Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly [Child 116]

DESCRIPTION: Three outlaws live in the forest. William visits his wife, is arrested, is rescued by the others. They seek pardon from the king, succeed by the queen's intervention, then show their archery prowess, including cleaving an apple on a child's head.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1536 (print from John Byddel's press, according to Child); there is a Stationer's Registry entry of Adam Bell from 1557/58, and Copland's edition (the earliest complete text) was in print by 1568; indirect evidence indicates that it must have been in print by 1534 when Wynkyn de Worde died
KEYWORDS: outlaw pardon royalty
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (14 citations):
Child 116, "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (2 texts)
Bronson 116, "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (1 version, though Bronson doubts the connection of the tune with the printed ballad)
Hales/Furnival-BishopPercysFolioManuscript, volume III, pp. 76-101, "Adam Bell Clime of the Cloug[he] & William off Cloudeslee" (1 text, followed by the sequel "Young Cloudeslee")
Percy/Wheatley-ReliquesOfAncientEnglishPoetry I, pp. 153-179, "Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesley" (1 text)
Rimbault-Musical IllustrationsOfBishopPercysReliques IV, p. 48, "Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough and Williamof Cloudesly" (1 partial text, 1 tune) {Bronson's (#1), although as noted he is very doutbtful of its authenticity}
Bell-Combined-EarlyBallads-CustomsBalladsSongsPeasantryEngland, pp. 28-52, "Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (1 text)
Quiller-Couch-OxfordBookOfBallads 114, "Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (1 text)
Morgan-MedievalBallads-ChivalryRomanceAndEverydayLife, pp. 130-147, "Adam Bell, Clim O' the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: R. B. Dobson and J. Taylor, _Rymes of Robyn Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw_, University of Pittsburg Press, 1976, pp. 260-273, "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (1 text)
Stephen Knight and Thomas Ohlgren, editors, _Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales_, TEAMS (Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages), Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 2000, pp. 235-267, "Adam Bell, Clim of the Clough, and William of Cloudesly" (1 text, newly edited from the sources)
Joseph Ritson, _Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry_, second edition, William Pickering, 1833, pp. 1-30, "Adam Bel, Cly of the Cloughe, and Wyllyam of Cloudeslè" (1 text)
Katherine Briggs, _A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language_, Part A: Folk Narratives, 1970 (I use the 1971 Routledge paperback that combines volumes A.1 and A.2), volume A.2, pp. 369-374, "Adam Bel, Clym of the Clough and William of Cloudesly" (a prose version; compare the following)
Katherine Briggs, _British Folktales_ (originally published in 1970 as _A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales_), revised 1977 (I use the 1977 Pantheon paperback edition), pp. 68-74, "Adam Bel, Clym of the Clough and William of Cloudesly" (a prose version of the tale; compare the preceding)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSPercyFolio}, The Percy Folio, London, British Library MS. Additional 27879, page 390 (this copy surely derived from one of the earlier print versions)
Roud #3297
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Auld Matrons" [Child 249] (theme)
NOTES [1959 words]: For the connection of this song with the Robin Hood legend, see the notes on "A Gest of Robyn Hode" [Child 117]. There are both general links (the greenwood legend) and quite specific connections (the rescue of William has many similarities to the rescue of Robin Hood in "Robin Hood and the Monk" [Child 119], for instance). There are even some textual parallels (e.g. stanza 94, line 2, "As lyght as lefe on lynde," occurs also in "Robin Hood and the Monk" [Child 119]; see the notes to that piece). As a result, many scholars have gone so far as to see "Adam Bell" as a source of the Robin Hood tales. But it is much more likely that the dependence is the other way -- indeed, Chambers, p. 159, goes so far as to declare this piece "almost a burlesque of Robin Hood."
Dobson/Taylor, p. 258, declare this "the most dramatically exciting of all English outlaw ballads." It might perhaps be clearer to say that it is more original in incident than most of the others, since it lacks the endless repetition in the Robin Hood corpus (see, e.g. the several dozen "Robin Hood Meets His Match" ballads).
Dobson/Taylor, p. 259, claim there is an allusion to the song in Act I, scene 1 of Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" (lines 258-259 in the Riverside edition, spoken by Benedick: "and he that hits me, let him be clapp'd on the shoulder, and call'd Adam"). The Riverside edition thinks this "probably" refers to Adam Bell, since there was a mention of ballad-makers a few lines earlier. The Signet Classic Shakespeare also refers it to Adam Bell, and the New Pelican says it is Adam Bell but does not mention ballads. The text however refers only to "Adam," so the matter must be less than certain.
MidwestFolklore, Helen Sewell, "Shakespeare and the Ballad," Volume 12, Number 4 (Winter 1962) p. 229, thinks Romeo and Juliet II.i.13 reads "Young Adam Cupid he that shot so trim," and believes it refers to Adam Bell. However, the Riverside edition gives this line as "Young Abraham Cupid, he that shot so [trim]" ("trim" being the reading of the first, bad, quarto; every other source -- folio and quarto -- reads "true"). None of the Shakespeare editions I checked reads "Adam Cupid." I don't know who conjectured "Adam Cupid"; I certainly would not draw any conclusions from it!
There is a clear mention in Ben Jonson (Dobson/Taylor, p. 259).
We are told that Queen Elizabeth was present when this song was performed in the household of Robert Earl of Leicester in 1575 (Holt, p. 140).
The printing history of this perhaps deserves more attention than Child gives it. (That's not entirely his fault; he had access only to a transcript of the "b" text, so he could not tell its origin; Severs/Hartung, volume 6, p. 1769). The text called "a" by Child, which he used as his copy text for stanzas 113:4-128:2 and 161:2-170, is by John Bydell; the text called "b," which was his copy text for 53:3-111:3, was not identified by Child but Knight/Ohlgren suggest "may" have been printed by Wynkyn de Worde and Severs/Hartung, volume 6, p. 1769, declares "very likely" de Worde's; Child's "c," which is his copy text where "a" and "b" fail, is by William Copland. (Child's other three copies are late and derivative; only a, b, and c are of significance. The only version that might be from oral tradition is that in the Percy Folio, but even that is likely to come from a print copy. And Fowler, p. 158, n. 25, says that there are no collections after the Percy Folio; there is no genuine evidence that the piece was ever in tradition.)
Chid does mention other printings listed in the Stationer's Register, several of which have not survived. From Rollins, we can list all Stationer's Register entries for the piece (marked SR), and add those to Child's list (marked CH and with Child's sigil). I've also added STC numbers where possible. The items not cited by Child and not in the STC may be assumed to have perished:
CH b: Wynkyn de Worde?, n.d. (Most proposed dates put it from 1505 to 1510; Severs/Hartung, volume 6, p. 1769; it is now National Library of Scotland L. C. 3117)
CH a: John Bydell, 1536? (STC #1806)
CH c: Wiliam Copland, c. 1555? (STC #1807)
SR: 1557-1558, by John King (Rollins #10, p. 10, "Adam Bell &c.")
SR: January 15, 1582
SR: August 16, 1586, by Edward White (Rollins #2966, p. 255, "A ballad of William Clowdisley neuer printed before" -- obviously false unless this is a sequel or some such. But Edward White had a tendency to play fast and loose with his sales methods, and was several times fined for it)
SR: May 31, 1594
CH d: James Roberts, 1605 (STC #1808)
CH e: unknown, c. 1605? (?STC #1809? Attributed to W Jaggard for J. Roberts)
SR: September 24, 1608 [Possibly this is STC #1813, the "Second Part" registered 1608 but published J. Wright 1616)
SR: October 29, 1615 (STC #1810. Attributed to W. Jaggard)
SR: June 19, 1627, by Thomas and Richard Cotes (Rollns #11, p. 10, "Adam Bell with Clim of the Clough"; STC #1811; published 1628)
STC #1812, 1632, by Thomas and Richard Cotes
SR: June 27, 1646
SR: April 4, 1655
CH f: Percy folio, undated but thought to be c. 1650.
Why do I bring up the printers, particularly those of a, b, and c? Because Bydell "started as an assistant to de Worde, and the first four books issued under Bydell's name were printed by his late master. The first book printed by Bydell himself is dated June 1534.... On de Worde's death in 1535, Bydell was one of the executors of the will in which de Worde remitted all of Bydell's debts. In the same year Bydell moved to de Worde's house, the Sun in Fleet Street" (Isaac, no page number but on the page for Bydell). Furthermore, William Copland, or at least his father or brother Robert Copland, also learned the trade in the de Worde house; Robert Copland, like Bydell, was mentioned in de Worde's will, although not as prominently (Plomer, p. 99).
And furthermore, de Worde printed what is now the oldest complete copy of the "Gest of Robyn Hode" (Child's "b" copy), and William Copeland printed the second-oldest (Child's "f"). Thus "Adam" and the "Geste" both derive from the same printing house tradition ("Adam" uniquely and the "Gest" predominantly, although the "Gest" was also printed by Richard Pynson); it would not surprise me if there was a common manuscript source for the de Worde editions of the two outlaw poems.
But the fact that all three base editions of "Adam Bell" derive from de Worde means that our source tradition for "Adam" is actually much, much thinner than Child's list of six sources would imply. It is likely that every one of the copies ultimately goes back to a de Worde original. This is almost certainly true even if "b" is not by de Worde (I have not been impressed by Thomas Ohlgren's willingness assign everything to a known printer even when the evidence is very fuzzy -- these guys were always trading off their printing types. And even if the type is de Worde's, it could be a print by Robert Copland; his typefaces "were similar to de Worde's" -- Isaac, introduction to Copland; one of Copland's standard types, e.g., was the Textura 95 in which de Worde printed the "Gest").
Furthermore, this means that odds are that "Adam" was printed around the same time as de Worde printed the "Gest" -- but since that date is unknown and disputed, it isn't much help.
I do note, however, that Robert Copland was a poet who wrote several short pieces that de Worde inserted into his books (Plomer, pp. 52-55). If perhaps de Worde wanted another outlaw romance to go with the "Gest," and didn't have one to hand, might he have turned to Copland to create one? This would explain why "Adam" is so derivative.
The obvious difficulty with this is that Adam and Company were known long before Copland was alive. In a list of parliamentary returns for 1432, the scribe included a list of the sureties for the members from Wiltshire, and made up a fake list that read "Adam, Belle, Clyme, Ocluw, Willyam, Cloudesle, Robyn, hode, Inne, Grenewode, stode, Godeman, was hee, lytel, Joon, Muchette, Millersson, Scathlok, Reynoldyn" (Holt, p. 69). Obviously the link between Adam and friends and Robin Hood is very old.
And yet, although Adam, Clym, and William are cited in the parliamentary manuscript, the text we read there is mostly about Robin Hood -- and, incidentally, surrounds Robin with the men we see him with the the "Gest." So what was the link between Adam and Robyn?
It cannot be "Adam Bell" as we have it. The text is simply too modern -- e.g. the letter "e" at the end of words is consistently silent, as in modern English, not pronounced, as Walter Skeat showed it was in Chaucer's day. It is true that William Copland was not opposed to modernizing his texts (he did it with the "Gest") -- but even the part preserved in "b" has silent terminal e's. In any case, the meter would not work if the terminal e's were sounded. "Adam Bell" may be an old plot, but the poem as we have it is clearly post-1400, and almost certainly post-1450; I'd much prefer a date after 1500.
I have wrestled with the idea that de Worde, having had a hit with the "Gest," would want more pieces of the same genre. But none, it appears, were at hand, unless "Adam Bell" was available. Is it possible that de Worde would have commissioned "Adam Bell"? It's not unlikely, but in that case, who wrote it? The obvious candidate would be Robert Copland, de Worde's in-house poet. On the other hand, Copland wasn't a very good poet. On the third hand, *as poetry*, "Adam Bell" is not very good. On the fourth hand, Copland used a lot of different meters, but he didn't use couplets very often. On the fifth hand, the one place where he did, "Iyl of Braintford's Testament" ("Jyl of Brentsford's Testament"), in which a woman leaves a "legacy" of flatulence, sound to me a bit like this. Those who wish to see Copland's couplets in "Jyl" can consult Erler/Copland, pp. 164-168 (lines 9-76).
For another piece with Copland connections, see "It Was a Mayde of Brenten Arse."
One other point regarding authorship (I owe this point to Burrow, p. 61): "Adam Bell" is composed in fits -- something that Child's transcription downplays, since he does not mark the fits. But the poet made them explicit -- the last two lines of stanza 51 are "here is a fyt of Cloudesli, And another is for to say"; stanza 97 ends "Here is a fytte [o] these wyght yongemen, And another I shall you tell." The poet can't have gotten that device from the "Gest," which is not so ham-handed. Rather, this is a device out of Chaucer -- but it's one of his jokes on romance composers. In "Sir Thopas," Chaucer's parody of romances, we find these lines:
Loo, lordes myne, heere is a fit!
If ye wol any more of it,
To telle it wol I fonde.
[presumed end of the fit, followed by]
Now holde youre mouth, par charitee. (The Canterbury Tales, Fragment VII, lines 888-891; Chaucer/Benson, p. 215).
This is clearly a twist on the "lythe and listen" that opens fits in many romances. A typical fit in the "Gest" ends with a pious tag, then a request for the hearers to listen. Chaucer instead says, "Here is the end of a fit." "Now shut up while I start this next fit." The technique is also used in some texts of "Sir Eglamour of Artois" ("For þys ys þe fyrst fytte, iwys"; line 333 in the Cotton text; Richardson, p. 27), "Thomas of Ercildoune's Prophecy" ("Loo here a fytt: more is to say"; Child #37 appendix) and "Ipomedon B" (Chaucer/Benson, p. 922) -- but the Canterbury Tales was printed by de Worde in 1498, and Ipomedon B by de Worde around 1527, and "Sir Eglamour" by de Worde around 1500, as well as by William Copland (Richardson, p. xiii). If anyone would know this technique, it would likely be a printer, and very likely a printer in the de Worde tradition. - RBW
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