The Anglo-Norman book

Tony Hunt

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521782180.022

I - The Anglo-Norman book

from 15 - Vernacular literature and its readership

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 November 2008

Tony Hunt

Edited by

Nigel J. Morgan and

Rodney M. Thomson

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Nigel J. Morgan: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Rodney M. Thomson: Affiliation:
University of Tasmania

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Summary

The author of a thirteenth-century chess treatise addresses the following instructions to the friend who has commissioned his translation:

Fet est nekedent, ore le recevét

Mun liveret, e pas nel peoplez

Kar chose ke trop est poplee

Meins valt e meins est amee

E sens e aveir plus vil en sunt

Kant commun est a tut le mond

…

Pur ceo, beal frere, par icele fei

Vus conjur, que feistes a mei

Ke vus cest livere pas n’aprestez,

Si vus congié de mei ne aiez.

No doubt the injunction not to lend the book to anyone was inspired by fear of its loss, but the argument about publication, i.e. ‘making public’, goes back to Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana and the hermetic tradition of the ‘books of secrets’ in scientific writing, which seek to guard against trivialization.

It is obvious enough that if we are to discover anything worthwhile about the production, circulation and patronage of vernacular books in the Middle Ages, a careful examination of the make-up of surviving volumes is indispensable. Although the study of the medieval book is well established, Anglo-Norman codicology has made somewhat halting progress so far, largely as a result of the reluctance of editors to give detailed and independent assessments of the manuscripts they are using. Admittedly, the date at which extant manuscripts, booklets and loose sheets were assembled and bound as composite volumes is often incalculable – there are a number of stages between the quire, the unbound pamphlet and the fully bound manuscrit de luxe.

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
, pp. 367 - 380

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521782180.022 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2008

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I - The Anglo-Norman book

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