayed another difficult task in The Ballad of Tradition (1932). These books are all noteworthy for clear and graceful exposition and expert handling of scholarly problems. His last work, Chaucerian Essays (1952), was the crown of his long interest in that poet. He had a versatile mind, contributing articles on a variety of subjects to magazines and journals, editing extracts from English literature of different periods, and also the poems of James Thomson. Between 1917 and 1925 he wrote several novels, and later two useful books on the art of fiction. As a Fellow of the Mediaeval Academy since 1926 he was active in its development. At the time of his death he was President of the Fellows. He was a former vice-president of the Modern Language Association, and carried on important administrative duties at Princeton. He died in Asheville, North Carolina, on 10 April 1953. Altogether he had a very active and fruitful life, and his academic work, both as a writer and a teacher, was in accord with the highest tradition of the humanities in American scholarship. GEORGE R. COFFMAN E. BALDWIN SMITH WILLIAM W. LAWRENCE, Chairman

Levenoth and the Grateful Dead

Matthew Paris' Historia Anglorum' is the fullest authority for the edifying anecdote told of Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter.2 De hoc Bartholomaeo venerabili viro fama refert notissima, et, cum scripti quod idem episcopus confecit testimonio, crebra ejusdem relatio, quod cum, lucro animarum devotus intendens, parrochiam suam visitaret, in villa quadam campestri cum suis clericis forte pernoctavit. Lodging in an upstairs room overlooking the churchyard, he woke about midnight to find the night-light extinguished, and sent out his chamberlain to fetch fire. While waiting the bishop clearly heard quandam vocem puerilem saying repeatedly, Riseth op, alle Cristes icorne, Levenoth ure fader of pis wrold fundeth; and other childish voices weeping and saying, Vae nobis! vae nobis! Quis amodo pro nobis orabit et elemosinas dabit? vel pro nostra salute missas celebrabit ? Migrat ab hoc seculo noster consolator Levenothus. The first voice cried in a more solemn tone Requiescat in pace, and the others responded Amen. The chamberlain, presently returning with fire from the end of the village, reported that he had found a lighted house and a man just dead; a man given to charity, who had maintained a priest to say masses and offices for the dead, and whose name was Levenoth. The bishop provided for the perpetual continuance of these rites, himself said mass for Levenoth, and had him buried.8 The anecdote is clearly a mere appropriating and localizing of a familiar type of medieval story, which itself seems a late development from the widespread Grateful Dead theme, a Christianized and clericalized development, of which there are many examples. In particular, there are various cases where souls make the responses in offices for the dead, sometimes to help a departed benefactor. In a Latin sermon, for instance, a boy often stops to pray for the dead on his way to school, and is whipped for being late. He dies, and at his 1 I, 312-14 (Rolls Series, 1866). 2 From 1162 to 1184 (Stubbs, Registrum Sacrum Anglic., p. 48). 3 There is a garbled reference to the vision in the account of Bartholomew in Tanner's Bibliotheca Brit.-Hib., p. 78. The versicle and response are from the Missa Defunctorum, replacing the Ite missa est at the end of most masses. [MoDERN PHILOLOGY, November, 1924] 211