ENGAGING WORDS

THE NEW MIDDLE AGES

l30NNIE WHEELER
Series Editor

The 1\'ew ;\fiddle A,i,'es presents transdisciplinary studies of medieval cultures.

It includes both scholarly monographs and essay collections.

PUBLISHED BY PALCRAVE:
VV..mtcn in the .Hcdic1ul lsla111ic f hnld: Pou'ct; Hltronagc, and Piety
edited by Gavin R. G. Hambly
The f..'rhics '!fi':arurc in the .\fiddle A,i,'cs: On Boccaccio :,· Poctaphysics
by Gregory B. Stone
Prcsmcc and Presmtation: f·v(llnen in rite Chinese Literati Iradition
by Sherry J. Mou
I11e Lost Liwc Letters o( Heloise and Ahelard:
Perceptions'!{ Dialog11C in "lil'elfih-Century France
by Constant J. Mews
Undcrstandill,i,' Schof£L,tic Thought ll'ith Foucault
by Philipp W. Rosemann
For Her Good Estate:Tite Li(e of Eli::abctlt de Bu1;i,'h
by Frances Underhill
Constwctio11s oflilid,,wftood allii Vi1;s;inity in the .'diddle A.~cs
edited by Cindy L. Carlson and Angela Jane Weisl
A1othcrlwod a11d Alorhering in A11glo-Saxon Engl,md
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Listening to Heloise: 71te V(,frc '!fa Tit'c{{t!t-Ccntury !Hmtml
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The PostroloniallHiddlc Axes
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Cha11rcr'1 Pardoner and Gender Theory: Bodies '!f Discourse
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Crossing the Bril(r.;c: Compararivc Essays 011 .\ledicllal
European and Heian Japanese !M.l!IJe/1 !Vriters
edited by Barbara Stevenson and Cynthia Ho
vvbrds: 11tc Culture of Read in.~ in the Later !\fiddle A,i,'es
Engagi11.~
by Laurel Amtower
ENGAGING WORDS
THE CULTURE OF READING INTHE LATER
MIDDLE AGES

Laurel Amtower

pal grave
ISBN 978-1-349-31165-1 ISBN 978-0-230-27175-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230271753
ENC;A<;JN(; WORIJS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Amtower, Laurel.
Engaging words : the culture of reading in the later Middle Ages I
Laurel Amtower.
p. cm.-(The new Middle Ages series)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-312-23383-9
1. Books and reading-Europe-History-To 1500. 2. Authors and
readers-Europe-History-To 1500. 3. Libraries-Europe-History-
To 1500. 4. Middle Ages. I. Title. II. New Middle Ages.
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Design by Letra Libre, Inc.

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For Bill and Madeleine
CONTENTS

List c~f Illustratim1s Vll

Ackno!I'!C~'(ments IX

Series Editor's Porel/lord XI

Introduction: Engaging Texts 1

Chapter 1 The Reading Public 17
Chapter 2 The Image of the Book:
Mediating the Aesthetics of Reader Response 45
Chapter 3 Authorized Readers, or. Reading Authority 79
Chapter 4 The Ethics of Reading 121
Chapter 5 Textual Subjects 145
Conclusion: Identity and the Book 183

Notes 189
Bibliography 219
Index 239
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 2.1 Betrayal of Christ and Annunciation.

The Hours ~fjeanne D' Evreux. New York,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters
Collection, 1<J54. f. 15v and 16r. 54
Figure 2.2 Reading cow. Bolum Psalter. London,
British Library MS Egerton 3277, f. 46v. 56
Figure 2.3 Private and communal reading during
the Mass. London, British Library
Add. MS 18,1 <J2, f. 11 Or. 5<)
Figure 2.4 Dangerous reading. London,
British Library MS Stowe 17, f. 2<Jv. 60
Figure 2.5 Reading rabbits. The Hours 4 St. Ome1:
London, British Library MS
Additional 36,684, f. 24v. 63
Figure 2.6 Mary of Guelders as the Virgin Mary.
Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, MS germ.
quart. 42, f. 19v. 68
Figure 2.7 Snoozing Virgin and Annunciation.
The Taymouth Hours. London,
British Library MS Yates
Thompson 13, f. 5<Jv and 60r. 70
Figure 2.8 Mary of Burgundy reading.
The Hours ~f Mary t!f BUI;~undy. Vienna,
Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod.
Vindobonensis 1857, f. <J4v. 73
Vlll

Figure 2.9 Mary of Burgundy's abandoned

prayer book. The Hours of ,\1ary
of Bu~~undy. Vienna, Osterreichische
Nationalbibliothek, Cod.
Vindobonensis 185 7, f. 43v. 76
Figure 5.1 Chaucer and his audience.
Troil!IS and Criscyde.
Cambridge, Corpus Christi College,
MS. 61, frontispiece. 146
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I
am greatly indebted to the many people who have shared their
time and knowledge with me. I would like to thank Charles Al-
tieri, Dorothea Kehler, and Miceal Vaughan, who read this manu-
script at several stages along the way and who have offered years
of advice and guidance. I would also like to thank Joseph A. Smith,
who offered invaluable assistance and expertise in deciphering the
Latin I transcribed from various late medieval manuscripts. The
wonderful editors and staff at Palgrave have been supportive and
helpful at every step of the process; I thank especially Bonnie
Wheeler, editor for the New i\1iddle Ages series; Michael Flamini,
Amanda Johnson, Rick Delaney, and Jen Simington. Needless to
say, any errors or omissions are entirely my own.
Many others have provided insight and support along the way:
Amy Michaels-who first alerted me to the possibilities of the
Books of Hours-Bonnie Bade, Laura Emery, John B. Friedman,
Christine Gilmore, Sherry Little, Paul Remley, Jeanette Shumaker,
Eugene Vance, Jacqueline VanHoutte, Carey Wall, and my brother,
Rich Amtower. The students in my Chaucer classes from 1997-99
have offered unflagging enthusiasm and acted as a knowledgeable
sounding board for some of my ideas; I would like to thank espe-
cially Jenny Cantor, Matthew Isom, and Aaron Nielsenshultz.
The editors of Philological Quarterly have graciously granted me
permission to publish a revised version of what is now chapter 4. I
am also grateful to the British Library, the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, The Vienna Osterreichische
Nationalbibliothek, and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, for
providing photographs for the illuminations and granting permis-
sion to reproduce them. Thanks, too, go to both San Diego State
X ENCAC!NG WORDS

University and the University ofWashington for providing gener-

ous research fellowships that helped me complete this work.
Finally, I would like to thank my family-my parents, Pat and
Richard Amtower, and my husband, l3ill MacConnell-whose pa-
tience and support have sustained me in more ways than they will
ever knmv.
SERIES EDITOR'S FOREWORD

T
he New l\IJ.iddle Ages contributes to lively transdisciplinary con-
versations in medieval cultural studies through its scholarly
monographs and essay collections. This series provides new work in
a contemporary idiom about precise (if often diverse) practices, ex-
pressions, and ideologies in the Middle Ages. In her monograph Etz-
gaging Words: The Culture of Reading in the Later Middle Ages, Laurel
Am tower invites readers to consider the reading practices of the late
medieval lay public in theoretical and material terms. How did
writers as well as manuscript producers imagine and manipulate po-
tential lay consumers? How did they assume and project notions of
a "reader," and what authority did such imagined readers hold over
book production? Late medieval art, like books themselves, are sat-
urated with images of reading, and Am tower finely details reading
itself as a flexible new cultural metaphor. In Engagi11g Words, Am-
tower uncovers and describes some important discursive structures
in the popular cultures of the late Middle Ages.

Bonnie Wheeler
Southern Methodist University
INTRODUCTION

ENGAGING TEXTS

C hristine de Pizan describes herself at the beginning of the Book

of tlze City of Ladies as "sitting alone in [her] study surrounded
by books on all kinds of subjects," where she habitually reads and
contemplates the texts before her. 1 The picture of the medieval
reader, Christine demonstrates the concerns and reactions of a me-
dieval audience to the books that fulfilled and informed their cul-
ture. As she reads a misogynist treatise by the writer Matheolus,
whom she informs us is considered an authority by her contempo-
raries, she offers a response that is at once personally motivated and
objectively contextualized: she registers dismay at Matheolus's com-
plaints against women, self-doubt that what he says may be true, and
finally recognition that this authority must surely be in error. Only
after a reasoned consideration does she condemn the ignorant
writer who propagates hackneyed ideas that are ultimately harmful
to society, lamenting that an auctor would rather continue a negative
tradition than critically engage or question it.
Christine's reaction as both reader and consumer seems surpris-
ing for the time, especially when we consider that the medieval
world has been largely characterized in terms of a suppression of
subjective or individual response and a cultural dedication to find-
ing a congruence between the variations of daily life and the figural
significance to which those particularities point.As Michel Foucault
has famously pointed out, institutional appropriation of discourses
and modes of interpreting them is one of the greatest tools for so-
cial controP Indeed, the Middle Ages, an era dominated by a pre-
ponderance of institutional texts, is commonly portrayed through
the authorized discourse of the medieval church and the allegorical
2 ENGAGING WORDS

myth of unity it projects. If objectionable, obscene, or morally am-

biguous writings appeared even in the margins of the tradition, they
were understood by their medieval audiences in terms of an overall
framework of Christian moralization that both encompassed and
transformed. 3
The intellectual force of the theological or "authorized" modes of
reading and understanding in the Middle Ages cannot be underesti-
mated. Yet here, in the Book of the City (~(Ladies, is a voice of dissent.
Instead of relying passively on a tradition of indoctrinated response,
Christine de Pizan relies on her own judgment as a valid measure of
the worth of ideas in books. As judge and provocateur, Christine ex-
emplifies a position that uniquely characterizes the reading public of
the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, showing us that
readers were alert to the nuances of an author's motivation and voice
and could distinguish the canonical or "truthful" written word from
other texts. As a lay reader responding both emotionally and practi-
cally to published discourse, she provides a powerful counterexam-
ple to the academic interpretive tradition that has been the basis for
critical inquiry into medieval reading practices. Christine's example
demonstrates a viewpoint that was widely taking hold among read-
ers of the later Middle Ages: that the individual has both the ability
and the duty to engage texts analytically and to question or doubt
those opinions that may turn out to be dangerous or false. Readers
were not expected to passively absorb all ideas canonized by the
codex. Instead, the individual reader was the ultimate authority for
all acts of judgment and interpretatioll.
This :,tudy examines the reflexive relationship that existed be-
tween reading habits and the shaping of identity in the late Middle
Ages. As Christine's model so engagingly reveals, a reader's response
to the popular works of his or her culture yields a great deal of in-
sight into the reading public's capacity for creativity, response, and
responsibility. If an authorized medieval canon paints one picture of
the late Middle Ages and its world view, other voices constantly
complicate and enrich the landscape. Though it is possible to re-
construct how the authorities conceived of an ideal readership in
the late Middle Ages by examining scholastic texts reserved for aca-
demic audiences, scholastic formulations are not only incomplete
 ENGACINC TEXTS 3

but also weighted toward an assessment of a very exclusive and in

some ways nonrepresentative readership. N onecclesiastics were also
projected and even shaped by the "nonauthoritative" texts and au-
thors, and these readers, comprising a high percentage of book pa-
trons in the late Middle Ages, prove, indeed, the more interesting for
understanding medieval attitudes.
Readers may interpret and respond to texts, but they are not im-
mune to the power of the book. We need only look at modern day
advertising practices to recognize that even as books respond, both
in content and availability, to the taste of the reading public, they si-
multaneously help shape demand, taste, and reading response. Mod-
ern research into the reader's aesthetic response to literature has
increasingly focused on what Wolfgang Iser calls "a dialectic rela-
tionship between text, reader, and their interaction" that invokes
"the imaginative and perceptive faculties of the reader, in order to
make him adjust and even differentiate his own focus" in accor-
dance with the new perspectives and insights offered by the text. 4
On the simplest level reading entails the conceptual transformation
of signs or marks on a page into meaning. But of course reading is
much more than that. Reading also requires that one grapple with
the essential difference of the otherness of the text, and that one ac-
knowledge the very possibility of otherness to oneself. It is in the
act of reading that the private self encounters the other as author-
ity-even the authorized version of society-and adjusts accord-
ingly. In such terms, a text has more weight than mere words on a
page; rather, it is the embodiment of potential meaning as projected
by everything other to the self. 5
This reciprocal relationship between text and reader translates
into a tangled correlation between reading material and the way the
self and its relationship to the world is conceptualized. Reading is a
solitary practice, to some extent even a selfish one. Yet Christine de
Pizan's personal response is balanced by her sense of social respon-
sibility; she assumes that reading is an act that has practical conse-
quences for popular ethics and morals and that negative texts can
reinforce unfortunate stereotypes or forestall critical thinking.
Christine's disproving response to an authoritative text is one shared
by such authors as Chaucer and John Clanvowe, who similarly write
4 ENGAGING WORDS

into their texts the conviction that people may be intellectually

shaped and ethically motivated by the books and texts they read,
and whose writings thus resist the model certain texts established
for moral attitudes and expectations. In each of these writers, aware-
ness of the potential of personal aesthetic response for creating and
instilling social and ethical values translates into a powerful critical
mission. Their texts show a concern with instructing readers how
they, too, might read ethically, so that they might discriminate be-
tween books that bestow both personal and social benefit, and
books-like Matheolus's-that might not. In so doing, these writ-
ers help enact an important cultural shift as readers come to be seen
as entering into a vast textual landscape that is both enriched by and
enriches their presence. Metaphorically speaking, medieval readers
are no longer outside but inside the text.
The study of this aesthetics of response has much to teach about
the way readers conceived and reformulated their perceptions of
their own historical context. The New Criticism, and to some ex-
tent the New Historicism and other contemporary critical practices,
has largely assumed that the intentions of an author have little to do
with the reception of a text by a reader-an assumption that this
study to some extent abandons. Not only does a reader always as-
sume the presence of an authorial intent, or at least that the voice of
the other inscribed in the text has a message to convey, oftentimes
authors insert clues or direct statements into their texts about the
ways their texts should be understood and used by their audiences.
Late medieval authors commonly idealized their values in such a way
as to move an audience to react to or even identifY with them. The
ethical content of their work might vary; an author might, like
Christine, reiterate or refute previously existing arguments or recast
old concepts or ideas to make them relevant to new contexts. Or,
like Chaucer, an author might imagine completely new situations or
invent impossible beings or scenarios, projecting an entire audience
of lovers as readers and interpreters and providing cues for reception
along the way. In either event, however, the author assumes an audi-
ence with like-minded sympathies and orchestrates the text in order
to move them most effectively. In late medieval writings authors
stage their own otherness within the text, sometimes actively assert-
 ENGAGING TEXTS 5

ing their voices as narrators in a theater that engages and sweeps up

the reader almost as a performer in the action. 0 But other kinds of
interpretive guidelines are created in medieval texts, too. An aesthetic
environment motivating multiple kinds of responses is readily dis-
cernible not only in the textual artifacts themselves, be they literary,
philosophical, or even legal, but also in the manuscripts that package
those texts for a hungry reading public.
In such a way both the act of reading and the image of the book
begin to have force as symbols of a new kind of aesthetic value in
the late Middle Ages. Although the image of the book had enjoyed
a long tradition in medieval iconography, early medieval art mysti-
fied the book, distancing it from lay culture. Illuminations of Christ
enthroned, for example, typically depict Christ holding an open
book, the sign of the Logos. For the high Middle Ages before and
during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the book was a
metaphor for a higher sacramental and unchanging truth. It signi-
fied the world as Logos, the world according to God's plan, unchal-
lengeable and mythic, unintuitable by laymen unschooled in the
mysteries of the church. Inscribed with the inscrutable signs that,
properly interpreted, might unveil an entire sacramental world be-
hind the carnal and stultifYing presence of the human world, the
image of the book substituted, in a sense, for whatever text might
be concealed inside. Images of books might be found accompany-
ing the gospel writers-who had the divine word whispered into
their ears by the Holy Spirit-angels, priests, or even kings. Yet they
seldom accompanied images of the layman. The book in high me-
dieval culture represented an authority beyond challenge and be-
yond scrutiny and signified what Jesse Gellrich calls "a system of
supernatural knowledge determined by the preexistent assumption
of the unity and totality-the eternal presence-of meaning." 7
By the late Middle Ages, however, the iconography of the book
had undergone a radical change. The manuscripts of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries become inundated with images not just of
books, but of people reading the books. The Breviary of Queen Is-
abella of Castile, made in the late fifteenth century, depicts the
miraculous moment in which the crucifix speaks to St. Thomas; co-
incidentally, he and his fellows are all engaged in the act of reading
 ENGAGING WOH.DS

at the moment of the revelation. Illuminations for the Pentecost and

the Hours of All Saints likewise come to be filled with acts of read-
ing. Standard late iconography depicts the apostles and the saints
kneeling at the feet of the Virgin, all with open books before them.
More profound still are the scenes that come to be associated with
St. Anne, mother of the Virgin. In the Primer (!f Claude (!f France St.
Anne instructs the Virgm trom a book lying open upon her lap;
Mary herself is turned toward the child Claude, gesturing as if by
this means she is also able to transmit the lesson to Claude.x In each
instance, the act of reading is associated \Vith a consequence of spir-
itual or ethical significance tor readers who partake in the message
of the text. Readers may actually undergo a physical "enlighten-
ment," as witnessed in the crucifix or Pentecost illuminations, or, by
metaphorically participating in the spiritual process of reading, as
modeled by St. Anne and the Virgin, they may simply "prepare"
themselves for the possibility of revelation because they have
opened themselves to both the technical and allegorical techniques
necessary for such a revelation. The book is still a symbol, but now
it is a personal symbol-a symbol not of obfuscation, but of acces-
sibility and universality.
Such images are especially striking when considered within
the context of humanist reading practice;, that also began to de-
velop in the fourteenth century. These recurring depictions of
readers suggest the establishment by the late Middle Ages of a
new cultural concept-a reader for \vhom these manuscripts
were intended and whom they were meant to educate. Readers
were real, in the sense that they bought and commissioned books
and had their images and/ or arms prominently figured within the
space of the manuscript. l3ut the reader was also imagined as an
idealized figure who would react to the text. Preambles to prayer
books and even secular works provide instructions for reading
that project a reader almost as a psychological being whose mind,
emotions, and personality might be opened up and "completed''
by the text.'! Various constructions of these readers are literally
found in the manuscripts themselves, as are strategies tor manip-
ulating their attention and reactions to the text. Readers appear
in the margins of books, reading along as the text and illumina-
 ENGAGJN(; TEXTS 7

tions spell out moments from sacred history or imaginary ro-

mance. Clergy, monkeys, and mysterious hands point to key pas-
sages in the text, providing pictorial supplements to the words on
the page. In such a way even the physical presence of the manu-
script provides clues for decoding the presence of the reader in
the text, projecting images of readers both as historical actualities
and idealized personas.
En}.;agin"r: Words argues that when images of patrons begin to ap-
pear in the books they commission, and when such books them-
selves become saturated with images of reading, we witness the
materialization of a new cultural metaphor-reading as a mode of
perception that enables new ways of thinking about both humanis-
tic and ecclesiastical situations. Texts are so much a part of modern-
day culture that we scarcely recognize the extent to which we use
reading as a metaphor to explain daily activity and the way in which
we assess it. Insofar as we make constant inferences about our envi-
ronment and its changing manifestations, we "read" all the world as
text: we read situations; we read people's faces and actions; we read
the future, or we ask others for their readings. Though Walter Ong's
groundbreaking work Orality and Literacy has been contested on the
basis of his overgeneralized distinctions between literate and prelit-
erate cultures, Ong's observation that reading functions as a
metaphor governing the way we perceive modern life is apt. Read-
ing is, for us, an activity and a skill that extends far beyond the in-
terpretation of symbols on a page. It is a means of analysis, a means
of deciphering, that enables us to interpret data and make decisions
on the basis of our interpretations. Insofar as reading is an activity
defined by its relationship to impenetrable texts, our labeling of our
constant struggle to understand and interpret the world as "read-
ings" suggests something about the way we conceptualize ourselves
as individuals.
So, too, in the Middle Ages, reading functioned as a dynamic
metaphor for interrogating a deceptive world and for imagining
structures of ethical action and selfhood that establish a relationship
to spiritual meaning or inner truth. The evolution of this concep-
tual shift is apparent even in the etymology of the word "reading."
In its earliest appearance as the Old English form raedan, "reading"
8 ENGAGING WORDS

meant "to deliberate" or "consider," in addition to today's more

common usage, "to read" or "read aloud":

The original senses of the Teut[onic] verb are those of taking or giv-
ing counsel, taking care or charge of a thing, having or exercising
control over something, etc. These are also prominent in OUdJ E[ng-
lish], and the sense of" advise" still survives as an archaism, usually dis-
tinguished from the prevailing sense of the word by the retention of
an older spelling REDE. The sense of explaining or considering
something obscure or mysterious is also common to the various lan-
guages, but the application of this to the interpretation of ordinary
writing, and to the expression of this in speech, is confined to English
and O[ld] N[orse] (in the latter perhaps under English influence). 10

From its earliest appearances, the term "to read" referred to the
interpretation and glossing of signs in a world in which all was text.
Such a sense of the verb indicates a readiness to gloss or interpret
situations, portents, or any other signifYing or significant events, and
to be advised as an individual by correctly interpreting those signs.
The term might be applied to extratextual situations as well as tex-
tual ones. Portents, omens, or signs might comprise nonverbal texts
that demanded interpretation based on the same attention and
analysis of context as the words, events, or figures of scripture.
Hence medieval usage includes instances of reading literal texts, like
the riddles, whose injunction "Raed, hwaet ic maene" [figure out
what I mean] invites interpretation, but also symbolic texts, such as
dreams, as in Aelfric's "Ic raede swefn" [I read dreams], or the Cur-
sor Mundi~ "I haue sou3te neer & ferre to £Ynde a mon my dreme
to rede" [I have sought near and far to find a man to interpret my
dream] _11 In each situation the act of reading functions as a process
of semiotic translation by which signs are glossed and made relevant
to a reader. Dream-reading offers a particularly nice instance of
semiotic crossover, as its images and words were themselves consid-
ered a text of some authority that demanded deciphering. But mys-
tical portents also figured as inscrutable signs that required trained
and receptive readers. One of John Wyclif's sermons promises that
" ... men shal see Crist comyng doun in a cloude wip greet power
and maieste, to men pat can rede pes signes" [men shall see Christ
 ENGAGING TEXTS 9

descending in a cloud, amid great power and majesty, to the men

who can understand these signs ]. 12 A medieval reader was thus an
interpreter of semiotic structures, or, to use the definition of the fif-
teenth-century lexicon Promptorium Parvulorum, an "expowner of
thyngys hard to undyr stonde." 13
However, though one might read situations or events in the Mid-
dle Ages, the understanding that one might read people as if they
were texts does not appear in print until the early modern period.
The first usage as "to make out the character or nature of (a person,
the heart, etc.), by scrutiny or interpretation of outward signs" is
listed as appearing, not surprisingly, with Shakespeare, whose shep-
herd in The Winter's Tale notes, "Though I am not bookish, yet I can
reade Waiting-gentlewomen in the scape." 14 By 1647, the sentiment
was apparently commonplace enough to be used in a generalization
about the writing of histories. Nathaniel Bacon writes that "Histo-
rians ... for the most part read Men." 15 The ]\;fiddle EllJ?lish Dictio-
nary notes several usages of the term that might be deemed
transitional. Around the year 1400 examples occur in which to reden
might also mean "to perceive something, discern; see; realize, de-
duce."16 Hence can be found instances in which the soul is read (as
in the Book to a Mother's "l>e sixte is a spyrite of understondyng pat
makep a man besyliche rede what is in his soule" [the sixth (virtue)
is a spirit of understanding that makes a man earnestly read what is
in his soul]) or people recognized through the reading of their phys-
ical presences (as in Ywain 's ''l>ou ert Lunet, if I can rede, pat helpyd
me yn mekyl drede" [you are Lunete, if I can discern, who helped
me in great distress]) . 17
Insofar as this semantic usage comes late to the English language,
it is possible to see a cultural transformation taking place at the level
of the reader and the reader's reception of the written word. The in-
dividual came to be pervasively described in terms of textual
metaphors. That is, the self was the texts s/he read. Several studies
have demonstrated that the interest in inwardness and subjectivity
appears as early as the twelfth century. 18 Bernard of Clairvaux tells a
correspondent that he can be known through his writings, signaling
his acknowledgment that selves can be authored and thus read by
others. Bernard's transmission of himself throUJ?h the text, however, is
10 ENGAGING WORDS

very different from Chaucer's later observation that the "text" of the
face is "hard ... to fYnde." 1<J Whereas Bernard demonstrates his trust
in the written word, and in the capacity of the text to contain the
essence of the soul, Chaucer's distrust of text translates to his assess-
ment of the inscrutability of people. Both kinds of texts require dis-
cerning readers, because the veracity of the material form is always
doubtful. Even as the notion of authority opened new possibilities
both for the interprt'tation of the written word and the enactment
of that word in everyday life, so, too, the concept of human identity
in the Middle Ages was transformed by the idea that the individual
as text might be written or revised by the individual as author.
In the fourteenth century, especially, the act of reading assumes
a place of privilege among secular writers, especially as the
metaphor of reading increasingly came to be seen as a means of
uniting action with disinterested self-reflection. Imaginative por-
trayals of reading delineated a starting point for more engaged for-
ays into contemplative or ethical life. Christine de Pizan, Petrarch,
and Chaucer habitually paint themselves as readers: Christine sit-
ting in her study reading the works of the antifeminists, Petrarch
reminiscing over the experience of reading the pagan authors,
Chaucer reading himself to sleep as the preliminary impetus for
fantastic visions. This topos was imitated by later readers, including
James I, who begins the King's Quair with the description of a
late-night reading of Boethius. For all these authors, reading fig-
ures as an important preliminary act that both prepares the mind
and renders it open to other revelatory experiences that may
change readers' perceptions of their worlds. This conceptual shift
impacts both the way reading is promoted in secular texts and the
way it is represented in visual imagery. Words and pictures func-
tioned symbiotically in the Middle Ages to provide a framework
for understanding the experience of reading as an act that grants
the potential for positive change to the reader.
To some extent, of course, this concept was a form of propa-
ganda, driven by a market that benefited from a growing reading pa-
tronage. The problem of recovering a fully historicized reader's
response is hampered by the observation that writing never takes
place objectively or in a vacuum but is always charged with the in-
 ENGAGING TEXTS 11

terests of the various institutions that jostle for position in a given

culture. D. F. McKenzie has focused on the necessity of recognizing
the living context in which texts are brought to readers, arguing
that there is a connection between the studies of bibliography and
response aesthetics. 211 Authors write texts; copyists and publishers re-
produce them, frequently in discussion with authors concerned that
their texts be accurately transmitted; booksellers manufacture, mar-
ket, and distribute the finished product to readers. It is common-
place to assume that control over the production and use of texts
means control over the way a text will be interpreted by its in-
tended audience; if a single institution is allowed unrestrained over-
sight of the production of a literary artifact, then the repercussions
of that management will be felt both materially and psychologically
throughout the book-reading marketplace. 21
Recent studies on book production and book patrons in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries confirm McKenzie's observations
and indicate a new market phenomenon. Reading, and particularly
the acquisition of fine books that accompanied the reading persona,
was becoming an important measure of social status. An enormous
secular mythology underlies the symbols and devices with which
the nobility associated themselves in the late Middle Ages, infusing
artifacts with charged issues of identity and social utility that im-
plied attributes that should be invested into the person represented.
The same is true of the book. Books, as o~jects d'art, had value on a
material and economic level. As an emblem of that intangible sense
of gentility and prestige with which the aristocracy sought to dis-
tinguish itself from the masses, the book, as tangible proof of the in-
tellectual, aesthetic, and economic values of the aristocracy, was
rapidly becoming a symbol for high culture, artificially endowing its
owner v;ith higher class status.
The symbol of the book is thus not altogether innocent. Both
reading and book ownership functioned as measures of prestige and
so became tools for discriminating against the uninitiated. At the
same time, however, as more and more individuals gained access to
books and to the "rights of passage" books were perceived to afford
them, readers began themselves considering the various ways in
which texts and books improved them as individuals, perhaps by
12 ENGAGING WORDS

guiding and reconciling, as many texts claimed, the private and so-
cial roles.
A substantial amount of scholarship has already contributed to
our understanding of medieval manuscript and print culture. 22 To
some extent this book attempts to synchronize these important
studies in order to demonstrate the ways in which social and tech-
nological shifts in book culture intersect with medieval conceptions
of subjectivity and self-awareness. By offering a crossdisciplinary ap-
proach to the practices of everyday readers in the Middle Ages, this
work seeks to provide some sense of the far-reaching implications
reading had upon the way late medieval society and its individuals
conceptualized themselves. The inquiry is limited to what might be
called the age and influences of Chaucer. Thus the materials range
in date roughly from the fourteenth to the mid-fifteenth centuries
and concentrate geographically on England and the northern coun-
tries that served its book needs. Dante, Petrarch, and Christine de
Pizan, whose works had international influence, have been treated
as well.
The first chapter charts the historical presence of medieval read-
ers-that is, what professional role they played in society; what their
interests were; how the book market imagined their desires and re-
actions to books; how authors imagined their reactions to books.
Reconstructing a reading audience from wills and library invento-
ries, accounts of medieval education and estimates of literacy, and
the prologues and epilogues of publishers and authors, this chapter
reveals a reading environment that is somewhat different from the
conception the surviving medieval canon might suggest. Insofar as
the most popular texts lining the shelves of medieval readers are sel-
dom the texts that are read in the modern classroom, our sense of
the medievals and their reading habits has been largely distorted by
a reliance on nonrepresentative texts. Moreover, the physical aspect
of medieval texts, which is largely lost by the creation of modern
classroom editions, can provide us with a great deal of information
about the uses and interpretations of a text. Markers, signals, and
perspectives may be traced through both text and manuscript that
interact to situate new conceptions of reading and that in turn af-
fect the very way in which medieval readers conceptualized them-
 ENGAGING TEXTS 13

selves as thinking individuals in the latter fourteenth and early fif-

teenth centuries. Such images were conscientiously employed with
the intention of guiding the laity: Pauper, in the fourteenth-century
debate Dives and Pauper, asserts that "ymgerie" is intended to be read
even as are the words on the page, and function as "a tokene and a
book to the lewyd peple, that they moun redyn in ymagerye and
peynture that clerkys redyn in boke" [a token and book for the ig-
norant, that they might read in imagery and painting what clerks
read in books]. 23
With that in mind, chapter 2 focuses on the form and use of an
overlooked fixture in the medieval library: the Book of Hours. The
tremendous market for private prayer books bears witness to the
larger cultural appreciation and demand for books. Indeed, it was
the demand for the Books of Hours that largely drove the growing
book trade. More importantly, however, clues within the elaborate
manuscript preparation of the Books of Hours provide a source for
examining how a "reading identity" was being conceptualized by
medieval book producers. McKenzie argues that multiple structures
of meaning-including syntax, layout, and organization-are all
part of the material "form" of a text and as such have enormous im-
pact on the way a text will be received by a given audience. If the
notion of texts is extended to include all varieties oflanguage acts-
not just books, manuscripts, or typographical markers, but verbal
contents, concepts, and even ideological relations of power that ap-
pear in nonmanuscript forms as well-a vast system of interrela-
tionships between torms and their meanings begins to emerge.
Filled almost obsessively with images and pictographs, from tiny
parallel scenes and stories playing out in the bas-de-page to the ran-
dom monk or pointing finger floating among the words of the text,
Books of Hours were designed to manipulate the way in which
texts and prayers were read by their owners. As Books of Hours
evolved from highly personalized treatises into mass-produced arti-
facts in high popular demand, the persona of a reader was born and
established within the culture. The implications of this persona ex-
tend far into the print culture of the early modern period and after.
Chapters 3 and 4 shift the focus from the physical to the tex-
tual, examining particular accounts of reading and interpretation
 ENGAGINl; WOR[)S

from the scholastic and humanist movements. Chapter 3 focuses

on late medieval approaches to reading and interpretation, con-
trasting the "authorized" scholastic commentary tradition with the
humanists' approach. Though scholastic interpretation sought to
institutionalize and fix the myriad meanings of scripture and other
texts within a circumscribed theological framework, the humanist
poets appropriated and transformed commentary techniques for
nonecclesiastical audiences. The body of this chapter focuses on
close readings of the works of Dante and Petrarch, who, in chal-
lenging the long-cherished notions of an authoritative, static text,
introduced into the literary consciousness new ideas about the re-
lationship between introspection, self-examination, and the act of
reading.
Chaucer continued and even exaggerated such strands of
thought in his own literary poetics, and, in doing so, perhaps insti-
gated the English trend in which selves came to be seen as textually
constructed. Chapter -1- focuses on Chaucer's concept of reading and
suggests that the very concept of subjectivity in the Middle Ages
was transformed by Chaucer's portrayal of an individual who could
read others as texts that themselves could be written or even revised
by the individual as author. As a corollary to thesis that canonical
authors frequently react against cultural socialization, using their
texts to transform their audiences and their relationships to society,
I argue that Chaucer portrays reading as an activity capable of vast
ethical implications. Although the "persona theory" was greatly ac-
cepted by medieval authors and exploited in their approach to char-
acterization, these chapters examine a growing suspicion that
emerges in the latter Middle Ages that the textual doe~ not neces-
sarily provide a discourse of truth on which individual standards and
ideals should be based. The Howe of Fa111c essentially provides a
manual for understanding Chaucer's assumptions about reading
texts and especially the effect texts have upon readers who continue
to read and to adapt their aesthetic horizons to a growing body of
literature-much of which casts doubt upon or even contradicts
canonical utterances of previously read texts. As the reader's position
in relation to "authority" shifts, so too does the reader's own ethical
behavior in responding to literary models and tests.
 ENGAGING TEXTS 15

Chapter 5 examines Chaucer's assumptions about the uses and

implications of poetry for lay readers. In Troilus and Criseyde, read-
ing is portrayed as a private act with urgent social ramifications. The
figure of Cassandra projects the necessity of translating the skills of
reading texts into reading situations and probable outcomes. The
seer is less an adept of the occult than she is an apt reader of the fu-
ture through the texts of the past. Though she is ironically destined
never to be believed, her reading practices function as models tor
success or failure in this antique world. The Trojans, as consistently
poor readers and judges of textual situations, are unable to affect
their tragic destiny, while the Greeks, who prove themselves adept
readers and manipulators of both situations and people, prevail. A
rather different implication of reading prowess is delineated in the
Canterbury Tilles. The Wife of Bath seems on the surface to be out-
rageous, morally ambiguous, and self-centered. By means of her
dress and occupation the Prioress is granted a more serious role.Yet
the prologues and tales of these characters, the texts each character
engages, and the responses toward the texts each assumes reflect two
very different types of agency. The Wife of Bath shows an active,
critical, and, as I argue, ethical mode of reading and reflection, while
the Prioress is passive and judgmental in her attitudes toward oth-
erness. The Prioress's unreflective attitudes, given her status in soci-
ety, imply her potentially dangerous position. The deconstruction of
identity via the act of reading we witness here reveals problems and
conflicts within the speakers that compel us to reevaluate their
claims about themselves and their estates, as their self-portrayals be-
come no more than stories to be interpreted, interrogated, and fi-
nally doubted. For the speakers, the problems or conflicts are
unconscious, to the extent that we may speak of the unconscious of
a subjective fictive entity. But for Chaucer, the delineation of such
troubled minds is conscious. By positing the self as a text, allowing
one to "read between the lines"-to doubt motivation, to question
sincerity-late medieval writers and book producers open the
reader to an interrogation of the ideological. Thus we may view the
Renaissance less as emergence of the modern self than as a site at
which this new textual self is reinscribed into a set of changed po-
litical and ethical parameters. The guidelines for subjectivity, as it
16 EN c; AGING WORDS

turns out, are long established; it is instead the institutions, the ide-
ologies, that change.
Certainly by the end of the Middle Ages there exists in England
a new kind of literature, a literature that interrogates and questions
a reader and calls upon a reader's own personal judgment to assess
and reconsider conditions tested through it. In part this literature
signals the status of a different concept of readers and individuals,
whose lives could also be imagined as books, of which the individ-
uals themselves were the authors. As reading and acquiring texts be-
came a way of establishing status and asserting a certain kind of
autonomy in the late Middle Ages, so too does reading become a
metaphor for asserting a new perception about the individual's re-
lationship to society. Margery Kempe legitimizes her visionary ex-
perience by means of a script and a written text documenting her
life experiences. A doomed knight in the Gesta Romanorum is hor-
rified to see his evil deeds written out in full in a giant book in hell.
As individuals increasingly see themselves as authors and texts com-
bined, their worlds transform. The acts of one's life, once inscribed
in word and deed, are irrevocable, but the book of one's future life
remains a metaphor for possibility and change.
CHAPTER 1

THE READING PUBLIC

F
amous even in his own day for his acquisitiveness as a book col-
lector, the self-described bibliophile Richard de Bury owned,
according to chronicler William de Chambre, "more books than all
England's bishops combined":

Besides those which he has stored in his various residences, there are
heaps of books wherever he and his retinue travel; there are so many
books lying about in his chambers that anyone entering can hardly
walk or even find a place to stand: "summe delectabatur in multitu-
dine librorum" (he takes the greatest delight in large numbers of
books). 1

The delight to be found in simply owning books is something of a

new phenomenon in the early fourteenth century. William de-
scribes the books in de Bury's quarters as commodities, perhaps
even spiritual encumbrances. But Richard de Bury's own descrip-
tion of his obsession in his Philobiblon adds something different. He
describes an intense identification with the sensuous pleasure not
just of reading, but of touching and possessing the manuscripts that
contain his precious texts. It is as if he senses an indefinable subjec-
tive presence about the book, which he describes alternately as
"friend," "teacher," and "creator." 2 The book is like another person,
finished, polished, and unflawed, awaiting only an interlocutor in
order to pour itself into another being and take hold there.
In this respect de Bury represents a new attitude toward books
and their significance for individuals. Books, because they alone are
"liberal and free," by nature international and cosmopolitan, testifY
1H ENC;ACINC WORDS

to a new possibility tor self-fulfilment. Books transcend social con-

straint, delimiting the boundaries of the body and circulating easily
across the tangible barriers of class and estate through the metaphor
of travel embodied in the act of reading itself. In so doing, they
"give to all who ask" and "enfranchise all" who open their minds to
them:' De Bury writes:

In truth, while resting they yet move, and while retaining their own
places they are carried about every way to the minds oflisteners ...
by the knowledge of literature, we establish Priests, Bishops, Cardi-
nals, and the Pope, that all things in the ecclesiastical hierarchy may
be fitly disposed. For it is trom books that everything of good that
befalls the clerical condition takes its origin. 4

De Bury's insistence that knowledge, not wealth, denotes class at-

tests to his perception of the fluidity of human identity. Nor is de
Bury alone in his convictions about the transformative powers of
books. Fed by the symbolic hermeneutics of the religious cults, late
medieval visual and textual artifacts exploited the set of expecta-
tions on the part of their audiences that associated the cosmic with
the mundane, the ideal with the fallible human. Reading was
thought to invest the reader with another kind of nature. Even as
the prophet Ezekiel and John of the Apocalypse consumed the
book of God and found themselves filled with the divine spirit, so
too might lay readers, by metaphorically ingesting a book, hope to
recast their characters, thoughts, and essential being in accordance
with God's plan.
If the clerical estate is endowed only through the authority and
grace ofbooks, what promise do books make for the upwardly-mo-
bile layman? Reading in the late Middle Ages afforded a new kind
of self-consciousness that redefined individuals and their relation-
ships to communities. Reading was coming to be seen as an activ-
ity that transcended estate boundaries, offering the promise of class
mobility through the escape inscribed in the pages of the text.
Though Richard de Bury himself complained about the rustic lay-
man who was unworthy of the books he purchased, nevertheless
books promised assiduous scholars a personal distinction that would
counter the class-based bias of social judgment.
 THE READING PUBLIC 19

Literary Production and the Book Trade

The public demand for books was certainly lucrative enough in the
Middle Ages to move book production from the monastery into the
private sphere. Medieval manuscripts conjure the image of isolated
monks, laboriously copying out their texts single-handedly over
long spaces of time. However, advances in copying methods were
made necessary by the rise of the universities, whose vast demand
for texts and the ever-proliferating commentaries upon them estab-
lished something of a mass market for books. As early as the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, production houses that could quickly mul-
tiply scholastic texts began to appear, introducing a technique for a
kind of mass production. In these centers the authorities of the uni-
versity exercised a virtual monopoly over all features ofbook-mak-
ing, establishing wages for copying and overseeing the format of the
design and the quality and purchase of materials. 5 The goal was to
produce texts for their students as quickly and efficiently as possi-
ble; this was achieved through price-fixing at the scriptorium, at
which the exemplar was deposited, separated into quartos, and du-
tifully copied. 6 Texts were divided into pecia that allowed as many as
seven or eight scribes to copy an exemplar at the same time. As each
scribe finished copying his own portion, his text too might be
copied, so that copies proliferated ad infinitum. Upon completion
the manuscript was submitted to the university for inspection and
correction; then it was bound by a stationer. 7 In such a way texts
could be exponentially replicated-though prices still remained
dear enough to prevent many students from purchasing their own
libraries.
But there was also a private demand for books, as evidenced by
the trade in London, where the various craftsmen retained their au-
tonomy from the universities and cathedrals. 8 Members of the trade,
including scribes and illuminators, appear in the public records early
on and were recognized in England as related professionals by 1357,
when the mayor ofLondon released them from the responsibility of
serving on inquests.'~ The scriveners established guilds by 1373; the
illuminators and Writers of the Text-Letters followed suit in 1403. 10
In 1403 these separate guilds were united into a combined guild of
20 ENGAGING WORDS

"book artisans"; from 1393-1441 wardens were appointed for the

regulation of the new guild. 11
Though it was believed for some time that private book produc-
tion mirrored the large scriptorium setting of the monasteries, uti-
lizing large spaces in which scribes, illuminators, and bookbinders
worked together under the supervision of a single director, evidence
suggests rather that various aspects of bookmaking were contracted
by different artisans, each performing his particular job in his own
shop. 12 C. Paul Christianson speculates that the "thirty shops with
solars" lining Paternoster Row alongside St. Paul's could have been
no more than eleven by twenty-five feet in space, assuming that the
shops were two-story constructions. 13 Each space contained two
rooms and employed independent artisans working in comparative
solitude upon their craft, indicating a pronounced shift from the
conditions that characterized the large communities of artisans in
the monastic scriptoria. 14 Collaboration among the artisans must
surely have existed, given the close proximity within which they
worked and the presence of the larger guild that eventually united
them; wills surviving from the period indicate that craftsmen almost
invariably named fellow book artisans as executors, guarantors, or
beneficiaries, reflecting a series of interrelationships and trust. 13
The private market exploited the techniques of production de-
veloped by the university copy-houses. Prepackaged books became
a standard commodity. Surviving compendiums and commonplace
books, products generally of a single owner who amassed an eclec-
tic collection of favorite texts consolidated into one volume, indi-
cate that independent booklets containing exemplars of popular
works were in circulation, probably supplied by local booksellers.
The Vernon and Simeon manuscripts contain groups of texts so
similar to each other that they almost certainly shared a common
exemplar; other individual texts, such as La Estorie de Euangelie, ap-
pear almost identically in both Vernon and Clopton, indicating that
they, too, were borrowed from an independently circulating gather-
ing.16The Douce 137 and 132 manuscripts in the Bodleian are each
compiled of booklets containing versions of Marie de France's Fa-
bles, the romance of Horn, a bestiary, and Grossteste's Castle of Love. 17
Such compendiums indicate the likelihood of"a bookish environ-
 THE READING PUBLIC 21

ment" in which bookbinders were "able to browse and select" from

a variety of texts available to them. 1R The fifteenth-century book-
binder John Shirley almost certainly had multiple exemplars readily
available to him: Shirley had a role in editing, copying, and translat-
ing copies of Troilus and Criseydc, \-\"orks by Vegetius and Chandos
Herald, and various anthologies that included works by Lydgate,
Hoccleve, and Richard Rolle, among others. 19
Seldom were stationers or even illuminators artistically responsi-
ble for the shape of their work, though they might occasionally
identifY themselves on the folios of their manuscripts. 20 Artists did
not read the text and create images for them so much as they copied
predesigned programs for illumination. Surviving preliminary con-
tracts for book illumination delineate specifically the relationship
between the stationer, who frequently orchestrated the tasks in-
volved in book production, and the artisans. A York contract from
1346, for example, designates the lettering and illumination of a
psalter for the scribe Robert Brekeling; the illuminator, John For-
bar, was to be responsible both for labor and the materials, includ-
ing the gold and colors required for the illuminations, and was to
be paid both in money and goods. 21 Other contracts mention the
providing of an exemplar, from which the new illuminations would
be modeled. The majority of illuminators were simply not educated
enough to impose interpretation upon the texts they illumined.
Most were apprenticed at an early age into their trade, a move that
precluded the schooling that might train them in reading and in-
terpretation.22 Instead the master illuminator would provide mar-
ginal sketches, themselves frequently copied from exemplar texts,
and distribute them to the craftsmen in the workshop, who would
mass produce the images even as the university copy houses mass
produced texts. Marginal instructions describing wme of these pro-
grams, written in the vernacular and probably intended to be re-
moved before completion, can still be seen on many medieval
manuscripts. Descriptions of the pieces to be included in Books of
Hours are common, but Jonathan Alexander also notes the presence
of instructions left in other manuscripts, such as the marginalia in
the unfinished Somnium srtper materia schismatis, which read "Here let
the King of Scotland be painted and the figure as was said above."
22 EN c; A c; INc; W 0 IU) S

The Holkham Bible Picture Book depicts a more amusmg instance:

one scene portrays a Dominican instructing his illuminator to do a
good job, since his work is for wealthy patronsY
Such inscriptions indicate programs for books that include both
illustration and text. Even commissioned books depended heavily
on preset fimnulas, because the importance of tradition in the Mid-
dle Ages necessitated the constant presence of a model. Cultural tra-
dition worked heavily against innovation or the creation of new
images for new texts.~.J John Friedman's work on the northern
book trade traces the meticulous documentation of payments made
to teams of bookmaker~ who subcontracted and oversaw the vari-
ous tasks of copying, illuminating, and binding.~" The chapter at
York contracted the services of William de Ellerker, a scribe, and
Richard de Stretton, an illuminator, several times during the last
decade of the fourteenth century. Payments were arranged to pro-
cure parchment, to employ a team of illuminators and scribes, and
to sew the volume together. The combined cost for these services
might be as high as the £11 13s. 3d. required for the production of
three choir books commissioned in 1394, which would have in-
cluded payment both for labor and supplies. ~ 1'
Booksellers for these prepackaged books \Vere found in a variety
of venues. Local t~1irs provided one means of acquisition; books are
recorded as having been purchased at f:1irs in London, Oxford, and
St. Giles, as is the parchment required for their production.D A sec-
ond-hand book trade flourished in the university towns, and com-
pleted manuscripts were also sold to nonuniversity clientele, for
whom, indeed, they could command a higher price. 2 x In Oxford,
the shops of craftspeople lined Catte street. In London, booksellers
and artisans tended to congregate within the city walls, concentrat-
ing about the parish churches near St. Paul's. 2 Y Frequently book-
sellers \vere doubly employed as taverners, making their early
numbers more difficult to calculate, but stipulations were in place in
some cities prohibiting tradesmen from indulging simultaneously in
the "mean" occupations.-' 11 Christianson's work on rental and prop-
erty documents kept by the wardens of London Bridge show that
at least 254 book tradesmen were employed during the fifteenth
century; these included stationers, copyists, illuminators, and their
 THE READINC PUBLIC 23

servants and apprentices. 31 The actual number of tradesmen is likely

much higher; other tradesmen, including those employed in the
book importing business (a lucrative specialization in its own right
by the fifteenth century), court and chancery writers, and artists
who may also have illuminated manuscripts, had their own guilds.
Libraries, moreover, existed for those scholars who lacked the
means to purchase their books, though liberal public borrowing
policies did not exist. The largest library of the Middle Ages, and
the one about which the most information survives, was housed at
the University of Paris. Endowed from the beginning with collec-
tions bestowed by Robert de Sorbonne and others following his
example, the Sorbonne contained almost 2000 volumes by the
mid-fcmrteenth century:12 Comparable libraries were also available
in England. The University Library at Oxford was founded by
Thomas Cobham in 1320; the later donations of Humphrey, duke
of Gloucester and brother to Henry V, made the University Library
foremost among English collections. Libraries also were to be
found at Cambridge-though these were smaller than Oxford's-
and in certain guildhalls.'' The policies of the English university li-
br~uies were modeled after the Sorbonne, though circulation was
much more limited. Students were allowed to borrow books, of
cour~e, but so were other individuals associated in some way with
the university. Deposits were required of those who were not
members, and records identifYing the borrower, title, location,
value, and contents of the book were meticulously noted upon a
book's removal:'~ Such detailed records were evidently an unfor-
tunate necessity at the Sorbonne, at least: by 1338 some 300 vol-
umes were either absent from the library or missing altogether. 35
Important manuscripts at Oxford tended to be chained for refer-
ence use. Not until approximately 1600 were they removed to
shelves in what has since become the more recognizable library
fashion. 3 r, Guildhall access must surely have been restricted, though
little is known about the me of books therein.
Monastic libraries dominated early book collections, although by
the end of the Middle Ages they were rivaled by secular libraries.
Wyclif complained about clerical hoarding, declaring that certain
orders monopolized books not for reading or the pursuit of litera-
24 ENGAGING WORDS

ture, but rather keeping them only for their value as books. 37 There
were great collections at Canterbury, reformed under Lanfranc and
Anselm, who had reinstituted a policy of studying and therefore
proliferating copies among their monks, and others at Durham and
York. 3H Canterbury owned 698 volumes by the time Henry ofEstry
catalogued them in the mid-fourteenth century. 39 Smaller but also
important collections arose in the monastic libraries at Bury-
Robert Grossteste, the Franciscan, left his books to Bury St. Ed-
munds in 1253-Norwich, Reading, Rochester, St. Albans,
Peterborogh, and Worcester, and in the cathedral libraries of Exeter,
Lincoln, Hereford, Salisbury, Evesham, among others. 40 Such li-
braries tended, of course, toward religious works. In addition to
copies of the Bibles and the standard commentators, the apocrypha
and glossed psalters were found in many libraries, as well as the Rule
of St. Benedict. 41 Many of the works of the church fathers were
present, including works by Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, and Gre-
gory. Writers in the Christian tradition, such as Boethius, Cas-
siodorus, Petrus Alphonsi, and Hugh ofSt.Victor, were enormously
popular. Selected works by Bernard of Clairvaux were found in
most libraries, but only the largest contained works by Aquinas. 42
Other religious writers included Anselm, Peter of Blois, Rabanus,
Bernard Sylvestrius, Peter Comester, Bonaventure, Robert
Grossteste, and Jacobus de Voragine. Strangely popular were works
now almost entirely forgotten, such as De Conjlictu Viciorum et Vir-
tute~n, an eighth-century work ascribed to Ambrosius Autpertus; De
Clausto Animae, by Hugh de Folieta; and the Rationale Divinorum
Officiomm of Guillaume Durand. 4 -'
But secular and didactic works were in good supply, as well. Most
libraries contained a bestiary and a lapidary, and most owned works
by Bede and John of Salisbury, as well as Sallust and Pliny. Many
texts were devoted to grammar and logic. Works by Donatus,
Priscian, Porphyry, Aristotle, and a few contemporary authors were
generally available. Medical texts and scientific works might be
found as well. Libraries generally contained representative works on
canon and civil law. Classic authors, including Virgil, Horace, some
Ovid, Lucan, Statius, Juvenal, and Martial, could be found in most
libraries; Cicero and Seneca were enormously popular. 44
 THE READING PUBLIC 25

Book Owners and Book Readers

In short, the texts considered vital to a good classical and cultural

education were, for the most part, available to scholars in the major
towns of England. Thus even individuals who did not attend a uni-
versity, like Chaucer, had access to the traditional texts that in-
formed written culture. Yet just as important as the cathedral
libraries were the private collections, among which were to be
found some of the most exciting literature of the age. Studies on
reading practices and book ownership in the Middle Ages have
largely tended to focus on the aristocracy, who commissioned and
cared for some of the most beautiful manuscripts extant. In France,
especially, aristocratic book collectors were prominent, creating
copies and collecting de luxe manuscripts that were later to become
the basis of the public libraries. The French nobility was known for
its patronage of fine manuscripts as early as the twelfth century. In
the thirteenth century Louis IX commissioned copies of all the
books known on the Holy Scriptures for his own collection as a
means of increasing the total number of books available in the land.
He built a library to house the books at Ste. Chapelle and allowed
scholars to visit the collection. 45 Later aristocrats collected less in
the interest of scholarship than for the beauty of the books. Charles
the Wise (1364-80) and his celebrated brothers, the dukes of Anjou,
Berry, and Burgundy, were particularly noted for their fondness for
fine books. They sought French literature and translations of foreign
texts, collecting and reading for pleasure and entertainment-the
prerogatives of the nobility. Vernacular manuscripts, decorated luxu-
riously, filled their private collections. Charles, in particular, evinced
a concern for creating a collection that might benefit later rulers.
Christine de Pizan, in her biography of the King, writes of "the
great love he had for study and learning":

... the truth of this is shown by his collection of important books

and his great library where he had all the most outstanding works
compiled by great authors, whether of the Holy Scriptures, or the-
ology, or the sciences, all very well written and richly decorated, for
always the best scribes who could be found were engaged to work
for him. There is no need to ask if his fine study was well arranged,
26 ENGAGING WORDS

as he wanted everything to be handsome and neat, polished and well

ordered, and it could not have been better. Even though he under-
stood Latin well and there was no need of translating for him, he was
so provident that because of the great love he had for those who
would follow him in times to come, he wanted to provide them
with teachings and knowledge leading to all sorts of virtue, and for
this reason he had all the most important books translated from Latin
into French by solemn masters highly competent in all the sciences
and arts .... 46

Charles's books, Christine tells us, included not only texts, transla-
tions, and commentaries on the Bible, but also the writings of the
Church Fathers, philosophy-including translations of Aristotle's
Ethics and Politics-and writings on politics, science, and manners by
such contemporary Juthors Js Vegetius, John of SJlisbury, and Va-
lerius MaximusY The collection (of which unfortunately only a
fraction remains today) WJS housed in the Louvre, which itself came
to typifY J new kind oflibrary that existed outside the religious mo-
nopoly that had previously made claim to both scholarship and
book ownership. 4 H
The English could not compete with the French, either in terms
of the magnificence of their libraries or in the cultivation the
French nobility projected through their love of books. But biblio-
philes were tound in England, too, particularly in the persons of
Henry IV; Henry's son, Humphrey; and John, duke of Bedford.
Among monarchs, only Henry IV seems to have avidly pursued
book collecting. The extent to which his predecessor, Richard II,
was interested in reading and the cultivation of a literary milieu has
been much debated. Richard's library, which included at least ten
romances and chanson de gestes, suggests a healthy interest in secu-
lar literature and its courtly values, but scholars have recently de-
nied its significance. 49 It has been noted, for example, that Richard
inherited these secular works, commissioning none himself. 5° Yet
several volumes are known to have been presented to Richard, in-
cluding a book "on love" by Froissart and a breviJry illuminated by
Jean Pucelle. Froissart comments that Richard, when presented
with his book, was immensely pleased with it and began reading it
immediately. 51
 THE READINC; PUBLIC 27

Courtly reading was more pronounced during the last years of the
fourteenth century. Thomas Woodstock, duke of Gloucester and the
ill-fated uncle of Richard II, was an avid collector of books, build-
ing a library of 126 items by the time of his death in 1397. 52 At a
sum totaling £124,Thomas's books were worth almost 6 percent of
his assets. o.l Henry IV evidently owned a collection large enough to
require a librarian; the records of the King's Bench include a refer-
ence to Robert Bradfelde as Henry's "Custodem librorum." 54
Henry's palace at Eltham contained a special study for his books. 55
His son John, duke ofBedford (1389-1435), acquired the books re-
maining in the Louvre library during his tenure as Regent of France.
He removed the collection to England in 1429 during the remain-
ing years of the Hundred Years War, when it seemed in danger of
being lost again to the French. Several notable women are recorded
as owning and bequeathing copies of Christine de Pizan's works, in-
cluding Alice de la Pole, duchess of Suffolk, and Anne, the wife of
John, fifth Lord Scrape of Bolton. o(, The aforementioned Humphrey,
Henry's fourth son, was probably the most famous collector of the
time, leaving his collection of over five hundred works to Oxford
University upon his death: it became the foundation of the Bodleian
Library. Both collections were unfortunately later dispersed-John's
upon his death, Humphrey's during the reign of Edward VI, who de-
clared Humphrey's collection in the Divinity School to be a super-
stitious Catholic deception. 57
However, even as books came to be seen as symbols of prestige
and culture, their acquisition was mimicked by the class of people
most interested in asserting their own gentility. As ever in societies,
the claim to high culture amounts to a claim for membership in an
international and intellectual "brotherhood" superior to other
classes and individuals. :iK By appropriating books, one of the sym-
bols of prestige with which the aristocracy invested itself, the third
estate, with its propensity for self-fashioning, also began to claim
higher status by means of a claim to high culture. Indeed, it was the
upwardly mobile members of the third estate who were responsible
for creating a climate that necessitated the mass production ofbooks
facilitated by the printing press. Increased literacy, coupled with a
disposable income and a growing cultural appreciation for reading
28 ENG.AGING WORDS

and book ownership, generated an audience that demanded ever-

increasing affordability in production techniques. Ironically, as aris-
tocrats sought and commissioned specialized texts both for their
reading pleasure and social prestige, these texts became available as
copies and exemplars for others to own as well. 59 The aristocracy
drove the proliferation of texts, as others eagerly imitated what they
bought and read. 611
Books, in short, were chic. Some sense of the magnitude of book
ownership is apparent from the wills surviving from the late Mid-
dle Ages-although, as has been noted repeatedly, wills provide only
fragmentary evidence of the books likely to have been in circula-
tion.61 Despite Margaret Deansely's remark in 1920 that a survey of
the wills points to "the extreme booklessness of the population as a
whole," more recent studies reflect a situation less dire. 62 John B.
Friedman notes that over three thousand books are specifically
mentioned in the wills of northern England alone during the late
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and studies by Susan Hagen Ca-
vanaugh and Sylvia Thrupp suggest that overall approximately 20
percent of wills produced in Britain during this time contained be-
quests of books. 63 Not surprisingly, the vast majority of these book
owners are afiiliated with the church. Among the wills surveyed by
Cavanaugh, some 48 percent of all book bequests come from bish-
ops, canons, rectors, deans, monks, triars, and the like. William Rede,
bishop of Chic ester, had one of the largest private libraries in all of
England by the time he composed his \Vill in 1382. Among his col-
lection of over a hundred works were texts of Plato, Aristotle,
Augustine, Aquinas, a full apparatus of commentaries, and mathe-
matical and astronomical works.(' 4 In the north, John Newton,
Thomas Langley, and Thomas Rotheram, wealthy magnates who
flourished in the latter half of the fourteenth century, owned im-
pressive collections of books, with which they endowed cathedral
libraries or universities upon their deaths.~> 5 Newton and Rather-
ham's collections each totaled over one hundred books.
Among the nonaristocratic owners of books remaining in Ca-
vanaugh's inventory, 21 percent are university afiiliated, bearing the
titles "fellow," "magister," or "scholar"; 8 percent are from the gen-
try; and the final 16 percent are from various third-estate posi-
 THE READING I'UllLIC 29

tions. 66 Among the gentry, Sir Simon Burley, tutor to Richard II,
owned a library of 22, including eight romances, as well as various
religious and philosophical works.r, 7 Sir Richard Stury, Sir Lewis
Clifford, and Sir William Trussell all owned and bequeathed books
in their wills; Sir John Clanvowe, while not on record as owning any
specific books. at least attested to the reading preferences of the
courtly milieu when he attacked the reading of romances in his
own work, The 1iuo Ways.('k Sir John Fastolf, who died in 1459,
owned a book collection particularly notable for its inclusion of
secular French texts, including the Chronicles of Froissart, the Ro-
mance cif the Rose, and a book of" de Roy Artour."r' 9 Women in this
class were readers, too. In 1395 Lady Alice West of Hampshire be-
queathed to her daughter Iohane "a masse book, and all the bokes
that. I. haue oflatyn, englisch, and trensch." 711 It is worth noting that
Lady Alice was apparently not only a reader herself but also saw fit
to leave her library to her daughter rather than to her sons-a strik-
ing instance of a family dedication to women's literacy. Lady Peryne
Clanbowe, in 1422, bequeathed another mass book to her brother,
Robert ofWhitney, as well as a "booke of Englyssh, cleped 'pore
caytife,"' to one Elizabeth. 71
By the fifteenth century and even mid-fourteenth centuries the
working "middle class" were able to afford books-and they did so,
in increasing numbers. Several merchants are recorded as commis-
sioning works in the fifteenth century: Robert Chichele commis-
sioned a ballad from Hoccleve, and Caxton began his translation of
"The Mirrour of the World" at the request of the goldsmith, Sir
Hugh Brice. 7 ~ In 1426 John Credy, Esq., left his mass book and bre-
viary to the local church. 73 In 1368, John de Worstede, a London
mercer, left a collection of religious works and saints' lives to his son,
while in 136 7 William Bristowe, a cordwainer, left" all his books" to
his.N Most spectacular of all is what is thought to be the earliest be-
quest of Chaucer's Ca11terbury Tales, by Johannes Brynchele, a tailor
of London, in 1420. 75 Goldsmiths, chandlers, lawyers, scribes, mer-
chants, fishmongers, and even a farmer are listed in Cavanaugh's in-
ventory as bequeathing books between the years 1300 and 1450.
Of course, book bequests are likely to be made on the basis of a
book's relative worth, which means that such numbers might account
30 EN(;AGING WOll..DS

only for valuable books rather than the total number of possessions.
Finely illustrated religious works, such as I3ooks of Hours, might be
worth as much as £10. The books in Thomas, duke of Gloucester's
collection averaged £1, 2s. 7 d.7r' That price put books well out of the
reach of the average laborer. Yet unbound books could be produced
quite cheaply. Presumably these works were in circulation as well,
even if few records or copies survive. Cheap books, especially the ver-
nacular romances and other texts likely to have been frequently read,
reread, and circulated, are less likely to survive or be bequeathed than
care1ully used liturgical or de luxe books. Inventories of two bank-
rupted grocers in the 1390s estimated the four romances in their pos-
session at a worth of 11 s. 4d., while t\VO English books were valued
together at 8d., a calendar at 8d., and a primer at 16d. 77 A male
builder in the late fourteenth century would have made approxi-
mately 4d. per day, which, in relative terms, would have bought four
loaves of bread, a gallon of ale, and a slab of meat. 7 x Thus a relatively
cheap book would not have been entirely out of the range of the
peasantry, though it might have cost almost a week's wages. 7 <J In fic-
tion, certainly, access to books seems to have been accepted as quite
normal. Chaucer's Wife of I3ath, by occupation a weaver, could evi-
dently afford books; her husband Janekyn reads to her nightly from
his Book ofWicked Wives. The Clerk, who is so poor his clothes are
threadbare, has twenty. The poor student Nicholas, in the Miller's Tale,
reads from his Almagest. Books are mentioned throughout the Can-
tcrlmry Tales not as untouchable symbols of status but as commonplace
possessions.
Lollardy also provided a great deal of impetus to acquire books.
The reform-minded Lollard~ valued both literacy and careful atten-
tion to the skills of reading and interpretation, and, additionally, are
recorded as commissioning works important to their study.K11 Even
practitioners who could not read are documented as having gone to
great lengths to obtain books, which they would have read to them
by more literate group members. Anne Hudson has noted the case
of John Claydon, who commissioned copies of The La11teme (if
LiY,ht, a commentary, and a sermon, which Claydon could not read
himself, but, once having had the works read to him, nonetheless
analyzed and discussed with his fellmvs.H 1 Many Lollard texts were
 THE READING PUBLIC 31

mass copied and distributed among group members, especially

when a preacher particularly wanted his arguments studied and de-
bated.82 Even those too poor to afford copied texts seem to have
been provided access to them. A system of loans enabled Lollards to
purchase books as a group and then distribute them among indi-
vidual sympathizers. 83
Medieval readers were pragmatic in their reading selections but
also optimistic; their materials reflect a desire for upward mobility
through their very didacticism. Books of Hours, or "prymers," dom-
inated as the book of choice for nonecclesiastics, closely followed by
various devotional and religious texts: psalters, missals, "portifories,"
and saints' lives. The Pricke of Conscience is the single most copied
vernacular text in the late Middle Ages, followed closely in popu-
larity by Richard Rolle's works and those of his contemporary, the
mystic Walter Hilton. 84 M.D. Parkes surmises that the eclecticism of
religious, didactic, and escapist works indicate that reading "was de-
signed to improve the reader's soul, or to multiply his accomplish-
ments and to increase his stock of useful, even cultural
information." 85 Yet "happenstance acquisition" comprises as good a
reason for a work's inclusion i,l a compendium or miscellany as any,
so that it might be presumptive to measure reading habits or pref-
erences on the basis of surviving texts. 86 Certainly romances were
popular too, particularly among aristocracy and the southern gen-
try. French romances were especially valued, such as the Lancelot
owned by Thomas ofWoodstock and Mary de Bohun; the romances
of Troy, Alexander, and Arthur; and the Romance t?f the Rose owned
by Thomas of Gloucester, Simon Burley, and Sir John Fastolf. So
were histories and chronicles, including Froissart's Chroniques and
various versions of the history of Britain. The aristocracy was likely
to own copies of the English writers; Hoccleve and Gower both
gave presentation copies to their patron, Henry lV. 87 However, later
in the fifteenth century this situation began to change. John Paston
II, for example, owned a copy of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. 88 De
luxe manuscripts of secular British authors are rare; more often the
works of Chaucer and other "love poets" would be found in com-
pendiums, distributed as booklets and copied for private use into
larger manuscripts. 80
32 ENGAGING WORDS

Literacy: Public Performance

and Private Cognition

Book acquisitiveness does not assume literacy, of course. Insofar as

books were valuable as luxury objects, it is possible to conceive of
families owning books and carrying them to church and other pub-
lic places as designations of their status. Books might be used per-
formatively, brought out during the mass or other religious rituals
as symbols of communal and spiritual participation.Yet literacy now
seems to have been somewhat more widespread than has been pre-
viously thought. The late Middle Ages is characterized by a sense of
its dependency on texts and textual analysis. Though the acceptance
ofliterate modes of governing was gradual, by the late Middle Ages,
English society was elaborating on and analyzing all the relation-
ships of the social and political body. The study oflaw, with its myr-
iad interpretations and analyses of complex situations, played an
important role in late medieval society. Medieval England increas-
ingly relied on documentation as a means of understanding and le-
gitimating its own relationships and codesY 0 The difficulty of texts,
and their vulnerability to misreading, misappropriation, and dispu-
tation, necessitated the aid of professionals trained in the art of tex-
tual analysis. Lawyers were often involved in diplomatic roles, in
negotiating terms of peace and in drawing up contracts between
monarchies. 91 Such phenomena indicate more than simply a re-
sponse to an increasingly complex society. Rather, we witness in
these characteristics a literate response to an increasingly textual so-
ciety, a society insistent upon ambiguity, more and more concerned
with the potential for the misunderstandings that could arise be-
tween two communicating parties as private motivations interfered
with the upholding of an objective or universal standard.
Hence juries were required to attest to both the veracity of writ-
ten documents and their originating intentions, as the many cases
before the King's Council illustrate. Though writs of litigation con-
cretized the complaints, and though charters and other documents
were required as legal proof of possession in the property disputes
that frequently were at the heart of the complaints, the written
word itself was no necessary proof oflegitimacy. Documents could
 THE READING PUI3LIC 33

be-and frequently were-forged. An ability to interpret and ana-

lyze the written document became important. In one fourteenth-
century law case, a chaplain named William Chamberlain confesses
to forging false letters attesting to the sale of a deceased man's prop-
erties to the knight William Clopton, defrauding the deceased man's
heir, and avowing the veracity of false charters verifYing this sale. n
Only Sir Clopton's inability to establish authorship of his charter
prevented him from making his claim. In a similar case, John atte
Wode was maliciously indicted by James Clifford, who then seized
his land while John languished in prison. John and his wife were
able to secure justice seven years later; the judgment is careful to
state that "all the charters and muniments, touching the aforesaid
lands and tenements" must be turned over to the rightful owners,
and that moreover, any enfeoffinents, grants, or other transactions
made by the incriminated party would be nullified. 93
Thus a citizen of the late Middle Ages was seriously handicapped
not just by an inability to read, but to interpret and respond effec-
tively to written texts. M. T. Clanchy notes that an ability to read
Latin had become, by the late Middle Ages, a way of mitigating
criminal charges. If a defendant could demonstrate "benefit of
clergy" by reading a verse in Latin from the Psalter, he or she might
avoid hanging. 04 Such practical uses for literacy, however, indicate
not merely the growing need for an ability to read, but a growing
faith that readers were individuals who possessed an interior capac-
ity to interpret and apply symbolic narratives.
By the fourteenth century, public schools had been instituted to
teach even the lower strata of society to read and write. These schools,
managed by secular priests or clerks, were theoretically accessible to all
who could afford them, regardless of class, 95 and, by the end of the
thirteenth century, were attached to most cathedrals; parish priests or
clerks might teach reading and song to the children of the parish_'!!,
The degree of education available at such schools varied; typically chil-
dren were taught the alphabet, simple prayers and songs, and, later, var-
ious precepts of the churchY7 Secondary or grammar schools,
frequently associated with the chantries, were less available, although
by the late fourteenth century numerous public benefactors endowed
chantries and a master for the purpose of educating young scholars.'JH
34 ENGAGING WOIZDS

Such schools were usually intended for those bound for a clerical ca-
reer, though students willing to pay a fee for their education were wel-
come. Indeed, the children of the first estate seem, in Winchester, at
least, to have comprised the majority of the students.'J9 However, cer-
tain subdivisions of the schools emphasized reading and writing lan-
guages for those who were bound for business administration. 10n As
lawyers were increasingly in demand, a mastery of Latin was required,
as well as a university level education and a period of study at court.
Moreover, a certain amount of home schooling seemed to be oc-
curring by the fourteenth century. Among the higher strata it came
to be assumed that a mother would teach her child the Latin
primer. HII Yet despite the grmving a\·ailability of schooling, educa-
tion largely remained in privileged hands; the poor were typically
denied access to the clerical schools, though records of licenses
bought by serfs for their sons' educations do exist.
The degree of literacy varied, of course. At the most humble
level, reading and writing had a practical purpose and were used for
basic business transactions. A great many people may have had the
ability to read and sign their names, though they may not have had
the ability to write. A distinction must be made between the so-
phisticated reading ability of scholars and other professionals and
the more practical abilities of laymen who needed to read in the
course of conducting their businesses. 1' 11 Professional readers, how-
ever, such as the clerks and lawyers, \vhose duties included drawing
up documents and aiding in monarchial decisions, came to perme-
ate late medieval society. And in increasing numbers, too, were
found LlJOse readers who read tor entertainment and whose de-
mand for books created a market for such poets as Chaucer and
John Gower. 111 ·' Whatever the agenda behind the demand for
schooling, it is clear that by the fourteenth century an ability to
read was a necessity for the operation of society, and special per-
sons dedicated to the reading, writing, and analysis of texts-
whether for religious or secuiar purposes-were in great demand.
Although in the fourteenth century clergy might still largely make
up the administration of the king and lords, by the fifteenth cen-
tury this duty belonged to the laymen, among whom the ability to
read came to be seen as a given. 11 i.l
 THE READING PUBLIC 3'i

To some extent we can measure reading capability against the

prestige of merely owning a book by considering the test case of the
Books of Hours. Comprised of a layman's set of devotions to be re-
cited at various points during the day, the best known examples of
Books of Hours, or horae, belonged to the aristocracy and the true
cultural elite and made use of some of the bt>st artists of the times.
Books of Hours became increasingly popular among the middle
class, too, however, as production techniques allowed greater access
to private books. A Book of Hours tended to be the only book a lay
person of the late Middle Ages might own; within a small collection,
it was surely the prized, "best" book. 1110 Generally small enough to
be portable, horae, unlike some of the other manuscripts containing
"high" literary medieval texts, were constructed for private readers.
Most frequently written in a compact and much abbreviated gothic
script, the contents of the horae appear more intent on visual beauty
than ease of reading. As E. A. Lowe has noted, the gothic script seems
to be directed at "a certain effect of art and beauty," as if it were
meant "to be looked at and not read." ill<, It is an oddity of late me-
dieval culture that even as readers grew in numbers and their de-
mand for books increased, the readability of circulating texts actually
diminished. Both the inaccessibility of the language and the deliber-
ately distancing physicality of the text might indicate that literal
comprehension was not a priority in Book of Hours production. In-
stead the book was meant to be seen as an object of beauty and sa-
credness, intended to convey something of the mystery of Christian
rites through the sheer presence of the tome.
The question of whether the texts contained in the Books of
Hours were actually intended to be read is complicated by the fact
that the horae were written, until late in their popularity, entirely in
Latin, a language understood only scantily by most mt>dieval lay-
men. Paul Saenger has deduced on the basis of this evidence the ex-
istence of two separate categories of readers and supplicants: those
who read phonetically, by recognizing letters and words and sound-
ing them out orally, but without understanding the meaning of the
words they pronounced, and those who read for comprehension.
Phonetic capacity might be related to rote memorization. By adult-
hood, the devout churchgoer would presumably have memorized
36 ENGAGING WORDS

the Latin prayers and devotions repeated during the service, and
would even have some general sense of the prayers' meanings, but
would not be able to translate his or her phonetic understanding of
the texts into exact terms. "Comprehension literacy," on the other
hand, belonged to such people as the clerks and educated laymen.
Those readers were able to read texts on a sophisticated level, rec-
ognizing and comprehending each word on the written page. Inso-
far as readers who could easily comprehend vernacular texts might
have been only able to phonetically read Latin texts, a dual kind of
reading ability, even among those we might designate as readers,
could have existed among book owners. 107
On the other hand, even de luxe Books of Hours are characterized
by the presence of sheer text. A small minority of Books of Hours
lack almost entirely the rich and costly illuminations common to
some of the more ostentatious examples. lliH Might such relative dec-
orative absence suggest less of an interest in creating the book as an
artistic gothic work-intended to be gazed at and contemplated-
than as a text to be read? The pages and pages of unadorned script
one finds in the Books of Hours, separated only by historiated ini-
tials and the captions inserted in red denoting the antiphons ("Ant"),
versicles ("V"), and responses ("R"), would indicate that the owner
had some familiarity both with reading and with reading the gothic
script in particular. Some horae, such as British Library Add. 41061,
are written in a clear and pronounced hand with none of the stan-
dard abbreviations used in other prayer books, and many contain
notes, in hands clearly different from that of the scribe, emending or
adding to the text. 1u<J Both characteristics would indicate the pres-
ence of readers who were interested in texts as well as decorative
possessions. Given the dominant role the liturgy played in medieval
life, one could expect a familiarity with devotional Latin that might
belie the "foreignness" of the text. A certain amount of fluency in the
sacred Latin texts would have been amplified through constant rep-
etition as people participated in services quite familiar to them by
adulthood. This is suggested by a remarkable document now in the
Throckmorton collection that provides precise instructions on the
reading and use of the prayer book for an early fifteenth-century
family. 110 The head of the family is instructed, in Latin, to carry the
 THE READING PUBLIC 37

instructions with him always, so that he might be reminded of his

devotional duties throughout the day. He is instructed to bring his
prayer book to the table, to provide readings or meditations during
the meal, and to instruct his children to participate in this reading.
He is to read from the books in church during the singing of the
Mass and from the Gospel on all feast days. In short, he is instructed
to read regularly, again in Latin, as a part of his own spiritual life and
as spiritual guide for his family.
Insofar as such prayer books are predominantly made up of texts
with which the owner of the book would have been familiar-that
is, with standard antiphons and responses known from attending
church and with psalms, hymns, and other prayers presumably
memorized either from early schooling or from the sheer redun-
dancy of hearings in church services-literacy might have been to
some extent acquired by the mere possession of the Books of Hours
and by following the words in the text. Indeed, a primer or horae
was frequently used for children's earliest lessons in reading. 1 11
Eamon Duffy cites a poignant example from the early sixteenth
century that illustrates such an occurrence, in which a young boy,
Malden. desperate to read the New Testament for himself, taught
himself to read using a bilingual primer: "By 'plying' this primer on
Sundays, and following the English translations of the Latin service
he taught himself to read." 112 Malden's familiarity with Latin, com-
bined with the fact that he already had the Latin prayers memo-
rized, provided a valuable mnemonic aid in learning to recognize
letter and word patterns. A standard Latin Book of Hours would
similarly be gazed at and its text followed repeatedly. If the patron
of the book knew the texts well enough, word recognition would
inevitably follow. It is possible, then, that Books of Hours not only
encouraged and fostered a culture of reading, but even aided in the
spread of literacy.

Reading, Privacy, and the Self

Even among the literate, however, reading was frequently a per-

formed and shared community experience rather than a private
one. Joyce Coleman has recently written on the social aspect of
 ENC;AGINC; WOl~DS

reading in the late Middle Ages, pointing out that one of the pre-
ferred means of enjoying a book was to have it read aloud. 113
Communal experience was perceived as a means of heightening or
invigorating the dynamics of the text. Immediate audience re-
sponse and reaction posed a varying and challenging matrix
through which the literary artifact might reverberate, and added
another level of experience to the text that was welcomed and
even exploited by late medieval authors. Charles V is described by
Christine de Pizan as having his books read to him in his private
chambers; Coleman cites additional examples of public reading
events, ranging fi·om Deschamps's presentation of Machaut's poems
to the court to FroissJrt's reading his mvn works to Gaston de
Foix. 11 -l Professionals among the middle class also enjoyed oral
reading, employing servants or requesting local clergy to read
books aloud to them. MJrgery Kempe, though she could not read
herself, avJiled herself constantly of books that she had read to her
by the local priest, whom she referred to as her "reader." 11 "
But oral performances of reading could not efface the intensely
private reaction readers seem to have fdt in response to books. Not-
ing a preponderance of illuminated readers perusing their texts with
closed mouths, PJul SJenger argues that both reJding and writing
were becoming increJsingly seen JS private and personal activities
and cites important changes in manuscript production that pro-
moted fJcility in private reading in the latter Middle Ages. 11 c' More-
over, the etTect books had on the private sensibility was increasingly
emphasized. The nonmaterial aspect of books and the imaginJry
worlds evoked by them bestowed upon a reader a sensation of su-
periority or ''chosenness" that belied their value as luxury com-
modities.
Reading constituted a new way of conceptualizing the individ-
ual by delineating the separate realms of private and public perfor-
mance. In addition, through the act of reading, interiority came to
be seen as a defining feature of ethics. In reading, one's mind
touches, seemingly, the mind of another, greater person in the fig-
ure of the author. Richard de Bury describes the act of reading as
the unfolding of an entire world in which minds separated by time
and distance are able to meet and converse:
 THE READING PUBLIC 39

In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee

things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books
come forth the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in
time; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all
the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had
provided mortals with the remedy of books. 117

This meeting of the minds is of course illusory; the reader's mind is

active, whereas the writer's mind is fixed forever in the words on the
page. Yet the mind of the reader brings the writer to life, positing
both participants as if in a conversation on another plane of exis-
tence. The act of reading, transcending the body and uniting the
reader with an entire tradition of history and legend, associates a
reader with the highest rank of prestige. When we consider the ven-
erated tradition of auctoritas within which the medievals situated
their beloved canonical writers, the imagined association between
reader and author becomes that much the more revered. In reading,
then, and in communicating personally, or so it seemed, with an auc-
tor who himself spoke God's language, a reader joins a community
of the "best" individuals commemorated by his or her culture, slur-
ing their prestige and status.
De Bury's "fetishization" of the book, as Michael Camille puts it,
is exaggerated but perhaps not entirely unshared by other medieval
readers. 11 H The initiation into a secret world enacted by reading a
book was posed in contrary ways, depending on the author. While
some texts, such as the Booke cif Raynardc the Foxc, sought to de-
mystifY the elitism of education, other texts specifically sought to
create an elite or secret world of understanding in which only their
own readers might claim membership. 119 Reginald Pecock, tor ex-
ample, aims his fifteenth-century Donct specifically at those who
seem alienated from their surroundings, a world he describes as
being full of"envie and detraccioun and malice." He promises his
readers participation within a new community of Christians who
will "knytte" together with each other and with God by reading his
book. 120 The anonymous Cloud of U11knowing begs its readers to
keep the book's existence secret, and to share it only with those
who "bi pi supposing" [according to their guess] have the correct
40 ENGAGING WORDS

intentions and may therefore appreciate and understand it. 121 The
Secretum Secretorum promises a similar initiation: the book is com-
prised of "secretes" that will show themselves only to those who
"hede it wele, rede it wele, and undrestande it wele" [heed it well,
read it well, and understand it well]. 122 The author expresses horror
lest those who are "untrewe" read the book and gain access to se-
crets meant only for the initiated.
Other authors, however, saw reading as a way of knowing and
shaping the self. Henryson's Moral Fables are intended "to gude pur-
pais quha culd it weill apply" [to good purpose for whomever can
apply (them) well] .123 The opening of the Pricke of Conscience indi-
cates that its author sees the text as a metaphor for the operation of
the soul. The purpose of the book is "to make pam pam-self first
knaw" [make them (readers) know themselves] that afterwards its
internalized text shall function to "prikke pair conscience with-yn"
[prick their consciences from within]. 124 Guillaume Fillastre, in the
Thoison d'or, imagines a reader who will move responsively and
willingly from one text to the next, forming a fuller spiritual aware-
ness via the interaction of differing authorial voices. Noting that
"knowledge is not acquired by hearing alone, but also is acquired
and increases by study, by reading and by subtly thinking and med-
itating on what one has read and studied," Guillaume links medita-
tion with reading:

Books are not given to men in vain or for amusement, but out of
pure necessity, for they are made to supplement and come to the
aid of the weakness of memory, which flows away and runs like
water in the stream. By which it would profit little to hear or to
ask question to learn if memory does not retain it. Thus, for all its
skill, as it is said, memory does not suffice for retention. This is why
the study of books is necessary in order to retain what one has
learned by inquiry and by hearing. In books there are also often
found doctrines not heard by which man may learn and retain by
reading and studying knowledge and wisdom without a teacher or
instructor. For the sense of sight is much firmer than hearing and
makes man much more certain, because the spoken word is transi-
tory, but the written letter remains and impresses itself more in the
understanding of the reader. 125
 THE KEADING PUBLIC 41

Mary Carruthers observes that readers engage the authority of the

text not as interpreters who might complete the "hermeneutic
circle" but instead as a "dialogue between two memories." 126 Yet
Guillaume is careful to distinguish between exterior and interior
processes. The reader does not need to memorize the contents of
the text. Guillaume implies that engaging in such a monumental
task distracts from the more necessary tasks of"thinking and med-
itating" on what has been read. Books function for him, as for
Richard de Bury, as egalitarian teachers, conveying wisdom that
may then be reread, assessed, or debated in the privacy of one's
own study.
Many treatises directed toward nonecclesiastics promote reading
as a way of thinking and restructuring the mental processes. Such
texts warn that their contents will only work on those who express
the desire and commitment to change. Julian of Norwich writes
that her book should be read only by those who are willing to fully
submit to the instruction offered by the text. Taking the text in part,
she warns, is to commit a kind of heresy-in so doing one fits the
book to one's own mind, rather than submitting the mind to the
book. 127 This emphasis on textual submission seems more pro-
nounced in the later fourteenth century: the A-text of Piers Plow-
man, for example, emphasizes "kynde wit," or interior knowledge,
over learning and theology, a stance that is revised considerably in
the B- and C-texts. In the revisions, the allegorical figures of Study,
Scripture, and Clergy insist upon the stretching of immediate
knowledge to capture what seem to be paradoxical concepts-an
act of understanding that can only take place, it is implied, through
reading or listening to the written word in the form of original
scripture, glosses, or commentaries. The "half-educated," in this ar-
gument, are among the most morally dangerous. 12 K
Careful instructions elaborating the manner and pace of reading
preface many late medieval devotional manuals. A Talkyn,r; c:f pe Laue
if God advises "esyliche and softe" [comfortable and soft] reading
that an "inward felyng and deplich penkyng" [inward feeling and
deep thinking] might result. 129 Nicholas Love's Mirror t~[ the Blessed
Life ifjesus Christ instructs readers to read "properly"-that is, with
the heart and the intent as well as with the eyes:
42 ENGAGiNG WORDS

Wherefore pou pat coueytest to fele treuly pe fruyt of pis boke;

pou most with all pi pought & alle pin entent, in pat man ere make
pe in pi soule present to poo pinges that bene here \Vriten seyd or
done of our lord Jcsu, & pat bisily, likyngly & abydyngly, as pei
pou herdest hem with pi bodily <:res, or sey paim with pin eyen
don; puttyng awey for pe tyme, & leuyng alle oper occupacions &
bisynesses. 1311

[Wherefore, you who desire to feel truly the fruit of this book must
in such a manner, with all your thoughts and all your intentions,
make yourself present in your soul to those things that have been
written, said, or done here of our lord Jesus, and that diligently, will-
ingly, and patiently, as if you heard them with your bodily ears, or
said them with your eyes downcast, putting away and letting go of
all other occupations and concerns.\

In renouncing the senses of the body for the senses of the spirit in
the perusing of a text, Love imagines a different kind of reading act.
The book transports the reader outside the body, becoming the
"eyes and ears" into another time and place. Sacred events materi-
alize in the present as the reader is transformed into a witness of the
figurative reality beyond and learns to perceive contemporary oc-
currences through a transhistorical !em.
Each of these instructional texts constructs an equation between
reading, silent prayer. and intention. The book in essence becomes
the interlocutor in a dialogue that takes place entirely in the mind.
The intercessor in the form of the saint, teacher, or instructor van-
ishes as the book takes his or her place; now readers themselves are
responsible for their own spiritual journeys, for their intellectual
awakening from the world of appear:mces. Self-knowledge is a pre-
requisite for devotional practice: "The first intention of the praying
person suffices, the which God looks principally in relating or re-
flecting one's intention to the use of the one for whom one wishes
to pray, and always under divine Will." 131 God notes the status of the
heart and not merely the speech or exterior actions of the suppli-
cant. Though a confessor's intentions had of course been of ecclesi-
astical concern since the twelfth century, reading instructions
during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries included a slight ad-
 THE READING PUBLIC 43

justment: rather than the confessor it is the individual who must

look into his or her own heart.
The private focus in late medieval books points increasingly to
the capacity for self-fashioning. Instead of trusting the clerical bu-
reaucracy for the salvation of the individual soul, bte medieval
prayer books imply the possibility of control over one's own destiny.
However, if the individual is to be responsible for the self and its sal-
vation, the corollary problem arises of how that might best be han-
dled. The instructions in Poitiers BM, MS 95 measure the
individual's intention against his or her desires, and that against His
own "divine Will." The crucial concern is the capacity for self-de-
ceit. The supplicant may not be able to acknowledge dubious in-
tentions but may rather practice the arts of self-justification and
normalization in order to hide the truth. Thus though private read-
ing promises freedom from cultural judgment, at the same time
reading instructions are careful to stipulate the amount of training
and self-awareness that is required in order to teach individuals po-
sitioning imide those texts they read in their prayer books. The de-
votional manuals especially sought to teach readers to read
themselves, too, like texts, subject to assessment and judgment.
The late medieval concept of reading is characterized by the con-
viction that books serve as vehicles for establishing both self-aware-
ness and self-actuation. Books were thus symbols of a new kind of
status to which anyone could aspire. They represented potentiality
and worldly escape. But more than that, books offered the semblance
of egalitarianism. For the gentry, in particular, the act of reading em-
bodied something of a utopian promise: projecting conversations,
places, and identities romanticized by their very distance from real-
ity, the contents of books provided an illusion, however transitory, of
class freedom. In books one could converse \Vith the saints, the
church fathers, even the Virgin herself. If the Church promised that
all were equal before God, books upheld that promise, creating
worlds in which anyone "intellectually enlightened" enough to read
the words or even meditate upon the images might find an audience
with the greatest figures of history and tradition.
CHAPTER 2

THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK:

MEDIATING THE AESTHETICS
OF READER RESPONSE

I
n 1545, Henry VIII issued the first national primer: a book, in
English, to be "taught, learned, and read" by all his majesty's sub-
jects. 1 The new book was intended to impose uniformity in read-
ing and praying "for the avoiding of strife and contention," and
instituted an authorized national text replacing the "pernicious" and
"superstitious" contents of the Books of Hours that were currently
so popular among the laity. Insofar as the traditional Books of Hours
had also been commonly used as a first reader, introducing the let-
ters of the alphabet and simple prayers on which to practice, the
new primer was also meant to serve as the official "first book," lay-
ing a firm ideological foundation upon which to build an educa-
tion appropriate to an enlightened society.
The post-Reformation's concern over the contents of the Books
of Hours is particularly noteworthy when we consider that the new
books did not attempt to impose new prayers, or even to change
substantially the way in which people were accustomed to praying.
The king's primers followed the standard format of the traditional
Books of Hours, but in English. There was a calendar; the Little Of-
fice dedicated to the Virgin Mary, with verses and responses to be
recited hourly; the seven penitential psalms; the passion; and the tra-
ditional prayers. Yet nonetheless the king's cabinet found the con-
tents of the Books of Hours disturbing enough to include
"admonishments" to readers that advocated a correct, Protestant
46 ENCAGING WORDS

manner of reading. The Goodly Primer, for example, an early version

published in 1535, states:

Among other pestilent and infectious books and learnings, with the
which the Christian people have been piteously seduced and de-
ceived, brought up in divers kinds of diffidence and false hope, I may
judge chiefly those to be pernicious, on whom they have been wont
commonly hitherto in every place superstitiously to pray, and have
learned in the same with much foolish curiosity, and as great scrupu-
losity, to make rehearsal of their sins by heart: and that tor this cause.
For these books, over and besides that they abounded in every place
with infinite errors, and perilous prayers, slanderous both to God and
to all his holy saints, were also garnished with glorious titles, and
with red letters, promising much grace, and many years, days, and
Ients of pardon, which they could never in deed perform, to the
great deceit of the people, and the utter destruction of their souls 2

What the Goodly Primer seems to object to is not the practice of

praying, nor the words uttered, but rather the rubrics of the text it-
self. These markers provide implications for the reading and use of
the prayers that post-Reformation leaders found contrary to the in-
terests of the state, as the King's Primer would later state quite ex-
plicitly. 3 The idea that a reader's experience might be manipulated
by the form of the text or the exhortations of the glossa tors of a text
denotes a particular sensitivity in late medieval and early modern
textual practice to reader response aesthetics. Readers were thought
to be susceptible to codes and images worked directly into the man-
uscript. Subversive Catholic codes thus had to be replaced in the
primers with state-authorized images and instructions for reading,
so that the "lewed folk" might be resocialized, as it were, into prac-
tices of reading deemed more acceptable to the new rule.

The Late Medieval Best-Seller

It is certainly true that variegated images of reading, each encoded

with its own set of associations, appear everywhere in the late Mid-
dle Ages. From the Annunciation scenes portraying Mary reading at
the moment of revelation to primers displaying the Virgin learning
 THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK 47

to read at the lap of St. Anne, images of reading began to prolifer-

ate in the cultural imagination. At the same time, private devotional
and prayer books, also punctuated with scenes of private reading,
began flooding the marketplace. Both image and book were witness
to a new cultural phenomenon in which private reading became
synonymous with spiritual growth, and the book itself came to be
seen as imbued with sacramental attributes that could be directly
fused with the individual reader. As the book grew into both sym-
bol and conduit for theophany, the role of the individual as reader
became increasingly important. In reading the works of others one
might efface the mind's own thoughts, displacing them with the acts
and images of-perhaps-the saints, and "seeing," however tem-
porarily, through their eyes.Yet in order for the ethical impact of this
displacement to remain, the reader had to become an active parti-
cipant, assessing the spiritual and ethical lessons he-or, less likely,
she-learned, so that such lessons might be engaged as values in
their own right. Whether owners of books were able to compre-
hend completely the words of each page or whether they merely
sounded out the pattern of letters with the mnemonic aid of the
prayers they might have already memorized, Books of Hours pro-
jected an image of reading that helped shape the very mentality of
readers.
Books of Hours began to appear by the thirteenth century, when
the Office of the Virgin had evolved into a service of worship pop-
ular and complicated enough to warrant circulation as an indepen-
dent collection. 4 In England, especially, Books of Hours marked the
appearance of a new reading audience as book patronage moved
away from monastic reading circles to more secular ones. Horae
rapidly outnumbered all other kinds of illuminated books in pro-
duction as readers eagerly sought them out as one of the few illu-
minated options available to them. 5 The first known Book of Hours
to be designed in England appeared about 1240 in Oxford and is
thought to have been illuminated by the same W de Brailes who
was associated with the Oxford book trade. 6 By the fourteenth cen-
tury the books were being produced at an accelerating rate and
with increasing individuation. The services were intended to be
read, possibly aloud, at the appropriate moments throughout the
 ENGAGING WORDS

day, though in actuality there is little way to ascertain the extent to

which the practice was followed. Patrons brought their Books of
Hours with them to church service so that they might read quietly
and, even during these public events, individualize their prayers. In-
structions from a sixteenth-century text advise inserting special
prayers inside a Books of Hours so that they might be referred to in
church; illuminations from other Books of Hours specifically por-
tray their patrons reading from open Books of Hours during such
services as the funeral or the Mass, during which they might follow
in their own books the Communion or the Elevation of the Host. 7
Certainly, as the previous chapter has shown, there were sound
economic reasons for cultivating a veneration for reading in late
medieval Europe. The demand for books grew as the Middle Ages
waned. In the Books of Hours, particularly, the value placed upon
private reading and private devotion was infectious. By the four-
teenth century, these compendiums of devotional texts had super-
seded the psalter as the primary book used in private worship. H
Hundreds of copies were manufactured throughout Europe for a
great variety of patrons and tastes, at all different economic levels
and degrees of sophistication. The most well-known books, of
course, belong to the wealthy patrons and book collectors: the
Due de Berry, Mary of Burgundy, Anne of Cleves, and the like;
these show great individuality and tailored personal appeal.'! But
middle-class merchants, lawyers, and students also commissioned
their own Books of Hours, as witnessed by the contracts with
book sellers that survive from the era. 10 The Book of Hours has
been called a late medieval best-seller, and justifiably so; to this day
Books of Hours survive in greater numbers than any other me-
dieval artifact. 11
As the standard text for private devotion in the late Middle Ages,
the Books of Hours epitomized the special status of reading as an
act creating a threshold not only between heaven and earth, but be-
tween interior and exterior, spiritual and physical lives. Built around
a set body of devotions to the Virgin (the "Little Office," or the
"Hours of the Virgin"), the Book of Hours was intended to provide
a series of short prayers and psalms that could be recited at each
canonical hour of the day. The service was modeled on the Divine
 THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK 49

Office of the Breviary used by the clergy but was shortened for the
layman. By the fifteenth century, when the popularity of the prayer
books had reached its height, the format had become quite stan-
dardized. Typically the books opened with a calendar denoting the
saints' days for each month; a short text or texts might follow, such
as special invocations to patron saints, that would precede the Hours
of the Virgin. Each of the Hours of the Virgin began with an histo-
riated initial and was, in the more luxurious editions, accompanied
with an illumination, which also became fairly standardized over
time: matins accompanied the scene of the Annunciation; lauds the
Visitation; prime the Nativity; tierce the Annunciation to the Shep-
herds; sext the Epiphany; none the Presentation at the Temple; ves-
pers the Massacre of the Innocents or the Flight into Egypt;
compline the Coronation of the Virgin. 12 Though the Hours of the
Virgin formed the basis of the text, and was itself fairly fixed in con-
tent, the remaining texts of the manuscript could be tailored to in-
dividual specification to include other services such as the Office of
the Dead, the Penitential Psalms, or the Hours of the Holy Ghost.
These services, too, would be divided into the canonical hours and
illustrated with appropriate scenes.
The format of the books was thus highly dependent on re-
ceived expectation and the memory of the individual owner, who
would have been accustomed to hearing such prayers and re-
sponses in the divine service. The Goodly Primer of 1535, however,
particularly decried the decorative rubrics promising rewards for
the proper use and recitation of the prayers, which might offer
promise of forgiveness or even, in the case of the Obsecro te-a
popular prayer frequently included among the optional texts of
the prayer books-a glimpse of the Virgin herself. Reformers also
objected to the variable content of the versicles that followed.
Though the primary aim of the office was to recite the 150
psalms, the shortened and tailored nature of office in the medieval
Books of Hours allowed a certain amount of choice in terms of
which psalms were included or excluded or whether a hymn or
prayer might be included in lieu of one of the psalms. The Horae
Eboracences, for example, a York primer dating from the early six-
teenth century and considered to be one of the more complete
.)() ENGAGING WORDS

examples of late medieval prayer books, contains for the hour of

matins the hymn Quem terra ponthus etlzera, three lertia and the can-
ticle Ambrosii et Allgustini, in addition to the standard reading of
the psalms. u A series of short hymns, psalms, readings. or re-
sponses, too varied throughout the Books of Hours to be catego-
rized (except, perhaps, for the popular Obsecro te or the 0
intcmerata), might follow the Little Office before the ancillary texts
of the Office of the Dead or the Hours of the Holy Ghost.
The problem for the reformers was that, despite their conformity
to an expected ordinatio and standard set of devotional texts, Books
of Hours-more than other service books-could be personalized.
Medieval readers wanted to tailor their devotions according to their
own tastes and needs. The choice of readings, illustrations, and
rubric that might accompany the Little Office was often directly
relevant to the personal experience or role of the patron. Prayers re-
ferring directly to the patron might be incorporated into the
books. 14 Patron portraits or f.m1ily arms might be added to the il-
luminations. Conjunctions between sacred and secular worlds were
increasingly accomplished by means of personalization of the Books
of Hours; readers were inserted as characters into their own prayer
books so that they could literally see themselves playing out their
roles in salvation history.
It was both this whimsey and the assumption of the presence of
an articulate and responsible reader that made the Books of Hours
dangerous for later reformers. For ironically, though the Reforma-
tion itself had depended upon free access to texts, the conviction
remained that books themselves could effect a certain reading re-
sponse that was both dangerous and potentially subversive to the
state. The interior world created by the Book of Hours and its
markers challenged the Henrician ideal of a royal subject, not only
by encouraging "heterodox" associations but by insisting upon the
metaphor of reading as perception. The mind opened via the book
sees more than the closed mind that does not read-both literally,
in the sense that a reader might open him or herself to a vision of
God or a saint through the reading act, and metaphorically, in the
sense that one might perceive and understand worldly phenomena
better by learning to read the signs.
 THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK 51

Marginalia and the

Iconography of Reading

The intimacy between visual and textual representation is certainly

one of the more noteworthy characteristics of the late medieval
Books of Hours. On the most basic level the illuminations that char-
acterize missals, breviaries, and similar books supplemented reading,
allowing even the illiterate access to the divine truth mediated
through books. In the late thirteenth century, Guillaume Durand ar-
gued that pictures were "the lessons and the scriptures of the laity":

For what writing supplieth to him which can read, that doth a pic-
ture supply to him which is unlearned, and can only look. Because
they who are uninstructed thus see what they ought to follow: and
things are read, though letters be unknown ... pictures are not to be
put away because they are not to be worshipped: for paintings ap-
pear to move the mind more than descriptions .... Hence, also, is it
that in churches we pay less reverence to books than to images and
pictures. 15

Despite Durand's assertion that iconic symbols serve as better

mnemonic devices than words, pictures were nonetheless consid-
ered inferior to words, serving more as a bridge to understanding
the text than as vehicles of perception in themselves. Though early
medieval culture displayed a distrust for the textual that manifested
in the substitution of visual icons for verbal ones, in the late Mid-
dle Ages this trend seems to have been reversed. 16 The mysterious
dissimilarity between written and spoken words was then seen as
mirroring the dissimilarity between knowable things and unknow-
able things. By the early fifteenth century medieval readers were en-
couraged "to learn to transcend with [their] minds from these
visible things to the invisible, from the corporeal to the spiritual."
Such, as Jean Gerson writes, was "the purpose of the image." 17 A
historiated initial might trigger a mnemonic response that simulta-
neously brought to mind the very psalm, lesson, or response that
followed, but it also functioned as a marker for psychological asso-
ciation that moved beyond whatever accompanying image might il-
luminate the page. The rich blend of zoomorphic forms with
52 ENGAGING WORDS

recognizable text and illumination that appears throughout the

Books of Hours thus links the recognizable text of both memory
and book to the possibility of future interpretation and myriad new
personal applications. 1H
Though the icon provides only an aid for imagining the textual
reality of the book, the combination of text and image that charac-
terizes the late Books of Hours paints a landscape that informs the
cultural response to reading. It is of considerable significance that
Books of Hours were intended for the laity rather than for the
clergy. Nonprofessional readers were becoming increasingly inter-
ested in pursuing their devotions privately; the readers depicted in
the manuscripts functioned as markers for the laity's own real-life
reading practices. Those clues deposited in the Books of Hours, in-
cluding not only the text itself but the illuminations, historiated ini-
tials, and marginal figures accompanying it, can be read as an entire
ideological system at once constructing the reader and creating a
cultural value for the act of reading. In the fourteenth-century ver-
sions, both grand illuminations and marginal grotesques began
modeling acts of reading that suggested the possibility for achieving
spiritual or subjective transformation through the real-life reader's
own act of reading.
Images ofbooks do not begin to appear in the horae until the sec-
ond quarter of the fourteenth century. Books of Hours composed
very early in the century tended to depict Pentecost and much of
the life of Mary (including the Annunciation) without books,
though later in the century Mary always appears accompanied by a
book, and Pentecost is imagined as taking place at the moment of
quiet communal reading. By the second quarter of the fourteenth
century, however, the iconography of the Books of Hours began
notably to change. The books that had once signified the presence
of the Logos now came to be seen as vehicles capable of imparting
something of the "word" to perceptive readers. The Hours ofJeanne
D'Evreux, attributed to the great French illuminator Jean Pucelle,
fused elements of the new Italian humanism with the whimsical
northern traditions incorporating marginal grotesques to create a
dialogue among juxtaposed images. The juxtaposition in the Hours
of books both open and closed, surrounded by readers and non-
 THE IMAGE UF THE BOOK 53

readers alike, makes a profound comment upon the purpose of the

prayer book in the understanding of sacramental events and their
ethical consequences. Those who carry the books carry as well in-
terior spirituality; those who ignore the books ignore the sacra-
mental significance imparted through them. In the Annunciation
scene prefacing the Little Office of the prayer book. Jeanne, encap-
sulated in the historiated initial that begins the text, reads from a gi-
gantic prayer book held aloft in her tiny hands (figure 2.1). The
open book, bigger even than the entire upper body of the woman
who holds it, dominates the miniature inside the initial. Above
Jeanne and above the text, the image of the annunciation itself fills
the page: Mary, herself holding a closed prayer book, listens as if in
rapt attention to the angel kneeling before her, while the scroll
bearing the words A1'c 1Vlaria floats as if of its own volition above the
offering hands of the angel. Acljacent to the Annunciation in the
manuscript is the image portraying the Betrayal of Christ: Christ,
too, holds a closed book, his hand outstretched as if offering it to
the soldiers who confi·ont him; yet the crowd surrounding him,
their mouths agape in various respomes of ugliness. shock, or bel-
ligerence. ignore it.
The effect of the whole is to charge the act of reading with in-
terpretive effects that draw attention to reading's function as a me-
diation between human and divine, seen and unseen. Jean Pucelle's
work was highly influential: his use of spatial relations and atfective
images, combined with the technique of inserting the marginal or
fantastic as a secondary gloss onto the primary text, suggested new
possibilities fen· reading the Books of Hours that exploited the pos-
sibility of rereading and rethinking. Repeat readings of the text en-
courage the reader to construct creative nevv interpretations, to
fuse mundane with sacramental. ridiculous with sublime, in a mul-
tilayered etfect that might have ongoing significance despite the
relatively mechanical experience involved in chanting the Kcom-
panying text. 1' 1
In the opening sequence of the f!ouJs, the marginal and seem-
ingly trivial and playtid games that accompany the more momen-
tous events of the gospels suggest a seriousness behind the most
mundane of h llll!all acti\ itic;;. E wn :1s Judas betr;1ys Christ, the more
Figure 2.1 Berrayal of C hrist and Annunciation. The Hottrs cfJ eamu D 'E11reux. New York, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, The Cloisters CoUection, 1954, f. 15v and 16r.
 THE !MACE OF THE BOOK 55

serious game of jousting playing out in the bas-de-page beneath him

implies an escalation of the gentler game of tag going on in the page
opposite. Both games denote human interests, a dismissal of the se-
rious in favor of the pleasure of the moment. But are there perhaps
ramifications behind the most simple of human activities that
should be considered before the agent of such games makes a seri-
ous transgression? The book, held by the Virgin on the one side and
Christ on the other, is closed. The Virgin, we are invited to suppose,
has either just been concluding her hours of prayer or is just about
to begin praying at the mom em of the angel's arrival. This possibil-
ity is supported by the tiny figure of the reading Jeanne in the his-
toriated initial beneath, who mirrors Mary's activity. By contrast, on
the verso of the manuscript, Christ's closed book reminds us of the
closed minds of those surrounding him. The disciples do not read,
have not read; likewise they do not act, but stagger back in dumb
incapacitation. Nor do the guards or the pharisees read. Christ's
closed book signifies the closed-off mind, immobilized and inca-
pable of righteous action because it has not accepted the teachings
beyond the individual agent's own immediate experience.
Later fcmrteenth-century Books of Hours mimicked both Pu-
cdle 's book iconography and his technique of layering contrasting
sacramental scenes to form new readerly responses. By Chaucer's
time Books of Hours were filled with images of books and readers,
a feature of the International Style; this new iconography was to last
well into the fifteenth century."" The contrast between early four-
teenth-century Books of Hours and the horae that appear later in
the century is particularly striking: though marginalia figure preva-
lently even in early Books of Hours, there human or grotesque mar-
ginals appear \vithout books. 21 Marginalia accompanies the greater
illuminations for purposes of emoting or mirroring appropriate aes-
thetic response, even as they frequently do in later Books of Hours.
It is not until later, however, that the emotional response was seen
as deriving directly from the experience of reading.
For the most part, reading was portrayed in the books as a seri-
ous activity that intercedes directly between human and divine
worlds. Prayers to the individual saints were accompanied by minia-
ture portraits depicting the saint with book in hand, providing a
56 EN G AG ING W O RD S

Figure 2.2 Reading cow. Bohun Psalter. London, British Library MS Egerton
3277, f. 46v.

veritable community of readers with whom the owner of the prayer

book might participate. A Parisian Book of Hours from the work-
shop of the Master of the Duke of Bedford shows no fewer than
nineteen miniature reading saints; the final image of the book, a
trinity of St. Anne, the Virgin, and the Christ Child engaged in a
reading lesson, closes the entire volume.22 Both patrons and mar-
ginal readers are frequently depicted in some act of transfiguration.
A woman reading at a lectern might be touched by the hand of
God, or, more often, a reader might be illuminated by the appear-
ance of a vision. 23 Books were shown to produce secular as well as
 THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK 57

spiritual enlightenment; marginal images frequently include court

scenes in which kings and advisers discourse over open books.~-!
Interestingly, reading imagery in the fourteenth century horae pre-
dominantly seems to occur in the Hours, the Office of the Dead, and
the special prayers to the Virgin and saints. Noticeably lacking in im-
ages of readers are the psalter and Mass sections, if they are included
at all. This absence provides us with some evidence on the perceived
purposes of reading. Hours, intended to be read in solitude, depict
reading as a private activity, whereas the psalter and mass, presumably
performed in public, do not require an act of contemplative reading
in order to be effective. The marginal images of the Hours £?[Alary t?f
Burgrmdy are littered with cryptic and not always flattering references
to reading: angels and abbots read, but so do monkeys and demons.
Monkeys, in fact, "ape" many human activities in the prayer book:
they nurse; they hunt; they play musical instruments; they don typi-
cal costumes and postures of the various estates. The intent might be
to distinguish acts of reading that "count" from the mere posturing
of the activity. The interior state of the reader, and the quality of his
or her intimacy with the book, separates meaningful activity from
the behavior of trained beasts. In the Bohun Psalter and Hours, a de
luxe manuscript produced between 1361 and 1373 for the powerful
Bohun family, only a cow reads silently in the margins of the psalter
(figure 2.2); a more appropriate use of books is shown a few pages
later, where monks use books to direct their singing.~" Reading dur-
ing the mass is clearly an oral and communal activity rather than a
private one. Only later in the manuscript, during the Hours of the
Virgin, do solitary human readers and writers begin to appear in the
margins. ~ 6 Oral or silent presentation is generally identified by the
open or closed mouths of the readers. Text pages are frequently ac-
companied by silent readers, while grand illuminations depicting
momentous events (particularly the Annunciation or Mass) tend
more often to be accompanied by oral readers-though silent read-
ing, usually by the patron or patroness herself, frequently accompa-
nies such scenes as well. A typical example comprising at least three
different acts of reading can be found in a French Book of Hours: as
a tonsured monk reads from his own open book on the table before
him, a group of singers behind him perform the music displayed in
 EN c; A c; INc; W 0 IZ. J) S

their shared, open book (figure 2.3). Hooded figures beyond follow
along silently. In the historiated initial of the text itself, an en-
grossed man presses his t~1ce into his open book, as if imprinting its
contents upon his soul. Further clerical readers follow along med-
itatively in the margins, their silence depicted by their closed
mouths and downcast eyes. Private, communal, and conceptual
reading occur framed within the same scene, as the tropological
significance of the Mass is repeated and continued through the
open book and its readers. 27
Though serious readers predominate in these books, poly-
morphs, strutting through the pages with the heads and upper tor-
sos of men and women and the lower halves of animals, grotesques,
and animals, read as well. Serious depictions of reading are coupled
with the droll. In the Maestricht Hours, parodies of reading figure
as prominently as the more realistic acts of reading. Though angels
read in this text, and though at least one marginal man reads from
his book and cries aloft in empathic response, in other scenes read-
ing is portrayed as a foolish or even dangerous activity: a woman
reading from a book seems blissfully ignorant of the sneering head
poking out from under her dress (figure 2.4), while later in the
manuscript a monk remains oblivious to the human gryphon tak-
ing aim at him with an arrow below.-'K Such images might attest to
contemporaneous accounts of the various distractions that might
interfere with a reader's concentration-Christina of Markyate
complained of evil visions that imposed upon her meditative read-
ing, for example 2 'J_but they might also warn readers of the forces
that might convene to deliberately disrupt the spiritual salvation of
another.
Indeed, grotesque or inappropriate readers fill the pages of Books
of Hours almost obsessively. The St. Omer Hours and the Bohun
Psalter and Hours both portray reading rabbits at the margins of
their pages (figure 2.5), while reading foxes, monkeys, apes and cows
make appearances throughout various other texts. 30 An English
Book of Hours now in the Bodleian includes several evil-looking
readers, including two men-one dressed like a knight-with ani-
mal bodies and lJrge bat wings reading books.-' 1 In another Oxford
manuscript, a fox attempts to read a book, but finds himself pecked
in the head for his pains by a large bird. 32 The Bohun Psalter and
 THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK 59

Figure 2.3 Private and communal reading during the Mass. London, British Li-
brary Add. MS 18,192, f. llOr.

Hours depict a marginal sequence in which a monk writes, but

with a devil grasping his shoulder and whispering in his ear. The
roundel that follows shows the monk praying before the Madonna
and child, who signifY their authority over his by token of the books
60 ENGAGING WORDS

Figure 2.4 Dangerous reading. London, British Library MS Stowe 17, f. 29v.

they hold. As he kneels, the devil is driven away from him. 33 The
"unseeing" figure as readers in the Maestricht Hours, as in the
blindfolded man reading from his book at f. 25v, but so do the
doltish or stupid, who hold their books backward at f. 214.
Such readers satirize both the process of reading, and, perhaps
to an even greater extent, the estates that abuse reading in their
professions. Though clergy appear throughout the manuscripts in
their proper roles, singing from their books and delivering the Eu-
charist or rites for the dead, lone clerics (particularly monks) dis-
play a proclivity for error-whether intentional or not. Such
parody may signify an attempt to undermine the clerical estate
that sought to control religious thought. In such a way noble or
upwardly-aspiring patrons for whom such books were frequently
commissioned might assert their own preeminence over a clerical
class competing for similar riches and territory. 34 Certainly ani-
mals and grotesques are frequently found performing the more
mundane daily tasks, such as spinning or working in the field. Yet
 THE IMAGE OF THE UOOK 61

knights and secular readers are not necessarily themselves exempt

from the scathing critique of the marginalist. Monkeys and apes
engage in swordplay; they hunt; they falcon; they carry their pa-
trons aloft on large dishes. 35 Knights can be portrayed villainously
as well as nobly. The Bohun Psalter and Hours provides marginal
images not only of knights reading, but of peasants, too. Both
reading estates are clearly demonstratt'd to be fit for visitation or
illumination, as their marginal images show. 36 Estates' structures
are turned upsidt' down; if the hierarchy is not entirely inverted,
it nonetheless is subverted, so that reading on the part of the la-
borers shows as rich a potential for illumination and growth as
noble reading. In the Books of Hours, both reading and the quest
for conversion become individual activities. What remains a per-
vasive motif is the idea that neither the church nor the prevailing
authority need intervene on behalf of individual who takes re-
sponsibility for his or her own interior growth.
The marginal images that appear throughout the texts, in which
social commentary and straightforward observation of human in-
teraction mix with fantasy, morbidity, humor, and delight, would
suggest, like Chrt'tien de Troyes's words at the opening of his Erec et
Enide, that "there are certain things we dt'spise whose worth is far
greater than we think." 37 The marginal images of the Hours 4Jeanne
D'Evreux, again, when read in conjunction with the intense intt'r-
est in human emotion and psychology throughout the illumina-
tions, suggest a psychological significance that comments upon the
reading and application of the text of the Passion. The horae are filled
with acts of reading, centering around the miraculous experience at
the heart of the cult of St. Louis. While imprisoned during the Cru-
sades, Louis's book of prayers, which he had lost on the battlefield,
was miraculously restort'd to him. This moment of course appears
in one of the more striking illuminations of the Hours. But the
miraculous book figures in several other full-plate illuminations ac-
companying his hours, as well. The "Education of St. Louis" features
Louis bowing before his father, who holds out a book as if in offer-
ing; on the page opposite, Jeanne herself is figured again as a reader,
this time before the tomb of St. Louis, and before which two blind
men are miraculously healed. 3 R Reading may be signaled here as an
62 ENGAGING WORDS

act equated with seeing, with restoring spiritual vision even as the
literal vision of the blind is restored.
Among the full-plate illuminations of the Hours of the Virgin
and the Hours of St. Louis a number of notable marginal readers ap-
pear, interspersed within the text of the prayers accompanying these
images. These form a series of echoes that continue to underscore
the motif of reading throughout the manuscript. The first, in the
Hours of the Virgin, reveals a doctor studiously reading from his
book, while he holds aloft a liquid-filled vial as if comparing his ac-
tua: findings to what he has read. 39 Other marginal readers appear
in the Hours of St. Louis. An old man, holding a closed book in the
upper left margin of one page, gestures heavenward with a pointed
finger. 40 Several pages later a monk sits, looking down upon the
opening ofTerce and accompanying an illumination in which Louis
washes the feet of the poor. Instead of reading he holds his book
open and faces us, his readers. 41 Another reader figures in much the
same manner some pages later; he appears opposite the illumination
depicting the miraculous restoration of the book. As Louis peers
from the confines of his Gothic prison, holding out his hands to re-
ceive the book grasped by the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, in
the text page opposite the marginal half-figure of the monk holds a
prayer book open for the perusal of the reader. While he himself
does not read, it is clear that he intends the bearer of the Book of
Hours to do so. 42
Another droll figure hangs upside down within the historiated
initial "A," reading his book, which he hangs below his head where
he can see it. 43 The verse Annue nobis domine quis ut sicut beatus lu-
dovicus confessor tuus inter[i]us tibi digne Jamulari meruit [Lord, declare
to us who, just like blessed Louis your handservant, deserved to
serve you worthily and more intimately] follows. The figure reading
models just how such intimacy is achieved and recognized-
through diligent and private reading of the miraculous work of oth-
ers. The entranced expression on the marginal reader's face attests to
the transfiguring power of the text; he holds the book close, so that
he sees nothing but the text.
The marginal images provide a self-referential quality through-
out the book that helps draw the reader's attention to various acts
 63

Figure 2.5 Reading rabbits. The Hours of St. Orner. London, British Library MS
Additional 36,684, f. 24v.
 ENGAGING WORDS

and degrees of reading. The varying stances and postures of reading

seem as indicative of the persona of the model reader as the words
of the texts to which they draw attention. The humorous inversions
of readerly masks and the light touch given to the contortions and
convolutions that readers may undergo in attempting to assimilate
the text indicate an ability to take the self lightly, to appreciate its
quirks. Insofar as the prayers of the Obsecro te and the 0 intemerata
advocate a distancing from the self, an acknowledgment of the self's
inclination toward vanity and egoism, this gentle mockery of the
physical being who reads may signifY as well a new distancing per-
spective on the self provided by such reading.
The various perspectives and perceptions spawned by the in-
credible concatenation of image and story dominates as an interest
in the late fourteenth century. As in the Pucelle books, the telling of
a parallel legend or set of stories via the marginalia, ancillary to the
story of salvation history played out above, is not unusual in texts of
this period. Intertextuality seems to be a venerated aspect of read-
ing, so that multilayered reading experiences are combined in the
mind of the reader to create imaginative possibilities fusing the sec-
ular and sacred worlds, or private and sacramental life. Frequently
the Books of Hours copy Pucelle in pairing scenes from the life of
Mary with scenes from the Passion, as in the Oldhall Hours. How-
ever, more elaborate and far-reaching scenes are interpolated as
well. The Taymouth Hours, for example, portray long secular se-
quences from mythology and daily life-sequences that tell separate
stories in themselves-that only tangentially touch upon themes
from the life of the Virgin or Christ. In one, a knight with a lion
embarks on a series of adventures, killing a series of dragons and
other beasts. This series is followed by a sequence on the creation,
in which God, holding the book, creates earth, animals, and man,
demonstrating dominion over the animals just as in the preceding
sequence the knight more brutally demonstrated his lesser domin-
ion. Under the Hours of the Virgin, a strange sequence depicting
the maturation of a woman hunter unfolds. The sequence begins
with an illustration of the woman shooting rabbits with arrows.
However, she quickly progresses to using hounds. Soon she sets
traps, learns to string the rabbits together and haul them off for fu-
 THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK 1)5

ture use, falcons, leaps astride a horse and shoots arrows from it, only
to return to her most primitive impulses when, near the end of the
sequence, she leaps to her feet and finishes a deer off by hand, gut-
ting him herself in the final miniature.-1-1
What relation can these seemingly disparate marginal sequences
have to the noble scenes from the life of the Virgin that dominate
the pages above? As Camille notes, dividing the medieval con-
sciousness into "binary oppositions" (spiritual/ secular, sacred/ pro-
fane) does little to explain the sophisticated layering of meaning we
witness in these books. -IS Instead, we witness a celebration of both
plurality and difference: readers of the fourteenth-century Books of
Hours lived in a world populated by both the beautiful and the ugly,
the sensible and the ridiculous. Though grotesque, animal, or scato-
logical images might be used to serve an underlying moral purpose,
more often than not such images could appear as something to be
enjoyed simply for their humorous effect. In the age of Chaucer, the
sacred could be read through an eye overwhelmed with mundane
and trivial daily occurrences, with no fear that the integrity of the
central message might be lost. In essence, fourteenth-century man-
uscripts grant greater faith to the discerning abilities of their read-
ers, encouraging both free association and the subversive insights
into repressive ideologies those associations might reveal.

The Reader in the Text

Books of Hours are full of countless varieties and role models of

reading, indicating, if nothing else, the desire to open a space for the
act of reading that included the individual and his or her private de-
votional decisions in liturgical practice. The model for such an ideal
reader was the image of the Virgin herself, an image that came to be
associated as a matter of course with the act of reading in the Books
of Hours. Although early illustrations of the Virgin depicted her
spinning at the moment of the angel's visit, gothic artists replaced
the apocryphal spindle with the image of the book, from which the
Virgin reads when interrupted by the angel.
The source for this iconographic shift seems to have been the
pseudo-Bonaventura's 2'vlcditationcs vitae Christi, which went into
66 E N C A(; I N (; W () I<.. [) S

circulation in the late thirteenth century. Nicholas Love's fifteenth-

century translation of the text explains that when the angel Gabriel
appeared, Mary" ... was in here pryue chaumbure !Jat tyme closed &
in hir prayerers, or in hire meditaciones perauentur redyng J:>e prophe-
cie of ysaie, touchyng !Je Incarnation" [was enclosed in her private
chambers at the time and in her prayers, or in contemplation, perhaps
reading the prophecy of Isaiah regarding the Incarnation J. 41' Later the
text notes that the readerly Mary \vas "wont to angeles presence & to
J:>e si 3 t of hem" [accustomed to the presence and sight of angels] and
was astonished, not at Gabriel's presence, but at his words, for

... as mich as Pei lJat been perfidy meke. han Pat proprete lJat !Jei
reward not hire awne venues, bot ra]Jer taken hede to hir awne de-
fautes, wherePorh l)ei mowen algate protlte vertuesly haldyng in
hemself a grete venue lite! & a lite! defmte grete. 47

[those who are perfectly meek have that characteristic that they do
not commend their own virtues but rather take heed of their faults,
so that they might entirely profit virtuously, considering their great
virtues little and their little faults great.]

Mary is associated with both wisdom and literacy. The divine con-
ception occurs through the ear, signifYing Mary's hearing of and sub-
mission to the Divine Word. Mary's readerly ways accustom her to
miraculous visions. In addition, she reads herself--or knows herself-
so that she remains aware of her faults even when told she has been
chosen for the immaculate conception. The book on the table trom
which she reads symbolizes Christ's presence as Logos. Both aural
conception and the open book thus signit)· Mary's status as a reader
who correctly receives and understands the sacred words. So too,
Love admonishes us, must the reader follow Mary's example "to loue
solitary praiere & departyng fi·o men Pat (Jou mowe be worPi ange-
les presence, & forPermore, lore of wisdome to here or Pou speke, &
fort kepe silence & loue litil spech, tor !Jat is a tl.il gret & profitable
vertue" [to love solitary prayer and depart from humanity that you
might be worthy of the angel's presence, and furthermore to hear the
wisdom of learning before you speak, and to maintain silence and
love speech the less, for this is a great and profitable virtuej. 4x
 THE IMAGE OF THE l300K h7

The special prayers to the Virgin included in the Books of Hours

particularly delineate the relationship between reader and mbject as
a kind of intimacy conjured uniquely by the act of reading and in-
dicate a private connection with the books that can only take place
through actual reading and comprehension. The Obscrro tc and the
0 intcmcrata both appeal to the Virgin directly and in the first per-
son. ~<J In these prayers the Virgin in many ways embodies the model
of selfhood that reading the books of hours might help the patron
likewise achieve. The consolatory and transformative power of read-
ing is sometimes made quite explicit through special prologues
sometimes attached to the Marian prayers, as in this example fi-om
an early fifteenth-century Book of Hours:

Quicumque hanc orationem coram ymagie beatae mariac virginis

per trigenta dies genui flexus consilio et contritus denocte legerit
sine dubio quiquid ad ipsa consolatrice omnium angustorum
petivit ... utilitatem infallibiter obtinebit et hoc quampluribus per
experientiam veraciter est repertum."''

[Whoever will have read this oration at night in the presence of the
image of the Blessed Virgin Mary tor thirty days on bent knee, de-
liberately and contrite, without doubt, whatever he has asked from
the consolatrix of all distresses, infallibly he will gain profit and this
truly has been proven many times over by experience.J

Consolation derives not from the belief that the Virgin herself will
appear to intervene in the reader's distress but fi-om the reader her-
self. By imagining the Virgin's woes in her heart and by substituting
herself for the Virgin, the female patron of this prayer book should
experience for herself feelings of consolation and reconciliation.
The Virgin becomes less a conduit for spiritual force than do the
prayer and the Book of Hours in which the prayer is contained. Nor
need the Virgin literally appear to the reader in order to \Vork sub-
stantive change; reading allows the reader to help hcrsc[f Spiritual
transformation and escape fi·om "natural inclination" remain the
prime goal in reading the Books of Hours, but experience replaces
intercession as the mediating activity.
The rise of images of Marian reading in late medieval culture can-
not be coincidentaL Mary's image both inspired and commemorated
 68

.
I .._, f
f , ...
,

\'. ..

,.l"'-$
~-

:•
~

'

Figure 2.6 Mar y of Gue ldm as the Virg

in Mary. Bcr hn, Staar...b1bhot
germ. quart. 42, f. l9v. hek, MS
 THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK 69

a phenomenon transforming the individual's relationship to the very

interior status of his or her own soul. The image of Mary reading
from a book also appears in scenes with St. Anne, Mary's mother,
who teaches Mary to read. These images, generally added to the suf-
frages of saints frequently included in the Books of Hours, grow in-
creasingly common at the end of the fourteenth century. 5 1 By the
fifteenth century, they are something of a commonplace. Pamela
Sheingorn argues that the trinity of St. Anne, Mary, and Christ come
to figure a "matrilineal" trinity in which women could be said to
participate through the very act of reading and teaching their chil-
dren to read. These images not only suggest the presence of a culture
in which women read and owned books (certainly the wills from the
period acknowledge the strong presence of female patrons ofbooks),
but a culture that actively fostered and shaped female literacy. 52
More importantly, however, these images emphasize the impor-
tant place books and reading play in the early training of Mary-
training that, ostensibly, makes her the woman most suitable to be
the mother of the Christ child. Several Books of Hours strive to
make obvious and bizarre correlations between reading and the im-
maculate conception. Mary of Guelders, for example, is pictured in
her Books of Hours as the personification of the Virgin in the An-
nunciation (figure 2.6). This illumination does not follow the typi-
cal iconography of the Annunciation scenes that actually
accompany the hours, yet there are many elements present that
would suggest to the viewer that they should have the Annuncia-
tion in mind when looking at this portrait of Mary of Guelders.
Mary walks in an enclosed garden, holding her Books of Hours in
her hands. An angel carrying a banner inscribed with the words "0
milde Maria" floats above, while God himself observes from atop
the picture, releasing upon Mary a dove representing the Holy
Spirit.
The suggestion that Mary of Guelders should literally mirror the
Virgin seems remarkable and somewhat bold. Yet such composite
identifications are deliberate in the private prayer books. Noting
that Mary of Guelders was childless, for example, Erwin Panof~ky
suggests that the picture voices a plea that, like the Virgin Mary,
Mary of Guelders might become impregnated by the word of God.
F1~rc 2.7 Snoozing Virgin and Annunciation. 7hc Iaymoutil Ilt>llrs. London, Bnnsh Library MSYares
Thomp,on 13. f. 59v and 60r.
 THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK 71

The open book signifies the metaphorical mediation of the word to

the woman; this significance is doubled by the personification of the
Virgin-herself the bearer of the word made flesh-in Mary of
Guelders. Insofar as the picture resembles an Annunciation scene,
the suggestion might be that by reading from the Books of Hours,
something of the Holy Spirit will flow into this childless patron and
invigorate her, even as it did the Virgin Mary. 53
The composite effects of reading and conception are similarly
collapsed in an unusual double-page illumination of the Annuncia-
tion from the fourteenth-centuryTaymouth Hours (figure 2.7). On
the left, the Virgin sits alone in her castle chamber. She has evidently
fallen asleep before her open book-whether she slumbers from
boredom or dreams of spiritual matters directly related to her read-
ing is not clear. A hand comes down from the ceiling to awaken her,
the only signal that something momentous is about to occur. On
the right, the same scene is depicted again, but this time the room
is filled with angels as the Annunciation actually occurs. The Virgin
is now awake, recognition on her face. Below, an unfurled banner
displays the words Ecce virgo concipiet [La the Virgin conceives]. There
is a deliberate punning between "conceiving" the holy child and
"conceiving" as a synonym for "perceiving" or "understanding"-a
pun that is as present in the Latin as in the English. Clearly the two
scenes are intended to show the correlation between reading and
grace, or reading and conception. Both meanings of conception
imply a filling of the self with spiritual grace, or, correspondingly,
with something greater than the poor understanding with which
we are born.
Both the Taymouth Hours and the Hours of Mary of Guelders
provide instances in which the real-life reader was invited by the
text to substitute herself for the reader depicted in the imaginary
scene. Sometimes this substitution was figured literally as well as
metaphorically, as when the patron (usually female but sometimes
male) was interpolated directly into the text by the illuminator, ei-
ther as a marginal observer outside the framed illumination or as a
literal participant in the action. Both types of portraiture suggest the
reciprocal function of the reading act; historical or sacramental
events must be imaginatively reconstructed so as to adjust to the
 ENC;ACING WORDS

perspective of the subjective agent. Even while the agent is trans-

formed by the creative act of conjuration, so is the event itself,
which continues to take place only as long as there is a reader will-
ing to imagine or read the event.
The reader, then, was an ideal posited increasingly in psycholog-
ical terms. He or she was a being who reacted to the sensuous feel
of the text, who was capable of establishing empathetic bonds with
the characters read about, and who sought a personal and individ-
uated relationship with the patron saints invoked. Portraits of pa-
trons often accompanied special prayers to the Virgin, showing the
patrons sometimes kneeling before the Virgin in a throne room or
sometimes visited by her in their own private chambers as they read
from their prayer books. 54 Later owners of these books might even
have their own portraits painted over those of the original patrons,
that their own individual likenesses might literally participate in the
imaginary vision of the text. 33 Frequently some identifYing at-
tribute or trait is included (especially if the facial likeness is not ac-
curate), such as a dog, an ermine, or a costume.sr, By the early
fifteenth century some books, such as the Beaufort/Beauchamp
Hours, show quite elaborate detail and full facial characterization of
their patrons. Anxiety over the supplicant being recognized as an in-
dividual seems a dominant theme in these texts. Though reading
might temporarily diminish readers' own subjective experiences as
they submit to the text, that subjectivity is never entirely effaced: the
patron wants to be acknowledged as the reader l~( the book, and as the
primary owner of it, not only by the Virgin prayed to but by any
reader who might pick up the Books of Hours and peruse the im-
ages therein.
Indeed, several images from the Books of Hours attest to a strik-
ing awareness of the interrelationship between reader/viewer and
text. In the personal prayer section of the Hours ~f Afary ~f Bu~\;WZdy,
a scene of the Virgin and child holding court, as it were, is framed
in a gothic window projected behind the figure of Mary of Bur-
gundy herself, who reads from her open prayer book (figure 2.8).
Objects from her daily life lay scattered about on the dresser before
her-some discarded carnations, a string of pearls. Mary's lap dog
sleeps curled in the folds of her dress. Yet only Mary's physical pres-
ence occupies that front area; her interior self is elsewhere. Mary's
 THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK 73

Figure 2.8 Mary of Burgundy reading. The Hours C!f Mary qf BurJttH1dy. Vienna,
Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod.Vindobonensis 1857, f. 94v.

face, focused and blissful, concentrates on the book she holds before
her and signifies her mental involvement in the imaginary window
behind. Though she does not actually look at the adoration of the
Virgin and child playing out in the framed window behind her, she
74 ENGACING WORDS

is nonetheless part of the scene. Indeed, the group of ladies kneel-

ing before the Virgin in the window includes Mary herself miracu-
lously transformed from domestic to courtly lady venerating the
Queen. The anachronistic setting, in which the Virgin sits enthroned
within an elaborate gothic cathedral, surrounded by ladies wearing
the height of fashion, thus illustrates not so much the medieval il-
luminator's willingness to portray sacramental events figuratively in
the garb of the nonce, but the imaginative interaction between
reader and text, projecting Mary's mvn experience oflived life onto
the scenes she reads from her open prayer book. The adoration must
be portrayed in contemporary dress, because it exists in the con-
temporary moment of Mary's own mind. The dual interrelated im-
ages of silent, absorbed reader and the fantastic, colorful gothic
image playing out above her makes insistent the didactic message:
The recreation of the past springs into conscious reality only by
means of a creative fusion of text and reader.
What is remarkable about the Hours of Mary tif Bur:?undy is the
self-reflexive awareness of how the figural reality of Mary lives again
the historicized context represented before the frame. The adoration
of the Virgin is not just image, not just imagination, but its own re-
ality. It plays out as a part of the reader herself. Thus the artist man-
ages to convey the metaphorical dynamism inherent in the act of
reading: in reading, the reader herself functions as a synecdoche, a
part of the whole of sacramental history. Mary somehow becomes
like the larger reality, the whole reality, that plays out in the gothic
frame. Indeed, this possibility i~ stated directly in the prayer on the
facing page:

Et quia in me gaudii lc:rando me venerabitur in exitu anime quius a

corpore presentum consolata omne meam obtinebit. Et anima suam
ab hostabus maligne liberabo et in conspectu suam mei ut mecum
gaudia paradisi perpetua possideat praesentabo. 57

[And whoever, rejoicing. will venerate me with these joys, will ob-
tain, at the departure of the soul from the body, me in consolation.
And ! will fi·ee his soul from evil enemies, and I will present him be-
fore mine, so that he shall hold the joys of paradise in perpetuity
with me.J
 THE IMAGE OF THE BOOK 75

In part the mirroring of the sacramental image above the contem-

plative reader concretizes the operation of figural signification, cre-
ating an artificial (if not wholly real) similarity between the
reflection, that which is ret1ected, and the person through whom
the reflection occurs. The prayer promises that the presence of the
Virgin will be the reward for whoever contemplates and repeats her
joys as specified in the Books of Hours. Even as Mary studies from
her own book, her meeting with the Virgin plays out in the sacra-
mental history projected above. SK By participating in sacramental
history via the book, the reader recomposes that larger reality
within the smaller world of the individual mind.
The image can have no ethical force if its message is not relayed
through the part of the whole that is the reader. In the illuminations
of the prayer books, secular images become figuratively transformed
into images of divine participation. On the one hand is the text it-
self, replete with words, images, and manufactured responses. On
the other hand is the reader, responding to the text and responsive
to it. When the reader is absent, the image becomes an empty sig-
nifier, deprived of the potential for ethical force because it lacks an
agent who can bring its message to life. Why has Mary left her place
of reading in the final window picture (figure 2.9)? There the cru-
cifixion of Christ depicted in the same window stands alone, wit-
nessed only by the abandoned prayer book fluttering in the breeze.
The woman closest to the frame of the window, a witness herself to
the crucifixion, gazes coyly at us through both frame and illumina-
tion, as if to signify our own implication in the reading act. Oddly,
the absence of the reading Mary of Burgundy from the final win-
dow picture alters our interpretation of the first window scene.
Though we might have been tempted to read the presentation to
the Virgin as an imaginary image conjured by Mary's own mind as
she reads, the continuation here of the playing-out of salvation his-
tory without the reader forestalls that possibility. S'J Instead we must
accept the tenuous relationship between figural and real, fragment
and \vhole, that the reading individual canvasses when she com-
pletes the hermeneutic circle. If Christ is crucified alone, without
the empathetic participation of the reader of the horae, then the eth-
ical force of the text is lost. Salvation history continues as the only
76 ENGAGING WORDS

Figure 2. 9 Mary of Burgundy's abandoned prayer book. The Hours of Mary if

Burgmzdy. Vienna, Osterreichische N ationalbibliothek, Cod. Vindobonensis 185 7,
f. 43v.
 THE I M A (; F 0 I I 1-1 F ll ( l 0 I<

true plane of reality--but it is one thar t:1ils to be understood or

shared.
The Hours ,~f :Wary of Blll;«undr :-.eem something of an e:-..:ception
to fifteenth-century illumination, which largely tr>nds to opt for
more single-minded ,md undiluted renditions of sacred history. By
late century, the delicate and whimsical borders 'iO characteristic of
the previous century would f.1!1 out of fashion, replaced by grander
and more realistic depictions of f1mvers ::nd birds, t!-equently posed
within elaborate gilded fi-ames surrounding the inner illumination.
Whimsical images of fL\idcr-; and books stand out less among these
productions than they did in the t'revlous centurv. In es-;ence, the
experience of the /i,n,Jc becomL."i h~ss one of reading than of believ-
ing, a characteristic that may have 'mnething to do \Ylth repressive
reactions against Lollardy and other hen·sies, which ,·,1st smpicion
on Boob of Hours and indeed on the V<~ry act of n:'acling in gen-
eral. Indeed, it ;;eems parado:-..:ical., given the complc:-..:ity and fullness
of aesthetic response modeled by the Books of Hours. that these
very rubrics and pictographs were held to be contemptible during
the Reformation era_r,o One might expect greater ti·ecdom f(Jr "rt·-
formed" readers in interpreting 'ilh~h diYerse reading cue\ t(w them-
selves. Instead what the refi:Jrmers' suspiciom n veal is the
conviction that the books themseJ,·es could intluence the type of
respome--and, correspondingly, the k1nd of action n";ulting ti-om
that response--they elicit. As Camille JH>tt'S, "The great religiom
upheaval of the Rd(mnatiou ... had it\ dfect on the eradication of
the medieval image-\vorld. A great rifi: opens up bet\\ et'll word' and
images. Language is now in :1 sep;natc realnL writtt·n in di'icJ-ete
boxes or in fields hanging in the pictun, sp,1ce."'' If nurgin:d repre-
1

sentation celebrated not onlv the mdusion of :dl \·arieties of di-;-

course and occupation, even a~ do the worb of Chaucer, later
religious ideology sought to eliminate the complic:ned, tn control
the limits of individual respome. :mel to t'xcludr> the ,dternatiw per-
spective that n11ght rhreat~·n the stabilin· of rhe c-entral te:-..:t or
image. Yet during Chaucer's age ,lt ka~t, reading tlouri:,hc·d in th<.:
Middle Ages otlt';ide of restnctivc interpretive· rqc,imcs. liberating
both reader and te~ct to the ti-et' play of tht' i111agin,1tion.
CHAPTER 3

AUTHORIZED READERS,
OR, READING AUTHORITY

T he layout and production of the medieval illuminated man-

uscript reveals in part the way late medieval book producers
constructed the act of reading. Reading was imagined as a process
of interiorization, through which texts are translated into the
mental threads that affect ethical action and learned response. In
part this dual textual aspect was the result of the scholastic read-
ing revolution that reached its apex in the thirteenth century. The
rise of the university and the corresponding attention to reading
and meditatio that accompanied it established reading as part of an
official culture. This culture essentially institutionalized reading,
establishing a set of rules and procedures that attempted to fix the
associative processes that might overrun and make too pleasurable
the act of private reading. Reading thus "became a practice that
one could organize and determine in advance, having as its ob-
jective the cultural preparation and the didactic and scientific ac-
tivities of the new professional intellectual." 1 Though the act of
reading always "faces in two directions," encompassing both a
private response and a social or institutional context that controls
the interplay of meanings available to it, in the scholastic tradi-
tion the institutional conditions dominate private response. 2 In-
sofar as a set of exegetical methods established by tradition and
the auctores themselves informed the reader about the grammati-
cal, rhetorical, and moral dimensions of the text, the scholastic
reading process was completed less through the intuitive inner
 FNCACINC WORIJS

sense of the individual reader than through adherence to cus-

tomary fi.mction and the imposition of typological meaning over-
top the strata of common lived experience.
At the foundation of the scholastic method was a sound knowl-
edge of .QIWIIIII!ltica-the art of interpreting. \\Titing, and speaking.
Less a prescriptive practice than an entire socialization in the un-
derstanding of Scripture and the canonical texts, ,QIWII/Ilatica was
both a "discipline" and a "model t(w textual culture," perpetuating
the texts that preserved the institutions of medieval society and nor-
malizing their interpretation.\ The typical work of such exegesis was
the gloss, a standardized set of commentaries upon Uiblical, patris-
tic, and, later, humanistic texts.~ Although scholars had been in-
scribing brief translations, clarifications, or comments between the
lines of important theological texts since the Carolingian period, by
the twelfth century teachers began standardizing these comments
and circulating them independently. These texts, compiled origi-
nally in the French provincial schools, rapidly became the qualifY-
ing act of scholarship throughout Europe. Uy the end of the twelfth
century, glosses dominated the libraries of medieval scholars and
theologians."
Scholastic exegesis prescribes the role of individual response
even while depending upon constant renewal of ancient texts
through the contemporary innovation of an engaged scholar. Uy
means of the exegetical method, individual responsiveness or re-
sponsibility might be universalized to deemphasize the particular-
ized experience of the reader. Privileged imtead was the model
experience of the authority upon which the institution rested. To
some extent the moral or practical implications of such a reading
practice are expressed through the Latin terms available to express
the reading act: h:Qcrc ''to read" also means "to gather or choose,"
and suggests the extent to which certain paradigmatic readings
might be selected fi·om among a greater body of \vritings to build
a certain exemplary statement. r, The more specialized term intcr-
prct!II"C might be used in the modern sense of explaining, but the
term was slippery in that it might also be used to signify an inter-
pretive act of perception, as in "to regard." The Greek word
hcnncncio, which is used in Philo and Aristotle to connote "ex-
 AUTHORIZED READERS ~1

pression" or what Rita Copeland defines as "the relationship of

language to idea or thought," was frequently used in place of i11ter-
pretare, suggesting that the Latin term did not adequately encom-
pass the full range of hermeneutic acts that a medieval reader might
want to engage. Exegesis, for a medieval scholastic, was bound up
in issues of translation rather than in issues of personal application.
Reading a work of the auctor meant for a serious medieval scholar
less that he had studied it than that he had ruminated upon it. In-
ternalization occurred not necessarily by making the text mean-
ingful and applicable to individual experience, but by painstakingly
storing it in the recesses of the mind as a kind of source material
for useful retrieval later on. 7
The unique character of glosses makes them especially valuable
tools for studying medieval interpretation and reading response. Like
manuscripts for nonprofessional readers, the manuscript organization
and layout of scholastic texts provided aids in reading. Glosses fre-
quently appeared alongside the central authoritative text in the mar-
gins of the page, so that a reader n<ight access both text and
interpretation at the same time (though by the late Middle Ages
glosses, with increasing frequency, superseded the "authoritative" text
altogether, providing only tangential or incomplete reference to the
original source). Scribes conceived of texts and glosses as an inte-
grated unit, laying out manuscript pages neatly so that glosses aes-
thetically as well as textually supplemented the central work.~
Different scripts were used to designate the relationship between
lesser and greater texts. Red ink was sometimes employed to differ-
entiate expositors. Sometimes droll marginal images were employed,
as in the Books of Hours, to help supply mnemonics or even visual
commentaries for the increasingly complicated texts.Y By the late
fourteenth century, something of a "scholarly apparatus" was intro-
duced into academic texts; topics were broken into chapters and para-
graphs, with the headings of co11tra and respomio added to observe the
process of the argument, and footnotes were added for explication.
Tables of contents breaking down the logic of the chapters pref.Ked
the book in order to facilitate both comprehension and easy access. 111
Scholastic exegesis depends on a sophisticated interaction between
memoria and response, as the flowers plundered from the authorities
82 ENGAGING WORDS

are arranged and renewed by the contemporary scholar. This reading

approach was firmly founded on an insistence upon authority outside
the individual for recognizing and stating moral or ethical "truths." By
providing an increasingly sophisticated support apparatus by means of
the book itself, the dual notions of ordinatio (arrangement) and compi-
latio (compilation), as M. B. Parkes notes, were translated from con-
ceptual to practical terms in order to provide both guidance and
instruction in reading a scholastic text. 11
By studying and expounding upon the words of the auctores, a
medieval reader might himself achieve a higher degree of spiritual
perfection merely through imitation and conformity to the author-
itative model. A literary auctor possessed for the medieval translator
and exegete an almost mythical status that relegated the particular-
ity of the redactor almost inconsequential. A.]. Minnis writes:

According to medieval grammarians, the term derived its meaning

from four main sources: auctor was supposed to be related to the
Latin verbs agere "to act or perform," augere "to grow" and auieo "to
tie," and to the Greek noun autentim "authority." An auctor "per-
formed" the act of writing. He brought something into being,
caused it to "grow." In the more specialised sense related to auieo,
poets like Virgil and Lucan were auctores in that they had "tied"
together their verses with feet and metres. To the ideas of achieve-
ment and growth was easily assimilated the idea of authenticity or
"authoritativeness." 12

An auctor was one whose words formed both font and origin of all
ethical or universal truths for the thoughtful individual who fol-
lowed him. Though exegetes could rework a text for later audi-
ences, the originary text of an auctor remained, like the Bible itself,
the unquestioned voice of authority. The work of an auctor possessed
a strong sense of authenticity and veracity, not merely because he
was in some sense "right," but also because he held something of an
originary status: an auctor is one who is closer in temporal and spir-
itual time to the word of Christ as Logos.
To some extent this movement toward originary concepts con-
tributes to an overall mystification of both book and text in the
Middle Ages. More importantly, however, was the approach to see-
 AU TI-l 0 R I Z E I) REA ll E l~S

ing through this veil: the text of an aurtor functioned as an entire

representational system for figuring the world and its devolution.
Anselm's complaint, that "we do and do not see one and the same
object ... we do not speak and see in accordance with the respec-
tive reality," might in some sense be regulated by analyzing and ap-
plying the insights of the aurtor. 13 I3y seeing through the eyes of an
auctor already spiritually sanctioned, a reader, in theory, might learn
to "read" other aspects of material and spiritual life as his model had
and thereby gain perhaps some of the spirituality of the original auc-
tor. By assuming the eyes of the authority, a reader might become,
through him, a greater man.
The preservation and dissemination of the authorities went be-
yond the uses of the mere individuaL however. By the latter Middle
Ages, the intensive distillation of the aurttncs according to prescribed
traditions staked out important claims tor group identities. As Brian
Stock has demonstrated, the range of auctores appropriate to a par-
ticular discipline of study was both geographically and materially
bound. Though Priscian and Donatus together established author-
ity for the discipline of grammar, while Cicero was the authority on
rhetoric, at the same time, the use of particular auctores in the estab-
lishing of authority created pockets or "communities" of established
practices of reading. A charismatic teacher and reader such as St.
Bernard or Peter Abelard might attract an entire community de-
voted to practicing his reading strategies based on his particular re-
liance on certain auctores-the mystic Pseudo-Dionysius in the case
of St. Bernard, Aristotle in the case ofAbelard. Stock's work on tex-
tual communities has also documented how heretical communities
relied on traditions and auctores that differed tram the mainstream.
They were deemed heretical not on the basis of their deviant prac-
tice, but on the perception that they did not adhere to the correct
authorities. 14 In what has been called the first documented instance
of heresy, a sect in Orleans were accused in 1022 of rejecting many
Christian doctrines. including the doctrine of the virgin birth and
the creation through the Logos. 1" The group claimed that as they
had no outside verification of the divine events, they could not at-
test to their veracity. They retl1sed, in other words, to accept the tra-
ditional interpretation of these events by the auctores, and insisted
84 ENGAGING WORDS

upon their own "interior understanding" of God's word. J(, In sev-

eral heretical groups in the fourteenth century, however, the prob-
lem lay less in rejecting the auctores than in adhering to the wrong
ones. The Beguins were denounced in 1317 for their heretical ad-
herence to the writings of Peter Olivi and Arnold ofVillanova. 17
Olivi, in particular, was thought to be divinely inspired, and his
teachings were held by his followers to be as authoritative as the
Gospels themselves. IH
A group might also be deemed heretical on the basis of its incor-
rect interpretation of the awtores, or, more importantly, of the Bible
itself. Joachim of Fiore condemned the Cathars for misusing their in-
tellects by willfully misinterpreting the Bible. 19 Lorenzo Paolini
notes the misappropriation of authoritative texts as one of the hereti-
cal acts of the Cathars, who mix the writings of the Church Fathers
with theologians and ancient and contemporary philosophers with-
out regard for authenticity or origin: "Thus, for example, the author
of the Liber de duo bus pri11cipiis quotes the Physics of Aristotle, the Liber
de causis and the Digest, but also reflects the thought of various other
authors such as Boethius, Tertullian, Irenaeus, Jerome, Augustine,
Marius Victorinus and perhaps William of Auvergne, without repro-
ducing the exact words of any of them." 20 Wyclif was similarly con-
demned for an ultrarealist interpretation of scripture that led to the
denial ofboth the Eucharist and transubstantiation. Lollard teaching
encouraged its followers to bypass the exegetical tradition altogether
and to foster instead via the act of reading a direct experience of the
Holy Spirit. Both incorrect acts of reading and a failure to venerate
the proper authorities as guidance toward interpretation demon-
strated group identifications unacceptable to the powerful medieval
institutions that supervised religious life.
What, then, comprised "sanctioned" reading? Current scholar-
ship has tended with increasing frequency to approach medieval
reading habits through the commentary tradition, in which elabo-
rately codified and schematized exegesis was applied not only to
scripture but to all kinds of texts, both literary and philosophical. In-
sofar as the pivotal trend in the exegetical tradition was the move-
ment toward treating the humanistic texts of antiquity-Ovid,
Virgil, Aesop, and the like-as texts possessing highly ethical and
 AUTHORIZED READERS ss

moral content despite their pre-Christian origin, scholastic reading

resisted individualistic or private reading aesthetics. As classic au-
thors themselves came to be seen as possessing auctoritas, marking a
shift in interest "from the divine realm to the human," 21 poetry it-
self came to be classified within the commentary tradition as a
branch of philosophy, or, more specifically, as Judson Boyce Allen
has so meticulously documented, as ethics. 22
This chapter contrasts the authorized method of reading and in-
terpreting texts with the humanist approaches that began to appear
in the fourteenth century. Despite the fact that the concept of
"reading" is fraught with cultural concerns about maintaining au-
thority and institutional control over individual experience, hu-
manist poets such as Dante and Petrarch, in challenging traditional
notions of an authoritative, static text, introduced the possibility of
self-examination both as a correlate and an aid to reading. Dante's
Vita Nuova, by applying the practices of the glossators to an analy-
sis of the self and its own discourse, dislocates the authority of past
auctores in favor of Dante's own poetic practices. Petrarch's Secretum,
by contrast, treats the compilation of authoritative texts in memoria
as threads to be woven not just into future texts but into the very
fabric of the mind. Positing reading as a trans formative process that
unites the mind of the reader with that of the ancients, Petrarch's
Secretum reveals the act of reading to be a deeply moving process
that causes the reader to scrutinize his own soul in the light of the
lessons revealed through the text. Reading becomes a means of au-
thorizing the self, teaching the individual through his own empa-
thetic response to react ethically to material dilemmas. In both
instances the scholastic understanding of an "ethical poetic" is re-
vealed as a truncation of the affective impact ofliterature upon lived
experience; the humanistic alternative expands the parameters of
the text to include the possibility of changing a reader's perception
both of his world and himself.

The Medieval Commentary Tradition

Critical practice in the commentary tradition was highly standard-

ized in the scholastic centers of Paris, Chartres, and the cathedral
H6 ENCACINC WORDS

schools. Typically beginning with a prologue !acrcssus] that intro-

duced the text and contextualized it within the standardized frame-
work of knowledge, the commentary tradition derived its
philosophical legitimacy largely fi·om Aristotle's theories on the four
causes that regulated all movement and change in the physical uni-
verse. The "formal," "material," "efficient," and "final" causes deter-
mined, correspondingly, the material substance or essence of a form,
its physical makeup, its justification, and the purpose or the ends to-
ward which the thing was directed. Elaborations upon these four
causes devolved into a schematized discussion on the ends and
moral utility of all natural things in the universe that were addressed
quite directly in the prologues. 2 ·1 Aimed at verifYing or document-
ing the meaning and value of theological, philosophical, and liter-
ary texts, the am·ssus further attempted to explain the affective
impact of such texts upon public ethics.
The full exposition of the work that followed upon the critical
framework of the prologue typically included an analysis of the in-
tent of the author, the title of the book, and the organization and
treatment (modus a,~;cndi) of the text. After this explication of tech-
nique came an explication of the moral utility of the work and the
actual subject materia itself. Finally, the entire work would be classi-
fied in terms of the branch of philosophy it most addressed. 24
Within these broad categories, however, fell broad discussions of
genre, interpretation in the allegorical, figurative, or literal sense, and
the ethics or morality ofliterature and poetry in regard to a broader
scale of human experience.
A critical feature of this interpretive act was the analysis of the
modus agcndi, the style or didactic mode in which the material was
treated. In this act the text's form and organizational structures
might be meticulously divided and subdivided so as to reveal its
hidden meaning. Through the acts of di.1positio, divisio, and distinctio,
a reader I exegete might complete the three related acts that un-
packed the curricular text. Dispositio dissected the order of the ma-
terials, assessing their degrees of nature and artifice as well as the
suitability of their beginnings. Divisio, as "an instrument both of
analysis and of ordinance," to quote Judson Boyce Allen, was the ac-
tual act of dividing and subdividing, while distinctio was the means
 AUTHORIZED READERS 87

by which the formal dimensions of the text were related to its

"prior and more literally sentential dimensions of a text's exis-
tence"-dimensions which, as Allen notes, may be "materially pre-
textual" but that are nonetheless "just as much present in and to a
given text as its words." 2 "
As Allen points out, division and subdivision meant, for the me-
dieval mind, a way to define and clarifY the materials. Dividing was
a means of breaking a work into its smaller parts, so that one might
be able to discern how the whole operated and classifY those vari-
ous portions into the appropriate branches of knowledge. Subdivi-
sion and classification meant not only that a reader had analytical
access into the materials but that he had also reconstructed for him-
self how those materials both operated and signified by returning to
his own store of memories and retrieving the appropriate informa-
tion. The careft1l development of the modus agendi meant that a
reader might be able to make the materials his own. By breaking the
materials into manageable pieces for information storage and re-
trieval a reader might better be able to access those materials later
trom his own book of memory, and perhaps even integrate them
himself into a new work.
Only after the careful division and definition of the text's parts
did the actual work of exegesis begin. The primary impulse of exe-
gesis was less to examine the textual subject than to unite the par-
ticularities of poetic language, which was relatively unimportant in
itself, with the analogous universal structures and events it was
thought to signifY. Figurative interpretation demanded reliance on
language as a system that signified structurally and associatively, so
that the reader's work was to reveal the structural similarities among
discontinuous literary, historical, or sacred events. The role of the
exegete \vas to efface a history of differences, and to interpret not
chronologically, historically, or literally, but figuratively, as from a
perspective "above." This is a perspective that valued a vertical, syn-
chronous reading of the liter::ry text that unified both particular and
universal language and particular and universal experience.
It would seem obvious, then, that though medieval commentary
addressed what one might call the hidden meaning of a text, its pur-
pose lay not so much in interpreting or understanding the text as in
88 ENGAGING WORDS

casting it for some other agenda. The fourteenth-century com-

mentator and mythographer Pierre Bersuire, for example, remarks
that "falseness can be constrained to serve truth," especially when
explicating those "poems, enigmas, and fables" that otherwise
threaten to seduce the imagination. 26 Even the explication of the
text so often found in the prologues to the auctores was not neces-
sarily fixed but might be revised over and over again to fit the
needs of each successive generation. The sustained reiteration of
the text's narrative according to the various components of the
rhetorical structure of the commentary itself necessitated essen-
tially a reworking of the narrative so that it might fit the parame-
ters of the imposed interpretation. As Rita Copeland observes, such
a treatment does not merely impose meaning. It literally works it
back into the original by carefully restructuring the text according
to need. 27 The result, of course, is not so much a commentary upon
a text as the creation of a new text for an audience of schoolmen.
This new text might be based upon a variety of agendas, not the
least of which was what Suzanne Reynolds calls the "grammati-
cal": a text might, for example, be broken down to its semantic
level to be used in the instruction of Latin. The gloss itself, how-
ever, was less an interpretation than a form of mediation intended
to bridge the distance between an original, highly complex text-
that from a modern perspective might have had a vastly different
authorial intent-and an audience that had entirely different needs
for it. 28 Though this redaction, then, certainly falls under the rubric
of reader response, the needs of the reader in the high Middle Ages
necessitated a treatment of the original text entirely alien to mod-
ern hermeneutic techniques.
The commentary tradition provided a kind of work upon the lit-
erary text that was intended for a very small audience skilled in
highly specialized literary techniques. Though an original work of
an auctor remained the template, as it were, for future commentaries,
the effect of the original words was not nearly so important as the
work to which they could be put. What we might call the "affec-
tive" impact of the original text was not an issue, because that affect
would be manipulated and written directly into the commentary
that elucidated it. Although the commentary tradition indicates in
part the increasing interest in the use ofbooks for moral utility, and
 AUTHORIZED READERS K9

indeed reflects in itself a reading culture burgeoning rapidly among,

at least, the intellectual elite, the ethical force of reading lay in what
was perceived to be the authoritative voice of the auctor-the "effi-
cient cause" of the text itsel£.2 9

Beyond the Book:

Humanist Reading and the Poetics of the Self

In the late Middle Ages, however, interest in the humanist circles

moved from the consideration of the auctor to the reconsideration
of auctoritas. Instead of recasting particular experience in the light of
the universal, as defined by the auctor of antiquity, fourteenth-cen-
tury moderni began recasting experience by means of the authority
of the inner self, which was coming to be seen as a measurer of right
action. This shift was largely the byproduct of the growing reading
culture and its demand not only for more books, but for more types
of reading materials, subjects, and genres. Rather than framing his
commentary by briefly explicating the text, Pierre Bersuire, in his
prologue to the fifteenth book of the Reductorium Morale, uses him-
self and his own assumptions as his starting point. He outlines the
theories that guide his interpretation; he discusses the use of poetry
and fable by the ancients and how their guidance affects his own
usage; he discusses his sifting of the various sources and his own
methods of organization and moral assignation.
Whereas Bersuire's interest lies solely in adapting the literature
of the pagans for Christian meditation, relying on the allusive flex-
ibility of scantily sketched reference points in order to draw con-
nections among dramatically different works and contexts, other
commentators did the reverse, adapting source materials for a lay
audience interested in practical concerns. Christine de Pizan's
"Letter of Othea to Hector," providing gloss and allegory upon a
hundred mythological references, provides readings that accommo-
date both human and spiritual ethics. 30 Her work of reading re-
mains culturally indebted to a tradition that finds the sacred chain
of being present even in human acts of chivalry, yet shifts the au-
thoritative emphasis from auctor to exegete. Responsibility is dis-
placed from the authority onto the reading self, who functions as
a creator or discoverer of a new text. Eleanor Hull's "Commentary
90 ENGAGING WORDS

on the Penitential Psalrns" adapts the commentary tradition exclu-

sively for a lay audience, that her readers might "entre in-to the
undyrstondyng of the salme" lentt'r tht' understanding of the
psalms] and the "ioye" that is meant to be heard in singing them,
explaining as she moves from sentence to sentence how a reader
can apply scripture to his or her own life. 31 For both Eleanor and
Christine, the interpretive strategy is practical and humanistic,
grounded in projection of a nonacademic audience that is
nonetheless interested in understanding the operation of classical
and scriptural works.
In Dante and Petrarch in particular, reading and writing are ap-
propriated as the tools of the self. Dante's Vita Nuova appears on the
surface to follow institutionalized practice in its methodology-in-
deed, Judson Boyce Allen refers to Dante's text as a primary exam-
ple of the typical medieval act of commentary. However, though
Dante's task remains to establish a relationship between the particu-
larities of poetic language and the universality of figural significance,
the Vita is less a process of standard exegetical commentary than a
treatise abom reading the poetic arts. In such a way it exemplifies the
shift of authority in medieval consciousness from auctor to modemum.
Petrarch's Secretum similarly treats the reading of poetry as a
means of opening personal experience to the realm of the univer-
sal. Like Dante, Petrarch rejects auctoritas for the judgment of the
self. However, Petrarch is less interested in figurative meaning than
in the effect poetry has in shaping humanist ethics. Petrarch vener-
ates Augustine as his inspiration and source but departs from the
master's rejection of nonsacred experience. Petrarch ultimately de-
fies the idea implit'd in the Corifessions that the will and desires of
the individual must be repressed to gain the reward of spiritual en-
lightenment. Instead, he sees reading as an intensely personal expe-
rience that unites and validates human experience.

Glossing the Self:

The Vita Nuova

Despite Allen's remarks to the contrary, the Vita Nuova, a self-com-

mentary on the part of a poet who instructs his reader about how
 AUTH 0 ll..l Z El) REA l)E RS <)]

his poetry came into being and how it should be read, perhaps would
not ordinarily be considered a part of the medieval commentary tra-
dition. Stylistically Dante follows in the tradition of Boethius and
Alain de Lille, combining poetic language and prose to philosophi-
cally recast lived and dreamed events as revelatory experiences.
The Vita's technique of juxtaposing commentary against these
early attempts at poetry presents an interesting instance of the shift-
ing parameters of authority and reading. By positioning the self as
an enigmatic text willfully constructed by the poet-as-author and
invitingly posing this text as a mystery to be pondered and read,
Dante foregrounds the necessity of training a body of readers capa-
ble of understanding the hermeneutics of poetry. This is a move that
to some extent belies the theory of interpretation outlined in the
Convivio and the spuriously attributed "Letter to Can Grande," both
of which afhrm the scholastic four-fold interpretive approach. 32 In
the Vita Dante combines the dual roles of authoring and reading
and applies the material gleaned through poetic- and self-analysis to
the understanding of future courses of action. Yet even as he at-
tempts to shape a new poetics in his work, crafting a role for him-
self both as auctor and as exegete, he encourages his readers to
participate in the process by themselves becoming adept readers of
a language that transcends traditional limits. Dante creates a distinct
value for poetry even as he decentralizes literary form, posing both
his life and his dreams, translated into lyric poetry, as riddles to be
scrutinized by other readers. By blurring the boundaries between
artifact and knowledge, he makes language into a mode of seeing
that transforms readers' relationships to their own notions of self-
hood, as they witness in the Vita :'\·uova the transformation of stan-
dard tropes into vehicles for theophany.
Strictly speaking, Vita Nuova is a sort of autobiography, the key
moments being commemorated by a series of youthful lyric poems,
which themselves are given meaning through prose commentary.
Both the autobiography and the poems are exceptional in their at-
tempt to break new ground, to find a voice capable of expressing its
own singularity. From the opening chapter of the Vita, in which the
poet declares his intention to copy into written form "that part of
the book of my memory" that defines the beginning of his "new
92 ENGA(;INC; WORDS

life," the poet identifies himself both as poet a11d as exegete, translat-
ing the significance of both written and felt experience into sacred
text. 33 By treating his past self itself as text to be rewritten and rein-
scribed through the double vehicles of poetry and exegesis, Dante
portrays a conversion to God through erotic love that converts the
very reader through the act of reading.
The lyrics, recasting and aestheticizing lived experience for fu-
ture reconsideration, impel the reader along the poet's own path of
development from lover to artist, as Beatrice comes to be revealed
as the "visible sign of invisible grace.''-' 4 Though the poetry itself
does not stray too far from the limits of poetic propriety, the book
as a whole, combining the three acts of confession, poetic creation,
and exegesis, becomes, as it were, a new genre dedicated to defining
through the moments of artistic creation and the recapturing of the
originary artistic context the voice, nature, and purpose of a literary
author. 35 The parameters of this new genre of writing enable the
poet to gloss his own life and works for us and to shape new sym-
bols and signs in poetic language. His beloved BeJtrice is more than
a woman and more than a trope-she is a vessel containing divine
truth as well as an image the narrator can venerate and adore.
Through this conversion of mundane to sacred, human to divine,
rhe Vita Nuova also converts the poetic art itself, putting it to a new
purpose as a vessel for theophany or revelation. In seeking to trans-
form mundane language into a vessel adequate for containing a
trace of the divine essence, the poet treats language and its various
shapes as a type of mediation through which a reader can encounter
something higher. He teaches his audience to read this language,
and to read themselves and their actions, even as he does that those
moments of revelation may be recognized and incorporated into fu-
ture actions. 36
This didactic purpose is, ironically, somewhat concealed by the
literal commentaries that accompany the enigmatic sonnets. Indeed,
there seems to be a curious disjunction between the poet's ex-
pressed desire to gloss the text for us and at the same time withhold
meaning. The Vita Nuova's commentaries, though they concentrate
on explication according to organization and rhetorical technique,
as in the commentary tradition outlined above, at the same time
 AUTHORIZED READERS 93

stop short of finishing the gloss. Indeed, the commentaries actively

resist engaging the text on the moral or ethical level. Instead the
narrator begins his explications by dividing the lyric into sections,
pointing out the prominent device in each. But though he provides
some clues into the allegorical content of the text, guiding readers,
for example, toward the contextual examples of his own lite that
serve to illuminate his particular symbolic or tropical choices, his
clarifications serve more as signposts for interpretation than as
glosses in themselves.
This technique is perhaps most apparent in the first sonnet to ap-
pear in the Vita, in which the God of Love makes the sleeping
Beatrice consume the poet's burning heart. The accompanying
commentary merely divides the sonnet into two parts, a salutation
and a request for interpretation. Not surprisingly, the poem is mis-
understood when Dante circulates it among his friends. But rather
than providing the correct interpretation, the poet reflects upon all
the wrong ones submitted to him:

A questo sonetto fue risposto da molti e di diverse sentenzie, tra li

quali fue risponditore quelli, cu' io chiamo primo de li miei amici;
e disse allora un sonetto lo quale comincia: Vedesti a/ 111io parcrc Olli1C
valorc. E questo fue quasi lo principio de l'amisti tra lui e me, uando
elli seppe ch'io era quelli che li avea cio mandato. Lo verace giudi-
cio del detto sogno non fue veduto allora per alcuno, ma ora e man-
ifestissimo a li piu semplici.

[This sonnet was answered by many pos,essing a variety of opinions,

among whom vvas the one I call my first friend, who composed a
sonnet which begins: "'I think that you beheld all worth." My send-
ing the sonnet to him resulted in the forming of our friendship. The
true interpretation of the dream I described was not perceived by
anyone then, but now it is very clear to even the least sophisticated.p7

As Mark Musa points out, the correct interpretation of the son-

net is not particularly clear to the reader in the present time, except
on the most literal level as a correspondence to Dante's dream of
Beatrice. 3H The poet's readers understand neither the sonnet nor the
speaker. The very conventionality of the poem seems to invite con-
ventional interpretations; the language gets in the way of what
94 EN(;ACING WORDS

Dante will clarifY later in the work to be real sacred truths. In such
a way we are gradually introduced to the impenetrability of lan-
guage. Language functions much as the veil barely covering the
naked Beatrice. It signals an umvillingness to fully disclose all lest
the value of the interior meaning be debased or lost upon an un-
ready reader. We might conclude that Dante's commentaries serve
to expose the ineffectiveness of the commentary tradition for re-
covering sacred meaning. The strange digression in chapter XXV,
in which Dante quite suddenly departs from his subject matter to
expvund in an unexpectedly scholastic manner upon the treatment
of figurative language, might confirm this suspicion. In his seeming
demystification of the poetic process, he calls attention to the
process of naming itself, so that the reader is motivated to rethink
his or her own relationship to the figurative language that poets as-
sume to be commonplace:"! Instead, the reader must experience
the entire Vita on its own terms, experiencing even with the poet
the transformative nature oflove. Only then will the reader recog-
nize in these lines not only the premonition of the death of Beat-
rice but also her importance to Dante's own spiritual conversion.
This disjunction creates a hermeneutic vacuum demanding the
participation of the reader for its fulfillment; the reader glosses the
poetry in order to understand the series of displacements that
occur through language to effect a subjective transformation. The
textual experience recounted in the Vita has double force, reacting
upon both author and audience, as the author continually with-
holds interpretive commentary and yet tantalizingly reassures us
that "the meaning is quite evident." Dante's poetics require the co-
operation of the reader in order to effect the illusion of conversion
through poetry.
This is a poetics that operates retroactively. Only after experienc-
ing the fullness of Dante's conversion along with him and only after
learning to read the new poetics his art and life invent may we un-
derstand the allegorical operation of Dante's language. Later we rec-
ognize in the central images of the God of Love, the veiled girl, and
the consumption of the heart the iconic prefiguring of Dante's
transformation: the experience of his own material death through
the enactment of the violent imagery of sacrifice as his glowing
 AUTHORIZED READERS 95

heart is consumed. Yet this is an allegory that treats meaning not as

fixed, but as ever elusive. Beatrice, identified later as the miraculous
embodiment of Christ himself, who assumes human form and sac-
rifices it to save Dante's soul, mediates his lived experience into
something higher, something transcendental. This sonnet marks the
beginning of Dante's conversion into something new and launches
him into a new experience of spirituality, over and against which he
will attempt to construct a new poetics that can adequately contain
that lived experience. Yet the poem also marks the beginning of his
abjection-an experience the reader must share in order to fully
participate in the hermeneutic circle. Language functions through-
out the Vita as a system of signs, iconically representing a reality that
only empathetically abject readers may begin to intuit beyond the
surface level.
The key to unlocking Dante's poetics might lie to some extent
in the poetic goal given to Dante in the dream of chapter XII.
There, a young man appears to him in his sleep and tells him, "My
son, it is time to do away with our pretenses." 411 The young man is
later identified as Love, but this identification seems somewhat mis-
leading, as does the young nun's literal focus upon Beatrice as the
love object of Dante's poetry that follows. In consideration with the
eventual sacramental significance Beatrice will sustain by the end of
the Vita, the young man, bearing in so many ways a close resem-
blance to our narrator, the young Dante himself, must function both
as a spiritual double of the poet and as a continuing representation
of Christ, who has sent Beatrice as his emissary to guide him. If the
young man does indeed double Dante, signifYing his inner self. then
his words, instructing the dreaming self to "let these words be as it
were an intermediary" [questa parole fa che siano quasi un mezzo],
must also signify something of Dante's desire that his own poetic
language signifY on several levels-the literal level functioning as a
screen for the spiritual, sacred mediation that it encloses.
Initially Dante claims to be baffied by the dictum. In chapter XIII
he describes a series of conflicting thoughts that disturb his mind as
he attempts to grapple with his own use of poetic tropes. The first
of these contradictions involves the use oflove as a trope: Dante de-
bates whether the lordship of love is a force for the good, in that it
96 ENGAGING WORDS

turns the mind away from evil, or whether the lordship of love is a
negative force, in that it renders the lover abject. In both instances
"love" itself is an empty concept; its value emerges only insofar as
love figures as a conduit for another kind of awareness or physical
state. Dante complicates this debate with another element-that
"names are the consequences of things" [Nomina sunt consequen-
tia rerum]-followed by the revelation that "the lady through
whom Love binds you so is not like other ladies" [la donna per cui
Amore ti stringe cosi, none come l'altre donne]. 41 The incongruity
of these latter statements with the former seems almost absurd. Not
only are they not parallel, so to speak-insofar as they address par-
ticularities rather than the philosophy oflove that purports to be the
subject of contemplation-but they open up other issues altogether.
Dante never elaborates the meaning of this series of disturbances.
Yet the seeming contradictions and incompatibilities are at the heart
of poetic hermeneutics; only by understanding the displacement
enacted by signs as they substitute images for feelings, and feelings
for states of consciousness, can the poetic effect work on the mind
of the reader. Dante's system of tropes uses the function of"nam-
ing" to substitute that which we know-or think we know-for
that which we cannot know except through a gradual exploration
of our metaphorical concepts. The lady is thus a name, following
from the consequence of the real person of Beatrice, who stands in
for love. Yet love itself, figured both as personification and as con-
ceptual sign, is initially posed so as to be deliberately misunderstood.
Gradually, throughout the Vita, both the feeling and concept oflove
are displaced in favor of an unnameable higher force, which posits
transformation and growth through reading as a step toward spiri-
tual epiphany.
The metaphor of the screen appears several times in the Vita.
Dante uses the device of screen ladies to hide the real object of his
veneration, Beatrice, but Beatrice is also a screen for something
more sacred and more personal-spiritual salvation through in-
spired love. If the signification of his poetry is to be screened both
by the literal focus on a lady as love object, and the identity of the
lady is also to be screened for her own honor and protection, then
the commentaries help to aid in this screening function. The poetry
 AUTHORIZED READERS 97

is not merely about Beatrice, nor does it merely gesture toward

Dante's own spiritual awakening and eventual quest for salvation.
Dante's art is also about the mechanical operation of poetry. The
commentaries, in functioning solely to illuminate this mechanical
function, thus serve to further-and deliberately obscure-the sig-
nifYing power of poetry on the affective level.
To some extent, then, the commentaries accomplish precisely the
opposite of their traditional function. Instead of correlating poetry
and its secular content with biblical or spiritually allegorical truths,
they redirect the poetry away from this allegorical meaning and
screen it from view. As such, the commentaries expose the exegeti-
cal tradition's limits, which falls desperately short of conveying any-
thing of real spiritual value. In Dante's Vita, spiritual value can only
emerge gradually through the lived labor of making meaning out of
disquieting or insensible events.
This level of interpretation, however, can only occur with
rereading. Dante's commentaries themselves provide hermeneutic
direction only insofar as they only align his readers with the cor-
rect use of outside information-and particularly of biographical
information-to glean the literal level of exposition. As far as the
moral application of the text is concerned, however, readers must
also grow and learn through the active exegesis the text requires.
In his explication of the canzone of chapter XIX, Dante cautions
that even in his literal commentary on technique and organization
he may already have become too explicit. It is as if he fears that the
secret, interior meaning of the poem cannot work its effects if its
mode of operation is demystified:

Dico bene, che a pili aprire lo intendimento di questa canzone si

converrebbe usare di pili minute divisioni; ma tuttavia chi non e di
tanto ingegno, che per queste che sono fatte Ia possa intendere, a me
non dispiace se Ia mi lascia stare: che certo io temo d'avere a troppi
comunicato lo suo intendimento, pur per queste divisioni che fatte
sono, s' elli avvenisse che molti lo potessero udire.

(Certainly, to make the meaning more apparent, I would have to

make my divisions more extensive; nevertheless, if there are people
who do not have wit to understand the poem by the divisions al-
ready made, it would not displease me if they would leave it alone;
98 ENGAG!Nc; WORDS

for certainly I fear I have communicated its meaning to too many

through the division I have already made, if it come about that many
read them.] ~ 2

If the Vita Nuol!a strives to develop a "poetics of conversion,"

this conversion can only take place at the level of reading, the
point at which the reader and text interact to create a new sym-
bolic space for the understanding. Though some scholars have ar-
gued that Dante was perhaps not even sure what his text had
created in terms of this new poetics, the text itself reiterates sev-
eral times that this mystification is deliberate. By placing the in-
terpretive responsibility upon the reader rather than upon the
author as explicator, the reader is invited to participate in the spir-
itual conversion that takes place through the active reading of past
experience. It is only by visiting and revisiting the "book of mem-
ory," by casting and recasting its nuances in various linguistic acts,
that an interior significance capable of touching upon the sublime
begins to become clear.
Such is certainly what we witness in the contused narrative of
Beatrice's death, which is seemingly experienced not once but three
times in the Vita. The reader is first informed of her death in chap-
ter XXIII, in which Dante has a premonitory dream-vision in the
midst of suffering his own near-fatal illness:

E pen) mi giunse un si forte snurrimento, cht> chiusi gli occhi e

cominciami a travagliare si come tarnetica persona ed a imaginare in
questo I!'odo: cht> nd cominciamento de l'errare che fece Ia mia fm-
tasia, apparvero a me certi visi di donne scapigliate, che mi diceano:
"Tu pur morrai." E poi, dopo queste donne, m'apparvero certi visi
diversi e orribili a vedere, li quali mi diceano: "Tu st>' morto." Cosi
cominciando ad errare Ia mia fantasia, venni a quello, che non sapea
ov' io mi fossi; e vedere mi parea donne ,mdare scapigliate piangendo
per via, maravigliosamente triste; e pareami vedere lu sole oscurare
si, che le stelle si mostravano di colore, ch' elle mi faceano giudicare
che piangessero: e pareami che gli ucdli volando per !'aria cadessero
morti, e che fossero grandissimi terremuoti. E maravigliandomi in
cotale fantasia, e paventando assai, imaginai alcuno amico, che mi
venisse a dire:"Or non sai? Ia tua mirabile donna e partita eli questo
secolo."
 AUTHOR.IZED READERS <)')

II went so out of my head that I closed my eyes and became con-

vulsed as one in a delirium and began to have these imaginings: how
at the outset of my imagination's wandering certain faces of ladies
with disheveled hair appeared to me and they were saying: "You too
shall die." And then after these ladies there appeared to me certain
faces, strange and horrible to behold, saying to me: "You are dead."
As my imagination wandered in this fashion, I came to such a point
that I no longer knew where I was. I seemed to see ladies amazingly
sad, weeping as they made their way down a street, their hair di-
sheveled; I seemed to see the sun darken in a way that gave the stars
a color that would have made me swear that they were weeping; it
seemed to me that the birds flying through the air fell to the ground
dead, and that there were great earthquakes. Astonished and very
frightened, I imagined that a certain friend came to me and said,
"You do not know then that your miraculous lady has departed fi-om
this life''lu

This chapter encapsulates the actual dramatic moment of Beat-

rice's death and dramatizes Dante's physical experience of loss and
grief. The dream is described as being composed of typically dream-
like images and events, so that one blurs into another, shifting in nu-
ance and meaning as the distorted narrative continues. Dante's
illness translates into concern for his own death. The horrific image
of the wailing ladies itself is figured as a cosmic, end of the world
scenario; this image metamorphoses into an enactment of the death
of loved ones, climaxing with the appearance of a friend who tells
Dante that his beloved Beatrice is dead. As each of these surreal
events passes, Dante as the dreamer reacts with relative passivity,
feeling nothing. Only upon waking from the dream does the nar-
rative furnish us with a description of Dante's feelings of shock and
despair; these feelings are the closest we come to understanding
what Dante's reaction to the actual physical death ofBeatrice might
have been. Of course, as Mark Musa notes, Beatrice is not actually
dead. Indeed, when she really dies, several chapters later, the event
is recounted as a relative nonevent: "I was still involved in compos-
ing this camonc ... when the God of Justice called this most gra-
cious one to glory."-+-+ At the actual point ofl3eatrice's death we are
not informed of the particular realities; instead, Dante enlightens us
100 ENCAC;ING WORDS

as to the peculiar coincidences and harmonies of her ascendance in

calm and reconciled tones that assure us that the dramatic impact of
the event is already over. The visionary experience, the experience
that takes place in the mind and spirit of the sleeping Dante, is the
one that embodies the crisis point and is mediated in three differ-
ent ways: first in prose, then in poetry, and finally in commentary.
The poetic version, though utilizing the same images and many of
the same descriptive phrases of the dream, subtly recasts the visio to
emphasize the aesthetic parallels between the lady's death and
Dante's metaphoric one:

ch'io chiusi li occhi vilmente gravati;

e fuoron si smagati
li spirti miei, che ciascun giva errando:
e poscia imaginando,
di conoscenza e di verita fora,
visi di donne m'apparver crucciati,
che rni dicean:--pur morrati, morriti.-
Poi vidi cose dubitose molte
nel vano imaginar, dov'io entrai;
ed esser mi parea non so in qual loco,
e veder donne andar per via disciolte,
qual lagrimando, e qual traendo guai,
che di tristizia saettavan foco.
Poi mi parve vedere a poco a poco
turbar lo sole ed apparir la stella,
e piangere elli ed ella;
cader li augelli volando per Lire,
e la terra tremare;
ed omo apparve scolorito e fioco,
dicendomi:-Che fai? non sai novella'
morta e Ia donna tua, ch' era si bella.

[I closed my heavy wepHmt tired <.'yes,

and so despaired and weak
were all my spirits, that each went drifting otf;
and then drifting and dreaming
with consciousness and truth left far behind,
I saw the looks of ladies wild with wrath
who kept on telling me, "You'll die, you'll die."
Then, drifting in my false imaginings
and standing in a place unknown to me,
I seemed to be aware of dreadful things:
 AUTI-IORIZED READERS 101

of ladies all dishevelled as they walked,

some weeping, others voicing their laments
that with grief's flame-tipped arrows pierced my heart.
And then it seemed to me I saw the sun
grow slowly darker and a star appear,
And sun and star were weeping;
the birds flying above fell dead to earth;
the earth began to quake.
And then a man appeared, pale-faced and hoarse
And said to me: "Have you not heard the news?
Your lady, once lovely, now lies dead."] 45

In this chapter particularly, poetry functions as the real commen-

tary upon the life, aestheticizing the lived experience and translat-
ing it into something of supramaterial significance. The curs us into
the dream state begins with the reminder that in the dream world-
as opposed to the poetic one-the dreaming self fragments into
separate spirits, each separated from "consciousness and truth." The
poem itself, however, brings these divided selves into harmony,
shaping the dreamed experience so that it reflects upon Dante's
own cosmic destiny. In this version, as opposed to the "lived" dream
version, the poetic Dante feels: he senses the coming tidings when
"grief's flame-tipped arrows pierced" his heart. Now the center of
meaning is Dante himself, the poetic narrator, who is capable of
drawing together all the forces about him and presaging the death
of Beatrice. Thus instead of a friend who tells him of her death, it is
a pale-faced man, who though unknown to the narrator, seems to
know all about him. Overall, the poetic version recasts the same
apocalyptic features that appeared in the original version all encir-
cling Dante himself as the referent point: it is not a cosmic desola-
tion he foresees here but his own. By condensing and realizing
certain thematic elements of the originary dream in this poem so
that new effects and meanings become possible, Dante forges new
ground for conceptualizing the relationship of poetry (and art in
general) to lived experience.
Curiously, the canzone functions better in terms of its interpreta-
tion of the dream than does the actual commentary. Following this
beautiful song, Dante rather gratuitously recasts its content in terms
of a prosaic description that contains neither the brutal force of the
102 ENGAGING WORDS

original dream nor the poetic resonance of the canzone that renders
the experience aesthetic:

Questa canzone ha due parti: ne la prima dico, parlando a indifinita

persona, com' io fui levato d'una vana fantasia da certe donne, e
come promisi loro di dirla: ne la seconda dico, com io dissi a loro. La
seconda comincia quivi: mentr'io pensava Ia mia Jrale vita. La prima
parte si divide in due: ne la prima dico quello che certe donne, e che
una sola, dissero e fecero per la mia fantasia, quanto e dinanzi ched
io fossi tornato in verace condizione; 'le la seconda dico quello che
queste donne mi dissero, poi che io lasciai questo farneticare; e com-
incia questa parte quivi: Era Ia voce mia.

[This canzone has two sections. In the first I tell, speaking to some
unidentified person, how I was aroused from a delirious dream by
certain ladies and how I promised to tell them about it; in the sec-
ond I relate how I told them. The second begins here: "While I was
brooding."The first section divides into two parts. In the first I men-
tion what certain ladies and one particular lady said and did on ac-
count of my dreaming before I had returned to true consciousness;
in the second I tell what these ladies said to me after I had come out
of my frenzied dream, and this part begins here: "I called with
voice" ... ]46

Instead of offering interpretation or a figurative meaning of the

poem, this commentary reduces its content to mere device and or-
ganization, much in the fashion described by Judson Boyce Allen.
Though the commentary perhaps reveals something of the struc-
ture of Dante's rhetorical art for students who might wish to em-
ulate his poetic style, even his efforts to draw attention to the
particular sections seem baffiing, as there is no effort to indicate
what importance the technique might have in revealing the figu-
rative content. In the commentary tradition outlined above, com-
mentators would normally, after the technical exposition of the
poetry, devote the bulk of their efforts to delineating precisely how
the written word corresponds to figurative or allegorical meaning.
Yet Dante attempts none of this. What possible intention, then,
might Dante have had for appending to this otherwise beautiful
chapter a commentary that literally strips it of its sense of dignity
and spiritual awakening?
 AUTHORIZED READERS 103

In the final two chapters of the book, in which Dante recognizes

the failure of his attempt to find a new spiritual language, this
process is reversed. In XLI Dante provides commentary on a poem
that follows. This final sonnet perhaps comes closest to stating the
ineptitude of language as a sacred medium, as the autobiographical
material that ensues reiterates:

Oltre Ia spera, che pit! larga gira,

passa 'I sospiro ch' esce del meo core:
intelligenza nova, che !'Amore
piangendo mette in lui, pur su lo tira.
e
Quand' elli giunto Ia dove disira,
vede una donna, che riceve onore,
e luce si, che per lo suo splendore
lo peregrina spirito Ia mira.
Vedela tal, che quando 'I mi ridice,
io non lo 'ntendo, si parla sottile
al cor dolente, che lo fa parlare.
So io che parla di quella gentile,
pen) che spesso recorda Beatrice,
si ch' i' lo 'ntendo ben, donne mie care.

[Beyond the sphere that makes the widest round,

passes the sigh which issues from my heart;
a strange, new understanding that sad Love
imparts to it keeps urging it on high.
When it has reached the place of its desiring,
it sees a lady held in reverence,
splendid in light, and through her radiance
the pilgrim spirit gazes at her being.
But when it tries to tell me what it saw,
I cannot understand the subtle words
it speaks to the sad heart that made it speak.
I know it talks of that most gracious one,
because it often mentions Beatrice;
this much is very clear to me, dear ladics.JH

The revelatory aspect of the sonnet's failure to communicate

comes as something of a surprise at this late venture, and comments
upon the entire process upon which Dante has embarked. In chapter
LXII the meaning of the poem is revealed through "a miraculous vi-
sion" that comes to Dante upon the sonnet's completion, and serves
104 ENGAGING WORDS

to reveal the significance of the words that have perhaps remained

mysterious even to the poet himself up to that point. This final dream
convinces Dante of the impossibility of encompassing the magnitude
of the sacred in his present generic form and language:

Appresso questo sonetto apparve a me una mirabile visione, ne Ia

quale io vidi cose, che mi fecero proporre di non dire pili di
questa benedetta, infino a tanto che io potessi pili degnamente
trattare di lei. E di venire a cio io studio quanto posso, si com' ella
sa veracemente. Si che, se piacere sara di colui, a cui tutte le cose
vivono, che Ia mia vita duri per alquanti anni, io spero di dire di
lei quello che mai non fue detto d'alcuna. E poi piaccia a colui,
e
che sire de Ia cortesia, che Ia mia anima sen possa gire a vedere
Ia gloria de Ia sua donna, cio e di quella benedetta Beatrice, Ia
quale gloriosamente mira ne Ia faccia di colui, qui est per omnia
saecula benedictus.
[After this sonnet there appeared to me a miraculous vision in which
I 'aw things that made me resolve to say no more about this blessed
one until I would be capable of writing about her in a more worthy
fashion. And to achieve this I am striving as hard as I can, and this
she truly knows. Accordingly, if it be the wish of Him through
whom all things flourish that my life continue for a few more years,
I hope to write of her that which has never been written of any
other woman. And then may it please that One who is the Lord of
Graciousness that my soul ascend to behold the glory of its lady, that
is, of that blessed Beatrice, who in glory gazes upon the countenance
of the One who is through all ages blcsscd.] 4 H

Both poem and final narrative sadly recount the failure ofDante's
language to encompass his purpose. The final chapter provides the
single persuasive interpretive commentary throughout the Vita.
Beatrice is posed as the direct mediation to the divine One, "held
in reverence" and "splendid in light," who allows Dante, in gazing
upon her, to gaze through her to God. The poem laments that the
narrator "cannot understand the subtle words" that the image of
Beatrice would seem to speak to him, but the narrative that follows
clearly identifies the incomprehensible as the "One." Here at last,
then, is interpretation provided for the poem: Dante grieves that his
writing is "incapable" of containing Beatrice's sacramental signifi-
 AUTHORIZED READERS 105

cance and recounts in plain terms Beatrice's function in the cosmic

sphere. His poetic language, as yet, cannot adequately express what
he feels to be the inexpressible, the inexplicable, in terms that cap-
ture the sanctity of sublime experience.
Yet oddly, this revelation occurs precisely at the moment when
Dante completes a poem that has signified even beyond his current
comprehension. Although the dream would seem to tell him that he
has not yet arrived at his goal, already he has composed a poem that
foresaw this eventuality, signifYing perhaps on an unconscious level
thoughts that Dante himself had not yet realized or acknowledged.
To that extent this final poem presages a time in which the poetic
medium will function for the poet as a revealing of sacred experi-
ence, something that functions beyond the puny contrived powers
of both poet and exegete, who merely exhibit a technical mastery
over rhetorical devices in their manipulation of poetry. Already this
new poetry signifies through its very language things that cannot be
encompassed in scholastic or contrived terms.

Rereading Augustine:
Petrarch and the Book

Indeed, it is safe to say that late medieval poetics are characterized by

a simultaneous displacing of the auctor for the modernum, and of the
scholastic, trained commentator for the redere. Petrarch's humanism,
like Dante's, envisions a community of ideal readers receptive to the
new precepts his works engage. 49 Reading and writing work in tan-
dem, as the author interprets the works of the past, rewrites them
through his own contemporary lens, and then circulates his own
works among readers who participate in an ongoing dialogue about
literature and its effects. Reading becomes in Petrarch a means of
mediating and engaging the world itself; it becomes, moreover, a way
of knowing the self. Techniques of literary analysis could be applied
rigorously to an assessment of own's own faults.
In such a way does reading become a metaphor for self-knowl-
edge in the Secretum, a dream-dialogue in which Petrarch engages
his beloved St. Augustine in a conversation about the humanistic ef-
fects of language and writing. Gradually, over a series of dialogues
106 ENGAGING WORDS

that almost imperceptibly shift from the question of self-knowledge

to the nature of reading to the value of Petrarch's own writing, the
Secretum centralizes the literary text as a medium common to all that
clarifies the general principles and truths of humanity. Though Au-
gustine figures as the interlocutor most knowledgeable about the ef-
fects and illusions oflanguage, the Secretum departs from the ancient
idea that one might recover redeemed speech in the written word.
The universal truths Petrarch seeks are located instead in the best
models of humanity. His aesthetics articulate a more flexible sensi-
bility about the importance of introspection and self-mediation for
spiritual and secular life.
In part, the Secretum attempts to adapt the Augustinian quest for
spiritual truth to a humanistic enterprise by recouping from Augus-
tine's own appreciation and love for literature a sense of the capac-
ity of reading to lift the human mind and to create a vision of what
would otherwise remain unknowable. Petrarch's professed venera-
tion for Augustine has been borne out by his frequent citation of
the master as authority. The Confessions particularly, while imposing
a strict Christian morality rejecting earthly pleasure-intellectual as
well as physical-offered for Petrarch a model of redemption as the
young, sensuous Augustine matures and learns to reject material
gratification in favor the ineluctable rewards of heaven. Yet much in
the Confessions remains an unattainable-and possibly undesirable-
ideal for Petrarch, particularly the Confessions' unrelenting rejection
of pagan literature, whose images function as "phantasms" to help
delude the mind. 5° The Secretum ultimately rejects Augustine's plea
to turn from the world, even while acknowledging the urgency of
the master's desire. The Secretum's use of Augustine's Confessions as a
model for spiritual enlightenment is doubly instructive. It models
the possibility of self-transformation through discursive self-interro-
gation via Augustine's own experience, but it also models how read-
ing books correctly can lead to insights applicable to a reader's own
situation. Petrarch privileges the act of reading as the primary tool
for self-enlightenment.
Petrarch describes the experience of reading the Confessions to
his interlocutor as one of participation. He identifies with the ex-
periences brought to life through the words on the page:
 AUTHOIUZED READERS 107

... quotiens Confcssiom1m tuarum libros !ego, inter duos contrarios

affectus, spem videlicet et metum, letis non sine lacrimis interdum
Iegere me arbitrer non alienam sed propriam mee peregrinationis
historiam." 1

[ ... as often as I read the book of your Cm!fcssio11s, and am made par-
taker of your conflict between two contrary emotions, between hope
and fear (and weep as I read), I seem to be hearing the story of my
own self, the story not of another's wandering, but of my own.]

The expenence described here is one in which the author of a

book creates an arena via the text in which a reader may coexist, par-
ticipating with the text and bringing its central concepts to light.
Through this process of "identification," as Carol Everhart Quillen
calls it, Petrarch's own consciousness merges with aspects of Augus-
tine's Cot!fcssions so that he is able to access and delimit previously
undiscovered permutations of his own consciousness. Reading func-
tions for Petrarch phenomenologically, in the sense that the act of
reading takes place over time and both transforms and extends the
reader's sense of consciousness. The reader is inside the book, to bor-
row from Poulet; moreover, it is inside him:" [T]here is no longer ei-
ther outside or inside." 52 Even as a reader encounters marks on a
page, the phenomena of words converge to create the illusion of con-
sciousness, so that it seems as if he encounters "a rational being ... a
consciousness; the consciousness of another, no different fi·om the one
I automatically assume in every human being I encounter, except that
in this case the consciousness is open to me, welcomes me, lets me
look deep inside itself, and even allows me, with unheard of license,
to think what it thinks and feel what it feels." 53
The act of reading is such that a reader's consciousness surfaces
and participates in the interplay of the literary work itself. As readers
progress through the text, synthesizing the words on the page with
their own thoughts, images, and projections, they undergo a certain
process: they anticipate that certain words, certain events will happen
on the page. They remember things that happened in times past and
link them to what they currently see. As this happens, readers mod-
ifY their attitudes and perceptions until they crystallize to form an at-
titude or conviction about what has been read. This initial step, the
10S ENGAGING WORDS

act of participation, unites reader to text, enabling and making pos-

sible the transformation of consciousness through reading. Such is
the transformation described in Petrarch's experience. The act of
reading inspires the empathetic responses of hope, fear, and grief; as
Petrarch reads Augustine's experiences, those experiences become, in
essence, his mvn. This sensation remains even after the text is set
aside, and meaning is invested in the St'nsation as if the experience
had happened to the reader. Any interpretation placed on the event
by the writt>r becomes the interpretation that readt>rs will apply to
their own experiences.
Petrarch imagines readt>rly response as having unlimited power
for humanistic goals. Unlike the scholastics, he does not limit
hermeneutic response to imagining the divine. Indeed, he suggests
that humanistic and yet desacramentalized discourse might appro-
priate themes and methods from the church fathers to suggest new
secular possibilities for the uses of reading. Such indeed is what we
see theorizt>d in the Secretum, which Llrgdy concerns itself with the
private etTects of reading for personal ends. The dialogue has largely
been understood as representing " ... separate ideological posi-
tions-a medieval imistence on the authority of Christian doctrine
versus a nascent humanist insistence on tht' authority of personal
experience." 5 4 Yet in actuality the book, which uses the words of the
master as both justification and departure point, does much more
than that; it engages the quest for self-examination as inextricably
engaged with the acts of reading and interpretation. Augustine is in-
troduced to the narrator by Lady Truth, who has recognized that
Petrarch has hitherto "looked too much" upon the things of earth.
St. Augustine's discursive presence will, she assures him, help him
turn his eyes heavenward. Augustine does indeed preach that Pe-
trarch should turn his mind to more spiritual matters, but this is the
only submission the Secretum makes to the original Augustine's
writings. Instead the Secretum's Augustine is interested in the human
condition, the purification of the human spirit; he uses his inter-
pretive arts not to reveal truths about God, but to reveal truths about
a single human being-Petrarch.
The experience' of the profound depends upon immediacy, on
having direct, even fearsome application to the feeling, emoting self
 AUTHORIZED READERS 109

rather than to an abstraction of everyman. The narrator Petrarch ob-

serves that though he can universalize experience to some extent,
dogmatic universals have little of the impact of discourse directed
specifically at himself as speaker and participant:" [T]he reproaches
of the Master seemed in a sense more directed against men in gen-
eral than against myself, yet those which to me came closest home
I have graven with more especial vividness on the tablet of my
memory." 5 5 These personal applications become inscribed upon the
narrator as if his mind were text, so that his very being is inscribed
by the pen of his master. The emphasis from the outset on reading,
on remembering and reliving this secret conversation in his spiritual
imagination, calls attention to the intimacy of the experience, the
importance of the act of reading, and the making of meaning in a
highly personal and individual context:

Hoc igitur tam familiare colloquium ne forte dilaberetur, dum scrip-

tis mandare instituo, mensuram libelli huius implevi. Non quem an-
numerari aliis operibus meis velim, aut unde gloriam petam (maiora
quedam mens agitat) sed ut dulcedincm, quam semel ex collucu-
tione percepi, quotiens libuerit ex lectionc percipiam. Tuque ideo, li-
belle, conventus hominum fugiens. mecum mansisse contentus eris,
nomiis proprii non immemor. Secretllm enim met/Ill es et diceris;
michique in altioribus occupato, ut unumquodque in abdito dictum
meministi, in abdito memorabis.

[That this discourse, so intimate and deep, might not be lost, I have
set it down in writing and made this book; not that I wish to class
it with my other works, or desire from it any credit. My thoughts
aim higher. What I desire is that I may be able by reading to renew
as otten as I wish the pleasure I felt from the discourse itself. So, lit-
tle Book, I bid you flee the haunts of men and be content to stay
with me, true to the title I have given you of" My Secret": and when
I would think upon deep nutters. all that you keep in remembrance
that was spoken in secret you in secret will tell to me over again.] 5f>

Remarkable for its claims respecting the intimacy of the act of

reading, the book is Petrarch's "secret," a secret that comes alive
again through the act of the imagination. The book shares a pecu-
liar double position as both public and private document. It belongs
110 ENGAGING WORDS

to the public domain, as Petrarch does indeed write down and thus
offer for public consumption an experience that he otherwise pos-
sessively maintains to be intimate and personal. But at the same
time, the text belongs solely to him, because only through his own
private act of reading will the experience and all its connected sig-
nificance revive. Only he, as a privileged reader, will be able to enjoy
fully the secrets of the book. Reading becomes for him then both
a commemorative act, preserving a sacred personal experience, and
an active, pleasurable act, connecting book to reader in an intimate
way that cannot be appropriated by others.
Yet even insofar as writing is commemorative, Petrarch's sense of
the value of discourse differs from his precedents. What is commem-
orated in his book is personal experience or personal revelation that
has immediate and ongoing significance for his life; like Augustine's
ecstatic experience at the end of the Confessions, Petrarch's soul is
transformed by the forward drive of discourse upon truth. But in Pe-
trarch the spirit is not effaced or even transfigured by the supreme
spirit of God. Instead, the discursive pursuits of the Secretum lead to
self-transformation and the reification of personal truth.
As in Dante's world, such transformations take place only
through the realm of discourse, whereby the reading self discursively
moves by means of the words of another into a different plane of
perception and mental experience. Yet Petrarch's approach to read-
ing focuses on rereading the classics and expounding them through
discourse with another mind. It is through talking and considering
the various elocutionary acts of classic auctores that the narrator Pe-
trarch is led to examine himself and to gain insight into his own
predicaments.
The act of reading, then, becomes metaphoric: when one learns
to accept new viewpoints and perceptions and to analyze them
through appropriate interpretive methods and affects, one also
learns to apply that art to oneself. The entire Secretum refocuses its
attention, after its brief excursus on reading, on the necessity of
learning to exercise self-examination, or, in other words, to read the
self for what it is. The narrator himself becomes a sort of text, to be
measured and assessed against other exemplary texts and to be re-
vised and reworked according to their model. Augustine tells the
 AUTHORIZED READERS 111

stubborn Petrarch early in the dialogue that he must overcome the

temptation to forestall self-examination and self-scrutiny, because
there always exists in individuals "a certain perverse and dangerous
inclination to deceive themselves, which is the most deadly thing in
life." Even as we train ourselves to read others, to look past the
pleasant veneer of soothing voice or beguiling smile that might hide
a less pleasing motive, so must we learn to apply such techniques of
analysis to the self, "where love, influence, familiarity play so large a
part, a case wherein every one esteems himself more than he ought,
and where Deceiver and Deceived are one and the same person." 57
The attainment of an understanding of truth and virtue arises
only from an act of the will: individuals must will themselves to look
deeply into the circumstances and conditions of their own servitude
to the world; only by perceiving and reading their circumstances
acutely can they then open themselves to higher understanding and,
by association, to the true happiness that accompanies it. For the
world of discourse is paradoxical. On the one hand it lies: it con-
structs fictive worlds that shield the speaker from the truth. There is
such a thing in the Secretum-as there is in On Christian Doctrine-
as misreading. In the Secretum, the sin of misreading the self be-
comes a sin of pride, of overvaluing the self and its concerns in the
real world. Petrarch's understanding of this sin is closely related to
Augustine's fear of reading "carnally": the reader mistakes flattery,
lies, deceits, or any other metaphoric fudging for realities that locate
position in the world; he deceives himself through pride and vanity.
Such is Augustine's accusation against the narrator Petrarch, whom
he notes cleverly "misuses words" in argument so as to protect his
position against Augustine's. But in Petrarch such aims only rebound
upon the mis-user, who, in egotistically protecting and redefining
himself against a doubting other, entangles himself further in the
fictions of his own devising. Discourse can lead to truth, on the
other hand, if the speaker's will allows him to throw off the fetters
of self-deception and worldly entrapment. Petrarch's Augustine de-
scribes his own transformation through such a process:

Nee tamen admiror te in his numc ambagibus obvolutum in quibus

olim ego ipse iactatus, dum novam vite viam carpere meditarer.
112 ENGAGING WORDS

Capillum vulsi, frontem percussi digitosque contorsi; denique com-

plosis genua manibus amplexus amarissimis suspiriis celum aurasque
complevi largisque gemitibus solum omne madefeci. Et tamen hec
inter idem ille qui fueram mansi, donee alta tandem meditatio
omnem miseriam meam ante oculos congessit. Itaque postquam
plene volui, ilicet et potui, miraque et felicissima celeritate transfor-
matus sum in alterum Augustinum.
[And yet I wonder not that now you find yourself involved in these
perplexities; in which in time past I too was tossed about, when I
was beginning to contemplate entering upon a new way of life. I
tore my hair; I beat my brow; my fingers I twisted nervously; I bent
double and held my knees; I filled the air of heaven with most bit-
ter sights; I poured out tears like water on every side: yet neverthe-
less I remained what I was and no other, until a deep meditation at
last showed me the root of all my misery and made it plain before
my eyes. And then my will after that became fully changed, and my
weakness also was changed in that same moment to power, and by a
marvelous and most blessed alteration I was transformed instantly
and made another man, another Augustine altogether.] 58

Petrarch's Augustine remains faithful to the Confessions in that the

younger, more humanistic man believes the interests of humanism
must be abandoned in order to be truly devoted to God. Petrarch's
most significant appropriation of the Augustinian model, however,
lies in his insistence that one's own consciousness cannot be entirely
sublimated to another's. "It is not expedient to accept everything
advanced," this pseudo-Augustine quickly warns Petrarch; this "is
the token of a slack and sleepy mind." 59 Although empathetic read-
ing provides an initial experience capable of uniting mind to mind,
Augustine cautions lest the individual's own experience be effaced
by authority. Instead readers must profit from their reading experi-
ences by actively judging and assessing. In other words, Petrarch's
Augustine argues that the art of skeptical reading must be mastered
before the tools of discourse can be used to further humanistic en-
lightenment. Such critical engagement pertains to all acts of read-
ing, whether the textual matter constitutes a book or the very self.
Indeed, in the narrator Petrarch's case, it takes the skeptical
prompting of a receptive audience to challenge the discursive real-
ity Petrarch projects:
 AUTHORIZED READERS 113

Fr. Nisi et hie fallor, nullus hominum crebrius in has revolvitur curas.
A~1g.Nova lis laborque alius.
Fr. Quid ergo' etiam ne hoc mentior?
Aug. Urbanius loqui velim.
Fr. Hanc tamen sententiam.
Aug. Certe non aliam.
Fr. Ergo ego de morte non cogito'
Aug Perraro quidcm, idque tam segniter, ut in imum calamitatis tue
fimdum cogitatio ipsa non penetret.

[P: Unless I am deceived, there is no man alive who is more often

revolving this thought [of death] in his heart than I.
A: Ah, here is another delusion, a fresh obstacle in your way!
P: What 1 Do you mean to say I am once more lying?
A: I would sooner hear you use more civil language.
P: But to say the same thing'
A: Yes, to say nothing else.
P: So then you mean I care nothing at all about death?
A: To tell the truth you think very seldom of it, and in so feeble a way
that your thought never touches the root of your troubles.]''"

The lesson that the unwilling narrator, Petrarch, must learn is that
the world of reality constructed by language is at once feeble and
yet highly seductive; it is a world that deceives its constructor into
believing it to be a real circumstance without recognizing that he
himself stands as the creator of it. Such stories of the self are to be
challenged for what they are: fictions that mistake lies for truths, that
cover reality with a facade of reason that prevents the truth from
being seen.

Quam multa sunt que animum tuum funestis alis extollunt et sub in-
site nobilitatis obtentu, totiens experte fragilitatis immemorem fati-
gant, occupant, circumvolvunt, aliud cogitare non sinunt,
superbientem fidentemque suis viribus, et usque ad Creatoris odium
placentem sibi .... Nunc vero facillime licebit quam pusilla sunt,
quibus superbis, intelligere. Fidis ingenio et librorum lectione multo-
rum; gloriaris eloquio, et forma morituri corporis delectaris ....
Quid enim, queso, puerilius imo vero quid insanius quam, in tanta
rerum omnium incuria tantaque segnitie, verborum studio tempus
impendere et lippis oculis nunquam sua probra cernentem, tantam
voluptatem ex sermone percipere, quarundam avicolarum in morem,
quas aiunt usque in perniciem proprii cantus dulcedine delectari?
114 ENGAGING WORDS

!Think how many temptations urge your mind to perilous and

soaring flights. They make you dream of nobleness and forget your
frailty; they choke your faculties with fumes of self-esteem, until
you think of nothing else; they lead you to wax so proud and con-
fident in your own strength that at length you hate your Creator.
So you live for self-pleasing and imagine that great things are what
you deserve. Whereas if you had a truer remembrance, great bless-
ings ought to make you not proud but humble, when you realize
that they came to you for no merit of your own .... Now let your
mind realize, as it easily can, on what paltry grounds your pride is
set up. You trust in your intellect; you boast of what eloquence
much reading has given you; you take pleasure in the beauty of your
mortal body.... What worse folly than to go on blind to one's real
defects, and be infatuated with words and the pleasure of hearing
one's own voice, like those little birds they tell of who are so rav-
ished with the sweetness of their own song that they sing them-
selves to death;r.t

Storytelling permeates more than just the world of romance or po-

etry. It acts as the very veil through which the human agent con-
structs his or her world. Anselm's dictum, that "We speak and see
obliquely" becomes something very different in Petrarch. The signs
that veil reality are, tor Petrarch, organized into narrative structures,
into stories or even lies, that project for us our worlds and ourselves.
Oftentimes this projection amounts to a fantasy, a "beautiful lie" that
obscures the frightening immediacy of death and uncertainty.
Learning to read perceptively, then, entails more than glossing the
text of the manuscript at hand. Fictions clothe all the perceptions of
worldly lite. The art of understanding that fiction means to read
through it, to detach oneself"from objects of sense, and the medi-
tations from the ordinary track in which others move." 62
Reading texts and reading the self become very similar processes;
indeed, as the narrator Petrarch and Augustine move through their
series of dialogues, readings from various texts and their affective
implications play an integral role in learning to read Petrarch's own
story of the self. Augustine himself refers constantly to the common
texts that he and Petrarch have known and loved as examples illu-
minating Petrarch's own concerns. When Petrarch ironically cites
 AUTHORIZED READERS 115

Horace, "now go and meditate the tuneful lyre," Augustine imme-

diately rereads and recontextualizes the quote, commenting, "That
line of Horace makes me realize what most aillicts you":

Doles quod importunum studiis tuis locum nactus es; quoniam, ut

ait idem: "scriptorum chorus omnis amat nemus et fugit urbes."

[You lament having lighted on a place so unfavourable for study,

for as the same poet says "Bards fly from town, and haunt the wood
and glade."] 63

Petrarch's Augustine shows how contextualization and application

may pose alternative interpretations and significations for texts than
a first or careless reading might suggest. Yet Petrarch admits that
while having read all these texts, he nonetheless can take nothing
from the reading: "No sooner is the book from my hands than all
my feeling for it vanishes." 64 Thus ensues a short tutorial on the art
of reading analytically:

Comunis legentium mos est, ex quo monstrum illud execrabile, liter-

atorum passim flagitiosissimos errare greges et de arte vivendi, multa
licet in scolis disputentur, in actum pauca converti. Tu vera, si suis
locis notas certas impresseris, fructum ex lectione percipies .... Quo-
tiens legenti salutares se se offerunt sententie, quibus vel excitari sen-
tis animum vel frenari, noli viribus ingenii fidere, sed illas in memorie
penetralibus absconde multoque studio tibi familiares effice; ut, quod
experti solent medici, quocunque loco vel tempore dilationis impa-
tiens morbus invaserit, habeas velut in animo conscripta remedia.

[This way of reading is become common now; there is such a mob

of lettered men, a detestable herd, who have spread themselves
everywhere and make long discussions in the schools on the art of
life, which they put in practice little enough. But if you would only
make notes of the chief points in what you read you would then
gather the fruit of your reading.... Whenever you read a book and
meet with any wholesome maxims by which you feel your spirit
stirred or enthralled, do not trust merely to the resources of your
wits, but make a point of learning them by heart and making them
quite familiar by meditating on them, as the doctors do with their
experiments, so that no matter when or where some urgent case of
illness arises, you have the remedy written, so to speak, in your head.
116 ENGAGING WORDS

For in the maladies of the soul, as in those of the body, there are
some in which delay is fatal, so that if you defer the remedy you take
away all hope of a cure.] 63

The value of poetry lies, according to the Secretum, in the reader's

ability to actively engage and apply the text to his or her own cir-
cumstance. Petrarch as a reader derives meaning from Virgil's text
only insofar as he is able first to experience the very waves and tem-
pest described there, then to transfer that emotional response to
other types of personal situations. It is he, the reader, who creates
the metaphorical significance and who then uses that metaphor as
a way of translating and interpreting his own past actions. As such,
reading becomes a highly personal experience. The learned, more-
over, do not necessarily have more accessibility to the written word
simply because they are trained in the art of verbal manipulation.
Indeed, the fascination with manipulating discourse as an end in it-
self becomes an impediment to real understanding, which derives,
rather, from narratives, from intact stories. Significantly, the reader's
intuitive and personal response to what is written seems in the Se-
cretum to be of more importance than whatever meaning the orig-
inal author might have had in mind. When Petrarch responds to
Augustine's tutorial by citing his own response and internalization
of a scene from Virgil, Augustine commends his interpretation:

Laudo hec, quibus abundare te video, poetice narrationis archana.

Sive enim id Virgilius ipse sensit, dum scriberet, sive ab omni tali
consideratione remotissimus, maritimam his versibus et nil aliud de-
scribere voluit tempestatem; hoc tamen, quod de irarum impetu et
rationis imperio dixisti, facete satis et proprie dictum puto.
[I cannot but applaud that meaning which I understand you find
hidden in the poet's story, familiar as it is to you; for whether Virgil
had this in mind when writing, or whether without any such idea
he only meant to depict a storm at sea and nothing else, what you
have said about the rush of anger and the authority of reason seems
to me expressed with equal wit and truth.] 66

The Petrarchan Augustine's response here seems to show a marked

departure from the academics of the time. Instead of viewing the
 AU THO IUZED READERS 117

author as an auct01; an authority, the Secretum's Augustine views the

author only as a source or font of inspiration. The reader, instead of
functioning as the passive recipient of unchallengeable truths, be-
comes both mediator and enactor of those words, bringing to life
and actuality the passive words of the text. This is a lesson the nar-
rator Petrarch must gradually learn as he progresses through the
three days. Time and time again, he-almost unwittingly-cites a
quote or incident that "has many a time come home to my heart."(' 7
Though Petrarch himself may fail to gloss that text as closely as he
should, his interlocutor, recontextualizing the quote to fit his sub-
ject's circumstance, does not. The effect is almost that of the
Freudian slip, in which the patient unwittingly reveals what is al-
ready known to his unconscious mind. Thus Petrarch's wistfi1l cita-
tion ofVirgil:

E ·en as the stricken deer, that unaware

Roaming afar in pleasant groves of Crete,
The hunter pierces with his weapon keen.
And she unknowing o'er Mount Dicte's side
Flees wounded, and the fatal arrow cleaves
To her poor side""

to which he concludes, "I am even as that deer. I have fled, but I

bear everywhere my wound with me ..." is immediately answered
by Augustine, who, almost like the psychoanalyst, sees in that text
the true message Petrarch cannot:

Quid a me nunc prestolaris' Ipse tibi respondisti ... Quia malum

suum circumterenti locorum mutatio laborem cumulat, non tribuit
sanitatem .... Tibi quidem in primis sequestranda vetus hec curarum
sarcina et preparandus est animus; tum denique fugiendum.

[Yourself have given me the answer for which you look ... why, do
you not see that if a man bears his wound with him, change of scene
is but an aggravation of his pain and not a means of healing it? ...
You must first break off the old load of your passions; you must make
your soul ready. Thm you must fly. t'J

Through the sharp contextualization and recontextualization of the

universal moral dictum in terms of the particular circumstance of a
11H EN c; A c; I N G W 0 R I) S

human life, the Scrretllm's Augustine gradually shows Petrarch a way

to see into his own soul, and to see, moreover, that his circumstances
are not unlike those of other great men. Yet such constant interpre-
tation takes vigilance and a will to change:

ltaque velut insistens sicco litori tutus, aliorum naufragium spectabis

et miserabiles fluitantium voces tacitus excipies; quantum ve tibi tur-
bidum spectaculum compassionis attulerit, tantum gaudii afferet
proprie sortis, alienis periculis collata, securitas. Ex quibus omnem
animi tristitiam te iamiam depositurum esse confido.

[Like a man on dry land and out of danger, you will look upon the
shipwreck of others, :md from your quiet haven hear the cries of
those wrestling with the waves, and though you will be moved with
tender compassion by that sight, yet even that will be the measure
also of your own thankfulness and joy at being in safety.And ere long
I am sure you will banish and drive away all that melancholy that has
oppressed your soul.J 711

Ironically, despite this Augustine's reliance on the written text as a

means of persuading and teaching a Petrarch otherwise blind to his
own circumstances, he attempts to convince Petrarch to give up his
own art in favor of devoting attention to his spiritual salvation. "You
write books on others," he complains, "but yourself you quite for-
get."71 Much of the final dialogue is devoted to Augustine's insis-
tence that Petrarch give up the pen, that he put aside thoughts for
his own fame and leave behind thoughts of increasing the fame of
subjects already long-discussed. This admonition Petrarch refuses,
admitting, "I have not strength to resist that old bent for study alto-
gether." "Want of will you call want of power," Augustine retorts,
denying Petrarch the ability to shrug off responsibility for the
choice he has made. 72 The question of whether Petrarch's will to
write has any merit is left unresolved.
Yet the most profound gesture of the Secretum arguably lies in Pe-
trarch's very refusal to give up his art. In this insistence upon the
value of art as a human pursuit lies the recognition that through
writing experience is made both significant and universal, and that
even sacred truths are made accessible through the pleasures of the
text. If, as Giuseppe Mazzotta suggests, the realm of ethics is defined
 AUTHORIZED READERS 119

by Petrarch as being "t"Lmdamentally a question of self-government

or self-control," so that "the self becomes the exemplary model for
the larger world," n then the engaged act of personal reading and
v\Titing may transfigure the reading self-if not in the next world,
then at least in this one. This belief is made especially explicit else-
where, where Petrarch defends poetic writing as employing a special
kind oflanguage and style fit for delivering truths. Even theology, he
argues, is a form of poetry, a "poetry written about God"; it is deliv-
ered in an elevated style, employing exquisite discourse and versifi-
cation "to provide an added beauty and banish tediousness." 74 Yet
more importantly, perhaps, Petrarch sees in poetry a medium that
may reveal truths about humanity, treating it as a subject just as im-
portant as theolob'Y. "Mortal men should first care for mortal things,"
he maintains in the Scrrct11111; "'to things tramitory things eternal
should succeed." 7 " By writing texts for others, they themselves may
read and learn something about themselves, just as the narrator Pe-
trarch himself has done in the Scrrcflllll. In his constant reflection
upon literature and in his creation of the persona of Augustine, who
presumably can come to life for our author only because Petrarch
has so closely read and identified with him, Petrarch constantly re-
thinks literature f<:Jr his immediate pleasure and needs.
This concluding reaffirmation of the value of writing for others
must of necessity remain unstated at the conclusion of the Secretum;
too much has been said already in the context of the dialogues on
the nature of fame and the vanity of pursuing glory in the world for
the :~uthor to admit that his own works will have a lasting merit and
value tor others. Such is too great a claim for the living. Instead, Pe-
trarch can only admit that he will continue to write, and the per-
sona of Augustine can only pray tor Petrarch that "God ... will go
with you where you go, :~nd ... order your steps, even though they
wander, into the way of truth." 71'

Conclusion

The influence of Dante and Petrarch, particularly over the English

poets. is inestimable. Tropes from Dante's It!fcrno are humorously in-
verted in the House L~{ Fame and else\vhere. Chaucer appropriated
120 ENGAGING WORDS

Petrarchan materials in the Canterbury Tales and the Troilus; some

speculate that he may have met the poet laureate on his travels to
Italy and that he knew of the Trior!fi, Africa, and possibly even the
Secretum. 77 While evidence for the latter is lacking, certainly both
Dante's and Petrarch's sentiments on the nature of writing and au-
thority participated in something of a cultural heritage that also af-
fected the attitudes of Chaucer and his contemporaries toward
poetry. For these humanist writers, Dante's and Petrarch's discourse
validated private, introspective experience as something that could
provide valuable insight into the human psyche.
Ironically, however, the enterprise of both authors eventually had
the effect of turning them into the very authorities their writings
decentered. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries produced no less
than ten major commentaries authorizing Petrarch. 7 H It would seem
that Petrarch's lessons on the nature and value of reading had to be
disseminated through the veil of the authorized practices of scholas-
ticism before they could have a meaningful effect on university
studies. Yet for humanist writers, at least, the art of reading became
recognized as an empowering key for opening the domain of intel-
lectual enlightenment to ethics on the human level.
CHAPTER 4

THE ETHICS OF READING

T
hough the commentary tradition continued to constitute both
a documented and official method of reading, it was not the
only type of reading response available to the late medievals-nor
was it necessarily the most prevalent. The inward turn apparent in
the reading practices of Dante and Petrarch marks a general shift in
the relationship of individual response to a received tradition of au-
thority. Readers of vernacular texts and contemporary English writ-
ing were, in general, not fluent in Latin. Comprised of the gentry,
merchants, lawyers, and artisans, these lay readers might not receive
formal instruction in the academic reception of auctoritas-which
rendered a text, in any account, both intimidating and unapproach-
able. Instead models of reading were adopted that were much freer
and more practical in their application than the scholastic mode. In
such a way the layman participated in the culture of reading and, in-
deed, transformed it.
Medieval poets seem to have been aware of the different needs
of their readers, since they actively sought to shape the conditions
of reading that defined and informed taste. The tradition of author-
ity validated by the commentary tradition became increasingly
problematic for the humanists, who saw themselves as participating
in a different kind of tradition. Some late medieval writers publi-
cally positioned themselves as antagonistic toward the scholastics,
suggesting that the commentary approach distorted the act of read-
ing and stripped fiction of its capacity for envisioning different
kinds of humanist activities. Boccaccio, for example, dismissed the
learned approach as an intellectual exercise that ultimately had little
122 ENGA(;ING WORDS

bearing on the utility or pleasure of the text. Though the Geneal-

ogy <if the Gentile Gods acknowledges scholastic readers, the work
offers itself to a more diverse audience, who come to the text with
different levels of training and expectation. Boccaccio articulates
the desire to shape a different kind of reading response, or at least
plead that his audience remain openminded. Distinguishing be-
tween those who neglect their "Priscian, Aristotle, Cicero,
Aristarchus, Euclid, Ptolemy, and such" for a snobbish "theology"
and those who arduously seek all perspectives, Boccacio begs his
audience to listen to multiple perspectives with a dedicated and
contemplative ear:

Around my book, as usual at the sight of a new work, will gather a

crowd of the incompetent. The learned will also attend, and, after a
careful inspection, doubtless some of them who are revered for their
righteousness, and possess both fairness of mind and scholarship will,
by your example, praise whatever is commendable and, in all rever-
ence, criticize whatever is not. To such I am constrained to express
my kindest and most respectful acknowledgment, and to commend
the fairness of their opinion. But a far more numerous crowd will
gather about in a ring, and pry curiously into the chinks of a work
none too articulate, or into other possible defects. They hunger more
to consume than to approve. With these is my quarrel, with these
must I fight. 1

Boccacio's literary enterprise is founded on nothing less than a

claim for reading as an activity with ethical repercussions on a prac-
tical and aesthetic level. His distinction between "consumers" and
"aesthetic judges" in the penultimate line separates the professional
reading activity discussed in chapter 3 from reading for enjoyment,
and emphasizes that the pleasurable aspect of the text is the more
valuable of the two types of engagement. Although the academic
interpretive tradition posited the reading of poetry and Scripture as
an "ethical" art, Boccacio's claim would indicate that only the indi-
viduals who have applied themselves openly to the reception of the
text can rightfully judge, for if"they do not understand themselves,
far less are they likely to understand others" (21). Reading, study-
ing, and contemplating are thus equated in Boccacio with a form
 THE ETHICS OF READING 123

self-understanding, which emerges in Boccaccio's text, as m texts

throughout the fourteenth century, as the rightful goal of all per-
sonal pursuits. Aesthetic valuation is figured as the ability to valorize
and render meaningful through literature and art the various acts,
moments, and concerns of humanity, suggesting a correlation be-
tween the philosophy of literature and reading and the philosophy
of the self. There is a relation between reading and perception that
the B-text of Piers Plowman makes explicit:

... as a man may noght see tlur mysscth hisc eighcn,

Na moore kan no clerk but if he caughtc it first thorugh bokes.
Although men made bokes, Cod was the maister,
And Seint Spirit the sampbrie, and scide what men sholde write.
And right as sight servcth a man to se the hcighe strete,
Right so lcreth lettrure lewed men to rcson.

[Can a man without eyes see? Neither can a schobr "see," unless he
first acquires the skill from reading books. l3ooks were made by man,
but it was God who taught what they should contain; it was his Holy
Spirit that provided the exemplar indicating what men should write
down. Well, just as the power of vision enables someone to see the
direction of the road, so literacy and learning teach the ignorant the
road to reason.]"

In Piers Plowman books are equated with mental sight: books are the
eyes that provide insight and understanding into the world and its
people. The third vision of Piers Plowman, in which this passage ap-
pears, suggests, like Boccaccio, that academic learning can involve a
kind of pride or vanity that eclipses whatever knowledge might
have been derived trom the texts read. Yet the vision ends with the
insistence that the misbehavior of certain academics does not lessen
the value of their insights, which can be appropriated and used even
by the "lewed." Reading teaches the skills of objective reflection:
one learns to read, then one learns to read oneself.
Late fourteenth-century writers frequently positioned themselves
against the scholastics, acknowledging both a greater readership, who
might be untrained in the scholastic and allegorical modes of inter-
pretation, and a greater purpose in reading and writing books than
the scholastic tradition would hold. These writers responded to texts
124

less on the basis of their anagogicallevels of application than on their

practical consequences t"t1r the "untrained" reader who admired
them. Christine de Pizan's famous attack on the popular but im-
modest Roma11ce <:fthe Rose, for example. exhibits a full acknowledg-
ment of the titillating aspects of that work as well as a sense of
opprobrium at its morality. Addressing the authoritative Jean de
Montreuil, secretary to the French king, Christine "sustains publi-
cally" that this leamed man is in error regarding his interpretation
and justification of the Romance. 3 While Christine proves herself to
be fully cognizant of the joke at the end of the allegory, in which a
sexual encounter is thinly veiled as the plucking of a rose tiom the
garden, her overriding concern is for the negative consequences such
an authoritative work will have on readers of later generations. The
untrained will look to the Rornancc for the ultimate model of courtly
love and chivalric behavior. Whatever moral utility the glossators
may locate in the Rom,mcc by allegorizing even its allegory, the sex-
ual correlation remains its most memorable aspect. In becoming au-
thoritative, the text, though its expressed and authorized purpose
may indeed be for the preservation and ennoblement of love, indi-
rectly becomes the standard for negative behaviors.
The Lollard's attack on the popular chivalric romances displays a
similar combination of sensual appreciation and intellectual cyni-
cism. John Clanvowe, in 1399, complains that romances endorse
values that have impractical consequences for the readers who try
to emulate them:

... Pe world holt hem worsshipful ~at been greet werreyours and
fi 3teres and ~at distroyen and wynn en manye loondis, and waasten
and 3euen muche good to hem pat haan ynou3. and pat dispended
outrageously in mete, in drynke, in cloo~1ing, in buyldyng, and in
lyuyng in eese, slou ~e, and manye oopere synnes. And also pe world
worsshipep bern muchel pat woln been venged proudly and dispi-
tously of euery wrong pat is seid or doon of hem. And of swyche
folke men makcn bookes and soongcs and reeden and syngen of
hem for to bookie the mynde of here deedcs pe lengere heere vpon
eerth, ffor pat is a ping pat worldely men desiren greetly pat here
naame myghte bste loonge Jfter hem heere vpon eerth. But what so
euere pe world deemcp of swiche forseide folke leerne we wei pat
 THE ETHICS Cll' READINC 125

God is souuerayn treul)e and a trewc iugt' pat dcemel) hem ri3t
shameful . . .4

[The world considers to be honorable those who are great warriors

and fighters and who destroy and take over many lands, and who
waste and give away many of the profits to those who have enough
already, which are squandered outrageously in food, drink, clothing,
building, luxurious living, sloth, and many other sins. And the world
also greatly honors those who would be avenged proudly and spite-
fully upon every wrong that has been said or done of them. And of
such people men write books and songs and read and sing about
them so as to remember their deed~ that much the longer on earth,
for that is what worldly men desire greatly: that their name might
last long after them upon earth. But howsoever the world judges
these aforesaid people, we learn well that God is the sovereign truth
and a true judge who considers them very shameful ... ]

Again, though chivalric texts are continually justified by intellectual

glossators (including Christine de Pizan) who see a corollary between
earthly and spiritual decorum, Clanvowe's concern f(x such reading
material lies in how it impacts his contemporaries' practical sense of
ethics. Noting that the heroic value of honor was perpetuated and
constantly rejuvenated through the romance literature popularly read
by court patrons, Clanvowe implies that a connection exists between
reading and the behaviors that emanate from it. Chivalric deeds and
heroes are seductive; the texts that glorifY exploits insidiously perpet-
uate an entire ideolo!:,'Y that encourages a willing audience to them-
selves participate in destructive acts :md lavish expenditure. Yet
Clanvowe points out the cold-hearted reality beneath the mask, and
in doing so demonstrates the new attitude toward reading that we
witness among many of his contemporaries. Reading changes an in-
dividual's perspective; a marvelous text paints a portrait of worldly
glory and acceptance that opens an unending cycle of desire in read-
ers that lack such esteem in the real world. The act of reading and the
texts one chooses to read are thus always ethically charged, because
the actions that may be inspired as a consequence of reading may
propagate a negative ideology as blindly as a positive one.
The humanist recognition of the consequences of reading has pro-
found implications for the entire tradition of received interpretation
126 ENGAGING WORDS

and for the notion of auctoritas. For when the individual's judgment
on ambivalent acts is suspended by a canonical tradition that insists on
validating them-either by rewriting events from the pagan auctor in
allegorical terms or by simply preserving and citing from the textual
record-such texts can have unforeseen repercussions for the non-
sacred world that esteems them. Auctoritas is then not far from its
chivalric counterpart,fama, which exploits the nonsacred surplus of
the text to the detriment of the greater part of the social world.
Chaucer's own concern for the implications of a tradition of auc-
toritas is exhibited throughout his works. Whereas his contempo-
raries in literary endeavors participate in what A. ]. Minnis has
identified as a tradition dependent upon the auctores for its moral
and ethical legitimacy, for Chaucer that very tradition becomes sus-
pect. 5 From the House cif Fame through the Legend of Good U0men
and the Canterbury Tales, authority functions in Chaucer as a dou-
ble-edged constraint. On the one hand, auctoritas is a metaphorical
concept commonly accepted in the Middle Ages as a means of re-
ferring to an abstract form of truth revealed through canonical nar-
ratives. At the same time, however, the term tends to be treated
quasi-ironically in Chaucer's texts, as a construct that retains its
grasp only by the power of human consent. Insofar as it constitutes
a master narrative limiting the potential of creative works and re-
sponses to them, auctoritas in the latter sense hinders the possibility
of humanistic progress by imposing an iron-fisted hold on the imag-
inations of fourteenth-century readers.
This two-sided perspective on the nature of auctoritas manifests in
Chaucer as a healthy skepticism toward all authoritative claims or
narratives. The act of reading thus tends to be privileged over the
act of writing in Chaucer's works, as reading enables the subjective
and yet educated response of the audience to mediate between
claims that either compete factually or demand a problematic ethi-
cal stance. 6 Chaucer's treatment of auctoritas in the House cif Fame de-
flects the impact of the narratives the great auctores produce by
exposing the twin elements of authority and authorship, privileging
the latter as a means of revealing the human dimension underscor-
ing all written texts. More importantly, however, Chaucer's empha-
sis on the acts of authorship foregrounds the role interpretation and
 THE ETHICS OF READING 127

judgment play in the creation of humanist literature. Authors sift

through sources, judge the critical materials, apply insight into the
characters about which they write, and transmit through their jug-
gling of narrative and dialogue something of their own sympathy to
their readers. In these activities authors share important characteris-
tics with readers. Though readers may not actively concretize
through writing their judgments and interpretations, nonetheless
they participate in the writer's work by engaging the materials of
this other entity and establishing their value. Moreover, both read-
ing and authoring are quotidian tasks. Chaucer's characters contin-
ually engage in acts of reading, judging, assessing, and manipulating
as they interpret circumstances and other characters on the basis of
visible signs and act upon those readings by presenting themselves
to others as texts to be interpreted.
This chapter and the next will examine the thematic presence of
reading in Chaucer's works as an act against received authority. The
majority of the narrative poems, foregrounding both the presence
of an engaged audience and the act of reading to which that audi-
ence commits, show a particular concern for establishing a connec-
tion between reading and pel sana! ethics. By demonstrating that
even the masterpieces of literature have their origins in the acts and
discourses of the living world, Chaucer establishes a linguistic and
nonessentialist basis for his culture's most revered traditions and leg-
ends. Such traditions are depicted as retaining their authority only
through the repetition of oral and written texts. In this decentral-
ized literary vision, readers have an active stake in reading "aright,"
because assessing and interpreting received texts in an engaged
manner becomes a matter of ethics. By destabilizing the force by
which such cultural models retain their authority, Chaucer gives
fourteenth-century readers a basis for reassessing the more prob-
lematic assumptions of their culture.

Chaucer and the Ethics of Reading

The House of Fame, a model of "skeptical fideism," 7 advocates an

ethics of reading that will prove a recurring force throughout
Chaucer's works. In it, the narrator Geffi-ey models the ideal act of
12R ENGAGING WORDS

reading as he struggles to adapt his aesthetic horizons to accommo-

date the contradictory facts and assumptions embodied in a diffuse
body of literary texts. The three books that make up the text can
each be seen as comprising a separate action and thematic concern
involving the nature of reading: in the first, the narrator receives the
text and ponders both the legend and textual transmission of the
Dido and Aeneas story; in the second he learns about the nature and
truth content oflanguage; in the third he receives a lesson about the
vicissitudes of fortune as he witnesses how literary works come to
be canonized and their subject matters glorified.
In this enterprise, reading becomes a double antidote to the
problematic beliefs, ideals, and models for behavior the poet sees
being offered by "authoritative" texts or people. In its most limited
sense, as a synonym for perusing or interpreting written texts, read-
ing offers a method by which an interested individual may analyze
issues in a single text or compare intertextual assumptions and/or
contradictions across several traditions. Because the Ho11se lif Fame
privileges reading over the act of writing, the venerated traditions
of authority and canonicity necessarily melt away as texts protected
by the veneration of tradition are subjected to the magnifying lens
of the critic's eye. However, insofar as the poem reveals both history
and mythology to be themselves constructions of human language
and contrivance, reading also becomes a synonym for "seeing" or
·~udging" other, nontextual acts. The incompleteness of the poem
makes Chaucer's would-be conclusions unclear, but it would seem
that the point of this dream vision is to prove that the basis and
founding measure of all our practices and ideals should not be the
"authorities," but the self.

The Origins of Language

The suspect value of the authority of writing is a dominant theme
throughout the text, for fame finds its essence, as Jesse Gellrich
notes, "in the primary medium of communication, language."x
Chaucer's critique of authority and his relocation of moral respon-
sibility are founded upon the relationship between past "great
works" and the discursive voice of the community that creates all
 THE ETHICS OF READING 129

stories initially. Literary styles, genres, and narratives in the House of

Fame are shown to be linked to historical processes, which them-
selves are largely determined by the generic patterns of everyday
speech and response. The relationship Chaucer creates between the
utterance and the literary artifact has an oddly Bakhtinian sensibil-
ity, insofar as Chaucer, like Bakhtin, locates the dissemination of all
human action and expression in the "generic styles" that emanate
from everyday discourse. 9 In Bakhtin's account, literary language is
dependent upon the set ofbasic language structures in place in any
given era. These "primary genres," as Bakhtin calls them, are made
up of the dialogic patterns of the everyday-the family, the market-
place, the church, the court. As basic units structuring both gram-
mar and thought, "primary genres" may be approximated to the
discursive presence in society of the various ideological apparatuses
at work in any given culture. Though they may change or adapt
with the unfolding of historical events, they always directly reflect
the sociohistorical context of their times. Literary language can thus
be considered a "secondary genre" that draws upon the assumptions
and patterns of the extra-literary primary genres, breathing into
basic discourse a kind of idealism that grants great authority to what
would otherwise be known as the "everyday" or the "common." In
such a way ideals are made and bred, as cultures continue to read
their own canonical works and proudly acclaim them as upholding
the highest deeds and acts of their own history. For both Bakhtin
and Chaucer, the dependence ofboth history and authority on cul-
turally-driven structures of speech precludes any possibility that the
content of their canonical texts might possess transcendent value.
Yet Chaucer recoups the possibility that the reader, at least, may de-
termine values specifically beneficial to him or herself. After all, it is
precisely because texts are by and about humanity that they have
relevance. Literature may say nothing about "truth" in a fixed sense,
but it may still have much to offer a reader who is careful to con-
textualize, scrutinize, and apply.
The relationship between the importance of words and the can-
onization of texts is established in Book II with the eagle's dismis-
sive account of how words and sounds signifY. The pseudosemiotic
explanation for language provided by the eagle parodies the account
130

provided by St. Augustine. In On Christian Domine, Augustine ac-

counts for a system of human cmnmunication based on sign systems
but is careful to maintain an ontological basis for all thought and all
great ideas. Instead, speech should be considered as a system of ar-
ticulated signs:

In order that what we are thinking may reach the mind of the lis-
tener through the t1eshly ears, that which we have in mind is ex-
pressed in words and is called speech. But our thought is not
transformed into sounds; it remains entire in itself and assumes the
form of words by means of vv·hich it may reach the ears without suf-
fering any deterioration in itself. 1"

Although both human perception and human knowledge are con-

taminated simply because both are mediated through signs, words,
in Augustine's account, do not necessarily suffer the stress of being
once more removed from their origins. Instead they signifY an en-
tire, nondeteriorated thought, forming into the appropriate words
directly as they are conceived in the mind, suffering no corruption
in the transition from idea to word. Further, insofar as all great
thoughts emanate from God by means of the commemorative
processes of the mind that remembers its own origins, "redeemed
speech"-that is, speech that signifies according to God's inten-
tion-has a certain ontological value, and may directly convey
truths about the world and about relationships between things.
Augustine's writings on language prm·ide an account that sup-
ports the medieval veneration for the authority of the written word.
Chaucer\ tarcical rendition of the ontological impact of words,
however, at one and the same time deauthorizes Augustine and par-
odies the efforts of the scholastics, whose attempts to "fix" the
meaning of the great texts can thus be seen as amounting to noth-
ing less than interpretive legislation. Though the eagle initially ap-
pears to concur with the scholastic dream that "every natural thing
there is has a natural place where it might best be conserved; toward
which, through natural inclination, it moves" (11. 730-36), he goes
on to portray speech not as inspired communication commemora-
tively transmitting the pure thought of its origin, but rather as "'bro-
ken air":
 THE ETHICS OF READING 131

Soun ys noght but eyr ybroken;

And every speche that ys spoken,
Lowd or pryvee, foul or fair,
In his substaunce ys but air. (II. 765-6~)

JSound is nothing but broken air;

And every speech that is spoken,
Aloud or privately, foul or fair,
Is, in its substance, only air.J

The House of Fame's polarities reverse the scholastic dream: in-

stead of descending from God down to earth, signs originate on
earth and float upward, diffusing ever more until they little re-
semble the realities to which they allegedly refer, until they reach
the lofty position of fame. It is thus impossible that words can
ever convey a transcendent value. As their material origins sug-
gest, words can only ever convey messages about their human
creators.
The process by which language begins to take on generic form
is described as taking place inside the so-called "House of Rumor."
There human activity in all its permutations is inexhaustibly re-
fracted into ever new combinations of utterances. As Stephen
Knight points out, this whirling house of sticks, lying in the valley
below the House of Fame, represents much more than the simple
mechanism by which narratives become rumors. The house of twigs
is the house of mortal life, a house whose "images of motion, size,
and strangely stable flimsiness ... catch the essence of the world
outside the castle in Chaucer's time." 11 Inside a cacophony of noise,
whisper, and speech swirls about; every fresh piece of news gets
transmitted again and again, in ever-transmuting form. There tidings
"of werres, of pes, of mariages, of reste, of labour, of viages, of
abood, of deeth, oflyf, oflove, of hate, acord, of stryf, ofloos, oflore,
and of wynnynges, of hele, of seknes ..." rof war, peace, marriage,
idleness, work, voyages, life at home, death, life, love, hate, peace,
strife, loss, learning, and profit, health, sickness, 11. 1961-76]-in
short, of every topic or genre of discourse used in human speech-
get turned about and formulated by the work of common, every-
day people:
132 ENGAGING WORDS

... this hous in aile tymes

Was ful of shipmen and pilgrimes,
With scrippes bret-ful oflesinges,
Entremedled with tydynges,
And eek allone be hemselve. (11. 2121-25)

[ ... at all times this house

Was full of sailors and pilgrims,
With satchels brimful of lies
Intermingled with true reports
And also alone by themselves.]

As particular subjects or actions achieve status and importance sim-

ply by virtue of their being discussed by more and more agents, they
develop into those very Bakhtinian "speech genres" that take on a
life of their own. Thus it is that new and ever more complex gen-
res of discourse and expectation take root in everyday life. The peo-
ple inside the house of twigs-the shipmen, the pilgrims, the
pardoners, and the rest-are themselves the makers of texts, whether
they be truth or fictions. They are authors in the sense that they, too,
use discourse and transform it until it takes on narrative and mean-
ing of its own; they are readers in that they listen and transmit the
stories that they hear from others.
Unfortunately, however, the recipients and transmitters of texts are
not what one might refer to as "ethical readers." They are respon-
dents, transmitting without censure or forethought the various por-
tions of speech they encounter. Thus develop what the dreamer
refers to as "lyes," which freely commingle with and contaminate le-
gitimate truths. It is this mixed content, rather than the "unadulter-
ated truths" of canonical writers writing in a privileged vacuum, that
flies from the cracks in the walls toward the House of Fame, there to
be associated and canonized with a particular writerly authority.
Thus Chaucer reveals a mechanism by which the very parts of
larger narratives-the received "truths" oflove, death, action, and all
oflife's particulars-are themselves crafted from the discursive free-
flying of words made of air. He would seem to observe, with
Bakhtin, that "speech can exist in reality only in the form of con-
crete utterances of individual speaking people, speech subjects." 12
These small narratives-those speech genres so powerful in their
 THE ETHICS OF READING 133

ability to shape and homogenize behavior-are themselves as arbi-

trarily established by the laws of chance and human intervention as
the canonical texts that are received into the House of Fame.
The fact that such commonplace utterances should be canonized
and fixed within the House of Fame-the canonical writers and
their creations are metaphorically portrayed as statues adorning the
great Hall of Fame--denotes the presence not of divine authority,
but h11manized authority, authority granted by humanity itself. It is
merely because the words have traveled so far from their fallible
source that they achieve immortality and grandeur. Indeed, it is in-
teresting to note that oftentimes the burden of maintaining the
fame of a person or set of events entails serious effort on the part of
the writer. Homer, Dares, Lollius, and the English Geoffrey are each
"besy for to bere up Troye, I So bevy therof was the fame I That for
to here hyt was no game" [busy holding up Troy, so heavy was its
fame that bearing it was no light thing, 11. 1472-74]. Such is the cost
of holding up materials, Chaucer would suggest, that do not bear
remembrance on their own.
Ultimately authorized texts and actions are inseparable from
the mundane world of everyday speech. As Chaucer's Hall of
Fame reveals, even canonical discourse has its primary root, as does
all discourse, in the generic realm of living utterances. As the can-
onized authors stand immortalized along the perimeters, the Hall
of Fame fills with living supplicants who would join their ranks.
Each clamors about Lady Fame, begging that their own achieve-
ments be immortalized. The predominating image of cacophony
reminds us that it is within the realm of spoken language that
these would-be auctores make their way. The style and thematic
content of the supplicants' stories reasserts a collection of generic
ideals already established by their forerunners-that heroic ex-
ploits win the love of women, that saintly action deserves immor-
tal recognition. Yet the actions of each must be retold through a
story before it can claim any authority on its own. Indeed, the le-
gitimacy of the claims has little to do with the stories generated
from them; presumably the written expressions immortalizing the
achievements of each will exaggerate and idealize their worth.
Notoriety and honor are elided through the touch of Fame, as,
134 ENCAGIN(; WORDS

one after another, writers are arbitrarily assigned to fame or obliv-

ion, whether they be deserving or talentless, self-aggrandizing or
humble. The feats they carry with them for canonization, like their
authors, may or may not be worthy of this valorization, despite
their induction into the ranks of fame.
This is the crux of Chaucer's critique, and it is echoed by the de-
scription of the icy hill upon which the House of Fame stands.
There, the heat of the sun has melted away the names engraved
upon one side, while the names on thee other side, protected by the
shadow of fame's castle, remain as "fressh as men had writen hem
here the selve day ryght" [fresh as if men had written it themselves
that very day, 11. 1156-5 7]. The endurance of some texts and authors
and the disappearance of others is largely due to time and chance,
but fame's protection to some extent helps block the light of
scrutiny. Fame grants authority-perhaps too much authority-to
the writers she canonizes. Had the writings of the famous ones un-
dergone the same exposure to the light as those on the other side,
they would surely not have endured. Such is the "two-faced nature
of the linguistic sign": that utterance protected by the veil of ideal-
izing forces, which ever remove it from the glare of skeptical in-
quiry, remains obscured, so that its metaphorical force upon ethics
and actions remains forever unquestioned. The utterance subjected
to "real life," however, has less endurance. u
Once fixed in the House of Fame, however, such fictions become
firmly established for posterity. Individual agency and personal de-
sires are not left entirely fi-ee from blame. Although some writers
deserve their fame, others do not; chance and whim govern the can-
onization of the great authors. Thus proclaimers of actions such as
Aeneas's beseech Lady Fame:

Mercy, lady dere'

To tellen certcyn as hyt is.
We han don neither that ne this,
But ydel al oure lyf ybe ...
Al was us never broche ne ryng,
Ne elles noght, ti·mn wymmcn sent,
Ne ones in her herte yment
To make us oonly fi·endly chere,
But myghten tcmen us upon bcre;
 THE ETHICS OF READING 135

Yet !at m to the peple semc

Sue he as the world may of us deme
Th,u wommen Ioven us for wod. (II. 17311-47)

IMercv, dear lad\· 1

To speak truly,
We have done neither that nor this.
l3ut have been idle all our lives ...
Never were any of us given a brooch or a ring.
Nor anything else, by a womJn,
Nor ever once in her heart did (a woman) intend
To look upon us kindly.
l3ut rather would see us on our biers.
Yet let us appear to the people
Such that the world may believe
That women loved us madly. I

The apparent discrepancy here between the "ideJl" with which the
clamorers would have themselves be associJted Jnd the shortcom-
ings they obviously recognize in themselves makes a curious state-
ment about the perpetuation and degradation of societal behaviors
and ethics. Once codes ofbehavior are legitimized through writing,
they begin to clone themselves endlessly in poorer Jnd poorer
models. Despite acknowledging their own poorer status as authori-
ties, living writers clamor to have their own essential identities made
untouchable through the Midas-touch of bme. Canonization places
the actions beyond scrutiny, regJrdless of whJt really happened or
\vhat moral or ethical implications those actions might have had.

The Ethics of Fame

Such a phenomenon has repercussions t()r medieval ideals of mas-

culine behavior that the original authors can little have foreseen.
For there is a traceable connection between the model and the sub-
sequent acts of readers: behaviors that are glorified by the canonized
authors will continue to be validated by their readers, who look not
just to those texts but to the imaginative mythology they inspired
to provide examples of traits that will win them esteem in the eyes
of their own world. Some critics have gone so far as to suggest that
the poem is fhwed, and that Book I detracts from the unity of the
136 ENGAGING WORDS

poem by overwhelming the action with a debate on the authority

of source material. 14 Even those who have sensed in the House of
Fame a new ars poetica have concluded that the new subject matter
broached in each successive book frequently amounts to nothing
less than a starting-over, so that each provides "a whole new ap-
proach" to the issues that absorb poetry. 15 A.J. Minnis's recent read-
ing, observing that "the irreducibly 'polysemantic'" nature of the
poem renders the possibility of closure or even thematic unity a
contradiction in terms, perhaps comes the closest to offering a read-
ing that understands and accepts the ambitious implications of the
House of Fame. 16 Yet if the central purpose of the House of Fame is to
establish the ethical force of reading, then the seemingly disparate
discussions of semiotic convergence and the vicissitudes of fortune
are most unmistakably connected. The Dido and Aeneas story in
Book I is strategically placed in order to delineate the negative
ideals and heroes frequently venerated by the auctores. The dis-
courses following, on the commonplace origin of utterances and
the hero-worship that turns those utterances into myth, illustrate a
process of canonization that explains the valorization of unethical
feats such as Aeneas's. An endless repeating of the famous texts, as
new authors respond to and reshape the old story, establishes nega-
tive models for behavior and thought so that the auctores may in fact
valorize and perpetuate ideals or behaviors that are not necessarily
worth emulating. As Piero Boitani remarks, fame is "beyond moral-
ity"17: The problem is not merely that Lady Fame chooses ran-
domly, but rather that her random process of selection has a
profound effect on the readers who take up her "authoritative" texts
as models for their own actions.
The poem can thus be read backwards as a process in which
Chaucer's dream-persona, a reader par excellellce, reverses the me-
dieval value placed on tradition and auctoritas as he learns to ques-
tion the values fixed by the canonical authors. It is no accident, as
W H. Clemen observes, that so much attention in the poem is
placed upon individuating the experience of the dreamer as he
moves through the various sights and phenomena of the dream. 1B
The personalized level of the dreamer's response mirrors the expe-
rience of reading a text, as the reader is exposed to and influenced
 THE ETHICS OF READING 137

by new concepts. The dreamer exhibits confusion, wonder, skepti-

cism, and finally exercises censorship as he begins to pull together
the various strands of his multifaceted experience. Yet this range of
skeptical doubt does not suggest a deeply personal impasse or crisis
in Chaucer's own poetic enterprise, nor does it suggest a contempt
for the world and its values. 19 Rather, what is promoted is the con-
viction that readers play a pivotal role in completing the literary
agenda. As the model of Geffrey reveals, readers have the ultimate
responsibility for sifting through material seemingly verified by tra-
dition; it is they who must judge what is of value, what not. Care-
ful and mediated reading on the part of on individual respondent
becomes a way of decentering the claim to an authoritative stance.
As such, the poem privileges the act of intelligent and engaged
reading over a tradition that incontrovertibly fixes both interpretation
and its significance by an outside authority. Book I offers several ex-
amples modeling the work of active and engaged reading of literary
texts. The sustained examination of the legend of Dido and Aeneas
with which the poem begins depicts a legend whose textual trans-
mission is so fraught with inconsistencies, as the narrator himself
notes, that the truth of the story cannot be established. As an alterna-
tive, the dreamer/narrator Geffrey, alleging "non other auctour," (l.
314), offers his own rendition combining dream, illustrated panel, and
narrative. The text of the legend is three times removed from the au-
thority of the original text: Geffrey narrates material transmitted to
him in the dream; the dream itself invokes materials presumably read
and reread in the waking Geffrey's life, but filters those materials not
through direct discourse, but through illustrated panels, which in turn
invite narrative response. Though the introduction of the story begins
with the opening text of the Aenead written on a brass tablet, the lit-
eral words seem to disappear as Geffrey begins to look at the images
that recreate each of the central moments from the ill-fated romance.
He becomes the author through whom the text is preserved, bring-
ing together each of his memory strands of the story's various texts
and trying to make sense of them.
The vehicle of the dream as a medium for questioning the au-
thority of the canon is significant in that it privileges the immedi-
ate vision of the dreamer over any knowledge that might hold true
138 EC\IG/\(;!NG WORDS

in the waking world. The act of seeing, accentuated through the vi-
sual medium of the panels, becomes both an act of perception-the
dreamer views the panels-and an act of reading-he interprets the
movements on the panels by mnemonic reference to the blueprint
of the story in his own mind, and reconciles the interior story with
the exterior through the acts of contemplation and evaluation. 20
The process of viewing the panels thus defines and models the in-
tegrated process of reader-response: Geflrey narrates in specific de-
tail what he sees before him and how he translates those images in
his mind's eye; he justifies his reaction as an engaged and concerned
witness to a troubling set of historical events.
Book I's centrality to the text as a whole. however, lies in the ma-
terial the dreamer peruses. As a reader, Geffrey must not only deal
with the fact that the authorities on the tradition are in disagree-
ment-a problem dealt with long before by Abelard in his famous
Sic ct No11. More importantly. he must also engage the problem that
the authorities valorize acts that seem to him at best unethical and
self-serving. Chaucer's rendition of the Dido and Aeneas story com-
bines the two largely conflicting accounts offered by Virgil and
Ovid. In the former, Aeneas's abandonment of Dido is justified be-
cause a more glorious destiny awaits him, whereas in the latter Dido
is treated more sympathetically and Aeneas's behavior is vilified. The
delineation of the Dido and Aeneas story in Book I is thus divided
equally between presentation of events and puzzlement over how to
interpret them. The emphasis is on salvaging the judgment of a
reader who finds Aeneas's behavior difficult to legitimize, despite
the claims of some of his chroniclers. The dreamer notes that Virgil,
for example, justifies Dido's abandonment because "Mercurie ...
Bad hym goo into Itayle" [Mercury instructed him to go to Italy, 11.
429-39], and remarks (rather ironically, I think) that such a dis-
claimer might "excusen Eneas I Fullyche of al his grete trespas" [ex-
cuse Aeneas fully tor his great wrongdoing, 11. 427-28].Yet his own
empathetic reaction to the plight of the different characters seems
closer to Ovid's. The House of Fame's Dido complains, "Allas, is every
man thus trewe, I That every yer wolde have a newe I ... or elles
three, peraventure?" [Alas, is every man so faithful, that he must have
a new (lover) every year, or even three, perhaps? 11. 301-2]. The con-
 THE ETHICS OF READING

nection between fame and its ethical consequences upon succeed-

ing generations of admirers is made explicit here, as Dido scoffS that
every man pursues women for the pursuit of his own t:m1e, for the
similar "magnytyinge of hys name" (1. 306).
Such an emphasis does much to de center the authority of liter-
ary texts.~ 1 However, more is at stake here than the veracity of
sources. Despite the fact that contradictory accounts of Aeneas exist,
which indeed any medieval reader might be able to learn by read-
ing the Hcroidcs, Aeneas's feats have seemingly grown to become
rather more than literary diversion. His legend and fame have ex-
tended beyond the text, as the narrator's imaginative conjuration
against the panels demonstrates. If the heroic ideal modeled by Ae-
neas in Book I and sustained by the statues of the auctores in Book
III is problematic, it is because the tradition that has glorified it is
driven by material concerns. As the panels in the opening of the
dream would suggest, time has mythologized Aeneas so that his
name conjures images of glory in the mind of the medieval recipi-
ent that only tangentially refer to the actual text. The visual pres-
ence of the panels underscores the ethical problem of idealizing the
nonideal, whether it be concretized through paintings or through
words on a page:" Allas! What harm doth apparence, I When hit is
fals in existence" (II. 265-6)! As seer, Geffrey's act of interpretation
bridges the distance between reading texts and reading life. The
gilded visual portrayal of the legend on the panels emphasizes the
disparity between appearance and reality, and makes more urgent
the ethical connection that must take place in a reader's mind when
reading a narrative.
As Books II and III eventually reveal, the generic ideals of \:ari-
ous arenas of human activity are immortalized and enforced
through language. The specific discourse comnu,nities in which we
all participate modifY the way we see ourselves in the living world
by providing idealized models ofbehavior against which to measure
our own. Chaucer's treatment of the legendary materials in Book I
emphasizes that the behavior legitimized by Virgil, though (initially
at least) endorsed by both men and women, is based on a discourse
that glorifies one mode of behavior at the cost of marginalizing or
oppressing others. The poet draws attention to the fact that his
140 ENGAGING WORDS

sources are in dispute as a means of further deteriorating the degree

of untouchability that time has invested in Aeneas. In doing so he
also reminds his readers to return to the text itself rather than rely-
ing on an abstract ideal. This move calls attention to the details of a
text that might otherwise be forgotten-in this case, the lesser in-
dividuals sacrificed to Aeneas's heroic mission. The reader Geffrey
imagines a Dido who falls for Aeneas's mode of behavior and his
false self-presentation but berates herself for listening to his false
speech: "0, have ye men such godlyhede I In speche, and never a
del of trouthe" [Oh, you men have such godliness in your speech,
yet never a bit of truth, ll. 330-31]. Even in the microcosm of Dido's
world, utterances that make claims to the ideal work false expecta-
tions in the minds of their respondents. If a man's speech and be-
havior correspond sufficiently to the woman's image of the
ideal-itself insinuated into her expectations through a received
ideological discourse-his words and behavior will place him, at
least until events necessitate otherwise, beyond scrutiny. Received
discourse, established by convention and authoritative texts, shapes
succeeding behaviors. Yet if such is Chaucer's position (as it indeed
seems to be, given his sympathetic alliances in Book I), then his ex-
cusing of Aeneas can only be taken as an ironic dismissal, not only
of the character but of the type of authority that (however unwit-
tingly) encourages the belief that an unquestioning pursuit of glory
may legitimately take precedence over the concerns of others.
Though it has been suggested that Chaucer, skeptic that he is,
"grants the validity of conflicting truths" 22 when he leaves his nar-
rative of the Aenead at this stage, the underlying concern goes be-
yond the fact that an ambiguous tradition makes the establishing of
authority problematic. More important is the poem's concern that
our very notion of what constitutes authority-not only in a liter-
ary tradition, but in the realm of human acts-is problematic in it-
self. Chaucer's target in this book would thus seem to be not only
writing but the intangible process of idealization. Both have their
roots in the discursive genres that structure action and ideas and
render them meaningful. Geffrey's response as a reader of the Ae-
neas legend, far from "granting validity" to these authors, dismantles
the very disruptive claims or ideals that the auctores proclaim to be
 THE ETHICS OF READING 141

transcendent and only grants them validity (if at all) within a cir-
cumscribed historic moment. The issue is not that varying accounts
of Aeneas may all be in some respect correct, but rather that the
moral and imperative message such texts proclaim is no longer cor-
rect for Getfrey's world:

But wel-a\vay, the harm, the routhe,

That hath betyd for such untrouthe,
As men may ofte in bokes rede.
And al day sen hyt yet in dede.
That for to thynken hyt, a tene is. (II. 383-87)

[But, alas. the harm, the grief,

That has occurred for such unfaithfulness.
As men may often read in books,
And every day yet may they see it in deeds,
So that to think upon it is a great pity.J

Asserting that such messages no longer hold true requires that they
be de-ontologized. The dreamer refuses to read figuratively: that is,
he refuses to use old, authoritative, or mythologized texts as the
model or frame by which to read contemporary texts or actions.
Thus fame as a legitimate human pursuit becomes a particular issue
in the poem, when it is shown to be the process validating certain
texts and when it becomes a goal to be sought and valorized by cer-
tain authorities or heroes seeking their own claim to immortality.
By valorizing certain human pursuits, writing mythologizes acts
that otherwise might be perceived as partaking in the sins of vanity
and pride. As Stephen Knight observes, the "harm" and "untrouthe"
that emanate from such texts have repercussions not merely tor the
idea of £1me as reputation, but as well as for the "substantive social
force" of "honor" itself.2 3 Both types of fame are legitimized and
made part of the ideological apparatus through the authority of
writing, which, particularly in the Middle Ages, praises honor,
knighthood, and the establishment of a viable reputation as ideal
models for human pursuit. Such writings cannot be taken without
a grain of salt. Instead, the House <?f Fame would seem to suggest that
the answer to justifying conflicting and/ or problematic accounts lies
in the reader, who becomes the real auctorit,Js for the text received-
1-+2

a point reasserted later by the Wife of l3ath. Skeptical reading iden-

tifies in textual traditions those questionable pursuits that should be
isolated for judgment. If the dreamer Geffrey finally accedes to the
responsibility of determining the" correct'' text for the transmission
ot Aeneas's exploits. he merely participates in his own call that the
individual reader take the responsibility f(x such determinations. He
refuses to assume the role of authority for yet another reader.

Authorizing Readers

Peter Travis writes, "One reason Chaucer's poetry is so patently

open to reader-response criticism is that it is highly conscious of it-
self as linguistic artifice and of its readers· role as coconspirators in
the art of making fiction." 24 Chaucer acknowledges that individual
writers stamp the texts they produce with their own particular cast
and character, but he also paints a world in \Vhich every writer is
"shaped and developed in continuous and constant interaction"
with the discourses and writings of the past. 25 This process of cul-
tural assimilation thus unwittingly establishes particular behaviors or
thought patterns-no matter how pathological they might be-as
social norms. Every generic action idealized through discourse
bears a concrete resemblance to some predecessor-whether that be
the school of thought in which a writer was trained or even the
counterschool against which a writer wishes to distinguish himself.
Even the desire to distinguish one's own \vritings will not necessar-
ily improve the ethical content, however, for, as Martin Irvine co-
gently puts it, "Fame disseminates what has already been neutralized
of truth value." 21' In other words. the subjective element can never
be erased from the matter put fonvard. because individuals have too
much to gain even from notorious acclaim. Through fame the
process of assimilation is thus continuous. Villainous actions escape
being read, interpreted, or judged; instead they are simply "re-
ceived.'" Yet even received texts are responded to, because all ac-
tion-indeed, all understanding-is responsiveY And so the cycle
perpetuates itself as each successive generation continues to both
appropriate its own culture's values through their discursive modes
 THE ETHICS OF READING 143

of seeing and expressing and to reenact and perhaps even further ag-
grandize those values through continued publishing.
As the only possible ethical conclusion to his vision, the dreamer
must therefore forego any claim his own writing might make for es-
tablishing authority over the lives of his readers. Like his forerunner
Petrarch, the dreamer Geffrey avers a distrust of fame and its pur-
suits; unlike Petrarch, however, he does not distrust fame because it
indicates his potential succumbing to the pride of the fleshly self.
Rather, he desires to protect the truth of his art from the numbing
artifice of fame:

I wot myself best how y stondt.";

For what I drye, or what I thynke.
I \vil myselven al hyt drynke,
Certeyn, for the- more part,
As fer forth as l kan myn art. (ll. 1878-82)

[I know myself how best I stand,

For whatever I suffer, or what I think,
I myself will have all the drink,
Certainly, tor the most part,
To the extent that I have the ability.]

Asserting that subjective judgment remains the best way of decid-

ing what is true or f:1lse, Geffrey offers a curious desire to protect
himself from the deification of culture, as if the renown that such
consumption brings should take away ti-om the core of the man
himself. This brief and private moment of self-revelation, normally
so absent in Chaucer's writings, perhaps indicates a recognition that
in writing this text, and in personifying himself as Geffrey, the au-
thor already runs the risk of allowing himself not only to be tcxtu-
alizcd but misread.
At the same time, however, the dreamer's confidence that only "I
wot myself best how y stonde" stands as a model for his readers.
They, too, know best how they stand. The plea stands out almost as
a call for reading responsibility-for receiving texts and utterances
not passively, but actively and skeptically. If indeed our author makes
any claim for authority or moral advice at all in this text, it is here,
where his own utterance becomes a call to remain distant from the
144 ENGAGING WORDS

entrapment of discourse and ideology. The advice looks personal

rather than public, but, given the dreamer's troubled engagement
with the struggle for power he has witnessed in the establishment
of fame and authority, this utterance is his only option.
Can Geffrey's own innovative discourse succeed in the already-
established world of speech genres? The process by means of which
characters portray themselves discursively through self-description,
story-telling, and readerly judgments upon others as texts will be
most fully explored in the Canterbury Tales. Here, however, it suffices
for Chaucer to expose the tyranny of tradition and to dislocate it
from the iron grasp of authority. Questioning readers are invited to
choose and to judge for themselves the narratives that so effectively
impact their lives.
CHAPTER 5

TEXTUAL SUBJECTS

T
he frontispiece of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. 61
allegedly portrays Chaucer in the persona of the auctor, reading
or performing his poetry before a court audience (figure 5.1). The
poet stands behind a pulpit, his arms outstretched as if orating. Be-
fore him, exhibiting varying degrees of attentiveness, sit a number of
fashionably dressed listeners, personifYing a possible courtly "audi-
ence" for the author's works. 1 As Derek Pearsall has demonstrated,
the image is a fiction; there is no reason to believe that an exemplar
existed during Chaucer's time from which this fifteenth-century
portrait was copied, nor even that the scene is based on a real event
from the illuminator's memory. 2 Indeed, it is even unlikely that the
court predominantly comprised Chaucer's audience, which seems
much more apt to have been made up of the lesser gentry and in-
tellectuals with whom he was known to associate: Ralph Strode and
Gower, mentioned explicitly in the dedication of Troilus; the knights
John Clanvowe, Lewis Clifford, William Beauchamp, Philipe de la
Vache, and Richard Sturry; the merchants Nicholas Brembre, John
Philipot, and John Hende; and the poets Scogan and Thomas Usk. 3
Yet even as an imaginary rendition of the relationship between
author and audience, the image indicates much about the affective
impact of fiction in social settings. Firmly removed from the domain
of reality by the frame that physically surrounds the central image
on the page, Chaucer's auditors are depicted in assorted postures of
reception: although a red-hooded gentleman on the right appears
engrossed in the performance, as do a trio of open-mouthed fans at
the very front of the pulpit, those on the left side of the page wear
146

Figure 5.1 Chaucer and his audience. Troilus and Criseyde. Cambridge, Corpus
Christi College, MS. 61, frontispiece.
 TEXTUAL SUBJECTS 147

expressions of skepticism, if not downright disapproval. A crowned

woman in pink holds her arms folded firmly against her chest-a
defensive posture. Her mouth is turned down, accentuating the
emotion. The gentleman to her left similarly frowns, while the
group of three behind them turn their heads as if muttering to each
other. The only members of the audience who display contentment
or pleasure are the four ladies in the foreground of the image, all of
whom are turned away from the event and one of whom is asleep.
Meanwhile, in the background behind the pulpit, people approach
and leave a fantastic castle, engrossed in their own conversations or
pursuits, completely ignoring the little scene at the base of the hill.
As Pearsall notes, the Ii·oilus frontispiece may have little to add to
our conception of how Chaucer's poetry was received in his own
time. "Presentation portraits" are quite common in the Middle
Ages, and the Ii"oilus frontispiece may represent nothing more than
a fanciful imagining of the author based on other typical presenta-
tion scenes, in which audiences similarly ignore their lectors or
snooze in the background. At the same time, however, the delicate
attention given to the individual members of Chaucer's audience,
rendering the unique responses upon each of the auditors' closed
faces, seems a departure from the more stylized presentation por-
traits. The frontispiece thematizes the issue of audience reception
and may even attempt to portray with some accuracy the imaginary
projection of an audience by its own author.
Similar clues reconstructing an audience are present in the text ac-
companying the illustration. Ii"oilus and Criseyde constantly projects an
audience of invested readers, including many who obviously fall out-
side the private circle of friends among whom Chaucer's works cir-
culated. These other imaginary readers include, moreover, both the
sympathetic and the hostile. The final stanzas of the tragedy address
the "yonge, fresshe folkes" who empathetically share Troilus's pangs of
love, and whom the narrator prays will not "myswrite" or misunder-
stand his text. But the narrator also acknowledges the great auctores-
Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lucan, and Statius-against whom his own
work will be measured by history. Chaucer's concept of his own read-
ership is thus both transhistorical and generalized, but it is not ideal-
ized. There is an assumption of dissent, of close-mindedness, that is
14R ENGAGING WURDS

particularly noted as a constant obstacle for an author. The antagonis-

tic auditors in the audience may signify an anxiety that is ever pres-
ent in Chaucer's works, as he strives to create a series of identifications
between himself and his readers that effaces the gap between writing
and authorizing. The variegated responses depicted in the fron-
tispiece, including the postures of offense, nuy attest to a late medieval
suspicion that much of what reading lessons have to offer is either ig-
nored or willfully dismissed by those who hear them. 4
The Troilus frontispiece may exemplify the disparity between au-
thorial auctoritas and audience auctoritas that recurs as an anxiety
throughout Chaucer's works. As such it signals a corollary concern
for how readers cooperate or "live" inside a text and its assumptions.
Chaucer's projection of himself into his own texts as a reader, who
dramatically makes a point of trying to understand and make use of
the sources available to him, represents two desiderata: an attempt to
see through a reader's eyes and to help guide the reading act by
modeling appropriate stances toward enigmatic texts, people, and
events. Because he both juxtaposes conflicting authoritative ac-
counts in his own works and, as a reader, questions their ethical va-
lidity, Chaucer's own authorial stance, though one that denies
responsibility for some of the more unsavory or unhappy aspects of
his works, reiterates the role of individual responsibility for autho-
rizing texts and their consequences.
It is not incidental that Chaucer turns his attention in the later
texts to the readers themselves. Troi!ltS and Criseyde and the Canter-
bury Tales embark upon a sustained investigation of selthood that
poses individuals and their interactions with the world as being
themselves predicated upon various reading acts. Though these later
texts resign themselves to the personal authority invested in the he-
roes and values of the auctores, they nonetheless maintain the insis-
tence upon the ethical nature of the act of reading. As they struggle
with the various texts that comprise their fictive worlds, problems
and conflicts emerge vvithin the speakers that compel us to reeval-
uate their claims about themselves and their estates. Whereas Troilus
and Criseyde elaborates the various kinds and consequences of read-
ing, the Canterbury Tales plays with relationships between individu-
als, the kinds of texts they read, and the way they read them. The
 ]'f.'; [I 1/\I S I IIlii' r,: J ~

\Vite of Bath and the Prioress, frJr e_\,llllplc. t'n?age texts .md as,,u,,~
re'>ponses tmv.1rd them tb,1t delint'ate 1\vo very difierent types of
agency: one active and critical; the other passive, judgmentaL .md
potentially dangerous. By imagining the self as a reader whoc,e own
contlicts, contradiction~, and incongruities are revealed hv the way
she or he engages texts, Chaucer ofF·rs a critique of ;l~t'llt;ty th:o.t
undennines the persona conu~ptiqn ot identity embrac-ed by the
late medievals.; Self-portraval ultinntdy b'.:ccm1es no more ::1;-.n ''
form of te,:tu;1] masking tq h· ipteJ p1 ctr>d, inter rC'P:ated. :1JH! finally
doubted.

Reading as Foresight:
Cassandra and the Book of History

In 1384 the Wyclif Bible makes a cognitive '1s~ociation betv.Ten the

act of reading and the act ofjudgiug:"He that redith, undirstr'nde."''
In a society in \Vhich all reality is construed as text, reading becomes
a skill essential tor navigating tlnough a co111plex and ofi·en perilous
world. The terlll rl'dc in Chaucer's poetry enjoys a simil:n richness
of metaphoric association and arnbignity that resist\ easy ddin;ti<}JJ.
Though typicall} rletined accordiug to circumsLmn~ a:; ~mvthing
from "to undcrsrand," "to study,'' "tn incerpr•:t,'' or ··w ,Jdvi'e," mo:;t
occurrences of the term in ( 'h,niCcr's poetry compound these a'iSU·-
ciations. R cadi ng is imagined as an act that captures the e ·~!Jenew.":
of interpreting .111 arnbiv~dent sig11s iu accordaun· with thea imnH:-
diate physical contexts, with the i1np!iL·atioJ1 that such an l!Jtcrpre ..
tation holds consequences tor future dccisio11s and act<;.
The term appears no Je.,s thall f(H ty ti111n in ·r;·oik· <I lid Cu.•cyd",
encompassing the fi.t!l rang~· {)f reading act'i. '~a-;,;mdu reach
dre.um- ·though Troilus accuses her inrerpretati,,u qf hei!lg inu>r-
rect ("Thmv bnst Il<l dr t:i!ws rede 1" V 1:)HI).' r :Jc, h b:)th 'r1ter-
pret and advise their ov1n re:tder~ :tbout divin~:· pmvidcn,·e ("\:Zie
han no ti-e chois, as thisc cln kc_·s redc'· IV/c h;J\T ll'' !P_ r.' choice, ,ts
these cleric' t>.'.:pLliPj, IV.W\0). R''<tdirw..1' ;tlsu nrad' t<.' cncr)mpt-;s
the more comprelwmj,-,, t:t~V ~+ •e:rdmg bo:.h -"·nrH ,:nd penple as
if they \\;l~:rc ( 1 '.\~t~. F~pr·l:lr!F {r-!1; :• ~-:.lr,' !1"1 T.\'h' ·1, rhe f}'/r:!ph
ISO ENCAGING WORDS

rcdcn implies interpretation before action. Oenone can read her

lover's intentions toward her: "And yet, peraunter, kan I reden the
I And nat myself" [As it happens, I can read you yet not myself,
I.668-9J. Doth G.)ds and people are construed as texts to be deci-
phered by other readers: Criseyde refers to her father's oracular
abilities as the act of glossing "the goddes text" (IV 141 0). In book
III, after Troilus and Criseyde have consummated their union,
Troilus stares into Criseyde's face, stating "Though ther be mercy
writen in youre cheere, I God woot, the text ful hard is, soth to
fynde" [Though mercy is written into your countenance, God
knows the text is hard to read, III.1356-57].
Such instances imply not only that the world and its populace are
construed for human consumption through a matrix of signs, but
that, to some extent, these signs may be themselves artificially gen-
erated. In the world of narratives sustained by Troilus and Criscydc,
monologue, verbal explanation, and written letters transmit both
character and motive both to the readers of the text and to other
characters within the story. Actors may put on a semblance that sig-
nifies falsely, knowing that the text of their intention will be read by
others-a process helped by the willing readers themselves, whose
own thoughts, hopes, and fears make them believe a false reality. H
The narrator designates his work as a tragedy, invoking the clas-
sic principle of an unwinding fortune that inexorably dooms indi-
viduals along with their historical moments. Yet as Lee Patterson
notes, limiting the tragedy to an explication of the vicissitudes of
Fortune is "to deny it all but a merely catalytic and private value."Y
Although Troiltts and Criseydc itself consigns characters to a pre-
designed fate, the text experiments with the possibility that even
preordained events can be intellectually contained by the individu-
als inside the event, who make decisions regarding action based
upon their interpretations of the surrounding context. Acts of read-
ing and interpretation turn particular events into microcosmic man-
ifestations of an overall destiny, providing instances that-albeit
perhaps in an illusory way-allow characters individual options
even inside larger patterns and events.
Reading in Troilus and Criseydc is particularly equated with a
kind of seeing. The gift of reading in the work is linked with the art
 TEXTUAL SUBJECTS 151

of Cassandra, whose own prophetic ability depends upon her skill

at untangling the competing texts before her. But it is also nega-
tively linked with Oedipus, whose own failure to see his implica-
tion in the blight besieging Thebes results in the tragic eradication
of the entire dynasty. Oedipal references figure heavily in the story
and are introduced as a thematic concern early in the text. When
Criseyde appears in Book II, Pandarus interrupts her in the act of
listening to a reading of the story of Oedipus. The scene functions
on two levels, linking the act of reading history with the skills of
perception or even foreknowledge. Critical opinion is divided con-
cerning whether Criseyde reads a Ro111an de Thebes-largely consid-
ered by modern criticism to be more appropriate "light" reading for
a female-or the more epic Thcbaid of Statius, which was also one
of Chaucer's sources for classical history. 111 The influence of both
texts is clearly present in the Troilus, creating an atmosphere heavy
with the irony of the incomplete reading. The Roman de Thebes
briefly outlines Oedipus's history, establishing the link between see-
ing and perceiving; in addition, both the Roman de Thebes and the
Thcbaid provide an instance, as Alain Renoir points out, in which
Criseyde might have read her own destiny. 11 Criseyde fails to finish
her text, suggesting something of a missed opportunity on her part.
Yet she doesn't need to finish it. The historical background inform-
ing the events of her own fictive society provide ample material to
help provide her with insight into reading the characters and events
that will hter befall her; the necessity for completing this act of per-
ception is symbolically expressed in the text itself. The moment is
undermined, however, by the fatalistic undertones of both history
and fictive text. Criseyde reads a history that will also be remade in
Chaucer's Kn(fZht's 'Talc, though its outcome cannot be changed
there, even as her own history. retold in Chaucer's source for Troilus
and Criscydc, is being remade--but not altered-around her. As an
author, Chaucer the poet cannot change the outcome he knows
will occur.
Pandarus's attempt to intervene in Criseyde's reading of the story
ofThebes signifies a tension between choice and predestination that
is later debated in the text. This tension, however, is compounded by
the corollary emphasis on reading. Pandarus commends Criseyde's
152 ENGAGING WORDS

choice of texts, but, instead of acknowledging the tragic subject, pre-

tends that she reads a book on love. Criseyde instantly corrects him,
but the incident is telling: Pandarus continually breaks or interrupts
what we might call "correct" assessments or interpretations of texts
to supply instead more romantic, or "incorrect" ones. Critics have
long remarked the connection between Pandarus's function as both
pander and author. Pandarus attempts to script a romance and even
to "write" the characters ofTroilus and Criseyde into personas that
will fit his idea oflovers. 12 Yet Pandarus ultimately is an inept reader.
He fails to understand Criseyde's motivations, so that he unwittingly
brings Troilus great unhappiness rather than the happy ending he al-
legedly sought. This failure to practically and soundly negotiate texts
results, as in the story of Oedipus, in Troilus's ultimate tragic fate.
Pandarus's inability to read is also indicative of the greater tragedy of
Troy, which itself is incapable of correctly reading and responding to
the signs of its demise.
In consequence, reading functions metaphorically in the world of
Troilus and Criseyde as a kind of hindsight that lends foresight and
yet, without the means of intervention, changes nothing. Eye-im-
agery and seeing are linked throughout the text with perceiving and
understanding the truth, even as they are in the tragedy of Oedipus.
In Book I Troilus is pierced with love's arrows shot from Criseyde's
eye, arrows that render his own eyes forever after blind. It is not until
he sees Criseyde's brooch pinned on Diomede's jacket in Book V
that her faithlessness is made obvious and recognition and self-in-
sight occur. In such a way Troilus's blindness metaphorically con-
nects the twin processes of perception and conception. 13 The eyes
are complicitous with the heart in camouflaging the real person
with an exterior that idealizes. But insight must necessarily come.
Troilus demonstrates that willful blindness leads both individuals and
societies to make tragic choices.
The figure of Cassandra reiterates the ultimate futility of reading as
a dynamic skill that can instate ethics or change. Chaucer's Cassandra
is essentially a reader or a seer rather than a prophetess. When Troilus
approaches her for insight into his dream about Criseyde, Cassandra
refers to historical accounts as well as to her own memory of human
information in order to decipher the various symbols therein. She
 TEXTUAL SUBJECTS 153

does not make any ostensible show of supernatural prowess. Instead,

she relies on the insights that a thorough reading may provide into a
situation, modeling effective interpretive strategies for the stubbornly
unreceptive Troilus. Even as she builds a correct interpretation of cur-
rent circumstance based on her ability to piece together information
from various sources, so, too, might Troilus-or any interested
agent-establish his own accurate basis for judgment that he might
better be able to act in the future. Though Troilus laments at length
about the inevitability of fate, the poet himself would seem to have
another perspective on destiny: successful reading ofboth the past and
the peopled present enables the engaged agent to determine his or
her own future. Chaucer continually exploits the fate of his city and
characters in order to underscore the importance of similar critical
judgments, themselves honed through careful application and render-
ing of the "olde bookes" to new circumstances. Some characters
prove themselves better readers than others. Too often the Trojans are
tragically wrong in their interpretation of motivations and signs,
whereas the Greeks tend to prove themselves facile, apt readers of
other people and circumstances.
Legend, however, dooms Cassandra's insights never to be believed
nor acted upon-even by herself. Troilus cannot accept Cassandra's
interpretation though Chaucer's readers know it to be true; he also
cannot learn from her example to read character and circumstance
accurately himself. Cassandra represents tragedy personified: a good
reader may be able to see more; she may even be a more ethical or
moral person on account of the empathy her insights allow her, yet
others may not believe her insights, and ultimately-and tragically-
her skill and attentiveness may not save her. In this respect Cassan-
dra's art is much like Chaucer's own. As an author sifting through
sources, Chaucer's hindsight becomes foresight from the perspective
of the characters acting out his version of the story, yet, like Cassan-
dra, what he knows about their futures does them little good.

"The Text Ful Hard is to Fynde"

If both writing and reading are but handmaids to relentless fate,

nevertheless there remains the possibility in Troilus and Criseyde that
154 ENGAC;INc; WORDS

individuals can affect their own role in destiny. Chaucer's insistence

on establishing reading as a paradigm for cultural judgment or fore-
sight appears in several guises. To some extent Chaucer explores his
characters' reading preferences as background for understanding
them. In addition he examines the psychological investment with
which each then engages in the act of reading-an activity that ex-
tends to reading other people as if they themselves are also texts.
Despite the author's entanglement in the inevitability of his own
text, the act of reading holds out the hope that others will be able
to act for the better on the basis of what they read. Troilus and
Criseyde enacts a world in which insightful reading is rewarded by
those who act upon what they learn. Poor reading, or poor en-
gagement with what has been learned through reading, has corre-
spondingly negative consequences. Interpretive facility is illustrated
through instances modeling appropriate critical distance and objec-
tive yet motivated engagement with the texts at hand. Decisions are
depicted as being made upon critical reflection of ambiguous signs
and events. Learning to read correctly and to assess the conse-
quences of different interpretations proves a measure of a character's
success or failure in society.
Curiously, even as it is Criseyde who corrects Pandarus's reading
in the beginning of the tale, so too is she the one who seems more
concerned with correctly reading and judging the motivations of
others. Book III begins with Criseyde's reading of both Pandarus's
andTroilus's motivations. She implores Troilus to tell her the "tyn of
his entente" [the object of his intent, 11. 125], but she voices doubts
about Pandarus's concocted story in which he claims that Troilus is
near death because of his sorrow that she has looked at another
man. Much attention is paid in the initial seduction scene to the
reading of signs. Criseyde needs to know "the sygne [sign] that he
took" his jealousy by (II. 1152): whether the signs are genuine, and
whether Troilus can justifY his reading of her, or if he is tricking her
out of a desire to seduce her. Troilus is indeed lying, but Criseyde
nonetheless succumbs-possibly because what she desires is to be
assured that Troilus's intent is, at least, sincere.
Criseyde's distrust of the meaning that can be derived from the
multiple intentions that comprise other people is mirrored in her
 TEXTUAL SUl3JECTS !55

own complicated persona. 14 Criseyde makes frequent cryptic con-

tributions to the authoring of a text that is herself. She announces,
for instances, at the conclusion of the seduction scene that she has
been permanently changed by Troilus, because he is now "deeply
graven upon [her] heart." She appears to utter the sentiment sin-
cerely. Yet her contextual sincerity does not translate into an overall
sense of dependability about her character or intentions, for, as
·n-oilus and Criseydc repeatedly demonstrates, selves can be con-
structed to fit the situation. The tragedy occurs when Troilus takes
her utterances as a measure of predictability. In an unstable discur-
sive world, people and fictions can be reread or rewritten according
to the whim of the next author who comes along. When it comes
to constructing narratives, authors and readers must share in the re-
sponsibility for the meaning of the text. Troilus may have tem-
porarily inscribed his own text within hers, but there is a deeper
irony: how significant is this inscription?
Further occurrences of Criseyde's self-authoring appear when
Criseyde's mask is elaborated as being deceitful or fickle. When
Criseyde is bartered off to the Greeks, she comes up with a plan to
"deceive her father," justifying her ability to "enchaunten with
sawes" [enchant with speeches, IV.1395] through various higher
powers. Chaucer puts a positive gloss on the intended deceit, saying
"treweliche, as writen wel I £Ynde I That al this thyng was seyd of
good entente" [truly, I find it written that this entire thing was said
with good mtention, IV.1415-16]. On the surface the poet appears
to corroborate the sentiment that lying is justified when the moti-
vations are good. At the same time, however, the narrator's words
can only be taken as an ironic or terribly naive reading of Criseyde's
character, which completely disintegrates into lies once she meets
Diomede. The cruel letter she writes to Troilus in Book V, when the
audience knows she has already involved herself with another man,
accuses Troilus of deluding her. She falsely constructs Troilus's in-
tentions toward her even as he did hers when he initially attempted
to seduce her.
Troilus and Criseydc's readers are hindered in their ability to make
appropriate decisions about others by the extent to which they are
also authors-authors, that is, of the texts that comprise themselves.
156 ENGAGING WORDS

Self-authoring and textual masking are dependent upon the set of

assumptions a character makes about his or her world and how it
operates. For that reason, Troilus is not a good reader of texts. In-
deed, he seems capable of perceiving the world only through flat
stereotypes based on the way he thinks things ought to be. Book III
closes with praise for Troilus, who, according to convention, has
been "perfected" through love. Yet there is a lesson for readers out-
side the text, who are expected to gain an ethical awareness of the
function oflanguage by witnessing the errors Troilus and his fellow
Trojans constantly repeat. When Troilus remarks that the text that
comprises Criseyde is inscrutable, he indicates an inability to recog-
nize motivations outside the courtly convention he has adopted as
his own model. 15 Unable to read beyond the ideological constraints
imposed by his very language, Troilus is destined to fall prey both to
the machinations of people less ideally motivated than he and to the
lessons of history that recur in the romance. Doubly wounded when
his rhetorical ideal proves false, he loses more than a lover when
Criseyde abandons him for Diomede. He also loses what he has
constructed to be himself. After having styled himself in the image
of the perfect knight, lover, and fighter, Troilus disintegrates; both his
character and ability to shape his own future disappear with
Criseyde's betrayal.
In addition to proving incapable of reading either Criseyde's ac-
tions or even the motives behind her letters, Troilus is also tragically
incapable of self-analysis or self-reading. His dream of Criseyde's in-
fidelity, in which he sees her sleeping in the embrace of a boar, is
less a portent of future events than a compendium of signs already
suggested by past events. It is also, however, a register of his own
erotic fears, compacted in the overtly masculine symbol of the boar,
who usurps his own rightful place. 16 Cassandra, who reads signs and
images of his dream, performs her acts of interpretation objectively,
even as the persona of Chaucer claims to do. She consults old books
and histories that enable her to make appropriate connections be-
tween signs and their real meanings. She informs Troilus that mean-
ing is contextual and historical; if he wishes to see the truth of
things, he must learn the old stories and read the old books. It is
through careful and contextualized reading that she sees in Troilus's
 lt::XTUi\i ~UiljE( T':

dream Diomede's hcr.1ld, the sign nf the b<):tL '<dll!·h ;]!•' Jl!ldt:r·
stands as signifying that it is Diomnl whu h ::-. ,, ._;, ·.·td Cn~t·;·.Jc.
Cassandra's gifts position her as an interL'Stlil~·; cCJr'-ebcc co "c:r :u?·-
rator, insofar as she proves herself :m admir:tble editor of the "ol<~e
bokes"; she is capable both of sitting through ::he ,,,mrn"; f(,, reJc ..
vance :md truth :md ofrccasting them dmHJgh :·a.-r "'·\·1 .,,._;s:.· :,ri:::-: ..
torical reacbhility. 17 Though hcr pn:\l'JlL·c to scniJL. :. _,.;::c'·lc ·:;L ·;·.s ,_;-,._.
presence of t~lte, \vhich unfolds throughout tfw tak :md whicl' con-
tinues to untold throughout history, at the same time :-:he leave' un-
remarkeclmuch of the psychological t(me of the dr,·:·~''· :<nrl sl1c '"Y'
nothiug about Troilus's willt'ld denial of Its meaning. dc:r llttt·rpret>.·
t10n is incomplete, and the iructinn tl1Jt result:-. fl·on; :t ind:Clte·;
Troilus's recakitr:mce in etTecting Jl tion tlJJt devalut's "·.r ci;sauth(:-·
rizes a prior idealization ofhimselt.'T]·oilus's inability to ~;j,~>pt· LJ•: ,!( --

tions according to any other discourse thaiJ the one that shapes h1~
own identity anticipates his eventual f:1ilure to owrcc1ll>t: hi' fate.
A similar relationship between interpretation and actl;m ink.rms
Diomede's success. Skilled in the proper guises one 111rt't :J~;sume to
seduce women, 1)iomede crafts a courtly lllclsk, :tcun atdy ~·-':ic~'ing
Crio;eyde's demeanor, gue-;siug her relatiomhip to the f()rlorn Trcilus,
and competitively reacting on the basis of these readings. [ -k sh.1pc;
himself into the \Uitor that his reading of tl1c sisns inl(mns h1m '.he
Wcmts him to be. In both instances, accurcltt' reading trambtc:s \;ltu
successf'ld masking; the more successful re:1der prc\-ails. MoLJl H>
tegrity ha<> less to do with survival tlun texmal Llcility.
Chancer's depiction of hin1self ~1s a reader rather than ~!:' an J\1·

thor in his own text may retlect the convi,·ti,m that H'.Hh11g is :;
more viable ;md ethical skill th~m writing. 1~ Like the Ho/1.11' ,f hnn,·,
1i·oilus and Criscydc demonstrates that all acts of anthorohip ha'/t~
consequences. Pandarus is depicted :1s ,\ moully ambivalt:nt creamr
of romance scenarios and involvements, tbemsclvc~ :1ppc~rently g;cn--
erated from a love of romance texts and the willingness to perpet·
uate their tictions. Pandarus reads romanCL'' throughout t:H~
text-most notably during the first scene in which ·rrOilu-; ;1nd
Criseyde unite. He attributes the reading of romances to other c1Dr-
acters, though treCjUt'Iltly, as discussed abuve, t!Jt'ir re.1ding rrekr--
ences dif±er from hi' own. Further, the tlctions be creates as ruse' to
158 ENGACINC WORDS

bring together the two lovers are elaborate acts of authoring. He

concocts an elaborate device to arrange the lovers' meeting, first
lying to Criseyde about Troilus's whereabouts and then telling her
that Troilus is displeased with her because he thinks she has been
false. The metaphoric parallel between Pandarus's own reading and
the acts of authoring he undertakes deflates the claims of the auctor
to a11ctoritas. Insofar as Pandarus 's careful study of fiction is crafted
itself by lying and deceit, his character devalues the claims of poetry
to lies. He conflates the position of the panderer and the author: the
motivations are spurious at best, immoral at worst.
More troubling, however, is Pandarus's success. Because Pan-
dams manipulates both Troilus and Criseyde both in their acts of
reading each other and in the writing acts they perform for one
another, insisting upon romanticized and forced readings rather
than practical and responsive ones, he ends up inscribing the two
protagonists into flat, romanticized roles that are incapable of
adapting when circumstances change for the worse. He forces
Troilus and Criseyde to behave like characters in a romance, when
they have no idea that they are participating in quite a difierent
genre-the genre of history. Flat stereotypes and idealized personas
unfortunately provide us little aid as models for responding to
unidealized circumstances. Thus the characters of Ti·oilus and
Criseyde are not so much doomed by tragic circumstances as they
are by their reactions to them. The role devised for Criseyde-that
of the deceitful woman-becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The
reader is invited to notice the extent to \vhich Pandarus is impli-
cated in unknowingly shaping Criseyde's future actions. If
Criseyde later fulfills the very expectation Pandarus pretends to
have of her, predestination becomes less an issue of fate than of
foreshadowing-or even inscription.
The question of the morality of authoring stories has larger
ironic implications for Chaucer-as-author, who can claim to have
foresight regarding the outcome of this tragic history. In Book IV,
the narrator Chaucer writes that his very pen quakes for fear of
what he must write. The act of writing conflates the author with
Lady Fortune herself. On the one hand, this history is unfolding it-
self because Chaucer-as-writer is making it do so. To that extent he
 TEXTUAL SUBJECTS 159

shapes history. On the other hand, writers can embellish, but they
cannot legitimately change historical events; they are bound to
write as fate demands. Authors can, however, change our percep-
tions of history by carefully reading and extrapolating on varying
depictions of past events. Again it is attention to reading that is the
most crucial skill, as only careful study of the inner complexities of
historical motivations can lead us to the insights that will help us in
the present. Reading is metaphorically enlarged beyond the com-
pass of the text so that it becomes an act replete with social reso-
nance. If the failure to negotiate the reading process (or to
practically and soundly complete texts, in a broad sense of the word)
can result, as in the story of Oedipus, in ultimate tragedy, then the
theme of reading in Troilus becomes something of a warning for
Chaucer's own readers.
Troilus and Criseyde oscillates between the hope of offering re-
demption through the ability to judge accurately and to act upon
that judgment, and the despair of possessing the knowledge but
being unable to change. Even as Troilus regresses and eventually
dies, so does the city ofTroy, which is incapable of correctly read-
ing and responding to the signs of coming change. There is cer-
tainly a premonition in Troilus and Criseyde that Troy's doom is not
unrelated to Troilus's. As the exchange of Criseyde for An tenor re-
veals, the Trojans' ineptitude in judging character eventually costs
them their city. Chaucer's more informed readers know that in the
Latin tradition deriving from Dares, An tenor will later betray the
Trojans in order to negotiate an escape for his own family with the
Greeks. Yet in a characteristically inept fashion, the Trojans badly
misjudge An tenor's character, demanding his release in spite of the
fact that such a move is, as Hector himself points out, morally un-
sustainable: Troy should not be known as a city that traffics in
women. Blind reading is here equated with moral servitude. As
must be obvious to late medieval readers, the immorality of the
Trojans' choice in sacrificing the innocent for the guilty parallels
the New Testament sacritlcing of Jesus to Pontius Pilate so that
Barabas may be freed. The irony of the last line of their dismissal of
Hector is especially painful, cb. ly acknowledging their willing-
ness to sacritlce someone innocent:
160 ENGAGING WORDS

... what goost may you enspyre

This womman thus to shilde and don us leese
Daun Antenor~a wrong wey now ye chese~
That is so wys and ek so bold baroun'
An we had nede to folk, as men may se.
He is ek oon of the grettest of this town .
. . . al oure vois is to forgan Criseyde. (187-195)

[What is it that inspires you

To shield this woman thus and to cause us to lose
Sir An tenor, who is so wise and such a bold baron'
You choose the wrong way.
We have need of people, as anyone may see.
He is one of the greatest of this town .
. . . all our voice is to give up Criseyde.J

Whereas the Greeks prove themselves to be consistently adept at

reading signs, listening to Calchas's prophecies when the Trojans do
not and paying attention to the lessons they read from books
(V97-98 and V790), the Trojans frequently prove themselves inca-
pable of reading character. They make rash and indiscreet decisions
as a result. In an ironic aside the narrator laments the short-sighted
decision to give up Criseyde, drawing a connection between in-
competent judgment, moral decay, and fate: "Allas, they quytte hym
out to rathe! I 0 nyce world, lo, thy discrecioun!" [Alas, they re-
leased him too readily! Oh foolish world, lo, your discretion!
IV205-6). Troilus's refusal to circumvent the popular decision reaf-
firms his own tragic flaw. Throughout the romance the audience is
reminded that Troilus is the second-best man in Troy, after Hector.
This rather back-handed compliment now becomes a serious com-
mentary on the difference between the two men. Hector, in up-
holding strong moral judgment despite the immediate or practical
reward that might be gained by acting otherwise, demonstrates the
necessity of correction assessment and action. Troilus's status as sec-
ond-best manifests as inactivity and paralysis, characteristics that
apply equally to the rest of Troy, too. Had he sided with Hector,
might the tide have turned? Such imponderables remain outside the
realm of legitimate exegesis, of course, but the unwritten question
nevertheless haunts the remainder of the tale:
 TEXTUAL SUBJECTS 161

0 Juvenal, lord, trewe is thy sentence,

That lite! wyten folk what is to yerne,
That they ne fYnde in hire desir offence;
For cloude of errour let hem to disc erne
What best is. And lo, here ensample as yerne:
This folk desiren now deliveraunce
Of An tenor, that brought hem to meschaunce,
For he was after traitour to the town
OfTroye. (IV 197-205)

[Oh Juvenal, lord, true is your comment

That so little do people know what is to be yearned
That they find ruin in their desires,
For the cloud of error prevents them from discerning
What is best. And lo, here is an example:
These people now desire the deliverance
Of Antenor, who brought them to mischance,
For he was afterward a traitor to the town
OfTroy.]

This particular passage, a Chaucerian addition absent in the original

Boccaccio, emphasizes the special relationship between discernment
and ethics. There is a sense here that if providence does follow a cer-
tain path, it is not without the aid of humankind. Following the Tro-
jans' decision, Troilus bemoans at length the operations of fate
(IV. 958-980), vacillating between answers to the question of
whether fate or free will guide his own destiny. Troilus teeters am-
biguously but ultimately refuses to come to a conclusion one way or
the other. Such a decision would in large part demand a different
sort of character than the one with which Troilus is endowed; his re-
liance on fate neatly frees him from the painful responsibility for
controlling his own destiny. Troilus's inaction is based on an inability
to come to conclusions informed by the situational context. Logic
gets him nowhere, except to conclude at IV.l 075 that if he knows
something is coming, it must be so. Instead of relying on judgment
or analysis (which indeed in this passage lead him thoroughly astray),
Troilus finally reverts to the notion that "kynde" [nature] dominates
personal action. He refuses, in other words, to affect his own future.
Yet the final words of the story are for lovers, who may read the
story ofTroil us and gain something from it. These closing words are
162 ENGAGING WORDS

interesting, for they say something about the necessity of being a

good reader-of listening well and then applying the lessons of the
text to similar circumstances that might arise in the present or fu-
ture. Chaucer's final gesture in the story is again to beg forgiveness
for his subject matter, reminding his audience not to blame him for
an outcome he did not author himself. Indet'd, Troilus's own ascen-
sion into the spheres of tht' heavens would indicate that material
outcomes are not important; rather, it is the perspectives that arise
from tht' t'xperienct's that art' of value. Troilus's laughtt'r as ht' looks
back on his past life indicates the futility of living for or through
love. If Chaucer allows any moral to his talt', it is that given in his
final words: "I3eth war of men, and herkneth what I seye!" Ti"tll"!W
and Criseyde is, ultimately, for readers, who can learn trom the ex-
perience of the text somt'thing about the nature and function of
reading. Caution, introspection, and a heeding of the signs provide
the only possible control over what might otherwise seem a capri-
cious and unkind fortune.

Experiential Poetics:
The Prioress and the Wife of Bath

That texts begin and end with individuals themselves comes to be

the defining rule of Chaucer's poetics. The Canterbury J;J!es, a col-
lection of texts created-or at least, so the author alleges-out of an
oral tradition of everyday folk, poses living texts in action, as the pil-
grims choose, retell, and elaborate upon texts that appeal to them.
The talc., model the various uses and abuses that occur when texts
are used as vehicles to idea lice or glorify the pursuits of self. Though
literature tends to be posited as an objective world, texts are always
the product of interested authors, obscuring unflattering realities or
subtly revealing through analogy those dear concerns too close to
one's self-interests to speak outright. The Canter/Jury "Tales promotes
storytelling and all textual processes as fundamentally human acts
that celebrate human interests and concerns. No one is an author-
ity in the Canterbury Tales. Instead, texts become ways of extending
and participating in the theater of the world, "helping us to shape
and judge personal and social values." I<J Petrarch 's introspective acts
 TEXTUAL SUBJECTS 163

of reading, appropriating, and analyzing the texts of others, so that

those experiences become means of shedding light upon the self's
own circumstances, are echoed in Chaucer. However, Chaucer ex-
tends Petrarch's philosophical connection between the shaping of
individual character and the social effect reading materials play in
that development. His pilgrims arc texts-even self-consciously so.
If they invent and retell stories for the delectation of an audience of
peers, they do so with the full awareness that those texts speak vol-
umes about who they are; indeed, the constant interaction among
the pilgrims is based on interpretations and implicJtions of the nar-
rJtives they supply.
The context of the pilgrimage, with its potential for exploring
voice, authorship, and authority, provides Chaucer the opportunity
to expose narratives as participating in an ideology that JlwJys im-
plicJtes the would-be authority of an interested speaker. The narra-
tor most ostensibly interested in the limits of authority is the
salacious "gat-tothed" husband-chaser-the Wife of BJth. As the
representative of an identity and a voice that speak outside the sanc-
tioned discourses of her social framework, the Wife's identity is
"constructed" insofar as it is self-conscious. Her prologue presents
an autobiographical account that supplements the tale she chooses,
and she makes it cleJr that her very being is one she has worked to
achieve. Out of all the CJnterbury pilgrims, the Wife alone makes
it clear that she understands the connection between the making of
self-fictions and the making of fJiry-tales. Admitting that she is both
a liar and a manipulator, the Wife portrays herself as a "weaver of
texts," warning us from the beginning that she is not to be trusted.
It is not truth she seeks, but rather the projection of an image. Her
text is made up of a network of other texts: the Bible, the words of
the Church fathers, the words of her husbands, the cliches of her
people. Even lies and dreams become texts to be publicly slured and
analyzed as the situation requires.
In contrast to the Wife is one of the only two other female
speakers in the Canterbury Tales: the seemingly gentle Prioress. Her
mode of reading and cultural response is passive as opposed to en-
gaged. Not surprisingly, her behavior is stereotypically "femi-
nine"-indeed almost ridiculously so-and her replicatory ethics
164 ENGAGING WORDS

are dubious insofar as they reenact without questioning a condem-

natory and scapegoat-oriented mentality. Many critics have ex-
pressed perplexity at the violent anti-Semitism advocated in the tale
and have questioned Chaucer's own complicity in the Prioress's ex-
pressed racism. 20 Yet the Prioress's easy condemnation is coupled
with her tale's implicit praise of innocence, as if a child's rote re-
sponse is more valid than the learned engagement of a scholar like
the Clerk. The Prioress's position and judgment are products of her
unproblematized acceptance and transmission of a racist tradition
and the narrative apparatus that supports it. Both the way she be-
haves and the way she imagines justice are a direct consequence of
the passive and unengaged mode of reading she models. Insofar as
the Prioress represents a passive subjective response shaped by the
ideologies continued through her culture's narrative tradition, she
reflects in larger terms Chaucer's own concern with establishing an
ethics of reading for his presumed audience. Taken together, the nar-
ratives of the Prioress and the Wife of Bath demonstrate the con-
trasts between two types of agency. As each negotiates the space
within the narrow limits of action afforded their gender, they illus-
trate two types of engagement with what might be called the "lit-
erary texts" that comprise their cultural heritage. In terms of this
kind of engagement, gender serves as the catalyst that necessitates
different kinds of response rather than as the essential component of
either's identity. The Wife misunderstands many of the texts that
concern her, such as the parable of the Good Samaritan, which she
believes to be an indictment of multiple marriages rather than of
unsanctioned intercourse. Yet even when she gets it wrong, she en-
gages texts: she thinks, questions, and attempts to apply texts to her
own experiences. As such the Wife models an act of reading that ad-
vocates personal responsibility and suggests the possibility for re-
demption and change. The Prioress's passive form of narration,
downplaying her own effectiveness as a reader and thinker and of-
fering rote repetition of a narrative tradition without subjective
comment, judgment, or reflection, models an unengaged act of
reading with grim implications for effecting positive change.
There is something to be said for comparing two female narrators,
insofar as the types of experience their respective fictional lives rep-
 T F X f U t,. I ~ ll ll.l E l. i S 163

n:;;ent may re\ c,,j gei!dcr-speciti.c re,1dcr-respome issues. Yet that is not
the purpose here. Rather, Clnucer's use of temak characters as
spokespeople for the diHerent issues their tales raise can be seen as a
means of linking extreme "unlearned" or "untrained" responses to
what we might call the "master narratives" that embody and continue
the ideologit's that constitute a culture's sense of idemit;' :md tradi-
tion.21 As marginalized participants m medieval culture, female speak-
ers (or, at least, the two female speaker'> represented in the Canterbury
Tale.i) are comtrained by those institutions that grant ·women the au-
thority to speak.The Prioress describes her'ielf as but "wJyk" in "kon-
nyng" (1. 481 ), aud compares henelf to "a child of twelf month oold,
or Jesse" (1. 484). She modestly proclaims that she lacks rhetorical
skills. Her tale also suggests that she has the capacity merely to mem-
orize by rote but not to question. The \X!ife certainly avers much
more confidence in her reasoning ~kilb, yet she, too, appears to lack
formal education and is quite possibly illiterate---she reads narratives
that are delivered to her orally by the men in her life. Both women
also are described as being removed fi:om positions of occupational
authority (if not from degrees of social reality). The Prioress lives in
the removed and almost narClssistic world of the cloister, while the
\Vife lives in the world of the village, where a woman's status is con-
ferred by her fm1ily rank or wealth. As dependents, neither can the-
oretically claim authority f(x her tale or it~ moral import. Each is
rather expected to conform to the decorum already established by the
range of stories appropriately available to her.
The different ways in which each is integrated into the pilgrim-
age, however, snggests immediately their opposing approaches to
gendered reading and storytelling. The Wife's prologue is imbedded
in the drama of the pilgri1mge itself. Her story begins abruptly, as
an interruption in the main narrative. Though we cannot be certain
which tale precedes the Wife's in what is known as "'Fragment III,"
there can be no doubt that the Wife's voice begins officiously, even
intrusively, when compared with the entrances of the other pil-
grim\ stories. 22 The Man of Law's exemplary tale of Constant Con-
stance, which precedes the \X!ife of Bath's invective ag<linst male
domination, pruvides the Juthority against which she must react.
Unlike the Clerk, the Man of Law presents his character without
166 ENCACINC WORDS

question or editorial intervention. In Constance, the ideal portrait

of female submission, patience, and obedience enjoined by religious
authority provides an impossibly abstract vision of women that
bears no relationship to social reality. Constance, whose motto
seems to be her acquiescent "wommen are born to thraldom and
penance, and to been under mannes governance" (II. 285-86), is
treated as a commodity in the Man (~fLaw's Talc. She is acquired by
the sultan for "certein gold," then mistreated and traded off by var-
ious angry mothers-in-law. Though she finally marries, her union
cannot be considered completely blissful, for a wife is periodically
compelled to "leye a lite hir hoolynesse aside" so that she can do her
wifely duty to her husband. Constance is utterly passive. She is a
scholar's creation of the ideal woman who speaks only when spo-
ken to-and then only in carefully chosen cliches (unless, of course,
she is praying)-who never complains, and who indeed demon-
strates no response to any external stimuli whatsoever, be they psy-
chological, physical, or sexual; and who is, in ~hort, not a viable
representation of the human individual.
The Wife's negative example proves that the ideological model
provided by Constance has damaging effects for the audience that
accepts her character and actions without critical reflection. The
Prioress would seem willing to adhere to such a model, even if she
herself falls a bit short of the mark. She, too, is demure, passive, and
unwilling to express anything beyond cliched or stereotyped
thought. The Wife of Bath, by contrast, is all that both Constance
and the Prioress are not. She openly defies the vision of marriage
so far presented by the Canterbury pilgrims, claiming her experi-
ence outweighs any learning on the subject. Where Constance is
silent, the Wife is garrulous. Where the Prioress refrains from edi-
torializing, the Wife uses experience and common sense to combat
the misogynistic commonplaces of the Church and then launches
into an elaborate autobiographical sketch that rhetorically creates
her own version of what it is to be a woman in this society. As such
the Wife appropriates the identity of the medieval commentator.
She takes on the authority of the expositors to reveal that the mak-
ing of meaning has intense ramifications for individual, lived expe-
rience. The Wife turns the scholastic role of evaluating texts for
 TEXTUAL SUUJECTS 167

public utility into a personal one, so that it is the individual lay per-
son who must judge, evaluate, and render into action the texts that
function as authorities over his or her own life. There can be no
such generality as "everyman" in the Wife's lived experience; such
generalizations as the misogynistic commonplaces her husband
flouts before her have dramatic consequences for the individuals
who must live them.
As Carolyn Dinshaw notes, the Wife's dramatized entry into the
forum symbolically foreshadows the appropriation ofboth male au-
thorship and male reading practices in her own prologue and tale. 23
More importantly for this study, the Wife's prologue, contextualiz-
ing a narrative of her own marital experiences within the social im-
perative of understanding the feminine as based on her own gloss of
the clerics, demonstrates the importance reading has for authoring
the text that is one's own life. The Wife's initial forays into the de-
fense of her marital practices fully utilize the auctoritas of the patris-
tic fathers. Her own experiences do not appear until later, though
they form the implicit basis for her concern with the meaning of
the authorities. The Wife has good reason for taking on the author-
ities in her prologue, for she tells us that her fifth husband,Janekyn,
had been an Oxford clerk and has among his possessions a book
about wicked wives, from which he constantly reads to her in an ef-
fort to convince her of the failings of her sex. "It is an impossible I
That any clerk wol speke good of wyves" [it is an impossibility that
any clerk will speak well of wives], she remarks (II. 688-89), con-
firming Dinshaw's own conclusion that "self-interestedness is always
potential in the act of glossing." 24 The Wife's derogatory words,
however self-interested, have the effect of diminishing the more
"authoritative" discourse of the scholars' rhetorical display. Her use
of repetition and context certainly reveals the exegetes' objectivity
as less than objective, her revelation being a magnificent accom-
plishment in itself. For what the Wife accomplishes, essentially, is the
deconstruction of discourse to reveal the structures of ideology and
self-interest that always lay behind it.
The effect of the Wife's preamble on authority is twofold. It sit-
uates her as a reader of culture-that is, as a fully knowledgeable and
concerned practitioner of her culture's deeper values-and it reveals
168 ENGAGING WORDS

the extent to which an individual gifted with such cultural insight

may be able to appropriate and reformulate problematic discourses
so as to accommodate a greater diversity of life practices. 25 As a
powerful statement about the ideology of discourse, the Wife's pre-
amble brings into sharp relief the passive and dangerous reading
practices of the Prioress. It is interesting to note that while the Pri-
oress presumably has some degree of literacy and education, she
prefers rote learning and fixed morals to interpretation or criticism.
In addition to comparing her own intellect to a child's, she requires
"guidance" from the Virgin in telling her tale, lest she otherwise fail
to "sustain" its value on her own (1. 487 and 1. 483). The Wife, on
the other hand, who, as critics have pointed out, may very well be
illiterate, 26 refers to the words of the authorities as "texts" (1. 346),
adopts a skeptical stance toward them, and relies on her own inter-
pretive guidance in making her way through them. The Wife's char-
acter and her defense against the antifeminist tradition makes
evident the power difference that exists in language and urgently re-
minds Chaucer's own audience of the need to break down such
texts for their ideological content and the agendas of their authors.
Such a position is particularly ironic given the position the Wife
retains in her society, as one who has been both excluded from the
discourse and at the same time made the object of it. 27 The Prioress,
arguably, is sheltered from the brunt of the antifeminist tradition be-
cause she adopts the alternative feminine discourse and lifestyle
available to her: venerating and idealizing the nurturing and non-
sexual qualities of women as perpetuated by the Cult of the Virgin
Mary. The Prioress's insistence upon innocent "konnyng" [knowing]
may indicate that learning is wasted on her, but it maintains the sta-
tus quo and the privileged cloistered position the Prioress has em-
braced by enabling her to retain a naive, untroubled, and escapist
world view.
The Prioress's courtly pose and cloistered background suggest
much in terms of her response to ideological models. The discrep-
ancy noted by many between the Prioress's pointed courtliness and
her religious profession suggests that her character can be read satir-
ically.28 The Prioress's attention to the nuances of appearance and
decorum verge on the grotesque; when the narrator recounts with
 TEXTUAL SUBJECTS 169

fascination the Prioress's ability to avoid greasing or stammg her

frock he shows the extent to which such exaggerated politeness
perhaps inadvertently draws more attention to the bodily presence
than it conceals. The Prioress's "tender heart" serves the same sort
of purpose. Her outward show of sentimentality toward small ani-
mals or her dogs is smartly contrasted to the lack of concern she
shows for the "flock" of the Church. Both sets of mannerisms sug-
gest a persona that embraces an "ideal" of femininity without self-
reflectiveness or engagement, a persona that has almost willfully
adopted a stereotype of femininity divorced from social awareness
or interaction. 29
The Prioress, unlike the Wife, does not participate openly in the
Canterbury conversation. She must be invited to speak. When en-
couraged to tell a story, she assents fully but then demurs, drawing
attention to her limitations as a narrator. The miracle story she tells
is a conventional one, completely devoid of personal experience or
self-consciousness. When granted a position of authority, the Pri-
oress makes her hero and spokesperson a child and adopts his per-
spective and voice as her own. She thematizes her own limitations
of"weakness," "simplicity," and "lack of learning" within the tale so
that by the end they seem gifts of naivety and unseltconscious faith.
As in the Wife of Bath's Prologue, the Prioress's investment in her
own tale is revealing. The Prioress's Tale has been praised as containing
some of Chaucer's most beautiful religious writing. Both the un-
adorned syntax and sustained noninterposing tone supports the im-
plied message of Prioress's tale: that "knowing" is better than
"knowledge" in the eyes of the Virgin.Yet the language of the tale mir-
rors the presentation of self in the prologue, advancing a child-like ap-
proach to the world and to the problems of belief that forestalls critical
thinking or even self-preservation. In stark contrast to the Wife, the
Prioress makes no reference to authority in the tale outside the litur-
gical reference to the song of the child, 0 Alma Redemptoris. That the
Prioress also identifies with the child, who lives alone with his mother
in simple devotion and obedience, has been suggested by Derek
Pearsall, who also notes that the Prioress's claim to religious guidance
is supported by her insistence on "innocence and ignorance." 30 Her
syntax and themes support the value of complete acceptance, of the
170 ENGAGING WORDS

"littleness" of individual responsibility. 31 The Prioress adopts a stance

of submission to the Virgin Mary, whom she claims as her own
mother, and who guides her, even as does the child's mother in the
tale. It is interesting to note that once put in the position of author-
ity-where the Prioress gets the chance to speak, to tell her own tale
and demarcate her own position among the Canterbury pilgrims-
she adopts both the outlook and voice of a child. Her inte~ections in
the tale, few as they are, are empathetic and emotional, sympathizing
with the object of the tale rather than to her audience oflisteners. One
need only recall the Clerk's self-effacing remarks in relation to Walter's
treatment of Griselda to note the glaring self-absorption of the Pri-
oress. If anything, she seeks to manipulate audience response by will-
fully connecting their emotional responses to her own. The lack of
audience response at the end of the tale attests to her success at achiev-
ing empathetic, rather than disinterested, approval. At the same time,
the Prioress's acceptance of and submersion into the discourse of her
avowed belief system reveals the totalizing consequences a nonreflec-
tive belief system can have for both individuals and larger groups of
marginalized people.
Yet certainly there is much in the tale that would suggest the
irony behind such a self-absorbed mode of reflection. Nonreflective
discourse, assumed without understanding nor even full engage-
ment, may have dire consequences. The child memorizes 0 Alma Re-
demptoris without understanding its content. He asks what it means
(11. 526-27), but receives no explicit answers other than a simplistic
summary of the song's ideological force: the hymn is intended, an-
other boy tells him, "To been oure help and socour whan we deye"
[to be an aid and succor when we die, I. 534]. In other words, the
child knows nothing of the translation of the Latin he repeats nor of
the doctrine behind it, yet that does not deter him-nor, is it im-
plied, should it. The Prioress's insistence on the "swetnesse" of the
child's devotion and singing relieve him of responsibility for the ac-
tual content of the text itself. The child's singing of the hymn occurs
only twice a day, when he walks through the Jewish quarter. The
danger of such an enterprise is foreshadowed by the child's insistence
on learning the piece, regardless of whether he be "shent" [punished]
or "beten thries in an houre" [beaten three times an hour, 11.
 TEXTUAL SUBJECTS 171

541-42]--fears that would suggest that the child has some vague
awareness that his acts will not be perceived benevolently by all.
Yet the personal danger to the child is supplemented by a subtler
transgression: that of assuming one word, language, or perspective
applies to everyone, despite whatever difference others might dis-
play tl-om oneself. The exclusion of an entire neighborhood of the
city from the child's worldview would be consistent with the self-
absorption of childhood, yet at the same time such an attitude is
hardly laudatory. The Prioress's own ready acceptance of this dis-
course, repeated seemingly without concern for some of the tale's
more shocking injustices, emphasizes the discrepancy that ever ex-
ists between speaker and text. She perpetuates without question a
narrative, complete with its resonant language and underlying
agenda, that sustains a potentially dangerous ideology. Chaucer de-
parts from the sources of the Prioress's Tale significantly at the end,
emphasizing the mass scapegoating of the Jews without trial or
mercy by a provost who himself stands to benefit economically by
their removal. The provost's selt-:.interested intervention in the name
of justice again undercuts the legitimacy of the ideological language
used as all-embracing world measure: "Yvele shal have that yevele
wol deserve" [evil shall have what evil well deserves], he cries (1.
632), but of course, little real investigation of the event or its cul-
prits is enacted. The Jews are guilty by association alone.
The controversy regarding the Prioress's anti-Semitism is of
course well documented. Schoeck has perhaps most forcdi.1lly
demonstrated the argument that the Prioress's bigotry is intended
both to horrify and dismay contemporary audiences. The Prioress
mentions one controversial event as an analogue to her tale: the ex-
pulsion of the Jews after the murder of Hugh of Lincoln in 1294.
In the historical event an entire body of Jews were blamed-appar-
ently erroneously-for the murder of a small child, even as they are
in the Prioress's fictitious tale. But other historical events much
closer to Chaucer's own time also exhibit many parallels to the sit-
uation in the Prioress's Tale. The Flemings, successful rivals of the
English weavers and a class of people outside the norms of English
society, were murdered outright by a mob during the Peasant's Re-
volt in 1381 . Chroniclers of the time deplored the hypocrisy of that
172 EN(;ACINC; WORIJS

action, and Chaucer himself refers to it in the Nun's Priest's Tale.'~

More recently, Sheila Dd.my has sketched the context surrounding
the expulsion of the Jews fi-om Paris in 1.395 to reveal that a great
many people had enormous sympathy for the Jews and believed the
judgment against them to he both harsh and unwarranted. 33 Al-
though the writing of the Priores-,'s T~1le is bclie\·ed to pre-date this
event, nonetheles> Delany points out that a great deal of discussion
circulated around the plight of the Jews in the years leading up to
the expulsion, calling for Christian tolerance and civility, and that, as
an ambassador and t1-equent travt'ler to tilt' rontinent, Chaucer could
hardly have been unaware of it. Moreowr, in the course of his work
in Navarre, a district that \velcomed Jews and Muslims, Chaucer
would have been exposed to a broad spectrum of Jews participating
in various aspects of city life: Navarre hostt'd Jewish scribes, actors,
courtiers, and the like, with whom Chaucer would have almost cer-
tainly interacted:' 4 Furthermore, noting that the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries witnessed crimes against Je\vs so appalling that Pope
Gregory X issued a bull specifically decrying such unjust :~cts,
Schoeck observes the irony in the Priores> "s own discourse, which
draws freely from a rich Hebrew tradition for models of value and
Christian reverence. Certain of these reference\, such as the Prioress's
modeling of Rachel a-; a good mother, ~11-e assumed in the New Tes-
tament to prefigure events fi-om the lite of Christ. Yet the Prioress
seems ignorant even of this textual tradition-"'
These historical details and ideological omissions would indicate
that the Prioress is a shallow reader of texts. She is capable of only
supetilcially glossing the texts that describe others, but she 1s also
curiously incapable of glossing the text that is herself. She remains
blind to the symbolism of her own storv. to the textual tradition of
Biblical glosses that enrich this symbolism. She also f1ils to recog-
nize the social context that informs her own values and assumptions
about people, their actions, and their natures. Although it may be
true, as Schoeck notes, that Chaucer could hardly have challenged
the predominating image of the Jew<; of his time, nonetheless his
manipulation of the material in the Prioress's Tale draws attention
to the hypocrisy and cruelty that her light dismissal of their treat-
ment inspires. 31' His attention to the Prioress "s own voice in the
 TEXTU!\L SUBJECTS 173

telling of her tale underscores the presence of hasty and ill-consid-

ered judgments, based on universalized stereotypes divorced from
immediate context.
It would be hoped that the xenophobia apparent in these events,
self-righteously justified in each instance through similar rational-
izations, would cause some pause for those reflective Christian pil-
grims \vho might be auditors of the Prioress's Tale. Of course, it
doesn't. The Prioress's Tale is praised by the Canterbury Pilgrims,
who seem to appreciate the Prioress's acquiescence as much as they
resent and are shocked by the Wife of Bath's flouting of authority.
Where the Wife boldly proclaims her own experience to be her
guide, fiJlly accepting responsibility for the value of her words, the
Prioress entreats the Virgin to guide her song for her, as if the claim
to a tramcendental authority might relieve her of the responsibility
for interrogating her own assumptions or biases. The Prioress
demonstrates, indeed, an unwillingness to gloss at all, though the
ironies and dangers implicit in such ignorance also tend to escape
her. Her lack of concern for what lies beneath the surface, exhib-
ited both in her conduct and in her telling of the tale, by implica-
tion would seem to be directly related to her inability to read her
own text.
The inflexible harshness of the Prioress's tale is accentuated by
the contrasting world of the Wife of Bath. The Wife of Bath's £1iry-
tale-like romance that follows her prologue might appear to reiter-
ate conventional male-female power relations. Ending with a query
put to the recalcitrant knight as to whether he would prefer a beau-
titlll wife or a Clithful one, the tale ironically seems to neutralize the
Wife's alleged concern \Vith granting the woman sovereignty in
marriage. At the same time, however, her tale includes a vision of
the capacity for change in a dynamic world where human motiva-
tion and inclination can amend themselves according to a shifi: in
perspective. \Vhen the knight listem to the arguments of his new
hag-·wite and tinally sees the world from a viewpoint other than his
own limited one, he acknowledges the multiple possibilities for ac-
tion and responsibility. He allows another person--his wife-to
enact her own wishes m·er his own. The Prioress's world allows no
such contingencies and no alternative perspectives. Her tale finishes
174 ENGAGING WORDS

with the violent destruction of an entire group of people, based on

judgment levied in a static world where nothing can change and
where no one listens to the other side's perspective.
The Prioress's Tale reveals the anesthetizing effect language or re-
ceived discourse may have upon ethics. Because the Prioress adopts
a persona of courtliness in addition to her spiritual veneer, she sig-
nals both an awareness of and a commitment to certain expectations
regarding communication. Nor is the Prioress alone in this language
game; it is the host who first signals the change in conversation that
is expected to occur by addressing her "As curteisly as it had been
a mayde" (1. 446). Courtly discourse always presumes the participa-
tion of others who agree to adopt a similar genteel stance. If the pil-
grims in audience do not themselves propagate the values of the
discourse, nonetheless they agree to share in them by recognizing
the tone and syntax that come with the comportment of the iden-
tified aristocratic group.
The Prioress's invocation of both courtly discourse and Marian
ideology is not altogether innocent, moreover. To some extent the
Prioress's efforts to appear as both feminine courtly lady and hum-
ble Marian devotee indicate her own masking as a subject. She pro-
jects herself as a Christian who has essentially martyred her courtly
identity for a spiritual one. 37 The Prioress's courtly distaste for the
poverty, dirt, and slums she describes as existing outside the city
proper translates into a reading in which those who live in such
places are "hateful to Crist" (1. 492), a designation that no one in the
pilgrimage rejects. Such is the insidious effectiveness of aristocratic
speech: by idealizing itself, and by establishing its own distance from
the "low styles" that characterize such narratives as the Shipman's,
courtly discourse wins adherents even as it more strictly defines
group norms. But such discourse comes at the price of emphasiz-
ing form over content. The Prioress's feminized mode of speech
neutralizes those troubling aspects of her tale that might signal the
complicity of the Christians in perpetuating immoral acts.
Similarly, the Wife of Bath's discourse, despite its knowing wink
at the antifeminist tradition, also reveals the extent to which an ex-
clusionary discursive tradition preempts the ability to think or
speak outside prescribed norms. The Wife's concern with the an-
 TEXTUAL SUUJECTS 175

tifeminists reveals the extent to which she herself has been indoc-
trinated by this discourse. For all its self-conscious presentation, the
Wife's identity is problematic. Her voice is not fully in control of
the discourses it invokes. Her texts sometimes slip, revealing inex-
plicable parallels and consistencies. These, strangely, have a logic of
their own and undermine the master-framework of her own claim
to authority over the self. Abrupt memories and feelings interrupt
the narrative and themselves serve for causes tor both her and us to
revisit her prior utterances, to layer new meaning upon the old
narrative. These surges of seemingly unauthorized disclosure ne-
cessitate the rereading and reworking of our understanding of the
subject before us.
In emphasizing the place of words, signifYing activities, and the
eventual dominance of misogynist ideology. the Wife reiterates the
healthy skepticism presaged in the House 4 Fame. However, in the
Wite of Bath's prologue the signifYing puzzle is further complicated
by the contaminating influence of subjectivity and its own claims to
power. Received discourse gives the Wife her characteristic "femi-
ninity," but she simultaneously uses that discourse to subvert the pa-
triarchal authority her husbands would wield over her like some
outdated but binding rule to which all women must acquiesce. She
is able to read her husbands' fears and allay them, by reiterating and
then dismissing in outrage the very sins of which she acknowledges
herself guilty. She is the one who establishes the rhetorical situation.
Yet at the same time, as Lee Patterson has most famously noted,
sometimes the Wife's authorities get the best of her as her experi-
ential resources contaminate her textbook ones. 3 ~
The Wife's unique ability to cast apparently real concerns within
the false and overgeneralized complaints of the misogynist litany
particularly demonstrate the dangers of establishing authoritative
generalizations over particular cases that need to be particularly
read. The Wife's success as a subject-a subject who will be heard,
rather than silenced, and one who will leave a mark-centers on her
ability to rhetorically control her circumstances, and, specifically, to
dominate her partners through her rhetorical mastery. 3Y The con-
trol resides, as she argues in the famous passage on the example from
Aesop, who paints the picture of reality:
176 ENGAGING WORDS

Who peyntede the leon, tel me who'

By God, if wommen hadde writen stories,
As clerkes han withinne hire oratories,
They wolde han writen of men moore wikkednesse
Than al the mark of Adam may rcdressc. (II. 6<)2~%)

[Who painted the lion, tell ine who'

By God, if women had written histories,
As have the clerks with their oratories,
They would have written more evil of men
Than all the mark of Adam could redress.]

The reference alludes to the fable in which a lion, when shown a

statue of a man strangling one of his species, notes that the sculp-
tor/artist gets to decide the victor. The example hearkens back to
the House cif Fanze, in which the narrator asks basically the same
question: how might Aeneas look had Dido written his saga? As in
the House c:f Fame, the fable provided here becomes an allegory for
the distance between real authority and the eye of the perceiver. The
question is less who is the hero than who is the survivor. The Wife
invokes the fable specifically in reference to the fact that Janekyn's
book represents only the negative acts of wives; male representations
of women, when passed down tram one generation to the next,
similarly take on the voice of authority despite their very human
and fallible origins.'+0 By calling into question the claim to truth on
the part of the representer, the Wife deflects what truth there might
have existed in Janekyn's examples and turns the attention instead
to the dynamics of storytelling, where issues of perception are
everything. The narrator always gets to spin herself as the hero.
Unfortunately, the Wife's own use of the metaphor is inconsis-
tent. She makes reference to lions three times in the lines sur-
rounding this passage, referring first to herself as a lioness in terms
of proud, survivor qualities; then to her husband, who rages about
like "a wood leoun."The curious juxtaposition of the lion as first a
positive emblem, then as an irrational beast is itself telling, especially
when this symbolic vacillation is combined with the recurrence of
the lion motif as an idee fixe implanted on the Wife's consciousness
by her recollection of the old fable. It is as if, once reminded of the
story, the Wife cannot help but depict herself and her husband using
 TEXTUAL SUBJECTS 177

the same symbolic elements, as though they, too, are but further de-
volutions of the old lion-and-hunter narrative. Though she seeks to
craft her own text and to paint the story according to her own artis-
tic eye, she confronts the reader with the possibility that even self-
authorings are subject to cultural impositions that shape and mold
the speaker toward certain preconceived symbolic frameworks. The
imposition of this fable onto the fight she so graphically represents
reminds us that the questions of authority are always the same: who
is painting the winner, who the aggressor? And can this author be
trusted?
In the end, of course, it is the Wife who gets to tell the tale, and
so it is she who decides what the truth of her own life will be.
Reading assumes a double position in the tale, becoming the stan-
dard by which the Wife measures herself against an authoritarian
discourse that traditionally excludes women, and also a method by
which an active audience may assess and judge the Wife's history
and ethics. Insofar as the Wife is a responsive creature, reacting
against the diatribes against women she reads emanating from the
authorities of the church, she must recapitulate in kind, locked into
the very mode of logic she wishes to reject. 41 Yet our poet realizes
this; he makes us laugh at the Wife's implication within the network
of conflicting narratives and authorities she has cited. This deliber-
ate entanglement forces us to evaluate the Wife's stance as a reader
of the self in light of the gross contradictions her character embod-
ies. Can we argue that the Wife in effect creates a new way of speak-
ing for women, appropriating the force, style, and diction of male
authority for an exclusively feminine purpose? Or does she merely
end up recapitulating and reinforcing the institutions of female re-
pression, and is she herself a manifestation of the ugliest stereotypes
of women in the Middle Ages? Does it matter, considering the
larger issues of authority and textuality that the Wife raises?
The answer is, of course, that it matters very much. Indeed, one
of the major insights of the Canterbury Tales-and especially the Pri-
oress's Tale and the Prologue and Tale of the Wife of Bath-is to re-
veal the mechanisms by which individuals' discursive and readerly
practices reenact the very authority they may seek to repudiate. In
both cases, the discourse suggests a reality beyond the speaker's own
17/l ENCACINC WORDS

devising, one that is not fully under her mastery. The stories of oth-
ers exert a pressure over her actions and fantasies that is not com-
pletely overcome by her own self-interest. Certainly both the Wife
and the Prioress, in the end, prove their discourses to be insufEcient
to free them from the limitations on subjective behavior exerted by
the master-discourse of society.

The Fate of Readers

It is unfortunate that most medieval readers of the Canterbury Tales

would have been unlikely to notice the Prioress's anti-Semitism as
an unusual or dangerous instance of stereotyping. Nor would they
have been likely to embrace the Wife of Bath as a progressive and
concerned reader of texts. Most readers, even in modern times, are
naive in that they follow the position of the narrator-especially if
that narrator regurgitates commonplaces of the society. When an
author overtly flaunts or disrespects the accepted modes of thinking
or judging, disapproving looks and closed countenances, like those
shown in the Troilus frontispiece, will result. Despite the engaged
models of reading provided throughout the Canterbury Tales and
Troilus and Criseydc, the immediate, emotive reactions of Harry
Bailly, the host of the Canterbury pilgrimage, are no doubt the
norm: he likes what affirms him; he misunderstands or rejects that
which doesn'tY Troilus and Criseyde's fatalistic suspicion that some-
times reading changes nothing remains a sorry reality.
Yet Chaucer's texts confirm these nonreceptive audiences to be the
unfortunate ones who miss opportunities, stagnate in their own bad
fortunes, and tragically doom themselves to stasis and spiritual death.
Pandarus comments meditatively in Troilus and Criseyde that oppor-
tunity comes in many guises for those who are able to recognize it:

For to every wight som goodly aventure

Som tyme is shape, if he it kan receyven;
l3ut if he wol take of it no cure,
Whm that it conuneth, but wilfully it weyven,
Lo, neyther cas ne tortune hym dcceyven,
But ryght his verray slouthe and wrecchednessc;
And swich a wight is tor to blame, I gesse. (11.281-H7)
 TEXTUAL SUBJECTS 179

[For to every person some good adventure

Is fashioned at some time, if he can receive it;
But if he takes no heed of it
When it comes, but wilfully turns away from it,
Lo, neither chance nor fortune deceive him
But indeed his very own sloth and wretchedness,
And such a person is to be blamed, I suppose.]

These words seem thematic for both Troilus and Criseyde and the
Canterbury Tales, for in both works reading is figured as an act that
reveals the opportunities of life's lessons. Even if the Trojans find
themselves deceived by fortune, they, too, are "for to blame" for the
slothful refusal to act decisively. The danger of regressing into
stereotypical personas or roles that foreclose self-analysis or self-
reading are repeatedly thematized in Chaucer's works. There are
negative consequences for reading romances without applying their
lessons to the self and its own actions.
Yet Chaucer posits almost as an inevitability the fact that dis-
courses, genres, and authoritarian positions will at some point be
challenged by readers from the margins, who, like women or the
Jews, may be excluded or disenfranchised by the outmoded values
of certain popular genres and discourses. Such instances of reread-
ing are not necessarily negative, though the Wife of Bath may make
them seem threatening to an audience of her contemporaries. In-
deed, as Troilus and Criseyde and the Prioress's Tale reveal, it might
behoove society at large to rethink some of their generalizations
about sexual stereotyping, ethnic identity, and the like.
If the Wife and the Prioress inadvertently expose the self-inter-
est that governs acts of reading and authorship, the Clerk exem-
plifies the kind of reader whose self-awareness benefits the reading
process. The Clerk contextualizes narratives within social frame-
works and, in doing so, exposes the limitations of fictive ethics.
The Clerk's tale of the long-suffering Griselda, a popular story
immortalized by both Petrarch and Boccaccio, faithfully enumer-
ates the trials Griselda must undergo at the hands of her husband.
Recounting the removal of Griselda's children, the hint of their
murder, and then finally the threatened dissolution of her marriage,
the Clerk constantly intervenes in his own story. He interjects
180 ENGAGING WORDS

judgments about his characters and their actions constantly. He

speculates as to Walter's obsession with his wife, declaring that
"ther been folk of swich condicion I That whan they have a cer-
tain purpose take, I They kan nat stynte ..." [There are people
who have such a disposition that when they begin a certain course
they cannot stop, ll. 701-3], thus drawing attention to Walter's in-
adequacies rather than his wife's. He complains about the people
who do nothing to rectify the injustice they perceive taking place
at the hands of their marquis (ll. 995-1001).And, finally, the Clerk
dismisses Petrarch's claim that the tale be read allegorically-an
interpretation that falsely nullifies the problematic issues raised
about male-female relationships and the unchecked balance of
power. Instead he appends verses that supply a surprise interpreta-
tion to the tale: it should be read as an antimodel, an example of
what not to do in marriage. Husbands surely should refrain from
tormenting their wives (ll. 1180-81), but women should also re-
frain from the excessive behavior that inspires clerks to write tales
about such unbelievable characters:

0 noble wyves, ful of heigh prudence,

Lat noon humylitee youre tonge naille,
Ne lat no clerk have cause or diligence
To write of yow a storie of swich mervaille
As of Grisildis pacient and kynde,
Lest Chichevache yow swelwe in hire entraille!
Folweth Ekko, that holdeth no silence,
But evere answereth at the countretaille.
Beth nat bidaffed for youre innocence,
But sharply taak on yow the governaille.
Emprenteth wel this lessoun in youre mynde,
For commune profit with it may availle. (11. 1183-94)

[Oh noble wives, full of high prudence,

Let no humility nail down your tongue,
Let no clerk have reason or diligence
To write such a wondrous story of you
As Griselda's patience and nature,
Lest Chichevache swallow you in her entrails!
Follow Echo, who keeps no silence,
But ever answers in reply.
Be not cowed for your innocence,
 TEXTUAL SUBJECTS 181

But sharply take the governance upon yourself.

Imprint this lesson well upon your mind,
For a common profit may result.]

The Clerk reveals the importance of immediate interpretation and

contextualization in the dissemination of texts. The Clerk's admo-
nition to wives provides an important awareness of the role narra-
tives play in shaping social identity. His tale of Griselda, if
misunderstood or overly idealized, might provide an unattainable
role model that, far from idealizing women, actually provides fod-
der for the antifeminist tradition. Indeed, at lines 1185-87 the Clerk
almost goes so far as to say that the tale should never have been
written. However, insofar as the tale already circulates in the me-
dieval world, then the Clerk's role seems to be to temper and con-
textualize it, thus neutralizing its ideological value. For a predisposed
auditor like Harry Bailly, who remarks in apparent dismissal of the
Clerk's envoy that he'd like his own wife to hear Griselda's story, this
contextualization perhaps makes no difference. But for an educated
audience of careful readers and listeners, the Clerk extends
Chaucer's interest in skeptical reading.
By focusing increasingly on the makers and users of texts,
Chaucer refutes the judgment of the kind of audience imagined by
his illuminator. By exploring reading as a kind of ethical activity
that reveals worlds about the individuals oflate medieval society, his
texts delineate representatives of a new type of identity, a reading
identity, that emphasizes contemplation, humor, and the encom-
passing of varied perspectives. It also emphasizes the capacity for
change, for writing one's own future by rewriting one's present self.
CONCLUSION

IDENTITY AND THE BOOK

}{J live is to read, or rather to commit aJ<ain and again the failure to read which
is the hwnmz lot. We are hard at work trying to fi;!fill the impossible task of
reading from the moment we are bom until the moment we die . .. Farfrom
bciiiJ~ "indeterminate" or "nihilistic," however, or a matter of wanton free play
or arbitrary choice, each readin,!{ is, strictly speaki11g, ethical, in the sense that
it has to take place, by an implacable necessity, as the response to a categori-
cal dmza11d, and in the sense that the reader must take responsibility for it
mzd j(n its nmsequmces in the personal, social, and political worlds.
-]. Hillis Miller, The Ethics of Reading

I
n the fifteenth-century Gesta Romanorum, a dying knight reads
the deeds that have comprised his life in a book brought before
him by four men clothed in white. Reading "but a fewe good
dedes," the man is chagrined; when many devils appear a moment
later, bearing another enormous book filled with the various sins he
has committed during his lifetime, his hellish fate seems assured:

This boke was leyde before him opyn, and the mayster deuyll bade
hym rede, and he Joked there on; and hym thought, thaghe he had
begone at the begynning of his lyfe, he shuld not haue redde it unto
that tyme, for the multitude of synnes that were written there in. 1

The idea that an individual's life is like a book, comprised of the

various acts and sins that come together to form its text and plot, is
a powerful one in the late Middle Ages. But the idea is horrifYing
184 ENGAGING WORDS

as well. The knight above expresses the wish that he had exercised
more of his prerogative in writing the book of his experiences.
Once inscribed in the tome of the past, those experiences are ir-
revocable, and even confession cannot erase them.
The metaphor of writing as a form of psychological enclosure
also appears in Pearl, this tin1e as part of a description in which
memories and insurmountable woes are etched like words into a
mental landscape. The bereaved dreamer/ narrator describes his grief
as an entire world encased within his body, simultaneously exceed-
ing his body's finite limits and "penning" him claustrophobically in-
side it:

For care ful colde that to me cayt

A Deuely dele in my hen denned,
That resouu sette myseluen sayt.
[ playned my perle that ther watz penned,
Wyth tyrce skyllez that f.·me fayt.

[My care cut me coldly.

A desolate war dinned in my heart.
Though reason would have reconciled me in peace,
I suffered my Pearl that was penned there
With a fierce skill that fought me insistently. ]2

The description of the penned Pearl, who causes the narrator great
suffering, embodies both the sense of her own enclosure within an
earthen grave and the sense that she has been written, or "penned,"
into the narrator's heart. The pun brings to Life the sense of a self
who has scripted his own text, who has written a narrative that fixes
past events, himself, and lost loved ones in a storyline that confines
being in static roles. The dreamer has inscribed his Pearl into him-
self, and himself into her, imprisoning them both. Recalling Plato's
warning that what is written down is "dead" and unchangeable, 3 the
narrator temporariJy imagines the metaphor of writing to fix him
in the present moment, so that he is unable or unwilling to move
on or to grow from the experience.
The Gesta Romanon4m is unusual in that it proscribes the possi-
bility of rewriting or emending what has already been written.
However, this sense of stasis is only self-sustained, as Pearl eventually
 IDENTITY AND THE BOOK 1k5

reveals. In other texts, such as Everyman, the book of one's deeds is

not finished until death, and even a text full of sins can be redeemed
by self-knowledge, contrition, and confession. So it is in Piers Plow-
man, too, where the dreamer foolishly believes his life to be prewrit-
ten into the "legende of lif," only to find that both the reading of
one's past and the future one chooses are entirely one's own:~
Often the concept of the body as text suggests the possibility that
an individual's otherwise particularized and finite existence may be
extended indefinitely through books. This sense is captured by the
fifteenth-century Prose Merlin, which is punctuated with instances
in which the magister Blase writes down all the tales of Merlin and
King Arthur's lives, even as they play out in contemporary history.
An event happens, Merlin dictates it to Blase, and Blase writes it in
his book. Self-authoring means self-revising, and if one can but
learn the strategy for reading the self, one might also rewrite that
text before it is too late. Wyclif writes that Christian men should
"ben verrey bokis and myrrours of mekeness, wilful pouert and of
besi traueile in goddis cause and holynesse to aile men in the world"
[be very books and mirrors of meekness, willful poverty and earnest
labor, for the sake of God and holiness for all mankind], willfully
constructing their corporeal bodies as textual models for others to
read. 5 So it is that Merlin writes his text even as he lives it. His book
is intended for the edification of generations to come, but as he dic-
tates he essentially rereads his life himself and moralizes and con-
textualizes his text even as he dictates. In the Secretum Petrarch
writes of the hope that his person and fame will live after him in
his writings. For the being embodied in the book, there is only one
kind of end: "When your books perish you shall perish too; I This
is the third death, still to be endured." 6 Richard de Bury ends his
Philobiblon with the complete submersion of his own identity
within the books he has read. Recalling metaphors he has invoked
throughout the treatise, he finally entombs his own body in the
scripts of texts, begging that he, like the great auctores, might live
after death in the memories of his readers. 7
In this respect books also metaphorically shape the way indi-
viduals perceive themselves as contested spaces for interpretation.
The late medievals engage in acts of reading, judging, assessing,
186 ENGAGING WORDS

and manipulating, as they interpret circumstances and other peo-

ple on the basis of the visible signs and act upon those readings by
presenting themselves to others as texts to be themselves inter-
preted. In some instances this metaphoricity is overt. Margery
Kempe's validation ofher mystical experiences can only take place
through their inscription in a text. The text authorizes her. Yet she
retains absolute control over this writing. Though she dictates her
story to a scribe, she engages in an act of wilful self-construction,
even as she seeks to distance her relationship to her self-authoring
act by labeling her persona as "pis creatur." 8 Petrarch struggles for
control over the interpretation of the text that is himself, espe-
cially as his letters or incomplete works are circulated and dis-
cussed among those he considers to comprise an ill-mannered
audience.'' Frequently it is the other person who comprises an in-
scrutable text, like Chaucer's Criseyde or the enigmatic Bertilak in
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In Sir Gawain, Arthur urges
Gawain to "redez" the Green Knight "ry3t" [to read him cor-
rectly] before he engages in the game of blows-to act carefully
and behead the mysterious intruder before he has the opportunity
to strike back in return. 10 The command implies both correct
management of the Green Knight-to deal with him correctly-
but also a correct "reading" or "measuring" of him. Gawain's in-
terpretation of this text is of course woefully off the mark, as he
quickly discovers. In either case, the failure to understand the text
that comprises the other results in a serious incapacitation for the
interpreter.
Throughout this book I have attempted to describe the late Mid-
dle Ages as a culture of reading, that is, as a culture in which read-
ing dominates as an act embodying the sense of possibility and
potentiality that seems so much to characterize the writing of the
late medieval humanists. Petrarch, Chaucer, and others greatly shape
new ways of thinking about reading, but they are in part merely
spokespersons, concretizing a larger phenomenon in which reading
terms begin saturating both discourse and visual representation.
Their works evince an understanding of the way in which readers
function as subjects and especially the way in which they function
as the subjects of texts, foregrounding a concept of individual
 IDENTITY AND THE l300K 1S7

agency as it IS oversimplified or maneuvered by "authoritative"

texts.Yet they also open inquiries into the way in which an aesthetic
work can invoke a sense of responsibility and introspection on the
part of their readers that might counteract the oversimplification.
The limits between bodies and books are imagined similarly: both
bodies and books are boundary-less, and though each appears su-
perficially to be contained by a physical parchment cover, the inside
exceeds the outside. Both serve as sites for enacting the various de-
sires and anxieties of a culture increasingly invested in maximizing
its own potential through reading. By means of books individuals
can transport themselves beyond their physical domains or reimag-
ine themselves entirely as mystics, voyeurs, or teachers. As both read-
ers and authors they can transgress the limits of class and estate and
envision new worlds in which rewards are based on spiritual rather
than material expansion. The ability to read or interpret one's con-
text is, within this model, a condition for ethical action and is anal-
ogous to reading a piece of fiction. The great literary works inspire
us, after all, to enter into dialogue, both with the characters and with
ourselves, as our own viewpoints. discourses, and arguments are
shaped by our reading. Ethical action, and, indeed, any action on the
part of a responsive self, is always, as Richard Rorty notes," contin-
gent": it reflects not so much the injunction of a divine law as it
does "the voice of ourselves as members of a community, speakers
of a common language," and, as such, must be balanced against the
private interests of the acting individual. 11 "Reading" the self
through these communal parameters denotes an important social
skill. As social and ideological regimes come into conflict we as
readers are asked to recast our sense of"the ideal" or "the law" ac-
cordingly, adapting our "norms" to circumstances that are seldom
stable. If an individual acting within the constraints of the commu-
nity accepts without question its norms or laws, this is but one of
many options. Individual responsibility, however, requires that the
values of the community be constantly reevaluated and read
together with the conscience.
NOTES

Introduction

1. Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, trans. Earl Jeffrey
Richards (New York: Persea, 1982), p. 3.
2. Michel Foucault, "The Discourse on Language," in The Archeology
of Knowledge (New York: Pantheon, 1972), p. 229.
3. D. W. Robertson, Jr., Priface to Chaucer (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1962), p. 20-22.
4. Wolfgang Iser, The Act ~f Reading (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press, 1978), p. x.
5. Derek Attridge, "Innovation, Literature, Ethics: Reading to the
Other," PMLA 114 (1999):20-31.
6. Attridge, "Innovation," 27; see also Charles Altieri, Canons and Con-
sequences: Rf!fiections on the Ethical Force of Imaginative Ideals
(Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1990), pp. 21-47; 272.
7. Jesse M. Gellrich, The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 39. See also Ernst Robert Cur-
tius's discussion of the "metaphorics of the book" in his European
Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, trans. Willard R. Trask (New Jer-
sey: Princeton University Press, 1953, 1963), pp. 310-11; and
Marie-Dominique Chenu, Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth
Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 102.
8. Jonathan Harthan, Books of Hours and their Owners (London: Thames
and Hudson, 1977), p. 136; Pamela Sheingorn, "The Wise Mother:
The Image of St. Anne Teaching the Virgin Mary," Gesta 32, no. 1
(1993): 69-80.
9. I borrow these terms from Iser, Reading, p. 28.
10. Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).
11. The text of the riddles can be found in Christian W M. Grein, ed.,
Bibliothek der angelsuchsischen poesie (Kassel: G. H. Wigand, 1897), p.
lxii; for Aelfric's Grammar see Julius Zupitza, ed., Grammatik und Glos-
sar (Berlin: Weidmann, 1880), p. 179; Richard Morris, ed., Cursor
1 90 E N G A C I NG W 0 R D S

Mcmdi, Early English Text Society (hereafter EETS), o.s. 57 (London:

Oxford University Press, 187-J., 1SJ61),p.267.
12. Thomas Arnold, ed., Select E11glish !·!inks <~(jollll Wycli[, vol. 1 (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1869-71), 69.
13. Anglicus Galfridus, Pro111ptoritt111 Parvulon11n: The First En:.;lislt-Latin
Dictionary, EETS, e.s. 102, ed.A. L. Mayhew (London: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1908), p. 368.
14. Oxj(Jrd E11glish Dictio11ary, s.v. "read,'' 5D. Actually, the line provides
one of the poorer examples in which Shakespeare applies the
metaphor of reading to people. The !!'inter:,· Talc is permeated with
such imagery, as are Romeo {llld Jttliet, .\Ieasurcj(n· A1easure, and Ham-
let, among others. Hamlet, of course, expresses the desire to erase
"the table of [his]memory," including "all trivial fond records, I All
saws of books, all forms" (I.v.98-1 00) and rewrite himself entirely
as if he were a book.
15. Nathaniel Bacon, An historical/ discourse 4 the unij(mnity of the gov-
cmmCilt of Englmzd (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1962), Pref-
ace.
16. Hans Kurath and Sherman M. Kuhn, eds., .\fiddle EltY,Iislz Dictionary
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1952), s.v. "reden," 7a.
17. McCarthy, A.J., ed., Book to a ;\[other. Fordham University Disser-
tation, 1961, p. 8.25; Maldwyn Mills, Yu•ain a11d Caruain, Sir Pcrcyvcll
cif Cales, 77tc Anfllrs <~/Arthur (London: Dent, 1992), I. 2153.
18. This phenomenon has been traced by Colin Morris, The Dimwcry
~{the llldividual: 105()-1200 (NewYork: Harper and Row, 1972);
Robert Hanning, The l11dir;idual i11 'lii•clfih-Cmtury Rolllallce (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1977); and Carolyn Walker Bynum,
Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality '!f the Hz«h :\fiddle Ages
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), among others.
19. Bernard of Clairvaux, Letter 506, Sancti Bcmardi Opera, eds. Jean
Leclercq, Henri Rochais and C. H. Talbot (Rome: Editiones Cis-
tercienses, 1957-77), reprinted in The Cistcrcia11 World: Jfo11astic
Writilzgs '!f the TiPcl/ih Cmtttry, ed. and trans. Pauline Matarasso
(London: Penguin, 1993), pp. 99-100. The Chaucerian quote ap-
pears in Ti·oilus m1d Criseydc, 111.1357.
20. D. F. McKenzie, Biblio,~raphy a11d the Sociolo,l?y c~{1i·xts (London: The
British Library, 1986), p. 4. See also Robert Darnton, The Forhiddm
Best-Sellers c!l Pre-Revolutionary France (New York: W W. Norton,
1996), pp. 169-87; and his The Kiss '!f La111ourcttc: R~flcctiolls in Cul-
tural History (New York: W. W Norton, 1990), pp. 107-35.
21. Roger Chartier, 01z the E~I?C of the Cliff History, Langua,~c, wzd Prac-
tices, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
 NOTES 191

Press, 1997), p. 88; see also his The Order of Books, trans. Lydia G.
Cochrane (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), p. ix.
22. In addition to McKenzie's BiblioJ?,raphy and the SocioloJ?,y cifTexts and
the works of Chartier and Darnton cited above, see also Michel de
Certeau's 71ze Practice cif Everyday L[fe, trans. Steven Rendall (Berke-
ley: University of California Press, 1984); and Chartier's Forms and
Meanings (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995).A.J.
Minnis's Medieval Theory cifAuthorship (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1988) and his Medieval Literary 71zeory and Criticism
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); Rita Copeland's Rhetoric,
Hermmeutics and Translation in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Cam-
bridge University Press, 1991);Judson Boyce Allen's The Ethical Po-
etic of the Later Middle Ages (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1982); and, more recently, Suzanne Reynold's Medieval ReadinJ?,:
Grammar, Rhetoric, and the Classical Text (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) have elaborated on scholastic or "institu-
tional" interpretive practices, while Brian Stock's important study in
The Implications cif Literacy (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1983) has documented the extent to which highly individuated
reading communities, motivated by similar goals or doctrinal beliefs,
could legislate reading responses. The practice and performance of
reading in everyday life has been investigated both by Paul Saenger
in Space Between Words: The OriJ?,ins of Silent Readin:< (Stanford: Stan-
ford University Press, 1997) and Joyce Coleman in Public Readin,'(
and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England mzd France (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). Michael Camille,
Christopher de Hamel, and Pamela Sheingorn, among others, have
produced studies demonstrating the potential of physical and icono-
graphic evidence for reconstructing medieval aesthetics.
23. Dives and Pauper, EETS o.s. 275, ed. P. H. Barnum (London: Oxford
University Press, 1976), p. 82.

Chapter 1

1. Karl Christ, The Handbook of Medieval Library History, trans.

Theophil M. Otto (Metuchen: The Scarecrow Press, 1984), p. 30.
2. The Love of Books: The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury, trans. E. C.
Thomas (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1966), pp. 15, 17,
and 22.
3. All quotes in this paragraph are from Richard de Bury, Philobiblon,
p. 12.
192 ENGAGING WORDS

4. De Bury, Philobiblon, p. 27.

5. C. H. Talbot, "The Universities and the Mediaeval Library," in The
English Library Bifore 1700, eds. Frances Wormald and C. E. Wright
(London:Athlone Press, 1958), pp. 66-84. See also Rowan Watson's
description of the book trade in The Playfair Hours (Great Britain:
Westerham Press, 1984), pp. 19-34.
6. Students were guaranteed copies of their texts within twenty days
(Talbot, "Universities," pp. 67-68). On the pecia system see also Jean
A. Destrez, Le Pecia dans les Manuscrits Universitaires du XIIIe et du
XIVe Siecle (Paris: Editions Jacques Vautrain, 1935); Graham Pollard,
"The Pecia System in Medieval Universities," in Medieval Scribes,
Manuscripts, and Libraries: Essays Presented to N R. Ker, eds. M. B.
Parkes, Andrew G. Watson, C. R. Cheney, and Joan Gibbs (London:
Scolar, 1978), pp. 145-61.
7. Talbot, "Universities," pp. 68-69. See also Alan Piper and Meryl
Foster, "Evidence of the Oxford Booktrade,About 1300," Viator 20
(1989): 155-59.
8. M.D. Parkes, "The Literacy of the Laity," in Scribes, Scripts, and Read-
ers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination '?[
Medieval Texts (London: The Hambledon Press, 1991), pp. 275-97.
9. C. Paul Christianson, A Directory '?[London Stationers and Book Arti-
sans 130(}-1500 (New York: Bibliographical Society of America,
1990), p. 22.
10. Parkes, "Literacy," p. 286.
11. C. Paul Christianson, "Evidence for the Study of London's Late
Medieval Manuscript-Book Trade," in Book Production and Publish-
ing 1375-1475, eds. Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 87-108; see also his
"A Community of Book Artisans in Chaucer's London," Viator 20
(1989): 212; Graham Pollard, "The Company of Stationers before
1557," The Library 18 (1937): 1-38; and H.WWinger, "Regulations
Relating to the Book Trade in London from 1357-1586," The Li-
brary Quarterly 26 (1956): 157-95.
12. Christianson, A Directory '?[London Stationers, p. 29; Kathleen Scott,
"A Mid-Fifteenth-Century English Illuminating Shop and Its Cus-
tomers," journal ofWarburg & Courtauld Institutes 31 (1968): 194-96.
13. Christianson, "Evidence," p. 94, quoting the Bridge House Ac-
counts for the years 1404-21.
14. Christianson, "Evidence," p. 96.
15. Christianson, "Evidence," p. 90.
16. A. I. Doyle, "The Shaping of the Vernon and Simeon Manuscripts,"
in Studies in the Vernon Manuscript, ed. Derek Pearsall (Cambridge:
 NOTES 193

Boydell and Brewer, 1990), p. 7;Thorlac Turville-Petre, "The Rela-

tionship of the Vernon and Clopton Manuscripts," in Studies in the
Vemon A1anuscript, p. 33.
17. Parkes, "Literacy," p. 284.
18. Julia Boffey and John J. Thompson, "Anthologies and Miscellanies:
Production and Choice ofTexts," Book Production and Publishing in
Britain, pp. 284-85.
19. Boffey and Thompson, "Anthologies," p. 284.
20. Julia Boffey notes several scribes and readers commemorating
themselves in the margins of a Lydgate manuscript in "Short Texts
in Manuscript Anthologies," in The rvlwle Book, eds. Stephen G.
Nichols and Siegfried Wenzel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press), p. 78.
21. Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval llluminators and their Methods (~f
Work (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 179.
22. Sandra L. Hindman, "The Role of the Author and Artist in the Pro-
cedure of Illustrating Late Medieval Texts," Text and Image X
(1983): 41.
23. W 0. Hassall provides the scholarly history of this illumination in
The Holkham Bible Picture Book: Introduction and Commentary (Lon-
don: The Dropmore Press, 1954), p. 54. For a full account of simi-
lar marginal instructions, see J. J. G. Alexander's "Programmes and
Instructions for Illuminators," in his l\1edicval Illumillators, pp.
52-71.
24. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators, p. 52.
25. John B. Friedman, Northern English Books, Owners, and l\1akers in the
Late Middle Ages (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1995), pp.
32-36 ("Appendix C").
26. Friedman, Northern English Books, p. 35.
27. Talbot, "Universities," p. 74; Ellen Wedemeyer Moore, The fairs 4
Medieval England (Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 1985), p. 61.
28. Talbot, "Universities," p. 71.
29. Christianson, "Evidence," p. 89.
30. Talbot, "Universities," p. 71.
31. Christianson, "Evidence," p. 88; for specific descriptions of these ar-
tisans see his study A Directory of London Statior1crs.
32. James Westfall Thompson, The Medieval Library (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1939), p. 255. Leopold Delisle's inventory of
the early years of the Sorbonne library includes a list of 170 donors
and their book bequests, although he notes that this list is incom-
plete. See Le Cabinet des Manuscrits de Ia Bibliotheque Imperiale (Paris:
Imprimerie Imperiale, 1868-1881), 12-68.
194 ENGAGING WORDS

33. The merchants began making bequests to the guildhalls and hospi-
tals as early as 1368; see Sylvia Thrupp, The Merchant Class ~f Me-
dieval London, 1300-1500, 2nd ed. (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1989), p. 162.
34. Thompson, "Universities," p. 257.
35. Thompson, "Universities," p. 257.
36. N. R. Ker, Books, Collectors and Libraries: Studies i11 the l\1edieval Her-
itage, ed. Andrew G. Watson (London: The Hambledon Press, 1985),
p. 327.
37. See, for example, "Of Clerk's Possessions," "Comment on the Tes-
tament of St. Francis," "How Religious Men Should Keep Certain
Articles," in F. D. Matthew, ed., E11glish Works ~f Wycl!f (London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Tri.ibner & Co., Ltd, 1880), pp. 4 7-51; 114-40;
219-25.
38. Christ, Handbook, p. 245.
39. Thompson, "Universities," p. 373.
40. Thompson, "Universities," pp. 2()7-309; N. R. Ker, A1edicval Li-
braries of Great Britain: A List L~{ Suwiving Books, 2nd ed. (London:
Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1964), pp. xi, 233. Thomp-
son notes that Evesham's importance is largely conjectural, as no
catalogue~; have survived, but apparently there was a large scripto-
rium (p. 305).
41. R. M. Wilson, "The Contents of the Mediaeval Library," in The E11-
glish Library Before 1700, eds. Francis Wormald and C. E. Wright
(London: The Athlone Press, 1958), p. 87.
42. Wilson, "Contents," p. 90.
43. Wilson, "Contents," p. 92.
44. Wilson, "Contents," pp. 94-103. On the types of books readily
anilable, also see N. R. Ker, A1cdieval Libraries, and Martin Irvine,
ThL :.faking of Textual Culture: Gmnunmica and Literary Theory,
350-1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
45. Christ, Handbook, pp. 279-80.
46. Christine de Pizan, "The Book of the Deeds and Good Character
of King Charles V The Wise," trans. Charity Cannon Willard, in The
Writings ~f Christine de Pizan, ed. Charity Cannon Willard (New
York: Persea, 1994), pp. 240-41.
4 7. Christine de Pizan, "The Book of the Deeds," p. 241.
48. Christ, Handbook, p. 282.
49. Edith Rickert, "Richard II's Books," The Library, 4th series, 13
(1933): 144-7.
50. R. F. Green, "King Richard II's Books Revisited," The Library 31
(1976): 235-39; see also V J. Scattergood, "Literary Culture at the
 NOTES 195

Court of Richard II," in English Court Culture in the Later AJiddle

Ages, eds.VJ. Scattergood andj.W Sherborne (New York: St. Mar-
tin's Press, 1983), pp. 29-43.
51. Froissart, Chronicles, ed. Geoffrey Brereton (New York: Penguin,
1968), p. 408.
52. Christopher Dyer, Standards of Livill,R in the Later 1'vfiddle Ages (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 77.
53. Dyer, Standards, p. 77.
54. Carol M. Meale, "Patrons, Buyers and Owners: Book Production
and Social Status," in Book Production m1d Publishing in England, p.
203.
55. Parkes, "Literacy," p. 290.
56. Meale, "Patrons," p. 208. Christine de Pizan's works were, however,
very popular among both women and men and particularly were
sought by royalty.
57. Christ, Handbook, p. 289.
58. Joel T. Rosenthal," Aristocratic Cultural Patronage and Book Be-
quests, 1350-1500," Bulletin of the john Rylands Uniliersity Library 4
M~anchester 64 (1981-2): 524; see also Franz H. Bauml, "Varieties
and Consequences of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy," Speml11111
55, no. 2 (1980): 245.
59. A. I. Doyle, "English Books In and Out of Court from Edward III
to Henry VII," in English Court Culture i11 the Later i"v1iddlc A5?es, p.
171.
60. See Richard Firth Green, Poets a11d Princcpleasers: Literature and the
English Court in the Late Middle Ages (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1980).
61. Kate Harris, "The Role of Owners in Book Production and the
Book Trade," in Book Production and Publishing in Britain, pp.
163-99; Neil R. Ker, Medieval Libraries(~{ Great Britain :A List of Sur-
tJiving Books (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964).
62. Margaret Deanesly, "Vernacular Books in England in the Four-
teenth and Fifteenth Centuries," Modem Lall,~tw};e Review 15
(1920): 4.
63. Friedman, l\'orthern English Books, pp. 255-65; Susan Hagen Ca-
vanaugh, "A Study of Books Privately Owned in England
1300-1450," University of Pennsylvania Dissertation, 1981;
Thrupp, !Vlerclzant Class, p. 161.
64. Cavanaugh, "A Study of Books," II 689-714.
65. Friedman, 1'\'orthem EnJ;lish Books, pp. 203-23.
66. These percentages hold for the approximately 1000 wills included
in Cavanaugh's survey. I follow Christopher Dyer in my use of the
196 ENGAGING WORDS

term "gentry" as defining the "lesser aristocracy": that is, knights,

esquires, and gentlemen (Dyer, Standm-ds, p. 15). Among those I
have included among the third estate are any of the working pro-
tessions, such as the merchants, lawyers, clerks associated with the
court (as opposed to those associated with the church), and, of
course, chandlers, goldsmiths, fishmongers, and the like. I also in-
cluded in this number those wills of people who were otherwise
unknown but who had families that would exclude them from
church or university offices. Only eight percent of all book be-
quests between the years 1300-1450 belong to the aristocracy-a
number I believe to be disproportionately inflated. Not only are
the records for aristocrats much more likely to be preserved, but
they are also much more accessible to researchers than those for the
other classes.
67. Scattergood, "Literary Culture," pp. 35-36.
68, Scattergood, "Literary Culture," p. 36.
69, Cavanaugh, "A Study of Books," pp. 330-33.
70. Frederick]. Furnivall, ed., The Fifty Earliest English Wills in the Court
of Probate, London, EETS, o.s. 78 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1882; 1964), p. 5. The will mentions that Lady Alice's sister is the
prioress of Shaftesbury Abbey-a further tribute to the degree of
learning among the women of her family
71. Furnivall, Fifty Earliest En,Rlish Wills, pp. 49-50.
72, Thrupp, Merchant Class, p.163.
73. Furnivall, Fifty Earliest English Wills, p. 76.
74. Cavanaugh, "A Study of Books," II 948 and I 141, respectively.
75. Furnivall, Fifty Earliest English Wills, p. 136 n. 5, I. 13; see also Ca-
vanaugh, "A Study of Books," p. 139.
76. This sum is calculated on Dyer's inventory, Standards, p. 77.
77, Thrupp, Merchant Class, p, 162.
78. Dyer, Standards, p, 216.
79. Susan Groag Bell, "Medieval Women Book Owners: Arbiters of Lay
Piety and Ambassadors of Culture," in Women and Power in the Mid-
dle Ages, eds. Mary Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski (Athens: Uni-
versity of Georgia Press, 1988), p. 154.
80. Anne Hudson, "Lollard Book-Production," Book Production and
Publishing in En,Rland, pp. 125-42; see also the chapter "Some As-
pects of Lollard Book Production," in her Lollards and Their Books
(London: The Hambledon Press, 1985), pp. 181-192.
81. Hudson, "Lollard Book-Production," pp. 25-6.
82. Hudson, "Lollard Book-Production," pp. 127.
83. Hudson, "Lollard Book-Production," pp. 132.
 NOTES 197

84. Deansely, "Vernacular Books," pp. 352-55.

85. Parkes, "Literacy," p. 284.
86. Ralph Hanna, "Miscellaneity andVernacularity," The Whole Book, p.
47.
87. Jeanne E. Krochalis, "The Books and Reading ofHenryV and His
Circle," Chaucer Review 23 (1988): 50--77.
88. Green, Princepleasers, p.129.
89. Green, Princepleasers, p. 131.
90. M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307,
2nd ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1993), pp. 1-2.
91. C. T.Allmand, "The Civil Lawyers," in Prlj'ession, Vocation, and Cul-
ture in Later Medieval England, ed. Cecil H. Clough (Liverpool: Liv-
erpool University Press, 1982), pp. 157-58.
92. I. S. Leadam and]. E Baldwin, eds., Select Cases Bifore the King's
Council 1243-1482 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1918),
pp. 72-73.
93. Leadam and Baldwin, Select Cases, pp. 86-91.
94. Clanchy, Memory to Written Record, p. 234.
95. Nicholas Orme, English Schools in the Middle Ages (London:
Methuen, 1973), pp. 6-67; see also his Education and Society in Me-
dieval and Renaissance England (London: Hambledon Press, 1989),
and his Education in the U--est if England 1066-1548 (Great Britain:
James Townsend and Sons Limited, 1976).
96. Maurice Keen, English Society in the Later Middle Ages, 1348-1500
(London: Penguin, 1990), pp. 229-30.
97. Orme, English Schools, p. 60.
98. Keen, English Society, p. 231.
99. Keen, English Society, pp. 231-32.
100. Orme, English Schools, 70--71.
101. Clanchy, Memory to Written Record, p. 245.
102. Parkes, "Literacy," p. 275.
103. Janet Coleman, English Literature in History 135D-1400: Medieval
Readers and Writers (London: Hutchinson, 1981), pp. 24-26.
104. Keen, English Society, p. 237.
105. Christopher Wordsworth, ed., Horae Eboracenses: The Prymer or
Hours of the Blessed Virgin Mary, According to the Use of the Illustrious
Church ifYork, with Other Devotions as They U--ere Used by the Lay-
Folk in the Northern Province in the XVth and XVIth Centuries. Pub-
lications of the Surtees Society vol. 132 (Durham: Andrews & Co.,
1920), p. xl.
106. E. A. Lowe, Handwriting: Our Medieval Legacy (Rome: Edizioni di
Storia e Letteratura, 1969), p. 34.
19~ ENG A c; IN G W 0 R D S

107. Paul Saenger, "Books of Hours and the Reading Habits of the Later
Middle Ages," in Tltc Culture <?f Print, ed. Roger Chartier, trans.
Lydia G. Cochrane (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989),
p. 144.
108. Huntington MS. HM 19913, <bting from the first half of the fif-
teenth century, surprisingly contains only four miniatures and none
for the Hours of the Virgin; in late thirteenth- and early four-
teenth-century Books of Hours text rather than images are fre-
quently predominant: see British Library, MS. Eg. 3277, MS. Eg.
3044, MS. Add. 27381, MS. Add. 41061, MS. Add. 40675. In these
texts, illuminations may be relegated to filling historiated initials
only, so that text predominates, or they may be relegated to filling
only a few sparse positions. In addition,'' compilations," such as MS.
Add. 37787, which include the hours and other texts specially col-
lected by a particular patron or family. frequently lack illumination.
109. See, for example, Bodleian Library, MS. Auct. D. 4.4 (c. 1380), MS.
Liturg. 104 (c. 1340), MS. Laud. Lat. 82 (late fourteenth century);
British Library, MS. Add. 27381 (early fourteenth century), Add.
MS. 29407 (c. 1300), MS. Yates Thompson 13 (early fourteenth
century), and MS. Harley 2900 (late 1420s).
110. W. A. Pantin, "Instructions for a Devout and Literate Layman," in
A1cdieval Lcaming aud Litaatttre, eds.J.J. G.Aiexander and M.T. Gib-
son (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 308-422.
111. Wordsworth, Horae Ehoraccnses, p. xliii; Harthan, Books <?f Hours, p.
136.
112. Eamon DutTy, 'i7lc Strippiu,t;z of the Altars: 'haditiol!al Rcligioll i11 En-
,r;lalld c. 1400-c. 1580 (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1992), pp.
222-23. Duffy cites J. G. Nicholls, ed., .\·arrativcs '!(the Days <?{the
Re{ormatio11 (Camden Society, LXXVII. 1859), pp. 348-50.
113. Joyce Coleman, Public Readi11g a11d tlzc Readi11g Public i11 Late A1c-
dicval E11gla11d mzd Fra11cc (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996).
114. Christine de Pizan writes about Charles's reading habits in "The
Book of the Deeds," p. 240; Joyce Coleman cites the examples of
Deschamp and Froissart on pages 11 5 and Ill, respectively.
115. T7zc Book <?f }\1/mgery Kempe, EETS, o.s. 212, ed. Sanford Brown
Meech (London: Oxford University Press, 1940, 1961 ), pp. 144 and
147.
116. Paul Saenger, "Silent Reading: Its Impact on Late Medieval Script
and Society," Viator 13 (1982): 36 7-414. See also Jean Leclercq, The
Love <?f Leami11g and the Desire .fin God, trans. Catherine Misrahi
(New York: Fordham University Press, 1961), pp. 89-90; Andrew
 NOTES 199

Taylor, "Reading and Privacy in Late Medieval England," in The

Practice and Representation of Reading in England, eds. James Raven,
Helen Small and Naomi Tadmor (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1996), pp. 41-61.
117. De Bury, Philobiblon, p. 8.
118. Michael Camille, "The Book as Flesh and Fetish in Richard de
Bury's Philobiblon," in The Book and the Body, eds. Dolores Warwick
Frese and Katherine O'Brien O'Keeffe (Notre Dame: University
of Notre Dame Press, 1997), pp. 34-77.
119. The Booke ~f Raynarde the Foxe (New York: Da Capo Press, 1969)
claims to offer learning that might only ordinarily belong to
"counselles of lordes and prelates bathe ghostly and worldly"
(prologue).
120. Reginald Pecock, The Donet, EETS, o.s. 156, ed. Elsie Vaughan
Hitchock (London: Oxford University Press, 1921), p. 6.
121. The Cloud ~f Unknowing and the Book ~f Privy Counselling, EETS, o.s.
218, ed. Phyllis Hodgson (London: Oxford University Press, 1944,
1958), p. 2. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.
122. Secretum Secretorum: Nine English Versions, ed. M. A. Manzalaoui.
EETS, o.s. 276 (London: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 30.
123. Robert Henryson, The Morall Fahillis of Esope the Phrygian, ed. G.
Gregory Smith (London:W. Blackwood and Sons, 1906-1914),
p. 4.
124. The Pricke ~f Conscience, ed. Richard Morris (Berlin: A. Asher & Co.,
1863; reprint NewYork:AMS, 1973), p. 10.
125. Bibliotheque Nationale, MS. fr. 140, f. 98v., quoted in and translated
by Paul Saenger, note 76 in "Books of Hours," pp. 167-68. See also
a similar injunction, cited in W A. Pantin, "Instructions for a De-
vout and Literate Layman," in A1edieval Lcamin.>; and Literature, eds.
J. J. G. Alexander and M. T. Gibson (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1976),pp.398-422.
126. Mary Carruthers, The Book (if Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990), p. 169. See also Sylvia Huot, "A Book
Made for a Queen," The Whole Book, pp. 123-43.
127. Julian of Norwich, Revelations ~f Divine Love, trans. Clifton Wolters
(New York: Penguin, 1966), p. 213.
128. William Langland, The Vision ~f Piers Plowman: A Complete Edition
~f the B- Text, ed. A.V C. Schmidt (London:]. M. Dent & Sons Ltd,
1978), passus X.
129. A Talkyng qf pe Laue ~f God, ed. M. Salvina Westra (The Hague: M.
Nijhoff, 1950), p. 2.
130. Love, Mirror, p. 13.
200 ENGAGING WORDS

131. Poitiers, Bibliotheque Municipale, MS. 95, fols. 139v-141. These

instructions for reading are translated by Paul Saenger and quoted
in his "Books of Hours," pp. 165-66, n. 63.

Chapter 2

1. King Henry's Primer, or, The Primer Set Forth by the King's Majesty,
and His Clergy, to be Taught, Learned, and Read: and None Other to be
Used Throughout All His Dominions. For an edition of the text see
Three Primers Put Forth in the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. E. Burton
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1834).
2. The Goodly Primer, in Burton, Three Primers, p. 3.
3. See Paul Saenger, "Books of Hours and the Reading Habits of the
Later Middle Ages," in The Culture of Print, ed. Roger Chartier,
trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1989), pp. 141-73. On the inclusion of indulgences and the like in
the horae, see also V Leroquais, Les livres d'heures: manuscrits de Ia Bil-
iotheque Nationale (Paris: Protat Freres, 1927), p. xxxi.
4. Robert G. Calkins, Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cor-
nell University Press, 1983), p. 243.
5. Richard Marks and Nigel Morgan, The Golden Age of English Man-
uscript Painting 120(}-1500 (New York: George Braziller, Inc.,
1981), pp. 7-8.
6. Janet Backhouse, Books of Hours (London: The British Library,
1985), p. 42.
7. Virginia Reinburg, "Prayer and the Books of Hours," in Time Sanc-
tified, ed. Roger S.Wieck (New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1988),
pp. 39-44; see also Saenger, "Books of Hours," p. 153.
8. Calkins, Illuminated Books, p. 243.
9. These "grande heures" are not typical of the thousands of Books of
Hours that survive. Many of the prayer books of middle- and
lower-class readers were mass-copied from pattern books and
lacked the elaborate degree of illumination and detail exhibited by
their costlier cousins.
10. See Appendix 1 in Jonathan]. G. Alexander's Medieval Illuminators
and their Methods ofWork (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1992),
pp. 179-83, which provides examples of several such contracts.
11. L. M.]. Delaisse, "The Importance of Books of Hours for the His-
tory of the Medieval Book," in Gatherings in Honor of Dorothy E.
Miner, eds. Ursula E. McCracken, Lilian M. C. Randall, Richard H.
Randall, Jr. (Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1974), pp. 203-225.
 NOTES 201

12. Calkins, Illuminated Books, p. 246. For a complete description of the

horae and their traditional illuminations, see Leroquais, Lcs liures
d'lzeures, pp. iii-ix and xl-lxxxv; also Christopher de Hamel, A His-
tory cf Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Phaidon, 1986), and Janet
Backhouse, Books cf Hours (London: British Library, 1985, 1988).
13. Christopher Wordsworth, ed., Horae Eboracenses: The Pry mer or Hours
cf the Blessed Vi~r.;in Mary, According to the Use of the Illustrious Chrmlz
ofYork, ruitlz Other Deuotions as They Were Used by the Lay-Folk in the
Northern Prouince in the XVth and XVIth Centuries, Publications of
the Surtees Society, vol. 132 (Durham: Andrews & Co., 1920).
14. In addition to the special prayers and instructions for patrons men-
tioned below, see British Library, MS. Add. 18213, which figures a
woman praying in the margin of the text with the words "Mater
Dei memento mei" (Mother of God remember me] emanating on
a banner from between her folded hands; MS. Add. 41061 inserts a
special prologue before the psalms "quos ego indigna et peccatrix
decantare cupio" [which I, unworthy and a sinner, desire to sing].
The use of the feminine indicates a female patron. British Library,
MS. Add. 37787 inserts before the Hours of the Cross the plea that
"thay graunt a full fayre pardon I To al yo yt seyey yis mat( erjes
with goode devotion" (they grant a full pardon to all those who say
these materials with good devotion]. British Library, MS. Eg. 3277
concludes with an image of a male patron before an open book, ac-
companying the prayer "omnipotens sempiterne deus clementiam
tuam suppliciter deprecor ut sicut angelum sanctum tum ad me
custodiendam de caelo misisti ad terram sic me ad congregandum
ei eodem angelo de terra transferre digneris" (Almighty and eter-
nal lord, I humbly pray for your clemency that you,just as you then
sent a sacred angel from the sky to the earth to guard me, deign
transfer me from the earth to congregate with that same angel ... J.
I am grateful to Joseph A. Smith for his assistance in editing and
translating these passages.
15. Durand quotes Gregory: "Aliud est picturam ado rare, aliud per pic-
ture ystoriam quid sit adorandum addiscere, nam quod legentibus
scriptura hoc ydiotis cernentibus prestat pictura, quia in pisa igno-
rantes vuident quid sequi debeant, in ipsa legunt qui litteras nesci-
unt. . . . Pictura namque plus videtur mouere animum quam
scriptura .... Hinc etiam est quod in ecclesia non tantam reueren-
tiam exhibemus libris quantam ymaginibus et picturis." A. Davril
and T. M. Thibodeau, eds., Rationale Diui1wntm Q[ficiomm I-IV
(Turnholti: Typograph Brepols Editores Pontificii, 1995), pp.
34-36.Translation from John Mason Neale and Benjamin Webb,
202 ENGAGING WORDS

eds., The Symbolism of Churches and Church Ornaments (London:

]. G. F. and]. Rivington. 1843), pp. 53-56.
16. On the equation between text and image in the texts of the twelfth
century, see Michael Camille, "Seeing and Reading: Some Visual
Implications of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy," Art History 8.1
(1985): 26-49.
17. Sixten Ringbom, "Devotional Images and Imaginative Devotions,"
Gazette des Beaux Arts ser. 6, 73 (1969): 159-70.
18. See Michael Camille, "The Language of Images in Medieval En-
gland, 1200-1400," in Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England
1200-1400, eds. Jonathan Alexander and Paul Binski (London:
Royal Academy of Arts, 1987), pp. 33-40.
19. Michael Camille, ImaJ!.C on the EcZ>;e (Cambridge: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1992), 61-65; see also his article, "The Book of Signs:
Writing and visual difference in Gothic manuscript illumination,"
Word and ImaJ!.e 1 (1985): 133-48.
20. Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain in the Middle Ages (Baltimore:
Penguin, 1954), pp. 167-69.
21. See, for example, British Library, MS. Add.27381; MS. Add. 29407;
MS. Add. 24681; and MS. Add.17444, all of which date from the
early fourteenth century and all of which lack, even in their large
illuminations of the Annunciation and the Pentecost, the iconogra-
phy of the book. Late fourteenth-century Books of Hours gener-
ally include book iconography in the illuminations preceding each
of the hours; marginal readers may or may not be included. One
notable exception is British Library, MS. Add. 16968, a psaltery and
hours dating from the late fourteenth century that lacks any refer-
ence to reading at all within its pages.
22. Huntington MS. HM 1100, fols. 193-211.
23. British Library, MS. Eg. 2781 f. 122v and MS. Eg. 3277, f. 165v.
24. British Library, MS. Yates Thompson 13, f. 87v; MS. Add. 50,005, f.
37v; Bodleian Library, Oxford MS. Laud. Lat. 82, f. 163v.
25. The Bohun Psalter and Hours, f. 67a. See also British Library, MS.
Add.18213,f.101;MS.Add.18192,f.110;MS.Add.23145,f.188;
MS. Yates Thompson 37, f. 83v and 125r; MS. Eg. 3277, f. 67. The
St. Omer Hours would appear to be an exception; there the mass
is littered with parodies of inappropriate reading, as monkeys grin
ferociously over their open books and birds actually eat the books.
26. British Library, MS. Eg. 3277, fols. 46v and 67r, respectively.
27. British Library, MS. Add.18192, f. 11 Or. Parallel reading scenes are
quite common, however. For a more famous examples see the An-
nunciation scene in Jean Longnon and Raymond Cazelle, eds., Les
 NOTES 20J

"fl-£>s Riches Hmrcs du Due de Berry, reprint (London: Thames and

Hudson, 1993),f.21.
28. British Library, MS. Stowe 17, fols 29v and 246v, respectively. Lil-
ian M. C. Randall also cites a series of readers distracted by "dan-
gerous" events or mysteriomly transformed into dangerous demons
and the !ike despite the books they read, in Images in the ;'vlmgins of
Gothic .\!an11scripts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 196(,),
esp. pp. 72, 176.
29. Cited in Camille, Image, p. 72.
30. British Library, MS. Add. 36684,f. 2-tv; MS. Add. 23145 f. 188r; MS.
Eg. 3277, f. 33v; Bodleian Library, MS. Lat. Liturg. f. 3, f. 78a.
31. Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 144, fols. 37 and 88.
32. Bodleian Library, MS. Lat. Liturg. f. 3, fol. 78.
33. The Bohun Psalter and Hours, fol. 126v.
34. Camille, Image, p. 109.
35. See British Library, MS. Add. 36684, f. 60.
36. British Library, MS. Eg. 3277, fols. 131 v, 132r, and 151 r.
37. Chretien de Troyes, Artlwrian Roma11ces, trans. D. D. R. Owen (Lon-
don:]. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd, 1987), p. 1.
38. James J. Rorimer, The Hours ofjeamlc D'Evrcux, Queen (~f France
(New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1957), 23. Interpretations
of the recto page differ; the Getty curators believe that Louis is de-
picted in the process of being disciplined by a Dominican tutor.
39. The Hours £!(jeanne D'Evrcu.Y, f. 65v. See also Franc;:ois Avril, :\fa/Ill-
script Pai11ting at the Court of France (New York: George Braziller,
1978), p. 53.
40. The Hours ofjcannc D'Evrmx, f. 137v.
41. The Hours ofJeanne D' Evrcux, f. 149r.
42. TIIC Ho11rs (~f)ean11c D'Evrcux, f. 155r.
43. The Htlllrs ot)eannc D'Evreux, f. 158v.
44. British Library, MS. Yates Thompson 13, fols. 8-17; 17v-19v; and
67v-85v, respectively.
45. Camille, Image, p. 29.
46. Michael Sargent, ed., Nicholas Love~~ .'v1irror of the Blessed Lif[· (~f)csus
Christ: A Critical Editio11, Garland Medieval Texts, XVIII (New
York: Garland, 1991), pp. 21-22. See also Pamela Sheingorn, "'The
Wise Mother': The Image of St. Anne Teaching the Virgin Mary,"
Ccsta 32, no. 1 (1993): 69-80; Klaus Schreiner, "Marienverehrung,
Lesekulture, Schriftlichkeit: Bildungs und frommigkeits-
geschichtiche Studien zur Auslegung und Darstellung von 'Maria
Verklindigung."' Friilunittc!lllterlichc Studien 24 (1990): 314-68.
-+ 7. Love, .\firnn; p. 23.
204 ENGAGING WORDS

48. Love, Mirror, p. 23. See also David M. Robb, "The Iconography of
the Annunciation in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries," Art
Bulletin 18 (1936): 480-526.
49. Translations of both prayers can be found in the Appendix of
Roger S. Wieck, Time Sanct[fied (New York: George Braziller, Inc.,
1988),pp.163-4.
50. British Library, MS. Add. 18213, f. J-1.1.
51. See, for example, British Library. MS. Harley 2900, f. 59v; MS. Eg.
2781, f. 42r; Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 231, f. 3r.John B. Fried-
man notes that these images became common after 1383, when St.
Anne's feast day was incorporated into the calendar. See Northern
English Books, Owners, and .\!fakers in the Late Middle Ages (New York:
Syracuse University Press, 1995), p. 13.
52. Sheingorn, "Wise Mother," 75.
53. Erwin Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. 1 (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1953), p. 101;Jonathan Harthan, Books if
Hours and Their Owners (London:Thames and Hudson, 1977), p. 80.
54. Wieck, Time Sanctifzed, p. 94.
55. Wieck cites the instance ofWalters MS. 224, illuminated by the
Master of Geneva, late fifteenth century, Time Smzctlfzed, pp. 95-6.
56. The ermine figure appears in British Library, MS. Add. 18192. See
also MS. Eg. 2781, f. 101 v; the Hours of Yolande (MS. Yates
Thompson 27, f. 13v); MS. Add. 17444, f. 55v; MS. Add. 24681, f.
70r; MS. Harley 2952 18v, 19r, 19v and 20r, showing, respectively,
the patron with his prayer book on left, facing virgin and child on
other page, followed by his wife, with her book; MS. Yates
Thompson 13, fols. 7, 18, 118b, 139; Bodleian Library, MS. Au ct.
D. 4.4 (the "Bohun Psalter and Hours"), depicting a female with
her patron saint behind her at f. 181 v; MS. Douce 231, f. 65a; and
MS. Lat. Liturg. e. 41, fols. 44v and 59 a, depicting a knight other-
wise unremarkable except for his identifying arms. Several Books
of Hours, such as British Library, MS. Add. 23145 f. 44r., show
arms only.
57. Hours of Mary ~f Burgundy, Austria, Osterreichische Nationa!Biblio-
thek MS. E 5610-C(D), f. 16. See also Eric Inglis, The Hours of Mary
~f Burgundy (London: Harvey Miller Publishers, 1995), p. 21.
58. Inglis, Hours if i\1ary of Burgundy, p. 21.
59. Michael Camille, Gothic Art, Glorious Visions (New York: Harry N.
Abrams, Inc., 1996), p. 183.
60. Virginia Reinburg, "Hearing Lay People's Prayer," in Culture and
Identity in Early Modem Europe: Essays in Honor of Natalie Zeman
 NOTES 205

Davis, eds. Barbara B. Diefendorf and Carla Hesse (Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan Press, 1993), pp. 19-40.
61. Camille, Image, p. 158.

Chapter 3

1. Armando Petrucci, Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy, ed. and

trans. by Charles M. Radding (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1995), p.138.
2. The quote is from]. Hillis Miller, The Ethics of Reading (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1987), p. 4.
3. Martin Irvine, The Making ofTextual Ctdture: Grammatica and Liter-
ary Theory, 35(}-11 00 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1994), pp. 1-2.
4. Excellent scholarship on the glossed books has emerged in recent
years. In addition to Irvine, cited above, see especially Mary Car-
ruthers, The Book of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), esp. pp. 156-69; Rita Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics
and Translation in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1991); Christopher de Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible
and the Origins of the Paris Book Trade (Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 1984);
A.J. Minnis, Medieval Theory <?fAuthorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes
in the Later Middle Ages, 2nd edition (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1988); Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the
Middle Ages, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984).
5. De Hamel, Glossed Books, p. xiii.
6. Copeland, Rhetoric, pp. 87-88.
7. Carruthers, Book of 1\1emory, p.163.
8. De Hamel, Glossed Books, p. 17.
9. De Hamel, Glossed Books, p. 33.
10. M. B. Parkes, "The Influence of the Concepts of Ordinatio and
Compilatio on the Development of the Book," in Medieval Learning
and Literature: Essays Presented to Richard William Hunt, ed. J. J. G.
Alexander and M. T. Gibson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), p.
135; see also Martin Irvine's chapter "The Semiology of the Page,"
in The Making ofTextual Culture, pp. 384-90.
11. Parkes, "Influence," p.137.
12. Minnis, Medieval Theory ofAuthorship, p. 10.
13. Anselm, Monologion, in Anselm of Canterbury, vol. 1, ed. and trans.
Jasper Hopkins and Herbert Richardson (New York: Edwin Mellen
Press, 1974), pp. 74-75.
14. Brian Stock, The flllplicarions <!f Lircr!lC)' (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 19H3), p. HH. Sec also Minnis . .\Jcdiezml Theory o( All-
rhorslzip, p. 13.
15. Stock, I111pliwrions of Lircwq•, p. 11-L
16. Stock, Implic<lfions of Liremcy, p. 115. Stock claims that the heresy in
question lay in the rejection of literacy as a factor "alienating" the
individual from God's message.
17. Robert E. Lerner, "Writing and Resistance Among I3eguins of
languedoc and Catalonia," in HereS)' and Literacy, 1000--1530, eds.
Peter Biller and Anne Hudson (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994), pp. 1KG- 204.
18. Lerner, "Writing and Resistance." p. 197; sec also Malcolm Lam-
beth, ,\Icdicual Heresy, 2nd ed. (Oxford: l3lackwell, 1992), p. 207.
19. lorenzo Paolini, "Italian Catharism and Written Culture," in Heresy
and Literacy, pp. 83-103.
20. Paolini, "Italian Catharism," p. 97-98.
21. A.J. Minnis, ,V/cdicZJal Theory o(A11rhorship, p. vii.
22. Judson l3oycc Allen, The Erhiwl Poetic <!f the L<1tcr .\fiddle A,l,'es
(Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 19H2), p. 11.
23. Minnis, :\fcdicl'!ll TIIC<>ry o(Autlwrship, p.2H.
24. Minnis, .\ledicz•al Litem I')' Theory and Criricis111 c. 1 I 00--13 75 (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 19HH), p. 2.
25. Allen, Etlzic,Jl Poetic, pp. 126-7.
26. Remarking on Paul's observation tlut "Veritate quidam auditum
auertent," l3ersuire \\Titcs, ''Quod verbum ad hoc possum inducerc
l]Ue pleruque fabulis: enigmatibus & poematibus est extendum ut
exinde aliquis moralis sensus extrahatur: ut etiam talsitas veritati fa-
mulari cogatur Pierre l3ersuire, .\1ct<7lllorph,>sis 0Fidiana
.\!om/iter . .. E.\pl,wara. Intr. .mel ed. Stephen Orgel (New York:
Garland, 1979), Book XV, Prologue (my translation).
27. Copeland, Rhetoric, p. 64.
2H. Suzanne Reynolds, .\Icdiel'<li Rc,Jdin,l,': Cmnznzar, Rhetoric, and the
Classic£71 Ti.·xt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1996), pp.
31-32.
29. Minnis, j;Jcdicr'<li Theory or4uthorsllip, p. 9.
30. Christine de Piun, Clnistiuc de Pi zan's Let tel' of Othca ro Hector; trans.
and ed.Jane Chance (Massachusetts: Focus, 1990). On Christine's al-
legoresis. see Judith L Kellogg, "Christine de Pizan as Chivalric
Mythographer," in ]1zc :\Iythographic Art: Classical Fable and the Rise
~f tlzc 1/cmamlar in lc;'arfy France and England, ed. Jane Chance
(Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1990), pp. 100-124.
 NOTES 207

31. Eleanor Hull, The Seven Psalms. EETS 307, ed. Alexandra Barratt
(London: Oxford University Press, 1995).
32. See The Banquet, trans. Christopher Ryan (Stanford: Anma Libri,
1989), II.i. The "Letter to Can Grande" is reprinted in Literary Crit-
icism of Dante Alighieri, trans. Robert S. Haller (Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press, 1973), pp. 95-111.
33. Dante Alighieri, La Vita Nuova, ed. Tommaso Casini (Firenze: San-
soni, 1962), I, 3: "In quella parte dellibro della mia memoria, di-
nanzi a Ia quale poco si potrebbe leggere, si trova una rubrica, Ia
qual dice: Incipit Vita Nova." All further references are to this edi-
tion. Translations are from Mark Musa, trans., Vita Nuova (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1992).
34. Teodolinda Barolini, "Dante and the Lyric Past," in Cambridge Com-
panion to Dante, ed. Rachel Jacoff (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1993), p. 24.
35. Robert Pogue Harrison, "Approaching the Vita 1'\'uova," in Cam-
bridge Companion to Dante, p. 34. See also Thomas Stillinger's chap-
ter on "Dante's Divisions: Structures of Authority in the Vita
Nuova," in his The Song ofTroilus (Philadelphia: University of Penn-
sylvania Press, 1992), pp. 44-72.
36. See especially Charles Singleton's chapter "From Love to Caritas,"
in An Essay on the Vita Nuova, 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1977), pp. 55-77.
37. La Vita Nuova III, 20-22 (trans. Musa, Vita Nuova, p. 7).
38. Musa, Vita Nuova, p. ix.
39. Cf. Robert Pogue Harrison, The Body rif Beatrice (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), pp. 58-59.
40. La Vita Nuova XII, 47: "Fili mi, tempus est ut praetermittantur sim-
ulacra nostra" (trans. Musa, Vita Nuova, p. 19).
41. La Vita Nuova XIII, 5-6 (trans. Musa, Vita Nuova, p. 23).
42. La Vita Nuova XIX, 99 (trans. Musa, Vita Nuova, p. 38).
43. La Vita Nuova XXIII, 116-18 (trans. Musa, Vita Nuova, p. 46).
44. La Vita Nuova XXVIII: "Io era nel proponimento ancora di questa
canone ... quando lo signore de Ia giustizia chiamo questa gen-
tilissima a gloriare sotto Ia 'nsegna di quella reina benedetta Maria"
(trans. Musa, Vita Nuova, p. 60); see Musa's comments on this pas-
sage, p. XII.
45. La Vita Nuova XXIII, 125-27 (trans. Musa, Vita Nuova, p. 49).
46. La Vita Nuova XXIII, 128-29 (trans. Musa, Vita Nuova, p. 50).
47. La Vita Nuova XLI, 207-8 (trans. Musa, Vita Nuova, p. 83).
48. La Vita Nuova XLII, 208-9 (trans. Musa, Vita 1\iuova, p. 84).
208 ENGAGING WORDS

49. Carol Everhart Quillen considers the community of readers imag-

ined by Petrarch's letters in Rereading the Renaissance: Petrarch, Au-
gustille, and the Lan,~;ua,~e of Humanism (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1998), pp. 106-47.
50. Petrarch's quest for metamorphosis through the act of writing is well-
documented. Sara Sturm-Maddox views Petrarch's love for the elu-
sive ''Laura" as the quest for self-transformation not unlike Dante's. In
Petrarch's case, however, Laura offers not spiritual transformation, but
material: Her name, echoing the "laurel," or sign of glory, signifies Pe-
trarch's own quest for glory through writing.Yet the Secretum offers a
more introspective picture of the author. The persona of Augustine
gently questions the author's material pursuits and reminds him
through a reminiscence on reading the great authors about the more
intangible rewards that reading and writing may offer the solitary in-
dividual. See Sara Sturm-Maddox, Pctrarcft:, ]\1etamorphoses: Text and
Subtext i11 the Rime Sparse (Columbia: University of Missouri Press,
1985), p. 105; see also Maddox's Petrarch's Laurel's (University Park: The
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992); Charles Trinkhaus, The
Poet as Philosopher: Petrarch and the Formation of Renaissance Conscious-
ness (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1979), pp. 27-51 and 89.
51. Francesco Petrarca, Prose, eds. G. Martellotti, P. G. Ricci, E Carrara,
and E.l3ianchi (Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1955), I, 42. Translation
is from William H. Draper, Petrarch:, Secret (Westport: Hyperion
Press, 1978), p. 21.
52. Georges Poulet, "The Phenomenology of Reading," New Literary
History 1, no. i (1969): 53-68.
53. Poulet, p. 54.
54. Victoria Kahn, "The Figure of the Reader in Petrarch's Secretum,"
PI\.1LA 100 (1985): 154-66.
55. Secretum, Prohemium 26:" ... non tam michi quam toti humano
generi fieri convitium videretur, ea tamen, quibus ipse notatus sum,
memorie altius impressi."
56. Secretum, Prohemium 26 (trans. Draper, Petrarch's Secret, pp. 5-6).
57. Secretum I, 36:" ... ubi et am or et autoritas et familiaritas in gens
est, quod se quisque plus extimet quam valeat, plus diligat quam
oporteat; nunquam preterea deceptus a deceptore separetur" (trans.
Draper, Petrarclz:, Secret, p. 16).
58. Secretum I, 40 (trans. Draper, Pctrarclz's Secret, p. 19).
59. Secretum I, 42: "Neque igitur, qui pigrioris et torpentis ingenii mos
est, passim omnibus acquievisse conveniet ..." (trans. Draper, Pe-
trarch :, Secret, p. 22).
60. Secretum I, 48 (trans. Draper, Petrarclz:, Secret, p. 26).
61. Secretum II, 70-74 (trans. Draper, Petrarclz:, Secret, pp. 49-50).
 NOTES 209

62. Secretum !, 66: " ... magni autem est ingenii revocare mentem a
sensibus et cogitationem a consuetudine abducere" (trans. Draper,
Petrarch's Secret, p. 44).
63. Secretum ll, 120 (trans. Draper, Petrarch's Secret, p. 98).
64. Secretum II, 122:" ... libro autem e manibus elapso assensio simul
omnis intercidit" (trans. Draper, Petrarch~· Secret, p. 99).
65. Secretum!!, 122 (trans. Draper, Petrarch's Secret, p. 99).
66. Secretum ll, 124-26 (trans. Draper, Petrarch's Secret, p. 102).
67. Draper, Petrarch's Secret, p. 141.
68. Secretum Ill, 164: '"qualis coniecta cerva sagitta, I quam procul in-
cautam nemora inter Cresia fixit I pastor agens telis, liquitque
volatile ferrum I nescius; illa fuga silvas saltusque peragrat I dicteos,
heret lateri letalis harundo."' Petrarch then comments, "Huic ergo
cerve non absimilis factus sum. Fugi enim, sed malum meum
ubi que circumferens" (trans. Draper, Petrarclz 's Secret, p. 141).
69. Secretum III, 164-66 (trans. Draper, Pctrarch's Secret, pp. 141-42).
70. Secrelllm II, 126 (trans. Draper, Petrarciz~, Secret, p.104).
71. Secretum III, 192:" ... aliis scribens, tui ipsius oblivisceris" (trans.
Draper, Petrarclz ~- Secret, p. 170).
72. Secrelllm III, 214: Petrarch remarks, "Sed desiderium frenare non
valeo." Augustine replies, " ... voluntatem impotentiam vocas"
(trans. Draper, Petrarch's Secret, p. 192).
73. Giuseppe Mazzotta, The Worlds ~f Petrarclz (Durham: Duke Univer-
sity Press, 1993), p. 90.
7 4. Petrarch, Letters 011 Familiar l'v1atters, X:4, in A.J. Minnis, ;\1edieval Lit-
erary Theory and Criticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988),
pp. 413-15.
75. Secrctlim III, 198: " ... mortalium rerum inter mortales prima sit
cura; transitoriis eterna succedant."
76. Secretllm Ill, 214:" ... supplexque Deum oro ut euntem comitetur,
gressusque licet vagos, in tutum iubeat pervenire."
77. Donald Howard, Chaucer: His L!fc, His Works, His World (New York:
Ballantine, 1987), p. 188; cf Paul Ruggiers, "The Italian Influence
on Chaucer," in Compa11ion to Chaucer S!lldies, ed. Beryl Rowland
(Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 139-61.
78. See William J. Kennedy, Authorizin,t,z Petrarch (Ithaca: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1994).

Chapter 4

1. "Concurrent, ut fit, ad spectaculum novi operis non solum vulgus

ineptum, sed et eruditi convenient homines; et postquam undique
210 ENGAGING WORDS

prospectaverint, non dubitem quin aliqui viri sint, probitate vener-

abiles et integre mentis atque scientie, qui, tua sequentes vestigia,
commendanda laudabunt, et affectione quadam sacra minus
probanda redarguent. Quibus ego benedicere, gratias agere, obse-
quium prestare, et eorum tenebor conlaudare iustitiam. Sed Ionge
numerosior multitudo, corona in circumitu facta, in rimas minus
bene compacti operis et quascunque mendas, si que erunt, inpinget
oculos, avidior vidisse quid mordeat, quam invenisse quid probet.
Adversus hos michi superest bellum, michi arma sumenda sunt ..."
Giorgio Ricci, ed., Opera in Versi (Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi Edi-
tore, 1965), p. 908. Translation by Charles G. Osgood, Boccaccio on
Poetry: Being the Priface and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Books cif Boc-
caccio's Genealogia Deorum Gentilium (New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1930; reprinted 1956), pp. 17-18.
2. William Langland, 17ze Vision (~(Piers Plowman: A Complete Edition
(if the B- Text, ed. A. V. C. Schmidt (London: Dent, 1978), XII
99-104. Translation from A. V. C. Schmidt, Piers Plowman: A New
Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 129.
3. Christine de Pizan, "Lesser Treatise on the Romance of the Rose,"
in The WritillJZS (~(Christine de Pizan, ed. Charity Cannon Willard
(New York: Persea, 1994), pp. 151-59.
4. The Til'o Ways, in V. J. Scattergood, ed., The Works (~(Sir John Clan-
vowe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 485-501,
quoted in Scattergood, "Literary Culture at the Court of Richard
II," in his EnRlish Court Culture in the Later Middle ARes (New York:
St. Martin's Press, 1983), p. 40.
5. A. J. Minnis notes that "whereas an auctor was regarded as someone
whose works had considerable authority and who bore full re-
sponsibility only for what he had written, the compilator firmly de-
nied any personal authority and accepted responsibility only for the
manner in which he had arranged the statements of other men."
A.J. Minnis, 2\lfedieval Theory~(Authorship: Scholastic Literary Attitudes
in the Later Middle Age.1~ revised ed. (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1988), p. 192.
6. The shifts represented by the act of reading in Chaucer have been
treated in a number of important studies; these include C. David
Benson's chapter "Readers" in his Chaucer's 1roilus and Criseyde
(London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), pp. 39-59; Carolyn Dinshaw's
chapter "Reading Like a Man" in her Chaucer's Sexual Poetics
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), pp. 28-64; Seth
Lerer's Chaucer and his Readers (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1993); and, to a certain extent, D. W Robertson's Priface to
 NOTES 211

Chaucer (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1962), which, as

Benson points out, "privilege[s] the reader's role, although the con-
trol of meaning remains ... in the culture" (p. 49).
7. Sheila Delany, Chaucer's House of Fame: The Poetics of Skeptical
Fideis111 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994).
8. Jesse Gellrich, The Idea 1!f the Book in the Middle Ages; Language The-
ory, "\1ythology, and Fiction (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1985), pp. 174-5.
9. M. M. Bakhtin, "The Problem of Speech Genres," in Caryl Emer-
son and Michael Holquist, eds., Speech Genres and Other Late Es-
says, trans. Vern W. McGee (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1986), p. 65.
10. St. Augustine, 011 Christian Doctri11c, trans. D. W Robertson (Indi-
anapolis: The Liberal Arts Press, 1958), p. 14.
11. Steven Knight, Geoffrey Chaucer (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986),
p. 22.
12. Bakhtin, "Speech Genres," p. 71.
13. Piero Boitani, "Chaucer's Labyrinth: Fourteenth-Century Litera-
ture and Language," Chaucer Rel'ieu• 17.3 (1983): 211. I3oitani's ar-
gument difiers from the point I am making here, however, insofar
as he divides the two utterances between "high" poetry and the
"low" poetry of the minstrels, the musicians, and popular culture.
14. See, lor example, Charles Muscatine, Chaucer a11d the French Tradition
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), p. 109; Nevill
Coghill, 71le Poet Chaucer (London: Oxford University Press, 1967),
p. 34; Larry Sklute, Virtue i!( 1\'aessity: Inmllclusil'elless and Narrative
Form in Chaucer~' Poetry (Columbus: Ohio State University Press,
1984), p. 35
15. Laurence K. Shook, "The House <!( l--l11ne," in Companion to Chaucer
Studies, ed. Beryl Rowland (London: Oxford University Press,
1968), pp. 341-354; Wolfgang Clemen, Chaucer~' Early Poetry, trans.
C. A.M. Sym (London: Methuen, 1963), p. 73; see also Donald R.
Howard, Chaucer (New York: Ballantine, 1987), p. 255; A. C. Spear-
ing, .\1edicual Dream Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1976), p. 87.
16. A.]. Minnis, with V]. Scattergood and].]. Smith, The Shorter Poems
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 219.
17. Piero Boitani, Chaucer mzd the Ima,~inary !MHld <!(Fame (Cambridge:
Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 1984), p. 16.
18. Clemen, Chaucer:, Early Poetry, p. 112.
19. Cf. Paul Ruggiers, "The Unity of Chaucer's House c!( Fame," Stud-
ies in Philology 50 (1953): 16-29; Gardiner Stillwell, "Chaucer's '0
212 ENGAGING WORDS

Sentence' in the Hous of Fame," English Studies 37 (1956): 149-57;

Ann C. Watts, '"Amor Gloriae' in Chaucer's House cif Fame,"Joumal
of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 3 (1973): 87-113.
20. On the link between Chaucer's "seeing" and his "book of mem-
ory" see especially VA. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1984), 41-2; see also Marilyn
Desmond, Reading Dido: Gender, Textuality, and the Medieval Aeneid
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), pp. 140-41.
21. On this topic see Katherine H. Terrell, "Reallocation of
Hermeneutic Authority in Chaucer's House of Fame," The Chaucer
Review 31.3 (1997): 279-90. See also Elaine Tuttle Hansen, Chaucer
and the Fictions (if Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1992), pp. 87-107; she sees in Dido an identification with the nar-
rator himself, who learns from her lesson and refuses to be "taken
in by ambiguity."
22. Delany, Chaucer's House of Fame, p. 57.
23. Knight, Geoffrey Chaucer, p. 18.
24. Peter Travis, "Affective Criticism, the Pilgrimage of Reading, and
Medieval English Literature," in Mediwal Texts and Contemporary
Readers, eds. Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Schichtman (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1987), p. 205. See also Jacqueline T.
Miller, Poetic License: Authority and Authorship in Medieval and Re-
naissance Contexts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 52.
25. Bakhtin, "Speech Genres," p. 89.
26. Martin Irvine, "Grammatical Theory and the House of Fame," Specu-
lum 60.4 (1985): 850-76.
27. Bakhtin, "Speech Genres," p. 69.

Chapter 5

1. On the courtly audience see Neville Coghill, "Chaucer's Narrative

Art in the Canterbury Tales," in Chaucer and Chaucerians, ed. D. S.
Brewer (Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 1966), pp.
135-36; Margaret Galway, "The Troilus Frontispiece," Modern Lan-
guage Review 44 (1949): 161-77; George Williams, "The Troilus and
Criseyde Frontispiece Again," Modern Language Review 57 (1962):
173-78.
2. Derek Pearsall, "The Troilus Frontispiece and Chaucer's Audience,"
Yearbook cif English Studies 7 (1977): 68-74.
3. Derek Brewer, Chaucer and his World (London: Methuen, 1978;
reprint D. S. Brewer, 1992), pp. 114-15, 144-50; Derek Pearsall, Old
and Middle English Poetry (London: Routledge, 1977), pp. 194-97;
 NOTES 213

Paul Strohm, '"Chaucer's Fifteenth-Century Audience and the Nar-

rowing of the 'Chaucer Tradition,"' Studies in the Aj;e of Chaucer 4
(1982): 3-32.
4. Dieter Mehl, "The Audience of Troilus and Criseyde," in Beryl
Roland, ed., Chaucer and Middle English Studies: Essays in Honor if
Rossell Hope Robbins (London: George Allen and Unwin LTD,
1974), pp. 173-89; see also Walter J. Ong, "The Writer's Audience
is Always Fiction," PMLA 90 (1975): 9-21.
5. "Persona" theory has been described most cogently by Carolyn
Walker Bynum in "Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individ-
ual?" in her Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Mid-
dle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), pp.
82-109.
6. Quote trom Matthew 24.15, in]. Forshall and f Madden, eds., The
Holy Bible by John Wycliffe and his Followers, (1850), cited in Hans
Kurath and Sherman M. Kuhn, eds., Middle English Dictionary (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1952 -).
7. All Chaucer citations are from Larry Benson, ed., The Rirlfrside
Chaucer (Boston: Houghton Miffiin Company, 1987).
8. For another view on reading in Ti·oilus and Criseyde, see Carolyn
Dinshaw's chapter "Reading Like a Man" in her Chaucer's Sexual
Poetics (Madison: University ofWisconsin Press, 1989), pp. 28-64.
9. Lee Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject ~f History (Madison: Univer-
sity ofWisconsin Press, 1991), p. 129.
10. Arguing for the Roman de Thebes are Paul Clogan, "The The ban
Scenes in Chaucer's Troilus," Medievalia et Humanistica 12 (1984):
167-85; and John Fleming, Classical Imitation and [Hterpretation in
Chaucer's Troilus (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), p.
96. Arguing that the text is Statius's are, most recently, Catharine
Sanok, "Criseyde, Cassandre, and the Thebaid: Women and the The-
ban Sub text of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde," Swdies in the Age of
Chaucer 20 (1998): 41-71; and John Fyler, "Auctoritee and Allusion
in Troi!tJS and Criseyde," Res publica litterarum 7 (1984): 73-92.
11. Alain Renoir, "Thebes, Troy, Criseyde, and Pandarus: An Instance of
Chaucerian Irony," Studia ncophilolo,-,;ica 32 (1960): 14-17. The sym-
bolism of the eyes in the Oedipus story was also known through
the late medieval Roman d' Edzjms.
12. Evan Carton, "Complicity and Responsibility in Pandarus' Bed and
Chaucer's Art," PMLA 94 (1979): 47-61 ;John Fyler, "The Fabrica-
tions of Pandarus," Alodern La11guage Quarterly 41 (1980): 115-30.
13. See Julia Ebel, "Troilus and Oedipus: The Genealogy of an Image,"
English Studies 55 (197 4): 15-21; Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject
214 ENGAGING WORDS

cif History, pp. 135-36; Chauncey Wood, Elements cif Chaucer's Troilus
(Durham: Duke University Press, 1984), pp. 153-63.
14. Criseyde's "slyding corage" has been much discussed; see especially
David Aers, "Criseyde: Woman in Medieval Society," Chaucer Re-
view 13 (1979): 177-200;]. D. Burnley, "Criseyde's heart and the
Weakness of Women: An Essay in Lexical Interpretation," Studia
neophilologica 54 (1982): 25-38; E. Talbot Donaldson, Speaking of
Chaucer (London: Athlone Press, 1970), 65-83; Maureen Fries,
'"Slydynge ofCorage': Chaucer's Criseyde as Feminist and Victim,"
The Authority of Experience, eds. Arlyn Diamond and Lee Edwards
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1977), 45-59; Jill
Mann, Geoffrey Chaucer (London: Routledge, 1971), pp. 21-31; on
the relationship of this ambivalence to Criseyde's reading, see Din-
shaw, Chaucer's Sexual Poetics, pp. 52-56; Elaine Tuttle Hansen,
Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1992), pp. 164-65.
15. Eugene Vance, Mervelous Signals: Poetics and Sign Theory in the Mid-
dle Ages (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), p. 282; see
also Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 19 57), pp. 132-35.
16. Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject cif History, pp.129-32.
17. In addition to Patterson, above, see Valerie A. Ross, "Believing Cas-
sandra: Intertextual Politics and the Interpretation of Dreams in
Troilus and Criseyde," The Chaucer Review 31 (1997): 339-56, and
Constance Hieatt, "The Dreams ofTroilus, Criseyde, and Chaunte-
cleer: Chaucer's Manipulations of the Categories of Macrobius et
al," English Studies in Canada 14 (1988): 400-14.
18. See Richard H. Osberg, "Between the Motion and the Act: Inten-
tions and Ends in Chaucer's Troilus," English Literary History 48
(1981): 257-70; Richard Waswo, "The Narrator of Troilus and
Criseyde," English Literary History SO (1983): 1-25.
19. Charles Altieri, Canons and Consequences: Riflections on the Ethical
Force cif Imaginative Ideals (Evanston: Northwestern University Press,
1990)' p. 24.
20. Both Alfred David and Robert Worth Frank,jr., for example, point
out that Chaucer the author would have had little real contact with
the Jews, and that instead he would have been reacting to a dis-
torted cultural construct of the Jewish people. See David's The
Strumpet Muse: Art and Morals in Chaucer's Poetry (Bloomington: In-
diana University Press, 1976), pp. 208-9, and Frank's "Miracles of
the Virgin, Medieval Anti-Semitism, and the 'Prioress's Tale,"' in The
Wisdom cif Poetry: Essays in Early English Literature in Honor of Mor-
 NOTES 215

ton W Bloomfield, Larry D. Benson and Siegfried Wenzel, eds. (Kala-

mazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1982), p. 187.
21. I borrow the term and assumptions from Jean-Fran<;:ois Lyotard's
Postmodern Condition, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).
22. On the argument that the Man of Lau/> Tale begins fragment lii of
the Canterbury Tale.'~ and thus immediately precedes the W!fe cif Bath:,
Tale, see V A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery cif Narrative (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1984), pp. 293-94. Pratt argues that the
speaker in the epilogue to the tale is the Wife of Bath and was
emended to the Shipman later. See Robert A. Pratt, "The Develop-
ment of the Wife of Bath," in Studies in A1edieval Literature in Honor cif
Professor Albert Croll Baugh, ed. MacEdward Leach (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961), and John H. Fisher's edition
of the Canterbury 1ales, The Complete Prose arzd Poetry cif Geoffrey
Chaucer (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1977). See also Lee
Patterson's reading of this emendation in "The Wife of Bath and the
Triumph of the Subject," in Chaucer and the Subject cif History, p. 280.
23. Din shaw, Chaucer's Sexual Poetics, p.120.
24. Dinshaw, Chaucer's Sexual Poetics, p.122.
25. Many authors have addressed the Wife's use of the authorities. See
Barbara Gottfried, "Conflict and Relationship, Sovereignty and
Survival: Parables of Power in the W!fe ~f Bath's Prologue," The
Chaucer Review 19.3 (1985): 202-24; Donald C. Green, "The Se-
mantics of Power: !vfaistrie and Soveraynetee in the Canterbury Tales."
Modem Philology 84 (1986): 18-23; Peggy A. Knapp, "Aiisoun of
Bathe and the Reappropriation ofTradition," The Chaucer Review
24 (1989): 45-52; Walter C. Long, "The Wife as Moral Revolu-
tionary," The Chaucer Rer>iew 20 (1986): 273-84; Barrie Ruth
Straus, "The Subversive Discourse of the Wife of Bath: Phallocen-
tric Discourse and the Imprisonment of Criticism," English Literary
History 55.3 (1988): 527-54.
26. Certainly nothing in the Wife's prologue or tale would indicate that
she can read; rather, her knowledge of authorities is punctuated by
such phrases as "me was told" (9) or "men may counseille" (66).
27. Elaine Tuttle Hansen, Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender, pp. 29-30.
28. Richard]. Schoeck, "Chaucer's Prioress: Mercy andTender Heart,"
Chaucer Criticism voi. 1, eds. Richard]. Schoeck and Jerome Taylor
(Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1960), 245-58. See also
E. Talbot Donaldson, Speaking of Chaucer, pp. 61-64.
29. See Thomas Hahn, "The Performance of Gender in the Prioress,"
ChaucerYearbook 1 (1992): 111-34.
216 ENCAC~ING WORIJS

30. Derek Pearsall, 71tc Canterbury 7ides (London: Routledge, 1985), 24 7.

See also Peggy Knapp, who sees the Prioress as being as ideologically
enmeshed in her aristocratic vantage point as the Knight. Chaucer and
the Social Contest (New York: Routledge, 1990), pp. 49-53.
31. The repetition of the word "lite!" in the tale has been noted by
many: The child has "lite! book lernynge," is himself"litel," etc. See
Helen Cooper, O.xJind Guides to Cltaucer: 71te Canterbury Tales (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 297; S. S. Hussey, Chattcer: An
lntroductio11 (London: Methuen, 1981), p. 160; Stephen Knight, Ge-
L!ffrey Chaucer (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986).
32. Rodney Hilton, Bond ,HCII A1adc Free: .\Iedicl!al Pcasmzt ,\1ovcmcnts and
the English Rising ~f 1381 (London: Routledge, 1973), pp. 195-96.
33. Sheila Delany, "Historicizing the Prioress: The Jewish Connection,"
34th international Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, 7
May 1999. On the widespread calls for toleration see also Richard
Rex, "Chaucer and the Jews," :\!Iodem Language Quarterly 45 (1984):
107-22, reprinted in his book, ''The Sins L!( Madame Eglentyne" and
Other Essays 011 Chaucer (Newark: University of Delaware Press,
1995), pp. 13-26. Rex argues that "The Prioress is not a gauge of
Chaucer's own sentiments concerning Jews ... the poet shared in
some degree the questioning outlook ofhis more enlightened con-
temporaries such as Uthred of Boldon, Wyclif, Brinton, Bromyard,
Langland, the Erkenwald poet, the Pricke L!f Conscimcc author,
Gower, and the Lollard polemicists" ("The Sins c!f· ,'Hadame s'<len-
tyne," p. 25).
34. Delany, "Historicizing the Prioress."
35. Schoeck, "Chaucer's Prioress," p. 253.
36. In addition to Schoeck, see also Beverly Boyd, The Middle English
Miracles L!( the Vi~'<in (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990),
p. 33; Hardy Frank, "Chaucer's Prioress and the Blessed Virgin," The
Chaucer Rel!iew 13 (1979): 355; and Robert Worth Frank, "Miracles
of the Virgin," p. 183.
37. See Daniel Pigg, "Refiguring Martyrdom: Chaucer's Prioress and
Her Tale" Chaucer Review 29 (1994): 05.
38. Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject L!( History, p. 313; see also Susan
Crane, "Alison's Incapacity and Poetic Instability in the Wife of
Bath'sTale," PMLA 102 (1987):20-27.
39. John A. Alford suggests that the Wife represents the powers of
Rhetoric over the philosophical discourse of the Clerk, whose tale
provides a mirror opposite to the Wife's. The two discourses, he ar-
gues, "actually represent opposing, and probably irreconcilable,
value systems." John A. Alford, "The Wife of Bath Versus the Clerk
 NOTES 217

of Oxford: What Their Rivalry Means," The Chaucer Rwicw 21.2

(1986): 108-32.
40. Sheila Delany, Medieval Literary Politics: Shapes (if Ideology (Manches-
ter: Manchester University Press, 1990), p. 114.
41. See Marshall Leicester, The Disenchanted Se[f (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1990), p. 75.
42. Martin Stevens refers to Harry Bailly as "the perfect embodiment
of the medieval 'Common Reader,"' who provides a sense of the
medieval aesthetic response "as a generative device of Chaucer's fic-
tion." "The Performing Self in Twelfth-Century Culture," Viator 9
(1978): 197.

Conclusion

1. Sidney J. H. Herrtage, ed., The Early English Version rf the Gesta Ro-
manorum. EETS, e. s. 33 (London: N.Triibner & Co., 1879, 1962),
p. 407.
2. Casey Finch, ed., The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1993), I.49-53. My translation.
3. Phaedws 276a, in Plato: 11ze Collected Dialogues, Edith Hamilton and
Huntington Cairns, eds. (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1961).
4. The Vision rf Piers Plowman: A Complete Edition C?f the B- Text, ed.
A. V. C. Schmidt (London: Dent, 1978), X.3 70.
5. John Wyclif, "How Religious Men Should Keep Certain Articles,"
The English Works r.:fWyclif, EETS, o.s. 74., ed. F. D. Matthew (Lon-
don: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner and Co., LTD, 1880), p. 221.
6. The Secretum alludes to lines 589-601 from Petrarch's Africa, trans.
Thomas G. Bergin and Alice S. Wilson (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1977).
7. Richard de Bury, The Love r.:f Books, trans. E. C. Thomas (New York:
Cooper Square Publishers, 1966), p. 119.
8. Lynn Staley, Margery Kempe's Dissmting Fictions (University Park:
The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), pp. 11-12.
9. Letters on rlmziliar Matters: Rerum familiarium libri, trans. Aldo S.
Bernardo (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), XV.6,
XX.6.
10. J. R. R. Tolkien, E.V. Gordon, and Norman Davis, eds., Sir Gawain
and the Greell Knight, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1967), I. 373.
11. Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1989), p. 59.
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Yates Thompson MS. 27

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INDEX

Alexander, Jonathan, 21 Books

Alford, John A., 216 n. 39 bequests of, 28-29
Allen, Judson Boyce, 85, 86-87,90, contracts for, 21-22
102 cost of, 19, 22, 30
Altieri, Charles, 214 n. 19 depictions of, 5-6, 52-65, 202 n.
Angels, depictions of, 53, 57, 58 21
Animals, depictions of, 7, 57, 58, as material objects, 11, 27-28
60-61, 72, 77, 202 n. 25 popular, 31
Anne, St., depictions of~ 6, 56, 69 production of, 11, 19; 20-22
Annunciation, depictions of, 52, 53, Books of Hours, 13, 35-37; 45-77
57, 65-66, 69-71, 202 n. 21 Beaufort/Beauchamp Hours, 72
Anselm, 83, 114 Bohun Psalter and Hours, 57,
atte Wode,John, 33 58-60,61
Auctores Hours ofjeanne D'Evreux, 52-55,
See Authors, medieval 61-62
Auctoritas, authority, 2, 3, 14, 39, 82, Hours of Mary of Burgundy, 57,
89, 125-26, 140-41 72-77
Augustine, St., 105-1 06; 130-31 Hours of Mary of Guelders, 68,
Authors, medieval, 4-5, 82-84, 89 69-71
Hours of St. Omer, 58, 63, 202 n.
Bacon, Nathaniel, 9 25
Bakhtin, M. M., 129, 132 Maestricht Hours, 58, 60
Beatrice, as trope, 92, 95, 96, 104-105 Oldhall Hours, 64
Benefit of Clergy, 33, Taymouth Hours, 64-65, 70, 71
Bernard of Clairvaux, 9-10 Book Trade, 19-20, 22-23, 4 7-48
Bersuire, Pierre, 88, 89, 206 n. 26 Booke if Raynarde the Foxe, 39, 199 n.
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 121-23 119
Genealogy of the Gentile Gods Bradfelde, Robert, 27
122-23 Brekeling, Robert, 21
Bodleian Library, 27 Brice, Hugh, 29
Boitani, Brian, 136, 211 n. 13 Bristowe, William, 29
Book Artisans, 20-22 Brynchele, Johannes, 29
Book Artisans Guild, 19-20 Burley, Simon, 29, 31
Book Collectors, 17-18, 25
Book to a Mother, 9 Camille, Michael, 39, 65, 77
240 ENGAGING WORDS

Canonization, process of~ 133~35 Coleman, Joyce, 37~38

Carruthers, Mary, 41 Commentary Tradition, 85~89
Cassandra. Chaucer's depiction of, Commonplace Books, 20
152~53, 156~57 Copeland, Rita, 81, 88
Cathars, 84 Copyhouses, 19~20
Cavanaugh, Susan Hagen, 28, 29 Credy,John, 29
Caxton, William, 29 Cult of St. Louis, depictions of,
Chamberlain, William, 33 61~62

Charles V (the Wise), 25~26, 38 Cursor :\iur1di, 8

Chaucer, 3~4, 9~ 10, 14~ 15, 119~20,
126~27
Camerhury Tales, 29, 144, 162~63
Clerk's Tale, 30, 179~81
Harry Bailly, 178
House of Fame, 14, 126~27,
127~42
Man of Law's Tale, 165~66
Prioress's Tale, 15, 163~65, 169~73,
174
Troilus a11d Criscydc, 15, 21, 31. 148,
149~62
Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale,
15,30, 163~68, 173, 174~78
Chichele, Robert, 29
Chretien de Troyes, 61
Christ, depictions of, 5, 54~55, 56
Christianson, C. Paul, 20, 22
Christina of Markyate, 58
Christine de Pizan, 3, 4, 10
Book of the City of Ladies, 1~2
"The Book of the Deeds," 25~26
"Lesser Treatise on the Romance
of the Rose," 124
"Letter of Othea to Hector," 89
Clanbowe, Lady Peryne, 29
C:lanchy, M. T., 33
Clanvowe,John, 3~4, 29, 124
Tile Ttm Ways, 124~25
Claydon,John, 30
Clemen,W H., 136
Dante, 121
Co11vivio, 91
Inferno, 119
"Letter to Can Grande," 91
Vita ;'\'uor>a, 85, 90~ 105
Deansley, Margaret, 28
de Berry, Due, 25, 48
de Brailes,W., 47
de Bury, Richard, 17~18; 38~39, 185
de Chambre, William, 17
de Ellerker, William (scribe), 22
Delany, Sheila, 172
de la Pole. Alice, 27
Delisle, Leopold, 193 r1. 32
Demons, devils, depictions of, 57, 60,
203 Y1. 28
de Montreuil,Jean, 124
de Stretton, Richard, 22
de Worstede, John, 29
Dido and Aeneas Legend,
Chaucer's depiction of, 136~39,
176
Dinshaw, Carolyn, 16 7
Discourse Communities, 139~40. 142
Dives ct Pauper, 13
Divine Office, 48~49
Dir>isio, 86~87
Doner (Pecock), 39
Dreams, 8, 99, 101, 137~38, 149,
152~53

Clifford, James, 33 Dufty, Eamon, 37

Clifford, Sir Lewis, 29 Durand, Guillaume, 51,201 n. 15
Clopton Manuscript, 20
Clopton, William, 33 Education, 33~34
Cloud of Unkrwwin,r;, 39~40 Edward VI, 27

Estates Satire, o0-61
Everyman, 185
Exegetical Method, 79-89
Exemplars, 21-22
Ezekiel, 18
Fairs, 22
Fastolf, Sir John, 29, 31
Fillastre, Guillaume, 40-41
Forbor, John, 21
Foucault, Michel, 1
Friedman, John, 22, 28, 204 11.
Froissart, Jean, 26, 29, 38
Games, play, 55
Gellrich, Jesse, 5, 128
Gerson, Jean, 51
Gesta Romanomm, 16, 183
Glosses, 80, 81, 88
Goodly Primo; 46, 49
Gower, John, 31, 34
Grammatica, 80
Grossteste, Robert, 24
Guilds, 19-20, 23, 194 11. 33
Henry IV, 26-27, 31
Henry VIII, 45
Henry of Estry, 24
Henryson, Robert, 40
Heretical Reading, 83-84,206 11. 16
See also Beguines; Cathars; Lollardy;
Wyclif
Hoccleve, Thomas, 31
Holkham Bible Picture Book, 22
Horae
See Books of Hours
Horae Eboracmces, 49-50
Hours of the Virgin,
See Little Office
Hudson, Anne, 30
Hugh of Lincoln, J 71
Hull, Eleanor, 89-90
Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, 23, 26,
27
Hunting, depictions of, 64-65
INDEX 241
Iconography
annunciation, 65-66, 69-71
books, 5, 52-53, 55, 56-57, 202 n.
21
reading, S-6, 54-65, 75
See also animals; demons; hunting;
knights; mass; marginalia;
monks; polymorphs; Office of
the Dead; Pentecost; readers; St.
Anne; saints; Virgin Mary
Illumination, 5-6, 21, 49, 69, 77,
51 145-148
Illuminators, 21, 22
See also John Forbor; Master of the
Duke of Bedford; Pucelle
International Style, 55
Irvine, Martin, 142, 205 n. 3
Iser, Wolfgang, 3
James I, 10
Jews
depiction in Prioress's Tale, 170-72
expulsions of, 171, 172
John, 18
John, duke of Bedford, 26, 27
Julian of Norwich, 41
Kahn, Victoria, 208 n. 54
Kempe, Margery, 16, 38, 186
King's Council, 32-33
King's Primer, 45-46
King's Quair, 10
Knight, Stephen, 131, 141
Knights, depictions of, 58, 60-o1, 64
Langley, Thomas, 28
Language,95, 103,104,128-31
See also speech; discourse
communities
Libraries, 23-24
Cambridge University, 23
Canterbury, 24
Collections of, 24
Louvre, 26, 27
Monastic libraries, 23-24
242 ENGAGING WORDS
Oxford University, 23, 27
University of Paris, 23
Literacy, 32-34; 35-36
Books of Hours and 1., 36-37
Comprehension, 36
Phonetic, 35-36;
Sec also Education
Little Office, 45, 47, 48-49, 50
Logos,5,66,82,83
Lollardy, 30-31,77,84, 124,216 n. 33
London Book Trade, 19-20, 22-23
Louis IX, 25
Louis, St. (cult of), 61-62
Love, Nicholas, 41-42, 66
Lowe, E. A., 35
McKenzie, D. F., 11, 13
Malden, 37
Manuscripts
as providing cues for reading, 5,
12-13,36,51-52,81
Marginalia, 6-7,53-55,61-65,81
Mary, Blessed Virgin
Sec Virgin Mary
Mass, depictions of, 57-58
Master of the Duke of Bedford, 56
Matheolus, 1, 4
Mazzotta, Giuseppe, 118-19
Meditationes vitae Christi, 65-66
Miller,]. Hillis, 183, 205 n. 2
Minnis,A.J.,82, 126,136,210 n. 5
Moral Fables (Henryson), 40
Monks, depictions of, 57, 59
Musa, Mark, 93, 99
New Criticism, 4
New Historicism, 4
Newton, John, 28
Obsecro te, 49, 50, 64, 67
Oedipus, Chaucer's depiction of, 151,
159
Office of the Dead, 50, 57
0 intemerata, 50, 64, 67
Ong, Walter, 7
Oxford
Book Trade, 22, 47
University Library, 23, 27
Panofsky, Erwin, 69
Paolini, Lorenzo, 84
Parkes, M.D., 31
Paston,John, 31
Paternoster Row, 20
Patterson, Lee, 150
Patrons, depictions of, 7, 47-48, 50, 56,
69-77, 204 n. 56
Pearl, 184
Pearsall, Derek, 145, 147, 169
Peasant's Revolt, 171-72
Pecia System, 19
Pecock, Reginald, 39
Pentecost, depictions of, 6, 52, 202 n.
21
Petrarch, 10,119-20,121,143
Africa, 120
Secretum85,90, 105-120,185,186
Trionfi, 120
Petrucci, Armando, 205 n. 1
Pharisees, depictions of, 55
Philobiblon, 17-18,38-39,185
Piers Plowman,
A-Text, 41
B-Text, 41,123,185
Polymorphs, depictions of, 58
Poulet, Georges, 107-108
Prayers, 49, 64, 67, 201 n. 14
depictions of, 55-56
Praying, act of, 36-37,48, 49,42-43,
57,67
Pricke of Conscience, 31, 40, 216 n. 33
Primers, 34, 37, 45, 49-50
Primer of Claude of France, 6
Prologues to texts and glosses, 6, 86
Promptorium Parvulorum, 9
Prose Merlin, 185
Pseudo-Bonaventura, 65-66
Pucelle,Jean, 26, 52-55
Quillen, Carol Everhart, 107
 INDEX 243

Reading, 3, 7-9 Romeo and juliet, 190 11. 14

definition of, 8 vVi11ter:, Tale, 9
depictions of, 46, 51-77 Sheingorn, Pamela, 69
ethics of, 4, 75, 79, 85,118-19, Shirley, john, 21
132, 136-42 Simeon Manuscript, 20
fate and r., 15,37, 150-54; 178-81 Sir Call'ain a11d the Crem Knight, 186
felnale r., 1-2,29, 69,165 Speech, 129-32
instructions for r. inserted into See also discourse communities
manuscripts, 6, 36-37,39-43 Speech Genres, 129, 132-33
lay response to books, 2, 3 Statins, 151
oral vs. private, 37-38 Stock, Brian, 83, 191 11. 22, 206 11.
self-fashioning and r., 9-10, 15, 18, 16
42-43,47,85,153-62 Sturm-Maddox, Sara, 208 11. 50
self-knowledge and r., 40-43 Stury, Sir Richard, 29
Protestant, 45-46
response to authority, 14 pe
Talkyng <~{ Laue of Cod, 41
scholastic tradition and r., 79-89 Textual Communities, 83
tastes in, 24, 26, 31 The/Jaid (Statius), 151
Rede, William, 28 Thoiso11 d 'or (Fillastre), 40-41
Redeemed Speech, 130 Travis, Peter, 142
Reformation, Post-Reformation, Troilus Frontispiece, 145-48
45-46,50,77 Trussell, Sir William, 29
Renoir, Alain, 151
Rex, Richard, 216 n. 33 Universities, 19
Reynolds, Suzanne, 88
Richard II, 26 Vernon Manuscript, 20
Roman de Thebes, 151 Virgil
Ro111ance of the Rose, 124 Chaucer's reading of, 136-39, 140
Romances, 31 Petrarch 's reading of, 116
Rorty, Richard, 187 Virgin Mary, 65-66
Rotheram, Thomas, 28 depictions of, 52, 53, 55, 67-69
prayers to, 6 7
Saenger, Paul, 35, 38, 191 n. 22 Vita Nuova (Dante)
Saints, depictions of, 55-56 Sec Dante, Vita Nuova
Schoeck, Richard J., 172
Scholastic Reading, 13-14, 79-89 West, Lady Alice, 29
Schools, Public, 33-34 Wills, 28-29, 196 11. 66, 196 n. 70
Scribes, 21, 22 Women
Scriptoria, 19 Sec Reading, female
Scriveners Guild, 19 Woodstock, Thomas, 27, 30, 31
Secretum Secretorum, 40 Wyclif,John, 8, 23, 84, 185,216 n. 33
Shakespeare, Wyclif Bible, 149
Hamlet, 190 11. 14
Measure for J1easure, 190 n. 14 Ywain, 9