Description
Book SynopsisNew essays on late medieval manuscripts highlight the complicated network of their production and dissemination. One of the most important developments in medieval English literary studies since the 1980s has been the growth of manuscript studies. Long regarded as mere textual repositories, and treated superficially by editors, manuscripts are now acknowledged as centrally important in the study of later medieval texts. The essays collected here discuss aspects of the design and distribution of manuscripts in late medieval England, with a particular focus on vernacular manuscripts of the late fourteenth, fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Those in the first half consider material evidence for scribal decisions about design: these range from analysis of individual codices to broader discussions of particular types of manuscripts, both religious and secular. Later essays look at the evidence for the production and distribution of manuscripts of specific English texts or types of text. These include the major Middle English poems The Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman, as well as key religious works such as Love's Mirror, Hilton's Scale of Perfection, the Speculum Vitae and The Pricke of Conscience, all of which survive in significant numbers of manuscripts. The comparison of secular and devotional texts illuminates shared networks of production and dissemination, and increases our knowledge of regional and metropolitan book production in the period before printing. Contributors: DANIEL W. MOSSER, JACOB THAISEN, TAKAKO KATO, SHERRY L. REAMES, AMELIA GROUNDS, ALEXANDRA BARRATT, JULIAN M. LUXFORD, LINNE R. MOONEY, MICHAEL G. SARGENT, JOHNJ. THOMPSON, MARGARET CONNOLLY, RALPH HANNA, GEORGE R. KEISER.
Trade ReviewTaste alone will enable a reader to distinguish between the thirteen con¬tributions assembled here and edited superbly by Margaret Connolly and Linne Mooney. The essays are all impressive. [...] This is a meritorious book, then, brimming over with manuscript particulars, a model of the multiple, complementary approaches that major scholars are now bringing to bear on the study of Middle English literature and cultural history. * JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY *
The contents are often fascinatingly valuable and well designed and illustrated. * YEAR'S WORK IN ENGLISH STUDIES *
A thoroughly satisfying read and one in which the essays are of a consistently high standard - testimony to the judgement of the editors. * THE RICARDIAN *
Table of ContentsIntroduction `Chaucer's Scribe', Adam, and the Hengwrt Project - Daniel W Mosser The Trinity Gower D Scribe's Two Canterbury Tales Manuscripts Revisi ted - Jacob Thaisen Corrected Mistakes in MS Gg.4.27 - Takako Kato Late Medieval Efforts at Standardization and Reform in the Sarum Lessons fo r Saints' Days - Sherry L Reames Evolution of a Manuscript: the Pavement Hours - Amelia Grounds Singing from the Same Hymn-Sheet: Two Bridgettine Manuscripts - John Sexton, Book Reviews Editor Secundum Originale Examinatum: The Refashioning of a Benedictine His torical Manuscript - Julian Luxford Locating Scribal Activity in Late Medieval London - Linne R Mooney What do the Numbers Mean? A Textual Critic's Observations on Some Patterns of Middle English Manuscript Transmission - Michael G. Sargent The Middle English Prose Brut and the Possibilities of Cultural Mapp ing - John J. Thompson Mapping Manuscripts and Readers of Contemplations of the Dread and Love of God - M Connolly Yorkshire Manuscripts of the Speculum Vitae - Ralph Hanna Vernacular Herbals: A Growth Industry in Late Medieval England - G R Keiser Index of Manuscripts General Index
