Studies in the Vernon Manuscript (Hardcover)

The Vernon manuscript is the largest and in many ways the most important vernacular manuscript of medieval England. Produced in the West Midlands in the late 14th century, at a time when English was in the process of consolidating its hold over Latin and Anglo-Norman as the dominant literary language, it contains a mass of religious writing of all kinds, from pious romances and fables to technical and quasi-mystical treatises. It was, in the intention of its makers, a guide to the soul's health and is to the modern reader an incomparable index to late medieval English spirituality and religious ideas. The publication of a facsimile of the manuscript in 1987 was a mark of its significance for all those who study the English Middle Ages. The present volume of essays, following on from the publication of the facsimile, explores the manuscript from a variety of different points of view: the make-up and organization of the volume as a whole, its relationship to other such books, and the particular significance of some of the religious writings it contains, as well as those romances and lyrics where the influence of secular and "literary" forms is more sharply apparent. The essays are unanimous on the importance of the manuscript, but also achieve an unexpected consensus on its presumed destination and audience, and its role at its moment in English history.