The Babees' Book: Medieval Manners for the Young: Done into Modern English

The Babees' Book: Medieval Manners for the Young: Done into Modern English

NEARLY forty years ago, Dr. Furnivall collected for the Early English Text Society divers treatises touching the Manners and Meals of Englishmen in former days. Some of these were published in 1868, under the title The Babees Book,[1] and others, chiefly of later date, in 1869, under the title Queene Elizabethes Achademy. These two volumes, with their introductions and illustrative matter, to my mind present the most vivid picture of home life in medieval England that we have. Aside from their general human interest, they are valuable to the student of social history, and almost essential to an understanding of the literature of their time. The whole fabric of the romances was based upon the intricate system of courtesy as here set forth, and John Russell furnishes an interesting comment xiion Chaucer and his school, as do Rhodes and Seager and Weste on the writers of the sixteenth century. Finally, among these treatises, there is many a plum by the way for the seeker of proverbs, curious lore, superstitions, literary oddities. And as comparatively few people have time or inclination to worry through antiquated English, Dr. Furnivall has long wished that the substance of his collections might be presented in modern form. Therefore this little volume has been undertaken. Doubtless unwritten codes of behaviour are coeval with society; but the earliest treatises that we possess emphasize morals rather than manners. Even the late Latin author known as Dionysius Cato (fourth century?), whose maxims were constantly quoted, translated, imitated, and finally printed during the late Middle Ages, does not touch upon the niceties of conduct that we call manners; wherefore one John Garland, an Englishman educated at Oxford, who lived much in France during the first half of the thirteenth century, felt bound to supplement Cato on these points. His work, entitled Liber Faceti: docens mores hominum, precipue iuuenum, in supplementum illorum qui xiiia moralissimo Cathone erant omissi iuuenibus utiles,[2] is alluded to as Facet in the first piece in this volume, and serves as basis for part of the Book of Courtesy. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 58985
Author: Furnivall, Frederick James
Release Date: Feb 28, 2019
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Editor: Rickert, Edith, 1871-1938

Translator: Naylor, L. J.