Reading Romances in Their Manuscript: Lincoln Cathedral Manuscript 91 (“Thornton”)

Abstract

Most readers of, and commentators on Middle English romances confront them in monograph editions, composed from several manuscripts. Medieval readers and audiences generally accessed these works in manuscript collections, usually of miscellaneous materials. Dieter Mehl in 1969 and Gisela Guddat-Figge in 1976 drew attention to the important evidence of romances' situation in such manuscripts in throwing light on definitions of genre and reception, on the possible composition of the audience, and the individual tastes and literary judgements of the compilers of these collections. This study of the romances in one of the most important, wideranging miscellanies examines the design of this compilation, and in particular the processive arrangements of the ‘romance’ section, to demonstrate that the compiler, Robert Thornton, would seem to have a firm sense of different, distinctive romance types, and to have organized an anthology of the genre, deployed in sub-sections which proceed from ‘historical’ or heroic romance, through heroic/adventure composites, and adventure-courtly love works, to end on romances whose deployment of fantasy and improbability make them the polar opposite of the works which began the section. This study of the romances in situ permits the evaluation and comparison of subgenre groupings, and also provides some evidence for concluding that several of the works in this miscellany may have been composed for this collection, rather than having ‘lost’ sources.