In Middle English studies, there is a select body of manuscripts with which most scholars, even those whose work rarely touches on manuscripts, are at least somewhat familiar: Harley 2253, the Ellesmere Chaucer, the Auchinleck Manuscript, Cotton Nero a.x, and the Winchester Malory Manuscript come most immediately to mind. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Laud Misc. 108 (hereafter L) is arguably as worthy of attention as any of these manuscripts, for it has much to tell us about vernacular literary practice in the early Middle English period. The edited collection under review here brings together a series of essays treating the codicological and literary issues that L raises. This manuscript, compiled in several stages from the late thirteenth through the late fourteenth centuries, is significant for the texts it contains: the earliest surviving copy of the collection of Middle English saints' vitae, known as the South English Legendary (hereafter SEL), along with the romances King Horn and Havelok the Dane. Its importance, hitherto largely overlooked, lies in that it is, in the words of A. S. G. Edwards from the collection's Epilogue, "the earliest surviving substantial collection of Middle English verse" (299). Along with London, British Library MS Arundel 23; Oxford, Bodleian Digby MS 86; and Oxford, Jesus College MS 29, L is an important witness to a growing lay readership demanding edification and entertainment in the mother tongue. This edited collection, beyond just calling attention to an important manuscript, also contributes to several scholarly discussions that are of current importance: inter alia, the history of the book, vernacular hagiography, romance, and lay reading practices.
The collection opens with the editors' Introduction, which makes a case for the value of reading this manuscript as a whole. Most modern readers encounter the vitae of the SEL in collections of hagiography, and both Havelok and Horn in collections of romance, obscuring the fact that all these texts were read together from early on within the covers of L. Central to the collection's whole enterprise is the editors' insistence that the combination of texts in L is meaningful. Primarily, most of the essays attend to the complex interweaving of pious and political themes to be found across L's texts. The first of the collection's two sections, entitled "The Manuscript and Its Provenance," opens with A. S. G. Edwards's "Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: Contents, Construction, and Circulation," discussing the manuscript's production and provenance, as well as the paleographical and linguistic evidence it contains. In Chapter Two, "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," Thomas R. Liszka surveys various scholarly attempts to date the texts in L. As he points out, most scholars of hagiography have not had recourse to the insights of romance scholars in dating L's version of the SEL; so too, most scholars of romance have not had recourse to the insights of hagiography scholars in dating L's versions of Horn and Havelok. Murray Evans follows this with Chapter Three, "'Very like a whale'? Physical Features and the 'Whole Book' in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108." Evans ultimately concludes, from an examination of the various features of layout used in L, that this manuscript presents mixed evidence, some suggesting that it had achieved a cohesive wholeness, some suggesting that it was never properly finished.
In Chapter Four, "'Her y spelle': The Evocation of Minstrel Performance in a Hagiogaphical Context," Andrew Taylor brings together codicological and literary evidence to show how the notion of minstrelsy--as a literary trope, not a reflection of actual performance conditions--unites the hagiographical and romance sections of L. This leads Taylor to speculate about the social status of the volume's putative patron, suggesting that the book was likely produced in Oxford for a rather up-market reader in East Anglia. This opening section then concludes with Christina Fitzgerald's "Miscellaneous Masculinities and a Possible Fifteenth-Century Owner of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108." Fitzgerald uses the evidence on L's flyleaf to connect this codex to Henry Perveys, a London draper of the fifteenth century. This leads Fitzgerald to a consideration of how the book's masculinities would have intersected with those of London guild culture of this time.
Part Two, "The Manuscripts and Its Texts," begins with Diane Speed's "A Text for Its Time: The Sanctorale of the Early South English Legendary." Speed explores the ideological implications of the SEL's sanctorale material composing the lion's share of the manuscript. Speed considers how the meanings of all the other sections of texts in the manuscript would be influenced by the dominance of the sanctorale. Daniel T. Kline's chapter, "The Audience and Function of the Apocryphal Infancy of Jesus Christ in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108," addresses this text from the temporale section of the SEL. Kline shows that L's inclusion of this infancy of Christ narrative, unique among manuscripts of the SEL, "sensitizes readers (or auditors) to the social, temporal, and theological complexities of childhood within broader historical and theological currents," and that "Infancy's inclusion suggests a mixed audience of children and adults in a broad-based pedagogical context, quite like the learning situations depicted in the poem itself" (138). In Chapter Eight, "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," J. Justin Brent continues Speed's and Kline's practice of considering how a text or grouping of texts resonates thematically with the texts surrounding it in L. These three didactic poems were placed between the SEL and the manuscript's romances. As such, these texts reflect on the world-denying concerns of their hagiographical predecessors in L, while also critiquing the worldliness of the chivalry animating the romances to follow.
In Chapter Nine, "Genre, Bodies, and Power in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108: King Horn, Havelok, and The South English Legendary," Andrew Lynch intriguingly draws upon Mary Carruthers's study of medieval memory to construct a hypothetical hermeneutic practice governing L's medieval readership. In medieval memorial practice, "a controlled textual recombination of materials could occur, mixing one set of images with another to create a further form" (177). Building from this insight, Lynch hypothesizes how certain issues from the romances and from the SEL texts would have been yoked together "in ways that created new significances" (178). Across L, Lynch suggests, power is proven via bodily suffering, while the glorious bodies of both saints and romance heroes simultaneously attract the reader's gaze and initiate conflict within the narrative. Robert Mills's contribution, "The Early South English Legendary and Difference: Race, Place, Language, and Belief," follows this. Mills's essay explores how the SEL defines the Christian body and the Christian nation, as well as the text's strategies for defining the non-Christian Other.
The editors of this volume contribute the next two chapters. First is Julie Nelson Couch's "The Magic of Englishness in St Kenelm and Havelok the Dane," in which she argues that the vita of St Kenelm and the romance of Havelok share an interest in testing and affirming the nation via the body of the young hero. Then Kimberly K. Bell, in "'Holie mannes liues': England and Its Saints in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108's King Horn and South English Legendary," argues that Horn and the SEL are both marked by depictions of heroes who serve as ethical exemplars for the reader, and both are invested in heroes who are grounded in the geographical and historical specificity of the English nation. Both texts, then, in Bell's reading, are best thought of as English saints' lives. The final chapter comes from Susanna Fein who, in "Somer Soneday: Kingship, Sainthood, and Fortune in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 108," examines the thematic function of Somer Soneday, an alliterative poem added at the end of L, after the romances. Fein argues, through careful attention to codicological detail, that the placement of this poem was deliberate, and that it functions as a moral capstone for L, offering its reader a stark moral message about what comes to those who trust in Fortune. And then A. S. G. Edwards contributes a short Epilogue, discussing L in relation to other compilations of early Middle English verse.
First, a few minor cavils. It is one matter to have different and contrasting interpretations of literary texts--such is arguably the sine qua non of literary studies. But this collection contains two irreconcilable interpretations of L's provenance, something I would have liked to see the editors address. Edwards's chapter expresses doubts about attempts to link the ex libris on L's flyleaves to the London drapers, suggesting that a series of East Anglian clergy more likely formed the codex's early ownership (29-30). Fitzgerald's essay, citing some of the same scholars as Edwards, insists on the London guild connections of L. Of course, tying names recorded in medieval books to individuals from the archives is a tricky endeavor, and most scholars attempting this wisely equivocate. But in this case, Fitzgerald's entire essay--which examines the texts in L in light of mercantile inflections of masculinity--hinges on the book circulating among London guild members. Edwards's note merely draws attention to Fitzgerald's interpretation of the evidence, while a note in Fitzgerald's essay draws attention to Edwards's chapter. Edwards's contention, if correct, would pull the rug out from underneath Fitzgerald's entire essay. In this case, then, I would have liked to have seen the editors insist on a more thorough explanation by each scholar, with each ideally considering the other's evidence in greater detail. The second minor cavil is the lack of an art historian in the volume. Much of what the various authors say about the intersection of hagiography and romance in L depends upon early readers seeing the manuscript as a unified whole. The decorative scheme used in L is important to a full assessment of how much unity the manuscript's compilers envisioned, and hence how much unity its readers likely attributed to this codex. Several authors refer to the unpublished work on L's decoration by Sonia Patterson, and Evans's chapter touches on decoration amidst a host of features of L's mise- en-page. The contribution of an art historian, since Patterson's work is not accessible, would certainly have made for a stronger volume. Finally, readers should be aware that the "List of Figures" on p. ix states that this collection has twelve images. In my copy, however, only one image was to be found.
One of the most provocative aspects of this collection is the insistence, in numerous essays, of the ways that the hagiographical and didactic texts may have colored the reader's response to the romances. Speed, for example, contends that the SEL's sanctorale is the manuscript's base text, with the romances added as suitable companions (121-22). Brent argues that the didactic poems which precede the romances bring "the afterlife to the foreground," thereby making it "impossible to enjoy the romances on purely secular terms" (176). Couch suggests that "Havelok possesses the romance attributes of being the strongest and most handsome of all, but it is his saintly and divine features that link him to his 'fellow' saints in L and confirm his right to rule England" (230). And Bell avers that King Horn and Havelok the Dane "within the manuscript context...can be understood as two more English saints' lives" (260).
Such readings are certainly plausible, as it is a critical commonplace to note the intersections and overlap between hagiography and romance- -and the essays, as a whole, make their case convincingly, with close attention to detail. Yet I would also like to have seen a more sustained reflection on the relationship between these genres within medieval literary culture as a whole, with an eye towards discerning just how unique how L's hagiographies and romances, and the intersections between them, are. (A whole essay to this effect would have been desirable.) Could the argument not be made that medieval readers of romance were sophisticated enough not to be ipso facto overwhelmed by the succession of exemplary saints, just because there were so many of them preceding King Horn and Havelok the Dane? Could not such readers "code switch," turning to romance for stories of chivalry, refusing to be governed by the world-effacing ethos of the SEL? Of course, we don't know what medieval readers did with this volume--and that is the point. One imagines many were under the sway of the SEL, as the various authors of this volume insist. But others may well not have been. Thus, as a counterpoint to an assertion like Brent's--that readers could not have enjoyed the romances on a purely secular level--I would like to have seen more focus on the romances qua romances, if just for the sake of balance.
These issues notwithstanding, this is an excellent volume that promises to draw attention to this important manuscript. I thought the contributions of Andrew Taylor, Robert Mills, and Susanna Fein were particularly insightful. Taylor nicely brings together literary and codicological evidence to show how the minstrel voice that runs through much of L could have appealed to an up-market patron, allowing him to imagine himself "being inscribed into a fictional East-Anglian commons of 'good men'" (86). Mills presents a series of provocative close readings, illustrating the numerous strategies by which the SEL carves out the Christian vs. the Other. And Fein deftly walks us through the codicological evidence, showing, quite convincingly, that Somer Soneday was placed where it was quite deliberately. As a whole, then, this collection sets out to demonstrate that L 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.