The Digby Poems

The Digby Poems are the twenty-four short lyrics of Oxford Bodleian MS Digby 102—a remarkable sequence of late medieval poetry that until now had only been edited once in its entirety, and that more than a century ago. With this new edition, Helen Barr includes, for the first time, a full critical apparatus, a substantial introduction, and annotation to each of the twenty-four poems in the Digby manuscript. Gathering new evidence that suggests that this sequence was probably written by a Benedictine monk eager to demonstrate his support for the King in the early years of Henry V’s reign, Barr’s critical analysis and historical research brings out the political emphasis of the poems and their place in the tradition of devotional writing. This volume marks the first classroom-oriented edition of the poems and should be of interest to any student of medieval poetry, devotional literature, and historical manuscript studies.