The Abbreviations list will be found in the Apparatus.
1. For the currency of the double meaning of prayse in the late Middle Ages, see Catholicon Anglicum 1881:289-90 and notes.
2. Although the T-G-D edition (1967:109) notes that "of fyne force is a conventional term which long remained in legal use," it is difficult to imagine that this convention completely muted the other, fin'amors convention, itself certainly a venerable system of ideas and terms.
3. The MED's examples of bisinesse in the commercial sense generally derive from the very late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, the likely date of composition for SGGK-- see B:903-4.
4. That gold has desirable properties--such as malleability, ductility, durability--I hardly deny; but these inherent properties are not values. Rather they are valued; and though all may agree that they should have value, few would agree on how much value since there is no telling (throughout human history) what a man or woman will do for gold.
5. For an enlightening and an exact account of the resurgence of covenantal theology in the fourteenth century, see Courtenay 1971:118-19.
6. Cf. the discussion of the fortune of `convention' in Williams 1976:70-71; see also Tigar and Levy 1977:145.
7. The Gawain-poet's fascination with the Old Testament and with questions of the Law is well illustrated by Patience and Cleanness; see also the commentary in Spearing 1970:79-95.
8. These remarks are based on the exegesis of Romans 6. 23, which consistently stresses, among other issues, that the "stipendia peccati" are owed to {85/86} the sinner, because he and they are within the sphere of nature, whereas grace is free--precisely gratuitous--and unmerited because no one is "worth" the mercy of God; see Abelard, Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos 3. 6 (CCCM 11:186-87); Aegidius Romanus 1554/1555:fol. 41r; Augustine, Enchiridion ad Laurentium de Fide et Spe et Caritate 28. 107 (CCSL 46:107); and the Glossa Ordinaria 1588:6, fol. 15v.
9. Stephen Langton, in his marginal commentary on a manuscript of Historia Scholastica (fol. 124r) provides a very useful schematization of the ages thus:
ante legem: nulla pugna est cum voluptati huius saeculi
sub lege: hic pugnamus sed vincimur
sub gratia: hic pugnamus et vincamus
in gloria: hic non pugnamus sed quiescimus
before the Law: there is no struggle with the desires of this world
under the Law: here we struggle and are defeated
under grace: here we struggle and conquer
in glory: here we no longer struggle but rest
On this very common notion see further Blenkner 1977:371 and Chenu 1968:182;
also see chapter 2 at note 6.
10. "A word's force (vis) consists in its meaning"; John of Salisbury, Metalogicon 2. 4, trans. McGarry 1962:81.
11. See Patch 1927:81-83 for the conventional association between chess and fortune.
12. Father Blenkner (1977:362, 367-71) argues that Gawain "avoids being foxy" (370). Although I am reluctant to differ from such a fine scholar of the Gawain-poet's works, this argument, despite its respect for the manuscript divisions of the poem, seems to me Hawed because it does not respect Gawain's lying like a "thieving merchant."
13. Augustine,De Civitate Dei 12.21 (CCSL 48:379);and see Arendt 1958:177. {86/87}