English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220 and the Making of a Re‐source¹

Abstract

Eleventh‐, twelfth‐ and thirteenth‐century England is a complex multilingual jigsaw, and a much underestimated period of literary production. This article surveys and explores the close relationship between English, Latin and French book production, offering valuable insights into English manuscript culture in this period and re‐contextualising texts and their manuscripts, calling for each to be studied in its own right and understood as part of a pattern of wider manuscript production. The article also introduces the reader to key and crucial issues in literary production in this period, and to new research in the field.

Linguistica Silesiana

“…The period between the 11th and 13th centuries is thus often referred to as "transitional" English (Faulkner 2012: 276, Bartlett 2000. Although the term transitional deserves a separate discussion -there are valid arguments both for and against compartmentalization of language historyconsidering those (roughly) two centuries as a separate stage in the history of English is nonetheless useful, especially that it was neglected for a long time, considered unworthy of academic attention (Da Rold 2006).…”

(Old) English, Anglo‐Saxon Legal Texts in the Later 11th to Mid‐12th Centuries

“…Mary Swan and Elaine Treharne co‐edited a collection of articles exploring various elements relating to the use of the vernacular in the 12th century ( Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century ). This collection was followed by an extensive research project, the Production and Use of English Manuscripts, 1060 to 1220 , which includes cataloguing, codicological and palaeographical details of over 200 manuscripts of assorted genres, including legal texts (see also Da Rold, ‘English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220’, and the forthcoming collection Producing and Using English Manuscripts in the Post‐Conquest Period . Ed.…”