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Table of Contents
Introduction
Essay
Books of Hours
I Calendar
II Gospel Lessons
III Hours of the Virgin
IV Hours of the Cross
V Additional Prayers to the Virgin
VI Hours of the Holy Spirit
VII Penitential Psalms
VIII Office of the Dead
IX Accessory Texts
X Peacocks and Eggs
Bibliography
Online Exhibitions
Special Collections Home
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The Manuscript in France: A Short Historical Perspective
Monica L. Wright
Lecturer in French
The term manuscript typically refers to books, or codices, produced by hand in
Europe between
the fifth and sixteenth centuries. The codex became the favored format of
written transmission of
long texts concurrently with the Christianization of Europe around the fifth
century. The advantages
of the codex over the papyrus scroll, which had previously been the dominant
format, are primarily
due to its physical qualities, namely that vellum is more durable than papyrus
and that the open leaf
format of the codex allows easier access to various points in a text. During
the period of Christianization,
the Bible's importance as a reference source and the needs of those who consult
it to move freely within
the text both contribute to the preference for the codex.
The association of the book, or codex, with Christianity, in fact, runs much
deeper than a simple preference
for a particular format and lasts much longer. During the early Christian
period, missionaries were some of
the most visible possessors of manuscripts. They used their written sources as
emblems of their special power
of literacy among the illiterate populations, offering up their books as the
tangible proof of their message and
thereby conferring authority upon it. They exhibited them, read services from
them, and taught civilization
from them. Manuscripts were sacred objects. The book took on different
meanings and uses over time.
Charlemagne used illuminated manuscripts to express his own imperial authority
during his reign in the ninth century.
His books were classical texts with luxurious illuminations on purple pages
depicting the great deeds of heroes.
The emperor hoarded books as part of his royal treasury, equating their
possession not with religious knowledge
but with the wealth of civilization and the beauty of a well-crafted object.
These two different conceptions of the book fused with the passing centuries as
not simply the ownership
of books but also their production grew increasingly linked to the monastic
tradition. The unhurried life
of the cloister, which afforded the monks the time to sit for extended periods
of time meticulously copying
one manuscript into another, fabricated some of the finest books ever produced;
though many of these books
had religious content, certainly not all did. The secular learning of the ages
met with the liturgical debates of the
Church Fathers in the scriptoria of Europe, for the life of the mind and the
life of the spirit were seen as
inextricably connected. But the monasteries were also responsible for the
production of more “frivolous”
reading material. From the late twelfth century until the fourteenth century,
the noble readership, a wealthy
literate laity, harbored a great interest in courtly romance, which in turn
fostered a limited demand for large
illuminated manuscripts depicting the marvelous adventures and deeds of French
or British heroes. These
books were usually commissioned to be recopied in monasteries and were
accessible uniquely to aristocrats
of considerable means.
The great period of monastic book production, however drew to a close around
1200, with the advent of the
professional book trade necessitated by the establishment of the universities,
the largest and most successful
of which is the University of Paris. Paris quite naturally developed as a
major center of book production since
its large number of students needed a more manuscripts and less costly ones
than a monastery could supply.
In response to this need, beginning in the thirteenth century, the professional
mass production of books became
the norm, and with this change came the popularization of books. In the late
Middle Ages, Books of Hours,
books intended for personal use unlike the great books of the clerics or
aristocrats and unlike the books for
students that were resold many times, represented perhaps the most important
part of this trend. Their
popularity was, in fact, so great that the demand for them created the need for
new methods of mass production,
which ultimately gave rise to the invention of the printing press in the
fifteenth century.
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