Lincoln Thornton Manuscript
Encyclopedia
The Lincoln Thornton Manuscript is a medieval
manuscript
compiled and copied by the fifteenth-century English
scribe
and landowner Robert Thornton
. The manuscript is notable for containing single versions of important poems such as the Alliterative Morte Arthure
and Sir Perceval of Galles
, and gives evidence of the variegated literary culture of fifteenth-century England. The manuscript contains three main sections: the first one contains mainly narrative poems (romances
, for the most part); the second contains mainly religious poems and includes texts by Richard Rolle
, giving evidence of works by that author which are now lost; and the third section contains a medical treatise, the Liber de diversis medicinis.
. It was written between 1430 and 1440 in a northern dialect.
Most likely, Thornton prepared a number of quires and copied texts on them as they became available, and may have collected both his manuscripts out of the same collection of individual quires. Some quires show evidence of having been used or read independently before being bound together. For instance, the beginning of the Alliterative Morte Arthure (AMA), which starts quire d, has rounded edges and a "faint grimy sheen," suggesting that this quire "was left unbound for some time, absorbing the dust."
The beginning of the manuscript is "dominate[d]" by romances; the rest of the manuscript contains "religious and medicinal tracts in prose and verse." The organization suggests the compiler's recognition of genre. The variety of genres found in the manuscript is deemed to be representative of what Edmund Spenser
may have been influenced by in composing The Faerie Queene
. Because of the different genres represented it has been termed a "household miscellany."
. Noteworthy also is The Previte off the Passioune, a translation of a text by Bonaventure
.
s, with a comparatively great number found in the first two texts: the Prose Alexander (PA) has one large initial and a hundred and three smaller initials and the Alliterative Morte Arthure (AMA) has eighty-two small decorated initials. The PA also has nine blank spaces, left open for large initials or illustrations. This density is additional evidence that the quires containing these texts were separate booklets. While it was long assumed that Thornton had made the initials himself, Joel Fredell distinguished three distinctly different styles and argued they were made by professional artists. Fredell states that the PA was prepared for the richest illustrative program in the manuscript, which Thornton for a variety of reasons (financial and political) was not able to execute; he may not have had the money or the available resources in his area to complete it. The AMA was finished professionally, assuming second place in the intended ranking of the texts; and a lesser scheme was laid out for the other texts.
in Yorkshire
as well as an amateur scribe
and collector. There are many mistakes in the manuscript, which is written in "a fairly typical mid-fifteenth-century cursive hand." The name "Robert Thornton" is signed a few items, and the phrase R. Thornton dictus qui scripsit sit benedictus ("May the said R. Thornton who wrote this be blessed") occurs four times, and is also found in Thornton's other manuscript, the London Thornton Manuscript
(London, British Library, Add. MS 31042).
(EETS). The Richard Rolle
material was published at the end of the nineteenth century by Carl Horstmann. The Liber de Diversis Medicinis was published in 1938 by Margaret Ogden for the EETS. A facsimile of the manuscript was published in 1975 by Derek Brewer
and A.E.B. Owen, who had disbound and examined it the year before. The facsimile was updated and reprinted in 1977.
Derek Brewer calculated that there must have been at least six now-lost manuscripts that provided the source material for the Thornton MS, which evidences a wide "spread of manuscripts now lost." Sir Percyvelle, for instance, was originally composed in the fourteenth century in a north-east Midland dialect, and one version would have traveled north to be copied by Thornton while another traveled south to be referenced by Geoffrey Chaucer
in Sir Thopas
.
The manuscript is also seen as evidence of a change in religiosity taking place during the fifteenth century, when a broader dispersion of religious material began to obviate the need for "priestly mediation". Its inclusion of a sermon by the Benedictine monk John Gaytryge is considered "evidence of lay people taking responsibility for teaching themselves their 'catechism'....The laity were increasingly able to instruct themselves."
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
compiled and copied by the fifteenth-century English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
scribe
Scribe
A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
and landowner Robert Thornton
Robert Thornton (scribe)
Robert Thornton was a Yorkshire landowner, a member of the landed gentry. His efforts as an amateur scribe and manuscript compiler resulted in the preservation of many valuable works of Middle English literature, and have given him an important place in its history.-Biography:Thornton's name is...
. The manuscript is notable for containing single versions of important poems such as the Alliterative Morte Arthure
Alliterative Morte Arthure
The Alliterative Morte Arthure is a 4346-line Middle English alliterative poem, retelling the latter part of the legend of King Arthur. It is preserved in a single copy, in the early fifteenth-century Lincoln Thornton Manuscript.-History:...
and Sir Perceval of Galles
Sir Perceval of Galles
Sir Perceval of Galles is a Middle English Arthurian verse romance whose protagonist, Sir Perceval, made his debut in medieval literature well over a hundred years before the composition of this work; in Chrétien de Troyes' final poem, the twelfth-century Old French Conte del Graal...
, and gives evidence of the variegated literary culture of fifteenth-century England. The manuscript contains three main sections: the first one contains mainly narrative poems (romances
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
, for the most part); the second contains mainly religious poems and includes texts by Richard Rolle
Richard Rolle
Rolle is honored in the Church of England on January 20 and in the Episcopal Church together with Walter Hilton and Margery Kempe on September 28.-Works in print:*English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Edited by George Perry...
, giving evidence of works by that author which are now lost; and the third section contains a medical treatise, the Liber de diversis medicinis.
Manuscript
The Lincoln Thornton Manuscript (sometimes simply referred to as "the" Thornton manuscript) consists of seventeen quires of varying numbers of sheets. The manuscript is catalogued as Lincoln, Cathedral Library MS 91 (formerly A.5.2), and is held in the Lincoln Cathedral LibraryLincoln Cathedral Library
The Lincoln Cathedral Library is a library of Lincoln Cathedral, Lincolnshire, England.-Collections:Lincoln cathedral library is perhaps the finest rare book library in the East Midlands and among the top five cathedral library collections in England. In addition there is a modern reference...
. It was written between 1430 and 1440 in a northern dialect.
Most likely, Thornton prepared a number of quires and copied texts on them as they became available, and may have collected both his manuscripts out of the same collection of individual quires. Some quires show evidence of having been used or read independently before being bound together. For instance, the beginning of the Alliterative Morte Arthure (AMA), which starts quire d, has rounded edges and a "faint grimy sheen," suggesting that this quire "was left unbound for some time, absorbing the dust."
Contents
The texts in the manuscript fall into three main sections. The first (gatherings A-K) contains mainly romances interspersed with an occasional miscellaneous texts; the second (L-P) contains mainly religious texts; the third (Q) contains the Liber de diversis medicinis, a collection of medical lore.The beginning of the manuscript is "dominate[d]" by romances; the rest of the manuscript contains "religious and medicinal tracts in prose and verse." The organization suggests the compiler's recognition of genre. The variety of genres found in the manuscript is deemed to be representative of what Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
may have been influenced by in composing The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English...
. Because of the different genres represented it has been termed a "household miscellany."
Romance
In the list below, short miscellaneous texts are indented. Titles are represented as given by Brewer and Owen's facsimile edition.- Prose Life of AlexanderProse Life of AlexanderThe Prose Life of Alexander is a Middle English prose romance extant in a single copy, found in the mid-fifteenth century Lincoln Thornton Manuscript. It was edited by J.S...
(unique)- "Prognostication of weather"
- Lamentacio Peccatoris (prologue to Adulterous Falmouth Squire)
- Morte ArthureAlliterative Morte ArthureThe Alliterative Morte Arthure is a 4346-line Middle English alliterative poem, retelling the latter part of the legend of King Arthur. It is preserved in a single copy, in the early fifteenth-century Lincoln Thornton Manuscript.-History:...
(unique) - The Romance of Octovyane
- The Romance of Sir YsambraceSir IsumbrasSir Isumbras is a medieval metrical romance written in Middle English and found in no fewer than nine manuscripts dating to the fifteenth century...
- The Romance of DyoclicyaneErl of ToulouseThe Erl of Toulouse is a medieval English chivalric romance centered on an innocent persecuted wife. It is supposed to be a translated lai, but the original lai is lost.-Synopsis:...
- Vita Sancti ChristoforiSaint Christopher.Saint Christopher is a saint venerated by Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, listed as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd century Roman Emperor Decius or alternatively under the Roman Emperor Maximinus II Dacian...
- Sir DegrevantSir DegrevantSir Degrevant is a Middle English romance from the early fifteenth century. Generally classified as a "composite romance," that is, a romance that does not fit easily into the standard classification of romances, it is praised for its realism and plot...
e - Sir EglamourSir Eglamour of ArtoisSir Eglamour of Artois is a Middle English verse romance that was written sometime around 1350. It is a narrative poem of about 1300 lines, a tail-rhyme romance that was quite popular in its day, judging from the number of copies that have survived – four manuscripts from the 15th century or...
- De miraculo beate Marie
- Lyarde
- Thomas of ErsseldouneThomas the RhymerThomas Learmonth , better known as Thomas the Rhymer or True Thomas, was a 13th century Scottish laird and reputed prophet from Earlston . He is also the protagonist of the ballad "Thomas the Rhymer"...
- The Awentyrs of Arthure at the Terne WathelyneThe Awntyrs off ArthureThe Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne is an Arthurian romance of 702 lines written in Middle English alliterative verse. Despite its title, it centres on the deeds of Sir Gawain...
- The Romance off Sir Percyvelle of GalesSir Perceval of GallesSir Perceval of Galles is a Middle English Arthurian verse romance whose protagonist, Sir Perceval, made his debut in medieval literature well over a hundred years before the composition of this work; in Chrétien de Troyes' final poem, the twelfth-century Old French Conte del Graal...
(unique)- "Three Charms for Toothache"
- Epistola Sancti Salvatoris
- A Preyere off the Ffyve Ioyes of oure lady
- ffyve prayers
Religion
This section contains, besides sermons, hymns, and prayer, a number of texts by Richard RolleRichard Rolle
Rolle is honored in the Church of England on January 20 and in the Episcopal Church together with Walter Hilton and Margery Kempe on September 28.-Works in print:*English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Edited by George Perry...
. Noteworthy also is The Previte off the Passioune, a translation of a text by Bonaventure
Bonaventure
Saint Bonaventure, O.F.M., , born John of Fidanza , was an Italian medieval scholastic theologian and philosopher. The seventh Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, he was also a Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He was canonized on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the...
.
Medicine
The third section, consisting of quire q, contains Liber de diversis medicinis, a collection of medical advice and recipes. It is described as "the usual mixture of genuine therapeutic lore and humbug" and includes a recipe "for to gare a woman say what þu askes hir." The text builds on both local, vernacular texts and "the learned Latin recipe traditions."Illuminations
The manuscript is illustrated with initialInitial
In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a work, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is derived from the Latin initialis, which means standing at the beginning...
s, with a comparatively great number found in the first two texts: the Prose Alexander (PA) has one large initial and a hundred and three smaller initials and the Alliterative Morte Arthure (AMA) has eighty-two small decorated initials. The PA also has nine blank spaces, left open for large initials or illustrations. This density is additional evidence that the quires containing these texts were separate booklets. While it was long assumed that Thornton had made the initials himself, Joel Fredell distinguished three distinctly different styles and argued they were made by professional artists. Fredell states that the PA was prepared for the richest illustrative program in the manuscript, which Thornton for a variety of reasons (financial and political) was not able to execute; he may not have had the money or the available resources in his area to complete it. The AMA was finished professionally, assuming second place in the intended ranking of the texts; and a lesser scheme was laid out for the other texts.
The compiler
Robert Thornton was a member of the landed gentryLanded gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....
in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
as well as an amateur scribe
Scribe
A scribe is a person who writes books or documents by hand as a profession and helps the city keep track of its records. The profession, previously found in all literate cultures in some form, lost most of its importance and status with the advent of printing...
and collector. There are many mistakes in the manuscript, which is written in "a fairly typical mid-fifteenth-century cursive hand." The name "Robert Thornton" is signed a few items, and the phrase R. Thornton dictus qui scripsit sit benedictus ("May the said R. Thornton who wrote this be blessed") occurs four times, and is also found in Thornton's other manuscript, the London Thornton Manuscript
London Thornton Manuscript
The London Thornton Manuscript is a medieval manuscript compiled and copied by the fifteenth-century English scribe and landowner Robert Thornton...
(London, British Library, Add. MS 31042).
Publication history
The manuscript was rediscovered in the nineteenth century. In 1866 and 1867, the religious texts in the Thornton manuscripts were published for the Early English Text SocietyEarly English Text Society
The Early English Text Society is an organization to reprint early English texts, especially those only available in manuscript. Most of its volumes are in Middle English and Old English...
(EETS). The Richard Rolle
Richard Rolle
Rolle is honored in the Church of England on January 20 and in the Episcopal Church together with Walter Hilton and Margery Kempe on September 28.-Works in print:*English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle of Hampole, Edited by George Perry...
material was published at the end of the nineteenth century by Carl Horstmann. The Liber de Diversis Medicinis was published in 1938 by Margaret Ogden for the EETS. A facsimile of the manuscript was published in 1975 by Derek Brewer
Derek Brewer
Derek Stanley Brewer was a medieval scholar, author and publisher.-Life:Born in Cardiff, Wales, the son of a clerk with General Electric, Brewer read English at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was taught, among others, by C.S. Lewis...
and A.E.B. Owen, who had disbound and examined it the year before. The facsimile was updated and reprinted in 1977.
Importance
The Lincoln Thornton MS and the London Thornton MS are of great value since they are the sole witnesses for much of their content; according to Michael Johnston, "his two compilations can be counted among the most important textual witnesses to Middle English romance."Derek Brewer calculated that there must have been at least six now-lost manuscripts that provided the source material for the Thornton MS, which evidences a wide "spread of manuscripts now lost." Sir Percyvelle, for instance, was originally composed in the fourteenth century in a north-east Midland dialect, and one version would have traveled north to be copied by Thornton while another traveled south to be referenced by Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
in Sir Thopas
Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas
Sir Thopas is a story in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales published in 1387.In Canterbury Tales, there is a character named Geoffrey Chaucer. Chaucer's portrait of himself is unflattering and humble. He presents himself as a reticent, maladroit figure who can barely summon a tale to mind...
.
The manuscript is also seen as evidence of a change in religiosity taking place during the fifteenth century, when a broader dispersion of religious material began to obviate the need for "priestly mediation". Its inclusion of a sermon by the Benedictine monk John Gaytryge is considered "evidence of lay people taking responsibility for teaching themselves their 'catechism'....The laity were increasingly able to instruct themselves."