This note calls attention to a precursor of the Latin text of Durham Proverb 7 in the ninth-century Collectanea Pseudo-Bedae and, in doing so, sheds some light on the unresolved relationship between the Old English and Latin versions of the Durham Proverbs in general and Durham Proverb 7 in particular.

This note established that an Old English confessional prayer in BL Vespasian D.xx is a close analogue to the Latin text in the Book of Cerne (Cambridge University Library MS L1.1.10). These two text and two other Old English prayers in BL MS Tiberius C.i and the Old English Handbook for the Use of a Confessor may have sprung from a common, Latin…[Read more]

This is the accepted manuscript version of my review of the edited volume Golden Middle Ages in Europe for Early Medieval Europe journal. Some wording may differ from the final published version. Please refer to the journal website.

This is the accepted manuscript version of my review of the edited volume Golden Middle Ages in Europe for History journal. Some wording may differ from the final published version. Please refer to the journal website.

Pseudo-Arabic is a form of ornament, derived from Arabic script, which appears in both Islamic and Christian contexts from the 10th century onwards. The city of Bari in south-east Italy, and its hinterland, boasts a number of examples of this motif. This article explores how pseudo-Arabic was employed in Bari and how the circulation of luxury…[Read more]

The aim of this contribution is to review some of the major areas of current research on the Arabic Bible, along with the factors and trends contributing to them. Also we present some of the tools that are currently under development in the Biblia Arabica team, Munich.

We provide here a very condensed survey of the transmission of traditions,…[Read more]

This is a book review (pre-print) of the 2013 CIPL edited volume on scriptoria.

This is a book review (pre-print) of the 2014 book by Lifshitz.

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]

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]

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.

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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]