Performing Manuscript Culture: Poetry, Materiality, and Authorship in Thomas Hoccleve's "Regement of Princes"

This study conceives of Thomas Hoccleve’s Regement of Princes (1410-1413) as an essentially performative text, one that expresses its awareness of the manuscript culture in which it is so firmly rooted. The openness of manuscripts is a recurring subject in the Regement and is not only expressed through mere descriptions of, but through complex references to this manuscript context.

Performances of manuscript culture manifest themselves in several aspects of the text. The first is the narra...