Material Middle English

English 511

Office hours: Tuesdays at 10:00, or by appointment (sian@mail.ubc.ca); note that because I am currently department head, I might have to change my hours unexpectedly, but you can always e-mail me to arrange another time.

Office: Buchanan Tower 397 (this is the Main Office suite; you can ask for me at the desk)

At the opening of his Confessio Amantis, John Gower reflects on the role of old books in informing the present, and the future. Gower is thinking in part about the contents of those old books - the stories, histories, and exempla that informed his work - but he is also, like many medieval poets, highly conscious of the impact that a manuscript culture, with all the variation in transmission that implies, has for his poetic project. Chaucer reflects similar concerns, chiding his scribe Adam, for example, for failing to copy Troilus and Criseyde faithfully. As for Thomas Malory, his favourite phrase is “as the French book saith,” a tic that reflects his mining of French romance for the details of his Morte Darthur, and that also reflects a question that has puzzled scholars for years: how did a “knight prisoner” actually access all the physical books he would have needed in the writing of his Morte?

In this course, we will explore texts by Gower, Chaucer, and Malory, in the context of their manuscript (and in some cases early print) history. We will make use of facsimiles to relocate texts we encounter today in modern scholarly editions, into their many “original” contexts (and we will have to think through what, exactly, “original” might mean). Seminar participants will receive hands-on training in late Middle English palaeography and codicology. Our theoretical lens will be book-historical, as we read examples of materially-inflected criticism of Middle English texts. The course will include a visit to Rare Books and Special Collections.

The objectives of this course are that, by its conclusion, participants will

• Be familiar with the way medieval books are constructed
• Be able to recognize the major western book hands
• Be familiar with the conventions of manuscript description and cataloguing
• Be able to transcribe and read late Middle English manuscripts
• Know how to access medieval manuscripts both online and in person
• Understand how the study of Middle English manuscripts contributes to the study of the texts they contain

There are separate pages for details of the Assignments, and for Resources (including other readings that might interest you.

This version of the syllabus will be updated throughout the course. You should get in the habit of checking it regularly. For a PDF of the syllabus as it stood on January 2, 2019, click here.

Schedule: January

Th 3: Palaeography Boot Camp

• Late Antique through Uncial
• Making manuscripts: materials, construction

Th 10: Palaeography Boot Camp

• Insular and Caroline Scripts, Anglo-Saxon Scripts
• Scribes and scripts: the production and classification of writing

• Richard Gameson, “Anglo-Saxon Scribes and Scriptoria,” in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 1, pp. 94 - 120
• Michelle Brown, “Writing in the Insular World,” in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 1, pp. 121 - 66

Th 17: Palaeography Boot Camp

• Gothic, Gothic, and more Gothic
• Mouvance and variance

• Daniel Wakelin, “Copying, Varying, and Correcting,” in Scribal Correction and Literary Craft: English Manuscripts 1375 - 1510 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 43 - 70

Th 24: Palaeography Boot Camp

• RBSC visit
• Where manuscripts live: catalogues, descriptions, institutional practices

• Siân Echard, “House Arrest: Modern Archives, Medieval Manuscripts,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30.2 (2000): 182 - 210
• Elaine Treharne, “Fleshing out the text: The transcendent manuscript in the digital age,” postmedieval 4 (2013): 465 - 78

Th 31: John Gower

Confessio Amantis, Prologue

• Prologue (and revisions); lines 1 - 1088

• Joel Fredell, “The Gower Manuscripts: Some Inconvenient Truths,” Viator 41.1 (2010): 231 - 50

Transcription practice (for work in pairs)

• London, British Library, Royal MS 18 C xxii, fol. 1r
• Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Fairfax 3, fol. 1r
• Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 609, fol. 1r
• Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 693, fol. 1r

Th 7: John Gower

Confessio Amantis, from Book I

• Opening through 7 Deadly Sins (1 - 760)
• Florent (1407 - 1882)
• Three Questions (3067 - 3402)

• Ardis Butterfield, “Articulating the Author: Gower and the French Vernacular Codex,” Yearbook of English Studies 33 (2003): 80 - 96.
• Sonja Drimmer, “Gower in Humilitatio,” in The Art of Allusion: Illuminators and the Making of English Literature 1403 - 1476 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), pp. 84 - 113. NB: This is a new book, and I have yet to receive my copy (and the Library has yet to order it). IF I get it in time, I will make the chapter available. If not, then we will read the piece by Ardis Butterfield, above, instead.

Transcription Practice (for work in pairs):

• London, British Library, Harley 3869, fol. 18r (menu to correct folio) (opening of I)
• San Marino, Huntington EL 26 A 17, fols. 6v - 7r (I.203 onwards)
• Oxford, Balliol College 354, pp. 364 - 365 (Tale of Three Questions)
• Yale, Beinecke Library, Takamiya 32, fols. 3r - 5r (Tale of Three Questions)

• MMM 1: London, British Library, Harley 3869 Elizabeth
• RR 1: Cassandra
• RR 2: Mairi
• RR 3: Mia

Th 14: John Gower

Confessio Amantis, from Books II and III

• Acis and Galatea (II. 97 - 220)
• Constance (II.587 - 1603)
• Canacee (III.143 - 360)
• Pyramus and Thisbe (III.1331 - 1494)

• Roberta Magnani and Diane Watt, “On the Edge: Chaucer and Gower’s Queer Glosses,” postmedieval 9 (2018): 269 - 88

Transcription Practice (for work in pairs):

• London, British Library Stowe 950, fol. 20v (end of I, opening of II)
• New York, Columbia University Library, Plimpton 265, fol. 192 (end of Acis and Galatea)
• Washington, Folger Shakespeare Library, Folger V.b.29, p. 47 (from the story of Constance)

• MMM 2: Yale, Beinecke Library, Osborn fa1 Mia
• RR 1: Mairi
• RR 2: Scott
• RR 3: Elizabeth

Th 21: Reading Week: No class

Th 28: John Gower

Confessio Amantis, from Books VII and VIII

• The Education of Alexander (VII.1 - 202)
• The Signs of the Zodiac (VII.955 - 1280)
• King, Wine, Women, and Truth (VII.1783 - 1984)
• Supplication to the conclusion (VIII.2217 - 3172 and revisions)

In Praise of Peace

• Sebastian Sobecki, “Ecce patet tensus: The Trentham Manuscript, In Praise of Peace, and John Gower’s Autograph Hand,” Speculum 90.4 (2015): 925 - 59

Transcription Practice (for work in pairs):

• London, British Library Egerton 1991, fol. 194r (end of VII, beginning of VIII)
• London, British Library Harley 3490, fol. 196v (end of VII, beginning of VIII)
• London, British Library Harley 3869, fols. 356v - 357r (menu to correct folio) (end of Confessio)
  
• Cambridge, Trinity College R.3.2, fols. 147r - 147v (menu to correct folio) (end of Confessio)

• MMM 3: Cambridge, Trinity College R.3.2 Scott
• RR 1: Mia
• RR 2: Steve
• RR 3: Cassandra

March

Th 7: Geoffrey Chaucer

Adam Scriveyn

Canterbury Tales

• The General Prologue

Click here to visit a page with links to digitizations of Chaucer manuscripts and early printed books.

• Linne R. Mooney, “Chaucer’s Scribe,” Speculum 81.1 (2006): 97 - 138
• Lawrence Warner, “Adam,” in Chaucer’s Scribes: London Textual Production, 1384 - 1432 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 13 - 29

Transcription Practice (for work in pairs): the beginning of the General Prologue

• Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 48, fol. 1r
• London, British Library, Harley 1758, fol. 1br (menu to correct folio)
• London, British Library, Lansdowne 851, fol. 2r
• Manchester, John Rylands Library, Rylands English 113, fol. 6r

• MMM 4: Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, Peniarth 392D (the Hengwrt Chaucer) Emma
• MMM 5: San Marino, Huntington EL 26.C.9 (the Ellesmere Chaucer) Alexandra
• RR 1: Scott
• RR 2: Mia
• RR 3: Steve

Th 14: Geoffrey Chaucer

Canterbury Tales

• Miller's Tale
• Reeve's Tale
• Cook's Tale

Note that I have not assigned the Knight's Tale; it is very long, though wonderful. If you have not read it, you might want either to skim it, or to read a summary of it, in order to have the context for the tales we are reading this day.

• Daniel Wakelin, “When Scribes Won’t Write: Gaps in Middle English Books,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 36 (2014): 249 - 78

Transcription Practice (for work in pairs): coping with the Cook’s Tale

• Cambridge, Trinity College R.3.3, fols. 25v - 26r (menu to correct folio)
  
• Cambridge, Trinity College R.3.15, fol. 73v ( menu to correct folio)
  
• London, British Library, Royal 17 D xv, fol. 66v (menu to correct folio)
  
• Oxford, Christ Church 152, fol. 58v

• MMM 6: London, British Library, Harley 7334 Steve
• RR 1: Alexandra
• RR 2: Cassandra
• RR 3: Emma

Th 21: Geoffrey Chaucer

Canterbury Tales

• Man of Law’s Tale
• Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale
• Sir Thopas
• Retraction

• Rhiannon Purdie, “The Implications of Manuscript Layout in Chaucer’s Tale of Sir Thopas,” Forum for Modern Language Studies 41.3 (2005): 263 - 74
• Alexandra Gillespie, “Are the Canterbury Tales a Book?” Exemplaria 30.1 (2018): 66 - 83

Transcription Practice (for work in pairs):

• New Haven, Beinecke Library, Takamiya 32, fols. 70rv (beginning of Wife of Bath’s Prologue) (scroll to correct folio)
  
• Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, Peniarth 392D, fols. 213v - 214r (beginning of Sir Thopas) (use side menu to locate folios, then collapse side menu for full view)
  
• San Marino, Huntington EL 26 C 9, fol. 151v (beginning of Sir Thopas)
  
• London, British Library, Harley 1758, fol. 212v (the Retraction)

• MMM 7: Cambridge, Trinity College R.3.19 Cassandra
• RR 1: Steve
• RR 2: Alexandra
• RR 3: Scott

Th 28: Sir Thomas Malory

Morte Darthur

• Caxton and Winchester, pp. 814 - 19
• Early Arthur, pp. 3 - 112
• The Roman Wars, pp. 113 - 51
• Gareth, pp. 177 - 227

• P.J.C. Field, “Malory’s Own Marginalia,” Medium Aevum 70.2 (2001): 226 - 39
• Kevin Whetter, “Malory, Hardyng, and the Winchester Manuscript: Some Preliminary Conclusions,” Arthuriana 22.4 (2012): 167 - 89

Transcription practice (for work in pairs):

• Manchester, John Rylands Library, Caxton, leaf 7 (opening of Preface)
  
• London, British Library, Additional 59678, fol. 9r (first leaf of Winchester MS; not first leaf of text) (menu to correct folio)
  
• London, British Library, Additional 59678, fol. 71r (opening of Roman Wars) (menu to correct folio)
  
• Manchester, John Rylands Library, Caxton, leaf 166 (opening of Roman Wars) (menu to correct leaf)

• MMM 8: Wynkyn de Worde's printing of the Morte Mairi
• RR 1: Emma
• RR 2: Elizabeth
• RR 3: Alexandra

April

Th 4: Sir Thomas Malory

Morte Darthur

• The Grail, pp. 496 - 587
• The Morte, pp. 588 - 698

• Marco Nievergelt, “Writing the “Hoole Book” of King Arthur: The Inscription of the Textual Subject in Malory’s Morte Darthur,” Modern Philology 113.4 (2016): 460 - 81

Transcription practice (for work in pairs):

• London, British Library, Additional 59678, fol. 351v (early in the Grail section) (menu to correct folio)
• Manchester, John Rylands Library, de Worde, leaf 445 (beginning of the Grail section) (menu to correct folio)
• London, British Library, Additional 59678, fol. 449r (beginning of the Morte section) (menu to correct folio)
• Manchester, John Rylands Library, de Worde, leaf 577 (beginning of the Morte section) (menu to correct folio)

• RR 1: Elizabeth
• RR 2: Emma
• RR 3: Mairi