Overview

This volume presents six essays devoted to the practices, habits, and preferences of scribes making manuscripts in their native tongue. Despite the dominance of Latin in medieval written culture, vernacular traditions started to develop in Europe in the eleventh century. Focusing on French, Frisian, Icelandic, Italian, Middle High German, and Old English examples, these essays discuss the connectivity of books originating in the same linguistic space. Given that authors, translators, and readers advanced vernacular written culture through the production and consumption of texts, how did the scribes who copied them fit into this development? Did they have a specific approach to copying texts in their native language? Can we observe patterns in how manuscripts in the same vernacular presented their contents? To address such questions the essays taken material features of manuscripts, both palaeographical and codicological, as a point of departure. Contributions by Rolf H. Bremmer Jr, Godfried Croenen, J.P. Gumbert (†), Kathryn A. Lowe, Sheryl McDonald Werronen and Nigel F. Palmer.

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9789087283025

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Reviews

“This is a very important, very timely publication […] This book represents an important step in bringing the manuscript traditions of various vernaculars into dialogue with one another. It is much needed in the current scholarly field.” – Michael Johnston, Associate Professor English, College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University, USA.

This is a very important, very timely publication [...] This book represents an important step in bringing the manuscript traditions of various vernaculars into dialogue with one another. It is much needed in the current scholarly field. - Michael Johnston, Associate Professor English, College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University, USA.

Author Information

Erik Kwakkel teaches at Leiden University, where he directs the research project ‘Turning over a New Leaf: Manuscript Innovation in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance’.

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