Old English Literature in its Manuscript Context (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Old English Literature in its Manuscript Context Pamela O’Neill Lionarons, Joynce Tally, ed., Old English Literature in its Manuscript Context (Medieval European Studies, V), Morgantown, West Virginia University Press, 2004; paperback; pp. vii, 254; 2 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$45.00; 0937058831. West Virginia University Press's relatively young Medieval European Studies series makes available fresh ideas and thorough scholarship on medieval studies in attractive little books at reasonable prices. The present volume is no exception. It arises from an inspired seminar convened by Paul E Szarmach and Timothy Graham in the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College Cambridge, where a group of researchers shut themselves into a library of original manuscripts and 'worked at a fever pitch' (p. 1) for six weeks. The resulting collection of nine essays is like a breath of fresh air. [End Page 210] The first two essays dissect the scholarly obsession with the archetypal and the orthodox in the context of CCCC Ms 41. Sharon M. Rowley's discussion of the Old English translation of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica urges the reading of this text and the accompanying marginalia as a 'specifically Anglo-Saxon synthesis of interests and textual practices' (p. 13). She very sensibly rejects accusations of heterodoxy, contamination and even wildness in this collection as anachronistic reflections of modern expectations, arguing rather that the manuscript is a valuable source of information about the knowledge and thinking of a particular school of thought at a particular time. Nancy M. Thompson similarly calls for a reappraisal of the material in the manuscript, arguing that interpretations which describe the apocryphal material as heterodox 'misinterpret Ælfric's own religious world view, which left adequate room for many extra-scriptural materials handed down by tradition' (p. 65). Lionarons's own contribution to the book takes a similar position with regard to the text of Wulfstan's De Temporibus Anticristi, providing a fresh edition of the version of the text in Oxford Bodleian Hatton Ms 113, and pointing out the advantages of an approach which treats each manuscript of a work as an authentic and separate text, rather than artificially discriminating between 'authentic' and 'inauthentic' content. A completely new approach to Anglo-Saxon poetry, to the extent of redefining the corpus, is advocated by Thomas A. Bredehoft. He argues convincingly that our distinction between prose and poetry in Old English manuscripts may not reflect the views of the writers of the manuscripts. His careful analysis of the various features used to distinguish poetry from prose reveals that scribes used a variety of markings, ranging from none at all to enlarged capitals, pointing and spacing to mark the beginnings and endings of passages which they apparently considered poetic. His useful table of recognized poetic passages found in prose contexts is a revealing prelude to his conclusions that poetry of 'irregular metre' ought not to be excluded from the corpus, and that we should exercise caution in separating poetry from its prose context. Such detailed examination also underpins Melinda J. Menzer's intriguing analysis of the multilingual glosses on Ælfric's Grammar. Having considered the ways in which such texts are written for audiences of various linguistic backgrounds, she reaches the fascinating conclusion that various Anglo-Norman glossators of the Grammar used it as a tool for teaching or learning either Latin or English, and as a result is able to ask the ground-breaking question of why an Anglo-Norman speaker would wish to learn Anglo-Saxon. [End Page 211] The remaining essays likewise consider the later lives of Old English manuscripts. Paul Acker looks at the original and two subsequent tables of contents in CCCC Ms 178, concluding that each user, from the Anglo-Saxon scribe who sought to present his texts in an orderly manner, through the Middle English glossator who imposed an alternative order, to Matthew Parker, who rearranged and altered the manuscript, sought to use and present the material with an awareness of its heritage value and an urge to draw its usefulness to the attention of his contemporaries. The Exeter Book is the focus of Robert M. Butler's adventurous exploration of the movement of church property in...