This is a book review (published version) of the 2015 book on Carolingian monasteries edited by Becker, Licht and Weinfurter.

This chapter examines a particular miscellany manuscript’s strategies for arranging its texts for ease of use, legibility and coherence. It argues that such manuscripts were purposefully compiled and that their texts were enhanced by others produced in the same codicological context, showing that early medieval book-making was an innovative and…[Read more]

This dissertation proposes a social analysis of the Early Christian basilicas (4th-6th century) of Southern and Central Greece, predominantly those in the Late Roman province of Achaia. After an introduction which places the dissertation in the broader context of the study of Late Antique Greece, the second chapter argues that church construction…[Read more]

The subject of this paper is a fragment of a liturgical book that is a part of the manuscript fragment collection in the holdings of the Utrecht University Library Special Collections. The fragment was brought to light in the 1960s, after it was rebound into a manuscript belonging to the St. Paul’s Abbey, Utrecht, where it was inserted during t…[Read more]

Manuscript Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 6298 contains an as yet unexamined fragment of the second batch of the gospel glosses (EvII) from the biblical commentaries of the Canterbury School inserted as an addition in 3r of the manuscript. In this article, I describe this fragment, and I attempt to contextualize its insertion into the…[Read more]

Besides glosses and other textual annotations, early medieval Latin manuscript commonly feature technical signs, annotation symbols and sigla that reflect readership or provide a framework for interpretation and use. The early medieval Insular book users were particularly keen on using such devices. This article maps the usage of technical signs…[Read more]

The extensive chains of excerpts from the Scriptures and other sources in two of the narratives prominent in the Virtutes apostolorum, the Acts of Peter (BHL 6663) and the Acts of Paul (BHL 6575) are studied in order to come to a clearer understanding of the origin of these Latin texts. The Virtutes apostolorum is an amalgam of textual material…[Read more]

The extensive chains of excerpts from the Scriptures and other sources in two of the narratives prominent in the Virtutes apostolorum, the Acts of Peter (BHL 6663) and the Acts of Paul (BHL 6575) are studied in order to come to a clearer understanding of the origin of these Latin texts. The Virtutes apostolorum is an amalgam of textual material…[Read more]

This article explores how the ancient graphic symbol of the obelus changed from being an instrument of textual criticism to a tool of censure between c. 200 and 900.

This article discusses the use of critical signs during doctrinal debates against the background of the history of textual criticism and critical annotation from Antiquity to the Carolingian age.

The Latin quotation in the title of this article is taken from the Admonitio generalis, a key document of Charlemagne’s reforms circulated in 789. In a well-known passage, to which the title refers, Charlemagne calls for the establishment of schools and adds a set of subjects that might be interpreted as the school curriculum. The whole passage…[Read more]

This is the English summary of my dissertation Notam superponere studui: the use of technical signs in the early Middle Ages, which was defended on March 18, 2016 at Utrecht University.

3700 words

This blog post originally appeared on the website of Huygens ING (https://www.huygens.knaw.nl/marginal-scholarship-annoteren-met-behulp-van-tekens-in-plaats-van-woorden/?lang=en) on June 30, 2016. It was published both in Dutch and in English as a part of a four-part series about the Marginal Scholarship project, which was hosted by the Huygens…[Read more]

including readings of Joseph McElroy, Tolkien, Norman Rush, Sartre, and others

on apocalypse, shakespeare, Clarke’s Third Law, the corporate take-over of Star Wars and else

There is a significant debate in Origenian scholarship today about the allegory/typology distinction. Some scholars accept the demarcation between these two forms of nonliteral scriptural interpretation, whereas others reject it. In this paper I seek to determine whether, or to what extent, the allegory/typology distinction is valid for study of…[Read more]

The second-century Protevangelium of James contains an enigmatic scene that has fascinated readers for centuries: the stilling of the natural world at the birth of Jesus. Joseph describes the spectacle as he departs the cave in which Mary is laboring: “I looked up at the vault of the sky and saw it fixed. I saw the clouds paused in amazement, a…[Read more]

The second-century Protevangelium of James contains an enigmatic scene that has fascinated readers for centuries: the stilling of the natural world at the birth of Jesus. Joseph describes the spectacle as he departs the cave in which Mary is laboring: “I looked up at the vault of the sky and saw it fixed. I saw the clouds paused in amazement, a…[Read more]

Being part of a monography on the origins of Portuguese and Galician identities, this paper studies how future Portugal and Galicia, being part of a same polty in the Early Middle Ages, became different countries although maintaining strong cultural and historical links.

Case study on the territorialization of Early Medieval Galicia (NW Iberia) centered on the land of O Salnés, taking into account the meaning of the place-name, the Roman past, the political organziation (county of Slnés), the appropriation of the land and the defensive system agains the Northmen iand Moslem sea-attacks.