Touching Parchment : Volume 2: Social Encounters with the Book.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rudy, Kathryn M., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Material culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (0 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK : Open Book Publishers, 2024.

Summary:

In the late middle ages (ca. 1200-1520), both religious and secular people used manuscripts, was regarded as a most precious item. The traces of their use through touching and handling during different rituals such as oath-taking, public reading, and memorializing the dead, is the subject of Kathryn Rudy's research in Touching Parchment. This second volume, Social Encounters with the Book, delves into the physical interaction with books in various social settings, including education, courtly assemblies, and confraternal gatherings. Looking at acts such as pointing, scratching, and 'wet-touching', the author zooms in on smudges and abrasions on medieval manuscripts as testimonials of readers' interaction with the book and its contents. In so doing, she dissects the function of books in oaths, confraternal groups, education, and courtly settings, illuminating how books were used as teaching aids and tools for conveying political messages. The narrative paints a vivid picture of medieval reading, emphasizing bodily engagement, from page-turning to the intimate act of kissing pages. Overall, this text offers a captivating exploration of the tactile and social dimensions of book use in late medieval Europe broadening our perspective on the role of objects in rituals during the middle ages. Social Encounters with the Book provides a fundamental resource to anybody interested in medieval history and book materiality more widely.

Contents:

Intro

Acknowledgments

Figures

Abbreviations

Introduction

I. Ideas from Volume 1

II. Taxonomy for touching

Chapter 1: Professing Obedience

I. From professions to vows

II. Professions in later centuries and broader social contexts

III. Expanding oath-taking: Confraternities in churches

IV. Out of the church and into the castle

V. Testaments in Mariënpoel

VI. Hinged thinking: A civic context

Chapter 2: Confraternities of Laypeople

I. The colorful confraternity of St Nicholas

II. Ducal patronage at Linkebeek

III. St Sebastian at St Gorik's

Coda

Chapter 3: Educators and Learners

I. Teaching children how to read with manuscripts

II. Teaching morals

Chapter 4: Performing at Court

I. Interacting with images of the Virgin

II. Political touching

III. Rubbing romances

IV. Versified religion and history

V. Prose histories

Chapter 5: Touching Death

I. A Benedictine abbess

II. Remembering John Hotham, bishop of Ely

III. Retouching, reusing, and restitching elements

Conclusion

I. Models of transmitting gestures

II. Touching beginnings

III. Touching initials across Europe

Bibliography

Appendices

Appendix 1: Gospels of St Loup

Appendix 2: Chapter of Utrecht Gospels

Appendix 3: Valenciennes Confraternity

Appendix 4: Linkebeek Confraternity

Appendix 5: St Gorik's Confraternity

Appendix 6: Necrology of the canonesses regular of St Vitus, Elten

Appendix 7: Mortuary roll for John Hotham

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-80511-165-5

1-80511-166-3

OCLC:

1500763267