This deeply informed and lavishly illustrated book is a comprehensive introduction to the modern study of Middle English manuscripts. It is intended for students and scholars who are familiar with some of the major Middle English literary works, such as The Canterbury Tales, Gawain and the Green Knight, Piers Plowman, and the romances, mystical works or cycle plays, but who may not know much about the surviving manuscripts. The book approaches these texts in a way that takes into account the whole manuscript or codex-its textual and visual contents, physical state, readership, and cultural history. Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts also explores the function of illustrations in fashioning audience response to particular authors and their texts over the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuriesKathryn Kerby-Fulton, Linda Olson, and Maidie Hilmo-scholars at the forefront of the modern study of Middle English manuscripts-focus on the writers most often taught in Middle English courses, including Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, the Gawain Poet, Thomas Hoccleve, Julian of Norwich, and Margery Kempe, highlighting the specific issues that shaped literary production in late medieval England. Among the topics they address are the rise of the English language, literacy, social conditions of authorship, early instances of the "Alliterative Revival," women and book production, nuns' libraries, patronage, household books, religious and political trends, and attempts at revisionism and censorship. Inspired by the highly successful study of Latin manuscripts by Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (also published by Cornell), this book demonstrates how the field of Middle English manuscript studies, with its own unique literary and artistic environment, is changing modern approaches to the culture of the book.

PrefaceAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsGlossary of Key Manuscript TerminologyNote on Transcriptions and Transcription SymbolsTHE FRONT PLATES: Transcriptions, Scripts, and Descriptive Analysis for Learning to Read Literary Texts on the Manuscript PageHow to Transcribe Middle English / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton-Bare Essentials 1: A Transcription Is Not an EditionIntroduction: The Order of the Plates and Scripts Most Commonly Found in Middle English Literary Texts / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton1. The Land of Cokaygne (British Library, ms Harley 913) / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton2. "Ihesu Swete" (Newberry Library, MS 31) / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton3. The Pricke of Conscience (Newberry Library, MS 32.9) / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton4. Chaucer's "Cook's Tale" (Hg) (National Library of Wales, Peniarth MS 392D, Hengwrt MS 154) / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton5. Chaucer's "Cook's Tale" (Cp) (Corpus Christi College, MS 198) / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton6. Omnis plantacio (formerly The Clergy May Not Hold Property) (Huntington Library, MS HM 503) / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton7. Hoccleve 's "Chanceon to Somer" and Envoy to Regiment des Princes (Huntington Library, MS HM 111) / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton8. Langland, Piers Plowman (Bodleian Library, MS Douce 104) / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton9. Sir Degrevant (Cambridge University Library, MS Ff.1.6, Findern MS) / Linda Olson10. Wisdom (Folger Shakespeare Library, MS V.a.354, Macro MS) / Linda OlsonChapter 1. Major Middle English Poets and Manuscript Studies, 1300-1450 / Kathryn Kerby-FultonA Brief Overview of Topics Covered in This ChapterI. BL MS Arundel 292, Archaism, and the Preservation of Alliterative Poetry c. 1300-c. 1450II. BL MS Harley 2253 and Principles of Compilatio, or: Why Read the Harley Lyrics in their Natural Habitat?-Bare Essentials 2: Anglicana Script and Profiling the Individual ScribeIII. Gawain and the Medieval Reader: The Importance of Manuscript Ordinatio in a Poem We Think We Know-Bare Essentials 3: Assessing Emendation in a Modern EditionIV. The Rise of English Book Production in Ricardian London: Professional Scribes and Langland's Piers Plowman-Bare Essentials 4: Some Basic Concepts of Editing, Types of Written Standard Middle English, and Scribal Handling of DialectV. Some of the Earliest Attempts to Assemble the Canterbury TalesVI. The Scribe Speaks at Last: Hoccleve as Scribe EChapter 2. Romancing the Book: Manuscripts for "Euerich Inglische" / Linda Olson-Middle English Romances in the Auchinleck, Thornton, and Findern ManuscriptsI. Englishing Romance: The Auchinleck ManuscriptII. Romancing the Gentry Household: Robert Thornton's Homemade Family Library-Thornton Names in the Lincoln and London ManuscriptsIII. Courting Romance in the Provinces: The Findern ManuscriptChapter 3. The Power of Images in the Auchinleck, Vernon, Pearl, and Two Piers Plowman Manuscripts / Maidie HilmoI. Looking at Medieval ImagesII. The Auchinleck ManuscriptIII. The Vernon ManuscriptIV. The Pearl ManuscriptV. Two Piers Plowman Manuscripts and the Ushaw Prick of ConscienceVI. ConclusionChapter 4. Professional Readers at Work: Annotators, Editors, and Correctors in Middle English Literary Texts / Kathryn Kerby-FultonI. Categories of Marginalia: The Annotating and Glossing of ChaucerII. The Annotations in Manuscripts of Langland's Piers PlowmanIII. Annotations and Corrections in the Book of Margery Kempe: Cruxes, Controversies, and Solutions-Appendix on the Red Ink Annotator and Previous Annotators in BL MS Add. 61823IV. The Quiet Connoisseur: The First Annotator(s) of Julian of Norwich's Showings in the Amherst Manuscript (British Library, MS Add. 37790)Chapter 5. Illuminating Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: Portraits of the Author and Selected Pilgrim Authors / Maidie HilmoI. IntroductionII. The Decoration and Borders of the Hengwrt and Ellesmere ManuscriptsIII. The Historiated Initial with an Author Portrait: A Further Development of the Hengwrt TraditionIV. The Ellesmere Traditions: Illustrated Pilgrim AuthorsV. ConclusionChapter 6. "Swete Cordyall" of "Lytterature": Some Middle English Manuscripts from the Cloister / Linda OlsonI. Nourishing the Spirit of Religious Women: Vernacular Texts and ManuscriptsII. Monastic Manuscripts of Chaucer: Literary Excellence under Religious Rule-The Contents of London, British Library, MS Harley 7333III. Lots of Lydgate and a Little Hoccleve: Chaucer's Successors in Monastic HandsIV. "Sadde Mete" for Mind and Soul: Contemplative and Visionary Texts in the CloisterV. Taking it to the Streets: Middle English Drama from the CloisterReferences CitedIllustration CreditsIndex of Manuscripts and IncunabulaGeneral Index