Teachers and students of medieval literature long faced a problem that people studying other literary periods did not: the scant availability of texts.
Thatâs not because there wasnât plenty of literature produced in the Middle Ages or because not much survived. The problem was access.
Publishing medieval texts isnât like offering editions of literary works created after the advent of the printing press. âEverything was copied by hand in the Middle Ages, and so every medieval copy is different. And we almost never have the copy that was written by the author. We just have copies of copies of copies,â says , director of the University of Rochesterâs and .
Each copy introduces difference. The scribes made mistakes or repeated words as they carried out the grueling work of copying. When working in languages they did not know, they sometimes introduced misspellings or substituted one word for another. Words, sentences, and even paragraphs might be omitted from a particular copy.
Scholars of medieval literature have traditionally had to travel to different archives to compare copiesâand, if publishing an edition, decide which of the copies is most authoritative and create the notes and context that explain the differences between the various manuscript copies. German scholars took on a lot of this work 200 years ago.
âThe German editions, they were made for experts by experts. Theyâre often from the 19th century. Theyâre hard to use and hard to find,â says Siebach-Larsen. As a result, undergraduates studying medieval literature were largely confined to the textsâfrequently, just excerptsâavailable in anthologies. The narrow slice of medieval literature that achieved canonical status shut out âmany of the widely circulated texts and authors that medieval people actually read and shared,â she says.
It left studentsâand anyone else interested in medieval literature but outside the scholarly community or without access to a world-class libraryâhigh and dry.
âChanging the study of Middle English literatureâ
, for more than 50 years a Rochester faculty member and now a professor emeritus of English, knew there had to be a better way. In 1990, working with the Teaching Association for Medieval Studies (TEAMS, of which he is a founding member), he established the . It offers free digital and affordable print editions of a wide range of medieval writing.
âIt completely changed the study of Middle English literature,â says Peck, the general editor for the series, as he looks back over 30 years of work.
Long history of leadership in medieval studies
The University is home to several other digital projects on medieval life and literature: the , the , the , and .
The Early Worlds Initiative, established in 2017, builds on Rochesterâs long-standing strength in the study of medieval and early modern cultures. Itâs an interdisciplinary research project at Rochester that extends from the 5th to 18th centuries and strives to move beyond the limitations and biases of research conducted in the US and the UK to achieve a truly global perspective.
A comprehensive collection of materials
The personal collection of Rossell Hope Robbins provided the nucleus for the Robbins Library, which contains comprehensive holdings across medieval history, literature, art, and culture. The library continues to be funded by Rossell Hope and Helen Ann Mins Robbinsâs endowed gift.
An internationally regarded expert on medieval author John Gowerâa friend and contemporary of Geoffrey ChaucerâsâRussell Peck, a professor emeritus of English, was instrumental in establishing the collection at ĚÇĐÄlogo where he has helped propel the University to a place of prominence in the world of medieval studies.
Siebach-Larsen, who holds a PhD in medieval studies from Notre Dame, used METS texts herself as a student. âMETS democratizes access,â she says. âIt puts the literature out there for everybody.â And by offering a more complete view of the literary period, the series has helped âtransform our understanding and study of medieval culture,â she adds.
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) recently awarded the project a three-year grant to support its mission of offering the broadest possible readershipâfrom specialists to undergraduates and high school students to people simply curious about the Middle Agesâaccess to the full range of literary output from medieval England. The latest award extends a long history of support for the project from the NEH.
âMETS takes as its mission the creation of affordable editions that would pass scrutiny from the most demanding expert, yet would prove comprehensible, and even enticing, to someone who had never read Middle English before,â the team wrote in its application for support from the NEH.
Tools of the trade
Each volume in the series offers both the scholarly apparatus demanded by researchers and the tools that help a novice understand the text: glosses and facing-page translations, textual and explanatory notes, contexts and background.
âa professor of English, the consulting editor to METS, and the principal investigator for the NEH grantâsays the series âoffers the richest portal into the Middle Ages to the largest number of people with the widest range of interests and expertise of anything that exists out there.â
Among the many titles METS has published are William Caxtonâs The Game and Playe of the Chesse, a chessboard-inspired allegory about contributions to the common good; Prik of Conscience, among the most popular medieval English poems; and the Complete Harley 2235 Manuscriptâone of the most important literary books to survive from the Middle Ages, itâs a rich collection, in three languages, of lyric poetry, satire, comedies, collected sayings, and more.
METS is a partnership between TEAMS, scholars in the field, Rochesterâs , and the River Campus Libraries, in particular, the Robbins Libraryâthe Universityâs medieval studies libraryâand the Information Discovery Team, along with the Digital Scholarship Lab and other library metadata and IT experts.
Individual volume editors are scholars from around the world, supported by METSâs own editorial team, which includes Rochester graduate students and undergraduates. The students hone their skills in paleographyâthe study of handwritingâand copy-editing, and acquire a wide range of digital humanities skills. The project is a âsource for both intellectual rigor and growth and marketable, career-driven skills,â says Hahn.
A âlifelineâ for scholarship and teaching
Ninety-five volumes have been published online and in print, offering todayâs readers more than a thousand texts. The series includes prose, poetry, drama, travel writing, devotional literature, autobiography, and other formsâall from the British Isles between the 12th and 16th centuries. The online texts, hosted on the River Campus Librariesâ website, generate about half a million hits per year. Online readers are predominantly from the US and the UK but also come from about 135 countries and a wide variety of language groups around the world.
The multilingual dimension of METS is now central. The series has broadened its focus to include many of the languages in use in medieval Britain, including all the dialects of English, Older Scots, Welsh, Anglo-Irish, Anglo-Norman, and Continental French.
Among the tasks ahead for the creators of the series is an overhaul of its digital editionsâan effort already well underwayâto improve sustainability as well as access and possibilities for future users. The age of COVID-19 has demonstrated how critical such multimodal, user-friendly interfaces are.
âThis pandemic has only made more clear how important METSâs dedication to open access is,â says Siebach-Larsen. âWe have heard from researchers and instructors around the world that METSâs digital editions have been a lifeline for their scholarship and teaching.â
Read more
Going beyond medieval times to explore early worldsThe interdisciplinary Early Worlds Initiative aims to help faculty, researchers, students, and even the general public delve deeper into the complex field of medieval studies.
Managed by the Robbins Library, the digital project makes accessible to scholars and students postmedieval illustrated versions of the work of medieval poet Geoffrey Chaucer.
Russell Peck honored by Medieval Academy of America
â[Russell] Peck has made extraordinarily important contributions to the field of medieval studies,â noted the executive director of the Medieval Academy as the longtime professor of English received the academyâs award for outstanding service in 2015.
