Behind Every Man(uscript) Is a Woman: Social Networks, Christine de Pizan, and Westminster Abbey Library, MS 21

A mid-fifteenth-century French lyric anthology, Westminster Abbey Library MS 21, reveals the pivotal but often overlooked role of women in late medieval literary culture. Despite bearing names of two male figures—Thomas Scales and Wyllam Courtnay—the manuscript's provenance traces a hidden network of female ownership across generations. These women, though absent from historical records, shaped the manuscript's circulation through marriages into influential male networks and their own literary engagements. By analyzing marginalia and textual evidence, researchers demonstrate that vertical female reading networks underpinned the visible horizontal networks of men, challenging the narrative that separates women's contributions from broader medieval literary culture.

Strakhov, E., & Watson, S. W. (2021). Behind Every Man(uscript) Is a Woman: Social Networks, Christine de Pizan, and Westminster Abbey Library, MS 21. Studies in the Age of Chaucer, 43(1), 151–180. https://doi.org/10.1353/sac.2021.0013