Simple books for devout readers: Recovering a fifteenth-century middle English genre

This project recovers an overlooked fifteenth-century genre using a methodology informed by Object-Oriented Ontology. I collected fourteen manuscripts based on shared core features—portable size, small text box, textualis-leaning script, simple layout, primarily black ink with sparse yet helpful rubrication, and few or no illustrations. I argue that these books constitute a Middle English devotional genre, which I call the Simple Book. All of these books not only share a format, they also share similar types of devotional texts, and ultimately the format and texts work in tandem to create a humble, devotional reading experience. The Simple Book offered a rich, meaningful, and complete devotional reading program to readers with limited means. It defines itself by its use, both in its physical presentation to readers and in its narrative structuring, which I describe as both “welcoming” and “friendly.” By illustrating how a shift from named entities (title, author) to physical affordances makes anonymous texts and their readers legible, this materials-first approach to Middle English devotional manuscripts suggests alternate ways to address the problematically unwieldy genre of the “devotional miscellany.