The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 3 (of 5)
General
The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 3 (of 5)
Ballads, English -- England -- Texts; Ballads, Scots -- Scotland -- Texts
62–66. The knight has no security to offer for a loan “but God that dyed
on a tree,” and such security, or that of the saints, is peremptorily
rejected by Robin; but when the knight says that he can offer no other,
unless it be Our Lady, the Virgin is instantly accepted as entirely
satisfactory. In a well-known miracle of Mary, found in most of the
larger collections, a Christian, who resorts to a Jew to borrow money,
tenders Jesus as security, and the Jew, who regards Jesus as a just man
and a prophet, though not divine, is willing to lend on the terms
proposed. The Christian, not being able, as he says, to produce Jesus
Christ in person, takes the Jew to a church, and, standing before an
image of the Virgin and Child, causes him to take the hand of the Child,
saying, Lord Jesus Christ, whose image I have given as pledge for this
money, and whom I have offered this Jew as my surety, I beg and entreat
that, if I shall by any chance be prevented from returning the money to
this man upon the day fixed, but shall give it to thee, thou wilt return
it to him in such manner and form as may please thee. In the sequel this
miraculous interposition becomes necessary, and the money is punctually
restored, the act of grace being implicitly or distinctly attributed to
Mary rather than her Son; distinctly in an English form of the legend,
where the Christian, especially devoted to the Virgin, offers Saint Mary
for his borrow: Horstmann, Die altenglischen Marienlegenden des MS.
Vernon, in Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen, LVI, 232, No
6.[74]
107. The abbot had retained the chief justice “by robe and fee,” to
counsel and aid him in the spoliation of the knight, 93. Taking and
giving of robes and fees for such purposes is defined as conspiracy in a
statute of Edward I, 1305–06; and by another statute, 20 Edward III, c.
vi, 1346, justices are required to swear that they will take robes and
fees from no man but the king: et que vos ne prendrez fee, tant come vos
serez justicz, ne robes, de nul homme, graunt ne petit, sinoun du roi
meismes. Statutes of the Realm, I, 145, 305: cited by J. Lewelyn Curtis,
in Notes and Queries, S. I, VI, 479 f. All the English judges, including
the chief justice, were convicted of bribery and were removed, under
Edward I, 1289.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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