Description
Book SynopsisHow language and marginalia shape the perception of a landmark legal text
Trade Review. . . an indisputably good book. . . assiduous scholarship illumines . . . .
* American Historical Review *
McGerr has done an excellent job in reminding her audience to pay attention not only to the words in the manuscript, but their margin as well. McGerr's prose is fantastic, too, flowing naturally and being free from unnecessary jargon.
* Mediaevistik *
[McGerr's] study, scholarly and intuitive in equal measure, demonstrates that what may appear to be an inert status symbol, is actually a highly charged, and exquisitely wrought, political document.
* Renaissance Quarterly *
McGerr has examined what might otherwise appear to be a common fifteenth-century legal text and has successfully demonstrated the ways in which its visual characteristics may have much greater political implications.
* RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cutlural Heritage *
Combining evidence and analyses from literature, codicology, history, and art history, A Lancastrian Mirror for Princes returns a considerable dividend for investing sustained attention in one manuscript.
* The Medieval Review *
Table of ContentsPreface
Introduction: The Margin and the Center—Framing a Reading of a Legal Manuscript
1. The Yale New Statutes Manuscript and Medieval English Statute Books: Similarities and Differences
2. Royal Portraits and Royal Arms: The Iconography of the Yale New Statutes Manuscript
3. The Queen and the Lancastrian Cause: The Yale New Statutes Manuscript and Margaret of Anjou
4. Educating the Prince: The Yale New Statutes Manuscript and Lancastrian Mirrors for Princes
5. "Grace Be Our Guide": The Cultural Significance of a Medieval Law Book
Appendix 1: Chronology of Events
Appendix 2: Codicological Description of New Haven, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library MssG +St11 no.1
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Plates appear after page 000.
