Charming the Snake: Accessing and Disciplining the Medieval Manuscript.
- Author/Editor
- Echard, Siân.
Prescott, Andrew.
- Title
- Charming the Snake: Accessing and Disciplining the Medieval Manuscript.
- Published
- Echard, Siân and Andrew Prescott. "Charming the Snake: Accessing and Disciplining the Medieval Manuscript," in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval British Manuscripts, ed. Orieta Da Rold and Elaine Treharne (Cambridge University Press, 2020), pp. 237-66.
- Review
- This informative chapter discusses scholars' access to medieval British manuscripts from the time of their production to the present (2020), taking one manuscript, British Library, Cotton MS. Tiberius A. IV, a collection of John Gower's Latin poems, as a focal point for current access but at times extending further to discuss access in more general terms. For experienced scholars, the description of how one gains access to manuscripts in the British Library won't have added much to their knowledge. The interesting part comes as Prescott and Echard discuss how collections came into the British Library, why the Library changed the shelfmarks, for some while they retained the previous collectors' shelfmarks for others like the Royal and Cotton collections, and how the holdings of medieval charters, printed books, etc. cause some confusion in the shelfmarks seemingly duplicated when we use contracted forms. Prescott's insider knowledge of the workings behind the circulation desk at the British Library both before and after its move to St. Pancras enables them to explain how and why the Library came to classify some manuscripts as "Select" while others seemingly just as important remain ordinary. They also describe how decisions about the handling, display and conservation of manuscripts were made by different Keepers of Manuscripts. Prescott's insider glimpses into how and where the manuscripts are kept in storage and fetched when we request them, and explanations for the historical classifications by which the Library decided which to protect during the two world wars and which could be kept at the Library are also interesting. Echard then picks up the story to describe how modern scholars access manuscripts other than "in person," through photographs, facsimiles, microfilm and (now) digital imagery on line. Her frustrations as a North American scholar, on the west coast at that, pinpoint the difficulties of access for those not based close to the collections. Branching out to look more widely at the manuscripts of Gower's works held in libraries other than the British Library, she reviews which sorts of libraries have had the resources to digitize their manuscripts, and points out the pressures on libraries and archives to digitize not only English medieval manuscripts with which we are interested but also modern collections, which are much more numerous. This last year (2023-4), the ransomware attack on the British Library's IT system has only exacerbated these frustrations, even for scholars closer to the British Library than Echard. All in all, this is a wonderfully informative article focussed on a manuscript of Gower's non-English works but teaching us much more about the issues of access, both historically and at present, that we all face when studying medieval manuscripts. [LM. Copyright. John Gower Society. eJGN 43.2]
- Date
- 2020
- Gower Subjects
- Manuscripts and Textual Studies
Facsimiles, Editions, and Translations
Backgrounds and General Criticism