Sixteenth-Century Readers, Fifteenth-Century Books
Sixteenth-Century Readers, Fifteenth-Century Books
This innovative study investigates the reception of medieval manuscripts over a long century, 1470–1585, spanning the reigns of Edward IV to Elizabeth I. Members of the Tudor gentry family who owned these manuscripts had properties in Willesden and professional affiliations in London. These men marked the leaves of their books with signs of use, allowing their engagement with the texts contained there to be reconstructed. Through detailed research, Margaret Connolly reveals the various uses of these old books: as a repository for family records; as a place to preserve other texts of a favourite or important nature; as a source of practical information for the household; and as a professional manual for the practising lawyer. Investigation of these family-owned books reveals an unexpectedly strong interest in works of the past, and the continuing intellectual and domestic importance of medieval manuscripts in an age of print.
- Combining the study of historical records and literary manuscripts, this book reveals the history of the medieval books as artefacts and the men who owned and annotated them
- Traces the continuities of medieval devotion in the sixteenth century in spite of the tectonic changes of the Reformation
- Brings into focus the study of the manuscript through the lens of reception, ownership and use
Reviews & endorsements
'Overall, Sixteenth-Century Readers, Fifteenth-Century Books offers a compelling case study of a kind of reading and class of readers … it is well written, copiously documented, and should serve as a model to other researchers working in a similar vein.' Megan L. Cook, The Library
'… this book is an important contribution to our understanding of how and why books were read during the English Reformation.' Hilary Maddocks, Script & Print
Product details
June 2022Paperback
9781108445528
332 pages
249 × 169 × 18 mm
0.583kg
19 b/w illus. 2 maps 4 tables
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Family matters: the Roberts family of Willesden
- 2. Private faces in public places
- 3. Devotional reading in the reigns of Henry VII and Henry VIII
- 4. Out of the cloister, out of the family
- 5. Books and their uses
- 6. Devotional reading in the reigns of Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I
- Conclusion: Newly reformed readers?
- Postscript: after the family: the manuscripts' later histories
- Appendix 1. Timeline of key events during the lifetimes of Thomas and Edmund Roberts
- Appendix 2. Summary list of contents of manuscripts owned by the Roberts family
- Appendix 3. Manuscripts and printed books of uncertain association
- Appendix 4. Other families named Roberts
- Bibliography
- Index of manuscripts
- General Index.
