Studies in the Harley Manuscript: The Scribes, Contents, and Social Contexts of British Library MS Harley 2253. Edited by Susanna Fein. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000. Pp. xvi + 515. $40

This collection of essays is the first large-scale attempt to treat all aspects of London, British Library, Harley 2253, the trilingual fourteenth-century manuscript famous chiefly for its preservation of the Harley Lyrics. The essays serve to update and expand information provided by earlier scholarship on features of the manuscript, to engage debates over the structure and purpose of the manuscript, and to introduce readers to content that mostly has been ignored (being unedited, untranslated, or little commented upon). The last aim is twofold: to highlight the variety of the content and to provide a clearer context for each part of the manuscript (one might better understand the effect of a particular text if one can see what other items are like). In this respect, I have found especially pleasing several references in the volume to the use of wordplay and ribaldry in texts preserved in Harley 2253, features that some years ago I tried to highlight in four of the English lyrics of the manuscript. That such fare is not objectionable in other parts of Harley 2253 makes easier the working hypothesis that it might have been appreciated in a few short English poems as well.

Daniel J. Ransom
University of Oklahoma