Reviewed by: Talk and Textual Production in Medieval England by Marisa Libbon Jamie K. Taylor Marisa Libbon. Talk and Textual Production in Medieval England. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2021. xvii + 245 pp. 3 b/w ills. ISBN 978-0-8142-1470-1. In this strikingly original and thought-provoking book, Marisa Libbon asks us to think about how we have come to trust that what we know of the past is true. Historical narrative and scholarly consensus alike are the result of a number of factors, one of which is especially complex, fundamentally important, and until now, undertheorized: talk. Rumors circulate; scholars cite theories as commonplaces; witnesses rehearse stories in the courtroom. Talk is a critical mode of producing, asserting, and [End Page 385] repeating ideas as truth, and this book assesses what kinds of talk are rendered important, where, and by whom. Talk and Textual Production in Medieval England conceptualizes talk as something more solid and respected than mere gossip but slightly askew from verified fact or forensic evidence. Talk is not the same as written records, but it is foundational for their construction, and thus it can be assessed within those records. As Libbon says, talk “was not then and is not now wholly ephemeral” (6). We can find evidence of talk by paying close attention to the circumstances in which texts are produced and circulated, thinking specifically about what rumors and local issues might have found their ways in. Indeed, when we take talk seriously as a methodological approach to historical and archival study, we find that we cannot think of oral and written forms of information, evidence, and storytelling as opposed or even all that different. In pursuing talk as a vital part of history-making, Talk and Textual Production crucially advances the conversations in several scholarly subfields, including manuscript and book history, medieval historiography, and orality and literacy studies. “Talk” is a capacious and difficult-to-define hermeneutic, so Libbon smartly takes a narrow focus on Richard I’s complex historical and cultural legacy. Yet this book easily exceeds its specific object of analysis. Although those working on Richard and the romance tradition will certainly find in this book new and exciting ways of encountering the stories they think they know well, medievalists in other areas will also find a model for how to think in nuanced ways about textual production and reception. Chapter 1 is an especially elegant depiction of how scholarly talk produces a putatively “complete” text and core of accepted stories. The chapter deftly weaves together the story of the production of Brunner’s edition of Richard Löwenherz in fin-de-siècle Vienna with twelfth-and thirteenth-century accounts of Richard’s time in Vienna, such as the Historia de expeditione Frederici Imperatoris and Magnus of Reichersberg’s Chronicon. Both Richard Löwenherz and the medieval chronicles depict how talk of local, contemporary issues permeates the narrative of past events, yet that talk is obscured in the assumption that the texts offer the complete version of history. By unravel-ing the specific conditions under which this talk occurs, Libbon traces the [End Page 386] ideological and historical motivations behind texts we have come to accept as “original,” “complete,” or “authoritative.” In chapter 2, talk emerges as a central part of the evolution of legal evidentiary standards in the thirteenth century. The chapter begins with Edward’s 1290 quo warranto statute, which established the king’s right to demand that landholders provide proof of their property rights and inheritances. It did so with a temporal limit, “the time of King Richard,” and in doing so, it helped establish the terminus of local memory and the origin of English sovereign power. Moreover, as quo warranto hearings in the eyre courts gathered crowds from the shires, the stories told by landowners were solidified as legal evidence of inheritance rights. The chapter thus broadly focuses on ways unofficial talk can be transformed into official local history, and then how that local history ossifies into legislation and historical fact. The next three chapters concentrate on material texts. Chapter 3 focuses on Oxford, Christ Church 92, which was begun in 1326 when Edward...
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