Thinking Quantitatively-Continentally

Abstract

Abstract: This essay argues that scholarship on Middle English manuscripts is in need of more comprehensive, large-scale studies to help address foundational questions, many of which can be answered in no other way than prioritizing breadth over the in-depth study of specific codices. In particular, I hone in on three lacunae in our knowledge about late medieval English manuscript culture that, I suggest, can only be redressed by largescale studies. First, I posit that scholars in our field are often ill-equipped to contextualize claims about any particular manuscript, given that we do not even have an approximate count of how many Middle English manuscripts survive. Second, I contend that we need large-scale studies in order to assess the relationship between Middle English and French and Latin in late medieval England. And third, I argue that such approaches could profitably be brought to bear on assessing bespoke versus speculative production. In closing, I point to the sorts of quantitative codicology practiced by continental European scholars as a model for Anglophone manuscript studies. Only by a willingness to learn from such methods will we begin addressing the fundamental lacunae that currently limit much of our understanding of late medieval English manuscript culture.

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