also in writing. For example in Mir. 865 ff. we have rhyming together degré, monté (fem.), mué, descolouré (fem.), enbroudé, poudré (fem. plur.); in 1705 ff. there is a series of rhymes in -ée, bealpinée, engalopée, assemblée, ascoultée (pl.), malsenée, doublée, all masculine except the substantive assemblée; and in other stanzas the endings are mixed up anyhow, so that we have aisnée, maluré, 244 f., both feminine, mené, héritée, 922 f., the first feminine and the second masculine, ymaginée, adrescée, Bal. vi, both masculine. In all Gower’s[Pg xx] French verse I can recall only three or four instances where an atonic final e of this kind is counted in the metre: these are a lée chiere, ove lée (liée) chiere, du lée port[C], Mir. 5179, 15518, 17122, 28337, and Et ta pensée celestine 29390. In the last the author perhaps wrote penseie, as in 14404, since the condition under which the sound of this -e survived in Anglo-Norman was usually through the introduction of a parasitic i-sound, which acted as a barrier to prevent the absorption of the final vowel[D]. So Mir. 10117 we have a word pareies, in rhyme with the substantives pareies (walls), veies, &c., which I take to be for parées, fem. plur. of the participle, and in the same stanza journeies, a modification of journées: cp. valeie, journeie, in Middle English.

[Pg xx]

I proceed to note such further points of the Phonology as seem to be of interest.

i. French e, ie, from Lat. a, ĕ, in tonic syllables.

The French diphthong ie, from Lat. a under the influence of preceding sound and from ĕ, was gradually reduced in Anglo-Norman to ẹ (i.e. close e). Thus, while in the earliest writers ie is usually distinguished in rhyme from e, those of the thirteenth century no longer keep them apart. In the Vie de S. Auban and the writings of Frère Angier the distinction between verbs in -er and those in -ier has been, at least to a great extent, lost: infinitives and participles, &c., such as enseign(i)er, bris(i)er, eshauc(i)er, mang(i)er, jug(i)é, less(i)é, dresc(i)é, sach(i)ez, and substantives such as cong(i)é, pecch(i)é, rhyme with those which have the (French) termination, -er, -é, -ez. At the same time the noun termination -ier comes to be frequently written -er, as in aumosner, chevaler, dener, seculer, &c. (beside aumosnier, chevalier, denier, seculier), and words which had ie in the stem were often written with e, as bref, chef, cher, pere (petram), sé, though the other forms brief, chief, chier, piere, sié, still continued to be used as alternatives in spelling[E]. It is certain that in the fourteenth century no practical distinction was made 

 Prev. P 13/811 next