Immaterial Texts In Late Medieval England

Daniel Wakelin introduces and reinterprets the misunderstood and overlooked craft practices, cultural conventions and literary attitudes involved in making some of the most important manuscripts in late medieval English literature. In doing so he overturns how we view the role of scribes, showing how they ignored or concealed irregular and damaged parchment; ruled pages from habit and convention more than necessity; decorated the division of the text into pages or worried that it would harm reading; abandoned annotations to poetry, focusing on the poem itself; and copied English poems meticulously, in reverence for an abstract idea of the text. Scribes' interest in immaterial ideas and texts suggests their subtle thinking as craftspeople, in ways that contrast and extend current interpretations of late medieval literary culture, 'material texts' and the power of materials. For students, researchers and librarians, this book offers revelatory perspectives on the activities of late medieval scribes.

"One of the most important developments in medieval English literary studies since the 1980s has been the growth of manuscript studies. The thirteen essays in this volume discuss aspects of the design and distribution of manuscripts in late medieval England, focusing particularly on vernacular manuscripts of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries." "This binary focus on secular and devotional texts illuminates shared networks of production and dissemination, and considerably expands current knowledge of regional and metropolitan book production in the period before printing."--BOOK JACKET.

In the Middle Ages, rolls were ubiquitous as a writing support. While scholars have long examined the texts and images on rolls, they have rarely taken the manuscripts themselves into account. This volume readdresses this imbalance by focusing on the materiality and various usages of rolls in late medieval England and France. Researchers from England, France, Germany and Singapore demonstrate in 11 contributions how this approach can increase our understanding of the rolls and their contents, as well as the contexts in which they were produced and used.

This study is an essential guide to the subject of the vernacular inscriptions of late-medieval England (in English, French, and Anglo-Norman). It includes detailed accounts of all the significant extant materials and makes extensive reference to antiquarian records of lost items. The study offers a model of a cross-disciplinary approach to textual and visual sources and meets the need for an holistic account of the subject matter. It locates the inscriptions in precise physical and historical contexts and addresses the textual material in relation to associated images and pictorial narratives, and to the individual and communal patronage of artistic and architectural projects.

Scholars of the Middle Ages are familiar with the notion of text as an inscribed document, whether that inscription occurs upon stone, metal, vellum or textiles, but the concept of inscription and, therefore, of text, can be extended to cover a range of evidence. Thus, one might speak of archaeological remains, land use patterns, traditional stories, remnant practices and revenant beliefs as constituting texts in their own right. Broadly defined then, text is the means by which we engage with the historical subject. The medievalist, however, faces particular constraints in interpreting these texts through the agencies of their transmission. Questions such as who authored these texts, when and why, intersect with problems of transcription, translation and redaction to inform a complex discourse. The majority of the chapters in this book started life as papers presented at a conference entitled Text and Transmission in Early Medieval Europe and the title of this book ultimately derives from that theme. The subjects these chapters deal with range in geography from Ireland through to Byzantium, and cover almost a millennium of European history, but they are united in their effort to prise from their subjects some truths about texts, transmission and the critical literacies needed to interpret both.

Essays suggesting new ways of studying the crucial but sometimes difficult range of medieval mystical material. This volume seeks to explore the origins, context and content of the anchoritic and mystical texts produced in England during the Middle Ages and to examine the ways in which these texts may be studied and taught today. It foregrounds issues of context and interaction, seeking both to position medieval spiritual writings against a surprisingly wide range of contemporary contexts and to face the challenge of making these texts accessible to a wider readership. The contributions, by leading scholars in the field, incorporate historical, literary and theological perspectives and offer critical approaches and background material which will inform both research and teaching. The approaches to Middle English anchoritic and mystical texts suggested in this volume are many and varied. In this they reflect the richness and complexity of the contexts from which these writings emerged. These essays are offered aspart of an ongoing exploration of aspects of medieval spirituality which, while posing a considerable challenge to modern readers, also offer invaluable insights into the interaction between medieval culture and belief. Contributors: E.A. Jones, Dee Dyas, Valerie Edden, Santha Bhattachariji, Denis Renevey, A.C. Spearing, Thomas Bestul, Liz Herbert McAvoy, Barry A. Windeatt, Alexandra Barratt, R.S. Allen, Roger Ellis, Ann M. Hutchison, Marion Glasscoe, Catherine Innes-Parker

Essays on the medieval chronicle tradition, shedding light on history writing, manuscript studies and the history of the book, and the post-medieval reception of such texts.

Essays published in honour of the Trinity College-based scholar who has been at the forefront of Middle English studies in Ireland for many years. Contents as follows: David Aers on the Testimony of William Thorpe - Valerie Allen on tournament and toxophily in late-medieval England - Julia Boffey on Chaucer's fortune in the 1530s - John A. Burrow Chaucer's Book of the duchess - Helen Conrad-O'Briain Sir Orfeo - Helen Cooper The date of the Auchinleck manuscript - Anne Marie D'Arcy Henryson's The testament of Cresseid - A.S.G. Edwards The Canterbury tales - Richard Firth Green 'The hunting of the hare' - Alan J. Fletcher The pearl - Ralph Hanna Some TCD manuscripts - Angela M. Lucas on Chaucer's Franklin's tale - Peter J. Lucas on Capgrave's The solace of pilgrimes - Alastair J. Minnis Piers Plowman - Charlotte C. Morse Scenes of farewell in the middle ages - Derek Pearsall The flower and the leaf and The assembly of ladies - Helen Phillips Remembering Edward I - Oliver S. Pickering The Alphabetical praise of womenÃ?Â?Ã?Â?Wendy Scase on MS Harley 2253 - James Simpson on Caxton's History of Reynard the fox - Myra Stokes on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - John J. Thompson Manuscripts and texts associated with John Stow - Thorlac Turville-Petre on St Erkenwald - Greg Walker The Plowman's tale.