Inscribing Knowledge in the Medieval Book: The Power of Paratexts, ed. Rosalind Brown-Grant, Patrizia Carmassi, Gisela Drossbach, Anne D. Hedeman, Victoria Turner and Iolanda Ventura
Richard Gameson
This portentously titled volume, the fruit of two workshops and a conference, reflects wish ‘to gain fuller understanding how key paratextual elements such as rubrics, tables contents, glosses, marginal annotations additions, images, prefaces operate within parameters works that disseminated specific body knowledge in course Middle Ages’ (p. xviii). The range text types discussed is broad, embracing law, science, medicine, liberal arts, Christian allegory, ancient classics, history, travel, romance liturgy. So, too, considered—prefaces, diagrams, tables, imagery, formal glosses readers’ annotations. With exception single contribution on Carolingian Vergil manuscripts, focus material from high late Ages (the innocent reader should be aware these case-studies were present earlier books). Most contributions are illustrated with colour images showing features under consideration; those lack pictures (chs 2, 7 8) are, consequence, more difficult to follow—a lapse rather ironic volume whose contributors make point some texts ‘possibly unintelligible without accompanying explanatory illustration[s]’ 57).
The English Historical Review