Anne Bulkeley and her Book

This study is focused on bl ms Harley 494, a small manuscript book which can be dated between 1532 and 1535 and which has many of the features of a preces privatae volume, or private prayer book. It contains prayers in English and Latin but also a number of brief devotional treatises in English. ms Harley 494 possesses two more features of interest: it belonged to a Hampshire widow, Anne Bulkeley (and possibly later to her daughter Anne, a nun at Amesbury Priory); and it emerged from a Birgittine textual community. Barratt edits and annotates the complete manuscript to provide an accessible and informative edition of this little known manuscript. However, Anne Bulkeley and her Book is not a conventional edition of a late Middle English text. Rather, Barratt carefully contextualizes the manuscript within its historical background just before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and meticulously investigates the varied, and often unusual, sources of many of the individual items in the book. In addition, the discussion encompasses several related manuscripts (principally Lambeth Palace ms 3600 and the so-called Burnet Psalter (Aberdeen University Library ms 25)). This broad focus enables the volume to examine not only the evolution of the manuscript as a whole, but also to answer wider questions of its owner’s identity, her family connections, and her (and her book’s) place in literary, cultural, and religious history.