London Governance and Middle English Literature: Pathways to Impact

林恩·穆尼教授和埃斯特尔·斯塔布斯博士（注册教授）分别是AHRC研究基金的PI和RA，《2007- 2011年负责抄写中世纪文学主要作品的抄写员鉴定》在他们的研究过程中有了一个了不起的发现：几乎所有杰弗里·乔叟和他同时代的14世纪晚期和15世纪早期的伦敦作家的作品的最早手稿都是由伦敦市政厅最高官僚机构的人抄写的。例如，负责乔叟《坎特伯雷故事集》最早的四份手稿的两位抄写员（每人写了两份手稿）都曾在市政厅担任职员，一个是办公室办事员，然后是普通办事员，另一个是记录员。通过追踪这些人的生活记录，穆尼和斯塔布斯进一步发现，他们是伦敦市民中一个派别的成员，在14世纪末和15世纪初的伦敦，他们似乎主张在商业和治理中使用英语，而不是法语或拉丁语。因此，他们的文学模仿可能与他们主张英语是英国人的语言有关。穆尼和斯塔布斯在2013年为学术界出版了一本书，但这些关于谁是在英国历史上这个关键的语言时期复制和传播乔叟及其同时代人文学作品的有影响力的人的发现，将比这本书的学术历史学家更让人感兴趣。通过与保存这些发现的记录的伦敦大都会档案馆（LMA）的合作，我们现在将把这些新发现的范围扩大到更广泛的非学术受众，使公众对中世纪伦敦文学和政府感兴趣，并提高伦敦大都会档案馆的形象。伦敦大都会档案馆将与我们合作，将这些发现传播给伦敦地区更广泛的学校学习者和成年人。LMA与200多所学校合作，主要在大伦敦地区，并且已经运行了大约12年的学校项目。LMA的工作人员将为学校的文学、历史、戏剧和艺术学科协调与这些发现相关的资源学习材料的制作，Stubbs和Mooney提供来自ahrc资助的研究的想法和信息。这些会议将涉及国家课程以及伦敦市长新推出的伦敦课程。这种伙伴关系将使LMA能够围绕中世纪历史和文学的专业主题扩展他们的服务，展示其与今天的相关性。作为该项目的一部分而制定的会议将被纳入LMA的常规方案，从而确保其遗产。我们还建议为成年人提供更好的设施，以使用穆尼和斯塔布斯的研究结果所依据的档案材料，通过数字化图像，并在伦敦大都会档案馆的阅览室提供这些材料。这将促进对这些惊人文件的访问，同时确保原件得到安全保存。伦敦大都会档案馆还为成人学习者举办学校参观和活动，与艺术家和书籍制作工艺专业人士（书法家、装订工等）合作，在本项目期间及之后，这些活动将与AHRC研究项目中穆尼和斯塔布斯的发现联系起来。成果将包括学校的学习资源材料、自学包、自助导游地图以及LMA阅读和教育室中可访问的数字化文件，所有这些都将在项目完成后很长一段时间内继续使用。

Professor Linne Mooney and Dr Estelle Stubbs (RA) were PI and RA on the major AHRC research grant, Identification of the Scribes Responsible for Copying Major Works of Middle English Literature, 2007-11, made a remarkable discovery in the course of their research: almost all of the earliest manuscripts of works by Geoffrey Chaucer and his contemporary late fourteenth and early fifteenth-century London writers were copied by men who held the highest bureaucratic offices at the London Guildhall. For instance, the two scribes responsible for the four earliest manuscripts of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (writing two manuscripts each) were both employed as clerks in the Guildhall, one as Chamber Clerk and then Common Clerk, and the other as Recorder's Clerk. Tracing records of the lives of these men, Mooney and Stubbs further discovered that they were members of a faction of London citizenry who appear to have advocated the use of English, as opposed to French or Latin, in the conduct of business and governance in London in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Thus their literary copying may have been linked to their advocacy of English as the language of Englishmen. Mooney and Stubbs published a book for academics in 2013, but these discoveries about who were the men of influence who copied and disseminated the literary writings of Chaucer and his contemporaries in this crucial linguistic period of English history will be of interest to many more people than academic historians of the book. Through collaboration with the London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) where the records upon which the discoveries were based are kept, we will now extend the reach of these new findings to a wider non-academic audience, to interest the general public in medieval London literature and government, and to increase the profile of the London Metropolitan Archives.London Metropolitan Archives will work in partnership with us to disseminate these findings to a wider audience of school learners and adults in the London area. LMA works with over 200 schools, mostly in Greater London, and has been running a schools programme for about twelve years. The staff of LMA will coordinate the production of resource learning materials related to these findings for the school subjects of literature, history, drama and art, with Stubbs and Mooney providing ideas and information from the AHRC-funded research. These sessions will relate to the National Curriculum and also to the Mayor of London's newly emerging London Curriculum. This partnership will enable LMA to extend their offer around the specialist subject of medieval history and literature, demonstrating its relevance today. Sessions developed as part of this project would be embedded in LMA's regular programmes, thus ensuring its legacy.We also propose to develop better facilities for adults to use the archival materials around which Mooney and Stubbs's findings were based through digitizing images of them and making these available in the reading rooms of the London Metropolitan Archives. This will promote access to these amazing documents while ensuring that the originals are safely preserved. London Metropolitan Archives also hosts school visits and events for adult learners in association with artists and professionals in the crafts of book production (calligraphers, book-binders, etc.) which for the duration of this project and beyond will be linked to the discoveries of Mooney and Stubbs in the AHRC Research Project. Outcomes will include learning resource materials for schools, self-learning packs, maps for self-guided tours, and digitized documents accessible in the LMA reading and education rooms, all of which will continue to be used long after completion of the project.