Simon Horobin & Linne R Mooney 
Middle English Texts in Transition 
A Festschrift dedicated to Toshiyuki Takamiya on his 70th birthday

Fresh contributions to the study of medieval manuscripts, texts, and their creators.


This exciting collection of essays is centred on late medieval English manuscripts and their texts. It offers new insights into the works of canonical literary writers, including Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, William Langland, Walter Hilton and Nicholas Love, as well as lesser-known texts and manuscripts. It also considers medieval books, their producers, readers, and collectors. It is thus a fitting tribute to one the foremost scholars of the history of the book, Professor Toshiyuki Takamiya, whom it honours.


Simon Horobin is Professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford; Linne Mooney is Professor of Medieval English Palaeography in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York.


Contributors: Timothy Graham, Richard Firth Green, Carrie Griffin, Gareth Griffith, Phillipa Hardman, John Hirsh, Simon Horobin, Terry Jones, Takako Kato, Linne R. Mooney, Mary Morse, James J. Murphy, Natalia Petrovskaia, Susan Powell, Ad Putter, Michael G. Sargent, Eric Stanley, Mayumi Taguchi, Isamu Takahashi, Satoko Tokunaga, R.F. Yeager

Table of Content

Introduction – Linne R Mooney

The Early History of the Scriveners’ Company Common Paper and its So-Called ‘Oaths’ – Richard Firth Green

Corpus Christi College Oxford MS 201 and its Copy of
Piers Plowman – Simon Horobin

Did John Gower Re-dedicate his
Confessio Amantis Before Henry IV’s Usurpation? – Terry Jones

Le Songe Vert, BL MS Add 34114 (the Spalding Manuscript), Bibliothèque de la ville de Clermont MS 249, and John Gower – Robert F. Yeager

Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 33: Thoughts on Reading a Work in Progress – Phillipa Hardman

The Rawlinson Lyrics: Context, Memory and Performance – John C. Hirsh

Linguistic Boundaries in Multilingual Miscellanies: The Case of Middle English Romance – Ad Putter

Linguistic Boundaries in Multilingual Miscellanies: The Case of Middle English Romance – Gareth Griffith

What Six Unalike Lyrics in MS Harley 2253 Have Alike in Manuscript Layout – Eric G Stanley

Evidence for the Licensing of Books from Arundel to Cromwell – Susan Powell

Bishops, Patrons, Mystics and Manuscripts: Walter Hilton, Nicholas Love and the Arundel and Holland Connections – Michael G. Sargent

The Choice and Arrangement of Texts in MS Pepys 2125, Magdalene College, Cambridge: A Tentative Narrative about its Material History – Mayumi Taguchi

‘Thys moche more ys oure Lady Mary longe’: Takamiya MS 56 and the English Birth Girdle Tradition – Mary Morse

Bookish Types: Some Post-Medieval Owners, Borrowers and Lenders of the Manuscripts of
The Wise Book of Philosophy and Astronomy – Carrie Griffin

Laurentius Guglielmus Traversagnus and the Genesis of Vaticana Codex Lat. 11441, with Remarks on Bodleian MS Laud Lat. 61 – James J Murphy

The Travels of a Quire from the Twelfth Century to the Twenty-First: The Case of Rawlinson B 484, fols. 1-6 – Natalia Petrovskaia

William Elstob’s Planned Edition of the Anglo-Saxon Laws: A Remnant in the Takamiya Collection – Timothy Graham

Gutenberg Meets Digitisation: The Path of a Digital Ambassador – Takako Kato and Satoko Tokunaga

An Updated Bibliography of Toshiyuki Takamiya – Satoko Tokunaga

About the author

PHILLIPA HARDMAN is Reader in Medieval English Literature (retired) at the University of Reading.