Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-hvd4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-08T20:09:55.574Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

4 - Layout and presentation of the text

from Book production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

By
M. B. Parkes
Edited by
Nigel J. Morgan  and
Rodney M. Thomson
Nigel J. Morgan
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Rodney M. Thomson
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
Get access

Summary

Between 1100 and 1425 there were numerous changes in the ways in which texts were laid out and presented on the page. There were new kinds of texts – a more technical literature than in previous centuries – that were often used for reference purposes as well as for continuous reading. There were also more texts in the vernacular intended for recreation as well as edification. These new texts as well as copies of older ones were produced for new generations of readers: not only for monks but also secular clergy and laymen, who had acquired a more sophisticated level of literacy through higher education, or professional training and experience. Many of these readers required easier access to details of the information contained in a text, in order to apply them to immediate problems. The way in which a text was presented on the page had to be appropriate not only to the needs of these readers but also to the content of the text. Scribes introduced new layouts and new ways of presenting texts. Some of these features first appeared in copies produced for scholars or specialist readers, but subsequently in copies of other texts (including vernacular texts) intended for a wider spectrum of readers, both male and female, to enable them to read more quickly.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
, pp. 55 - 74
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Avril, F. and Stirnemann, P. D. 1987 Manuscrits enluminés de la Bibliothèque nationale: Manuscrits d’origine insulaire, Paris.Google Scholar
Bartholomew, of Cotton: Historia Anglicana, ed. Luard, H. R. 1859, Rolls Series.Google Scholar
Bischoff, B. (ed.) 1988 The Epinal, Erfurt, Werden and Corpus glossaries, Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile 22, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Brown, M. P. 1990 A guide to western historical scripts from Antiquity to 1600, London.Google Scholar
Callus, D. A. 1943 ‘The introduction of Aristotelian learning to Oxford’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 29.Google Scholar
Cheney, C. R. 1970 A handbook of dates for students of English history, London.Google Scholar
Clement, Maydeston: Ordinale Sarum siue directorium sacerdotum, II, ed. Cooke, W. and Wordsworth, C. 1902, Henry Bradshaw Society.Google Scholar
Cremascoli, G. 1995 ‘“Tabulae” di lessici mediolatini’, in Leonardi, , Morelli, and Sancti, .
Daly, L. W. 1967 Contributions to a history of alphabetization in antiquity and the middle ages, Collection Latomus, 90, Brussels.Google Scholar
Daly, L. W. and Daly, M. 1964 ‘Some techniques in medieval Latin lexicography’, Speculum, 39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Hamel, C. F. R. 1984 Glossed books of the Bible and the origins of the Paris booktrade, Woodbridge.Google Scholar
Dean, R. J. and Boulton, M. B. M. 1999 Anglo-Norman literature: a guide to texts and manuscripts, Anglo-Norman Text Society Occasional Publications Series.Google Scholar
Duggan, C. 1963 Twelfth-century decretal collections and their importance in English history, London.Google Scholar
Dutschke, C. W. 1989 Guide to medieval and renaissance manuscripts in the Huntington Library, San Marino CA.Google Scholar
Ehrle, F. and Liebaert, P. 1932 Specimina codicum latinorum Vaticanorum, Tabulae in usum scholarum, 3, Berlin and Leipzig.Google Scholar
Gibson, M. T. 1989 ‘The twelfth-century glossed Bible’, Studia patristica, 23.Google Scholar
Gibson, M. T., Heslop, T. A. and Pfaff, R. W. (eds.) 1992 The Eadwine Psalter. Text, image, and monastic culture in twelfth-century Canterbury, Publications of the Modern Humanities Research Association, 14, London and University Park PA.Google Scholar
Gransden, A. 1974 Historical writing in England c.550–c.1307, London.Google Scholar
Hessels, J. H. 1920 ‘Gloss, Glossary’, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edn, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hugh, of St Victor: Didascalicon de studio legendi, ed. Buttimer, C. H. 1939, Washington DC; tr. Taylor, J. 1961, New York and London.Google Scholar
Hugh, of St Victor: De tribus maximis circumstantiis gestorum, ed. Green, W. M. 1943, Speculum, 18.
Jenkinson, H. 1915 Palaeography and the practical study of court hand, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Kenyon, F. G. 1900 Facsimiles of biblical manuscripts in the British Museum, London.Google Scholar
Ker, N. R. 1960a English manuscripts in the century after the Norman Conquest, Oxford.Google Scholar
Ker, N. R. 1972a ‘Copying an exemplar: two manuscripts of Jerome on Habbakuk’, in Variacodicologica: essays presented to G. I. Lieftinck, I, eds. Gumbert, J. P. and Haan, M. J. M., Leiden, rpt. in Ker, N. R., Books, collectors, and libraries. Studies in the British heritage, ed. Watson, A. G., London 1985.Google Scholar
Ker, N. R. 1972b ‘The English manuscripts of the Moralia of Gregory the Great’, in Kunsthistorische Forschungen Otto Pächt zu seinem 70. Geburtstag, eds. Rosenauer, A. and Weber, G., Salzburg.Google Scholar
Leonardi, C., Morelli, M. and Sancti, F. (eds.) 1995 Fabula in tabula: una storia degli indici dal manoscritto al testo elettronico, Quaderni di cultura mediolatina, 13, Spoleto.Google Scholar
Lowe, E. A. 1960 English uncial, Oxford.Google Scholar
Lowe, E. A. 1972 Palaeographical papers 1907–1967, ed. Bieler, L., 2 vols., Oxford.Google Scholar
Manitius, M. 1911–31 Geschichte der lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, 3 vols., Munich.Google Scholar
Martin, H. J. and Vezin, J. 1990 Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit, Paris.Google Scholar
Michel, A. 1953 ‘Humbert von Silva Candida (†1061) bei Gratian, eine Zusammenfassung’, Studia Gratiana, 1.Google Scholar
Minnis, A. J., Scott, A. B. and Wallace, D. 1988 Medieval literary theory and criticism c.1100-c.1375, rev. edn, Oxford.Google Scholar
Morgan, N. J. 2002 ‘The decorative ornament of the text and pageinthirteenth-century England: initials, border extensions and line fillers’, English Manuscript Studies 1100–1700, 10.Google Scholar
Parkes, M. B. 1979 The medieval manuscripts of Keble College Oxford, London.Google Scholar
Parkes, M. B. 1991 Scribes, scripts and readers: studies in the communication, presentation and dissemination of medieval texts, London and Rio Grande OH.Google Scholar
Parkes, M. B. 1992a Pause and effect: an introduction to the history of punctuation in the West, Aldershot.Google Scholar
Parkes, M. B. 1995 ‘“Folia librorum quaerere”; medieval experience of the problems of hypertext and the index’, in Leonardi, , Morelli, and Sancti, .Google Scholar
Poole, R. L. 1928 Medieval reckonings of time, London.Google Scholar
Reynolds, L. and Wilson, N. G. 1974 Scribes and scholars: a guide to the transmission of Greek and Latin literature, 2nd edn, Oxford, 3rd edn 1991.Google Scholar
Richardson, H. G. 1965 Bracton: the problems of the text, Selden Society, s.s..Google Scholar
Rouse, R. H. and Rouse, M. A. 1974 ‘Verbal concordancestothe scriptures’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 44.Google Scholar
Rouse, R. H. 1982 ‘Statim invenire: schools, preachers and new attitudes to the page’, in Renaissance and renewal in the twelfth century, eds. Benson, R. L. and Constable, G., Oxford.Google Scholar
Rouse, R. H. 1990a ‘Concordances et index’, in Martin, and Vezin, .Google Scholar
Scott, K. L. 2002 Dated and datable English manuscript borders c.1395–1499, Bibliographical Society, London.Google Scholar
Skeat, W. W. 1892 Twelve facsimiles of Old English manuscripts, Oxford.Google Scholar
Smalley, B. 1952 The study of the Bible in the middle ages, Oxford.Google Scholar
The Auchinleck manuscript: National Library of Scotland, Advocates’ Mediæval Studies. 19. 2. 1, ed. Pearsall, D. and Cunningham, I. C. 1977, London.Google Scholar
The Vernon manuscript: a facsimile of Bodleian Library, Oxford, ms Eng. poet. a. 1, ed. Doyle, A. I. 1987, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Thomas, Hoccleve:Thomas Hoccleve.Afacsimile of the verse texts, eds. Burrow, J. A. and Doyle, A. I. 2002, Early English Text Society (Special Series).Google Scholar
Thomson, R. M. 1985 Manuscripts from St Albans Abbey, 1066–1234, 2 vols., 2nd edn, Woodbridge.Google Scholar
Vacant, A., Mangenot, E. and Aman, E. (eds.) 1903 Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, Paris.Google Scholar
Webber, T. 1992 Scribes and scholars at Salisbury Cathedral c.1075–c.1125, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weijers, O. 1995 ‘Les index au moyen âge sont-ils un genre littéraire?’, in Leonardi, , Morelli, and Sancti, .Google Scholar
Weisheipl, J. A. 1984 ‘Science in the thirteenth century’, in The history of the University of Oxford, Oxford: I. Catto, J. I. (ed.), The early schools, Oxford 1984; II. Catto, J. I. and Evans, T. A..Google Scholar
Wright, C. E. 1960 English vernacular hands from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, Oxford.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×