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I. A Rationale of "Scribal Corruption"?
Studies in bibliography |  |
I. A Rationale of "Scribal Corruption"?
Although codicologists have long been familiar with the tendency among
medieval copyists to shape their texts through amateur editing, the recent popu-
larity of critical approaches that treat books as social constructs has
renewed and
redirected interest in this fact.[1]
Complexities introduced by independent-minded
scribes, once
approached solely as impediments to establishing archetypal read-
ings, have
now become a subject for analysis under broader interpretations of
textual
criticism. As Derek Pearsall notes, "scholars are learning the value of bad
manuscripts: how in the work of interfering and meddling scribes, for instance,
can be seen the activities of our first literary critics. The methods of
compilers
and manuscript editors of all kinds, whether professional or
amateur, need to
be studied, if we are to understand the reception and
readership assumed for
the literary works contained in their
collections."[2]
Sometimes, as in the case of
Pearsall himself, this interest in
scribal agendas has been presented as part of a
wider critique of eclectic
editing and its pursuit of authority. It stands to reason,
though, that more
precise knowledge about copying habits would be as much
a boon to those
seeking authorial readings as to their antagonists.[3]
Whatever a
calls for increased understanding of those who shaped the evidence with which
every textual critic, whether a disciple of George Kane or Jerome McGann, must
inevitably contend.[4]
If a nearly universal desire for more thorough analysis of scribal intention can
be taken as a given, the practicality of such study is far more problematic
than
many recent advocates of this methodology have been willing to
admit.[5]
Identify-
ing the contributions of individuals in any text
represents a daunting task under
ideal circumstances, but when collaborators
are anonymous, indeterminate in
number, and of unknown purpose, it requires
overwhelming evidence to defend
anything more than the most banal
assertions. The collation of independent wit-
nesses for at least one work
in a manuscript is essential, of course, when isolating
unique copying
features. Still, even then it would assume much to attribute ap-
parent
tendencies to a single scribe, let alone extrapolate a coherent rationale of
intervention, without first repeating this comparison across several other texts
in
the same hand.[6]
It is difficult to imagine how scholars lacking fortuitous textual
circumstances could improve much on the standard description of usus scribendi
already familiar to those even passingly acquainted with the works of Kane,
Eu-
gene Vinaver, or their predecessors.[7]
The most prohibitive requirement of study-
ing unique scribal
agendas is therefore the reliable identification of individual
copyists with
sizable oeuvres that encompass multiple texts extant in at least one
other
independent witness.
Among the select group meeting this minimal demand in full, Robert Thorn-
ton stands out as particularly well-suited for a case study in scribal intention
owing to both his status as an amateur copyist and the well-deserved
critical at-
tention his writings have previously attracted. Thornton,
otherwise an unremark-
able member of the fifteenth-century English gentry,
created two miscellanies
intended for his family's private edification:
Lincoln Cathedral MS 91 (olim Lin-
coln Cathedral A.5.2) and British Library
MS Add. 31042.[8]
These compendiums
of devotional literature and courtly poetry, while
doubtless shaped in part by the
availability of suitable exemplars, also
appear indebted to Thornton's own tastes
as an independent scribe.[9]
One example of these interests is his large collection
of
alliterative romances, which raises his work from curiosity to marvel with the
inclusion of Wynnere and Wastour and the Morte Arthure among other notewor-
thy witnesses.
Clearly, as the sole source for documentary evidence regarding
these highly
regarded poems, Thornton's manuscripts possess enough historical
import to
justify reanalysis of his scribal habits. Yet while this selection of texts
adequately explains his work's literary interest, Thornton's unusual freedom has
direct bearing on our ability as textual critics to evaluate his intent as
well: sub-
ject to external pressures less demanding than those facing
professional scribes,
Thornton had greater opportunity to develop
idiosyncratic copying habits that
suggest personal motives more nuanced than
either expediency or accuracy. This
providential combination of scribal
independence with textual merit makes ten-
able an investigation into one
copyist's compilation methods that could reshape
widely-accepted notions
about an important source of medieval literature.
Jerome McGann has been the most vocal proponent of this approach to textual
scholar-
ship in his work on nineteenth-century literature, although
several medievalists including Tim
Machan and D. C. Greetham have
adapted his theories to codicology (Jerome J. McGann,
A Critique of Modern Textual Criticism [Chicago:
Univ. of Chicago Press, 1983]; Jerome J. Mc-
Gann, The Textual Condition [Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1991]; Tim
William Machan,
"Late Middle English Texts and the Higher and Lower
Criticism," Medieval Literature: Texts
and
Interpretation, ed. Tim William Machan, Medieval and Renaissance
Texts and Studies,
79 [Binghamton: MRTS, 1991]; David C. Greetham, Textual Transgressions: Essays toward the
Construction of a Biobibliography [New York: Garland, 1998]).
Traditional approaches to scribal
intervention, characterized most
often as tampering, are ubiquitous in modern critical editions
like
those produced by the Early English Text Society (see below for citations of
some relevant
EETS editions).
Derek Pearsall, "Introduction," Manuscripts and Readers in
Fifteenth-Century England: The
Literary Implications of Manuscript
Study, Essays from the 1981 Conference at the University of York,
ed. Derek Pearsall (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1983), 1–2 (p. 1).
There are, of course, varying
degrees of significance in scribal
alterations and it would be misguided to ascribe literary import
to
every thoughtless error (see Robert Adams, "Editing Piers Plowman B: The
Imperative of an
Intermittently Critical Edition," Studies in Bibliography 45 [1992]: 31–68 [p. 33]).
McGann himself implicitly endorses this opposition in his early writings,
though not
in regard to pre-print era texts specifically, and that
antagonism becomes explicit in the work
of Pearsall and others. It is
interesting to note that, expanding upon his arguments over the
years,
McGann has endorsed a more conciliatory tone toward traditional eclectic
editing and
positioned his critical approach as more complementary
than oppositional.
Although several other editors whose primary interest involves authorial
intention
might just as easily been placed in juxtaposition to McGann
here, George Kane's advocacy
on behalf of the primacy of editorial
judgment over documentary evidence when determining
intention
represents what is perhaps closest to an antithesis of the social construct
theory (Wil-
liam Langland, Will's Visions of Piers
Plowman and Do-well, ed. and rev. George Kane [London:
Athlone
Press, 1988]).
It is perhaps telling that the number of polemics advocating a renewed focus
on scribal
intention and practice far exceeds the studies meeting
those calls to action. Exemplary work
has been produced, though,
including the series of essays by Ralph Hanna III collected in his
anthology Pursuing History: Middle English Manuscripts and
Their Texts (Stanford: Stanford Univ.
Press, 1996).
This logical conclusion complicates Pearsall's call to study the methods of
professional
compilers since those manuscripts produced by commercial
outfits would quite often fail to sat-
isfy one or more of these basic
requirements for meaningful scribal analysis. Without intention
on the
part of the copyist, though, it is impossible to speak of any true scribal
agenda.
Despite their very different approaches to the issues of authorial intention
and the pri-
macy of documentary evidence, both Kane and Vinaver
subscribe to the same understanding
of scribal habit inherited from
much earlier textual critics like Karl Lachmann and Paul Maas.
In this
adherence to nineteenth-century notions of scribal tampering, neither is
exceptional
among medieval editors. (See citation to Kane in note 4
above; Eugene Vinaver, "Principles
of Textual Emendation," in Studies in French Language and Mediaeval Literature
Presented to Profes-
sor Mildred K. Pope [Manchester:
Manchester Univ. Press, 1939], 351–369; Karl Lachmann,
Caroli Lachmanni in T. Lucretii Cari De Rerum Natura
Libros Commentarius Quartum Editus, 3rd ed.
[Berolini: Georgii
Reimeri, 1866]; Paul Maas, Textual Criticism, trans.
Barbara Flower [Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1958]; etc.)
George Keiser, John J. Thompson, and Karen Stern have all written
extensively about
the compilation, likely purpose, and early
provenance of the Thornton manuscripts. While
they have agreed with
one another for the most part in regard to these issues, Stern deviates
from the consensus in proposing that the British Library manuscript
was a commercial venture.
Thompson has responded convincingly to that
claim, however, pointing out the circumstantial
nature of many of
Stern's arguments (George R. Keiser, "Lincoln Cathedral Library MS. 91:
Life and Milieu of the Scribe," Studies in
Bibliography 32 [1979]: 158–179; George R. Keiser,
"More Light on the Life and Milieu of Robert Thornton," Studies in Bibliography 36 (1983):
111–119; John J.
Thompson, Robert Thornton and the London Thornton
Manuscript: British Library
MS Additional 31042 [Cambridge: D.
S. Brewer, 1987]; Karen Stern, "The London Thornton
Miscellany: A New
Description of British Museum Additional Manuscript 31042," Scriptorium:
Revue Internationale des Etudes
Relatives aux Manuscrits/International Review of Manuscript Studies
30
[1976]: 26–37; 201–218).
Thornton clearly exercised some judgment, for instance, in the selection and
arrange-
ment of his texts as evidenced by the grouping of generically
similar works with one another as
well as the prevalence (with a
handful of minor exceptions like Lyarde) of what can
be character-
ized as morally edifying literature.
|
I. A Rationale of "Scribal Corruption"?
Studies in bibliography | |