Title

Manuscript fragment of Kyng Alisaunder

Heading

Fertile literary ground

Description

Printing did not enter England in a literary vacuum. Literary, historical, theological and scientific manuscripts abounded before Caxton; what printing did was to broaden and cheapen circulation. This sheet is from the Auchinleck manuscript, a Middle English manuscript produced by commercial scribes in London in the 1330s. The entire manuscript contains works of various genres, from saints’ lives and legends to a bawdy fabliau. It is most famous for the romances it contains, and this sample is part of a verse romance about Alexander the Great.

The Gothic script (textualis) and the blue and red paragraph marks which assist readers to navigate the text are features which were carried over from manuscripts into incunabula, to give the new technology a familiar appearance.

Exhibition Section

The BeginningsSee all items with this value

Place of Publication

London

Date of Publication

ca 1330-1340

Century

14th

Illustrations

n/a