De Miseria Condicionis Humane

Author / Editor
Lewis, Robert E., ed.

Title
De Miseria Condicionis Humane

Published
Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1978.

Physical Description
xiv, 303 pp.

Series
The Chaucer Library.

Description
Facing-page (English/Latin) edition of Innocent's treatise, "De Miseria Condicionis Humane," unemended from British Library Manuscript Lansdowne 358, with extensive critical and textual information. including descriptions of the manuscripts and discussion of the influence of the work on medieval tradition. Chaucer used Innocent's treatise as a source for portions of MLPT, PardT, and perhaps elsewhere, and he may have translated it. Lewis tabulates the influence of the treatise on Chaucer and argues that he indeed translated it as his (lost) "Of the Wreched Engendrynge of Mankynde," identified in LGW G414-15. Lewis also considers the date of Chaucer's translation and comments on the text that he may have used, exploring the evidence of the glosses to MLT.

Contributor
Innocent III, Pope
Lotario Dei Segni

Alternative Title
De Miseria Conditionis
De Contemptu Mundi

Chaucer Subjects
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Man of Law and His Tale
Pardoner and His Tale
Chaucerian Apocrypha