Advanced Seminar in Medieval Manuscript Studies

Course Description

“I would definitely recommend the course to anyone who is past the introductory level and would like to enhance their skills.” —2017 student This advanced course in medieval manuscript studies will build upon the skills acquired in introductory classes in paleography, codicology, and the history of the hand-produced book; it is intended to deepen an individual’s understanding of the varied approaches to medieval and Renaissance manuscripts. Primary working sessions will be hands-on analysis and discussion of fragments and codices (both complete and incomplete) in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library—one of the foremost collections in North America. Students will select a Yale manuscript to research and to describe in detail for a final oral presentation in the class. In addition to practical sessions of transcribing difficult scripts from the later Middle Ages (c.1100–1500), there will be workshops by Yale conservators on inks and pigments, parchment, and paper, including watermark identification. There will also be a session on collating complex manuscripts and the importance of collation for understanding the production of medieval manuscripts. The emphasis will be on research with medieval primary source materials and through PDFs of pertinent and specialized articles; digital images of comparative materials will be circulated to participants. Classes will be taught in the Beinecke Library, though students might also work on early materials from the Yale Law School special collections for their projects. In their personal statement applicants should list previous courses (and dates when taken) completed at RBS and elsewhere in medieval manuscript studies, paleography, codicology, &c.; their past experience in the use of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts; and their level of proficiency in Latin and other languages (e.g., Greek, Middle English, &c.). Applicants should have very good or excellent Latin language skills.

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Advance Reading List

Preliminary Advices

Participants should bring to New Haven: pencils (no ink), a magnifying glass, a computer (of whatever sort), a Latin-English dictionary of any size; a printed copy (since the printed reproduction of the abbreviations is closer to the manuscript than the online version) of Adriano Cappelli,Lexicon abbreviaturarum. Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane: the introduction should be reviewed before the class either in the original Italian, or in the English translation by Davin Himann and Richard Kay, The Elements of Abbreviation in Medieval Latin Paleography  (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Libraries, 1982).

Before class participants should also be familiar with and/or re-read:

Derolez, Albert. The Palaeography of Gothic Manuscript Books, from the Twelfth to the Early Sixteenth Century (Cambridge Studies in Palaeography and Codicology 9) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Bischoff, Bernhard. Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, English tr. by Dáibhi ó Crónin and David Ganz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Shailor, Barbara A. The Medieval Book: Catalogue of an Exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. New Haven: Yale University Library, 1988.

Since each person will have to select a project for class presentation, please consult the website of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library for some of the following collections which contain medieval and Renaissance manuscripts: General, Marston, Mellon Alchemical, Osborn. The printed catalogs of each of the collections (when available) are to be preferred due to some typographical issues with the digital format of the website (e.g., no Greek or Middle English letterforms), but the online version contains a more complete listing of the more recent acquisitions. It would be most useful to select a few items beforehand that may be appropriate for a project. All projects must be approved by the instructor.

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Course Evaluations

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Course History