This funeral lament on the death of Edward I of England, probably composed by an English cleric, extols at length the king’s devotion to the Holy Land (vv. 19-34), and also mentions the long war with France as an obstacle to a possible crusade (vv. 19-22) and the king’s express wish to send his heart to the Orient (vv. 33-34). The second part of the text features the long description of Pope Clement V’s reaction to Edward’s death (vv. 43-66), which suggests access to a direct source, and ends with an exhortation to Edward II to follow in his father’s footsteps and liberate Jerusalem (vv. 63-66). A Middle English version is also preserved in its entirety in ms. Harley 2253 of the British Library in London (f. 73rv), and in fragmentary form in ms. Cambridge, University Library, Additional 4407 (26 lines); see the edition of this in Böddeker 1878, pp. 138-143 and Aspin 1953, pp. 90-92. The same topic is treated in a Latin poem found in ms. Oxford, Magdalen College, Lat. 6, which however develops it independently. The order of stanzas in the English version is different and apparently more coherent (Aspin 1953, p. 81).
6The noun encuntre may be m. or f., and is probably used here as a collective singular, with mut acquiring adjectival force with an analogous sense to maint, according to a formula frequent in Occitan but much rarer in French (Tobler, Vermischte Beiträge II, 49-50; Jensen § 804, p. 400); for the sense “encounter, conflict, battle” see TL III, 235, 16ff. It is difficult to say whether the author is referring to a particular episode, since there were many wars which Edward had to face and his enemies were numerous: the Welsh, the Scots, Simon de Montfort, the king of France.
8This may be a specific reference to Gascony, which Edward ceded to Philip the Fair in 1293, with the agreement that it would be restored to him as dowry for Philip’s sister Blanche. But the wedding never took place because of the renewed outbreak of war between France and England and Edward only regained Gascony in 1303, four years after his marriage to Margaret, Blanche’s younger daughter. See D’Avray 1994, pp. 75; 264, § 4.4 and 268 § 3.4. See also vv. 13-16.
19-22Edward I’s interest in the Holy Land was real and continuous over time, but his participation in crusading goes back to the period before his coronation (1272). The passage may refer to other promises or aborted attempts at expeditions to the Holy Land, plentiful during Edward’s lifetime (Prestwich 1997, pp. 326-333). Between 1274 and 1282 there were various contacts between Edward and the pope regarding the king’s possible direct involvement in a future crusade in exchange for the ecclesiastical tithe. In the spring of 1287 Edward took the Cross without following this up. In 1291, the year of the fall of Acre, Pope Nicholas IV devolved the ecclesiastical tithe to him for six years with the aim of launching a new crusade (see for example Rymer, Foedera, I 2, pp. 743-752, especially p. 747). Various political problems, firstly the Scottish question and then the war with France, notably between 1295 and 1298, made it impossible to carry out this project. A paragraph of the Opus chronicorum, written in 1307-1308, relates that in 1295 Edward asked Boniface VIII to intervene in order to make Philip the Fair abide by the agreements he had made with him, and promised to leave on crusade once peace was obtained (Opus chronicorum, p. 58). But in other documents it is Edward himself who claims that it is because of his war with the Scots, rather than because of the tensions with the king of France, that it is impossible to set out (Historia anglicana, I, pp. 114-115). The peace negotiations, begun in 1298 and ratified by the marriage of Edward and Margaret, Philip the Fair’s sister, only led to a definitive agreement in 1303 with the restitution of Gascony. Pope Clement V’s attempts to involve Edward once more in a crusading project (Menache 1998, p. 105) generated a dense correspondence between the two which reached its apogee at the end of 1306, when Edward explicitly manifested his intention to take the Cross again, while nevertheless making departure for the Holy Land subject to peace with the French king. See the pope’s letter to Edward on 22 December 1306 (Rymer, Foedera, I 2, p. 1006), but more especially that of 28 November (Rymer, Foedera, I 2, p. 1005).
22For the preposition sur used to express a sense of direction with the meaning “towards, against” see Jensen § 911, p. 465.
24-25The sentence is co-ordinated with the preceding one, but the word order is distorted and can be reconstructed as follows: “his decrees [have been conceived in order to support the holy Church”. This is probably a reference to Edward’s important legislative activity (see D’Avray 1994, pp. 73-74 and, for the emphasis on the king’s love of iustitia legalem, p. 263, § 3.5).
26The tere in question is indubitably the Holy Land.
27-30For the description of Edward I as defender of the Holy Land see for example D’Avray 1994, pp. 264 § 4.3, 268 § 3.4, 276 § 7.
33-34The author gives credit to the tradition according to which the king requested that his heart should be taken to the Holy Land by a contingent of a hundred knights sent to fight the Saracens for a year (cfr. Aspin 1953, p. 88 and Annales regum Angliae, pp. 413-414; according to the Historia anglicana, I, pp. 114-115 there would have been 140 knights). His son Edward II did not respect his father’s wishes and buried his body in Westminster Abbey after a solemn funeral service. If the text was really composed after Edward II’s coronation, the future mandera used by the author in v. 34 must be considered erroneous or contradictory, unless the author still considered that Edward I’s wishes should be respected.
35-42Rather than referring to the episode of spring-summer 1307 mentioned in the Historia anglicana, I, pp. 114-115 (Aspin 1953, p. 88), which concerns the reconstruction of the last conversation between Edward and his son, this stanza seems to reflect what is found in another English chronicle concerning Edward’s arrangements transmitted to certain noblemen concerning his succession (The Brut, I, pp. 202-203).
43-66Various legends about Edward I’s death circulated in contemporary chronicles (see for example Flores historiarum, III, p. 328 and Robert Mannyng of Brunne, Chronicle, 8333-8342). The author does not believe the legends, and his lines are much closer to historical reality: Clement V was in fact residing in Poitiers from 17 April 1307 to 12 August 1308 and it was there that he learned of Edward’s death, a few weeks after the event. The ample space devoted to the pope’s reaction to the king’s death seems to confirm that the author must have been a cleric, who was probably able to take advantage of a source close to the archibishop of Canterbury Robert Winchelsey, who at the time of the king’s death was in exile in the vicinity of the papal curia. Although the chronicles of the time do not mention it, it is known that Clement V held a solemn funeral service for Edward in Poitiers cathedral during the week of 22–28 July 1307 (Ullmann 1955, pp. 26 and 30-32; Prestwich 1997, p. 558). Lines 55-60 of our piece constitute one of the rare pieces of historical evidence of this event, important because this was one of the first funeral services for a king celebrated in the papal curia. The novelty of this celebration is highlighted by two documents: the liturgical report written by cardinal Jacopo Caetani degli Stefaneschi (Ullmann 1955, pp. 33-35) and the funeral orations pronounced in honour of Edward preserved in a Roman manuscript as a model for similar occasions (D’Avray 1994, pp. 263-276). Both documents show interesting points of contact with the lines of the present elegy.
48For the relative proposition without antecedent see Jensen § 456, p. 219, even if this construction rarely involves the use of the prepositional dative.
54The repetition of v. 38, with sound change in the conjugation of the verb needed for the rhyme, is more likely to be the result of the author’s scant talent than of scribal error.
56For servise in the sense of “office of the dead” see Godefroy 10, 669b.
57The infinitve sonir, as plurir in v. 54, can be explained by a typical anglo-normal neo-formation.
59-60This emphasis is explained by the exceptional nature of a pope’s solemn and official participation in a king’s funeral service celebrated in the context of his curia. The form meimes, while rendering v. 60 hypermetric, can be justified by the unusual fact of the pope’s direct participation in the funeral service performed by cardinal Niccolò Alberti bishop of Ostia.
61The noun alme ought to be the direct object of the infinitive soudre, but its initial position and the absence of the subject pronoun give the sentence an unusual structure constituting a sort of anacoluthon; the right word order can be reconstructed by translating “[the pope rose frequently to free [the king’s] soul”, that is, to free him from the chains of sin. The verb soudre does not necessarily mean “to absolve”, but rather means “to free, dissolve”. This would be linked to the Latin technical term ABSOLVERE, ABSOLUTIO which indicates a specific prayer in the Catholic liturgy for the dead (see for example Niermeyer and Du Cange s.v. absolutio 5 and absolvere 4 [defunctos]). According to cardinal Stefaneschi’s report, however, no specific absolutio took place during the service, because of the absence of the deceased’s body (Ullmann 1955, p. 34).
63-66According to historians, Clement V was constantly concerned for the fate of the Holy Land, but did not manage to generate a full, shared expedition during his pontificate, and he personally spent money to try to bring about peace between France and England, a necessary condition for the realisation of a crusade on a serious scale (Menache 1998, pp. 17-18 and 101). He assigned the island of Rhodes to the Order of St John of Jerusalem and on 11 August 1308 launched an appeal for crusade preaching to all the bishops, followed in June 1309 by another appeal for financial assistance. Rhodes was conquered at the end of 1309, but the passagium generale desired by the pope never came about, despite it being discussed at the council of Vienne, at the session of 3 April 1312. In 1313 Edward II took the Cross in Paris along with the king of France Philip the Fair (Menache 1998, p. 115), an event which seems to support the papal prophecy contained in these lines. These observations do not mean that the date of composition should be assigned to a yet later date, but they do constitute confirmation of the attention paid to crusading on the part of the pope and the clergy, which was still ongoing in Europe during the early decades of the 14th c. despite the disappointing results of the most recent expeditions.
67-68This must refer to Edward II’s coronation (25 February 1308) and the demonstrable historical accuracy of the text suggests it should be regarded as postdating that event. It should however be noted that Edward II was proclaimed king immediately after his father’s death, on 20 July 1307 (Phillips 2010, pp. 125-126).
69Here it is necessary for correct scansion to keep the feminine form of the adjective tele.
70If the ms. reading of this line is accepted, the form of initial ki must be interpretated as a final conjunction. The confusion ke/ki is well attestated in anglo-norman as far as the forms of the relative pronoun are concerned (Short § 32.2), but it does not seem to apply also to ke as a conjunction. However the parallel construction in vv. 71-72 also points in this direction.
73The three infinitives trere, garder and crestre are probably coordinated and dependent on the optative formula Dieu li doint of v. 69. For the expression see Adenet le Roi, Enfances Ogier, 4248-4249: «Dieus,» dist Ogiers, «pere de majesté, / Ce chamberlenc vueilliez croistre en bonté» and Miracles de Nostre Dame par personnages, XXXIV (Miracle de sainte Bautheuch), 2488: Seigneurs, Dieu vous croisse en bonté! The personal pronoun lui is probably reiterating the same pronoun (li) of v. 69.
80I have found no other attestation of trafon, given in the AND with the meaning “depths of woe” and repeated in the DEAF with the meaning “profondeur (du chagrin, du deuil)”.
81The verb sauvegarder is unattested in medieval French, even if there are some traces of the noun salvegarde, especially after the middle of the 14th c. (DEAF G, 165-166). Here we probably have a double subjunctive of exhortation or wish salu(e) e garde, with the first form having lost the final unstressed e, as sometimes occurs in anglo-norman (Short §§ 19.7 and 19.8). This interpretation allows restoration of correct line length, which would be hypometric if the verbal form salvegarde were accepted. For saluer in the sense of “to save” see TL IX, 126, 21-25. Here also, as in v. 61, the noun alme, though in initial position, is the object of the sentence, not its subject; here the feeling of being in the presence of an anacoluthon is emphasised by the presence of the oblique case pronoun la.
