This dissertation analyzes two parallel trajectories for examining labor in Middle English verse literature: the first, a consideration of textual labor involved in writing and editing literary texts; the second, an exploration of craft labor involved in textile production and implicit in descriptions of textile objects. I consider how objects accumulate the traces of their makers, calling attention to visible and invisible labor involved in textual and textile craft. I propose the notion of transtemporality as a reading practice that accumulates temporal subjectivities within a reading experience. To develop the concept of transtemporality, the research weaves through different threads of collective construction across time. Case studies include John Lydgate’s metanarratorial construction in the Siege of Thebes alongside theories of medieval authorship, an examination of authorship focused on the role of the contemporary editor and interpretive labor in preparing digital editions of medieval literary texts, and two linked considerations on how the construction of texts and textiles provide important material context for the garments and textiles described in medieval romance. Each thread engages a variety of methodological impulses which converge in my interdisciplinary and transhistorical study of Middle English literature. Focused on Middle English verse, my dissertation studies craft labor—literary and textile—as an avenue for cotemporal experiences.