---
title: "Four Middle English Notes — paper by Breeze (2001) · SELIM 11"
description: "This short philological article by Andrew Breeze (Universidad de Navarra) resolves four separate problems in Middle English… 30 references."
authors: ["Andrew Breeze Andrew Breeze"]
year: 2001
venue: "SELIM 11"
source: "https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SELIM/article/view/13480"
doi: "10.17811/selim.11.2001.169-178"
licence: "CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; SELIM)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/breeze-2019-four-middle-english-notes-calf/"
---
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# Four Middle English Notes: Calf 'shank', Silk 'prey', Clanvowe's cuckoo and William Worcestre's 'Doynton'

**Authors:** Andrew Breeze Andrew Breeze · **Year:** 2001 · **Venue:** [SELIM 11](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/selim-journal-of-the-spanish-society-for-medieval-english-language-and/) ([SELIM Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 2001](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/selim-journal-of-the-spanish-society-for-medieval-english-language-and/2001/)) · **Publisher:** [University of Oviedo](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/publishers/university-of-oviedo/) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC-ND (journal licence per DOAJ; SELIM)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.11.2001.169-178) · [PDF](https://reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SELIM/article/download/13480/12204) · [DOI 10.17811/selim.11.2001.169-178](https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.11.2001.169-178) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W6906722137)

**Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
This short philological article by Andrew Breeze (Universidad de Navarra) resolves four separate problems in Middle English words and names. Its method is etymological and historical: it compares dates of attestation across languages, reads each word in its context, and draws on local history and reference works such as the OED and DNB.

1. **calf 'fleshy part of the shank'.** The word came into English from Norse *kálfi*. Breeze argues that the Norse word was itself borrowed from Middle Irish *colpthae* 'shank; calf', and not the other way round.
2. **silk in *The Land of Cokaygne*.** The word is better read as a Hiberno-English loan from Irish *selg/seilg* 'prey, game' than as the fabric.
3. **The cuckoo's name in Clanvowe's *Boke of Cupide*.** It hints at 'fool', not 'cuckold'.
4. **'Donyton' in William Worcestre.** The place is Dennington in Suffolk.

Taken together, the notes show that Irish influence reached English vocabulary, both directly and through Norse. They also show that editors' first-sense glosses can mislead.

## Key points
- *colpthae* is attested very early: Muirchú's seventh-century life of St Patrick (Inber Colptha, the Boyne mouth) and the ninth-century Cattle Raid of Cooley. It probably comes from Old Irish *colba* 'pillar'. English *cross* (Norse *kross* \< Middle Irish *cross*) is the parallel path.
- *The Land of Cokaygne* (MS Harley 913, line 150) mocks Inishlounaght, a Cistercian abbey on the Suir founded in 1148. Its name contains *leamhnacht* 'sweet milk', the poem's "river of sweet milk". Stephen of Lexington closed its adjoining nunnery in 1228.
- Other Irish loans already identified in the same manuscript are *russin*, *corrin*, *daisser* and *tromchery*.
- Words for 'cuckoo' meaning 'fool' include *cuckoo* (OED, 1581), dialect *gowk*, German *Gauch* and Middle Low German *gok*. This supports Roscow's rejection of the cuckold pun.
- On 8 November 1428, John Mowbray's barge sank and John of Pysale drowned. The DNB entry on Sir William Phelip shows that Phelip resided at Dennington and was later Baron Bardolf (1437), which identifies 'Donyton'.
- Bibliographic note: the request gives SELIM 11 (2019), but the extracted page header reads Selim 11 (2001-2002), pp. 169–176.

## Interesting ideas
- **Date order sets loan direction.** Breeze decides which language borrowed from which by asking where the word is attested first. Seventh-century Irish evidence rules out Norse as the source.
- **Doubt glosses that fit the context badly.** "Great plenty of silk" beside a river is an odd collocation, so Breeze looks for a sense that suits the expectation of abundance (game, fish).
- **Test a pun against entity facts.** The cuckold reading fails partly because the nightingale is female and the setting is courtship, not marriage.
- **Match names through later titles.** 'Donyton where Lord Bardolf dwelt' is solved by realising that the writer used a title the man received only after the event.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (world): Knowledge-graph facts about origin or causation could carry attestation timestamps, so that claims of the form "A derived from B" are checked against event order and rejected when the source postdates the result.
- **I2** (frames): When filling a frame, role fillers could be scored for fit with the predicate and its setting. A low score would trigger a search over alternative senses of the lemma instead of accepting the most frequent one.
- **I3** (frames): Irony and pun detectors could verify that a proposed hidden meaning agrees with entity attributes already in the world model. Readings that contradict those attributes would be discarded.
- **I4** (world): Entity linking could keep time-indexed titles and aliases, so that a later or remembered title still resolves to the right person and place in an earlier narrated event.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

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## Cite

Cite as: Andrew Breeze Andrew Breeze. 2001. Four Middle English Notes: Calf 'shank', Silk 'prey', Clanvowe's cuckoo and William Worcestre's 'Doynton'. SELIM 11.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@inproceedings{breeze2001four,
  title = {{Four Middle English Notes: Calf 'shank', Silk 'prey', Clanvowe's cuckoo and William Worcestre's 'Doynton'}},
  author = {Andrew Breeze Andrew Breeze},
  booktitle = {SELIM 11},
  year = {2001},
  doi = {10.17811/selim.11.2001.169-178},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.17811/selim.11.2001.169-178}
}
```

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*Updated 24 October 2026*