Their Hands Before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes: The Lyell Lectures Delivered in the University of Oxford 1999

by Parkes,M.B.

• ISBN13: 9780754663379
• ISBN10: 075466337X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Following on from his acclaimed study of punctuation, Pause and Effect, this new book by Malcolm Parkes makes an equally fundamental contribution to the history of handwriting. Its purpose is to focus on the handwriting of scribes from late antiquity to the beginning of the sixteenth century, and to identify those features which are a scribe's personal contribution to the techniques and art of handwriting. Handwriting is a versatile medium that has always allowed individual scribes the opportunity for self-expression, despite the limitations of the pen and the finite number of possible movements.The book opens with three chapters surveying the various environments in which scribes worked in the medieval West. The following five, based on the author's Lyell lectures at the University of Oxford, then examine different aspects of the subject, starting with the basic processes of handwriting and copying. Next come discussions of developments in rapid handwriting, with its consequent influence on new alphabets; on more formal 'set hands'; and on the adaptation of movements of the pen to produce elements of style corresponding to changes in the prevailing sense of decorum. The final chapter looks at the significance of customized images of handwriting on the page. The text is illustrated with 69 plates, and accompanied by a glossary of the technical terms applied to handwriting, which in itself makes a significant contribution to the subject.

Author Biography

M. B. Parkes is Professor emeritus of Palaeography in the University of Oxford, and Fellow emeritus of Keble College. He is a Senior Fellow of the British Academy a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, and has been Visiting Professor at the University of Konstanz (1974 and 1980), James T. Hill Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota (1991), and Visiting Professor of Latin at Harvard University (1997).

Table of Contents

Preface

Scribes and Their Environments

Before 1100; 1100-1540 Religious orders in England; 1100-1500 Secular scribes in England: clergy, scholars, professional and commercial scribes

Scribes at Work

Which came first reading or writing? The function and processes of handwriting and the problems of copying

The hasty scribe; cursive handwriting in antiquity and the Middle Ages

Set in their own ways: scribes and book hands c.800-1200

Features of fashion: scribes and style c1200-1500

Through the eyes of scribes and readers: handwriting as image

Glossary, Indexes and Select List of Printed Works

Select glossary of technical terms applied to handwriting

Index of scribes referred to by name or pseudonym

Index of manuscripts cited

Select list of printed works cited

General index

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