University of Virginia Library

IV. Constructing Thornton's Scribal Profile

Applying these criteria for determining scribal intervention to the corpus
selected earlier, one finds that the most striking examples of idiosyncratic copy-
ing involve dialogue attributions. The collations suggest that Thornton, rather
than allowing readers to determine the presence of direct speech and a speaker's
identity using contextual clues, commonly inserted phrases like "he said" or
"she spoke" to remove all potential for syntactic ambiguity.[20] Fifteen instances
of this type of intervention occur in Thornton's manuscripts, thirteen of which
are unique, compared to only nine instances found elsewhere that he does not
share.[21] These numbers might not seem particularly remarkable, but it is im-
portant to remember that in context such a distribution means that close to

two thirds of such dialogue attributions occur only in one copyist's manuscripts
whereas the remaining third is divided across the other twenty-seven indepen-
dent witnesses.[22] Octovian, as copied in Lincoln Cathedral MS 91, demonstrates
Thornton's characteristic treatment of dialogue attributions in its very first in-
stance of direct speech:
This stands in contrast to the same passage in Cambridge Ff.2.38, which at the
same point has a syntactically unmarked transition from narration to dialogue:
There is no way to determine the relative authority of these readings in the ab-
sence of clear metrical evidence, but the first iteration's attempt to smooth away
ambiguity through explicitness suggests the scribal nature of the Lincoln redac-
tion. This failure in poetic economy, while not conclusive, leads to the stylistic
flatness often ascribed by textual scholars to copyists and thereby supports the
assertion that such expanded readings are non-authorial.[25]

While typifying the changes to dialogue, though, that example cited above
from Octovian only becomes significant in light of supporting evidence found in
other romances proving it reflects Thornton's usus scribendi. These examples are
cited by line number in this article's second appendix, but special note should be
taken of those instances within the portion of Richard Coer de Lyon copied twice by
our scribe. One can find in that short passage startlingly clear corroboration of
the scribal nature of these attributions spread across three lines grouped closely
together:

Each of the dialogue attributions above is left out of all other witnesses to Rich-
ard and, in two instances, this also includes the accidental second copying of the
passage later in the same manuscript by Thornton himself. This contrast within
his own work appears very suggestive in regards to the handling of dialogue and
firmly establishes that the scribe modified his exemplars freely:
Given that six independent witnesses along with this second copy by Thornton
indicate no explicit dialogue attributions, it is extremely probable that these read-
ings originate with our scribe and not some earlier archetype. This pattern of
intervention implies that Thornton consciously marked the move from narration
to dialogue, but, despite the conspicuous nature of these changes, they are not
the most pervasive modifications he makes to syntactic transitions.

Another element of Thornton's scribal practice involving the connections
between syntactic elements manifests itself in an abundance of unnecessary con-
junctions and conjunctive adverbs. Scanning the collation sample for evidence
of these paratactic features uncovers two hundred and twenty-one instances, of
which one hundred and fifty-eight are unique, showing clearly the copyist's re-
markable dependence on this grammatical crutch.[28] Other manuscript witnesses,
in contrast to such profusion, exhibit only ninety-seven examples not found in
either the Lincoln Cathedral or British Library manuscripts. Typifying the con-
structions favored by Thornton, the following passage appears in his copy of The
Awntyrs off Arthure:

Although the other three witnesses all differ slightly from one another, the follow-
ing reading found in MS Douce 324 of the Bodleian Library illustrates the aver-
sion to repetitive connective words common to these other versions of the text:
Despite the brevity of this passage, the thoroughness with which Thornton fills
out his text's transitional elements seems difficult to mistake. If one ignores the
medial conjunction in the second line because of its presence in another witness,
there remain four unique conjunctions and adverbs within these lines of the
Lincoln redaction not found elsewhere. Two of these, furthermore, introduce
independent clauses that grammatically require no explicit linkage to the preced-
ing text. This lack of function, along with the combined authority of the other
manuscripts, implies the scribal nature of these elements and suggests their origin
lies with Thornton.

As with dialogue attributions, though, the firm association of paratactic in-
sertions with one scribe relies upon the distribution of the feature across several
independent texts. This seems especially true in regard to these transitional ele-
ments because Thornton's approach differs from his scribal peers not so much in
nature as in degree. Along with the numerous other examples listed in the second
appendix, The Parlement of the Thre Ages provides support for this observation
while also demonstrating that Thornton's extraneous conjunctions and adverbs
are notably more widespread even when compared against what has been identi-
fied as a more corrupt witness:[31]

Thornton begins each of these four lines with an extraneous conjunction, whereas
the Ware scribe, typically more prone to copying errors and sophistications than
Thornton, records only one of those verses in a similar manner:
Although at this point the specific rationale for such interventions remains un-
clear, the impression that these changes amount to something more thorough-
going than the usual scribal tendency to round out lines is strengthened greatly
by comparison to the Ware text. Thornton's indulgent use of these simple
function words ultimately complements the dialogue attributions and confirms
that an interest in syntactic transitions is a central component of his scribal
profile.

Differing slightly in emphasis from previous examples of his unique contribu-
tions, Thornton's preference for doubling negative modifiers introduces a new
wrinkle into his tendency to use certain common grammatical constructions with
unusual frequency. This particular rhetorical ploy, which emphasizes negation
without changing or adding nuance to meaning, appears uniquely eleven times in
Thornton's texts and only six times when he does not record it.[34] A fairly typical
example of this change's effect on the text can be seen in Sir Degrevant's descrip-
tion of the festivities surrounding the titular knight's marriage:

This passage shows how the copyist's use of doubling emphasizes what could be
thought of as a semantic transition from positive to negative, indicating some
continuity with but also extension of the scribal features previously noted. The
Cambridge Manuscript version of Sir Degrevant, in contrast, does not demonstrate
any such concern for highlighting negative statements:
The difference between the two readings here may have been inspired by minim
confusion, but, even assuming mechanical error, the change suggests a predis-
position toward doubled negative constructions. Indeed, this preference pres-
ents itself even more forcibly in passages where there is no easy paleographic
explanation:
Although the additions in these lines do not undermine the meter, this reading
compares unfavorably in its redundancy with the less convoluted statement of
the other witness:
Straining to accommodate the doubled negatives, the Thornton passage lacks
the jauntiness of expression evident in the other manuscript's reading and shows
the copyist's willingness to sacrifice style in order to accentuate sense. Thornton's
emphasizing of such semantic markers, while not overwhelmingly attested given
the limited environments that lend themselves to such constructions, clearly jus-
tifies their inclusion on a list of his scribal habits alongside more pronounced
intrusions.

The unique stress Thornton places on some semantic markers becomes easier
to discern when one considers his handling of adverbial intensifiers. These much-
maligned "filler" words appear seventy-five times in Thornton's work, sixty-one
of which are unique, as opposed to the twenty-seven times he does not share in
all the other manuscripts combined.[39] Although such intensifiers sometimes prove
original in Middle English verse, the disparity between the number found in
Thornton's copies and other redactions suggests that once again the multiplica-
tion of examples is the responsibility of this particular copyist. Octovian illustrates
this increased density quite dramatically in an early passage involving several
unique instances of scribal filler:

Altogether there are four words in this passage that qualify as intensifiers, three
instances of "full" along with one of "fele," and three of these have no parallel
in the reading of the other manuscript witness:
It should be immediately apparent that, since their very nature ensures that such
words are extraneous to sense, the simple violation of poetic economy cannot
be held as proof of their scribal nature. Additionally, readings such as these sel-
dom lead to metrically unacceptable lines since the differences they create rarely
exceed a single unstressed syllable. Instead, the best evidence identifying them
as a copyist's intrusion is provided by the large number of unique examples in
well-attested texts like The Siege of Jerusalem:
Given that six other witnesses exist for these lines, including a group represented
by the second passage cited above that has been identified as closely related to
the Thornton copy quoted first, the unique nature of the examples in his redac-
tion strongly suggests the scribal nature of such additions. With similar situa-
tions existing in Awntyrs and Richard, the insertion of intensifiers can therefore
be accepted as one last example of the copyist's attempt to highlight important
semantic markers through his additions.

However, the addition of new material is not the only means by which
Thornton clarifies syntactic meaning and this is demonstrated most clearly by
his regular tinkering with both word order and the degree of explicitness in his
identification of sentence elements. These instances of syntactic smoothing oc-
cur ninety-five times in Thornton's work, sixty-nine of which are unique, and
only thirty-eight times in other manuscripts where they are not repeated in his
work.[44] Sir Degrevant provides a cluster of changes typifying these tendencies early
in its text, as shown here in excerpts from Thornton's copy and the Cambridge
University Library manuscript respectively:

In this passage, Thornton adds pronouns to explicitly identify what are treated as
implied subjects in the other manuscript, thereby incidentally altering the syntax
to create two independent sentences as reflected in the modern punctuation cited
here. Again, the lines as written in the other witness are not difficult to interpret
and this action appears to be hyper-correction, just like the following sentence
inversion in the Thornton and Cambridge copies of Octovian:
This example shows Thornton moving the object of "wedde" from an anterior to
posterior position, creating the standard subject-verb-object sentence order most
common in English prose but less rigidly adhered to in poetry. Wholesale recast-
ing of sentence order is a bit rarer than the explicit identification of subjects and
objects, but such interventions do convey admirably the overall essence of the
changes Thornton introduces into his texts. Correcting what is not essentially in
error, such inversion shows our scribe once again replacing poetic features with
more prosaic expressions whenever the latter are achieved through grammatical
constructions that rely on an audience's close attention to detail.