corrections to DIMEV 3937, 4383, 6561, 176 (Lydgate at Clopton chantry chapel)

[icornelius]

(from Cristina Maria Cervone)

Four entries are involved: DIMEV 3937 ("Testament"), DIMEV 4383 ("The Lamentatyon of Mary Magdaleyne"), DIMEV 6561 ("A lamentacyon of our lady Maria"), and DIMEV 176 ("Balade in Commendation of Our Lady").

For all entries, the site is not the Clopton chapel but the Clopton chantry chapel; these are two different locations within the church.

DIMEV 3937 ("Testament")

Parker: inclusive page numbers, 130–35. For Conder, 49–53 (throughout, Conder largely follows Parker). For Trapp, pp. 3–11.

Another witness needs to be added:

• Liverpool Cathedral Library MS Radcliffe 16, ff. 1r–105r
  source: Wellesley, Mary. "A Previously Unrecorded Manuscript Version of Lydgate’s Testament." Notes and Queries 62, no. 1 (2015): 27–28.

The description of where this poem is in the chantry is minimal so is okay as is if you just update "Clopton chapel" to "Clopton chantry chapel," but for clarification in case you change it, these verses are written on wooden banderoles carved in relief under the cornice on all four walls of the chantry. They aren’t written on the wall itself, like DIMEV 176 is.

The Long Melford verses change "I" to "we" throughout. With the rearrangement and selection of verses, it reads as a new poem.

DIMEV 4383 ("The Lamentatyon of Mary Magdaleyne")

Long Melford should be removed from this list. The identification by Trapp was incorrect and this poem does not exist at Long Melford. The poem that is at Long Melford is DIMEV 6561, "A lamentacion of our lady Maria" (see below). The description "and on ceiling" would be mistaken if this were the correct poem and is in the entry for DIMEV 4383, I think, because whoever added this entry to the DIMEV didn’t understand what the girder DiMEV 6561 is written on looks like; it is sometimes described as a "low ceiling" but no poems are on its soffits, which, like the ceiling of the chantry itself, had prayer scrolls instead (traces remain under the jetty and many of the main ceiling's prayer scrolls are well preserved). See pics below. No poems are on the ceiling of the chantry.

Parker does not cite it on p. 128. He quotes DIMEV 6561 on p. 135 but does not title it.

Conder does not cite it on p. 54. He follows the text of Parker in most places and quotes DIMEV 6561 on 54–55.

Trapp makes a simple error when he cites MacCracken correctly but then calls the poem "‘The Lamentation of Mary Magdalen’ (‘Quis dabit meo capiti fontem lacrimarum?’)" where MacCracken has "Quis dabit meo capiti fontem lacrimarum? Here begynneth a lamentacioun of our Lady Maria." So, Trapp caused a misidentification through what looks like a pretty simple mistake and because of that (p. 4) misidentifies the image of the Virgin as Mary Magdalen. He correctly says the verses are on the girder (4). Others scholars have perpetuated his error; some have corrected it.

Whoever introduced the errors about the "Testament" and the "Quis Dabit" into the DIMEV misread Trapp here, I think, and that led to the lines "Behold o man" etc. from the "Testament" being mistakenly used in entries for DIMEV 4383 and DIMEV 6561:

"The 'Magdalen' poem is so dilapidated as to be useless textually: the stanzas run 8, 4, 14, 17, 18, 19.

The verses above the altar are:

| [101]
| Behold o man lefte up thyn eye & see
| what mortall peyne I suffred for your trespace
| with pitous voys I creye and seye to the
| behold my wounds behold myn blody face
| behold the rebukis þt doth me so manace
| and reforme the to grace
| was like offerid in sacrifice"

Trapp has been discussing the "Testament"; the quoted verse is 101, as he says. The verses from DIMEV 6561 (here called "The 'Magdalen' poem") are stanzas 8, 4, 14, 17, 18, 19, as he says, on the girder under the west window. What he calls "the verses above the altar" are the "Testament" verses on the east wall cornice, 101, 104–18.

Also, Parker thought the "Testament" verses on the east wall cornice were a separate poem (because of the direct address from Christ); he transcribed the "Testament" without knowing what poem it was. Some others follow his error in saying this is a poem separate from the poem on the other banderoles.

DIMEV 6561 ("A lamentacioun of our lady Maria")

It would be helpful to clarify that some people call this the "Quis dabit."

First lines, last lines, and note are incorrect, stanza numbers are correct.

First lines are mostly illegible (between brackets is from MacCracken):

| [O peple onkynde! why wil ye noon heed ta]ke
| T[o se] the lord [of helle, erthe, and hevene,]
| meke as a lambe thus offrid for youre sake

Last lines are partially illegible and partially lost (board was replaced), between brackets is supplied from MacCracken:

| but shewe to them his mercy and his [grace]
| [That for] there love [was naylled to a tre]

Existing note ("Located on the west wall of the chapel, opposite where the chapel altar would have been (and where the modern chapel altar is today).") should be changed. The verses are on the girder under the present west window. They aren't on the wall, which is below the girder, see pics: the wooden girder is under the window.

Editions should include Parker, Conder, and Trapp, as noted above under DIMEV 4383. Other editions are in:

• Davis, Matthew Evan. "Lydgate at Long Melford: Reassessing the Testament and ‘Quis Dabit Meo Capiti Fontem Lacrimarum’ in Their Local Context." Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures 43, no. 1 (2017): 77–114.
• Floyd, Jennifer Eileen. "Writing on the Wall: John Lydgate’s Architectural Verse." Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 2008.

Images (and also of the whole chantry chapel) are in Davis's article and his digital archive

DIMEV 176 (Balade in Commendation of Our Lady)

"wall paintings around edge of ceiling and on ceiling, (west wall)" is incorrect; this verse is painted directly on the west wall, on a scroll under the painting of Mary and the squint within the arched niche