Living Through a Library: Reviving Margaret of York’s Manuscripts Through The Lens of The Bookscape

Abstract

In this thesis, the bookscape of Margaret of York (1446-1503) will be explored. Margaret created a library of roughly thirty manuscripts, mostly consisting of moral-devotional texts. Previous research has focussed mostly on those individual manuscripts, and what they might have meant to her on a personal level, resulting in a characterisation of Margaret as a pious woman in favour of reading these devotional manuscripts. This analysis does not permit looking beyond the traditional perspective on book history, since a book owned was not a book read. In this thesis, the methodology of the book-historical landscape, or bookscape, is applied to research Margaret’s library from a new viewpoint. Consequently, Margaret’s manuscripts were vessels of agency and power, and less intensively a mirror of her identity. Margaret acquired manuscripts through her own commissions, or in other indirect ways. She guaranteed the branding of the manuscripts with her identity markings, claiming them as her own. Margaret also secured a notable provenance by bequeathing manuscripts from renowned libraries. She would use her manuscripts in both devotional, educational and prestigious ways, and when it served her best, she would pass them along to institutions and individuals in order to align herself to a social, religious, and political network. Her manuscripts were not just indications of her identity, but they were also instruments of authority and connection.