Discourse Perspectives on English
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series Editor Andreas H. Jucker University of Zurich, English Department Plattenstrasse 47, CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland e-mail:
[email protected] Associate Editors Jacob L. Mey University of Southern Denmark
Herman Parret Belgian National Science Foundation, Universities of Louvain and Antwerp
Jef Verschueren Belgian National Science Foundation, University of Antwerp
Editorial Board Shoshana Blum-Kulka Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni University of Lyon 2
Jean Caron Université de Poitiers
Claudia de Lemos University of Campinas, Brazil
Robyn Carston University College London
Marina Sbisà University of Trieste
Bruce Fraser Boston University
Emanuel Schegloff University of California at Los Angeles
Thorstein Fretheim University of Trondheim
Deborah Schiffrin Georgetown University
John Heritage University of California at Los Angeles
Paul O. Takahara Kansai Gaidai University
Susan Herring University of Texas at Arlington
Sandra Thompson University of California at Santa Barbara
Masako K. Hiraga St.Paul’s (Rikkyo) University
Teun A. Van Dijk Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
David Holdcroft University of Leeds
Richard J. Watts University of Berne
Sachiko Ide Japan Women’s University
Volume 119 Discourse Perspectives on English: Medieval to modern Edited by Risto Hiltunen and Janne Skaffari
Discourse Perspectives on English Medieval to modern
Edited by
Risto Hiltunen Janne Skaffari University of Turku
John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam/Philadelphia
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The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Discourse perspectives on English : medieval to modern / edited by Risto Hiltunen, Janne Skaffari. p. cm. (Pragmatics & Beyond, New Series, issn 0922-842X ; v. 119) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. 1. English languages--Discourse analysis. I. Hiltunen, Risto. II. Skaffari, Janne. III. Series. PE1422 D57 2003 401’.41-dc22 isbn 90 272 5361 7 (Eur.) / 1 58811 470 8 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)
2003062994
© 2003 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
Contents
Preface Introduction Ruth Carroll, Risto Hiltunen, Matti Peikola, Janne SkaŸari, Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen, Ellen Valle and Brita Wårvik “When you read or hear this story read”: Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts Brita Wårvik Telling the anchorite code: Ancrene Wisse on language Risto Hiltunen Lexical borrowings in early Middle English religious discourse: A case study of Sawles Warde Janne SkaŸari
vii 1
13
57
77
The catalogue: A late Middle English Lollard genre? Matti Peikola
105
Recipes for laces: An example of a Middle English discourse colony Ruth Carroll
137
“Best patterns for your imitation”: Early modern letter-writing instruction and real correspondence Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen
167
“Let me not lose yr love & friendship”: The negotiation of priority and the construction of a scientiªc identity in seventeenth-century natural history Ellen Valle
197
Index
235
Preface
The papers in the present collection are a result of a collaborative eŸort of the Discourse Perspectives on Early English project team at the University of Turku. The contributors identify themselves as philologists, historical linguists, or discourse linguists working on historical texts, positioning themselves in somewhat diŸerent corners in the ªeld(s) of linguistics, but sharing perspectives related to text and discourse studies and, more widely, to pragmatic and functional perspectives on language. The contributors work on their individual research topics, with the shared objective to account for some of the characteristics of English discourse from medieval to modern English. While the chapters in this volume arise from individual research projects, the Introduction is a truly collaborative text, a result of several meetings and seminars. The sessions have been both useful and necessary, not least in terms of indicating to us how much common ground there is in practice between the individual projects and approaches. The Introduction is, in fact, a record of our discussions. We wish to thank the Academy of Finland for funding the project (44336: 63923, 77844). This volume could not have come about without this support. For more practical assistance, thanks are due to Ellen Valle and Martin Gill for their help with language-checking and Kaisa-Kerttu Hannula, Maria Heiniluoma, and Johanna Karhukorpi for their help with desktop editing. Finally, we thank the anonymous reviewers of the manuscript for their valuable comments, and the publisher for accepting this volume into the Pragmatics & Beyond New Series. The Editors
Introduction Ruth Carroll, Risto Hiltunen, Matti Peikola, Janne SkaŸari, Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen, Ellen Valle and Brita Wårvik
This volume As explained in the Preface, Discourse Perspectives on English: Medieval to Modern represents the collaborative work of a team of researchers; so does this Introduction. The contributors see themselves as historical discourse linguists, entering into dialogue with such areas of contemporary linguistics as discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, and pragmatics. As individuals we have overlapping but not identical areas of interest and points of view (cf. Hiltunen et al. 1999). What we share as the object of our research is language in use; what we share as an approach is the consideration of historical texts in and as products of their context. Our research into context includes more traditionally understood discourse notions of context, both textexternal (e.g. situational) and text-internal (e.g. structural), as well as the discourse community of the author (and the reader) and the material context. The sources of data used in the chapters of this volume can be divided into three main groups: medieval instructional texts, medieval religious prose, and early modern epistolary texts. All of us can describe our research as text-based. Together the chapters cover nearly a thousand years in the history of English, but individually they are synchronic in nature. The synchronic approach is one reason why we see ourselves as engaged in historical discourse linguistics speciªcally rather than any other ªeld of historical pragmatics generally. There are some shared themes in our work (see below), but each chapter stands on its own as a self-contained report on a historical linguistic research enquiry. This introductory chapter explains our understanding of how historical discourse linguistics ªts into the broader ªeld of historical pragmatics. It addresses our common viewpoints and identiªes ways in which we see our research informing (as well as being informed by) related but distinct sub-ªelds of study. The Introduction further brie¶y explains our own approaches to terminological quandaries such as
2
Introduction
the use of terms text and discourse, genre and text-type, and orality. The notions of discourse community and situational and material context are also introduced below.
Historical discourse linguistics Historical pragmatics is a relatively recent development as a subªeld of historical linguistics. The groundbreaking publications Jucker (1995) and Brinton (1996) paved the way for the then under-utilised area of pragmatic research on earlier stages of languages. Less than ten years later, the situation is now quite diŸerent. The ‘discourse history’ of English and other languages has received increasing attention; witness the establishment in 2000 of a new scholarly journal exclusively devoted to this ªeld (Journal of Historical Pragmatics), the continuing publication of works on historical pragmatics, and the increasing number of conference papers on such topics.1 The fuzziness characteristic of a new ªeld of research is indicated by the variety of labels used for historical pragmatics: we are evidently not yet dealing with a ªxed paradigm. The Introduction to Historical Pragmatics (Jucker 1995) establishes a framework for classifying historical pragmatic research. First, historical pragmatics is distinguished from pragmahistorical linguistics: the latter studying language change as motivated by changes in communicative needs, the former focussing on language use over time. Within historical pragmatics, two subªelds are distinguished: diachronic pragmatics and pragmaphilology. Diachronic pragmatics traces changes in pragmatically relevant forms and their functions. It is diachronic pragmatics which has burgeoned as a ªeld of inquiry over the past ten years, as seen most notably in the study of the evolution of discourse markers (especially since Brinton 1996). Pragmaphilology, in contrast, is primarily a matter of synchronic research, taking into consideration the contextual aspects of historical texts in which past stages of the language are preserved.2 Brinton (2001) explores the interrelationship of pragmatics and discourse analysis that has often proved problematic, and classiªes and renames the ªeld in terms somewhat diŸerent from Jucker (1995). Brinton calls the core of the ªeld historical discourse analysis, which comprises primarily synchronic analyses, in particular of discourse structure, and also identiªes another major approach, dubbed discourse-oriented historical linguistics, focussing on discourse-motivated linguistic changes. She also identiªes diachronic(ally-oriented) discourse analysis, dealing with the diachronic development of discourse marking. We call our ªeld of research historical discourse linguistics, seeing this as overlapping to a signiªcant extent with both historical discourse analysis and pragmaphilology. We study language use, aiming to come to grips with the ways in which
Introduction
language is used by speciªc discourse communities, in speciªc communicative settings, to serve speciªc communicative functions. The three elements of the term aptly capture the essential dimensions of the ªeld: by referring to our work as ‘historical discourse linguistics’ we emphasise that the approach is very much a part of historical linguistics, with a solid philological basis, and broader than discourse analysis in its narrow sense. We are convinced that the synchronic study of the function(s) of linguistic phenomena in historical data provides an important link between a more formal or traditionally philological synchronic description of any linguistic phenomenon and a diachronic study of its evolution. The historical discourse linguist thus studies forms, functions, and contexts presented by the text, and cannot discount them. The text has a dynamic role: one important goal is to understand how the text creates a dialogue with context, not just being shaped by it but shaping it as well. The creation and subsequent existence of a new text alters the context in which further texts will in turn arise.
Situational and material context It will come as no surprise that problems with the contextualisation of early written texts are myriad. Not only are such factors as place and date of production unspeciªed for most early texts, but even basic information about the identity of the writer(s) and of the addressee or the audience must be inferred or hypothesised by the researcher. For example, the text studied in Carroll’s chapter is an anonymous one, dated only on linguistic and paleographic grounds; the same applies to the Lollard material discussed by Peikola and the religious texts studied in the chapters by Hiltunen and SkaŸari. Even when some of the facts about the texts are known or can be reconstructed, the actual context of use and its eŸect on the particular texts can at best only be guessed at, as shown by the problems of linking reception formats and linguistic features in Wårvik’s study of Old English prose. Such problems do not necessarily diminish in individual instances with more contemporary texts. Valle’s seventeenth-century epistolary texts, although attributed to single authors, were in many cases circulated through many hands, gathering increasing layers of additions and commentary (much like forwarded e-mail messages today) before publication. As may be inferred from the chapters in this volume, reconstituting the situational and material context becomes generally speaking less problematic as we move from medieval to modern times: information about authors and their audiences, for instance, is more readily available. Moreover, the nature and content of the text itself may also be di¹cult to determine. SkaŸari’s chapter, for example, deals with a medieval religious allegory for which there does not even exist one complete manuscript version in a single
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Introduction
hand. That this often remains unproblematised may be due to the common use of critical editions as the primary source material. It is all too easy to lose sight of the tendency of such editions to create and sustain an illusion of a ªxed text. Editions of texts with complex manuscript traditions are illustrative of this tendency.3 The base-text, with all its editorially introduced emendations, is in danger of being read as both authorial and authoritative, while variant readings from other manuscripts tend to be compressed into footnotes or otherwise marginalised. It becomes nearly impossible to comprehend the extent (and nature) of the variation underlying the seemingly ªxed text because critical editions only tend to record that variation which the editor deems “substantial” (see further e.g. Machan 1994, Nichols 1994). A similar situation arises when working with computer-readable corpora, which often do not reproduce variant readings, or which in some cases, due to copyright restrictions, are based upon older editions instead of more reliable and up-to-date ones. This of course in no way denigrates the awesome potential of computerised corpora (put to use, for example, in Wårvik’s chapter). The caveat against the editorial text applies to any linguistic enquiry into early material, but for the historical discourse linguist it is of particular importance. A selective and decontextualised editorial treatment of variation obscures the fact of the uniqueness of the production and transmission of each individual manuscript. In traditional pragmatic terms, any given manuscript copy may be seen as representing one utterance of the medieval text. For printed materials, each impression can in a similar way be seen as an utterance of the text. It can be argued that much variation evidenced in multiple copies or between impressions will have been motivated by the unique combination of situational factors inherent in their production.
Discourse communities To the extent possible, the historical discourse linguist also considers the context of the text in the light of the discourse community in which it was created. Hyland (1999: 121) has observed that (in today’s context) “writers do not act in a social vacuum and knowledge is not constructed outside particular communities of practice”; this was just as true of early writers as it is of writers today. The functional dimensions of language, and even the reader’s perception of a text in context, are social practices accomplished by members of communities. As noted below, even the identiªcation and naming of genres occur within community. The terms communities of practice and discourse communities, as well as writing communities, are overlapping, as are disciplinary discourses and writing practices. Discourse analysts have tried to avoid circular reasoning by re-assessing the concept, increasingly emphasising communities which can be deªned on external, non-linguistic
Introduction
grounds, for instance as individuals who share a physical working and/or writing space (Swales 1998). Obviously, in historical studies contextual detail of this degree can rarely be achieved. Although Diller (2001: 22) observes that “the notion of discourse community is little used in historical linguistics”, the approach has been prominent in the study of scientiªc writing, both past and present. Recent work on the historical context of scientiªc writing includes for example Atkinson (1999) and Valle (1999), and builds on the works of Bazerman (especially 1988) and others. The approach can be situated within the paradigm of an ethnographic, local, ‘thick’ approach to writing, with a focus on the context of writing rather than on the text as an autonomous, free-standing object of study. The existence of communities with a common set of assumptions and a shared discourse seems intuitively obvious in the present, particularly in domains deªned by cognitive content, such as scientiªc disciplines. In many historical contexts, on the other hand, the concept of the discourse community may remain somewhat controversial, since it is frequently di¹cult to pin down and deªne such communities with precision; we may ask, for example, whether the writers and readers of texts such as Sawles Warde and Ancrene Wisse in fact formed a religious discourse community in the thirteenth-century West Midlands. However, as the chapters below suggest, the concept is helpful even in the medieval context (as shown, for example, in Peikola 2000), and deserves to be investigated further.
Orality and literacy The notions of orality and literacy provide another challenge for the historical discourse linguist, who will have to maintain in focus two almost irreconcilable facts. On the one hand, until quite recently all the extant data were in written form. On the other hand, orality played a dominant role in early communication: written texts were rare, few people could read, and listening was the preferred mode of reception. While it is possible to largely ignore orality and study the extant data simply as written texts, historical discourse linguists recognise that until recently writing was not the default or typical form of most communication. We can try to reconcile this paradox by taking into account both the orality of earlier cultures and the written nature (and hence atypicality) of records of early texts. The written materials of the past provide evidence of the spoken idiom in varying degrees. It is rare to ªnd examples which would give a reliable picture of contemporary colloquial speech. SkaŸari’s chapter analyses Sawles Warde, an allegorical debate featuring half a dozen characters: it is seemingly ªlled with conversa-
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Introduction
tion, but in fact the text — although organised in turns between characters — does not represent genuine conversation as such.4 Some texts give us metalinguistic information about the spoken language. Hiltunen’s chapter follows up this strand of ‘orality’ by looking at metalinguistic comments on communication in a medieval religious setting. The evidence is thus indirect and fragmentary by nature, but still, historical texts constitute our principal means for understanding the transition from an oral into a literate culture. The oppositions both between speech and writing and between orality and literacy are even more complex than the paradox presented at the beginning of this section would suggest. Both oppositions can be shown to lie on continua, so that identifying the distinctions in each case involves a clustering of features rather than a clear dichotomy. Research on present-day language has disproved the existence of any simple distinction between speech and writing (cf. Biber 1988). Some of the complexity of the relationship between orality and literacy is displayed in Wårvik’s discussion of the deªnitions of these concepts and in her presentation of earlier studies. Historical pragmaticians have studied oral and literate features according to diŸerent approaches. As the orality or literacy of early data is rarely objectively deªnable, various text-external and text-internal cues are used as starting points. One feasible approach is to focus on features of interaction in the data, concentrating in particular on dialogic characteristics (e.g. Jucker et al. 1999). Other approaches look for informal or colloquial forms in the texts, or take genres as a starting point and study early material in the light of clusters of features already deªned for and by present-day data. Although the text studied by Carroll (this volume) contains few elements of orality, some instructional texts, in particular recipes, can generally be seen to ªt into a largely oral culture as instances of aides-memoires. What may begin as scribbled notes evolve into complete recipes, which are eventually compiled into a uniªed text following consistent conventions. However, other medieval recipes retain features (such as rhyme) suggesting a more oral approach to memorisation. Similarly, the enumerating strategies of the catalogue, discussed by Peikola (this volume), are likely to echo earlier medieval mnemonic practices. Tanskanen’s chapter, on the other hand, notes the diŸerent ways in which the authors of letterwriting manuals emphasised the spokenness of letters.
Text and discourse Deªning historical discourse linguistics as the application of discourse linguistic methods to historical data is problematic insofar as the deªnitions of text and
Introduction
discourse remain vague. Jaworski and Coupland (1999: 1–3) provide a sampling of divergent and contradictory deªnitions of discourse from various authors, ranging from “language above the sentence” through “language in use [including its] purposes and functions…” and “language use … as a type of social practice” to “ways of speaking that are easy to recognise in particular texts but di¹cult to describe in general terms”. For others again, discourse primarily refers to issues of power and ideology. The terminological morass becomes worse still when the varied distinctions that have been made between discourse and text are considered. Some deªnitions oŸered by researchers into contemporary material are essentially useless for the historical perspective. For instance, the suggestion that texts are written (and composed of sentences) while discourses are spoken (and composed of utterances) (e.g. Coulthard 1985: 6) makes little sense in light of the blurring of orality and literacy for historical texts, discussed above. It is also problematic in that many early English texts, while written rather than spoken, do not show the orthographic sentence divisions found in modern standardised English. According to yet another deªnition, text is a mere record or trace of discourse, that is to say, discourse without its context (cf. Brown and Yule 1983: 26). This is not, however, particularly helpful for our purposes. We assert that the consideration of context brings an important dimension to historical linguistic research, while also noting (as indicated above) that in many cases this is so much more di¹cult for historical texts than for contemporary ones as to be on a completely diŸerent scale. The plethora of valuable research using historical corpus data in itself suggests that text on its own is not worthless or uninteresting. It is a question as much of the choice of theoretical approach as of the choice of (or restrictions caused by) data. For our own research however, we seek deªnitions of text and discourse that make a useful distinction between the two without overly restricting either. We see both as functional and structural wholes. In this volume we thus strive for a dynamic deªnition of text as well as discourse. Text is not reduced to a mere trace of what lies beyond. With context inextricably linked with it, text is our key to understanding the functioning of language in various settings to serve various communicative purposes. Starting from text, we aim at an account of discourse, by which we mean a body of texts connected by their setting and purpose (e.g. religious discourse, scientiªc discourse, epistolary discourse). Discourse is not merely product, but also process.5 Our usage is informed by de Beaugrande, who views text “as a communicative event wherein linguistic, cognitive, and social actions converge, and not just as the sequence of words that were uttered or written” (1997: 10), and discourse as a “set of interconnected texts” (1997: 21).
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Introduction
Genre and text-type As the last point, the notions of genre and text-type deserve comment. As important as the notion of genre is for discourse studies generally and for historical pragmatics in particular, it is lamentable that the deªnition of genre should prove just as varied and contentious as that of discourse. Fortunately, Diller (2001) has presented a balanced survey of the history of the term in diŸerent countries and diŸerent ªelds; thus a brief mention of the potential confusion should be su¹cient here.6 Of particular interest is the extent to which a useful distinction can be made between genre and text-type. Some deªnitions can be seen as almost completely contradictory or mutually exclusive. Either term may be deªned on the one hand according to function and/or context, and on the other, according to formal, linguistic criteria. Some of the confusion is due to the diŸering natures of the inquiries, for example the level of the criteria applied in the analysis: while some researchers look at language at the level of the sentence, others prefer larger units, even complete texts. The general consensus of historical pragmaticians, however, seems to be that genre is a functional category (deªned on text-external and perhaps contextual grounds), while text-types are linguistically (text-internally) determined. Such factors as manuscript context may blur or change the distinction between text-internal and text-external factors. In any case both terms, as is the case with most language use, are structured as fuzzy categories. (For a fuller discussion see Diller 2001). What emerges now is a sense that any distinction between genre and text-type is a theoretical one, useful for teasing out ªne distinctions, but not one which is much applied in practice by language users.7 By some deªnitions it is not a necessary condition that a text-type or genre should even have a name; this again highlights the diŸerence between the behaviour of language users (and their terminological needs) and those of analysts. In fact, the lack of a contemporary generic label can sometimes be used as further evidence of the communicative context (see Peikola’s chapter). The question of distinguishing between genre and text-type is put into some perspective when we remember that these two factors are not the only means of classifying texts. In addition to functional and formal characteristics, texts vary by register and by ªeld. Register is a term used with much more consistency than either genre or text-type, referring to a linguistic variety determined by situation.8 Variation (most obviously, lexical) which is based on subject-matter (or topic, province) may be referred to as ªeld. It is likely or even expected that a single discourse will be characterised by a common repertoire of registers, and may pertain to a common ªeld.
Introduction
It has been noted that knowledge about genres and text-types is part of a speaker’s communicative competence. Historical discourse linguists seek to infer the extent to which a given set of conventions was recognisable and/or imitatable by readers and writers of the period. For example, Tanskanen’s chapter on letterwriting manuals discusses the rhetorical parts of the letter which were recognised by writers of the period. Here we re-iterate the role of the discourse community. The reader has as great a role as the writer in determining the function of a text (and hence its genre), as well as the extent to which it is seen to share linguistic characteristics with prototypical members of a given text-type. This also presents a possible response to concerns about anachronism, oŸering some justiªcation of the application of modern deªnitions and labels to historic texts. There are obvious diŸerences between the representation of genres in the extant historical corpora and their frequency today. There is hardly any journalism available in Old English, and hardly any heroic poetry on the Anglo-Saxon model in Modern English (apart from translations). There are also shifts over time in the matchings of functions and text-internal characteristics. Carroll notes in her chapter that her ªfteenth-century text might as well be called a pattern, using the Modern English word for a text giving instructions for crocheting or knitting, as a recipe, the name for a text of its linguistic and structural characteristics. It remains imperative for the scholar to distinguish the use of modern nomenclature from that contemporary with the text.
Conclusion The temporal range covered by the chapters in the present volume is considerable: while Wårvik studies English texts written over several centuries before 1150, Valle deals with a set of correspondence originating from around 1670. In between, Hiltunen and SkaŸari work with prose from around 1200, Carroll and Peikola investigate texts that come approximately two hundred years later, and Tanskanen’s earliest data come from the latter half of the 16th century. In spite of the vast time span and the heterogeneity of topics, the contributions share many of the important motifs discussed above, such as features of orality, the emergence of genres, and the role of discourse communities. They are all concerned with the contextual aspect of the texts, and the role of the texts in the communicative process from sender to receiver. Together, such considerations, it is hoped, will provide a fresh perspective on the discourses of various communities in medieval and early modern England.
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Notes 1. Mey (1998) does not yet contain any entry on historical pragmatics, nor is the ªeld mentioned in the Subject Index of that book. A few years later, Jucker’s Historical Pragmatics: A bibliography (available on-line at http://www.es.unizh.ch/ahjucker/HistPrag.htm) is already of considerable length. Recent conferences include a workshop on historical pragmatics at the Twelfth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics in Glasgow, and an international conference on historical discourse linguistics in Turku (see Carroll and SkaŸari 2002). 2. Other, especially non-historical, deªnitions of pragmatics may be narrower, considering more immediate context (time of utterance, physical setting) rather than the larger contexts of culture and community. Such deªnitions would not allow the positioning of discourse linguistics as a hyponym of pragmatics. 3. Similar but distinct problems are present in manuscript culture and the printing age. See Valle (this volume) for discussion of the diŸerences between original hand-written letters and the published versions of the same. 4. There are also other kinds of representations of conversation in medieval literature. For example, there are passages in Old English narrative poetry deliberately evoking an ancient spoken genre (‘¶yting’), which is rendered in the form of a dialogue in the text (see Hiltunen 1998, Arnovick 1999). 5. For a discussion of this observation, see Widdowson (1979) and Enkvist (1982). Brown and Yule (1983: 24–25) take this distinction as their starting point. 6. Diller (2001: 32) sees the chapters in that volume as providing “‘windows’ on the sociocultural causes of linguistic change” in the history of English and draws attention to opening new windows on this ªeld. This imagery is shared by the contributors of the present volume as well. 7. Language users are not as a rule conscious of the criteria underlying the various genre labels that they use (something as true of the past as it is for the present). In part this is both a cause and result of the fact that most texts tend to meet the expected criteria, both formal and functional, of the discourse community. 8. Although linguists’ use of register is more consistent than that of discourse or genre, there remain ªne distinctions between diŸerent researchers’ terminologies.
References Arnovick, Leslie K. 1999 Diachronic Pragmatics: Seven Case Studies in English Illocutionary Development [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 68]. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Atkinson, Dwight 1999 Scientiªc Discourse in Sociohistorical Context: The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675–1975. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
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Bazerman, Charles 1988 Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. de Beaugrande, Robert 1997 New Foundations for a Science of Text and Discourse: Cognition, Communication, and the Freedom of Access to Knowledge and Society. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Biber, Douglas 1988 Variation in Speech and Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brinton, Laurel J. 1996 Pragmatic Markers in English: Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 2001 “Historical discourse analysis”. In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, D. SchiŸrin, D. Tannen and H. E. Hamilton (eds), 138–160. Oxford: Blackwell. Brown, Gillian and Yule, George 1983 Discourse Analysis [Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carroll, Ruth and SkaŸari, Janne 2002 “Historical perspectives on text, discourse and pragmatics”. The European English Messenger XI (2): 48–52. Coulthard, Malcolm 1985 An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. Second edition. London and New York: Longman. Diller, Hans-Jürgen 2001 “Genre in linguistics and related discourses”. In Towards a History of English as a History of Genres, H-J. Diller and M. Görlach (eds), 3–43. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Enkvist, Nils Erik 1982 “Report on topic 2: Aspects of text analysis and generation”. In Text Processing: Text Analysis and Generation, Text Typology and Attribution [Proceedings of Nobel Symposium 51]. S. Allén (ed.), 617–635. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Hiltunen, Risto 1998 “Functions of speech in The Battle of Maldon”. Studies in Medieval English Language and Literature 13: 29–43. Hiltunen, Risto, SkaŸari, Janne, Peikola, Matti, Scheinin, Minna, Tanskanen, Sanna-Kaisa, Valle, Ellen and Wårvik, Brita 1999 “Discourse Perspectives on Early English: A project”. In Proceedings from the 7th Nordic Conference on English Studies [Anglicana Turkuensia 20], S-K. Tanskanen and B. Wårvik (eds), 93–104. Turku: University of Turku. Hyland, Ken 1999 “Disciplinary discourses: Writer stance in research articles”. In Writing: Texts, Processes and Practices, C. Candlin and K. Hyland (eds), 99–121. London: Longman.
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Jaworski, Adam and Coupland, Nikolas 1999 “Perspectives on discourse analysis”. In The Discourse Reader, A. Jaworski and N. Coupland (eds), 1–44. London: Routledge. Jucker, Andreas H. (ed.) 1995 Historical Pragmatics: Pragmatic Developments in the History of English [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 35]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Jucker, Andreas H., Fritz, Gerd and Lebsanft, Franz (eds) 1999 Historical Dialogue Analysis [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 66]. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Machan, Tim William 1994 Textual Criticism and Middle English Texts. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia. Mey, Jacob L. (ed.) 1998 Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Amsterdam etc.: Elsevier. Nichols, Stephen G. 1994 “Philology and its discontents”. In The Future of the Middle Ages: Medieval Literature in the 1990s, W. D. Paden (ed.), 113–141. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Peikola, Matti 2000 Congregation of the Elect: Patterns of Self-Fashioning in English Lollard Writings [Anglicana Turkuensia 21]. Turku: University of Turku. Swales, John 1998 Other Floors, Other Voices: A Textology of a Small University Building. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Valle, Ellen 1999 A Collective Intelligence: The Life Sciences in the Royal Society as a Scientiªc Discourse Community, 1665–1965 [Anglicana Turkuensia 17]. Turku: University of Turku. Widdowson, Henry G. 1979 Explorations in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
“When you read or hear this story read” Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts Brita Wårvik
Orality and literacy, whether considered separately or together, will lead investigators into a thicket of tricky problems, and choosing medieval materials for the investigation marks out an area of particularly marshy ground. In spite of the dangers, this study takes a few cautious steps into the orality-literacy thicket in the medieval marshes. The aim of this chapter is threefold. The ªrst sections are devoted to a discussion of the ¶uid concepts of orality and literacy and an overview of relevant perspectives on a more general level. The second aim is to review some suggestions for the linguistic manifestations of orality and literacy, linking them to features associated with speech and writing. These parts should be seen as mapping the area and pointing to some of the occasionally interconnecting paths followed by earlier researchers entering the ªeld from diŸerent directions. The third aim is to study a set of linguistic features that may re¶ect the in¶uence of reception formats in a selection of Old English texts. The background sections cover a longer temporal span and a larger area of the ªeld than is strictly necessary for the empirical focus of the chapter. This is to oŸer a general discussion, which can provide links to the reappearance of orality and literacy in the later chapters of the volume, and to make explicit the scope of the present study, as a project clearing one small area of the entangled branches in the medieval swamplands.
1.
Basic concepts: complexes and continua
The terms orality and literacy, together or alone, are used by students of folklore, education, composition research, history, literary history, history of religion, cultural history, rhetoric, communication, media studies, philology, linguistics, cognitive linguistics, cognitive psychology, and even other ªelds. Needless to say, the terms have slightly diŸerent meanings in the diŸerent ªelds, and to review their
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various uses, even superªcially, would demand more space than can be included in this chapter. Let me thus restrict the discussion to the issues most relevant to the study of medieval texts and start by summarizing the most pertinent features. The concepts of orality and literacy can be approached from various perspectives, which naturally aŸects their deªnitions and ultimately the features identiªed as oral and literate in the materials studied. Many studies of medieval literature pay little or no attention to language as their interests lie in the literary, historical or cultural aspects of orality found in the texts (e.g. Amodio 1994, Green 1994, Gurevich 1984, Parks 1994, Sigurðsson 1997); these studies cannot of course inform us about the linguistic manifestations of orality and literacy, but they can suggest ways of deªning the concepts. The deªnitions of orality and literacy refer to composition, memory, transmission, performance, reception, situation, technology, and mentality. DiŸerent studies make use of these features individually or in diŸerent combinations. Those who view orality and literacy as composition types often refer to the oral tradition as the essence of orality (e.g. Amodio 1994, Barron 1987, Conquergood 1983). The most signiªcant and probably the most widely criticized of these approaches is that based on the oral-formulaic model of Parry and Lord, according to which the deªning feature of oral composition is the formula, “a group of words which is regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to express a given essential idea” (Lord 1960/1964: 30 citing Parry 1930: 80). In an extreme form, the oral-formulaic hypothesis can be stated in the words of Magoun: “Oral poetry, it may be safely said, is composed entirely of formulas, large and small, while lettered poetry is never formulaic, though lettered poets occasionally consciously repeat themselves or quote verbatim from other poets in order to produce a speciªc rhetorical or literary eŸect” (1953: 447). Though the strong version of the oral-formulaic model is obviously unacceptable, a weaker version ªnds support from various quarters. The connection between formulas and orality can be motivated by oral memory techniques, of which we ªnd re¶ections in the extant texts, since they are crucial in composition (Lord 1960/1964; also e.g. Fry 1974), or in both composition and reception (e.g. Bach 1989, Mary Carruthers 1990). Formulas can be seen as a form of repetition, which has turned out to be more common in speech than in writing; this suggests a parallel between speaking as a mode or channel and orality as a more general concept (e.g. Chafe 1985, 1986, Tannen 1982, 1987, 1988; cf. also Edwards and Sienkewicz 1990). The scope of the oral patterns can also be extended from the formulaic phrase to the whole text and thus some approaches focus on oral structures in text (most notably Ong 1982, 1984, 1992). Text structures are also the focus in studies of oral and literate types of information storage (e.g. Havelock 1963, 1991) and of planning text production (e.g. LakoŸ 1982).
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
In studying non-contemporary texts outside their full original context we cannot strictly speaking get hold of composition; the features we investigate in fact characterize transmission. Some researchers emphasize the need to keep composition and transmission apart (e.g. Bäuml 1984), while others acknowledge the diŸerences but let both aspects cooperate to gain maximum information from a deªcient context (e.g. Bradbury 1994, Mary Carruthers 1990). As the study of the transmission of texts deals with questions of the relations between the original text and the version in which it has come down to us, it inevitably merges on the one hand into the study of composition and on the other hand into the study of reception. The third aspect of the life of texts that is used in the deªnition of orality and literacy is reception, or performance (e.g. Betten 1992, Leo Carruthers 1998, Mary Carruthers 1990, Clayton 1985, Joyce Coleman 1990, 1996, 1997, Conquergood 1983, Crosby 1936, 1938, Foley 1991a, Green 1990, 1994). In emphasizing this aspect, some researchers point to the prominence of oral delivery (e.g. Menache 1990) or the role of voice (e.g. Fleischman 1992, Zumthor 1992), while others point to its distinctiveness and identiªability in texts (e.g. Finnegan 1979). The reception aspect of orality is also involved in the equation of writing with dictation and of reading with reading aloud (Fleischman 1990), and in the discussions of situational styles (Biber and Finegan 1992, Traugott and Romaine 1985). In a less discourse-oriented perspective, orality and literacy have been deªned very concretely as technologies and on a more abstract level as mentalities. Researchers who refer to literacy as a technology focus on reading and writing skills (e.g. Janet Coleman 1981, Gneuss 1992), writing systems (Goody and Watt 1968, Havelock 1963) and forms of information storage (Havelock 1991). Though such technological concerns might be considered remote from the question of mentalities, they have quite often been linked, even to the point of suggesting a kind of technological determinism (Finnegan 1988). The most deterministic histories of orality and literacy are probably those outlined by Havelock (1963), Goody and Watt (1968), and Ong (1982, 1984, 1992) for a variety of societies and cultures, including ancient Greece, medieval Europe and diŸerent ‘primitive’ cultures of today. In this vein, Ong states that “writing provides new resources for thought [which] alter the mental processes of the culture in signiªcant ways” (1984: 5; cf. also 1992); Goody and Watt (1968) make a case for writing, or more speciªcally alphabetic script, as a prerequisite for logical and scientiªc thinking; Olson (1991a, 1991b) argues that writing allows for metalinguistic considerations that are not possible in speech and thus promotes objectivity and provides grounds for modern scientiªc epistemology. Arguments against such determinism are presented among others by Stock (1984), who points out that literacy does not trigger objectivity, but rather a new
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attitude in which texts are viewed as objects, dissociated from the speaker. Counterarguments have also been presented to the generality of the development, for instance by Menache (1990), who observes that the much discussed lack of abstractions and adherence to traditional patterns, which are typically seen as consequences of orality, are rather distinctly a Western ‘problem’. Other critics have modeled mentalities and technologies as independent parameters. For instance Joyce Coleman (1996, 1997) suggests that a totally diŸerent terminology should be used: thus the oral mentality should be termed ‘exophoric’, because of its reliance on the immediate context, in contrast to ‘endophoric’ mentality, which is less bound to the context and thus more able to generalize and abstract; oral and literate technologies in her framework purely concern the means of composition, transmission and reception (cf. Raible 1996: conceptual and medial orality and literacy). When the connections are presented in more moderate terms, we can hardly deny all links between orality and literacy and mentality. The idea of what writing is good for has changed in that medieval scribes considered writing as an instrument for preserving knowledge, not creating it as we would now (Troll 1990). Changes have also been observed in the roles that writing and speech have in society (Finnegan 1988; also Ong 1984: 3 on primary and academic orality), the authority attributed to spoken vs. written evidence (Clanchy 1993, Danet and Bogogh 1992, Frame 1990, Keynes 1990), and the use of oral and written sources (Thomas 1989). Though cultural, social and cognitive changes may tally with rising literacy, they need not be its consequences (e.g. Raible 1994), and even the directionality of the in¶uence may be questioned: was printing a prerequisite for the changes that came after its introduction or a consequence of a demand for a more e¹cient means of communication that had arisen in connection with cultural changes before the introduction of printing (cf. Clanchy 1993, Menache 1990). As the attempts to study orality and literacy as opposing forces reveal a mass of complications, many researchers have found it more fruitful to concentrate on these complications and study the interaction of orality and literacy in diŸerent societies at diŸerent times (e.g. GraŸ 1991, Foley 1991b, Green 1994, Havelock 1991, Honko 2000, Lees 1991 and several of those referred to above). Because of the tendency to polarize orality and literacy, it has been necessary to point out the obvious, namely that orality exists in all societies (e.g. Olson and Torrance 1991), but that orality and literacy have diŸerent functions, both (or all) of which are necessary (e.g. Olson 1985), though they may co-exist independently (cf. Thomas 1989 on the oral tradition and written histories in classical Athens) or in some contexts in con¶ict with each other (cf. Edwards and Sienkewicz 1990 on the problems of oral communication strategies of various cultures in educational and
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
other o¹cial settings). Literacy can be viewed as a matter of how the skills of reading and writing are used in a society (McKitterick 1990, Menache 1990) and how they ªt in with oral forms of communication. With an increasing amount of research into various aspects of orality and literacy, it has become obvious that orality and literacy cannot be described in terms of a simple dichotomy irrespective of what features we use in the deªnition. In much of the early work orality and literacy were seen as two opposing forms of existence. The references most frequently cited are Ong (1982), Lord (1960/1964), Havelock (1963) and Goody and Watt (1968). The starting point in this approach is a primary orality, deªned as lack of literacy. When literacy or writing is introduced, it replaces orality, which, however, does not vanish overnight without a trace; instead, there is a period of transition with residual orality. This approach allows for complication, but basically only in terms of diŸerent degrees in an evolutionary transition from orality to literacy. The harshest critics of this ‘Great Divide’ view have noted that the period of transition, which began either in ancient Greece or medieval Europe extends up to the Renaissance, or the eighteenth century or may still continue today (cf. Joyce Coleman 1996). Even the proponents of this view acknowledge the fact that literacy never totally prevails, for instance Ong says that the residue of orality “notably diminishes from the age of Romanticism on, although it never entirely disappears” (1984: 1). Instead of a steady rise of literacy at the expense of orality, studies of Early Modern English and later genres have suggested a rise and fall development, in which orality starts regaining a more important position at the latest after the nineteenth century (Kytö 2000, Culpeper and Kytö 2000, Biber and Finegan 1992, 1997; cf. also 3.3. below). In addition to recognizing complications, the study of orality and literacy needs to acknowledge the idea of continuity; to put it simply, both orality and literacy in their many senses are continuous concepts, which are present/manifest/in¶uential to diŸerent degrees in diŸerent texts/discourses/situations/cultures. This continuity or lack of boundaries is of course the point of the approaches to orality and literacy that do not see a ‘Great Divide’ between the two: rather, we have two complex, continuous, interacting, intermingled phenomena.
2.
Problems of medieval orality and literacy
After this general consideration of the deªnitions of orality and literacy, it is worthwhile to focus on the situation in England in the Middle Ages and look at various studies of their deªning features, the complications that they reveal, and other aspects of orality and literacy relevant to that period.
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2.1 Composition As already noted, the composition phase of medieval texts escapes us, and we can only study its re¶ections in the texts as we have them. Complications arise when the texts present con¶icting evidence or, in fact, evidence of mixed origins. Thus, for instance, certain Middle English romances are characterized by features which suggest mixed oral and written origins (Bradbury 1994). Complications also arise when the evidence is unreliable: oral features may be used as conscious stylistic choices in written texts (Amodio 1994 on ME poetry, Parkes 1973/1991 on Chaucer, Tannen 1988 on PDE ªction etc.). Lerer (1991) notes that the orality of OE poetry may be a literary ªction as the texts are transmitted in writing, and points to scenes in Beowulf of oral performance and of reading (e.g. Hrothgar reading the hilt). However oral formulas originally were, as they became part of literary or poetic conventions, they were no longer exclusively and purely oral, but could be used in texts of any origin (e.g. Schaefer 1991 on Cynewulf and Renoir 1988 on early Germanic verse). Likewise another feature associated with orality, parataxis, could be used as a stylistic device (e.g. Rynell 1952). As a solution to such complications Bäuml (1984) proposes a division into three types of orality: orally composed texts are products of primary orality, but when texts are written down from the oral tradition they represent secondary orality, and ultimately, when oral features are used as stylistic markers in texts, we have tertiary orality. From a methodological perspective, the reference to composition as the deªning feature of orality vs. literacy is best avoided when we deal with medieval materials. The situation is complex also when the data is modern, but then the researcher can, in ideal circumstances, trace the origins of the text (cf. Edwards and Sienkewicz 1990, Honko 2000).
2.2 Transmission The study of the transmission of texts stands by necessity between the study of composition and that of reception. In simple terms, the study of the transmission of texts in the Middle Ages deals with the increasing number of written documents; the investigation of orality and literacy then concerns which texts, used by whom, and in what context appeared in which medium. The features attributed to orally transmitted texts are the same as for orally composed texts and equally problematic. A safer approach is to turn to extratextual information and look for explicit comments about the transmission of particular texts or particular types of texts. The amount of written material available in England from the earliest period onward is considerable, in particular if the comparison is with vernacular material in other countries. Vernacular writing is common in England long before other
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
countries, ie ninth vs. twelfth or thirteenth centuries (Lerer 1991, McKitterick 1990). Religious and administrative contexts are prominent, as shown by the strong traditions of reading in Benedictine monasticism, traditions of written law and written documents produced by civil administration found already in pre-conquest England (Lerer 1991). Studies of particular texts and genres show that orality and literacy were in constant interaction all through the period of rising literacy, which is what one would expect on the basis of the situation outside the strictly western literate cultures of today (cf. Honko 2000). Thus, romances display, in addition to traces of mixed oral and written origins, also evidence of starting in oral tradition before being written down (Barron 1987). We also ªnd cases of recycling between modalities, as for instance when Bede, in the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, recounts Imma’s story as he had heard it (Miller (ed.) 1891: 330) and Ælfric, in his sermons, relates it as he had read it in Bede (Godden (ed.) 1979: 204) (Lerer 1991). In some cases there is evidence that the recycling involves changes in the content, as when peasants’ visions of the late twelfth and early thirteenth century were polished by the clergy to meet accepted beliefs, but it is di¹cult to pinpoint how this aŸected their language (Gurevich 1984; cf. also Hiltunen, this volume, on the explication of an oral code in writing). Kytö’s study of early seventeenth-century American English materials suggests that those who wrote down spoken discourse preserved some features of the original form (Kytö 2000, also Culpeper and Kytö 2000). Thus, in moving from the spoken to the written medium, texts preserved some traces of their origins. But what happens in the reverse situation: do texts which could be expected to be spoken or read aloud carry signs of the intended target mode? That question takes us to the issue of reception.
2.3 Reception Irrespective of their composition and transmission, all the extant medieval materials are in the written form and we can rarely if ever be fully certain of their origins or histories. These written texts, more or less as we have them now, may have been intended and even actually used for aural reception, i.e. to be spoken or read aloud. Problems arise from the fact that it is unlikely that valuable materials were used for anything but the essentials; thus, for instance, only the exempla survive of narrative sermons and any interaction with the audience was typically not recorded (Regan 1983). The options in reception formats ranged from the modern type of silent and private reading to oneself, through reading aloud to oneself and reading aloud privately to one or a few others, to reading aloud in public to audiences of any size. Though the default meaning of legere in the Middle Ages was ‘read aloud’ (Fleischman 1990), these options were not always
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mutually exclusive. Investigations into this aspect of the life of texts have produced many interesting insights. Extensive studies of reception formats are few, as most studies concentrate on limited periods or particular authors (e.g. Janet Coleman 1981 on 1350–1400 and Joyce Coleman 1990 on Caxton). Two works deal with more extensive periods: Green (1994) on listening and reading in German literature between 800 and 1300 and Joyce Coleman (1996) on aurality, or reading aloud, in English and French texts of the fourteenth and ªfteenth centuries. In his study of an impressive number of early German texts of diŸerent genres, Green examines the intended or actual reception format of the texts and identiªes three groups: texts for reading aloud, texts for silent reading and texts for the intermediate mode, as Green calls those meant for either listening or silent reading. Reading aloud to an audience of listeners is an option all through the period and in all genres. Silent reading is only an option from the thirteenth century onward; in his materials there is only one reference to silent reading before 1300 (1994: 309). Texts for the intermediate mode are signiªcant in all genres after readers appear as an alternative audience. Here the chronology varies from genre to genre. Monastic literature appears early, as it combines the tradition of collective listening with devotional reading; in court literature, the expected audience changed from listeners only to listeners as well readers around 1200 (1994: 299–303). Green’s overall conclusion is that the intermediate mode is the most important one for German vernacular texts. Joyce Coleman (1996) likewise emphasizes the intermediate mode, or aurality, but her focus is rather on one aspect of this reception format, namely, prelecting, or the reading aloud of written texts. She notes the combination of the alternatives of hearing and reading both in references to sources and in reception guidelines, though there is some variation between genres. In the early ªfteenth century, private reading starts to gain ground, but this did not necessarily imply silent reading; for instance, Malory clearly writes for listeners. Many studies concentrate on a period within about two centuries before and two after the introduction of printing, but there are also some observations about earlier times. Studies of Old English religious texts point to the strong presence of oral reception. Thus Old English homilies have been shown to adhere to a rhetoric of oral delivery (Lees 1991). It has been argued that for monastic texts orality is so strongly present in the context that they are described as “pre-texts for the spoken word” (Conquergood 1983: 131); for example, the Rule of St Benedict required texts to be read aloud to monks during meals. In Middle English and later texts there are clear indications of oral reception formats in combination with literate ones. The presence in Chaucer’s works of features characteristic of oral delivery was pointed out as early as 1938 by Crosby.
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
Later research has reªned this observation by noting, for instance, that Chaucer uses hear and read diŸerently in diŸerent texts (e.g. Sir Topas vs. Melibee) (Lerer 1994). Moreover, Chaucer has been shown to be no exception, as the most common reception phrases in metatext in court-oriented Ricardian literature combine reading and hearing (Joyce Coleman 1996). These options were not tied to the possession of reading skills, as there are references to aural reception by elite audiences, who could be expected to be able to read (Joyce Coleman 1996, 1997) and occasionally did, as we can see in the appearance of the solitary reader in the late fourteenth century (e.g. private letters, private devotion) (Janet Coleman 1981). But solitary readers reading in private did not necessarily read silently, which (re)introduces orality into this private type of literacy (cf. Menache 1990, Ong 1984, Scholz 1984; Johnson 1989 on translations; Kittay 1988 on glosses as evidence for reading aloud, Leclercq 1993 on sermons). Even after the introduction of printing, hearers constituted a considerable proportion of the target recipients. Thus reception guidelines in Caxton’s works refer to readers in 60 % and hearers in 40 % of the cases, though the proportions vary slightly from text to text (Joyce Coleman 1990). And reading aloud continues to be a valid option. In the seventeenth century, printed pamphlets were read aloud (Bach 1989). The closeness to spoken language noted in the guidelines of the early letter-writing manuals studied by Tanskanen (this volume) may, apart from being part of the conventions, also re¶ect a valid option for the actual transmission of letters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Letters and the oral reception format were central in the formation of modern scientiªc discourse, as shown by Valle in her studies of texts associated with the Royal Society (this volume and references therein). Even today people listen to authors read from their own works or to someone else read the works in audio-books or in audio ªles on the internet. We can get an idea of how alive aural reception and oral communication types are when we consider how wrong Hendrickson was when he wrote about oral and literate ways of communicating in 1929: “Almost within the memory of men now living the printed page has brought about the decline, if not the death, of oratory, whether of the parliament, the bar, or the pulpit; the newspaper and the review, anticipating every subject of comment, have killed conversation and debate; the learned archive or scientiªc journal renders the gatherings of scholars insigniªcant for purposes other than convivial; and books have in large degree displaced the living voice of the teacher” (1929: 183). Reasons for the persistent popularity of reading aloud in a society with increasing literacy skills are suggested by Green (1994): on the one hand, silent reading can be exclusive as not everybody has equal access to the materials (reading skills, and availability of materials, on account of their cost), and on the other hand, listening provides a context which is favourable to social as well as pedagogical purposes (1994: 202); his remarks apply to medieval
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Germany, but they are not totally irrelevant to the present day (cf. also Clanchy 1993, McKitterick 1990). In the light of a varied history of reception, the only certain fact seems to be that something has changed. There are no comprehensive and accepted lists of features correlating with reception formats. It has even been suggested that what is at issue may not be a distinction between oral and literate features of style, but between audience styles, lower styles being characterized by more oral features (Mary Carruthers 1990). However, despite the great variety and the complications involved, reception formats provide an entry into the study of oral and literate features in medieval texts, and we can take reception guidelines and extra-textual notes about the reception of the texts as our starting-point. Before doing so, let me attempt to connect the historical study of orality and literacy to the synchronic study of speech and writing.
3.
Linguistic features of orality and speech vs. literacy and writing
Researchers studying ancient and medieval orality and researchers studying the spoken language of today rarely seem to interact. Those who do notice a remarkable coincidence in the suggested features of ancient and medieval orality and those of modern spoken language. This coincidence has been proªtably employed in historical and diachronic studies of speech-based and speech-related genres. The most salient of these common features relate to the structure of discourse, the use of repetition, the degree of context-boundedness, and expressions of interaction and involvement; the contrasting characteristics are presented in Table 1. Table 1. Characteristics of speech and writing, and of orality and literacy. speech
orality
writing
literacy
simple constructions, fragmented
additive
complex contructions, integrated
subordinative
parallelism, repetition, disfluencies, repairs
aggregative, formulaic, redundant or copious
less parallelism, no repetition (planned)
analytic linear
contextboundedness
context-bound, situationdependent
close to the human life world, situational
abstract, context-free, elaborated reference
generalizing, abstract
involvement
involved with ego, hearer, topic
agonistically toned, empathetic, participatory
detached, informational
objectively distanced
structuring
repetition
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The ªrst two groups include features of the structure of text. For both groups of features, the diŸerences between speech and writing and between orality and literacy can be derived from the diŸerences in the typical conditions for processing language in those channels and modes. The typically unplanned, on-line production and reception of spoken language in¶uences the structures used at several levels in the same way as the non-permanence of oral discourse is re¶ected in its structures; they contrast with the longer planning time for writing and the higher permanence attached to literacy. The third and fourth groups of features include those arising from diŸerences in the contexts of use. Spoken language is typically used in situations where the interlocutors are present, while writing allows for communication across spatial and temporal boundaries. Contextual eŸects are found in the diŸerences in the degrees of context-boundedness and involvement associated with speech vs. writing and orality vs. literacy.
3.1 Structuring The characteristics of structuring have traditionally been very prominent in the discussions of the diŸerences both between speech and writing and between orality and literacy. These features include the complexity of constructions and the types of connections and units typical of the texts. Under this heading, speech tends to be described as having simpler sentence structures, including less subordination, than writing, and likewise, orality is associated with additive rather than subordinative structures (e.g. Kroll 1977, Ong 1982). The term that is often found in descriptions of speech and orality is parataxis, which is paired with hypotaxis in descriptions of writing and literacy (e.g. Rynell 1952, Ong 1982). Including taxis as one feature, Chafe (1982, 1985) describes spoken discourse as fragmented and written discourse as integrated. In addition to paratactic, or additive, structures, the fragmentation of speech is manifested by short units, which may even be incomplete; in contrast, the greater integration of written discourse is shown by a higher frequency of subordinate clauses, especially complement and relative clauses, and also by longer units, such as pairs or sequences of phrases, and by a variety of markers of more complex text structure. Though the association of certain structural features with speech or writing may appear rather straightforward, there are problems, not least because the features themselves are far from simple. Clause combination in historical and present-day data has turned out to present challenging questions for research. Studies of presentday language have shown, on the one hand, that diŸerent types of subordination and coordination are more common in diŸerent types of spoken and written materials (e.g. Beaman 1984, Biber 1988, Greenbaum and Nelson 1995) and, on the other
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hand, that the frequencies of subordinate clauses are not only dependent on the channel, but also on text type, level of formality and planning time (Thompson 1984, Tomlin 1985). Some of these variables can be taken into account in studies of earlier materials, which, however, have problems of their own. Merely deªning the subordinating vs. coordinating function of certain elements may be di¹cult: the early texts naturally contain various conjunctions, but some of them may not fall neatly into the syntactic categories (e.g. Jucker 1991 on the development of for towards parataxis from being originally intermediate between parataxis and hypotaxis; Mitchell 1985: 2444Ÿ, 2536Ÿ on ambiguous adverbial/conjunctions in OE; Wilbur 1988 on conjunctions in early Germanic texts). In addition to the problems that face the researcher of present-day materials trying to deªne the role of subordination and coordination in diŸerent types of materials, the student of earlier data needs to take into account the diŸerences in the discourse and stylistic roles of clause combination types in diŸerent periods of the history of the language. Coupled with the association of paratactic combination with oral composition is an association of parataxis with simpler, more primitive style and earlier texts, an equation which is problematic because the features are subject to conscious choice and can be manipulated for stylistic purposes (cf. Rynell 1952; cf. above in 2.1 on composition). The second group of features involves structuring below the level of the text, touching on information ¶ow and on the combination of units smaller than clauses and sentences. Thus, we ªnd similar characteristics in the repetition of elements (words and phrases) in speech (e.g. Tannen 1987) and the formulas of orality (e.g. Lord 1960/1964). Ong’s framework for orality and literacy takes up the use of repetition in his characterization of oral discourse as aggregative rather than analytic (traditional epithets, formulas), and as redundant or ‘copious’ rather than organized along a line of continuity (repetition, ampliªcation) (Ong 1982, 1984). In terms of their role in the information ¶ow of discourse, repetition and parallelism can be grouped together with repairs and other kinds of dis¶uencies, as ways of slowing down the ¶ow and giving more time for the interlocutors to process the discourse on-line. All of these can thus be seen as more common in speech and oral discourse due to the requirements set by the context. However, repetition and parallelism in particular need not be governed only by contextual demands, as they can be consciously used for various purposes. Like most, if not all of the features in the table, repetition and parallelism can be used for stylistic eŸect, to create an impression of spoken or oral discourse, and they can also be employed for literary purposes (cf. Renoir 1988 and Schaefer 1991 on formulas in early texts; e.g. Fabb 1997, Jakobson 1960 on parallelism in literary texts). According to Tannen, part of the motivation for using repetition is its function of creating
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
involvement. Thus, repetition creates involvement in conversation through the use of the same words, which may be another speaker’s, for agreement, emphasis and humour, among other things (Tannen 1987; cf. Ca¹ and Janney 1994). Tannen argues that the high degree of involvement displayed by literary discourse is partly created through the use of features of spoken interaction, one of which is repetition. This coincidence tallies nicely with the important role attributed to formulas in oral poetry (Parry 1930, Lord 1960/1964, Ong 1982; cf. above). If we consider formulas as one kind of repetition and view them from the perspective of Tannen’s framework, their use in oral literature is natural and expected.
3.2 Contextuality The third group of features has to do with the rather concrete dependence of oral discourse on the context in the choice of lexical items and even the content of the text. DiŸerences in context-boundedness can be seen ªrst of all in the use deictic elements, which, in Biber’s terms, rely on situation-dependent reference in speech/oral discourse and elaborated-explicit reference in writing/literate discourse; on Biber’s factor 3, situation-dependent reference subsumes time and place adverbials and adverbs, while elaborated-explicit reference clusters together features of noun phrase complexity, such as nominalizations and relative clauses (Biber 1988). Certain characteristics in Ong’s framework can also be seen as re¶ections of context-boundedness, namely the characterization of orality as situational (prelogical) and close to the human lifeworld, in contrast to literacy, which is characterized as generalizing and abstract (Ong 1982; cf. also Olson 1991a, 1991b). The fourth and ªnal group of features subsumes involvement with the context in diŸerent senses. On the one hand, speech and orality display a higher degree of involvement with the interlocutors, which is re¶ected in the more frequent use of interactive features, such as discourse markers, direct addresses, private verbs and ªrst and second person pronouns (Biber 1988 (factor 1), Chafe 1982, 1985 and Östman 1982). Writing and literacy, in contrast, imply a distance between the interlocutors, allowing for detachment, which is re¶ected in the lower frequencies (or absence) of the features of involvement with the interlocutors. On the other hand, involvement in spoken and oral discourse can be with the subject matter or topic of the text, which is re¶ected in the more common occurrence of colloquial items and emotional expressions, including swear words and praise (Chafe 1985, Crosby 1936, Ong 1982). Writing and literacy, by contrast, favour detachment from the subject matter, making the discourse more informational and objectively distanced, hence an atypical context for the features of involvement (Biber 1988 (factor 1), Chafe 1985, Ong 1982). What we ªnd instead are more nouns, preposi-
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tions and attributive adjectives, and longer words; we also ªnd a higher proportion of diŸerent words (measured in terms of the type/token ratio), which tallies with the lower incidence of repetition in writing and literacy. Like the structural features, the contextual features, too, can be manipulated for various purposes. Tannen’s (1987) observation about the use of repetition in literary discourse applies to all features of involvement. Through the use of highinvolvement features typical of spoken/oral discourse, a literary text can create the same kind of involvement despite the detachment natural to the written mode in which it usually appears.
3.3 In-between spoken/oral and written/literate There is by now a considerable body of research that has been devoted to discourse that cannot be fully attributed to only a single channel or mode. In this vein, students of present-day language have investigated academic speaking (Chafe 1986), computer-mediated communication (e.g. Tanskanen 2000, Yates 1996), advertising (e.g. McCarthy 1993) and ªction (Tannen 1988), while students of earlier stages of language have focussed on stories with roots in the oral tradition (e.g. Enkvist 1986, Evans 1986, Finnegan 1979), and various speech-based and speech-related genres, ranging from prose ªction to trial proceedings (Culpeper and Kytö 2000, Salmon 1975, Taavitsainen 1995, 1999). What they have found is that, obviously, the discourse of these in-between genres displays this in-between status on the surface as well and that the diŸerent genres combine the linguistic features of the channels and modes in interesting ways. Studying academic speaking, Chafe (1986) ªnds that that type of planned, scripted speaking combines the spoken channel with a longer planning time more typical of writing and with the formality of an academic register. This genre corresponds to speech in the use of short units, colloquial hedges, and repetition, but is more in line with writing in its use of vocabulary, occasional long units and certain complex syntactic constructions. Features of typical speech that rarely or never occur in academic speaking are colloquial vocabulary, expressive involvement and dis¶uencies. Characterizing academic speaking in terms of the features in Table 1, we ªnd it tending towards speech only in terms of the structural features, but not those dealing with contextuality. Computer-mediated communication is a fairly recent and constantly developing register; thus many of its genres have only just started to be investigated (Herring (ed.) 1996). Comparing the language of computer conferencing with speech and writing, Yates (1996) ªnds that it shares certain features with both, but distinguishes itself in a more frequent employment of ªrst and second person pronouns and modals (other than epistemic modals). This in-between genre con-
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
trasts with academic speaking in adopting features of the spoken channel which re¶ect context-boundedness and involvement. Discourses belonging more ªrmly to the written channel can nevertheless display characteristics of speech. Features of speech can be consciously used for stylistic eŸect in ªction, as already noted, and in advertising. McCarthy (1993) points out the use of discourse markers to create an illusion of interaction in these two types of discourse. Tannen (1988), in the study referred to previously, observes the use of repetition and various particularizing methods to create involvement in ªction and other written narratives. These spoken features in written texts represent both the structural and contextual groups in Table 1. Research on earlier material has, on the one hand, searched for traces of oral tradition in early literature, particularly poetry and narrative (cf. references in Sections 1, 2.1. and 2.2. on composition and transmission). Apart from the recurrence of formulas, these studies have noted the use of repetitive structures in general (Finnegan 1979), the occurrence of markers of text structure, especially particles (Enkvist 1986 on þa), and a looser episodic structure (Evans 1986) in narrative texts closer to orality. On the other hand, studies of early materials have focussed on speech-based and speech-related texts with the aim of determining how close they are to real spoken language. Danet and Bogogh, in their study of Anglo-Saxon wills (1992), characterize them as documents of oral acts that had already taken place and point to several features of oral discourse in these texts. They note, among other features, the high frequency of ªrst-person pronouns in bequething formulas, highly context-dependent references (dates, for instance, were rarely speciªed) and expressions of involvement (such as subjective judgements). Studying Chaucer’s representation of speech, Salmon (1975) ªnds in the ªctional dialogues many features that are found in genuine conversations. The dialogues imitate spoken characteristics due to the channel, such as hesitations, characteristics related to the interactive situation, such as greetings, and expressions of involvement more typical of speech, such as oaths. Kytö (2000) and Culpeper and Kytö (2000) study the occurrence of features of speech in real and ªctional representations of speech in Early Modern English. In their study of features of spoken interaction in a corpus of dialogues consisting of witness depositions, trial proceedings, prose ªction and comedies from 1600–1720, Culpeper and Kytö ªnd that the diŸerent genres give priority to diŸerent features of spoken language. Thus dramatic comedy comes closest to speech in displaying high frequencies in the occurrences of ªve of the six diagnostic features: repetitions, ªrst and second person pronouns, private verbs and demonstratives. The sixth feature, question marks, is most common in trial proceedings, which also score highest for private verbs and are high up on the scales for the other features. This genre is very
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close to drama in its approximation to speech, showing traces of the original online production. The studies of Kytö and Culpeper agree with those of Biber and Finegan (Biber and Finegan 1992, 1997) in showing a shift in certain genres toward more oral styles since the seventeenth century. These researchers have found an increasing preference for involved, situation-dependent and non-abstract style in speech-based and popular genres (e.g. ªction, literary dialogue). As pre-seventeenth-century materials have not been studied for the co-occurrence patterns of large numbers of features, we have no directly comparable evidence from the earlier period. What we have are studies of smaller numbers of features pointing to a strong presence of orality and historical research showing an increasing presence of literate forms of communication. However, these two developments have not been combined in a single picture through the use of comparable sets of features and the same methodology. The evidence that we now have suggests that the relationship between orality and literacy forms an up-and-down curve, with the turning-point between the introduction of printing and, for most genres, at the latest the nineteenth century.
4.
Methodological problems: Identiªcation and measurement
4.1 Choosing the data Each of the groups of features in Table 1 involves problems of deªnition, delimitation and operationalization. Equally serious problems face us when we wish to ªnd early materials and classify them as oral or literate. A very practical way of starting is to make use of explicit signals of reception formats. It has been noted that addresses to the audience and other clues to discovering the actual or potential reception format of the text are common in ancient, medieval and modern literature (e.g. Janet Coleman 1981, Joyce Coleman 1996, Green 1994). However, the main interest of these studies is in the reception formats themselves, not in their linguistic consequences. In the present study, clues to reception formats found in the texts are used as a basis in selecting materials for an investigation of linguistic features. Though explicit indications of receptions formats can take a variety of forms, I have here chosen to focus on references to how the text was used or was intended to be used by its producer(s) and/or receiver(s). More speciªcally, I have searched the texts for expressions relating to how the receiver either hears, reads or hears someone else read the text and how the producer(s) either writes or ‘speaks’ the text, or allows for both options. Examples (1) and (2) illustrate such cues in texts for oral or literate reception and examples (3) and (4) in texts for (primarily) literate reception.1
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
(1) þæs æsces fæder wæs se Hengest, se ðe wæs ærest latteow and heretoga Ongolcynnes in Breotone, swa we ær beforan sægdon. (cobede/bedehe: 110) ‘The father of this Æ was the H, who was the ªrst leader and general of the English in Britain, as we have said before.’ (2) Hwæt we nu gehyrdon þis halige godspel beforan us rædan (coblick/blick2: 16) ‘What! we now hear the holy gospel before us read’ (3) Her endað ge wea ge wela Apollonius þæs tiriscan, ræde se þe wille (coapollo/apoll: 42) ‘Here end both the woe and the weal of Apollonius the Tyrian, read he who will’ (4) Fela þinga we magon writan þe on ðam ilcan geare gewordene wæron. (cochroe4/chrone2: 221) ‘Many things we may write that in the same year were done’ A practical problem in the use of such metatextual cues is the fact that even in Old English some of them are likely to have become ªxed expressions and thus do not provide reliable indications of reception formats. References to reading must in most cases be taken to include both reading aloud to an audience (including the reader him/herself) and silent reading, in which case the text is classiªed as for both the oral and the literate reception formats. Only when all other clues in the text support literate reception and there are no references to oral reception (hearers) can a text be classiªed as literate. Thus the reference to reading in example (3), together with other text internal clues to reception format, place Apollonius of Tyre in the literate group. Expressions about saying are likewise ambiguous, though most cases occur together with deictic elements that are compatible with the oral reception format, as in example (1) from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. ‘Mixed’ formulas, like as I said above, do not present a problem as they do for contemporary texts. The materials for this study are selected from the Old English section of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (Kytö 1993). To avoid the complications arising from special poetic uses of language, verse samples have not been included in this study. Of the 55 prose samples, 27 include metatextual cues about reception formats: the samples are described in Table 2. As studies of orality and literacy, as well as those of spoken and written language, have suggested that genres and text types may be highly relevant to the occurrence of the linguistic features, this study takes into account the genre of the texts; the assignment of the texts to genres follows the classiªcation into text types in the Helsinki Corpus.2
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Table 2. The selection of texts from the Helsinki Corpus used in the present study. genre
filename/ period
biography
coaelive / 3 cochad / 4 comarga /4
document
reception format literate oral/ literate 7126 2533 4251
genre total 13910
codocu1 / 1 codocu2 / 2 codocu4 / 4
1977 2394 2264
6635
fiction
coapollo / 3
6589
6589
handbook
colaece / 2
9799
history
cobede / 2 cochroe4 / 4
homily
law colaw3 / 3
16393
coaelhom / 3 coblick / 3 cowulf3 / 3 cowulf4 / 4 colaw2 / 2
treatise
rules
coaepref / 3 coaepreg / 3 cocura / 2 coaelet3 / 3 coadrian / 4 coaelet4 / 4
26106 5064 10078 6680 3259
7663 6433
colaw4 / 4 preface
9799 9713
25081
16350 2254 2198
709
2907
16558 10154 1164 13327
41203
cobenrul / 3 coinspol / 4
10230 4930
15160
science
cobyrhtf / 3
4077
4077
travelogue
coalex / 3
6858
6858
103896
174675
Total
70779
The filenames are from the Helsinki Corpus (for descriptions see Kytö 1993). The figures refer to the numbers of words in the relevant categories. The periods of Old English in the Corpus are as follows: 1: – 850 2: 850–950 3: 950–1050 4: 1050–1150
When the samples are classiªed according to reception format and genre, the numbers of samples in each group can be very small. The actual numbers of texts are in many cases higher, since the text ªles sometimes consist of samples from diŸerent
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
texts, and in some cases, texts assigned to diŸerent authors. As the parameter of comparison in this study is the genre and not the individually authored text, the small size of the groups does not present a serious obstacle. In a more extensive study, the individual texts would naturally need to be considered separately and as complete texts. There are very few genres that allow for comparison between the reception formats: only the genres of law, preface, history and religious treatise have materials in both formats, while documents, ªction and handbooks appear only in the literate format, and rule, homily, science, travelogue and biography only in the oral/literate format. It should, however, be noted that in the classiªcation into genres I have strictly followed the categorization of the Helsinki Corpus, which is designed for more diachronic comparisons. In an analysis of a larger sample a modiªcation of the categorizations might have been purposeful, but for the present study it could have been regarded as manipulating the data.
4.2 Operationalizing the features Research on the features of speech/orality vs. writing/literacy varies in scope and complexity. The most advanced example of linguistic research into clusters of features is Biber’s (1988 etc.) study of PDE texts: his sample consisted of 481 texts, which were examined for the cooccurence patterns of 67 features. Research on earlier materials has been more restricted in quantity. Biber’s and Finegan’s research on early English has made use of a smaller, though still impressive, number of features; for instance Biber and Finegan 1992 is based on 42 features (in a sample of 163 texts). Kytö’s (2000) study concerns 27 features in 31 texts. Biber, Finegan and Kytö employ the concept of dimensions, developed in Biber (1988), which allows for evaluations of co-occurrence patterns and comparisons of larger amounts of data. This study, however, will not make use of that methodology, and is even further limited in its scope: only six features have been considered in 27 texts. Apart from their number, the linguistic features give rise to other questions. We can start by asking ourselves to what extent we can make use of the results of studies of contemporary texts in investigating earlier materials; has the spoken/oral vs. written/literate character of the features remained constant over time? Most researchers assume that by and large it has (especially Biber and his co-authors). The features chosen for the present study are ones suggested and recognized as indicating speech/orality vs. writing/literacy in research on earlier texts and texts in languages other than English. However, various decisions that had to be made in operationalizing these features deserve comment. The features under consideration in this study represent the diŸerent groups presented in Table 1. The diŸerences between speech/orality and writing/literacy in
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terms of structuring are studied through types of clause combination, that is, taxis. In Biber’s and Finegan’s studies subordination is divided into diŸerent types, but it is more often taken as one criterion; for instance, Kytö (2000) does not distinguish between diŸerent types of subordinate clauses. Measuring subordination with corpus programs, researchers have generally counted subordinators, which allows the use of a large corpus. In the present study taxis is evaluated by counting the proportions of paratactic and hypotactic links in samples of about one hundred clauses per text. As the samples consist of full sentences, the number of clauses varies from 90 to 107, but the ªnal proportions have been normalized to occurrences per one hundred clauses. The motivation for counting links rather than subordinating conjunctions was to include all subordinate structures, not only those headed by conjunctions. In the tables this feature appears as the proportion of paratactic links, so as to adhere to the same oral bias as the other features. The second group, repetition, subsumes a variety of features, ranging from ‘errors’ of production to purposeful repetition. For present-day language, and also all of Modern English, the type/token ratio provides one tool of measurement. It is included in Biber’s dimension 1 as a feature of the informational style (Biber 1988, et passim). Old English materials, however, present a serious problem for this measument because of the great variation in spelling. Thus, the approach to repetition adopted in the present study focusses on repeated phrases, some of which may be considered formulaic. However, as the rate of repetition has been counted rather mechanically, the results cannot as such be used as evidence for or against the formulaicity of oral discourse. In order to obtain repeated phrases from the sample of texts I started from a frequency list produced by the WordList tool in the WordSmith program and limited the selection to content words with frequencies above 500 (for WordSmith see Scott 1998). For each of these words, I created a concordance with the Concord tool and then used the option in the program that searches for clusters, that is words occurring together; the minimum length of the clusters was set to two words and the minimum number of occurrences was deªned as ten. From the clusters obtained in this way, the most frequently co-occurring pairs and groups of words that constituted a phrase or a unit of some kind were selected and used as a basis for searching for recurrent phrases in the texts. It should be noted that such phrases do not have a ªxed and idiomatic status and thus they appear in slightly varying forms in the texts. For instance se ælmihtiga god ‘the almighty god’, god almihtig ‘god almighty’, on godes ælmihtiges naman ‘in the name of god almighty’ and þæs ælmihtigan godes sunu ‘the almighty god’s name’ all contain the co-occurring words god and ælmihtig; likewise the co-occurrence of ansdwarian and cweðan identify ða andswarede ic and cwæð ‘then I answered and said’, he andswarude him and cwæð ‘he answered him and said’, þa andwyrdon þa þenas and cwædon ‘then answered the
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
servants and said’ and hire andwyrde se hælend and cwæð ‘to her answered the saviour and said’ as repeated phrases. The last two groups are close to each other in their linguistic manifestations. The features of context-boundedness are here evaluated through pronouns, more speciªcally ªrst and second person pronouns, which refer to the interlocutors. They also represent the fourth group of features, involvement; in fact, in Biber’s framework, these pronouns appear among the features of involvement in dimension 1. In addition to ªrst and second person pronouns, the last group is represented by private verbs and discourse particles. The verbs were counted on the basis of lists obtained from A Thesaurus of Old English, which presents words classiªed in semantic ªelds (Roberts et al. 2000). As some of the verbs were very infrequent, the lists were limited to eighteen private verbs. The list of discourse markers was even more restricted: only hwæt ‘what!’, la ‘lo’, nu ‘now’ and eala ‘oh’ were counted; what is probably the most frequent discourse marker, þa ‘then’, was not included because of the vast number of homonyms. Though the number of features studied here is small, the features are ones that are fairly uncontroversially considered to be associated with orality and speech. Such a limitation to ‘prototypical’ features is necessary in the ªrst stages of investigating the linguistic manifestations of orality vs. literacy in Old English, which is linguistically too diŸerent from Modern English for the features relevant to the latter to be directly applicable.
5.
Orality and literacy in Old English: A study of six linguistic features
In a pilot study I compared a small number of Old and Middle English texts representing diŸerent text types (narrative, expository and argumentative) to check whether two particular features of orality/spokenness (taxis and pragmatic markers) were more typical of texts explicitly intended for oral delivery than texts which were probably meant for private reading (Wårvik 1994). This study expands the scope slightly to a larger sample of texts and a greater number of features: six linguistic features in 27 samples of Old English (Table 2). The frequencies are compared primarily between texts that contain explicit indications of being intended or used for literate reception and texts that have explicit signals of potential use in either the literate or oral reception format and secondarily between texts representing diŸerent genres. Table 3 presents the overall frequencies of the six features in samples consisting of diŸerent genres grouped according to their potential reception formats. Note that the ªgure for parataxis represents the percentage of paratactic links, counted on the basis of one hundred clauses per sample, whereas the other features show the
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Table 3. Frequencies of six linguistic features in a sample of Old English according to reception format. reception format literate oral/literate parataxis* repetition** 1st person pronouns** 2nd person pronouns** private verbs** discourse markers**
52,0 0,85 12,48 7,08 4,54 1,48
53,1 1,91 26,26 10,75 5,92 3,69
total 52,7 1,48 20,66 9,26 5,36 2,79
* percentage of paratactic clausal links counted from ca 100 clauses per sample ** frequency per 1000 words
frequency of the items per 1000 words (see Section 4.2. for a description of the features). Comparing the averages for each feature in the literate and the oral group, we ªnd the expected tendencies conªrmed: the samples potentially intended for oral format have on average more paratactic links, repeated phrases, ªrst and second person pronouns, private verbs and discourse markers than the texts aimed for literate reception. The diŸerences between the groups vary, however. The ªgures are very close for taxis and private verbs, while repetition, ªrst person pronouns and discourse markers show greater diŸerences and second person pronouns a slight diŸerence between the frequencies for the oral and literate groups. All these features of course need to be investigated in more detail and in larger samples, but even on these grounds it appears obvious that factors other than reception format play important roles especially in the behaviour of taxis and private verbs. The only other factor considered in this study is genre; the interaction of reception format, genre, individual style, historical changes and other factors remains for future research to investigate. When we consider the average frequencies in texts for the diŸerent reception formats together with the genres of the texts, some interesting tendencies emerge. The ªgures are presented in Tables 4–9. First, all of the features display great variation between the genres within the groups; naturally the variation is even greater between the individual samples. The ranges for pronouns and discourse markers are equally great for both groups, but for taxis and private verbs the proportions have a wider range in the literate group, while the range for repeated phrases is wider in the oral group. Secondly, when we consider the ªgures for the four genres represented in both the oral and the literate groups, it turns out that discourse markers are the only feature that consistently has higher ªgures for the oral group and lower for the
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
Table 4. Proportions of paratactic clausal links according to reception format and genre (based on ca. 100 clauses per text). reception format literate oral/literate
total
history law preface religious treatise document fiction handbook biography homily rule science travelogue
68,4 37,9 52,2 39,8 46,8 63,5 80,4 -
60,4 59,6 40,2 51,3 61,9 48,0 48,0 56,9 58,0
64,7 44,9 45,8 48,4 46,8 63,5 80,4 61,9 48,0 48,0 56,9 58,0
total
52,0
53,1
52,7
Table 5. Frequencies of repeated phrases according to reception format and genre (N/1000 words). reception format literate oral/literate
total
history law preface religious treatise document fiction handbook biography homily rule science travelogue
0,30 0,78 1,41 2,11 0,46 0,46 0 -
0,31 0 4,09 0,89 3,38 3,44 1,58 0,25 0,15
0,31 0,67 3,44 1,38 0,46 0,46 0 3,38 3,44 1,58 0,25 0,15
total
0,85
1,91
1,48
literate group. First person pronouns follow the general tendency for history, law and religious treatise, but the other features do neither conªrm nor contradict the general tendency. This, together with the varying diŸerences in the averages noted earlier, suggests that the frequency of discourse markers may be a more reliable indicator of reception formats than the frequencies of the other features, which may be more strongly associated with other parameters. Obviously, a greater variety of
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Table 6. Frequencies of first person pronouns according to reception format and genre (N / 1000 words). reception format literate oral/literate history law preface religious treatise document fiction handbook biography homily rule science travelogue
1,53 7,73 43,73 17,88 28,79 34,45 0,20
total
12,48
14,62 9,76 27,75 20,73
total
27,25 29,94 17,08 18,64 76,84
6,40 8,01 31,65 19,59 28,79 34,45 0,20 27,25 29,94 17,08 18,64 76,84
26,26
20,66
Table 7. Frequencies of second person pronouns according to reception format and genre (N / 1000 words). reception format literate oral/literate history law preface religious treatise document fiction handbook biography homily rule science travelogue
0,18 5,25 7,05 5,68 1,51 37,33 7,04
total
7,08
4,43 0,00 5,91 13,47
total
22,79 8,37 7,39 6,13 9,48
1,76 4,53 6,19 10,34 1,51 37,33 7,04 22,79 8,37 7,39 6,13 9,48
10,75
9,26
discourse markers as well as more potentially relevant features would need to be studied in a larger sample of data before we can test any signiªcances. Thirdly, some of the features seem to group genres together according to text type and other criteria across the parameter of reception format. Thus we ªnd texttypological groupings along the parameter of taxis (Table 4). The genres of history, ªction and biography all have high proportions of paratactic links; all of them are predominantly narrative. In this class of narratives we could also include travelogue
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
Table 8. Frequencies of private verbs according to reception format and genre (N / 1000 words). reception format literate oral/literate history law preface religious treatise document fiction handbook biography homily rule science travelogue total
total
2,20 3,41 1,41 11,54 1,51 5,01 0,20 -
1,96 3,99 5,46 4,26 4,82 10,17 7,19 2,45 4,23
2,11 3,49 4,47 7,18 1,51 5,01 0,20 4,82 10,17 7,19 2,45 4,23
4,54
5,92
5,36
Table 9. Frequencies of discourse markers according to reception format and genre (N / 1000 words). reception format literate oral/literate
total
history law preface religious treatise document fiction handbook biography homily rule science travelogue
0,24 0,28 4,23 2,78 0,90 5,62 0,51 -
1,44 0,89 4,55 3,69 4,74 5,90 1,06 3,38 1,46
0,69 0,37 4,47 3,33 0,90 5,62 0,51 4,74 5,90 1,06 3,38 1,46
total
1,48
3,69
2,79
with a proportion just above the average. The preference of narratives for paratactic links tallies with the ªndings of my pilot study (Wårvik 1994). Genres with average proportions just below 50 form two groupings of non-narrative genres. On the one hand, we can classify together the genres of religious instruction, homily, rule and religious treatise. On the other hand, the genres of law and document are texttypogically close, whether we identify the type as secular instruction or exposition. The distribution of other features reveals other clusters of genres. In relation to
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pronouns (Tables 6 and 7), we ªnd that both ªrst and second person pronouns are frequent in the narrative genres of ªction and biography, which are likely to express involvement with and between the personae in the text (cf. Tannen 1987, 1988 referred to earlier in 3.1.-3.3.). They contrast with history and law, which have low frequencies for both pronoun types, and are likely to be less involved either with interlocutors or textual personae. In the distribution of private verbs (Table 8), the higher frequencies mark oŸ the group of religious genres: religious treatises, homilies and rules, which favour involvement with the subject matter in the form of expressions of beliefs and feelings. These are followed by ªction and biography, which are narrative genres where involvement of this kind can also be expected. The consistently lowest frequencies appear in the genres of history, document, handbook and science, where we would even today expect objectivity and lack of involvement. Fourthly, the genres for which there is data for both reception formats do not follow the general tendencies for all features. Instead, in some cases the features associated with reception formats are in fact characteristics of the genre or even a text type and thus cannot be claimed to mark reception formats for the particular genre. Thus, history appears to contradict the general tendencies in the ªgures for taxis and private verbs, but when we look at the ªgures more closely, we ªnd that history shows quite consistently low ªgures for all features, except for taxis, which displays high proportions for both samples. This pattern characterizes history as a literate genre, which favours the paratactic structure of narratives. Example (5) illustrates the typical paratactically linked strings of clauses and distanced thirdperson narrative of this genre in a representative excerpt from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a text classiªed in the literate group. (5) Her on ðissum geare wæs Bæbbanburh tobrocon. and mycel herehuðe þær genumen, and æfter þam com to Humbranmuðe se here. and þær mycel yfel gewrohtan ægðer ge on Lindesige ge on Norðhymbran. þa gegaderode man swiðe mycele fyrde. and þa hi togædere gan sceoldan. þa onstealdon þa heretogan ærest þone ¶eam. þæt wæs Fræna. and Godwine. and Friðegist. On þysum ilcan geare het se cyng ablendan Ælfgar Ælfrices sunu ealdormannes. (cochroe4/chrone: 127) ‘This year was B destroyed, and much booty was there taken. After that came the army to the mouth of the H. and there they did much evil both in L and in N. Then was gathered a very great army. and when they should engage in battle, then the generals ªrst commenced a ¶ight. that was, F and G and F. In this same year the king ordered Æ, son of alderman Æ, to be blinded.’
Issues of orality and literacy in Old English texts
The law samples have even more consistently low ªgures, characterizing legal discourse as a literate genre. Within the boundaries of these low proportions, the distinctions between the samples for the diŸerent reception formats follow the general tendencies for taxis, ªrst person pronouns, private verbs and discourse markers, but, with the exception of taxis, the distinctions are rather small. Example (6) from a legal text of the oral/literate group illustrates the more paratactic structure of this type, where we can nevertheless ªnd the conditional clauses characteristic of the legal genre, which are even more prominent in the legal texts of the literate group. (6) Him gebyriað V æceres to habbanne; mare, gyf hit on lande ðeaw sy; and to lytel hit bið, beo hit a læsse; forðan his weorc sceal beon oftræde. Sylle his heorðpænig on halgan Ðunresdæg, ealswa ælcan frigean men gebyreð, and werige his hlafordes inland, gif him man beode, æt sæwearde and æt cyniges deorhege and æt swilcan ðingan, swilc his mæð sy, and sylle his cyricsceat to Martinus mæssan. (colaw4/lawlat: 446) ‘It beªts him to have 5 acres; more, if it is the custom of the land; and if it is smaller, be it ever less; therefore his work shall always be ready. Let him pay his hearth-penny on Holy Thursday, just as it beªts each free man, and let him defend his lord’s own holdings, if he is ordered, as coast-warden, and at the king’s deer-fence and as to such things, such as is his duty, and let him pay his church-due at Martinmas.’ Prefaces present another pattern. The diŸerences between the groups follow the general tendencies in the frequencies of repeated phrases, private verbs and discourse markers, but compared with the overall averages, the ªgures reveal an interesting pattern for the genre. Thus, we ªnd that prefaces appear closer to the literate end of the continuum in terms of the structural properties of the text (taxis), involvement with the addressee (second person pronouns) and subject matter (private verbs), but they are more oral in terms of speaker/writer involvement (ªrst person pronouns, discourse markers) and structural properties below the level of the text (repetition). This pattern, illustrated by example (7) from the oral/literate group, places the preface as genre midway between the oral and the literate ends of the continuum, which is in line with expectations. (7) Þa bearn me on mode ic truwige ðurh godes gife. þæt ic ðas boc of ledenum gereorde to engliscre spræce awende. na þurh gebylde micelre lare. ac for ðan ðe ic geseah and gehyrde mycel gedwyld on manegum engliscum bocum. Ðe ungelærede menn ðurh heora bilewitnysse to micclum wisdome tealdon. and me ofhreow þæt hi ne cuðon ne næfdon ða godspellican lare on heora gewritum. buton ðam mannum anum ðe þæt leden cuðon. and buton
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þam bocum ðe ælfred cyning snoterlice awende of ledene on englisc. Ða synd to hæbbenne; (coaepref/prchom1: 2) ‘Then it occurred to my mind, I trust through God’s grace, that I would translate this book from the Latin language into the English speech; not for any conªdence of great learning, but because I have seen and heard of much error in many English books, which unlearned men, through their innocence, have taken for great wisdom: and I regretted that they neither knew nor had the evangelical doctrines among their writings, except for those men only who knew Latin, and except for those books which king Æ wisely translated from Latin into English, which are to be had.’ Religious treatises also place themselves between the oral and the literate. With respect to the averages for each of the features, we ªnd a rather variable picture. The features of structuring, taxis and repetition, on average place the genre on the literate side; the ªgures for taxis follow the general tendency, but the frequencies of repeated phrases contrast with it in being exceptionally high for the literate group and exceptionally low for the oral group. The involvement features, in contrast, have frequencies closer to the oral end. Both pronouns follow the general tendency, suggesting a stronger involvement with the interlocutors, even though ªrst person pronouns remain rather neutral in having averages fairly close to each other, while second person pronouns show a greater diŸerence between the groups. Private verbs, expressing involvement with the subject matter, display a contrasting tendency, but the overall average places the genre closer to the oral end of the continuum. As signals of more general involvement and interaction, discourse markers, likewise, characterize the genre as oral, as the averages for this feature are above the total averages. In sum, religious treatises appear to be more literate in terms of the features of structuring and more oral in terms of the features of involvement. The samples representing the reception formats do not follow a consistent pattern: example (8), representing the literate group, qualiªes as literate in its frequencies of paratactic links and second person pronouns, but the frequency of repeated phrases and private verbs mark it as rather oral, while the ªgures for ªrst person pronouns and discourse markers are close to the general average. (8) Ne bið ðæt na soð eaðmodnes, gif mon ongiett ðæt ðæt Godes willa sie ðæt he ofer oðre beon scyle, ðæt he ðonne wiðsace, ac beo underðieded Godes willan and his dome, and forlæte ða uncyste ðære anwielnesse. ðonne he oferstæled bið, and him gereaht bið ðæt he oðrum mæg nytt bion on ðam ðe him mon ðonne bebeodeð, mid his mode he hit sceal ¶eon and ðeah for hiersumnesse he hit sceal underfon. (cocoura/cp: 47) ‘It is not true humility, if one thinks that that is God’s will that he shall be above others, that he then refuse it, but that he submit to God’s will and his
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decree, and abandon the vice of obstinacy. When he has been convinced and it is shown to him that he may be useful in the post that one then oŸers him, in his spirit he shall ¶ee from it, and yet out of obedience he shall accept it.’ The genres that are represented by samples showing evidence of only one reception format similarly display varying patterns, with one or more features following genre-speciªc patterns. Among the literate samples, documents and handbooks appear consistently literate, except for one feature in each case. Documents display high speaker/writer involvement in the high frequency of ªrst person pronouns, which is an obvious characteristic of the genre (example 9) (cf. wills studied by Danet and Bogogh 1992, referred to in 3.3. above). Handbooks show a strong preference for parataxis, which is a not unexpected characteristic of the structure of an instructive text (example 10). Fiction, however, appears to be consistently more oral, which could be expected on the basis of research on these features in contemporary ªction (example 11) (cf. Tannen 1988; 3.1–3 above). (9) Aec ic bebeode minum aefterfylgendum ðe ðaet lond hîebben aet Burnan ðaet hiae simle ymb XII monað foran to ðære tide gegeorwien ten hund hlafa and swae feola su¶a and ðîet mon gedele to aelmessan aet ðere tide fore mine sawle and Oswlfes and Beornðryðe aet Cristes cirican and him se reogolweord on byrg gebeode foran to hwonne sio tid sie. (codocu1/ harm1: 2) ‘Moreover I ask my successors who have the land at B that every twelve months before that time they prepare ten hundred loaves and as much relish and that one gives alms at that time for my soul and O’s and B’s at Christ’s church and the guardian of the city collect them beforehand when the time is.’ (10) Wiþ eagna miste genim grenne ªnul, gedo on wæter XXX nihta on ænne croccan þone þe sie gepicod utan, gefylle þonne mid ren wætere. æfter þon aweorpe of þone ªnul and mid þy wætere ælce dæge þweah þa eagan and ontyne. (colaece/laeceb :26) ‘Against dimness of eyesight take green fennel, put in water for thirty nights in a pot that is pitched on the outside, ªll then with rain water. After that throw away the fennel and with the water each day wash the eyes and open (them)’ (11) Mid ði þe se cyngc ne mihte ªndan hwilc heora forliden wære, he beseah to Apollonio and cwæð: Nim ðu, Apolloni, þis gewrit and ræd hit. Eaðe mæg gewurðan þæt þu wite þæt ic nat, ðu ðe þar andweard wære. ða nam Apollonius þæt gewrit and rædde and sona swa he ongeat þæt he gelufod
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wæs fram ðam mædene, his andwlita eal areodode. (coapollo/apoll: 32) ‘As the king could not decide which of them had been shipwrecked, he looked at A and said: Take you, A, this letter and read it. It may easily be that you know what I don’t know, you who were there present. Then A took that letter and read (it) and as soon as he understood that he was loved by that young woman, his face all blushed.’ The samples with cues of oral reception format are less consistent in their adherence to the oral or literate patterns. Biography comes closest to being a typically oral genre with regularly high frequencies for oral features; the only exception is the ªgure for private verbs which falls close to the literate average, a ªnding which tallies with the average or low ªgures for other narrative genres. (12) Georius þa befran þone feondlican casere, hwæðer is to luªgenne, oððe hwam lac to oŸrigenne, ðam Hælende Criste ealra woruldra alysend oþþe Apolline ealra deo¶a ealdre? Hwæt ða Datianus mid deofollicum graman het ðone halgan wer on hencgene ahæbban, and mid isenum clawum clifrian his lima, and ontendan blysan æt bam his sidum. (coaelive/ aelives14: 310) ‘G then asked the ªendlike emperor, which is to be loved, or to whom is sacriªce to be oŸered, to Jesus Christ, the redeemer of all worlds, or to Apollo the chief of all devils? What! then D. with devilish anger commanded the holy man to be hung up on a gibbet, and with iron claws to tear his limbs, and to kindle torches on both his sides.’ The genre of homily comes out as a mirror image of history: while history on average follows literate patterns in all features, except taxis, homily follows oral patterns in all but the proportion of paratactic and hypotactic links. The frequencies of the features in this genre can be seen as a combination of the generic tendencies of religious instruction and narrative, while they may, at the same time, re¶ect its intended reception format. (13) Nu we sceolan, men þa leofestan, ða wundor gecyrran on soþfæstnesse geleafan ures Drihtnes Hælendes Cristes, þa he þurh his þa mycclan miht worhte beforan manna eagum. We nestan ær hwæt se blinda wæs; nu we magon þonne ongytan hwæt þæt geryne tacnaþ. (coblick/blick2: 17) ‘Now we shall, dearest men, interpret those marvels by the truth of the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, which he through his great power worked before people’s eyes. We didn’t know before who the blind man was; now we may therefore understand what the mystery signiªes.’
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Rules show frequencies closer to the literate for all features except private verbs, which characterizes it as a literate genre with a preference for high involvement with the subject matter. Rules share this feature with religious treatises, with which they can be grouped together as religious instruction. (14) Nu we wyllað gecyðan hu man sceal mid þam concurrentium and þæra monða rihtingum ªndan hwylce dæge þa monðas gan on tun. Eala wurðfulla wer, gyf þu wylt witan æniges monðes gescead, hwylce dæge he cume to mannum, þonne nim þu þæs monðæs rihtinga and þa concurrentes þe þy geare yrnað, þæra fare we herbufan ætywdon. (cobenrul/benedoe: 54) ‘Now we want to show how one shall with the concurrents and the order of the months ªnd out on which day the months appear to men. Oh worthy man, if you want to understand any month, which day it begins, then you take the order of the month and the concurrents that ªt that year, whose course we have shown here above.’ The genre of science, likewise, displays more literate tendencies, except for the structuring feature of taxis and the involvement feature of discourse markers. As the sample consists of only one text, Byrhtferth’s Manual, these oral tendencies can be seen as a re¶ection of its position between instructive and expository discourse. (15) Witodlice on þisre endebyrdnysse geondscrið se circul his ryne: gyme þu, cleric, gif þu wille. ðeah ðe ealle dagas ælce geare habbon heora concurrentes, synderlice se dæg þe byð on ix kl Aprl getacnað hu fela beoð on geare. On hwylcum dæge man ræt ix kl Apr, swa fela beoð concurrentes. Swylce ic þus cweðe: gif man ræt þæne datarum on Sunnandæg, þænne byð an; gif on Sæterndæg þonne beoð seofon. (cobyrhtf/byrhtf: 46) ‘Truly, in this order the cycle passes through its course: note this, clerk, if you please. Though all the days each year have their concurrents, especially the day that is on the 24th March shows how many there are in the year. (Depending) on which day one reads the 24th March, so many are the concurrents. For example, I say thus: if one reads the date on a Sunday, then it is one; if on a Saturday, then it is seven.’ Travelogue comes out as an in-between genre, as it displays frequencies more typical of oral discourse for taxis and pronouns, while the average frequency falls well below the averages of the literate samples for repetition and stays close to the literate average for private verbs and discourse markers. The peculiarities may well be characteristic of this one text, Alexander’s letter to Aristotle, which combines the letter form with an account of the events of journeys in what would today count as ªction.
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(16) Wið þissum wyrmum we fuhton leng þonne ane tide þære nihte, and hie þa wyrmas acwealdon xxxtig monna þære fyrde, and minra agenra þegna xx. ða bæd ic þa fyrde hwæþre þæt hie hæfdon god ellen þara þinga þe us on becwomon swa monigra geswencnissa and earfeðo. (coalex/:alex 21) ‘Against these serpents we fought longer than the ªrst hour of the night and the serpents killed thirty men of the army and of my own retainers twenty. Then I asked the army whether they had good courage against the things that happened to us, against so many troubles and hardships.’
6.
Towards a conclusion
The purpose of this chapter has been threefold. First, the aim has been to discuss problems in the study of orality and literacy: deªnitions, characteristic features, methodological issues, connections with other parameters. The second aim has been to examine the suggestions for linguistic features typically associated with orality or literacy, and with speech and writing, and to point out parallelisms between them. Thirdly, the aim has been to try out some of the points on a selection of data: do the features typically associated with orality and speech or literacy and writing really signal reception format or are other factors at work. The complexity of the concepts of orality and literacy has become obvious in the wealth of research devoted to them, and their intricate relations have been emphasized both in the discussion and the study part of this chapter. The approaches that have been and can be taken to ªnd regularities in their linguistic descriptions vary from multidimensional multi-factor analyses to simple proportions, such as those used in the present study. Employing information in the texts themselves and, whenever available, textexternal information about reception formats, we can classify our data into groups according to their potential or actual reception format. Texts classiªed in this way give us a starting-point for studying whether features that have been claimed to characterize oral vs. literate discourse are in fact associated with the oral/literate parameter rather than belonging to the characteristics of other parameters, most notably genre and text type. In this study, the reception formats of the texts are deªned solely on the basis of text-internal information and the only other parameter considered is genre. The overall average frequencies of paratactic links, repetition, ªrst and second person pronouns, private verbs and discourse markers in the selected texts support the traditional association of higher frequencies of these features in texts intended for the oral reception format, but the strength of the association varies. Among these six features, discourse markers stand out as a potential candidate for
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a sign of orality (cf. their symbiotic relationship with spoken language noted by Östman 1982). The other features appear to be more closely associated with certain text types and genres than reception formats. Rather unsurprisingly, we ªnd a grouping consisting of narrative genres. All of them are characterised by high frequencies of paratactic links, suggesting a preference for oral structures.3 The features of involvement seem to distinguish subjective stories (biography and ªction) with high frequencies for pronouns and private verbs, from objective reports (history) with low frequencies of these features. The other genres form less salient groupings, as the six features follow rather individual patterns in them. Even if the general averages for these features support the hypothesis, more data would need to be studied to conªrm their association with reception format, rather than other parameters, most notably genre. At this stage the results of the study can only point to the obvious interaction of orality and literacy in the early formation of genres. It appears that some of the features of orality that are still characteristic of certain genres have their origin in the oral roots of the genre. Studies tracing the later development of the genres can show whether these oral features change their shape or disappear as the genre gets more literate (cf. Valle this volume and elsewhere on scientiªc writing). Likewise, more studies of diŸerent genres are necessary to suggest ways of distinguishing genuinely oral uses of the features from cases of conscious stylistic choices. Only by considering larger samples representing diŸerent genres and diŸerent reception formats can we identify the in¶uence of reception format from among generic characteristics and results of other choices. This study has been a small step on the way towards that goal.
Notes 1. Source references are to ªles and texts in the Helsinki Corpus and to the page numbers in the editions. The translations are, whenever available, adapted from the editions; otherwise they are mine. 2. The Helsinki Corpus uses the term text type in the sense more commonly expressed by genre; in this volume we follow general usage in referring to categories deªned by textexternal criteria as genres and keeping text type for the categories deªned by text-internal criteria, which the Helsinki Corpus terms prototypical text categories (cf. Diller 2001, Werlich 1976). The latter categorization in the Corpus is based on the overall function of the text as well as on its content. In the sample used for the present study, this would result in rather large groups of texts; 65 % of the materials fall into instructive texts and 30 % into narrative texts, leaving an unclassiªed residue of 4 %, consisting of documents. Because the Helsinki
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Corpus categorization would need modiªcations for the present investigation, the speciªc roles of text types are left for future studies to explore. 3. The status of certain features of orality is further complicated by the predominance of narratives among the early materials studied for the diŸerences between orality and literacy, most notably oral poetry (cf. Lord 1960/1964 and other studies referred to in 1 above). The text-typological links need further investigation.
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Conquergood, Dwight 1983 “Literacy and oral performance in Anglo-Saxon England: Con¶ict and con¶uence of traditions”. In Performance of Literature in Historical Perspectives, D. W. Thompson (ed.), 107–145. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Crosby, Ruth 1936 “Oral delivery in the Middle Ages”. Speculum 11: 88–110. 1938 “Chaucer and the custom of oral delivery”. Speculum 13: 413–432. Culpeper, Jonathan and Kytö, Merja 2000 “Data in historical pragmatics: Spoken interaction (re)cast as writing”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 1: 175–199. Danet, Brenda and Bogogh, Bryna 1992 “From oral ceremony to written document: the transitional language of Anglo-Saxon wills”. Language and Communication 2: 95–122. Diller, Hans-Jürgen 2001 “Genre in linguistic and related discourses”. In Towards a History of English as a History of Genres, H.-J. Diller and M. Görlach (eds), 3–43. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Edwards, Viv and Sienkewicz, Thomas J. 1990 Oral Cultures Past and Present: Rappin’ and Homer. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Enkvist, Nils Erik 1986 “More about the textual functions of Old English adverbial þa”. In Linguistics across Historical and Geographical Boundaries: In Honour of Jacek Fisiak on the Occasion of his Fiftieth Birthday. Vol. 1: Linguistic Theory and Historical Linguistics [Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 32], D. Kastovsky and A. Szwedek (eds), 301–309. Berlin etc.: Mouton de Gruyter. Evans, Jonathan D. 1986 “Episodes in analysis of medieval narrative”. Style 20: 126–141. Fabb, Nigel 1997 Linguistics and Literature. Language in the Verbal Arts of the World. Oxford: Blackwell. Finnegan, Ruth 1979 Oral Poetry. Its Nature, Signiªcance and Social Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Originally published in 1977. 1988 Literacy and Orality: Studies in the Technology of Communication. Oxford: Blackwell. Fleischman, Suzanne 1990 “Philology, linguistics, and the discourse of the medieval text”. Speculum 65: 19–37. 1992 “Discourse and diachrony: The rise and fall of Old French SI”. In Internal and External Factors in Syntactic Change [Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs 61], M.Gerritsen and D. Stein (eds), 433–473. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
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Foley, John Miles 1991a “Texts that speak to readers who hear: Old English poetry and the languages of oral tradition”. In Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies, A. Frantzen (ed.), 141–156. Albany NY: State University of New York Press. 1991b “Orality, textuality, and interpretation”. In Vox Intexta. Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages, A. N. Doane and C. B. Pasternak (eds), 34–45. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Frame, Robin 1990 The Political Development of the British Isles 1100–1400. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fry, Donald K. 1974 “Caedmon as a formulaic poet”. Forum 10: 227–247. Gneuss, Helmut 1992 “Bücher und Leser in England im zehnten Jahrhundert”. In Medialität und mittelalterliche insulare Litteratur [ScriptOralia 43], H. L. C. Tristram (ed.), 104–130. Tübingen: Narr. Godden, Malcolm (ed.) 1979 Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies. The Second Series Text. [Early English Text Society, S. S. 5]. London: Oxford University Press. Goody, Jack and Watt, Ian 1968 “The consequences of literacy”. In Literacy in Traditional Societies, J. Goody (ed.), 27–69. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. GraŸ, Harvey J. 1991 “Review of Literacy and Popular Culture: England 1750–1914 by David Vincent”. Journal of Social History 24: 858, 3p. Available online (accessed 26 June 2000): http://search.epnet.com. Green, Dennis H. 1990 “Orality and reading: The state of research in medieval studies”. Speculum 65: 267–280. 1994 Medieval Listening and Reading: The Primary Reception of German Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Greenbaum, Sidney and Nelson, Gerald 1995 “Clause relationships in spoken and written English”. Functions of Language 2: 1–21. Gurevich, Aaron J. 1984 “Oral and written culture of the Middle Ages: Two “peasant visions” of the late twelfth — early thirteenth centuries”. New Literary History 16: 51–66. Havelock, Eric 1963 A Preface to Plato. Oxford: Blackwell. 1991 “The oral-literate equation: A formula for the modern mind”. In Literacy and Orality, D. R. Olson and N. Torrance (eds), 11–27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Hendrickson, G. L. 1929 “Ancient reading”. The Classical Journal 25: 182–196. Herring, Susan (ed.) 1996 Computer-Mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social and Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Honko, Lauri 2000 “Text as process and practice: the textualization of oral epics”. In Textualization of Oral Epics [Trends in Linguistics, Studies and Monographs 128], L. Honko (ed.), 3–54. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Jakobson, Roman 1960 “Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics”. In Style in Language, T. A. Sebeok (ed.), 350–77. Cambridge, Mass.: M. I. T. Press Paperbacks. Johnson, Ian 1989 “Prologue and practice: Middle English Lives of Christ”. In The Medieval Translator. The Theory and Practice of Translation in the Middle Ages, R. Ellis (ed.), 69–85. Woodbridge, SuŸolk and Wolfeboro, NH: D. S. Brewer/ Boydell and Brewer. Jucker, Andreas H. 1991 “Between hypotaxis and parataxis: Clauses of reason in Ancrene Wisse”. In Historical English Syntax [Topics in English Linguistics 2], D. Kastovsky (ed.), 203–220. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Keynes, Simon 1990 “Royal government and the written word in late Anglo-Saxon England”. In The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, R. McKitterick (ed.), 226–257. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kittay, JeŸrey 1988 “Utterance unmoored: The changing interpretation of the act of writing in the European Middle Ages.” Language in Society 17: 209–230. Kroll, Barbara 1977 “Combining ideas in written and spoken English: A look at subordination and coordination.” In Discourse across Time and Space [Southern California Occasional Papers in Linguistics 5], E. O. Keenan and T. L. Bennett (eds), 69–108. Los Angeles, CA: Department of Linguistics of University of Southern California. Kytö, Merja 1993 Manual to the Diachronic Part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts. Coding Conventions and Lists of Source Texts. 2nd ed. Helsinki: Department of English, University of Helsinki. 3rd edition also available online: http:// khnt.hit.uib.no/icame/manuals/HC/INDEX.HTM. 2000 “Robert Keyne’s Notebooks: A verbatim record of spoken English in early Boston?”. In Textual Parameters in Older Languages [CILT 195], S. C. Herring, P. van Reenen and L. Schøsler (eds), 271–308. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
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LakoŸ, Robin 1982 “Some of my favorite writers are literate: The mingling of oral and literate strategies in written communication”. In Spoken and Written Language. Exploring Orality and Literacy [Advances in Discourse Processes 9], D. Tannen (ed.), 239–260. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Leclercq, Jean 1993 The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture. 3rd rpt ed. New York: Fordham University Press. Original L’amour des lettres et le désir de dieu translated by Catharine Misrahi. Lees, Clare A. 1991 “Working with patristic sources: Language and context in Old English homilies”. In Speaking Two Languages: Traditional Disciplines and Contemporary Theory in Medieval Studies, A. Frantzen (ed.), 157–180. Albany NY: State University of New York Press. Lerer, Seth 1991 Literacy and Power in Anglo-Saxon Literature. Lincoln, Neb. and London: University of Nebraska Press. 1994 “‘Now holde youre mouth’: The romance of orality in the Thopas-Melibee section of the Canterbury Tales”. In Oral Poetics in Middle English Poetry, M. C. Amodio (ed.), 181–205. New York and London: Garland. Lord, Albert. B. 1960/1964 The Singer of Tales. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Magoun, Francis B. Jr. 1953 “Oral-Formulaic character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry”. Speculum 28: 446–467. McCarthy, Michael 1993 “Spoken discourse markers in written text”. In Techniques of Description: Spoken and Written Discourse, J. M. Sinclair, M. Hoey and G. Fox (eds), 170–182. London: Routledge. McKitterick, Rosamond 1990 “Introduction”. In The Uses of Literacy in Early Medieval Europe, R. McKitterick (ed.), 1–10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Menache, Sophia 1990 The Vox Dei. Communication in the Middle Ages. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, Thomas (ed.). 1891 The Old English Version of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History Of the English People. Part I,2 [Early English Text Society, O. S. 96]. London: N. Trübner and co. Mitchell, Bruce 1985 Old English Syntax. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Olson, David R. 1985 “Introduction”. In Literacy, Language and Learning: The Nature and Consequences of Reading and Writing, D. R. Olson, N. Torrance and A. Hildyard (eds), 1–15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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1991a “Literacy as metalinguistic activity”. In Literacy and Orality, D. R. Olson and N. Torrance (eds), 251–270. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1991b “Literacy and objectivity: The rise of modern science”. In Literacy and Orality, D. R. Olson and N. Torrance (eds), 149–164. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olson, David R. and Torrance, Nancy 1991 “Introduction”. In Literacy and Orality, D. R. Olson and N. Torrance (eds), 1–7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ong, Walter J. 1982 Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London and New York: Methuen. 1984 “Orality, literacy, and medieval textualization”. New Literary History 16: 1– 12. 1992 “Writing is a technology that restructures thought”. In The Linguistics of Literacy [Typological Studies in Language 21], P. Downing, S. D. Lima and M. Noonan (eds), 293–319. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Östman, Jan-Ola 1982 “The symbiotic relationship between pragmatic particles and impromptu speech”. In Impromptu Speech: A Symposium, N-E. Enkvist (ed.), 147–177. Turku: Åbo Akademi. Parkes, Malcolm B. 1991 “The literacy of the laity”. In Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts, M. B. Parkes, 273–297. London: Hambledon Press. Originally published in Daiches, D. and A. K. Thorlby (eds). Literature and Western Civilization: The medieval world. London: Aldus Books, 1973. Parks, Ward 1994 “Oral tradition and the Canterbury Tales”. In Oral Poetics in Middle English Poetry, M. C. Amodio (ed.), 149–179. New York and London: Garland. Parry, Milman 1930 “Studies in the Epic Technique of Oral Verse-Making, I: Homer and Homeric Style”. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 41: 73–147. [cited in Magoun 1953 and Lord 1960/1964] Raible, Wolfgang 1994 “Literacy and language change”. In Writing vs Speaking. Language, Text, Discourse, Communication [Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik 392], S. Cmejrková, F. Daneš and E. Havlová (eds), 111–125. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. 1996 “Orality and literacy: On their medial and conceptual aspects”. In Orality, Literacy and Modern Media, D. Scheunemann (ed.), 17–26. Columbia, SC: Camden house. Regan, Catherine A. 1983 “Liturgy and preaching as oral context for medieval English literature”. In Performance of Literature in Historical Perspectives, Thompson (ed.), 147–
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175. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Renoir, Alain 1988 “Oral-formulaic tradition and the aŸective interpretation of early Germanic verse”. In Germania: Comparative Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures, D. G. Calder and T. G. Christy (eds), 113–126. Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer. Roberts, Jane and Kay, Christian with Grundy, Lynne 2000 A Thesaurus of Old English. 2nd impression. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. Rynell, Alarik 1952 “Parataxis and hypotaxis as a criterion of syntax and style especially in Old English poetry.” Lunds Universitets Årskrift N. F. Avd. 1 Bd 48. Nr 3. Salmon, Vivian 1975 “The representation of colloquial speech in The Canterbury Tales”. In Style and Text: Studies presented to Nils Erik Enkvist, H. Ringbom (ed.), 263–277. Stockholm: Språkförlaget Skriptor. Schaefer, Ursula 1991 “Hearing from books: The rise of ªctionality in Old English poetry”. In Vox Intexta. Orality and Textuality in the Middle Ages, A. N. Doane and C. B. Pasternack (eds), 117–136. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Scholz, Manfred Günter 1984 “On presentation and reception guidelines in the German strophic epic of the late Middle Ages”. New Literary History 16: 137–151. Scott, Mike 1998 WordSmith. Available online (accessed 25 June, 2003): http://www. lexically.net/wordsmith/index.html and http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0–19– 459286–3. Sigurðsson, Gísli 1997 “Methodologies for the study of the oral in medieval Iceland”. In Medieval Insular Literature between the Oral and the Written, Vol. 2: Continuity of Transmission [ScriptOralia 97], H. L. C. Tristram (ed.), 178–192. Tübingen: Narr. Stock, Brian 1984 “Medieval literacy, linguistic theory, and social organization”. New Literary History 16: 13–29. Taavitsainen, Irma 1995 “Interjections in Early Modern English: From imitation of spoken to conventions of written language.” In Historical Pragmatics: Pragmatic Developments in the History of English [Pragmatics & Beyond N. S. 35], A. H. Jucker (ed.), 439–465. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1999 “Dialogues in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Medical Writing.” In Historical Dialogue Analysis [Pragmatics & Beyond N. S. 66], A. H. Jucker, G. Fritz and F. Lebsanft (eds), 243–268. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
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Tannen, Deborah 1982 “Oral and Literate Strategies in Spoken and Written Narratives”. Language 58: 1–20. 1987 “Repetition in conversation: Toward a poetics of talk”. Language 63: 574– 605. 1988 “Hearing voices in conversation, ªction and mixed genres”. In Linguistics in context: Connecting observation and understanding [Advances in Discourse Processes 29], D. Tannen (ed.), 89–113. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Tanskanen, Sanna-Kaisa 2000 Collaborating towards Coherence: Lexical Cohesion across Spoken and Written Discourse in English. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of English, University of Turku. Thomas, Rosalind 1989 Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thompson, Sandra A. 1984 “Subordination’ in formal and informal discourse”. In Meaning, Form and Use in Context: Linguistic Applications, D. SchiŸrin (ed.), 85–94. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. Tomlin, Russel S. 1985 “Foreground-background information and the syntax of subordination”. Text 5: 85–122. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs and Romaine, Suzanne 1985 “Some questions for the historical deªnition of “style” in socio-historical linguistics”. Folia Linguistica Historica 6: 7–39. Troll, Denise A. 1990 “The illiterate mode of written communication: The work of the medieval scribe”. In Oral and Written Communication: Historical Approaches [Written Communication Annual 4], R. L. Enos (ed.), 96–125. Newbury Park CA: Sage. Wårvik, Brita 1994 “In search of orality in the history of English: A study of signals of textual organization”. In Writing vs Speaking. Language, Text, Discourse, Communication [Tübinger Beiträge zur Linguistik 392], S. Cmejrková, F. Daneš and E. Havlová (eds), 383–388. Tübingen: Narr. Werlich, Egon 1976 A Text Grammar of English [Uni-Taschenbücher 597]. Heidelberg: Quelle and Meyer. Wilbur, Terence H. 1988 “Sentence connectives in ancient Germanic texts”. In Germania: Comparative Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures, D. G. Calder and T. C. Christy (eds), 85–95. Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer. Yates, Simeon J. 1996 “Oral and written linguistic aspects of computer conferencing: A Corpus
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based study”. In Computer-Mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social and Cross-Cultural Perspectives, S. C. Herring (ed.), 29–46. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Zumthor, Paul 1992 Toward a Medieval Poetics. Minneapolis and Oxford: University of Minneapolis Press. Translated by Philip Bennett. Originally published in Essai de poétique médiévale. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1972.
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Telling the anchorite code Ancrene Wisse on language Risto Hiltunen
1.
Introduction
DiŸerent communities of speakers typically have their own characteristic features regarding the medium of verbal communication, the human language. Such communities, whether regionally or socially constructed, are, however, rarely completely isolated from each other. More commonly they share some features with other communities, especially those that they have been in contact with in the course of their history. Thus for example two adjacent regional dialects usually share a number of features of pronunciation, while diŸering in certain speciªcs. Similarly, a social dialect such as the jargon of trade and commerce may exhibit on the one hand expressions that go back to individual crafts, occupations and professions, on the other hand expressions that have arisen as a result of international contacts. At the level of the linguistic system, there are well-established ways of explaining such parallels. They are often described as being due to various social factors; they may arise for instance for reasons of prestige, resulting in the restructuring of the relevant phonological, semantic or lexical space. Broadening the perspective to one of discourse, i.e. looking at the use of language in terms of the context and the social and institutional practices to which it relates, will enable us to recognise more clearly the possibility of even deeper analogies behind the linguistic parallels between diŸerent communities. Ultimately, many of these have to do with the interplay between the working of the human mind and the functional and expressive capacities of language. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss one illustrative instance of such a correspondence. The socio-temporal context under scrutiny here is that of a special group of people, the anchoresses of early thirteenth-century England, as described in the Ancrene Wisse (henceforth AW). The core of the article is concerned with what this text has to say about language in general, and the use of language by the anchorite
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nuns in particular. The instructions as to how the spoken language is to be handled by the nuns in diŸerent situations are very speciªc; so much so, in fact, that it is possible to speak of an anchorite code, echoing the use of the concept by D. L. Wieder (1974). In Wieder’s work the notion is applied to the linguistic practices of a very diŸerent social group, viz. that of convicts. Another parallel relevant to the present discussion consists of the studies of the role of silence in various religious denominations, most notably in that of the Quakers, as described by Bauman (1983). We will return to these parallels after a few preliminaries concerning the AW itself. The AW is generally regarded as the most important and in¶uential Early Middle English prose text. It is an anonymous work, originally written in the early thirteenth-century (c. 1230) as a spiritual guide for three sisters, who had decided to become anchoresses.1 Choosing to become an anchoress entailed a radical separation from the world both spiritually and physically, and a life as a recluse outside the religious orders. According to Robertson (1998: 32), the three sisters of the AW, like other anchoresses, “were committed to vows of obedience, chastity and stability and were to live as if ‘dead’ to the world.” In such a context regular communication with the outside world will naturally be radically curtailed. For the author of AW, it is therefore pertinent to specify the situations where interaction is still permissible and/or necessary. The precise provenance of the text is not known for certain, although most scholars today probably subscribe to the view of E. J. Dobson that it is most likely to have been written at Wigmore Abbey in Northern Herefordshire. The authorship issue is likewise still an open question, but Dobson thought that the writer might have been a secular canon at Wigmore Abbey (Dobson 1976: 367). In any case, the language of the AW is a consistent form of the South-West Midland dialect of Middle English of the so-called AB variety (for further discussion, see SkaŸari, this volume). The precise manuscript transmission of the eight versions of the text is yet another aspect of AW that has not been conclusively settled; it is generally agreed, however, that the version known as Ancrene Riwle (MS Cotton Nero A.xiv; edited by M. Day, 1957) is the oldest of the manuscripts, while the version known as Ancrene Wisse (MS Corpus Christi College 402, Cambridge; edited by J. R. R. Tolkien, 1962) is closest to the lost original. It is the Corpus version that we will focus on in this paper. The book is divided into eight parts. Of these, the ªrst and the last deal with the so-called outer rule, i.e. devotions and daily practices, while the intervening ones deal with the more important inner rule, concerning the senses, feelings, temptations, confession, penance and love. The notion of ‘rule’ is in fact somewhat misleading in the context of the AW, since the text is not a conventional rule-book. Robertson (1998: 33) points out that the text is rather more concerned with wisse,
Telling the anchorite code: Ancrene Wisse on language
“the less deªnable rules of the heart” than with riwle. Of special interest here is the passage where the author discusses speech. It belongs to the inner rule and appears in Part Two, which deals with the protection of the heart through control of the senses (Tolkien 1962: 35–55). Although in the printed edition the section on speech is only twenty pages long, it can be regarded as representative of the discourse of the whole book, in the sense that it contains many elements that are also found in the other parts, especially as regards the subject matter and the way the content is explained to the audience. In the summary by Zettersten (2000: 35) we recognise the author’s qualities as a religious instructor as being “so diversiªed and expressed on so many levels, literary and linguistic, institutional and stylistic, theological and human, generalizing and specifying, serious and witty, pedagogical and entertaining.” Stylistically, the discourse is dense with vivid imagery, striking metaphors and the persuasive use of allegory and exempla. Other important features include the skilful exposition of the Scriptures and other works of medieval religious teaching. In addition to the Bible, the text draws on the works of the Church Fathers and other religious authorities, including St Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Aldred of Rievaulx and Anselm of Canterbury (Wada 1994: xx). An overarching principle, apparent throughout the moderate and tolerant rule, is the author’s humane and sympathetic approach to both the worldly and the spiritual concerns of the anchoresses.
2.
‘Telling the code’
2.1 Speech Becoming an anchoress entailed a radical reversal of behaviour in terms of communication patterns. Where in a more regular situation speech would predominate over silence, the opposite rules in the life of a religious recluse. For the three sisters of the AW, their new status as anchoresses presupposes a very diŸerent communicative routine from what they had presumably been accustomed to earlier in their lives. In the new situation silence takes up the space vacated by speech: it becomes the unmarked means of communication. Consequently, it becomes pertinent for the author of the AW to provide an answer to questions regarding the appropriate contexts where speech is possible, permissible, or necessary. This entails taking a stand as to with whom one may conduct conversation, and how the interaction is to be managed in practice. The author’s comments are limited to descriptions of speech and speech events. Comments on written language are limited to an explication of the sources cited in support of particular claims made about speech.
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Bearing in mind the restrictions on speech in AW, another possible means of communication might have been sign language. Although some kind of sign language is known to have been practised in monasteries at least since the tenth century (Bragg 1997: 3), there are no references to it in this part of the AW.2 The same applies to body language; there are no direct references to it in the text. Yet the impression created by the author through his remarks about verbal behaviour unambiguously suggests the prototypical image of a meek and humble nun. This is naturally to be expected, bearing in mind the social structure of the religious community at the time, the role of women in society, and the fact that the author of AW was most probably a man. In reconstructing the verbal behaviour of an anchoress on the basis of AW, we have to remember that the description provides an idealised account of anchorite discourse. The evidence is indirect, since we lack direct information as to audience response. However, the fact that the author devotes a great deal of attention to instructing his audience about the appropriate use of language implies that mastering the proper patterns would not have been an easy task. On the contrary, it is likely to have taken a long time to learn self-control in this respect. Some of the author’s comments also imply that not all anchoresses are able to live up to the ideal and maintain it in their speech behaviour. He constantly encourages his audience to strive towards the ideal, referring for instance to those who fail to attain a proper way of behaving but continue to cling to worldly habits. For example, he advises the sisters to become anchoresses rather than degenerating into scholars, who enjoy speaking wisely and impressing their listeners, “Sum … forwurðeð meistre þe schulde beon ancre (35/30); ‘Some … degenerate into scholars when they should be anchoresses’ (35/20).3 The fact that we do not have access to actual anchorite speech, only to a description of it, is all the more reason to compare its representation with contexts where more direct evidence has been available, such as Wieder (1974). This is a study of the communication patterns of convicts, i.e. another group of individuals isolated from the rest of society, although for a completely diŸerent reason. Wieder investigated the convict code by observing the linguistic behaviour of the inmates at a halfway house, using an ethnomethodological, ‘grass-root level’ approach. The concept of the convict code, according to him, is used to explain “those forms of deviant behaviour engaged in by inmates, convicts, or residents of rehabilitative organizations” (Wieder 1974: 144). In his context it refers to the set of activities that the convicts both should and should not engage in. The main ªnding is that to an outsider the code may appear illogical and incomprehensible until a key for decoding it is discovered. Once the key is available everything makes sense, and even the oddest pieces ªnd a place in the system. For Wieder, discovering the key to the convict code entailed living at the halfway house with
Telling the anchorite code: Ancrene Wisse on language
the inmates and observing their interactional patterns over an extended period of time. Although the parallels between the linguistic behaviour of the inmates of the halfway house and those of thirteenth-century English anchoresses may at ªrst seem irrelevant, there are several aspects of communication that are shared by the two sets of data, making it possible to speak of a ‘code’ in the case of AW as well. The term must then be understood as referring to an ‘in-group’ use of language, in ways that are highly controlled and regulated. There are of course also important diŸerences. For example, the norms of the convict code are internally negotiated while those of the anchorite code are established externally, among other means through rules such as the AW. Furthermore, in contrast with the anchorite code, the convict code implies an in-group pattern of verbal behaviour that is subversive by nature. It is very much geared to the convicts’ perspective, determining — as already noted — the activities that they should and should not engage in. The “contraculture normative order” of the convicts is expressed in the code, and all “regular guys” are expected to follow it. The activities of those who do not conform, and who engage for example in overly friendly conversation with the staŸ, are labelled derogatorily as “snitching”, “sniveling” and the like. There are also sanctions for the convicts against breaking the code, in eŸect implying exclusion from the group either temporarily or permanently. In the particular context that Wieder studied, the code is also recognised by the ‘out-group’, i.e. the staŸ of the halfway house. They are able to “tell the code”, i.e. they know how to interpret it when interacting with the inmates. According to Wieder (1974: 149), the staŸ referred to this both implicitly and explicitly, using a wide range of social-scientiªc concepts such as rule-governed action, goal-directed action, and role-bound behaviours. Both the convict code and the anchorite code may be seen as involving an ingroup setting where loyalties and solidarity are important virtues. While in the convict code the out-group consists of the staŸ of the halfway house, in the anchorite code, as described in AW, references to the out-groups of the outside world are much less speciªc. On the one hand, they include references to people inside the religious orders but outside the anchorite community, such as preost ‘priest’ or scrift feader ‘father confessor’ in the following example: (1) for þi ed euch time þat eani of ham þurh chearite kimeð ow to learen & to frourin i godd. Šef he is preost seggeð. ear þen he parti; mea culpa. Ich scriue me to godd almihti & to þe. þat ich as ich drede riht repentant neauer nes of mine greaste sunnen þat inc habbe ischawet to mine scrift feaderes. (Tolkien, 36/15) ‘Therefore on each occasion that any of them in charity comes to teach you and comfort you in God, if he is a priest, say before he leaves, Mea culpa —
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I confess to God Almighty and to you that, as I fear, I was never truly penitent for my greatest sins, which I have shown to my father confessors.’ (White, 36/22) In the light of such comments, interaction between the anchoresses and the representatives of the holy orders consists, as far as we can tell, of routine phrases. Such exchanges indicate a humble reverence for persons regarded as superior in rank. The other type of reference to an out-group consists of items that designate lay persons. These are typically indeªnite phrases and pronouns, such as hwa it beo zat beo icumen ‘who it is who has come’ and swuch ‘such’ in (2): (2) On alre earst hwen Še schulen to ower parlurs þurl; witeð ed ower mei den hwa hit beo þat beo icumen. for swuch hit mei beon þat Še schule essinieien ow. (35/18) ‘First of all when you go to your parlour window, ªnd out from your maid who it is who has come. For it may be someone that you should excuse yourself from.’ (35/11) Such references indicate that people in the out-group are not to be trusted or spoken to. A little later after (2) in the text we read worltliche leueð lut. religiuse Šet leas. ne wilni Še nawt to muchel hare cuððunge (36/10), ‘trust those in the world little, religious still less, and do not desire their acquaintance too much’ (36/18). The pattern of behaviour is in this respect similar to that established for the convict code. In AW, sanctions for disregarding the code are not stated explicitly but merely implicated. A misdemeanour through breaking the code will lead to a bad reputation and fall from grace. Once again, however, we have to bear in mind that the anchorite code is the author’s account of how he thinks communication should be managed by the nuns, not necessarily an authentic account of how they actually behaved. This may explain the comment on the unreliability of religiuse in the example above. The parallels between the convict code and the anchorite code are as striking as the diŸerences. The following schematic description illustrates some of the similarities and dissimilarities. The ‘maxims’ mentioned in the diagram will be discussed in the next section.
Convict code [subversive] | [Maxims]
[In-group features]
Figure 1. The convict code and the anchorite code
[Maxims] | [conversive] Anchorite code
Telling the anchorite code: Ancrene Wisse on language
The two groups involved are of course radically diŸerent on the social scale, and so (for that very reason) are the representations of their discourses. The parallels are due to shared in-group features having to do with such issues as solidarity and loyalty, ultimately connected to what the two groups may have seen as the purpose of their whole existence outside the ‘world’, i.e. survival and/or salvation. From the point of view of cooperative communication both codes may be regarded as uncooperative, though for diŸerent reasons. The convict code is more obviously uncooperative, because it turns the patterns of cooperative interaction in a way upside down. The convicts communicate with the staŸ, but they are cooperative only on the surface level. Thus for instance if they answer a question by a member of staŸ, the answer is likely to be interpreted as indicating a total lack of interest in any kind of cooperation with the out-group. For the convicts, observing the code encompassing their in-group loyalties is second to none in importance. This solidarity is not to be sacriªced at any cost to show sympathy or support for the eŸorts of the out-group. From the out-group’s point of view, the convict code can therefore be described as subversive. Any verbal interaction between staŸ and inmates means a battle between the groups, suppression of the code of the superiors being the ultimate purpose of convict behaviour. The anchorite code is also in some respects uncooperative, partly for reasons having to do with in-group solidarity. This uncooperativeness is realised above all in the reluctance of the anchoresses to have anything to do with the outside world. Their linguistic behaviour, however, must be characterised as conversive rather than subversive; whatever communication they have with the rest of the world is conducted, at least superªcially, in a cooperative and polite fashion. The purpose of the code is not to overthrow standard patterns of interaction but rather to be integrated with them, while at the same time having as little as possible to do with them. This aspect of the anchorite code indicates the important fact that although the anchoresses lived in a closed community and avoided contact with others, they did not exist in a vacuum, without any connection to the world outside.1 With regard to the acquisition of the two codes, there is an interesting diŸerence. In the convict code, the patterns of violating the rules and routines of the communicative patterns of the out-group are protected, supported, and encouraged by the code, but they are not directly prescribed by it (Wieder 1974: 148). This implies that the convict code exists in oral tradition only; every newcomer to the group must pick it up as part of the process of social integration. For the anchoresses, on the other hand, the rules and practices of interaction are prescribed in the form of a set of instructions in AW. The precise role of these written instructions in the training of young anchoresses is naturally di¹cult to estimate. In practice, the basics of religious conduct, including verbal behaviour, would probably have been acquired partly if not primarily over a lengthy period of time through the example of superior sisters.
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The importance of a text such as AW may therefore have been precisely that it made a set of conventions explicit that previously had been available only orally. As regards the realisation of the two codes in practice, we see how — in the words of Wieder (1974: 170) — the code “simultaneously identiªes and ‘explains’ the particular events it renders observable.” Considering the two codes from the point of view of the respective out-groups, communication with them is rendered possible by the fact that the interlocutors are able to ‘tell the code’, i.e. they grasp the mechanisms underlying the idiosyncrasies of the deviant communicative behaviour. Successful communication in any context will depend on being able to formulate successful hypotheses as to what the interlocutor may be aiming at. When these predictions turn out to be correct, interaction makes progress and even highly deviant patterns may become communicatively meaningful.
2.2 Maxims Wieder summarises the patterns of the convict code in terms of the following maxims: (1) Above all, do not snitch; (2) Do not cop out; (3) Do not take advantage of other residents; (4) Share what you have; (5) Help other residents; (6) Do not mess with other residents’ interests; (7) Do not trust staŸ — staŸ is heat; and (8) Show your loyalty to the residents. (Wieder 1974: 145–147) The list indicates that Wieder’s concept of maxim covers the entire social behaviour of the inmates. In his framework, language is embedded in social behaviour as one of its dimensions. Only maxims 1 and 2 are as such directly relevant to linguistic interaction; the rest have more to do with other dimensions of behaviour. The notion of maxim is a helpful one and can be extended by analogy to account for the conventions of the anchorite code. Here, however, it will be relevant to concentrate on the linguistic parameters only, rather than try to provide a more comprehensive set of maxims about the life of the recluse. Even if such an approach were possible, it would necessitate taking into account the whole text, which would take us too far from issues of anchorite speech. Instead, let us consider the code in terms of the Gricean conversation maxims.5 As it turns out, the analogy is almost perfect; many of the relevant instructions concerning speech in AW could almost be cited as examples of the four maxims of the Cooperative Principle. For example, the Quality maxim — (i) do not say what you believe to be false, (ii) do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence — by virtue of being such a basic rule of verbal conduct in general and religious discourse in particular, is absolutely essential for an anchoress to observe. The maxim of Quantity — (i) make your contributions as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange, (ii) do not make your contribution more informative than is required — is likewise in accordance with anchorite speech, and is speciªcally emphasised by the author:
Telling the anchorite code: Ancrene Wisse on language
(3) Seneca. ad summan uolo uos esse. rari loquas; tuncque pauciloquas. þat is þe ende of þe tale seið Seneke þe wise. Ich chulle þat Še speoken seldene ant þenne lutel. (39/11) ‘Seneca: Ad summan uolo uos esse rariloquas, tuncque pauciloquas — ‘This is the end of the story,’ says Seneca the wise. ‘I want you to speak seldom and then little.” (38/18) The same applies to the maxim of Manner, with its four submaxims — (i) avoid obscurity, (ii) avoid ambiguity, (iii) be brief, and (iv) be orderly; as well as to the maxim of Relevance, i.e. make your contribution relevant. In terms of these maxims too the speech of anchoresses is described as representing the most unmarked kind of conversational language. In spite of the harmony between the maxims of ordinary conversation and anchorite discourse, an important diŸerence is forgotten if we only look at the maxims in isolation: the fact that the anchorite code implies a highly restricted use of speech. In terms of sheer quantity of interaction, there is simply much less of it there than in less marked communicative contexts. Moreover, in anchorite discourse we have to take into account another element that is omnipresent and in¶uences all interaction, i.e. silence. In ordinary conversation this element plays a much more subservient role. We will return to this topic in Section 2.4. below.
2.3 Politeness The AW is an instructive text; as such it is also a highly interactive text, where the audience and even audience expectations are constantly observed by the author. Consequently, the discourse is a blending of religious language relevant to the subject matter and instructive devices pertaining to the need to make the message clear and accessible. As shown above, it is possible to consider the resulting anchorite discourse in terms of the principles of general interpersonal rhetoric. In addition, the Politeness Principle (cf. Leech 1983: 131) will also be relevant, bearing in mind that the principle is subject to contextual variation depending on the period and the relevant social environment. As we have seen, the passage on speech in AW makes it clear that anchoresses should be very careful about entering into contact with the world outside. For example, before speaking to strangers they ought to make sure the interlocutor is a pious person, as indicated by example 2 above. Nor should they ever engage in a conversation without a witness present: (4) Wið uten witnesse of wummon oðer of wepmon þe ow mahe iheren ne speoke Še wið namon ofte ne longe. & tah hit beo of schrift; allegate i þe ilke
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hus. oðer þer he mahe iseon toward ow sitte þe þridde. bute Šef þe ilke þrid de oþer stude trukie. (37/1) ‘Without the witness of a woman or a man who can hear you, do not speak to any man often or long, and, even if it is in confession, let a third always sit in the same house or where they can look in your direction, unless there is no room for the third.’ (37/1) The presence of a third party at a conversation is a precaution against any false words being spoken about the anchoress afterwards. At the same time the procedure is bound to make the interaction more formal, turning the setting of a private conversation into a more public one. The formality aspect of interpersonal communication in anchorite discourse is closely related to the Politeness Principle (PP), with its six maxims (Leech 1983: 132). Although explicit comments on all of the following maxims do not occur in the text, there is little doubt that they all are, one way or another, relevant: (i) Tact, i.e. ‘Minimise cost to other; maximise beneªt to other’; (ii) Generosity, i.e. ‘Minimise beneªt to self; maximise cost to self’, (iii) Approbation, i.e. ‘Minimise dispraise of other; maximise praise of other’, (iv) Modesty, i.e. ‘Minimise praise of self; maximise dispraise of self’, (v) Agreement, i.e. ‘Minimise disagreement between self and other; maximise agreement between self and other’, and (vi) Sympathy, i.e. ‘Minimise antipathy between self and other; maximise sympathy between self and other’. That explicit comments on such maxims of verbal politeness are practically absent in AW is due to the fact that the idea of politeness is itself so intimately embedded in the nature of religious discourse as to make any mention of it almost super¶uous. In other words, it something that can be taken for granted and presupposed. In practice, comments on politeness are restricted to ritualistic exchanges of the following kind: (5) hwen Še alles moten forð; crossið ful Šeome muð. ehnen & earen. & te breoste mid al. & gað forð mid godes dred. To preost on earst Conªteor. & þerefter Benedicte. (35/21) ‘When you have after all come forward, cross your mouth, eyes and ears very carefully and your breast as well, and go forward in the fear of God. To a priest, say ªrst Conªteor — and after that he ought to say — Benedicte.’ (35/11) Although remarks concerning verbal politeness are few, it appears that not all the maxims of the PP are equally important in the anchorite code. For example the Approbation maxim is less prominent than some of the others; this is because it has to do with praise, and praising any other entity besides God is not regarded as
Telling the anchorite code: Ancrene Wisse on language
appropriate. Praising another person is also risky because it might be interpreted negatively as ¶attery, which along with backbiting is among the most dangerous vices of the tongue. The text strongly advises the anchoresses to avoid both: (6) Backbitunge. & ªkelunge. & eggunge to don uuel; ne beoð nawt monnes speche; ah beoð þe deo¶es bleas & his ahne steuene. (44/21) ‘Backbiting and ¶attery and egging to do evil are not man’s speech but are the devil’s blasts and his own voice.’ (43/17) Looking at praise from the point of view of the anchoress herself, however, suggests that the PP maxim most relevant to observe is the Modesty maxim, i.e. ‘Minimise praise of self; maximise dispraise of self’. An anchoress is expected to be modest in everything, especially her speech. She will speak little of herself, and what little she speaks will be in highly modest terms. Under no circumstances should she ªsh for praise by talking a lot. The result will merely be a comment of dispraise from her interlocutor: þeos ancre he wule seggen is of muche speche (35/8), ‘he will say, ‘This anchoress talks a lot” (35/26). The Tact maxim is another rule of conversation to which attention is speciªcally drawn in AW. An anchoress is expected to be tactful; this includes observing a series of restrictions, such as the following: (7) Še ne schule for na þing wearien ne swerien. bute Šef Še seggen witerliche oðer sikerliche; oðer o sum swuch wise. Ne preachi Še to namon. ne mon ne easki ow cunsail ne ne telle ow. readeð wummen ane. Seint pawel forbeot wummen to preachin. Mulieres non permitto docere. Na wepmon ne chastie Še. ne edwiten his him unþeaw bute he beo þe ouer cuðre. Halie alde ancres hit mahe don summes weis. ah hit nis nawt siker þing, ne ne limpeð nawt to Šunge. (38/21) ‘You shall not on any account curse or swear, except if you say ‘certainly’ or ‘surely’, or something of this sort. Do not preach to any man — and no man should ask your counsel, or give you his. Advise women only. St Paul forbids women to preach: Mulieres non permitto docere. Do not censure any man or reproach him for his vice, unless he is over-familiar with you. Old and holy anchoresses may do it in certain ways, but it is not a safe thing and is not appropriate for young ones.’ (38/4) The purpose of such recommendations, regarding (a) cursing or swearing, (b) preaching, (c) commenting, and (d) advising, besides indicating tactful behaviour, is to deªne the place and role of the anchoress in the socio-religious hierarchy. Any breach of such conventions would immediately be interpreted as sinful behaviour, resulting from selªshness and ignorance.
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2.4 Silence The fact that both CP and PP are essential to the anchorite code raises an interesting, more general question: to what extent have the religious traditions of the past shaped our present-day conception of what counts as cooperative and polite conversation? Without attempting to answer this question, however, let us consider the other major dimension of communication in the anchorite code: silence. With good reason, it can actually be said to constitute the principal dimension of the code. In comparison, physical speech has a secondary status. As we have seen, speech is always to be used sparingly, and the contexts where it is at all possible are strictly determined. For silence there are no such restrictions. It is the default, and an appropriate choice in most contexts, including those where it may be possible to speak. Consequently, it is relevant to speak in this context of the ‘Silence Principle’ (SP). It is a principle that overrides both CP and PP in importance. Silence is part and parcel of many religious movements. In the Christian tradition its importance has been stressed, as described in the New Testament, ever since the beginning. It need not, however, always be the dominant feature. As reported by Maltz (1985), for instance, the Pentecostal churches stress ‘noiseness’ rather than silence. For their members, noiseness may convey functions similar to those conveyed by silence in other denominations. But for the author of AW, silence is an essential feature of anchorite life. He frequently quotes his favourite religious authorities on this: for instance St Gregory (39/21): Iuge silentium cogit celestia meditari — ‘Long and well-kept silence compels the thoughts up towards heaven’ (38/26). Silence is considered by the author a crucial property of spirituality and a prerequisite of meditation. What is important to note in this connection is that religious silence can also mean communication. It is not merely the opposite of speaking, but a complementary activity, implying an active rather than a passive state. When silent, one is — ideally — communicating with God. Inward communication of this kind can be very intensive and lively without any words spoken. According to Szuchewycz (1997: 244), during silent periods individuals may pray silently, they may re¶ect on what has been read or said before, or, they may receive a message from God. Several recent studies of silence in religious contexts have emphasised that the communicative functions of silence are more important than its symbolic functions; that silence is a relative (gradient) concept rather than an absolute one, and that there are diŸerent kinds of silence, depending on the relevant behavioural or communicative factors (for further discussion, see Jaworski 1993; Bauman 1974, 1983; Szuchewycz 1977; passim). Although such properties of silence are likely to have applied to anchorite discourse as well, the passage of AW examined here does not contain any speciªc references to them. This is understandable, considering that the author’s focus is
Telling the anchorite code: Ancrene Wisse on language
on verbal communication rather than on an analysis of what silence may imply or entail. Some religious movements have elevated silence to the status of a sine qua non in their doctrine. The best example is Quakerism, where silence is an integral part of worship, denoting the suppression of the earthly self and the quest for the Inner Light (Bauman 1974: 145). Bauman’s study of silence in seventeenth-century Quakerism (Bauman 1983) is illuminating from the point of view of the anchorite code, not least because it deals with historical material and involves a reconstruction of Quaker practices on the basis of contemporary, seventeenth-century materials. While noting parallels between the two codes in terms of silence, we should also observe that there is an important diŸerence between the two groups, in the sense that the Quakers have never been separated from the ‘world’ in the same way as the anchoresses. Their silence is therefore more public in nature than that of the anchorite nuns. For the early Quakers, the principle of silence demanded a limitation of speaking, though not a full rejection of it. Outward speaking was regarded as “carnal” activity, and excessive reliance on carnal speaking, for the early Quakers, was one of the principal symptoms of all that was corrupt in the world around them (Bauman 1983: 22). Similar ideas also seem to lie behind the views put forward in AW. In one example, the author contrasts the Virgin Mary with Eve in terms of how much they talk (Tolkien 1962: 35). Eve held a long conversation in Paradise with the snake about the apple; thus the ªend, through what she said, immediately understood Eve’s weakness and found a way of getting at her for her destruction. Mary, on the other hand, acted quite diŸerently when the angel appeared to her. She only asked him brie¶y what she did not know. From this the author concludes, Še mine leoue sustren folhið ure leafdi; & nawt te cakele eue (35/15) — ‘ You, my dear sisters, follow Our Lady and not the cackling Eve’ (35/33). In AW, silence is treated in a straightforward manner. It appears to have a twofold function. On the one hand, keeping quiet is described as a highly desirable religious virtue. Anchoresses are expected to speak only in certain speciªc situations, such as confessions. Certain times of the day, week and year are to be spent in complete silence. All meals are to be taken in silence. Fridays, certain days in Advent and Ember Weeks, three days in Lent and all Holy Week are likewise to be spent in silence. The other communicative aspect of silence appears in situations where speech is reciprocated by silence. In such circumstances there may be a risk of misunderstanding the silence as a breach of the PP. But this may also be a deliberate aim of the exchange, as the following example, continuing from (5) above, suggests: (8) hercnið hise wordes & haldeð ow al stille. þat hwen he parteð from ow; þat he ne cunne ower god; ne ower uuel now ðer. ne ne cunne ow nowðer lastin ne preisin. (35/24)
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‘Listen to his words and keep completely silent, so that when he leaves you, he does not know either your good or your evil and does not know whether to blame you or praise you.’ (35/11) In this kind of situation, it is important to bear in mind that if the interlocutor is able to tell the code, he will be able to interpret the silence, not as a hostile or impolite move, but as a logical element of the exchange. Inevitably, however, the interaction will also be terminated at that point, which is also in accordance with the maxims of the code. In terms of maxims, the SP in AW can be seen as consisting of a pair of elements: (a) Maximise silence, and (b) Minimise speech. Generally, (a) holds; where it does not, (b) will apply. If one needs to speak, one should be brief about it. Silence is a virtue par excellence for an anchoress. Worldly, secular speech is to be avoided. Spontaneous speech is permissible only at confession and prayer, both involving ritualistic, routinized discourse.6
3.
The power of words
The great concern for issues of speech in AW indicates the author’s awareness of language as a powerful tool for both good and bad. Since his primary motive is the promotion of ‘good’ qualities and the suppression of ‘bad’ ones, he prefers to advise the anchoresses to steer clear of situations that might involve a risk of having to speak. He fears that although we often intend to say only little, we often run the risk of saying more than we intended to, because þe tunge is slubbri (40/5) — ‘ the tongue is slippery’ (39/26). Silence also serves as a face-saving device. According to the author, another valuable virtue of verbal reticence is the fact that there is as it were an interest on words, in the sense that words rarely spoken gain in signiªcance when eventually spoken. No one likes to listen to a person who speaks all the time, while the words of one who speaks only little will be the weightier when actually uttered: (9) Vre deore wurðe leafdi seinte Marie þe ah to alle wummen to beo forbisne; wes of se lutel speche. þat nohwer in hali writ ne ªnde we þat ha spec bute fowr siðen. ah se selt speche hire wordes weren heuie & hefden much mihte. (41/4) ‘Our precious Lady St Mary, who ought to be an example to all women, spoke so little that nowhere in the Holy Writ except four times do we ªnd that she spoke. But because she spoke so seldom her words were weighty and had great power.’ (40/20) On the other hand, he says, quoting the Psalmist (41/14): Vir linguosus non
Telling the anchorite code: Ancrene Wisse on language
dirigetur in terra — ‘The man of many words shall never lead a right life on earth’. A further point is that an anchoress who is very quiet and keeps silence long may conªdently hope that when she speaks to God, he will hear her. As this appears to be a very important motive for the kind of verbal behaviour advocated by the author, it can be regarded as another maxim of the anchorite code: infrequent speech has greater impact. However, there are risks involved for the anchoress following this particular maxim, in the sense that once she starts speaking, the ‘¶oodgates of the mouth’ will be opened, and the result may be a lot of worldly words and idle talk. This in turn may have disastrous consequences, since language can also be a powerful weapon. Ma sleað word þen sweord (39/4) — words kill more people than swords (39/3), the author points out. The only way out of the dilemma is to try to make the audience aware of this danger and thereby safeguard them against the destructive power of words. The author is very good at this, too, and always looks at the alternatives in turn, pointing out to the sisters the course of action he thinks the safest to follow. In doing this he skilfully employs a number of rhetorical devices that support his line of reasoning.
4.
Rhetorical devices
Having discussed views concerning language in AW, it will be relevant to consider brie¶y how the author makes his points about communication and proper speech and gets them across to his audience. Again, lacking any direct information about this from the anchoresses themselves, we have to rely on the indirect evidence provided by the text. One of the devices employed most frequently is fabricated dialogue: (10) Ich habbe þus isunget. & segge o hwucce wise as hit is iwriten ow in ower scriftes boc towart te ende þrof, & aleast Seggeð. þis & muche mare. Conªteor. & bide him underuo þe spetiale in his god. & þonke him of his inturn & bisech him aleast greten þe & te. ant þat ha bidden for þe. (37/1) ‘‘I have sinned thus’ — and say in what way, as it is written for you in your confession book towards the end, and lastly say, ‘This and much more’, Conªteor, and ask him to receive you specially into his good will and thank him for his visit and request him lastly to greet this person and that person, and that they should pray for you.’ (36/30) The example illustrates two devices: it contains representations of direct discourse and instructions about communication in a particular situation, in terms of the relevant speech acts of asking, thanking and requesting.
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A related device which is frequent throughout the text is the use of verbatim quotations from the Bible and other religious sources, exempliªed in (3) and (6) above. This practice is in accordance with the mixed-language character of much of medieval religious writing and pulpit rhetoric. References to the Scriptures and other authorities may have diŸerent functions in diŸerent contexts, but they are most frequently introduced in support of an argument put forward by the writer (for further discussion, see Hiltunen 2002). Finally, there is the use of metaphor and imagery concerning the functions of speech, which the author exploits most persuasively. This characteristic of the text has been much admired, and there can be little doubt that it has contributed signiªcantly to the success of the text as an instruction manual. Examples 10 and 11 illustrate the author’s striking use of imagery for his didactic purposes. Both indicate his great concern about gossip and idle speech as a threat for the anchoresses. (11) Muche fol were þe mahte to his bihoue hweðer se he walde grinden greot oþer hweate. Šef he grunde þe greot & lette þe hweate. Hweate is hali speche as seint Anselme seið. Heo grint greot þe chea¶eò. þe twa cheken beoð þe twa grindel stanes. þe tunge is þe cleappe. lokið leoue sustren þat ower cheken ne grinden neauer bute sawle fode. ne ower eare nedrinke neauer bute sawle heale. & nawt ane ower eare; ah ower ehþurhsperreð to aŠeines idel speche. to ow ne cume na tale; ne tidinge of þe worlde. (38/12) ‘A great fool would he be, the man who was able for his proªt to grind whichever he wanted, chaŸ or wheat, if he ground the chaŸ and left the wheat. Wheat is holy speech, as St Anselm says. She who chatters grinds chaŸ. The two jaws are the two grindstones, the tongue is the clapper. See, dear sisters, that your jaws grind nothing except the soul’s food, and your ears drink nothing except the soul’s healing. And close not only your ears, but your windows against idle speech. No tale or tiding of the world should come to you.’ (37/33) (12) Nv mine leoue sustren from al uuel speche þat is þus þreouald. Idel. ful. & attri; haldeð feor ower eare. Me seið up on ancren þat euch meast haueð an ald cwene to feden hire earen. A mea ðelilt þe meaðeleð hire alle þe talen of þe lond. a rikelot þe cakeleð al þat ha sið & hereð. swa þat me seið i bisahe. From mulne & from chepinge. from smiððe & from ancre hus me tidinge bringeð. Wat crist þis is a sari sahe. þat ancre hus þat schulde beon anlukest stude of alle; schal beon ifeiet to þe ilke þreo studen; þat meast is in of cha§e. (47/12) ‘Now, my dear sisters, from all evil speech, which is of three kinds like this — idle, foul and poisonous — keep your ear far away. They say about
Telling the anchorite code: Ancrene Wisse on language
anchoresses that each has to have an old woman to feed her ears: a jabberer who jabbers to her all the stories of the area, a magpie who cackles out all that she sees and hears, so that it is said in a proverb ‘From mill and from market, from smithy and from anchor-house, people bring the news’. Christ knows, this is a sad saying that the anchor-house, which should be the most solitary place of all, has to be likened with those three places in which there is most chatter.’ (46/12) The above examples employ slightly diŸerent imagery for making more or less the same point. In (10), the ‘ground’ of the metaphor consists of chaŸ and wheat and grindstone, while in (11) it is magpie. As in these two instances, the imagery typically comes from ordinary, everyday contexts, frequently from the animal world. It is noteworthy that the imagery in the passage about speech is concerned, one way or another, with the importance of being able to control one’s speech. Further instances relating to this particular idea include metaphors such as ‘building a gate (against jabbering)’, ‘bridling one’s tongue (to stop talking)’ and ‘the danger of a ¶ood of words (drowning the soul)’. Many such images derive from the Bible, and particular biblical scenes are frequently evoked in the text as exempla for or against a particular form of verbal conduct.
5.
Conclusion
The purpose of the present paper has been to discuss the passage in AW speciªcally addressing linguistic issues. The author of the text is concerned above all with how the three sisters who formed the original audience of the book should behave as anchoresses in terms of speech. In a sense he is thus providing a linguistic code for them. The purpose of the code is to establish a set of routines that cater, if possible, for all social contingencies where the sisters might need to speak. The details of the anchorite code were approached in terms of two other codes for which there exists earlier research: the convict code and the Quaker code. Even though these belong to other periods and are very diŸerent in many of their details, there appear to be several points of connection between them that are helpful in understanding how language functions as a code in the restricted setting of the anchor-house. What the ªndings about the convict code contribute to this has to do with the verbal dimension of the anchorite code. Unexpected responses or apparent indications of a lack of cooperation become meaningful and comprehensible when seen as re¶ections of a set of premises. Most signiªcantly, such strategies are applied so consistently as to make it possible to state them in the form of a set of maxims.
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The contribution of the Quaker code to the analysis of the anchorite code lies in the dimension of silence. In this respect, the two codes come very close to each other. Silence is seen as another form of communication, which has both an inward and outward aspect in the code. The inward dimension is the more important one, ultimately involving communication with God. The outward dimension is a re¶ection of the inward one. In situations where the interlocutor would not expect silence as a response, it is as though the default pattern of interaction had not been ‘switched oŸ’. Theoretically, this may lead to misunderstanding, but in practice the shared background information about the community of anchoresses contributing to the telling of the code would probably have diminished or eliminated such a risk. Summarising the essentials, the anchorite code may be seen as consisting of three principles, SP, CP and PP, with the relevant maxims and submaxims, as follows: Principle: Maxims:
SP (a) maximise silence (b) minimise speech
CP
PP
Observe maxims of cooperation
Observe maxims of politeness
(c) maximise impact
Figure 2. The anchorite code
The anchoresses are to spend their lives in silence, speaking — if necessary — only on certain occasions, bearing in mind that infrequent speech carries greater impact. If they must speak, the prescriptive maxims of cooperation and politeness are to be observed. Although the anchorite code is presented in AW in a fairly strict form, the author is no dictator. On the contrary, he shows a great deal of understanding for how the human mind works. On the basis of his experience and worldview, he also understands a great deal about how language works in communication. He is, for example, fully aware of the fact that language can be both valuable and harmful. In accordance with his mission, he places the emphasis on the good and valuable aspects of language. But since language is part of the human mind, it is an extremely risky medium to use. For an anchoress, therefore, silence is to be the preferred way of communication, and if anything needs to be expressed in words, the message should be carefully planned in advance of its utterance.
Telling the anchorite code: Ancrene Wisse on language
Notes 1. We do not know whether the author anticipated the future success of his work while he was writing it, but we do know that the text enjoyed a wide circulation. There are altogether eight versions of the text extant and a translation into French and Latin. 2. Bragg makes the important terminological point that the early monastic communications systems were not ‘natural sign languages’ but rather ‘artiªcial sign lexicons’ (Bragg 1977: 4). I am grateful to Ruth Carroll for bringing this reference to my attention. 3. In the examples from Tolkien’s edition, the symbols for the punctus elevatus, the ampersand and the ‘that’ sign have been replaced with [;], [&] and [þat], respectively. The Modern English translations of the examples are from White (1993). 4. An indication of a more general nature of the existence such a connection is the fact that it has been generally held, until very recently, that a virtuous woman is a silent woman and that talkativeness is a negative feature, a characteristic of women, in particular. 5. The maxims of the Cooperative Principle are here cited from Levinson (1983: 101–102). 6. Due to its central importance in the anchorite code, silence may comprise several varieties in the typology of silences proposed by Saville-Troike (1985: 16–17), but it is above all institutionally determined, in the sense that it is relevant both to the rituals of religious services and to membership in the group of nuns. The contemplative/ meditative dimension of silence is termed “noninteractive” by Saville-Troike.
References Bauman, Richard 1974 “Speaking in the light: The role of the Quaker minister”. In Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking, R. Bauman and J. Sherzer (eds), 144–160. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1983 Let Your Words be Few: Symbolism of Speaking and Silence among Seventeenth-Century Quakers [Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture 8]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bragg, Lois 1997 “Visual-kinetic communication in Europe before 1600: A survey of sign lexicons and ªnger alphabets prior to the rise of deaf education”. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education 2: 1–25. Day, Mabel (ed.) 1952 The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle [Early English Text Society, Original Series 225]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dobson, Eric 1976 The Origins of Ancrene Wisse. Oxford: Clarendon. Hiltunen, Risto 2002 “Voices in Ancrene Wisse: The Rule as an interactive text”. In A Book of Ancrene Wisse, Y. Wada (ed.), 34–58. Suita, Osaka: Kansai University Press.
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Jaworski, Adam 1973 The Power of Silence: Social and Pragmatic Perspectives [Language and Language Behaviors 1]. USA: Sage. Leech, GeoŸrey N. 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman. Levinson, Stephen C. 1983 Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maltz, Daniel N. 1985 “Joyful noise and reverent silence: The signiªcance of noise in Pentecostal worship”. In Perspectives on Silence, D. Tannen and M. Saville-Troike (eds), 113–137. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Robertson, Elizabeth 1998 “Ancrene Wisse”. In Medieval England: An Encyclopaedia, P. E. Szarmach, T. Tavormina and J. T. Rosenthal (eds), 32–33. New York and London: Garland. Saville-Troike, Muriel 1985 “The place of silence in an integrated theory of communication”. In Perspectives on Silence, D. Tannen & M. Saville-Troike (eds), 3–18. Norwood, N. J.: Ablex. Szuchewycz, Bohdan 1977 “Silence in ritual communication”. In Silence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, A. Jaworski (ed.), 239–260. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Tolkien, J. R. R. (ed.) 1962 Ancrene Wisse [Early English Text Society, Original Series 249]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wada, Yoko 1994 “Temptations” from Ancrene Wisse. Vol. I. Osaka: Kansai University Press. White, Hugh 1993 Ancrene Wisse: Guide for Anchoresses. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Wieder, Lawrence D. 1974 “Telling the code”. In Ethnomethodology: Selected Readings, R. Turner (ed.), 144–172. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Zettersten, Arne 2000 “Editing the Ancrene Riwle for the Early English Text Society: Past experience and future prospects”. In Reading the Ancrene Riwle, M. Imai & H. Watanabe (eds), 33–55. Osaka: Osaka University, Faculty of Language and Culture.
Lexical borrowings in early Middle English religious discourse A case study of Sawles Warde Janne SkaŸari*
1.
Introduction
A host of loanwords of Latin origin were used in Old English texts, and lexical borrowings from Scandinavian and French typically inform Middle English. Previous studies of the lexical character of early English texts containing such words have taken various contextual aspects into account, but these approaches have rarely gone beyond the sentence boundary and have certainly not encompassed entire texts. Discourse-related methods thus seem not to have been applied in the study of how lexical borrowings were used in Old and Middle English, although it can be assumed that word choice is connected with the way in which a text has been organised: the use of certain items rather than their synonyms is suggestive, at least, of the style and function of the text. This is particularly relevant in instructional writing, which aims at in¶uencing the reader’s behaviour. Also interesting in terms of the role of loanwords in discourse are periods when major lexical changes are taking place, or when writing in the vernacular is rarer than in other languages. In this paper, I present a case study focusing on the use of medieval loanwords in one instructional religious text and on the status of these words in the linguistic transition period of early Middle English. Sawles Warde (henceforth SW), an allegory on the protection of the soul, is a short modiªed translation of a Latin original. It dates from the early 13th century, an era when composition in the vernacular started up again after the disruption caused by the Norman Conquest and the subsequent political and cultural changes, and when new lexical borrowings gradually began to appear in English in greater quantities. In the 12th and 13th centuries England was basically a trilingual country. The English vernacular was spoken by the vast majority of the population; French was
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used by the aristocracy and those socially most upwardly mobile; and Latin, reinforced by the Norman rulers, was the language of written documents. In this situation, which diŸered dramatically from the age of the Anglo-Saxons, the composition of new texts in English had almost ceased. Consequently we have access to only a very limited number of manuscripts recording the latest Old or the earliest Middle English. Most scholars consider Early Middle English (EME) to have emerged by 1200. The transition to Middle English (ME) was visible on all levels of language: with respect to lexis, the native resources of word-formation common in the Old English (OE) period began to be surpassed by the enrichment of English vocabulary with a great number of lexical borrowings. French was a more recent and quantitatively the most signiªcant contemporary source of loanwords, but the in¶uence deriving, by way of English dialects, from earlier contacts with speakers of Scandinavian languages should not be underestimated. Thus the roles of French and Scandinavian — or Norse — loanwords in EME texts (including SW) are diŸerent, but both non-native elements are nevertheless important constituents of language change in the transition from Old to Middle English. While they can be examined together, it should not be expected that items from these two source languages were treated similarly by people writing English at this time. Since the corpus of extant records from the earliest stages of Middle English is not large, most of the texts it contains have already been meticulously studied by philologists. SW is not an exception: it is a component of the Katherine Group (KG) which also contains four other important EME texts from the West Midlands — three saints’ lives and a meditation on virginity. These texts are known to share linguistic and stylistic features, and they are also connected by their subject matter, but SW is not a particular favourite among them as an object of linguistic inquiry into lexical borrowing. The subject index of an EME bibliography by Millett (1996), for instance, refers to only one study dealing with the loanwords found in the text, and this study (Serjeantson 1935) provides little more than a list of selected Scandinavian and French borrowings. Other references to the non-native element in the vocabulary of SW are to be found in treatments of French in¶uence on KG, or, more extensively, on ‘AB language’ (e.g. Clark 1966, De Caluwé-Dor 1983, Bately 1988, Dor 1992). SW seems to play a minor role in these studies, perhaps because of its shortness (c. 5000 words), and the consequently relatively small number of loanwords in comparison with the texts with which it is typically associated. That “loanwords have a more complex role in texts than is traditionally assumed”, as observed by Meurman-Solin (1990: 97), has been a key motivation for my work. This contextual and discourse-oriented analysis of lexical borrowings in SW has been inspired and in¶uenced by two papers in particular (Meurman-Solin 1990 and Dor 1992). Dor explores the status of French loanwords in KG and is especially concerned with the relationship between their ªrst occurrences in EME
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse
and their subsequent integration into the recipient language. Meurman-Solin discusses loanwords as lexical variants and pays particular attention to marked borrowings. By markedness she means that marked lexical borrowings “have retained their loanword status” (Meurman-Solin 1990: 87), i.e. have not been fully integrated into the recipient language. In the present paper, this is understood to refer to recent adoption into transitional EME, although this may not always be the case with borrowings bearing marked features. Due to the lack of much previous work combining a more traditional historicolexicological inquiry with a discourse-oriented approach, it would be perhaps too challenging to study lexical borrowings within the latter type of framework alone; hence my focus on the use of loanwords in various kinds of contexts. While subject matter aŸects the need for lexical items on a general level, and motivates their position in the text, syntactic, discoursal (or pragmatic, or functional) and other factors are not to be neglected either: they can be expected to in¶uence the writer’s choice and ordering of words. The discourse motivations can be approached by examining, for instance, information structure, the distribution of loanwords in diŸerent parts of the text, and the diŸerences between dialogue and narrative in SW. This kind of contextual study of the use of loanwords presupposes that those involved in composing or copying a particular text were not only familiar with the repertoire of lexical items currently available, but also made highly conscious word choices. Establishing the precise process whereby SW was created is of course impossible; however, since it is a vernacular allegory written for the purpose of religious and moral instruction, we can assume that the linguistic features of the text were also given considerable attention to ensure that these didactic objectives would be achieved. The text under consideration — its history, language, and contents — will be discussed in Section 2 below, followed by an overview of the lexical borrowings attested in the text in Section 3. Section 4 is then dedicated to the use of loanwords in context. Attention will be paid to the Katherine Group, the most signiªcant record of EME religious discourse, as the setting of many early borrowings, to the diŸerences between the manuscripts in which SW is preserved, and to syntactic and discourse contexts. The discourse perspective grows more prominent as we move along, and has two functions in this paper: it serves as a methodological tool, since it is one of the various types of contextual clues which may be helpful in determining the level of accommodation of loanwords in the language at the time when the text was created, and perhaps more importantly, it contributes to a general overview of the language and structure of SW. I conclude this Introduction with a terminological note. In this paper, a loanword or a (lexical) borrowing is a lexical item adopted from another language into Old or Middle English, regardless of its status in the recipient language during
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the EME period. This means that basically any non-native word used in an English setting will be treated as a loanword, whether it is a well-established word, bearing few or no characteristics indicating its foreign origin, or a very recent borrowing, recorded in writing for the ªrst time. In addition, complex lexical items containing a borrowed element (e.g. a noun or an a¹x) are included in the same category as simple loanwords, although these hybrids sometimes deserve special attention: as Bately (1988: 75) points out, the borrowed items that they contain “are su¹ciently well-established in the language for functional conversion to have been applied to them”. The term loanword thus renders various kinds of lexical in¶uence from other languages. Important as it is in studies of medieval discourse, the related question of code-switching or code-mixing will be mentioned only brie¶y, since it seems to have little relevance with respect to Scandinavian and French words in SW: the text does, however, contain a few biblical quotations in Latin.
2.
General considerations regarding Sawles Warde
As noted above, KG consists of important and very early ME texts from the West Midlands. Robertson (1998: 389) estimates that the original KG texts were written between 1190 and 1230. With regard to SW, Bately (1988: 56) maintains that a post-1200 date is the likeliest; MED dates the manuscript(s) to c. 1225 and the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse (contained in the online Middle English Compendium) to 1240. SW survives in three manuscripts; according to Morris (1867–68: 245), Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 34 contains the oldest version, while the two London, British Library manuscripts (Royal 17 A xxvii and Cotton Titus D xviii) preserve untitled copies of the text. The manuscript copies do not diŸer much in age, and none of them is the original SW. For an EME text to survive in more than two or three manuscripts is not usual: a larger number of copies exists only for Ancrene Wisse (henceforth AW) and Poema Morale, with ªve and seven copies respectively (Laing 1992: 569). In the following, whenever no particular manuscript is mentioned, reference is being made to an electronic version of SW downloaded from the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse, incorporated in the Middle English Compendium and based on a 1938 edition of the text from the three manuscripts by Wilson (hence Wilson/MEC). Millett and Wogan-Browne (1990), Bennett and Smithers (1966), Hall (1920), and Morris (1867–68) also provide the full text of SW, the ªrst and the last also translations into Modern English (the one by Morris is used to translate the examples here). The end of SW is preserved solely in Royal, which is in two diŸerent hands (A and B); Titus concludes a few lines earlier, while the legible part of Bodley ends even before that. Consequently, an
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse
edition of the whole of SW cannot be based on a single copy in one hand; it either needs to be supplemented from another manuscript or it has to be based on a text in two diŸerent hands. Since there are also some diŸerences between the manuscripts in terms of individual loanwords, a comparison of the three manuscripts is presented in Subsection 4.3.1 Investigating the Titus and Royal manuscripts is also interesting because much of the linguistic work on SW, and KG in general, has been based on Bodley (e.g. De Caluwé-Dor 1983). Summary information on the manuscripts is given in Table 1 below.
Table 1. The manuscripts of SW (based on Laing 1993). Manuscript
Date
Contents
Bodley = Oxford, Bodleian Library, ªrst quarter of the 13th also Lives of St. Katherine, St. Bodley 34, fols. 72r-80v; in one hand century (c. 1225) Margaret, and St. Juliana, and Hali Meiðhad [i.e., the entire KG] Titus = London, British Library, ªrst quarter of the 13th also Ancrene Riwle, Hali Meiðhad, Cotton Titus D xviii, fols. 105v-112v; century (c. 1220) Þe Wohunge of Ure Lauerd, and in one hand St. Katherine Royal = London, British Library, ªrst quarter of the 13th Royal 17 A xxvii, fols. 1r-10v: fols. century (c. 1220-30) 1r-8v in hand A, fols. 9r-10v in hand B
also St. Katherine, St. Margaret, St. Juliana, and an incomplete Oreisun of Seinte Marie; also 15th-century text
The Bodley manuscript ends with SW, which is preceded by Life of St. Katherine, Life of St. Margaret, and Life of St. Juliana, together with a treatise on the virtues of virginity, Hali Meiðhad. The suggested order of composition for these texts is ªrst Margaret and Juliana, then Katherine and SW, and ªnally Hali Meiðhad (Bately 1988: 56, citing earlier KG scholars). Despite its position within a group of texts reinvigorating English prose after the Conquest, SW is not a piece of original composition but a modiªed translation of the Latin De custodia interioris hominis, associated with Anselm of Canterbury.2 Becker (1980) has argued that the source was a late twelfth-century text of De custodia interioris hominis which derived from both English and continental manuscripts. The author of SW is unknown: Morris (1867–68: ix) attributed it to the author of Hali Meiðhad and AW, and Hall (1920: II.504–505) also favours the single-author theory, but it has later been considered that assumptions as to the shared authorship of KG and AW are not on ªrm ground (Robertson 1998: 389). A point which is regularly mentioned (e.g. Stevenson and Wogan-Browne 2000: ix-x) is that SW, along with the rest of KG and AW, was mostly targeted at female audiences. In composing the English text, the Latin model has been altered with a
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female readership in mind; this suggests that the projected audience of the source text consisted of men, or of both men and women. Such modiªcations include the more extensive personiªcation, including female characters, and the greater visual detail (Millett and Wogan-Browne 1990: xxvii-xxix). In the added vividness Robertson (1990: 128) sees an avoidance of abstraction and theory, which the male author did not expect his audience to grasp. SW is devotional prose used for instruction, but it is instructive only indirectly, through allegory. From the beginning SW seeks to explicate a gospel text (Matt. 24: 43); and there is a long-lasting tradition of classifying the text, in terms of genre, as a homily: Morris (1867–68) incorporates SW in his collection of Old English Homilies and Homiletic Treatises; Wilson (1951: 117) refers to it as a “prose homily” and Becker (1980: 44) as an “allegorical sermon”. Millett and Wogan-Browne (1990: xxxviii) suggest that the EME devotional texts were not solely intended for reading but also for hearing: even SW may have been meant to be read aloud at church (see Wårvik, this volume, on issues of orality in earlier English texts). Clark (1966: 120) places the text in an intermediate position between the narratives of saints’ lives and the “abstract exposition” of AW. SW is in many ways typical of medieval religious allegory: its theme is spiritual battle, and its characters are personiªed virtues (see Twomey 1998). It describes the human soul as the household of Wit, consisting, in addition to this “husbonde, Godes cunestable” (a phrase containing, incidentally, a Scandinavian, a Germanic, and a French element), of his disobedient wife Wil, and of four daughters; these are not the children of the couple but of God, who has lent them to Wit: Warschipe ‘Prudence’, Gastelich Strengðe ‘Spiritual Fortitude’, Meað ‘Temperance’, and Rihtwisnesse ‘Justice’ (as translated in Millett and Wogan-Browne 1990; the original, Germanic names are in striking contrast with the modern renditions). In addition, the household has servants, including for instance the senses, which too easily follow Wil and therefore must at times be disciplined by Wit, as noted at the beginning of SW, “with awe (fear) and love”. This sums up the chief concern of the text. Most of the allegory consists of passages of conversation initiated by visits from the messengers of death and of mirth, Fearlac (Fear) and Liues Luue (Love of Life); a large proportion of SW is taken up by their respective reports on the horrors of hell and the joys of heaven. SW conforms to the characteristic form of medieval allegory: it is basically a debate involving participants who are more or less equal in status; another form of allegory, dialogue, typically displays a clearer teacher–student hierarchy (Twomey 1998: 25). At the end, a balance is achieved between the messengers, the wife’s wilfulness is defeated, and Wit’s rule and reason prevail, along with the cardinal virtues represented by the four sisters. The text concludes with the author asking his readers to pray for him.
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse
SW is placed early in the ME period, when adequate means for recording current English had probably not developed yet. Copies of OE texts were nevertheless produced, preserving a form of language that cannot always have been fully intelligible since the spoken forms of the language had by now diverged from the older written standard. The need for texts on religious topics composed in EME derives from the instruction of women, who were not expected to know Latin. The gender of the projected readership may therefore explain the preference for the vernacular over Latin; however, the choice between the two vernaculars available, English and French, should also be explored. This issue is less obviously connected with gender: it may rather be connected with class. Since the women reading texts such as KG were not addressed in French, it is probable that they were not aristocratic; Robertson’s (1990: 24) observation that there were also women from the ‘middle’ classes leading anchoritic lives in the 13th century is worth noting in this context. Such women may have been the precise audience addressed in SW. The extent of French skills in the early 13th century among English-speakers, and the survival of French as a ªrst language, nevertheless remains an open question. The language of SW and the rest of KG is the best-known form of the earliest Middle English, frequently referred to as AB language. This has been the designation for a West-Midland written ‘standard’ of the early 13th century ever since the concept was introduced by Tolkien (1929); he derived the name from two manuscripts, with ‘A’ standing for the Corpus Christi manuscript of AW and ‘B’ for the Bodley manuscript of KG. The characteristics of AB-language texts include consistent shared spelling and phonetic similarities. Tolkien’s main argument was that the two manuscripts were near-contemporary copies of originals written within a small area in AB language, which was a standard English based on the local dialect. More recently the uniformity of AB language has been questioned: Stevenson and Wogan-Browne (2000: ix) note that this form of early English can no longer be treated simply as a local literary standard, but is more likely to be a product of scriptorial practices; Black (1999) argues that the similar usages of manuscripts A and B may even go back to exemplars written by a single scribe. From a lexical point of view, it is noteworthy that De Caluwé-Dor (1983: 221) has found that very recent borrowings from French have been “systematically avoided” in the Bodley manuscript. She also points out that despite the phonological similarities between KG and AW, the AB-language texts diŸer from each other in other respects: SW and the other texts in Bodley are conservative, whereas AW is innovative. Clark (1966: 119) has observed a correlation between the choice of stylistic devices and the number of recent Romance borrowings: “the Saint’s Lives, which are the most strongly rhythmical and alliterative of these texts, have the smallest proportion of loanwords; the Ancrene Wisse, which shows by far the lightest use of alliteration and of rhythmical patterns, has much the highest proportion of
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loanwords”. It is interesting to see how borrowings from a new source language are used in a text preserved in such a ‘non-innovative’ manuscript as Bodley.
3.
An overview of loanwords
That SW provides interesting material for a case study on loanword use in EME is shown by a preliminary quantitative comparison of samples of English texts from c. 1200. The overall frequency of Scandinavian, French and Latin loanwords in SW is not high in comparison with for instance the Ormulum or AW, but the text exhibits a fairly diverse range of borrowings: the total of non-native tokens in this short piece re¶ects the use of a fair number of diŸerent loanwords rather than the repetition of very few items. SW has one of the highest frequencies of French loanwords (i.e. number of French loanword tokens) among the earliest ME texts, but it does not rank as high with respect to Scandinavian borrowings. The quantitative diŸerences between borrowings from French and Scandinavian are smaller than in the Ormulum or AW.3 While acknowledging that the text shares a number of French borrowings with AW, Serjeantson (1935: 86, 127) lists only eleven loanwords for SW from Scandinavian and ªve from French. Hall (1920: II.503) gives complete lists of both Scandinavian and French forms attested in the manuscripts, but his selection principles are diŸerent from mine (which is not unusual between any two people working on borrowings in medieval English), particularly with reference to the Scandinavian items. The outcome of the present analysis is that SW contains 39 French and 20 Scandinavian loanwords or words containing a borrowed element. These items are attested 54 and 32 times respectively, which means that words of Scandinavian origin are repeated slightly more often in the text. The majority are nouns, but a number of verbs and adjectives are also attested in the text. The few Latin loanwords, outside the scope of this paper, are datable to the OE period. In the Bodley copy of SW, the share of French borrowings of all headwords is 4.1% (cf. 4.2%, Bately 1988: 67), while that of Scandinavian loanwords constitutes 2.3% of lexemes. The normalised frequencies are 10.8 and 6.5, respectively, per 1000 tokens. The most frequent items are tresor (7 instances), from French, and the Scandinavian loanwords husebonde (5) and nowcin (4); 17 non-native words occur more than once.4 A major concern in this paper is the status, i.e. the degree of establishment in the English language, of the loanwords attested in SW. The assessment of status is complicated by the sparseness of EME texts: a comparison with contemporary texts — other than KG — is often impossible in the absence of a greater variety of texts in English from c. 1200. For many loanwords, such as grace, leattre, chastien and drupnin, the electronic MED (available through the Middle English Compendium)
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse
gives SW as either the earliest citation or as contemporary with other KG texts. While most of the French loans belong to this category, there are corresponding Scandinavian borrowings as well. OED, with its more extensive time span and lesser focus on ME, contains far fewer quotations from SW. In Table 2, those items for which either MED or OED gives a citation from SW (either alone or together with other KG texts) as the earliest record have been listed separately, the French borrowings under ‘F1’ and the Scandinavian ones under ‘S1’. These outnumber the other items in the French element (‘F2’) but not in the Scandinavian element (‘S2’). Where possible, the spellings derive (as throughout this paper) from the Bodley manuscript. Table 2. Non-native words in Sawles Warde (Wilson/MEC edition), with translations.
French borrowings and hybrids (39)
Scandinavian borrowings and hybrids (20)
Lexemes for which earliest citations in MED/OED are from SW
Lexemes for which MED/OED cite SW later or not at all
[F1] nouns: chere ‘face’, cunestable ‘chief officer’, cunfessur ‘confessor’ [earlier meaning], grace, leattre ‘letter of the alphabet’, mealle ‘hammer’, meoster ‘duty’, mesure ‘moderation’, semblant ‘appearance’, tresurer ‘warden of treasure’, trone ‘throne’, turne ‘trick’; adjectives: fol ‘foolish, sinful’, gleddichered ‘cheerful’, ouerhardi ‘too daring’, poure ‘poor’; verbs: aturnen ‘attire’, chastien ‘chasten’, enbreuen ‘record’, falsen ‘deceive’, meallen ‘strike’, meistren ‘rule’, ordren ‘arrange’, preouen ‘prove’, robben ‘rob’ [S1] nouns: etlunge ‘estimation’, feierleac ‘beauty’, lane ‘loan’, nowcin ‘affliction’; verbs: drupnin ‘be sad’, stutten ‘stop’, trusten ‘have confidence, faith’; other: feolahlice ‘as fellows’
[F2] nouns: castel ‘castle’, charite ‘love’, chatel ‘property’, liun ‘lion’, meistre ‘master’, patriarch, prophete ‘prophet’, prude ‘pride’, tresor ‘treasure’; adjectives: seinte ‘saint’; verbs: crunen ‘crown’, seruin ‘serve’, weorren ‘make war’; other: par ‘by’
[S2] nouns: godlec ‘goodness’, husebonde ‘master of household’, keiser ‘emperor’, lahe ‘law’, wengen ‘wings’, wontreaðe ‘misery’; adjectives: lah ‘low’, meok ‘gentle’; verbs: flutten ‘remove’, fortrusten ‘be over-confident’, wonten ‘be lacking’; other: witerliche ‘certainly’
There are no grounds for claiming on the basis of dictionary evidence alone that F2S2 are more established loanwords than F1-S1; hence these rather awkward labels rather than straightforward categories for ‘recent’ and ‘earlier’ borrowings. The earliest records may, on the one hand, well be instances of code-mixing — the individual insertion of a foreign word in vernacular writing — and thus predate the actual incorporation of the loanword into the language of any English community;
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on the other hand, they may considerably postdate adoption, if earlier instances have not been preserved in writing. Since SW is basically an instructive text, we have to ask whether a good writer would have used highly unusual lexical items in it. However, as will be seen in Subsection 4.4, even relatively recent loans are not necessarily hard to understand if they are rendered in a way that makes misinterpretation less likely. Because of their novelty, they may have been used in a more distinct manner than more established items or native words.
4.
Loanwords in context
4.1 Preliminary remarks The topics dealt with in SW did not require the introduction of any concepts that were unfamiliar in the OE period: new cultural borrowing was not necessary. Lexical items borrowed from other languages for whatever reason co-existed with native words of identical or similar meaning; thus plenty of (near-)synonyms were available to speakers and writers of EME. This lexical wealth is represented in SW for instance by the ªve diŸerent words for ‘face’: in addition to the native leor, nebbe, and wlite, there are the French loanwords chere and semblant. The borrowed nouns also carry the meanings ‘facial expression’ and ‘manner, behaviour’; the native nouns seem to refer more concretely to ‘face’ and ‘countenance’, although wlite sometimes means ‘splendour’ or ‘state of glory’ in SW (MED: s.v. wlite). Variation between native and borrowed words can be motivated by a number of stylistic and contextual factors, which can be analysed when comparing the choice of each of these words. Thus we note that two of the three instances of nebbe occur in the phrase nebbe to nebbe, while the third is attested in a passage dominated by both native vocabulary and OE stylistic devices; the two tokens of leor are used alliteratively; and wlite, appearing six times in Love of Life’s speech on heaven, is used not only to refer to the faces of Mary and the blessed virgins but also more abstractly to God’s glory and the magniªcence of heaven. The equivalents borrowed from French occur in diŸerent kinds of contexts, which will be discussed in the rest of Section 4. However, there are also cases without any contextual cue as to the choice of a particular word: for instance Bately (1988: 76) has found no reason why SW contains the noun trone while the KG saints’ lives favour its native equivalents. It seems possible that a motivation for trone in SW can be found outside the context of the English manuscripts, in the Latin De custodia interioris hominis (Southern and Schmitt 1969: 354–360) where such phrases as in throno and in thronis are attested. Thus the immediate source of this noun, classiªed as an
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse
adoption from Old French in OED and (Anglo-) French and/or (Medieval) Latin in MED, may actually be the Latin text. The co-existence of (near-)synonymous lexical items often implies vying words. Whether it is justiªed to discuss competition between words in a case study of a single text is questionable: the presence of variants in the material does not provide su¹cient grounds for establishing competition. This would require a more extensive corpus, preferably of diachronic material. Issues of co-existence and competition are therefore not discussed further in this paper. As SW is a short text and the number of loanwords in it is not very great, generalised conclusions cannot be drawn on the basis of this study alone. Some reference will be made to the proportions of diŸerent kinds of borrowings in diŸerent contexts, but these approximate quantiªcations cannot be given much statistical weight; they merely serve to illustrate or summarise the diŸerent uses of loanwords. An extensive corpus of EME texts would be needed for a fuller understanding of the wider framework.
4.2 Loanwords in the Katherine Group Since KG represents the core of extant EME texts, the borrowings attested in SW were ªrst checked against a concordance of the entire KG (Stevenson and WoganBrowne 2000) in order to ªnd out how many of the items were shared by the ªve texts. Earlier research (Clark 1966: 118–119, Bately 1988: 67) indicates that with regard to the size of the French element SW occupies an intermediate position between the saints’ lives, in which Romance borrowings are rarest, and Hali Meiðhad, which (like AW) contains a larger number of French loanwords. The loanwords used in all ªve KG texts are mostly Scandinavian: these are lahe, lah, meok, trusten, witerliche, and wontreaðe, as well as the French loanwords grace and weorren. There are 22 borrowings in SW that do not occur elsewhere in KG; only four of these are of Scandinavian origin. Of the lexemes whose earliest attestations MED assigns to KG (i.e. F1-S1 in Table 2), approximately one half are not attested in the saints’ lives or Hali Meiðhad; the more limited distribution is more common with the French loanwords. The above suggests a greater degree of establishment for the Scandinavian loanwords than for the French ones, but it has to be observed again that the Scandinavian element in the EME texts does not re¶ect in¶uence from very recent language contacts. In general, SW seems to share more loanwords with Hali Meiðhad than with any of the saints’ lives, especially with the Life of St. Juliana. Although the diŸerences in number are not great, a comparison of this kind can be made between SW and the other texts, as Hali Meiðhad and the three saints’ lives are approximately of the same length in Bodley while SW is shorter. Typically, SW and the saints’ lives have fewer
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borrowings in common from French than from Scandinavian; this again suggests the greater integration of the Scandinavian element, as well as the more specialised character of the French loanwords. There is thus more overlap between the two texts that do not deal with saints but explore human nature, especially women’s life and spirituality: as pointed out by Clark (1966: 121), the relatedness of subject matter is re¶ected in word choice. Bately (1988: 67) also includes “diŸerences in approach” as well as “the heavy use of alliteration in some of these texts” as factors contributing to diŸerent shares of Romance borrowings in KG. She moreover reminds us that diŸerences in loanword distribution are also related quite simply to the need for diŸerent concepts in diŸerent texts (Bately 1988: 69 et passim). SW does not contain loanwords that are exclusive to KG. There are a few words which MED does not cite from other ME texts until the 14th century, but more items that do not seem to occur outside the AB-language texts (i.e. KG and AW) until a fairly long time afterwards. Taking into account these gaps, Dor (1992: 492– 497) has proposed chronological distributions for French loanwords in KG. The following items occurring in SW have been collected from her categories: a.
Contemporary occurrences, followed by a gap until 1300/1325: chastien, chere, cunfessur, mesure; b. Words exclusive to AB language, most of them not recorded elsewhere until much later (up to 1425): aturnen, enbreuen, mealle, meallen, meistren, ordren, robben, semblant. I suggest that the former group (a) could be expanded to incorporate contemporary occurrences outside AB language with a gap until 1275/1300, and also include at least patriarch and preouen. In addition, cunestable, gleddichered, ouerhardi, tresurer, and turne could be added to the latter group (b). I also applied a similar MED-based approach to the Scandinavian loanwords, which yielded the following categorisation: c. Contemporary occurrences, followed by a gap until up to c. 1300: godlec d. Words exclusive to AB language, most of them not recorded elsewhere until much later (up to the early 15th century): drupnin, feierleac, feolahlice, nowcin, stutten. According to Dor (1992: 496–497), SW contains a number of “already well-established, or at least already recorded” French loanwords: crunen, grace, meistre, poure, prophete, prude, and seruin. A similar account of Scandinavian loanwords could contain for instance husebonde, keiser, lahe, and lah. These lists contribute to one interpretation of the status of lexical borrowings in SW, but they could be expanded to include more items.5
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse
4.3 Loanwords in the manuscripts There are some diŸerences between the three manuscripts with regard to the choice of words made by the individual scribe. A case in point is castel/chatel: the Wilson/ MEC material contains the latter noun of French origin, which nonetheless only appears in the Royal manuscript, while the semantic loan castel occurs in the same position in Bodley and Titus, after Godes deore. Moreover, Royal has durcnin and eilung for drupnin and etlunge, and Titus leaue for lane; for enbreuet Royal has ibreuet. With respect to the orthographic forms of the loanwords, the Wilson/MEC edition agrees less frequently with Titus and Royal than with Bodley, the manuscript typically used as the base for editions. The French items in Bodley are slightly more often exact matches to those of Titus than those of Royal, but in the case of Scandinavian loanwords there is greater agreement with Royal. Such French borrowings as cunfessur, meistre and semblant are spelled diŸerently in each manuscript, while the orthography of chere, liun, poure and trone as well as of the verbs crunen, meistren and robben is identical. For Scandinavian items, identical forms are attested for lahe ‘law’ and wengen, and only minor variation is seen in husebonde and nowcin. Tempting as it is to consider spelling variants or the lack thereof as an indicator of the level of incorporation into EME, it is improbable that regular spelling suggests a more established status in the recipient language (see MeurmanSolin 1990: 94). The hypothesis is particularly unfeasible at a time when orthographic practices tended to be less than systematic. Furthermore, the division between words with or without spelling variation in the manuscripts does not correspond with the groupings into either F1-S1 and F2-S2 (Table 2) or wellestablished and other loans (as classiªed in Subsection 4.2.). A great adherence to the orthography of the source language can, however, be considered an indicator of markedness in borrowings (Meurman-Solin 1990: 94); the spellings of semblant serve as an example. It is moreover to be noted that Titus contains several items indicating a possible Scandinavian in¶uence, in contrast with the forms attested in Bodley and Royal: these are two tokens of baðe ‘both’ where the other manuscripts have ba, two instances of til-þ[at] ‘until’ for aðet, and frode[n] ‘frogs’ for froggen. Moreover, the messenger’s name Fearlaic is spelled towards the end of the text with the su¹x in a Scandinavian form instead of the native -lac, and the numeral ‘hundred’ is spelled hundreð, where the ªnal consonant points towards Scandinavian in¶uence. The most frequent of these items, however, is ai ‘ever’, which is found in Titus for the native aa or a. Both Titus and Royal have substituted husebonde for one token of lau[er]d ‘lord’ at the beginning of the text, before the Scandinavian word appears in Bodley. In addition, Royal has the Scandinavian verb igreiðet ‘prepare’ where the other two manuscripts have the native igret ‘salute’ or ‘weep’. That Titus stands out
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linguistically has not gone unnoticed: the non-KG texts contained in this manuscript have been found to display features that point towards northern dialects (Laing 1993: 82), and especially the Titus Wohunge stands out dialectally (Morris 1867–68: x). SW is not mentioned in these estimates, although the above lexical choices can be taken to point towards the north or the east rather than the west, where Bodley belongs. A few loanwords, however, are not conclusive evidence on their own. These diŸerences in word choice between the three manuscripts of SW may be considered relatively minor. They characterise the dialectal origins of a particular manuscript or, to put it in a diŸerent way, re¶ect the scribal work behind that manuscript; or they may illustrate the possible geographical spread of lexical borrowings. They shed less light on the relationship between lexical borrowings and discourse: the diŸerences cannot be said to provide insights into the ways in which loanwords were used in discourse, unless the context in which certain items are attested in one copy of the text has altered remarkably from the others. Such reorganisation of the text does not occur in the manuscripts of SW. On another level, however, the manuscript context of SW is crucially important: the allegory is accompanied in the manuscripts by other texts about women and for women. This is very relevant when conclusions are drawn as to the audience of this particular text, and — ultimately — about the language in which religious instruction is conveyed.
4.4 Sentence-internal contexts There are several types of sentence-internal context that can be taken into account in a study of the use of particular lexemes. The data can be checked in terms of syntactic role (occurrence as sentence constituents, or in certain ªxed structures) or position within the phrase (collocations and other co-occurrences; simple or complex NPs or VPs, etc.). The syntactic context in which a loanword appears may be restricted: Meurman-Solin (1990: 95–96) writes that “marked loanwords are seldom used in simple phrases which function as immediate sentence constituents” but they “are used in stereotyped syntactic structures”. A comparison of the sentence constituency of the 51 tokens of borrowed nouns in SW shows that the most common position where the items occur is the adverbial phrase; as subjects or objects they are rarer. However, since adverbial positions in a sentence can easily outnumber those of subjects and objects, it may be more instructive to study the types of phrases in which loanwords are embedded. The borrowed nouns seem to occur less often preceded only by a determiner (an article or a possessive pronoun) than within more complex phrases, but the diŸerence is not striking.
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse
The items attested more than once in SW seem to recur in similar constructions, but this does not necessarily relate to constraints arising from markedness: it is natural that for instance trone(s) occurs after sitten i(n) or that grace and meoster ‘duty’ are preceded by genitives: Godes or his deore (grace), and euchanes or mi (meoster). Nor is it peculiar that tresor follows Godes, his, or þe(t), sometimes with deore as its attribute, in a text where ‘(God’s) treasure’ is a metaphor for the soul, the key issue in the allegory. However, there are some recurring phrases which can be interpreted as tokens of restricted usage. A case in point is the recently borrowed noun cunestable, apparently not attested in English after SW for nearly a century, which is coupled twice with the Scandinavian husebonde in the phrase Wit þe hus(e)bonde Godes cunestable. Husebonde never occurs on its own either: it appears not only in the above phrase but, three times, in expressions containing þet is and Wit, the name of the ‘husband’. Another Scandinavian noun, wengen, occurs in the phrase under Godes/his wengen, an image from the Psalms, but its equivalents do not appear in the Latin original of SW (Millett and Wogan-Browne 1990: 157). Certain types of co-occurrence also provide clues to the meaning of new words and may therefore be treated as stereotypical structures. Dor (1992: 487–492) identiªes a number of borrowings from French as having contextual features that point towards a foreign origin. The author may for example explain the new word, as in mete þet me meosure hat ‘moderation, which is also called measure’. There are several kinds of word pairs in SW that serve a similar function. Dor’s classiªcation of these pairs is based on Koskenniemi (1968), whose term for items linked (most typically) by conjunctions is repetitive word pair. The distinctions between types of repetitive word pairs are not always clear, but it has long been recognised that these sometimes have an interpretative function. Near-synonymous pairs are seen in midel of mesure ant of mete ‘middle (mean) of measure and of moderation’, and a gret boc al of sunnen iwriten … his boc þet is on euch sunne enbreuet ‘a great book all written over with sins… his book, in which is described [more precisely: recorded] each sin’; there is semantic contiguity in te patriarches & te prophetes, and we ªnd complementary words in poure & lah; the phrase deo¶en þet ham meallið & derueð aa & dreccheð wið alles cunnes pinen ‘devils, that ever maul them and a§ict and harass them with all kinds of tortures’ contains both enumeration and complementary terms. The above list by Dor does not exhaust all relevant cases in SW; although the other instances do not always constitute what Koskenniemi would call word pairs, the semantic classiªcation may be applicable to them as well. In close proximity, although not in the same sentence, we ªnd two uses of chere: the past participle gleddicheret ‘glad in cheer [i.e. glad-faced]’ and the prepositional phrase wið lahhinde chere ‘with a laughing cheer [face]’ are synonymous descriptions of the appearance of Love of Life. Items of Scandinavian origin are also combined with other words. There is the alliterative, near-synonymous milde beon & meoke, and the semantically
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contiguous kinges & keiseres. Complementary or semantically contiguous instances are oŸruhte & sumdel drupnin ‘terriªed and somewhat cast down’ and alles cunnes neowcins & eorðliche tintreohen ‘all kinds of harms and earthly torments’. In addition to the combination of a French and a Scandinavian word mentioned above (poure & lah), we have a similar pair of a native and a Scandinavian adjective in eðeliche & lahe, also meaning ‘poor and low’. The repeated phrase containing husebonde and cunestable could also be included here. At least the French items in the above cases seem to belong to F1 rather than F2, but whether these loanwords are otherwise marked as well remains to be seen in the rest of this section. The only immediate co-occurrences of French origin, or phrases consisting only of French-derived elements, are fol semblant ‘foolish cheer’, at the beginning of SW, and the phrase par seinte charite, used twice at the very end. The phrase occurs only in Royal’s ªnal note, which may not be more than an afterthought (see next section for some further discussion): it was not even taken into account in the KG concordance (Stevenson and Wogan-Browne 2000). The interjection could more appropriately be labelled as an instance of code-switching than a sequence of loanwords; the preposition par was not borrowed into English independently but was restricted to phrases of French origin (MED and OED: s.v. par), although the adjective seinte and the noun charite were successful independent borrowings. According to MED, emphatic uses of the latter phrase, sometimes without the adjective, appear from before 1300 until the late 15th century; the former French collocation does not seem to be habitual, although there is a similar occurrence in AW (s.v. fol). The Scandinavian loanwords do not have any immediate collocates adopted from the same source language. Alliteration is a matter of style, but will also be considered here since it functions sentence-internally. In an alliterative combination of lexical items, words containing stressed syllables beginning with the same sound(s) — usually a consonant — are used close to one another in order to create a rhythmic eŸect. This poetic device is also a feature of prose, and has been considered a re¶ection of the OE tradition in EME literature (Millett 1983: 102). Alliteration is common in the Germanic languages, and examples of alliteration involving borrowings by one Germanic language from another can be found in SW: e.g. kinges & keiseres. French borrowings also occur in alliterative phrases: e.g. midel of mesure ant of mete and treowe tresurers witeð well his tresor ‘true treasurers guard well his treasure’.6 While Clark (1966: 119) has proposed a connection between alliterative style and a preference for native lexical items (as mentioned earlier), Bately (1988: 70–71) points out that alliterative needs may determine the choice of either a native or a borrowed variant, whichever word begins with the appropriate sound in a particular context. Alliteration can also be associated with markedness if the use of a borrowing remains limited to certain structures: although mesure was later integrated into
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse
English, at this stage it is a good example of such limited distribution. Table 2 contains a few items that are related to other words on the list. There is for instance the verb meallen and the noun mealle, but Dor (1992: 502 n. 18) observes that the two words are not attested in one sentence, which I take to mean that they can therefore hardly be expected to have been used in support of each other. The verb occurs in the early part of the passage on hell, and the noun considerably later, at the end of that passage. The verb is co-ordinated with two other verbs of similar meaning (enumeration, see above), which suggests that it may have needed clariªcation, but the noun is not used in the proximity of semantically or formally similar words. This stresses the greater integration of the noun, from which the verb is possibly derived. There are three other related pairs of lexemes. Tresurer and tresor occur in the same sentence where the agent noun, a more recent and apparently less established addition to English vocabulary, is used in a prepositional phrase that follows the subject, and tresor is the direct object: we as treowe tresurers witeð wel his tresor. However, meistren and meistre do not occur very close to one another either, and fortrusten and trusten are even further apart. To sum up the above points: the share of loanwords that are in some way marked seems to be quite similar for both Scandinavian and French borrowings, but possibly ‘recent’ adoptions [F1] make up a larger share of marked items within the French element.
4.5 Discourse perspectives To gain a ‘discourse perspective’ on early loanword use — that is, to shed light on the functional or pragmatic motives underlying word choices either in particular instances or in the text more generally — a number of approaches are possible. Information structure can be studied, as well as possible clusters of borrowings in diŸerent parts of the text as a whole (i.e. sentence-externally). DiŸerences between narrative and dialogue also deserve attention, as do the ways in which SW is generally organised. In terms of information structure, instances of loanwords can be assessed by distinguishing between their roles as given or new information, i.e. information that is familiar or unfamiliar to the reader or listener (e.g. Brown and Yule 1983: 154). While the complexities of analysing information structure need not be explored here, a few points have to be made. ‘Givenness’ is often syntactically indicated by certain conventions or cues, such as the repetition of previously mentioned items, the use of the deªnite article or of semantically related words, or pronominal reference (Brown and Yule 1983: 171), but determining given information is complicated by the fact that some assumptions have to be made about the background knowledge shared by the audience. While in the case of a medieval text such
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reconstitution is di¹cult, it is clear that the information recoverable from SW itself is insu¹cient in determining what is given and what is not: for example, it cannot have been unknown to the audience, before the word is mentioned in this context in SW, that cunfessurs are among the inhabitants of heaven. Can we, then, determine whether the usual information status of quite recent, not yet established borrowings is new or given? This question is open to further discussion; it seems intuitively acceptable, however, to assume that understanding a neologism is easier if it refers to a piece of information with which the audience is already familiar, whereas a recent borrowing as a vehicle of new information might be less accessible. This is connected with repetition, a possible marker of recent borrowing since it indicates an eŸort to ensure that a new word is understood (Meurman-Solin 1990: 92); this can be a useful clue in identifying unestablished loanwords. Repeated instances are given information, whereas the ªrst token can be either new or given. A good example of loans occurring only as given information is cunestable, which the evidence presented in the previous subsections suggests is a new adoption from French; however, grace also seems to meet the criteria of givenness, but has been singled out as a well-established loanword by Dor (above). When the rest of the borrowed nouns in SW were examined from the perspective of information structure primarily on text-internal grounds, the ªndings were not particularly surprising: approximately one third of the instances could be interpreted as new information; subject and object positions are typically dominated by tokens which have the status of given information, while nouns occurring in adverbial phrases also include a fair share of items conveying new information. Givenness is more typical than newness for both Scandinavian and French nouns — and probably native nouns as well, since texts obviously tend to build on given information: adding more and more new information without referring back to it merely creates incoherence. Information structure is connected with the organisation of elements in sentences or utterances. Meurman-Solin (1988: 171) mentions the not infrequent position of marked loanwords at the end of utterances. Determining an utterance or a sentence based on EME manuscripts is far from simple, but the following experiment was nonetheless performed. Stretches of text between full stops in the Wilson/MEC edition were deªned as sentences and divided into three parts of equal length. This showed the following: the F1-S1 tokens were more common in mid-position than in the ªrst or ªnal thirds, while the F2-S2 tokens were fewest in the ªnal thirds but more frequent in the second and (slightly more clearly) ªrst thirds. Overall, SW contains more instances of F2-S2 than of F1-S1; however, only the ªrst parts of sentences contained slightly more F2-S2 tokens than F1-S1 tokens, whereas in the middle and ªnal parts of the sentences the numbers of these two groups of loanword tokens were more equal. A somewhat greater share of the
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse
Scandinavian tokens than of the French ones were recorded in the initial thirds of sentences. The above thus seems to be in accordance with Meurman-Solin’s suggestion, if the possible recentness of F1-S1 is equated with markedness or lack of integration. However, divisions into shorter segments should also be studied, as editorial punctuation has a great impact on the ªndings.7 The distribution of loanword tokens throughout the text is our next concern, although it is clear that content words can never be as evenly distributed in a text as grammatical words or structural features. To illustrate the use of borrowings in the diŸerent passages of SW the text was divided into ten parts, each containing ten per cent of the running words (Table 3). There are concentrations of French loanwords at the beginning and soon after the middle of the text as well as at the end of SW; the Scandinavian loanwords cluster after the middle and at the very end, and half way in between. Put together, the largest concentrations of borrowings in SW occur in Parts VI, VII, and X, while the smallest numbers are found in Part III. As can be seen in Table 3, certain subject matters seem to coincide with clusters of borrowings; it is also immediately noticeable that the Scandinavian tokens are somewhat more evenly spread in SW. What occurs in the diŸerent parts of text will be explored in the next few paragraphs. The division of the text applied here is artiªcial but there are also text-internal divisions in the manuscripts: the scribe of Bodley uses plain initials to mark, for instance, some of the turns of conversation.8 Table 3. The distribution of loanword tokens in different parts of SW. Part
French loans : Scandinavian Total
I: 0–10% xxxxxxxxx : xx II: 10–20% xxxxxxx : x III: 20–30% x : xx IV: 30–40% xxxx : xxx V: 40–50% xxxxxx : xxx VI: 50–60% xxxxxx : xxxxxx VII: 60–70% xxxxxxxxx : xxx VIII: 70–80% x : xxxxx IX: 80–90% xxxx : xx X: 90–100% xxxxxxx : xxxxx
11 8 3 7 9 12 12 6 6 12
Subject matter Introduction to household Sisters’ roles; arrival of Fear Description of hell Hell, continued; advice against devil Sisters’ responses Wit’s gratitude; arrival of Love of Life Description of heaven Heaven, continued Heaven, continued; responses Wit’s new rule in household; advice
Beginnings and ends have important roles especially in spoken discourse (which SW may have been): to be rhetorically successful, the opening must capture the audience’s attention and the closing recapitulate and reinforce the message conveyed in the text. Since openings and closings need to be linguistically arranged so as to serve these functions, Parts I and X are of particular interest. The French tokens in Part I include the nouns tresor (two instances), semblant, chatel, and cunestable, the verbs chastien, robben, and meistren, and the adjective fol, appearing
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as an attribute to semblant. There are also two instances of the Scandinavian husebonde. In Part X we ªnd the French tresor (in Godes treosor þet is his ahne sawle) and some Scandinavian tokens: two instances of husebonde as well as wengen, ¶utten, and stutten. Only stutten is a sole instance in SW: wengen and ¶utten were used in Parts III-IV. Parts I and X, however, do not match the precise opening and closing sequences of the text in terms of content. The ‘introduction proper’ ends slightly later in Part II and also contains meistre, meosure, and crunen. The ‘conclusion proper’ of the allegory, shorter than Part X and located in the middle of it, contains husebonde and tresor. The borrowed vocabulary in these passages re¶ects SW as a whole very well. The beginning introduces the master of the allegorical household, the concept of man’s soul as his treasure, and the need for moderation to direct the audience’s attention to these issues. The concluding part lexically reiterates the core of the allegory with tresor and husebonde, although the husband’s name, Wit, may be more important than the noun characterising his position. Otherwise these two passages share references to the wilful wife, who is hardly mentioned at all in the intermediate parts of the text — the character of the wife is an addition to the English text that does not even exist in the Latin original (Robertson 1990: 133). The recklessness of Wil and her servants is introduced at the beginning, but in the conclusion these characters are described as quiet and obedient to Wit. A more general level of discussion completes the main part of SW, with instructions on protecting the soul from vice. Although it appears that French loanwords cluster both in the opening and in the closing, six of the seven tokens in Part X in fact represent the constituents of the phrase par seinte charite, used twice in the last few lines concluding the text of Royal, in hand B. The translation by Morris (1867–68: 266) singles out the foreign phrase by italicising its occurrences. The passage reads: (1) Par seinte charite biddeð a pateR noster for iohan þet þeos boc wrat. Hwase þis writ haueð ired Ant Crist him haueð swa Isped, Ich bidde par seinte charite þet Še bidden ofte for me Aa pateR nosteR ant aue marie, þet ich mote þet lif heR drehen Ant ure lauerd wel icwemen I Mi Šuheðe & in min elde ÞEt ich mote Ihesu Crist mi sawle Šelden. AMEN. ‘Par seinte charite pray a pater noster for John who wrote this book! Whoso hath read this writing [a]nd Christ hath so (thereby) prospered him, I pray, par seinte charite, [t]hat ye pray often for me [a] Pater noster and Ave Maria; That I may so lead my life [a]nd well please our Lord, [i]n my youth and in my old age, [t]hat I may yield my soul to Jesus Christ. Amen.’ As mentioned earlier, this is an addition extraneous to the religious allegory; this may make it less interesting from a literary point of view, but from a linguistic perspective it is not irrelevant. The scribe of the English text clearly wanted to add a
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse
personal note in the closing and used a contemporary phrase suitable for an invocation, thus recording an instance of thirteenth-century code-mixing. The Latin model of SW also concludes with a short prayer (Southern and Schmitt 1969: 361). Finally, since SW is mostly organised as conversation or debate, it is time to study what this means in terms of lexical choices: do diŸerent speakers diŸer from one another in terms of loanword use? The language of the two messengers is more embellished than that of the sisters, whose turns are constituted by questions and reactions to the messengers’ speeches. The messengers have much longer turns — making up two thirds of the dialogues of the entire text (e.g. most of Parts III, IV, VII, and VIII) — than the four sisters, of whom Prudence speaks most. The sisters have some fairly lengthy turns as well, re¶ecting their particular reactions to the messengers’ input. The longest speeches are by Love of Life, whose lines take up approximately as much space as all of the sisters’ put together. However, the four sisters use a relatively larger number of loanwords in their shorter turns than the two messengers. In particular Fear uses a disproportionately small number of borrowings. Prudence’s lines contain a greater share of French loanwords than might be expected if the tokens of content words were evenly distributed. In terms of F1-S1 and F2-S2, most of the characters, including the messengers, seem to use F1-S1 more; the only exception is Prudence, in whose turns the F2-S2 borrowings dominate, as they do outside the dialogue parts. Thus the voice of the most vocal of the sisters — and who “knows best how to beset her words” — is closest to that of the narrator with respect to this particular lexical feature. A question that this raises is whether the speech of the four female characters can be argued to record the kind of language that an audience of women was accustomed to encounter in writing or in speech, or was even expected to use. This may seem far-fetched, but the sisters representing the major virtues were designed to serve as models for the readers, in terms of character if not linguistically (see Hiltunen, this volume, on anchorite speech). It is worth noting here that Stanley (1996: 217) distinctly points out that the dialogues in SW and Vices and Virtues, another EME text, “sound like real speech”, although it is unclear whether it is feasible to make such a claim about the orality of texts written 800 years ago. Even if the lines attributed to the sisters cannot be regarded as a record of realistic speech, it seems possible in the light of the history of the text that the dialogue provided an appropriate setting for the author to use fashionable borrowings to re¶ect current linguistic habits. The Latin model of SW also had dialogue form (Millett and Wogan-Browne 1990: xxv), but the English text, which as we know has been expanded with more personiªcation and female characters, contains more dialogue than the original (Robertson 1990: 128). The newly added conversational parts of SW may therefore be less constrained by the model of the original and display more
97
98
Janne SkaŸari
‘English’ uses of language. However, in addition to lexical novelties these parts also display a feature that points towards older conventions — a traditional stylistic device: the loanword tokens that alliterate with some words close by are more often found in the dialogue parts than elsewhere in the text. Millett (1983: 105), although not referring to this issue in particular, points out that “ampliªcations to the original are in a more obviously rhythmical and alliterative style”, which re¶ects the in¶uence of the older native prose tradition, almost the only available English model. To sum up: we ªnd in the dialogue parts characteristics that make SW very much an English text: contemporary lexical borrowings, which were becoming a important feature of the emerging Middle English, along with remnants of Old English style. The above distinction between dialogue turns and other parts of SW is not adequate without a caveat: genuinely conversational interaction is rare in the text. The lengthy speeches by the two messengers mostly consist of narrative; conversational features such as responses to questions only occur where the turns are joined to the rest of the dialogue. The sisters’ turns are structurally fairly similar to them, but the intermediate, less conversational segments within turns are shorter. In ‘genuine’ conversation — e.g. questions and answers — there are only a few loanwords, and these are of Scandinavian origin. Love of Life’s report, which is mostly in the past tense, is an eyewitness account of what he encountered in heaven; Fear’s report, mostly in the present tense, is less personal, and is perhaps not so much a narrative passage as a suggestive description invoking images of the horrors of hell, which, Fear concludes, are in reality “a thousand time worse” than what he accounts. Robertson (1990: 132) observes that while all the parts of SW are lengthier than the corresponding ones in the Latin model, it is the narrative on hell that is particularly elaborated, to match the passage on heaven. The narrative on hell has been identiªed by Millett (1983: 102–103) as an example of those passages of SW that contain typical native OE stylistic devices such as alliteration and rhythm; it therefore suggests the continuity of OE literary tradition. Its lexis is also more traditional and displays fewer in¶uences from French in particular (Part III, in Table 3). A brief extract: (2) For þah neauer nere nan oðer pine bute to iseon eauer þe unseli gastes & hare grisliche schape, biseon on hare grimfule & grurefule nebbes, ant heren hare rarunge… ‘[F]or though there were never any other pain, except to see the wretched spirits and their horrible forms; to look on their grim and dreadful faces, and to hear their roaring…’ The two items classiªed as French borrowings in the passage on hell, meallen and mealle (discussed earlier), are not the most indisputable French loanwords in SW:
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse
although MED and OED regard the noun as a borrowing from French, and ultimately from Latin, the verb is considered to be a native derivation from it, even if the French verb maillier, according to MED, oŸers a point of comparison or a model. The Scandinavian loanwords in this passage — ¶utten, wontreaðe, and wonten — are S2 borrowings and do not stand out syntactically (although there may be an element of alliteration connected with them), and their use therefore does not distinguish this part of SW in any way. In Love of Life’s narrative on heaven, the distribution of loanwords seems to re¶ect diŸerences in subject matter: the cluster of French loanwords occurs fairly early in the description (Part VII), where reference is made to the inhabitants of heaven, to their actions and characteristics. Some of the very few Latin borrowings also appear here, e.g. apostle: (3) Ich iseh þe apostles, poure & lah on eorðe, ifullet & bigoten al of unimete blisse, sitten i trones, ant al under hare uet þet heh is i þe worlde, Šarowe for-te demen i þe dei of dome kinges & keiseres ant alle cunreadnes of alles cunnes ledenes. ‘I saw the Apostles (that were) poor and low on earth, ªlled and possessed all with extraordinary blisses, sitting on thrones, and all that is high in this world under their feet, ready to judge, in the day of doom, kings and kaisers, and all kindreds of all kinds of nations.’ The later section, in which the narrator describes his encounter with the holy trinity, contains no borrowed elements, while the conclusion, dealing with the bliss of eternal life, has only two loanwords (of Scandinavian origin and therefore less conspicuous). The diŸerent sections of the passage on heaven are emphasised in Bodley: the scribe uses plain initials especially in Part VII to mark subdivisions, while the entire description of hell only has such indicators at the beginning and at the end. The sisters’ speeches, although shorter, provide analysis and instruction for the beneªt of the audience and are characterised by more evenly spread borrowings. Word choices seem less constrained by the subject matter.
5.
Concluding remarks
This case study suggests that an examination of the contexts in which loanwords are used can shed a great deal of light on the early uses of lexical borrowings from Scandinavian, and even more so from French. It has been noted that a number of contextual features can point toward the recentness or markedness of loanwords. These clues include scanty attestation in contemporary writing and more restricted
99
100 Janne SkaŸari
or special use in texts. The loanwords of SW that contain the greatest number of characteristics pointing towards a lower level of integration into English include such borrowings as cunestable and tresurer from French and nowcin and drupnin from Scandinavian. This study furthermore suggests that crunen, meistre, and liun as well as lahe are the loanwords most likely to be already established. The number of ambiguous cases between these extremes is considerable. In the examples above, we ªnd agreement between the contextual analysis and the information provided in the major dictionaries — the earliest citations for the marked, or unestablished, items are from SW, while the more established words are cited later in the dictionaries (if at all). However, the situation is not this simple: in the cases for instance of cunfessur and husebonde the contextual clues and the dictionaries are in con¶ict. Relying on dictionary evidence alone is therefore an uncertain method of analysing the status of loanwords. An examination based on a single text is also inadequate in this respect: evaluation of a larger number of items in a much more extensive corpus is necessary to conªrm the ªndings suggested by this pilot study. The methods discussed above could be extended to the rest of KG and, more generally, to EME texts. The paper also incorporated a discourse perspective, which served as a tool in the contextual analysis but also functioned on its own accord: in addition to contributing to the review of EME lexical borrowings, it allowed loanwords to be viewed as a part of the structuring of SW as a text. Much of the key message in this allegory is actually conveyed in certain loanwords. While it is common that the main concepts and ideas of a text are introduced in the opening sequences of that text and repeated in the conclusion, it is interesting that this was achieved in this particular piece of EME religious instruction through lexical borrowings that had in many cases not yet integrated particularly well into English, if lexicographic and other, contextual evidence is to be relied on. It has been shown that SW is a vernacular version of a Latin original, which was not simply translated into English but was heavily modiªed and re-structured to suit an audience of women; it is thus reasonable to assume that the great attention paid to the alleged needs or abilities of female readers is re¶ected not only in the structure of the text but also in its language, not least in the lexical choices visible in the extant copies. The newness or markedness of such words as husebonde, cunestable, and mesure — which, along with most borrowings attested in SW, had a number of practicable native synonyms — is therefore relative: for the women reading or hearing the allegory they may not have been as novel or striking as a comparison with the other loanwords preserved in this text suggests to us. This brings us back to the question of language choice in a medieval context: the choice of English for SW can be argued to imply that the audience did not know the other vernacular of England well enough to read a piece of religious instruction written in French, but it does not indicate that the audience was completely ignorant of this language or its in¶uence on contemporary English.
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse 101
Comparing the structure of SW with the distribution of loanwords nonetheless also shows how clearly the occurrence of French borrowings is governed by the subject matter prevailing in each part of the text, suggesting that in the earliest Middle English the semantic range of the French element was still quite limited. A greater variety of loanwords would turn up in due course. Not unexpectedly, the role of the Scandinavian loanwords appears more nativised on most accounts. Both aspects underline the Middle English nature of Sawles Warde.
Notes * This research has been funded by the Academy of Finland (63923 and 77844: 44336), which is hereby gratefully acknowledged. 1. For access to the manuscript material necessary for the comparison of the Bodley, Cotton Titus, and Royal manuscripts, I wish to thank Dr Margaret Laing of the Institute for Historical Dialectology, University of Edinburgh, who very kindly provided me with electronic versions of the three manuscripts of SW incorporated in the Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English project. 2. Earlier theories proposed another text as the source: De anima by Hugh of St. Victor (see Becker 1980). Anselm’s Latin text is printed in Southern and Schmitt (1969: 354–360). 3. This assessment derives from a preliminary overview of EME lexical borrowings in the ªrst ME subsection of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (SkaŸari 2000). The comparison of token numbers between the sample texts in the Helsinki Corpus was based on normalising the frequencies per 1000 words. A later experiment with a method of normalising Scandinavian and French loanword type numbers suggests that the type numbers are very similar in SW, Hali Meiðhad and St. Katherine: the number of Scandinavian types is approximately one half of the French. In the other two saints’ lives, the French element equals the Scandinavian one in size. 4. One criterion for inclusion in the list of loanwords was substantial agreement among the major etymological sources; some of the items nevertheless remain disputable. Another complication arises in many EME texts from the spelling, which may re¶ect current fashions and confuse French-looking forms with possibly earlier borrowings from Latin. A case in point is cunfessurs, which in Bodley is actually a scribal correction from cunfessores (see Stevenson and Wogan-Browne 2000: 93), a form which has a more Latinate plural su¹x but which has possibly been altered to re¶ect French orthography. 5. MED was only very recently completed; this naturally aŸects the conclusions that can be drawn from earlier studies based on dictionary evidence. The material up to sl- was available for Dor (1992), whereas I had access to the entire dictionary (this is one of the ªrst published papers on ME loanwords to draw on the complete MED). Moreover, problems arise with cases where the composition and manuscript dates are diŸerent, and with the deªnition of ‘contemporary’. I have excluded from this account items that seemed particularly problematic with respect to these points.
102 Janne SkaŸari
6. Other examples of alliteration with borrowed words are many. Interestingly, there is apparently also alliteration around a loanword: deo¶en þet ham meallið ant derueð aa ant dreccheð. 7. The modern punctuation applied in editions of medieval manuscripts, which rarely corresponds fully to the conventions of the original, complicates the drawing of conclusions based on sentence and clause divisions. Ker (1960: xi), however, characterises the punctuation of Bodley as “good”. 8. I am grateful to Matti Peikola for pointing this out and poring over the facsimile of Bodley (Ker 1960) with me.
References Bately, Janet 1988
“On some aspects of the vocabulary of the West Midlands in the early Middle Ages: The language of the Katherine Group”. In Medieval English Studies Presented to George Kane, E. Kennedy, R. Waldron and J. S. Wittig (eds), 55–77. Woodbridge [Wolfeboro New Hampshire and Woodbridge SuŸolk]: D. S. Brewer. Bennett, J. A. W. and Smithers, G. V. (eds) 1966 Early Middle English Verse and Prose. With a glossary by Norman Davis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Becker, Wolfgang 1980 “The Source Text of Sawles Warde”. Manuscripta XXIV (1): 44–48. Black, Merja 1999 “AB or simply A? Reconsidering the case for a standard”. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen C (2): 155–174. Brown, Gillian and Yule, George 1983 Discourse Analysis [Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics]. Cambridge etc.: CUP. Clark, Cecily 1966 “Ancrene Wisse and Katherine Group: A lexical divergence”. Neophilologus 50: 117–124. De Caluwé-Dor, Juliette 1983 “Etymological convergence in the Katherine Group”. In Current Topics in English Historical Linguistics: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on English Historical Linguistics Held at Odense University 13–15 April, 1981, M. Davenport, E. Hansen and H. F. Nielsen (eds) [Odense University Studies in English 4], 211–223. Odense: Odense University Press. Dor, Juliette 1992 “Post-dating Romance loan-words in Middle English: Are the French words of the Katherine Group English?”. In History of Englishes: New Methods and Interpretations in Historical Linguistics, M. Rissanen, O. Ihalainen,
Lexical borrowings in early ME religious discourse 103
T. Nevalainen and I. Taavitsainen (eds) [Topics in English Linguistics 10], 483–505. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Hall, Joseph (ed.) 1920 Selections from Early Middle English 1130–1250. Part I: Texts, Part II: Notes. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ker, N. R. (ed.) 1960 Facsimile of MS. Bodley 34 [Early English Text Society Original Series 247]. London etc.: Oxford University Press. Koskenniemi, Inna 1968 Repetitive Word Pairs in Old and Early Middle English Prose: Expressions of the Type Whole and Sound and Answered and Said, and Other Parallel Constructions [Annales Universitatis Turkuensis B 107]. Turku: Turun yliopisto. Laing, Margaret 1992 “A Linguistic Atlas of Early Middle English: The value of texts surviving in more than one version”. In History of Englishes: New Methods and Interpretations in Historical Linguistics, M. Rissanen, O. Ihalainen, T. Nevalainen and I. Taavitsainen (eds) [Topics in English Linguistics 10], 566–581. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 1993 Catalogue of Sources for a Linguistic Atlas of Early Medieval English. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. Meurman-Solin, Anneli 1988 Lexical Borrowing in Middle Scots. Unpublished Licentiate thesis. Helsinki: University of Helsinki. 1990 “Variation analysis and diachronic studies of lexical borrowing”. In Proceedings from the Fourth Nordic Conference for English Studies I, G. Caie, K. Haastrup, A. L. Jakobsen, J. E. Nielsen, J. Sevaldsen, H. Specht and A. Zettersten (eds), 87–98. Copenhagen: Department of English, University of Copenhagen. The Middle English Dictionary [= MED] 1956–2001 Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Also available online at the Middle English Compendium website: http://ets.umdl.umich.edu/m/med/. Millett, Bella 1983 “‘Hali Meiðhad’, ‘Sawles Warde’, and the continuity of English prose”. In Five Hundred Years of Words and Sounds: A Festschrift for Eric Dobson, E. G. Stanley and D. Gray (eds), 100–108. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. 1996 Annotated Bibliographies of Old and Middle English Literature 2: Ancrene Wisse, the Katherine Group, and the Wooing Group. Woodbridge: Brewer. Millett, Bella and Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn (eds.) 1990 Medieval English Prose for Women: Selections from the Katherine Group and Ancrene Wisse. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Morris, Richard (ed.) 1867–1868 Old English Homilies and Homiletic Treatises (Sawles Warde and þe Wohunge of Ure Lauerd: Ureisuns of Ure Louerd and of Ure Lefdi &c.) of the
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Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries I-II [Early English Text Society Original Series 29 and 34]. London: Kegan Paul Trench Trübner & Co. The Oxford English Dictionary [= OED] 1989 Second edition prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner. 20 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Also available online: http://dictionary. oed.com. Robertson, Elizabeth 1990 Early English Devotional Prose and the Female Audience. Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press. 1998 “Katherine Group”. In Medieval England: An Encyclopedia, P. E. Szarmach, M. T. Tavormina and J. T. Rosenthal (eds) [Garland Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages 3], 389–390. New York and London: Garland. Serjeantson, Mary S. 1935 A History of Foreign Words in English. Third impression 1962. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. SkaŸari, Janne 2000 Early Middle English Loanwords: A Study of Language Contact and Lexical Borrowing. Unpublished Licentiate thesis. Turku: University of Turku. Southern, R. W. and Schmitt, F. S. (eds) 1969 Memorials of St. Anselm [Auctores britannici medii aevi I]. London: for The British Academy by The Oxford University Press. Stanley, Eric Gerald 1996 “Personiªcation without the distinction of capitalization, mainly in early Middle English”. In Orality and Literacy in Early Middle English, H. Pilch (ed.) [ScriptOralia 83], 199–226. Tübingen: Narr. Stevenson, Lorna and Wogan-Browne, Jocelyn (eds) 2000 Concordances to the Katherine Group and the Wooing Group: MS Bodley 34; MSS Nero A XIV and Titus D XVIII. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. Wilson, R. M. 1951 Early Middle English Literature. Second edition. London: Methuen & Co. Tolkien, J. R. R. 1929 “Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad”. Essays and Studies XIV: 104–126. Twomey, Michael W. 1998 “Allegory and related symbolism”. In Medieval England: An Encyclopedia, P. E. Szarmach, M. T. Tavormina and J. T. Rosenthal (eds) [Garland Encyclopedias of the Middle Ages 3], 22–26. New York and London: Garland.
The catalogue A late Middle English Lollard genre? Matti Peikola*
1.
Introduction
“[F]rom this mass of plain, pedestrian writing nothing emerges to arrest the attention of later readers unconcerned in the party politics of theology”. So felt George Sampson (1941: 67) about English Wycli¹te writings in The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature — a work which through its three editions and numerous reprints would become a set text for generations of undergraduates in English.1 A quantifying glimpse at recent research makes it overwhelmingly clear, contrary to Sampson’s pessimistic assessment, that quite a lot has emerged from these writings to arrest the attention of modern readers.2 However, while Wycli¹te (or Lollard) texts can no longer be situated on the periphery of Middle English scholarship, a closer look at the foci of this research shows that within the body of Lollard writing itself the scholarly eŸort has not been evenly spent; most research has been targeted at a fairly small number of works felt to be characterized by particular doctrinal importance, textual in¶uence or rhetorical merit. Among such writings, in particular the Wycli¹te Bible and English Wycli¹te Sermons have drawn the attention of researchers. These works also seem to have exerted a broader in¶uence on the ªeld by providing scholars with useful generic foci. It is thus hardly accidental that even more generally within the Lollard corpus, the ‘biblical translation’ and the ‘sermon’ have been the genres on which most research has concentrated. A further factor contributing to this emphasis is most likely to be found in trends in recent editorial activity; the mid-1990s witnessed the completion of the erudite editions of English Wycli¹te Sermons by Gradon and Hudson (1983–1996, 5 vols) and The Earlier Version of the Wycli¹te Bible by Lindberg (1959–1997, 8 vols). Quite possibly for similar reasons, those Lollard prose texts usually referred to as ‘tracts’, ‘treatises’ or ‘pamphlets’ have attracted much less scholarly interest. Not
106 Matti Peikola
only are they with relatively few exceptions accessible only in manuscript, in unpublished dissertations or in 19th and early 20th-century editions which are in various ways defective, but their overall nature also seems to present researchers with considerable di¹culties in deªnition and approach.3 On the one hand, the heterogeneity of the material has been emphasized. For example, in her discussion of Wycli¹te texts for The Index of Middle English Prose, Hudson (1984: 257) notes that beyond products of Lollard biblical scholarship and certain seminal sermon collections, further classiªcation of the material is impeded because “there is too much of it and each text has its own problems and peculiarities”. On the other hand, the internal homogeneity of this material has been taken to be of such a degree that ‘Wyclif’s tracts’ have been provisionally proposed as a distinct ME prose genre (see Markus 1991). What seems to be almost entirely lacking between these two orientations — the one inclined to approach Wycli¹te tracts primarily through problems presented by individual texts, the other proposing to lump them together without much empirical evidence — are attempts to describe and historically contextualize the discourse features they have in common.4 A recent exception here is Steven Justice’s (1999) essay on Lollard writing in the Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature. One section of the essay, devoted to Lollard genres, discusses the vague and rather imprecise tract, and refers in passing to one of its subcategories — the catalogue. The present paper is devoted to a more detailed investigation of this concept.
2.
The problematique
Deªned in a nutshell as “a syllabus of beliefs actually or implicitly numbered”, Justice’s (1999: 680) characterization of the catalogue seems to be based primarily on features pertaining to its structural organization. Although a few Lollard tracts are mentioned as examples of the catalogue, no further discussion of such deªning formal features are provided. An investigation on these lines is therefore called for. Are there, for example, any recurring elements in the opening and concluding sections of proposed Lollard catalogues? What macrostructural decisions characterize these texts? How are topic changes expressed in them? Another issue touched upon only brie¶y by Justice and thus also in need of further exploration has to do with the functional aspects of the catalogue form. What purpose did these doctrinal syllabi serve for Lollard writers and their audiences? Does the nature of the catalogued items of doctrine bear on the function of a catalogue? Do these functions vary according to the target audience?
The Lollard catalogue 107
The formal and functional pinning down of the Lollard catalogue in Sections 4 and 5 respectively will be followed in Section 6 by considerations pertaining to possible textual precursors and parallels of the form in Latin, Anglo-Norman, and English. Following Justice’s preliminary comments on the issue and the observations made in Sections 4 and 5, the discussion will focus on certain textual practices related to late-medieval institutional life. Only after this examination of the form, function and wider textual context will it be possible to consider the question of the catalogue as a genre in late Middle English. This issue will be discussed in the concluding section.
3.
An overview of the Lollard corpus
In his essay, Justice (1999) mentions three tracts as examples of the catalogue: Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards, Sixteen Points Brought against the Lollards, and Thirty-Seven Conclusions. A preliminary comparison of these writings with other printed Lollard tracts suggests that a number of other works also present themselves as roughly similar syllabi of doctrinal items — variably characterizeable as beliefs, propositions, arguments, accusations, defences and so on. These tracts will be used as the primary corpus for the present study. They are listed in Table 1, with indications of their standard edition (with page numbers when applicable), and their item number in Talbert & Thomson’s (1970) bibliography of Wycli¹te writings (abbreviated as T). For convenience of referencing, each text is furnished with an identiªcation number [1–22].5
4.
Formal characteristics of the catalogue
4.1 Opening sequences While some of the tracts listed in Table 1 proceed straight to the inventory of items (see tracts [3], [10], [13], [21]), most open with an introductory sequence. The length and manuscript layout of the sequence varies. Sometimes the whole ªrst chapter of the tract seems to form such a sequence (e.g. [7], [14]); sometimes the opening section is conªned to the rubric only (e.g. [6], [11]). Most often, however, it consists of the ªrst few sentences of the tract, possibly but not necessarily set apart from the actual syllabus as a separate paragraph (e.g. [2], [4], [8], [12], [15]). In the opening sequences, ªve compositional elements recur (subsections AE). Italics will be used in examples to highlight the element discussed.
108 Matti Peikola
Table 1. The primary corpus for the present study Id
Title
T
Edition
[1] [2] [3] [4]
An Apology for Lollard Doctrines De Obedientia Prelatorum Fifty Heresies and Errors of Friars How Antichrist and His Clerks Travail to Destroy Holy Writ How Religious Men Should Keep Certain Articles How Satan and His Children Turn Works of Mercy Upside Down How Satan and His Priest Cast by Three Cursed Heresies to Destroy All Good Living and Maintain All Manner of Sin How the Office of Curates Is Ordained by God Octo in Quibus Seducuntur Simplices Christiani Of Clerks Possessioners Of Feigned Contemplative Life Of Poor Preaching Priests Of Prelates On the Twenty-Five Articles The Order of Priesthood A Petition to the King and the Parliament Seven Heresies Sixteen Points Brought against the Lollards Speculum de Antichristo Three Things Destroy the World Thirty-Seven Conclusions Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards
93 79 49 89
Todd (1842) Matthew (1902: 28–38) Arnold (1871: 366–401) Matthew (1902: 254–262)
86 84
Matthew (1902: 219–225) Matthew (1902: 209–218)
62
Matthew (1902: 263–274)
81 44 80 60 87 78 90 82 32 43 54 59 83 52 53
Matthew (1902: 141–163) Arnold (1871: 447–453) Matthew (1902: 114–140) Matthew (1902: 187–196) Matthew (1902: 275–280) Matthew (1902: 52–107) Arnold (1871: 454–496) Matthew (1902: 164–179) Arnold (1871: 507–523) Arnold (1871: 441–446) Hudson (1978: 19–24) Matthew (1902: 108–113) Matthew (1902: 180–186) Forshall (1851) Hudson (1978: 24–29)
[5] [6] [7]
[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]
A. Identiªcation of the catalogued items (15 tracts)6 In the introductory section the catalogued items are often collectively identiªed. Among such labels we ªnd answeris ([1]), articlis ([5], [16], [18]), conclusionis ([22]), defautis ([8]), disceitis ([19]), errours ([15]), euydences ([4]), groundes([7]), heresies ([7], [17]), perilles ([17]), poyntis ([12], [14], [16], [18]), questiouns ([1]), resons ([4]), treuþis ([5], [22]), þingis ([9], [20]), and weies ([4]). Some of these terms will be discussed further under Section 6. (1) Plese it to oure most noble and most worþi King Richard, kyng boþe of Englond and of Fraunce, and to þe noble Duk of Lancastre, and to oþere grete men of þe rewme, boþe to seculers and men of holi Chirche, þat ben gaderid in þe Parlement, to here, assent, and meyntene þe fewe articlis or poyntis þat ben seet wiþinne þis writing and proved boþe by auctorite and resoun.7 (16: 508/1–7)
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B. Quantiªcation of the catalogued items (12 tracts)8 Quantiªcation of the items in the opening sequence takes the form either of precise numerals ([4], [7], [9], [11], [17], [19–20]) or of a more indeterminate quantifying expression. The latter comprise certeyn ([5], [22]), fewe ([5], [16]), and summe ([8], [15]). (2) Þe deuel sathanas castiþ bi anticrist & his worldly false clerkis to distroie holy writt & cristene mennus bileue bi foure cursed weies or fals resons. (4: 255/3–6) C. Summary of the catalogued items (9 tracts)9 In some tracts, the longer inventory of items is preceded by a brief preliminary summary. Usually the summary simply sketches the main topics discussed in the tract. (3) Þere ben eiŠte þingis bi whiche simple Cristene men ben disceyved, þat ben þes eiŠte; holy Chirche, lawe, religion, obedience, cursynge, þe goodis or riŠt of holy Chirche, maundement and conseil, dedly synne and venyal. (9: 447/1–4) D. Identiªcation of the authority behind the catalogue (10 tracts)10 The party authorizing the catalogued items is often named in the introductory sequence. Not infrequently, this collective authority also appears as the main argumentative voice in text. Among labels for this community we come across many well-established Lollard in-group epithets, such as cristen men ([2], [4–5]), pore cristen men ([14]), pore men ([14], [22]), pore prestis ([2], [12]), simple cristen men ([9]), simple men ([22]) and trewe cristen men ([18]).11 (4) Þe ªrst general poynt of pore prestis þat prechen in engelond is þis… (12: 276/1–2) E. Comments on the function of the catalogue (10 tracts)12 The opening sections also tend to comment on the function of the syllabus of items to be presented in the main part of the text (see further Section 5). (5) Cristene men preien mekely & deuoutly to almyŠtty god þat he graunte his grace for his hendeles mercy to oure religious, boþe possessioneris & mendynauntis, þat þei assenten to þis fewe treuþis. (5: 220/1–4)
4.2 Concluding sequences More than half of the tracts investigated conclude with an invocation.13 Typically God or Christ is prayed to, to amend the ways of those representatives of the
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institutional church castigated in the text. (6) We preye God of his endeles godnesse reforme oure chirche al out of ioynt to þe perfectiun of þe ªrste begynningge. Amen. (22: 29/176–178)
4.3 The structure of the catalogue Looking next at ways in which the syllabus items themselves are presented between the opening and concluding sequences, we ªnd that there are two principal macrostructural devices for dividing the catalogue into its constituents — chapters and paragraphs. Since existing editions of the tracts do not give reliable information as to the structure and layout of the manuscript, it is necessary to make use of codicological data in order to determine how these divisions are concretely signalled. For this purpose, two textually overlapping Lollard anthologies have been used: Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 296 (X) and Dublin, Trinity College MS 244 (D).14 Hanna (1990) dates these codices to the early years of the 15th century, and suggests that their execution re¶ects the work of a well-organized centre of book production. Both manuscripts share a considerable sequence of texts (X: pp. 1–157, 160–175, 179–224; D: Ÿ. 1–186) — a chunk which includes copies of tracts [2–13], [15–16], and [19–20]. Although the manuscripts may be the products of a single scriptorium (cf. Hanna), they diŸer in their mise-en-page and scheme of decoration; X has a twocolumn layout with ¶ourish (penwork) initials, while D has a single-column layout with washed (plain) initials.15 These diŸerences may re¶ect the taste and means of two diŸerent patrons. Importantly, however, while X opts for the more elaborate ¶ourish initial and D uses the very basic washed variety, the function of the decorated initials is essentially identical in both manuscripts. As is often the case with professionally executed medieval manuscripts, here too their placement quite systematically serves the principles of textual hierarchy and is thus by no means accidental (see e.g. Farquhar 1977, Dahood 1988, Brown 1994 s.v. hierarchy). In X and D the decorated initials always indicate the beginning of a new capitulum — a division roughly equivalent to the modern chapter.16 This is the case even when there is no rubricated ordinal number and/or the abbreviation Cam (capitulum) to go with such initials. Since most of the catalogue-type tracts in these codices use chapter divisions to distinguish between the implicitly or explicitly numbered items of their syllabus, the decorated initials need to be seen as guides to the reader to help them easily identify the constituents of the catalogue. In some shorter catalogue-type tracts in X and D (e.g. [5], [12]), no division into capitula is used; instead, the component items of the syllabus are separated by
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paraphs (¶). As with capitula, the beginning of a new paragraph is also signalled with a speciªc type of initial — a slightly larger non-decorated minuscule letter than those used in the script of the body-text. These litterae notabiliores (see Parkes 1992: 305) thus form the second rank in the hierarchy of initials adopted in the two manuscripts to mark the macrostructure of their syllabi.
4.4 Lexical marking of topic changes Given that the capitulum marks the main division between the items catalogued, and that shifts from one chapter to another are systematically signalled by a particular type of initial, it is noteworthy that these topic changes are also cued lexically in a remarkably systematic way.17 In our material, two recurrent types of such lexical markers can be discerned (subsections A and B). A. Numerical marking In light of the enumerative nature of the catalogue, explicit numbering of the items at the beginning of chapters is a feature to be expected. In our material such instances can be found at (3: i), (4: ii-v), (6: i), (7: ii, iv), (8: ii-xxiii), (14: i), (16: ii, iv-vi), and (17: ii-vii). (7) Capitulum 12m. Þe twelþe errour; þat þei [wayward curates] dispisen þe principal o¹ce comaundid of god to curatis, & bisen hem aboute nouelries maad of synful men. (8: xii) In those shorter tracts where the catalogued items are separated by paraphs only, the numerical marking is used in tracts [12], [19], and [22]. B.Conjunctions also and Šit The two lexical items most frequently adopted for the marking of chapter-related topic changes in Lollard catalogues are the conjunctions also (example 8) and Šit (example 9). Both can be found in ªve tracts.18 Moreover, of the two markers also has an item-introductory function in some catalogues using paraphs only (see [9], [18], and [20]). (8) CAP. XVI. Also freris perverten þo right feithe of þo sacrament of þo auter, and bringen in a newe heresie. (3: xvi) (9) CAP. L. Šitte freris ben moste perilouse enemyes to holy Chirche and al oure lond… (3: l)
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5.
Functional aspects of the catalogue
5.1 Types of catalogue In addition to the formal similarities shared by catalogue-type tracts in our corpus, clear functional and thematic a¹nities can also be observed among them. On the basis of the nature of the items catalogued, the self-declared purpose for issuing the catalogue, and the implied primary target audience, the following four types (A-D) can be identiªed in the material. As usual in qualitative classiªcations, the distinctions are by no means absolute. A. General petitions (3 tracts)19 In terms of their declared aims, the most ambitious of the Lollard catalogues in our material are those authorized by the writer and his faction to amend the church and/or the realm in general. Of the three works representing this type, A Petition to King and the Parliament ([16]) and Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards ([22]) specify their projected audiences as parliamentary ones — in the former text those “þat ben gaderid in þe Parlement” (see example 1), in the latter “þe lordis and þe comunys of þe parlement”. It is quite probable, however, that neither of the two documents was ever formally presented in Parliament (see Somerset 1998: 8–9, 103). Hudson (1978: 150) reports contemporary statements to the eŸect that Twelve Conclusions was originally published in form of a bill nailed to the doors of Westminster Hall and St. Paul’s during the Parliamentary session of 1395.20 The Petition may have originated in similar circumstances; at least there is codicological evidence to suggest that it circulated as a separate textual unit before ending up as a constituent of the Cambridge manuscript X (see Hanna 1990, Somerset 1998: 7). Although Of Poor Preaching Priests ([12]), the third tract in this group, is less speciªc about its envisaged primary audience, the exhortation to “þe kyng, lordis & comyns” to “practise hem [the catalogued ‘points’] wel” (12: 277/35–6) may imply a similar ‘quasi-parliamentary’ context. B. Castigations of the clergy (8 tracts)21 The most common type of Lollard catalogue in the present material is one in which the writer and his faction authorize an inventory of items to castigate the shortcomings, errors and malpractices of a particular group in the hierarchy of the papal church. Among such target groups we ªnd confessors [20], curates [8], ecclesiastical lawyers [20], endowed clerics [10], friars [3], prelates [13], priests [11, 15], and the religious [5]. In spite of being structured as straightforward expositions of faults, in a majority of these tracts the declared intention of the writer is still to induce the groups criticized to amend their wayward practices with God’s help or
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grace (tracts [5], [8], [11], [13], [15]). This intention is not merely worded in the concluding invocation (see 4.2.); tracts [5], [8] and [15] also express the idea in their opening section, as in example (10) (see also example 5). (10) For þe ordre of presthod is ordeyned of god boþe in þe olde lawe & þe newe, and many prestis kepen it ful euele, telle we summe errours of prestis to amende hem wiþ goddis grace. (15: 166/1–4) Not all tracts, however, share the idea of those castigated as amendable. In Of Clerks Possessioners ([10]), for example, the endowed clergy is quite uncompromisingly equated with “anticristis worldly clerkis” (10: 140/6–7), and God is invoked to guide “prestis, lordis & comunes to knowe ypocrisie, heresie & treson” (10: 140/5– 6) of these characters, rather than help them to mend their ways. In Fifty Heresies and Errors of Friars ([3]), the writer states the expository function as the dominant one and is rather sceptical as to the ability of the friars to correct their errors: (11) OŸ þese ªŸty heresies and errours, and mony moo, if men wil seke hom wil out, þei may knowe þat freris ben cause, bygynnyng, welle, and mayntenyng, of perturbacioun in Cristendom, and of alle yvels of þis world. And þese errours schulen nevere be amendid, til freris be brouŠt to fredome of þo gospel, and clene religioun of Jesus Crist. (3: 401/24–9) C. Responses to charges (4 tracts)22 The third type of catalogue situates the writer and his faction as respondents to charges presented against them; the items of the syllabus consist of point-by-point responses to such accusations. Of the four tracts representing this type, the most explicit description of the situational context is provided by Sixteen Points ([18]), which concretely suggests a judicial enquiry: (12) Þes ben þe þoyntis wiche ben putte be bischoppis ordinaris vpon men whiche þei clepen Lollardis: (18: 19/1–2) In tracts [2] and [14] the accusers are likewise identiªed as high-ranking clerics — in [2] simply as “prelatis”, in [14] also as “byschopus”.23 Tract [1] — An Apology for Lollard Doctrines — remains exceptionally vague in its description of the situation. No direct indication of the accusers or the context of accusation is given; the tract opens with an imprecise metatextual comment, “[h]ere are questiouns and ansueris putte þat are writun here aftir” (1: 1/1). The use of the agentless passive voice continues throughout the tract in the introduction of the syllabus items, so that the identity of the accusers seems intentionally suppressed: (13) Oþer two poyntis þat are put and askid are þeis (1: 7/1)
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What further distinguishes the Apology from the other three tracts of this type (and also more generally from most other Lollard catalogues) is the representation of the respondent primarily as an individual person rather than the usual collective body (see e.g. von Nolcken 1995, Peikola 2000, Copeland 2001: 136). Thus in the Apology the main speaking voice in the text is expressed through the ªrst-person pronoun “I” (example 14); the writer’s association with the “feithful men” of the Lollard ingroup (e.g. at 1: 7/8) remains secondary to his wish to produce a clearly personal set of answers to the charges presented against him.24 (14) A noþer is þis þat is put and askid, þat þo ministris of þe kirke owe not to curse and to wari. Certs to þis I sey þei owe boþe to curse and wari… (1: 13/ 8–10) D. Expositions of ways of the Devil and his minions (5 tracts)25 Finally, in some catalogues the writer and his faction indicate that the inventory of items they introduce serves an universal eschatological agenda in exposing the methods by which the Devil and his agents in the hierarchy of the papal Church seek to destroy true faith and/or deceive its practitioners. In tract [4] “þe deuel sathanas” acts as the main ‘machinator’ through his agents “anticrist [i.e. the pope] & his worldly false clerkis” (see example 2); in [6] a joint venture of “sathanas & his prestis & his feyned religious” is described; in [7] the main villains are “sathanas & his children” and in [19] “anticrist & his clerkis”. Tract [9], Octo in Quibus Seducuntur Simplices Christiani, initially appears to diŸer from these in its author’s reluctance to identify those by whom “simple Cristene men ben disceyved” (see example 3). Here the use of the passive voice and the generalized description of the ‘deceivers’ — ªrst as “þei” under the ªrst syllabus item (9: 447/5) and then as “men” under the second one (9: 448/8) — have an eŸect comparable to that just seen in An Apology for Lollard Doctrines, where the identity of the faction opposing that of the writer appears to be withheld on purpose. However, while in the Apology this strategy is maintained throughout the tract — perhaps due to a genuine need for evasion, arising out of the circumstances in which the work was produced and ªrst disseminated — in Octo in Quibus Seducuntur its systematic use is soon dropped, and the ‘deceivers’ are quite explicitly identiªed as “þe new religious” (9: 449/33) or “prelatis and religious” (9: 451/18), particularly active “now, wiþinne þese two hundrid Šere, whanne Sathanas was unbounden” (9: 449/ 10–11). We can suspect that in this case the deployment of the generalizing device rather re¶ects Wycli¹te fascination with the archetypal language of realist philosophy (see von Nolcken 1995) or their recourse to what Taavitsainen (1994a) has described as the “depersonalised mood” characteristic of scholastic writing (see also von Nolcken 1988).
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As seen above, in most tracts in group B, “Castigations of the Clergy”, at least a nominal call was made for the amendment of those vituperated against. In the tracts of group D little trace of this attitude remains; the writers generally remain adamant in associating the practices of the clergy with the machinations of the Devil or the Antichrist, without allowing them a chance for self-rectiªcation. For example, in tract [7] the writer concludes his discussion by calling for the divine destruction of “þes þre nestis of anticrist & his clerkis” exposed in the tract (7: 274/18). Of the four tracts in group D, How Antichrist and His Clerks Travail to Destroy Holy Writ [4] is the only one in which the catalogue is explicitly indicated to serve a solidarity function for the writer and his faction, represented in typical Lollard fashion as the few remaining righteous (see e.g. Cigman 1989). This intention is revealed in the concluding invocation: (15) God almyŠtty strengþe his litil ¶ok aŠenst þes foure whelis of sathanas chaar, aŠenst anticristis clerkis & helperis, & make hem stronge in riŠtful feiþ, hope & charite… (4: 262/7–10)
5.2 Audiences of the catalogues Summing up brie¶y the ªndings reported in 5.1. in terms of what they tell us about the intended audiences of Lollard catalogues, it would seem that many of the texts investigated serve an interesting double agenda. On the one hand, they appear to seek a very broad neutral or even critical audience in order to drive through petitions for reform (group A), expose faults or plans among the papal hierarchy (groups B and D), or publicly respond to accusations of heresy (group C). On the other hand, in many cases the target audience is also clearly assumed to be sympathetic to the writer’s ideology (as in example 15) — often to an extent which implies the audience’s expected familiarity with loaded sectarian phraseology, such as the collective labels for the Wycli¹te in-group discussed under 4.1.D.26 Possibly the most clear-cut instance where this in-group intention is revealed can be found in the tract Sixteen Points [18]. Here the writer’s responses to the charges made by bishop’s ordinaries against those “þei clepen Lollardis” (see example 12) are intended to aid trewe cristen men in their future answers to these very same accusations (for the term trewe cristen men, see Peikola 2000: 250–251): (16) Trewe cristen men schulden answere here aviseliche, trewliche and mekeliche to þe poyntis and articlis þat ben put aŠens hem: aviseliche þat þei speike not vnkonnyngliche, trwliche þat þei speike not falseliche, and mekeliche þat þei speike not prowdeliche in her answere, and þan schall be grace in þer speiking or answering be þe helpe of Crist. (18: 20/50–55)
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6.
The catalogue and institutional textual practices
The discussion thus far has revealed considerable discursive similarities within the constituents of a corpus of twenty-two Lollard tracts, selected for their prima facie resemblance to Justice’s (1999) examples of the catalogue. It seems safe to conclude at this point that we now have a fair grasp of the major compositional characteristics of the Lollard catalogue (Section 4) and of its central functional subtypes (Section 5). But were the features manifest in the catalogue conªned to Lollard writing? At the most basic macrostructural level, other similar texts are relatively easy to come by. A glance at the contents of late ME religious miscellanea, for example, reveals a profusion of enumeratively structured treatises, such as Three Arrows of Doomsday, Four Tokens of Salvation, Five Points of Good Living, Six Maner Consentis to Synne, Seven Degrees of Humility, Eight Ghostly Dwelling Places, Nine Virtues, Ten Vengeaunces of God, Twelve Lettyngis of Preyere, Fourteen Maneris of Helle, Fifteen Degrees of Charite and Sixtene Condiciouns of Charite (see further Raymo 1986). The manuscript layout of texts of this kind shows that their constituent items are often ¶agged with paraphs or decorated initials, and that rubricated headings with compositional elements familiar from the opening sequences of Lollard catalogues are a commonplace, such as “þese ben þe sixtene condiciouns of charite, and by hem may mon white wher þei ben in charite or not” (BL Add 28026, f. 188r). While these similarities between Lollard catalogues and various catechetical and devotional treatises are perhaps more likely to re¶ect a general medieval fascination with enumeration as a mnemonic aid and structural principle than a direct generic relationship, there are other contemporary texts which would seem to have a more particular association with the Lollard material. Justice (1999) makes a passing reference to three possible textual sources of in¶uence behind the Lollard usage: propositions used in the schools for debating purposes; lists of doctrinal propositions used in examinations of heresy; and petitions submitted to Parliament. Hints of textual links with these institutional spheres — scholastic, judicial, and legislative — also came up in the investigation reported in Sections 4 and 5. These three threads will now be followed in more detail.
6.1 Scholastic textual practices Although Lollard texts have traditionally been viewed as predominantly religious writings, recent research has increasingly emphasized the strong scholastic element discernible in them. Not only is it the case that in ideological terms most surviving Lollard works in English were heavily in¶uenced by Wyclif’s scholastic sermons and treatises in Latin (see e.g. Hudson & Gradon 1983–1996, vol. IV) and that the
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University of Oxford has been proposed as a likely environment of origin for many of them (see e.g. Hudson 1986, 1989, Hanna 1990), but some of their textual and linguistic decisions have also been noted to echo scholastic modes of composition. Among such features, attention has been paid in particular to the citation patterns of auctoritates, the use of scholastic terminology, and the appropriation of dialectic stratagems for argumentation (see e.g. von Nolcken 1988, Hudson 1988: 104–6, 217–224, Somerset 1998: 179–215, Hudson 2001: lvi-lvii). Given this strong in¶uence by the textual practices of the schools, it is hardly surprising that the Lollard catalogue-type tracts investigated in this paper likewise share a number of formal elements with contemporary academic treatises in Latin. At the most general level, the scholastic legacy is visible in the basic principles of organization and layout adopted in the catalogues. As Parkes (1991) shows, such conventions as the division of a work topically into chapters and paragraphs, their rubrication and enumeration, and the furnishing of the text with a synoptic introduction hail back to the concept of ordinatio, developed and further reªned by scholastic writers from the late 12th century onwards. The systematic use of these conventions and the adoption of speciªc symbols (such as the paraph) for signalling them is therefore closely associated with the more technical type of literature of the schools, which essentially required a new, ratiocinative process of reading (see Parkes 1992: 44). However, while at the time these features represented a groundbreaking novelty, by the 14th century their application was no longer conªned to academic texts but had spread widely outside the schools, to the extent that “the reader had come to expect some of these features, and if they had not been supplied by scribe or rubricator the reader himself supplied the ones he wanted on the pages of his working copy” (Parkes 1991: 66). That readers of vernacular texts had also grown to anticipate the use of such devices is concretely illustrated by the profusion of treatises structured in this way in Middle English from the later 14th century onwards (for some examples, see Gillespie 1989, Keiser 1995). To grasp the more direct in¶uences of scholastic writing on Lollard catalogues, it is necessary to look at the speciªc textual practices professed in medieval universities. Of these, one that seems particularly relevant to what is going on in the catalogue is the disputatio. Although this rigorously structured dialectic exercise seems to owe its origins to the oral debating situations that formed an integral part of the medieval academic curriculum, it was from an early time also professed outside the classroom, and gave rise to several closely related forms of academic prose in Latin, such as quaestiones disputatae, quaestiones quodlibetales, sophismata, and the so-called question-commentary (see Kenny & Pinborg 1982, Little & Pelster 1934: 29–56).27 At the heart of literary forms echoing the disputatio is the proposition to be debated, often couched in the form of an initial ‘whether’-question (titulus quaestionis); next follow arguments pro and contra; ªnally, the writer takes
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sides in the issue by presenting his own thesis (variously called responsio, solutio, or determinatio), and replies item by item to objections made against this position (see Makdisi 1974, Murphy 1974: 102–104, Kenny & Pinborg 1982, Minnis et al 1988: 212). As Courtenay (1989) points out, it was by no means the case that all propositions disputed in medieval universities were doctrinally ones of impeccable orthodoxy; until the early 15th century, censured (heretical, erroneous, blasphemous etc.) propositions were commonly used in the teaching of dialectic to illustrate how statements should be correctly formulated in technical terms. In addition to such pedagogical applications, lists of censured propositions played an important role in disciplinary actions taken by medieval universities against suspect teaching within their conªnes. As shown by the anthology of academic records published by Thorndike (1944), such lists were compiled at least from the ªrst half of the 13th century onwards.28 In January 1241, for instance, the chancellor of the University of Paris, together with the masters teaching theology there, issued a list of ten condemnable or reprovable errors against theological truth (Thorndike no. 23; translated from Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, I, 170– 171; for the Parisian censures, see further Thijssen 1998: 167–178). With its introductory sequence naming the authorizers of the catalogue and identifying its constituents, and a subsequent inventory consisting of explicitly enumerated doctrinal propositions and collectively voiced dialectic responses to them, the compositional characteristics of this text bear a considerable resemblance to some of the Lollard catalogues investigated in the present paper. Numbered syllabi of doctrinal propositions and dialectically formulated responses to them were also standard components of treatises written by scholars to attack opinions held by their rival academics. A glance at some scholastic pieces written against Wyclif shows the recurrence of these elements. In the anti-Wyclif determinationes of the Carmelite friar John Kenningham, for example, the author contradicts his opponent’s enumerated arguments by dialectically refuting them proposition by proposition (see Shirley 1858: 14–103). Wyclif’s determinatio against Kenningham’s thirteen arguments — an earlier contribution to the same debate — conforms to a roughly similar structure (see ibid. 453–476); before the enumerated responses begin, Wyclif spells out his intention: “[i]ntendo ergo hodie respondere ad argumenta quae fecit [reverendus frater J. Kylyngham (sic)] …quae omnia sunt tredecim” (ibid. 454).29 Perhaps the most proliªc among Wyclif’s opponents was the Franciscan William Woodford — the author of several polemical treatises which seem to have deployed enumerated syllabi of doctrinal propositions. Among those mentioned by Hudson (1988: 46–47) we ªnd Questiones LXXII de Sacramento Altaris, Determinaciones quattuor contra libellum Johannis Wyclif in materia de religione, De
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Causis Condempnacionis Articulorum XVIII dampnatorum Johannis Wyclif, and Responsiones ad Questiones LXV. The latter work, written in 1395, is a scholastic response to sixty-ªve antimendicant questions presented by an unidentiªed disciple of Wyclif.30 Looking at the formal features of this text in its sole extant manuscript Bodley 703, we ªnd that the treatise is divided into subsections corresponding to the questions to which responses are given. As in Lollard catalogues, the beginning of each syllabus item is almost invariably picked out by decorated initials; in this case ¶ourish initials of 2– 3 lines height are used for the purpose. Moreover, in most instances the items are enumerated (see further Doyle 1983: 67). In Woodford’s treatise there are three major ways of phrasing the beginning of each quaestio. First, in items 1–6 the opening formula uses the passive tense in a way resembling that seen in the Lollard vernacular pieces Apology of Lollard Doctrines and Octo in Quibus Seducuntur… (see 5.1.D), e.g. “Primo quaeritur…”. Secondly, in items 7–9 the number of the question is stated with the copula, e.g. “Septima quaestio est” (cf. e.g. 22: 28/135, “Þe tende conclusiun is…”). Thirdly, in items from the 10th onwards the copula is dropped, and the beginning of a new item is simply signalled by phrases of the type “Decima quaestio:”. Usually Woodford’s responses represent him personally as the respondent: e.g. “Hic respondeo et dico quod…” (q. 2), “Respondeo et dico…” (q. 3), “Hic respondeo dicens quod…” (q. 7); occasionally, however, an impersonal passive construction is used: “Hic respondetur…” (q. 1) (quoted from Doyle 1983).
6.2 Judicial textual practices In the late medieval context there is no point in attempting to draw a strict boundary between scholastic and judicial textual practices. Not only was it the case that clerics conducting legal proceedings in ecclesiastical courts generally had a university training in canon law, but outside the universities as well the education of commonlaw professionals involved a pedagogical scrutiny of quaestiones diputatae and other such texts structured around the formal disputation of propositions (see Brand 1992: 112, Brundage 1995: 64–67). As Makdisi (1974: 660) succinctly puts it, “[l]aw … shares in the inner spirit of scholasticism, a spirit drawing its strength from two sources: authority and reason”. Focusing our attention upon Wyclif and his followers, it is evident that syllabi of doctrinal propositions played an important role in judicial proceedings against them from early on. The ªrst papal action against Wyclif in May 1377 by Gregory XI, for instance, essentially consists of the condemnation of nineteen propositions either extracted directly from his De Civili Dominio or taken down during his lectures at Oxford by English informants; in a trial at Lambeth early in 1378 he was then
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formally questioned on these propositions (Dahmus 1952: 35–73, Harvey 1998, Kelly 1999). It is telling of the complex fusion of the scholastic and judicial spheres witnessed here that Wyclif decided to refute these propositions in a libellus which in terms of its argumentative strategy and syllabus-like macrostructure strongly resembles some of his earlier intramural debates with such persons as Kenningham and Woodford (for the text of Wyclif’s libellus, see Shirley 1858: 245–257).31 The next major legal initiative against the Wycli¹tes again centred around a list of propositions — the twenty-four heretical or erroneous conclusions condemned in May 1382 by the Blackfriars Council in London.32 In fact, the very purpose of the synod — summoned by the Archbishop of Canterbury William Courtenay — was to examine these propositions; in addition to ten bishops and seventeen doctors of theology, the participants included no fewer than fourteen doctors of canon or civil law (see Shirley 1858: 286–288, Kelly 1999). The Blackfriars conclusions played a key role in the subsequent trial of certain academic followers of Wyclif in June 1382, such as Nicholas Hereford and Philip Repingdon. As to the legal process adopted in this trial, Kelly (1999) observes that contrary to the standard inquisitorial procedure (as explicated by Kelly 1989), the defendants were not requested to respond to formal charges made against them; instead, they were simply asked to express their opinions regarding the list of propositions censured by the Blackfriars Council. This form of proceeding, Kelly posits, was essentially a novelty devised by Courtenay — one likely to have been “inspired by scholastic practices in the universities of England, France, and elsewhere, where it had long been the custom to write commentaries on unorthodox as well as orthodox propositions” (Kelly 1999: 27). Although the item-by-item responsio jointly composed for the occasion by Hereford and Repingdon in Latin (see Shirley 1858: 319–325) challenges the decree of the Council only marginally by entering into a deªnition of terms typical of a scholastic disputation (cf. Somerset 1998: 179–215), the syllabus-like structure of their text is not unlike Wyclif’s uncompromisingly argumentative libellus of 1377. These texts also resemble one another in their opening sequences; where Wyclif’s text commences “Protestor publice, ut saepe alias…” (Shirley 1858: 245), that of Hereford and Repingdon’s begins “Protestamur, ut alias, publice…” (ibid. 319). In later Lollard trials too, syllabi of doctrinal propositions or questions seem to have played an important role as tools of examination. Sometimes their use clearly resembles that devised by Courtenay in 1382, where a list of items was put to the suspects for them to respond to, without any preliminary presentation of formal charges. For instance the two lists of articuli edited by Hudson (1973) from the register of Bishop Polton of Worcester (1426–1433) seem to have had such a function.33 According to Tanner (1977: 19), this procedure was very likely also
The Lollard catalogue
adopted in the heresy trials conducted in Norwich by Bishop Alnwick between 1428 and 1431. Although the propositions or questions themselves have not survived, the formulaic nature of the English and Latin abjurations produced by defendants could be viewed as a re¶ection of the initial use of a pre-existing syllabus (see also Hudson 1973, Copeland 1994, Steiner 2002). Indeed, an integral part of most Norwich abjurations is a list of views which the defendant acknowledges to have been “holdyng, belevyng, afermyng and techyng” (quoted from the abjuration of John Skylly, ed. Tanner 1977: 56). The formal resemblance of these syllabi to Lollard catalogues is obvious. In English abjurations, for example, topic changes from one syllabus item to the next are almost invariably signalled by “also” — a usage corresponding to the Latin “item” (cf. 4.4.B; see further 6.3.). Moreover, the opening sequences always explicitly mention the authorizer of the syllabus (i.e. the defendant) and identify its constituents (as errors and heresies) (cf. 4.1.A and D). As indicated by Kelly’s (1998) research on inquisitorial procedures adopted in post-1382 Lollard trials, in a majority of cases formal charges were still levelled at defendants before their examination. On these occasions syllabi of beliefs regularly appear incorporated into the charges as lists of condemnable points of doctrine the defendant is alleged to have preached or taught. A common feature in many of these trials is the defendants’ elaborate written response to charges put against them. Among such cases we ªnd for example the trials of William Swinderby and Walter Brute in 1391 (see e.g. Crompton 1968–1969, Hudson 1994), and that of Richard Wyche in 1402–3 (see e.g. von Nolcken 1997, Hudson 2003).34 Of these three Lollards, Swinderby was the only one to make his response in English (for the text preserved in Bishop Trefnant’s register, see Capes 1916: 237– 251). This text belongs to the same tradition of written defences as the responsiones produced by Wyclif in 1377 and Hereford & Repingdon in 1382, discussed above. Swinderby’s use of formulaic phrases such as “I … makyng openly this protestacyon” (Capes 1916: 237) echoes the openings of these Latin texts and strongly suggests a generic a¹nity between them. When compared with the twenty-two Lollard tracts investigated in Sections 4 and 5, the formal characteristics of Swinderby’s text immediately suggest its identiªcation as a catalogue. Thus the syllabus items are named as “conclusiones”35 and “artycles” (cf. tracts [22], and [5], [16], [18] respectively); their number is given as “certeyne” (cf. [5], [22]); the authorizer of the syllabus is identiªed — although not collectively, but as an individual (“I, William of Swynderby”); and the text is said to be a critical response to items “that here followe aftur, the wyche ben put to my to answer to” (Capes 1916: 238; cf. 4.1. A, B, D, E). As expected, Swynderby responds to the charges item by item, so that he ªrst enumerates and spells out the charge, and then proceeds to answer it:
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(17)
The secunde conclusion that fals freres and lecherous prestes puten upon me was this…. Thus I saide noght, but on this wise, and yet I say with protestacion put before; that… (Capes 1916: 239).
In functional terms, Swinderby’s text obviously belongs to our subtype C, Responses to charges. Its ªrst-person argumentation and Swinderby’s vindicatory strategy particularly resemble those used in the Apology (tract [1]): in both texts the writer is constantly explaining what he did and did not say; both writers also cite a number of auctoritates to substantiate their arguments.36 The latter feature again reminds us of the fusion of the scholastic and judicial spheres witnessed in this textual practice.
6.3 Legislative textual practices At ªrst glance, the Lollard catalogue-type tracts that would seem to have closest connections with the legislative process belong to subtype A, General petitions. However, as argued in 5.1., of the three tracts in this group at least Twelve Conclusions [22] and Petition to the King and the Parliament [16] might be better characterized as ‘quasi-parliamentary’ — in the sense that they do not seem to have been actually presented in Parliament. This does not evidently mean that their implied parliamentary association should be thought of as no more than a persuasive ploy — even if such a possibility does naturally remain. What in any case further distances these tracts from most genuine parliamentary petitions of the time has to do (in addition to their marked use of English) with their conspicuous recourse to dialectic.37 Thus in both [16] and [22] the party authorizing the petitions painstakingly seeks to prove the items presented by means of scholastic logic. In [16], for example, the dialectic argument which follows the ªrst ‘petition’ is introduced by a metatextual comment: “Þe resoun of þis axinge is shewyd þus” (16: 509/11). Similarly, in [22] each catalogue item (“conclusioun”) is followed by its “correlary” — a specialized term used in propositional logic to denote “an inference that follows from a proposition that has been proved” (EMED, s.v. corolarie (a)).38 A cursory comparison of the language of these texts with that coeval parliamentary model of writing Burnley (1986) has described as curial style suggests that its characteristic features have not been used by their writers to any conspicuous or systematic degree (see also Somerset 1998: 9).39 The Anglo-Norman curial style seems to have been fully adopted in parliamentary documents in English from the 1420s onwards; Burnley observes, however, that already the earliest surviving (authentic) petition, written in English in 1386 by the London Mercers, makes use of some of its linguistic devices. Compared to the argumentative and at times heavily hypotactic Lollard petitions in subgroup A, the Mercers’ text diŸers essentially in its more narrative quality, with a dominance of paratactic structures and
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frequent use of lexical doublets (for the text, see Chambers & Daunt 1967: 33–37). If more concrete sources of in¶uence by legislative textual practices on the formal features of Lollard catalogues are sought, statutes, ordinances, decrees and other suchlike texts would seem to present themselves as more plausible candidates than petitions. In these texts the obvious need to list and clearly distinguish between the various sections, articles, paragraphs etc of the laws promulgated makes the adoption of a syllabus-like structure a natural choice. Among contemporary statutory texts incorporated into Knighton’s Chronicle, for example, the cataloguing structure is found in the ordinaciones of Bishop Henry Despenser for the infamous crusade of 1383 (Martin 1995: 330–333) and in the ordinacio statutorum from the 1388 Cambridge parliament (ibid. 508–527). In presenting the items of their syllabus, both of these Anglo-Norman documents list their components by enumerating the ªrst one (as “en primes” and “primerment” respectively) and introducing the rest with “item”. In addition to the Latin usage of “item” discussed earlier in the context of abjurations, the Lollard cataloguers’ use of “also” as a topic changer can thus also re¶ect contemporary Anglo-Norman statutory language. With regard to the Cambridge ordinacio, it is worth notice, moreover, that the brief opening section of the text (see example 18) contains four of those ªve elements found to be characteristic of the opening sequences of prototypical Lollard catalogues: identiªcation of the catalogued items; their quantiªcation; identiªcation of the authority behind the syllabus; comment on the function of the catalogue. The quantiªcation of the catalogued items is here expressed by the adjective “certeynz” — a usage readily comparable with the corresponding adoption of “certayn” in the Lollard catalogues [5] and [22] (see 4.1.B): (18) Pur commune proªte, et uniuersele bien de tut le roialme, nostre seignur le roy, a sone parlyment tenuz a Cauntebrugge lendemayne de la Natyuite de Nostre Dame, lan sone regne duzysme, del assent dez seignurs et comines illoeques assemblez, ad fait certeynz estatutez et ordynauncez en la fourme que suit (Martin 1995: 508).40 The cataloguing method used in statutory texts is re¶ected in later 14th-century legal documents written in English. Early representatives of such texts are found among the 1389 returns sent to the Chancery by several London guilds as summaries of the contents of all charters and letters patent in their possession.41 All six English returns, edited by Chambers & Daunt (1967: 40–60), make a systematic use of “also” (occasionally “item”) to introduce a new catalogue item; in four of these (returns i-iv) the ªrst item is enumerated by means of phrases like “ªrst is ordeined þat” (i) and “the furste poynt is this…” (iii, iv) (cf. the Anglo-Norman ordinaciones just examined). Indeed, the opening sections of some returns concretely show that they were intended as lists of ordinances: return (i), for instance, commences by
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declaring itself as “þe boke of ordinaunces of þe brotherede of Carpenteres of London” (ibid. 41). The commonest labels for the constituents of the syllabi comprise “articles” (L articulus, AN article) and “poynts” (L punctum, AN point). These two labels are occasionally found in formulaic doublets, which suggests that there was hardly any denotative diŸerence between them in this context. That the labels in question also happen to rank as those most frequently used in Lollard catalogues (see 4.1.A) — once even as constituents of a similar doublet (see example 1) — possibly bespeaks a terminological in¶uence exerted on them by the legislative textual sphere.
7.
Conclusion: the catalogue as a genre?
The three main stages of the present enquiry and their ªndings can now be summarized as follows: 1. In Section 4, twenty-two Lollard prose tracts were examined in terms of their compositional features. The aim was to determine whether the components of this corpus shared any such features that could be used to formally justify the generic notion of the catalogue introduced by Justice (1999). In the examination of the corpus texts, conspicuous similarities were found in their opening and closing sequences, their macrostructure, and in the lexical marking of topic changes — all related to their syllabus-like quality which Justice proposes as the main deªning principle of the catalogue. It was suggested that these features could be regarded as major compositional characteristics of the catalogue. 2. In Section 5, the same corpus was examined from a functional perspective. Four types of Lollard catalogue were distinguished on the basis of their self-declared purpose. Moreover, a¹nities between the constituents of the corpus were detected in their ways of projecting their implied audiences. 3. In Section 6, texts and textual practices of three contemporary institutional spheres — scholastic, judicial, and legislative — were surveyed in terms of their discursive similarities with the corpus of Lollard catalogues. The use of syllabus-like texts was shown to be a characteristic shared by all three closely connected spheres. It was suggested that some such written forms, both literary and documentary, are likely to have exerted a direct in¶uence upon compositional elements of Lollard catalogues. It was also noted that the implied situational context of some catalogues in the corpus closely resembles types of situational context characteristic of the three institutional spheres surveyed. An issue to be addressed as a conclusion to the overall enquiry concerns the general signiªcance of the ªndings just reported. Most importantly, in what sense can the
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catalogue, as characterized in this paper, be regarded a genre? As a prototypical usage embracing certain identiªable language-internal and contextual (both situational and material) features, the catalogue can undoubtedly be viewed at least as what Diller (2001) calls a recipients’ genre, i.e. one postulated by later recipients (including researchers) on the basis of what they experience to be “frequently co-occurring properties” of the texts scrutinized. As Diller points out, such experiences need not be identical with those of authors and early audiences — experiences which in his terminology constitute a producers’ genre. Whether the Lollard catalogue can also be viewed as a producers’ genre is a question which essentially requires us to consider the historicity of the concept. One way of approaching the historicity of genres is to study their contemporary nomenclature; the identiªcation of a set of discourse features as a genre is made easier if a period name can be attested for texts exhibiting its use (see e.g. Strohm 1980, Swales 1990: 54–56; cf. Carroll, this volume). No such immediately recognizable contemporary label for the catalogue emerges from our material. Given the linguistic and hermeneutical sensitivity usually shown by Lollard authors, commentators, compilators and scribes, their metatextual comments on this issue appear curiously vague. In Corpus Christi College 296, for instance, a commonly used textual label is quite simply the highly general þis: e.g. “þis is of clerkis possessioneris” (tract [10]). As Butterªeld (1990) cogently points out, inarticulacy of this kind may in general have to do with the fact that the intended audience is already from the outset expected to recognize the genre being adopted. In the light of the prevalent view of the primary audience of most Lollard texts as ‘initiated’ members of the ingroup (see n. 26), Butterªeld’s explanation appears nicely applicable to the case at hand. An interpretation along these lines would also tie in with the idea of genres as textual practices primarily associated with the operation and self-deªnition of discourse communities (see further the introduction to this volume and references given therein; see also Valle, this volume). Recent research does suggest that at least in its early stages Lollardy can perhaps best be viewed as a socio-rhetorical formation (see Peikola 2000: 6–15 for further discussion). The question of the Lollard catalogue as a genre also appears integrally linked with the question of its historical relationship with the Latin and Anglo-Norman institutional forms of Late Medieval prose surveyed in Section 6, such as the quaestio, abjuratio, ordinacio and responsio. Although detailed generic studies of these forms are for the most part still lacking — perhaps due to their non-literary quality, which has traditionally not appealed to philologists — their status as historically attestable and contemporarily named genres does nevertheless seem more clear-cut than in the case of the catalogue. While the intricate parallels observed in Section 6 strongly suggest that at least some of these scholastic, judicial
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and legislative genres must have had an eŸect on the evolvement of the Lollard catalogue, the explicit relationships between them still remain largely uncharted. Allowing that more conclusive statements on the issue must await further research, it is tempting to link the discourse practice explored in this paper with the more general process of vernacularization which increasingly characterizes ME prose from the later 14th century onwards. As Taavitsainen (2001) points out, an important aspect of this process was the transfer of genre conventions from Latin (or sometimes Anglo-Norman) to English. In this light the catalogue might appear as a superordinate recipients’ genre, incorporating under its umbrella several vernacularized historical genres. However, the catalogue might equally well ultimately present itself as a new producers’ genre — one shaped by Lollard writers and their primary audiences as an ingenious vernacular fusion of such pre-existing Latin and Anglo-Norman institutional genres. This appears a perfectly plausible scenario if genres are understood as fuzzy-edged and malleable structures placeable on a continuum, rather than as the unchanging and monolithic entities favoured by traditional formal genre criticism (see further Swales 1990: 49–52, Taavitsainen 1994a, 1994b).42 In any case, to determine whether the catalogue eventually became conventionalized in English through imitation and modiªcation outside Lollardy, a comparative study with later writers operating in comparable circumstances of religious polemic might prove to be a fruitful undertaking.43
Notes * I wish to acknowledge the support of the Academy of Finland for this article through the Turku project Discourse Perspectives on Early English (76471: 44336). 1. The statement quoted was preserved at least down to the 1988 reprint of the third edition (1970). In The Cambridge History of English Literature itself (1907–27, 15 vols), on which Sampson’s account is loosely based, the comparable description by J. P. Whitney is more sensitive to the nuances of the Wycli¹te material (see especially vol ii, 65–66). 2. See for example the extensive bibliographies of Lollard studies maintained by the Lollard Society at http://home.att.net/~lollard/bibhome.html. 3. For manuscripts containing Wycli¹te tracts, see the list provided by Hudson (1988: 518– 20); unpublished theses containing editions of such tracts include for instance those by Butrym (1972) and Hunt (1994). For editions of Wycli¹te tracts outdated for various reasons, see e.g. Todd (1842, 1851), Forshall (1851), Arnold (1871), Matthew (1902), Swinburn (1917). 4. This is not to say that in general we lack discourse-sensitive approaches to Lollard writings. Such studies, for instance by von Nolcken (1995, 1997), are, however, not limited in their focus to tracts alone, but trace similarities in a wider range of material.
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5. Given that no standard nomenclature exists for most Lollard works, the titles presented in Table 1 are those used by Talbert & Thomson (1970). It should be kept in mind that they do not always match the titles given by their editors. 6. Tracts [1], [4–5], [7–9], [12], [14–20], [22]. 7. Citations from tracts [1–22] take the following form: (tract number: page in edition/lines on page). When reference is made to a particular chapter of a tract, roman numerals are used; e.g. (16: iv). 8. Tracts [4–5], [7–9], [11], [14], [16–17], [19–20], [22]. 9. Tracts [2], [4], [6–7], [9], [11], [14], [18], [20]. 10. Tracts [2], [4–5], [8–9], [12], [14–15], [18], [22]. 11. For this collective terminology, see further e.g. Hudson (1981), von Nolcken (1995), Aston (1999), and Peikola (2000). 12. Tracts [4–5], [7–8], [14–18], [22]. 13. Tracts [3–8], [10–11], [13–15], [19], [22]. 14. The study of the two manuscripts is based on microªlm copies; this prevents any conclusions as to the role played by colours in the macro-structural hierarchy of their miseen-page. 15. Both of these initial-types belong to the lower end of the hierarchy. Farquhar (1977: 68– 69) glosses wash initial as “[u]sually one line high, done with a pen or brush; often yellow, green, blue, red or brown”, ¶ourish initial as “[u]sually one line or two lines high and ordinarily blue or gold with pen ¶ourishes of black or red as decoration”. 16. Parkes (1992: 302) glosses capitulum as “[a] division in a text containing a particular topic, or point of focus in an argument (for example, a proposition) or narrative”. 17. It is a matter of taste whether these breaks should be referred to as topic changes or topic shifts (cf. Finell 1992). Given that in Lollard catalogues the capitulum typically marks a major move from one syllabus item to the next, I have here preferred the former label. 18. For also, see (3: ii-xl, xlii-xlix), (10: ii, iv, vi, viii, xiv, xvii, xxii-iv, xxvi, xxix, xxxvii, xxxix), (13: ii-ix, xi-xxiv, xxvi, xxviii-xl), (14: ii-xxv), (15: ii-vii, ix-xiv, xvi, xviii, xx-xxii, xxiv-xxvii); for Šit, see (3: xli, l), (6: iii), (10: v, x-xi, xvi, xviii, xxi, xxviii, xxx, xxxii, xxxiv, xxxvi, xl), (13: xli, xliii), (15: viii, xv, xxiii, xxviii). 19. Tracts [12], [16], [22]. 20. See Scase (1998) for bill-casting as a textual practice in Late Medieval England. 21. Tracts [3], [5], [8], [10–11], [13], [15], [20]. 22. Tracts [1–2], [14], [18]. 23. Hudson (1981: 22–23) notes that “frequently … in Lollard texts bishop and prelate are denotatively equivalent, but the ªrst is approbatory, the second condemnatory”. In Sixteen Points, however, no such connotative diŸerence between the terms seems to be present. 24. For further discussion of the emergence of the individual voice in Lollard texts, see Peikola (forthcoming).
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25. Tracts [4], [6–7], [9], [19]. 26. For discussion of the intended audience of Lollard writings, see e.g. Spencer (1993: 174), von Nolcken (1995) and Hudson (1996). All these scholars emphasize the primacy of an audience already sympathetic to the Lollard cause. 27. There seems to be some disagreement among researchers as to the primary channels through which the practice was adopted in the schools. Murphy (1974: 102–104, 1989: 158), for example, emphasizes the in¶uence of Aristotle’s Topica and De sophistis elenchis in this process, while Makdisi (1974) argues that the introduction of the scholastic method among Western writers of the 12th century ultimately re¶ects an Islamic in¶uence. 28. For medieval procedures against suspect university teaching, see Thijssen (1998); Thijssen (ibid. 26) characterizes the censured syllabi authorized by the university as “itemized lists of articles (articuli)”. 29. Wyclif’s debate with Kenningham in the early 1370s seems to have had at least six distinct stages. Thomson’s (1983: 228) perceptive reconstruction of them suggests that the debate grew out of an initial determinatio presented by Wyclif in scholis, but that it then developed into an extracurricular written exchange with more political overtones. 30. It is possible that in this case the original set of questions was in fact a vernacular one (see Hudson 1988: 47, Somerset 1998: 137). 31. Scase (1998: 237) notes that Latin libellus (and the closely related billa) “denoted formal written statements and were closely associated with legal charges and complaints”. 32. See Dahmus (1952: 89–128) for a detailed account of the Blackfriars proceedings and of the subsequent judicial actions taken. The Latin text of the condemned propositions is found e.g. in Shirley (1858: 277–282). 33. Of these lists, the ªrst declares itself to have been composed by a lawyer (“concepti per juristam”), while the other derives from theologians (“concepti per theologos”). 34. The formulation of charges into a syllabus-like form was evidently not restricted to Lollard trials; documents structured in this way can eŸortlessly be found in the context of other trials too. In Henry Knighton’s Chronicle, for example, we ªnd the Anglo-Norman arraignment of Michael de la Pole (Martin 1995: 362–369), where impeachments against the earl of SuŸolk are listed “de poynt en poynte”. 35. In Latin anti-heretical judicial documents the term conclusiones is often used for the labelling of doctrinal propositions extracted from the teaching, preaching etc. of suspects. See for example, Subscriptae conclusionis magistri Nicolai de Herforde quondam haeretici et Lollardi (Shirley 1858: 303–304) and Conclusiones WyclyŸ de sacramento altaris (ibid. 105– 106). The use of “conclusionis” in Lollard catalogues is likely to re¶ect this practice. 36. This resemblance might also suggest that Swinderby modelled his text on the basis of an existing Lollard tract. 37. As Burnley (1986) notes, before 1400 the Rolls of the Parliament contain only four entries written in English (dated 1386–1399). 38. Such corollaries are also systematically presented in the Lollard catalogue Thirty Seven Conclusions [21].
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39. Among the characteristic features of curial prose, Burnley (1986) mentions for instance an anaphoric type of cohesive structure; the frequent use of lexical doublets; a tendency towards abstract expressions; paratactic sentence structure with indeterminably long sentences; frontshifted nominal and verbal groups of extended length; and certain formulaic introductory phrases. See also Rissanen (2000). 40. “For the common proªt and general good of the whole realm, our lord the king, at his parliament held at Cambridge, on the morrow of the Nativity of Our Lady in the tenth year of his reign [9 Sept. 1388], with the assent of the lords and commons there assembled, has made certain statutes and ordinances in the form which follows” (translated by Martin 1995: 509). 41. For the historical context of these returns see Chambers & Daunt (1967: 40). 42. For an in¶uential 16th-century generic hybrid in English of somewhat similar nature, see Woolf (1995). 43. Here previous studies for instance by Auksi (1978) on Tyndale, Evans (1988) on Cranmer and Ridley, and Pineas (1989) on More could serve as pointers to useful texts and contexts. It would also be worth investigating whether the text type ‘catalogue’ mentioned in passing by Görlach (2001) has any historical relationship whatsoever with the discursive practice investigated in the present study.
References Arnold, Thomas (ed.) 1871 Select English Works of John Wyclif, vol. III. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Aston, Margaret 1999 “Were the Lollards a sect?”. In The Medieval Church: Universities, Heresy, and the Religious Life [Studies in Church History Subsidia 11], Peter Biller and Barrie Dobson (eds), 163–191. Woodbridge and Rochester: Boydell Press. Auksi, Peter 1978 “‘So rude and simple style’: William Tyndale’s polemical prose”. The Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 8: 235–256. Brand, Paul 1992 The Origins of the English Legal Profession. Oxford: Blackwell. Brown, Michelle P. 1994 Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms. Malibu and London: The J. Paul Getty Museum and The British Library. Brundage, James A. 1995 Medieval Canon Law. London and New York: Longman. Burnley, J. D. 1986 “Curial prose in English”. Speculum 61: 593–614. Butrym, Alexander J. 1972 An edition, with commentary, of the Wycli¹te tracts contained in MS Trinity College, Dublin, C. V.6. Ph.D. dissertation, Rutgers University.
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Butterªeld, Ardis 1990 “Medieval genres and modern genre theory”. Paragraph 13: 184–201. Capes, William W. (ed.) 1916 Registrum Johannis Trefnant Episcopi Herefordensis [The Canterbury and York Society 20]. London: The Canterbury and York Society. Chambers, R. W. and Daunt, Marjorie (eds) 1967 A Book of London English 1384–1425. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Originally published 1931. Cigman, Gloria 1989 “Luceat lux vestra: The Lollard preacher as truth and light”. The Review of English Studies 40: 479–496. Copeland, Rita 1994 “Why women can’t read: Medieval hermeneutics, statutory law, and the Lollard heresy trials”. In Representing Women: Law, Literature, and Feminism, S. S. Heinzelman and Z. B. Wiseman (eds), 253–286. Durham and London: Duke University Press. 2001 Pedagogy, Intellectuals, and Dissent in the Later Middle Ages: Lollardy and Ideas of Learning [Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 44]. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press. Courtenay, William J. 1989 “Inquiry and inquisition: Academic freedom in medieval universities”. Church History 58: 168–181. Crompton, James 1968–1969 “Leicestershire Lollards”. The Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Transactions 44: 11–44. Dahmus, Joseph H. 1952 The Prosecution of John Wyclyf. New Haven and London: Yale University Press and Oxford University Press. Dahood, Roger 1988 “The use of coloured initials and other division markers in early versions of the Ancrene Riwle”. In Medieval English Studies Presented to George Kane, E. D. Kennedy, R. Waldron and J. S. Wittig (eds), 79–97. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. Diller, Hans-Jürgen 2001 “Genre in linguistics and related discourses”. In Towards a History of English as a History of Genres, H-J. Diller and M. Görlach (eds), 3–43. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Doyle, Eric 1983 “William Woodford, O. F. M. (c.1330–c.1400) his life and works together with a study and edition of his Responsiones contra Wiclevum et Lollardos”. Franciscan Studies 43: 17–187. Evans, G. R. 1988 “‘Thus it is Englished’: The use of English in scholastic disputation in the mid-sixteenth century”. The Review of English Studies 39: 519–522.
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Farquhar, James Douglas 1977 “The manuscript as a book”. In Pen to Press: Illustrated Manuscripts and Printed Books in the First Century of Printing, S. Hindman and J. D. Farquhar (eds), 11–99. College Park and Baltimore: Art Department, University of Maryland and Department of the History of Art, The Johns Hopkins University. Finell, Anne 1992 “The repertoire of topic changers in personal, intimate letters: A diachronic study of Osborne and Woolf”. In History of Englishes: New Methods and Interpretations in Historical Linguistics [Topics in English Linguistics 10], M. Rissanen, O. Ihalainen, T. Nevalainen and I. Taavitsainen (eds), 720– 735. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Forshall, Josiah (ed.) 1851 Remonstrance against Romish Corruptions in the Church. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans. Gillespie, Vincent 1989 “Vernacular books of religion”. In Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475 [Cambridge Studies in Publishing and Printing History], J. Gri¹ths and D. Pearsall (eds), 317–344. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press. Görlach, Manfred 2001 “A history of text types: A componential analysis”. In Towards a History of English as a History of Genres, H-J. Diller and M. Görlach (eds), 47–88. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Gradon, Pamela and Hudson, Anne (eds) 1983–1996 English Wycli¹te Sermons, 5 vols [Oxford English Texts]. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hanna, Ralph, III 1990 “Two Lollard codices and Lollard book-production”. Studies in Bibliography 43: 49–62. Harvey, Margaret 1998 “Adam Easton and the condemnation of John Wyclif, 1377”. The English Historical Review 113: 321–334. Hudson, Anne 1973 “The examination of Lollards”. Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 46: 145–159. (ed.) 1978 Selections from English Wycli¹te Writings. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press. 1981 “A Lollard sect vocabulary?”. In So Meny People Longages and Tonges: Philological Essays in Scots and Mediaeval English Presented to Angus McIntosh, M. Benskin and M. L. Samuels (eds), 15–30. Edinburgh: Michael Benskin and M. L. Samuels. 1984 “Wycli¹te prose”. In The Index of Middle English Prose, A. S. G. Edwards (ed.), 249–270. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press.
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1986 1988 1989
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“Wycli¹sm in Oxford 1381–1411”. In Wyclif in His Times, A. Kenny (ed.), 67–84. Oxford: Clarendon Press. The Premature Reformation: Wycli¹te Texts and Lollard History. Oxford: Clarendon Press. “Lollard book-production”. In Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475 [Cambridge Studies in Publishing and Printing History], J. Gri¹ths and D. Pearsall (eds), 125–142. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press. “Laicus litteratus: The paradox of Lollardy”. In Heresy and Literacy, 1000– 1530 [Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 23], P. Biller and A. Hudson (eds), 222–236. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press. The Works of a Lollard Preacher [Early English Text Society Original Series 317]. Oxford etc.: Oxford University Press. “Which Wyche? The framing of the Lollard heretic and/or saint”. In Texts and the Repression of Medieval Heresy [York Studies in Medieval Theology 4], C. Bruschi and P. Biller (eds), 221–237. Woodbridge and Rochester: York Medieval Press. An edition of tracts in favour of scriptural translation and of some texts connected with Lollard vernacular biblical scholarship. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oxford.
Justice, Steven 1999 “Lollardy”. In The Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature, D. Wallace (ed.), 662–689. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press. Keiser, George R. 1995 “Serving the needs of readers: Textual division in some late-medieval English texts”. In New Science out of Old Books: Studies in Manuscripts and Early Printed Books in Honour of A. I. Doyle, R. Beadle and A. J. Piper (eds), 207– 226. Aldershot: Scolar Press. Kelly, Henry Ansgar 1989 “Inquisition and the prosecution of heresy: Misconceptions and abuses”. Church History 58: 439–451. 1998 “Lollard inquisitions: Due and undue process”. In The Devil, Heresy and Witchcraft in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of JeŸrey B. Russell, A. Ferreiro (ed.), 279–303. Leiden etc.: Brill. 1999 “Trial procedures against Wyclif and Wycli¹tes in England and at the Council of Constance”. Huntington Library Quarterly 61: 1–28. Kenny, Anthony and Pinborg, Jan 1982 “Medieval philosophical literature”. In The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism 1100–1600, N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny and J. Pinborg (eds), 11– 42. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press. Lindberg, Conrad (ed.) 1959–1997 The Earlier Version of the Wycli¹te Bible, 8 vols [Stockholm Studies in English 6, 8, 10, 13, 20, 29, 81, 87]. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
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Little, A. G. and Pelster, F. 1934 Oxford Theology and Theologians c. A. D. 1282–1302 [Oxford Historical Society 96]. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Makdisi, George 1974 “The scholastic method in medieval education: An inquiry into its origins in law and theology”. Speculum 49: 640–661. Markus, Manfred 1991 “Glasnost in Middle English prose, or, how is modern text type theory applicable to medieval texts?”. In Anglistentag 1990 Marburg: Proceedings, C. Uhlig and R. Zimmermann (eds), 177–194. Tübingen: Niemeyer. Martin, G. H. (ed.) 1995 Knighton’s Chronicle 1337–1396 [Oxford Medieval Texts]. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Matthew, F. D. (ed.) 1902 The English Works of Wyclif hitherto Unprinted. Rev. ed. [Early English Text Society Original Series 74]. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Originally published 1880. Minnis, A. J., Scott, A. B. and Wallace, David (eds) 1988 Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism c.1100-c.1375: The Commentary Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Murphy, James J. 1974 Rhetoric in the Middle Ages: A History of Rhetorical Theory from Saint Augustine to the Renaissance. Berkeley etc.: University of California Press. 1989 Medieval Rhetoric: A Select Bibliography [Toronto Medieval Bibliographies 3]. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Parkes, M. B. 1991 Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts. London and Rio Grande: The Hambledon Press. 1992 Pause and EŸect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West. Aldershot: Scolar Press. Peikola, Matti 2000 Congregation of the Elect: Patterns of Self-Fashioning in English Lollard Writings [Anglicana Turkuensia 21]. Turku: University of Turku. Forthcoming “Individual voice in Lollard discourse”. In Approaches to Style and Discourse in English, R. Hiltunen and S. Watanabe (eds). Osaka: Osaka University Press. Pineas, Rainer 1989 “Polemical technique in Thomas More’s The Answere to … the Poysened Booke”. In Miscellanea Moreana: Essays for Germain Marc’hadour, C. M. Murphy, H. Gibaud and M. Di Cesare (eds), 385–393. Binghamton: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies. Raymo, Robert R. 1986 “Works of religious and philosophical instruction”. In A Manual of the
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Writings in Middle English, A. E. Hartung (ed.), vol. VII, 2255–2378, 2467– 2582. New Haven: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. Rissanen, Matti 2000 “Standardisation and the language of early statutes”. In The Development of Standard English, 1300–1800: Theories, Descriptions, Con¶icts [Studies in English Language], L. Wright (ed.), 117–130. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press. Sampson, George 1941 The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scase, Wendy 1998 “‘Strange and wonderful bills’: Bill-casting and political discourse in late medieval England”. In New Medieval Literatures, R. Copeland, D. Lawton and W. Scase (eds), vol. II, 225–247. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Shirley, Walter Waddington (ed.) 1858 Fasciculi Zizaniorum Magistri Johannis Wyclif cum Tritico [Rolls Series 5]. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts. Somerset, Fiona 1998 Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England [Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 37]. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press. Steiner, Emily 2002 “Inventing legality: Documentary culture and Lollard preaching”. In The Letter of the Law: Legal Practice and Literary Production in Medieval England, E. Steiner and C. Barrington (eds), 185–201. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Strohm, Paul 1980 “Middle English narrative genres”. Genre 13: 379–388. Swales, John 1990 Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings [The Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series]. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press. Swinburn, Lillian (ed.) 1917 The Lanterne of LiŠt [Early English Text Society Original Series 151]. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. Taavitsainen, Irma 1994a “Subjectivity as a text-type marker in historical stylistics”. Language and Literature 3: 197–212. 1994b “Characters and English almanac literature: Genre development and intertextuality”. In Literature and the New Interdisciplinarity: Poetics, Linguistics, History [Studies in Literature 14], R. D. Sell and P. Verdonk (eds), 163–178. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi. 2001 “Language history and the scientiªc register”. In Towards a History of English as a History of Genres, H-J. Diller and M. Görlach (eds), 185–202. Heidelberg: C. Winter.
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Talbert, Ernest W. and Thomson, S. Harrison 1970 “Wyclyf and his followers”. In A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, J. Burke Severs (ed.), vol. II, 360–380, 522–533. New Haven: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. Tanner, Norman P. (ed.) 1977 Heresy Trials in the Diocese of Norwich, 1428–31 [Camden Fourth Series 20]. London: O¹ces of the Royal Historical Society. Thijssen, J. M. M. H. 1998 Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris 1200–1400. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Thomson, Williell R. 1983 The Latin Writings of John Wyclyf [Subsidia Mediaevalia 14]. Toronto: Pontiªcal Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Thorndike, Lynn 1944 University Records and Life in the Middle Ages [Records of Civilization — Sources and Studies 38]. New York: Columbia University Press. Todd, James Henthorn (ed.) 1842 An Apology for Lollard Doctrines [The Camden Society 20]. London: The Camden Society. 1851 Three Treatises by John WycklyŸe. Dublin: Hodges and Smith. von Nolcken, Christina 1988 “Notes on Lollard citation of John Wyclif’s writings”. Journal of Theological Studies 39: 411–437. 1995 “A ‘certain sameness’ and our response to it in English Wycli¹te texts”. In Literature and Religion in the Later Middle Ages. Philological Studies in Honor of Siegfried Wenzel [Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies 118], R. G. Newhauser and J. A. Alford (eds), 191–208. Binghamton: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies. 1997 “Richard Wyche, a certain knight, and the beginning of the end”. In Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages, M. Aston and C. Richmond (eds), 127–154. Stroud: Sutton. Woolf, D. R. 1995 “The rhetoric of martyrdom: Generic contradiction and narrative strategy in John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments”. In The Rhetorics of Life-Writing in Early Modern Europe: Forms of Biography from Cassandra Fedele to Louis XIV [Studies in Medieval and Early Modern Civilization], T. F. Mayer and D. R. Woolf (eds), 243–282. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
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Recipes for laces An example of a Middle English discourse colony* Ruth Carroll
1.
Introduction
In her introductory survey of the ªeld of historical discourse analysis, Brinton uses Stubbs’s description of synchronic discourse analysis to deªne the scope of historical study broadly: “the linguistic analysis of naturally occurring connected spoken or written discourse” (Brinton 2001: 139, citing Stubbs 1983: 1, emphasis in Brinton). This article pushes the boundaries of historical discourse analysis further by dealing with a medieval text which consists of unconnected segments of written discourse. Medieval manuscripts certainly contain texts made up of connected discourse: Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, The Battle of Maldon, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, indeed many of the texts now to be found in student anthologies of medieval English literature. But medieval manuscripts also contain proverbs, law codes, calendars, recipe collections, and mnemonic jingles, such as that found in British Library manuscript Harley 2341: (1) April, iune, and septembir; Of xxviijti is but oon, And all the remenaunt xxxti and j. (Robbins 1952: 62) That a law code or recipe is made up of connected discourse, and thus might be the object of a discourse analytic study, is not disputed (examples of such studies include Hiltunen 1997, Carroll 1999, Görlach 1992, and Taavitsainen 2001). But jumbled collections of such texts are more problematic. And if discourse analysis is deªned as “being concerned with … the study of intersentential connections … and with those forms that serve to bind sentences” (Brinton 2001: 139), then a good deal of medieval material falls outside its scope. The problem is not unique to historical discourse analysis. Hoey notes that linguistic attention has not been paid to modern shopping lists and TV listing
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magazines “even though it is indisputable that some people make more frequent use of these than they do of ªctional texts” (2001: 72). Hoey argues that literate researchers focus their attention on narratives, or other texts composed of interconnected units forming sentences, paragraphs, and chapter-like structures, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. In contrast, his own deªnition of text, as “the visible evidence of a reasonably self-contained purposeful interaction between one or more readers, in which the writer(s) control the interaction and produce most of (characteristically all) the language” (2001: 11), encompasses even shopping lists, and, indeed, any writing which functions, in the words of Halliday and Hasan, “as a unity with respect to its environment” (1976: 2). The Middle English Directions for making many sorts of laces is a collection of essentially self-contained units which have been compiled into a larger entity, a larger entity which in some ways is treated as a text (it is given a title and a single entry in the Harleian catalogue), but is unlike a narrative or prototypical text (the text is unlikely to have been read continuously from beginning to end, and the units are ordered diŸerently in the diŸerent manuscript versions of it). Using Hoey’s (1986, 2001) notion of the discourse colony, it is possible to explain these problematic characteristics of the Directions, and to treat it as a text. Section 2 of this paper introduces the Directions for Laces. The next section of the paper analyses the small units of which the text is composed, showing them to share the linguistic and discoursal features of medieval recipes. Section 4 analyses the text as a medieval discourse colony, showing it to be an even more prototypical token of a colony text than the modern cookbook analysed by Hoey. Finally the text is considered within the manuscript contexts in which it is found, and it is shown to interact with other texts in a way analogous to the way in which its own individual components interact with one another. The Directions for Laces, while a discourse colony in and of itself, also functions as a component of larger discourse colonies.
2.
The Directions for Laces
The Directions for Laces is a practical instructional text containing instructions for making a variety of laces. Although the word lace is used in the text, and in the Catalogue of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, it is potentially misleading to modern readers. The text is not about lace in the sense of the present-day mass noun (netting or delicate fabric decorated with small holes), but laces. A similar seventeenth-century text calls them strings (Stanley 1974: 103 n. 1), Priest-Dorman (1997–2000) calls them braids, and the MED deªnes the word as “cord made of braided or interwoven strands of silk…” (s.v. las, sense 1). It was such laces that Margaret Paston requested her husband to send to her:
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony 139
(2) I pray yow þat ye wylle weche-saue to beyn for me swech lacys os I send yow exsaunpyll of in þis letter (Davis 1971: 220) and that John Paston III requested of his brother: (3) I pray yow bryng hom … lasys of sylk for yow and me (Davis 1971: 545) They were used to lace up garments, as hairbands, as edgings on garments and hairnets, and as purse strings. Finger-loop braiding was one very common way of making such laces, and this is the technique taught in the Directions. The lace is braided by swapping loops of thread from one ªnger to another; no needles or bobbins are needed.1 One person can make a lace of between three and seven loops; two or more people can together create laces of larger numbers of loops. Archaeological excavation sites in London dating from the late twelfth century through the early ªfteenth century have yielded ªngerloop laces made of two-ply silk. These range from 5-loop laces, measuring 2– 3.5 mm wide, to a twenty-loop lace measuring between ten and eleven mm wide (Crowfoot, Pritchard and Staniland 1992: 138). Photographs of three laces made by Priest-Dorman, following the Directions, are reproduced in Figures 1–3.
Figure 1. A lace endented (96/ 28) (© 2000 Carolyn Priest-Dorman, used with permission)
Figure 2. An lace holow of vij bowys (97/ 38) (© 2000 Carolyn Priest-Dorman, used with permission)
Figure 3. A lace bend rounde of 8 bowes (100/ 21) (© 2000 Carolyn Priest-Dorman, used with permission)
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Two extant versions of the Directions for Laces have been identiªed. The earlier version, dated to 1423–83, and composed by the early ªfteenth century at the latest (Stanley 1974: 90), is found in British Library MS Harley 2320. Stanley edited this text and published it in a festschrift for Rossell Hope Robbins (1974). His edition modernizes punctuation, capitalization, hyphenation and word-division, but retains the paragraphing of the manuscript. Expansions, conjectural additions, and other emendations are all clearly marked (although such markings are not reproduced in this article), as are rubricated initials, making the edition valuable for linguistic analysis. A longer version of the same text is found in the Tollemache Book of Secrets, which has been dated palaeographically to the late ªfteenth or early sixteenth century. The entire manuscript was transcribed by Jeremy Gri¹ths and published posthumously (the work having been completed by A. S. G. Edwards) in 2001 by the Roxburghe Club. Similarly to Stanley’s edition, Gri¹ths and Edwards have added some punctuation, and modernized capitalization, but not normalized spelling, and have marked any editorial expansions with italics. These are the only extant copies of this text that I know of.2 As alluded to above, there do exist a number of seventeenth-century manuscripts with instructions for ªnger-braided laces — Stanley (1974: 90) refers to two, Speiser (2000: 15) deals with an additional seven, and a tenth has been identiªed by Layinka N. Swinburne (Speiser 2001) — but these are unrelated to the Directions for Laces. Speiser ªnds “no parallels” between the Directions and the seventeenth-century texts, “neither in nomenclature, style and terminology, nor in the manner of explanation, general organisation, nor concerning the resulting fabrics” (2000: 8). One notable distinction between the ªfteenth- and seventeenth-century texts is that most of the seventeenth-century manuscripts include swatches, sewn into the book as specimen laces. Both versions (or “utterances”, see volume introduction) of the Directions for Laces are found within commonplace books.3 The Tollemache Book of Secrets contains a wide variety of practical material in English and Latin, including codicological recipes, lists of sauces recommended for serving with ªsh and game, instructions for restoring a dovecote, and texts on arboreal husbandry. Within the manuscript, the Directions follow a text deªning the dimensions of a man’s shirt and precede four veterinary recipes for hawks. Harley 2320 contains astrological material in English, medicinal recipes, a Latin calendar and Litera Dominicalis (prognostications according to the dates upon which Sundays fall). The Directions follow an astrological poem, He þat wol herkyn (for references, see Stanley 1974: 103 n. 2). In both versions, the text is introduced by an inhabited initial or miniature showing a woman who appears to be braiding laces. Gri¹ths and Edwards describe the Tollemache miniature as “apparently showing a woman seated,
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony
arms extended, presumably demonstrating the making of laces” (2001: 27). The Harleian manuscript’s initial is the height of seven lines of text. The Catalogue of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts describes it as “a Woman sitting, & making of Lace”. Stanley notes that the woman is in fact not making laces, “though she may have some lengths of thread (or perhaps of knotted strings…) handing down over her right knee” (1974: 89). Speiser 2000, an instructional manual for present-day craftspeople interested in learning the techniques of early English loop braiding, describes the Harley miniature as “a seated lady with her left arm raised” and, like Stanley, concludes: “It does not bear any indication to the technique of loopbraiding” (2000: 15). It seems likely that the illustrator intended to suggest lacemaking, but was not su¹ciently familiar with the technique to be able to represent it faithfully. For a careful editor (moreover, one who had, with his wife, successfully made one of the laces in question, as noted below) or an expert on loop-braiding to recognize that the picture is not an accurate portrayal of braiding technique does not negate the likelihood that the image was intended to represent lace-making. Humphrey Wanley, cataloguing the Harleian manuscripts (Stanley 1974: 89), was su¹ciently convinced by the depiction. That both manuscript illuminators pictured women re¶ects a contemporary perception that making laces was women’s work. Braiding was the task of women (Crowfoot, Pritchard and Staniland 1992: 130), as was silkwork: (4) the craftes and occupation of silkwork within the City of London … be and have been craftes of wymmen within the same City of tyme that no mynde renneth unto the contrarie (1455 RParl v. 325a, cited by Lacey (1987: 188) and MED s.v. throuster) Lacey (1987: 200–204) lists a hundred and twenty six women documented as having worked as silkwomen between 1300 and 1500. Although men are occasionally mentioned as well, they were generally merchants or embroiderers (1987: 187).4 This silkwork included braid-manufacture. Lacey writes that the most important of the silkwoman’s products were “woven narrow bands of silk, hence the term ‘narrow ware’” (1987: 191). Katherine Dore, of Soper Lane, is one silkwoman who was documented to work not just as a silk throwster and corse-weaver, but also as a lace-weaver (Lacey 1987: 196n12). The silkwomen belonged, on the whole, to the “class of ordinary citizens, liverymen and artisans” (1987: 193). Lacey notes that some of the ruling class did such work as well, although their commercial output was smaller; it may have been such women who would have been interested in reading a text like the Directions for Laces. This suggests that women were the intended audience of this text. Although not all of the texts within either manuscript can be presumed on the basis of subject
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matter to address primarily (or exclusively) women, the earliest known owner of the Tollemache manuscript was a woman, Catherine Tollemache. In fact, Speiser (2000: 42Ÿ) assumes that the book was written by Tollemache herself; however, the manuscript predates Tollemache’s marriage by a century (Gri¹ths and Edwards 2001: xviii). Nothing is known of earlier owners, nor of the author or scribe(s). There may be two arguments against assuming that the text was aimed at female readership. The ªrst problem, of course, is the low women’s literacy rate of the period. Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg cite Cressy’s ªgures showing that as few as one per cent of women in 1500 could sign their own name (Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 2003: 42, citing Cressy 1980: 177). However, they also note that the signing of one’s name was likely to be a skill learned only after learning to read, and that the percentage of people reading “substantially exceeded signature literacy,” a conclusion based in part on the very existence and circulation of texts (2003: 43). Thus, the existence of copies of this instructional text on lace-making can be taken to conªrm the existence of readers for it. Through similar reasoning, based on surviving treatises on estate management not dissimilar to the Tollemache Book of Secrets, Parkes concludes that from the late 13th and early 14th centuries estate stewards were among those who “had acquired the habit of having at their elbows a book to which they could refer for more information” (Parkes 1991a: 283), as well as noting the “steady growth of literacy among the expanding middle class” throughout the Middle English period (1991a: 278). Moreover, a woman could have been the ultimate recipient of the text without being its reader. One possible scenario is that a man would have read the text to a woman while she braided. (5) When he byddt þe reuers þy bowys þu schalt take þy neþer syde of þy bowes and set hyt aboue (95/ 12–13, emphasis added) 5 This is what Stanley assumes: “the ‘he’ of f. 53r [is] the man who reads out the Directions, for the knotter is too busy with the actual working of the laces to be able to keep an eye on the Directions too” (1974: 91). This is in fact what he did himself: he and his wife successfully worked the ªrst pattern, “with her doing the knotting and me trying to explain the text” (1974: 91). An early ªfteenth-century illustration found in a copy of De architectura shows Vitruvius reading aloud to a group of masons, in a manner perhaps similar to what is envisaged above. The masons are not working while listening, but are depicted holding the tools of their trade.6 Coleman (1996: Figure 1) labels this “pragmatic public reading”, pragmatic in the sense that the text is read for information rather than devotion or aesthetic pleasure. This example is also pragmatic in Parkes’s (1991a: 275) sense that the text is read for business (or is at least work-related).
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony 143
The second argument against the assumption that the audience of the text was female, indeed against the assumption that the braiders would be female, is the use of masculine third person pronouns in the text (Speiser 2000: 44, 81). The primary addressee of the text is consistently addressed gender-neutrally as þu (Še when joined by a fellow worker), but the fellow worker is referred to with masculine pronouns: (6) Þu most take a Ÿelow and set hym on þy ryŠt hond, and set on hys hondes iij bowes (96/ 32–34, emphasis added). However, this can be interpreted as an epicene he, rather than an assumption on the part of the writer that the braiders (or even the reader, as discussed above) were likely to be men.7 Curzan (2003) conªrms that generic he was used in Middle English and even in the Old English period. She shows that in the Ancrene Wisse, for example, when the reference was assumed to be feminine, the writer sometimes used he as well as she (2003: 67). She also gives a late ªfteenth-century example of generic he (in the genitive, his) applied explicitly to both genders in The Commonplace Book of Robert Reynes (2003: 71). Thus it seems plausible, although not certain, that our text was intended for women. What is certain is that the audience need not have already been familiar with the techniques of lace-making. In this regard, too, the Directions for Laces is quite diŸerent from many or all of the seventeenth-century texts. Speiser says of the Directions, “the recipes are totally self-contained. … Every single detail is explained meticulously; no question which could occur to a modern reader is left unanswered” (2000: 8), but of the seventeenth-century instructions she says, “The texts read like memoranda, rather than like explicit instructions: the basic knowledge must have been taken for granted.” She concludes that the later texts were written by and for people already familiar with the technique (see endnote 18 below), very possibly for their own future use. The earlier Directions for Laces, on the other hand, were accessible to even the novice lace-maker. The accessibility of the text is seen in its introductory passage, two paragraphs long, which precedes the long series of instructions for diŸerent laces. This opening passage contains instructions for interpreting the rest of the text (the ªrst sentence is shown in (7)), as well as general principles for making laces (8): (7) IN þe maner of laces makyng þu schalt vnderstond þat the furst fynger next þe thombe schal be called o A, on þe secunde fynger B, þe iije C, iiije D. (95/ 1–3) (8) And when he byddyth þe reuerce þy bowes donward, yf þer be a bowe on A þu schalt take þe ouer syde of þe bowes and set hyt beneþe on B … (95/ 17–19)
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Following this introductory material are sets of instructions for making diŸerent kinds of laces (forty, plus one incomplete set, in Harley; sixty four in Tollemache). The text for Harley’s twelfth set of instructions is representative, and is given below (the same set is found in Tollemache, numbered by the editors as “19”). (9) FOR to make an lace holow of vij bowys: Set ij bowes on B & C in þy ryŠt hond and ij sunder bowys on A lyft h(ond), and ij on B lift, and on in C lyft. Þen schal A riŠt take þorow B, C of þe same hond þe forme bowe of B lyft vnreuerced; and B ryŠt schal take þe forme bowe of A lyft vnreuerced; and A ryŠt schal take þorow þe same þat was on A lyft þe bowe C of þe lyft hond vnreuerced. Þen lowe þy lyft bowys. Þen schal A lyft take þorowout B, C lyft þe forme bowe of B ryŠt reuerced, and B lyft schal take þe forme bowe of A ryŠt vnreuerced, and A lyft schal take þorowout þe bowe þt was on A ryŠt þe bow C ryŠt vnreuercyd. Þen lowe þy ryŠt bowys, and begyn aŠen. (97/ 38–98/ 6) A paraphrase of the instructions would begin, “Loop your string twice around your middle (B) and ring (C) ªngers on your right hand, and then twice around your left-hand index ªnger (A), twice around your left middle ªnger (B), and once around your left ring ªnger (C). Then with your right index ªnger (A), take the lower loop from left B, without twisting it, through the loops on B and C of your right hand,” and so forth. Stanley’s suggestion was that … the ideal editor of the Directions will work his way through them till he can point to nearly forty lengths of diŸerent strings made by him with the help of his fellow knotter; but I regret to have to confess that my wife and I had enough to do to make the ªrst of the laces … It worked, and that gives us conªdence that when Ross and Helen Ann have a go at the other strings the making of which the Directions describe they will not fail, unless the text is faulty. (1974: 91).8 Priest-Dorman has successfully worked all the laces for which there are complete instructions, and which do not require a fellow worker, a total of twenty one laces. Photographs of three of her samples were reproduced above. Note that Figure 2 is the lace described in (9), and that in making this she has discovered that the text was indeed faulty. “An error in the [text] causes this braid to work up ¶at; you have to take the C loop reversed on both sides, not on just the one side the manuscript speciªes” (Priest-Dorman 1997–2000). This is the only error she identiªes in the text.
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony 145
3.
Recipes: function, contents, form
Thus far, I have been careful not to name the text-type of the units comprising the Directions, calling them “sets of instructions”, for example. They might in presentday English be called patterns, on the analogy of knitting or sewing patterns.9 Swales and Kuhn Williams use both set of instructions and pattern (2000: 6, 11). Speiser (2000: 42Ÿ) calls them recipes, reserving pattern to denote “design”. Medievalists vary in their choice of nomenclature for such instructional texts. Some medievalists avoid the use of recipe, reserving it for culinary or medicinal instruction (the meaning which Görlach (1992) and Taavitsainen (2001) give it). Stanley does not use the term recipe in discussing the Directions (1974). Braswell categorizes them as “miscellaneous instruction” (1984: 373) rather than recipes. Others do refer to short instructional medieval texts as recipes even when such instruction is neither culinary nor medicinal. Keller calls instructions for preparing dyes Rezepte (1971, see also Carroll 1999: 38), Stannard uses recipe of instruction for making gold leaf and glassware (1982: 59), Hargreaves applies the name recipe to texts such as “how to make all apples fall from a tree” and “how to make a dog seem dead” (1981: 91). As will be shown below, there are strong grounds for such a wide application of the term recipe with reference to Middle English. This section of the paper compares the linguistic conventions followed by the Directions with the conventions followed by culinary, medicinal, and codicological recipes, showing them to overlap considerably.
3.1 Function The function of a recipe is to give instructions on how to make something, the most widely accepted examples being a dish or meal (Görlach 1992: 745), or medicine. Other uncontroversial examples of medieval recipe products are household utilities (Taavitsainen 2001: 86) and alchemical preparations (Grund 2000). The lace texts share the function of telling the reader how to make something, something which might even be considered a household utility since they were used as hairnet edgings, purse strings, and clothing fasteners. One possible diŸerence between laces, as a product, and gingerbread, water of mercury, or ink is that laces can be unravelled, while the other products cannot be unmade. Interestingly, both Taavitsainen and Görlach use the verb prepare rather than make in their deªnitions of recipes, a verb which denotes not so much the creation of something entirely new as the manipulation and processing of alreadyexisting materials. Culinary recipes, of course, do both. Austin’s edition of medieval recipes begins with the instructions Take beeŸ and merbonys, and boyle yt in fayre water (1888: 5). This clearly is an irreversible action.10 However, the very next
146 Ruth Carroll
instruction is not irreversible: þan take fayre wortys and wassche hem clene in water (1888: 5). Something which has been washed clean may be made dirty again, although something which has been boiled will never again be raw. Finger-braiding involves the manipulation of an “ingredient” into a new product. Although that product may be unmade, so may a salad be unmade, by separating out again the lettuce from the cucumber slices and carrot strips. Thus, it does not seem absolute that a recipe must have the function of creating something which cannot be unmade. Rather, the phrasing of the function should be: to give instructions on how to prepare something.11
3.2 Contents The medieval recipe has been said to have the following parts (Alonso-Almeida and Cabrera-Abreu 2002, Carroll 1999 and 2004, Jones 1998, Stannard 1982, Taavitsainen 2001): a title, usually the name or description of the intended product, what it is for (especially in medical recipes), the required ingredients (and perhaps equipment), the procedure for creating the product, (optionally) the application of the product, and a formulaic phrase at the close. The lace instructions, like medieval recipes, are all titled or introduced, as below: (10) FOR to make an lace holow of vij bowys (97/ 38) (11) A grene dorge of vj bowes (102/ 36) In two titles the purpose for making the lace is explicit: (12) A lace for hattys (103/ 7, similarly on line 10) The listing of ingredients is not as necessary for these texts, in that various kinds of string or silk may be used, but each set of instructions does begin by specifying how many loops (bowes) are required, and on which ªngers. If more than one colour string is required, this is made clear at the beginning: (13) Set foure bowys of o colour on þy ryŠt hond, and set iiij bowes of anoþer colour on þy lyft hond (98/ 17–18) (14) Take 4 bowes of grene and … 4 rede bowes (101/ 41–102/ 1) As with prototypical English recipes, the bulk of the text is made up of the procedure for creating the product, as was seen in (9), above. The lace texts do not include details of application, but several do conclude with a phrase which is repeated often enough to appear formulaic: (15) and begynne aŠen (95/ 33)
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony 147
(16) & begyn aŠen (96/ 5–6) (17) and begyn aŠen (102/ 10)
3.3 Linguistic form The Middle English recipe is characterised linguistically in the following way: headings are most often inªnitive verbs, but may also be noun phrases. In the body of the recipes, the determiners of noun phrases may be either possessive pronouns or articles; such determiners are not elided, which gives Middle English recipes a less ‘telegrammatic’ style than Modern English recipes. Object deletion in Middle English recipes is rare, although permitted. One deªning feature of English recipes (both medieval and modern) is the use of imperative verbs, although the subjunctive and indicative, as well as shall constructions, may also be found. The sentence structure of recipes is simple, making frequent use of parataxis, often punctuated with and. Recipe texts are temporally structured, and may include lexical reinforcement of the temporal structure, for example with þen (Carroll 1999, 2004).12 These linguistic characteristics hold for the laces text as well. The example given in (10) begins with an inªnitival verb phrase, which serves as the title of the text and indicates what the ªnished product is to be. So also each of the ªrst twenty sets of instructions in the Harleian manuscript begin with For to inªnitive phrases; the next three begin with To inªnitives: (18) TO make an open lace of 7 bowes (100/ 3) Of the remaining eighteen Harleian laces, all but one (another to-inªnitive) are titled with noun phrases beginning with the indeªnite article (as 11, above).13 Like culinary and medicinal recipes, the Directions are structured temporally, punctuated with and and þen. All but ªve of the lace instructions in Harley, and all but one in Tollemache, begin with an imperative (Set and Take being the most common).14 Imperatives are also found elsewhere in the Directions: (19) lowe þy lyft bowys (98/ 1–2) (20) knyt þt o ende (102/ 27) (21) Þen begyn aŠen (99/ 36) alongside shall constructions: (22) A lyft schal take þorowout þe bowe þt was on A (from (3)) (23) In þe same maner þu schalt change al þy bowes aŠen (99/ 29–30) (24) Þen schal Še change Šouur neþur bowes… (101/ 36)
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The shall constructions are about as common as the imperatives, one of the rare marked diŸerences between the Directions and prototypical medieval English recipe collections. Like these recipes, however, the Directions are made up of simple, paratactic clauses: (25) Take iiij bowes … and set … and schal A ryŠt change … and begyn aŠene (100/ 21–25) Determiners in noun phrases are not elided; both articles and personal pronouns are found. Example (9) contains þe forme bowe (4) but þy ryŠt bowys (9), and þy ryŠt hond (1–2) along with þe lyft hond (5–6). (26) an open lace … wyrk in þe same maner as þe holow lace (100/ 1–3, emphasis added) Throughout this text the use of second person pronouns is more consistent than in certain culinary recipes, which contain both singular and plural forms used indiscriminately (Carroll 1999: 30). The Directions for Laces, as Stanley (1974: 91) points out, are consistent in preferring using the second person singular to refer to the principal knotter, reserving the plural pronoun for recipes in which the knotter works with another person. Object deletion is rare but can be found: (27) And when Še schul change þe bowys of Šouur next hondys Še schulle change [Ø] beneþe þe corde (102/ 28–29) Hunt (2000) broke new ground by analysing code-switching in recipes and other medical texts. The presence or absence of code-switching does not appear to be a deªning characteristic of medieval recipes, but may distinguish between diŸerent subcategories of recipe. In Hunt’s taxonomy, the ªrst category of code-switching is referential, and restricted to ingredients (for medical texts, plant names). This does not occur in the Directions. The second category is intersentential code-switching, between the rubric and the text. I have noted elsewhere that medicinal recipes may be titled in Latin or English, but that culinary recipes tend not to use Latin, although it may be found in the incipits to culinary collections (Carroll 1999: 33, 40 n. 22). The titles of the Directions are in English, apart from some French words used to name the laces, such as A lace piol (98/ 17). Hunt’s third category is intrasentential code-mixing, plus any words not ªtting into category one. The Directions does contain a few ªxed phrases from Latin. Omnia sicut prius “All as previous” and Omnia ut supra “All as above”, are each found once in the Harleian Directions, creating cohesive links to earlier parts of the text. In the structure of their opening phrases, in their frequent use of imperative phrases, ordered temporally and linked in parataxis, the short units within the
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony 149
Directions for Laces can be seen to share linguistic characteristics with culinary, medicinal, and codicological recipes. They have the same function, that of instructing in the preparation of something, and the same or very similar structure of content. Table 1. Medieval English recipe characteristics
function: to make something heading: infinitives or NPs heading: purpose specified ingredients procedure application (optional) formulaic phrase (optional) determiners: poss. pronouns or articles frequent imperative verbs object deletion allowed simple paratactic sentences temporal structure
culinary recipes + + – + + – & SERVE IT
medicinal recipes + + + + + + & HE SHALL BE
Directions for Laces + + [rare] N/A + – WHOLE / & BEGIN
FORTH
FOR IT IS PROVEN
AGAIN
+ + + + +
+ + + + +
+ + + + +
The Directions never use the word recipe, but neither do even such culinary collections as the well-known Forme of Cury.15 The MED deªnitions for recept(e) and receit(e) do not include culinary texts, but medicinal and alchemical ones. The ªrst OED citation for a culinary receipt is 1595, and for a culinary recipe 1743. To use the word recipe to refer to fourteenth-century culinary texts is, in this sense, an anachronism; how much more so to restrict the name to medicinal and culinary texts yet exclude those comprising the Directions for Laces. These instructional texts share so many characteristics that it is highly plausible that for medieval producers and recipients they were tokens of the same (unnamed) text-type.16
4.
The text as a whole
Until now, discourse and text-type studies of this sort of medieval instructional material have focused on the recipe (Carroll 1999, Görlach 1992, Grund 2000, Taavitsainen 2001); far less attention has been paid to the recipe collection. There are several likely reasons for this. The ªrst is that the recipe is a convenient unit of analysis, being usually quite short, and allowing easy comparison of one token with another.
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A second has to do with the motivation of some of the studies. Some of the earlier work was done by those involved in determining the conventions for the Index of Middle English Prose (Hargreaves 1981, Rand Schmidt 1994): in particular, assessing the value of indexing individual recipes as opposed to entire collections. This led to consideration of the recipe as a textual unit, and indeed as a text in and of itself. Hargreaves powerfully illustrates the wide variation that may be found between diŸerent tokens of a particular recipe. It may be even more di¹cult to identify diŸerent tokens of a recipe collection, and this is another important reason for the lack of attention which has been focused on the collection as a text-type. This di¹culty is demonstrated in Hieatt’s 1996 article: there are still at least six sizeable collections of [culinary] recipes that have never been edited and/or printed at all, as well as about a dozen more that have been only selectively collated in editions of material taken primarily from other manuscripts. Most of the collections in the latter category are probably not worth editing in their entirety since they are largely copies of collections which have been competently edited, and this is no doubt true of some in the ªrst category — for example, London, British Library, MS Add. 5467, which appears to contain substantially the same collection as the manuscripts printed or collated in Thomas Austin’s Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery Books.” (1996: 54)
Her words suggest an ambivalence about whether or not to consider the collection in Add. 5467 a distinct text from the one(s) edited by Austin. It is a collection that has “never been edited”, but “appears to contain substantially the same collection” as other manuscripts. Should it be considered a token of the same collection or not? The collection Diuersa Cibaria consists of recipes drawn together from at least three diŸerent sources (Hieatt and Butler 1985: 7, 17; Carroll 2004).17 With diŸerent manuscript versions of these collections containing diŸerent assortments of recipes, it is no wonder that analysts ªnd it di¹cult to deal with these collections as ‘texts’. Other texts with these same characteristics — being composed of smaller units, not all of which are present in all versions — can and have been dealt with by discourse analysts, however. Hoey (1986, 2001) draws an analogy from the animal kingdom. The diŸerence between a text composed of continuous prose and a text such as a recipe book is like the diŸerence between a mammal and a bee hive, a mammal being composed of parts which cannot be reordered or removed and a bee hive “made up of many independent units, which are not interconnected in a physical sense” (Hoey 2001: 74). He calls texts resembling the latter discourse colonies. The analysis below demonstrates that the label discourse colony is a legitimate and useful one for a text such as Directions for Laces.
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony
Hoey has identiªed nine characteristics shared by most discourse colonies (not all colonies have all nine properties; those having between ªve and seven of the properties are considered less central members of the set). He analyses the modern day cookery book as having six or seven of the nine. The properties of discourse colonies identiªed by Hoey (2001: 88) are: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Meaning not derived from sequence Adjacent units do not form continuous prose There is a framing context No single author and/or anon[ymous] One component may be used without referring to the others Components can be reprinted or reused in subsequent works Components may be added, removed or altered Many of the components serve the same function Alphabetic, numeric or temporal sequencing
These are explained and discussed brie¶y below. Hoey analyses the modern day cookery book as having properties 1–3, 5, 6, perhaps 7, and 8. Directions for Laces exhibits eight of the nine properties. Table 2. The properties of modern cookery books and Directions for Laces. cookery book dir. for laces
1 + +
2 + +
3 + +
4 – +
5 + +
6 + +
7 ? +
8 + +
9 – –
6–7 8
The ªrst two properties are closely linked: that the order of the units is not semantically important, and that there is a break in continuity between units. The ninth follows from these: the units are often given sequencing for ease of reference, such as being put in alphabetical order or numbered. However, this is a characteristic which does not hold for the Directions. The numbering of the recipes which has been used above is editorial in the case of the Tollemache manuscript (Gri¹ths and Edwards 2001), and my own in the case of the Harleian manuscript. Neither scribe numbered the recipes, and there is no visible reason for their ordering within the collection except intra-textual convention as mentioned below, so property nine does not apply to this text, the only one of Hoey’s characteristics which does not. The ªrst, deªning feature of a discourse colony, that the units can be in any order and retain their meaning, clearly applies to the Directions for Laces, as seen in the following chart. The chart shows that the Harley manuscript’s ªrst ªve recipes correspond to the ªrst ªve recipes in the Tollemache manuscript (the numbering of the two manuscripts does not match, since number one in Tollemache refers not to
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a recipe but to the introductory explanatory paragraphs), but that the manuscripts present these ªve recipes in a slightly diŸerent order (similarly for Harley’s 12–15): Table 3. Ordering of recipes in different manuscripts Name of lace
Harleian MS
Tollemache MS
Broad lace of 5 bows Round lace of 5 bows Thin lace of 5 bows Lace baston Open lace of 5 bows
1 2 3 4 5
2 3 5 6 4
Hollow lace of 7 bows Lace dawns Lace piol Lace couert
12 13 14 15
19 12 11 13
The second characteristic, that “adjacent units do not form continuous prose” (Hoey 2001: 77) is clear from the fact that the recipe for the thin lace of ªve bows can occur either after the round lace or after the open lace (see Table 3), and retain its meaning. That the recipes are individual units is emphasized in the Harleian manuscript by the fact that each recipe begins on a new line, and with a rubricated initial in red and blue (Alonso Almeida (2001: 217) documents similar use of rubrication for the beginning of recipes in the ªfteenth-century remedy book of Glasgow MS Hunter 185). This system breaks down somewhat after the ªrst thirty recipes, so that recipe 34, for example, “A brode lace wt cros and olyet” (102/ 10– 11), begins with an initial in blue only, and is contained within a large paragraph which begins with recipe 30, “A round cheueron of 8 bowes” (101/ 27). Even then, however, each recipe’s opening is marked with a coloured initial. Directions for Laces is like many modern (and medieval) cookery books in that the order of individual recipes is relatively unimportant. There is a tendency to group certain recipes together (approaching what Hoey calls sub-colonies), although in the Directions these sub-colonies are not explicitly labelled or marked in any way. The recipes for “A brode lace wt cros and olyet” and “A round lace wyþ cros and olyet” are given one after another (36 and 37 in Tollemache, 34 and 35 in Harley) because they share the characteristics cross and eyelet. However, there is no reason why 34 should come before 35 (property 1), except that the convention in this text is for broad variations to appear before round ones. If these two recipes were read in the reverse order, there would be no change in their interpretation (property 2). Hoey’s third property for discourse colonies is that there must be some framing context, usually provided by the name of the text. This text is not given a name
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony
(Directions for Laces is a shortening of the description of the text found in the Harleian Catalogue), but it does begin with two long paragraphs (in Harley, written as one paragraph in Tollemache) which not only allow the reader to interpret the rest of the text as recipes for laces, but also give explicit instruction on the interpretation of the text (this is the section which in Gri¹ths and Edwards 2001 is numbered “1”, making the ªrst recipe number “2”). This introductory section explains textual conventions, such as the abbreviations used for the diŸerent ªngers of the hand, as was illustrated in (7). This convention makes the recipes clearer and more succinct. Speiser (2000: 20) is so pleased with “Tollemache’s excellent system” that she follows it herself, and so do Swales and Kuhn Williams (2000: 7). Without these introductory paragraphs, the recipes would be much more di¹cult to interpret. The fourth property of the discourse colony, that there is no single named author, is in Hoey’s analysis, “one of the most basic” (2001: 81), but is far less distinctive for medieval texts than modern ones. In future applications of this terminology to medieval texts, therefore, this property may need to be reconsidered, at least in terms of the weight of its importance. At present, it is su¹cient to note that this text meets this criterion in that it is not attributed to any single author. As will be noted below, however, anonymous collections fall outside the scope of some deªnitions of miscellanies. The ªfth property is that an individual unit may be separated from the rest of the text, which is to say that the reader may choose to read only one unit at a time, or even ever. This is true of the laces text, with two caveats. Firstly the introductory section explains the textual conventions which must be understood in order to properly follow the meaning of the text. Yet once a reader is familiar with abbreviations such as “A left” for “left-hand index ªnger”, any recipe can be consulted and used on its own.18 Secondly, some of these recipes contain cross-references, requiring the reader to consult other recipes. This text may be unusual among medieval discourse colonies of recipes in having more cross-referencing, and across longer distances in the text, than is often found. This increases cohesion within the text. In culinary recipes it is rare but not unheard of to ªnd cohesive links between two recipes; for example in Diuersa Servicia, following the recipe for spynete (a pottage of hawthorn ¶owers) is found the following, which refers back to the “spynete” recipe: (28) For to make rosee & fresee & swau: þey schal be ymad in þe selue maner. (Hieatt and Butler 1985: 71) The laces text contains many such references to earlier recipes. For example, recipes 4, 5, and 6 in Harley all refer to recipe 2, which itself refers to recipe 1. (29) is from recipe 6, pointing the reader back to recipe 2 (a round lace of v bowys). (30) is from
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recipe 2, referencing the ªrst recipe (a brode lace of v bowes): (29) and wirke in þe maner of þe round lace of v bowes (96/ 31) (30) Do v bowys on þy fyngres as þu dedyst in þe brode lace (96/ 1–2) As noted in Section 3.3, Latin phrases are also used to create cohesive links. Some of these cohesive links are quite long. Tollemache’s recipe 24 refers back to recipe 17, and Harley’s recipe 22 refers back to recipe 12. Although this latter link is mediated, it is only through recipes 21 and 20, so upon reading wyrke yn þe same maner of the holow lace in 20, the reader must still search back through to 12 (For to make an lace holow of vij bowys). This is not as di¹cult as it might be, since the ªrst thirty recipes in the manuscript are each given a separate paragraph, as explained above. This cross-referencing does not undermine the classiªcation of this text as a discourse colony. Rather, it may conªrm it. Hoey points out that one important distinction between a colony and a more traditional text, such as a narrative, is that the colony may have cohesive links as frequently between non-adjacent components as between adjacent ones (1986: 9), and in this regard the length of some of the cohesive ties in the laces text supports his analysis. One further piece of evidence in support of the idea that a lace pattern could be used on its own is from a German manuscript. “Das Lintwurm Portlein” (The Dragon Braid), an incomplete recipe for ªnger-braiding, beginning “Item wildu dringen ein portlein hast ein lintwurm”, was found in a ªfteenth-century miscellany housed at Heidelberg University (Bargmann 2001). In addition to this and other information on textiles, the manuscript contains medicinal, veterinary, and culinary material, but, it would seem, no other directions for laces. Görlach’s (1992: 741) observation is that text-types, like morphemes, can be “bound” or “free”, and medieval recipes are “free”. In addition to appearing in collections, they may occur singly, as above, or as marginalia. This gives rise to Hoey’s sixth property, that an individual unit may join a new colony. It may be reprinted elsewhere, and this in turn gives rise to the seventh, that the population of the hive may change over time. This is certainly true of medieval recipes generally: it directly relates to the problems discussed earlier in identifying recipe collections. The Directions for Laces shows both properties. It seems likely that the last four recipes in Tollemache (numbered by Gri¹ths and Edwards as 62–65) were not part of the original collection, but were added later. They “joined a new hive”. The ªrst three of these share names with earlier recipes, but are said to be diŸerent: Lace 62 is “A lace brod party of 7 bowis not a cordyng to þe brod lace of 7 bowis parti a forseyd”; lace 63 is “A cheueron round of 8 bowis nat acordyng to þe cheueron round a forseyd”; 64 “Also for to mak a noþer cheueron round”.
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony
That they share names with earlier recipes but are not presented near them in the collection suggests afterthought, or a later addition. That 62 shares the name of 23 but is in fact a very diŸerent lace suggests a diŸerent source (a diŸerent original ‘hive’) for 62.19 Speiser concurs: “I have reason to suspect that Lady Catherine’s last items are later updates, postscripts, and addenda. One day she perhaps came across this recipe [62], which was new to her, but the title sounded familiar. … It looks like a joke that this artless little item appears after so many marvellous intricacies. But maybe Lady Catherine was enchanted by its näive simplicity just for that precise reason, whilst [the original compiler of the Directions] thought it too insigniªcant even to be mentioned at all” (2000: 79). Once the collection had expanded to include the new recipes, it had changed (property 7). Even without these three or four recipes, the population of the collection is diŸerent in the Harleian manuscript (only forty complete recipes) than in the Tollemache (sixty four in total). This may not have been a deliberate decision by the Harleian scribe; that the last recipe is incomplete suggests either an incomplete exemplar or an interruption in the scribe’s work. Yet the collection is viable even in this shortened state. There is no indication of how much is missing, and it is only the last, incomplete recipe which suŸers from the shortness of the collection. The ªnal property Hoey lists for discourse colonies is that many of the components of the individual units serve the same functions: he uses Winter’s terminology, saying that the units are in a Matching relation with each other (for discussion of this terminology, see Hoey 2001: 30–31, 34). Matching relations are ones of comparison or contrast, and are distinguished from Sequence relations, in which one unit of text follows on from another temporally or logically (Hoey 2001: 83). In the Directions each recipe gives instructions on making a diŸerent kind of lace, and thus they are in a matching relationship with one another. This matching relation is signalled by repetition and parallelism, as in (31)–(33): (31) Set ij bowes of B and C ryŠth, and iij bowys on A, B, C lyfte. (95/ 28–29) (32) Set ij bowes on B & C in þy ryŠt hond and ij sunder bowys on A lyft… (97/ 38–39) (33) Set foure bowys of o colour on þy ryŠt hond, and set iiij bowes of anoþer colour on þy lyft hond (98/ 17–18) and (34)–(36): (34) Þen schal A ryŠth take þorow B of þe same hond þe bowe C of þe lyfte hond reuersyd (95/ 29–30) (35) Þen schal A ryŠht take þorow B and C of þe same hond þe bowe C of þe lyfte hond reuercyd (96/ 2–3) (36) Þen schal A riŠt take þorow B, C of þe same hond þe forme bowe of B lyft vnreuerced (97/ 40–41)
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The Directions for Laces thus exhibits eight of Hoey’s nine discourse colony characteristics, making it as prototypical a discourse colony as the modern newspaper (Hoey 2001: 88).
5.
Commonplace books as discourse colonies
As noted above, the Directions for Laces is, like many medieval texts, not found as a self-contained book or pamphlet, but is part of a larger unit, the commonplace book. In fact, it is found in two diŸerent commonplace books. Each of these books is made up of texts which do not depend on the others, nor on their sequencing within the whole, for their meaning. In fact, in discussing the Directions for Laces, I have made very little reference to the other texts found in either manuscript. Thus it would seem that these commonplace books are also tokens of discourse colonies. Like the newspaper, the hymn book, and the TV listing magazine (Hoey 2001: 76, 87), the commonplace book is a colony which can contain other colonies within it. The order of the units is semantically unimportant; that the Directions follows an astrological poem in one case and the dimensions of a man’s shirt in another in no way changes the lace-making instruction found within it. These commonplace books might also be called miscellanies or compilations. Insofar as they are anonymously compiled, Robbins (1971) and Rigg (1968) would not consider them miscellanies, but Gri¹ths and Edwards (2001: 4 n. 9) call Tollemache a household miscellany (citing BoŸey and Thompson (1989: 294–5)), compiled by various individuals but a¹liated with one household. I use the English compilation not in the technical sense of compilatio, a systematic anthology of extracts by established auctores (Parkes 1991b), but broadly, to denote an assembling of various texts into one collection (much as the term is used by Parkes (1991a: 292). For the need for greater terminological distinction with respect to diŸerent kinds of miscellanies (planned versus random, containing shorter versus longer units, presence or lack of thematic unity), see the essays in Nichols and Wenzel (1996). Most of the characteristics of the discourse colony are met by these commonplace books. The second characteristic, that of the break in continuity between units, is signalled in the case of the Directions by its principal letter containing the illustration of the woman intended to be making laces. In the Tollemache manuscript, the break is also signalled by the fact that the Directions begins on a new page, and the text which follows it comes on another. As for a framing context for the commonplace book, insofar as this is analogous to the hive (Hoey 2001: 79) it is provided by the physical book, the codex. However, the framing context is also said to be essential for the interpretation of the
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony
elements contained within the colony. Many of Hoey’s present-day examples are book titles, and for some texts (such as timetables) he notes the speciªcation of dates of applicability (2001: 81). In this sense, the commonplace books do not exhibit this characteristic. The fourth property, that the text should either be anonymous or the work of several authors, is true of both these books.20 “On the growing and grafting of trees”, in Tollemache, is attributed to Nicholas Bollard; the “Book of trees and wine” to Godefryd, who draws on Palladius (Gri¹ths and Edwards 2001: 11). The Directions is anonymous. Neither is it known who compiled either commonplace book, nor who the scribes were. Gri¹ths and Edwards note that the Tollemache manuscript could have been written by two scribes or by a single scribe whose hand varied, writing at some times in a more controlled fashion and at others in a “looser” and “more current version” of the script (2001: 282). The ªfth property, that an individual may be separated from the hive, is seen to be true in the present day, as Stanley’s edition is of the Directions alone, not of any other text in Harley 2320. Property ªve must also have been true in the ªfteenth century, since property six held: the individual unit could join another colony. We ªnd the Directions in two quite diŸerent commonplace books. More strikingly, the “Ten Commandments”, found in Tollemache on folio 15r, has joined this colony from a quite diŸerent one: the Bible. The characteristic that the population of the hive may change over time is also true of commonplace books and miscellanies. Such compilations are perhaps more like Hoey’s example of the shopping list than like the dictionary or phone directory, in that adding new units does not require a whole new edition, but there may well be room available for adding new units directly onto or into the original physical list or compilation. This seems to have been the case with the Tollemache miscellany. Gri¹ths and Edwards (2001: 282) suggest that the folio immediately preceding the Directions, and following the Latin list of medicines for speciªc ailments, was originally blank on both sides. On this folio are now found the instructions for restoring a dovecote (31r) and dimensions of a man’s shirt (31v), both in Middle English prose (Gri¹ths and Edwards 2001: 10). This adding of elements at later times could be one explanation for the variability found in the script and noted above. It is also true, however, that substantial revision in a subsequent version can lead to the perception of the collection as a new and distinct colony from the old one. Such is the case with The Boke of Kervyng, “an abbreviated prose version of John Russell’s Boke of Nurture, into which such other information as the proper foods to serve in liturgical seasons has been interpolated” (Keiser 1998: 3682). The eighth characteristic of the discourse colony is that of the matching relation of its components. Nicolas Barker, in the introduction to Gri¹ths and
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Edwards (2001: xv-xx), describes the Tollemache commonplace book as reading “like a summary of the domestic occupations, in and out of doors, of a country house” of the period. Each text can be compared (a matching relation) with the next, as to whether it relates to a similar or diŸerent household activity. “The dimensions of a man’s shirt” share a sphere of activity with the Directions for Laces, and contrast with the multiplication table. That such relations are weak is, moreover, to be expected (Hoey 2001: 83–85). The ninth property, sequencing for ease of reference, seems to be no truer of the commonplace books than of the Directions they contain. Thus the commonplace books found in Harleian 2320 and the Tollemache Book of Secrets are discourse colonies, but slightly less central examples than the Directions for Laces. They share seven of the nine properties identiªed by Hoey as characteristic of colonies. Table 4. The properties of Directions for Laces and Commonplace books dir. for laces commonplace
6.
1 + +
2 + +
3 + –
4 + +
5 + +
6 + +
7 + +
8 + +
9 – –
8 7
Conclusions
The Directions for Laces is a text worthy of further attention. Stanley (1974) has shown its interest to the lexicographer, and Speiser (2000) its utility for the study of medieval textiles (see also Priest Dorman 1997–2000 and Swales and Kuhn Williams 2000). This article has shown it to be of interest both for the analysis of medieval English instructional discourse and as a token of a medieval discourse colony. As specimens of instructional discourse, the units comprising the Directions for Laces have been shown to share so many characteristics with the medieval English texts now called recipes as to justify a broad use of the term recipe. The Directions for Laces, in its function of instruction for preparing or making products, in its structure of short units of text entitled with the names of products, in its contents based largely around instructional procedure, and in its linguistic characteristics such as the use of imperative verbs and simple, paratactic clauses, was written as the same sort of text as the Forme of Cury or the Medical Society of London Leechbook. This chapter has also shown the applicability to historical discourse linguistics of Hoey’s assertion that a text composed of isolable, re-orderable units is not defective, but is typical of a common subset of texts — in his terminology, discourse colonies. Section ªve showed the medieval commonplace book to be a discourse colony, and section four showed the Directions for Laces to be an even more prototypical discourse colony, one found embedded within the colony of the commonplace book.
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony 159
Collections of culinary and medicinal recipes, calendars of bloodletting and historical chronicles are other examples of the many medieval texts which well could be treated as discourse colonies.21 Nor are nonliterary texts the only tokens of medieval colonies. Anthologies of lyrics, sermon cycles, and the Canterbury Tales are amongst the literary texts analysable as discourse colonies.22 It is hoped that raising historical linguists’ awareness of Hoey’s approach will facilitate future study of such texts, until now largely neglected in favour of the smaller units they contain.
Notes * Some of this research was presented to the Nordic Association of English Studies, in Gothenburg, May 2001. I would like to thank members of the DiPEE project team in Turku for their comments, and two anonymous reviewers for suggesting improvements to an earlier version of the chapter. 1. The lace condrak departyd requires the use of a turne (“spindle” (Stanley 1974: 91)) or torett (“a half-ring or eyelet that is ªxed to a ¶at surface in order to form an attachment point for a chain”, MED s.v. toret n.(1)). 2. The Manual of the Writings in Middle English lists only the Harleian manuscript in its entry for the Directions (Keiser 1998: 3900), as does Braswell (1984: 373). 3. This is a second notable distinction between the ªfteenth-century and seventeenthcentury texts, as the latter are bound into volumes of their own, containing no other material (Speiser 2000: 81). British Library manuscript Additional 6293, for example, a vellum manuscript dated 1651 and containing instructions for making laces along with sample braids, uses only one side of each folio. The manuscript contains three blank folios, but no other texts have been inserted onto them. 4. All ªve MED examples for the use of las in occupational surnames (late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries) are of men: Rog. le Lacemaker and Will. le Lacebreyder for example. However, a survey of other headwords for which the stencils are cited shows that by far the majority of surname examples used in the early volumes of the MED are men. 5. Examples are from Stanley’s edition, unless otherwise noted. These are cited by page and line numbers. I have not reproduced editorial indications of expansion of abbreviations (italics in Stanley 1974 and Gri¹ths and Edwards 2001), nor superscript lettering (for example, Stanley’s þe is here þe). 6. This practice is also assumed for the midwives of Württemberg, given that the ordinatio of the text detailing their duties is written in Latin. The assumption is that a physician (or “latinate overseer”) will read out their responsibilities to them (Green 2000). 7. Although féolaŠa was a masculine noun in late Old English (OED s.v. fellow, n.), Middle English use of grammatical rather than natural gender had become so rare as to make it very unlikely that the choice of hys should be interpreted as motivated by the OE gender of the word fellow.
160 Ruth Carroll
8. Compare Hieatt’s (1998: 139) assertion that only the competent cook is qualiªed to edit medieval recipes. Gri¹ths makes no claim to any lace-making experience (Gri¹ths and Edwards 2001), but did send his transcription to Speiser, an expert in the ªeld (Speiser 2000: 8). 9. A quick survey of a dozen native speakers of American English revealed that about half restrict pattern to instruction which includes diagrams or traceable outlines (as sewing patterns do). Others, especially those thinking of knitting patterns, say they could use pattern to denote purely textual instruction without any graphics. 10. This is re¶ected in Lehrer’s (1974: 62) analysis of the verb cook, which includes the semantic component [+irreversible]. Atkins, Kegl, and Levin (1988) (and see also Pustejovsky 1991), note that bake and similar verbs actually have two sub-senses, one which creates a completely new object (such as a cake), and one which merely modiªes an object already in existence (such as a chicken). Both senses denote irreversible processes. I am grateful to Claire Jones for urging me to give more consideration to the importance of irreversibility. 11. This is still a narrower deªnition than Braswell (1984: 344) and Hargreaves (1981: 91) seem to accept (see Carroll 2004 for a brief discussion of a wider deªnition). 12. For more information on determiners see Staczek 1996, for object deletion see Culy 1996. For þen in recipes, note that Platzer’s study of Old English cohesion ªnds “the most widespread use of temporal connectives not in narrative texts, like chronicles or an account of a voyage, but in recipes” (1992, emphasis in original). 13. The relative consistency of Harley’s titles in diŸerent sections may suggest two or more diŸerent sources, one for the ªrst twenty to twenty-three recipes, and perhaps another for the last fourteen or more (which are also paragraphed diŸerently). As will be mentioned below, it is a common feature of this text-type that the compiler draws on more than one source. 14. Two Harley recipes begin with the number of loops required, and Stanley emends those texts by adding Take before the number, thus restoring them to the predominant pattern. Two begin with abbreviated Latin phrases, as discussed below, which make reference to the recipe preceding. The ªfth begins, Þu most take a Ÿelow. The one Tollemache recipe not beginning with an imperative begins, þu xalt doo vt supra. 15. None of the four collections of fourteenth-century culinary recipes edited by Hieatt and Butler (1985) contains the words recepte or receite. Rescett is found in one of the recipes they edited from the medical collection in BL MS Royal 17 A iii (1985: 148). 16. The distinction between producers’ and recipients’ genres is from Diller (2001). Carroll (2004) extends it so as to distinguish between the genres of medieval recipients and those of present-day readers or scholars. 17. Similarly, in a warning about the inconsistency of the contents of culinary collections, Keiser notes that three manuscripts containing the Forme of Cury “con¶ate recipes selected from that collection with material from other collections, including Diuersa Servisa” (1998: 3679).
Recipes for laces: A discourse colony
18. Of course not all discourse colonies include keys to notation and conventions: the seventeenth-century lace manuals do not. Speiser notes that “any fundamental knowledge must have been taken for granted. It is referred to in brief formulas or merely with names which are impenetrable for the non-initiated” (2000: 82). She continues with an explanation: “This lack of basic information is not surprising. Imagine a modern housewife writing down her recipes for cooking or knitting: would she care to add things familiar to her from childhood? But for us readers of the 20th century, it is extremely frustrating.” 19. Speiser (2000: 79) says of 23 that it is, as the title suggests, broad, that is to say “¶at twolayer unfolded”, and parti, having “lengthwise colour-sections”, and that neither characteristic applies to 62, despite its name. 20. As noted above, however, this con¶icts with Rigg’s (1968) deªnition of a miscellany, which “largely focuses upon the … detectable activity of an individual compiler, after whom the manuscript may also be named” (Gri¹ths and Edwards 2001: 3). 21. It was Janne SkaŸari who ªrst mentioned to me the possibility that the Peterborough Chronicle might be analysed as a discourse colony. 22. The analysis of the Canterbury Tales as compilatio oŸers similar insights (see, for example, Parkes (1991b: 61–62) and Parkes and Doyle (1991: 228–229)).
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Brinton, Laurel J. 2001 “Historical discourse analysis”. In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, D. SchiŸrin, D. Tannen and H. E. Hamilton (eds), 138–160. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Carroll, Ruth 1999 “The Middle English recipe as a text-type”. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 100: 27–42. 2004 “Middle English recipes: vernacularisation of a text-type”. In Medical and Scientiªc Writing in Late Medieval English, I. Taavitsainen and P. Pahta (eds), 174–191. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coleman, Joyce 1996 Public Reading and the Reading Public in Late Medieval England and France. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cressy, David 1980 Literacy and Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crowfoot, Elisabeth, Pritchard, Frances and Staniland, Kay 1992 Textiles and Clothing c.1150–1450 [Volume 4 in Medieval Finds from Excavations in London]. London: HMSO. Culy, Christopher 1996 “Null objects in English recipes”. Language Variation and Change 8: 91–124. Curzan, Anne 2003 Gender Shifts in the History of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davis, Norman 1971 Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Diller, Hans-Jürgen 2001 “Genre in linguistic and related discourses”. In Towards a History of English as a History of Genres, H-J. Diller and M. Görlach (eds), 3–43. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag C. Winter. Görlach, Manfred 1992 “Text-types and language history: the cookery recipe”. In History of Englishes, M. Rissanen, O. Ihalainen, T. Nevalainen and I. Taavitsainen (eds), 736–761. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Green, Monica H. 2000 “Books as a source of medical education for women in the Middle Ages”. Dynamis: Acta Hispanica ad Medicinae Scientiarumque Historiam Illustrandam 20: 331–369. Available online (accessed 18 July 2003): http://matrix.bc.edu/commentaria/green1.html. Gri¹ths, Jeremy and Edwards, A. S. G. 2001 The Tollemache Book of Secrets: A Descriptive Index and Complete Facsimile with an Introduction and Transcriptions together with Catherine Tollemache’s Receipts of Pastery, Confectionary &c. [London:] The Roxburghe Club. Grund, Peter 2000 “The golden formulas: genre conventions of alchemical recipes in the Middle
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English period”. Paper presented at the eleventh International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, September 2000. Forthcoming in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. Halliday, M. A. K. and Hasan, Ruqaiya 1976 Cohesion in English. London: Longman. Hargreaves, Henry 1981 “Some problems in indexing Middle English recipes”. In Middle English Prose: Essays on Bibliographic Problems, A. S. G. Edwards and D. Pearsall (eds), 91–113. New York: Garland Publishing. Hieatt, Constance B. 1996 “The Middle English culinary recipes in MS Harley 5401: an edition and commentary”. Medium Aevum 65: 54–71. 1998 “Editing Middle English culinary manuscripts”. In A Guide to Editing Middle English, V. P. McCarren and D. MoŸat (eds), 133–140. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Hieatt, Constance B. and Butler, Sharon (eds) 1985 Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century (including The Forme of Cury). Early English Text Society, special series 8. Hiltunen, Risto 1997 “An aspect of ‘ESP’ in a historical perspective: the case of Anglo-Saxon law”. In To Explain the Present: Studies in the Changing English Language in Honour of Matti Rissanen, T. Nevalainen and L. Kahlas-Tarkka (eds), 51–62. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Hoey, Michael 1986 “The Discourse Colony: a preliminary study of a neglected discourse type”. In Talking about Text: Studies Presented to David Brazil on his Retirement, M. Coulthard (ed.), 1–26. Birmingham: English Language Research, University of Birmingham. 2001 Textual Interaction: An Introduction to Written Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Routledge. Hunt, Tony 2000 “Code-switching in medical texts”. In Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain, D. A. Trotter (ed.), 131–147. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer. Jones, Claire 1998 “Formula and formulation: ‘e¹cacy phrases’ in medieval English medical manuscripts”. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 99: 199–209. Keiser, George R. 1998 Works of Science and Information [Volume 10 of A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050–1500, Albert E. Hartung (ed.).]. New Haven, CT: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. Keller, Henning 1971 “Die me. Rezepte des Ms. Harley 2253”. Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 207: 94–100.
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Lacey, Kay 1987
“The production of ‘narrow ware’ by silkwomen in fourteenth and ªfteenth century England”. Textile History 18: 187–204. Lehrer, Adrienne 1974 Semantic Fields and Lexical Structure. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company. Nevalainen, Terttu and Raumolin-Brunberg, Helena 2003 Historical Sociolinguistics: Language Change in Tudor and Stuart England, London: Longman. Nichols, Stephen G. and Wenzel, Siegfried (eds) 1996 The Whole Book: Cultural Perspectives on the Medieval Miscellany, Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. Parkes, M. B. 1991a “The literacy of the laity”. In Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts, 275–297. London and Rio Grande, OH: The Hambledon Press. Originally published in Literature and Western Civilization: The Medieval World, D. Daiches and A. K. Thorlby (eds), 555–576. London: Aldus Books, 1973. 1991b “The in¶uence of the concepts of ordinatio and compilatio on the development of the book”. In Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts, 35–70. London and Rio Grande, OH: The Hambledon Press. Originally published in Medieval Learning and Literature: Essays Presented to R. W. Hunt, J. J. G. Alexander and M. T. Gibson (eds), 115–140. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976. Parkes, M. B. and Doyle, A. I. 1991 “The production of copies of the Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis in the early ªfteenth century”. In Scribes, Scripts and Readers: Studies in the Communication, Presentation and Dissemination of Medieval Texts, 201–248. London and Rio Grande, OH: The Hambledon Press. Originally published in Medieval Scribes, Manuscripts and Libraries: Essays Presented to N. R. Ker, M. B. Parkes and A. G. Watson (eds), 163–210. London: Scolar Press, 1978. Platzer, Hans 1992 “Cohesion in Old English prose”. Vienna English Working Papers 1: 81–92. Priest-Dorman, Carolyn 1997–2000 “Sample ªngerlooped braids from a ªfteenth-century manuscript”. Available online (accessed 16 May 2001): http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/ªngerloop.html. Pustejovsky, James 1991 “The generative lexicon”. Computational Linguistics 17: 409–441. Rand Schmidt, Kari Anne 1994 “The Index of Middle English Prose and late medieval English recipes”. English Studies 75: 423–429.
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Rigg, A. G. 1968
A Glastonbury Miscellany of the Fifteenth Century, London: Oxford University Press. Robbins, Rossell Hope (ed.) 1952 Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Robbins, Rossell Hope 1971 “Review: A. G. Rigg, A Glastonbury Miscellany of the Fifteenth Century”. Anglia 89: 140–143. Speiser, Noémi 2000 Old English Pattern Books for Loop Braiding. Switzerland: self-published by the author. 2001 “Lace-making with three women”. L-M BRIC News 4: part V. Available online (accessed 10 July 2003): http://www.geocities.com/lmbric/n4/n4.html. Staczek, John 1996 “Ðin in Late Middle English and its contemporary re¶ex in instructional settings”. In Middle English Miscellany: From Vocabulary to Linguistic Variation, J. Fisiak (ed.), 245–252. Poznán: Motivex. Stanley, E. G. (ed.) 1974 “Directions for making many sorts of laces”. In Chaucer and Middle English Studies: In Honour of Rossell Hope Robbins, B. Rowland (ed.), 89–103. London: George Allen & Unwin. Stannard, Jerry 1982 “Rezeptliteratur as Fachliteratur”. Scripta 6: 59–73. Stubbs, Michael 1983 Discourse Analysis: The Sociolinguistic Analysis of Natural Language. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Swales, Lois and Kuhn Williams, Zoe 2000 “Fingerloop braids”. The Compleat Anachronist 108. Taavitsainen, Irma 2001 “Middle English recipes: genre characteristics, text type features and underlying traditions of writing”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 2: 85–113.
“Best patterns for your imitation” Early modern letter-writing instruction and real correspondence Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen
1.
Introduction
This paper reports on an exploration into early modern correspondence from the perspective of letter-writing manuals. In particular, the focus is on intertextuality between the instructions provided by the manuals and real letters. The features analysed include, for instance, the structure and parts of letters: what the manuals say about the construction of letters, and how letters were actually constructed. Although it may be di¹cult or even impossible to ªnd out whether letter-writing manuals had a direct eŸect on real correspondence, uncovering similarities and diŸerences between them will nevertheless throw light on the preferred epistolary practices of a period during which the letter was the foremost means of communicating over a distance. Due to the scope of this pilot study, two manuals and two contemporary sets of correspondence are examined in detail, but some references to other letter-writing manuals are made in order to ªnd out whether the instructions provided by the manuals enjoyed wider popularity as well. Because of its considerable potential to portray everyday events and language use, historians and literary scholars (Daybell 2001; Earle 1999; Gilroy & Verhoeven 2000) as well as language scholars have become increasingly interested in early epistolary communication. Within the ªeld of historical language studies, early English correspondence has been used as material in several studies (see, for instance, Nevala 1998; 2002; Nevalainen & Raumolin-Brunberg 1995; 1996; 2003; Nurmi 1999; Palander-Collin 1999). While sharing the conviction that letters can provide signiªcant information, the present study seeks to contribute another perspective to the on-going discussion. First, the study deals with language use in letters and letter writing per se, i.e.
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their linguistic and discourse features, rather than using the material as evidence of language change. Secondly, rather than dealing with diachronic change, the present study oŸers a more synchronic viewpoint on the letter-writing practices of a particular period in history. Finally, it brings in the dimension of letter-writing instruction as well as real correspondence.
2.
Early modern correspondence and manuals
2.1 The letter as a means of communication It would be di¹cult to overestimate the importance of the letter as a means of communication in early modern society, for throughout this period the letter was irreplaceable as a method of communicating over a distance. By means of letters, early modern people were able to construct and maintain what was often a complex network of business, familial or patronage relations.1 We learn of the importance of letters from Edmund Grindall, Archbishop of Canterbury, who writes to Matthew Hutton, Dean of York in May 1582: Salutem in Christo! Yf I hadd not this daye ben trobled with muche writinge and some busines of great weight, I wolde have written to you my particuler letter at more length concernynge Doctor Gibson’s case; but I praie you beare with me for this tyme, and for a few daies more, till Doctor Gibson come downe, and at his comyinge I truste to have better leasure and quyetnes to write my mynde in some thinge more at large unto you. I have written a generall letter to you and to the Chapter, which I praie you to accept well of, and not to judge hastelie before the tyme. So I take my leave, and commendinge you to the grace of Godd. From Lambeth, this xix=th of Maye, 1582.
Letters seem to have been of such great signiªcance that the sole purpose of the above letter by Edmund Grindall was to inform his fellow correspondent of other letters either already written or currently being planned. The importance of being able to write good and eŸective letters was generally acknowledged, and the drafting of letters consequently formed an indispensable part of the education of men of the higher ranks (Jagodzinski 1999: 76). Although women’s literacy was only a fraction of that of men (Cressy 1980: 128), women of the higher ranks could also become acquainted with this important craft. For example, Lady Grace Mildmay’s (1552–1620) governess kept her and her sisters “busy singing songs, doing needlework, or writing letters” (Warnicke 1989). Pollock provides a more speciªc quotation (with modernised spelling) from Lady Mildmay’s journal as to her education:
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And when she did see me idly disposed she would set me to cipher with my pen, and to cast up and prove great sums and accounts, and sometimes to set me to write a supposed letter to this or that body concerning such and such things, and other times let me read… (Pollock 1993: 26).
Those without access to education were not totally deprived of the beneªts of communication by letters, but they had to turn to friends or scribes in order to have their letters written: Though it lieth not in the power of every one to make use of these excellent means for reciprocal Communication; yet we see daily the illiterate and ignorant will make hard shifts rather than go without the beneªt thereof, applying themselves to friends that can write; or if they have none, to Scriveners or other strangers, venturing their secrets with them, rather than their friend shall go without the knowledg of them (Woolley 1675: 218).
When information had to be communicated to family or friends at a distance, early modern people relied on letters, and whether they wrote in their own name, as a favour to an illiterate friend, or in their professional capacity as scribes, letterwriting manuals with instructions and model letters were at their disposal to help them strive towards epistolary eloquence.
2.2 The early modern letter-writing manual It is therefore no surprise that the in¶uences of rhetoric are to be found everywhere, ranging from the greatest works of literature to the letter-writing manual of Angel Day (Görlach 1991a: 28).
In early modern England, the production and consumption of textbooks and manuals was extensive in both scope and numbers. Letter-writing manuals were no exception; after all, they dealt with rhetoric, a subject considered important by the public (Cressy 1980; Görlach 1991a: 12, 27; Vickers 1994). However, a not uncommon view of the letter-writing handbook as a purely practical introduction to epistolary eloquence may be responsible for the fact that these manuals have not been very extensively studied. Such an attitude becomes evident for instance from the above quotation from Görlach. What early modern letter-writing manuals may appear to be lacking in theoretical content and signiªcance is more than fully compensated by their object of instruction, the letter. The signiªcance of letters and correspondence for historical studies is obvious, because they can throw light on the development of both language and society; letter-writing manuals may not appear to have as direct a relevance. Vickers (1994) maintains, however, that rhetoric handbooks can help “reconstruct a system of enormous cultural signiªcance”; in other words, they can
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reveal how rhetoric was taught as a practical discipline to be used in speaking and writing in everyday life. The signiªcance of the manuals thus lies precisely in their practicality, which makes any reconstruction a di¹cult task. An evaluation of the importance and eŸect of practical rhetoric manuals is inherently problematic, because “[t]he teachings of the rhetoric book, properly absorbed, leave no sign other than the students’ eloquence” (Vickers 1994).2 Nevalainen (1996; 2001) further notes that it is very di¹cult to show that a particular linguistic choice is a result of a prescriptive statement in a particular textbook. However, it is perfectly possible to show whether or not a particular textbook depicts actual usage by comparing it to real language data. For instance, in the ªeld of applied linguistics, comparisons of language textbooks and real language material are standard practice. Researchers working on early English correspondence also occasionally refer to textbooks: for instance, it has been noted if and to what extent real letters and letter-writing manuals agree on the usage of address forms (Nevala forthcoming; Nevalainen & Raumolin-Brunberg 1995). However, systematic comparisons between real correspondence and textbook material have not been carried out. Consequently, instead of embarking on the rather hopeless task of trying to uncover the direct eŸect of letter-writing manuals or the extent to which their prescriptions were adopted, this study presents a dialogue between the instructions in the manuals and real letters in order to ªnd out if the manuals depicted actual epistolary practices. Even though information about the eŸect of letter-writing handbooks may remain unattainable to us, it is interesting to consider the readership and popularity of the manuals, which will at least provide a partial understanding of their signiªcance to the early modern letter-writing public. It is important to note here that this study deals with letter-writing and manuals written in English. The question of language is highly relevant, because the language used in the letter-writing manual also deªned its readership (Jagodzinski 1999: 77). The earlier handbooks were written in Latin, which considerably narrowed the potential audience. Of the Renaissance letter-writing manuals written in Latin, the most famous was Erasmus’ Libellus de Conscribendis Epistolis, published in 1521. It was very popular in its original form and it also enjoyed a more indirect in¶uence: in the 1580s Angel Day adapted parts of the book for his own manual (Day 1586; Goldberg 1990: 252; Robertson 1942: 10). By the middle of the sixteenth century, English was already quite extensively used in books, but the in¶uence of Latin, notably in scholarly writing, was still signiªcant (Görlach 1991b; Görlach 2001). The question of writing in the vernacular, according to Vickers (1994), is especially intriguing as regards rhetoric manuals: Latin was the traditional language of rhetoric, and hence the existence of English rhetoric books is somewhat “anomalous”. It is conceivable that the English manuals
Letter-writing instruction and real correspondence
were indeed targeted at a new audience, perhaps to “meet the needs of the growing mercantile class” (Robertson 1942: 7), who needed instruction in order to successfully communicate in writing. From a slightly diŸerent viewpoint, Jagodzinski (1999: 76–77) notes that the increased popularity of letter-writing manuals coincides with the transformation of the letter into a means of personal communication, and with the sample correspondence in the handbooks even the newly literate could develop their skills of self-expression. It is interesting at this point to ask whom the authors of the letter-writing manuals themselves regarded as their potential readership, and it appears that there is some variety in their conceptions. The ªrst English manual on letter writing was William Fulwood’s The Enimie of Idlenesse (1568). Without doubt aware of the fact that educated writers have already had the beneªt of several Latin manuals, Fulwood in his preface expresses the wish to address another type of audience: For know you sure, I meane not I the cunning clerkes to teach: But rather to the vnlearned sort a few precepts to preach. A nedeless thing of truthe it were vnto the body sound, To minister Phisitions ayde, where no disease is founde (Fulwood 1568).
In 1576, Abraham Fleming published his manual A Panoplie of Epistles, or, a looking glass for the vnlearned, which, despite its title, was meant for both learned and unlearned readers (italics added): Learned reader, whose minde is beautiªed with the amiable iuelles of knowledge and iudgement, to thee I present this Panoplie of Epistles, to reade for thy recreation, and peruse at thy pleasure: for I am taught by experience of my selfe, that the tediousnesse of studie, is to be assuaged with some intermingling of delight; To the vnlearned I doe likewise oŸer it, as su¹cient furniture to arme and enable them against ignoraunce, the aduersarie and sworne enimie of vnderstanding (Fleming 1576).
The author of one of the most popular manuals, Angel Day, informs us that his book The English Secretorie is intended for the use of “all men” and addresses several types of readers in the introduction, namely learned, unlearned and ignorant: …therby misplacing diuers ªgures quoted in the magent, where they are either mistaken, or sometimes not vsed in those places at all. In occurrence whereof I desire the learned Reader, as he shall ªnd to correct, and the other vsers therof to beare withal…
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And at the ªnishing vp of this worke, haue determined in the ende therof to set them altogeather, and there to explane to the Learners view and for his readier vse, their particular natures and qualities, that they who (being vnlearned, and hauing a pretie conceit of inuention of them selues) haue heretofore vnknowing done well, may see howe with skill and discretion hereafter to pursue the same, and the ignorant also hereof, whose reach hath not byn so ample as others, may be thereby informed what vnto well doing is most consonant & agreeing (Day 1586).
However, targeting a manual mainly to those who are ignorant did not go out of fashion, for in the 1654 edition of The Secretary in Fashion, originally published in 1640, de la Serre seems to be echoing Fulwood: Nothing is so common as writing of Letters, but to set them forth well is not so common. The necessity of conversing one with another so long as we live, causes every one to meddle with it. For ignorant men as well as Literate have frequent occasions to communicate by Letters with their absent friends; but for the most part, Learned men only can perform it handsomly. To learn it, one ought to have fair examples to imitate, good precepts to guide him. Wherefore I have added (here) a short introduction, containing the principal Rules of this Art (de la Serre 1654).
Here, ªnally, is Hannah Woolley, whose marketing strategy is slightly diŸerent from those presented above. Her manual is intended for women, so that they can perfect the writing skills they already master: But as for you, Ladies, for whose use this Book was framed, I question not your writing well; but without inditing well it will signise but little; to the intent therefore you may polish your Epistolical compositions observe these two things therein, that is, the Matter and Form (Woolley 1675).
There thus seem to be competing trends in what was considered the primary audience of letter-writing manuals. On the one hand, they were clearly meant for those writers who had little experience in writing letters; here we can agree with Robertson’s (1942) suggestion that the new mercantile class may have been among the intended users of the manuals.3 On the other hand, the authors appear to have expected a wider audience, and, along the lines proposed by Jagodzinski (1999), we may ªnd this as an indication that the manuals were also used as tools for improving self-expression, and perhaps not only by the newly literate. It is therefore hazardous to totally rule out the possibility that the manuals were also read by educated letter writers, who may have consulted them and studied their model letters in order to further polish their epistolary skills. The author’s intentions as regards potential readership quite obviously left the popularity of a manual largely unaŸected: the manuals of Fulwood and Day, for instance, were almost as popular. The former was reprinted eight times and the
Letter-writing instruction and real correspondence 173
latter eleven; their last editions are from 1621 and 1635, respectively. All in all, there is no debate about the proliferation and popularity of letter-writing handbooks during the early modern period; instead, we can try to investigate if behind their popularity was actually the fact that they dispensed valuable instruction.
2.3 Two early modern manuals: Day 1586 and Woolley 1675 For this pilot study, I take two early modern letter-writing manuals under closer scrutiny. I ªrst compare some of the general instructions provided by the manuals and note their similarities and diŸerences. Next, I engage some of the more speciªc instructions and model letters found in the manuals in a dialogue with real letters. This will enable us to see whether the instructions provided in the manuals are corroborated by actual usage. No claim is made as to whether the writers whose correspondence is studied actually used these particular manuals, but the two sets of material are naturally contemporary. The ªrst manual analysed is The English Secretorie (1586) by Angel Day, and the set of letters to be compared with it is the Hutton correspondence (1566–1638) from the CEECS. The other manual is Hannah Woolley’s The Gentlewoman’s Companion4 (1675), which will be compared with the Tixall correspondence (1656–1680) from the CEECS. The selection of these particular manuals no doubt warrants some discussion. Of the earliest English letter-writing manuals, Day’s was selected for three main reasons. The ªrst is that the theoretical part of The English Secretorie is largely based on Erasmus’ Latin manual, which was extremely in¶uential throughout the early modern period. In a way, Day made available to the larger English public instruction which had already been available to the educated section of society. But this is also true of other early manuals, which tended to follow Erasmus more or less closely in their discussion of the theory of the letter, and here we come to the second reason why The English Secretorie was selected. Because the model letters in the manuals are taken into account in the analysis as well, it is important that they are written for the manual with its particular audience in mind, and this is where Day’s manual diŸers from most of the others. He wrote all the model letters in his manual by himself, whereas for instance Fulwood took his from a French manual and Fleming from classical authors such as Cicero. It is clear that Day’s original model letters are to be preferred in a study such as the present one. The third reason is the lasting popularity of The English Secretorie: it remained in print for 49 years. The letter-writing public must have found it useful, and it therefore seems a very appropriate choice for the present analysis as well. Let us now turn to the second manual, which also competed against several other manuals for inclusion in the study. First of all, it was felt that by analysing two
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quite diŸerent manuals the aims of this study would best be achieved; this makes it possible to compare not only the manuals and contemporary letters, but also the two manuals. As its name implies, Hannah Woolley wrote The Gentlewoman’s Companion speciªcally for women, and it is the manual’s target group that makes it both interesting and diŸerent enough from The English Secretorie. Woolley’s is by no means the only such manual, however. Many of the earlier manuals give some examples for women correspondents, but in the seventeenth century entire manuals for this group of writers become available. For instance, Jacques du Bosque’s The Secretary of Ladies from 1638 was very popular, and would thus appear to be a good choice. However, although Bosque’s manual contains a variety of letters meant for diŸerent purposes, it lacks any general instructions or explanations, which are essential for the present study, whereas Woolley includes both instructions and model letters in her manual. Furthermore, Hannah Woolley was a popular and established writer of advice books for women (Trill et al. 1997: 261), and it is thus quite conceivable that The Gentlewoman’s Companion enjoyed a wide readership.5 The ªnal reason for selecting Woolley’s manual is its date of publication. It may appear that there is quite a gap between the two manuals, one published in 1586 and the other in 1675; as noted earlier, however, Day’s was reprinted as late as 1635, which of course can mean that it remained in use even for years after that. For a pilot study, which necessarily can only answer a small set of questions, it seems sensible to select manuals which are diŸerent not only as regards their intended audience but also their timeframe. To complement The English Secretorie, The Gentlewoman’s Companion is therefore the best choice. The two sets of letters come from the Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (CEECS), and like the manuals, they also come, as it were, from two diŸerent worlds. The Hutton Correspondence includes 83 letters written by Matthew Hutton, the Archbishop of York, and his family and peers. The Tixall Letters consists of 40 letters between the Aston family in England and their kinswoman Winefrid Thimelby, who was prioress of the English Augustinian nunnery of St Monica’s in Louvain. Since the present study is not a sociolinguistic one, the diŸerences between the circumstances aŸecting the creation of the letters are not the primary objects of analysis, but they nevertheless form an interesting background against which the style of writing letters can be projected. With this selection of material, the present study seeks to answer the following questions. First, do the two manuals diŸer in terms of the theoretical instructions they oŸer, and if so, what are possible reasons for the diŸerences? The second question deals with intertextuality between the manuals and real correspondence: are the instructions and model letters corroborated by real contemporary letters? And thirdly, it is of course interesting to ªnd out whether Day and Woolley
Letter-writing instruction and real correspondence
themselves practised what they preached, i.e. whether their model letters show adherence to the rules and instructions set out in their manuals.
3.
General instructions in the manuals
3.1 Deªnitions of a letter We can start by looking at some of the general instructions on letter-writing provided in the two manuals. The theoretical discussion in both Day and Woolley precedes the model letters; re¶ecting the diŸerence in length between the two manuals, general instructions in Day take 43 pages, whereas Woolley gives them 12 pages. Besides their length, let us try to ªnd out whether the discussions also diŸer in terms of their contents. The early modern letter-writing manual typically opens with a deªnition of a letter, and Day’s and Woolley’s are no exception: Touchinge an Epistle, which vsually we terme a letter, no other deªnition needeth therof, then that which vse and common experience hath induced vnto vs. A Letter therefore is that wherein is expreslye conueied in writing, the intent and meaning of one man, immediately to passe and be directed to an other, and for the certaine respects thereof, is termed the messenger and familiar speeche of the absent: for that all occurrences whatsoeuer, are thereby as faythfully aduertized, pursued and debated, as ªrmely might fall out in any personall presence or otherwise to be remembred (Day 1586: 1). First, what a Letter is? It is or ought to be the express image of the Mind, represented in writing to a friend at a distance; wherein is declared what He or She would do or have done. This excellent use we have of Letters, that when distance of place, will not admit of Union of persons, or converse Viva voce; that deplorable defect is supplied by a Letter or Missive; and indeed the necessity of conversing one with another as long as we live, layeth an unavoidable congency of communicating our aŸairs each to other, without which friends at a distance could have no correspondence one with the other (Woolley 1675: 218).
No doubt the ªrst thing that strikes the reader is the similarity of the deªnitions. Indeed, the ninety years separating the manuals seem to have had no great eŸect on how the authors viewed the letter as a medium. As already mentioned, Day and other early authors closely follow Erasmus in the theory of the letter; here, for instance, is Fulwood on the letter: And to describe the true deªnition of an Epistle or letter, it is nothing else but an Oration written, conteining the mynde of the Orator or writer, thereby to giue to vnderstand him or them that be absent, the same that should be declared if they were present (Fulwood 1568).
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That Day and Fulwood show similarities is therefore not surprising, but it is quite striking that Woolley reiterates the very same points almost a century later. In slightly diŸerent terms, all three see the letter as a repository of the mind or meaning of the writer, carrying with it the presence (or Woolley’s “union of persons”) of the writer to the reader at a distance. As Goldberg (1990: 252) notes, the letter here seems to be a “formalized version of speaking”, but at the same time both speech and writing appear in a secondary role, supporting the primary role of the meaning of the writer. Where Woolley diŸers from Day and Fulwood is in her deªnition of the writer and the reader of the letter as “friends”; no such relation is presumed in the quotations from the other two authors. Woolley’s choice of words may be due to the scope of her manual. She notes that she would “swell this Volume into too great a bulk” if she included patterns of letters for all occasions; accordingly her model letters are correspondence between family members and friends, and for other uses of the letter she instructs the reader to turn to other manuals, “every Booksellersshop aŸording great plenty” (Woolley 1675: 247).6
3.2 Stylistic concerns Both manuals oŸer general stylistic instructions for letter writers. The emphasis on the spokenness of letters, obvious in the deªnitions discussed in the previous section, may have been surprising given the fact that it was meant to characterise all kinds of letters. The stylistic instructions, however, make it clear that the spokenness is to be realised in a manner suitable for each individual letter: one does not speak in a similar manner to all persons. In his manual, Day ªrst of all divides letters into general (familiar) and special, according to their topic. The latter demand a fuller consideration of style than the former: Under this title of generall shall bee comprehended all such, as eyther for fashions sake, custome, duty, courtesie, or other familiaritie doe ordinarilye passe from one part to an other… These, for the common and ordinary matter in everye of them vsed, beeing utterly exempte from anye waight or grauitye at all, are rightly termed by the name of familiar letters. They now that be speciall are such, the matter of whome (as I sayd before) do admit both higher stile and more orderlye deliuerance, according to the waight of the argument, in anye of them to be handled… (Day 1586: 18–19).
Under what he calls “comelines in deliuerance, concerning the person and cause”, Day further points out in greater detail that the status of the recipient as well as the topic of the letter are decisive to its style:
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In one kinde wee frame our letters to olde men, in an other sorte to young, one way to sad and graue persons, an other to light or yong fellowes, one platforme to Courtiers, an other to Philosophers. To honourable personages with duetye reserued, to our betters euermore with submission, to our equalles friendly, to straungers courteously, to our acquaintance familiarly, to our inferiours beningly and fauourably, to our friends louingly, to our enemies, sharpely, and nippingly… (Day 1586: 14). A matter of grauity deliuered with weight, a matter of sorrow reported with griefe, a matter of pastime discoursed with pleasure, a matter of follie intermingled with laughter, doe eche showe the decorum therein contained, and what agreement falleth out in euery seuerall discription, where contrariwise, to a person sorrowfull to write of iestes, to talk learnedly vnto a clown, to salute an olde man with childishe fantasies, in causes of common wealth to aduance tri¶es, what thing more absurde or greater matter of indecorum, canne be founde placed in any writing (Day 1586: 15–16).
Perhaps because the instructions in her manual concentrate on correspondence between family and friends, Woolley does not distinguish between various types of letters. However, she does oŸer stylistic advice, part of which is phrased similarly to Day’s, although Woolley seems to be concentrating more on the person and less on the topic: For the stile of your Letters, let it not be aŸected but careless, not much diŸering from our usual way of speaking… but have a care that in striving to avoid aŸectation you do not run into improprieties of speech, or barbarisms (Woolley 1675: 228). Consider seriously what best besits the things you are to write of, regarding person, time and place. It would be absurd for any one to write to a superiour as to a familiar, and that which would suit very well with an ancient man, or a person in Authority, would be ridiculous for to use to a man of mean degree, or of the younger sort; surely we are not to use the like expressions to a Soldier, as we do to a Scholar or Lady (Woolley 1675: 228).
Although Day takes several pages to deliver his advice compared to Woolley’s shorter paragraph-length discussion, it is clear that in the opinion of both authors, good letter writers are sensitive to the social hierarchy, the qualities of their recipient as well as their relationship to the recipient, and all these considerations should be re¶ected in their letters. In the composition of their letters, writers are to observe “aptnes of wordes & sentences respecting that they be neat and choisly piked, orderly laid downe & cunningly handled” (Day 1586: 4). Woolley (1675: 228) instructs writers not to use “hard words, but such as are either plain, or very signiªcant”. Another important compositional concern is that of the length of the letter, which both authors address. Again, Day elaborates on this more than Woolley:
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This kind of breuitie is not as some vndiscreetly haue imagined, that which consisteth in fewnesse of lines, and shortnesse of roome in shewe of a side of paper, but breuitie of matter, wherein scope su¹cient remayning for the necessarie demonstration and deliverie of any needfull occasion, men are barred from friuolous circumstances, and especially enioyned therein to abborre all maner of tediousnes (Day 1586: 7–8). [some] do neuer think to haue spoken inough of a thing, without ªve or sixe times at the least, they return it and repeat it againe and againe in a letter; …It were a sport to see what odde kind of stuŸe, those hammer headed creatures could produce (Day 1586: 12).
When we consider Day’s advice, it is not di¹cult to ªnd similarities between his instructions and the co-operative principle, especially the maxim of quantity, which urges communicators to give enough information, but not too much (Grice 1975). Exactly the same point is stressed by Woolley as well: Be not too prolix in your writing, nor too short; but observe a mediocrity or mean betwixt them: In the avoiding of tautologies, do not omit any thing that may conduce to the illustration of your matter (Woolley 1675: 228).
It is of course di¹cult to say how in¶uential or indeed applicable this kind of stylistic advice was, but at least it shows that for both Day and Woolley such communicative concerns were of importance. That their sentiments were at least partly shared by contemporary letter writers can be demonstrated by some of the comments made by writers regarding the style of their own writing, as in examples (1) to (5). Examples (51) to (53) in Section 4.2. illustrate that other writers’ styles could also be evaluated, albeit in less critical terms. (1) [at the end of a short letter] In the meane season, as the French pronouncing Latin shorten it mutch, and with their quickness excuse the cadence of sillables, so excusing my selfe, and leaving it to your gratious construction, I rest in better things at your Grace’s commawnd (Lord Willoughby to the Archbishop of York). (2) [at the end of a lengthy letter] Thus, loath to add tediousnes to bouldnes, and humblye craving pardon for the same, I doe rest, Humblye at your Grace’s comandment (Timothy Hutton to the Archbishop of York). (3) …and therfore I thought it good to troble you with this mi bad scribling (Lady Huntingdon to Dr. Matthew Hutton). (4) For I pretend not to a good expression, but clame yr beleefe I meane as well, as truest love can teach (Winefrid Thimelby to her sister). (5) How strangely kynd are you, in coveting my empty lynes, sence all my store of selfe love could never ¶atter me into the deceat of the least satisfaction in them (Winefrid Thimelby to her brother-in-law Herbert Aston).
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4.
Manuals and real letters in dialogue
4.1 Greetings, farewells, superscriptions and subscriptions Let us now go on to compare the instructions in the manuals both with the model letters in the manuals and with real letters. Given the scope of the present paper, it is clearly not feasible to include entire letters as examples in the discussion. The comparison thus focuses on features which can be demonstrated by shorter extracts from the letters. It is apparent on the basis of the discussion in the previous section that the hierarchy of early modern English society was one of the central factors to be taken into consideration in the process of letter-writing. It therefore seems appropriate to start with features which, in the words of Goldberg (1990: 253), “oŸer nothing less than the ªne discriminations of a hierarchized society matched by the forms by which the letter is to open and close” , i.e. greetings and farewells, superscriptions and subscriptions. We remember that Day divided letters into familiar and special, the latter demanding a higher style than the former. The division, however, is not relevant as regards the manner in which letters are to begin and end: In writing of all maner of Epistles, foure especiall contentes are alwayes continuallye incident. The maner of Salutation, an order of taking leaue or farewell, the Subscription, and the outwarde direction (Day 1586: 23).
Let us in the following deal with these features in the order in which Day presents them in his book. Day notes that “the auntient Romaines and our Latinistes” use salutations, but that “seldome or neuer is the same in our Englishe directions, at anye tyme accustomed”. If salutations are not actually used, it is slightly puzzling that Day nevertheless discusses them in this context. Perhaps here is a residue from the Latin manual by Erasmus (1521), on which Day bases the theoretical part of his work. However, Day does note a few exceptions when a salutation is to be used, namely in letters from a superior person to an inferior, when it “customably is deliuered in this forme: … After my harty commendations vnto you” (Day 1586: 23). In other types of letters …the greting if it be to one far our better is turned, to an acknowledgment of some kinde of duetye, or reuerent accompt, and that most commonly at the end of the Letter… And beeing in familiarittes is adopted to no place (Day 1586: 24).
Day adheres to these principles in his model letters. Thus, letters from noble men to their inferiors start with After my verye harty commendations vnto you. In their responses to their superiors, their fellow correspondents use salutations such as My
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humble dutie remembred vnto your good L. and It may please your good L. Letters to family members and friends appear without salutations: instead, they start with, for instance, Sir, Good Mistresse or Good brother, or very often, with no form of address at all (on the use and non-use of address forms from 1420 to 1680, see Nevalainen & Raumolin-Brunberg 1995). The Hutton Correspondence oŸers several examples of salutations. The most frequent salutation is Salutem in Christo, used by the various bishops whose letters are included in the correspondence. They start almost all of their letters with this salutation, regardless of whether the recipient is another bishop or a member of their own family. There are a couple of letters from the Archbishop of Canterbury to other bishops that start with After my verie hartie commendacions. When writing to a bishop, other members of the clergy start with, for instance, My bounden dutie and thankfulnes remembred to your good Lordship (the Dean of Durham to the Bishop of Durham). When we look at the letters written by secular writers in the Hutton Correspondence, a pattern not unlike that presented by Day emerges. Noble writers, such as Lady Huntingdon and Lord Burghley the Lord Treasurer, start their letters to their inferiors with After my verye hartie commendacions. There are occasional letters by Lord Burghley to the Archbishop of York which do not start with this formulation, but with May it please your Grace. As in Day’s manual, letters to family members or friends in the Hutton Correspondence do not show salutations; most often they start simply with Sir, or, if written to a person of superior standing (non-gentry to gentry, for instance), with Right worshipfull. Day (1586: 25–27) also oŸers a good selection of suitable endings of letters in his book, ranging from expressions of humility, such as in (6) and, with prayers, in (7), to simpler farewells (8). (6) Acknowledging my selfe deepely bounde vnto your L. for manye sundry fauours: I doe remayne in all humble reverence. (7) Praying the Almighty to haue your L. euermore in his gratious protection, I humblye take my leaue. (8) Reioycing not a little at the health of you and all other our friendes, I hartelye bid you farewell. Several forms of endings, including the ones presented above, are employed in Day’s model letters. In the Hutton Correspondence, we also ªnd a variety of endings, expressing sentiments similar to Day’s formulations. Perhaps because most of them are members of the clergy, the Hutton correspondents frequently end their letters with blessings, such as (9) and (10). Friends and family members, on
Letter-writing instruction and real correspondence
the other hand, use expressions of aŸection, such as (11). (9) So I take my leave, and commendinge you to the grace of Godd (The Archbishop of Canterbury to the Dean of York). (10) Thus, humbly desyring the continuance of your Lordship’s good opinion and favor, I betake your Lordship to the grace of God (The Dean of Durham to the Bishop of Durham). (11) Thus, commendinge my love to you, I rest (Thomas Bowes to Sir Timothy Hutton). Although it was important to include a suitable ending in each letter, the actual wordings of endings were apparently not so strictly regulated, for Day (1586: 27) notes that “innumerable of these and suche like might be imagined”. The ending was then to be followed by the subscription, the placement of which depended on the relationship between the writer and the recipient: the more superior the person addressed, the lower on the page the subscription was to be placed (Day 1586: 27). Since Day does not include subscriptions in his model letters, and since information on the layout of the Hutton letters is not available in the CEECS, we cannot check if this recommendation was followed. However, when we compare subscriptions from a list provided by Day to those used in the Hutton Correspondence, several similarities emerge. For instance, according to Day’s instructions, children were to testify their obedience to their parents, as in (12), which is exactly what we ªnd in the Hutton letters (examples 13 and 14). In both Day and the Hutton Correspondence, friends express their aŸection (examples 15 and 16), superiors their benevolence (examples 17 and 18) and inferiors their reverence (examples 19 and 20).7 (12) (13) (14) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19) (20)
Your L. most faithfull and obedient Sonne (Day 1586: 28). Your obedient sonne (Matthew Hutton to Sir Timothy Hutton). Your dutifull sonne (Matthew Hutton to Sir Timothy Hutton). Yours euer louing and moste assured (Day 1586: 28). Your assured loving brother (Thomas Bowes to Sir Timothy Hutton). Your assured lovinge frende (Archbishop Whitgift to Dean Hutton). Your assured frend (The Earl of Huntingdon to the Dean of York). Your honours euer to bee commaunded (Day 1586: 28). Your Honour’s in Christ to comaunde (The Dean of York to the Earl of Huntingdon).
The fourth and ªnal obligatory feature of letters discussed by Day is the direction or superscription. The direction was visible to everyone handling the letter, which perhaps made it even more important that it was coined so as to show full consider-
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ation of hierarchical factors, thus making it appropriate as regards the recipient’s “dignity and worthynes” (Day 1586: 31). As with subscriptions, Day does not provide examples of superscriptions in his model letters, but we can compare his list of superscriptions to those used in the Hutton Correspondence. We can see from examples (21) to (24) that there was obviously little choice available when writing to persons in high o¹ce, for both Day and the Hutton correspondents use almost exactly the same wordings. Examples (23) (from Day) and (24) (from the Hutton letters) show, interestingly, the same person as the recipient. When addressing a letter to a person of superior standing, the writers of the Hutton letters demonstrate their respect of the recipient, as in (25). In letters to family members, the superscription can also be used for showing aŸection (examples 26 and 27). Hierarchical factors no doubt explain why an acquaintance of Sir Timothy Hutton (25) as well as his son (26) use his title in their directions, while his father (27) can leave it out. (21) To the most reuerend Father in God, the L. Archbishop of Yorke, his very good grace (Day 1586: 32). (22) To the moste Reverend Ÿather in God, my varie good Lord, the Archbishopp of Yorke his Grace (from Lord Burghley). (23) To the right honourable the Earle of H. Lord President of her Maiesties most honorable Councell established in the North (Day 1586: 32). (24) To the Right Honorable his especiall good Lord, therle of Huntingdon, Lord praesident of her Majesty’s Counsell in the North parts (from Dean Hutton). (25) To the right worshipful my most worthie good frend, Sir Timothie Hutton (from Adrian Carew). (26) To his lovinge father, Sir Timothy Hutton (from Matthew Hutton). (27) To my verie loveing sonne, Timothie Hutton (from Archbishop Hutton). Let us now turn to Hannah Woolley’s manual to ªnd out what she has to say on the beginnings and endings of letters. The salutation, which we remember was no longer used in letters between family members or friends around the time Day wrote his manual, does not feature in Woolley’s manual at all. The letter writers of Woolley’s time therefore have fewer places, as it were, in which to show their respect of the recipient in terms of the hierarchy in the society. Yet show it they should, as Woolley (1675: 226) notes: The Superscription of Leters is twofold; the one external, the other internal; the outward Superscription is that when the Letter is folded up, and containeth the
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name, title, and abode of the person we write unto; but above all you must have a care that you give proper titles, such as beªt the quality of the person.
Woolley then goes on to list the titles to be used when writing to people with various degrees of status, starting with nobility and ending with esquires. She does not, however, oŸer any examples of external superscriptions in her model letters, nor are these available in the CEECS version of the Tixall letters, and it is therefore impossible to know how closely Woolley herself or other writers followed these recommendations. The forms of address used by Woolley in her model letters show similarities to those found in the Tixall letters: Madam is the most frequent in Woolley, but she also uses Dear N., which is by far the most common form of address in the Tixall letters. As regards the subscription, Woolley’s manual does not provide as strict rules as Day’s on its placement in the letter. The form of the subscription is nevertheless dependent on the status of the recipient according to Woolley (1675: 227) as well: The Subscription is placed at the lower end of the Letter; and in writing to great Persons you must Subscribe thus, My Lord, or Madam, Your most humble, and most obedient Servant. Or Your most faithful, and most obliged Servant. To persons of meaner degree, subscribe your self thus, Your Servant. or Your Friend and Servant.8
These instructions are followed in Woolley’s model letters. Other versions found in the models but not in the above list include Your most humble and aŸectionate Servant, Your most aŸectionate Friend and Your most aŸectionate, &c. In the Tixall Correspondence, Winefrid Thimelby predominantly uses Your aŸectionat sister/ante. Writers of the younger generation show their respect of senior family members by ending their letters to them with, for instance, Your humble servant (Eliza Cottington to Herbert Aston). Woolley has one further piece of advice to oŸer as regards the beginnings and endings of letters, one that cannot be found in Day’s manual: If kindred write one to another, the greater may express the relation in the beginning of the Letter; but she that is of the meaner quality must be content to speciªe it in the Subscription (Woolley 1675: 227).
In Woolley’s model letters, this principle is observed. In a letter by “a Lady to her Daughter”, the mother starts the letter with Daughter and signs it Your tenderly loving and careful Mother. The answer by the “dutiful Daughter” starts with Madam, and ends with Madam, Your most humble and most obedient Daughter.
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However, Woolley’s instruction is not followed in the Tixall letters; both “the greater” and “the meaner” start and end their letters with a speciªcation of their relationship to the recipient. Because they were equal in status, it is not surprising that Winefrid Thimelby addresses her brother-in-law as brother (28), nor is it striking that she speciªes her relationship to her nieces and nephews both in the beginning and at the end of the letter, as in (29) and (30). However, a member of the younger generation of the family uses the same strategy, as demonstrated by (31) and (32): Eliza Cottington addresses Herbert Aston as uncle in the beginning of her letters, and reiterates their relationship at the end of the letters. In her opinion, it was apparently enough that she testiªed her respect of her uncle by using the subscription meant for those greater than herself, as explained above. (28) Hond. Deare Brother, … Your most aŸectionat sister (Winefrid Thimelby to Herbert Aston). (29) Dear Neece, …Your aŸectionate ante (Winefrid Thimelby to Eliza Cottington). (30) My dear Children, Girls and Boys, … Your most intirely loving aunt (Winefrid Thimelby to her nieces and nephews). (31) Deare Uncle, …Your ever aŸectionat neece and servant (Eliza Cottington to Herbert Aston). (32) Dearest Unkle, … Your humble servant, Deare unkle, Ever to command (Eliza Cottington to Herbert Aston).
4.2 Parts of a letter This section looks at some of the rhetorical parts of the early modern letter. Because we are here dealing with the actual messages early modern writers wanted to convey in their letters, we can expect to ªnd more variation in the expressions used compared to those discussed in the previous section. Within their message proper, writers were no doubt able to make use of their imagination more freely than within the conªnes of the highly formulaic expressions with which letters were to begin and end. Let us start with a quotation from Day: Rhetoricall partes of an Epistle: … Exordium, a beginning or induction to the matter to be written of; Narratio or Propositio, the very substaunce of the matter whatsoeuer to be handled; Conªrmatio, reasons for the agrauating or proofe of anye matter in question; Confutatio, whereby is diminished, disprooued or auoyded, whatsoeuer to be supposed, obiected or agrauated; lastly Peroratio, in which after a breife recapitulation of that which hath been vrged, the occasions moouing aŸection are immediately concluded.
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These are not altogether at all tymes vsed, but some or the most of them as occasion serueth, eyther admitted or reiected: besides which, others also are sometimes remembred (Day 1586: 22–23).
In Day’s model letters, these rhetorical parts are identiªed and marked in the margin at the appropriate point, so that learners can easily ªnd them, and as Day suggests, they are not necessarily all employed in a single letter. The parts that occur in most of his letters are Narratio and Peroratio, suggesting that it is acceptable to start discussing the matter without Exordium and present it without Conªrmatio or Confutatio. Day also identiªes in his letters a number of other rhetorical parts, including Recommendation, Petition, Metaphora, Comparatio and Epilogus. For reasons of space and to complement the discussion of the previous section, we here only deal with the opening and closing parts of letters in more detail. Some examples of Day’s Exordium are provided below (33 and 34); they provide reasons for why the letter was written: (33) Sir, the straungenesse of an accident hapening of late amongst vs, hath occasioned at this instaunt, this discourse to come vnto your handes (Day 1586: 73). (34) Sir I doe not knowe whether by the great aŸection I doe beare vnto you and yours, or by some straunger motion of my selfe, friendly wishing to all men, or perchaunce supposing it a percell of my duety charitablie to exhorte, or what other cause you may deeme that moueth me in sort following to take vpon me to write to you (Day 1586: 100). Only one instance of Exordium can be found in the Hutton Correspondence; the request presented in it is then elaborated on in the message proper: (35) Kind John Elow … This is to certyªe you the cause of my wrighting unto you is to intreat you to speake to Sir Timothie for me; and that he would be pleased to doe somthing for me at this tyme, for I never had more ned in all my lyfe … (Timothy Hutton to John Ellow). The rest of the letters of the Hutton Correspondence, which range in length from shorter messages between family members to lengthy treatises between various bishops, almost invariably start with Narratio, i.e. after a few words of greeting they go directly to the matter. Let us in the following compare some such beginnings of letters from Day’s manual and the Hutton letters. The examples show that several types of letters could start directly with Narratio: (36) and (37) are examples of letters of recommendation, while (38) and (39) request a favour. Several letters start with an acknowledgement of the reception of letters, written either by a third party (40 and 41) or by the recipient, such as (42) and (43), both of which also comment
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on the fashion by which the letters reached the writer. (36) I am informed by this Gentl. the bearer hereof, that by meanes of one of your Chaplins, a motion hath beene made of his preferment vnto your L. seruice …(Day 1586: 188). (37) I made bould att my last beeing att Byshoppthorp humblye to entreate your Grace’s favoure in the behalfe of thys bearer Mr. Sherrard… (Timothy Hutton to the Archbishop of York). (38) Sir I am so bolde in my great necessitie, vnder assuraunce of your forwardnesse to doe me good, to entreate your especiall ayde and furtheraunce in two thinges… (Day 1586: 178). (39) Good Nephew, Let me intreat you to looke amongst your writings for the articles that was last agreed upon betwixt Sir Gorge Bowes and mi husband, for I think you have them… (Anne Bowes to Matthew Hutton). (40) I received on Saturdaye last a letter from your vnkle, wherin amongest sundrie other matters I was aduertised, that leauing your former learned studies, wherunto with great cost and charge of your Parentes, you had benetrained, you haue giuen your selfe whollye to certaine things… (Day 1586: 135). (41) I receaved a letter of reprehension of late from my dearest cousen Sherrard for not wrighting unto you by the returne of John Ellow… (Adrian Carew to Sir Timothy Hutton). (42) I haue good brother, receaued your letters, dated the viii. day of this instant, which were with as great diligence as celeritie, conuaied to my hands… (Day 1586: 151). (43) I receaved your Grace’s letter this day at noone, in conveyance whereof the postes have used great negligence, it coming to Duresme at eight in the morning, and to Newcastle not till foure in the evening… (Lord Willoughby to the Archbishop of York). As already noted above, the closing part of a letter, or Peroratio, is more frequently used by Day in his model letters than the Exordium. This suggests that at least for Day, closing a letter in a particular rhetorical manner was more important than a rhetorical opening. The same pattern is visible in the Hutton letters. We noted above how most of them start directly with the Narratio, i.e. without the Exordium, but few close without a Peroratio; the closing part is omitted mainly from shorter letters. Examples (44) and (45) show how a letter of recommendation was to be closed according to Day, and how one such letter was actually closed by the Archbishop of
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Canterbury. Examples (46) and (47) come from letters requesting a favour, while (48) and (49) give reasons for why that particular letter was written. (44) I nothing doubt but your L. hauing by such meanes giuen credite to my choice, shall ªnde him such, as for whose good seruice besids your honorable accompt towards him, you shall haue further occasion to thinke well of me for him (Day 1586: 187). (45) I doubte not but my request will seme to your reasonable, and the gentleman so worthie to be cherished and encouraged, that I shall not need to use with you anie further perswasion (The Archbishop of Canterbury to the Archbishop of York). (46) This is it that I requyre at your handes, and to the speedy dispatch whereof I maye not cease to importune you (Day 1586: 182). (47) I will saye no more, but the experience of your former love hath made me adventure upon this request (Sir Talbot Bowes to Sir Timothy Hutton). (48) The matter hereof seemed vnto me so strange, & therwithal so importunate to warne vs of our actions, considering how seuerely God punisheth when he is once bent to correction, as I could not but deeply consider of, weighing with my self that such as was his life, such was his death (Day 1586: 78). (49) I wold not have written to you of this matter until yt had bene fullie concluded, but for the importunitie of your man (Archbishop Whitgift to the Bishop of Durham). On the whole, it can be pointed out that neither Day’s closings nor those from the Hutton letters seem to fully ªt Day’s deªnition of the Peroratio, in that they seldom show any kind of recapping of the message proper. Rather, in the form of a conclusion, they seem to be oŸering information to the recipient as to why the letter was written and what kind of action may be expected of the recipient. It is conceivable that along with the division of the letter into various rhetorical parts also the deªnitions of the parts in Day’s manual have been in¶uenced by the manual of Erasmus (1521) to the extent that they do not quite match the rhetorical means utilised by early modern English writers. That there is a mismatch between Day’s own instructions and his model letters may of course tell us of his sensitivity to the practices of letter writing in English. Let us now turn to Woolley. Although she does not oŸer her readers a detailed discussion on the rhetorical parts of letters, Woolley nevertheless gives some instructions on how letters are to be constructed. This is what she has to say on the beginning of letters:
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The beginning of all your Letters ought to contain some small Complements by way of insinnuation, with a short proposal of what you intend to say; this is only observed in long Letters, otherwise you may fall upon the Matter immediately (Woolley 1675: 227).
There are similarities to Day’s Exordium here, although Woolley does not use rhetorical terms. Woolley also seems to be saying that a letter can start directly with Narratio (using rhetorical terminology), which we found was common in Day’s manual as well. Without any more speciªc instructions as to the length of letters in which this strategy should be observed, it is of course quite di¹cult to know when a letter is considered long enough to warrant it. Most of Woolley’s model letters are quite short (under 20 lines), but there are a couple of longer ones, and one of them especially shows this principle in use. The writer ªrst oŸers compliments and then presents the topic of her letter, a question, which is later fully elaborated in the body of the letter: (50) You are so absolute in the endowments of your mind and perfections of body, that I cannot but honour you; having formerly experienced your love to me particularly, and the greatness of your Wit to all; I hope you will excuse this rudeness if I desire your opinion concerning borrowed beauty from art; and whether it may be lawfully used by such as profess Religion and a good Conscience?… (Woolley 1675: 237). None of the Tixall letters fully employs this strategy: there are no letters which start with a proposal of what is to follow. However, Woolley’s instructions are partially corroborated in that compliments in the form of praising comments on the style of writing of the recipient can be found in the beginning of several letters, as shown by examples (51) to (53). (51) You doe so confound me with yr high and sweet expressions, that, though I have more to say than ever, I never knew lesse how to speake then now (Winefrid Thimelby to Herbert Aston). (52) My iust kyndnis, though a continuall springe ever ¶owing to you, is lost in yours, as rivers in the sea. But know, though itt appeare not, you receive itt in full streames, yet drown itt quit, in yr full tide of high and dear expressions (Winefrid Thimelby to Herbert Aston). (53) You feast me so with choyce excesse of kyndnis, I am torn’d epicure: upon your conscience bee itt. Every line of yours is such a severall daynty dishe I can not feede on it without glottony: God forgive you (Winefrid Thimelby to Eliza Cottington).
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Woolley does not have any speciªc advice on how to construct the main part of the letter; she simply says that “as for the Matter that is according to your Concern, and I need not use much order in the discoursing it, but write what falls under your pen” (Woolley 1675: 227). The conclusion is another matter, which is interesting when we remember that the closing was important for Day as well. Woolley’s advice concerning the closing of a letter is as follows: In the Conclusion it is requisite that you testiªe your aŸection with hearty wishes and prayers for the person you write unto (Woolley 1675: 228).
Of Woolley’s model letters, the only one fully adhering to this principle is a letter by a mother to her daughter, which concludes: “thus not doubting of your obedience, I commit you with my blessing to the blessed Protection of the God of all blessings” (Woolley 1675: 243). Some letters voice aŸection in their subscriptions, such as Your most aŸectionate, &c. and Your most cordially aŸectionate Servant. Quite interestingly, given that most of the letters of the Tixall correspondence were written by Winefrid Thimelby, a nun, there is only one letter which includes prayers for the recipient (54). Several expressions of aŸection can be found, however, as in example (55), and, combined with the subscription, in (56) and (57). Furthermore, as already noted, aŸection is expressed by subscriptions alone. Your most aŸectionat sister is the most common subscription by Winefrid Thimelby (in her letters to Herbert Aston), and when writing to her nieces and nephews, she uses Your most intirely loving aunt or Your aŸectionat aunt. (54) But thanckes and prayers shall ever waite upon you, and the last knocke at heaven’s gate tell we are both lett in (Winefrid Thimelby to Herbert Aston). (55) I ªnd my paper ªlled, before I have sayd any thing of that wch most ªlls my hart; my constant duely dear respects, and all a hart can owe (Winefrid Thimelby to Herbert Aston). (56) But in pitty, beleeve none lives that more loves you and yours, then your poore sister (Winefrid Thimelby to Herbert Aston). (57) None ever did, or can love thee better, and (except thy father) none so well as thy poor ante (Winefrid Thimelby to Gertrude Aston).
5.
Concluding remarks
This paper set out to examine three aspects of early modern letter writing and letterwriting instruction. First, it asked if the two manuals selected for closer analysis
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diŸer in terms of the theoretical instructions they oŸer. Secondly, the paper dealt with intertextuality between the manuals and real correspondence; and thirdly, it attempted to ªnd out if the model letters in the manuals show adherence to the rules provided by the manuals. The stylistic instructions in the two manuals show considerable similarities, despite the fact that their publication dates are ninety years apart and that Woolley’s manual is noticeably shorter than Day’s. There are slightly more diŸerences between the two manuals as regards the advice on the construction of letters. Day bases his discussion on earlier Latin manuals and provides a fuller rhetorical analysis of various types of letters. However, his model letters seem to show that Day was aware of the fact that English letters of his day did not fully adhere to the earlier rhetorical rules. Woolley’s rhetorical advice is provided in simpler terms than Day’s, but both seem to agree on the importance of some aspects of letters, such as the closing. The point on which both manuals are united is the centrality of the hierarchy of the early modern society: each and every letter was to demonstrate, most notably by means of the opening and closing parts of the letter, that the writer had a full understanding of the status and standing of the recipient. Except for some features of letters discussed in Day’s manual that can be regarded as potential residues from the Latin manual by Erasmus, such as the function of the closing part of a letter, the model letters in both manuals follow quite closely the instructions provided in the theoretical parts of the manuals. When we consider the model letters and real letters, we ªnd that the Hutton letters show very similar if not identical strategies when compared to Day’s models. In the Tixall letters, on the other hand, some of the recommendations presented by Woolley are not observed, although the similarities here too outweigh the diŸerences. We can conclude that both Day and Woolley apparently had a clear idea of the preferred epistolary practices of their day. The similarities between the model letters in the manuals and real letters are quite striking, especially if we consider how the two authors viewed the role of the models they provided. Angel Day points out on the opening pages of his manual that letter writers should never construct their letters simply on the basis of a model, without showing consideration to the particularities of each letter, lest they become “ill imitators”: in this matter of writing Epistles, nothing is more disordered, fonde, or vaine, then for anye one, of a thing well done, to take forth a presidenc, and thinke to make vnto him selfe thereof a common platforme for euery other accident, who with out consideration of the grauity or lightnes of the cause he taketh in hand (much like vnto a foolish Shoemaker, that making his shoes after one fashion, quantitye and proportion: supposeth the same forthwith of abilitie ªtte to serue euery mans foot) includeth in like sort a common methode vnto everye matter (Day 1586: 4).
Letter-writing instruction and real correspondence
In a similar manner, although she oŸers her readers “best patterns for their imitation”, Hannah Woolley (1675: 229) stresses the individuality of each letter. The task of the early modern letter writer was therefore not to exactly copy existing models (or, for that matter, their own letters), but to use them to their advantage in order to construct every letter so as to show full consideration of the matter discussed, and above all the status of the recipient.
Notes 1. One speciªc case of such networking is presented by Larminie (2001), who describes the “epistolary armoury” of Anne Newdigate (1574–1618); see also Walker (2001: 170). For a discussion of a correspondence network of 17th-century English scientists, see Valle (this volume). 2. This problem is apparent for instance in Wall’s (2001: 79) argument that the letters of Maria Thynne, written around 1600, are rhetorically so good, “so speciªc and individually expressed” that they cannot possibly be the result of studying letter-writing manuals and their model letters, because “there is no evidence that Maria had seen the models”. 3. It is unfortunate that today we mainly have access to letters written by members of the higher classes, while those written by for instance the mercantile class have not survived to a similar extent. If the manuals were indeed primarily targeted for the newly literate, it is in their letters that we could expect to ªnd the most direct eŸects of the manuals. A comparison of the manuals and a selection of letters by skilled, educated writers is of course interesting in that it tells us if those less experienced in letter writing were oŸered advice and models that agreed with the practices of the more experienced. 4. Letter-writing instruction forms only a part (pages 218–247) of Woolley’s manual, which includes practical advice for women in all classes and situations. The topics of the handbook range from the duties of governesses to medical advice, and from fashions to culinary recipes. 5. The 1675 edition is the second edition of the book; it was originally published in 1673. (There are more copies available of the 1675 than of the 1673 version.) The book was reprinted for the second time in 1682. Some doubts have been raised as to the attribution of The Gentlewoman’s Companion to Hannah Woolley (see Trill et al. 1997: 261). However, some of the material also appears in other books by Woolley; for instance, letter-writing is discussed in A Guide to Ladies, Gentlewomen and Maids (London, 1668). 6. Because of this bias in Woolley’s manual, the real correspondence discussed in comparison with it also consists of letters between family members, as explained in the previous section. 7. That the use of “friend” did not imply a relationship characterised by equality can be seen from the strategies used by the Hutton correspondents in their letters. If we look at
191
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examples (18) and (20), we can see that persons in a superior position can sign their letters to their inferiors as friends, but those in an inferior position cannot claim this status; instead, they end their letters with expressions of reverence. Inferiors can, however, call their superiors their friends (as in example 25). Persons of a similar standing (the various bishops, for instance) emphasise their equal friendship by using “friend and brother”. If we consider “friend” in politeness terms (Brown & Gilman 1989; Brown & Levinson 1987), it is tempting to think that for the Hutton correspondents “friend” was hierarchically so strictly restricted that it was not actually an in-group marker, at least not without “brother” (cf. also Nevala forthcoming; Nevalainen & Raumolin-Brunberg 1995: 561, 588). 8. It is interesting to see that to Woolley, too, the use of the term “friend” is hierarchically restricted (cf. footnote 7).
Bibliography Letters: The Hutton Correspondence (1566–1633) from The Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (CEECS). The Tixall Letters (1650s-1680s) from The Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (CEECS). Both Copyright © Sociolinguistics and Language History Project Team, 1998, Department of English, University of Helsinki. Letter-writing manuals: du Bosque, Jacques 1638 The Secretary of Ladies. Translated out of French by I. H. (Ierome Hainhofer). London. Day, Angel 1586 The English Secretorie. (English Linguistics 1500–1800. A collection of facsimile reprints, selected and edited by R. C. Alston. No 29, 1967). Menston: Scolar Press. Erasmus, Desiderius 1521 Libellus de Conscribendis Epistolis. Cambridge. Fleming, Abraham 1576 A Panoplie of Epistles, or, a looking glass for the vnlearned. London. Fulwood, William 1568 The Enimie of Idlenesse. London. de la Serre, Puget 1654 The Secretary in Fashion. Translated from French by John Massinger. London. Woolley, Hannah 1675 The Gentlewoman’s Companion: or, A Guide to the Female Sex. London. Available online: http://chaucer.library.emory. edu/wwrp/.
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References Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Stephen C. 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Roger and Gilman, Albert 1989 “Politeness theory and Shakespeare’s four major tragedies”. Language in Society 18, 159–212. Cressy, David 1980 Literacy and Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Earle, Rebecca (ed.) 1999 Epistolary Selves: Letters and Letter-Writers 1600–1945. Aldershot: Ashgate. Daybell, James (ed.) 2001 Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Diller, Hans-Jürgen and Görlach, Manfred (eds) 2001 Towards a History of English as a History of Genres. Heidelberg: Winter. Gilroy, Amanda and Verhoeven, W. M. (eds) 2000 Epistolary Histories: Letters, Fiction, Culture. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia. Goldberg, Jonathan 1990 Writing Matter: From the Hands of the English Renaissance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Grice, Paul 1975 “Logic and conversation”. In Syntax and Semantics, Vol III: Speech Acts, P. Cole and J. Morgan (eds), 41–58. New York: Academic Press. Görlach, Manfred 1991a Introduction to Early Modern English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1991b “Text types and the linguistic history of Modern English”. In Anglistentag 1990 Marburg: Proceeding, C. Uhlig and R. Zimmermann (eds), 195–215. Tübingen: Niemeyer. 2001 “A history of text types: a componential analysis”. In Towards a History of English as a History of Genres, H-J.Diller and M. Görlach (eds), 47–88. Heidelberg: Winter. Jagodzinski, Cecile M. 1999 Privacy and Print: Reading and Writing in Seventeenth-Century England. Charlottesville and London: University Press of Virginia. Larminie, Vivienne 2001 “Fighting for family in a patronage society: the epistolary armoury of Anne Newdigate (1574–1618)”. In Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, J. Daybell (ed.), 94–108. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Nevala, Minna 1998 “‘By him that loves you’: address forms in letters written to 16th-century social aspirers”. In Explorations in Corpus Linguistics, A. Renouf (ed.), 147– 158. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
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2002
“‘Youre moder send a letter to the’: pronouns of address in private correspondence from Late Middle to Late Modern English”. In Variation Past and Present. VARIENG Studies on English for Terttu Nevalainen, H. RaumolinBrunberg, M. Nevala, A. Nurmi and M. Rissanen (eds), 135–159. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Forthcoming “Inside and out: forms of address in 17th and 18th-century letters”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics. Nevalainen, Terttu 1996 “Introduction”. In Sociolinguistics and Language History: Studies Based on the Corpus of Early English Correspondence, T. Nevalainen and H. RaumolinBrunberg (eds), 3–9. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi. 2001 “Continental conventions in early English correspondence”. In Towards a History of English as a History of Genres, H-J. Diller and M. Görlach (eds), 203–224. Heidelberg: Winter. Nevalainen, Terttu and Raumolin-Brunberg, Helena 1995 “Constraints on politeness: the pragmatics of address formulae in early English correspondence”. In Historical Pragmatics, A. H. Jucker (ed.), 521– 580. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 2003 Historical Sociolinguistics: Language Change in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Longman. Nevalainen, Terttu & Helena Raumolin-Brunberg (eds) 1996 Sociolinguistics and Language History: Studies Based on the Corpus of Early English Correspondence. Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi. Nurmi, Arja 1999 A Social History of Periphrastic DO. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Palander-Collin, Minna 1999 Grammaticalization and Social Embedding: I THINK and METHINKS in Middle and Early Modern English. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Pollock, Linda 1993 With Faith and Physic: The Life of a Tudor Gentlewoman, Lady Grace Mildmay 1552–1620. New York: St Martin’s Press. Robertson, Jean 1942 The Art of Letter Writing: An Essay on the Handbooks Published in England during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. London: University Press of Liverpool and Hodder & Stoughton. Trill, Suzanne, Chedgzoy, Kate and Osborne, Melanie (eds) 1997 Lay by your Needles Ladies, Take the Pen: Writing Women in England, 1500– 1700. London: Arnold. Vickers, Brian 1994 “Some re¶ections on the rhetoric textbook”. In Renaissance Rhetoric, P. Mack (ed.), 81–102. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Walker, Claire 2001 “‘Doe not supose me a well mortifyed Nun dead to the world’: letter-writing in early modern English convents”. In Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, J. Daybell (ed.), 159–176. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
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Wall, Alison 2001
“Deference and deªance in women’s letters of the Thynne family: the rhetoric of relationships”. In Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, J. Daybell (ed.), 77–93. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Warnicke, Retha M. 1989 “Lady Mildmay’s Journal: a study in autobiography and meditation in Reformation England”. Sixteenth Century Journal XX(1), 55–68.
“Let me not lose yr love & friendship” The negotiation of priority and the construction of a scientiªc identity in seventeenth-century natural history Ellen Valle
1.
Introduction
One interesting approach to the study of discourse in a historical context is by way of reconstructing an earlier discourse community and examining its discourse practices. We can then attempt to describe the communicative goals of the community and how they were accomplished through speech and writing. Such an approach is of course not always practicable, and the further back we go chronologically the more problematic it becomes. In addition, the concept of the discourse community is itself a complex one, not always easily applied. There is, however, one area in which it seems particularly relevant and has been fairly widely applied in both contemporary and historical contexts: in the study of scientiªc discourse, both spoken and written. (For discussion of the scientiªc community in a historical context see in particular Bazerman 1988, Atkinson 1999, Valle 1999; in a modern context, the work most directly relevant to this article is Swales 1990 and especially Swales 1996.) In this article, I examine some aspects of the discourse practices of a small and fairly clearly deªned group in post-Restoration England, who shared an interest in natural history. This group had certain identiªable goals, and engaged in spoken and written discourse in order to achieve these goals. Some of the members lived in London; others were scattered around England, as far north as York. Their oral discourse took three main forms (aside from ordinary talk): for those who lived in London there was the relatively formal debate at the weekly meetings of the Royal Society and the more informal conversation in the coŸee houses, while nonLondoners discussed their common concerns at occasional meetings.1 (See e.g. Hall
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1986, Allen 1976/1994, IliŸe 1995.) The written discourse of the community took two main forms: ‘accounts’ or ‘communications’ presented to the Royal Society (and subsequently in some cases published in the Philosophical Transactions), and letters which circulated as a private or quasi-public correspondence among the members of the group. As we shall see, these two written genres were by no means mutually exclusive, nor were the oral and written forms of discourse of the community as distinct as they later became.2 Oral discourse, both formal and informal, shared many features with correspondence, which in turn was often published either as such or with only slight editing for public consumption. The speciªc focus in this paper is on some of the rhetorical and discoursal techniques found in a small cluster of texts in natural history dating from 1668– 1672, produced within a small group of men belonging to this larger community. I look in detail at the ways in which one writer in particular — Martin Lister — achieves on the one hand communal objectives of solidarity, on the other personal ones of individual self-interest, in a situation where the two are in potential con¶ict: a dispute over priority. I also examine the way in which Lister constructs through his letters an identity as a ‘serious’ (rather than frivolous) member of the scientiªc community of his time. At the same time, the texts demonstrate the importance of correspondence, and of the epistolary genre in both published and unpublished writing, in the work of the seventeenth-century scientiªc discourse community.3 I ªrst describe the background within which this discourse community took shape (Section 2), followed by a brief discussion of certain aspects of seventeenthcentury scientiªc discourse which have been foregrounded in the recent debate (Section 3). I then present a ‘case study’, the priority dispute of 1669/1671, over who ªrst observed — and reported — the way in which spiders cast their threads (Section 4). In the context of this dispute, I examine in detail some of the linguistic, discoursal and pragmatic means used by the writers, in particular Lister and John Ray, to achieve their goals. Finally, I discuss some of the implications of these texts for our understanding of the seventeenth-century discourse community in natural history and of the discourse of the new science more generally.
2.
Background: the emergence of scientiªc discourse as a new genre
In the course of the seventeenth century, a new genre, comprising both written and spoken discourse, arose in England.4 At ªrst this genre did not necessarily have a separate name; its content, however, was often identiªed by its practitioners as the ‘new philosophy’. The new genre, in both its written and its oral forms, began to take shape at mid-century and particularly after the Restoration, with the founding of the Royal Society in 1660. In hindsight, this new genre (or cluster of genres) is
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recognized as the beginning of what today is called ‘scientiªc writing’ or ‘scientiªc discourse’. (See e.g. Bazerman 1988, Atkinson 1999). Genres and forms of discourse that can be described as ‘scientiªc’ did of course exist earlier; it is entirely appropriate to speak of ‘Aristotelian science’ or of ‘medieval science’. To what extent the new discourse of the seventeenth century can be seen as a continuation of earlier forms, and to what extent it is something new, is a complex question, not discussed here. The participants themselves, explicitly and emphatically, saw themselves as doing something new, as ‘Moderns’. The most familiar expression of this self-positioning is Sprat’s History of the Royal Society (1667). We might also consider the entry in the Journal Book of the new Society, dated Wednesday 28 November 1660:5 These persons following according to the usuall Custome of most of them, Mett together at Gresham Colledge to heare Mr. Wrens Lecture, viz. the Lord Brouncker, Mr. Boyle . . . [followed by a list of 12 names]. And after the Lecture was ended they did according to the usual Manner, withdrawe for mutuall converse. Where amongst other matters that were discoursed of, Something was oŸered about a design of founding a Colledge for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematicall Experimentall Learning. And because they had these frequent occasions of meeting with one another, it was proposed that some course might be thought of to improve this meeting to a more regular way of debating things, & according to the Manner in other Countryes, where there were voluntary associations of men into Academies for the Advancement of various parts of learning, So they might doe something answerable here for the promoting of Experimentall Philosophy.
The participants in the new science needed to do several things through their speech and writing, and these goals were both communal and individual. As a community, their primary and most explicit goal was to construct knowledge of the real world; secondly, in order for this to be successful, they had to create and maintain a credibility for this knowledge which would make it acceptable both to other participants and to outsiders. They also wished to foreground the newness of what they were doing: the new philosophy was a radical departure from earlier ways of examining and describing the natural world. In order to accomplish these objectives, they needed to create new ways of talking about what they were doing: in other words, a new discourse. These were communal objectives. As individual speakers and writers, at the same time, they also needed to promote and protect their own personal objectives as against other participants: priority in discovery, superiority in observation or interpretation. And, of course, they were simultaneously positioning themselves, both as individuals and as a community, within the general seventeenth-century discourse of modernity. In the recent discussion of seventeenth-century scientiªc discourse, the main emphasis has been on natural philosophy, the source of modern physics and the
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related ‘hard sciences’, more speciªcally on the genre of the experimental article (e.g. Bazerman 1988; Shapin and SchaŸer 1985; Shapin 1994; Dear 1985, 1991). Natural philosophy was also foregrounded in the explicit self-positioning discourse at the time, since it could more easily be practiced in the form of experiment, while natural history by and large was based on observation.6 Observational, descriptive natural history, however, actually accounts for a large proportion of texts published in the Philosophical Transactions at this time, and for an even larger proportion of the oral discourse of the Royal Society (as recorded in the Journal Books of the meetings and for instance in Birch’s massive eighteenth-century History of the Royal Society); the prioritizing of the experimental article is thus somewhat misleading.7 It was perhaps even more important for writers on topics of natural history to make use of the new discourse, since their subject matter as such was less new than that of the experimental philosophers. How was this accomplished?
3. Rhetorical and pragmatic aspects of the early scientiªc discourse: gentlemanly politeness, virtual witnessing and a ‘culture of fact’ Recent studies of seventeenth-century scientiªc and scholarly discourse have identiªed three principal themes. The ªrst of these has to do with the development of new norms of civility and politeness. Two recent book-length treatments of this topic are Shapin (1994) and Goldgar (1995), the former focusing on the discourse of natural philosophy in post-Restoration England, the latter on scholarly writing in the ‘Republic of Letters’8 in Europe more generally. In the discourse of science and scholarship, civility intersects with epistemology: the honorable conduct of a ‘gentleman’ becomes an important source of credibility for seventeenth-century science in England. Gentility, according to Shapin, also emphasized ‘lightness’, even playfulness; a gentleman avoided giving rise to an impression of seriousness, of doing anything that could be perceived as work. Science was to be an avocation, pursued for pleasure. The ideal of scientiªc talk, for instance in the early Royal Society, was one of civil conversation among equals; any appearance of ‘pedantry’ was something to be avoided. According to Goldgar, in the Republic of Letters form became to a certain extent paramount over content, “exchange rather than the thing exchanged” (Goldgar 1995: 7). It was the form of the scholarly debate which deªned the community, at least as much as a shared subject matter: “in the transitional period between the seventeenth century and the Enlightenment, the most important common concern of members of the Republic of Letters was their own conduct” (Goldgar 1995: 6). A second theme has to do with what has been called ‘virtual witnessing’. The groundbreaking work here has been that of Shapin (1984) and Shapin and SchaŸer
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(1985), who oŸer a detailed analysis of the speciªc rhetorical strategy — what they call a ‘literary technology’ of virtual witnessing, consciously applied by writers in the sphere of the new, empirical natural philosophy; they identify Robert Boyle as the principal ªgure in the creation of the new rhetoric in English. To what extent this new rhetoric was also applied in the life sciences, whether within the sphere of the Royal Society or outside it, is somewhat debatable; the sense of a ‘new’ natural history and medical science may perhaps be most clearly felt in the explicit selfpositioning of writers as Moderns rather than Ancients, shown in their choice of authorities referred to. This was especially important in the case of natural history, which unlike medical science was not experimental. Authorial credibility thus had to be created by other means. One point emphasized by Shapin and SchaŸer, however, is certainly relevant to writing in natural history: the inclusion in the text of large amount of detailed factual information to increase credibility and acceptance by the reader. A third theme, less foregrounded in the recent discussion, has to do with the ‘Baconian project’ of the early Royal Society, and with what Shapiro (2000) has called the ‘culture of fact’. Shapiro has written extensively on seventeenth-century rhetorical practices, including those of the new science in the sphere of the Royal Society (see also Shapiro 1983); she sees these practices as related to contemporary legal discourse, and to what is deªned in the law as ‘reliable’ evidence of fact. It is this culture of fact which can be seen as underlying the scientiªc ethos of the time: what was deªned or perceived as ‘doing good science’ and what was ‘bad science’.9 The ªgure which connects legal and scientiªc discourses is that of Francis Bacon, both the most prominent legal luminary of his time and the main source of the rhetoric and self-presentation of the new Royal Society. “The new Baconian natural history was to be compiled with religious care, as if every particular were stated upon an oath.” (Shapiro 2000: 108.) The Baconian project in the Royal Society has been analyzed in particular by Michael Hunter; the following discussion is based chie¶y on Hunter (1989). In a more recent work, Daston and Park (1998: Ch. 6) discuss the powerful position of Baconianism in the early Royal Society as part of general intellectual history rather than the history of science as such. (See also the discussion in Valle 1999: 97–99.) Baconianism is sometimes interpreted as a philosophy of science, sometimes as a methodology, sometimes as a research program, sometimes as all three combined. There appear to be at least ªve main issues involved: 1. The correct function of science is the collection of data. It is important that this be done without preconceived theory or hypothesis, and without theoretical interpretation or analysis. (These are sometimes called by the pejorative term ‘speculation’). After all the relevant data are available, it will be someone’s else’s job to interpret them and formulate a valid theory.
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2. Since the body of data needed is so vast, the labor of collecting them is best done cooperatively. This is possible precisely because the persons involved do not need to engage in the construction of a theory, which is more di¹cult to divide up between diŸerent individuals. (Main source in Bacon for (1) and (2): ‘Solomon’s House’ of knowledge, in New Atlantis.) 3. Science is to be empirical; in other words, it is to be based either on direct observation of nature or on an experiment which demonstrates some particular fact about nature. It is not to be based on textual evidence, no matter how great the authority, or on other form of ‘hearsay’. 4. It follows from (1) that scientiªc reasoning, once all the relevant data are available, is to be inductive rather than deductive. This also tends to place mathematical science at a disadvantage, since it is based on deductive reasoning from certain given assumptions, rather than inductively on observed data. (Main source in Bacon for (3) and (4): The Novum Organum.) 5. Since the job of science is to report data without analyzing or interpreting them, it follows that a well-formed scientiªc text will contain description and exposition but not argumentation. (Main evidence for (5): contemporary texts themselves and explicit comments in them.) At the time of its foundation, the Royal Society saw as its function to carry out a Baconian research program. To this end, it was intended that a systematic and collaborative program of information collecting and empirical inquiry should be implemented. The idea was that the Society should itself be the forum for the production as well as the discussion of scientiªc ªndings, through experiments actually carried out at meetings or through the eŸorts of experimenters employed on the Society’s behalf. (Hunter 1989: 187.) This emphasis on experiment in the early Royal Society has been noted by most writers, most recently Hall (1991). Hunter, however, makes the important point that the seeming unanimity of the Baconian research agenda actually concealed quite divergent points of view; that there was in fact “a tension in the Baconian corpus which shaped the emergent styles of Baconianism to be found in the Society”. (Hunter 1989: 207.) In the Novum Organum, for instance, Bacon stressed the importance of systematic experimentation “designed to reveal the true causes of natural phenomena”; in the Sylva Sylvarum, on the other hand, he “also sanctioned an alternative tradition comprising the random compilation of observations and the occasional rudimentary experiment”. (Hunter 1989: 207–8.) Thus from the very beginning there were two opposing tendencies within the Royal Society, which were to persist till at least the end of the 18th century. The former, more ‘sophisticated’ view (Hunter’s phrase) was found for instance in Hooke’s program of experimental research, the latter is expressed in Sprat’s 1667 account of the early
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years of the Society. The diŸerence is that between the truly ‘innocent’ observer, with no preconceptions or expectations as to what he will ªnd, and the systematic investigator, who starts with one or more questions to which he seeks answers. As a good Baconian, this systematic observer too will be free of advance expectations, but he will use observation and/or experimentation to construct a more global, integrated picture of the natural world. The three perspectives relevant to the discourse of 17th century natural history, then, are gentlemanly courtesy, a ‘literary technology’ of virtual witnessing, and a Baconian ‘culture of fact’. How can these three themes be applied to the cluster of epistolary texts we are concerned with here? What is their relevance to the construction and maintenance of (a) an Early Modern scientiªc identity, (b) a scientiªc community? Shapin and Goldgar are historians, and most of their discussion of ‘politeness’ and ‘courtesy’ is located at a fairly general level: the avoidance of contentiousness or even polemic, and the use of “moderation rather than vituperation in argument” (Goldgar 1995: 7). For the linguist, on the other hand, ‘politeness’ is a technical term, lending itself to detailed analysis of interactive discourse, both spoken and written. Probably the most in¶uential work on the pragmatics of modern scientiªc writing, focusing speciªcally on politeness and facework, is that of Myers (1989), based on the work of Brown and Levinson (1979). Work on earlier periods has dealt with such topics as involvement (Atkinson 1996, 1999) and evaluation (Gunnarsson 2001, for Swedish). Gunnarsson and her colleagues have analyzed a large corpus of scientiªc writing in Swedish in terms of its cognitive, social (i.e. interpersonal and community-oriented) and societal dimensions. There is also a body of work on citations and intertextuality, covering a corpus of medical writing in the 19th and 20th century (Salager-Meyer 1997, 2000) and a large corpus for the life sciences in the Philosophical Transactions from 1665 to 1965 (Valle 1999); citations often involve evaluation, which in turn involves facework. Generally speaking, however, the principal focus in the study of scientiªc discourse in earlier periods has been on epistemological rather than interpersonal aspects of discourse: on the discursive construction of scientiªc knowledge (for instance Dear 1985; Bazerman 1988). Politeness and facework become especially relevant in contexts of disagreement, criticism and dispute. No matter how cooperative and ‘moderate’ scientiªc discourse may have been in the Republic of Letters and the New Science, it was by no means lacking in such disputes. In particular issues of priority surfaced repeatedly in seventeenth-century science; the best-known, and probably the most acrimonious, was that between Newton and Leibniz over the invention of calculus. But many ªgures of only slightly lesser stature — among them for instance Robert Hooke — were also involved in priority disputes, sometimes very bitter and over what may seem to modern readers to be somewhat trivial issues. One such dispute
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occurred between two friends, John Ray and Martin Lister, in 1669–1670, over the question of who had ªrst observed and reported the way in which spiders cast their threads in weaving their webs. In the next section, I ªrst give a brief account of the course of the dispute; this is followed by an analysis of the texts involved, and a more general discussion of some aspects of the discourse of Early Modern science, in particular of ways in which one’s identity as a member of the community was negotiated.
4.
Case study: the ‘spider’s thread’ dispute of 1669/1671
4.1 The issue and the correspondence At the end of the 1660s, a dispute occurred over who had ªrst discovered, and reported, the manner in which spiders ‘throw’ their threads in weaving their webs and attaching them to trees or walls. The dispute involved three principal ªgures: John Ray, Edward Hulse and Martin Lister.10 Ray stood at the center of the group; both Hulse and Lister were friends of Ray, but did not know each other personally beyond perhaps a superªcial acquaintance. Ray was also the central ªgure in a quasi-public correspondence network, of the kind commonly found in Early Modern Science. At the periphery of the dispute, strictly speaking a non-participant but vitally important as a mediating ªgure, and responsible for the representation of the dispute in public, was Henry Oldenburg, editor/publisher of the recently launched Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. This controversy oŸers a convenient case for the close study of seventeenthcentury scientiªc discourse. It deals with a relatively circumscribed issue, involves relatively few individuals, and consists of a relatively small number of texts, published and unpublished. The manuscripts of Ray’s letters are extant in the archives, located chie¶y at the Natural History Museum in London, the Royal Society and the British Library. The main source for published letters is the near-contemporary edition of Ray’s correspondence by his friend William Derham (Ray 1719); where Oldenburg is involved, there is the outstanding modern edition of Oldenburg’s correspondence by Hall and Hall (1965–1986).11 Also useful is that we know quite a lot about the main ªgures involved, except perhaps for Hulse, who has faded into obscurity. The course of the dispute is reviewed by Parker and Harley (Lister 1678/ 1992: 22–24), and by Hall (1992: 211–213). In 1667 or 1668 Hulse wrote to Ray, remarking on the way in which spiders throw their threads over a considerable distance. In a letter dated October 31st 1668, Ray reported the content of Hulse’s letter to Lister; on November 22nd, the latter replied that he too had made similar
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discoveries in September of that year, and added more detail. These two letters are in Latin; they have been published in Latin and in English translation by Parker and Harley (1992: 163–165; Appendix texts 1, 2). The editors also give a third letter from Lister to Ray, dated December 18th (Appendix text 4); the letter comments critically on a description of the spiders’ procedure published in the Philosophical Transactions of October 19th 1668 in a letter from Richard StaŸord to Oldenburg (referred to in the Lister-Ray correspondence anonymously as a “Bermudan”).12 From here onward, all letters between Ray and Lister are in English. In the meantime, Ray sent Oldenburg extracts from another letter of Lister’s on the same subject; more precisely, Ray sent Lister’s information to their mutual friend Skippon, who lived in London, and who in turn passed it on to Oldenburg, without mentioning that the original writer was Lister. The extracts were published, anonymously, in the Philosophical Transactions of August 16th 1669. This led Hulse to write again to Ray; Ray, to set the record straight (and probably wishing he’d never heard of the whole matter) sent Hulse’s letter likewise to Oldenburg. At this point, a letter from Lister to Ray, expressing his displeasure at the situation, is evidently missing.13 The next turn in the sequence is a letter from Ray to Lister, dated July 17th 1670. After discussing other matters related to their common interests in natural history at some length, he continues (Appendix, Letter 7):14 I must deprecate your Displeasure for publishing to the World (in case Mr. Oldenbergh print my note, as I believe he will) that Dr. Hulse was the ªrst man from whom I had the ªrst Notice of Spiders projecting their threads. The observation is yrs as well as his, & neither beholden to other (that I know of) for any hint of it, only he had the hap to make it ªrst: & being questioned about it, I could doo no lesse than own ye ªrst discovery of it, to me, to be from him: who indeed communicated ^it^ to me so soon as I saw him, immediately after my Return from beyond Sea. …Let me not lose yr love & friendship, wch I doo very highly prize & ^therefore^ should be loath to doo or say any thing wch might give you any displeasure, or alienate your Mind from me, or in any measure abate & cool that aŸection & good will wch you have professed to me.
Lister, however, was quite upset, and wrote himself to Oldenburg on August 9th 1670 (Oldenburg 1965–1986: 8: 104–5; Appendix Letter 8). Finally, the entire dispute was made public in the Philosophical Transactions of November 14th 1670 (Appendix text 9). The text consists of three parts: a covering letter from Ray, the brief and factual letter from Hulse, and a detailed account of the whole sequence by Oldenburg. Oldenburg’s account is a paraphrase of Lister’s letter of August 9th, followed by a commentary which exonerates anyone from any fault or duplicity. Somehow he manages both to give Hulse and Lister equal merit as observers, and to placate Lister’s injured scientiªc sensibility.15
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With this publication, the priority dispute may be considered to be resolved in public. In private it persisted between Ray and Lister, in at least two more letters. The ªrst is from Lister to Ray, dated March 21st 1671 but begun March 1st (Derham 92–94; Appendix text 5).16 The letter begins with an extensive account of Lister’s new observations in natural history (the ‘bleeding’ of trees when cut, which was one of the topics on which the group was conducting systematic experiments). This is followed by a reference for spider’s threads: The Place in Aristotle is Hist. Anim. Lib. 9. c. 39. [four lines in Latin on spiders’ threads.] Concerning which Passage, I pray see Redi, p. 170, and give me your Opinion how you understand the Greek Text; This Interpretation is Gaza’s. I will also transcribe for you Pliny upon the Plate, lib. 11. c. 24. [three lines in Latin]. My Sense I have set down among the Queries I sent Mr. Oldenburgh. Here is a fair Hint for the darting of Threads, if it be not absolutely so to be understood; but for their sailing and mounting up into the Air, as yet I ªnd the Ancients were silent, and I think I was the ªrst who acquainted you with it; but that is best known to your self, and I challenge it only by way of Emulation, not Envy, there being nothing more likely, than that several persons following the same Studies, may many of them light upon one and the same Observation. I am no Arcana Man, and methinks I would have every body free and communicative, that we may (if possible, considering the Shortness of our Lives) participate with Posterity. (Ray 1718: 92–94.)
Finally, Ray writes to Lister in response to this on April 13th 1671, similarly beginning with quite other, more neutral matters (Ray 1718: 94–95; Appendix text 10): The place of Aristotle I have not yet look’d out in the Greek, nor considered. I think something might have been gathered from it to that purpose you speak of, if any one had diligently heeded and weighed it; but I doubt whether your self, or Dr. Hulse, had any Hint from it. The ¶ying or sailing of Spiders through the Air, is, for ought I know, your Discovery: From you I had the ªrst Intimation and Knowledge of it. Dr. Hulse acquainted me with no more than the shooting out their Threads. I would not be so injurious to any Man, especially to so esteem’d a Friend, as to rob him of any part of the Reward of his ingenious Endeavours, and transfer to another what is due to him; tho’ it be as much Commendation to ªnd out a thing by ones own Industry, which hath been already discovered by another, as to invent it ªrst; this last being rather a Happiness than any thing else, tho’ I know the World will hardly be induced to believe that two Men should hit upon the same Discovery at the same time. You do well, in my Judgment, to be free and communicative of your Notions and Inventions; Treasuring up Secrets being an Argument to me of a disingenuous Spirit, or of a weak Stock in them that seek to get or uphold their Fame thereby. Those Secrets too, for the most part, when discovered proving to be Things of no great Value. (Ray 1718: 94–95.)
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Thus the dispute as such was concluded, and the correspondence between Ray and Lister continued for many years; but Ray evidently always believed that Lister had not forgiven him, and that their friendship had been irretrievably damaged (Lister 1678/1992: 24).
4.2 Analysis and discussion In this section, I discuss the texts in more detail. I focus on the texts written in English; the Latin ones, however, are included in the Appendix, in English translation, because of their importance for the context of the exchange. In the preceding narrative, six epistolary texts are described (for convenience of subsequent reference, they are assigned verbal labels): 1. private letter from Ray to Lister, deprecating the latter’s displeasure at being denied priority (responding to a letter now evidently lost). DEPRECATE; Appendix no. 7. 2. private letter from Lister to Oldenburg, explaining the situation to the latter. CIVILITIE; Appendix no. 8. 3. covering letter from Ray to Oldenburg, accompanying the letter sent by Hulse to Ray and explaining the situation, ostensibly to Oldenburg; published as a paratext in the Philosophical Transactions preceding Hulse’s text. RAYCOVER; Appendix no. 9, Section 1. 4. public statement by Oldenburg, based in part on (2) and (3), and explaining the situation to readers of the Philosophical Transactions; published as a paratext following Hulse’s text. NARRATIVE; Appendix no. 9, Section 3. 5. private letter from Lister to Ray, disclaiming motives which might be viewed as inappropriate in terms of the values of the community (secrecy). LISTERDISCLAIM; Appendix no. 5. 6. private letter from Ray to Lister, answering (5); disclaiming undesirable motives and praising the attitudes expressed in (5). RAYDISCLAIM; Appendix no. 10. A suitable frame of reference for analyzing the pragmatics of this exchange is oŸered by Brown and Levinson (1987), together with its modiªcation by Myers (1989). Positive face has to do with the desire to be approved of; the speaker shows concern for the hearer’s concerns. Negative face has to do with the desire to be unimpeded in one’s actions: the hearer is assured that the speaker does not intend to infringe his/her wants or freedom to act. In practice, negative and positive face are closely connected, especially where any relationship of actual power is involved: disapproval of another’s concerns easily leads to impediment of their actions. Any
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discourse act which threatens any of these wants is a face-threatening act (FTA). The seriousness of an FTA is determined in terms of three contextual variables: the (symmetrical) social distance between Speaker and Hearer, the (asymmetrical) dimension of relative power, and the rank of the threat, which is culturally determined. (Brown and Levinson 1987: 65–84.) In applying the Brown and Levinson model to written scientiªc discourse, Myers (1989) introduces an important modiªcation with regard to the participants in the discourse. Where Brown and Levinson (1987) posit a single, individual Speaker and Hearer, the nature of scientiªc discourse is such that (in addition to the individual Writer and individualized Readers) the Author as Researcher is addressing Other Researchers, i.e. the scientiªc community (Myers 1989: 4). A further complexity is introduced by the distinction between the relatively small, specialized community to whom the text is most obviously directed, and the larger scientiªc community which ‘overhears’ the discourse. Finally, Myers suggests that in modern scientiªc discourse the social distance between individuals is great, while diŸerences in power between individuals are small. Power is vested in the scientiªc community as a whole: Thus we will often see the relations between one researcher and another requiring little deference, while one researcher must always humble himself or herself before the community as a whole. Of course in reality scientists have a network of informal contacts, collaborations, and long-standing personal commitments that do not require great social distance. But none of this is to emerge in print: there are no ªrst names, and one can even refer to oneself in the third person. (Myers 1989: 4.)
In the case of modern scientiªc writing, this is clear. But what happens when we are dealing with 17th century epistolary networks? Who speaks, who hears and who overhears? To what extent is the network made visible in the public discourse of the community? These are key questions for the study of scientiªc discourse in the long eighteenth century,17 especially in its epistolary form: the quasi-public letters circulating among small groups and the letters published in journals such as the Philosophical Transactions.18 The letters are more often than not both personal and impersonal, private and public, combining information meant for the individual recipient alone (such as family news), information meant to be circulated with a smaller or larger group, and information meant to be published.19 (This dual function gave rise to a fairly clearly deªned generic structure, whereby private and personal information tended to be located at the beginning and end of the letter; thus it could easily be omitted in copying the letters for circulation.)20 In the present instance, we have several diŸerent kinds of texts, generated in diŸerent discourse situations:
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three clearly private letters, addressed by one individual to another individual, where the two are personal friends (DEPRECATE, LISTERDISCLAIM, RAYDISCLAIM) one letter (CIVILITIE) addressed by a private individual (Lister) to a recipient with a quasi-public status, where the two are more or less strangers (the writer reminds the reader of their one meeting, and proposes to enter into a correspondence) one text (NARRATIVE) addressed by the writer directly to a public audience, based in part directly on (CIVILITIE). This is the only clearly nonepistolary text one text (RAYCOVER) whose status is unclear; it is ostensibly addressed by one individual to another, but is published as such in the Philosophical Transactions, and its language is such as to suggest that it was intended for a public audience. It is here classiªed with (NARRATIVE) as a public text. In these texts, there are two individuals whose positive face is potentially threatened, for two quite diŸerent reasons: Lister, who is threatened by loss of credit as the ªrst discoverer of the phenomenon in question (a form of credit which has always been very highly valued in the scientiªc community), and Ray, who is threatened by the imputation that he has deliberately deprived Lister of this credit (i.e. that he has acted dishonorably in terms of the ‘goods’ and values of the community). The third participant, Edward Hulse, is present in the texts only passively; he does not speak in his own voice.21 His equal right to credit for the discovery is defended by Ray and Oldenburg, but the potential FTA committed by Lister seems to be against Ray rather than Hulse; Hulse himself has evidently made no claims of priority. At this point a caveat should perhaps be entered. Since Myers’ model for the pragmatics of scientiªc writing is concerned with modern scientiªc discourse — i.e. more or less exclusively journal articles, with their cognitive, theoretical and interpersonal content — it needs to be made clear that in the Lister/Ray dispute the texts in question are not ‘scientiªc texts’ in the modern sense. In fact, the only such text is the brief report of 29 lines by Hulse, printed between RAYCOVER and NARRATIVE, which is entirely factual and does not refer to any other person. The issues we are concerned with are what might be called meta- or para-scientiªc: they are primarily concerned not with the facts of the observations, or even their validity, but with their provenance and with the correct and just allocation of credit for them. Nevertheless Myers’ model is applicable to these texts, insofar as his description of the community is involved: the participants in the discourse are not merely the individuals involved, but also members of the scientiªc community,
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whose values and norms are being invoked. What we are seeing in the 1670s (and in fact throughout the long eighteenth century) is a merging and overlapping of the private and public discourse domains; in the terms used by Gilbert and Mulkay (1984), of the empirical and contingent repertoires. It is only in the nineteenth century that the two become fully diŸerentiated and separate.
4.3 Detailed analysis Let us look ªrst at (DEPRECATE), a private letter from Ray to Lister. The letter was written in answer either to a letter from Lister which has not survived, or to information otherwise conveyed to Ray, perhaps by Willughby, that Lister was seriously upset by Ray’s announcement sent to the Philosophical Transactions giving Hulse priority. The part of the letter dealing with the matter consists of three paragraphs: I must deprecate your Displeasure for publishing to the World (in case Mr. Oldenbergh print my note, as I believe he will) that Dr. Hulse was the ªrst man from whom I had the ªrst Notice of Spiders projecting their threads. The observation is yrs as well as his, & neither beholden to other (that I know of) for any hint of it, only he had the hap to make it ªrst: & being questioned about it, I could doo no lesse than own ye ªrst discovery of it, to me, to be from him: who indeed communicated ^it^ to me so soon as I saw him, immediately after my Return from beyond Sea. Let me not lose yr love & friendship, wch I doo very highly prize & ^therefore^ should be loath to doo or say any thing wch might give you any displeasure, or alienate your Mind from me, or in any measure abate & cool that aŸection & good will wch you have professed to me.
In the ªrst paragraph, Ray counters Lister’s attack with one of his own, though with a relatively mild verb (deprecate); as the modal suggests, he does this unwillingly, but is forced to do so by Lister’s accusation.22 In the second paragraph, Ray defends himself against the accusation on factual grounds, and says again that he was ‘forced’ (against his friendship for Lister?) by the facts of the case. Finally, in the last paragraph he makes a powerful emotional appeal to Lister not to hold it against him. The intensity of this appeal is created in part by the lexis, but perhaps even more by the frequent doublets, absent elsewhere in the correspondence: “love and friendship”, “abate and cool”, “aŸection and good will”. Why is Ray forced to act in a way that angers his friend — and to persist in such action even though it might lose him Lister’s friendship? It is not his personal regard for Hulse, but his regard for the norms and values of the scientiªc community: for this community priority is a valuable good, and in all honour he has to award it to Hulse, who was the ªrst to observe the phenomenon and communicate
Negotiation of priority in 17th-century natural history
it. The revision visible in the text shows that the issue of priority was in Ray’s mind. Ray is apologizing to Lister for having acted in such a way as to displease him, but he is forced to do so by circumstances which should have equal force for both of them. The letter attempts as best as Ray knows — appealing both to their shared scientiªc values and to their personal friendship — to redress what Lister has perceived as a face threat, and if Lister had accepted the apology the dispute might have been expected to end there. In fact, it was just beginning. We can compare this to text 3, which Ray wrote to Oldenburg for publication together with Hulse’s letter. Here Ray makes some of the same points as in the middle part of (1), and in a similar manner. He states that it was from Hulse that he ªrst heard about the spiders; but the statement is loaded with disclaimers and concessives — suggesting that he is doing so unwillingly: “to do him right, I must acknowledge”. He also refers to Lister as his Ingenious Friend — a positive adjective commonly applied (along with curious) to members of the community at this time; he is thus recognizing Lister as a legitimate member of that community.23 He concludes his brief statement with the idea of simultaneity of discovery: “Nor is it any great wonder, that Inquisitive persons, applying themselves to observe and consider the same Subjects, should make the same discoveries”. This appeal to simultaneity is repeated in the correspondence several times. Chronologically between these two texts comes the letter from Lister to Oldenburg (CIVILITIE). The letter can be divided into two main sections, of approximately equal length: the ªrst dealing with the priority dispute, the second reminding Oldenburg of their previous meeting and oŸering to enter into a scientiªc correspondence. In the ªrst section he reviews the course of events and exonerates Ray from any culpability or disingenuousness in the matter: Mr Wray24 knew nothing of my knowing it, noe more than I knew, yt either he or any body else knew it, untill such time as I occasionly sent him (in order to ye making good a philosophical correspondence wch he & I had some yeares engaged in) a Catalogue of our English Spiders: upon wch subject, ye next Letter he put this amongst other questions to me, whether I had observed the darting of spiders: to wch I answered in ye a¹rmative, relating to him many other circumstances unknown to him afore & than he desired of me, to draw up my notes and suŸer him to present ym to ye R. S., wch I did & you was pleased after to print ym. This Sr, is ye truth of ye business; wch Mr Wray will not deny & his letters will su¹ciently evidence: yt ye observation is as well mine, as his, from whom Mr Wray had ªrst notice of it & yt I was not in ye least beholden to him for it: but yt I writ it to Mr Wray, not as a thing alltogether unknown to him, but to conªrme & enlarge it by ye addition of my owne observations.
Ray is a person of high prestige in the discourse community, and it is important to
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avoid any direct face-threat to him. It is, however, equally important for Lister to establish his own status as a scientiªc observer; not only is he not in the least beholden to Hulse, since their discoveries have been made quite independently, but — more importantly — he has been able to add considerable new and detailed information to the bare report published by Hulse. Furthermore, Lister’s communication took place in the context of the Catalogue of English Spiders; unlike Hulse (or StaŸord) he is engaged in systematic work in natural history, rather than sporadic and random observations. This ªrst section includes a triple a¹rmation of the truthfulness of Lister’s account: “This Sr, is ye truth of ye business; wch Mr Wray will not deny & his letters will su¹ciently evidence”. The second section is equally interesting. It consists of the following parts: (a) Sr. I presume from your Civilitie (wch I did well understand yt moment I had ye happinesse to kisse your hands wth Mr Skippon at your house in London) & prudence, (b) yt if such Note be printed (& it may already be for ought I know, it being soe remote a corner where I live, Yt I have not yet seen June Booke) noe unhandsome re¶ection will be made upon me or anything detracting from my credit in suŸering my notes to be published. (c) This Letter I ventur to send to you by Mr Martin your printer at ye Bell: but if you please to send me how I may direct a Letter to you & to entertain a correspondence wth me, (d) I happen upon something now & than wch may not be unwelcome to you & I am at present not altogether unfurnished of such matters (e) I am / Your humble servant / Martin Lister.
It begins, in (a), with a compliment to Oldenburg, combined with a reminder — just in case — of their earlier meeting. This is followed, in (b), with the hope that he (Lister) will not suŸer any loss of credit by the publication of Hulse’s note; this is quite strongly expressed — and the reason for such a hope is the addressee’s ‘civility’; it would be uncivil to let Lister suŸer any loss of credit through allowing his own notes to be published. The responsibility is placed on the addressee. In (c) and (d), Lister proposes to enter into a correspondence with Oldenburg, and informs the latter that he can supply interesting observations on natural history: he is “not altogether unfurnished” of matters which “may not be unwelcome”. The repeated double negative, along with the verb phrase ‘happen upon’, are downgraders, evidently used as a strategy to mitigate the forwardness and boldness of the oŸer; other such devices are the repeated use of the modal ‘may’ and the verb ‘venture’. In fact, this part of the letter is much more carefully modalized and hedged than the ªrst. In the ªrst part, it is Ray’s face (positive and negative) that is being protected, by means of relatively global strategies, while in the second it is Lister’s identity as a proªcient observer of natural history — a scientist — that is
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being constructed. The ªrst is skillfully used to lead up to the second, which for Lister seems to be more important. Next in the sequence is a two-part public text (RAYCOVER and NARRATIVE).25 Here a considerable eŸort is made to redress the potential FTA to all three parties — Hulse, Lister and Ray. This is particularly important because the texts are public — a public threat to face, witnessed by the entire scientiªc community, seems to be a more serious matter than one occurring in private correspondence. Here we seem to ªnd counter-evidence to the idea that private correspondence between gentlemen is expected to adhere to the conventions of courtesy, where public discourse can be more abrasive (Bazerman 2000; see also further discussion at the end of this section). The brief introductory paragraph by Ray, as noted above, is ambiguous in terms of its private/public function. Here I focus on the longer ªnal section, in which Oldenburg attempts to reconcile the dispute. (f) After we had received the precedent Conªrmation touching the ªrst observer of the Darting of Spiders, there came to hand a Letter from that Inquisitive Gentleman, Mr. Martin Lister, intimating, That if we were not yet fully satisªed about that matter, (g) he had this further to say; that Mr. Wray knew nothing about his knowing it, no more than he (Mr. Lister) knew, that either he or any body else knew it, untill such time, as he occasionally sent him a Catalogue of our English Spiders: (h) Upon which subject, in the next Letter, Mr. Wray put this among other questions to Mr. Lister, whether he had observed the Darting of Spiders; To which he answer’d in the a¹rmative, relating to him many other circumstances not observed by him before, so that he was desired by M. Wray, to draw up his notes, and suŸer him to present them to the R. Society: which he did. After which, the said Notes were also publish’d, in Numb. 50 of these Books. (i) Whence it appears, that this Observation is as well Mr. Listers, as Dr. Hulse’s (as is also acknowledged in the beginning of the precedent Account;) (j) though it be true also, that when it was written and sent by the former of those two Gentlemen, it was not then a thing altogether unknown to Mr. Wray, but conªrmed and enlarged by Mr. Lister’s own Observations. (k) Which was thought ªt to add here, that nothing might be detracted from Mr. Lister for permitting his Notes in the lately mention’d Tract to be published as his own, which they really are.
After the introductory (f), Lister’s letter is reported more or less directly in (g) and (h).26 (i) then concludes that both gentlemen deserve equal credit for the observation, and (j) adds that Lister’s observations have “conªrmed and enlarged” those of Hulse. It is (g) that is important in terms of public face: through Oldenburg, Lister is acknowledging in public that Ray is innocent of any underhandedness in the aŸair, while at the same time a¹rming his own innocence of the imputation that he had attempted to deprive Hulse or anyone else of credit. The quadruple repetition
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of ‘know’ in (g) resembles a sequence typical of gossip and grapevine repetition: “she said he said she said”. This is in fact natural in a discourse context in which a cumulative body of reliable knowledge is constructed on the basis of correspondence networks; information is circulated in small groups before it is published. When a dispute arises, as in the present case, the “he knew she knew” sequence is a natural form of evidence.27 The ªnal episodes in the story are two private letters, LISTERDISCLAIM and RAYDISCLAIM. I excerpt the relevant parts below. (l) through (n) are from Lister’s letter to Ray (LISTERDISCLAIM), (o) through (s) from Ray’s reply (RAYDISCLAIM). (l) The Place in Aristotle is Hist. Anim. Lib. 9. c. 39. …Concerning which Passage, I pray see Redi, p. 170, and give me your Opinion how you understand the Greek Text; This Interpretation is Gaza’s. I will also transcribe for you Pliny upon the Plate, lib. 11. c. 24. …My Sense I have set down among the Queries I sent Mr. Oldenburgh. Here is a fair Hint for the darting of Threads, if it be not absolutely so to be understood; but for their sailing and mounting up into the Air, as yet I ªnd the Ancients were silent. (m) I think I was the ªrst who acquainted you with it; but that is best known to your self, and I challenge it only by way of Emulation, not Envy, there being nothing more likely, than that several persons following the same Studies, may many of them light upon one and the same Observation. (n) I am no Arcana Man, and methinks I would have every body free and communicative, that we may (if possible, considering the Shortness of our Lives) participate with Posterity.
Lister begins in (l) with a brief survey of the references he has found in the classical authors, and the commentary on them by Early Modern writers; he gives detailed page references and verbatim transcription of the original (not reproduced here), to show that he has indeed investigated the matter thoroughly. He concludes, however, that the ancients had nothing to say about the matter under dispute. In (m) he continues to assert his priority, even though the matter had been resolved in public several months earlier; it is hedged with ‘I think’, but immediately his resentment surfaces again, though he disclaims any ill will. His “that is best known to your self” comes close to a bald on-record FTA. He then repeats Ray’s statement about the likelihood of simultaneous observations.28 Finally, in (n) he makes a general philosophical statement about the desirability of openness in scientiªc communication. This was by no means a trivial matter in post-Restoration science; one problem faced by the community was precisely the development of forms of communication which would allow the individual scholar or observer to make his ªndings public for the beneªt of the community, at the same time keeping the personal credit for them (e.g. Golinski 1989, 1990). I return to this issue in the last section.
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Ray then replies to this, point by point. (o) The place of Aristotle I have not yet look’d out in the Greek, nor considered. Something might have been gathered from it to that purpose you speak of, if any one had diligently heeded and weighed it; but I doubt whether your self, or Dr. Hulse, had any Hint from it. (p) The ¶ying or sailing of Spiders through the Air, is, for ought I know, your Discovery: From you I had the ªrst Intimation and Knowledge of it. Dr. Hulse acquainted me with no more than the shooting out their Threads. (q) I would not be so injurious to any Man, especially to so esteem’d a Friend, as to rob him of any part of the Reward of his ingenious Endeavours, and transfer to another what is due to him; (r) tho’ it be as much Commendation to ªnd out a thing by ones own Industry, which hath been already discovered by another, as to invent it ªrst; this last being rather a Happiness than any thing else, tho’ I know the World will hardly be induced to believe that two Men should hit upon the same Discovery at the same time. (s) You do well, in my Judgment, to be free and communicative of your Notions and Inventions; Treasuring up Secrets being an Argument to me of a disingenuous Spirit, or of a weak Stock in them that seek to get or uphold their Fame thereby. Those Secrets too, for the most part, when discovered proving to be Things of no great Value.
He refuses to look up Lister’s classical authorities, not seeing any need for it; he does not believe that either Lister or Hulse had taken their ideas from there. He then returns to the issue of priority, but refuses to express any absolute commitment in Lister’s favor: it is “for ought I know, your Discovery”, but all he can say with certainty is that it is from Lister that he ªrst heard about the “¶ying and sailing” — Hulse had told him only about the shooting out of the threads. So far there is no expression of apology or conciliation. In (q) and (r), however, he expresses this at a general, impersonal level, in the third person singular: he would not deprive anyone of the just reward for their scientiªc work — least of all an esteemed friend. In (r) he in a sense cancels this apology out, saying that priority actually isn’t all that important: what matters is that one has made the observation oneself. To be ªrst is no advantage except as a source of personal pleasure. Finally, he responds to Lister’s comment about the value of openness and freedom of communication. Both writers are expressing some remaining resentment. Ray’s letter in particular is a far cry from the conclusion of text 1, written some nine months earlier. One more aspect of the letters deserves mention: even at their most acrimonious, none of the letters deal with the matter of the dispute alone. In fact, both ‘dangerous’, face-threatening matter and conciliatory discourse (such as Ray’s ‘apology’ in RAYDISCLAIM) tend to be placed at the end of the letter. All of the letters begin with more neutral reports of observations and experiments. This may be due simply to the need to place private, personal matter where it can easily be
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omitted in transmitting the letter to another correspondent. It seems, however, to be pragmatically motivated as well: bad news comes after good news, and criticism is preceded by a mitigator (“don’t take this the wrong way, but…”). Some of the letters seem quite odd, in that they begin in a friendly way and include compliments on the addressee’s successful observations or experiments; this is then followed by a bitter and resentful comment, which is presumably weighing on the writer’s mind. This is most evident in LISTERDISCLAIM, which begins with a compliment on Ray’s “ingenious” explanation, proceeds to discuss their joint experiment (on the ‘bleeding’ of trees) and then reverts to the dispute. Throughout the two years of the dispute, in fact, Lister and Ray also write many letters to each other which do not refer to the matter at all, but are concerned with various observations and experiments, with the publication of Ray’s Catalogus Plantarum Angliae in 1670, and with family matters. This aspect of the pragmatics of criticism deserves further study, especially in a historical context. One conclusion which can be drawn from the correspondence is that, at least in the scientiªc community, facework seems to be considerably more important in public than in private discourse: the two public texts 3 and 4 go to great lengths to exonerate everyone concerned from any imputation of behavior inappropriate to the norms of the community, while in the private correspondence between Ray and Lister, especially (LISTERDISCLAIM) and (RAYDISCLAIM), there seems to be very little facework at all, and at least one statement which comes close to a bald, on-record FTA. In these letters too, however, what both writers work at quite hard is to demonstrate their allegiance to the values of the community, especially openness of communication. This conªrms Myers’ model of scientiªc discourse: already at the beginning of the New Science, humility vis-à-vis the community as a whole is more important than interpersonal facework. On the other hand, this particular correspondence at least seems to controvert the view of Bazerman (2000), according to whom Letters in the Philosophical Transactions increasingly oriented towards the readership of the journal as its [sic] primary audience, rather than the nominal recipients of the letters. In this process of reorientation, a tension developed between the assertiveness, didactiveness, and disputatiousness of public argument and the gentility, politeness, and good-will of personal correspondence among gentlemen. (Bazerman 2000: 24.)
In the spiders’ threads dispute this tension can be observed — but it seems to be tilted in the opposite direction. I suggest that the importance of gentility in seventeenth century English scientiªc culture, as emphasized in recent work, may not have been as all-pervasive as has been claimed, and that it in part may be due to the intense focus on the ªgure of Robert Boyle. For one thing, none of the participants
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in the spider priority dispute, while socially ‘respectable’, could claim the same paradigmatic ‘gentlemanly’ social status as Boyle; more importantly, however, I suggest that the scientiªc ethos of the ‘culture of fact’ (linked in turn with the rhetoric of ‘virtual witnessing) and the more systematic Baconian project were su¹ciently powerful in the early Royal Society to make issues of face and politeness take other forms than those dictated by the mere personal courtesy owed by one gentleman to another. Why was Lister so angry about this seemingly trivial matter? Why did the dispute continue for so long, and require so much negotiation and facework? Lister, after all, had a considerable body of work on spiders and other matters to his credit, and his scientiªc or personal reputation was by no means bound up in this particular detail. The answer, I suggest, can be found in the nature of the scientiªc community and the ethos of the early Royal Society. In the next section, I discuss some of the questions involved.
5. Some general considerations: the construction of a scientiªc community After the dispute was resolved, Lister continued his eŸorts to establish and maintain his status as a serious naturalist. On December 23rd of the same year (1670) he wrote again to Oldenburg, not referring to the dispute but conveying numerous observations: ªrst a long, highly detailed description of the techniques used by spiders, followed by briefer but still systematic observations on bees and ¶ies. He also refers extensively to other authors: to Pliny, to Aldrovandi and MouŸet (writers of the ªrst half of the seventeenth century), and to his friend Willughby. He concludes the letter with a comment, slightly ironical in this context, but fairly typical of the Baconian empiricism of the Royal Society and its circle, privileging observation over theory-formation: “I conceive it lesse usefulle to Philosophy to dispute, then to deliver faithfully matters of Fact”. (Oldenburg 1965–1986: 7: 340– 343.) Oldenburg replied to this letter on January 3rd, thanking him for the information and questioning a reference he had not understood; he promises to have the letter read at the next meeting of the Royal Society (January 12th) and to have it printed in the Transactions. (Neither event actually took place.) The Society’s Baconian project is discussed in Section 3, where it is indicated that this project was actually quite complex; while many of the papers read at the meetings and/or published in the Transactions consisted of isolated and more or less trivial observations, others were embedded in the systematic observation and reporting of natural phenomena. Lister obviously situated himself in the latter category; this may be one reason for his resentment and his belligerent stance in the
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priority dispute. It was not merely a matter of who ªrst observed the particular phenomenon in question; already in the Latin letters written in 1668 (texts 2 and 4 in the Appendix), as well as in the letter of December 23rd 1670, Lister is positioning himself as a systematic observer, not merely of an isolated phenomenon but of insect behavior in general. Hulse and StaŸord may make isolated observations; but Lister is a committed, serious naturalist, with an extensive ‘research program’. This is made explicit in another letter to Oldenburg a couple of weeks later (January 10th 1671; Oldenburg 1965–1986: 7: 351–359, Letter 1589). The letter begins with a few more observations on ¶ies, including references to the literature (Aldrovandi) conªrming his ªndings — or rather, since Lister is one of the Moderns, suggesting that pre-Modern writers did not have the knowledge that modern philosophers do: “Some such thing is hinted by Aldrovandus”.29 The rest of the letter consists of an extensive, detailed and systematic list, consisting of 23 numbered questions and topics for research — in fact, a research program for arachnology, headed “Some general Enquiries concerning Spiders”.30 Enclosed in the letter is a two-page list, a numbered Table of English Spiders, including brief descriptions; the 33 spiders are divided into various sub-classes according to the type and shape of their web. The list is given in Latin and English.31 The discussion of spiders and their behavior continued within the network consisting of Lister, Ray, Willughby and Oldenburg for some time, giving rise to some texts published in the Philosophical Transactions; and on November 4th 1671 Oldenburg wrote to Lister to inform him that he had been “wth great applause, nemine contradicente”, elected to the Royal Society, “according to your merit”. What was Oldenburg’s role in all this? Hall (2002) emphasizes the active role played by Oldenburg, in this as in many other individual cases, in stimulating, nurturing and guiding the correspondence: Over the next few years Oldenburg was to print virtually all Lister’s varied communications (on spiders, on fossils, on the rising of sap in trees, on the colour of ¶owers) except in those few cases when Lister requested delay so that he could engage in further researches. And always Oldenburg responded by urging him to send more, obviously recognizing the professionalism which distinguished Lister as it did Ray.” (Hall 2002: 212–213.)
More generally, it can be argued that the single most important event in the New Science in England, and that with the most long-lasting in¶uence, may not have been (despite the presence of such ªgures as Harvey, Boyle, Ray and Newton) any individual scientiªc discovery, but an institutional innovation: the founding of the Royal Society and the launching, by Oldenburg, of the Philosophical Transactions. It was this which helped to do away with the need for secrecy, for ‘arcana’, and allowed individual observers and experimenters to submit their observations, dis-
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coveries and ideas for open debate within the community — thus ultimately making science the cumulative and enormously powerful institution it is today. As Oldenburg himself wrote in an editorial during the ªrst year of the existence of the Transactions, with speciªc reference to disputes over priority: Surely, all ingenious men will acknowledge, that the certain way of deciding such Controversies as these, is a Publick record, either written or printed, declaring the time and place of an Invention ªrst proposed, the contrivance of the method, to practice it, and the instances of the success in the Execution. (Oldenburg 1665; Phil. Trans. 1: 524.)
The availability of a public forum also allowed the correspondence which had circulated in relatively restricted groups to enter the public sphere for open debate, thus making new ideas more widely accessible to the community both in Britain and abroad.32 This was crucially important for the cognitive and social development of science; but at the same time it meant that new linguistic, rhetorical and discursive means were needed. Communication no longer took place, as heretofore, exclusively between individuals who knew each other either personally or at least indirectly via a common acquaintance; the social context was now that described by Myers (1989), where the community becomes more important and more powerful than any individual member, no matter how brilliant. Initially, however, and in fact throughout the long eighteenth century, the genre typical of the small group linked by personal contact — the scientiªc letter — remained the form most commonly used in the public domain as well.33 Sometimes this was a ‘genuine’ letter, i.e. a letter written personally to the individual addressee, who then communicated it to the Royal Society; at other times it was simply a genre considered appropriate for scientiªc communication in a public journal — the writer himself might even be present at the meeting of the Society when the ‘letter’ was read. What this meant in terms of the discourse structure and pragmatics of scientiªc writing was that strategies which were suitable for private, personal correspondence were no longer necessarily appropriate for public communication, where the addressee is the community as a whole. The development of pragmatic strategies for the new form of communication was a long, drawn-out process; in the Ray/Lister dispute we may be witnessing an early stage in this process.
Notes 1. According to Allen (1976/1994: 10), the Temple CoŸee House Botanic Club, born in or about 1689, was “the earliest natural history society in Britain and probably in the world.” 2. See for instance Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) on this distinction, which they label the
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‘contingent’ and ‘empirical’ repertoires of scientiªc discourse. 3. Correspondence in fact remains important in natural history down to the beginning of the nineteenth century and beyond; these later periods, however, are not relevant to the present discussion. (For other, more common uses of early modern correspondence, see Tanskanen, this volume.) 4. England was of course not unique in this respect: scientiªc discourse also evolved at this time in many other European countries, notably France, Italy, Holland, northern Germany and Denmark, and was transplanted to the North American colonies. 5. The foregrounding of the oral rather than written nature of this new discourse may be noted: the participants engage in hearing lectures, in “mutuall converse”, and in “debating things”, rather than in writing. 6. Experimental investigation of living nature did in fact occur at the time; in fact many of the letters examined here for their relevance to the priority dispute also carry on the discussion of certain experiments with the ‘bleeding’ of trees that the participants were engaged in. 7. In the ªrst ªve years of the Philosophical Transactions, natural philosophy (in modern terms physics, mathematics and astronomy) accounts for about one half of the texts. Of these, only the texts on physics, and not all of those, can be described as experimental. Of the other half, deªned here collectively as the life sciences, approximately 30 % consist of experimental reports (mainly on blood transfusion), 40 % of descriptive reports (including monstrosities), 20 % are book reviews and the rest are miscellaneous or uncertain. On the misleading prioritization of experimental science, see for instance Miller and Halloran (1993). 8. The ‘Republic of Letters’ (République des Lettres) is a contemporary, 17th-century term. In English, the earliest attestation of the phrase in the online OED is from Addison in 1702, who seems to be using it as a well-established phrase: “Pray consider what a ªgure a man would make in the republick of letters”. As used in Goldgar’s title, it has of course a double meaning: the importance of correspondence in creating and sustaining the scholarly community. The term is commonly used today, both in French and in English; a French cultural journal founded in 1994 (also disseminated online) is entitled La République Internationale des Lettres. 9. The term ‘science’ in this context is of course anachronistic. Some writers (e.g. Daston and Park (1998: 373, n. 4) use the term ‘naturalist’ to refer to “those who engage in the systematic study of nature” in all areas of what today are the biological and physical sciences. Daston and Park themselves refer to Aristotle’s hoi physikoi, used in approximately the same sense. For the present purposes, however, the terms ‘science’ and ‘scientist’ seem the most convenient. 10. Ray (1627–1705) was the outstanding British ªgure in 17th-century British natural history; in addition to his work on natural history, he also wrote about language, publishing A Collection of English Proverbs in 1670 and A Collection of English Words not generally used, with their Signiªcation and Original in 1674. Perhaps his greatest subsequent in¶uence, however, was through his works on ‘natural theology’, in particular the Wisdom of God
Negotiation of priority in 17th-century natural history 221
Manifested in the Works of Creation (1691), which became a powerful cultural paradigm in England down to the middle of the nineteenth century. Lister (c. 1638–1712) was a fashionable physician and serious amateur in natural history; he published several medical treatises, but is best known today for his work on natural history, particularly spiders. His broad interests included archeology and botany; he published papers in the Philosophical Transactions on spiders, beetles, butter¶ies, moths, ªshes and geology. Hulse (1636–1731) was likewise a physician; he had a medical degree from Leiden (probably the best medical training of its time), and was Court Physician to the Prince of Orange. Other ªgures in Ray’s correspondence network included such prominent ªgures as Francis Willughby (1635–1672), Nehemiah Grew (1641–1712) and later Edward Lhwyd (1660–1709). 11. Many of the letters in question, including those published in earlier editions, are today di¹cult to ªnd, and the editions (from the early 18th and mid-19th century) are not reliable sources for detailed linguistic analysis, since they have been edited in keeping with the conventions of their time. In addition to changes in orthography and punctuation, many personal parts of the letters — for instance family news — have been omitted. For this reason, the relevant letters are given in full in the Appendix to this paper; for the sake of convenience, this includes letters published in reliable modern editions, such as the letters of Henry Oldenburg. The text of the article in the Philosophical Transactions is also given, to complete the chronological sequence. The Appendix also includes a letter written after the conclusion of the dispute, to illustrate the ‘normal’ correspondence between Lister and Ray (text 11). 12. The full title of the text published in the Transactions will give some of the ¶avor of seventeenth-century natural history writing: Extract of a Letter written to the Publisher from the Bermudas by Mr. Richard StaŸord; concerning the Tydes there, as also Whales, Spermaceti, strange Spider-Webbs, some rare Vegetables and the Longevity of the Inhabitants. The entire text is some three pages long, including a long marginal note. The matter of spiders is dealt with in a single paragraph of ªve lines. 13. In the meantime, another person gets involved in the story: Willughby (a close friend and associate of Ray) writes to Oldenburg on July 4th 1670. The letter (Hall and Hall no. 1479, Vol. 7: 53–54) mainly deals with other topics of natural history, but opens with a brief two sentences stating that “The same post that brought mee yours, brought Mr. Wray an account From Dr. Hulse of the Flying of Spiders. which about the same time was both observed by Him and mr Lister, whose letter upon that subject mr Wray formerly sent you, and you printed.” This complex epistolary chaining within a relatively small correspondence network is fairly typical of the period. 14. The letter has been transcribed from the original at the Natural History Museum (the Botany Library; Ray Manuscripts f. 16). The upper right-hand corner of the letter is missing (from having been folded); thus the ªrst eight lines are missing words or syllables at the end of the line. These have been supplied from Derham’s edition. Items marked by ^ have been inserted by Ray above the line as an afterthought or correction; items marked with double strikethrough are heavily crossed out but still legible in the original.
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15. Oldenburg’s stature as a scientiªc facilitator is so great, it is not always recalled that he began his professional life as a successful diplomat during the troubled times of the mid17th century. (Hunter 1988.) 16. This letter can serve as an example of the dating di¹culties in 17th century correspondence; the year is actually given as 1670, and this date is repeated by Derham. The sequence, however, shows that it was in fact written in 1671. 17. The ‘long eighteenth century’, like other chronological terms used in long durée history, is used to refer to various actual periods. In the case of the history of science in England, a useful demarcation is from 1660 (the founding of the Royal Society) to 1820 (the death of Sir Joseph Banks). 18. These epistolary practices, and the fuzzy boundary between private and public discourse, are discussed in detail in Valle (1999: 241–248; Ch. 6 and 7 passim). 19. Obviously the very term ‘publication’ means diŸerent things in the eighteenth century and today; circulation among an epistolary network can be seen as a form of publication addressed to the esoteric community, printing in the Philosophical Transactions or another journal as publication for the more general exoteric community. (These terms originate from the work of Ludwig Fleck in the 1930s; see discussion for instance in Myers 1989.) 20. A study of the practical, material aspects of correspondence in the long eighteenth century has to my knowledge not been written, although the essays in Barton and Hall (2000) touch on some of these. Such a study would have to deal for instance with the ‘letter books’ kept by writers, consisting of the originals of letters sent and copies of letters received if these were sent on to another correspondent. 21. Unfortunately Hulse’s own letters relating to this dispute have not survived, although other letters from Hulse to Ray are included in Ray (1718), and there are two letters by him in the Ray Correspondence at the NHM. 22. The senses given in the online OED for deprecate chie¶y have to do with prayer; the use in question here (“to plead earnestly against; to express an earnest wish against (a proceeding); to express earnest disapproval of (a course, plan, purpose, etc.)”) is ªrst attested in 1641, less than twenty years earlier. 23. The title of the Transactions at this time was Philosophical Transactions: Giving some Accompt of the present Undertakings, Studies and Labours of the Ingenious in many Considerable parts of the World. The use of the term ‘curious’, and its reversal of value during the long eighteenth century from an important attribute of the dedicated naturalist to one signaling vulgar ignorance, is documented by Daston and Park (1998: 274–276 and Ch. 8 passim). 24. Ray himself used the form Wray up to 1670; he changed it at the time of his Catalogus Plantarum Angliae (published under the name Johannes Raius). Ray commented in a letter to Lister that he considered the W to be unnecessary; Lister liked it, because of the association with the French word vrai. (Raven 1942/1986: 4.) 25. This order is based on the date when the texts were published. Text (4) is based on (2), so the chronological sequence is correct; RAYCOVER, however, may have actually been written by Ray before (CIVILITIE).
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26. In relation to diŸerences between private and public writing at this time, and to the process of linguistic standardization, it may be noted that in terms of content the published text (NARRATIVE) reports the private one (CIVILITIE) fairly closely; the diŸerences lie chie¶y in orthography, including the use of abbreviated forms. 27. The conclusion in (f) in part reproduces (b) in the second part of Lister’s letter. The concluding intensiªer — “which they really are” — might be thought unnecessary; it merely serves to conªrm the suspicion that perhaps they aren’t. It should, however, be noted that the primary modern sense of the adverb, as an intensiªer, is according to the OED relatively new in the seventeenth century; the older sense — “in a real manner; in reality; in point of, or as a matter of, fact; actually” is more neutral. 28. The words ‘emulation’ and ‘envy’ are used in senses diŸering somewhat from their core meanings today. The ªrst does not refer to imitation, but is used in the sense “The endeavour to equal or surpass others in any achievement or quality; also, the desire or ambition to equal or excel”. The latter does not have its modern interpersonal meaning, but has the negative sense (from the Latin invidia) of “malignant or hostile feeling; ill-will, malice, enmity; odium, unpopularity, opprobrium”. (OED online) 29. Lister here gives a full reference, including author, title, chapter, page number and even edition. This detailed form of reference is unusual in the Philosophical Transactions in the 17th century, although more common in writing on natural history than in natural philosophy; while writers in both domains self-consciously constructed their identities as Moderns rather than Ancients, writers on natural history did not entirely reject their roots in classical antiquity and pre-Modern writing. (Valle 1999: Ch. 6.) Such detailed referencing also goes against the ethos of ‘playfulness’ and rejection of pedantry described by Shapin (1994); again, this ethos was probably more powerful in the new natural philosophy than in natural history, which was rooted in part in a diŸerent, older tradition. 30. Published in the Phil. Trans. June 19th 1671. 31. Such research programs, in the form of systematic lists of questions about geography, climate, natural history etc. which were distributed for instance to sea captains, were in fact quite typical of the early Royal Society; unlike Lister’s program, they rarely resulted in anything much. 32. Almost from the beginning the Philosophical Transactions were abstracted, excerpted, reported and translated into Latin and various European languages. (See e.g. Kronick 1976.) 33. At least in natural history in the Philosophical Transactions, the epistolary genre persists down to the 1810s; in the 1760s it accounts, either in pure form or combined with a nonepistolary text, for more than half (54%) of all texts (Valle 1999). In physics and other areas of science, the letter may have been less important (Atkinson 1996); its importance in natural history is due in part to the frequency of reports of observations from the colonies.
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References Allen, David 1976/1994 The Naturalist in Britain: A Social History. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Atkinson, Dwight 1996 “The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675–1975: A sociohistorical discourse analysis”. Language and Society 25: 333–71. 1999 Scientiªc Discourse in Sociohistorical Context: The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1675–1975. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Bazerman, Charles 1988 Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. 2000 “Letters and the social grounding of diŸerentiated genres”. In Letter Writing as a Social Practice, D. Barton and N. Hall (eds), 15–29. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Birch, Thomas 1756–57/1967 The History of the Royal Society of London, for the Improving of Natural Knowledge. Royal Society of London. Facsimile edition: Culture et Civilisation, Brussels. Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Stephen 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dear, Peter 1985 “Totius in verba: Rhetoric and authority in the early Royal Society”. Isis 76: 144–61. Gilbert, G. Nigel and Mulkay, Michael 1984 Opening Pandora’s Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientiªc Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goldgar, Anne 1995 Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters, 1680– 1750. New Haven: Yale University Press. Golinski, Jan 1989 “A noble spectacle: Research on phosphorus and the public cultures of science in the early Royal Society”. Isis 80: 11–39. 1990 “Chemistry in the Scientiªc Revolution: Problems of language and communication”. In Reappraisals of the Scientiªc Revolution, D. Lindberg and R. Westman (eds), 367–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gunnarsson, Britt-Louise 2001 “Expressing criticism and evaluation during three centuries”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 21: 115–139. Hall, Marie Boas 1991 Promoting Experimental Learning: Experiment and the Royal Society 1660– 1727. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Henry Oldenburg: Shaping the Royal Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hunter, Michael 1989 Establishing the New Science: The Experience of the Early Royal Society. Woodbridge: Boydell Press. IliŸe, Rob 1995 “Material doubts: Hooke, artisan culture and the exchange of information in 1670s London”. British Journal for the History of Science 28: 285–318. Kronick, David 1976 A History of Scientiªc and Technical Periodicals. 2nd edition. Metuchen NJ: Scarecrow Press. Lister, Martin 1678/1992 Martin Lister’s English Spiders, 1678. Translated from Latin by Malcolm Davies and Basil Harley. Edited by John Parker and Basil Harley. Colchester: Harley Books. Myers, Greg 1989 “Pragmatics of politeness in scientiªc articles”. Applied Linguistics 10: 1–35. [Oldenburg, Henry] 1965–1986 The Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg. Edited by Hall A. R. & Hall M. B. Volumes 1–9: Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965–73. Volumes 10–11: Chicago: Mansell, 1975–77. Volumes 12–13: London, Taylor & Francis, 1986. Raven, Charles 1960/1986 John Ray, Naturalist: His Life and Works. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1st edition 1942; reissued in Cambridge Science Classics 1986. [Ray, John] 1718 Philosophical letters between the late learned Mr Ray and several of his ingenious correspondents. Edited by William Derham. Salager-Meyer, Françoise 1997 “Diachronic evolution of intertextual referencing in medical discourse (1810–1995)”. Interface: Journal of Applied Linguistics 2: 95–116. 1999 “Referential behavior in scientiªc writing: A diachronic study (1810–1995)”. English for Speciªc Purposes 18: 279–305. Shapin, Steven 1984 “Pump and circumstance: Robert Boyle’s literary technology”. Social Studies of Science 14: 481–520. 1994 A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth-Century England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shapin, Steven and SchaŸer, Simon 1985 Leviathan and the Airpump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Shapiro, Barbara 1983 Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England: A Study of the
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Relationships between Natural Science, Religion, History, Law and Literature. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. A Culture of Fact: England, 1550–1720. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
2000 Sprat, T. 1667/1959 History of the Royal Society. Facsimile edition, J. I. Cope and H. W. Jones (eds). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Swales, John 1990 Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998 Other Floors, Other Voices: A Textology of a Small University Building. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Valle, Ellen 1999 A Collective Intelligence: The Life Sciences in the Royal Society as a Scientiªc Discourse Community, 1665–1965 [Anglicana Turkuensia 17]. Turku: University of Turku Press.
Appendix: Spider correspondence of 1668–1671 1. Ray to Lister; dated from Notley 31 October 1668. Lister (1678/1992: 161–163). In Latin; translated by the editors. I received your latest and earliest letters, in which you included the lists of names of thirty Spiders you had recently observed. Certainly I admire the skill and diligence with which you have been able to discover so many distinct kinds in so short a time and such a restricted area. Indeed I think it astonishing how you found the leisure in such a di¹cult time, when your mind was distracted hither and thither with the worry of manifold cares and anxieties, and it was beyond its power for you to be able to devote yourself entirely to any study whatever. I myself, to be honest, have been less diligent and busy in the investigation and observation of Spiders, partly because the burden of other studies and business left no time to attend to them, and partly since those little creatures can hardly be handled for mistrust of their poison — I especially, who from an early age have been possessed by the vulgar prejudice, even now somewhat recoil from them. But although I have little experience in the study of Spiders, I have two at least about which I should value your opinion. One is found (if I am not mistaken — the book is not to hand) in the Micrographia of Mr. Hook, where there is a very nice account of a hunting and ambushing spider, which Mr. Evelyn had seen and reported to the author (see the book itself, for I do not trust my memory enough to dare to repeat it). I should like to know if you have ever seen anything like it; in fact you yourself have also mentioned one or two jumping spiders under the Tituli you have sent me. The other was reported to me by a most reliable friend; having seen it himself quite frequently. Without doubt some Spiders not only draw out their threads and tease them out, as their custom is, but thrust them forth and, as it were, cast them to a considerable distance — by ‘cast’ I mean they are actually shot out slantingly, and to the side, and not simply let down in a straight line, for I had also learnt of this previously from the observation of others. I am far
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from clear how that can happen, since the thread is not rigid like a stick but very slender and, I suppose, soft. But he had no doubt that he would show me this very thing shortly, so I would believe my own eyes at least, if not his word; and he would have done so too, had it not slipped my memory when I was busy. It remains now for you to ªnish the matter thoroughly and take away all my doubts … (letter continues on other matters) 2. Lister to Ray 22 November 1668; dated from St. John’s College, Cambridge. Lister (1678/ 1992: 163–165). In Latin; translated by the editors. I am delighted by your approval of our leisure activities. But the special skill which you ask of me is only what you have been author and guide thereof! You liked the bare Tituli of Spiders; I have no doubt that you would have been even more pleased with their complete histories, just as we have seen new discoveries. but I would not disªgure a book in which I had written our name in token of our friendship, and I shall for the present only write what you asked of me. So, be assured that Mr. Hook, in Micrographia, touched upon our two Spiders, whose names you have, one of them certainly as the reddish spider without a crest &c., and the other you asked about the ashen-grey jumper &c; the latter is very common in our island too. This little animal is an expert hunter in its ªghting in the open ªeld; our Mr. Evelyn has described the way it hunts, in his most elegant and accurate words. An ample proof that I myself, however, was not unacquainted with that shooting forth of thread is my ¶ying Spider — in fact almost all those which have the materials for releasing threads certainly practise the same thing — but that Spider especially seems to enjoy it, which I have designated the bird Spider for that reason, or perhaps because I ªrst noted this habit in the species. But listen to the actual thing from the beginning; certainly if you had been with me in September I would have gladdened your heart with a delightful spectacle. You will remember the long spell of sunshine and ªne weather then, such as you and I have so often enjoyed in that happy land of Narbonne in the south of France. I then, while collecting Spiders at that time, wanted to examine more closely those marvellous strands fallen from the sky, and in those investigations chanced upon this Spider which I had never seen before. I was astonished with this new discovery; some of the threads I intercepted on the spot, and other Spiders of the same sort I noted in the same way. Yet I could never even have suspected until then that this one was the maker of such a number of webs of that size. It so happened that in a few days time, while I was studying the craftsmanship of other Spiders familiar to me, suddenly the one I was watching left oŸ what it was doing, and bending backwards it pointed its anus into the wind and shot forth a thread in exactly the way a lusty lad expels urine from his swollen bladder. I was surprised at the creature’s unusual behaviour, then I saw the thread stretched for many ells and waving in the air; soon, however, the Spider herself jumped upon it and was swept away whither she was pulled by the thread which was still sticking ªrmly to her rear, and was borne over some quite tall trees. I was delighted and looked for others; the very same thing was demonstrated to me in almost endless trials. But there is another fact to be added to this by unremitting observation, which though almost incredible yet is deªnitely proven; actually while they are ¶ying along, their front legs whirling rapidly around, they haul back to themselves the whole of
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this very long thread and wind it into a ball or loops, constantly replenishing and releasing new threads for their ¶ight. I am no longer puzzled by the abundance of webs of this kind, when there are so many Spiders which are the makers of them; nor by the way they are made, which I think I have su¹ciently expounded to you; nor by the materials when these webs are obviously the same as the others in which they live. There is just one matter on which you may be doubtful, whether these webs are not rather delicate; but I would have you consider the heat of the sun, or, if you ªnd that hard to believe, make experiment before a ªre to see whether a fresh web or perhaps an old soaked one is not in fact baked into the same whiteness and softness. But so much for that; there are many other related matters, which if perchance I have insu¹ciently explained and you would like them, I shall gladly relate and impart to you. Those snails which I had observed last year, with shells coiled from right to left, you thought facts worthy of the notice of your renowned Society. You indeed, I know, do not make light of the origin of these Strands (and what a lot of nonsense there is about them in even the most recent writers!), so that sometime hereafter men may pay careful attention even to wild Nature, when they have already troubled her enough. For I see the idle dreams of philosophisers everywhere have now long been fading away. Concerning the sting of Ants, you send me no reply, and yet, as I know full well, no one hitherto has made the slightest mention of it. 3. Ray to Lister, dated 6 December 1668. Lister (1678/1992: 165). In Latin; translated by the editors. I am most grateful for your thorough and clear reply to my questions, with the added present about those long threads streaming through the air, so exceedingly perplexing to the vulgar Philosophizers, for which they invent such awkward and ridiculous causes. Indeed I would have asked your opinion on these matters in my earlier letter had it not slipped my memory, though I myself too have never doubted they were the work of Spiders. Certainly I surmised before that you had explored and looked into the whole question, from the very names of the species themselves. I suggest that both these and your earlier observations merit communication to the Royal Society; I could do this, in your name, and in your own words, should you think ªt. However, to be truthful, when I was perusing, in the place which I have left, the Philosophical Transactions published in October I noticed a similar observation in letters written to the Society from the island of Bermuda — though with Webs and Spiders of such a size it was obvious to anyone and very easily made. For that Bermudan writer says that their webs are thick an strong enough to entangle even Thrushes. … Note (by Parker and Harley): Ray is referring to an article in the Philosophical Transactions no. 40 (19 October 1668) p. 795. Letter from Richard StaŸord to Oldenburg. 4. Lister to Ray dated 18 December 1668. In Latin; translated by the editors. I should not give you further trouble on Spiders, save that I have just read for myself the letter of that Bermudan, where he indeed describes the facts but puts forth a ridiculous
Negotiation of priority in 17th-century natural history 229
means of their occurrence; namely, that the threads are ejected by Spiders but as though from the mouth and not from the anus; next (he says) this emission, as I have observed, is of little use to Spiders in weaving Nets, not however in a¹xing their hanging lines. But more of this and more precisely at another time; meanwhile I shall add one thing, which I omitted in my earlier letters, that I have ascertained for sure that Spiders exercise the power of ¶ight, not only for pleasure but also to catch gnats and other tiny creatures, with which the air is ªlled in incredible numbers in autumn. It may in fact be necessary for there to be a remarkable chase but up to now I do not know enough about it; of this mater I well remember only the limbs of Gnats in the very long Threads, such as wings and legs, &c, broken oŸ as I have very often noticed in as similar way to those in their retreats and snares. ………. 5. Lister to Ray dated March 21st 1670. Printed in Ray (1718: 92–94). Dear Friend You have most ingeniously given the Reason of that Experiment I sent Mr. Oldenburgh, concerning the not Bleeding of entire Twigs, which I did after ªnd to be the Air only; the Posture I held them in, that hinder’d their bleeding; For if I cut a Twig with my Pen-knife, and held it up while, and then perpendicularly, it would not bleed; yet if it were then topped, it would, in some time, shew Moisture, yet not always; but the Bough from whence it was taken did constantly bleed, and that immediately, in case it was at a Bleeding Time. And here I must observe to you one Circumstance, that the Trees I wounded at Nottingham did bleed from the same Wounds 5 Months together; but then these Wounds were next a Brick Wall, and not exposed to the Air; On the contrary, the Trees I wounded here from the beginning of November have never bled from those wounds then made, but from fresh ones many times: And this Neglect in not making new Wounds certainly was the Reason of the DiŸerence, or not bleeding of these York-Trees, when yours did in Autumn. Feb. 21. I made many Experiments upon Trees, by bringing them to the Fire-side, and did discover many Phænomena, of which you will have an Account from Mr. Oldenburgh. I made them in order to [sic] some Queries I sent him formerly, and especially while [sic] Saps may not be found at all Seasons of the Year, in a much like Quantity and Consistence, **** part of a Plant, &c. The Place in Aristotle is Hist. Anim. Lib. 9. c. 39. [four lines in Latin on spiders’ threads.] Concerning which Passage, I pray see Redi, p. 170, and give me your Opinion how you understand the Greek Text; This Interpretation is Gaza’s. I will also transcribe for you Pliny upon the Plate, lib. 11. c. 24. [three lines in Latin]. My Sense I have set down among the Queries I sent Mr. Oldenburgh. Here is a fair Hint for the darting of Threads, if it be not absolutely so to be understood; but for their sailing and mounting up into the Air, as yet I ªnd the Ancients were silent, and I think I was the ªrst who acquainted you with it; but that is best known to your self, and I challenge it only by way of Emulation, not Envy, there being nothing more likely, than that several persons following the same Studies, may many of them light upon one and the same Observation. I am no Arcana Man, and methinks I would have every body free and communicative, that we may (if possible, considering the Shortness of our Lives) participate with Posterity.
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6. Hulse to Ray dated June 28th 1670. See central section of text 9 below (published in the Philosophical Transactions). Ray (1718: 64–65); NHM No. 36 f. 14. 7. Ray to Lister dated July 17th 1670. NHM Botany Library Ray Manuscripts f. 16. Note: Upper right-hand corner of the letter missing — ªrst eight lines missing words or syllables at end of line. Middleton July 17. 1670. Dear Friend, — In my last I committed a Mistake, & therefore it is requisite I make hast to mend it. It was in the name of the Alsine, which I told you Tho. Willisell found in Norfolk, & sent to me, I should have titled it, Alsine folio profundè secto, ¶ore purpureo aut violaceo, J. B. Triphyllos cœrulea, C. B. The Name I sent you in my last is Lobels. Tho. Willisell hath been lately here in his return out of the North, & brought with him several rare, & some non-descript plants, viz. Pyrole alsines ¶ore Europœa in Flower, which he found in Northumberland, near the Picts Wall, ªve Miles from Hexham. Salix pumila folio rotundo, J. B. on ye top of Ingleborough-Hill, Echium marinum, P. B. [Lithospermum maritimum; EL], near a Water-Mill between the Saltpans & Berwick. Orobus sylvaticus, n.d., at Bigglesby, ªve miles from Pereth, in Cumberland. Chamæ-periclymenum dictum sed malè, on ye north west of the highest of Cheviot Hills. Pentaphylloides fruticosum sive arborescens, an elegant Plant (& as I think not described), on ye banks of the river Tees. Vitis idœa magna quibusdam, sive Myrtillus grandis, J. B. in Cumberland, at a place called Orton, in the Midway between Hexham & Pereth. These I have inserted in the Appendix of my Catalogue, wch now goes on apace, I having received six Sheets more since wrote to you, which reach as farre as the beginning of M. The Appendix is now grown, I think, as great as one fourth Part of the book, I having gained severall new medical observations, which I hope may be of good use. ///Your table of Spiders I shall send back shortly. Looking upon the addresse you sent me, I doo now perceive that I mistook in the direction of my last, & therefore have some reason to fear that it might miscarry, wch makes me the more hasty in sending this after it./// This Summer we found heer the same horned Eruca, wch you & I observed about Monpellier, feeding on Fœniculum tortuosum. Heer it was found on common fennel: it hath already undergone the change into a Chrysalis, & we hope it will come out a Butter¶ie before winter. I must deprecate your Displeasure for publishing to the World (in case Mr. Oldenbergh print my note, as I believe he will) that Dr. Hulse was the ªrst man from whom I had the ªrst Notice of Spiders projecting their threads. The observation is yrs as well as his, & neither beholden to other (that I know of) for any hint of it, only he had the hap to make it ªrst: & being questioned about it, I could doo no lesse than own ye ªrst discovery of it, to me, to be from him: who indeed communicated ^it^ to me so soon as I saw him, immediately after my Return from beyond Sea. I long for an Account of ye fruit of yr Summer’s simpling. I believe few things thereabout will scape your notice. & yet you are in one of the best Quarters of England for ^Variety^ of choice Simples. I would not have you think of buying my Catalogue, for I designe you one so soon as it is printed, if I may know how to convey it to you. Let me not lose yr love & friendship, wch I doo very highly prize & ^therefore^ should be loath to doo or say any thing wch might give you any displeasure, or alienate your Mind from me, or in any measure abate & cool that aŸection & good will wch you have professed to me. I shall adde no more but my humble service to yr
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Lady, who I hope ere this time is safely at least delivered if not up again, & pulchra fecit to prole [??] parentum & that I am Sr, Yours entirely in what capacity you please as friend & servant John Wray. 8. Lister to Oldenburg August 9th 1670 (Oldenburg 1965–1986: 8: 104–5): This last Post I received a Letter from Mr. John Wray: wherin he told me yt, being questioned about it, he had given in to you a Note, concerning ye ªrst Observer of ye darting of Spiders, & yt he beleeves you would print it. if you are not yet fully satisªed about it, I have this further to tell you: yt Mr Wray knew nothing of my knowing it, noe more than I knew, yt either he or any body else knew it, untill such time as I occasionly sent him (in order to ye making good a philosophical correspondence wch he & I had some yeares engaged in) a Catalogue of our English Spiders: upon wch subject, ye next Letter he put this amongst other questions to me, wither I had observed the darting of spiders: to wch I answered in ye a¹rmative, relating to him many other circumstances unknown to him afore & than he desired of me, to draw up my notes and suŸer him to present ym to ye R. S., wch I did & you was pleased after to print ym. This Sr, is ye truth of ye business; wch Mr Wray will not deny & his letters will su¹ciently evidence: yt ye observation is as well mine, as his, from whom Mr Wray had ªrst notice of it & yt I was not in ye least beholden to him for it: but yt I writ it to Mr Wray, not as a thing alltogether unknown to him, but to conªrme & enlarge it by ye addition of my owne observations. Sr. I presume from your Civilitie (wch I did well understand yt moment I had ye happinesse to kisse your hands wth Mr Skippon at your house in London) & prudence, yt if such Note be printed (& it may already be for ought I know, it being soe remote a corner where I live, Yt I have not yet seen June Booke) noe unhandsome re¶ection will be made upon me or anything detracting from my credit in suŸering my notes to be published. This Letter I ventur to send to you by Mr Martin your printer at ye Bell: but if you please to send me how I may direct a Letter to you & to entertain a correspondence wth me, I happen upon something now & than wch may not be unwelcome to you & I am at present not altogether unfurnished of such matters I am Your humble servant Martin Lister. 9. Text published in Philosophical Transactions 14 November 1670 (no. 65: 2103–05.) the ªrst section is by Ray, the second by Hulse, the third by Oldenburg. Concerning the manner of Spiders projecting their threads, I received the following account from Dr. Hulse, from whom (to do him right) I must acknowledge, I had the ªrst notice of this particular, which was not long after communicated to me by another Ingenious Friend, whose Letter I formerly sent you to be imparted to the R. Society. Nor is it any great wonder, that Inquisitive persons, applying themselves to observe and consider the same Subjects, should make the same discoveries. As to my Observations of Spiders projecting their Threads, take them thus. I have seen them
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shoot their Webs three Yards long before they begin to saile, and then they will (as it were) ¶y away incredibly swift; Which Phænomenon doth somewhat puzzle me, seeing oftentimes the Air doth not move a quarter so fast as they seem to ¶y. Mostly they project their Threads single, without any dividing or forking at all to be seen in them; Sometimes they will shoot their Threads upward, and will mount up with them in a Line almost perpendicular; and at other times they project them in a Line parallel to the Plain of the Horizon, as you may often see by their Threads that run from one Tree to another, and likewise in Chambers from one Wall to another. I confess, this Observation, at ªrst, made me think they could ¶y, because I could conceive how a Thread should be drawn parallel between Walls, as above said, unless the Spider ¶ew through the Air in a strait Line. The way of forking their Threads may be express’d by the following Figure. [line drawing]. What Reason should be given of this dividing, I know not, except that their Threads, being thus winged, become able to sustain them in the Air. They will often fasten their Threads in several Places to the Things they creep up; the Manner is by beating their Bums, or Tails, against them as they creep along. This line will express the Way. [line drawing] By this frequent beating in of their Thread among the Asperities of the Place where they creep, they either secure it against the Wind, that it is not so easily blown away, or else whilst they hang by it, if one Stich [sic] break, another holds fast; so that they do not fall to the Ground. There is another thing I have to deliver about these Webs; but as yet I am in some Doubts about it, and therefore at present I shall remain. After we had received the precedent Conªrmation touching the ªrst observer of the Darting of Spiders, there came to hand a Letter from that Inquisitive Gentleman, Mr. Martin Lister, intimating, That if we were not yet fully satisªed about that matter, he had this further to say; that Mr. Wray knew nothing about his knowing it, no more than he (Mr. Lister) knew, that either he or any body else knew it, untill such time, as he occasionally sent him a Catalogue of our English Spiders: Upon which subject, in the next Letter, Mr. Wray put this among other questions to Mr. Lister, whether he had observed the Darting of Spiders; To which he answer’d in the a¹rmative, relating to him many other circumstances not observed by him before, so that he was desired by M. Wray, to draw up his notes, and suŸer him to present them to the R. Society: which he did. After which, the said Notes were also publish’d, in Numb. 50 of these Books. Whence it appears, that this Observation is as well Mr. Listers, as Dr. Hulse’s (as is also acknowledged in the beginning of the precedent Account;) though it be true also, that when it was written and sent by the former of those two Gentlemen, it was not then a thing altogether unknown to Mr. Wray, but conªrmed and enlarged by Mr. Lister’s own Observations. Which was thought ªt to add here, that nothing might be detracted from Mr. Lister for permitting his Notes in the lately mention’d Tract to be published as his own, which they really are. 10. Ray to Lister dated Middleton April 13th 1671. Ray (1718: 94–95). Most dear Friend, Since the Receipt of your last, I have fallen into a Feverish Distemper, which is now turned to the Yellow Jaundice; a Disease wherewith I was never before acquainted. It has not
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proceeded to any great Height, & hath rendered me rather indisposed and listless, than sick. I hope it is now leaving of me. This hath taken me quite oŸ making any farther Experiments upon Trees; but yet I must acquaint you, that upon careful and exact Trial made in Branches of Walnut, Birch, Sycamore, and Willow, cut oŸ and held perpendicularly, the cut End downwards, we found that they would all bleed entire as they were, without topping the Twigs at all; neither could we ªnd that topping them did sensibly promote their Bleeding. As for Willow, we observed that the young Shoots being cut clear oŸ, and held perpendicularly as before, would drop, though from an Incision made in the Branch where it was cut oŸ, it would not bleed. The place of Aristotle I have not yet look’d out in the Greek, nor considered. I think something might have been gathered from it to that purpose you speak of, if any one had diligently heeded and weighed it; but I doubt whether your self, or Dr. Hulse, had any Hint from it. The ¶ying or sailing of Spiders through the Air, is, for ought I know, your Discovery: From you I had the ªrst Intimation and Knowledge of it. Dr. Hulse acquainted me with no more than the shooting out their Threads. I would not be so injurious to any Man, especially to so esteem’d a Friend, as to rob him of any part of the Reward of his ingenious Endeavours, and transfer to another what is due to him; tho’ it be as much Commendation to ªnd out a thing by ones own Industry, which hath been already discovered by another, as to invent it ªrst; this last being rather a Happiness than any thing else, tho’ I know the World will hardly be induced to believe that two Men should hit upon the same Discovery at the same time. You do well, in my Judgment, to be free and communicative of your Notions and Inventions; Treasuring up Secrets being an Argument to me of a disingenuous Spirit, or of a weak Stock in them that seek to get or uphold their Fame thereby. Those Secrets too, for the most part, when discovered proving to be Things of no great Value. If it please God I get well, I intend this Week a Journey into Essex. Your Experiments made upon Trees brought to the Fire, I have as yet heard nothing of from Mr. Oldenburgh. 11. Ray to Lister. Dated Middleton 28 June 1671. Ray (1718: 97–98) Dear and honoured Friend, For my part, I am, God be thanked, in good Health. The Jaundice, which seized me here this Spring, by sticking to one Medicine for 4 or 5 Days (that was an Infusion of Stone-horse Dung with SaŸron in Ale) I got pretty well rid of before I began my Journey, as I think I formerly acquainted you. I believe any other Medicine, (of which for that Disease there are good Store) if I had been constant to the Use of it for some time, would have wrought the same EŸect. One thing I cannot but wonder at in that Disease, that many astringent Things, as Plantain-Water, &c. should be good for it. I am glad that you have been prevailed on to communicate your Observations and Discoveries to the Publick. I remember you formerly acquainted me by Letter, that you had found out an Insect which yielded a Purple Tincture; but I did not then suspect it to be any thing a-kin to the Kermes kind. I have not yet found those Membranous Husks you mention sticking to Rose-Tree Twigs; indeed I have not searched for them. I had thought that the Kermes-Berry had been a Blister of the Bark of the Oak, and not a thing merely contiguous, or adhering, as a Patella to a Rock. I am sure the Matrices of many Insects bred on the Leaves and Branches of Trees are Excrescences of the
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Plant it self; howbeit I will not say but that they might be ªrst caused or raised by the Mother Insect wounding the Bark or Leaf, either by Puncture, or distilling thereon some virulent Juice. Mr. Oldenburgh hath written to me for a Sight of your Letter; wherein you give an Account of your Opinion concerning vegetable Excrescences: But truly all my Letters which I had here, I bound up in Bundles and sent away in Essex this Spring, and cannot, without some Trouble, recover that Particular. I desire, therefore, that you your self would give him Satisfaction, and write your Thoughts upon that Subject again. Your Cimex feeding upon Henbane I have observed, but not his Eggs as yet; I cannot but wonder at your Cunning and Luckiness in observing and ªnding these Things. I intend (God willing) on Monday next, to begin a Simpling Voyage into the North, taking Thomas Willisell along with me, and to go over and view particularly my self, those Plants which he hath discovered there, by me not observed, wild with us. In our Return, if York lie not too much out of our Road, I may chance wait upon you; till when, I shall desire what farther I have to enquire of you, or communicate to you.
Index
A AB language 58, 78, 83, 88 address forms 170, 180 anchoresses 57–75, 83 Atkinson, Dwight 5, 197, 199, 203, 223 aurality 19–21 B Bacon, Francis 201, 202 Bauman, Richard 58, 68, 69 Bazerman, Charles 5, 197, 199, 200, 203, 213, 216 Biber, Douglas 6, 15, 17, 23, 25, 28, 31–33 Brinton, Laurel J. 2, 137 Brown, Gillian 7, 10, 93 Brown, Penelope 192, 203, 207, 208 C channel, see mode Clanchy, Michael T. 16, 22 closing 95–97, 100, 109, 110, 124, 180–183, 185–190 code-switching 80, 85, 92, 96, 97, 148 conclusion, see closing context see also manuscript context definition of 3–4 context-boundedness 22, 23, 25, 27, 33 contextualisation 3 conversation 6, 10, 25, 64–69, 95, 97, 98, 200 Conversation maxims 64, 65, 178 convict code 60–64, 73 Cooperative principle 64, 75, 178 correspondence, see letter culture of fact 200–203, 217
D Day, Angel 169–190 diachrony 2, 3, 22, 31, 87, 168 Diller, Hans-Jürgen 5, 8, 10, 45, 125, 160 discourse and text 6–7 colony 137, 138, 150–159, 161 community 3–5, 9, 10, 125, 197, 198, 211 feature 106, 125, 168 marker 2, 25, 27, 33–36, 39, 40, 43, 44, 51 practice 126, 129 Dor, Juliette 78, 81, 83, 88, 91, 93, 94, 101 E Edwards, A. S. G. 140, 142, 151, 153, 154, 156–161 Erasmus, Desiderius 170, 173, 175, 179, 187, 190 F face-saving device 70 face-threatening act (FTA) 208, 209, 213, 214, 216 facework 203, 216, 217 negative face 207 positive face 207, 209 Finegan, Edward 15, 17, 28, 31, 32 formula 14, 18, 24, 25, 27, 29, 119, 161 formulaic expression 32, 121, 124, 129, 146, 184 G genre and text type 8–9, 45 convention 9, 126, 145
236 Index
producers’ genre 125, 126, 149, 160 recipients’ genre 125, 126, 149, 160 Goody, Jack 15, 17 Görlach, Manfred 129, 137, 145, 149, 154, 169, 170 Griffiths, Jeremy 140, 142, 151, 153, 154, 156, 157, 159–161 H Havelock, Eric 14–17 hearing 20, 21, 82, 220 Helsinki Corpus of English Texts 29, 31, 45, 101 historical discourse analysis 2, 137 historical discourse linguistics 1–3, 6, 10, 158 historical pragmatics 1, 2, 8, 10 Hoey, Michael 137, 138, 150–159 homily 20, 31, 42, 82 Hudson, Anne 106, 112, 116–118, 120, 121, 126–128 Hunter, Michael 201, 202, 222 hypotaxis 23, 24, 32, 122 I information structure 79, 93, 94 initial 95, 99, 110, 111, 116, 119, 127, 140, 141, 152 instruction religious 37, 42, 43, 58, 79, 82, 83, 90, 100 secular 37 see also manual, recipe J Jaworski, Adam 7, 68 Jucker, Andreas H. 2, 6, 10, 24 Justice, Steven 106, 107, 116, 124 L Laing, Margaret 80, 81, 90, 101 layout 107, 110, 116, 117, 127, 181 Leech, Geoffrey N. 65, 66
letter 6, 9, 10, 21, 139, 167–192, 198, 204–223 see also closing, opening, manual parts of 179–189 scientific 198, 219 Levinson, Stephen C. 75, 192, 203, 207, 208 literacy 5–7, 13–33, 44–45, 142, 168 as technology 14–16 Lord, Albert B. 14, 17, 24, 25, 46 M macrostructure 106, 111, 120, 124 manual 141, 161 letter-writing 167–191 manuscript context 8, 90, 138 Meurman-Solin, Anneli 78, 79, 89, 90, 94, 95 mode 5, 14, 19, 20, 23–27 Moderns 199, 201, 218, 223 Myers, Greg 203, 207–209, 216, 219, 222 N natural history 197–206, 212, 219–221, 223 Nevala, Minna 167, 170, 192 Nevalainen, Terttu 142, 167, 170, 180, 192 O Ong, Walter J. 14–17, 21, 23–25 opening 95, 96, 100, 107–110, 113, 116, 119–124, 143, 148, 152, 185, 186, 190 orality 5–7, 13–33, 44–45, 97 as mentality 14–16 definitions of 5–6, 13–17 primary 17, 18 P parataxis 18, 23, 24, 32, 44, 45, 122, 129, 147, 148, 158 Parkes, M. B. 18, 111, 117, 127, 142, 156, 161 Parry, Milman 14, 25 politeness 63, 65, 68, 74, 192, 200, 203, 212, 216, 217 Politeness principle 65–67 Priest-Dorman, Carolyn 138, 139, 144
Index 237
Q Quakers 58, 69, 73, 74 R reading aloud 15, 19–21, 29, 82, 142 private 19, 20, 33 silent 20, 21, 29 reception format 13, 19–22, 28–31, 44, 45 recipe 6, 9, 137, 138, 140, 143, 145–155, 158–161, 191 rhetoric 13, 20, 65, 72, 169, 170, 201, 217 rubrication 116, 117, 140, 152 S science 31, 38, 43, 198–204, 214, 216, 218– 223 see also natural history empiricism 217 experimental article 200 new science 198–203, 216, 218 scientific discourse 5, 21, 197–204, 208– 222 sermon 82, 105 Shapin, Steven 200, 201, 203, 223 silence 58, 59, 65, 68–71, 74–75 Speiser, Noémi 140–143, 145, 153, 155, 158–161 Stanley, E. G. 97, 138, 140–142, 144, 145, 148, 157–160 style 22, 24, 27, 28, 32, 92, 147, 174–179 curial 122 Old English 98 Swales, John 5, 125, 126, 197
T Taavitsainen, Irma 26, 114, 126, 137, 145, 146, 149 Tannen, Deborah 14, 18, 24–27, 38, 41 text see also discourse and context 3–4 and discourse 6–7 text-type see also genre and genre 8–9, 45 U utterance 4, 7, 94 V variation 4, 8, 32, 65, 79, 86, 87, 89, 92, 150, 184 vernacular 18, 77, 83, 85, 100, 117, 119, 126, 170 virtual witnessing 200, 201, 203, 217 von Nolcken, Christina 114, 117, 121, 126–128 W Watt, Ian 15, 17 Wieder, Lawrence D. 58, 60, 61, 63, 64 women 60, 75, 81–83, 88, 90, 97, 100, 141– 143, 168, 172, 191 Woolley, Hannah 169, 172–178, 182–184, 187–192 Wyclif, John 106, 116, 118–121, 128 Y Yule, George 7, 10, 93
In the PRAGMATICS AND BEYOND NEW SERIES the following titles have been published thus far or are scheduled for publication: 1. WALTER, Bettyruth: The Jury Summation as Speech Genre: An Ethnographic Study of What it Means to Those who Use it. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1988. 2. BARTON, Ellen: Nonsentential Constituents: A Theory of Grammatical Structure and Pragmatic Interpretation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 3. OLEKSY, Wieslaw (ed.): Contrastive Pragmatics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1989. 4. RAFFLER-ENGEL, Walburga von (ed.): Doctor-Patient Interaction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1989. 5. THELIN, Nils B. (ed.): Verbal Aspect in Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 6. VERSCHUEREN, Jef (ed.): Selected Papers from the 1987 International Pragmatics Conference. Vol. I: Pragmatics at Issue. Vol. II: Levels of Linguistic Adaptation. Vol. III: The Pragmatics of Intercultural and International Communication (ed. with Jan Blommaert). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 7. LINDENFELD, Jacqueline: Speech and Sociability at French Urban Market Places. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 8. YOUNG, Lynne: Language as Behaviour, Language as Code: A Study of Academic English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 9. LUKE, Kang-Kwong: Utterance Particles in Cantonese Conversation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 10. MURRAY, Denise E.: Conversation for Action. The computer terminal as medium of communication. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 11. LUONG, Hy V.: Discursive Practices and Linguistic Meanings. The Vietnamese system of person reference. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 12. ABRAHAM, Werner (ed.): Discourse Particles. Descriptive and theoretical investigations on the logical, syntactic and pragmatic properties of discourse particles in German. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 13. NUYTS, Jan, A. Machtelt BOLKESTEIN and Co VET (eds): Layers and Levels of Representation in Language Theory: A functional view. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1990. 14. SCHWARTZ, Ursula: Young Children’s Dyadic Pretend Play. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 15. KOMTER, Martha: Conflict and Cooperation in Job Interviews. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 16. MANN, William C. and Sandra A. THOMPSON (eds): Discourse Description: Diverse Linguistic Analyses of a Fund-Raising Text. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1992. 17. PIÉRAUT-LE BONNIEC, Gilberte and Marlene DOLITSKY (eds): Language Bases ... Discourse Bases. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 18. JOHNSTONE, Barbara: Repetition in Arabic Discourse. Paradigms, syntagms and the ecology of language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 19. BAKER, Carolyn D. and Allan LUKE (eds): Towards a Critical Sociology of Reading Pedagogy. Papers of the XII World Congress on Reading. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1991. 20. NUYTS, Jan: Aspects of a Cognitive-Pragmatic Theory of Language. On cognition, functionalism, and grammar. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1992. 21. SEARLE, John R. et al.: (On) Searle on Conversation. Compiled and introduced by Herman Parret and Jef Verschueren. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1992.
22. AUER, Peter and Aldo Di LUZIO (eds): The Contextualization of Language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1992. 23. FORTESCUE, Michael, Peter HARDER and Lars KRISTOFFERSEN (eds): Layered Structure and Reference in a Functional Perspective. Papers from the Functional Grammar Conference, Copenhagen, 1990. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1992. 24. MAYNARD, Senko K.: Discourse Modality: Subjectivity, Emotion and Voice in the Japanese Language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1993. 25. COUPER-KUHLEN, Elizabeth: English Speech Rhythm. Form and function in everyday verbal interaction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1993. 26. STYGALL, Gail: Trial Language. A study in differential discourse processing. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, 1994. 27. SUTER, Hans Jürg: The Wedding Report: A Prototypical Approach to the Study of Traditional Text Types. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1993. 28. VAN DE WALLE, Lieve: Pragmatics and Classical Sanskrit. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1993. 29. BARSKY, Robert F.: Constructing a Productive Other: Discourse theory and the convention refugee hearing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994. 30. WORTHAM, Stanton E.F.: Acting Out Participant Examples in the Classroom. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994. 31. WILDGEN, Wolfgang: Process, Image and Meaning. A realistic model of the meanings of sentences and narrative texts. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1994. 32. SHIBATANI, Masayoshi and Sandra A. THOMPSON (eds): Essays in Semantics and Pragmatics. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1995. 33. GOOSSENS, Louis, Paul PAUWELS, Brygida RUDZKA-OSTYN, Anne-Marie SIMONVANDENBERGEN and Johan VANPARYS: By Word of Mouth. Metaphor, metonymy and linguistic action in a cognitive perspective. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1995. 34. BARBE, Katharina: Irony in Context. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1995. 35. JUCKER, Andreas H. (ed.): Historical Pragmatics. Pragmatic developments in the history of English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1995. 36. CHILTON, Paul, Mikhail V. ILYIN and Jacob MEY: Political Discourse in Transition in Eastern and Western Europe (1989-1991). Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 37. CARSTON, Robyn and Seiji UCHIDA (eds): Relevance Theory. Applications and implications. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 38. FRETHEIM, Thorstein and Jeanette K. GUNDEL (eds): Reference and Referent Accessibility. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 39. HERRING, Susan (ed.): Computer-Mediated Communication. Linguistic, social, and cross-cultural perspectives. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 40. DIAMOND, Julie: Status and Power in Verbal Interaction. A study of discourse in a closeknit social network. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 41. VENTOLA, Eija and Anna MAURANEN, (eds): Academic Writing. Intercultural and textual issues. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996. 42. WODAK, Ruth and Helga KOTTHOFF (eds): Communicating Gender in Context. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 43. JANSSEN, Theo A.J.M. and Wim van der WURFF (eds): Reported Speech. Forms and functions of the verb. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1996.
44. BARGIELA-CHIAPPINI, Francesca and Sandra J. HARRIS: Managing Language. The discourse of corporate meetings. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 45. PALTRIDGE, Brian: Genre, Frames and Writing in Research Settings. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 46. GEORGAKOPOULOU, Alexandra: Narrative Performances. A study of Modern Greek storytelling. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 47. CHESTERMAN, Andrew: Contrastive Functional Analysis. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 48. KAMIO, Akio: Territory of Information. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1997. 49. KURZON, Dennis: Discourse of Silence. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 50. GRENOBLE, Lenore: Deixis and Information Packaging in Russian Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 51. BOULIMA, Jamila: Negotiated Interaction in Target Language Classroom Discourse. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1999. 52. GILLIS, Steven and Annick DE HOUWER (eds): The Acquisition of Dutch. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia, 1998. 53. MOSEGAARD HANSEN, Maj-Britt: The Function of Discourse Particles. A study with special reference to spoken standard French. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 54. HYLAND, Ken: Hedging in Scientific Research Articles. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 55. ALLWOOD, Jens and Peter Gärdenfors (eds): Cognitive Semantics. Meaning and cognition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1999. 56. TANAKA, Hiroko: Language, Culture and Social Interaction. Turn-taking in Japanese and Anglo-American English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1999. 57 JUCKER, Andreas H. and Yael ZIV (eds): Discourse Markers. Descriptions and theory. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 58. ROUCHOTA, Villy and Andreas H. JUCKER (eds): Current Issues in Relevance Theory. Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 1998. 59. KAMIO, Akio and Ken-ichi TAKAMI (eds): Function and Structure. In honor of Susumu Kuno. 1999. 60. JACOBS, Geert: Preformulating the News. An analysis of the metapragmatics of press releases. 1999. 61. MILLS, Margaret H. (ed.): Slavic Gender Linguistics. 1999. 62. TZANNE, Angeliki: Talking at Cross-Purposes. The dynamics of miscommunication. 2000. 63. BUBLITZ, Wolfram, Uta LENK and Eija VENTOLA (eds.): Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse. How to create it and how to describe it.Selected papers from the International Workshop on Coherence, Augsburg, 24-27 April 1997. 1999. 64. SVENNEVIG, Jan: Getting Acquainted in Conversation. A study of initial interactions. 1999. 65. COOREN, François: The Organizing Dimension of Communication. 2000. 66. JUCKER, Andreas H., Gerd FRITZ and Franz LEBSANFT (eds.): Historical Dialogue Analysis. 1999. 67. TAAVITSAINEN, Irma, Gunnel MELCHERS and Päivi PAHTA (eds.): Dimensions of Writing in Nonstandard English. 1999. 68. ARNOVICK, Leslie: Diachronic Pragmatics. Seven case studies in English illocutionary development. 1999.
69. NOH, Eun-Ju: The Semantics and Pragmatics of Metarepresentation in English. A relevance-theoretic account. 2000. 70. SORJONEN, Marja-Leena: Responding in Conversation. A study of response particles in Finnish. 2001. 71. GÓMEZ-GONZÁLEZ, María Ángeles: The Theme-Topic Interface. Evidence from English. 2001. 72. MARMARIDOU, Sophia S.A.: Pragmatic Meaning and Cognition. 2000. 73. HESTER, Stephen and David FRANCIS (eds.): Local Educational Order. Ethnomethodological studies of knowledge in action. 2000. 74. TROSBORG, Anna (ed.): Analysing Professional Genres. 2000. 75. PILKINGTON, Adrian: Poetic Effects. A relevance theory perspective. 2000. 76. MATSUI, Tomoko: Bridging and Relevance. 2000. 77. VANDERVEKEN, Daniel and Susumu KUBO (eds.): Essays in Speech Act Theory. 2002. 78. SELL, Roger D. : Literature as Communication. The foundations of mediating criticism. 2000. 79. ANDERSEN, Gisle and Thorstein FRETHEIM (eds.): Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude. 2000. 80. UNGERER, Friedrich (ed.): English Media Texts – Past and Present. Language and textual structure. 2000. 81. DI LUZIO, Aldo, Susanne GÜNTHNER and Franca ORLETTI (eds.): Culture in Communication. Analyses of intercultural situations. 2001. 82. KHALIL, Esam N.: Grounding in English and Arabic News Discourse. 2000. 83. MÁRQUEZ REITER, Rosina: Linguistic Politeness in Britain and Uruguay. A contrastive study of requests and apologies. 2000. 84. ANDERSEN, Gisle: Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation. A relevance-theoretic approach to the language of adolescents. 2001. 85. COLLINS, Daniel E.: Reanimated Voices. Speech reporting in a historical-pragmatic perspective. 2001. 86. IFANTIDOU, Elly: Evidentials and Relevance. 2001. 87. MUSHIN, Ilana: Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance. Narrative retelling. 2001. 88. BAYRAKTAROG LU, ArFn and Maria SIFIANOU (eds.): Linguistic Politeness Across Boundaries. The case of Greek and Turkish. 2001. 89. ITAKURA, Hiroko: Conversational Dominance and Gender. A study of Japanese speakers in first and second language contexts. 2001. 90. KENESEI, István and Robert M. HARNISH (eds.): Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse. A Festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer. 2001. 91. GROSS, Joan: Speaking in Other Voices. An ethnography of Walloon puppet theaters. 2001. 92. GARDNER, Rod: When Listeners Talk. Response tokens and listener stance. 2001. 93. BARON, Bettina and Helga KOTTHOFF (eds.): Gender in Interaction. Perspectives on femininity and masculinity in ethnography and discourse. 2002 94. McILVENNY, Paul (ed.): Talking Gender and Sexuality. 2002. 95. FITZMAURICE, Susan M.: The Familiar Letter in Early Modern English. A pragmatic approach. 2002. 96. HAVERKATE, Henk: The Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics of Spanish Mood. 2002.
97. MAYNARD, Senko K.: Linguistic Emotivity. Centrality of place, the topic-comment dynamic, and an ideology of pathos in Japanese discourse. 2002. 98. DUSZAK, Anna (ed.): Us and Others. Social identities across languages, discourses and cultures. 2002. 99. JASZCZOLT, K.M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 1. 2003. 100. JASZCZOLT, K.M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume 2. 2003. 101. LUKE, Kang Kwong and Theodossia-Soula PAVLIDOU (eds.): Telephone Calls. Unity and diversity in conversational structure across languages and cultures. 2002. 102. LEAFGREN, John: Degrees of Explicitness. Information structure and the packaging of Bulgarian subjects and objects. 2002. 103. FETZER, Anita and Christiane MEIERKORD (eds.): Rethinking Sequentiality. Linguistics meets conversational interaction. 2002. 104. BEECHING, Kate: Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French. 2002. 105. BLACKWELL, Sarah E.: Implicatures in Discourse. The case of Spanish NP anaphora. 2003. 106. BUSSE, Ulrich: Linguistic Variation in the Shakespeare Corpus. Morpho-syntactic variability of second person pronouns. 2002. 107. TAAVITSAINEN, Irma and Andreas H. JUCKER (eds.): Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems. 2003. 108. BARRON, Anne: Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics. Learning how to do things with words in a study abroad context. 2003. 109. MAYES, Patricia: Language, Social Structure, and Culture. A genre analysis of cooking classes in Japan and America. 2003. 110. ANDROUTSOPOULOS, Jannis K. and Alexandra GEORGAKOPOULOU (eds.): Discourse Constructions of Youth Identities. 2003. 111. ENSINK, Titus and Christoph SAUER (eds.): Framing and Perspectivising in Discourse. 2003. 112. LENZ, Friedrich (ed.): Deictic Conceptualisation of Space, Time and Person. 2003. 113. PANTHER, Klaus-Uwe and Linda L. THORNBURG (eds.): Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing. 2003. 114. KÜHNLEIN, Peter, Hannes RIESER and Henk ZEEVAT (eds.): Perspectives on Dialogue in the New Millennium. 2003. 115. KÄRKKÄINEN, Elise: Epistemic Stance in English Conversation. A description of its interactional functions, with a focus on I think. 2003. 116. GRANT, Colin B. (ed.): Rethinking Communicative Interaction. New interdisciplinary horizons. 2003. 117. WU, Ruey-Jiuan Regina: Stance in Talk. A conversation analysis of Mandarin final particles. n.y.p. 118. CHENG, Winnie: Intercultural Conversation. 2003. 119. HILTUNEN, Risto and Janne SKAFFARI (eds.): Discourse Perspectives on English. Medieval to modern. 2003. 120. AIJMER, Karin and Anna-Brita STENSTRÖM (eds.): Discourse Patterns in Spoken and Written Corpora. n.y.p.
