Nothing in the English work gives any indication of who the translator may have been, except for one rather cryptic indication in the verba translatoris (translator's note) at the end of two manuscript copies (Egerton and Spencer, below): And I the symple and vnsuffisaunt translatoure of this lytel book pr[ay] and beseke as lowely as I kan to the reder or herer of this processe to for geue it me þat I haue not translated worde for word as in was in the Frensche, somewhat be cause of ille writyng of myn exampler, somewhat be cause of hard Frensch -- specially sith I am but litel expert in þat langage -- somewhat also be cause of somme thinges þat were diffuse and in som place ouerderk.
Wherfore, I haue in dyuers places added and with drawe litel as what me semed needful, no thing chaunging the progresse ne substaunce of the mater, but as it myght be most lusti to the reder or herer of the matier.
Also I must excuse me to the reders or herer of the matier in som place, thei it be ouer fantastyk, nought grounded nor foundable in holy scripture, ne in douctoures wordes, for I myght not go from myn auctor.
Nevertheless, two English poets have been put forward as possible translators of the French work, but neither of them convincingly.
[2] In the Verba Translatoris at the end of the Spencer manuscript, the translator addresses the "ful worshipeful and gracious ladishipe" who "commaunded [him] to take this occupacioun".
The Middle English Pilgrimage of the Soul exists complete or in part in at least ten fifteenth-century manuscripts and one printed edition.
34193 is an anthology of English and Latin texts with historical, moral, satirical, and devotional topics.
It also contains several charters, the Rule of Celestine, and a treatise on the Westminster Synod of 1125, which suggests that the compilation was made by an ecclesiastical community.
The scribe of Soul gives his initials as ‘EC’ on fol 137r, and is probably the Edmund Carpenter whose ownership of the manuscript is indicated in a fifteenth- century hand as the first inscription on the front pastedown: ‘iste liber constat Edmondus Carpenter.’ Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 770 (2552).
This manuscript's inconsistencies and idiosyncratic features indicate that it is a provincial product of the middle of the fifteenth century.
A partially erased inscription shows that the book was given to Henry Percy, prior of the Augustinian priory of St. Paul in Newham, Bedfordshire by his predecessor John Renhall in 1491.
The manuscript contains additions with a doctrinal content that suggests that Kk 1.7 or its exemplar is of clerical or monastic origin.
One fifteenth- century or sixteenth-century owner so strongly identified with the protagonist of the story that he wrote "his iaset Tomas Showall" on the bed in the miniature on fol.
Henry VI is the earliest known owner of Cecil 270, though nothing in the decoration or original contents of the book indicates that it was made for him.
On flyleaf Av, a fifteenth-century hand has written "Liber domini Thome Comorworth militis".
He mentions the book, which he calls "my boke of grasdew of the sow[l]e" and bequeaths to the priest at chantry of the Virgin Mary at Somerby parish church, in his 1437 will.
The first known owner of this manuscript was Sir John Roucliffe of Cowthorpe, South Yorkshire, who died in 1531, whose name appears in the bottom margin of fols.
Parts of The Pilgrimage of the Soul appear in the following manuscripts: London, British Library, Add MS 37049.
This manuscript's content and language suggest that it was compiled by the Carthusians in the Northeast Midlands during the middle of the fifteenth century.
Harley MS 7333 consists of 211 leaves and is an anthology of poetry and prose, primarily in English, including works by Benedict Burgh, Lydgate, Chaucer, Gower and Hoccleve.
The scant linguistic information we can derive from this page shows forms associated by LALME with Leicestershire and Rutland.
3r-7v contain Hoccleve's ‘Compleynte of the Virgin’, without the first six stanzas, which appears as ‘The Lament of the Green Tree’ in book 4 of The Pilgrimage of the Soul.
The pilgrim in Âme, when he needs an advocate to speak for him in the heavenly court, appeals to monastic patrons such as St. Benedict and St. Bernard.
The translator loosed his knowledge of theology and English tradition on Âme to change Guillaume's courtly poem into a polemical work that implicitly answered the attacks of Lollards and other critics of Roman Catholic doctrine.
Three manuscripts (Egerton 615, Spencer 19, and Gonville and Caius College, MS 124/61) and Caxton's print give 1413 as the date.
Even more specifically, the Caxton print and University College MS 181 state that it ‘endeth in the vigyle of Seynt Bartholomew’, that is, August 24.
The only editions of Sowle (or parts of it) since Caxton are as follows: Katherine Custs's 1859 reprint of selected portions of Caxton's work, Furnivall's 1892 transcript of the "Lamentacion of the Grene Tree" from MS Phillipps 8151 (now Huntington Library MS HM 111), Furnivall's 1897 transcript of the fourteen poems from British Library MS Egerton 615, mother Barry's 1931 editions of Spencer 1910, Clubb's 1954 edition of British Library Egerton MS 615, and Rosemarie Potz McGerr's hitherto partly published critical edition of Spencer 19, in two volumes, the first of which, containing the introduction, the first two books and their notes, was published in 1990.