Middle English Literature

“Miracle of the Boy Singer”
Bodleian Library MS English Poetry a.1, fol. 124v (Vernon)
Language: English (Southwestern)
Manuscript date: ca. 1390
The Vernon manuscript is the longest and largest surviving volume of
Middle English writings; it was originally over 420 vellum leaves long, the
pages ruled in 2 or 3 columns with over 80 lines of text each. The contents
include passages from the South English Legendary, Northern Homilies, mir-
acles of our Lady, poems, and prose pieces generally of vernacular theology.
Of the original 41 Virgin miracles in the manuscript (compilations of which
were popular among men and women in the later Middle Ages), 9 survive.
The second poem’s narrative is “Hou the Jewes in despit of ore Lady
threwe a chyld in a gonge,” one of three extant poems containing Jewish
characters. Anti-semitic stories were common in the later Middle Ages,
particularly in Marian legends, and stories of the murder of Christian chil-
dren by Jews in England first appeared in Norwich after 1144 and in
Lincoln in 1255. Even though the Jews were officially expelled from Eng-
land in 1290, the stories remained popular.
The five-part story is depicted in compact form in muted greens, browns,
and reds, with the bishop’s clothing illuminated with gold: the old Jew
invites the boy who has been singing the Alma redemptoris mater into his
house, cuts his throat, and then pitches him down the “gonge,” or toilet.
On the lower right, the mother pleads before the mayor and bailiff, and on
the left the bishop holds the lily found in the boy’s throat which, the poem
states, had “Alma redemptoris mater” inscribed on it in gold letters. In the
poem also the boy’s corpse rises during his funeral and sings “Salve, sancta
parens” (“Hail, holy mother”). The poem’s version of the child’s hymn
reads: “Godus Moder, mylde and clene / Hevene gate and sterre of se, /
Save thi peple from synne and we [woe].”
Primary documents and further reading
Brown, C. (1910) A Study of the Miracle of Our Lady Told by Chaucer’s Prioress.
London: Chaucer Society.
Doyle, A. I. (Intro.) (1987) The Vernon Manuscript: A Facsimile of Bodleian Library,
Oxford, MS. Eng. Poet. a.1. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
Horstmann, C. and F. J. Furnivall (eds.) (1892, 1901) The Minor Poems of the
Vernon Manuscript, 2 vols. EETS, o.s. 98, 117. London: Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trübner.

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Kruger, S. F. (1998) “The Spectral Jew.” New Medieval Literatures 2: 9–35.
Langmuir, G. I. (1972) “The Knight’s Tale of Young Hugh of Lincoln.” Speculum
47: 459–82.
Pearsall, D. (ed.) (1990) Studies in The Vernon Manuscript. Woodbridge, Suffolk:
D. S. Brewer.
Roth, C. (1964) [1941] A History of the Jews in England. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Whiteford, P. (ed.) (1990) The Myracles of Oure Lady edited from Wynkyn de Worde’s
Edition. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.

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