Imagining the book / edited by Stephen Kelly and John J. Thompson.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Kelly, Stephen, 1972-

Thompson, John J., 1955-

Series:

Medieval texts and cultures of Northern Europe ; 7.

Medieval texts and cultures of Northern Europe

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Manuscripts, English--History--To 1500--Congresses.

Manuscripts, English.

Manuscripts, English--History--16th century--Congresses.

Manuscripts, Medieval--England--Congresses.

Manuscripts, Medieval.

Books--England--History--1450-1600--Congresses.

Books.

Intellectual life.

Books and reading.

History.

England.

Books and reading--England--History--To 1500--Congresses.

England--Intellectual life--1066-1485--Congresses.

Genre:

Conference papers and proceedings.

Physical Description:

xviii, 253 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Turnhout : Brepols, 2005.

Summary:

Imagining the Book offers a snapshot of current research in English manuscript study in the pre-modern period on the inter-related topics of patrons and collectors, compilers, editors and readers, and identities beyond the book. This volume responds to the recent development and institutionalization of 'History of the Book' within the wider discipline. Scholars working in the pre-printing era with the material vestiges of a predominantly manuscript culture are currently establishing their own models of production and reception. Research in this area is now an accepted part of twenty-first century medieval studies. Within such a context, it is frequently observed that scribal culture found imaginative ways to deal with the technological watersheds represented by the transition from memory to written record, roll to codex, or script to print. In such an 'eventful' environment, texts and books not infrequently slip through the semi-permeable boundaries laboured over by previous generations of medievalists, boundaries that demarcate orality and literacy; 'literary' and 'historical'; 'religious' and 'secular'; pre- and post-Conquest compositions, or 'medieval' and 'Renaissance' attitudes and writings. Once texts are regarded as offering indices of community- or self-definition, or models of piety and good behaviour (and the codices holding them statements of prestige and influence), the book historian is left to contemplate the real or imagined importance and status of books and writing within the larger socio-political, often local, milieux in which they were once produced and read.

Contents:

Imagined Histories of the Book: Current Paradigms and Future Directions / Stephen Kelly, John J. Thompson 1

Part 1 Imagined Compilers and Editors

The Whole Book: Late Medieval English Manuscript Miscellanies and their Modern Interpreters / Derek Pearsall 17

Imagining X: A Lost Early Vernacular Miscellany / Neil Cartlidge 31

Imagining Book Production in Fourteenth-Century Herefordshire: The Scribe of British Library, MS Harley 2253 and his 'Organizing Principles' / Jason O'Rourke 45

Imagining the Compiler: Guy of Warwick and the Compilation of the Auchinleck Manuscript / Alison Wiggins 61

Part 2 Imagined Patrons and Collectors

Leofric of Exeter and the Practical Politics of Book Collecting / Joyce Hill 77

AElfric's Lives of Saints and Cotton Julius E. vii: Adaptation, Appropriation and the Disappearing Book / Hugh Magennis 99

A Fresh Look at the Reconstructed Carmelite Missal: London, British Library, MS Additional 29704-05 / Valerie Edden 111

John Dygon, Fifth Recluse of Sheen: His Career, Books, and Acquaintance / Ralph Hanna 127

Part 3 Imagined Readings and Readers

Imagining a Readership for Post-Conquest Old English Manuscripts / Mary Swan 145

Constructing Audiences for Contemplative Texts: The Example of a Mystical Anthology / Barry Windeatt 159

EB and his Two Books: Visual Impact and the Power of Meaningful Suggestion. 'Reading' the Illustrations in MSS Douce 261 and Egerton 3132A / Maldwyn Mills 173

Part 4 Beyond the Book: Verbal and Visual Cultures

Deixis and the Untransferable Text: Anglo-Saxon Colophons, Verse-Prefaces and Inscriptions / Peter Orton 195

A Portrait of the Reader: Secular Donors and their Books in the Art of the English Parish Church / David Griffith 209

Imagining Alternatives to the Book: The Transmission of Political Poetry in Late Medieval England / Wendy Scase 237.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

2503516939

OCLC:

61441538