Codicology

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Codicology ( lat. Codex "book" and logic ), also handwriting , a historical auxiliary science , is the scientific preoccupation with the handwritten book . It is therefore limited in time to late antiquity and the Middle Ages , ie mainly the period 500–1500.

Incunabulary follows it . The concerns of codicology are questions about the nature and the development process of a medieval codex . In particular, the craft-technical aspects of production, such as For example, the question of writing materials ( papyrus , parchment , paper ), ink and writing implements , location , binding , book decorations or provenance are considered.

The book is treated like an archaeological artifact and viewed as part of primary factual tradition by chronologically recording it and describing it precisely.

Codicology is closely related to paleography .

History of Codicology

In the 19th century, handwriting was a central component of library studies , alongside library history , incunabula and bibliography . The term “codicology” did not appear until after the Second World War in France and Belgium. It was first used by the Parisian Graecist Alphonse Dain between 1944 and 1949 , replacing the term “codicographie” coined by Charles Samaran (1879–1982), a Parisian palaeographer. Dain understood the research into the history of manuscripts and their collection, the investigation of their nature and their cataloging as the task of codicology. He also excluded writing, since paleography already existed. It was also seen only as an aid to philology .

This changed in 1950, because the Belgian manuscript librarian and editor of the magazine " Scriptorium ", François Masai (1909–1979), advocated an independent academic discipline. Together with the art historian Léon MJ Delaissé, he created a description of the codicology as the “archeology of the book”, the concrete object of which is the book and its technical aspects, the results of which can be used by historical disciplines.

Today it is mainly operated by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and libraries with large collections of manuscripts, whose work resulted in an extensive cataloging of medieval manuscripts.

Methods

Various scientific disciplines are used to research and precisely describe a code. Philology and history primarily serve to classify a text in terms of time and language. However, statistical data is also used to create family trees, so-called stemmata, for the individual texts. The temporal and regional spread of writing and decorative forms are included. In this way you can put texts that appear in several codices in a chronological order.

The aim here is to find individual peculiarities of the individual manuscripts, which can be seen in the format of the individual volume, the cover , the writing material, the sequence of pages and layers , even the lines and the design of the text area . Ownership notices are also an important feature of the tradition. Also marginalia , such as the so-called pen glosses , are increasingly the focus of medieval studies . In addition, the mainly in the series history of art used watermark - and the cover clients, a book can be limited precisely to about five years with the help of the age.

Chemistry also plays an important role. Analyzes of the writing material (parchment or paper) and the ink and the colors used in the illumination , for which there were several hundred recipes, often allow conclusions to be drawn about the age of the respective manuscript. Certain techniques or paint and ink recipes were only used in certain regions, which can provide clues as to the place of origin. These recipes and techniques were recorded in workshop books and passed on from generation to generation. However, on the basis of surviving copies of these regulations, one can see that many of them go back to a few Greek and Latin works, and so real individual recipes are rather rare.

Important collections

There are now some very good online databases that can be used to search for medieval manuscripts - both in German-speaking and in Anglo-American countries.

  • The Codices Electronici Ecclesiae Coloniensis of the University of Cologne show around 500 manuscripts, mainly from German-speaking countries, which are listed with photos.
  • The manuscript census records all German-language manuscripts of the Middle Ages in the form of a descriptive catalog (with the exception of individual documents and minimal entries in Latin manuscripts).
  • e-codices of Switzerland ( http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de ): The virtual manuscript library of Switzerland aims to display all medieval and a selection of modern manuscripts in Switzerland completely digitally and to make them freely accessible on the Internet close. 2048 digitized manuscripts from 84 Swiss collections are currently available (as of summer 2018). The virtual library is constantly being expanded.
  • The Codices Electronici Sangallenses record the St. Gallen manuscript inventory.
  • The Department for Special Collections of the University Library Graz has an online catalog that lists over 2000 manuscripts. Some of these are already provided with detailed palaeographic descriptions and can be called up in a digital full-text version.
  • There is also a catalog of illuminated manuscripts from the 8th – 13th centuries for Austria . Century.
  • The British Library has several large collections, such as B. the Harleian Collection , which can also be found in the online catalog . Great Anglo-Saxon works such as the Beowulf or the Lindisfarne Gospel ( Book of Lindisfarne ) are located here.
  • The collection of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, whose catalog is easy to browse, is similarly large . The works can all be viewed online in very good quality.
  • The Library of Congress in Washington DC has created an extensive catalog of its manuscript collections.
  • In the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library in Collegeville / Minnesota you can find 90,000 manuscripts of European, African and Asian provenance.

literature

Introductions and manuals

  • Erik Kwakkel: Books before Print. Exploring Medieval Manuscript Culture. ARC Humanities Press, Leeds 2018, ISBN 978-1-942401-61-2 .
  • Mathias Kluge: Medieval manuscripts: basic knowledge of codicology and palaeography. Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2014, ISBN 978-3-7995-0577-2 .
  • Raymond Clemens, Timothy Graham: Introduction to Manuscript Studies. Cornell University Press, Ithaca (NY) 2007, ISBN 978-0-8014-3863-9 .
  • Christine Jakobi-Mirwald : The medieval book. Function and equipment. Phillip Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-15-018315-4 .
  • Ursula Rautenberg (Hrsg.): Reclams Sachlexikon des Buches. 2nd improved edition. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-15-010542-0 .
  • Marilena Maniaci : Archeologia del manoscritto. Metodi, problemi, bibliografia recente. Con contributi di Carlo Federici e di Ezio Ornato, Rome 2002, ISBN 88-8334-081-7 (I libri di Viella 34).
  • Karin Schneider : Paleography and manuscript studies for Germanists. An introduction (=  collection of short grammars of Germanic dialects . B, supplementary series 8). Max Niemeyer, Tübingen 1999, ISBN 3-484-64007-3 .
  • Karl Löffler, Wolfgang Milde: Introduction to handwriting . Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-7772-9723-2 . (Revised edition by Karl Löffler from 1929).
  • Severin Corsten (ed.): Lexicon of the entire book system: LGB. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-7772-8527-7 .
  • Otto Mazal : Textbook of handwriting . Wiesbaden 1986 (elements of the book and library system 10).

On more specific or current topics

  • Malte Rehbein , Patrick Sahle , Torsten Schaßan (eds.): Codicology and palaeography in the digital age (=  writings of the Institute for Documentology and Editing . Volume 2 ). BoD, Norderstedt 2009, ISBN 978-3-8370-9842-6 .
  • Franz Fischer, Christiane Fritze, Georg Vogeler (eds.): Codicology and palaeography in the digital age 2 (=  writings of the Institute for Documentology and Editing . Volume 3 ). BoD, Norderstedt 2010, ISBN 978-3-8423-5032-8 .
  • Oliver Duntze, Torsten Schaßan, Georg Vogeler (eds.): Codicology and palaeography in the digital age 3 (=  writings of the Institute for Documentology and Editing . Volume 10 ). BoD, Norderstedt 2010, ISBN 978-3-7347-9899-3 .
  • Hannah Busch, Franz Fischer, Patrick Sahle (eds.): Codicology and palaeography in the digital age 4 (=  writings of the Institute for Documentology and Editing . Volume 11 ). BoD, Norderstedt 2017, ISBN 978-3-7448-3877-1 .
  • Werner Arnswaldt: Handwriting for family researchers. Degener, Leipzig 1925. Digitized

Web links

Wiktionary: Codicology  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations