Chaucer's Scribes

The 2004 announcement that Chaucer's scribe had been discovered resulted in a paradigm shift in medieval studies. Adam Pynkhurst dominated the classroom, became a fictional character, and led to suggestions that this identification should prompt the abandonment of our understanding of the development of London English and acceptance that the clerks of the Guildhall were promoting vernacular literature as part of a concerted political program. In this meticulously researched study, Lawrence Warner challenges the narratives and conclusions of recent scholarship. In place of the accepted story, Warner provides a fresh, more nuanced one in which many more scribes, anonymous ones, worked in conditions we are only beginning to understand. Bringing to light new information, not least, hundreds of documents in the hand of one of the most important fifteenth-century scribes of Chaucer and Langland, this book represents an important intervention in the field of Middle English studies.

'… Lawrence Warner's book may prove to be nearly as explosive as the scribal identification that serves as its point of origin … But regardless of what one considers to be the identity of Chaucer's scribe (or scribes), this is a book that few scholars of later medieval English literature will be able to ignore.' Mary C. Flannery, The Times Literary Supplement, 'Warner’s book provides an exciting new foundation and also a new benchmark for the debates about scribes, scribal identities, and critical methodologies that will undoubtedly continue.' Matthew Fisher, The Review of English Studies, 'This is an important book, essential reading for anyone with an interest in the manuscripts of Middle English literature.' Neil Cartlidge, Medium Ævum, 'In this trenchant, engaging, and delightfully written book … Warner has produced a wonderful detective story, and the scholarship is rich, detailed, and exhaustive.’ Michael Calabrese, Modern Philology, 'Warner’s detail oriented and carefully developed analysis of the evidence for scribal culture in medieval London is a healthy challenge to our field and an encouragement to all of us who do not consider ourselves 'paleographers' to get down and dirty with manuscripts - digitized or not - and draw our own conclusions about the evidence we find.' Noelle Phillips, Studies in the Age of Chaucer

Lawrence Warner is Reader in Medieval English at King's College London. His previous publications include The Myth of 'Piers Plowman' (Cambridge, 2014), which won the English Association's 2016 Beatrice White Prize for outstanding scholarly work in the field of English Literature before 1590, and The Lost History of 'Piers Plowman' (2011), which received an Honorable Mention for the Society for Textual Scholarship's 2013 Richard J. Finneran Award.