: Chaucer's Works Volume 6 — Introduction Glossary and Indexes by Chaucer Geoffrey Skeat Walter W Walter William Editor - English poetry Middle English 1100-1500

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GLOSSARIAL INDEX 1

GLOSSARY TO FRAGMENTS B AND C OF THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE 311

GLOSSARY TO GAMELYN 347

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 359

INDEX OF BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE NOTES 390

LIST OF MANUSCRIPTS 399

GENERAL LIST OF ERRATA 400

GENERAL INDEX 410

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

In the first place, my endeavour has been to produce a thoroughly sound text, founded solely on the best MSS. and the earliest prints, which shall satisfy at once the requirements of the student of language and the reader who delights in poetry. In the interest of both, it is highly desirable that Chaucer's genuine works should be kept apart from those which were recklessly associated with them in the early editions, and even in modern editions have been but imperfectly suppressed. It was also desirable, or rather absolutely necessary, that the recent advances in our knowledge of Middle-English grammar and phonetics should be rightly utilised, and that no verbal form should be allowed to appear which would have been unacceptable to a good scribe of the fourteenth century.

The Glossary has been compiled on a much larger scale than any hitherto attempted, wherein the part of speech of almost every word is duly marked, and every verbal form is sufficiently parsed. A special feature of the Glossary is the exclusion from it of non-Chaucerian words and forms; and in order to secure this result, separate Glossaries are given of the chief words occurring in Fragments B and C of the Romaunt of the Rose and in Gamelyn; and we are thus enabled to detect a marked difference in the vocabulary employed in these pieces from that which was employed by Chaucer. And I cannot refrain from here expressing the hope, that the practical usefulness of the Glossary and Indexes may predispose the critic to forgive some errors in other parts of the work. And further, also in the interest of every true student, much pains have been bestowed on the mode of numbering the lines. It is not so easy a matter as it would seem to be. Many editors give no numbering at all; and, where it is given, it is not always correct. The numbering of the Canterbury Tales, in particular, was especially troublesome. I give three distinct systems of counting the lines, and even thus have failed in giving the numbering of Wright's edition beyond l. 11928, where he suddenly begins a new numbering of his own.

I append a few remarks on the text of the various pieces.

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