Gestures of Authorship in Medieval English Historiography: The Case of Robert Mannyng of Brunne Nicole Nyffenegger The textual presence of the authorial persona in medieval historiography is circumscribed by intra- and intertextual issues of authority and power. The importance attributed to the auctores, on the one hand, necessitates constant negotiations of authority. This is done, among other strategies, by a strong emphasis on the physicality of the source as a book, as an object to be handled and controlled by the author. This move is further extended by the inscription into the work of the processes involved in its creation, such as the search for, evaluation of and selection from the source text, thus simultaneously establishing and undermining the source’s authority. On the other hand, authors, in a sort of “mise-en- abyme,” empower themselves when they write about writing (for exam- ple the exchange of letters between potentates) as a powerful and em- powering element within their histories. Working with different epi- sodes from chronicles of the Brut tradition, especially Robert Mannyng’s chronicle, I will focus on these two divergent yet related gestures of au- thorship as they appear in medieval English historiography. 1 In the afternoon of Friday, 15 May 1338, Robert Mannyng of Brunne has a problem. He is just concluding his work of English history and is rather worried about what will happen to it once it leaves his hands. Will someone else read it, aloud or in private, and in so doing appropriate the “I” in the text for himself? Will someone call it “my book”when refer- ring to it as a source, virtually seizing the sourcebook and usurping its 1 I want to thank the participants of the Geneva “Medieval and Early Modern Author- ship” conference for the many invaluable insights and especially for the concept of “ges- tures of authorship” which I have adopted for this article. Medieval and Early Modern Authorship. SPELL: Swiss Papers in English Language and Lit- erature 25. Ed. Guillemette Bolens and Lukas Erne. Tübingen: Narr, 2011. 265-276. Lizenziert für Gast am 28.11.2021 um 23:41 Uhr Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG