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Article: Kings and kingship in British Library MS Harley 2253.
- Article from:
- Yearbook of English Studies
- Article date:
- January 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Modern Humanities Research Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ABSTRACT
British Library MS Harley 2253 contains a number of texts, in English, French, and Latin, in which historical and legendary kings feature. Like other works in the manuscript, these interact so that each text acquires meaning that it does not have if read in isolation; in certain texts the authority of kingship is undermined through the particular nature of the works' relationship. Links can be established between one of the texts and the putative connections of the compiler and scribe of the manuscript. This may have had a bearing on the way it and the other works about kings were read.
Anyone who has heard of the fourteenth-century manuscript ...