Philip Perry’s Schools Manuscript and the Invention of the Recusant Middle Ages

Abstract

The interest in medieval English literature and its history dates back to the eighteenth century, when antiquarians and literary critics started to recover, edit and comment - and sometimes forge - texts that either revived or documented the past. By the time Thomas Warton published his History of English Poetry (1774-1791), Thomas Hearne had already edited a large amount of medieval historical texts and sources. Warton, however, historicized not only the Middle Ages but continued up to the eighteenth century. The object of our essay is an unedited manuscript that puts together a history of medieval - and only medieval - British literary authors, and which shows its author independently at work at the same time Warton was writing his History. Our study extends from a codicological analysis of the manuscript to an examination of all the aspects involved in its composition - authorship, purpose, sources - as well as the consideration of its historiographical approach. We hope to establish both the relevance of this manuscript as an early history of medieval English literature and introduce its author, the English recusant Catholic Philip M. Perry, about whom virtually nothing has been written.