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One Day Course: Monday 3 June 2024

How were medieval books made?  What material evidence of these processes do manuscripts contain? And how can this knowledge enhance our understanding of medieval cultural and intellectual life? 

This course will take you from cow to codex, from membrane to manuscript, equipping you with all the skills you need to begin independent research into medieval manuscripts. It will cover each stage of the book production process, exploring how component materials were made, how texts were copied and decoration planned and executed, and how books were bound, with illustrative examples drawn from a variety of manuscript libraries. You will learn about variations in practice in medieval Europe, as well as cutting-edge scientific techniques that are enabling scholars to shed new light on old books. You will also learn to identify and interpret evidence of production in surviving books, through hands-on exercises with medieval manuscripts from the collection at Senate House Library.

This course links up with the Introduction to the cataloguing of medieval manuscripts , Codicology and cataloguing of medieval manuscripts: a hands-on workshop, and TEI and the description of medieval manuscripts. Taken as a whole, the course addresses fundamental gaps in the teaching available at most universities, offers insights that cannot adequately be gained from printed or digital sources or facsimiles.

Additional Information

Course Requirements

  1. Some familiarity with and ability to read medieval handwriting would be helpful (but is not essential).
  2. Students are encouraged to familiarise themselves with introductory guides to palaeography in advance of the course. 

Essential Reading

Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to manuscript studies (Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press, 2007): 

  • Chapter 1: Writing supports 
  • Chapter 2: Text and decoration 
  • Chapter 4: Assembling, binding and storing the completed manuscript. 

Christopher de Hamel, ‘Books and society’, in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, 7 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999-2019), vol. 2: 1100-1400, ed. by Nigel J. Morgan and Rodney M. Thomson (2008), pp. 3-21. 

Orietta da Rold, ‘Codicology’, in The encyclopaedia of medieval British literature, ed. by Siân Echard and Robert Rouse (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2017), pp. 531-38. 

Location

This course will take place in Senate House.

Fees

Course fees for LIPS 2024 are below:

  Standard Student
One Day Course  £145  £105

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