HIST 111: Ruin and Renewal: Europe to 1500 (HC)

With over 270 color illustrations and contributions by 25 leading scholars, this volume explores the bestiary and its widespread influence on medieval art and culture as well as on modern artists like Pablo Picasso.

Medieval manuscript expert de Hamel discusses a range of illuminated manuscripts from The British Library's unparalleled collection, some of them unfinished and so revealing the processes involved in an illuminator's work. He also explores the role of illuminators in the medieval book trade - how books were commissioned, the patron's expectations, how illuminators worked with scribes, the materials and techniques they used, and the time and expertise involved in creating these masterpieces.

Surveys the many forms in which writing has evolved in East and West, the tools and materials used, and how they have influenced the development of scripts. She examines particularly the processes involved in the production of the medieval book in the West, and assesses the impact of later technological developments in communication on the current state of writing and its future.

This companion orientates students in the complex, multidisciplinary study of medieval book production and contemporary display of manuscripts from c.600-1500. Chapters by leading specialists in manuscript studies range from explaining how manuscripts were stored, to revealing the complex networks of readers and writers which can be understood through manuscripts, to a discussion of manuscripts in the digital age.

From handwritten texts to online books, the page has been a standard interface for transmitting knowledge for over two millennia. It is also a dynamic device, readily transformed to suit the needs of contemporary readers. In How the Page Matters, Bonnie Mak explores how changing technology has affected the reception of visual and written information.

Michelle Warren tells the story of a manuscript--an Arthurian romance with textual origins in twelfth-century England now diffused across the twenty-first century internet. Bringing to bear media theory, medieval literary studies, and book history, Warren shows how digital infrastructures change texts and books. She uncovers a practice of "tech medievalism" that weaves through the history of computing since the mid-twentieth century. Situated at the intersections of the digital humanities, library sciences, literary history, and book history, Holy Digital Grail offers new ways to conceptualize authorship, canon formation, and the definition of a "book."

Opening with a look at the precedents set by the Carolingian forerunners of the Empire, the first section considers deluxe imperial manuscripts associated with the Ottonian emperors. The second section examines the role of imperial monasteries in the production of manuscripts, considering in particular the patronage of aristocratic elites. The final section offers a tour of imperial cities in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, from Vienna and Prague to Augsburg and Nuremberg.

"This book provides an orientation to the field of medieval manuscript studies. It will be of help to students in history, art history, literature, and religious studies who are encountering medieval manuscripts for the first time, while also appealing to advanced scholars and general readers interested in the history of the book before the age of print. Every chapter in this guidebook features numerous color plates that exemplify each aspect described in the text and are drawn primarily from the collections of the Newberry Library in Chicago and the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge."--BOOK JACKET.

The text explains the complexities of Vigils, octaves, Egyptian Days, Golden Numbers, Dominical Letters, movable feasts and the key role played by the saints days, including the colors in which they are written as well as their rankings and gradings. The author also shares his step-by-step method to localize a medieval calendar and discover its use; readers learn how to assess a calendar's roster of liturgical feasts as a key to revealing the place where it was destined to be used.

Through the fascinating face-to-face discovery of 60 manuscripts, Sandler investigates the various types and forms of books as depicted in the medieval era. How were they produced and what did they look like? What do they tell us of the lives and skills of the scribes and illuminators? What did these books record and signify?

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. Early manuscripts thus become archives and witnesses to individual and collective memories. It is urgent that practices fragmenting the manuscript through book-breaking or digital display are understood in the context of the book's wholeness.

This book gathers the work on manuscript books in England made during this crucial but neglected period. Its authors survey existing research, gather intensive new evidence and develop new approaches to key topics. The chapters cover the material conditions and economy of the book trade; amateur production both lay and religious; the effects of censorship; and the impact on English book production of manuscripts and artisans from elsewhere in the British Isles and Europe.

The illuminated manuscript was the primary vehicle of learning, religion, and art during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Of all the illuminated manuscripts from this period, the Book of Hours was, by far, the most popular and among the most exquisitely made. It contained prayers to be recited by aristocratic and well-to-do lay people. Many books of hours were elaborately decorated.

What is a florilegium? What is an incipit? What is batarde script? This book offers definitions of these and numerous other techniques, processes, and materials used in medieval illuminated manuscripts. With numerous illustrations, this volume will be invaluable to those wishing to increase their understanding and enjoyment of illuminated manuscripts.