The Texts and Contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: The Shaping of English Vernacular Narrative

by Brill, Julie Nelson Couch

Overview

The late thirteenth-century, monolingual Oxford manuscript, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108, bears singular importance to medieval studies, for it preserves and anthologizes unique versions of several seminal Middle English texts, including South English Legendary, Havelok the Dane, and King Horn and Somer Soneday. While critics have traditionally classified these poems by genre, this book returns them to their manuscript context in a comprehensive examination of this vernacular codex. Considering the manuscript as a “whole book” rather than a miscellany of romances, saints' lives, and religious poems, these inter-connected essays focus on the physical, contextual, and critical intersections of Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108. Codicological evidence foregrounds the manuscript’s investment in a particular vision of an English Christian identity.
Contributors are A.S.G. Edwards, Thomas R. Liszka, Murray J. Evans, Andrew Taylor, Diane Speed, Susanna Fein, Robert Mills, Andrew Lynch, Daniel Kline, Christina M. Fitzgerald, and J. Justin Brent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789004192065
Publisher:	Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	12/17/2010
Series:	Medieval and Renaissance Authors and Texts , #6
Pages:	22
Product dimensions:	6.60(w) x 9.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Kimberly K. Bell,, Ph.D. (2002) in English, Georgia State University, is Associate Professor of English at Sam Houston State University. She has published articles on various Middle English texts, including Havelok the Dane (2008).
Julie Nelson Couch, Ph.D. (2000) in English, Brown University, is Associate Professor of English at Texas Tech University. She has published several articles on texts found in the Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108, including two recent articles on Havelok the Dane (2008).

Table of Contents

List of Figures … x
Acknowledgments … xi
List of Abbreviations … xiii
List of Authors … xvii

Introduction: Reading Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108 as a “Whole Book” … 1
Kimberly K. Bell and Julie Nelson Couch

PART ONE
THE MANUSCRIPT AND ITS PROVENANCE
I. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: Contents, Construction, and Circulation … 21
A. S. G. Edwards
II. Talk in the Camps: On the Dating of the South English Legendary, Havelok the Dane, and King Horn in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108 … 31
Thomas R. Liszka
III. “Very Like a Whale”?: Physical Features and the “Whole Book” in Oxford, Bodleian Library,
MS Laud Misc. 108 … 51
Murray J. Evans
IV. “Her Y Spelle”: The Evocation of Minstrel Performance in a Hagiographical Context … 71
Andrew Taylor
V. Miscellaneous Masculinities and a Possible Fifteenth-Century Owner of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108 … 87
Christina M. Fitzgerald

PART TWO
THE MANUSCRIPT AND ITS TEXTS
VI. A Text for Its Time: The Sanctorale of the Early South English Legendary … 117
Diane Speed
VII. The Audience and Function of the Apocryphal Infancy of Jesus Christ in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108 … 137
Daniel T. Kline
VIII. The Eschatological Cluster—Sayings of St. Bernard, Vision of St. Paul, and Dispute Between the Body and the Soul—in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108 ... 157
J. Justin Brent
IX. Genre, Bodies, and Power in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: King Horn, Havelok, and the South English Legendary … 177
Andrew Lynch
X. The Early South English Legendary and Difference: Race, Place, Language, and Belief … 197
Robert Mills
XI. The Magic of Englishness in St. Kenelm and Havelok the Dane … 223
Julie Nelson Couch
XII. “holie mannes liues”: England and its Saints in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108’s King Horn and South English Legendary … 251
Kimberly K. Bell
XIII. Somer Soneday: Kingship, Sainthood, and Fortune in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108 … 275
Susanna Fein

Epilogue: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108 and Other English Manuscripts … 299
A. S. G. Edwards

Bibliography … 303
Index of Manuscripts … 323
General Index … 325
Figures following 329

Editorial Reviews

"this collection sets out to demonstrate that SEL is an important witness to the emergence of Middle English, and that its series of texts can be read as a series, yielding unique insight into medieval literary culture. This it accomplishes quite well. It is my hope that this volume will serve as a model for scholars to approach other manuscripts, for only with a team of scholars, working together intensively over the same codex, are we poised to see the complexities and nuances of medieval England's literary culture." Mike Johnston (Purdue University) in The Medieval Review 11.10.18

From the Publisher