Develops a method for placing book-historical evidence in dialogue with literary meaning through a detailed investigation of a MS Bodley 851.
How do you read a medieval book? And what is the relationship between the study of manuscripts as material artifacts and the study of their textual contents? This book develops a method for placing book-historical evidence in dialogue with literary meaning. Medieval manuscripts do not simply witness the texts they contain: through the process of their making, they preserve and generate knowledge about literature itself.
Central to the expression of method in this study is a detailed investigation of an immensely complex composite manuscript, Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Bodley 851. This manuscript survives as an important representative of textual cultures popular in late-medieval England: it attests the work of at least eight scribal agents and contains an infamous scribal version of Piers Plowman (Z-text), the sole surviving copy of Walter Map's De nugis curialium, and an array of satirical Anglo-Latin poetry, including the Apocalypsis goliae episcopi, the Speculum stultorum, and the Bridlington Prophecy. Close attention to the production of Bodley 851 underpins critical examinations of fragmentary misogamy, the construction of literary sequences, and the extent of pseudonymous authorship in the manuscript record.
By:
Thomas C. Sawyer Imprint: D.S. Brewer Country of Publication: United Kingdom Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Weight: 666g ISBN:9781843847465 ISBN 10: 1843847469 Pages: 240 Publication Date:03 June 2025 Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format:Hardback Publisher's Status: Active
List of illustrations Acknowledgements List of abbreviations A note on transcriptions and translations Introduction: How to Read a Medieval Book 1. Recomposing Bodley 851 2. Misogamist Fragments 3. Recomposing Walter Map 4. Walter Map's Piers Plowman Conclusion: Manuscript Meaning Bibliography Index
THOMAS C. SAWYER lectures at the University of Chicago. He designs board games.
