Medieval manuscripts can tell us much about power and art, knowledge and beauty. Many have survived because of an author’s status part of the reason we have so much of Chaucer’s writing, for example, is because he was a London-based government official first and a poet second. Other works by the less influential have narrowly avoided ruin, like the book of illiterate Margery Kempe, found in a country house closet, the cover nibbled on by mice. Scholar Mary Wellesley recounts the amazing origins of these remarkable manuscripts, surfacing the important roles played by women and ordinary people the grinders, binders, and scribes in their creation and survival.

Product Details

9781541675087
Hardcover
9.6 in H | 6.4 in W | 1.4 in T | 1.3 lb Wt
352 Pages

Published By Basic Books