Medieval Texts in Context

This collection of essays by leading experts in manuscript studies sheds new light
on ways to approach medieval texts in their manuscript context. Each contribution
provides groundbreaking insight into the field of medieval textual culture, demon-
strating the various interconnections between medieval material and literary tradi-
tions. The contributors’ work aids reconstruction of the period’s writing practices,
as contextual factors surrounding the texts provide clues to the ‘manuscript experi-
ence’. Topics such as scribal practice and textual providence, glosses, rubrics, page
layout, and even page ruling, are addressed in a manner illustrative and suggestive
of textual practice of the time, while the volume further considers the interface
between the manuscript and early textual communities.
Looking at medieval inventories of books no longer extant, and addressing
questions such as ownership, reading practices and textual production, Medieval
Texts in Context addresses the fundamental interpretative issue of how scribe-editors
worked with an eye to their intended audience. An understanding of the world
inhabited by the scribal community is made use of to illuminate the rationale
behind the manufacture of devotional texts. The combination of approaches to
the medieval vernacular manuscript presented in this volume is unique, marking
a major, innovative contribution to manuscript studies.

Denis Renevey is Professor of Medieval English Language and Literature at the

Université de Lausanne. He has published on medieval texts and language and is
the author of a number of articles on vernacular theology.

Graham D. Caie is Professor of English Language at the University of Glasgow.

He is the author of several books and many articles and book chapters on Old and
Middle English language and literature, editing and codicology.
Context and Genre in English Literature
Series editors:
Peter J. Kitson
Department of English, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK
William Baker
Department of English, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, USA

The aim of the Context and Genre in English Literature series is to place bodies of prose,
poetry and drama in their historical, literary, intellectual or generic contexts. It seeks
to present new work and scholarship in a way that is informed by contemporary
debates in literary criticism and current methodological practices.
The various contextual approaches reflect the great diversity of the books in
the series. Three leading categories of approach may be discerned. The first
category, consisting of historical and philological approaches, covers subjects that
range from marginal glosses in medieval manuscripts to the interaction between
folklore and literature. The second category, of cultural and theoretical approaches,
covers subjects as diverse as changing perceptions of childhood as a background to
children’s literature on the one hand and queer theory and translation studies on
the other. Finally, the third category consists of single-author studies informed by
contextual approaches from either one of the first two categories.
Context and Genre in English Literature covers a diverse body of writing, ranging
over a substantial historical span and featuring widely divergent approaches from
current and innovative scholars; it features criticism of writing in English from
different cultures; and it covers both canonical literature and emerging and new
literatures. Thus, the series aims to make a distinctive and substantial impact on
the field of literary studies.

Other titles in this series include:

Ted Hughes
Alternative horizons
Edited by Joanny Moulin

Henry Miller and Narrative Form

Constructing the self, rejecting modernity
James M. Decker

George Eliot’s English Travels

Composite characters and coded communication
Kathleen McCormack
Medieval Texts in
Context

Edited by
Graham D. Caie and
Denis Renevey
First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

© 2008, Graham D. Caie and Denis Renevey for selection

and editorial matter; the contributors, their contributions
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Medieval texts in context / edited by
Graham D. Caie and Denis Renevey.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Manuscripts, Medieval–England. 2. Manuscripts, English (Middle)
3. Transmission of texts. 4. Books and reading–England–History–To 1500.
5. England–Intellectual life–1066–1485.
I. Caie, Graham D. II. Renevey, Denis.
Z106.5.G7M43 2008
091.0942–dc22 2007039915

ISBN 0-203-00837-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-36025-0 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0-203-00837-5 (ebk)
ISBN13: 978-0-415-36025-8 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-00837-9 (ebk)
Contents

List of illustrations vii

Notes on contributors viii
Acknowledgements x
List of abbreviations xi

Introduction 1
Graham D. Caie and Denis Renevey

1 The manuscript experience: what medieval

vernacular manuscripts tell us about authors
and texts 10
Graham D. Caie

2 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the

Wycliffite Bible 28
Matti Peikola

3 Harley 3954 and the audience of Piers Plowman 68

Simon Horobin

4 ‘Cy ensuent trois chaunceons’: groups and

sequences of Middle English lyrics 85
julia Boffey

5 Sir John Fastolf’s French books 96

Richard Beadle

6 Journeyman manuscript production and lay

piety: the Hopton Hall manuscript 113
A.S.G. Edwards
vi  Contents
  7 Contexts and comments: The Chastising of
God’s Children and The Mirror of Simple Souls
in MS Bodley 505 122
Marleen Cré

  8 The haunted text: reflections in The Mirror to

Deuout People 136
Vincent Gillespie

  9 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context 167

Ralph Hanna

10 Looking for a context: Rolle, anchoritic culture

and the Office of the Dead 192
Denis Renevey

11 Issues of linguistic categorisation in the

evolution of written Middle English 211
Jeremy J. Smith

List of manuscripts 225

Bibliography 229
Index 249
Illustrations

Frontispiece The Romaunt of the Rose. MS Glasgow University Library,

Hunter 409 (V.3.7), folio 57v, c. 1440. xii
Plate 1 Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales. MS Glasgow
University Library, Hunter 197 (U.1.1), folio 102v, 1476. 13
Plate 2 The Romaunt of the Rose. MS Glasgow University Library,
Hunter 409 (V.3.7), folio 145r, c. 1440. 15
Contributors

Richard Beadle is University Reader in English Literature and Historical

Bibliography at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of St John’s College,
Cambridge. He researches in medieval English literature, the early history of
European drama, palaeography, textual and editorial studies and the history
of the book.
Julia Boffey is Head of the School of English and Drama, Queen Mary College,
University of London. Her research is in late medieval and early sixteenth-
century verse and prose (especially lyrics), concentrating on writing in English
c. 1350–1550, with particular interests in textual transmission and reception.
Graham D. Caie has been Professor of English Language at the University of
Glasgow since 1990. His research interests include Old and Middle English
language and literature, manuscript studies, Scots language, digitisation of
medieval manuscripts and medieval English drama.
Marleen Cré is an associated researcher at the Ruusbroecgenootschap, University
of Antwerp. Her main research interest is Middle English mystical texts in their
manuscript contexts. She has published on two fifteenth-century manuscripts
containing Julian of Norwich material: Westminster Cathedral Treasury MS 4
and BL MS Additional 37790.
A.S.G. Edwards is Professor of Textual Studies in the Centre for Textual Schol-
arship, De Montfort University. He was formerly Professor of English at the
University of Victoria, BC, Canada, and the University of Glamorgan. His
research interests include medieval and early modern literature, manuscript
study, palaeography and textual criticism.
Vincent Gillespie is J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language
at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall. His research
interests focus on late medieval English literature and manuscripts, in particular
medieval English devotional and spiritual writings, and literature connected
with Syon Abbey.
 Contributors  ix
Ralph Hanna is Professor of Palaeography at the University of Oxford and
Fellow of Keble College, Oxford. His research interests include Piers Plowman
and alliterative poetry, language contact in England, conceptions of regional
community in later medieval England, palaeography and English manuscripts
books.
Simon Horobin is Lecturer in the English Faculty, University of Oxford and
Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, formerly Reader in English Language,
University of Glasgow. His research focuses on medieval English language and
literature, history of the English language, manuscript studies, corpus linguis-
tics and English historical linguistics.
Matti Peikola is Research Fellow in the Department of English, University of
Turku, Finland. He specialises in Wycliffite writings and the records of the
Salem witch hunt and is interested in Middle English studies and late medieval
and early modern textual scholarship, in particular mise-en-page and manuscript
compilation.
Denis Renevey is Professor of Old and Middle English at the University of
Lausanne. His research interests include late medieval English mystical authors,
medieval English devotional literature, medieval writings for and by women,
hermeneutics, Chaucer and medieval manuscript studies.
Jeremy J. Smith is Head of Department and Professor of English Philology
at the University of Glasgow. His research interests include Old and Middle
English language and literature, Early Modern English, the history of Scots,
the history of the book and English historical linguistics.
Acknowledgements

The idea for a collection of essays grew out of two sessions entitled ‘Medieval
Texts in Context’, which we organised in the summer of 2002 on the occasion of
the Sixth ESSE Conference. Some of the conference participants have contrib-
uted essays in this collection and others have generously agreed to join them. We
are aware that this book has been a long time in preparation and wish to thank all
those who have participated for their much-appreciated patience.
Without the initial interest of Marc Weide from Swets & Zeitlinger this book
would probably never have seen the light of day. We are grateful to him and
the press for their continuing support and enthusiasm for this project. Routledge
took over the project most gracefully, and we are also extremely grateful to Huw
Price and Polly Dodson for their patient forbearance and encouragements, as well
as their gentle nudges, which came our way exactly when they were required.
Our special thanks to Christopher Feeney, who has been the best copy-editor
any author could hope for – extremely knowledgeable, meticulous, observant and
friendly, and he has saved us from many a gaffe.
David Weston, Keeper of the Hunterian Manuscripts at Glasgow University
Library, has generously given us permission to reproduce some manuscripts in
this collection.
This book is dedicated to our children, Clara Maud and Joachim, Eleanor and
Peter, and we are grateful to them for allowing their fathers, with an infectious
enthusiasm and sense of humour, to bring this work to a conclusion.
Denis Renevey and Graham D. Caie
Abbreviations

CCCC Corpus Christianorum. Continuatio Mediaevalis (Turnhout, 1966–).

EETS Early English Text Society; volume numbers in the Original Series are
prefixed o.s., those in the Extra Series are prefixed e.s., those in the
Supplementary Series are prefixed s.s.
LALME A Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English, 4 vols, ed. Angus McIntosh,
M.L. Samuels, Michael Benskin; with the assistance of Margaret Laing
and Keith Williamson (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1986).
MED Middle English Dictionary, ed. H. Kurath et al. (Ann Arbor MI, 1952–).
NIMEV A New Index of Middle English Verse, ed. Julia Boffey and A.S.G. Edwards
(London: British Library, 2004).
STC A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland & Ireland …
1465–1640, 2nd ed. W.A. Jackson, F.S. Ferguson and Katharine F.
Pautzer, 3 vols (London, 1976–90).
Frontispiece  The Romaunt of the Rose. MS Glasgow University Library, Hunter 409 (V.3.7),
folio 57v, c. 1440.
Introduction
Graham D. Caie and Denis Renevey

Medieval Texts in Context explores, first, the manuscript context of some medieval
texts. It then naturally moves on in its second part to an exploration of the social,
historical and cultural context in which medieval manuscripts circulated. This
collection hence reflects and continues discussions which have taken place in the
last decades in the guise of what some scholars have labelled the New Philology.1
Hopefully it therefore answers, even if partially and at some micro level, some of
the questions raised by the New Philology, without, however, claiming that it is
inscribing itself specifically as a contribution to this new field, if new it still really
is, or ever was.2 However, several points raised as part of discussions related to
the emergence of this new perspective on medieval textual culture are indeed
central to this volume. Rather than the edited medieval text, it is the manuscript
which forms the core material under investigation in this volume. It implies giving
up presentation of the medieval text in the form and scientific exactitude of a
printed text with variant readings supplied.3 The object of investigation, that is the
manuscript, and the methods of enquiry which it entails, such as non-hierarchical
comparative work from one manuscript to another, makes possible an assessment
of the medieval material as one prone to generate positively change and varia-
tion, that is textual movement from one manuscript to another, in order for the
textual material to adapt itself to its new locus.4 The manuscript stands therefore
as a matrix where a dynamic interplay between ancient authorial and new scribal
voices concur in the making of a multivocal, variable and contingent production
that requires at least two modes of reading: a reading of the text and its numerous
textual glosses, as well as a reading of visual signs.5 In many cases, the codicolog-
ical evidence is the only evidence which makes possible a discussion of audience.
However, in view of the variance of the medieval artefact, and its natural movement
towards adaptation for new audiences, even careful assessment yields sometimes
minimal information about potential audience. As a culture of variance, manu-
script culture often assumes a multiple audience for which variance should also be
considered as a key concept (see for instance in this volume Gillespie’s discussion
of the complex Syon audience for The Mirror to Deuout People).6
Manuscript culture implies also consideration of the text and its co-texts which,
to adapt Fleishman’s own linguistic definition as ‘the discourse surrounding a
particular utterance’, we understand as the other texts which are part of the same
2  Graham D. Caie and Denis Renevey
manuscript.7 This is of course especially true of the medieval miscellany, a very
popular kind of manuscript in the late medieval period.8 The manuscript context,
its co-texts, its textual and visual signs, its layers of discourses and multiple audi-
ences allow for a partial reconstruction of cultural and social layers which made
possible the making of texts as ‘acts of communication’.9 When the manuscript
context so generously yields evidence of that nature, then a larger context, a social
logic of the text, can be built:

And it is by focusing on the social logic of the text, its location within a broader
network of social and intertextual relations, that we best become attuned to
the specific historical conditions whose presence and/or absence in the work
alerts us to its own social character and function, its own combination of
material and discursive realities that endow it with its own sense of historical
purposiveness.10

This is not to say that text and context should be ‘collapsed into one broad vein
of discursive production’, as Spiegel warns us of cultural history’s refusal to distin-
guish text and context, thus making them concurrent textual productions with
mutual influences.11 Of course, the medieval context which we can reconstruct
is mediated by texts, be they symbolic or linguistic, but this should not prevent
us from making distinctions between the two, and from assessing their specific
relationship in a way which preserves the particular privileged position of the text
over its context.
This collection of essays provides, therefore, new insights into the ways mate-
rial and literary cultures interact to create textual information, and contribute to
a better understanding of what that information meant to the medieval subject.
The material dimension is the physical manuscript, and the literary is the witness
of the text which the manuscript contains. The underlying assumption is that the
manuscript can reveal many clues not only about the text itself but also about
the culture in which it was produced.12 Also, a consideration of information
linked to the manuscript, such as a list, a catalogue or even scribal features shared
by several manuscripts, may help in reconstructing the textual culture and the
reading practice of the time period. The chapters, therefore, look at everything
which surrounds a text in the codex and other contextual factors which would
have influenced the medieval reading of – or listening to – a text. They help us
reconstruct the medieval reading experience and give pointers as to the details on
the manuscript page which would have been significant to the reader, but which
might go unnoticed today.
A comparison might be made with the archaeologist who considers an artefact
not in isolation but in the physical context in which it is found. As Caie states in
his chapter in this collection, the archaeologist would examine the other objects
in the same find, the location, the condition and all that surrounds the object to
illuminate its use and status. Yet all too often medieval texts are presented in a
pristine condition in neat, edited form with little hint as to the manuscript context.
Such editions are necessary naturally for the modern reader who wishes to enjoy
 Introduction  3
the literary work, but if one wishes to recreate ‘the medieval manuscript experi-
ence’, then the text must be examined in its manuscript context. Julia Boffey in
her contribution states that medieval lyrics, for example, are often presented in
modern editions:

without introductions or without explanatory detail about other texts to

which they might be linked, and they thus sometimes give the appearance
of floating, unanchored, among the material which surrounds them. The
tendency of modern editions to group together lyrics from different sources
in anthologies compiled according to a variety of principles simply reinforces
this impression of unanchoredness, and encourages readers to think of each
poem in isolation, as a single, independent text.13

New electronic devices, such as digital images placed on the web, now make it
possible for the world to see the original manuscript and the text in its setting. Many
scholars now accompany their edited text with a digital facsimile of the manuscript
and this permits us to see, for example, the signatures of early owners and some-
times information about those who commissioned the manuscript, readers, levels
of literacy, scribal habits and the dialect of the scribe. Jeremy Smith also shows
how a study of orthography can reveal new insights into textual provenance and
scribal practice. The quality of the membrane, the scribal hand, the layout or mise-
en-page point to how the book was used, while gloss, marginal comment, rubric
and page ruling all speak volumes in themselves about attitudes to authorship and
written authority, as Caie, Peikola and Horobin point out. Other contributions
to this collection examine the interface between the manuscript and early textual
communities, and address questions such as ownership and reading practices,
as well as looking at medieval inventories of books no longer extant. The list of
French books owned by Sir John Fastolf, for instance, leads Beadle into an inves-
tigation which illuminates our understanding of fifteenth-century English textual
culture. Edwards’s and Cré’s focus upon a single manuscript reveals new insights
about the reading process, both lay and monastic, in late medieval England.
Hanna, Gillespie and Renevey, via different modes of investigation, look into the
phenomenon of textual production and readership. Each contribution provides
groundbreaking insights into the field of medieval textual culture.
Caie starts his examination by discussing the significance of the choice of writing
material – wax, membrane, paper, slate, wood or cloth – as this reflects the status
of the text, its application and readership. The act of writing on membrane such
as vellum, he suggests, was a complex, major commitment, which had a great
influence on the authorial role. Then the script selected would indicate the pres-
tige and perceived intrinsic worth of the work copied, in particular the difference
between Latin and vernacular. The appearance of headings, marginal and inter-
linear glosses, historiated or illuminated capitals, lemmata and pointers suggest a
text that is meant to be silently read, as they would be useless to the audience if
such a text were read aloud. Such devices also aid the all-important function of
the book, namely as a means of committing the text to memory. He examines the
4  Graham D. Caie and Denis Renevey
relationship between text and marginal gloss, in particular as an important part
of the reading experience of Latin texts and scholastic education. The appearance
of glosses in vernacular texts in the late Middle Ages is significant, as it suggests
that writers such as Gower or Chaucer, their scribes and readers, considered these
works to have auctoritas, the standing and prestige previously awarded to clerical
texts in Latin. The presentation of the vernacular poem with these trappings and
in de luxe manuscripts raises the English poets for the first time from collators and
collectors of other people’s work to true authors. Much of the evidence for such a
change in authorial status comes from the manuscript itself.
Manuscript evidence for the audience of a work is at the heart of Simon Horob-
in’s contribution. He examines the Harley 3954 manuscript in order to determine,
first, if Langland’s Piers Plowman had a clerical or a literate lay readership, and,
second, whether it had a London or a Midland audience. He tackles also the
relationship between the A and B versions of the poem, as B is thought by some
to precede A. After close manuscript analysis he concludes that the Harley version
was intended for certain religious houses in a small area of South Norfolk and
North Suffolk. There is evidence of scribal editorial activity, marked by a lack of
‘respect for the integrity of the differing versions’, which Horobin suggests was
more widespread than hitherto thought. He is able to show the way in which the
scribe-editor worked and the reasons for his changes, namely the fact that the A
version would better suit his target audience, a clerical provincial community. The
stress which the A version places on the significance of penance and the priest’s
responsibility for confession, would have appealed more to this audience. Once
more the glosses provide important pointers, as the need for vernacular margin-
alia points to the level of Latin literacy of the intended readers.
The company which a work keeps (its co-texts) provides important clues as to
how the author, or at least the medieval manuscript compiler, interpreted the
work. The boundaries between secular and religious lyrics, for example, are
generally very unclear and classification is at best unhelpful, but editors for centu-
ries separated lyrics into collections of what they considered companions. Julia
Boffey, however, stresses the need to scrutinise manuscripts, compare witnesses
and investigate the surroundings of lyrics to uncover their affiliations. She shows
how palaeographical evidence can reveal if a lyric has been added at a later date
or in another hand and is not part of the compiler’s overall plan for the collection.
As Caie suggests, our reading of the Old English poem The Wife’s Lament is influ-
enced by this unhelpful title given by modern editors and we overlook the vital
evidence afforded by the religious poetry which precedes and follows it. Similarly,
modern editors and anthologists take lyrics, probably because of their brevity, and
place them together in a heterogeneous collection or at best a grouping which
reflects the editor’s interpretation of the lyrics, without recourse to the manuscript
context. Julia Boffey takes the example of Gower’s Traitié pour essampler les amantz
marietz, which is generally attached to his Confessio Amantis; it would appear that
Gower, who was keen on supervising scribal copying of his works, wished his
readers to see a connection between the two. Other authors such as Hoccleve,
who write autograph copies of their poetry, must have desired their shorter poems
 Introduction  5
to be read in manuscript sequence. The sequence of longer lyrics, such as those
associated with Charles of Orleans in Harley 682, is also significant: Boffey states
that ‘the coherence and comprehensibility of the sequence largely depends on
each short poem occupying a particular place in the unfolding story. It would be
hard to shuffle them around into a different order and still produce overall sense.’
Other manuscripts contain some of these poems in the same order, which would
point to a recognised sequence. Once more, marginal devices come to our rescue,
and Boffey demonstrates how mise-en-page, rubrication and marginal numbers both
create a unifying appearance to a sequence and also establish an order of presen-
tation designed by the author or compiler. Such manuscript investigation can cast
new light on an interpretation of many lyrics after centuries of plucking them out
of context and bundling together according to the whims of scholars.
Mise-en-page is a central topic in Matti Peikola’s article on the manuscripts of the
Wycliffite Bible. The layout of the page, as he states, ‘silently guides the reader
towards a certain reception – for example concerning his or her assumptions
about the genre of a text or the interpretation of its argument structure’. The
mise-en-page can also give us clues as to where the manuscript was copied, as there
were different ‘house rules’ for layout in different scriptoria or workshops. Also,
later copyists often kept the same appearance on the page, so one can detect the
evolution of a text by the manuscript layout. Peikola concentrates on the ruling
patterns in the manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible. This allows him to survey the
distribution data in different versions and to date and locate them, with important
consequences for the history of the production of the Bible as a book. The differ-
ences in the layout from what he characterises as the norm show ‘an inherent vari-
ation present in manuscript culture’. He makes an analogy with Middle English
language, namely an attempt to standardise, with a normative layout rather than
an exact reproduction. Peikola clearly shows the neglected potential of the study
of ruling practices in manuscripts, and suggests a database to track the many types
of page rulings. Once more, this is only possible after a close examination of the
manuscript itself.
Some of the essays also consider contexts peripheral to the manuscript. For
instance, although Beadle does not look at a particular physical manuscript, his
consideration of a list of French books that were owned by Sir John Fastolf yields
significant information about the roles played by books among the fifteenth-century
English gentry and nobility. The case of this list of French books is, however, both
peculiar to Fastolf’s eclectic tastes and indicative of new tastes among the educated
English laity. The French books owned by Fastolf, and which may have been
acquired directly, or copied, from the former French royal library bought by the
Duke of Bedford, denotes a familiarity with, and a desire to emulate, the tastes and
the interest in the vernacular humanism prevalent in French courtly circles. Such a
humanist interest in classical and late antique learning cannot be found elsewhere
among Fastolf’s English contemporaries. It is, therefore, worth while reading the
list of French books, as written down by William Worcester, who worked as Fasto-
lf’s secretary, as indicative of the recognition on the part of this bookish man of
the significance of this segment of Fastolf’s library. On the other hand, some of
6  Graham D. Caie and Denis Renevey
the items found in the list reflect contemporary interest in private lay devotions,
such as the Somme le Roi or the meditations in French attributed to St Bernard.
Fastolf’s desire to emulate French princely and ducal collections by owning not
only de luxe manuscripts, but works reflecting French interest in classical and late
antique learning is revealing of translatio studii. However, one is still left with the
question about the exact use made of the French books owned by Sir Fastolf. Was
it important that he, or someone in his household, would read them, or did they
serve only as a demonstration of wealth and status, to be given as gifts to important
patrons or shown as treasures to guests visiting the much-coveted and sumptuous
residence of Caister? Beadle has good reason to believe that both uses were made
of such French books, and that only a close reading of some of those books – when
possible within their manuscript context – will yield further information about the
reading practice of Fastolf and/or members of his household.
Edwards’s contribution to this volume highlights the Hopton Hall Manuscript,
which, having been in private hands for several centuries, has received little crit-
ical attention. Edwards not only describes the contents of this small and unpre-
tentious codex, but also discusses the lay audience to whom the Middle English
texts in it would have been directed as a tool for private devotional purposes.
Using a comparison with other manuscripts (such as Bodleian Eng poet.a.1, or
Tokyo, Takamiya 15, among others), Edwards is able to construct a pattern of
compilation for some of the most popular works of this manuscript, although the
significance of local access to texts (Hopton Hall is written in a form of Norfolk
English) is not neglected. This innovative approach to a fifteenth-century vernac-
ular manuscript throws light not only on the manuscript itself, but also on the
commissioning by lay people of devotional writings, which is a mark of fifteenth-
century textual culture and lay piety.
The contribution by Cré also focuses on a fifteenth-century vernacular manu-
script, Oxford, Bodleian MS 505, which provides valuable evidence of fifteenth-
century textual diversity. Unlike the Hopton Hall manuscript it contains two
vernacular texts which are specifically addressed to a readership of enclosed reli-
gious. The discussion by Cré explores at length the intriguing juxtaposition of
two texts, one of which can be read as a commentary upon the other. Indeed, a
chapter of The Chastising of God’s Children can be read as a critique of some of the
contentious theological statements found in some parts of The Mirror of Simple Souls,
a text that, in its French garb, was considered heretical, although this point may
not have been known to those who read the Middle English version. So, how can
one make sense of the company those two texts keep in this manuscript? One
other way of reading these two texts in this particular manuscript context is to view
the radical material of The Mirror and its echoes in the second text as an instance of
elaborate probatio and discretio, which Cré defines as ‘the correct assessment of one’s
own and other people’s spiritual experiences’.
Gillespie, in his ‘The haunted text: reflections in The Mirror to Deuout People’,
makes a case for the significance of primary readership in understanding the
rationale behind the production of devotional texts. The Mirror is preserved in two
copies from around 1450, therefore several decades after the Arundel decrees of
 Introduction  7
1407–9. Gillespie begins by re-assessing the role played by the Carthusians in the
production and circulation of books, arguing for a controlled dissemination of
books on their part, and a movement of books from the laity into the Carthusian
environment, rather than the other way round. Gillespie reads the Mirror in the
context of a Sheen–Syon axis, with a Carthusian monk writing for the attention
of a Syon nun. However, the context for the making and the reading of the text is
infinitely more complex and fascinating than one could anticipate. Gillespie reads
the prologue in the light of the author’s own awareness of the impressively learned
community of Syon brothers who lived next to Sheen and whose library may have
served the author in his reading and use of secondary literature. Another issue
at stake here is the text’s allusion to a more extended readership, possibly lay. A
careful assessment of the monastic context of Syon shows that the reputation of
the house attracted a large number of visitors, for whom housing, but also pastoral
care and guidance, would be provided by the Syon brothers. Gillespie’s reading of
some of the passages of The Mirror offer convincing evidence for a text written for
a very specific religious community, which, however, accommodated a number of
lay individuals within its precincts. Read in the context of this eclectic community,
The Mirror’s overall structure and its allusion to lay religious practice cast new light
on this work.
Textual community, more particularly scribal community, is also at the heart of
the next contribution. Hanna’s ‘Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context’
considers four manuscript volumes with shared vernacular material and produc-
tion features. In addition, three scribes made contributions to more than one of
the books. There is much in favour of a scribal community responsible for the
transmission of central Northern texts. Linguistic features point to an area in the
vicinity of Burneston, in the North Riding, but, as Hanna concedes, this group of
at least eleven scribes must have been working in a textual community of some sort,
rather than independently in some of the Yorkshire villages around Burneston.
The evidence points to Ripon as the most likely centre for the production and use
of the texts manufactured by those scribes. Hanna then paints a most interesting
picture of Ripon as the local centre for the manufacture of both religious and
secular texts. Clerics were fairly numerous in this small community, as they were
drawn by the activities of the Minster. The Minster, with a staff of more than
thirty, was founded by St Wilfrid in the late seventh century and played a signifi-
cant role in the development of the town. In addition to clerics working within its
precincts, the abbey itself was responsible for two schools and had to staff it with
additional clerics. There were also two hospitals in Ripon in which more than half
a dozen clerics had residence and were active in one capacity or another. Hanna
makes a case for Ripon as a likely place for the production of texts such as those
described in his chapter, and another look at Ripon reveals a community very
much devoted to the para-liturgical practices that took place in the abbey, and one
certainly eager in the practice of local lay devotions, possibly triggered by the cult
of St Wilfrid within the Minster. Hanna offers a wealth of details about some of
the most prominent gentry in Ripon, thus building up a web of social connections
among various literate families which could constitute the kind of nexus through
8  Graham D. Caie and Denis Renevey
which the Ripon manuscripts were disseminated. Hanna proposes a possible late
medieval literary community for those manuscripts, an avenue of research that he
suggests could be carried out for other manuscript groups, hence contributing to a
broader awareness of late medieval English literary communities.
In his ‘Looking for a context: Rolle, anchoritic culture and the Office of the
Dead’, Renevey attempts a reconstruction of the possible cultural and textual
contexts which triggered Rolle to write a commentary on the nine lessons of the
Office of the Dead, whose core is based on some verses of the Book of Job. Although
one of the obvious reasons for the writing of a commentary on the nine lessons
could be a post-plague late medieval preoccupation with mortality, Renevey finds
evidence in Rolle’s text for a concern that is more complex than that. The chapter
therefore investigates Rolle’s personal interest in, and desire for alignment with,
anchoritic culture, and sees that tradition in which the presence of the Office of the
Dead was widespread as an important element for the making of the commentary.
The number of extant manuscripts (forty-four manuscripts of the full text) attests
to a fifteenth-century popularity for Super novem lectiones mortuorum. The chapter
speculates on the popularity of the work in Yorkshire, based on an interest in a
form of spirituality influenced by anchoritic practice and of which Rolle became a
model and proponent. That interest in the anchoritic mode of life is seen not only
among the Yorkshire clergy, with York Minster as a focal point, but also among
the merchant class and the Yorkshire gentry. Evidence of support for anchorites
among noble families speaks in favour of a relationship that was not only finan-
cially based, but also one which regarded anchorites as a source of emulation for
the practice of lay private spirituality.
The last chapter of this book brings us back to the manuscript context. The
combined study of palaeographical and linguistic data promises interesting results
which, in parallel with a consideration of the social logic of texts, further supports
a manuscript culture of variance. As no two witnesses of a text are identical,
we can gather information about the origins and provenance of a text by the
palaeographical evidence in the manuscript. Jeremy Smith shows in his contri-
bution how developments in handwriting can act independently of changes in
the sound-system and that the form of individual letters – hitherto the province
of palaeography – has to be seen as an important part of linguistic enquiry. The
fourteenth century in particular saw major orthographic changes which affected
written English all over England. One must remember that dialectal forms may
be introduced by the scribe and not be indicative of the origins of the author or of
the original text.
It is hoped that this collection of essays will encourage other scholars to examine
the manuscript and cultural context of the medieval texts which they are exam-
ining. New digital technology will undoubtedly play in the future a major role in
bringing the ‘manuscript experience’, hitherto the reserve of the scholar privi-
leged to handle the original manuscript, to a broader reading public, so they can
enjoy the multifaceted sensation of studying the medieval text in context. Such
democratic access to the manuscript context of medieval texts should also lead
scholars further in their attempt at viewing them within an historical and social
 Introduction  9
logic, without, however, evading their symbolic function.14 Indeed, it is our belief
that, rather than creating a historical distance between the medieval and our post-
modern world, our attempt to reconstruct a social and cultural logic to medieval
texts will illuminate better how, despite noticeable differences, those texts still talk
to us in a way which matters and make us able to understand better our sense of
(post-) modern selfhood.15

Notes
  1 We are particularly indebted to the discussions which took place in the special issue of
Speculum 65, 1990, under the editorial guidance of Stephen G. Nichols. Further refer-
ences will be made to specific articles that are part of this volume.
  2 Like Wenzel, it is not without a certain scepticism that we use the term ‘New Philology’;
see Siegfried Wenzel, ‘Reflections on (New) Philology’, Speculum 65, 1990, 11–18.
  3 See Stephen G. Nichols, ‘Introduction: Philology in a Manuscript Culture’, Speculum 65,
1990, 1–10 (esp. p. 2).
  4 See Paul Zumthor, Essai de poétique médiévale, Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1972; see also
Bernard Cerquiglini, Eloge de la variante: Histoire critique de la philologie, Paris: Editions du
Seuil, 1989. For a discussion of the term ‘mouvance’ in Middle English literature, see
Andrew Taylor, ‘Authorizing Text and Writer’, in Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Nicholas
Watson, Andrew Taylor and Ruth Evans (eds), The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of
Middle English Literary Poetry 1280–1520, Exeter: University of Exeter Press and Univer-
sity Park PA: Penn State University Press, 1999, pp. 3–15; for a discussion and use
of the terms ‘flowing series’ and ‘variance’ which respectively stand for Zumthor’s
‘mouvance’ and Cerquiglini’s ‘variante’, see esp. pp. 10–12. See also Suzanne Fleis-
chman, ‘Philology, Linguistics, and the Discourse of the Medieval Text’, Speculum 65,
1990, 19–37 (esp. p. 27).
  5 See Nichols, op. cit., p. 8.
  6 For a discussion of audience pertinent to this volume, and with reference to Zumthor
and Cerquiglini, see Ruth Evans, ‘Readers/Audiences/Texts’, in Wogan-Browne et al.,
op. cit., pp. 109–16.
  7 See Fleishman, op. cit., p. 31, footnote 43. For an adaptation of this concept from the
field of linguistics to that of the medieval manuscript, see Jean-Claude Mühlethaler,
‘Inversions, Omissions and Co-textual Reorientation of Reading: The Ballades of Charles
d’Orléans in Vérard’s La Chasse et le Départ d’Amours (1509)’, in Adrian Armstrong and
Malcolm Quainton (eds), Book and Text in France, 1400–1600: Poetry on the Page, Aldershot
and Burlington: Ashgate, 2007, pp. 32–47.
  8 For a study of the medieval miscellany, to which several of the contributors to this volume
have contributed, see Stephen G. Nichols and Siegfried Wenzel (eds), The Whole Book:
Perspectives on the Medieval Miscellany, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996.
  9 See Fleishman, op. cit., p. 37.
10 See Gabrielle M. Spiegel, ‘History, Historicism, and the Social Logic of the Text in the
Middle Ages’, Speculum 65, 1990, 59–86.
11 Ibid., p. 68.
12 Nichols calls this interest in manuscript culture ‘a postmodern return to the origins of
medieval studies’. See Nichols, op. cit., p. 7.
13 See Julia Boffey’s essay within this volume, pp. 85–95.
14 See Spiegel, op. cit., p. 86.
15 On the medieval self, and on why medievalists cannot remain indifferent to seeing
how past and present bear important claims upon one another, see Lee Patterson, ‘On
the Margin: Postmodernism, Ironic History, and Medieval Studies’, Speculum 65, 1990,
87–108.
1 The manuscript experience
What medieval vernacular
manuscripts tell us about authors
and texts
Graham D. Caie

It is still normal practice to analyse, teach and even edit medieval texts with no
or only limited reference to the manuscript context. The edited medieval text
which the student confronts today is divorced from its physical surroundings
and presented in anthologies or individual editions in a clinically clean, restored
version with modern punctuation. The editor generally gives a title if the text is
untitled, thereby suggesting an interpretation, such as the Old English poem The
Wife’s Lament, which might very well be neither a lament nor by a wife. Such an
approach would never be permitted by the archaeologist, for example, who would
invariably study an artefact in its immediate surroundings, and take particular
care to note the other objects found in its proximity. In the same way, everything
that physically surrounds a text in its manuscript is potentially significant. The
medieval reader of a manuscript approached a text with a certain mindset and
expectations which are different from those of the reader of a printed text. For this
reason it is important to study the text in its manuscript context.
In the early seventeenth century John Donne suggests that the manuscript is
respected more than the printed book:

What Printing presses yield we think good store.

But what is writ by hand we reverence more:
A book that with this printing-blood is dyed
On shelves for dust and moth is set aside,
But if’t be penned it wins a sacred grace
And with the ancient Fathers takes its place.
(From Edmund Blunden’s translation of a
Latin verse by John Donne addressed to
Dr Andrews, whose children had torn up
one of Donne’s books)

Such a sentiment suggests that a different mindset is in operation when opening

manuscript or printed book, and the sense of the authority attached to the manu-
script is reflected in the allusion to ‘ancient Fathers’. The rarity of the manuscript
today as in the Middle Ages endows it with the reverence Donne celebrated and
with which scholars today approach it.
 The manuscript experience  11
The medieval reader would have been influenced by how the text is presented,
as the texts which preceded and followed the work in question, the quality of the
membrane and binding, the nature of the script, the layout and, if present, the
illuminations, historiated capitals, marginalia, glosses and lemma all have signifi-
cance. Such contextual information might give clues as to whether a text was
meant to be read silently or listened to, how it might be interpreted, its contem-
porary readership and ownership and signal its status, that is whether it was
considered an authoritative work or a less prestigious text. A study of the text
in manuscript context can also shed light on levels of literacy, scribal habits and
dialectal, and hence geographic, origins. The margin is a place that allows, indeed
encourages, comment, supplementary information, even parody and humour.1
Michael Camille states:

With the increase in both devotional and bureaucratic literacy and the rise
of new methods of textual organisation and analysis in the later twelfth
century, the page layout or ordinatio of the text supplanted monastic medi-
tatio [whereby words read out were meditated on and memorised]. Now
it was the physical materiality of writing as a system of visual signs that
was stressed. This shift from speaking words to seeing words, is funda-
mental to the development of marginal imagery … Once the manuscript
page becomes a matrix of visual signs and is no longer one of flowing linear
speech, the stage is set not only for supplementation and annotation but also
for disagreement and juxtaposition – what the scholastics called disputatio. …
By the end of the thirteenth century no text was spared the irreverent explo-
sion of marginal mayhem.2

The medieval manuscript is, then, a treasure-trove of information which supple-

ments and complements the text to be studied. One might speak of the ‘manu-
script experience’, as the medieval reader would be presented with many more
stimuli and much more information on the page than that provided by the text in
its modern edition.
This is where the electronic edition comes into its element, as one can now
present on screen the full manuscript facsimile in colour with illustrations, glosses
and doodles; in addition it can be accompanied, if required, by transcription,
edited text, translation and textual and critical notes or witnesses of the same
text in other manuscripts. The manuscript experience is thereby recreated for
the modern reader without losing the advantages of the modern critical edition.3
The relationship between the textual and the non-textual elements on the medi-
eval book page is rarely clearly defined, but the two make an integral whole; the
‘electronic reader’ can enjoy these non-textual prompts and the ongoing marginal
discussion.
I intend initially to look at some of these contextual elements, such as the mate-
rial on which the text is written, the scribal hand and the layout, which is some-
times referred to as mise-en-page, before giving examples of what this evidence can
tell us about vernacular texts and authorship, especially in the late fourteenth
12  Graham D. Caie
century. The whole question of mise-en-page will be addressed by other authors in
this volume, in particular in the chapter by Matti Peikola.

Material
The material on which the text is written is significant. The choice of writing
material depended on availability and cost, as well as the purpose of the writing
and the degree of permanence the writer wished for his work. The witness of a
medieval vernacular text need not in fact be found on membrane, but on wax,
wood, papyrus, slate, stone or cloth. Wax was commonly used for a rough copy
of a text as it was less expensive than membrane, and the tablets, made of wood
covered in wax and held together by leather straps, were portable and could be
reused many times.4 It was employed for ephemeral material or as a preliminary
stage in the writing process. Paper was initially used in England in the early four-
teenth century, but it was not widely found until the following century, as it was
not considered sufficiently durable.
For example, there is in the Hunterian collection at Glasgow University an
early paper copy of The Canterbury Tales (Plate 1), written by a father and son team
by the name of Geoffrey and Thomas Spirleng and completed in January 1476, as
the colophon tells us.5 Both write in a utilitarian hand, probably for their own use,
as there are no decorations or other embellishments. Plate 1 shows the colophon
crossed out by one of the scribes, as he realized that two tales had been omitted;
the Clerk’s Tale, one of those omitted, follows this colophon, and one can sense the
frustration that the work has not been completed yet! The fact that two other tales,
those of the Shipman and Prioress, had been copied twice shows that father and
son must have made their copy over some time and perhaps in spare moments
from their day jobs in Norwich. This is the type of clue one can get from a study
of the text in its manuscript context.
There is also evidence that readers at the onset of printing treated the paper
book differently from the manuscript witness; a manuscript version of a text seems
to have attracted marginal comment more readily than printed paper versions
of the same date. There was a tradition, as the quotation from Michael Camille
implies, of adding comments to manuscripts and viewing them as loci of ongoing
discussion, something to which the reader can contribute and perhaps help shape
by adding to it during its transmission, whereas the printed book had a greater
sense of completion and finality. Electronic publishing has to some extent restored
the possibility of changing one’s work at a later date, as work in progress can be
put on a website and accessed and changed by the author at any time. The medi-
eval text in the manuscript was also forever mutating – the term mouvance is often
used – and evolving as it passed from scribe to scribe; changes are introduced if
the scribe simply makes a mistake or has access to another witness of the text or
if he thinks he can improve the text. Chaucer was obviously worried about this
problem when he gently scolds his scribe, whom he requests
Plate 1  Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales. MS Glasgow University Library, Hunter 197, folio
102v, 1476.
14  Graham D. Caie
[…] after my making thow wryte more trewe;
So ofte adaye I mot thy werk renewe,
It to correcte and eke to rubbe and scrape,
And al is thorugh thy negligence and rape [haste]
(‘Chaucers Wordes unto Adam, His Owene
Scriveyn’, lines 4–7)6

Paul Zumthor stresses the concept of mouvance:

The notion of mouvance implies that the work has no authentic text prop-
erly speaking, but that it is constituted by an abstract scheme, materialized
in an unstable way from manuscript to manuscript, from performance to
performance.7

Quality control was introduced in the universities, where books were copied
by students, to avoid errors creeping in. Sections of books would be distributed to
students, who would copy pieces at a time, hence the pecia system, and pass them
on to colleagues; errors could then creep in and multiply, along the lines of the
‘Chinese whispers’ game, unless texts were periodically checked and corrected. In
addition early printers seem to have treated the manuscript as a disposable and
possibly inferior object. The Hunterian collection in Glasgow University Library
houses both the only extant manuscript of the Middle English Romaunt of the Rose
(see frontispiece), part of which is attributed to Geoffrey Chaucer, and a copy of the
1532 Thynne edition of this work. It is obvious when one studies this manuscript
that this was the one used by Thynne, not least because the printer has boldly
marked the manuscript with aids and advice for the typesetters, for example with
column divisions and marginal notes where there are textual discrepancies. When
a line is missing, for example, he adds ‘lak a lyn’ (folio 17v) and where there has
been misfoliation in the source manuscript he places marks in the margins to indi-
cate that something is wrong (folio 145r: see Plate 2).8 It is obvious that Thynne is
unaware that the problem is misfoliation, as he would have rectified it; he simply
knows that there is a break in sense and that lines are missing. Inky fingerprints
and many other printers’ symbols, e.g. to mark the columns in the printed edition,
also reflect the casual attitude of the printer to the membrane manuscript and
in this way we can learn how manuscripts were used or indeed abused in later
generations.9 The vellum often landed up as book bindings; even, in the case of an
Icelandic manuscript, as a waistcoat.10 It is easy today to forget the effort, time and
cost that went into the simple act of writing. The parchment had to be prepared,
mended if torn, smoothed, stretched and cut to shape; the page would be pricked
in the margin to allow ruling lines to be drawn to guide the scribe and then the
page would be prepared for any illustration, gloss, illuminated or capital letters. A
quill would be sharpened with a knife which would also double as an eraser, just as
Chaucer states above that he has to rub and scrape his text after his scribe makes
mistakes. Then inks would have to be prepared, whether carbon-based or iron gall
ink, and coals used to speed the drying process.11
Plate 2  The Romaunt of the Rose. MS Glasgow University Library, Hunter 409, folio 145r, c.
1440.
16  Graham D. Caie
Finally, good light and reasonable warmth were also necessary. Michael
Clanchy has suggested, therefore, that writing on vellum was a seasonal activity,
and that monks considered it as arduous as working in the fields: ‘Writing was
a similar act of endurance, requiring three fingers to hold the pen, two eyes to
see the words, one tongue to speak them, and the whole body to labour.’12 The
modern reader of a book cannot fully appreciate, Clanchy states, the value given
to parchment documents: ‘To write on parchment was therefore to make a lasting
memorial.’13 The verb ‘to write’ in early Germanic languages such as Old English
(writan) etymologically means ‘to inscribe’, ‘to tear’, and reflects the physical action
of permanent indentation or inscription on stone, metal, wood or parchment.
When one considers the cost in labour and materials needed to ‘write’ in this
sense, then one better appreciates the need to practise and prepare with inferior
materials. The nature of the membrane reflects its cost and thus suggests how
prestigious the text might be considered. The wide range in the documented cost
of parchment reflects the diversity in quality. The finest, smoothest and thinnest
membrane might come from a squirrel or in utero calves’ skins and would be used
for the exquisite miniature Books of Hours, while rougher skins would be rela-
tively cheap in a country such as Iceland or England that made much of its wealth
from its sheep. The processing of the membrane was also significant, and the work
that went into perfecting the skin was often more important than the nature of the
skin itself, while the major cost was the ink, pigments for illustrations and scribes’
time. There was a major commitment, therefore, of time, labour and money when
making the decision to write a text.
For that reason materials other than vellum were used to practise on, such as
wax and slate. Michael Clanchy gives examples in monastic settings of monks
writing on wax in order to commit the text to membrane at leisure, just as
today we might use a notebook to scribble data which will later be entrusted
to a computer or become a published article. He narrates the story of Orderic
Vitalis, who hears an interesting saint’s life when visiting another monastery, but
as it is late and too cold, he ‘dictates’ it on to wax tablets in order to ‘write’ it at
leisure in his own monastery. ‘I made a full and accurate abbreviation on tablets,
and now I shall endeavour to entrust it summarily to parchment’, he states.14
Similarly, scraps of parchment left over from books were used in this preliminary
process, as were the margins of existing books. ‘The process of composing on wax
tablets is thus described in Latin by the word dictitare (literally ‘to dictate’) … The
use of ‘writing’ (scriptitare) is confined to making the fair copy on parchment.’15
The ars dictaminis, a branch of rhetoric, laid down the rules for such preliminary
composition.16
Slate was used as well for rough notes, and we have one example in the recently
discovered fragments of Middle Scots lyrics written on slate and found in a silt
deposit in a Paisley Abbey drain. The slates, which contain fragments of lyrics and
musical notation, were discovered with other artefacts of metal, bone, pottery,
glass and wood.17 One slate (4.2 × 3.0 cm) is incised on both sides and contains the
text of a Middle Scots lyric. The incisions, which may have been made by a pin,
are not deep, suggesting that it was probably not intended for lengthy preserva-
 The manuscript experience  17
tion, perhaps only to be read by the inscriber. It is clearly in a fifteenth-century
secretary hand, with a few signs of hybrid or bastard secretary. Such a cursive
hand is not the easiest or best suited to inscribe on slate, but possibly the scribe
had no training in writing the more angular textura script.18 Another slate (meas-
uring 12.2 × 6.4 cm) has a short passage in musical notation which has been taken
from one part of a polyphonic composition; indeed, coming from the mid-fifteenth
century, it is the earliest example of polyphonic music in Scotland.19 A clue as to
the status of the slate inscriptions might come from the other slate fragments with
incisions found in the drain. Some show examples of practising the formation of
letters, as in a child’s copybook; others have practice designs, for example an inter-
woven Celtic pattern that must have been complex to draw. Such practice designs
are quite common on manuscript margins and flyleaves and many contain errors,
as one might expect.
What can one learn from the fact that these texts are on slate? One might expect
slate to be a common material used for inexpensive, rough copies of texts or for
school exercises. Slate was generally used by school children throughout Europe
until the first few decades of the last century and many older people today still
associate slate with school. Chalk was, of course, the writing implement usually
associated with slate, as it could be wiped out and the slate constantly reused.
However, inscribing on slate makes it impossible to recycle and it is also difficult to
make changes to the text. One possible use might be to practise an inscription on
slate before committing it to monumental stone, just as occurred with writing on
wax.20 Another possible use is in slate tablets with musical notation issued to the
user, for example a choirboy, and returned for future use; these would be durable
objects that would withstand rough treatment.

The script
The script chosen by the scribe sends signals to the medieval reader. The finest
works of authority would be in clear, Gothic or textura script, the more pains-
taking, formal script such as the rotunda or quadrata, while by the fourteenth
century vernacular works and less important documents would normally be
in a court or cursive hand, the predecessor of our modern handwriting. There
developed, therefore, a hierarchy of scripts which carried significant associations.
Square capitals might be used for headings and less imposing minuscule script
for glosses. It was not uncommon to have the same scribe change from textura
to cursive on the same page if he were moving from a Latin to a vernacular text.
In the Old English poem, A Summons to Prayer, found in Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge 201, pp. 166–7, the scribe changes hand within each line of this maca-
ronic poem as it shifts from Latin to Old English.21 By the fourteenth century the
majority of texts were produced by professional lay scribes, as it was also a time of
pragmatic literacy. Professional scribes would prepare sample pages of scripts for
their clients to choose from and of course the cost depended on the time a specific
script took. It is significant that much (though not all) of later Lollard writings
appear in reasonably cheap manuscripts in a fast, utilitarian, cursive script, as the
18  Graham D. Caie
aim was not to produce attractive books, but to spread religious ideas as quickly,
cheaply, legibly and widely as possible.

Layout and presentation

Doodles on slate, the choice of writing materials and marginal comments on
manuscripts might well appear trivial but they all give us glimpses into the medi-
eval writing process, and into medieval readers’ perceptions of the book. The
layout or mise-en-page reflects the importance or significance given to a text, and
the medieval reader would learn as much from the page presentation as from the
script. Just as a fine textura hand would signal the intrinsic worth of the text, so
also would the presence of illuminations, illustrations, coloured capitals, rubrica-
tion and marginal glosses. All such additions had to be carefully planned when the
page was prepared with prick marks for lines to accommodate different sizes of
hands on the same page, for example those intended for the text and the gloss, and
spaces for illustrations and capitals.22
Manuscripts which contain Old English verse were mostly free from marginalia
and embellishment except Oxford, Bodley Junius 11, which contains some line
drawings. The manuscripts are utilitarian, with little room left for glosses and the
poetry set out as prose. These are works not meant to be seen, but heard and
so any non-textual additions are unnecessary. Latin works of the same period,
however, could be very ‘busy’ with headings, marginal and interlinear glosses,
historiated or illuminated capitals, lemmata (the abbreviated source references),
pointers, etc. These manuscripts containing works of authority provided a host
of visual signals and were obviously meant to be read silently and with the assist-
ance of prompts and commentary, both for understanding and for committing to
memory, as that was the final aim of reading an auctor. Mary Carruthers in The
Book of Memory outlines this process:

As codicologists speak of paper or parchment or stone as a ‘support’ for

writing, so the book itself is the chief external support of memoria throughout
the Middle Ages. In its lay-out and ordering, it serves the requirements of
readers who expected to engage it in their own memories. It also often recalls
the memorial gatherings of a whole community of readers over time. … The
distinctive format of the glossed book, used especially for Biblical texts and
law, but later also for secular authors, is the most satisfying model of author-
ship and textual authority which the Middle Ages produced.23

The gloss was the mark of the privileged, authoritative or canonical texts, not
a mere afterthought. The layout itself then had an interpretative function in the
presentation of the text to the reader, as Martin Irvine points out:

In every format that was designed to include glosses, page layout and changes
in script were used to signify both the distinction between text and gloss and
the inseparable textual relationship between them. The text and gloss format,
 The manuscript experience  19
and the literary methodology that it represents, continued in various forms
throughout the later Middle Ages … The layout of manuscripts in the gram-
matical tradition reveals a striking case of interpretative methodology crystal-
lizing into a visual form that disclosed an underlying principle of textuality.24

The size and type of script indicate to the reader which text on the page has
authority (generally a biblical text) and which is secondary (the commentary); then
there might be many other marginal notes, such as lemmata, which aided the
reader source the commentary, just as today we know that the footnote in smaller
type is less important than the main text on a printed page.
These glosses were not marginal additions, but an integral part of the work and
necessary for the reading experience. They were carefully planned when the page
was ruled, sometimes with a ratio of 1:2 lines for text and gloss. Glosses could
be interlinear or marginal and might provide lexical aids and translations to or
commentary on the major text. All manuscripts presented with an apparatus of
glosses and commentary would be recognised as objects of cultural value and spir-
itual significance. An unglossed Latin text was not worth consideration, just like
an unreviewed book today.25
The reason for this is the nature of the university teaching system of the twelfth
century onwards, namely scholasticism. Schools were gradually divorced from
monastic control, and with the growth in bureaucracy there was a need for more
educated men and more written material. The explosion in learning, especially
after the Black Death, meant that more and more texts were needed. Prag-
matic literacy was on the increase and ‘was becoming something of a survival
skill’.26 In the later fourteenth century members of the stationers’ guild in London
were allowed to remain open on Sundays to catch up with the growing demand
for books.27
Beryl Smalley stresses the vital importance of the glosses in teaching and
exegesis up to the seventeenth century.28 And in order to eradicate heresy one
had to ensure that the accepted, authoritative commentaries were glossed in the
margins of the texts so the palimpsest of gloss on gloss accumulated. Additional
commentary might be squeezed in between text and official commentary. This
relationship is typical of medieval textuality, namely a dialogue between text and
metatext or gloss, centre and margin.29 For this reason the medieval manuscript is
considered fair game for addenda, as it is an organic, living, regenerating object.
There were glosses on glosses in a Chinese-box fashion, and in the manuscripts of
scholastic texts the original text trickles through wide margins filled by commen-
tary on commentary, all clearly laid out with lemmata to aid the reader.

Vernacular poets and their manuscripts

All this of course is the semiotic process confined to authoritative, hence Latin,
texts. So where does this leave the compiler of a vernacular text? First it is impor-
tant to look at how the vernacular poet was considered and viewed himself. Until
the mid-fourteenth century we have very few names of vernacular English poets,
20  Graham D. Caie
other than Layamon. ‘Anon.’ was a very busy writer in the Middle Ages. Who
wrote Cursor Mundi, Sir Orfeo, King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Floris and Blanchflour, or
Arthur and Merlin? Then in Chaucer’s time and in the following century we know
of Gower, Langland, Hoccleve, Lydgate, Clanvowe and many more. Is it simply
a modesty topos or were authors afraid of political or ecclesiastical criticism? The
latter is indeed the case for the Wycliffite and Lollard writers and poets of political
and religious satire.
John Gower, Chaucer’s contemporary and friend, stresses at the conclusion of
his Latin work Vox Clamantis: ‘I have not written as an authority [ut auctor] these
verses in a book; rather, I am passing on what I heard for you to read. A swelling
of my own head did not cause me to write these things, but the voice of the people
put them in my ear.’30 The auctoritas or the primary efficient cause, as it is called in
rhetorical handbooks, was God. Gower equally modestly states in his Prologue to
this work: ‘I myself am a worthless man. But a precious thing often resides in a vile
mineral and the commodity on being extracted is valued.’31 Gower is claiming,
therefore, that he is not an author but a medium, a compiler of material, akin to
the manuscript compiler, taking pieces from others and presenting them anew.
The Senecan image of a bee is often invoked in the Middle Ages to describe this
process: the bee gathers nectar, arranges it into cells and creates honey, thereby
borrowing, rearranging and coming up with something new. A similar image is
employed by Isidore of Seville, who compares the compilator not with an artist but a
paint dealer who mixes ingredients together to make the paint. A writer of fiction
then is a borrower and arranger, akin to the person responsible for the layout and
arrangement of others’ material in manuscripts.32
The true auctor is one with auctoritas, ‘authority’, one who writes works of ‘truth’,
which were worthy of imitation. So auctor, authority and authenticity were all
cognate terms. Innovation was equally unwelcome to poets and students, who were
expected to memorise the authoritative commentaries. There was also a percep-
tion that old was good and the best writers were the most ancient. Like canonisa-
tion or being called an ‘Old Master’ in the field of painting, the title of auctor was
given only after generations agreed to honour a work or author with this acco-
lade. In the Middle Ages there was a clear distinction between scribe, who copies
and adds nothing, compiler, who, as mentioned above, mixes and rearranges the
thoughts of others, commentator, who supplies a fresh reading of another’s work
and finally author, who is divinely inspired to convey a work of intrinsic worth
and truth, generally reinforced by patristic commentary. The authentic work was,
then, one that had been confirmed by commentary and glossing. As nothing that
is not in Latin can be of such worth, all the vernacular author can hope to do is to
be a compiler, conveying the essence of the meaning of authoritative texts to a lay
audience – to be a midwife to the sentence ‘meaning’.
An example might be Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue, which is a ‘gloss’ or
commentary on the part of Roman de la Rose in which La Vieille speaks; this in turn
is a ‘gloss’ on Jerome’s Contra Jovinianum, in which Jerome claims to be quoting
from Theophrastus, and all these are based on St Paul’s teaching. Ralph Hanna
states that ‘the Wife’s Prologue becomes marked as a compilation because so much
 The manuscript experience  21
of it, very nearly the whole thing, is pieced together from verbatim translation.
Moreover, this translation is derived – as a series of extracts – from a fuller source
explicitly inscribed in the text of the poem.’33
It is not by chance that the poets of much imaginative literature claim that their
source was a dream or vision; Gower in Vox Clamantis, as stated above, claimed
his source was a vision, and Chaucer places most of his early work in the dream
vision genre, which distances the author and makes him appear as one who recites
others’ material. A similar stratagem is the assertion that the source was an ancient
text that in fact never existed. In both cases the poet is providing a compilation or
supplementary text, interpreting, commenting on and rewriting his authoritative
source.
Many scholars have spent time searching for sources mentioned in medieval
texts: for example, Chaucer never acknowledges in Troilus and Criseyde that he is
deeply indebted to Boccaccio, as he too was a living, vernacular author, but gives
the Latin and fictitious name of Lollius as his source, thereby giving it authority.
Robert Henryson, the fifteenth-century Scottish poet, in his The Testament of Cres-
seid states that after he had read about Troilus and Criseyde in Chaucer, he took
‘ane-uther quair’ in which he claims he finds an account of ‘the fatal destenie /
Of fair Cresseid, that endit wretchitlie’ (The Testament, lines 62–3). He then queries
the ‘truth’ of Chaucer’s work and of the second book – undoubtedly a work that
never existed:

Quha wait gif all that Chauceir wrait was trew?

Nor I wait nocht gif this narratioun
Be authoreist, or fenyeit of the new
Be sum poeit, throw his inventioun
(The Testament of Cresseid, lines 64–7)34

The implication is that Cresseid was a historical character and Henryson‘s

narrator queries the veracity of both Chaucer’s narrative and that of this second
‘narratioun’. There is, however, a tension created in these lines between the
‘authoreist narratioun’ and the ‘inventioun’, ‘fenyeit’ by ‘sum poeit’, the latter
being inferior and lacking ‘truth’. Henryson cleverly distances himself from any
accusations of ‘inventioun’ and assumes the role of the compiler of material, the
simple narrator of what he heard or read elsewhere. Jean de Meun, the author of
what might be called the greatest medieval work of fictional poetry, Le Roman de
la Rose, similarly offers a typical apologia, stating that he simply compiles or recites
material he has found and if the reader doubts him, he should go to his source
books and his aucteurs to check.35 This is echoed later in Chaucer’s protestations in
the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales:

For this ye knowen al so wel as I,

Whoso shal telle a tale after a man,
He moot reherce as ny as evere he kan
Al speke he never so rudeliche and large,
22  Graham D. Caie
Or ellis he noot telle his tale untrewe,
Or feyne thyng, or fynde wordes newe.
(General Prologue, lines 730–5)

The danger is that he will ‘feyne thyng, or fynde wordes newe’ and such origi-
nality is to be avoided at all costs. The narrator’s job is to ‘reherce’ or ‘recite’, as
Henryson says, as closely as possible his source or else he is being ‘untrewe’, even
if it means reciting what the foul-mouthed Miller says:

He nolde his wordes for no man forbere,

But tolde his cherles tale in his manere.
M’athynketh that I shal reherce it heere ...
... demeth nat that I seye
Of yvel entente, but for I moot reherce
Hir tales alle, be they bettre or werse,
Or elles falsen som of my mateere.
(The Miller’s Prologue, lines 3,168–75)

Chaucer repeats the verb ‘reherce’, for his action is that of scribe, not even
compiler. The alternative is to ‘falsen’, ‘falsify’ his material. The poet, then, goes
to great lengths to avoid any criticism of originality. In his A Treatise on the Astrolabe
(lines 59–62) he states: ‘But considere wel that I ne usurpe nat to have fownde this
werk of my labour or of myn engin. I nam but a lewd compilatour of the labour
of olde astrologers.’36
So, according to Chaucer, all the writer must do is to recite what he heard, tell
what he dreamed, recycle old material, because, as he states in The Parliament of
Fowlis:

For out of olde feldes, as men seyth,

Cometh al this newe corn from yer to yere,
And out of olde bokes, in good feyth,
Cometh al this newe science that men lere.
(The Parliament of Fowlis, lines 22–5)

Just as new corn grows from the earlier seed, so also new material emerges from
the works of the ancients. Once more the concept of ‘good feyth’ or ‘truth’ is
introduced as a kind of escape clause. The vernacular author, then, reproduces
and recycles the ancients.
In the fourteenth century vernacular writers were growing in confidence and
with their increased fame and power, they were usurping the privileges of the
authoritative text. This can be seen in the fact that we have the names of these
authors and in the layout of the manuscript page, for example in the use of marginal
glosses. Boccaccio was one of the first to add his own glosses to the manuscript of
his work. In his manuscript of the Teseida Boccaccio himself invented and wrote
down his own glossed commentary, in addition to rubrics and decorations.37
 The manuscript experience  23
It is obviously an exemplar, not a dictamen, so that its format was intended
by Boccaccio to be copied by others. But it is a glossed book. The stanzas of
the source text are written in the large display hand reserved for ‘auctors’, and
commentary, written in the appropriate script, surrounds it in the margins.
These annotations, comments and corrections are also Boccaccio’s … In
Teseida, Boccaccio is both the originator of his text, and its reader; his own
commentary invites commentary from others … By giving his new work all
the trappings of a glossed book, Boccaccio was claiming for it the immediate
institutional status of an ‘auctor’.38

So the vernacular poets of the fourteenth century who, like Gower and Chaucer,
were aware of their talents and originality, could ensure, by adapting some of
scholastic manuscript practices, that the layout and presentation of their work
made the reader immediately aware that this was the work of an auctor, in spite of
explicit textual claims that they were mere compilers. One example is the layout of
the Gower manuscripts. Gower furnishes his Confessio Amantis with Latin apparatus
such as glosses and a Latin colophon. The marginal glosses which he composed
himself provide commentary or refer to sources. Gower, then, claims to be a mere
compiler, but, like Boccaccio, presents his own works in a manuscript setting
which would lead his contemporary readers to think that this was the work of a
genuine auctor.39 As with the Latin works there is a difference in the script between
the vernacular and the Latin. The same scribe wrote both, but with a more formal
hand for the Latin, which is rubricated and introduced with a paraph sign. Derek
Pearsall states that Gower’s plan was carefully preserved by later scribes and that
‘we have to understand … how exceptional for a vernacular work was the role that
Gower chose for the Latin apparatus.’40 Pearsall also sees a dynamic relationship
between the Latin and the English in Gower, and states that ‘Latin is the means
by which Gower’s poem is turned into a Book.’41
And what of Chaucer? Alistair Minnis writes:

Chaucer was content to assume the role of compiler and to exploit the literary
form of compilatio. Indeed, so deliberate was he in presenting himself as a
compiler that one is led to suspect the presence of a very self-conscious author
who was concerned to manipulate the conventions of compilatio for his own
literary ends. If Gower was a compiler who tried to present himself as an
author, Chaucer was an author who hid behind the ‘shield and defence’ of
the compiler.42

However, the manuscript evidence suggests otherwise. One of the earliest of The
Canterbury Tales manuscripts is Ellesmere, which is written on fine membrane in
a careful and attractive hand. It has illustrations of the Canterbury pilgrims and
space was reserved for the glosses by the compiler – they were not squeezed in
later. As Malcolm Parkes states: ‘he [the compiler of Ellesmere] clearly anticipated
the apparatus of headings and glosses, since he added a frame ruling in the outer
margins to receive it, and all the apparatus – headings as well as glosses –is placed
24  Graham D. Caie
within the ruling … In Ellesmere the scribe allowed for one- or two-line decorated
initials.’43 He used an impressive anglicana formata script for the main text and
a finer bastard anglicana (that is, with textura elements) for the heading, incipits,
explicits and any Latin in the glosses. Parkes sums up this manuscript as follows:

The value of a compilatio depended on the wealth of the auctoritates employed,

but its utility depended on the way in which the auctoritates were arranged.
The ordinatio of the Ellesmere manuscript interprets The Canterbury Tales as a
compilatio in that it emphasizes the role of the tales as repositories of auctori-
tates – sententiae and aphorisms on different topics which are indicated by the
marginal headings.44

The Ellesmere manuscript is a large, imposing book – what today might be consid-
ered a de luxe coffee-table book, as much for display as use. Its appearance and ordi-
nation, then, immediately tell the reader that this is an impressive work and thereby
signal that its composer is an auctor, in the same way that Gower’s Confessio Amantis
or Boccaccio’s Teseida are intended to impress the reader. Of major significance
is the fact that the earliest and most authoritative manuscripts such as Ellesmere
and Hengwrt also have Latin glosses. The very presence of glosses in the same
hand (or an even more prestigious hand) with the same size of initial capital, with
paraph sign and given equal visual prominence on the page, makes it look like an
authoritative text.
I have shown elsewhere that I believe that many of the glosses in The Canterbury
Tales were authorial, just as Gower’s and Boccaccio’s were.45 The glosses, however,
have never been given their rightful place by editors, and it is only with the advent
of electronic editing and manuscript digitisation that we can see their significance.
Most glosses are in Latin and quote source material. They are found in around
thirty of the fifteenth-century manuscripts of the Tales, and were considered by
succeeding generations of scribes to be sufficiently important to copy. They are
not all source references, but comments which divert the reader’s eye from the
text to the gloss. Many critics who have studied the glosses in detail seem to agree
that it is likely that they were written by Chaucer himself. This might also explain
why they were given such prominence on the page and were faithfully copied for
a century. Robert Enzer Lewis has shown how the glosses in The Man of Law’s
Tale from Innocent III’s De Contemptu Mundi probably came from the same source
manuscript as that used by Chaucer when translating Boethius in his Boece, as the
same phrasing and errors occur in both. He states that the glosses ‘were written
either by Chaucer in his autograph copy of the Man of Law’s Tale or by a scribe
under Chaucer’s supervision from Chaucer’s own manuscript of the De Miseria, or
by a scribe shortly after Chaucer’s death from that same manuscript found among
Chaucer’s papers.’46
Some glosses simply state ‘Verum est’, for example in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue,
when the Wife says that no man can swear and lie as any woman (line 227), and
these are unlikely to be authorial. Some quote Chaucer’s Latin source, but in doing
so remind the reader of the biblical or patristic context, and on some occasions
 The manuscript experience  25
by quoting the text they highlight the Wife’s deliberate, partial quotation from the
Bible in which she omits the reciprocal continuation of the text, for example ‘God
bad oure housbondes for to love us weel’ (line 161) or ‘I have the power durynge al
my lyf/Upon his propre body and not he’ (lines 158–9). Other biblical quotations
in the glosses are in fact comments: the Wife claims that no clerk ever praised a
woman (689), while the gloss adds the Proverbs 31: 10 text (here in translation):
‘The value of a virtuous woman is far above rubies’, showing that clerks do praise
women, but only virtuous ones.
At one point the Wife says she is attracted to her fifth husband ‘for his crispe
heer, shynyng as gold so fyn’ (304), ‘for his curly hair shining like fine gold’ – an
innocuous line, except that our attention is shifted to the gloss ‘Et procurator calam-
istratus’ (‘The curled darling who manages her affairs’); this quotation comes from
St Jerome’s Contra Jovinianum I, 47, and refers to the married whore who has what
today is called a toy boy, a young man with blond, curly hair. One might pass over
this comment about blond, curly hair, if the gloss had not quoted from Jerome
and reminded us of the Wife’s literary ancestry – the married whore who misuses
marriage to conceal adultery and milk the husband of his money. The glosses
attack not her sexuality as much as her textuality – not so much the sexual harass-
ment of her husbands but the textual harassment of Jerome.
The English and Latin texts are balanced on both sides of the page and so
it might be that the compiler of the manuscript wished to counterbalance the
subversive views of the Wife, which are in English, with Latin glosses from genuine
authoritative texts such as the Bible and Jerome. Ironically it is now the Latin
that has the lesser role of the commentary on the vernacular text. The glosses are
in Latin because that was the language of the source text and so the glossator is
reminding us of the original and allowing us to see how it is recast.
The new breed of English poet in the fourteenth century, therefore, verbally
claimed to be mere compilators (the Ellesmere manuscript has a colophon which
states ‘compiled by Geoffrey Chaucer’), but the manuscript evidence says other-
wise. In the visual presentation of their work poets, beginning with Boccaccio,
went to great lengths to ensure that they appeared on parchment as authoritative texts.
In fact in their own lifetime they had ‘arrived’ – they were genuine auctores. And
this evidence is conveyed on the manuscript page, contradicting the self-effacing
and traditional modesty that is protested in the text. Such a conclusion can only
come from viewing the text in its manuscript context.

Notes
1 One of the best works on this subject is by M.B. Parkes, ‘The Influence of the Concept
of Ordinatio and Compilatio on the Development of the Book’, in J.J.G. Alexander
and M.T. Gibson (eds), Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to Richard William
Hunt, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976, pp. 115–41. See also Michael Camille, ‘Seeing
and Reading: Some Visual Implications of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy’, Art History
8, 1985, 133–45, and his book Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art, London: Reak-
tion Books, 1992, pp. 11–55; Christopher de Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible and the Origins
of the Paris Book Trade, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1984.
26  Graham D. Caie
  2 Camille, op. cit. (1992), pp. 20–2.
  3 See Graham D. Caie, ‘Hypertext and Multiplicity: The Medieval Example’, in A.
Murphy (ed.), Renaissance Texts: Theory, Editing, Textuality, Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2000, pp. 30–43. For an example of such a digitised edition see the
electronic edition of the Middle English Romaunt of the Rose at http://www.memss.arts.
gla.ac.uk (accessed 9 March, 2007).
  4 See Michael T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066–1307, London:
Edward Arnold, 1987, pp. 91–2. I am indebted to Michael Clanchy for information on
writing practices.
  5 MS Glasgow, Hunterian [U.1.1] 197. See more images of this manuscript at http://
special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/chaucer/works.html. See also Richard Beadle, ‘Geoffrey
Spirleng (c.1426–c.1494); A Scribe of the Canterbury Tales in His Time’, in Pamela
R. Robinson and Rivkah Zim (eds), Of the Making of Books: Medieval Manuscripts, Their
Scribes and Readers. Essays Presented to M.B. Parkes, Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997, pp.
116–46.
  6 All quotations from Chaucer are taken from Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer
(general editor Larry D. Benson), 3rd edn, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.
  7 Paul Zumthor, Parler du moyen âge, Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1980; trans. Sarah
White, Speaking of the Middle Ages, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986, quoted by
Martin Irvine in ‘“Bothe text and gloss”: Manuscript Form, the Textuality of Commen-
tary, and Chaucer’s Dream Poems’, in Charlotte Cook Morse, Penelope Reed Doob
and Marjorie Curry Woods (eds), The Uses of Manuscripts in Literary Studies: Essays in
Memory of Judson Boyce Allen, Michigan: Western Michigan University, Medieval Insti-
tute Publications, 1992, p. 85.
  8 See the online version at www.memss.arts.gla.ac.uk. This detail can be seen on
folio 17v.
  9 See the Introduction to Charles Dahlberg’s edition of The Romaunt of the Rose. A Variorum
Edition of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999, vol.
7, pp. 46–58.
10 An example of such a waistcoat is preserved in the Arnamagnean Institute, University
of Copenhagen.
11 See Christopher De Hamel’s excellent introduction to this process in Scribes and Illumina-
tors, London: British Museum, 1992.
12 Clanchy, op. cit., p. 217.
13 Ibid., p. 116.
14 Ibid., p. 91.
15 Ibid., p.21.
16 See Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990, pp. 195–6.
17 See Graham D. Caie, ‘The Inscribed Paisley Slates’, in John Malden (ed.), The Monastery
and Abbey of Paisley, Paisley: Renfrewshire Local History Forum, 2000, pp. 199–204.
18 There is also textual evidence to suggest that the dialect is Scots. A phrase such as
‘I sa for me’ (‘I say for my part’), final <s> in 3rd person singular present tense verbs,
e.g., ‘maks’ and ‘blamys’, and the forms ‘sa’, ‘gud’, ‘luf” and ‘sho’(‘she’) all suggest a
Scots text.
19 See Kenneth Elliott, ‘Musical Slates: The Paisley Abbey Fragments’, in Malden, op.
cit., pp. 205–8.
20 An inscribed slate was discovered in 1998 during the Tintagel excavations; it dates from
the sixth or seventh century and was found with other slates which are inscribed with
decoration and figures. The main slate measures 3.3 × 1.85 cm.
21 See Graham D. Caie (ed.) The Old English Poem ‘Judgement Day II’, Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 2000, pp. 15–19.
22 See Martin Irvine, op. cit. (1992), pp. 81–119. See also Martin Irvine, The Making of
Textual Culture, Cambridge: CUP, 1994, pp. 390–3.
 The manuscript experience  27
23 Carruthers, op. cit., p. 194.
24 Irvine, op. cit., pp. 89–90.
25 See Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1964, pp. 56, 66 and 367.
26 Janet Coleman, English Literature in History, 1350–1400, London: Hutchinson, 1981, p.
47. See also the chapter entitled ‘Vernacular Literacy and Lay Education’ in Smalley,
op. cit., pp. 18–57.
27 Coleman, op. cit., p. 56.
28 Smalley, op. cit., p. 367. See also her chapter on the Gloss, pp. 46–65.
29 This is best demonstrated by Martin Irvine, op. cit. (1992), pp. 85–7.
30 This translation is taken from Alastair J. Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship, 2nd edn,
Aldershot: Wildwood House, 1988, p. 185. I am greatly indebted to Minnis for much
of this section. Minnis continues: ‘The auctoritas belongs to God or to the divine will
as expressed by the voice of the people; he is a humble and unworthy minister of that
doctrine’, p. 186.
31 Minnis, op. cit., p. 172.
32 Carruthers, op. cit., p. 192.
33 Ralph Hanna, ‘Compilatio and the Wife of Bath: Latin Backgrounds, Ricardian Texts’,
in Alastair J. Minnis (ed.), Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manu-
scripts, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1989, p. 1.
34 All references to Robert Henryson are from Charles Elliott (ed.), Robert Henryson: Poems,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963.
35 Minnis, op. cit., pp. 197–8.
36 Ibid.
37 Carruthers, op. cit., p. 218.
38 Ibid., p. 218.
39 Minnis, op. cit., p. 275.
40 Derek Pearsall, ‘Gower’s Latin in the Confessio Amantis’, in Minnis (ed.), Latin and Vernac-
ular, p.14.
41 Pearsall, op. cit., p. 23.
42 Minnis, op. cit., p. 210.
43 M.B. Parkes, Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemi-
nation of Medieval Texts, London: Hambledon Press, 1991, p. 225.
44 Ibid., p. 228.
45 See Graham D. Caie, ‘The Significance of the Early Chaucer Manuscript Marginal
Glosses (with special reference to the Wife of Bath’s Prologue)’, The Chaucer Review 10, 1977,
354–5, and ‘The Significance of Marginal Glosses in the Earliest Manuscripts of The
Canterbury Tales’, in D.L. Jeffrey (ed.), Chaucer and the Scriptural Tradition, Ottawa: Ottawa
University Press, 1997, pp. 337–50.
46 Robert Enzer Lewis, ‘Glosses to the Man of Law’s Tale from Pope Innocent III’s De
Miseria humane conditionis’, Studies in Philology 64, 1967, 1–16, p. 13. Lewis lists (pp. 2–3)
the critics who support the argument of Chaucerian authorship. See also Daniel S.
Silvia, Jr, ‘Glosses to the Canterbury Tales from St Jerome’s Epistola contra Jovinianum’,
Studies in Philology 62, 1965, 31–3.
2 Aspects of mise-en-page
in manuscripts of the
Wycliffite Bible1
Matti Peikola

Mise-en-page as a research topic

Mise-en-page is a term used by codicologists for the general laytout and organization
of the manuscript page.2 As a manifestation of book producers’ decisions about
the physical guise in which a text is to be presented in the manuscript context,
mise-en-page silently guides the reader towards a certain reception – for example
concerning his or her assumptions about the genre of a text or the interpretation
of its argument structure.3 In addition to providing a means for understanding the
intended use and interpretation of texts in different manuscript contexts, the study
of mise-en-page also has the potential to shed more light on affiliations between
manuscripts with regard to their origins and patterns of transmission. A certain
type of mise-en-page design may, for example, reflect the conventions of layout char-
acteristic of a certain scriptorium or workshop.
In manuscripts of a single text, shared minutiae of mise-en-page may even suggest
that one manuscript has served as a model from which the design of others has
been copied. As Gillespie points out, ‘[a]ccurate scribal work might well have
consisted not only in careful attention to the copying of the text but also in the
perpetuation of the structures and layout of the text in the scribal exemplar.’4
The comparative study of mise-en-page may therefore present itself as a method
analogous (or even complementary) to stemmatics, i.e. the analysis of textual vari-
ants and the reconstruction of their genetic relationship. A pioneering piece of
research in this area is de Hamel’s 1984 study of twelfth-century manuscripts of
Peter Lombard’s Magna Glossatura; by analysing ‘certain approximately datable
developments in the page arrangement’ de Hamel is able to construct ‘a rudimen-
tary stemma’ for the manuscripts.5
The line of research where elements of mise-en-page are systematically scrutinised
in relation to patterns of book production and transmission has so far found partic-
ular support in the field of quantitative codicology, chiefly advocated by conti-
nental researchers.6 Within this tradition, constituents of mise-en-page such as ruling,
the positioning and execution of running heads, the presentation of glosses, and
the division of text into hierarchical subsections by means of initials and paraphs
are viewed under the wider umbrella of material book production techniques. As
Delaissé states in his ambitious plea for the ‘archaeology of the medieval book’:
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  29
by comparing and contrasting different book techniques we shall be able not
only to distinguish the various centres of book production from country to
country and from town to town, or even within the same town, but also to
follow the evolution of the style of books in these publishing houses; their
appearance, their period of popularity, and their eventual decline.7

The Wycliffite Bible and aspects of late medieval

English book production
This chapter draws methodological inspiration from the continental quantitative
tradition. Its data consist of a large sample of manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible
(WB). As a preliminary survey of mise-en-page in a single manuscript tradition, the
research design is obviously much less ambitious than that of Delaissé’s manifesto:
instead of positively distinguishing between centres of production, the aim is rather
to test whether comparing and contrasting elements of mise-en-page produces any
such manuscript groupings whose more detailed scrutiny would be worthwhile in
later research. Before proceeding to a more detailed discussion of the methods and
materials of the present chapter, it will be useful to review certain key problems
generally involved in investigating the production and dissemination of WB, and
to consider how these problems may relate to more general developments on the
later medieval English book production scene.
Although there exists a formidable body of scholarship on this well-known Late
Middle English scriptural translation, a major part of the research effort has been
spent on the interpretation of the method and ideology of the Wycliffite transla-
tors and on the linguistic differentiation between their individual contributions.
In keeping with this orientation, localities of manuscript production and patterns
of dissemination have received much less attention; in fact, they remain largely
obscure, beyond the general idea that the origins of the text go back to the trans-
lating and copying activities of scholars and scribes at the University of Oxford
during the last two decades of the fourteenth century, and that London features
prominently in its later transmission in the early decades of the fifteenth century.8
WB is usually viewed as existing in two major stages of translation, commonly
referred to as the Early Version (EV) and the Later Version (LV). Scholars gener-
ally agree that LV is textually more homogeneous and more clearly conceivable
as a single redaction than EV, among whose manuscripts several stages of transla-
tion can be distinguished.9 As a version apparently closest to Wyclif himself, EV
has attracted considerably more scholarly attention than LV.10 For example, a
new critical edition of parts of it has been published by Lindberg,11 whereas the
most comprehensive edition of LV is still that of Forshall and Madden,12 seriously
defective in certain aspects of its textual apparatus.13 Bearing in mind this crucial
difference in the status of scholarship between the two versions, it is not impossible
that the perception of the textual homogeneity of LV in fact partly reflects the lack
of a proper edition.
Of those more than 250 manuscripts in which WB is extant in whole or in part,
approximately 85 per cent represent LV (as estimated by von Nolcken).14 The very
30  Matti Peikola
large number of surviving copies of WB is particularly striking in view of the much-
discussed fact that unlicensed reading of the Wycliffite translations was explicitly
prohibited in the constitutions promulgated in 1409 on the initiative of Thomas
Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury.15 The possession, reading and copying of
WB manuscripts was consequently recorded as incriminating evidence in several
fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Lollard trials,16 and it appears likely that
many manuscripts which surfaced during the search of the homes of suspected
heretics were burnt by the authorities as part of the normal procedure followed
in heresy trials.17 Yet positive evidence for copies of WB actually having been
licensed is almost non-existent; apparently only one of the surviving manuscripts,
for instance, bears an inscription pointing towards the licensing practice.18 The
large number of extant manuscripts thus presents itself as pointedly enigmatic. No
entirely satisfactory solution to this riddle has been offered, but medieval inscrip-
tions of ownership and heraldic emblems in some extant copies suggest that the
survival of the manuscripts in such large number may relate to their sanctioned
use, at least in the context of aristocratic households and religious institutions.19 If
licenses to read the manuscripts were obtainable orally, there is no need to view
all extant copies as illegal and therefore automatically damaging to their medieval
owners.20
What is known about the medieval provenance of some individual manuscripts
of WB is helpful for the reconstruction of the early reception of the text. As such
this information does not allow any general statements to be made about contexts
of production and transmission. Evidence of production has to be reconstructed
indirectly, as manuscripts of WB rarely contain explicit information concerning
the identity of their makers and the locations in which they worked. Although
very few of the manuscripts are datable on other than palaeographic or stylistic
grounds, catalogue datings based on the script and decoration of extant EV
manuscripts suggest that their production was at its peak around the turn of the
fifteenth century. The general trend thus seems to have been that after LV became
available, the production of EV waned rapidly.21 At least in one instance there is
concrete evidence to suggest that producers of a manuscript began with an exem-
plar in EV, but discarded it when they gained access to an LV text (Columbia UL
Plimpton Add. 3; see the section ‘Single and double-column layouts’ below). It
remains unclear, however, whether EV and LV manuscripts share their localities
of production and networks of transmission more generally. This question is inti-
mately related to the as yet unclear circumstances surrounding the making of LV,
in particular with respect to the length of the interval between its publication and
that of the various earlier EV redactions, and channels of production available to
the translators at that point.
It can hardly be doubted that on some occasions at least the want of specific
information regarding the makers of WB manuscripts must have reflected the
prima facie illegal status of the text. Secrecy, however, is unlikely to have been the
only factor. The lack of text-internal evidence about individual scribes, decorators
and other book artisans may also quite plausibly tie in with the general uniformity
of execution which has long been associated with the language and mise-en-page
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  31
of WB manuscripts and perceived as an impediment to their more precise locali-
sation. This association has been made in particular for LV – ever since the
comments to that effect made by Forshall and Madden.22 Linguistic implications
of these early observations were subsequently scrutinised, especially by German
Anglicists such as Gasner and Dibelius,23 whose portrayal of the dialect of WB
as the foundation of Standard English orthography in turn influenced Samuels’s
well-known formulation of the concept of the ‘Central Midland Standard’ as one
of the four types of incipient written standard in Late Middle English.24 With
regard to mise-en-page, similarities between manuscripts of WB have been provi-
sionally discussed by Doyle and Hudson.25 Both scholars observe the professional
quality which characterises a number of the surviving manuscripts and the stand-
ardised patterns of execution that seem to pertain to them. According to Hudson,
‘particularly in copies of the complete New Testament, or on a smaller scale of the
four gospels there is a surprising degree of uniformity between the great majority
of manuscripts.’26
WB is not the only Late Middle English text in whose manuscripts standardi-
sation of mise-en-page seems to have taken place. Similar observations have been
made concerning certain popular poetic texts such as The Canterbury Tales and
Confessio Amantis, and religious treatises such as the Speculum Vitae, Pore Caitif and
the Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ.27 On the basis of datable manuscripts,
this process seems to characterise the first half of the fifteenth century. It has been
viewed as a characteristically metropolitan phenomenon, associated with concur-
rent developments in commercial book production. In the words of Edwards and
Pearsall, it is in London between ca. 1390 and 1410 that ‘the beginnings of routine
commercial production ... in standardised dialect, spelling, script and format’
must be located.28
According to Harris, the presence of these uniform or standardised elements
in commercially produced manuscript books can in general be thought to reflect
product supervisors’ intent to fulfil their commissions as expeditiously as possible.29
In other words, the more uniform the pattern of execution can be made, the
quicker and more efficient the process of production becomes. Over the past three
decades, research by Christianson and others has considerably advanced our
knowledge of working processes and relationships within the large but relatively
close-knit community of book artisans that flourished in the vicinity of St Paul’s
in the City of London.30 Among other important findings, this body of research
has effectively discredited the former idea of large integrated shops or ateliers as
regular production units. It has become increasingly evident that rather than self-
sufficient scriptorium-like units, in which several book artisans would have worked
together, individual artisans usually worked in smaller premises of their own and
offered their services as subcontractors to stationers, master scribes or master
artists, who acted as middlemen and product supervisors. The modus operandi
of the community was thus essentially based on complex production networks
involving various combinations of its individual members, perhaps in much the
same way but on a considerably smaller scale as the circumstances reconstructed
for later medieval Parisian book production by Rouse and Rouse. 31
32  Matti Peikola
The complexity of production networks does not mean, however, that the
combinations of artisans subcontracted by stationers or other supervisors should
necessarily be conceived of as random or haphazard. There is evidence to the
effect that specialisation took place within the industry, whereby, for example,
certain texts would often be copied by certain scribes.32 Drawing on her database
of medieval English professional scribes, Mooney observes that this practice seems
to have become more frequent in the course of the fifteenth century;33 by mid-
century, she posits, scribes specialising in certain texts may in fact already have
produced multiple copies of them on speculation for the metropolitan market.
Among the copies of WB, such circumstances of production from common
sets of exemplars and through routine production networks may characterise for
example the Bodleian Library manuscripts Bodley 183 and Fairfax 11. Both are
early or mid-fifteenth-century copies of the complete New Testament in LV. In
addition to the New Testament, Bodley also contains an appended selection of
Old Testament books. What makes the relationship between the two manuscripts
interesting is that, as posited by de Hamel, they seem to share both their scribe and
their illuminator.34 De Hamel’s palaeographic argument about a shared scribe
is strongly supported by an almost identical orthographic profile in the manu-
scripts.35 The two codices are also remarkably similar in their mise-en-page.36 While
the dimensions of the whole page are slightly different (Bodley 183: 290 × 200
mm, Fairfax 11: 276 × 194 mm), probably because of the later cropping of the
margins in Fairfax, their writing areas are practically identical (ca. 188 × 124 mm).
The manuscripts also share a complex double-column ruling pattern with closely
matching measurements and thirty-three lines per column. In the upper margin
of both manuscripts, between the two text columns, there are rubricated running
heads in which the name of the book appears, preceded by a paraph; the chapter
number is placed towards the edge of the column where the appropriate chapter
begins. Furthermore, narrow vertical double lines in the left and right margins
contain index letters indicating the beginning of lections and double slashes indi-
cating their end; both notations are keyed to the table of lections at the beginning
of the manuscripts.37

The problematique, methods and materials

Although certain differences between the illumination and decoration programmes
of initials, borders and paraphs imply that Bodley 183 and Fairfax 11 were indi-
vidually tailored according to the wishes of their respective sponsors, the intri-
cate similarities between the manuscripts inarguably demonstrate that the scribe
took painstaking efforts to reproduce their detailed mise-en-page design as exactly
as possible. Leaving aside the question of the precise textual relationship between
these two copies for another occasion, the case of Bodley and Fairfax touches
upon several problematic issues concerning the production patterns of WB manu-
scripts more generally. How common is it, to start with, that the mises-en-page of
two or more copies are as identical as on this occasion? Is it usually the case that
even if copies share the basic scribal design of their page layout and organization,
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  33
they yet tend to differ in their programmes of illumination and decoration? Are
there certain types of mise-en-page which can be regarded as standard for WB, and,
conversely, types which are rare or even isolated? Furthermore, are certain types
of mise-en-page characteristic of a certain version of the text (typically EV vs. LV)
or of a certain textual configuration (e.g. a manuscript of the whole Bible vs. one
containing a single book only)? What about differences and similarities of mise-
en-page between textually or orthographically related copies, or between copies
produced at different times?
Answering these questions about mise-en-page in WB manuscripts is obviously
possible only on the basis of a primary survey of its various elements. In the
following section, a survey of some such elements will be presented, including
the dimensions of the writing area, ruling patterns, running heads and initials. In
reporting the results, the main emphasis will be placed on ruling patterns because
of their fundamental importance in determining the basic disposition of the manu-
script page. The discussion of these features is preceded by an overview of various
textual configurations of WB manuscripts. The discussion of the range of contents
in the manuscripts provides important background data which can be correlated
with findings from the exploration of mise-en-page.
In accordance with the continental tradition of codicology, the quantification of
features in terms of frequency counts and distribution data will be integral to the
approach taken; yet, whenever feasible, the qualitative comparison and analysis
of individual manuscripts and their features will also be presented. To take into
account external influences on developments in the mise-en-page of WB it would be
indispensable to compare its manuscripts with those of other products of Wycliffite
biblical scholarship,38 other coeval vernacular religious manuscripts and various
biblical texts in Latin and French produced in England in the later fourteenth
and early fifteenth centuries. A systematic check of WB against this material is
obviously a task which must fall outside the scope of this paper; thus only some
examples from these manuscripts will be offered for comparison.
What makes the survey very much preliminary in nature is not just the decision
to concentrate on certain features of mise-en-page only, but also the fact that it is not
based on all the extant manuscripts of WB. The core of the sample of manuscripts
included in the survey consists of those 127 copies I have personally examined,
for the most part in Oxford, Cambridge and London libraries (see Appendix A).
Moreover, as far as possible, I have sought to avail myself of printed descriptions of
manuscripts whose personal examination has not been possible. For features such
as the size of the writing area or the number of text columns, catalogue descrip-
tions have substantially increased the data in terms of manuscripts included. For
some other features, however, such as ruling patterns, running heads, or types of
initials, catalogue descriptions have proved to be of relatively little use.
Although the data represent only a sample of the manuscripts, I believe that it is
none the less large enough to show, for example, which types of mise-en-page are the
most frequent ones for WB and what are the general trends of mise-en-page develop-
ment for different versions, different textual configurations and so on. While by
no means definitive or final, the findings presented in this chapter should offer a
34  Matti Peikola
reasonable basis for follow-up work on the rest of WB manuscripts; they should
also help researchers to discuss the mise-en-page of other related manuscripts more
explicitly than heretofore – particularly with regard to ruling patterns, the study of
which has so far been largely neglected in medieval English manuscript studies.

Elements of mise-en-page

Manuscript contents
Before any meaningful comparison between the mises-en-page of the manuscripts
is possible, it is important to recognise that behind the deceptively holistic title of
Wycliffite Bible the copies actually come in a number of different configurations as
regards their constituent texts. Manuscripts containing the whole Bible are quite
rare; only twenty such copies are mentioned in Lindberg’s 1970 survey. This scar-
city is probably explained in part by the status of some surviving incomplete copies
as first or second parts of two-volume Bibles whose complementary volumes have
become lost over the years.39 In any case, Lindberg’s survey clearly demonstrates
the prevalence among the manuscripts of copies containing all or part of the New
Testament. Approximately 70 per cent of the manuscripts listed by Lindberg
belong to this category. Why this is the case may relate to the prominence given
to the New Testament in Lollard theology.40 It may also reflect the use of these
manuscripts at mass or in private gatherings modelled upon the liturgical form
of that service; such use is suggested by the presence in a large number of New
Testament manuscripts of tables of lections where the beginnings and endings of
scriptural readings at mass for the whole liturgical year are given.41
The account by Deanesly, largely based on Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, gives the
impression that manuscripts of WB mentioned in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century
Lollard trials contained almost exclusively New Testament material.42 Contrary to
what might be expected on the basis of the surviving manuscripts, however, complete
manuscripts of the New Testament appear to have been relatively rare possessions
among the convicts, particularly after the mid-fifteenth century. As far as can be
gathered from Deanesly, in these later trials the most common types of manuscript
seem to have been those containing just one or two books of the New Testament
– such as the ‘Book of Luke’ and the Acts of the Apostles, owned in 1521 by Richard
Collins of Ginge and William Halliday of East Hendred, respectively.43
Surviving copies of WB also bear witness to the production of manuscripts
whose intended scope was limited to one or two New Testament books only. Such
copies include, for example, three manuscripts of Matthew and Mark together,
one of Luke and John together, one of Matthew, one of Mark and one of John on
its own, one of Acts, and one of the Apocalypse.44 These predominantly scriptural
manuscripts have to be set apart from those copies in which WB material (typically
individual books or even shorter excerpts) has been incorporated into religious
miscellanea of a more distinctively devotional or catechetical bent, or in manu-
scripts with other thematic concerns. In Worcester Cathedral F.172, for example
– copied by the so-called ‘Hammond-scribe’ – Acts appears between three peni-
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  35
tential exempla and the Scale of Perfection.45 Similarly, in BL Add. 10596, a manu-
script which once belonged to a Benedictine nun of Barking Abbey in Essex, the
book of Tobit and the Pistle of Holy Susannah (i.e. Daniel 13: 1–62) are found in
the context of various Middle English meditations and prayers.46 In Eton College
24, possibly made for Sir John Lisle of Woodhouse, Isle of Wight (d. 1471),47 the
Wycliffite translation of the Apocalypse is preceded by the Vulgate version of the
same book and followed by Berengar’s commentary; this contextualising move
essentially presents the WB text as subject to the Latin text preceding it.

Dimensions of the writing area

An element of the manuscript page which most readily correlates with variations
in textual configuration is physical size. As a result of the later cropping of margins
by binders, comparing the sizes of manuscripts simply in terms of their outer
dimensions runs the risk of being untrustworthy, as suggested by the example of
Bodley 183 and Fairfax 11 reviewed above. It is not uncommon that as a result of
such later mutilation catchwords (not to mention leaf and quire signatures) have
been wholly or partially lost, as in Harvard UL Richardson 3. Sometimes exten-
sive trimming of the upper margin has even resulted in partial loss of the running
heads. This is the case for example in NYPL MA 64, bound in gold-tooled brown
morocco by the mid-nineteenth-century London binder Francis Bedford. In view
of this caveat, a more reliable point of comparison for size is provided by the
dimensions of the writing area proper, which is very rarely affected by binding
damage. For single-column layouts, the conception of the writing area presents
no problems of definition; for double-column layouts, the inter-column space
– although as a rule devoid of writing – has here been included in the horizontal
measurement, since it helps us to conceptualise the writing area as a single rectan-
gular frame surrounded by margins on all four sides.
A comparison between the writing areas of WB manuscripts of different textual
configurations shows that the dimensions increase systematically when the textual
scope expands. For complete Bibles (11 surveyed copies), the median value is
291 × 183 mm; for complete New Testaments (68) 146 × 96 mm; for the four
gospels (12) 118 × 76 mm; and for manuscripts whose sole textual contents are
formed by just one or two biblical books (9) 106 × 71 mm.48 Although this corre-
lation may not seem a very surprising finding as such, it highlights the impor-
tance of taking textual configuration into account in the study of the mise-en-page
in general. Examining the written dimensions according to groups of manuscripts
with different textual configurations more readily helps us to perceive conspicuous
similarities between manuscripts of each type. Among complete New Testament
manuscripts, for example, there are 18 copies – all but one in LV – whose written
dimensions fall within the narrow 2-cm range of 118–38 × 76–97 mm.49
With these median figures at hand for the various types of textual configura-
tion, it also becomes possible to spot instances which deviate from the ‘norm’.
For example, among copies of the complete New Testament the writing area of
BL Harley 4890 (ca. 275 × 176 mm) and BL Lansdowne 455 (ca. 272 × 180 mm)
36  Matti Peikola
is markedly larger than that of other manuscripts of this type surveyed for this
chapter; the manuscript next in size (BL Add. 11858) measures no more than
ca. 215 × 139 mm. These two manuscripts seem to differ from the mainstream
production of Wycliffite New Testaments in other ways, too. In Harley this is
evident in its unusual collation in 12s instead of the standard 8s.50 An unusual
feature of Lansdowne is the appearance of Rolle’s Form of Living and Emendatio Vitae
between the Old Testament lections and the Sarum calendar.51 At the other end of
the scale, two New Testaments in the van Kampen collection, with writing areas
of only ca. 75 × 49 mm (van Kampen 637) and ca. 67 × 44 mm (van Kampen 640),
are distinctively small in size; the next smallest group of complete New Testament
manuscripts (BOD Lyell 26; BOD Rawlinson C.237–8; Cambridge, Magdalene
College Pepys 15–16) measures between 90–3 by 57–62 mm.52

Ruling: single and double-column layouts

Despite the fundamental role of ruling in determining the basic layout and organ-
isation of the page, systematic exploration of its aspects has traditionally been
largely restricted to the codicology of Greek and Byzantine manuscripts.53 The
rise of similar interest in the typology of ruling patterns in Western manuscripts
was heralded by Derolez’s quantitative study of Italian Humanist parchment
books.54 It is only Muzerelle’s lucid and easily mastered system of symbolic nota-
tion, however, which really enables explicit identification and comparison of indi-
vidual ruling patterns in manuscripts of the Gothic period.55 As Derolez points
out, however, much more study is required ‘before satisfactory data can be given
about the geographical and chronological scope of their use and distribution’.56
The most basic and transparent distinction between different types of ruling can
be drawn on the basis of the number of text columns.57 Perhaps owing to the influ-
ence of Gothic aesthetic principles, the double-column layout was the prevailing
European type throughout the later Middle Ages; in the fifteenth century,
however, the Humanist influence and also possibly the rise of cursive bookhands
paved the way for a renewed interest in the single-column mise-en-page.58 For book
producers and their sponsors, the choice between these alternatives was also to a
certain extent guided by the physical dimensions of the manuscript in prepara-
tion: in large-size volumes the use of a single text column would easily render the
lines uncomfortably long for the reader, making the adoption of a double-column
layout the pragmatic choice.59 In WB material this correlation is manifest in the
marked difference between the size of single- and double-column manuscripts.
For the former type, the median size of the writing area is no more than 105 × 70
mm (based on 32 manuscripts), in clear contrast to the corresponding figure of 152
× 100 mm for the double-column type (based on 117 manuscripts).
It is worth noting that in those few WB manuscripts in the data where both
single- and double-column layouts are used for the presentation of the biblical
text, the length of the text lines in the single-column section tends be clearly above
the single-column mean of 70 mm. This is the case for example in BOD Dugdale
46 (Pauline Epistles, LV; long lines of ca. 98 mm) and Columbia UL Plimpton
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  37
Add. 3 (New Testament, EV/LV; long lines of ca. 115 mm). Both manuscripts
show the work of several scribes and the lack of coordination between them. In
the case of Dugdale, the poor quality of the material, handwriting and decoration
make the manuscript appear a hurried, low-budget project. While the different
layouts adopted by the Dugdale scribes may simply betray their individual pref-
erences, however, it is also possible that they reflect the use of exemplars with
different layouts. This is at least very probably the reason for the variation in mise-
en-page in the Plimpton copy.60
Whereas a single-column layout was not a practical choice in large-size manu-
scripts, no similar restrictions applied to the opposite case of using a double-column
layout in small books. The two tiny van Kampen New Testaments, for example,
are both executed in two columns.61 The applicability of a double-column mise-
en-page to manuscripts of all sizes is reflected in the profusion of this type among
the copies surveyed: of those 197 manuscripts for which unambiguous informa-
tion on column layout was available to me either from personal observation or
from earlier descriptions, 81 per cent (N=159) have a double-column ruling. In
addition to its practical suitability for different manuscript sizes, the dominance of
the double-column type is likely to be explained by scribal imitation of the layout
of exemplars along the lines witnessed in Columbia UL Plimpton Add. 3;62 this
can be viewed as a ‘snowball effect’ generated by successive instances of copying
within the textual tradition. The use of double columns in the majority of the
surviving EV manuscripts suggests that this layout must have been adopted early
in the production history of WB and that most copies executed in single columns
reflect later contextualising moves made in the process of transmission. Influence
from the mise-en-page of other scriptural manuscripts may help to explain why a
double-column layout should initially have been perceived as the preferable one.
That a proper scriptural manuscript – even one of small size – has two columns
must have been an idea deeply rooted in contemporary minds, perhaps above
all from the widely circulated Latin Bibles of the Parisian style, such as the mid-
thirteenth-century codex from the Schøyen collection discussed by de Hamel as
a typical example of these books.63 The double-column format also seems to have
been common in fourteenth-century New Testaments and manuscripts of the four
gospels in French, such as the copy of the New Testament now in BL Royal 20
V.v, made in England.

Ruling patterns
While the broad distinction between single- and double-column layouts helps us
to perceive some trends in the mise-en-page design and development of WB manu-
scripts, it obscures the fact that within these two general categories almost forty
different ruling patterns are used. It is, however, these details of ruling that we
need to investigate in order to find potential evidence for more concrete produc-
tion relationships between the copies. Within the limited scope of this paper only
some aspects of the patterns can be brought up, and it is not possible to present
here a complete inventory of all types found in manuscripts of the WB sample. For
38  Matti Peikola
purposes of exact identification and further comparison of ruling patterns beyond
WB material, the patterns reviewed will be furnished with codes according to the
system presented by Muzerelle.64
The first thing to be noted about the ruling patterns is their very uneven distri-
bution: there are a few types which are relatively frequent, and a large number
which are found in one or two manuscripts only. Among double-column mises-
en-page, the pattern represented in Figure 1 in Appendix B (Muzerelle’s notation
1-1-11/0/2-2/JJ or J) is by far the most common, found in approximately 28 per
cent (N=37) of those 134 manuscripts for which exact information on ruling was
obtainable for the purposes of the present study. The second most frequent type,
represented in Figure 2 (1-1-11/0/1-1/JJ or J), occurs in approximately 14 per
cent (19) of the manuscripts, and the one in Figure 3 (1-1-11/0/2-1/JJ or J) in
approximately 5 per cent (7) of the copies. In other words, the pattern in which
the upper and lower horizontal bounding lines of the writing area are both double
(Figure 1) occurs about twice as frequently as the less complex one in which both
of these lines are single (Figure 2). This suggests that the principal motive behind
a scribe’s opting for a particular type of ruling was not the purely pragmatic need
to establish a simple frame for the text on all four sides. The choice was not made
on functional grounds, either; at least in WB manuscripts the double horizontal
line of the writing area is not intended to carry elements of the running heads or
marginal annotation, but functions in exactly the same way as the corresponding
single line. It seems likely that in adopting the double horizontal bounding lines
scribes were either closely imitating their exemplars or were relying on an estab-
lished convention for representing the text. A similar trend can be seen in copies
with a single-column layout; here, too, the pattern with double bounding lines for
both upper and lower horizontal frames (i.e. 1-1/0/2-2/J; cf. Figure 1) is clearly
the most frequent, found in fourteen manuscripts, while the single-column type
corresponding to Figure 2 (1-1/0/1-1/J) occurs in just five copies. As with the
double-column mise-en-page, the type in which only the upper bounding line is a
double line is less common than the other two, found in three manuscripts only
(1-1/0/2-1/J; cf. Figure 3).
In terms of physical size and range of contents of the manuscripts, the use of
the most common double-column ruling patterns represented in Figures 1–3 is
not confined to any particular textual configuration. The type in Figure 1, for
example, is used both in CUL Dd.1.27, a copy of the complete Bible in 62–4
text lines (writing area ca. 290 × 172 mm), and in BL Harley 5767, a copy of
the gospels of Luke and John in 23 text lines (ca. 116 × 78 mm). It seems not
unlikely, however, that even if this ruling pattern was used to produce copies of
different sizes, the scribes often retained the approximate number of text lines
in their copying. This interpretation is suggested by the fact that although the
number of lines for the pattern represented in Figure 1 ranges from 23 to 64, the
manuscripts are by no means evenly distributed along this continuum. Out of the
37 manuscripts with this pattern, no fewer than 20 have 30–6 lines; within this
range there are for example three copies of 30 lines throughout, two of 31, three of
32, three of 33, and two of 34 lines. Both Cambridge, Trinity College B.10.7 (New
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  39
Testament, LV) and JRL Eng 77 (New Testament, LV), for example, have 36
lines despite their rather differently sized writing areas (ca. 197 × 133 mm and ca.
125 × 82 mm respectively). However, among these 20 manuscripts there are also
several pairs whose writing areas are practically identical in size, such as JRL Eng
77 and NYPL MA 65 (New Testament, LV, 35 ll.); Bodley 665 (New Testament,
LV, 34 ll.) and BOD Douce 265 (New Testament, LV, 33 ll.); Cambridge, St
John’s College E.14 (Psalms–Sirach, LV, 32 ll.) and Bodley 979 (New Testament,
LV, 31 ll.); BOD Rawlinson C.237–8 (New Testament, LV, 30 ll.) and BOD Lyell
26 (New Testament, LV, 30 ll.). Although not members of any such identical
pairs, NYPL MA 66 (New Testament, LV, 34 ll.) and BOD Rawlinson C.752
(the four gospels, Apocalypse and Jude, LV, 33 ll.) also very much resemble these
manuscripts in that in all ten copies the writing areas vary by no more than ca. 2.5
cm (91–125 × 57–82 mm). With regard at least to the size of their writing area,
ruling pattern and lineation, these manuscripts concretely manifest the standard-
ising features of production earlier noted by Doyle and Hudson.65 This group will
be further investigated in the next major section with respect to the use of running
heads and initials.
Textually, a great majority of the 37 manuscripts in which the most common
double-column ruling pattern (Figure 1) is found either represent ‘pure’ LV (31
mss) or contain material from both versions (4 mss). Only two manuscripts are in
EV throughout. Incidentally, one of these belongs to those relatively few copies of
WB which are datable on other than palaeographic or stylistic grounds. The manu-
script in question is BL Egerton 617–18, a sizeable deluxe codex containing the
books from Proverbs to Apocalypse (writing area ca. 315 × 190, 46 ll.).66 Together
with its now lost companion volume, the manuscript once belonged to the library
of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester (see endnote 19). A reference to the
book in an inventory compiled after the Duke’s death establishes a terminus ante
quem of 1397, making it in fact the earliest of all copies of WB for which a date
can be assigned on the basis of external criteria.67 Doyle associates the decoration
of the manuscript with the metropolitan style and characterises it as an expen-
sive display copy of EV produced for court circles, similar in this respect to the
complete Bible now in Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August Bibliothek MS Guelf. Aug.
A.2, once owned by the great-nephew of Gloucester, Thomas of Lancaster.68
Egerton 617–18 shows an early use of a ruling pattern which together with its
corresponding single-column type became the one most widely adopted in the
production of copies of LV during the fifteenth century.69 Compared with other
copies of EV, however, it would seem that Egerton can hardly be regarded as
a typical representative of manuscripts containing this version. This is apparent
from the way in which the ruling of text lines has been executed. In Egerton, as
in a majority of LV manuscripts, text lines have been ruled in ink and no attempt
has been made to erase them by the scribe. Moreover, the ruling of text lines does
not extend across the inter-column space, nor do the lines continue into the gutter.
The presence of ruling in either or both of these areas characterises a number
of early (s. xvi ex. or s. xiv/xv) EV manuscripts, such as BL Add. 15580 (inter-
column space ruled), BL Royal 1.B.vi (inter-column space ruled), CUL Add. 6681
40  Matti Peikola
(inter-column space ruled), CUL Add. 6682 (single-column layout, gutter ruled),
BOD Douce 369 (inter-column space ruled in the second part), BOD Hatton 111
(single-column layout, gutter ruled), and BOD Rawlinson C.258 (inter-column
space ruled). In these manuscripts the ruling seems to have been done in metal
point (or possibly crayon) rather than ink, and on many occasions the parts of the
lines supporting text have been substantially erased by the scribe.70
The different convention of ruling observed in these EV manuscripts also seems
to correlate with the quality of the parchment. In these manuscripts the parch-
ment is as a rule quite hard and there is a clear difference between the colouring of
the yellow hair and white flesh sides, in a way characteristic of the skin of mature
sheep.71 Parchment of this kind, combined with what appears to be metal point or
crayon ruling (although without the ruling of the inter-column space or the gutter),
is found in other EV manuscripts as well, such as Glasgow UL Gen. 223, whereas
the combination seems to be very infrequent in copies of LV. These features also
occur in some roughly coeval manuscripts of the Wycliffite Glossed Gospels, such
as CUL Kk.2.9 (inter-column space and gutter ruled, metal point/crayon), BL
Add. 28026 (metal point/crayon), BL Add. 41175 (inter-column space and half
of gutter ruled, metal point/crayon), and Bodley 243 (inter-column space ruled,
metal point/crayon).72 By way of further similarity, the surveyed copies of EV and
the Glossed Gospels characterised by the features in question are also often devoid
of illumination, being decorated with ink initials only; however, BL Add. 41175
and Bodley 243 form a glaring exception.73 Moreover, in several manuscripts the
scribes prefer anglicana over textura, which is the standard type of script in LV.
It is possible that this combination of features relates to the circumstances of book
production characteristic of that stage of Wycliffite biblical scholarship when the
text of LV was still in preparation and avenues of the later metropolitan multipli-
cation of regularised copies envisaged by Doyle were yet to be established.
A ‘mixed’ EV/LV manuscript Lambeth Palace 25 provides further evidence to
the effect that the ruling of the inter-column space was particularly associated with
the early transmission of EV.74 The probable dating of this copy of the whole Bible
to the turn of the fifteenth century or thereabouts makes it roughly contempora-
neous with the completion of LV, usually assumed to have taken place between
1395 and 1397.75 When examined against the backdrop provided by the date, the
contents of the manuscript can be viewed as a concrete manifestation of the tran-
sitional phase from EV to LV. The change from EV to LV at ff. 76/7 coincides
with a textual boundary between Deuteronomy and Joshua; it also coincides with
a quire boundary, and the unusual size of the last EV quire (four leaves instead of
the regular eight) suggests that the Pentateuch was copied as a separate unit and
from a different exemplar.76 Although ruled in ink and written in textura on vellum
with a velvety finish, in accordance with the rest of the manuscript, the EV part
adheres quite systematically to a ruling pattern in which the inter-column space
has been ruled (1-1-11/0/2-2/J); after the switch to LV, however, this practice
immediately becomes less regular and is soon altogether discontinued. It seems
likely that the scribe of the EV part, perhaps not identical with the one continuing
from f. 77, picked up the inter-column ruling from his exemplar – an exemplar,
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  41
it may be speculated, perhaps ruled in metal point/crayon and written in angli-
cana on coarser kind of parchment. The rapid discontinuation of the inter-column
ruling in the LV part may indicate that the EV part had been completed before its
copying commenced, and that the scribe first sought to retain the ruling pattern of
the first part of the manuscript under preparation; however, he soon abandoned
it, opting for the standard pattern of his LV exemplar, apparently devoid of inter-
column ruling (i.e. 1-1-11/0/2-2/JJ; see Figure 1).
So far the investigation has chiefly concentrated on the most frequently attested
ruling patterns, illustrated in Figures 1–3, and their single-column equivalents.
Despite the use of double horizontal lines to outline the writing area in some of
these patterns, their complexity is not very high compared to many other rarer
patterns found in the material. Such complex patterns occur almost exclusively in
double-column mises-en-page.
The most obvious element which increases the complexity of a pattern is the use
of extra lines of ruling in the margins in addition to the basic frame which outlines
the writing area. In some patterns, these marginal lines clearly have a designated
function in the mise-en-page of WB. This is the case in particular when the addi-
tional lines are double. The narrow space between vertical double lines is often
designed to contain the index letters for lections. In the upper margin, a horizontal
double line is regularly used for elements of the running head. These conventions
are most systematically used in two patterns which have a full marginal double
frame, found in the present material in six and three manuscripts respectively
(see Figures 4 and 5).77 Writing areas of the patterns illustrated in Figures 4 and
5 match the two most common WB ruling patterns illustrated in Figures 1 and
2; thus the former can essentially be regarded as more complex extensions of the
latter. Especially in the case of Figure 4, the use of a complex ruling pattern seems
to be associated with the use of quite formal textura semiquadrata or even quad-
rata bookhands and lavish decoration where illuminated initials and full borders
are used at least for major biblical books. In addition to Bodley 183 and Fairfax
11, both briefly discussed above, such manuscripts include CUL Add. 6683 and
University of California, Berkeley (UCB) 128, all copies of the New Testament in
LV. In UCB 128 the scheme and execution of the decoration closely resembles that
of Fairfax 11; for example, in addition to their remarkably similar programmes of
initials, both use pen-flourished paraphs which alternate in colour between blue
(with red penwork) and gold (with lilac penwork). As far as can be gathered from
the high-quality colour images of UCB 128 available through the Digital Scriptorium
Database at http://www.scriptorium.columbia.edu, the size of its writing area is
almost identical to Fairfax and Bodley; likewise the hand of its scribe – if not the
same as in Fairfax and Bodley – is at any rate very similar to it with regard to both
aspect and the execution of individual letter-forms, such as ‘g’. A comparison of
the colour schemes used in these three codices and the repertoire and execution of
the motifs in their borders, along the lines advocated by Scott, also strongly seems
to place UCB 128 within the same ‘commercial production line’ with which de
Hamel associates Bodley 183 and Fairfax 11.78 As to its date of production, the
repertoire of border motifs used in the manuscript is quite similar to those which
42  Matti Peikola
Scott, on the basis of her examination of the copy of WB in BOD Fairfax 2 (dated
1408), regards as ‘characteristic of the period before and around (but not long
after) 1408’.79
The present material suggests that the ruling patterns shown in Figures 4 and
5 are characteristic of complete New Testament manuscripts in LV. Among the
patterns which exhibit marginal ruling there is also one type which is found only in
two LV manuscripts of the complete Bible – CUL Mm.2.15 and Oxford, Lincoln
College lat. 119 (see Figure 6, 2-21-11/0/1-1/JJ). In addition to sharing an iden-
tical ruling pattern, both manuscripts use 66–7 text lines; despite the extensive
cropping of the margins of CUL Mm.2.15, their writing areas are very close in size
(ca. 300 × 188 mm and ca. 295 × 190 mm respectively). Such close codicological
similarities between the manuscripts are hardly coincidental; it is possible that the
presence of a heavy professional glossing apparatus in the margins of their Old
Testament parts and the occurrence of (some) text of the rare General Prologue in
both manuscripts are issues that tie in with these codicological affinities.80
In its use of double lines for the vertical delineation of the writing area, the
ruling pattern of CUL Mm.2.15 and Oxford, Lincoln College lat. 119 shown in
Figure 6 can be viewed together with six other WB manuscripts of the present
sample which show this feature. Although common in Carolingian codices, by the
fifteenth century this usage generally seems to have become an archaism.81 It may
have some significance as to the adoption of the feature in WB that in the group of
eight manuscripts using it all but one (BL Royal 1.B.vi) are heavily glossed in the
margins. Of these seven glossed codices, furthermore, four are full copies of the
complete Bible (CUL Mm.2.15 and Oxford, Lincoln College lat. 119, Figure 6;
Bodley 277, Figure 7; BL Cotton Claudius E.ii, Old Testament part, Figure 8); two
are second volumes of complete bibles (JRL Eng 91, Figure 9; BL Harley 5017,
Figure 10); and one is a manuscript of the complete New Testament (Oxford, New
College 67, part 1, Figure 11).
As to the possible association of the feature with the adoption of a glossing appa-
ratus, it is worth noting that in BL Cotton Claudius E.ii the complex pattern repro-
duced in Figure 8 is used only in the densely glossed Old Testament part of the
codex,82 whereas the very sparsely glossed New Testament, copied by a different
(de facto third) scribe, has a simpler ruling pattern which corresponds to that illus-
trated in Figure 2, with one additional horizontal line in the upper margin (i.e.
1-1-11/1-0/1-1/J). Somewhat contrasting evidence is provided, however, by the
revised EV manuscript Oxford, New College 67, which according to Hargreaves
is one of the two WB codices in which ‘systematic’ glosses to the New Testament
are present (the other one being BL Harley 5017, Figure 10).83 Here it is inter-
esting that after the heavily glossed part of the text begins, the ruling pattern in
fact becomes simpler (1-1/2-0/1-1/J) than that used in the first part (i.e. Figure
11). The possible influence of two differently ruled exemplars notwithstanding,
the change may have been occasioned by the presence in the first pattern of a
vertical double (or occasionally single) line in the outer margin – a line which the
scribe may have viewed as worth excising in order to smoothly accommodate the
extensive glosses on the manuscript page.
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  43
In other manuscripts of Lollard biblical scholarship examined, double vertical
lines bounding the writing area also feature in two s. xiv/xv manuscripts of the
Glossed Gospels (Bodley 243 and BL Add. 41175) which Scott surmises as being
‘probably part of the same project’.84 In fact, in other aspects, too, the ruling
patterns of these manuscripts closely resemble the group of WB manuscripts with
the double vertical lines. With the exclusion of the presence of inter-column ruling
in Bodley 243, its ruling is identical with that of CUL Mm.2.15 and Oxford,
Lincoln College lat. 119 (Figure 6). In BL Add. 41175, the vertical ruling in both
the marginal and writing areas is in turn identical with that of BL Harley 5017
(Figure 10); their ruling patterns also agree in the absence of any horizontal lines
in the margins.
In addition to the presence of inter-column and gutter ruling in BL Add. 41175,
the differences between its pattern and that of BL Harley 5017 lie in the execution
of the horizontal ruling of the writing area. As shown in Figure 10, in BL Harley
5017 ‘standard’ double lines are used for this purpose in both the upper and lower
horizontal frame. In BL Add. 41175, however, the upper and lower bounding
lines of the writing area are single; more notably, they are of different length, so
that the upper line runs all the way from the outer margin to the gutter in the usual
way, whereas the lower line only extends between the vertical bounding lines of
the writing area and is not present in the margins (cf. Figure 8).
This feature is also found in some manuscripts of WB surveyed for the present
study, such as BOD Rawlinson C.258 (New Testament, EV, s. xiv/xv; 1-1-
11/0/1-0/J) in which it is combined with the use of inter-column ruling as in BL
Add. 41175.85 Gumbert has observed that the absence of the marginal sections
of the upper and lower horizontal lines of the frame is a common feature in
manuscripts which have been ruled with a rake.86 In BL Add. 41175 and BOD
Rawlinson C.258, however, only the lower line is confined between the vertical
bounding lines, so the situation is not really identical to that characterised by
Gumbert. None the less, it is worth noting that in BL Add. 41175 – where the
minutiae of ruling can be scrutinised from the ¾-blank leaf 103r – every thir-
teenth text line is thicker than the rest and the distance between these thicker
lines is always the same (viz. 56 mm). While this detail may indeed betray the use
of a rake-like instrument in the ruling of this particular manuscript, a lot more
research is needed to ascertain whether the absence of the horizontal bounding
line from the lower margins is in any way relevant to the detection of rake-ruled
manuscripts.87 The presence of this feature together with inter-column ruling for
example in some mid/late-fourteenth- and early fifteenth-century biblical manu-
scripts in French indicates that despite its relative infrequency among WB manu-
scripts, it is not difficult to come by other coeval instances.88 On certain occasions,
at least, it seems to have been the case that the shortness of the lower horizontal
bounding line has resulted from its having been drawn together with other text
lines, probably not simultaneously with the execution of the rest of the ruling. This
interpretation arises from the adoption in some manuscripts of a different instru-
ment for the ruling of the two respective areas. In BL Cotton Claudius E.ii (first
part), CUL Add. 6680, and NY Pierpont Morgan Library 400, for example, the
44  Matti Peikola
text lines (including the lower horizontal bounding line) are very faint, ruled either
with drypoint or largely erased metal point or crayon, while the upper horizontal
bounding line, together with other features of ruling, is clearly visible and appar-
ently executed in ink.
Let us conclude this section by examining a few other types of complex and infre-
quent ruling patterns in WB manuscripts. In addition to BL Cotton Claudius E.ii;
Bodley 277; CUL Mm.2.15; Harley 5017; JRL Eng 91; Oxford, Lincoln College
lat. 119; and Oxford, New College 67 discussed above, the eighth manuscript of
the present survey in which double lines are used for the vertical bounding of the
writing area is BL Royal 1.B.vi – a copy of the New Testament in EV. In terms
of its contents, the codex resembles BOD Rawlinson C.258 in presenting Acts
immediately after the four gospels and in containing no prologues.89 As shown
in Figure 12, the ruling pattern of the manuscript (2-2-111/0/2-2/J) is in other
respects quite different from that of the other seven: it is devoid of any marginal
ruling and its two text columns are separated by three vertical lines instead of
the normal two. No other manuscript of the present survey exhibits the latter
feature, and the scribe’s source for the model is not clear. Muzerelle’s examples
contain some ruling patterns which have the feature (see examples 18, 19, 21, 26,
31, 39); three of them (21, 26, 39) even have similar double bounding lines to BL
Royal 1.B.vi.90 Examples 21 and 26 derive from twelfth- and thirteenth-century
biblical manuscripts, so influence from this sphere has to be considered as one
possibility.
Another infrequent feature of ruling among WB manuscripts is the presence
of double or triple horizontal through lines at the midpoint of the text-column(s)
(see Figures 13–15). According to Derolez, the function of these through lines was
primarily aesthetic.91 Four different ruling patterns of this type occur in the present
sample; these are found in no more than five manuscripts altogether, demon-
strating the clearly non-standard aspect of the feature in the production of WB.92
A common textual aspect of all five manuscripts is that they are in LV and contain
either the whole New Testament or parts of it; no additional ruling is found in
the margins of any of these copies. In all four ruling patterns the midpoint line is
identical in type with the upper horizontal bounding line of the writing area as
shown in Figure 13, but in one case it differs from the lower bounding line (see
Figure 14). In three patterns the midpoint line is a double line; in one pattern it is
a triple line (see Figure 15). Although none of these patterns occurs as such among
Muzerelle’s examples, there are several exemplary patterns from the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries which feature a double or triple midpoint line; they occur in
bibles, psalters or biblical commentaries (see examples 21, 24, 32–4). The element
does not appear to have been rare in biblical manuscripts of English origin or
early provenance, either, as suggested for example by Cambridge, Corpus Christi
College 83 (Latin biblical narrative in verse, s. xiii);93 and BL Royal 1.B.x (Genesis–
Psalter in Latin, s. xiii), both of which use a triple midpoint line. It is possible that
the adoption of this feature in manuscripts of WB was influenced by such earlier
uses; it may even have been a deliberate archaising move on the part of the book
producers.94
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  45
Running heads and initials
Early in the previous section, a group of ten LV manuscripts, mostly copies of the
complete New Testament, was singled out on the basis of their sharing of a similar
double-column ruling pattern (Figure 1) and their almost identically sized writing
area; moreover, it was observed that the number of text lines in the group falls
within the range of 30 to 35. The purpose of this section is to scrutinise further
these manuscripts (henceforth termed as ‘the LV group’) in terms of the execution
of their running heads and initials. It will be assessed how ‘standardised’ the manu-
scripts are with respect to these features and how their running heads and initials
compare with those of WB manuscripts at large. No comprehensive analysis of the
features in the sample of WB manuscripts surveyed will be attempted, however;
the enquiry is focused predominantly upon their use in the LV group, i.e. Bodley
665; Bodley 979; BOD Douce 265; BOD Lyell 26; BOD Rawlinson C.237–238;
BOD Rawlinson C.752; Cambridge, St John’s College E.14; JRL Eng 77; NYPL
MA 65; and NYPL MA 66.

Running heads
As demonstrated by Parkes, the systematic use of running heads was a develop-
ment associated with scholastic changes in the mise-en-page of manuscripts in the
High Middle Ages; together with other changes brought about by the scholastic
concept of the ordinatio, however, by the fifteenth century running heads were
no longer a technical novelty but a commonplace found in all sorts of manu-
scripts.95 It is therefore hardly surprising that all ten manuscripts of the LV group
are furnished with them. In this feature they agree with almost all other WB
manuscripts of the present survey. Only in some small-size single-column codices
with a narrow textual configuration do running heads not seem to have been
considered a required element of the mise-en-page. This may be related to the main
function of running heads in WB manuscripts, as readers’ aids to quickly locating
a particular biblical book. Glasgow UL Hunterian 337, for example, was appar-
ently intended to contain only the gospel of Mark (the text now ends imperfectly
at Mark 14: 13), so there was no need to use running heads for the designated
purpose. Another logical reason for the absence of running heads is the appear-
ance of a WB text in other than its normal context, as in the case of BL Royal
17.A.xxvi, where the gospel of John appears as a constituent of a religious miscel-
lany. The standard WB running head ‘Joon’ would hardly have made much sense
in this context. Neither of these manuscripts shows evidence of being unfinished in
terms of rubrication and decoration, so the absence of their running heads seems
intentional. In Glasgow UL Hunterian 191, however, its several unfinished ink
initials presumably indicate that the manuscript was never completed; the pres-
ence of one running head in the whole volume (f. 145r) probably means that a full
set was originally envisaged.
The book title may be regarded as the most standard feature of WB running
heads, and its use no doubt echoes a long-standing tradition of mise-en-page in
46  Matti Peikola
biblical manuscripts.96 In the present survey, there is in fact just one case where
the book title does not appear as an element of the running head. This is JRL
Eng 84, a small-size single-column copy of Acts, in which the running head only
contains the chapter number in Arabic numerals. It is not impossible that these
numbers are in fact a later addition, so that the original mise-en-page of the manu-
script would have been similar to that of Glasgow UL Hunterian 337, i.e. devoid
of running heads altogether. As in the case of Hunterian 337, the lack of a book
title in the running head implies that JRL Eng 84 was originally designed to consist
of Acts only.
Chapter numbers form a frequent but clearly optional element of WB running
heads, found in 34 per cent (N=43) of the manuscripts surveyed for the present
chapter. In the LV group, six manuscripts contain chapter numbers as part of
their running heads, so the proportion is slightly larger within this group than in
the overall data – perhaps reflecting the professional quality of its constituents.
As the book title is as a rule placed centrally above the mid-point of the writing
area, chapter numbers tend to be placed towards the edges of the text column(s)
as in JRL Eng 77 and Bodley 665. In NYPL MA 65, however, there is no attempt
to reserve different locations for different elements of the running head; both the
book title and the chapter number are placed sequentially in the mid-position of
the text columns. BOD Douce 265 differs from the standard positioning of the
elements in that in it the book title is placed above a text column; the mid-posi-
tion between the text columns is deserved for another element of WB running
heads – the paraph.
Found in 46 per cent (N=59) of the surveyed manuscripts, paraphs (¶) are a
more frequent element of WB running heads than chapter numbers. In the LV
group, they occur in five manuscripts, so the distribution conforms well with
the larger data. Although four of these five manuscripts also happen to contain
chapter numbers in their running heads, the larger data confirm that there is
no correlation between the occurrence of the two features. In WB manuscripts
paraphs are also used to separate the ending of a chapter from the beginning of
a new chapter and to flag chapter-internal subdivisions.97 There are more than
forty manuscripts where paraphs are used in either or both of these functions,
particularly the second one, but where they are absent from the running heads
(e.g. in three manuscripts of the LV group); conversely, paraphs never seem to
appear in the running heads only. This finding may reflect a simple economic
factor. As indicated by the decorator’s reckoning of his work on f. 113v in BL
Harley 5767 (a post-1450 copy of the gospels of Luke and John, LV), each paraph
was counted separately and would thus have added to the total cost of the manu-
script. If production costs had to be cut in the planning stage, it seems that in
WB manuscripts at least the use of paraphs for purposes of textual hierarchy and
division was prioritised over their purely decorative use in the running heads. It
is possible, however, that there is also an aspect of transmission involved, since in
the present data the distribution of paraphs as part of the running head is with one
exception restricted to manuscripts which are either wholly or for the most part
in LV. It remains as a possibility that the adoption of the paraph in the running
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  47
head is somehow associated with ideas of how to give the text a more authoritative
and professional appearance, an aim which could well tie in with the standardised
metropolitan production of WB manuscripts in the first decades of the fifteenth
century envisaged by Doyle.98
When it occurs in the running head, the paraph always precedes the book title;
as an additional feature, it may precede chapter numbers (e.g. BOD Laud misc.
361, New Testament, LV). The colour of the paraph is to a certain extent dictated
by the colour of the ink used for the book title. If the book title is in red ink, the
paraph is as a rule in blue ink – a feature present in twenty-four manuscripts of
the present survey; twenty-one of these are straightforward LV texts and three
represent mixed EV/LV. Red book titles also allow the use of golden paraphs
alternating with blue ones; in the present data this lavish combination of red, blue
and gold is confirmedly present only in the closely formatted New Testament
codices BOD Fairfax 11 and UCB 128, which clearly makes it an exceptional
feature.99 Book titles made in normal black or brown text ink allow more variation
in the colouring of the paraph. Here too blue is the main colour, found in fifteen
manuscripts, although manuscripts which make use of both blue and red paraphs
are not uncommon either (nine copies). In the LV group this feature character-
ises Bodley 665, where blue paraphs are used in the running heads of rectos and
red paraphs on the versos (cf. BOD Douce 240; BOD Laud misc. 361; BOD
Rawlinson C.259; Cambridge, British and Foreign Bible Society 155 in the larger
data). Of the other four manuscripts in the LV group which have a paraph in their
running heads, three have book titles in red ink, preceded by a blue paraph (BOD
Douce 265; Cambridge, St John’s College E.14; NYPL MA 65); in one manu-
script the book title is in normal ink, again preceded by a blue paraph (NYPL MA
66). None of these manuscripts exhibits the rarest combination of the larger data,
where book titles in normal ink combine with red paraphs only (five manuscripts;
e.g. BOD Laud misc. 24).
In addition to the three routine elements just reviewed – the book title, the
chapter number and the paraph – the running heads of WB manuscripts occa-
sionally contain extra features which may more readily reflect the personal
preferences of their individual scribes or decorators. For example in the closely
formatted CUL Mm.2.15 and Oxford, Lincoln College lat. 119, the paraphs of
the running heads have been elongated into blue frames shaped as parallelograms.
Other such features include the appearance of the book title between virgules (BL
Harley 5767; BOD Laud misc. 36) or within a red half-frame (Cambridge, Trinity
College B.2.8; Glasgow UL Gen. 223); underlining of the book title in red ink (BL
Royal 1.C.viii; Cambridge, St John’s College G.26; Glasgow UL Hunterian 176;
York Minster XVI.O.1); the appearance of two virgules in front of the book title
and a punctus after it (CUL Dd.1.27); or the decoration of book titles with leaf
shapes (BOD Rawlinson C.752).
In the running heads of twelfth- and thirteenth-century ‘Parisian’ bibles, book titles
and chapter numbers are often presented in alternating blue and red ‘Lombardic’
capitals, as illustrated for instance by several images in de Hamel (2001, chap. 5).
The same style was also long adopted in manuscripts of biblical glosses, such as
48  Matti Peikola
the copy of Nicholas Lyra’s Postillae, commissioned in the 1380s/1390s by William
Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury (i.e. Bodley 251).100 In manuscripts of WB,
however, running heads are usually written out in textura without an alternating
sequence of colours. Lombardic-style running heads are very rare, found in the
present survey in no more than four codices, three of which are manuscripts of
the complete Bible.101 As these codices represent different stages of translation and
dates of production, the adoption of the Lombardic style in them does not appear
to be connected with any single endeavour in the transmission history.102

Initials
The LV group shows no single and uniform standard in the execution of the
running heads, but is characterised by several different combinations of elements.
A similar diversity applies to the use of initials in these manuscripts, particularly
to those at the highest level of hierarchy, used at the opening of biblical books.
There is no doubt that economic factors played a crucial role in the planning
of these higher-level initials. As noted in connection with BOD Fairfax 11 and
Bodley 183, even manuscripts apparently sharing the same scribes and decora-
tors could use a different programme of initials depending on the resources of the
sponsor. This is also evident in another closely formatted pair discussed above –
CUL Mm.2.15 and Oxford, Lincoln College lat. 119 – where the use of different
types of initials and borders indicates that CUL Mm.2.15 was the more expensive
product of the two.
Although the precise programmes of initials vary between the constituents of the
LV group, it is remarkable in terms of production costs that in eight manuscripts
out of ten the initials used for books are nevertheless illuminated (i.e. using gold
or pigments, not ink); furthermore, in two manuscripts (JRL Eng 77; Bodley 665)
even some prologues to books are furnished with illuminated initials. While not
as remarkable as in the LV group, the proportion of illuminated manuscripts in
the whole data is also quite high, reaching 57 (41 per cent) of those 140 for which
exact information on initials was available. This finding concretely demonstrates
the high standards and professional quality Doyle and Hudson associate with the
production of WB manuscripts.103
In the most lavish kind of programme, used in five manuscripts of the LV group,
at least some of the biblical books have an initial which Derolez terms the foliate
initial (here abbreviated FO), also known as the sprynget initial;104 in these initials,
brightly painted leaves form the letter-shape against a gilded background, and
there is usually a border attached. Of the five manuscripts, NYPL MA 66 is partic-
ularly luxurious in having foliate initials for all books, although both its prologues
and chapters have only standard flourished initials made in ink (FL).105A similar
combination (FO–FL–FL) occurs in at least four other manuscripts in the larger
data, all in LV, of which two (Cambridge, Trinity College B.10.7; JRL Eng 80)
are copies of the complete New Testament like NYPL MA 66, while two (BOD
Selden Supra 49; CUL Add. 6684) contain only the four gospels.
In a related and even more luxurious combination, not attested in the LV group,
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  49
each level of the textual hierarchy (book, prologue, chapter) has its own type of
initial: foliate initials for books, flourished initials for chapters and dentelle initials
(DE) for the mid-level of the prologue. In the latter type of initial the letter itself
is made of gold and the background is usually coloured blue or rose, with white
indentations;106 the type is also known as the champ initial.107 FO–DE–FL combi-
nations are found for example in BL Egerton 1165; BL Egerton 1171; CUL Add.
6683; and Princeton UL Scheide 13 – all New Testaments in LV.
Since using a foliate initial for each book must have been a considerable invest-
ment, it is more common to find programmes where it is reserved for those
biblical books considered to be most important (typically the four gospels), while
less important books are furnished with lesser initials. In the LV group, Bodley
665, JRL Eng 77 and NYPL MA 65 have dentelle initials in this position; BOD
Rawlinson C.752 uses the highest grade ink initial – the littera duplex (LD, also
known as the littera partita or parted letter), where red and blue compartments of the
letter are separated by a narrow white band.108 In the larger data, there are eight
other manuscripts which use both foliate and dentelle initials for the book-level,
ranging from complete Bibles (e.g. CUL Mm.2.15) to a copy of the four gospels
(BL Add. 15517). The BOD Rawlinson C.752 usage of foliate initials and litterae
duplices for books is found in five other manuscripts, including BOD Fairfax 11
and UCB 128.
Somewhat less lavish programmes including illuminated initials comprise those
where dentelle initials (or dentelle initials combined with litterae duplices or flourished
initials) are used for the highest level of textual hierarchy. In the LV group there
are three manuscripts which display this feature, all with the DE–FL–FL combi-
nation: BOD Douce 265, BOD Lyell 26, and BOD Rawlinson C.237–8. In the
two former codices, even the line heights of initials (4–2–2) are similar for each
level of textual hierarchy. In the larger data, too, the DE–FL–FL combination
is particularly found in LV New Testament manuscripts, such as NYPL MA
64 (also 4–2–2), JRL Eng 78, BL Harley 4890, Harvard UL Richardson 3, and
Cambridge, Trinity College B.10.20. As in the programmes with foliate initials,
dentelle programmes, too, sometimes have other types of initials for less impor-
tant biblical books; in BOD Junius 29 (New Testament, LV), for example, litterae
duplices are used in this function, whereas in BL Harley 4027 (New Testament, LV)
four-line flourished initials appear.
Only in two manuscripts of the LV group are no illuminated initials used for the
biblical books. In the programme of Cambridge, St John’s College E.14 (Psalms–
Ecclesiasticus, LV), books open with 7- or 6-line litterae duplices, attached to flour-
ished (penwork) borders characteristic of this type of initial, in which blue and red
sections alternate. Both prologues and chapters have flourished initials, making the
combination LD–FL–FL. Although present in just one of the manuscripts of the
LV group, this programme is used in more than thirty codices of the larger data,
from sizeable pandects (e.g. BL Cotton Claudius E.ii) to compact manuscripts like
BOD Lyell 27, whose sole contents comprise the Pauline epistles. When illumina-
tion was not possible for one reason or another, this programme provided makers
of WB manuscripts with the most elevated penwork option.
50  Matti Peikola
The other non-illuminated manuscript in the LV group, Bodley 979, is grossly
incomplete as regards the execution of its initials; the few completed initials suggest,
however, that even for the book-level only flourished initials were intended. This
also applies to the prologues, although the height of the flourished initials is now
only two lines in contrast to that intended for the books (3–6 lines). Of the chapter
initials not a single one has been completed, but empty two-line slots appear in the
manuscript at these locations. While it is impossible to achieve certainty about the
type intended for chapters, an informed guess at the flourished initial can be made
on the basis of the larger data. First of all, in those 146 manuscripts for which the
type of chapter initial could be verified, an overwhelming majority (87 per cent)
use flourished initials in this position (in these the letter itself is almost invari-
ably blue and the flourishing is in red ink). Furthermore, in all those fifteen other
manuscripts in which only flourished initials are used for books and prologues (as
in Bodley 979), the same type is also used for chapters, with the usual height of
two lines.
In addition to flourished initials, two other types appear at chapter-openings
in the larger data, both of them clearly marginal when compared to the high
frequency of the flourished type. The very rare use of dentelle initials at this location
in BL Egerton 617–18 and NY, Pierpont Morgan Library 362 reflects the deluxe
nature of the codices; in both manuscripts, biblical books open with foliate initials
attached to exquisite illuminated borders. At the lower end of the hierarchy, fifteen
manuscripts use red plain initials for their chapter-openings; these initials are in ink
and are devoid of flourishing.109 In these codices, the initials for books are in most
cases of the same type, suggesting that no flourisher was available for their produc-
tion. There are two further aspects worth noting as regards this group. First, an
unusually high proportion (73 per cent, N=11) of the manuscripts conform either
wholly or in part to pragmatic single-column layouts; second, the majority of the
manuscripts (73 per cent, N=11) contain parts of the New Testament, such as
the four gospels (Cambridge, British and Foreign Bible Society 156), the Pauline
epistles (BOD Dugdale 46), Acts (JRL Eng 84), or the gospel of Mark (Glasgow UL
Hunterian 337). In the light of what is known about WB manuscripts possessed
by convicted Lollards, it would be tempting to associate these plainly decorated
and pragmatically ruled copies, often made of coarse parchment, with the under-
ground activities of Lollard ‘schools’ or ‘conventicles’.110 Both Hunterian 337 and
Dugdale 46, for example, have the appearance of being communal products by
several relatively inexperienced scribes. There are many corrections to the text,
but relatively little attention has been paid to the decorative aspect and the consist-
ency of the mise-en-page in comparison to most copies of WB; this suggests that
to their makers textual accuracy was paramount, consistent with what we know
about the hermeneutic interests of Lollard communities.111

Conclusion
This chapter has compared and correlated aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts
of the Wycliffite Bible, with a particular focus on ruling patterns. At the most basic
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  51
level, its aim has been to distinguish between typical and less typical kinds of
mise-en-page and to survey their distribution data in copies representing different
versions, dates of production and textual configurations. Beyond the descriptive
level, the purpose has been to establish whether any such groupings of manu-
scripts emerge which could provide a starting point for further and more detailed
case studies of networks of book production involving the Wycliffite Bible.
The investigation of ruling patterns has shown, to start with, that in manuscripts
of the Wycliffite Bible the simple double-column patterns depicted in Figures 1–3
and their single-column equivalents emerge as common types hardly associable
with any single production endeavour. The pattern in Figure 1 may be viewed as a
prototypical ruling pattern, whose high frequency seems most readily explainable
in terms of the imitation of exemplars, perhaps throughout transmission history.
As the group of manuscripts with this ruling pattern contains a substantial number
of copies in the Later Version, typically copies of the New Testament, with almost
identical size of the writing area and number of lines (i.e. the LV group), it also
presents itself as the pattern most readily characterised as a production standard.
However, even in such similarly formatted manuscripts as those of the LV group,
several different schemes of execution were found in the running heads and
initials. This finding reflects the inherent variation present in manuscript culture.
Analogously to the incipient standardisation of the written language, character-
ised by what Smith has aptly described in terms of scribal endeavours towards ‘a
centripetal norm’, the incipient standardisation of mise-en-page represented by the
LV group may thus be better understood as attempts towards a normative layout
than as exact reproduction.112
It is surely not unthinkable that the close similarities observed between manu-
scripts of the LV group may have resulted from shared networks of book produc-
tion in London, as envisaged by Doyle more generally. Shared circumstances
of metropolitan or provincial production may similarly characterise smaller
groups of closely formatted manuscripts with less frequently occurring ruling
patterns, such as BOD Fairfax 11, Bodley 183, and UCB 128; Oxford, Lincoln
College lat. 119 and CUL Mm.2.15; or some of those EV manuscripts which are
distinguished from most other copies by their ruling technique. Actually demon-
strating that these and other similar groups share a common origin, however,
will require close cooperation between philologists, palaeographers and art histo-
rians. In this research, micro-level textual, dialectal, graphemic and stylistic data
will have to be correlated with present and future findings about mise-en-page,
preferably under the aegis of a research project dedicated to the manuscripts of
the Wycliffite Bible.
One of the most interesting findings of this chapter concerns the multitude of
complex ruling patterns present in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible. Some of them
are shared by a handful of copies, while others occur in the present data only in
single manuscripts. This profusion begs the question of the sources of scribal inspi-
ration for these no doubt carefully designed patterns. While perhaps somewhat
too optimistic in its prospects, the remark of Farquhar that ‘ruling practices often
had local characteristics that are so individualized that even specific craftsmen can
52  Matti Peikola
be identified’ functions as a perfect reminder about the often neglected research
potential residing in the study of ruling patterns and techniques.113 In the absence
of any statistics concerning the use of different ruling patterns in late medieval
English manuscript books, the observations made here about similarities between
manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible and other coeval codices are hardly more than
shots in the dark. An informed comparison and contextualisation of these and
other patterns would require much more information about the chronological,
geographical and textual distribution of medieval English ruling patterns in
general. What we need eventually is no less than a database of ruling patterns used
in medieval English manuscripts. A logical first step towards the construction of
the database would be a systematic and exact description of ruling in manuscript
descriptions published in printed and electronic catalogues. For this work, the
coding system advocated by Muzerelle would seem to offer a sound basis for the
discussion of the patterns and their exact representation.

Appendix A

The primary data

The following list of manuscripts comprises the 127 copies of the Wycliffite Bible
which I have personally inspected and which form the core data of this study.
The list also contains some manuscripts that I have not seen, but whose mise-en-
page features have been examined from good-quality images (printed, electronic
or microfilm). These manuscripts are marked with an asterisk. Supplementary
manuscripts, for which occasional information on mise-en-page has been derived
from library catalogues or other printed descriptions, are not listed. In references
to such manuscripts in the text, the source has been indicated. The list is in alpha-
betical order according to the location and name of the repository. If no shelfmark
is available for a manuscript, the number in Lindberg’s survey is given for exact
identification.114

Berkeley, University of California, Bancroft Library

MSS 13*; 128*

Cambridge, St John’s College

MSS Aa.5.1. no 72; E.13; E.14; E.18; G.26; N.4

Cambridge, Trinity College

MSS B.2.8; B.10.7; B.10.20; O.7.26

Cambridge, University Library

MSS Add. 6680; Add. 6681; Add. 6682; Add. 6683; Add. 6684; Dd.1.27; Ee.1.10;
Gg.6.8; Gg.6.23; Kk.1.8; Ll.1.13; Mm.2.15; British and Foreign Bible Society 155;
British and Foreign Bible Society 156
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  53
Cambridge, MA, Harvard College Library
MS Richardson 3

Durham, University Library

MS Cosin V.v.1*

Glasgow, University Library

MSS Gen. 223; Hunterian 176; Hunterian 189; Hunterian 191; Hunterian 337

London, The British Library

MSS Add. 11858; Add. 15517; Add.15580; Arundel 104; Arundel 254; Cotton
Claudius E.ii; Egerton 617–618; Egerton 1165; Egerton 1171; Harley 272; Harley
327; Harley 940; Harley 984; Harley 1212; Harley 2309; Harley 4027; Harley
4890; Harley 5017; Harley 5767; Harley 5768; Harley 6333; Lansdowne 407;
Lansdowne 455; Royal 1.A.iv; Royal 1.A.x; Royal 1.A.xii; Royal 1.B.vi; Royal
1.C.viii; Royal 17.A.xxvi

London, Lambeth Palace

MSS 25; 369; 532; 547; 1150–1151; 1366; Sion College Arc L40.2/E2

Manchester, John Rylands University Library

MSS Eng 3; Eng 75; Eng 76; Eng 77; Eng 78; Eng 79; Eng 80; Eng 81; Eng 84;
Eng 91

New York, Columbia University

MSS Plimpton 269; Plimpton Add. 3

New York, Pierpont Morgan Library

MSS 362*; 400*

New York, Public Library

MSS MA 64; MA 65; MA 66; MA 67

Oxford, Bodleian Library

MSS Ashmole 1517; Bodley 183; Bodley 277; Bodley 531; Bodley 665; Bodley
771; Bodley 978; Bodley 979; Douce 240; Douce 265; Douce 369; Dugdale 46;
e Musaeo 110; Fairfax 2; Fairfax 11; Fairfax 21; Gough Eccl. Top 5; Hatton
111; Junius 29; Laud misc. 24; Laud misc. 25; Laud misc. 33; Laud misc. 36;
Laud misc. 207; Laud misc. 361; Laud misc. 388; Lyell 26; Lyell 27; Rawlinson
C.237–238; Rawlinson C.257; Rawlinson C.258; Rawlinson C.259; Rawlinson
C.752; Rawlinson C.883; Selden Supra 49; Selden Supra 51

Oxford, Brasenose College

MS 10
54  Matti Peikola
Oxford, Lincoln College
MS lat. 119

Oxford, New College

MS 67

Oxford, Oriel College

MS 80

Princeton, NJ, The Scheide Library

MS 13*

Tokyo, Keio University

MS 170X/96

Tokyo, T. Takamiya
2 manuscripts (Lindberg, 1970, numbers 193, 219)

York Minster
MSS XVI.N.7; XVI.O.

Appendix B
Figures 1–15 illustrate some of the ruling patterns of the Wycliffite Bible discussed
in this chapter. The figures are schematic and typological; they do not represent
the exact measurements of ruling in any single manuscript. Each ruling pattern is
explicitly identified with a code based on Muzerelle’s (1999) system.
Figure 1  1-1-11/0/2-2/JJ Figure 2  1-1-11/0/1-1/JJ

Figure 3  1-1-11/0/2-1/JJ Figure 4  21-12-11/2-2-/2-2/JJ

Figure 5  21-12-11/2-2/1-1/JJ Figure 6  2-21-11/0/1-1/JJ

Figure 7  22-22-11/2-2/2-2/JJ Figure 8  12-21-11/1-2/2-0/J

Figure 9  22-22-11/2-2/1-1/JJ Figure 10  12-21-11/0/2-2/JJ

Figure 11  12-22/2-2/2-2/J Figure 12  2-2-111/0/2-2/J

Figure 13  1-1-11/0/2-2-2/JJ Figure 14  1-1-11/0/2-3-2/JJ

Figure 15  1-1-11/0/3-3-3/JJ

 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  59
Notes
1 I wish to acknowledge the support of the Academy of Finland for this chapter through
the Turku project Discourse Perspectives on Early English (decision 76471; project 44336).
I am grateful to the repositories listed in Appendix A for allowing me to inspect their
manuscript holdings during the preparation of this chapter in 2002–3. My special
thanks are due to Toshiyuki Takamiya for kindly providing me access to the Wycliffite
Bible manuscripts in his private collection. Last, but not least, I have greatly benefited
from the unfailing generosity of Anne Hudson through discussion and in receiving
copies of manuscript descriptions and images from her. All errors and shortcomings in
this chapter are mine alone.
2 See M.P. Brown, Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms, Malibu
and London: The J. Paul Getty Museum and The British Library, 1994, pp. 86–7;
J.B. Friedman, Northern English Books, Owners, and Makers in the Late Middle Ages, Syracuse
NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995, p. 354 and D. Muzerelle, Vocabulaire codicologique:
Répertoire méthodique des termes français relatifs aux manuscrits, Paris: Editions CEMI, 1985,
p. 109.
3 E. Dutton, ‘Textual Disunities and Ambiguities of Mise-en-page in Book to a Mother’,
Journal of the Early Book Society 6, 2003, 149–59 and M.B. Parkes, ‘The Influence of the
Concepts of Ordinatio and Compilatio on the Development of the Book’, in J.J.G.
Alexander and M.T. Gibson (eds) Medieval Learning and Literature. Essays Presented to
Richard William Hunt, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976, pp. 115–41.
4 V. Gillespie, ‘Vernacular Books of Religion’, in J. Griffiths and D. Pearsall (eds), Book
Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475, Cambridge: CUP, 1989, p. 332.
5 Christopher de Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible and the Origins of the Paris Booktrade,
Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1984, p. 87. For developments in the mise-en-page of these
manuscripts, see also M.B. Parkes (1976), op. cit.; R.H. Rouse and M. Rouse, Manu-
scripts and their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200–1500, 2 vols,
Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2000, chs 6–7; and Martin Irvine, ‘“Bothe text and gloss”:
Manuscript Form, the Textuality of Commentary, and Chaucer’s Dream Poems’, in
Charlotte Cook Morse, Penelope Reed Doob and Marjorie Curry Woods (eds), The
Uses of Manuscripts in Literary Studies: Essays in Memory of Judson Boyce Allen, Kalamazoo:
Western Michigan University, 1992, pp. 81–119.
6 See C. Bozzolo and E. Ornato, Pour une histoire du livre manuscrit au moyen âge. Trois essais de
codicologie quantitative, Paris: Centre national de la Recherche scientifique, 1980; L.M.J.
Delaissé, ‘Towards a History of the Medieval Book’, in A. Gruys and J. P. Gumbert
(eds), Codicologica, vol. 1: Théories et principes, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976, pp. 75–83; J.P.
Gumbert, ‘Ruling by Rake and Board: Notes on Some Late Medieval Ruling Tech-
niques’, in P. Ganz (ed.), The Role of the Book in Medieval Culture, Turnhout: Brepols,
1986, vol. 1, pp. 41–54; H.-J. Martin and J. Vezin (eds), Mise en page et mise en texte du livre
manuscrit, Paris: Éditions du Cercle de la Librairie-Promodis, 1990, and E. Ornato
(ed.), La face cachée du livre médiéval, Rome: Viella, 1997, pp. 1–83.
7 Delaissé, op.cit, p. 80.
8 A.I. Doyle, ‘English Books In and Out of Court from Edward III to Henry VII’, in V.J.
Scattergood and J.W. Sherborne (eds), English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, New
York: St Martin’s Press, 1983, pp. 163–81; A.I. Doyle, ‘The English Provincial Book
Trade Before Printing’, in P. Isaac (ed.), Six Centuries of the Provincial Book Trade in Britain,
Winchester: St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1990, pp. 13–29; Anne Hudson, The Premature
Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988, p. 247;
and Anne Hudson, ‘Lollard Book-Production’, in Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall
(eds), Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475, Cambridge: CUP, 1989, pp.
125–42.
9 H. Hargreaves, ‘An Intermediate Version of the Wycliffite Old Testament’, Studia
Neophilologica 28, 1956, 130–47; H. Hargreaves, ‘The Wycliffite Versions’, in G.W.H.
60  Matti Peikola
Lampe (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Bible, Cambridge: CUP, 1969, vol. 2, pp. 387–415;
and Hudson, op. cit. (1988), p. 239.
10 Cf. M. Wilks, ‘Misleading Manuscripts: Wyclif and the non-Wycliffite Bible’, Studies in
Church History 11, 1975, 147–61.
11 C. Lindberg (ed.), The Earlier Version of the Wycliffite Bible, vols 6–8, Stockholm: Almqvist
and Wiksell, 1973–97.
12 J. Forshall and F. Madden (eds), The Holy Bible Containing the Old and the New Testaments
with the Apocryphal Books, in the Earliest English Versions Made from the Latin Vulgate by John
Wycliffe and his Followers, 4 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1850.
13 S.L. Fristedt, The Wycliffe Bible, vol. 1, Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1953.
14 C. von Nolcken, ‘Lay Literacy, the Democratization of God’s Law, and the Lollards’,
in J.L. Sharpe and K. Van Kampen (eds), The Bible as Book: The Manuscript Tradition,
London: The British Library and New Castle DE: Oak Knoll Press, 1998, pp. 177–95.
There is no up-to-date catalogue of surviving manuscripts and their precise contents,
so the figures are estimates. Both Lindberg’s preliminary list (C. Lindberg, ‘The Manu-
scripts and Versions of the Wycliffite Bible: A Preliminary Survey’, Studia Neophilologica 42,
1970, 333–47) and that found in R.E. Lewis, N.F. Blake and A.S.G. Edwards, Index of
Printed Middle English Prose, New York: Garland Publishing, 1985, include several double
entries and post-medieval transcripts. Further corrections and additions to these lists
have appeared in volumes of the Index of Middle English Prose, e.g. Ralph Hanna, The
Index of Middle English Prose. Handlist 1: The Henry E. Huntington Library, Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 1984, pp. 14–15; Linne R. Mooney, The Index of Middle English Prose. Handlist
11: Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1995,
p. 3; S.J. Ogilvie-Thomson, The Index of Middle English Prose. Handlist 8: Oxford College
Libraries, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1991, p. 15; K.A. Rand Schmidt, The Index of Middle
English Prose. Handlist 17: Manuscripts in the Library of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge,
Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2001, p. 46.
15 For the constitutions, see e.g. David Lawton, ‘Englishing the Bible, 1066–1549’, in D.
Wallace (ed.), The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, Cambridge: CUP, 1999,
pp. 454–82; H.L. Spencer, English Preaching in the Late Middle Ages, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1993, pp. 163–88; and Nicholas Watson ‘Censorship and Cultural Change in
Late-Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and
Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409’, Speculum 70, 1995, 822–64. Of the thirteen constitu-
tions, the seventh directly addresses the issue of biblical translations; see J.H. Morey,
Book and Verse: A Guide to Middle English Biblical Literature, Urbana: University of Illinois
Press, 2000, pp. 38–9.
16 See Margaret Deanesly, The Lollard Bible, Cambridge: CUP, 1966 (originally published
1920), pp. 351–69; Hudson, op. cit. (1988), pp. 232–3.
17 See Hudson, op. cit. (1988), p. 168.
18 JRL Eng 77, f. 267v; see, for example, Ralph Hanna, ‘English Biblical Texts Before
Lollardy and their Fate’, in F. Somerset, J.C. Havens, and D.G. Pitard (eds), Lollards
and their Influence in Late Medieval England, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003, pp. 141–53;
Hargreaves, op. cit. (1969), p. 392; N.R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983, vol. 3, p. 404. Throughout this chapter the following
abbreviations will be used in referring to the locations and names of manuscript reposi-
tories: BL = British Library, London; BOD = Bodleian Library, Oxford; CUL =
Cambridge University Library; JRL = John Rylands University Library, Manchester;
NYPL = New York Public Library; UL = University Library.
19 See Hanna, op. cit. (2003); Hudson, op. cit. (1988), pp. 233–4; S. McSheffrey, Gender
and Heresy: Women and Men in Lollard Communities 1420–1530, Philadelphia: Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1995, pp. 43–4. Copies owned by members of religious
orders in the fifteenth or early sixteenth century include Alnwick Castle 449 (Thet-
ford, Priory of St George; see D.N. Bell, What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  61
English Nunneries, Kalamazoo MI and Spencer MA: Cistercian Publications, 1995, p.
211); BL Add. 10596 (Barking, Abbey of the BVM and St Ethelburga; see Bell, op.
cit., p. 109; A.I. Doyle, ‘Books Connected with the Vere Family and Barking Abbey’,
Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society 25, 1958, 222–43; Hudson, op. cit. (1988),
p. 233; N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, 2nd edn,
London: Royal Historical Society, 1964, p. 6); Bodley 277 (London, Charterhouse
of the Salutation of the BVM, donated to the house by Henry VI; see Hudson, op.
cit. (1988), p. 233; Ker, op. cit. (1964), p. 122; Carol M. Meale, ‘Patrons, Buyers and
Owners: Book Production and Social Status’, in J. Griffiths and D. Pearsall (eds), Book
Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475, Cambridge: CUP, 1989, pp. 201–38, n.
14; C. Lindberg (ed.), King Henry’s Bible, MS Bodley 277: The Revised Version of the Wyclif
Bible, vol. 1, Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1999; K.L. Scott, ‘Design, Decoration
and Illustration’, in Griffiths and Pearsall, op. cit., pp. 31–64, n. 115); Bodley 771
(Shrewsbury, Franciscan Convent; see Ker, op. cit. (1964), p. 179); BOD Rawlinson
C.258 (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Reclusory/Church of St John; see Friedman, op. cit.
(1995), p. 52; Ker, op. cit. (1964), p. 134); Columbia UL Plimpton Add. 3 (Norwich,
Cathedral Priory of Holy Trinity; see Ker, op. cit. (1964), p. 138; N.R. Ker, ‘Medi-
eval Manuscripts from Norwich Cathedral Priory’, in A.G. Watson (ed.), Books, Collec-
tors and Libraries: Studies in the Medieval Heritage, London: Hambledon Press, 1985, pp.
243–72, at p. 261, but note that the shelf mark given in both sources as Plimpton
269 is incorrect; Matti Peikola, ‘Lollard(?) Production under the Looking Glass: The
Case of Columbia University, Plimpton Add. MS 3’, Journal of the Early Book Society
9, 2006, 1–23); JRL Eng 81 (Syon, Bridgettine Abbey of St Saviour, BVM and St
Bridget; see Ker, op. cit. (1964), p. 186). Copies associated with medieval aristocratic
owners include BL Egerton 617–18 (Thomas of Woodstock d. 1397; see Doyle, op.
cit. (1983); Fristedt, op. cit. (1964); Hudson, op. cit. (1988), pp. 112, 233); BL Royal
1.C.viii (Henry VI; see Hargreaves, op. cit. (1969), p. 388); NYPL MA 67 (Duke of
Gloucester – i.e. Thomas of Woodstock, Duke Humfrey or Richard III; see C. de
Hamel, The Book: A History of the Bible, London: Phaidon Press, 2001, p. 188, but note
that the image therein actually represents NYPL MA 64 and not NYPL MA 67 as
stated; Matti Peikola, ‘The Bible in English’, in J.J.G. Alexander, J.H. Marrow and
L.F. Sandler (eds), The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manu-
scripts at the New York Public Library, London and Turnhout: The New York Public
Library and Harvey Miller Publishers, 2005, pp. 77–85); Takamiya collection, manu-
script 219 in Lindberg, op. cit. (1970), pp. 333–47 (Harry Hotspur?; Sixteen Highly
Important Manuscripts and Early Printed Books to Be Sold at Auction in Basel 27 September
1978 by Haus der Bücher AG, Basel, Zürich: L’Art Ancien S.A., 1978, p. 6); Wolfenbüttel,
Herzog-August Bibliothek Guelf Aug. A.2 (Thomas of Lancaster; see de Hamel, op.
cit. (2001), pp. 174–5; Hudson, op. cit. (1988), p. 233; Y. Terasawa, ‘A Manuscript
of the Wycliffite Bible (Early Version)’, in Y. Terasawa (ed.), Eigo no rekishi to kozo. The
History and Structure of English: Essays in Honour of Professor Kikuo Miyabe’s Sixtieth Birthday,
Tokyo: Kenkyusha, 1981, pp. 33–50).
20 See Hargreaves, op. cit. (1969), 392.
21 See Hudson, op. cit. (1988), p. 239.
22 Forshall and Madden, op. cit. (1850), 1, p. xxxi.
23 E. Gasner, Beiträge zum Entwicklungsgang der neuenglischen Schriftsprache auf Grund der mitteleng-
lischen Bibelversionen, wie sie auf Wyclif und Purvey zurückgehen sollen, Nürnberg: U.E. Sebald,
1891; W. Dibelius, ‘John Capgrave und die Englische Schriftsprache’, Anglia 23–4,
1901, 153–94, 211–308.
24 M.L. Samuels, ‘A New Approach to Middle English Dialectology’, English Studies 44,
1963, 1–11. For recent studies on the ‘Central Midland Standard’, see, for example,
J.J. Smith, An Historical Study of English: Function, Form and Change, London: Routledge,
1996, pp. 70–1; I. Taavitsainen, ‘Scientific Language and Spelling Standardisation
62  Matti Peikola
1375–1550’, in L. Wright (ed.), The Development of Standard English, 1300–1800: Theories,
Descriptions, Conflicts, Cambridge: CUP, 2000, pp. 131–54; Matti Peikola, ‘The Wyclif-
fite Bible and “Central Midland Standard”: Assessing the Manuscript Evidence’, Nordic
Journal of English Studies 2, 2003, 29–51; I. Taavitsainen, ‘Scriptorial “House-Styles”
and Discourse Communities’, in I. Taavitsainen and P. Pahta (eds), Medical and Scientific
Writing in Late Medieval English, Cambridge: CUP, 2004, pp. 209–40.
25 Doyle, op. cit. (1983), Doyle, op. cit. (1990) and Hudson, op. cit. (1989).
26 Ibid., p. 131.
27 For example, Doyle, op. cit. (1983); A.S.G. Edwards and D. Pearsall, ‘The Manu-
scripts of the Major English Poetic Texts’, in Griffiths and Pearsall, op. cit. (1989),
pp. 257–78; Gillespie, op. cit.; Kantik Ghosh, The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and
the Interpretation of Texts, Cambridge: CUP, 2002, pp. 168–71; M.B. Parkes and
A.I. Doyle, ‘The Production of Copies of the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio
Amantis in the Early Fifteenth Century’, in M.B. Parkes and A.G. Watson (eds),
Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries: Essays Presented to N.R. Ker, London: Scolar
Press, 1978, pp. 163–210; K.L. Scott, ‘The Illustration and Decoration of Manu-
scripts of Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ’, in Shoichi
Oguro, Richard Beadle and Michael G. Sargent (eds), Nicholas Love at Waseda.
Proceedings of the International Conference 20–22 July 1995, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer,
1997, pp. 61–86.
28 Edwards and Pearsall, op. cit. (1989), p. 258.
29 K. Harris, ‘Patrons, Buyers and Owners: The Evidence for Ownership and the Role of
Book Owners in Book Production and the Book Trade’, in Griffiths and Pearsall, op.
cit. (1989), pp. 163–99.
30 For example, C.P. Christianson, ‘A Community of Book Artisans in Chaucer’s
London’, Viator 20, 1989, 207–18; C.P. Christianson, ‘Evidence for the Study of
London’s Late Medieval Manuscript-book Trade’, in Griffiths and Pearsall, op. cit.
(1989), pp. 87–108; C.P. Christianson, A Directory of London Stationers and Book Artisans
1300–1500, New York: The Bibliographical Society of America, 1990; C.P. Chris-
tianson, ‘The Rise of London’s Book-trade’, in L. Hellinga and J.B. Trapp (eds), The
Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Cambridge: CUP, 1999, vol. 3, pp. 128–47;
Margaret Connolly, John Shirley: Book Production and the Noble Household in Fifteenth-
Century England, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998; Edwards and Pearsall, op. cit. (1989); K.L.
Scott, ‘A Mid-fifteenth-century English Illuminating Shop and its Customers’, Journal
of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 31, 1968, 170–96; Scott, op. cit. (1997).
31 Rouse and Rouse, op. cit.
32 For example, Parkes and Doyle, op. cit. (1978).
33 Linne R. Mooney, ‘Professional Scribes? Identifying English Scribes Who Had a Hand
in More than One Manuscript’, in D. Pearsall (ed.), New Directions in Later Medieval Manu-
script Studies, York: York Medieval Press, 2000, pp. 131–41.
34 De Hamel, op. cit. (2001), p. 178.
35 Peikola, op. cit. (2003).
36 For colour photographs of both manuscripts, see de Hamel, op. cit. (2001), p. 179.
37 For the letters, see further ibid., p. 181; Hudson, op. cit. (1988), p. 198; Matti Peikola,
‘“First Is Writen a Clause of the Bigynnynge Therof”: The Table of Lections in Manu-
scripts of the Wycliffite Bible’, Boletín Millares Carlo 24–5, 2005–6, 343–78, pp. 352–5.
38 See Hudson, op. cit. (1988), chap. 5.
39 Potential first volumes (Genesis–Psalms) include Bodley 296 (see Lindberg, op. cit.
(1970)) and BL Lansdowne 454; potential second volumes (Proverbs–Apocalypse)
include BL Egerton 617–18, BL Add. 15580 and JRL Eng. 91. At least for Lansdowne
454 and Egerton 617–18 there is external evidence for the existence of the now missing
other volume (for Lansdowne 454, see e.g. Forshall and Madden, op. cit., 1, p. xlii;
for Egerton 617–18, see e.g. S.L. Fristedt, ‘A Weird Manuscript Enigma in the British
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  63
Museum’, Stockholm Studies in Modern Philology NS 2, 1964, 116–21. Some complete Bibles
may even have been prepared in sets of three volumes, such as that now incompletely
extant in BL Royal 1.C.ix (Genesis–Job) and BL Harley 5017 (1 Maccabees–Apoca-
lypse) (see H. Hargreaves, ‘The Marginal Glosses to the Wycliffite New Testament’,
Studia Neophilologica 33, 1961, 285–300).
40 See M. Aston, ‘Lollardy and Literacy’, History 62, 1977, 347–71; Hudson, op. cit.
(1988), pp. 229–30.
41 de Hamel, op. cit. (2001), pp. 181–82; Hudson, op. cit. (1988), pp. 198–9; Peikola, op.
cit. (2005–6).
42 Deanesly, op. cit. (1920/1966), chap. 14. See also Aston, op. cit.
43 For these particular cases see S.R. Cattley, (ed.), The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe,
London: Seeley and Burnside, 1837, vol. 4, pp. 234–5; Deanesly, op. cit. (1920/1966),
p. 368.
44 Matthew and Mark (BOD Laud misc. 24; BOD Laud misc. 207; Cambridge, Gonville
& Caius College 179/212, see Rand Schmidt, op. cit., (2001), p. 46), Luke and John (BL
Harley 5767), Matthew (BOD Rawlinson C.883), Mark (Glasgow UL Hunterian 337),
John (Cambridge, St John’s College E.18), Acts (JRL Eng 84).
45 See Connolly, op. cit., pp. 178–82; A.I. Doyle, ‘An Unrecognized Piece of Piers the
Ploughman’s Creed and Other Work by its Scribe’, Speculum 34, 1959, 428–36; V.
Edden, The Index of Middle English Prose. Handlist 15: Manuscripts in Midland Libraries,
Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2000, pp. 62–9; D.W. Mosser, ‘Dating the MSS of the
“Hammond Scribe”: What the Paper Evidence Tells Us’, Journal of the Early Book
Society 10, 2007, 31–70.
46 See P. Brown and E.D. Higgs, The Index of Middle English Prose. Handlist 5: Additional
Collection (10001–14000), British Library, London, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1988, pp.
21–34.
47 Ker, op. cit. (1977), pp. 650–1.
48 These figures include both manuscripts I have inspected myself and those whose dimen-
sions I have obtained from manuscript catalogues.
49 BL Royal 1.A.x; Bodley 665; BOD Douce 240; BOD Douce 265; BOD Gough Eccl.
Top 5; BOD Selden Supra 51; Cambridge, British and Foreign Bible Society 155;
Cambridge, Trinity College B.10.20; CUL Gg.6.8; Durham UL Cosin V.v.I (EV); JRL
Eng 77; JRL Eng 78; Lambeth Palace 532; Manchester, Chetham’s Library 6723 (see
Ker, op. cit. (1983), pp. 355–6); NYPL MA 65; Oxford, Brasenose College 10; Sion
College Arc L40.2/E2; Windsor Castle, St George’s Chapel 4, for which see N.R. Ker
and A.J. Piper, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992,
vol. 4, pp. 644–5.
50 Other New Testament manuscripts collated in 12s include BL Harley 4890; Cambridge,
Emmanuel College 108; CUL Add. 6683; Oxford, Christ Church 146; and a copy in
the Takamiya collection (Lindberg, op. cit. (1970), manuscript 219).
51 See S.J. Ogilvie-Thomson (ed.), Richard Rolle: Prose and Verse, EETS, o.s. 293, 1988, p.
xxxviii.
52 For the van Kampen manuscripts, see C. von Nolcken, op. cit., pp. 177–95 and Sothe-
by’s, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures: Tuesday 22 June 1993, London: Sotheby’s, 1993,
lots 83 and 84; for the Pepys manuscript, see R. McKitterick and R. Beadle, Catalogue of
the Pepys Library at Magdalene College Cambridge, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1992, vol. 5, pp.
1–3.
53 E.g. J.-H. Sautel and J. Leroy, Répertoire de réglures dans les manuscrits grecs sur parchemin,
Turnhout: Brepols, 1995.
54 A. Derolez, Codicologie des manuscrits en écriture humanistique sur parchemin, 2 vols, Turnhout:
Brepols, 1984. See also J.D. Farquhar, ‘The Manuscript as a Book’, in S. Hindman and
J.D. Farquhar (eds), Pen to Press: Illustrated Manuscripts and Printed Books in the First Century
of Printing, College Park and Baltimore: Art Department, University of Maryland and
64  Matti Peikola
Department of the History of Art, The Johns Hopkins University, 1977, pp. 11–99.
55 D. Muzerelle, ‘Pour décrire les schémas de réglure: Une méthode de notation symbol-
ique applicable aux manuscrits latins (et autres)’, Quinio 1, 1999, 123–70.
56 A. Derolez, The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books: From the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth
Century, Cambridge: CUP, 2003, p. 37.
57 See L. Gilissen, ‘Un élément codicologique trop peu exploité: la réglure’, Scriptorium 23,
1969, 150–62.
58 Derolez, op. cit. (2003), p. 37.
59 See for example the case discussed by Anne Hudson (ed.), English Wycliffite Sermons,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983, vol. 1, p. 125 and Plate 2.
60 See further Peikola, op. cit. (2006).
61 See Sotheby’s, op. cit., lots 83 and 84.
62 Cf. Gillespie, op. cit.
63 De Hamel, op. cit. (2001), p. 116; see also e.g. M.T. Gibson, The Bible in the Latin West,
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993, pp. 64–5.
64 Muzerelle, op. cit. (1999). Only a brief sketch of the coding system of Muzerelle
is possible here; for details, the reader is referred to the article itself. The code for
each ruling pattern consists of four zones (I–IV), separated by a slash (/); each
zone is further divided into segments by means of hyphens (-). Zone I expresses
the number, type and extension of all vertical lines of the ruled grid: its segment
1 pertains to the vertical lines in the inner margin; segment 2 to the vertical lines
in outer margin; and segments 3, etc. to vertical lines between text columns. In
single-column mises-en-page only the first two segments of zone I are in use; in
double-column mises-en-page the third segment also comes into play, and so on.
Zone II expresses the number, type and extension of the horizontal lines in the
upper and lower margins, so that segment 1 corresponds to the upper and segment
2 to the lower margin. Zone III expresses the number, type and extension of the
horizontal lines which bound the writing area: segment 1 corresponds to the upper
horizontal frame, segment 2 to the lower horizontal frame. Zone IV expresses
the extension of the ruling for text lines. In the notation for zones I–III, figure ‘1’
always stands for a single line, figure ‘2’ for a double line, and so forth. Letters
A to K stand for different extensions of the lines for all zones, as explained in
Muzerelle’s article. Within zones I–III these letters are only used in cases when the
lines do not run from one margin to the other. In each segment of each zone, the
lines are listed in the order they appear from the gutter to the edge (vertical lines,
zone I) or from the top to the bottom of the page (horizontal lines, zones II and
III).
65 Doyle, op. cit. (1983); Doyle, op. cit. (1990); Hudson, op. cit. (1989).
66 See de Hamel, op. cit. (2001), p. 167 for a colour image.
67 See Hudson, op. cit. (1988), p. 247; for the Woodstock inventory, see V. Dillon and
W.H.StJ. Hope, ‘Inventory of the Goods and Chattels Belonging to Thomas, Duke of
Gloucester, and Seized in his Castle at Pleshy, Co. Essex, 21 Richard II (1397); with
Their Values, as Shown in the Escheator’s Accounts’, Archaeological Journal 54, 1897,
275–308.
68 Doyle, op. cit. (1983), and Doyle, op. cit. (1987), see endnote 19; de Hamel, op. cit.
(2001), p. 174 provides a colour image of the manuscript.
69 It may not be purely coincidental that the single-column variant of this type (i.e.
1-1/0/2-2/J) is also common in manuscripts of Nicholas Love’s Mirror, a text which
was essentially intended as a safe, orthodox alternative to WB (see e.g. Ghosh, op.
cit., pp. 147–73; Hughes, op. cit. (1988), pp. 230–31). Of the Mirror manuscripts, the
pattern is used for example in CUL Hh.1.11; CUL Ll.4.3; CUL Mm.5.15; CUL Add.
6578; and Cambridge, Trinity College B.15.32. Unlike manuscripts of WB, however,
in Mirror manuscripts the use of a single-column is not restricted to copies of small size
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  65
only, which may point towards this layout as the authorial one. For the mise-en-page of
Mirror manuscripts, see further Ghosh, op. cit., pp. 168–71; Gillespie, op. cit.; Oguro,
Beadle and Sargent, op. cit.
70 Cf. A.I. Doyle and M.B. Parkes, ‘Paleographical Introduction’, in P.G. Ruggiers (ed.),
The Canterbury Tales. A Facsimile and Transcription of the Hengwrt Manuscript with Variants from
the Ellesmere Manuscript, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978, pp. xix–xlix on
erasures of metal point ruling in the Hengwrt manuscript.
71 See R. Reed, Ancient Skins, Parchments and Leathers, London: Seminar Press, 1972, pp.
127–8.
72 For the Glossed Gospels, see further Rita Copeland, Pedagogy, Intellectuals, and Dissent in
the Later Middle Ages: Lollardy and Ideas of Learning, Cambridge: CUP, 2001, pp. 131–9;
H. Hargreaves, ‘Popularising Biblical Scholarship: The Role of the Wycliffite Glossed
Gospels’, in W. Lourdaux and D. Verhelst (eds), The Bible and Medieval Culture, Leuven:
Leuven University Press, 1979, pp. 172–89; Hudson, op. cit. (1988), pp. 247–59.
73 See K.L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390–1490, 2 vols, London: Harvey Miller,
1996, vol. 1, p. 70n.
74 For ‘mixed’ EV/LV texts in general, see Hargreaves, op. cit. (1969), p. 403.
75 For Lambeth Palace 25, see Forshall and Madden, op. cit., vol. 1, p. xlv; M.R. James,
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Lambeth Palace: Medieval Manu-
scripts, Cambridge: CUP, 1932, pp. 40–1. For the dating of LV, see Hudson, op. cit.
(1988), p. 247.
76 On methodological grounds for this inference, see Ralph Hanna, ‘Booklets in Medieval
Manuscripts: Further Considerations’, Studies in Bibliography 39, 1986, 100–11.
77 Figure 4 (21-12-11/2-2/2-2/JJ): Bodley 183 (New Testament and parts of Old Testa-
ment, LV, Old Testament prologues in EV); BOD Fairfax 11 (New Testament, LV);
BL Royal 1.A.iv (New Testament, LV); CUL Add. 6683 (New Testament, LV); Univer-
sity of California, Berkeley 128 (New Testament, LV); York Minster XVI.N.7 (New
Testament, LV). Figure 5 (21-12-11/2-2/1-1/JJ): CUL Kk.1.8 (New Testament,
LV); Oxford, Brasenose College 10 (New Testament, LV); Oxford, Oriel College 80
(Matthew–Luke, LV; atelous).
78 K.L. Scott, Dated and Datable English Manuscript Borders c. 1395–1499, London: The Bibli-
ographical Society and The British Library, 2002, p. 40; De Hamel, op. cit. (2001), p.
178.
79 Scott, op. cit. (2002), p. 40.
80 Cf. Anne Hudson (ed.), Selections from English Wycliffite Writings, Cambridge: CUP, 1978,
p. 173; Ogilvie-Thomson, op. cit. (1991), p. 41.
81 Derolez, op. cit. (2003), pp. 37–8.
82 Cf. Hargreaves, op. cit. (1961).
83 Ibid.
84 Scott, op. cit. (1996), p. 70n. See also Hudson, op. cit. (1988), p. 249n.
85 See also BL Cotton Claudius E.ii (part 1, Figure 8); BOD Rawlinson C.259 (1-1-11/0/1-
0/JJ); Cambridge, St John’s College G.26 (part 1, 1-1-11/0/1-0/0); Cambridge, Trinity
College B.2.8 (1-1-11/0/2-0/JJ); Cambridge, Trinity College B.10.20 (1-1-11/0/1-0/
JJ); CUL Add. 6680 (1-2-11/0/1-0/J); Durham UL Cosin V.v.1 (probably 1-1-11/0/1-
0/JJ); New York, Pierpont Morgan 400 (1-1-11/0/1-0/J or JJ). In single-column manu-
scripts parallel cases include BL Royal 17.A.xxvi (1-1/0/1-0/J); BOD Laud misc. 33
(1-1/0/1-0/J); and Glasgow UL Gen. 223 (1-1/0/1-0/J). Common to the majority of
these manuscripts is the fact that none contains any marginal ruling in addition to that
used for the delineation of the basic writing area.
86 J.P. Gumbert, The Dutch and their Books in the Manuscript Age, London: The British Library,
1990, p. 27; for the technique, see Gumbert, op. cit. (1986).
87 Cf. ibid.
88 See for instance BL Royal 20.B.v (a composite manuscript; item 1 is a New Testament
66  Matti Peikola
in French; early fourteenth century; of English origin or early provenance); BL Royal
19.C.ii (the four gospels in French, etc.; second half of the fourteenth century, France);
BL Royal 19.D.ii (Le Bible Historiale; ca. 1350; France, in English ownership after 1353);
BL Royal 19.D.iii (Le Bible Historiale; 1411; France).
89 In WB manuscripts Acts normally appear between Pauline and catholic epistles.
90 Muzerelle, op. cit. (1999).
91 Derolez, op. cit. (2003), p. 38.
92 BL Egerton 1171 (New Testament, LV, 1-1-11/0/2-3-2/JJ; Figure 14); Cambridge,
St John’s College E.18 (John, LV, first scribe, 1-1/0/2-2-2/J); JRL Eng 79 (New
Testament, LV, 1-1-11/0/3-3-3/JJ; Figure 15); Sotheby’s 22/6/1993 lot 85, now in
the van Kampen collection (the four gospels, LV, 1-1-11/0/2-2-2/JJ; Figure 13); York
Minster XVI.O.1 (1-1-11/0/2-2-2/JJ; Figure 13).
93 See de Hamel, op. cit. (2001), p. 112.
94 Cf. Derolez, op. cit. (2003), p. 38.
95 Parkes, op. cit. (1976).
96 Cf. de Hamel, op. cit. (2001), passim.
97 For the development of the paraph as a punctuation mark and its use by rubricators,
see M.B. Parkes, Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West,
Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1992, pp. 43–4.
98 Doyle, op. cit. (1983), Doyle, op. cit. (1990).
  99 According to R.M. Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts in
Worcester Cathedral Library, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2001, Worcester Cathedral Q.84
(New Testament, LV) also contains golden and blue paraphs in its running heads;
the description does not make it clear, however, whether the book title appears in
red ink as in BOD Fairfax 11 and University of California, Berkeley 13, or whether
golden and blue paraphs in fact combine with a book title in the normal text ink, as in
Cambridge, Trinity College B.10.7 (New Testament, LV).
100 See Gibson, op. cit. (1993), pp. 54–5.
101 Bodley 277 (complete Bible, Lombardic initials in the New Testament); BL Arundel
104 (complete Bible, decoration not completed); Oxford, Christ Church 145 (complete
Bible; see Lindberg, op. cit. (1973–97), vol. 6, Plate); Takamiya collection, manuscript
219 in Lindberg, op. cit. (1970) (New Testament).
102 Bodley 277, dated ca. 1430–50, represents a further revision of LV (see Lindberg, op.
cit. (1999), p. 47); BL Arundel 104 is in LV, written early in the fifteenth century (see S.
Panayotova, ‘Cuttings from an Unknown Copy of the Magna Glossatura in a Wyclif-
fite Bible (British Library, Arundel MS. 104)’, The British Library Journal 25, 1999,
85–100); the Takamiya manuscript, dated ca. 1400, possibly represents a transitional
text between EV and LV (see Sixteen Highly Important Manuscripts ..., pp. 5–6); Oxford,
Christ Church 145, dated between 1400 and 1410, preserves features of the earliest,
most literal stage of the EV translation (see Gibson, op. cit. (1993), p. 74; Hargreaves,
op. cit. (1969), pp. 405–6; Lindberg, op. cit. (1973–97), vol. 6, pp. 70–1).
103 Doyle, op. cit. (1983), Doyle, op. cit. (1990); Hudson, op. cit. (1989).
104 Derolez, op. cit. (2003), p. 42; for the sprynget initial, see K.L. Scott, ‘Limning and
Book-producing Terms and Signs in Situ in Late-medieval English Manuscripts: A
First Listing’, in Beadle and Piper, op. cit., pp. 142–88 (pp. 157–8).
105 See Derolez, op. cit. (2003), p. 41.
106 See ibid., p. 42.
107 See Scott, op. cit. (1995), pp. 145–7.
108 See Derolez, op. cit. (2003), p. 41; Friedman, op. cit. (1995), p. 354; Scott, op. cit.
(2002), p. 123.
109 See Derolez, op. cit. (2003), p. 41.
110 See Aston, op. cit.; Hudson, op. cit. (1988), pp. 180–200; McSheffrey, op. cit., pp.
25–33.
 Aspects of mise-en-page in manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible  67
111 See e.g. Rita Copeland, ‘Childhood, Pedagogy, and the Literal Sense: From Late
Antiquity to the Lollard Heretical Classroom’, in Wendy Scase, Rita Copeland, and
David Lawton (eds), New Medieval Literatures, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997, vol. 1,
pp. 125–56.
112 Smith, op. cit., p. 66–73.
113 Farquhar, op. cit. p. 42.
114 Lindberg, op. cit. (1970).
3 Harley 3954 and the
audience of Piers Plowman
Simon Horobin

Introduction: Langland’s audience1

There has been a significant amount of recent interest in the question of Langland’s
audience, which has extended and modified John Burrow’s view that Langland’s
poem had two separate kinds of audience: an older clerical readership and a more
recent one composed of literate laymen.2 Anne Middleton has questioned this
basic dichotomy, arguing that the clerical and lay readers formed a single audience
involved in ‘counsel, policy, education, administration, pastoral care – those tasks
and offices where spiritual and temporal government meet’.3 More recent work,
especially that by Kathryn Kerby-Fulton and Steven Justice, has tended to focus on
Langland’s London coterie readership, comprising civil servants, parliamentarians
and secular clerks; an audience which they argue was similar to that of Chaucer.4
This focus on Langland’s metropolitan audience has however led to a comparative
neglect of the large number of manuscripts of Piers Plowman which were copied and
circulated outside the capital. For instance, M.L. Samuels has argued that many
copies of the C version were copied by scribes using dialects of the West Midlands,
while only two or three copies of C appear to be of metropolitan origin.5 The
dispersal of copies of the A version appears to be even more provincial and no
extant copy of this version can be securely associated with London.6
The relationship between the audiences of the three versions has recently been
addressed in more general terms by several scholars. Jill Mann has argued that
the longer and more Latinate B text represents Langland’s first version, written
for a clerical audience, while the A version represents a later abridgement of this
text for a lay audience.7 Ralph Hanna has questioned this view, proposing that the
A text represents a stage in the composition process of the B text, and was never
released by Langland as a finished version.8 Such a scenario would explain the
more peripheral distribution of the A text, which Hanna argues circulated via the
exporting of the text by members of Langland’s London coterie to their provin-
cial homes, and especially to ‘uplondish’ religious houses for whom such people
frequently acted as patrons.
In this chapter I examine a single manuscript of Piers, Harley 3954, which sheds
some light on some of these issues, particularly the status of the A and B versions
of the poem, their copying, circulation and reception.
 Harley 3954 and the audience of Piers Plowman  69
BL Harley 3954: contents
Harley 3954 was copied by a practised anglicana hand dated by Kane to the third
quarter of the fifteenth century,9 although this date has since been modified by
Doyle, who places its production in the first quarter of the fifteenth century.10 The
manuscript contains several texts in Middle English as follows, although in this
study I focus on its copy of Piers Plowman:11

1r–69v Mandeville’s Travels

70r–91v Religious Verse:
  Infancy of Christ (NIMEV 250)
  The Merit of Hearing Mass (NIMEV 1986)
  The Virtue of the Mass (NIMEV 1988)
  Seven Virtues and Seven Deadly Sins (NIMEV 2059)
  Seven Works of Mercy (NIMEV 2062)
  Seven Sacraments (NIMEV 1901)
  Seven Principal Virtues (NIMEV 2045)
  ABC on the Passion (NIMEV 1523)
  Lament of the Blessed Virgin (NIMEV 404)
92r–107v Piers Plowman B Prologue–5.127
107v–123v Piers Plowman A 5.105–end.

All of these texts were copied by a single scribe whose dialect has been local-
ised to south Norfolk by the Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (LALME).12
A further indication of this provenance is the unique variant in Harley’s text
of Piers at A 5.119 which replaces a reference to Winchester with Sleaforth,
a town in south Lincolnshire. Further evidence of the manuscript’s Norfolk
pedigree is shown by the appearance of the same sequence of religious lyrics
in Cambridge University Library Ii.iv.9, a manuscript which also contains a
fragment of a document connected with Norwich and Sedgeford (see LALME
1, p. 68).

Harley 3954: the B version of Piers Plowman

The text of Piers Plowman preserved in Harley 3954 combines what are now viewed
as two separate versions of Langland’s poem, the A and B versions. The Harley
text begins as a B version but switches affiliation at B 5.127 and subsequently
preserves the A version from 5.105 until the end of passus 11. While seven manu-
scripts switch from A to C to supplement the shorter version, no other manuscript
changes from a longer to the shorter version.13 In his edition of the A version,
Kane was rather dismissive of Harley, describing it as posing a ‘curious rather
than important problem’ and claiming that ‘it is not possible to do more than
speculate about the reasons for the change of character in this manuscript’, some-
thing which Kane was apparently not prepared to do.14 One possible reason for
such a switch is the availability of exemplars. Perhaps the B text supply dried up,
70  Simon Horobin
forcing the scribe to find another exemplar, which turned out to be a copy of the
A text. Given that the dissemination of Langland’s B text was focused on London
it may be that it was difficult to get further access to this version in Norfolk. This
explanation would suggest that the scribe was not overly troubled by the concept
of distinct versions of the poem and was only concerned with finding a continu-
ation for his text. However, the scribe could hardly have been unaware that the
two versions were different, given that the A version is about half the length of
the B version he began copying. In fact if we look in more detail at the text trans-
mitted by the Harley scribe, then it appears that the scribe was very much aware
of textual differences between the A and B versions. Collation of the Harley
text with both the A and B versions reveals that the scribe edited his copy of
the B text by introducing a number of readings characteristic of the A version.
This evidence suggests that, far from having difficulties obtaining exemplars, the
Harley scribe had access to both versions before he began copying the poem.
Furthermore the scribe was certainly not oblivious to the difference between the
two versions of the poem, but rather exploited these differences to produce a text
more aligned with his own concerns, and presumably those of his audience. To
illustrate this process I want to begin by considering a number of such readings,
where the Harley text differs from all other copies of B and shows agreement with
manuscripts of the A version. The following examples will serve to illustrate this
process:

B Pro 2 I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were

Harley shroudes] a schroude
A MSS a shroud

B Pro 41 Wiþ hire bely and hire bagges of breed ful ycrammed
Harley of breed ful] bredful
A MSS bratful

B Pro 59 Prechynge þe peple for profit of hemselue

Harley hemselue] her wombys
A MSS here wombe

B Pro 63 For hire moneie and marchaundise marchen togidere

Harley marchen] mete
A MSS meten

B Pro 76 Thus þei gyuen hire gold glotons to kepe

Harley kepe] helpe
A MSS helpe

B Pro 213 Pleteden for penyes and poundes þe lawe

Harley poundes] pountyd
2 A MSS [R and U] poundide
 Harley 3954 and the audience of Piers Plowman  71
B 1.11 And seide ‘Mercy, madame, what is þis to meene
Harley is þis to meene] may þis bemene
4 A MSS [URHE] may þis bymene

B 1.60 What may it be to meene, madame, I yow biseche

Harley be to meene] bemene
A 1.58 bemene

B 1.186 That feiþ withouten feet is riȜt noþyng worþi

Harley riȜt noþyng worþi] wersse þan noþyng
A 1.160 feblere þan nouȜt] werse than M

B 1.206 Forþi I seye as I seide er by þise textes

Harley by þise textes] by syght off þise textes
A 1.180 by siȜte of þise tixtes

B 2.75 Witeþ and witnesseþ, þat wonieþ vpon þis erþe

Harley vpon þis erþe] vpon erþe
A 2.57 vpon erþe

B 2.123 For Dignus est operarius his hire to haue

Harley Dignus est operarius mercede
Worþi is þe werkman his mede to haue
A 86a–87 Dignus est operarius mercede
Worþi is þe werkman his mede to haue

B 2.130 That Fals is feiþlees and fikel in hise werkes

Harley feiþlees] feytles
A 2.94 feythles] feytles M

B 2.153 Til Mede be þi wedded wif þoruȜ wittes of vs alle

Harley wittes] wytt
A 2.117 wyt

B 3.15 To conforten hire kyndely by Clergies leue

Harley To conforten] And comforthyd
A 3.15 Counfortide

B 3.41 And also be þi bedeman, and bere wel þi message

Harley þi message] þin erdyn
A 3.40 þin arnde] erdene J

B 3.48 We haue a wyndow in werchynge, wole sitten vs ful hye

Harley sitten] stonde
A 3.47 stonde
72  Simon Horobin
B 3.114 And thanne was Conscience called to come and appere
Harley And thanne] þan
A 3.103 þanne

B 3.226 Marchauntz and mete mote nede go togideres

Harley Marchauntz] Marchandyse
A 3.213 marchaundise

B 4.47 And þanne com Pees into parlement and putte forþ a bille
Harley forþ] vp
A 4.34 vp

B 4.105 Wrong wendeþ noȜt so awey erst wole I wite more

Harley erst wole] er
A 4.92 er

B 4.145 Late þi confessour, sire Kyng, construe þis vnglosed

Harley vnglossed] englys
A 4.128 on Englissh

B 4.190 Ac redily, Reson, þow shalt noȜt ride fro me

Harley fro me] hens
A 4.153 henne

While I have presented these readings as evidence of A readings introduced into

the Harley copy of the B text, I should point out that in a number of such instances
the Harley readings were adopted by Kane and Donaldson within their edition of
the B text as genuine B readings. The adoption of these readings as those of the
B version assumes that in revising from A to B Langland retained the A reading
and that every manuscript of the B version, except Harley, corrupted this reading.
This assumption fits well with Kane–Donaldson’s general editorial theory that
Langland’s process of revision from A to B was not concerned with minor details
such as individual readings. Where the editors found differences in individual
readings between Kane’s edition of A and all the extant B manuscripts these were
considered to be the result of the corruption of the B archetype from which all
our extant B witnesses are derived, and this process of corruption was reversed
by restoring the reading of Kane’s A text. The evidence of the Harley manuscript
therefore provides important support for this theory and its implementation by
Kane and Donaldson in their edition of B. By appearing to preserve A readings
which have been corrupted by all other B manuscripts, Harley helps to sanction a
process of major editorial intervention, which is frequently implemented without
any manuscript support.
Kane–Donaldson’s theory is of course a possible explanation for these readings
in the Harley manuscript but seems to me to ignore a very important fact about this
manuscript: that the scribe clearly had access to an A manuscript as he switched
 Harley 3954 and the audience of Piers Plowman  73
to this version partway into passus 5. It is possible that the scribe only got access
to the A text once he had copied the first 5-and-a-bit passus of B, but the more
likely scenario seems to me that the scribe had access to A while he copied B and
that A readings in the B portion of the manuscript are the result of scribal editing.
This theory gains support from the nature of the readings themselves, which show
a number of coherent concerns. For instance the scribe’s intervention at line 59 of
the prologue occurs in a passage which describes the four orders of friars, and the
scribe may have felt that profit of their stomachs was a more respectable goal than
the more general and, perhaps deliberately more ambiguous, profit of ‘hemselue’.
The portrayal of friars as preaching for their own profit raises the accusation of
dominion, a frequent target of antifraternal satire. That this variant is the result
of a deliberate act of scribal editing is further suggested by the unique omission
in Harley of lines 66–7 which provide an ominous prophetic warning that, unless
the friars and Holy Church cooperate more, the ‘mooste meschief on molde is
mountynge vp faste’. The scribe’s intervention at line 76 occurs within a section
describing a pardoner and also serves to tone down the criticism of the goals of his
activities. Criticism of the pardoner is further deflected by the unique change of
‘pardoner’ to ‘partener’ at line 81 in the discussion of the division of silver, and the
omission of line 82, which removes the reference to the fact that the money was
really intended for the poor parishioners.
Similar concerns are exhibited elsewhere, such as in passus 3 where the B version
describes Meed bribing the Friar to be her ‘bedeman’ and ‘brocour’. The use of
the word ‘brocour’ portrays the Friar’s carrying out his pastoral responsibilities as
a purely economic transaction: the exchange of absolution for lordship, as well as
portraying the Friar as Meed’s pimp. The Harley scribe changes the B reading
‘brocour’ to ‘on hond’, restoring the relationship between Meed and the Friar to
one of greater respectability. The role of the confessor is addressed in the Harley
scribe’s replacement of the role of the King’s confessor to ‘construe this vnglosed’
as it appears in all B manuscripts with ‘construe this englys’; a reading taken from
the A text. The friars’ desire for learning was a frequent subject of antifraternal
satire by those who wished to promote the view that such learning was unneces-
sary for hearing confession. Friars were particularly associated with the practice of
glossing, interpreting or, more commonly, deliberately misinterpreting the Bible
for their own gain.
Glossing was also associated with the debate over evangelical poverty, and the
fraternal rejection of intellectual dominion was closely related to their rejection of
property. The failure to observe rigorously this call to evangelical poverty was seen
as illegitimately glossing the rule and the gospel itself. Langland’s engagement
with this debate, particularly the association of religious mendicants with false
beggars, is also a cause of concern for the Harley scribe. For instance ‘bidderes’ and
‘beggeres’ are said to ‘faiten’, or ‘beg falsely’, for their food. The verb ‘faiten’ was
a particularly loaded term, used controversially by Langland to characterise reli-
gious mendicants as well as false lay beggars. By replacing this verb with ‘waiten’,
the Harley scribe portrays the ‘bidderes’ and ‘beggeres’ as waiting patiently for
food rather than feigning need. Langland’s manipulation of the ambiguity in the
74  Simon Horobin
word ‘bidder’, which could mean both ‘one who asks for alms’ and ‘one who
prays’, also caused the Harley scribe some concern. For instance at 3.219 this
double meaning is invoked for its potential for anti-mendicant satire in the line:
‘Beggeres for hir biddynge bidden men mede’, a line which was revised in C to the
much more cautious: ‘Bothe begeres and bedemen crauen mede for here prey-
eres’. The Harley scribe took a more direct approach and simply left the line out.
There are numerous other unique textual variants and omissions in the Harley
B text portion, as well as readings which agree with the A version and no other B
manuscript. The fact that many of these variants appear in passages concerned
with the role of friars suggests that the appearance of A readings in this otherwise
B text is not simply the result of the accidental preservation of correct B readings,
but rather the result of a detailed and careful process of collation and editing
between the two versions. Recognition of this process and the motivation behind it
allows us to posit a potential explanation for the otherwise puzzling switch from B
to A at 5.127. This point in the B text concerns the confession of Wrath, a passage
which deals with the sensitive issue of the dispute between the secular clergy and
the friars concerning pastoral care, and is particularly critical of the friars. Wrath’s
confession also deals with issues such as backbiting and scandal in a nunnery and
drunkenness and malicious gossip in a monastery. By switching at this point to
an A version, which notoriously omits a confession by Wrath, the scribe is able
to avoid the passage entirely. By switching to the A version for the confession of
Envy, which precedes Wrath in B, the scribe also includes many of the aspects of
the traditional treatment of Wrath which in the A version are dealt with within
Envy’s confession.15 Another important difference between the two versions at
this point concerns the confession of Avarice. The shorter A version does not
include the discussion of restitution, another key issue in contemporary antifra-
ternal writing. In this passage an overt link is made between the friars’ imposing
of restitution and their wealth, and thus raises issues which we have already seen
were sensitive for the Harley scribe. So it would seem from these various omissions
and alterations to his text of Piers that the Harley scribe was deliberately editing
his text to remove or tone down passages of an antifraternal nature. Part of this
process of editorial intervention involved collation of the A and B versions and the
adoption of readings from A within the scribe’s copy of B.

Harley 3954: the A version of Piers Plowman

Another piece of evidence which suggests that the Harley copy of the B version
was edited with reference to A, is that its A text shows the addition of lines and
readings not recorded in the majority of A manuscripts, but found in manuscripts
of the B version. For instance at A 6.81 Harley, along with three other manu-
scripts of the A version, adds three lines which are not recorded in any other
A manuscript, but which do appear in the B text at B 5.601–2. The content of
these lines is also interesting as they supplement Piers’s directions to the pilgrims
concerning the way to Truth, emphasising the importance of prayer and penance
as part of such a journey:
 Harley 3954 and the audience of Piers Plowman  75
I haue no tome to telle how þe tour stondiþ
Þe brygge hatte Bidde-wel-þe-bet-may-þou-spede
Eche piler is of penaunce polishid ful clene.

Another instance of this kind of editing may be found in the description of the
confession of Greed, a passage which appears to have been of some interest to
these scribes. Instead of describing him as having ‘two bleride eien’, the same
four A manuscripts read ‘eyn as a blynd hagge’, which is the reading of all extant
B manuscripts. Some further examples of individual readings in the A group,
3
EAMH , which appear to show contamination from the B version are given
below.

A 6.71 [And] loke þat þou leiȜe nouȜt for no manis biddyng
3
EMH [A out] [And] loke þat þou leiȜe nouȜt] In no maner ellis nout
B 5.584 In-no-manere-ellis-noȜt-for-no-mannes-biddyng

A 7.61 And make hym mery wiþ þe corn whoso it begrucchiþ

3
EAMH wiþ þe corn] þermydde mauggre
B 6.67 And make hym murie þermyd maugree whoso bigrucche it

A 7.233 Actif lif oþer contemplatif crist wolde it alse

3
MAH Or contemplatyf lyf or actyf lyf
B 6.248 Contemplatif lif or actif lif Crist wolde men wroȜte

Kane’s edition of the A version generally rejects the readings of this group
of manuscripts in favour of that of the majority. In each of the above cases the
3
EAMH reading was not selected by Kane for the text of his 1960 edition of the
A version. However, Kane edited the A version without reference to the B and C
3
versions, so could not have known that the EAMH variant was also found in B
and C. In fact when he returned to the A version in 1988 for his second edition,
having completed his edition of B with E.T. Donaldson, Kane adopted several of
3
these EAMH readings into his revised text of A. Presumably having noted the
appearance of these readings in the B and C traditions, Kane concluded that these
variants must represent the authorial text of A, corrupted by all other A scribes.
This fits with Kane’s view, already mentioned above, that, in revising A to B,
Langland was not concerned with changing individual readings. However, Kane’s
response to this pattern of agreement across the A and B versions continues to
3
ignore the possibility of contamination: namely that the EAMH variants are not
genuine A readings at all, but have been imported from a manuscript of the B
text. If this possibility is accepted, then these readings cannot be viewed as A
variants and therefore should not be adopted into a text of the A version. In his
edition of A Kane is dismissive of the extent and significance of contamination
from other versions in the extant A manuscripts, citing only three manuscripts (W,
N and K) as containing material from other versions in any significant quantity and
arguing that signs of such activity are ‘happily unambiguous’. Kane’s unwillingness
76  Simon Horobin
to recognise contamination elsewhere in the tradition is presumably partly due
to the demands of editorial convenience, as well as the fact that he considered
only instances of interpolated lines and not individual readings. In fact, given that
Kane did not consult the manuscripts of the B and C versions in any detail when
editing A, he could not easily have identified individual BC readings in the A
tradition. When individual readings are considered it is apparent that the group
of manuscripts with which Harley is related contains a number of readings as well
as entire lines which appear to derive from the B version. That these readings
have been deliberately imported from the B version is further suggested by their
content, which is clearly aligned with the concerns exhibited by the edited version
of the B text considered above. For instance the lines discussed above demonstrate
the ongoing concern with confession and particularly with penance as forming an
important part of this process.
Such concerns are further demonstrated by the numerous unique variants,
omissions and additions found in the Harley scribe’s copy of A and not paral-
leled elsewhere in either tradition. A good example is found in the most substan-
tial textual omission in Harley, which comprises 8.116 to 9.96. This omission
occurs between the fourth and fifth lines of folio 116v and thus cannot have
occurred by accident during the copying of the Harley volume, although it is
of course possible that accidental loss occurred in the exemplar. However, if we
look at the content of this section, then I think we can explain the omission as
deliberate. The passage in question begins with Piers’s dispute with the priest
following the discussion of the terms of the pardon. The passage comprises the
priest’s comments about Piers’s potential as a priest, as well as Piers’s angry
reply in which he attacks the priest’s learning. This is followed by Will’s waking
thoughts on the events and particularly on the efficacy of indulgences and
penance, and the importance of deeds in securing salvation, including rather
pointed criticism aimed at the friars. This leads to the search for Dowel at the
opening of passus 10 where Will disputes with the two friars about where Dowel
is located, opposing their claim that Dowel resides among them. Will is then
approached by Thought, at which point the Harley text resumes with only a
rather superficial attempt to repair the obvious gap in the narrative caused by
the omission.
As well as omitting text, the Harley scribe also adds to and edits the text, as the
following example illustrates. This example reveals the scribe’s attitude to Lang-
land’s controversial depiction of the efficacy of the prayers of the uneducated and
the poor, in the lines with which the A version ends:

[...] Ne none sonnere ysauid, ne saddere of consience,

Þanne pore peple, as plouȜmen, and pastours of bestis,
Souteris & seweris; suche lewide iottis
Percen wiþ a paternoster þe paleis of heuene
Wiþoute penaunce at here partyng, into [þe] heiȜe blisse.
(Kane A version, ll.309–13)
 Harley 3954 and the audience of Piers Plowman  77
In Harley this ending is revised as follows:

Ben non sonere Isauyd non saddere of concyens.

þan pore puple as plowmen & pasturers of bestys.
Sawerys & sowerys & sweche leude Iottys
ffor þei leuyn as þei be leryd & oþer wyse nouth
Musyn in no materes but holdyn þe ryth beleue.
He þat redyth þis book & ryth haue it in mende.
Preyit for pers þe plowmans soule.
With a pater noster to þe paleys of heuene.
With outyn gret penans at hys partyng to comyn to blys.
Explict tractus de perys plowman. quod herun

In the Harley version the poor people believe what they are taught and it is no
longer their prayers that pierce the palace of heaven but rather those of the readers
of this book. The revised version also removes the reference to salvation without
penance, an issue which evidently troubled this scribe, as we have seen, and he
replaced it with a wish for Piers to receive salvation without great penance.
In discussing the A text portion preserved in the Harley manuscript, I have
referred to three other manuscripts with which the Harley text shares a number of
its distinctive variant readings and B text additions. Within this group the Harley
manuscript is most closely allied to M (Society of Antiquaries 687) with which it
shares sixty variant readings.16 This link with M is interesting as this manuscript
was copied by four scribes using dialects of the Norfolk/Suffolk border area, not
far removed from the production of Harley in southern Norfolk.17 In addition
to its A text of Piers, M also contains a copy of the Prick of Conscience and various
religious prose texts, suggesting a similar readership to that proposed for Harley
3954. Another member of this group, Bodleian Library Ashmole 1468 (A), can
also be placed within this same geographical network, as it was copied by a scribe
whose dialect is placed by LALME in Suffolk (LP 4568). The only member of this
group whose production cannot be placed within this small area in East Anglia is
E, Dublin, Trinity College 213 which was copied much later, probably in the last
quarter of the fifteenth century in Durham (LALME 1, p. 77). The close textual
relationship and the geographical proximity of these manuscripts suggest that the
3
EAMH exemplar circulated within a restricted East Anglian network and was
copied for an audience that shared similar concerns. One possible environment for
circulation of this kind is religious houses, where the necessary resources for book
production would have been available as well as the kind of audience identified
above. Numerous religious houses existed in East Anglia in this period and there is
no further evidence in the Harley manuscript to allow us to narrow down its prov-
enance further. However, it is perhaps significant that the LALME grid reference
for Harley 3954 (583 305) places it close to Thetford, where books were produced
in religious houses, and its closest neighbour in LALME is Bodleian Library Digby
99 (583 296), containing the Prick of Conscience copied and owned by ‘Frater Iohannes
Stanys, canonicus Thedfordie’, who signed his name on the book.
78  Simon Horobin
Links with another manuscript of Piers Plowman shed some further light on the
3
provenance of the EAMH exemplar. This manuscript is Bodleian Library Bodley
851 [Z], a manuscript which was not collated by Kane for his edition of the A
version, as it contains a text of A which has been abbreviated and conflated with
a number of unique lines and passages which Kane considered to be scribal.
A.G. Rigg and Charlotte Brewer printed the Z text in their edition of 1983 in
which they presented a case for its being Langland’s first draft of the poem.18
In discussing the relationship of the Z text to the other versions of the poem,
Rigg and Brewer noted that Z shares a number of variants with the group of
3
A manuscripts discussed above, EAMH . In a number of cases of such agree-
3
ment, the reading of EAMH Z is also found in the manuscripts of the B and C
versions, thereby appearing to lend support to the authority of the readings of
this group of manuscripts and the claim for the authenticity of the Z text as an
3
early Langlandian draft. Despite this pattern of agreement between EAMH Z
and all of the B manuscripts, Kane and Donaldson frequently ignore such read-
ings in their edition of the B version in favour of the majority A reading printed
by Kane in his edition of the A version. More recently Charlotte Brewer has
cited such patterns of agreement as evidence that Kane’s editorial procedure is
3
at fault, arguing that agreements between EAMH Z and BC must represent the
correct readings, rather than those selected by Kane for his text of A.19 The fact
that Z frequently agrees with this group thus adds further strength to Brewer’s
claim that Z represents a genuine authorial version anterior to A. Brewer writes:
‘The simplest explanation for this pattern of agreements is that Kane erred in
his choice of reading for the A-Text, and that the authentic reading is that found
in the other A-MSS, together with Z and B (C). This would then support the
argument for Z’s authenticity.’20 However, Brewer’s claim does not take account
of the possibility that this pattern of agreement is the result of contamination,
3
a factor which I have argued above may explain agreements between EAMH
and BC.21
There is considerable evidence that the text of the A version preserved in this
group of manuscripts was edited with reference to a copy of the B version: a version
to which we know the Harley scribe had access when he began copying the poem.
The relationship between Z and this group of manuscripts suggests that the Z
scribe simply had access to this same exemplar, rather than offering independent
support for the authority of these readings.
3
The use of the EAMH copytext in the production of the Z text offers some
useful evidence regarding the circulation of this shared copytext. Bodley 851
contains an ex libris indicating ownership by John Wells of Ramsey Abbey, a Bene-
dictine abbey in Huntingdonshire, not far removed from the area within which
3
the EAMH archetype circulated. Ralph Hanna has argued on the basis of codi-
cological evidence that the manuscript was produced as a series of booklets in
Ramsey Abbey, not in Oxford as argued by Rigg and Brewer, and this theory fits
well with the evidence of its textual affiliations.22 M.L. Samuels has identified the
dialect of the Z text of Piers as that of south-west Worcestershire,23 although there
 Harley 3954 and the audience of Piers Plowman  79
is also an East Midlands overlay which would fit with copying in Ramsey.24 In fact
the language of the continuation of the Z text by Hand Q contains certain features
which would indicate an East Anglian origin.25 Not only does the Q scribe’s dialect
point to an East Anglian origin, but the textual affiliations of this portion of the Z
text also suggest this location.26 Production in this area would also make greater
sense of the adverse comments about Norfolk and its dialect, which are more
pronounced in Bodley 851 than in any other Piers manuscript: such jokes would
surely lose their impact in Oxford.27 So the evidence of Bodley 851 shows that
3
the EAMH exemplar was available to a scribe working in a Benedictine house in
Huntingdonshire, providing further support for the theory that the circulation of
this exemplar and its copying took place in religious houses, perhaps belonging to
the Benedictine order.
Connections with another book produced in East Anglia with links with a
religious house are also suggestive, although they remain speculative. Kane
noted similarities in the hand of the Harley 3954 scribe and that of Hand C of
Arundel 327, a copy of Osbern Bokenham’s Legends of Holy Women.28 Bokenham
was a member of the Augustinian priory at Clare, Suffolk, and A.S.G. Edwards
has shown that the book was copied in distinct units, partly at Clare and at
Cambridge. Hands B and C copied the majority of the volume in Cambridge
for ‘Frere Thomas Burgh’ for presentation to a ‘holy place of nunnys’, possibly
the Franciscan nuns of Aldgate or Denny. 29
3
It is, however, possible that the copying and circulation of the EAMH exem-
plar and the production of Harley 3954 was not carried out by members of the
regular but the secular clergy. The secular clergy have been frequently identi-
fied by scholars as a likely audience for Langland’s poem and it is likely that the
areas of interest exhibited by the scribe of Harley 3954 would appeal similarly
to a group of secular clerics. In fact there are other aspects of the treatment of
the Harley text that appear to contradict the argument that it was intended for
an audience of regular clergy. For instance, in addition to its unique conjunc-
tion of the B and A versions, Harley also employs a different system of passus
divisions than that conventionally adopted for the organisation of the A or B
versions. Below is a list of all of the incipits and explicits found in the Harley
copy of Piers:

Beginning of passus 1 Thys is ye fryst part of yis book perys plowman

Beginning of passus 2 yis is ye secunde part of yis book. Perys plowman
Beginning of passus 3 No rubric
3.100 Thys is ye thryede part of yis book ho ye kyng concelyt
mede to be maryid
Beginning of passus 4 No rubric
End of passus 4 Here endyt ye ferd part of yis book plowman
End of A text passus 5 Here endyth ye v. part of yis book pers plowman
End of A text passus 7 Here endyth ye sexte part of yis book pers plowman
End of A text passus 10 Here endyth ye seueth part of yis book
80  Simon Horobin
As well as demonstrating further the Harley scribe’s independent approach to
the organisation of his text, these rubrics are particularly striking for their exclu-
sive use of the vernacular. No other manuscript of the A or B version has such a
scheme nor any rubrics in the vernacular.30 This suggests that the manuscript was
produced for a readership accustomed to using the vernacular and perhaps not
confident in the use of Latin.
The use of the vernacular for the passus headings is likely to be related to
another tendency towards the vernacular in Harley 3954, the frequent translation
of the Latin found in Langland’s text. For instance after the Latin quotation from
Ecclesiastes, ‘Ve terre vbi puer est &c.’, at Prologue 1.195a Harley has a unique
extra line providing a straight translation: ‘Wo to ye lond yer ye kyng is a chyld.’
A similar procedure is found at 1.52, where the scribe provides a full translation of
Christ’s words from Matthew’s gospel:

Ȝeldto sesar quod god yat to hym longyth.

And to god yat longyth to hym or ellis Ȝe don ylle.

Numerous other instances of this tendency to translate the poem’s Latin may
be found in Harley (see for instance 1.201, 178, 187), suggesting that the book
may have been intended for an audience not accustomed to, or perhaps not
even capable of, reading Latin. The language of the few marginal annotations
and glosses provided by the original scribe is almost exclusively the vernacular,
the only exceptions being single instances of ‘Exemplum’ and ‘corpus’, further
indicating that the manuscript may have been intended for an audience most
comfortable with the vernacular. These glosses also serve to highlight further the
interest of the scribe and his audience in the poem’s treatment of members of the
clergy and its discussion of the religious life. For instance the episodes in the text
that appear to have caught the glossator’s attention most fully are the description
of the members of the clergy in the Prologue’s description of the field of folk, the
lines in passus 11 concerned with the active and contemplative lives, and the place
of learning within the religious life.
The evidence of the other major text in the Harley manuscript, Mandeville’s
Travels, provides some further contextual details concerning the manuscript’s
production. The Harley copy of Mandeville’s Travels carries an ambitious cycle of
miniatures, which remains unfinished, comprising ninety-nine pictures and thirty-
eight blank spaces. Kathleen Scott has attributed this programme of illustration
to two or possibly three artists, noting that the style of these drawings ‘bears some
(distant) relationship to that of Harley 2278’.31 British Library Harley 2278 is a
copy of Lydgate’s Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund which was commissioned by
William Curteys, abbot of the Benedictine abbey at Bury St Edmunds, for pres-
entation to Henry VI, and was probably produced at Bury. The link identified
by Scott between the illustration of Harley 3954 and Harley 2278 suggests that
Harley 3954 was illustrated, as well as copied, in East Anglia. The link with a
manuscript produced in a Benedictine institution is also suggestive, given the links
with Bodley 851 described above.
 Harley 3954 and the audience of Piers Plowman  81
Conclusion
The evidence of Harley 3954 shows that both A and B versions were available
within a restricted East Anglian network, and that the Harley scribe was actively
engaged in a process of collation and editing in order to produce a text of Piers
that was suitable for the audience for which it was intended. The production and
circulation of these copies of Piers may have taken place within a group of reli-
gious houses situated within a small area of south Norfolk and north Suffolk. The
process of editing undertaken in this production process shows no respect for the
integrity of the differing versions as we now view them, and this evidence suggests
that editors need to recognise the possibility that such scribal editorial activity was
more widespread than is generally supposed. The identification of such activity
in Harley 3954 has a particular significance for the way the poem is edited. For
instance, A readings preserved in Harley’s B text and no other B manuscript need
to be examined for evidence of contamination from A, and cannot be regarded as
further licence for the widespread restoration of A readings in the B text against
the testimony of all other B manuscripts. Kane–Donaldson were reluctant to
acknowledge the possibility of contamination of this kind, generally preferring
to explain such readings as instances of ‘correction’ from a better B supply. By
refusing to entertain the possibility of contamination in a manuscript where we
know the scribe had access to an A version, Kane–Donaldson were unable to
explain Harley’s textual affiliations with any conviction. The editors write of the
A readings in Harley that these ‘are not evidently or indeed at all explicable in
terms of the character of H’, suggesting that it may represent a third line of textual
transmission, whose position within the B tradition seems ‘indeterminable’.32
These difficulties are resolved once we take account of the fact that the Harley
scribe did have access to a copy of the A version and thus the likelihood that the
unclassifiable readings in Harley are not B readings at all, but readings imported
from A.
A similar situation obtains for an understanding of the Harley copy of the A
version, especially those instances where Harley and its related A copies, EAM,
contain readings characteristic of the B tradition. As with those readings in H
3
discussed above, EAMH readings should be treated with caution by editors
and cannot be automatically viewed as genuine A readings, as has been argued
recently by Charlotte Brewer, who cites their frequent agreement with Z as
support for her claim for the authenticity of the Z text as an authorial version
anterior to A.33
Such editorial activity in these manuscripts, while undoubtedly rather irri-
tating for editors of the poem, does however provide important insights into the
way the poem was copied and consumed. Harley 3954, and its closely related
manuscripts, reveal ways in which the poem was tailored for a specific provincial,
clerical community and some of the areas which such readers considered most
provocative and thus needing revision, editing or even suppression. The switch
to the A version in Harley, and a copytext which may have circulated within a
network of East Anglian religious houses, suggests that the A version was more
82  Simon Horobin
aligned with the demands of such an audience. We have seen that the Harley
scribe was especially concerned with the treatment of issues such as confession
and penance and the role of priests in the administration of pastoral care, and
such issues are perhaps more central and focused in the A version than in B and
C. John Burrow has described the second vision of Piers Plowman as based around
the ‘arc of penitential action’, comprising a plot which moves from sermon to
confession, then penance, in this case a pilgrimage, and finally to pardon.34 These
are the themes which engaged the attention of the Harley scribe most fully, and
their greater prominence in the shorter A version may have appealed to this scribe
and his audience.35 The evidence of Harley and its related A manuscripts there-
fore appears to contradict Jill Mann’s claim that the A version was intended for
a lay audience and fits more closely with Hanna’s view of the dissemination of
this version,36 although the scribe’s use of the vernacular in the rubrics, marginal
glosses and the frequent translation of Langland’s Latin lines does fit with Mann’s
theory that the A version may have been intended for an audience less competent
in the use of Latin. The evidence for scribal editing across the versions, and the
interpolation of B readings into copies of the A version also point to a readership
with a less rigid attitude to the independent status of the versions of the poem
than our modern view. Such editorial licence may have been further endorsed
and encouraged by the knowledge that the A version, rather than representing
a final authorial version, was an in-progress draft released before its completion
and subsequently superseded by the completion of the B version and its release for
circulation among Langland’s London audience.

Notes
1 A version of this chapter was presented at the Eighth Biennial Conference of the Early
Book Society held at the University of Durham, July 2003. I am grateful to the audience
for helpful feedback and to Professor Ralph Hanna for reading the essay in draft and
making many useful comments for its improvement. I should add that I am responsible
for any errors that remain.
2 J.A. Burrow, ‘The Audience of Piers Plowman’, Anglia 75, 1957, 373–84; reprinted with a
postscript in J.A. Burrow, Essays on Medieval Literature, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984, pp.
102–16.
3 Anne Middleton, ‘The Audience and Public of “Piers Plowman”’, in David Lawton (ed.),
Middle English Alliterative Poetry and Its Literary Background, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1982,
pp. 101–23 at p. 104.
4 Kathryn Kerby-Fulton and Steven Justice, ‘Langlandian Reading Circles and the Civil
Service in London and Dublin’, New Medieval Literatures 1, 1998, 59–83.
5 M.L. Samuels, ‘Dialect and Grammar’, in J.A. Alford (ed.), A Companion to Piers Plowman,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, pp. 201–22.
6 However, A.I. Doyle described the manuscript formerly owned by the Duke of West-
minster, a conjoint A/C text, as ‘written in an elegant set secretary of the kind employed
by Privy Seal and some other official scribes’, suggesting a metropolitan origin. See A.I.
Doyle, ‘Remarks on Surviving Manuscripts of Piers Plowman’ in Gregory Kratzmann and
James Simpson (eds) Medieval English Religious and Ethical Literature: Essays in Honour of G.H.
Russell, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1986, pp. 35–48. Ralph Hanna has informed me that
another A MS, London, Lincoln’s Inn Hale 150, can also be associated with London,
 Harley 3954 and the audience of Piers Plowman  83
although it was subsequently disseminated to Shropshire.
  7 Jill Mann, ‘The Power of the Alphabet: A Reassessment of the Relation between the A
and B Versions of Piers Plowman’, Yearbook of Langland Studies 8, 1994, 21–50.
  8 Ralph Hanna, ‘MS. Bodley 851 and the Dissemination of Piers Plowman’, in Pursuing
History: Middle English Manuscripts and their Texts, Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1996, pp. 195–202.
  9 G. Kane (ed.), Piers Plowman: The A Version, London: Athlone Press, 1960, p. 8.
10 G. Kane and E.T. Donaldson (eds), Piers Plowman: The B Version, London: Athlone Press,
1988, p. 9, n. 55.
11 For a more detailed description of the manuscript’s codicology and contents see
C.D. Benson and Lynne Blanchfield, The Manuscripts of Piers Plowman: The B-version,
Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997, although, unlike all other manuscripts they describe,
they do not include a facsimile of this manuscript.
12 LALME, 4 vols.
13 For details of the conjoint and conflated manuscripts see G. Kane, ‘The Text’, in
Alford, op. cit. (1988), pp. 175–200.
14 Kane, op. cit. (1960), pp. 28–9.
15 G. Kane, ‘An Open Letter to Jill Mann about the Sequence of the Versions of Piers
Plowman’, Yearbook of Langland Studies 13, 1999, 20–2.
16 Kane, op. cit. (1960), p. 75.
17 Hand A is LALME LP 638, mapped in Norfolk, and Hand D is LP 639 mapped in
Suffolk. Hand B was responsible for copying Piers Plowman and his language is charac-
terised by LALME as NW Suffolk. This scribe’s language is not plotted on the LALME
map but its similarity to that of Hand C of Bodleian Library Hatton 18, a copy of the
Speculum Vitae, is noted. See LALME I, p. 137.
18 A.G. Rigg and Charlotte Brewer (eds), Piers Plowman: The Z Version, Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983.
19 Charlotte Brewer, Editing Piers Plowman: The Evolution of the Text, Cambridge: CUP, 1996,
pp. 377–8.
20 Ibid., p. 424.
21 Brewer does raise the possibility of contamination as an explanation for this pattern
of agreement and criticises Kane for not taking sufficient account of this as a factor.
However, Brewer herself does not pursue the implications of this.
22 Hanna, op. cit., pp. 195–202.
23 M.L. Samuels, ‘Langland’s Dialect’, in J.J. Smith (ed.), The English of Chaucer and His
Contemporaries, Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988, p. 85, n. 80.
24 Bodley 851 is also mapped in Worcestershire by LALME as LP 7700. Examples of East
Midlands forms found alongside Western equivalents include 3 sing. pres. indic. <-eth>,
<-es>, 3 pl pres. indic. <-es>, <-eth>, <-e(n)>, forms showing /o:/ reflected as both
<oe> and <o>, spellings with <o> and <a> before nasals, and <u> and <i, y> spellings
for OE <y>. Rigg and Brewer (op. cit., p. 26) also describe the dialect of the Z text as a
mixture of West and East Midlands forms.
25 For instance this scribe’s dialect includes the reflex of OE/hw/as <qw>, e.g. ‘qwan’,
‘qwat’, ‘qweche’. Cf. also the association in LALME of the language of Hand B (folios
139–40) with Suffolk or SE Norfolk (LALME 1, 146).
26 The Q continuation is taken from a manuscript closely related to another copy of the A
version, Oxford, University College 45 [U], and shows further similarities to the copy
preserved in Pierpont Morgan Library M 818 [J]. Both manuscripts contain dialect
evidence which places their production in the East Midlands: the dialect of U is of south
Cambridgeshire, while J can be placed in Lincolnshire. See Samuels, op. cit. (1988),
and LALME LPs 698 and 510. The textual relations are discussed by Rigg and Brewer,
op. cit., pp. 28–9 and Hanna, op. cit. (1996), p. 200.
27 For these comments see the discussion in Rigg and Brewer, op. cit., pp. 16–17. Ralph
84  Simon Horobin
Hanna has also argued that the Norfolk jokes in the Z text make best sense ‘on the edge
of East Anglia, not in Oxford’ (Hanna, op. cit. (1996), p. 314, n. 10).
28 For a facsimile of Hand C of British Library Arundel 327, see the frontispiece to the
edition of the work by Mary S. Serjeantson (ed.), Legendys of Hooly Wummen by Osbern
Bokenham, EETS, o.s. 206, 1938.
29 A.S.G. Edwards, ‘The Transmission and Audience of Osbern Bokenham’s Legendys of
Hooly Wummen’, in A.J. Minnis (ed.), Late Medieval Religious Texts and their Transmission:
Essays in Honour of A.I. Doyle, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1994, pp. 157–67.
30 The rubrics found in each of the manuscripts of the B text may be conveniently consulted
and compared in the chart compiled by R. Adams ‘The Reliability of the Rubrics in the
B-Text of Piers Plowman’, Medium Ævum 54, 1985, 208–31. See also Kane, op. cit. (1960),
and Kane and Donaldson, op. cit. for full lists of the rubrics found in the manuscripts of
the A and B versions.
31 Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390–1490, 2 vols. A Survey of Manuscripts Illu-
minated in the British Isles, vol. 6, London: Harvey Miller, 1996.
32 Kane and Donaldson, op. cit., p. 61.
33 Brewer, op. cit.
34 Burrow, op. cit. (1965).
35 The scribe’s concern with questions of penance and confession is further attested by
the subject matter of the lyrics collected in the manuscript. These didactic poems focus
upon these issues, as may be demonstrated by IMEV 1901, a poem concerned with the
assertion of the importance of the seven sacraments: baptism, penance, the eucharist,
confirmation, matrimony, ordination and extreme unction. This poem is edited from
the Harley manuscript, with variants from CUL Ii.iv.9 in W.L. Braekman, ‘“Of ye
Sacramentys Seuene”: A Middle English Didactic Poem’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 82,
1981, 194–203. Similar concerns are shown by the other religious poems in Harley and
also in CUL Ii.iv.9 which deal with the seven virtues and vices and the works of mercy.
For texts and commentary, see W.L. Braekman, ‘A Middle English Didactic Poem on
the Works of Mercy’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 79, 1978, 145–51, and W.L. Braekman,
‘“The Seven Virtues as Opposed to the Seven Vices”: A Fourteenth-Century Didactic
Poem’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 74, 1973, 247–68.
36 Jill Mann’s theory concerning the order of composition of the three versions has also
received strong criticism in responses by Kane, op. cit. (1999) and T. Lawler, ‘A Reply
to Jill Mann, Reaffirming the Traditional Relation between the A and B Versions of
Piers Plowman’, Yearbook of Langland Studies 10, 1996, 145–80.
4 ‘Cy ensuent trois
chaunceons’
Groups and sequences of
Middle English lyrics
Julia Boffey

Consideration of Middle English lyrics in their original manuscript contexts,

rather than in the sanitised environments provided in modern editions, has in
recent years been urged in several quarters.1 The benefits of such scrutiny have
been made visible in a number of studies which discuss lyrics according to the
manuscripts, or manuscript groupings, in which they survive;2 and the concomi-
tant breaking down of the categories into which lyrics were conventionally sorted
(religious and secular, primarily), and of the conventional scholarly distinctions
between lyrics and longer or different kinds of texts, has enriched the possibilities
of understanding the forms and functions of these evanescent-seeming forms of
writing. First-hand consultation of manuscripts can establish details of the owner-
ship and likely readers of books containing lyrics, for example, or (through palaeo-
graphical study) can permit the tracing of other texts copied by a specific scribe. It
can reveal that a lyric has been added to an existing volume by a later hand rather
than copied as part of a planned programme of contents, or that a group of lyrics,
added on the inviting blank space of a flyleaf, are the work of several scribes rather
than of one single copyist. Information of this kind, valuable for the comprehen-
sion of medieval texts of all kinds, can be crucial to the understanding of short texts
like lyrics, about which so little is generally recorded.3
While some understanding of the ‘manuscript context’ of any work can
enhance the range of interpretative possibilities, there are, in relation to lyrics,
special circumstances in which issues of context can be particularly significant. To
know whether a lyric is in some way ‘attached’ to other lyrics which may precede
or follow it (or to which it may be attached in certain of its witnesses) seems a
necessary part of the equipment which might be brought to bear on attempting
to understand it. Much more frequently than one might expect, this informa-
tion is not always easy to deduce from modern editions or critical discussions.
Because lyrics are generically fairly short, and offer themselves readily as conven-
ient ‘fillers’ in what would otherwise be manuscript white space, they are often
presented without introductions or without explanatory detail about other texts
to which they might be linked, and they thus sometimes give the appearance of
floating, unanchored, among the material which surrounds them. The tendency
of modern editions to group together lyrics from different sources in anthologies
compiled according to a variety of principles simply reinforces this impression of
86  Julia Boffey
unanchoredness, and encourages readers to think of each poem in isolation, as a
single, independent text. Returning from modern editions to manuscripts offers
some opportunity to review the variety of ways in which short Middle English
poems can form functional groups or clusters in which relationships of contiguity
are purposive and meaningful.
In a wider European context, groups or sequences of Middle English lyrics seem
at first sight few and rather paltry. Middle English has no Vita Nuova, no lavish
compilations of Minnesänger like the Manessischer Liederhandschrift (Heidelberg
Univ. Bibl. Cod. Pal. Germ. 848), no tradition of large-scale canzoniere or chanson-
niers which gather together large numbers of poems, sometimes with a common
theme or a shared occasional purpose.4 Several arguments have been advanced to
explain why this should be so, among them the plausible suggestion that medieval
English readers who wanted such things would have had the ability to read them
in French (possibly even in other vernaculars), and so need not have bothered with
the commissioning or compilation of comparable collections of Middle English
material. (The somewhat ironic title of this essay incorporates some French
words used to introduce a small group of Middle English lyrics in one of Thomas
Hoccleve’s holograph manuscripts, San Marino, Huntington Library HM 744,
fol. 51v:5 the taste for French was long lasting.) Another explanation is the simple
one that few bodies of likely material survive in Middle English for inclusion in
such collections. Looking for instances of manuscripts where Middle English lyrics
have been preserved in relationships which might be claimed to have some signif-
icance does not seem likely, at the outset, to be a rewarding undertaking. But
although there are not many instances to enumerate, it is possible to outline a
rough taxonomy.
The most obvious starting point is with collections of lyrics arranged by their
authors into some kind of sequence. The Frenchness of Gower’s Cinkante Balades
and his Traitié pour essampler les amantz marietz should strictly speaking rule them out
of count in this discussion, but since they offer testimony to an English author’s
acknowledgment that construction of such sequences was possible, and some
demonstration of how it might be done, they are worth a moment’s pause.6 Both
works are sequences of poems in fixed forms, ‘ballades’ in the English style (groups
of rhyme royal or ‘Monk’s tale’ stanzas, some with envoys). The constituent lyrics
are organised, presumably according to authorial direction, in ways which, however
approximately, develop some kind of argument; were one to reorganise them, the
argument would be a different one. The term ‘argument’ may seem especially
loose in the case of the Cinkante Balades, of which the Manual’s description is aptly
vague: ‘the first 40 are idealistic and emotional; the last twelve sound moralistic
and disillusioned’.7 But, in the unique surviving copy in London, British Library
MS Addit. 59495 (the former Trentham manuscript), their organisation seems to
reflect the shape and concerns of the longer Traitié, which they there accompany.
The Traitié itself, which circulated more widely, is attached by a rubric in ten out
of thirteen surviving copies to the Confessio Amantis, as if viewed by Gower (an
author who exercised an unusual degree of control over the copying and transmis-
sion of his writings) as some kind of appendage to this work. Although the Middle
 ‘Cy ensuent trois chaunceons’  87
English translation of the Traitié attributed to someone by the name of Quixley
does not survive alongside the Confessio (the single manuscript, BL Stowe 951,
contains the prose Three Kings of Cologne and William of Nassington’s Speculum Vitae),
it manages to preserve something of that text’s ethos by means of an introductory
stanza invoking Gower and exhorting readers to ‘beware of folie’ by eschewing
‘auoutrie’.8 The poems in Gower’s two sequences have a stable textual tradition
and do not seem to have leaked into significant circulation, either singly or in
smaller groups, beyond a home base with Gower’s other writings. Furthermore,
their order (at least in the case of the Traitié) remains consistent.
Authorially sanctioned coherence of this kind is not a characteristic feature of
many bodies of Middle English lyrics, although (by varieties of probably more
pragmatically determined means) there survive some lyric-dominated bodies of
‘collected works’, which constitute something rather similar to Gower’s collec-
tions: the most notable are those associated with John Audelay, an Augustinian
canon who spent at least his last years at Haughmond in Shropshire, and with
James Ryman, a Franciscan attached to the friary at Canterbury. The manuscripts
in which these survive, Oxford, Bodleian Library Douce 302, and Cambridge,
University Library MS Ee. i. 12 respectively, may well have been compiled at
authorial prompting or with forms of authorial input, if of obscure kinds: Audelay
was probably blind and it is not clear whether he dictated to an amanuensis,
or whether indeed MS Douce 302 was compiled during his lifetime or after his
death.9 Such evidence as there is for the wider transmission of lyrics by either
author points to the likelihood of oral circulation (perhaps with music: many of
Ryman’s poems, and some of Audelay’s, are carols) and diffusion of lyrics singly
or in random groups, as if their coherence was not in any sense a factor in their
circulation. The preservation of the poems together in MSS Bodl. Douce 302 and
CUL Ee. i. 12 seems a matter of organisational convenience, prompted either by
the authors themselves or by a local piety anxious to have some record of their
works.10 The same organisational factors probably explain the grouping together of
bodies of lyrics associated with other identifiable authors such as Minot, Lydgate,
William Herebert and Hoccleve (both of whom have left autograph copies of their
short poems).11
The most substantial sequence of organised Middle English lyrics is that associ-
ated with Charles of Orleans and surviving in London, British Library MS Harley
682.12 Here several large groups of poems in fixed forms (ballades and roundels,
mainly) punctuated by short sections of allegorical narrative and longer poems in
non-lyric forms, recount the narrator’s service in the retinue of Love, the death
of his lady and his resulting melancholy, then offer a parting ‘jubilee’ of short
love poems before a dream episode introduces the appearance of a new lady and
the narrator’s successful courtship of her. The poems announce their author as
‘Charlis duk of Orlyaunce’ (line 2720; cf. also lines 5–6), and draw attention by
various means to his role as their originator. While the narrative thread which
holds them together is at times (especially in the ‘jubilee’ of assorted roundels)
relatively invisible, the coherence and comprehensibility of the sequence largely
depends on each short poem occupying a particular place in the unfolding story.
88  Julia Boffey
It would be hard to shuffle them around into a different order and still produce
overall sense. The full sequence of English poems survives only in MS Harley 682,
but the existence of two sets of fragments of what appears to have been a copy of
it indicates some wider fifteenth-century transmission, and confirms that the lyrics
circulated in a recognised and ordered configuration.13
A smaller sequence of love lyrics, in Middle English but with some claim to an
association with Charles of Orleans, survives in Bodl. MS Fairfax 16, and focuses
in miniature one of the main questions which seem to be emerging from this review
of purposively organised lyrics: namely, how is one to know where such sequences
begin and end, especially when they accompany other contents in a manuscript?
The poems concerned occupy most of booklet V of this unusually homogeneous
anthology of courtly works in the Chaucerian tradition, and they follow directly
on from (or may even be intended as an appendage to) a lightly humorous parody
of sections of the mass (NIMEV 4186; with some prose) designed for recitation ‘To
fore the famous riche autere / Of the myghty god of love’ (lines 2–3).14 The lyrics
which make up the sequence are comprised of ‘balades’, ‘compleynts’, ‘lettyrs’, and
a ‘supplicacion’, all in rhyme royal or Monk’s Tale stanzas.15 Although no details
of authorship are supplied in the manuscript, one of the ‘compleynts’ (NIMEV
2567, ‘O thou ffortune whyche hast the gouernuaunce’) turns out to duplicate
an English poem copied by Charles of Orleans into his autograph manuscript,
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale 25458: a fact which has reasonably been taken as
evidence that Charles might have written the whole sequence, or that one of his
English acquaintances such as the Duke of Suffolk might have been responsible
for it.16 Whoever the author was (and this issue has generated considerable contro-
versy), some considerable care has been taken to arrange this group of lyrics in
order to generate a roughly convincing implied narrative. The lover begins by
stating that he is constrained to love, praises the lady and resolves to serve her
well, addresses his heart, and then Fortune, and ‘Danger’. A period of separation
seems to ensue, during which unspecified difficulties impede the course of his love,
and he is compelled to supplicate and complain to his lady, before expressing a
concluding hope that ‘hertys trew’ will be rewarded.
The ending of this little sequence is especially interesting. As the lyrics are
presented in the manuscript, they reach a logical point of conclusion with the
‘Compleynt’ on fol. 325r–v (NIMEV 2295) in which the lover looks back over
his long, unrewarded period in Love’s service and complains about the instability
of Fortune, but resolves none the less to remain firm. In the manuscript a line
is drawn under the conclusion of this ‘Compleynt’. The following text, whose
opening is indicated with a marginal paraph sign, turns out to be a poem which
invokes the rhetorical skill of Chaucer and Lydgate and challenges the latter for
his remarks about women’s faithlessness (NIMEV 2178; often called ‘the reproof
to Lydgate’). Unlike the preceding lyrics in the sequence, this poem has no title,
and it looks in some respects as if it was intended to be considered as separate from
them. The relationship of this and the lyrics to the next text, a short court of love
poem (NIMEV 2595), in which Cupid promises judgment on a number of cases
pleaded by assorted lovers, is equally difficult to resolve. It is introduced with a title
 ‘Cy ensuent trois chaunceons’  89
(‘Parlement’) on the model of the earlier items, and could be seen as performing
some kind of closure, but on the other hand it functions perfectly well as a free-
standing miniature narrative, unrelated (except in courtly spirit) to what comes
before it. The table of contents to the manuscript (fol. 2r–v) offers little help to
understanding the relationships between these poems: the balades and complaints
and letters are listed there in the groups in which they are copied (‘the iij balettes
þat þe lover made to his lady’, ‘The ij complayntez þat þe lover made to his lady’,
and so on), and the items which follow them are separately listed (How þe louer is
sett to serve þe floure’ and ‘The Parlement off Cupyde gode of love’), with no clear
indication of either an intended break or an intended continuity between them.
The contents of booklet V in MS Fairfax 16 demonstrate how difficult it is to define
the limits of a sequence with any exactitude, and the special perils of attempting to
do so in the case of a sequence which survives in only one witness.17
Most of the instances discussed so far have concerned unifying factors in some
way dependent on authorship: bodies of lyrics either organised by or for an author
(Gower, Charles of Orleans), or gathered together because of the fact of common
authorship (Audelay, Ryman), or association with an author’s circle. But their
configurations can relate to a range of further factors. The short poems which
fill the final gathering (fols 407–12) of Bodleian Library MS eng. poet. a. 1, the
so-called Vernon manuscript, may well have been organised together on formal
or thematic principles.18 All are in the same two stanza forms, almost all (apart
from three or four) have refrains, and their thematic similarities are underlined
by the manuscript layout, which does not emphasise the point of division between
individual poems in particularly noticeable ways: no blank space is left between
poems, for example; no titles are supplied; the breaks are marked only by the
provision of a large capital at the start of each new piece. The identical copy of the
sequence on fols 128v–134r of Vernon’s sister-manuscript, the Simeon collection
(BL Addit. 22283), confirms its coherence.
The grouping together of these lyrics in one densely packed instructive unit
in both the Vernon and Simeon manuscripts is reflected in other bodies of lyrics
which relate to particular devotional programmes and are hinged together in
framing structures of different kinds. Sometimes these structures can be appre-
hended as both thematic and material: the various texts that accompany images
of the ‘Arma Christi’, for example, are sometimes not just grouped together but
made into a visible and palpable unit when copied with images on to a manuscript
roll.19 A strikingly visible structure of another kind draws together the many short
lyrics which are a part of The Desert of Religion.20 This long verse text, which survives
in three fifteenth-century copies, is an amalgam of verse narrative and images
into which lyrics are often inserted on scrolls or as borders. Many of them relate
very directly to the matter of the longer work and would be hard to comprehend
outside its context, but some function reasonably enough as independent items
with their own distinct meaning.
Alongside these graphic frameworks in which series of lyrics are incorpo-
rated might be set the contexts offered by long prose works which incorporate
a programme of specific lyrics for rhetorical or mnemonic purposes. The fairly
90  Julia Boffey
consistently recurring groups of lyrics in works like the Speculum Christiani or
Fasciculus Morum or Dives et Pauper fall into this category, and are sometime signalled
in manuscript copies by rubrication or other means of highlighting.21 Many of
these short poems also circulated freely as independent texts, enjoying an existence
outside their longer frameworks. Short poems conceived with the pragmatic aim
of encapsulating the essentials of the faith occasionally appear in structured groups
in manuscripts which have been compiled with a view to programmed learning,
perhaps within a household or community of some kind. A cluster of such short
poems in the second part of BL MS Harley 1706, set at the end of a selection of
spiritually instructive prose texts, rather than punctuating them, appears to be
more or less replicated in several other fifteenth-century collections.22 It begins
with a poem summarising the Ten Commandments (NIMEV 3685) and proceeds
though others on the Seven Virtues, the Seven Works of Mercy, the Five Senses,
the Virtues, and the Beatitudes.23 Last comes a lesson on proper conduct (NIMEV
1416), with a reminder of the pedagogic purposes which this whole sequence may
have served: ‘This lesson a vertuose chylde schuld often say to hys / sovereynes’
(fol. 209r). The verse colophon, furthermore, draws attention to the careful pacing
of this educative programme: ‘Explicit scala celi / þis ys lader of heuen blys / clym
þer on whil þou may / And he schalle lede þe y wys / To þat yoye þat lasteth
ay AMEN’ (fol. 210r). The manuscript layout of all the constituent texts in this
sequence offers visual aids to learning, itemising the elements to be remembered
and allocating them large red marginal numbers, and rubricating the Latin verbs
in the list of the works of mercy. These repeated devices also serve to draw the
separate poems into a whole.
Groups of verse proverbs, or groups of rhymed medical recipes, might be consid-
ered to constitute instructive series in some ways akin to the linked short poems
in Harley 1706.24 These are often baggy and textually complex, transmitted in
witnesses which demonstrate considerable amounts of variation, abbreviation or
elaboration, sometimes of inexplicable kinds; and considerable numbers of the
texts which figure in such collections circulated independently. At the other end
of the size scale come very small groups or pairings of poems, whose point in
large part lies in their contiguity. An instance of such a miniature group occurs
in Cambridge, St John’s College MS 195 (G.28, a copy of Pore Caitif), on fols
iv–ii, where one hand has added first a poem of three six-line stanzas against
friars (NIMEV 3697: ‘þou þat sellest þe worde of god … Cum neuere here’) and
then affixed to it without a break an answering poem of nine four-line stanzas
which offers a friar’s reply (NIMEV 161: ‘Allas! What schul we freris do?’).25 Are
these to be considered textually as one unit or two? A similar question might be
asked of the macaronic love letter and response, edited in modern editions as ‘De
amico ad amicam’ and ‘Responsio’ (NIMEV 16 and 19), which appear together
in Cambridge, University Library MS Gg. 4. 27 and London, British Library MS
Harley 3362. The fact that both witnesses preserve both poems might suggest that,
like the lyrics on friars, whose single witness preserves them together, they form an
indissoluble whole; but the recent identification of the first of them on its own in
another manuscript gives pause for thought.26
 ‘Cy ensuent trois chaunceons’  91
The context of this recent discovery in fact raises a number of further questions
relevant to any consideration of the status of lyrics as independent texts or as (very
often) parts of a larger whole. The newly identified copy of ‘De amico ad amicam’
survives at the start of a large amount of verse which was added, seemingly by
a family clerk in the mid-fifteenth century, in the blank space on a parchment
roll filled otherwise with letters pertaining to Robert and Joan Armburgh’s inherit-
ance of lands in Warwickshire, Hertfordshire and Essex.27 The modern editor of
the texts has set them out in stanzas when possible, but the clerk himself copied
the poems ‘as if they were letters’,28 in prose, and seems not always to have made
clear the breaks between what we might be tempted to think of as separate items.
Although the letter ‘De amico ad amicam’ here is not matched by the ‘Responsio’
which answers it in CUL MS Gg. 4. 27 and BL MS Harley 3362, it is followed
by another macaronic lyric (NIMEV 724), as if the requirement for some sort of
vaguely matching response was acknowledged either by this scribe, or by his exem-
plar;29 someone seems to have known that ‘De amico’ did not usually circulate on
its own. The rest of the added verse continues in long chunks which may or may not
compress together a number of distinct items. It is conceivable that at least some
of it represents authorial drafts or nonce adaptations of existing lyrics, and sorting
out whether it is a ‘sequence’ or a number of separable items is virtually impossible.
Puzzles like this one are posed by instances in other manuscripts compiled prima-
rily for business purposes, where convenient blank spaces have been hijacked for
the insertion of short poems. Bodleian Library MS Lat. Misc. c. 66, for example,
the subject of a recent exhaustive study, contains a number of verse letters and
courtly lyrics added to what was originally a family cartulary,30 and it is tempting
to view these poems as some sort of sequence in which the recurrence of certain
names and the repetition of specific forms (notably the love epistle) is meaningful.
Scrutiny of the manuscript, however, suggests that the poems were added at many
different times, and that their semblance of coherence is probably spurious.
The challenge of excavating separate poems from compacted sequences is
posed by what we might think of as ‘literary’ manuscripts as well as by less formal
collections, however. Sections of Cambridge, Trinity College MS R. 3. 19, a late
fifteenth-century metropolitan collection of primarily Chaucerian verse, highlight
some of these difficulties, and have been the subject of recent study.31 Chaucer’s
own lyrics, too (and some of those spuriously attributed to him) seem to have circu-
lated in collocations which sometimes look enticingly meaningful, yet on closer
scrutiny may simply reflect features of early, influential exemplars. In Cambridge,
University Library MS Gg. 4. 27, fols 7v–8v, ‘Truth’ is run on to ‘The Envoy to
Scogan’ without a break, and its title (‘Balade de boun Counsail’) has been squashed
into the margin at a later stage. In BL MSS Harley 78, fols 80r–83v, and Addit.
34360, fols 49r–53r, ‘The Complaint unto Pity’ runs seamlessly into ‘A Complaint
to his Lady’, and the further complexities of this latter poem, which appears to be
constituted from three or possibly four constituent parts, are still more mystifying.32
In cases such as these, it is often only the existence of other witnesses which can help
determine where one poem ends and another begins – a salutary reminder of what,
for texts surviving in only one copy, may never be established.
92  Julia Boffey
Many of the points raised here in relation to lyrics would hold true of texts
of all kinds circulating in a manuscript culture. Longer works, just like short
ones, are sometimes arranged to be read in sequence, in order that meaning
should develop from significant juxtaposition or from forms of intertextual refer-
ence. Hoccleve’s Series clearly functions in this way, with its component parts
organised in a particular order; and no student of Middle English would need
to think hard to find other examples of composite texts whose constituent
parts, like those of the Series, also circulated independently of their framework,
or became obscurely jumbled together in transmission. Less scholarly time has
been spent on lyrics than on these longer works, though, and the networks of
relationship between various of them have had relatively little airing. Commer-
cial constraints anyway have generally dictated the editing and publishing of
lyrics in anthologies in which such relationships are ironed out or not remarked
on. Scrutinising manuscripts, comparing witnesses and investigating the imme-
diate surroundings of these short texts can begin the work of uncovering their
affiliations.

Notes
1 See, for example J.A. Burrow, ‘Poems without Contexts’, Essays in Criticism 29,
1979, 6–32; reprinted in J.A. Burrow, Essays in Medieval Culture, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1984, pp. 1–26; Rosemary Greentree, The Middle English Lyric and Short Poem,
Annotated Bibliographies of Old and Middle English Literature 7, Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 2001, Introduction, pp. 14–15, and the works there cited.
2 See some of the essays in Derek Pearsall (ed.), Studies in the Vernon Manuscript,
Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1990; in Susannah Greer Fein (ed.), Studies in the Harley
Manuscript: The Scribes, Contents, and Social Contexts of British Library MS Harley 2253,
Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 2000, and in volume 33 (2003) of the
Yearbook of English Studies; also recent facsimiles such as Edward Wilson, Introduc-
tion, The Winchester Anthology: A Facsimile of British Library Additional Manuscript 60577,
Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1981, and Phillipa Hardman, Introduction, The Heege
Manuscript: A Facsimile of National Library of Scotland MS Advocates 19. 3. 1, Leeds Texts
and Monographs, n.s. 16, 2000.
3 For the purposes of this discussion I am assuming the term ‘Middle English lyric’ to
be roughly interchangeable with ‘Middle English short poem’. For some discussion
of the problems of defining the term, see Greentree, op.cit., pp. 5–13.
4 Dino S. Cervigni and Edward Vasta (eds and trans), Dante: Vita Nuova. Italian Text
with Facing English Translation, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995;
on the illustration of lyrics generally, see Julia Boffey, Manuscripts of English Courtly
Love Lyrics in the Later Middle Ages, Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 1985, pp. 48–53.
5 Available in facsimile: J.A. Burrow and A.I. Doyle, Introduction, Thomas Hoccleve: A
Facsimile of the Autograph Verse Manuscripts, EETS, s.s. 19, 2002.
6 G.C. Macaulay (ed.), The Complete Works of John Gower, 4 vols, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1899–1902, vol. 1, 335–78, 379–92. See also Ardis Butterfield, ‘Articulating
the Author: Gower and the French Vernacular Codex’, Yearbook of English Studies 33,
2003, 80–96.
7 John H. Fisher, R. Wayne Hamm, Peter G. Beidler and Robert F. Yeager, ‘John Gower’,
in Albert E. Hartung (general editor), A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, New
Haven CT: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1986, vol. 7, pp. 2195–210,
2399–418 (p. 2197).
 ‘Cy ensuent trois chaunceons’  93
  8 Henry Noble MacCracken, ‘Quixley’s Ballades Royal (?1402)’, Yorkshire Archaeolog-
ical Journal 20, 1908, 33–50. For suggestions about the early ownership of BL MS
Stowe 951, see Derek Pearsall, ‘The Rede (Boarstall) Gower’, in A.S.G. Edwards,
Vincent Gillespie and Ralph Hanna (eds), The English Medieval Book: Studies in
Memory of Jeremy Griffiths, London: The British Library, 2000, pp. 87–99 (p. 97).
  9 E.K. Whiting (ed.), The Poems of John Audelay, EETS, o.s. 184, 1931, and J. Zupitza,
‘Die Gedichte des Franziskaners Jakob Ryman’, Archiv 89, 1892, 167–338. See
also, on Audelay, Susanna Fein, ‘Good Ends in the Audelay Manuscript’, Yearbook
of English Studies 33, 2003, 97–119, and Eric Stanley, ‘The Counsel of Conscience,
or the Ladder of Heaven in Defence of John Audelay’s Unlyrical Lyrics’, in Stefan
Horlacher and Marion Islinger (eds), Expedition nach der Wahrheit. Poems, Essays and
Papers in Honour of Theo Stemmler (Anglistische Forschungen, vol. 243), Heidelberg:
Universitätsverlag C. Winter, 1996, pp. 131–59, and ‘The Verse Forms of Jon the
Blynde Awdelay’, in Helen Cooper and Sally Mapstone (eds), The Long Fifteenth
Century: Essays for Douglas Gray, Oxford: OUP, 1997, pp. 99–121.
10 Versions of some of Ryman’s lyrics also exist in a fragment which is now Cambridge,
University Library MS Addit. 7350; see Rossell Hope Robbins, ‘The Bradshaw
Carols’, PMLA 81, 1966, 308–10. One of Audelay’s poems (NIMEV 858) appears
in Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales MS 334A.
11 Some of these collections (and those of Audelay and Ryman) are discussed by
A.S.G. Edwards, ‘Fifteenth-century Middle English Verse Author Collections’, in
Edwards et al., op. cit., pp. 101–12.
12 Mary-Jo Arn (ed.), Fortunes Stabilnes. Charles of Orleans’s English Book of Love, Medieval
and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Texts
and Studies, Binghamton: State University of New York, 1994.
13 Bodl. MS Hearne’s Diaries 38, fols 261–64 (roundels 9, 10, 15, 16 in Arn’s
numbering) and Cambridge, University Library MS Addit. 2585 (roundels 5, 6,
Ballades 59, 60).
14 Throughout this discussion, NIMEV numbers refer to Julia Boffey and A.S.G. Edwards,
A New Index of Middle English Verse, London: British Library, 2005.
15 NIMEV 3752, 296, 2488, 2349, 1826, 2823, 2583, 2567, 2407, 2350, 3915, 3860,
509, 2182, 3488, 3913, 2230, 2295.
16 J.P.M. Jansen (ed.), The ‘Suffolk’ Poems: An Edition of the Love Lyrics in Fairfax 16 Attrib-
uted to William de la Pole, Groningen: Universiteitsdrukkerij, 1989, and J.P.M. Jansen,
‘Charles d’Orléans and the Fairfax Poems’, English Studies 70, 1989, 206–24; Derek
Pearsall, ‘The Literary Milieu of Charles d’Orléans and the Duke of Suffolk, and
the Authorship of the Fairfax Sequence’, in Mary-Jo Arn (ed.), Charles d’Orléans in
England (1415–1440), Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2000, pp. 145–56.
17 Apart from the duplicate Charles d’Orléans poem (NIMEV 2567), the only one of
the lyrics to survive elsewhere is NIMEV 2182 (‘Right goodly flour to whom I owe
servyse’) of which an elaborated form appears in the rather later Lambeth Palace
MS 306, on fol. 137r.
18 A.I. Doyle, Introduction, The Vernon Manuscript: A Facsimile of Bodleian Library, Oxford,
MS Eng. Poet. a. 1, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1987; John Burrow, ‘The Shape of the
Vernon Refrain Lyrics’ and John J. Thompson, ‘The Textual Background and Reputa-
tion of the Vernon Lyrics’, in Pearsall, op. cit. (1990), pp. 187–99, 201–24.
19 The central text, NIMEV 2577, ‘O vernacule I honoure him and the’, exists in a
number of variant forms; in some witnesses it is preceded by NIMEV 2442, and in
others followed by NIMEV 1370. See Rossell Hope Robbins, ‘The “Arma Christi”
Rolls’, Modern Language Review 34, 1939, 415–21.
20 Indexed collectively as NIMEV 672; see W. Hübner, ‘The Desert of Religion. Mit
dem Bilde des Richard Rolle of Hampole. Nach drei Handschriften zum erstenmal
herausgegaben’, Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 126, 1911,
94  Julia Boffey
58–74; K.L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts, 1390–1490, 2 vols, London: Harvey
Miller, 1996, vol. 2, pp. 192–4.
21 G. Holmstedt (ed.), Speculum Christiani, EETS, o.s. 182, 1933; Siegfried Wenzel
(ed. and trans.) Fasciculus Morum: A Fourteenth-Century Preacher’s Handbook, Univer-
sity Park PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1989; P.H. Barnum (ed.), Dives
et Pauper, 2 vols, EETS, o.s. 275 and 280, 1976, 1980. Verses in sermons, and
lyrics incorporated in longer secular texts, should be considered alongside these
categories; for some discussion, see Siegfried Wenzel, Preachers, Poets, and the Early
English Lyric, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986, and Julia Boffey,
‘The Lyrics in Chaucer’s Longer Poems’, Poetica 37, 1993, 15–37.
22 For a description of Harley 1706, see A.I. Doyle, ‘Books Connected with the Vere
Family and Barking Abbey’, Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society n.s. 25,
1958, 222–43. Parts of this sequence appear in Cambridge, University Library
MS Ff. 2. 38, BL Harley 2239, Lambeth Palace MS 491, and (more sporadically)
in other manuscripts. The items unique to Harley 1706 are edited by V.J. Scat-
tergood, ‘Unpublished Middle English Poems from British Museum MS Harley
1706’, English Philological Studies 12, 1970, 35–41.
23 IMEV 2770, 469, 3040, 3262, 1815, 1126, 505, 475, 1746.
24 See, for example, the series of proverbs described by Sanford B. Meech, ‘A Collec-
tion of Proverbs in Rawlinson MS D 328’, Modern Philology 38, 1940, 113–32, and
by Sarah M. Horrall, ‘Latin and Middle English Proverbs in a Manuscript at St
George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle’, Mediaeval Studies 45, 1983, 343–84; and the
collections of verse medical recipes mentioned by Susan Powell, ‘Another Manu-
script of Index of Middle English Verse No. 2627’, Notes and Queries 232, 1987,
154–6.
25 Russell Hope Robbins (ed.), Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, London:
OUP, 1959, pp. 166–8, 338.
26 Manchester, Chetham’s Manuscript Mun. E. 6.10 (4); see Christine Carpenter
(ed.), The Armburgh Papers: The Brokholes Inheritance in Warwickshire, Hertfordshire and
Essex c. 1417–c. 1453, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1998, pp. 155–6, 58–9. A satir-
ical love letter and reply, NIMEV 3832 and 2437, survive in Bodl. MS Rawlinson
poet. 36; see R.H. Robbins, ‘Two Middle English Satiric Love Epistles’, Modern
Language Review 37, 1942, 415–21. The ‘trois chaunceons’ by Hoccleve invoked
in the title of this essay consist of a complaint to ‘la dame monoie’, her reply, a
comic description of a lady (NIMEV 3889, 1221, 2640) and a transitional couplet
(‘Aftir our song our mirthe & our gladnesse / Heer folwith a lessoun of heuynesse’)
leading on to ‘Lerne to Die’ (NIMEV 3121). For discussion of some later instances
of poems of this kind, see the sections on ‘Answer poetry’ and ‘Poetic competition’
in Arthur F. Marotti, Manuscript, Print, and the English Renaissance Lyric, Ithaca NY
and London: Cornell University Press, 1995, pp. 159–71
27 Carpenter, op. cit., pp. 3–59; the documents were copied on the roll ‘between
about 1417 and the early 1450s’ (p. 3); the clerk’s hand appears in the documents
as well as the poems, but, unlike the documents, these are not precisely dated. I am
grateful to Tony Edwards for drawing this verse to my attention; see his review of
The Armburgh Papers in Medium Aevum 68, 1999, pp. 330–1.
28 Carpenter, op. cit., p. 58
29 This poem begins rather confusingly with the words ‘En Johan roy [sic] souereigne
/ My dere loue faire and fre’, and turns out to be a variant of a lyric which appears
on fol. 6r of Bodleian MS Douce 95 with the opening ‘En jhesu Roy soueraign /
you lady fair and fre’. Possibly the ‘Johan’ addressed in the Chetham roll is Joan
Armburgh (Christine Carpenter’s suggestion). It is just about conceivable that
‘Johan’ is imagined as the male addressee of a lyric designed to answer ‘De amico ad
amicam’, although the rest of the lyric does not fit easily with this interpretation.
 ‘Cy ensuent trois chaunceons’  95
30 Ralph Hanna, ‘Humphrey Newton and Bodleian Library MS Lat. Misc. c. 66’,
Medium Aevum 69, 2000, 279–91.
31 Linne R. Mooney, ‘“A Woman’s Reply to her Lover” and Four Other New Courtly
Love Lyrics in Cambridge, Trinity College MS R. 3. 19’, Medium Aevum 47, 1998,
235–56.
32 See Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer (general editor Larry D. Benson), 3rd
edn, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987, p. 1078.
5 Sir John Fastolf’s
French books
Richard Beadle

There have long been good accounts of how, in the latter stages of the Hundred
Years War, the career soldier and administrator Sir John Fastolf (1380–1459)
‘distinguished, and so enriched himself’, and of how he invested his fortune largely
in property, much of it lying in East Anglia, close to his ancestral home of Caister
by Yarmouth.1 At Caister, in the early 1430s, he began to build a good-sized and
well-appointed castle, replacing the family manor house that he had inherited
from his mother, and the building was no doubt sufficiently advanced for his new
home to receive him from time to time when he retired from his official activities
in France and returned to England in late 1439.2 From that date he was at first
mostly in London, from 1446 at his newly built mansion known as Fastolf Place,
across the Thames from the Tower, in Southwark, variously involved in political
and public affairs, sometimes too closely for comfort, as when Jack Cade’s rebels
forced him to retreat to the City for safety in 1450. In 1454, at the age of 74 and in
uncertain health, Fastolf took up long-term, if not permanent residence at Caister,
accompanied by a cultivated and literate household that included his stepson
Stephen Scrope and his secretary William Worcester, both known as writers and
translators, who dedicated works to him.3 As well as investing in landed prop-
erty Fastolf also laid out considerable sums on the outward trappings necessary to
mark his status, such as a large wardrobe, expensive jewellery and abundant plate,
together with other furnishings and fittings for his principal residences, including
sculptured reliefs, stained glass, tapestries, and, as we shall see in more detail pres-
ently, some remarkable books. Little remains to indicate the style he lived in at
Fastolf Place, though some idea of its standing may be gleaned from the fact that
soon after Fastolf’s death in November 1459 the Duke of York installed his family
there, where for a time they were visited daily by the Earl of March, soon to be
Edward IV.4 Caister, whose ample furnishings have long been known from an
inventory published in Archaeologia in 1827, was coveted by his social superiors even
in his own lifetime; among those who sought at different times to acquire it were
the Duke of Norfolk, the Duchess of York, the Earl of Warwick, Lord Scales and
Lord Beaumont.5 In the event it was inherited, in controversial circumstances, by
Fastolf’s Norfolk neighbour John Paston, a mere gentleman-lawyer and a distant
relative by marriage, who had served him as one of the managers of his East
Anglian affairs since about 1450. As is well known, many of the Paston Letters
 Sir John Fastolf’s French books  97
of the 1460s and 1470s reflect phases of the family’s struggles with various local
magnates to retain their Fastolf inheritance, of which Caister was the jewel.6
Fastolf was without doubt acutely conscious of the rank to which he had risen in
the world, and a sketch of how he laid out the enormous wealth he had acquired in
the French wars, and of how his ostentation matched and attracted the attention of
his superiors in the nobility, provides a necessary context for such direct evidence
as we have of his taste in books. Though he came from a relatively modest mercan-
tile background, he was wont, as a Knight of the Garter and a baron of France, to
stand on the dignity of what he had achieved and accumulated, as for example in
1452, when he made a major new enfeoffment of all his property to various impor-
tant trustees (from the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of Winchester
and Ely downwards), pronouncing himself ‘the kyngys trewe ligeman, soo beynge
and contynuyng, sithe I hadde aage of discrecion, norischid and broughte forthe
in the courtys and werrys of hym and the pryncys of blessid memorye, his noble
progenitourys.’7 It would be unjust to find in Fastolf the more vulgar aspects
of a parvenu’s demeanour, and it is likely that he acquired genuine cultivation
from his upbringing in the households of the Dukes of Norfolk and Clarence,
and most importantly his service to John, Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry V,
later Regent of France, and a noted connoisseur of many things, including books.8
Fastolf became master of his household in 1422, and would thus have been inti-
mately familiar with the splendour in which the Duke lived, not least his taste in
fine books.9 He certainly could not have been ignorant of the enormous library
of the French kings, formerly in the Louvre in Paris, the 853 volumes of which
Bedford appears to have bought at a knock-down price in 1425, and moved to his
headquarters at Rouen in around 1429.10 Upon Bedford’s death in 1435 Fastolf,
as one of Duke’s executors, acquired a share of responsibility for the disposal of his
abundant worldly goods, a duty which dogged him particularly towards the end
of his life, by which time he was the sole surviving executor.11 What became of
the French royal library after Bedford’s death is obscure. His inventories contain
a reference to ‘the grete librarie that cam owte of France of which my saide lord
the Cardinal had the substaunce’, which would seem to indicate that most of the
books passed into the possession of Cardinal Beaufort, one of the principal execu-
tors. About a hundred volumes are known to have survived, and it is generally
assumed that the collection was disposed of piecemeal in England.12 It is impos-
sible to say for certain whether any of these books came Fastolf’s way, but as we
shall see, he did own a collection of ‘French books’ which included a significant
number of unusual titles, several of them otherwise unknown in England at this
time, that are also found in the inventory of the French royal library.13
Direct evidence of Fastolf’s own taste in books exists in the shape of two surviving
manuscripts that he is known to have owned, the contents of both of which are
in French: Oxford, Bodleian, Bodley 179, a well-produced early fifteenth-century
copy of medical treatises by Aldobrandinus of Siena,14 and Bodleian Laud misc.
570, a copy of Christine de Pisan’s Epître d’Othéa together with a Livre des Quatre Vertus
Cardinaulx, made in London in 1450, and one of the finest illuminated vernacular
manuscripts of the mid-fifteenth century. The fact of Fastolf’s commissioning and
98  Richard Beadle
ownership of it is proclaimed by the presence of his motto, Me fault faire, incorpo-
rated into the decoration in upwards of twenty places, on one occasion entwined
with that of the Order of the Garter, of which he was plainly a devoted member.15
Its scribe was the prolific Ricardus Franciscus (as his name suggests, perhaps a
Frenchman) whose stylish secretary hand, anticipating the flamboyant lettre bâtarde
fashionable in the best books later in the century, was much in demand in London
in the 1440s and 1450s.16 The anonymous painter who executed the illustra-
tions in the Laud manuscript has been dubbed the Fastolf Master, undoubtedly a
Frenchman, whose work appears first in fine liturgical manuscripts produced for
the Duke of Bedford in Paris and Rouen. Fastolf might well have come to know
him, or at least his work, whilst overseeing Bedford’s household and its expendi-
ture in these places.17
It appears that Laud misc. 570 was evidently the second de luxe copy of the
French Othéa to have been in Fastolf’s household. The reason for thinking so is
that ten years prior to its making, in 1440, Stephen Scrope had translated the
Othéa into English, dedicating it to Fastolf.18 As C. F. Bühler demonstrated, the lost
manuscript from which he translated also went on to serve Ricardus Franciscus
as exemplar when the Laud copy of the French version was made for Fastolf in
1450, and it is likely also to have contained a set of miniatures used as models
by the Fastolf Master for his work in the same manuscript.19 Another distinctive
feature of this lost Othéa manuscript is that it was one of the few copies known to
have contained Christine’s original dedication to Jean, duc de Berry, with the
accompanying miniature showing her presenting her work to her patron. The
original is known to have been in among the Berry manuscripts in the French
royal library acquired by Bedford, which, as we have seen, would have been
under Fastolf’s purview as master of the regent’s household. Whether it was the
Berry–Royal library copy of the French Othéa that found its way into Fastolf’s own
household in 1440 so as to provide the source for Scrope’s translation must remain
a matter for speculation, though Rosamund Tuve’s study of the iconography of
the miniatures in the Othéa and its accompanying text left her in no doubt that it
indeed was.20 Nor has the copy of his English translation that Scrope presented to
Fastolf survived, though its appearance may be gauged from another manuscript
that contains it, Cambridge, St John’s College H.6, where the same text, with an
author–patron presentation miniature, is dedicated to Humphrey Stafford, Duke
of Buckingham (d. 1461). Here the hand is that of Ricardus Franciscus once again,
this time working with an English master, William Abell, who is believed to have
derived his miniatures directly from the scheme in Fastolf’s extant copy of the
French version in Bodleian Laud misc. 570.21 We have then a fairly ample mixture
of circumstantial and substantive evidence of a likely route by which high quality
French books may have come into Fastolf’s household, and of how a translation
and new de luxe copies of an original came into existence as a result. Such evidence
as there is might further be interpreted to suggest that Scrope’s dedication of his
English Othea to Fastolf was intended as a conscious reflex of a French ducal style
of patronage, which he can hardly have failed to become aware of while he too
served in France, at times with his stepfather, in the 1430s.22 If so, it would be in
 Sir John Fastolf’s French books  99
keeping with that sense of status and cultivation which we have already observed
in other spheres of Fastolf’s activities in the expenditure of his fortune.
Sir John Fastolf died in November 1459, and by the early 1460s the protracted
dispute over his testamentary intentions was gathering heat. To judge by the
surviving evidence, books were not prominent among the matters over which
Fastolf’s divided executors quarrelled, but they do feature briefly in an inven-
tory and indenture drawn up by John Paston in June 1462, claiming that he had
no knowledge what had become of large quantities of Fastolf’s moveable goods,
whether at Caister or in London. He had ‘no very knowlech ner informacion’
of the whereabouts of most of the inventory of Fastolf’s wardrobe and bedding
at Caister, and the same went for the ‘inuentaré of spendyng mony, ryngges and
jouellis, clothes, silk, lyne, wollen, bokes of Frenshe, Latyn and Englyssh remay-
nyng in the chambre of the seid Fastolff’.23 He could not, he continued, account
for anything much ‘wyth-out sight and examinacion of old jnuentaries and remen-
brauns’, which were not available to him. One of the old inventories of Caister that
Paston might have had in mind, though it makes no mention of books, was the one
first printed in 1827, the lost original of which (said to be in the form of a roll) once
belonged to the eighteenth-century historian of Norfolk, Francis Blomefield. When
Gairdner reprinted Blomefield’s transcription of this document in his editions of
the Paston Letters he dated it to about 1459, assuming it must have been drawn
up at about the time of Fastolf’s death, but it is probably somewhat earlier, since
it resembles in many respects another and fuller inventory of Caister in a small
booklet now in the archives of Magdalen College, Oxford (Fastolf Paper 43), as
yet unprinted, and dated October 1448.24 Like Blomefield’s lost roll, Fastolf Paper
43 is an inventory of Fastolf’s castle, describing in turn the contents of forty-four
furnished rooms, but among the differences that it exhibits is the addition of a list
of French books, said to be kept ‘in the stewe hous’. Since this book list has not yet
been published in full detail, it is given here first in a diplomatic transcription:25

In the stewe hous of Frenshe bookes the bible the Cronycles of France the Cron-
icles of Titus leuius [London] a booke of Jullius Cesar [London] lez propretes
dez choses Petrus de Crescencis liber Almagesti liber Geomancie [cum iiij aliis
astronomie] liber de Roy Artour et Romaunce la Rose Cronicles Danglele
Veges de larte de Chevalerie Institutes of Justien Emperer Brute in ryme liber
Etiques liber de Sentence Joseph problemata Aristotilis Vice et Vertues liber de
Cronykes de grant Bretayn in ryme meditacions saynt Bernard

This list calls for comment on a number of counts, and not least because a
number of the titles mentioned are rather unusual in a fifteenth-century English
context, and in some cases are not paralleled in other insular collections of this
period, including that of its greatest bibliophile and collector, Humphrey, Duke of
Gloucester.26 It also raises a number of puzzling questions. Why is the list restricted
to French books, when we know that Fastolf, as one would expect, also owned
others in English and Latin? Does ‘French books’ in all cases mean ‘books in the
French language’, or might it also mean books that were acquired in or imported
100  Richard Beadle
from France? Assuming that most or all of the books were in French, were they
perhaps known to the compiler of the inventory to be especially valuable, or to
constitute some sort of special set in Fastolf’s larger collection? Why were they kept
in the ‘stew house’, in this context perhaps best understood as a small heated room
or study adjacent to a larger residential chamber, probably suitable on occasion
for bathing?27 Was this, again, because they were especially noteworthy in some
way, and reserved in a private room? On the other hand, these were books that
seem to have been in active use, since when the inventory was worked over at a
later date the word ‘London’ was added between the lines after two of the items,
indicating presumably that they had been removed to Fastolf Place, and that they
were worth keeping track of. It is also natural to wonder whether any of these
books still exist in modern collections, but without secundo folios, or convincing
evidence of a connection with Fastolf’s household, such as annotation in a recog-
nisable hand might afford,28 it would be hazardous to associate extant copies of the
works concerned with the bare titles in the list.
Simple answers to some of the questions raised above should not be ruled out:
the inventory’s singling out of the ‘French’ books in Fastolf’s larger collection
could be merely adventitious, a quirk of curiosity on the compiler’s part; Fastolf
had resided for many years in France, moving in cultivated circles, and merely
took the opportunity to acquire copies of some texts that interested him. On the
other hand, this would be to overlook the fact that a number of the titles listed
hang together as a group representative of the vernacular humanism prevalent
in French courtly circles in the later fourteenth century, an important intellec-
tual movement otherwise not known to have made any particular impression in
England at this time, a point to which we shall return. Simple explanations of the
inventory’s inclusion of Fastolf’s French books also run the risk of ignoring the
context established above. Fastolf’s penchant was to express his wealth materi-
ally, and his manifest taste for the very best that the book trade of his time could
provide in the way of a de luxe manuscript is palpably demonstrated in his commis-
sioning of the French Othéa in Bodleian Laud misc. 570, executed shortly after
the inventory of 1448 was drawn up. If Fastolf had a collection of French books
worthy of inclusion in an inventory substantially devoted to listing the fine things
at Caister, then it is more likely than not that they too were lavishly produced and
valuable items, among which another ‘French book’ like the Laud manuscript
would not have looked out of place.
John Paston may have disclaimed all knowledge of what happened to the books
at Caister after 1459, but one person who decided to keep track of where some
of them went, and, more importantly, knew their value, was William Worcester,
formerly Fastolf’s secretary. Fastolf Paper 70 at Magdalen College consists of a
draft schedule in Worcester’s hand, and a fair copy of it in someone else’s, detailing
monies and goods out of Fastolf’s estate that were from time to time made over
to Sir William Yelverton, a justice of the King’s Bench, and one of Fastolf’s most
prominent executors.29 It was probably drawn up in about 1470 for the attention
of William Wainfleet, Bishop of Winchester, who had lately assumed the admin-
istration of Fastolf’s will, and for whom Worcester here provided valuations of the
 Sir John Fastolf’s French books  101
material items. They included £13 6s 8d in attire and expenses for Yelverton, his
wife and their entourage at Fastolf’s funeral, a cross on a chain containing a piece
of the True Cross ‘that Ser John Fastolf dyd were dayly aboute hys nek’, worth
£110, and a finger of St John the Baptist valued at £40.30 Alongside these major
treasures are listed two books, which it is natural to assume were among those
noted as being in the stew house at Caister in 1448:31

Item the seyd ser William Yeluerton had of the seyd ser Thomas a boke
clepyt Josephus v li.

Item of W Wyrcetyre resseyved a grete bible cum historia scolastica

yn frensh xiij li. vj s. viij d.

Worcester was a bookish man, who spent a good deal of his time reading, writing
and travelling around the country visiting libraries, so there is no need to doubt
the valuations he placed on these particular books, which, if they were in any way
representative of Fastolf’s French manuscripts in general, suggests that as a group
they were indeed highly valuable. Comparison with the information on the price
of books in medieval England assembled by H.E. Bell indicates that valuations
such as £5 and £13 6s 8d (the latter possibly referring to a multi-volume work)
would be attached only to de luxe items.32
A number of the French works listed in the inventory of 1448 may be identified
with reasonable confidence, and summary accounts of them follow below. In other
cases the compiler of the inventory provided generic designations which could
relate to several possible texts. This may be true, for example, of ‘Vices and Vertues’,
and a ‘liber de Roy Artour’ could be one of a number of Arthurian texts, though its
companion work, ‘Romaunce la Rose’, is of course familiar enough. Another work
that is hard to identify, possibly a garbled or miswritten title for a work dealing
with the history of England, is ‘Cronicles Danglele’. The scientific or pseudo-scien-
tific ‘liber Almagesti’, the ‘liber Geomancie’ and the ‘iiij aliis astronomie’ also give us
little to go on, nor are the ‘meditacions St Bernard’ straightforwardly traceable
in an Old French version. However, surviving copies of the works that are more
or less securely identifiable are often found to exist in the sumptuously produced
manuscripts collected in the Franco-Burgundian princely and ducal libraries of the
time (for example those of Philippe le Bon, Philippe le Hardi, Charles d’Orléans
and Antoine, Le Grand Bâtard de Bourgogne),33 and notably in the French royal
library that had been in Fastolf’s charge under Bedford.
One strongly suspects that, if Fastolf had not acquired his own examples of
these books directly from such a source, then he would have commissioned similar
de luxe copies of his own, as we have observed him doing in the case of Bodleian
Laud misc. 570. Where identifiable examples of manuscripts of this kind survive
in England they are not found as a collection until the 1470s, when Edward IV
began to commission copies on a lavish scale (from Flemish sources) in emulation
of the libraries of his Continental princely counterparts; a number are still in the
Royal collection now in the British Library.34
102  Richard Beadle
Interpreting the inventory of 1448 (Oxford, Magdalen
College, Fastolf Paper 43)

‘the bible’
As we have seen, there are good grounds for thinking that this was the ‘grete
bible cum historia scolastica yn frensh’ valued at £13 6s 8d (or 40 marks) given
by William Worcester to Sir William Yelverton sometime in the 1460s. If so it
would have been a lavishly executed and illustrated copy of the Historia Scholastica
of Peter Comestor, augmented by passages from the Bible, in the late thirteenth-
century translation of Guiard des Moulins, known as the Bible Historiale. There
were several copies of it in the French royal library, and it was also in the collec-
tions of Philippe le Bon, Philippe le Hardi, Charles d’Orléans and the Bâtard de
Bourgogne.35

‘the Cronycles of France’

This was probably a copy of the vast standard vernacular compilation known as
the Grandes Chroniques de France, maintained under royal patronage at the abbey of
St Denis. From the time of Charles V it was often accompanied by an elaborate
programme of illustrations. About 130 copies survive, over half of them illumi-
nated, and several were listed in the inventory of the French royal library.36

‘the Cronicles of Titus leuius’

Livy, History of Rome (or Decades), in the translation by Pierre de Bersuire, known as the
Histoire Romaine, originally commissioned by John the Good (1354–6); many manu-
scripts are extensively illustrated. John, Duke of Bedford gave a copy he had extracted
from the French royal library (one of several therein) to his brother Humphrey,
Duke of Gloucester, and other copies were present in French princely collections
such as those of Philippe le Bon, Philippe le Hardi and Charles d’Orléans.37

‘a booke of Jullius Cesar’

This is very likely to have been a copy of the widely circulated Faits des Romains,
which often carried a title like Livre or Vie or Histoire de Julius Cesar. It was drawn
variously from Caesar’s De bello gallico, Bellum civile, Lucan’s Pharsalia, and Suetonius.
Manuscripts of the Faits were commonly furnished with extensive programmes of
illustrations, and copies were recorded in the French royal library, and that of
Charles d’Orléans.38

‘lez propretes dez choses’

Jean de Corbechon’s translation the De proprietatibus rerum of Bartholomaeus
Anglicus, commissioned by Charles V in 1372, often found with schemes of
 Sir John Fastolf’s French books  103
illustration. As well as appearing in the French royal library it was owned
by Philippe le Bon, Philippe le Hardi, Charles d’Orléans and the Bâtard de
Bourgogne.39

‘Petrus de Crescencis’
The Ruralium commodorum libri XII of Pier de Crescenzi (d. 1311), a treatise on estate
management and agriculture, drawn largely from classical sources, and translated
into French in 1373 at the instance of Charles V, under the title Rustican or the
Livre des proffits champestres et ruraulx. There were copies in the French royal library,
and it was also owned by the Bâtard de Bourgogne.40

‘liber Almagesti’
This may, but need not necessarily refer to the Almagest attributed to Ptolemy,
since the title was also loosely applied to other writings on astronomy. No French
translation of it appears to be known, though Ptolemy’s Quadripartitum had been
translated into the vernacular by Nicole d’Oresme at the instance of Charles V.
There were a number of Latin works under the title Liber Almagesti in the French
royal library, and it may be that the manuscript inventoried at Caister in 1448 was
a ‘French book’ in this sense.41

‘liber Geomancie’
A generic title that is attached to a number of manuscripts listed in the inventory
of the French royal library. A particularly fine illustrated ‘Livre de Geomancie’,
being a French translation by Gautier le Breton of a Latin work by Guillaume
de Meerbeeke, which had moved from the Louvre to England by the sixteenth
century, is now Cambridge, Trinity College O.9.35.42

‘liber de Roy Artour et Romaunce la Rose’

It is impossible to say which of the many texts in French devoted to King Arthur
this might be. References to manuscripts containing Arthurian works and the
Roman de la Rose occur frequently in the inventories of late fourteenth- and fifteenth-
century French libraries.43

‘Cronicles Danglele’
Not identified.44

‘Veges de larte de Chevalerie’

Vegetius, De re militari, on the conduct of warfare, of which there were two
major French translations, by Jean de Meun (1284) and by Jean de Vignai in
104  Richard Beadle
the early fourteenth century.45 Inventories do not always distinguish between the
different versions of ‘Vegèce, De Chevalerie’, but there were a number of fine illu-
minated copies in the French royal library, and it was also owned by Charles
d’Orléans.46

‘Institutes of Justien Emperer’

Early French translations of the parts of the code of Roman law represented by the
Institutes of Justinian exist in several manuscripts now in the Bibliothèque nationale
in Paris. One, which is recorded in the inventory of the French royal library as ‘Un
livre nommée Institute, escript en françois’, presumably came to England as part
of Bedford’s estate, and was returned to France by Louis de Bruges. A copy was
also owned by Charles d’Orléans.47

‘Brute in ryme’
Presumably Wace’s Roman de Brut (1155), a translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s
Historia regum Britanniae, manuscripts of which continued to be copied in both
Anglo-Norman and French down to the fifteenth century.48

‘liber Etiques’
Aristotle’s Nicomachian Ethics, translated by Nicole d’Oresme in 1370–2, with a
glossary and commentary, and provided with an elaborate scheme of illustrations,
for Charles V. A copy of the ‘Ethiques en françois’ from the French royal library,
still extant, was later owned by Charles d’Orléans, ‘qui l’avait sans doute receuilli
en Angleterre’ (Delisle) during the dispersal of Bedford’s estate. Philippe le Bon,
Philippe le Hardi and Charles d’Orléans also owned copies.49

‘liber de Sentence Joseph’

It is not quite clear whether one book or two is referred to here, but the bracket
underlining ‘Sentence Joseph’ is continuous under the two words, and the greater
likelihood is that one work was intended, evidently the ‘boke clepyt Josephus’
subsequently given by Thomas Howes to Sir William Yelverton in the 1460s,
valued by William Worcester at £5. A French Anciennetéz et guerres des juifs is known
to have been begun under the patronage of Charles V, and continued under that
of Jean, duc de Berry. The colophon of a later copy of the work in London, Sir
John Soane Museum MS 1, reads ‘Cy fynent ... des anciennetéz des juifs ... selon
le sentence de Joseph’, which, if it also appeared in Fastolf’s manuscript, would
explain the identification given by the compiler of the inventory.50 The phrase
‘liber de Sentence’ might be taken to refer to a copy of the Sententiae of Peter
Lombard, but no French translation of that work is known to have existed, though
there were copies of the Latin in both the French royal library and the collection
of Charles d’Orléans.51 A copy of ‘Josephus, de l’Ancienneté des Juifs’ was listed in
 Sir John Fastolf’s French books  105
the inventory of the French royal library (valued at 24 livres), and a copy formerly
belonging to Jean de Berry was later in the collection of Philippe le Bon; it was also
in the collection of Charles d’Orléans.52 The references to Fastolf’s Josephus seem
to be the only evidence that the French translation was known in England until
the arrival of the copy made in Flanders for Edward IV in the 1470s, the second
volume of which is now Sloane Museum MS 1.

‘problemata Aristotilis’
The French translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian Problemata derives from a Latin
version by Bartholomew of Messina, with a commentary by Peter of Albano, and
deals with a wide range of scientific and humane learning, bearing especially on
medicine and health. It was made in around 1380 by Evrart de Conty, physician
to Charles V, who may have commissioned it; a number of the extant manuscripts
include illustrations. Copies were included in the French royal library, and in the
collection of Charles d’Orléans.53

‘Vice et Vertues’
This designation could refer to a number of texts, but given the general character
of this group of Fastolf’s books there must be a strong likelihood that it refers to a
copy of the widely distributed Somme le Roi, the translation of Peraldus’s Summa de
viciis et de virtutibus, made originally for King Philippe le Hardi by Laurent du Bois
in 1279, which was often given the title ‘Le Livre de Vices et Vertus’ in manu-
scripts, many of which contain schemes of illustration. There were a number of
copies in the French royal library.54

‘liber de Cronykes de grant Bretayn in ryme’

If this was a rhymed chronicle of Britain in French, or at least Anglo-Norman,
then it was possibly a copy of Peter of Langtoft’s metrical chronicle of Britain from
Brutus to Edward I, of which over twenty manuscripts are extant.55

‘meditacions saynt Bernard’

A variety of meditative texts were at this time loosely attributed to St Bernard and
to other early contemplative writers, such as St Anselm and Hugh of St Victor,
and no secure identification can be offered.56 The inventories of the French royal
library include two manuscripts said to contain meditations of St Bernard in
French.57
The likely identities and the quality of most of the French books in the stew
house at Caister in 1448 can thus be established with reasonable certainty, and it
also appears that this segment of Fastolf’s library had been assembled with a view
to emulating the choicest items in the princely and ducal collections that he would
have known from his time in France.58 While they were, on the one hand, the kind
106  Richard Beadle
of books to be treasured, displayed and eventually gifted to important and influ-
ential executors, it is also legitimate to ask whether any principles of selection lay
behind the French books Fastolf collected, and whether he or his household might
have made any use of them. Secular romance in the shape of Arthurian writings
and the Roman de la Rose would be unexceptionable as literature of entertainment
in an English baronial household at this time, while` the Bible historiale, the Somme
le Roi and contemplative writings attributed to St Bernard would be regarded as
sound devotional reading in an environment where spiritual guidance was contin-
uously available.59 Standard writings concerned with astronomy, geomancy and
the wide range of phenomena dealt with in Les Propriétés des Choses bespeak an
intelligent interest in the science and pseudo-science of the period. Chronicles of
various kinds would naturally be valued by one ‘norischid and broughte forthe in
the courtys and werrys of [the king] and the pryncys of blessid memorye’, and in
an era of dynastic change and instability they could also be of significant practical
importance, as Fastolf well knew in his role as a leading counsellor of Richard,
Duke of York.60
Beyond these conventional areas of interest Fastolf’s collection of French books
must be recognised as both distinguished and distinctive for its time and place. It
is very doubtful whether any other English provincial household of Fastolf’s rank,
or indeed of any rank, possessed vernacular versions of a comparable range of
texts that put them in direct touch with classical and late antique learning: Livy,
the Roman historians synthesised in Les Faits des Romains, the classical writers
on agriculture and estate management epitomised in the Rustican, Vegetius,
Justinian, Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian texts, Josephus. Taken as a group
these translations belong in the first instance to the fourteenth-century vernacular
humanistic movement fostered by the enlightened patronage of Charles V, where,
as the preface to Bersuire’s Livy and Oresme’s translation of Aristotle’s Ethics
articulate explicitly, ancient history and philosophy provide essential guides to the
prince and his counsellors in matters of personal conduct and the practice of good
governance.61
Such a collection also serves as a striking embodiment of the concept of translatio
studii, the notion that the intellectual and ethical heritage of Greece and Rome was
in the process of transferring itself to northern European courtly circles and their
vernaculars.62 How were these lavishly illustrated books used? As we have seen,
they formed part of the panoply of display that Fastolf felt was appropriate to his
rank, but their content must also have appealed to his intelligence and the sense
of responsibility that went with his status. According to Christine de Pisan, in the
environment in which a number of the books were first created, Charles V of
France ‘se occupoit souvent à ouir lire [hearing read] de diverses belles hystoires de
la Seinte Escripture, ou des Fais des Romains ou Moralités de Philosophes et d’autres
sciences jusques à heure de soupper’, and it has recently been persuasively argued
that the picture cycles included in such works had a mnemonic or didactic funtion
that was brought out in oral discussion accompanying the readings.63 In Fastolf’s
household they may have been read aloud to him (as was correspondence from
his servants) or perused privately. William Worcester seems to have used them
 Sir John Fastolf’s French books  107
in the manner more familiar to us, since his Book of Noblesse, which he began in
about 1450 and continued to revise until 1475, contains quotations from Livy,
Vegetius, Josephus and Bartholomaeus Anglicus.64 It may also contain evidence
of the prelective mode. In the manuscript, a classical example of a suicidal charge
upon the enemy is qualified by an added marginal gloss which embodies some
of the obiter dicta of ‘myne autor Fastolf’ on different types of courage in battle.
Worcester quotes a discourse of Fastolf’s, ‘when that he had yong knyghtys and
nobles at his solasse’, in which he spoke of a distinction between ‘the hardye man’
and ‘the manly man’, the one who rushes into battle seeking nothing but his own
glory, heedless of the safety of his comrades, and the other who fights with more
circumspect tactics to overcome the enemy, and to preserve the lives of his fellow
soldiers at the same time. Fastolf and his company could easily have been aware
that precisely this distinction was discussed at length and illustrated in Book 3
in a copy of Oresme’s Ethiques translation in the household, where the virtue of
Courage is divided into ‘Oultrecuidance’, mere rashness, and ‘Fortitude’, true
courage tempered by rational considerations.65 Elsewhere, in a letter of 1460 to
John Paston I, Worcester himself quotes ‘Aristotle in the Etiques’, and in 1480 he
retrieved a large copy of the work (‘libro magno Ethicorum’, possibly originally
Fastolf’s) that he had lent to a friend, Thomas Young of Shirehampton.66
An assessment of how far Fastolf’s personal outlook, and that of members of
his household, was informed by the presence among them of the French books
described here, and pre-eminently those containing recent humanistic transla-
tions, will need to rest on a reading of the works themselves (a number of which
remain unpublished), and a thorough reappraisal of the lives and writings of the
individuals concerned. Older suggestions that Fastolf was essentially self-inter-
ested, grasping, ill-tempered and litigious are still sometimes repeated, but have
recently been qualified by more generous recognition of the kinds of service
to the community and to communities that he lived by.67 His militaristic spirit
undoubtedly breathes in the contemporary political preoccupations expressed by
Worcester in The Boke of Noblesse, but so equally does the Ciceronian ideal of ‘res
publica well attendid and observed’; and though Fastolf’s letters are much taken
up with the technicalities of his lawsuits, the underlying attitude that they reflect is
that of Oresme’s Ethiques, with its emphatic positioning of ‘justice legale’, that ideal
of obedience to man-made law that Fastolf found so conspicuouly lacking in his
oppressors, at the head of the hierarchy of moral virtues.68 There are good reasons
to think that Fastolf and his household read some of his French books with atten-
tion, and it is now the turn of modern historians and critics to do so.

Notes
I am grateful to the President and Fellows of Magdalen College, Oxford, for permission
to quote from documents among their archives, and to their archivist, Dr Robin Darwall-
Smith, for practical assistance in consulting them. The study has benefitted from comments
and corrections by Professor M.B. Parkes and Dr Daniel Wakelin; responsibility for the
views expressed and any remaining errors is my own.
108  Richard Beadle
  1 See especially Kenneth Bruce McFarlane, ‘The Investment of Sir John Fastolf’s Profits of
War’, England in the Fifteenth Century: Collected Essays, London: Hambledon Press, 1981, pp.
175–97 (p. 178), and A. Smith, ‘“The Greatest Man of that Age”: The Acquisition of Sir
John Fastolf’s Estates’, in Rowena E. Archer and Simon Walker (eds), Rulers and Ruled in
Late Medieval England: Essays Presented to Gerald Harriss, London: Hambledon Press, 1995,
pp. 137–53.
  2 For accounts of the building and furnishing of Caister, see A. Hawkyard, ‘Sir John
Fastolf’s “Grete Mansion by me Late Edified”: Caister Castle, Norfolk’, in Linda Clark
(ed.), The Fifteenth Century V. Of Mice and Men: Image, Belief and Regulation in Late Medieval
England, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005, pp. 38–66; Christopher M. Woolgar, The Great
Household in Late Medieval England, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999,
pp. 63–7, and Anthony Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales 1300–1500,
Cambridge: CUP, 2000, vol. 2, pp. 56–61.
  3 On Scrope, see George Poullett Scrope, History of the Manor and Ancient Barony of Castle
Combe, London, 1852, pp. 264–88, and for his writings, C.F. Bühler (ed.), The Dicts
and Sayings of the Philosophers, EETS, o.s. 211, 1941, and C.F. Bühler, The Epistle of
Othea, EETS, o.s. 264, 1970; on Worcester, see Kenneth Bruce McFarlane, ‘William
Worcester: A Preliminary Survey’, op. cit., pp. 199–224, and John H. Harvey (ed.),
William Worcestre Itineraries. Edited from the Unique MS. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 210,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969.
  4 M. Carlin, ‘Fastolf Place, Southwark: The Home of the Duke of York’s Family, 1460’,
in James Petre (ed.), Richard III: Crown and People, London: Richard III Society, 1985,
pp. 44–7. For Fastolf’s jewels see Woolgar, op. cit., pp. 175–6, who in point of value
regards them as ‘exceptional outside the royal household’.
  5 T. Amyot, ‘Transcript of Two Rolls containing an Inventory of Effects formerly
belonging to Sir John Fastolf’, Archaeologia 21, 1827, 232–80; reprinted by James
Gairdner, The Paston Letters A.D. 1422–1509, London and Exeter: Chatto and Windus
and James G. Commin, 1904, vol. iii, pp. 174–89. For further details on those who
coveted Caister, see Hawkyard, op. cit., p. 65.
  6 Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century: Fastolf’s Will, Cambridge: CUP,
1996, gives the fullest account so far published of the struggle over the Fastolf legacy.
The fortunes of the Paston family in general are very ably recounted in Helen Castor,
Blood and Roses: The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century, London: Faber and Faber, 2004.
  7 Oxford, Magdalen College, Fastolf Paper 47. This and other quotations below from the
Fastolf Papers are by kind permission of the President and Fellows of Magdalen, and I
am grateful to their archivist, Dr Robin Darwall-Smith, for his assistance in making the
documents available for consultation.
  8 Ethel C. Williams, My Lord of Bedford 1389–1435, London: Longmans, 1963; M.J.
Barber, ‘The Books and Patronage of Learning of a 15th-Century Prince’, The Book
Collector 12, 1963, 308–15.
  9 Jenny Stratford, The Bedford Inventories. The Worldly Goods of John, Duke of Bedford, Regent of France
(1389–1435), London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 1993; J. Stratford, ‘The Manu-
scripts of John, Duke of Bedford: Library and Chapel’, in Daniel Williams (ed.), England in the
Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1986 Harlaxton Symposium, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1987,
pp. 329–50; Janet Backhouse, The Bedford Hours, London: British Library, 1990.
10 Barber, op. cit., pp. 312–3; Stratford, op. cit., pp. 95–6; Louis Claude Drouët-Darcq,
Inventaire de la Bibliothèque du roi Charles VI, fait au Louvre en 1423 par ordre du régent duc de
Bedford, Paris, 1867.
11 Stratford, op. cit., pp. 51–3.
12 Stratford, op. cit., p. 96. Most of the surviving manuscripts are enumerated in Leopold
Delisle, Recherches sur la Librairie de Charles V, 2 vols, Paris: Honoré Champion, 1907, vol. 1,
and a few others have come to light since.
13 Cf. Stratford, op. cit., p. 52: ‘If Fastolf kept plate, vestments, books or other valuables
 Sir John Fastolf’s French books  109
which had once been amongst the regent’s possessions in France, or that he succeeded
in obtaining other goods in England, we are unlikely ever to know, but it is extemely
probable that he did.’
14 Falconer Madan and Herbert H.E. Craster, Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in
the Bodleian Library Oxford, Oxford: Clarendon Press, no. 2074, 1922; Otto Pächt and
Jonathan J.G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1966, vol. i, p. 53, no. 676. The decoration includes a good border
and initials, and incorporates Fastolf’s arms and motto ‘Me fault fayre’ on fol. 1r.
15 K. Chesney, ‘Two Manuscripts of Christine de Pisan’, Medium Aevum 1, 1932, 35–41;
R. Tuve, ‘Notes on the Vices and Virtues’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
26, 1963, 264–303 identifies the Livre des Quatre Vertus Cardinaulx as a selective translation
of the Breviloquium de virtutibus of John of Wales; her plates 32b, c, d and 34b reproduce
several of the miniatures in Laud misc. 570. Fastolf’s own motto and that of the Garter
were also decorative motifs in the fabric of his castle and his moveable goods at Caister;
see Woolgar, op. cit., p. 63, Emery, op. cit., pp. 57, 59.
16 The precise extent of Ricardus’s oeuvre awaits a definitive investigation, but a list of manu-
scripts variously attributed to his hand is given in L. Jefferson, ‘Two Fifteenth-Century
Manuscripts of the Statutes of the Order of the Garter’ in Peter Beal and Jeremy Grif-
fiths (eds), English Manuscript Studies 1100–1700, London: British Library, 1995, vol. 5, pp.
18–35 (p. 22), where the date in Laud misc. 570 is given incorrectly as 1440.
17 For a recent listing of the manuscripts where the Fastolf Master’s work is believed to
appear (some ten) see W.C.M. Wüstefeld, ‘A Remarkable Prayer Roll Attributed to the
Master of Sir John Fastolf’, Quaerendo 33, 2003, 233–46 (pp. 243–4). For suggestions that
the work of Ricardus Franciscus and the Fastolf Master perhaps also appear together in
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum MS 5, 84ML.723 (Book of Hours), see Sotheby’s Sale
Catalogue, 5 July 1976, lot 80, and J. Paul Getty Museum Journal 15, 1987, 202–3, no. 124.
18 Bühler, op. cit. (1970), p. xviii.
19 C.F. Bühler, ‘Sir John Fastolf’s Manuscripts of the Epître d’Othea and Stephen Scrope’s
Translation of this Text’, Scriptorium 3, 1949, 123–8 (p. 128, n. 35).
20 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, p.52; cf. Tuve, op. cit., p. 281: ‘Fastolf’s access to a Berry book
undoubtedly derived from his being Master of Household to John Duke of Bedford, when
Berry manuscripts and others of the Royal Library passed into the hands of the Regent.’
21 J.J.G. Alexander, ‘William Abell “lymnour” and 15th-Century English Illumination’, in
Artur Rosenauer and Gerold Weber (eds), Kunsthistorische Forschungen Otto Pächt zu seinem 70.
Geburtstag, Salzburg: Residenz Verlag, 1972, pp. 166–72; Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic
Manuscripts 1390–1490, London: Harvey Miller, 1996, vol. ii, pp. 263–6. For discussion of
the distinctive iconography of the miniatures in this group of manuscripts, see Tuve, op.
cit., pp. 284–5. Other manuscripts where the work of Ricardus Franciscus and William
Abell appears together are San Marino CA, Huntington Library HM 130 (Statutes of
the Archdeaconry of London), the Tallow Chandlers’ Company of the City of London,
Grant of Arms manuscript, and London, St Bartholowmew’s Hospital, Cok’s Cartulary.
22 Poullett Scrope, op. cit., pp. 266–7.
23 Norman Davis (ed.), Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, EETS, s.s. 21, 2004,
vol. 1, p. 109, no. 64, lines 63–6.
24 McFarlane, op. cit. (1981), p. 189, n. 73. The inventory is not in the hand of Geoffrey
Spirleng, as I previously thought (see R. Beadle, ‘Geoffrey Spirleng (c. 1426–c. 1494): A
Scribe of the Canterbury Tales in His Time’, in Pamela R. Robinson and Rivkah Zim (eds),
Of the Making of Books: Medieval Manuscripts, their Scribes and Readers. Essays presented to M.B.
Parkes, Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1997, pp. 116–46 (p. 122)), though he did endorse the
cover. It is the work of another of Fastolf’s household servants, the clerk John Bokkyng,
whose very similar hand is illustrated in Richard Beadle and Colin Richmond (eds),
Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, EETS, s.s. 22, 2006, vol. 3, Plate XXVI.
25 Magdalen College, Fastolf Paper 43, f. 10r. Previous printed accounts of this booklist
110  Richard Beadle
rely on the transcript given by W.D. Macray in the Eighth Report of the Royal Commission on
Historical Manuscripts, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1881, Part I, Appendix, p. 268.
26 K.W. Humphreys, ‘Books in Private Hands in England in the First Half of the Fifteenth
Century’, in Abraham Horodisch (ed.), De arte et libris: Festschrift Erasmus 1934–1984,
Amsterdam: Erasmus Antiquariaat en Boekhandel, 1984, pp. 237–48; S.H. Cavanaugh,
‘Books Privately Owned in England, 1300–1450’, unpublished dissertation, University of
Pennsylvania, 1980. On Duke Humphrey’s collection see Alfonso Sammut, Unfredo duca
di Gloucester e gli umanisti italiani, Medioevo e Umanesimo 41, Padova: Antenor, 1980.
27 H. Kurath et al. (eds), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
1954–2000, s. v. steu(e), n. 2.
28 Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 215, a copy of Chaucer’s Boece with annotations
in William Worcester’s hand, is an example of a book that may have spent time in
Fastolf’s household; see D. Wakelin, ‘William Worcester reads Chaucer’s Boece’, Journal
of the Early Book Society 5, 2003, 177–80. The inventory in FP 43 was later in Worcester’s
hands, since he used some blank leaves for his own notes in 1454–5.
29 On Yelverton, see Richmond, op. cit., pp. 95–101, and further references there.
30 McFarlane, op. cit. (1981), p. 190, gives the valuation of the object that Fastolf wore
daily about his neck as £200, but FP 70 appears to give £100 for the piece of the
Holy Cross and £10 for the reliquary jewel that contained it. Fastolf was evidently
keen on relics: another was ‘an Angel of silver and gilt bearing the arm of St George’,
given by him to the Gild of St George in Norwich in 1433, and kept in the Cathedral;
see William Hudson and John C. Tingey, Records of the City of Norwich, Norwich and
London: Jarrold, 1906–10, vol. 2, p. 399.
31 Magdalen College, Fastolf Paper 70, quoted from Worcester’s draft. The fair copy
reads ‘Item the said ser William Yeluerton had of the said sir Thomas a boke clepyt
Josephus and a byble of Wyrcstre’, with the same valuations added in the margin in
Worcester’s hand. ‘The seyd Sir Thomas’ refers to the priest Thomas Howes, formerly
head of the household at Caister, who like Worcester, Yelverton and Wainfleet was also
among Fastolf’s executors.
32 H.E. Bell, ‘The Price of Books in Medieval England’, The Library 4th ser. 17, 1936–7,
312–32 (pp. 324–5) on methods of valuing books, which were well developed in the
university and legal circles in which Worcster moved. Worcester’s reading habits and
his interest in books and libraries have recently been surveyed by D. Wakelin, ‘William
Worcester writes a History of his Reading’, New Medieval Literatures 7, 2005, 53–71.
33 George Doutrepont, Inventaire de la ‘Librairie’ de Philippe le Bon, Brussels, 1906; Pierre Champion,
La Librairie de Charles d’Orléans, Paris: H. Champion, 1910; A. Boinet, ‘Un Bibliophile du XVe
siècle: Le grand Bâtard de Bourgogne’, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Chartes 67, 1906, 255–69.
34 For example BL MSS Royal 14E.vi (Petrus de Crecentiis, Rustican), 17F.ii (Les Faits
des Romains), Royal 18D.ix–x + 15D.i (Guiard des Moulins, La Bible Historiale), Royal
15E.ii (Jean Corbechon, Les Proprietez des Choses), and (a stray) the illuminated copy of
Josephus’s writings in French at Sir John Soane’s Museum in London; see J. Backhouse,
‘Founders of the Royal Library: Edward IV and Henry VII as Collectors of Illumi-
nated Manuscripts’, in Williams, op. cit. (1987), pp. 23–41 (p. 39), and for the Josephus,
E.G. Millar, ‘Les Manuscrits à peintures des bibliothèques de Londres’, Bulletin de la
Société Française de Reproduction de Manuscrits à Peintures 4, 1914–20, 89–94.
35 Samuel Berger, La Bible française au Moyen Age, Paris: H. Champion, 1888, p. 387; Delisle,
op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 20–1, and also vol. 1, pp. 148–50, for a surviving example; Doutrepont,
op. cit., nos 88, 152; De Winter, op. cit., p. 130; Champion, op. cit., pp. 54–5; Boinet, op.
cit., p. 259. See also F. Avril, ‘La Bible Historiale de Charles V’, in Rodney G. Dennis and
Elizabeth Falsey (eds), The Marks in the Field: Essays on the Uses of Manuscripts, Cambridge
MA: Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 96–100, for a copy formerly in the French royal
library, and London, BL MSS Royal 15D.iii and Royal 17E.vii for examples of illumi-
nated copies that were in England in the fifteenth century.
 Sir John Fastolf’s French books  111
36 Anne D. Hedeman, The Royal Image: Illustrations of the Grandes Chroniques de France
1274–1422, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, pp. 187–92, provides a list
of the extant manuscripts; Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 162–3, and also vol. 1, pp. 309–18
for some surviving copies.
37 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 160–1, and also vol. 1, pp. 283–4, for the copy (still extant)
given by Bedford to Gloucester, though how it returned to France is not known;
Doutrepont, op. cit., nos. 70–1; De Winter, op. cit., pp. 131–2; Champion, op. cit.,
p. 106. Other extant copies are listed in R.H. Lucas, ‘Medieval French Translations
of the Classics to 1500’, Speculum 45, 1970, 225–53 (pp. 239–40), and see also Keith
V. Sinclair, The Melbourne Livy, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1961, for an
illustrated study of a particular example.
38 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 160; Champion, op. cit., pp. 30, 45. Extant copies, including
some from the French royal library, and several with traces of early ownership in
England, are described in Louis Fernand Flutre, Les Manuscrits des Faits des romains, Paris:
Hachette, 1932.
39 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 76, and also vol. 1, pp. 230–1, for an extant copy; Doutrepont,
op. cit., nos 81, 157, De Winter, op. cit., p. 133, Champion, op. cit., pp. 13–14, Boinet,
op. cit., p. 257. See also D. Byrne, ‘Rex Imago Dei: Charles V of France and the Livre
des propriétés des choses’, Journal of Medieval History 7, 1981, 97–113, and ‘Two Hitherto
Unidentified Copies of the Livre des propriétés des choses from the Royal Library of the
Louvre and the Library of Jean de Berry’, Scriptorium 31, 1977, 90–8.
40 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 139; Boinet, op. cit., p. 256, an illustrated copy. For the text itself
see Petrus de Crescentiis, Ruralia commoda, ed.Will Richter, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1995.
41 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 94–5.
42 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 269–70, vol. 2, pp. 121-5.
43 See for example ibid., vol. 2, pp. 177–8, 182–3, 192–3.
44 A possibility might be a condensed form of the title of Froissart’s Chroniques de France,
d’Angleterre et des païs voisins.
45 See Lucas, op. cit., pp. 248–9, and further references there, together with Leena Löfstedt
(ed.), Li Livres Flave Vegece de la chose de chevalerie, Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia,
1982, pp. 11–16, for descriptions of manuscripts of the Vignai translation, several of
fifteenth-century English provenance.
46 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 67–8, and also vol. 1, pp. 273–4, for an extant illuminated
copy of the De Meun translation formerly in the French royal library, which seems to
have remained in England (BL Royal 20B.i); Champion, op. cit., p. 108.
47 Félix Olivier-Martin, Les Institutes de Justinien en français: Traduction anonyme du XIIIe siècle,
Paris: Recueil Sirey, 1935; Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 139–41, and also vol. 1, pp. 250–1
for the extant copy referred to; Champion, op. cit., p. 60.
48 Ivor Arnold (ed.), Le Roman de Brut de Wace, 2 vols, Paris: Société des Anciens Textes
Français, 1938–40. For a recent listing of the extant manuscripts see J. Blacker, ‘Wace’s
Roman de Brut in Anglo-Norman and Continental Manuscripts’, Text 9, 1996, 185–6.
49 Albert D. Menut (ed.), Maistre Nicole d’Oresme. Le Livre d’éthiques d’Aristotè, New York:
G. E. Stechert & Co, 1940; Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 81–2, and also vol. 1, pp. 252–3,
256–7 for extant copies; Doutrepont, op. cit., nos 91, 223; De Winter, op. cit., p. 141;
Champion, op. cit., pp. 6–7. Claire R. Sherman, Imaging Aristotle: Verbal and Visual
Representation in Fourteenth-Century France, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995,
provides an extended study of the work and its illustrations.
50 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 119; Millar, op. cit., p. 90.
51 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 55; Champion, op. cit., p. 70.
52 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 146; Doutrepont, op. cit., no. 80; Champion, op. cit., pp. 64–5.
53 P.M. Gathercole, ‘Medieval Science: Evrart de Conty’, Romance Notes 6, 1964–5,
175–81; Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 80; Champion, op. cit., p. 8.
54 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 57–9, and also vol. 1, pp. 236–47 for extant copies. See
112  Richard Beadle
also Eric G. Millar, An Illuminated Manuscript of La Somme le Roi, Oxford: Roxburghe
Club, 1953, and for an extended account of the illustrated copies of the work and
their dissemination, Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, Manuscripts and their Makers:
Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200–1500, 2 vols, Turnhout: Harvey Miller,
2000, vol. 1, pp. 145–72.
55 Jean-Claude Thiolier (ed.), Pierre de Langtoft: Le Reigne d’ Edouard I, Créteil: CELIMA,
Université de Paris XII, 1989, pp. 35–142.
56 André Wilmart, Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du moyen âge, Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1932,
pp. 195, 201, 337.
57 Delisle, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 54–5. Cf. BL Royal 16E.xii, ff. 313–29, headed ‘Ce sont ci
les meditacions S. Bernart’.
58 For recent general surveys of such collections see F. Robin, ‘Le Luxe des collections au
XIVè et XVè siècles’, and G. Hasenohr, ‘L’Essor des bibliothèques privées au XIVè
et XVè siècles’, in André Vernet (ed.), Histoire des bibliothèques françaises: Les Bibliothèques
médiévales, Paris: Promodis, 1989, pp. 193–213, 215–63.
59 There were several priests and friars who were either part of or attached to the house-
hold at Caister and its private chapel. For the service books in the chapel (listed in the
inventories mentioned above) see Gairdner, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 188, and Hawkyard, op.
cit., p. 62, n. 165.
60 In 1444 Richard, Duke of York was contemplating mounting a claim for the throne of
Castile, based on John of Gaunt’s part in the Treaty of Bayonne in 1388. Fastolf and
other members of his council were secretly requested to advise and ‘to enserche the
cronicles and pedegreys conveyng the fourme and ordre of such descentys as longith to
that matier’, as Fastolf put it in a letter of 1444; see Beadle and Richmond, op. cit., no.
956, p. 49, lines 21–2.
61 For general surveys of early French humanism see J. Monfrin, ‘Humanisme et traduction
au moyen âge’, Journal des Savants, 1963, 161–90, and ‘La Connaissance de l’antiquité
et le problème de l’humanisme en langue vulgaire dans la France du XVè siècle’, in
Gérard Verbeke and Jozef Ijsewijn (eds), The Late Middle Ages and the Dawn of Humanism
outside Italy, Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1972, pp. 131–70.
62 S. Lusignan, ‘La Topique de la translatio studii et les traductions françaises de textes
savants au XIVe siècle’, in Geneviève Contamine (ed.), Traduction et traducteurs au moyen
âge, Paris: Éditions du Centre national de la Recherche scientifique, 1989, pp. 303–15.
63 Sherman, op. cit., pp. 40–1.
64 John G. Nichols (ed.), The Boke of Noblesse, London: J.B. Nichols and Sons, 1860. For
references to allusions that Worcester could have taken from Fastolf’s French books see
D.L. Wakelin, ‘Vernacular Humanism in England c. 1440–1485’, unpublished disserta-
tion, University of Cambridge, 2002, p. 168, n. 41. Worcester also cites Aristotle’s Ethics
in a letter of 1460; Norman Davis (ed.), Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century,
EETS, s.s. 21, 2004, p. 203.
65 Nichols, op. cit., pp. 64–6; Sherman, op. cit., pp. 73–80.
66 Davis, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 203, no. 604, lines 1–2; Harvey, op. cit., p. 262. In the same
context (Itineraries, p. 263) Worcester also mentions another notable French book, of
similar character to those in Fastolf’s collection, though not on the list above, an
apparently valuable copy of Le Myrrour de Dames ‘cooperto rubeo corio’. A lavish copy of
this work which once formed part of the French royal library seems to have remained
in England, and (like the manuscript of Worcester’s Itineraries) is now in the library of
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MS. 324); see Nigel Wilkins, Catalogue des manu-
scrits français de la Bibliothèque Parker, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Cambridge: Parker
Library Publications, 1993, pp. 90–2.
67 See notably the reappraisal by Richmond, op. cit., pp. 78–80.
68 Wakelin, op. cit., pp. 157–205; Sherman, op. cit., pp. 93–116.
6 Journeyman manuscript
production and lay piety
The Hopton Hall manuscript
A.S.G. Edwards

The former Hopton Hall manuscript was for centuries in private hands in the
possession of the Chandos-Pole-Gell family in Derbyshire before its sale at Sothe-
by’s, on 5 December 1989, where it formed lot 89. It was acquired then by the
book dealers, Bernard Quaritch; in 1995 it was purchased by Keio University in
Tokyo from the Tokyo dealer Maruzen.
Its long sojourn in private hands has meant that the manuscript has been little
examined.1 But the Hopton Hall manuscript provides an opportunity to consider
the ways in which a medieval manuscript of such a kind and period as it represents
can be fruitfully interrogated. As I will try to suggest, both the form and contents of
this manuscript deserve study, both in their own terms and for what they can tell
us about some of the circumstances of fifteenth-century English regional manu-
script production.
Hopton Hall can be best approached initially through a consideration of its
physical form. It is written throughout by a single hand, one that is quite well
formed and evidently competent in its ability to copy quite lengthy texts in both
verse and prose with a high degree of consistency and clarity. The scribe has
made some neat corrections, carefully marked in the lower or outer margins, but
has not had cause to make very many. These facts seem sufficient grounds for
supposing that the copyist was a trained one whose work possibly involved the
regular copying of manuscripts. He may therefore have been a professional scribe.
His writing can be dated to about the middle of the fifteenth century on the basis of
its general aspect, but in terms of its palaeography it has few very distinct features:
it represents a form of bastard anglicana in which both secretary and anglicana
forms of –a- and –s- are used interchangeably, as are open and closed forms of –e-;
there is a tendency to elaborate the final descender of –h.
In one respect, however, this scribe is relatively unusual. We know his name.
Several times in the course of his copying he signs it. In its fullest form it is given as
‘Gulielmus Hallys’ (fol. 28); elsewhere he gives his surname only: ‘quod Hall’ (fol.
13v) or ‘quod Hallys’ (fol. 37). Unfortunately, this is all the information we have
about William Hall or Halls. No other manuscripts seem to survive in his hand
and his name is sufficiently common not to provide any basis for conclusions about
his life beyond the Hopton Hall manuscript.
114  A.S.G. Edwards
We can, however, gather a little about where William Hall came from. He
wrote in a form of Norfolk English. We find in the manuscript such distinctive
Norfolk forms as the replacement of what would normally be initial ‘sh’ forms, in
such words as ‘shall’ or ‘should’ by an initial ‘x’ ; the substitution of ‘w’ or ‘wh’ by
‘q’ or ‘qw’ in such forms as ‘qwan’ for ‘when’, ‘qwylke’ or ‘queche’ for ‘which’,
‘qwo’ for ‘who’ and ‘hese’ for ‘his’. 2 One of the Norfolk manuscripts discussed
below, Cambridge University Library Ii.4.9, shows an interesting consciousness
of the issues involved in the change of dialect. At the end of his copying of Rolle’s
Form of Living the scribe adds this colophon (fol. 197v):

Here endith the informacion of Richard the Ermyte yt / he wrote to an Ankyr

translate oute of Northown tunge / in to Sutherne that it schulde the bettir be
vnderstondyng of men that be of the selve Countre Amen

The forms of words used here reveal a developed awareness of geographic

(‘Northown’, ‘Sutherne’) and linguistic (‘translate … that it schulde the bettir be
vnderstondyng of men’) differences.
This is, then, a regionally produced manuscript. The point is of some signifi-
cance because Norfolk was a county that had quite extensive traditions of copying
Middle English works from the thirteenth century onwards. These are tradi-
tions that are particularly reflected in manuscripts that survive from the fifteenth
century. Of the hundred and fifty or so manuscripts that have been identified as
having been copied in this county, all but about a dozen are from the fifteenth
century, and most of those are in Middle English.3
The dialect in which a scribe wrote is not, of course, necessarily the dialect
of the place in which he was living when he copied a manuscript. But it seems
reasonable, without any countervailing evidence, to assume that William Hall or
Halls wrote the Hopton Hall manuscript in Norfolk. Since we know nothing else
about him we must be content with acknowledging the fact that he was evidently
a scribe of some experience, capable of copying a range of materials competently,
and seek to widen our understanding of the circumstances of the manuscript’s
creation from other evidence.
In part such understanding can be derived from its physical structure. Such
questions as how big the Hopton Hall manuscript is, both in the number of leaves
it contains and the actual size of those leaves, may, in themselves, provide grounds
for some preliminary speculations as to the kind of readership for which it may
have been intended. In such respects the manuscript is physically unassuming.
As it now survives Hopton Hall comprises forty-three leaves of parchment. It
was evidently once somewhat longer; at least a complete gathering or quire has
been lost.4 But it was never very much longer. The total number of leaves in it
was probably never very many more than fifty. Nor is it large in size. The leaves
measure approximately 190 × 130 mm. It was a book that could slip unobtrusively
into a coat pocket.
Hopton Hall is as modest in its visual presentation as it is in its size. It has no
illustrations and only minimal decoration. The pages are unruled and the number
 Journeyman manuscript production and lay piety  115
of lines to a page varies. There is minimal paragraphing. The overall effect is of
a page that is rather cramped and hence not easy to read. The only variation
to the eye comes from the rubrication and the initials. Headings and names of
authorities are rubricated, as are some paragraph marks and line fillers; there are
as well a quite large number of small (usually two-line) penwork initials in blue
and red paint. Such decoration shows that the manuscript was produced in a way
that is functional: that is, it serves to provide only minimal visual counterbalance
to the perceived need to compress the maximum of text into the minimum of
space, to prioritise content over the creation of more visually pleasing spatial
impressions.
Such preliminary considerations of these aspects of the manuscript create
certain impressions of a superficial but suggestive kind. The fact that this is not
an elaborately produced manuscript may suggest something about the audience
for which it was conceived. Such an audience was one whose primary interest
was in the texts it contained rather than with the form in which such texts were
presented. One could take inference a little further by linking the lack of decora-
tion to size. The manuscript may have been conceived as a portable collection,
one intended for private reading or reflection.
The texts the Hopton Hall manuscript contains clearly possess the greatest
potential to enable us to add to this preliminary picture. In moving from the mate-
rial world of the manuscript’s physical construction to the textual world of its
contents questions arise that centre both on the identity of these works and also on
their patterns of collocation and their relative wider popularity.
One may begin with language. The works in the Hopton Hall manuscript are,
as I have already noted, solely in Middle English. This fact is in itself suggestive. It
implies an audience for whom texts are primarily accessible in the vernacular. Such
an audience would likely be one of literate lay people, one with an interest – given
the manuscript’s physical form – in private reading.
The contents themselves are primarily in prose. There are only two verse texts
in the manuscript, the Lay Folk’s Catechism (fols 3v–9v) and a ‘Dialogue between
Christ and Man’ (fol. 13r–v). The prose works are more extensive. They include
versions of The Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost (fols 19–28) and Walter Hilton’s
Epistle of the Mixed Life, which occurs here only in fragmentary form (fol. 28r–v).
The manuscript also includes an exposition of the Ten Commandments (fols 29–
37), two forms of confession, one for each of the Seven Deadly Sins (fols 1–3v),5
the other a text on the sins of the heart, mouth and deed (fols 9v–13),6 and a tract
‘of confort again dyspayre’ (fols 14–19).
Clearly these are all texts that can be approximately categorised as offering
instruction in the vernacular on matters of spiritual concern to the devout lay
Christian. But they seem to have varied markedly in their popularity. Some appear
to have circulated widely while others appear only in this manuscript. Of the
verse texts, the Lay Folk’s Catechism survives in various forms in more than twenty
manuscripts.7 It was composed at some point in the second half of the fourteenth
century, in very rough alliterative verse, to offer general religious instruction in
Middle English to lay people. It seems to have been susceptible to various forms of
116  A.S.G. Edwards
excerption and rewriting; the Hopton Hall copy has been characterised as among
the relatively small number that contain ‘a significantly reworked text’.8
The most popular of the prose works were Walter Hilton’s Epistle of the Mixed
Life and The Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost. The Hilton text survives in various
forms in nearly twenty manuscripts,9 The Charter is known in twenty-five copies,
often in quite different forms.10 Both works also survive in a number of early
printed editions.11
To this extent the works, in both verse and prose, in the Hopton Hall manu-
script are self-evidently popular ones. What is striking, however, is that at least
some of these popular works seem to have had their origins in areas at some
remove from the area of copying, Norfolk. The Lay Folk’s Catechism was composed
at the prompting of John Thoresby, Archbishop of York, who, in November 1357,
gave instruction that the laity of his diocese were to receive more comprehensive
education in English in Christian doctrine. The work is generally ascribed to John
Gaytryge, a monk at the Benedictine abbey of St Mary’s, York. 12 Hopton Hall
is not the only testimony to its wide circulation; at least one found its way to the
London area, probably to the Charterhouse at Sheen or to Syon Abbey.13
Much the same can be said about Walter Hilton’s Epistle of the Mixed Life, prob-
ably composed in the 1380s, while he was an Augustinian canon at Thurgarton in
Nottinghamshire. Once again, copies certainly circulated quite extensively, and it
appears in some famous collections such as the very large Vernon (Bodleian Eng
poet.a.1) and Simeon (BL Add. 22283) manuscripts, made in Worcestershire or
Warwickshire in the West Midlands towards the end of the fourteenth century.
But, once again, several copies circulated widely, certainly as far as lay and reli-
gious readers in London and its environs.14 Clearly the appeal of Hilton’s work,
like Gaytryge’s, was not limited to a particular region.
The origins of the Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost are more obscure. It is a
treatise concerned primarily with the fall and redemption of man.15 It quite often
occurs together with The Abbey of the Holy Ghost, a work of spiritual guidance,
seemingly originally intended for enclosed religious. Both works probably date
from the second half of the fourteenth century. Its circulation seems to have
been sufficiently wide to have encompassed both clerical and lay audiences of
both sexes.16
Hopton Hall is not the only manuscript in which some of these popular texts are
linked. For example, both the Lay Folk’s Catechism and Hilton’s Mixed Life appear
together in Lincoln Cathedral MS 91, the famous Thornton manuscript, a large
collection, compiled and copied by Robert Thornton, who wrote in Yorkshire in
the mid-fifteenth century. Thornton seems to have been a local antiquary and to
have searched quite widely in the Yorkshire region for the various texts he copied
into his manuscript.17 Such a location is consistent with the origins of the texts this
manuscript shares with Hopton Hall. As we have seen, the Lay Folk’s Catechism
emanates from Yorkshire. Hilton’s works had a strong base in that county, where
he was associated with the Yorkshire mystic Richard Rolle and with Carthusian
spirituality. In the Lincoln Cathedral manuscript these two texts appear in close
proximity to one another,18 a fact which suggests that they may have circulated as
 Journeyman manuscript production and lay piety  117
a group or part of a group of devotional works linked by both subject matter and
regional association.
The only other manuscript in which Hilton’s and Gaytryge’s works occur
together is Cambridge University Library Ff. 5. 40, another fifteenth-century
manuscript. This is mainly a collection of devotional works in Middle English
prose by or ascribed to Richard Rolle and Hilton. Here the two works are widely
separated: Hilton’s Mixed Life is on fols 1–14v; a selection from the Lay Folk’s Cate-
chism is on fols 117v–119.19 The manuscript is, like Lincoln, both longer and larger
than Hopton Hall; it comprises 130 leaves, on vellum, measuring 220 × 150 mm.
The compilational links to Hopton Hall are clearly quite tenuous, but what gives
some connection is dialect: like Hopton Hall this manuscript is from Norfolk.
So is another, larger manuscript on paper (240 × 150 mm), of 197 leaves,
Cambridge University Library Ii. 4.9. It too is a collection of Middle English
devotional verse and prose. It again contains the Lay Folk’s Catechism (a selection;
fols 95v–96), written as prose, preceded by The Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost,
fols 74–87. This is, like Hopton Hall, a modestly produced manuscript with only
simple rubricated initials and occasional underlinings in red.20
These are not the only Norfolk links between Hopton Hall and other surviving
manuscripts. In addition, a further copy of the Lay Folk’s Catechism, Bodleian Rawl-
inson C. 288, is also from Norfolk. Another Norfolk manuscript, BL Harley 2406,
contains still another copy of The Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost (fols 68–83)
together with The Abbey of the Holy Ghost itself (fols 61–68); both these works are
preceded immediately (fols 58–60v) by what is described as ‘þe letter of my wors-
chipfulle fader Water [sic] hilton’ (fol. 58), presumably an exposition of Hilton’s
Epistle of the Mixed Life. This is a small manuscript, 200 × 135 mm, approximately
the same size as Hopton Hall, and, interestingly, was owned in the fifteenth century
by a woman, one ‘domine matilde stuard’ (her name appears on fol. 11v).
It seems clear that although the popular works in Hopton Hall emanate from
other regions of England (where they are capable of localisation), they had some
quite firmly based appeal within Norfolk. This is not surprising. The largest single
category of surviving Norfolk manuscripts is that comprising religious or devotional
works, amounting to more than a third of those that have been so identified.21
There are other texts in Hopton Hall which, while unique in the form in which
they survive there, also have connections to other popular prose devotional
texts. One is the work titled there ‘A gode chapitre of confort again dyspayr for
multitude of synnes’ (fols 14–19). It has been established that this work largely
comprises passages from other prose devotional treatises that elsewhere survive
separately. For example, there is in it a long passage (fols 15v–16v) from a Middle
English translation of the Horologium Sapientiae by the fourteenth-century German
devotional writer Heinrich Suso. Suso’s work is mentioned here by its Middle
English title ‘þe horloge of wisdom’. This work circulated widely in England in the
fifteenth century, in a number of Middle English prose versions, some complete,
some, like this, comprising extracts.22
More intriguingly, it has also been established that this text includes a long
extract, on fols 17v–19, from a prose devotional treatise on the mercy of God,
118  A.S.G. Edwards
which survives (in that form) uniquely in Cambridge, Magdalene College MS
Pepys 2125, fols 77–80v,23 now called ‘The Teachings of St Barnabas’. This
Cambridge manuscript is much longer than Hopton Hall, of 145 leaves, physi-
cally much larger (265 × 220 mm), and was written in the West Midlands. But
it is like Hopton Hall in comprising Middle English devotional works in both
prose and verse. Its contents include in quite close proximity to ‘The Teachings
of St Barnabas’, The Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost (fols 89–96v). Yet again,
it is possible to see how this one text becomes a kind of anchor around which
others gather in shifting patterns of relationship. More specifically, ‘the chapter of
confort against despair’ may show something about local processes of compilation:
the vacuuming up into a larger design, of passages, possibly free floating, possibly
deliberately extracted from larger works.
We see through consideration of these texts how we can learn something about
the ways in which a collection like Hopton Hall can develop through its accumu-
lation of works that already circulated in some forms of pre-existing groupings,
sometimes through the addition of materials circulating in less systematic forms,
like ‘The Teachings of St Barnabas’.
There remain those works that were less definably popular, in the sense that
they appear to be unique to this manuscript. These comprise three quite lengthy
prose works, one on God’s laws (fols 9v–13) and the two works with which the
manuscript ends. The first has been described, not wholly accurately, as an expo-
sition on the Ten Commandments (fols 29–37). In fact it starts by establishing
parallels between the Ten Commandments and the plagues of Egypt before
proceeding to analysis of Moses’ time in exile and a manual on prayer and
fasting with which the manuscript ends (fols 37–43v). Both suggest the compiler
of Hopton Hall was able to supplement more widely circulating materials by
locally available ones to fill out the manuscript in ways that he, or his commis-
sioner thought appropriate.
The Hopton Hall manuscript clearly demonstrates processes of assemblage that
draw both on pre-existing patterns of compilation of a relatively widespread kind
and on the pragmatics of local accessibility. It is, in these respects, both unique and
typical. It is unique in the specific collocation and verbal forms of its contents. But,
as the parallels in content I have adduced above indicate, it is seemingly typical of
patterns of relatively low-level regional manuscript production of religious mate-
rials in the vernacular in the mid-fifteenth century. One final illustration may help
to make the point.
There are, as I have noted, only two Middle English verse texts in Hopton Hall.
One is The Lay Folk’s Catechism. The other is a Dialogue between Christ and Man
in couplets. This poem appears elsewhere in four manuscripts, in two of them as
part of the massive biblical history, Cursor Mundi, in another as part of one of the
collections by Robert Thornton, BL Additional 31042. These lie outside my imme-
diate concern. The final one, however, is a manuscript in the Takamiya collec-
tion, in Tokyo, Takamiya 15. This is a collection of eighty-four leaves, measuring
285 × 195 mm, the bulk of which is devoted to William of Nassyngton’s Speculum
vitae. But the other shorter contents include extracts from Hilton, and from the
 Journeyman manuscript production and lay piety  119
Horologium sapientiae, verses on the Ave Maria, the Creed and Ten Commandments
and other religious and devotional lyrics.24 The Takamiya manuscript offers an
interesting parallel in its subject matter in the circulation of the kinds of devotional
materials in Hopton Hall.
This manuscript, together with the others noted above, suggests that in terms of
content Hopton Hall is representative of a category of primarily Middle English,
largely provincial, religious compilations. It seems possible to speculate a little
about the kind of person who might wish to own such a collection. We might
reasonably posit a readership that is both lay and pious. We might guess it to be
lay by the size of the manuscript and its lack of decoration which seem to suggest
a collection designed for private devotion, to be read rather than employed for
any public purpose. The works are often ones which reflect Christian instruction
of a variety of basic kinds: in the nature of prayer, catechism, the Ten Command-
ments, the Seven Deadly Sins, biblical paraphrase and the pursuit of the spiritual
life, ones where vernacular instruction would seem essential.
While the texts in Hopton Hall do, to some degree, reflect the influence of pre-
existing collections, the nature of its contents could suggest that it was commis-
sioned by an individual who personally selected these texts, rather than that it
was a speculative piece of manuscript production, undertaken without a specific
customer or audience in mind. The inclusion of seemingly unique works suggests
that the commissioner most probably drew, to some extent, on local exemplars
with a limited circulation.
But this is the extent of what we seem able to know about the original proc-
esses of compilation that lie behind the Hopton Hall manuscript. It is not possible
to identify the manuscript’s original owners. It is not clear whether it was made
for the Chandos-Pole-Gell family, the only recorded owners of the Hopton Hall
manuscript. We have no information as to when it came into their possession. On
the face of it this is a curious manuscript for them to have owned, since, while they
did possess some medieval manuscripts, they seem all to have been legal ones.25
But the collocation of a pious manuscript with other more practical ones is hardly
surprising in a medieval private library.
There is clearly much we cannot know about the Hopton Hall manuscript. But
in some respects analysis of its distinctive features, both in terms of its scribe, form
and size and of its contents offers us some insight into the world behind the mate-
rial book, the world that prompted its creation. Through such examination we
come a little closer to grasping the cultural forms of this world and thereby demon-
strating the crucial historical importance of manuscript study to the recovery of
the past in our age.26

Appendix

The contents of the Hopton Hall manuscript

Fols 1–3 Form of confession in ME prose (Jolliffe C 13; Wells Rev. 7: 2562 [211]
10), where foliation is given as ‘pp. 1–2’.
120  A.S.G. Edwards
Fols 3v–9v John Gaytryge, Lay Folk’s Catechism (NIMEV 406; Wells Rev. 7:
2492 [19] 21), written as prose.
Fols 9v–13 The law of God and a form of confession in Middle English prose
(Jolliffe C 12; Wells Rev. 7: 2562 [211] 9), where foliation is given
as ‘pp. 22–25’.
Fol. 13r–v Dialogue between Mary and Christ (NIMEV 1786; Wells Rev. 7:
2504 [31] 14).
Fols 13v–14 Nine virtues (Jolliffe I 12j, but not recorded there).
Fols 14–19 ‘A gode chapitre of confort agayn dyspayr’ in Middle English
prose.
Fols 19–28 The Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost in Middle English prose (Jol-
liffe H 9 (b); Wells Rev. 7: 2547 [186] 21).
Fols 28r–v Walter Hilton, An Epistle of the Mixed Life in Middle English prose.
Fols 29–37 Exposition on the Ten Commandments in Middle English prose.
Fols 37–43 Instructions on prayer and fasting in Middle English prose.

Notes
  1 It did receive a detailed description in the recent important catalogue of Keio Univer-
sity acquisitions, to which I am indebted: Takami Matsuda (ed.), Mostly British: Manu-
scripts and Early Printed Materials from Classical Rome to Renaissance England in the Collection of
Keio University Library, Tokyo: Keio University, 2001, pp. 56–63; but it warrants more
extensive discussion and contextualisation than was possible there.
  2 On the dialectal characteristics of fifteenth-century Norfolk English see Richard
Beadle, ‘Prolegomena to a Literary Geography of Later Medieval Norfolk’, in Felicty
Riddy (ed.), Regionalism in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer,
1991, pp. 91–2.
  3 For a list of these manuscripts see ibid., pp. 102–8.
  4 This lacuna comprises most of Hilton’s Mixed Life, from line 119 (out of 841) in Sarah
Ogilvie-Thomson (ed.), Walter Hilton’s Mixed Life: Edited from Lambeth Palace MS 472 e,
Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Salzburg University, 1986. This
suggests a missing gathering of probably eight leaves.
  5 See P.S. Jolliffe, A Check-List of Middle English Prose Writings of Spiritual Guidance, Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1974, no. C 13 (henceforward cited as
‘Jolliffe’).
  6 Jolliffe C 12.
  7 The fullest enumeration is in Anne Hudson, ‘A New Look at the Lay Folk’s Catechism’,
Viator 16, 1985, 243–58.
  8 The characterisation is Hudson’s, op. cit., p. 247; without a full edition of all the
witnesses it is impossible to say anything more specific about the Hopton Hall version.
  9 The fullest listing occurs in Ogilvie-Thomson, op. cit., pp. xii–xiii, who does not,
however, include the Hopton Hall copy.
10 Jolliffe H 9 (a)–(d); to the manuscripts listed there may be added olim Bradfer-Lawrence
8, now Tokyo, Takamiya 65.
11 Hilton Mixed Life was reprinted as Book 3 of his Scale of Perfection in 1494 by Wynkyn de
Worde (STC 14042) and as part 2 of the Nova legenda anglie by Richard Pynson in 1516
as well as separately by Robert Wyer in 1530 (STC 14041). The Charter of the Abbey of the
Holy Ghost survives in three incunable editions by de Worde, printed in [1496?], [1497?]
and [1500?] respectively (STC, 13608.7, 13609, 13610).
12 See further R.N. Swanson, ‘The Origins of The Lay Folk’s Catechism’, Medium Aevum 60,
 Journeyman manuscript production and lay piety  121
1991, 92–100.
13 New Haven, Beinecke Library MS 317; see George Keiser, ‘Patronage and Piety in
Fifteenth-Century England: Margaret, Duchess of Clarence, Symon Wynter, and Yale
University MS 317’, Yale University Library Gazette 60, 1985, 32–46.
14 These include Lambeth Palace 472, owned by Richard Collop, parchmenter, BL
Harley 2254, owned by Dominican nuns at Dartford and BL Harley 2397 owned by
the London Poor Clares; for details see Ogilvie-Thomson, op. cit., pp. xii–xiii, xx–xxi,
xv–xvi.
15 For a description of this work see Albert E. Hartung (general editor), A Manual of the
Writings in Middle English, New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences,
1986, vol. 7, pp. 2341–2 [186].
16 Julia Boffey, ‘The Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost and Its Role in Manuscript Antholo-
gies’, Yearbook of English Studies 33, 2003, 120–30; see also Nicole Rice, ‘Spiritual Ambi-
tion and the Translation of the Cloister: The Abbey and Charter of the Holy Ghost’, Viator
33, 2002, 223–60 (pp. 245–59).
17 See George Keiser, ‘Lincoln Cathedral 91: Life and Milieu of the Scribe’, Studies in
Bibliography 32, 1979, 158–79.
18 On fols 213v–19, 223–9 respectively.
19 For a description see A Catalogue of the Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of the University of
Cambridge, Cambridge: CUP, 1857, vol. 2, pp. 498–500.
20 There is, however, an illustration on fol. 68v. For a description, see A Catalogue of the
Manuscripts Preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, Cambridge: CUP, 1858,
vol. 3, 448–50.
21 See Beadle, op. cit., pp. 104–5.
22 See Roger Lovatt, ‘Henry Suso and the Medieval Mystical Tradition in England’, in
Marion Glasscoe (ed.), The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England II, Exeter: University of
Exeter Press, 1982, pp. 47–63.
23 Rosamond McKitterick and Richard Beadle, Catalogue of the Pepys Library at Magdalene
College, Cambridge, vol. v, Manuscripts. Part I: Medieval, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1992,
pp. 54–61.
24 For description and further references see T. Takamiya, ‘“On the Evils of Covetous-
ness”: An Unrecorded Middle English Poem’, in Richard Beadle and Alan Piper (eds),
New Science out of Old Books: Studies in Manuscripts and Early Printed Books in Honour of A. I.
Doyle, Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995, pp. 189–206.
25 For a list of the manuscripts owned by the family see A.J. Horwood, ‘The Manuscripts
of Henry Chandos-Pole-Gell’, Ninth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts,
London: HMSO, 1884, part II, pp. 388–403 (this MS described p. 384). There are few
other medieval manuscripts recorded, mainly legal. Several of these manuscripts are
recorded in John H. Baker, English Legal Manuscripts in the USA, London: Selden Society,
1985; see Library of Congress MS 15 and Law MS 9 (ibid., p. 9) and Michigan Univer-
sity MS 3 (owned by ‘Thomas Gell’; ibid., p. 53).
26 I am greatly indebted to Professor Toshiyuki Tamamiya of Keio University, who made
it possible for me to examine the Hopton Hall manuscript in situ and who also gener-
ously permitted me to examine his own MS 15.
7 Contexts and comments
The Chastising of God’s Children and
The Mirror of Simple Souls in
MS Bodley 505
Marleen Cré

The Chastising of God’s Children and The Mirror of Simple Souls, the only two works
contained in Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 505, seem an odd match.
The Chastising of God’s Children is a devotional compilation that centres on how the
person committed to leading a religious life should recognise and deal with temp-
tation. It is a treatise well within the limits of orthodoxy, which is accessible both
in content and in form: its logically built and fairly brief dispositions have been
ordered into a prologue and twenty-seven chapters, each of which is introduced
(and thus also signalled to the reader) by an elaborate chapter heading. On the
other hand, the Middle English translation of Marguerite Porète’s Mirror of Simple
Souls is a long, discursive text that is often obscure and illogical. With a division
into chapters that seems haphazard and a contemplative message that borders on
the heterodox, the Mirror is not an easy read, and the Middle English translator’s
decision to insert his own comments on the text after statements or passages he
thought needed further clarification can be seen as his natural response to its inter-
pretative demands. The combination of a devotional treatise that warns its readers
of the dangers inherent in the religious life and the errors easily fallen into with a
Free Spirit text that earned its author condemnation and execution as a relapsed
heretic is indeed intriguing.1
Bodley 505 is one of the three manuscripts in which the Middle English transla-
tion of The Mirror of Simple Souls, originally written in French, survives. The trans-
lator is known to us by his initials, MN, which he uses to indicate his comments
on the text. In Cambridge, St John’s College MS 71, the Mirror is the only text
in the manuscript. In London, British Library MS Additional 37790, it follows
Richard Misyn’s Middle English translations of Rolle’s Emendatio Vitae and Incen-
dium Amoris, the short text of Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love and the
Middle English translation of Jan van Ruusbroec’s Vanden blinkenden steen, texts that
have been interspersed with shorter texts and compilations. Like Bodley 505, St
John’s College 71 originated in the London Charterhouse,2 and MS Additional
37790 can also be linked to the English Carthusians.3 Apart from Bodley 505, the
Chastising survives in at least nine other manuscripts, of which one, MS Bodleian
Rawlinson C. 57, bears an inscription saying that it was a gift to Sheen Charter-
house by John Kingslow, the first Sheen recluse.4
As the Carthusians were notorious and avid collectors of texts, especially those
 Contexts and comments  123
describing the religious and contemplative experience at first hand,5 it is difficult to
argue in favour of a conscious design and deliberate ordering of texts in a manu-
script in which only two texts occur.6 As part of this archival activity, the Chastising
and the Mirror could simply and coincidentally have been copied by the same scribe
one after the other, and bound into the same volume because it was practical to do
so, or perhaps because these texts especially were of significance to the scribe or a
particular reader. Still, there is an interesting coincidence about the pairing of the
Chastising and the Mirror, as the fragments borrowed from Ruusbroec’s De Geestelike
Brulocht in chapters 9 to 12 of the Chastising include those passages in which the
Brabant mystic is believed to be directly criticising the doctrine put forward in the
Mirror of Simple Souls.7 Thus, Bodley 505 contains both the Mirror, and a text incor-
porating a contemporary, not altogether favourable comment on it. Again, there
is no evidence to suggest that this was consciously intended. Though it is likely that
attentive readers noticed the forward reference to the Mirror in the Chastising, there
is no tangible proof of this in marginal annotations. Nevertheless, the co-occur-
rence of these texts does invite us to think about how the reading of the one text
could have influenced the reading of the other. In addition, both the Chastising and
the Mirror translate and adapt continental texts, and thus allow us to see how two
late fourteenth-century, early fifteenth-century English translators read and medi-
ated these continental texts on (aspects of) contemplation.
The common denominator in both the Mirror and the Brulocht fragments used in
the Chastising seems to be the heresy of the Free Spirit. Ruusbroec criticises it and
warns his readers against it, and the Mirror is considered as a text promulgating
the heresy that preoccupied continental Church authorities (mainly in Germany)
throughout the later Middle Ages.8 Marguerite Porète, the author of the Mirror,
which in its manuscript tradition is an anonymous text, was condemned as a
relapsed heretic in 1310 after fifteen articles taken from her text were pronounced
heretical by a tribunal of theologians and canonists. A year after her death, the
Council of Vienne published the decree Ad nostrum, defining the Free Spirit heresy
in eight articles that for the most part derive from Marguerite’s book, but also
reflect traditional prejudices about those believers rejecting the authority of the
clergy and the Church over their own spiritual lives.9 Armed with this decree,
which was put into effect from 1316 (when Ad nostrum was finally published),
the inquisition against Free Spirit heretics took momentum in repeated bloody
campaigns against beghards and beguines, men and women leading a religious life
outside the approved orders, who came to be identified with the heresy.10
As Lerner points out, ‘the English were not well-informed about Free-Spirit
mysticism’.11 A marginal annotation in Cambridge, Pembroke College MS 221,
in which Richard Methley’s Latin translation of the Middle English Mirror occurs,
does associate a passage in the text with Ad nostrum, but no real conclusions about
the Mirror being a text condemned as heretical seems to have been drawn from the
annotator’s recognition of some of its statements as being similar to the articles of
Clement V’s decree. That the persecution of the Free Spirit heresy did not travel
across the Channel is another argument to corroborate Lerner’s view of the Free
Spirit doctrine not as a heresy, but as a form of radical mysticism that frequently
124  Marleen Cré
skirted heterodoxy. For social and religious-political reasons, this radical mysti-
cism accrued some stereotypical heretical excesses in the minds of its critics (the
most typical being the charge of antinomianism, i.e. the belief that Christians are
liberated from the observance of the sacraments, and more generally of moral laws
when God’s grace is active),12 and was attributed to the beguines and beghards,
who posed a threat to social stability and Church authority because of their ideals
of apostolic poverty and mendicancy outside the controlled sphere of the monastic
and mendicant orders. The insular counterparts of beghards and beguines were
anchorites and anchoresses who, by virtue of their being enclosed rather than
wandering, attracted far less criticism and were left undisturbed.13 The continental
inquisition against the Free Spirit heresy would thus indeed seem to have followed
the beguine and beghard movement rather than an actual network of heretics.
This is not to say that there was no such thing as Free Spirit mysticism, a radical,
unregulated mysticism that differed from orthodox mysticism in some important
points, and we will now turn to the Chastising to glean from the text how such erro-
neous mysticism is defined in the passages borrowed from Ruusbroec’s Brulocht
(translated into Middle English from Grote’s Latin translation of the Middle
Dutch original). The error exposed in chapter 9 is the root of the errors discussed
in chapters 10, 11 and 12, and leading to the radical, passive Free Spirit mysti-
cism: it is the error of natural contemplation, a state of mind in which men seek
rest in themselves rather than in God. (This could be called mysticism of self rather
than mysticism of God.) This is a state one can easily achieve: ‘whan a man ston-
dith naked in soule without imagynacions or besynesse of kyndeli wittis, and al
voide and idel, nothing occupied with the ouer wittis of the soule, thanne bi verrai
kynde he cometh into reste’ (Chastising 130/20–131/2).14 It leads to blindness and
passivity as the person experiencing it bows down into himself ‘without any dedis
or werkis’ (Chastising 131/21). It is contrasted with rest in God (contemplation),
which is ‘aboue kynde, ... a louely biholdyng into an high cliernesse that may
nat be comprehendid’ (Chastising 132/1–2). People who mistake natural rest for
contemplative rest in God will become entirely misguided, as they feel their deified
self no longer needs to practise virtues, and no longer needs the Church and its
sacraments as a mediator between them and God.
It is chapters 11 and 12 of the Chastising that contain Ruusbroec’s criticism of
Free Spirit mysticism, the errors of which he defines in language so close to Porète’s
Mirror that it is likely Ruusbroec had read the book and knew it well.15 Ruusbroec’s
use of the Mirror has been taken as criticism of some aspects of the text, and more
specifically of people using the Mirror to inspire and justify an unchristian, heretical
lifestyle.16 The following passages from Ruusbroec’s Espousals, translated in chapters
11 and 12 of the Chastising, can indeed be matched with passages from the Mirror (I
quote both the Brulocht and the Mirror in the Middle English translation here):

1 Only God can work in the free soul. The free soul is beyond virtues. To be free from virtues
is more difficult than to practise the virtues.

Also þei seien þat no man ne god hymsilf may make hem encrese ne decreese,
 Contexts and comments  125
for þei bien passed þe trauel of exercises, as þei seien, þat a man nediþ more
to traueile for to be discharged of uertues þan for to gete hem. (Chastising
140/15–19)

Þe seuenþe poynt, seiþ loue, is þis, þat men may not bineme hir. … The eiȜtþe
poynt, reson, seiþ loue, is þat men may Ȝiue hir nouȜt. (Mirror 263/7, 11)

[Soul] þerfore I seie: Uertues, I take leeue of Ȝou for euermore. Now schal
myn herte be more fre and more in pees þan it haþ be. Forsoþe I wote wel:
Ȝoure seruyse is so trauelous. Sum tyme I leide myn herte in Ȝou wiþouten
ony disseuerynge. Ȝe wote wel þis. I was in al þing to Ȝou obeishaunt. O, I was
þanne Ȝoure seruaunt, but now I am deliuered out of Ȝoure þraldom. (Mirror
254/27–255/2)

2 The free soul feels that it is united to God without intermediary, and therefore liberated from
the observances of the Church, even though it is only experiencing natural rest within itself.

Þei holden bi þat kyndeli reste þat þei haue, and bi þat ydelnesse whiche þei
haue whan þei stonden so alone vpon hemsilf, þat þei be free in spirit, and
ooned to god wiþout any meane. Also þat þei bien enhaunsid bi perfeccion
aboue al obseruaunces of hooli chirche, aboue hestis of god, aboue al goddis
lawe, and aboue al uertuous werkis þat any man may haue in excercises.
(Chastising 139/11–17)

[…] and þei seien þei bien passid al þat wherfor exercises of uertues and obse-
ruaunce in hooli chirche is ordeyned. (Chastising 140/13–14)

Of fastyng þei take noon heede, ne of festis of hooli chirche, ne of þe ordy-

naunce ne obseruaunce of hooli chirche, saue oonli for speche of men; for in
al þing þei lyuen wiþout dome of conscience. (Chastising 141/16–19)

This douȜter of Syon desireþ neiþir massis ne sermons, fastinges ne orisons.

Whi so, seiþ reson. Lady loue, it is þe foode of hooli soulis.

It is sooþ for hem þat crauen, seiþ loue, but þis soule craueþ not, for sche haþ in
hir inwardnesse no nature to desire þing þat is wiþoute hir. Now vndirstande,
reson, seiþ loue, whi desiren suche soules þese þinges aforeseid, siþþe it is so þat
god is ouer al, wiþoute þat as wel as wiþ al þat. Þis soule ne haþ þouȜt, word, ne
werk, but þe usage of þe diuine grace of þe Trinite. (Mirror 270/ 3–9)

3 The free soul feels it is perfect, and higher in rank than angels or saints.

to her owne feelyng þei bien in perfeccion, aboue al seyntis and aungels and
aboue al mede þat any man can discerue. (Chastising 141/4–6)
126  Marleen Cré
Now þer is in þis tunne of diuine drinke many fausettis. Þis woot þe manhode
þat is knyt to þe persone of God þe Sone þat dronke of þe moost noble wyne
next þe Trinite. And þe Uirgyne Marie dranke of þat aftir, and of þe mooste
hiȜe drinke is þis noble lady drunke. Aftir hem drinken þe brennynge sera-
phyns, wiþ þe whiche wynges þese fre soules fleen. (Mirror 276/22–27)

4 The free soul is passive, and only God works in it.

þei kepen hem fro al maner worchyng, and stonden al ydel as an instrument
of god, in a maner of abydinge and suffraunce, til god wil worche in hem. But
sumwhat þei bien contrarious to þo bifore, in as moche as þei seien þat alle
þe werkis þat god worchiþ bien more noble and medeful þan any oþer men
mowen disserue. (Chastising 142/17–22)

I owe him no werk, siþen himsilf werkiþ. If I leide þe myne, I schulde vnmake
þe his, and for þis cause it noieþ me þe werk and techinge of þe disciplis of
reson. (Mirror 317/33–35)

Before we look at the significance of these passages in an English context, we

have to look at their function in their original setting, the Brulocht. The question
here is whether Ruusbroec was reacting to the opinions and behaviour of followers
of the Free Spirit heresy, which he knew through contact with them,17 or whether,
even though he drew on current thoughts and mentalities, he included the discus-
sion of unregulated mysticism also in order to convince his readers of his own
orthodoxy, in other words, to preclude them associating his works with the radical
mysticism of the Free Spirits.18 We know from Pomerius’ life of Ruusbroec, written
about seventy-five years after the events, that he criticised a Brussels beguine called
Bloemaerdine for her radical mysticism, her Free Spirit leanings, even though she
had a reputation for sanctity.19 This suggests that, when describing the four errors
at the end of Book II of the Brulocht, he was indeed writing against misguided ideas
he saw in people around him, ideas he believed to have been instigated by texts
such as the Mirror.20 Thus, it seems most likely that Ruusbroec wants to put his
readers on their guard. A description of the errors of radical mysticism will help
them to assess their own experiences. Indeed, the Brulocht explicitly mentions the
need for every reader to check his or her own beliefs and behaviour against the
text: ‘Nu merke ende proeve yeghelijc hem selven’ (‘Now let everyone examine
and search himself’) (Brulocht b 2295; Espousals b1973).21 It also needs to be noted
that these descriptions occur in a work in which the contemplative experience is
most meticulously described, i.e. the description of errors completes the detailed
description of all aspects of the contemplative life on different levels.
If it is difficult to gauge to what extent Ruusbroec was referring to spiritual
errors he encountered regularly in people he met; it is even more difficult to gauge
the currency of the errors described in the Chastising for its insular readers. Bazire
and Colledge, the editors of the Chastising, point out that the translator recasts the
attacks on false mystics to make them applicable to Lollards,22 notably in two addi-
 Contexts and comments  127
tions, one in chapter 11 and one in chapter 12. The first addition does seem to link
the descriptions borrowed from the Brulocht to the here and now:

Of þese men, whose lyueng and opynions I haue rehersid, I hope to god þer bien ful
fewe, but sooþ it is, þer han bien suche but late in our daies, and aftir haue bien turned and
com aзen into the riзt way. (Chastising 141/20–142/2)

Colledge and Bazire’s suggestion that the translator may be alluding to William
Swinderby’s, John Ashton’s and Philip Repingdon’s recantations of 1382 here does
not convince Anne Hudson, who also points out that the second addition mentions
particular Lollard errors, but does not set out to counter them:23

Many mo I miȜt showe to make Ȝou be war of hem, as of sum þat now
holden plainli, and nat Ȝit opinli, but priuili for drede, aȜens confessions and
fastynges, aȜens worshipping of ymages, and shortli, as men seien, aȜens al
states and degrees and þe lawe and þe ordynaunce of hooli chirche. (Chastising
145/4–8)

Thus, even though it is plain that the translator was aware of the existence of
Lollard ideas, he did not alter the Ruusbroec passages to counter Lollard ideas,
but added references to them as an afterthought. Indeed, he seems to have been
assured that the ‘religious sister’ he was originally writing for was not in any great
danger of adopting Wycliffite errors, as can be seen from the sentence following
the passage last quoted: ‘But al þese I leeue, bicause it nediþ nat greteli, for I trowe
heere bin rehersid þo þat bien most in our knowing to be dred’ (Chastising 145/8–
10; italics mine). It does seem, then, that the translator considered Ruusbroec’s
descriptions of radical Free Spirit mysticism, which are closely related to the spir-
itual life, were more directly useful to his audience than a detailed description of
Lollard ideas. The Chastising, as we pointed out earlier, was to help the ‘religious
sister’ it is addressed to deal with ‘the matier of temptacions ... in comfort of youre
soule’ (Chastising 95/1, 2, 5). The text is supposed to teach the reader how to react
to temptations in order to become closer to God. The errors described in the
chapters borrowed from Ruusbroec have been included to help the reader recog-
nise them in others, so that they themselves will not be influenced by these people’s
misguided thoughts, as the translator points out in a passage at the end of chapter
8, which serves as an introduction to chapters 9–11.

And sum men in þis sikenesse [negligence] holde false opynyons in her owne
conceitis, and dampnable tofore god; of whiche men I wil declare зow more
openli foure maner sikenessis, þat зe mowe be þe more ware of hem and of
her opynions; and for as myche as зe haue seie heere bifore what infirmytees
fallen to goostli lyuers, wakeþ and preieþ þat зe falle nat into temptacion.
(Chastising 129/25–130/6)

In the Chastising, the errors described are presented as temptations that the
128  Marleen Cré
person willing to lead a religious life can easily fall into. Thus, regardless of
whether the radical, ‘Free Spirit’ mysticism links up with a social movement or
not, or whether the readers recognised this form of mysticism gone wrong, the
descriptions of its tenets fit into the Chastising, as they help the readers investi-
gate their own thoughts, feelings, behaviour and experiences. In other words, they
are aimed at discretio and probatio, the correct assessment of one’s own and other
people’s spiritual experiences,24 a function the recontextualised passages share
with the text they were borrowed from. The need for self-examination, central to
a healthy contemplative life, is expressed again and again in the refrain at the end
of every single chapter of the Chastising: ‘waketh and preieth that ye falle nat into
temptacion’.
The Middle English translator also makes a number of consistent additions to
the Ruusbroec passages that equally prove that discretio and probatio are his main
concern. In describing how it is wrong to seek rest in oneself and not in God, he
adds references to the will, which in the true contemplative is turned to God,
and in the deceived contemplative is turned into himself. This emphasis on the
role of the will is lacking in both Ruusbroec’s original and Grote’s intervening
translation:

þerfor al þei bien foule disceyued whiche beholden or tenden oonli to hemsilf,
and þei also þat bowen downward to kyndeli reste, also þat seeken nat god
wiþ a contynuel desire, or fynde nat god wiþ a lastyng loue, settyng her hertis euer to
god and in god bi a contynuel vse without chaungynge in wille.25 (Chastising 132/6–10;
italics mine)

But whan a man besieþ hym and in ful wil desiriþ to haue suche reste wiþouten
exercises and uertues, bodili and goostli, inward and outward, here is no
doute þe reste is turned into grete synne; for þanne he falliþ perelousli into a
goostli pride, þat is to sei into a ful plesaunce of his owne wil for his most reste and ese.26
(Chastising 132/25–133/5; italics mine)

Of þis зe mowen se ensample, whanne aungels weren first made. þei hadden a fre choise,
so sum in the first mouyng of the fre wille bigan to worship god bi a grete feruour of
loue, and fulli turnyden to god wiþ al þat þei had receyueden of god. Wherfor
þei were receyued of god, euere to abide in blisse, and bi þat þer wil was confermed,
so to stonde euermore without any chaungyng.27 (Chastising 133/12–18)

The true contemplative’s will should be set in God unwaveringly, should be

confirmed in God, should stand in him fully. Spiritual pride, the to-be-shunned
opposite of humility, which is itself the first requirement and foundation of the
religious life, is defined as falling into the pleasure of one’s own will for rest and
ease. These added references to the will reinforce the intended function of the
Chastising as a spiritual manual aimed at putting the readers on their guard against
temptation and errors. Falling into error or not is construed as a matter of how one
directs one’s will, either to one’s own pleasure or to God. This suggests that the
 Contexts and comments  129
religious, the true lover of God, has a choice and a responsibility in choosing and
accepting to live according to the precepts of ‘goode loue and feruent charite and
þe inward worchyng and touchyng of þe grace of god’ (Chastising 131/6–7).
In the next chapter, the translator again adds references to the will in passages
describing the differences between natural love and charity:

þe willis and the menynges bien myche discordynge and ful vnliche.28 (Chas-
tising 136/12–13; italics mine)

Whan þe loue of kynde passiþ þus of þe loue of god and charite be contrarious
wille and worchyng, þanne a man falliþ into foure perelous synnes.29 (Chastising
136/16–18)

The Chastising not only aims to put readers on their guard, it also aims to arm them
against the temptations it describes by providing remedies. With regard to the four
perilous sins of pride, avarice, gluttony and lechery, for example, the reader can
‘wake and preie that he falle nat into temptacion’ by following Mary inwardly and
outwardly, in intentions as well as in actions, as she found again the grace that
Adam, who first committed the four sins, lost by ‘mekenesse and largete, ... absti-
nence and clennesse’ (Chastising 138/4–5). The references to the will, the remedies
and the insistent incantation at the end of each chapter reinforce the Brulocht’s
message that each person should examine and search himself.
Concerns for the purity of the readers’ spiritual lives, similar to those voiced in
the Chastising, inspired MN, the translator of The Mirror of Simple Souls, to present
the text mediated by a prologue, fifteen commenting glosses and an epilogue. The
glosses illustrate MN’s eagerness for the readers to profit from the text, and to read
it correctly – i.e. in an orthodox way. Thus the insistence on discretio, rather than
the focus on the Free Spirit heresy, is the real common theme in both of the texts
contained in Bodley 505.
In spite of the condemnation of both the Mirror and its author, the book enjoyed
some popularity. It was not only translated into English, but also into Latin, and
subsequently into Italian. The translation into Latin may have been made in
order to accommodate the inquisitors in the trial against its author. The Middle
English translation, made from the original French, was itself also translated into
Latin by the Carthusian Richard Methley. It is striking that most of the surviving
manuscripts containing a version of the Mirror were owned (and therefore,
presumably, read) in orthodox monastic circles.30 It would seem that in these
orthodox communities the Mirror, which circulated as an anonymous text, i.e.
without association to the heretical beguine Porète, was considered interesting,
if not valuable and useful. The Middle English tradition of this text not only
illustrates the Mirror’s appeal to monastic religious in spite of its heterodox bent,
but also its controlled dissemination. Even though the Carthusian order played
an important role in the production of religious and devotional literature for lay
readers and religious outside the Charterhouse, the Mirror seems to have been kept
well within its walls.
130  Marleen Cré
Nicholas Watson has argued conclusively against Colledge and Guarneri’s
contention that, by adding his glosses, MN intended to bring a heretical text
back into line.31 Indeed, it is obvious that MN admired the text greatly and was
convinced of its holiness. His additions to the text in the form of a prologue, fifteen
glosses and an epilogue, show that he was eager to mediate between the text and
the audience. In his prologue, MN describes himself as a translator unworthy and
unfit to undertake the task at hand. Yet beyond the traditional humility-topos
formalities, the humble translator seems to have been truly in awe of the text he
was translating:

Þerfore suche wordis to be twies iopened, it wole be þe more of audience, and

so bi grace of oure Lorde goode God it schal þe more profite to þe auditoures.
But boþe þe first tyme and now I haue greet drede to do it, for þe boke is of
hiȜe diuine maters and of hiȜe goostli felynges, and kernyngli and ful mystili it
is spoken. (Mirror 247/11–15)

From this passage we learn that MN was translating the Mirouer for a second time.
The prologue tells us that the readers of MN’s first translation of the Mirror mistook
or took amiss – the verb ‘mystake’ (Mirror 247/8) can be interpreted either way
– some ‘words’ of it, and that MN resolved to explain these words in his second
translation:

Þerfore Ȝif god will, I schalle declare þoo wordes more openly; for þouȜ loue
declare þo poyntes in the same booke, it is but schortly spoken, and may be
taken oþere wise than it is mente of thaym þat rede it sodeynli and takis no
forther hede. (Mirror 247/8–11)

In order to help his readers use the text correctly, MN inserts glosses which should
guide the reader:

Therefore at suche places þere me semeth moost nede, I wole write mo wordis
þerto in maner of glose, aftir my symple kunnynge as me semeþ is best. And
in þese fewe places þat I putte yn more þan I fynde writen, I wole bigynne
wiþ þe firste lettre of my name, ‘M’ and ende wiþ þis lettre ‘N’ þe firste of my
surname. (Mirror 248/26–30)

MN’s decision to retranslate the text and to provide glosses does not need to
mean that the audience of MN’s first translation thought that the text was heret-
ical, though they may have found the text too radical to their liking. They may
not have associated the antinomian passages with the Free Spirit heresy, but they
could have recognised the text’s stance on the virtues and sacraments in isolated
passages as unchristian. MN’s interventions in the text frame these passages in the
realities of the contemplative life and the textual expression of this life in the Mirror.
As he stresses that he inserts the gloss ‘at suche places þere me semeth moost nede’
and ‘as me semeþ is best’, it would seem that MN is not only answering his audi-
 Contexts and comments  131
ence’s criticism (which is only referred to in general terms and therefore difficult
to recover), but is also responding to interpretative challenges which he himself
found in the text.32
While the prologue announces the translator’s intentions and suggests that his
glosses react to comments made by readers of his first translation, it also character-
iszes the text as elliptical (‘it is but schortly spoken’) and implies that MN believed
that the criticism of the first translation was due to the readers’ misreading of it (it
‘may be taken oþere wise than it is mente’). In other words, MN was convinced
that the Mirror’s message was sound and spiritually useful when read in the right
way, which would be the opposite of reading it quickly and without taking heed.
In a prayer that forms part of MN’s epilogue, the right way of reading the book is
defined as a reading inspired by divine grace. MN again voices his conviction that
the book is ‘deuoutly ymente’:

Bisechynge Ȝou, eternalle god, Ȝif it be plesynge to Ȝou, þat þoo þat redes this
booke ne mysse take no worde. But goode lorde, of Ȝoure grete benygnite
gyffe tham the grace of goostly felynge. Enspire þam with Ȝoure holigoste,
that þay may fully by the vertu of loue vndirstande it in the same holy wise
as it is deuoutly ymente, that it may turne to Ȝowe worschippe and to þam
profite of soule, be Ȝoure endles myȜt and bounte. (Mirror 355/8–13)

In some of the glosses MN provides, he states explicitly that he wants the readers
to make out for themselves what this difficult text means. The glosses serve as
pointers to aid the readers. When MN writes, in his third comment, that ‘many
mo oþir wordis that be written before and after, semes fable or erroure, or hard to
vndirstande’ (Mirror 256/17–18), he implies that they need not be so, and that the
readers can discover their meaning when they read the text attentively. Central to
his own attentive reading of the text is the understanding that contemplative union
is a brief and fleeting state of consciousness, and that all the seemingly heterodox
statements in the Mirror must be read as applying only to this moment of union.
In his thirteenth comment, MN calls for a metaphoric reading of the Mirror when
he interprets a statement by the soul that she need no longer work. MN interprets
this statement as referring to the moment of union with the divine only, not as a
permanent state of the Free Soul. He adds:

RiȜt þus alle siche wordis bus be declared with in tham silfe that redes this boke. For
þis derke wordis and hyȜe matters derkly spoken in this writynge, it is done
forto make þe saules of þe reders that be disposid to gastli felynges to circuye
and enserche bi sotilte of wit to come to þese diuine vndirstandinges, bi þe
whiche þay may be the mare able to receyue and folowe these heuenli vsages
of goddis werk. (Mirror 304/35–305/3; italics mine)

In other words, the readers have to be aware that they are dealing with descrip-
tions of divine realities, the meaning of which is not always easily revealed. In
his fourteenth comment, MN points out again that the state of freedom the soul
132  Marleen Cré
describes applies only to the brief moment of union of the soul with God. He
addresses his audience again:

Lo, Ȝe þat studies this boke, thus Ȝe muste withynne Ȝoure selfe glose suche derke
wordis, and Ȝif Ȝe may nouȜt come sone to the vndirstandynge þereof, offerith
it mekeli vp to god, and bi custome of ofte redynge þeron Ȝe schalle come
þerto. (Mirror 314/1–4)

MN’s main motif for his additions is guidance: he offers his readers an explana-
tion of the Mirror in order to ‘brynge Ȝou in þe weie’ (Mirror 314/5), as he himself
tells them. He offers them a framework in which they can make sense of the text,
but also tells them that they will have to ponder the difficult passages themselves in
order to be able to make sense of them. The right way that MN guides his readers
towards is an orthodox reading of the Mirror, away from a more radical interpreta-
tion that would associate the text with the antinomianism of Free Spirit heretics,
as his fourth gloss shows:

Þerfore this that loue says, that these saules ne desires masses, ne sermons,
fastinges ne orisons, it schulde not be so tane that they schulde leue it vndone.
He were to blynde that wolde take it in þat wise; but alle suche wordes in this
boke moste be take gostely and diuynely. … Now god for bede that any be so
fleschly to thenke þat it schulde mene to giffe to nature eny luste that drawis to
fleschly synne, ffor god knowes welle it is not so ymened. For synne moste be
had in conscience, wille a man or nyl he so, in the tyme or aftir. This may euery
creature wele witt that hase any witt and discrecion. (Mirror 259/8–12, 20–24)

Thus, the Ruusbroec passages translated in The Chastising of God’s Children and
the translator’s reading of The Mirror of Simple Souls alert the reader to the same
problems inherent in the contemplative life: misinterpretation of spiritual experi-
ences (whether one’s own or other people’s) and of their textual expression. Like
Ruusbroec in the Brulocht, MN points out the dangers of antinomianism, which
leads to a mystical experience of the self (natural rest) rather than to a mystical
experience of God.
Both texts can thus be shown to play similar roles in the lives of – in the specific
case of Bodley 505 – their Carthusian readers. Even as individual texts they would
have been used as touchstones for the readers’ own spiritual experiences and opin-
ions, inviting them to probatio and discretio in order to remain ‘in þe riȜt weie’. To
the Carthusians, whose vocations made them choose a strict and semi-eremitical
life of solitary prayer and contemplation, this constituted the essence of their lives.
In the solitude of their cells, the Chastising would have urged the Carthusian readers
ever to be on the alert for temptation:

Wherfore if men or wymmen of religion or of any parfeccion fele no tempta-

cioun, þanne ouȜten þei sorrest to drede, for þanne bien thei most tempted
whanne þei felen hem nat tempted. (Chastising 97/18–21)
 Contexts and comments  133
The Mirror, including the practically wise comments by MN, would have sharp-
ened the Carthusians’ understanding of how someone expressed being one with
God, helping them, if necessary, to recognise similar experiences in themselves.
Thus both texts would have acted as interlocutors, inviting the Carthusian monks
to continual spiritual action and growth ‘in witt and discrecion’.
In addition, for those attentive readers who read Bodley 505 in its entirety and
who recognised the errors described in the Chastising’s Ruusbroec passages when
they subsequently encountered them in the Mirror, MN’s comments must have
reinforced the message of the Chastising, as they show discretio in operation. Read
together, the texts point to each other in their emphasis on what is a pure experi-
ence of contemplation free from the presumption and pride inherent in natural
mysticism with antinomian tendencies. Indeed, it is this recognised necessity for
medieval contemplatives to ‘calibrate their machinery for spiritual probatio and
discretio’33 that provides a link between such seemingly disparate texts as the Chas-
tising and the Mirror. Thus the Chastising and the Mirror are not only each other’s
contexts, but can also be read as meaningful comments on each other’s discussion
of what constitutes true contemplation.

Notes
1 Marguerite Porète must have started to write the Mirouer in the last years of the thir-
teenth century. The terminus post quem for at least an early version of the text is 1306,
the year in which the Bishop of Cambrai condemned Marguerite’s text as heretical
and had it publicly burnt in Valenciennes. In 1309 she was again arrested and handed
over to secular justice. She was condemned as a relapsed heretic and died at the stake
on the place de Grève, on 1 June 1310. For a survey of surviving documents related
to Marguerite’s trial see Paul Verdeyen, ‘Le Procès d’inquisition contre Marguerite
Porète et Guiard de Cressonessart (1309–1310)’, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 81, 1986,
47–94.
2 On f. 223v Bodley has an inscription that shows ownership by the London Charterhouse:
‘Liber domus salutacionis matris dei ordinis cartusiensis prope London per Edmundum
Storoure eiusdem loci monachum’. Colledge and Bazire point out that Edmund Storoure
was prior of London Charterhouse between 1469 and 1477. He was later at Hinton,
where he died in 1503. See Joyce Bazire and Eric Colledge (eds), The Chastising of God’s
Children and the Treatise of Perfection of the Sons of God, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957, p. 4.
The St John’s College manuscript has the inscriptions ‘Liber domus Carthusie prope
Londonias’ on f. 104v, and ‘Libellus Cartusie’ on f. 1r. See Marilyn Doiron (ed.), ‘Þe
Mirrour of Simple Souls: An Edition and Commentary’, unpublished dissertation, Fordham
University, 1964, pp. x–xiv.
3 Additional 37790 (Amherst) was annotated by the Carthusian textual critic James Grene-
halgh, and most of the texts contained in it are within the sphere of Carthusian interest.
For James Grenehalgh, see Michael G. Sargent, James Grenehalgh as Textual Critic, Analecta
Cartusiana 85, 2 vols, 1984. For a detailed discussion of Amherst’s association with the
Carthusians see the first chapter of Marleen Cré, Vernacular Mysticism in the Charterhouse:
A Study of London, British Library, MS Additional 37790, The Medieval Translator 9, Turn-
hout: Brepols, 2006.
4 See Bazire and Colledge, op. cit., p.8.
5 Vincent Gillespie, ‘Dial M for Mystic: Mystical Texts in the Library of Syon Abbey and
the Spirituality of the Syon Brethren’, in Marion Glasscoe (ed.), The Medieval Mystical
Tradition in England, Ireland and Wales, Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999, p. 244.
134  Marleen Cré
  6 For Amherst there is enough evidence to suggest that it is a purpose-built anthology
with a conscious design; see Cré, op. cit.
  7 The translator borrows the Ruusbroec passages not from the Middle Dutch original,
but from Geert Grote’s Latin translation of it.
  8 See Robert E. Lerner, The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages, Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1972.
  9 Ibid., pp. 10–34.
10 See ibid., chapter 2, on how the Free Spirit heresy came to be associated with beguines
and beghards, and chapters 4 to 6 for accounts of the persecutions.
11 Ibid., p. 195, note 46.
12 Ibid., pp. 10–34.
13 In this respect, the example of Margery Kempe is worth considering. The repeated
accusations of being a Lollard levelled against her were closely linked to her not being
an enclosed, but a wandering laywoman with a religious vocation. Apparently, uncon-
ventional religious attracted attention, and were extremely likely to be accused of the
heresy or error that was around at the time.
14 References to the Chastising are to Bazire and Colledge’s edition, by page and line numbers.
References to the Brulocht are to J. Alaerts (ed.), Jan van Ruusbroec: Opera omnia 3: Die
Geestelike Brulocht, Turnhout: Brepols, 1988, by page and line numbers. References to
the Espousals are by line number to the modern English translation found on the left-
hand page of this edition. References to Geert Grote’s Latin translation, to which I refer
because it is the base text for the Middle English translator, are to Rijcklof Hofman
(ed.), Ioannis Rusbrochii ornatus spiritualis desponsationis, CCCM 172, Turnhout: Brepols,
2000, by line number. References to the Mirror are to Marilyn Doiron (ed.), ‘Marguerite
Porète. The Mirror of Simple Souls’, Archivio italiano per la storia della pieta 5, 1968, pp.
241–355, by page and line numbers.
15 See Paul Verdeyen, ‘Oordeel van Ruusbroec over de rechtgelovigheid van Margaretha
Porète’, Ons Geestelijk Erf 66, 1992, pp. 89–93.
16 Ibid., p. 95. My discussion of which points of Porete’s doctrine are criticised by Ruus-
broec follows Verdeyen’s analysis.
17 Ibid., p. 93.
18 For this view, see Geert Warnar, Ruusbroec: Literatuur en mystiek in de veertiende eeuw, Amsterdam:
Athenaeum – Polak & Van Gennep, 2003, p. 147.
19 Lerner, op. cit., p. 191; see also Warnar, op. cit., pp. 69–73.
20 In his article ‘Oordeel van Ruusbroec’, Verdeyen mentions that Porète’s Mirror was used
by weavers as a pamphlet against the Church (cf. Marguerite’s claim that the free soul
does not need any sacraments, prayers, etc. … and the distinction she makes between
the visible, imperfect Church and the invisible, perfect Church). Verdeyen bases his
argument here on the passage in which Ruusbroec describes the passive Free Soul as
‘a loom which itself is inactive and awaits its master’ (Espousals b2084–5). Verdeyen
comments that the Free Spirit heretics recruited followers among the weavers, and
that the French for weaver, ‘tisserand’, is a synonym for heretic (p.93). It is of course
true that manuscripts of the Mirror circulating outside monasteries would have had far
smaller chances of survival, and that we owe the versions of the text we have today to
people who passed the text on, even though it had been condemned. However, as the
shortlist of Free Spirit beliefs in Ad nostrum derived largely from the Mirror, and as this
was the decree used as the basis for cross-examination, it is inevitable that inquisitorial
records show the heretics as holding the ideas that can also be found in the Mirror.
21 ‘Quilibet se ipsum probet’ (Ornatus 2966–7).
22 Colledge and Bazire, op. cit., p. 35, p. 276, n. 143.16, p. 277, n. 144.21. See also
Lerner, op. cit., p. 195, n. 46.
23 Ibid., p. 35 and Anne Hudson, The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988, p. 434.
 Contexts and comments  135
24 See also chapter 19 of the Chastising, in which the reader is taught how to distinguish
between visions given by God, and visions that are of the devil.
25 See Brulocht b2327–2330 and Ornatus 3007–3010.
26 See Brulocht b2339–2341 and Ornatus 3022–3025.
27 See Brulocht b2347–2349 and Ornatus 3036–3039.
28 See Brulocht b2392 and Ornatus 3096.
29 See Brulocht b2395–6 and Ornatus 3102–3104.
30 As we have seen, the manuscripts in which the Middle English version of the Mirrour
survives are all associated with the Carthusian Order. The single extant copy of the
French text, Chantilly, Musée Condé, F XIV 26 (ancien 986), Catalogue 157, belonged
to the Priory ‘La Madeleine-lez-Orléans’. The community of ‘Les Dames Religieuses
de la Madeleine’ was a centre of intense religious life between 1475 and 1510, roughly
the time during which the manuscript must have been produced, though Guarneri and
Verdeyen do not say that the manuscript was actually produced at the priory. Of the
Latin manuscripts, there is only one whose provenance is known. Vatican, Bibliotheca
Apostolica Vaticana Codex Chigianus C IV 85 was copied in the Benedictine monas-
tery of Subiaco, in 1521. This manuscript was copied from an older manuscript, also
owned by the monastery, which was damaged because it had been partly eaten by mice, so
the scribe tells us. Another Latin manuscript, Oxford, Bodleian Library Laud. lat. MS
46 seems to have been written in Germany, though its exact provenance is unknown.
Verdeyen and Guarneri speculate that this might be the manuscript owned at some
point by the Charterhouse of Strasbourg. See Romana Guarnieri and Paul Verdeyen
(eds), Marguerite Porète. Le Mirouer des simples âmes; speculum simplicium animarum, CCCM 69,
Turnhout: Brepols, 1986, pp. viii, xi–xii.
31 Nicholas Watson, ‘Melting into God the English Way: Deification in the Middle English
Version of Marguerite Porète’s Mirouer des simples âmes anienties’, in Rosalynn Voaden (ed.),
Prophets Abroad: The Reception of Continental Holy Women in Late-Medieval England, Cambridge
: D.S. Brewer, 1996, pp. 36–7.
32 Marguerite’s text itself also includes a lot of advice to her readers about how to read
the text. An example: ‘[Love:] Gloses these wordes and Ȝe wille vndirstande it or Ȝe
schalle mysvndirstande it, ffor it hase sum semblaunce of the contrarie that vndirstandes
not þe fulhede of þe glose, and semblaunce is nouȜt trouthe, but trouthe is trouthe
and nothynge elles’ (Mirror 325/18–21). For a detailed analysis of MN translation and
glosses see chapter 5 of Cré, Vernacular Mysticism.
33 Gillespie, op. cit., p. 245.
8 The haunted text
Reflections in The Mirror
to Deuout People
Vincent Gillespie

As a text originally composed in the second quarter of the fifteenth century, the
circumstances of the composition and circulation of The Mirror to Devout People, a
directed meditation on the life of Christ, repay careful and discriminating atten-
tion.1 This work is preserved in two copies, which illustrate in their different
origins the acute problems of contextualising fifteenth-century religious writing.
Cambridge, University Library Ms Gg. 1. 6 is probably, like the text itself, of
southern Carthusian origin. Notre Dame, Indiana, University of Notre Dame MS
67 (olim Foyle) was owned by and probably made for the pious northern laywoman
Elizabeth Chaworth/Scrope. It is important to distinguish texts of this vintage
from those produced in the first flush of enthusiasm for vernacular guides to godli-
ness. Important not only because we have learned in recent years to attend much
more carefully to the impact on such vernacular writings of the Arundel decrees
of 1407–9, but also because we need to understand more fully the ebb and flow
of popular and institutional confidence in such writings. There is a model of the
development of the market for vernacular religious texts that charts a steadily
growing level of confidence and sophistication in the composition, production,
circulation and consumption of these works. This model sees the Arundel decrees
as intervening into that development primarily by forcing a change from original
composition in the vernacular to the more defensive compilation of approved
texts attributed to approved authorities from before the time of Wyclif. Hence,
the model goes, the renewed popularity of Rolle in compilations of the post-
Arundelian years (Rolle being safely dead by 1349), and the wholesale attribu-
tion of spurious works to him to travel under his protective cloaking. We have
grown familiar with the apparently dominant role of the English Carthusians,
with sometimes a supporting appearance by the Birgittines, in the production
and circulation of such texts. The underlying message of this model has been one
of consistent progress: vernacular works of growing sophistication, both intellec-
tual and organisational; a developing technologising of the means of information
retrieval in such texts through the provision of apparatus, indices, lists of chapters,
facilitating independent reading and selective consultation. The same model of
improvement applies to discussions of readership and reception. Prologues, it is
argued, increasingly address the broad and flexible range of readers that texts
of this kind aspire to reach: starting from the reflex, romance-driven formulaic
 The haunted text  137
invocations of ‘lered’ and ‘lewed’ in the catechetic and penitential texts of the late
thirteenth and fourteenth century, one can point to a more serene recognition in
later texts that the readership can expand from the named original recipient to
other readers, from professed religious to committed laymen; from women to men
and vice versa. This is a fundamentally ameliorative model – things can only get
better. Texts get smarter, readers more demanding, inscribed audiences get more
permissive and inclusive.2
It is probably time to inflect some aspects of this argument more carefully. This
chapter is offered as a small step in that process of reassessment, and starts from
two assumptions. First, that in London this model of democratisation and ventri-
loquial empowerment of the laity applied only to what Roger Lovatt perspica-
ciously called a tight-knit spiritual aristocracy of well-born lay people or wealthy
and socially mobile merchants and metropolitan secular priests (especially the
powerful Rectors of the city of London parishes), all often intimately related by
close family and personal links with a small number of powerhouse religious insti-
tutions: the Birgittines at Syon, the nuns of Dartford and Barking Abbey, and the
Charterhouses of London and Sheen. It is not accidental that it is precisely these
houses and these groups of readers that feature in the textual history of the two
works contained in the Notre Dame manuscript.3
The second assumption is that part of the problem in adequately historicising
post-Arundelian religious writings, and particularly writing in the period 1410–50,
lies in the studied and sustained atemporality and anonymity to which much of
it aspires, not just in its insistent reaching back to older writers like Rolle and its
cautious reliance on Augustine, Gregory and Jerome, but also in its coded and
oblique engagement with the theological events of its period, and in the almost
Chaucerian self-effacement of its religious authors. It is also important to register
the ‘conservatism’ that texts produced in this period often show, not just in theo-
logical matters, but in terms of their general ecclesiastical attitude to lay access to
spiritual texts. While it is proper to stress the importance of the Arundel decrees as
a potentially illiberal response to a perceived theological and political threat, for
example, it is surprising how little attention has been paid in writing on English
texts to the decrees of the Council of Constance (1414–17) and the far-reaching
impact they had on pan-European attitudes, or to the impact on English theolog-
ical thought and writing of the outspoken, prolific, widely read and emphatically
conservative Chancellor of Paris, Jean Gerson. The founding in 1415 of Sheen
and Syon, those ‘two chantries where the sad and solemn priests / Sing still for
Richard’s soul’ (Shakespeare, Henry V: 4.1. 301–2), as wealthy and favoured royal
foundations committed to orthodoxy and standing as bastions against heresy,
ought to be seen as a defining moment in the history of English religious writing at
least as significant as the Arundelian decrees, and perhaps with more long-lasting
effects on the intellectual timbre of English spirituality.4 The founding, generous
endowment and rapid growth of Syon and its libraries in the first half of the fifteenth
century adds an important new vector to the dynamics of the textual transmission
of religious texts.5 We already know of a distinctive ‘London group’ of Hilton
manuscripts pivoting on Sheen and Syon, and of a ‘London group’ of manuscripts
138  Vincent Gillespie
of The Imitation of Christ, also with strong Sheen and Syon representation.6 I suspect
that Syon’s intervention in the transmission of English spiritual writing was more
decisive than has yet been realised or established.
This is partly because we have been working with too monolithic a view of
the public role of the English Carthusian province in English spirituality in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Ian Doyle’s cautionary words that ‘we should
not assume too omnipresent or intitiatory a role for the Carthusians in the circula-
tion of writings not composed by their own members [because] we find them so
frequently among the owners of spiritual texts’ remind us that ownership is not
the same as transmission.7 We need to look more carefully at Carthusian interven-
tions in contemporary spiritual writing and we must assess the evidence for textual
circulation cautiously, without assuming that wide dissemination beyond an audi-
ence of confrères or fellow religious was ever a common intention of Carthusian
scribes and authors. In most cases, I suspect that such circulation was by accident
rather than design and without deliberate agency on the part of the Carthusians
themselves.8 Marleen Cré, for example, has recently persuasively argued that the
important collection of vernacular mystical and para-mystical texts in the Amherst
manuscript (London, British Library MS Additional 37790) was not just produced
within a Carthusian milieu (as had been widely accepted) but that it was also prob-
ably produced for a Carthusian audience.9
In the fifteenth century, of course, Carthusian intervention in public religious
culture starts at a high water mark with the exception that perhaps proves the rule:
the confident, almost glib control that Nicholas Love brings to his engagement
with the Meditationes Vitae Christi of Iohannes de Caulibus. Love’s text is supremely
secure in its relationship to the antiqui and to the moderni. It patronises its audience
with its playpen spirituality, but it equally patronises its sources in its selection,
rejection and modification of them. The result is a text with a notably harmo-
nious overall tone and style, the product of a writer at ease with his material and
with where it is going. It is dismissive of the Lollards and their views, refusing to
enter into debate or contestation with them, preferring the rhetorical mode of
simple confutation. His narrative sweeps along in a majestic display of confident
narrative control, secure in its relationship to its audience, in its relationship to
its sources and, subsequently, in its relationship to ecclesiastical authority. Love’s
text was explicitly targeted at ‘lewde men & women & hem þat bene of symple
vndirstondyng ... þe whiche as childryn hauen nede to be fedde with mylke of
lyȜte doctryne & not with sadde mete of grete clargye and of hye contemplacion.’10
Love is sufficiently assured in his role as an author to acknowledge the inevita-
bility, even perhaps the desirability of his readers undertaking their own imagina-
tive performance of the meditative catalysts he provides, confident that the good
sense and obedience of his readers will keep them within the bounds of theological
decency.11 A similar quiet authority, though infinitely more self-effacing, is found
slightly earlier in the writings of the Cloud author, although his works were much
more carefully controlled in their circulation, achieving only ‘a seemingly slow
and tight diffusion through the Carthusians and other contemplative communities
and individuals’.12
 The haunted text  139
But something happens to that confidence as the century progresses. Much later
we get the introspective writings of Richard Methley and John Norton reflecting
uneasily, indeed anxiously, on their own meditative and contemplative experi-
ences; and the red annotator’s self-conscious and perhaps self-justifying comments
on the text of Margery Kempe. In the generation after Love we can see the Char-
terhouses apparently collecting firsthand accounts describing the raw data of
mystical experience, as well as accumulating texts to guide that process of probatio
and discretio whose nascent technology was known in the Cloud corpus as ‘discre-
tion of spirits’. The Book of Margery Kempe; the 1456 Vision of Edmund Leversedge;
the Short Text of Julian of Norwich; Margarete Porete, Ruusbroec; the mystical
diaries of Norton and Methley: all are grist to the mill of Carthusian self-analysis,
no doubt primarily to help in the calibration of their own processes of spiritual
self-assessment, and perhaps also to equip them as spiritual advisors for other
members of the community.13 But the tightly controlled circulation of these texts
within the order and their largely successful policing of them to prevent leakage
into a potentially more volatile readership in the wider community suggests a more
cautious approach to their making of books. Indeed in fifteenth-century England
the movement of such texts is largely centripetal (in from the laity to the Charter-
house by acquisition or testamentary bequest) rather than centrifugal (out from
the Charterhouse into lay circulation). The only version of Margery Kempe’s
book that saw the light of day before modern times was that highly edited and
crafted set of printed excerpts that describe her as a recluse, and the circumstances
of that printing have more than a whiff of Syon provenance about them.14 The
common-profit book extracts from Rolle and Hilton circulating among certain
rich merchants and stationers in London in the mid-century years carefully select
less volatile aspects of their teachings, and in any case derive from a textual milieu
that again points strongly to Syon rather than the Carthusians as a point of origin
or dissemination.15
Love’s epigraph was St Paul’s (and Chaucer’s) dictum that all that is written is
written for our doctrine. The practice of his later confrères is much less inclusive,
and much less trusting. In the decades immediately after Love, Carthusian textual
production was much more focused on books that provided for the needs of
professed religious than on the needs of devout laymen.16 That such laymen may
eventually have come to own works produced in response to the needs of such
religious should not lead us to infer too readily that the Carthusians were active
parties to such a transfer. Recent work on lay reading and textual communities of
well-born and noble women in London has suggested that their patterns of book
ownership and reading are largely indistinguishable from those of their sisters and
daughters who were professed nuns. In some cases, we know that books could be
commissioned from stationers by laymen to be given to female family members in
nunneries: the Barking Abbey and Dartford books explored in detail by Ian Doyle
are well known.17 But we know much less about the books and texts that leached
out from circulation inside such religious houses to achieve wider readership
and circulation in the general population. If the Carthusians were more cautious
and perhaps more introspective in their book-making activities post-Arundel and
140  Vincent Gillespie
post-Constance, we may need another conduit through which their works reached
a wider readership. I suspect that in London the main such conduit, and a notably
leaky one, was in fact Syon. I also suspect that, with or without the conscious
consent or permission of the Carthusians over the river, the special circumstances
of the Syon Brethren and the special configuration of the double convent at Syon
led to books originating at Sheen being propelled into much wider circulation.
The standard scholarly accounts of the London transmission of the works of
Richard Rolle and Walter Hilton often refer to a Sheen–Syon axis for the produc-
tion, circulation and transmission of those authors. The typical taxonomy of
such explorations reveals that we have named Carthusian scribes or identifiably
Carthusian books being read or owned by named and identifiable Syon nuns, thus
establishing a de facto (albeit enclosed and silent) textual community on both sides
of the river. So, although the Syon–Sheen textual community comprises a group
of monks serving the reading needs of a group of nuns, it is Carthusian monks
primarily serving the needs of Birgittine nuns. This emergent textual community
has one striking oddity about it: it almost entirely effaces and marginalises the
Brethren of Syon. The role of the Syon Brethren as producers of contemplative
and other religious works is indeed modest when they are separated out from the
male Sheen–female Syon axis.18 In the first half-century of the house’s existence,
from the first enclosures in 1420 to the regularisation of arrangements for the
Brethren’s library in 1471, The Orcherd of Syon and the Mirror of Our Lady are the only
substantial works that can be confidently ascribed a Syon authorship, and both of
these are targeted at an in-house audience of Syon nuns. No text that has been
assigned a Sheen–Syon provenance by modern scholarship has Syon authorship
claimed for it in the catalogue of the Brethren’s library.19 The only named Syon
author in the vernacular in this period is Symon Wynter, to whom are ascribed
sermons on the Syon indulgences, expositions of the Marian canticles and a Life of
Jerome translated into English for one of his spiritual clients, Margaret, Duchess of
Clarence. Now, if Sheen regularly made books for Syon, under commission and
perhaps under the direction of the Syon Brethren, that does not mean that those
books were designed or intended to circulate more widely than that very specific
original audience. On the other hand, neither does it mean that the Syon Brethren
would have felt under any constraint about facilitating such a wider circulation. In
his life of Jerome, Wynter exhorts Margaret ‘that hit sholde lyke your ladyship first
to rede hit & to do copye hit for yoursilf & syth to lete oþer rede hit & copye hit
whoso wyll’. Here is prima facie early evidence of textual transmission from Syon:
the exemplar is to return to the abbey, but the copy made from it may itself be
freely copied by whoever wishes access to it among the Duchess’s circle of friends
and contacts.20
So where does that leave the Mirror to Devout People, and why have I described it
as a haunted text? The Mirror to Devout People, or the Speculum devotorum to give it the
less permissive and socially inclusive title it wears in its religious rather than secular
guise, treats the life, death, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ in thirty-three
chapters, one for each year of Christ’s life on earth.21 In the Cambridge copy,
which has a Sheen ex libris inscription, the author indirectly identifies himself as a
 The haunted text  141
Carthusian by referring to Nicholas Love as ‘a man of oure ordyr of charturhowse’.
In the Notre Dame copy the reference is, more enigmatically, to ‘a man of our
ordoure’ (f. 1r): the reference to the Charterhouse was either added for explicitness
in the ‘religious’ copy in Cambridge (or its antecedents) or deleted as irrelevant in
the ‘secular’ copy in Notre Dame (or its antecedents).22 Colophons in both manu-
scripts elliptically refer to the House of Jesus of Bethlehem at Sheen, established
across the river from Syon and soon to become the largest and richest house of
the English Carthusian province.23 The Cambridge manuscript was copied by
William Mede, a professed Carthusian of Sheen, who was ordained as an acolyte
in 1417 and died as sacrist in 1474. The colophon in Notre Dame has the initials
WH, perhaps an error for WM or indicating the name of another Carthusian
author or scribe (though I cannot find a Sheen monk with those initials in the,
admittedly incomplete, obit lists for the first seventy years of the house’s history),
but possibly trying to pass off as the work’s ‘oonlie begetter’ that other Mr WH,
the cautious and conservative Walter Hilton, whose works were valued at Sheen
and Syon. That the Notre Dame copy has moved some way from the text’s place
of conception is suggested by the dialect of its scribe, in contrast to William Mede’s
‘suthren tonge’ localised as Surrey (in which county, of course, Sheen itself sat).24
Addressed to a ‘gostely sustre in Ihesu criste,’ or ‘relygiouse sustre’ (f. 5r), but
one whose command of Latin is limited, the work purports to fulfil an earlier
promise made to the ghostly sister to provide a meditation on the Passion of the
Lord. ‘By counseill’, that is on the advice of other spiritual and good men, prima-
rily the prior of his Charterhouse, the author has expanded that original plan to
include the whole life: ‘I haue putte to mykyll more þanne I behette yow’ (f. 1r).
The initial relationship between author and recipient, therefore, is clearly posited
as personal, even intimate, perhaps one of spiritual director to advisee. It has been
suggested that the ghostly sister is most probably a nun, and likely to be a nun of
Syon, and the evidence of the text strongly supports a nun of Syon as one of the
intended audiences of the work. The extent of the contact between the Carthusian
and the nun is unclear, as it invariably is in such cases, the most famous of which is
the relationship between another later Sheen Carthusian, James Grenehalgh, and
another later Syon nun, Joanne Sewell.25 Uniquely in the case of Sheen and Syon,
such face-to-face relationships may not have been impossible. Pope Martin V, in
approving the foundation of Syon in two bulls issued in 1418, may have remitted to
the Bishop of London the power to permit Carthusians to assist ‘ad ministrandum
et obsequendum’ at Syon, overriding the severe and often repeated provisions of
the Carthusian statutes about the maintenance of the enclosure, perhaps because
there were initial shortages of Syon Brethren to undertake the spiritual care of the
nuns.26 The Carthusian author refers to ‘when we spake laste to gidre’ (f. 1r), but
the relationship is configured as primarily textual, and the tone adopted echoes that
of earlier letters of spiritual direction, and indeed of Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, one
of the sources explicitly cited by the Mirror author. So one need not posit exten-
sive meetings between the parties for there to have been a spiritual relationship.
Indeed it might be possible to argue that the author’s knowledge of similar texts
would have allowed him to create in his work a series of gestures that positioned
142  Vincent Gillespie
his text comfortably in the genre of such letters and in the privileged intimacy of
writings such as Rolle’s English epistles, the Cloud and Privy Counselling and the
opening of book 1 of The Scale of Perfection (which is the only book of Hilton’s work
of which the Mirror-author shows textual knowledge).
But it is soon clear that comfort and security are not the emotions uppermost
in his mind in writing the prologue. Indeed the prologue presents a compelling
portrait of a man haunted by his own sense of textual inadequacy, an inadequacy
that goes well beyond conventional generic gestures of humility and incapacity.
Although he apes the gestures of the ‘pore compilator’, as his main source Iohannes
de Caulibus (Pseudo-Bonaventure) and Nicholas Love had done before him, his
textual insecurity is much more evident.27 His main textual debt, he writes, is to
‘Boneauenture a cardynale and a worthi clerk’ and he had often put off beginning
his own work because of his own unworthiness and because he had ‘herde telle’
that a man of his order had already translated Bonaventure into English; that man
is, of course, Nicholas Love, first prior of Mount Grace. It is worth noting that he
claims (and indeed displays) no firsthand knowledge of Love’s book (beyond the
fact that he has been told of its existence), despite its status as a widely circulated
and popular text with the accolade of an imprimatur from the archbishop.28 Instead
he asks advice from ‘spyrituell and goode men’ (f. 1r) and accepts the counsel of
his prior and other ‘gostely faders’ to continue with the work as best he can among
his other duties and ‘excercyes’ (f. 1v).
Life in a Carthusian cell could be an isolated as well as a solitary affair, and it
may only have been the priors who knew much of what was going on elsewhere
in the order and in the wider world. Indeed it was probably the prior who deter-
mined the allocation or destination of books copied inside his house and who
approved commissions for copying coming from outside the house. The chronicle
of London Charterhouse records the book-making activities of John Homersley,
a long-serving member of the London house from his profession in 1393 until his
death in 1450. Homersley was an assiduous scribe, praised by the chronicle for
his obedience to Guigo’s exhortations in the order’s Consuetudines that Carthusians
should preach the word of God with their hands. ‘Carrying what he had written
to the prior’s cell, he did not take care that they should be lent to anyone or put
anywhere, but leaving them there with the prior he returned in silence to his
cell.’ Although these books may have been for the use of his own community, the
chronicle also records that ‘a certain priest’, presumably outside the house, used
to supply Homersley with parchment for writing books and after death appeared
to him with the Virgin Mary to point out an error in his copying and to urge him
kindly to amend it.29
The Carthusian booklists offer only flimsy and fragmentary evidence of the
order’s book culture in the fifteenth century. Most evidence comes from surviving
manuscripts that were in Carthusian hands or were produced by them.30 Impressive
though they can seem, we should be careful not to overstate the textual resources
and knowledge inside the order early in the fifteenth century, and in particular we
should beware of over-extrapolation from the holdings in one house to those in
another. Although the fragmentary surviving booklists suggest that books moved
 The haunted text  143
round between the different houses of the order, it is striking that Love’s Mirror, this
mega-text of the English Carthusian province, appears in the Mirror to Devout People
only as a ghostly absence of presence. This is all the more surprising as Henry
V, as part of his founder’s benevolence, had authorised an exchequer payment
of £100 to Mount Grace ‘pro certis libris et aliis rebus’ (‘for certain books and
other things’) that had been sent to Sheen, presumably to build up the library of
the new royal foundation. But in 1420 the General Chapter of the Carthusians
was still instructing Sheen to acquire those books that it needed, so the collection
must have been inadequate or at least incomplete.31 In his last will (10 June 1421)
Henry had also left most of his own substantial collection of sermons and books
of meditation to be divided equally between Sheen and Syon, with Syon getting
the preaching books because the Carthusians were forbidden to preach. Henry
had also left to Sheen a copy of Gregory the Great that was already in their care.
While there are grounds for believing that neither Sheen nor Syon received any of
the promised royal books, the Syon library was quickly augmented by substantial
private collections from its first Brethren, such as the Lincoln grammar master
John Bracebridge (who gave well over a hundred books).32 It is unlikely that any
English Charterhouse of this date had anything like the size of library enjoyed by
the Brethren of Syon, even in the first quarter-century of that house’s life.
Certainly not, it would appear, the nearest Charterhouse to Syon. For, if we take
this prologue at face value, it seems that Sheen did not have a copy of Nicholas
Love at the time that the Mirror to Devout People was composed. The three copies
of that work made by the Sheen Carthusian Stephen Dodesham all date from
rather later in the fifteenth century.33 But the author of the Mirror to Devout People
was not without textual resources, as the list of sources in my Appendix shows.
In addition to the Pseudo-Bonaventure (itself a repertory of citations from Peter
Comestor, Bernard and others), he cites the Historia scholastica of Peter Comestor;
Nicholas of Lyra’s literal Postills on the Gospels; sermons and other works by
John Chrysostom, Clement, Augustine, Bede, Gregory, Bernard; the first book
of Hilton’s Scale of Perfection; Suso’s Orologium sapientiae (often the same passages as
occur in the Carthusian Ludolph of Saxony’s Vita Christi); Legenda aurea; The Three
Kings of Cologne; Mandeville’s Travels (probably in English); one of the infancy
Gospels; Richard of St Victor; the Carthusian Adam of Dryburgh; miracles of the
virgin and other materials. In addition he draws on certain revelations of what
he calls ‘approued women’ (f. 3r), namely Mechtild of Hackeborn, Elizabeth of
Töss, Catherine of Siena and Birgitta of Sweden. Despite this formidable array of
sources (some carried through from the Pseudo-Bonaventure, but many not), the
author is fearful of his own ‘vnkonnyng and vnworthynesse’ (f. 1v), but hopeful
that he may be excused by the merits of those who are profited by his ‘symple
travayle’.34 His sources are not always very deftly handled and, unlike Love, he
often steers his text towards the ascetic and pragmatic and away from the affective
and imaginative. His array of sources, and his often clumsy marshalling of them,
reveals rather the influence of anxiety than the anxiety of influence. Far from
being a dwarf on the shoulders of giants, he is a dwarfish narrator lost among a sea
of giant legs and often uncertain which leg to cling on to.35
144  Vincent Gillespie
And he is a very anxious author. Early in the prologue he is already extending
his inscribed audience beyond his ghostly sister, not in a permissive and confi-
dent way, but almost in the expectation of criticism. He answers ‘ony man’ who
may ask why he bothers to write another text after Bonaventure by hoping that
his meditations, by the grace of God, may be ‘full profitable to deuoute cresten
soules’ (f. 2r) even though ‘he that wrote friste þe meditacions folowyng were bot a
sympyle man and of no reputacioun’ (ff. 1v–2r).36 He has avoided adding ‘ymagi-
naciouns’ that might have appealed to carnal souls, but has added nothing of his
‘owne wytte’ except things that he hopes may be conceived by ‘open resoun and
goode conciens’ (f. 3r).37 As a compiler, augmenting Pseudo-Bonaventure, he has
relied most heavily on Peter Comestor and Nicholas of Lyra:

For þei gone moste nerest to þe story and to þe letterale vnderstondyng of

ony doctores þat I haue redde noght wythstondyng I haue broght in other
doctores in diuers places as to morall vertues. (f. 3r)

This is an altogether more ascetic text than other works in the Meditationes tradition.
Several interesting points emerge from these statements of humility. First,
although his primary support came from his own prior, he also receives good
advice and counsel from other ‘gostely faders’. Who might they be? Possibly
members of his own house, but perhaps also those ‘spyrituell and goode men’
on the other side of the river, the thirteen priests, four deacons and eight lay
brothers who, at full strength, made up the Brethren of Syon, an austere and
high-minded group into whose care the spiritual welfare of the sixty Syon nuns
was entrusted by the Birgittine rule.38 As we shall see, there are a number of
oblique comments in the text that may allude to the distinctive features of the
Birgittine foundation, and to the role of the Brethren in it. If we can locate this
text firmly and plausibly in a closed Sheen–Syon nexus, without an implied or
achieved lay circulation as part of the author’s intended audience for the text,
then this will change the emphasis in our reading of the work and in our percep-
tion of the mechanics of its circulation. If Syon was the conduit and perhaps the
commissioner of the work, then we will need to reconsider the agency of the
Carthusians in the lay circulation witnessed by the Notre Dame manuscript, and
perhaps modify or recontextualise our model of Carthusian involvement in the
textual transmission of vernacular materials.
Second, he refers to himself as the man who ‘wrote friste’ (f. 1v) the medita-
tions following, perhaps implying that he envisages others copying the text after
he has finished it. Is he perhaps haunted by the knowledge that any text sent to
Syon stands a good chance of being copied and disseminated beyond the walls
of that cloister, whatever its original intended audience? If so, his anxiety was
well founded: the Notre Dame manuscript is copied elegantly but rather hastily
and imperfectly. The text is full of corrections and emendations between the
lines and in the margins, and at the end of the Mirror there is a marginal note
on the first blank line which reads ‘examinatur’ (f. 109r): this copy has been
corrected against an exemplar and its deficiencies supplied. Indeed, given that
 The haunted text  145
the marginal rulings for chapter headings and marginalia continue seamlessly on
from the ruling for text, it may be that this copy was designed to replicate the
mise en page of its exemplar.
Whatever the intentions expressed by the author in the prologue, presumably
written last as it contains a table of the chapters in the work and offers, as Ian
Johnson (1989) has shown, a formal, accessus-like account of the whole work, the
text of the Mirror itself reveals a plurality of inscribed audiences and readers. This
plurality might support the assumption that the author envisaged the text reaching
the hands and eyes of diverse lay readers. But it may be that his compositional
practice was neither as systematic nor as apparently emancipatory as that. In some
cases the plurality of possible reading positions reflects the haunting presence of
reading postures envisaged by the sources employed at that point in the work. In
other cases the internal logic of the exposition and the drift of his own reflections
draws the author ineluctably into configuring his audience in a particular way.
While the peroration implies an apparent authorial recognition of the inevitability
of a wider readership, and of the possibility of the work being selectively read or
copied when he addresses ‘yow here or ony other deuoute seruante of god þat is
by his grace to rede þis booke or ony parte þer of’ (f. 108r), this kind of selective
devotional reading is similar to that encouraged at Syon, as we shall see below. We
need to attend carefully to the voces paginarum and see what they tell us about the
way that the text configures its readership or audience.
While the audience most explicitly addressed at the start and finish of chap-
ters is the ‘gostely sustre’, the dominant inscribed audience of the text is a less
clearly specified religious woman. Chapter 18, discussing the events of Maundy
Thursday, puts words into the mouth of his inscribed audience (f. 55r): ‘Here as
me semeth yhe myght sey ... I þat am a woman’, questioning why she can receive
communion only under the form of bread. But he ventriloquises this question only
to require her obediently to accept ‘þis littel þat I haue seide to yow’, to avoid
asking questions about the sacrament, and to put her faith generally in the faith of
holy church along with ‘other comon peple’ (f. 55r), ‘and þat is ynogh to yche meke
cresten soule’ (f. 55v). In the Passion chapters, the reader is configured, in typical
Pseudo-Bonaventuran style, as one of the women who accompany Mary through
the ordeal of the crucifixion and its aftermath, encouraging her to imagine what
service she would have offered to the virgin if she had been present with her.
Elsewhere in the text, he seems to acknowledge the possibility of female lay read-
ership: the finding of the child Jesus in the temple (cap. 10) prompts a discussion
of Mary’s words to Christ when she says ‘Your father and I have been looking for
you’, citing Augustine on Mary’s meekness in putting Joseph first in the sentence,
and arguing that women, and particularly those that have husbands, should learn
to be meek and not to prefer themselves in any things. Elsewhere again he explains
that Joseph lived as a ‘mayden’ with Mary after the Visitation, for as doctors say
they ‘bothe avowede to gidre virgynite’ (f. 15v). He is much more emphatic about
this than Pseudo-Bonaventure, perhaps reflecting the growth in popularity of
vows of married chastity in the fifteenth century (such as that taken by Margery
and John Kempe) and the increasing number of widowed vowesses. Elizabeth
146  Vincent Gillespie
Chaworth/Scrope, one of the original owners of the Notre Dame copy, took the veil
as a vowess after the death of her husband John Lord Scrope in 1455, and a number
of high-born vowesses were associated with Syon in the fifteenth century.39
In keeping with the feminine targeting of these audiences, a distinctive feature
of the Mirror is the emphasis it gives to the actions, reactions and emotions of the
Virgin Mary. Much of this is highly conventional, and on one level this is only a
somewhat more restrained reflection of the role that Mary typically plays in the
Meditationes tradition as the suffering subject, the inscribed point of view within the
text that acts as an affective paradigm for the reactions of the reader. There are
plenty of invitations throughout the text to feel pity, sorrow, grief and imaginative
engagement with Mary as she observes and meditates on the events of Christ’s
life. But there are also some interesting inflections of the tradition. Following the
Pseudo-Bonaventure, for example, the Mirror mounts a robust defence of the apoc-
ryphal tradition that Jesus appeared first to his mother on the morning of his Resur-
rection, coming to her in a parody of the Annunciation while she sits alone deep
in meditation in the Upper Room on ‘Mounte Syon.’40 She is, as he comments, ‘a
perfite ensample’ and ‘a trewe myrour of perfeccioun to all wymmen as our lord
Ihesu to all men’ (f. 12r). At the Annunciation, we are invited to imagine her as a
nun-like figure, in her cubiculum, at her prayers as the Angel arrives, ‘for she was
alwaye wele occupiede’ (f. 9v: this detail is not in Pseudo-Bonaventure).41
But the Mirror goes rather further than this in its presentation of her as a model
contemplative and a paradigm of reflection and meditation on the events that
unfolded before her. He achieves this mainly through extensive borrowings from
the writings of his ‘approued women’, namely Mechtild of Hackeborn, Catherine
of Siena, Elizabeth of Töss and, most extensively, Birgitta of Sweden.42 In the
Nativity chapter (cap. 5), much influenced by Birgitta, Mary stands ‘as þoff sche
had be lifte up in ane extasye or suownynge of contemplacion yfillede with gostely
swetnes’(f. 17v). Her lyric meditations and laments at the foot of the cross and at
the deposition provide valuable, if basically conventional, formulae for the affective
meditator to respond to and copy. The Mirror repeats and develops the assertion
in Pseudo-Bonaventure and in Ludolph of Saxony that, on returning home after
the burial of Christ, she stopped at the cross and reverenced it, becoming the first
person so to do, emphasising in two consecutive chapters that between the Cruci-
fixion and the Resurrection ‘in hir alone \a/bode þe feyth of holy churche þat
time’ (f. 82v: this detail not in Pseudo-Bonaventure).43 Most tellingly, in filling in
the void in the Gospels relating to the events of Holy Saturday, the Mirror, in a
major expansion of the description in Pseudo-Bonaventure, reports that Mary
undertakes a retrospective meditation on all the happenings that she has witnessed
in the previous few days, and all the events of Christ’s life on earth, offering a
paradigm of the ideal reading process envisaged by the text for itself. This reflec-
tion takes place when Mary is alone in the room where the Last Supper had
been held, located, we are repeatedly told, in a part of Jerusalem called ‘Mello þat
is to seye in Mounte Syon’ (f. 82v). Elsewhere in the book, he repeats verbatim
extracts from Birgitta’s revelations that record her first-person response to her
showings, which he leaves as gendered direct speech so that the (implied female)
 The haunted text  147
reader can appropriate them for use as a personal meditation. So the female and
contemplative strands in the book are quite prominent.
Interestingly, though, the text also addresses itself on occasion to male religious.
Speaking of Mary’s visitation to Elizabeth and the lessons in meekness it teaches,
he writes that ‘þis is necessarie and profitable to yow and to other men and women
that lyuen in religion and haue forsaken your owne wyll’ to live under the ‘meke
and siker Ȝoke of obedience’ (f. 15r). (In the Notre Dame copy, this chapter’s lengthy
exposition of the kinds of meekness is closely monitored and signposted by extensive
marginalia.) At the Last Supper, John’s marvelling at Christ’s words betokens that
‘men and women þat haue taken vp on hem þat state of contemplatyue lyuynge’
should be busily and diligently occupied in ‘louynge’ (meaning both loving and
praising) of God and forget all worldly things (f. 57r). At the Purification, Mary’s
obedience to Mosaic law is a ‘feire ensample to all religiouse men and women howe
gladly theye shulde obeye to the obseruaunces of here reules and þe byddynges of
her souereynes’, as well as a ‘generale ensample’ to all Christian people to obey the
biddings and ordinances of Holy Church (ff. 26v–27r).
But the most extraneous audience invoked by the text is an audience of male reli-
gious who are both contemplatives and, most unusually, also preachers. Chapter
13, dealing with Christ’s retreat into the desert and his temptations there, and
chapter 14, covering the calling of the Apostles, are presented as a paradigm form
of living for all preachers. These addresses to preachers are not found in Pseudo-
Bonaventure, which refers at this point to an audience of ‘monachi’.44 Chapter 13
exhorts all preachers and teachers to follow Christ, who withdrew into the desert
of his own spirit:

¶Also in þat he yaf ensample þat men þat wolde preche and teche goddis
worde shuld firste vsen hem selfe to be mykell alone fro þe companyes of folke
where they myghte Ȝeue hem conueniently to holy meditacions and prayers,
fastynge, wakynge and other holy exercyces by þe whiche helpynge þe grace
of god þei myghte ouercome vices in hem selfe and þe sotell temptacyoun of
þe fende. (f. 37r)

‘And so wolde God’, he continues, ‘alle prechoures wolde do nowadayes’ (f. 37v),
a passage marked Nota bene in the margin of Notre Dame. Warming to his theme in
chapter 14, he notes that when people hear or read the words of graduates, masters
of divinity or doctors of law, they have ‘grete deynte þer of’ and ‘comenden it
gretely’. But if the words come from a ‘common letterde man’ or a ‘deuoute man
not graduate þat is to seye not degreede’ they despise it and have little dainty of
it (f. 41v). This is an odd passage and out of keeping with its context, and with its
sources (it is not in Pseudo-Bonaventure), though its primary purpose is to explain
the mix of learned and ‘lewd’ men called by Jesus to be his apostles. But coming
from the pen of a man who has been haunted by his own sense of inadequacy when
faced with the textual authority of the cardinal and great clerk Bonaventure and
of other doctors he has read and cited, and who describes himself as a ‘sympyle
man and of no reputacioun’ (f. 2r) it seems particularly heartfelt. On one level
148  Vincent Gillespie
this is typical Carthusian intellectual modesty: consider the (probably Carthusian)
translator’s prologue to the vernacular version of Suso’s Orologium sapientiae and
his allegory of the sphere with three levels where the doctors and scholars miss out
on the wisdom of God because they are puffed up with scientia and miss the sapientia
that comes from the simple and total love of God, or the Mirror author’s statement
in his prologue that meditation on the Passion of Christ makes unlearned men into
learned men, and ‘unwise’ men and idiots into masters not of the science that puffs
up but of charity that edifies, a statement itself taken from Suso and also used by
Ludolph of Saxony.45
But on the other hand this concern with preachers who live lives of reclusion in
the desert and with the popular preference for graduates and doctors over simple
men may reflect another level of anxiety, another haunting: a possible sense of
intellectual inadequacy in the face of the high-powered (often graduate) contem-
plative community living just over the river in the desert of Syon, who were by this
date already winning praise and reputation for their learning and, most strikingly,
for their work as preachers to the laity. When he draws attention to the inau-
thentic and apocryphal material in the Gospel of Nichodemus he includes it with the
words: ‘I commytte it to þe dome of þe reder whether he woll admytte it or none’
(f. 91v). He here inscribes a male reader with the ability to exercise theological
judgement and discrimination.
Does the Mirror to Devout People make more sense if it is seen as addressed to the
totality of the community in Syon: religious sisters, contemplative fathers who
were also preachers, lay people living in the abbey, or as spiritual clients of the
Brethren? How does the text look if we put it in a Birgittine rather than a Carthu-
sian context? Can we more adequately account for the text’s unusual features
by placing it, initially at least, in a tight, specific and conveniently local setting
rather than in the looser framework of broad and increasing lay access to such
materials?
The prominent and privileged position occupied by Mary in the Mirror to Devout
People, though not unprecedented in the Meditationes vitae Christi tradition and fairly
commonplace in the meditations on the Passion that the Mirror author initially
intended to write, is paralleled by the unusual prominence given to Mary in the
constitution of the Birgittine order:

This religion þerfore I wyll sette & ordeyne fyrst & principally by women to
the worshippe of my most dere beloued modir, whose ordir and statutys I
shall declare most fully with myn owne mowthe.

‘Per mulieres primum et principaliter’ (‘for women first and foremost’).46 These
are the words of Christ in the preamble to the Regula salvatoris dictated by him to
Birgitta. A postulant for admission at Syon was preceded into the church by a red
banner with images of Mary on one side and the crucified Christ on the other.
The bishop draws her attention to the banner saying that the image of Christ
teaches patience and poverty while the image of Mary teaches chastity and meek-
ness. The manner of the Birgittine life is equally clearly stated in the Rule:
 The haunted text  149
The begynnyng of this religion and of helth ys very mekenes and pure chastite
and wylfull pouerte.
Principium itaque huius religionis et non est salutis, est vera humilitas, pura
castitas atque voluntaria paupertas.47

Meekness, chastity, patience and poverty of spirit are repeatedly singled out by the
author of the Mirror to Devout People as the dominant virtues inculcated by his text
(though these are, of course, commonplaces of meditative writing), especially in his
discussion of Mary’s behaviour at the Visitation to Elizabeth. The ascetic contem-
plative life of Syon is well matched in the controlled tone of the Mirror to Devout
People, which is notably less enthusiastic and affective and more cautious about
‘ymaginaciouns’ than other texts in the Meditationes tradition. The office of the
Syon sisters was based on the Sermo angelicus, again dictated to Birgitta and heavily
focused on the role of Mary in the economy of salvation, while the liturgical and
para-liturgical prayer of both houses sent up a seamless hymn of praise to God
and to his mother. The companion to the office, the Mirror of Our Lady, translated
and glossed the Birgittine Breviary for those of limited latinity and must have been
composed in the same decades that produced our text.48
‘By women for the worship of Mary’: the role of the nuns was to observe strict
enclosure and to sing the praises of the Virgin, in a life of obedience to the Abbess
as ‘souereyn’ of the house. The language of the prologue to The Orcherd of Syon, a
version of ‘approued’ Catherine of Siena’s Dialogo produced for the Syon nuns,
echoes the language used in the Mirror:

Religyous modir & deuote sustren clepid & chosen bisily to laboure at the
hous of Syon in the blessid vyneȜerd of oure holy Saueour, his parfite rewle
which himsilf enditide to kepe contynuly to Ȝoure lyues eende vndir þe gouer-
naunce of oure blessid Lady, hir seruise oonly to rede and to synge as hir
special seruauntis and douȜtren, and sche Ȝoure moost souereyne lady and
cheef abbes of hir holy couent.49

The structure of the order, sixty nuns, thirteen priests (the apostles plus St Paul),
eight lay brothers and four deacons (Ambrose, Gregory, Jerome and Augus-
tine), the total symbolising the post-Ascension community of the Church, privi-
leges the role of the Abbess as the head of the community, with primacy over
the whole business of the house and over the Brethren, led by the Confessor-
General, who was second in dignity, superior in spiritual matters and near
coeval, much to be respected and admired, and sometimes to be yielded to by
the Abbess.
The Syon Brethren had a more widely defined function:

Thes thrittene preestis owe to entende oonly to dyuyne office and studie &
prayer. And implie them with none oþere nedes or offices. Whiche also are
bounde to expoune iche sonday the gospel of the same day in the same messe
to all herers in ther modir tonge.50
150  Vincent Gillespie
They are also ‘opynly to preche’ on solemn festivals. They also, of course, say
Mass for the sisters and attend to their spiritual needs. At Syon, the acquisition of
various indulgences and pardons, especially the ad vincula indulgence, soon gave
further opportunities for public preaching by the Brethren, and it was at one such
occasion that Margery Kempe is in attendance at the end of book two of her Book.
There is evidence, however, from outside of the Rule to suggest that the Syon
Brethren were also expected to accept confessions from outside the house, and
the Brethren at Vadstena at least had the status of minor penitentiaries. There is
also some evidence to suggest that they acted as spiritual directors for well-placed
laymen and women, as Symon Wynter did for Margaret, Duchess of Clarence.
The Brethren, many of whom entered Syon after careers as secular priests,
academics or administrators, and increasingly became a predominantly graduate
community, also seem to have offered collegial hospitality to priests and laymen
who wished to work in the library and share in the life of the house. And as the
fifteenth century progressed they would have served as marketing managers for the
Syon brand name, as the fame of the Syon pardon spread and crowds flocked to
the indulgence sermons and bought the printed versions of the pardon and indul-
gences. Syon was a fashionable place to visit and the Brethren were in the front
line of handling the masses of visitors, while the nuns were assiduously protected
from exposure to them.51 The lections added at Syon to the general martyrology
at the end of the Brethren’s Martiloge reveal a conception of the Brethren’s role that
is similarly high-minded, austere and idealistic. The lections, added in the top and
bottom margins and keyed to the daily readings from the martyrology, address
themselves to the core priestly functions of preaching, teaching, confessional judg-
ment and pastoral and spiritual guidance. Usually only a couple of sentences long,
they offer a daily infusion of sacerdotal theory to reinforce the commitment of the
Brethren to their vocation. Preaching is to be plain but effective:

Sermo sacerdotis debet esse purus, simplex et apertus, tractans de misterio

legis, de doctrina fidei, de uirtute continentie, de disciplina iustitie, plenis
grauitate et honestate, plenus suauitate et gracie.52
[The sermon of the priest must be pure, simple, and open, dealing with the
mystery of the Law, the teaching of the Faith, the virtue of restraint, the rule
of justice, full of gravity and honesty, full of sweetness and grace.]

Teaching must be carefully targeted at the needs and abilities of the audience:

Prima prudentie uirtus est eam quam docere oporteat existimare personam.
Rudibus populis seu carnalibus plana atque communia non summa atque
ardua predicanda sunt ne immensitate doctrina opprimantur potius quam
erudiantur.53
[The first feature of Prudence is to assess the character of those who are
to be instructed. For simple and worldly people, those things to be preached
must be plain and commonplace, not elevated or hard, lest they be weighted
down with greater instruction than they can assimilate.]
 The haunted text  151
The emphasis is on the cultivation of humility and the avoidance of spiritual
and intellectual pride, on the paramount importance of matching words and
works (‘tam doctrina quam uerba’ [‘as the teaching so the life’]) and of living what
is taught: ‘Sacerdotis predicacio operibus confirmanda est ita ut quod docet verbo
instruat exemplo’ [‘The preaching of the priest is to be confirmed by his works so
that what he teaches by word he may demonstrate by example’].54 Patient poverty,
meekness, humility and pragmatism are the touchstone of the Regula saluatoris, as
they are of the Regula sancti Augustini which the order nominally took as its Rule.
Now, as well as the unusually insistent prominence of Mary in the Mirror version
of the life of Christ, an even more striking oddity in this version is the emphasis
given to St John the Evangelist, culminating in an excursus in the last chapter of the
work on his merits and the powers of his saintly intercession, especially in relation
to the prayer O intemerata with which the Mirror closes, which describes Mary and
John as ‘Ye two celestial jewels. Ye two lights divinely shining before God.’ The
role of John is quietly built up throughout the Mirror: in the Last Supper passage,
his silent marvelling at the words of Christ is figured as a paradigm of contempla-
tive living for all men and women.55 The commendation of Mary and John to each
other by Christ on the cross is the subject of extended discussion, stressing John’s
role as protector and help to Mary after Christ’s death. In the work’s final chapter,
John is noted for his four special privileges: his special loving of Christ; the incor-
ruption of his body after death; his showing of ‘privetees’, and the fact that God’s
mother was commended to his care. Citing at length from a sermon on John by
the Carthusian Adam of Dryburgh, the Mirror explains that his symbol is a flying
eagle, because of his ability to comprehend by cleanness of soul the high privities
of everlasting mysteries.56 John’s position of near-equality with Mary is emphasised
by the Mirror: as neither of them has any ‘souereyn’ in the world because of their
devoted virginity, so, the text argues, it is fitting that they be joined together in
esteem. Moreover, John, we are told, was a great preacher who, according to the
Legenda aurea, on the morning of his death went into his Church in Rome to preach
to his beloved people: ‘byddynge hem þat þei shulde be stedfaste in þe feythe and
feruente in þe kepynge of the comaundementes of god’ (f. 102v). He wins the triple
aureole of martyrdom, preaching and virginity. This strangely configured account
of John, to whom, the author of the Mirror says, the ghostly sister has a special
devotion, distorts the shape of the text and greatly extends the length of the final
chapter. But, in the context of a close target audience of a Syon nun, it is easy to
see it as figuring the special attributes of the contemplative, virgin preachers who
made up the Brethren of Syon and were meant to stand as bastions of orthodoxy
against the tides of heresy, and perhaps more specifically the Confessor-General,
who served as the Abbess’s representative on earth and lived a life of reclusion
interspersed with pastoral and business activities on behalf of the house.
There may be other oblique references to the special circumstances of the
house. The odd little disquisition on Mary saying ‘Your father and I’ at the finding
of Jesus in the temple, with its moral that women should not put themselves before
men, looks slightly different in the context of the constitution of Syon, where the
Abbess, like Mary, has greater authority, but defers to the Confessor-General
152  Vincent Gillespie
(configured as the loyal Joseph) in spiritual matters. Indeed the Syon Additions to
the Rule describe them as ‘fader and moder to the hole congregacion of sustres
and Brethren’.57 The injunction to pray the Pater noster, Ave Maria and Creed at the
beginning, middle and end of the Mirror, although a common devotional gesture,
exactly parallels the injunction in the Birgittine Breviary, the Mirror of Our Lady and
the Additions for the nuns to preface most of their daily Hours with precisely those
prayers, and the office of those nuns and lay-Brethren who could not read was to
be entirely made up of those prayers. The discussion in the Mirror to Devout People
of the Annunciation and Mary’s undoing of Eve’s wrongdoing, with its conven-
tional play on Ave/Eva, parallels a very similar (but admittedly commonplace)
discussion of the same tropes in the Mirror of Our Lady.58 The chapter on how to
distinguish between good and evil visions parallels similar discussions in the Revela-
tions of St Birgitta and in The Orcherd of Syon.59 The linking of the key episodes of
Christ’s Passion to the Hours of the Divine Office, although found in numerous
Passion meditations in the Pseudo-Bonaventuran tradition, gains extra force from
the knowledge that between the hours of Terce (the condemnation of Christ in
the Mirror) and Sext (the Crucifixion in the Mirror), the nuns of Syon all visited the
open grave that was kept in their enclosure to meditate on their own mortality.
The lyric force of the tableaux meditations on Christ’s love and mercy in chapter
24 of the Mirror, dealing with the opening of Christ’s side, and the deposition from
the cross in chapter 25 (linked with Evensong) are given extra potency as possible
meditative aids for the sisters by the knowledge that before the hour of Evensong,
the community of nuns met together to pray forgiveness from God and each other
for the sins they had committed. The account of Mary reverencing the cross and
then returning alone to her cell to meditate on the Passion parallels much of what
we know about the life and the reading of Syon nuns. Both the Mirror of Our Lady
and the Mirror to Devout People encourage ‘devout beholding’ in the mind and imag-
ination of the reader, and both encourage a kind of meditation that is restrained
and ascetic rather than affective and enthusiastic.
Moreover, the occasional references to married lay readers, or the acknowl-
edgement of the possibility of such lay readers, need not imply that the text was
originally designed to pass into a wide reading public: Syon had a large resident
staff of laymen, including important postholders like the Steward, whose families
were often housed on the site. It was also a design feature of Birgittine houses to
include apartments for royal visitors. In addition, we know that it was the habit of
pious and well-born men and women to hire lodgings in the precincts of Syon for
various periods of time, and there may even have been lay vowesses living in the
precincts alongside those postulants for admission to the community who chose to
fulfil their year of external novitiate close to the house. From 1446 onwards, Syon
also had strong links with the influential Guild of All Angels in nearby Isleworth,
a guild with close connections to the world of the London common-profit books.60
Syon was a truly mixed, large and diverse community, which, despite the strict-
ness of its formal enclosures, was in many ways permeable and hospitable to the
outside world.
Looked at as a text designed to address a mixed and varied audience in the
 The haunted text  153
world, the final assessment has to be that the Mirror to Devout People is a failure:
it fails to inflect its material adequately to encompass those readers who are not
‘goostly’, and its references to laity are clumsy and fleeting. So to argue that here
is a text designed to serve the needs of multiple audiences is to argue that it has
largely failed in its design. But to see it as a text addressing the very specific needs
of a very specific community of nuns and priests configured in a manner that was
unique in medieval Britain immediately resolves many of the inconsistencies and
awkwardnesses of address. The Mirror shows an allusive but genuine knowledge
of the circumstances and spiritual life of the Birgittines and avowedly seeks to
address those circumstances and the Marian-centred nature of that spiritual life.
A Birgittine reader of the Mirror to Devout People would feel immediately at home in
an imaginative world heavily coloured by the revelations of Birgitta (the nativity
scenes in the Mirror of Our Lady are especially close to those in the Mirror to Devout
People), Catherine of Siena and Elizabeth of Töss. Both texts share a common
emphasis on Mary as the sole guardian of the faith between Christ’s death and
Resurrection. In the Mirror to Devout People, Christ greets his mother in his apocry-
phal appearance to her on the morning of his Resurrection with the words Salve
sancta parens, a hymn that was regularly recited by the nuns as part of their office,
and was translated and glossed in the Mirror of Our Lady.61
The Mirror of Our Lady offers much sensible and enlightened advice to the nuns
about how and when they should read books, and about the kinds of books they
should employ for their differing moods and needs. Its purpose, apart from glossing
the office, is to offer a mirror in which Mary can be seen so that the nuns can be
stirred more devoutly to praise her:

And therfore now moste dere and deuoute systres, ye that are the spouses
of oure lorde Iesu chryste and the specyall chosen maydens and doughtres of
his moste reuerende mother, lyfte up the eyen of youre soulles towarde youre
souerayne lady and often and bysely loke and study in this her myrroure,
and not lyghtely but contynually, not hastynge to rede moche atones but
labouryng to knowe what you rede.62

Devout reading is called one of the parts of contemplation, for it causes much
grace and comfort to the soul if it is discreetly used. When you read alone, you
should not be hasty and read too much at once, but should sometimes read a
thing twice or three times. Similarly, The Orcherd of Syon has re-ordered Catherine
of Siena’s Dialogo so that it can be dipped into and explored in sections, though the
author recommends a complete reading first. The author of the Mirror to Devout
People recommends exactly the same approach to his book, saying that he has
designed a detailed list of chapters to allow navigation round the text and selec-
tive reading, ‘noghtwythstondyng hit were þe beste who so myght haue tyme and
laysere þerto to rede hit all as hit is sett’ (f. 1r).63
The advice on reading in The Mirror of Our Lady is designed to be applied to any
kind of book encountered by the nuns. But singled out for comment are those
books that:
154  Vincent Gillespie
ar made to enforme the vnderstondynge. & to tel how spiritual persones
oughte to be gouerned in all theyr lyuynge that they may knowe what they
shall leue & what they shall do. how they shulde laboure in clensyng of theyr
conscyence. & in gettyng of vertewes how they shulde withstonde tempta-
cyons & suffer trybulacyons & how they shall pray. & occupy them in gostly
excercyse. with many suche other full holy doctrines.64

The reader of such books should seek to assess the extent to which their own life
conforms to these models and precepts and, where deficiencies are identified:

besely to kepe in mynde that lesson that so sheweth you to youre selfe & ofte
to rede yt ageyne. & to loke theron. & on your selfe. with full purpose & wyll
to amende you & to dresse youre lyfe therafter.65

Put in the specific context of reading at Syon, the Mirror to Devout People fits flaw-
lessly into the scheme of reading recommended by the Mirror of Our Lady. Similar
advice is repeated in other Syon books, while the Brethren’s library contained a
‘tractatus de laude lecture divine’ (N.67: SS1.921jj). Thomas Betson’s Right Profit-
able Treatise (1500) cites Jerome’s advice to religious women:

Lete none see you from the seruyce of god or unoccupyed. In redynge of proph-
etes, epystles, gospelles, sayntes lyues and other dedes of vertue doynge, hauynge
euer bokes in your handes, studyenge or wrytynge þat people seynge you may
saye: Beholde here the seruaunt of god and the lanternes of the worlde.66

If the ‘goostly faders’ that the author of the Mirror to Devout People had consulted
before embarking on his work had indeed included Syon Brethren, the Syon ethos
of improving reading might well have been part of the ‘counseill’ that he received
from them.
It is remarkable that many of the texts and books known to have been owned by
Syon nuns have a Carthusian provenance. Apart from the Orcherd and the Mirror of
Our Lady, hardly any of their books seem to have come from the pens of the Syon
Brethren. They of course had a public ministry of preaching and sacramental
care, a public ministry that was denied to the Carthusians by statute. Instead the
Carthusians preached with their hands by making books, becoming ‘heralds of
the faith’.67 If the peculiar shape and texture of the Mirror to Devout People can be
explained and accounted for by defining its target audience as the community
at Syon, broadly conceived, then we cannot consider this work as evidence of
Carthusian intervention in facilitating greater lay access to materials of this kind.
I suspect that the role of facilitator in this case probably rests with Syon, as may
the role of commissioning the text in the first place. The initial intended audience
may have been small, local and tightly defined. The Carthusians probably had no
agency in its later expansion to include well-connected lay people like Elzabeth
Chaworth/Scrope, whose husband’s family had numerous connections to Syon
and other metropolitan nunneries.68
 The haunted text  155
But was it only ‘counseill’ that the Carthusian author of a Mirror to Devout People
might have received from Syon? The Mirror author needed access to a wide range
of texts to compose his work. Would he have found them in Sheen at the date
he was working on his text? It is impossible to say, though he had apparently not
read Nicholas Love’s Mirror but had only ‘heard tell’ of it from his prior. However,
with one exception (perhaps significantly, a Carthusian text), every major source
he cites and uses in his work could have been found in the library of the Syon
Brethren in copies that were probably in the library before 1450.69 The library at
Syon was a noted resource not only for the Brethren but also for their many guests
and visitors. If the author of the Mirror to Devout People had indeed spoken to the nun
for whom the book was allegedly composed, and if, as seems likely, that nun was
one of the sisters of Syon with their fiercely protected enclosure, that conversation,
perhaps conducted under the terms of Martin V’s 1418 bulls possibly permitting
Carthusians to assist the Syon Brethen ‘ad ministrandum et obsequendum’, might
have coincided with a trip to use the library of the Syon Brethren. The role of
the Syon Brethren in the pastoral care of the nuns and of lay people may have
extended to the lending of books to neighbouring houses, and certainly included
the commissioning of books from Sheen for the use of the community. Those
books were perhaps composed drawing on the resources of their own remarkable
library. The texts they contained may subsequently have made their way or have
been deliberately propelled by the Brethren of Syon into wider circulation. That
model of transmission fits well with the known facts concerning the circulation of
many religious texts in London in the fifteenth century. The haunting evidence of
the Mirror to Devout People suggests that a full reconsideration of the agency of Syon
in such transmission is urgently needed.

Appendix

The Myrrour to Deuote Peple: list of chapters and authorities

cited in text
Prologue: Suso; Bonaventure; Peter Comestor; Nicholas of Lyra; other ‘doctores’
for ‘morall vertues’; revelations of ‘approued women’.
Reader to say thrice Ave Maria, Pater Noster, Credo.

1 Creation and Fall: Hilton, Scale 1.43.

2 God’s Plan for the World: John Chrysostom.
3 Annunciation: Augustine; Jerome; Catherine of Siena.
4 Visitation: John Chrysostom; Ambrose.
5 Nativity: Three Kings of Cologne; ‘Book of the Youth of Our Lord’; Birgitta
of Sweden.
6 Circumcision: Bernard; Richard of Saint-Victor; Petrus Ravenna.
7 Coming of the Magi: Three Kings of Cologne; Gregory.
8 Purification: Augustine, Sermon on Purification/Presentation; Legenda
aurea.
156  Vincent Gillespie
  9 Flight into Egypt: Master of Stories; Three Kings of Cologne; ‘Book of the
Youth of Our Lord’.
10 Finding in the Temple: Augustine; Nicholas of Lyra.
11 Life of Christ from 12 until Baptism in Jordan: Birgitta of Sweden.
12 Baptism: Bonaventure; Bernard; Legenda aurea (Legends of Simon and
Jude, incl. the miraculous image of Christ’s face; King Aqbar); Master of
Stories.
13 Temptations in the Desert: Master of Stories; Nicholas of Lyra; Gregory,
Homily for Lent 1.
14 Calling of the Apostles: Nicholas of Lyra; Bernard; Gregory, Moralia.
15 The Miracles: Nicholas of Lyra; Master of Stories; Augustine, Soliloquies.
16 Raising the Dead: Augustine.

Reader to say thrice Ave Maria, Pater Noster, Credo.

17 Palm Sunday: Nicholas of Lyra.

18 Schir Thursday; Last Supper; Garden of Gethsemane: Suso.
19 Capture and Scourging: Nicholas of Lyra.
20 The Hour of Prime. Christ before Annas and Caiphas: crowning
with thorns (citing Mandeville ‘þat was a well trauaylede knyghte’); Jerome;
Master of Stories; Nicholas of Lyra.
21 The Hour of Terce. Christ before Pilate: Legenda aurea, cap. 67 (James
the Less).
22 The Hour of Sext. Crucifixion: two manners of crucifying (Birgitta);
Nicholas of Lyra; Gregory, Homily for Gospel of Quinquagesima Sunday.
23 The Hour of None. The death of Christ; laments of the Virgin:
Nicholas of Lyra; Gregory, Homily of the 12th Day.
24 ‘Aftir none’. The opening of the side; washing clean from sin:
Nicholas of Lyra; Gregory.
25 The Hour of Evensong. Deposition: Nicholas of Lyra; Birgitta.
26 Compline. Burial: Master of Stories.
27 Saturday: no sources cited.
28. The Harrowing of Hell: Master of Stories; sceptical references to Gospel
of Nichodemus as ‘vnsiker’; Nicholas of Lyra ‘in a treatise of þe seyng of the
beynge of God (?)’; Augustine, Sermon.
29 Resurrection and first (apocryphal) appearance to BVM: Master of
Stories; Augustine; Mechtild of Hackeborn, Liber specialis gratiae 1.xix (= Booke
of Gostly Graces 181. 2–6); Legenda aurea; Nicholas of Lyra.
30 First five authentic appearances: Gregory; Nicholas of Lyra; Legenda
aurea; Jerome.
31 Second five authentic appearances: Leo the Great, Sermon on Ascen-
sion; Gregory, Sermon on Ascension; Nicholas of Lyra.
32 Ascension: Nicholas of Lyra; Peter Comestor; Augustine, Soliloquies.
33 Pentecost and Special Commendation of John the Evangelist:
Nicholas of Lyra; Gregory; Clement ‘in a pystell’; Legenda aurea; Jerome,
 The haunted text  157
Prologue to John’s Gospel and to Revelation; Adam [Dryburgh] Cartusiensis
‘in a worthy sermone’; Bede, Sermon on John; Augustine on John’s Gospel;
Life of Elizabeth of Töss [‘Hungary’]; Edmund of Abingdon and the Mira-
cles of Our Lady re miraculous power of O intemerata; Gregory on the life of
John.

Reader to say thrice Ave Maria, Pater Noster, Credo.

O intemerata and closing prayers and colophons.

Notes
1 This paper was written for a conference in September 2001 at the University of Notre
Dame to celebrate their acquisition of the Foyle manuscript of the Speculum devotorum.
My thanks are due to Jill Mann, Michael Lapidge and Maura Nolan for their invitation
and hospitality. An earlier version of this paper appears in Jill Mann and Maura Nolan
(eds), The Text in the Community: Essays on Medieval Works, Manuscripts, Authors, and Readers,
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006, pp. 129–72. This version appears
by courtesy of the editors and of University of Notre Dame Press.
2 The most recent and most influential articulation of the impact of the Arundel decrees
on vernacular religious culture is the fine essay by Nicholas Watson, ‘Censorship
and Cultural Change in Late-Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford
Translation Debate, and Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409’, Speculum 70, 1995, 822–
64. Earlier discussions tend to underplay the changes wrought by Arundel. See, for
example, my ‘Vernacular Books of Religion’, in Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall
(eds), Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475, Cambridge: CUP, 1989, pp.
317–44, which now looks under-historicised compared to the discussions in Watson,
or in Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor and Ruth Evans
(eds), The Idea of the Vernacular: An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory 1280–1520,
Exeter and University Park PA: University of Exeter Press and Penn State University
Press, 1999, though some of those discussions also tend to the ameliorative model. But
this paper wonders if the impact of Arundel needs more careful analysis, more local
examination and wider contextualisation than it has perhaps hitherto received.
3 On the context of the Mirror in Notre Dame MS 67, see now the essay by A.S.G.
Edwards, ‘The Contexts of Notre Dame 67’, in Mann and Nolan, op. cit., pp. 107–28.
The other work in the Notre Dame volume, the Book of the Craft of Dying, addresses itself
to an explicitly double audience of ‘lewed men’ as well as religious and devout persons.
Its Bernardine account of the Passion and of the deposition (f. 113v) has many similari-
ties with the Mirror cap. 24. See Gillespie, op. cit. (1989), p. 327; R. Raymo, ‘Works of
Religious and Philosophical Instruction’, in Albert E. Hartung (ed.), A Manual of the
Writings in Middle English, New Haven: Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1986,
vol. 7, p. 216; G.R. Morgan, ‘A Critical Edition of Caxton’s The Art and Craft to Know Well
to Die and Ars Moriendi Together with the Antecedent Manuscript Material’, unpublished
thesis, University of Oxford, 1973, although unaware of the Foyle/Notre Dame copy,
comments that the Book of the Craft of Dying ‘seems to have circulated among substantial
lay families with strong religious connections in and around the metropolis during the
second half of the fifteenth century’ (p. 127).
4 The standard account of the foundation of Syon is still George J. Aungier, The History and
Antiquities of Syon Monastery, the Parish of Isleworth and the Chapelry of Hounslow, London: J.B.
Nichols, 1840. More recently M.B. Tait, ‘The Brigittine Monastery of Syon (Middlesex)
with Special Reference to its Monastic Uses’, unpublished thesis, University of Oxford,
1975, studied much unprinted manuscript material and explored the spiritual and
158  Vincent Gillespie
cultural life of the house. See also N. Beckett, ‘St. Bridget, Henry V and Syon Abbey’, in
James Hogg (ed.), Studies in St. Birgitta and the Brigittine Order, Analecta Cartusiana 35:19,
1993, vol. 2, 125–50, for a recent perspective on the politics of the foundation. For
discussion of the spirituality of the order (and especially of the nuns), see Roger Ellis,
Viderunt eam filie syon: The Spirituality of the English House of a Medieval Contemplative Order from
Its Beginnings to the Present Day, Analecta Cartusiana 68, 1984. On Sheen, see N. Beckett,
‘Sheen Charterhouse from its Foundation to its Dissolution’, unpublished thesis, Univer-
sity of Oxford, 1992.
5 The standard (and masterly) discussion of the Syon libraries is now Christopher de
Hamel, Syon Abbey: The Library of the Bridgettine Nuns and their Peregrinations after the Reforma-
tion, Otley: Roxburghe Club, 1991. The registrum of the library of the Brethren (c. 1504)
is now Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 141. It was first edited by Mary Bateson,
Catalogue of the Library of Syon Monastery Isleworth, Cambridge: CUP, 1898. A more detailed
edition is now available as Syon Abbey, edited by Vincent Gillespie, with A.I. Doyle (ed.),
The Libraries of the Carthusians, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 9, London:
British Library in association with the British Academy, 2001, which includes an intro-
duction analysing the history of the Brethren’s library. References to this edition will
give the alphabetical library mark (e.g. M.1) followed by the number for that entry in the
Corpus (e.g. SS1.734). SS1 refers to the original registrum, SS2 to entries reconstructed
from erasure and indices.
6 Michael G. Sargent, ‘Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection: The London Manuscript
Group Reconsidered’, Medium Aevum 52, 1983, 189–216; Roger Lovatt, ‘The Imitation
of Christ in Late Medieval England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, fifth series
18, 1968, 97–121; Brendan J. H. Biggs (ed.), The Imitation of Christ, EETS, o. s. 309,
1997, p. vii.
7 A.I. Doyle, ‘Carthusian Participation in the Movement of the Works of Richard Rolle
between England and other parts of Europe in the 14th and 15th Centuries’, in Kartäuser-
mystik und -Mystiker, Analecta Cartusiana 55:2, 1981, 109–120 (p. 116).
8 See the example printed by F. Wormald, ‘The Revelation of the Hundred Pater
Nosters’, Laudate 14, 1936, 165–82 (pp. 180–1), where a devotional text passes from
London Charterhouse to Mount Grace, from Mount Grace to a secular priest and
only then from secular priest into (perhaps memorial rather than textual) lay use. See
my ‘Dial M for Mystic: Mystical Texts in the Library of Syon Abbey and the Spiritu-
ality of the Syon Brethren’, in Marion Glasscoe (ed.), The Medieval Mystical Tradition:
Exeter Symposium VI, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999, 241–68 (p. 249). On Carthusian
involvement with and possible production of pastoral (rather than devotional) books,
see my ‘Cura pastoralis in deserto’, in Michael G. Sargent (ed.), De Cella in Seculum: Reli-
gious and Secular Life and Devotion in Late Medieval England, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1989,
pp. 161–81, and my ‘The Evolution of the Speculum Christiani’, in Alastair M. Minnis
(ed.), Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts, Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 1989, pp. 39–62.
9 Marleen Cré, Vernacular Mysticism in the Charterhouse: A Study of London, British Library, MS
Additional 37790, The Medieval Translator 9, Turnhout: Brepols, 2006; Marleen Cré,
‘Women in the Charterhouse’, in Denis Renevey and Christiania Whitehead (eds), Writing
Religious Women: Female Spiritual and Textual Practices in Late Medieval England, Cardiff and
Toronto: University of Wales Press and University of Toronto Press, 2000, pp. 43–62.
For a detailed recent description of this manuscript and an account of Grenehalgh’s
annotations, see Michael G. Sargent, James Grenehalgh as Textual Critic, Analecta Cartu-
siana 85, 1984, vol. 2, pp. 499–510. On Ruusbroec, see Michael G. Sargent, ‘Ruusbroec
in England: The Chastising of God’s Children and Related Works’, in J. de Grauwe (ed.),
Historia et spiritualitas cartusienses, Ghent: Destelbergen, 1983, pp. 303–12; see also his ‘The
Heneage Manuscript of Calculus de perfectione filiorum Dei and the Middle English Treatise of
Perfection of the Sons of God’, Ons Geestelijk Erf 59, 1985, 533–59.
 The haunted text  159
10 Michael G. Sargent (ed.), Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, New York:
Garland, 1992, p. 10.
11 On Love, see now Shoichi Ogura, Richard Beadle and Michael G. Sargent (eds), Nicholas
Love at Waseda, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997, for an overview of recent scholarship.
For a provocative reading of Love’s disparaging attitudes to lay and therefore vernac-
ular spirituality, see Nicholas Watson, ‘Conceptions of the Word: The Mother Tongue
and the Incarnation of God’, New Medieval Literatures 1, 1997, 85–124 (pp. 91–8).
12 A.I. Doyle, ‘Publication by Members of the Religious Orders’, in Jeremy Griffiths and
Derek Pearsall (eds), Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475, Cambridge:
CUP, 1989, pp. 109–23 (p. 113).
13 Gillespie, op. cit. (1999), pp. 241–8; James Hogg, ‘Mount Grace Charterhouse and
Late Medieval Spirituality’, in Collectanea Cartusiensia 3, Analecta Cartusiana 82:3, 1980,
1–43.
14 George R. Keiser, ‘The Mystics and the Early English Printers: The Economics of
Devotionalism’, in Marion Glasscoe (ed.), The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England:
Exeter Symposium IV, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1987, pp. 9–26; S.E. Holbrook, ‘Margery
Kempe and Wynkyn de Worde’, ibid., pp. 27–46.
15 The erased entry at M.26 (SS2.127) in the registrum of the Brethren’s library at Syon has
contents that exactly parallel those of London, Lambeth Palace Library MS 472 and
are closely similar to another such common-profit volume. Lambeth was made from the
goods of a wealthy London grocer John Killum, one of whose executors was John Colop,
involved in the making of other similar volumes. Colop was a founder member of the
Chapel and Guild of the Nine Orders of Angels in Isleworth, ‘juxta Syon’ and with links
to both Syon and Sheen: Aungier, op. cit., pp. 459–64 (translated pp. 215–25) prints
the foundation charter (1446) of the guild. See Gillespie, op. cit. (1989), pp. 319–20;
Gillespie, op. cit. (2001), pp. 469–70; Sargent, op. cit. (1983); Wendy Scase, ‘Reginald
Pecock, John Carpenter and John Colop’s “Common-Profit” Books: Aspects of Book
Ownership in Fifteenth-Century London’, Medium Aevum 61, 1992, 261–74. The issue is
further explored in V. Gillespie, ‘Walter Hilton at Syon Abbey’, in J. Hogg (ed.), ‘Stand
up to Godwards’: Essays in Mystical and Monastic Theology in Honour of the Reverend John Clark
on his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, Analecta Cartusiana 204, 2002, pp. 9–61, to which should be
added the information that John Somerset was listed in the Syon Martiloge as one of the
friends and special benefactors of the house, further strengthening the links between
Syon and the fraternity. See also A.F. Sutton and L. Visser-Fuchs, ‘The Cult of Angels in
Late Fifteenth-Century England: An Hours of the Guardian Angel presented to Queen
Elizabeth Woodville’, in Lesley Smith and Jane Taylor (eds), Women and the Book: Assessing
the Visual Evidence, London: British Library, 1996, pp. 230–65, which places the circum-
stances of the foundation of the fraternity into a wider devotional and social context.
16 There is some evidence of increasing lay (sometimes royal) access to Charterhouses in
the second half of the fifteenth century, mainly to participate in liturgical offices out of
the sight of the monks. There is little sign of Carthusians systematically engaging in the
spiritual direction of seculars, though some were granted letters of spiritual fraternity.
See Joseph A. Gribbin, Aspects of Carthusian Liturgical Practice in Later Medieval England,
Analecta Cartusiana 99:33, 1995, pp. 33–51; C.B. Rowntree, ‘Studies in Carthusian
History in Later Medieval England, with Special Reference to the Order’s Relations
with Secular Society’, unpublished thesis, York University, 1981. On the pattern of
Carthusian daily life, see Bruno Barrier, Les activités du solitaire en chartreuse d’après ses
plus anciens témoins, Analecta Cartusiana 87, 1981, though the purity of the life may
have been challenged and somewhat eroded in the fifteenth century; see James Hogg,
‘Everyday Life in the Charterhouse in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, in Hein-
rich Appelt (ed.), Klösterliche Sachkultur des Spätmittlelaters, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts
für Mittelalterliche Realienkunde Österreichs, Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der
Wissenschaften, 1980, vol. 3, pp. 113–46.
160  Vincent Gillespie
17 Ann M. Hutchison, ‘Devotional Reading in the Monastery and in the Late Medieval
Household’, in Sargent, op. cit. (1989), pp. 215–27; F. Riddy, ‘“Women Talking about
the Things of God”: A Late-medieval Sub-culture’, in Carol M. Meale (ed.), Women
and Literature in Britain 1150–1500, 2nd edn, Cambridge: CUP, 1996, pp. 104–27, and
the essays by Julia Boffey and Carol Meale in the same volume; A.I. Doyle, ‘Books
Connected with the Vere Family and Barking Abbey’, Transactions of the Essex Archaeo-
logical Society 25, 1958, 222–43. On London widows and monastic houses in general and
on the connection with Syon of one merchant’s widow in particular, see J. Stratford,
‘Joan Buckland (d. 1462)’, in Caroline M. Barron and Anne F. Sutton (eds), Medieval
London Widows: 1300–1500, London: Hambledon, 1994, pp. 113–28. The important
new study by Mary Erler, Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England, Cambridge:
CUP, 2002, appeared too late for me to take account of it in this chapter, but its centre
of gravity is in the later fifteenth century.
18 The foundational survey of this material remains James Hogg’s ‘The Contribution
of the Brigittine Order to Late Medieval English Spirituality’, Spiritualität Heute und
Gestern, Analecta Cartusiana 35:3, 1983, pp. 153–74. For recent discussion, see, for
example, Keiser, op. cit. (1987); J.T. Rhodes, ‘Syon Abbey and Its Religious Publica-
tions in the Sixteenth Century’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44, 1993, 11–25; see also
by Rhodes, ‘Religious Instruction at Syon in the Early Sixteenth Century’, in James
Hogg (ed.), Studies in St. Birgitta and the Brigittine Order, Analecta Cartusiana 35:19, 1993,
vol. 2, pp. 151–69.
19 The important mid-fifteenth century Latin compilation of contemplative materials known
as Speculum spiritualium, for example, is often attributed a Syon/Sheen provenance. But
none of the five copies preserved in the Syon catalogue claims it as a Syon text. Indeed
Betson’s index explicitly attributes it to ‘Adam monachus Cartusiensis’, while the entry
describing the copy at M.60–1 states that the preceding rubrics were ‘ex compilacione
dompni henrici Domus Cartusiensis de Bethleem monachi’ (that is, the neighbouring
house of Sheen). Eddie A. Jones, ‘A Chapter from Richard Rolle in Two Fifteenth-
Century Compilations’, Leeds Studies in English, new series 27, 1996, 139–62, gives the
most recent list of manuscripts and editions. There is debate about the provenance of
another mid-century compilation, the vernacular Disce mori, which may be the work of
a Syon brother and which may be addressed to a vowess or postulant to the house. The
evidence, which is not conclusive, is reviewed by Eddie A. Jones, ‘The Heresiarch, the
Virgin, the Recluse, the Vowess, the Priest: Some Medieval Audiences for Pelagius’s
Epistle to Demetrias’, Leeds Studies in English, new series 30, 2000, 205–27.
20 On Margaret’s links with Syon (and those of other noble benefactors), see George
R. Keiser, ‘Patronage and Piety in Fifteenth-Century England: Margaret, Duchess
of Clarence, Symon Wynter and Beinecke MS 317’, Yale University Library Gazette 60,
1985, 32–46. Some other powerful early friends of Syon are mentioned in F.R. John-
ston, ‘Joan North, First Abbess of Syon, 1420–33’, Birgittiana 1, 1996, 47–65; Margaret
Deanesly (ed.), The Incendium Amoris of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1915, 91–130. One of Margaret’s gifts, a copy of Symon Wynter’s
Sanctilogium salvatoris, originally items M.1 and M.2 (SS1.734–5) in Betson’s catalogue,
was copied by Stephen Dodesham, later a Sheen Carthusian of some scribal produc-
tivity, though this may have been completed before his entry into religion when he may
have worked as a professional scribe. A sermon on the Syon indulgences by Symon
Wynter survives in London, British Library, MS Harley 2321, ff. 17r–62r., with shorter
adaptations surviving elsewhere: S. Powell, ‘Preaching at Syon Abbey’, Working Papers
in Literary and Cultural Studies 29, Salford: University of Salford, 1997, gives a full account
of this text and of the popular appeal of the pardons.
21 There is a partial but incomplete edition in James Hogg (ed.), The Speculum Devotorum
of an Anonymous Carthusian of Sheen, Analecta Cartusiana 12, 1973. An edition based on
Notre Dame was completed by J.P. Banks as a Fordham University doctoral thesis (New
 The haunted text  161
York, 1959). A new edition, using both copies, is in preparation by Paul J. Patterson of
the University of Notre Dame. The major recent discussions of the work are E. Salter,
‘Ludolphus of Saxony and his English Translators’, Medium Aevum 33, 1964, 26–35;
E. Salter, Nicholas Love’s ‘Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ’, Analecta Cartusiana
10, 1974, pp. 106–10; Ian Johnson, ‘Prologue and Practice: Middle English Lives of
Christ’, in Roger Ellis et al. (eds) The Medieval Translator: The Theory and Practice of Transla-
tion in the Middle Ages, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1989, pp. 69–85; Michael G. Sargent,
‘Versions of the Life of Christ: Nicholas Love’s Mirror and Related Works’, Poetica 42,
1994, 39–70; George R. Keiser, ‘Middle English Passion Narratives and their Contem-
porary Readers: The Vernacular Progeny of Meditationes Vitae Christi’, in James Hogg
(ed.), The Mystical Tradition and the Carthusians, Analecta Cartusiana 130:10, 1996, pp.
85–99; Rebecca Selman, ‘Spirituality and Sex Change: Horologium sapientiae and Speculum
devotorum’, in Renevey and Whitehead, op. cit., pp. 63–79.
22 Also I haue bee sterred oftymes to haue lefte þis besynes both for my vnworthynesse and
also for Boneauenture a cardynale and a worthi clerk made a book of þe same matier þe
which is called Vita Christi. And moste of all when I herede tell þat a man of our ordoure
hadde turned þe same booke in to englysshe (Prologue, Notre Dame MS 67, f. 1r).
23 In MS Gg. 1. 6 most of the colophon is now missing, with only the first sentence found
on f. 144v. It survives intact in Notre Dame:

  Finito libro sit laus et gloria christo.

  Soluite nunc mentem pro W. H. ad omnipotentem.
  De uita christi libro finis datur isti
  Paruos lactabit solidos quasi pane cibabit.
  De bethlem pratum dedit hos Jhesu tibi flores
  Post hunc ergo statum reddas sibi semper honores.
(Colophon, Notre Dame MS 67 f. 108r)

Followed by an (expanded) copy of the prayer O intemerata.

Followed by:

  Nos tibi uirgo pia semper commendo maria;

  Nos rogo conserues Christi dilecte Iohannes.
 Virgo maria dei genetrix quam scriptor honorat
  Sis pia semper ei prout hic te sperat et orat
  Ex aliaque uice Iohannes christi dulcis amice
  Da sibi solamen cum sanctis omnibus. Amen.
In omni tribulacione temptacione necessitate et angustia succurre nobis piissima
uirgo maria.
   A M E N.
(Notre Dame MS 67, f. 109r)

(I am indebted to Michael Lapidge for pointing out that ‘christi’ in line 5 renders the
line unmetrical and is probably a gloss that has become embedded into the text at some
point.)
24 Professor Jeremy Smith of the University of Glasgow, who generously examined the
language of the Notre Dame manuscript, describes it as ‘a somewhat colourless text
with a sprinkling of regional forms’. He suggests that the forms co-locate most plausibly
in East Anglia, specifically East Norfolk, though the presence of some Northern forms
suggests a reserve placing of the Lincolnshire/Rutland/Leicestershire borders (personal
communication, 5 May 2004). For the linguistic features of the Cambridge manuscript,
see LALME 3: 496–7.
162  Vincent Gillespie
25 The fullest account of this, along with a detailed analysis of Grenehalgh’s textual work,
is found in Sargent, op. cit. (1984).
26 The bulls were Eximie deuotionis and Integre deuotionis, both issued 18 August 1418. The
latter is edited by Deanesly, op. cit., 137–44, with the reference to Carthusians at p. 141:
‘circa ministros quoque et familiares et procuratores seculares vel religiosos cuiuscunque
eciam preterquam Cartusiensis fuerint ordinis ad ministrandum et obsequendum inclusis
et aliis personis’ [‘concerning ministers/servants also and familiars, and secular proctors
and religious of whichever order, {except/even/besides} the Carthusian, to minister to
and assist the enclosed and other persons staying for the time being in Syon’]. I have
consulted several experts in papal chancery Latin, who remain divided about whether
this Bull specifically permits or expressly prohibits Carthusians to enter the enclosure
at Syon. These interpretations depend on their various interpretations of the construc-
tion ‘eciam preterquam’ as meaning ‘except’, ‘besides’ or ‘even’. For the present, it
must remain as no more than a tantalising possibility that Carthusians could have been
involved in the pastoral care of the nuns in the early years of the new foundation.
27 M. Stallings-Taney (ed.), Iohannis de Caulibus meditaciones vite Christi olim S. Bonauenturo
attributae, CCCM 153, Turnhout: Brepols, 1997, hereafter MVC; Sarah McNamer,
‘Further Evidence for the Date of the Pseudo-Bonaventuran Meditationes vitae Christi’,
Franciscan Studies 38, 1990, 235–61.
28 In this respect I differ from Michael Sargent, op. cit. (1994), who argues that the author
had both the MVC and Love’s Mirror ‘constantly in mind in shaping his own work’ (p.
65). I can see no need for him to have known Love’s work in composing his own, nor
can I discern any textual indebtedness to Love, except where Love is sharing MVC as
a source. Rather I concur with J.P. Banks that ‘the Speculum does not depend directly
on either of them as sources, except in minor instances. But for its basic inspiration,
its general tone and structure, the Speculum relies entirely on the Meditationes’ (p. cxxxv,
cited Sargent, op. cit. (1994), 64).
29 William H.St.J. Hope, The History of the London Charterhouse from Its Foundation until the
Suppression of the Monastery, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1925,
pp. 60, 62; Eileen M. Thompson, The Carthusian Order in England, London: Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1930, 278–9.
30 The booklists are edited and annotated in Gillespie, op. cit. (2001). On surviving Carthu-
sian books, see Neil R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books,
2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 3, London: Royal Historical
Society, 1964; see also Andrew G. Watson (ed.), Supplement to the Second Edition, Royal
Historical Society Guides and Handbooks 15, London: Offices of the Royal Historical
Society, 1987; A.I. Doyle, ‘English Carthusian Books Not Yet Linked with a Char-
terhouse’, in Toby Barnard, Dáibhí Ó Cróinín and Katherine Simms (eds), A Miracle
of Learning: Studies in Manuscripts and Irish Learning. Essays in Honour of William O’Sullivan,
Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, pp. 122–36.
31 Beckett, op. cit. (1992), pp. 78–9, citing exchequer document E403/621, m.1 and
editions of the chartae for 1420 in Analecta Cartusiana 100:8, 1986, p. 12; 100:10, p. 45
and 100:21, p. 88. The chartae entry instructs Sheen to conform its practices concerning
the Divine Office to those of the order ‘et iniungimus ei ut prouideant domiui suae de
libris ordini necessariis et sufficientibus’ [‘and we command them that they provide
their house with those books that are necessary and sufficient for the order’]. The books
may have been liturgical.
32 P. Strong and F. Strong, ‘The Last Will and Codicils of Henry V’, English Historical
Review 96, 1981, 79–102; Becket, op. cit. (1992), pp. 127–8. Birgitta is included in the
list of saints from whom suffrages are requested at the beginning of the will (Strong
and Strong, op. cit., p. 89). Kenneth B. McFarlane, Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972, Appendix C: ‘Henry V’s Books’, prints a list of the
books taken after the siege of the Market of Meaux, apparently from one of the town’s
 The haunted text  163
religious houses, which he suggests might have been destined for Syon or Sheen. The
books passed initially into the personal custody of the Treasurer, John Stafford, only
finding their way into the Treasury itself in 1427, when this list was made. Initially some
and subsequently all were given to King’s Hall, Cambridge, where they are noted by
1440. No reason for overriding the provisions of the will and its codicils is given.
33 On Dodesham’s output, see now A.I. Doyle, ‘Stephen Dodesham of Witham and
Sheen’, in Pamela R. Robinson and Rivkah Zim (eds), Of the Making of Books: Medieval
Manuscripts, their Scribes and Readers. Essays presented to M. B. Parkes, Aldershot: Scolar Press,
1997, pp. 94–115.
34 See the similar but less extended gesture in MVC, prologues, pp. 9–10.
35 Keiser, op. cit. (1996), elegantly analyses the stylistic and structural inadequacies of the
author.
36 And leste ony man þat myght efterwarde rede þe booke foloweyng shulde conceyue
temptacyoun that I þat am bot a symple man shulde doo suche a werke eftre so worthi
a man as Boneauenture was seth he wrote of þe same matier ¶ Hit myght be answered
to þe satisfaccyoun of her concyences thus. Ther bene foure euangelistes þat wryten of
þe manhode of our lorde. And yit all writen wele and treuly and þat one leueth another
suppleth. ¶ Also þe doctures of holy chirche expownden þe same euangelyes þat þei
wrote diuers wyses to þe comforte of cristen peple and yit all is goode to cresten peple
and necessarye and profitable. And so þoff he þat wrote friste þe meditacions folowyng
were bot a symple man and of no reputacioun in comparison of so worthi a clerke as
Boneauenture was, Ȝit þe meditacions by þe grace of god mowe be full profitable to
deuote cresten soules … þoff þe werke be bot symple Ȝit þe entente of him þat didde
hit was full goode. And þerfore who so kanne noght excuse þe werke latt hym excuse
þe entente And for þe entente of him þat dedde it was to symple and deuote soules þat
kan noght wele vnderstonde latyn, and also for þe thynkynge of our lordis passioun and
manhode is þe grownde and þe waye to all trewe deuocyon, this booke may be called A
Myrrour to deuote peple (Prologue, Notre Dame MS 67, ff. 1v–2r).
37 And I haue putte no thyng to of myne owne wytte bot þat I trowe may trewly be
conceyued by open resoun and goode conciens for þat I holde þe sikereste. For þof þer
myght haue bene putte to some ymaginaciouns þat happely myght haue bee dilectable
to carnale soules, Ȝit þat that is done aftre concience is sikerer þoffe þe meditaciouns
myght haue be by such ymaginaciouns happely more comfortable to some carnale
foulke (Prologue, Notre Dame MS 67, f. 3r).
38 On the spirituality of the Brethren in particular, see Ellis, op. cit. (1984), and Roger
Ellis, ‘Further Thoughts on the Spirituality of Syon Abbey’, in William F. Pollard
and Robert Boenig (eds), Mysticism and Spirituality in Medieval England, Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 1997, pp. 219–43. See also my ‘“Hid Diuinite”: The Spirituality of the English
Syon Brethren’, in Eddie A. Jones (ed.), The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England: Exeter
Symposium VII, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2004, pp. 189–206; and my ‘The Mole in
the Vineyard: Wyclif at Syon in the Fifteenth Century’, in Helen Barr and Ann M.
Hutchison (eds), Text and Controversy from Wyclif to Bale: Essays in Honour of Anne Hudson,
Medieval Church Studies 4, Turnhout: Brepols, 2005, pp. 131–62.
39 MVC, cap. vi, p. 29. Mary Erler has done important work on para-monastic women
such as vowesses: ‘English Vowed Women at the End of the Middle Ages’, Mediaeval
Studies 57, 1995, 155–203; ‘Syon’s “Special Benefactors and Friends”: Some Wowed
[sic] Women’, Birgittiana 2, 1996, 209–22. On Margery Kempe’s vow of married chas-
tity made before Bishop Philip Repingdon of Lincoln sometime between June 1413
and February 1414, see Sanford B. Meech and Hope E. Allen (eds), The Book of Margery
Kempe, EETS, o.s. 212, 1940, cap. 14, pp. 33–4 and nn. Repingdon considers the vow
unusual because John Kempe is still alive, but proceeds to give Margery the mantle and
ring after reassurances from her husband.
40 Contrast the less explicitly contemplative take on this passage in MVC cap. lxxxii: ‘domi
164  Vincent Gillespie
remansit et orabat’ (300–1).
41 See Thomas Betson’s exhortations to the nuns, printed below.
42 On the reception of the continental women mystics in England, see now Rosalyn
Voaden (ed.), Prophets Abroad: The Reception of Continental Holy Women in Late-Medieval
England, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1996. The cult of Birgitta in England pre-dates the
foundation of Syon (and may indeed have been one of the drivers for it).
43 For Mary reverencing the cross, see MVC, cap. lxxx, p. 284.
44 MVC, cap. xvii, pp. 84–5. MVC contains an embedded treatise on the active and
contemplative lives which follows on from the Martha and Mary story (caps. xlv–lviii,
pp. 171–216). Cap. lv (pp. 200–3) deals with Christ in the desert but makes no mention
of preachers or preaching.
45 K. Horstmann, ‘Orologium sapientiae or The Seven Poyntes of Trewe Wisdom aus
MS. Douce 117’, Archiv 10, 1887, 323–89; R. Lovatt, ‘Henry Suso and the Medieval
Mystical Tradition in England’, in Marion Glasscoe (ed.), The Medieval Mystical Tradition
in England II, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1982, pp. 47–62; Selman, op. cit. A
new edition of this important text is in hand by Christina von Nolcken, using Aberyst-
wyth, National Library of Wales MS Porkington 19 as base text, where the prologue
occupies pp. 7–13. For the use of this passage from Suso in Ludolph of Saxony’s Vita
Christi, see L.M. Rigollot (ed.), Ludolphus de Saxonia: Vita Jesu Christi, 4 vols, Paris: Apud
Victorem Palme, 1878, vol. 4, pp. 4–5.
46 Regula salvatoris, cap. 1. The Middle English version is reproduced from Cambridge,
University Library Ff. 6. 33 in James Hogg (ed.), The Rewyll of Seynt Sauioure and Other
Middle English Brigittine Legislative Texts, vols 2–4 [all published], Salzburger Studien zur
Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Salzburg: Salzburg University, 1978–80, vol. 2, pp. 1–58,
who also reproduces a Latin text from Cambridge, St John’s College MS 11 (A. 11).
The Middle English quotation is found on p. 8. The standard edition of the versions
of the Latin is Sten Eklund (ed.), Regula salvatoris, Den Heliga Birgitta Opera Minora
1, Samlingar utgivna av Svenska Fornskriftsällskapet, Andra Serien, Latinska Skrifter,
8:1, Lund, 1975. Four versions survive of the Additions to the Rule specially written for
the English Syon in distinct versions for the sisters and the Brethren: London, British
Library MS Arundel 146 (in Middle English, for the sisters); London, Guildhall Library
MS 25524 (in Middle English, for the Brethren); Cambridge, St John’s College MS 11
(a fragmentary Latin text for the Brethren); and a post-medieval Latin version produced
in Lisbon in 1607. The first three are reproduced or edited by Hogg. Fragments of
the Rule and Additions were more recently identified among the manuscripts still in
possession of the sisters (and now housed in Exeter University Library Special Collec-
tions): Neil R. Ker and A.J. Piper (eds), Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1992, vol. 4, pp. 348–9. Descriptions of the life at Syon in what follows
are drawn from the Rule, the Additions, the Breviary and the Mirror of Our Lady, and can
be found in the editions already cited.
47 Hogg, op. cit. (1978–80), cap. 1; ibid., cap. 2, pp. 8–9. According to the Additions for
the Sisters (cap. 17), eight days after profession, novices received an exhortation from
the Abbess that expounded on the meaning of ‘veray mekenes, pure chastite & wylful
pouerte’; Hogg, op. cit., cap. 4, pp. 99–101.
48 J.H. Blunt (ed.), The Myroure of Oure Ladye, EETS, e.s. 19, 1873; Arthur J. Collins, The
Bridgettine Breviary of Syon Abbey, Henry Bradshaw Society 96, London, 1969. See Ellis,
op. cit. (1984), for an account of the life of the house; see also Ann M. Hutchison, ‘What
the Nuns Read: Literary Evidence from the English Bridgettine House, Syon Abbey’,
Mediaeval Studies 57, 1995, 205–22.
49 P. Hodgson and G.M. Liegey (eds), ‘The Translator’s Prologue’, in The Orcherd of Syon,
EETS, o.s. 258, 1966, p. 1.
50 Hogg, op. cit. (1978–80), 2: 38; Eklund, op. cit., cap. 15, § 174, p. 121. For the passage
in the text, see Eklund, op. cit., cap. 13, § 171, pp. 161–2. On the complex development
 The haunted text  165
of the rule and its manifestations in England, see Ellis, op. cit. (1984), ch. 1.
51 The Syon Additions for the Brethren (Guildhall manuscript) record in a short chapter
headed ‘Of the offices of the prechours’ that ‘Eche of the prechours schal besyde the
sermon day haue thre hole days at lest oute of the quyer to recorde hys sermon’, Hogg,
op. cit., 3: 122. On their penitential authority, see Johnston, op. cit. (1996), 56, citing
Ernst Nygren (ed.), Liber Privilegiorum Monasterii Vadstenensis, Copenhagen: E. Munks-
gaard, 1950, p. 236. The Additions for the Brethren contain many injunctions about
protecting the enclosures.
52 London, British Library MS Add. 22285, f. 78v.
53 Ibid., f. 99r.
54 Ibid., ff. 93v–r.
55 Cf. MVC, cap. lxxiii, pp. 245–6, where Peter symbolises the active life and John the
contemplative. An interesting reflection of the linkage between Mary and John is
found in a manuscript from the very earliest collection at Syon (G.17: SS1.450), given
by Thomas Fishbourn the first Confessor-General (ob. 1428), which contained two
adjacent unidentified items ascribed to Peter Comestor: ‘de laude beate virginis’
(perhaps one of the nine sermons on the Virgin ascribed to him) and ‘de laude
Iohannis Euangeliste’.
56 PL 198, cols 299–309.
57 Hogg, op. cit. (1978–80), Additions for the Sisters, cap. 58, 4: 198, with a list of their ideal
attributes that has much in common with those of Mary and John in the Mirror.
58 Blunt, op. cit., pp. 77–9.
59 The probatio tradition is discussed in Rosalyn Voaden, God’s Words, Women’s Voices: The
Discernment of Spirits in the Writing of Late-Medieval Women, York: York Medieval Press,
1999.
60 See note 15 above.
61 Blunt, op. cit., p. 299.
62 Ibid., p. 4.
63 ¶ And I haue sett þe tytles of [þe chapeters] in a table eftre þis prefacioun of þe booke
þat who so euer liketh to rede it may see shortly ther all þe matier of þe booke folowyng,
and rede when him lyketh beste. And þat he maye þe sonner fynde þat he desireth
moste and þe better kepe hit in mynde and also þe redyer fynde hit if him luste to see
hit aȜen. Noghtwythstondyng hit were þe beste who so myght haue tyme and laysere
þerto to rede hit all as hit is sett (Prologue, Notre Dame MS 67, f. 1r).
64 Blunt, op. cit., p. 68.
65 Ibid.
66 A.W. Pollard, G.R. Redgrave et al. (eds), A Short-title Catalogue of … English Books …
1475–1640 (1926); 2nd edn, ed. W.A. Jackson, F. S.Ferguson and K. F. Pantzer, 3 vols
(1976–91), repr. in facsimile (Cambridge, 1905): sig, c iv v.
67 In his Consuetudines, Guigo envisaged the making of books as the order’s distinctive
contribution to the cura animarum. In his well-known dictum, borrowed from Cassian,
repeated by Adam of Dryburh in the Quadripartite Exercise of the Cell and reflected and
refracted in many Carthusian legislative texts and commentaries throughout the medi-
eval period, Guigo wrote: ‘Libros quippe tanquam sempiternum animarum nostrarum
cibum cautissime custodiri et studiosissime volumus fieri, ut quia ore non possumus,
dei verbum manibus predicemus’ [‘Because we desire that books should be made with
great zeal, and guarded with very great care, as a perpetual source of food for our souls,
in order that we may preach with our hands the word of God, since we may not do
so with the mouth’]. Maurice Laporte (ed.), Guigues Ier, Coutumes de Chartreuse, Sources
Chrétiennes 313, Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1984, pp. 223–4.
68 John, fourth Lord Scrope was the heir of his older brother Henry, third Lord Scrope,
executed in 1415. Henry had been supportive of the project that led to the foundation
of Syon and Sheen (popularly thought to be in expiation of Henry IV’s murder of Arch-
166  Vincent Gillespie
bishop Richard Scrope, an uncle of Henry’s and John’s). Henry Scrope possessed many
religious books, including an alleged autograph of Rolle and another Rolle book, both
left to Henry FitzHugh, who was responsible for the first (failed) plantation of Birgittines
in England, and who remained a strong supporter of the Syon project. Interestingly Syon
later claimed to own an autograph of Rolle’s Melos amoris (M.27: SS1. 760a). Henry
Scrope left to the Abbess of Syon a choice of books or vestments to the value of forty
pounds, and made bequests to several other figures active in the foundation and early
life of Syon, notably John London, the anchorite of Westminster, and Bishop Thomas
Langley of Durham. See Edwards, op. cit., and A.I. Doyle, ‘A Survey of the Origins
and Circulation of Theological Writings in English in the 14th, 15th and Early 16th
Centuries with Special Consideration of the Part of the Clergy Therein’, unpublished
thesis, 2 vols, University of Cambridge, 1953, vol. 1, p. 151; vol. 2 pp. 209, 302–3.
69 For a list of the sources explicitly cited in the text, see the Appendix. The major excep-
tion is Adam of Dryburgh’s Sermon on John the Evangelist (PL 198, cols 299–307),
which is not witnessed at Syon. As a Carthusian text, a copy might have been at Sheen:
one of the major textual witnesses to his sermons is an early fifteenth-century manu-
script formerly at London Charterhouse (Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland MS
9999). Most of the citations of Bernard come through the MVC. Syon has multiple
copies of all the major patristic sources used. In considering copies of the major post-
patristic sources found at Syon I have looked for evidence of early accession (pre-1450)
as witnessed by the names of the donor, by external evidence, or by the absence of a
recorded donor. What follows, therefore, is not a complete list of Syon’s holdings of
these works but a list restricted to relevant pre-1450 accessions.
Iohannes de Caulibus, Meditationes vitae Christi (M.6: SS1.739, given by Symon
Wynter (ob. 1448); M.7: SS1.740, no donor, with other Passion meditations, erased at
M.76: SS2.142); Peter Comestor, Historia scholastica (E.17: SS1.323a, with Richard of
Saint-Victor, no donor, and erased at E.52: SS2.91); Heinrich Suso, Orologium sapientiae
(O.3:SS1.945f, given by John Bracebridge); Nicholas of Lyra, Postilla litteralis (E.28–9:
SS1.334–5, no donor, and erased copies in SS2); Iacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea
(M.9: SS1.742, given by William Fitzthomas, at Syon by 1428); John of Hildesheim,
Historia trium regum [The Three Kings of Cologne] (M.15: SS1.748m–n, no donor; M.17:
SS1.750g, in English, no donor. This volume interestingly also contains a ‘Declaracio
regule cartusie’ (SS1.750f)); Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection (M.24: SS1.757b–c,
in English, given by Fishbourn; erased at M.26: SS2.127a, no donor; and at M.110:
SS2.147, no donor. The Latin translation by Thomas Fishlake is at M.25: SS1.758, no
donor); The Gospel of Nichodemus (M.83: SS1.816a, given by Fishbourn, O.35: SS1.977l,
given by Bracebridge); Miracles of the Virgin, though the contents of these collections
varied widely (O.39: SS1.981d, given by Bracebridge). All the writings of the ‘approued
women’ included in the Mirror were demonstrably present at Syon: Birgitta’s revelations
(M.64: SS1.797, now London, British Library MS Harley 612, s.xv1, M.65: SS1.798,
M.66: SS1.799, both these the gift of the first Confessor-General, Thomas Fishbourn
(ob. 1428)); Mechtild’s Booke (M.47: SS1.780, no donor, perhaps in English, and M.94:
SS1.827g, no donor); Elizabeth of Töss (in English and erased from the main cata-
logue at M.20: SS2.125); Catherine of Siena (M.71: SS1.804g, no donor, and of course
through the Orcherd of Syon). There is even a copy of Mandeville’s Travels at Syon (M.77:
SS1.810g), but this appears to be a later, printed text given by Confessor-General
Falkley, who died in 1497.
9 Some North Yorkshire
scribes and their context
Ralph Hanna

Cur convenit vobis … a loco ubi cum fratribus meis dormio et requiesco ad alias
transferre nationes? (Why does it seem to you appropriate … to translate me from
[Hexham] the place where I sleep and rest with my brothers, to those alien people
[in York Minster]?)

A dale is not a single unit; each village in it is subject to change and stands alone.1

In perhaps the unique unpublished portion of his famous 1967 Lyell Lectures,
Ian Doyle identified four ‘Northern’ vernacular manuscripts of plainly related late
fourteenth-century manufacture. The relevant volumes include: British Library
MS Cotton Galba E.ix; MS Harley 4196; MS Cotton Tiberius E.vii; and Bodleian
Library MS Rawlinson poet. 175. These books are certainly linked in their
common transmission of central Northern verse texts of religious instruction in
short couplets – The Prick of Conscience, The ‘expanded’ Northern Homily Cycle, Speculum
vitae, ‘The Book of Shrift’ elsewhere associated with Cursor Mundi.2
But they also share, in addition to their texts, a variety of production features
(see table). Among the twelve scribal stints, three scribes made contributions to
more than one of the books, and two books share a drawer of cadel capitals (prob-
ably one of the scribes), the other two a lombard limner. In this chapter, I want to
remove the books from the general ‘Northern’ ambit in which they have always
been discussed – none of the four includes early provenance information – to
localise the textual community most likely to have produced, and then to have first
used, these substantial volumes.
In addition to common texts, hands, and production procedures, linguistic
evidence points toward people sharing a common geographical locale. All of
the scribes are plainly ‘Northern’ and most identified as such in the Edinburgh
Linguistic Atlas. Only the language of a pair (treated by LALME as a single hand)
is presented in full and mapped; Rawlinson forms LP 174, the language of some-
where around Burneston, in the North Riding. And although LALME does not
report the forms of any of the other scribes, I have profiled thousand-line tranches
for each, for more than fifty items; the language of all is pretty much identical with
that of Rawlinson; the closest parallel language, unsurprisingly, comes from the
Table 9.1  The manuscripts
BL MS Cotton Galba E.ix
Fols 111 (numbered 4–114). 335 ×220 mm (burned edges). Double columns, 47 or 48
lines. Quired in 12s. Three main scribes:
scribe 1: quires 1–4, anglicana formata [alt lombards]
scribe 2: quires 5–6, textura semiquadrata, approaching prescissa, as well
as fols 50ra/8–51vb, additions at the end of scribe 1’s quires
scribe 3: quires 7–10, textura semiquadrata
And, in addition:
scribe 4: fols. 48vb–50ra/8, anglicana, additions at the end of scribe 1’s quires

Described Ywain and Gawain, ed. Albert B. Friedman and Norman T. Harrington, EETS
254 (1964), pp. ix–xii, with a reproduction of scribe 1 as frontispiece.

BL MS Harley 4196
Fols 258. 380 ×270 mm. Double columns, 48 lines. Quired in 8s. Five scribes, all textura
quadrata:
scribe 1: quire 1
scribe 2: quires 2–17
scribe 3: quires 18–21
scribe 4: quires 22–26
scribe 5: quires 27–34 [column initials]
This volume and the next described The Northern Homily Cycle: The Expanded Version, ed.
Saara Nevanlinna, 3 vols, Helsinki, 1972–84, 1: 5–17 (scribe 3 associated with Galba
scribe 2 at 1:6 n.2), with reproductions of Harley scribe 2 and Tiberius scribe 2 as frontis-
pieces to volumes 1 and 3, respectively.

BL MS Cotton Tiberius E.vii

Fols 281 (currently individually mounted in two volumes fols 127 + 154). 290 × 170 mm
(burned, most margins gone, outer columns damaged, badly shrunk). Double columns, 48
lines. Quired in 12s (catchwords survive). Two scribes:
scribe 1: quires 1–7, anglicana formata [alt lombards]
scribe 2: quires 8–24, textura quadrata
BodL MS Rawlinson poet. 175
Fols 134. 270 × 190 mm. Double columns, 44 lines. Quired in 12s (the last two odd, with
a text conclusion and short [added?] texts). Two scribes, both in textura semiquadrata,
not easily distinguished:
scribe 1: fols. 1ra–55rb (Q. 5/7), text 1 only [column initials]
scribe 2: fols. 55va –end, texts 2–12

Language described (as a single hand), LALME LP 174 (coordinates 431/485, W of

Thirsk). Signature of Thomas Gyll, perhaps the man of that name a chaplain in the
church of Adwick-le-Street, 1535.

Described, R.W. Hunt et al. (eds), A Summary Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts in the
Bodleian Library, Oxford, 7 vols in 8, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895–1953, 3: 321–2 (no. 14667).
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  169
most proximate MS mapped in LALME, the copy of Speculum vitae in Cambridge
University Library MS Gg.i.7, from the area around Masham.3 This common
language, alien to all other Yorkshire LPs, may be typified and localised by a few
common forms, universal in all five books: es is, er are, gude good, mas tas tan
makes/takes/n in use unconstrained by rhyme, and yir these.
I doubt this group of at least eleven scribes and artists was hanging out in the
Yorkshire villages with which the LPs seem most closely associated. Even in the
loose affiliation in which they typically work (all the stints are quire-bounded,
excepting a possibly independent continuation in Rawlinson), they need to be in
a centre of some type. Given LALME’s localisation, whose general accuracy I see
no reason to doubt, the most obvious place with which to associate such a group
is Ripon, site of the Minster Church of SS Peter and Wilfrid, about eight miles
south-west and south-east, respectively, of the two mapped LPs. As I will show,
this would appear a particularly promising community in which to place produc-
tion, in terms of its probable literates, both clerical producers and lay audience.4

I. The place
Ripon is situated where Wensleydale, the valley of the River Ure, comes down
into the Vale of York, and the town has developed along the smaller River Skell,
a few miles above its juncture with the Ure.5 Although in raw population figures
not a large place, in a Yorkshire context, Ripon is an urban locality, comparable
to castle communities like Pontefract and Tickhill, more so to monastic ones like
Selby and Whitby. Like many smaller Yorkshire places, Ripon received early
parliamentary summons as a borough (four in all, 1295 x 1326), followed by a
two-century-plus hiatus in representation.6 When an actual glimpse of population
appears, in the 1379 poll tax returns, Ripon had 480 taxpayers, some 60 per cent
above the raw statistical limit by which demographers identify a town, and was
probably about the eighty-fifth largest place in England. Its 480 taxpayers pale
against the 7,248 recorded in York, the nation’s largest provincial centre, and
there seem never to have been more than three or four merchants at any time, less
than half what typically went on the rolls of York City Corporation every year.
The place seems generally to have been what is considered a ‘regional centre’,
mainly an agrarian market sustained by a local pilgrimage site and, in the four-
teenth century, some substantial local industry for export.7
Ripon was always an agricultural centre, with a weekly market, but also two
three-day fairs, centred on the Invention of the Cross and the feast of St Wilfrid.
Already in the fourteenth century, the place was famous for horse trading, and
other occupations associated with livestock are indicated by a concentration of
eight ‘fleshhewers’ in the Market Square area in 1379. There was a large number
of local guilds, about fifteen recorded in 1606, in the main an expected Yorkshire
concentration in cloth and leather trades.
But in the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, through symbiosis with the
flocks managed by neighbouring Fountains Abbey at its granges in Nidderdale,
Ripon rivalled Halifax as the most prosperous Yorkshire producer of woolen
170  Ralph Hanna
cloth. This industry probably is responsible for the contemporary shift in the
city centre toward Bondgate, south of the Skell; the river was diverted to allow
construction of fulling mills, and one late thirteenth-century citizen on record was
a William Tinctor/Dyer (who also received arable in Markington, a standard
burgess bet-hedging by keeping a hand in agriculture). However, the growth of
south-west Yorkshire cloth centres probably killed Ripon’s trade in the course
of the fifteenth century, and Leland described the industry as moribund in his
Itinerary.8
But Ripon’s sustaining local industry was its ecclesiastical connections. It was a
place with a distinct legal status (like Masham, home of ‘Old Peculiar’ ale). One
of the four Minsters of York diocese, it was a private jurisdiction where the king’s
writ did not run, secular justice being provided by the Archbishop of York’s court
and spiritual by the court of Minster canons.9 The archbishop had in Ripon a
palace, park and chapel, and the lands of his Minster absorbed the greater part
of a very large parish, ‘the Liberty of Ripon’; in addition, a smaller portion of the
Liberty was a sanctuary for fugitives, with a right of ‘grith’, allegedly granted by
Athelstan, c. 930, for a mile or so in each direction from the Minster.10

II. Local writers

The Minster had been founded by Wilfrid in the late seventh century. He was a
bishop (of various sees, since he was remarkably cantankerous and several times
deposed) for forty-five years until his death in 709, and with the establishment
of his cult in the church, came to share the dedication.11 The Minster itself was
a collegiate church, administered by secular canons, from at least 1069, but it
was equally a parochial church and served the customary large Northern parish,
perhaps fifty square miles. Within the parish limits were the entire grounds of
Fountains (as well as its Nidderdale granges) and a smaller Cistercian house at
Sawley. The parish also included villages as much as a dozen miles from Ripon
itself, Pateley Bridge, for example.12
Minster staff numbered thirty-two in the 1535 ‘Valor ecclesiasticus’ and in the
Chantry Returns (there were nine within the Minster by this time). The staff had
been this size for more than 200 years, following formulation of the Minster Stat-
utes 1301 x 1332, under archiepiscopal direction.13 At the head of the chapter
(there was no Dean) was the prebendary of Stanwick St John; following restric-
tions attached to the living by Archbishop Walter Gray on his donation in 1230/2,
he was required to be permanently resident. His church, well to the north on the
Durham border, was served by vicar, and he could thus function as the precentor,
commander of the choir, which was the primary function of the Minster.14
There were six additional prebendaries, from 1303 assigned the income of
specific properties in the Liberty, the ‘berewicks’, Littlethorpe, (Bishop) Monkton,
Givendale and Skelton, Nunwick, Studley Magna, Sharow. Although required to
be in residence for any twelve weeks they chose each year, none of the preben-
daries probably was; all the fourteenth-century holders were accomplished plural-
ists, and most royal servants. For example, Studley Magna was held 1346–70 by
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  171
David de Wollore, Edward III’s Master of the Rolls (who will flicker in and out
of my account), then 1373–1401 by John de Sleford, Keeper of the Wardrobe in
the Tower.15
In addition to its prebendaries, the chapter included six perpetual vicars, six
deacons, six thuriblers, six choristers and the schoolmaster, quite a haul of literate
clerics (and not including the extra chaplains required to serve the numerous
chantries). The perpetual vicars did the grunt work. They followed an imposed
communal discipline through being housed in their own quarters, ‘the Bedern’
(OE ‘bede-aern’), located out of sullying contact with the locals in the Minster
precincts. (By contrast, each of the prebendaries eventually had his own house,
should any want to show up.)16
The vicars not only served the Minster choir but also, with one assigned to each
prebend/berewick, performed the cura animarum in distinct beats of the parish.
Although they had room and board, they were likely underpaid at £2 p.a., and
in 1338 Archbishop John Melton denied their petition to double their salaries out
of prebendal income. Their appeal might be expected to show rhetorical exag-
geration, but it makes the job sound difficult enough: in some cases, they were
serving ‘nouem milliaria’ from the Minster and needed both horses and servants
to perform their parochial responsibilities; in addition, their daily choir duties
required them to hire in proxies so that they could perform parochially (likely
from among the chantry chaplains, an additional literate cadre in the town). After
the case dragged for a full year, the prebendaries prevailed and retained their
stipends intact – the residentiary prebend of Stanwick typically returned over £40
p.a., Studley over £30, and the remainder £20–25.17
Some evidence pointing to a closed shop within the Liberty suggests the seri-
ousness with which Minster staff went about the cure of souls. Ripon was one
of the three largest places in Yorkshire without a mendicant house – a distinc-
tion shared with the monastic centres Selby and Whitby. In 1320, one Robert
de Rypon OP complained to Archbishop Melton that he had been hindered in
his work in Ripon by Andrew de Kirkby, vicar; Andrew was called before the
archbishop and told to desist. But it is hard not to see a connection between this
fracas and the decision, three years later, to appoint another vicar, Thomas de
Hornby, as penitentiary inside the Liberty. The locals were prepared to look after
their own confessional system, and its potential profits; Robert, although a local
boy by cognomen, must have been proselytising at home from York, the nearest
Dominican house, conceivably from Yarm, far in the North Riding.18
The chapter was also responsible for two schools. There was a song school
for the choristers, presumably taught by the organist. But there was also a free
grammar school, with a schoolmaster, first recorded in 1345, but certainly a good
deal older. This was available to any local youth who wanted to learn to read,
but unusually for England, although routine in all four Minsters of York diocese,
statutes repeatedly required all Minster staff from the deacons down to attend
both schools.19 Although the song school was taught within Minster precincts, the
grammar school was taught in a house, on the south edge of the close in High St
Agnesgate. This building did double duty, with the school on the ground floor and
172  Ralph Hanna
the upstairs let out as private housing. The rental from the domestic portions paid
for an annual obit, the reason for donating the building to the canons, probably
in early 1340s, as part of the estate of one Agnes Skrevyne.20 This might lead one
to wonder whether one of my scribes might have been a woman; surely, one can
consider the donation as implying a trained writer’s specific desire to sustain a
communal institution that would produce other such literates.
If the Minster chapter provides a rich haul of literates for a smallish place,
yet further clerical staff would have been available in abundance. There were
two hospitals active in the fourteenth century. One, the leprosarium of St Mary
Magdalen, on the north-east edge of town, and, in the absence of lepers, housing
blind priests, gained by the mid-fourteenth century an endowment at least capable
of supporting a staff of seven clerics (although it seldom did so). The second, St
John the Baptist in Bondgate south of the Skell, now destroyed, in addition to
harbouring travellers in need of overnight accommodation, was to provide bed
and board for four or five poor scholars, i.e. fodder for the grammar school.21
In short, Ripon has all the ingredients one would want to associate with produc-
tion of multiple books like Galba et al. There was a substantial number of loose
clerics, moderately dispersed, and the evidence, such as it is, suggests they had
a good deal too much time on their hands. For example, William Pistor/Baker,
chaplain in 1312, was disciplined first for having invented a mysterious game
called Dyngthryftes, and as an afterthought, for his liaison with one Clemency
Preestes.22 The schools meant the locale could provide a substantial if perhaps
modestly learned cadre, and there was considerable dispersed parochial duty for
which, if seriously undertaken, substantial instruction, the stuff of the verse the
manuscripts convey, should have been necessary.
However, actual evidence of book-production and -ownership is now attenu-
ated. A single Minster book (the Psalter now Ripon Cathedral Library MS 8) has
survived the Dissolution, and the current library dates from 1624.23 There are a
few surviving book bequests associable with the Minster: in addition to that cited
in n. 22, a prebendary of Littlethorp in 1420 donated a glossed Psalter, to be
chained in the choir; and Nicholas Holme/Hulme, prebendary of Sharow 1433–
58/9, disposed of a reasonably interesting personal library (mostly of parochial use
and including one Latin Rolle MS).24
There is other evidence for vernacular books in the parish, including books
containing texts like those in Cotton Galba E.ix and the three other related manu-
scripts, although often much later than those volumes. BL MS Additional 24203
(Prick of Conscience, the distinctive ‘key of knowing’ version), was copied s. xiv ex. by
John Bagby, monk of Fountains. From the same exemplar of The Prick as available
to Ripon scribes (see Britton, n. 2) are a pair of books, with a slightly better text:
BL MS Additional 33995, copied c. 1375 (also providing the best surviving text
of Speculum vitae), and Wellesley College MA MS 8, copied early in the fifteenth
century. Ruth Rogers of the Wellesley Library tells me the latter has an erased
Byland (OCist) ex-libris and a note of c. 1500 mentioning Robert and Cecilia
Cooke of Skeeby, near Richmond.
The language of BL MS Stowe 951 (Speculum vitae), on paper of the 1440s, is
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  173
placed near Pateley Bridge (LALME LP 526), and the language of the same text
in Liverpool UL MS F.4.9, copied c. 1400, is described as nearly identical. These
present the same narrowly dispersed version of the poem as Additional 33995;
moreover, Stowe also includes, uniquely, ‘Quixley’’s English verse translation of
John Gower’s Anglo-Norman balades (IMEV 4105).25 Quixley is a name derived
from a place, modern Whixley, six miles east of Knaresborough. Three later
Ripon chaplains share the name and presumably came from there, John, Robert,
and William.26
BL MS Royal 17 C.viii (also Speculum vitae, but a different textual flavour), from
the mid-fifteenth century, has a dated colophon copied from its exemplar with
scribal signature ‘Rokeby’. This place, near Greta Bridge on the Durham border,
is well within the ambit of the Fitzhughs, whom I will introduce shortly, and
certainly Royal appears written in a more southerly language, perhaps compa-
rable with the Ripon area. Finally, Oxford, University College MS 64 (Rolle,
Psalter), copied c. 1475, has notes of ‘Thomas geffraye of bryntyeates’ (s. xvi) and
‘Liber Gulielmi Wraye 1590, ex dono Heughe Gille’. The place in the first note is
Burnt Yates, a mile or two west of Ripley, on the south edge of Ripon parish; as
his notes indicate, Wray came from Ripon itself.
In addition to books, one should remember that Ripon was sustained as a reli-
gious and devotional centre, albeit only a regional one, by its patron St Wilfrid.
Besides all the chantries, the Minster housed both the tomb and one great reli-
quary shrine with the head of the founder (sundered from the rest of him, buried
in the crypt, on archiepiscopal order in the 1220s). Archbishop Grey had sought
to stimulate such devotion by pronouncing indulgences for visiting Wilfrid’s tomb
and confessing one’s sins, a plausible background for the trouble Robert of Ripon
occasioned in 1320.27 Further, the Minster profited from St Wilfrid in other ways.
His shrine was portable and associated with elaborate Rogation Day/Ascension
processionals. On such occasions, the cart bearing the relic was drawn by selected
Minster tenants, preceded by the Minster’s banner of Wilfrid; the shrine seems
to have been kept outdoors much of the day, displayed in a tent pitched in fields
outside the town.28 And such occasions allowed the Minster to profit through that
grace disseminated by ‘Seint-Wilfride-burninge-yron’ and, eventually, Wilfrid’s
‘pox-stone’ – implements which would have done Chaucer’s Pardoner proud and
were frequently quite remunerative.29

III. Local readers, actual and putative

For a relatively small and reasonably isolated place, the Ripon area appears
particularly rich in literary and devotional activities. Rolle’s addressee, Margaret
Butler of South Kirkby, was reinclaustrated in 1356 at Ainderby Steeple, about six
miles north-east of LALME’s placement of the Rawlinson scribe(s); she presumably
carried with her into her cell the autograph of the hermit’s epistle Form of Living. As
I have rather sketchily suggested, a very large number of Speculum vitae manuscripts
was produced just to the south. And at the head of his scribal stint (fols 52ra–57va),
scribe 2 of Cotton Galba E.ix transcribed the unique copy of eleven ‘historical
174  Ralph Hanna
poems’ ascribed to Laurence Minot. A virulent throwback to early fourteenth-
century anglophilic invective, Minot is always properly associated with Carlton
Miniott, about six miles south-east of the LALME scribal placement.
Ample evidence exists to connect the Minots with Ripon and the scribal
community I suggest placing there. The account might begin several generations
before the poems were copied, with the construction of Markenfield Hall about
three miles south-west of Ripon – a fourteenth-century defensible house, a useful
precaution in an area subject to Scottish incursions.30 Edward II granted John de
Markenfield permission to crenellate in 1310, something of an inside job, because
John was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. But he was equally preben-
dary of Studley Magna in Ripon Minster, with a CV pretty typical of the six
customary absentees. Markenfield Hall has a chapel, still functioning and still
consecrated as Catholic (no surviving license/certificate for its foundation) and
thus had clerical staff.
Rather unusually, but far from uniquely among the prebendaries, John Mark-
enfield showed an interest in the Minster other than as a meal ticket. In 1319,
he founded a chantry there in memory of ‘Aungier of Ripon’, probably the local
wool merchant Aungier de Frere. But it might have memorialised another local
boy made good as a London legal figure, the alleged author of the brief legal text,
Tractatus corone.31
Family patronal interest in the Minster continued with one of John Markenfield’s
collateral descendants, Sir Thomas (sr). In 1369, he joined with David de Wollere,
the royal official and prebendary, in Wollere’s re-endowment of the chantries of
St Andrew and the Virgin. Wollere designated the Markenfields patrons of St
Andrew, to present a candidate for the chaplaincy to the Minster chapter, and
Thomas’s son, also Thomas, presented at least once, in 1398/9.32 Given the last
450 years of despoliation, it is difficult to be certain, but the Markenfields appar-
ently used this chapel (in the north transept) as if a private one, and two family
tombs still survive there. Probably a chosen family burial site, the Minster was thus
a place the family was inclined to support.33
The older family tomb now in the Minster is that of Thomas Markenfield jr
(1347–1422). An opulent husband and wife recumbent effigy tomb, it includes
armourial decoration.34 And one of the blazons there – Markenfield impaling
Miniott – indicates that Thomas sr’s wife, whose given name is unknown, was a
Minot of Carlton Miniott. She was, pretty certainly, Laurence Minot’s sister or
niece. Moreover, the Markenfield–Miniott connection can be solidified by the
record showing Thomas sr’s father, Andrew Markenfield, engaged in elaborate
business dealings with John Minot, lord of Carlton, either his son’s father- or
(more likely ?) brother-in-law in 1349.35
In the early fifteenth century, Thomas jr remodelled Markenfield Hall. The
work includes a new kitchen with an armorial frieze in the stonework under the
eaves – with a set of Miniott arms, here sole, not impaled. And heraldic memory
of Markenfield–Miniott connections continued at Markenfield into the early
sixteenth century.36
Other evidence still connects the Miniotts with Markenfields, Ripon, and with
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  175
the scribes of the manuscripts. In 1386, at least four Ripon-connected men trav-
elled, apparently as a troop (since they testified sequentially), to York Minster.
They were offering their support for a local power, Richard, 1st Lord Scrope
of Bolton (c. 1327–1403), and testified on his behalf in the Scrope–Grosvenor
affair. Thomas Markenfield jr was the last to appear, having been preceded by
Sir Robert Plumpton (a Duchy of Lancaster servant as lieutenant of the forest of
Knaresborough in 1387), Sir John Ward of Givendale and Sir Randolph Pigot.37
The last Minot I have found in the record, Joanna, in the 1380s or a little later,
married Geoffrey, son of this Randolph, who was the dynastic founder of the
Pigots of Clotherholme, longtime Ripon stalwarts. The evidence, such as it is,
indicates that Thomas Markenfield’s mother and Joanna Pigot were the Miniott
heirs, that the male line was extinct in the early fifteenth century, and that the
properties in Carlton were shared out between Markenfields and Pigots, certainly
the case c. 1530. And, just to draw connections a little more tightly, in 1302, the
Miniotts were associated, not with Carlton (which John Miniott II seems only to
have entered c. 1325), but with, inter alia, three manors in Burneston parish. These
are immediately north of the area in which LALME would place the language
of Rawlinson poet. 175 and the related books, Exelby, Leeming and Theakston.
These properties eventually passed, like Joanna Miniott, into the hands of the
Pigots of Ripon.38 There would appear to be ample evidence for seeing Laurence
Minot as a ‘local author’ and for imagining the scribe(s) who uniquely promul-
gated his poems as associated with that locality.
But although they connect Ripon and the Miniott family, the Markenfields
remain far from unique as a potential target audience for the religious verse instruc-
tion of the manuscripts. As a site of devotion, Ripon had a mainly local clientele,
although a good deal of it from outside the parish proper. Only the Pigots, and
in their case, only after the later fourteenth century, were actual patrons with
substantial interests in Ripon city. Many devout people in the neighbourhood
were closely associated with the Minster, as well as conducting private devotional
activities; persons also successful in worldly activities, they presumptively formed a
more than pragmatically literate and interested religious audience.
As one indication of local lay devotion, the Minster licensed at least eleven
private chapels within the parish in the century before 1350, probably testimony
to distance from the Minster, as well as devotion. Such local support might prove
embarrassingly overenthusiastic; a 1312 complaint against lay people, including
women, alleges their presence in the Minster choir during services and their recep-
tion of oblations at altars. While the archbishop told the Minster chapter to restrict
lay participation, he did not forbid them from opening the choir to men ‘magni et
nobiles’ and of good virtue and devotion.39
Moreover, the great and good of the parish were linked not simply with the
Minster, but intimately with one another through marriage, not to mention the
sort of business affairs I have already illustrated with Markenfield and Miniott.
Local gentry inbreeding could be intense; in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries, Sir John Norton married a Pigot; his son Sir John married a Ward
of Givendale and his daughter Joan a Malory; and although John’s son John
176  Ralph Hanna
esq. married outside the group, his daughters were back in the same marriage
mart once again, Anne wedding a Plumpton and Margaret yet another Thomas
Markenfield.40
And the Lancastrian affinity also contributed to local cohesion. Before his
marriage to Blanche of Lancaster, John of Gaunt had been given as his estate
the Honour of Richmond – essentially the western third of the North Riding,
including virtually all of Wensleydale. In 1372, he exchanged this holding for two
other Yorkshire honours, Tickhill (in the south-west of the county and adjacent
areas of Notts.) and Knaresborough, immediately abutting on the south edge of
Ripon parish. It was presumably because of this longstanding local presence that
at the Suppression, Minster property was joined to the Duchy of Lancaster by
parliamentary statute.41 A large number of Ripon-connected men – Marmions,
Nevilles, Scropes, and Miniotts – were members of the affinity.
But Ripon Minster had connections with a wide group of adherents, potential
local literates, far from all of them within Ripon Liberty, or even the York diocese
deanery of Ripon. Within the parish there are the Malorys of Hutton Conyers;
they, like the Markenfields, were buried in the Minster, and the family produced
William Matthews’s failed candidate for the authorship of some decent late
fifteenth-century prose romances.42 And there were also the Nortons of Norton
Conyers, to whose marital proclivities I have referred, and the obscure – the most
outstanding man of the line was a royalist hero of Boroughbridge in 1322 – but
especially prolific Wards of Givendale, pillars of the parish for three centuries
(one, recall, went along with Thomas Markenfield jr to testify in Scrope–Gros-
venor). The Nortons joined with the Pigots in funding a substantial part of the
fifteenth-century rebuilding of the Minster; the arms of both are incised in the
south transept stonework.43
The parish adjoining Ripon to the north-west is Kirkby Malzeard. This was
part of the Honour of Mowbray (the family eventually the Dukes of Norfolk),
a block of properties which ran from Nidderdale, their chase, to Thirsk, where
they were the Miniotts’ lords. The Mowbrays performed knight service for some
Minster properties, although on the whole they were more involved with their
more extensive landholdings elsewhere.44
But the Ripon ambit extends more widely, outside the parish, its rural deanery,
indeed the West Riding. In Richmond deanery, in the North Riding, there were
families like the Marmions of West Tanfield (the last of the line, one of John of
Gaunt’s bannerets, died in Spain in 1387). Although Marmion Tower, a solid
gatehouse of the early fifteenth century, is misnamed (it was built by the successor
Fitzhughs), the Marmions probably doubled the nave in St Nicholas’s church,
West Tanfield, to accommodate two chantries – one for three priests founded c.
1336, a second established in 1362 in memory of Maude Marmion (d. 1335) – and
a family burial site. The Marmions served the Minster by pulling the cart bearing
St Wilfrid’s shrine in Rogationtide processions.45
Henry, 3rd Lord Fitzhugh (c. 1358–1424/5), household officer of Henry V,
married Elizabeth, the last Marmion (who left books in her will, 1427). Since
Henry’s mother was a Scrope, he was a natural choice to receive the Richmond
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  177
manors of the attainted Henry Scrope of Masham until they were restored to the
family (not to mention two Latin Rolle manuscripts in Scrope’s will, see below). In
1416/17, Ripon Minster paid ‘lord Fitzhugh’ for one messuage ‘super le Cornehill’
and ‘pro secta curie’, an expense still being met in 1546/7. In addition to his
southern benefactions – he was one of the founders of Syon Abbey – Fitzhugh
received, according to Dugdale, a certificate of mortmain, 1412–13, to create a
further chantry in St Nicholas’s, in this case for himself and his ancestors.46
Up the road in Masham was one branch of the Scropes. They rebuilt Masham
church c. 1330 and, perhaps predictably as lords of Ainderby, were Margaret
Kirkby’s patrons in the 1380s. More to the point, the family intruded two younger
sons (one held his position from the age of sixteen, 1411–63) into Ripon preben-
daries in the early fifteenth century.47
I have earlier mentioned CUL MS Gg.i.7 as a book placeable in Masham on
linguistic grounds. But with the Scropes of Masham, one need not infer their
involvement in book-culture, for ample, although still fragmentary evidence
survives in documents associated with Henry le Scrope’s participation in the South-
ampton conspiracy and his execution in 1415. One piece of this is provided by an
inventory of chapel materials left at Pontefract Castle – forty-four service books,
a Latin life of Bridget, another service book for the office of St John Thweng of
Bridlington, and a French Bible (described as ‘Genesis’). And Henry’s will includes
a long list of volumes bequeathed ‘as a remembrance’, including to his sister (a nun
at The Minories, London) two books of Hours, a prayer roll and, the most widely
dispersed of my Ripon texts, a Prick of Conscience; and to Fitzhugh, ‘cansanguineo
meo’, a book with Rolle’s Latin Incendium amoris (and other contents, since the cited
incipit ‘Cum libro vocato sintillar’ does not belong to this text), and a small quire
with Iudica me deus.48
Further afield in the North Riding were the Nevilles of Raby, one of whose
three capita was about twenty miles up Wensleydale at Middleham Castle. By
1514, Nevilles were serving as the hereditary bearers of St Wilfrid’s banner with
a £5 fee for their trouble. One of the family is thought to have founded Ripon’s
third hospital (all but its chapel demolished in 1869), St Anne or the Maison dieu,
with a chaplain and four poor men, four poor women, in 1438.49
If the surmise about this foundation is correct, a likely patron would have been
Joan, wife of Ralph Neville, first earl of Westmorland (d. 1440, and by birth
a Beaufort, daughter of John of Gaunt). She is well known for her interests in
vernacular literature, although mostly in the metropolis. A letter of 1424 says she
had lent Henry V a French book of crusader romance/history, and she probably
owned (erased arms) BodL MS e Musaeo 35 (Nicholas Love’s Mirror, but, like most
copies, in southern English). She was Hoccleve’s patron, or desired as such, in the
1420s (when he wrote a stanza addressing ‘The Series’ to her in his autograph,
Durham UL MS Cosin V.3.9, fol. 95). And her great granddaughter, Anne, queen
of Richard III, left her name in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 61 (the
splash Chaucer Troilus), but the book was probably only acquired after Anne’s
father Richard the Kingmaker’s Beauchamp marriage in the 1440s.
The ambit of Ripon influence also extends to the south, into Boroughbridge
178  Ralph Hanna
deanery in the West Riding. The Ingilbys, a particularly steady line which survived
to the twentieth century, apparently arrived in Ripley (although bearing its name,
just beyond the southern edge of the parish) at the middle of the fourteenth century,
perhaps drawn by business relations with the Ripon official and prebendary David
de Wollere. They founded the chapel of St Mary (‘le Laydy Kyrk’) adjacent to the
Minster, presented its chaplain, and were customarily buried there, portions of
the building and tombs both intact in Leland’s time. Now there remain only 55 m
of the wall enclosing the garth, built by Abbot Marmaduke Huby of Fountains c.
1505 – according to Leland, he destroyed the old east end of the Kirk in hopes of
replacing it with a Cistercian cell.50
But other Ingilby benefactions were further afield and more important. The
head of the second Ripley generation, John (d. 1408 x 13), participated in the
foundation of Mt Grace Charterhouse, about ten miles north-east of Ripon (and
near Ingelby Arncliffe, perhaps the family’s original home). By the foundation
charter, Mt Grace was supposed to offer intercessory prayer for John and his
wife, as well as his father Thomas (d. c. 1380) and his wife. The family eventu-
ally amassed a prodigious manuscript library, including a substantial amount of
local vernacular writing (although one suspects that it may be post-Dissolution, its
origins in the ruins of Fountains Abbey).51
Yet further south lived a family I have already shown in conjunction with the
Markenfields, the Plumptons, foresters, stewards and castellans of Knaresborough,
a Duchy of Lancaster honour. Their arms may be incised in the stone of Marken-
field Hall, and their 1345 deed founding a chantry in Ripon Minster (referred to
in his will by a later Plumpton as ‘my chantry’) was witnessed by Andrew Marken-
field. A later Plumpton married a Scrope of Masham (and their son’s head ended
up on the gates of York with his uncle the archbishop’s in 1405),52 and a feofee of
the will to which I refer was Henry Fitzhugh of West Tanfield, at the time Treas-
urer of England. The Plumptons’ literate interests, of course, are beyond dispute,
since in the later fifteenth century they produced the largest early Northern corre-
spondence – the ‘fourth’ medieval set of letters after those of the Pastons, Stonors
and Celys. Although much later, they would have been one obvious audience for
the English verse life of the Knaresborough hermit St Robert Flower, now extant
only in BL MS Egerton 3143.53
The Ingilbys and Plumptons figure in one reconstructible and protracted
example of book-dissemination. This may indicate, not simply the profusion of
texts communicated by my Ripon MSS, but extensive webs of connection among
literate people. This outline account may offer a model for further considerations
of this process. (It is, for example, intriguing how many of the books involved were
in French and how much visible cultural interest is displayed by women.) These
activities extend over half a century and three generations of variable arrange-
ments, in which both Ingilbys and Plumptons appear. But at their centre is another
family line, in this instance relatively removed from Ripon and with no discernible
Minster connections, the Stapletons of Carl(e)ton, i.e. Carlton by Snaith, within
the Lancastrian Honour of Pontefract and the peculiar of Selby Abbey, twenty-
odd miles south of York.54
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  179
Sir Brian Stapledon (sr) KG (c. 1321–94), inherited ‘Carl(e)ton’ and Kent-
mere (Westmorland) from a cousin; he purchased Wighill, north of Tadcaster, in
1376. Brian married Alice, widow of Sir Stephen Waleys of Healaugh, the village
adjoining Wighill, and apparently lived there and was buried in Healaugh Abbey
(OSA) (DNB). His will was witnessed by Robert Plumpton, and Richard Scrope
of Masham (later the archbishop executed 1405) was his chief executor. Although
Brian sr willed no books, he left his niece Anis Middleton a silver basin with an
alabaster image of the Virgin ‘qui fust al ankerer de Hampoll’ (Rolle? Margaret
Kirkby?).
His son Sir Brian (jr) (who predeceased him in 1391), married Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir William Aldeburgh of Harewood, north of Leeds. Elizabeth was
a legatee of two Roos wills. This family had their seat at Ingmanthorpe (in Kirk
Deighton parish, OS 442/451, about five miles south-east of Knaresborough),
and Brian Stapleton sr served as a trustee in an important transaction instituted
by Robert de Roos in 1384 (see Lancaster, op. cit., pp. 42–3, 47–8). From Robert
in 1392, Elizabeth received ‘lib[er] de gallico qui vocatur Sydrak’. And in the will
of Robert’s second son Thomas, 1399, as Elizabeth Redman (see the next para-
graph), she was bequeathed a Legenda sanctorum. (In this will, Thomas left ‘dominus’
William de Healaugh, presumably the parish priest, a ‘lib[er] vocatu[s] Mandevyl’
and yet another copy of Stimulus conscienciae (Prick of Conscience). Thomas’s executors
included John Ingilby of Ripley and Richard Gascoigne of Harewood.
Elizabeth married secondly Sir Richard Redman (c. 1360–1426). They are both
still memorialised by a splendid tomb, with recumbent alabaster effigies, in the
parish church of her property Harewood. The church also houses two similar
Gascoigne tombs, one of Thomas Roos’s executor Richard (– 1419), who was the
father of the well-known Oxford figure, Chancellor Thomas Gascoigne.
Elizabeth and Brian jr’s son Sir Brian MP (III) (1387–1417; see Roskell et al.,
op. cit., 4: 459–61), being a minor on his father’s death, was put under the guardi-
anship of Robert Hilton jr of Swine and Winestead, Holderness, MP (d. 1431; see
Roskell et al., op. cit., 3: 379–81). Robert Hilton had been one party in a double
marriage linking his family with the Constables of Flamborough and Halsham. His
wife, Joan Hilton, in her will of 1432, left her niece Margaret Constable ‘lib[er]
de Romanse de Septem Sages’, i.e. either a source version of or the English poem
that appears in MSS Galba E.ix and Rawlinson poet. 175. She also bequeathed to
‘Katherinae Comberworth, sorori meae’ [i.e. her brother Marmaduke jr’s wife] a
‘lib[er] de Romanse incipien[s] cum Decem preceptis alembes’.55
Robert Hilton had, c. 1410, served as a trustee for Katherine’s brother, Sir
Thomas Cumberworth MP of ‘Someretby’ (Somerby, near Brigg, north Lincs.;
see Roskell et al., op. cit., 2: 713–15). Cumberworth had a distinguished literary
and pietistic career; among other activities, he had been custodian of the pris-
oner-poet Charles of Orleans, 1422–9. His 1450 will is well known: he left to the
chantries he had endowed in his local church two copies of ‘Grace dieu’, one
possibly the pseudo-Rolle text now known in its full form only from an Ingilby
book (Huntington Library MS HM 148), the other, at least, the prose translation
of de Deguilleville’s Pèlerinage de l’âme (a survivor, now New York, Public Library
180  Ralph Hanna
MS Spencer 19); to the local pastor, a probable Rolle Psalter; to the parson of
Argam (five miles north-west of Bridlington, ERY), a ‘boke of actif life’; to two
other priests, a probable Love’s Mirror (or similar work: ‘my boke of passion’), and
a (?) Latin ‘vita Cristi’; and to Anne/Agnes Constable, again from the Flambor-
ough family, a Canterbury Tales.
Other Cumberworth connections are worth at least indicating. His lordship of
Argam signals his collateral relationship (they were probably uncle and nephew
by marriage) with the owner of perhaps the largest medieval private library we
know in detail, that of John Erghome OESA of York (d. after 1385). Equally,
Cumberworth was an adherent of Robert, Lord Willoughby of Eresby, whose
arms appear in Glasgow, University Library MS Gen. 1130 (Nicholas Love). In
his will, Cumberworth left bequests, although not books, to Lionel, Lord Welles
and his son Richard. A later booklist associable with this family appears at BL MS
Royal 15 D.ii, fol. 211v, and is rich in vernacular texts.56
Robert Hilton’s father, Robert Hilton sr, had married as her second husband,
Constance Sutton, widow of Sir John Godard MP (Roskell et al., op. cit., 3:
194–6). Godard (c. 1346–92) came from Orton in Ribblesdale, but his seat was at
Bransholme (four miles north of central Hull); he served on a 1388 commission
to suppress Lollard books. By marriage, Constance had acquired extensive lands,
including Reeth and Grinton in Swaledale.
The Hiltons, père et fils, apparently connived to marry Brian Stapleton III to
Constance’s daughter Anne; her properties, acquired for her by her stepfather,
were Cockerington and Conisholme (both north-east of Louth). In addition to
these, Brian III is described as holding properties in Carlton, Walkingham (iden-
tifiable with a locale, OS 435/462, just south of Ripon parish), Rufforth (west of
York near Wighill), Farlington (ten miles north of York) and Quermby (now part
of Huddersfield). Brian and Anne had issue, including Elizabeth, who married Sir
William Plumpton (1404–80), apparently fallout from their fathers’ joint service as
MPs for Yorkshire, 1416; and Joan, who married Sir William Quernby of Ripley
(1408–38).
On her death (1448), Anne Stapleton bequeathed the following: to Sir William
Plumpton, a prayer book; to his son, also William, a Psalter; to Agnes Plumpton, a
French book; to Agnes Ingilby, a primer; to Ellen Ingilby, a ‘lib[er] de Frensshe de
vita sanctorum’. But her more interesting bequests endowed a range of nunneries,
most of them those most proximate to Windhill, in a wide swath westward: to Nun
Monkton (OSB nuns), ‘lib[er] meu[s] vocatu[s] vice and vertues’, probably the
Ripon-associated Speculum vitae;57 to Sinningthwaite (OCist nuns), ‘Bonaventure’
(either Nicholas Love or Hilton’s translation of Stimulus amoris?); to Arthington
(OClun nuns, near Harewood), yet another Prick of Conscience; to Esholt (OCist
nuns, Bradford area), The Chastising of God’s Children, probably a metropolitan
import; and, the one extraterritorial bequest, to Denny (OFM nuns, Cambs.) a
French book.
Their son Brian (IV) (1413–66) MP, was a ward of John, Duke of Bedford,
1417–34. He married Isabel, daughter of Sir Thomas Rempston of Rempston and
Bingham (Notts.), a Plumpton associate. Although nominated to, Brian did not
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  181
serve in an Ingilby guardianship during the minority following William Ingilby’s
death in 1438. He is the first of the family certainly residing in Carlton.
Thus, Ripon Minster provided a focus for the devotional activity of many
literate individuals. As part of this function, associated local clergy may well have
been involved in transmitting the verse instructional texts of Cotton Galba E.ix
and the other three related manuscripts. But equally, one must also consider a
substantial lay network in which the clerical role may only have been facilita-
tive – but perhaps so by providing pious instructional reading. Many prominent
local families were interconnected and also shared substantial interests outside
the district, so far away as the metropolitan centre. In trying to conceptualise and
discuss literary communities in late medieval England, tracing out such connec-
tions and interchanges remains a promising and still only slightly investigated
avenue of research.

Appendix

The pedigree of Miniott

The family name is most usually represented as Mynyot(t) or Minot. However,
it seems to have been subject to a Frenchified pronounciation in the fourteenth
century and can occur in such forms as Myneot, Mygnyot, Munyot, Mignot,
Myngot, Mynghet, Minghot, Mynyhot, Myn(i)oth and Minhotte. The name also
appears attached to a place Minotts in Higham, Samford Hundred, Suffolk, a
locale certainly with family associations. Because the title was extinct by at least the
late fifteenth century, no genealogy appears in the Yorkshire heraldric visitations.
Dom. Roger Miniot is recorded as a landowner in a variety of places, mainly
1285 x 1297:

a in Suffolk, Heyham and Bramford, Antigonnes (-gornes ?), and Stoneham;

the first, at least, is Higham, in the Stour valley, east of Stoke by Nayland.
b in Norfolk, Kirstead Green and Seething, about eight miles south-east of
Norwich; he is presumably the Roger Minyot who, in 1288–9, gave the land
to establish the Norwich Augustinian friary.

I ignore henceforth, although they have left ample records, the southern branch
of the family, presumably representing these properties.

c in Yorkshire, originally two sets of holdings:

1 a set of properties just north of Carlton Miniott and north-west of Thirsk:
Pickhill, Kirkby Wiske and Newsham;
2 a set of properties in the north, surrounding Richmond: Middleton Tyas
(including Kneeton), Skeeby and Applegarth in Marske (i.e. a manor in
the place in lower Swaledale); in addition, Roger held Crossthwaite in
Romaldkirk (Teesdale, Co. Durham).
182  Ralph Hanna
To these he added in 1302 a further compact group of holdings, Exelby,
Leeming and Theakston, all immediately to the north of the LALME placement
for MS Rawlinson poet. 175.
See especially Yorkshire Archeological Society, Record Series (YASRS) 21,
1896, pp. 1 n. 5 and 1, 9, 11, 13, 14, 20, 22; YASRS 83, 1932, pp. 13, 14, 17, 18;
YASRS 151 (1996), pp. 272–3, as well as the references in n. 38.
A 1297 record at YASRS 83, 1932, pp. 17–18, mentions his wife Agnes, but a
later deed (1302), gives his wife as Isolda; YASRS 127, 1963, p. 25.
He witnessed a deed for the transfer of Croft on Tees from Thomas Richmond,
lord of Burton Constable, to Henry le Scrope, progenitor of the Scropes of Bolton,
in 1294; YASRS 50, 1913, p. 57. And in his last appearance in the record, he
served on a jury affirming the Archbishop of York’s liberties in 1306; YASRS 37,
1906, p. 136.
Roger’s father may have been John (see below): in 1286, Johannes Mygnot,
now dead, is mentioned as one of three men who had taken two roe in Pick-
ering Forest and transported them to Scarborough Castle; North Riding
Record Society n.s. 3 (1896), p. 180. His mother seems to have been Margery
de Newsham; see VCH North Riding 1: 94; as VCH notes (see also 2: 194–5),
these properties seem all to have passed into other hands in the first half of the
fourteenth century.
Roger’s son was John: in the 1302 deed at YASRS 127, 1963, p. 25, he holds
with his parents and must then have been then of age, thus born before 1281. The
following set of records may refer to him, but given the relative chronologies, more
likely to his son, also John.
As Nicholas Nicholas pointed out, Scrope-Grosvenor 2: 229, John Mynyot held
three parts of a knight’s fee in Thirsk – Carlton, Sandhutton and Islebeck – under
John, Lord Mowbray in 1327; see Calendar of Inquisitions post mortem 7: 54 (hereafter
CIPM). According to Nicholas, he had free warren in Carlton, Calton [Catton by
Topcliffe, just south of Skipton], Sandhutton and Skipton upon Swale in 1334, the
same year he witnessed a deed by which lands in Islebeck passed to Byland Abbey,
YASRS 50, 1913, p. 96.
His properties in Thirsk at least begin as a reasonably compact swath just south
of his father’s holdings, although Islebeck is a good deal to the south-east near
Thirkleby. In 1327, when first recorded, these may have been a fairly recent
acquisition: a 1301 assessment of Carlton shows no Minots there, YASRS 21, 1896,
p. 84. A Walter de Carleton held one-third of a knight’s fee from the Mowbrays
there in 1301, YASRS 31, 1902, pp. 158, 160 (although the only Walter in the
preceding record is apparently the parish priest, identified as ‘clericus’). John was
identified as a Yorkshire landowner in 1322 (CCR 1318–23, p. 668) and may have
entered Carlton c. 1325, when he engaged in a suit with Walter de Carleton using
as his proxy one Hugh of York clerk (CCR 1323–7, p. 374).
Because his son was also John, it is difficult to be certain, as one approaches and
passes mid-century, to whom the record refers. One or the other held additional
tenements of Henry de Percy in 1353 and 1369 (CIPM 10: 26–7; 12: 225–6): Skipton
upon Swale, and towards the south near other holdings, Catton by Topcliffe; and
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  183
in Cleveland, a discontinuous strip between Middlesbrough and Whitby, e.g. Kirk
Leetham, Upleetham and Ugthorpe.
John had been in the king’s service in Gascony 1324, Calendar of Patent Rolls
1321–4, p. 441 (hereafter CPR). He was exempted from holding offices, apparently
because engaged in war with the Scots, 25 July 1333 (CPR 1330–4, p. 457); collector
of wool in the North Riding for a royal loan, 10 June 1347 (CCR 1346–9, p. 227);
served on the peace commission to settle a dispute involving Byland, mentioned
Nicholas, 2 August 1351 (CPR 1350–4, p. 158); also on a commission involving
horse theft in Hutton Conyers (Ripon parish), 15 October 1352 (CPR 1350–4, p.
387), and – this I should think almost certainly John jr – another over assault and
theft in Easingwold and ‘West Herlesay’, 3 May 1364 (CPR 1361–4, p. 541).
John was not always so law abiding and subject of commissions for actions
in Alverton and Querleton and in Burghwallis (near Doncaster), Newtonwa-
leys, Halagh, Dunsford and Cottingly 1328 (CPR 1327–30, pp. 283, 295); and
in Topcliffe on Swale 1344, where he was attacking his lord, Henry Percy (CPR
1343–5, p. 276).
John sr had at least one sibling, Laurence the poet, still alive in 1352; for the
only discovered records concerning him, see Samuel Moore, ‘Lawrence Minot’,
Modern Language Notes 35, 1920, 78–81. Evidence that Laurence represents the
Yorkshire Minots, and no other branch, is twofold:

a that five of the eleven poems are fully alliterative, a verse form at this date
only paralleled in Yorkshire; see for instance Bruce Dickins (ed.), The Conflict
of Wit and Will: Fragments of a Middle English Alliterative Poem, Kendal: University
of Leeds, 1937; see also alliterative lines in Rolle’s prose epistle Ego dormio, in
S.J: Ogilvie-Thomson (ed.), Richard Rolle Prose and Verse, EETS o.so. 293, 1988,
p. 28, lines 84–91 (printed as prose).
b that the poems persistently exhibit authorial (as opposed to possibly trans-
missional) features consonant with such a placement. Thus rhymes testify
to Northern features, such as retention of OE long a (sare 1/15), ‘thare’
(2/22), ‘hend’ (3/32, pl.?), ‘tithandes’ (3/58), ‘hernes’ (3/68), ‘ware’ were
(4/87), ‘skrith’ escape (5/68), ‘brenne’ and ‘ren’ (6/35, 37), ‘fleand’ (7/90),
‘sais’ (7/179), ‘fun’ found (8/93), tane (9/66). Retention of non-dialectically
marked forms is unsurprising (e.g. ‘taken’ 9/34) in a man who moved in
cosmopolitan military circles, but the dialecticisms are telling.

Possibly John’s sibling is Roger Mynot of Wath, who first appears in the record
as abusing his position as serjeant to one of the King’s Messengers, CPR 1338–
40, pp. 358–9, having stolen horses and using them to con the Essex locals in
1339, but surely in some relation (perhaps his son?) to a royal messenger in good
standing; see Mary C. Hill, The King’s Messengers 1199–1377: A List of All Known
Messengers, Mounted and Unmounted, who Served John, Henry III, and the First Three
Edwards, Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1994, p. 164, where he is identified as a courier
of the wardrobe 1357 x 1369 (Hill has missed the first record, of his misspent
youth).
184  Ralph Hanna
Probably John II’s children are:

––, who married Thomas Markenfield sr and was mother of Thomas Mark-
enfield jr (b. 1347).
John Mynyot jr esquire testified in Scrope–Grosvenor, Nicholas, op. cit.,
2: 229–30. He was an indentured retainer of John of Gaunt at least 1382–99
and perhaps as early as 1373, participant in the Castile expedition of 1386; cf.
the hash at Walker, op. cit., pp. 33–4, note 112, and 276, with references to
‘John Mymott of Carston’.

In 1368, he held of Ralph de Neville lands in Thormanby, further south-east

than other Minot properties (nr Easingwold, where he was on a commission) as
‘John son of John Mynyot’, CIPM 12: 143. In the inquest post-mortem of Thomas
Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk 1399, he still was holding three-quarters of a knight’s
fee in Carlton, Sandhutton and Islebeck, YASRS 59, 1918, p. 6. A Margaret de
Mynyot, presumably his wife, received rents in Thirkleby and Islebeck in 1381,
YASRS 50, 1913, p. 188. In 1397, he held lands in Firsby, a little east of Skegness,
Lincs. (CCR 1396–9, p. 226). There are two pardons for failure to appear in debt
cases, both involving loans from Londoners in the late 1390s (CPR 1396–9, pp.
129, 295); there he is described as a squire of Lincolnshire, presumably a reflec-
tion of the last (and perhaps other) properties.
John’s daughter Joan(na) appears the last known Yorkshire Minot; she married
Geoffrey Pygot of Clotherholme, Ripon parish, in the 1380s or just a bit later.

Notes
1 From Aelred of Rievaulx, ‘De sanctis ecclesie Hagustaldensis’, in James Raine (ed.),
The Priory of Hexham: Its Endowments, Chroniclers, and Annals 1, Surtees Society 44, 1864,
pp. 173–203 (p. 202); and a fine local history, Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby, York-
shire Village, 3rd edn, Otley: Smith Settle, 1989, p. 47, respectively. Aelred here reports
words supposedly spoken in a dream by St Eata, bishop of Hexham and Lindisfarne (d.
686); the saint’s outrage convinced the dreamer, Archbishop Thomas II of York, not to
remove his relics.
2 See further ‘Yorkshire Writers’, in Proceedings of the British Academy 121, 2003, 91–
109, an essay also inspired by Doyle. For one contextualisation (and indication
of these books’ importance as transmitters of texts), see Derek Britton, ‘Unknown
Fragments of The Prick of Conscience’, Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 80, 1979, 327–34
(esp. the diagram, p. 329).
3 For Rawlinson, see LALME, 1986, 3: 576–7; for Gg, see op.cit., 3: 586–7.
4 As an overview, see the careful presentation of dispersed documentary detail in William
Page (ed.), The Victoria History of the County of York, 3 vols, London: Archibald Constable;
St Catherine Press, 1907–25, 1: 430–6 (the school); 3: 323–30 (the hospitals); 3: 367–72
(the Minster, A. Hamilton Thompson at his magisterial best). The medieval parish is
mapped, with some surrounding areas, John Hebden, A Guide to Historical Sources for Ripon
and District, Ripon: Ripon Historical Society and Ripon, Harrogate & District Family
History Group, 1994, pp. 41–2; and with attention to medieval tenurial and legal institu-
tions, T.S. Gowland, ‘The Manors and Liberties of Ripon’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal
32, 1934, 43–85 (facing p. 43) (hereafter I refer to the journal as YAJ).
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  185
  5 Although the town centre originally seems to have been along a line perpendicular to
that of the current centre and well north of the river; see William Mackay, ‘The Devel-
opment of Medieval Ripon’, YAJ 54, 1982, 73–80; R.A. Hall and Mark Whyman,
‘Settlement and Monasticism at Ripon, North Yorkshire, from the 7th to 11th Centu-
ries A.D.’, Medieval Archaeology 40, 1996, 62–150; and Whyman, ‘Excavations in Deanery
Gardens and Low St Agnesgate, Ripon, North Yorkshire’, YAJ 69, 1997, 119–63.
  6 See the distinguished local antiquary, John R. Walbran, rev. J. Raine and William F.
Stephenson, A Guide to Ripon, Fountains Abbey, Harrogate, Bolton Priory, and Several Places of
Interest in their Vicinity, Revised by Canon Raine and W.F. Stephenson, 11th edn, Ripon: W.
Harrison, 1874, p. 9; Mary Mauchline, in J.M. Hagerty et al. (eds), Ripon: Some Aspects
of its History, Ripon Civic Society, Clapham: Dalesman, 1972., pp. 26–7; and on the
pattern as normal for smaller places in Yorkshire, R.B. Dobson, ‘Yorkshire Towns in
the Later Fourteenth Century’, Thoresby Society 59, 1983, 1–21 (p. 12).
  7 The 1379 poll tax returns are printed in YAJ 7, 1882, 19–23 (for the town), 23–31
(for remainder of the liberty of Ripon); they designate only four merchants. For these
figures in a national context, cf. David M. Palliser (ed.), The Cambridge Urban History of
Britain: Volume 1, 600–1540, Cambridge: CUP, 2000, pp. 758–60. Jennifer Kermode’s
discussion of ‘Northern Towns’ here (esp. p. 677), dependent on Dobson’s fine study,
notices the absence of merchants, although see Mauchline’s cautionary comments, op.
cit., pp. 27–8. For a useful supplement to Dobson on the typology of towns, see George
Sheeran, Medieval Yorkshire Towns: People, Buildings and Spaces, Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1998, esp. pp. 20–27 (with a very useful map of the distribution of
towns, p. 26) and the eighteenth-century map of Ripon reproduced at p. 157.
  8 For the local fairs, see Joseph T. Fowler, Memorials of the Church of SS Peter and Wilfrid,
Ripon, Surtees Society 74, 78, 81, 115, 1882–1908, 1: 68 (a record of 1292) (hereafter
Fowler, op. cit. with 1 for 74, 2 for 78, etc.). In C. Bonnier, ‘List of English Towns in
the Fourteenth Century’, English Historical Review 16, 1901, 501–3 (line 80), the place
is signaled by a ‘Palefrey’ (cited Dobson, op. cit., p. 7, n. 15), and one might note the
prominent local place-name Studley (OE stōd-lēah ‘horse-pasture’). For local guilds,
see J.M. Hagerty, in Mauchline, op. cit., p. 17, following T.S. Gowland, ‘A Ripon
Guildbook’, YAJ 35, 1940, 68–78 (p. 68). On the wool trade, see Mauchline, op. cit.,
pp. 26 (on Dyer, the original record Fowler, op. cit., 1: 269) and 32; David Hey, York-
shire from AD 1000, A Regional History of England, London: Longman, 1986, pp. 85,
95–6; Kermode, op. cit, in Cambridge Urban History, p. 677; Bill Forster, Bill Robson and
Jennifer Deadman, Ripon Cathedral: Its History and Architecture, York: William Sessions,
1993, pp. 9–11. Fowler, op. cit., 1: 85, quotes Leland’s account; see also John Chan-
dler (ed.), John Leland’s Itinerary: Travels in Tudor England, Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1993, pp.
555–8 (p. 558).
  9 For the 1228 case which fixed the respective rights of canons, archbishops and sheriffs,
see Fowler, op. cit., 1: 51–63.
10 On tenurial and legal arrangements, see Gowland, op. cit. (1934). There is a record of
the 1481 Pentecost procession to ‘beat the bounds’, in Joseph T. Fowler (ed.), Acts of
Chapter of the Collegiate Church of SS Peter and Wilfrid, Ripon, A.D. 1452 to A.D. 1506, Surtees
Society 64, 1875, pp. 337–48. For the Middle English rhymed version of Athelstan’s
(surely forged) charter, see Fowler, op. cit., 1: 90–3, with a reproduction of the only
surviving medieval version (early fifteenth century). One of the ‘grith-stones’ which
marked the bounds of the sanctuary still survives in part, at Sharow.
11 There are two notable accounts, the second somewhat chilly, in Bertram Colgrave and
Roger A.B. Mynors (eds), Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1969, pp. 298–308, 516–30, much of their information probably derived from Eddius
Stephanus [i.e., Stephen of Ripon, born Æddi], in B. Colgrave (ed.)., The Life of Bishop Wilfrid
by Eddius Stephanus, Cambridge: CUP, 1927. For a modern account, see Henry Mayr-
Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, London: B.T. Batsford, 1972.
186  Ralph Hanna
12 On its early collegiate status, see Walbran, op. cit., p. 35. For the building itself (it has also
attracted a number of art-historical studies as an early example of Gothic in the North),
see T.S. Gowland, ‘Ripon Minster and its Precincts’, YAJ 35, 1941, 270–87 (esp. pp.
280–7 on the precincts), including a plan. There were two parish guilds identified in the
1389 returns, for the Holy Cross and Blessed Virgin, both apparently societies to provide
funeral masses; a third guild, of St Wilfrid, was associated with the Cawood chantry in
1420; see n. 24 below. On the iconography of the church, see esp. Barbara D. Palmer, The
Early Art of the West Riding of Yorkshire: A Subject List of Extant and Lost Art Including Items Relevant
to Early Drama, Kalamazoo MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1990, the index entry,
pp. 353–4; Palmer collects all Fowler’s references to images on the large number of altars,
as well as describing the fine set of chancel roof-bosses, a programme of Fall–St John the
Baptist–Redemption–St Wilfrid. Many of these are illustrated, along with the fine wood-
work of the choir-stalls (c. 1490), in Ripon Carvings, Ripon (no date). A few alabasters, again
with an unusual interest in the Baptist, were hidden in 1568–9 and thus have survived
both Reformation and Parliamentarian depredations; see Pauline E. Sheppard-Routh,
‘“Full of Images”: The Ripon Alabasters’, YAJ 57, 1985, 93–100.
13 For the Valor and the Chantry certificates, see Fowler, op. cit., 3: 2–33. Fowler prints
both sets of archiepiscopal Statutes, those of 1301–3 (2: 30–2, 38–9, 44–6) and arch-
bishop John Melton’s final formulation of 1331/2 (2: 109–11). The profusion of
chantries, here and at West Tanfield, for example, further instance a well-noted York-
shire preference for parochial (rather than monastic) donations; see Hey, op. cit., p. 104,
and M.G.A. Vale, ‘Piety, Charity and Literacy among the Yorkshire Gentry, 1370–1480’,
Borthwick Papers 50, 1976, 1–32.
14 For the endowment of this prebend, see Fowler, op. cit., 2: 2–3.
15 See Fowler’s Minster ‘fasti’, op. cit., 2: 184–258 (186–8).
16 For the 1304 construction of the Bedern after archbishop William Greenfield’s regulari-
sation of the chapter, see Fowler, op. cit., 2: 25, 44–6; the land for the site was donated
by Nicholas of Bondgate, Master of Mary Magdalen Hospital, Ripon, 1306–11 (Fowler,
op. cit., 3: 324–5). See further R. Gilyard-Beer, ‘Bedern Bank and the Bedern, Ripon’,
YAJ 58, 1986, 141–5.
17 For the vicars’ appeal, see Fowler, op. cit., 4: 11–12; on the value of the prebends,
Fowler, op. cit., 3: 371.
18 See Fowler, op. cit., 1:89, 91; cf. Dobson, op. cit., pp. 6–7, on the connection between
mendicant houses and urbanisation.
19 See Jo Ann H. Moran, The Growth of English Schooling 1340–1548: Learning, Literacy, and
Laicization in Pre-Reformation York Diocese, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985, p.
54. This form of the Statute is recorded only from 1439 and 1504/5 (Fowler, op. cit., 2:
149, 4: 280) but presumably was in force earlier.
20 The gift appears in the Minster’s obit roll, a retrospective listing of 1437; see Fowler, op.
cit., 1: 135. The surviving fabric accounts show the bequest as unique and the fees for
the obit as paid in the first surviving fabric roll of 1354/5 and all subsequent examples I
have surveyed, Fowler, op. cit., 3: 90, 98, damaged at 105, 112–13, 118, 122, 128, and
135. A ‘Iohannes Scryuener’ was assessed 4d, the lowest rate, in 1379 from the Market-
stede; see YAJ 7: 22.
21 The hospital of St Mary Magdalen was allegedly founded by archbishop Thurstan of
York (d. 1140, Fowler, op. cit., 1: 223–6); its capabilities were greatly increased by the
addition to the endowment in 1355 of Studley Roger (Fowler, op., cit., 2: 125–6). The
hospital of St John was founded by archbishop Thomas II, c. 1110, its warden a layman
until the 1340s (a 1370 reference to the poor scholars appears at Fowler, op. cit., 2:
129–30). For the third local hospital, St Anne or the Maison dieu, see below; a fourth, of
St Nicholas in Bondgate, was at least issued a patent for foundation in 1350, but prob-
ably never became an operational institution; Rotha M. Clay, The Mediaeval Hospitals of
England, London: Methuen, 1909, pp. 334–5, cites the document.
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  187
22 See Fowler, op. cit., 2:72 (cf. 68–9, with a contemporary reference to clerks partici-
pating in ‘theatricales ludi’ and dancing). As further evidence for the plethora of local
clerical talent, one might consider the will of John Clifford, treasurer of York (1393).
In arranging prayers for his soul, Clifford not only enlisted, with a promise of graded
stipends, the Minster vicars, deacons, thuriblers and choristers, but he left smaller
amounts ‘cuilibet capellano villae Rypon’ non de ecclesia Rypon’’; see James Raine
(ed.), Testamenta Eboracensia, Surtees Society 4, 1836, p. 169 (hereafter TE). Clifford also
bequeathed his best missal to the high altar of the Minster (p. 170).
23 I am grateful to Oliver Pickering for drawing the Psalter, donated in 1874, to my atten-
tion; see his report, ‘Ripon Cathedral Library’, Journal of the Early Book Society 5, 2002,
209–11. For the refounded library, see J.E. Mortimer, ‘The Library of Anthony Higgin,
Dean of Ripon (1608–1624)’, Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Literary
and Historical Section 10, I, 1962, 1–75.
24 William Cawood, prebendary of Littlethorp, royal diplomat, and prebendary of York,
endowed two chantries, for St James (1407) and St Wilfrid (1420); see Fowler, op. cit.,
1: 162, 2: 212–3, 4: 194–203. He owned a large number of canon law books as well as
Repington’s sermons and Bromyard’s Summa predicancium, but left them to be sold to fund
the reredos in York Minster; see Fowler, op. cit., 4: 188–9, 191. In 1392/3, the chapter
acquired chains for two ordinals in the choir (Fowler, op. cit., 3: 114). Hulme had been
master of Greatham hospital and rector of Redmarshall, Co. Durham, the first of which
he exchanged on appointment; see Fowler, op. cit., 2: 239–40, cf. 4: 205–6, 223. In his
will, in James Raine (ed.), Testamenta Eboracensia. Part II, Surtees Society 30, 1855 (here-
after TE 2), p. 219, he left five service books to a nephew (or godson?); two service books, a
‘lib[er] de Trinitate’, a William of Pagula (described as ‘Pars’, i.e. Oculus, part 1 only), and
a ‘lib[er] de medecinis’ to Oliver Blackwell; another service book and a book containing
Rolle’s Emendatio vitae to Nicholas Blackwell; a copy of John de Burgo’s Pupilla oculi to the
church of Redmarshall; the Pauline epistles to the rector of Brandsby (just south of Gilling
East, NRY); and ‘Aurora’, i.e. Peter Riga’s poem, to Robert Green of Durham.
25 See Henry N. MacCracken, ‘Quixley’s Ballades Royale (? 1402)’, YAJ 20, 1909, 33–50.
26 John is recorded 1478/9 (Fowler, op. cit., 3: 253) and Robert, in the early sixteenth
century (see Fowler’s index entry, op. cit., 3: 377). Robert also appears, on this occasion
with William, in the 1501/2 will of Richard Bird, prebendary of Sharow; see John W.
Clay (ed.), North Country Wills, Surtees Society 116, 1908, p. 78 (hereafter NCW).
27 For the indulgence, see Fowler, op. cit., 1: 50.
28 For an elaborate description of the banner, also carried before the men of Ripon in
war, see Fowler, op. cit., 3: 132–3, a record of the expenses associated with producing
a new one in 1399/1400, apparently canvas with gold and silver images of Wilfrid,
fringes, and embroidery. Another payment, this one in 1393/4 (Fowler, op. cit., 3: 120),
offers a little evidence about the tent. The Rogation procession, as is normal in many
places, included a dragon effigy whose placement in the procession enacted Christ’s
triumph over/exorcism of evil; see Fowler, op. cit., 3: 234 and the customarily enthu-
siastic pieties of Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England
1400–1580, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992, pp. 136–9, 279.
29 The earliest reference to St Wilfrid’s iron occurs in 1391/2 (Fowler, op. cit., 3: 104;
subsequently at 112, 118, 122, 127); it was used to brand livestock to prevent murrain
and diseases, as is explicit in the 1503/4 accounts. These (Fowler, op. cit., 3: 167) also
contain the first reference to Wilfrid’s ‘Pokstane’; like the Pardoner’s ‘sholder-boon
Which that was of an hooly Jewes sheep’, the stone was soaked in water, which when
drunk, conferred medicinal protection; see Walbran, op. cit, pp. 43–4.
30 The town had 1000 m. extracted in a Scottish raid of 1318 and was burned when the
marauders returned in 1319 to be frustrated in their efforts at a further exaction; see
Foster, op. cit., pp. 11–12, more generally Hey, op. cit., p. 87, among many other
accounts, e.g. for damage (and flourishing mid-century recovery), at Bolton, away to the
188  Ralph Hanna
south in Wharfedale; A. Hamilton Thompson, History and Architectural Description of the
Priory of St Mary, Bolton-in-Wharfdale, Thoresby Society 30, Leeds: J. Whitehead & Son,
1928, p. 94 and passim; Ian Kershaw, Bolton Priory: The Economy of a Northern Monastery
1286–1325, London: OUP, 1973, pp. 173–8.
31 See John’s biography at Fowler, op. cit., 2: 185; and the chantry foundation at 1: 153.
Mauchline, op. cit., p. 27, discusses Aungier de Frere; for the other Aungier of Ripon
and the text ascribed him, see Alfred J. Horwood (ed.), Yearbooks of the Reign of King
Edward the First, Years XX and XXI, Rolls Series 33/1, 1866, pp. xviii–xix; and John H.
Baker and Jayne S. Ringrose, A Catalogue of English Legal Manuscripts in Cambridge University
Library, Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1996, pp. 49–50.
32 For the chantry, see Fowler, op. cit., 1: 161–2; 4: 130, 170–1; and for the 1388/9 pres-
entation, 4: 177–8.
33 For a Markenfield pedigree, see Charles B. Norcliffe (ed.), William Flower, Norroy
King of Arms, The Visitation of Yorkshire in the Years 1563 and 1564, Harley Society 16,
1881, p. 197. This requires two corrections at least: (a) All heraldic accounts fail to
recognise that Sir John was in orders, and that Sir Andrew, a mature man when he led
a contingent against the Scots in the 1310s, was his nephew; (b) Andrew’s son was not
John, but Thomas (sr), as appears correctly in C.H. Hunter-Blair (ed.), ‘A Visitation
of the North of England circa 1480–1500’, in Visitations of the North – Part III, Surtees
Society 144, 1930, pp. 129–30. When Thomas jr testified in the Scrope–Grosvenor
case (see ibid., 2: 318–9, n. 37), he implied that he was born in 1347 and had thus barely
attained majority on foundation of the chantry by a Thomas. One should note in the
pedigree a fifteenth-century Sir John Markenfield, who married a daughter of John
Hopton of Swillington (near Leeds), responsible for Bodleian Library MS Digby 185
(Brut, Hoccleve’s Regiment, the prose romance Ponthus and Sidone).
34 On the customary gentry desire to continue expressions of local lordship, even in death,
through burial in the parish church, see Vale, op. cit., pp. 8–11 (and p. 16 for an example
involving a Pigot and Ripon Minster in 1429). For a more literary view of Yorkshire
gentry activities than Vale’s, see George R. Keiser, ‘Lincoln Cathedral Library MS 91:
Life and Milieu of the Scribe’, Studies in Bibliography 32, 1979, 158–79 (esp. 167–74). The
second tomb in the chapel is that of another Thomas, who married a daughter of Sir
John Conyers KG and died in 1497; for its inscription, copied by Roger Dodsworth,
see J.W. Clay (ed.), Yorkshire Church Notes 1619–1631, Yorkshire Archaeological Society
Record Series 34, 1904, p. 213 (hereafter YASRS).
35 The arms were first identified by Walbran, op. cit., p. 60, probably on the basis of Flower,
op. cit., p. 196, ‘–– daughter of –– Mynyot’. Markenfield is ‘azure, on a bend sable,
three bezants’; Miniott ‘gules, three helms argent crested or’. For a photo of Thomas’s
tomb, see J.G. Mann, ‘Two Fourteenth-Century Gauntlets from Ripon Cathedral’,
Antiquaries Journal 22, 1942, 113–22 (Plate xii, facing p. 120). Thomas here appears as
a Lancastrian dependant (with a collar including a parked hart); see P.S. Routh and
Richard Knowles, ‘The Markenfield Collar’, YAJ 62, 1990, 133–40, including a photo.
The 1349 business transaction involved Markenfield and Minot writing each other and
a third man mutual recognizances of debt for large sums; see Calendar of Close Rolls 1349–
54, pp. 93, 143–4 (hereafter CCR). For the pedigree of Miniott, see the Appendix.
36 I remain particularly grateful to Lady Deirdre Curteis, the current owner, for, among
other courtesies, showing me a carved wooden door pediment, recently ‘discovered in
the barn loft’, with Markenfield quartering Miniott and a second coat I cannot identify.
See J.S. Miller, ‘Restoration Work at Markenfield Hall, 1981–4’, YAJ 57, 1985, 101–
10; the arms on the kitchen include, in addition to Markenfield, Southill (for Thomas
jr’s wife Beatrice), Ward of Givendale (Thomas jr’s daughter Joan married one of this
family), Miniott and Plumpton (? or Bulstrode) (p. 109).
37 See Nicholas H. Nicholas (ed.), The Scrope–Grosvenor Controversy, 2 vols, London, 1832;
see especially vol. 2, The Controversy between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor in
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  189
the Court of Chivalry A.D. 1385–90, pp. 310–9; and see Simon Walker, The Lancastrian
Affinity 1361–1399, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990, pp. 278, 287 on Plumpton Duchy
appointments. The Scropes of Bolton – Richard won his baronry through continuous
soldiering and long service in John of Gaunt’s affinity (see Walker, op. cit., index entry,
p. 348) – will remain liminal to this account, however. Although Gaunt’s Honour of
Richmond runs a good way down Wensleydale (Snape and Welle, perhaps two miles
east of Masham, are in the south-east corner), the weight of the property is to the north-
west, in the area beyond Middleham. It was there that Richard Scrope built, over a
decade beginning in the late 1370s, the imposing Castle Bolton, with two chapels. And
he at least performed the legal groundwork (in 1393 and later) for transforming the
six-man staff of St Anne’s chapel into a collegiate foundation in his parish church, Holy
Trinity, Wensley; see VCH Yorkshire 3: 43, 90. But this upper Wensleydale always faced
away from Ripon, along the road north from Leyburn into Swaledale, toward Easby
Abbey (OPraem) and Richmond. Indeed, the Scropes were the patrons of Easby from
the early fourteenth century and remembered (inaccurately) as founders of the house.
Wensley church still houses items they removed from Easby at the Dissolution – a
wooden reliquary chest and the impressive wooden screen that surrounded the family’s
large private pew in the early modern period. See further, n. 46.
38 For the Pigot–Miniott marriage, see Hunter-Blair, op. cit., p. 134; for the descent of
Charlton and associated properties, see William Page (ed.), The Victoria History of the
County of York, 3 vols, London: Constable and St Catherine Press, 1907–23), 1: 93, 358;
2: 64–5, 75, 77. In 1466, a later Randolph Pigot left a substantial number of service
books (including four Psalters), to be retained in the chapel at Clotherholme, as well as
his personal primer to his son, also Randolph; see James Raine (ed.), Testamenta Ebora-
censia … Part III, Surtees Society 45, 1865, p. 157 (hereafter TE 3), and Vale’s account,
op. cit., p. 23.
39 Seven early chapel certificates appear at Fowler, op. cit., 1: 196–203; four further
examples, two probably refoundations, certainly in the same places as earlier licenses,
at ibid., 4: 19–20, 35–6, 44–5, 49–50. George Lawton, Collectio rerum ecclesiasticarum de
diocesi Eboracensi, 2 vols, London, 1842, p. 544, records an additional chapel at Bishop
Monkton with a resident hermit, William Russell, in 1354. For the restriction of the
choir, see Fowler op. cit., 1: 71–2.
40 So see Frederick W. Dendy (ed.), Visitations of the North – Part I, Surtees Society 122,
1912, p. 65. This Thomas Markenfield was grandson of the Thomas still buried at
Ripon, by his younger son Ninian, who had been knighted at Flodden in 1513. The
family eventually went into exile following the Rising of the North in 1569, and the last
Markenfield died as a poor pensioner of the King of Spain.
41 In addition, Gaunt held in Yorkshire the Honours of Pontefract (Wakefield, Brad-
ford, Snaith, etc.) and Pickering. The transfer of Minster properties to the Duchy is 37
Henry VIII, c. 16, Statutes of the Realm, London: Printed by George Eyre and Andrew
Strahan, 1810–22, 3: 1005–7. See Robert Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster, 2
vols, London: Chancellor and Council of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1953–70, 1: 52–3,
286; and 299, 301 on post-Suppression efforts to maintain normal parochial service and
the grammar school. In 1399, Richmond passed to the Nevilles of Raby, forming a link
between their Durham and Wensleydale properties.
42 William Matthews provides a partial genealogy, The Ill-Framed Knight: A Skeptical Inquiry
into the Identity of Sir Thomas Malory, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966, pp.
161–9. W.J. Petchey gives a very useful introduction to local gentry, in Mauchline,
op. cit., pp. 74–8. Leland saw Malory tombs in the Minster, apparently in a chapel in
the south transept, where Elizabethan examples remain; the Malorys’ descendants, the
Aislabys, were leading local figures over several centuries, one representing Ripon in
Parliament for sixty years in the eighteenth century.
43 See Walbran, op. cit., pp. 39, 58, 63; Foster, op. cit., p. 17.
190  Ralph Hanna
44 See T.S. Gowland, ‘The Honour of Kirkby Malzeard and the Chase of Nidderdale’,
YAJ 33, 1938, 349–96, with a map facing p. 349. The chase, originally Mowbray
hunting property, lay entirely within Ripon parish, much of the area large Fountains
granges. For the knight-service, in Studley, 1334, see Fowler, op. cit., 2: 114.
45 See ibid., 1: 61–2 for the Marmions in the procession (1228); their service was associ-
ated with holding Minster lands, a standard form of rental, called by Gowland, op.
cit. (1934), p. 50, ‘Marmion tenure’. For the chantries in and building history of West
Tanfield, see Archaeological Journal 79, 1922, 385–9 (pp. 362ff. the informative report of
a week-long Royal Archaeological Society perambulation of the Ripon area). Walker,
op.cit., p. 344 (index entry) on several occasions discusses Sir John Marmion’s service
to Gaunt.
46 Walker, op. cit., p. 31, notes a Fitzhugh involved with John of Gaunt’s first overseas
service in 1359. This family, whose seat was at Ravensworth (sometimes -wath) Castle
a bit north-west of Richmond, had been involved in upper Wensleydale affairs since
about 1300. There the Fitzhughs shared the lordship of Askrigg, the furthest settlement
up the dale, with the Scropes of Bolton. The rest of Wensleydale was forest (Hawes is
first mentioned 1307 as ‘le Thouse’, the hals/col within the forest), the chase of the
lords of Richmond; see Hartley and Ingilby, op. cit., pp. 28, 35–8, 44, 48–50. Henry
Fitzhugh appears as benefactor meriting special prayers in two later Syon books, South
Brent, MSS 2 and 4. Elizabeth’s will of 1427, in James Raine et al. (eds), Wills and Inven-
tories Illustrative of … the Northern Counties of England, Surtees Society 2, 1835, pp. 74–5,
includes five prayer books and Psalters, one bequeathed to each of her children and to
a goddaughter. For Minster payments to Fitzhugh and his heirs, see Fowler, op. cit., 3:
114 and 24, 30. On the certificate of mortmain, see William Dugdale, The Baronage of
England, 2 vols, London: Tho. Newcomb, 1675–6, Wing D2480, vol. 1, p. 404. Henry
and Elizabeth’s son Robert, Bishop of London and elect of Ely, d. 1434, left academic
books; see Alfred B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500,
3 vols, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957–59, pp. 689–90.
47 See Fowler, op. cit., 2: 188–9, 194–6, for Scrope appointments in Ripon Minster.
48 For the inventory, see C.L. Kingsford, ‘Two Forfeitures in the Year of Agincourt’,
Archaeologia 7, 1920, 90–9 (pp. 93–4); and for the will, Thomas Rymer (ed.), Foedora, 3rd
edn, 10 vols, Farnborough: P. Gregg, 1967, vol. 4.2, pp. 131–4 (p. 133). A further selec-
tion of fetching items: all chapel books, three named service books and a French saints’
lives to pass down the male line (apparently family habit, cf. Richard and Roger Scrope
of Bolton, both in 1403, TE 2, pp. 272–8, 328–31); to the church of Charlton (probably
Carlton Scroop [south Lincs.]), a missal or 8 m. to purchase one; to his mother, a little
Virginale and a French book with incipit ‘Car tout ori soli que home fait de bouche’, a
bilingual Anglo-Norman/Latin Apocalypse, a pretty Book of Hours, and three French
books of her choice; to his brother Stephen, Archdeacon of Richmond, three standard
sermon collections (Gregory’s homilies on the gospels, ‘Remegius’ [‘Haymo’ on the
Pauline epistles], Bede), and Latin Revelations of Bridget ‘quem emi Beverlaci’ (Rich-
ard’s will of 1418, TE, pp. 387–9, includes extensive bequests to the Plumptons); to
his brother John, a new glossed and illuminated Psalter with the family arms; to Sybil
Beauchamp, a primer and hours in English; to Mary Maliver, a French book to be
selected.
49 See Fowler, op. cit., 1: 303–4 for the banner. On the Nevilles’ estates and their adminis-
tration, see Chris Given-Wilson, The English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages: The Fourteenth-
Century Political Community, 2nd edn, London: Routledge, 1996, pp. xii–iii, 105–7.
50 See William T. Lancaster, The Early History of Ripley and the Ingilby Family with Some Account
of the Roos Family of Ingmanthorpe, Leeds: J. Whitehead, 1918, esp. pp. 16–9. For the deed
founding the chapel (during the archiepiscopate of Alexander Neville, 1377–88), see
Fowler, op. cit., 4: 137–41 (Hall-Whyman, op. cit., pp. 125 and 148, n. 146 cite a 1392
license for a chantry there); the Ingilbys were patrons and presented at least in 1398/9
 Some North Yorkshire scribes and their context  191
and 1432/3 (Fowler, op. cit., 4: 176–7, 204). On the site, see R.A. Hall, ‘Antiquaries and
Archaeology in and around Ripon Minster’, in Lawrence R. Hoey (ed.), Yorkshire Monas-
ticism: Archaeology, Art, and Architecture, British Archaeological Association Conference
Transactions 16, Leeds: Maney Publishing, 1995, pp. 12–30 (pp. 15–8); Hall-Whyman,
op. cit., p. 125, estimates the chapel as 25 m × 11.5 m and with both nave and chancel.
51 The Ingilby library was described by the Historical Manuscripts Commission, 6th
Report (1877), Appendix, pp. 352–95, and dispersed at Sotheby’s, 21 October 1920.
Among Ingilby books were Morgan Library MS M 818 (Rolle’s ‘Form’, ‘Susannah’),
Huntington Library MSS HM 148 (Rolle’s Psalter and one epistle, the Rollean ‘Gracia
dei’ and other prose) and 1339 (Nicholas Love). The Ingilbys still retain the foundation
deed for Mt Grace, issued by Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent and Duke of Surrey in
1398; he had donated the property, but the house was to be called ‘Mt Grace of Ingilby’
(presumably the family underwrote the construction). See the summary account, HMC,
p. 360; and a much reduced reproduction, Glyn Coppack, Mount Grace Priory: North
Yorkshire, London: English Heritage, 1991, p. 42.
52 He left his brother George a little Psalter and Ellen Crosse a primer (TE 2, p. 67n);
George was later (1438) to receive from Matilda Mauley, who married one of the
Godards (see below), a black(-bound) Psalter (ibid., p. 67n).
53 For the arms at Markenfield, see Walran, op. cit., p. 143 (but also Miller’s caution, op.
cit., n. 36 above); for the chantry foundation, see Fowler, op. cit., 1: 154–7 (a second
Plumpton foundation, of 1427, at 1: 161–2) and Joan Kirby (ed.), The Plumpton Letters and
Papers, Camden Fifth Series, vol. 8, Cambridge: CUP, 1996, pp. 245–6, from the family
coucher; and ibid., p. 247, for Sir Robert’s will of 1416 (twice reiterated). Plumptons
are presumably associated with the chapel of Our Lady in the Crag, built in 1409 as
an imitation of Robert’s hermitage; see Joyce Bazire (ed.), The Metrical Life of St Robert of
Knaresborough; Together with the Other Middle English Pieces in British Museum Ms. Egerton 3143,
EETS, o.s. 228, 1953. (Egerton 3143 is LALME LP 53.)
54 On this family, see Henry E. Chetwynd-Stapylton, The Stapeltons of Yorkshire, Being the
History of an English Family from Very Early Times, London, 1897, pp. 119–53, the source
of much material in the biographies noted in the text from John S. Roskell, Linda
Clark and Carole Rawcliffe (eds), The House of Commons 1386–1421, 4 vols, Stroud: Alan
Sutton, 1992. For the wills I cite, see TE, pp. 178–80 (Robert Roos), 198–201 (Brian sr),
251–3 (Thomas Roos); TE 2, pp. 23–5 (Joan Hilton); Andrew Clark (ed.), Lincoln Diocese
Documents, EETS, o.s. 149, 1914, pp. 45–57 (Cumberworth, books at 48, 49); NCW, pp.
48–9 (Anne).
55 In addition to those examples I have already cited, four Constables mention service
books in their wills: Marmaduke sr (1376), Marmaduke jr (1404), Matilda (1419), and
Robert of Bossall (1454). See TE, pp. 97–9, 337–8, 396–7; and TE 2, pp. 174–7,
respectively.
56 For Erghome and his books, see Kenneth W. Humphreys (ed.), The Friars’ Libraries,
Corpus of British Medieval Manuscript Catalogues 1, London: British Library, 1990;
and for the Welles list, Mary Hamel, ‘Arthurian Romance in Fifteenth-Century Lindsey:
The Books of the Lords Welles’, Modern Language Quarterly 51, 1990, 341–61. An earlier
Welles had married a Scrope of Masham at the end of the fourteenth century.
57 The nunnery may eventually have been overloaded with these; they were bequeathed
a further probable copy, ‘lib[er] anglicanu[s] de pater noster et aliis’, in 1479/80, by a
York priest; see TE 3, p. 199n.
10 Looking for a context
Rolle, anchoritic culture, and the
Office of the Dead
Denis Renevey

The Expositio super novem lectiones (hereafter Super novem lectiones) is Rolle’s penultimate
Latin treatise, preceding the popular Emendatio vitae.1 Since it is based on the nine
lessons taken from the Book of Job which form, with the appropriate psalms,
responses and hymns, the Office of the Dead, it is appropriate to define it as a
liturgical commentary, even if that definition requires qualifications. One of the
hallmarks of Rolle’s pieces in general, and of Super novem lectiones in particular, is
that they turn out to be other and more than what they usually set out to be, very
much as a consequence of Rolle’s personal engagement with, and appropriation
of, the texts that he scrutinises. Although unlike some of his previous Latin writings
which place Rolle’s persona as a fundamental cog for the development of mystical
and religious thoughts, Super novem lectiones nevertheless also shows Rolle first
aligning himself with the biblical characters, in this case Job, and then assuming
their role in contemporary dress, which nevertheless allows autobiographical traits
to surface. There is no denying that, as Rolle has embraced (and then displaced)
the personae of Solomon and David in his commentaries of the books attributed to
them, he endorses a similar role in this piece. But the biblical narrative depicting
Job, moving from showing Job first as a man living in the world and blessed with
a wealth of material possessions, to one experiencing a state of complete depriva-
tion as a way of testing his spiritual stamina, has a resonance which would have
appealed to the pious laity. This chapter considers the contexts which facilitated
the Book of Job’s transmission and access, in all or in part, to a broad readership.
It then turns to the impact anchoritic culture may have had in the production of
Rolle’s work on this biblical book; thirdly, it looks at the fifteenth-century clerical–
lay interface in York to provide a better understanding for the popularity of the
Rollean piece in the fifteenth century.

Context one: exegetical and liturgical contexts

Gregory’s Moralia in Job was an important hermeneutic compendium for medi-
eval receptions of the content of the Book of Job. Gregory touches upon every
verse of the Book and delivers a commentary in thirty-five books, with literal,
moral and allegorical interpretations. The commentary form, which is set out at
the start, becomes structurally less visible from book four onwards, and leaves
 Looking for a context  193
room for a looser piece in the form of a theological treatise. The Moralia is replete
with passages expressing longing for the contemplative life, a state which Gregory
could only yearn for while he was serving as a nuncio in Constantinople at the time
of composition in 579–85. The importance of the Moralia is attested by the fact
that it is the sole source for the glosses on the Book of Job in the Glossa ordinaria, in
contradistinction to other Biblical books which are articulated around the inter-
pretations of different authoritative voices. According to Wasselynck, the compiler
of the Glossa ordinaria – thought to be Anselm of Laon and/or members of his
school – follows the scriptural method laid out by Gregory the Great in his Epistola
missoria ad Leandrum, which precedes the preface to the Moralia. The popularity of
the Glossa ordinaria among clerics certainly contributed to the wide dissemination
of the story of Job as well as the orthodox exegesis that should be applied for its
understanding.
Another account of Job received sustained attention in the medieval period.
The apocryphal Testament of Job embellishes the Biblical story with new details
and differs in some places from the scriptural life of Job. References to women
and music constitute important accretions which seem to have pervaded medieval
perceptions of Job. Job’s wife becomes a supporter of the devil in the Testament,
unable to resist his lures. Music, on the other hand, plays an interesting role in stir-
ring Job’s household to loving God. The Testament thus contributes a perception
of Job as a poetic biblical figure, following the tradition of David the psalmist and
Solomon, writer of the Song of Songs.
Had the Book of Job circulated in this fashion only, one could doubt that it would
have had sufficient exposure to guarantee its widespread late medieval popularity,
not only within the clerical milieu, but also among the laity. The contextual setting
of the liturgy, which drew on passages from this biblical book, may account for
its popularity. I would like therefore to turn to the use of the Office of the Dead
used in two liturgical contexts, the medieval funeral and the ceremony of enclo-
sure for anchorites, in order to assess how those contexts precipitated Rolle’s own
interest in such a text and how they explain fifteenth-century interest in Super novem
lectiones.
The ideal medieval funeral consisted of five main parts: Last Rites, procession
from home to church, services at church (Office of the Dead, Requiem Mass and
absolution), procession from church to cemetery and burial.2 Each part stressed
the communal dimension of the event: death was perceived as departure from the
community of the living to the community of the dead. Confession, communion
and extreme unction took place at home; together they made up the Last Rites.
However, depending on the wishes of the dying person, the Last Rites could be
simplified to include only the Commendation of the soul. In any case, the viat-
icum, i.e. the administration of Holy Communion to the dying person, which was
mentioned as early as the fourth and fifth centuries at Church councils, marked
the beginning of the soul’s journey from the community of the living to that of
the dead. It is only from the twelfth century onwards that the viaticum preceded
extreme unction, both for practical reasons such as no longer needing to receive
the Eucharist just before the moment of death and because of the rise of new
194  Denis Renevey
trends which emphasised more individual forms of piety in this period. In addition,
new devotion to the Eucharist and intensified belief in the real presence of Christ
required a more solemn moment and the assurance that the body of Christ would
not be given to a corpse. Also, as only the parish priest was allowed to give the
viaticum, his presence at the time of death could never be assured, and one would
therefore call him in the early stages of the passing of the dying into the other
world.3 The carrying of the host to the sick was sometimes solemnised in the form
of a procession, of which there are recorded cases already in the seventh and tenth
centuries. From the thirteenth century onwards, an indulgence, set by the pope
at one hundred days in 1389, was offered for those who followed the procession.
Further evidence for the highly communal dimension of this event is attested by the
extensive manuscript illuminations showing the community actively participating
in the medieval funeral; these are found in Books of Hours meant to accompany
material for the Office of the Dead. As an alternative to the Last Rites (if they could
not be administered before death), or as a supplement to them, the Ordo commenda-
tionis animae gathered the community around the dying and ritualised the moment
of death as one during which the spirit of the dead was given back to the Lord
(commendo). The community’s commendamus for the departing soul was long enough
to ensure that the soul had left the body. Once the mortuary ablutions had been
performed, the corpse would be borne in procession to the place where it would
be watched until inhumation. It is worth noting that the Office of the Dead, which
was performed in the church, replaced in some instances the commendatio animae
when the clergy left the family to take care of the corpse, hence resulting in the
loss of sacramental value for the rituals taking place in the home. Moreover, the
liturgy, which before the twelfth century celebrated the dead, afterwards encour-
aged a more general and affective meditation on death. The shift is of great impor-
tance to the emergence of meditative and personal writings on death in particular,
and concerns for the transitoriness of earthly life in general. So, while after the
twelfth century and at the close of the medieval period it was common practice
to read scriptural accounts of the Passion to the dying as well as to recite medita-
tive orisons, followed by the adoration and kissing of the crucifix (as witnessed in
Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Love), it does not mean that prior funeral rites fell
completely out of favour: practice differed from one area to another, from one
parish to the next, with in some cases a blending of the old with the new.
The official and ritual recitation of the Office of the Dead from breviaries took
place after the body had been placed in the church. As this liturgical ritual is of
momentous importance for our understanding of a possible context for the writing
of Rolle’s Super lectiones mortuorum, a more detailed study of the arrangement of
this office within a few English breviaries seems necessary. Only a few complete
monastic breviaries survived the sixteenth-century Reformation.4 The breviary
from Hyde Abbey, Winchester, extant in two manuscripts written around 1300,
exemplifies Benedictine practices of the early fourteenth century. It attests to the
early existence of an Office of the Dead in England, incorporating extracts from
the Book of Job as material for its nine lessons. The Officium defunctorum of the
Hyde Abbey Breviary is extant in one manuscript only, Oxford, Bodleian Library
 Looking for a context  195
MS Gough Liturg. 8, with the Psalter and Canticles as companion pieces. It is
arranged for recitation In primo nocturno, Ad matutinas and In laudibus.5 Psalms and
antiphons precede a list of eleven prayers.6 Apart from the first prayer, which asks
God to take care of the departing soul, the ten other prayers demand interces-
sion and blessings for abbots, patrons and benefactors, and thus demonstrate the
different uses made of this office within a monastic community. The orison for
dead benefactors recommends their soul to God and asks on their behalf provision
of spiritual benefits equivalent to the earthly gifts they granted the monastery. The
first section of matins includes Psalms 5, 6 and 7, with two interlacing antiphons,
followed by the first lesson, from Job 7: 16–21. Lesson two includes Job 10: 1–7,
followed by a response on the resurrection of Lazarus. The first section of matins
concludes with lesson three, which offers Job 10: 8–12, followed by two short
responses. The second part of matins, In secundo nocturno, introduces lesson four
(Job 13: 22–28) with Psalms 22, 24 and 26 and three antiphons. Job 14: 1–6 (lesson
five) and Job 14: 13–16 (lesson six) conclude the second part. The pervasiveness
of the Book of Job appears throughout matins. Lesson seven (Job 17: 1–3, 11–15)
and lesson eight (Job 19: 20–27) are made up almost exclusively of extracts from
the biblical book. Lesson nine, which concludes matins, includes Job 10: 18–22,
followed by responses and Psalms 119 and 141. Psalms 50, 64, 62, 66, 148, 149,
150, Psalm Benedictus, 129 and 141, are read with appropriate responses and
antiphons for lauds. The daily recitation of the office contributed to a wide and
detailed familiarity with Job, both in monastic and clerical milieus. The paucity of
material on the Office of the Dead in the York breviary is accidental, and does not
therefore attest to the absence of such liturgical ceremonies in the diocese. English
secular liturgical practices for that office can be found, among other examples, in
both the Hereford and Salisbury breviaries. The core of the office, i.e. the nine
lessons from the Book of Job, appears to be unchanging from one use to another.
Changes occur in the range of prayers available for commemorations following
vespers, yet antiphons and psalms for vespers, matins and lauds seem to be used
quite consistently.
The remaining two funeral services taking place in the church were the Requiem
Mass and absolution. They were followed by the procession from church to
cemetery, and by the burial itself. Dying well, that is at home, surrounded by the
community of the living, and with the proper funeral rites, was of great concern
to medieval people. The dying was fully aware that, once dead, he depended on
the goodwill of the living for their prayers to intercede on his behalf in order to
alleviate his pain and time in purgatory. The community of the living thus had the
upper hand in this aspect of the economy of salvation.

Context two: anchoritic contexts

The liturgy of death in general exercised a great influence on the liturgy which made
up ceremonies of enclosure in medieval England.7 In the Pontifical of Magdalen
College, dating from the twelfth century, the service for the enclosure ceremony
shares some distinctive characteristics with those belonging to the death ritual:
196  Denis Renevey
tapers; blessings with holy water and incense; antiphons and psalms drawn from
the Office of the Dead, and sung during procession towards the reclusorium; sanc-
tification of the reclusorium; the sacrament of Extreme Unction and the prayers
for the dying: all of these are part and parcel of the liturgy of death.8 The transpo-
sition of those ritual discourses from the dead to the postulant anchorite pervades
anchoritic writings, most notably in the dead-to-the world motif which echoes and
feeds on the profound psychological impact of the enclosure ceremony. Further
evidence for this transposition may be found in the Ordo includendi famulam Dei, seen
in the Pontifical of Archbishop Bainbridge of York.9 The ceremony, generally
performed by the bishop, stresses from the onset the penitential character of the
whole ceremony by requesting God’s pardon for the sins of the assembled congre-
gation. The bishop, prostrating himself before the altar, recites sixteen psalms,
including some of the so-called penitential psalms. The two following prayers
address God and the Virgin Mary on behalf of the anchorite (tuam famulam) and
beg for protection from temptations, as well as freedom from all crimes, to ensure
that the anchorite will not be separated from the Lord and will rejoice eternally
in Him. The following rubric, ‘Exinde incipiat Missam, Requiem aeternam’, is a
clear sign for the recitation of a Mass for the Dead at this particular moment of
the ceremony. 10 Following the reading of the Gospels, possibly John 6: 37–40, the
postulant anchorite then makes her promise.11 Her garments are blessed, and a
prayer stressing their symbolic significance, i.e. humility of the heart and contempt
for the world, ensues. Three more prayers precede the blessing of the veil, asking
God to grant the anchorite the right to be one of the 144,000 young children who
remained virgin (Rev. 14: 3–4). Once blessed, the veil is placed by the bishop over
the head of the anchorite, who is asked to prepare herself in her fight against the
devil, the world and the flesh. One more instance of the transposition mentioned
above appears in the number of psalms found both in the Officium mortuorum and the
ceremony of enclosure. Of the twenty-one psalms found in the latter ceremony,
five are shared with the Office of the Dead.12 Other psalms and antiphons drawn
from the same office are sung during the procession leading to the reclusorium.13
Johannes Busch, a German Augustinian provost from the first half of the
fifteenth century, offers a unique account of the performance of a ceremony of
enclosure in the Chronicon Windeshemence und Liber de Reformatione Monasteriorum. Most
of the devotions which the anchorite will be required to perform in her new life are
seminally present in the ceremony. As an example from the very late Middle Ages,
it stands as unique testimony of enacted liturgical practice. The first part tests the
postulant anchorite on three points: (1) her intention to live as an anchorite, (2) her
readiness to accept the jurisdiction of the bishop and (3) her eagerness to fight the
devil, the world and the flesh:

Sacerdos hic subiecta debet interrogare includendas: ‘Vis includi et solitariam

vitam ducere propter deum et sic, quamdiu vixeris, permanere?’ Respon-
deat: ‘Volo.’ Item dicat: ‘Vis obediens esse episcopo tuo et nobis ex parte eius
usque in finem vite tue?’ Respondet: ‘Volo.’ Tunc dicat ei, quas molestias
eam oportet sustinere et contra diabolum pugnare, an sit bene deliberata,
 Looking for a context  197
quod hoc viriliter velit aggredi et contra mundum et carnem suam tamquam
mundo mortua decertare. Et respondeat: Propter amorem dei et anime sue
salutem orationibus bonorum confisa ad omnia premissa cum dei adiutorio
est parata.
[The priest here must ask the enclosed one lying near: ‘Do you want to
be enclosed and lead the solitary life for (the love of God) and remain so as
long as you live?’ Let her reply: ‘I do’. Then let him say: ‘Do you want to be
obedient to your bishop and to us as his deputy till the end of your life?’ She
answers: ‘I do’. Then let him tell her which difficulties she would have to
endure and that she would have to fight the devil, or whether she had delib-
erated well that she wanted to be assailed courageously and to strive against
the world and her own flesh by being dead to the world. And let her answer
that for the love of God and the salvation of her soul trusting in the prayers of
the good people, she is, with the help of God, prepared for all those foresaid
conditions.]14

The paramount moment of the second part includes a mass of the Holy Spirit.
After the Credo, the priest turns to the postulant anchorite and asks whether she
wants to make her profession. He then hands to her the rule of St Augustine
and asks her whether she is willing to live under this rule for the rest of her life.
The reading of the profession follows. The gift of the cross betokens important
aspects of her future life, already present in the words pronounced by the offici-
ating priest:

Sequuntur letanie, post collectas ‘Regnum mundi’ cantatur. Post inves-

titionem missa de Sancto spiritu cantatur. Post ‘Credo’ vertit se sacerdos
ad eam dicens: ‘Soror iam factura es professionem. Estis bene deliberata
ad faciendam professionem, ad pugnandum contra carnem, mundum et
dyabolum?’ Et quanta districtione exigetur ab ea, quod profitetur, etiam ei
proponat. Postquam dedit consensum, tradit ei regulam sancti Augustini
dicens: ‘Accipe regulam istam, quam profiteri disponis. Vis secundum eam
vivere in inclusorio usque ad mortem?’ Dicit: ‘Volo ita.’ Tunc legat profes-
sionem suam; si nescit tunc legat eam dyaconus vel alia femina. Professione
facta dicit sacerdos: ‘Confirma hoc deus’ etc. cum quinque collectis ad hoc
assignatis. In fine missae commmunicat eam. Missa finita vertit se ad eam
dicens tres collectas. Tunc dat ei crucem ulnis suis eam imponens et dicat:
‘Accipe imaginem Crucifixi, cuius passionem et mortem in corde tuo semper
studeas retinere.’
[Then the litanies follow and, after, the collect Regnum mundi was sung. A
mass of the Holy Spirit was sung after the investiture. After Credo the priest
turns towards her saying: ‘Sister, soon you will have made your profession.
Have you deliberated well about making it, fighting the flesh, the world and
the devil?’ And it is drawn out of her with such exactness that it may also be
clear to her what she is declaring to all. After she gives her agreement, he
hands over to her the rule of Saint Augustine, saying: ‘Accept this rule, which
198  Denis Renevey
you have arranged to declare. Do you wish to live according to it in seclusion
till you die?’ She answers: ‘I do indeed’. Then she reads her profession; if she
does not know how to read, then a deacon or another woman reads it. Once
the profession is made the priest says: Confirma hoc deus etc. with five collects
assigned to it. At the end of the mass he administers communion to her. Once
mass is over he turns towards her saying three collects. Then he gives her the
cross, placing it in her arms, and he says: ‘Receive this image of the crucified
one and take care to always keep his passion and death in your heart.’]15

The procession is also an important psychological moment. Dressed in white,

the recluse, holding the cross, is led by the officiating priest and other attendant
priests through the cemetery to her cell. The symbolic force of the cross is enhanced
by the fact that the anchorite enters the cell with it and thus suggests strong meta-
phorical possibilities between the Passion and the life led into the anchoritic cell.
The chanting of responses and psalms borrowed from the Office of the Dead is
significant and demonstrates close similarities with funeral processions.

Post haec sacerdos incipit, ‘Asperges’ et ducit eam cum alio sacerdote per
cemiterium cum eadem cruce, albis induti, cantantes responsorium ‘Regnum
mundi’ et responsorium ‘Accessit ad pedes Christi peccatrix’.
[After that the priest begins, Asperges and he leads her with another priest
through the cemetery with the same cross, the two priests dressed in white,
singing the responses Regnum mundi and Accessit ad pedes Christi peccatrix.]16

The final moment of the ceremony takes place before the reclusorium, which
is blessed with holy water and burning incense, thus echoing again the final ritual
practice of blessing the corpse before its burial. The importance of the cross is
again forcefully stressed. The recluse is then introduced into her cell and the door
is shut behind her:

Tunc ducit eam in inclusorium cum cruce, quam secum tenebit in inclusorio
usque ad finem vite sue in memoriam passionis Christi. Tunc sacerdos dicit:
‘Dominus custodiat introitum tuum et taceat exitum tuum.’ Respondeat
chorus: ‘Ex hoc, nunc et usque in seculum.’ Qua in via ante clusam prostrata
dicatur psalmus ‘De Profundis’ cum ‘Requiem’, … Deinde quinque benedic-
tionum orationibus et crucibus eam confirmet et benedicat. Deinde sacerdos
benedicit inclusorium quinque longis orationibus.
[Then he leads her into the reclusorium with the cross, which she will
keep with her in the reclusorium till the end of her life in memory of Christ’s
passion. Then the priest says: ‘May God protect your entrance and prevent
your coming out.’ Let the choir respond: ‘From now, and for centuries
onwards.’ And as she is prostrate on her way, before the door, let the Psalm
De profundis be said with Requiem, … Then he confirms and blesses her with
five prayers of blessing and crossings. Then the priest blesses the reclusorium
with five long prayers.]17
 Looking for a context  199
Penitential elements and notions of earthly deprivation, present in both the Job
story and the liturgy of death, form an equally important part of the anchor-
itic ceremony of enclosure. Evidence for the presence of the person of Job in the
psyche of the audience reading anchoritic and eremitic writings is abundant. As
the embodiment of patience, humility, perseverance, and determination in the
belief of spiritual truth, Job displays characteristics of inner strength, which are also
the hallmarks of a good solitary. Moreover, Job lives as a solitary, rebukes his wife,
who succumbs to the devil, and leads a life of complete deprivation and hardship.
Illness and disease are his most faithful companions.18 Job is dead to the world and
lives in expectation of the Last Judgment. In the De institutione inclusarum, Aelred
of Rielvaux reminds his sister of the necessity of combating idleness by referring
to Job 14: 2.19 The perseverance and strong will of Christina of Markyate, in her
refusal to become betrothed to Burthred, evoke a proverb reminiscent of Job 14:
19: ‘Constant dripping wears away a stone’. Furthermore, the Ancrene Wisse has a
strikingly large number of textual references to both Gregory’s Moralia in Job and
the Book of Job, as well as allusions to the character himself. Gregory’s Moralia in
Job states: ‘If anyone is careless about the custody of her outward sight, she will
become blind, through the just judgement of God, in her inner sight’.20 Gregory’s
sentence summarises the advice given by the Ancrene Wisse author on the custody
of the senses, i.e. being blind to the outside world in order to open up the eyes
of the spirit. Other quotations from Gregory’s Moralia in Job deal with imperfec-
tion, more specifically recognising one’s own imperfections, and counsel against
boasting about one’s achievements and being deceived by the devil into slothful
acts.21 The Ancrene Wisse author appropriates and develops Gregory’s misogynistic
motif: women are easily overthrown and should therefore never be appointed as
custodians of the soul. Furthermore, the Book of Job is cited fifteen times in Ancrene
Wisse.22 Job is a model for the anchoress in many respects: as guardian against
the eyes (Job 31: 1), as a persevering spiritual seeker (Job 3: 21) and as a secret
performer of good deeds. Views on the relationship between the flesh and the
soul rely on Job 28: 25. Moreover, Job is pervasively present in part four of Ancrene
Wisse, ‘On Temptations’. The author warns his anchoresses against presumptuous
assumptions about their elevated spiritual status and its consequent absence of
temptation, in opposition to the constancy of the character Job in Job 23: 10.
Reference is made to sickness sent by God and its purifying powers on the soul, of
which a list is devised from the various medieval reports on Job’s own experiences
with illness. The classification of the outer and inner temptations into four kinds
rests on four citations from Job: Job 14: 19, 41: 23, 30: 13, and 30: 14. Elsewhere,
Job 41: 25 serves to demonstrate holy people’s need for humility to escape the
attacks of the devil. This is the trick used by the Lord Himself to combat the wres-
tler of hell. The idea of life as a fight is sustained in Part Six, On Penance, with Job
7: 1. Ascetic practices fall within this scheme and here again Job is recalled:

‘Folc tolaimet ant totoren’ wið strong liflade ant wið heard he cleopeð ‘folc
[fearlic]’, for þe feond is of swucche offruht ant offearet. For-þi þet Iob wes
þullich, he meande him ant seide, Pellem pro pelle et universa et cetera, þet is, ‘He
200  Denis Renevey
wule Ȝeouen fel for fel’, þe alde for þe neowe; as þah he seide, ‘Ne geineð
me nawt to asailin him; he is of þet totore folc, he tereð his alde curtel, ant
torendeð þe alde pilche of his deadliche fel for þe fel undeadlich þet is þe
neowe ariste schal schine seoueald brihtre þen þe sunne.’
[A people mutilated and torn by their severe way of life and by hardship:
he calls them a fearsome people because the devil is frightened and fearful
of such people. Because Job was like this the devil lamented and said to him,
Pellem pro pelle et universa, et cetera; that is, ‘He will give skin for skin, the old for
the new’ as though he said, ‘I will gain nothing by assailing him. He is one of
those mutilated people; he tears his dress, and rends apart the old garment of
his mortal skin.’ For the skin which is in the new resurrection will shine seven
times brighter than the sun is immortal.]23

A sound spirit must be preferred to a healthy body (see Job 39: 25). The Ancrene
Wisse author uses Job 12: 23 in his discussion of spiritual virginity, which is made
up of good works and faithful belief. At a more practical level, Job is used again by
the author in his attempt at injecting new layers of meaning into the image of the
reclusorium. Firstly, a bird analogy is cleverly applied to describe the inner work-
ings of the anchoress’s mind. The nest imagery first defines the general frame of
mind which is suitable for an anchorite:

For- þi beo flesches pine efter euchanes euene. Þat nest beo heard wiþ uten,
ant softe ant swete þe heorte wiðinnen. Þeo þe beoð of bitter oðer of heard
heorte ant nesche to hare flesch, ha makieð frommard hare nest, softe wiðuten
ant þorni wiðinnen.
[Thus the mortification of the flesh should be according to each one’s
capacity. That nest should be harsh on the outside, and soft and sweet the
heart within. Those who are bitter or hard-hearted and are soft to their flesh
make their nests backward: soft outside and thorny within.]24

The nest image refers also to the reclusorium. Job is the authority called upon to
support this image:

Iob cleopeð nest þe ancre hus, ant seið as he were ancre, In nidulo meo moriar,
þet is, ‘Ich chulle deien i mi nest, beon ase dead þrin (for þet is ancres rihte),
ant wunien aðet deað þrin, þat Ich nulle neauer slakien, hwil þe sawle is i þe
buc, to drehen heard wiðuten, alswa as nest is, ant softe beo wiðinnen.’
[Job calls the anchorhouse a nest, and says, as though he were an anchorite,
In nidulo meo moriar – that is, ‘I shall die in my nest, be in it as though dead.’
For that is proper for an anchorite, and to live in it until death: ‘So that I will
never cease while the soul is in the body to suffer harshness outwardly, as a
nest is harsh, and to be soft within.’]25

The development of such a strong association between Job and the anchoritic
mode of life builds upon the liturgical tradition, which allowed creative authors
 Looking for a context  201
to develop further images intimately linked with one another in formal liturgical
contexts. The anchorhold’s analogy with the grave is more evidence of the influ-
ence of the liturgy for the dead on the anchoritic life:

Hoker ant hofles þing is þet a smiret ancre – ant ancre biburiet, for hwet is
ancre-hus bute hire burinesse? – schal beo greattre ibollen, leafdiluker leoten
of, þen a leafdi of hames.
[It is a contemptible and unreasonable thing that an anointed anchoress,
and an anchoress buried – for what is an anchorhouse but her grave? – wishes
to be more graciously regarded than the lady of a house.]26

Allusions to extreme unction and the Requiem Mass are instrumental in

hammering important spiritual points into the psyche of the three anchoresses
in Ancrene Wisse. The demand for the recitation of Psalms 114: 9 and 5: 9, which
respectively open vespers and matins of the Office of the Dead, as part of their
private devotions, is part of the same strategy, reinforcing the dead-to-the-world
motif which characterizes the anchoritic life.27 It was common in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries for the recluse to be buried in her cell and the practice of
the Syon nuns to visit an open grave within their enclosure between Terce and
Sext to meditate upon their mortality may be an offshoot of this tradition.28 The
following passage in Ancrene Wisse remains ambivalent as to whether it should be
read literally or metaphorically:

ha schulden schrapien euche dei þe eorðe up of hare put þet ha schulien roten
in. Godd hit wat, þet put Deð muche god moni ancre; for as Salomon seið,
Memorare nouissima tua et in eternum non peccabis. Þeo þe haueð eauer hire deað
as biuoren hire ehnen (þet te put munegeð)
[They should be scraping the earth up every day out of the pit they must
rot in! God knows that this pit does much good to an anchoress – for as
Solomon says: Memorare novissima tua et in eternum non peccabis. [Remember your last
hour and you will never sin] (Ecclesiastes 7: 40). She who always has her death as
though before her eyes remembers that pit.]29

Job’s importance in this strategy is further evidenced by the demand for the reci-
tation of three different lessons each night, and the recitation of the nine lessons in
some special cases: ‘For the anniversary of your dearest friends say all nine’30. Daily
recitation of the lessons of the Office of the Dead started on the day the anchor-
esses made their vows. It would end only on the day of their physical burial.

Context three: clerics, lay readers and the

anchoritic model
Super novem lectiones was probably written just before Emendatio vitae, at a time when
Rolle was already engaged in the dissemination of his spiritual precepts to various
communities, among them the nunnery of Hampole, and individuals such as the
202  Denis Renevey
anchorite Margaret Kirkby, for whom The Form of Living and The English Psalter were
written. As the eremitic mode of life was much less prescriptive than the anchor-
itic one, it is very likely that Rolle turned to, and aligned himself with, anchoritic
models in order to enhance the credibility of his own way of life. As Eddie Jones
has clearly demonstrated, Rolle indeed stands as an oddity when compared to
other fourteenth-century hermits. Indeed, evidence suggests that hermits contem-
porary to Rolle were essentially devoted to road mending and bridge keeping,
with little evidence for literacy and spiritual claims or competence, and with no
proper religious ceremony of investiture to lend credibility to their position. Rolle’s
support of female anchorites may have served as a means of strengthening his own
eremitic status in order to align himself with the anchoritic paradigm. I contend
that Rolle’s awareness of the pre-eminence of the performance of the Office of
the Dead by anchorites, along with his own desire to be associated with anchor-
itic culture, prompted, at least in part, the writing of the commentary Super novem
lectiones. That being said, general concern about death, especially in a post-plague
period, should obviously be considered as another strong incentive for the writing
of such a commentary. The character Williams in Shakespeare’s Henry V (Act 4,
Scene 1, 123–33) offers a moving testimony to how the art of dying well pervaded
fifteenth-century mentality:

But if the cause be not good the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make,
when all those legs and arms and heads chopped off in battle shall join together
at the latter day and cry all ‘We died at such a place’, some swearing, some
crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some
upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard
there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose
of anything when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well,
it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it, who to disobey were
against all proportion of subjection.31

The emergence of Ars moriendi treatises in the fifteenth century, together with
their vernacular translations, such as The Book of the Craft of Dying, testifies as well
to this general interest in being provided with instructions about how to comfort
the dying.32 Super novem lectiones shows at least once a similar concern for the fate
of the dead:

Debemus, fratres, orare pro animabus defunctorum, ut a penis liberentur,

cogitantes quod libenter & gaudenter amplecteremur aliorum auxilium si in
eisdem tormentis essemus. Et uere nos nescimus quam cito hinc rapiemur et
cum discesserimus si ad grauiora tormenta perducamur.
[We must, brothers, pray for the souls of the dead, to free them from their
affliction, thinking that we would gladly and joyfully embrace the help of
others if we were in those same torments. And indeed we do not know how
soon we shall be carried away from here and when we have departed whether
we shall be led towards more serious torments.]33
 Looking for a context  203
If this passage from lesson eight shares similar, but passing, concerns with the
Ars moriendi treatises, the overall work does not otherwise implement provision of
instructions to those comforting the dying.
In this final part I propose, first, a brief textual analysis of Super novem lectiones,
highlighting its most significant themes and strategies. Second, I offer an assess-
ment of the fifteenth-century readership of this treatise, looking at the ways by
which Rolle’s association with anchoritic culture infuses Super novem lectiones and
provides partial explanation for its lasting popularity in the fifteenth century.
Considered in the larger context of Rolle’s entire corpus, Super novem lectiones is one
of the first of the Rollean treatises to move away from essentially lofty and personal
mystical outpourings. Instead, it considers more down-to-earth themes accessible
to a less experienced audience. The treatise borrows from Rolle’s previous pieces
and claims also to be written with a devotional aim in mind, as were his two
Passion meditations. So, although there is a sense of continuity between those
works, the way in which Rolle gives up the role of the bride of the Song of Songs
for that of the penitent Job alters dramatically the nature of this piece and hence its
possible readership.34 Job becomes the model with which Rolle and his readership
can reform their own selves:

Beatus uero Iob, a possessionibus & a diuiciis spoliatus, filius orbatus, ab uxore
improperatus, ab amicis calumpniatus, morbo graui percussus & nudus in
sterquilinio sedens maximeque tribulatus, aperte ad Deum clamorem dirigit
& in tanta miseria positus, cum desiderio dicit: Parce michi domine, nichil enim
sunt dies mei.
[Truly, blessed be Job, deprived of his possessions and wealth, deprived of
his son, insulted by his wife, calumniated by friends, hit by serious illness and
sitting naked on the dung-heap and greatly troubled, he openly directs his cry
towards God and, placed in such misery, says with longing: Parce mihi domine,
nichil enim sunt dies mei.] 35

Rolle defines the character of Job in terms of a heroic solitary fighter against the
world, the flesh and the devil. This imagery is of course a hallmark of anchoritic
literature and Rolle’s contact with anchoresses may have triggered his interest in
making it an important element of this treatise. The perfection of the solitary life
remains Rolle’s battle horse, but it is now depicted with a much closer look at the
penitential, if not even ascetical qualities which characterises it. Together with
patience and humility, they are hallmarks of the treatise.36 To the question found
in Job 7: 17 (Quid est homo?), Rolle provides a definition modelled on Job as God’s
good servant:

Itaque: Quid est homo quia magnificas eum? id est, qualis & quantus est homo
quem tu magnificas? Est autem mundus, iustus, pius, castus, sobrius, humilis,
mansuetus, paciens, misericors, sanctus, sincerus in mente, feruens in tuo
amore, caritate repletus, omnium virtutum genere insignitus.
[So: Quid est homo quia magnificas eum?, that is, who and how great is the man
204  Denis Renevey
that you praise? Among others, he is pure, just, pious, chaste, sober, humble,
gentle, patient, enduring, merciful, holy, sincere in spirit, fervent in your love,
filled with charity, marked by all kinds of virtues.]37

Rolle constructs a model fashioned by moral rather than spiritual qualities.

Meditations on the Passion, so conspicuous a feature in anchoritic spirituality,
borrowed and adapted for private lay use in the fifteenth century, appear in the
form of meditative ruminatio in Super novem lectiones, with particular insistence on the
aftermath of the Passion:

Sic inter mala positus respiciat in suum adiutoreum, consideret Christum

pro suis excessibus in cruce pendentem, & medullitus memorans sanguinem
Saluatoris, mortem redimentis, dolorem morientis, uictoriam resurgentis,
gloriam ascendentis, iusticiam ad iudicium uenientis; dicat letus cum Apos-
tolo: Michi absit gloriari, nisi in cruce domini nostri Ihesu Christi: per quem
michi mundus crucifixus est, & ego mundo.
[So, placed amidst evil he looks for his helper, he considers Christ hanging
on the cross for his moral failings, remembering deeply in his heart the blood
of the Saviour, the death of the redeemed one, the pain of the dying one, the
victory of the resurrected one, the glory of the ascending one, the justice of
the one to come to judgment; joyful, he says with the apostle: far be it from
me to boast, if it is not on the cross of our lord Jesus Christ: through whom,
the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.]38

Repentance and recognition of one’s own sins feature among Rolle‘s most
personal outpourings.39 We are quite far here from Rolle’s own expostulations
which made a case of him as a member of the Church Triumphant. Here instead,
his exhortations for penitence and his repetitive perorations on the transitoriness
of this earthly life echo those of Job:

Sed bonum est, fratres, humiles esse, miseriam nostram recogitare, dicentes
cum beato Iob: In puluerem reduces me. Necesse est michi mori & in pulverem
reduci, quia omnes morimur & quasi aqua delabimur in terram. Sed o bone
domine cum morior & reducor, in cinerem animam meam digneris accipere
et tecum in eterna gloria collocare;
[But it is good, brothers, to be humble, to recognize our misery, saying
with blessed Job: ‘In puluerem reduces me.’ It is necessary for me to die and to be
reduced to dust, because we all die & quasi aqua delabimur in terram. But O good
lord after I die and I am brought back, you will deem worthy to accept my
soul in ash and to establish it with you in eternal glory.]40

Faced with the inexorableness of his own human frailty and life’s fleetingness,
Rolle finds comfort by devising in his mind a reassuring image, that of the fixity
of milk when turned by curdling into cheese. Metaphorically interpreted, it stands
for spiritual love which, once curdled, i.e. transformed from carnal love into its
 Looking for a context  205
present spiritual state, is fixed, thus no longer mutable. Job 10: 8–12 facilitated
the development of this image, and shows God to be in control of this chemical
process: Et sicum caseum me coagulasti.41 When emphasis is put on God’s relationship
with the soul, the Song of Songs imagery serves as an anagogical interpretation of
some of the verses of the Book of Job, setting the text’s allusions to the body as the
cornerstone on which metaphorical utterances are constructed. Reference to the
beatific vision, the face-to-face, used with extreme caution by Rolle throughout
his corpus, demonstrates, despite the penitential tone of this treatise, continuity in
his spiritual aspirations in the context of a generally sober, more ascetic, form of
spirituality.
The popularity of Super novem lectiones is symptomatic of the spread of private
devotional practices which marked the fifteenth century. I argue that this work
sheds light on the ways in which those devotional practices involved the participa-
tion of several components for its effective spread. The first and second sections of
this chapter show clearly the complexity of overlapping influences for the circu-
lation of religious practices. Both the funeral ritual and its use within anchor-
itic culture played a part in the composition of the piece. I would like to stress,
however, that its fifteenth-century popularity among the secular clergy grew out
of the fact that it projects a form of spirituality concomitant with that practised by
anchorites and which the secular clergy and its audience regarded as a model for
imitation.42 Jonathan Hughes’s attempt at describing the impact of eremitic spir-
ituality upon lay practice in fifteenth-century Yorkshire offers interesting evidence
as to the role played by Super novem lectiones in this grander scheme: several members
of the secular clergy of York Minster owned copies of this work.43 Hughes links
York clerical ownership to an increase of services for the dead in the Minster, but
it seems this view does not take sufficiently into consideration the content of the
work, which is for individual meditative consumption rather than liturgical use.44
Manuscript ownership of Super novem lectiones points to the clerical milieu as a
significant readership.45 However, recent studies have shown that circulation of
books between ecclesiastical institutions and lay individuals contributed to the
rise of networks of devotional readers, male and female. This Latin treatise may
not have had the same kind of impact as other vernacular devotional works may
have had on lay readers. However, ownership of Latin texts by lay readers may
not have been just a way of displaying one’s gentility.46 After all, there is enough
evidence to show that having a book read or/and translated to the lay reader was
still common practice in the late medieval period. When Oxford, MS Laud Misc.
528 passed from the hands of the Province-General of the English Franciscans
into those of a layman and his wife in the fifteenth century, it possibly marked a
moment in a series of exchanges between a Franciscan of high standing with two
lay individuals interested in the reading of some of Rolle’s most significant works.47
Several other manuscripts were owned by monastic institutions or clerics, so that
no clear picture, apart from that of diversity of readership, emerges from a succinct
overview of manuscript ownership. Returning now to the Yorkshire milieu, one
finds a religious context which was highly influenced by anchoritic practices, from
the clerical sphere to other levels of secular society.48 The aristocracy, the gentry,
206  Denis Renevey
merchants and clergy supported and found a personal interest in the anchoritic
way of life.49 If the thirteenth century was an anchoritic golden age for the whole of
England, the fourteenth century was even more so for the diocese of York, which
had an anchoritic population of fifty-eight, by far the largest in England at any
time, against (only) fourteen in the thirteenth (fourth highest number after North-
amptonshire, twenty-one; Oxfordshire and Kent, fifteen).50 Super novem lectiones
would have appealed to those who enacted the ceremony, supported the recluses,
provided for their sustenance and regarded the anchoritic pattern as an exem-
plary model, and looked into writings which offered a spiritual reference inspired
by that mode of life.51 Richard Russell, a parishioner of St John’s, Hungate, is
one example of anchoritic interest among fifteenth-century Yorkshire’s merchant
classes. He provided in his will of 1435 large grants to the anchoresses at Walm-
gate and All Saints, North Street, and to others at St Helen’s, Fishergate.52 He
was also the owner of the Revelations of St Bridget, which had been given to him by
Richard Tolleston, chaplain of York.53 In her studies of medieval wills in several
English dioceses, Ann K. Warren points out that among twenty-five wills of a
group of Yorkshire merchants who lived between the mid-fourteenth and the mid-
fifteenth centuries, thirteen left bequests to anchorites.54 She demonstrates further
the involvement of all layers of English society with anchoritic behaviour, pointing
to the importance of early royal patronage in boosting such broad support.55
If one considers the Yorkshire area, the Scrope family is a good case in point
for our understanding of the role played by religious anchoritic culture within
the networks which made possible the transmission of religious practice between
monastic, clerical and lay milieus.56 Several members of the Scrope family were
staunch supporters of anchorites and hermits. Both Stephen Scrope, second Lord
of Masham, and his son Henry, supported a recluse called Robert of Beverley in
the early fifteenth century. Henry, who became the third Lord Scrope of Masham
in 1405, made bequests in his will of 1415 to each anchorite and anchoress living
in the vicinities and cities of York and London, as well as making provision for
seventeen anchorites from the diocese of York and one hermit. That commit-
ment towards anchorites was continued by his successor, his brother John, fourth
Lord Scrope of Masham.57 According to Moyes, the Scrope family acted as an
important link between the secular clergy of York and the Bridgettine house of
Syon. The wills of the Scrope family additionally indicate an interest on their part
in the cult of Rolle from the 1380s onwards.58 Lord Henry Scrope owned a copy
of the Judica me Deus. Richard Scrope of Masham, Archbishop of York between
1398-1405, had an impact on the spread of Rolle’s writings among the Arundel
household, and he also was responsible for the compilation at Lichfield during
his episcopate of Rolle’s Ego Dormio, The Commandment, The Form of Living and the
Incendium Amoris with other Northern works such as the Prick of Conscience and John
of Howden’s Philomela.59 John Newton, a close friend of Richard Scrope’s from
at least 1376, and one of the clerics of York Minster during Scrope’s time as
archbishop, was one of the owners of Super novem lectiones.60 Although this account
is far from exhaustive in its description of the direct involvement by the Scrope
family in the support of anchorites and its interest in Rolle, it allows for an under-
 Looking for a context  207
standing of the ways in which the Scrope family literally pushed Rolle’s works
into the precincts of York Minster and some monastic institutions. Super novem
lectiones, as one of the works which made its way into the Minster, represents best
this double interest which seems to have appealed to the Scrope family and many
other pious readers, i.e. a type of devotion based on an anchoritic form of spiritu-
ality with which Rolle made a point of aligning himself. No other work by Rolle
insists so intensely on penitential spirituality, a feature which marks anchoritic
writings in particular and the anchoritic mode of life in general.61 The interest in
Rolle and his works by an educated clergy and ecclesiastical officials in fifteenth-
century York stems from the perception of him and his writings as a mouthpiece
for anchoritic behaviour.62

Conclusion
Super novem lectiones does not offer material for preparation of one’s own death, nor
does it provide guidance to those attending the dying.63 Also, the voice of Job in
that treatise does not become, as in the funeral performance of the Office of the
Dead, the voice of the dead man crying for help.64 Instead, as in the anchoritic
context of the ceremony of enclosure, the ‘I’ of the reading is that of the one dead
to the world, but not yet in need of prayers to get out of purgatory and into heaven
as quickly as possible.65 The voice of Job in the ceremony of enclosure and that of
Super novem lectiones is one that, instead of begging the living for attention, situates
itself in a self-reflexive penitential mode, with an inward focus, but nevertheless
aware of its own privileged position with regard to the large Christian community
for which it voices prayers and meditations. Thus, the function of the biblical
verses from the Book of Job in both contexts is a complete reversal of that of the
Office of the Dead in the funeral ritual. The way in which the performance of the
‘I’ voice in those contexts empowers the performer has as yet been insufficiently
studied. Sustained interest in the anchoritic vocation, and Rolle’s own following
of its strict and well-regulated mode of life, which triggered the composition of
Super novem lectiones with an interest shown by several layers of late medieval society,
were fashioned to some extent by the appropriation of Job’s persona and voice as
shaped in the multiple medieval cultural and literary contexts in which it circu-
lated.

Notes
1 My research on this work takes into account the new chronology of the Rolle corpus
established by Nicholas Watson in Richard Rolle and the Invention of Authority, Cambridge:
CUP, 1991, pp. 273–94; it also owes much to the pioneering work of Malcolm Robert
Moyes, Richard Rolle’s Expositio super novem lectiones mortuorum. An Introduction and Contribu-
tion towards a Critical Edition, Salzburg Studies in English Literature 92:12, Salzburg,
1988.
2 The following works have been used for this summary of the medieval funeral: T.
Maertens and L. Heuschen, ‘Doctrine et pastorale de la liturgie de la mort’, Paroisse
et liturgie 5, 1956, 317–37; 6, 1956, 427–48; 1, 1957, 4–22; 3, 1957, 202–29; Roger S.
208  Denis Renevey
Wieck, ‘The Death Desired: Books of Hours and the Medieval Funeral’, in Edelgard
E. DuBruck and Barbara I. Gusick (eds) Death and Dying in the Middle Ages, New York:
Peter Lang, 1999, pp. 431–76; Geoffrey Rowell, The Liturgy of Christian Burial: An Intro-
ductory Survey of the Historical Development of Christian Burial Rites, Alcuin Club Collections
59, London, 1977 (esp. pp. 57–73); Edmund Bishop, ‘On the Origin of the Prymer’,
Liturgica Historica, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1918, 211–37.
  3 The practice of the viaticum is closely associated with the celebration of the mass, and
it is from the offering of the viaticum to the sick that the mass for the sick emerged as a
separate liturgical practice.
  4 See J.B.L. Tolhurst (ed.), The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester; MSS. Rawlinson
Liturg. e.1*, and Gough Liturg. 8, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Henry Bradshaw Society
69, London: Harrison and Sons, 1932. Tolhurst lists 5 breviaries: (1) British Library
Harleian MS. 4664, from Coldingham Priory (written c. 1270); (2) Cambridge Univer-
sity Library Ii 4.20, from the Cathedral Priory of Ely (written c. 1275); (3) Library of
J. Meade Falkner, Esq., Durham, from Muchelney Abbey, Somerset (written c. 1280);
(4) Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson Liturg. e.1* and Gough Liturg. 8, from
Hyde Abbey, Winchester (written c. 1300); (5) Cambridge, Trinity College MS 0.7.31,
from Battle Abbey, Sussex (written c. 1500); see Tolhurst, op. cit. (1932), pp. v–vi.
  5 See J.B.L. Tolhurst (ed.), The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester; MSS. Rawlinson
Liturg. e.1*, and Gough Liturg. 8, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Henry Bradshaw Society,
London: Harrison and Sons, 1934, fols G. 68v–70v.
  6 Psalms 114, 119, 120, 129, 137 and the ‘evangelical’ canticle Magnificat (Luke 1:
46–55).
  7 For a comparative study of English and German ceremonies of enclosure, see Otmar
Doerr, Das Institut des Inclusen in Suddeutschland, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alten Mönch-
tums und des Benediktineordens 18, Münster in Westf., 1934 (see esp. pp. 42–52). See
also R.M. Clay, The Hermits and Anchorites of England, London, 1914; see esp. Appendix
A, p. 192, for a translation of an Office for the Enclosing of Anchorites, according to the
Use of Sarum; mention is made of the ceremony of enclosure in Ann K. Warren, ‘The
Nun as Anchoress: England 1100–1500’, in John A. Nichols and Lillian T. Shank (eds),
Distant Echoes: Medieval Religious Women 1, Cistercian Studies Series 71, Kalamazoo MI:
Cistercian Publications, 1984, pp. 197–212; see also Patricia J.F. Rosof, ‘The Anchoress
in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, in Lillian T. Shank and John A. Nichols (eds),
Peaceweavers: Medieval Women 2, Cistercian Studies Series 72, Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian
Publications, 1987, pp. 123–44.
  8 See Warren, op. cit., pp. 97–8.
  9 See William George Henderson (ed.), Liber pontificalis Christophori Bainbridge, archiepiscopi
Eboracensis, Publications of the Surtees Society 61, Durham: Andrews & Co., 1875,
pp. 81–6.
10 Ibid., p. 82.
11 The rubric in the Missale ad usum insignis ecclesiae eboracensis reads: ‘Pro famulo vel
famula dicitur hoc evangelium’; see W.G. Henderson (ed.), Missale ad usum insignis
ecclesiae eboracensis, Publications of the Surtees Society 60, Durham: Andrews & Co.,
1874, p. 184.
12 Psalm 6, Domine, ne in furore, is the second psalm of matins in the officium mortuorum; Psalm
40, Beatus qui intelligit, is the second psalm of the third nocturn of matins; Psalm 50, Misere,
is the first psalm of lauds; Psalm 102: 1–5, Benedic, is the sixth psalm of lauds; Psalm 129 is
the fourth psalm of vespers; Psalm Misere mei, Deus, is the first psalm of lauds.
13 See W.G. Henderson (ed.), Manuale et processionale ad usum insignis ecclesiae eboracensis,
Publications of the Surtees Society 63, Durham: Andrews & Co., 1874; see also Jane
Kuhlmann Frogley, ‘A Processional of the York Use: An Edition of Bodleian Library
MS E. Musaeo 126 (3612), with a Description, Dating and History of the Manuscript’,
unpublished thesis, University of Oxford, 1987; there is unfortunately no information
on processions conducted during ceremonies of enclosure in those processionals.
 Looking for a context  209
14 See K. Grube (ed.), Des Augustinerpropstes Johannes Busch Chronicon Windeshemense und Liber
de reformatione, Geschichtsquellen d. Provinz Sachsen 19, Halle, 1886, pp. 657; see also
Doerr, op. cit., pp. 49–51.
15 Ibid., pp. 657–8.
16 Ibid., p. 658.
17 Ibid.
18 See Clay, op. cit., p. 124.
19 See Aelred de Rievaulx, La Vie de recluse, La Prière pastorale, ed. Charles Dumont, Sources
Chrétiennes 76, Paris: Cerf, 1961, pp. 65–145.
20 Moralia in Job, Lib. xxi, cap. vii (PL 76, col. 197); quoted in M.B. Salu (trans.), The Ancrene
Riwle (the Corpus ms.: Ancrene Wisse), London: Burns & Oates, 1955, p. 40.
21 Ibid., pp. 65, 103, 121.
22 Unless indicated otherwise, translations are from Anne Savage and Nicholas Watson
(trans.), Anchoritic Spirituality: Ancrene Wisse and Associated Works, The Classics of Western
Spirituality, New York: The Paulist Press, 1991 (pp. 436–7).
23 Bella Millet (ed.), Ancrene Wisse: A Corrected Edition of the Text in Cambridge, Corpus Christi
College, MS 402, with Variants from Other Manuscripts, EETS, o.s. 325, 2005, p. 137.; see
also Savage and Watson, op.cit., p. 181.
24 Millett, op. cit., p. 53; see also Savage and Watson, op. cit., p. 98.
25 Millett, op. cit., p. 53; see also Savage and Watson, op. cit., p. 98.
26 Millett, op. cit., p. 43; see also Savage and Watson, op. cit., p. 88.
27 See Savage and Watson, op. cit., pp. 55–6.
28 See Alexandra Barratt, ‘Context: Some Reflections on Wombs and Tombs and Inclu-
sive Language’, in Liz Herbert McAvoy and Mari Hughes-Edwards (eds), Anchorites,
Wombs and Tombs: Intersections of Gender and Enclosure in the Middle Ages, Religion and
Culture in the Middle Ages, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2005, pp. 27–38. See
also Vincent Gillespie’s chapter in this volume, p. 136–66.
29 Millett, op. cit., pp. 46–7; see also Savage and Watson, op. cit., p. 91–2; see also Clay,
op. cit., p. 114.
30 Savage and Watson, op. cit., p. 56.
31 William Shakespeare, King Henry V, Andrew Gurr (ed.), The New Cambridge Shake-
speare, Cambridge: CUP, 1992, pp. 154–5.
32 See Donald F. Duclow, ‘Dying Well: The Ars moriendi and the Dormition of the Virgin’,
in DuBruck and Gusick, op. cit., pp. 379–429.
33 Moyes, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 261; see also Moyes, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 74.
34 See Watson, op. cit., pp. 199–200; for a study of Rolle as biblical commentator, see
J.P.H. Clark, ‘Richard Rolle as Biblical Commentator’, Downside Review 104, no. 356,
1986, 165–213; for a treatment of Super novem lectiones, see esp. pp. 174–5, 178–83;
35 Moyes, op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 126–7.
36 According to some manuscript annotations, Rolle received a vision in 1343 at
Candlemas, announcing that he would live for twelve more years; one is left wondering
whether this vision might have also triggered a deeper interest in the Office of the Dead
material and a discussion of qualities such as repentance, humility and patience; see
Hope Emily Allen, Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole and Materials for His
Biography, New York: D.C. Heath and Company and London: Oxford University Press,
1927, pp. 27, 228; see ibid., p. 273.
37 Moyes, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 132.
38 Ibid., p. 136.
39 Ibid., p. 146.
40 Ibid., pp. 182–3.
41 Ibid., p. 183.
42 For a study of the religious background in Yorkshire in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries and the special importance of Rolle, see Jonathan Hughes, Pastors and Vision-
aries: Religion and Secular Life in Late Medieval Yorkshire, Woodbrige: Boydell Press, 1988.
210  Denis Renevey
Some of the material in this book must be treated with caution; for a critique of the
passages in this book dealing with Richard Rolle, see Watson, op. cit., p. 331, note 4.
43 Among its owners, Hughes mentions John Newton, Robert Semer, Robert Help-
erby, William Gate, Richard Drax, William Duffield and Thomas Pyncheck. Hughes,
op. cit., p. 269.
44 Annie Sutherland offered a similar argument for the use of Rolle’s English Psalter at the
ESSE 7 Conference in Zaragoza, 8 September 2004.
45 For a list of manuscripts, their provenance and information of early ownership, see
Moyes, op. cit., pp. 1–121.
46 Andrew Taylor, ‘Authors, Scribes, Patrons and Books’, in Jocelyn Wogan-Browne,
Nicholas Watson, Andrew Taylor and Ruth Evans (eds), The Idea of the Vernacular:
An Anthology of Middle English Literary Theory 1280–1520, Exeter and University Park
PA: University of Exeter Press and Penn State University Press, 1999, pp. 353–65.
47 The manuscript contains the following items: Emendatiov vitae, Judica me Deus, Oleum
effusum nomen tuum, Expositio super novem lectiones, and Incendim amoris. See Moyes, op. cit.,
vol. 2, pp. 16–17.
48 See also M.G.A. Vale, ‘Piety, Charity and Literacy among the Yorkshire Gentry, 1370–
1480’, Borthwick Papers 50, 1976, 1–32; see also Vincent Gillespie, ‘Vernacular Books of
Religion’, in Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall (eds), Book Production and Publishing in
Britain 1375–1475, Cambridge Studies in Publishing and Printing History, Cambridge:
CUP, 1989, pp. 317–44.
49 For a study of the ownership of Super novem lectiones, see Moyes, op. cit., vol. 1, pp. 75–90;
for an analysis of York merchants’ responses to the anchoritic life, see Warren, op. cit.,
pp. 247–55.
50 See Warren, op. cit., pp. 292–3.
51 Ibid., p. 245, where Warren points out more precisely to St Saviour’s as an important
centre of anchorite-related behaviour in the city of York; see also Hughes, op. cit.,
pp. 197–208.
52 Warren, op. cit., p. 245.
53 See Moyes, op. cit., p. 76, note 42.
54 Warren, op. cit., p. 247.
55 Ibid., p. 281.
56 See Hughes, op. cit., pp. 68–9, 87–8.
57 Ibid., p. 68.
58 See Moyes, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 82.
59 See Hughes, op. cit., p. 203.
60 Ibid., p. 204, and Moyes, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 82.
61 See Moyes, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 88: ‘The adoption and use of these penitential teachings in
the Expositio as useful for the instruction of the contemplative, by some medieval readers
and scribes, is suggested by the presence in some MSS of more specialized texts such as
Hilton’s Scale of Perfection and Suso’s Horologium Sapientiae.’ Moyes, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 90,
neglects the anchoritic life in his appreciation of the transmission of rigorous disciplines
from the cloister to the clergy.
62 See Moyes, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 76.
63 That is what the Ars moriendi treatise explicitly does; see Duclow, op. cit., p. 380.
64 See Wieck, op. cit., p. 433.
65 Ibid., p. 432.
11 Issues of linguistic
categorisation in the
evolution of written
Middle English
Jeremy J. Smith

Paleography has often been seen – with justification – as a distinct academic

discipline. However, in common with many of the essays in this volume, this
chapter derives its orientation from an interdisciplinary perspective; it is a modest
attempt to demonstrate the articulation between paleography and other forms of
linguistic enquiry. The illustrations are drawn from Middle English texts, but it is
hoped that the discussion has broader implications.1

The relationship between speech and writing

In recent years, many scholars from different perspectives have insisted on both
the distinctions and the connections between the written and spoken modes of
language. Such distinctions and connections are to be found most obviously at
the level of transmission, i.e. where grammar and lexicon are passed from one
language-user to another, either through speech or writing. The most obvious
distinction may be expressed at its crudest as follows: one mode is expressed by
means of the vocal tract, another by means of marks made on materials such as
paper, stone, wood, etc. (I leave out of account here ‘body-language’, e.g. hand-
gestures.) And of course there are differences in the level of formality prototypical
of the two modes, although there are gradations of formality in both. Such grada-
tions have recently been extended, in the written mode, by habits developed
in the use of e-mail and ‘texting’. However, there is also an obvious connec-
tion: both speech and writing transmit what is essentially the same lexicon and
grammar.2
Reflection on the relationship between the two modes is of course hardly new.
In the West, classical and medieval grammarians were well aware of the relation-
ship between the two modes, and developed theoretical frameworks to describe
them. Authorities such as Donatus and Priscian adopted the ‘doctrine of littera’,
which was developed to correlate speech with alphabetic writing-systems of the
kind used for Greek or Latin. This doctrine distinguished between nomen (‘name
(of the letter)’), potestas (‘power’ = ‘sound-value’), figura (‘representation’ = ‘written-
symbol’), with the term littera (‘letter’) as a superordinate classificatory term.3
This terminology still has considerable value in the discussion of medieval
systems, as Benskin and others have shown. It makes clear the relationship between
212  Jeremy J. Smith
speech and writing and the primacy of the former over the latter; sound, after all,
is conceived as having ‘power’. However, I shall not be adopting it here, for two
reasons. First, the established modern literature of the subject, with which I want
to engage, generally uses different terms; Benskin’s repurposing of the ancient
system, moreover, is still being developed by him and his colleagues. Secondly – and
more importantly for the purposes of this chapter – there are some issues which
the ancient terminology does not address directly, notably to do with the phono-
graphic-logographic shift and the ‘emic/etic’ distinction.
For these reasons, I intend to use the descriptive terminology which is fairly
widespread in the modern scholarly literature, thus:

phoneme, which may be defined either as the smallest speech-unit that distin-
guishes one word from another in terms of meaning, or as the prototypical
sound being aimed at by speakers within a speech community. Replacement
of one phoneme by another changes the meaning of the word in which it
occurs. It is conventional to place phonemes in slash brackets, thus: /…/.
allophone: the realisation of the phoneme in speech. Replacement of one allo-
phone with another realisation of the same phoneme does not change the
meaning of the word in which it occurs. It is conventional to place allophones
in square brackets, thus […].
grapheme: the written language equivalent of the phoneme, i.e. the symbolic
unit being aimed at by the scribe. Replacement of one grapheme by another
changes the meaning of the word in which it occurs. It is conventional to
place graphemes in angle brackets, thus: <…>.
allograph: the realisation of the grapheme in writing. Replacement of one
allograph by another realisation of the same grapheme does not change the
meaning of the word. There seems to be no accepted notation, distinct from
that used for the grapheme, for signalling allographs. I propose to use double
angle-brackets, thus: <<…>>.

This last notion, that of the allograph, has attracted various definitions in the
scholarly literature, and perhaps needs some unpacking, bringing into closer artic-
ulation notions which have been usually seen as belonging to distinct disciplines,
i.e. linguistics and paleography. There would appear to be at least three general
uses for the term:

1 as a feature of the script aimed at by the scribe, where the term script is used in
the same sense as many paleographers use it, i.e. ‘the model which the scribe
has in his mind’s eye as he writes’.4 Thus the grapheme <a> could be realised
by (say) the allograph <<a>> in the anglicana script, or by the allograph
<<ɑ>> in the Secretary script. In Present-Day English, we might distinguish
the forms used in different fonts; thus <a> is variously realised as << a, a, a,
a, a, etc.>>. Included in this category might be such cases as ‘y for þ’. In some
localities in the late Middle English period, especially (though not exclusively)
in the North, many scribes adopted the practice of using <<y>> as their
 Issues of linguistic categorisation in the evolution of written Middle English  213
realisation of <þ>.5 Such practices would seem to be features of a particular
local script-variety, and thus allographic.
2 to refer to a contextually conditioned feature, i.e. the particular form adopted
in a particular script in initial, medial or final position, in the environment of
other letters, or in particular classes of words. Thus, for instance, a script may
require scribes to adopt (say) a sigmatic <s> in initial or medial position, i.e.
<<ɓ>>, but a non-sigmatic <s> in final position, i.e. <<s>>; a long <s>,
i.e. <<∫>>, may be required before <t> but not elsewhere.
3 to refer to a feature of the individual scribe’s handwriting. Paleographers
sometimes refer to the set of these features as the scribe’s hand, i.e. ‘what [the
scribe] actually puts down on the page’.6

In this chapter, allograph will be used to refer to (1) and (2), but not (3). For (3),
the term graph will be adopted, following Pulgram, who refers to this unit as the
‘hic et nunc written realization of a grapheme’:7 Pulgram’s definition of an allograph
as ‘all graphs identifiable as members of one grapheme’ is a useful one. There is
a fairly clear parallel between the notions graph and phone: a phone is a particular
realisation of a phoneme by a particular speaker on a particular occasion, i.e. a ‘hic
et nunc’ spoken realisation of a phoneme.8
There are, of course, serious problems of definition which attend such categorisa-
tions, and indeed have attended them since their first scholarly formulation. Tradi-
tionally, and in very general terms, the phoneme has been defined in two ways:

1 in terms of systemic oppositions, e.g. +/− round, +/− front etc.

2 in terms of ‘families’ of sounds clustered around some prototypical norm.

These two methods of categorisation are of course not the same. If the approach
taken is (1), then the key issue is to do with distinctiveness: e.g. /a/ differs from
/e/, and replacing /a/ with /e/ in a word changes the meaning of that word. If
the approach taken is (2), then phonology is really ‘broad phonetics’, and phonetics
has traditionally been seen as a distinct discipline, not primarily concerned with
systemic questions of the kind which are the primary concern of linguistics (thus
the existence – less common these days – of ‘Departments of Linguistics and
Phonetics’). Phonetics as a discipline, of course, deals in questions of articulation
and acoustics, and with suprasegmental features such as stress, pitch, etc.
There are similar problems when dealing with writing systems, although it is
possible that the questions have not been so clearly formulated. The domain of
graphemic theory is traditionally taken as to do with questions of distinctiveness,
e.g. replacing <a> with <e> changes the meaning of the word. Such an approach
would correspond to (1) above. The written-mode correspondence to (2) above
would, presumably, be ‘broad graphetics’, and Pulgram’s formulation already
cited – ‘all graphs identifiable as a single grapheme’ – fits rather well with this
conception of the grapheme.
The answer adopted here, and indeed commonly adopted by scholars, is to
accept that there are two equally valid, complementary ways of thinking about the
214  Jeremy J. Smith
‘emic’ level of language. After all, physicists are quite accustomed to thinking of
electricity in both particle- and wave-form. As long as investigators are aware of
these two approaches to the emic notion, and which one is being used at a partic-
ular moment, confusion should not arise. However, as we shall see, there remain
some difficulties in applying the system to the complexities of real language; some
of these difficulties will be raised here.
This phoneme-allophone/grapheme-allograph categorisation has a universal
validity, but the relationship between speech and writing varies quite widely
between languages, and between states of the same language. Broadly speaking,
written languages are either phonographic, where there is a mapping (however
conventional) between grapheme and phoneme, or logographic, where there is a
mapping between a conventional symbol and a word or morpheme.9
The relationship between these different systems is of course clinal. Towards
the logographic end, for instance, is written Chinese, whose conventionalised
characters derive ultimately from pictorial representations of certain key concrete
concepts, though this practice was rapidly modified to deal with more abstract
notions: ‘Modern Chinese characters hold few really firm clues as to their pronun-
ciation.’10 Written Middle English, on the other hand, where (with important
qualifications) ‘one wrote as one spoke’, represents the opposite end of the cline.
Present-Day English, with its various conventionalisations, is, while remaining
broadly phonographic, rather closer to the logographic pole.
These two kinds of written language require different strategies on the part of
those charged with teaching the art of reading. Chinese students have to make
the link between a fairly large set of characters (including diacritics to distin-
guish homophones) and the spoken morphemes to which these symbols refer; the
teaching-strategy adopted is often referred to as ‘look and say’. Middle English
readers, on the other hand, seem to have been ‘taught their letters’ by what is now
known as the ‘phonic’ method: ‘c says [k], a says [a], t says [t], [k] – [a] – [t] says
cat’. Modern teachers of English have to use both strategies, traditionally begin-
ning with phonics (to deal with forms such as cat, dog, etc.) and then moving to
look-and-say (to deal with forms such as knight, or distinctions between write and
right).
Written Chinese emerged as a sophisticated method of social control; literacy
was a means of holding together a very disparate group of peoples who spoke
mutually unintelligible languages. As a result, a logographic system made sense
for that society. This development only became possible with the appearance of
unusually vigorous rulers who had the power and ambition to enforce their devel-
opment, and who saw written language as a means of enforcing their control over
large distances. Mandarin, the variety of Chinese spoken around Beijing, only
became a national speech with the rise of the Manchu dynasty in the seventeenth
century. This rise in the use of Mandarin as a ‘standard’ form of speech led, even-
tually, to the appearance of certain romanised (i.e. phonographic) forms of written
language.
The comparison with Chinese demonstrates the close connection between
writing-systems and cultural circumstances. The phonographic–logographic
 Issues of linguistic categorisation in the evolution of written Middle English  215
shift in English, which seems to be working in the opposite direction to Chinese,
similarly relates to the changing functions of vernacular literacy, and it is to such
matters that we must now turn.

Middle English literacy and the evolution of spelling

The period from the Norman Conquest to the arrival of printing in Britain is
particularly interesting for students of the speech–writing relationship, since during
this period there was an efflorescence of different English writing systems. This
development related to contemporary conditions of vernacular literacy. Literacy
in English, which seems to have been comparatively restricted during the Anglo-
Saxon period, was on the increase for much of the Middle English period, but its
function was local. If writing was needed for national purposes, Latin or French
was adopted. This situation only changed towards the end of the Middle English
period, as English began to be adopted for (inter alia) documentary and high-status
literary functions.
The parochial functions of English for much of the Middle English period have
important implications for the writing-systems which emerged. Since English
had only a local currency, it was convenient to use spelling-systems which offered
a fairly close grapheme–phoneme mapping; this practice eased the teaching of
reading and writing by the ‘phonic’ method, which seems to have been usual for
much of the Middle Ages. As a response to this functional need, spelling-systems
evolved which reflected the wide range of phonological systems which existed
in England during the medieval period. Indeed, such a development is not so
very different from that which took place in the earliest period of English; as
Dobson points out: ‘In a language newly spelt on phonemic principles, as [Old
English] plainly was, sounds which are spelt alike must be taken to be phonemi-
cally identical.’11
Such an emphasis on local usage meant that the inherited systems of the Old
English period were, to a greater or lesser extent, modified to suit local conditions.
Some systems, such as that developed by Orm in the late twelfth century for The
Ormulum, seem to modern eyes baroquely exotic, but they made sense in their own
terms; the evidence is that Orm is simply an egregious example among many less
ambitious contemporary modifiers of inherited writing systems.
Only when English began to take on national functions, towards the end of
the medieval period, did the written variation of the earlier Middle English
period become inconvenient, and a communicatively driven process of dialectal
muting began to reduce the range of written variation which had existed hitherto.
‘Colourless’ usages, allowing for a range of spellings in fairly wide currency, or
usages based on those found in particular genres or even authors, are dominant
during the transition from Middle to Early Modern English. The latter are partic-
ularly interesting, and include what might be termed ‘ideological’ spellings, such
as the Protestant, Bible-affected preference for English-style spellings in sixteenth-
century Lowland Scotland.
A similar process took place earlier in French,12 presenting problems for the
216  Jeremy J. Smith
foreign learner accustomed to ‘phonics’ – a problem noticed by William Paston
II, incidentally, in his Memorandum on French Grammar (1450–4). ‘Frist, because
it is not sownid as it [is] wretyn …’ Almost all of William Paston II’s notes in
this memorandum are on the annoying tendency of French not to ‘sown’ as it is
‘wretyn’.13 This process is frequently referred to as ‘standardisation’, though the
term is perhaps an over-simplification, since widely accepted linguistic reference
models for English did not exist until the sixteenth century, as printed versions of
(in particular) the Bible gave educated folk a model spelling-system.14
Written Middle English reflected linguistic variation; it also reflected linguistic
change. Present-Day written English is a language of record, and is thus function-
ally required to develop a degree of permanence. As a result, there is a temporal lag
between changes in the spoken mode and developments in the writing system, and
there are many features of Present-Day English spelling (e.g. <ea>–<ee> distinc-
tions, the retention of ‘silent’ <gh>) which are fossil representations of spoken
distinctions and disappeared in most varieties of English several centuries before.
However, during the medieval period and for some time afterwards, the languages
of record in Britain were Latin and (to a lesser degree) varieties of French. Written
Middle English seems to have been regarded as much more ephemeral, and as a
result it reflected ongoing change in the spoken mode much more delicately than
does Present-Day English writing. In that sense, written Middle English is much
more like early than later written Old English, and we must expect a remodel-
ling of traditional practices to reflect spoken change. Indeed, such remodellings
are well-attested in Middle English, e.g. The Ormulum, already cited, or the ‘AB-
language’ of the Corpus manuscript of Ancrene Wisse.
If written Middle English reflects change in the spoken mode, a starting-point
for any categorisation of changes during the period must lie in the categorisation
of changes in speech. Perhaps the clearest discussion of differences between the
accents of speech has been set out by John Wells, who distinguishes realisational,
phonotactic, lexical-distributional and systemic differences.15 Although the first
two are being increasingly investigated by linguists, systemic and lexical-distribu-
tional changes are those phenomena which are most commonly considered when
discussing sound changes. Thus a new phoneme may arise as the result of the
phonemicisation of original allophones (‘splits’), or an old phonemic distinction
may be lost (‘mergers’); such changes are systemic changes. Redistributions in the
lexicon of phonemes are known as ‘shifts’.
Examples of these different kinds of sound change are easy to find. Thus, an
example of split is the emergence of a phonemic distinction between voiced and
voiceless fricatives in the transition from Old to Middle English. Merger was
evidently involved in the widespread loss of /x/ in the history of English (it now
remains only in certain varieties of Scots, e.g. in ‘loch’), while perhaps the best-
known lexical-distributional change is the Great Vowel Shift of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Realisational and phonotactic developments include loss
of rhoticity – a common phenomenon in the history of English (cf. present-day
southern English with Scottish usage) – while changes in the realisation of /l/ have
had important consequences for the history of contiguous sounds.
 Issues of linguistic categorisation in the evolution of written Middle English  217
Can, mutatis mutandis, a parallel categorisation of changes in the writing-system
be achieved? In the rest of this article, an attempt is made to develop such a cate-
gorisation with particular reference to the Middle English evidence, and to draw
certain general conclusions therefrom.

Written responses to changes in the spoken mode

The most studied group of changes in the early English writing-system are those
which relate to changes or variation in the spoken mode, i.e. in the detection of
written-language responses to mergers and splits. Angus McIntosh has referred to
these phenomena as ‘S-features’.16 Perhaps the most salient development in the
history of English spelling in the transition from Old to Middle English is the
loss of <æ> and its replacement variously by <a>, <e>, <ea>; this development
relates to significant phonological mergers.
<æ> evolved in Old English as a compromise between <e> (representing a
mid-front vowel) and <a> (representing a low back vowel). All three graphemes,
originally, represented both long and short vowels; that short and long vowels were
spelt the same correlates with Classical Latin practice. During the transition from
Old to Middle English, however, <æ> disappeared, and, although a contributory
factor may have been the fact that <æ> is not a letter found in Norman French
writing, its disappearance seems to reflect phonological developments.
The merger of Old English ea (both long and short) with Old English æ (both
long and short) gave an alternative graphemic representation – <ea> – which
did not require a distinct letter-form, while the evolving representation of varying
Middle English phonologies in the written mode allowed for further graphemic
simplification. In some varieties, e.g. the ancestor of the so-called ‘AB-language’,
the grapheme <ea> seems to have been repurposed to reflect the reflexes of both
short and long Old English æ (the short æ in this dialect, of course, being the result
of ‘second fronting’).
In other varieties, different graphological strategies were adopted to reflect
qualitative differentiation in speech between short and long vowels. For instance,
in Northern and East Midland accents of Middle English, short and long reflexes
of Old English æ were qualitatively distinct. It seems likely that the eventual
merger of the late Old English short vowel æ (formed from the merger of the short
vowels Old English æ and Old English ea) with Old English a relates to contact
with Old Norse and subsequent reorganisation of phonological space. Northern
and Midland accents of Old English, in particular, had many similarities with
Old Norse, either pre-dating or consequent on the Viking invasions, and the fact
that Norse had only one short low vowel (a) where Old English had two (æ and a)
encouraged a merger. This merger at the phonological level had graphological
implications, allowing for the use of <a> (for Old English æ, a) and <ea> (for Old
English long æ, ea).
The adoption of this distinction would have been encouraged by other phono-
logical developments. Until the final phonemicisation of processes relating to
Middle English Open Syllable Lengthening, there was in Southern and Midland
218  Jeremy J. Smith
dialect no long vowel corresponding to Middle English /a/, since Old English
ā: had rounded to /ↄ:/ and Old English ǣ had merged with Old English ea on
/ɛ:/. This development meant that the distinction between reflexes of Old English
long æ/ea and Old English short a/æ/ea was no longer quantitative (which did not
require graphemic differentiation) but qualititative (which did) – and <ea> and
<a> were available to reflect the difference. Thus the loss of <æ> may be seen
as primarily a simplifying response to phonological merger; the letter <æ> was
redundant. The grapheme <ea> was available for repurposing, to reflect Middle
English /ɛ:/.17
Splits – the emergence of a new phoneme – can similarly be reflected in the
written record. Arguably the most significant development in the evolution of the
consonantal inventory between Old and Middle English is a split, the appearance
(already cited) of a phonological distinction between voiced and voiceless fricative
consonants. In Old English, the consonants [v, ð, z] were in complementary distri-
bution with [f, θ, s], with the former appearing intervocalically and the latter in
initial and final position; the distinction between voiced and voiceless fricatives was
therefore an allophonic one. As a result, there was no spelling-difference between
them, as illustrated by forms such as hlāf, fela, yfel; þegn, lāþ, snīþan; sōna, fūs, cēosan.
During the transition from Old to Middle English, and for a variety of reasons,
minimal pairs began to emerge which distinguished voiced and voiceless frica-
tives. It is traditional to argue that loanwords from French introduced a phonemic
distinction between /f/ and /v/, cf. fin ‘end’/vin ‘wine’, and that inflectional loss
produced a phonemic distinction between /s/ and /z/, cf. the distinction in
Present-Day English between the noun house (with /s/, from Old English hūs) and
the verb house (with /z/, from Old English hūsian > Middle English hūse(n) > late
Middle English /hu:z/). The distinction between /T/ and /ð/, again as it is tradi-
tionally argued, arose rather later, with the devoicing of earlier [T] in reduced-stress
situations in ‘grammar words’ such as the, that, thy; lenis articulations were then
reinterpreted as voiced sounds.
Of course, it has generally been assumed that the process was more complicated
than just described. The single occurrence of the form hliuade ‘towered’ (3rd pret.
sg.) in the late tenth-century manuscript of Beowulf, beside more regular hlifian,
hlifade, is an early sign of uncertainty about the phonemic status of the [f]/[v]
distinction, and it is likely that other factors were also involved in the process, in
particular dialectal distinctions. For instance, forms such as vixen are supposed to
have been adopted into the ‘standard’ language from Southern dialects where
the prototypical realisation of fricatives in all positions was voiced, giving rise to a
near-minimal pair fox: vixen. Why this particular pairing should have been adopted
to such an extent remains somewhat puzzling.18
How were these developments reflected in the written mode? Interestingly, the
outcomes have been very various. The distinction between <f> and <v> is the
best attested, and is an established feature of the Present-Day English spelling-
system. The distinction between <s> and <z> is rather less secure, while the
distinction between /T/ and /ð/ is unmarked in Present-Day English spelling. It
seems likely that this failure to reflect phonemic distinctions in the written mode
 Issues of linguistic categorisation in the evolution of written Middle English  219
relates to the comparative lack of minimal pairs for these distinctions; pairs such
as sue, zoo and thy, thigh exist, of course, but tokens are rather few. It is interesting
that the <s>/<z> distinction can be used ‘merely’ graphemically in Present-Day
English, as in the distinction in meaning between the homophones prise, prize, but
<z> remains semi-optional in many contexts, as in Present-Day English variation
between organise and organize. Indeed, the Shakespearean insult ‘Thou whoreson
zed, thou unnecessary letter’ (King Lear) retains some validity. It would seem, there-
fore, that the graphological representation of phonological developments does
depend on questions of yield – which after all makes functional sense.
The general point may be illustrated through particular reference to systems
which arose for a while and then disappeared. One such system arose in fourteenth-
century Middle Kentish, as represented by Dan Michel of Northgate’s Ayenbite
of Inwyt, which survives in a single holograph manuscript written in Canterbury
in 1340. The grapheme <z> is commonly employed in this text, e.g. zenne ‘sin’,
alongside <s>, but it is noticeable that there is an etymological distinction. Native
words are written with <z>, whereas French loanwords – of which Dan Michel
uses a fair number – appear with <s>; thus minimal pairs appear such as som ‘sum
(of money)’, zom ‘some’. Dan Michel, it would appear, has inherited ‘Southern
voicing’ of fricatives, but has not extended this habit to foreign-derived words
which are evidently perceived as a distinct set. There was therefore a phonological
distinction, and this distinction has given rise to a graphological development.
Intriguingly, though, this graphological system did not survive in medieval
Kentish. Distinctively Kentish spelling-systems continue to be employed in
Canterbury for some time after Dan Michel’s text, but the <z>/<s> is no longer
represented; thus, for instance, the St Lawrence Cartulary, also copied in Canter-
bury but fifty years later, retains many characteristically Kentish spellings (e.g.
guod ‘good’), but <z> is not used. The reason seems to be that French words,
which in Dan Michel’s day were still exotics, were later integrated into the native
system, and were no longer pronounced differently from native-derived words.
Thus only one grapheme was needed, and <s>, the widely-attested form, served
that purpose even if its realisation in speech remained [z].19
The only place in Present-Day English where <z> retains ambiguity is in such
forms as the Scottish personal name Menzies (cf. also capercailzie). This form arose
in a somewhat convoluted way, demonstrating the ways in which the writing- and
speech-systems can affect each other. The story runs something as follows: Some
Middle English and Older Scots scribes adopted the French practice of writing
<z> as <<Ȝ>>. This form was thus the same as the native ‘yogh’, used in many
writing-systems for initial [j] and medial [x]; however, confusion did not arise,
since <z> was only used in final position in French, and thus <<Ȝ>> for <z> and
<<Ȝ>> for yogh were in complementary distribution; cf. forms such as <boȜeȜ>
‘boughs’. Forms such as Menzies were therefore uncomplicated, with the medial
consonant cluster being pronounced [ŋ]. However, as yogh fell into disuse, being
replaced by <y> and <gh>, <<Ȝ>> became the handwritten allograph of <z>.
As a result, many Present-Day English speakers – unless corrected by historically-
aware pedants – will pronounce forms such as Menzies with medial [z].
220  Jeremy J. Smith
Another illustration relates to the phonemic differentiation of dental fricatives.
The dating of this development is uncertain, and it is likely that lenis articulations
existed alongside fortis ones for some time before the phonological split took place.
It may be presumed, though clear proof of the pronunciation is lacking until the
orthoepistical writers of the Early Modern English period, that the former became
more common as the determiner system lost its case-marking (cf. the ‘unmarked’
form the), and as the system of conjunctions became formalised. Both of these
grammatical developments would have had implications for the stress-system.
However, it is noticeable that, in many Middle English dialects, forms which were
hitherto allographs – <<th>> and <<y>> – were distributed in such a way that
the latter was only used in function-words such as determiners and conjunctions,
and it is possible that this development has phonological implications. The differ-
entiation remained in fairly common use for much of the Early Modern English
period.20
The failure to sustain the <y>/<th> distinction is intriguing, and not completely
explicable. It is possible that this failure relates to the fact that <y> was not only
widely used as a vowel-symbol but also that its potestates had been over-extended
and thus had become potentially confusing; from the end of the Middle English
period it began commonly to be used to replace earlier <Ȝ> as a written symbol
for initial [j]. It was therefore easy to confuse <y> for [T, ð] with <y> for [j], as
witnessed by Present-Day English archaistic pronunciations of ye olde tea shoppe,
and this fact may explain its disappearance. A realisation <<th>> would, more-
over, have been favoured over <<y>> in environments where, potentially, <y>
could follow as a vowel-symbol, e.g. in thy, which could theoretically be realised
as <<yy>>.
The extension of <th> as the graphological realisation for both /T/ and /ð/
would also be favoured by the fact that the number of tokens for the phonological
distinction was – as it remains – small. Moreover, where confusion could have
implications for meaning, there developed in Early Modern English alternative
ways of flagging the voiced/voiceless distinction in the written mode, such as the
repurposing of ‘final –e’ as a diacritic in breathe (cf. breath).

Written developments independent from the

spoken mode
So far, discussion has concentrated on how writing-system changes have responded
to sound change or variation. However, it is known that writing-systems have
their own structure which can operate independently of variation or change in
sounds – what McIntosh has called ‘W-features’ – and there are many examples
illustrating such developments from the Middle English period.21
The history of the repurposing of final –e, referred to above, includes such
developments. Final –e originally had not only a morphological function but also
represented a sound-segment /ǝ/. However, before developing another sound-
implication, as a diacritic mark, it became first decorative, used as a final flourish
in many fifteenth-century scripts, and then a printers’ aid, to help the justification
 Issues of linguistic categorisation in the evolution of written Middle English  221
of type. Only later was Mulcaster’s suggestion, that it be used as a diacritic flagging
length in the preceding vowel, adopted.22 Such repurposings may be seen as an
example of linguistic ‘exaptation’, whereby forms develop new functions – much
as, in biological evolution, organs develop new or extra functions.23
As was demonstrated in the previous section, it is important to be aware that
such developments did not arise in a straightforward way; language change may
have direction but it is not teleological, and as a result ‘temporary’ systems arise
which are not sustained. This fact also applies to writing-systems. Thus, some
Middle English systems seem to have favoured a development which at first sight
looks unusual, adopting <Ȝ> as the grapheme to replace <þ>. This usage seems
to have developed as follows: <<y>> is used as an allograph for <þ>, but <<Ȝ>>
and <<y>> are also allographs corresponding to the sound [j]. This meant that it
was possible for <<Ȝ>> and <<y>> to be interchanged, and as a result <<Ȝ>>
was adopted in forms such as Ȝ urȜ ‘through’. Conversely, <<þ>> could be used
in place of <<Ȝ>>, e.g. wyþt ‘wight, being’; in such instances, the allography of
<<Ȝ>> and <<y>> meant that it was possible for <<Ȝ>> to develop further as an
allograph alongside <<þ>>, and for <<þ>> to replace <<Ȝ>> as the prototyp-
ical realisation of the grapheme. Such systems were not sustained in the history of
English writing, but their existence demonstrates the complexity of the narrative.
Another realisational development, which had local systemic implications, is
demonstrated in a single English manuscript, albeit in French texts. MS Oxford,
Bodleian Library Digby 86 is probably best known for its Middle English texts,
such as The Fox and the Wolf, but it also contains a selection of Anglo-Norman texts.
The manuscript was copied by two scribes, A and B, and it has been noted that
there are some regular differences between the two. ‘B employed … “2”-shaped r
within a word more frequently. A preferred short r, whereas B used long-tailed r;
A’s z form has a cross bar, whereas B’s does not …’24
Scribe B’s choice of his realisations for <r> and <z> seems to have been
governed by systemic considerations. In varieties of Old French, including Anglo-
Norman, <z> appears in final position, as an inflexional marker, and rarely if
ever elsewhere. Thus B’s use of ‘2’-shaped <z> without a crossbar, i.e. <<2>>,
alongside 2-shaped <r>, i.e. <<2>>, did not confuse, since the two allographs
were in use in different contexts. An example of what might be termed a ‘grapho-
tactic’ development might be the difference between prototypical Middle English
and Present-Day English uses of <u>, <v>. During the Middle English period, as
is well known, these forms were in complementary distribution, used as vowels or
consonants according to their position in the word. Thus it could be argued that
<<u>> and <<v>> were allographs of a single grapheme which mapped onto
two phonemes: an interesting example of how the written and spoken modes can
work independently. However, the distinction was not sustained in the long term.
During the Late Modern English period, the Present-Day English distinction
between <v> (consonant) and <u> (vowel) emerged, and it is possible to distin-
guish the two as graphemes – though, interestingly, it remains hard to distinguish
minimal pairs, given that, in Present-Day English, <v> characteristically appears
intervocalically and <u> vocalically.
222  Jeremy J. Smith
That this pattern could be confusing was already acknowledged in Middle
English by the habit of replacing <u> with <o> for the vowel when along-
side <u> for the consonant, as in loue ‘love’ (cf. Old English lufu). Thus in some
circumstances there was an allographic distinction between <<u, o>>. However,
such choices seem to have derived from the habit of forming <u> by means
of ‘minims’, thus <<ʅʅ>>, also demonstrated in the replacement of <u> by
<o> when followed by other ‘minim-letters’ such as <m>, as in come (cf. Old
English cuman). The reason for the development of the modern configuration,
which produces a closer mapping between sound and symbol, seems to be the
development of new kinds of handwriting, where <u> and <v> are more easily
distinguished. Thus, in the clerk’s ‘round hand’, the basis of Present-Day English
handwriting, <u> is realised as <<ʅʅ>> and <v> is realised as <<ʋ>>. The
distinction was advocated by John Hart in 1569, but took many years – if not
centuries – to be adopted.25
Something similar seems to have happened with the use of the grapheme <y>,
which in Present-Day English has a number of uses: (1) in initial position for
[j]; (2) in final position for [i]; (3) in certain ‘learned’ words for [ai], [i] etc., e.g.
psychology, physics. Apart from this last use, which is somewhat specialist, it is largely
in complementary distribution with <i>. However, in Middle English <y> was
regularly used in place of <i> in minim-environments, but it was not sustained in
this use as minims ceased to be used.
The retention of <y> in final position seems at first sight to be somewhat unnec-
essary, and indeed some Early Modern spelling-reformers abandoned the letter;
Alexander Gil, for instance, uses <i> in its place.26 <y> seems to have survived
for calligraphic reasons, with the flourish of the descender flagging the end of a
word. The medial use in physics, etc. would seem to be similarly decorative, having
a register-function; it is no coincidence that it occurs in this word alongside the
similarly high-register spelling-cluster <ph> for [f].

Implications
In 1976 Angus McIntosh referred to the ‘very considerable (if largely unex-
plored) orthographic revolution [which] affected the written English of most
areas over the course of the fourteenth century’.27 McIntosh went on to say: ‘[It]
is not merely that the spoken language changed during that period, but that the
conventions for setting down even what had not changed underwent marked
modification.’
The theme of this chapter – hardly an original one, of course – has been that
developments in handwriting can act independently from changes in the sound-
system, but that the connections as well as differences between the two modes need
to be borne in mind. More specifically, the forms of individual letters – hitherto
the province of paleography – has to be seen as an important part of linguistic
enquiry; linguists who ignore the findings of paleographers will miss an important
part of the narrative. Any attempt to write a history of English transmission needs
to bear this important fact in mind.
 Issues of linguistic categorisation in the evolution of written Middle English  223
Notes
  1 This paper is one of a series of exploratory studies contributing to the ongoing
Glasgow-Stavanger Middle English Grammar Project. For details, see <http://www.
arts.gla.ac.uk/SESLL/EngLang/ihsl/projects/MEG/MEG.htm>.
  2 See M.L. Samuels, Linguistic Evolution, Cambridge: CUP, 1972, chapter 1.
  3 See, for an interesting and important attempt at recuperating this terminology, M.
Benskin, ‘The letters <þ> and <y> in later Middle English, and some related matters’,
Journal of the Society of Archivists 7, 1982, 13–30; M. Laing and R. Lass, ‘Tales of the
1001 Nists. The Phonological Implications of Litteral Substitution Sets in 13th-century
Southwest Midland Texts’, English Language and Linguistics 7, 2003, 57–78. For a history
of the terminology, see D. Abercrombie, ‘What Is a “Letter”?’, Lingua 2, 1949, 54–63;
W. Haas, Phonographic Translation, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1970.
  4 M.B. Parkes, English Cursive Book Hands, London: Scolar Press, 1979, p. xxvi.
  5 See Benskin, op. cit., for the standard survey.
  6 Parkes, op. cit., p. xxvi.
  7 E. Pulgram, ‘Phoneme and Grapheme: A Parallel’, Word, 1951, 15–20 (pp. 15–16).
  8 This paper will not be concerned with non-alphabetic graphs, such as punctuation
graphs, graphic components (accent marks, etc.), tachygraphs (i.e marks of abbrevia-
tion) and word signs (e.g. ‘&’).
  9 See further G. Sampson, Writing Systems, London: Hutchinson, 1985.
10 R. Newnham, About Chinese, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971, p. 44.
11 E.J. Dobson (ed.), The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle, British Museum MS. Cotton Cleopatra
C.vi, London: EETS, o.s. 267, 1972, p. lxxiii. Old English, of course, did not retain this
phoneme-grapheme mapping; as Dobson goes on to point out: ‘In a traditionally-spelt
language, such as [Old English] became, distinct phonemes of common origin may be
spelt alike …’
12 P. Rickard, A History of the French Language, London: Hutchinson, 1974, pp. 46ff.
13 N. Davis (ed.), Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1971, pp. 150–1, document 82.
14 See further M. Benskin, ‘Some New Perspectives on the Origins of Standard Written
English’, in J.van Leuvensteijn and J. Berns (eds), Dialect and Standard Languages in the
English, Dutch, German and Norwegian Language Areas, Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands
Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1992, pp. 71–105; M. Benskin, ‘“Chancery Standard”’,
in C. Hough, C. Kay and I. Wotherspoon (eds), New Perspectives on English Historical
Linguistics I: Syntax and Morphology, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2004, pp. 1–40. See also L.
Hellinga, ‘Nicholas Love in Print’, in S. Oguro, R. Beadle and M. Sargent (eds), Nicholas
Love at Waseda, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1997, pp. 143–62; S. Horobin, The Language of
the Chaucer Tradition, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2003.
15 J. Wells, Accents of English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 72–80.
16 A. McIntosh, ‘Towards an Inventory of Middle English Scribes’, Neuphilologische
Mitteilungen 75, 1974, 602–24; reprinted in M. Laing (ed.), Middle English Dialectology,
Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1988.
17 See further J.J. Smith, ‘Classifying the Vowels of Middle English’, in C.Kay (ed.),
Linguistic Categorisation and the History of English: A Symposium, Amsterdam: Benjamins,
2004, pp. 221–36.
18 For a suggestive discussion, see the remarks by P. van Reenen, A. McIntosh and D.
Britton in M. Laing and K. Williamson (eds), Speaking in Our Tongues, Cambridge: D.S.
Brewer, 1994, pp. 55–6.
19 See further J.J. Smith, ‘The Letters s and z in South-Eastern Middle English’, Neuphi-
lologische Mitteilungen 101, 2000, 403–13; S. Horobin and J. J. Smith, ‘The English Ordi-
nance and Custom in the Cartulary of the Hospital of St Laurence, Canterbury’, Anglia
120, 2002, 488–507.
20 See further M. Stenroos, ‘Regional Dialects and Spelling Conventions in Late Middle
224  Jeremy J. Smith
English’, in M. Dossena and R. Lass (eds), Methods and Data in English Historical Dialectology,
Bern: Lang, 2004, pp. 257–85
21 McIntosh, op. cit., passim.
22 D. Scragg, A History of English Spelling, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1974,
pp. 79–80.
23 See for further discussion R. Lass, ‘How to Do Things with Junk: Exaptation in
Language Evolution’, Journal of Linguistics 26, 1990, 79–102.
24 J. Tschann and M.B. Parkes, Facsimile of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 86, Oxford:
EETS, s.s. 16, 1996, p. xxxix.
25 See Scragg, op. cit., p. 81.
26 See E. Dobson, English Pronunciation 1500–1700, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968, p. 134
for numerous examples.
27 Cited from McIntosh, op. cit. (1988), p. 225, a corrected reprint of McIntosh 1974.
List of manuscripts

Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales

334A, Porkington 19
Ann Arbor, University of Michigan
3
Berkeley, University of California, Bancroft Library
13, 128
Cambridge, Cambridge University Library
Dd.1.27, Ee.1.10, Ee.1.12, Ff.2.38, Ff.5.40, Ff.6.33, Gg.1.6, Gg.1.7, Gg.6.23,
Gg.6.8, Ii 4.20, Ii 4.9.61, Kk.1.8, Ll.1.13, Mm. 2.15, Add. 2585, Add. 6680, Add.
6681, Add. 6682, Add. 6683, Add. 6684, British and Foreign Bible Society 155,
British and Foreign Bible Society 156
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College
141, 201
Cambridge, Magdalene College
Pepys 2125
Cambridge, Pembroke College
215, 221
Cambridge, St John’s College
11, 71, 0.7.31, R. 3.19, Aa.5.1. no 72, E.13, E.14, E.18, G.26, N.4
Cambridge, Trinity College
B.2.8; B.10.7; B.10.20; O.7.26
Cambridge MA, Harvard College Library
Richardson 3
Chantilly, Musée Condé
F XIV 26 (ancien 986)
226  List of Manuscripts
Durham, University Library
Cosin V.3.9, Cosin V.v.1
Glasgow, University Library
Gen. 223, Gen. 1130, Hunterian 176, Hunterian 189, Hunterian 191, Hunterian
197, Hunterian 337, Hunterian 409
Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliotek
Cod. Pal. Germ. 848
Liverpool, University Library
F. 4.9
London, British Library
Add. 11858, Add. 15517, Add. 15580, Add. 22285, Add. 24203, Add. 31042,
Add. 33995, Add. 37790, Add. 59495, Arundel 104, Arundel 146, Arundel 254,
Arundel 327, Cotton Galba E.ix, Cotton Tiberius E.vii, Cotton Claudius E.ii,
Egerton 617–18, Egerton 1165, Egerton 1171, Harley 272, Harley 327, Harley
682, Harley 940, Harley 984, Harley 1212, Harley 2239, Harley 2254, Harley
2309, Harley 2321, Harley 2397, Harley 4027, Harley 4196, Harley 4664, Harley
4890, Harley 5017, Harley 5767, Harley 5768, Harley 6333, Lansdowne 407,
Lansdowne 455, Royal 1.A.iv, Royal 1.A.x, Royal 1.A.xii, Royal 1.B.vi, Royal
1.C.viii, Royal 14E.vi, Royal 15E.ii, Royal 16E. xii , Royal 17 C.viii, Royal
17.A.xxv, Royal 18D, Royal 20B. I, Stowe 95
London, Guildhall Library
25524
London, Lambeth Palace
25, 369, 532, 547,1150–1, 1366, Sion College Arc L40.2/E2472, 491
London, Lincoln’s Inn
Hale 150
London, Society of Antiquaries
687
Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum
5, 84ML.723
Manchester, John Rylands University Library
Eng 3, Eng 75, Eng 76, Eng 77, Eng 78, Eng 79, Eng 80, Eng 81, Eng 84, Eng 91
New Haven CT, Beinecke Library
317
New York, Columbia University
Plimpton 269, Plimpton Add. 3
 List of manuscripts  227
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
362, 400, M 818
New York, Public Library
De Ricci 64, De Ricci 65, De Ricci 66, De Ricci 67, Spencer 19
Oxford, Bodleian Library
183, 277, 505, 531, 665, 771, 851, 978, 979, Ashmole 1468, 1517, e Musaeo
35, 110, Digby 185, Douce 95, 240, 265, Dugdale 46, 302, Fairfax 2, 11, 16, 21,
Gough Eccl. Top 5, Gough Liturg. 8, Hatton 111, Junius 29, Laud Misc. 24,
25, 33, 36, 207, 361, 388, 528, Laud. lat. MS 46, Lyell 26, 27, Rawlinson C. 57,
C.237–8, C.257, C. 258, C.259, C. 752, C. 883, Rawlinson Liturg. e.1*, Rawl-
inson poet. 36, 175, Selden Supra 49, 51.
Oxford, Magdalen College
Fastolf Paper 40, Fastolf Paper 47, Fastolf Paper 70
Oxford, University College
64
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale
25458
Princeton NJ, The Scheide Library
13
San Marino CA, Huntington Library
HM 130, HM 148, 744
Tokyo
Takamiya 15, 65
Tokyo, Keio University
Hopton Hall, 170X/96
Vatican, Bibliotheca apostolica vaticana
Codex Chigianus C IV 85
Washington DC, Library of Congress
Law 9, 15
Wellesley College MA
8
York Minster
XVI.N.7, XVI.O
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Index

Abbey of the Holy Ghost, The 116, 117 119, 145

Abell, William 98 Augustine 137
Ad matutinas 195 authority 11, 18, 19; Church 124
Adam of Dryburgh 151 authorship 4, 11, 88; attitudes to 3; drafts
Aldeburgh, Elizabeth 179 91; recognition 145
Aldeburgh, Sir William 179 Ave Maria 119, 152
allograph 212, 213, 214, 220, 221 Ayenbite of Inwyt 219
allophone 212, 214
analysis 4, 11 Bagby, John (monk, Fountains Abbey) 172
anchorites 196, 200, 202; culture 8, 192, Baker, William 172
198, 205, 206, 207; life 201; literature Barking Abbey 139
203; practices 205; support of 206 Bazire 126–7
Ancrene Wisse 199, 200, 201, 216 Beaufort, Cardinal 97
anglicana script 24, 40, 69, 113 beghards 123, 124
Anglicus, Bartholomaeus: De proprietatibus beguines 123, 124, 126, 129
rerum 102 Beijing 214
annotation: Boccaccio 23; Book of Margery Bell, H.E. 101
Kempe, The 139; Mirror to Devout People binding 11, 14, 35
147; of texts 91; vernacular texts 80; as Birgitte of Sweden 143, 146, 149
visual aids 11; Wycliffite Bible 38 Birgittines 136, 140, 144, 148, 153
antinomianism 124, 130, 132, 133 Boccaccio 21; Teseida 22–3, 24
Aristotle: Ethics 106 Bokenham, Osbern: Legends of Holy Women
Ars moriendi 202, 203 79
Arundel decrees 136, 137, 139–40 Bonaventure see Caulibus, Iohannes de
Arundel, Thomas (Archbishop of Book of Job 194, 195, 199
Canterbury) 30 Book of the Craft of Dying, The 202
Ashton, John 127 book production: commercial 31;
Athelstan 170 configuration 51; costs 46; mise-en-
auctores 20, 23, 25 page 28; regional 29, 118; resources 77,
auctoritas 4, 18, 20 172; scope 34
auctoritates 24 Books of Hours 194
Audelay, John 87 Boroughbridge 176, 177–8
audiences: accessibility 203; Bracebridge, John 143
communication 2; development of 137; Bransholme 180
functional design 115; guidance for Breviary 194, 195
132; interpretation 130–1; laity 6, 70, Brewer, Charlotte 78, 81
82, 153, 175; Langland 68; religious Bühler, C.F. 98
148, 151, 199; target 4, 114, 138, 141, Burneston (North Riding) 7, 167
144; transmission 140; universal 116, Burnt Yates 173
250  Index
Burrow, John 68, 82
Busch, Johannes 196
Butler, Margaret 173
Caister 96, 99, 105
Calton 182
Cambridge 79
Cambridge University library 69
Camille, Michael 12
Carleton, Walter de 182
Carlton 180, 182, 184
Carlton Miniott 174
Carruthers, Mary: The Book of Memory 18
Carthusians: authorship 141; book
collectors 122; book production 6–7,
136; circulation 138, 140; Dodesham,
Stephen 143; Hilton, Walter 116;
Methley, Richard 129; preaching 154;
scribes 142, 148, 155; target audience
132, 133, 139; transmission 144
categorisation 213, 216–17
Catherine of Siena 146; Dialogo 149, 153
Catton by Topcliffe 182
Caulibus, Iohannes de: Meditationes Vitae
Christi 138
Caulibus, Iohannes de (Bonaventure) 142
ceremony of enclosure 193, 195–8, 199
champ initial 49
Chandos-Pole-Gell family 119
chapter numbers 46, 47
Charles of Orleans 5, 87–8, 179
Charles V 104
Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost, The 115,
116, 117, 118
Charterhouse 129, 137, 139, 143
Chastising of God’s Children, The 6, 122–35
Chaucer, Geoffrey 4, 12–15, 20, 23, 68,
137; The Canterbury Tales 12, 21–2, 24;
Troilus 177
Chaworth, Elizabeth 136, 145–6, 154
Chinese 214
Christina of Markyate 199
Church authority 124
circulation: commissioning 119;
composition 136; regional 77; target
audience 144; transmission 139, 140,
155, 205
Clanchy, Michael 16
Clare (Suffolk) 79
Clement V (Pope) 123
clergy 7, 8, 139, 171, 181, 207
clerical readership 68, 81
codex 2, 6, 39
codicology 1, 28, 33, 36, 42
Colledge 126–7, 130
columns 40, 44, 45, 46, 50, 51
Comberworth, Katherinae 179
Comberworth, Marmaduke jr 179
Comestor, Peter 144; Historia scholastica
102, 143
commendation of the soul 193
commentary 18, 19, 20, 22–3; insertion
122
commissioning 3, 6, 119, 154, 155
communities: eclectic 7; provincial 4;
scribal 7; textual 7
compilatio 23, 24
compilations 6, 21, 119
compilers: auctores 23; audiences 144;
Chaucer, Geoffrey 22; glosses 25;
Gower, John 20; inventory 101;
paleography 4; vernacular texts 19
Constable, Margaret 179
Constance 140
contamination of copied manuscripts 75–6,
81
contemplation 123, 126, 128, 133, 153
context 2, 11, 24, 80, 192–3, 205
Cooke, Cecilia 172
Cooke, Robert 172
Corbechon, Jean de 102
corrections 14, 23
Council of Constance (1414–17) 137
Council of Vienne: Ad nostrum 123
Cré, Marleen 138
Crescenzi, Pier de: Ruralium commodorum
libri XII 103
cultural: circumstances 214; context 8, 9,
214; interest 178; value 19
Cumberworth, Thomas MP 179
Cursor Mundi 118
Curteys, William (abbot, Benedictine
abbey, Bury St Edmunds) 80
Dartford 139
David 192, 193
De institutione inclusarum 199
decorations 32, 39, 41, 48, 114
Deguilleville: Pèlerinage de l’âme 179
dentelle initial (DE) 49, 50
devotional writings: audiences 203;
The Chastising of God’s Children 122;
commissioning 6; literacy 11;
manuscript context 89; transmission
129, 205; vernacular texts 115, 117,
118, 119

diacritics 220–1
dialects 3, 8, 11, 141, 167, 220
Dialogue between Christ and Man 115, 118
digital images 3, 24
discretio 6, 128, 129, 132, 133, 139
dissemination 7, 29, 138, 178, 201;
controlled 129
Dobson 215
Dodesham, Stephen (Carthusian) 143
Donaldson, E.H. 72, 75, 78, 81
Donatus 211
doodles 11, 18
Duchy of Lancaster 176, 178
Dyer, William 170
EAMH 75, 77, 78, 79, 81
Early Modern English 215, 220
East Anglia 79, 80, 81, 96
East Midlands 79
Edinburgh Linguistic Atlas 167
editorial intervention 72, 81, 92
education 4, 19
Edward II 174
Edward III 171
Elizabeth of Töss 143, 146, 153
English Psalter, The 202
Erghome, John (OESA of York, d. after
1385) 180
errors 17, 133; natural contemplation 124,
126; radical mysticism 126
Eucharist 193–4
evolution 29, 221
Exelby 175, 182
exemplars: circulation 119; mise-en-page
145; provenance 78; ruling patterns 38,
40, 42; scribes 70; textual configuration
76, 77, 91, 173; transmission 140
extreme unction 193, 196, 201
Farlington 180
Fastolf Place, London 96
Fastolf, Sir John 3, 5–6, 96–112
Firsby (Lincs) 184
Fitzhugh, Henry (West Tanfield) 178
flourished initial (FL) 48, 49, 50
Flower, St Robert 178
foliate initial (FO) 48, 49
Form of Living, The 202
Fountains Abbey 169, 178
frames 38, 41, 43
Franciscus, Ricardus 98
free soul 124, 125, 126
Free-Spirit mysticism 123–4, 126–32
Index  251
French 215, 216
French books 6, 99–100
French language 122
French poetry 86
French texts 129
function: of books 3, 9; of lyrics 85
Gascoigne, Richard 179
Gaytryge, John (monk) 116, 117
gentry 5, 7; Yorkshire 8
Gerson, Jean (Chancellor of Paris) 137
Gil, Alexander 222
Glasgow University: Hunterian collection
12, 14
glosses: authority 24, 25; Boccaccio
22–3; codicology 42; interpretation
73, 130, 131, 193; mise-en-page 3–4;
preparation 14; presentation 11, 19, 28,
47; scribes 82, 129; vernacular texts 80;
worth 18
Godard, Sir John (MP) 180
Gospel of Nichodemus 148
Gower, John 4, 20; Anglo-Norma balades 173;
Cinkante Balades 86; Confessio Amantis
24, 86–7; Traité pour essampler les amantz
marietz 86–7
grammar 211; developments 220
Grandes chroniques de France 102
grapheme 212–15, 217, 219, 221, 222
graphology 219, 220
Gray, Walter (Archbishop of York) 170
Great Yarmouth 96
Greenhalgh, James (Sheen Carthusian) 141
Gregory 137; Epistola missoria ad Leandrum
193; Moralia on Job 192–3, 199
Grote 124
Guarnieri 130
Halifax 169
Hall, William (scribe) 113–14
handwriting 8, 37, 222
Hanna, Ralph 68, 78, 82
Harewood House 179
Hart, John 222
headings 3, 23, 28, 33
Henry, 3rd Lord Fitzhugh 176
Henry V 176, 177
Henryson, Robert 21
heraldic emblems 30
heresy 130; eradication 19; Free-Spirit
mysticism 123, 126, 129; Mirror of Simple
Souls, The 6, 122; scribes 130; Wycliffite
Bible 30
252  Index
hermits 202; support of 206
heterodoxy 122, 124, 129, 131
hierarchy 48, 49; scripts 17
Hilton, Joan 179
Hilton, Robert jr (d. 1431) 179
Hilton, Robert sr 180
Hilton, Walter 117, 139, 140; Epistle of
the Mixed Life 115, 116, 117; Scale of
Perfection 141, 142, 143
Histoire de Julius Cesar 102
Histoire Romaine 102
historiated capitals 11
Hoccleve 177
Holme, Nicholas 172
Holy Communion 193
Homersley, John 142
homogeneity 29, 88
Hornby, Thomas de (vicar) 171
hospitals 172, 177
Howes, Thomas 104
Huby, Marmaduke (Abbot Fountains
Abbey) 178
Huddersfield 180
Hudson, Anne 127
Hugh of York (clerk) 182
Hughes, Jonathan 205
Hulme, Nicholas 172
humanism 36, 100
humility 128, 144, 151, 203
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester 99, 102
Hyde Abbey, Winchester 194
identification 36, 115
illuminated capitals 48–50; mise-en-page
11; preparation 14; presentation 40;
reading practice 3; scribes 32
illuminations 18, 194
illustrations 11, 14, 18, 23, 114
Imitation of Christ, The 138
In laudibus 195
In primo nocturno 195
Ingelby Arncliffe 178
Ingilby, Agnes 180
Ingilby, Ellen 180
Ingilby, John (d. 1408) 178, 179
Ingilby, Thomas (d. c. 1380) 178
Ingilby, William (d. 1438) 181
Ingilbys 178
initials 28, 48–50, 115
inks 14, 16, 47
interpretation 132; context 10, 11, 85;
layout 18, 19; mise-en-page 28; scribal
editing 73, 130, 131, 132
Islebeck 184
Jean, duc de Berry 98, 104
Jerome 137
Job 192, 203, 205, 207
John, Duke of Bedford 97, 98, 180
John of Gaunt 176, 177
John of Howden: Philomela 206
Julian of Norwich 139; Revelations of Divine
Love 122
Justice, Steven 68
Kane 69, 72, 75–6, 78, 81
Keio University 113
Kempe, Margery 145, 150; Book of Margery
Kempe, The 139
Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn 68
Kingslow, John 122
Kirkby, Andrew de (vicar) 171
Kirkby Malzeard 176
Kirkby, Margaret 177, 202
Kirkby Wiske (North Yorkshire) 181
Knaresborough 173, 176, 178, 179
laity: audiences 119; circulation 116, 145;
Piers Plowman 68; private reading 115,
153; tastes in reading 5; transmission
137, 139, 148
Langland: Piers Plowman 4, 68–84
language 115, 211, 214; logographic 214;
phonographic 214; of record 216
Last Rites 193, 194
Late Modern English 221
Latin 3, 17, 18, 211, 215, 216
Latin texts 4, 19, 80, 82, 124, 129
Lay Folk’s Catechism 115, 116, 117, 118
layout 18–19; context 3, 11; mise-en-page
28, 30; ruling patterns 36; vernacular
texts 22–3
Leeds 179
Leeming 175, 182
lemmata 3, 11, 18, 19
Lerner 123
Leversedge, Edmund 139
Liberty of Ripon 170
library 97; French Royal 101; private 119
Life of Jerome 140
Lincoln Cathedral 116
Lincolnshire 69, 116
Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English
(LALME): Masham (Yorkshire) 169;
North Riding 167; Pateley Bridge
173; South Norfolk 69; Suffolk 77;
 Index  253
Theakston 175, 182 Mass for the Dead 196
linguistics 211–24; evidence 167; materials 11, 12, 16
paleography 8; transition 218; Matthews, William 176
variations 114, 216; Wycliffite Bible 29 McIntosh, Angus 217, 222
literacy: bureaucracy 19; devotional 11; Mechtild of Hackeborn 143, 146
laity 68, 115; religious audience 175, Mede, William 141
176, 180; scribes 172 medieval funeral 193, 194, 205, 207
literary: activities 173; culture 2; meditation 146, 147, 194, 203, 204
methodology 19 Meditationes Vitae Christi 148
littera 211 Melton, John (Archbishop) 171
littera duplex (LD) 49 membrane 11, 12, 14
liturgical: commentary 192; context 201; memoria 18
practice 196, 205; tradition 200 Methley, Richard (Carthusian) 129, 139
liturgy 194; of death 195, 199 Meun, Jean de: Le Roman de la rose 21
localities 29, 212 Middle Dutch 124
logographic language 214 Middle English 215–18; developments 221,
Lollard Trials 30, 34 222; devotional writings 118; Hopton
Lollard writings 17, 20, 34, 43, 180 Hall Manuscript 115, 117, 119; localities
Lollards 126, 127, 138 212; lyrics 85, 87; Mirror of Simple Souls,
Lombardic style 47–8 The 129; phonographic 214; Piers
London 4, 100, 116, 137, 140 Plowman 69; poetry 86; standardisation 5;
London Charterhouse 122 tradition 114; translations 122, 123, 128
Lovatt, Roger 137 Middleham Castle 177
Love, Nicholas 138, 141, 142, 143, 155 Middlesbrough 183
Ludolph of Saxony 146, 148 Middleton, Anis 179
Lydgate: Lives of Saints Edmund and Fremund Midlands 4
80 Miniot, Dom Roger 181
lyrics 4, 16, 85, 87, 88, 90 Miniot, Joanna 184
Miniot, John (father to Roger) 182
Mann, Jill 68, 82 Miniot, John jr (grandson to Roger) 183,
manuscript 1, 194; contents 34–5; context 184
1–6, 10, 12, 25, 28, 85; costs 46, 48; Miniot, John (son to Roger) 182, 183
culture 8; evidence 4, 23, 25, 81; Miniot, Laurence (brother to John sr) 183
experience 3, 8, 11; facsimile 11; library Minnis, Alistair 23
178; paleography 8, 119; production Minot, John 174
119; versions 12 Minot, Laurence 174, 175
marginalia: annotation 14, 19, 80; Minster Statutes 170
comments 18; context 11; evolution 12; Mirror of Our Lady 140, 152, 153, 154
glosses 22; imagery 11; mise-en-page Mirror to Devout People 136–66
5; presentation 18; running heads 38; mise-en-page 3, 11, 18–19, 145; Wycliffite
vernacular 4 Bible 5, 28–67
margins 17, 35 Misyn, Richard 122
Markenfield, Andrew 174, 178 monastic: communities 195; context 7,
Markenfield Hall 174 129; life 133
Markenfield, John de (Chancellor of the Moses 118
Exchequer) 174 mouvance 12, 14
Markenfield, Thomas 174, 175, 176 Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, Thomas 184
Markenfield, Thomas sr 184 Mt Grace Charterhouse 178
Markington 170 Mulcaster 221
Marmion, Maude 176 musical notation 16–17
Marmion Tower 176 Mygnot, Johannes 182
Martin V, Pope 141 Mynot, Roger of Wath 183
Masham (Yorkshire) 169, 177 mysticism 139, 203
254  Index
networks of relationships 92, 205 Percy, Henry de 182
Neville, 1st Earl of Westmoreland, Ralph philology 1, 51
177 phoneme 211–24
Neville, Joan 177 phonetics 213
Newsham, Margery de 182 phonics 216
Newsham (North Yorkshire) 181 phonographic language 214
Nicholas of Lyra 143, 144 phonology 213, 217, 220
Nidderdale 170, 176 Pickhill (North Yorkshire) 181
Norfolk: Hall, William (scribe) 114; Harley Pigot, Geoffrey 175
3954 81; Hopton Hall Manuscript 116, Pigot, Joanna 175
117; Piers Plowman 4; scribes 69, 70, 77 Pigot, Sir Randolph 175
Norton Conyers 176 Pisan, Christine de 106
Norton, John 139 Pistor, William 172
Norton, Sir John 175 Plumpton, Sir Robert 175, 179
Norwich 12, 69 Plumpton, Sir William (1404–80) 180
nuns 127, 139, 141, 151, 155, 201 poetry 4, 18, 19, 85–6, 90
poets 23, 25
Office of the Dead 192–210; anchoritic Pontefract 169
culture 8 Pontefract Castle 177
Officium defunctorum 194 popularity 8, 115, 116
Old English 215, 217–18 Porète, Marguerite 139; Mirror of Simple
Old English verse 18 Souls, The 122–35
Orcherd of Syon, The 140, 153, 154 postulant anchorites 196, 197
Orderic Vitalis 16 preachers 147, 148, 150
ordinatio 11, 24 prebendaries 170, 171, 174, 177, 178
Ordo includendi famulum Dei 196 Preestes, Clemency 172
organisation: of texts 11, 87, 88–9 Present Day English 221, 222
origins: geographic 11; of texts 8 presentation 11, 18, 23, 114
Orm: Ormulum, The 215, 216 Prick of Conscience 172, 179, 206
orthodoxy 122, 126, 129, 132, 137 pride 129, 133
orthography 8, 30–1, 32, 33, 222 Priscian 211
Orton 180 private reading 115, 119
Othéa 98, 100 probatio 6, 128, 132, 133, 139
ownership 3, 30, 85 production costs 48
Oxford 79 production networks 31–2
production process 81
Paisley Abbey drain 16–17 prologues 131, 136, 142, 148
paleography: allograph 212; evidence 4, prose 18, 115
30, 39; Hopton Hall Manuscript 113; provenance 30, 69
lyrics 85; scribes 32; study 8, 51 Ptolemy: Almagest 103
paragraphs 115 Pygot, Geoffrey 184
paraphs 28, 41, 46–7
parchment 14, 16, 40, 114 Quermby 180
Paris 98 Quernby, Sir William (1408–38) 180
Passion of Christ 148, 204 Quixley 173
Paston, John 96–7, 99
Paston, William II: Memorandum on French radical mysticism 123–4, 126, 127, 132
Grammar 216 readership 4, 7, 11, 17
Pateley 170 reading practice 2–3, 6, 106, 115, 153–4
Pateley Bridge 173 reclusorium 197, 198, 200
Pater noster 152 Redman, Elizabeth (née Aldeburgh) 179
Pearsall, Derek 23 reflection 119, 146
penitential texts 137, 203, 205 Regnum mundi 197
 Index  255
relationship 211, 215 scribal: communities 7, 174; copying 4;
religious houses 77, 119, 139 design 32; editing 73, 74–6, 78, 82;
religious life 122, 128 exemplars 28; features 2; habits 3, 11
religious texts 136, 137 scribes: Carthusians 138, 140, 141, 142, 147;
Rempston, Isabel 180 Chaucer, Geoffrey 12, 22; co-ordination
Rempston, Sir Thomas 180 37; dialects 8; editorial intervention 4;
Repingdon, Philip: recants 127 Hopton Hall Manuscript 113; lyrics 85,
Requiem Mass 195, 201 91; Middle English 212, 221; mise-en-
Ribblesdale 180 page 24; Piers Plowman 69–70, 72–5,
Richard, 1st Lord Scrope of Bolton 175 81, 82; Ripon 172–5; ruling patterns
Richard, Duke of York 106 40, 44; script 17; seasonal activities 16;
Richard III 177 standardisation 51; vernacular texts 167;
Richmond (North Riding) 176 Wycliffite Bible 29, 30, 48; Yorkshire 169
Richmond, Thomas 182 script: size 19; type 19
Rigg, A.G. 78 scriptoria 5, 17, 28, 31
Ripley 178 Scrope, 2nd Lord of Masham, Stephen
Ripon 7–8, 170–7, 184 206
Ripon Liberty 176 Scrope, Elizabeth 136, 145–6, 154
Ripon Minster 7, 175, 176, 177, 178, 181 Scrope, Henry le 182
Ripon Minster Church of SS Peter and Scrope, Henry (of Masham) 177, 206
Wilfrid 169 Scrope, Richard 179
Rolle, Richard 116–17, 136–40, 172–3, Scrope, Stephen (stepson to Sir John
177, 180; Ego Dormio 206; Emendatio Fastolf) 96, 98
Vitae 122, 192, 201; Expositio super novem secretary script 17, 113
lectiones 192; Form of living, The 206; secular clergy 79, 137, 170, 205, 206
Incendium Amoris 122, 206; Super novem Sedgeford 69
lectiones mortuorum 8, 194, 201–7 Selby 171
Romaldkirke (County Durham) 181 Selby Abbey 178
Roos, Robert de 179 Sewell, Joanne (Syon Nun) 141
Roos, Thomas 179 Sheen 116, 122, 137–8, 141, 143, 155
Rouen 98 Sheen-Syon axis 7, 140, 144
rubrications 18, 32, 82, 90, 115 Skipton upon Swale 182
Rufforth 180 Skrevyne, Agnes 172
ruling 28 slate 12, 16, 17
ruling patterns 33, 34, 36–44, 50–1, 52 Sleaforth 69
running heads 28, 33, 38–9, 41, 45–8, 51 Sleford, John de (Keeper of the Wardrobe
Russell, Richard 206 in the Tower) 171
Ruusbroec, Jan van 128, 132, 139; De Smalley, Beryl 19
Geestelike Brulocht 123, 124, 126–7; social stability 124
Vanden blinkenden steen 122 Solomon 192, 193
Ryman, James 87 Southampton Conspiracy 177
Rypon, Robert de 171 specialisation 32
Speculum devotorum 140
Saint Augustine 197 Speculum vitae 180
Saint John the Evangelist 151 speech 211, 215
Saint Wilfrid 173 spellings 215, 219, 222
Samuels, M.L. 68, 78 spiritual: pride 128, 151; relationships 141;
Sandhutton 182, 184 significance 19; texts 137, 138
Sawley 170 spirituality 138, 207; eremitic 205
Saxon period 215 Spirleng, Geoffrey 12
scholars 5, 8, 85, 172 Spirleng, Thomas 12
scholarship 19, 23, 29 Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, Humphrey
Scott 80 98
256  Index
standardisation 39, 45, 48, 51, 216
Stapledon, Sir Brian jr 179
Stapledon, Sir Brian (KG, 1321–94) 179
Stapledon, Sir Brian MP (III, 1387–1417)
179
Stapleton, Brian (IV, 1413–66, MP) 180
Stapleton, Elizabeth 180
Stapleton, Joan 180
status 6, 11, 91
style 39, 51
Suffolk 4, 77, 81
Summons to Prayer, A 17
Suso, Heinrich: Horologium Sapientiae 117,
119, 143, 148
Sutton, Constance 180
Swinderby, William: recants 127
Syon Abbey 116, 135–66, 177, 201, 206
Takayima Collection, Tokyo 118
Teachings of St Barnabus, The 118
technology 8, 24
temptation 122, 127, 128, 129, 199, 203
Ten Commandments 118, 119
terminology 211–12
Testament of Job 193
text 115; analysis 11; authority 147;
circulation 138; columns 36, 37;
communities 7, 140; configuration
33, 35, 51, 145; context 11; culture
1, 2, 3, 6; hierarchy 46; information
2; movement 1; omissions 76;
organisation 11; origins 8; production
3, 139; provenance 3; relationship 18,
28, 32; resources 142; tradition 37;
transmission 137; variations 77
textura script 17, 18, 40, 48
The Mirror to Devout People 6–7
Theakston 175, 182
theoretical frameworks 211
Thetford 77
Thirkleby 182, 184
Thirsk 176, 182
Thoresby, John (Archbishop of York) 116
Thormanby 184
Thornton, Robert 116, 118
Thurgarton, Nottinghamshire 116
Thynne 14
Tickhill 169, 176
Tinctor, William 170
titles 46, 47
Tokyo 113
translations 19, 21, 123–4, 128–30, 173
transmission: Carthusians 138, 140;
linguistics 211; lyrics 87; Mirror to Devout
People 137; poetry 88; Ripon Minster
181; Rolle, Richard 192; vernacular
texts 167; Wycliffite Bible 28, 30, 37, 51
Tuve, Rosamund 98
valuation of Falstolf’s collection 101
vellum 14, 40
vernacular: authors 20, 22; humanism 5;
literacy 215; manuscript 6; poets 23
vernacular texts: accessibility 115;
anchoritic culture 205; authorship 11;
Carthusians 148; compilers 19; glosses
25; Hopton Hall Manuscript 118, 119;
Ingilby, John (d. 1408) 178; medium
12; Mirror to Devout People 136, 140; Piers
Plowman 82; Ripon 172; Rolle, Richard
202; translations 106; Yorkshire 167
versions 70, 77
viaticum 193, 194
virtues 130, 149
visual signs 11, 18, 90
Wainfleet, William (Bishop of Winchester)
100
Waleys, Alice 179
Waleys, Sir Stephen 179
Walkingham 180
Ward, Sir John (Givendale) 175
Warwickshire 116
Wasselynck (compiler): Glossa ordinaria 193
Watson, Nicholas 130
wax 12, 16, 17
Wells, John (Ramsey Abbey) 78, 216
Wensleydale 169, 176, 177
West Midlands 68
West Tanfield 176
Whitby 171, 183
Whixley 173
Wilfred, 7
William of Nassyngton: Speculum vitae 118,
169
Willoughby, Lord of Eresby, Robert 180
Winchester 69
Wollore, David de (Master of the Rolls)
171, 174, 178
woolen cloth production 169–70
Worcester, William (secretary to Sir John
Fastolf) 5, 96, 100–1, 102, 104, 105–6
Worcestershire 78, 116
writing 211, 215
writing area 32, 33, 35–6, 39, 41–5
writing materials 3, 18

writing process 18
writing systems 213, 214, 215, 217, 220
written variations 215
Wyclif 136
Wycliffite Bible 5, 20, 29, 34–5; Early
Version (EV) 29; Later Version (LV) 29
Wynter, Symon 140, 150
Index  257
Yarm (North Riding) 171
Yelverton, Sir William 100, 102, 104
York 169, 171, 192, 205, 206
York City Corporation 169
York diocese 171, 176
York Minster 8, 195, 206