Hali Meidenbad, FROM MS. COTT. TITUS D. XVIII. FOL. 112c. AN ALLITERATIVE HOMILY OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. EDITED BY OSWALD COCKAYNE, M.A., ONCE OF ST. JOHNS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. LONDON: PUBLISHED FOR THE EARLY ENGLISH TEXT SOCIETY, MDCCCLXVI. FOREWORD. pis treatise on be high state of virginity contains so many coarse and repulsive passages, þat it was laid out for printing wiþout a modernized version; but þe printer complained þat þe explanatory footnotes were a trouble to be compositors and an encumbrance on be page, and be translation became a last resource. pe most objectionable portions have been Latinized. In his praise of þe virgin state, þe auþor has given such way to his zeal, as to fall into frequent attacks on wedlock; and against þem þe editor has sometimes entered a lively protest. No age of Christianity has sanctioned any such condemnation of "marriage honourable in all," and, of right, holy. Where any fanatics ventured on such folly, bey were quickly branded, by be truer sense of be church, as unsound. None, perhaps, in our days can be so ignorant as to declare in favour of pose notions. In þe earliest church a warning example is seen in Tertullianus, who, dough a warm and able defender of be faiþ, lost all credit by adopting Montanist views. Among þe advocates for purity, none can rival Origenes, who went to a leng which he afterwards himself reprobated, and which his editor, Bishop Huet, found so little laudable, þat he refused to believe of his auðor þat he used þe knife, and will have it þat he resorted to refrigeratives, such as hemlock is said by Dioskorides to be. Yet Origenes, devotee as he was to be 'purity" doctrines, damns, wið a full and due sentence, partly in þe language of St. Paul, pose "forbidding to marry," as holding "doctrines of devils;" and avers þat while celibacy is a state of grace, marriage is also, by just inference from þe apostolic language, a state of grace also. For þe readers full satisfaction, I add be words of þe original: Kaì ἐπεὶ ὁ θεὸς συνέζευξε, διὰ τοῦτο χάρισμά ἐστιν ἐν τοῖς ὑπὸ θεοῦ συνεζευγμένοις, ὅπερ ὁ Παῦλος ἐπίσταμενος, ἐπίσης τῷ εἶναι τὴν ἁγνὴν ἀγαμίαν χάρισμα, φησὶ καὶ τὸν κατὰ λόγον θεοῦ γάμον εἶναι χάρισμα, φάσκων· θέλω δὲ πάντας ἀνθρώπους εἶναι ὡς ἐμαυτόν· ἀλλ ̓ ἕκαστος ἴδιον ἔχει χάρισμα ἐκ θεοῦ, ὃς μὲν οὕτως, os dè ovτws. He þen quotes Matth. xix. 6; 1 Tim. iv. 1, 2, 3, driving home his protest against such teachers as þe auðor of Hali Meidenhad by be words κωλυόντων οὐ πορνεύειν μόνον, ảλλà kai yaμeîv, "forbidding not fornication merely, but even ἀλλὰ marriage." Hence it is plain þat to speak evil of þe marriage estate is no tenet of any large body of Christians, or of þe early church, and in editing þis work it was fitting to declare a dissent from such teaching. I assume, from be tone of þe tract, its eager advocacy of nunneries and profession, its mixture of advice and authority, þat þe writer was of no less þan þe episcopal order. A probability is visible þat he was also be autor of þe Ancren Riwle, of þe life and passion of St. Margaret, St. Juliana, St. Kaðarine, of þe piece Si Sciret paterfamilias, of þe Oreisun of St. Mary, and of oper tracts now lost. pese are all in þe same homely, terse, eloquent English of þe former half of þe þirteen century, and are all of a devotional character, and almost all addressed to maidens, professed and veiled. Pe story of St. Margaret is distinctly named in þe Ancren Riwle as known to be ladies to whom he latter piece is addressed, and in þe tract now printed (p. 45) þe examples of St. Kaðarine, St. Margaret, St. Agnes, St. Juliana, St. Lucy, St. Cecilia are recommended. If it be probable þat þe present tract is written by þe same hand, and addressed to be same ladies as þe "Ancren Wisse,” þen it is also probable þat þeir nunnery was at Tarante Kaines, in Dorsetshire, on þe Stour; for a Latin copy of þe Rule, at Oxford, in Magdalen College Library, has þe inscription, "Hic incipit prohemium venerabilis Patris Magistri Simonis de Gandavo, Episcopi Sarum, in librum de vita solitaria quem scripsit sororibus suis anachoretis apud Tarente." pe Latin Cottonian copy, Vitell. E. vii., once had, as appears from Smiths catalogue, 1696, þe following title or memorandum upon it, "Regulæ vitæ Anachoretarum utriusque sexus scriptæ per Simonem de Gandavo, Episcopum Sarum in usum suarum sororum. Hunc librum Frater Robertus de Thorneton, quondam Prior, dedit claustralibus de Bardenay." Mr. Morton sufficiently proved þat þe Latin is a translation from þe earlier English, and þe testimonies above may be reconciled wið þe date of þe language of þe English, by understanding Simon of Ghent to be be autor only of þe Latin version. He was bishop from 1297 to 1315. It remains þat we imagine one of þe Poores, bishops successively of Sarum, Herbert from 1194 to 1215, and Richard from 1217 to 1229, to be be writer of þe original English, addressed, we need not doubt, to ladies at Tarente, in Dorset. Richard, þe dean of Salisbury, was consecrated (1215) to |