A Community of Book Artisans in Chaucer's London

Abstract

"A Community of Book Artisans in Chaucer's London." Fugitive evidence, discovered primarily in archival documents, identifies a community of independent book artisans working in London during Chaucer's adult lifetime (1360-1400) and the generation following his death (1400-1430). Surviving data about this group of bookbinders, manuscript artists, textwriters and/or stationers, parchmeners, and free-lance scriveners document the beginnings of a unified booktrade guild within a small, clearly bounded craft neighborhood near Saint Paul's Cathedral. Additional evidence shows the relative financial success of these early purveyers of books and book services; the importance of institutional patronage for the developing book market; and the mode of collaborative yet essentially divided labor in manuscript-book production among craftsmen whose associations were both professional and personal. The essay concludes by surveying the circumstantial evidence that identifies by name those artisans most likely to have served as editor, textwriter, and artists of the Ellesmere manuscript of The Canterbury Tales.