Imagining the Book (Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe) (Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe)

Imagining the Book offers a snapshot of current research in English manuscript study in the pre-modern period on the inter-related topics of patrons and collectors, compilers, editors and readers, and identities beyond the book. This volume responds to the recent development and institutionalization of ‘History of the Book’ within the wider discipline. Scholars working in the pre-printing era with the material vestiges of a predominantly manuscript culture are currently establishing their own models of production and reception. Research in this area is now an accepted part of twenty-first century medieval studies. Within such a context, it is frequently observed that scribal culture found imaginative ways to deal with the technological watersheds represented by the transition from memory to written record, roll to codex, or script to print. In such an ‘eventful’ environment, texts and books not infrequently slip through the semi-permeable boundaries laboured over by previous generations of medievalists, boundaries that demarcate orality and literacy; ‘literary’ and ‘historical’; ‘religious’ and ‘secular’; pre- and post-Conquest compositions, or ‘medieval’ and ‘Renaissance’ attitudes and writings. Once texts are regarded as offering indices of community- or self-definition, or models of piety and good behaviour (and the codices holding them statements of prestige and influence), the book historian is left to contemplate the real or imagined importance and status of books and writing within the larger socio-political, often local, milieux in which they were once produced and read. Front matter (“Contents”, “Contributors”, “Figures”, “Abbreviations”, “Preface”), p. i Free Access Imagined Histories of the Book: Current Paradigms and Future Directions, p. 1 Stephen Kelly, John J. Thompson https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4121 The Whole Book: Late Medieval English Manuscript Miscellanies and their Modern Interpreters, p. 17 Derek Pearsall https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4122 Imagining X: A Lost Early Vernacular Miscellany, p. 31 Neil Cartlidge https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4123 Imagining Book Production in Fourteenth-Century Herefordshire: The Scribe of British Library, MS Harley 2253 and his ‘Organizing Principles’, p. 45 Jason O’Rourke https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4124 Imagining the Compiler: Guy of Warwick and the Compilation of the Auchinleck Manuscript, p. 61 Alison Wiggins https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4125 Leofric of Exeter and the Practical Politics of Book Collecting, p. 77 Joyce Hill https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4126 Ælfric’s Lives of Saints and Cotton Julius E.vii: Adaptation, Appropriation and the Disappearing Book, p. 99 Hugh Magennis https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4127 A Fresh Look at the Reconstructed Carmelite Missal: London, British Library, MS Additional 29704–05, p. 111 Valerie Edden https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4128 John Dygon, Fifth Recluse of Sheen: His Career, Books, and Acquaintance, p. 127 Ralph Hanna https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4129 Imagining a Readership for Post-Conquest Old English Manuscripts, p. 145 Mary Swan https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4130 Constructing Audiences for Contemplative Texts: The Example of a Mystical Anthology, p. 159 Barry Windeatt https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4131 EB and his Two Books: Visual Impact and the Power of Meaningful Suggestion. ‘Reading’ the Illustrations in MSS Douce 261 and Egerton 3132A, p. 173 Maldwyn Mills https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4132 Deixis and the Untransferable Text: Anglo-Saxon Colophons, Verse-Prefaces and Inscriptions, p. 195 Peter Orton https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4133 A Portrait of the Reader: Secular Donors and their Books in the Art of the English Parish Church, p. 209 David Griffith https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4134 Imagining Alternatives to the Book: The Transmission of Political Poetry in Late Medieval England, p. 237 Wendy Scase https://doi.org/10.1484/M.TCNE-EB.3.4135 Back matter (“Index of Manuscripts”), p. 251

Collectively, the contributors to Imagining the Book offer a snapshot of current research in English manuscript study in the pre-modern period on the inter-related topics of patrons and collectors, compilers, editors and readers, and identities beyond the book. This volume responds to the recent development and institutionalization of 'History of the Book' within the wider English Studies discipline. Scholars working in the pre-printing era with the material vestiges of a predominantly manuscript culture are currently establishing their own models of production and reception. Research in this area is now an accepted part of twenty-first century Medieval Studies. Within such a context, it is frequently observed that scribal culture found imaginative ways to deal with the technological watersheds represented by the transition from memory to written record, roll to codex, or script to print. In such an 'eventful' environment, texts and books not infrequently slip through the semi-permeable boundaries laboured over by previous generations of medievalists, boundaries that demarcate orality and literacy; 'literary' and 'historical'; 'religious' and 'secular'; pre- and post-Conquest compositions, or 'Medieval' and 'Renaissance' attitudes and writings. Once texts are regarded as offering indices of community- or self-definition, or models of piety and good behaviour (and the codices holding them statements of prestige and influence), the book historian is left to contemplate the real or imagined importance and status of books and writting within the larger socio-political, often local, milieux in which they were once produced and read. All fourteen essays in this volume question the status of the book in a predominantly manuscript culture. Some focus on the practical politics of book production and local circumstances; others focus on the visual experience of early readers. In this volume, the idea of the pre-modern vernacular book is pursued in terms of its miscellaneity and its association with localised writing projects undertaken by (and occasionally also for) a polyglot and sometimes also socially-aware English readership. Such investigation is valuable since it enables us to recognise the textual networks, the sources and the readership that mark the pre-modern codex as an important medium of social and literary exchange quite distinct from printed books.

Contributors discuss early printed books and manuscripts between the 14th and 16th centuries under the section headings of: 'Imagined compilers and editors', 'Imagined patrons and collectors', Imagined readings and readers' and 'Beyond the book: verbal and visual cultures'