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Jaakko Tahkokallio investigates how three twelfth-century historians helped their works circulate and acquire authority. William of Malmesbury, Henry of Huntingdon and Geoffrey of Monmouth provide case studies in the deliberate publication of historical writing before the printing press.
Instead of treating the survival and spread of manuscripts simply as evidence of later readers’ interests, the book examines the activities through which authors and their associates introduced texts to an audience. Its idea of a publishing circle brings patrons, institutions and intermediaries into the account of how a work became known.
Each case connects the composition of a history with the practical circumstances of its distribution. The comparison explains how successful publishing activity contributed to the rapid formation of an Anglo-Norman historical canon. It also offers a framework for thinking about authorial agency and the relationship between writing, readership and reputation in medieval manuscript culture.
Jaakko Tahkokallio. The Anglo-Norman Historical Canon: Publishing and Manuscript Culture. Cambridge University Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108624886. Licensed CC BY-NC-ND 4.0; the unchanged original edition and its required notices are retained.