Prestige, Authority and Power in Late Medieval Manuscripts and Texts

Prestige, authority and power: what is the significance of these three terms for the study of late-medieval manuscripts and texts? This collection of essays, by leading scholars from Britain and North America, answers this question in various ways: by discussing manuscripts as prestigious de luxe objects; by showing how the layout of texts was used to confer different kinds of authority; and by locating manuscripts and texts more dynamically in what Foucault calls `power's net-like organisation'. All of the essays in the volume embed the manuscripts they discuss in particular sets of personal relationships, conducted in specific social environments - in the schoolroom or the monastery, at court, in the gentry household and the city, or mediating between these. The essays address, among others, issues of gender, patronage, status, self-authorization, and gentry and urban sociability, in studies ranging from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. Contributors: SUZANNE REYNOLDS, KANTIK GHOSH, KATE HARRIS, KATHLEEN L. SCOTT, JOHN THOMPSON, CAROL M. MEALE, ANNE M. DUTTON, JAMES P. CARLEY, DAVID R. CARLSON