On Leome Is in this World Ilist

DESCRIPTION: "On leome is in this world ilist, Therof is muchel pris; Arisen is God and that is rist, From deth to lif." Christ suffered and rose for our redemption. Mary watched the crucifixion. We should be thankful.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1300 (ms. Cambridge Trinity College B 14.39, also sometimes called ms. Trinity Cambridge 323)
KEYWORDS: religious Jesus death MiddleEnglish
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #293
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #493
ADDITIONAL: Carleton Fairchild Brown, _English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century_, Clarendon University Press, 1932, pp. 34-37, "(On leome is in þis world ilist) (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSCambridgeTrinity323}, Cambridge University, Trinity College MS. 323, folio 32
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Judas" [Child 23] (subject: The Earliest English Ballad) and references there
NOTES [410 words]: Despite giving the text of this as "On leome is in þis world ilist," the DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse files this under the title "An leam is in the world I-lit." The text actually begins
On leome is in þis world ilist
Þer of is muchel pris
A risen is god & þat is rist
From deþe to lif....
The piece is very old; it is in the same thirteenth/fourteenth century manuscript as "Judas" [Child 23]; see that piece for information about the manuscript source.
I do not think there is any particular reason to include this poem in the Index. It is only here because of a probable error. On the basis of the manuscript dating, Albert B. Friedman, The Ballad Revival, University of Chicago Press, 1961, p. 15, classes either this or "Wolle Ye Iheren of Twelte Day" among ballads older than 1500 [both of them are from the "Judas" manuscript). Friedman probably meant to cite "Wolle Ye Iheren," but his page numbers are wrong, making it just possible that this is the piece he intended.
And the language, to me, seems much more difficult than "Judas." Possibly this is just the dialect (not having an annotated text, I don't know what has been deduced about it). But it might be that it is actually older than "Judas." In which case it becomes yet another candidate for the "Oldest English Ballad."
So why hasn't it gotten more attention? Part of the reason is probably the obscurity of the manuscript; it should be recalled that Trinity College MS. B 14.39 was lost for some decades, so scholars, including Child, had to rely on inaccurate transcripts).
And it doesn't look like a ballad; it's in ten-line stanzas (twelve in all) with rhyme scheme ababccddcd. (Maybe Friedman would argue that it is a proto-ballad; on p. 37, he talks about how the rigid French form the "ballade" became the English ballad, and mentions an intermediate "pseudo-ballae" form with rhyme scheme ababbcbc, which looks a bit like the Latin version.) Brown, p. 182, says "The special form of the 10-line stanza employed in this piece is not frequent."
At least the first lines of those stanzas are in ballad meter, four stresses then three then four then three, although the later lines don't fit as well. It could be played as a ballad. And it is narrative, although the religious elements pretty well overwhelm the plot.
Am I convinced? No. I think it's just another religious poem. But I'm filing it here because we try to cover every candidate for "The Earliest English Ballad." - RBW
Bibliography

Brown: Carleton Brown, editor, English Lyrics of the XIIIth Century, Oxford University Press, 1932 (I use the 1962 reprint)
Friedman: Albert B. Friedman, The Ballad Revival, University of Chicago Press, 1961

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File: BrRo293

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