6 MSS: A (33r) Marcabruns, I (120r) Marcabrus, K (106r) Marcabrus, N (266r-v), a1 (301-302) marchabrus, d (307r-v) Marcabrus

Analysis of the manuscripts

The MS tradition of this poem has attracted comment because it has two different endings. It has been suggested that these are separate authorial redactions (see Dejeanne’s edition, and his comments on p. 218, Frank, ‘L’art’, pp. 468–69, Avalle, I manoscritti, pp. 45–46, Pirot, Recherches, pp. 439–41 and Gaunt and Harvey, ‘Text and context’); but compare Lazzerini (‘Un caso esemplare’, pp. 7–12 and 42), who argues that a single authorial redaction lies behind the song’s MS manifestations and produces a single version based on all MSS. Although there are clearly two main versions of this song, which we call IV (in IKNa1) and IVb (in A), a simple view of the MSS as representing two main redactions does not account for the complexity of the tradition as there is evidence of a faulty common archetype for stanzas I–VI while one stanza is found in Aa1 (VIII) only and another in Na1 only (VII). (Unfortunately Peragi, ‘Autoren- und Uberlieferungsvarianten’, came to our attention too late for us to take it into account in our edition of this poem.)

In stanzas I–VI the MSS are relatively uniform, though a clear A-IKNa1 division, with IK and Na1 forming subgroups, is discernible: see particularly lines 8 and 35. In line 8, Na1’s reading indicates a hypometric common source to all MSS (and thus a faulty archetype) that A (or its source) and IJCs source then ‘corrected’ independently. In line 35, IK% reading may again result from an attempt to patch an unsatisfactory source; Na1 (though not identical) have similar readings, and A is isolated, though paleographically closer to Mi‘’ than IK. As with the readings in line 8, line 35 suggests a defective archetype.

Putting line 35 (faulty in all MSS) aside, A has isolated copying errors in stanzas I–VI (see lines 11 and 16), but it is otherwise a fairly clean copy of an intelligible exemplar or (perhaps more plausibly) an intelligently edited copy of a defective exemplar. After line 37 it represents a substandvely different version of the poem from that preserved by the other MSS (see below) and there continues to be a smattering of errors^ see lines 45, 48, 53 and 54 in IVb.