The evolution of Old and Middle English texts: linguistic form and practices of literacy

Abstract

The late, great paleographer Malcolm Parkes used to opine that 'the greatest mistake a paleographer makes is to forget the nature of the text being copied'. The axiom is a powerful one that has relevance not simply for the sub-discipline of paleography but also for the wider philological enterprise of which (I would argue) paleography is part. In this paper, I examine a small group of texts -- Lawman's Brut, Ancrene Riwle and Beowulf -- and demonstrate how a focus on the formal characteristics of these texts - their spelling, their punctuation (if any), their paleographical characteristics and their layout -- can be related intimately to their textual function. The discussion articulates with some new directions for philology at the current time, most notably with reference to the burgeoning discipline of historical pragmatics.

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