Literary Codicologies: the Conditions of Middle English Literary Production, C

Literary Codicologies: The Conditions of Middle English Literary Production, c. 1280-1415

Helen Marshall

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Centre for Medieval Studies University of Toronto

Literary Codicologies: The Conditions of Middle English Literary Production, c. 1280-1415

Helen Marshall

Doctor of Philosophy

Centre for Medieval Studies University of Toronto

2014 Abstract

This dissertation studies three important textual projects that speak to the conditions of Middle

English literary production from 1280-1415: the West Midlands collection of saints’ lives compiled at the end of the thirteenth century known as the South English Legendary; NLS, MS

Advocates 19.2.1 (Auchinleck), a compilation of romances, historical and religious texts copied by six scribes in London in the 1330s; and the Prick of Conscience, an anonymous penitential treatise from the north of England and one of the most widely produced Middle English texts of the second half of the fourteenth century. Central to this dissertation is a methodology that connects techniques of bibliographic description including dialect analysis, comparison of layout and booklet structure, and identification of scribal hands with a holistic examination of how texts were produced and circulated. This dissertation argues, firstly, England’s vernacular literary culture was shaped by the relationship between manuscripts and texts; secondly, that the manuscript producing activities of secular and religious manuscript users, and of various institutions (monastic, fraternal, civil), were interpenetrative rather than discrete; thirdly, that the production of Middle English manuscripts was never isolated from other languages and other kinds of textual production including documentary production and the production of religious books; and, fourthly, that England’s vernacular literary culture at the national level depended ii upon and emerged from local instances of production, the circulation of manuscripts and texts beyond their site of production, and the institutional and cultural ties that facilitated the resulting networks of textual exchange. Although the textual projects under study in this dissertation differ in date, genre, origin and form, they show how certain elements—local resources, the availability of exemplars, the organization and training of scribes, and techniques of book-making— contributed to and sustained the development of a national Middle English literary culture.

iii

Dedication

To my sister Laura who kept me company during the long, dark teatime of the soul.

Acknowledgments

I began writing the “Acknowledgements” to this dissertation on April 25th, 2013—approximately four months before I handed in my dissertation. I remember the date because it marked a turning point for me in the way I considered the project: it was the moment at which I passed from the stage I have almost fondly come to call the “scary middles” to the “end game”—when the date of submission was set firmly in my mind and the light at the end of the tunnel seemed in sight. But as I have continued to edit, redraft, reshape, expand, delete, and generally whip into shape this dissertation, I have returned as much to my “Acknowledgements” as I have every other chapter. This is because when I was in the “scary middles” it felt like I was alone, and it is only as I approached the end of that struggle that I was able to see, genuinely, how many people were there alongside me all the way through and the inexpressible debt of gratitude that I owe them.

This dissertation could not have been written without the tremendous support of my family and friends who have kept me fed and clothed and as happy as a doctoral student can hope to be. I want to single out as well the contributions of my adviser Alexandra Gillespie who continues to amaze me with her dedication to her students and her impressive command of the field. She has been both an inspiration in times of intellectual discovery and a cattle-prod in times of exhaustion—in short, she is a force of nature, and it has been my pleasure and privilege to work with her. Thanks also go to the many scholars who have helped me on my way and served as guides in their own right at one stage or another in this process: Arthur Bahr, Simon Horobin, William Robins, David Townsend and Daniel Wakelin. Further to this, I owe a tremendous thanks to my fellow graduate students (of whom there are many I’ve benefited from), but most specifically, Peter Buchanan, Emma Gorst, Kathleen Ogden and Christopher Pugh for your encouragement, your help, and your inspiration. Lastly, I want to thank my those friends who listened to me babble with both enthusiasm and distress about the project that I was undertaking, and for providing the necessary hand-holding to get me to the finish line: Tricia George, Jennifer McDermott, Sandra Kasturi, Michael Matheson, Sophie Roberts, Robert Shearman and Brett Alexander Savory.

Lastly, I humbly acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council which awarded me an MA-level Canada Graduate Scholarship in 2006, a Ph. D-level

Canada Graduate Scholarship in 2007, and a Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement to conduct research in England in 2009.

Table of Contents

Dedication ...... iv

Acknowledgments ...... v

Table of Contents ...... vii

List of Plates ...... x

List of Figures ...... xi

List of Abbreviations ...... xii

List of Appendices ...... xiii

Introduction ...... 1

1 The Conditions of Middle English Literary Production ...... 1

2 Understanding “English” Writing: The Iceberg Model ...... 6

3 Rethinking England’s National Literary Cultures...... 12

3.1 National Cultures, National Communities ...... 13

3.2 National Literary Cultures and the Circulation of Texts ...... 15

4 Re-Imagining the Grounds of English Literature ...... 18

Chapter 1 Models of National Book Production ...... 24

1 Introduction ...... 24

2 Books, Bookmen, and Book-Making in the Middle Ages ...... 27

3 Fragmentation and Miscellaneity? Booklet Culture in Late Medieval England ...... 45

4 Major Texts, Major Authors ...... 56

Chapter 2 “Of Holi Dawes Maked”: Making Early South English Legendaries ...... 67

1 Introduction ...... 67

2 Contexts and Backgrounds ...... 69

2.1 The Authorship of the SEL ...... 69

3 Producing the South English Legendaries ...... 78

vii

3.1 The “Redactionist” Approach and the “Fluid Corpus” Approach ...... 78

3.1.1 The Redactionist Approach ...... 78

3.1.2 The “Fluid Corpus” Approach ...... 81

3.1.3 The SEL as an Open Compilation ...... 84

3.1.4 The SEL as a Fixed or Consolidated Compilation ...... 101

4 Conclusions ...... 122

Chapter 3 “Of Freynsch No Latin Nil Y Tel More”: Assembling the Auchinleck Manuscript, 1330-1340 ...... 125

1 Introduction ...... 125

2 Backgrounds and Contexts ...... 128

2.1 A Major Middle English Miscellany ...... 128

2.2 Chaucer, the Auchinleck Bookshop and Literary History ...... 134

2.3 From Monastery to Marketplace ...... 141

3 Producing the Auchinleck Manuscript ...... 152

3.1 The Auchinleck Manuscript and Booklet Production ...... 152

3.1.1 Speculative Production ...... 153

3.1.2 Bespoke Production ...... 155

3.1.3 Semi-Bespoke Production ...... 156

3.2 Booklets 2, 3 and 12 as Independent Units ...... 157

3.2.1 Booklets 2 and 12 ...... 158

3.2.2 Collaborative Copying in Booklet 3 ...... 161

3.3 A Model for Producing Auchinleck ...... 165

4 Conclusions ...... 169

Chapter 4 “This Book Oute Blowen”: Disseminating the Prick of Conscience, 1380-1415 .... 173

1 Introduction ...... 173

2 Contexts and Backgrounds ...... 178

viii

2.1 Manuscripts and the Development of the Medieval Canon ...... 178

2.1.1 The Ripon Manuscripts ...... 185

3 Producing the Prick of Conscience ...... 195

3.1 Lichfield: A Centre of Vernacular Production? ...... 195

3.1.1 Group IV of the Main Version Prick of Conscience ...... 195

3.2 Copying in the Vicinity of Lichfield Cathedral? ...... 202

3.2.1 Producing a Corpus: The Rylands Scribe ...... 203

3.2.2 Concerted Production: The Trinity Scribe ...... 208

3.2.3 Canonizing the Prick of Conscience: The Creation of the Vernon and Simeon Manuscripts ...... 220

4 Conclusions ...... 229

Concluding Thoughts ...... 231

Appendix ...... 237

Transcriptions of MSS Lm, C, N, Wh ...... 237

St. Alphege, ll. 39-116 ...... 237

Pilate, ll. 247-262 ...... 240

St. Mary the Egyptian, ll. 1-64 ...... 241

St. Bridget, ll. 5-25, 39-59 ...... 244

Bibliography ...... 246

Primary Sources and Editions ...... 246

Secondary Sources ...... 252

List of Plates

These have been omitted.

List of Figures

Figure 2.1: BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 (Contents by Booklet) ...... 86

Figure 2.2: BL, MS Egerton 1993 (Contents by Booklet) ...... 92

Figure 2.3: Quire 4 of BL, MS Egerton 1993 (Contents) ...... 96

Figure 2.4: Alterations to the Banna Sanctorum in BL, MS Egerton 1993 ...... 97

Figure 2.5: CCCC, MS 145 (MS C) (Contents by Booklet) ...... 105

Figure 2.6: BL, MS Egerton 2891 (MS N) (Contents) ...... 106

Figure 2.7: Leicester, Leicester Museum, MS 18 D 59 (MS Lm) (Contents) ...... 109

Figure 2.8: Nottingham, University of Nottingham, MS WLC/LM/38 (MS Wh) (Contents) .... 109

Figure 2.9: Comparison of Paraphs ...... 110

Figure 2.10: Comparison of Scripts ...... 111

Figure 2.11: Comparison of Similar Letterforms ...... 112

Figure 2.12 Comparison of Different Letterforms ...... 112

Figure 2.13: Comparison of Dialect Profiles ...... 113

Figure 3.1: NLS, MS Advocates 19.2.1 (“Auchinleck”) (Contents by Booklet) ...... 127

Figure 3.2: CCCC, MS 50 (Contents by Booklet) ...... 144

Figure 3.3: BL, MS Add. 45103 (Penrose Manuscript) (Contents by Booklet) ...... 146

Figure 3.4: Other Independent Booklets (Contents) ...... 157

Figure 4.1: BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix (Contents by Booklet)...... 185

Figure 4.2: BL, MS Harley 4196 (Contents by Booklet) ...... 186

Figure 4.3: Description of Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B (Contents) ...... 207

Figure 4.4: Description of BodL, MS Douce 156 (Contents) ...... 208

Figure 4.5: Characteristics of the Trinity Scribe in Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B ...... 209

Figure 4.6: Characteristics of the Trinity Scribe in BodL, MS Douce 156 ...... 212

List of Abbreviations

BL London, British Library

BodL Oxford, Bodleian Library

Camb. Cambridge (for Cambridge colleges)

CCCC Cambridge, Corpus Christi College

CUL Cambridge, Cambridge University Library

EETS, ES Early English Text Society, Extra Series

EETS, OS Early English Text Society, Original Series

IMEV Carleton Brown and Rossell Hope Robbins, eds., The Index of Middle English Verse (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942); John L. Cutler and Rossell Hope Robbins, eds., Supplement to the Index of Middle English Verse (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1965).

LAEME A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English 1150-1325, Margaret Laing and Roger Lass, eds., (Edinburgh: The University of Edinburgh, 2007), .

LALME Angus McIntosh, M.L. Samuels, and Michael Benskin, A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1985).

ME Middle English

ModE Modern English

MED The Electronic Middle English Dictionary (based on Robert E. Lewis, gen. ed., Middle English Dictionary [Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1953-2001], The Middle English Compendium (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service, 2001), .

NLS Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland

OED Oxford English Dictionary Online (based on Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edn. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994]), (Oxford University Press, 2005), .

xii

List of Appendices

Appendix ...... 237

Transcriptions of MSS Lm, C, N, Wh ...... 237

St. Alphege, ll. 39-116 ...... 237

Pilate, ll. 247-262 ...... 240

St. Mary the Egyptian, ll. 1-64 ...... 241

St. Bridget, ll. 5-25, 39-59 ...... 244

xiii 1

Introduction

This dissertation studies three important textual projects that speak to the conditions of Middle English literary production from 1280-1415: the West Midlands collections of saints’ lives compiled at the end of the thirteenth century known as the South English Legendary; NLS Advocates 19.2.1 (Auchinleck), a compilation of romances, historical and religious texts copied by six scribes in London in the 1330s; and the Prick of Conscience, an anonymous penitential treatise from the north of England and one of the most widely produced Middle English texts of the second half of the fourteenth century. Although these textual projects differ in date, genre, origin and form, they show how certain elements—local resources, the availability of exemplars, the organization and training of scribes, and techniques of book-making—contributed to and sustained the development of a national Middle English literary culture.

1 The Conditions of Middle English Literary Production

Over the last twenty years, studies conducted by manuscript scholars Ralph Hanna III, Derek Pearsall, Julia Boffey, A. S. G. Edwards, Linne Mooney, Elaine Treharne, Kathryn Kerby- Fulton, Susanna Fein and literary scholars interested in the physical form of texts such as Martha Rust, Elizabeth Bryan, and Jessica Brantley have drawn attention to the “situatedness” of medieval literature in a physical context different to that of modern editions. As Pearsall argues in the introduction to New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript Studies, “codices are no longer treated as inert witnesses to a culture whose character has already been determined by the modern scholar, but are active participants in a process of exploration and discovery.”1 Consequently, central to this dissertation is a methodology that connects techniques of bibliographic description including dialect analysis, comparison of layout and booklet structure,

1 Pearsall, introduction to New Directions in Later Medieval Manuscript Studies, xi.

2 and identification of scribal hands with a holistic examination of how texts were produced and circulated.

Approaches linking bibliographical and literary studies have shed light upon manuscript production post-1350, a period commonly identified as

a watershed for literary history, when, in the wake of plague and seemingly endless hostilities with France, a large number of Latin and French texts were newly translated, and a great many writers who might previously have composed works in Latin or French began to do so in English—the most famous of them, the well-connected Chaucer.2

Middle English literature emerges during this period, scholars working in this field claim, because by 1350 English institutions had the cultural capital to underwrite the production, standardization, and dissemination of texts in the vernacular. It is not until the 1350s, for example, that scholars first identify the London guilds of the Textwriters and Limners in records, and later still, in 1373 and 1403 respectively, that the Scriveners and Stationers organized and amalgamated the interests of some book producers. The previous century and a half, by contrast, has been remarkably neglected: although scholars such as Treharne and Christopher Cannon have drawn attention to Middle English literature from 1066-1350 (often described as early Middle English), few monographs have been devoted to a codicological examination of the corpus produced in the late-thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries. When scholars address early Middle English literature, they tend to characterize it as “singular and precarious,” “[isolated] from immediate vernacular models and examples,” “fragmented” and made up of “the débris of an old literature…mixed in with the imperfectly processed materials of a new.”3 In current literary history, the “watershed” of the 1350s comes as a fait accompli: the study of the conditions of literary production which produced this transition from limited to continuous Middle English production in the fourteenth century remains a noticeable gap. An important goal of this dissertation, then, is to come to a better understanding of the continuity between the models for the production and circulation of Middle English texts before 1350 and after; but a second and equally important goal of my research is to nuance claims regarding the singularity,

2 Gillespie and Wakelin, introduction to The Production of Books in England, 4. 3 Respectively, Hahn, “Early Middle English,” 91; Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature, 2; Hanna, “Miscellaneity and Vernacularity,” 47; and Shepherd, “Early Middle English Literature,” 81.

3 isolation, fragmentation, miscellaneity and dearth of Middle English texts in England’s trilingual literary culture.

When assessing the conditions of literary production from 1280-1415, I find two main sets of characterizations that dominate our understanding of Middle English literary culture. The first, as Cannon argues, identifies the “startling condition” of early Middle English texts in “their profound isolation from immediate vernacular models and examples, from any local precedent for the business of writing English.”4 Cannon builds upon the work of Thomas Hahn, who notes that standard literary histories tend to describe early Middle English writing as “a distinctive, self-contained phenomenon.”5 Both Cannon and Hahn use the apparent distinctiveness and isolation of early Middle English writing to contest the persistent marginalization of early Middle English texts for their general roughness and unfamiliarity to modern readers. For Cannon, early Middle English texts appear individualistic, anomalous, and strange to the modern eye because medieval literary categories and “informing” precedents are different from our own and because early Middle English texts lack a direct or “lineal” relationship to one another.6 Other scholars maintain this sense of a fragmented Middle English literary tradition made up of anomalous texts prior to 1350. Edwards and Boffey echo Cannon and Hahn when they state that

the extraordinary efflorescence of what has come to be termed “Ricardian poetry” (to which could be added “Ricardian prose”) constitutes a sudden richness against which the achievement of much earlier literature looks fragmented and relatively undistinguished.7

One consequence of this is that the division between early Middle English texts and late Middle English texts has persisted, giving the (false) impression that early Middle English texts are distinct in part because they were produced on their own: self-contained and isolated from a tradition (or series of traditions) that would have produced a more commonly recognized and replicable form.

4 Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature, 2. 5 Hahn, “Early Middle English,” 61. 6 Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature, 3. 7 Boffey and Edwards, “Middle English Literary Writings,” 381.

Hanna offers a second approach to understanding Middle English texts and the conditions of their production which, despite its emphasis on codicological rather than literary forms, overlaps usefully with Cannon’s. Hanna privileges surviving manuscripts as the fundamental points of access to medieval literary cultures, and he argues that, in the fourteenth century, England’s literary culture stemmed from two linked characteristics: vernacularity and miscellaneity. For Hanna, vernacular modes of book production in the fourteenth century contrast with Latinate modes of production, which tend to be

supported by clearly demarcatable transmission networks generally supported by one or another sort of professional affiliation (schools, orders, legal institutions, etc.). These, almost automatically, prescribe more fixed notions of appropriate literary production, of canonical texts and presentations.8

Vernacular texts, on the other hand, have “no single literary canon and, consequently, no single set of institutions to stimulate literary activity and to mandate various forms of more or less standardized book production.”9 Middle English literature, he argues, constitutes a “fragmented terrain” shaped by the efforts of “individuals variously inserted into discrete and fragmented social positions.”10

Hanna’s perspective extends and concretizes Cannon’s approach. Whereas Cannon argues that the “literary” form of vernacular texts manifests both process and attitude, Hanna sees the shape of the text as an extension of identifiable physical processes: the dearth of readily available exemplars forced scribes to alter their production methods, causing them to use, for example, booklets as tools to divide up copying and delay decisions about the final contents and order of a given manuscript.11 Likewise, the lack of “clearly demarcatable transmission networks” contributed to the miscellaneous, anomalous nature of many late medieval English manuscripts because the uses and reading contexts for those texts would have varied from instance to instance. Here, Hanna uses the notion of “canonicity” to think about both the processes motivating manuscript production and the result of those processes. The Latin “canon” of texts,

8 Hanna, “Miscellaneity and Vernacularity,” 48. 9 Ibid., 47. 10 Ibid., 47. 11 The use of “booklets” in Middle English literary production is a topic I will return to throughout this dissertation. I lay out Hanna’s theory of booklets in more detail in Chapter 1, Section 3.

5 he suggests, was singular and fixed whereas the Middle English “canon” was fragmented and shifting. Hanna’s desire to differentiate between Middle English and Latin “canons” (a problematic term in its own right12) finds general support, for example, in Rodney Thomson’s research into the contents of medieval monastic libraries:

In looking at booklists and at the contents of surviving manuscripts of known locality from [c. 1100-1150], one is immediately struck by the impression of sameness, and if one’s view were extended to material of the same sort from the Continent, that impression would not change. The making of books and collections in English religious houses was part of a pan-European enterprise, in which the “core” books regarded as the most desirable to possess varied little from centre to centre, or country to country.13

In contrast to the “core” of Latin books held by English religious houses, we cannot identify a “core” or “canon” of Middle English texts similarly regarded as most desirable to possess. Nevertheless, this dissertation will argue that the binary opposition between Latin and vernacular bookmaking cultures represents an oversimplification, one that continues to persist in current scholarship.

Cannon and Hanna offer useful contributions to our understanding of the conditions of Middle English literary production, but they do so using frameworks that emphasize singularity, isolation, fragmentation and paucity. I contrast these approaches with the approach Neil Cartlidge brings to bear on two thirteenth-century miscellaneous manuscripts: Oxford, Jesus College, MS NIS 29(II) and BL, MS Cotton Caligula A.ix. These two manuscripts share nine Middle English and Anglo-Norman texts in common including the famous Owl and the Nightingale, several hagiographical texts and a series of religious lyrics.14 Cartlidge notes scholars frequently look for clues to the social contexts and circumstances of the production of these two manuscripts in their contents. However, he concludes that the contents of a manuscript alone are often insufficient to support assumptions about authorship or readership: “One may speculate,” he writes, “that [these manuscripts] were read in a friary, a convent, a cathedral chapter, a magnate’s court or the household of a country gentleman; but the contents of the

12 I recognize that the term “canon” has been used loosely in Middle English literary studies. In Chapter 4, Section 2.1 I outline in more detail how the concept of “canonization” might be applied specifically to manuscript production. 13 Thomson, “Monastic and Cathedral Book Production,” 140. 14 Cf. Cartlidge, “The Composition and Social Context.”

6 manuscripts are not specialized enough to support any of these hypotheses.”15 This conclusion comes as a corrective to scholars such as Norman Blake who theorized that the contents of a manuscript could point conclusively to the social forces which produced it.16 According to Cartlidge, these two manuscripts illustrate the “fluidity of cultural and social identities in this period.”17 Importantly, he argues,

Perhaps we too readily assume the existence of deep cultural divisions between various groups in medieval society and should be more willing to recognize the mutual interrelationship of different types of literary activity.18

Cartlidge’s willingness to open up the social contexts of the two manuscripts offers a different understanding of Middle English literary culture in the thirteenth century. These two early Middle English manuscripts were not singular and isolated productions: they were linked by the circulation of shared texts. Nor do they privilege vernacularity as a special mode of writing, for they were likely produced in a religious house of some kind where Middle English texts were read alongside Anglo-Norman and Latin texts. Lastly, they do not show the specialized interests of certain reading communities, for they may have circulated among the laity or the secular clergy outside of the institutional setting in which they were produced. Manuscripts such as Oxford, Jesus College, NIS 29(II) and BL, MS Cotton Caligula A.ix point toward a complex literary milieu where the social situations of authors, producers and readers were interpenetrative rather than discrete and fragmented.

2 Understanding “English” Writing: The Iceberg Model

Building upon Cartlidge’s understanding of Middle English texts, this dissertation argues that the production of Middle English literature in the period can better be understood according to an “iceberg model.” Using this model, we can imagine England’s literary milieu(x) to consist of complex and dynamic interactions between authors, producers and readers in multiple languages and in a variety of social settings. If we view Middle English texts as self-contained objects (as

15 Ibid., 262. 16 Cf. Blake, The English Language in Medieval Literature, 61. 17 Cartlidge, “The Composition and Social Context,” 262. 18 Ibid.

Cannon and Hahn do), then they might appear as isolated outcroppings in the same way that the spars of an iceberg visible above the surface of the water appear as isolated outcroppings. However, if we look beneath the surface, we see a massive body that connects these outcroppings. When we speak of the grounds of English literature, we cannot only look at the outcroppings; we must take into account the vast set of interrelated activities which undergird those manuscripts which survive today. I argue that the production of Middle English texts and books ought to be seen as an extension of, firstly, the production of manuscripts and texts in other languages such as Latin and Anglo-Norman, and, secondly, other kinds of textual production including documents and religious manuscripts.

Toward the first point, I find that Cartlidge’s conclusions regarding the fluidity of cultural boundaries suggest a similar dismantling of rigid paradigms of linguistic separation. For example, critics such as David Lawton have criticized Cannon’s approach for neglecting England’s “polyglot cultural space.”19 Elaine Treharne, in particular, has offered an extended critique of Cannon’s approach: she argues that although Cannon highlights neglected texts of the early Middle English period, nevertheless, he ignores English writings in over a hundred surviving codices produced c. 1060-c. 1200.20 Illustrative of this neglect are Cannon’s comments concerning the period post-Conquest:

Even in the twelfth century most of the survivals in English that we have been willing to call literary are fragments, snippets of poetry which sneak into texts in other languages.… No work of literature of any length has been identified until the middle of the twelfth century (perhaps the earliest is the 700-line Proverbs of Alfred (c. 1150)), but even such length provides no evidence that a significant vernacular impulse has taken home.21

In this passage, Cannon draws attention to the “fragmentation” of early Middle English texts, their lack of literary value, and their appearance predominantly in manuscripts of other languages as evidence that no “significant vernacular impulse” existed during this period. However, Treharne has shown a significant impulse to produce in the vernacular, although it often takes

19 Lawton, review of The Grounds of English Literature, 821. 20 Treharne, Living Through Conquest, 96-97. For this corpus see Orietta Da Rold, Takako Kato, Mary Swan and Elaine Treharne, The Production and Use of English, 1060 to 1220 (University of Leicester, 2010): http://www.le.ac.uk/ee/em1060to1220/. 21 Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature, 19.

8 forms neglected by scholars such as Cannon: these texts, she writes “are not poetic; and most are not original, since the texts are generally based on pre-existing works, particularly homilies and particularly those of Aelfric.”22 She criticizes a perspective that responds to the modernist prejudice against translation as an expression of cultural agency.23 Although this dissertation does not address post-Conquest production (c. 1066-1200) in considerable detail, I want to acknowledge that the justification for marginalizing works from this early period tend to also be used by scholars studying the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.

A framework that privileges the English vernacular can also skew our understanding of how manuscripts and texts were produced in the period. Elizabeth Tyler and others have drawn attention to scholarship spearheaded by Ian Short and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne that challenges the notion that English literature in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was synonymous with literature written in English.24 Ardis Butterfield has drawn attention to the fluidity of meaning of “French” and “English” as cultural and linguistic categories in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; Butterfield notes rigid models for understanding language categories like “French” and “Anglo-French” fall apart into “shifting, porous and, most importantly shared forms.”25 Using an approach that recognizes the fluidity of cultural and linguistic models, Butterfield addresses Chaucer’s multilingualism, produced by his position as a francophone reader and by England’s literary culture in general which she frames as the product of Anglo-French interchange.

Following Tyler, Short, Wogan-Browne and Butterfield, I argue we ought to put pressure on the privileged place of the English vernacular. Medieval writers had developed specific attitudes

22 Treharne, Living Through Conquest, 95. 23 Lawrence Venuti is one voice critiquing this privileging of originality over adaptation in The Translator’s Invisibility. Rita Copeland has also contributed to our understanding of how translation and commentary exist at the ideological nexus of history, authority and power in her important monograph Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation in the Middle Ages. 24 Cf. Tyler, “Where is the Ground in Literature?” 408-411. For an examination of the role of French in England see, importantly, Short, “On Bilingualism in Anglo-Norman England” and the edited collection Language and Culture in Medieval Britain. See also Kibbee’s monograph on a historical perspective of French instruction and usage in England, For to Speke Frenche Trewely. For an analysis of the distinction between continental and Anglo-French speakers, see Rothwell, “Arrivals and Departures.” The recent Cambridge Companion to Early Medieval English Literature does a great deal to address the privileging of the English vernacular in the study of the early English period by extending the frame of reference to include Latin, Anglo-Scandinavian, Gaelic, Welsh and Continental literatures. 25 Butterfield, The Familiar Enemy, 2.

9 toward vernacular writing, which, as Fiona Somerset points out, sometimes posited the vernacular as a subaltern or local language or style, one accessible to a non-elite group that simultaneously marked it negatively as provincial, rustic or rudimentary or, more positively, as “kynde” or natural, granting the language a symbolic originary status. Nevertheless, Somerset argues that, in practice, claims about the vernacular were volatile and functioned as rhetorical devices rather than practical strategies for the creation of books or texts.26 Similarly, Alastair Minnis argues that medieval Latin was diametrically opposed to Middle English in theory and not necessarily in practice.27 Scholars including Wicker and Salter have argued that “the interaction between English and other languages should be considered as complex cultural processes instead of binaristic confrontations.”28 Although this dissertation takes Middle English texts as a starting point, I will put these texts in conversation with texts and manuscripts in Anglo-Norman and Latin in order to undo some of the assumptions regarding vernacular book production as an inherently special or privileged field of study.

Toward my claim that Middle English literary production ought to be understood as an extension of other forms of book production, manuscript scholars have become increasingly attentive toward the interrelationship between documentary production, the production of religious books such as missals, breviaries, Bibles and the like, and the production of manuscripts containing literary or poetic texts. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries witnessed radical changes in the spread of literacy, the increased production of civil documents and use of records, and the corresponding increased production of liturgical books and literary texts first in Latin and Anglo- Norman, but, by the early fourteenth century, in Middle English as well. Whereas approximately 2,000 charters and writs survive from Anglo-Saxon England, the thirteenth century alone produced tens of thousands of such materials. The most extensive changes in the proliferation of documents, Michael Clanchy argues, occurred by the end of the thirteenth century as the initiative to use documents gradually made its way down the social scale: from kings to barons

26 Somerset and Watson, The Vulgar Tongue, ix-x. For a good discussion of the theory of vernacular writing in Middle English texts, see Wogan Browne et al, The Idea of the Vernacular. 27 Minnis, Translations of Authority, x-xi. 28 Salter, introduction to Vernacularity in England and Wales, 3.

10 by 1200, to knights by 1250 and to peasants by 1300.29 With this rise of documents, a corresponding rise in the production of books of both learned and literary works occurred as religious and laypeople became more comfortable with the habit of using and possessing books and literacy rates rose.30 Parkes claims that “by 1400 the principal difference between the court and the increasing bourgeoisie was one of taste, not of literacy.”31 He concludes:

The extent of literacy among the laity of the Middle Ages must always be a matter for debate, but in my opinion the tendency has been to underestimate it. The general pattern of the evidence indicates that from the thirteenth century onward increasing reliance and importance was placed upon the written word. This was accompanied by the growth of the reading habit, checked only by the high price of a book or by the necessarity to write it for oneself. The growth of the reading habit gave rise to an increasing literary awareness.32

By the fifteenth century, for example, a class of gentry readers appears to have arisen including members such as the Yorkshire landowner Robert Thornton, who assembled his own anthologies of religious, medical and literary texts.33

I argue that just as we ought not to privilege the vernacular, so too we ought not to privilege the literary as a fundamentally separate form of production. As I will show throughout this dissertation, the production of Middle English manuscripts and texts tended to occur in areas where other forms of book production were concentrated because those areas would be richest in terms of commercial resources (parchment, vellum, ink), textual resources (available exemplars and sources), and human resources (trained scribes, bookbinders, illuminators); these resources would have necessarily been utilized in the production of a range of different kinds of texts and books, of which literary or poetic texts would only have been a small subset. Speaking to this, Linne Mooney and others have drawn attention to the potential overlap between categories of copiers in late-fourteenth-century and early-fifteenth-century London:

29 Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record, 76. 30 A. I. Doyle traced the production of manuscripts for courtly and noncourtly readers in “English Books in and out of ‘Court.’” For fifteenth-century “middle-class” literacy, see Parkes, “Literacy of the Laity” and Radulescu, “Literature” in Gentry Culture in Late-Medieval England. 31 Parkes, “The Literacy of the Laity,” 567. 32 Ibid., 571. 33 Cf. Thompson, Robert Thornton and the London Thornton Manuscript.

monastic scribes and clerics…. Writers of Court Letter or scriveners, who would be regulated by the Scriveners’ Company and were notaries public and attorneys; Textwriters, who would be members of the Textwriters’ and Limners’ Gild, later the Stationers’ Gild; freelance scribes working full-time at copying but doing so in the suburbs of London or in liberties within the walls, so they need not be members of the Stationers’ Gild; and government scribes, who appear to have sometimes worked part- time as textwriters to earn extra income.34

She emphasizes that those involved in the royal and civic bureaucracy of the city of London played a major role in the circulation of Middle English texts:

Until mid fifteenth century, then, it appears that the scribes who produced copies of vernacular literary texts in London and its vicinity were either men who worked freelance outside the city’s jurisdiction or in liberties within the city, or men who worked as clerks for various royal or civic offices, taking on copying in addition to their other jobs.35

These professional scribes include Adam Pinkhurst who worked for the Mercers’ Company and as a clerk of the Guildhall; Thomas Hoccleve who may have worked as a clerk in the Office of the Privy Seal; John Marchaunt, the Common Clerk of the City from 1399 to 1417, and Richard Osbern, the Clerk of the Chamber of the City from 1400 to 1438. If we look earlier we may find a similar connection between the production of books and the production of documents in the figure of the scribe of BL, MS Harley 2253 who operated from 1314 to 1349. In addition to copying two other manuscripts—BL, MSS Royal 12.C.xii and Harley 273—this scribe also copied a number of legal documents. Carter Revard hypothesizes that he may have served as parish chaplain in Virgin’s Chapel in the parish Church of St. Bartholomew.36

An underlying assumption in my approach, which emerges out of this research into documentary, religious and literary manuscripts, is that we ought to expand our definition of the category of “literary” texts to include texts such as the South English Legendary and the Prick of Conscience which traditionally have been excluded due to assessments of their poor quality or lack of merit. In his study of medieval English writers, Burrow, for example, eschews any direct discussion of the Prick of Conscience because he would prefer to “leave grammarians to dispute

34 Mooney, “Locating Scribal Activity in Late-Medieval London,” 203. 35 Mooney, “Vernacular Literary Manuscripts and their Scribes,” 206. 36 Revard, “Scribe and Provenance,” 22.

12 whether the Prick of Conscience and the rest are literature.”37 Derek Pearsall too describes it as a text of “vast length” and only “tediously competent execution,” unable to reconcile its lack of literary merits with its wide circulation.38 However, over the last twenty-five years manuscript studies have begun to challenge traditional assumptions about what constituted England’s literary culture in the late medieval period and scholars such as Hanna have strongly advocated using manuscript studies to “replace a spent Old Literary History.”39 I want to move away from traditional evaluations of the literary quality of medieval texts in order to broaden the range of what we might consider to be part of Middle English literary culture. Scholars such as Hanna and Steiner have shown, for instance, that the bureaucratic and documentary culture of London impinged upon literary authors such as Langland and Chaucer in important ways;40 Mooney and Stubbs’s work on the London Guildhall as a repository for literary texts supports these connections at a material level.41 Consequently, this dissertation posits that an understanding of Middle English literary culture must take into account works which blur the distinction between literary and non-literary categories.

3 Rethinking England’s National Literary Cultures

One final aspect to consider is how scholars think about the emergence of England’s “national” literary culture in the late Middle Ages. The traditional account of the literary history (Hanna’s “Old Literary History”) posits that Middle English literary culture developed on a national level in the late medieval period, with Geoffrey Chaucer as the titular “Father of English Literature” and England’s first national poet laureate.42 While I agree with many points of this narrative—

37 Burrow, Medieval Writers and their Work, 20. 38 Pearsall, Old English and Middle English Poetry, 139. 39 Hanna, “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 91. Steven Justice’s article “Literary History” in Fein and Raybin’s edited collection Chaucer: Contemporary Approaches neatly lays out the way in which this has begun to happen as interest in textual production, reproduction, and transmission have “dispersed settled and overconfident notions of of both the literary work and its audience” (200). 40 See, for instance, Hanna, London Literature, especially Chapter 2 on London’s legal/bureaucratic culture, and Steiner, Documentary Culture and the Making of Medieval English Literature for the rich intersection between legal documents and the production of literature. 41 Cf. Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City. 42 For an examination of Chaucer’s laureate status and the interdependence of political and poetic authority, see Scanlon, “Poets Laureate and the Language of Slaves.” It is useful to note, as Meyer-Lee does, that it was the poets practicing after 1400—in particular, John Lydgate—who retroactively fashioned Chaucer as England’s first poet

13 that the circumstances of production at the end of the fourteenth century were different from the beginning and that the works of Chaucer, at least by the mid-fifteenth century, had obtained a special cultural status—nevertheless, this dissertation proposes that we re-examine what we mean by “national” literary culture and how we imagine texts participated in that culture. Here, I am interested in the mechanics of spread—how a text’s effect on the national literary landscape must be viewed as related to its ability to reach an audience. I argue England’s vernacular literary culture at the national level depended upon and emerged from local instances of production, the circulation of manuscripts and texts beyond their original site of production, and the institutional and cultural ties that facilitated the resulting network of textual exchange.

3.1 National Cultures, National Communities

When I refer to England’s “national” literary culture, I recognize that although I intend the term in a primarily geographical sense, it is also inflected by the current critical assessment of nationalism in the Middle Ages. Traditional assessments of the idea of a national literary culture have taken as a starting point Benedict Anderson’s influential monograph which locates the origins of modern nationalism in the late-eighteenth century when a “spontaneous distillation of a complex ‘crossing’ of discrete historical forces” formed a “modular” conception of nationhood “capable of being transplanted, with varying degrees of self-consciousness, to a great variety of social terrains, to merge and be merged with a correspondingly wide variety of political and ideological constellations.”43 Medievalists, however, have critiqued Anderson’s characterization of the medieval period in this study. Lesley Johnson, for example, in her article “Imagining Communities: Medieval and Modern” criticizes Anderson for idealizing, homogenizing and mythicizing the medieval past when he characterizes it as a period of pre-nationalist thinking and imagining.”44 Suzanne Conklin Akbari, similarly, critiques the premise that the nation was only “emergent” during the Middle Ages; she suggests nationalism in all its forms is always in process and always emergent rather than contrasting medieval forms of nationalism with modern

laureate. See Meyer-Lee, Poets and Power, 25. Cannon similarly demonstrates how historical evaluations of Chaucer’s linguistic priority are both ambiguous and circular in The Making of Chaucer’s English. 43 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 4. 44 Johnson, “Imagining Communities,” 5.

14 forms of nationalism.45 Thorlac Turville-Petre in his monograph England the Nation put forward an influential expression of how England’s national identity had begun to express itself in the mid-thirteenth century:

We have seen that the sense of national identity in the mid-thirteenth century expressed itself in a rich diversity of forms. The nation had a territory, a history, a set of cultural traditions, a body of legal practices expressed in the Common Law, a single economy with a common coinage and taxation, and some concept of shared rights, even if that did not extend very far down the social scale.46

In turn, he identifies this expression of national identity in both the use of English as a literary language (“The use of English was a precondition of the process of deepening and consolidating the sense of national identity.”)47 and in a number of important texts (“English texts from this time are historical works, shaping a sense of nationhood by developing a consciousness of the nation’s past.”).48 The work of these scholars has been useful for thinking about the emergence of a Middle English national literary culture in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. But whereas Turville-Petre’s interest lies in the way elements of the English culture were expressed or defined through the interrelated use of language (the vernacular) and texts (primarily historical), my interest lies in how the material form of texts, the relationship of texts to the means of production and dissemination and the resulting numbers of texts in circulation contributed to the development of a national community of readers and writers.

My sense of the relationship between regional or national communities and literary production grounds itself in the notion of “community” which, as Helen Fulton notes, creates “a sense of common social and cultural identity which resists the territorialism of either nation or region.”49 Brian Stock models this in his study of interpretive communities, communities where the social organization of a group in some way responds to the literary interpretation of texts. In this case, the intersections of oral and literate understandings of texts create a network of

45 Akbari, “Orientation and Nation,” 122. 46 Turville-Petre, England the Nation, 8. 47 Ibid., 10. 48 Ibid., 14. 49 Fulton, “Regions and Communities,” 518.

15 interdependencies between the individual and the family, the group and the wider community.50 Both scholars suggest that the production and reading of texts offer a way of creating, sustaining social relationships within communities. But my interest in this dissertation is not in the mechanisms by which communities are created by reading, but rather the mechanisms of production that enable those reading communities to exist—that is, writing communities. I argue that a literary culture emerges as the production and circulation of texts creates and sustains a sense of community through reading (or listening to) texts, and that a national literary culture emerges when this sense of community extends beyond the local and the regional.

3.2 National Literary Cultures and the Circulation of Texts

I find three ways of looking at the relationship between the production and circulation of texts and the emergence of a national literary culture particularly useful. Michael Sargent in his recent essay “What Do the Numbers Mean?” questions how we might use the numbers of surviving manuscripts of a single text to gauge popularity and importance. He suggests that using numbers is difficult in part because numbers can only offer “a rough indication of the number originally produced,” and it is difficult to use even the number originally produced “as a gauge of the demand for copies in that age of bespoke book production.”51 In some cases this rough indication may be skewed by factors affecting survival such as the durability of certain formats (bound codices as compared to unbound codices or small-format manuscripts) and the interests of parties with the resources to ensure a greater chance of survival (monastic libraries, for example). As Sargent suggests, “the pattern of survival of the manuscripts of a medieval text is independent of its original pattern of dissemination, to a greater or lesser degree, and for different reasons for different texts.”52 Furthermore, he argues that production and demand cannot necessarily be mapped directly onto popularity and cultural importance, and he draws attention to the fact that the “Jack Straw” and “John Ball” verses were undoubtedly known by a greater number of the

50 Stock, The Implications of Literacy, 530. We might relate this to Fish’s argument: “Interpretive communities are made up of those who share interpretive strategies not for reading but for writing texts, for constituting their properties. In other words these strategies exist prior to the act of reading and therefore determine the shape of what is read rather than, as is usually assumed, the other way around” in Is There a Text in This Class?, 14. For a discussion of reading communities in medieval England, see Scase, “Reading Communities,” 557-73. 51 Sargent, “What Do the Numbers Mean?” 207. 52 Ibid., 208-9.

16 people in England than the Canterbury Tales. Nevertheless, as his study of several texts with high numbers of surviving manuscripts shows, a comprehensive examination of patterns of survival and dissemination can offer a good starting point for such inquiries and, in some cases, can offer insight into the nature of literary “best-sellers”53 in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, provided that we do not impose a “teleological narrative of the eventual ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of an author or text.”54

Secondly, Linne Mooney and Estelle Stubbs offer a model that maps the relationship of manuscript production to cultural importance in their recently released book Scribes and the City: London Guildhall Clerks and the Dissemination of Middle English Literature, 1375-1425 where they argue that one aspect of Chaucer’s positioning as the “Father of English Literature” was that his works “were among those of his generation produced in sufficient numbers to reach a wider audience.”55 From their work, we can see how the success of texts such as Piers Plowman and the Canterbury Tales, which survive in high numbers, might be plausibly connected to the means of production. In a ground-breaking article Mooney identified one of the scribes working on the Ellesmere and Hengwrt copies of the Canterbury Tales as Adam Pinkhurst, a professional who also worked for the Mercers Guild. She discovered his hand in a number of other documents including the famous 1387/8 petition of the Mercers to the King’s Council and the Common Paper of the London Company of Scriveners (1392). She posits that Pinkhurst had a “close working relationship with Chaucer” and that Chaucer

established one model for control over the publication of his works through employing over a long period of time [the mid-1380s to the end of his life] a single well-trained and trusted scrivener, Adam Pinkhurst, to write out the first fair copies of his works.56

53 I recognize that in borrowing the phrase from Sargent I am making use of a somewhat anachronistic term in part because the term “best-seller” suggests a specific way of thinking about the book trade that is largely shaped by the advent of the printing press and the development of a “market” for books. In this case, then, I am using the term “best-seller” to indicate the potential popularity of a text as inferred from the quantity of extant manuscripts. “Best- seller” in this case does not necessarily imply literary quality (either positively or negatively), but rather suggests a relationship between a text, the size of the potential audience, and the means of production. 54 Ibid., 222. 55 Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City, publisher’s blurb. 56 Mooney, “Chaucer’s Scribe,” 120, 122, respectively.

Edwards, Gillespie and Horobin have argued strenuously against the position that Pinkhurst was Chaucer’s personal scribe, instead suggesting that he produced Chaucer’s works without direct authorial oversight.57 Although scholars have noted that the evidence for Chaucer’s working relationship with Pinkhurst is circumstantial, nevertheless, the identification of Adam Pinkhurst prompted a renewed interest in the identification of scribes and the exploration of their immediate milieu as a way to recover the network of producers, patrons and authors that might allow an author to become a “best-seller.”58 In Chaucer’s case, we can imagine an individual who was well-positioned to succeed because of his proximity to both cultural centres of power (the court) and to an emerging network of copiers (the royal and civic bureaucracy, clerks of the Guildhall, etc.).

But the numbers of texts and even position to centres of power and networks of production are insufficient alone to explain Chaucer’s success. A third aspect which interests me is how elements of the material form of texts condition their reception as cultural objects. Within fourteenth-century literary production, these aspects of the text would have been performed by the physical manuscript.59 The configurations of spatial representation, the deployment of titles, running headers, images, initials, the inclusion of attributions, authorial or authoritative—these elements of book form condition a text to be read as either canonical or spurious. My reading of the function of the material form of the text takes a cue from Gillespie’s argument that representations of Chaucer and Lydgate as authors mediated the process by which books were produced in commercial contexts and shaped the culture of late medieval England. Drawing heavily upon Bourdieu, Chartier, and Lerer, she posits that the figure of the author “organizes

57 For the debate regarding the significance of the identification, see Gillespie, “Reading Chaucer’s Words to Adam,” Edwards, “Chaucer and ‘Adam Scriveyn’” and Roberts, “On Giving Scribe B a Name.” For further modifications to Mooney’s proposal, see Horobin, “Adam Pinkhurst, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the Hengwrt Manuscript” and “Manuscript and Scribes.” 58 For a guide to identifying hands, see Mooney, “Professional Scribes?” in New Directions in Medieval Manuscript Studies. For an important exchange regarding the criteria for identifying scribal hands, particularly in relationship to Pinkhurst, see Fletcher, “The Criteria for Scribal Attribution” and Horobin’s rebuttal and re-examination in “The Criteria for Scribal Attribution: Reconsidered.” Of particular interest in the work of Gillespie, Roberts, and Fletcher is the way in which a notion of “canonicity” has become attached to the copying of Adam Pinkhurst, a topic I return to in Chapter 4. 59 I acknowledge that these aspects of the text might also have been performed by oral/aural/performative dimensions of texts, which are in many cases not as easily recovered. For an excellent study of the fragments of oral poetics discoverable in the poetry of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, see Amodio, Writing the Oral Tradition.

18 and markets textual material, assigns it value, licenses it, sanctions it, or marks it out as illicit.”60 Printers made use of the idea of Chaucer as author to assign “a particular value to the goods they sold” but, at the same time, this value was not fixed; it was “available for the multiple determinations of multiple customers, for the assignment of new values and the overturning of intended ones.”61 It must be noted that the dynamics of commercial book production in print culture are different in important ways from the dynamics of manuscript culture. In a period in which many texts were anonymous, however, other features of the book performed the function of organizing, marketing, sanctioning and assigning value to the text. Although these differences in context must be noted, Gillespie’s approach shows features of the book conditioned its cultural value and allowed for participation in England’s literary culture.

The approaches offered by Mooney and Stubbs, Sargent and Gillespie, when placed in productive conversation with one another, begin to sketch out a way to understand the conditions of book production that supported the slow and uneven emergence of Middle English literary culture in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Sargent suggests that although the numbers of surviving manuscripts can only be a rough guide to “popularity” and “importance,” nevertheless a holistic approach to a text’s manuscript tradition offers some indications of the places and periods in which production was most concentrated. Mooney and Stubbs show that underpinning these concentrated moments of production are recoverable networks of textual exchange between poets, patrons and producers. Lastly, Gillespie argues elements of the book itself speak to how producers envisaged the cultural status of the texts they copied and the books they made.

4 Re-Imagining the Grounds of English Literature

In many ways, then, this sense of the development of England’s national literary community throughout the fourteenth century comes as a corrective to Cannon’s sense of literary history developed in The Grounds of English Literature. For Cannon, the twelfth, thirteenth and early

60 Gillespie, Print Culture and the Medieval Author, 5. Her framework depends particularly upon Bourdieu who argues “it can only be an unjustifiable abstraction...to seek the source of the understanding of cultural productions in these productions themselves, taken in isolation and divorced from the conditions of their production and utilization” in Homo Academicus, xvii. Gillespie augments the conclusions of Lerer’s study Chaucer and his Readers in which he elucidates how Chaucer was created as a “canonical” figure in the fifteenth century. 61 Ibid., 16.

19 fourteenth centuries offered works produced in “splendid isolation” which are to be valued by scholars “above all for [their] rarity.”62 From the mid-fourteenth century onward, and exemplified by the production of the Auchinleck romances, he argues, the “richness” of English literature came to an end

as literary variety was replaced by a single idea of literature and, thus, a single, normative form.…Such a dramatic change was only possible as English writing came to assume some aggregated shape, as there was finally enough writing in English for all of that writing to constitute a form—in short, for literature in English to have achieved that “primitive accumulation” sufficient to produce a “revolution.”63

Like Cannon, I argue that England’s Middle English literary culture arose (or accumulated) slowly and unevenly throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, fostered in areas such as London, York, Worcester and Gloucester, to name a few, where there existed sufficient resources and sufficient demand to produce books in numbers.64 A national literary community emerged as these local or regional pockets of production became connected through the circulation of manuscripts and texts and the movement of scribes and as an effort was made to stabilize and replicate the form of some texts. However, Cannon frames his discussion of this change from variety to a single, normative form through the study of Middle English romances, which he argues are important because “for the first time after the Conquest, some writing in English actually knows of such multiplicity.”65 My approach differs from Cannon’s in that I do not believe it was only during the fourteenth century that English writings were sufficiently numerous in a single genre to form an aggregated shape, but that this appears to have happened with more frequency in the late Middle Ages.66 Nor do I believe that this aggregated shape ever

62 Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature, 11, 9, respectively. 63 Ibid., 13. 64 The scholarship regarding regional production of English books in the Middle Ages is substantial. A selective list I have found particularly useful includes Scase’s edited volume Essays in Manuscript Geography; Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries; Friedman, Northern English Books; and Hanna, London Literature. Certain regions including the West Midlands (Chapter 2), London (Chapter 3) and the north (Chapter 4) will be discussed in more detail throughout this dissertation. 65 Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature, 173. 66 Here, again, I would refer the reader to Treharne’s comments on the presence of over 200 manuscripts containing English homilies in the post-Conquest period in Living Through Conquest.

20 fully replaced literary variety or produced a single, normative form; rather, this aggregated shape was flexible, in flux, continually produced and continually resisted.

Thus far, I have laid out four central premises which constitute my understanding of England’s vernacular literary culture from 1280-1415. To summarize briefly, they are as follows:

1. England’s vernacular literary culture was shaped by the relationship between manuscripts and texts. 2. The manuscript-producing activities of secular and religious manuscript users, and of various institutions (monastic, fraternal, civil), were interpenetrative rather than discrete. 3. The production of Middle English manuscripts was never isolated from other languages and other kinds of textual production including documentary production and the production of religious books. 4. England’s vernacular literary culture at the national level depended upon and emerged from local instances of production, the circulation of manuscripts and texts beyond their site of production, and the institutional and cultural ties that facilitated the resulting networks of textual exchange.

There were numerous obstacles to the development of this national Middle English literary culture including dialect difference, the limited production resources employed for Middle English texts, and an initial absence of certain elements that might condition a text to be received as canonical such as the attribution of the text to an author. Nevertheless, certain texts such as Piers Plowman, the Prick of Conscience and the Canterbury Tales reached a critical threshold where they were produced in substantial numbers to overcome those resistances to a lesser or greater extent.67 Throughout this process, texts—even those texts produced in sufficient numbers that they began to achieve a certain recognizable cultural or “canonical” status68—remained in flux as they were rewritten, reshaped and their cultural status re-imagined in response to local

67 For a discussion of the numbers and circulation of these texts, see Sargent, “What do the Numbers Mean?” 68 For a sense of the “canonization” of certain medieval texts or authors, we can examine, for example, the lists of romances in the Auchinleck King Richard (ll. 7-28), or the Speculum Vitae (ll. 40-45) or the Laud Troy Book (ll. 15- 21). We might also turn to John Lydgate’s list of authors comparable to Chaucer in the “An Envoy to Duke Humphrey” (ll. 3401-14) from Book 9 of the Fall of Princes.

21 reading communities. This “accumulation” of texts—witnessed both by the extant manuscripts and from what we can glean about their production and circulation—does not represent the end of experimentation, but rather the point at which authors began to react increasingly to literature written predominantly in English as opposed to in French or Latin, although Middle English literature still remained in dialogue with the literatures of those languages well into the fifteenth century. As such, England’s national literary culture was never singular nor stable: rather it was the shifting and contested aggregate of a series of local moments of textual production and transmission.

Chapter 1 entitled, “Models of National Manuscript Production,” builds upon these four premises by examining in more detail the institutions and individuals who produced English manuscripts and texts in the late Middle Ages, thereby laying the groundwork for the analysis of individual textual projects in the subsequent three chapters. By examining the roles and practices of religious and lay scribes from 1100-1400, I argue that the same models used to produce Latin and Anglo-Norman manuscripts were also used to produce Middle English manuscripts. One model which I will attend to in some detail involves the production and circulation of small- format manuscripts—sometimes called booklets—alongside full codices. I argue that “booklet theory” as put forward by Pamela Robinson, Hanna and Gillespie offers us a way to imagine England’s lost culture of ephemeral texts, a culture that is frequently neglected because fewer small-format manuscripts survive. In the final section of this chapter, I demonstrate the way in which the models for producing and disseminating several important Middle English texts such as the Ormulum, the Ancrene Wisse, Robert Mannyng’s Handlyng Synne and Story of England and, lastly, the works of Richard Rolle may have determined or restricted their participation in England’s literary culture.

Chapter 2 examines early Middle English literary culture (1280-1350) by means of the South English Legendary, a text for which early survival rates are particularly high in comparison to other Middle English texts from the first half of the fourteenth century. The chapter will address how the circulation of the South English Legendary in the Southwest Midlands models two ways of regarding Middle English books: as “open” compilations subject to intervention, emendation, revision, and addition at various stages of production, and as “closed,” “fixed” or “canonical” entities to be reproduced and circulated in a single, consolidated form. I argue that the adaptation of both ways of thinking about Middle English texts contributed to the success of the collection,

22 on the one hand by allowing adaptation to local circumstances and on the other by facilitating reproduction, likely within the context of an institutional setting. In the final section, I argue that two manuscripts and two fragments of the South English Legendary produced from 1310-20 may have originated in an Augustinian scriptorium.

In Chapter 3 I turn from a single text that circulated widely with many extant witnesses to a single major Middle English miscellany: NLS, MS Advocates 19.2.1 (Auchinleck). The chapter reacts against scholarship which frames the Auchinleck manuscript as an “originary” or “anticipatory” moment in the history of English literature as a precursor to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Discussions of its codicology and possible circumstances of production have been used to support a narrative of English literary history which sees the rise of middle class consumers, the development of a bold and confidant vernacular voice and the triumph of secular literature over monastic literature: that is, a transition from the monastery to the marketplace. This chapter will broaden Auchinleck’s context by positioning it as an extension of Anglo-Norman and Latin book-making activities rather than an isolated phenomenon and also by demonstrating how books like Auchinleck were commissioned, produced and read by religious as well as laypeople. Lastly, this chapter will re-examine the booklet structure of Auchinleck to suggest that four booklets may have been initiated outside of the original plan for the codex, further linking the manuscript to a “compilatory” culture in which small-format manuscripts were used to build up larger codices.

In Chapter 4 I address one of the most overlooked texts in Middle English studies: the penitential treatise known as the Prick of Conscience, which emerged from the north of England in the mid- fourteenth century. Despite the survival of over 120 manuscripts and fragments—forty of which likely date from the fourteenth century alone—few monographs have been devoted to its study exclusively and little has been done to gauge its participation in and effect on England’s vernacular literary culture.69 This chapter argues that the Prick of Conscience was one of the first Middle English texts to achieve sufficient “critical mass” to become a “national text” in the sense that I have been using the term. The earliest surviving manuscripts of the Prick of Conscience

69 The first and only edition for close to one hundred and fifty years was Richard Morris’s The Pricke of Conscience (Stimulus Conscientiae).This has been aided by the recent publication of a TEAMS edition, from which I draw all my quotations, edited by James H. Morey and a soon to be published edition undertaken by Hanna and Sarah Wood, both of which, one hopes, will greatly facilitate scholarly engagement with the text.

23 were a regionally coherent group whose production and dissemination were centred in Yorkshire and the north, but it is clear that the manuscripts of the second half of the fourteenth century quickly spread throughout England, showing large concentrations in the West Midlands near Lichfield, and as far south as Wiltshire and Sussex.70 I will examine two clusters of scribes copying multiple manuscripts including the Prick of Conscience in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Firstly, I will look at a cluster of canons identified by Ralph Hanna who collaborated on four manuscripts of northern religious texts in Ripon. Secondly, I will turn to Lichfield, one of the most active copying clusters of the period. I will use these two examples to discuss the models by scribes who selected, replicated and disseminated the Prick of Conscience as a cultural object with increasing prestige attached to it in England’s literary culture. My investigation into the Lichfield scribes will, in turn, shed light upon Richard Scrope, Bishop of Lichfield and Chester from 1386 to 1398, as a possible patron for the production of the Vernon and Simeon manuscript, two of the largest and most elaborately decorated Middle English manuscripts of the fourteenth century.

It might be noted that in choosing these three textual projects, I have avoided two of the most well-known texts of the period: Langland’s Piers Plowman and Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. This choice is deliberate. The corpus of scholarship investigating the textual traditions and means of production of these two texts is deservedly extensive and has, in many ways, framed or underwritten my study; however, in choosing the South English Legendary, the Auchinleck manuscript and the Prick of Conscience I have purposefully selected texts that might be seen to occupy the interstitial space between literary and non-literary, between secular and religious, between commercial and non-commercial paradigms. In studying these three works, I have come to understand medieval literary production as a complex phenomenon which continually thwarts rigid schematization and rewards a flexible and interdisciplinary approach grounded in an understanding of the particular “situatedness” of medieval texts in their manuscript context.

70 This understanding of manuscript production and dialect spread is common. Linne Mooney describes it as the “big bang” of distribution of Middle English texts: that is, earlier copies originated closest to the author and then spread further if the work attracted sufficient attention to warrant it. See Mooney, “Vernacular Literary Manuscripts and their Scribes,” 206.

Chapter 1 Models of National Book Production

1 Introduction

This chapter aims to provide an overview of the models of national manuscript production in England, and, thereby, to lay the groundwork for the analysis of individual vernacular textual projects in Chapter 2 on the South English Legendary, Chapter 3 on the Auchinleck manuscript, and Chapter 4 on the Prick of Conscience. The argument I pursue in this chapter has three related components: firstly, that the production of Middle English books did not necessarily take place on the margins of English society but rather it tended to originate from areas where other forms of book-making were centralized; secondly, that the models used to organize the production of Middle English manuscripts and texts were in many cases similar to the models used to organize the production of Latin and Anglo-Norman books; and, thirdly, that the ad hoc production, circulation and compilation of small-format manuscripts both invigorated Middle English literary culture and provided the connective tissue between sites of production.

Toward the first point, a key theme I want to pursue in this chapter is the idea of the “marginalization” of Middle English book production. Here, I take Boffey and Edwards’s comments below as reflective of a general trend in medieval studies to frame Middle English writing as inherently marginal. When analysing the Auchinleck King Richard, Boffey and Edwards note that Middle English authors tend to preface their use of the vernacular in the form of an apology:

Such comments reveal a consciousness of marginalization that is reflected geographically in terms of the evidence of manuscript production for literary texts in English. This evidence suggests that these texts, at least in the early part of our period, very often originated in those areas farthest removed from the influence of Anglo-Norman culture, in particular remote from London and the surrounding area. It is only towards the end of the period that metropolitan networks and processes can be perceived as dominant models for the manufacture of manuscripts, and as significant alongside the linguistic and

literary aspects of cultural production. Up to this point, monasteries and other religious institutions had remained important as preservers and transmitters of a vernacular cultural heritage.71

What interests me about Boffey and Edwards’s comments is the way they position the production of texts in monasteries and other religious institutions as geographically marginal (and, thereby, culturally marginal) in comparison with the metropolitan networks and processes of book production established for Middle English texts by the end of the fifteenth century. This perspective is not entirely uncommon, particularly if we limit our field of inquiry to traditional Middle English “literary” texts such as the works of Chaucer or Langland—in which case, even a cursory glance at the evidence reveals that London is the major centre of production at the end of the fourteenth century and well into the fifteenth century.72 The studies of textual networks in London conducted by Linne Mooney, Estelle Stubbs, and Simon Horobin in their Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project to identify the scribes involved in major late-medieval English manuscripts tend to bear out this research. Increasingly, it seems possible to understand London’s literary milieu as a community of identified people such as John Marchant and Richard Osbarn whose relationships can be pinpointed with more precision.73 Within these studies, London continues to play a significant role, although Mooney, Stubbs, Horobin and others would agree that London was not the only place where Middle English literary production occurred.74 As early as the 1980s, A. I. Doyle recognized that the metropolitan book-trade overlapped with other forms of manuscript production that did not take place in London.75 Further to this, one might argue, as Hanna does, that up until the mid-

71 Edwards and Boffey, “Middle English Literary Writings,” 382. 72 For this position, see Mooney, “Locating Scribal Activity” and also Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City. 73 Important among these are the Late Medieval English Scribes project, based at the University of York and directed by Mooney, Horobin and Stubbs (http://www.medievalscribes.com/); the Manuscripts of the West Midlands project, based in the Department of English at the University of Birmingham and directed by Wendy Scase (http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/mwm/); the Manuscript Studies in an Interoperable Digital Environment project based at the University of Toronto,and John Hopkins Univerity and directed by Alexandra Gillespie and Stephen Nichols (http://www.stanford.edu/group/dmstech/cgi-bin/drupal/). For the identifications and discussions of the Guildhall scribes, see Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City. To the manuscripts indicative of networks of production identified by these projects, I would add Hanna’s useful handlist in “Pre-Fifteenth-Century Scribes.” 74 For one example, see Horobin’s identification of a Chichester scribe responsible for copying Piers Plowman in “The Scribe of Rawlinson Poetry 137.” 75 Doyle, “Retrospect and Prospect,” 145.

26 fourteenth century, the great majority of book production took place outside of London.76 It took place where the resources necessary for book production were most concentrated: in the twelfth century, it took place chiefly in areas where religious institutions had established concerted programmes of book-making; in the thirteenth century, it had expanded to include centres such as Oxford and, to a lesser extent, Cambridge, where the book trade developed in response to the demand for texts associated with the university; and in the fourteenth century it expanded again to include other centres of the civic bureaucracy such as London in addition to those locales previously mentioned.

I want to return to Boffey and Edwards’s comment, then, that the production of Middle English texts within religious houses during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was somehow a geographically or culturally marginal activity. To me, this does not seem to be the case because religious houses were major centres of textual culture before metropolitan book production became the dominant paradigm. As a result, I would like to reformulate this characterization to stress that Middle English texts produced in religious houses were not at the periphery of England’s literary culture but were, instead, at the centre of it. My point is not to criticize Boffey and Edwards’s excellent overview; rather, I suggest there is a danger in the way that critics commonly define the “centres” and the “margins” of book production in the Middle Ages. In this chapter, one of my goals is to dismantle to some extent the paradigm that frames Middle English book production as marginal and, instead, to position these book-making activities as more closely aligned to the centres of intellectual thought than we typically credit.

My investigation of models of book production begins in the eleventh- and twelfth-century monasteries and cathedrals during the heyday of the monastic scriptoria when major programmes of production and acquisition saw the development of the models of book-making that would stock the great libraries of Britain with books over the space of several hundred years. As part of this line of inquiry, I will examine the role of professional scribes in the production of books within religious scriptoria and in commercial centres. Throughout this examination, I track the trajectory of Anglo-Norman and Middle English texts within monasteries and religious institutions to show how they are an extension of England’s predominantly Latinate culture of

76 This is one of the central theses of Hanna’s monograph, London Literature.

27 book production. In the subsequent section of this chapter, I pursue a related line of inquiry: that an important way of producing and circulating Middle English texts in the late Middle Ages was by means of small-format manuscripts such as rolls, unbound quires or booklets. Small-format manuscripts, I will argue, provided the connective tissue between production in different localities because they could be produced cheaply and they could circulate easily.

2 Books, Bookmen, and Book-Making in the Middle Ages

The most well-known model for manuscript production in the Middle Ages is the monastic scriptorium. The eleventh and twelfth centuries witnessed major programmes of pan-European book production in scriptoria; consequently, it was during this period that the majority of those early institutional libraries were stocked with Bibles and liturgical books, the major texts of the Church Fathers, Latin classics, histories, scholastic textbooks and a range of Latin literary texts.77 By the thirteenth century, monastic book production had slowed as the need to provide large quantities of new books for the libraries themselves had generally diminished.78 Book production during this phase ceased to be, as Thomson calls it, a “corporate enterprise”—that is, a concerted and regular effort to produce new books sponsored at the institutional level.79 Instead, production shifted out of scriptoria and into lay workshops most frequently found in urban centres such as London, York and Oxford.

There are two general, related qualifications to this narrative that I will pursue throughout this section. The first is a terminological one: that although monastic scriptoria did flourish during

77 Examples of this phase of production can be seen, for example, in the Benedictine monastic cathedral at Rochester which saw the initial phase of production occur between 1107-1123, under the guidance of Archbishop Ernulf who expanded the library and scriptorium. See Richards, Medieval Library of Rochester Cathedral Priory and Waller’s unpublished dissertation, The Library, Scriptorium and Community of Rochester Cathedral Priory. For other examples, see Webber, Scribes and Scholars at Salisbury Cathedral; Gibson et al, The Eadwine Psalter and Mynors, Durham Cathedral Manuscripts. 78 This view was put forward by Denholm-Young in Handwriting in England and Wales and by Bell in “Monastic Libraries: 1400–1557.” 79 Thomson, “Monastic and Cathedral Book Production,” 168. Institutions like the Cistercian abbey of Buildwas and the Augustinian priory of Llanthony Priory, for example, appear to have produced fewer and fewer books as demonstrated by a survey of surviving book lists and catalogues. On Buildwas, see Sheppard, The Buildwas Books. Sheppard notes that the last major copying campaign at Buildwas took place between 1200-1230 (liii). For Llanthony Priory, see Bennett, The Book Collections of Llanthony Priory.

28 the eleventh and twelfth centuries, even during this phase there was no singular model for what a scriptorium might look like, how it might be organized, what physical space it might occupy, who worked there and how its book-making activities might relate to purchasing, lending and donation of other manuscripts used by the members of the monastery. Rodney Thomson offers a good description of what an eleventh-century scriptorium, broadly designated, might entail:

In some instances, notably at St Albans Abbey, it could mean an actual room or building, dedicated staff who might be paid professionals, not themselves monks, and continuously operating infrastructural support, such as specially allocated revenues. A scriptorium of this sort might operate, more or less continuously, for fifty years or more, and it might produce work on commission, for other communities or for individual prelates who were not members of the house itself. But this was probably rare. In most cases, one suspects, copying was done by the monks themselves, each new generation trained up by an older and skilled man, and the work ceased as soon as the community was felt to have adequate library resources, maybe after two to four decades.80

Thomson admits a fair amount of flexibility in his usage; instead of defining a scriptorium in terms of its physical location, he draws attention to the sense of organization and training that would have gone on in these communities. As Parkes argues, rooms described literally as scriptoria were rare. In the eleventh century, the abbot of St Albans built what he identifies as a “scriptorium” above the chapter house to accommodate itinerant scribes, but otherwise the word is not commonly used.81 In many cases scribes would not have worked together in a single room. Some copying may have taken place in a scribe’s cell as is the case for Carthusian monks.82 Copying may also have taken place in individual carrels, each of which would have been furnished with a seat, desk and bookshelf or cupboard. For example, in St. Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester, stone partitions for scribal carrels were built in the south aisle of the cloister at the end of the fourteenth century.83 All of these activities might be broadly considered to take place within a scriptorium as many scholars use the term today. Even at St Albans where a “scriptorium” did exist, monks did not only produce manuscripts for their own use. Matthew Paris, a monk of St Albans, was a notable producer of manuscripts and texts in the thirteenth century: he produced books both for the monastery itself and was involved in the production of

80 Thomson, “Monastic and Cathedral Book Production,” 141. 81 Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 24. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid.

29 books for aristocratic households such as that of the Countess of Winchester, for whom he may have acted as a commissioning agent or consultant.84 As Rickert suggests, he may have directed the St Albans scriptorium in addition to working with outside artists.85

The problem with the usage of this general term can be seen when the model of the scriptorium is adapted to a lay environment. David Ross, for example, theorizes that two manuscripts—BL, MS Lansdowne 782 and Camb., Trinity College, MS 0.9.34—“point to a single workshop as their place of origin” and, thus, they appear to offer evidence of “the existence of a lay establishment specialising in the copying and illustration of secular Anglo-Norman literature in the second quarter of the thirteenth century.”86 Here, Ross implicitly adapts the model of the religious scriptorium in the traditional sense—that is, a single, self-contained place of production—to a lay establishment.87 Similarly, Laura Hibbard Loomis posits that the Auchinleck manuscript was produced in a lay operation modelled upon a monastic scriptorium, which she designates as a bookshop:

For convenience, this hypothetical lay centre where went on, whether under one roof or not, the necessarily unified and directed work of compiling, copying, illuminating, and binding any book, is here called a bookshop.88

I discuss both of these examples in more detail in Chapter 3, but the point I want to make here, following upon the excellent work done by Parkes and Doyle on the metropolitan commercial production of books in the early fifteenth century, is that the term scriptorium is often used imprecisely, suggesting predominantly some form of “corporate enterprise” or organized collaboration; however, the kind of production that resulted in each of these manuscripts was likely of a different sort than the kind of production that Thomson describes.89 For example,

84 See, for example, Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS E.I.40, which includes inscriptions in Matthew Paris’s own hand in French relating to the lending of books to the Countess of Winchester. 85 Rickert claimed that the scriptorium at St Albans was “under the tutelage of Matthew Paris” in Painting in Britain, 122. 86 Ross, “A Thirteenth-Century Anglo-Norman Workshop,” 693, 694. 87 Taylor, however, notes that these manuscripts were as likely to have been produced in a “scribal quarter” as in a “single large-scale workshop” in “Manual to Miscellany,” 4. 88 Loomis, “A Possible London Bookshop,” 597. 89 Doyle and Parkes have argued against adapting the idea of a lay scriptorium to the production of English literary works, suggesting instead that production was ad hoc rather than organized, with scribes working in small

30 although the Auchinleck manuscript was produced as a result of the collaboration of six scribes, we do not know how this collaboration was organized and whether or not it was monitored, and there is little evidence of “in-house” training.90 Mooney and Stubbs argue that whereas previously scholars speculated that the manuscripts of Chaucer, Gower, Trevisa and Langland were copied in lay scriptoria, in fact they were produced in an ad hoc fashion by clerks at the London Guildhall rather than through an organized program of book-making.91 Likewise, the most we can say about the two manuscripts Ross draws attention to is that they exhibit similar styles of decoration. In this case, it might be better to describe the production arrangement as that of an atelier. We might liken the production arrangement responsible for these manuscripts to that of the artists from the Queen Mary Psalter group who worked on a number of books including the London manuscript Liber legum antiquorum regum in 1321. There is, at this point in time, little evidence for a joint, shared space. It is likely that rather than a full-scale workshop, these books were decorated by two painters, one of whom was a peripatetic atelier from East Anglia.92 In the case of Ross’s “workshop,” we might say, instead, that these artists were part of the same “school” or were trained together although these terms themselves are imprecise and warrant further discussion in Chapter 2 where I examine a possible scriptorium which may have produced multiple manuscripts of the South English Legendary.

In order to bring more precision to my own use of the term scriptorium, I follow Jean-Pascal Pouzet who suggests we attend to the “multiple and shifting” sites of book production and think of scribal space itself as “mobile and flexible.”93 Consequently, my own usage throughout this dissertation ought to be understood to mean

not so much a fixed physical space but rather as a conjunction of “scriptorial facilities”, defined as the ad hoc resources which an individual or group of individuals undertake to

workshops of one or two on a freelance basis. See Doyle and Parkes. “The Production of Copies of the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis.” 90 For a summary of the current scholarship regarding the production of the Auchinleck manuscript, see Chapter 4. 91 Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City, 1. 92 Hanna, “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 96. 93 Pouzet, “Book Production Outside Commercial Contexts,” 228.

invest in book production. These can be moveable and versatile, single-handed or cooperative, and may depend on institutional support or talent.94

Even in the eleventh and twelfth centuries when these “scriptorial activities” were most organized, there was still no single model for a monastic scriptorium.

The second, related qualification I wish to make is that many traditional accounts of monastic scriptoria tend to insist too firmly on Hanna’s distinction between the stability, fixedness and organization of Latin manuscript production contrasted against the untidiness of vernacular production. While I have noted that there is a general impression of uniformity in the holdings of medieval monastic libraries, nevertheless, the processes by which the monasteries came to acquire these books and the rate at which they acquired them could have been quite different. Thomson argues that even during the heyday of monastic production, the facts relay

an impression of random, uncoordinated book-making.…At some places copying of books and the building up of a substantial collection scarcely seems to have begun before the early twelfth century. At others a start was made very quickly.95

As a result, we ought not to depend too heavily upon rigid schema for our understanding of how monastic book production operated. Ker, for example, suggests that it appear there were two types of scribes who participated in monastic book production: scriptores (professional scribes who were not members of enclosed communities but who often wrote books for them) and claustrales (scribes who lived inside the community). Ker notes that in Abingdon in the beginning of the twelfth century six scriptores were employed to copy patristic manuscripts while the claustrales mainly copied “missals, graduals, antiphonaries, tropers, lectionaries, and other ecclesiastical books.”96 Although this division is a good starting point, such a schematic distinction is not possible in many other locations. Talent may have been drawn predominantly from the monks or canons themselves, or may have involved hiring professional scribes from outside the establishment; there was not always a distinction between what kinds of books were copied by whom. In eleventh-century Exeter, many of the early books were either made in

94 Ibid. 95 Thomson, “Monastic and Cathedral Book Production,” 137. 96 Ker, English Manuscripts in the Century After the Norman Conquest, 11.

Normandy or were the work of Norman professional scribes.97 In Salisbury in the eleventh century Bishop Osmond (1078–99) copied books himself and also involved many of his canons, some of whom may have been recruited from the royal household and would have been used to doing clerical work for the king.98 In Durham, a precentor and chronicler known as Symeon may have been master of the scriptorium, collaborating with a Norman scribe, supervising the work of others, rubricating, correcting and numbering quires to produce more than thirty manuscripts and seven charters.99 In these three eleventh-century examples, we cannot easily distinguish between the work of scriptores and claustrales on the basis of a manuscript’s genre. Although the production of Latin books may create a sense of more uniformity and regularity, nevertheless, production was still in many cases ad hoc, involving a mixture of “in-house” scribes and itinerant craftsmen.

To move forward with our narrative, in the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries the output of monastic production became increasingly irregular as the majority of religious houses completed the initial phase of stocking their libraries. Institutions fostered short-term efforts of upkeep, acquisition and renewal. Such was the case at Worcester Cathedral Priory where, in 1314-15, Bishop Walter Maydenstone requested funds to renew and repair books.100 Books may have been obtained through donation or purchase in some cases, but in other cases they may have been copied anew through scriptorial activity. During the fourteenth century, Worcester Cathedral Priory continued to acquire books as monks studying abroad at places such as Gloucester Hall, Oxford returned with their works of study.101 The Cistercian abbey of Beaulieu and the cathedral priory at Norwich both had bursts of activity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.102 These campaigns of production likely reflected brief moments of activity spurred on by the need of a house to acquire new materials or remedy some gap.

97 Thomson, “Monastic and Cathedral Book Production,” 139. See also Drage, “Bishop Leofric and the Exeter Cathedral Chapter, 1050-1072.” 98 See Webber, Scribes and Scholars at Salisbury Cathedral, 8-30. 99 Thomson, “Monastic and Cathedral Book Production,” 147. 100 Thomson, Medieval Manuscripts in Worcester Cathedral Library, xiv-xv. 101 Several books were added by, for example, Richard of Bromwich and John of Dumbleton, both Oxford graduates and members of the Cathedral Chapter 1302-1340 or 1350, of which some autographs remain. See ibid., xv. 102 Hockey, The Account-Book of Beaulieu Abbey, 195-8 and Ker, “Medieval Manuscripts from Norwich Cathedral Priory.”

Because these programmes of book production tended to be limited, the organization of monastic book-making became more ad hoc. We can see the way the organization of an institution’s scriptorium may have changed over time when we examine the output of Salisbury Cathedral. During the eleventh century, Salisbury Cathedral had a group of approximately seventeen scribes actively working to produce books within the space of twenty years (probably during the episcopacy of Bishop Osmund from 1078-99).103 Of these, Ker has pointed out how scribe i acted as a director who not only corrected a number of the books but also determined the layout of several by commencing the copying of the first text.104 Several decades later at Salisbury Cathedral, we can already see evidence of a decline in organization. During the twelfth century, a second group of approximately nineteen scribes produced about forty books. While these books were still likely produced “in house,” none of the Group II scribes appears to have acted as a director, and the script and practices employed by the Salisbury scribes are less consistent.105

Similar patterns of production to those employed by monasteries can also be found for secular cathedrals although the evidence for “in-house” production is markedly sparser. In English cathedrals the canons were often mobile. Thomson suggests that cathedrals may have relied on hired personnel or on professional ateliers already present in the town.106 Hanna suggests that a group of canons associated with Ripon Cathedral may have produced a group of four manuscripts containing Middle English religious texts such as the Prick of Conscience, the Speculum Vitae and the Northern Homily Cycle at the end of the fourteenth century, though it is unclear whether this was organized through the cathedral itself or was initiated outside any sort of institutional control.107 In the thirteenth century the canons regular and newly established fraternal orders must have engaged in book-making endeavours of similar kinds. The Augustinian priories at Cirencester and Leicester both built up the substantial body of their libraries in the twelfth century through a combination of “in house” production and purchase,

103 Webber, Scribes and Scholars at Salisbury Cathedral, Ch. 1, esp. 104 Ker, “The Beginnings of Salisbury Cathedral Library.” 105 Webber, Scribes and Scholars at Salisbury Cathedral. 106 Thomson, “Monastic and Cathedral Book Production,” 159-160. 107 Cf. Hanna, “Yorkshire Scribes.”

34 occasionally employing lay scribes to work alongside the trained scribes of the house.108 Contemporary catalogues show that Augustinian houses such as those at Southwick, Leicester and Llanthony Secunda owned a large number of pastoralia which may have been produced in response to the Fourth Lateran Council’s interest in pastoral care.109 Dominican and Franciscan ownership of manuscripts has also been well-documented, but their patterns of book-making are less regularized. The Dominican Order, in particular, seldom encouraged its friars to copy books because the time involved would have drawn them away from studying, preaching and the salvation of souls. But libraries and personal collections were built up in a variety of ways, and some copying by friars did occur. Friar William of Nottingham, a lector at the Franciscan convent in Oxford, copied five volumes containing the Postills of Nicholas Gorran OFM for the Order at the expense of Sir Hugh of Nottingham, a clerk in the royal exchequer, and this might be an example of copying for payment.110 Friar William Herebert of the Hereford convent drafted translations of Latin hymns and antiphons into English verse and annotated Eccleston’s De adventu Fratrum Minorum in Angliam, and a copy of works by Roger Bacon OFM.111 In other cases, provisions might be made for a commercial scribe to copy out the necessary texts, as is the case of Adam Wodeham, the lector at the Oxford convent from 1330-1332, who recorded that he often visited his scribe in the city.112 Generally, we do not see the kind of organized production associated with the monastic scriptorium. The Orders built up their holdings through donation, purchase and some private copying. They would allocate books to individual friars and, subsequently, take possession of them once more in order to reallocate them to another friar or to a convent in need.113

108 Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 98-100. See in particular his description of Radulfus de Pulleham who worked alongside eight canons to produce several books. 109 Andrew Reeves tracks the number of copies of Alexander Ashby, Templum Dei, and Qui bene present owned by Augustinian canons in “Teaching the Creed,” 109-112. See also Watson and Webber, The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons and Webber, “The Books of Leicester Abbey,” 127-34. 110 Parkes, Hands Before Our Eyes, 26. 111 This is BL, MS Add. 46919. Parkes argues he also annotated BL, MSS Cotton Nero A.ix, Egerton 3133, and Royal 7 F.vii-viii. Ibid., 26. See also Reimer’s edition of The Works of William Herebert, OFM. 112 Ibid., 27. See also Courtenay, Adam Wodeham, 179-80. 113 Parkes, Hands Before Our Eyes, 25.

The manuscripts of friars tended to be vademecum books: small, portable volumes containing praedicabilia and other material necessary for worship or study.114 Model sermons, artes praedicandi, distinctiones, concordances—all of which would have been useful for drawing up new sermons—survive in mendicant manuscripts of English provenance. One of these—Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 511—is a collection of sermons, exempla and distinctiones made sometime in the third quarter of the thirteenth century by English Dominicans.115 The marginal notes accompanying several of the sermons indicate where they might have been used. Ten of these were preached at the nunnery of Elstow in the early 1270s. Another example is Oxford, New College, MS 88, a Dominican vademecum book studied by Siegfriend Wenzel, which contains sermons and sermon aids.116 A Durham manuscript of friars’ sermons dated to the thirteenth century offers another possibility: its quires would have been lent to different friars, and, when returned, were apparently placed in a container, possibly a bag.117

Throughout my discussion thus far, I have focused predominantly on the production of Latin books in the period; however, books created and used within the religious houses of the monks, canons and friars were not always written in Latin. Tony Hunt argues that the early florescence of Anglo-Norman copying likely occurred in monastic scriptoria and about half of the surviving twelfth-century manuscripts containing French come from English Benedictine houses.118 In the thirteenth century, Anglo-Norman was used increasingly as a language of instruction and literature for those who might have struggled with Latin. This ignorance of Latin would not have been limited to parish priests or laypeople. Monks and nuns struggled as well. David Bell notes that after 1300 bishops frequently included a version of their Latin injunctions in French or English.119 In monasteries, too, episcopal injunctions had to be read in lingua vulgari et materna.120 The Chasteau d’amour by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln from 1235 to 1253,

114 See D’Avray, “Portable Vademecum Books,” 60-4. 115 Cf. O’Carroll, Preacher’s Handbook. 116 This manuscript is described in Wenzel, “A Dominican Preacher’s Book from Oxford.” 117 Humphreys, Friars’ Libraries, xviii. 118 Hunt, “The Anglo-Norman Book,” 369. 119 Bell, What Nuns Read, 64. 120 See, for example, the texts translated in Coulton, Life in the Middle Ages. He refences a fourteenth-century bishop with little Latin on 1:39-47, 86-7, and a fourteenth century abbot with the same problem in 4:280-1.

36 the Mirour de Seinte Eglyse, the Anglo-Norman version of the Speculum Ecclesiae by Edmund of Abingdon (d. 1240), and the Manuel des pechez (c. 1260) by William of Waddington were all drafted to contain the foundational Christian doctrines contained in the Articles of Faith, and to make them available for readers who might have struggled with Latin.121 Biblical paraphrases like the rhymed Genesis found in the thirteenth-century manuscript BL, MS Harley 3775 or psalters with interlinear translations in Old French or Anglo Norman supplemented these penitential treatises.122 Hagiography, in particular, was a well-represented genre: numerous examples survive including the lives of St. Alban, St. Edmund, St. Edward the Confessor, and the life of Thomas Becket by the Benedictine monk of St. Albans, Matthew Paris, to name a few. The Vie de saint Alexis, for example, was copied as part of the St. Albans Psalter made in 1120- 30 for the anchoress Christina of Markyate.123

Middle English texts were also copied in monasteries as shown by the activities of the “Tremulous Hand of Worcester” who updated the language of several Old English manuscripts and also copied the Middle English Soul’s Address to the Body.124 Treharne has identified over one hundred manuscripts containing vernacular texts which were produced between 1060 and 1220 in England, many of which are homilies and most of which are based on pre-existing works.125 She suggests that many of these emanated from Benedictine Houses, and that the production of extensive compilations such as CCCC, MS 303, BL, MS Cotton Vespasian D. xiv, CUL, MS Ii. 1. 33, and BL, MS Cotton Vespasian A.xxii from Kent; BodL, MS Hatton 116, BodL, MS Bodley 343, and London, Lambeth Palace, MS Lambeth 487 from the West Midlands; as well as CCCC, MS 302, BL, MS Cotton Faustina A. ix and Camb., Trinity College, MS B. 14. 52 from eastern England indicate “an ongoing intellectual and pastoral venture.”126 In many cases, the presence of these works in monastic libraries tends to escape notice for several

121 Reeves provides an excellent introduction to the use of these three texts in programmes of pastoral care in “Teaching the Creed and Articles of Faith in England,” esp. 172-197. 122 See the description of the Oxford Psalter, the Arundel Psalter, the Orne Psalter and the Cambridge Psalter in Dean, Anglo-Norman Literature, 239-244. 123 Cf. Geddes, The St. Albans Psalter. 124 See Franzen, The Tremulous Hand of Worcester. For the latter text, see Moffat, The Soul’s Address to the Body. 125 Treharne, Living Through Conquest, 95. 126 Ibid., 131.

37 reasons. Some Anglo-Norman texts, for example, were bound with Latin books or omitted from catalogues all together. Thus in Leicester several French books including romances were entered under the heading “Decretalia,” and the “Chanson de Roland” which belonged to Oseney appears in N. R. Ker’s list as a “dialogue of Plato.”127 Many of these early Middle English texts have been omitted because they are copies of earlier texts rather than newly composed texts.

Thus far, I have begun to sketch out some of the ways in which religious institutions may have organized their “scriptorial facilities” in order to produce books for their respective orders. At this point I want to explore the role of professional scribes in the production of manuscripts. As I have shown, professional scribes were employed as early as the eleventh century, sometimes hired to assist with a particular craft, sometimes employed over a longer period of time to produce multiple books. Scribes and illuminators were, as M. A Michael argues, among the most widely travelled medieval artisans precisely because they did not require large workshops to ply their trade.128 I have already noted the way that a group of artists working in a similar style may have produced the Liber legum antiquorum in London in 1321 for the fishmonger and city chamberlain, Andrew Horn. A second example of an itinerant professional scribe can be found when one studies the lavish sister compilations of Middle English religious texts known as the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts (BodL, MS Eng. Poet. a. 1 and BL, MS Add. 22283, respectively). Vernon Scribe A, who completed the majority of the Vernon manuscript and also collaborated with two other scribes on the Simeon manuscript, likely made his living as a professional scrivener. He copied several parchment manuscripts containing the Prick of Conscience, discussed in more detail in Chapter 4, as well as a cartulary for the Cistercian abbey of Stoneleigh in Warwickshire. The preface to the cartulary was written by a retired abbot named Thomas Pype who refers to the fact that his successor at Stoneleigh, Thomas Halton, sent him a writer, an exemplar and copied text.129 This preface gives us a clue as to the sort of production arrangement that Vernon Scribe A may have worked in at some point in his career.

127 See Legge, Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters, 112. The manuscript containing the “dialogue of Plato” is BodL, MS Digby 23, which I discuss in more detail in Chapter 3. 128 Michael, “Urban Production,” 174. 129 Doyle, introduction to Vernon Manuscript, 12.

Not all professional scribes and artists were itinerant, and particular attention needs to be paid to the activities of professional scribes in several major cities in England in the later Middle Ages. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth century, lay centres of production grew around the emerging university centres in Oxford and Cambridge, with Catte Street in Oxford as one notable location for scribal activities, and the law courts and Paternoster Row near St Paul’s Cathedral in London as another. The Directory of London Stationers and Book Artisans: 1300- 1500 locates one hundred thirty-six craftsmen within the immediate area of St. Paul’s Cathedral.130 These include parchmeners, limners, binders and textwriters, to name a few of the trades associated with the production of books. The high numbers of tradesmen in London suggests that scribes trained in other centres of production may have migrated to the city where they could find work more easily. The Auchinleck manuscript, for example, although predominantly written by a single scribe with a dialect traceable to London, also contains texts written by scribes with dialects from the West Midlands.131 A scribe with a Sussex dialect copied a manuscript of the Prick of Conscience (Dublin, Trinity College, MS 69) which was possibly owned by a London merchant and also a prose psalter (Princeton, NJ, Scheide Library, MS M.143); Hanna suggests, “his Sussex language may simply represent the early training of a person then immigrant to London, c. 1400.”132 To these examples we might add the unbeneficed clerics like William Langland and his imitators who made their livings as scribes, scriveners or civil servants in the City of London, some of whom no doubt were born and were trained in other areas.133

M. T. Clanchy has drawn attention to another important group of copiers who emerged throughout this period: the legal scriveners familiar with common and canon law as well as the manorial and king’s courts and bureaucratic clerks associated with the royal and seigniorial

130 One hundred nineteen of these could be found in seven parishes whose churches were in close proximity to the Cathedral: St. Faith the Virgin, St. Augustine, St. Michael le Querne, St. Botolph without Aldersgate, St. Nicholas at the Shambles, St. Sepulchre without Newgate, and St. Bride. See Christianson, A Directory of London Stationers and Book Artisans, 32-33. 131 Wiggins suggests that Scribe 6 of Auchinleck “originated in the south west Midlands but had spent time in London and was familiar with south-eastern/east Midland spelling forms. As a result, his written repertoire was dominated by West Midlands forms but included notable adaptations to accommodate and represent features current in the written metropolitan language” in “Are Auchinleck Manuscript Scribes 1 and 6 the Same Scribe?,”17. 132 Hanna, London Literature, 18. 133 See Kerby-Fulton and Justice, “Langlandian Reading Circles.”

39 administration.134 Although written documents were initially made principally by monasteries, in the twelfth century the king’s government had begun to use documents in its daily business to form an archive of potential written precedents. T. A. M. Bishop estimates that in 1130 Henry II’s chancery employed about four scribes, requiring of them approximately three charters a day.135 However, the output of royal charters per year increased dramatically throughout the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, giving rise to a large and complex bureaucracy as the population of England rose, the number of religious houses increased, and the government came to rely increasingly on written records. Hanna argues that during the first half of the fourteenth century, from approximately 1327 to 1340, statute collections such as the Statute Anglie must have been the most ubiquitous books in England except for the bible and liturgical volumes, and that they would have been “fundamental in acquainting people with the procedures of making and consulting books.”136 Compilers such as Andrew Horn, who served as Chamberlain of the City of London from 1320 until his death in 1328, collected and recopied charters, statutes and similar materials into large manuscripts such as the Liber Horn (1311) and other Guildhall or civic volumes. Hanna associates the Auchinleck scribes with this legal milieu.137 Mooney and Stubbs have shown the importance of London Guildhall clerks such as Adam Pinkhurst, Scrivener and Clerk of the Guildhall (c. 1358-1410) and John Marchaunt, Chamber Clerk from 1380-99 and Common Clerk from 1399-1417 in the dissemination of Middle English texts at the end of the fourteenth century.138 Outside of London, legal scriveners and bureaucratic clerks were also involved in the production of literary texts alongside legal documents.

Other book producers may have been associated with households. Here, particular note should be made of the Harley scribe who copied in three manuscripts—BL, MS Harley 2253; BL, MS Harley 273, a largely devotional manuscript; and BL, MS Royal 12.C.xii, a commonplace book—as well as forty-one charters and legal documents from the Ludlow area in the first half of

134 Clanchy, From Memory to Written Records, esp. 46-80. 135 Bishop, Scriptores regis, 32 136 Hanna, London Literature, 48. 137 In “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” Hanna argues that Scribe 3 might have worked in some government office as Hoccleve did (95). Bliss argued that this scribe showed signs of “chancery training” in “Notes on the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 653. 138 Cf. Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City.

40 the fourteenth century. This scribe may well have been trained in the legal profession.139 He was evidently trilingual, as evinced by the contents of the manuscripts he copied. Carter Revard hypothesizes that this scribe may have served as a household or parish chaplain in Virgin’s Chapel in the parish Church of St. Bartholomew.140 His patrons could have been a Shropshire Knight, Sir Lawrence de Ludlow, holder of Stokesay Castle in the same country or the Mortimers, the dominant local baronial family. Coss notes that throughout the thirteenth and early fourteenth century there was a steady increase in the number of resident clerics, chaplains and chantry priests in gentry households, and that, undoubtedly, they played a strong role in the production of Middle English texts.141

Other households assembled permanent “scriptorial facilities” to aid the production of manuscripts. Here I want to turn to a close-knit group of scribes and artists that have been identified as working in the Bohun family residence at Pleshey Castle, Essex over a period of more than twenty-five years.142 These scribes and artists are discussed in some detail by Lucy Freeman Sandler in her study of the Lichtenthal Psalter, an exquisite product of the Bohun scribes, only one of the ten richly illuminated manuscripts or fragments that survive from the second half of the fourteenth century. Three of the scribes were identified by name—Piers, Martin, and Robin—in BL, MS Egerton 3277, a Psalter begun in the 1360s for Humphrey the seventh earl. A fourth scribe, as yet unnamed, appears frequently, occurring in four of the manuscripts of the 1380s. The same illuminators also appear consistently in the Bohun manuscripts. The first of the group was the Augustinian Friar John de Teye named “my illuminator” in the will of Humphrey the sixth earl; he likely began working on Psalters during the 1360s for Humphrey the sixth earl and continued in the household, producing manuscripts as late as the 1380s for Henry of Bolingbroke and Mary de Bohun.143 Another unnamed artist— possibly an apprentice at first—appears first in a minor role in the books of the 1360s and reappears in a leading or support role for the books of the 1380s. Interestingly, in 1384 John de

139 For a description of this scribe’s activities in three manuscripts, see Revard, “Scribe and Provenance.” 140 Revard, “Scribe and Provenance,” 22.

141 Cf. Coss, “Aspects of Cultural Diffusion.” 142 Sandler, Lichtenthal Psalter, 11-15. 143 Cf. Sandler, “Illuminators of the Bohun Manuscripts.”

Teye requested permission from the head of his order to bring Henry Hood, another friar, to teach him the art of illuminating books and it may be that Henry Hood is this unnamed artist.144 Sandler argues that these scribes and artists were not merely craftsmen employed by the family; rather, they were “were part of an inner circle of the Bohun household” as evidenced by the fact that John de Teye appears as an executor in the will and was entrusted with praying for the soul of his master, along with Humphrey’s confessor, William of Monklane.145

As groups of book and document producers grew in the cities, they began to organize into guilds. The guilds of the Textwriters and Limners first appear in London in the 1350s. The Scriveners and Stationers similarly organized in 1373 and 1403, respectively in London.146 The City of York shows a similar, if delayed, pattern of development: the York Freemen’s Register records fourteen scribes and one colour maker who became freemen between 1386 and 1387.147 In the late fourteenth century the York scriveners formed a guild of their own, and notaries appear as members of the Company from 1392 onwards.148 Other urban centres such as Lincoln and Norwich also became centres of the book trade to a lesser extent. Professional scribes in these places may have assembled manuscript through a process of subcontracting and dispersed production rather than by means of organized production within a single space. Between 1393 and 1402 in York, for instance, two men were employed by the Chapter to produce service books. In 1393, one “frater William de Ellerker” received 41s. 8d. to write two graduals for the choir and Richard de Sterton received 40s. to illuminate them. A year later, de Ellerker received another large sum of money—£11 13s. 3d. —for writing and obtaining parchment for three more books for the choir. Another year later, a man named Robert Bookbynder received 10s. for sewing the gatherings of a large gradual and another 20 d. for three sheets of parchment. William

144 Sandler, Lichtenthal Psalter, 19. 145 Ibid., 26. 146 See Steer’s work on the Scriveners’ guild in A History of the Worshipful Company of Scriveners of London and Scriveners’ Company Common Paper 1357-1628. For the Stationers’ Guild, see Graham Pollard’s early work in “The Company of Stationers before 1557” and “The Early Constitution of the Stationers’ Company.” See also Blagden, The Stationers’ Company: A History 1403-1959 and Blayney, The Stationers’ Company before the Charter, 1403-1557. 147 Friedman, Northern English Books, 2. 148 See Gee, “The Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders of York before 1557,” 48. See E. Gordon Duff, English Provincial Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders to 1557.

42 de Ellerker received 4s. for parchment and Richard de Sterton received 40s. more for illuminating three more graduals.149 It was not uncommon for certain craftsmen to work together over time, and the same sets of names tend to recur in lists of witnesses to transactions in these areas. In Catte Street in the early thirteenth century, for example, Thomas Scriptor, Roger Pergameneus, Ralph Illuminator, Roger Illuminator and his son Robert, and William Illuminator witnessed the sale of a property from one Peter Illuminator and his wife to an Adam Bradfot.150 These sets of relationships anticipate the close networks of craftsmen that would have been consolidated through the formation of guilds in the second half of the fourteenth century.

It is unclear how the subcontracting of labour may have been handled when multiple craftsmen collaborated. In Paris at the end of the fourteenth century, a bookman by the name of Pierre le Portier was a commercial libraire (a combination bookseller and book-contractor), commissioned by the confraternity of Saint-Jacques to begin carrying out work on four antiphonals. He coordinated the activities of a number of craftsmen while also updating and refurbishing the Saint-Jacques choir books. In 1407 he died, and the confraternity hired a second libraire, Pierre’s widow, to finish the job. She was paid, not for copying, but “pour avoir fait escrire, noter, etc.” [for causing to have written, decorated, etc.]) and in April 1409 the four volumes were completed.151 The work on the antiphonals of Saint-Jacques is surprisingly well documented, but we have far less evidence for the manner in which collaboration may have taken place on projects in England although, undoubtedly, it did. The role of stationers in the production of books in England in the Middle Ages before the formation of the Stationers’ Guild in 1403 is still contested. The term is used loosely to describe a seller of writing supplies, a specialized artisan, a book-contractor, and/or a member of the London Stationers’ company.152 It is this third category of “stationer” that has proven to be of the most interest for Middle English scholars, who have argued that both the Auchinleck manuscript in the 1330s and the Hengwrt manuscript of the Canterbury Tales (Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 392D) in the 1380s resulted from the coordination of multiple scribes orchestrated by a

149 Friedman, Northern English Books, 35. 150 Michael, “Urban Production,” 176. 151 For a discussion of the collaboration on this project, see Rouse, “Pierre le Portier and the Makers of the Antiphonals of Saint-Jacques,” 47-68. 152 Kwakkel, “Commercial Organization and Economic Innovation,” 176.

43 stationer.153 Nevertheless, as few records survive which lay out payments for the subcontracting of labour, it is difficult to tell whether this would have been managed by a separate figure or whether, in many cases, it may have been an ad hoc process of collaboration organized by the primary scribe. As Kwakkel concludes, just as we cannot find conclusive evidence for the work handled by these intermediaries, neither can we exclude the possibility that stationers in England functioned as supervisors for large textual projects.

I want to offer one final example of how professional scribes and religious institutions worked in conjunction with one another to produce manuscripts. The fifteenth-century “Edmund-Fremund” scribe, a professional scribe likely working in Bury St Edmunds, offers a particularly interesting example of one of the ways that this form of collaboration may have taken place toward the end of the Middle Ages. In total, his hand has been identified in ten manuscripts containing the works of Lydgate and two containing the works of Chaucer. Scholars have suggested that this scribe collaborated with the monk John Lydgate—possibly as a Lydgate specialist or possibly as his “personal publisher”—and was probably based in the poet’s hometown of Bury St Edmunds in a commercial workshop rather than at the abbey itself. 154 Building on the work of A. I. Doyle, Horobin argues that there are no grounds for supposing this “Lydgate workshop” was organized by the monks themselves; although they may have assisted in its operation by providing exemplars, it was more likely to have been organized by professional scribes.155 The “Edmund- Fremund” scribe’s participation on Chaucer manuscripts, Horobin suggests, shows that his “choice of texts was more likely to have been governed by the market than by personal literary preferences.”156 The “Edmund-Fremund” scribe reveals how a professional scribe—or possibly a lay workshop of some sort—may have grown up in the vicinity of a religious institution and that

153 Wiggins suggests that exemplars may have been obtained for the Auchinleck by a “stationer or dealer in texts who had inter-regional connections and worked closely with editors, compilers, and other copyists” in “Are Auchinleck Manuscript Scribes 1 and 6 the Same Scribe?” 21. See also Shonk, “A Study of the Auchinleck Manuscript” for the argument that Scribe 1 acted as the editor for this volume and may have organized its production. Doyle and Parkes similarly suggest that the Hengwrt manuscript could have made use of “a stationer as agent...either merely arranging the copying and decoration, or also procuring the exemplars” in introduction to The Canterbury Tales, xxi. 154 Horobin, “The Edmund-Fremund Scribe Copying Chaucer,” 195. For Scott’s original identification and discussion of this scribe, see “Lydgate’s Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund.” 155 For this perspective, see Doyle, “Book Production by the Monastic Orders,” 21. 156 Horobin, “The Edmund-Fremund Scribe,” 199.

44 the two may have had a mutually beneficial relationship: the “Edmund-Fremund” scribe could obtain exemplars for texts that were in demand by wealthy patrons while the Abbey, in turn, presumably gained renown through the “publication” of the works of one of its monks. The activities of the “Edmund-Fremund” scribe are by no means unprecedented; rather, they are a logical extension of the kind of collaboration between religious and professional scribes that had been going on for centuries. Similarly, we can see that after the advent of the printing press in England, these working relationships continued, as shown by the work of the printer Wynkyn de Worde for Syon Abbey in the sixteenth century.157 Likewise, three English monasteries— Abingdon, Tavistock and St Albans—made use of printing presses. The press at Tavistock was run by a monk named Thomas Richard while the Abingdon printer, on the other hand, “was a professional, connected only accidentally with the abbey.”158 The first St Albans printer may have been a commercial printer who worked with only the patronage of the monks, but, forty years later, c. 1526, a second printer by the name of John Herford set up a second press with the patronage of Abbots Catton and Stevenage. In 1539, Abbot Stevenage disavowed Herford when challenged about some of his materials by Cromwell, and Herford was forced to move his business to the City of London.159 These activities demonstrate that professional scribes and religious scribes frequently collaborated together and worked in conjunction with one another.

The impression this brief survey of materials creates is of plenitude rather than dearth: a landscape in which the vernacular texts of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century emerge, not as an isolated outcropping, but out of a rich culture of manuscript production that provided liturgical books for the churches, documents for the courts and for the civil administration, scholastic and teaching texts for the monasteries and cathedrals, praedicabilia for the mendicant orders, and instructional treatises for parish priests. This literary culture was not “organized”—that is, with all levels working in concert to produce and disseminate a specific, “protected” or canonical set of texts although, at times, pockets of concerted production may have emerged; but it was deeply interconnected and interpenetrating as texts crossed the

157 Cf. Grisé, “Syon Abbey and English Books.” 158 Knowles, Religious Orders 3:26. 159 Ibid.

45 boundaries between religious and lay production centres, and as they were translated—both linguistically and culturally—into new domains where they might reach new audiences.

3 Fragmentation and Miscellaneity? Booklet Culture in Late Medieval England

One point that I want to return to, leading into my discussion of the production and circulation of small-format manuscripts, is the claim that Middle English literature constitutes a “fragmented terrain”160 as Hanna puts it, or, in the words of Shepherd, “the débris of an old literature…mixed in with the imperfectly processed materials of a new.”161 The association between Middle English texts and some notion of “fragmentariness” is a persistent one, made all the more persuasive by the sometimes literally fragmented state in which manuscripts containing Middle English survive. Take, for instance, BodL, MS Rawl. Misc. D.913, a collection of thirty-four separate fragments bound together by the Bodleian after 1756, comprising in some cases a single folio such as the leaf of Robert Mannyng of Brunne’s Chronicle (Part 1) and in others a whole quire such as the copy of Chaucer’s Astrolabe numbered ff. 23-42 (Part 9).162 This manuscript, a modern rather than medieval assemblage, consists entirely of what we might think of as the “débris” of medieval English literature. Another example of the “fragmentariness” of Middle English manuscripts is BL, MS Harley 2253, the famous trilingual “Harley” manuscript containing various romances, saints’ lives, lyrics and other ephemera.163 Unlike BodL, MS Rawl. Misc. D.913, the “Harley” manuscript was a medieval composite manuscript, which consists of five booklets: three of single quires, one of three quires and one of five quires. Its maker, a professional scrivener working in the Ludlow area, used the manuscript as a way to record what Julia Boffey calls “social ephemera.”164 These books appear to exemplify Hanna’s sense of the “fragmented terrain” of Middle English literature. BodL, MS Rawl. Misc. D.913 suggests a process of physical breakdown as larger codicological structures were damaged or broken up to

160 Hanna, “Miscellaneity and Vernacularity,” 47. 161 Shepherd, “Early Middle English Literature,” 81. 162 Described in William D. Macray, Catal. Codd. Mss. Bibl. Bodl. Part V, 136-143. 163 Cf. Ker, Facsimile of British Museum MS. Harley 2253. 164 Boffey, Manuscripts of English Court Love Lyrics, 123. For a full discussion of the provenance of the manuscript and the copying habits of its scribe, see Fein, Studies in the Harley Manuscript.

46 form smaller units. On the other hand, the “Harley” manuscript represents the opposite process, the building up of medieval manuscripts from ephemeral “pieces” that, individually, might not have survived the passage of time. But whereas both Hanna and Shepherd embed Middle English literature in a narrative of fragmentation and débris, I want to suggest that we understand these “fragments” as traces of a dynamic process of textual exchange and production indicative of an actively productive Middle English literary culture dependent upon the circulation of ephemeral texts—in pamphlets, unbound quires, booklets bound in wrappers, to name a few formats— alongside complete codices.

The study and identification of “booklets” in medieval codices offers one way of understanding how small-format manuscripts may have circulated and, in some cases, been compiled to form larger units. Pamela Robinson describes a “booklet” as “a small but structurally independent production containing a single work or a number of short works.”165 Booklets, she argues, were capable of circulating on their own but are frequently found in composite volumes. They can be identified by differences in the dimensions of leaves, handwriting, decoration, systems of catchwords, systems of quire signatures, the number of leaves to a quire, and also by soiling or rubbing on the outer leaves or by the presence of blank pages.166 To these, Hanna adds further means of identification including variations in materials, variations in sources, and variations in subject matter.167 For the purposes of this discussion, I will use the term “small-format” manuscript to denote generally codicological forms which circulated independently (rolls, pamphlets, “pagyantes”, unbound quires, libelli and bills to name a few), and “booklet” primarily as a codicological term to reference a structure within an existing codex according to Robinson and Hanna’s definition. I will at times note exceptions to this definition when a part of a manuscript may have, at one stage, been a structurally independent production, but subsequently it has been modified in such a way that it is not presently structurally independent.168

165 Robinson, “The ‘Booklet’,” 46. 166 Ibid., 47-48. 167 Hanna, “Booklets in Medieval Manuscripts,” 30-31. 168 I recognize that my usage of the term might, at times, be slippery. But as Gillespie points out, it is sometimes difficult to maintain a distinction based on how structurally independent a unit may have been, particularly in cases where information regarding early structure, provenance or binding has been lost (“Medieval Books, Their Booklets, Booklet Theory,” 5). Joseph Dane and Erik Kwakkel have both noted the slipperiness of this term. Dane notes, “And as the critical notion of booklet becomes abstract, the codicological and textual-critical foundations for the booklet

Small-format manuscripts and booklets speak to the various ways in which medieval texts may have circulated in formats other than the codex.169 For example, in the case of the manuscripts produced by the Harley scribe in the Ludlow area, Susanna Fein suggests that the evidence of scribal miscopying in one instance indicates that he was most likely often copying from single sheets or rolls.170 Many medieval catalogues record the presence of a large number of books in limp bindings (with covers made of parchment, tanned or tawed skin, or cloth) with the term in pergameno. Others are recorded as being in quaterno or in quaternis (in quires). The catalogue for the Praemonstratensian house at Tichfield, drawn up in 1400, records 224 volumes of which approximately 33 percent are described in this fashion.171 Robinson associates these forms of bindings implicitly with small-format manuscripts that were independently circulated, but Gillespie usefully points out the difficulty in associating booklets or libelli too closely with limp bindings, particularly where composite manuscripts are concerned.172 She notes that limp bindings were also used with larger books such as missals because of their durability.

A set of two manuscripts—BodL Douce 132 and 127, dated to the 1260s and likely produced in Oxford—further show that we do not always know how individual booklets or composite manuscripts made from booklets were bound.173 These two manuscripts together comprise six

theory seem to crumble. What Hanna calls a ‘hidden booklet’ is no longer a material entity, but an imagined one, or perhaps the act of imagination itself” (Chaucer’s Tomb, 144). Kwakkel has proposed alternative terms including “production unit” and “usage unit” in “Towards a Terminology.” In a second article—“Late Medieval Text Collections: A Codicological Typology Based on Single-Author Manuscripts”—he pointed out several types of manuscripts which denote the potential uses of booklets. These include Type 1(The Manuscript Copied in One Go); Type 2 (The Booklet Copied in One Go); Type 3 (Copied in Sessions - A Bundle of Production Units) and Type 4(Copied in Sessions - Extending an Existing Production Unit). However, as Gillespie points out it is frequently difficult to divvy up booklets in particular manuscripts and assign them status one way or another lost (“Medieval Books, Their Booklets, Booklet Theory,” 22). As a result, I have decided to make use of the term “booklet” while recognizing its inherent slipperiness. 169 Joel Fredell usefully draws attention to how Lydgate might have explicitly designed his poetry to be circulated in quires or phamplets. He is one of the few scholars to draw attention to a literary culture invigorated by these small format manuscripts in “Go Litel Quaier.” 170 Fein, “Compilation and Purpose,” 72. 171 Gullick and Hadgraft, “Bookbindings,” 107. 172 Cf. Gillespie, “Medieval Books, Their Booklets, and Booklet Theory.” 173 For a discussion and full description, see Robinson, “The ‘Booklet,’” 64-67. See also Taylor, “Manual to Miscellany.”

48 booklets with a number of Latin texts on law and accountancy, the Anglo-Norman Horn romance, Grosseteste’s Chasteau d’amour, and the Fables of Marie de France. Robinson argues that the Berkshire lawyer who owned the manuscript “collected texts essential to his professional activities as a layman who practised law or administered an estate according to the customary law merchant and English Common Law, but he also collected texts which he wished to read in his spare time.”174 That the lawyer was able to purchase both kinds of texts from Oxford scriveners further suggests Oxford booksellers were comfortable supplying legal reference works, literary items and university text books and that their stock comprised all three classifications of material. The sixth booklet of the collection is particularly interesting because its end leaf (BodL Douce 132, f. 82v) includes a list of the titles of works which an owner had lent to various friends in the second half of the fourteenth century. On the basis of this, Robinson suggests that although these six booklets had been assembled together, the collection was not bound up but kept loose in a wrapper.175 Regarding this set of manuscripts, then, we cannot tell whether or not the booklets were ever intended to circulate separately, and if they were, how they might have been individually bound to facilitate this.

Small-format manuscripts may have been particularly useful for the rapid dissemination of certain texts along institutional lines. In the wake of the Fourth Lateran Council, for example, nearly every English diocese contributed to the reform by issuing statutes modelled upon Innocent III’s decrees: examples include the Council of Oxford in 1222, the Council and Constitutions of the Legate Otto at London in 1237 and of the Legate Ottobono at London in 1268, and John Pecham’s Ignorantia Sacerdotum in 1281, an outline of Christian doctrine and morals which the priests of the province of Canterbury were ordered to expound in the vernacular four times each year. But far from imparting the necessary doctrinal points itself, as Leonard Boyle argues, texts such as the Ignorantia Sacerdotum sometimes demanded companion volumes of practical theology that would be more easily used by parish priests and secular clergy.176 In order to educate the clergy, English bishops required that they should possess copies

174 Robinson, “The ‘Booklet,’” 57. 175 Ibid. 176 Boyle, “The ‘Oculus Sacerdotis’,” 82. See also Boyle, “Manuals of Popular Theology,” 30. For Pecham’s canon Ignorancia sacerdotum, see Cheney and Powicke, ed., Councils and Synods, ii. 900-05. For other details of Pecham’s and Thoresby’s material in the context of medieval pastoral instruction, see Gibbs and Lang, Bishops and

49 of their synodal statutes in libri or libelli synodales (synodal books or booklets).177 Sometimes these statutes were transcribed in missals or other liturgical books for ease of reference. Most often, however, they were issued to clergy as easy-to-carry unbound quires, which could be brought to annual synods for correction. The vast majority of these small-format manuscripts were designed for regular consultation, and enumerated for priests exactly what they needed to teach their parishioners, how to administer the sacraments, and how to preach and perform the divine office.

John Thoresby, appointed Archbishop of York on 16 August 1352, used a similar system to educate the newly promoted priests following the devastating outbreak of the Black Death in 1348. Thoresby authorized and encouraged the distribution of the Latin Lay Folk’s Catechism, a text which summarized the six articles that were the subject of Pecham’s decree Ignorantia Sacerdotum. He also commissioned an English translation from John Gaytryge, a monk at the Benedictine abbey of St Mary’s, York. The Latin catechism, along with Gaytryge’s translation, was issued from Cawood and enrolled in the Archbishop’s Register in 1357 (York, Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, Register 13, f. 18r). Thoresby apparently issued the text in a small format, like the synodalia of the thirteenth century. One fifteenth century writer states that Thoresby sent copies of the work “in small pagyantes to the common people to learne it and to knowe it, of which yet manye a copye be in England.”178 As in the case of the libelli synodales, priests copied from exemplars which the archdeacons would make available, and these copies would be brought to convocations where they would be corrected and updated and where the priest would be tested on the material contained therein.179 Susan Powell notes that as they appear in the Archbishop’s Register, the Catechism and Injunctions fit neatly onto a single separate quire. She suggests that the separateness of the quire may signal that it represents one of

Reform 1215-1272; Haines, “Education in English Ecclesiastical Legislation”; and Shaw, “The Influence of Canonical and Episcopal Reform,” 44-60. 177 Pontal, Les Statuts Synodaux Français, 1:lxvi-lxvii. 178 Simmons and Nolloth, ed., The Lay Folk’s Catechism, xviii. 179 Gillespie, “Vernacular Books of Religion,” 317.

50 the circulating “pagyantes” which was sewn into the Archbishop’s Register.180 It is unlikely that any of these “pagyantes” would have survived independently, but, as Doyle notes, the English Layfolk’s Catechism was frequently incorporated in booklets into miscellaneous or composite volumes containing “other texts of English and Latin catechetic, homiletic, ascetical and meditative literature, compiled as much for private reading as public use.”181

Small-format manuscripts were also used as a way to circulate vernacular material. William Robins argues that the collection of saints’ lives known as the South English Legendary—an example which I will discuss in more detail in Chapter 2—benefited from the circulation of individual legends or groups of legends “in a variety of small-format copies, such as parchment rolls, unbound loose leaves, stitched pamphlets or custom-made booklets.”182 Similarly, Anne Hudson notes that contemporary edicts against Lollard written material at the end of the fourteenth century and in the early fifteenth century describe the circulation of a range of formats of differing size and permanence including libri (books), schedulae and rotuli (rolls), quaterni (quires), and bullaeor (bills).183

Small-format manuscripts and booklets, as Hanna notes, were also a useful means of intermediary production. They could be produced as units intended to be independently circulated (as the example of the Lollard materials shows) but they could also act as intermediary units in the process of production whereby they “involved a minimal commitment of resources while still allowing ongoing book production” and at the same time “forestalled or indefinitely delayed any absolute decisions about the form of the final product.”184 The Latin author Walter Map may have made use of booklets to compose De nugis curialium, extant now in only one manuscript, BodL, MS Bodley 851. Jan Ziolkowski suggests that he may have drafted the text in the early 1180s and then let it sit in unbound quires to which he added strips of vellum. At the stage at which he decided to reorganize the text, he cut the quires and rearranged the groups of

180 Powell, “The Transmission and Circulation of The Lay Folk’s Catechism,” 76. 181 Doyle, “Manuscripts,” 91. 182 Robins, “Modular Dynamics in the SEL,” 201. 183 Hudson, “Lollard Literature,” 331. 184 Hanna, “Booklets in Medieval Manuscripts,” 24.

51 folios.185 Matthew Paris used booklets in a similar way to assemble an anthology of the works of the Latin poet Henry of Avranches (CUL, MS Dd.11.78) which I discuss in more detail in Chapter 3 as a comparator for the Auchinleck manuscript.

Chaucer too may have allowed the circulation of small-format manuscripts containing parts of the Canterbury Tales.186 His scribes would have then been left with the texts, as Derek Pearsall has suggested, “partly as a bound book (with the first and last fragments fixed) and partly as a set of fragments in folders, with the incomplete information as to their nature and placement fully displayed.”187 In their description of the production of Canterbury Tales manuscripts, Edwards and Pearsall argued for a form of “booklet” based production:

The exemplar was split up and circulated in quires for simultaneous copying. The practice was well known in monastic scriptoria, and has some resemblance to the university pecia system, but it was evidently a ticklish operation in the hand-to-mouth world of the London book-trade, which is perhaps why it was so rare.188

Mooney and Stubbs have expanded and modified this assertion in light of their research into the London Guildhall as a potential “clearing house” for small-format manuscripts containing exemplars of Middle English texts in the fifteenth century. Richard Osbarn, a Chamber Clerk of the Guildhall, apparently assembled at least two manuscripts—San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 114, a mid-fifteenth century collection of Piers Plowman, Troilus and Criseyde and Mandeville among others, and London, Lambeth Palace, MS Lambeth 491, a contemporary manuscript of the Brut, The Siege of Jerusalem, The Three Kings of Cologne and The Awntyrs off Arthure—out of booklets that were possibly intended to circulate as exemplars. Hanna characterized San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 114 as one such manuscript, noting that the mixed materials (parchment and paper) of its booklets

look cheap and as if produced in the expectation that they might remain unbound for a protracted period....These small packets of quires, minimally decorated (the scribe did

185 Ziolkowski, “Latin Learning and Latin Literature,” 239. See also Walter Map, De nugis curialium, xxix–xxx. 186 For this position, see Manly and Rickert, The Text of the Canterbury Tales; Pratt, “The Order of the Canterbury Tales”; also Owen, Jr., The Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales. 187 Pearsall, The Canterbury Tales, 23. 188 Edwards and Pearsall, 262.

nearly all his own rubrication, including running titles), look as if they might form a small in-house bookseller’s stock—cheap copies of popular items in heavy demand.189

Mooney and Stubbs argue that if such an operation was in place during this time, then it is likely the first producers of manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales, scribes such as Adam Pinkhurst and John Marchaunt,

would presumably have accessed the tales in fragments even during Chaucer’s lifetime. Their accessing portions of Chaucer’s unfinished text in pieces after the author’s death would not preclude their copying the first portions of the Tales while Chaucer was still alive and composing them. After his death, they and others each assembled the incomplete Tales in separate attempts to create an appearance of completeness and order.190

Rather than emphasizing booklet production as a way to speed up the process of copying, Mooney and Stubbs suggest that Chaucer may have “published” elements of the Tales in small- format manuscripts prior to the compilation’s ultimate completion. Consequently, scribes used these small-format manuscripts as exemplars from which they could create a whole Canterbury Tales. In this way, we can see that small-format manuscripts and booklets were not only useful for the publication and rapid dissemination of institutional texts, but also for the publication and dissemination of English literary texts.

The presence of booklets shows medieval codices were involved in a continual process of compilation and dismantling, in which their forms were not necessarily fixed. Robinson and Hanna both agree that booklets were frequently used as a way to compile larger manuscripts from pre-existing units. The Auchinleck manuscript, which I will discuss in considerable detail in Chapter 3, was compiled by six scribes from twelve booklets in London in the 1330-40s. A second manuscript, CCCC, MS 450, shows the same “collecting” principles that Hanna associates with vernacular miscellanies also applied to Latin texts.191 The contents of the manuscript are primarily legal, and likely belonged to a Durham lawyer who had studied at Bologna. The fourth quire of the work likely began as a Goliardic anthology, containing texts

189 Hanna, “Scribe of HM 114,” 123. 190 Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City, 73. 191 For a full account, see Cheney, “Law and Letters” and James, Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College Cambridge, 364-372. See also Rigg, A History of Anglo-Latin Literature, 307.

53 such as the Apocalypsis Goliae, De coniuge non ducenda, and Confessio Goliae. The collation of the manuscript in general shows a mixture of quires of 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 folios, suggesting that the book is probably the cumulative result of a process of gathering material that was desirable as it became available. Nevertheless, the similarity in material in the “literary” section of the manuscript might also indicate that these shorter Latin works tended to circulate in small-format manuscripts such as pamphlets or unbound quires. Lastly, Alan Fletcher describes how the breaking up and compilation of sermons was a “characteristic mode of mendicant book production.”192 He draws attention to BodL, MS Bodley 26, a compilation of sermons with stints by at least sixteen different scribes ranging from the first half of the thirteenth century to the beginning of the fourteenth century. The first seven quires (ff. 1-103) were copied by three scribes and were likely conceived of as an independent unit. The ninth quire, and the earliest dated quire, may have been part of an independent compilation that was broken into pieces. Fletcher argues, ultimately, that Bodley 26 was “pieced together by some unknown compiler who had at his disposal at least three originally discrete books, booklets or quaterni.”193 He suggests that the compiler, a Franciscan friar, likely drew upon the resources of a scriptorium or centre to obtain the range of Franciscan exemplars he compiled.194

Here, I want to reiterate the point that Gillespie makes in her assessment of booklet theory: that the term is, in some ways, “so capacious and so abstract as to produce multiple and contradictory ideas about medieval manuscripts.”195 She notes,

A booklet may be a book, bound in limp parchment. It may be part of a collection of such booklets, assembled in a new binding by a medieval collector or a modern one, or both. A booklet in a composite volume may have been part of another book—a composite manuscript or some continuously copied whole—disassembled and then recombined again, by modern or medieval hands. If it was, by contrast, separately bound at the moment of its production, then this may have been because it was a short work that an author chose to circulate in booklet format. Or it may have been prepared in this way so it could form part of the stock of a bookshop…. It may have been prepared in this way so that an owner could alter, augment, or rearrange its component parts.196

192 Fletcher, “Compilations for Preaching,” 319-20. 193 Ibid., 319. 194 Ibid. 195 Gillespie, “Medieval Books,” 21. 196 Ibid.

This recognition that booklets cannot fit easily into any rigid scholarly scheme, but rather that they denote a flexible mode of production is important. It echoes Joseph Dane’s criticism of Hanna’s notion of “booklet theory” for the slipperiness of its terminology and its potential to find booklets that are only “imagined.”197 However, like Gillespie, I believe that “booklet theory” is useful precisely because it allows us to imagine the extant codices as a series of moving and movable parts, an organic composite where material divisions are often superseded or overwritten as a regular part of the process of production. At the same time, “booklet theory” offers us an avenue to revisit the “débris” of England’s literary landscape as evidence of production, as evidence of scribes and readers interacting with books in a variety of ways, creating shifting and slippery codicological units.

I have deliberately chosen examples from a range of time periods—from Walter Map in the twelfth century to Chaucer in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries—a range of linguistic contexts—from the Latin and Anglo-Norman booklets collected by a Berkshire lawyer to the monolingual Auchinleck manuscript—and a range of productive contexts—from a mendicant scriptorium to Oxford bookshops to personal miscellanies. I have offered up this range of examples, in part, to reinforce Gillespie’s point that small-format manuscripts and booklets cannot be easily fit into a rigid scheme. I also want to qualify the association that Hanna makes between miscellaneity and vernacularity, an association that these examples begin to implicitly undo. Vernacularity, he suggests, necessarily begets miscellaneity because for Middle English in the fourteenth century, “[t]here exists no single literary canon and, consequently, no single set of institutions to stimulate literary activity and to mandate various forms of more or less standardized book production.”198 In turn he contrasts the procedures of vernacular manuscript production with those of

any variety of Latinate modes of book production, all of them supported by clearly demarcatable transmission networks generally supported by one or another sort of professional affiliation (schools, orders, legal institutions, etc.). These, almost automatically, prescribe more fixed notions of appropriate literary production, of canonical texts and presentations.199

197 Dane, Chaucer’s Tomb, 144, 198 Hanna, “Vernacularity and Miscellaneity,” 47. 199 Ibid., 48.

This argument implies that Middle English manuscript production was seemingly of a different kind than Latinate modes of production, and, as I will argue in more detail in Chapter 2, this oversimplification ignores the substantial body of miscellaneous Latin anthologies in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. There is evidence that monastic manuscript production in the twelfth century favoured “a relatively limited schedule of patristic writers, generally in their most extensive works,”200 but to a certain extent this is an unfair comparison because it takes as representative only one mode of Latinate manuscript production.

In some ways, what I am trying to do here is similar to what Gillespie proposes in her article “Medieval Books, Their Booklets, and Booklet Theory” in which she used Hanna’s arguments concerning the production of vernacular booklets in manuscript production—that is, that they teach us something about deferral and indeterminacy in manuscript production—in order to set up an apparent contrast with the shape of printed books which, Hanna imagines, are always known in advance.201 But Gillespie, rather than accepting the manuscript-print binary as absolute, points out that printers were not always able to predict the shape of all the books they printed. They produced a range of half-sheet quarto editions of minor works by Chaucer and Lydgate that survive in print “miscellanies” or Sammelbände.202 Gillespie argues that production of these “pamphlets” shows an awareness of the fact that those who bought books might want to use them in all sorts of unpredictable ways. Thus, although the printing press allowed for the creation of “stock” or “standardized” volumes, it also allowed for the creation of flexible, smaller units of materials that could be used in ways the printer need not have anticipated.203 In the same way, I argue that we ought to collapse the Latin-vernacular binary that Hanna imagines to exist, which stresses the fixity of Latinate modes of production against the fluidity of Middle English production. Booklets were useful to those assembling Middle English manuscripts, but they were

200 Ibid. 201 See Gillespie, “Medieval Books,” 24. For example, Hanna, in his introduction to Pursuing History, states that medieval “construction by the fragment (or “booklet”) most severely challenged modern print notions of book production” (7). In “Booklets in Medieval Manuscripts,” he further develops this, suggesting “in the era preceding a national canon, scribes and stationers were never aware of the totality of literary production” (31)—implying that in the Age of Print, stationers could be aware of the totality of literary production. 202 Cf. Gillespie, “Poets, Printers, and Early English Sammelbände.” 203 For Gillespie’s discussion of these processes, see “Poets, Printers, and Early English Sammelbände,” Huntington Library Quarterly 67 (2004), 189-214. In particular, note her argument that “[e]arly English Sammelbände suggest a remarkable openness on the part of printers and owners to the malleable, multiple forms of books” (205).

56 also useful to those assembling Anglo-Norman manuscripts, or Latin manuscripts, or manuscripts of mixed language and content—that is, the small-format manuscripts and booklets were a useful tool for circulating small or otherwise ephemeral units of text, and they were also a useful tool in the production of larger manuscripts—whether they were written in the vernacular or not.

When we loosen the association between vernacularity and miscellaneity, it becomes increasingly evident that the methods of making Middle English books and circulating Middle English texts may not have been intrinsically different from the methods of making other sorts of books and circulating other sorts of texts. Rather than seeing Middle English culture as necessarily “fragmentary,” we might productively view medieval literary culture in general as sustained, in part, by flexible and informal book-making activities that depended upon the circulation of short or “ephemeral” texts in small-format manuscripts that do not survive in high numbers. Booklet theory, then, offers a way to discover traces of this lost culture of small-format textual circulation in surviving manuscripts. The circulation of these small-format manuscripts— whether they are rolls, pamphlets, “pagyantes,” unbound quires, or booklets in limp binding— must have operated as a kind of connective tissue linking reading communities typically assumed to be discrete, a point that Boffey and Edwards make in their discussion of Middle English literature:

Given the informal routes of transmission characteristically followed by songs and short texts of similar kinds, the boundaries between different sorts of community (collegiate, monastic, etc.) must have been quite flexible.204

Both the flexibility and the sense of interconnectedness enabled by the production of small- format manuscripts are key to my assessment of Middle English literary culture in this chapter.

4 Major Texts, Major Authors

I conclude this chapter by using several case studies to demonstrate the central premises I laid out for my understanding of English vernacular literary culture from 1280-1415. Here, I return to Cannon’s assertion that the twelfth, thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries offered works

204 Boffey and Edwards, 384.

57 produced in “splendid isolation” which are to be valued by scholars “for [their] rarity.”205 From the mid-fourteenth century onward, he suggests that English writing came to assume “some aggregated shape,” what he calls, borrowing the language of Marx, “that ‘primitive accumulation’ sufficient to produce a ‘revolution’.”206 This section addresses how the production and circulation of manuscripts and texts contributed to the “primitive accumulation” of Middle English literature and, in turn, its “aggregated shape.”

As I have emphasized throughout this chapter, Middle English textual production persisted throughout the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries alongside the more robust forms of Latin and Anglo-Norman production. Many of the Middle English texts of the neglected post-Conquest period from 1066-1200 were homilies and hagiographic texts. The most famous of these, and the most linguistically and orthographically anomalous, is the Ormulum written by the Augustinian monk Orm, which appears in a single manuscript, BodL, MS Junius 1. Cannon and others have called this manuscript a “workshop draft” in which

Orm and an assistant working under his close direction first copied out a portion of a text, and then made repeated passes through it, trying to iron out exceptions, irregularities, and mistakes—but always discovering and making more errors in the process.207

For Cannon, the Ormulum typifies the singularity and the “splendid isolation” of early Middle English texts.208 However, it seems clear to me that this is, in many ways, an oversimplification in that the Ormulum had numerous Latin sources—including possibly an onomastic compilation which contained copies of the Glossa, the pseudo-Anselm Enarrationes and Bede’s In Lucae Expositio Evangelium to name a few—and was part of a broad pattern of manuscript production in the twelfth century.209 As Treharne shows, although the Ormulum is eccentric in its

205 Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature, 11, 9, respectively. 206 Ibid., 13. 207 Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature, 83. On the state of the manuscript and its anomalous text, see Turville-Petre, “Studies on the Ormulum MS” and Bruchfield, “The Language and Orthography of the Ormulum MS.” A comparative example of a working draft of a Middle English text in the fourteenth century is BodL Ashmole 33 (mid fourteenth century), which includes a parchment wrapper with a draft of part of Sir Firumbras, which has been edited and revised in the manuscript. 208 Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature, 11, 9, respectively. 209 Morrison, “New Sources for the Ormulum,” 444. See also Matthes, Die Einheitlichkeit des Orrmulum and Morrison’s earlier article,”Sources for the Ormulum.”

58 orthography and language—that is, in the form of writing, which concerns Cannon most in his chapter—nevertheless, it is not anomalous in either its genre or its vernacularity. Rather, the Ormulum ought to be considered part of a program of vernacular manuscript production that was given new impetus by the mandate toward pastoral care issued by the Third Lateran Council in 1179 (an impetus that would be renewed in the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 with similar results). In her handlist, Treharne identifies approximately fifty manuscripts containing English from the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries.210 Each of these manuscripts, she writes, “is a fascinating portal into the religious and cultural resource of its centre of manufacture; each is indicative of a community response to the pastoral and pedagogic needs of a multitude of users.”211 Nevertheless, these manuscripts display remarkable uniformity; they were

conceived of as relatively light and portable, small by the standards of many Latin books in this period, and, by comparison, economical to produce. Each, with the exception of Bodley 343 (and Harley 55, folios 5-13), has the standard single column of writing unlike many Latin manuscripts in the period, which were written in double-column format.212

For Treharne, the homogeneous form, mise-en-page, and attention to detail of contemporized spelling, lexis, morphology, phonology and syntax suggests “an overarching production agenda” which she associates with the Benedictine monks.213 Her study of these manuscripts indicates that while the Ormulum may yield interesting results when studied as an individual item, nevertheless, there exists a much broader context for the production of this manuscript, and other manuscripts which contain texts of its genre, which Cannon seemingly ignores.

A second set of texts which Cannon discusses is the thirteenth-century Ancrene Wisse and the Katherine-group. Two of the earliest manuscripts of the Ancrene Wisse, CCCC, MS 402 and BL, MS Cotton Nero A.xiv, dated to the early thirteenth century, were written in a common Middle English dialect known as the “AB” language, which points to a West Midlands origin. A beginner’s guide for female recluses, the original Ancrene Wisse was likely written by an

210 Treharne, Living Through Conquest , 125-7. 211 Ibid., 129. 212 Ibid., 137-8. 213 Ibid., 139.

Augustinian canon (or a Dominican friar) for three young sisters of a wealthy family.214 Rather than imagining itself as a singular product, the text addresses itself to a larger audience:

Ye beoth the ancren of Englond, swa feole togederes, twenti nuthe other ma. Godd i god ow multi, thet meast grith is among, meast an-nesse ant an-rednesse ant sometread-nesse of an-red lif efter a riwle, swa thet alle teoth an, alle i-turnt anes-weis, ant nan frommard other, efter thet word is.

[You are the anchoresses of England, so many together, twenty now or more. May God multiply you in good, among whom there is the greatest peace, the greatest unity and single-mindedness and concord in your common life according to one rule, so that all pull as one, all are turned one way, and none away from the other, according to what I have heard.]215

The editor of the recent TEAMS edition, Robert Hasenfratz imagines clusters of anchoresses reading and responding to the text, possibly making revisions themselves if they acted as scribes, which appeared “as marginal glosses which were incorporated into the main text at the next copying.”216 The manuscripts of the Ancrene Wisse point toward the existence of an initial community consisting of the author’s learned colleagues and the anchoresses themselves and an extended audience—a “new cadre of ‘semi-educated’ contemplatives.”217 Of the surviving manuscripts, A. S. G. Edwards associates two—CCCC, MS 402 and BL, MS Cotton Cleopatra C.vi—with the anchoritic and female religious audiences for which the Ancrene Wisse was first intended. The latter manuscript can be further associated with a house of Augustinian canons at Wigmore in Herefordshire.218 As I will discuss further in Chapter 2, both the Ancrene Wisse and the Katherine-group show a consistent association with Augustinian lines of production and dissemination. This association may have led to the text’s survival in numerous extant manuscripts, with several later translations appearing in Anglo-Norman and Latin. Both Camb., Gonville and Caius College, MS 234/120 (mid or late thirteenth century) and BL, MS Cotton Vitellius F.vii (early fourteenth-century) are indicative of a broad linguistic context. The former

214 E. J. Dobson has made the strongest case for the Augustinian origins of the Ancrene Wisse in The Origins of the Ancrene Wisse. For Bella Millett’s arguments in favour of a friar, see “The Origins of the Ancrene Wisse: New Answers, New Questions.” 215 Hasenfratz, Ancrene Wisse, 4.916-20. 216 Hasenfratz, introduction to Ancrene Wisse, 15. 217 Watson, “Ancrene Wisse,” 198. 218 See Edwards, “Middle English Manuscripts and Early Readers of Ancrene Wisse,” 103-112.

60 contains an English version of the text alongside extracts from the Vitae patrum in Latin, suggesting the compiler had eremitic interests and was probably male.219 The second of these two manuscripts contains a copy of an earlier Anglo-Norman translation.220 When viewed in this context, a context that Cannon largely neglects, the Ancrene Wisse and its related texts appear to be intrinsically connected to the same intellectual context as thirteenth-century Latin works of religious instruction, as Barratt argues, and also to institutional lines of production and dissemination.221 Although the Ancrene Wisse circulated to a limited extent amongst the educated laity interested in religious practice at the end of the fourteenth century, it seems not to have done so in substantial numbers as evinced by a pattern of production and distribution which might be contrasted to that of Richard Rolle’s texts, intended for a similar audience.

Despite the contexts I envisage for the study of these two examples, neither the Ormulum nor the Ancrene Wisse had a substantial impact upon England’s literary culture, although the closest might be the Ancrene Wisse, with its survival in over seventeen manuscripts and its persistent, if limited, influence into the late fourteenth century. To move on from examples Cannon discusses specifically, I present two case studies which show how the “accumulation” of certain Middle English texts, facilitated or hindered by their circumstances of production, changed the “aggregated” shape of England’s vernacular literary culture. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, at around the same time that several other major Middle English compendia, the Cursor Mundi and the Northern Homily Cycle, were produced in the northern part of England, the Lincolnshire canon Robert Mannyng of Bourne translated and compiled two major textual projects. The first of these was a twelve-thousand line Middle English devotional poem, Handlyng Synne completed in 1303, based upon William Waddington’s Anglo-Norman Manuel des pechez. Although twenty-eight manuscripts of the Anglo-Norman source survive, only nine survive of Handlyng Synne and none of these are from the early fourteenth century.222 Furthermore, only two manuscripts and one fragment, all three from the end of the fourteenth

219 Barratt, “Spiritual Writing,” 347. 220 Ibid. 221 Barratt, “The Five Witts,” 15. See also her detailed analysis of the manuscripts of this text in “Spiritual Writings,” 345-7. 222 For a discussion of the manuscripts of Manuel des pechez, see Barratt, “Spiritual Writings,” 353-355. For the manuscripts of Handlyng Synne and the Story of England, see the respective editions by Idelle Sullens.

61 and early fifteenth century, survive of Mannyng’s second work, his Story of England, completed in 1338.

One of the substantial differences between the number of surviving manuscripts of Mannyng’s work in comparison with that of his source may have been Mannyng’s presumably limited access to a community interested in producing and disseminating—that is, publishing—his texts. It is frequently argued that Mannyng wrote his books to be read by either the priory’s novices or lay workers.223 In the prologue to Handlyng Synne, Mannyng cites the order and priors at Sempringham to leave little doubt that the work was “duly authorized, as the rule required”— possibly because, as Coleman notes, the Gilbertine order of which Mannyng was a member set harsh penalties for canons who composed anything except service books without official permission.224 Supporting this, Ker notes that the majority of books recorded or surviving from Gilbertine priories are service books.225 In contrast, William Waddington was connected with a network ready to promote and disseminate his work. He was likely a member of the household of Walter Gray, the Archbishop of York (1215-1255), who held a series of councils in his diocese from 1241 to 1255 in order to address concerns regarding clerical celibacy, the inheritance of benefice as well as the education of the clergy in keeping with the mandates for the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.226 Archbishop Gray was one of the most zealous reformers of the period, and Jonathan Hughes argues,

Waddington’s decision to compose a vernacular handbook on confession…for the use of the less educated clergy of the diocese clearly had official backing and approval at York. The Manuel des Peches was rapidly disseminated throughout the diocese (almost all the extant manuscripts were copied between 1275 and 1325, and most originated in the diocese of York).227

In this case, although Mannyng’s English translations would have appealed to a similar audience to that of Waddington, and Handlyng Synne was of a similar genre, the principal difference

223 Cf. Turville-Petre, “Politics and Poetry.” See also Pearsall, Old English and Middle English Poetry, 108. Coleman argues that these texts might also have been used to entertain pilgrims in “Handling Pilgrims.” 224 Coleman, “Strange Prosody,” 1226. 225 Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 304. Cf. Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham. 226 Sullivan, “A Brief Textual History of the Manuel des Péchés,” 343. 227 Hughes, “The Administration of Confession,” 92.

62 appears to have been the community of potential producers to which Mannyng had access. While Gray’s work was sanctioned and possibly promoted by the Archbishop of York, Mannyng would have had to rely upon the resources of the Gilbertines who, although they authorized his literary endeavors, likely would not have been able to facilitate the production of manuscripts in any great numbers. Both Handlyng Synne and the Story of England, whether intended for novices, conversi or even pilgrims traveling to the priory, must have been intended primarily for local use, and, due to the limited textual resources of the Gilbertine community, must have remained predominantly local texts, consequently limited from shaping or contributing to a national vernacular literary culture in any substantial way.

By way of contrast, I want to offer an extended example of an early Middle English author who achieved canonical or national status because he wrote from a position of overlap between a number of communities—linguistic, geographic, and bureaucratic—that allowed him access to an audience that increasingly widened through the circulation of manuscripts: the hermit Richard Rolle of Hampole (1305-1349). Rolle’s presence as a charismatic intellectual writing in Latin and English, an author patronized by and conversant with the nobility, was vital to the development of Yorkshire’s rich culture of devotional and meditational works. The bulk of Rolle’s early works were written in Latin, including Contra amatores mundi, Incendium amoris, and Melos amoris. His most popular Latin treatise, Emendatio vitae, survives in ninety-five manuscripts and sixteen English versions, representing seven separate translations.228 Despite their apparent popularity, few of these Latin texts survive from the fourteenth century. The earliest is BL, MS Add. 34763, a small commonplace book containing the pseudo-Bernardine Speculum peccatoris and the Scala claustralium. Its contents suggest ownership by “a male cleric with contemplative interests.”229 Early copies of his Latin works circulated both in England and internationally: we have evidence that manuscripts belonged to the Carthusians in the Enghien Charterhouse in Hainaut, Belgium,230 the Bridgettine mother house in Vadstena, Sweden,231 and Christopher Braystones, a Benedictine monk of St Mary’s, York.232 Toward the

228 For Contra amatores mundi, see Theiner, The Contra amatores mundi. For Melos amoris, see Arnould, The Melos amoris. For Emendatio vitae, see Nicholas Watson’s edition, Emendatio vitae. 229 Barratt, “Spiritual Writings and Religious Instruction,” 361. 230 Cf. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale MSS 2103 and 1485. 231 Cf. Uppsala, University Library, MS C. I.

63 end of his life, Rolle turned to the vernacular in order to engage with a readership of parish priests, anchoresses, nuns, and noblewomen. According to the compilers of his office, Rolle composed many “sweet writings” for the edification of his neighbours in the form of “treatises and little books.”233 These neighbours, likely his main source of patronage, would have included such leading Richmondshire families as the Scropes of Masham, the FitzHughs of Tanfield, and the Stapletons of Bedale, who all lived within a twelve mile radius of Layton where Rolle lived and wandered.234 None of these autograph copies have been identified, although Lord Scrope owned a copy of the Incendium amoris and “unum Quaternum parvum” [a small quire] which contained Judica me “quod Ricardus Heremita compsuit et scripsit, pro Remembrancia” [which Richard the Hermit composed and wrote in remembrance]. Lord Scrope bequeathed both of these in 1415 to his brother-in-law, Henry Lord FitzHugh.235 John Newton, a contemporary of Thomas Arundel and Richard Scrope at Cambridge and the treasurer of York Cathedral, also apparently owned Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 35, a manuscript containing various texts of Rolle and Bonaventure, as well as Honorius of Autun’s Cognitio vitae, which he may have corrected with one of Rolle’s original manuscripts.236

I argue that one element of Rolle’s success had to do with the way his texts were produced and circulated in order to engage interpenetrating readerships. Here, I would draw attention to the last of the manuscripts discussed above, BodL, MS Rawl. C. 285.237 This is a vellum manuscript from the north of England dated to the end of the fourteenth century, comprised of four booklets written by four scribes. The contents of each of these booklets tend toward religious poetry and prose. The first booklet (ff. 1-39) written by Scribe 1 contains Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection and an extract from the Prick of Conscience. The second booklet (ff. 40-63) written by Scribe 2 contains The Form of Living and a series of nine prose extracts from Hilton, Rolle

232 Susan Cavanaugh mentions this copy in “A Study of Books Privately Owned in England,” 774. 233 Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, 90. 234 Ibid., 87. 235 Ibid., 91. 236 Hughes, “The Administration of Confession,” 105. 237 For a description of this manuscript, see Hanna, English Manuscripts, 174-176.

64 and others. The third booklet consisting of a single quire (ff. 64-73) with the first text completed by Scribe 2 and the remaining completed by Scribe 3 contains anonymous religious texts including “Meditation on the Passion,” “The Epistle of St John the Hermit,” and excerpts from the “Verba seniorum.” The final booklet (ff. 74-118) written by Scribe 4 contains a second version of Hilton’s The Scale of Perfection. Each of the opening pages of the booklets has been decorated by lombards in gold leaf and the figures of birds, insects, animals and flowers, completed in the seventeenth century. Each of these booklets ends with a final blank folio which has since also been filled in with later material. This manuscript exemplifies my point that the circulation of small-format manuscripts and the production of larger compiled codices out of booklets contributed to Rolle’s success, a point Vincent Gillespie has also made.238 As I have noted, Rolle himself may have been responsible for the first “publication” of his work in small “treatises and little books” which he gave to his neighbours, copies such as the “unum Quaternum parvum” [a small quire] which contained Judica me owned by Lord Scrope.

A cursory glance at Hanna’s catalogue describing English manuscripts of Rolle’s works brings up several similar examples: BodL, MS Rawl. A.389, which consists of six booklets of Rollean material from the end of the fourteenth century;239 Camb., Magdalene College, MS Pepys 2125 from the beginning of the fifteenth century, comprising two originally separate manuscripts, the second of which is divided into four booklets containing religious texts in English and Latin including Rolle’s Commandment and Form of Living;240 Camb. Trinity College, MS B.15.17 (353), a contemporary manuscript divided into two booklets, the first of which contains Piers Plowman and the second of which consists of two quires containing only the Form of Living;241 and CUL, MS Ff.5.30 from the beginning of the fifteenth century which consists of two booklets, the second of which is made up solely of Emendatio vitae written over four quires.242 This list of “booklets” and small-format manuscripts containing the works of Richard Rolle is by no means exhaustive. It provides evidence that Rolle’s work circulated in single-author anthologies such as

238 Gillespie, “Vernacular Books of Religion,” 327. 239 Described in Hanna, English Manuscripts, 171-174. 240 Described in Hanna, English Manuscripts, 8-12. 241 Described in Hanna, English Manuscripts, 17-18. 242 Described in Hanna, English Manuscripts, 27-28.

BodL, MS Rawl. A.389, in general collections of Middle English religious material such as Camb., Magdalene College, MS Pepys 2125, and as “booklets” containing a single Rollean text joined to form a composite manuscript such as Camb., Trinity College, MS B.15.17 (353) and CUL, MS Ff.5.30. Furthermore, these booklets may have been produced as a result primarily of personal copying as may have been the case for Camb., Magdalene College, MS Pepys 2125; they may have been commissioned from a professional scribe as may have been the case for BodL, MS Rawl. A.389;243 and lastly, they may have been produced by means of the “scriptorial facilities” of a religious institution such as the nunnery at Hampole where his biographical office was compiled in preparation for his canonization. No single avenue of production or dissemination ensured Rolle’s success as an author; rather, it came about as a result of dissemination through multiple channels, in multiple languages, and through multiple formats, each of which expressed different attitudes regarding his canonical or authoritative status and each of which may have appealed to different reading communities.

Jeremy Catto notes that during Rolle’s lifetime and shortly after his death, his work gestated quietly, “known only to a small circle of Yorkshire admirers: Margaret Kirkeby, for whom more than one was written, the nuns of Hampole, and other recluses of the vicinity…together with their lay patrons of the Scrope and FitzHugh families.”244 At the end of the fourteenth century, they became known to Thomas Arundel, archbishop of York (1388-96) and his clerical circle (possibly by means of Richard Scrope, his eventual successor as archbishop of York), after which point they

enjoyed wide popularity in the fifteenth century, being copied and translated systematically…into a larger literary world in which texts were scrutinized, licensed, and proliferated systematically for the edification of a sophisticated and independent-minded laity.245

243 The scribe of this manuscript also copied Camb., Trinity College, MSR.3.8 containing the Cursor Mundi as well as BL, MS Harley 1205, a manuscript of the Prick of Conscience, and Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Eng. 50, a second manuscript of the Prick of Conscience and the Speculum Gy de Warewyke. He is discussed further in Chapter 4. 244 Catto, “1349-1412: Culture and History,” 113. 245 Ibid., 114-5.

It may well be the support of influential and energetic supporters such as Arundel and Scrope that encouraged this copying, in contrast to the fate of the Ancrene Wisse which never enjoyed the same level of success.

Rolle remains a fascinating character in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century literary history precisely because of his ubiquity. Many works of his disciples were later attributed to him, and his name became attached to a range of works including the Prick of Conscience and the Speculum Vitae as a way to “authorize” these otherwise anonymous texts—that is, he appears to be one of the first vernacular authors whose manuscripts (alongside other related manuscripts) were conditioned to be read as canonical on the basis of their association with a recognized authorial figure.246 One of the first Middle English literary best-sellers, his success was due in part to his skillful exploitation of multiple writing communities and in part, at a material level, because of the ease in which his texts could be produced, circulated, and integrated into new physical (and cultural) contexts. Although the production of his works occurred necessarily in individual “sites”—that is, mass production of his works was never fostered or directed at an institutional level in the way we see, for example, the Layfolk’s Catechism produced and disseminated in Yorkshire—nevertheless, these local moments of production, when taken in aggregate, resulted in a shift in England’s cultural landscape. In subsequent chapters, I will build upon the groundwork laid here to show the similar interrelationship between literary and textual activities in the production of three major textual projects.

246 For an example of the attribution of the Speculum Vitae to Rolle, see CUL, MS LI.i.8 (s. xivex). For examples of the attribution of the Prick of Conscience to Rolle, see BodL, MS Ashmole 60 (s. xivex), BL, MS Egerton 3245 (s. xivex), London, Lambeth Palace, MS 260 (s. xvin), Camb., Gonville and Caius College, MS 386 (s. xv1), and Oxford, Merton College, MS 68 (s. xvmed). See also Watson, Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority for his discussion of how Rolle was presented as an authoritative figure and potential author for this text and others.

Chapter 2 “Of Holi Dawes Maked”: Making Early South English Legendaries

1 Introduction

The West Midlands collection of saints’ lives known as the South English Legendary (SEL) was one of the most widely circulating Middle English texts of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century.247 Extant in over sixty manuscripts and fragments dispersed throughout the south of England and parts of the Midlands, nine of which survive pre-1350, the SEL was in its first incarnation “a rudimentary collection of short saints’ lives, probably dependent on a liturgical model.”248 The collection was expanded and altered throughout the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries to comprise movable feasts, Old Testament temporale items (a history from the Creation and Adam, through the major patriarchs, to the prophet), Christ and Mary temporale items, a prologue sometimes known as the Banna Sanctorum, and further sanctorale items.249 That a collection written in Middle English should survive in six manuscript witnesses and a further three fragments dated before 1350 is remarkable. In contrast, only five manuscripts and

247 The line of thinking in this chapter is greatly indebted to William Robins’s observations on the circulation of the SEL. For his excellent discussion of how the “modular dynamics” of the SEL facilitated participation in the development of a “widespread, vernacular, Middle English, literary culture,” see William Robins, “Modular Dynamics in the SEL.” An early draft of some of this material was presented in “The Modular Book: Textual Production and the South English Legendary” at the 43rd International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, MI, 2008). 248 Pickering, “Teaching or Preaching?” 2. Görlach lists twenty-five major manuscripts, nineteen fragments, and eighteen miscellaneous manuscripts containing at least one SEL text in Textual Tradition and he and Pickering identified a further manuscript in 1982, described in “A Newly Discovered Manuscript.” 249 The piece which I have called the Banna Sanctorum is referred to by various titles among the manuscripts, including “Banna,” “de natiuitate,” “De baptismo qui dicitur nouus fructus, “Here it speith of the fruyt called Christendom.” For a discussion of these titles and their relationship to the framework the prologue establishes, see Thomas Liszka, “The First ‘A’ Redaction ,” 408.

68 fragments of the Ancrene Wisse (c. 1225-1240) survive from this period;250 three manuscripts of the Cursor Mundi (c. 1300);251 one manuscript of the Northern Homily Cycle (1295-1306);252 and no manuscripts of Robert Mannyng’s Handlyng Synne (c. 1303). As such, the SEL contradicts the characterization that early Middle English texts are “singular and precarious.”253 The collection is deeply entrenched in England’s vernacular literary culture—one of the most widely distributed Middle English texts before the Pricke of Conscience (c. 1350) and Langland’s Piers Plowman (c. 1360-1387).254 Furthermore, it is distinctly connected to an upsurge in the production of texts spurred on by the Fourth Lateran Council and fostered by a broad base of readers and scribes that might have included the Benedictines of Worcester Cathedral Priory or St. Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester, Augustinian canons, friars, nuns, and, among others, a host of parish priests, lay clerks, and household scribes.

This chapter argues that one aspect which encouraged the proliferation of SEL manuscripts was the text’s formal adaptability. The text was well suited for dissemination in England’s compilatory culture where scribes could adapt materials to reflect the needs of local audiences. Scholars such as Beverly Boyd and William Robins have drawn attention to the fact that no two manuscripts of the SEL survive with all the same texts in exactly the same order. These scholars suggest that the “openness” or miscellaneity of the collection—what Ralph Hanna III describes as the “oscillation between the planned and the random”255—shaped the codicology of SEL manuscripts such as BodL, MS, Laud Misc. 108 and BL, MS Egerton 1993.256 Less attention, however, has been paid to Manfred Görlach’s suspicion that two SEL manuscripts and another two fragments were produced in an institutional scriptorium of some sort, which, if this is the

250 Cf. BL, MS Cotton Cleopatra C.vi; c. 1225-30; BL, MS Cotton Nero A.xiv, c. 1225-50; BL, MS Cotton Titus D.xviii, c. 1225-50; CCCC, MS 402, c. 1225-40; and the fragment BodL, MS Eng. th.c.70, c. 1300-50. 251 Cf. Edinburgh, MS Royal College of Physicians, c. 1300; BL, MS Cotton Vespasian A.iii, c. 1300; and Göttingen, Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, MS Cod. theol. 107r, c. 1300. 252 Cf. Edinburgh, MS Royal College of Physicians, c. 1300. 253 Hahn, “Early Middle English,” 91. 254 For a comparison of numbers, see Sargent, “What Do the Numbers Mean?” 206. 255 Hanna, “Miscellaneity and Vernacularity,” 37. 256 See Boyd, “New Light on the South English Legendary” and Robins, “Modular Dynamics.”

69 case, would make the SEL one of the earliest Middle English texts disseminated along institutional lines by means of a concerted program of copying.257 This chapter then will examine how the circulation of the SEL in the West Midlands models two ways of conceiving of Middle English manuscripts: as open compilations subject to intervention, emendation, revision and addition at various stages of production and as consolidated, fixed, or canonical entities to be reproduced and circulated in a single, stable form.

2 Contexts and Backgrounds 2.1 The Authorship of the SEL

Before I turn to an analysis of several individual manuscripts of the SEL, I want to lay the groundwork by exploring the contexts of production for this collection. Scholars have typically linked the production and circulation of the SEL to what Mary Elizabeth O’Carroll describes as a veritable “industry” of pastoralia that emerged in the wake of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and its urge to pastoral care.258 In 1215, Pope Innocent III assembled the Fourth Council of the Lateran in order to address issues including the Crusade, heresy, church reform and pastoral care. Crucially, he moved for a thorough reform of the clergy and the creation of a pastoral system to instruct and guide the laity. This was a pivotal moment, not only for the development of the pan-European Church where the effects of the reform movement have been well- documented, but also for the development of England’s vernacular literary culture. The precepts of the Fourth Lateran Council—implemented along official channels in England in the thirteenth century through local ecclesiastical councils and synods such as Archbishop John Pecham’s

257 For the theory of the scriptorium, see Görlach’s description of CCCC, MS 145 (Textual Tradition, 77-79), BL, MS Egerton 2891 (Textual Tradition, 92-93), Leicester, Leicester Museum, MS 18 D 59 (Textual Tradition, 113- 114), and Nottingham, University of Nottingham , MS WLC/LM/38 (Textual Tradition, 117). The only earlier example of semi-organized scribal collaboration across multiple manuscripts is the case of the Ancrene Wisse, surviving in fourteen manuscripts and fragments, four of which listed above are dated from 1225-1240. Robert Hasenfratz argues that this text allows us to “imagine clusters of anchoresses copying and reading AW intensively, interpreting and responding to the text, sometimes prompting the author (their spiritual advisor or advisors) to clarify, expand, or revise the text” in the introduction to Ancrene Wisse, 15. But at this stage the manuscript evidence is sufficiently unclear for us to determine with certitude how exactly this might have occurred; it is more likely to have involved local copying rather than in a scriptorium. 258 See, for example, Thompson, Everyday Saints, 157. Her comments are representative of the general scholarly consensus.

Council of Lambeth in 1281—encouraged a wave of literary production in England’s lingua materna.259 Of the many texts produced during this first wave—texts such as the Northern Homily Cycle produced by canons resident in the vicinity of York (1295-1306), the massive compendium known as the Cursor Mundi (1300), and Robert of Gloucester’s Handlyng Synne (1303), to name a few—the SEL was arguably the most successful.

Despite the collection’s general association with the rising interest in pastoral care, it is difficult to be sure about where and when the SEL was first produced since no manuscripts of the SEL survive from before the end of the thirteenth century, and the earliest surviving manuscript— BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 (c. 1280-1300)—likely represents a “conflated” and “corrupted” amalgam of several earlier versions of the text, such that it poses the “greatest problem for the reconstruction of the genesis of the collection.”260 Scholars studying the SEL have argued for the involvement of different groups of religious—Benedictine monks, Dominican or Franciscan friars, Augustinian canons and parish priests—in the early production and dissemination of the collection. Early scholars such as Wright, Wells and Görlach in particular argued that the first copy of the SEL was likely written in a monastic house, either in Worcester or at St. Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester.261 These institutions, runs the argument, would have had the textual and material resources to produce a major religious compilation: a library, a scriptorium (or “scriptorial facilities”) of some sort, or at the very least money for materials and a group of trained scribes in their vicinity.

Beatrice D. Brown, however, in her edition of the Southern Passion, claimed “the South English Legendary appears to have been written for a purpose which is not historically consistent with any of the known activities of a thirteenth-century monastic house.”262 Instead, she suggested

259 For an initial overview of the effect of the impetus to pastoral care on literature during the period, see Gillespie, “Doctrina and Praedicacio;” Boyle, “The Fourth Lateran Council and Manuals of Popular Theology,” 30-43 and Shaw, “Popular Books of Instruction,” 44-60. 260 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 80. 261 Cf. Wright, The Metrical Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, xxxix. Wells argues “the enterprise probably originated among the monks at Gloucester, or at least became defined and developed at Gloucester” in Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 293. 262 Brown, The Southern Passion, xcv.

71 mendicant authorship on the basis that a work of pastoral instruction and entertainment such as the SEL may have easily been adapted for use in sermons and fits well with the general aims and interests of preachers. She argued that on the continent there existed a strong hagiographical vein in the writings of Dominican friars, in particular, works such as Jean de Mailly’s Abbreviatio in gestis et miraculis sanctorum (late 1220s), Bartholomew of Trent’s Epilogus in gesta sanctorum (mid-1240s), and the famous Legenda aurea (c. 1260). D’Evelyn and Mill, in their 1959 edition, tentatively suggested that the author was a Dominican because Peter the Dominican was included.263 Similarly, W. A. Hinnebusch argued that St. Dominic receives greater praise than St. Francis and so, on that basis, the text was more likely to have had a Dominican author.264 Wolpers noted that the structure of the SEL and the emphasis on humilitas might point toward Franciscan authorship, but he argued that both orders may have been responsible for the transmission of the collection in its various forms.265 The debate between Franciscan and Dominican authorship has re-occurred in a number of more recent articles including Karen Bjelland’s “Franciscan versus Dominican Responses to the Knight as a Societal Model” and Sebastian Sobecki’s “Two English Dominican Hagiographers in the Thirteenth Century.”

There are several problems with the methodology of these arguments, which I will lay out, because, on the one hand, these methodological problems expose the issues of addressing a collection with such a complex textual history, and, on the other, they show the persistent and problematic influence of the assumption that the literary production of different religious institutions occurred in isolation. Towards the first point, the SEL is, as far as we know, a loose collection of texts taken from numerous sources including Latin hagiographies, breviaries and even chronicles, possibly versified by more than one author over time, with texts substituted or edited as the collection was transmitted. Because we can only hypothesize the contents of the original SEL, and as the subsequent versions show different stages of editorial intervention, it is in many ways impossible to tell on the basis of the study of a single text, or even a group of texts, the literary intentions of the original author. Toward the second point, I would recall Neil

263 D’Evelyn and Mill, 16–7. 264 Hinnebusch, Early English Friars Preachers, 311. 265 Wolpers, Die Englische Heiligengeschichte, 239.

Cartlidge’s concerns about determining the social context of Oxford, Jesus College, MS 29(II) and BL, MS Cotton Caligula A.ix on the basis of the texts alone:

…just as the reception implied by any given text is by no means automatically identifiable with its actual reception, so the purpose of the manuscripts implied by the accumulation of different texts is not necessarily an indication of the function that they actually served. Such an analysis may tell us something about the purposes and expectations of their compilers, but it cannot provide any direct evidence for the early history of the manuscripts themselves. Moreover, if their composition is taken to be in any way representative of their original milieux, then we must make sure that due weight is given to all the texts that they contain. In fact, hypotheses about the circumstances of their production have often been supported by disproportionate emphases upon relatively narrow samples of their contents.266

The study of a limited range of texts—in this case, most often, the lives of St. Francis and St. Dominic—tend to skew the conversation in SEL studies. This is particularly problematic because it is doubtful that a single life ought to be taken as representative of the aims or agenda—or even source material—of the whole collection.

If we relied upon this methodology, we might, for example, take an interest in the fact that the SEL life of St. Dunstan shows the founding of monasteries in England as an indication of Benedictine authorship. When Dunstan becomes abbot of Glastonbury, the author of BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 breaks into an aside that highlights the origins of the “blake Monekes” under Dunstan’s tenure:

Of blake Monekes, þat was a-rerd : þe furste of Enguelonde— For ech Abeye of Enguelonde : þat of blake Monekes is Of þe hous of Glastingburi : furst sprong and cam, iwis.267

A revised and expanded version of this passage appears in CCCC, MS 450 and BL, MS Harley 2277, which provides a more historically-attuned description of the foundation of monasticism in England, drawn from William of Malmesbury:

At þat hous þat was ferst bigonne four hondred ȝer biuore And eke þreo & uifti ȝer ar sein Donston were ibore

266 Cartlidge, “The Composition and Social Context,” 252. 267 “Dunstan,” in Horstmann, The Early South-English Legendary, ll. 42-4.

For þer was ordres of monkes ar sein Patrik come And ar seint Austin to Engelond broȝte Cristendom And seint Patrik deide four hondred & to & fifti ȝer After þat oure swete Leuedi oure Louerd an eorþe ber Ac none monekes þere nere ferst bote as in hudynge echon And as men þat drowe to wildernesse for drede of Godes fon Sein Donston & seint Aþelwold as oure Louerd it bisay Iordeined to prestes were boþe in o day268

Both CCCC, MS 450 and BL, MS Harley 2277 draw upon and reinforce this history of monasticism in England in clustered references in the lives of St. Oswald and St. Æthelwold. The following passage praises the “[e]iȝte and forti abbeis · of monkes & of nonne” founded by St. Oswald and St. Æthelwold under the auspices of King Edgar:

Seint Aþelwold was þulke time bissop of Wynchestre And seint Oswold þe godeman bissop [of] Wircestre Þis tweie bissops & sein Donston were al at one rede And Edgar þe gode king to do þis gode dede Þis þre[o] bissops wende aboute þoru al Engelonde And eche luþer person caste out hom ne miȝte non atstonde For chirchen and hore oþer god clanlich hom bynome And bisette it on godemen þoru þe popes grant of Rome Eiȝte and forti abbeis of monkes & of nonne Of þe tresor hy made in Engelond of persons so iwonne And so it was wel bet biset þann it was er on ssrewe For [wanne] gode maistres beoþ some godnesse [hi] wolleþ ssewe Gode were þis þre[o] bissops þat at one tyme were þo Þe betere is Engelond for hom and worþ euere mo.269

This episode was important enough that it is repeated, with lines verbatim, in the life of St. Oswald:

Seint Donston and seint Oswold wardeins were þerto And þe bissop of Winchestre seint Aþelwold þat was þo Þis þre[o] bissops wende aboute þoru al Engelonde Ech luþer person hi caste out hom ne miȝte non atstonde Hore churchen and hore oþer god clanliche hy bynome And bysette it in gode men þoru þe popes wille of Rome Eiȝte and forty grete abbeies of monekes & of nonne

268 D’Evelyn and Mill, St. Dunstan, ll. 47-56. 269 Ibid., ll. 141-154.

Of tresor hy made in Engelond þat of persons was so iwonne In þe churche of Wircest[r]e ner þerȝute monekes none270

These passages point toward a particular interest in monastic history that re-occurs throughout multiple texts of the SEL—what Renee Hamelinck sees as a political structure underlying the inclusion of figures such as Dunstan, Oswald, and Æthelwold.271

Although these linked passages show an interest in monastic history, nevertheless, they do not prove monastic authorship of the SEL. These passages may have been translated from a monastic source. Görlach argues that the text for the SEL life of St. Dunstan in BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108, was adapted, either directly or through several stages of revision, from several Latin hagiographical texts written by Benedictine monks. The SEL poet appears to have drawn most heavily upon the Epistola Adelardi (c. 1006-1012) written as a series of short lections for the Benedictine monks of Christ Church, Canterbury in contrast to the earlier and later lives which show more narrative freedom.272 The SEL retains the simple tone and many of the episodic divisions of this text. This text was also used for the breviary lessons for St. Dunstan’s feast day after the uses of Salisbury, York and Hereford.273 The revised text in CCCC, MS 450 and BL, MS Harley 2277, although dependent on Adelard’s vita, makes use of other sources, namely those written by William of Malmesbury and the monk Osbern who wrote another version of the vita in 1070. The vitae by William of Malmesbury and Osbern carry their own complicated history and were embroiled in the specific political and cultural milieu of their moment of writing, responding in the case of the former to the intense rivalry over Dunstan between Canterbury and Glastonbury and in the case of the latter to the arrival of Norman monks in the wake of the Conquest.274 In addition to its relationship to possible Latin sources, the Middle

270 D’Evelyn and Mill, St. Oswald, ll. 123-131. 271 Cf. Hamelinck, “St. Kenelm and the Legends of the English Saints.” 272 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 169. 273 The breviary services on St. Dunstan’s feast day after the use of Salisbury, for example, contains six lections closely corresponding to those of Adelard albeit they have omitted some episodes. The breviaries after the uses of York and Hereford both contain only three lections, corresponding to his birth, his ecclesiastical career, and his death. See Stubbs, “Horae Sancti Dunstani Episcopi et Confessoris,” in The Memorials of St. Dunstan, 445-450. 274 Michael Winterbottom and Rodney Thomson deal extensively with the relationship between Canterbury and Glastonbury in Saints’ Lives: Lives of SS. Wulfstan, Dunstan, Patrick, Benignus and Indract. David Townsend

English St. Dunstan was likely interrelated with the development of Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle, which borrows from St. Dunstan as well as from St. Æthelwold.275 In the case of a collection with such difficult textual relationships between sources and between individual items in relationsip to the compilation as a whole, it is often difficiult to accurately locate and assess the presumed user of a text based on the rhetorical position adopted in a single item.

As Cartlidge points out, in cases where the provenance of a manuscript or text is unknown, the temptation to read deeply into textual interpolations is strong. However, with a collection as diverse and changeable between extant manuscripts as the SEL, it is problematic to depend too heavily on any one legend, or set of legends, as indicative of the general tone or make-up of the collection as a whole. In the case of the SEL, it is often difficult to tell whether the poet used a single source directly (for instance, Adelard’s Latin vita), or an intermediary source (an account in a breviary based upon Adelard’s Latin vita), or multiple sources (Adelard’s Latin vita, a breviary, as well as the vitae of William of Malmesbury and Osbern—or, indeed, a lost Middle English source which combines elements of these as Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle does). Even when one can determine the sources, it is still difficult to know the extent to which the poet translated his material into Middle English in order to maintain institutional or political affiliations in the original text or whether passages that suggest those affiliations may have been “relicts” unintentionally preserved.

This problem of determining the readership of a text from its contents is compounded by the fact that one group may have first produced the SEL and another group may have used it subsequently. Görlach, for example, argues:

Two of the possible explanations of the origin of the SEL would, however, be that the “Z” collection [the presumed original collection] was translated from an unknown legenda (with additions) for the nuns of a Worcestershire house, possibly by a chaplain

shows that Osbern’s treatment of Dunstan reflects the tensions of the Norman transition of power in “Anglo-Latin Hagiography and the Norman Transition.” 275 See Görlach, Textual Tradition, 42-45 for a discussion of the relationship between passages of the SEL life of St. Dunstan and Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle.

who used the resources of the library at Worcester, or was composed by a Benedictine for the dependent parishes of Worcester, or possibly Evesham or Pershore. This collection soon became popular with the friars and with the Benedictine brethren in the surrounding Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire, and the Wiltshire houses, and possibly with the Augustinians at Gloucester.276

A second theory of interrelated production is also plausible: the SEL may have initially been produced by either one of these institutions and disseminated into either dependent parishes or vicarages, as Laurel Braswell suggests, or the numerous nunneries where such reading materials may have been welcome.277 In the Worcestershire and Warwickshire area of the West Midlands, there were three Benedictine nunneries (Westwood, Wroxale, Henwood) and three Cistercian nunneries (Whiston, Cookhill, Pinley) where the SEL might have found a home; there were no nunneries in Gloucestershire. She also suggests the possibility of Augustinian involvement in the production of SEL texts since one of the duties of the canons was to preach in the neighbouring parishes. Görlach is generally dismissive of this, but admits that the Augustinians might have been involved with a secondary stage of production after the SEL had travelled south from Worcester. Of these two theories of interrelated production, I find it likely, as Braswell argues, that the Augustinians were involved in at least one strand of production, as I will discuss in more detail in the second half of this chapter. Rather than restricting the potential authors, producers and readers of the SEL, however, I argue that we ought to continue to think about the potential diversity of its audience, an audience that may have included monks, friars, canons and parish priests, possibly working in concert, possibly copying independently material they plausibly could have used for public reading, for private reading, or as a possible source of exempla for sermons or preaching.

The later history of several SEL manuscripts, where it can be traced, shows exactly this sort of versatility. At the end of the fourteenth century, the catalogue of the library of Titchfield Abbey lists a “Legenda sanctorum dicitur aurea in anglicise” among its holdings. Although this volume

276 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 50. 277 Braswell suggests that since Gloucester Abbey was the most important appropriator of vicarages in the West, the legendary may have been compiled by its monks who then relied upon secular parish priests for its transmission. See The South English Legendary Collection, 254.

77 does not survive, the early date suggests that it may have been a copy of the SEL.278 The so- called “Vernon” manuscript (BodL, MS Eng. Poet. a.1, discussed in more detail in Chapter 4), which bears the name “Salus anime” or “Sowlehele,” offers further potential evidence of the text’s circulation in monastic houses: Sajavaara suggests the Cistercian community at Bordesley Abbey as one possible home, although, as Ian Doyle points out, a single community would have been hard pressed to muster the available funds for such a lavish book, and so it may well represent a project undertaken with broad support.279

Whereas these volumes seem to have found a religious audience, the colophon of London, Lambeth Palace, MS 223 (c. 1400) suggests that it was a work commissioned for a private customer: “her endeþ legenda aurea writen by R. P. of þis toun / To a gode mon of þe same is cleped Thomas of Wottoun.”280 Similarly, a London professional scribe of the mid-fourteenth century copied two manuscripts containing selections from the SEL.281 The first, BL, MS Harley 874, also has a Middle English prose translation of an Apocalypse.282 The second, BodL, MS Laud Misc. 622, contains the romances Titus and Vespasian and Alisaunder.283 This scribe also copied Oxford, Magdalene College, MS Pepys 2498, which contains the Middle English Mirror, the prose Apocalypse, the Early English Prose Psalter, and Ancrene Riwle, possibly for a member of the upper laity.284 Finally, also in London, in 1376 an inventory of the goods of a London vintner by the name of Richard Lyons was prepared; this lists “j. livre appelle legende sanctorum en engleis, pris 10s” which might possibly refer to an unidentified copy of the SEL.285 This brief overview of materials suggests that by the end of the fourteenth century the SEL could

278 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 130. 279 Sajavaara, “The Relationship of the Vernon and Simeon Manuscripts,” 439. Doyle, introduction to The Vernon Manuscript, 15. 280 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 83. 281 See Hanna, “Pre-Fifteenth Century Scribes,” 183. 282 Cf. Fridner, An English Fourteenth Century Apocalypse Version. 283 Cf. Smithers, Kyng Alisaunder. 284 Gunn, Ancrene Wisse, 185. Hanna discusses this volume at length in Chapter 4 of London Literature. 285 Hanna, London Literature, 13-14.

78 have possibly been found in a variety of contexts: religious and secular, read or heard by men and women alike.

3 Producing the South English Legendaries 3.1 The “Redactionist” Approach and the “Fluid Corpus” Approach

The complexity of the SEL’s textual tradition has problematized our ability to make statements about the authorship and audience of the original collection. But the numbers of surviving manuscripts have provided a wealth of codicological material which shed light upon the practices for producing manuscripts. In this section, I will discuss two useful models these manuscripts provide for imagining how scribes obtained sources and produced new manuscripts of the SEL: the “redactionist” (or “recensionst”) approach employed by Görlach to map out the relationship between surviving manuscripts, and the “fluid corpus” approach championed by Boyd, which emphasizes the openness of the collection to limited scribal revision and editorial intervention. These two approaches exist at either end of a spectrum, and other scholars such as Pickering, and, most recently, Robins, have plotted a middle ground between them. I will discuss the redactionist approach first as it lays out a useful conjectural history of the transmission of the SEL, and then I will return to the “fluid corpus” approach to discuss some of the complications these scholars have raised.

3.1.1 The Redactionist Approach

Görlach first employed the redactionist approach to “determine the contents of the original collection (“Z”) and to describe the alterations that after successive stages of revision and adaptation eventually led to the texts in the extant manuscripts.”286 To summarize briefly, he suggested that the initial version of the SEL (“Z1”) was probably compiled in the West Midlands in the 1260-70s, possibly in Worcester, as a concentration of early manuscripts seem to share a West Midlands dialect.287 The earliest surviving manuscript, BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108, he

286 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 8. 287 Görlach, “The Legenda aurea and the Early History of the South English Legendary,” 304. In The Textual Tradition he elaborates this position to suggest that “the selection of the presumptive original SEL is most easily

79 theorized, contains a mixture of “Z” texts and texts from the later “A” redaction. This manuscript begins with a shortened Prologue attached to St. Fabian, which Görlach argued might give some indication as to the original plan of the collection:

AL þis bok is i-maked of holi dawes : and of holie mannes liues Þat soffreden for ore louerdes loue : pinene manie and riue, Þat ne spareden for none eiȝe : godes weorkes to wurche; Of ȝwas liues ȝwane heore feste fallez : men redez in holi churche. Þei ich of alle ne mouwe nouȝt telle : ichulle telle of some, Ase euerech feste after oþur : In þe ȝere doth come.288

The collection, as this shortened Prologue indicates, was intended to include texts for individual feast days as well as temporale items but not a full paraphrase of Biblical history. The passage also indicates that the author (or authors) based the style and format of the legends on those that “men redez in holi churche,” possibly a Sarum liturgical legendary.289 Soon after its initial composition, Görlach argued, the scope of the “Z1” collection was expanded from a simple collection of saints’ lives to include movable feasts, Old Testament material, and Christ and Mary temporale to create a “Z2” version.

After it was initially composed in Worcestershire in the 1260s, some version of the SEL (possibly of the “Z2” recension) travelled to Gloucestershire in the 1270s where it underwent a subsequent stage of revision by a redactor (or redactors) influenced by the Legenda aurea.290 At

accounted for by Worcester provenance, and most of the later alterations can be ascribed to the surrounding houses or dioceses” (Textual Tradition, 37). For a more detailed account of his reasons, including the presence of certain saints like Mary of Egypt and Brendan well-represented in Worcester liturgical documents and the potential Worcester/Gloucester antagonism in certain lives, see pp. 32-38. 288 Horstmann, “Prologue” in The Early South-England Legendary, ll. 1-6. Despite its early age, BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 is likely a conflation of a “Z” recension and a later, revised “A” recension. The Prologue occurs over halfway through the manuscript itself, but preceding a number of texts of the January to March portion in the expected sequence. Görlach argues that the “disorder must clearly be due to later scribes and compilers, including the scribe of MS L himself” (Textual Tradition, 7). 289 Görlach, “The Legenda aurea,” 304. For an updated perspective on this, see Sherry Reames, “The SEL and its Major Latin Models” (discussed below). 290 For a discussion of this early history, see Pickering, “The Expository Temporale Poems” and “The Outspoken South English Legendary Poet.” For Liszka’s contributions, see “The Dragon in the South English Legendary”; “The

80 this stage Oliver Pickering, building upon Görlach’s conjectural history, argued that the resulting “A” redaction emerged from the independent work of two distinct redactors. The first “A” redactor (A1) was an “innovator” whom Pickering labelled the “outspoken poet” and whose alterations are characterized by a

vivid ability with colloquial dialogue; a gift for humorous anecdote, and for evoking in a few words the physical details of contemporary medieval life; sympathy for the plight of individuals in distress; and a sense of wonder (or pretended wonder)…. His work is additionally distinguished by the frequency with which his verse flows in long and sometimes complex sentences over the usual couplet boundaries.291

Important among the changes introduced by the “A1” redactor were a new prologue or framing piece frequently called the Banna Sanctorum which replaced the shortened Prologue attached to the life of St. Fabian found in BodL, MS Laud Misc 108.292 The Banna Sanctorum opens with a central metaphor, likely drawn from or suggested by lines that had previously been in the movable feasts, which posits Christendom as a “niwe frut” which shall bring mankind to his “kunde eritage”; the narrative then shifts to an extended martial allegory which imagines Christ, the patriarchs, prophets and martyrs as “oure Louerdes knyȝtes…Þat schadde hare blod for Cristendom þat it yperissed nere.”293 Ultimately, the Banna Sanctorum imposed a more cohesive literary frame upon the collection, which must have previously existed simply as a sequence of items arranged “ȝwane heore feste fallez.” This first redactor, it seems, imagined that the revised collection should narrate in chronological order the course of salvation history from the Old Testament, through the events of Christ and Mary’s lives, and finally through the many lives of the saints.294 The second of these redactors (A2) was an “amalgamator” who transferred the

South English Legendaries”; “Manuscript G (Lambeth Palace 223) and the Early South English Legendary”; “The Laud. Misc. 108 Manuscript”; and “The First ‘A’ Redaction.” 291 Pickering, “South English Legendary Style,” 1. 292 In CCCC, MS 145 (and, it is conjectured, in BL, MSS Harley 2277 and Egerton 2891, which both begin fragmentarily), the Banna Sanctorum is the first text of the collection. In BL, MS Egerton 1993, it appears after the Advent texts. 293 D’Evelyn and Mill, “Banna Sanctorum,” ll. 1, 2, 19-20. 294 This general arrangement is attested to in BL, MS Egerton 1993.

81 movable feasts (Septuagesima, Lent, Easter and Rogationtide) from their position beginning the work, preceding both the temporale narratives, to a place within the sanctorale cycle, approximating their changing calendrical positions.295

3.1.2 The “Fluid Corpus” Approach

While the redactionist approach offers a useful conjectural history, Beverly Boyd and other scholars have criticized it. Boyd argued against the idea that scribes assembling manuscripts of the SEL were aware, with any great certainty, of what the SEL ought to look like:

When we examine other manuscripts and discover again and again material in the same style appearing in one and not in another, according to no evident principle of selection, we are led to suspect that the scribes had no more idea than we have what the contents of The South English Legendary were supposed to be.296

She resisted the notion that scribes were aware of coherent original collection, replacing the redactionist approach with an approach that figured the SEL as a large and changeable corpus of items, dependent upon the needs and interests of the local audience:

It is obvious, then, that a liber festivalis made according to the calendar of one diocese or religious community would not necessarily match the calendar of a different place. This, of course, invited revision to include new lections, and perhaps to exclude lections for saints whose feasts were not kept.297

Boyd concluded that we ought to imagine the corpus of the SEL texts more fluidly than Görlach suggests. Robins draws attention to this feature of Boyd’s approach where he characterizes the corpus, as she imagines it, as “chaotic, protean and shifting.”298

295 BL, MS Harley 2277, CCCC, MS 145, BL, MS Egerton 2891, BodL, MS Ashmole 43 and BL, MS Egerton 1993 attest to this arrangement with the movable feasts inserted into the sanctorale cycle. BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 does not include these, but they may have preceded the existing collection which, in its current state, begins fragmentarily. 296 Boyd, “New Light,” 191. 297 Ibid., 193. 298 Robins, “Modular Dynamics,” 191.

Robins draws attention to this divide between Görlach’s approach and Boyd’s approach in a recent article, “Modular Dynamics in the SEL.” He criticizes the redactionist approach because it tends to consider

(whenever possible) notable modifications to individual SEL poems to be parts of a revision of an entire compilation. It assumes that transmission occurred through a series of major manuscript compilations (‘the assumption that the legendary was usually copied as a collection’), with new ‘redactions’ generated out of earlier redactions, either through a process of revision and rearrangement or through a process of conflation.299

Here, Görlach imagined scribes treating the SEL along similar lines to the Legenda aurea, a collection of texts which tended “to cohere centripetally.”300 Alan Fletcher argues this feature of the Legenda aurea ensures its transmission “en bloc.”301 He further suggests that when preaching compilations circulated in this fashion, they tended to be “institutionally sanctioned” or else “a product of professional scribes who had a practical eye to the clerical book market.”302

Like Boyd, Robins suggests we ought to approach the above conjectured history with a certain amount of caution, particularly the extent to which single manuscripts might represent fully realized or “protected” redactions. At the level of textual affiliation, we can see the complications of employing the redactionist approach to the SEL in Görlach’s description of BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108:

MS L is the earliest example of the “L” redaction, itself the result of a conflation of the original “Z” collection and the revised “A” texts. MS L is especially valuable because it contains the greatest number of “Z” texts, some of them unique in L, and in some of these, the most ‘primitive’ text. Judgment on L is complicated by the mixture of calendar vs. hierarchical order and random arrangement and by the fragmentation of the beginning. While many features of the L text can be shown to be characteristic of the “Z” layer which were later improved by the “A” redactor, other irregularities show that the L text is much corrupted by all kinds of separative errors, which must be ascribed to the L scribe or his immediate exemplars.”303

299 Robins, “Modular Dynamics,” 188. 300 Fletcher, “Compilations for Preaching,” 325. 301 Ibid. 302 Ibid., 326. 303 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 89.

In a case such as BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108, the “redactionist” model falls short of clarifying the origins of the manuscript. As Robins argues, “the demonstration of distinct redactions requires so much cross-conflation as to make for philological vertigo.”304

Robins’s work responds to Boyd’s characterization of the collection, not as a series of complete manuscript witnesses to multiple textual recensions, but as a series of free-floating fragments.305 This approach has found general support from a number of important scholars: Liszka, for example, posited a series of South English Legendaries rather than a singular Legendary.306 Pickering made use of the redactionist approach, but recognized that Görlach’s conjectural history represented “only broad truths”; he suggested that the “A” redaction did not result from a distinct re-imagining of the SEL but rather “a succession of piecemeal revisions.”307 Building upon this work, Robins accords “less authority to the idea of the compilation.”308 Key to this is an understanding of different ways of construing the nature of the collection:

In the SEL, there are at least three levels of textual coherence in play: that of the item, that of the compilation and that of the ensemble (the cultural text of the SEL taken as a whole). There are accordingly several different relationships at stake: between item and compilation, item and ensemble, compilation and ensemble.309

Here, Robins charts a middle ground between the “redactionist approach” and the “fluid corpus” approach to describe the compilatory processes which underlay the transmission of the SEL. He emphasizes that individual items or smaller groups of items played a role in the diffusion of the SEL. The dispersal and circulation of legends in a variety of small formats such as parchment rolls, loose leaves, pamphlets or booklets—ephemeral formats that typically do not survive—he argues, resulted in a “modular” dynamic of manuscript production in which materials could be substituted or added in such a way to facilitate the addition of saints of local interest or to help

304 Robins, “Modular Dynamics,” 190. 305 Boyd, “New Light on the South English Legendary,” 193. 306 Liszka, “The South English Legendaries,” 41. 307 Pickering, “Expository Temporale Poems,” 2. 308 Robins, “Modular Dynamics,” 193. 309 Ibid., 192.

84 cope with defective exemplars.310 He notes, for example, that a shorter life of St. Frideswide appears in three manuscripts and a separate longer life, independently translated from another Latin source, appears in four manuscripts.311 Similarly, the lives of Judas and Pilate may have been another free-floating group of texts. They appear in fourteen manuscripts, but often in different places within the cycle. Two manuscripts incorporate these narratives into the temporale section; other manuscripts, such as CCCC, MS 145, and the now fragmented manuscript which has been divided into BL, MSS Add. 10301 and 10621 and BodL, MS Add. C.220, place the text in an appendix of assorted materials.312 In further support of this argument, Görlach identifies eighteen miscellanies which contain single SEL items. The item which circulated independently most commonly is the third part of St. Michael, which appears in several miscellanies containing medical and astronomical treatises such as NLS, MS Advocates 23.7.11; San Marino, California, Huntington Library, MS HM 64; BodL, MS Laud Misc. 685; BL, MS Add. 24542; and BL, MS Add. 36983. This text is also contained in BodL, MS Digby 75, a manuscript of miscellaneous religious texts. Görlach states these texts were “probably issued as booklets and bound together.”313

3.1.3 The SEL as an Open Compilation

The debate between the redactionist approach and the “fluid corpus” approach is, in many ways, an argument about the extent to which the SEL might be considered an open or closed compilation—that is, the extent to which scribes may have felt compelled to preserve or consolidate a canonical or authoritative source—and I use the term broadly here—or, on the other hand, the extent to which they felt free to intervene in the arrangement of materials. As Robins argues:

The proliferation of texts seems to have occurred at all phases in the tradition’s history. It served as a counter-tendency to an opposing principle of consolidation, whereby the ensemble could come to seem closed, or whereby particular configurations could be

310 Robins, “Modular Dynamics,” 201. 311 Ibid., 194. 312 See Liszka, “The Dragon in the South English Legendary.” 313 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 119.

taken as normative. Such consolidation is what Görlach, in a quotation above, speaks of as the relative “stability” of basic forms of the collection over time, underpinned by the copyists’ “reverence” for the text. Textual proliferation and textual consolidation stand in an uneasy balance throughout the history of the SEL. Just as the pressure of consolidation might often have put a brake on the generation of new texts, the possibilities for proliferation unsettled any tendency for the collection to achieve stability.314

Here we might usefully compare the SEL to the Latin liturgical models that Görlach theorized the original was based upon. Latin liturgical legendaries, as Sherry Reames’s extensive research shows, provide an interesting comparator for the SEL because they too were subject to the pressures of adaptation for local use and the homogenizing “ideal of liturgical uniformity” held by the Dominicans.315 Despite the movement to standardize liturgical legendaries undertaken by the Dominicans by the 1260s, the concern for uniform texts had not reached the secular clergy and other religious orders at the point when scholars presume the SEL was first composed. Local adaptation was still the rule rather than the exception. As Reames points out, consolidation was a slow and uneven process throughout the fourteenth century, and remnants of competing local traditions survive to the end of the Middle Ages:

And so many unexpected texts for saints survive in the fourteenth-century manuscripts as to suggest that many dioceses and individual churches adopted the Sarum liturgy piecemeal, accepting its calendar and ceremonial while retaining non-Sarum feasts that had local importance and continuing to use whatever legendary or lectionary of saints they already had.316

The producers of these liturgical manuscripts recognized the need to leave space for the possibility of adaptation or the use of local texts. Although early Sarum ordinals have much to say about the processions, ritual gestures and blessings, psalms, prayers, and songs, many leave “loopholes” in respect to the lessons. For example, BL, MS Harley 1001, a fourteenth-century Sarum ordinal from the parish church of Risby, Suffolk, says that there are to be nine lessons for

314 Robins, “Modular Dynamics,” 196. 315 Reames, “The SEL and its Major Latin Models,” 86. She notes that the authorized Dominican lectionary was accompanied by explicit warnings that copyists were not to alter or omit anything. On this lectionary, see Leonard Boyle, “Dominican lectionaries.” See also Reames’s work in The Legenda aurea: a Reexamination of its Paradoxical History and “Mouvance and Interpretation in Late-Medieval Latin: the Legend of St. Cecilia in British Breviaries.” 316 Reames, “The SEL and its Major Latin Models,” 86.

St. Sylvester’s feast day; the last six are specified but the first three of these are left “to the user’s discretion” (f. 17v).317 Edinburgh, Edinburgh University, MS 27 (c. 1350) also encourages its users to follow their own customs. When this manuscript introduces the lessons for St. Egidius, it states on f. 523r that the reader may choose which lesson to use (“Eligat qui voluerit unum modum vel alium”).318

I now want to show how the “fluid corpus” approach might explain the shape of two early SEL manuscripts in codicological terms. These manuscripts each exemplify the compilatory processes that Robins argues are a major defining characteristic of this model.

3.1.3.1 BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108

BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 offers one of the clearest examples of how copying may have meant an ongoing process of assembling and organization.319 The manuscript is divided into five booklets which segregate different sets of materials: the first encompasses the original temporale material and the surviving Life and Passion of Christ (fragmentary at the beginning, currently ff. 1r-10v); the second encompasses a single quire containing the Infancy of Christ (ff. 11r-22v); the third encompasses sanctorale texts from Holy Cross to St. Ursula (ff. 23r-55v); the fourth encompasses the remaining SEL material as well as several associated non-SEL texts, ending with the Debate of Body and Soul (ff. 56r-203v); and the fifth encompasses the romance texts Havelok and King Horn and an SEL appendix consisting of the lives of St. Blaise, St. Cecilia, and a tail-rhymed version of St. Alexius, followed by several folios of miscellaneous verse (ff. 204r-237v). BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 can be further divided into two parts, suggesting that the current manuscript is in fact a composite manuscript, the result of a scribe combining and binding two independent or partially independent manuscripts together: the SEL material in Booklets 1-4 copied by Scribe 1 constitute Part 1 while Booklet 5, a collection of romances and

317 Ibid., 87. 318 Ibid., see also n. 15. 319 For the most recent discussion of the codicology of this manuscript, see Edwards, “Laud Misc. 108: Contents, Construction, and Circulation,” 21-30.

87 assorted religious text copied later but always intended, most likely, as an addition to the SEL material, constitutes Part 2.320

Fig. 2.1: BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 (Contents by Booklet) (See Plate 2.1)321 Collation: iii + 114 (1, 3-4 lost, 5 mutilated), 212, 310 (9 mutilated), 412-912, 1012 (2, 3 lost), 1112 (2 lost), 1212-1412, 1512 (8 mutilated), 1612 (12 lost), 1712, 1812 (8, 12 cancelled), 1912 (8 lost), 2012, 216 (6 cancelled), 226 (sewn on to the preceding quire), 231 + i Scribe 1: ff. 1r-200v; a careful textualis semi-quadrata Scribe 2: ff. 201r-203v; a roughly contemporary textualis semi-quadrata Scribe 3: ff. 204r-228r; a roughly contemporary textualis semi-quadrata Scribe 4: ff. 228v-237v; a later currens Anglicana Scribe 5: ff. 238r-238v; a later currens Anglicana Scribe 6: ff. 238v; a later currens Anglicana

Contents: Part 1, Booklet 1 [Quire 1] [written by Scribe 1] Life and Passion of Christ (ff. 1r-10v) Part 1, Booklet 2 [Quire 2] [written by Scribe 1] Infancy of Christ (ff. 11r-21v) Part 1, Booklet 3 [Quires 3-5] [written by Scribe 1] Holy Cross. (ff. 23r-29v) St. Dunstan (ff. 29v-30r) St. Austin (ff. 31r-31v) St. Barnabas (ff. 31v-32v) St. John the Baptist (ff. 32v-34r) St. James the Great (ff. 34r-38r) St. Oswold King (f. 38v) St. Edward Martyr (ff. 39r-41v) St. Francis (ff. 41v-46v) St. Alban (ff. 46v-47v) St. Wulfstan (ff. 48r-50v) St. Matthew (ff. 50v-52r)

320 See Fein, “Somer Soneday: Kingship, Sainthood, and Fortune” for a description of the two part compilation process, esp. 277-82. 321 This description is based on Edwards’ recent description in “Laud Misc. 108: Contents, Construction, and Circulation,” 21-30.

St. Leger (ff. 52r-52v) St. Fides (ff. 52v-54r) St. Ursula (ff. 55r-55v) Part 1, Booklet 4 [Quires 6-18] [written by Scribe 1 and Scribe 2] St. Katherine (ff. 56r-59r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Lucy (f. 59r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Thomas a Becket (ff. 61r-87v) [written by Scribe 1] Short Prologue (ff. 88r-88v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Fabian and St. Sebastian (ff. 88v-89v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Agnes (ff. 89v-91r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Vincent (ff. 91r-93r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Paul (ff. 93r-93v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Bridget (ff. 93v-94v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Agatha (ff. 94v-96r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Scholastica (ff. 96r-96v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Patrick (ff. 96v-104r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Brendan (ff. 104r-110r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Nicholas (ff. 111r-115v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Julian Conf. (ff. 115v-116r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Julian Hosp. (ff. 116r-117v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Mary of Egypt (ff. 117v-121v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Christopher (ff. 121v-124r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Dominic (ff. 124r-127v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Theophilus (ff. 128r-130r) [written by Scribe 1] St. George (ff. 130r-131r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Edmund King (ff. 131r-132r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Michael (ff. 132r-136v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Clement (ff. 136v-147r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Lawrence (ff. 147r-149r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Kenelm (ff. 149r-153r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Gregory (ff. 153r-154v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Cuthbert (ff. 154v-155v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Mark (f. 155v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Philip (ff. 155v-156v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Jacob (ff. 156v-157r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Bartholomew (ff. 157v-160v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Thomas (ff. 160v-165v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Mathias (ff. 165v-166r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Silvester (ff. 166r-167r) [written by Scribe 1]

St. Eustace (ff. 167r-169v) [written by Scribe 1] St. John (ff. 169v-174r) [written by Scribe 1] Allhallows (ff. 174r-175r) [written by Scribe 1] All Souls (ff. 175r-179v) [written by Scribe 1] St. Edmund Bishop (ff. 179v-185r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Martin (ff. 185r-188r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Leonard (ff. 188r-190r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Mary Magdalene (ff. 190r-197r) [written by Scribe 1] St. Hippolyt (ff. 197r-198r0 [written by Scribe 1] Sayings of St. Bernard (ff. 198r-199r) [written by Scribe 1] Vision of St. Paul (f. 199r) [written by Scribe 1] Debate of Body and Soul (ff. 200r-203v) [written by Scribe 2] Part 2, Booklet 5 [Quires 19-23] [written by Scribe 3, Scribe 4, Scribe 5, and Scribe 6] Havelock (ff. 204r-219v) [written by Scribe 3] King Horn (ff. 219v-228r) [written by Scribe 3] St. Blaise (ff. 228v-230v) [written by Scribe 4] St. Caecilia (ff. 230v-233v) [written by Scribe 4] St. Alexius in diff. metre (ff. 233v-237r) [written by Scribe 4] Somer Soneday (ff. 237r-237v) [written by Scribe 4] Biblical sentences (f. 238r) [written by Scribe 5] On Deceit (f. 238v) [written by Scribe 6] Moral Precepts (f. 238v) [written by Scribe 6] The Golden Mean (f. 238v) [written by Scribe 6]

Booklets such as those found within BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 offer valuable insight into the circumstances and methods of production in the early fourteenth century: in some cases a booklet might represent a coherent set of materials of a specific genre; in others it might have been a tool for handling multiple exemplars; finally, it might have been a way of delaying decisions about the order and contents of the final manuscript.322 In this case, the use of booklets likely indicates multiple compilatory processes. In Part I, the scribe’s use of booklets suggests that the circumstances of production of the earliest copied SEL materials in this manuscript were haphazard and ongoing. Carl Horstmann, who edited an edition based on this manuscript, argued that this manuscript represents a stage in the circulation of the SEL in which there was, as of yet,

322 See, particularly, Robinson, “The ‘Booklet’”; Hanna, “Booklets in Medieval Manuscripts;” and Gillespie, “Medieval Books, Their Booklets, and Booklet Theory.”

90 no fixed conception of what the SEL might include; rather, the scribe was still in the process of gathering and ordering his materials in order to create a complete manuscript.323 Wells, however, concluded that previous versions of the SEL likely circulated prior to BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108, and, consequently, this manuscript does not represent the first version of the SEL, but rather its lack of coherent organization suggests the conflation of two systems of ordering represented in earlier manuscripts which no longer survive.324 Attempting to re-assess the apparently inchoate organization of materials, Boyd argued that we ought to see the collection less as an example of a fully shaped SEL manuscript and more properly as “a collection, an anthology, or as its cataloguers called it, a miscellany consisting of a range of religious texts including a legendary in miniature.”325 Finally, Liszka posited the collection as a work in progress over time in which the organization (or lack thereof) can be explained as a result of a scribe working from multiple exemplars and experimenting with multiple systems of ordering.326

The presence of the temporale material in two sections—each of which constituted an independent booklet—and the inclusion of the prologue attached to St. Fabian over halfway into the manuscript support the idea that the compiler assembled a range of materials as they became available during the course of the project. The material attached to the Prologue may not have been among the first sources available to the compiler. As Liszka suggests, rather than copying verbatim and in order a complete set of texts, the scribe may have adapted and transcribed texts that fit into the calendrical sequence he was working on and appended the remaining texts at the end of the sequence.327 In this case, subsequent scribes responded to gaps in copying (ie. blank folios) by filling them in with materials they imagined to fit thematically with the collection. For example, Fein argues that Scribe 4 began copying in a quire left unfinished by Scribe 3. When more parchment was needed, this scribe added another quire of six leaves (Quire 22) to finish St.

323 Horstmann, x. 324 Wells, “The South English Legendary and its Relation to the Legenda Aurea,” 340-42. For later modifications to her theory from Görlach, Pickering, and Liszka, see Görlach, Textual Tradition, 6-7, 77-80, 304; Pickering, “The Expository Temporale Poems”; Liszka, “First ‘A’ Redaction,” 408. 325 Boyd, “The Enigma of Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108,” 133. 326 Liszka, “Laud. Misc. 108 Manuscript,” 75-91. 327 Ibid., 83.

Cecilia, after which he added St. Alexius and then Somer Soneday.328 One of these later scribes also added the second part of the manuscript, consisting of the final booklet of romance texts as well as materials the scribes thought ought to have been included in the original collection (ie. the SEL appendix).329 This process of ongoing compilation resulted in a unique miscellany rather than a cohesive and organized set of texts modelled upon a single, complete exemplar.

In the case of BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108, then, we can see how scribes approached the SEL as an open collection—that is, it was susceptible to the addition and re-organization of texts, depending on the state of the exemplar (or multiple exemplars) as well as the needs of the audience. In this case, the original scribe produced his manuscript by means of booklets in order to facilitate the haphazard and ongoing production of the manuscript, allowing him to add new sections of texts that may, as in the case of the temporale, have circulated independently or may not have had a fixed place within the sequence of texts. Later scribes also used booklet production to add additional materials to the compilation such as the romances of Havelok the Dane and King Horn, as well as a selection of saints’ lives which were omitted, either by accident or design, from the original collection.

3.1.3.2 BL, MS Egerton 1993

BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 has features in common with BL, MS Egerton 1993, a well-organized and decorated manuscript written c. 1320-40 by one scribe using a dialect localized to Gloucester.330 Because this manuscript has been the subject of far less codicological attention, I will devote a greater share of my attention to it. Where this manuscript has received scholarly attention, it is generally because the manuscript is characterized by shorter lines and the

328 Fein, “Somer Soneday,” 278-9. 329 Fein describes a multi-stage series of compilations in her article “Somer Soneday.” She notes that the manuscript apparently “ends twice” (279): once after the SEL collection, and again after the romance section. She also argues, following Patterson and Voights, that the flourishing of the manuscript signals “an intervening point of compilation during which the romance-bearing Booklet 5 was added to the SEL Booklets 1-4” (278). 330 For a description of this manuscript, see Horstmann, xviii; Laurel Braswell, “Saint Edburga of Winchester,” 319; and Görlach, Textual Tradition, 80–81. LALME locates the dialect of the BL, MS Egerton 1993 scribe to northern Gloucestershire near the Gloucester/Hereford border (LP7130). For a discussion of the possible connection between BL, MS Egerton 1993 and the Auchinleck manuscript, see my article “What’s in a Paraph?”

92 inclusion of a number of additional legends, many of which portray native English saints such as Etheldreda, Botulf, Eadborw, Egwine, and Mildred whose feasts and relics were prominently honoured in Worcester.331 The inclusion of these “native” saints garnered critical attention from Paul Acker who asserted that the Anglo-Saxon saints’ lives “may well have been part of the original SEL from its inception,”332 and from Virgina Blanton who, in contrast, argued that these saints may have been added to fill out the summer months of the calendar when BL, MS Egerton 1993 was compiled.333

Fig. 2.2: BL, MS Egerton 1993 (Contents by Booklet) (See Plate 2.2)

Collation: iii + 112-312, 412 (5 cancelled as a blank leaf), 512-1912, 2012 (6 lost) + iii Scribe 1: ff. 1r-200v; a compressed textualis semi-quadrata

Contents: Booklet 1 [Quire 1-3] Old Testament History (ff. 1r-21r) Short Life of Christ (ff. 21r-26v) Booklet 2 [Quire 3-4]: St. Anne (ff. 27r-27v) Conception of Mary (ff. 27v-30r) Birth of John the Baptist (ff. 30r-30v) Annunciation and Nativity (ff. 30v-36v) Advent (ff. 36v-40r)

331 See Görlach, The Textual Tradition, 17. Several editions of the marginal “E” legends have been published separately from the main text. See Braswell, “St. Edburga of Winchester”; Nagy, “Saint Aeþelberht of East Anglia”; Major, “Saint Etheldreda”; and Yeager, “St. Egwine.” 332 Acker, “Saint Mildred and the South English Legendary,” 140. 333 Blanton notes that the summer calendar is not as full in the Legenda aurea which may have provided the basis for many revisions to the winter calendar and this might be one reason for this concentration of native legends. Furthermore, she posits a possible East Anglia connection as several of these saints received special attention in that area as well: “To be sure, the cults of eastern England were less likely to have been included in the original compilation or in the multiple recensions of the SEL, since it originated in the Gloucester/Worcester region. As noted above, Görlach suggests that a now-lost breviarium from Worcester, which included lections for many of these saints, may be the source for these lives. Given the geographical locations of these cults, we might also look for an East Anglian source text, one that included these lives and, by extension, a monastery that was associated with them. We might also search for an East Anglian monk relocated to the western Midlands whose allegiances to his regional saints were manifested in his compilation of an SEL manuscript that already featured saints in some type of ‘nationalist agenda’” in Blanton, “Counting Noses and Assessing the Numbers,” 245.

Booklet 3 [Quire 4-20]: Banna Sanctorum (ff. 41r-41v) St. Andrew (ff. 42r-44v) St. Nicholas (ff. 44v-50r) St. Lucy (ff. 50r-52r) St. Thomas (ff. 52r-57r) St. Stephen (ff. 57v-58r) St. John (ff. 58r-64r) St. Thomas a Becket (ff. 64r-91v) Circumcision (ff. 91v-92r) Epiphany f. 92r) St. Hillary (ff. 92r-93v) St. Wulfstan (ff. 93v-96r) St. Fabian and Sebastian (ff. 96r-97r) St. Agnes (ff. 97r-99r) St. Vincent (ff. 99r-101r) St. Julian Confessor (ff. 101r-101v) St. Julian Hosteler (ff. 101v-103v) St. Bridget (ff. 103v-106r) St. Blaise (ff. 106r-108v) St. Agatha (ff. 108v-110r) St. Scholastica (ff. 110r-111r) St. Valentine (ff. 111r-111v) St. Juliana (ff. 111v-114r) St. Matthias (ff. 114r-114v) St. Oswald Bishop (ff. 114v-117v) St. Chad (ff. 117v-118r) St. Gregory (ff. 118r-119r) St. Longinus (ff. 119r-119v) St. Patrick (ff. 119v-128r) St. Cuthbert (ff. 128r-129r) St. Benedict (ff. 129r-131r) Annunciation (ff. 131r-131v) Septuagesima (f. 131v) Lent (ff. 131v-133v) Easter (ff. 133v-134r) St. Mary of Egypt (ff. 134r-138v) St. Alphege (ff. 138v-141r) St. George (ff. 141r-142r)

St. Mark (ff. 142r-142v) Rogationtide (ff. 142v-143r) St. Peter the Dominican (ff. 143r-143v) St. Philip and St. James (ff. 143v-144v) Holy Cross (ff. 144v-151v) St. Dunstan (ff. 151v-154r) St. Albriht (ff. 154r-155v) St. Aldhelm (ff. 155v-156v) St. Austin (ff. 156v-157v) St. Petronella (ff. 157v-158v) St. Barnabas (ff. 158v-160r) St. Eadborw (ff. 160r-161r) St. Botulf (ff. 161r-162r) St. Alban (ff. 162r-163r) St. Etheldreda (ff. 163r-163v) St. John the Baptist (ff. 163v-156r) St. Peter (ff. 156r-171r) St. Paul (ff. 171r-174r) St. Swithun (ff. 174r-176r) St. Mildred (ff. 176r-178r) St. Kenelm (ff. 178r-182r) St. Margaret (ff. 182r-185v) Mary Magdalene (ff. 185v-190r) St. Christina (ff. 190r-194r) St. James the Great (ff. 194r-196r) St. Christopher (ff. 196r-198v) Seven Sleepers (ff. 198v-201v) St. Martha (ff. 201v-203v) St. Justine (ff. 203v-206r) St. Dominic (ff. 206r-210r) St. Oswald (ff. 210r-210v) St. Lawrence (ff. 210v-213r) St. Hippolyt (ff. 213r-214r) Assumption (ff. 214r-216v) St. Bartholomew (ff. 216v-219v) St. Giles (ff. 219v-221v) St. Egwine (ff. 221v-222v) St. Matthew (ff. 222v-224v) St. Michael (ff. 224v-232v)

St. Jerome (ff. 232v-234v) St. Leger (ff. 234v-235r) St. Francis (ff. 235r-238v)

The scribe of BL, MS Egerton 1993 divided the collection into “booklets” (the term Görlach uses), which correspond to the Old Testament History and Short Life of Christ (ff. 1r-26v); St. Anne, Conception of Mary, Birth of John the Baptist, Annunciation and Nativity and Advent (the Christmas gospels) ending with a blank verso (ff. 27r-40v); and the Banna Sanctorum and sanctorale beginning with Saint Andrew and ending, fragmentarily, with Saint Francis (ff. 41r- 238v).334 As in BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108, the scribe of BL, MS Egerton 1993 placed the narrative temporale material in separate booklets from the sanctorale.335

Of particular interest is the fact that Görlach’s “booklet” divisions in BL, MS Egerton 1993 bisect quires rather than falling at the end of quires as is typical for manuscripts constructed by booklets. Booklet 1 ends on f. 26v which corresponds to the second leaf of Quire 3. Booklet 2, then, begins on the third leaf of Quire 3 and ends on f. 40r, the fourth leaf of Quire 4. Because the term “booklet” is often used loosely and because the use of the term “booklets” to describe the structure of BL, MS Egerton 1993 is counterintuitive, I want firstly to lay out the evidence that BL, MS Egerton 1993 was assembled through a procedure that is in keeping with booklet theory. I argue we ought to recognize the divisions of BL, MS Egerton 1993 as booklets on the basis of four of Robinson and Hanna’s criteria: variations in style of decoration; soiled or rubbed leaves; blank leaves at the end of a text, sometimes removed; and finally variation amongst sources or subject matter.336 The beginnings of each of this manuscript’s booklets are indicated by large red and blue initials on floriated background and floriated borders on two sides (see Plate 2 for an example). The texts within Booklet 1 (The Old Testament History and Short Life of Christ) represent an independent unit of the temporale from those in Booklet 2 (St. Anne,

334 Here, I draw the term “booklet” from Görlach’s usage in his description, but, as I will draw attention to below, this is a problematic term because the booklets bisect quires rather than corresponding to codicological divisions. I use the term here because, as I will argue, “booklet” theory is helpful for shedding light on these divisions as indicative of a process of construction typically enabled by the use of more traditional “booklets.” 335 Here, I am following Liszka’s table in “Laud Misc. 108 and the Early SEL,” 89-91, especially regarding Booklet 1 and Booklet 2 336 For the full list of criteria, see Hanna, “Booklets in Medieval Manuscripts,” 30-31.

Conception of Mary, Birth of John the Baptist, Annunciation and Nativity and Advent). Booklet 1 and Booklet 2 both end with blank space on the verso of their final folios, indicating that the scribe did not copy the subsequent text immediately afterward. Finally, the texts within Booklet 3 constitute another independent unit, the sanctorale, and the first folio of this booklet (f. 41) has been partially rubbed or degraded.

The fact that in BL, MS Egerton 1993 all the major unit divisions occur in the temporale whereas the sanctorale spans a single textual unit suggests that the shape of the temporale may have been less predictable. Both BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 and BL, MS Egerton 1993 separate the temporale material into units, possibly suggesting these texts may have circulated independently from the sanctorale material.337 Camb., St. John’s College, MS 28 offers some evidence for this: this is an early fifteenth century manuscript of 88 folios explicitly called “temporale” in the signatures.338 BodL, MS Laud Misc. 622, in addition to its other miscellaneous, religious contents, contains only temporale texts and no sanctorale texts.339 It makes sense that the temporale would have been less predictable when we consider Pickering and Liszka’s assertion that the temporale constituted one of the least stable elements of the SEL, frequently omitted in many manuscripts.340 Perhaps exemplars for the temporale section were harder to come by, and consequently the scribe of this manuscript needed to employ a more flexible structure in order to accommodate the necessarily piecemeal assemblage of the final manuscript. In this respect, BL, MS Egerton 1993 mimics conceptually the process by which many Latin religious manuscripts were produced:

Books of Hours were commonly produced in a number of separate groups of quires containing the Calendar and each of the different offices. Missals too were put together in this way, with sanctorale and temporale in different fascicles.341

337 For Pickering’s case to include temporale manuscripts in SEL (which Görlach neglects), see Pickering, “The Temporale Narratives”: 425–55, 429–30, 436–7, 454. 338 See Görlach, Textual Tradition, 85-86. See also James, Manuscripts in the Library of St. John’s College, 37-38. 339 See Görlach, Textual Tradition, 128. 340 See Liszka, “The First ‘A’ Redaction,” 407–13, and Pickering, “Temporale Narratives.” 341 Robinson, “The Format of Books,” 52.

Quire 4, an anomaly unto itself, may provide further hints as to the possible issues of production that led to the current form of the manuscript. The quire contains the final four folios of the temporale material of Booklet 2 (Advent), a cancelled leaf, a folio containing the Banna Sanctorum beginning halfway down the page and ending on a new folio with the beginning of the sanctorale (St. Andrew).

Fig. 2.3: Quire 4 of BL, MS Egerton 1993 (Contents) Quire 4 Booklet 2 f. 37 Advent f. 38 Advent f. 39 Advent f. 40 Advent / blank verso Cancelled Booklet 3 f. 41 half-blank recto / Banna Sanctorum f. 42 St. Andrew f. 43 St. Andrew f. 44 St. Andrew / St. Nicholas f. 45 St. Nicholas f. 46 St. Nicholas f. 47 St. Nicholas

There are several peculiarities within Quire 4 that I want to address, revolving particularly around the placement and layout of the Banna Sanctorum. As the scribe has laid out the text, the Banna Sanctorum takes up a single full folio (see Plate 2 for the recto). Unlike any of the other texts in this manuscript, the Banna Sanctorum begins halfway down the recto and continues to the last line of the verso, and the folio is worn on both sides. This folio is anomalous in part because the more common approach to copying would have the scribe begin the Banna Sanctorum at the top of the recto and leave any remaining space on the verso blank. This is the approach that the scribe employed at the end of Booklet 1 where half of the final verso (f. 26v) has been left blank following the completion of the Short Life of Christ. Why then has the scribe deliberately left space at the beginning of the text rather than at the end? And why has the previous folio been cancelled in order to form a new unit, if this is indeed what is going on?

Görlach argues that this anomalous construction of the “booklets” takes place because the scribe of BL, MS Egerton 1993 initiated each section of the text independently. He calculated the space

98 required for the temporale material so that it could be joined neatly with the following sanctorale. The Banna Sanctorum, he argues, was added as an afterthought, and, when it was found that Advent extended to f. 40r only, the leaf left blank previous to the Banna Sanctorum was discarded. Görlach’s explanation, however, requires the scribe to have attempted to calculate the space required, but, ultimately, to have misjudged. It also posits the Banna Sanctorum as an afterthought, which to me seems unlikely for three reasons: the text’s general importance as the structural centrepiece to the collection; the elevated decoration of the recto; and, lastly, because the scribe includes (or invents) alterations to the text of the Banna Sanctorum as I have outlined in the figure below.

Fig. 2.4: Alterations to the Banna Sanctorum in BL, MS Egerton 1993

Banna Sanctorum in D’Evelyn and Mill Banna Sanctorum in BL, MS Egerton 1993 Men wilneþ muche to hure telle of bataille of Men wilne muche to here telle . of batailes of kynge kings . And of kniȝtes þat hardy were þat muchedel is & of kniȝtis þat hardi were . þat muchedel is lesynge lesinge . Of roulond & of oliuer . of gy of warewike Þat hardi were bi here riȝt . & ne founde now are here slike . Wo so wilneþ muche to hure tales of suche Whose wilneþ muche to here . talen of suche þinge þinge . Hardi batailles he may hure here þat nis no Hardi batailes he may here her . þat nis no lesinge lisinge . Of apostles & marteris . þat hardi kniȝtes Of apostles & martirs þat hardy kniȝtes were were . Þat studeuast were in bataille ne fleide noȝt for Þat soffreden þer luþere men. alle quic here fere limes to tere . Þat soffrede þat luþer men al quik hare lymes Þat studfast were in bataile . ne flicchede totere nouȝt for fere . Telle ichelle bi reuwe of ham as hare dai valþ Tellen ichulle bi rewe of hem . as here day in þe ȝere falleþ in þe ȝere Verst bygynneþ at ȝeres day for þat is þe uerste Vurst bigyn at sein andreu . þat is þe furste feste feste And fram on to oþer so areng þe wile þe ȝer And vrom on to oþer arewe . þe whil þe bok wol leste wol leste .

The first emendation—the inclusion of a list of heroes, unique to the BL, MS Egerton 1993—is important thematically. It causes the Banna Sanctorum to resemble the prologues to Middle English texts such as the Cursor Mundi, which frequently include a list of romance heroes to

99 which their religious narratives might be compared.342 The second emendation correctly signals that, unlike the general order used for most early SEL manuscripts which begin at “ȝeres day,” the collection will begin with the feast of St. Andrew, following the order of many breviaries and the Legenda aurea, and continue “whil þe bok wol leste.”343 That the scribe has adjusted the text (or copied a previously adjusted version) of the Banna Sanctorum to correctly reflect the order of the sanctorale indicates to me that it was not merely an afterthought but an important part of the collection.

I suggest one possible scenario is that the scribe copied to the end of Advent but did not know how much space would be required for the Banna Sanctorum. He may not have known either because he did not, at that time, have the text in his possession or because he knew he wanted to make alterations to the end of the Banna Sanctorum in order to reflect the final arrangement of his text. It seems to me, then, that the scribe intended the Banna Sanctorum to directly adjoin St. Andrew without any blank space separating the two texts. In order to leave room for the Banna Sanctorum, then, without knowing how long it would be, the scribe left the verso of f. 40 as well as two additional folios blank, and began copying St. Andrew at the top of the recto of f. 42r. When he obtained and adjusted the Banna Sanctorum, he calculated the number of lines of the now complete text and copied it in such a way that it would finish at the bottom of f. 41r. The blank half-page preceding the beginning of the text may have been intended for a miniature or large rubricated title that was never filled, although this seems less likely to me since the manuscript has been decorated with red and blue enlarged initials, suggesting that the intended decoration scheme was implemented. Also, few surviving manuscripts of the SEL include any sort of elaborate miniature or large rubricated title. Additionally, as I have noted, both sides of f.

342 See also the Auchinleck King Richard, ll. 7-28 for a comparable passage: “Of Rouland & of Loier....Of Alisander & Charlmeyn / & Ector þe gret werrer / & of Danys le fiz Oger, / Of Arthour & of Gaweyn” (13-18), or the Speculum Vitae (c. 1350) which lists “Octouyane and Isambrase” (l. 40), “Beuis of Hamptoun” (43) and “Sir Gye of Warwyke” (45); or the Laud Troy Book (c. 1400) which includes “Bevis,” “Gy,” “Gauwayn,” “Kyng Richard,” “Owayn,” “Tristram,” “Percyuale,” “Rouland Ris,” “Aglavuale,” “Archeroun,” Octauian,” “Charles,” “Cassibaldan,” “Hauelok,” “Horne,” and “Wade” (ll. 15-21). Respectively, King Richard, in The Auchinleck Manuscript: National Library of Scotland, ed. Alison Wiggins and David Burnley, 25 Apr 2012 ; Hanna’s edition of the Speculum Vitae and J. Ernst Wülfing’s edition of The Laud Troy Book. 343 Among SEL manuscripts only Camb., King’s College, MS 13II and Camb., Magdalene College, MS Pepys 2344 begin with St. Andrew.

100

41 are rubbed and worn. This is itself striking because folios bound within a manuscript are typically protected except in cases of exceptional use or random disaster. Typically, the outer folios of a manuscript may become rubbed or damaged, particularly if the manuscript was left unbound for a prolonged period at some stage of its circulation. That f. 41 is rubbed on both sides suggests that the leaf may have been independent from the rest of the quire at some stage. In any case, the initiation of booklets within quires and the peculiar copying of the Banna Sanctorum suggest that this element of the text represented the greatest difficulty for the scribe.

It seems to me that the booklets of BL, MS Egerton 1993 were never intended to circulate separately (that is, it is not a composite manuscript as BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 may have been); rather, these booklets offered the scribe flexibility in his copying procedures so that he could, presumably, copy sections of texts which he was certain about while he delayed decisions about other sections, possibly because he lacked a suitable exemplar, possibly because he wanted to adjust the order of the text. Nevertheless, the result of the booklet division is that the manuscript has a unique structure that, by means of the large red and blue initials, draws attention to the boundaries as literary divisions that mark texts with a certain degree of aesthetic autonomy.344 In this way, we can begin to push further at the potential implications of booklet structure for miscellaneous manuscripts more generally. That is to say, the scribe of BL, MS Egerton 1993 may have perceived, at some level, the potential for booklets to act as both codicological devices and as aesthetic devices; that, even if these units were not materially booklets because they bisect quires, then they were constructed in such a way as to resemble booklets. This resemblance might be deliberate as the frequent division of miscellaneous manuscripts into booklets created a conceptual expectation about the way anthologies or miscellanies were put together. Although this way of understanding booklets comes perilously close to Dane’s criticism of the potential for “imagined” booklets, nevertheless, I argue this is

344 For examples of other manuscripts of the SEL that make use of a booklet structure, see Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 108. Pamela Robinson has described the manuscript as a compilation of five booklets which could have circulated independently before being sewn together to form a codex in her B. Litt thesis. Rosamund Allen in her edition of King Horn has described an additional booklet boundary between ff. 55 and 56. See King Horn: an Edition Based on Cambridge University Library MS Gg 4.27. Thomas Liszka provides an updated description of the booklet structure in the appendix to “MS Laud Misc. 108.” Cambridge, St. John’s College, MS B.6 also makes use of a booklet of temporale texts. This manuscript of four quires was composed, likely, of two booklets: one of a single quire that contained the Old Testament History, and one of three quires, which included the Ministry and Passion, St. Longinus, Pilate, the Harrowing of Hell and the Movable Feasts.

101 one case where we might productively see overlap between the material function of a booklet and its potential aesthetic function.345

Both BodL, MS Laud Misc. 108 and BL, MS Egerton 1993 show that the success of the SEL may have resulted, in part, from the fact that its texts were easy to replicate, susceptible to intervention, and its literary force and value did not rely on the presence of the same texts in the same order. Instead, as Robins argues, a principle of dispersal facilitated by the circulation of legends in small-format manuscripts animated the SEL.346 Correspondingly, one might better relabel Middle English literary culture not as “fragmentary,” but as “compilatory,” suggesting not that Middle English texts were flawed examples of a previous whole but that the so-called “fragments” enabled a flexible and continually productive form of book-making.

3.1.4 The SEL as a Fixed or Consolidated Compilation

Although I agree that the “fluid corpus” model offers a useful way of examining the SEL as an open text, subject to small-scale emendations and revisions, its production facilitated by the circulation and use of booklets, nevertheless, I argue that the sense of vernacular manuscript production that this model suggests—that is, as a series of essentially compilatory processes invigorated by the circulation of independent texts—was not the only way in which Middle English books were made and transmitted.

Görlach argued that a cluster of two manuscripts and two fragments—CCCC, MS 145 (hereafter MS C)347, BL, MS Egerton 2891 (MS N)348, Leicester, Leicester Museum 18 D 59 (MS Lm)349 and Nottingham, Nottingham University WLC/LM/38 (MS Wh)350—all can be dated to 1310-

345 For Dane’s concerns, see Chaucer’s Tomb, and my discussion of booklet theory in Chapter 1. 346 Robins, “Modular Dynamics,” 196. 347 Described in Görlach, Textual Tradition, 87-9. For the contents, see also Horstmann, Early South-English Legendary, xiv-xvii. 348 Described in Görlach, Textual Tradition, 92-3 Cf. Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1911-1915, 403-5. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for BL, MS Egerton 2891. 349 Described in Görlach, Textual Tradition, 113-114. This manuscript has not been described elsewhere. 350 Described in Görlach, Textual Tradition, 117-118. This manuscript was mentioned in the Stevenson, “Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Middleton,” 622-3, and in The Register of Middle English Verse, 496.

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1320 and originated in “a large scriptorium.”351 At least one further set of manuscripts—BL, MS Add. 10301 (MS Q), MS Add. 10626 (MS Qa) and BodL, MS Add. C.220 (MS Ba), the three of which originally constituted a single manuscript which has been disbound—dated approximately fifty years later, may have been based on an exemplar from this scriptorium.352 In this section, I will analyze the layout, script, and dialect of these two manuscripts and two fragments to propose an alternate way of thinking about the SEL: not as an open compilation but as a consolidated text.

Görlach first drew attention to these two manuscripts and two fragments in his descriptions of them in Textual Tradition:

The group is characterized by persistent genetic relationships. The closeness of the texts is such that even minor variants were carefully reproduced, and since the scribes, who except for the later Q copyist (and T) probably came from one scriptorium, refrained from conjectural emendation or contamination from control manuscripts, they are ideal copyists for the textual critic. The high standard of copying suggests a large scriptorium; if the tenuous connection with the Augustinians is indicative of the historical facts, a large Augustinian house like Cirencester or Osney would be the most likely home of the “Q” [Görlach’s term for this recension] MSS.353

What interests me about these two manuscripts and two fragments is that they exemplify a model of manuscript production which is typically not associated with early Middle English texts before the coming of print: duplicative copying. “Duplicative copying,” Matthew Fisher writes, “can be most readily conceptualized (and identified) in multiple manuscripts of a single text that share mise-en-page and other paratextual features.”354 Fisher suggests that early examples of duplicative copying are typically associated with the Bible or with scholastics texts accompanied by a sophisticated or complex page layout: In its earliest incarnations duplicative copying enabled the transmission of complex page layouts, whether text and gloss or text and image. These books, some coming from a centralized locus of production, others shaped in a common milieu and connected by a common imagined reception, are a salutary reminder that the layout and execution of all

351 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 78. 352 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 57, 96. 353 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 57. 354 Fisher, Scribal Authorship, 40.

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books, both in the vernaculars and in Latin, in deluxe codices and private commonplace books, was anything but unconsidered.355

He notes several examples of duplicative copying, the majority of which seem to have come from the eleventh and twelfth century religious environments. For example, Lincoln, Lincoln Cathedral Library 98, Fisher notes, has been “clearly visually designed to recall the images, color scheme, and iconography of the Lincoln Cathedral Chapter Bible, 1.”356 It can also be associated with some highly annotated secular Latin texts such as the glossed manuscripts of the Alexandreis.357 Following upon Vincent Gillespie’s observations on the similar layouts of Pore Caitif and Prick of Conscience manuscripts, Fisher suggests that duplicative copying may have been used in the fifteenth century to develop a “particular visual rhetoric” usefully to “cue audience expectations about genre, and to participate in recognizable textual traditions.”358

3.1.4.1 Comparison of the Manuscripts

In the following section, I will lay out the similarities between these manuscripts in order to demonstrate that these manuscripts were likely written by multiple scribes related by a single scriptorium, potentially in collaboration with one another.

3.1.4.1.1 Text

Both MS C and MS N share the majority of the same texts in the same order. After f. 168 of MS C, four quires of twelve have been lost, and Görlach suggests these likely contained Sts. Simon and Jude, ll. 197 – St. Thomas, ll. 286. MS N has suffered numerous losses, including eight leaves from the beginning and at least four quires from the end of the manuscript. The lost texts can be hypothesized by means of comparison with MS C. MS N also includes a number of additional legends not present in MS C (Seven Sleepers, St. Leger, St. Francis, St. Frideswide, St. Brice, and the Southern Passion). Based on the high quality of these texts, Görlach suggests that

355 Fisher, Scribal Copying, 39-40. 356 Ibid., 40. Cf. Kauffman, Romanesque Manuscripts, 1066-1190. 357 See, for example, Townsend’s discussion of the commentary on the ekphrastic description of the tomb in Book 4, in the introduction to Glosses on Walter of Châtillon’s Alexandreis, 6-14. 358 Fisher, 40. For Gillespie’s comments on the manuscript tradition of these two texts, see “Vernacular Books of Religion,” 332.

104 these may have been preserved in the original exemplar or else drawn from a supplementary exemplar. The Southern Passion, however, is “from an inferior source, possibly added in the desire for completeness.”359 MS Lm follows MS N for the position of Pilate, which has been omitted from the main text in MS C and has been added in an appendix by a later hand.

Fig. 2.5: CCCC, MS 145 (MS C) (Contents by Booklet) (See Plate 2.3) Collation: ii + 112-1412, 1512, 1612 (lost), 1712-2112, 2212+3 + ii Scribe 1: ff. 1r-210v; closely spaced Anglicana360 Scribe 2: ff. 211r-213v; an angular Anglicana Scribe 3: ff. 214r-218v; a round Anglicana

Contents: Booklet 1 [Quires 1-21] [copied by Scribe 1] Banna Sanctorum (ff. 1r-1vr) Circumcision (ff. 1v-2r) Epiphany f. 2r) St. Hilary (ff. 2r-3vr) St. Wulfstan (ff. 3v-6r) St. Fabian and Sebastian (ff. 6r-7v) St. Agnes (ff. 7v-9vr) St. Vincent (ff. 9v-12r) St. Julian Confessor (ff. 12r-12vr) St. Julian Hosteler (ff. 12v-14vr) St. Bridget (ff. 14v-17vr) St. Blaise (ff. 17v-20vr) St. Agatha (ff. 20v-22r) St. Scolastica (ff. 22r-22vr) St. Valentine (ff. 23r-23vr) St. Juliane (ff. 23v-26r) St. Mathias (ff. 26r-26vr)

359 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 93. 360 The Parker of the Web digital database, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for CCCC, MS 145, suggests two main hands wrote the texts I have ascribed only to Scribe 1. This database does not list the possible folios where these transitions occur and I have not been able to identify them. I follow Görlach’s description where he notes a single scribe copied these texts.

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St. Oswald Bishop (ff. 26v-29vr) St. Chad (ff. 29v-30vr) St. Gregory (ff. 30v-32r) St. Longinus (ff. 32r-32vr) St. Patrick (ff. 32v-41vr) St. Edward Martyr (ff. 41v-44vr) St. Cuthbert (ff. 44v-46r) St. Benedict (ff. 46r-48r) Annunciation (ff. 48r-48vr) Septuagesima (f. 48vr) Lent (ff. 48v-51r) Easter (ff. 51r-51vr) St. Mary of Egypt (ff. 51v-56r) St. Alphege (ff. 56r-59r) St. George (ff. 59r-60r) St. Mark (ff. 60r-60vr) Rogationtide (ff. 60v-61vr) St. Peter Dominican f. 61vr) Sts. Philip and James (ff. 62r-63r) Holy Cross (ff. 63r-67r) St. Quiriac (f. 67vr) St. Brendan (ff. 67v-77r) St. Dunstan (ff. 77r-79vr) St. Aldhelm (ff. 79v-80vr) St. Austin (ff. 80v-82r) St. Barnabas (ff. 82r-83r) St. Theophilus (ff. 83r-89r) St. Alban (ff. 89v-90vr) St. John the Baptist (ff. 90v-92vr) St. Peter (ff. 92v-99r) St. Paul (ff. 99r-102vr) St. Swithun (ff. 102v-104vr) St. Kenelm (ff. 104v-109r) St. Margaret (ff. 109r-113r) Mary Magdalene (ff. 113r-117vr) St. Christina (ff. 117v-122r)

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St. James the Great (ff. 122r-127r) St. Christopher (ff. 127r-130r) St. Martha (ff. 130r-132vr) St. Oswald King (ff. 132v-133r) St. Lawrence (ff. 133r-135r) Assumption (ff. 135v-138vr) St. Bartholomew (ff. 138v-142r) St. Giles (ff. 142r-144r) Holy Cross (ex) (ff. 144r-145vr) St. Matthew (ff. 147r-149r) St. Michael (ff. 149r-150r) St. Jerome (ff. 159r-161r) St. Denis (ff. 161r-163r) St. Luke (ff. 163r-164r) St. Ursula (ff. 164r-166v) Sts. Simon and Jude (ff. 166v-168v) One quire lost.361 St. Thomas (ff. 169r-170v) St. Anastasia (ff. 170v-172r) St. Stephen (ff. 172r-173v) St. John (ff. 173v-180r) St. Thomas (ff. 180r-210v) Booklet 2a [Quire 22] [copied by Scribe 2] St. Guthlac (ff. 210v-213r) Booklet 2b [Quire 22] [copied by Scribe 3] Judas (ff. 214r-215r) Pilate (ff. 215r-217v) St. Thomas a Becket (ff. 217v-218r)

Fig. 2.6: BL, MS Egerton 2891 (MS N) (Contents) (See Plate 2.4)

361 I have included textual losses when comparative texts present in one manuscript or the other are thought to be missing. The missing texts are conjectured to be St. Quentin, Allhallows, All Souls, St. Leonard, St. Martin, St. Edmund Bishop, St. Edmund King, St. Clement, St. Katherine, St. Andrew, St. Nicholas and St. Lucy.

107

Collation: ii + 112 (1-8 lost), 212-312, 412 (11-12 lost), 512 (1 lost), 612, 712 (7 lost), 812 (12 lost), 912, 1012 (2 lost), 1112 (lost), 1212 (2-3 lost), 1312, 1412 (5-12 lost), 1512 (4, 12 lost), 1612 , 1712 (11 lost), 1812, 1912 (5-9 lost), 2012 (9, 12 lost) + ii. Probably more than four quires at the end.

Scribe 1: a closely spaced Anglicana

Contents: Eight folios lost.362 St. Agnes (ff. 1r-1v) St. Vincent (ff. 1v-4r) St. Julian Confessor (ff. 4r-4v) St. Julian Hosteler (ff. 4v-6v) St. Bridget (ff. 6v-9v) St. Blaise (ff. 9v-12v) St. Agatha (ff. 13r-14r) St. Scolastica (ff. 14r-15r) St. Valentine (ff. 15r-15v) St. Juliane (ff. 15v-18r) St. Mathias (ff. 18r-18v) St. Oswald Bishop (ff. 18v-21v) St. Chad (ff. 21v-22v) St. Gregory (ff. 22v-24r) St. Longinus (ff. 24r-24v) St. Patrick (ff. 24v-33v) St. Edward Martyr (ff. 33v-36v) St. Cuthbert (ff. 36v-38r) St. Benedict (ff. 38r-39r) Two folios lost.363 Lent (ff. 39r-40r) Southern Passion (ff. 40r-50r)

362 I have included textual losses when comparative texts present in one manuscript or the other are thought to be missing. In this section, the conjectured texts are Banna Sanctorum, Circumcision, Epiphany, St. Hilary, St. Wulfstan, and St. Fabian and Sebastian. 363 The missing texts are conjectured to be Annunciation and Septuagesima.

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Easter (ff. 50r-55r) St. Thomas (ff. 55r-57v) Judas (ff. 57v-59v) Pilate (ff. 59v-62v) St. Mary of Egypt (ff. 62v-67r) St. Alphege (ff. 67r-68v) St. George (ff. 68v-70r) St. Mark (ff. 70r-70v) Rogationtide (ff. 70v-71r) St. Peter Dominican (ff. 71r-71v) Sts. Philip and James (ff. 71v-73r) Holy Cross (ff. 73r-75v) Holy Cross: Inv. (ff. 75v-77r) St. Quiriac (ff. 77r-77v) St. Brendan (ff. 77v-86r St. Dunstan (ff. 86r-88v) St. Aldhelm (ff. 88v-89v) St. Austin (ff. 89v-91r) St. Barnabas (ff. 91r-92r) St. Theophilus (ff. 92r-97v) St. Alban (ff. 97v-98v) St. John the Baptist (ff. 98v-100v) St. Peter (ff. 100v-106v Eight folios lost.364 St. Margaret (ff. 107r?-107v ) Mary Magdalene (ff. 108r 111v) St. Christina (ff. 111v-116r) St. James the Great (ff. 116r-121r) St. Christopher (ff. 121r-124r) Seven Sleepers (ff. 124r-126r) St. Martha (ff. 126r-128r) St. Oswald King (ff. 128r-129r)

364 The missing texts are conjectured to be St. Paul, St. Swithun and St. Kenelm.

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St. Lawrence (ff. 129r-131r) Assumption (ff. 131r-132v) Five folios lost.365 Holy Cross: Ex. (ff. 133r-135r) St. Matthew (ff. 135r-137r) St. Michael (ff. 137r-144v) St. Jerome (ff. 144v-146v) St. Francis (ff. 146v-152r) St. Leger (ff. 152r-153r) St. Fides (ff. 153r-154r) St. Denis (ff. 154r-156v) St. Luke (ff. 156v-157v) St. Ursula (ff. 157v-159v) Sts. Simon and Jude (ff. 160r-162v) St. Quentin (ff. 162v-164r) Allhallows (ff. 164r-165r) All Souls (ff. 165r-166v) St. Katherine (ff. 166v-169r) St. Leonard (ff. 169r-171v) St. Martin (ff. 171v-174v) St. Brice (ff. 174v-175v) St. Edmund Bishop (ff. 175v-182r) St. Clement (ff. 182r-190r) St. Andrew (ff. 190r-192v) St. Nicholas (f. 193r-94v) Probably four quires lost at end.366

Fig. 2.7: Leicester, Leicester Museum, MS 18 D 59 (MS Lm) (Contents) (See Plate 2.5) A parchment bifolium, likely leaves 4 and 9 of Quire 5.

365 The missing texts are conjectured to be St. Bartholomew and St. Giles. 366 The missing texts are conjectured to be St. Lucy, St. Thomas, St. Anastasia, St. Stephen and St. John.

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Scribe 1: a closely spaced Anglicana

Contents: Pilate (ll. 247-end) St. Mary of Egypt (ll. 1-64) St. Alphege (ll. 39-116)

Fig. 2.8: Nottingham, University of Nottingham, MS WLC/LM/38 (MS Wh) (Contents) (See Plate 2.6) Two conjugate strips of parchment. Scribe 1: a closely spaced Anglicana

Contents: St. Bridget (ll. 5-25, 39-59)

3.1.4.1.2 Layout

All four manuscripts share similar, though not identical, layout and decoration. They were written in a single column. MSS C, N, and Lm are ruled such that the text of each line is flush against the capital letter initiating that line while MS Wh makes use of a gap of approximately 4 mm. between the initial of each first line and the remaining text of that line. MSS C, N, and Lm each make use of small red and blue flourished initials to introduce new lives. It is likely that MS Wh also included these, but the fragment does not contain an appropriate transition between lives from which to judge. Each of the manuscripts also employs distinctive, c-shaped, red and blue paraphs with a curved bowl, parallel top lines and bottom lines with the top line extending past the bottom line.

Fig. 2.9: Comparison of Paraphs

MS C MS N MS Lm MS Wh

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The paraphs of MSS C, Lm and Wh have no descender whereas MS N makes use of a curved descender for marginal paraphs. In all four manuscripts, the scribal cue for the inclusion of a paraph is two angled hatch strokes. Paraph placement is generally consistent across the manuscripts (see the transcriptions of these manuscripts in the Appendix). MSS C, N, and Lm also use a similar set of red running titles and marginal notes in the comparable sections. These are lacking in MS Wh.

Of the manuscripts, MS C is the most decorated, including on f. 1r a large red and blue puzzle initial (omitted in MSS N, Lm and Wh because the equivalent folio is lost). MS C also includes touches of red for the beginnings of each of the half lines throughout where MSS N, Lm and Wh do not.

3.1.4.1.3 Script Fig. 2.10: Comparison of Scripts

112

MS C, f. 57r,

St. Alphege

MS N, f. 7r,

St. Bridget

MS Lm,

St. Alphege

MS Wh,

St. Bridget

All four manuscripts also make use of a similar early Anglicana script with difference in stroke width. Characteristic letter forms common to all four hands include a “g” formed with a small bowl and an additional looped compartment underneath; a circular “d” with a low ascender; a circular, two-compartment “w”; an initial “i” with prominent forking and forking of the ascenders of “l”, “b” and “h” present in both the main hand and the running titles.

Fig. 2.11: Comparison of Similar Letterforms

MS C MS N MS Lm MS Wh

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Some noticeable letterforms discrepancies occur in the case of MS Wh. MSS C adnLm make use of a distinctive “y” with a long, straight, angled descender whereas MS Wh and MS N use a “y” with a right-hooked descender. MSS C, N and Lm use a typical Anglicana v-shaped “r” that descends below the line whereas MS Wh uses a “r” with a straight, unbranching descender. Lastly, MSS C, N, and Lm use most frequently a “v” with a rounded bowl whereas MS Wh uses this form as well as a “v” with an angular, pointed bowl.

Fig. 2.12: Comparison of Different Letterforms MS C MS N MS Lm MS Wh

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3.1.4.1.4 Dialect

In the appendix to this chapter, I have included a full transcription of the fragmentary material from MS Wh and MS Lm and the comparable sections of text in MS C and MS N where available. All four manuscripts, in general, show similar dialects for those sections of text, with only MS Wh offering several anomalous forms.

Fig. 2.13: Comparison of Dialect Profiles Linguistic Profile MS C MS N MS Lm MS Wh For for (vor) for for, vor vor wolde, (wold, Would wolde wolde walde) wolde Past participle y-, i- i-, y- i- y- They hi, hy hi, hy hi, hy hi ssolde (selde, ssolde (selde, Should ssolde (sselde) ssulde) ssulde) ssolde Be beo (beoþ) beo, beoþ beoþ beo, beþ ss- ss ss, sch ss (sh) ss World worles, worlde worles warle liche -ly liche (lich) liche liche (lich) Up/Upon upe ope (up) upe, op, ope upe Slayed slou, slowe slowe, slawe Their hore hare, hore hore Held huld huld helde -eo eo eo eo eo, o You ȝou (þou) (ȝe) ȝou þou, ȝou (ȝe) Foul foul, voul, voule voule home hom ham ham She heo heo heo heo (ȝo) Her hure hure hure (hire) hure Self sulf (sulue) sulue sulf (sulue) among (amang, Among amange) among among among Gave ȝaf ȝaf ȝaf ȝef When wanne wenne

The chart shows the majority of uses are relatively consistent for these texts and indicate a West Midlands dialect. MSS N, Lm and Wh are all closely grouped to the Gloucester/Berkshire

115 border.367 Scribal tendencies are as follows: MSS C and N tend to favour the use of “i” over “y” whereas MS Wh and Lm favour “y” over “i.” Similarly, MS N favours the use of the initial “f” over “v”; MS Wh favours “v” over “f”; and MSS C and Lm use both forms. Lastly, several anomalous forms appear in MS Wh which are not attested in MSS C, N or Lm, most noticeably, the rare form “ȝo” for Mod. E she whereas MSS C, N and Lm consistently use “heo”, and “ȝef” for the Mod. E gave where the other three manuscripts consistently use “ȝaf.”

3.1.4.1.5 Errors and Corrections

In MSS C and Lm the scribes have duplicated ll. 53-54 of St. Alphege. In MS C the error has not been noted. In MS Lm, the scribe has noted the error and struck through the duplicated lines. MS N omits the duplication, but the couplet following these lines has been scraped and rewritten by a later hand, suggesting that some error in the same general area may have occurred that needed to be emended. MS C was corrected throughout, probably by two hands, one of which was likely the scribe (c. 1400) who added several lives to the appendix at the end of the manuscript. MS N was corrected by the principal scribe who added lines in the margin, and by two later hands. MS Lm shows only the above sign of correction, and MS Wh shows no correction to the remaining text.

3.1.4.2 A Possible Model?

The similarity in texts, layout, decoration, and dialect suggests that these four manuscripts were likely produced in the same environment. The fact that each of these manuscripts contains an error or correction at ll. 53-54 of St. Alphege might indicate that at least one primary exemplar lies behind all four manuscripts, but as MS Wh and MS Lm are exceptionally fragmentary, it is difficult to say this with any certainty. Of the manuscripts MS C appears to be the most decorated and includes the most complete system of running titles.368 MS Wh, on the other hand, is the most anomalous in that the layout shows more discrepancies (the gap between capital

367 The Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English places MS C slightly to the east of the border in Berkshire (Profile 6810, Grid 429 195) and MS N slightly to the west in Gloucestershire (Profile 6970, Grid 408 205). There is insufficient text in MSS Lm and Wh to place independently, but their general similarity with MSS C and N suggests that they likely originate in the same area. 368 Note, for example, in l. 100 of St. Alphege the inclusion of the additional marginal note “=diabolus” where no equivalent marginal note exists in MS N and Lm.

116 letters and the rest of the line); the hand uses several different letterforms (“r” and “y”); and the dialect shows usages unattested in the other manuscripts (“ȝo” and “ȝef”).

Hanna argues that on the basis of the similarities between these manuscripts, they were likely written by the same scribe.369 However, I argue that the anomalies in MS Wh at the level of layout, script, and dialect, while hardly substantial on their own, suggest that the four manuscripts were not written by a single scribe, but instead by a group of at least two scribes (possibly more) operating in the same milieu. Shared training or a shared general location might explain the similarities in script. Describing the development of similar hands in a shared milieu, Parkes writes: “Organized copying by members of a community usually lasted only for short periods: once a community had built up its collection of texts, organized copying was abandoned, and with it some of the distinctive features in local handwriting.”370 Similarly, Rodney Thomson notes that monastic scriptoria tended to generate “‘house’ styles of script and decoration” when books were made locally, often over two or three generations.371 Borderline cases where two scribes wrote in a similar hand are not uncommon in other environments where scribes might share training or the same working environment. We might look to the example offered by the Auchinleck manuscript, discussed further in Chapter 3, where palaeographers have had a difficult time distinguishing between the hands of Scribe 1 and Scribe 6.372 Other cases include Scribe D and Scribe Delta of the Trinity Gower, where Doyle and Parkes explain the similarity in script by positing a master-apprentice relationship.373 It is not surprising that scribes engaged in the “mechanical” copying of a shared exemplar would also share other features.374

If it is the case that these scribes were operating in a shared milieu—what we might call a scriptorium or shared “scriptorial facilities”—then I suggest, following Görlach, that the

369 Hanna, “Some Pre-Fifteenth-Century Scribes,” 182-183. 370 Parkes, “Handwriting in English Books,” 111. 371 Thomson, “Monastic and Cathedral Book Production,” 141. 372 See Wiggins, “Are Auchinleck Manuscript Scribes 1 and 6 the Same Scribe?” 373 See Doyle and Parkes, “The Production of Copies,” Appendix B. 374 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 93.

117 financial resources, the general plan of the manuscript and the exemplar (likely a version close to MS C, but with some texts like the missing Pilate either present or copied from a separate exemplar) may have been provided by a religious institution. Where then might this scriptorium have been located? St. Peter’s Abbey in Gloucestershire has been put forward as a possible site of production for SEL manuscripts. Carl Horstmann in his early edition of the SEL noted the tendency toward Gloucestershire dialects in the earliest manuscripts and, on the basis of this, claimed that it “was the work of many decades of years, of many collaborators, most likely the joint work of a whole abbey, that of Gloucester, where the plan seems to have been fixed and brought into definite shape.”375 Oliver Pickering places the “A” reviser in Gloucester, and suggests that he may have been the same Robert of Gloucester responsible for an early fourteenth century Middle English Chronicle, or someone writing in his style.376 Although the major period of book acquisition and production took place in the twelfth century, some copying still took place in the Abbey. Original charters written by the abbey’s scribes survive from around the mid-twelfth century to 1263, and at the end of the fourteenth century stone partitions for scribal carrels were built in the south aisle of the cloister.377 Other possible Benedictine sites include Abingdon in Berkshire or Malmesbury in Wiltshire, though these seem possibly further afield than the dialect localization might suggest.

The possibility of mendicant involvement in the production of MSS CN, Lm and Wh must be admitted, although it seems less likely since these four manuscripts do not resemble books produced by friars, which tend to be miscellaneous or composite manuscripts. Collections such as the Legenda aurea were the exception rather than the rule. The two major mendicant houses in the region were located in Gloucester and Oxford, but, in general, the kind of copying shown in this group of SEL manuscripts does not fit the modus operandi of the friars. The Dominican Order, in particular, seldom encouraged its friars to copy books because the time involved would

375 Horstmann, Early South-English Legendary, ix. The most detailed investigation of the SEL dialect that is available, the chapter in L. Braswell, Thesis, 94-142, does not distinguish enough between the language of the existing texts and that of hypothetical ancestors and so it is difficult to support this purely on dialectal grounds. 376 See Pickering, “South English Legendary Style.” 377 Parkes, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 24.

118 have drawn them away from studying, preaching and the salvation of souls.378 Generally, we do not see the kind of organized production associated with the monastic scriptorium.

The Augustinian priories at Llanthony Secunda or Cirencester in Gloucestershire or Osney in Oxfordshire are somewhat more plausible sites. Laurel Braswell suggested the possibility of Augustinian involvement in the production of SEL texts since one of the duties of the canons was to preach in the neighbouring parishes. Görlach is generally dismissive of this, but admits that the Augustinians might have been involved with a secondary stage of production after the SEL had travelled south from Worcester; he notes Cirencester or Llanthony as possible, if tenuous, sites for MSS CNLmWh.379 The fact that in the early fifteenth century MS C was donated to the Augustinian church of St. Mary of Southwick lends credence to Augustinian affiliation. That the fragment MS Lm was bound into Wyggeston Hospital Charity, Leicester, might also be an indication that it resided in Leicester Abbey for some time.

Many of the Augustinian houses had both extensive libraries and were the site of on-going book- making or book acquisition programs. A catalogue of the Llanthony library c. 1355-60 lists over five hundred books, rivalling that of some of the largest Benedictine houses. Several of these texts show comparable themes to the SEL including a “Legenda sanctorum. de dono Willelmi de Pendebury prioris Lant” and several copies of sermons intended to be read on feast days, in addition to several books of hagiography and miracles.380 A large number of the surviving books date to the fourteenth century, suggesting that the production or acquisition of books continued well into this period. The wealthy abbey of Cirencester, too, boasted a well-stocked library. The major phase of manuscript production and acquisition for the library took place during the third quarter of the twelfth century where we have evidence of “seven canons assisted by a lay scribe, writing under the direction of a series of precentors, produced thirteen surviving manuscripts.”381

378 Parkes, Hands Before Our Eyes, 26. 379 Görlach, Textual Tradition, 50. 380 For this list, see The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, 36-94, esp. items 55, 97, 101, 222 (“Liber de miraculis sancti Thome”), 282 (“Vita sancti Thome”), 283 (“Vita sancti Edmundi archiespiscopi”), 284 (“Miracula Beate Marie”), and 390 (“Vita Sancti Brendani”). 381 Doyle, Their Hands Before Our Eyes, 15.

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The lay scribe was one Radulfus de Pulleham, “scriptor,” who came from Pulham on the border of Somerset and Dorset, which was part of the abbey’s original endowment.382 The scribes of the twelfth century produced an excellent collection of patristic and theological texts, including works by Gregory, Robert Cricklade, Cassianus, Augustine, Aldhelm, Bede, and Isidore, among others.383 It is unclear to what extent manuscript production continued to take place in Cirencester, but at least one fragment of the SEL—BL, MS Cotton Cleopatra D.ix—can be traced to its holdings in the sixteenth century when Sir John Prise obtained it for Robert Cotton in his capacity as commissioner.384 Osney too offers a possible site of production. Though its records are far more fragmentary, the library possessed a number of chronicle and hagiographical texts including a “Vita S. Frediswidae,” a “Vita Odonis,” and a “Vita S. Wenefridae.”385

Recent scholarship by Thomas Heffernan and Teresa Webber has emphasized the involvement of Augustinian canons in the production and dissemination of texts of a similar kind to the SEL. Here, we might look to the anonymous Yorkshire text known as the Northern Homily Cycle, a text modelled upon Robert of Gretham’s Anglo-Norman cycle of metrical homilies known as the Mirour and surviving in twenty extant manuscripts. By comparing the rubrics of the Sunday gospels to the corresponding text in the four major secular uses, the four mendicant orders, and the monastic orders, Thomas Heffernan has suggested that the text was likely produced by canons resident in the vicinity of York, likely Augustinian.386 He further adds that by the end of the fourteenth century there was “a concerted effort under the guidance of a religious order which supervised the production of a considerable number of versions between the late 1380s and 1440.”387 Similarly, in the early fifteenth century, John Mirk, an Augustinian canon of Lilleshall Abbey in Shropshire, produced another vernacular sermon cycle known as the Festial.

382 Ibid., 98-99. 383 See Ker, The Libraries of the Augustinian Canons, 26-28; also Medieval Libraries, 51-52. 384 Summit, Memory’s Library, 169. For a description of this manuscript, see Görlach, Textual Tradition, 11-12. The scripts of the two scribes evident in this fragment show a much stronger influence from textura than MSS CNLmWh, and the dialect is similar to that of BodL, MS Ashmole 43, located in the Gloucestershire/Oxfordshire area. 385 Webber, Augustinian Canons, 403-405. 386 Cf. Heffernan, “The Authorship of the ‘Northern Homily Cycle’.” 387 Heffernan, “Orthodoxies’ Redux,” 75.

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About forty manuscripts and fragments containing the Festial, or material adapted from it, survive.388

Expanding the lens beyond homiletic texts, it is clear the Augustinians were involved in a range of other literary endeavours. The Ancrene Riwle, “Katherine Group,” and “Wohunge Group” can also be associated with Augustinian lines of production and dissemination. CCCC, MS 402 was donated to Wigmore at the beginning of the fourteenth century;389 BL, MS Cotton Cleopatra C.vi was donated to the Augustinian nuns of Canonsleigh; London, Lambeth Palace MS 487, containing a “Wohunge Group,” may have belonged to Llanthony;390 and, further to this, Jean- Pascal Pouzet argues that Yorkshire Augustinian houses may have been instrumental in the dissemination of the work of a fellow canon, Peter Langtoft, whose first redaction of his Chronicle appears in two manuscripts (BL, MS Cotton Julius A.v and BL, MS Harley 114) which were possibly issued from the same scriptorium.391 The latter of these is probably an Augustinian manuscript as it bears an ex libris from the priory of North Ferriby. Susanna Fein has produced an edition of the works of John the Blind Audelay, a chaplain to Lord Lestrange of Knockin who was appointed the priest of a family chantry at Augustian abbey in Haughmond where he worked with two monks to produce a volume (BodL, MS Douce 302) entitled The Counsel of Conscience or The Ladder of Heaven and the Life of Eternal Salvation.392 This was a fifteenth-century anthology of collected works likely copied with the author present, perhaps supplying previously composed exemplars, reading aloud and correcting by dictation. Furthermore, the trilingual poet John Gower had a long-standing association with the Augustinian canons at the priory of St. Mary Overy in Southwark, leading G. C. Macaulay and John Fisher to posit that Gower may have relied upon the library and possible scriptorium to assist with the production and circulation of his works. While Parkes and Doyle have argued

388 For a discussion of the manuscripts of the Festial, see Wakelin, “The Manuscripts of John Mirk’s Festial” and Fletcher, “Unnoticed Sermons from John Mirk’s Festial.” For the Festial’s use in a broad program of pastoral care, see Susan Powell, “John Mirk’s Festial.” See also Powell’s 2009 edition, John Mirk’s Festial. 389 For theories regarding the authorship of the Ancrene Wisse by an Augustinian canon, see particularly, Dobson, “The Date and Composition” and The Origins of the ‘Ancrene Wisse’. 390 See Thompson, Þe Wohunge of Ure Lauerd, xi. 391 Pouzet, “Augustinian Canons and their Insular French Books,” 273. 392 See Fein’s introduction to the edition of John the Blind Audelay.

121 against a “Gower scriptorium,” in a recent article Pouzet re-addresses the issue and suggests that Augustinian canons from St. Mary Overy and elsewhere “may have been instrumental in the dissemination of the poet’s works.”393 He argues that the canons had in place by the late thirteenth century a “network of Augustinian dissemination” exemplified in the circulation of texts such as the Speculum Ecclesie, which may have been “circulated in bespoke booklets, not necessarily or simply on a commercial basis, and possibly—in part at least—through Augustinian industry.”394 He compares the circulation of these texts to small-format manuscripts of Gower, Chaucer and Hoccleve copied by John Shirley (d. 1456) who was associated with St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London, an institution under Augustinian rule, as well as to the circulation of the Vox Clamantis and the Cronica Tripertita, the latter of which is recorded as having been in quaternis which, Hanna argues, reflects “a case of transmission by ordinal channels.”395 The production and circulation of these manuscripts from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth century—often by means of small-format manuscripts—points toward an institutional interest in texts similar to the SEL.

In positing Augustinian involvement in the production of these manuscripts of the SEL, I join what Hanna recently called “a developing, but still nascent, group of voices urging a reassessment of the religious orders and vernacular composition by assembling evidence for the large vernacular literary involvement of…the Augustinian or black canons.”396 The production of these manuscripts of the SEL fits well with both the agenda and the interests of the Augustinian canons. Further to that, the Augustinians seem to have been involved in several examples of what we might consider to be “publication”—by that I mean, the concerted production of a single text or group of related texts—as the manuscript history of Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle, the Northern Homily Cycle, Mirk’s Festial and the works of John Gower bears out. That these texts seem to survive in relatively high numbers for the period in question indicates the general success of these projects. The copying of MSS CNLmWh might suggest,

393 Pouzet, “Augustinian Agencies in Gower’s Manuscripts and Texts,” 11. 394 Ibid., 18-19. 395 Hanna, “Augustinian Canons and Middle English Literature,” 34-5. 396 Hanna, “Augustinian Canons,” 27.

122 then, a similar program of production designed both to stabilize or consolidate the corpus of the SEL—that is, to create a “canonical” version of the collection—and to “publish” it by means of the production of multiple copies.397

4 Conclusions

In conclusion, this chapter has argued that the SEL sometimes followed general patterns of organization but was also open to emendation, addition, subtraction, substitution and limited re- ordering. Certain elements of the collection tended to be more fixed whereas other elements such as the placement of the Prologue or Banna Sanctorum, the inclusion of the temporale, and the inclusion of the lives of Judas and Pilate tended to be more susceptible to editorial intervention. The openness of the SEL was likely facilitated by the potential transmission of small-format manuscript containing grouped lives or individual legends, which circulated alongside more extensive, “complete” collections. In the early fourteenth century a scriptorium in the West Midlands, most likely associated with an Augustinian house, made a concerted effort to stabilize the collection and transmit it as a consolidated collection by means of duplicative copying.

I want to return to the claims of others that I raised at the beginning of this chapter that early Middle English texts are “singular and precarious”398 and “[isolated] from immediate vernacular models and examples”399; that the literary culture which produced them was only “hiccupping its way towards continuous production.”400 It seems to me that in making these claims, scholars do not attend sufficiently to England’s culture of book-making and literary production from which the SEL, and other similar vernacular texts, emerged. Despite the unique appearance of many SEL manuscripts, there were models for the texts themselves. There were also models for the arrangement of the texts and models for producing and disseminating the collection as a whole.

397 For other examples of medieval publication in the early Middle Ages in England, see Sharpe on Anselm’s involvement in the production of his own works in “Anselm as Author.” For examples in the late Middle Ages in England, see Horobin’s work on the Edmund-Fremund scribe who may have been a Lydgate specialist or possibly his “personal publisher” in “The Edmund-Fremund Scribe Copying Chaucer,” 195. For Gower, as discussed above, see Pouzet in “Southwark Gower: Augustinian Agencies in Gower’s Manuscripts and Texts.” 398 Hahn, 91. 399 Cannon, The Grounds of English Literature, 2. 400 Cannon, “Monastic Production,” 320.

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Although the examples of vernacular production within religious scriptoria were rare in this period, the form of production employed by the SEL scribes was, in many ways, a natural extension of the book-making procedures of the Augustinian canons more generally. I would expect that as we continue to research the scribal hands and the production sites of early Middle English texts, similar cases will appear and the case for a thriving network of Augustinian vernacular production will emerge.

Rather than viewing the SEL as “singular and precarious” then, I want to end with a discussion of how the models I have investigated point toward the emergence of a national literary culture. Literary scholars have traditionally focused on a nascent sense of national pride or history evident in the inclusion of so many English saints within the SEL. Thorlac Turville-Petre, for example, in England the Nation, claimed the SEL depicted the presence of a unified political England taking its place among other nation-states on the Continent while Klaus Jankofsky concluded that the compiler and later redactors manipulated their material in order to make it engaging to an English audience.401 Developing this further, Jill Frederick argued we can see “this pattern of a developing sense of Englishness” identifiable across many regional SEL manuscripts, corresponding to an interest in the emergence of English as a literary language and the consolidation of political boundaries.402 But my interest is in the way the production and circulation of manuscripts facilitated the development of a national literary culture. Here, Robins’s model has again proved particularly useful. He argues that the poetic features of the SEL—its “septenary couplets, rhythmic divisions, uncomplicated and flexible lexis and syntax”—may have encouraged scribes to interact with the collection and thereby contribute to the “diffuse project of establishing a widespread, vernacular, Middle English, literary culture.”403 In this analysis, diffusion—or proliferation, as he elsewhere labels it—remains a key feature. Although the SEL encouraged adaptation for local audiences, it still remained a “larger cultural text,” fostered by isolated pockets of production that were connected by the circulation of books and small-format manuscript, the movement of scribes, and institutional networks. This point is

401 See, respectively, Turville-Petre, England the Nation, 61 and Jankofsky, “National Characteristics.” 402 Frederick, “Anglo-Saxon Saints and National Identity,” 73. 403 Robins, “Modular Dynamics,” 207.

124 emphasized when we turn to the treatment of the SEL as a consolidated or canonical text, protected against extensive revision and the subject of an institutional program to rapidly copy and disseminate the collection. In this chapter I have shown the paradigm associated with vernacular manuscript production, which emphasizes the isolation, openness and fragmentation of its texts, and the paradigm associated with Latin manuscript production, which sees its texts as institutionally connected, consolidated and whole, interpenetrate one another. In the following chapter I will turn to the Auchinleck manuscript, a manuscript which exemplifies the importance of England’s compilatory culture for the commercial book-trade in London as well as for regional religious houses.

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Chapter 3 “Of Freynsch No Latin Nil Y Tel More”: Assembling the Auchinleck Manuscript, 1330-1340

1 Introduction

In the first half of the fourteenth century, a group of six scribes operating in London collaborated to create NLS, MS Advocates 19.2.1 (c. 1330-1340), known as the Auchinleck manuscript, a compendium of Middle English verse unusual in both its size (now consisting of 331 folios and fourteen stubs, with an additional ten folios located detached from the manuscript) and the range of its subject matter (forty-four items, including romances, hagiographical texts, chronicles and religious verse written almost exclusively in Middle English).404 Auchinleck has been a touchstone for scholars interested in early English manuscript production, for it is one of the first manuscripts produced exclusively in Middle English, a precursor to those monumental compendia such as the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts (BodL, MS Eng. Poet. a. 1 and BL, MS Add. 22283, respectively) that dot the literary landscape of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, positioned at an intersection between developments in the English language and developments in the methods and models for producing Middle English texts.405 As Ralph Hanna

404 All references to texts from the Auchinleck are from Alison Wiggins and David Burnley, The Auchinleck Manuscript. This chapter has developed from a paper entitled “‘I N’am But a Lewd Compilator’: Booklets, Bookmen and the Production of Vernacular Manuscripts,” (delivered at the LOMERS Annual Conference: Studies in the Auchinleck Manuscript, University of London, 2008) as well as from a paper entitled “What’s In a Paraph? Auchinleck Scribe 2 and the West Midlands,” (delivered at the Eleventh Biennial Conference of the Early Book Society, Exeter, 2009) published as “What’s in a Paraph? A New Methodology and its Implications for the Auchinleck Manuscript.” I would like to acknowledge the invaluable help of Arthur Bahr and Timothy Shonk who both commented on and contributed to early versions of this research. 405 For a discussion of the Type II and Type III London dialects, see Samuels, “Some Applications of Middle English Dialectology.” Note Hanna’s resistance to this model and discussion of the problem of type II London English in London Literature, 25-30.

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III notes, one cannot hope to avoid Auchinleck when contemplating the emergence of Middle English literature precisely because the manuscript appears in London “at a moment in which a literature apparently local in its nature was transformed into a model for a developing national culture.”406

Auchinleck represents for many scholars an originary or anticipatory moment in the history of English literature where it seemingly points toward the rise of middle class consumers, the emergence of a bold and confident vernacular voice, and the triumph of secular literature over the “dead hand of monastic morality.”407 In this history, the manuscript functions as a prototype for the Canterbury Tales with its diverse, effusive literary forms jostling alongside one another in an expensive and monolithic display of English pride, and scholars emphasized this connection with the Canterbury Tales when they imagined that Chaucer had used Auchinleck as a source for “Sir Thopas” (a claim which has lost support in recent years).408 But this history of English literature depends on codicology as much as it depends upon the production of Middle English texts, and in this way Auchinleck shows how book history sometimes shapes or buttresses arguments about the development of England’s literary culture.

406 Hanna, “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 92. Turville-Petre labelled Auchinleck a “handbook of the nation” in England the Nation, 112. Purdie articulates the Englishness of the Auchinleck, too, as demonstrated in the tales of explicitly English heroes such as Guy of Warwick, Bevis of Southampton, Horn and Richard II. She notes that Auchinleck even goes so far as to ignore “the awareness of some killjoy historians that [Arthur] could not, in fact, have been English in any sense other than that of inhabiting a land which would eventually be named after one of the invading peoples against whom Arthur was supposed to have fought” in Purdie, Anglicising Romance, 97. 407 Here I borrow Andrew Taylor’s phraseology, admittedly somewhat out of context, from a similar debate over the meaning of the inclusion of “Sumer is Icumen In” in the miscellaneous manuscript BL, MS Harley 978 in his monograph Textual Situations, 81. Taylor argues that the reception of BL, MS Harley 978 manuscript has been framed by debates which pit native inspiration against religious composition, in effect driving “a wedge between monastic and popular culture” (ibid.). A similar debate has shaped the reception of Auchinleck. See, for example, Field, “From Gui to Guy: The Fashioning of a Popular Romance” for an assessment of the slipperiness of “popular” as a concept in relationship to high and low forms of art. Coss resists the distinction between religious and lay audiences for romances in his study of Auchinleck and early romances. He argues for the interpenetration between gentry households and resident clerics, chaplains and chantry priests, stressing as I believe is true that the clerical role in the production of romance was “undoubtedly a strong one” in “Aspects of Cultural Diffusion,” 57. 408 See Loomis, “Chaucer and the Auchinleck Manuscript: Thopas and Guy of Warwick.” Although the connection has long since been dismissed, it continues to exert a surprisingly persistent influence on scholarship today. For an example of this, see Eckert, “Chaucer’s Reading List.” Cannon returns to the theme in a recent article but still largely concludes that we cannot know if Chaucer ever saw Auchinleck or was simply well-versed in material of the sort contained within it. See “Chaucer and the Auchinleck Manuscript Revisited.”

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This chapter re-examines the codicological structure of Auchinleck as well as the models of scribal collaboration which shaped it to put pressure on many of the assumptions about the development of England’s vernacular literary culture that the manuscript has traditionally appeared to support. Of particular interest is Hanna’s assessment that Auchinleck exemplifies his two conditions of literary production in fourteenth-century England: vernacularity and miscellaneity. Flying in the face of the exuberance of medieval Latin anthologization extensively documented by George Rigg and others, Hanna argues vernacularity can be strongly associated with miscellaneity because for Middle English in the fourteenth century, “[t]here exists no single literary canon and, consequently, no single set of institutions to stimulate literary activity and to mandate various forms of more or less standardized manuscript production.”409 In turn he contrasts the procedures of vernacular manuscript production with those of

any variety of Latinate modes of manuscript production, all of them supported by clearly demarcatable transmission networks generally supported by one or another sort of professional affiliation (schools, orders, legal institutions, etc.). These, almost automatically, prescribe more fixed notions of appropriate literary production, of canonical texts and presentations.410

Hanna suggests that booklets were a particularly useful way of producing manuscripts such as Auchinleck because they allowed scribes to copy exemplars as they became available, share production when necessary, and they could be compiled into larger units to make full manuscript-books should the patron so desire. In turn, this model is explicitly connected to Middle English texts for which, Hanna argues, there would have been an irregular or limited demand in the mid-fourteenth century because there existed no pre-set “canon” of desirable texts. One major goal of this chapter, then, will be to assess the extent to which the production of Auchinleck differed from the production of Latinate or Anglo-Norman books, with particular reference to the use of booklets as a major constitutive element of the production of the manuscript. By placing the manuscript in a context that sees its production as an extension of book-making activities in both Latin and Anglo-Norman, in conversation with and not

409 Hanna, “Vernacularity and Miscellaneity,” 47. For detailed descriptions of numerous Latin poetic anthologies, see the work of Binkley, Dinkova-Bruun, Townsend, and most importantly Rigg, in the multipart article series published in Mediaeval Studies entitled “Medieval Latin Poetic Anthologies.” 410 Ibid., 48.

128 opposition to clerical literary culture, I hope to come to a more nuanced understanding of the interpenetration between areas of book-making traditionally considered to be discrete.

2 Backgrounds and Contexts 2.1 A Major Middle English Miscellany

Fig. 3.1: NLS, MS Advocates 19.2.1 (“Auchinleck”) (Contents by Booklet)

Collation: 18(1, 4 lost), 28(3 stub), 38(3, 6 lost), 48, 58(2 stub), 68(5, 7 stub), 78, 88(2 stub), 98(8 stub), 108, 118(4 stub), 128, 138(1 stub), 148, 15(lost),168, 178(1 stub), 188(5, 8 stub), 198-238, 248(8 lost), 258, 268(6 lost), 27-348, 358(1, 4 stub), 368 (3 stub), 3710, 38(lost), 398(1, 2, 7, 8 lost), 408(3-7 lost), 418-428, 438(4 lost), 448-458, 468(3, 6 lost), 478(3, 6 lost), 48-51(lost), 528(8 lost); Quire 5, f. 4, 5 from Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Library, MS 218 (MS E), f. 1; Quire 39, f. 3, 6 from London, London University Library, MS 593 (MS L), f. 2; Quire 39, f. 4, 5 from St. Andrews, St. Andrews University Library, MS PR.2065 R.4 (MS A), f. 15; Quire 48, f. 2, 7 from Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Library, MS 218 f. 4; Quire 48, f. 4, 6 from St. Andrews, St. Andrews University Library, MS PR.2065 R.4 (MS R). Scribe 1: ff. 1r-38v, 48v-69v, 108r-167r, 201r-267v, L f. 1rv – f. 337; a clear and compressed Anglicana Formata Scribe 2: ff. 39r-48r, 105r, 328r-334v; a tall textualis semi-quadrata Scribe 3: ff. 70r-104v; a straight Anglicana with pointed descenders Scribe 4: ff. 105v-107r; a square, set textualis quadrata Scribe 5: ff. 167r-201r, a currens textualis semiquadrata Scribe 6: ff. 268r-277v; a set Anglicana Formata similar to Scribe 1

Contents: Booklet 1 [Quires 1-6] [written by Scribe 1] The Legend of Pope Gregory (fragmentary) (ff. 1r-7 stub) The King of Tars (ff. 7r-13v) The Life of Adam and Eve (E ff. 1r-2v; ff. 14r-16r) Seynt Mergrete (ff. 16r-21r) Seynt Katerine (ff. 21r-24v) St Patrick’s Purgatory (ff. 25r-31v) Þe Desputisoun Bitven þe Bodi and þe Soule (ff. 31v-35r) The Harrowing of Hell (fragmentary) (ff. 35r-37r or 37v) The Clerk who would see the Virgin (fragmentary) (ff. 37r or 37v-38v) Booklet 2 [Quires 7-10] [written by Scribe 1 and Scribe 2] Speculum Gy de Warewyke (fragmentary) (ff. 39r-48r stub) [written by Scribe 2]

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Amis and Amiloun (fragmentary) (ff. 48r stub-61v stub) [written by Scribe 1] The Life of St Mary Magdalene (fragmentary) (ff. 61v stub-65v) [written by Scribe 1] The Nativity and Early Life of Mary (ff. 65v-69v) [written by Scribe 1]. Booklet 3 [Quires 11-16, 15 lost] [written by Scribe 2, Scribe 3, and Scribe 4] On the Seven Deadly Sins (ff. 70r-72r) [written by Scribe 3] The Paternoster (fragmentary) (ff. 72r-72r or 72v stub) [written by Scribe 3] The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin (fragmentary) (72r or 72v stub-78r) [written by Scribe 3] Sir Degare (fragmentary) (ff. 78r-84r stub) [written by Scribe 3] The Seven Sages of Rome (fragmentary) (ff. 84r stub-99v) [written by Scribe 3] Floris and Blancheflour (ff. 100r-104v) [written by Scribe 3] The Sayings of the Four Philosophers (ff. 105r-105r) [written by Scribe 2] The Battle Abbey Roll (ff. 105v-107v) [written by Scribe 4] Booklet 4 [Quires 17-24] [written by Scribe 1 and Scribe 5] Guy of Warwick (couplets) (ff. 108r-146v) [written by Scribe 1] Guy of Warwick (stanzas) (ff. 145v-167r) [written by Scribe 1] Reinbroun (ff. 167r-175v) [written by Scribe 5] Booklet 5 [Quires 26-35] [written by Scribe 1 and Scribe 5] Sir Beues of Hamtoun (ff. 176r-201r) [written by Scribe 5] Of Arthour and of Merlin (ff. 201r-256v) [written by Scribe 1] Þe Wenche Þat Loved Þe King (fragmentary) (ff. 256v-256 stub) [written by Scribe 1] A Peniworþ of Witt (fragmentary) (ff. 256 stub-259r) [written by Scribe 1] How Our Lady’s Sauter was First Found (ff. 259r-260v) [written by Scribe 1] Booklet 6 [Quire 36] [written by Scribe 1] Lay le Freine (fragmentary) (ff. 261r-262 stub) Roland and Vernagu (fragmentary) (ff. 262v stub-267v) Booklet 7 [Quire 37; may have contained Quire 38 presently lost] [written by Scribe 6] Otuel a Knight (ff. 268r-277v) Booklet 8 [Quires 39-40] [written by Scribe 1] Kyng Alisaunder (MS L, f. 1r-v; MS A, f. 1r-2v; MS L, f. 2r-v; ff. 278-9) The Thrush and the Nightingale (f. 279v) The Sayings of St Bernard (f. 280r) Dauid Þe King (ff. 280r-280v) Booklet 9 [Quires 41-43] [written by Scribe 1] Sir Tristrem (fragmentary) (ff. 281r-299 stub) Sir Orfeo (fragmentary) (ff. 299 stub-303r) The Four Foes of Mankind (ff. 303r-303v) Book 10 [Quires 44-46] [written by Scribe 1]

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The Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle (ff. 304r-317r) Horn Childe & Maiden Rimnild (ff. 317v-323v) Alphabetical Praise of Women (ff. 324r-325v) Booklet 11 [Quire 47; may have contained Quires 48-51 presently lost] [written by Scribe 1] King Richard (f. 326; MS E, f. 3r-3v; MS A, f. 1r-2v; MS E, f. 4r-4v; f. 327) Booklet 12 [Quire 52] [written by Scribe 2] Þe Simonie (ff. 328r-334v)

With its unusually large and varied selection of Middle English texts, Auchinleck apparently exemplifies Hanna’s idea of the miscellany with its “defiantly individual impulses” and its “oscillation between the planned and the random.”411 The codicology of the manuscript has been described extensively, but rewards repeated study with an intriguing model for collaborative manuscript production in London in the early fourteenth century.412 The manuscript is divided into twelve booklets or fascicles, that is, groups of continuously copied quires where the end of a text coincides both with a gap in the copying of the manuscript and the end of a quire. Four of these booklets show signs of collaboration or successive copying by at least two scribes while the remaining eight appear to be the sole work of only one scribe. Most of these booklets begin with a substantial romance or historical poem, for example, Guy of Warwick (Booklet 4, ff. 108r- 146v), Beues of Hamtoun (Booklet 5, ff. 176r-201r), Sir Tristrem (Booklet 9, ff. 281r-299v), and The Anonymous Short English Metrical Chronicle (Booklet 10, ff. 304r-317r) to name several prominent poems. Scholars traditionally have understood these texts to be the “big ticket” items around which the manuscript was structured while the shorter texts such as Þe Desputisoun Bitven þe Bodi and þe Soule (Booklet 1, ff. 31v-35r), On the Seven Deadly Sins (Booklet 3, ff.

411 Hanna, “Miscellaneity and Vernacularity,” 37-38. 412 The earliest description of Auchinleck appears in Kölbing’s “Vier romanzen-handschriften.” Supplements to this were provided in Bliss’s “Notes on the Auchinleck Manuscript” and Cunningham’s similarly titled “Notes on the Auchinleck Manuscript” when the manuscript was re-bound. This work was largely adopted and extended Cunningham and Pearsall’s facsimile The Auchinleck Manuscript and Mordkoff in her unpublished 1981 dissertation, “The Making of the Auchinleck Manuscript: The Scribes at Work.” The only major objection to the views of Kölbing, Bliss and Cunningham concerns the number of scribes that copied this manuscript. Alison Wiggins has, persuasively I think, shown that six scribes worked on the manuscript in “Are Auchinleck Manuscript Scribes 1 and 6 the Same Scribe?” but the issue remains contentious. See all the discussion of the manuscript in Kerby-Fulton et al, Opening Up Middle English Manuscript Studies, esp. “Englishing Romance: The Auchinleck Manuscript.”

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70r-72r), and The Paternoster (Booklet 3, ff. 72r-72r or 72v) have been labelled as “filler” texts, ancillary to the general plan of the manuscript.413

Some plan for the manuscript—in both a codicological and a literary sense—must have existed: despite the ad hoc collaboration of the scribes involved, scholars have convincingly argued that Auchinleck follows a consistent layout that implies a design for the general look of the manuscript in place at an early stage of production. The major copier of the manuscript, Scribe 1, who completed over 70% of the copying and added the majority of item titles and catchwords likely implemented or managed this design plan. Most of the larger items were once preceded by a miniature although many of these have been removed by cutting. For surviving examples, see The King of Tars (f. 7r); The Paternoster (f. 72r); Reinbrun (f. 167r); Þe Wench þat Loved a King (f. 256v); and King Richard (f. 326r). Generally, the first letter of every line is picked out in red and all scribes isolate the initial letter of the line with a ruled column. Noticeable departures from this design plan or decoration anomalies occur in Booklets 2, 3, 7 and 12, all of which have been initiated by a scribe other than Scribe 1. I will return to these booklets later in this chapter in order to suggest that these design anomalies may indicate these were made at a separate stage of production.

It is generally accepted that Auchinleck was produced in London at some point in the 1330s. The dialect of Scribes 1 and 3 has been localized to London, and contemporary historical references in texts such as Sir Beues of Hamtoun and The Short Metrical Chronicle confirm an interest in the city.414 Simply by virtue of its size, moreover, London is by far the most likely place in England for six scribes to have been working in tandem. London would have also offered a number of possible patrons for the book including lower gentry and prosperous merchants like the fishmonger and London Chamberlain Andrew Horn who compiled the analogous Liber

413 For the concept of “big ticket” items in Auchinleck, see, for example, Hanna, “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 94. 414 See Loomis, “A Possible London Bookshop.” Wiggins and Hanna both emphasize London as a likely place for this quanitity of textual information to be shared between scribes. See, respectively, Alison Wiggins, “Guy of Warwick: Study and Transcription”; and Hanna, “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript.” Alison Wiggins, in her recent study of the London contexts of the manuscript, supports this claim: “The cumulative result of these additions is partially to reroute the nation’s history through London in order to feed an interest in marvellous stories pertaining to the urban environment” in “The City and the Text: London Literature,” 546-7. On medieval London’s literary networks, see Sheila Lindenbaum, “London Texts and Literate Practice.”

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Custumarum in the first half of the fourteenth century.415 Romance exemplars were frequently exchanged between London and the West Midlands pre-1400.416

Studies of Auchinleck have posited several models for manuscript production in the early fourteenth century. The scholarship discussing the Auchinleck manuscript’s production has been contentious, beginning with Laura Hibbard Loomis’s groundbreaking article in the 1940s. Adapting the model of the monastic scriptorium to a commercial venture, Hibbard Loomis proposed that the manuscript was created in what she called a “lay scriptorium” or “bookshop.”417 This need not have been an actual shop; rather she proposes the idea of a lay center “where went on, whether under one roof or not, the necessarily unified and directed work of compiling, copying, illuminating, and binding any book.”418 The idea of the lay scriptorium or bookshop was influential, but codicologists in the in 1970s and onward complicated and resisted this model in important ways. Doyle and Parkes dismissed the notion that scribes produced the texts of Chaucer and Gower in lay scriptoria, arguing instead for dispersed, ad hoc production facilitated by the piecemeal sharing of individual quires.419 Pamela Robinson laid out important modifications to the bookshop theory in her Oxford dissertation where she argued that the manuscript was assembled from twelve booklets.420 Her analysis implies that booklets were part

415 Hanna argues that Horn’s work, which itself follows the models of the previous century, “can be integrally connected with the greatest contemporary London English literary book, the Auchinleck MS” in London Literature, 54. He adds that legal texts such as Horn’s share related craftsmen with Auchinleck: “Some of the same hands provided decoration both in Auchinleck and in...the extensive legal volume (s) ‘Liber custumarum’, only part of which is still at the Guildhall, the remainder dispersed in British Library, MS Cotton Claudius D.ii and Oxford, Oriel College, MS 46” in “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 96. See also Dennison, “‘Other Manuscripts of the Queen Mary Psalter Workshops” and “An Illuminator of the Queen Mary Psalter Group.” Analogues for Auchinleck in terms of both production methods and possible audience, Hanna suggests, include CCCC, MS 70 (also produced for Andrew Horn) called de veteribus legibus Anglie and containing codes from Ine to Henry III. 416 Wiggins, in her study of the corpus of West Midlands romances, concludes a number of West Midlands romances appear to have been copied from London exemplars, and vice versa, enforcing “the impression that exchange of exemplars between these two regions was especially significant for romance transmission” in “Middle English Romance,” 249. 417 Loomis, “A Possible London Bookshop,” 597, 599. 418 Ibid., 597. 419 Cf. Doyle and Parkes, “The Production of Copies of the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis.” 420 See Robinson, “A Study of Some Aspects of the Transmission of English Verse Texts.”

133 of a process of speculative production in which a buyer could select from a number of premade booklets.

Timothy Shonk, however, proposed an alternate model in which a buyer commissioned the codex from a stacionarius, a term he uses following Graham Pollard to refer to “a dealer…an intermediary between the producer and the public rather than an actual maker of the goods he sells.”421 In the case of Auchinleck, however, Shonk argued that Scribe 1 was more than simply an intermediary; he was an editor of sorts, copying the bulk of the material, overseeing the various stages of construction, and coordinating between the buyer and the other scribes.422 Shonk argued that Scribe 1 wrote all of the extant catchwords and likely determined the order in which the booklets were arranged. He was also likely responsible for numbering items and adding titles after the manuscript had been decorated. The assumption of these duties suggests that Scribe 1 was employed for more than just copying; rather, he was an editor who determined the general layout of the page and the final order of the items within the book. Within this model, copying need not have been localized to a physical “shop” where all scribes were present. Rather, material could be parceled out to scribes within the city to enable copying, either simultaneously or sequentially, to occur.

Lastly, Matthew Fisher has returned to the argument that Scribe 1 may have been more than just an editor; he may have had access to multiple exemplars from which he partially composed, translated or edited texts like the Short Metrical Chronicle, likely by means of Anglo-Norman exemplars like Des Grantz Geanz and Matthew Paris’ Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei, and also multiple copies of Middle English texts like King Richard. Fisher writes,

421 See Shonk, “Study of the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 87. See also Graham Pollard’s work on the term stacionarius in “The Company of Stationers before 1557,” 14-15. I discuss the use of the term “stationer” in more detail in Chapter 1 of this dissertation. It is unlikely that a “stationer” as the term is used in the fifteenth century would have been in operation in the mid-1340s. 422 Shonk states, “He copied most of the material himself, farmed out other pieces to independent scribes, and then completed the work needed to put the book into its final form….He served as ‘editor’ of the manuscript and did much of the writing, but some of the work he subcontracted to other scribes and rubricators.” Shonk, “Study of the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 73. See also his article, “The Scribe as Editor,” 19-20.

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The writer of the Auchinleck Short Chronicle had in his hands copies of some extremely au courant texts. This suggests not what is called “exemplar poverty,” but rather privileged access to a remarkably diverse and substantive selection of texts.423

Although Fisher does not argue for a return to Loomis’ bookshop model where a group of scribal hacks jointly composed a series of romances, he adapts elements of this theory to demonstate the fluidity of composition and scribal authorship in the period.

2.2 Chaucer, the Auchinleck Bookshop and Literary History

The best starting point for a discussion of Auchinleck’s more general impact on literary history is Laura Hibbard Loomis’s influential article “The Auchinleck Manuscript and a Possible London Bookshop of 1330-1340.” In this article Loomis made two claims which have continued to shape Auchinleck scholarship despite substantial resistance from codicologists. Firstly, she suggested that Chaucer may have “had this manuscript, so famous and so venerable, in his hands.”424 The assertion that Chaucer must have possessed the Auchinleck in order to write “Sir Thopas” has largely been dismissed as a product of “wishful thinking”425—impossible to prove and dependent upon a “drastically over-simplified model of fourteenth-century manuscript production.”426 Most recently, Christopher Cannon has revisited Loomis’s use of a heuristic methodology that analyzes intertextual phrases with a “sympathetic spirit” in order to determine how we might use a similar approach to analyze elements of Chaucer’s style in relationship to possible “native” romances and saints’ lives.427 Nevertheless, Cannon ends up in the somewhat awkward position of acknowledging the rigorous attention Loomis devoted to Auchinleck, suggesting “there was never a good reason to try to characterize the ‘particular English style’ that Chaucer ‘inherited’…since he clearly ‘inherited’ more than one such style,” and then chastising scholars

423 Fisher, Scribal Authorship, 150. 424 Loomis, “A Possible London Bookshop of 1330-1340,” 597. 425 Cannon, “Chaucer and the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 132. 426 Wiggins, http://auchinleck.nls.uk.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/editorial/importance.html. Wiggins recognizes that, nevertheless, the association does offer interesting clues as to the milieu in which Chaucer worked and the forms of texts which he may have come across. 427 Cannon, “Chaucer and the Auchinleck Manuscript Revisited,” 146. It is unclear how precisely Cannon uses the term “native” in regard to both saint’s lives and romances: he may, in this case, mean texts of those genres written in English in England.

135 for not “recognizing what a valuable tool such careful reading might itself be for uncovering the other books Chaucer might have held in his hands.”428

Cannon’s response to the materials—which suggests both that Loomis’s methodology is useful for discovering what books Chaucer might have possessed and at the same time arguing there is no good reason to try to use those books to ascertain Chaucer’s style—is symptomatic of the perceived link between Chaucer and Auchinleck. Although no conclusive evidence has been found to support the assertion that Chaucer had access to Auchinleck, nevertheless, scholars have argued that Auchinleck is representative of a type of book—namely, a miscellaneous manuscript filled with assorted styles of English verse—which Chaucer may have used as a model or source of material for his own writing. Here, we might consider Míċeál Vaughan’s claim that the unfinished nature of the Canterbury Tales, its division into fragments, and its multiple “voices” cause Chaucer’s compilation to resemble structurally miscellaneous manuscripts such as Auchinleck.429 We might extend this argument even further, as Arthur Bahr does, to argue that the Canterbury Tales elevates the form of the compilation aesthetically by using the haphazard and sometimes contradictory constellation of tales to reveal “ideological perspectives more complex than would be possible for any single one of their constituent parts.”430 The line of argumentation taken up by both Vaughan and Bahr is useful in that it attempts to draw Chaucer’s work closer to earlier Middle English manuscripts, but it also serves to implicitly support the assumption that there is something inherently English about the appearance of Auchinleck—that is, as Hanna has suggested, that miscellaneity and vernacularity go hand in hand. This is an argument I intend to complicate throughout this chapter, but for the moment, it is simply useful to bear in mind that the Auchinleck-Chaucer connection continues to reinforce the perception of the production of Auchinleck as an originary moment for the development of English literary culture when figured as a precursor to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or inspiration for “Sir Thopas.”

428 Ibid. 429 Cf. Vaughan, “Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the Auchinleck MS: Analogous Collections.” 430 Bahr, “Convocational and Compilational Play,” 1. For an expansion of this perspective, see his recently released book, Fragments and Assemblages.

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In a similar vein, the second argument Loomis proposed—that of the existence of a “bookshop” which may have been the cradle of this new form of English literature—has also continued to be persuasive despite resistance by codicologists and book historians. The idea of the lay or secular “bookshop” has become a recurring motif that finds its way into the footnotes of a number of articles and monographs, often with only a few lines to support or dismiss it. Here, I turn to Kevin Sean Whetter’s brief discussion of the production of Auchinleck in Understanding Genre and Medieval Romance to show some of the problematic ways in which the “bookshop” model persists. Whetter states:

It has long been a critical commonplace that Auchinleck was produced in a London bookshop for a non-aristocratic patron and that this production included in-house copying and translation of texts such as Guy [of Warwick].431

He goes on to acknowledge that the work of Shonk and Wiggins troubles this idea, but he modifies the “bookshop” model only insofar as to say that “while [Auchinleck] may have been produced in some sort of bookshop, it was not (as Hibbard Loomis’s theory had it) translated and copied simultaneously.”432 Whetter adds that “even in the fourteenth century, manuscripts had ceased to be the product of clerical scriptoria alone and were instead increasingly produced in bookshops; indeed, most extant romance manuscripts seem to be the product of bookshops.”433 As the first chapter of this dissertation lays out, we have little if any evidence for the presence of bookshops in England during the Middle Ages, let alone enough to support the claim that most romance manuscripts were produced there. It would be more correct to say that many romance manuscripts seem to be the product of professional scribes, sometimes working in ad hoc collaboration with one another and sometimes working with shared “scriptorial facilities.”

I have offered an extended summary of this scholarship pertaining to the “bookshop” theory, and Whetter’s use of it in his monograph Understanding Genre and Medieval Romance, to draw attention to how literary scholars generalize the arguments of manuscript scholars in ways that

431 Whetter, Understanding Genre and Medieval Romance, 46. 432 Ibid., 47. 433 Ibid. Taylor takes a similar position in his discussion of the context of booklet production in his article “From Manual to Miscellany,” which I discuss further below. He in turn seems to take his lead from D. J. A. Ross’s article “A Thirteenth-Century Anglo-Norman Workshop.” Ross, however, suggests something closer to an atelier than he does a scribal workshop.

137 distort or simplify them. The underlying implication of Whetter’s discussion of the Auchinleck is that by the fourteenth century, manuscript production had moved from the monastery to the marketplace where vernacular romances were readily available. From this, he concludes that romances enjoyed “widespread popularity” in the fourteenth century and that there was “in some corners, at least awareness of romance as a genre.”434 Whetter’s conclusion that medieval readers understood romance as a genre may not be wrong in and of itself, but it places too much weight upon his understanding of what a medieval bookshop was and what that might reveal about the size of the potential audience and availability of vernacular romances in fourteenth-century London. Whetter assumes that the existence of a bookshop—whether copying took place simultaneously or in sequence—shows that there must have been widespread demand for romance texts ipso facto. This line of reasoning only makes sense if we also assume that this bookshop (or other bookshops) produced romances in large numbers and that Auchinleck was not a singular or anomalous production in the mid-fourteenth century. It also assumes a certain model for the production and sale of these romances.

To tease this out further, I would point to Alexandra Gillespie and Daniel Wakelin’s discussion of an image of Lady Hagiography, a Pilgrim and Lady Lesson in BL, MS Cotton Tiberius A.vii (Plate 2). In this image, Lady Hagiography appears to be gesturing toward a number of books laid open on shelves. Gillespie and Wakelin note how Loomis interpreted this image as a bookshop in which commodities were placed on display to be sold to potential customers when in fact it ought to be interpreted in another way: “the shelves, set up in what has been called the ‘lectern-system’, resemble those of a library.”435 Loomis’s misidentification of what was happening in this image speaks directly to the argument I am attempting to make: Loomis saw books sitting open on lecterns and placed them in the context of a modern shop in which a customer would be able to make a choice amongst a series of pre-made units, produced because the demand was known to be great enough to ensure their eventual sale. I emphasize the phrase “pre-made” because the debate between the speculative and bespoke production of booklets of fascicles is one particularly important to this chapter, which I will return to later for further

434 Ibid. 435 Gillespie and Wakelin, introduction to The Production of Books, 2.

138 discussion. Loomis’s understanding of a bookshop is the same understanding of a bookshop that Whetter relies upon when he contrasts the bookshop to a monastic scriptorium and uses Auchinleck as evidence for the “widespread popularity” of Middle English romances. The problem is that the modern concept of a bookshop—a commercial endeavour dependent upon the speculative production of units in advance of a commission—is a highly specific concept dependent upon consistent (or at least anticipatable) demand, and it may not have had an easy analogue in the vernacular book trade. As Hanna writes:

Unlike the centralized world of modern print-book culture (or even that of institutionally supported Latin handmade book culture), no consistent demand for vernacular books existed in the Middle Ages. As a result, there was neither anything like a publisher’s stock nor any of the other more or less formal bibliographical conveniences that facilitate the dissemination of texts in our literary world.436

Shonk—whom Whetter cites specifically—proposes a different model when he argues Scribe 1 acted as a stacionarius or compiler who accepted a commission from his patron to produce a new manuscript containing certain, requested texts. Shonk’s model depends upon Auchinleck as a bespoke manuscript produced by professional scribes in response to a specific commission rather than as a speculative venture.

All of this is to say that the idea of the bookshop appears to be so persuasive in both its simplicity and its familiarity that it oversimplifies the complexities of the models that scholars of Auchinleck have put forward. At the same time, literary scholars still use the idea of the Auchinleck bookshop to support a number of assumptions: that copying completed by the laity followed a different model than copying completed by scribes working in or with religious houses; that lay audiences were substantially different than religious audiences; that in the mid- fourteenth century there existed a widespread demand for Middle English texts as distinct from the demand for Latin and Anglo-Norman texts of a similar type; and that there was a widespread demand for romance texts (with romance here standing in for a more general rise in the demand for secular literature). These assumptions, in turn, are typically used to support a traditional view of literary history that sees the fourteenth century as a time in which Middle English became a new, influential language of literature supported by the rising middle class. Supporting this

436 Hanna, introduction to Pursuing History, 8.

139 assessment, Peter Coss draws attention to the way that the “bookshop” theory when it was first proposed had a considerable impact on those who wished to show “how ‘literary’ the extant romances [were]” by giving them a canonical status within a major Middle English codex; at the same time, the “bookshop” theory encouraged “scholars, beginning with Loomis herself, to look to London and the ‘middle class’ or ‘bourgeoisie’ for the audience of romance.”437 In this way, we can see how book history comes to shape literary history.

This in turn leads me back to Christopher Cannon’s article reconsidering Loomis’s theory of Auchinleck: I want to draw attention to one final element of his engagement with current Auchinleck scholarship. In this article, Cannon attempts to put into perspective Loomis’s hypotheses concerning how the Auchinleck scribes collaborated within the bookshop environment to translate and produce the romances that make up the volume. He contrasts her “heuristic” methodology with the “much harder proof” offered by codicological studies of “the touchable substance of pen marks on pages, mise en page, and the binding of folia into quires.”438 Cannon proceeds (rightly) to point out that the codicological material which is the subject of manuscript study “does not always admit to ironclad proof.”439 To show his point, he turns to the “chimera…once identified by many scholars as ‘scribe 6 of Auchinleck.”440 This move is problematic, however, because the debate regarding the existence of a six scribe— specifically, whether or not the scribe who copied Booklet 7, containing Otuel, was actually a sixth scribe or simply Scribe 1 copying with a different dialect and a slightly different script— has not been settled. Robinson, Hanna and Parkes come down in favour of five scribes, but nevertheless Wiggins’s convincing computer analysis of scribal habits confirms the early work of Timothy Shonk and A. J. Bliss, determining that we can distinguish the scribe of Booklet 7 as separate from Scribe 1.441 I draw attention to this problematic example in Cannon’s article because he uses the “chimera” of Scribe 6 as evidence that “improvements in the resources for

437 Coss, 38, 48. 438 Cannon, “Chaucer and the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 133. 439 Ibid. 440 Ibid. 441 Wiggins, “Auchinleck Manuscript Scribes 1 and 6.” A. J. Bliss first identified six scribes in an early article, “Notes on the Auchinleck Manuscript.” This work was later supported in a palaeographical and codicological study of the manuscript by Shonk in “A Study of the Auchinleck Manuscript.”

140 studying medieval manuscript production—not least the vast amount of scholarship on this subject in recent decades—has made such [codicological] study increasingly precise.”442 It ought to be pointed out, then, that those improvements in resources—in this case, Wiggins’s application of what she calls “whole-data analysis” to distinguish a single scribe from his fellow copyists—have failed to settle the debate. Despite the convincing nature of Wiggins’s analysis, Hanna, depending on the oculus palaeographicus rather than Big Data, still continues to contest the existence of Scribe 6.443

My point, then, is two-fold: on the one hand, there is a distinct problem with how scholars integrate preliminary or changing models of scribal collaboration into broader debates; on the other hand, despite increasingly sophisticated techniques for analysis, many of our current models should not be regarded as “iron-clad” since many of the underlying assumptions of those models are still being actively contested—that is, book history with all its details and “touchable substances,” appears to offer concrete proof or evidence for literary claims, yet it is clear those same “touchable substances” are still open to investigation and subject to competing interpretations.

But the questions those models attempt to answer still remain intensely important. To what extent can we judge the demand for Middle English literature in the fourteenth century? Who consumed and invested in this form of literature? Were the mechanisms by which that demand was satisfied an extension of or intrinsically different from those for other literary languages? Just as in Chapter 1 I troubled the concept of the monastic scriptorium by demonstrating that monks, friars and clerics could make or cause to have made books in a number of different ways through in-house, collaborative production but also through what we might call “commercial production”—that is, by commissioning a book to be copied by a professional scribe—likewise, in this chapter, firstly, I want to point out that there was no stable concept of the bookshop (or indeed scriptorium) in fourteenth-century England. Secondly, I want to hone and revise the

442 Cannon, “Chaucer and the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 134. 443 Hanna disputes the existence of the sixth scribe in “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 92 and confirms this opinion in London Literature, 40, n. 7. He argues that the differences in duct in Booklet 7 result from a different ruling system, indicating that the quire may have been intended originally for some other purpose.

141 current, generally accepted model of the production of Auchinleck and thereby point out some of the ramifications for our understanding of the conditions of vernacular manuscript production in fourteenth-century England.

2.3 From Monastery to Marketplace

In the previous section I showed that Loomis’s bookshop theory has contributed to lingering misconceptions about the circulation of Middle English literature in the mid-fourteenth century. I also showed how scholars have simplified modifications to the bookshop theory to make broad arguments concerning literary history. In this section, I want to break down in more detail what exactly we might mean when we say “bookshop” and thereby approach a number of models for the production of books during the period. First of all, it is useful to come to some sort of tentative understanding of the distinction between “commercial” and “non-commercial” production of books during the fourteenth century. These categories are separate from and complicated by the distinction between monastic production and lay production. To show the difficulties, I quote a passage from Diane E. Booton’s Manuscripts, Market and the Transition to Print in Late Medieval Brittany:

At a crossroad of trade routes and geo-political struggles, Brittany’s production of books and manuscripts reflected a combination of regional and outside influences. As elsewhere in Western Europe, Brittany experienced a gradual shift of manuscript production from monasteries to lay scriptoria and from rural settings to urban centers, as the motivation for copying the work in ink on parchment evolved from an aspect of religious meditation to personal profit.444

This monograph sketches out a history of manuscript production not dissimilar to that which occurred in England; at the same time, it conflates the shift from monastic production to lay production with a transition from copying as a form of “religious meditation” to “personal profit”(or what we might think of as commercial production). In many ways, it is clear that the reception of Loomis’s “bookshop” theory has followed a similar trajectory, presenting the transition from a monastic to lay scriptorium as a sign that vernacular books were now part of a commercial market targeting a predominantly secular audience.

444 Booton, Manuscripts, Market and the Transition to Print, 2.

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The commercialization of book production clearly did occur to some extent during this period. The pecia system of the University of Paris in the thirteenth century is already a vivid attestation of commercialization of manuscript production, as is the work of an Oxford scribe like William de Brailles.445 But rather than seeing this as a full transformation, I would turn to the more nuanced perspective offered in Ian Doyle’s “The English Provincial Book Trade before Printing” in which he argues that England’s book trade as late as the fifteenth century still continued to have “significant non-commercial segments” and that none of the individual activities associated with selling books—the practice of handicrafts such as making ink or parchment, the organization and copying of texts, and the selling of complete books—could offer full-time occupation.446 Linne Mooney makes a similar point that the copying of Chaucer’s texts in the fifteenth century, when the market for vernacular English literature was significantly more developed than in the mid-fourteenth century, still constituted only a sideline trade performed predominantly by scribes who supported themselves with other sorts of copying:

This is not to say that [the scribes of Chaucer’s manuscripts] were all commercial producers of books: in fact there is only very limited evidence for commercial literary manuscript production before the third quarter of the fifteenth century, near the end of the period under question. One must be careful to draw distinctions between scribes copying vernacular literary texts (who seem to have done so in addition to other jobs involving writing), those copying other kinds of texts, principally in Latin, for high demand, such as school books, works studied at universities, bibles and liturgical manuscripts (who might make up the members of the Mistery or Guild of Textwriters) and those importing books from the continent or re-selling books produced in England. Those producing copies of literary texts in London in the late fourteenth and first half of the fifteenth centuries were professional writers, in the Middle English sense of “scribes”, but they do not appear to have made their living principally by copying vernacular literary texts.447

The first step to clarifying our understanding of how Auchinleck was produced requires us to acknowledge, as Jean Pascal Pouzet suggests, the “general pattern of interlocking book-

445 For de Brailles and the creation of an impressive Book of Hours in Oxford in the thirteenth century, see Donovan, The De Brailes Hours, esp. 9-24. For Graham Pollard’s important article on the pecia system, see “The Pecia System in the Medieval Universities.” It ought to be noted that little if any hard evidence has been found for the use of the pecia system in Oxford or Cambridge in the Middle Ages. For a further description of the pecia system in the 1250s and 1260s in Paris, see Croenen’s introduction to Patrons, Authors and Workshops, esp. 1-3. 446 Doyle, “The English Provincial Book Trade,” 13. 447 Mooney, “Vernacular Literary Manuscripts and their Scribes,” 192.

143 producing activities,” each of which implied a “medieval ‘market economy.’”448 These patterns of activities indicate how “precarious and versatile” the procedures involved in making books were and, correspondingly, how as scholars we ought to view commercial and non-commercial paradigms as porous and interpenetrating rather than separate and discrete.449

Erik Kwakkel has clarified some of the features of the late medieval economy: he argues the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries saw an increase in commercialization and organization.450 The channels by which a patron could obtain a copied text were still remarkably diverse. Customers could directly approach scriveners, schoolmasters, students and notaries to copy a text, receive it in loose quires, and commission other artisans such as limners or binders to finish the book. It is possible that a craftsman might have worked as an intermediary—in the loose sense in which Graham Pollard uses the term stacionarius—in order to organize the division of labour, although we have little evidence of how such middle men, if they did exist, would have operated. It is likely, however, that in some cases, a book might be assembled by multiple craftsmen without such a stacionarius (or similar figure) organizing the labour.

Furthermore, it is necessary to add that we ought not to restrict participation in the commercial book trade to the laity. C. Paul Christianson, for example, identifies at least 254 citizens who were professional manuscript craftsmen and stationers in London between 1300 and 1520, but he notes that this number does not include both the Writers of the Court Letter, who wrote legal documents and would become the Scriveners’ Company, and other clerical scriveners who would have worked as occasional text-writers (the numbers of both groups together totalling over 295 writers).451 Kerby-Fulton and Justice have drawn attention to the role of unbeneficed clerics in the production of Middle English literature, with particular reference to William Langland.452 I have also discussed in Chapter 2 the role of Augustinians in the production of manuscripts of pastoral care such as the South English Legendary. Further to this, clerical scribes

448 Pouzet, “Book Production Outside Commercial Contexts,” 214. 449 Ibid., 238. 450 Kwakkel, “Commercial Organization and Economic Innovation,” 173-191. 451 Christianson, “London’s Late Medieval Manuscript-Book Trade,” 88-89. 452 Cf. Kerby-Fulton and Justice, “Langlandian Reading Circles.”

144 frequently competed with non-clerical scribes for the same sorts of jobs. In the fifteenth century, Richard Flynt, a self-described “capellanus and tyxtwriter” was admitted to the freedom of the city of York as one who “desireth to be maid free of the tyxtwrutters crafft and occupaccion so that he may from now furth at his libertie writte, make, bynd, note and florysche bokez and theym sell and put to sale.”453 By 1476, the York ordinance of the guild of textwriters, luminers, noters, turners, and flourishers stipulated that only priests with benefices worth less than seven marks a year could practice any of the crafts controlled by that guild, indicating that competition from chaplains and clerics must have been a problem throughout the proceeding years as they copied texts and participated in a variety of crafts associated with the book trade in order to earn money.454

Members of religious orders also participated in the book trade by commissioning books from professional scribes (as opposed to having them produced “in-house”). We can see this in the case of Walter Meriet, chancellor of Exeter Cathedral in 1333 who commissioned from book makers in Oxford a lavishly illuminated copy of Bartholomeus Anglicus’s De proprietatibus rerum. In 1339, Bishop John Grandisson of Exeter was forced to admonish Meriet for his expensive purchase in a mandate claiming, “Walter...had books made, both ready made and with ornaments added for him, to the ruin of his poor and infirm parishioners.”455 Two other Oxford men, William Reed, Bishop of Chichester (d. 1385) and Richard Calne, an Augustinian canon from Lanthony Secunda at Gloucester, compiled a series of manuscripts by means of the purchase of smaller booklets (or small-format manuscripts). In an inscription to Walter Robert, his scribe and notary, Reed describes how he assembled the volume from booklets from other people’s libraries and from booklets he wrote himself or caused to be made.456 Richard Calne also noted in his volumes, acquired between 1412 and 1421, that they were partly written by him and partly commissioned by scribes.457 When this evidence for clerical engagement with the book trade is taken into account, it becomes clear that an understanding of the development of

453 Friedman, Northern English Books, 36. 454 Ibid. 455 Michael, “Urban Production of Manuscript Books,” 182. 456 Robinson, “The ‘Booklet,’” 59. 457 Robinson, “The Format of Books,” 51.

145 manuscript production in the fourteenth century as a transition from “an aspect of religious meditation to personal profit” oversimplifies the matter.

Having established that in the fourteenth century books containing literary texts were produced in a variety of contexts, both commercially and non-commercially, both by and for religious members and the laity, I will turn to several examples of manuscripts comparable to Auchinleck which further reinforce this point. Firstly, I turn to CCCC, MS 50, a late-thirteenth-century manuscript startlingly similar to Auchinleck in both contents and design that belonged to the Benedictine monks of St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury.458

Fig. 3.2: CCCC, MS 50 (Contents by Booklet) Collation: iv + 112-712, 86, 912-1512, 188 (wants 8) + iv.

Scribe 1: ff. 1r-7v; a clear textualis semi-quadrata Scribe 2: ff. 7v-90r, 91r-181r; 105r, 328r-334v; a spiky textualis semi-quadrata Scribe 3: ff. 90r-90v; a nearly contemporary Anglicana

Contents: Booklet 1 [Quires 1-8] [written by Scribe 1, Scribe 2, and Scribe 3] Genealogy of the Kings of Britain (ff. 1r-6r) [written by Scribe 1] [Latin] Roman de Brut (ff. 6v-90r) [written by Scribe 1 and Scribe 2] [Anglo-Norman] Le Livere des Reis de Britannie (ff. 90r-90v) [written by Scribe 3] [Anglo-Norman] Booklet 2 [Quire 9] [written by Scribe 2] Romanz di un Chivaler et sa Dame e un Clerk (ff. 91r-94v) [Anglo-Norman] Amis et Amiloun (ff. 94v-102r) [Anglo-Norman] The Four Daughters of God (ff. 102r-102v) [Latin] Booklet 3 [Quires 10-16] [written by Scribe 2] Roman de Guy de Warewic (ff. 103r-181r) [Anglo-Norman]

This manuscript measures 335 x 230 mm, larger than Auchinleck’s current 250 x 190 mm, and dates to the second half of the thirteenth century (see Plate 3). The text of the manuscript was written by two scribes in double columns of 42 lines each with the initial letter of each line offset

458 For a description of the manuscript, see James, Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College Cambridge, 101-103. See also Ailes, “Gui de Warewic in its Manuscript Context” and Blacker, “‘Will the Real Brut Please Stand Up?”

146 and ornamented in red, and with an addition at the end of Booklet 1 by a third, nearly contemporary scribe. CCCC, MS 50 also employs red and blue initials with pen flourishing which act as section dividers, with larger red and blue puzzle initials for major textual divisions. The contents recall what scholars have considered to be the “core” texts or major items of Auchinleck: a range of romances including Amis and Amiloun, the Short Metrical Chronicle, a text which Turville-Petre argues acts as the backbone of Auchinleck to which the semi-historical romance texts are attached, and the two-part tale of Guy of Warwick as well as the tale of his son Reinbrun.459

Like Auchinleck, the manuscript has been produced by means of booklets, of which there are three. The first booklet ends on f. 90v. Although the quires typically consist of twelve leaves, this quire has been cut down to six leaves. When Scribe 2 finished copying the Roman de Brut, he left the remainder of the recto and the entire verso blank. A third nearly contemporary scribe, Scribe 3, filled in those leaves with Le Livere des Reis de Britannie in a small Anglicana hand. The second booklet begins with a three-line red and blue “puzzle” initial and ends with The Four Daughters of God on f. 102v near the bottom of the verso. After the explicit for this text, an eight-line rubricated verse introduction to Guy de Warewic has been added, thus creating an apparent content link between Booklet 2 and Booklet 3. The third booklet, containing only Guy de Warewic, begins with a 14-line red and blue “puzzle” initial with an adjoining red and blue border that spans the top of the page (perhaps indicating that this was the main attraction?). This booklet ends with a reduced quire of eight leaves, with the final leaf removed. I stress the similarities between these two manuscripts in terms of both content and design in order to begin to sketch out a context for Auchinleck. Auchinleck is much of a kind with CCCC, MS 50. It is of a similar size, it is of a similar level of decoration, it contains strikingly similar material, and it is divided into booklets. Although we have less information regarding the methods of production for CCCC, MS 50 than we do for Auchinleck, we nevertheless can associate it with St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury on the basis of a notation on f. 1r (“de librario S. Aug. cum. A”)

459 Turville-Petre, England the Nation, 112.

147 and a second notation on f. 6r (“Liber de librario S. Aug. Cantuarie Dist. Gra”). The manuscript is no. 1516 in the old catalogue.460

A second manuscript also bears comparison: BL, MS Add. 45103 (Penrose).461 Like CCCC, MS 50, this is a large manuscript, measuring 360-5 x 255 mm. It dates to the fourth quarter of the thirteenth century. Written predominantly by a single scribe in an ornamental semi-quadrata textualis, the Penrose manuscript consists of a range of Latin and Anglo-Norman texts including an abridgement of Dares Phrygius’s De Excidio Troiae Historia, Wace’s Roman de Brut, The Four Daughters of God, and The Prophecies of Merlin, written by a second scribe on a single quire (Quire 10) and inserted into the Roman de Brut, bisecting Quire 9.

Fig. 3.3: BL, MS Add. 45103 (Penrose Manuscript) (Contents by Booklet)

Collation: i + 112-812, 912 [this quire is interrupted at f. 85 by the addition of 1012], 1112, 1212 (one leaf lost), 1312-1412, 1512 (final leaf removed), 1612-1812 + i Scribe 1: ff. 1r-85b, 98r-220v; a square textualis quadrata Scribe 2: ff. 86r-97v; textualis semi-quadrata

Contents: Booklet 1 [Quire 1] [written by Scribe 1] History of the Trojans and Greeks (ff. 1r-10v) [Latin] ff. 11-12, blank, unruled Booklet 2 [Quires 2-14, excluding Quire 10] [written by Scribe 1] Roman de Brut (ff. 13r-166v) [Anglo-Norman] Booklet 2a [Quire 10] [written by Scribe 2] Prophecies of Merlin, on a quire inserted into Booklet 2 (Quire 10, Booklet 2a?) (ff. 86r-97v) [Latin] Booklet 3 [Quires 15] [written by Scribe 1] First Statute of Westminster (ff. 167r-184v) [Latin] Booklet 4 [Quires 16-18] [written by Scribe 1] La Petite Philosophie (ff. 185r-212r) [Anglo-Norman] The Four Daughters of God (ff. 212r-214r) [Latin] Apocalypse (ff. 214v-215r) [Anglo-Norman]

460 See Barker-Benfield, St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury. 461 For a full description of this manuscript, see Skeat, The British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1936-1945, I, 85-89. See also Bolton and Dean, Anglo-Norman Literature, 2, 20, 325, 685, 717.

148

La Sainte Resurrectioun (ff. 215r-220v) [written by Scribe 1] [Anglo-Norman]

The Penrose manuscript was also assembled by the production of booklets, some of which consist of no more than a single quire containing a single text (Booklet 1, Booklet 2a, Booklet 3) and others which consist of multiple quires to accommodate a long text (Booklet 2) or multiple texts compiled together (Booklet 4). Each of the main booklets (1, 2, 3 and 4) has a thin piece of parchment sewn in that has been twisted to form a marker. Also like CCCC, MS 50, this book can be traced to a religious house, the Benedictine cathedral priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, where it appears in a list of books repaired in 1508 and compiled by William Ingram.462 The ornamental nature of the script suggests religious training, particularly the ink work of the decorative ascenders which integrates human faces and animal shapes.463

These two manuscripts, similar to Auchinleck in grade, contents and construction, were owned by and possibly produced in religious houses. Lest one think that literature of this sort—namely, “national” histories and romances—was an anomalous inclusion in a library such as that of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury or Christ Church, Canterbury, it is worth noting that the Benedictine monks of St. Augustine’s Canterbury possessed no fewer than four copies of Guy of Warwick along with a “gesta cuiusdam militis qui vocatur ypomedon” (Hypomedon) a “liber qui vocatur Graal in gallico” (a collection of Arthurian legends) and a “romaunz de per le Galois” (Percival).464 Nor was it only this religious house which owned works of this sort: Peterborough possessed a number of miscellaneous French works including a number of epics and romances left in a bequest by a prior who died in 1392. A copy of the Anglo-Norman Gui de Warewic dated to 1300 was bound into BL, MS Harley 3775, a composite manuscript consisting primarily of chronicles and documents relating specifically to St. Albans Abbey.465 Another copy of the Anglo-Norman Gui de Warewic was bound with a selection of Latin sermons and glosses on Hebrew names that at one point belonged to St Werburg’s Abbey in Chester.466

462 This booklist can be found in Canterbury, Canterbury Cathedral, MS C. 11. See James, Ancient Libraries, 158, n. 161. 463 Symes suggests that this book was copied by the Canterbury monks in “The Boy and the Blind Man,” 124, n. 30. 464 Sánchez-Martí, “Reconstructing the Audiences,” 176. Cf. Taylor, Textual Situations, 190, 264, n. 175. 465 See Ailes, “Gui de Warewic in its Manuscript Context,” 16-17. 466 Ibid., 18.

149

Another example warrants attention: CUL, MS Dd.11.78, a miscellaneous manuscript featuring longer hagiographical works and many short poems written by the Latin professional poet, Henry of Avranches. The manuscript was compiled, owned and partly written by the chronicler Matthew Paris, a monk of St Albans in the thirteenth century. A self-identified “scriptor” or “confector” of books, Matthew worked on a number of manuscripts which have been identified as holographs.467 This manuscript is a good comparator for Auchinleck because it shows how the compiler of a miscellaneous manuscript might settle on the “shape” of the manuscript while compiling it. Like Auchinleck, at least five scribes produced CUL, MS Dd.11.78 including Matthew Paris himself, and they divided the manuscript into a number of booklets, which Townsend and Rigg identify as follows:

… separate series of quire numbers, gaps in catchwords, blank leaves, differing page sizes, stages of decoration, changes of hand, and similar indications show that the ‘volume’ (as it is called in the Contents List) originally consisted of five booklets or libelli (as Matthew calls Part IV on fol. 153r).468

Townsend and Rigg suggest that these five booklets were written, compiled and decorated separately. It was only through the process of writing and compiling that Matthew Paris came to envision a plan for the entire manuscript. Townsend and Rigg claim:

If, then, Matthew came to see [CUL, MS Dd.11.78] as a Henry anthology post factum, the addition of Part V was the most likely catalyst for the shift in his principal conception of the manuscript’s contents. By far the longest piece in the codex and the poet’s magnum opus, its authorship duly noted by the scribe, Matthew would have noticed its common authorship with No. 35; he may gradually have realized that a number of other items were also Henry’s works.…The whole codex seems to have become a Henry anthology in Matthew’s mind only after he became conscious of originally inadvertent coincidences in the compilation process. Only in the late stages of the book’s genesis did these suggest a consciously pursued strategy.469

467 Matthew Paris describes himself as a “scriptor huius libris” in the Chronica maiora, but the scribe of the fair copy BL, MS Cotton Nero D.v has substituted “confector.” See Vaughan, 35. 468 Townsend and Rigg, “Medieval Latin Poetic Anthologies (V),” 355. Because of the complicated and highly irregular nature of the assembly of this manuscript, even a partial description would take many pages. As such I refer the reader to the detailed description in this article. 469 Ibid., 389.

150

This manuscript suggests the inherent flexibility of Latinate bookmaking in the thirteenth century, even in respect to a “canonical” poet such as Henry of Avranches. Here, we might see the development of the poet’s canon, not as an initial governing force for the systematic creation of new manuscripts, as Hanna would suggest, but rather as a product of the process of compilation itself. That is to say, even in an institutional setting like St Albans, literary canonization was just as likely to follow from the creation of a manuscript as it was to determine shape and contents of a manuscript from the outset.

One final example warrants study: the so-called Edwardes manuscript, a composite manuscript which contained at least seven items before it was unbound and its pieces were sent to auction in the nineteenth century.470 Early scholars of Auchinleck claimed that this manuscript in its presumed original state may have been in the Auchinleck bookshop and may have provided the source material for a number of texts in Auchinleck; however, in 1969, Judith Weiss argued against this on the grounds that the manuscript was a composite of several booklets dating from the thirteenth century to the fifteenth century.471 My interest is primarily in three of the items which may have made up the original Edwardes manuscript: Gui de Warewic (now BL, MS Add. 38662, ff. 1-80), Chanson de Guillaume (now BL, MS Add. 38663, ff. 1-20) and the Anglo- Norman Pseudo-Turpin (now BL, MS Add. 40142, ff. 1-14). These three small-format manuscripts may have been copied and/or decorated by a group of scribes collaborating (possibly in a scriptorium or workshop) in the third quarter of the thirteenth century. Tony Hunt suggests the Augustinian priories of Oseney or St. Frideswide, Oxford as potential locations for these “scriptorial activities.”472 The presence of some form of persistent collaboration is indicated by the similarity of script, design and decoration of all three of the Edwardes fragments (see Plate 4, BL, MS Add. 38662). They are of a similar size (approximately 220-5 x 160 mm), with the page divided into two columns of forty lines and with the first letter of each line separated. They each begin, or include, a large puzzle initial in red and blue with penwork

470 For a summary of the current theory of compilation of this manuscript, see Ailes, “Gui de Warewic in its Manuscript Context.” 471 Cf. Weiss, “The Auchinleck Manuscript and the Edwardes Manuscripts.” 472 Hunt, “The Anglo-Norman Book,” 378-9. Legge argues that Guy of Warwick, written for one of the Earls of Warwick, may well have been composed by a canon of Oseney between 1232 and 1242. See Anglo-Norman in the Cloisters, 63.

151 decoration in brown and green. They have also each been decorated with smaller red or blue initials with distinctive hooked flourishes. The copy of Gui de Warewic and the copy of the Pseudo-Turpin both appear to be in the same hand while the copy of the Chanson de Guillaume is in a similar script by a different scribe but with an identical system of decoration. Of the manuscripts I have discussed so far, only these three seem to indicate some form of continuous collaboration, even if only at the level of decoration, between multiple craftsmen producing similar sorts of work. Here, too, the use of booklets (or small-format manuscripts) containing a single text and consisting of one or multiple quires seems to have facilitated production.

I draw attention to these manuscripts as comparators to Auchinleck to begin to undo some of the binaries which have governed our understanding of the production of Auchinleck and the role it plays in the traditional history of manuscript production which posits a transition from the monastery to the marketplace. A number of potential audiences have been suggested for Auchinleck: provincial gentry visiting London similar to the Pastons, as Coss argues;473 an old crusading family such as the Beauchamps or Percies, as Turville-Petre claims;474 Shonk agrees with Doyle that it may have been intended for wealthy Londoners with court connections,475 while Arthur Bahr suggests a mercantile audience.476 It is not my purpose to argue that Auchinleck was in fact intended for use within a religious house, but rather I want to stress the possibility that books like Auchinleck were used within that milieu. In many cases, they looked similar. In many cases, they contained texts of the same genre or sources for those texts. For example, Fisher has recently argued that two of the major sources for the Auchinleck Short Metrical Chronicle survive in religious books. One of these, the portion of BL, MS Cotton Cleopatra D.xi containing Des Grantz Geanz, from which the episode of Albina is drawn, was copied by Alan of Ashbourne, vicar choral of Lichfield Cathedral in 1325. Fisher suggests:

473 Coss, “Aspects of Cultural Diffusion,” 56-7. 474 Turville-Petre, “England the Nation,” 134-8. 475 Shonk, “A Study of the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 90. 476 See Bahr, Fragments and Assemblages, particularly Chapter 2.

152

Before it was chained in Lichfield, Alan of Ashbourne may have travelled from Lichfield with his book containing Des Grantz Geanz, or a scribe connected to the Auchinleck manuscript may have had access to it there.477

Similarly, he suggests that the story of the consecration of Westminster Abbey is drawn from Matthew Paris’s Anglo-Norman Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei which survives only in CUL, MS Ee.3.59, a beautifully illustrated manuscript. The text’s recent translator notes that this manuscript was likely “neither an original nor an autograph, but is believed to be a copy made at Westminster or in London of an earlier manuscript by Paris that has not survived.”478 Paris, as I have discussed, was a Benedictine monk at St Albans Abbey in the thirteenth century, and his process of producing books parallels that of Auchinleck Scribe 1. While it might be argued that the languages of the texts in these manuscripts constitutes a key difference—that the use of Middle English denotes a non-clerical audience—nevertheless, as I have shown in my previous two chapters, many producers of Middle English texts were members of religious houses. A large vernacular compendium of historical, religious and romance texts such as Auchinleck was not unprecedented. In fact, it had numerous precedents both within clerical circles and within mercantile circles. The insistence upon a gentry or mercantile audience for Auchinleck depends, in part, upon the assumption that the reading interests of these individuals differed substantially from the reading interests of those in religious houses. Just as commercial and non-commercial paradigms ought to be viewed as interpenetrative, so ought we to place Auchinleck in the context of multilingual copying.

3 Producing the Auchinleck Manuscript 3.1 The Auchinleck Manuscript and Booklet Production

Thus far, this chapter has engaged peripherally with the notion that Auchinleck was constructed by means of a number of compiled booklets. The implications of this method of production offer useful insights into the size of the market for Middle English texts in the mid-fourteenth century.

477 Fisher, Scribal Authorship, 150. 478 Paris, The History of Saint Edward, 28. This manuscript may have been made for Queen Eleanor’s daughter-in- law Eleanor of Castile on her arrival in England in 1255. It can be compared with several related Apocalypse manuscripts from the same workshop: New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.524; BL, MS Add. 35166; Los Angeles, John Paul Getty Museum, Ludwig MS III; and BodL, MS Tanner 184.

153

In Chapter 1, I argued that Middle English literary culture relied upon the production and circulation of small-format manuscripts: they enabled short texts to circulate independently in rolls, pamphlets, “pagyantes,” unbound quires, libelli (little books or booklets), and bills. Not only did texts in these small-format manuscripts circulate independently, they were also frequently compiled to form larger, composite codices. Auchinleck offers an excellent example of how scribes used booklets to produce Middle English volumes of unprecedented size within a primarily commercial paradigm. Pamela Robinson, Andrew Taylor, Ralph Hanna III, Alexandra Gillespie and Alison Wiggins have argued that the booklet structure of Auchinleck tells us a great deal about both the status of vernacular texts in mid-fourteenth century and the means by which scribes collaborated to produce books for sale. In this section, I will outline three predominant theories which describe the role of booklets in the production of Auchinleck. The first posits that the twelve booklets of Auchinleck are a sign of speculative production, that is, that the booklets were made in advance of a commission so that they could be selected and compiled into larger books. The second posits that Auchinleck was a bespoke book whereby the twelve booklets enabled multiple scribes to copy texts quickly according to a general, predetermined plan. The third, an intermediary model which I support, was put forward by Alison Wiggins and posits that the majority of the copying of Auchinleck occurred on a bespoke basis in response to the desires of a patron, but some booklets may represent textual units initiated outside of Scribe 1’s plan that were incorporated into the codex before it was decorated.

3.1.1 Speculative Production

The first theory, advanced by implication in Pamela Robinson’s 1972 Oxford dissertation and echoed by Derek Pearsall in the introduction to the facsimile of Auchinleck, contends that the Auchinleck booklets were likely produced speculatively: that is, the twelve booklets indicate a method of production in which a scribe might copy out texts for which he imagined there to be a demand into a booklet in advance of receiving a commission. The customer, then, would select from a number of pre-made booklets and a stationer, scribe or other craftsmen such as a binder would assemble these to create a complete manuscript. Robinson sought to connect Auchinleck

154 more closely with a form of production common in the fifteenth century in which the scribal collaboration enabled a kind of “production economy.”479 Pearsall agreed that

…the motive for the method of production seems clear: the bookshop produced a series of booklets or fascicles, consisting of groups of gatherings with some integrity of contents (note the pious nature of the romances in the first two groupings), which were then bound up to the taste of a particular customer, at which point catchwords would be supplied.… Fascicular production of this kind is evidently advantageous in a small-scale custom trade, and there is good evidence of the practice in the fifteenth century.480

In so arguing, Pearsall supported the gist of Loomis’s original bookshop model. He too posited a group of scribes working closely together to translate and versify new texts.481 It is easy to see how the argument for speculative production works in tandem with the apparent misidentification of the “bookshop” in Fig. 3.3, the image of Lady Hagiography in a book-filled room. The speculative production of booklets indicates an arrangement not entirely dissimilar from a modern bookshop. Here, a customer could approach the seller, and select from a series of pre-made booklets which he could then have compiled, decorated and bound at his leisure in the same way a modern shopper might choose from a number of available books on display in a store.

The argument for the speculative production of Auchinleck by means of pre-produced booklets has been advanced most forcefully by Andrew Taylor, whose interest lies not in where the original Auchinleck romances came from but “the likely scale of the market for Middle English writing in the 1330s.”482 Rather than turning to the fifteenth century for a viable production model, Taylor connects Auchinleck with the production of Anglo-Norman books in the thirteenth century. Building upon the work of David Ross, he suggests that the presence of a “‘lay establishment specialising in the copying and illustration of secular Anglo-Norman

479 Robinson, “A Study of Some Aspects,” 120-138. 480 Pearsall, introduction to The Auchinleck Manuscript, ix. 481 Pearsall advocates explicitly for “the general collaborative nature of the translating and versifying works of these professional hacks in the bookshop” in the introduction to The Auchinleck Manuscript, x. He reiterated this position in his keynote address at the 2008 LOMERS conference Studies in the Auchinleck Manuscript held at the University of London. Like Loomis, Pearsall argued for the collaborative “bookshop” model on the basis of textual sharing in certain romances, but Rhiannon Purdie has convincingly argued evidence that disproves the necessity of collaboration in Anglicizing Romance, 107-123. 482 Taylor, “Manual to Miscellany,” 3.

155 literature in the second quarter of the thirteenth century’…was not that uncommon.”483 At such an establishment, “a reader might also have been able to assemble an elegant collection of fashionable and varied material by making a personal selection of pre-copied fascicles.”484 Taylor imagines the Auchinleck bookshop as an extension of that same practice, suggesting the development of a sizable market for Middle English romances as early as the 1330s that would have allowed a scribe to produce booklets speculatively with some assurance that the investment in materials and time would not go to waste. While I agree that scribes may have collaborated to produce books or booklets of vernacular texts in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries— disbound booklets of the Edwardes manuscript support this—Taylor offers no conclusive evidence that these units were produced speculatively in advance of a commission.

3.1.2 Bespoke Production

The second line of argumentation, developed predominantly by Hanna and Gillespie, is that Auchinleck was a “bespoke” manuscript produced primarily after the patron commissioned it. For Hanna, Auchinleck remains predominantly Scribe 1’s book, and the use of a production model dependent upon booklets points toward a sequential form of production:

It is, in fact, a single practitioner volume with ad lib piecework—like Ringo, scribe 1 called in his friends when the going got tough. The booklets then are not, as in fifteenth- century work, simultaneous in origin, a production economy, but largely the sequential efforts of an individual…. At this date, the book must have been “bespoke”, a client’s special order. The separable production may suggest that this was an order that, in some sense, got out of hand, that scribe 1 was provided with a succession of requested items (‘Give me a Beves’, ‘ This week I was thinking about Richard Coeur de Leon’) from someone perhaps imperious but certainly wealthy and enthusiastic.485

Hanna’s view of the production methods of Auchinleck ties in more broadly with his arguments about the use of booklets in miscellaneous, vernacular manuscripts. He argues that codicologists must distinguish between “booklets as purchased objects” and “booklets as produced objects”— that is, between a completed booklet that was intended to be a self-sufficient object that could later be incorporated into a composite manuscript, and a booklet intended as an intermediary unit

483 Ibid., 4. 484 Ibid., 11. 485 Hanna, “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 94.

156 in the production of a single, unified book.486 For Hanna, the commercial market for a book such as Auchinleck would have been small, and the shape of any such commission would have been impossible to predict in advance. In turn, then, he emphasizes the “booklet” as an intermediary production tool, a “way to have some ready stock, especially of popular texts, without the major investment inherent in producing a full codex ‘on spec’.”487 In this line of reasoning, Hanna still leaves open the possibility of some degree of speculative production—that is, a bookseller could create a stock of popular texts—but at the same time, the major benefit of the booklet at this stage was that it allowed other scribes to quickly copy new texts in order to fulfil a commission that got out of hand. Gillespie supports Hanna’s position, and further elaborates that Scribe 1 must have “parcelled out exemplars and commissioned half-finished booklets from clerks and literate artisans in his vicinity in order to get the work done.”488

3.1.3 Semi-Bespoke Production

The third line of argumentation, put forward by Alison Wiggins, offers an intermediary model. In her study of whether Scribe 1 and Scribe 6 were the same, Wiggins suggests that the Worcestershire/Gloucestershire dialects of Scribe 2 and his fellow West Midlander, Scribe 6, could be a clue to uncovering the textual communities that gave rise to this important manuscript. She describes a model of production for the manuscript that would depend upon “the existence of sustained, long-standing professional relationships between scribes who moved between different regions and exchanged texts, exemplars, and readymade booklets as and when required.”489 Wiggins agrees, for the most part with Hanna and Gillespie, but modifies their production model to suggest that Booklet 7, a single quire of ten folios containing only the Charlemagne romance Otuel and completed single-handedly by Scribe 6, may have been started as an independent booklet.490 She writes:

486 Hanna, “Booklets in Medieval Manuscripts,” 22. 487 Ibid., 23. 488 Gillespie, “Medieval Books,” 7. 489 Wiggins, “Are Auchinleck Manuscript Scribes 1 and 6 the Same Scribe?” 18. 490 Hanna similarly notes that Booklet 7’s ruling indicates it might have been initiated for another purpose than Auchinleck, but he draws different conclusions. See Hanna, “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 92 and London Literature, 40, n. 7.

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Otuel is notable for its disunity and independence from the rest of the manuscript. It is unusual because it is headed by an enlarged capital. It is written on a quire constructed of ten folios whereas the other forty-six quires in the manuscript are of eight folios. There is also no catchword on the final folio of this quire whereas throughout most of the rest of the manuscript the editor Scribe 1 supplied catchwords consistently. That he did not add a catchword implies that Scribe 1 received the Otuel booklet pre-assembled and this, along with the visual differences and disunities, indicates that Otuel was copied independently. That is, it was copied without the direct supervision of the editor Scribe 1 and at an earlier stage, before Auchinleck and its design plan were conceived of.491

The difference between Hanna and Gillespie’s position and Wiggins’s position is that Hanna implies the half-finished booklets were commissioned after Auchinleck was conceived of whereas Wiggins argues that Booklet 7 was not initially conceived of to be part of the book, but was later incorporated into the book. I find Wiggins’s model the most compelling because it acknowledges the limited and unpredictable demand for vernacular texts during the mid- fourteenth century and emphasizes how a scribe participating in the production of Middle English texts would have needed to be a “professional shape changer”492 capable of adapting to the fluid and changing culture of literary production in the period.

3.2 Booklets 2, 3 and 12 as Independent Units

In this section, I wish to expand upon Wiggins’s assertion that Booklet 7 was copied without direct supervision, possibly as an independent booklet. I argue that Booklets 2 and 12, initiated by Scribe 2, and Booklet 3, initiated by Scribe 3, may also have been independent units at some stage of production because of the noticeable decoration anomalies which occur in these booklets, each of which is initiated by a scribe other than Scribe 1.493 We might, for example, contrast the design anomalies that appear in Booklets 2, 3, and 12 as I lay them out below with the general uniformity of Scribe 5’s stints in Booklet 4 and Booklet 5. In Booklet 4, Scribe 5 copies Reinbrun following upon the couplet and stanzaic Guy of Warwick texts copied by Scribe 1. Here, Scribe 5 follows Scribe 1’s design plan, leaving space for a miniature at the beginning of

491 Wiggins, “Are Auchinleck Manuscript Scribes 1 and 6 the Same Scribe?” 19-20. 492 Ibid., 18. 493 In her description of the Auchinleck manuscript accompanying the online facsimile, Wiggins anticipates that other booklets may have been conceived of separately. She states, “The work of Scribes 2 and 4 is notable for its inconsistency with this general format and is therefore likely to have been produced at a different stage from the work of the other scribes.” (http://auchinleck.nls.uk/editorial/physical.html#scribes)

158 the text, separating out the first initial of each line, and copying forty-four lines to a page in double columns. He maintains this design plan when he copies Bevis of Hamtoun, which initiates Booklet 5. Fig. 3.4: Other Independent Booklets (Contents) Booklet 2 [Quires 7-10]: Speculum Gy de Warewyke (fragmentary) (ff. 39r-48r stub) [written by Scribe 2] Amis and Amiloun (fragmentary) (ff. 48r stub-61v stub) [written by Scribe 1] The Life of St Mary Magdalene (fragmentary) (ff. 61v stub-65v) [written by Scribe 1] The Nativity and Early Life of Mary (ff. 65v-69v) [written by Scribe 1] Booklet 3 [Quires 11-16, 15 lost]: On the Seven Deadly Sins (ff. 70r-2ra) [written by Scribe 3] The Paternoster (fragmentary) (ff. 72ra-72r or 72v stub) [written by Scribe 3] The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin (fragmentary) (ff. 72r or 72v stub-78r) [written by Scribe 3] Sir Degare (fragmentary) (ff. 78r-84r stub) [written by Scribe 3] The Seven Sages of Rome (fragmentary) (ff. 84r stub-99v) [written by Scribe 3] Floris and Blancheflour (ff. 100r-104v) [written by Scribe 3] The Sayings of the Four Philosophers (ff. 105r-105r) [written by Scribe 2] The Battle Abbey Roll (ff. 105v-107v) [written by Scribe 4] Booklet 12 [Quire 52]: Þe Simonie (ff. 328r-334v) [written by Scribe 2]

3.2.1 Booklets 2 and 12

Scribe 2 writes in a distinctive Gloucestershire dialect, similar to that of Scribe 6, and appears in Auchinleck at three points.494 Firstly, he writes the Speculum Gy de Warewyke (ff. 39r–48r), which appears at the beginning of Booklet 2. The rest of this booklet is completed by Scribe 1 (ff. 48r–59v). Secondly, Scribe 2 writes the Sayings of the Four Philosophers (ff. 105r), which appears near the end of Booklet 3. Third, he writes the Þe Simonie (ff. 328r–334v), which makes up the twelfth and final booklet of the collection. In this section, I will focus on Booklets 2 and Booklets 12—the booklets in which Scribe 2 copies the first text—and then I will return to Booklet 3 where Scribe 2 copies following upon Scribe 3’s stint. My analysis begins firstly by identifying a number of anomalies in the decoration of these two booklets, which may indicate

494 See LALME, LP 6940 in the north east corner of Gloucestershire on the border with Worcestershire and Warwickshire.

159 that Scribe 2 initiated the booklets independently from Scribe 1’s design plan and that they were later incorporated into that design plan with the addition of further texts and with decoration completed by the atelier(s) used for the rest of the book.

Scribe 2’s stints in Booklets 2 and 12 are distinguishable from booklets initiated by Scribe 1 in a number of ways, outlined below.

3.2.1.1 Decoration Anomalies in Booklet 2 1. Scribe 2 has provided his own ruling for Speculum Gy de Warewyke (24-30 lines per column as compared to the 44 lines per column used for the subsequent texts copied by Scribe 1 in Booklet 2: Amis and Amiloun, The Life of St Mary Magdalene, and The Nativity and Early Life of Mary). 2. Like Booklet 7, this booklet begins with an enlarged “puzzle” initial whereas elsewhere blue initials with red flourishes are used. (See Plate 4.) 3. The second initial in Booklet 2 is an entirely red initial with a red dotted outline (also anomalous). 4. The remaining initials in Speculum Gy de Warewyke are 3-4 lines high whereas in Scribe 1’s stints they are 2 lines high. 5. The paraphs in Speculum Gy de Warewyke were completed by Scribe 2.495 6. Speculum Gy de Warewyke does not begin with a miniature. 7. There is no “incipit” or in-text title. 8. There is no catchword in Speculum Gy de Warewyke, a text which spans multiple quires.

Timothy Shonk has suggested that many of the features of decoration in Auchinleck such as paraphs, historiated initials, and miniatures were added by several craftsmen working in a single atelier during a separate stage of production: “Thus, it appears that the volume was decorated as a unit after the completion of the writing, and no segment of it appears to have been designed for

495 For a thorough examination of Scribe 2’s paraphs as compared to the three other styles of paraphs that appear in Auchinleck, see my article “What’s in a Paraph?” This work modifies Timothy Shonk’s identification of the paraphs in Auchinleck in “Paraphs, Piecework, and Presentation: The Production Methods of the Auchinleck Revisited,” a paper presented at the London Old and Middle English Research Seminar: Studies in the Auchinleck Manuscript, London, UK, June 20, 2008.

160 independent circulation.”496 Such an atelier is also proposed by Kathleen Scott, who identifies the style of the miniatures as the same as that used in the Queen Mary Psalter.497

I argue that these decoration anomalies suggest Scribe 2 began the booklet according to his own design plan, completed the paraphs and began to complete his own decoration scheme consisting of the “puzzle” initial on f. 39r and the red block initial f. 40r. Before he completed the decoration of this booklet, he passed it to Scribe 1 who added Quires 8, 9, and 10 and wrote the remaining texts (Amis and Amiloun, Life of St Mary, Nativity and Early Life of Mary) according to his standard mise-en-page. I propose that the entire booklet was decorated as a complete unit by the atelier along with the other eleven booklets at the final stage of production, thus giving the manuscript a generally unified appearance.

3.2.1.2 Decoration Anomalies in Booklet 12 1. Scribe 2 provides his own ruling for Booklet 12 (24-30 lines per column). 2. Scribe 2 leaves 3-4 lines for historiated initials rather than 2 lines as Scribe 1 does. 3. The paraphs in Booklet 12 were completed by Scribe 2. 4. There is no catchword in Booklet 12. 5. Booklet 12 does not begin with a miniature. 6. Scribe 2 has written a text title in red in the top margin of Booklet 12 whereas, commonly, Scribe 1 copies the text title even if the text is completed by another scribe (i.e. On the Seven Deadly Sins (copied by Scribe 3), and Sir Beues of Hamtoun (copied by Scribe 5)). 7. Booklet 12 begins with and consists of a short complaint poem rather than a large “big ticket” romance or historical item (i.e. Booklets 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

Again, I argue that Scribe 2 began the booklet according to his own design plan and he completed the paraphs himself. He passed the booklet to Scribe 1 who had it decorated along with the remaining booklets by an atelier. Scribe 2’s stints in Booklets 2 and 12 are important because they follow a layout different from the other booklets in the manuscript, a manuscript

496 Shonk, “A Study of the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 78. 497 See Scott, “A Mid-Fifteenth Century English Illuminating Shop,” 195.

161 noted for its layout coherence despite the collaboration of so many scribes.498 These stints also begin their respective booklets, lending evidence to Wiggins’s assertion that Scribe 1 may have incorporated booklets initiated outside of his design plan.

3.2.2 Collaborative Copying in Booklet 3

In addition to initiating Booklets 2 and 12, Scribe 2 collaborated with two other scribes on a third booklet. Booklet 3 is noteworthy for several reasons: firstly, it is the only booklet in which multiple scribes collaborated without Scribe 1 completing a stint; secondly, it does not begin with a “big ticket” romance but instead begins with several short religious pieces; and thirdly, it contains the unusual, triple-column text, The Battle Abbey Roll copied by Scribe 4. In “Reconsidering Auchinleck,” Hanna claims, “the closest thing Auchinleck scribe 1 has to a legitimate collaborator is scribe 3”499 because he is the only scribe to initiate a booklet in which Scribe 1 does not copy and to copy more than one text in sequence: the remaining scribes, including Scribe 2, copied single texts in isolated sections of the manuscript.500 Like Scribe 1, Scribe 3 writes in a dialect localizable to London, and Parkes argues that his hand shows possible influences of a chancery script.501 But despite copying the only other extended run of texts, Scribe 3 appears to have been unfamiliar with copying in Middle English. He frequently substitutes yogh for thorn, leading Karl Brunner to conclude he was “French Norman” and not fully fluent in English.502 Bahr suggests, “the fact that Scribe 3 seems to have been uncomfortable or unfamiliar with texts in English makes it unlikely that he orchestrated a booklet of texts in that language for inclusion in a manuscript whose resolute Englishness is so

498 Shonk, in particular, argues that the appearance of unity across the work of so many scribes raises “the possibility of a predetermined design”; see ibid., 77. 499 Hanna, “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 95. It is unclear whether or not Scribe 1 was responsible for catchwords in this booklet or not. Two catchwords appear in the booklet, one on f. 99v and the other on the final folio of the booklet, f. 107v. Bliss, Pearsall and Cunningham and Mordkoff argue that the first of these was written by Scribe 3, whereas Shonk argues it was written by Scribe 1. The scholarly consensus is that the second catchword is in the hand of Scribe 1. 500 Hanna, London Literature, 76. 501 LALME III, LP 6500. For a nuanced examination of the orthographic practice of Scribes 1 and 3, see Emily Runde, “Reexamining Orthographic Practice.” For Parkes’s analysis of his handwriting, see English Cursive Book Hands 1250-1500, xvii. Bliss also makes this claim in “Notes on the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 653. 502 Brunner, The Seven Sages of Rome, ix.

162 remarkable.”503 But if we “unstitch” the booklet and view it as a series of component pieces, the shapes of which gives clues as to the process by which it was constructed, then the evidence suggests Scribe 3 may have begun Booklet 3 as an independent unit.

Booklet 3 can be divided into several small production units that exhibit slightly different systems of decoration and I will argue that these indicate potentially separate stages of production. The ruling of this booklet follows a format close to that of Scribe 1. Wiggins argues that all six quires of Booklet 3 (Quires 11-16) “seem certainly to have been ruled by Scribe 1”504 but I contend that a change in ruling occurs after the second quire of the booklet, Quire 12, and that we should regard the decoration anomalies of Quires 11 and 12 as indicative that these two quires may have begun as a separate production unit. My examination, then, will first begin with the decoration anomalies in Quires 11 and 12, a unit written entirely by Scribe 3 which contains On the Seven Deadly Sins, The Paternoster, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, with Quire 12 ending fragmentarily with Sir Degare.

3.2.2.1 The Design of Quires 11 and 12 of Booklet 3 1. These quires are ruled with 38-40 lines per column each rather than the usual 44 lines per column typically employed by Scribe 1. 2. The first text of this unit (On the Seven Deadly Sins) does not begin with a miniature. 3. The second text in this unit (The Paternoster) is accompanied by a miniature on f. 72r which has been awkwardly fitted between the two columns of text rather than in a single column. 4. The title for The Paternoster is in Scribe 3’s hand. 5. No catchwords are visible for these two quires. 6. Booklet 3 begins with two short religious texts rather than with a large “big ticket” romance or historical item.

503 Bahr, Fragments and Assemblages, 110. 504 Wiggins, “Are Auchinleck Manuscript Scribes 1 and 6 the Same?” 19.

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3.2.2.2 The Design of Quires 13, 14, 15 and 16 1. These quires are principally written by Scribe 3, with short texts copied in the final three folios (ff. 105r-107v) by Scribe 2 and Scribe 4. 2. These quires are ruled with 44 lines per column rather than the 38-40 lines per column of the previous two quires. 3. The opening pages for two texts by Scribe 3 in these quires (Seven Sages of Rome and Floris and Blancheflour) are missing so it is impossible to say how miniatures or titles were integrated. 4. A single catchword appears in these quires on f. 99v. Bliss, Pearsall and Cunningham and Mordkoff argue that it was written by Scribe 3, whereas Shonk asserts that, like the other catchwords, it was written by Scribe 1.505

I suggest that Quires 11 and 12, copied by Scribe 3 and containing On the Seven Deadly Sins, The Paternoster, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and Sir Degare, were also initiated outside of Scribe 1’s design plan. If these quires were initiated independently then it is possible that Scribe 3 ruled them with 38-40 lines rather than 44 lines as part of his personal copying habitus. This would also explain why they do not easily accommodate the first miniature. The subsequent quires (Quires 13-16) were then added to the original quires of this booklet with the intent that they should follow the general plan implemented in Scribe 1’s stints with 44 lines per column.

3.2.2.3 Collaboration in Booklet 3

In addition to the divergent system of ruling and the awkward inclusion of miniatures, Booklet 3 is anomalous in that its texts were copied by three separate scribes. Scribe 3 copied the first six extant items and finished his stint at the end of Floris and Blancheflour on f. 104v seventeen lines short of the end of the ruling. Such use of space normally occurs at the end of a booklet, but in this case, in addition to the seventeen lines following Floris and Blancheflour, several unused pages of the ruled quires would not have been filled. On f. 105r, Scribe 2 began his stint, copying

505 For Bliss, Pearsall and Cunningham and Mordkoff, see, respectively, “Notes on the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 657; “Introduction,” xi; and “The Making of the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 75. For Shonk, see “Study of the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 84.

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The Sayings of the Four Philosophers. This is the only example of a single folio stint in the entire manuscript. Scribe 2 completed this item using Scribe 3’s original ruling, thus forcing his unusually tall textualis script into a much more cramped space. Unlike Scribe 3, Scribe 2 did not separate the first letter of his line, and he did not leave enough space for the single flourished initial that appears in his stint. Consequently, the artist has cramped the initial and extended it into the upper margin. On f. 105v Scribe 4 copied a list of names commonly known as The Battle Abbey Roll in four columns. These columns have been ruled over the original ruling completed by Scribe 3 (or Scribe 1). There is no other form of rubrication or decoration on these pages. The Battle Abbey Roll continues until f. 107v where it runs for approximately a quarter of a page. The remaining space of the recto and verso were left blank and have since been filled in by later scribes. Booklet 3 also points toward a different kind of collaboration than is apparent elsewhere in the manuscript where Scribe 1 appears to be coordinating copying.

I propose a possible scenario for how the copying stints of Scribe 3, Scribe 2 and Scribe 4 may have taken place. Scribe 3 ruled Quires 15 and 16 of Booklet 3 according to his personal habitus and copied the first four texts (On the Seven Deadly Sins, The Paternoster, The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and Sir Degare) outside of the design plan for the manuscript. He then either received the remaining four quires ruled by Scribe 1, as Wiggins suggests, or else he ruled them himself according to Scribe 1’s system. Scribe 3 copied The Seven Sages of Rome and Floris and Blancheflour, ending his stint on f. 104v, at which point he delivered the booklet to Scribe 1. It is possible that Scribe 3 may have passed the booklet directly to Scribe 2, but since Scribe 1 and Scribe 2 copied together in Booklet 2 and Scribe 1 likely made the majority of the decisions regarding content and arrangement, it seems more likely to me that Scribe 1 was involved at this stage. Scribe 1 determined that the remaining folios of the ruled but unfinished quire should be filled, and passed the incomplete booklet like a relay baton on to Scribe 2. Scribe 2 copied The Sayings of the Four Philosophers and then Scribe 4 re-ruled the remaining folios to accommodate a three-column layout and copied The Battle Abbey Roll. This hypothetical order of production fits generally with Hanna’s theory that the Auchinleck scribes worked sequentially rather than simultaneously, and the genuine collaboration between scribes may have been minimal, facilitated primarily by Scribe 1.

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3.3 A Model for Producing Auchinleck

If we view Booklets 2, 3, and 12 as initiated outside Scribe 1’s design plan but incorporated into the plan for the book midway through their production, then we must re-evaluate the production model established for the book as a whole; a production model that focuses primarily upon Scribe 1 as an organizer and controlling figure parcelling out portions of the writing when necessary. Instead, I argue we ought to attend to the improvisational nature of the production of the manuscript—how Scribe 1 may have taken partially completed booklets and adapted them for his own work. To me, this is a possibility opened up by Wiggins’s analysis of Booklet 7 and distinct from the theory that the booklets are being used to enable dispersed production after the commission. I do not wish to suggest that the manuscript may have been compiled from preproduced booklets according to the model of speculative manuscript production advanced by Robinson, Pearsall and Taylor. Instead, following Wiggins, I suggest an intermediary model in which some booklets were “bespoke” while at least four booklets were created in advance or, at the least, created outside Scribe 1’s planning and then incorporated into the codex during the process of compilation.

This conclusion suggests modifications to the current theory of the production of Auchinleck. First, it forces us to reconsider the role of Scribe 1 in the compilation of the manuscript as not an editor, per se—that is, making textual interventions in the work of other scribes in order to achieve a sort of literary unity—but as a compiler who completed his own copying, possibly composed or altered exemplars, commissioned booklets, but also obtained partially completed booklets initiated outside of his plan. He then incorporated these booklets and smoothed out differences in appearance by, at times, adding texts, catchwords and titles in the same way that Matthew Paris, in his creation of CUL, MS Dd.11.78 only came to a full understanding of his manuscript partway through the process of assembling it, and then smoothed it out by adding running titles and the like near the end of the process of assembly. A further level of unification would have occurred at final stage of production when the manuscript was decorated by an atelier. If these booklets were initiated independently, we can re-envision collaboration on the manuscript not as a tightly coordinated process but rather as a fluid process with individual scribes maintaining a certain degree of autonomy rather than working closely together. It also addresses a lingering problem that Hanna fails to fully address in his account of the production of

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Auchinleck. If Scribe 1 parcelled out exemplars and commissioned half-finished booklets sequentially in order to complete a commission he was having difficulty with, then what exactly were these difficulties? Hanna points specifically to exemplar poverty or the interference of a patron as an issue. He writes:

A limited number of these orders [scribe 1] may have had to fulfill simultaneously and as exemplars for copying came available, and in those situations he may simply have had to rely upon piecework contributions from colleagues. For (hypothetical) example, he might have acquired on short-term loan an exemplar for Beves of Hampton (copied by scribe 5 into the first third of what would, with scribe 1’s additions and finishing, eventually become Booklet 5) at a moment when his client was clamouring for a look at Alisaunder, now the very fragmentary Booklet 8 but in any event at least a forty-folio stint (? two weeks’ work) in its own right.506

However, while this argument might make sense in the case of a text such as Beves of Hampton or Otuel, both of which generally fit Scribe 1’s pattern of initiating a booklet with a substantial romance item, it seems less likely that a patron would be clamouring to get his hands on Speculum Gy de Warewyke, On the Seven Deadly Sins or even Þe Simonie because all three are anomalous texts within the manuscript already in terms of their genre. Another possible narrative, then, might be that Scribe 1 was given a large commission for a collection of Middle English verse and, in order to supplement his own store of exemplars, he arranged with other scribes to obtain partially completed quires or booklets of material, to which he added more texts. The first two quires of Booklet 3, for example, which contain On the Seven Deadly Sins, The Paternoster, and The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, may have been started as a short booklet containing predominantly religious material. When Scribe 1 contacted Scribe 3, Scribe 3 expanded this booklet with the addition of four more quires which follow both Scribe 1’s design plan (44 lines per column, space left for miniatures at the beginning of texts) and also his plan for predominantly romance content (Sir Degare, The Seven Sages of Rome, and Floris and Blancheflour). When Scribe 3 could not fill the final quire of the booklet, Scribe 1 solicited further help from Scribe 2 and Scribe 4 to provide the final texts. It is not impossible that Scribe 2 and Scribe 3 may have initiated their booklets independently but following a generally similar layout to Scribe 1 in part because both the size of the page and the double-column format were

506 Hanna, “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 94.

167 typically used for texts of this sort. Hanna notes that a number of surviving vernacular books and fragments share the same general textual presentation including the thirteenth-century London, Dulwich College, MS 22 which contains La Estorie del Euangelie, the late-thirteenth-century CUL, MS Gg.iv.27, part 2, with Floris, King Horn, and The Assumption of Our Lady, the early- fourteenth-century Middle English Guy of Warwick in BL, MS Add. 14408 and the fragments of Havelok in the mid-fourteenth-century CUL, MS Add. 4407. As Hanna notes:

all of these books share textual presentations and ones foreign to the general run of smaller thirteenth-century vernacular manuscripts. They are folio-sized volumes in double-column format, generally of forty lines or more to the column. They have offset capitals at the head of each line, often in a separately ruled column, and the capitals, although provided in text ink, are red-slashed.507

This corpus of manuscripts and fragments speaks to a pattern that might indicate that by the end of the thirteenth century, professional scribes copied vernacular texts according to a similar format designed to display two columns of short lines of verse. As a result, the general similarities in the layout of booklets not initiated by Scribe 1 offer weaker evidence for a design plan than typically credited; these similarities might be indicative of a general type of book- making rather than a plan for a specific, unified book.

This model is more in keeping with the kind of fluid process of copying and composition that Fisher argues for in the production of the Auchinleck Short Chronicle. Fisher notes that this text may have depended upon a variety of “foul” or “working” papers:

The localized exemplar of the Auchinleck Short Chronicle was likely a variety of what for a later period are termed “foul” or “working” papers. Reliance upon such an intermediary step, one predicated upon being ephemeral, bears with it some uncertainty. 508

But he goes on to argue that the use of “working” papers indicates a fluid model of production where it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between a draft piece and a finished piece. A scribe’s “working” papers might be bound up into a manuscript later. As he notes, “finished products can also become intermediary steps: a finished manuscript can serve as an exemplar

507 Hanna, “Reconsidering the Auchinleck Manuscript,” 99. 508 Fisher, Scribal Authorship, 167-8.

168 before then being the basis of further revisions.509.But if we broaden the application of this model, then it seems just as likely that the manuscript as a whole may have comprised some units which may have been, essentially, “working” papers—ephemeral units—that, when incorporated into the book, ceased to be ephemeral. Just as finished products can become intermediary steps, so too can intermediary units become finished products. This is exactly the sort of process that Hanna, Mooney and Stubbs argue was at work in the production of San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 114, a collection of booklets gathered by Richard Osbarn, the Chamber Clerk of the London Guildhall in the early fifteenth century. Hanna writes that the contents of this manuscript suggest “that either the scribe or his director was intensely aware of textual contents and capable of assembling a number of archetypes with ease.”510 Further to this, he added that the booklets themselves may have been intended to be exemplars because they

look cheap and as if produced in the expectation that they might remain unbound for a protracted period.…These small packets of quires, minimally decorated (the scribe did nearly all his own rubrication, including running titles), look as if they might form a small in-house bookseller’s stock.511

Mooney and Stubbs have modified this to suggest that the manuscript represents, not a bookseller’s stock, but rather a collection of exemplars, for his own use, or for use by the community of clerks at the Guildhall.512 These are booklets that might have included exemplars, then, or booklets which might not have been originally intended to be included in the manuscript and could be replaced if a better copy of a text were found. While it is clear that Auchinleck in toto is not exactly the same sort of book, it is nevertheless possible that elements of the manuscript were produced as minimally decorated, small packets of quires intended to preserve a personal copy of a text, that were then later incorporated into the manuscript.

This model still emphasizes the role of booklets in facilitating production, but it collapses Hanna’s distinction between the “booklet as purchased” and the “booklet as produced.”

509 Fisher, Scribal Authorship, 167-8. 510 Hanna, “Scribe of HM 114,” 123. 511 Ibid. 512 Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City, 37.

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Following Gillespie, I believe Auchinleck shows that a booklet need not have been viewed in terms of Hanna’s binary: it may have been intended for possible sale or it may have been used to keep groups of texts in hand without any decision about the final use of the unit ever having been made in advance.513 The production of Auchinleck from a combination of semi-independent booklets and bespoke booklets suggests a series of “compilatory” processes that nevertheless reach toward or point toward a desire for unity.

If we take the design anomalies and the use of booklets as indicators of ad hoc collaboration rather than closely organized collaboration, then this suggests that Mooney’s assertion that in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries the copying of English vernacular texts would have only constituted a sideline business likely holds true for the mid-fourteenth century. Both Scribes 2 and 6 write with a dialect traceable to the West Midlands, suggesting that they were trained outside of London, possibly in the same sort of school that produced the scribes of the South English Legendary discussed in Chapter 1. Scribe 3 shows signs of chancery training and appears to be less comfortable copying in English. These scribes, although they can be located to the same general London milieu, do not constitute a “school” with any regular style. They were more likely to have been freelance copyists taking on vernacular copying in addition to other forms of copying in the chancery, as legal scriveners or in the making of religious books. Whereas the “bookshop” theory suggests set production patterns or a “production economy” as Pamela Robinson argues, my analysis of the use of booklets indicates that production was ad hoc and scribes were required to be inventive.

4 Conclusions

This chapter puts pressure on the claim that Auchinleck provides evidence for a literary history characterized by the rise of middle class consumers, the triumph of a secular literary culture over a religious literary culture, and the emergence of a bold, nationalistic vernacular voice. Rather than viewing Auchinleck as an originary point, I have attempted to place it in a context of interlocking book-making activities, which included commercial and non-commercial segments, admitted religious makers and readers, and existed primarily as a sideline of other forms of

513 Cf. Gillespie, “Medieval Books, Their Booklets, and Booklet Theory.”

170 copying. In conclusion, I want to return to Hanna’s argument that Auchinleck exemplifies the vernacularity and miscellaneity of fourteenth-century English manuscripts. He connects the use of booklets with vernacular, miscellaneous manuscripts such as Auchinleck in particular by means of the flexibility they offered scribes during this period of exemplar poverty and unpredictable demand, a period in which, lacking a national canon,

scribes and stationers were never aware of the totality of literary production and could always reasonably expect that the most important text they could transmit in any chosen context might be the one that would only come to hand next week.514

In sum, Hanna suggests that booklets were a format for manuscript production particularly valuable for manuscripts such as Auchinleck because they allowed scribes to begin to copy exemplars as they became available, share production when necessary, and they could be compiled into larger units to make full manuscripts should the patron so desire. In turn, this model is explicitly connected to Middle English texts for which, Hanna argues, there would have been an irregular or limited demand in the mid-fourteenth century because there existed no pre- set “canon” of desirable texts.

I want to complicate this. Hanna argues that the booklet was useful because the Middle English period was characterized by exemplar poverty in which texts were difficult to get hold of. But as my discussion of a range of manuscripts containing romance and historical poems shows, the sorts of texts we see in Auchinleck were available in a wide variety of locales within England, and, as Matthew Fisher has shown regarding the composition of the Short Metrical Chronicle, Scribe 1 likely had “privileged access to a remarkably diverse and substantive selection of texts.”515 This is not to say, as Andrew Taylor implies, that the demand for Middle English romances was so high that a single scribe or stationer could have made a living selling only those texts, in which case one might posit Auchinleck represents “but one surviving element from what was once a full commercial system in which these and similar fascicles circulated in their hundreds.”516 But it does suggest that, at the very least, scribes may not have been so hard

514 Hanna, introduction to Pursuing History, 3. 515 Fisher, Scribal Authorship, 150. 516 Taylor, “Manual to Miscellany,” 3.

171 pressed for materials in English that, as Hanna argues, “the most important text they could transmit in any chosen context might be the one that would only come to hand next week.”517 Instead, I argue, as Gillespie does, that booklets must have been a regular part of book-making activities in Middle English, Anglo-Norman and Latin, useful for circulating single texts or small groups of texts independently as small-format manuscripts, but also useful as a building block for larger manuscripts.518

Further to this, I want to put more pressure on the intrinsic connection Hanna makes between “vernacularity” and “miscellaneity” in contrast to Latinate forms of manuscript production. This argument implies that Middle English manuscript production was of a different kind than Latin modes of production. There is evidence that monastic manuscript production in the twelfth century favoured “a relatively limited schedule of patristic writers, generally in their most extensive works,”519 but by the thirteenth century it is clear from the work of Rigg and others that miscellaneous Latin poetic anthologies were commonly being produced, often comprising short texts alongside longer texts, in much the same way we see Auchinleck being produced. Hanna’s comparison oversimplifies the matter because it takes as representative only one mode of Latinate manuscript production. CCCC, MS 50 offers a ready-to-hand example of another: its several Latin texts (the genealogy of the Kings of England and the allegorical Four Daughters of God) have been combined with Anglo-Norman texts in order to create a miscellaneous manuscript. The Penrose manuscript offers a similar example, composed of four booklets containing both Latin and Anglo-Norman materials. The Anglo-Norman booklets compiled to form the now disbound Edwardes manuscript show how religious houses may have used small- format manuscripts. It is clear that booklets were useful to those assembling Middle English manuscripts, but they were also useful to those assembling Anglo-Norman manuscripts, or Latin manuscripts, or manuscripts of mixed language and content—that is to say, the booklet was a useful tool for circulating small or otherwise ephemeral units of text, but it was also a useful tool in the production of larger manuscripts—whether they were written in the vernacular or not.

517 Hanna, “Booklets,” 31. 518 Cf. Gillespie, “Medieval Books, Their Booklets, and Booklet Theory.” 519 Hanna, “Vernacularity and Miscellaneity”, 48.

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My codicological analysis shows that the compiler of Auchinleck engaged with the material components of his project in a sophisticated manner. While the limitations of fourteenth-century manuscript culture challenged any attempt to fully control a production, these limitations inevitably led to a collaborative work in which numerous voices and aesthetic preferences manifested themselves. Although Auchinleck is the earliest surviving large-scale manuscript of Middle English texts, it was by no means completely unique. It had precedents amongst Latin and Anglo-Norman manuscripts in terms of both form and content. Auchinleck is nevertheless important in that it reveals how the production of manuscripts containing literary texts in any of England’s three languages tended to be flexible and ad hoc, requiring scribes to take on a number of different roles, to become “professional shape changers” in order to satisfy the uncertain but growing demand for new texts.

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Chapter 4 “This Book Oute Blowen”: Disseminating the Prick of Conscience, 1380-1415

1 Introduction

In his assessment of what the numbers of extant manuscripts might mean for Middle English studies, Michael Sargent lists the following texts with high numbers of surviving manuscripts: the Wycliffite Bible, the Brut chronicle, the Prick of Conscience, Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Gower’s Confessio Amantis, Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, Piers Plowman and Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection. Of these, the most overlooked and, arguably, one of the most important is the northern penitential text known as the Prick of Conscience (PoC) whose numbers exceed even Chaucer’s famous Canterbury Tales.520 Despite the survival of over 120 manuscripts and fragments of the PoC—forty of which date from the fourteenth century alone—few monographs have been devoted to the study of this text exclusively, and little has been done to gauge its effect on England’s national literary culture.521 Over 9,000 lines long, the poem seeks to “pryck” the soul of its readers “so of that drede may love bygynne.”522 It is divided into seven parts that cover the wretchedness of mankind, the unstableness of the world, the fear of death, Purgatory, the tokens of Judgement Day, the pains of Hell and the joys

520 Lewis and McIntosh note that the original date probably corresponded to just before the death of Richard Rolle: “The traditional attribution to Rolle has helped to provide the traditional date: towards the middle of the fourteenth century, and, though the reasons for this date are no longer valid, the date itself is probably correct. Manuscripts do not begin to appear until after 1350, but when they do appear, they do so in large numbers, which is usually a sign that the work in question was composed not many years before,” in their Descriptive Guide, 4. All my quotations from the PoC are, unless otherwise noted, from the TEAMS edition of New Haven, Beinecke Library, MS Osborn a.13, a manuscript closely related to BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix upon which Morris’s edition was based. 521 The survival of over 120 manuscripts and fragments offers a rough basis for understanding the text’s production and dissemination, and Angus McIntosh, who pursued by statistical means the number of missing manuscripts that might be required to explain the range of variant readings among four surviving manuscripts, suggests that the proportion of survivals to losses may be upwards of 1:20. Cf. McIntosh, “Two Unnoticed Interpolations.” 522 Morey, “Entre,” Prik of Conscience, ll. 330-331.

174 of Heaven. When placed in contrast with the works of London poets such as William Langland, John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer—poets typically understood to make up an emerging Middle English “canon” and, subsequently, the modern literary canon—the PoC has been perceived as a “peripheral text” which plays only “a small part in ‘the great spectacle of literature’ as defined and studied by scholars.”523 In addressing this critical neglect, this chapter draws together a number of strands which run through this dissertation—how compilation invigorated Middle English manuscript production, the circulation or production of exemplars in “booklets” or small-format manuscripts and, most importantly, the role of clusters of scribes in the production of multiple manuscripts—in order to assess the features of the PoC and the networks of production that contributed to its success as a Middle English bestseller.

Central to this chapter is the premise that the PoC was closely connected with an emerging “canon” of northern vernacular religious texts that were produced through the concerted effort of localized groups of scribes.524 Throughout the fourteenth century, the area administered by the archbishop of York was a region of rich literary activity following two distinct, but interrelated strands. The first consisted of didactic texts written in English, loosely aligned with the programs of reform and pastoral care initiated in England following the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 and Archbishop Pecham’s 1281 council of Lambeth. The four principal vernacular texts from the north in the fourteenth century written to supplement or aid parish priests were the Northern Homily Cycle (1295-1306), likely produced by Augustinian canons resident in the vicinity of York; the anonymous Cursor Mundi (1300); the mid-to-late fourteenth-century Speculum Vitae (often attributed to William of Nassyngton, an English clerical administrator and translator from Nassington in Northamptonshire); and the Layfolk’s Catechism (c. 1350s), translated by John Gaytrynge, a Benedictine monk at St. Mary’s Abbey in York. The second strand consisted primarily of devotional and meditational works, which had a different focus than the didactic Lateran IV pastoralia. Yorkshire had witnessed a great settlement of Cistercian monastic foundations in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, many of which had fostered new writing on

523 Fitzgibbons, “Enabled and Disabled ‘Myndes’,” 74. For examples of scholars who have sidelined the contribution of the PoC in England’s literary culture, see Burrow’s discussion in Medieval Writers and their Work, 20 and Pearsall’s discussion in Old English and Middle English Poetry, 139. 524 Here, I take the term as Hanna uses it in his discussion of these northern vernacular religious texts, particularly in his article “Northern Scribes.” I will discuss and nuance the term in more detail in this chapter.

175 spiritual and conventual life inspired by Bernardine mysticism, and would in turn continue to produce some of the most influential meditational and didactic Middle English texts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.525 These works saw their greatest and most influential expression within the Latin and vernacular writings of Richard Rolle.526 His contemplative works, addressed first to a narrow audience of priests, anchoresses, and noblewomen whom he knew personally, became popular by the end of the fourteenth century as an increasingly wide audience of religious and gentry readers sought to imitate his affective spirituality.527 Rolle’s popularity and his status as a national author were likely encouraged by the support of influential patrons including Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of York (1388-96) and Archbishop of Canterbury (1396–97, 1399–1414), as well as Richard Scrope, Bishop of Lichfield and Chester from 1386 to 1398 and Arundel’s eventual successor as Archbishop of York from 1398 until his death in 1405.

The PoC shares links with both the didactic and contemplative strains of northern literature and, as surviving wills, bequests, libraries lists and the evidence of manuscripts themselves suggests, it also likely engaged the same pool of readers, patrons and producers: parish priests, vicars and chantry chaplains, canons and a new stratum of gentry readers and northern prelates with sufficient capital to indulgence in bibliophilic activities.528 But the PoC was also more than simply a regional text: by the end of the fourteenth century it had spread throughout England. It survives in a number of different forms: the Main Version (MV) comprising ninety-six manuscripts, the Southern Recension (SR) comprising eighteen manuscripts, extracts in another

525 Cf. Blake, “Middle English Prose and its Audience.” See also Pantin, English Church, 252; and Hanna’s discussion of the impact of Rolle’s writing on the north’s literary community in “Yorkshire Writers.” 526 Substantial attention was first drawn to Rolle in Horstmann’s Yorkshire Writers, in which Horstmann ascribed many anonymous texts to the hermit due to their (possibly erroneous) ascription in some surviving medieval manuscripts. Hope Emily Allen subsequently corrected many of these errors of attribution—including that of the PoC—in Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle. Subsequently, Nicholas Watson has produced a new chronology of Rolle’s writings in Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority. 527 I discuss some of these individuals in more depth in Chapter 1, but a good summary can be found in Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, 80-93. See also Freeman’s study of the role of women in promoting Rolle’s texts in “The Priory of Hampole and its Literary Culture.” 528 See Barratt’s description of the ownership of PoC manuscripts in “Spiritual Writings,” 358-359. See also her description of the ownership of Rolle manuscripts in the same article, 361-3. Cf. Woods and Copeland who remark, “It seems to have had the same patterns of ownership among the middle ranks of clergy and gentry as another expansive and popular penitential work, the Speculum Vitae,” in “Classroom and Confession,” 398. Cf. Hanna, “The Yorkshire Circulation of the Speculum Vitae.”

176 eight manuscripts, and an abridged version known as the Speculum Huius Vitae in two manuscripts.529 Its dialect distribution is wide, covering nearly three-quarters of the counties of England, and as Beadle notes, the geographical spread of these manuscripts offers insights into the main loci of production:

There has long been general agreement, on linguistic grounds, that the Prick is very likely to have been composed in the north of England, probably in Yorkshire, and perhaps within the area where the “fully northern” manuscripts (whose more precise distribution remains to be worked out) are shown on the map. The “centre” from which it emanated must have lain in that region, and the distribution gradually thins as it moves southwards, though by no means evenly. East Anglia, an area with which a conspicuously large number of surviving Middle English manuscripts can be associated on dialectal and other grounds, shows a particular concentration, and the perhaps adventitious survival of a variant version in a group comprising five manuscripts associated with Lichfield…lends strength to a comparable but less dense concentration in the north-west midland counties.530

From Beadle’s examination of the work of Lewis and McIntosh, published in two maps in the appendix of their Descriptive Guide, we can see that major clusters of extant manuscripts appear in the north near Yorkshire, in the east near Cambridge and Ely, and in the West Midlands, concentrated in the area around Lichfield and, to a lesser extent, in Worcestershire and the surrounding counties.531 The Southern Recension manuscripts appear in the Southwest Midlands around the intersection of Hereford, Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.532

An investigation of several of these “clusters” of production forms the basis of this chapter. In so doing, my work will investigate—and modify—the basis for thecontrast that Elizabeth Eisenstein makes between the “economy of abundance” in the century after the invention of printing and the preceding period where the “production, collection, and circulation of books were subject to

529 These forms are described in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 5-15. 530 Beadle, “Middle English Texts and their Transmission,” 79. Although the presence of texts of mixed dialect (or Mischsprachen) and the habit of scribes translating, or failing to translate, the dialect of their exemplars into their own dialect make firm assertions of provenance difficult, as I will show in this chapter, these dialectal clusters do seem to conform, at least broadly, to patterns of production supported by other forms of analysis. For a discussion of the problems of Mischsprachen manuscripts, see Benskin and Laing, “Translations and Mischsprachen in Middle English Manuscripts.” 531 Cf. Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, Map i, 171. 532 Cf. Ibid., Map ii, 173.

177 an economy of scarcity.”533 In particular, I will demonstrate that certain texts such as the PoC may not have been produced in an “economy of scarcity” despite having been first circulated in manuscript form rather than in print. Following upon this, I take particular interest in moments in which multiple copies of a text appear to have been rapidly produced and disseminated. Kate Harris, in her article “The Role of Owners in Manuscript production and the Book Trade,” picks up on Eisenstein’s point, noting that we have limited examples of “experiments in the rapid multiplication of copies” prior to adaptation of the printing press to the book trade.534 Although more examples have emerged in recent years with the advent of large projects devoted to the study of scribal identification such as Mooney, Stubbs, and Horobin’s “Late Medieval English Scribes,” discussed already, these examples have largely been the work of “literary” authors of Middle English texts such as Chaucer and Langland for whom the London Guildhall appears to have been a “clearing house” for exemplars, and Lydgate, whose works appear in at least ten manuscripts produced by a commercial workshop or scriptorium in Bury St Edmunds.535 These projects have been tremendously useful in identifying the methods by which scribes collaborated to produce “canonical” texts (by our standards, at least); nevertheless, substantially less work has been done to investigate the production and dissemination of texts outside the traditional canon. In Chapter 2 of this dissertation I examined one such experiment in the early fourteenth century: the production of several manuscripts of the South English Legendary, possibly facilitated through the support of Augustinian canons. This chapter extends that line of inquiry, arguing that many of the conditions which supported the copying of the poetry of London authors in the Guildhall also supported the production of the PoC and an emerging canon of northern vernacular religious texts. In many respects, the PoC anticipates the “economy of abundance” that occurs after the invention of printing.

I argue that the spread of this text occurred as a result of the collaboration of clusters of scribes in areas where exemplars were readily available and where the production of texts may have been supported by an influential circle of ecclesiasts interested in spreading texts they deemed to

533 Eisenstein, Printing Revolution, 334. 534 Harris, “The Role of Owners in Book Production and the Book Trade,” 172. 535 Cf. Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City for the cluster of scribes operating in the London Guildhall and Horobin, “The Edmund-Fremund Scribe Copying Chaucer,” for the work of Lydgate.

178 be orthodox. In this respect, this chapter revisits the excellent work done by Ralph Hanna III in revealing communities of literary production and lines of dissemination from the north to the south, but in so doing, I intend to bring his work into productive conversation with a broader set of intellectual ambitions and to extend his work with a more concerted focus on scribal copying habits (particularly, duplicative copying) in regions he has identified as important areas of production.536 A substantial part of this chapter will be devoted to the production of northern vernacular religious texts at the end of the fourteenth century and the early fifteenth century in Lichfield, a town whose scribes appear to have been engaged in a project of “cultural dissemination” whereby they translated northern religious texts into a more accessible dialect and disseminated them into the West Midlands.537 By investigating several of these scribes, their methods of production and the resulting codicological features of their manuscripts, I will elucidate the contexts of production for several important manuscripts including the famous Vernon and Simeon compendia (BodL, MS Eng. Poet. a. 1 and BL, MS Add. 22283, respectively).

2 Contexts and Backgrounds 2.1 Manuscripts and the Development of the Medieval Canon

One line of argumentation which has run through this dissertation—an argument I have hinted at in previous chapters but will explore in more detail here—concerns the relationship between manuscript production as an act of canon formation and the development of a national literary culture. In the Introduction to my dissertation, I identified three ways of looking at the relationship between the production and circulation of texts and the emergence of a national literary culture: the work of Sargent, who connects the numbers of surviving manuscripts to

536 Here, I draw most heavily upon his research as outlined in “Lambeth Palace Library, MS 260,” Pursuing History, “Yorkshire Scribes” and “Yorkshire Writers.” 537 Hanna, “Yorkshire Writers,” 105. Hanna has framed Lichfield as a centre for the translation and dissemination of northern texts into the West Midlands in two articles in particular: “Some North Yorkshire Scribes and Their Texts,” and “Yorkshire Writers.” He has further posited this connection in his contribution to David Wallace’s digital project entitled “Europe: a Literary History, 1348-1418,” published at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~dwallace/europe/. Hanna’s section on Lichfield appears at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~dwallace/europe/nodes/lichfield.html. His work coincides with Sarah Horrall’s work in The Southern Version of Cursor Mundi, which, as I will demonstrate, can be connected with the production of the PoC in this area.

179 patterns of production; the work of Mooney and Stubbs, who posited Chaucer as the “Father of English Literature” in part because manuscripts of his texts were widely produced, and also, in part, because his work was popular among the clerks of the Guildhall who were in an ideal position to produce multiple copies through shared “scriptorial facilities”;538 and lastly the work of Gillespie, who suggested that aspects of a manuscript (or printed book) itself conditioned its text(s) to be received as spurious or canonical “cultural objects.”539 Within these three approaches, Chaucer emerges as an obvious and recurring example of the relationship between the production of manuscripts and the emergence of a national poet laureate. In this respect, it seems no large leap to consider how the production of manuscripts of Chaucer’s text—in the Guildhall, for example—might have been an intentional (or unintentional) act of canon formation.

The term “canon” carries with it a great deal of modern baggage, and sits uneasily within the academic discourse of scholars of medieval vernacular literature. In the medieval period, the term might be most easily fitted to the processes by which the Bible was consolidated, edited and disseminated.540 The concept of “canonicity” has since developed in modern literary scholarship, addressing questions of aesthetic, literary and cultural value, on the one hand, and the constitution, preservation and reproduction of authority, on the other hand. Two important books which frame the development of modern canons (as opposed to medieval canons) are Pierre Bourdieu’s The Field of Cultural Production and John Guillory’s Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation.541 Hanna and other medievalists (such as Seth Lerer in Chaucer and his Readers) have found the term useful for thinking about medieval textual practice

538 Cf. Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City, publisher’s blurb. 539 Cf. Sargent, “What do the Numbers Mean?”; Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City; and Gillespie, Print Culture and the Medieval Author. 540 The term canon criticism was coined by James A. Sander in his major works, Torah and Canon, Canon and Community, and From Sacred Story to Sacred Text: Canon as Paradigm. Recented edited collections which highlight and trace recent debates in canon cricticism include Craig G. Bartholomew’s Canon and Biblical Interpretation and Einar Thomassen’s Canon and Canonicity. 541 Bourdieu’s model incorporated three levels: (1) the position of the literary field within the field of power; (2) the structure of the literary field as datermined by agents competing for legitimacy; and (3) the genesis of the producers’ habitus. Cf. Johnson, introduction to The Field of Cultural Production, 14. John Guillory revisited the notion of “canon formation” as an aspect of the politics of representation in reviewing, for example, distribution of cultural capital in the literary syllabus. Importantly, he argues, “canonicity is not a property of the work itself but of its transmission” (7).

180 although their usage rightly suggests that medieval canon formation might be considered different from modern canon formation in part because the institutions which constituted, preserved and reproduced cultural authority were organized differently than in the modern period.542 I believe that the framework of “canonicity” offers a useful starting point for thinking about medieval literary cultures, particularly regarding its possible effect on reproduction, transmission and preservation, and so I will continue to use the term.

In his book, The Making of the English Literary Canon: From the Middle Ages to the Late Eighteenth Century, Trevor Ross writes:

At present, canons are made and preserved within critical and academic institutions as well as cultural establishments such as public libraries, publishing houses, repertory theatres, and so on. Modern canon-formation, in this way, is an act of reception, of introducing readers to the literature of the near or distant past, and preserving that literature in the hope of maintaining the culture that helped to produce it.543

In his approach, Ross identifies the medieval period as one in which the formation of a literary canon was associated with the mechanisms of “cultural reproduction”; at the same time, during this period (and beginning with Chaucer, he argues), the canon was “something to be produced, not reproduced.”544 In his analysis, he draws attention both to Chaucer’s strategies of “self- canonisation” as well as to the strategies of fifteenth-century poets such as Lydgate who “acclaimed Chaucer at the head of an indigenous canon…in order at once to legitimize their own efforts in the language and to maintain an idea of public poetry.”545 Ross’s line of argumentation is by no means a new one, and a range of scholars (including Mooney, Stubbs, Lerer and Gillespie) have posited Chaucer at the heart of a complex process of canonization in which he, as

542 Lerer, for example, situated fifteenth-century poetry within “the field of discourse Chaucer had initiated” (Chaucer and His Readers, 11), but, in doing so, he traced the way in which the Chaucerian canon was transmitted after the author’s death and the way in which his successors invented Chaucer as the Father of English Literature. 543 Ross, English Literary Canon, 5. 544 Ibid., 10. 545 Ibid., 44. See also the work of Alastair Minnis who presented a framework for understanding scholastic literary theory which subsequent scholars have used to understand Chaucer’s adaptation of Latin authorial practices. Cf., Lerer (Chaucer and His Readers) who drew on Foucault to describe Chaucer’s influence on his followers, and Pask (The Emergence of the English Author) who argues that Chaucer’s posthumous “authorization” bridged the gulf between the medieval Latin auctor and the modern English author (9).

181 the “Father of English Literature,” was made by others as much as he himself was a “maker” of the English canon.

But if the modern act of canon formation depends at least in part on the reproduction of texts in critical and academic institutions, in public libraries and publishing houses, then it is a natural extension of this to include medieval manuscripts as well as libraries and scriptoria. Medieval manuscripts are described as libraries in parvo (or in magno), and it has long been recognized that they functioned as repositories for and preservers of valued texts.546 George Shuffelton, for example, draws attention to the notions of miscellaneity and monumentality as a dialectical pair: he argues that the act of collecting, a fundamental characteristic of medieval book-making, was simultaneously both a monumentalizing act and a miscellanizing gesture.547 Turning to examples I have discussed previously, we can see both monumentalizing and miscellanizing tendencies at work in Matthew Paris’s anthology of the works of the Latin poet Henry of Avranches in CUL, MS Dd.11.78 or in the compiling of the Auchinleck manuscript from a series of twelve booklets, some produced specifically for the volume and some produced autonomously. Both of these manuscripts have been characterized in terms of presenting some form of medieval literary canon.548 Susanna Fein, too, explicitly associates the selection and arrangement of materials in miscellaneous manuscripts such as Camb., Trinity College, MS B.14.39, BL, MS Cotton Caligula A.ix and Oxford, Jesus College, MS 29(II) as a type of canon formation:

This double instance of a distinctively eclectic collection being replicated in different western locales—resulting in Cotton, Jesus and likely others—suggests that compilers and scribes were feeding an appetite for literary fare, which, as it was nourished, would in turn have built up a level of generic expectation among readers. Such expectation for the delivery of certain themes might tentatively be called ‘canonical’. What seems to us a miscellany might, then, have been received more as an anthology by contemporary

546 Cf. Philippa Hardman’s article on NLS, MS Advocates 19.3.1 titled, “A Mediaeval ‘Library in parvo.’” 547 Shuffelton, “The Miscellany and the Monument,” 4-6. 548 For CUL, MS Dd.11.78, see Townsend and Rigg, “Medieval Latin Poetic Anthologies (V),” for a discussion of CUL, MS Dd.11.78, wherein they argue that the manuscript may have begun, originally, as a simple collection, but may have been re-imagined as an anthology post factum. It is worth noting that this manuscript has subsequently been used by scholars as one of the key manuscripts to principally define the canon of Henry of Avranches’s poetic works. This canon was first established by J. C. Russell and J. P. Heironimus in The Shorter Latin Poems of Henry of Avranches. For the Auchinleck manuscript, see Hanna, London Literature. Note Hanna’s comments that in creating “Sir Thopas” Chaucer appears to have made an effort “to laugh out of the canon” romances such as those contained in Auchinleck. See Hanna, London Literature, 305.

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readers, by virtue of its dissemination of a recognizable cluster of texts to an expanding audience. Unlike a printed anthology, however, manuscripts like Cotton and Jesus have a variable, aggregate, individual nature, and a compiler could wield a degree of freedom in selection and arrangement, although he might still plan to address canonical expectations of ‘wholeness’.549

Canonization through manuscript production, I argue, involves three related processes: selection, replication and upgrading. Here, I understand selection to be the process by which scribes chose texts to be included in a booklet or manuscript; replication to be the process by which scribes reproduced texts (either accurately or with modifications); and upgrading to be the process by which scribes inscribed texts with new markers of cultural value, including authorial inscriptions, rubrics and the like, or new systems of decoration.

These notions of selection, replication, and upgrading have traditionally been associated with print culture, but I believe there is reason to extend this into the production of manuscripts. Parkes recognized that manuscripts of the thirteenth century were better ordered and arranged than texts of the twelfth century, and later scholars have subsequently identified this tendency as an “impulse leading to the printed page of the Gutenberg era.”550 Bryan Davis, for example, in his analysis of two duplicate copies of Piers Plowman (BL, MS Add. 10574 and BL, MS Cotton Caligula A.xi), suggests that the production of vernacular texts in London reflects a growing codification of book design:

As ever more similar copies of popular texts came into circulation, standard concepts of layout and content arose that guided a producer in the selection of alternatives with which to repair damaged exemplars. Just as Piers Plowman the poem memorializes the metamorphosis of social relations in later fourteenth-century England, the varying forms of Piers Plowman as an economic commodity illustrate the shift of the English book trade towards mass production.551

The process of selection, replication and upgrading, in turn, potentially encouraged further attempts at replication as exemplars became increasingly available and as certain texts became

549 Fein, “Literary Culture of the West Midlands” (forthcoming). Professor Fein was kind enough to show me an advanced version of this chapter. A version of it will be presented as “Harley 2253, Digby 86, and Auchinleck: The Evidence for an Early Middle English Canon from the West Midlands” at the 40th Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies (October 11-12, 2013). 550 Gomille, “Anthologies of the Seventeenth Century,” 79. 551 Davis, The Rationale for a Copy of a Text, 154.

183 recognizably imbued with a higher status. In this way, scribes produced (and reproduced) medieval texts as canonical.

In viewing scribes and manuscript producers as engaged in a complex process of selection, replication, and upgrading, I follow Matthew Fisher who argues that we must open up our way of thinking about the nature of scribal copying and, importantly, the issue of scribal textual corruption (alternately figured as scribal invention or scribal authorship). Fisher views scribes as engaged in a range of different ways of interacting with texts, at times attempting to replicate exemplars and at times attempting to create, modify, or improve their materials. By rejecting an axiomatic division of scribes and authors, he suggests, we can come to a better understanding of the role scribes played in making intelligent and powerful decisions about the selection and replication—that is, the canonizing—of medieval texts.

Although Middle English scholars traditionally place Chaucer’s works at the centre of these complicated canonizing processes in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, this chapter posits that the production of the PoC was also directed by the impulse to canonize. For example, although the modern consensus is that no author is known, nevertheless, within the Middle Ages it began to be associated both with Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175-1253), Bishop of Lincoln, and with the Oxford-educated hermit, Richard Rolle, whom in Chapter 1 I argued ought to be considered one of the first national Middle English authors. The association between Rolle and the PoC was particularly influential. Five manuscripts of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century attribute the PoC to Rolle, and even Lydgate attributes the text to Rolle, in a canonizing gesture of his own, in the Fall of Princes:

I nevir was aqueynted with Virgyle, Nor with [the] sugryd dytees of Omer, Nor Dares Frygius with his goldene style, Nor with Ovyde, in poetrye moost entieer, Nor with the souereyn balladys of Chauceer, Which among alle that euere wer rad or songe Excellyd al othir in our Englyssh tounge.

I can nat been a iuge in this mateer, As I conceyve folwyng my fantasye, In moral mateer ful notable was Goweer, And so was Stroode in his philosophye. In parfyt lyvyng, which passith poysye,

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Richard Hermyte, contemplatyff of sentence, Drowh in Ynglyssh the Prykke of Conscience.552

Although Emily Hope Allen persuasively dismissed the theory of Rolle’s authorship of the PoC on stylistic grounds, nevertheless, I argue that our understanding of the PoC’s circulation and popularity still ought to take into account the power of the association—that is, how the attribution of PoC manuscripts to a well-known author conditioned it to be read as canonical, and therefore appropriate to be produced and reproduced.553 The families who had patronized Rolle and his writing throughout the first half of the fourteenth century—the Nevilles, Daltons, Scropes, and Percys, to name a few—and important career ecclesiasts in the second half of the century such as Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of York and then Canterbury, and Richard Scrope, who succeeded him as Archbishop of York—would continue to be linked with the production of manuscripts of northern vernacular texts such as the PoC. The attribution of Rolle’s authorship to the PoC was a powerful canonizing gesture, one which encouraged the circulation of the text by Rolle’s followers and one which may have protected the PoC in the turbulent climate of the late fourteenth century and early fifteenth century when texts of vernacular theology came under closer scrutiny.554

I want to return, here, to the idea of Chaucer as a canonical figure and the production of his manuscripts within the Guildhall as a potential act of “canon formation.” The Guildhall acted as a central repository—or, rather, a place for centralized interest and activity—for the writings of London authors such as Langland, Gower, and Chaucer, to which, Stubbs and Mooney argue, “patrons of provincial authors such as John Trevisa or the anonymous author of The Siege of Jerusalem might bring exemplars of their works for copying and dissemination.”555 Hanna and

552 Lydgate, “An Envoy to Duke Humphrey,” ll. 3401–14 from Book 9 of Fall of Princes. This passage echoes homage to Gower and Strode in Troilus and Criseyde (V.1856–57). The manuscripts of the PoC which attribute authorship to Rolle are BodL, MS Ashmole 60 (s. xivex), BL, MS Egerton 3245 (s. xivex), London, Lambeth Palace, MS 260 (s. xvin), Camb., Gonville and Caius College, MS 386 (s. xv1), and Oxford, Merton College, MS 68 (s. xvmed). 553 For a convincing assessment of the evidence, see Allen, “The Authorship of the Prick of Conscience” and Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole. 554 For the role of Thomas Arundel, for example, in the debates surrounding the orthodoxy of vernacular texts in England, see Watson, “Censorship and Cultural Change” and the essays collected in After Arundel, for a more recent assessment of Arundel’s impact upon the vernacular literary landscape. 555 Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City, 132. For other scholars who, previous to Mooney and Stubbs, suggested a similar pattern of production and dissemination, see Owen, Manuscripts of “The Canterbury Tales,” 98;

185 others have argued that the copying which occurred in this locale represents “the development, in the hands of a few individuals, of a recognizable ‘English canon,’ a set of masterworks that now stand at the head of modern conceptions of English literature.”556 Mooney and Stubbs, developing the position further, suggest several possible factors motivating the clerks to engage in this copying: special commission from powerful patrons, personal acquaintance with the authors themselves, the clerks’ desire to supplement their income, and the political decision to promote English as a language of government and commerce.557 These factors contributed to the linked processes of selection, replication, and upgrading—processes which resulted in the creation of multiple copies of these texts and the eventual production of high-grade manuscripts such as the Hengwrt and Ellesmere Canterbury Tales (respectively, Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 392D and San Marino, Huntington Library, MS EL 26 C 9) and the ornate copy of Troilus and Criseyde (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.817) prepared for Henry, Prince of Wales (c. 1410-13). The production of the manuscripts of these London authors, I suggest, was an act of canon formation that had a parallel in the north of England.

2.1.1 The Ripon Manuscripts

Building upon Hanna’s research, I argue that during the second half of the fourteenth century, before the majority of this canonizing copying was taking place in London, a similar process was ongoing in regional centres such as Ripon and Lichfield in order to promote and disseminate a northern canon of vernacular religious material. Here, I want to draw attention to Hanna’s work (building upon an unpublished identification by Doyle in his Lyell Lectures) on four manuscripts of similar dimensions and contents that he suggests were produced in or near Ripon, produced by

Green, Poets and Princepleasers, 179-83; Hanna, “Thomas Berkeley and his Patronage,” 909; Bowers, “The House of Chaucer & Son,” 137; and Kerby-Fulton and Justice, “Marketing Ricardian Literature,” 225. 556 Hanna, “Pre-Fifteenth-Century Scribes,” 180. 557 Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City, 133-40.

186 a cluster of at least eleven collaborating scribes and artists who followed “some form of ‘house- style.’”558 The manuscripts of this cluster are as follows:

1. BodL, MS Rawl. Poet 175 (s. xiv2)559 2. BL, MS Cotton Galba E. ix (s. xivex)560 3. BL, MS Harley 4196 (s. xivex)561 4. BL, MS Cotton Tiberius E.VII (s. xivex)562

These manuscripts contain romances such as Ywain and Gawain and the Seven Sages of Rome alongside “para-liturgical” texts such as the PoC, the Northern Homily Cycle, the Northern Passion, the Book of Shrift, the “Book of Penance” (a text on confession that frequently circulates with the Cursor Mundi).563 Three of the scribes worked on more than one manuscript, and at least one artist completed cadel capitals and lombard limning in more than one manuscript. The language of these scribes, two profiled by LALME and the remaining two profiled by Hanna himself, is similar to manuscripts localized to Burneston in the North Riding or to Masham, but Hanna suggests that the town of Ripon, located about eight miles away from Burneston and Masham, seems a more likely location.564 Ripon had, he argues, a number of institutions that would have supported secular canons including a large minster, a song school for choristers and a free grammar school as well as “a more than pragmatically literate and interested religious audience” consisting of local gentry families such as the Miniots, the Markenfields, the

558 Hanna, “The Yorkshire Circulation of the Speculum Vitae,” 290. For Hanna’s short description of these manuscripts, see Table 91 in “Yorkshire Scribes,” 168. 559 Described as MV 83 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 116-7. For the dialect, see LALME, LP 174. 560 Described as MV 27 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 58-9. See also Friedman and Harrington, Ywain and Gawain. 561 Described as MV 34 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 66-7. Described in Nevanlinna, The Northern Homily Cycle, 5-10. Also see the detailed discussion of the language of this text, 31-105. 562 Described in Nevanlinna, The Northern Homily Cycle, 11-7. Also see the detailed discussion of the language of this text, 31-105. 563 Caie and Renevey, introduction to Medieval Texts in Context, 7. Trudel suggests that the inclusion of the so- called Book of Penance that accompanies three of the Cursor manuscripts may suggest that the “leued” for whom the Cursor Mundi was written were not simply laypersons, but also priests who were ignorant of Latin in “The Middle English Book of Penance and the Readers of the Cursor Mundi,” 1. 564 LALME describes the language of BodL, MS Rawl. Poet. 175 (LP 174) as west of Thirsk. Lewis and McIntosh suggest “fully northern” for this manuscript as well as for BL, MS Harley 4196 and BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix in their entries.

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Pigots, the Plumptons, the Scropes and the Marmions, many of the same families who formed the readership of the works of Rolle.565 He attributes the production of these four manuscripts to “associated local clergy” as well as “a substantive lay network in which the clerical role may only have been facilitative.”566

I draw particular attention to these manuscripts because, as Hanna argues, they constitute a literary community engaged in a process of canon-formation as scribes came to produce (and reproduce) the same texts in the same visual formats:

Thus these later fourteenth-century books, [BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix] and its congeners, testify to an extensive transmissional community sharing both texts and production procedures. This community extends over three literary generations and nearly a century. This is what it means to have a literary community, a literary tradition, and a canon or works, in this case a robustly local/regional one.567

I want to turn to two of these manuscripts—BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix and BL, MS Harley 4196—to discuss, briefly, several aspects of the “production procedures” which this literary community used.

Fig. 4.1: BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix (Contents by Booklet) (See Plate 4.1)

Collation: iii+112-612, 712 (9 lost), 812-912, 10 lost, 114 Scribe 1: ff. 4r-48v; Anglicana formata (Scribe 1 of BL, MS Cotton Tiberius E.vii) Scribe 2: ff. 48v-50r; Anglicana Scribe 3: ff. 50r-75r; textura semiquadrata (Scribe 3 of BL, MS Harley 4196) Scribe 4: ff. 76r-113r; textura semiquadrata

Contents: Booklet 1 [Quires 1-4] [copied by Scribe 1, Scribe 2, and Scribe 3] Ywain and Gawain (ff. 4r-25r) [copied by Scribe 1]

565 Hanna, “Yorkshire Scribes,” 175. For his discussion of the gentry connections, see his section entitled “Local readers, actual and putative,” 173-181. 566 Hanna, “Yorkshire Scribes,” 181. On the vicars of Ripon, see Werronen, Ripon Minster in its Social Context, c. 1350–1530 where he identifies the wages and roles of many of these vicars whom he says frequently complained about being underpaid for their services of preaching and hearing confessions. Supporting the assertion that vicars would have used the PoC as part of their duty of pastoral care, Horobin has identified two Augustinians in Chichester who copied the text in “The Scribe of Rawlinson Poetry 137.” 567 Hanna, “Yorkshire Writers,” 100.

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Seven Sages of Rome (ff. 25v-48v) [copied by Scribe 1] On the Transitoriness of the World (ff. 48v-49r) [copied by Scribe 2] Prophecies of Merlin (ff. 49r-50v) [copied by Scribe 2] Sir Peny (ff. 50v-51r) [copied by Scribe 2 and 3] How Crist spekes tyll synfull man of his gret mercy (f. 51v) [copied by Scribe 3] Appeal of Christ to Man (f. 51v) [copied by Scribe 3] Booklet 2 [Quires 5-6] [copied by Scribe 3] Battle of Halidon Hill (f. 52r) The Battle of Bannockburn Avenged (ff. 52r-52v) The Expedition of Edward III to Brabant (ff. 52v-53r) First Invasion of France (ff. 53r-53v) The Sea Fight at Sluys (ff. 53v-54r) The Siege of Tournay (ff. 54r-54v) The Battle of Crecy (ff. 54v-55v) The Siege of Calais (ff. 55v-56r) The Battle of Neville’s Cross (ff. 56r-56v) The Defeat of the Spaniards (ff. 56v-57r) The Taking of ‘Þe castell of Gynes’ (ff. 57r-57v) The Gospel of Nicodemus (ff. 57v-66v) Book of Penance (ff. 67r-75r) Booklet 3 [Quires 7-11] [copied by Scribe 4] Prick of Conscience (ff. 76r-113r)

Fig. 4.2: BL, MS Harley 4196 (Contents by Booklet) (See Plate 4.2)

Collation: ii + 18 (1, 7 lost), 28-38, 48 (2, 3 lost), 58-128, 138 (2 lost), 148 (1, 5 lost), 168-178, 188+1, 198-278, 288 (2-8 lost), 298-308, 318 (8 lost), 328 (1-6 lost), 338-358, 364 + ii Scribe 1: ff. 1r-6v; textura semiquadrata Scribe 2: ff. 7r-132v; textura semiquadrata Scribe 3: ff. 133r-164v; textura semiquadrata (Scribe 3 of BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix) Scribe 4: ff. 165r-205v, textura semiquadrata Scribe 5: ff. 206r-258v; textura semiquadrata (Scribe 2 of BodL, MS Rawl. Poet. 175)

Contents: Booklet 1 [Quires 1-18] [copied by Scribes 1 and 2]

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Northern Homily Cycle (temporale) ff. 1r-132r Booklet 2 [Quires 19-27] [copied by Scribes 3 and 4] Northern Homily Cycle (sanctorale) ff. 133r-205v Booklet 3 [Quires 28-35] [copied by Scribe 5] The Gospel of Nicodemus (ff. 206r-215v) The Prick of Conscience (ff. 215v-258v)

These two manuscripts—both of which were produced at approximately the same time in the “second generation” of manuscripts produced in the cluster—bear considerable similarities to one another:568 they are of similar dimensions and layout, with BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix measuring 335 x 220 mm with two columns of 48 lines and BL, MS Harley 4196 measuring 380 x 275 mm with two columns of 48 lines; they share a scribe (Scribe 3 in both manuscripts); and they share two texts, the PoC and the Gospel of Nicodemus. Furthermore, two features of these manuscripts may indicate that they were produced quickly or, at least, as part of an established production procedure: production by booklets and production by duplicative copying.

These two manuscripts are both divided into large “booklets” where the end of a text corresponds with the end of a quire and a scribal stint. Each of the booklets was copied by only one or two scribes. Here I want to return to a larger argument I have pursued throughout this dissertation: namely, that much of Middle English literary culture was sustained by means of the production and circulation of texts in small-format manuscripts—pamphlets, unbound quires, booklets bound in wrappers—alongside complete codices. As Hanna argues, the use of booklets in manuscript production speaks to “a fundamental way of forming books in the Middle Ages, the creation of larger codices from relatively small textual units.”569 Booklets could be used as a way to speed up the process of manuscript production by allowing for simultaneous copying of materials by multiple scribes. Booklets could also be used in order to create small, potentially autonomous units of texts, which could circulate independently or which scribes or owners could compile to form larger, composite manuscripts.

568 The earliest manuscript produced in this cluster is BodL, MS Rawl. Poet 175, dated to the middle of the fourteenth century. 569 Hanna, “Booklets,” 24.

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BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix evokes the second practice. It appears to be a miscellaneous (or possibly composite) manuscript, comprising both longer texts such as the PoC, the Seven Sages of Rome and Ywain and Gawain alongside numerous short religious lyrics and historical verses. The structure of BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix recalls the principles for copying employed in the Auchinleck manuscript discussed in Chapter 3, in which scribes worked on independent units of material that could be assembled at a later stage, generally following the same layout. BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix is divided into three booklets, whichcorrespond roughly to the stints of each of the scribes. The first of these is Booklet 1, copied principally by Scribe 1. He copied both Ywain and Gawain and the Seven Sages of Rome, which ended three folios before the end of Quire 4 on f. 48. Scribe 2, whom Hanna argues copied slightly later than the rest of the scribes (possibly early fifteenth century?) though I have found this difficult to support on the basis of palaeography alone, filled in the remaining folios of Booklet 1 with three short lyrics (On the Transitoriness of the World, Prophecies of Merlin and Sir Peny).570 Midway through the third of these lyrics, Scribe 2 broke off copying. Scribe 3 completed Sir Peny and added another two religious poems (How Crist spekes tyll synfull man of his gret mercy and Appeal of Christ to Man) to finish off the remaining empty folio. Scribe 3 then wrote all of Booklet 2, and Scribe 4 wrote all of Booklet 3.

The booklets of BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix show more autonomy than the booklets of Auchinleck where a principle scribe unified the manuscript by adding catchwords, running titles, and decoration. Although the booklets of BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix have a consistent general layout (two columns of 48 lines each), the system of decoration is different for each. Booklet 1 (quires 1-4) makes use of alternating blue and red Lombard capitals and includes one pen and initial in the stint of Scribe 3; Booklet 2 (quires 5-6) contains multiple styles of decoration including pen and ink initials, red and blue historiated initials, and red and purple historiated initials (possibly completed by the same artist); Booklet 3 (quires 7-11) has painted champs. The fact that the manuscript comprises multiple systems of decoration relegated to either the stint of a

570 For the dating of Scribe 2, see Hanna, “Yorkshire Writers,” 93.

191 particular scribe or to a particular booklet suggests to me that these booklets were decorated before they were compiled to form a single, unified manuscript.571

From the codicological details alone it is difficult to tell exactly how the production of this manuscript was managed. We do not, as in the case of Auchinleck, have a single scribe who wrote catchwords and titles throughout, thereby providing a unifying element to the individual booklets. Hanna dates Scribe 2’s hand to the early fifteenth century (perhaps twenty years later than the he dates the handwriting of Scribe 1, 3 and 4). This may suggest that Scribe 1 himself produced and decorated (or had decorated) the majority of Booklet 1 independently of the other two booklets. However, the dating of hands on palaeographical grounds is often an imprecise science: although Scribe 2’s hand stands in marked contrasts with those of Scribe 1, 3 and 4 in that it is more cursive, less evenly spaced, and shows considerably more blotting and variance in the width of penstrokes, these differences might be explained if we understand Scribe 2 to be a scribe with less training or skill. At the very least, it is likely that Scribe 2 added additional texts to the blank folios at the end of the quire but failed to finish his final poem (Sir Peny). Scribe 3, in the process of copying his own booklet, may have encountered Booklet 1 and completed Sir Peny and then added two more religious texts. However, although Scribe 3 copies in Booklet 1, there is nothing which directly connects his stint in Booklet 1 with the stint in Booklet 2. Consequently, it is possible that all three of these booklets were, more or less, produced and decorated independently of one another. The comparatively ornate decoration in Booklet 3 would have been more expensive to commission, suggesting that this booklet at the very least may not have been conceived of as part of a compiled manuscript even if that was the eventual use to which it was put.

Likewise, BL, MS Harley 4196 is divided into three booklets, the first of which contains the temporale of the Northern Homily Cycle, the second of which contains the sanctorale of the Northern Homily Cycle and the third of which contains the Gospel of Nicodemus and the PoC. Each of these booklets comprises a substantial grouping of quires (eighteen quires in Booklet 1, nine quires in Booklet 2, and eight quires in Booklet 3) and the involvement of five separate

571 Little information has been deduced regarding the structure of this manuscript from either binding or provenance. BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix came to the British Library from the collection of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, and suffered some injury in the fire of 1731 (some shriveling of the inner corners of certain folios). The binding is modern.

192 scribes. Despite the common layout of all three texts, each of the booklets in this manuscript also appears to have been decorated independently. Booklets 1 and 3 have been decorated with blue and crimson initials executed with gold leaf and adorned with sprays of three vines, each with a gold ball. Booklet 2, however, has been decorated with a different palette of colours (pink rather than red) and features frills rather than sprays with gold balls, indicative of a different decorator. As in the case of the previous manuscript, this difference in decoration suggests that, although these booklets have subsequently been compiled to form a single manuscript, at the stage of decoration they may have been independent from one another. No system of catchwords links these booklets.

Such a production method may have allowed for dispersed copying and decoration in which sections of texts could be quickly copied and finished units could be compiled to form larger books or libraries of devotional texts in parvo. In some respects, we might imagine circumstances for copying that were not dissimilar from those in the London Guildhall where scribes copied exemplars into booklets, some of which were compiled to form larger manuscripts. Supporting this, the group of four manuscripts Hanna has identified as making up the Ripon cluster, two of which I’ve discussed in detail, share a pool of texts: the PoC, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the “expanded” Northern Homily Cycle, the Seven Sages of Rome and the Book of Penance as well as a number of lyrics. This suggests that the scribes had ready access to shared exemplars.572 The versions of the “expanded” Northern Homily Cycle in BL, MS Harley 4196 and BL, MS Cotton Tiberius E.vii, for example, are genetically linked and appear only in these two manuscripts, suggesting a shared exemplar.573 The three versions of the PoC in BL, MS Harley 4196, BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix, and BodL, MS Rawl. Poet. 175 are also genetically related, and this might suggest that they were derived from a common exemplar.574 The

572 Cf. Trudel, “The Middle English Book of Penance and the Readers of the Cursor Mundi.” 573 These constitute the second “expanded” version of the Northern Homily Cycle. The first “expanded version,” interestingly enough, appears only in in BodL, MS Eng. Poet a. 1 (“Vernon”) and BL, MS Add. 22283 (“Simeon”) discussed below in my section on the Lichfield cluster. Cf. Nevanlinna, The Northern Homily Cycle: The Expanded Version. 574 See Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 59, 67, 116.

193 connections between texts and between manuscripts allow us to imagine that these exemplars may have been passed from scribe to scribe or were available within the Minster itself.575

A second production procedure allowed for the concerted production of texts in this cluster: what Matthew Fisher calls “duplicative copying.” Duplicative copying, as I discussed in Chapter 3, occurs when a scribe copies not only the text but also retains lineation, mise-en-page, marginalia, annotations, decorations, and other features:

Hanna points out the similarities between the “texts, hands, and production procedures” of BL, MS Harley 4196 and BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix, but I want to extend his observations to argue that the two copies of the PoC extant in these two manuscripts were produced by means of duplicative copying as demonstrated in the two folios presented in Plates 4.1 and 4.2.576 Here, I would draw attention to the fact that the same lineation has been retained across both manuscripts and the same system of rubricating Latin quotations and copying them in a set textualis quadrata has also been retained. Both manuscripts also include angled brackets marking poetic couplets, although these are used more often in BL, MS Harley 4196 and only appear sporadically in BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix. The use of duplicative copying would have worked to both speed up the production of copies of the text and, at the same time, would have contributed to the growing sense of uniformity in the mise-en-page. In this way, the production of the PoC in Ripon might be seen to anticipate the impulse toward mass production of generally identical copies of texts facilitated by the printing press in the fifteenth century.

In conclusion, although this cluster of manuscripts is small—only four manuscripts—in comparison to the larger cluster of manuscripts, texts, and scribes associated with the London Guildhall, it, nevertheless, as Hanna argues, gives us a sense of an active process of canonization at work through the production of manuscripts. This process parallels the process of canonization of the works of Chaucer and other London authors in the Guildhall a generation later in several important respects. These include a shared location (Ripon, possibly the Minster itself), local patrons and writers (the nearby gentry families), a shared group of scribes and artists (Hanna’s

575 Werronen argues that the Ripon vicars had a more developed communal identity than any other group of clergy in the parish, based in part upon their shared common residence (Ripon Minster in its Social Context, 53). 576 Hanna, “Yorkshire Scribes,” 180.

194 cluster of at least eleven collaborating scribes and artists), a shared stockpile of exemplars (evident from multiple copies of the same texts including three copies of the PoC, two of the expanded Northern Homily Cycle, and two of the Gospel of Nicodemus), and shared production strategies (production by booklets and production by “duplicative” copying). These features resulted in the development, in Ripon, of a canon of northern vernacular religious materials.

I have discussed the parallels between the copying of texts by the “canonical” London authors in the Guildhall and the copying of vernacular religious texts in Ripon to show that similar conditions were at work in both instances. However, it ought to be noted that the copying in Ripon still constitutes a limited example of regional production and regional canon formation. Although Jonathan Hughes attributes the majority of the copying of vernacular religious texts in Yorkshire and the surrounding area to the injunctions promoted by John Thoresby, Archbishop of York (d. 1373), to educate the clergy in the wake of the Black Death, Hanna argues, instead, that the copying in Ripon was not facilitated by institutional support.577 Rather, the scribes in Ripon responded “to their own indigenous tradition”—perhaps the reason why BL, MS Cotton Galba E.ix, Booklet 2 includes historical verses traditionally ascribed to Laurence Minot, an author associated with the area.578 This lack of institutional support may have kept textual production reasonably localized. In the following section of this chapter, I turn to a larger cluster of copying in Lichfield, an area which Hanna has argued played a seminal role “in passing on northern books, especially into the south-west Midlands, where they might contact the other great early English local culture.”579

577 Cf. Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries. 578 Hanna, “Yorkshire Scribes,” 174. See also Edwards’s reassessment of the possible authorship of these poems based upon the codicology of the Ripon manuscript in “The Authorship of the Poems of Laurence Minot: A Reconsideration.” 579 Hanna, “Yorkshire Writers,” 101.

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3 Producing the Prick of Conscience 3.1 Lichfield: A Centre of Vernacular Production?

3.1.1 Group IV of the Main Version Prick of Conscience

In this section, I draw attention to a large group of textually related manuscripts, which have been labeled Group IV of the Main Version by Lewis and McIntosh in their Descriptive Guide (and Group Xi in Percy Andreae’s nineteenth-century study of the PoC).580 The Group IV manuscripts are divided into three further subgroups, as outlined below: the Vernon-Simeon Subgroup, the Lichfield Subgroup, and the Grosseteste Subgroup. This section, focusing particularly upon the Lichfield Subgroup and the Vernon-Simeon Subgroup, follows Hanna in arguing that Lichfield was an “entrepôt specialising in texts” where “virtually the full canonical range of extensive Yorkshire writing c. 1290-1375 passed through” as it was “revamped for non- Northern consumption.”581 Further to this, I argue that we can see similar processes of selection, replication and upgrading at work in the production of multiple copies of the PoC in this region as in Ripon: an impulse to canonize the PoC. I will begin by outlining, briefly, the textual relationship between these manuscripts and the corpuses of those scribes involved in the production of these manuscripts who copy in more than one manuscript.

3.1.1.1 Vernon-Simeon Subgroup

The Vernon-Simeon subgroup is characterized by the displacement of lines 950-1181 from Book II to a position between lines 585 and 586 in Book I, two titles to Book I at different places, a similar beginning to Book IV, and a number of other readings.582

1. Chicago, Newberry Library, MS 33 (s. xiv2, south west Lincolnshire)583 2. BodL, MS Rawl. Poet. 139 (s. xiv2, north east Shropshire)584

580 See Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 7-9. Cf. Andreae, Die Handschriften des Pricke of Conscience. 581 Cf. Hanna, “Lichfield,” published at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~dwallace/europe/nodes/lichfield.html. 582 Cf. Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 78. 583 Described as MV 18 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 50.

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3. BL, MS Harley 1205 (s. xivex, Lichfield) (also a member of the Lichfield Subgroup)585 4. BodL, MS Ashmole 41 (s. xivex, central Staffordshire)586 5. BL, MS Add. 22283 (Simeon) (s. xivex, north Worcestershire)587 6. BodL, MS English Poetry A. 1 (Vernon) (s. xivex, north Worcestershire)588 7. BodL, MS Rawl. C.319 (s. xv1, northwest Suffolk with strong central Midlands underlay)589 8. BL, MS Lansdowne 348 (s. xvin, central Staffordshire)590

3.1.1.2 Lichfield Subgroup

The Lichfield Subgroup is characterized by ten new lines added to the beginning of the Prologue. These ten lines give a title and an outline which do not exist in other versions of the poem. It also

584 Described as MV 82 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 115-6. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for BodL, MS Rawl. Poet. 139. For the dialect, see LALME, LP 192 in McIntosh et al, 233. 585 Described as MV 31 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 63-4. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for BL, MS Harley 1205. LALME has not mapped but McIntosh et al. state that the “language is from Lichfield or nearby,” 239. 586 Described as MV 59 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 92-3. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for BodL, MS Ashmole 41. For the dialect, see LALME, LP 243 in McIntosh et al, 237. 587 Described as MV 40 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 72-3. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for BL, MS Add. 22283. Also see Guddat-Figge, Manuscripts Containing Middle English Romance, 145-151, and Doyle, The Vernon Manuscript, introduction, plates and foldout. For the dialect, see the LALME, LP 243 for the scribes of the Vernon manuscript. 588 Described as MV 70 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 103-4. Cf. Doyle, introduction to The Vernon Manuscript: A Facsimile. The scholarship on this manuscript is substantial, but a good starting point is Derek Pearsall’s edited volume of essays entitled Studies in the Vernon Manuscript and Scase’s edited volume The Making of the Vernon Manuscript. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for BodL, MS English Poetry A. 1. For the dialect of Scribe 1 (Vernon Scribe A) in Worcestershire, see LALME, LP 7670 (McIntosh et al., 250). Serjeantson places this dialect in the “South Shropshire-South Staffordshire” area in “The Index of the Vernon Manuscript,” 227. Against this placement, Smith argues that it ought to be located somewhat southwest of the main hand in “Mapping the Language” (51). For the dialect of Scribe 2 (Vernon Scribe B), see LALME, LP 7630 in McIntosh et al., 249. 589 Described as MV 77 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 110-1. 590 Described as MV 36 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 68-9. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for BL, MS Lansdowne 348. For the dialect, see LALME, LP 238 in McIntosh, et al., 237. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for BL, MS Lansdowne 348. For the dialect, see LALME, LP 238.

197 includes several other readings that “show an independent editor trying to make better sense of what he had in front of him.”591 Lewis and McIntosh hypothesize that BL, MS Harley 1205, a member of the Vernon-Simeon subgroup, may be the exemplar underlying the Lichfield Subgroup.

1. BL, MS Harley 1205 (s. xivex, Lichfield) 2. London, College of Arms, MS Arundel 57 (s. xivex, Lichfield)592 3. Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS English 50 (s. xivex, south east Staffordshire)593 4. BodL, MS Douce 156 (s. xivex, central Midlands)594 5. Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B (s. xiv/xv, Lichfield)595 6. Holkham Hall, Wells, Library of the Earl of Leicester, MS 668 (s. xiv/xv, Lichfield)596 7. New Haven, Yale University Library, MS Osborn a 13 (s. xv1, Lichfield)597 8. Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16A (s. xv1, south Shropshire)598

591 Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 8. The IMEV, which omits three of these manuscripts (MV 45, 57, and 88), calls this version “The Pricke of Conscience with ten prefatory line prefixed to the usual beginning” (1193). 592 Described as MV 45 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 78-9. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for London, College of Arms, MS Arundel 57.The dialect is not mapped in LALME but see McIntosh et al., 239. 593 Described as MV 54 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 87-8. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS English 50. See also Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, III, 401-402. For the dialect, see LALME, LP 519 in McIntosh, et al., 238. 594 Described as MV 68 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 101-2. The dialect localization is taken from this. 595 Described as MV 89 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 102-3. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B. The dialects of the two scribes of this manuscript are not mapped in LALME but are given in Lewis and McIntosh. Note that Scribe 1 is Vernon Scribe A whose dialect is mapped as Scribe 1 of the Vernon manuscript (see above). 596 Described as MV 23 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 54-5. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for Holkham, Holkham Hall, Library of the Earl of Leicester, MS 668.The dialects for these scribes are not mapped but are discussed by McIntosh et al., 239. 597 Described as MV 57 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 90-1. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for New Haven, Yale University Library, MS Osborn a 13.The dialect of this scribe is not mapped but is discussed by McIntosh et al., 239. 598 Described as MV 88 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 120-1. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16A. For the dialect, see LALME, LP 4239

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3.1.1.3 Grosseteste Subgroup

This third subgroup consists of four closely related manuscripts characterized by the ten lines added to the Prologue, two additions in Book II, one of twenty lines and another of six lines.599 The ancestor of this subgroup appears to be part of the Vernon-Simeon subgroup. This subgroup of manuscripts, like the Vernon-Simeon subgroup, appears to have emerged first in the West Midlands and to have travelled from north-west Worcestershire through south Gloucestershire and finally to the Somerset/east Devon border. Interestingly, three of these manuscripts erroneously ascribe the authorship of the PoC to Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (1235- 1253), as follows: “Roberti Grostehed episcopi lincolliensis” (Leeds, University Library, MS Brotherton 500, f. 1r); “Magistri Roberti Grosthed episcopi quondam lincolinensis [sic] doctoris que egregii in theologia” (BodL, MS Digby 14, f. 1r); and “venerabilis lincoliensis” (BodL, MS Laud Misc. 486, f. 122r). I will not discuss this subgroup in detail except to echo Beadle in arguing that it shows the PoC was open to local revision and re-dissemination on a small scale.600

1. Leeds, University Library, MS Brotherton 500 (c. xiv/xv, north west Worcestershire)601 2. BodL, MS Digby 14 (c. xv1, Devonshire)602 3. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royal Albert I, MS IV 998 (c. xvin, Devonshire)603 4. BodL, MS Laud Misc. 486 (s. xvin, south Gloucestershire)604

in McIntosh et al., 234. For the ownership of this manuscript in the fifteenth century, see Bale, “Late Medieval Book-Owners Named John Leche.” 599 Cf. Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 8. 600 Beadle, “Middle English Texts and their Transmission,” 80. 601 Described as MV 24 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 55-6. See also Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for Leeds, University Library, MS Brotherton 500. See also Humphrey and Lightbrown, “Two Manuscripts of the Pricke of Conscience,” 29-30, facsimile of f. 121r facing p. 29. For the dialect, see LALME, LP 7660 in McIntosh et al., 249. 602 Described as MV 63 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 96. 603 Described as MV 4 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 36-7. 604 Described as MV 72 in Lewis and McIntosh, Descriptive Guide, 105-6.

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The Group IV manuscripts, I argue, provide insight into the relationship between a text’s dissemination and its means of production. The nearly twenty manuscripts that comprise Group IV are significant in that they represent a concentrated (both geographically and temporally) group of related manuscripts, with several scribes who copied in multiple manuscripts.

3.1.1.4 Scribes Copying in Multiple Manuscripts 1. The Corpus of the Rylands Scribe605 a. BL, MS Harley 1205 (Prick of Conscience) b. Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Eng. 50 (Prick of Conscience) c. BodL, MS Rawl. A.389 (works of Richard Rolle, and Maidstone’s penitential psalms and others)606 d. Camb., Trinity College, MS R.3.8 (Cursor Mundi)607 e. Durham, Durham University Library, MS Mickleton and Spearman 27 (Latin statutes)608 f. Possibly also BodL, MS Eng. poet. e. 17 (s. xivex or xiv/xv) (fragments of Richard Maidstone’s penitential psalms) g. Canterbury, Cathedral Archives, ChAnt/L/199 (quitclaim dated 1 August 1396)609 h. Canterbury, Cathedral Archives, ChAnt/L/200 (land grant dated 14 January 1398) 610 i. Canterbury, Cathedral Archives, ChAnt/L/204 (land grant dated 1 May 1402)611

605 For the corpus of this scribe, see Hanna, “Some Pre-Fifteenth Century Scribes,” 188-9. See also Hanna’s note of this identification in The English Manuscripts, 173-4. Jeremy Griffiths originally identified this scribe as “the Lichfield scribe” and assigned him Camb., Trinity College, MS R.3.8; Durham, Durham University Library, MS Mickleton and Spearman 27; BL, MS Harley 1205; Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Eng. 50; and BodL, MS Eng. poet. e. 17. 606 Described in Hanna, The English Manuscripts, 171-4. See also Ogilvie-Thompson, Richard Rolle: Prose and Verse, xxxvi-xlv; Edden, Richard Maidstone’s Penitential Psalms, 12-14; Ker, “Patrick Young’s Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Lichfield Cathedral,” 281, 288-9; and Horstmann, Yorkshire Writers, II, 36-45. 607 Described in Thompson, The ‘Cursor Mundi’, 38-9. See also Horrall, The Southern Version, 14-15. 608 Described in Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, 2:514-517. 609 Identified by Horobin in “Scribe of the Vernon Manuscript,” 32-33. This quitclaim is between John Irysshe of Lichfield and his Margaret to Nicholas Sporiour of Lichfield. 610 Identified by Horobin in “Scribe of the Vernon Manuscript,” 32-33. This land grant is between Agnes, wife of Thomas Cartwright of Lichfield, to John and Margaret Figeon. 611 Identified by Horobin in “Scribe of the Vernon Manuscript,” 32-33. This grant is between Bernard Rydware, vicar of Tutbury, and Richard Hiklyn, chaplain, to Roger and Alice Rydware of Lichfield.

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j. Canterbury, Cathedral Archives, ChAnt/L/205 (land grant and property grant dated 17 August 1408)612 k. Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office, 3764/76 (quitclaim dated 1408)613 l. Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office, 3764/767 (demise dated 1408)614 m. Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office, D(W)1734/J/1609 (land grant dated 11 June 1401)615 n. Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office, D(W)1734/J/1697 (rent agreement dated 4 June 1403)616 o. Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office, D(W)1734/J/1781 (land and property grant dated 12 January 1409)617 p. Shrewbury, Shropeshire Archives, 1057/2/7 [post mortem inquisition of Fulk Mouthe, dated 5 July 1414]618 q. BodL, MS Eng. Poet. a.1 (“Vernon”) (an inscription on f. 239v)619 r. BL, MS Add. 22283 (“Simeon”) (an inscription on f. 38r)620

2. The Corpus of the Trinity Scribe621

612 Identified by Horobin in “Scribe of the Vernon Manuscript,” 32-33. This grant is from John Wyche of Lichfield to the same Bernard Rydware, William de Rydware, and Robert Rydware of Lichfield. 613 Identified by Horobin in “Scribe of the Vernon Manuscript,” 32-33. This quitclaim is from Thomas Arwe of Lichfield to John Barre of Lichfield, a barber. 614 Identified by Horobin in “Scribe of the Vernon Manuscript,” 32-33. This demise is by john Ondeby, canon of Lichfield, to Thomas ate Well of Little Haywood, mason. 615 Identified by Horobin in “Scribe of the Vernon Manuscript,” 32-33. This land grant is between Robert Aston, of Wilmencote, and William Fordayne, to Master John de Ondeby, Thomas, de Ondeby, and John Cook, chaplain. 616 Identified by Horobin in “Scribe of the Vernon Manuscript,” 32-33.This quitclaim is from John Smyth of Wilmencote to John Ondeby, canon of Lichfield, and Thomas de Ondeby and John Cook. 617 Identified by Horobin in “Scribe of the Vernon Manuscript,” 32-33. This grant is from Richard Herrys to his daughter Agnes. 618 Identified by Horobin in “Scribe of the Vernon Manuscript,” 32-33. This is post mortem inquisition that John Scriveyn was present at Fulk Mouthe, before David Holbache, escheator, in Shropshire. 619 This inscription reads: “De scripcione trium quaternorum vel quatuor primum verbum Oþur dignite & trium foliorum.” This and the corresponding inscription below are shown in The Vernon Manuscript: A Facsimile, 13, fig 7a-b and further discussed in Doyle, “Codicology, Palaeography, and Provenance,” 12-13. 620 This inscription reads: “Memorandum quod Johannes Scryveyn scribet domino Thome Heneley tres quaternos vel quatuor & tria folia Et incipit ad ista verba in isto columbine Oþur dinite. Or benefys.”

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a. Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B (Prick of Conscience) b. BodL, MS Douce 156 (Prick of Conscience) c. Holkham Hall, Wells, Norfolk, Library of the Earl of Leicester, MS 668 (Prick of Conscience)

3. The Corpus of the Vernon Scribe A622 a. Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B (Prick of Conscience) b. Holkham Hall, Wells, the earl of Leicester, MS 668 (Prick of Conscience) c. BodL, MS Douce 156 (Prick of Conscience) d. BodL, MS Eng. Poet. a.1 (“Vernon”) (a compendium of religious verse) e. BL, MS Add. 22283 (“Simeon”) (a compendium of religious verse) f. Stratford-upon-Avon, The Shakespeare Birthplace Library, DR 18/30/20/1 (two frankpledges dated 1 October 1406 and 10 May 1407)623 g. Stratford-upon-Avon, The Shakespeare Birthplace Library, DR 10/1406 (several Warwickshire deeds)624

4. Vernon Scribe B625 a. BodL, MS Eng. Poet. A.1 (“Vernon”) b. BL, MS Add. 22283 (“Simeon”)

621 No other scholar has yet identified this scribe’s hand in both manuscripts. I provide the evidence for this identification later in the chapter. For a limited look at the scribal profile of this scribe in Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B, see Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B. No entry is provided for BodL, MS Douce 156. 622 Hanna discusses the corpus of this scribe in “Pre-Fifteenth Century Scribes,” 187-8. 623 Discussed in Horobin, “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 45 and Doyle, The Vernon Manuscript, 13. Cf. Hilton, The Stoneleigh Leger Book. 624 This is the Gregory Ledger Book in which the Warwickshire deeds have been bound with a thirteenth-century Stoneleigh Cartulary. Discussed in Horobin, “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 45. 625 For the corpus of this scribe, see Hanna, “Some Pre-Fifteenth Century Scribes,” 187-8. See also Doyle’s discussion of this scribe in The Vernon Manuscript. For an updated look at the works of this scribe, see Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B; BodL, MS Eng. Poet. a.1; BL, MS Add. 22283; and Holkham Hall, Wells, the earl of Leicester, MS 668.

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3.2 Copying in the Vicinity of Lichfield Cathedral?

I begin by drawing attention to Lichfield itself as a possible centre for copying northern vernacular religious texts. Not a rich town by any means, Lichfield developed primarily as a convenient way-station situated at the juncture of two Roman roads. There one of medieval England's great arteries, Watling Street (the modern A5, joining London and Wroxeter), crossed a much less prominent route. This was Ryknild Street, which began near Cheltenham and connected the Southwest Midlands with south Yorkshire, via Birmingham, Derby, and Sheffield. Each of these routes was entwined with other important connecting roads; to the east of Lichfield, a spur of Watling Street ran off to Chester, and in south Yorkshire, Ryknild Street joins England’s spine, The Great North Road.626

In many ways, Ripon and Lichfield were not dissimilar environments. Lichfield was a small provincial town with approximately 3,000 inhabitants in the later fourteenth century, hosting a number of educated men, trained in copying, possibly employed by local religious houses, parishes, or in the secular Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Chad, the seat of the bishop.627 In addition to the cathedral residentiaries, many of whom were royal or episcopal servants, retired ecclesiastics or university scholars, the cathedral hosted a number of chantries, initially ministered to by appointed vicars, but by the fourteenth century a separate group of chantry chaplains had begun to appear.628

Like Ripon, Lichfield boasted a number of potential craftsmen associated with the book trade. Scase identifies at least one illuminator who appears in the records for Lichfield—a “Robert Lomynour” (1397, 1398)—and Rebecca Farnham argues that Artist B of the Vernon manuscript may have worked in the vicinity of the Lichfield/Staffordshire area.629 Doyle identified Richard Scriveyn and his wife in the lay subsidy for Lichfield in 1379-80, along with one John Parchemener. John Parchemener was admitted in 1411 to the town guild as John

626 Cf. Hanna, “Lichfield,” published at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~dwallace/europe/nodes/lichfield.html. 627 See Rosser, “The Town and Guild of Lichfield in the Late Middle Ages,” 39-47. See also Dyer and Slater, “The Midlands,” 609-638. 628 Greenslade, Victoria County History of Staffordshire, 148-149. 629 Scase, “The Artist of the Vernon Initials,” 221. She follows Michael in “English Illuminators.” Farnham makes the suggestion that Artist B of the Vernon manuscript worked in Lichfield in “Border Artists of the Vernon Manuscript,” 131.

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Parchemynmaker.630 Another scribe, discussed below under the name the Rylands Scribe, was employed as a legal scrivener in the area and also copied vernacular religious texts. Furthermore, the clerks attached to the cathedral and diocese may have also been available to copy texts. The large number and variety of hands found in the bishops’ registers in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries suggest that they were copied by secular clerks and not professional scriveners such as the Rylands Scribe.631 Although he notes that no conclusive identification can be made, Horobin associates the hand of one of the scribes found in the register of Bishop Stretton (1360- 85) with BodL, MS Ashmole 41, a copy of the PoC listed above; he associates the hand of another of the scribes with Vernon Scribe B, whom he suggests was “a member of the secular clergy of Lichfield Cathedral.”632 The canons of Lichfield Cathedral constitute an important possible readership for vernacular works of religious instruction. Doyle has identified Thomas Hanley, canon of Lichfield cathedral from 1389 until his death in 1422, as the figure mentioned in inscriptions in the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts. These indicate that a scribe, John Scriveyn (identified as the Rylands Scribe), was engaged to copy an extract of the Speculum vitae for Dominus Thomas Heneley.633 Other possible readers of vernacular material associated with Lichfield Cathedral include Richard Scrope, a member of Arundel’s Ely circle, who served as Bishop of Lichfield and Chester from 1386 to 1398 and whom I will discuss in greater detail below. These links suggest that Lichfield hosted multiple scribes and readers interested in vernacular texts, and in the following sections I will show that scribes contributed to the spread and potential “canonization” of the PoC.

3.2.1 Producing a Corpus: The Rylands Scribe

In this section, firstly, I will use the Rylands Scribe to show the PoC may have spread alongside other northern penitential or didactic texts such as the Cursor Mundi and the works of Richard

630 Doyle, “Codicology, Palaeography, and Provenance,” 15. 631 Horobin, “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 37. He suggests that if these were copied by professional scribe then one would expect “a more restricted repertoire of scribes and greater uniformity and calligraphic expertise across the various entries” (38). 632 Horobin, “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 39. 633 Cf. Doyle, “Codicology, Palaeography, and Provenance,” 14.

204

Rolle. This scribe has been identified with the name John Scriveyn in two notations in the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts, mentioned above. Of this scribe, Hanna writes:

One individual, the scribe responsible for Cambridge, Trinity College, MS R.3.8, with the ‘Southern Version’ of the Yorkshire biblical history Cursor Mundi, has always been perceived as central to these procedures—and has become more so as study intensifies. In addition to the Trinity manuscript, he shared copying of a seminal version of Rolle's epistles, the head of a wide West Midlands distribution, including the representations of these texts in both Vernon and Simeon. And he produced two copies of The Prick. One of these was taken from an exemplar that stands at the head of an originally local tradition.634

Allen, Doyle and Horobin have greatly supplemented this work by identifying the hand of this scribe in a number of legal documents (quitclaims, land grants, property conveyances, etc.) in the Lichfield area.635 As Horobin notes, “Each of these documents concerns people and places connected with the city of Lichfield, while the last indicates a connection with the Cathedral and one of its canons, John Ondeby, a name which recurs in documents copied by John Scriveyn.”636 From this documentary research, it appears as if the Rylands Scribe was a professional scrivener working in Lichfield and the surrounding area, frequently in conjunction with cathedral canons and chaplains in the city. I draw attention to the corpus of this scribe, firstly, in order to establish some understanding of the practices and procedures of copying in Lichfield. As such, I want to examine his corpus in general, drawing attention predominantly to his copying of other northern vernacular works including the Cursor Mundi and Rolle’s Form of Living and Ego Dormio before I move onto his manuscripts containing the PoC.

The corpus of the Rylands Scribe gives an indication of the range of northern vernacular texts copied in the Lichfield area, a corpus which resembles that of the manuscripts produced at Ripon. Camb., Trinity College, MS R.3.8 contains a good copy of the Cursor Mundi written in a

634 Cf. Hanna, “Lichfield,” published at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~dwallace/europe/nodes/lichfield.html. This scribe is called the “Lichfield Master” in McIntosh, “New Approach to Middle English Dialectology,” 22-31. 635 Hope Emily Allen first identified the Rylands Scribe as a professional scrivener active in the Lichfield area in “Manuscripts of the Ancren Riwle,” 116. Doyle identified further property records and suggested the hand was the same as those three manuscripts containing the Prick of Conscience and Cursor Mundi as mentioned above. In “Codicology, Palaeography, and Provenance,” he found substantial similarities in the script of the notations in the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts (12-15). Horobin added to these identifications in “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 29-35. 636 Horobin, “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 33.

205 parchment manuscript measuring 307 x 220 mm. The text appears in two columns of 40 lines, except during the Passion narrative, which is presented in single columns. LALME localizes the dialect of this manuscript to Lichfield.637 This manuscript of the Cursor Mundi is one of the “Southern Recension” manuscripts studied in detail by Sarah Horrall, a recension which she argued contains not “a corrupt copy of a northern poem, but a new poem, substantially changed in language and scope from its original.”638 Horrall believed one of the ancestors of the southern group to be the south Lincolnshire exemplar, and so in some ways this version of the Cursor Mundi might be seen to generally follow the pattern of dissemination of the Vernon-Simeon Subgroup of the PoC which also includes an early Lincolnshire copy of the PoC (Chicago, Illinois, Newberry Library, MS 33).639 Horrall, like Hanna, believed Lichfield might have been the place where the “Southern Recension” version of the Cursor Mundi was produced.640 It appears likely that the PoC was revised in Lichfield in the same way that the Cursor Mundi was, after which it was disseminated more broadly. For example, a second copy of a “Southern Recension” Cursor Mundi appears in London, College of Arms, MS Arundel 57, which also contains a late-fourteenth century version of the PoC identified by Lewis and McIntosh as part of the Lichfield subgroup.641

In addition to copying a manuscript containing the “Southern Recension” of the Cursor Mundi, the Rylands Scribe also copied BodL, MS Rawl. A.389, an important manuscript containing the works of Richard Rolle. This manuscript has a reasonably secure Lichfield provenance: LALME identifies the dialect of the Rylands Scribe’s stint in this manuscript as the same as that of Camb., Trinity College, MS R.3.8, and Ker identifies two names (“liber M Thomas Rynold” and “liber M Iohannis Reedhil” on f. 105v) as two holders of the same prebend in Lichfield

637 Cf. LALME, LP 36; see I:237 and 3:450-51. 638 Horrall, Southern Version, 1, 12. 639 Horrall, Southern Version, 1, 1. 640 Horrall, Southern Version 1, 12. John Thompson has cautioned against this opinion arguing that “the case for assuming such a high level of editorial intervention in a (non northern) ancestor of [these four manuscripts] should not be exaggerated and usually seems quite unpromising,” in The ‘Cursor Mundi’, 56. In this respect, he takes a more conservative approach in prioritizing the importance of manuscripts which he believes are more closely linked to an authorial version. He argued that the copying of this manuscript did not constitute a fullscale rewriting, but rather a “policy of modernization” (51). 641 For a description of this manuscript, see Thompson, The ‘Cursor Mundi’, 39-40.

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Cathedral in the late fifteenth century.642 This manuscript, discussed briefly in Chapter 1 in relation to the circulation of Rolle’s texts by means of booklets, is divided into six booklets written by at least four scribes. The Rylands Scribe wrote two of these booklets: Booklet 2 (ff. 13r-20v), consisting of a single quire of eight leaves containing Richard Maidstone’s penitential psalms, and Booklet 6 (ff. 85r-105v), containing Rolle’s Form of Living, Ego Dormio and several short religious poems. The Form of Living is, interestingly, the second copy appearing in this manuscript (the first of which appears in Booklet 5).”643 Hanna remarks that this second copy of the Form of Living is “a deviant text apparently concocted in the course of preparing Bodleian, MS Rawl. A.389.”644 This “deviant” version of the Form of Living also appears in Paris, Bibliothèque Ste. Geneviève, MS 3390, which was copied by a north Warwickshire scribe in the early fifteenth century.645 Hanna suggests BodL, MS Rawl. A.389 was the exemplar for the Form of Living which appears in the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts, which I will discuss in more detail later on. This set of connections suggests that certain northern religious vernacular texts moved from Lincolnshire into Lichfield and out of Lichfield toward Worcester and Warwickshire.

I turn now to the two manuscripts of this scribe which contain the PoC: BL, MS Harley 1205 and Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Eng. 50. Of these two, the most important is arguably BL, MS Harley 1205, which Lewis and McIntosh suggest may have been the exemplar underlying the Lichfield Subgroup. BL, MS Harley 1205 is a plain parchment manuscript measuring 185 x 115 mm containing only the PoC written in a single column of 28-29 lines per page. It is minimally decorated throughout. Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Eng. 50, on the other hand, which contains the second PoC copied by this scribe, is slightly larger (250 x 150 mm) with 33 lines per page. The manuscript is more highly decorated, beginning with two 5-line initials done in red and green ink with red flourishes forming a border along the left margin. The relationship between these manuscripts is interesting: despite being copied by the same scribe, they do not share the same layout, and although they both belong to

642 See Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 115. 643 Hanna, “The Origins and Production of Westminster School MS. 3,” 201. 644 Hanna, “Yorkshire Scribes,” 105. 645 Hanna, “The Origins and Production of Westminster School MS. 3,” 201.

207 the Lichfield Subgroup, there are numerous minor differences which suggest that either both texts were based upon slightly different, but related exemplars, or that the scribe felt free to make minor alterations at the level of line. The two comparable pages and their transcriptions shown in Plates 4.3 and 4.4 demonstrate this phenomenon. In particular, I draw attention to some differences at the level of decoration: the inclusion of a system of punctuation marks at the end of each line in Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Eng. 50; the inclusion of, typically, small initials with red flourishes at the beginning of Latin quotations in Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Eng. 50 compared to the simple lombards in BL, MS Harley 1205; the rubrication of Latin quotations in BL, MS Harley 1205; and finally the system of paraphs in BL, MS Harley 1205, which have been omitted in Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Eng. 50.

At times the two texts show a high level of similarity. For example, we can compare the following set of two couplets in which the primary changes occur in the use of abbreviations, the substitution of “i” for “y” and vice versa, and at the level of substitution of prepositions and verb tenses:

The þridde for þei to gider shal come Byfore god at þe day of dome The ferþe for whenne þei are comen þider They shal ay aftir dwelle to gider (BL, MS Harley 1205, f. 1v, ll. 3-6)

As compared to:

The þridde for þei to gider shal come ; Byfore god on the day of dome . The ferþe whenne þei ben comen þider ; Thei shul ay aftir dwelle to gider (Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Eng. 50, p. 52, ll. 7-10)

But if we compare two further sets of couplets, we can see more substantive differences at the level of the substitution of words and even the alteration of rhymes:

And oute of monnes herte shule springe And were lapped aboute wiþ herte strynge And þe crop myȝt out at his mouþ swote And to vche ioynt were fastened a rote (BL, MS Harley 1205, f. 2r, ll. 16-19)

As compared to:

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Out of monnes herte to springe ; And wrappede were wiþ herte stringe . The croppe out of his mouþ he bere ; And to vche ioynte a rote faste were . (Manchester, John Rylands University Library, MS Eng. 50, p. 53, ll. 16-19)

Whereas in BL, MS Harley 1205, the scribe has copied the more difficult reading—“And þe crop myȝt out at his mouþ swote”—in Rylands, Eng. 50, we can see a simplified reading which may have necessitated a change to the following line—“The croppe out of his mouþ he bere.”

The differences in word choice and rhymes in these two manuscripts suggest that the scribe may have made changes to his text in the process of copying. This lends support to Horrall’s theory that the Rylands Scribe not only engaged in dialect translation, but also may have potentially compared, corrected, or attempted to improve upon the texts he worked with. If we take this in conjunction with Hanna’s assertion that the Rylands Scribe appears to have “concocted” a deviant text which combined Rolle’s Form of Living and Ego Dormio, then we may begin to be able to characterize the copying habits of the scribe more precisely: that is, he likely had access to a number of exemplars of northern vernacular religious texts and he may have been one of the earliest of the Lichfield scribes to engage in the process of translating those texts into a Lichfield dialect. The scribe was not a strictly duplicative copier; instead, he felt confident enough to correct or emend, at times combining two texts to create a new text, at other times making alterations at the level of word substitution or minor rewriting.

3.2.2 Concerted Production: The Trinity Scribe

If, as Matthew Fisher argues, copying can occupy “stylistic registers” then I want to turn to a second scribe of the Lichfield Subgroup who engaged with his text in a very different way.646 When viewing BodL, MS Douce 156 and Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B I noticed remarkable similarities between the two manuscripts, and I identified the second scribe of Oxford, Trinity College MS 16B and the primary scribe of BodL, MS Douce 156 as the same scribe. Simon Horobin, within the last month, also published an identification of this scribe, noting that this scribe also acted as the second scribe of Holkham Hall, Wells, Norfolk, Library of the Earl of

646 Fisher, Scribal Authorship, 37.

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Leicester, MS 668.647 However, as Horobin only provides brief mention of this identification and no palaeographical analysis, in the section following, I will examine two of these manuscripts in more detail—BodL, MS Douce 156 and Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B—to demonstrate the intriguing collaborative copying practices of this scribe.

Fig. 4.3: Description of Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B (Contents) (See Plate 4.5) Collation: i + 1-2v (remnants of a Latin Missal); 18-68, 78 (one leaf lost, stubs for two more lost leafs); 86 (one leaf lost, an extra partial folio, trimmed, has been added after f. 58); 98-108, 118 (final three leaves lost), 128 (lost), 138-158, 168 (final leaf cancelled) + ii

Scribe 1: ff. 3-8v, l. 6; 30v, l. 19-31; 53r, l. 28-78v; 84r-84v, l. 24; 111v-114r; Anglicana formata; Lichfield (Vernon Scribe A) Scribe 2: ff. 8v, l. 7-30v, l. 18; 31v-53r, l. 27; 79-83v; 84v, l. 25-111; Anglicana formata with traces of Secretary; Lichfield (Trinity Scribe)

Contents: Remnants of a Latin Missal (ff. 1r-2v) Prick of Conscience (ff. 3r-114v) [copied by Scribes 1 and 2]

Copying Breakdown by Quires Quire 1 (ff. 3-10) Scribe 1: ff. 3r-8v, l. 6 Scribe 2: ff. 8v l. 7-end Quires 2-3 (ff. 11-26) Scribe 2: complete text Quire 4 (ff. 27-34) Scribe 2: ff. 27r-30v, l. 18 Scribe 1: ff. 30v, l. 19-31 Scribe 2: ff. 31v-34v Quires 5-6 (ff. 35-50) Scribe 2: complete text Quire 7 (ff. 51-55) Scribe 2: ff. 51r-53r, l. 27

647 Horobin, “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 46.

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Scribe 1: f. 53r, l. 28-end Quires 8-10 (ff. 56-78) Scribe 1: complete text Quire 11 (ff. 79-83) Scribe 2: complete text Quire 12 (ff. 84-91) Scribe 1: ff. 83r-84v, l. 24 Scribe 2: ff. 84v, l. 25- Quires 13-14 (ff. 92-107) Scribe 2: complete text Quire 15 (ff. 108-114) Scribe 2: ff. 108r-end of 111r Scribe 1: ff. 111v-114v

Fig: 4.4: Description of BodL, MS Douce 156 (Contents)

Collation: i + 18 (-7), 28-38, 4a8 (first five leaves present; remaining leaves are out of order, after Quire 5), 58, 4b (remaining three leaves of Quire 4a), 68-108, 118 (-8) + i; ends fragmentarily.

Scribe 1: ff. 1-173; set Anglicana formata; Central Midlands [Trinity Scribe]

Contents: Prick of Conscience (ff. 1-173)

3.2.2.1 Collaborative Copying in Trinity College 16B

The first point I want to make is that, in comparison to the other copies of the PoC which I have examined thus far, Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B is notable in that the copying of the scribes is often not separated either by quires or by booklets; instead, the two scribes have shared copying, taking over from one another within quires. Horobin argues that Vernon Scribe A also supplied the Latin rubrics in the portions copied by the Trinity Scribe.648 This suggests a closer form of collaborative copying than we have seen in other cases, with Vernon Scribe A possibly

648 Horobin, “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 45.

211 working in a supervisory capacity.649 A similar form of alternating copying is also used to produce Holkham, Holkham Hall, Library of the Earl of Leicester, MS 668.650 In Plate 4.5, I have reproduced f. 7v, the first point of transition between Vernon Scribe A and the Trinity Scribe in BodL, MS Douce 156. Here, we can easily distinguish between the two hands, the first of which (Vernon Scribe A) makes use of a thick-stroked Anglicana formata with the ascender of the first initial extended into the left margin and the second of which is a thinner, somewhat rushed, pointed Anglicana formata with some Secretary features.

The Manuscripts of the West Midlands project notes the following elements as characteristic of the hand of the Trinity Scribe in this manuscript: flourished ascenders or tails of first initial on each line extended into left margin; Sigma s in initial and final position; long s in medial position; 2-shaped r in medial position; double compartment a; B-shaped w; v-shaped r in medial position; descender of y has a much shorter flick up than that of Scribe 1; 8-shaped g.651 To these I would add a pointed single compartment Secretary a, a pointed h with an angled stroke between the ascender and hump alongside a smoother h, an l with the same angled stroke, and a distinctly pointed d alongside a rounded d.

Fig. 4.5: Characteristics of the Trinity Scribe in Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B Flourished ascender or tail

Sigma s

649 Ibid. 650 In this manuscript, Vernon Scribe A writes from the beginning of the text to l. 1047, then ll. 1076-2112,and ll. 8086-9624, alternating with the Trinity Scribe who writes ll. 4482-5480, ll. 5498-5767, and ll. 5818-8085. Cf. Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for Holkham, Holkham Hall, Library of the Earl of Leicester, MS 668. 651 Manuscripts of the West Midlands: A Catalogue of Vernacular Manuscript Books of the English West Midlands, c. 1300 - c. 1475 (Birmingham: University of Birmingham, 2006), http://www.mwm.bham.ac.uk, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B.

212 medial long s

medial 2-shaped r

double compartment a b-shaped w

medial v-shaped r

y with short descender

8-shaped g

Secretary a

pointed h with an angled stroke

l with an angled stroke

pointed d

The general angularity and untidier quality to the hand suggests that this was a lower-grade copy. This assessment is supported by other features of the text, including a marked difference in the

213 quality of decorative initials at various stages of the manuscript (see, for example, Plate 4.6 which compares initials on f. 14v and f. 74v, the first of which occurs in the stint of the Trinity Scribe and the second of which occurs in a stint of Vernon Scribe A). One also notes the anomalous shift in the way Latin quotations are marked from rubrication of the same script to an unrubricated, more set version of the same script which occurs in Vernon Scribe A’s stint on f. 56v (see Plate 4.7).

In comparison, BodL, MS Douce 156, completed by the Trinity Scribe alone, is a far more lavish and well-executed manuscript (see Plate 4.8). BodL, MS Douce 156, on p. 1, includes a substantial border decoration incorporating the first initial of the opening prayer and the first initial of the Prologue, done in red and blue paint with gold leaf. It also includes blue initials with red flourished penwork for minor divisions in the text as well as several larger initials which mark the opening of each book, done in gold leaf on blue and crimson grounds decorated with white vinework with, typically, triplets of barbed coloured balls, also in crimson and blue (see, for example, p. 25). The majority of these have been excised.

3.2.2.2 Identifying the Hand of BodL, MS Douce 156

As I noted earlier, BodL, MS Douce 156 has been the subject of very little scrutiny, and until very recently, no scholar had posited that BodL, MS Douce 156 and Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B were both written in part by the Trinity Scribe. This identification may have been hampered by the fact that the scribe appears to have switched his dialect between the two manuscripts, employing a Staffordshire (or Lichfield) dialect in Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B as indicated by the Manuscripts of the West Midlands project and the Descriptive Guide and a central Midlands dialect in BodL, MS Douce 156 as identified by the Descriptive Guide. Neither of these manuscripts has been mapped by LALME. While switching dialects is unusual behaviour for a scribe, it is not unprecedented. Vernon Scribe A, who collaborated with the Trinity Scribe in Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B also switches dialects between manuscripts. In Holkham Hall, Library of the Earl of Leicester, MS 668 he employs a Staffordshire (or Lichfield) dialect. In Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B his dialect is mixed, with elements of a Staffordshire (or Lichfield) dialect and elements of a Worcestershire dialect. In Vernon and Simeon he employs a

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Worcestershire dialect.652 Horobin suggests that he was capable of copying in both a Worcester dialect and a Staffordshire dialect depending upon the nature of the commission and the dialect of his exemplar.653

The identification of this scribe’s hand has also been hampered by the fact that the Trinity Scribe employs a slightly different script in each of these two manuscripts. In Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B he employs a more cursive Anglicana Formata with a Secretary influence while in BodL, MS Douce 156 he employs a set Anglicana Formata without any trace of a Secretary influence. Nevertheless, the two scripts share many similarities at the letterform including the extended initials on the first ascender, the Sigma s, the medial long s, the medial 2-shaped r, the double compartment a, the B-shaped w, the lineal f, the 8-shaped g, the h and l with an angular stroke (though this is less pronounced), and the pointed, circular d. In contrast, the single compartment, Secretary a is only used initially in BodL, MS Douce 156, the y has a slightly more hooked curve, and the v-shaped r has disappeared entirely. However, the differences might be explained by the change to a more formal hand.

Fig. 4.6: Characteristics of the Trinity Scribe in BodL, MS Douce 156 ascender on first initial

Sigma s

medial long s

medial 2-shaped r

652 For his stints in the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts, see LALME: LP 7670, p. 250. For his stints in Holkham Hall, Wells, the Earl of Leicester, MS 668, he is identified as writing in a Lichfield dialect; see LALME, 239. 653 Horobin, “Mapping the Words,” 70.

215 double compartment a b-shaped w

y with short descender

8-shaped g

Secretary a (only in capital A) pointed h with an angled stroke

l with an angled stroke

pointed d

3.2.2.3 The Layout of BodL, MS Douce 156

A final piece of evidence provides an intriguing link between Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B and BodL, MS Douce 156: the substantial similarities between their layouts. In my previous discussion of the Ripon cluster of manuscripts, I noted that the scribes of the area engaged in duplicative copying in order to replicate “canonical” texts. Here, I argue that the Trinity Scribe also had an impulse toward duplicative copying, albeit a less consistent form. In this case, he appears to have upgraded BodL, MS Douce 156 by adding elements such as running titles, paraphs and a more elaborate system of decoration. In Plate 4.9, I have included two comparative

216 examples in which the format, lineation, and decoration have been retained in both manuscripts. Several features of the manuscripts are evident: both Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B and BodL, MS Douce 156 are of a similar size (242 x 158 mm and 252 x 150 mm, respectively); both contain 34-35 lines per page in a single column; both retain the same lineation throughout; both use a similar system of rubrication to mark out Latin quotations; and finally, and most interestingly, both share a remarkable duplication of ascender flourishes as I show in Plate 4.10.

The copying of these two manuscripts provides important insights into the procedures by which texts might be replicated. Horobin suggests, “They are page for page the same and clearly derive from the same exemplar.”654 However, if we consider how these manuscripts were copied, three possibilities present themselves: firstly, both manuscripts have been copied from a lost exemplar; secondly, Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B is a less elaborate copy of BodL, MS Douce 156; thirdly, BodL, MS Douce 156 is an “upgraded” copy of Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B. Of these possibilities, I believe that the third is most likely. There are several reasons for this. At the level of the text, several errors occur in Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B that do not appear in BodL, MS Douce 156 (although it is possible that correct readings in BodL, MS Douce 156 have been corrupted in Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B). Furthermore, BodL, MS Douce 156, at the conclusion of the “Entre” or Prologue includes an additional couplet (likely a scribal interpolation) which is omitted in Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B:

In vche partie fynde men may Diuerse materes & goode to say Þat wreten is bifore to loke Nis but þe entree of þis booke Of which is an ende made Ffil þe cuppe & make vs glade655

Because of the marked similarities in layout and the attention to duplicative copying, it seems to me more likely that a final couplet would be added to an “upgraded” manuscript than that two lines would be omitted, particularly because of their general prominence and visibility at the end of a major section of text.

654 Horobin, “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 46. 655 BodL, MS Douce 156, p. 8 (my emphasis).

217

The second reason I have for believing that BodL, MS Douce 156 is a copy of Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B concerns the dialect of the texts and speaks to my broad argument regarding the mechanisms of spread at work in the production of the PoC. In Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B, both Vernon Scribe A and the Trinity Scribe copy in a Lichfield or Staffordshire dialect.656 In contrast, in BodL, MS Douce 156, the Trinity Scribe copies in a Worcester dialect. Similarly, in the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts, Vernon Scribe A also copies in a North Worcester dialect. As I mentioned earlier, on the surface, this behaviour seems somewhat anomalous. Angus McIntosh identifies three possible scribal copying strategies: a scribe could translate a text entirely into his own linguistic repertoire; a scribe could copy a text exactly as written, literatim, preserving all spelling features; and, finally, a scribe could partially translate a text, resulting in a so-called Mischsprache—a “linguistic output containing two or more elements that are mutually incompatible…from non-contiguous areas within the established dialect continuum.”657 In the late fourteenth century we would be more likely to expect a scribe’s linguistic output to be generally consistent across multiple manuscripts—that is, to be either fully translated into the scribe’s native register or else to be of a mixed dialect. But scribes were flexible creatures, and, as Horobin reminds us, “[i]tinerant professional copyists would have come across exemplars in a variety of dialects and would often have had cause to adjust their repertoires accordingly.”658 In a case such as this in which a scribe substantially shifts his dialect, one presumes that one of the dialects could represent the dialect of the exemplar (or a close form) while the other could represent a translation into the native register of the scribe.

Although it is impossible to know from the dialect alone which is the scribe’s original and which is that of an exemplar, it seems to me more likely that the native dialect of both the Trinity Scribe and Vernon Scribe A is better represented by the Worcester dialect. And in this regard, it is important to understand the nature of Vernon Scribe A’s career: as I noted earlier, he copied in a Worcester dialect the chronicle and cartulary of Stoneleigh Abbey, the daughter house of Bordesley in north Worcestershire, in 1392 and 1393, and then added documents in 1407 and

656 Cf. Manuscripts of the West Midlands, accessed June 30, 2013, entry for Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B. 657 See Section 1.4, introduction to LAEME. See further, McIntosh, et al., LALME, 13-16. 658 Horobin, “Mapping the Words,” 68.

218

1411.659 Doyle has also identified his hand in two views of a frankpledge dated October, 1406, and May, 1407, for Radway, a manor further south that belonged to Stoneleigh. The preface to the cartulary was written by a retired abbot named Thomas Pype who refers to the fact that his successor at Stoneleigh, Thomas Halton has sent him a writer (possibly the scribe in question?), and also mentions the handling and dispatch of an exemplar and copied text.660 Pype had connections to Lichfield. As Horobin has discovered, in 1373 Pype was involved in a set of property transactions involving his ancestral home. An important figure in these transactions was John de Stafford, who took control of Thomas Pype’s relative, Margery, only surviving child of Henry de Pype. John de Stafford was himself a canon of Lichfield Cathedral.661 This identification suggests that Thomas Pype had connections to Lichfield as well as to Stoneleigh.

This gives us some indication of Vernon Scribe A’s career: he had some form of longstanding association, possibly over twenty years in length, with the Cistercians of Stoneleigh and he was a scribe who may have moved from location to location in the process of collecting and passing on exemplars and copied texts. Horobin suggests that the Vernon Scribe A’s career was similar to that of the Rylands Scribe: “a legal scrivener who drafted property conveyances and grants for a range of clients” and “an itinerant professional scrivener with connections with both Stoneleigh and Lichfield rather than a Cistercian monk resident at Stoneleigh.”662 As Horobin notes, one such location he visited was very likely the area around Lichfield where he may have copied texts for the canons of the cathedral and obtained exemplars which he copied, literatim, either in Lichfield itself, or which he carried back to Worcester and copied there. From this, it might be inferred tha the Worcester dialect is his native dialect whereas the Lichfield dialect represents his exemplar’s dialect.

It is possible that the Trinity Scribe may have followed a similar trajectory: that is, he copied in collaboration with Vernon Scribe A two manuscripts of the PoC (Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B and Holkhall, Earl of Leicester’s Library, Holkham Hall, MS 668). When he copied these

659 See Doyle, introduction to Vernon Manuscript, 5-6 and 12-13. 660 Doyle, introduction to Vernon Manuscript, 12. See also Hilton, The Stoneleigh Leger Book. 661 Horobin, “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 43-44. 662 Horobin, “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 44.

219 manuscripts, he copied literatim and preserved the dialect of the exemplar, perhaps because he was unfamiliar with the text. He may then have used Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B as an exemplar for the production of a second manuscript of higher quality, BodL, MS Douce 156, translating the text into his native dialect as he became more comfortable with what it contained. He used the format, layout, and even marginal decorations of this exemplar as a guide to creating a more elaborate form still generally consistent with the copying habits which shaped the layout of the text. Horobin echoes this assessment:

…these three manuscripts witness to the collaborative efforts of two scribes supplying copies of the Prick of Conscience in a standard layout but in varying decorative formats for customers with different budgets. The relationship among these three manuscripts, their exemplars, and the two scribes who copied them, are suggestive of a professionalized production process.663

In this respect, the copying of these two scribes follows a similar pattern to the copying in Ripon, where scribes had a tendency to reproduce (or replicate) copies of the PoC in an identical format, although in that case Hanna hypothesizes the manuscripts were created by canons whereas in this case they were more likely written by itinerant professional scribes.

If this hypothetical scenario is correct, then Oxford, Trinity College, MS 16B and BodL, MS Douce 156 offer examples of the complex process of canon formation that occurs when texts are selected and replicated. If Vernon Scribe A and the Trinity Scribe travelled to Lichfield where they encountered a group of scribes actively engaged in producing multiple copies of the PoC, then it must have been easy for them to obtain cheap exemplars which they could duplicate, creating more elaborate copies, possibly for readers in their native region of Worcestershire. In this way, a text such as the PoC would have spread beyond the region of initial production, through a variety of channels of transmission and translation, into an ever-widening area of circulation.

663 Horobin, “Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript,” 46.

220

3.2.3 Canonizing the Prick of Conscience: The Creation of the Vernon and Simeon Manuscripts

In my discussion of the manuscripts copied by the Trinity Scribe, I speculated that this scribe may have upgraded his second manuscript with running titles, paraphs, and a more lavish program of initials. In some respects, then, we might see the production of BodL, MS Douce 156 as part of the canonizing impulse I have suggested may have shaped the production of manuscripts of the PoC in Lichfield. In this section, I want to turn to two final example—the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts—copied by the Trinity Scribe’s collaborator, Vernon Scribe A, in which we can see similar canonizing impulses at work.

Libraries in magno, the ornate Vernon manuscript and its sister compilation the Simeon manuscript are two of the most important compilations of English religious poetry from the fourteenth century. Vernon measures 572 x 394 mm and consists of 341 folios, decorated with illuminated initials, borders, and miniatures completed by two artists. It was copied by two scribes, the Vernon scribe who copied the bulk of the materials throughout, and Vernon Scribe A who copied the table of contents and Ailred of Rievaulx’s Informacio ad Sororem Suam. Simeon is of a similar size, 590 x 390 mm, although it probably never ran to as many folios as Vernon. Simeon was copied by four scribes, two of which also copied texts in Vernon. I draw attention to these two manuscripts because they are witnesses to an important, and impressive, canonizing impulse. These manuscripts would have been exceptionally expensive due to their size and lavish decoration. One need only turn to the expensive and elaborate miniature which prefaces the PoC on f. 265r of Vernon to understand the resources put forward in order to create these books. Doyle estimates that each leaf may have been one or two days’ work for a single hand; it probably would have taken several years and a cost of between £50 and £100 to complete both volumes.664 Consequently, the question of who the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts were produced for remains both interesting and unresolved. In this section, I show that the production of the PoC in the Lichfield area offers possible answers.

Scholars have suggested a range of possible contexts including an English nunnery, a monastic house, or even possibly a noble or royal chamber. Of these suggestions, a female religious

664 Doyle, “The Shaping of the Vernon and Simeon Manuscripts,” 2.

221 audience has gained the most support, in part because several of the texts included in Vernon and Simeon—the Ancrene Wisse, Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, the Latin De Institutione inclusarum, and Rolle’s English writings—were initially composed as practical guides for religious women.665 Kerby-Fulton, in her recent summary of the production contexts of the Vernon manuscript, writes:

Its library-sized collection of 403 religious, moral, and literary works packed tidily into the 350 surviving folios would undoubtedly have provided a wide and appropriate range of reading for monastic women. Its physical size (544 x 393 mm.) renders it much too large (and much too heavy at over fifty pounds!) to have been used anywhere but on a lectern, where a small group of nuns (and many English nunneries were small) could have enjoyed Vernon’s lavish decoration and illustration as well as its finely executed script. Since the manuscript also features texts punctuated for reading aloud, we might imagine it situated in a monastic refectory as well, where saints’ lives and other fortifying words like those found in Vernon would be read at meal times.666

Doyle first suggested an original home at Nuneaton, a house of Fontrevraud in Warwickshire where at least one other manuscript (the trilingual Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS McClean 123) was left to the priory by the learned prioress Margaret Sylemon in the 1380s, approximately the same time at which Vernon and Simeon were written.667 Alternately, Kari Sajavaara suggested the volume may have been produced in the Cistercian community at Bordesley Abbey in Worcestershire, in part because of the written dialect of the scribes of the manuscript (a point I will return to).668 In addition to suggesting Bordesley Abbey, Hanna has added the possibility of Bordesley’s two daughter establishments (Stoneleigh and Mervale) as well as another Cistercian house in the area (Combe) or possibly “some consortium of these.”669

The possible Cistercian connection has been noted by other scholars as well. Kerby-Fulton suggests that the presence of a monk in white robes in the bottom right of the lavish illustration which opens the PoC in Vernon “might indicate that this manuscript was made for Cistercian monks, of whom he is one, but it could also relate to such a person being a donor of the

665 Cf. Renevey and Whitehead, Writing Religious Women, 113. 666 Kerby-Fulton, Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts, 298. 667 Kerby-Fulton, Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts, 298. See also Bell, What Nuns Read, 158. 668 Sajavaara, “The Relationship of the Vernon and Simeon Manuscripts,” 439. See also Doyle, introduction to The Vernon Manuscript, 15. 669 Hanna, English Manuscripts, 158.

222 manuscript.”670 She adds that a Cistercian house is suggested by text like the translation of Aelred’s De institutione, the life of Bernard of Clairvaux which has been attached to the South English Legendary, and the Miracles of Our Lady. She notes also that Vernon shares fourteen English items in common with BL, MS Add. 37787, a collection of English and Latin made shortly after 1388, possibly for a monk of Bordesley by the name of John Northwood.671 Further to this, as I outlined in the previous section, Vernon Scribe A provides the final, substantial connection between Vernon, Simeon and a possible Cistercian house because his hand appears in the chronicle and cartulary of Stoneleigh Abbey, the daughter house of Bordesley, in 1392 and 1393, and again in 1407 and 1411, as well as in two views of a frankpledge for Stoneleigh’s manor, Radway.672 However, a stumbling block for this line of inquiry, as Doyle points out, is that these Cistercian communities would have been hard pressed to muster the funds for such a lavish book: the cost of the two manuscripts would have equalled about half of the entire yearly income for Stoneleigh Abbey.673

There is, however, another theory. Hughes and Catto make a compelling argument that we ought to see the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts as repositories of the sorts of northern vernacular religious texts discussed in this chapter, possibly commissioned for or by Richard Scrope, Bishop of Lichfield and Chester from 1386 to 1398.674 Hughes and Catto both suggest Lichfield as a possible place of production, and in the recent edited volume The Making of the Vernon Manuscript, both Doyle and Horobin support this theory.675 I have already noted the fact that the Rylands Scribe, known also as the Lichfield master, likely wrote inscriptions in both Vernon and Simeon indicating that he was present when both volumes were under construction although he

670 Kerby-Fulton, Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts, 170. Scott suggests that the columbines hanging from the bottom border of the page with the Trinity panel might indicate a Benedictine/Norwich connection. Contra the Cistercian identification, Wendy Scase argues that this might be intended to depict Richard Rolle in “Patronage Symbolism and Sowlehele,” 235-238. 671 Ibid., 300. For the connection between those texts, see Scudder Baugh, 37-39. 672 See Doyle, introduction to the Vernon Manuscript, 5-6 and 12-13. 673 Doyle, introduction to the Vernon Manuscript, 14, 15. 674 Cf. Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, 214, and Catto, “1349-1412: Culture and History,” 125. 675 Doyle, “Codicology, Palaeography, and Provenance,” 23. Cf. Horobin, “The Scribes of the Vernon Manuscript.” Surprisingly, Scase does not address the potential Lichfield origin of the manuscript in her chapters assessing possible lines of patronage in “Patronage Symbolism and Sowlehele” and “The Patronage of the Vernon Manuscript.”

223 did not write any portion of the main text. These notes indicate that he was requested to copy three to four quires consisting of the Speculum vitae for Thomas Henelay, a canon of Lichfield. In further support of the connection between these two manuscripts and the Lichfield copying, several of the exemplars of the manuscript have been identified as Lichfield texts. Hughes and Hanna have both recognized that the anomalous copy of Rolle’s Form of Living and Ego Dormio in Vernon descended, possibly with the intervention of a single exemplar, from BodL, MS Rawl. A.389, the compilation of Rollean texts copied by the Rylands Scribe.676 The possible exemplar (or exemplars) for the PoC in these two manuscripts presents a more complicated case. Building upon the work of Angus McIntosh, Robert Lewis concluded that the PoC in Simeon at least was copied from multiple exemplars:

First, there were at least two copies of the Pricke of Conscience in the scriptorium, for a time at least….Second, both manuscripts use the same exemplar for most of their text of the poem, diverging only for ll. 3784-4620, with Simeon the one to change exemplars. Third, to judge from the order of contents in this part of each manuscript and from the error in Simeon that puts the title to the Pricke of Conscience at the end of Speculum Vite, one can feel pretty certain that Vernon was the model for Simeon, but that Simeon was not just a copy of Vernon.677

The first of these exemplars, he suggests, was close to BL, MS Harley 1205 (copied by the Rylands Scribe); the second was a related copy, but possibly further from the original.678 Thus, it appears to be the case that at least two of the northern texts included in Vernon and Simeon are closely related to copies first produced by the Rylands Scribe in Lichfield, a scribe whose works also circulated amongst the canons of Lichfield.

These connections suggest a close relationship between the copying of the PoC and the works of Rolle in Lichfield and the copying of the massive compendia of the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts. But rather than contradicting the work of Doyle, Kerby-Fulton and others, this Lichfield connection allows us to fill in some of the gaps in respect to how these exemplars were obtained and who might have supplied the financial resources to create such a massive

676 Hanna, “Origins and Production of Westminster School MS. 3,” 38, and Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, 214. 677 Lewis, “The Relationship of the Vernon and Simeon Texts,” 259. 678 Ibid. Note, also, that Lewis and McIntosh in the Descriptive Guide suggest that BL, MS Harley 1205 was the original exemplar for the subgroup.

224 compendium. Doyle remarks that Vernon and Simeon would have required a large collection of vernacular manuscripts, the procurement of which would have required “a very wide knowledge of existing religious literature, old and new.”679 Similarly, as Kerby-Fulton argues, one of the biggest stumbling blocks to identifying the intended audience of Vernon and Simeon is economic:

Bordesley was far from a wealthy house, and for a smaller community like Stoneleigh, Vernon and Simeon together would have cost half its annual income. The [economic] problem is eliminated, however, if we imagine a wealthy patron from outside the community, perhaps one whose arms would have filled the outline of a small shield that dangles from the bottom of the border decoration at the opening of the manuscript’s second section (see fol. 105rv).680

If we imagine that the production of Vernon and Simeon may have been related to the copying in Lichfield, then a possible patron presents himself: Richard Scrope, Bishop of Lichfield and Chester from 1386 to 1398, or one of the Cambridge-educated clerks who were part of his circle. Although Hughes suggested Scrope as a possible patron in 1988, and Catto further supported this position in 2011 when he argued “it is tempting to speculate that [Vernon] was made to be consulted at Lichfield Cathedral, about 1395, at the instigation of bishop Richard Scrope,” few scholars have investigated the connection in any detail and Wendy Scase does not investigate it in her chapter on “The Patronage of the Vernon Manuscript.”681 In the following section, I will briefly summarize Scrope’s career to show his potential interest in a textual project of this sort.

3.2.3.1 Richard Scrope and the Possible Patronage of Vernon and Simeon

Born about 1350, Richard Scrope was the third son of Henry Scrope, first Baron Scrope of Masham. A careerist by nature, educated first in Oxford and afterwards in Cambridge where he served as Chancellor in 1378, Scrope rose quickly through the Church hierarchy, proving himself to be an able administrator and a talented man of letters. During his early years, he and a number of northern clerks educated at Cambridge, primarily at Peterhouse, were employed in the

679 Doyle, “The Shaping of the Vernon and Simeon Manuscripts,” 6. 680 Kerby-Fulton, Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts, 300. 681 Catto, “1349-1412: Culture and History,” 126. Wendy Scase suggests the Beauchamp family as the most likely patrons in “The Patronage of the Vernon Manuscript.”

225 diocesan administration by Thomas Arundel, then the Bishop of Ely—the same Arundel who would implement the Constitutions in 1409, which curtailed the creation of some questionable works of vernacular theology.682 Although Arundel was for some time regarded by scholars as a draconian censurer of vernacular theology, nevertheless, for the majority of his career, he attempted to “outface the attraction of the Lollards” by promoting orthodox texts such as the PoC.683 In 1410, for example, Arundel officially approved Nicholas Love’s Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ, a text which explicitly countered Lollardy. Aston suggests there are enough links between Arundel, Mount Grace and Nicholas Love for it to “seem plausible that the archbishop might have sponsored the production of the book.”684 Hughes argues that the connection between Arundel and Nicholas Love, prior of the Yorkshire charterhouse at Mount Grace may have formed when Arundel spent time in York between 1408 and 1411.685 Like Scrope, many members of Arundel’s Ely circle would continue to be supporters of pastoral care and vernacular theology throughout the following fifty years, and several of them can be associated with Scrope’s tenure in Lichfield and York. One such member, for example, was John Newton, who took orders and was ordained a priest by Arundel in 1380. He then followed the usual path of ecclesiastical careerism under the patronage of Arundel, serving in Staffordshire, Northamptonshire, and Lincolnshire. He would later go on to amass impressive personal libraries in the counties of York and Durham, and often entertained his own circle of scholars and theologians.686 Newton apparently owned Cambridge, Emmanuel College, MS 35, a manuscript containing various texts of Rolle and Bonaventure, as well as Honorius of Autun’s Cognitio vitae, which he may have corrected with one of Rolle’s original manuscripts.687 Another possible member of Arundel’s circle was the author Walter Hilton, a clerk of Lincoln in 1371, who served in the Ely consistory court in Cambridge in 1375. Hilton attempted to live as a hermit for some

682 Cf. Watson, “Censorship and Cultural Change.” 683 Catto, “1349-1412: Culture and History,” 124. 684 Aston, Faith and Fire: Popular and Unpopular Religion, 1350-1600, 82. Opinions differ as to the nature of Arundel’s connection with the book. See, for example, Doyle, “Reflections on Some Manuscripts of Nicholas Love’s Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ,” 82-93 and Hudson, Premature Reformation, 437-440. 685 Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, 186. 686 Friedman, Northern English Books, 203. 687 Hughes, “The Administration of Confession,” 105.

226 time before he eventually settled for membership as an Augustinian canon.688 In the late 1380s, Hilton wrote a number of texts including the Epistola de Leccione, Intencione, Oracione, Meditacione et Aliis, the brief treatise in English Of Angels' Song, as well as his major work, the Scale of Perfection. It is also possible that Hilton translated the popular Latin text Stimulus amoris into English under the name The Prickynge of Love (both of which appear in Vernon and Simeon).689

In 1382 Richard Scrope was instituted Dean of Chichester, and four years later on 18 August, 1386 he became Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield. He would serve in Lichfield for thirteen years before being translated to York in 1398. Scrope, like many in his extended family, must have had an avid interest in northern devotional and didactic texts. His uncle Geoffrey Scrope, a canon of Lincoln in 1381, left a book of devotion to John Bautre, a vicar choral of York Minster, and a copy of a manuscript entitled Hostienses to Richard Scrope himself in 1384.690 His nephew Henry Lord Scrope of Masham, owned an autographed volume of Rolle’s works as well as a copy of the PoC. Richard Scrope may well have met Margaret Kirkby when he was rector of Ainderby in Richmondshire from 1367 to 1376, when Margaret was a recluse there.691 His family had been her early patrons. Geoffrey Scrope bequeathed twenty shillings to an anchoress of Hampole in 1382 who may well have been Margaret Kirkby.692 Hughes suggests that Scrope introduced Rolle’s works to the clerks of Arundel’s circle.693

When Scrope assumed the bishopric of Lichfield and Coventry, he would have surrounded himself with a household of clerks, many of whom were educated at Cambridge and several of whom he brought with him to York in 1398, including John Gylby, Thomas Hilton, and his precentor at Lichfield Cathedral, Robert Wolveden. Clerks such as Gylby, Hilton and Wolveden, as I have noted earlier, were the sort of men who would have actively read and used northern

688 Ellis and Fanous, “1349-1412: Texts,” 145. 689 Cf. Hanna, The Index of Middle English Prose, xiv. 690 Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, 203. Cf. Thompson, “The Registers of the Archdeaconry of Richmond, 1361- 1442.” 691 Margaret Kirkby held a cell in the Ainderby churchyard in 1357, and lived there until she relocated to Hampole in around 1381. Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, 87. 692 Stokes and Bragg, Market Harborough Records, 50. 693 Hughes, Pastors and Visionaries, 203.

227 devotional and didactic books. Upon the death in 1414 of John Newton, a residentiary canon of the York Chapter, John Gylby would preside as executor with Thomas Haxey, King’s Clerk, over the transfer of at least seventy books—forty on law and the rest theology, scriptural commentaries, and the didactic works of northerners like Hoveden, Rolle, and Rymington—in order to found the York Minster Library.694 It was also likely the members of Scrope and Arundel’s clerical circles who arranged to have Rolle’s texts copied and translated systematically “into a larger literary world in which texts were scrutinized, licensed, and proliferated systematically for the edification of a sophisticated and independent-minded laity.”695

In many ways, then, as both Hughes and Catto have argued, Scrope represents an ideal candidate to patronize the production of manuscripts of the northern vernacular religious verse.696 His family had long been involved in the patronage of the works of Richard Rolle, and he himself had long been a vigorous proponent of pastoral care and a supporter of orthodox vernacular texts, a point that fits well with Heffernan’s speculation that Vernon and Simeon were produced “as a concerted response to the religious controversy of the period.”697 David Lawton and Susanna Fein have echoed this sentiment.698 Scrope’s connection with Thomas Arundel might also explain Doyle’s note that on f. 1 of the Simeon manuscript the name “Joan Bohun” appears in a small hand. Joan Bohun was Thomas Arundel’s sister and the wife of Humphrey Bohun, a man whose family, Staley suggests, patronized much of the manuscript art of the period.699 Further to this, Joan Bohun has links with a number of religious volumes: her death is noted in the Luttrell Psalter; she may have owned Oxford, New College, MS 65, an Anglo-Norman apocalypse; and Thomas Hoccleve even translated for her the verse “Complaint of the Virgin.”700 One possible

694 Friedman, Northern English Books, 205. 695 Ibid., 114-5. 696 Cf. Catto, “1349-1412: Culture and History,” 135. Hughes argues that the attribution of the unified text of the Form of Living and Ego Dormio in Vernon to “quodam notabile Ricardi Rolle hermite” suggests an “informed ancestry within the region that Rolle lived”; consequently, he suggests Scrope as a possible patron in Pastors and Visionaries, 186. 697 Heffernan, “Orthodoxies’ Redux,” 79. 698 Cf. Lawton, “Englishing the Bible,” 448 and Fein, “Example to the Soulehele,” 193-4. 699 Staley, Languages of Power, 257. Doyle, introduction to the Vernon Facsimile, 15-16. Cf. Sandler, The Lichtenthal Psalter . 700 Cf. Jambeck, “Patterns of Women’s Literary Patronage: England, 1200-ca. 1475,” 236-37.

228 explanation of the production of the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts is that Vernon was produced, either for use in Lichfield as Catto speculates, or simply using the resources of Lichfield for a monastic house elsewhere, possibly in Worcestershire.At the same time, Simeon, the smaller sister volume, may have been copied using the same exemplars, materials, scribes and decorators, for use by Joan Bohun in her widowhood.

Scase pursues a secondary connection with both Joan Bohun and Thomas Arundel. She connects the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts with the possible patronage of the Beauchamp family.701 The Beauchamp family was well-connected with Thomas Arundel and with the Bohuns. Joan Fitzalan, wife of William Beauchamp, was the daughter of Richard Fitzalan, third earl of Arundel and eighth earl of Surrey (Thomas Arundel’s brother) and she was the granddaughter of William de Bohun, earl of Northampton. As Scase argues, William Beauchamp and his family also shared the “interests, ideological leanings, background, connections, and associations” which fulfill “the conditions for the patronage and production necessary for Vernon.”702 This interconnected network of families interested in vernacular texts, including career ecclesiasts and members of noble households, suggests that we ought to expand the scope of our inquiry beyond a Cistercian house to include a broader spectrum of possible patrons.

I want to conclude by suggesting, then, that one way of regarding the production of the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts was as a deliberate act of canonization, in which materials were selected and replicated in two lavishly decorated books in order to elevate the status of the texts contained within in the same way that the Ellesmere Canterbury Tales, copied by a single scribe and decorated with a series of illustrations, appears to canonize Chaucer’s most famous text. Such a gesture—which Heffernan recognizes in Vernon as “an attempt to give pride of place to the hallowed traditions of orthodoxy in the vernacular”703—would have been a powerful signal that some vernacular religious texts had achieved a high status, enshrined as they were within this “monument to semi-popular religious literature of the Middle English period.”704

701 See, Scase, “The Patronage of the Vernon Manuscript,” esp. 288-292. 702 Ibid., 293. 703 Heffernan, “Orthodoxies’ Redux,” 79. 704 Blake, “Vernon Manuscript,” 59.

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4 Conclusions

This chapter confirms the argument made by Hanna and others that Lichfield constituted a major site of the production of northern vernacular religious texts, of which the PoC appears to have been a particularly popular example. It may be the case that we have a model of production similar, in some respects, to the production of northern religious vernacular manuscripts in Ripon in that these manuscripts could have been copied predominantly by canons, vicars or chaplains associated with Lichfield Cathedral. Nevertheless, there is a substantially greater “porousness” to the Lichfield cluster of manuscripts. While a number of manuscripts seem to have been copied in a Lichfield or Staffordshire area dialect within the cluster, others are from various areas in the central or Southwest Midlands. What I posit, then, is that a certain portion of the copying may have been centralized in Lichfield itself, and may have attracted scribes from the area or, alternately, that exemplars may have simply traveled or been transmitted to other areas of the country. For example, the Grosseteste Subgroup—spread across Worcester, Gloucester and Somerset—offer an example of a northern text travelling beyond regional boundaries.

Further to this, we can see the production of manuscripts of the PoC as part of a complex process of canonization in which scribes and their patrons selected texts and then replicated them in a variety of ways which marked them as important cultural objects. In both Ripon and Lichfield, the earliest stages of copying show more willingness on the part of scribes to rewrite, edit or amend their texts, while the later stages of copying tend to be primarily duplicative, in which the layout, lineation, and mise-en-page were preserved. This tendency toward duplicative copying, in turn, created a set of expectations about what a text might look like, a process also evident in the copying of manuscripts of Langland, Gower, and Lydgate. In Lichfield, we can also see at work a process of upgrading in which some later copies appear to be more ornately decorated than some earlier copies upon which they may have been based. We might then understand this process of upgrading as a dynamic interplay between the recognized increased prestige of the text and attempts to make the text appear more prestigious. The greatest example of this sort of textual canonization can be seen in the making of the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts, two of the most lavish and important anthologies of Middle English religious verse to survive.

The PoC was one of England’s first truly national texts, a text surviving in substantial numbers and representing a wide range of English dialects. Although, like many northern vernacular

230 religious texts, it may have been first conceived of and promoted as a regional text, circulating predominantly in Yorkshire, nevertheless, the text was translated into a less regionally distinct dialect in Lichfield where it proliferated, copied by secular clerks and professional scriveners for a range of patrons which likely included the canons of the cathedral. This production of multiple copies of a text in turn enabled the dissemination of the text to an increasingly broad audience. Returning to Mooney and Stubbs’s assertion that Chaucer might be considered the “Father of English Literature” because his works were among those of his generation “produced in sufficient numbers to reach a wider audience,” we can begin to see how the PoC might offer a parallel model for creation of a national literary culture. This chapter, then, extends my critique of Hanna’s claim that vernacular texts, in contrast with Latin texts, had “no single literary canon and, consequently, no single set of institutions to stimulate literary activity and to mandate various forms of more or less standardized manuscript production.”705 The vast majority of medieval literary canons—Latin, French and Middle English—were continually engaged in a process of selection and adjustment, reproduction and modification as they responded to the needs of their local audiences. Consequently, we ought not to imagine that the fourteenth and fifteenth century ever produced a single national literary culture; rather, the production of texts and books was invigorated by the interpenetration of paradigms, by the collaboration of scribes and patrons, and by the inherent porousness of communities of readers and writers.

705 Hanna, “Miscellaneity and Vernacularity,” 47.

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Concluding Thoughts

This dissertation has drawn together a number of existing strands of thought in scholarship— booklet theory, the importance of miscellaneity, and the renewed focus on the identification of scribal hands and networks of manuscript production—to broaden our understanding of the contexts from which Middle English manuscripts arose in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries and to shed light upon a number of texts that have been frequently ignored in literary studies to date. My work has developed in important ways from the research of other scholars, particularly that of Ralph Hanna III and Christopher Cannon. In undertaking this research, I have asked how manuscripts might add to a literary history that is often discussed in terms of texts and not books, and in doing so, I have aimed to begin to address the relationship between Middle English literature and the work of writers in other insular languages of this period, Latin and Anglo-Norman or Anglo-French; to see the production of Middle English manuscripts as intrinsically linked to the production of a host of other kinds of manuscripts; to see manuscript codicology and literary form in conversation; and to trace the networks of production which gave rise to England literary culture through the analysis of dialect, handwriting, codicology and marks of provenance. When undertaking research of this sort one is always struck by the immensity of the task at hand and the monumental amount of work still to be done. My research has only confirmed this for me.

My concluding remarks focus on three particular areas that my dissertation has addressed, that I plan to focus on in my continuing post-doctoral research. First, my dissertation has, I hope, begun to contextualize the forces which transformed the isolated, singular and irregular production of Middle English literature in the early fourteenth century to the continuous and organized production associated with the corpus of well-recognized authors such as John Lydgate, Thomas Hoccleve and Geoffrey Chaucer in the fifteenth century. At the same time, I have aimed to provide examples of the way in which Middle English texts were produced in the

232 fifteenth century beyond that corpus of well-recognized literary authors. In studying several of the many surviving manuscripts and fragments of the Prick of Conscience, I was struck by the wealth of data yet to be processed. The study of scribes producing Middle English manuscripts has been hampered by the difficulty of accessing archival materials, comparing the data obtained from medieval manuscripts (for example, the use of certain scripts or layout), and by a dependence on the “paleographic eye”—that is, the exposure to a sufficient number of sample manuscripts that allows the palaeographer to recognize patterns instinctually. Work by scholars such as the late Malcolm Parkes, A.I. Doyle, Linne R. Mooney, Estelle Stubbs and Simon Horobin has done much in recent decades to formalize the processes by which palaeographers identify features of certain scribal hands.706 New technology has made those processes more widely applicable, by more scholars. An increasing number of manuscripts have been made available in digital form. Recent projects like the AHRC-funded “Late Medieval English Scribes” project completed in 2011 and the Mellon Foundation-funded collaboration “Manuscript Studies in an Interoperable Digital Environment”707 for which I have served as a research assistant have benefited from the increased digitization of manuscripts, and from the development of electronic tools that make comparison of the features of manuscripts easier—for example tools for the annotation of images of manuscripts (Drew University’s Digital MappaeMundi tool) or the transcription of manuscript texts (Saint Louis University’s TPEN). These projects have employed a similar methodology to that pioneered by Parkes, Doyle, and

706 A selection of the research which has produced this methodology includes M. B. Parkes’s English Cursive Book Hands 1250-1500, which documents and provides examples of the palaeography of English scribes; also Their Hands Before Our Eyes and Pages from the Past which provide further details about the context for scribal production. Doyle’s works include several notable studies of book ownership and production including “'Book Production by the Monastic Orders in England,” “English Books In and Out of Court from Edward III to Henry VI” and “'The English Provincial Book Trade before Printing” as well as numerous articles and books addressing individual manuscripts or corpuses. Mooney, Stubbs and Horobin have developed more detailed methods of profiling scribes. For the identification of hands, see Mooney, “Professional Scribes?” in New Directions in Medieval Manuscript Studies and see Horobin’s elaboration on the techniques associated with identification in “The Criteria for Scribal Attribution: Reconsidered.” The “Late Medieval English Scribes” projects, directed by Mooney, Stubbs, and Horobin, provides detailed breakdowns of the individual letterforms of important medieval scribes. This project has led to several important identification, many of which have been published in Mooney and Stubbs, Scribes and the City. 707 Two of the stated goals of the “Manuscript Studies in an Interoperable Digital Environment” project are to utilize and refine new digital technologies and, by doing so, to investigate a collection of digitized images or document image. As such, the project has allowed a series of research projects to test and shape the development of tools. This form of research, which emphasizes the collaboration across institutional and disciplinary lines has been particularly fruitful and speaks to a new model for scholarship within the field.

233 others: that is, the in-depth study of individual manuscripts—these days often by way of digital images—as well as a broader heuristic study and comparison of a large corpus of related manuscripts. One of my objectives has been to show that just as such projects as “Late Medieval English Scribes” have begun to clarify the relationships between the people who produced late medieval Middle English texts by major authors such as Chaucer and Lydgate, so too can those methodologies generate insights into the production of Middle English text outside of that corpus.

I believe that much work remains to be done profiling scribal hands and comparing other evidence of manuscript producers’ practices in the case of understudied texts such as the South English Legendary and the Prick of Conscience. But if we understand Middle English manuscript production as an extension of manuscript production in other languages, then I would argue we must gather and compare more manuscript evidence for corpuses of texts in those languages as well. Scholars have been slower to identify the hand of scribes who copied in all three languages (or mainly in Latin or French): in part because the disciplinarity of many universities privileges the study of English texts and in part because many of the criteria upon which we identify scribal hands (dialect, script, etc.) are not consistent when a scribe writes in more than one language. This is one gap in scholarship I hope to pursue in the future. The study and comparison of features of manuscripts containing texts in languages other than English will allow for more analysis of trends—chronological, geographical, palaeographical, art historical— in medieval book production. This, in turn, will provide scholars with data to better contextualize evidence of changing orthography, the influence of regional dialects, the practice of multilingual code-switching and translation and the development of new artistic and scribal schools.

As codicological research of the kind I am advocating above continues to reveal networks underpinning the production of manuscripts in Middle English, Latin and Anglo-Norman, it is also important that we use the data generated to continue to enliven our literary readings of texts. In this dissertation, I have touched upon the subject of “literariness” through the work of scholars such as Cannon and Treharne who, though they disagree at points, both argue that we ought to re-evaluate the process by which we have excluded certain works from literary history. But if we believe that the study of Middle English literary culture is (or could be) a study both of texts and of books, then another line of inquiry is opened up: the potential intersection between traditional “formal-literary” elements of a text and “formal-codicological” elements of a manuscript—or in

234 the words of D. F. McKenzie, study of how “forms effect meaning.”708 The recent turn to “new formalism” in critical theory—a term I use broadly and with the recognition that there is at this point in time no single school of new formalism—offers the potential to energize this line of inquiry.709 In a 2009 article co-written with Peter Buchanan, I identify a number of scholars whose work addresses how literary form and the manuscript history of medieval English texts might intersect. This article was written as a summary of new directions in the field introduced at the 2009 Conference on Editorial Problems organized by Alexandra Gillespie and held at the University of Toronto. My thinking continues to be indebted to many of the scholars who presented there, including D. Vance Smith, Martha Rust, Jessica Brantley, Daniel Wakelin, Simon Horobin and others.710 Their work, taken in aggregate, acknowledges a dynamic interaction between codicological and literary innovations, whereby book technologies influenced literary patterns, and, in turn, literary patterns affected the production and alteration of books.711 The study of this dynamic interaction offers an exciting method for contextualizing the book within late medieval culture; this will be a second area important to my post-doctoral research.

Finally, I want to turn to a figure who has both been a touchstone throughout this dissertation and, simultaneously, oddly absent: Geoffrey Chaucer. In my Introduction I suggested that we ought to re-examine what we mean by “national” literary culture and, necessarily, one aspect of this re-examination requires us to consider the role of Chaucer as the titular “Father of English Literature” and England’s first national poet laureate. My purpose has not been to unseat Chaucer from his place at the centre of the medieval and modern literary canon: rather my goal

708 McKenzie, Bibliography and the Sociology of Texts, 13. Here, my approach to the relationship between the form of texts and the form of books has developed out of a graduate class on the “Medieval Vernacular Book” which I took under the guidance of Professor Alexandra Gillespie. 709 Marjorie Levinson notes upon reviewing several essays expressing “new formalisms” the tendency to “promote either a methodological pluralism or advise the recovery of one particular method, sidelined or disparaged in current critical practice....The central work of the movement as a whole is rededication,” with an emphasis on generating “commitment to and community around the idea of form” (561). 710 Several of these papers have been expanded and included in a recent special edition (issue 47) of The Chaucer Review edited by Alexandra Gillespie and Arthur Bahr. Their co-written essay “Medieval English Manuscripts: Form, Aesthetics, and the Literary Text” offers a very good introduction to the scholarly questions central to this line of inquiry. 711 We can see traces of this argument in, for example, Pamela Robinson’s claim regarding the circulation of rolls that “the constraints of format conditioned literary structure” (“The Format of Books,” 43).

235 has been to extend that canon in order to understand how the same processes which supported the rise of Chaucer’s texts also supported the rise of other texts in other places. One way of doing this, I have found, is to question, as Michael Sargent suggests we should, the “teleological narrative of the eventual ‘success’ or ‘failure’ of an author or text.”712 The making of a literary canon is a competitive process, but also a process that inevitably admits some level of randomness, as the right conjunction of forces aligns to propel a text into the limelight. We would do well to remember that even texts which lacked the long-term success of the Canterbury Tales, for instance, offer alternative entry points into examining England’s literary culture when studied in their own moment. These alternative entry points have their own subtle complexities and their own rewards for pursuit. One goal of my thesis has been to show that the study of these texts will broaden our notions of England’s literary culture. I also think such work could provide new depth to the study of texts traditionally understood to be at the centre of that culture.

The French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie once remarked that there were two kinds of historians: parachutists and truffle hunters. The parachutist observes the grand vista from a distance while the truffle hunter keeps his nose close to the ground in search of elusive morsels.713 In this dissertation, I have found myself in the position of needing both sets of skills; my study synthesizes research upon a fairly substantial collection of manuscripts, produced over a period of more than one hundred years and written in several languages. I have also engaged in very minute examination of the features of some of these manuscripts. In so doing, I have sought to lay the groundwork for an even larger and more in-depth study of Middle English non- Chaucerian literature in its manuscript contexts, and to make apparent the real need for such study at this juncture in the field of medieval English literary history and manuscript studies.

712 Sargent, “What Do the Numbers Mean,” 222. 713 Cf. Le Roy Ladurie, Times of Feast.

236

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Appendix Transcriptions of MSS Lm, C, N, Wh

St. Alphege, ll. 39-116 MS Lm MS C MS N ¶Vor sein donston was longe ded . and after him oþer Ffor sein donston was longe ded . & after him oþer þre[o] Ffor sein donston was longe ded . and after him oþer þreo þreo Er the bissops of kanterbury . as oure louerd it wold Erche bissop of kanterburi . ar oure louerd it wolde bise[o] Erchebissops of kanterburi . ar oure louerd it wolde biseo biseo At þo nolde oure louerd noleng . þat it bileued were Ac þo nolde oure louerd no leng . þat hit bileued were Ac þo nolde oure louerd no leng . þat þis bileued were Seint alphe was þo Imad . erche bissop þere Seint alphe was þo ymad . erche bissop þere Seint alphe was þo Imad . erchebissop þere For ichose he was of al þe lond . and of þe pope also Ffor ichose he was of al þat lond . & of þe pope also Ffor ichose he was of al þat lond . and of þe pope also And suþþe of þe pope of rome . Isacred he was þerto And suþþe of þe pope of Rome . isacred he was þerto And suþþe of þe pope of rome . Isacred he was þerto ¶ Erchebissop he was Imad . a þousand ȝer riȝt ¶ Erche bissop he was ymaked a þousond ȝer riȝt ¶ Erche bissop he was Imad . a þousond ȝer riȝt And sixe after þat oure louerd . inis moder was aliȝt And sixe after þat oure louerd . inis moder was aliȝt And sixe after þat oure louerd . inis moder was aliȝt And archebissop of kanterburi . six ȝer he was and And erchebissop of kanterburi . sixȝer he was & more And erchebissop of kanterburi . six ȝer he was and more more Þo tonge ne may telle al . is wisdom ne is lore No tonge ne may telle . al is wisdom ne his lore No tonge ne mai telle al . is wisdom ne is lore ¶ So þat in þe seueþe ȝer . þat he þuder com ¶ So þat in þe seueþe ȝer. þat he þuder com ¶ So þat in þe seueþe ȝer . þat he þuder com Þe luþer prince of denmarch . gret poer wiþ him nom Þe luþer prince of denmarch . gret poer wiþ him nom Þe luþer prince of denmarch . gret poer wiþ him nom And wende home here into engelond . as hy dude er And wende hom her into engelond . as hi dude er ilome And wende hom her into engelond . as hi dude er ilome ilome Vor deneis and men of engelond . selde beoþ Isome Ffor deneis and men of engelond . selde beoþ ysome Ffor deneis and men of engelond . selde beoþ ysome ¶ Þo þis luþer prince and is men . to engelonde come Þo þis luþer prince & is . men to englonde come ¶ Þo þis luþer prince and is men . to englonde come Hy barnde and robbede alto gronde . & heie men nome Hy barnde & robbede alto gronde . & heiemen nome Hy barnde and robbede alto gronde . & heiemen nome Þo þis luþer prince and is men . to engelond come Þo þis luþer prince & is men . to engelonde come Hy barnde and robbede alto gronde . and heie men nom Hy barnde & robbede al to gronde . & heiemen nome ¶ Þe kyng aþeldred was þo kyng . of engelonde ¶ Þe king aþeldred was þo king . of engelonde [Þe king aþeldred was þo kyng . of engelonde] So simple he was and so milde . þat he nolde aȝen him So simple he was & so milde . þat he nolde aȝen him stonde [So simple he was and so milde . þat he nolde aȝen him stonde stonde]

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He was seint Edwardes broþer . þat is mode wiþ He was seint edwardes broþer . þat is moder wiþ outrage He was seint edwardes broþer . þat is moder wiþ oute rage outrage Let martri for is loue . to wynne him þe eritage . Let martri for is loue . to wynne him þe heritage Let martri for is loue . to winne him þe eritage And he was eke seint edwardes fader . þat kyng was And he was ek seint edwardes fader . þat king was suþþe also And he was ek seint Edwardes fader . þat kyng was suþþe suþþe also also And at westmistre was ibured . and in ssrine ido Þat at westmustre was ibured . & in ssrine ido Þat at westmustre was Ibured . and in ssrine ido ¶ Þe king aþeldred was so milde . and so hard lyf nom . ¶ Þe king aþeldred was so milde . & so hard lif nom ¶ Þe king aþeldrid was so milde . and so hard lif nom Vor is broþer was aslawe . for is kynedom . Vor is broþer was aslawe .for is kynedom Ffor is broþer was aslawe . for is kynedom Þat he ne tok bote lite ȝeme . of þe worles prute Þat he ne tok bote lite ȝeme . of þe worles prute Þat he ne tok bote lite ȝeme . of þe worles prute þei me sede him of eny werre . he tolde þerof lute Þei me sede him of eny werre . he tolde þerof lute Þei ^me^ sede him of eny werre . he tolde þerof lute Of bataille he nolde noþing do . bote held him euere Of bataile he nolde noþing do . bote huld him euere stille Of bataile he nolde noþing do . bote huld him euere stille stille Þeruore hadde þe deneis . In engelond hore wille Þeruore hadde þe denys . into engelond hore wille Þeruore hadde þe denis . in engelond hare wille ¶ Kyrtel was þe prince ihote . þat was þo of deneis ¶ Kyrkel was þe prince ihote . þat was þo of deneis ¶ Kircel was þe prince ihote . þat was þo of deneis Hider he com wel sterneliche . and broȝte lite peis Hider he com wel sturneliche . and broȝte lite peis Hider he com wel sterneliche . and broȝte lite peis Ouer al ware he wende aboute . he broȝte al to schame Ouer al ware he wende aboute . he broȝte al to ssame Ouer al ware he wende aboute . he broȝte alto ssame Is broþer was ma^i^ster of is ost . Edric was is name His broþer was maister of is ost . edrik was is name Is broþer was maister of is ost . edrik was is name He let edrik is broþer . to kanterburi fare He let is broþer edrik . to kanterburi vare [folio lost] And sle and robby þat he founde . and þe stretes make And sle and robby þat hy fonde . & þe stretes make bare bare Ac þe men of kanterburi . somdel were iware Ac þe men of kanterburi . somdel were iware So þat ope is owe heued . hy broȝte þe meste care So þat up is owe heued . hy broȝte þe meste care ¶ He cudde þat hi were of herte . and slowe him anon Hi cudde þat hi were of herte . & slowe him anon And to gronde slowe eke al is men . þat hi miȝte of gon And to gronde slowe ek al is men . þat hi miȝte of gon So þat to kirkil þe prince . þe tyþinge sone com So þat to kirkel þe prince . þe tiþinge sone com Þat is broþer was aslawe . gret deol to him he nom Þat is broþer was aslawe . gret deol to him nom ¶ To kanterburi he wende anon . and bisette þane toun ¶ To kanterburi he wende anon . & bisette þene toun faste faste Þe toun men þei hi hardy were . somdel were agaste Þe toun þei hi hardi were . somdel were agaste So þat kirkil þe luþer prince . wan hom attelaste So þat kirkil þe luþer prince . wan hom attelaste Hore gynnes and hore strengþe also . sone by neþe he Hore gynnes and hore stregþe also . sone bineþe he caste caste To noȝt he barnde al þane toun . & to gronde þat folk To noȝt he brende al þen toun . & to gronde þat folk slou slou

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Þe erchebissop seint alphe . sory was Inou Þe erche bissop seint alphe . sori was Inou ¶ He wende him uorþ wel baldeliche . in oure louerdes He wende him forþ wel baldeliche . in oure louerdes name name . And bad for þe selymen . þat me broȝte to ssame And bad for þe selymen . þat me broȝte to ssame And profrede is owe lyf . forto ȝiue for hore And propherede is owe lyf . forto ȝiue for hore Þo þis luþer men hom hadde Inome . ioyuol hy were Þo þis luþer him hadde Inome . ioiuol hi were þeruore þeruore ¶ Hy nome verst þis holyman . and suþþe slou to ¶ Hy nome verst þis holyman . & suþþe slou to gronde gronde Is monkes and is oþer men . alle þat hy fonde His monkes & is oþer men . alle þat hy fonde Þe my ministre also of kanterburi . hy robbede attelaste Þe ministre also of kanterburi . hi robbede attelaste And suþþe hy nome þis holyman . & bounde him wel And suþþe hi nome þis holyman . & bond him vaste faste And ladde him to grenewich . and þere hi helde him And ladde him to grenewich . & þere hi hulde him longe longe þe half ȝer and somdel more . in prison swuþe stronge Half a ȝer and somdel more . in prison swuþe stronge Þreo mile it is bi este londone . þe toun of grenewich Þreo mile it is bi este londone . þe toun of grenewich So longe he lay in prison þer . þat he nas noman illich So longe he lay in prison þer . þat he nas noman illich ¶ As þis holyman in prison lay . as he longe hadde ido ¶ As þis holyman in prison lay . as he lange hadde ido Þe friniȝt in þe ester wyke . þe deouel com him to Þe fri niȝt in þe ester wike . þe deuel com him two =diabolus

Alphe he sede wel þou beo . to þe ich am iwend Alphe he sede wel þe be[o] . to þe ich am iwend An angel ich am of heuene . fram oure louerd isend An angel ich am of heuene . fram oure louerd isend He nis noȝt ipaid he sende þe word . þat þou in prison He nis noȝt ipaid he sende þe word . þat þou in prison be[o] beo Ac forto sauy engelond . he wole þat þou fleo Ac forto saui engelond . he wole þat þou fle[o] ¶ For holiore þanne seinte peter . þou ne derst make þe ¶ Ffor holiore þanne seinte peter . þou ne derst þe make noȝt noȝt Þat wende out of prison . as þe angel him hadde ybroȝt Þat wende out of prison . as þe angel him hadde ibroȝt And sein poul by acupe . wende adoun also And sein poul bi an cupe . wende adoun also By a walle þo þe giwes . to deþe him wolde do . Bi a walle þo þe giwes . to deþe him wolde do ¶ And oure louerd wende eke out of þe temple . in & oure louerd wende ek out of þe temple . in hudels alone hudels alone To fleo þe deþ þo þe giwes . hene him walde wiþ stone To fleo þe deþ þo þe giwes . hene him wolde wiþ stone Holiore þanne oure louerd sulf . Inot ware þou wost beo Holiore þanne oure louerd sulf Inot . ware þou wost be[o]

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Þeruore as he þe sent word . hanne þou most fleo Þeruore as he þe send word . hanne þou most fle[o] ¶ Þis holyman iluuede him . & þat oure louerd him ¶ Þis holyman iluued him . & þat oure louerd him þuder þuder sende sende And wiþ him out of prisone . al by niȝte wende And wiþ him out of prisone . al biniȝte wende So þat þe deuel him ladde uorþ . ouer mani a uoul slade So þat þe deuel him ladde uorþ . ouer mani a foul slade Ouer water and ouer oþer . þat al he was by wade Ouer water and ouer oþer . þat al he was biwade ¶ Ouer dich and ouer heeg . and ouer many a uoul slo Ouer dich and ouer heg . and ouer many a uoul slo He harlede þis holymon . þat wel feble was þerto He harlede þis holyman . þat wel feble was þerto

Pilate, ll. 247-262 MS Lm MS N Þo com þer so gret tempeste . þat þer aboute wel wide Þo com þer so gret tempeste . þat þere aboute wel wyde Þat ssipes dreinte manyon . þer aboute in eche side Þat ssipes dreinte manion . þere aboute in eche side ¶ Al þe contreie hadde þerof doute . & nome ham to ¶ Al þe contreie hadde þerof doute . and nome ham to rede rede And into a water al fram men . þis licame gonne lede And into a water al fram men . þis licame gonne lede Bitwe hulles and wildernesse . and þer Inne hi him Bitwene hulles & wildernesse . & þer Inne hi him caste caste Þe þondre smot to him anon . and þe lyȝtynge wel uaste Þe þonder smot to him anon . and þe lyȝtynge wel vaste Þat body flet op and doun . icast here and þere Þat body flet up and doun . icast here and þere Mid weder and tempest of water . þat ech mon hadde Wiþ weder and tempest of water . þat ech mon hadde fere fere ¶ Amidde þe water stod a roch . þo þe licame was þer Amidde þe water stod a roch . þo þe licame was þer Inne ney Þe roch clef amidde atwo . as al þe uolk ysay . omitted And as an arwe sset of abouwe . þat body sset þerInne omitted Þe roch smot to gadere anon . þe body was wiþ Inne Þe roche smot to gadere anon . þe bodi was wiþinne And þe wrecche licame þer liþ ȝute . to þis daye And þe wrecche licame þer liþ ȝute . to þis daie Muche wo þer is ofte aboute . as men ofte isaye Muche wo þer is ofte aboute . as men ofte isaie Þus pilatus endede is lyf . as he wel worþe was Þus pilatus ended is lif . as he wel worþe was God ssulde ech cristenman . fram so deoluol cas God ssulde ech cristenman . fram so deoluol cas

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St. Mary the Egyptian, ll. 1-64 MS Lm MS C MS N SEinte marie egiptiake . In egipte was ybore SEinte marie gipciake . in egipte was ibore / De sancta maria SEinte marie egipciake . In egipte was ibore / De sancto / Egipciaka . maria egipciaka Al hure ȝonge lyf heo ladde . In sunne and in hore Al hure ȝonge lif he[o] ladde . in sunne and in hore Al hure ȝonge lif heo ladde . In sunne and In hore Vnneþe heo was twelf ȝer old . ar he^o^ gonne do folie Vneþe he[o] was twelf ȝer old . ar he[o] gonne do folie Vnneþe heo was twelf ȝer old . ar heo gonne do folie Hure body and al hire wille take . to sunne of lecherie Hure body and al hure wille take . to sunne & lecherie Hure body and al hure wille tok . to sunne and lecherie Her on heo ladde so gret delit . þat in hure owe londe Þer on he[o] hadde so gret delit . þat in hure owe londe Þer on heo hadde so gret delit . þat in hure owe londe Heo ne miȝte noȝt al fol hire wille . þo gan heo vnder He[o] nemiȝte noȝt al fol hure wille . þo gan he[o] vnder Heo ne miȝte noȝt beo al for hure wille . þo gan heo vnder stonde stonde stonde And wende to þe lond of alysandre . and þere wonede And wende to þe lond of elisandre . & þere wonede longe And wende to þe lond of alisandre . and þere wonede longe longe Alle þat wiþ hure sunegi wolde . gladliche heo wolde Alle þat wiþ hure sunegi wolde . gladlich heo wolde auonge Alle þat wiþ hure sunegi wolde . gladliche heo wolde auonge auonge ¶ Heo ne sparede leinte ne oþer tyme . preost ne oþer ¶ He[o] ne sparede leinte ne oþer time . preost ne oþer non ¶ Heo ne sparede leinte ne oþer tyme . prest ne oþer non non Sik ne pouere ne wedded mon . þat heo ne let to hure Sik ne pouere ne wedded mon . þat he[o] ne let to hure gon Sik ne pouere ne wedded mon . þat heo ne let to hure gon gon Men þat none wille nadde . þulke sunne to do Men þat none wille nadde . þulke sunne to do Men þat none wille nadde . þulke sunne to do Wiþ fair wordes and fol semlant . heo broȝte hom þerto Wiþ fair wordes and fol semlant . he[o] broȝte þerto Wiþ faire wordes and fol semlant . heo broȝte hom þerto No mester mon non nas inis mester . so preste ne so No mester mon non nas inis mester . so prest ne so queinte No mester mon non nas inis mester . so prest ne so queinte quointe Þat heo nas to bringe men in sunne . queintore in eche Þat he[o] nas to bringe men in sunne . queintore in ech pointe Þat heo nas to bringe men In sunne . queintore in ech pointe pointe ¶ Heo ne tok for þulke dede . of noman mede ne wynne ¶ He[o] ne tok for þulke dede . of noman mede ne winne ¶ Heo ne tok for þulke dede . of noman mede ne wynne Ffor non ne ssolde for defaute . bileue þe voule sunne Ffor non ne ssolde for defaute . bileue þe voule sunne Ffor non ne ssolde for defaute . bileue þe uoule sunne Oþer mede bote hure voule wille . heo ne wilnede of Oþer mede bote hure voule wille . he[o] ne wilneþ of noman Oþer mede bote hure voule wille . heo ne wilneþ of noman noman Mid spinnynge & mid souwynge . hore lyflode heo won Mid spinnynge & mid souwinge . hure lif lode heo wan Mid spinnynge and mid sowinge . hure lyflode heo iwan It is sunne and ssame to eny mon . to þenche oþer to Hit is sunne & ssame to eny mon . to þenche oþer to wite It is sunne and ssame and sunne to eny man . to þenche ite oþer to wite Þe voule dede & þe wrecche sunne . þat we vyndeþ of Þe voule dede and þe wrecche sunne . þat we vyndeþ of hure Þe foule dede & þe wrecche sunne . þat we findeþ of hure hire iwrite iwrite iwrite ¶ Ffor also heo sede hure sulf . þat ssame it was to hure ¶ Ffor also he[o] sede hure sulf . þat ssame it was to hure ¶ Ffor also heo sede hure sulf . þat ssame it was to hure So muche sunne an eorþe ido . of eny creature So muche sunne an eorþe ido . of eny creature So muche sunne an eorþe ido . of eny creature

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And þat þe eorþe yopened nadde . as heo hire sulf gan And þat þe eorþe yopened nadde . as he[o] hure sulf gan telle And þat þe eorþe yopened nadde . as heo hure sulf gan telle telle And iswolwe as heo ȝeode an eorþe . in to þe put of And iswolwe as heo ȝeode an eorþe . into þe put of helle And iswolwe as heo ȝeode an eorþe . In to þe put of helle helle Such fol lyf heo ladde in alysandre . ȝeres seuentene, Such fol lif heo ladde in alisandre . ȝeres seuentene Such fol lyf heo ladde in alisandre . ȝeres seuentene, Þat so muche vil dede <..> a womman . nas neuere iseie Þat so muche vil dede of a womman . nas neuere iseie ich Þat so muche fil dede of a womman . nas neuere iseie ich ich wene wene wene ¶ Ope aday in haruest <..> as þis womman biheld ¶ Vp a dai in haruest as þis womman . bihuld aboute ¶ Ope aday in haruest . as þis womman bihuld aboute aboute Muche folk heo sey b<..>þe þe wey . and of hom gret Muche volk he[o] sei bi þe wey . & of hom gret route Muche folk heo sei bi þe wei . and of hom gret route route Hure þoȝte heo wa<..> yknewe . in alisandre in ech Hure þoȝte he[o] was so iknowe . in alisandre in ech ende Hure þoȝte heo was so iknowe . in alisandre in ech ende ende ¶ Þe lasse haunt heo hadde of folye . þanne heo wolde Þe lasse hant he[o] hadde of folie . þanne he[o] wolde wende Þe lasse haunt heo hadde of folye . þanne heo wolde wende wende Heo þoȝte among st<..>ge men . so mony as ich yseo He[o] þoȝte amang stronge men . so many as ich ise[o] Heo þoȝte among stnge men . so many as ich iseo Muche ich may of<...>ille habbe . wiþ hom ichelle beo Muche ich may of mi wille habbe . wiþ hom ichelle be[o] Muche ich may of mi wille habbe . wiþ þulke ichelle beo ¶ Among hom heo <....>d esste of hom . wuderward hi Among hom he[o] com & esste of hom . wuderward hi þoȝte Among hom heo com and esste of hom . wuderward hi þoȝte þoȝte Hi seide hy wolde to ierusalem . and þe holy rode hy Hy seide hy wolde to ierusalem . & þe holi rode hi soȝte Hi seide hy wolde to ierusalem . & þe holy rode hy soȝte soȝte Þat ssolde þe holy r<..>e day . ech mon yssowed beo Þat ssolde þe holirode day . echmon issowed be[o] Þat ssolde þe holy rode day . echmon issowed beo And þat mony godeman þuder wolde . to honury þat And þat moni godman þuder wolde . to honuri þat swete And þat moni godman þuder wolde . to honury þat swete swete treo tre[o] treo ¶ Mot ich quaþ þis womman þo . mid ȝou þuder wende ¶ Mot ich quaþ þis womman þo . mid ȝou þuder wende ¶ Mot ich quaþ þis womman þo . mid ȝou þuder wende And of mister þat ich habbe ylerned . Ichelle beo ȝou And of myster þat ich habbe ileorned . ichelle be[o]ȝou prest And of mister þat ich habbe ileorned . Ichelle beo ȝou prest prest & hende & hende & hende ȝe sede on ȝif þ<..> miȝt . aquiti þi ssipes hure ȝe sede on ȝif þou miȝt . aquiti þi ssipes hure ȝede sede on ȝif þou miȝt aquity . þi ssipes hure Oure companie worþ amended muche . of isuch Oure companie worþ amended muche . of a such creature Oure companie worþ amended muche . of a such creature creature Nabbe ich heo sede oþer moneie . bote my sulue her Nabbe ich he[o] sede oþer moneie . bote mi sulue her ¶ Nabbe ich heo sede oþer monie . bote my sulue her ¶ Ichelle beo cor<...>s of þat ich habbe . aȝen þe Ichelle be[o] corteis of þat ich habbe . aȝen þe mariner Ichelle beo corteis of þat ich habbe . aȝen þe mariner mariner To him and to <...> also . Ichelle beo prest and hende To him and to ȝou also . ichelle be[o] prest and hende To him and to ȝou also . Ichelle beo prest and hende Þat it ne ssel ȝou of þenche noȝt . þei ich wiþ ȝou Þat it ne ssel ȝou of þenche noȝt . þei ich wiþ ȝou wende Þat it ne ssel ȝou of þenche noȝt . þei ich wiþ ȝou wende wende ¶ Þis womman wende uorþ wiþ hom . wiþ gret sunne Þis womman wende forþ wiþ hom . wiþ gret sunne alas Þis womman wende forþ wiþ hom . wiþ gret sunne alas alas

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To eche þat wolde do folye . aredy euere heo was To eche þat wolde do folie . and redi euere he[o] was To eche þat wolde do folie . and redy euere heo was ¶ Þo heo com to þe se . atte uerste þinge ¶ Þo he[o] com to þe se . atte ferste þinge ¶ Þo heo com to þe se . atte feorste þinge Þe mariner heo ȝaf al hire body . to lede hure ouer & Þe mariner he[o]ȝaf al hure body . to lede hure ouer & bringe Þe mariner heo ȝaf al hure body to lede hure ouer anbringe brige To þe mariner and to alle his . and to alle oþere þat þer To þe mariner & to alle his . and to alle oþere þat þer were To þe mariner and to alle his . and to alle þat þere were were Prest heo was to sunegy . heo nadde þerof no fere Prest heo was to sungy . he[o] nadde þer of no fere Prest heo was to sunegi . heo nadde þerof no fere Ou Ihesus muche is þi miȝte . muche þoledestou þere Ou ihesus muche is þi miȝte . muche þoledestou þere Ou ihesus muche is þi miȝte . muche þoledestou þere Þat wa<...> oþer ssip hom wolde bere . þat hy adronke Þat water oþer ssip hom wolde bere . þat hi adronke nere Þat water oþer ssip hom wolde bere . þat hi adronke nere nere ȝif en<.> was þat for drede nolde . þulke sunne do ȝyf eny was þat for drede wolde . þulke sunne do ȝif eny was þat for drede nolde . þulke sunne do Mid f<..> semlant and faire wordes . heo broȝte hom Mid fol semlant & faire wordes . he[o] broȝte hom þerto Mid fol semlant and faire wordes . heo broȝte hom þerto þerto ¶ To uore þe holy rode day . to ierusalem heo com ¶ Touore þe holy rode day . to ierusalem he[o] com ¶ To fore þe holy rode day . to ierusalem heo com Alle þat <..> dede wolde do . gladliche heo þer nom Alle þat fol dede wolde do . gladliche he[o] þer nom Alle þat fol dede wolde do . gladliche heo þer nom ¶ Þo þe <..>ly rode day com . þat me ssewede þat swete Þo þe holy rode day com . þat me ssewede þat swete tre[o] ¶ Þo þe holy rode day com . þat me sschowede þat swete treo treo Monymon to þe temple ȝeode . þe swete rode to seo Monymon to þe temple ȝeode . þe swete rode to se[o] Monymon to þe temple ȝeode . þe swete rode to seo Þo <..>rie wiþ oþer was . to þe temple dore icome Þo marie wiþ oþer was . to þe temple dore icome Þo marie wiþ oþer was . to þe temple dore icome Heo ne miȝte a uot þer in wende . hure miȝte hire was He[o] nemiȝte a uot þer Inne wende . hure miȝte hure was Heo ne miȝte a fot þer Inne wende . hure miȝte hure was bynome binome bynome Hure þoȝte wanne heo wolde In gon . þat me hure aȝen Hure þoȝte wanne he[o] wolde In gon . þat me hure aȝen drou Hure þoȝte wan heo wolde In gon . þat me hure aȝen drou drou Vor among al oþere heo stod wiþ oute . of ssamed sore Ffor among al oþere he[o] stod wiþoute . of ssamed sore Inou Ffor among al oþere heo stod wiþ oute . of ssamed sore Inou Inou ¶ Heo ȝeode in estward & hure þoȝte . þat me hure aȝen ¶ He[o] ȝeode In estward & hure þoȝte . þat me hure aȝen ¶ Heo ȝeode In estward and hure þoȝte . þat me hure aȝen pulte pulte pulte Heo wep for ssame and biþoȝte . þat it was for hure He[o] wep for ssame & biþoȝte . þat it was for hure gulte Heo wep for ssame and biþoȝte . þat it was for hure gulte gulte

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St. Bridget, ll. 5-25, 39-59 MS C MS N MS Wh A seruant he hadde inis hous . broksek was hure name A seruaunt he hadde inis hous . broksek was hure name A seruant he hadde inis hous . brocsech was hure name Þis duptak bisoȝte hure . of lecherie and ssame Þis duptak bisoȝte hure . of lecherie and schame Þis duptac bysoȝte hure . of lechorie and ssame On hure he biȝat a child . in spousbruche & wiþ wou On hure biȝat a child . in spousbruche and mid wou On hure he byȝat a child . in spous bruche and wiþ wou Þo is owe wif it underȝet . sori he was Inou Þo is owe wif it vnder ȝet . sory he was Inou Þo is owe wif hit vnder ȝet . sory he was ynou ¶ Mest he[o] dradde hure of þat child . þat it ssolde so ¶ Mest heo dradde of þat child . þat it ssolde so wel iþeo Mest heo dradde hure of þat child . þat hit ssolde so wel wel þe[o] yþe To sourmonte hure owe children . hor maister to be[o] To sormonte hure owe children . hore maister to beo To sormonte hure owe children . hor maister vorto to be Þer uore he[o] cride on hure louerd . to be[o] iwar Þer uore heo cride on hure louerd . to beo iwar byuore Þer uore heo cride on hure louerd . to boe iwar byuore byuore And sulle out of londe þe seruant . ar þat child were And sulle out of londe þe seruant . ar þat child were ybore And sulle out of londe þe seruant . ar þat child were ybore ibore Þe hosebonde nolde it grante noȝt . for he hadde loþ it Þe hosebonde nolde it grante noȝt . for he hadde loþ it do Þe hosebonde nolde it grante noȝt . vor he hadde loþ it do do Þis wif cride niȝt and day . ȝif he[o] miȝte it bringe Þis wyf cride niȝt and day . ȝif heo miȝte it bringe þerto Þis wif cride niȝt and day . ȝyf heo myȝte it bringe þerto þerto So þat it fel þer afterward . þat þis hosebonde So þat it byuel þere afterward . þat þis hosebonde So þat hit fel þer afterward . þat þis hosebonde Wiþ is seruante alone wende . in a cart ouerlonde Wiþ is seruante alone wende . in a cart ouerlonde Wyþ his seruante alone wende . in a cart ouerlonde A chantor was in þulke stude . as were bi olde dawe ¶ A chantor was in þulke stude . as were bi olde dawe ¶ A chantor was þulke stude . as were by olde dawe As oure louerd it wolde . bi is hous þe cart gan euene As oure louerd it wolde bi is hous . þe cart gan euene drawe As our louerd hit wolde by is hous . þe cart gan euene drawe drawe He sat and hurde hou þis cart . bi is gate wende He sat and hurde hou þis cart . bi is gate wende He sat and hurde hou þis cart . by ys gate wende Anon he clupede on of is men . and hasteliche out sende Anon he clupede on of is men . and hasteliche out sende Anon he clupede on of his men . and hasteliche out sende Lokeþ he sede hasteliche . wat þing is þat ich hure Lokeþ he sede hasteliche . wat þing is þat ich hure Lokeþ he sede hasteliche . wat þing is þat ich yhure Vor þe soun of þulke weoles. is vnder a god creature Ffor þe soun of þulke weoles . is vnder agod creature Vor þe son of þulke woeles . is vnder a god creature Þe nobloste creature is . wiþ Inne þulke tre[o] Þe nobloste creature is . wiþ Inne þulke treo Þe nobloste creature . is wiþ Inne þulke tre Þat is nouþe in eny londe . lokeþ wat it be[o] Þat is nouþe In eny londe . lokeþ wat it beo Þat is nouþe in eny londe . lokeþ wat hit beo ¶ Þo ne fonde hi in þis cart . namo bote hom to ¶ Þo ne founde hy in þis cart . namo bote ham two Þo ne fonde hy in þis cart . namo bote hom to

Ffor þis womman ssel a doȝter bere . þat ssine ssel so Ffor þis womman ssel a doȝter bere . þat ssyne ssel so clere Vor þis womman ssal a doȝter bere . þat ssyne ssel so clere clere

245

Amang alle þat an eorþe be[o]þ . in as cler manere Among alle þat on eorþe beoþ . in as cler manere Among alle þat on erþe beþ . in as cler manere As amang alle oþer sterren . þe sonne briȝtore is As amonge alle oþer sterren . þe sonne brittore is As among alle oþer sterren . þe sonne briȝtore is Also ssel he[o] an eorþe ssine. amang oþer men iwis Also ssel heo an eorþe ssyne . among oþer men iwis Also ssel heo an erþe ssyne . among oþer men ywis In a god time he[o] worþ ibore . & wonderliche also In a god tyme heo worþ ibore . and wonderliche also In a god tyme ȝo worþ ybore . and wonderlich also Ffor noþer wiþ Inne hous ne wiþoute . þe dede worþ Ffor noþer wiþ inne hous ne wiþoute . þede worþ ido Vor noþer wiþ inne hous no wiþoute . þe dede worþ ydo ido ¶ Duptak was þo doȝterles . for he nadde neuere none ¶ Duptak was þo doȝter les . for he nadde neuere er none Duptak was þo douterles . uor he <...... >euer er none Ioiuol he was and glad Inou . for he bihet hure one Ioyuol he was and glad Inou . for he bi ȝet hure one Ioyuol he was and glad ynou . uor he bihet hure one Suþþe it biuel þer afterward . þat anoþer enchanteor Suþþe it byuel þer afterward . þat anoþer enchanteor wende Suþþe hit by uel þer after ward . þat an oþer enchanteor wende wende And of duptak boȝte þis seruante . as oure louerd grace And of duptak boȝte þis seruante . as oure louerd grace sende And of duptak boȝte þis seruante . as oure louerd grace sende sende Ffor þe wif nolde neuere fine . ar it were þerto ibroȝt Ffor þe wyf nolde neuere fyne . ar it were þerto ibroȝt Vor þe wyf nolde neuere fine . ar it were þerto ybroȝt Ac þe child þat was in hure wombe . duptak ne solde Ac þe child þat was in hure wombe . duptak ne solde noȝt Ac þe child þat was in hire wombe . duptak <..> solde noȝt noȝt Fforþ he ladde þis womman . þat he hadde dere iboȝt ¶ Fforþ he ladde þis womman . þat he hadde dure iboȝt Vorþ he ladde þis womman <...... >de dere yboȝt And weddede hure as is owe wif . & uolwede is þoȝt And weddede hure as is owe wyf . & folwede is þoȝt ¶ regina And weddede hure as is owe wif . and volwede is þoȝt praegnans ¶ So þat a quene of þe londe gret mid childe was ¶ So þat a quene of þe londe . gret mid childe was So þat a quene of þe londe . gret myd ^wit^ childe was Regina / pronnans & was upe þe point to habbe child . wanne oure louerd And was ope þe point to habbe child . wanne oure louerd ȝaf And was upe þe point to habbe child . wenne oure louerd ȝaf þe cas þe cas ȝef þat cas Of þe chanteor he let of esse . wanne god time were Of þe chanteor he let of esche . wanne god tyme were Of þe chanteor he let of este . wanne god time were ȝif it were ibore þe oþer sede . as mi bok me deþ lere ȝif it were ibore þe oþer sede . as my bok me deþ lere ȝyf hit were ybore þe oþer sede . as my boc me deþ lere In þe morwenynge to morwe . wanne me may þe sonne In þe morwenynge to morwe . wanne me may þe sonne yseo In þe morwenynge to morwe . wanne me may þe sonne yse ise[o] Þer ne ssolde in al þe worlde . þe childes per be[o] Þer ne ssolde in al þe worlde . þe childes per beo Þer ne ssolde in al þe worlde . þe childes þer beo ¶ Þo bad þe quene uaste . þat it moste be[o] þo ibore ¶ Þo bad þe quene faste . þat it moste beo þo ybore ¶ Þo bad þe quene vaste . þat it moste b<..> þo ybore

246

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