Probable Truth: Editing Medieval Texts from Britain in the Twenty-First Century ed. by Vincent Gillespie and Anne Hudson (review)

This collection comprises papers given at a conference organised by the Early English Text Society in May 2010. The collection’s thirty chapters, prefixed by a short Introduction, written by editors Vincent Gillespie and Anne Hudson, fall into seven groups, within which each piece is virtually independent of the others. To this is appended the usual scholarly appurtenances, and indices of manuscripts by repository and pressmark, and of names, topics, and texts generally. Generally speaking, each contribution is of a high standard and, with some exceptions, connected more or less closely with the common theme: editing texts from medieval Britain.

While it should come as no surprise that different parts of this collection reflect heterogeneity, marked by wide variety of content and of character, as is common to this form, this, and the tenuousness with which some of the contributions are connected with the main theme, present some difficulties. Certainly, the book does not claim to be a systematic study on the subject, as in the manner of a textbook, but its different parts form a series of isolated sketches, with each offering a only tiny view of this enormous field, and the result is somewhat disjointed.

Let us consider, too, the terms of the title and its intended scope. In passing over the fore-title, having come from a remark criticised by E. T. Donaldson, the subtitle proclaims, rather misleadingly, that the volume’s main theme is editing texts from medieval Britain. But this is not really the case. Instead, the reader will find materials more wide-ranging by far, set within broad chronological limits – from the oldest Anglo-Saxon texts to the latest Middle English (and beyond) – and wide geographical zones, from the north in Scotland to southern England, from Ireland via Wales to France. I found it difficult to see, however, on what grounds a paper on the Oculus moralis by Peter of Limoges is included. The collection cuts across broad language sub-families, Romance, Germanic, and Celtic branches, and ranges over long periods of time. Textually speaking, it admits a very ample spread, from prose to verse, including song, and hybrid texts, drawn from diverse sources, all traceable to a wide variety of local contexts, and circumstances of composition.

I note, in the front matter, some odd abbreviations; and at the end, no bibliography, a useful aid, which would have reduced both repetition and bulk.