The Matter of Identity in Medieval Romance edited by Phillipa Hardman (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS93 (Kalamazoo, 1995). She supplements the factual evidence provided by the marks and names in the books with a careful consideration of various other historical records, namely, wills and library records. Women, Reading, andPiety is an interesting and compelling study in several parts: in the first and last chapters, Erler provides an overview of English women's devotional reading, moving from institutional libraries and the exchange of books between nuns to the patterns ofwomen's religious reading in the first several decades of printing. At the centre of the book, Erler provides detailed descriptions of the overlapping reading practices, and social histories, ofseven book-owning and bookgiving late medieval English women, whose lives cross boundaries not just of lay and religious life, but also oforthodoxy and heterodoxy. Importantly, Erler's evidence and examples force readers to think across our own persistent historiographie and disciplinary boundaries of late medieval and early modern, manuscript and print, and this is a productive exercise, as her discussion shows. There are, however, some key gaps in the picture Erler provides, and though these gaps are acknowledged and accounted for, their absence is telling. First, Erler is only concerned with the religious books women read, and nothing else, and second, Erler's consideration of reading women lacks examples ofyoung married, or young unmarried but not religious, women. Both are explained by the frequency of a certain kind of record and the paucity of another: for instance, women of a certain age, class, and status (i.e. widows ofsome wealth) made wills, while young married women rarely seem to have done so, or were prohibited from doing so; and in the wills made by devout widows, they consistently chose to leave as testament to their life and memory books ofreligion (regardless ofwhatever else they might have read in their lives). Finally, it is worth noting that since Erler's study is focused on the material history ofbook ownership, her conclusions about women's reading are necessarily limited: questions ofpublic reading (fundamental to both religious and lay households) and the potential dissemination and movement of text-based learning distinct from actual reading ability (what Rebecca Krug has recently called 'literate practices') can not easily be deduced from this evidence. Nevertheless, this is an issue ofscope, not accuracy, and as Erler notes in her epilogue, a desired aim ofthis studywas 'the recovery ofquantifiable information about women's devotional books' (134). Erler has succeeded with this work, and provided her readers with a considered, highly detailed, frequently provocative, and undeniably important contribution to women's literary and social history. JACQUELINE JENKINS University of Calgary PHiLLIPA HARDMAN, ed., TheMatterofIdentity inMedievalRomance. Suffolk, England & Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2003. Pp. xi, 165. isbn: 0-85991-761-4. $70/£40. In The Matter ofIdentity in Medieval Romance, Phillipa Hardman has collected twelve essays originally presented at the seventh biennial Conference on Romance in Medieval England, held in Reading in April 2000. The authors adopt a wide 94ARTHURIANA range ofapproaches to insular texts, manuscripts, poets, and even publishers. Many place insular works within a historical framework and investigate both ties with and differences from continental works, most often Old French romances and Breton lays. The book provides an important body of research unified by geographical more than thematic or generic links. In fact, rather than focusing on medieval romance, as the title suggests, several authors question generic affiliations or investigate genres such as lays, narrative poems, hagiographical and historical works. Hardman suggests, both through the title and in her own introduction, that the essays provide an investigation of the theme 'identity.' She proffers a definition of identity, cleverly suggesting it be considered a 'Matter' in itself (likened to the 'Matters' ofRome, Troy, England etc.). However, her discussion ofthe term and of its potential application to romance becomes so broad that it could, conceivably, be applied to an analysis of almost any work of literature. Though several authors make a conscious 'nod' towards the theme (one feels that they were asked to make their papers 'fit' after being written), most present studies which often only 'obliquely,' as Hardman suggests concerning the paper ofMorgan Dickson, address the 'Matter of Identity.' The twelve essays vary widely in topic...