Reformations: Three Medieval Authors in Manuscript and Movable Type

Author / Editor
Schoff, Rebecca L.

Title
Reformations: Three Medieval Authors in Manuscript and Movable Type

Published
Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2007.

Physical Description
xv, 230 pp.

Series
Texts and Transitions: Studies in the History of Manuscripts and Printed Books, no. 4.

Description
Circumstances of transmission affect not only how authors are received but also how they write. This effect was particularly strong in late medieval culture, when authors such as Chaucer, William Langland, and Margery Kempe were aware that readers used and reworked their texts. Schoff considers themes of reception, group dynamics, and the flexibility of sources in WBP and FrT, comparing them with concerns of textual stability in ClT, PardT, and MLT. Also examines how apocryphal additions to CT manuscripts (including endings to CkT) reveal readers' reactions to Chaucer's textual dynamics, concluding with analysis of how early editors used and adjusted the manuscripts.

Chaucer Subjects
Manuscripts and Textual Studies.
Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations.
Cook and His Tale.
Man of Law and His Tale.
Wife of Bath and Her Tale.
Friar and His Tale.
Clerk and His Tale.
Pardoner and His Tale.