The LALME typology of scribal practice: some issues for manuscript studies

Wendy Scase, Merja Stenroos (Editor), Kjetil Thengs (Editor), Martti Ma:kinen (Editor), Oliver Traxel (Editor)

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

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Abstract

The Linguistic atlas of late mediaeval English (LALME) and related work in historical dialectology is heavily intertwined with the study of Middle English literary manuscripts. LALME draws extensively on texts in literary manuscripts and interprets them using its own special model of scribal practice. The LALME typology has proved very influential in the study of Middle English literature, informing literary history, editing, textual criticism, and work in the materialities of manuscript culture. This chapter proposes that our growing knowledge of the material culture of text production and wider literate practice, however, calls into question some of the basic assumptions about scribal practice that underpin LALME. A case study of Carthusian copies of Misyn’s translations of Rolle’s Emendatio Vitae and Incendium Amoris in British Library, Additional MS 37790 illustrates the claim that manuscript studies needs, and is capable of supplying, new, subtler models of scribal practice to support a revision of LALME’s interpretations of scribal texts.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCurrent explorations in Middle English
Subtitle of host publicationSelected papers from the 10th International Conference on Middle English (ICOME), University of Stavanger, Norway, 2017
EditorsMerja Stenroos, Martti Mäkinen, Kjetil Vikhamar Thengs, Oliver Martin Traxel
PublisherPeter Lang
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-631-78473-0 (EPUB), 978-3-631-78472-3 (PDF)
ISBN (Print)978-3-631-78205-7
Publication statusPublished - 30 Aug 2019

Publication series

NameStudies in English Language and Literature
PublisherPeter Lang
Number56

Keywords

  • LALME
  • manuscript studies
  • Carthusians
  • Angus McIntosh
  • literatim copying
  • translation copying
  • dialect continuum
  • Richard Rolle

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