Early Modern Editors and the Value of Middle English Literature by Cameron Bryce Burt A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media University of Manitoba Winnipeg Copyright Ó 2019 by Cameron Bryce Burt Burt ii Abstract This study examines the emergence of editorial figures in sixteenth-century editions of Sir Isumbras, Robert Henryson’s Fables, John Lydgate’s Serpent of Division, and Geoffrey Chaucer’s poetry. I argue that the increasing alterity of Middle English texts in the early modern period compelled editorial interventions designed to make the texts accessible as well as to identify, to emphasize, or to establish the texts’ relevance to contemporary audiences. Early editors managed and controlled the contents and appearance of the books in which the older literary texts appeared in order to redefine their value and purpose for a new audience. They accomplished this with practices such as editing the primary text, collecting or contributing paratext, selecting or designing codicological features, as well as through methods I have termed “codicological translation,” “gathering and framing,” and “selective copying and purposeful omission.” By comparing what these editors say they are doing in their prefatory writings to the results of their editorial contributions, my methodology allows me to determine what these early editors believed themselves to be doing, why, and in what context. These insights have significant implications for the study of both early modern book history and literature. Specifically, they contribute to developing academic conversations among critics like Stephanie Trigg, Tim William Machan, and A.E.B. Coldiron concerning the influence and authority of editors and craftspeople in the production of early modern books. Burt iii Acknowledgements Financial support in the form of fellowships, scholarships and awards from the following academic units at the University of Manitoba helped to alleviate the travel and research costs of this project: the Faculty of Graduate Studies; the Faculty of Arts; the Department of English, Theatre, Film and Media; and the Institute for the Humanities. I am thankful for their support. Much of this project is the result of research conducted at libraries in the United Kingdom. I am grateful for the support of each library’s staff, including those of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British Library, London; University Library, Cambridge; the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; and the Gonville and Caius College Library, Cambridge. I offer a heartfelt thank you to Marianne Harnish, Anita King, and Darlene McWhirter— the amazing administrative team of the Department of English, Theatre, Film and Media—who helped me throughout my graduate career in more ways than I can recall. I would also like to thank everyone who has helped, encouraged, or inspired me in one way or another. In particular, thank you to Glenn Clark, who offered a great deal of support and encouragement from the project’s original inception until its final publication. As well, thank you to Robert Finnegan, who inspired my initial fascination with Middle English literature and shaped my early scholarship. I am deeply appreciative of the members of my dissertation committee: Drs. David Watt, Judith Owens, Roisin Cossar, and Murray McGillivray. Each member offered encouragement and support, as well as probing questions and invaluable feedback. I am grateful for each member’s contributions. I am especially indebted to my advisor, Dr. Watt, without whom this project would not have come to fruition. It was a pleasure to work with each of you; thank you. Finally, thank you to my family, whose patience has proven truly to have no limits. Burt iv Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... iii Note on References ........................................................................................................................ v Abbreviated Sources ..................................................................................................................... vi Introduction: Early Modern Editors and the Value of Middle English Literature ......................... 1 Chapter 1: The Phenomenon of Sixteenth-Century Editors ........................................................ 18 Chapter 2: William Caxton and the Rise of the English Editor.................................................... 49 Chapter 3: Textual Editing and the Popularity of Sir Isumbras.................................................... 82 Chapter 4: Englishing Late-Medieval Exempla: Henryson’s Moral Fables and Lydgate’s Serpent of Division ............................................................................ 117 Chapter 5: Thomas Speght’s Chaucer: Alterity, Continuity and Progress ................................ 163 Chapter 6: From Print to Manuscript: Restoring Cambridge, University Library MS Gg.4.27 ........................................................................................................ 201 Conclusion: Found and Lost ...................................................................................................... 232 Appendix A: Reconstructing the Print Tradition of Sir Isumbras.............................................. 241 Appendix B: Isumbras’s Substantive Variants .......................................................................... 245 Appendix C: Additional Lines in Isumbras’s t-Branch Texts ................................................... 262 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................... 264 Burt v Note on References In this study, I strive for thoroughness and consistency when quoting texts and describing manuscripts and printed books. Unless otherwise identified, all quotes from manuscripts are based on my own transcriptions and cited by folio. Early printed books are cited by signature except in cases of very large books that provide sufficient foliation (e.g., John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments [1583]). Prefatory pages that do not provide suitable signatures—either no signature or symbols not reasonably reproduced—are assigned lower case letters (e.g., a1). Signatures of prefatory pages signed A when the beginning of the primary text is also assigned A are subsequently changed to lower case letters. Unless identified, signatures beyond Z in books that repeat their signatures as single letters (e.g., A) are changed to double letters (e.g., Aa). Regardless of how printed books sign double letters (e.g., AA, A2, AB, etc.), double letters are always cited as a single upper-case letter followed by the same letter in lower case (e.g., Aa). The same method is applied to signatures beyond Zz, Zzz, etc. (e.g., Aaa, Aaaa, etc.). In cases where a range of signatures are cited (e.g., Aa-Bbb), readers should be aware that most early printed books do not include “j” or “v” in their signatures, limiting the range of a single set of letters to twenty-four quires. Quoted text is not adjusted for type unless more than one type is used in the primary source. For example, if a page of the primary text is printed entirely in italic, the italic is not reproduced in the quotation. However, if a page printed in blackletter includes select words in Roman, the Roman will be reproduced in italic in the quote. Italics in quoted text are used to represent difference, not italics. Important type distinctions are identified in-text. When quoting primary sources, I endeavour to provide a diplomatic transcription that follows the following conventions: I convert long “s”s (ſ) to the modern short “s” (s). Abbreviations marked by a macron (e.g., cōffession) are expanded in square brackets (e.g., Burt vi co[n]fession). Printed yoghs (ʒ) used in place of “y”s have been corrected and printed thorns (þ) have been modernized as “th.” Virgules (/) are converted to commas (,). Forward slashes (/) in this thesis represent line breaks. Abbreviated Sources CHBB Cambridge History of the Book STC Short Title Catalogue, 2nd Edition ESTC English Short Title Catalogue estc.bl.uk EEBO Early English Books Online https://eebo.chadwyck.com MED Middle English Dictionary MER Database of Middle English Romance middleenglishromance.org.uk OED Oxford English Dictionary www.oed.com ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography www.oxforddnb.com SRealm The Statutes of the Realm, vol.3 (1509-1545) Burt 1 Introduction: Early Modern Editors and the Value of Middle English Literature What did early modern editors think about the Middle English texts that they prepared? This question may seem paradoxical since the concept of an editor had not been fully realized in the first century and a quarter of printing in England: the earliest printers tended to edit texts themselves, the earliest editors were not explicitly associated with the text, and the term “editor” was not used in our modern sense until the early eighteenth century. However, the increasing prevalence of editorial figures and practices in sixteenth-century printed books suggests that such interventions were part of a broader cultural phenomenon of specialization in the process