Ruling the Script in the Middle Ages

Abstract

The textuality and materiality of documents are an essential part of their communicative role. Medieval writing, as part of the interpersonal communication process, had to follow rules to ensure the legibility and understanding of a text and its connotations. This volume provides new insights into how different kinds of rules were designed, established, and followed in the shaping of medieval documents, as a means of enabling complex and subtle communicational phenomena. Because they provide a perspective for approaching the material they are supposed to organize, these rules (or the postulation of their use) provide powerful analytical tools for structural studies into given corpora of documents. Originating in talks given at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds between 2010 and 2012, the twenty papers in this collection offer a precise, in-depth analysis of a variety of medieval scripts, including books, charters, accounts, and epigraphic documents. In doing so, they integrate current developments in palaeography, diplomatics, and codicology in their traditional methodological set, as well as aspects of the digital humanities, and they bridge the gap between the so-called ‘auxiliary sciences of history’ and the field of communication studies. They illustrate different possibilities for exploring how the formal aspects of scripts took their place in the construction of effective communication structures. The twenty essays brought together in this volume explore a wide range of perspectives relating to the materiality and textuality of medieval scripts and documents. Table of Contents Preface Introduction–SEBASTIEN BARRET, DOMINIQUE STUTZMANN, and GEORG VOGELER Et hec scripsi manu mea propria: Known and Unknown Autographs of Charles IV as Testimonies of Intellectual Profile, Royal Literacy and Cultural Transfer—MARTIN BAUCH The ‘Empire of Letters’: Textualis and Cursiva in Pragmatic Manuscripts of Seville Cathedral, Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries—DIEGO BELMONTE FERNANDEZ Official Rules of Writing in the North of France? The Writing of Notarial Documents in Normandy between Practices and Regulations—ISABELLE BRETTHAUER The Practice of Writing in Regensburg: An Overview of the Ninth and Tenth Centuries—CLAIRE DE CAZANOVE Structure et style: observations paleographiques pour l’etude des ecritures cursives a Florence aux XIIIe et XIVe siecles—IRENE CECCHERINI Revealing Some Structures and Rules of Book Production (France, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries)—EMILIE COTTEREAU-GABILLET Structures of (Mutual) Inspiration: Some Observations on the Circulation of Repetitive Text Formulas in Charters from the Medieval Low Countries (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries)—ELS DE PAERMENTIER The Writing of Obedientiary Account Rolls at Norwich Cathedral Priory (1256-1344)—HARMONY DEWEZ Charte de fondation et date de dedicace: temoignages narratifs et diplomatiques a l’abbaye Saint-Etienne de Caen—TAMIKO FOURNIER-FUJIMOTO Masters of Micrography: Examples of Medieval Ashkenazi Scribal Artists—RAHEL FRONDA Writing Angles: Palaeographic Considerations on the Inclinaison of the Script—MARIA GURRADO Les actes episcopaux en Bretagne aux XIe et XIIe siecles: une arme pour la reforme?—CYPRIEN HENRY Konigsfelden Abbey and Its First Cartulary: Dealing with Charters in the Fourteenth Century—TOBIAS HODEL The Use of Vernacular and its Graphic and Material Shape in the Epigraphic Discourse: Three Case Studies from Western France—ESTELLE INGRAND-VARENNE The Shape of the Letters and the Dynamics of Composition in Syriac Manuscripts (Fifth-Tenth Century)—AYDA KAPLAN The Parchments of Marmoutier Abbey: Preparation, Shaping, Practices (Mid-Eleventh to Mid-Twelfth Century)—CLAIRE LAMY Scribal Activity and Diplomatic Forms in Western Provence (c. 950-c. 1010)—JEAN-BAPTISTE RENAULT Hand Spotting: The Registers of the Chancery of the Counts of Holland, 1316-1337—JINNA SMIT Rule and Variation in Eleventh-Century English Minuscule—PETER STOKES Princely Communication in the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Century: A Diplomatic Study of the Charters of the Counts of Hainaut—VALERIA VAN CAMP List of Shelfmarks