Saints and Scribes: Medieval Hagiography in Its Manuscript Context by Pamela Gehrke

Abstract

REVIEWS University Press for providing us this learned, comprehensive, well­ focused, multidisciplinary study of medieval apocalypticism. Although I have complained about the presentation of the artwork, I have to tell you that this is a lot of book for $18.95. DAVID BEVINGTON University of Chicago PAMELA GEHRKE. Saints and Scribes: Medieval Hagiography in Its Manu­ script Context. University ofCalifornia Publications in Modern Philology, vol. 126. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia Press, 1993. Pp. x, 182. $24.00 paper. This book has a misleading title. Gehrke's focus is much more limited and specific than the term "medieval hagiography" suggests; in fact, she exam­ ines just four Old French literary manuscripts, all of them written during the thirteenth century, which include some verse retellings of saints' leg­ ends. Despite the prominence of saints in her tide, moreover, Gehrke has surprisingly little to say about hagiography per se. The actual emphases and strengths of her project lie elsewhere. As Gehrke herself defines her project, it "combines textual analysis with codicological evidence to uncover the principles of inclusion observed by scribes collecting assorted works into single manuscript volumes" (p. 1). Although this focus inevitably recalls Sylvia Huot's From Song to Book (1987), Gehrke's book originated independently, in a doctoral dissertation submitted in 1986. Gehrke also chooses more heterogeneous manuscripts than Huot tends to work on, approaches them from a different perspective, and gives the reader much more specific information about their individual features. Gehrke begins the book with a short introduction that outlines her selection procedure, methodology, and "theoretical frame" and ends it with a 6-page concluding chapter and a bibliography. The remainder of the book-nearly 150 pages in all-is devoted to detailed descriptions and analyses of the four manuscripts chosen for her study: Berkeley, Bancroft Library UCB 106, and Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale fran�ais 2162, 1374, and 2094. All this material is organized in a complex but reasonably clear 205 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER and consistent manner. Each manuscript is treated in a chapter of its own, and all the chapters treat the same subtopics in the same order, with sub­ titles to mark the breaks between sections. In the initial section of each chapter, under the subtitle "Texts," Gehrke lists all the contents of the manuscript by author, if known, and short title and then briefly discusses each item, identifying pertinent studies by pre­ vious scholars and summarizing their conclusions on such matters as its genre, sources, analogues, dialect, provenance, and textual history. In the second section of each chapter, subtitled "Codicological Articulations," Gehrke describes the codicological irregularities and other physical details which she regards as most important in shedding light on how (and by whom and for whom) the manuscript was written and put together. In the third section, "Analysis and Interpretation," Gehrke presents her most sus­ tained and ambitious discussions. Here she draws conclusions about the particular themes and concerns that are uppermost in each manuscript, thus accounting for the inclusion and ordering of the various texts it con­ tains, and also attempts to contextualize the manuscripts by relating them to the interests and needs of different segments of the French-speaking public in the thirteenth century. The final two sections of each chapter look more like appendices than integral parts of the discussion. In the fourth section, "Material Description," Gehrke gives fuller information about the physical makeup of each manuscript, including details about binding, di­ mensions, inks, paleography, gatherings and signatures, shelfmarks and other later notations, damage, and repairs; this section also includes facsim­ ile pages illustrating each scribal hand and diagrams and tables showing the layout of a typical page and the organization of the manuscript as a whole. The fifth section, "Contents," returns to the textual contents of the manuscript, giving additional information that includes a summary of each text, as well as its incipit and explicit, title in the manuscript, and any rubrics that accompany it. As I have already suggested, the obvious weakness of this book is its failure to live up to its title. The manuscripts chosen for study include many different kinds of texts, and Gehrke actually has less to say about the...