Touching Parchment: How Medieval Users Rubbed, Handled, and Kissed Their Manuscripts: Volume 1: Officials and Their Books - cover image

Copyright

Kathryn M. Rudy

Published On

2023-04-18

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80064-959-0
Hardback978-1-80064-960-6
PDF978-1-80064-961-3
HTML978-1-80064-965-1
XML978-1-80064-964-4
EPUB978-1-80064-962-0
AZW3978-1-80064-963-7

Language

  • English

Print Length

272 pages (xviii+254)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 19 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.75" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 22 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.87" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback521g (18.38oz)
Hardback694g (24.48oz)

Media

Illustrations122

OCLC Number

1376377187

LCCN

2022361804

BIC

  • WCS
  • HBLC1
  • JFCD
  • JHBT

BISAC

  • HIS037010
  • ANT052000
  • SOC002010

LCC

  • Z110.H36

Keywords

  • Medieval book
  • religious
  • secular
  • touching
  • handling
  • rituals
  • medieval

Touching Parchment: How Medieval Users Rubbed, Handled, and Kissed Their Manuscripts

Volume 1: Officials and Their Books

The Medieval book, both religious and secular, was regarded as a most precious item. The traces of its use through touching and handling during different rituals such as oath-taking, is the subject of Kathryn Rudy’s research in Touching Parchment.

Rudy presents numerous and fascinating case studies that relate to the evidence of use and damage through touching and or kissing. She also puts each study within a category of different ways of handling books, mainly liturgical, legal or choral practice, and in turn connects each practice to the horizontal or vertical behavioural patterns of users within a public or private environment.

With her keen eye for observation in being able to identify various characteristics of inadvertent and targeted wear, the author adds a new dimension to the Medieval book. She gives the reader the opportunity to reflect on the social, anthropological and historical value of the use of the book by sharpening our senses to the way users handled books in different situations. Rudy has amassed an incredible amount of material for this research and the way in which she presents each manuscript conveys an approach that scholars on Medieval history and book materiality should keep in mind when carrying out their own research. What perhaps is most striking in her articulate text, is how she expresses that the touching of books was not without emotion, and the accumulated effects of these emotions are worthy of preservation, study and further reflection.

This volume is part of a four-volume set, with two additional titles forthcoming.

Endorsements

Touching Parchment is an excellently-researched book about the haptic approach to books in the Middle Ages. Written in an articulate and vivid style, Kathryn Rudy discusses the act of touching during different rituals, and the effects that this has had on both the users of books, as well as the books themselves. This is a most compelling book for anyone working with manuscripts. It draws the reader in through its fascinating stories and the way the author analyses how the value of the book goes well beyond its mere content and illustration.

Dr Theresa Zammit Lupi

Book Conservation, Special Collections, University of Graz

Additional Resources

[image]Figure 120(Kathryn M. Rudy)

Contents

  • Kathryn M. Rudy
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Coda

(pp. 223–224)
  • Kathryn M. Rudy