To those who know little about the Middle Ages, the copying of manuscripts of “the ancients” (whether classical, such as the Roman poet Horace, or Christian, such as Saints Jerome or Augustine) often seems either a laudable act of preserving the past or an unfortunate fixation on repeating the words of others rather than penning new and original compositions. Even scholars of the Middle Ages appear sometimes more interested in new types of works such as fabliaux or courtly romances written in the vernacular; when they study the practice of copying, they often concentrate on identifying prototypes or legacies. Finding old wine in old bottles has been a fairly constant theme in medieval studies; sometimes, we must admit, medievalists have just thrown out the old bottles and moved on to something completely new. In this context, it may seem strange to find a work about medieval Latin manuscript commentaries titled...
The Birth of the Author: Pictorial Prefaces in Glossed Books of the Twelfth Century
Caroline Walker Bynum is professor emerita of medieval European history at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and University Professor emerita at Columbia. She was a MacArthur Fellow in 1986–91 and, in 1996, president of the American Historical Association. Her books include Dissimilar Similitudes; Christian Materiality; Wonderful Blood; The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christendom, 200–1336; Holy Feast and Holy Fast; Fragmentation and Redemption; Metamorphosis and Identity; and Jesus as Mother.
Caroline Walker Bynum; The Birth of the Author: Pictorial Prefaces in Glossed Books of the Twelfth Century. Common Knowledge 1 May 2022; 28 (2): 290–292. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-9809277
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