The Production of Books in England 1350–1500. Ed. by Alexandra Gillespie and Daniel Wakelin.

This collection of essays sees itself in a relationship with an earlier collection of essays also published by Cambridge, Book Production and Publishing in Britain, 1375–1475, edited by the late Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall in 1989. It differs from this earlier volume by the fact it ‘considers books not in terms of their content, but in terms of contexts and systems for their production and distribution’ (p. 11). Insofar as this claim constitutes a characterization of the earlier book it is not a very exact one. That laid considerable weight on previously neglected matters, particularly provenance and audience, matters that seem directly related to ‘production and distribution’. There are other overlaps: discussions of paper and of decoration appear in both, for example.

Nor are some aspects of the design and purpose of this volume altogether clear. John Thompson writes about English manuscripts produced in Ireland in a chapter titled ‘Books Beyond England’, but Wales and Scotland are not considered in this book. It also seems strange that a volume extending to 1500 should have no discussion of typography. One might also wonder why 1500 was chosen as a cut-off date. It is one that has significance for historians of early printed books but not obviously for manuscript historians.

What distinguished the earlier volume was the extent to which the various contributions were based on original research, often by scholars who were experts in their particular fields. Some of the chapters here are largely surveys of research in a particular area. Sometimes these are useful as with Martha Driver and Michael Orr's overview of decoration and illustration (though they are ill served by the generally inferior quality of the illustrations). Simon Horobin offers an account of recent work on Middle English dialectology and its relationship to manuscript study. Alexandra Gillespie summarizes issues involved in the study of medieval English bookbinding.

Other chapters do offer a wider range of reference and demonstration of original research, notably Orietta da Rold's impressive study of ink, parchment, and paper and David Rundle's deft survey of the circulation of English books, both manuscript and print, between England and the Continent. Stephen Partridge's study of page design, while primarily focused on Chaucer's manuscripts, is based on a considerable amount of copy-specific analysis of his own, enabling him to write suggestively about this rather underexplored topic. Margaret Connolly has a useful discussion of ‘Compiling the Book’ and identifies some of the factors involved in the creation of composite manuscripts and the attendant problems of interpretation. And some chapters are of great value: Fiona Somerset gives an extremely important overview of questions of censorship. This chapter is a model of scrupulous scholarship, underpinned by detailed reference to a range of manuscripts. In another excellent chapter Erik Kwakkel discusses the economic structure of the book trade, paying particular attention to the figure of stationer and his role(s) in the implementing of book commissions, and also to the neglected question of costs. He outlines lines of enquiry of considerable potential.

Where the focus turns to the crucial figure in manuscript production, the scribe, discussion is less rewarding. Daniel Wakelin's chapter is concerned with the nature of scribal activity: how long copying took, the range of handwritten representational possibilities, and the question of scribal accuracy. None of these is a question that yields very much of substance, particularly the last, which is self-evidently dependent on the availability of exemplar and transcript for purposes of comparison and the likelihood of establishing norms of error.

L. R. Mooney's chapter on ‘Vernacular Literary Manuscripts and their Scribes’ seems largely to summarize her own writings on this question. Jean Pascal Pouzet has been charged to explore non-commercial manuscript production. But he clearly finds the term and its implications difficult to examine, acknowledging at one point ‘there may be no such thing as a book produced entirely outside commercial contexts’ (p. 249). ‘Non-commercial’ is not synonymous with ‘non-professional’. And it is often difficult to recover contexts that make ‘non-commercial’ a meaningful term. Pecia-transcription, even if undertaken by amateur copyists, exists within a commercial environment; books made for religious houses may require the employment of lay artisans, for example. Pouzet is perhaps unfairly hamstrung by the terms of his discourse.

Any collaborative volume is likely to be a mixed bag and there are some chapters that could be subject to more searching criticism than I am able to offer here. I have admiration for a number of the essays. The conceptual coherence of the volume does not seem wholly clear. To suggest, as the editors do, that this volume will open doors and point to directions for future research may be correct. The very best of the essays here do that, but others rather less.

There are few typographical or other errors, but several occur in Professor Mooney's chapter: it is not the case that Osbern Bokenham ‘also served as scribe for copies of his Legendys of Hooly Wummen and complete Legendary of Saints’ (p. 195); nor is it the case that St John's MS 266 was ‘written to accompany Caxton's printed copies of The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde and John Mirk's Quattuor Sermones’, (p. 209) ([sic]: Mirk did not write this work). The printed editions are decorated and ruled to look like the manuscript; on p. 197 she gives her ‘own transcription’ of a passage from Huntington, HM 111; the nine lines contain sixteen transcriptional errors.