ABSTRACT
Oxford Bodleian Library Ms. English Poetry a. 1., best known as the Vernon manuscript, is a remarkable compilation of Middle English vernacular literature, providing students of medieval devotional culture with evidence of the rich generic breadth and stylistic compass of English texts available to fourteenth-century lay readers. 1 The manuscript is unusual in size (403 items), generic inclusiveness, and high degree of English content. 2 It displays little evidence of contemporary theological debates about Lollards, interest in theological scholasticism, or even the continental ecstatic or mystical texts such as we see in Margery Kempe's Book and other spiritual literature. 3 Although much exciting work is being done in medieval devotional culture on marginal and heretical groups in late-medieval England, the Vernon manuscript offers little to that conversation. 4 Rather, the manuscript exemplifies a rich vernacular theology through popularized doctrinal discourse and a repertoire of symbols familiar from homilies and exempla, miracles, homiletic romances, lyrics, and disputation literature, much of it of thirteenth-century origin. The Vernon manuscript's doctrinal and spiritual program is in keeping with the lay educational directives of the Fourth Lateran Council's Omnius utriusque sexus in its focus on prayer, the commandments, sacraments, and works of mercy, disseminated in England as early as 1219 through Richard Poore's Statutes of Salisbury. 5
