Fig. 10. “Alma redemptoris mater,” British Library MS Harley 1704 (c. 1470), fol. 28r. (© The British Library Board.) This image illustrates the poem’s expression of distancing itself from Chaucer’s authorship and the Canterbury Tales. That act of separation from origins represents one of the four ways that the fifteenth-century manuscripts under discussion in the present chapter disassociate themselves from Chaucer and the pilgrimage tale he wrote.

Fig. 11. “Alma redemptoris mater,” British Library MS Harley 1704 (c. 1470), fol. 30v. (© The British Library Board.) The underlining here operates like a cryptic message that privileges, disembodies, and repurposes the song “Alma redemptoris mater.”

Fig. 12. “Fabula monialis de sancta maria,” British Library MS Harley 2382 (c. 1500), fol. 97r, detail. (© The British Library Board.) Like Harley 1704 (see fig. 10), Harley 2382 is an example of authorial dissociation.

Fig. 14. British Library MS Harley 2251 (c. 1470), fol. 72v. (© The British Library Board.) Harley 2251 opens differently from Harley 1704 (fig. 6) and Harley 2382 (fig. 8) but is still clearly disassociating itself from Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales. The rubrication in the opening majuscule affirms its start and solidifies its position as a separate poem with a separate identity.

Fig. 16. Bodleian Library MS Rawlinson C. 86 (c. 1500), fol. 174v. (Image reproduced by permission from the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford.)