John Mirk's Festial, edited from British Library MS Cotton Claudius A.II. Volume 1.

Powell, Susan

Abstract

The Festial, as the most frequently circulated orthodox English sermon collection of the Middle Ages, presents a particularly difficult task for the editor. There are two recensions, and there is also a comprehensive revision and expansion in four extant manuscripts. The first recension (Group A) presents a complex pattern of copying and re-copying over a long period of time in a variety of different places - inevitably, many intervening manuscripts have been lost (twelve survive). The second recension (Group B) presents a much more stable text (eight manuscripts). In addition, there are twenty partial manuscripts and manuscripts with just a few Festial excerpts, some adapted for different contexts from Mirk’s original. This is the first edition since Theodor Erbe's EETS ES 96 edition of 1905 (based on only 6 MSS), of which only Part I was published. It is the result of a consideration of all the known manuscripts and consists of Introduction, Text, Explanatory Notes, Select Glossary, Glossary of Proper Names, and five Appendices.

Citation

Powell, S. (2009). John Mirk's Festial, edited from British Library MS Cotton Claudius A.II. Volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press

• Book Type: Authored Book
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2009
• Deposit Date: Oct 6, 2011
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Series Title: Early Engish Text Society
• ISBN: 9780199578498