Charlotte Ross

Thesis title: A Transmission and Reception History of Thomas Hoccleve’s Non-Autograph Manuscripts in the Fifteenth Century

Supervisors: Professor Daniel Wakelin; Dr Nicholas Perkins

Research Interests: Medieval Literature; codicology; History of the Book; Late Medieval; Middle English poetry; manuscript studies; scribal craft

My current DPhil research concerns the transmission and reception of Thomas Hoccleve's works in late medieval non-autograph manuscripts. My thesis uses a combination of codicology and literary analysis to view scribal manuscripts of Hoccleve's works as a mirror for fifteenth century readership. Hoccleve studies have historically been heavily author-centred, however I am interested in the ways in which scribes and readers engaged with, or disengaged with, Hoccleve's texts and what this tells us about late medieval literary practices. My research explores both Hoccleve’s role in this literary context and the extent to which Hocclevean manuscripts depart from, or conform to, the norms of the literary and codicological cultures in which their author participates.