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  • Scribal Authorship and the Writing of History in Medieval England by Matthew Fisher
  • Alana Bennett
Fisher, Matthew, Scribal Authorship and the Writing of History in Medieval England (Interventions: New Studies in Medieval Culture), Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 2012; cloth; pp. 221; R.R.P. US$54.95; ISBN 9780814211984.

Scribal Authorship is one of those rare and delightful books that is as enjoyable to read as it is insightful and scholarly. Matthew Fisher’s book challenges some of the core assumptions of manuscript studies and suggests a more intensely communal and constructive textual tradition for the Middle Ages in which scribes are critically engaged readers and writers, not just the means for the mechanical production of texts. Fisher’s argument centres on scribes as a significant (but often overlooked) part of the audience of medieval texts, who had direct access to the texts and the ability to alter texts, intellectually and mechanically, as they saw fit. The Introduction cites MS Arundel 74, fol. 2v in which scribal error has been extensively corrected by another scribe. Moreover, the corrupted text seems to have caused an illuminated letter author portrait to be abandoned (presumably so as not to authorise the incoherent text) – a tangible sign of scribes intellectually invested in their work.

Chapter 1 lays the groundwork, with a brief lesson in palaeography followed by a discussion of medieval evidence of scribal practices and the assumptions made by modern editing. Scribal corruption and the danger of the incompetent scribe (a popular topic of complaint for medieval authors) is a familiar issue for manuscript scholars. However, Fisher instead posits that ‘the true threat of scribes was their competence’ (p. 58), suggesting that it was more often aesthetic concerns or the desire to correct mistakes that resulted in textual variation. For the medieval scribe, copying was not always separate from composition and often there was little to distinguish scribe from author.

Chapter 2 parallels the work of scribes in copying and composing to the work of authors of medieval historiography, a genre that derives its authority from citing (or at least appropriating) other texts. This chapter follows the evolution of rhetorical strategies used to construct authority in histories, in particular the developments from Bede, to Henry of Huntingdon, to Geoffrey of Monmouth. Just as authors of history bring together sources to create a text that is shaped by the present, so scribes bring together exemplars and their knowledge of medieval literature to correct and improve on the texts they copy. Although this chapter at first seems divergent from the book’s main focus, by comparing the work of scribes with the work of authors, Fisher effectively explores the implications of his redefined scope of scribal activities.

Chapters 3 and 4 analyse versions of the Short Chronicle copied and altered by the Harley Scribe and Auchinleck Scribe 1. Both the Harley lyrics and the [End Page 166] Auchinleck manuscript show evidence of careful planning and ordering by parties with knowledge of the texts. Rather than constructing a textual stemma, the analysis views each manuscript version of the Short Chronicle as a distinct entity that has been customised and amended. The Harley Scribe rectifies historical details in his version of the chronicle, making use of unrelated textual exemplars to inform his corrections and additional compositions. Additionally, the latter section also features a fascinating digression about the materiality of composition, charting the discernable progression from wax tablets, to the use of parchment scraps, to composition directly onto the page.

Scribal Authorship is clear, precise, and engaging, and as the argument develops, Fisher is careful to address its consequences logically and sensitively. The resulting model replaces assumptions about exemplars, copying practices, and scribal authority with a broader scope of scribal agency, supported by evidence from medieval texts and manuscripts.

Alana Bennett
The University of York
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