Cumbyrworth, knyght." Incomplete and otherwise unsatisfactory citations from it have appeared in several works of the nineteenth century. Even the Early Lincoln Wills, 1280–1547, edited by Alfred Gibbons (Lincoln, 1888), failed with respect to the particularities necessary for research. So it was a joy to discover the full text of this singular will tucked away in the British periodical The Academy, v. 16 (1879), p. 230-232, 284-285, contributed by Peacock, who said of it: "Probably no document of the time brings more clearly before us the state of religious feeling four centuries ago with regard to death and prayer for the dead. The notices of books therein are of some importance." He adds that he had "never met with fifteenth-century writing which was more difficult to make out." Now, right here a great discovery was made. Sir Thomas's will teems with his benefactions to church and clergy, and with prescriptions and provisions for prayers and masses for the repose of his soul, the souls of his wife and his parents, and other souls. Moreover, the manuscript of Grace Dieu or The Pilgrimage of the Soul is disposed of by that will, in these words: “I wil my chauntre preste, he of the trinitie auter [sic for altar] haue my boke of grasdaw & he of owre lady autre [altar] my boke of q'dedew of the sowde, to yam and ther successores." From this it appears that he had two books of Grace Dieu, the one he calls "grasdaw," given to his chantry priest of Trinity altar in the Somerby Church, and the other called "q'dedew of the sowde" [grace de dieu of the soul], devised by him to his chantry priest of Our Lady altar. Probably the latter of these is the Petworth Ms. The will of Sir Thomas mentions by name other manuscripts, one of the Canterbury Tales being left to Anne, wife of Robert Constable, his nephew, one of his principal heirs, and chief executor. The Petworth Ms. is in writing, in illumination, and in subject-matter just what would be treasured by Sir Thomas, as a patron of artistic display in churches, their vestments, and their liturgies. It was probably written and illuminated for him. F. J. Furnivall, who examined this manuscript at Petworth House on November 19, 1868, thought it was "made about 1430-1460." We now know that it cannot be later than 1450. One should not be deceived by archaic forms and spellings that persist in copies made within half a century. There are, however, other earmarks or tests, and among these the styles of calligraphical ornamentation and of illumination are especially serviceable. From this re-appraisement we should assign the completion of the manuscript to "about 1430."

On the verso of the third leaf are several inscriptions, reproduced here so far as they elucidate ownership. The first reads in part, thus: Iste liber Constat Monast'io Scimonialiu Sci Andree Apli de Marrycke" [etc.]. A similar inscription is on the verso of leaf 133. At the end of the third leaf is written: "Here beginnith the boke cald Grace d'eu Giffin vnto the / Monestarye of Marrik By Dame agnes Radcliffe on / Whose sowl Jhesu haue m'cye Amen / Per me Isabell Lumley." Here again we are able to fix exact association. Agnes was the daughter of Henry, Lord Scrope of Bolton, who was married to Sir Richard

Radcliffe, K.G., a favorite of Richard III. Radcliffe was sheriff of Westmoreland (A. D. 1484-5) and was killed at Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485, leaving his widow, who became a "vowess" and attached herself to the Nunnery of Marrick, near Richmond, and among his children a daughter, Isabelle, who was married to Roger Lumley. - Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Antiquarian and Archæological Society, v. IV, n. s. (Kendal, 1904), p. 301-302; History and Pedigree of the Family of Lewen (London, 1919), p. 173 and 175. The Nunnery of Marrick, to which Dame Agnes Radcliffe presented the manuscript, as attested by her daughter, lay in the Deanry and Archdeaconry of Richmond in Yorkshire. It was founded somewhere between the end of King Stephen's reign and the beginning of that of Henry II, by Roger de Aske, the lord of the manor, who placed this Priory on a small farm of his own, and gave it to the church of St. Andrew in Marrick. When the religious houses were abolished in 1539 (31st of Henry VIII), the nunnery of Marrick was surrendered by its prioress and the site and possessions were granted to John Uvedale his heirs and assigns for twenty-one years. The next owners of this estate were the Brackenburgs, then the Huttons, and about 1658 the Blackburnes, who held possession many years. — Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, v. IV (London, 1823), p. 244-245.

On the recto of the third leaf is written in a small Elizabethan hand: "by me John cowpp anrs thes buke," which probably means that John Cowper "anrs" (owns) this book. Who he was has not been determined. But it was in this period of transition and British eminence that the manuscript of The Pilgrimage of the Soul became the property of Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland (1564–1632), a nobleman of ability who was employed by Queen Elizabeth; but falling under suspicion of having been privy to the powder plot, was kept a prisoner in the Tower for many years by James I. It is said of him that he was a judicious purchaser of printed books as well as manuscripts. Our manuscript came down to his descendant, the Right Hon. Lord Leconfield with his other possessions, and a report of "The Manuscripts of the Right Honourable Lord Leconfield, at Petworth House, co. Sussex," was contributed by Alfred J. Horwood to the Sixth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, part 1 (London, 1877), p. 287-319, where our manuscript is described on p. 288, no. 2. It was Lord Leconfield who sold the manuscript with other possessions through Sotheby and Company of London, in April, 1928.

THE TEXT: The work was originally written in French verse by Guillaume de Deguileville, from which an adapted French prose version was made by Jehan de Gallopes, surnamed le Galoys, who is thought to have been of English extraction, and was the "humble chapelain" of John, Duke of Bedford and Regent of France, for whom he made his version. It is from this French prose version that the English prose translation was made in 1413. The French title is Le Pèlerinage

de l'Ame, and in the English version it is called Grace Dieu and The Dreme of the Pilgrymage of the Soule. The name Grace Dieu is given in the calendar of the Petworth Ms. as "ye booke called Grace dieu," and the introduction to the text has also that designation; while on folio 133, recto, we have: "Here endeth the dreme of the pilgrymage of the soule." This title of Grace Dieu proved to be important in establishing the provenance of this manuscript, as shown above.

The original French work is one of an allegorical religious trilogy written by Guillaume de Deguileville, a monk and prior of the Cisterian Abbey of Chalis, in the diocese of Senlis, between the years 1355-1358. It falls between his Le Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine (two versions, 1330-1332 and 1355, respectively) and his Le Pèlerinage de Jhesucrist (1358). See “On the Sources of Guillaume de Deguileville's Pèlerinage de l'Ame," an article by Stanley Leman Galpin in Publications of the Modern Language Association, v. 25 (1910), p. 275–308; also the fine edition of the French work in verse, edited for the Roxburghe Club by Dr. J. J. Stürzinger of the University of Würzburg (London, 1895).

The Pilgrimage of the Soul belongs to what mediævalists call "vision literature," of which class Dante's Divine Comedy is the greatest, preceding Deguileville by less than forty years. It is "an account of a vision in which the Soul of the poet is represented as visiting successively Purgatory, Hell, and Paradise." It is independent of Dante. Both reflect the homiletics and eschatology of their era. Deguileville "lacked the genius of Dante, and the French poem is a strictly medieval production, entirely wanting in those spiritual elements” that have given immortality to Dante.

Who made the English translation of Le Pèlerinage de l'Ame? Nobody knows. Because John Lydgate translated the first work of Deguileville some have suspected that he had also a hand in translating the second part of the trilogy. No assuring evidence has been offered. The fact that the fourteen English lyrics that are introduced in the English prose text are ascribed by modern scholars to Thomas Hoccleve, the contemporary and nearest rival of Lydgate as a poet, would seem to leave the maker of the English prose translation in penumbra. In the Petworth Ms. there is a colophon (on leaf 133), as follows: "Here endeth the dreme of the pilgrymage of the soule translated out of the franssh in to Englissh the yere of oure lord M°CCCC XIIJ." This is followed by a statement from the translator, thus: "And I the symple and vnsuffisānt translatour of this lital book pray & byseke as lowely as I kan youre ful worshipeful and gracious ladishipe: which that me comannded to take this occupacion. That ye forgeue it me that I haue not translated worde for worde as it was in the ffrenssh, Sōwhat by cause of euel writyng of myn exaumpler, somwhat by cause of hard franssh, Specialy sith I am but litel expte in that langage, somwhat also by cause of some thynges that were diffuse, and in som place ou' darke. Wherfore I haue in diûse