• About
  • Background
  • Members
  • Acknowledgements
  • Questionnaire
• Portal
  • Language
  • Palaeography and Codicology
  • Textual Criticism and Editorial Practices
  • Socio-Historical Contexts
  • TOOLS
• What's New
  • Recent Event
  • Needs Analysis
• Project Partners
  • Queen's University Belfast
    Imagining History Project
  • The University of Birmingham
    West Midlands Manuscripts Project
  • The University of Birmingham
    Institute for Textual Scholarship and Electronic Editing
  • Queen Mary, University of London
    Editing Lives and Letters
  • The University of Glasgow
    Digitisation Project
  • The University of Glasgow
    Middle English Grammar Project
  • The University of York
    Late Medieval English Scribes
• Other Links
  • Texts on Line
  • Bibliographies on Line
  • Links of Links
  • Centres for Medieval Studies
  • Conferences & Seminars

 

3. Manuscripts Studies

A) LINNE MOONEY's CHECKLIST
When Examining a Medieval Manuscript

 

Examining medieval manuscripts is one of the major tasks for students who are working on their PhDs in Medieval English Textual Cultures. Which aspects of a manuscript should we pay attention to? Why these are important? In this session, an expert in palaeography, Linne Mooney will share her 'CHECKLIST When Examining a Medieval Manuscript'. Please have a look of this list in advance, and also familiarize yourself with the terms used in this list.

 

1. Binding: is it medieval? If yes, describe, including colour, type of boards, number of thongs, etc.; if not depends on detail of your description (what stamped on it, colour, clasp? etc.)
2. Material: parchment, paper, or a mix of the two?
3. Number of folios, including flyleaves, given lower-case roman numbers (ii + 145 + iii)
4. Contents (from a catalogue if possible; also note bibliography of catalogue and pages)
5. Collation: break down into quires, using catchwords, signatures, or physical aspects (1-4⁸ 5⁶ 6^8-3 (lacking 3-5) 7-9⁸ 102)
6. Size of page, measured in mm, height x width
7. Size of written space, measured in mm, height x width (and separate columns)
8. Layout: double or single columns, number of lines per page or column, separate column for glosses?
9. Frame: how many verticals? horizontals? for what (i.e. enclosing top and bottom lines, or running titles, etc.)? ruled within? ink or plummet or crayon? colour? pricking at edges?
10. Decoration: miniatures, historiated initials, illumination, decoration, rubric
11. Pagination: pages or folios? modern? usual place (upper outer corner of rectos)? etc. pencil or ink?
12. Catchwords: usual place (lower margin of last folio of quire, near gutter)? by scribe?
13. Signatures: usual place (lower outer corner rectos of first half of quire)? colour? by scribe? using upper or lower case letters, roman or arabic numbers? does first quire use '+', or 'a'? do letters begin again (i.e., separate booklets)? cropped?
14. Table of contents or index of contents? by scribe? added later? reference to medieval folios?
15. Secundo folio: first several words at top of second folio
16. Indications of scribe in explicits? Date given in explicits? Datable by texts, contents?
17. Indications of owners, by 'liber...' or 'constat...' or simply signatures? on which folios?
18. Annotations by later users? which texts are annotated, how many users? approx. date?

See the to explain terms on this CHECKLIST.

Back to the Symposium Programme.

The Quadrivium Project is hosted by the University of Glasgow, funded by the AHRC