The Findern Manuscript
Both male and female members of the Findern circle added their own compositions to the manuscript, which reflect on the themes of fashionable Chaucerian verse.
This is the first critical edition of the thirty-four unique items in the Findern manuscript, Cambridge, University Library MS Ff.1.6. The poems were likely composed and copied in a local network of readers and writers in late medieval Derbyshire.
The poems reflect the literary interests and cultural preoccupations of this audience. They include love complaints, some composed from a woman’s perspective, devotional poems, and a unique translation of a French courtly romance.
Published: 2020
Liverpool University Press, Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies
It was a privilege to edit a manuscript which originated in the late medieval East Midlands, so allowing the voices of men and women who read and composed the poetry it contains, to be heard by new audiences 500 years later.
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