The Canterbury Roll – A Digital Edition ed. by Chris Jones et al. (review)

Dr Chris Jones has been a dynamic figure in New Zealand for several years. Based at the University of Canterbury, he has done much to draw our attention to collections and resources to be found among the holdings at Canterbury and in other universities in New Zealand, editing a book on the Treasures of the University of Canterbury Library (Canterbury University Press, 2011) and guest-editing a special issue of Parergon on pre-modern items in New Zealand collections in 2015. In this work, he has turned his attention to one of the treasures of the Canterbury collection, in this case the Canterbury Roll, now listed as MS 1, and once known as the ʻMaude’ Roll. He has recruited a team to help him including both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as Professor Haida Liang and Dr Natasha Hodgson from Nottingham Trent University, and Dr Christopher Thomson from Canterbury, who have helped with the digitization of the manuscript and the design of the website.

The work demonstrates how the manuscript’s digital presence can be a useful teaching tool. Jones lists the various fora where he and his collaborators have presented the work. These include public lectures, a radio interview, and a symposium. He also includes details for those undergraduates and postgraduates who might want to get involved. Corrections sent in by academics and others outside Canterbury have been made available, as is a PDF file of the 1919 study of the manuscript by Arnold Wall, then Professor of English at Canterbury University College. The long process of production also suits the format that this manuscript now inhabits, as manuscripts, like websites, were often adapted to changing circumstances.

It is an exemplary collection that comes complete with a substantial bibliography both on the manuscript itself and on the discussion of genealogies in recent scholarship. While not exhaustive, it does provide much that is required for advanced study. Most important for this research is the evidence of the digitized manuscript itself. The only qualm that I have about the information available is that not all of the material record is provided, such as how many membranes (separate sections of parchment) make up the roll and, given the details provided, what is on each membrane. Also, to be really picky, did the compilers of the roll use good quality parchment for the patrons, which would perhaps indicate more about the original audience? Margaret Manion, Vera F. Vines, and Christopher de Hamel, in their Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections (Thames and Hudson, 1981), indicate that there were six membranes. As often seems to be the case, there are inconsistencies between the length and width of the measurements in this book and on the website. This is in part because medieval material is rarely neatly packaged into tidy units as we modern scholars would like. There is, however, a sizeable difference in the lengths provided in the two texts. A minor niggle: it is customary in manuscript studies to list the order of measurement by length and width rather than the reverse. One of the advantages of this type of web publication is that any changes or corrections that the editor and his team might want to make are easily done, if the criticisms are seen as useful.

In terms of its value as history, the Canterbury Roll does demonstrate a particularly complicated and fascinating time in English history, the so-called War of the Roses. It was produced between about 1429 and 1485 and both the Lancastrian and Yorkist arguments are included. It is possible that the roll might have been produced for patrons who were aligned to one group or another, or simply wanted to understand what was happening. The romantic tale of the Maude family, itself owning the roll from its creation, as laid out in Wall’s account, is not terribly helpful as...