Oral and Scribal Texts (Spring 2008)

Description of seminar :

This seminar on oral and scribal texts examines the first of the chronological stages in the production and transmission of written texts. Focusing particularly on the manuscript transmission of literary texts in medieval England, it will look at a number of distinct features in the development of scribal handwriting (paleography) in Western Europe, the construction of books (codicology), and the ways in which written texts may reflect (and interact with) elements of their writers' and readers' oral cultures. We will consider topics dealing with a range of books from the production of early (monastic) Insular manuscripts (such as the Lindisfarne Gospels) to vernacular literary collections in early 14th century London (such as the Auchinleck MS) and onwards into the fifteenth and sixteenth century, when manuscripts continue to be produced alongside early printed books. With the increasing availability of facsimiles online, we will have access to a rich variety of texts (in Latin and the medieval vernaculars) for individual research and study.

Books required for the seminar include:

Roberts, Jane. Guide to Scripts Used in English Writings up to 1500. London: The British
Library, 2005. ISBN: 0712348840.
Amodio, Mark C. Writing the Oral Tradition: Oral Poetics and Literate Culture in Medieval
England. South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 2004. ISBN: 026 8020248.
Clanchy, M. T. From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307. 2nd rev. ed. Hoboken:
John Wiley, 1993. ISBN: 0-631-16857-5.
Shailor, Barbara A. The Medieval Book. Toronto: U of Toronto Press, 1994.
ISBN: 091 0747468.

Recommended are:

Bischoff, Bernhard, Latin Paleography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Cambridge:
Cambridge U. Press, 1990. ISBN 0 521 36726 3.
Brown, Michelle P. A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600. Toronto: U
of Toronto Press, 1994. ISBN: 0 8020 7206 2.