Re-Creating Ælfric

: Curation, Compilation, and Scribal Agency in the Manuscripts of Ælfric’s Sermons

Abstract

This thesis investigates the re-interpretation of Ælfric’s sermons through the evidence of multilingual glosses, additions, and marginalia in the extant corpus of eleventh and twelfth-century manuscripts. This investigation is accomplished by examining different ways in which the margins operate across manuscripts containing Ælfrician religious material to establish new observations about the practice of writing in the margins and, more generally, the functionality of blank spaces in the medieval book. By studying the visual presentation of the folio (mise-en-page) both in conjunction with the marginalia’s effects on the ‘primary’ text and alongside the multilingual nature of the additions, this thesis positions medieval scribes not as passive copyists, but as active ‘curators’. This argument sees the role of the scribe-curator as one comprising the planned compilation of existing—and even the composition of new—texts in the margins of religious anthologies (or so-called miscellanies) to influence and enhance the reading experience of the primary text(s). Bringing together palaeographic, codicological, linguistic, and historical documentation, this thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge by demonstrating that writing in the margins was an intentional and often meticulous act of intervention and authorial creation, thereby challenging traditional views of the conceptual boundaries between text and margin. By curating the margins, scribes reveal themselves as active and knowing participants in the reception of books who facilitated a dynamic discourse in the margins of medieval manuscripts that continued to develop over time as new readers added comments and verses of their own making.

Date of Award	13 May 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Benjamin Pohl (Supervisor) & Leah Tether (Supervisor)