France, it is well known, was divided betwixt the Norman and Teutonic race, who spoke the language in which the word “yes” is pronounced as oui, and the inhabitants of the southern regions, whose speech, bearing some affinity to the Italian, pronounced the same word oc. The poets of the former race were called minstrels, and their poems lays; those of the latter were termed troubadours, and their compositions called sirventes and other names. Richard, a professed admirer of the joyous science in all its branches, could imitate either the minstrel or troubadour. It is less likely that he should have been able to compose or sing an English ballad; yet so much do we wish to assimilate him of the Lion Heart to the land of the warriors whom he led, that the anachronism, if there be one, may readily be forgiven.
3 (p. 180) Iconium’s turban’d soldan fell: Iconium is the medieval name for the Turkish city of Konya, which fell to the advancing Crusaders in 1190.
4 (p. 181) a sort of derry-down chorus: [Author’s note] Derry-down Chorus. It may be proper to remind the reader that the chorus of “derry-down” is supposed to be as ancient, not only as the times of the Heptarchy, but as those of the Druids, and to have furnished the chorus to the hymns of those venerable persons when they went to the wood to gather mistletoe.
5 (p. 183) old Ariosto: Author of the romance Orlando Furioso (1516), Ludovico Ariosto was considered in Scott’s time as the modern Virgil, and was widely read and quoted. In his “Essay on Romance” (1822) Scott writes approvingly of Ariosto’s digressive narrative technique, which he alludes to and imitates here.
1 (p. 183) epigraph: This epigraph begins a sequence of invented verse passages authored by Scott himself to serve as epigraphs in Ivanhoe. Scott was in a hurry to finish the novel, needing the money from its sales to purchase a commission in the army for his son. There is no better evidence of his haste than his choosing to invent epigraphs rather than go to the trouble of remembering and locating an appropriate verse or passage.
2 (p. 190) Hotspur: Scott refers to the scene in Shakespeare’s 1 Henry IV in which Hotspur is frustrated by a reluctant and sluggish ally, Archbishop Scroop (act 3, scene 1).
1 (p. 191) epigraph: The lines are from Baillie’s Orra: A Tragedy (1812; act 3, scene 1).
1 (p. 198) epigraph: The lines are written by Scott.
2 (p. 198) Watling Street: This is the English name for the old Roman road that runs south-north from Dover through London to the northern border.
3 (p. 200) De profundis clamavi: See the Bible, Psalm 130:1, “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord” (King James Version; henceforth, KJV).
1 (p. 205) epigraph: The lines are from Baillie’s Orra (act 3, scene 2).
2 (p. 209) Tosti … the tale: Tosti was King Harold II’s disgruntled brother who, with encouragement from William of Normandy, allied himself to an invading Norwegian force and launched an attack on the King’s forces at Stamford Bridge near York in September 1066. The Norwegians were defeated, and Tosti was killed. Harold was celebrating the victory when word came of the Norman invasion in the south. Harold immediately marched his army to meet William but was defeated and shot dead with an arrow in the eye on October 14 at the Battle of Hastings.
3 (p. 210) the bloody streams of the Derwent: [Author’s note] Battle of Stamford. A great topographical blunder occurred here in former editions. The bloody battle alluded to in the text, fought and won by King Harold, over his brother the rebellious Tosti, and an auxiliary force of Danes or Norsemen, was said, in the text and a corresponding note, to have taken place at Stamford, in Leicestershire [Lincolnshire], and upon the river Welland. This is a mistake into which the Author has been led by trusting to his memory, and so confounding two places of the same name. The Stamford, Strangford, or Staneford at which the battle really was fought is a ford upon the river Derwent, at the distance of about seven [nine] miles from York, and situated in that large and opulent county. A long wooden bridge over the Derwent, the site of which, with one remaining buttress, is still shown to the curious traveller, was furiously contested. One Norwegian long defended it by his single arm, and was at length pierced with a spear thrust through the planks of the bridge from a boat beneath.
The neighbourhood of Stamford, on the Derwent, contains some memorials of the battle. Horse-shoes, swords, and the heads of halberds, or bills, are often found there; one place is called the “Danes’ well,” another the “Battle flats.” From a tradition that the weapon with which the Norwegian champion was slain resembled a pear, or, as others say, that the trough or boat in which the soldier floated under the bridge to strike the blow had such a shape, the country people usually begin a great market which is held at Stamford with an entertainment called the Pear-pie feast, which, after all, may be a corruption of the Spear-pie feast. For more particulars, Drake’s History of York may be referred to. The Author’s mistake was pointed out to him, in the most obliging manner, by Robert Belt, Esq., of Bossal House. The battle was fought in 1066.
4 (p. 213) the destined knight: Possibly a reference to a scene in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (22.18-23) where Astolfo blows his horn to warn the inhabitants of an enchanted castle, which then disappears into mist.
1 (p. 213) epigraph: The lines are from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (act 2, scene 8).
2 (p. 216) the keys … to bind and to loose: The reference is to the keys to the kingdom of heaven, as noted in the Bible, Matthew 16:19.
3 (p. 217) “above that glowing charcoal”: [Author’s note] Torture. This horrid species of torture may remind the reader of that to which the Spaniards subjected Guatemozin, in order to extort a discovery of his concealed wealth. But, in fact, an instance of similar barbarity is to be found nearer home, and occurs in the annals of Queen Mary’s time, containing so many other examples of atrocity. Every reader must recollect that, after the fall of the Catholic Church, and the Presbyterian Church government had been established by law, the rank, and especially the wealth, of the bishops, abbots, priors, and so forth, were no longer vested in ecclesiastics, but in lay impropriators of the church revenues, or, as the Scottish lawyers called them,
