“Historical Linguistics & Palaeography, two inseparable tools to date English Medieval Manuscripts”, 2nd International UCM Predoctoral Conference on English Linguistics (UPCEL): Language in Society, Universidad Complutense, 2017. (original) (raw)
Related papers
2019
Palaeography is the study of ancient and medieval handwriting, and it focuses on the establishment of “patterns in the development of characteristic letter forms and abbreviations” (Lowe, 2006: 134). Historical Linguistics studies the diachronic evolution that languages endure. Hence, these two disciplines complement each other and provide the required tools and means to establish the date of different manuscripts. However, it is possible to state that Palaeography has been traditionally associated to History, whereas Historical Linguistics is related to Linguistics. Linguists tend to lack the skills that historians possess to transcribe and analyse ancient scripts, whereas historians usually do not have the knowledge required to study the graphemes and spellings that are relevant to date a manuscript. Therefore, this paper aims to narrow down the date of production of the Pseudo-Hippocrates’ Treatise on Zodiacal Influence (ff. 98r-104r) contained in GUL, MS Hunter 513. A transcription and detailed analysis of the main features of the handwriting of the text will be carried out and followed by a thorough inquiry of the chief characteristics of the Middle English language
京都大學文學部研究紀要, 2012
The majority of Middle English texts are anonymous, and they do not provide information as to when and where they were produced. It is, therefore, often necessary for Middle English text editors to date and localize the language by analyzing its various features. Fortunately, for late Middle English, the existence of A Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (LALME) (see McIntosh, Samuels, and Benskin 1986) is now a great help. By using the "fit-technique" of LALME, one can reach a fairly accurate localization of the language of the scribe at issue. 2 The dating of language, by contrast, is not an easy task, unless some reliable external pieces of evidence are available. In relation to medieval works in general, Damian-Grint(1996: 280) states: "Philological evidence will give a rough approximation of the period in which a work was composed but can rarely indicate a possible date of composition to within even half a century". When a particular manuscript is concerned, the nature of the script together with codicological information can suggest the approximate date of its production, but I have long wondered how linguistic analyses can make a further contribution to this area than they do now. The aim of the present study is to see if some linguistic features can function as linguistic scales to make the "chronological fit" possible. I will analyze for this purpose two different versions of a single text: MS Cotton Tiberius D. VII(MS １ This research was in part supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grantin-Aid for Scientific Research. ２ Iyeiri(forthcoming)illustrates the use of LALME by analyzing the language of the parchment section of MS Pepys 2125, Magdalene College, Cambridge, and shows that there are some caveats to be taken into consideration in LALME's "fit-technique". For details of the "fit-technique" of LALME, see Benskin(1991)among others.
PECIA, 2004
FORD, John. “Metatextual Evidence of a Manuscript Relation Based on Correlation of Rubrication and Decorated Capitals in a Translated Medieval Text.” PECIA : Ressources en médiévistique 4 (2004): 1-28. It has long been recognised that the Middle English version of Amis and Amiloun has much in common with its Anglo-Norman predecessors in terms of content and style. Although versions of the story occur in almost every language of Europe, the parallels between the English and Anglo-Norman versions are so striking that they have often been linked together as a single group. As MacEdward Leach once stated : « The proof is there that the English is a translation or redaction of a version very close to the KLC group, and that consequently the English and the KLC group must be considered as a unit.1» While this paper supports Leach’s general view, its specific aim is to draw attention to the particularly close relationship between the English version of the story in ms Auchinleck (A) and the Anglo-Norman version of the story in ms Karlsruhe (C). The evidence provided here relies not so much on textual analysis (though such evidence does exist and will be touched upon) as it does on the wealth of metatextual evidence provided in the manuscripts. The metatext can be defined as the aggregate of those elements held to be « behind » or « outside » of the text, either because they have traditionally been considered incidental, secondary or merely decorative in nature2. Medieval punctuation, illumination, the mise-en-page, and rubrication or decoration of letters fall under the heading. However, given the individual nature of manuscripts, it is surprising that the metatext has not been the focus of more study. The layout of the page, the use or omission of line breaks and stanzas, the decorations accompanying a text and the signalling of sections by use of punctuation or decoration certainly tell us much about what the author or scribe thought of his work. Such considerations appear all the more important when one considers that, like the scribal hand or accompanying marginalia, the metatext can and does vary from manuscript to manuscript. With such considerations in mind, it would seem that the metatext should be equal in value to palaeography, which can help to date or localise a text, or marginalia, which might give insight to the impressions of the author, scribe or readers. Its importance might even eclipse other supra-textual considerations when one identifies instances of the metatext being transmitted along with the text from witness to witness. Nevertheless, despite longstanding recognition of the value of palaeo-graphy, codicology, and marginalia, the metatext has largely been neglected in manuscript studies. In modern editions, medatextual evidence tends to be considered independently of the text (e.g. illumination) or often ignored entirely (punctuation). Only recently have scholars seen the value in systema-tically noting rubrication or decoration in modern editions, and even then such elements are often omitted in the apparatus showing variants in critical editions. Indeed, lack of an edition indicating Karlsruhe’s decorated letters meant that the present study would have been impossible without directly consulting the manuscript. However, such a consultation reveals that the degree of correlation between Auchinleck’s rubricated letters and Karlsruhe’s decorated capitals surpasses the bounds of mere coincidence, especially when compared with the lack of correlation in other Anglo-Norman versions. This conclusion seems particularly apt when one considers the known history of the manuscripts concerned and their established relationship to each other, as explained briefly below.
This paper looks at the origins of the field of palaeography, particularly in Britain in the nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries. It argues that the impulse of palaeography, far from being 'scientific', as argued by early practitioners, is, in fact, impelled by the aesthetic of the Arts & Crafts movement and pervaded by the vocabulary of calligraphy. The paper focuses on Neil Ker's Catalogue of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (Clarendon, 1957; repr. with Supp, 1991) to illustrate how subjective many of the terms for palaeographical description are. It urges a reassessment of the ways in which scribes are labelled to avoid the deleterious effects of derogatory value judgements.
2012. Sobol. The paleography of an Old English poetical text
The paper discusses the role of paleographical evidence for the analysis of medieval texts, exemplified by problems pertaining to Resignation. This Old English poetical text is solely preserved in the manuscript known as the Exeter Book, which dates to the 2 nd half of the 10 th c. AD. Until 1920 editors would erroneously recognise the poem's initial line, although thus obtained first word of the text had been unattested. Also, during the copying process the scribe made numerous mistakes, of which some were corrected already in the manuscript by the writer himself or his medieval readers, but others were left unnoticed-such is the case especially with repetitions and omissions.
English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220 and the Making of a Re-source1
Literature Compass, 2006
Eleventh-, twelfth-and thirteenth-century England is a complex multilingual jigsaw, and a much underestimated period of literary production. This article surveys and explores the close relationship between English, Latin and French book production, offering valuable insights into English manuscript culture in this period and re-contextualising texts and their manuscripts, calling for each to be studied in its own right and understood as part of a pattern of wider manuscript production. The article also introduces the reader to key and crucial issues in literary production in this period, and to new research in the field.