Elaine Treharne | Stanford University (original) (raw)

Books by Elaine Treharne

Women's Literary Cultures in the Global Middle Ages : Speaking Internationally, 2023

This article seeks to recover the voices of women in Early British literature, both through the p... more This article seeks to recover the voices of women in Early British literature, both through the presence of women and through their own writing. It includes Beowulf, Sir Orfeo, Native American poet Beth Piatote, Canu Heledd, The Wife's Lament, the Leicester Borough Records, and English Lawsuits.

Tributes to Richard K. Emmerson: Crossing Medieval Disciplines, ed. D. Carter, E. Gertsman, K. Griffith, 2021

This essay evaluates how, why, where, and in what way personal names appear in medieval manuscrip... more This essay evaluates how, why, where, and in what way personal names appear in medieval manuscripts. The significances of the name, and the desire to have oneself inscribed into a book, are explored in multiple contexts.

Women and Medieval Literary Culture from the Early Middle Ages to the Fifteenth Century, 2023

Proofs of '"Miserere Meidens: Abbesses and Nuns', which investigates the writing of female religi... more Proofs of '"Miserere Meidens: Abbesses and Nuns', which investigates the writing of female religious women in the Middle Ages. These writings certainly include verses based on the Psalms that act apotropaically, as well as the possible identification of female scribes in Mortuary Rolls.

The Wisdom of Exeter: Anglo-Saxon Studies in Honor of Patrick W. Conner, ed. Edward Christie, 2020

This paper, in honour of Patrick Conner, investigates the scribes at work in Exeter throughout he... more This paper, in honour of Patrick Conner, investigates the scribes at work in Exeter throughout he period 1070 to 1150. It focuses principally on English Manumissions to suggest that these manumissions are not about the liberating of enslaved persons or those bound to an owner. Instead, through analysis of language and contextual information, it suggests that manumissions in the instances explored concern the admission of guildspeople to the Exeter Guild.

S. Jurasinski and A. Rabin, eds., Languages of the Law in Early Medieval England: Essays in Memory of Lisi Oliver, 2019

I discuss the significance of palaeography and the elitism of the field. I consider definitions a... more I discuss the significance of palaeography and the elitism of the field. I consider definitions and terminology, and I focus on the tenth-century scribes of the Parker Chronicle to demonstrate the continuing importance of close scrutiny of handwriting.

Further Reading, ed. Leah Price & Matthew Rubery (OUP), 2020

This essay examines how medieval manuscripts might have been accessed in the Middle Ages, and how... more This essay examines how medieval manuscripts might have been accessed in the Middle Ages, and how they were experienced by various contemporary audiences.

This volume in the annual series, Essays and Studies (for the English Association), includes essa... more This volume in the annual series, Essays and Studies (for the English Association), includes essays on distortion in literary and object-orientated studies. We're seeking to consider what constitutes distortion in transmission and reception. Papers will cover Old and Middle English, Early Modern drama, Global Shakespeare, eighteenth-century books in the digital environment, Indigenous North American animated matter, and lexicographical distortion.

Remaining in situ since the foundation of the new cathedral in Salisbury in 1220 are countless do... more Remaining in situ since the foundation of the new cathedral in Salisbury in 1220 are countless documents, manuscripts, and fragments that testify to the dynamism and impact of the medieval ecclesiastical institution. The diplomata and cartularies illustrate the history of each aspect of the chapter's governance, worship, and administration through the centuries. The manuscripts testify to the pastoral and intellectual work of the canons, and illuminate those texts that were held in especial esteem. This book celebrates the still living legacy of the archives and library, and investigate the rich record of the canons' collective memories.

The fourth edition of the Old and Middle English Anthology will be with the publishers in Spring ... more The fourth edition of the Old and Middle English Anthology will be with the publishers in Spring 2023, and published possibly later that year. I am rewriting the Introduction; changing some of the texts currently included; adding a section on online resources and editions. I'll be editing about 200 pages of new textual material (even while the book's size is reduced through new paper stock), including some texts in Welsh, Latin, and French of England, and a lengthy extract from Malory with a comparison to the Caxton printed edition. I'll have a coda featuring the Earl of Surrey.

Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts: The Phenomenal Book, Sep 30, 2021

This monograph has just been published by Oxford University Press (October 2021). It investigates... more This monograph has just been published by Oxford University Press (October 2021). It investigates the phenomenology of the medieval manuscript, emphasising how early handmade books functioned in the real world as objects with heft, tactility, sensuality, and spirituality. 'Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts' examines poetry and prose that reveals how books were conceived and received; it evaluates the significance of memorialising record; and it analyses how medieval, early modern and modern people interact with manuscripts--whether that is through writing names in margins, expressing joy and delight at the object's beauty, or cutting up books, and digitising codices. One chapter focuses on what image of miniature books within medieval manuscripts reveal about then-contemporary perceptions of the codex. The study reveals the medieval book to be an 'edifice of letters', replete with dynamic architextuality.

The Cambridge Companion series volume on Medieval Manuscripts was published in December 2020.

This Very Short Introduction to Medieval Literature will include brief discussions of literature ... more This Very Short Introduction to Medieval Literature will include brief discussions of literature produced in Britain and Ireland from 500 - 1500. It includes texts from the Latin, Welsh, Old English, Middle English, Cornish, Old Norse, Scottish, Old Irish, and French traditions. Each literary tradition also has their own little vignette. It's been a challenge in the tiny word-length (about the equivalent of three chunky articles!) to cover as much major material as possible, but I hope it works.

F ifty-five years ago, in his landmark Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon, Neil Ker ... more F ifty-five years ago, in his landmark Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon, Neil Ker memorably commented that 'Much writing of the twelfth century in the vernacular is not good'. 1 Given the brilliance of Ker's scholarship, and the fact that the findings of his research are so seldom erroneous, no scholar has ventured to counter this judgement, and none has questioned how Ker arrived at this conclusion, or investigated the criteria by which Ker measured what is 'good' and what is 'not good'. For Ker and his generation, and those preceding him in the later nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries, what constituted 'good writing' might have been absolutely transparent. It was a calligraphic evaluation, because calligraphy was widely taught, intimately understood, practised, and appreciated; 2 however, since calligraphy is, unfortunately, so little used in present-day scholarly circles, and since the aesthetic that accompanies calligraphic training is thus obscured, it may well be time to look again at the labels used to describe medieval script to discern their transparency and usefulness. This paper aims briefly to review these criteria by which subjective palaeographical observations are made, and to consider the effects such observations might have on our views of manuscripts predominantly written in English from 1100-1200. 3

This book discusses the political clout of English from the reign of Cnut to the end of the twelf... more This book discusses the political clout of English from the reign of Cnut to the end of the twelfth century. It focuses on English as the choice of a usurper king; English as the language of collective endeavour; and as the language of resistance and negotiation. It uses little studied texts including Cnut's two Letters to the English of 1020 and 1027, Wulfstan's last homiletic works, Worcester's Confraternity Agreement, post-Conquest homiletic manuscripts, and the Eadwine Psalter.

Women's Literary Cultures in the Global Middle Ages : Speaking Internationally, 2023

This article seeks to recover the voices of women in Early British literature, both through the p... more This article seeks to recover the voices of women in Early British literature, both through the presence of women and through their own writing. It includes Beowulf, Sir Orfeo, Native American poet Beth Piatote, Canu Heledd, The Wife's Lament, the Leicester Borough Records, and English Lawsuits.

Tributes to Richard K. Emmerson: Crossing Medieval Disciplines, ed. D. Carter, E. Gertsman, K. Griffith, 2021

This essay evaluates how, why, where, and in what way personal names appear in medieval manuscrip... more This essay evaluates how, why, where, and in what way personal names appear in medieval manuscripts. The significances of the name, and the desire to have oneself inscribed into a book, are explored in multiple contexts.

Women and Medieval Literary Culture from the Early Middle Ages to the Fifteenth Century, 2023

Proofs of '"Miserere Meidens: Abbesses and Nuns', which investigates the writing of female religi... more Proofs of '"Miserere Meidens: Abbesses and Nuns', which investigates the writing of female religious women in the Middle Ages. These writings certainly include verses based on the Psalms that act apotropaically, as well as the possible identification of female scribes in Mortuary Rolls.

The Wisdom of Exeter: Anglo-Saxon Studies in Honor of Patrick W. Conner, ed. Edward Christie, 2020

This paper, in honour of Patrick Conner, investigates the scribes at work in Exeter throughout he... more This paper, in honour of Patrick Conner, investigates the scribes at work in Exeter throughout he period 1070 to 1150. It focuses principally on English Manumissions to suggest that these manumissions are not about the liberating of enslaved persons or those bound to an owner. Instead, through analysis of language and contextual information, it suggests that manumissions in the instances explored concern the admission of guildspeople to the Exeter Guild.

S. Jurasinski and A. Rabin, eds., Languages of the Law in Early Medieval England: Essays in Memory of Lisi Oliver, 2019

I discuss the significance of palaeography and the elitism of the field. I consider definitions a... more I discuss the significance of palaeography and the elitism of the field. I consider definitions and terminology, and I focus on the tenth-century scribes of the Parker Chronicle to demonstrate the continuing importance of close scrutiny of handwriting.

Further Reading, ed. Leah Price & Matthew Rubery (OUP), 2020

This essay examines how medieval manuscripts might have been accessed in the Middle Ages, and how... more This essay examines how medieval manuscripts might have been accessed in the Middle Ages, and how they were experienced by various contemporary audiences.

This volume in the annual series, Essays and Studies (for the English Association), includes essa... more This volume in the annual series, Essays and Studies (for the English Association), includes essays on distortion in literary and object-orientated studies. We're seeking to consider what constitutes distortion in transmission and reception. Papers will cover Old and Middle English, Early Modern drama, Global Shakespeare, eighteenth-century books in the digital environment, Indigenous North American animated matter, and lexicographical distortion.

Remaining in situ since the foundation of the new cathedral in Salisbury in 1220 are countless do... more Remaining in situ since the foundation of the new cathedral in Salisbury in 1220 are countless documents, manuscripts, and fragments that testify to the dynamism and impact of the medieval ecclesiastical institution. The diplomata and cartularies illustrate the history of each aspect of the chapter's governance, worship, and administration through the centuries. The manuscripts testify to the pastoral and intellectual work of the canons, and illuminate those texts that were held in especial esteem. This book celebrates the still living legacy of the archives and library, and investigate the rich record of the canons' collective memories.

The fourth edition of the Old and Middle English Anthology will be with the publishers in Spring ... more The fourth edition of the Old and Middle English Anthology will be with the publishers in Spring 2023, and published possibly later that year. I am rewriting the Introduction; changing some of the texts currently included; adding a section on online resources and editions. I'll be editing about 200 pages of new textual material (even while the book's size is reduced through new paper stock), including some texts in Welsh, Latin, and French of England, and a lengthy extract from Malory with a comparison to the Caxton printed edition. I'll have a coda featuring the Earl of Surrey.

Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts: The Phenomenal Book, Sep 30, 2021

This monograph has just been published by Oxford University Press (October 2021). It investigates... more This monograph has just been published by Oxford University Press (October 2021). It investigates the phenomenology of the medieval manuscript, emphasising how early handmade books functioned in the real world as objects with heft, tactility, sensuality, and spirituality. 'Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts' examines poetry and prose that reveals how books were conceived and received; it evaluates the significance of memorialising record; and it analyses how medieval, early modern and modern people interact with manuscripts--whether that is through writing names in margins, expressing joy and delight at the object's beauty, or cutting up books, and digitising codices. One chapter focuses on what image of miniature books within medieval manuscripts reveal about then-contemporary perceptions of the codex. The study reveals the medieval book to be an 'edifice of letters', replete with dynamic architextuality.

The Cambridge Companion series volume on Medieval Manuscripts was published in December 2020.

This Very Short Introduction to Medieval Literature will include brief discussions of literature ... more This Very Short Introduction to Medieval Literature will include brief discussions of literature produced in Britain and Ireland from 500 - 1500. It includes texts from the Latin, Welsh, Old English, Middle English, Cornish, Old Norse, Scottish, Old Irish, and French traditions. Each literary tradition also has their own little vignette. It's been a challenge in the tiny word-length (about the equivalent of three chunky articles!) to cover as much major material as possible, but I hope it works.

F ifty-five years ago, in his landmark Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon, Neil Ker ... more F ifty-five years ago, in his landmark Catalogue of Manuscripts Containing Anglo-Saxon, Neil Ker memorably commented that 'Much writing of the twelfth century in the vernacular is not good'. 1 Given the brilliance of Ker's scholarship, and the fact that the findings of his research are so seldom erroneous, no scholar has ventured to counter this judgement, and none has questioned how Ker arrived at this conclusion, or investigated the criteria by which Ker measured what is 'good' and what is 'not good'. For Ker and his generation, and those preceding him in the later nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries, what constituted 'good writing' might have been absolutely transparent. It was a calligraphic evaluation, because calligraphy was widely taught, intimately understood, practised, and appreciated; 2 however, since calligraphy is, unfortunately, so little used in present-day scholarly circles, and since the aesthetic that accompanies calligraphic training is thus obscured, it may well be time to look again at the labels used to describe medieval script to discern their transparency and usefulness. This paper aims briefly to review these criteria by which subjective palaeographical observations are made, and to consider the effects such observations might have on our views of manuscripts predominantly written in English from 1100-1200. 3

This book discusses the political clout of English from the reign of Cnut to the end of the twelf... more This book discusses the political clout of English from the reign of Cnut to the end of the twelfth century. It focuses on English as the choice of a usurper king; English as the language of collective endeavour; and as the language of resistance and negotiation. It uses little studied texts including Cnut's two Letters to the English of 1020 and 1027, Wulfstan's last homiletic works, Worcester's Confraternity Agreement, post-Conquest homiletic manuscripts, and the Eadwine Psalter.

Page 1. Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and their Heritage Edited by PHILLIP PULSIANO and ELAINE M. TREHA... more Page 1. Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts and their Heritage Edited by PHILLIP PULSIANO and ELAINE M. TREHARNE Ashgate Aldershot • Brookfield USA • Singapore • Sydney Page 2. Contents List of Plates vii Preface ix 1 Gloss and Illustration: Two Means to the Same End? 1 ...

Preface. Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. Part I. Contexts and Perspectives:. 1. An Introduction ... more Preface. Acknowledgements. Abbreviations. Part I. Contexts and Perspectives:. 1. An Introduction to the Corpus of Anglo--Saxon Vernacular English: Elaine Treharne (Florida State University) and Phillip Pulsiano (Villanova University). 2. An Introduction to the Corpus of Anglo--Latin Literature: Joseph P. McGowan (University of San Diego). 3. Transmission of Literature and Learning: Anglo Saxon Scribal Culture: Jonathan Wilcox (University of Iowa). 4. Authorship and Anonymity: Mary Swan (University of Leeds). 5. Audience(s), Reception, Literacy: Hugh Magennis (Queen's University Belfast). 6. Anglo--Saxon Manuscript Production: Issues of Making and Using: Michelle P. Brown (British Library). Part II. Readings: Cultural Framework and Heritage:. 7. The Germanic Background: Patrizia Lendinara (University of Palermo). 8. Religious Context: Pre--Benedictine Reform Period: Susan Irvine (University College London). 9. The Benedictine Reform and Beyond: Joyce Hill (University of Leeds). 10. Legal and Documentary Writings: Carole Hough (University of Glasgow). 11. Scientific and Medical Writings: Stephanie Hollis (University of Auckland). 12. Prayers, Glosses and Glossaries: Phillip Pulsiano (Villanova University). Part III.Genre and Modes:. 13. Religious Prose: Roy M. Liuzza (University of Tennessee at Knoxville). 14. Religious Poetry: Patrick W. Conner (West Virginia University). 15. Secular Prose: Donald G. Scragg (University of Manchester). 16. Secular Poetry: Fred C. Robinson (Yale University). 17. Anglo--Latin Prose: Joseph P. McGowan (University of San Diego). Part IV. Intertextualities: Sources and Influences:. 18. Biblical and Patristic Learning: Tom Hall (University of Illinois at Chicago). 19. The Irish Tradition: Charles D. Wright (University of Illinois at Urbana--Champaign). 20. Germanic Influences: Rolf Bremmer (University of Leiden). 21. Scandinavian Relations: Robert E. Bjork (Arizona State University). Part V. Debates and Issues:. 22. English in the Post--Conquest Period: Elaine Treharne (Florida State University). 23. Anglo--Saxon Studies: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries: Timothy Graham (University of New Mexico). 24. Anglo--Saxon Studies in the Nineteenth Century: England, Denmark, America: J. R. Hall (Notre Dame University in Indiana). 25. Anglo--Saxon Studies in the Nineteenth Century: Germany, Austria, Switzerland: Hans Sauer (LM University, Munich). 26. By the Numbers: Anglo--Saxon Scholarship at the Centurya s End: Allen Frantzen (Loyola University Chicago). 27. The New Millennium: Nicholas Howe (Ohio State University). Selected Further Reading. Index

Oxford University Press eBooks, Apr 15, 2010

John Wiley & Sons, Ltd eBooks, Jan 10, 2014

The Year's Work in English Studies, 1999

This project undertakes the cross-cultural study of literary networks in a global context, rangin... more This project undertakes the cross-cultural study of literary networks in a global context, ranging from post-classical Islamic philosophy to the European Enlightenment. Integrating new image-processing techniques with social network analysis, we examine how different cultural epochs are characterized by unique networks of intellectual exchange. Research on "world literature" has become a central area of inquiry today within the humanities, and yet so far data-driven approaches have largely been absent from the field. Our combined approach of visual language processing and network modeling allows us to study the non-western and pre-print textual heritages so far resistant to large-scale data analysis as well as develop a new model of global comparative literature that preserves a sense of the world's cultural differences.

Medieval English and Dutch Literatures: the European Context

Women's Literary Cultures in the Global Middle Ages, Apr 4, 2023

Medieval English and Dutch Literatures: The European Context

The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain

Further Reading, 2020

This chapter examines the phenomenal book in the medieval period to discover ways in which the me... more This chapter examines the phenomenal book in the medieval period to discover ways in which the medieval manuscript was conceived and understood by its producers and multiple users. Of prime significance in this study is the aspect of “distant reading”—how audiences participated in making meaning when the book to which they had access was intended to be “enjoyed” from afar, perhaps read or displayed at some distance. Even as this mode of participation must have been most common, the paper then discusses the haptic and kinaesthetic nature of the book, clearly perceived to be a major component of the manuscript judging by the dominance of images from the long medieval period in which the book is held, touched, and interacted with.

Languages of the Law in Early Medieval England, 2019

Adroit scholarly interpretation of the Physician's Taleover the last half century has sought ... more Adroit scholarly interpretation of the Physician's Taleover the last half century has sought to rehabilitate what is perceived as one of Chaucer's least satisfactory tales. Arguments have focused on the correlation of teller and tale; Chaucer's manipulation of his sources; and the foregrounding of various key aspects of the tale, such as governance, virginity or the legal system. In seeking to round off the Tale, to give it cohesion and moral purpose, for example, Kirk L. Smith concludes his discussion about the judicial and medical elements with the opinion that "The tale offers this moral cure: abjuring the exploitation in which self-absorbed Apius indulges, the worthy practitioner would earn the public's esteem by pledging disinterested service." Similarly, in Jerome Mandel's view, the careful structure of the Tale and its emphasis on death can be paralleled with The Pardoner's Tale, with which it is paired in Fragment VI. Crafton's recent ju...

Medieval Literature, 2015

The Year's Work in English Studies, 1998

... Meyvaert proposes that a gospel book now lost was sent from Wearmouth-Jarrow to Lindisfame, a... more ... Meyvaert proposes that a gospel book now lost was sent from Wearmouth-Jarrow to Lindisfame, and that this was the influence for the Lindisfame Gospels Matthew portrait MJ Toswell investigates 'The Format of Bibliotheque Nationale MS Lat 8824: The Paris Psalter' (N&Q ...

Anglo-Saxon England, 1995

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 303 (hereafter CCCC 303) is an extensive mid-twelfth-century ve... more Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 303 (hereafter CCCC 303) is an extensive mid-twelfth-century vernacular manuscript produced at Rochester from a variety of Old English source materials. According to the medieval foliation, forty-four leaves are missing at the beginning of the codex and an indeterminate number at the end. As extant, CCCC 303 comprises seventy-three texts which are arranged according to the Temporale and Sanctorale for the church year (the first complete homily is for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany), thus showing that an initial plan of the contents was decided upon by a compiler. Godden distinguishes five groups of texts in all, the last such group being relevant here. This final portion of the manuscript (pp. 290–362, from the middle of quire 19 to the end of the final quire 23) contains twelve texts designated by Godden as ‘Miscellaneous items, mainly by Ælfric’. The first nine of these ‘miscellaneous items’, however, seem to be linked by their suitability fo...

This AHRC-funded project (2005-2010 with updates), devised by Mary Swan and Elaine Treharne, desc... more This AHRC-funded project (2005-2010 with updates), devised by Mary Swan and Elaine Treharne, describes and analyses the corpus of manuscripts written in English dated from c. 1060 to c. 1220.

Stanford Global Currents is part of a multi-institutional project (with Andrew Piper at McGill, M... more Stanford Global Currents is part of a multi-institutional project (with Andrew Piper at McGill, Mohammed Cheriet at ETS in Montreal, and Lambert Schomaker in Groningen, and others) to train computers to read and analyse different manuscript and printed corpora. Stanford's project focuses on English manuscripts from c. 1080 to c. 1220.

This major international enterprise is host to a variety of related projects examining the histor... more This major international enterprise is host to a variety of related projects examining the history of forms of human communication from the earliest times to the present day. My own focus is all manuscript materials, especially medieval books and documents, and later ephemeral handwritten objects (autograph books, notebooks).
Collaborators are most welcome in this work, and we offer short-term fellowships; organise collegia and symposia; and co-host great events.

Digging Deeper: Making Manuscripts is a free 6-week online course aimed at anyone with an interes... more Digging Deeper: Making Manuscripts is a free 6-week online course aimed at anyone with an interest in manuscripts. The course investigates how, where and why manuscripts were made and how to get the most out of looking at them in a library or online. It also introduces the basics of codicology, palaeography and transcription.