VERNACULAR PALEOGRAPHY

This class is designed to introduce graduate students (and some advanced undergraduates) to the paleography of English vernacular manuscripts written during the period ca. 700 -1500, with brief excursions into Latin and into French as it was written on the Continent. The purpose of the course is fourfold: (1) to teach students how to make informed judgments with regard to the date (and sometimes place) of origin, (2) to provide instruction and practice in the accurate reading and transcription of medieval scripts, (3) to learn and use the basic vocabulary of the description of scripts, and (4) to examine the manuscript book as a product of the changing society that produced it and, thus, as a primary source for the study of that society and its culture. In order to localize manuscripts in time and place, we also examine aspects of the written page besides the script, such as the material on which it is written, its layout and ruling, the decoration and illustration of the text, the provenance, and binding. We also examine the process of manuscript production itself, whether institutional, commercial, or personal. The history of book production and of decoration and illumination are thus considered part of the study of paleography, as is the history of patronage and that of libraries. Manuscripts are among the most numerous and most reliable surviving witnesses to medieval social and intellectual change, and they will be examined as such. To become proficient in the study of manuscripts it is necessary to look at manuscripts, as well as to read about them. The more time you are able to spend looking at manuscripts critically, in the manuals and in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the greater will be your first-hand experience and hence your reliable knowledge.