Jo Koster
SEMA 2000: Nineteenth Century Disciplines, Twenty-First Century Technologies

Please note that all images shown are © by the owning library. Any use of these other than for Professor Koster's scholarly and pedagogical purposes must involve appropriate copyright clearance.

This paper has since been published in Medieval Perspectives 17.2 (2002): 79-92.

Activity 1: Recognizing scholarly hands.

Practice transcribing book hand by transliterating this passage. Can you find the name of a scribe in this Piers Plowman manuscript?

Click here to see a closeup of the "scribal signature".

Activity 2: Understanding the nature of descriptions

In the University of Pennsylvania manuscripts catalog, this page was described as "sermon notes." Do you think that is correct?

Click here to see University of Pennsylvania MS English 6, fol. 3r
Click here to see a transcript of that page.
Click here to see the edited text of that page.

(Hint: you may  want to consult Notes and Queries n.s. 32.4 (1985): 447-49.)

Activity 3: Understanding the nature of edited texts

What is the last line of poetry in The Canterbury Tales? On what very important word do the earliest manuscripts think Chaucer's work ended? What is different about the way most editors think the poem ends?

Click here to see the passage from the Riverside Chaucer.
Click here to see the notes from the Riverside Chaucer.
Click here to see the end of the Parson's Prologue from the Hengwrt Manuscript.
Click here to see a transcription of this page from Hengwrt.
Click here to see the end of the Parson's Prologue from the Ellesmere Manuscript.
Click here to see a transcription of this page from Ellesmere.

Activity 4: Understanding the textual authority for critical claims

What did the Wife of Bath actually say? What do the critics assume she said? What does this say about "earliest" and "best" manuscripts of a work?

Click here to see the contested passage from the Wife of Bath's Prologue in Hengwrt.
Click here to see the transcript of the contested passage from Hengwrt.
Click here to see the contested passage from the Wife of Bath's Prologue in Ellesmere.
Click here to see the transcript of the contested passage from Ellesmere.

Note: Thorlac Turville-Petre inserted his name in this manuscript using Photoshop.
It's not a real signature. Sorry. Don't trust computers.