Entertainment Networks, Reading Communities, and the Early Tudor Anthology

This chapter focuses on an eight-quire anthology of secular lyrics, prophecies, and prose satires compiled by Humfrey Welles, a Staffordshire esquire, in the 1520s and 1530s (Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson C. 813). While Welles appears to have written substantial parts of the book and was a continuing presence throughout the anthology’s creation, this chapter argues that we should not attribute the volume to the impulses of just one man. Rather, it was the product of several overlapping communities, and its lyrics preserve the heroic memories of both well-known courtiers and the local Staffordshire community. By placing the manuscript in the context of the entertainment networks that criss-crossed the Midlands and stretched down to the royal court, it points to the group occasions and household locations that likely influenced the lyrical composition of the manuscript.

Lancelot of the Laik and the Literary Manuscript Miscellany in 15th- and 16th-century Scotland

This chapter begins by introducing the most significant features of Scottish literary manuscript miscellanies, such as: their relatively late date, in comparison with surviving miscellanies from elsewhere in the British Isles; their copying by scribes who also functioned as notary publics, writers to the signet, and merchants; their links to some of Scotland’s most prominent book-owning families; and their inclusion of material derived from print and from south of the border. The remainder of the chapter offers a necessarily brief case study of one particular Older Scots literary manuscript miscellany (Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk.1.5) in which the Older Scots romance, Lancelot of the Laik, is placed alongside a selection of Scottish courtesy texts and legal material, a series of English and Scottish prophecies, several acts of the Scottish parliament, an English translation of Christine de Pisan’s Livre du Corps de Policie, and the only surviving manuscript copy of Sir Philip Sidney’s New Arcadia.

Writing Without Borders

The single-text manuscript is not the norm in later mediaeval Wales and most surviving Welsh manuscripts of that period contain two or more distinct texts. The multi-text codex was the norm and a unifying principle – theme, form, or the interests of the compiler or patron – can usually be discerned. Miscellanies may be linguistically mixed or include translated material. The hegemony of plurality of content of the typical Welsh codex can be linked to the distinctive nature and history of Welsh literary tradition, including the late emergence within the prose tradition of the single, named author. A further factor may be the discernible impulse to collect and conserve textual goods in a period which saw a weakening of the traditional separation of poetry and prose, together with an increasing reliance on the written word rather than memory and performance for textual transmission.

Amateur Book Production and the Miscellany in Late Medieval East Anglia

The manuscripts discussed here, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Tanner MS 407 and New Haven, Yale University Library, Beinecke 365, were produced roughly contemporaneously and within a relatively small geographical area. Tanner is the work of one man, Robert Reynes of Acle, and is noted for the eclecticism of its contents. Beinecke, meanwhile, was the work of two scribes, the first anonymous, the second Robert Melton of Stuston. The first copyist’s work is largely religious and exemplary; Melton’s contributions are non-literary, consisting of prayers and copies of accounts and deeds relating to his role of steward to the Cornwallis family. Study of content is complemented by analysis of the structure of each book while comparison of the dramatic texts lends particularity to the taxonomic distinctions which must be drawn between them.

The Organisation of Multilingual Miscellanies

This chapter examines the use of multiple languages, and particularly the co-existence of English and French items, in one and the same codex, focusing on miscellanies from the 13th to the 15th centuries. It argues that the question of whether scribes mixed French and English texts in manuscript miscellanies depended not just on chronology but also on the types of text they copied. To substantiate this case, I compare the situation of romances, which rarely circulated with French-language companions in manuscript, with those of lyrics, which mixed freely with French lyrics. The association of the lyric with francophone culture explains why English and French lyrics continued to be copied alongside each other in medieval manuscripts.

The Whole Book and the Whole Picture

This chapter considers the ways in which medieval miscellanies have been available to scholars from the mid-19th century onwards, and how the uneven nature of that availability, through facsimile, edition, or commentary, has shaped perceptions of the very nature of this type of manuscript. Attention is paid to how fully facsimiles, editions, and studies represent their originals, and to the distortions of critical perception that can result from partial representation. Also noted is the tendency to privilege manuscripts that are associated with particular authors, and with scribes, patrons, or readers who can be named (even though the majority of medieval miscellanies cannot be connected to any type of biographical context); examples include John Shirley, Richard Hill, Robert Reynes, Robert Thornton, and John Vale. The merits and feasibility of editing miscellanies and producing facsimiles, especially digital facsimile, or other types of study are explored, largely in relation to English examples from the later medieval period.

Multilingualism, the Harley Scribe, and Johannes Jacobi

After a brief discussion of the ‘miscellany’, this chapter considers the interaction in their manuscript context of some of the texts copied in or around Ludlow by the ‘Harley scribe’. A brief survey of the kinds of literature in the langue d’oïl copied by Italian scribes then precedes the examination of a bilingual Arthurian manuscript in which one of the scribes switches from French to Italian and back again. The chapter concludes by looking at the work of a scribe called Johannes Jacobi from Verona, who copies texts in French, Occitan, Italian, and Latin. Both the Harley scribe and Johannes Jacobi reflect the narrower interests of their time and place, as well as a corpus of literature in the langue d’oïl that has a universal appeal transcending local contexts.

Towards a Taxonomy of Middle English Manuscript Assemblages

The terminology for discussing collections of texts in Middle English is generally lacking precision. Terms like ‘anthology’, ‘miscellany’, or ‘commonplace book’ tend to be used interchangeably and anachronistically. This chapter is an attempt to formulate a more precise terminology for discussing the forms of assemblage in which Middle English literary texts survive, and to offer, with appropriate illustrations, indications of the limits of useful attempts at categorisation among collections in this period. The chapter looks at place and chronology as important aspects of a manuscript’s compilation history, and explores the different accretive ways in which texts were assembled together. It signals the important precedent of texts grouped together in commercially produced booklets, and considers the notion of the book as a pragmatically convenient repository for groups of items, especially short texts.

Vying for Attention

This chapter focuses on Dublin, Trinity College, MS 432, a miscellany often neglected in criticism, with the exception of two texts within it, a romance, King Robert of Sicily, and a play, the Northampton Abraham and Isaac. Although clearly missing parts of its original contents, the manuscript displays more coherence than previously thought, and deserves a re-examination, both of the label previously given to it (miscellany; commonplace book) and of its contents. I examine formal features, such as the presentation of all the verse narratives, in what resembles a dramatic/debate format, and the association of rhyme royal with the authority figure of a ‘Doctor’. These choices were possibly informed by its compiler’s choice to record or produce dramatic pieces performed in his region/locality, perhaps for educational purposes. The compiler might have been a schoolmaster, or someone who had an interest in presenting materials of interest to one.

John Northwood’s Miscellany Revisited

London, British Library, MS Additional 37787, a volume of prayers and other devotions and related material, was part-edited by Nita S. Baugh as A Worcestershire Miscellany Compiled by John Northwood c. 1400 (1956). Baugh’s title was based on ownership inscriptions of John Northwood, monk at Bordesley Abbey, Worcestershire, and members of the Throckmorton family also of Worcestershire. These associations have made the manuscript an important witness in narratives about Cistercian participation in the production and circulation of Middle English verse manuscripts in the West Midlands and the role of monasteries in fostering vernacular writing and book production, including the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts. This chapter proposes that this view is called into question by careful codicological examination of the volume. Through challenging these propositions it suggests alternative ways to explore and explain the production of books containing vernacular prayers and devotions in late medieval England.