Chronicles and Other Historical Writings. Vol 8 in A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050–1500 ed. by Edward Donald Kennedy

Abstract

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER those intelligent readers worldwide who are primarily interested in the wit and wisdom of the human comedy of one of the truly finest vernacular poets the Western medieval world has produced. Surely these volumes will lead readersofGerman to a betterunderstandingofChaucer and ofBritish literature. They will also encourage the learning and reading of Geoffrey Chaucer's works in his own fourteenth-century London English. DOUGLAS J. MCMILLAN East Carolina University EDWARD DONALD KENNEDY, ed. Chronicles and Other Historical Writ­ ings. Vol. 8 in Albert E. Hartung, gen. ed. A Manual ofthe Writings in Middle English, 1050-1500. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books for Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1989. Pp. x, 359 (2597-2956 in the continuous pagination). $32.50. For the first time, the contents ofthis eighth volume ofthe Manualconsist ofa single chapter, numbered 12, "Chronicles and Other Historical Writ­ ing," by Edward Donald Kennedy. As Albert Hartung notes in the Preface, the adoption of this procedure has been occasioned partly by the huge increase in entries over those in the old WellsManual (115- misstated to be 113 on p. ix-titles as opposed to 9) and partly by "a change in editorial strategy by the General Editor in order to bring out the remaining volumes of the Manual as expeditiously as possible" (p. ix). It is, I am sure, the general hope of the academic community that such a change will prove successful. There are several valid reasons for the increase in the number of works treated by Kennedy. The chapter is predicated on the acceptance of an expandedrange of"historicalwriting" (Antonia Gransden's term) that goes beyond full-scale chronicles to encompass other, shorter works that deal with relatively short periods or describe single events or ceremonial occa­ sions. The prime criterion for inclusion is that a work should contain a narrative account. Kennedy notes that other works that can be called historical writing are included elsewhere in the Manual, in the chapters on Caxton (the continuation to his Polychroniconedition), Lydgate (Utrses on the Kings a/England, The Serpent a/Division, etc.), poems dealing with contemporary conditions, and romances (the verse Arthur, embedded in a 210 REVIEWS Latin chronicle in Longleat MS 55). In a truly expanded canon of Middle English historical writing, this list could be augmented considerably by taking into account other works that were considered historical from the medieval point of view; such as narratives of Troy, saints' lives, and various romances. The fifteenth century, included in the present Manual but not in Wells, was marked by an enormous increase in the output of vernacular historical writings and of copies thereof. Kennedy has also, justifiably, widened the chronological range of the Manual's brief to include a full treatment of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and of several sixteenth-century works that are based on or in the same tradition as earlier works. Thirty-six unpublished works are also included, as well as additional manuscripts of edited works, that have been described or identified only in recent years. As Kennedy notes, little scholarly work has been done on most of the unedited textsor, indeed, on significant variant versions of published ones. Reliable guides to Middle English historical writings are few: C. L. Kings­ ford's English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (1915; still useful), the two massive volumes of Antonia Gransden's Historical Writing in England(1974, 1982; not consistently reliable on the textual history of English works), and my chapter on "Historical Prose" (1984; limited to prose). The amount of diligent primary research that Kennedy has done is manifest throughout hischapter, to a degree, I suspect, that is unparalleled in previously published chapters of the Manual. The results are contained in the "Commentary" section of thechapter, where the individual works are described and summarized. Kennedy's meticulous reexamination of man­ uscripts has produced a powerful critique of previous scholarship on the textual affiliations of many works that adds much new and original infor­ mation. It is an extremely helpful feature that, where the textual situation remains murky, Kennedy does not hesitate to say so, thus pointing out specific areas for future research. Kennedy's list of prose Brut...