Publishing the Grail in Medieval and Renaissance France. By Leah Tether

• Published in: Library 2018, Vol.19 (3), p.390-392
• Main Author: Stones, Alison
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: Medieval literature; Publishing; Religious literature; Renaissance period
• ISSN: 0024-2160; 1744-8581
• DOI: 10.1093/library/19.3.390

THIS BOOK TAKES A FRESH LOOK at the voluminous Grail texts in manuscripts and printed editions, from Chrétien's Perceval to Perlesvaus, passing through Robert de Boron, the Lancelot‐Grail and the Post‐Vulgate cycle. Writing in a lively and engaging style, Leah Tether masterfully draws together recent scholarship on script to print—here presented as more of a continuum than a sequential break, as already suggested by such scholars as Pearsall, Taylor, Scase, McKitterick, and Clanchy among others. Chapter 1 discusses the difference between ‘publication’ and ‘dissemination’ and the distinction between ‘professional’ and ‘commercial’. Here the expansion of the book‐trade in the thirteenth century is attributed to growing concerns with market principles, the book as a profit‐driven, money‐making commodity, run by marchand‐libraires. We are well‐informed for Paris about how the book‐trade worked and who were the craftspeople involved, thanks to the work of Rouse and Rouse; but we are substantially less well‐informed about how the book‐trade functioned in other regions of France and it is clear to me that the monasteries and lay craftsfolk employed by the cathedrals continued to play a vital role in book production (and illumination) well into the fourteenth century, whether as producers or patrons: Gautier de Coinci, author and producer mentioned here (p. 19, n. 39); Pierart dou Thielt's activity as scribe, illuminator, and binder, and his association with Gilles li Muisis, abbot of Saint‐Martin‐de‐Tournai, another significant case a century later.