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Chapter 6 - Errors and Errancy

from Part II - Speech and Species on the Page

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2026

Joseph R. Johnson
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
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Summary

This chapter considers the relationship between the rational-discursive faculty and species identity through the lens of the concepts of error and errancy. In a variety of cultural contexts, medieval audiences imagined that the act of “erring” – both in the etymological sense of wandering and the extended sense of moral fault – could function as an experience that troubled distinctions of species. The chapter uses this recurring fantasy as a lens to explore an intriguing phenomenon observable in manuscripts of the Roman de Renart: Scribes and the trickster fox whose tales they copied sometimes “err” in tandem with one another, with scribal slips of the pen overlapping ambiguously with beastly slips of the tongue. It argues that these disruptive situations enable unresolved questions about the place of the rational-discursive faculty to come to the fore, confronting readers with a surprising question: In whose subjectivity do the errors in question originate?

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  • Errors and Errancy
  • Joseph R. Johnson, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Book: Animals, Speech and Reason in the Middle Ages
  • Online publication: 02 May 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009638418.009
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  • Errors and Errancy
  • Joseph R. Johnson, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Book: Animals, Speech and Reason in the Middle Ages
  • Online publication: 02 May 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009638418.009
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Errors and Errancy
  • Joseph R. Johnson, Georgetown University, Washington DC
  • Book: Animals, Speech and Reason in the Middle Ages
  • Online publication: 02 May 2026
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009638418.009
Available formats
×