Hornsby, Joseph.
Laura C. Lambdin and Robert T. Lambdin, eds. Chaucer's Pilgrims: An Historical Guide to the Pilgrims in the "Canterbury Tales" (Westport, Conn.; and London: Greenwood, 1996), pp. 116-34.
Surveys the development of the legal profession in medieval England as background to understanding how the GP sketch of the Man of Law is a "thumbnail sketch of a common lawyer," focusing on his status as a "sergeant." MLT capitalizes on the myth…
Observes legal implications in the Clerk's reference to the Wife of Bath's "secte" (oath-helpers or compurgators), and suggests that the reference "functions to interanimate" the Wife's, Clerk's, and Merchant's shared views of female mastery.
An illustrated guide to raptors in English literature (fourteenth century to seventeenth century), which explains their symbolic value in terms of historical training and hunting practices and rituals. Recurrent references to Chaucer's works,…
Horobin, S. C. P.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 99 (1998): 411-17.
The similar scribal features of three manuscripts of CT (Devonshire; Trinity College, Cambridge R.3.3; and Bodleian Rawlinson Poetry 223) have sometimes been attributed to a group of scribes and supervisors. This attribution has been used to support…
Horobin, S. C. P.
English Studies 79 (1998): 415-24.
Chaucer's spelling habits are still uncertain. Reasons for disagreement among scholars lie in approaches to the problem. Analysis of the spelling "ayein"/"ayeyn" in Hengwrt and Ellesmere and related manuscripts suggests that studies based on the…
Horobin, S. C. P.
Notes and Queries 245.1: 16-18, 2000.
Explains an eccentric spelling in the Hengwrt version of RvT (heem, or "home") as descending from Old Norse (East Norse "hem"), extended by a kind of imitation in Ellesmere to geen ("gone") and neen ("none"). Ellesmere also mistakes a Northern form…
Horobin, S. C. P.
English Studies 82: 97-105, 2001.
Challenges Tolkien's view that Chaucer aimed at a consistent representation of Northern dialect in RvT. Probably closest to Chaucer's autograph, the Hengwrt manuscript is neither complete nor consistent, while later scribes added Northern features…
Horobin, S. C. P.
Neophilologus 86 : 609-12, 2002.
In RvT, Chaucer's "treatment of the Northern dialect" is fairly consistent, but the Reeve's dialect includes "distinctive features characteristic of the Norfolk dialect."
Horobin, S. C. P.
English Studies 84: 426-30, 2003.
In RvT 3944 and FrT 1614, "panne" can be read as the plural of penny instead of pan or dish. In early fourteenth-century Type II London dialect, "panne" is a common variant of "peni." In this light, Chaucer's authorship of fragments B and C of Rom…
Horobin, Simon C. P.
Anglia: Zeitschrift für Englische Philologie 119: 249-58, 2001.
Analyzes spelling in the four printed editions of CT issued before 1500. Caxton (1476 and 1482) and Wynken de Worde (1498) responded individually to the perceived authority of the work, while Richard Pynson (1492) attempted to replace the nonstandard…
Horobin, Simon, and Aditi Nafde, eds.
Turnhout: Brepols, 2017.
A collection of essays on the production, reception, and editing of medieval English manuscripts. For an essay on Chaucer, search for Pursuing Middle English Manuscripts and Their Texts under Alternative Title
Horobin, Simon, and Daniel W. Mosser.
Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 106 (2005): 289-305
The authors analyze the spelling and dialect evidence of manuscripts attributed to Scribe D (including CT) and argue that the southwestern dialect features derive from exemplars rather than from the scribe's own dialect. This argument, in turn,…
Horobin, Simon, and Linne R. Mooney.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 26 : 65-112, 2004
Attributes Trinity College, Cambridge, MS B.15.17 (which includes the B-text of "Piers Plowman," Richard Rolle's "Form of Living," and a devotional poem) to the Hengwrt/Ellesmere scribe (Scribe B), summarizing and illustrating the graphetic features…
In determining Chaucer's plan for CT, too much attention has been placed on the Ellesmere and Hengwrt manuscripts at the expense of the other eighty-one manuscripts, where the order of the tales may differ. In Ad3 (British Library MS Additional…
Horobin, Simon.
Norman Blake and Peter Robinson, eds. The Canterbury Tales Project Occasional Papers, Volume II (London: King's College, Office for Humanities Communications, 1997), pp. 15-21.
Demonstrates the dangers of over-reliance on Hengwrt, Ellesmere, or any limited number of privileged manuscripts in establishing the text of CT, arguing for attention to all available material.
Horobin, Simon.
Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen, Päivi Pahta, and Matti Rissanen, eds. Placing Middle English in Context (Berlin and New York: Gruyter, 2000), pp. 199-207.
Compiles spelling variants of 'though' (thirteen manuscripts) and the verb 'work' (ten manuscripts) as they occur in CT, seeking to establish Chaucer's basic orthography and to explore scribal habits.
Horobin, Simon.
Estelle Stubbs, ed. The Hengwrt Chaucer Digital Facsimile (Leicester: Scholarly Digital Editions, 2000)
Focuses on spelling in the Hengwrt manuscript (Hg) in light of the development of London English (from Type II to III), especially in comparison with spelling in the Ellesmere manuscript (El). Though the two manuscripts are closely related, Hg shows…
Similarities of orthography and copying habits indicate that the Hammond scribe copied the following manuscripts: BL Additional 34360, BL Harley 2251, Trinity College Cambridge R.14.52, and Royal College of Physicians 113 [Py]. This scribe's spelling…
Horobin explores how linguistic issues affect questions of attribution, reception, and manuscript authority, focusing not only on lexicon but also on orthography, phonology, and grammar. The language of the Hengwrt manuscript of CT (perhaps produced…
Horobin, Simon.
Studies in the Age of Chaucer 28 (2006): 205-15.
Horobin describes and transcribes a single-leaf, forty-eight line fragment of Rom (lines 2403-50), newly found among the Reverend Joass portion of the Sutherland collection of the National Library of Scotland. Also considers relationships among this…
Horobin, Simon.
Gail Ashton and Louise Sylvester, eds. Teaching Chaucer (New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 96-104.
Argues that analyzing Chaucerian manuscripts and comparing them with edited versions can help students discover important principles of variation and evidence.
Horobin, Simon.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Discursive description of Middle English, focusing on Chaucer's dialect and usage, divided into eight chapters: (1) Why Study Chaucer's Language?; (2) Writing in English; (3) What Was Middle English?; (4) Spelling and Pronunciation; (5) Vocabulary;…
Horobin, Simon.
Review of English Studies 60 (2009): 371-81.
Reconsideration of Alan J. Fletcher's evidence (RES 58 [2007]: 597-632) does not support the claim that Adam Pynkhurst is the scribe of Dublin, Trinity College MS 244.
