The End of Digital Humanities and the Future of Manuscript Studies

We are standing at the edge of a major transformation in manuscript studies. The proliferation of digital surrogates, Digital Humanities analyses and the rise of new scientific analytical technologies, all provide hitherto unknown, and unknowable, information. This article looks at how the field can best integrate these transformations. It argues that any separation between Digital Humanities, heritage science, and manuscript studies is becoming artificial. Concentrating on training programmes for advanced students as a way of reimagining the field, it provides concrete advice for the future of manuscript studies.Comment: 5 figures to be provided separatel

Mediations of the Bible in Late Medieval England.

PhDDirect access to the Bible was the exception rather than the rule in medieval Europe. Limitations imposed by cost, sacrality and degrees of literacy determined people's ability to own or consult the Bible. The multitude of events and objects, which offered mediated access to the Bible, stand at the core of the dissertation. From liturgy and sermons to church murals and ornate Gospel Books, a mediated biblical world-view was presented to medieval audiences. A close analysis of these media reveals that, although relying on the Bible as a source of authority, its language and narrative were altered in an attempt to make it palatable and effective to medieval audiences. Analyses of specific test cases, such as Palm Sunday processions and Advent sermons, reveal a constant clerical effort of displaying the Bible and its narratives in visual, vernacular and performative ways. The Bible can never be divorced from its physical form and shape. Through an extensive survey of biblical manuscripts, their layout and additions, an inner-biblical hierarchy unfolds, in which the book of Psalms took precedence. This reflects not only the reception of the Psalms, but also the place of these manuscripts at the junction between preaching and liturgy. Attitudes towards biblical manuscripts, and especially gospel books, supply additional evidence for use and provenance of Bibles. An examination of veneration of the Bible in civic and ecclesiastical rituals, from the Ordinary of the Mass to oaths in courts of law, leads to a reevaluation of Bibles and gospel books. The dissertation leads to a new understanding of the Bible within the late medieval sacrede conomy. It shows how ritual behaviour, content and appearancew ere intertwined to present a complex notion of the Bible, which has endured until modernity

Old Light on New Media: Medieval Practices in the Digital Age

This essay offers an insight into the way digital editions of medieval texts can be employed to replicate the medieval reading experience. Awareness of the characteristic features of medieval textuality, exemplified through select late medieval texts, can help in developing increasingly flexible editorial models, which are more consistent with medieval reading practices than current editions. Editions, transformed from single textual occurrences into fluid, communal, and unfolding processes, can uncover a complex notion of medieval hypertextuality by linking texts, images, and tunes. They can then even trace the reception of a given text. As readers are empowered to zoom in and out specific textual components, of manuscript witnesses, of families and printed editions, digital editions can present individual witnesses alongside editorial apparatuses and thus bridge the gap between the Old and the New Philology

New Technologies, Training Initiatives and the Future of Manuscript Studies

We are standing at the edge of a major transformation in manuscript studies. Digital surrogates, Digital Humanities analyses and the rise of new scientific analytical technologies proliferate across universities, libraries and museums. They change the way we consult, research and disseminate historical manuscripts to reveal hitherto unknown, and unknowable, information. This article looks at how the field can best integrate these transformations. Concentrating on training programmes for advanced students as a way of reimagining the field, it provides concrete advice for the future of manuscript studies, arguing that the existence of manuscript studies as removed from Digital Humanities and heritage science is becoming more and more artificial and detrimental to the future of the field