Text and Textuality in Early Medieval Iberia
Journal Data
| Type | SOURCE_BOOK |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (GB) |
| ISBN-13 | 9780192895370 |
| Open Library | OL28805894W |
| Total publications | 10 |
| Coverage period | 2023 - 2023 |
| Language | EN |
| Cited by | 88 |
| h-index | 1 |
| i10-index | 1 |
This book is a study of the functions and conceptions of writing and reading, documentation and archives, and the role of literate authorities in the Christian kingdoms of the northern Iberian Peninsula between the Muslim conquest of 711 and the fall of the Islamic caliphate at Córdoba in 1031. Based on the first complete survey of the over 4,000 surviving Latin charters from the period, it is an essay in the archaeology and biography of text: part one concerns materiality, tracing the lifecycle of charters from initiation and composition to preservation and reuse, while part two addresses connectivity, delineating a network of texts through painstaking identification of more than 2,000 citations of other charters, secular and canon law, the Bible, liturgy, and monastic rules. Few may have been able to read or write, yet the extent of textuality was broad and deep, in the authority conferred upon text and the arrangements made to use it. Via charter and scribe, society and social arrangements came increasingly to be influenced by norms originating from a network of texts. By profiling the intersection and interaction of text with society and culture, this book reconstructs textuality, how the authority of the written and the structures to access it framed and constrained actions and cultural norms, and proposes a new model of early medieval reading. As they cited other texts, charters circulated fragments of those texts; we must rethink the relationship of sources and audiences to reflect fragmentary transmission, in a textuality of imperfect knowledge.
Conclusion
This chapter argues that the written was the world of early medieval Iberia. Few may have been able to read and write, yet the extent of textuality was both broad and deep, in the authority conferred upon text and the arrangements made to use it. Via charter and scribe, society and social arrangements came increasingly to be influenced by norms originating from a network of texts. But this study also raises two critical questions. The greater den…
Appendices
Subject Modern History (1700 to 1945) Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
Sacred Words
This chapter explores a further component of the network of texts in the corpus of charters, how the habits of the clergy revolved around Scripture, canon law, and monastic rules. Clerical scribes understood and expressed gift through the terms of their imagined community of Scripture, but as they had heard it, meditated on it, and prayed with it. They bounded Church patrimonies too by the compass of their textual community of canon law, or their…
Creating
This chapter is dedicated to the who, how, when, and where of the documentation. When we look for agents of literacy in early medieval Iberia, we find that primary literacy is nearly invisible amongst both the parties and witnesses to the transactions: in this society of secondary literacy, where making use of the written word by proxy was the norm, scribes become our quarry. If we pursue for whom they wrote, we can identify a broad network of sc…
Retaining
This chapter ‘follows the parchment’. When a charter was drawn up, the beneficiary received both that record of transaction and prior written titles of that property; repeated over time, this process formed and combined archives. If we start at its first stage, the initial handover, we see signs that parties of all types, institutions and individuals, clergy and laity, maintained and curated archives. The dorsal notes on the reverse side of numer…
Proving
This chapter introduces the network of the corpus of charters, by delineating the interconnectedness between them. Charters were self-promoting: they situated themselves in a network of other charters, bearing witness to the ongoing relevance of each one beyond its creation, and acting to identify additional means of defence in court. As charters cited other charters to confirm themselves, to establish a background of textual transactions, to fla…
Framing
This chapter explores the second component of the network of texts in which charters positioned themselves: the written law of the Visigothic code, deployed and debated in the records of transactions and disputes. Some citations of legal precepts and provisions recur so often as to be formulaic: to confirm the legality of the act, or to assess or assign the penalty for interference, law is a crucial element of the legitimising rhetoric of the tex…
Archival Voices
This chapter introduces the lifecycle of the corpus of charters: how early medieval birth gave way to centuries of changing hands, passage from archive to archive, until the only homes which have preserved them became ecclesiastical and state institutions. In defining the corpus for study, the chapter casts the widest possible net, ranging over the entirety of northern Iberia (excluding Catalunya), to control for particularities which can distort…
Dedication
Text and Textuality in Early Medieval Iberia
This book is a study of the functions and conceptions of writing and reading, documentation and archives, and the role of literate authorities in the Christian kingdoms of the northern Iberian Peninsula between the Muslim conquest of 711 and the fall of the Islamic caliphate at Córdoba in 1031. Based on the first complete survey of the over 4,000 surviving Latin charters from the period, it is an essay in the archaeology and biography of text: pa…
Text and Textuality in Early Medieval Iberia
This book is a study of the functions and conceptions of writing and reading, documentation and archives, and the role of literate authorities in the Christian kingdoms of the northern Iberian Peninsula between the Muslim conquest of 711 and the fall of the Islamic caliphate at Córdoba in 1031. Based on the first complete survey of the over 4,000 surviving Latin charters from the period, it is an essay in the archaeology and biography of text: pa…
Conclusion
This chapter argues that the written was the world of early medieval Iberia. Few may have been able to read and write, yet the extent of textuality was both broad and deep, in the authority conferred upon text and the arrangements made to use it. Via charter and scribe, society and social arrangements came increasingly to be influenced by norms originating from a network of texts. But this study also raises two critical questions. The greater den…
Appendices
Subject Modern History (1700 to 1945) Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online
Sacred Words
This chapter explores a further component of the network of texts in the corpus of charters, how the habits of the clergy revolved around Scripture, canon law, and monastic rules. Clerical scribes understood and expressed gift through the terms of their imagined community of Scripture, but as they had heard it, meditated on it, and prayed with it. They bounded Church patrimonies too by the compass of their textual community of canon law, or their…
Creating
This chapter is dedicated to the who, how, when, and where of the documentation. When we look for agents of literacy in early medieval Iberia, we find that primary literacy is nearly invisible amongst both the parties and witnesses to the transactions: in this society of secondary literacy, where making use of the written word by proxy was the norm, scribes become our quarry. If we pursue for whom they wrote, we can identify a broad network of sc…
Retaining
This chapter ‘follows the parchment’. When a charter was drawn up, the beneficiary received both that record of transaction and prior written titles of that property; repeated over time, this process formed and combined archives. If we start at its first stage, the initial handover, we see signs that parties of all types, institutions and individuals, clergy and laity, maintained and curated archives. The dorsal notes on the reverse side of numer…
Proving
This chapter introduces the network of the corpus of charters, by delineating the interconnectedness between them. Charters were self-promoting: they situated themselves in a network of other charters, bearing witness to the ongoing relevance of each one beyond its creation, and acting to identify additional means of defence in court. As charters cited other charters to confirm themselves, to establish a background of textual transactions, to fla…
Framing
This chapter explores the second component of the network of texts in which charters positioned themselves: the written law of the Visigothic code, deployed and debated in the records of transactions and disputes. Some citations of legal precepts and provisions recur so often as to be formulaic: to confirm the legality of the act, or to assess or assign the penalty for interference, law is a crucial element of the legitimising rhetoric of the tex…
Archival Voices
This chapter introduces the lifecycle of the corpus of charters: how early medieval birth gave way to centuries of changing hands, passage from archive to archive, until the only homes which have preserved them became ecclesiastical and state institutions. In defining the corpus for study, the chapter casts the widest possible net, ranging over the entirety of northern Iberia (excluding Catalunya), to control for particularities which can distort…
Dedication
Text and Textuality in Early Medieval Iberia
This book is a study of the functions and conceptions of writing and reading, documentation and archives, and the role of literate authorities in the Christian kingdoms of the northern Iberian Peninsula between the Muslim conquest of 711 and the fall of the Islamic caliphate at Córdoba in 1031. Based on the first complete survey of the over 4,000 surviving Latin charters from the period, it is an essay in the archaeology and biography of text: pa…