Robert Thornton and his Books: Essays on the Lincoln and London Thornton Manuscripts

摘要

Robert Thornton is known chiefly through the two manuscripts he copied in Yorkshire in the second half of the fifteenth century, Lincoln Cathedral MS 91 and British Library MS Additional 31042. The contents of both manuscripts are largely in Middle English verse and prose and include a number of important texts, some of which are unique, including (in Lincoln): a prose Life of Alexander, the alliterative Morte Arthur, the romance Sir Perceval of Gales; (in BL Additional): the romances, The Sege of Melayne, and Duke Roland and Sir Otuel, the alliterative debate poem, Wynnere and Wastoure and a verse rendering of The Three Kings of Cologne. But beyond such unique items these manuscripts assemble a range of materials, literary, religious and (pseudo) scientific that in totality offers a broad spectrum of vernacular written resources.