MARGINAL ANNOTATION IN MEDIEVAL ROMANCE MANUSCRIPTS

ut provides an additional emphasis on the fact that these letters are in fact documents,
partaking in discourses of historical authority.
The series, beginning with notes on the fall of Thebes, and progressing through
the Athenian correspondence and a subsequent council, unrolls as follows:
f. 54v, at Smithers, Alisaunder, 1:158.2825: “The sainge of þ\e/
harper to Alexan”
55r, at 160.2864: “The towne destro[y] | ed · the people | Slayne”
55r, at 164.2907: “Alexanders L[etter] 369 | to the athens & | his
demande”
55v, at 164.2925: “There aunswer | to Alex Letter”
55v, at 166.2957: “Another Letter | sent to the Athens”
56r, at 168.2986: “The sainge of the | Emperoure”
56r, at 168.2994: “Aristotels consalle”
56r, at 168.2996: “A description | what Alexandre | hath wonne ·”
56r, at 168.3010: “war”
56v, at 170.3021: “nota”
56v, at 170.3023: “Dabnadas | sainge” 370
56v, at 170.3029: “pretty sainge”
56v, at 172.3057: “Themperors | sainge to | Dalmadas”
56v, at 172.3064: “Demostines | sainge”
57r, at 174.3091: “Dalmadas repl[y] | to Demostines”
Once again, it must be emphasized that the notes highlight form rather than content. And
it is not because there is nothing of interest in these letters. Alexander, in his first letter,
369 The text here has fallen victim to fading, as well as the re-binder’s knife.
370 “Dabnadas” is the name appearing in the adjacent text, but the character is likely identical with
the one later named as “Dalmadas,” in both text and accompanying notes. Indeed, the reading of the
adjacent line as it appears in Oxford, Bodleian MS Laud Misc. 622 is “After hym spaak Dalmadas”
(Smithers, Alisaunder, 1:171.337; my emphasis). The name Dabnadas is not used again in Lincoln’s Inn
150, with the character silently changing to Dalmadas at ibid., 1:172.3058. The switch seems to have
confused the Hand B annotator, who places a note (“Themperors sainge to Dalmadas”) at this point,
although the emperor does not in fact speak again. The likeliest explanation for this apparent marginal
nonsequitur is that the Hand B annotator has lost track of the speaker at this point, and is struggling to
incorporate what he views as the “new” character of Dalmadas into the rhythm of the dialogue. The
consequences of this confusion are, among other things, to caution us against too blind a faith in the
infallibility of Hand B. When the text is obscure, he may be misled, and, further, clearly lacks the
advantage enjoyed by the modern reader of Smithers’s edition: that of comparing the Lincoln’s Inn 150 text
with another version of the story. Hand B knows no better than to accept Dabnadas at face value, and in so
doing falls victim to obscurity several lines further along.
197