Manchester University Press
1 Harley Lyrics and Hereford clerics
Abstract
Chapter 1 proposes that the once-canonical ‘Harley Lyrics’ require literary-geographical re-contextualization. These poems’ backwater status is not native, but a consequence of the peripheral location assigned them by metropolitan narratives preoccupied with formal-genealogical influence. Harley 2253 was produced for a gentry household near Ludlow, Herefordshire, by a copyist using exemplars from across England and beyond (Paris, Avignon, Ireland). By attending to lyric transmission, and through readings of genre and geography, ‘Harley Lyrics and Hereford clerics’ demonstrates how, notwithstanding the provincial gentry setting of their copying, these adaptable poems align formally and socially with another textual community. This underlying context lies in the well-travelled secular clerks and episcopal officials of Hereford Diocese. The collective experience of such men was defined by unusually pronounced mobility, cohort solidarity, and district boosterism. But if these clerical lives, given incessant travel, are defined by spatial dislocation, so too are the Harley Lyrics preoccupied with geographical displacement. Waxing nostalgic for a ‘hom’ located vaguely ‘by west’, they idealize the figure of a beloved ‘levedi’ [lady] or ‘lef in lond’ [love in land]) who is brought into being through passionate poetic longing. Such (imported) conventions bespeak the cosmopolitanism of the Harley Lyrics, while underlining their regional orientation.
Abstract
Chapter 1 proposes that the once-canonical ‘Harley Lyrics’ require literary-geographical re-contextualization. These poems’ backwater status is not native, but a consequence of the peripheral location assigned them by metropolitan narratives preoccupied with formal-genealogical influence. Harley 2253 was produced for a gentry household near Ludlow, Herefordshire, by a copyist using exemplars from across England and beyond (Paris, Avignon, Ireland). By attending to lyric transmission, and through readings of genre and geography, ‘Harley Lyrics and Hereford clerics’ demonstrates how, notwithstanding the provincial gentry setting of their copying, these adaptable poems align formally and socially with another textual community. This underlying context lies in the well-travelled secular clerks and episcopal officials of Hereford Diocese. The collective experience of such men was defined by unusually pronounced mobility, cohort solidarity, and district boosterism. But if these clerical lives, given incessant travel, are defined by spatial dislocation, so too are the Harley Lyrics preoccupied with geographical displacement. Waxing nostalgic for a ‘hom’ located vaguely ‘by west’, they idealize the figure of a beloved ‘levedi’ [lady] or ‘lef in lond’ [love in land]) who is brought into being through passionate poetic longing. Such (imported) conventions bespeak the cosmopolitanism of the Harley Lyrics, while underlining their regional orientation.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- Acknowledgements vi
- A note on the presentation of texts x
- Abbreviations xi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Harley Lyrics and Hereford clerics 51
- 2 Captives among us 94
- 3 Histoire imparfaite 151
- 4 Dying with Harley 2253 199
- Epilogue 253
- Appendix 281
- Bibliography 285
- Index 307
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- Acknowledgements vi
- A note on the presentation of texts x
- Abbreviations xi
- Introduction 1
- 1 Harley Lyrics and Hereford clerics 51
- 2 Captives among us 94
- 3 Histoire imparfaite 151
- 4 Dying with Harley 2253 199
- Epilogue 253
- Appendix 281
- Bibliography 285
- Index 307
