Sir Peny

DESCRIPTION: "Peny is an hardy knyght, Peny is mekyl of myght, Peny of wrong ge makyt right" wherever he goes. "Go bet, peny, go bet, go." One who has Peny as a messenger will do well. Men like those with Peny. When he is without Peny, they reject him
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c. 1430 (British Library -- Sloane MS. 2593); printed by Ritson 1790
KEYWORDS: money humorous travel commerce nonballad MiddleEnglish poverty hardtimes
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Greene-TheEarlyEnglishCarols, #393, p. 261, "(Peny is an hardy knyght)" (1 text)
Ritson-AncientSongsBalladsFromHenrySecondToTheRevolution, pp. 115-117, "A Song in Praise of Sir Penny" (1 text)
Brown/Robbins-IndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse, #2747
DigitalIndexOfMiddleEnglishVerse #4361
ADDITIONAL: Celia and Kenneth Sisam, _The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse_, Oxford University Press, 1970; corrected edition 1973, #196, pp. 441-442, "Penny Is an Hardy Knight" (1 text)
Rossell Hope Robbins, _Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Century_, Oxford University Press, 1952, #57, pp. 50-51 "Sir Penny, I" (1 text)
Maxwell S. Luria & Richard Hoffman, _Middle English Lyrics_, a Norton Critical Edition, Norton, 1974 pp, 114-115, #119 (no title) (1 text)
MANUSCRIPT: {MSSloane2593}, London, British Library, MS. Sloane 2593, folio 26
MANUSCRIPT: Oxford, Balliol College, MS. 8, folio 222 (fragment)
NOTES [309 words]: Based on external evidence, this does not meet my criteria for inclusion in the Index; it is found in just two Middle English manuscripts, and although one of them is the extraordinary manuscript Sloane 2593, the other, Balliol College MS. 8, has only two pieces of poetry in it, the other being only a stanza of a well-known song ("Sweet Jesu now will I sing," found in seven other manuscripts) written in a flyleaf.
However, this has been held up by several scholars as an extraordinary early carol, and certainly it is an early example of a song about the relationship between money and popularity. Then, too, it is very popular with modern anthologists. I have indexed it on that very tentative basis.
"Peny/Penny" is, of course, money -- and not a trivial amount in the fifteenth century; the silver penny was the basic coin of England for most of the medieval era, and fractions of a penny (farthings, groats) existed.
Greene, p. 429, says that "The personification of 'Penny' is met with in a number of medieval vernacular and Latin compositions. Chambers, p. 118, mentions a poem on the same theme:
Sir Peny over all gettes the gré [honor, goodwill],
Both in burgh and in ceté [city],
In castell and in towre.
Withouwten owther spere or schelde,
Es the best in frith [woodland] or felde,
And stalworthest in stowre [fighting].
The phrase "Go bet" probably does not mean "go gamble" but is rather a hunting chorus meaning something like "Hurry Up"; see the notes to "A Hunting Carol (At A Place Where I Me Set)," which also contains the phrase.
Yet another "Sir Peny" is found in Joseph Ritson, Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry, second edition, William Pickering, 1833, pp. 99-108; it opens "In erth it es a littill thing, And regnes als a riche king."
For more on manuscript Sloane 2593, see the notes to "Robyn and Gandeleyn" [Child 115]. - RBW
Bibliography

Chambers: E. K. Chambers, English Literature at the Close of the Middle Ages, Oxford, 1945, 1947
Greene: Richard Leighton Greene, editor, The Earliest English Carols, Oxford/Clarendon Press, 1935

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File: MSSrPen

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