Scottish Text Society publications > Third series > Ratis raving and other early Scots poems on morals

INTRODUCTION.
XXXV
into the fourteenth century, in some well towards the
beginning ; and in fact the oldest MS. of The Erl of
Toulous is set at the beginning of the fifteenth century,
the two oldest of Sir Ysnmbras respectively at the end
and in the first half of the fourteenth.1 The original
of the last named cannot be later than the early decades
of the century, and attribution to a David Rate in the
reign of James I. is an absurdity. Moreover, the dialect
of the original form of the romances is not Scottish or even
Northern, most likely East Midland of varying degrees
of latitude. Of the other poems with quod Rate one on
the Ten Commandments is found in numerous MSS. of
a fourteenth century work, Speculum Christiania with
which Rate had nothing to do, though the introductory
and concluding lines, which are peculiar to this MS.,
may have been added by him when extracting the poem.
But it is hardly necessary to examine individually the
pieces in Ashmole 61 so marked, even if one is a father’s
advice and another advice to a daughter (on which see
Nos. 9 and 10) ; it may be said in general that none
shows any evidence of Scottish origin, rather evidence
in a contrary sense, and that all may be dismissed in any
attempt to discover an author for the poem or version
known as Ratis Raving. If this Rate were an author at
all, he must have flourished early in the fourteenth century,
and he certainly was not Scottish ; but in fact it is im¬
possible that the same man was author of the three
romances discussed above, which are not in the same
dialect and which are widely separated in date, and it
may be regarded as pretty certain that he was the scribe
who wrote, perhaps with modifications introduced by
1 Gray’s Inn MS. is the oldest, and has been dated a. 1350. See
Englische Studien, lii. 72.
2 G. Holmstedt, op. cit. The poem will be found on p. 17 ff. The
Ashmole text has been printed by Zupitza in Archiv 85. 46 ff., and by
J. T. T. Brown in Scottish Antiquary, xv. 196 ff.