IMC 2017: Sessions

This session will look at three different moments in late medieval English manuscript culture with a view to discussing the role of multi-text books in a domestic as well as courtly context. It takes a broad view of the period 1300-1500 through three key manuscripts. The first paper, 'Multilingualism in English Books: Re-Opening London, British Library MS Harley 2253' will discuss what this manuscript can say about the relative statuses of French, Latin, and English and, in particular, the role of French within later medieval English households. The second paper, 'Hoccleve's Interests in the Arrangement of the Huntington MS HM 111' will focus, as the title suggests, on the copying of several items in this book, in particular the status of 'the other' in 'the address to Oldcastle' in a manuscript otherwise seemingly organised only around plea-making and self-reflection poems. The third paper, 'Texts and their lives from manuscript to print: CUL ff. 2.38', focuses on the reading experience of this very late miscellany, considering the interplay between domestic concerns and broader cultural and political overtones ('the other', i.e. non-conformist, element) in this book at the end of the 15th century - and the advent of print. In all, this session starts with a focus on the household, then moves to courtly circles, and comes back to the household book, tackling recent debates on insular miscellanies and anthologies and their uses.

Participants include: Rory Critten (Universität Bern), Dylan Mathews (Bangor University), and Raluca Radulescu (Bangor University)