Self-contained units in composite manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon period

Bibliographic Data

ID11451539
AuthorsP R Robinson (Queen's University Belfast, corresponding author)
Year1978
Volume7
Pages231-238
Publication date1978-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnglo-Saxon England (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0263-6751 • E-ISSN: 1474-0532
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0263675100002957
OpenAlexW2107058814
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited4

Many medieval manuscripts are composite volumes, made up of a number of self-contained units which elsewhere I have called ‘booklets’. Such a unit originated as a small but structurally independent production containing a single work or a number of short works. Two of the earliest surviving examples, dating from the late eighth century, were produced on the continent. Each is a single gathering now bound with other gatherings into a codex: Merseburg, Stiftsbibliothek 105, fols. 85–105, containing Alcuin's Vita S. Vedasti and some of his homilies, and St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek 567, pp. 135–53, containing a Vita S. Lucii. There is a fold in the centre of every page of both these quires, made after the text had been copied and not present in the other quires with which they are now bound. In both instances the completed quire was folded so that the verso of its last leaf became the outer pages or ‘cover’ of the resulting booklet. This ‘cover‘ is more soiled than the other pages in the quire, suggesting that the booklet once circulated independently of the other quires in the manuscript into which it is bound

Art · Cover (algebra · Period (music · Classics · Engineering · Historical, Literary, and Cultural Studies · History · Libraries, Manuscripts, and Books · Medieval Literature and History

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