Medieval Anglo-Irish Troubles: A Cultural Study of BL MS Harley 913 by Deborah L. Moore (review)

Compiled roughly a century before the advent of the 'Pale', then transcribed, described, read, and rebound over the centuries that followed, the trilingual British Library MS Harley 913 is no straightforward entry into medieval Ireland. Seeking to bring clarity to the manuscript volume's originating context and purpose, Moore argues convincingly that 'a medieval Anglo-Irish Franciscan friar (or someone with very strong Franciscan sensibilities) compiled Harley 913' (p. 12). She concludes that the volume goes beyond conventional Franciscan spirituality, to speak of 'a deep yearning for social and political reform' (p. 303). Moore also points to delightful irony, where the manuscript may have survived Reformation-era destruction because Protestant owners did not recognize the text's orthodoxy and no longer necessarily appreciated its humour.

Overall, this is an impressive work of scholarship, achieved in three parts. In the first, Moore offers some analytical essays introducing the manuscript's general significance, highlighting issues around language and form, exploring its originating historical context, and surveying the diverse genres and themes contained within its collected works. In the second part, Moore describes and analyses each of Harley 913's fifty-three distinct contents. The third part is a continuation of the second, bringing in five additional works that survive in transcription via the early seventeenth-century British Library MS Lansdowne 418. Moore's approach is thus to embrace a whole-of-manuscript gaze, reading each element in relation to the others, and using all to unpick the context in which the manuscript was compiled, while also seeing where it may have spoken back against context.

One of Moore's main goals within the descriptive and analytical sections has been to correct misunderstandings, whether they be strange acts of cataloguing or outright misreading. Attuned to the Franciscan drive of the work, for instance, Moore points out that crude jokes at cenobitic expense 'are not simply about the sinful behaviour of monks. They are about sin, period' (p. 70). Similarly, she notes, a lullaby was a bit exegetically complicated for ordinary nursery usage. 'The voice in this poem speaks for Mother Church' (p. 157), Moore points out. Drawing the reader's attention to Harley 913's many messages of repentance, its calls to charity, its critique of contemporary politics, and its threads of humour, Moore's cultural study of this manuscript will be a valuable resource for scholars for many years to come.