Harley manuscript geographies: Literary history and the medieval miscellany (Manchester Medieval Literature and Culture)

This study applies the methodologies of literary geography to the unique contents of a codex known as London, British Library MS Harley 2253. The Harley manuscript was produced in provincial Herefordshire by a scribe whose literary generation was wiped out in the Black Death of 134851. It contains a diverse set of writings: love-lyrics and devotional texts, political songs and fabliaux, saints lives, courtesy literature, bible narratives, travelogues, and more. These works alternate between languagesMiddle English, Anglo-Norman, and Latinbut have been placed in mutually illuminating conversation. Despite its significance as a record of an in-between period of literary history, stretching from the Norman Conquest to the plague era, Harley 2253 has never before been the subject of a monographic study. Harley manuscript geographies orients readers to this compelling material by describing the phenomenon of the medieval miscellany in textual and codicological terms. It explores how this fragmentary work keeps being sutured into whole-ness by commentary upon it, while examining the different genres, topics, and social groupings it contains. Ultimately, the book lays the groundwork for approaching this compilation via the interpretive lens that cultural geography provides. Readers from literary history, medieval studies, cultural geography, gender studies, Jewish studies, book history, and more, will profit from the encounter. "This study applies the methodologies of literary geography to the unique contents - or more to the point, the moving, artful, frequently audacious contents - of a codex known as London, British Library MS Harley 2253. The Harley Manuscript was produced in provincial Herefordshire, upon England's Welsh March, by a scribe whose literary generation was wiped out in the Black Death of 1348-51. It contains a diverse set of writings: love-lyrics and devotional texts, political songs and fabliaux, saints' lives, courtesy literature, bible narratives, travelogues, and more. These works alternate between languages - Middle English, Anglo-Norman, and Latin - but have been placed in mutually illuminating conversation.Despite its significance as a record of an in-between period of literary history, stretching from the Norman Conquest to the plague era, Harley 2253 has never before been the subject of a monographic study. Harley Manuscript geographies orients readers to this compelling material by describing the phenomenon of the medieval miscellany in textual and codicological terms. It explores how this fragmentary work keeps being sutured into 'whole'-ness by commentary upon it, while examining the different genres, topics, and social groupings it contains. Ultimately, the book lays the groundwork for approaching this compilation via the interpretive lens that cultural geography provides. Readers from literary history, medieval studies, cultural geography, gender studies, Jewish studies, book history, and more, will profit from the encounter." -- Back cover This study brings new methodologies of literary geography to bear upon the unique contents of a codex known as British Library MS Harley 2253. The Harley manuscript was produced upon England's Welsh March, by a scribe whose generation died in the Black Death. It contains a diverse set of writings: love-lyrics and devotional literature, political songs and fabliaux, saints' lives, courtesy texts, bible stories and travelogues. These works alternate between languages (Middle English, Anglo-Norman and Latin) but operate in conversation with one another. The introduction explores how this fragmentary miscellany keeps being sutured into 'whole'-ness by commentary upon it. Individual chapters examine different genres and social groupings and demonstrate that there are many Harley landscapes still waiting to be discovered. It will be of great value to those studying literary history, medieval studies, cultural geography, gender studies, Jewish studies and book history Front matter 1 Contents 6 Acknowledgements 7 A note on the presentation of texts 11 List of abbreviations 12 Introduction Harley manuscript geographies 14 Harley Lyrics and Hereford clerics: the implications of mobility 64 Captives among us: Harley 2253 and the Jews of medieval Hereford 107 Histoire imparfaite: the counterfactual lessons of Gilote et Johane 164 Dying with Harley 2253: last lyric things 212 Epilogue Ye goon to ... Hereford? Regional devotion and England’s other St Thomas 266 Appendix Harley manuscript contents 294 Bibliography 298 Index 320 This first-ever monograph on the celebrated medieval miscellany Harley 2253 (c. 1340) uses methods derived from cultural geography to revise prevailing understandings of English literary history. The Harley manuscript's extraordinary diversity of texts has a counterpart in the monograph's topical range and flexibility of approach. -- .