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This volume gathers the contributions of senior and junior scholars—all indebted to the pathbreaking work of Derek Pearsall—to showcase new research prompted by his rich and ongoing legacy as a literary critic, editor, and seminal founder of Middle English manuscript studies. The contributors aim both to honor Pearsall’s work in the field he established and to introduce the complexities of interdisciplinary manuscript studies to students already familiar with medieval literature.
The contributors explore a range of issues, from the study of medieval literary manuscripts to the history of medieval books, libraries, literacy, censorship, and the social classes who used the books and manuscripts—nobles, children, schoolmasters, priests, merchants, and more. In addressing reading practices, essays provide a wealth of information on marginal commentaries, images and interpretive methods, international transmission, and early print and editorial methods.
Contributors: Sarah Baechle, Julia Boffey, Peter Brown, Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis, Christopher Cannon, A. I. Doyle, Martha W. Driver, Siân Echard, Nicole Eddy, A. S. G. Edwards, Hilary E. Fox, Karrie Fuller, Maura Giles-Watson, Phillipa Hardman, Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Jill Mann, William Marx, Sarah McNamer, Carol M. Meale, Linne Mooney, Melinda Nielsen, Theresa O’Byrne, Stephen Partridge, Oliver Pickering, Susan Powell, Elizabeth Scala, A. C. Spearing, John J. Thompson, Edward Wheatley, Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Hannah Zdansky, Nicolette Zeeman.
“On balance, this [is] a finely produced collection with many accomplished contributions. It will reward readers’ exploration.” —Modern Philology
“As a tribute to a distinguished scholar, this volume of essays could hardly be finer. Assembled from contributions presented in London at the 2011 conference in honour of the 80th birthday of Derek Pearsall, the range and diversity of subjects covered are as absorbing as the work of the man himself.” —The Review of English Studies
"This volume is an impressive tribute to Derek Pearsall's legacy and an important resource for anyone interested in manuscripts, scribes, annotators, and readers. It offers resounding evidence of the many ways that manuscript studies is a necessity for understanding medieval literary texts and textual production." —Misty Schieberle, University of Kansas
"The range of topics covered in this impressive collection—manuscript studies, Lydgate, Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, Langland, and romance—attests to the wide-ranging influence Derek Pearsall has exerted on the field of medieval studies. It is hard to think of a scholar since the inception of English studies who has had a greater effect on so many fields of Middle English literature. The lively contributions in this volume come from Derek's colleagues, admirers, students, and students of his students, demonstrating that 'Pearsallian reading practices' will live on long into the future." —Michael Johnston, Purdue University
"New Directions in Medieval Manuscript Studies and Reading Practices marks the heritage of the distinguished scholar Derek Pearsall while highlighting his continuing influence on medieval manuscript studies. Buoyed by fine work of senior scholars, the collection also introduces readers to stimulating work by an upcoming generation of more recent practitioners, all of whom address crucial issues in the field: the particulars of individual manuscripts, including scribal practice, marginal commentary, and audience reception. The result is a fine collection at once canonical in some respects and innovative in others." —Paul H. Strohm, Anna S. Garbedian Professor Emeritus of the Humanities, Columbia University
Sarah Baechle is a post-doctoral fellow in English at the University of Notre Dame.
John J. Thompson is chair of English Textual Cultures and director, Institute for Collaborative Research in the Humanities, at Queen’s University Belfast. He is editor of a number of books, including Imagining the Book: Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe (co-edited with Stephen Kelly).
Kathryn Kerby-Fulton is professor emerita of English at the University of Notre Dame. She is the author and editor of a number of books, including Books under Suspicion: Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006).
List of Illustrations
Preface by Kathryn Kerby-Fulton
A Brief Biographical Sketch of Derek Pearsall by Linne Mooney
Part 1. Celebrating Pearsallian Reading Practices
Foreword to Part 1. By Christopher Cannon
1. Narrative and Freedom in Troilus and Criseyde by A.C. Spearing
2. How Good Is the Outspoken South English Legendary Poet? A New Edition of the Prologue to the Conception of Mary by Oliver Pickering
3.. Derek Pearsall, Secret Shakespearean by Martha W. Driver
Part 2. England and International: Studies in Courtly Verse and Affectivity Inspired by the Work of Elizabeth Salter and Derek Pearsall at York
Foreword to Part 2. By William Marx
4. The Tongues of the Nightingale: “hertely redying” at English Courts by Jocelyn Wogan-Browne
5. Wings, Wingfields, and Wynnere and Wastoure by Susan Powell
6.. The Author of the Italian Meditations on the Life of Christ by Sarah McNamer
7. Handling The Book of Margery Kempe: The Corrective Touches of the Red Ink Annotator by Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis
Part III. The Making of a Field: York’s 1981 Manuscripts and Readers Thirty Years Later
Foreword to Part 3. by John J. Thompson
8. Assessing Manuscript Context: Visible and Invisible Evidence in a Copy of the Middle English Brut by Julia Boffey
9. Books with Marginalia from St. Mark’s Hospital, Bristol by A.I. Doyle
10. John Colyns, Mercer and Bookseller of London, and Cuthbert Tunstall’s Second Monition of 1526 by Carol M. Meale
11. Selling Lydgate Manuscripts in the Twentieth Century by A.S.G. Edwards
Part 4. Newer Directions in Manuscript Studies I: Regional and Scribal Identities
Foreword to Part 4. by Siân Echard
12. “And fer ouer þe French flod”: A Look at Cotton Nero A.x from an International Perspective by Hannah Zdansky
13. Langlandian Economics in James Yonge’s Gouernaunce: Translation and Ethics in Fifteenth-Century Dublin by Hilary E. Fox
14. Manuscript Creation in Dublin: The Scribe of Bodleian e. Museo MS 232 and Longleat MS 29 byTheresa O’Byrne
Part 5. Newer Directions in Manuscript Studies II: Women, Children, and Literacy at Work in Late Medieval and Early Tudor England
Foreword to Part 5. by Phillipa Hardman
15. The Romance of History: Lambeth Palace MS 491 and Its Young Readers by Nicole Eddy
16. Langland in the Early Modern Household: Piers Plowman in Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Digby 145, and Its Scribe-Annotator Dialogues by Karrie Fuller
17. Playing as Literate Practice: Humanism and the Exclusion of Women Performers by the London Professional Stages by Maura Giles-Watson
Part 6. Chaucerian and Post-Chaucerian Reading Practices
Foreword to Part 6. by Edward Wheatley
18. Quoting Chaucer: Textual Authority, the Nun’s Priest, and the Making of the Canterbury Tales by Elizabeth Scala
19. Chaucer, the Continent, and the Characteristics of Commentary by Sarah Baechle
20. Hoccleve in Canterbury by Peter Brown
21. The Legacy of John Shirley: Revisiting Houghton MS Eng 530 by Stephen Partridge
Part VII. What a Poet Is “Entitled to Be Remembered By”: Editorial Philosophies and the Langlandian Legacy of Derek Pearsall
Foreword to Part 7. by Nicolette Zeeman
22. Was the C-Reviser’s Manuscript Really So Corrupt? by Jill Mann
23. Emending Oneself: Compilatio and Revisio in Langland, Usk, and Higden by Melinda Nielsen
24. Confronting the Scribe-Poet Binary: The Z Text, Writing Office Redaction, and the Oxford Reading Circles by Kathryn Kerby-Fulton
List of Contributors
Index of Manuscripts and Incunabula
General Index