MARGINAL ANNOTATION IN MEDIEVAL ROMANCE MANUSCRIPTS

obscures Gwendolene’s gender. Arundel 58’s sometimes fuller notes, then, represent an
expansion and further development of a basic annotation style that is still visible in the
manuscript, rather than a wholly new type of annotation.
The identification of chronicle notes as interested in names, places and
etymologies is one that has been repeatedly observed, by Marvin, Bryan and others. And
in some ways, the practice is a fair representation of the preoccupation shown by these
texts themselves with history as a succession of kings and a series of foundational
moments, often presented linguistically through etymologies. The Arundel annotator’s
reference to the “mother tongue” is particularly powerful in this latter regard: institutions
and culture are fundamentally linguistic, even when this is not made overt by the text.
The category of noun, however, is more inclusive than kings’ names and important cities,
and as the entire grammatical category is recognized as central to chronicle notes, the
notes’ function as mnemonic and representative devices becomes more clear.
1.3 Objects of Interest
Dynastic king-lists and etymologized places are the most obvious thematizations
of names (nouns) in the chronicles’ margins. But some special objects are also things
capable of being named, and these are in consequence frequently designated in both text
and margins by a proper name. There is an obvious and intimate relationship between the
names of people and the place-names derived from those eponymous individuals. The
treatment of objects in these manuscripts is, however, even more instructive. Certain
objects are among those names that merit notes, and hold their own beside the names of
people and places as a critical part of the naming apparatus. Of the ten Arthurian notes in
88