Composite and multiple-text manuscripts are traditionally studied for their individual texts, but recent trends in codicology have paved the way for a more comprehensive approach: Manuscripts are unique artefacts which reveal how they were produced and used as physical objects. While multiple-text manuscripts codicologically are to be considered as production units, i.e. they were originally pl…
The universal practice of selecting and excerpting, summarizing and canonizing, arranging and organizing texts and visual signs, either in carefully dedicated types of manuscripts or not, is common to all manuscript cultures. Determined by intellectual or practical needs, this process is never neutral in itself. The resulting proximity and juxtaposition of previously distant contents, challenge…
As records of the link between a manuscript and the texts it contains, paratexts document many aspects of a manuscript’s life: production, transmission, usage, and reception. Comprehensive studies of paratexts are still rare in the field of manuscript studies, and the universal categories of time and space are used to create a common frame for research and comparisons. Contributions in this v…
The number of manuscripts produced in the Indian sub-continent is astounding and is the result of a massive enterprise that was carried out over a vast geographical area and over a vast stretch of time. Focusing mainly on areas of Northern India and Nepal between 800 to 1300 CE and on manuscripts containing Sanskrit texts, the present study investigates a fundamental and so far rarely studied a…
This book provides a comprehensive introduction to the history and development of the Latin New Testament and a user’s guide to the resources available for research and further study. The first five chapters offer a new historical synthesis, bringing together evidence from Christian authors and biblical manuscripts from earliest times to the late Middle Ages. Each witness is considered in its…
In October 2014 about thirty scholars from Asia and Europe came together for a conference to discuss different kinds of sources for the research on Central Asia. From museum collections and ancient manuscripts to modern newspapers and pulp fiction and the wind horses flying against the blue sky of Mongolia there was a wide range of topics. Modern data processing and data management and the prob…
If you work with digital photos of manuscripts or archival materials, Among Digitized Manuscripts provides the conceptual and practical toolbox for you to create a state-of-the-art methodology and workflow. No previous computer knowledge is required. Readership: People working with digital photos of texts, especially handwritten documents such as manuscripts and archive materials.
India has been the homeland of diverse manuscript traditions that do not cease to impress scholars for their imposing size and complexity. Nevertheless, many topics concerning the study of Indian manuscript cultures still remain to receive systematic examination. Of Gods and Books pays attention to one of these topics - the use of manuscripts as ritualistic tools. Literary sources deal quite ex…
This volume explores the production and use of medieval manuscripts that contain classical Latin texts. Six experts in the field address a range of topics related to these manuscripts, including how classical texts were disseminated throughout medieval society, how readers used and interacted with specific texts, and what these books look like from a material standpoint. This collection of essa…
The archive is traditionally considered the counterpart of the library, the one storing records, the other housing books. There is evidence, however, that this institutional division of labor reflects certain historical and social constellations. The present volume addresses the question of this complex interrelationship with case-studies from an impressive variety of ancient, traditional, and …