The Medieval Manuscript Book
Cultural Approaches

This book situates the medieval manuscript within its cultural contexts, with chapters by experts in bibliographical and theoretical approaches to manuscript study.

Michael Johnston (Edited by), Michael Van Dussen (Edited by)

9781107066199, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 August 2015

318 pages, 26 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 1.9 cm, 0.64 kg

'This volume, a worthy addition to the series Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, contains twelve new essays (plus an introduction) by a diverse group of scholars … This is a generous collection, offering not only examples of some of the best contemporary work on manuscripts but also suggestions and recommendations for further study and new paradigms for manuscript study.' R. M. Liuzza, Journal of English and German Philology

Traditional scholarship on manuscripts has tended to focus on issues concerning their production and has shown comparatively little interest in the cultural contexts of the manuscript book. The Medieval Manuscript Book redresses this by focusing on aspects of the medieval book in its cultural situations. Written by experts in the study of the handmade book before print, this volume combines bibliographical expertise with broader insights into the theory and praxis of manuscript study in areas from bibliography to social context, linguistics to location, and archaeology to conservation. The focus of the contributions ranges widely, from authorship to miscellaneity, and from vernacularity to digital facsimiles of manuscripts. Taken as a whole, these essays make the case that to understand the manuscript book it must be analyzed in all its cultural complexity, from production to transmission to its continued adaptation.

1. Introduction: manuscripts and cultural history Michael Johnston and Michael Van Dussen
2. Bibliographical theory and the textuality of the codex: towards a history of the pre-modern book Seth Lerer
3. What is a manuscript culture? Technologies of the manuscript matrix Stephen G. Nichols
4. Decoding the material book: cultural residue in medieval manuscripts Erik Kwakkel
5. Organizing manuscript and print: from Compilatio to compilation Jeffrey Todd Knight
6. Containing the book: the institutional afterlives of medieval manuscripts Siân Echard
7. Medieval manuscripts: media archaeology and the digital incunable Martin K. Foys
8. The circulation of texts in manuscript culture Pascale Bourgain
9. Multilingualism and late medieval manuscript culture Lucie Doležalová
10. Miscellaneity and variance in the medieval book Arthur Bahr
11. Vernacular authorship and the control of manuscript production Andrew Taylor
12. Medieval French and Italian literature: towards a manuscript history Keith Busby and Christopher Kleinhenz
13. Afterword: social history of the book and beyond Kathryn Kerby-Fulton
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Medieval history [HBLC1], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]