Researching ancient manuscript requires patience and a keen eye

Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" is one of the most revered and important collections of stories throughout the history of humans putting pen to paper. Most of the 24 tales were written in verses and some in prose. Together, they make up what is generally considered the first great manuscript written in English.

But there are countless things we don't know about the work, such as, did Chaucer ever completed it-and does a true copy of his original work even exist? Published between 1387 and 1400, according to the British Library, 84 copies remain that were circulated before 1500, but none are thought to be completely accurate.

Marcy Treesh, a Purdue University Fort Wayne senior majoring in English, has been researching a copy written in the latter half of the 1400s. She's finding all kinds of mistakes in the digitized manuscript from Trinity College, Cambridge. Treesh first presented her research publicly last spring during PFW's annual Student Research and Creative Endeavors Symposium.

The manuscript Treesh studies online is handwritten, usually on parchment or animal skins. She said she can tell where different scribes have added to writing. As an example, Treesh points out a copying error in the second line of the first page where it is supposed to say, "with his," but instead says, "His, his."

"The ink is faded and hard to read in places," Treesh said. "There are also missing lines throughout the manuscript. Usually, when you are transcribing a manuscript, you are copying from one that has already been written. If you ever sat down to copy something line-by-line, it's very easy to miss something simple. That happens quite a lot in this manuscript."

Treesh said there are parts of the manuscript that were written during the late 1400s, and then different handwriting believed to have been added by someone else in the 1500s. Sometimes markings bleed through from the page behind.

"There is a little bit of a learning curve to it," Treesh said. "I've read a couple of books about manuscript studies, and my biggest thing is I'm still trying to learn to read it because the handwriting is not very easy to read.

"It depends on which version you are looking at because modern versions are usually better. With this version, tales are also out of order. This manuscript is just really bad. We also have pages that are straight up cut out of it."

Still, Treesh said the mistakes make this version very charming and unique, at least to her. She loves the challenge and hopes to keep learning so she can read line-by-line and spot the differences. The entire process requires intense patience and persistence.

Luckily, she eventually hopes to attend graduate school to earn a master's degree in library sciences so she can become a librarian.

Registration remains open for the 28th annual symposium on March 25 with a Feb. 4 deadline.

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