| Abstract | Paper -a:
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Laud Misc. 636 is commonly known as the Peterborough Chronicle, the latest of the seven surviving manuscripts collectively representing the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Although the 12th-century Peterborough Chronicle has been edited thrice in its entirety, the Anglo-Norman Chronicle of Britain running along the margins of folios 86v-90v remains hitherto unedited. Added in one hand in the late 13th century, it is one of the 28 codices currently known to belong to the textual tradition referred to as Le Livere de Reis de Brittanie, started during the reign of King John or Henry III of England. The text spans the legendary landing of Brutus in England to the accession of Edward I in 1272, where it breaks off probably because it was brought up to date. This paper aims to present a study of this Anglo-Norman Chronicle of Britain, supported by the first-ever edition of the text.
Paper -b:
This paper compares the use of anaphoric reference terms, the characteristic feature of a prose style referred to by Burnley (1986; 2001) as 'curial style', in Anglo Norman (hence AN) and Middle English (hence ME) personal letters. In curial style, anaphoric reference devices are normally phrasal in nature, and are typically determiners in the form of demonstrative phrases, articles and/or pronouns with demonstrative or relative function followed by a noun or noun phrase. Burnley (1986: 597) gives the following examples in AN curial style, with their ME equivalents: le dit (the seyde), l'avant dit (the forseyde), le devant dit (th'aforeseyde), celle meismes (that same), liquels (the whiche) and duquels (of the which). Whilst we know that 'curial style' was prevalent in the official AN letters that were used to conduct English parliamentary business until the end of the 1300s, we do not yet have a clear, detailed understanding of the extent to which the style is prevalent in both AN and ME personal letters, defined here as being written to one addressee that was known to the writer. The AN letters are taken from the Anglo Norman Correspondence Corpus and are mainly by ecclesiastical writers. The ME letters are taken from the Paston, Stonor, Cely and Plumpton collections. The main research question is: do the AN personal letters contain a higher frequency of these anaphoric reference devices than the ME letters? Secondarily, is there any variation in their use in the ME sub-corpus according to the primary communicative function of individual letters?
Paper -c:
This paper will offer a paleographical and codicological examination of the two extant witnesses to an Anglo-Norman translation of the Hours of the Virgin: London, British Library, MS Harley 273 (Ludlow, early 14th century) and Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek MS Brev.75 (Ely, late 13th century). Providing an overview of the compilation and early use of these books, it will proceed to examine the distinct textual contexts within which these translations of the Hours of the Virgin appear. It will conclude with a discussion of the books as exemplars of the growth of lay piety and vernacular devotion at the turn of the 14th century.
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