Select English works of John Wyclif. Vol. 3. Miscellaneous works / edited from original mss. by Thomas Arnold.

APPENDIX. ON THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE FIFTH BOOK OF KNYGHTON'S CHRONICLE [See ante, p. 499.] .

ANY matter which affects the genuineness or authenticity of the original sources of our national history is so important, that I shall be excused for examining, with such minuteness as may be necessary, the opinion expressed by Dr. Shirley, in a note at p. 524 of the Fasciculi Zizaniorum and elsewhere, that what is commonly called the 'Fifth Book of Knyghton's Chronicle' proceeds from another and unknown hand.

In order that my reply to it may be intelligible, it is neces∣sary to reproduce the chief portion of Dr. Shirley's note, which is as follows:—

'It is of some importance to the history of this time to correct the error by which this fragment has been ascribed to Knighton, who is a dry and comparatively worthless commentator on Higden's Polychronicon. The writer of the fifth book is a partizan of the Duke of Lancaster, and, as such, very valuable, as with the exception of some Lancastrian frag∣ments, which Walsingham unconsciously embodies, he is the only writer of that day on the less popular side. It is in these words that Knighton concludes his preface:—"Insuper opus inceptum, videlicet a conquestu regni Angliae, in V partes protelare curavi, in quarum duabus primis XVII (read XVI) capitulorum numerum praecedentis libelli, seriem et ordinem literarum de vocabuli mei expressione sumptarum observando, perorare curavi. Tertiam vero partem et quartam, propter prolixitatem sermonis et eventuum inexplicabilem concursum et finis incepti operis inex∣pectabilem visionem, absque tali capitulorum ordine transcurrendo annotare lacessitus praeoccupavi. Sicque totum laborem praesentis operis in quinque partes sive libellos distinctos protelando orditus sum." It will be seen,

I think, on a careful reading of this sentence that quinque has been sub∣stituted for quatuor by some one who was perplexed by finding five books, but who has fortunately not seen that it was necessary to recast the whole sentence in order to make the quinque suit. It was evidently Knighton's intention to make the fourth book contain the events of his own lifetime, as I have no doubt it does. And if we examine the Chronicle we shall see that each of the first two books contains sixteen chapters, the first letters of which form the acrostic Henricus Cnjtthon, Henricus Cnithonn, while the third book is only partially divided into chapters, the fourth not at all.'

It seems to me that Dr. Shirley has entirely misapprehended Knyghton's meaning, and that, owing to his not having read the sentence, nor examined the Chronicle itself, with sufficient care. He did not observe,—nor did John Selden, when he wrote for Twysden the critical introduction to the Decem Scriptores,—that not the first two, but the first three books of the Chronicle give in the initial letters of the chapters the acrostic of Knyghton's name. Yet this, if we read him care∣fully, Knyghton distinctly asserts. For the clause 'in quarum . . . . curavi,' may be translated as follows:—'In the first two of which [i.e. of the books treating of events after the Con∣quest] I have taken care to complete the number of seventeen [should be "sixteen"] chapters of the preceding book, by observ∣ing the succession and order of the letters which form my own name.' Now this is what he has actually done. The first two books after the Conquest, Books II. and III. of the entire Chronicle, do, in the number and initial letters of their chapters, conform to the 'preceding book,' Book I. of the entire Chronicle, which treats of events before the Conquest. In the third and fourth parts after the Conquest, Books IV. and V. of the Chronicle, he has been unable, for the good and sufficient reasons which he gives, to follow the same plan in the numbering and initialling of the chapters. This is exactly what we find to be the case with Books IV. and V; the initial letters are just what they may happen to be, and the number of chapters much exceeds that in the first three books. The only oversight which I can detect in the whole passage is the statement that the work 'videlicet a conquestu Angliae' was divided 'in V partes.' It should be 'in IV partes;' for

though the entire Chronicle has five parts or books, the portion 'a conquestu Angliae' has only four. With this slight altera∣tion, the whole passage becomes consistent both with itself and with the actual condition of the Chronicle; and so far from furnishing any evidence against the authenticity of the Fifth Book, bears conclusive testimony in its favour.

I cannot myself detect any difference of moment between the tone in which church matters are spoken of in the Fifth Book, and that which prevails in the rest of the work. Nor can I trace any difference in respect of style or language.