This thesis examines the production of the Middle English poetic manuscript. It analyses the mise-en-page of manuscripts created during a crucial period for book production, immediately after 1400, when there was a sudden explosion in the production of vernacular manuscripts of literary texts, when the demand for books increased, and the commercial book trade swiftly followed. It offers a close analysis of the mise-en-page of the manuscripts of three central authors: Chaucer’s, Gower’s, and Hoccleve’s manuscripts were at the heart of this sudden flourishing and were, crucially, produced when scribal methods for creating the literary page were still unformed. Previous studies have focused on the localised readings produced by single scribes, manuscripts, or authors, offering a limited examination of broader trends. This study offers a wider comparison: where individual studies offer localised analysis, the multi-textuality of this thesis offers broader perceptions of book production and of scribal responses to the new literary texts being produced. In analysing the layout of seventy-six manuscripts, including borders, initials, paraphs, rubrics, running titles, speaker markers, glosses and notes, this thesis argues that scribes were deeply concerned with creating a manuscript page specifically to showcase texts of poetry. The introduction outlines current scholarship on mise-en-page and defines the scribe as one who offers an individual response to the text on the page within the context of the inherited, commercial, and practical practices of layout. The three analytical chapters address the placement of the features of mise-en-page in each of the seventy-six manuscripts, each chapter offering three contrasting manuscript situations. Chapter 1 analyses the manuscripts of Chaucer, who left no plan for the look of his page, causing scribes to make decisions on layout that illuminate fifteenth-century scribal responses to literature. These are then compared to the manuscripts of Gower in Chapter 2, directly or indirectly supervised by the poet, which display rigorous uniformity in their layout. This chapter argues that scribes responded in much the same way, despite the strict control over meaning. Chapter 3 focuses on Hoccleve’s autograph manuscripts which are unique in demonstrating authorial control over layout. This chapter compares the autograph to the non-autograph manuscripts to argue that scribal responses differed from authorial intentions. Each of the three chapters analyses the development of mise-en-page specifically for literary texts. Focussing on the mise-en-page, this thesis is able to compare across a range of texts, manuscripts, scribes, and authors to mount a substantial challenge to current perceptions that poetic manuscripts were laid out in order to assist readers’ understanding of the meaning of the texts they contain. Instead, it argues that though there was a concern with representing the nuances of poetic meaning, often scribal responses to poetry were bound up with presenting poetic form.

The Confessio Amantis, a poem completed in 1393, opens with its author's pledge to: wryte of newe som matiere essampled of these olde wyse [write anew some matter modeled on these old wise books]. Expressing a commonplace among writers of vernacular literature in late medieval England, John Gower describes authorial activity as the process of translating and assimilating pre-existing narratives. This dissertation argues that such conceptualizations of authorship were embraced by illuminators of vernacular literature in their burgeoning notion of invention before the ascendance of print: as translation and compilation provided a model of creativity founded on the alteration of models, illuminators located an ideal congenial to both the restrictions and freedoms of their own profession. The centerpiece of the study is Pierpont Morgan MS M. 126, a manuscript of the Confessio Amantis produced c.1472 and made for Edward IV and his Queen Consort, Elizabeth Woodville. Although it has been acclaimed as one of the most impressive extant manuscripts of Middle English literature, it has never been the subject of a major study. The aim of the dissertation is to recognize and restore to the illustrator the power of his position between the conception of a text and the consumption of a book. Part One focuses on the illustrator's interactions with the textual voices of the Confessio Amantis, demonstrating how the images in nineteen manuscripts of the poem, including the Morgan Confessio, address the identity of the author of the poem (Chapter One); and how miniatures in the Morgan Confessio reinterpret its Ovidian narratives (Chapter Two). Part Two shifts attention to the illustrator's confrontation with his patrons. Although their impact on the production of this manuscript appears to have been minimal, I observe how, as patrons they furnished a visual context for the Morgan Confessio from within their own library of illustrated historical manuscripts (Chapter Three) and books on science (Chapter Four). Produced just before Caxton printed his first book in Westminster in 1476 and standing at the threshold of standardization, this manuscript offers a complex glimpse into the variance that epitomized creative activity in illustrated vernacular manuscripts.

The purpose of this study is to compare the narrative and framing techniques used by Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower. These authors were selected for several reasons. Being contemporaries, they lived through the days of the reign of Richard II, his deposition, and the accession of Henry IV. This was a time change: the age of chivalry and true knighthood was ending; the middle class was establishing commerce, towns, guilds; openly and violently the peasants were beginning to reject their servile positions; the corruption within the organized church was being publicly exposed, and efforts, believed heretical by some, were being made to effect its purification. The discussion in this paper will be limited to the major work of each author. For Gower this is the Confessio Amantis, his only English work of any length; for Chaucer it is the Canterbury Tales, which, incomplete as it is, is generally accepted as the crown jewel of medieval English literature. The discussion wil be limited further to the framing and linking devices and to the four tales which appear in both books: "Constance" (Man of Law's tale), "Florent" (Wife of Bath's tale), "Phebus and Cornide" (Manciple's tale), and "Virginia" (Physician's tales).

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Se propusieron innovaciones en la predicción espacio y espacio-temporal, a partir de métodos geoestadísticos y de funciones de base radial (RBF), considerando métodos basados en distancias. En este sentido, por medio de las distancias entre las variables explicativas, incorporadas específicamente en la regresión basada en distancias, se propusieron modificaciones en: el método kriging universal y en la interpolación con splines espacial y espacio-temporal usando las RBF. El método basado en la distancia se utiliza en un modelo Geoestadístico para estimar la tendencia y la estructura de covarianza. Esta estrategia aprovecha al máximo la información existente, debido a la relación entre las observaciones, mediante el uso de una descomposición espectral de una distancia seleccionada y las coordenadas principales correspondientes. Para el método propuesto kriging universal basado en distancias (DBUK), se realizó un estudio de simulación que permitió comparar la capacidad predictiva del método tradicional kriging universal con respecto a kriging universal basado en distancias; mientras que en la interpolación con Splines espacial y espacio-temporal, los estudios de simulación permitieron comparar el funcionamiento de las funciones de base radial espaciales y espaciotemporales, considerando en la tendencia las coordenadas principales generadas a partir de las variables explicativas mixtas mediante el uso del método basado en distancias. El método propuesto DBUK muestra, tanto en las simulaciones como en las aplicaciones, ventajas en la reducción del error con respecto al método clásico de krigeado universal. Esta reducción de los errores se asocia a una mejor modelización de la tendencia y a un menor error en el ajuste y modelado del variograma, al considerar las coordenadas principales obtenidas a partir de las variables explicativas mixtas. Entre muchas otras posibles causas, el error es generado por omisión de variables y por considerar formas funcionales incorrectas. El estudio de simulación muestra que el método propuesto DBUK es mejor que el método de krigeado universal tradicional ya que se encontró una notoria reducción del error, asociada a un RMSPE más pequeño, esta reducción en general fue superior al 10%. El método DBUK podrá producir una mejor estimación de la variable regionalizada si el número de coordenadas principales se incrementa. Esto es posible, incluyendo las coordenadas principales más significativas tanto en modelo de tendencia como en el variograma; se presenta una aplicación que ilustra este hecho. Los métodos propuestos de interpolación espacial basada en distancias con RBF (DBSIRBF) e interpolación espacio-temporal basada en distancias con RBF (DBSTIRBF) analizados mediante una estructura de krigeado considerando en la tendencia las coordenadas principales, presentan un buen funcionamiento al trabajar con vecindarios grandes, indicando en general que se tendrá un menor error asociado a un RMSPE más pequeño En diversos estudios, la detección de variabilidad entre zonas es una tarea muy difícil, y por lo cual los métodos propuestos DBUK, DBSIRBF y DBSTIRBF son útiles de acuerdo a los resultados obtenidos en la tesis, ya que aprovechan al máximo la información existente asociada a las variables explicativas. Aunque la correlación de las variables explicativas puede ser baja con respecto a la variable respuesta, el punto clave en los métodos propuestos es la correlación entre las coordenadas principales (construida con las variables explicativas) y la variable respuesta. Los métodos propuestos se aplicaron a datos agronómicos (Concentración de calcio medido a una profundidad de 0-20 cm de Brasil) y climatológicos (Temperaturas medias diarias de la Tierra en Croacia en el año 2008). Los resultados de validación cruzada “leave-one-out” mostraron un buen rendimiento de los predictores propuestos, lo cual indica que se pueden utilizar como métodos alternos y validos a los tradicionales para el modelado de variables correlacionadas espacialmente y espacio-temporalmente, considerando siempre covariables en la remoción de la tendencia. / Space-time geostatistical analysis based on distances and splines with applications. Innovations were proposed in the space and space-time prediction, based on geostatistical methods and radial basis function (RBF), considering distance-based methods. In this sense, through the distances between the explanatory variables, specifically incorporated in the regression based on distances, changes were proposed in: the universal kriging and interpolation with space and space-time splines using RBF. The distance-based method is used in a geostatistical model to estimate the trend and the covariance structure. This strategy takes full advantage of existing information, because of the relationship between the observations, using a spectral decomposition of a selected distance and the corresponding principal coordinates. For the universal kriging method proposed based on distances (DBUK), we performed a simulation study, which allowed to compare the predictive capacity of traditional universal kriging over universal kriging based on distances. The simulation study shows that the proposed method DBUK, is better than the traditional universal kriging method and was found a marked reduction of error associated with a smaller RMSPE, this reduction was generally greater than 10%. Spatial and spatio-temporal spline interpolation in simulation studies possible to compare the performance of space and spatio-temporal radial basis functions, considering the trend in the principal coordinates generated from the mixed explanatory variables using the method based distances. The proposed spatial interpolation methods based on distances with RBF (DBSIRBF) and spatio-temporal interpolation based on distances RBF (DBSTIRBF) analyzed through kriging structure whereas in the trend the principal coordinates, show good performance when working with large neighborhoods, indicating that in general will have less error associated with a smaller RMSPE. The key point in the proposed methods is the correlation between the principal coordinates (constructed with the explanatory variables) and the response variable. The proposed methods were applied to agronomic data (concentration of calcium measured at a depth of 0-20 cm from Brazil) and climatological (average daily temperature of the Earth in Croatia in 2008). The results of cross-validation "leave-one-out" showed a good performance of the proposed predictors, indicating that can be used as alternative methods to traditional and valid for the modeling of spatially correlated variables in space and time, always considering covariates in the removal of the trend.

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Translations of works containing Arabic and ancient Greek knowledge of the philosophical and mechanical underpinnings of the natural world—a field of study called natural philosophy—were disseminated throughout twelfth-century England. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, institutional (ecclesiastical/university) scholars received and further developed this natural philosophical knowledge by reconciling it with Christian authoritative sources (the Bible and works by the Church Fathers). The subsequent discourse that developed demonstrated ambivalence towards natural philosophical knowledge; institutional scholars expressed both acceptance and anxiety regarding the theory and practice of alchemy, astrology/astronomy, and humoral/astrological medicine. While the institutional development and discourse surrounding natural philosophical thought is well-represented within medieval scholarship, an examination of the transmission and reception of this institutional discourse by broader sectors of English medieval society is needed. Examining fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English public writings, texts, and copies of Latin works provides an important avenue of analysis when exploring the transmission and reception of institutional natural philosophical discourse to the laity. By comparing the similarities of discourse evident between the institutional and lay texts and the textual approaches the Middle English writers employed to incorporate this discourse, these works demonstrate that the spheres of institutional and lay knowledge traditionally separated by medieval historians overlapped as the clerics and laity began sharing a similar understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of the natural world.

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Satire and counsel recur together in the secular literature of the High and Late Middle Ages. I analyze their collocation in Latin, Old Occitan, and Middle English texts from the twelfth to the fifteenth century in works by Walter Map, Alan of Lille, John of Salisbury, Daniel of Beccles, John Gower, William of Poitiers, Thomas Hoccleve, and John Skelton. As types of discourse, satire and counsel resemble each other in the way they reproduce scenarios of social interaction. Authors combine satire and counsel to reproduce these scenarios according to the protocols of real-life social interaction. Informed by linguistic pragmatics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics and cultural anthropology, I examine the relational rhetoric of these texts to uncover a sometimes complex and reflective ethical discourse on power which sometimes implicates itself in the practices it condemns. The dissertation draws throughout on sociolinguistic methods for examining verbal interaction between unequals, and assesses what this focus can contribute to recent scholarly debates on the interrelation of social and literary practices in the later Middle Ages. In the first chapter I introduce the concepts and methodologies that inform this dissertation through a detailed consideration of Distinction One of Walter Map’s De nugis curialium . While looking at how Walter Map combines discourses of satire and counsel to negotiate a new social role for the learned cleric at court, I advocate treating satire as a mode of expression more general than ‘literary’ genre and introduce the iii theories and methods that inform my treatment of literary texts as social interaction, considering also how these approaches can complement new historicist interpretation. Chapter two looks at how twelfth-century authors of didactic poetry appropriate relational discourses from school and household to claim the authoritative roles of teacher and father. In the third chapter, I focus on texts that depict relations between princes and courtiers, especially the Prologue of the Confessio Amantis which idealizes its author John Gower as an honest counselor and depicts King Richard II (in its first recension) as receptive to honest counsel. The fourth chapter turns to poets with the uncertain social identities of literate functionaries at court. Articulating their alienation and satirizing the ploys of courtiers—including even satire itself—Thomas Hoccleve in the Regement of Princes and John Skelton in The Bowge of Court undermine the satirist-counselor’s claim to authenticity. In concluding, I consider how this study revises understanding of the genre of satire in the Middle Ages and what such an approach might contribute to the study of Jean de Meun and Geoffrey Chaucer.

Satire and counsel recur together in the secular literature of the High and Late Middle Ages. I analyze their collocation in Latin, Old Occitan, and Middle English texts from the twelfth to the fifteenth century in works by Walter Map, Alan of Lille, John of Salisbury, Daniel of Beccles, John Gower, William of Poitiers, Thomas Hoccleve, and John Skelton. As types of discourse, satire and counsel resemble each other in the way they reproduce scenarios of social interaction. Authors combine satire and counsel to reproduce these scenarios according to the protocols of real-life social interaction. Informed by linguistic pragmatics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics and cultural anthropology, I examine the relational rhetoric of these texts to uncover a sometimes complex and reflective ethical discourse on power which sometimes implicates itself in the practices it condemns. The dissertation draws throughout on sociolinguistic methods for examining verbal interaction between unequals, and assesses what this focus can contribute to recent scholarly debates on the interrelation of social and literary practices in the later Middle Ages. In the first chapter I introduce the concepts and methodologies that inform this dissertation through a detailed consideration of Distinction One of Walter Map’s De nugis curialium . While looking at how Walter Map combines discourses of satire and counsel to negotiate a new social role for the learned cleric at court, I advocate treating satire as a mode of expression more general than ‘literary’ genre and introduce the iii theories and methods that inform my treatment of literary texts as social interaction, considering also how these approaches can complement new historicist interpretation. Chapter two looks at how twelfth-century authors of didactic poetry appropriate relational discourses from school and household to claim the authoritative roles of teacher and father. In the third chapter, I focus on texts that depict relations between princes and courtiers, especially the Prologue of the Confessio Amantis which idealizes its author John Gower as an honest counselor and depicts King Richard II (in its first recension) as receptive to honest counsel. The fourth chapter turns to poets with the uncertain social identities of literate functionaries at court. Articulating their alienation and satirizing the ploys of courtiers—including even satire itself—Thomas Hoccleve in the Regement of Princes and John Skelton in The Bowge of Court undermine the satirist-counselor’s claim to authenticity. In concluding, I consider how this study revises understanding of the genre of satire in the Middle Ages and what such an approach might contribute to the study of Jean de Meun and Geoffrey Chaucer.