Tradition and Innovation in Later Medieval English Manuscripts

In Tradition and Innovation in Later Medieval English Manuscripts, Kathleen L. Scott takes an in-depth look at five highly significant and previously unstudied medieval manuscripts. Each of these works exhibits the beautiful illustration characteristic of the period, and with reproductions of over a hundred of the images from these manuscripts, this book is as visually stunning as it is informative.
            All five of these manuscripts represent important keys to our understanding of the history of medieval English culture, and Scott’s book is packed with exciting new findings. She uncovers artistic connections to several other noteworthy books of the period and makes the discovery that one of the manuscripts contains a model for Nicholas of Lyra’s influential commentary Postilla litteralis. The other manuscripts featured include unique English miniatures of the Bible, a Benedictional, the Abbey of the Holy Ghost, and Peter of Poitiers’s genealogical chronicle. Scott’s expertise, as well as the high quality of the images, makes this book essential for medieval scholars.

Kathleen L. Scott is general editor of An Index of Images in English Manuscripts c. 1380–c. 1509 and the author of Dated and Datable Medieval English Borders, also published by the British Library.

“With few exceptions, late-medieval book decoration of English execution or use has attracted very little critical attention. . . . [Kathleen] Scott is the only scholar ever to have surveyed the bulk of the surviving material, and her work in the field has been consistently of a pioneering character. Tradition and Innovation is thoroughly in that vein. . . . A lucid sense of what will interest a historically minded audience . . . contributes heavily to an important, readable, and handsomely produced book.”