“LUSTNETH LYÞE OURE LEUEDY LAY”: TRANSLATING FOR PREACHING AND PERFORMANCE IN THE WORKS OF WILLIAM HEREBERT MARJORIE HARRINGTON * From the establishment of the order in the early thirteenth century, Franciscans were associated with song. As the Speculum perfectionis, an early fourteenth-century compilation of excerpts from earlier documents describing epi- sodes from the life of St. Francis, reports, Dicebat enim quod volebat quod ille qui sciret melius praedicare inter illos prius praedicaret populo et post praedicationem omnes cantarent simul laudes domini tamquam ioculatores domini. Finitis autem laudibus volebat quod praedicator dice- ret populo: nos sumus ioculatores domini et pro eis volumus in hoc remunerari a vobis videlicet ut stetis in vera poenitentia. (He said that he wanted the one among them who knew how to preach best to preach first to the people, and after the preaching for all of them to sing the Lord’s praises together like jongleurs of the Lord. Then, when the praises were finished, he wanted the preacher to say to the people: “We are the jongleurs of the Lord, and for these things we want to be paid by you, that is, for you to remain in true penitence.”) 1 Drawing on this mandate, Franciscans gained a reputation as praedicatores and ioculatores, wandering preachers and singers. Imitating their founder, who was himself schooled in the poetry of the Provencal troubadours, they composed in various vernaculars, producing both original religious songs and translations of Latin hymns and liturgical materials. 2 * An earlier version of this article appeared as chapter two of my doctoral dissertation, “Bilingual Form: Paired Translations of Latin and Vernacular Poetry, c. 1250–1350.” I am grateful to my dissertation committee—Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Susanna Fein, Tim William Machan, and Susannah Monta—for their patience, guidance, and support. Special thanks go to Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, who introduced me to Middle English manuscript studies, and to Susanna Fein, whose meticulous work on London, British Library, MS Harley 2253 inspired me to explore other trilingual manuscripts of the West Midlands. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for Early Middle English, whose thorough and generous comments brought clarity to my argument here. 1 Paul Sabatier, ed., Le speculum perfectionis ou mémoires de frère Léon sur la seconde partie de la vie de Saint François d’Assise, British Society of Franciscan Studies 13 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1928), chap. 100. All translations are my own except for biblical references, which follow the Douay-Rheims. 2 Peter Loewen, Music in Early Franciscan Thought (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 58–60; David L. Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975), 25–27.