1 00:00:15,090 --> 00:00:20,729 Thank you for that introduction. And I just want to add my special thanks to Butlin for having me these past 2 00:00:20,730 --> 00:00:25,380 couple of months and the RBC Foundation for generously funding my time here, 3 00:00:25,560 --> 00:00:29,400 as well as the foundation which funds my time in Canada. 4 00:00:30,180 --> 00:00:33,630 Without their support, it would be difficult to undertake my research. 5 00:00:33,990 --> 00:00:37,600 So thank you all. All right. 6 00:00:39,100 --> 00:00:52,980 Okay. Sometime before 1450 ascribe working in England copied out a medical and dietary collection called the Regime to Call in Contemporary French. 7 00:00:53,970 --> 00:01:02,190 The text was originally written in the late 13th century by a Franco Italian author who claimed to be translating a Latin source, 8 00:01:02,340 --> 00:01:10,530 which itself was the translation of Greek. A second Parisian scribe living in England then added a table of contents while 9 00:01:10,530 --> 00:01:16,080 later reader annotated specific words in the table with their English translations. 10 00:01:16,860 --> 00:01:28,760 Thus, among many words, Deprez is amended to strawberries, which is my player, and I is amended as garlic I like. 11 00:01:30,270 --> 00:01:37,030 Furthermore, the opening initial of the text contains the modern muscle cell linking this manuscript. 12 00:01:37,140 --> 00:01:43,770 This on Fast of the Night and landowner who would later be comically reincarnated as Shakespeare's Falstaff. 13 00:01:45,330 --> 00:01:51,990 I begin with this manuscript because it provokes some of the questions it poses and provoking questions. 14 00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:57,970 Why did Falstaff own a French book when he could just as well buy a middle English book? 15 00:01:59,170 --> 00:02:05,500 Why did he want a copy of this text? Would readers be familiar with the older French source for this updated version? 16 00:02:06,790 --> 00:02:10,480 What do the annotations show about the reading and understanding of French? 17 00:02:11,290 --> 00:02:19,679 What was a Parisian scribe doing in England? The focus of my project at large I might talk today is the ways in which readers might have 18 00:02:19,680 --> 00:02:25,770 encountered and interacted with French books in the long 15th century from about 1380 to 1500. 19 00:02:26,730 --> 00:02:32,250 This period is often celebrated as a time of the flourishing of middle English literature from Chaucer to Skelton. 20 00:02:32,550 --> 00:02:37,110 But it's still a time when readers had access to and contact with friends in French. 21 00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:45,120 We know that authors like John Lydgate and Richard Russo translated the work of French writers like Christine de Pizan and Alan Chartier, 22 00:02:45,630 --> 00:02:48,720 producing new work in English from French originals. 23 00:02:49,800 --> 00:02:54,390 Even as writing in English increased and diversified and translated French sources, 24 00:02:54,720 --> 00:02:58,290 and over the course of 15th century English people continued to read, 25 00:02:58,500 --> 00:03:07,079 copy, buy and borrow writings in French, sometimes in the 15th century French and styled as irrelevant, 26 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:12,030 dying or dead as insular versions of French, which are often called anglo-norman, 27 00:03:12,390 --> 00:03:23,640 become perhaps less widely used for speaking and larry composition, whereas had been very prevalent in earlier centuries. 28 00:03:25,230 --> 00:03:28,950 Yet French survived in specialised areas like trade and law. 29 00:03:29,190 --> 00:03:33,030 The nuns of Laycock Abbey were apparently still speaking French at the time of the dissolution. 30 00:03:33,870 --> 00:03:39,810 Notably, England was engaged in an extended dynastic conflict, which we call a hundred years war. 31 00:03:40,540 --> 00:03:47,220 So English people had a lot of reason to be on the continent and sometimes lived there or owned property there for several years. 32 00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:52,739 England remained a vibrantly multilingual space throughout the 15th century, 33 00:03:52,740 --> 00:03:57,390 where people understood not just Latin, French and English, but also variety of European vernaculars. 34 00:03:59,250 --> 00:04:05,550 So in terms of reading material, English people had access to both earlier continental books and what we call old French, 35 00:04:06,270 --> 00:04:14,670 older Anglo-norman manuscripts, as well as contemporary literature, and more middle French and more contemporary copies of Anglo-norman. 36 00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:21,210 So in addition to the dialectical variety, the texts also ranged widely in content, 37 00:04:21,450 --> 00:04:32,580 encompassing everything from medical tracks to recipes Arthurian romance lore statute, French lyric, devotional prayers and conduct advice. 38 00:04:33,900 --> 00:04:34,890 Generally speaking, 39 00:04:35,430 --> 00:04:41,670 there are a handful of ways to determine if and when a manuscript might have been in England in the 15th century and who might have read it. 40 00:04:42,510 --> 00:04:51,060 Some of these are related to reception and some to production, so things like the script is one that's favoured by English scribes. 41 00:04:51,330 --> 00:04:58,320 An English guy might have helpfully added their names. This is very rare, so happens about once or twice. 42 00:04:59,460 --> 00:05:05,400 A type of French used has English dialectical features the decoration of which this is an example. 43 00:05:06,770 --> 00:05:11,510 Has corresponds to those that we might find in English manuscripts. 44 00:05:12,170 --> 00:05:15,500 Manuscript was made for an English patron like John Falstaff. 45 00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:21,770 The text would seem to appeal to a specifically English audience like its writing about English history. 46 00:05:21,770 --> 00:05:25,760 Or it seems to claim that Henry the Fifth has a claim to the French throne. 47 00:05:27,470 --> 00:05:31,220 There's marginalia in an English hand or in English itself. 48 00:05:32,400 --> 00:05:37,140 The text is bound with or supplemented with items from England. 49 00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:41,550 This, of course, depends on the binding being medieval and not being later. 50 00:05:42,790 --> 00:05:46,450 Similarly, the manuscript might have a medieval binding of an English style. 51 00:05:47,450 --> 00:05:52,610 The manuscript has the names of English people. It's very helpful, but sometimes confusing. 52 00:05:53,660 --> 00:05:57,890 They might be owners, or they might just have been people who had contact with the manuscript. 53 00:05:58,640 --> 00:06:06,200 Find these if they're there might be supplemented with English poems or scribbles or just alphabets that are in a sort of English hand. 54 00:06:07,100 --> 00:06:14,750 And then finally, there might be evidence of ownership of an institution, particularly libraries attached to monasteries. 55 00:06:17,750 --> 00:06:25,670 So sometimes all these methods fail. And it's impossible to tell sort of where a manuscript might have been made or where it circulated. 56 00:06:26,870 --> 00:06:27,590 For instance, 57 00:06:27,770 --> 00:06:39,020 this is a history of the kind of Normandy which is lacking all of its decoration and has an extremely damaged medieval binding and has no marginalia. 58 00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:47,000 So it's difficult to place definitively as being either made in one place or circulated in one place over another. 59 00:06:48,800 --> 00:06:53,420 Instead, we can only imagine the different trajectories that might have led to its creation and preservation. 60 00:06:54,320 --> 00:06:59,630 Thankfully, many more manuscripts preserve some information about their origins, 61 00:06:59,960 --> 00:07:04,310 reflecting the diverse roots by which French manuscripts could come to be owned in England. 62 00:07:05,390 --> 00:07:11,030 Some are produced in on the continent in earlier centuries and pass through successive generations of English owners, 63 00:07:11,030 --> 00:07:16,670 maybe as gifts, bequests or donations. This manuscript is a good example. 64 00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:23,180 It's a combination of two old French doors on digest and chivalry, Viviane and I Skull. 65 00:07:24,260 --> 00:07:32,239 The manuscript contains the names of several English people, including the mysterious Seer, to more locals who might not have been an owner. 66 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:35,900 He might have just touched or handled the manuscript or had a debt. 67 00:07:37,430 --> 00:07:46,829 But we do know that one owner was. Find his name or there's an inscription here which names him as Thomas Arnold, who was a monk. 68 00:07:46,830 --> 00:07:53,130 And he donated this book to St Augustine's Abbey in Kent, Spain, probably around 1410. 69 00:07:54,600 --> 00:08:04,560 He might have received this book as a bequest through familiar circles, or perhaps he bought it before allowing it to enter institutional hands. 70 00:08:05,370 --> 00:08:13,560 The trajectory of this manuscript from maybe a Lord to Monk to Monastery, shows how a French book can move between different circles of readers. 71 00:08:15,300 --> 00:08:18,720 But English readers also bought their manuscripts directly from the continent. 72 00:08:19,380 --> 00:08:24,030 This route was particularly easy for any soldiers who were there as part of campaigns in the Hundred Years War. 73 00:08:24,960 --> 00:08:30,420 This manuscript is a copy of The Leaf Digitiser, a kind of encyclopaedia in prose. 74 00:08:31,550 --> 00:08:35,810 It was probably created in the south, near Italy in the mid 14th century, 75 00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:40,280 but it soon afterward passed into the hands of the Earl of Salisbury while he Montagu. 76 00:08:40,880 --> 00:08:45,410 We know that William Montague paid 100 marks for a different French manuscript that belonged to King John. 77 00:08:45,590 --> 00:08:54,390 The second which he took from him at. And it's probable that this manuscript was also bought around the same time and then matched. 78 00:08:54,410 --> 00:08:58,819 You gave the book to Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, which is written right here, but it's not been erased. 79 00:08:58,820 --> 00:09:07,190 And that's a photograph with a UV light, prompting further circulation in England. 80 00:09:07,220 --> 00:09:13,880 We don't know what happened to Gloucester's books after he died, but they seem to have continued circulating in England. 81 00:09:15,590 --> 00:09:22,220 Over the course of several centuries, English England received many manuscripts and content that then passed through generations of owners. 82 00:09:23,780 --> 00:09:30,560 Those French books created in England itself, and that never left include both Anglo-norman texts and continental French ones. 83 00:09:30,830 --> 00:09:40,340 Some, like John first book, which I started with, were created on behalf of a specific owner who would pay for the scribes and the illumination. 84 00:09:41,060 --> 00:09:48,830 Others are a bit more modest. Since manuscript from around 1430 contains the imaginative travel guide of Mendel's travels. 85 00:09:49,580 --> 00:09:56,240 But it was updated in the late 15th century with this stamped binding, which must have been after 1450. 86 00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:02,870 And then some owner also added English and Latin poems to the findings. 87 00:10:03,860 --> 00:10:14,510 A slightly later manuscript begins with two short texts in English and Latin, and then it is followed by a slightly longer text on heraldry in French. 88 00:10:15,440 --> 00:10:20,750 Like John Fastow's book, this was actually written by a French scribe living in England named Ricardas Franciscus. 89 00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:29,570 And the text mixes several different texts together to create this sort of chivalric how to manual. 90 00:10:30,590 --> 00:10:35,060 We know Ricard as Franciscus also wrote entire manuscripts in Latin and French, 91 00:10:35,420 --> 00:10:40,700 which demonstrates that the production of French in England was occurring alongside books in other languages. 92 00:10:41,910 --> 00:10:46,710 In fact, it's not unusual at all to find all three languages in a 15th century book. 93 00:10:48,120 --> 00:10:53,280 This fragment of the districts of Cato, which is the Latin moral text often used in schools for teaching, 94 00:10:54,270 --> 00:10:59,880 has the Latin in red, and then there is English and French versus underneath. 95 00:11:00,030 --> 00:11:03,089 So that's going up. It is a fragment. It's very damaged. 96 00:11:03,090 --> 00:11:07,170 It's difficult to read, but it starts with Latin, French and English. 97 00:11:09,420 --> 00:11:18,030 It's probably from the early 15th century, but the French verses, which are in Anglo-norman are actually stemmed from a 12th century translation. 98 00:11:18,210 --> 00:11:24,540 So it's been several centuries old at that point. It's debateable whether we should even count these these as a French book, 99 00:11:24,780 --> 00:11:29,190 because the French is actually so outweighed by the other languages on the page. 100 00:11:29,940 --> 00:11:36,360 But these scraps of French are important reminders that when readers encounter French, it might be an incidental or secondary ways. 101 00:11:37,410 --> 00:11:46,340 What's interesting here is that. Even in manuscripts in French produced England can look radically different from one another. 102 00:11:46,630 --> 00:11:49,100 There's no typical French book from England. 103 00:11:51,120 --> 00:12:01,280 So readers often altered their French manuscripts with new findings, notes, doodles and texts misspelling 264, which is a well-known copy. 104 00:12:05,440 --> 00:12:13,000 The first part is the romance version of King Alexander's Life, which was created in the continent in the early 14th century. 105 00:12:13,510 --> 00:12:15,400 Somehow it ended up in England, 106 00:12:16,150 --> 00:12:24,190 probably through a purchase where Scribe then supplied these missing chapter titles called Rubrics and Anglo-norman Sets Blown Up. 107 00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:27,880 You might see that there's a slight difference in the hand. 108 00:12:28,780 --> 00:12:36,100 And then further, the manuscript was extended with a middle English poem on Alexander and Animus, 109 00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:39,340 which apparently supplies an episode that's missing in the French. 110 00:12:40,060 --> 00:12:46,780 Scribe, adds a helpful little note, saying what he's done even though he's actually wrong. 111 00:12:46,780 --> 00:12:52,210 And this story does not belong in this first narrative. 112 00:12:53,400 --> 00:13:03,210 And then around 1410, another scribe and several illuminators added a continental French version of the travels of Marco Polo, 113 00:13:03,240 --> 00:13:10,260 which they copied from yet another continental French manuscript, plus two new pages of Illuminations. 114 00:13:10,320 --> 00:13:14,870 Just in case. It's like some of the manuscripts already mentioned. 115 00:13:15,180 --> 00:13:24,150 Emma's family 264 combines English and French, insular and continental parts, and represents several decades worth of augmentation and adaptation. 116 00:13:24,570 --> 00:13:35,580 It's a kind of Franken French book. The manuscript was still interesting or relevant enough that 65 years later it was bought by Richard Woodville, 117 00:13:35,580 --> 00:13:38,970 father in law of Edward the fourth in 1477. 118 00:13:40,660 --> 00:13:45,850 Reading French is a dynamic process and one that doesn't remain static even over the course of 100 years. 119 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:53,900 This small group of manuscripts represents just a fraction of the surviving French books that were in England in the 15th century. 120 00:13:54,530 --> 00:13:58,610 And they represent the different ways where how a French book might have come into English hands. 121 00:14:00,260 --> 00:14:06,890 In addition to the continued use and circulation of older manuscripts, contemporary French texts could be acquired and created across Northern Europe. 122 00:14:07,610 --> 00:14:15,410 Scribes, books and readers cross borders with a certain regularity for trade, education, family pilgrimage, war, diplomacy. 123 00:14:16,130 --> 00:14:23,330 Those are all reasons to travel and to immigrate. Books, then move along with their makers and their owners. 124 00:14:23,810 --> 00:14:30,530 I've gathered over 700 surviving manuscripts that show some evidence of reading in the 15th century in England, 125 00:14:30,860 --> 00:14:34,549 a number that doesn't actually fully account for all the surviving anglo-norman manuscripts, 126 00:14:34,550 --> 00:14:40,910 since those have been more extensively catalogue and examined rather than representing a waning interest in French. 127 00:14:40,940 --> 00:14:48,020 These manuscripts show a diverse tradition of reading. So once we have an idea of who might have had contact with the French manuscript, 128 00:14:48,560 --> 00:14:54,050 we can then begin to think about how an English person might have actually interacted with that book. 129 00:14:55,170 --> 00:14:59,810 It's the study of reading in contrast to the study of maybe pellagra FT or bindings, 130 00:14:59,990 --> 00:15:07,220 both of which are of course related to the process of reading is particularly difficult, not least because reading leaves little permanent record. 131 00:15:08,740 --> 00:15:15,130 A manuscript with no marginalia could be interpreted as being read with pleasure, but it could just as easily never have been read at all. 132 00:15:17,360 --> 00:15:24,260 If readers do put pen to parchment, their markings are, as Daniel Wakeman has argued, frequently retrospective or instructive. 133 00:15:25,640 --> 00:15:30,830 Capturing the reasoning practice of medieval people then can be at times speculative peripheral. 134 00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:34,909 With a close study of marginalia, layout and ownership, 135 00:15:34,910 --> 00:15:41,180 we can begin to form an approximate picture of how a reader might have progressed through or been guided through a manuscript. 136 00:15:43,410 --> 00:15:49,110 So I want to concentrate on just one text that was read in England in the 15th century, which is the Lancelot Grail. 137 00:15:50,040 --> 00:15:57,660 It's a very long prose rendition of the stories of King Arthur and his knights in French, also sometimes called the Vulgate cycle. 138 00:15:58,760 --> 00:16:08,300 The entire cycle sort of served as the basis for Malory's Morte D'arthur and is made up of five main branches, sort of like volumes. 139 00:16:08,610 --> 00:16:14,830 It's hard to describe it succinctly. And these are these try to sell ground. 140 00:16:14,870 --> 00:16:19,060 The astronomy Merlin, the five part Lancelot Deluxe, the cast, 141 00:16:19,220 --> 00:16:28,400 the ground and the more type to you manuscripts have all of the branches and some of the later ones add extra parts of related texts. 142 00:16:28,760 --> 00:16:37,310 So it's not a cohesive tradition of the 200 plus manuscripts and fragments last like least 24 were in England in the 15th century, 143 00:16:38,030 --> 00:16:43,400 and they mostly date from the 13th and 14th centuries and largely were created on the continent. 144 00:16:44,210 --> 00:16:51,440 That number of surviving manuscripts actually puts it on par with some of the more major middle English texts like Trials and Crusade. 145 00:16:53,610 --> 00:17:00,300 Furthermore, we find allusions to Lancelot Graham regularly in wills and inventories across the 15th century. 146 00:17:01,690 --> 00:17:06,100 Thomas Arnold in addition to the about the a manuscript I showed earlier, 147 00:17:06,700 --> 00:17:12,130 apparently donated three copies of different parts of Lancelot Grail to St Augustine's, 148 00:17:14,050 --> 00:17:17,950 which would have been that such luck astride a ground and the mortar, too. 149 00:17:18,850 --> 00:17:27,790 Apparently he also owned a verse French book, which he also donated, uniting different Arthurian books in one collection. 150 00:17:29,350 --> 00:17:35,020 Likewise, John Falstaff, French Liber de la Torre is likely to have been a Vulgate manuscript. 151 00:17:35,650 --> 00:17:43,690 John Duke of Bedford acquired 13 Arthurian texts in French, many of which were undoubtedly the French prose version. 152 00:17:45,460 --> 00:17:51,010 Although 15th century audiences would have had access to several middle English, Arthurian histories and romances, 153 00:17:51,010 --> 00:17:55,390 they continued to read and circulate the French prose versions alongside the English ones. 154 00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:01,610 While they combined different for different parts of the Vulgate cycle, 155 00:18:01,820 --> 00:18:07,040 the surviving manuscripts allow us to examine how 15th century readers interacted with French art during material. 156 00:18:07,910 --> 00:18:14,450 A focus on annotations in some manuscripts as a way to understand the value of this French text in 15th century England. 157 00:18:15,860 --> 00:18:19,790 And argued that the juxtapositions of languages within these manuscripts represent 158 00:18:19,790 --> 00:18:23,120 the multilingual reading experience engendered by the last thought grounds. 159 00:18:25,070 --> 00:18:32,420 So of the 24 manuscripts, only a handful include any sort of 15th century annotation and three manuscripts. 160 00:18:33,340 --> 00:18:37,720 Which I'll show readers made sporadic notes predominantly on this Watch Sun Grill. 161 00:18:38,890 --> 00:18:42,600 Not one. That one and this one. 162 00:18:44,710 --> 00:18:50,740 So marked the Esquire, even though these manuscripts combine the astride a sun girl with other branches. 163 00:18:52,380 --> 00:18:59,370 The Annotators also focussed on the ancestry of Arthur's Knights, as well as the creation and movement of the Grail to England. 164 00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:07,530 In so doing, readers look forward to other parts of the Arthurian story, even as they limit their annotations to singular moments. 165 00:19:09,300 --> 00:19:12,650 The Grail and the Knights all reappear in later branches. 166 00:19:12,660 --> 00:19:20,730 The narrative, the interest in genealogy can perhaps be connected to the more general interest in royal genealogy in the 15th century. 167 00:19:21,360 --> 00:19:29,610 Between the deposition of Richard the Second and the continuation of 100 Years War, English, dynastic claims or a politically and socially important. 168 00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:35,489 Several genealogical tests like these here establish Henry the fist right to the 169 00:19:35,490 --> 00:19:40,110 French throne while incorporating Arthur into the line of royal succession. 170 00:19:40,650 --> 00:19:48,120 Such manuscripts not only demonstrate an interest in owning genealogical material in the 15th century, but also blur mythology and history. 171 00:19:49,310 --> 00:19:55,879 When readers of Arthurian romance pay attention to the establishment of clear lines of succession and relation, 172 00:19:55,880 --> 00:20:01,700 they read with a historical sensibility treating old French prose romance with contemporary concerns. 173 00:20:04,610 --> 00:20:07,760 Some marginalia in many maps look real. 174 00:20:07,820 --> 00:20:11,360 Simply just say no to or nota bene note. 175 00:20:11,360 --> 00:20:19,390 Well. A common form of annotation in manuscripts of any language. 176 00:20:19,570 --> 00:20:24,760 The note marks a moment of attention that also looks forward to future moments of rereading. 177 00:20:25,600 --> 00:20:31,360 The note is both for the person who writes it and also for the person who opens the page later on. 178 00:20:32,020 --> 00:20:37,030 They're not unlike old highlighting in used books that predetermine where your eye is drawn. 179 00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:45,800 In this manuscript, there's seven noto marks and just this one folio along with two verbal annotations. 180 00:20:46,730 --> 00:20:52,459 My having so many noto marks on a single folio, the annotator seems interested in specific sentences. 181 00:20:52,460 --> 00:20:58,130 In addition to the page at large, they might mark places to return to or imprint in the memory, 182 00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:06,860 but they also link this sort of reading practice of the laptop round to one that might be used on a Latin theological text or a middle English poem. 183 00:21:08,090 --> 00:21:16,280 In this way. A reader adding notice signs to their manuscript uses the same process on an old French book they do on a more contemporary one, 184 00:21:16,430 --> 00:21:21,330 whether it be in Latin, Middle, English or French. The use of a note or a manicure. 185 00:21:21,350 --> 00:21:24,469 I think there's two here. One right. 186 00:21:24,470 --> 00:21:34,550 There seems to imply some need to remember or revisit particular episodes, perhaps hinting at a reading practice that is discontinuous. 187 00:21:38,180 --> 00:21:44,639 And that's middle English example. It follows then that annotating in the last like around England is often a 188 00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:48,930 focussed practice in another manuscript containing just the Lancelot branch. 189 00:21:49,910 --> 00:21:55,400 An early 15th century reader has added a stylistic manicure, which is right there, 190 00:21:56,630 --> 00:22:01,730 and a note to Benny and also marginalia to describe Lancelot Steeds. 191 00:22:02,060 --> 00:22:08,300 Throughout this manuscript, the Annotator is particularly focussed on Lancelot and his relationship with Guenevere. 192 00:22:09,770 --> 00:22:15,800 This English reader and others are entertaining with a specific interest in mind, highlighting certain sections of the text. 193 00:22:16,850 --> 00:22:23,720 This type of annotations each imagine future readings that are searching and directed rather than continuous and passive, 194 00:22:24,230 --> 00:22:27,680 while also marking the narrative as something that should be read multiple times. 195 00:22:28,670 --> 00:22:32,660 Interestingly, almost all these annotations are in Latin or French. 196 00:22:35,850 --> 00:22:42,150 Yeah, most. Are there any manuscripts in England in the 15th century have no 15th century marginalia at all. 197 00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:48,450 At least two were cut up and used to find other books, so clearly they were not interesting to readers. 198 00:22:50,020 --> 00:22:56,500 Nevertheless, the more complete unmarked manuscripts are set up with devices that facilitate the reading process, 199 00:22:56,740 --> 00:23:03,090 make a larger initial and an illuminated one right here at two nights and there's a larger initial, 200 00:23:04,540 --> 00:23:07,960 and they break down the narrative into just digestible parts. 201 00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:13,570 Some have programs of illumination that provide visual cues to readers. 202 00:23:14,230 --> 00:23:17,230 Such marking might render annotation redundant. 203 00:23:18,250 --> 00:23:24,219 Perhaps these unmarked manuscripts offer up the most flexibility of reading because they lack the 204 00:23:24,220 --> 00:23:29,770 suggestions or instructions of previous readers to direct the progress through the manuscript. 205 00:23:30,490 --> 00:23:34,930 The unmarked manuscript then can become a site of internal process where reading 206 00:23:34,930 --> 00:23:39,400 remains private and ephemeral rather than indelibly shared on the page. 207 00:23:40,630 --> 00:23:44,890 But I think it's also important to question whether any manuscript is actually truly unmarked. 208 00:23:45,700 --> 00:23:52,210 Although the owners of this particular manuscript, some of whom added their names in the final years, didn't respond verbally to the text. 209 00:23:52,630 --> 00:23:57,160 Someone added drawings of thistles in the margin. Think they're thistles? 210 00:23:57,370 --> 00:23:58,510 Correct me if I'm wrong. 211 00:24:01,810 --> 00:24:09,580 While this might actually be a moment of inattention rather than attention to the text, they do show that someone was opening the page for a while. 212 00:24:10,700 --> 00:24:11,210 Furthermore, 213 00:24:11,300 --> 00:24:19,310 this manuscript has several coloured threads at the feet of certain folios as a kind of permanent bookmark or time which have now been trimmed off. 214 00:24:19,310 --> 00:24:22,640 And you can see that it's been pulled downward to actually rip the parchment. 215 00:24:24,790 --> 00:24:32,220 Because the threads lack the verbal instruction or explanation and because they seem to mark an entire life rather than just a single section, 216 00:24:32,230 --> 00:24:40,810 they're a bit more flexible than a note banning or the UN annotated manuscript might provide reader with orientation and direction. 217 00:24:41,410 --> 00:24:45,310 They also still allow a measure of writerly freedom to choose a path through the narrative. 218 00:24:47,410 --> 00:24:50,710 In one singular manuscript, which is must be 2 to 3. 219 00:24:50,890 --> 00:24:54,510 A late 15th century reader goes above and beyond the directed nota bene. 220 00:24:54,730 --> 00:25:02,390 Instead, he or she supplements a large portion of the manuscript with English plot summaries, some of which you can see here that. 221 00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:07,870 This manuscript is from Circa 1280 and was written in northern France. 222 00:25:07,930 --> 00:25:13,180 It contains the last three branches of the Lancelot Brown set plans that du Lac and 223 00:25:13,180 --> 00:25:19,060 the Castle grab and the march you created for the Annotator or for other readers. 224 00:25:19,330 --> 00:25:22,330 The Digest provides a conceptual framework for Lancelot Grail. 225 00:25:29,210 --> 00:25:37,700 The notes appear frequently in the first two branches of the manuscript, with only small sections of the first part of the manuscript going unmarked. 226 00:25:38,660 --> 00:25:46,670 They comment minutely on the actions of the text in contrast to the other annotators who were focussed on specific actions. 227 00:25:48,380 --> 00:25:57,260 Furthermore, the Annotator writes only in English. The difference allows him to both guide his reader and create a bilingual experience to the text. 228 00:25:58,340 --> 00:26:02,990 Well, it's impossible to say for certain why this meant this Annotator chose to write in English. 229 00:26:03,320 --> 00:26:09,560 Perhaps he didn't write French as well as he wrote it. The fact that he did alters the reading dynamic of the French sort grounds. 230 00:26:11,730 --> 00:26:17,750 These marginal annotations provide an English guide to a familiar French text solely concerned with summarising the plot. 231 00:26:17,790 --> 00:26:22,470 They don't mention sources, interpret allegories or ask readers to learn lessons. 232 00:26:23,220 --> 00:26:26,790 Unlike some losses that you might find in a 15th century chronicle or a 233 00:26:26,790 --> 00:26:31,050 narrative poem like Huxley's Regiment of Princes or Gouges confess your matches, 234 00:26:32,490 --> 00:26:36,600 however, nor are they translations of words or passages. 235 00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:40,590 Rather, the Annotator gives an overview of the major events. 236 00:26:41,790 --> 00:26:44,430 Focusing on the announced block grant in isolation. 237 00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:52,440 These notes model intensive, inwardly focussed rather than extensive reading reading that looks outside the text at hand. 238 00:26:53,400 --> 00:26:58,680 Most of the notes take the form of how such as how going an actor saw a hand 239 00:26:58,680 --> 00:27:03,330 covered with red cloth holding a rich bridle and tip or burning that top one. 240 00:27:04,430 --> 00:27:07,940 Or how PELLEGRINELLI felt with Lionel for Bauhaus. 241 00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:16,280 These formulations participate in a widespread tradition of beginning summery annotations with Como in French and quality in Latin. 242 00:27:17,180 --> 00:27:25,940 A few of the annotations are even simpler, such as the prophecy of the siege start perilous of gallant, the beti. 243 00:27:27,020 --> 00:27:31,580 None of these summaries meant any known commentary on Arthurian material in French or English. 244 00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:34,160 They seem to be the Annotators invention. 245 00:27:36,010 --> 00:27:41,620 Furthermore, the summaries need to be read sequentially in order to be understood because some are really vague. 246 00:27:42,950 --> 00:27:48,110 Thus, the Annotator describes three passages as how Lancelot was distraught. 247 00:27:48,560 --> 00:27:54,320 Another dream of the quest. Lancelot goes mad many times. 248 00:27:54,770 --> 00:28:01,820 Almost every character has a dream, and the quest is pretty much the point of the whole branch. 249 00:28:04,610 --> 00:28:11,510 There are so many battles that saying the beti is actually really useless if you wanted to find a specific one. 250 00:28:13,250 --> 00:28:17,990 Therefore, while some of the more discursive notes could be used to locate a particular passage. 251 00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:21,680 Many of them are actually not unique enough to isolate a bit of text. 252 00:28:22,580 --> 00:28:28,950 Rather, the annotator seems to created them to be read alongside the French in sequence, text and glass. 253 00:28:28,970 --> 00:28:35,830 English and French are to be taken in tandem. These annotations can be quite numerous. 254 00:28:36,190 --> 00:28:42,130 Unlike the other French, Lancelot grounds that focus on a particular topic here, the interest is diffuse. 255 00:28:42,820 --> 00:28:50,140 One just one. Page, for example, highlights how the wise man asked Lancelot whether he liked better his new life or his old. 256 00:28:50,530 --> 00:28:56,380 How the wise man asked Lancelot if he had been confessed. Has the wise man made Lancelot where the hair? 257 00:28:56,530 --> 00:29:06,140 How Lancelot met with the damsel in white. The English summaries at times monitor the monitor the actions of the characters very minutely. 258 00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:10,910 There are several folios like this that develop a thorough digest of the events. 259 00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:18,920 It would be possible if you are reading all of these annotations together to grasp a sense of the narrative and maybe even skim sections. 260 00:29:19,220 --> 00:29:21,500 But such a reader would miss crucial details. 261 00:29:23,060 --> 00:29:29,660 Instead, the English seems to be geared towards managing the arena experience of the French and drawing out those events, 262 00:29:29,660 --> 00:29:35,190 which are most notable to the course of the narrative in order to have created this apparatus. 263 00:29:35,210 --> 00:29:41,810 However, the Annotator must have read the text in full and must have also probably taken several days because it's very long. 264 00:29:43,490 --> 00:29:52,130 Even if no one used the English summaries, as I have been saying, we know that at least one person, the Annotator, read carefully and sequentially. 265 00:29:54,040 --> 00:30:01,900 So while the dig the Annotator is unique among readers like Graham, his reading practice mirrors those found in other 15th century manuscripts. 266 00:30:03,220 --> 00:30:10,090 Similar forms of annotation, especially those beginning with how phrases appear in chronicles in Latin, French and English. 267 00:30:10,660 --> 00:30:18,250 So here's an example about the children of Rochester with Tales in a Beirut Chronicle. 268 00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:27,340 And then it's a Latin example. Both manuscripts have a series of summaries that run alongside the main text. 269 00:30:28,210 --> 00:30:34,930 The Digby Annotator does something similar. As similar to the way that you might read the history of England. 270 00:30:35,770 --> 00:30:39,159 By acknowledging the shared approach to a long and often confusing work, 271 00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:47,770 we can see how the Lancelot grant is allied with texts in other traditions and languages, even as it is singular among manuscripts of the same text. 272 00:30:49,470 --> 00:30:55,830 Presented with the parent text and the deeply manuscript Lancelot Grail is remade a new so that the reading 273 00:30:55,830 --> 00:31:01,350 the narrative so the reading of the narrative here is one that is different from reading it elsewhere. 274 00:31:02,870 --> 00:31:07,520 The Annotator conceives of of the narrative and the annotations of a whole that flowed together. 275 00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:13,010 The notes notes make the most sense, not as nota bene funding aids, 276 00:31:13,010 --> 00:31:18,680 but as a way of extracting and anticipating major plot points and providing a check of comprehension. 277 00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:25,790 But not a translation of Annotators French is just fine, but a helping hand for a long and complex narrative. 278 00:31:28,010 --> 00:31:33,020 The placement of the marginalia on the page further highlights the guiding role of the English over the French. 279 00:31:33,830 --> 00:31:41,510 They sometimes occur alongside the illuminated initials like sir, but they also occur in the middle of passages like. 280 00:31:44,410 --> 00:31:51,610 This placement competes with the scribal arch, not an auto displaying a different logic about where a textual break should occur. 281 00:31:53,090 --> 00:31:57,950 Furthermore, many summaries occurring at the start of new sections are placed within the text 282 00:31:57,950 --> 00:32:02,600 column itself in the blank space at the end of the last line of the previous section. 283 00:32:06,130 --> 00:32:12,310 Dig three. This location actually resembles that of rubrics or chapter titles, 284 00:32:12,310 --> 00:32:20,030 which appear in some but not all manuscript plants like Ground Dig B2 three has just 11 to accompany the illuminations. 285 00:32:20,950 --> 00:32:24,760 But some manuscripts like this one, which was never in England, have many more. 286 00:32:25,660 --> 00:32:30,190 These are because there are also similarities and begin with sycamores here begins. 287 00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:40,500 When the annotator places a note like this one. How Gallard got his sword in the blank space inside the columns rulings. 288 00:32:41,340 --> 00:32:46,980 Before the start of the next section, he's mimicking the placement of the more official rubric hated headings. 289 00:32:47,790 --> 00:32:54,540 Perhaps the day the Annotator saw other Arthurian manuscripts with more rubrics and corrected his manuscript accordingly. 290 00:32:55,800 --> 00:33:02,310 Unlike the Raymond Alexander manuscript, where the Anglo-norman scribe filled in the missing headings with reading, 291 00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:08,070 the Digby Annotated doesn't have the space. Instead, he's just making do with the space that's available to him. 292 00:33:09,830 --> 00:33:15,560 By situating notes in this way, the annotator not only links the end of one section to the start of the next, 293 00:33:15,770 --> 00:33:20,540 but he also divulges what he thinks is most important. Accordingly. 294 00:33:20,540 --> 00:33:25,730 The section below this goes on at length about how Callahan pulls a sword from a block of red marble. 295 00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:33,250 The engineer seems to expect readers to use the English plot points as a preview or spoiler 296 00:33:33,250 --> 00:33:37,090 of the French in the next section in order to aid cover to cover reading of the book. 297 00:33:38,470 --> 00:33:47,620 By placing some of these summaries within the text itself, the ANNOTATOR asserts visually the authoritative position of his end of his editions. 298 00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:51,460 The extensive power text provides a guide to the Arthurian material. 299 00:33:52,860 --> 00:33:58,110 Yet the Digby Annotator also intervenes in readers understanding of the structure of the text itself. 300 00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:06,610 Some summers are marked with crosses that connect the marginalia to specific sentences, not just general areas on the page. 301 00:34:07,450 --> 00:34:14,170 The note how the white knight, which is spelled wrong, sent the White Shield to Galahad. 302 00:34:14,530 --> 00:34:18,390 Keys to the White Knight's instructions. 303 00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:26,680 This fire after the death of Batu Magus by linking the glosses to extremely specific places within the text. 304 00:34:27,010 --> 00:34:32,530 The Annotator directs his readers at a precise level rather than clarifying the meaning of a sentence. 305 00:34:32,770 --> 00:34:39,700 The Annotator uses the English to manage on a minute scale interpretation of the events that might be hidden by scribal layout. 306 00:34:40,690 --> 00:34:45,190 In so doing, he also for a plot driven reading of the texts and glasses, 307 00:34:45,190 --> 00:34:49,660 those events which he determines most actively contribute to the progress of the narrative. 308 00:34:51,370 --> 00:34:59,170 Looking closely at the language of marginalia also reveals how the Annotator challenges the French because he anglicised his proper names. 309 00:35:01,710 --> 00:35:03,960 Perhaps emphasising the Englishness of the notes. 310 00:35:04,990 --> 00:35:13,150 He changes Antichrist in the text to Whitsun Tide, but more pervasively its the names of characters that he's changing. 311 00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:22,000 Madame de Loch becomes Madame de Lake. Take a rain festival. 312 00:35:22,510 --> 00:35:25,810 Pause. Sorry. Those are supposed to be in English, not French. 313 00:35:26,740 --> 00:35:31,180 Kate Gwyn, Arthur Prince of all boys. And Lionel supplant the texts. 314 00:35:31,180 --> 00:35:36,070 French school. There are cheaper school boards and unions. 315 00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:40,360 So there is some English right here. In so doing, 316 00:35:40,360 --> 00:35:47,679 he reveals a multi-lingual context of our three literature in the 15th century and the wider popular knowledge that reading 317 00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:54,250 this manuscript relies on and relates to the reader has to recognise that key and text books and bought are the same. 318 00:35:55,150 --> 00:35:59,980 The annotation the of the engine seems not sorry. 319 00:36:00,490 --> 00:36:06,010 Proudest of annotation seems related not only to tracking the plot but also translating the characters and names 320 00:36:06,010 --> 00:36:12,280 for particular the English speaking audience already familiar with Arthurian characters from other sources. 321 00:36:13,030 --> 00:36:18,489 These subtle changes and glosses that require readers to toggle between two languages disclose that 322 00:36:18,490 --> 00:36:23,290 such multilingual contact might be an inherent part of the experience of reading our literature. 323 00:36:26,870 --> 00:36:33,830 The pre-existing familiar with our theory on it might also explain why the annotation ends abruptly to folios into the mortar too. 324 00:36:34,910 --> 00:36:38,120 Perhaps the project of reading and summarising was just too arduous. 325 00:36:38,870 --> 00:36:41,420 Or perhaps the Annotator was not interested in this text. 326 00:36:41,780 --> 00:36:47,090 Historical and romance sources narrating the end of Arthur's Kingdom exist in numerous English versions, 327 00:36:47,270 --> 00:36:52,099 which might have been preferred to the French. The French more torture centres, 328 00:36:52,100 --> 00:36:55,940 more on L'Enfant and foreign affairs affair than any English version in the 329 00:36:55,940 --> 00:37:00,500 last annotation is actually how aggravated told the King Lancelot loved Queen. 330 00:37:01,940 --> 00:37:07,790 There could be a whole variety of reasons, like maybe the book was borrowed and never returned, or maybe the annotator died. 331 00:37:09,430 --> 00:37:14,469 Whenever the reason the disappearance of the integrated French and English presentation means 332 00:37:14,470 --> 00:37:21,470 that the reading experience changes suddenly and the reader is left without the managing force. 333 00:37:22,300 --> 00:37:28,840 Although the more Tartu ties together many of the narrative threads by appearing without its English class in this manuscript, 334 00:37:28,990 --> 00:37:33,400 this final text becomes separate from the preceding two branches of the Lancelot Brown. 335 00:37:36,140 --> 00:37:44,310 The Annotator and prospective readers of Dig B 2 to 3 were most interested in the entire action of Lancelot du Lac and the cast. 336 00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,930 Rather than reading these stories to extract some lesson or particular theme, 337 00:37:49,130 --> 00:37:54,740 although these summary annotations may have reassured English readers facing a French text, 338 00:37:55,070 --> 00:38:01,310 they may also reveal the deep familiarity of French Arthurian narratives to the prospective English audience. 339 00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:04,970 Rather than helping with the difficult word or sentence. 340 00:38:05,210 --> 00:38:10,940 The annotations encourage people to actually read the narrative because they're interlinked with one another, 341 00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:17,630 while also helping reading by highlighting certain events and dictating places to pause and regroup. 342 00:38:19,130 --> 00:38:24,380 Each language has a defined role. The English provides the structure, while the French provides the details. 343 00:38:27,270 --> 00:38:36,180 The manuscript currently begins in the middle of a sentence about midway through as the series of extended conflicts with King Claudius of France. 344 00:38:36,810 --> 00:38:40,530 A tiny eight in the lower right hand corner is a quieter signature, 345 00:38:40,710 --> 00:38:44,550 which would have been a march to the finder to say what order to put the quires in. 346 00:38:46,360 --> 00:38:50,520 Little choir signatures like this one appear in alphabetical order throughout the manuscripts. 347 00:38:50,530 --> 00:38:55,250 There's the B. Indicating that an early rebounding stage. 348 00:38:55,700 --> 00:39:00,860 This for you was the start of the text, even though we're missing probably 100 folios, if not more. 349 00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:06,980 A second set of quire signatures in red were probably the original ones, which I haven't shown you here. 350 00:39:09,260 --> 00:39:15,409 These later quite signature is compelling graphical features resembling the annotating hands and perhaps 351 00:39:15,410 --> 00:39:23,380 the person who added the English summaries also rebound the manuscript without an intact medieval binding. 352 00:39:23,390 --> 00:39:29,810 We can't know much more, but these signatures might indicate the period at which the annotation took place. 353 00:39:31,070 --> 00:39:37,010 It seems fitting that the outside of the manuscript might have been renewed as the insides were being changed as well. 354 00:39:39,140 --> 00:39:45,160 It might also indicate if it happens to be the same person or working to get two people working together, 355 00:39:45,170 --> 00:39:49,340 that the ANNOTATOR was working on behalf of someone else as a kind of professional reader. 356 00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:57,480 Apparently neither Annotator nor owner shared that the manuscript begins and also ends mid-sentence. 357 00:39:58,590 --> 00:40:05,730 Perhaps the Arthurian story was so well-known that a reader could pick up midway through an extended story and orient themselves within the text. 358 00:40:06,570 --> 00:40:10,140 A different copy in Lancelot Grail back several folios in the middle. 359 00:40:10,650 --> 00:40:20,549 But in that case, the missing sections are actually supplied by a 15th century scribe here has put in old French, 360 00:40:20,550 --> 00:40:25,950 but in a 15th century hand the section that is missing so that linguistically, 361 00:40:25,950 --> 00:40:34,710 if not visually, similar in contrast to the visual hybridity, the reading experience provided by the Digby manuscript. 362 00:40:34,740 --> 00:40:42,450 But it's missing beginning and end, and its plot summaries is an immersive, multilingual one, asking readers to pick up and start reading. 363 00:40:44,530 --> 00:40:49,479 By way of conclusion, I'd like to offer some thoughts on the ways in which other copies of Lancelot Grail 364 00:40:49,480 --> 00:40:53,860 from England also gesture towards the multilingual experience of Arthurian literature. 365 00:40:55,180 --> 00:41:00,190 At least two readers added English summarising notes to the findings of their manuscripts. 366 00:41:00,340 --> 00:41:03,850 So here, Richard Bruce, who you might know as the translator of QWERTY, 367 00:41:03,850 --> 00:41:10,360 is built on some messy sorry advertising as the contents of his book with a kind of mini English summary, 368 00:41:10,460 --> 00:41:18,910 which that's the transcription of it, much more legible. He records the contents of the manuscript and helps locate the beginnings of 369 00:41:18,910 --> 00:41:23,020 each branch within the codex by describing the material on which it's written. 370 00:41:23,890 --> 00:41:28,930 Yet Bruce also seems to assume that future readers will know what the first book of Sun, 371 00:41:28,930 --> 00:41:34,690 Gro and the Book of Tristram and Lancelot are to want to find these sections. 372 00:41:34,870 --> 00:41:42,040 You already have to know what they're about. A different reader describes this manuscript as The Chronicles of England, 373 00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:45,640 beginning at Joseph and so forth of Arthur and his knights called the ST Group. 374 00:41:46,660 --> 00:41:54,060 This description is actually vague, as if expecting readers to know who Joseph is and how they aspire to send out connects to later branches. 375 00:41:54,070 --> 00:42:04,750 A glancing round for the title Chronicles of England seems to demonstrate a particularly generic alignment, along with a glimpse of the narrative arc. 376 00:42:06,340 --> 00:42:14,500 Both English believe notes distil a sprawling narrative into just a few words, providing future readers with a conception of the organisation. 377 00:42:14,740 --> 00:42:21,490 Each manuscript by equipping others from a tool that grasps the content of these two Arthurian manuscripts. 378 00:42:21,670 --> 00:42:26,740 The Flyleaf notes. I like the Digby glasses, but on a very edited scale. 379 00:42:27,790 --> 00:42:33,610 Written in English, the two inscriptions make visible the multilingual readers of our material in England. 380 00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:38,110 They reflect a convergence of languages where English can digest French. 381 00:42:40,420 --> 00:42:47,770 Further, if we return to those manuscripts of Glenn Sacra with annotations, we find glimmers of multilingualism there as well. 382 00:42:48,430 --> 00:42:56,200 The 15th century English French used by the Annotators is quite different from the 13th century continental French. 383 00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:59,230 The text to highlight just one glass. 384 00:42:59,260 --> 00:43:04,050 This is Richard Ruse again. His comments come on, Le Mans. 385 00:43:04,360 --> 00:43:08,920 They decided to do the reading. And then you can see. 386 00:43:09,970 --> 00:43:16,700 He's ignored. The gender of nouns here, mayor should not be there. 387 00:43:19,670 --> 00:43:23,300 So his anglo-norman is different from what we find below. 388 00:43:24,910 --> 00:43:28,900 The extent to which Bruce's French differs from the other continental French 389 00:43:28,930 --> 00:43:33,190 allows us to perhaps see these French annotations as a sign of multilingualism. 390 00:43:34,270 --> 00:43:41,950 At such moments when Anglo-French Latin or English words appear on the page, the monolingual reading experience is disrupted. 391 00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:47,680 The visual reminders that reading the Lancelot Grail in England must always already be multilingual. 392 00:43:48,730 --> 00:43:53,890 For a 13th century French in 15th century England requires a process of internal translation. 393 00:43:54,070 --> 00:44:00,700 Even if that translation is just from one variety of French to another, 300 year old language is no one's native tongue. 394 00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:09,000 And then there are times where it's hard to tell what language a reader might think of the Lancelot Grail in. 395 00:44:10,370 --> 00:44:19,429 One owner marks the manuscript as Lancelot in Gallico, Segundo, Folio Canoe, Manafort and Folio Second Folio Canoe, 396 00:44:19,430 --> 00:44:24,890 which is a library shelf marking to help you identify which book is being described. 397 00:44:26,780 --> 00:44:32,810 But what language is this phrase? Actually, in Kundu quotes the first two where it's the second folio. 398 00:44:33,710 --> 00:44:39,200 But is that a quotation in 13th century French, or is it a 15th century French adaptation? 399 00:44:40,010 --> 00:44:43,370 The word gallico seems straightforwardly Latin, but what about in? 400 00:44:43,580 --> 00:44:47,390 Is that? Is that the Latin or the English preposition? 401 00:44:47,810 --> 00:44:55,400 Is it Lancelot or Lost? No. These words require a kind of linguistic double vision taken singly. 402 00:44:55,400 --> 00:45:02,990 It's completely nonsense. But together they make perfect sense, even as we cannot pinpoint what the languages are that are making up the title. 403 00:45:03,650 --> 00:45:11,870 This slightly forced confusion over single words which nonetheless can be deciphered without any conscious recognition of one language or another, 404 00:45:12,650 --> 00:45:18,770 allows us to see that sometimes reading can occur in multiple languages at once and maybe in no language at all. 405 00:45:20,030 --> 00:45:24,800 There's no firm boundary for where we might call words French, Latin or English. 406 00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:29,419 But reader doesn't need to know that information in order to understand that this is 407 00:45:29,420 --> 00:45:34,250 talking about a book of French Arthurian romance and to have an idea of its narrative. 408 00:45:36,240 --> 00:45:41,490 The reading of any particular Lancelot Grail manuscript operates alongside pre-existing knowledge of 409 00:45:41,490 --> 00:45:47,670 Arthurian characters from sources in multiple languages that we find in so many of the annotations. 410 00:45:48,510 --> 00:45:52,920 At least one reader made a direct comparison between French and English Arthurian narrative. 411 00:45:53,190 --> 00:45:57,030 Commenting in the middle of the astronomer Anna that here begins the book that 412 00:45:57,030 --> 00:46:00,960 Sir Thomas Malory brought into English and was printed by William Caxton. 413 00:46:02,510 --> 00:46:06,680 By creating this bibliographical link between the English and French texts, 414 00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:15,320 the annotator may explain the reading of one Arthurian text being is read in relation to its counterparts, even in other languages. 415 00:46:17,850 --> 00:46:24,749 They hope to have shown reading Arthurian literature in French in the 15th century is not an isolated experience of a French text, 416 00:46:24,750 --> 00:46:30,120 but one that draws on and is connected to the reading of other texts, other genres and other languages. 417 00:46:31,370 --> 00:46:37,490 Even at moments when reading in French, seems most inwardly focussed on the particular actions of a particular night. 418 00:46:38,030 --> 00:46:42,260 There are ways of associating that reading with larger modes of reading in England at the time. 419 00:46:43,610 --> 00:46:51,050 Reading French in the 15th century isn't an oddity. But there are odd readers of French like the Annotator of Dignity 83, 420 00:46:51,350 --> 00:46:58,940 who nevertheless draws on a general experience of reading in order to represent a manuscript for contemporary English audience. 421 00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:06,139 With the various types of multilingual contact might show is a society where certain types of literary knowledge 422 00:47:06,140 --> 00:47:13,520 are embedded cultural phenomenon such that characters and stories can work across and maybe even out of language. 423 00:47:14,510 --> 00:47:19,670 For the 15th century, English reader or three, literature is always already multilingual, 424 00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:26,150 and the experience of reading it forces language, contacts and manuscripts that we might not always be able to see or capture. 425 00:47:29,020 --> 00:47:36,100 Reading a French book in England is an experience that's difficult to sum up here, not only because of the diversity of the manuscripts, 426 00:47:36,190 --> 00:47:40,270 but also because the diversity of readers and the experiences they bring to the page. 427 00:47:41,260 --> 00:47:48,370 Well, I focus on the last thought, Brown. We can think more broadly about the many other texts in England that exist in multiple languages, 428 00:47:48,550 --> 00:47:56,740 like translations of Christine de Pizan or something as simple as the Paternoster might have in common with this type of reading. 429 00:47:57,670 --> 00:48:02,320 Such texts are bred against a background of translating activity and multilingualism. 430 00:48:03,340 --> 00:48:09,220 Even those works that exist in a single language also exist in this environment and are influenced by it. 431 00:48:10,240 --> 00:48:15,700 Such that you get little translations. Alongside a monolingual text. 432 00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:22,260 Reading French and England seems to necessitate a negotiation between text and reader, 433 00:48:22,590 --> 00:48:29,580 not only about what language to bring in, if that is even a choice, but also about how that language will be internalised. 434 00:48:30,390 --> 00:48:34,890 English readers like the reader who adds notes on fruits and vegetables here, 435 00:48:34,890 --> 00:48:41,610 and John Phastos manuscript reform and recreate their manuscripts both physically and internally. 436 00:48:42,540 --> 00:48:50,460 Perhaps it's best then not to think of these manuscripts as French books, but rather books that are in French that are being read in an English way. 437 00:48:51,330 --> 00:48:51,720 Thank you.