Where the Middle Ages Begin
Created in 1493, the Nuremberg Chronicle is a history of the World going back to Biblical times. Written by Hartmann Schedel, it was printed in Latin and German editions with hundreds of copies being sold. The 1801 woodcut illustrations were done by Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff. Here are some of favourite images!
Much scholarship concerning the concept of “companionate” marriage traces its origins to the early modern period as clergymen, especially Protestant ones, began to publish “guides” to the relationships and respective duties of husbands and wives in the 1500s and 1600s.
A copy of the Aberdeen Breviary, one of the first printed books in Scotland, has been purchased by the National Library of Scotland and is now available to read online.
In this essay, I focus on a variety of texts printed using Anglo-Saxon type between 1566 and 1623 in an effort to explore the use of Anglo-Saxon typeface in the early modern period as the use of the Old English language progressed from polemical truncheon to historiographical instrument.
Gold printing in the fifteenth century is very rare. There are only two printers who are known to have applied this technique. One of them was Erhard Ratdolt who first used gold for printing a gloriously spectacular full page of dedication in a number of copies of his editio princeps of Euclid.
The copying of books was also slow, tedious, and very time-consuming; it took years for a scribe to complete ‘a particularly fine manuscript with colored initials and miniature art work.’
Wormholes reproduced in wood-printed illustrations dating back to the Middle Ages are offering researchers to track both the ecology of beetles and the spread of printing in Europe.
This essay gives an account of the social role of manuscripts and early printed books and the processes by which they were made, processes that changed greatly during the period
We are accustomed to think of the periods of manuscripts and printed books as distinct. Traditionally a scholar working in one of these fields has known little of the other field.
Europe was ready to receive the printing press as the 12th and 13th centuries had been a period of radical change in the way new inventions and innovations changed the traditional ways of managing of production, and economic growth.
Drawing on recent work on the social history of the book and the politics of reading, this essay considers the texts under question as social products, whose meaning is not just determined by the author’s initial intentions, but is further shaped in the process of production, dissemination, and reception as a result of negotiation among several parties in a given historical moment.
These arguments suggest that the number of manuscripts and printed books produced in a given society are complex measures of economic performance and societal capabilities, and are therefore a valuable guide to the study of long-term economic change.
The principal method used is the gathering of specific instances of human presence in the two texts, and the categorising or coding of such instances, with the aid of the qualitative-data computer program QSR N6.
Of course, literacy, reading, and writing are also overlapping and interdependent cultural forms and practices, and no historical treatment can study one in isolation from the others. Yet because they are not exactly the same things, so too scholars have tended to concentrate upon one or the other.
Helena Szépe of the University of South Florida is currently researching illustrations found in Venetian medieval and Renaissance documents. With the assistance of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), Professor Szépe is now preparing a book entitled Privilege and Duty in the Serene Republic: Illuminated Manuscripts of Renaissance Venice. “While researching my dissertation on […]
sOil-based printing ink on paper: Bleeding, browning, blanching and peroxides By Ad Stijnman Papier Restaurierung Vol. 1 (2000) Abstract: Printing with oil-based ink is known in Europe from the 11th century, when it was used for decorating textile. Printing on paper is done here by the end of the 14th century. Although oilbased inks are […]
This article estimates the development of manuscripts and printed books in Western Europe over the course of thirteen centuries
The New Middle Ages: Medievalism in McLuhan and Vacca By Francesco Guardiani McLuhan Studies, Issue 6 (1996) Abstract: A very successful book formulated years ago in its title, The Coming Dark Age, (from the original Italian, Il medioevo prossimo venturo, by Roberto Vacca, published in 1971) a sense of anxiety over planetary end-of-the-second-millennium problems, such […]
Malory’s Maladies: Determining Intention and Influence through Editorial Theory in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur By Lisa Ann Stuchell Master’s Thesis, Marshall University, 2010 Abstract: By examining both William Caxton’s edition and the Winchester manuscript of Malory’s King Arthur tales, readers can begin to understand the editorial theory issues associated with these dissimilar texts. […]
‘For What Purpose Do They Spend?’ Some Preliminary Thoughts on Penwork Produced by William de Brailes and his Collaborators Johnston, Cynthia Marginalia, Vol. 9, (2009) Abstract In the catalogue description of six leaves from a Psalter attributed to William de Brailes (Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 330), Paul Binski comments that ‘[i]lluminated Bibles produced in France and England […]
HEBREW PRINTING HOUSES IN POLAND AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF THEIR HISTORY IN THE WORLD Pilarczyk, Krzysztof (Jagiellonian University, Kraków) Studia Judaica 7: 2004 nr 2(14) Abstract The gradually recognised heritage of Jewish culture on the territory of Poland within its historical borders is beginning to demonstrate wealth that had previously passed unnoticed. Post-war studies in Poland […]
The Book Trade in the Italian Renaissance: Structure and Regulation By Professor Angela Nuovo, Universita di Udine 46th Annual Erasmus Lecture Given at the University of Toronto, October 21, 2010 Professor Nuovo spoke about how the book trade developed in Italy following the introduction of the printing press in the 15th century. Book printing quickly […]
Gender and the literate culture of late medieval England By Janine Rogers Thesis (Ph.D.)–McGill University, 1998 Abstract: This dissertation explores the impact of gender ideologies held by medieval readerships on the production of books and circulation of texts in late medieval England. The first chapter explores how the professional book trade of late medieval London […]
This essay explores the evolving significance of a famous fourteenth-century Paul’s Cross sermon by Thomas Wimbledon in late medieval and early modern England and its transmission from manuscript to print.
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