An Index of Images In English Manuscripts From the Time of Chaucer to Henry VIII: The Bodleian Library, Oxford. Vol. II, MSS Dodsworth-Marshall (review)

Short Notices 297 Scott, Kathleen L., ed., An Index of Images In English Manuscripts From the Tune of Chaucer to Henry VIII: The Bodleian Library, Oxford. Vol. II, MSS Dodsworth-Marshall. London, Harvey Miller Publishers, 2001; board; pp. 192; 24 b/w illustrations; R R P £35.00; ISBN 187250115X. This is the second volume of a three-part survey of the English manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The focus is the listing and identifying of all illustrations found in these works from the time of Chaucer to that ofHenry VHI. Ultimately, the plan is to have produced a comprehensive list of all such images. The general editor is Kathleen Scott, w h o also produced the 1996 Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390-1490 volume of Harvey Miller's important Survey of Manuscripts Illustrated in the British Isles, as well as studies on the Caxton Master and the Bodleian illustrated version of Piers Plowman. In this work she is assisted by a team of three other scholars: Lynda Dennison, Martha W . Driver and Ann Eljenhom Nichols. In this fascicle the collections covered are from Dodsworth to Marshall. Each manuscript is listed in order of its catalogue number and reference is also made to the earlier work by Otto Pacht and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library. Because of the definition used as to what constitutes an English manuscript, some works in the Index axe not found in Pacht and Alexander. The definition is based on the nationality of the scribe and of the appearance of minor decoration such as borders and initials that are in an English style. The nationality of the miniaturist is not taken into account because illustrators are known to have worked both in Continental Europe and in England, and there were considerable cross-cultural influences in style and iconography. Thus both English and Continental illustrations may be included. The basis for exclusion is on the script, decorative initials or both of these factors. The work is accompanied by a lengthy user's manual that explains both the selection ofmanuscripts and the layout of each entry. It is intended that almost every image found in the manuscripts be included with the exception of such things as non-representational diagrams and crosses that occur in liturgical manuscripts to instruct the priest to make a sign of benediction. Thus this is a far more comprehensive selection than most such works, as it includes minor decoration such as ascenders and nota bene signs, such as pointing fingers. In addition to the entries themselves, there is also substantial indices for Authors and Texts and Pictorial Subjects. 298 Short Notices This is an extremely useful text and the entire series will be of immense help to manuscript scholars specializing in this field. Judith Collard Art History and Theory University ofOtago Short, Ian and Roy Pearcy, eds., Eighteen Anglo-Norman Fabliaux (Plain Te Series 14), London, Anglo-Norman Text Society, 2000; paper; pp. 1,42; RRP not for sale to public; ISBN 0905474406. In his important survey of work done in Anglo-Norman from the end of the World War till the mid-sixties ('Anglo-Norman Studies: The Last Twenty Years', Australian Journal ofFrench Studies, II (1965), 113-55; 225-78), Keith Sinclair regretted that Dominica Legge had omitted all mention of the fabliau genre in her studies of Anglo-Norman literature. This Anglo-Norman genre has indeed been traditionally disparaged, so it is a pleasure to see here collected in one volume items written in Anglo-Norman which seem tofitinto the envelope 'fabliaux'. There are 18 fabliaux published in this slim volume. Each is edited from a single manuscript, clearly identified under the title of each text. The most recent earlier editions are briefly mentioned at the same place, and, where relevant, a reference is given to any published discussion of the manuscripts containing a version of that text. Manuscripts serving as witnesses for texts include M S S London B L Harley 527, 978 and 2253; M S . Oxford Bodleian Digby 86; M S Cambridge Corpus Christi College 50; and M S . Clermont-Ferrand Archives du Puy-de-D6me F2. Rejected readings are collected in a section...