Introducing English Medieval Book History

Manuscripts, their Producers and their Readers

Ralph Hanna

Liverpool University Press

Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies LUP

The first book to provide a true introduction to 'book history' as opposed to confining itself to the narrower concerns of palaeographically oriented studies.
Combines work on seminal texts, such as 'Beowulf', with new analyses of less established texts.
By suggesting worthwhile research topics to suit a range of book-history interests, Hanna engages constructively with the student-reader.

Introducing English Medieval Book History

Manuscripts, their Producers and their Readers

Ralph Hanna

Liverpool University Press

Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies LUP

Description

This book offers an introduction to medieval English book-history through a sequence of exemplary analyses of commonplace book-historical problems. Rather than focus on bibliographical particulars, the volume considers a variety of ways in which scholars use manuscripts to discuss book culture, and it provides a wide-ranging introductory bibliography to aid in the study. All the essays try to suggest how the study of surviving medieval books might be useful in considering medieval literary culture more generally. Subjects covered include authorship, genre, discontinuous production, scribal individuality and community, the history of libraries and the history of book provenance.

Introducing English Medieval Book History

Manuscripts, their Producers and their Readers

Ralph Hanna

Liverpool University Press

Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies LUP

Illustrations
Abbreviations
Introduction
Acknowledgements
On the reproductions
1. Texts and their books: the case of 'Beowulf'
2. Medieval authors and texts: the Middle English 'Benjamin'
Appendix: The manuscripts of 'Benjamin'
3. The history of a book: Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson C.285
4. Shared exemplars: British Library, MS Cotton Galba E.ix and its relations
5. Scribal oeuvres: 'Chaucer's Scribe' and his 'Canterbury Tales'
6. A book contract and its 'set text': John Forbor's Psalter
Appendix: The Slaithwaite indenture: a transcription, translation and notes
7. Provenances: some medieval libraries
Appendix: Selections from medieval booklists
John Erghome (OESA of York)
Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester
The lord Welles
Index of manuscripts cited
Index of scholars cited

Introducing English Medieval Book History

Manuscripts, their Producers and their Readers

Ralph Hanna

Liverpool University Press

Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies LUP

Author Information

Ralph Hanna is Professor Emeritus of Palaeography at the University of Oxford and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the University of California, Riverside. He has published on Langland, literary culture and medieval manuscripts, including The English MS of Richard Rolle (University of Exeter Press, 2010 [now published by Liverpool University Press]).

Introducing English Medieval Book History

Manuscripts, their Producers and their Readers

Ralph Hanna

Liverpool University Press

Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies LUP

Reviews and Awards

"This is a first-rate book from a scholar at the forefront of palaeographical and bibliographical study; it will have a wide readership. It will be an excellent partner for the recent Owen-Crocker volume 'Working with Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts'."--Series Editors

"Scholarship in this work is superb. Quotations, translations, bibliography are spot on. Professor Hanna's lifetime of intelligent work in the field glows at all points of discussion."--MS Referee

"... this volume is testament to Hanna's erudition and knowledge as a book-history scholar, and careful, repeated reading will repay the reader with numerous insights into the key questions of book history and how to 'do' it."--Library

"This handsome volume teaches far more than the facts of book history, manuscript culture, and Middle English Literature. It is a model of how to sleuth, how to think critically, how to enter into a detective mindset 'in which every implicit assumption of knowledge [is] teased out, queried and productively qualified' (p. xi)." --Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen