Summary and Comments

I. Summary of the Manuscripts

Noting the "lack of preservation of secular entertainment, namely the romances" in contrast to the "really long books that are found in the largest number of manuscripts," R. H. Robbins concludes that the "small romances may have been destroyed because of much use." While the coucher book would appear to have a better chance of outliving the more cheaply constructed commonplace book or, for that matter, any volume produced for communal use, size alone does not account for the vulnerability of the romances. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, they would appear to be more subject and responsive to changing social conditions and literary tastes than the less temporal ecclesiastical works somewhat more safely rooted in Christian doctrine and its institutions of conservation. How, then, did Robert of Sicily manage to avoid being "read to pieces" to survive in ten manuscripts, fully one tenth of the entire corpus of Middle English romance manuscripts? As the Manuscript Descriptions and Handlists reveal, this survival was not restricted to a particular region or period. To the contrary, Robert of Sicily appears not only to have endured over centuries but to have enjoyed widespread dissemination throughout much of England. The primary, practical reason for its survival is two-fold: first, it was one of only three romances preserved in one of the largest, most prestigious volumes produced in England, the Vernon MS; second, this early affiliation with highly esteemed religious works very likely contributed to the subsequent collocation with religious texts that ensured its preservation.

But it was the generic versatility of Robert of Sicily that rendered it so accommodating to the changing social, economic, and political climate. Although obviously more at home in a provincial as opposed to an urban locale, its audience or readership appears to have included a cross-section of literate society--from the members of religious houses who at times assumed the role both of audience and author; to the middle-class, domestic audience presumed for CUL Ff. 2. 38; to the noble house of the Dukes of Norfolk, patrons of BL Addit. 34801; to that of the affluent, educated citizen of Nottingham who assembled commonplace items of personal and regional interest, and to the archbishop (or another) who, more than a century later in the period of England's revolution, found in them something of so uncommon an historical interest that he gathered them into the anthology that we know as Trinity Dublin 432. Manuscript evidence reveals that groups and individuals interacted with these volumes in a variety of ways whether actively engaged in the book's patronage or production or, through their anonymous approbation, in sustaining its value and appeal and, hence, its viability. Even the disapproving reader of CUL Ii. 4. 9 who zealously (as reflected in the strokes and attempts--to the point of making holes--at erasure) sought to eliminate every reference to "pope" in Robert of Sicily contributes a bit to the manuscript's history: unlike the Simeon MS with which it shares items, CUL Ii. 4. 9 apparently was owned by those who conformed to the prevailing religious climate. By way of contrast, the Simeon's eventual transmission to recusant ownership in the southeast, also the provenance of Trinity Oxford 57 which contains the South English Legendary , makes the presumed loss of this legendary material in the Simeon all the more intriguing.

The fact that several manuscripts--the Vernon, Simeon, Addit. 34801, Trinity Dublin 432, and Gonville & Caius 174/95--also contain works in French and Latin (religious, legal, chivalric, and scientific material) further contributes to our understanding of Robert of Sicily's reception. We assume that works in French and Latin reflect a more highly educated or highly placed religious or lay audience (or ownership), and appeal to a readership whose skill and interests surpass the pragmatic literacy or literary tastes characteristic of the fifteenth-century middle class. That the politically sensitive theme of Robert of Sicily does not offend suggests that, however educated or affluent, the audience does not perceive itself to be the the target of criticism. Whereas the religious community might respond somewhat self-righteously to the subject and the middle-class, more hopefully, we can only presume that for those closer to the throne--to whom Robert makes but a fragmentary appearance in BL Addit. 34801--the dramatic comic scenes distract from a theme that undoubtedly hit fairly close to home. On the other hand, the political climate was such that the theme of the Proud Prince Humiliated was a practical as well as a literary preoccupation--one thinks particularly of Lydgate's expansion on the theme. Of special interest, then, is the fact that John Mowbray, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, patron of BL Addit. 34801, apparently commissioned another heraldic manuscript, BL Arundel 38, containing Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes. We recall also that Anthony Wydeville, whose signature appears on Addit. 34801 and who was, as previously discussed, in all likelihood a later owner of the manuscript, did not himself survive the vicissitudes associated with being a member of Edward IV's court. And much later, the romance's pious emphasis on allegiance to the heavenly as opposed to earthly kings must have especially appealed to post-medieval owners such as the Archibishop of Armagh, James Ussher, who had also witnessed the fall of a monarchy and the subsequent chaos.

Shifting our attention to formal considerations, we note that despite its broad appeal and relative brevity, Robert of Sicily appears to have been used as a filler on only two occasions: to fill out or to complete final quires in MSS Harley 1701 and Trinity Oxford 57. In each of these cases, when the manuscript was obviously intended to present a major work, Handlyng Synne and the South English Legendary respectively, other works of a compatible nature were selected to make use of remaining space. We are not, of course, taking into account Robert' s inexplicable appearance on the flyleaf of B L Addit. 34801. In all other manuscripts, the romance appears either to have been selected on its own merits to accompany other selections or to have been incorporated as part of a pre-existing gathering or works. In other words, Robert of Sicily appears to have circulated singly, as an independent exemplar; loosely grouped with or in association with other works; or bound, as one of several texts comprising a booklet-exemplar. We may perhaps detect such a booklet in CUL Ff. 2. 38, in particular, and quite possibly in the Vernon and Simeon MSS. Considered in this light, the lacuna after Robert of Sicily in the Simeon MS can be attributed to a break after a gathering of works (appearing in the same sequence in the Vernon MS) rather than to the loss of material that characterizes this volume. Robert' s collocation with Handlyng Synne in MSS Harley 1701 and CUL Ii. 4. 9 suggests the possibility that, if not bound with them, the romance was available separately to accompany the copies of the major works. Copies of isolated, shorter texts conceivably could have been added to the "order" or request for major exemplars in the manner of an unsolicited recommendation. If so, this would offer some measure of the work's popularity and help to account in some way for its transmission. In other instances in which Robert of Sicily appears in an altogether different configuration, in what appears to be a more random, heterogeneous, and idiosyncratic selection of texts, speculation about its status as an exemplar becomes more imaginary than hypothetical.

II. Comments and Interpretation

What one becomes aware of in studying the manuscripts containing Robert of Sicily is that in the matter and compilation of their contents, and in the range and scope of their transmission, they offer "silent evidence" of the history of medieval bookmaking. The discussion that follows provides a summary of the Robert of Sicily manuscripts in the context of the traditions and circumstances that shaped them.

Not surprisingly, the earliest extant manuscripts of Robert of Sicily claim a monastic provenance. The monastic scriptorium was, according to Christopher de Hamel, the "provincial counterpart to the urban bookshop," although, as G.S. Ivy would remind us, with a rather different motivation. Ivy describes monastic copying as a sacramentalized endeavor, in which the production was allegorized, and the exemplar revered as the life of Christ to be copied as if with a "pen of memory." While this may seem to stretch the matter, we must recall St. Bernard's exhortation promoting reading and the roles, both public (liturgical) and private, that books played in daily devotions. Rather than being restricted to the scriptorium or library, books could be found in the choir, cells, cloisters, and refectory--in every place and every phase of monastic life. The important notion for the purpose of our discussion is that, far from being hoarded, books were read, borrowed, and exchanged both within and without the monastic community.

Later, it was the friars as teachers, students, and preachers--connected but not tied to the university--who not only increased the demand for books, but whose peripatetic life facilitated their transmission on a much greater scale. The secular dimension of university book production evolved into the highly commercial pecia system characterized by entrepreneurial stationers. But Derek Pearsall cautions us not to underestimate the vigor of monastic book production--even if it was out of the mainstream--in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century. Indeed, our King Robert owes his survival to clerical, if not monastic, copiers, composers, and compilers. A typological impulse informs the compilation of both the Vernon and Simeon volumes, and to some extent Trinity Oxford 57, in that the works seem to be arranged according to a preconceived pattern of imitatio Christi. And Anthony Wydeville, who takes up copying activities late in life, from all accounts appears to have done so as an act of piety. But it was the provincial network of religious houses that undoubtedly contributed most to the dissemination of at least five or six of the Robert of Sicily manuscripts.

As Ian Doyle explains it, multiple facets of the monastic, canonic, and mendicant vocations formed relationships with other social groups, allowing not only for the dissemination of works but also for an increasing diversity of compositons. He illustrates this nexus of convergence-divergence as follows (Religious 110):

Writing for any purpose in principle required the command or permission of the religious superior, and in practice it must have usually involved an understanding that the product would be communicated (perhaps after scruitiny and amendment) either only to members of the same community or order, unless or until someone else should learn enough about it to ask after it; or else direct to an outsider or outsiders, with prospects thereafter, depending on its reception and the milieu, of more or less unlimited diffusion.

Doyle notes that whether the monastic role is active or passive, the long-term outcome could achieve similar results (Religious 111). In other words, an exemplar may orginate with a religious house, but its ultimate dissemination may depend more on secular contacts and commercial enterprise--as appears to have been the case with Lydgate. John Capgrave, prior of Lynn and provincial of the Austin friars (1453-57), is an example of a religious superior who was "well placed to promote diffusion through his order" (Doyle, Religious 112,118). With the exception of BL MSS Harley 525 and Addit. 34801, whose contents are purely secular, it seems unlikely that any of the other Robert of Sicily manuscripts could have escaped intersecting at some point or in some manner with the widely cast network Doyle has described.

Turning now from the religious, devotional miscellany to the composite manuscripts of mixed contents such as MSS CUL Ff. 2. 38, Gonville & Caius 174/95, or Trinity Dublin 432, it would appear, as Boffey and Thompson claim, that the booklet offered a "pragmatic mode of production as well as relatively cheap means of marketing written material to an audience who did not want or could not afford more expensive books." But we also note the distinction between collections such as CUL Ff. 2. 38, inspired by a compilatio of a pre-existing sequence or combination of texts, and those more random productions, anthologies compiled along the lines of the Cambridge Gonville & Caius 174/95 and Trinity Dublin 432, that encompass a broad range of both texts and periods. As John Thompson aptly notes, "one of the most intriguing moments in the history of any composite collection is the point at which the copyist's paper stock stops being a collection of unbound quires"--or in this case, "a group of indpendently circulating manuscript-booklets"--and "takes instead the shape of a 'whole book.'" In the case of these two composite volumes, the "whole book" as we know it was probably compiled by its owner-collector in the post-medieval period.

That these later composite volumes represent a more personal undertaking than that of their more deliberately conceived counterparts, CUL Ff. 2. 38 illustrates one of the paradoxical twists in the history of book making. In the fifteenth century as literacy became increasingly widespread and pragmatic in character, on the one hand making its presence felt and exerting more influence on the collective public life, books and the mode of their production tended, on the other hand, increasingly to be carried out by or directed towards meeting the personal needs or tastes of their owners. It becomes less unusual for the roles of scribe, author, and owner to be conflated, a synthesis laden with editorial implications. The informal, individualized format of such volumes was not only conducive to the habit of recording household accounts or affairs or chronicling events of family, community or regional interest, but also appears to have encouraged the innovation that we observe in the English contents of Trinity Dublin 432, where all but three items are unique and Robert of Sicily diverges most radically from all other versions.

This more individualized and personal mode characterizes regional book production where amateur and professional scriveners appear to have flourished side by side. This especially seems to be the case in Yorkshire, where records reveal that the wealthy and the higher ecclesiastics appear to have employed scribes whom they knew personally, with beneficed priests often performing such duties (Friedman 119). The books themselves seem to have been invested with human rather than commercial value: bequests describe volumes with the knowledge and abiding affection that comes from personal acquaintance (Friedman 115). In areas such as Yorkshire, books may have been produced with the intention of being left in the spirit of common profit to a cathedral library or to that of a university to the south with which the owner retained ties (Friedman 116-19). What Friedman describes, then, for the region surrounding York, a city second in size only to London, is a network similar to that outlined by Doyle above, in which religious, academic, and commercial enterprise conspire to produce and circulate books.

It is perhaps with C.P. Christianson's reconstruction of the London book-trade in mind that Thorlac Turville-Petre enunciates his desideratum for a comparable or at least a more complete picture of the social context of literature, the relationship between literature and society, within a limited provincial area. In her recent book The Theater of Devotion: East Anglian Drama and Society in the Late Middle Ages, Gail McMurray Gibson answers this challenge by reconstructing the means and manner in which a region's commercial prosperity mutually promoted and influenced the life of its religion and art. She describes Thetford (see discussion of CUL Ii. 4. 9 above) as a "virtual monastic center... a smallish town on the Suffolk-Norfolk border that boasted no fewer than 6 major priories and friaries," going on to say that "Norfolk and Suffolk, though predominantly rural, suppported a greater density of churches than any other county in England" (22). The economic prosperity was, of course, due to the thriving wool trade, a success which expressed itself in the construction of numerous "wool churches" boasting distinctive architecture and elaborate decoration (22, 26, 28). Gibson also reminds us that the region was indeed closer to Flanders than to London; London, she remarks, came to Norfolk, Norfolk did not go to London (22). This commercial link with the Continent and the subsequent importation of continental artisans to adorn the churches of Norfolk is reflected both in the sources and kinds of books the region produced and the interest and care taken in their decoration.

Considering the region's reliance on continental trade, the admiralty laws of BL Addit. 34801 appear quite an appropriate or even pragmatic subject, more so than might otherwise be assumed. Nor would the number of manuscripts of Flemish or French origin be surprising, nor the number or superior quality of Continental artisans engaged in manuscript decoration. Among the Flemish manuscripts, Bodley 264, containing Li romans du bon roi Alixandre and produced in Flanders 1338-44, was purchased in London on New Year's Day 1466 by Richard Woodville, first Earl Rivers. Harley 4431, a translation of the works of Christine de Pizan, bears the signature of our own Anthony Wydeville of BL 34801, who is also depicted in a miniature of Lambeth 265 (frontispiece, f. vi verso) presenting his translation of The Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers to Edward IV.

In Norfolk, then, a specifically regional miscellany such as CUL Ii. 4. 9, dedicated in the spirit of common profit to "translat out of Northarn tunge into Sutherne, that it schulde be the bettir understondyn of men that be of the selve countre" (f. 197v), holds its own alongside more elaborate volumes of aristocratic or royal provenance. With respect to the latter, BL MS Arundel 38, Hoccleve's Regiment of Princes , is of particular interest, for it bears the arms of the same John Mowbray, second duke of Norfolk, who presumably commissioned BL Addit. 34801. Thus, however fragmentary or accidental his appearance in BL Addit. 34801, Robert of Sicily appears momentarily to have been drawn into a highly placed network of book production that included both those in court and those. like the Pastons, whose social status allowed such aspirations. By placing manuscript studies in their regional context, we are enabled, to borrow Boffey and Meale's apt description, to"float a sense of the intermingling civic and social circles in which court functionaries and members of merchant families moved together." As this one case in point demonstrates, regional studies would be of great assistance in helping to piece together the history if not of a given manuscript, of the points of contact and silent affiliations among a group of manuscripts. The historical and political contents of Trinity Dublin 432, in particular, would seem to make it a very likely beneficiary of regional studies pertaining to Yorkshire. This manuscript's genealogy of Christian kings, a preoccupation with pedigree not unlike that of the Norman lineages traced in BL Addit. 34801, is regarded as blatant Yorkist propaganda during a time of rivalry for the throne. Thus, whether enlisted to serve in the context of purposes pious or political, Robert of Sicily appears to have survived for so many and for so long because it could be read and enjoyed in each world while, being the hybrid that it is, never quite becoming of any single world.