Manuscript canonicity

Abstract

ABSTRACT Some manuscripts containing Middle English possess canonicity in modern scholarship for their own sakes, that is, for their interest as objects rather than due to the canonicity of their contents. The combination of many surviving manuscripts and a historical position largely before the coming of moveable-type print creates this manuscript canonicity; in this respect, Middle English studies stand out from comparable fields. Manuscripts with their own canonicity tend to be atypically large, and tend to gather many works, works that are often themselves not canonical. Although manuscript canonicity only rarely affects literary canonicity, the growth of manuscript canonicity shows how canonicity of all kinds emerges from teaching and research, not works or manuscripts. If literary scholars turn their attention to objects other than works, such as datasets, canonicity will develop around the new objects as it has around manuscripts. While the study of less-examined codices is worthwhile for other reasons, it can only move the hierarchy of canonicity around, and it cannot remove the stratification. However, manuscripts also invite thought on the books from the period which are now lost – the majority of books. Because research cannot make them canonical, these absent codices might help us think around canonicity.