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The purpose of this thesis is to provide a detailed study of the texts and manuscripts of the Middle English Guy of Warwick, such as is not presently available. The agenda of this investigation is essentially interdisciplinary. Each chapter considers a different set of evidence (literary, historical, manuscript and linguistic). In addition to which, this study benefits from the opportunities offered by new media, incorporating the results of exhaustive and highly accurate computer-enabled searches of a range of late medieval texts. Through this approach it has been possible to integrate and identify links between different areas of research in a way which has been crucial to dispelling various myths and misconceptions which have, in the past, dominated the critical perception of Guy of Warwick. This thesis encourages a view which emphasises the complexity of the textual tradition of Guy of Warwick and rejects past assumptions which over simplify the circumstances of its production and circulation. Chapter 1 considers the place of Guy of Warwick in late medieval literature and culture, assembling the evidence for sources, relations, transmission and reception. This chapter emphasises the protean nature of the romance, its adaptation and regeneration for different contexts and the evidence for a range of responses. Chapter 2 provides, for the first time, a comprehensive account of all of the Guy of Warwick manuscripts, including full codicological descriptions and giving special consideration to the presentation of Guy of Warwick in each. By combining this codicological data with the linguistic findings of Chapter 3, it has here been possible to review and reject a number of theories, most notably concerning the Auchinleck MS, which misinterpret the significance of the manuscript presentation of Guy of Warwick. Chapter 3 uses linguistic data to clarify the relationship between the manuscript texts and the different versions of Guy of Warwick. Traditional dialect analysis is combined with computer-enabled searches to provide detailed information which establishes the origin and circulation of the texts and their literary and stylistic affiliations, including evidence which rejects the traditional Warwickshire origin for the A-version. The thesis is supplemented on CD ROM by new, accurate transcriptions of all the complete texts of Guy of Warwick and a review of Zupitza's 1875-91 edition, including a list of errors.

The evolution of the genitive noun phrase in English has been the subject of numerous studies, yet some aspects of this evolution have received less attention than others. In this study I address two of these less studied aspects: the evolution of the plural genitive noun phrase in Middle English (1150-1500), and the decline of the overtly case-marked genitive modifiers (singular and plural) in the same period. The former has generally been presented as following the same path of the singular genitive noun phrase; the latter has been all but ignored, with only a single study (Thomas 1931) which explicitly examines the use of the genitive definite article and strong adjective. The study uses text samples from two electronic corpora, the Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English and the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English, Second Edition, as well as samples from printed editions. The texts used in the present study have been selected with the aim of covering as wide a geographical and chronological range as possible. The thesis examines how and why the number of endings for the genitive plural inflection first increased (in the period up to about 1350) and then decreased (from 1350 onward), a fluctuation not found in the singular inflected genitive noun. The number of available inflectional endings increased due to the morphophonological weaknesses of the -V ending type – the dominant ending type inherited from OE – leading to instabilities in the inflectional system which allowed alternatives to arise. However, the number of genitive plural inflectional endings then decreased, apparently affected not only by the phonological strength/weakness of the ending types but also the type of noun phrase that these were associated with. The inflectional ending which survives, -Vs, is most commonly found with genitive noun phrases in which the genitive noun is animate and the noun phrase has one of the genitive functions labelled POSSESSIVE in this study. This distribution of the various inflectional endings according to animacy and function is related to the rise of the periphrastic genitive plural noun phrase. The initial preferred environment for the periphrastic genitive construction is noun phrases with those functions which will be referred to as NONPOSSESSIVE. As the inflected genitive becomes increasingly restricted to a single noun phrase type, the periphrastic construction expands, to become the default genitive construction by the end of the period. The thesis examines the decline of overtly case-marked genitive modifiers in Middle English, both adjective and determiners. In general, the trend is that morphologically more conservative texts are more likely to preserve case-marked modifier forms, although some marked forms are more widespread due to the development of fixed expressions. Where case-marked modifiers are maintained, historical grammatical gender agreement and the strong/weak adjective distinction are often preserved. Factors which play a role in the survival of marked modifiers are chronological distribution, impact of Old English exemplars, and the development of certain fixed expressions with the adjectives. Thomas (1931) considered the loss of case-marked definite articles and strong adjectives to be the principal factor in the shift from inflected to periphrastic genitive constructions, but the evidence from the present study shows that this is not the case for all texts.

'Vices and Virtues' is an early Middle English homiletic dialogue between Reason, the Soul and the Body, originally edited by Ferdinand Holthausen in 1888, with Notes and Glossary published in 1921. This edition contains an Introduction, the re-edited Text, Notes on the text, a full etymological Glossary, and a Bibliography of works cited or referred to in the preparation of the edition. The Introduction is concerned principally with an analysis of the language of 'Vices and Virtues', and suggests a provenance of London, or the areas of Essex or Middlesex just to the north of London, and a date of c. 1200. It also contains a general introduction to the work and the background against which it is presumed to have been written, a description of the MS and notes on the characteristics of the scribes who worked on it, and brief surveys of the syntax, style and structure of the work, together with a statement of editorial principles. The Notes to the text are concerned principally with the language, both grammar and vocabulary, and with sources and parallels in Patristic writings and other medieval texts.

This dissertation is a study of medieval theological interpretations of fear and their influence on the rhetorical and didactic discourses of two late-fourteenth century Middle English homiletic poems, Cleanness and Patience. In Chapter 1 I analyze the various medieval conceptualizations of dread (morally valueless timor naturalis, morally culpable timor libidinosus, and morally laudable timor gratuitus) as discussed by scholars such as Peter Lombard, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure and in works such as biblical exegesis and theological encyclopaedias. In the second chapter, I examine ways in which these formal, learned Latin interpretations of fear were disseminated to a wider, vernacular Middle English audience. I do so by discussing how medieval preaching theory and practice and vernacular didactic and devotional treatises actively employed rhetorical and exhortative discourses of fear in an effort to encourage their audiences to forsake sin and pursue virtue. In Chapters 3 and 4 I show how Cleanness and Patience incorporate and employ the various theological conceptualizations of dread discussed in Chapter I and the rhetorical and didactic discourses of fear analyzed in chapter 2. I examine fear's presence within the larger narrative, thematic, rhetorical, and didactic structures of each poem, discussing the poet's precise use of scholastic interpretations of fear in his representations of characters, his vivid descriptions of death and destruction, and the ways in which he both implicitly and explicitly confronts his audiences with a variety of fearful discourses. I argue that the poet utilizes fear to promote a specific rhetorical strategy, one based upon a well-developed understanding of dread which should inspire in his audience the desire to flee from sin and damnation and approach fear-inspired, reverent perfection. Cleanness and Patience illustrate the power of God and the threat of sin, exhorting their readers to embrace and learn from the senses of dread they utilize and promote. Both poems provide remarkable examples of how particular elements oflearned Latin thought were adopted and developed by Middle English vernacular traditions.

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