Abstract: The compilers of Harley 2253 and Harley 913, though ostensibly separated by the Irish Sea, shared a special taste for narratorial complexity (otherwise scarce in most other collections), and shared, via Southwest Midlands migration patterns to Ireland, a great deal of poetic culture. This article builds, in particular, on Carter Revard's brilliant perceptions about "self-satirizing" or "self-confessing" narrators, examining poems like Harley 2253's Trailbaston, A Goliard's Feast , and Ordre de bel ayse in relation to poems like Harley 913's Land of Cockaygne and more. It argues that the Harley 2253 compiler's choice of French poems reflects the snobbery of a reactionary francophone class, and that class mattered to him—not only because he was a member of the clerical proletariat, but also because he was very comfortable composing in French. It shows that the English poems in both manuscripts tend to express more social egalitarian instincts.
Kathryn Kerby-Fulton (Wed,) studied this question.