Under the Covers - The Fitzwilliam Museum conservation team produced this detailed case study of the conservation and rebinding of Fitzwilliam MS 251, demonstrating the step-by-step process of binding a medieval manuscript with close-up images. Le Fil de L'Arar - The Blog du laboratoire Archéologie et Archéométrie have created a glossary of some tools used by scribes and illuminators. For paper in medieval England (where,excepting one decade, it was all imported), we now have the monograph by Orietta da Rold: that is not available for free, so see the report of the conference she and Jason Scott-Warren organised. Several catalogues of watermarks are available online and are now best accessed through the Austrian Wasserzeichen des Mittelalters site. Their individuation to paper mills potentially allows scholars to narrow down the localisation and date of a manuscript. Paper - a late import into Western culture from China via Islamic culture, it also provides important information for its study through the early introduction of watermarks. Because they had the advantage that the text could be erased, they continued into the Middle Ages but only a few examples survive, including a set with t he earliest surviving Latin script from Ireland, the Springmount Bog Tablets. Wax tablets - in the ancient world, wax tablets were another popular writing surface. See also the introductory article by the Bibliothèque nationale de France. The project to study papyri from one Egyptian city, Oxyrhynchus, has a helpful listing of links. Its use did continue for some centuries after the introduction of the parchment codex, but it is heyday was among the ancient civilisations around the Mediterranean. Papyrus - parchment’s predecessor as the main writing support was plant-based. For examples of palimpsests and the techniques now used to recover the lost text, see the 2021 exhibition held by Cambridge University Library, Ghost Words. Some famous works have survived solely as the undertext of a palimpsest, like Cicero's De re publica, in the Vatican's MS. Palimpsest - literally 'rubbed smooth again', this is a surface that has been cleaned of its original text and reused the surface best suited to this practice is parchment, because of its durability. The classic written description of the process, by Ronald Reed, The Nature and Making of Parchment (Leeds, 1975) is hard to come by now, but it is summarised online, with a useful bibliography (up to 2003). How this was - and still is - done is described in this video. Parchment - the main support for writing through the Middle Ages was prepared animal skin. For medieval manuscripts, the most frequent materials used were: In terms of the surfaces on which text appears, there has been a wide variety from stone (the subject of epigraphy) to wood to tattoos on skin. A good start to help you think about this materiality is Teaching Manuscripts: book historian Sara Charles researches manuscripts through recreating production techniques such as making iron gall ink and making parchment, and records her progress and findings through guides, images and videos. The codicologist realises that the material nature of the book can provide significant evidence for its creation and use. Glossary on Littera visigothica site - with a particular focus on palaeographical features, Ainoa Castro has compiled a very useful introductory list of terms, based on (but diverging from) the work of the leading English palaeographer, M. Note that the hard-copy version has received a second edition, revised by Elizabeth Teviotdale and Nancy Turner (New Haven CT, 2018) but that does not have an online presence. For that language, it can be supplemented by:īritish Library’s Glossary of Illuminated Manuscripts - this is based on Michelle Brown’s Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts (London, 1994). Vocabulaire codicologique - the main resource, this is not confined to French terms but also provides their equivalents in Italian, Spanish and occasionally in English. There is a technical language to the study of manuscripts with which you may want some help. The term, however, is a twentieth-century invention and so by convention excludes the pre-existing traditions of scholarship, palaeography and the study of illumination, which are discussed under Palaeography. By codicology, we signify the study of the whole codex, in all its physical and historical characteristics.
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