Maiden in the Mor Lay (The Maid of the Moor)

DESCRIPTION: "Maiden in the mor [moor] lay, In the more lay, Seuenyst [seven nights] fulle (x2)," "Welle was hire mete. Wat was hire mete?... The primerole ant the violet." "Welle was hire dryng [drink]. Wat was hire dryng? The chelde water of the welle-spring." Etc.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: fourteenth century (Bodleian, MS. Rawlinson D.913)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad food flowers MiddleEnglish
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (18 citations):
Stevick-OneHundredMiddleEnglishLyrics 38, "(Mayden in the moor lay)" (1 text)
Hirsh-MedievalLyric-MiddleEnglishLyricsBalladsCarols #20, "(Maiden in the mor lay)" (1 text, with a much-reduced photograph of the manuscript on page 75)
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #3891
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #3328
ADDITIONAL: J. A. Burrow, _Essays on Medieval Literature_, Clarendon Press (Oxford), 1984, p. 25, "(Maiden in the mor lay") (1 text, part of a full transcription of this page of the Rawlinson manuscript)
J. A. Burrow and Thorlac Turville-Petre, _A Book of Middle English_, second edition, 1996 (I use the 1999 Blackwell paperback edition), pp. 236-237 (no title) (1 text, expanded from the brief manuscript form)
Kenneth Sisam, editor, _Fourteenth Century Verse & Prose_, Oxford, 1925, p. 167, "The Maid of the Moor" (1 text)
Celia and Kenneth Sisam, _The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse_, Oxford University Press, 1970; corrected edition 1973, #68, p. 167, "The Maid of the Moor" (1 text)
Rossell Hope Robbins, Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Century , Oxford University Press, 1952, pp. 12-13, "Maiden of the Moor" (1 text)
Maxwell S. Luria & Richard Hoffman, _Middle English Lyrics_, a Norton Critical Edition, Norton, 1974, pp. 128-129, #138 (no title) (1 text)
R. T. Davies, editor, _Medieval English Lyrics: A Critical Anthology_, 1963, #33, p. 102, "The maiden lay in the wilds" (1 text)
James J. Wilhelm, _Medieval Song: An Anthology of Hymns and Lyrics_, Dutton, 1971, #214, pp. 353-354, "Maiden in the Moor Lay" (1 modernized text)
J. B. Trapp, _Medieval English Literature_ (a portion of the Oxford Anthology of English Literature), Oxford, 1973, p. 419, "The Maid of the Moor" (1 modernized text)
Karen Saupe, editor, _Middle English Marian Lyrics_, TEAMS (Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages), Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1998, #81, pp. 154-155, "(Maiden in the mor lay)" (1 text)
Karin Boklund-Lagopolou, _I have a yong suster: Popular song and Middle English lyric_, Four Courts Press, 2002, pp. 31-32, "(Maiden in the mor lay)" (1 text, emended)
E. Talbot Donaldson, _Speaking of Chaucer_, The Athlone Press/University of London, 1970, p. 150, "(no title)" (1 text)
Arthur K. Moore, _The Secular Lyric in Middle English_, University of Kentucky Press, 1951, p. 19, "(Maiden in the mor lay)" (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSRawlinsonD913}, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson D.13 (Bodleian 13679), folio 1
SAME TUNE:
Peperit Virgo (Latin rewrite of this tune by the Bishop of Ossory) (Richard Leighton Green, _The Lyrics of the Red Book of Ossory_, Medium Aevum Monographs, New Series V, Basil Blackwell, 1974, #11, pp. 15-17)
NOTES [2246 words]: This, obviously, has never been found in oral tradition. But Burrow/Turville-Petre, p. 235, say that the piece "happens to be referred to in a fourteenth century sermon... described as 'a certain song, namely a 'karole'." That's an awfully thin reed on which to base an inclusion, but better to include than omit. Davies, p. 321, does describe this as "popular," which in a fourteenth century context presumably means "folk." It's certainly popular with anthologists! Sisam, p. 162, considers it minstrel work.
The poem itself is one of the "Rawlinson lyrics," found on a single strip of parchment in Bodleian library MS. Rawlinson D.913; it is just four inches wide by eleven inches tall, and much worn. Although the contents are clearly poetry, they are written as prose, although with blank lines between items (Burrow, pp. 2-3).
Even with modern layout and extra spaces, the contents of the that particular sheet of parchment take only three and a half pages; Burrow, pp. 23-26, has a full transcription.
The "manuscript" in which the single sheet is found is not a unity; it is a bunch of odds and ends the Bodleian bound together to make it easier to care for them (Burrow, p. 2, which reports that the Rawlinson collection was received in 1756 and the items bound up more than a century later). This particular item is hard enough to read that its contents were not noticed until 1907 (Burrow, p. 3).
Stevick dates the manuscript "after 1300." Burrow/Turville-Petre, p. 235, says "early fourteenth century," as does the headnote in Saupe. Greene-Carols, p. 42, says merely "fourteenth century." Sisam, p. 162, also thinks it early fourteenth century, pointing out that the poems of the latter part of the century (when the Hundred Years' War was lost and the Wars of the Roses resulted in intermittent civil war) tended to be much gloomier.
The fragment has several short poems, in both English and French (Burrow/Turville-Petre, p. 235), plus a few single lines that I would guess are more of a "set list" than anything else. Several of the other pieces also appear somewhat "folky"; Wells, p. 492, suggests that the page came from a minstrel's notebook but also says that all the substantial pieces "exhibit the primitive popular use of repetition, and apparently all were rude pieces for singing by the roadside or at the ale-house. All are catching jingles, with no sign of reflection or of the learned touch" -- a statement which I would firmly disagree with, particularly as regards this song. This is the eighth piece on the slip, by Wells's and Burrow's counts; the seventh, "Icham of Irlaunde (The Irish Dancer; Good Sir I Pray Thee)," is also well-known and is "perhaps the oldest English dance-song extant" (Wells, p. 493). The tenth also sounds rather folky: "Jonet's hair is all gold, and Jankyn is her love" (first line "Al gold Jonet is thin her"), although Boklund-Lagopolou, 38, claims some of its "semantic codes" are "courtly."
This particular poem/song has four verses, with only the first two spelled out in full; the last two verses are much abbreviated, although most modern editions spell out the verses.
There is much disagreement about who the Maiden is. Burrow, pp. 16-17 (compare Burrow/Turville-Petre, p. 236) mention suggestions of the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, a different penitent woman, a dead child, and a water sprite. (More on several of these below.) I am not sure what it was intended to be about, but I would think most singers would have interpreted it as the Virgin Mary. One other possibility that occurs to me, although I think the Virgin Mary hypothesis much more likely, is that it's a tale of one of those endless female saints who, upon being ordered to marry, or sexually abused, engaged in some absurd behavior to protect their virginity, along the lines of "A tale of how Saint Repetitiva, rather than yield her virtue to the lord of the manor, fled to the moor and lived there in the field, sustained by the reeds and grasses, which gave their fruit to her."
The scholarly discussion of this piece is very extensive. Luria/Hoffman reprint no fewer than four articles, by D. W. Robertson, Jr. [1950], by E. T. Donaldson [1960], by John Speirs [undated], and by Peter Dronke [1966] -- very big names in Middle English literature.
Robertson, who points out many puzzles in the poem. believes that the Maid is indeed the Virgin Mary, and points out that the sundry flowers often appear in medieval images of the Virgin, adding that the flowers also implied fleshly beauty. Saupe, pp. 268-269, repeats many of his notes in perhaps more understandable form; her notes are well worth consulting, since they're online.
Dronke absolutely rejects the link with the Virgin Mary and proposes the water sprite theory based on German folk tales. He thinks the piece a dance song. In his view, the girl comes to dances to fascinate men, but must return to the moor by a certain time, lest she die. The difficulty with this is that there is no direct evidence of these stories in English.
Donaldson's article in Luria/Hoffman believes reciters would indeed think of the Virgin Mary but might not seek much allegorical depth in the rest of the images. In his own work (Donaldson, pp. 150-152), in which he argues against Huppé and Dronke's contention that most Middle English poetry must be interpreted in light of the Church Fathers, Donaldson suggests that people tend to over-interpret the piece. I incline to agree. Donaldson, p. 152, also says, "I shouldn't be surprised if medieval readers often thought of the Virgin as they read the poem, not because they knew the symbols and signs, but because the Virgin is the paramount innocent maiden of the Christian tradition." Which I think sums the matter up pretty well although it does not preclude the possibility that the author was thinking of someone else.
Speirs denies that we can be expected to know who the maid is, but calls her a "child of nature" and suggests a link to fertility cults (which strikes me as extremely unlikely but clearly the result of Dronke-like thinking). Boklund-Lagopolou, pp. 37-38, based on an analysis of "isotopies" that might make sense in analyzing an over-trained college student's poetry exercise but makes very little sense when applied to a folk song, concludes that the maiden "is not human but some kind of nature spirit, and the period of seven nights and a day is probably related to the times when contact between this natural world and the cultural world of human beings becomes possible." (Oy.) She also wonders about a sexual component.
Davies, pp. 320-321, mentions an interpretation which compares this to the world's wilderness before the incarnation of Jesus. This would fit the moor, but hardly the flowers.
Saupe, p. 267, while acknowledging Donaldson's objection, accepts Robertson's link to the Virgin Mary. Although she doesn't express a strong opinion of her own, she did include this poem in her anthology of Marian literature, and observes that Schoeck, 1951, agreed with Robertson. She mentions an article by E. M. W. Tillyard suggesting that the maid is Mary Magdalene or Mary of Egypt (whoever that is). Greene/Ossory, p. xii, also mentions the Mary Magdalene hypothesis, but links it with Joseph Harris. Similarly Fowler, p. 113: "[A]s Joseph Harris has recently and impressively demonstrated, it is undoubtedly based on the legendary life of Mary Magdalene, and celebrates her victorious ascetic life in the desert." This follows ten pages (pp. 102-111, with pp. 103-106 giving Mary's alleged biography) in which Fowler demonstrates the importance of the Magdalene in Middle English legend. The biography is mostly from the Golden Legend, which, it is true, was an extremely widespread collection of religious teachings and saints' legends. But it is only one such account, and much of its popularity was after this song was evidently written. On p. 114 Fowler points out the legendary Mary Magdalene's "subsistence in the desert on nothing but spiritual food," which he claims is the same as the Maid of the Moor living on the flowers of the moor.
We hardly need Green/Ossory's scathing critique to throw this idea out the window -- yes, Mary Magdalene found Jesus in a garden, but she was also thought to be a prostitute. I would be very interested in learning how an experienced prostitute could be a maiden. (Fowler's answer, on p. 114, was that God purified her. But even if that included vaginal surgery, does that really make her a virgin?) And remember, the woman of the song is a *maiden* but is never called "Mary." Surely we must work from a famous maiden, not a famous Mary. Hence also Trapp, p. 419: "Until quite recently, this little poem existed peacefully as a secular piece of popular origin and obscure meaning," adding that "the Magdalene's maiden status is more than questionable."
I do find the mention of the maid drinking from the "welle spring" in the third verse interesting, since in Luke 4, Jesus meets the Woman of Samaria at the well and offers her "living water"; the wellspring could well be a Christian symbol.
Other than the text itself, we have little evidence about the poem. Burrow adduced two pieces of evidence that the song was secular -- the only two references to any of the Rawlinson lyrics outside the manuscript itself.
One comes from the Red Book of Ossory, associated with Richard de Ledrede, Bishop of Ossory 1317-1360. He was an extremely zealous churchman, an English Franciscan ruling an Irish diocese and in the habit of using the full force of his authority (Greene/Ossory, pp. iv-v). Greene/Ossory, p. iv, calls his administration "a reign of terror for those he disliked" and says that "It appears likely that before his death he became mentally deranged."
Ossory had a habit of taking secular pieces that he thought too popular and rewriting them for church use, "in order that [his clerks'] throats and mouths, consecrated to God, may not be polluted by songs which are lewd, secular, and associated with revelry.... [L]et them provide themselves with suitable tunes (notis) according to which these sets of words (dictamina, 'ditties') require" (Greene/Ossory, p. iv; Greene/Ossory, p. xii, adds that some of Ossory's lyrics were written without a specified tune, leaving it up to the singers to find something, but the early lyrics in the Red Book clearly have specified tunes).
There is a stain on the line which lists the tune of the eleventh song. But Greene/Ossory, p. x, is convinced that the text under the stain reads "mayde yn the moore lay." This is not proof that Ossory's Latin text uses this tune. But Greene/Ossory, p. x, lines up the two lyrics, and they match metrically. The Latin text reads:
Peperit virgo,
Virgo regia,
Mater orphanorum,
Mater orphanorum;
Peperit virgo,
Virgo regia,
Mater orphanorum,
Mater orphanorum,
Plena gracia.
(I can't help but say that the English words are better!)
This still isn't absolute proof, but I agree with Greene that it is almost certain that Ossory used "Maiden" as the pattern for his feeble piece. A number of scholars (Burrow, p. 19; cf. Davies, p. 320, Boklund-Lagopolou, p. 28) conclude that Ossory thought the song unfit for church use. I tend to agree. Burrow, p. 20, thinks this rules out references to the Virgin Mary or Mary Magdalene. I personally think it proves that Ossory was too uptight for his job. Possibly Ossory's objection was that this was a secular piece -- but he might also have objected because it was in English, or because it was unclear, or simply because it was too popular. I do not think Ossory's opinions tell us anything about what the author of the song thought. So the possibility that this is a religious text -- even a text about the Virgin Mary -- must remain open.
For his second bit of evidence, Burrow, p. 19, probably following Greene/Ossory, pp. xii-xiii, cites a manuscript described by Wenzel in 1974 (According to Wenzel, p. 84 n. 66, Wenzel presented this in an article in Speculum 49, pp. 66-74, "The Moor Maiden -- A Contemporary View." The only information given in the footnote is that the sermon is found in Worcester Cathedral MS. F.126, folios 145rb-146ra). It is a sermon collection thought to have been taken down around 1360. "The preacher is lamenting the moral deterioration of man. In the Golden Age, he says... men lived in joy and innocence. They ate only the foods that nature provided. And what, he asks, did they drink? His answer is unexpected. 'And what was their drink? The answer appears in a certain song [in quondam cantico], namely a karole that is called 'the mayde be wode lay'. Note in margin: 'the colde water of the well spryng.'" Obviously the mention is of a "wood" not a "moor" (which Greene/Ossory, p. xiii, says is a better place to find violets), and it calls the song a karole, which based on its form it is not (it is a roundel), but that's a nitpick. Here too we have what seems to be an allusion to this song -- but this time it hints that the song describes the state of unfallen humanity! Which would seem to make the maid Eve.
Probably we will never know what the song is really about. But, I repeat, it does seem likely that at least some hearers -- especially in the period before the reformation, when Mariolatry was very common in England -- thought it referred to the Virgin Mary.
Whatever it's about, I agree with Donaldson that it's a great, almost hypnotic, piece; I wish it had a tune. - RBW
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