Middle English Texts Research Articles

The Early Provenance of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 402 (Ancrene Wisse)

Abstract Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 402 uniquely transmits the authorial revision of the central Middle English spiritual text, Ancrene Riwle/Ancrene Wisse. The first leaf includes a note of the book’s donation to the Augustinian abbey at Wigmore (Herefs) around 1300. This note investigates the donor and the circumstances that may have prompted both the book’s production and the abbey precentor’s request for its donation.

Locating Anglo-Italian Communities in Bevis and the Naples Manuscript

This article contextualises the Anglo-Italian aspects of Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS XIII.B.29. This fifteenth-century paper miscellany contains Bevis of Hampton, Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale, St Alexius, Libeaus Desconus, as well as a recipe collection, a section of Lydgate’s “Doublenesse”, and a fragment of Sir Isumbras. The book is among a very select number of codices containing Middle English texts that are presently preserved in an Italian institution. Previous research has demonstrated XIII.B.29 must have travelled to the Italian peninsula at a relatively early date, but the exact reason behind its compilation and the method by which it arrived in Italy remain uncertain. This article reviews the manuscript’s design, provenance, and contents, arguing the book is not just an English manuscript in Italy, but also to some degree an English manuscript about Italy and Italian experiences. Specifically, the article contends that an episode in the manuscript’s Bevis, which describes a street fight near Lombard Street in London, benefits from a reading that acknowledges late medieval developments in finance and long-distance Anglo-Italian commerce, as well as the emergence of Italian communities in Southampton and the capital.

Hans Sauer and Alessia Bauer (eds.). 2023. To Instruct and To Entertain – Medieval Didactic Dialogues: The Old English Prose Solomon and Saturn, the Middle English Master of Oxford’s Catechism and their Reconstructed Latin Source; the Old English Adrian and Ritheus, and the Old Icelandic Dialogue between a Pupil and his Master. Middle English Texts 67. Heidelberg: Winter Universitätverlag, lv

Hans Sauer and Alessia Bauer (eds.). 2023. <i>To Instruct and To Entertain – Medieval Didactic Dialogues: The Old English Prose</i> Solomon and Saturn<i>, the Middle English</i> Master of Oxford’s Catechism <i>and their Reconstructed Latin Source; the Old English</i> Adrian and Ritheus<i>, and the Old Icelandic</i> Dialogue between a Pupil and his Master. Middle English Texts 67. Heidelberg: Winter Universitätverlag, lv

Scribal Consistency across Four Middle English Texts in NLW, Brogyntyn ii.1

ABSTRACT The number of hands involved in copying NLW, Brogyntyn ii.1 has been a subject of debate. Progress is currently being made from the rather general observations by Kurvinen (1953), Huws (1996), and Salter (2012) to the more recent and better-founded accounts by Carrillo-Linares (2023), on the scribes of Sir Gawayn and the Carl of Carlisle, and Connolly (forthcoming), on the first quire. The present paper aims to contribute to a hitherto unresolved part of the discussion by comparing decorative, palaeographical, and linguistic evidence across the Treatise on Grafting, the Treatise on Limning, Dialogue with a Bird, and The Tale of Ten Wives. I refute Kurvinen’s and Salter’s suggestions of multiple scribes through sound support of Huws’s claim that a single scribe was in charge of both the prose and verse sections in this part of the codex.

Anonymity, canonicity, and literary value

ABSTRACT This article investigates institutional forces that maintain the focus on canonical authors in Middle English studies, despite the ubiquity of anonymity in the Middle English corpus, and despite the extensive critique of the canon that the field has witnessed. It provides a snapshot of the current Middle English canon, surveys publication patterns in sample academic journals in the twenty-first century, examines the ways authorship serves (and anonymity does not) as a critical tool, and shows what anonymous texts might offer to the ongoing assessment of the literariness of Middle English texts. Analysis of the scholarship of two Middle English scholars over the first two decades of the current century demonstrates the challenges and opportunities in developing methods that discern the literariness of anonymous, non-canonical texts. Work in New Formalism and object studies offers possibilities for recognising the literariness of anonymous texts not traditionally considered in terms of their aesthetic or formal features.

Network Diagrams as a Means of Comparing Spelling Systems

The purpose of the paper is to explore the possibilities of using network diagrams as a means of analysing spelling systems of early Middle English texts. The diagrams are available in a recently constructed electronic tool based on the Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English (LAEME), which means that their applicability to actual analyses has not yet been properly assessed. The tool can visualise connections between letters and digraphs which are used interchangeably or the correspondences between two letters (digraphs) found in two different texts.&#x0D; The paper draws on a comparison of the texts in two selected manuscripts available in LAEME (Lambeth 487 and Trinity B.14.52). The study focuses mainly on the differences, similarities and connections between the individual spelling systems. The results show, which tasks are relatively easy to perform using the diagrams and what are the chief drawbacks of the proposed method.

The Middle Ages’ Influence on Women’s Role in Romantic Poetry

Women in the medieval period suffered from abuse and inequality. The pressure on women was so noticeable that they were treated as a marginal component of society in all aspects, an important one of which is the literary aspect. The literary role of women has largely disappeared from the European society in general and the English one in particular. Therefore, women, at every stage, struggled to show themselves amid these great pressures; their struggle led them to reach and succeed in the feminist movement. They attempted to counter the stereotypical image of the medieval women being helpless and subservient in the warrior societies depicted in Old English texts and the evil shrews responsible for men’s failings in Middle English texts. Their new adapted literary role focuses on showing their strength, intelligence, agency in society, and the extent of women’s impact on society and its change, despite the fact that this change came in secret. This study sheds some light on the women’s role in the literary social movement by critically examining the relevant literary works through which the role and effectiveness of women are revealed. This study contributes to dispelling some of the myths surrounding the perspectives assumed about women by providing greater clarity for their cultural and historical settings. Also, this study offers a feminist reading to the female characters in the selected works which clearly illustrates women’s role and the impact of feminist literature on English literature and English society at that period using the famous old legendary epic in English literature, Beowulf.

The Advent of the Printing Press and Britain’s Multilingual Textual Culture, 1471–1510

This article discusses the effects the new technology of printing had on the rich and multilingual textual culture of late medieval Britain. Before setting up his press in Westminster, William Caxton had books published in Latin, French and English. As soon as he relocated to England, however, he abandoned this multilingual business model and devoted all his energies to print books in English, as did his successors Richard Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde. Not only did they favour English over all other British languages, but promoted a London-based variety of English at the expense of other dialects. Hence, before giving to the press the Scots Contemplacioun of Synnaris by William Touris, Wynkyn de Worde chose to have it Anglicized. When Walter Chepman and Andrew Myllar established a printing press in Edinburgh in 1508, they replicated the choices of their English counterparts, promoting the standard form of Scots and even Scotticizing Middle English texts, such as Sir Eglamour of Artois. I conclude by arguing that the introduction of the printing press in Britain enhanced the prestige of the language variety used by the elite and became instrumental in eroding the balances existing in the British language ecosystem.

Verbs and Expressions of Calling a Person/Place/Thing in Old and Early Middle English Chronicles and Homilies

There were many ways of calling or naming a person, a place, or other things in Old English: se wæs noe gehaten ‘he is called Noah’, Ioppe hatte sum burh ‘a city was called Joppa’, æt þæm beorge þe mon Athlans nemneð ‘at the mountain which they name (precisely, one names) Atlas’, þe Grecas nemnað paralysis. and we cweðað lyftadl ‘which the Greeks call paralysis, and we call palsy’, his nama is iohannes ‘his name is John’, etc. A clear difference in the use of these verbs and expressions of calling is found between chronicles and homilies. Also, when the contents that describe the same object or theme like false god or the deadly sins, lexical variations or flexible uses of verbs can further become obvious. The aim of this study is to exemplify a variety of expressions of calling found in Old and early Middle English texts, especially in chronicles and homilies, which show syntactic and stylistic continuity with some morphological and lexical alterations. Tables are given to show the choice of each verb form used in each text.

In Loving Memory? Indecent Forgetting of the Dead in Continental Sister-Books and Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Love

Medieval nuns and anchorites (recluses) were spiritually and economically bound to pray for the dead, no matter their feelings towards the departed, who frequently appear to them in visions. This article charts medieval enclosed women’s attempts to intervene in this economy by forgetting souls. Staging a generative conversation between medieval women’s writings and Marcella Althaus-Reid’s (1952–2009) ‘indecent theology’ (queer liberation theology), this essay scrutinizes medieval female-authored texts for indecent forgetting (socially and economically disruptive forgetting). It juxtaposes a Middle English visionary text, A Revelation of Love by anchorite Julian of Norwich (1342/1343–c. 1416), with the mid-fourteenth-century Middle High German sister-book (compilation of nuns’ lives) of the Dominican convent of St Katharinental in Diessenhofen (in present-day Switzerland) and the early sixteenth-century Middle Dutch sister-book of Diepenveen (in the present-day Netherlands), originating from a Devotio Moderna convent of Augustinian canonesses regular. Heeding Althaus-Reid’s call, it dissects how forgetting unsettles systems of sanctioned spiritual and economic exchanges. I first examine how the sister-books forget certain souls and define their own terms for their participation in this system. I then turn to how Julian enlists all believers for her intercessory duties but also misplaces souls. Throughout, this article considers how these texts prise open space for medieval women within indecent theology. Ultimately, it illustrates how medieval women’s negotiations of their economic conditions supply a fertile ground for considering larger concerns of defiance, community, and the charity that binds together the living and the dead.

The Fifteen Oes and Other Prayers. Ed. from the Text Published by William Caxton (1491) by A lexandra Barratt and Susan Powell (Middle English Texts, 61). Heidelberg: Winter, 2021.

The Fifteen Oes and Other Prayers. Ed. from the Text Published by William Caxton (1491) by A lexandra Barratt and Susan Powell (Middle English Texts, 61). Heidelberg: Winter, 2021.

The Middle English ‘Mirror’: Sermons from Quinquagesima to Pentecost. Ed. from Glasgow, University Library, Hunter 250, by Margaret Connolly and Thomas G. Duncan with a Parallel Text of The Anglo-Norman Miroir, ed. from Nottingham, University Library, WLC/LM/4 (Middle English Texts, 62). Heidelberg: Winter, 2021.

The Middle English ‘Mirror’: Sermons from Quinquagesima to Pentecost. Ed. from Glasgow, University Library, Hunter 250, by Margaret Connolly and Thomas G. Duncan with a Parallel Text of The Anglo-Norman Miroir, ed. from Nottingham, University Library, WLC/LM/4 (Middle English Texts, 62). Heidelberg: Winter, 2021.

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

Addiction, Waste(d) Labor, and the Debate of the Carpenter's Tools

Addiction, Waste(d) Labor, and the <i>Debate of the Carpenter's Tools</i>

Translation Effects: Language, Time, and Community in Medieval England

Translation Effects: Language, Time, and Community in Medieval England

The Virtues of the Mass: A Taxonomy of a Late Middle English Genre of Liturgical Significance

ABSTRACT The Virtues of the Mass is a literary corpus comprising around forty-four known Middle English texts. These writings expound the liturgical sequences of the Mass and/or its spiritual and physical benefits for both clerical and lay audiences, whether literate or illiterate. This article traces 107 manuscripts containing variants of the Virtues of the Mass (as examined in the appendix) to contend that this corpus of texts should be viewed as a comprehensive genre. It proposes a new taxonomy that categorizes the texts into two traditions: the first textual tradition focuses on the benefits of attending mass, while the second focuses on explaining the liturgical ceremony. This article contextualizes the genre in light of the renewed interest in corporate worship and communal devotional practices in England in the first half of the fifteenth century, and considers key themes associated with the genre such as prayer, soulhele, and liturgical habitus.

A Dialectal Study of the First Quire in National Library of Wales, Brogyntyn MS ii.1

Brogyntyn MS ii.1 (olim Porkington 10) is a mid-fifteenth-century collection of prose and verse copied by multiple scribes. As the signatures suggest, quire 1 did not belong to the originally intended book but was initially unrelated to the other twenty-five extant quires and a singleton. These two distinct parts of the codex became physically and textually connected when Scribe I used the end of this booklet (fols. 8v -10v ) to start copying a text that continued at the beginning of quire 2 (fol. 11r ). The volume’s Middle English texts and place(s) of production were tentatively associated with the West-Midland counties of Cheshire or Shropshire (Ackerman 1947; Kurvinen 1951, 1969; Huws 1996). While a dialectal study of the core of the manuscript is currently underway by Carrillo-Linares and Garrido-Anes (forthcoming), the present paper aims to offer a detailed analysis of the English texts in the first quire–except for Scribe I’s later addition–and to delimit their linguistic provenance. The methodology followed is that devised in A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (LALME) (McIntosh, Samuels and Benskin 1986).

New Books across the Disciplines

New Books across the Disciplines

The Landscape of Middle English Focusing on the Adverb Even

The study is aimed at exploring adverb even as the information structural component, viz., a Focus marker in Middle English records based on the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse. Functioning as an adverb already in Old English (OE), Middle English (ME) provides evidence to gradual transformation of even into an additive marker according to the following pattern: OE degree/manner adverb→ME restrictive particularizer→ME restrictive exclusive→ME scalar additive. The latter meaning in Present-Day English can be singled out on the ground of such semantic criteria of the Focus phrase as [+likelihood], [+additivity], [+scalar], [+givenness] and [+surprise]. The three types of focusing even registered in Middle English texts are analyzed in terms of information novelty and various Foci types marked by the adverb, as well as, syntactic arrangement of sentence constituents. Corpus studies revealed that depending on the sense, even pertains to a specific Focus type and may cause word order to change. Specifically, when the adverb is used in its Present-Day English meaning, it highlights predominantly mirative Focus, and the analysis of word order patterns indicates the fronting of X-element in the clause, which may be put down to the fact that this scalar additive stresses surprising or unusual context for the reader. Therefore, inverted arrangement of elements may be used for stylistic purposes.

Selected Middle English adjectives of happiness: their representation in the Innsbruck Corpus

The present paper analyses the fates of the Middle English synonyms of the adjective happy. The group of the examined words contains adjectives beneurous, benewred, felicious, gracious, seely and the key item happy. Focusing on their fates in the period under question, the study uses data from the Innsbruck Corpus of Middle English, a collection of 129 Middle English digitised texts, preserved in 159 files, to determine token frequency, text distribution and semantic changes of the examined adjectives. Other sources used in the study are Middle English Dictionary (MED), The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), Historical Thesaurus of English (HTE) and AntConc, a freeware corpus analysis program. The evidence from the Innsbruck Corpus of Middle English Prose shows considerable discrepancies in the token frequency of the analysed terms and the number of attestations employed in the sense ‘happy’. Although the position of the adjective gracious was extraordinarily strong (354 attestations), the termyielded only 13 attestations used in the sense under study. The marginal status of benewred (2 attestations)and lack of beneurous in the Middle English texts examined announce their loss at the end of the period.