The relationship of the manuscripts of the Middle-English poem Ipotis has been studied in detail by Dr. Hugo Gruber on the basis of the nine mss. known to him. In addition to these there are five others, four of which are printed for the first time below. One of these, unfortunately a fragment, is of the greatest importance, since it carries back the date of the poem at least fifty years. On the basis of the earliest manuscript known to him—ms. Vernon, written about 1385—Gruber assigned the Ipotis to the second half of the fourteenth century. But in the light of the new evidence, the composition of the poem is pushed back to the very beginning of the century.
In the recent massive sweep of in-depth research on the hymns and prayers to St. Mary Magdalen, one little Middle English poem of the second half of the fourteenth century has been overlooked. It should now be added to the total European corpus as the English representative, the sole versified prayer to this saint before 1500. The poem is written as prose on a blank page (fol. 100v) in Harley MS 667, a collection of over eighty Latin (and French) statutes and charters, local as well as national, likeCustume de Gavelkynde(fol. 84r, in French),Tractates de Bastardia(fol. 213r),Statutum de Scaccario(fol. 248r), orOfficium Senescalli sive Ballivi(fol. 275v), and is followed by a Latin collect and a Latin rubric for a pardon.
Fragment of an Unknown Middle English Poem