The internet has, in fact, revolutionized the study of manuscripts (often abbreviated MSS or singular MS). There are, however, more accessible options for those who don’t share these credentials, beginning with the excellent manuscript resources now available online. Although you might be lucky enough to see a few especially important medieval books (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, for instance, or the Book of Kells) on display under glass at museums and libraries, for the most part only specialists with the proper training and references, as well as the need to read these precious manuscripts for research or publications are allowed to consult them in person. Huntington Library in California and the Newberry Library in Illinois. There are large collections in both England and Europe–the British Library in London, the various Oxford Libraries and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France preserve particularly significant numbers–and some North American libraries have substantial collections as well, like the Henry E. Medieval manuscripts are generally found in major research libraries, though some still reside in their original homes at cathedrals, colleges and even private estates.
#MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS FULL#
So each medieval manuscript is as full of surprises as challenges, and well worth a careful look.
He or she would also and inevitably introduce errors, both accidental and deliberate, to the texts copied, which would then require adjustment or correction. He or she (for there were women scribes in the Middle Ages as well) might gather a number of texts not found together anywhere else combine and even edit them in original ways and choose a layout and decoration that worked for the materials and the client. A medieval book (or codex, the Latin word for “tree trunk,” used because early books were made of wooden boards coated with wax) is essentially like a modern book, but instead of producing multiple copies with each exactly the same as the others like publishers today do, a medieval scribe made a unique, hand-written copy of the texts he or his master or his patron wanted copied. So charters and scrolls, fragments and books are all manuscripts, but it is the last that are most commonly referred to as manuscripts proper. Strictly speaking, any hand-written document is a manuscript–the Latin manuscriptus literally means “written” (scriptus) “by hand” (manu).
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