Includes bibliographical references (pages [217]-240) and indexes.
Contents:
10. Bookending 'Þa Wuldorgesteald': The wondrous edifice. 2. 'Fingers folded me': Making the book -- 3. 'Covered me with tracks': Writing the book -- 4. 'People will use me': Book as archive -- 5. 'My name is famous': Presence in the book -- 6. 'In spirit the wiser': Invisible things in the book -- 7. 'Covered with protecting boards': Representing the book -- 8. 'Cut by the edge of the knife': Libricide and the modern book trade -- 9. 'More true and better': The digital book and its frameworks of understanding -- 10. Bookending 'Þa Wuldorgesteald': The wondrous edifice.
Summary:
"Perceptions of Medieval Manuscripts takes as its starting point an understanding that a medieval book is a whole object at every point of its long history. As such, medieval books can be studied most profitably in a holistic manner as objects-in-the-world. This means readers might profitably account for all aspects of the manuscript in their observations, from the main texts that dominate the codex to the marginal notes, glosses, names, and interventions made through time. This holistic approach allows us to tell the story of the book's life from the moment of its production to its use, collection, breaking-up, and digitization--all aspects of what can be termed 'dynamic architextuality'. The ten chapters include detailed readings of texts that explain the processes of manuscript manufacture and writing, taking in invisible components of the book that show the joy and delight clearly felt by producers and consumers. Chapters investigate the filling of manuscripts' blank spaces, presenting some texts never examined before, and assessing how books were conceived and understood to funcManuscripts' hefts'heft and solidness can be seen, too, in the depictions of miniature books in medieval illustrations. Early manuscripts thus become archives and witnesses to individual and collective memories, as 'relics of existence', as Maurice Merleau-Ponty describes things. As such, it is urgent that practices fragmenting the manuscript through book-breaking or digital display are understood in the context of the book's wholeness. Readers of this study will find chapters on multiple aspects of medieval bookness in the distant past, the present, and in the assurance of the future continuity of this most fascinating of cultural artefacts."--Provided by the publisher
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.