Anthologies and texts that sometimes differ generically and linguistically, is compounded by the ten- Miscellanies dency (in evidence even in the present work) to conflate this large category of manuscripts, CARRIE GRIFFIN University of Limerick, Ireland problematic especially since terms have not properly been defined in scholarship on later medieval English manuscripts. In Anthologies and miscellanies are perennially addition scholarship in this field does not of interest to medieval scholars because they consistently apply either or both terms, even are characteristic of the type of book produc- though, ostensibly, the term “anthology” tion and compilation that was increasingly has a fairly strict definition (see below). The common in later medieval Britain from c. lack of precision in terminology has led 1350. Indeed books that might be described to terms like “anthology” and “miscellany” using either term preserve many of the most being used “interchangeably, with others important literary texts from all regions of such as ‘commonplace book’ often invoked late medieval Britain; in particular antholo- with misleading imprecision” (Boffey and gies and miscellanies are important to the Edwards 2015, 264), while Connolly and preservation and transmission of short lyrics Radulescu observe that the “loose application and other kinds of verse, but they are also wit- nesses to many types of genres of writing such of a variety of terms,” including others that as legal texts, scientific and medical writings, are frequently substituted for anthology and chronicles, letters, music, devotional texts, miscellany, such as “collection,” “compila- and recipes and charms, sometimes collo- tion,” and “household book,” can lead to the catedwithliterarytexts.Simplyputtheyare “easy dismissal of many manuscripts whose the “typical environment for the survival of contents are of a heterogeneous nature” medieval texts” (Connolly and Radulescu (2015, 4). The situation around terminology 2015, 3). For example, and as Putter (2015, and classification, rather than indicating 81) states, miscellanies are the main way in scholarly confusion, instead seems to reflect which medieval English lyrics and romances a certain fuzziness around the distinction have survived. Importantly they also contain betweenananthologyandamiscellany,one codicological and bibliographical informa- that is the direct result of incredible variance tion that is central to understanding literate in terms of the formal qualities and contents activity in the period, and remain one of the of late medieval manuscripts. Moreover, chief ways in which scholars encounter texts there is the issue of overlap between the two: and versions of texts from the later medieval can intention and evidence of anthologizing period. be discovered in miscellany manuscripts, However, miscellanies particularly present or does their selection of texts represent conceptual difficulties for modern scholars. the difficulty that scribes had in procuring Issues around taxonomy and nomenclature texts to copy, a situation that has been called recurtimeandagainindebatesanddiscus- “exemplar poverty” (Hanna 1996a, 31)? sions. The matter of what to call medieval Scholars are more interested now in the manuscripts that preserve many texts, and nexus between intentionality and practicality, The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, Edited by Siân Echard and Robert Rouse. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb605 2 ANTHOLOGIES AND MISCELLANIES and are less inclined to dismiss as insignificant of and circumstances of production. The and meaningless miscellany manuscripts: miscellany has often been dismissed for they survive in great numbers from the the very reasons that make it compelling: later medieval period and are central to “the imperfection of texts due to the nature of understandings of scribal culture, reading the version(s) available for copying … occa- habits, compilation, and textual variance. sionally combined with a set of assumptions Nonetheless, they present very real problems about the social status of the compiler or the of definition and scholarly approach. Ina environment in which the manuscript book recent collection of essays editors Connolly was produced” (Connolly and Radulescu and Radulescu refer to miscellanies as the 2015, 1). Miscellanies evince a certain kind of “final frontier in the study of the medieval response in the modern scholar, a response book”; in their view, because the contents that according to Ralph Hanna, in a seminal ofthemiscellanyvolumearemixedtheyare essay on vernacular miscellanies, amounts to consistently overlooked, being “in no one’s a “modern critical befuddlement” about them main interest … overlooked, even ignored, becausetheydonotconformtocontempo- and frequently dismissed as of marginal rary beliefs about the form and content of a interest; where they have received attention book and what that should constitute (1996b, they have tended to be ransacked by editors 37). Bahr (2015, 181) echoes this view, stating for their parts” (2015, xiii). that “terms like miscellaneity and variance Althoughmanyscholarsareinagreement are partly products of the distance between about the cultural, textual, and historical sig- thepastandthepresent.”Conversely,and nificance of the miscellany, and that the term remembering that it is sometimes used inter- ought to be applied to describe a manuscript changeably with the term “miscellany,” the that has mixed contents and that is also fre- word “anthology” is more precise, used in quently polygot, there is still little consensus most cases to refer to a “collection of texts over its precise definition (Connolly and within which some organising principles can Radulescu 2015, 1) or over what the term be observed,” though it must be noted that “miscellany”mightsayaboutamanuscript. both of these terms are still under debate in However the 2012 Insular Books conference medieval studies (Connolly 2015, 5). held at the British Academy concluded that As mentioned above, anthologies and a miscellany might usefully be reframed as miscellanies both supply possibly the most a “multi-text manuscript” (Connolly and common contexts for texts of all kinds in Radulescu 2015, 1). Indeed in the volume MiddleEnglishaswellasinothervernacu- emanating from that conference the editors lars, and both anthologies and miscellanies call attention to miscellany variety, noting preserve texts, sometimes in many languages, that this itself can be mixed: books may in the same volume. However, the key dif- preserve discrete items that are thematically ference between the two seems to relate linked (so, they may all be devotional, for to the degree of planning that went into instance) or different types of text (scientific, the production of the volume and, in that legal, courtly), in verse or prose, or list form, respect, most scholars are in agreement that, short or long, in several languages (3). properly,anthologiesarevolumesthatare The term “miscellany,” then, is used to less miscellaneous in content and structure. describe multi-text manuscripts but also A manuscript anthology might be defined manuscripts of which the contents and as a manuscript “in which coherence is form are heavily contingent on the manner expressed in either the ordering of items or ANTHOLOGIES AND MISCELLANIES 3 similarity at the level of literary genre, or than with any sense of overall plan or specific both” (Connolly and Radulescu 2015, 21). purpose. (2015, 266) Most frequently scholars are compelled to On this manuscript see also Connolly (2011, discover homogeneity or similarity between 132) who cautions against “the temptation to texts as well as evidence of systematic copying impose unduly narrow definitions on such (perhaps by a single scribe) and organiza- anthologies.” tional schemes (in the form of, for instance, In order to demonstrate how terminology running headers, ruling, framing, and consis- canbeinfluential,BoffeyandEdwardscitethe tent programs of illustration and rubrication) example of a similar collection – the so-called to distinguish an anthology from a miscel- “Glastonbury Miscellany” (Cambridge, Trin- lany. However, the presence of one or more ity College, MS O.9.38) – arguing that its con- of these factors in a manuscript does not tents “relate demonstrably to specifics of time automatically indicate that the production andplace”andthatthesinglemostimportant was “planned” or that we might easily label unifying feature is not a thematic focus but in it an anthology. Boffey and Edwards cau- fact the scribal hand (2015, 267). tion against an oversimplified definition It is difficult, then, to generalize about vol- of a volume based on content and aspect, umes occupying this category, and because arguing that only by “understanding the theycanbesaidtosharesomanycrucial processes of assemblage” of manuscripts can features, distinctions between them are not we “determine evidence of some recoverable pattern which might underlie the collocation always visible and clearly drawn. A case of contents in a manuscript collection” (2015, mightbemadeforthecentralityofthe 265). It is their contention that attention miscellany to the medieval consciousness, to the physical and geographical evidence especially since many texts from the Middle may reveal that manuscripts that may look Ages themselves reflect the miscellaneous like anthologies might not necessarily reflect nature of volumes: recently