Fifteenth-Century Compilation Methods: The Case of Oxford, Trinity College, MS 29

Abstract

The late-fifteenth-century Middle English manuscript Oxford, Trinity College, MS 29 contains a universal history of the world, compiled from diverse religious and secular texts. Written by a single compiler-scribe, the text offers an opportunity to examine in detail late medieval methods of compilation. One of the main sources used by the compiler is Caxton’s print of Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon, thus allowing a detailed comparison with the printed source text. This article investigates the strategies which the compiler uses to copy, edit, and amend his sources, whilst integrating them into a new textual framework. Comprehensive collation reveals different ways of copying and revising the printed source text. The strategies used by the compiler range from close copying to extensive additions, substitutions, corrections, and omissions. A close analysis of these compilation methods allows conclusions not only about the compilatory process but also about the mindset behind the focus and features of the resulting new text. The results of this detailed case study of compilation strategies in Oxford, Trinity College, MS 29, reveal this text to be a case of detailed adaptation of sources to create a unified and consistent new textual whole, which is comparable to other late-medieval compilations but unusual in the meticulousness and complexity of its textual strategies.