The Medieval Book for OLLI, Fall 2025

Tuesdays, 1:45-3:15 pm, September 30 through November 11, in person at OLLI at AU’s Spring Valley building

OLLI posts recordings of class meetings at this page. They’re normally available a couple of days after the class meets each week. If you are going to view the recordings, I recommend downloading the slides for the week so you can see them clearly on your device; slides will be posted under each week’s heading below.

This web page will be updated with slides from lectures, schedule updates as needed, links, suggestions for further reading, etc., as the course goes along, so check back frequently!

Week 1: The book in antiquity: rolls, tablets, and ancient Roman scripts. Introduction to, and of, the codex.

Week 1 slides (PDF)

Handout on script terminology (PDF)

More to read, see, watch, and listen:

London Review of Books podcast episode on the recent discovery of new papyri of Euripides. Excellent interview ranging widely over issues in the recovery and preservation of papyri and the survival of ancient literature.
A compelling read on issues surrounding the trade in ancient scroll fragments: Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, by Ariel Sabar
More images of the Coptic caudex of wax tablets at the Met
Ink and inkwells in Roman Britain
Scientific analysis of ink found in a Roman inkwell
Blog on papyrus codices
Interesting new book: Intellectual Property: Learned Slaves and Educated Freedmen in Republican Rome

Week 2: Books in Roman late antiquity: the codex cont’d; new scripts for Christian texts; the Bible as book.

Week 2 slides (PDF)

Handout on late-antique book scripts (PDF)

Handout on finding your way in a Gospel manuscript + biblical terms (PDF)

Handout on manuscript shelfmarks (PDF)

Two very short videos to watch before week 2 if possible:

Getty Museum animated video on the making of a medieval book. Review this to understand how quires are put together and how folios are numbered.
Live-action Getty video on the making of an illuminated manuscript. The final section on binding is particularly helpful for understanding book structure.

Late-antique biblical codices

Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th-century Greek manuscript of the Bible written probably at Rome and preserved at St. Catherine’s, Mt. Sinai until the 19th century. In addition to the website above, the Wikipedia entry is helpful for getting an overview of what it contains and which portions are where.
Blog post with video on the Laudian Acts, a bilingual Latin-Greek manuscript of the book of Acts written in Italy ca. 600, later used in Northumbria by Bede. This post and video touch on all sorts of points that we’ve covered briefly in class. Here is the Laudian Acts digitized: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Gr. 35
The Gospels of St. Augustine, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 286. 6th-century Italian Gospel book traditionally thought to have been brought with the missionaries sent to Anglo-Saxon England by Pope Gregory.
The Ashburnham Pentateuch, Paris, BNF, NAL 2334, a 7th-century illustrated copy of most of the first five books of the Old Testament in Latin, from somewhere in the former Roman Empire east, or possibly south, of Rome.

Early medieval Gospel books

A few examples to look at in class. More to come in the next two weeks!

The Irish Gospel Book of St. Gall, 8th c.; no canon tables, but Evangelist portraits and elaborately-decorated pages for each Gospel opening: St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 51
Example of a 9th-century (Carolingian) Gospel book with canon tables and decorated initial text for each Gospel: Paris, BNF, MS lat. 264
Example of a 12th-century Gospel book with great Evangelist portraits: Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Bibl. Lat. 60

Jewish Manuscripts

The diffusion of the codex and its late adoption by the Jews (PDF), excerpt from Malachi Beit-Arié, Hebrew Codicology

Week 3: Insular Manuscripts: Scripts & Manuscripts in the British Isles in the Early Middle Ages

Suggested reading before or after this week: de Hamel, Meetings, Ch. 1-3

Week 3 slides (PDF)

Insular manuscripts online

E-CODICES: MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS IN SWISS LIBRARIES

Schaffhausen, Stadtbibliothek, MS Gen. 1, ca. 700 copy of the Life of St. Columba, written on Iona

St. Gall MS 51, the Irish Gospel Book of St. Gall, made in Ireland in the mid-8th c.

St. Gall MS 904, the St. Gall Priscian, copied in the mid-9th c. in Ireland

List of “Libri Scottice scripti” in the mid-9th-c. catalogue of the library of St. Gall, MS 728

BRITISH LIBRARY (interim display option as they recover from 10/23 cyberattack)

London, British Library, MS Cotton Nero D IV, The Lindisfarne Gospels, written in Northumbria ca. 700

BIBLIOTECA MEDICEA LAURENZIANA

Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Amiatino 1, the Codex Amiatinus, written in Northumbria ca. 700

PARKER LIBRARY, CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 286, the Gospels of St Augustine

TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN (may load very slowly or not at all)

Dublin, Trinity College, MS 57, the Book of Durrow, early-8th-century Irish Gospel book

Dublin, Trinity College, MS 58, the Book of Kells, made ca. 800, probably on Iona

More about Insular manuscripts

Pigments in the Book of Kells: Post 1, Post 2

Brand new book: The Book of Kells Unlocking the Enigma (link to Blackwell’s for a great price and free shipping to the US)

Week 4: The Carolingian Renaissance

Week 4 slides (PDF)

Suggested reading before or after this week: de Hamel, Meetings, Ch. 4-5

Codices Vossiani at Leiden, including the Leiden Aratea that is the subject of de Hamel’s Ch. 4: overview page here

MORE CAROLINGIAN MANUSCRIPTS TO EXPLORE

St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 75. An “Alcuin Bible,” a pandect (copy of the whole bible in one vol.) made in the 9th century at Tours. Copied after Alcuin’s lifetime, but contains the text of the Vulgate established by Alcuin (d. 804) and a team of scholars for Charlemagne around the year 800.
Paris, BNF lat. 1, the First Bible of Charles the Bald (840s)
Paris, BNF lat. 2, the Second Bible of Charles the Bald (870s)
Cologne, Erzbischöfliche Diözesan- und Dombibliothek, MS 63. St. Augustine’s commentary on the Psalms, written between 785-819 by three named women scribes of Chelles Abbey. (See MS description under “Geschichte der Handschrift” for direct links to the folios that have scribal signatures.)
Getty MS Ludwig II 1, early-9th-c. Gospels with exceptionally fine script
The Reichenau Gospels, Walters Art Museum, MS W.7. Reichenau, Lake Constance, Germany, mid-11th c. (The one with the really cute evangelist symbols.)
Cologny, Fondation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 88. France(?), late 10th century/early 11th century. Works of Horace with glosses. Shows intensive study of a text that was not in wide circulation before the Carolingian period.

Week 5: Gothic book design, the rise of the universities, and the Paris book trade

Week 5 slides (PDF)

Suggested reading before or after this week: de Hamel, Meetings, Ch. 6-8

12TH-CENTURY MANUSCRIPTS TO EXPLORE

The Bury Bible (mentioned by de Hamel), Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 2: vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3. Note: these vols. are the surviving one-volume Genesis-Job portion of the bible rebound in 3. The second original volume does not survive.
The Carmina Burana manuscript (de Hamel ch. 8), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4660
British Library MS Add. 22719, an early-12th-c. copy of medical texts by Constantine the African and Qusta ibn Luqa. This blog post gives more context. More about Constantine at Wikipedia.
Cambridge University Library MS Ff.1.27A, 12th-13th-c. miscellany including some lovely initials in the 12th-c. sections and fun marginal illustrations in the later parts.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF A MEDIEVAL CATHEDRAL LIBRARY

Video on the chained library at Hereford Cathedral. 18 minutes long; includes a good overview of 12th-century books, the formation of a cathedral library, changes in book storage over time, and the post-medieval origins of bookcases and chains.

THE PARIS BOOK TRADE

Week 6: Late medieval books and readers

Week 6 slides (PDF)

Suggested reading before or after this week: de Hamel, Meetings, Ch. 9-10

PAPER

BBC story on Cambridge study of use of paper in medieval England

ABOUT BOOKS OF HOURS

The Book of Hours: A Medieval Bestseller — essay from the Metropolitan Museum explaining the structure of the Book of Hours, with links to examples in the Met’s collections

More about the Office of the Dead included in many Books of Hours

EXAMPLES OF BOOKS OF HOURS

The Hours of Jeanne de Navarre (de Hamel ch. 9, Paris, 1330s)

Book of Hours, Use of Paris, Bodleian Library MS Douce 62 (Paris, by an Italian illuminator, 1400-1410)

Book of Hours, Use of Sarum, Bodleian Library MS. Auct. D. inf. 2. 11 (Made in France ca. 1440-1450 for an English owner)

Book of Hours, Use of Rome, Bodleian Library MS Douce 93 (in French; made in the Netherlands ca. 1440-1460)

The Spinola Hours (de Hamel ch. 12)

VERNACULAR LITERATURE IN LATER MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS

Dante’s Divina Commedia, Morgan Library MS M.289 (Florence, 1330s)

Dante in Bodleian Library MS. Holkham misc. 48 (Italy, maybe Genoa, ca. 1350–1375)

The Ellesmere Chaucer, Huntington Library MS EL 26 C 9. (London, ca. 1400-1410)

The Hengwrt Chaucer (London, ca. 1400) (subject of de Hamel, ch. 10)

SCRIBAL SPECIMEN SHEETS

Specimen sheet from 1447 from Germany near the Netherlands

Another specimen sheet showing options for liturgical manuscripts. Note different grades (levels of formality) and slightly different styles of Textualis. From England, 14th c.

FORMING LETTERS

This video from a workshop by a calligrapher shows the strokes involved in forming letters in Textualis at different grades (levels of formality). It is incidentally a nice lesson in proportion.