UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE NATION AND COMPILATION IN ENGLAND, 1270-1500 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By BREEMAN AINSWORTH Norman, Oklahoma 2016 NATION AND COMPILATION IN ENGLAND, 1270-1500 A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH BY ______________________________ Dr. Kenneth Hodges, Chair ______________________________ Dr. Daniel Ransom ______________________________ Dr. Su Fang Ng ______________________________ Dr. Jennifer Saltzstein ______________________________ Dr. Logan Whalen © Copyright by BREEMAN AINSWORTH 2016 All Rights Reserved. For Melissa and Isabella Acknowledgements This project began as a footnote in a paper for Literary Theory, and as you might imagine from such humble origins, the path to this dissertation has been long. The final result bears little resemblance to where I thought I was going at the start of my studies. Its completion is thanks to many individuals who challenged and supported me in the process. In the limited space here, I cannot thank the many people who supported and nurtured this project. First and foremost, I must thank my wife Melissa and my daughter Isabella. Without their patience, sacrifice, and support on a daily level, this project would have never been completed. I hope what follows is worthy of your contributions. Second, I must thank my Chair Kenneth Hodges. Professor Hodges brought an energy and enthusiasm to this project, which even I—at times— began to doubt. He challenged me to consider new methods of arranging material in order to draw out the best argument. His incisive comments on the project have improved it greatly. I have also valued more than I can convey the hours spent discussing this project in his office (although the glare from the car windows was blinding). I am exceedingly fortunate to have committee members Dan Ransom, Jennifer Saltzstein, and Logan Whalen, all of whom were willing to pour over difficult (and tortuous) prose. Professor Ransom's thorough and sage comments about manuscript analysis and Chaucer were an enormous benefit to me. iv Professor Saltzstein's suggestion to consider the role of vernacularization as it relates to medieval identity came at the opportune moment. Professor Whalen's expert eyes on the medieval French was invaluable, and his encouragement most welcome. I must also thanks Su Fang Ng, who thoughtfully read and commented on the final draft. What is good in this dissertation belongs to the guidance and advice of my committee, and what is bad must rest solely upon my shoulders. I am grateful to my professors and colleagues at the University of Oklahoma and at Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City for all the encouragement and consistent prompting to finish this project. v Table of Contents Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................ vii List of Figures ............................................................................................................. viii Abstract ........................................................................................................................... x Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Network Analysis of Non-Complete Canterbury Tales Manuscripts ...................................................................................................... 45 Chapter Two: Common Will and Kingship: Bath, Longleat MS 257 ................... 96 Chapter Three: Universalizing English History: The Opening of British Library MS Cotton Caligula A.ix ............................................................................... 138 Chapter Four: History, Geography, and Arthur in the Earliest Witnesses of Malory’s Le Morte Darthur ............................................................................ 205 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 289 Appendix I: Abbreviations of the Canterbury Tales and its Manuscripts .......... 333 vi List of Tables Table 4.1 ...................................................................................................................... 223 Table 4.2 ...................................................................................................................... 224 Table 4.3 - Rubrication Percentages in Winchester ............................................... 225 Table 4.4 – Instances per Folio in Winchester ........................................................ 225 Table 4.5 ...................................................................................................................... 232 Table 4.6 ...................................................................................................................... 242 Table 4.7 ...................................................................................................................... 246 vii List of Figures Figure 1.1 - Owen’s Visualization ............................................................................. 54 Figure 1.2 - Owen’s Revised ....................................................................................... 55 Figure 1.3 - Owen’s Stemma for Extant Manuscripts of the Canterbury Tales .... 57 Figure 1.4 – Force-Directed Graph of Three Chaucerian MSS .............................. 67 Figure 1.5 - Extant Non-Complete Manuscripts of Canterbury Tales ................. 69 Figure 1.6 - Weighted Non-Complete Manuscripts of Canterbury Tales ........... 71 Figure 1.7 - Seventeen Manuscript (weighted nodes) ............................................ 73 Figure 1.8 - Seventeen Manuscripts (unweighted) ................................................. 76 Figure 1.9 - Seventeen Manuscripts (Modularity Algorithm) ............................... 77 Figure 1.10 – Stages of Constructing Force-Directed Graph for Texts ................. 81 Figure 1.11 – Force-Direct Graph of Texts ............................................................... 83 Figure 1.12 – Modularity Groups of Figure 1.10 ..................................................... 84 Figure 1.13 – Modularity Groups 5 and 6 ................................................................ 87 Figure 1.14 – Diamond Overlap ................................................................................ 90 Figure 1.15 - Internal Structure of Ra4 ...................................................................... 91 Figure 1.16 – Modularity Groups 1 – 4 Clarified .................................................... 94 Figure 3.1 – Genealogy of Ethelwulf’s Children ................................................... 176 Figure 3.2 – Mediterranean Basin ............................................................................ 178 Figure 4.1- Roman Ambassadors' Voyage to and from Rome ............................ 248 Figure 4.2 - Voyage to France in the Winchester MS and Caxton Malory ........ 249 Figure 4.3 - Visual Lines in France ......................................................................... 264 viii Figure 4.4 - Soissons and Val-Suzon ....................................................................... 267 Figure 4.5 - Lucius's and Arthur's Troop Movements.......................................... 269 Figure 4.6 - Focus of Caxton Malory's Roman War .............................................. 270 Figure 4.7 - Map of Burgundian Netherlands ....................................................... 273 Figure 4.8 - Troop Movements of Arthur and Edward IV .................................. 276 ix Abstract Scholarship has frequently explored how people in medieval England engaged the concept of nation. Scholarship has also investigated the manners in which book production participated in and enacted cultural phenomena. Hitherto, there has been limited consideration of these two concerns together. This is problematic because the manuscripts which carry medieval texts to modern scholars offer the best evidence of contemporary reception of these texts. This dissertation fills this void. It unites questions of compilation and nation in the study of medieval England from 1270 to 1500. It explores the manner in which the collection of works in one manuscript—the manuscript matrix—engages, shapes, denies, or ignores the discourses of the English nation. The dissertation opens with consideration of the textual network of those manuscripts containing one or two tales of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It further argues that such study reveals a political interpretation at the heart of the Clerk's Tale. This dissertation's attention to the manuscript matrix also challenges longstanding proto-nationalist readings of Layamon's Brut and Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur and replaces these with more complicated interpretations of their engagement with nation. Ultimately, the manuscript matrix proves a powerful tool for demonstrating the pluralistic and paradoxical engagements with concepts of nation within late medieval England. x Introduction Nation and Compilation In 1392, during the reign of Richard II, John Gower revised the "Prologue" to his Confessio Amantis, and in doing so, he brought together questions of how the act of compilation engages the discourses of nation. His second