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  • Rossignos by John of Howden
  • Françoise Le Saux
Rossignos by John of Howden. Edited by G. Hesketh. London, Anglo-Norman Text Society, 2006. x + 270 pp, 1 plate. Hb £30.00.

John of Howden's devotional poem Rossignos, though composed by one of the major Anglo-Latin poets of the thirteenth century, has long remained neglected; this situation, due in great part to the fact that the work was not available in print, is now well on its way to being corrected thanks to the latest volume to be published by the Anglo-Norman Text Society. Glynn Hesketh's edition of the only surviving manuscript of the poem (Cambridge Corpus Christi College MS 471) is a model of scholarly rigour that offers the academic community a reliable and clearly presented text for further research. This, as all students of Anglo-Norman texts will recognize, is no mean feat: the poem itself was composed between 1273 and 1282, but the sole surviving manuscript dates from the late-fourteenth century, and therefore presents the quirks characteristic of late Anglo-Norman scribal (and indeed linguistic) practice which make editing in general and emendation in particular a tricky exercise. Hesketh's editorial principles strike a good balance between respect for the manuscript text and the need for readability; emendation is only resorted to sparingly, and is clearly indicated (in the footnotes to the text). The strength of this edition is that it is based on firmphilological foundations aswell as on an in-depth understanding of the work itself; the analysis of the versification of the Rossignos is clear and to-the-point, with the impact of scribal spellings (and the resulting need to resort to occasional emendation) duly analysed. The 5272-line-long poem is followed by some 53 pages of notes relating to grammatical, orthographical, syntactical or cultural difficulties, by a glossary and, finally, an Index of Proper Names.However,Hesketh assumes a fair level of experience in Anglo-Norman French and in the use of specialized dictionaries: the notes are not geared to the requirements of the non-medievalist, while his glossary does not include words which have survived into Modern French with the same (or similar) meanings, or words very common in Old French or Anglo-Norman. This can occasionally lead to potentially confusing passages not discussed in the notes because they present no obvious linguistic problem: for example, line 2265, the word 'lievre', which could be construed in a number of ways but for which no guidance has been provided; or line 3509, where 'mecine' is clearly a form of 'medecine', but does not appear in the glossary. In other words, the students working on this text are going to need some assistance from their supervisors; for there is little doubt that this edition will be much used, as John of Howden's rhetorical pyrotechnics in the Rossignos and his many references to the sciences (such as astrology or botany) and to legendary and historical figures (such as King Arthur or Lancelot) give the poem a broad appeal. Students of Anglo-Norman literature owe a debt of gratitude to Hesketh for making this delightful text accessible at last.

Françoise Le Saux
University of Reading
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