![De urinarum differencia negocium between 1210 and 1230](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/De_urinarum_differencia_negocium_between_1210_and_1230_..JPG)
A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical
typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
s became available,
typewritten
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selective ...
– as opposed to mechanically
printed
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The e ...
or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has come to be understood to further include ''any'' written, typed, or word-processed copy of an author's work, as distinguished from the rendition as a printed version of the same. Before the arrival of
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...
, all documents and books were manuscripts. Manuscripts are not defined by their contents, which may combine writing with mathematical calculations, maps,
music notation
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
, explanatory figures, or illustrations.
Terminology
![Satie sports preface](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Satie_sports_preface.jpg)
The study of the writing in surviving manuscripts, the "hand", is termed
palaeography
Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...
(or paleography). The traditional abbreviations are MS for manuscript and MSS for manuscripts, while the forms MS., ms or ms. for singular, and MSS., mss or mss. for plural (with or without the full stop, all uppercase or all lowercase) are also accepted. The second ''s'' is not simply the plural; by an old convention, a doubling of the last letter of the abbreviation expresses the plural, just as ''pp.'' means "pages".
A manuscript may be a
codex (i.e.
bound as a book) or a
scroll.
Illuminated manuscripts are enriched with pictures, border decorations, elaborately embossed initial letters or full-page illustrations.
Parts
*
Cover
Cover or covers may refer to:
Packaging
* Another name for a lid
* Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package
* Album cover, the front of the packaging
* Book cover or magazine cover
** Book design
** Back cover copy, part of co ...
*
Flyleaf
Flyleaf may refer to:
*In book design, a blank leaf in the front or back cover
* Flyleaf (band)
Flyleaf is an American rock band formed in Belton, Texas, in 2002. The band has charted on mainstream rock, Christian pop, and Christian metal ...
(blank sheet)
*
Colophon (publication information)
*
incipit (the first few words of the text)
* decoration; illustrations
* dimensions
*
Shelfmark
A shelfmark is a mark in a book or manuscript that denotes the cupboard or bookcase where it is kept as well as the shelf and possibly even its location on the shelf. The closely related term pressmark (from press, meaning cupboard) denotes only t ...
or Signature in holding library (as opposed to printed Catalog number)
* works/compositions included in same ms
*
codicological
Codicology (; from French ''codicologie;'' from Latin , genitive , "notebook, book" and Greek , ''-logia'') is the study of codices or manuscript books. It is often referred to as "the archaeology of the book," a term coined by François Masai. ...
elements:
** deletions method: erasure? overstrike? dots above letters?
** headers/footers
** page format/layout: columns? text and surrounding commentary/additions/glosses?
**
interpolations (passage not written by the original author)
** owners' marginal notations/corrections
** owner signatures
** dedication/
inscription
Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the w ...
** censor signatures
*
collation
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office filin ...
(quires) (binding order)
*
foliation
In mathematics (differential geometry), a foliation is an equivalence relation on an ''n''-manifold, the equivalence classes being connected, injectively immersed submanifolds, all of the same dimension ''p'', modeled on the decomposition of ...
*
page numeration
*
binding
* manuscripts bound together in a single volume:
** convolute: volume containing different manuscripts
** fascicle: individual manuscript, part of a convolute
Materials
*
paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...
*
parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...
*
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
*
ink
Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. Thicker ...
*
writing implement
A writing implement or writing instrument is an object used to produce writing. Writing consists of different figures, lines, and or forms. Most of these items can be also used for other functions such as painting, drawing and technical drawing, ...
used
*
pencil
A pencil () is a writing or drawing implement with a solid pigment core in a protective casing that reduces the risk of core breakage, and keeps it from marking the user's hand.
Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving a trail ...
*
pastedown
The endpapers or end-papers of a book (also known as the endsheets) are the pages that consist of a double-size sheet folded, with one half pasted against an inside cover (the pastedown), and the other serving as the first free page (the free end ...
(blank paper for inside cover)
Paleographic elements
* script (one or more?)
* dating
*
line fillers
*
rubrication
Rubrication is the addition of text in red ink to a manuscript for emphasis. Practitioners of rubrication, so-called ''rubricators'' or ''rubrishers'', were specialized scribes who received text from the original scribe. Rubrication was one of s ...
(red ink text)
* ruled lines
*
catchwords
A catchword is a word placed at the foot of a handwritten or printed page that is meant to be bound along with other pages in a book. The word anticipates the first word of the following page. It was meant to help the bookbinder or printer make ...
* historical elements of the ms: blood, wine etc. stains
* condition:
** smokiness
** evidence of fire
** mold
** wormed
Reproduction
The mechanical reproduction of a manuscript is called
facsimile. Digital reproductions can be called (high-resolution)
scans or
digital images.
History
![Gharib al-Hadith-page0019](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Gharib_al-Hadith-page0019.jpg)
Before the inventions of printing, in China by
woodblock and in Europe by
movable type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuation m ...
in a
printing press
A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
, all written documents had to be both produced and reproduced by hand. Historically, manuscripts were produced in form of scrolls (''volumen'' in Latin) or books (''codex'', plural ''codices''). Manuscripts were produced on
vellum
Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...
and other parchment, on
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
, and on paper. In Russia
birch bark document
Birch bark manuscripts are documents written on pieces of the inner layer of birch bark, which was commonly used for writing before the advent of mass production of paper. Evidence of birch bark for writing goes back many centuries and in variou ...
s as old as from the 11th century have survived. In India, the
palm leaf manuscript
Palm-leaf manuscripts are manuscripts made out of dried palm leaves. Palm leaves were used as writing materials in the Indian subcontinent and in Southeast Asia reportedly dating back to the 5th century BCE. Their use began in South Asia and s ...
, with a distinctive long rectangular shape, was used from ancient times until the 19th century.
Paper
Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, rags, grasses or other vegetable sources in water, draining the water through fine mesh leaving the fibre evenly distrib ...
spread from China via the Islamic world to Europe by the 14th century, and by the late 15th century had largely replaced parchment for many purposes. When Greek or Latin works were published, numerous professional copies were made simultaneously by scribes in a
scriptorium
Scriptorium (), literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the writing, copying and illuminating of manuscripts commonly handled by monastic scribes.
However, lay scribes an ...
, each making a single copy from an original that was declaimed aloud.
The oldest written manuscripts have been preserved by the perfect dryness of their Middle Eastern resting places, whether placed within
sarcophagi
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...
in Egyptian tombs, or reused as
mummy
A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay fu ...
-wrappings, discarded in the
middens of
Oxyrhynchus or secreted for safe-keeping in jars and buried (
Nag Hammadi library
The Nag Hammadi library (also known as the " Chenoboskion Manuscripts" and the "Gnostic Gospels") is a collection of early Christian and Gnostic texts discovered near the Upper Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945.
Thirteen leather-bound papyr ...
) or stored in dry caves (
Dead Sea scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...
). Manuscripts in
Tocharian languages
The Tocharian (sometimes ''Tokharian'') languages ( or ), also known as ''Arśi-Kuči'', Agnean-Kuchean or Kuchean-Agnean, are an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family spoken by inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, the Tocharians. The ...
, written on palm leaves, survived in desert burials in the
Tarim Basin
The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Northwest China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, China." Hydr ...
of Central Asia. Volcanic ash preserved some of the Roman library of the
Villa of the Papyri
The Villa of the Papyri ( it, Villa dei Papiri, also known as ''Villa dei Pisoni'' and in early excavation records as the ''Villa Suburbana'') was an ancient Roman villa in Herculaneum, in what is now Ercolano, southern Italy. It is named afte ...
in
Herculaneum.
Ironically, the manuscripts that were being most carefully preserved in the libraries of
antiquity are virtually all lost. Papyrus has a life of at most a century or two in relatively moist Italian or Greek conditions; only those works copied onto parchment, usually after the general conversion to Christianity, have survived, and by no means all of those.
Originally, all books were in manuscript form. In China, and later other parts of East Asia,
woodblock printing
Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of textile printing, printing on textiles and later paper. Each page o ...
was used for books from about the 7th century. The earliest dated example is the
Diamond Sutra of 868. In the Islamic world and the West, all books were in manuscript until the introduction of movable type printing in about 1450. Manuscript copying of books continued for a least a century, as printing remained expensive. Private or government documents remained hand-written until the invention of the typewriter in the late 19th century. Because of the likelihood of errors being introduced each time a manuscript was copied, the
filiation of different versions of the same text is a fundamental part of the study and criticism of all texts that have been transmitted in manuscript.
In
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
, in the first millennium, documents of sufficiently great importance were inscribed on soft metallic sheets such as
copperplate, softened by refiner's fire and inscribed with a metal stylus. In the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, for example, as early as 900 AD, specimen documents were not inscribed by stylus, but were punched much like the style of today's
dot-matrix printer
A dot matrix printer is an impact printer that prints using a fixed number of pins or wires. Typically the pins or wires are arranged in one or several vertical columns. The pins strike an ink-coated ribbon and force contact between the ribbon ...
s. This type of document was rare compared to the usual leaves and bamboo staves that were inscribed. However, neither the leaves nor paper were as durable as the metal document in the hot, humid climate. In
Burma
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
, the kammavaca, Buddhist manuscripts, were inscribed on brass, copper or ivory sheets, and even on discarded monk robes folded and lacquered. In
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
some important
Etruscan __NOTOC__
Etruscan may refer to:
Ancient civilization
*The Etruscan language, an extinct language in ancient Italy
*Something derived from or related to the Etruscan civilization
**Etruscan architecture
**Etruscan art
**Etruscan cities
** Etrusca ...
texts were similarly inscribed on thin gold plates: similar sheets have been discovered in
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
. Technically, these are all inscriptions rather than manuscripts.
In the Western world, from the
classical period through the early centuries of the
Christian era, manuscripts were written without spaces between the words (
scriptio continua), which makes them especially hard for the untrained to read. Extant copies of these early manuscripts written in
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
or
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
and usually dating from the 4th century to the 8th century, are classified according to their use of either all
upper case
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
or all
lower case letters.
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
manuscripts, such as the
Dead Sea scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...
make no such differentiation. Manuscripts using all upper case letters are called
majuscule, those using all lower case are called
minuscule
Letter case is the distinction between the letters that are in larger uppercase or capitals (or more formally ''majuscule'') and smaller lowercase (or more formally ''minuscule'') in the written representation of certain languages. The writing ...
. Usually, the majuscule scripts such as
uncial
Uncial is a majuscule Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. (1996) ''Encyclopedia of the Book''. 2nd edn. New Castle, DE, and London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, p. 494. script (written entirely in capital letters) commonly used from the 4th to ...
are written with much more care. The scribe lifted his pen between each stroke, producing an unmistakable effect of regularity and formality. On the other hand, while minuscule scripts can be written with pen-lift, they may also be
cursive, that is, use little or no pen-lift.
Islamic world
Islamic manuscripts were produced in different ways depending on their use and time period.
Parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...
(vellum) was a common way to produce manuscripts. Manuscripts eventually transitioned to using paper in later centuries with the diffusion of paper making in the Islamic empire. When Muslims encountered paper in Central Asia, its use and production spread to Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and North Africa during the 8th century.
Africa
In present-day
Mali
Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mal ...
, about 250,000 old manuscripts from the
Timbuktu
Timbuktu ( ; french: Tombouctou;
Koyra Chiini: ); tmh, label=Tuareg, script=Tfng, ⵜⵏⴱⴾⵜ, Tin Buqt a city in Mali, situated north of the Niger River. The town is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrativ ...
libraries survive.
According to
National Geographic, around 700,000 manuscripts in
Timbuktu
Timbuktu ( ; french: Tombouctou;
Koyra Chiini: ); tmh, label=Tuareg, script=Tfng, ⵜⵏⴱⴾⵜ, Tin Buqt a city in Mali, situated north of the Niger River. The town is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrativ ...
alone has survived.
Approximately 1 million manuscripts have since managed to survive from the northern edges of
Guinea and
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
to the shores of the Mediterranean.
Western world
![European Output of Manuscripts 500–1500](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/European_Output_of_Manuscripts_500%E2%80%931500.png)
Most surviving pre-modern manuscripts use the codex format (as in a modern book), which had replaced the scroll by
Late Antiquity
Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English ha ...
.
Parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...
or
vellum
Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...
, as the best type of parchment is known, had also replaced
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
, which was not nearly so long lived and has survived to the present only in the extremely dry conditions of
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
, although it was widely used across the Roman world. Parchment is made of animal skin, normally calf, sheep, or goat, but also other animals. With all skins, the quality of the finished product is based on how much preparation and skill was put into turning the skin into parchment. Parchment made from calf or sheep was the most common in Northern Europe, while civilizations in Southern Europe preferred goatskin.
[Clemens, Raymond, and Timothy Graham. Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Ithaca: ]Cornell University Press
The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in t ...
, 2008. Often, if the parchment is white or cream in color and veins from the animal can still be seen, it is calfskin. If it is yellow, greasy or in some cases shiny, then it was made from sheepskin.
For a step-by step process of how these books were prepared, including copying and illumination
watch this videoprovided by the
Getty Museum
The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa.
The Getty Center is located in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles and fe ...
.
Vellum comes from the
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
word vitulinum which means "of calf"/ "made from calf". For modern parchment makers and calligraphers, and apparently often in the past, the terms parchment and vellum are used based on the different degrees of quality, preparation and thickness, and not according to which animal the skin came from, and because of this, the more neutral term "membrane" is often used by modern academics, especially where the animal has not been established by testing.
Because they are books, pre-modern manuscripts are best described using bibliographic rather than archival standards. The standard endorsed by the
American Library Association
The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members ...
is known as AMREMM.
[Pass, Gregory. Descriptive Cataloging of Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern Manuscripts. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2002.] A growing digital catalog of pre-modern manuscripts is
Digital Scriptorium, hosted by the
University of California at Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...
.
Scripts
Merovingian script
Merovingian script or Gallo-Roman script ( la, Scriptura Merovingica/Francogallica) was a medieval variant of the Latin script so called because it was developed in Gaul during the Merovingian dynasty. It was used in the 7th and 8th centuries bef ...
, or "Luxeuil minuscule", is named after an abbey in Western France, the
Luxeuil Abbey
Luxeuil Abbey (), the ''Abbaye Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul'', was one of the oldest and best-known monasteries in Burgundy, located in what is now the département of Haute-Saône in Franche-Comté, France.
History Columbanus
It was founded circa 5 ...
, founded by the Irish missionary St
Columba ca. 590.
Caroline minuscule
Carolingian minuscule or Caroline minuscule is a script which developed as a calligraphic standard in the medieval European period so that the Latin alphabet of Jerome's Vulgate Bible could be easily recognized by the literate class from one r ...
is a
calligraphic script developed as a writing standard in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
so that the
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
could be easily recognized by the literate class from different regions. It was used in the
Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire was a political entity in Western, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.
From the accession of Otto I in 962 ...
between approximately 800 and 1200. Codices, classical and Christian texts, and educational material were written in Carolingian minuscule throughout the
Carolingian Renaissance. The script developed into blackletter and became obsolete, though its revival in the Italian renaissance forms the basis of more recent scripts.
In ''Introduction to Manuscript Studies'', Clemens and Graham associate the beginning of this text coming from the Abby of Saint-Martin at
Tours
Tours ( , ) is one of the largest cities in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the prefecture of the department of Indre-et-Loire. The commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabitants as of 2018 while the population of the whole metro ...
.
Caroline Minuscule arrived in England in the second half of the 10th century. Its adoption there, replacing
Insular script
Insular script was a medieval script system originating from Ireland that spread to Anglo-Saxon England and continental Europe under the influence of Irish Christianity. Irish missionaries took the script to continental Europe, where they found ...
, was encouraged by the importation of continental European manuscripts by Saints
Dunstan,
Aethelwold, and
Oswald Oswald may refer to:
People
*Oswald (given name), including a list of people with the name
*Oswald (surname), including a list of people with the name
Fictional characters
*Oswald the Reeve, who tells a tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's ''The Canterbur ...
. This script spread quite rapidly, being employed in many English centres for copying Latin texts. English scribes adapted the Carolingian script, giving it proportion and legibility. This new revision of the Caroline minuscule was called English Protogothic Bookhand.
Another script that is derived from the Caroline Minuscule was the German Protogothic Bookhand. It originated in southern Germany during the second half of the 12th century.
[Clemens, Raymond, and Timothy Graham. "English Protogothic Bookhand." In Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008. 146–147.]
All the individual letters are Caroline; but just as with English Protogothic Bookhand it evolved. This can be seen most notably in the arm of the letter h. It has a hairline that tapers out by curving to the left. When first read the German Protogothic h looks like the German Protogothic b.
[Clemens, Raymond, and Timothy Graham. "German Protogothic Bookhand." In Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008. 149–150.] Many more scripts sprang out of the German Protogothic Bookhand. After those came Bastard Anglicana, which is best described as:
The coexistence in the Gothic period of formal hands employed for the copying of books and cursive scripts used for documentary purposes eventually resulted in cross-fertilization between these two fundamentally different writing styles. Notably, scribes began to upgrade some of the cursive scripts. A script that has been thus formalized is known as a ''bastard'' script (whereas a bookhand that has had cursive elements fused onto it is known as a hybrid script). The advantage of such a script was that it could be written more quickly than a pure bookhand; it thus recommended itself to scribes in a period when demand for books was increasing and authors were tending to write longer texts. In England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, many books were written in the script known as Bastard Anglicana.
Genres
From ancient texts to medieval maps, anything written down for study would have been done with manuscripts. Some of the most common genres were bibles, religious commentaries, philosophy, law and government texts.
Biblical
"
The Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
was the most studied book of the Middle Ages".
[Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages. 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1983), xxvii] The Bible was the center of medieval religious life. Along with the Bible came scores of commentaries. Commentaries were written in volumes, with some focusing on just single pages of scripture. Across Europe, there were universities that prided themselves on their biblical knowledge. Along with universities, certain cities also had their own celebrities of biblical knowledge during the medieval period.
Book of hours
![Pentecost 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Pentecost_01.jpg)
A
book of hours is a type of devotional text which was widely popular during the Middle Ages. They are the most common type of surviving medieval
illuminated manuscripts
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...
. Each book of hours contain a similar collection of texts,
prayers
Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deified ...
, and
psalms
The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...
but decoration can vary between each and each example. Many have minimal illumination, often restricted to ornamented
initials
In a written or published work, an initial capital, also referred to as a drop capital or simply an initial cap, initial, initcapital, initcap or init or a drop cap or drop, is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that ...
, but books of hours made for wealthier patrons can be extremely extravagant with full-page
miniatures. These books were used for owners to recite prayers privately eight different times, or hours, of the day.
Liturgical books and calendars
Along with Bibles, large numbers of manuscripts made in the Middle Ages were revieved in Church. Due to the complex church system of rituals and worship these books were the most elegantly written and finely decorated of all medieval manuscripts. Liturgical books usually came in two varieties. Those used during mass and those for divine office.
Most liturgical books came with a calendar in the front. This served as a quick reference point for important dates in Jesus' life and to tell church officials which saints were to be honored and on what day.
Modern variations
In the context of
library science
Library science (often termed library studies, bibliothecography, and library economy) is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, an ...
, a manuscript is defined as any hand-written item in the collections of a library or an archive. For example, a library's collection of hand-written letters or diaries is considered a manuscript collection. Such manuscript collections are described in finding aids, similar to an index or table of contents to the collection, in accordance with national and international content standards such as
DACS and
ISAD(G) ISAD(G) (General International Standard Archival Description) defines the elements that should be included in an archival finding aid. It was approved by the International Council on Archives (ICA/CIA) as an international framework standard to re ...
.
In other contexts, however, the use of the term "manuscript" no longer necessarily means something that is hand-written. By analogy a ''typescript'' has been produced on a typewriter.
Publishing
In book, magazine, and music publishing, a manuscript is an
autograph
An autograph is a person's own handwriting or signature. The word ''autograph'' comes from Ancient Greek (, ''autós'', "self" and , ''gráphō'', "write"), and can mean more specifically: Gove, Philip B. (ed.), 1981. ''Webster's Third New Inter ...
or copy of a work, written by an author, composer or copyist. Such manuscripts generally follow standardized typographic and formatting rules, in which case they can be called
fair copy
Foul papers are an author's working drafts. The term is most often used in the study of the plays of Shakespeare and other dramatists of English Renaissance drama. Once the composition of a play was finished, a transcript or " fair copy" of the f ...
(whether original or copy). The staff paper commonly used for handwritten music is, for this reason, often called "manuscript paper".
Film and theatre
In film and theatre, a manuscript, or ''script'' for short, is an author's or dramatist's text, used by a theatre company or film crew during the production of the work's performance or filming. More specifically, a motion picture manuscript is called a screenplay; a television manuscript, a teleplay; a manuscript for the theatre, a stage play; and a manuscript for audio-only performance is often called a radio play, even when the recorded performance is disseminated via non-radio means.
Insurance
In insurance, a manuscript policy is one that is negotiated between the insurer and the policyholder, as opposed to an off-the-shelf form supplied by the insurer.
Preservation
About 300,000 Latin, 55,000 Greek, 30,000 Armenian and 12,000 Georgian medieval manuscripts have survived.
Repositories
Major U.S. repositories of medieval manuscripts include:
*
The Morgan Library & Museum
The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th ...
= 1,300 (including papyri)
*
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library () is the rare book library and literary archive of the Yale University Library in New Haven, Connecticut. It is one of the largest buildings in the world dedicated to rare books and manuscripts. Es ...
, Yale = 1,100
*
Walters Art Museum
The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th century. The museum's collection was amassed ...
= 1,000
*
Houghton Library
Houghton Library, on the south side of Harvard Yard adjacent to Widener Library, is Harvard University's primary repository for rare books and manuscripts. It is part of the Harvard College Library, the library system of Harvard's Faculty of ...
, Harvard = 850
*
Van Pelt Library
The Charles Patterson Van Pelt Library (also known as the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, and simply Van Pelt) is the primary library at the University of Pennsylvania.
The building was designed by architects Harbeson, Hough, Livingston & Larso ...
, Penn = 650
*
Huntington Library
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Ma ...
= 400
* Robbins Collection = 300
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Newberry Library = 260
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Cornell University Library = 150
Many European libraries have far larger collections.
*
British Library#Collections of manuscripts
See also
Examples
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General
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Digital Scriptorium: a consortium of American libraries
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Genkō yōshi
is a type of Japanese paper used for writing. It is printed with squares, typically 200 or 400 per sheet, each square designed to accommodate a single Japanese character or punctuation mark. ''Genkō yōshi'' may be used with any type of writi ...
: a kind of ruled paper preprinted with squares
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References
External links
British Library Glossary of manuscript terms, mostly relating to Western medieval manuscriptsCentre for the History of the Book, University of EdinburghChinese CodicologyDigital ScriptoriumShapell Manuscript FoundationManuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill* The
Sarasvati Mahal Library, has th
richest collection of manuscripts in Sanskrit, Tamil, Marathi and Telugu*
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ttp://cooperative-society.org/ Newberry Library Manuscript Search
Getty ExhibitionsMedieval Manuscript Leaves, University of Colorado Boulder LibrariesManuscripts of Lichfield Cathedral– Digital facsimile of the 8th-century St Chad Gospels and Cathedral's 15th-century Wycliffe New Testament, 2010. Includes the ability to overlay images captured with 13 different bands of light, historical images (starting in 1887), and multispectral visualizations. Also includes sixteen interactive 3D renderings. College of Arts & Sciences, University of Kentucky
Historical Image Overlays– See how an early medieval manuscript is aging
Introduction to codicology : Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Roman and Arabic Mss by Philippe Bobichon
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Book terminology
Textual criticism
Textual scholarship
Fiction forms
Copying