Organic publishing as a systemic practice: a case study in the cult of St Frideswide in eleventh- to sixteenth-century Oxford

While authorial publication is an increasingly established concept in the circulation of texts in the Middle Ages, scholars remain hesitant to apply it to anonymous works and texts surviving in a single manuscript, for which it can be difficult to prove that a text was made intentionally public. This paper considers the idea of “organic publishing”, a term for publishing activity beyond the control of a work’s original author, as a means of applying the insights gained from authorial publishing even where the roles and motivations of individuals cannot be identified. Understanding medieval book production using the modern framework of systemic design can help to analyse the features and shared principles of this process. This is illustrated through a case study of the cult of St Frideswide in eleventh- through sixteenth-century Oxford. By reframing the earliest Vita S. Fritheswithae uirginis (BHL 3164) as a published work, this anonymous text emerges as the progenitor of a range of later texts that promoted the cult over a period of centuries. A derivative of this work by Robert of Cricklade (BHL 3162) is an example of both authorial and organic publication. The idea of organic publishing helps to contextualize textual traditions or families comprising related pieces, some written and published by known authors, and others by unknown ones, helping to map the terrain in which they operated, as in the present case. Defining organic publishing as a systemic practice also places it within a wider dialogue on sustainability and cultural resilience.