Resonet Vox Fidelis: Scribal Colophons and Ecclesiastical Reform in Medieval Iberia

Abstract

ABSTRACT A remarkable number of early medieval manuscripts produced in the Iberian Peninsula preserve scribal colophons recounting the circumstances of their production and naming their makers. Because of their highly unusual level of detail, these statements offer invaluable evidence to understand the individuals and communities who produced them, as well as the broader religious and cultural environment in which they originated. Focusing on the corpora of the Beatus manuscripts and Iberian Latin Bibles, this article considers patterns of colophon use amongst Christian monastic communities in the north-central and western regions of Iberia between the tenth and the mid-thirteenth century. This article argues that significant changes to colophon composition and use coincide with, and were related to, wider ecclesiastical reform and political transformations in the Peninsula in the late eleventh century, which promoted the abandonment of native ecclesiastical practices and critical shifts in monastic culture.