Charlotte Ross

Thesis title: A Circulation, Transmission, and Reception History of Thomas Hoccleve’s The Regiment of Princes

Supervisors: Professor Daniel Wakelin; Professor 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 manuscripts of Thomas Hoccleve's longest and most famous work, The Regiment of Princes. My thesis uses a combination of codicology and literary analysis to view scribal manuscripts of Hoccleve's works as a mirror for late medieval English readership and literary culture. 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 text and what this tells us about late medieval attitudes towards literature. 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.

My project is generously funded by the Anne Hudson Scholarship, in association with the English Faculty and Lady Margaret Hall. This was made possible by the support of Professor Anne Hudson, University Lecturer in the Faculty and Tutorial Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall from 1963 and Professor of Medieval English at the Faculty from 1989-2003. An awe-inspiring medieval scholar and eminent female academic, it is a privilege to be associated with her legacy. 

Forthcoming publications:

• 'Lost in Transcription: A New Textual Tradition of Thomas Hoccleve’s Letter of Cupid', Studies in the Age of Chaucer (forthcoming December 2024).
• Charlotte Ross and Daniel Wakelin, 'Three Collaborative Scribes of Chaucer, Hoccleve, and Romance', Journal of the Early Book Society, 27 (forthcoming 2024).
• 'The Curious Gilt Leather Binding of MS Ashmole 46', Bodleian Library Record, 37 (forthcoming, early 2025)

Book Reviews:

• 'Michael Johnston, The Middle English Book: Scribes and Readers, 1350–1500', The Review of English Studies (2023): 887–889.

Published Catalogues of Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries:

• MS. Ashmole 39 (2024)
• MS. Ashmole 45 (2024)
• MS. Ashmole 828 (2024)
• MS. Rawl. poet. 163 (2024)
• MS. Ashmole 41 (2023)
• MS. Ashmole 46 (2023)
• MS. Ashmole 59 (2023)
• MS. Ashmole 1404 (2023)
• MS. Arch. Selden. B. 24 (2022)
• MS. Ashmole 34 (2022)
• MS. Ashmole 40 (2022)
• MS. Digby 181 (2022)
• MS. Rawl. poet. 32 (2022)
• MS. Tanner 346 (2021)