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20240329T104943
urn:uuid:b59f517f-1ec8-43b4-a9cd-4b66649760cb
03
15
9781800649620
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EB
E101
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01
01
Touching Parchment: How Medieval Users Rubbed, Handled, and Kissed Their Manuscripts
Volume 1: Officials and Their Books
1
A01
Kathryn M. Rudy
01
eng
00
272
03
10
HIS037010
23
History of the Book
23
Medieval book
12
WCS
04
Z110.H36
10
ANT052000
12
HBLC1
23
religious
12
JFCD
23
secular
10
SOC002010
12
JHBT
23
touching
23
handling
23
rituals
23
medieval
01
06
03
00
The Medieval book, both religious and secular, was regarded as a most precious item. The traces of its use through touching and handling during different rituals such as oath-taking, is the subject of Kathryn Rudy’s research in Touching Parchment.
Rudy presents numerous and fascinating case studies that relate to the evidence of use and damage through touching and or kissing. She also puts each study within a category of different ways of handling books, mainly liturgical, legal or choral practice, and in turn connects each practice to the horizontal or vertical behavioural patterns of users within a public or private environment.
With her keen eye for observation in being able to identify various characteristics of inadvertent and targeted wear, the author adds a new dimension to the Medieval book. She gives the reader the opportunity to reflect on the social, anthropological and historical value of the use of the book by sharpening our senses to the way users handled books in different situations. Rudy has amassed an incredible amount of material for this research and the way in which she presents each manuscript conveys an approach that scholars on Medieval history and book materiality should keep in mind when carrying out their own research. What perhaps is most striking in her articulate text, is how she expresses that the touching of books was not without emotion, and the accumulated effects of these emotions are worthy of preservation, study and further reflection.
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Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations xv
PART I: Introduction xvii
1. Feeling One’s Way Through the Book 1
I. Structure of the Book 4
II. Damage 5
III. A Haptic Approach 10
2. Ways of Touching Manuscripts 29
I. Inadvertent Wear 29
II. Targeted Wear 32
Part II: Books and Authority 45
3. Swearing on Relics and Gospels 51
I. Swearing on Gospels 54
II. Proffering the Book 69
4. Kissing: From Relics to Manuscripts 81
I. Kissing Missals 85
II. A Brief History of the Missal 86
III. Transformations of the Book 108
IV. Printed Canon Pages 118
5. Swearing: From Gospels to Legal Manuscripts 123
I. Last Judgment Imagery for Reinforcing Obligation 125
II. Local Government: Customary Law Books 137
III. The University: Old Proctors’ Book 154
IV.The Inquisition: Inquisitor’s Manual 160
6. Performances Within the Church 167
I. Choral Manuscripts 167
II. Books and Holy Water 176
III. Grand Obituary of Notre-Dame in Paris 186
Conclusion: The Gloves Are Off 213
Coda 223
Index 225
Bibliography 227
Illustrations 239
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