Remaking History

Supervisory Team: Dr Ryan Perry (Kent), Prof Lawrence Warner (King’s)

Based at: Kent

KOM Theme: B – Embodied Knowledge

This project will allow a student to explore one of the most extraordinary literary production phenomena in medieval England represented by the 180 and some extant manuscripts and fragments of this chronicle containing the history of Britain. It will investigate the remarkable success of this text, and the role the metropolis (ie. London, Westminster, Southwark and their hinterlands) may have played in that success. Surviving in numbers that dwarf all other Middle English textual corpora other than the English Bible, the Brut appears to have been the must-have book of its age. The Brut was certainly being repeatedly produced by London scribes from early in its dissemination History, and some studies have even suggested that this might have been one of the first English texts to have been produced speculatively, in anticipation of a buyer, rather than relying on a system of each copy being individually commissioned. Applicants require a relevant MA (in English, History, or Medieval/ Early Modern Studies), an interest in Middle English literature, and a passion for learning about the circumstances of medieval literary production.

Image: Cambridge MA: Houghton Library, MS. Eng 587, fol. 56.