Lists and the Poetics of Reckoning in Middle English Culture

List of Figures

Introduction: The Metaphysics of a List and the Culture of Reckoning

Figure I.1: HM 30319, f. v verso, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California

Figure I.2: The National Archives (UK), E 101/45/17

Figure I.3: Tokens

Figure I.4: Internal structure of a list item, diagram #1

Figure I.5: London, Metropolitan Archives, P69/MRY4/B/005/MS01239/001/001, f. 67. The Parochial Church Council of St Mary-at-Hill Church

Figure I.6: (c) The British Library Board, Additional MS 57334

Figure I.7: Bullet point styles in Word

Figure I.8: “Bullet points” in LuA 2 Berlin, Vorderasiatisches Museum, W 11986,a / VAT 17685 / P00011

Figure I.9: Cambridge, St. John’s College Library MS E.24, f. 45v

Figure I.10: Internal structure of a list item, diagram #2

Figure I.11: Cambridge, University Library MS Ff.5.48, f. 43v

Chapter 1: Turning and Dwelling in the Time of a Schedule

Figure 1.1: HM 1125 f. 31, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California

Figure 1.2: HM 1086, f. 77v, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California

Figure 1.3: HM 1086, f. 78, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California

Figure 1.4: Cambridge, Trinity College MS B.11.7, f. 76r

Figure 1.5: Cambridge, Trinity College MS B.11.7, f. 1r

Figure 1.6: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford, MS. Douce 322, f. 2.

Figure 1.7: London Lambeth Palace Library MS 878, f. 183

Figure 1.8: HM 1086 f. 1, detail, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California

Chapter 2: Ten, Five, and Seven: The Rule of the Cardinal Number in the List Form

Figure 2.1: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford, MS. Tanner 407, f. 52v, detail

Figure 2.2: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, MS M.917/945, p. 300

Figure 2.3: London, British Museum EA10470,31

Figure 2.4: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford, MS. Eng. Poet. a. 1, f. 231v

Figure 2.5: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford, MS. Eng. Poet. a. 1, f. 231v, detail

Figure 2.6: (c) The British Library Board, Harley MS 1648, f. 5

Figure 2.7: (c) The British Library Board, Arundel MS 83, f. 129v

Figure 2.8: (c) The British Library Board, Royal MS 14 B.ix, f. 9

Figure 2.9: The Bodleian Libraries, The University of Oxford, MS. Bodley 264, f. 60, detail

Figure 2.10: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, MS M.108, f. 133v

Chapter 3: From Here to Infinity: The Extensible Poetics of the Itinerary Form

Figure 3.1: EL 26.A.13, f. 115v, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California

Figure 3.2: (c) The British Library Board, Royal MS 14.C.viii, f. 2r

Figure 3.3: Scottish Catholic Historical Collection, MS GB 0240 CB/57/9, olim Blairs College 9

Figure 3.4: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cod. Ital. 81, f. 18, detail

Figure 3.5: The Newberry Library Chicago, Manuscript 32

Figure 3.6: The Newberry Library Chicago, Manuscript 32

Acknowledgements

For their support and generosity over the years I have enjoyed writing this book, I have many people and institutions to thank. Early support came in the form of a New York University Humanities Initiative Fellowship, and I thank Jane Tylus for facilitating many productive conversations among my cohort of fellows. During that fellowship I wrote a draft of the book’s introduction and developed a plan of chapters, so I was grateful soon after that to meet another student of lists in the person of Eva von Contzen, whom I thank for inviting me to spend a memorable week discussing lists with her at the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies. There followed an NEH Huntington Library Academic Year Fellowship and with it my gratitude to Danna Agmon, who initiated the morning group writing sessions during which I benefited from many hours of writing-comradery with Danna, Alice Fahs, Daniel Immerwahr, Julie Park, and Tawny Paul. During that fellowship, Laura Kendrick invited me to contribute to the second workshop of Project POLIMA (Le Pouvoir des Listes au Moyen Âge) in Bordeaux France, where I presented and later published an early version of this book’s second chapter on the cardinality of lists. My thanks go to Laura, to the Project’s coordinator, Pierre Chastang, and to its funder, the French Agence Nationale de la Research. I left the Huntington with first drafts of the three chapters of this book; a second year-long fellowship, this time an NEH National Humanities Center Fellowship, brought the book almost to completion. For their help during that year, I am especially grateful to the miracle-working NHC librarians and to the writing group that formed at the Center, especially its regulars: Eugene Clay, Melissa Mueller, Ann Rowland, and Shuang Shen. Even more special thanks go to Eugene and Shuang, for the three of us still meet weekly to share progress reports on our writing projects and to set goals for the week ahead. During my year at the NHC, I also had the opportunity, thanks to NYU’s English Department, to convene a Manuscript-in-Progress Workshop. I am grateful to all of the Workshop’s participants—Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, Juliet Fleming, Jeffrey Hamburger, and Karenleigh Overmann—for their thoughtful comments and suggestions on the manuscript. I remember the day of the Workshop as a peak academic experience. I am also grateful for the two NYU Global Research Initiative Fellowships I have received, which made it possible for me to conduct extensive manuscript research at the British Library and at libraries in Oxford and Cambridge. Several research assistants have been a terrific help in getting this book over the finish line: many thank-yous to Trisha Gupta, Krystin Christy, E.G. Asher, and Mathilde Montpetit. For their steady belief in this project over the long haul of its development, I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Christopher Baswell, Mary Carruthers, and Stephen Nichols. Stephen Barney’s essay “Chaucer’s Lists” inspired me at the very beginning of my writing and research for this book; I am grateful to him for writing it, and I thank both him and Mary Carruthers for reading this book’s penultimate draft. All remaining infelicities are mine. For her love and company all this time, my greatest thanks are to and for my wife Leslie Myrick.

Abbreviations

A Manual: A Manual of Writings in Middle English 1050–1500. General Editor Albert E. Hartung. New Haven: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1967–2005.

Catholic Encyclopedia: The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. New Advent, 2010. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/>.

CCCM: Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis. Turnhout: Brepols.

CCSL: Corpus Christianorum Series Latina. Turnhout: Brepols.

Corsair: Corsair: Online Collection Catalogue. The Morgan Library & Museum. <https://corsair.themorgan.org/>.

CSEL: Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. After 2012: De Gruyter, Berlin.

Digital Scriptorium: <https://digital-scriptorium.org/>

DIMEV: The DIMEV: An Open-Access, Digital Edition of the Index of Middle English Verse. Edited by Linne R. Mooney, Daniel W. Mosser, and Elizabeth Solopova <https://www.dimev.net/>.

DMLBS: Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources. Edited by R. K. Ashdowne, D. R. Howlett, and R. E. Latham. Oxford: British Academy, 2018.

DRBO: Douay-Rheims Bible Online. <https://www.drbo.org/>.

Horae Eboracenses: Horae Eboracenses: the Prymer or Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary according to the use of the illustrious church of York; with other devotions as they were used by the lay-folk in the Northern Province in the XVth and XVIth centuries. Edited by Christopher Wordsworth. Surtees Society 132. Durham UK: Andrews, 1920.

Le grand Robert: Le grand Robert de la langue fançaise. Version électronique, Netherlands: Bureau van Dijk, 2001.

Lewis and Short: Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, editors. A Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon, 1879.

MED: Middle English Dictionary. Edited by Robert E. Lewis, et al. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1952–2001. Online edition in Middle English Compendium. Ed. Frances McSparran, et al. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Library, 2000–2018. <http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/>.

NIMEV: A New Index of Middle English Verse. Edited by Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards. London: British Library, 2005.

OED: Oxford English Dictionary. Online edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. <https://www.oed.com/>.

PL: Patrologia Latina Database. Jacques-Paul Migne’s Patrologia Latina (1844–1855 and 1862–1865). <https://www.proquest.com/patrologialatina>.

Riverside: Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. The Riverside Chaucer. General editor Larry D. Benson. 3rd ed. New York: Houghton, 1987.

STC: A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland and Ireland, and of English Books Printed Abroad 1475–1640. Edited by A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, second edition, revised and enlarged, begun by W. A. Jackson and F. S. Ferguson, completed by K. F. Pantzer. London: The Bibliographical Society, 1991.

INTRODUCTION The Metaphysics of a List and the Culture of Reckoning

The names of the saints whose relics are held here at Battle Abbey. First, of the wood of the cross, which is the holiest of the holy [and]…

Of the sepulcher of the lord

Of the soil where he was born

Of the foreskin of the lord

Of the cradle (i.e. manger) of the lord

Of the swaddling cloth of the lord

Of the soil upon which he stood when he was baptized …¹

So begins a list of 170-some relics of the life of Christ and of saints in the possession of Battle Abbey, a Benedictine monastery founded in 1071 by William I at the site of the Battle of Hastings as a memorial to those who had fallen there five years previously.² As the list continues, it enumerates additional relics from the life of Christ—including part of the marble table at which he and his mother and his disciples dined, part of the stone in which the cross was fixed, and part of the stone on which he was standing when he ascended to heaven—and moves on to a wide variety of other sacred remains, including the handkerchief of St. Nicholas, part of the rod of Aaron, thirteen teeth of St. Brigid, part of the marble on which the angel Gabriel stood when he greeted Mary, the arm of St. Christopher, part of the head of St. Thomas of Canterbury, several of the rocks used in the stoning of St. Sebastian, and hairs of the beards of the apostles Peter, Paul, Andrew, and Matthew. The list is signed by Thomas Byrd, cellarer of Battle Abbey during the years 1436–38; it is preserved today on the flyleaves of a manuscript in the collection of the Huntington Library in San Marino California (MS HM 30319, ff. v–vi verso). The list is important as an historical record because it is the only documentation we have of the treasury of relics held at Battle Abbey. Thanks to its list form, however, this historical record exceeds its documentary function and puts the abbey’s treasury on display in the form of a wealth of names and concrete nouns, which call images to a reader’s mind of the objects and sacred persons they represent. In fact, we might call that reader a viewer since the list form, lacking syntactic connections just as relics of saints lack the sinews of once living bodies, affords him the opportunity to dwell on those mental images one at a time as if he were moving through an actual exhibit of the abbey’s relics.³

While the text of this list of relics thus appeals to the mind’s eyes, its written appearance plays to our physical eyes as well, exemplifying the way a written list presents a challenge to our readerly priorities and procedures. Particularly in the case of a vertically formatted list like this one, a reader is put off his game from the outset, forced to adjust to moving precipitously down the page rather than following a more leisurely route from left to right—and then down. A viewer, on the other hand, need only glance at a list in order to recognize it as such; no reading required. A vertical orientation was preferred in the Middle Ages just as it is now for items in stand-alone lists despite the expanses of blank page space the arrangement entails, whether of parchment or scratch paper. In the list of the relics of Battle Abbey, its double column display helps to economize on space, but more and more blank parchment appears as the list goes on and its entries become shorter, consisting mainly of saints’ names with an occasional mention of a finger or bones. In this way, a stretch of the second column on the list’s second page (Figure I.1) reads,

[relics] of St. Benedict

of St. Cuthbert