A Descriptive Catalogue of the English Manuscripts of John Gower's <i>Confessio Amantis</i>
By (author) Derek Pearsall, Linne R Mooney
Publication date:
20 August 2021Length of book:
420 pagesPublisher
D.S.BrewerDimensions:
234x156mmISBN-13: 9781800103047
Winner of the 2022 John Hurt Fisher Award from the John Gower Society
First comprehensive catalogue of the manuscripts of one of the most important medieval works, with full descriptions of their features.
The Confessio Amantis is John Gower's major work in English, written around the time that his acquaintance Geoffrey Chaucer was writing the Canterbury Tales. Extant manuscripts are numerous. At the end of the nineteenth century G. C. Macaulay had described the forty manuscripts then known to survive in the introduction to his edition, but some of these descriptions were very brief, and of course the other nine of whose existence he was then unaware were not included. This descriptive catalogue of all of the surviving manuscripts containing the Confessio is the first work to bring together extensive detailed descriptions of its forty-nine complete manuscripts and numerous fragments and excerpts; it will enable scholars of Middle English literature and manuscript studies to compare features across the corpus of surviving manuscripts or read detailed descriptions of individual manuscripts. Each description in this catalogue covers the manuscript's contents, artwork, physical qualities such as size, material, collation, foliation, etc., as well as additions by later users and provenance. There is also a lengthy introduction giving an overview of the corpus, and appendices for reference to the current whereabouts of the manuscripts, fragments and excerpts, and listing Gower's Latin and French works that appear in some of the manuscripts. Eight colour illustrations provide context for discussions of the miniatures and illuminated borders of some manuscripts.
First comprehensive catalogue of the manuscripts of one of the most important medieval works, with full descriptions of their features.
The Confessio Amantis is John Gower's major work in English, written around the time that his acquaintance Geoffrey Chaucer was writing the Canterbury Tales. Extant manuscripts are numerous. At the end of the nineteenth century G. C. Macaulay had described the forty manuscripts then known to survive in the introduction to his edition, but some of these descriptions were very brief, and of course the other nine of whose existence he was then unaware were not included. This descriptive catalogue of all of the surviving manuscripts containing the Confessio is the first work to bring together extensive detailed descriptions of its forty-nine complete manuscripts and numerous fragments and excerpts; it will enable scholars of Middle English literature and manuscript studies to compare features across the corpus of surviving manuscripts or read detailed descriptions of individual manuscripts. Each description in this catalogue covers the manuscript's contents, artwork, physical qualities such as size, material, collation, foliation, etc., as well as additions by later users and provenance. There is also a lengthy introduction giving an overview of the corpus, and appendices for reference to the current whereabouts of the manuscripts, fragments and excerpts, and listing Gower's Latin and French works that appear in some of the manuscripts. Eight colour illustrations provide context for discussions of the miniatures and illuminated borders of some manuscripts.
This book, more than forty years in the making and highly anticipated, does not disappoint.
It promised to be an invaluable catalogue that will not merely facilitate, but generate important
new research into not just John Gower's Confessio Amantis itself, but into a wide range of
aspects of the 15th century production of Middle English literary manuscripts.
It promised to be an invaluable catalogue that will not merely facilitate, but generate important
new research into not just John Gower's Confessio Amantis itself, but into a wide range of
aspects of the 15th century production of Middle English literary manuscripts.