Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-s22k5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T10:33:51.295Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Books and society

from The roles of books

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

By
Christopher de Hamel
Edited by
Nigel J. Morgan  and
Rodney M. Thomson
Nigel J. Morgan
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Rodney M. Thomson
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
Get access

Summary

There is a late Stone Age civilization known to modern archaeologists as the ‘Beaker People’ from the survival of large numbers of its distinctive clay pots. If a Beaker Person were to meet a modern prehistorian, he would probably be astonished and distressed to learn of his people’s sobriquet and he would draw attention to their fine textiles, woodwork, painting, music, religion, language and poetry. Beakers, he would say, were only a small and not even central part of their culture. However, the name is applied simply because fragments of the indestructible pottery have survived and all the rest has vanished.

The question, then, is whether we are in danger of over-estimating the place of books in medieval society, simply because the books survive when so much else from England of c.1100–c.1400 has disappeared. Illuminated manuscripts are among the most famous and enduring relics of the Middle Ages. Thousands of English books from the period under discussion still exist, far more than any other moveable artefacts, easily and widely accessible now, and it is appealing to think of feudal England as a time when beautiful manuscripts must have been a visible and familiar part of daily life. Victorian Gothic and Arthurian paintings show illuminated books in profusion. In practice, very few medieval people ever came face to face with the pages of manuscripts. Their ownership was restricted to a very small fraction of the population, disproportionately well-documented, and most men and women of medieval England probably passed their lives without ever reading or even touching a book.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain
, pp. 1 - 21
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Budny, M. 1997 Insular, Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman manuscript art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: an illustrated catalogue, 2 vols., Kalamazoo mi and Cambridge.Google Scholar
Chartularium universitatis Parisiensis, ed. Denifle, H. and Châtelain, E. 1889, Paris.Google Scholar
Christianson, C. P. 1990 A directory of London stationers and book artisans, 1300–1550, New York.Google Scholar
D’Avray, D. L. 1980 ‘Portable vademecum books containing Franciscan and Dominican texts’, in Mare, A. C. and Barker-Benfield, B. C. (eds.), Manuscripts at Oxford: an exhibition in memory of Richard William Hunt, Oxford 1980.Google Scholar
De Mély, F. and Bishop, E. 1892–5 Bibliographie générale des inventaires imprimés, 2 vols., Paris.Google Scholar
Emden, A. B. 1968 Donors of books to St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, Oxford Bibliographical Society, Occasional Publication, 4, Oxford.Google Scholar
Green, R. F. 1976 ‘King Richard II’s books revisited’, The Library. Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, 5th ser., 31.Google Scholar
Jacobus, Voragine: The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, ed. and tr. Ryan, W. G. 1993, 2 vols., Princeton NJ.Google Scholar
James, M. R. 1912a A descriptive catalogue of the manuscripts in the library of Corpus Christi College Cambridge, 2 vols., Cambridge.Google Scholar
Ker, N. R. 1960a English manuscripts in the century after the Norman Conquest, Oxford.Google Scholar
Ker, N. R. 1990 Catalogue of manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon, 2nd edn, Oxford.Google Scholar
Lanfranc, : Monastic constitutions, eds. and tr. Knowles, D. and Brooke, C. N. L. 2002, Oxford Medieval Texts.Google Scholar
L’Engle, S. and Gibbs, R. 2001 Illuminating the law. Legal manuscripts in Cambridge collections, London and Turnhout.Google Scholar
Lewis, S. 1987 The art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora, California Studies in the History of Art, 21, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London.Google Scholar
Liber Eliensis. A history of the Isle of Ely from the seventh century to the twelfth, ed. and tr. Fairweather, J. 2005, Woodbridge.Google Scholar
Materials for the history of Thomas Becket, ed. Robertson, J. C. 1875–85, 7 vols., Rolls Series.
McKitterick, D., Morgan, N. J., Short, I. and Webber, T. 2005 The Trinity Apocalypse, London.Google Scholar
Michael, M. A. 1993 ‘English illuminators c.1190–1450: a survey from documentary sources’, English Manuscript Studies 1100–1700, 4.Google Scholar
Morgan, N. J. 2005 ‘Patrons and their devotions in the initials of thirteenth-century English psalters’, in The illuminated psalter, Internationales Kolloquium zur Buchmalerei, 1999, ed. Büttner, F. O., Turnhout.Google Scholar
Morgan, N. J. and Brown, M. 1990 The Lambeth Apocalypse, manuscript 209 in Lambeth Palace Library, Facsimile edition, London.Google Scholar
Pantin, W. A. 1947–85 Canterbury College, Oxford, 4 vols. Oxford Historical Society New Series 6–8.Google Scholar
Parkes, M. B. 1973 ‘The literacy of the laity’, in Literature and western civilization, eds. Daiches, D. and Thorlby, A., 6 vols., London, II (rpt in Parkes 1991).Google Scholar
Reginald, of Durham: Libellus de admirandis Beati Cuthberti virtutibus, ed. Raine, J. 1835, Surtees Society.Google Scholar
Richard, of Bury, Philobiblon, ed. and tr. Thomas, E. C. (rev. edn Maclagan, M. 1960), Oxford.Google Scholar
Rogers, N. J. 2002 ‘Patrons and purchasers: evidence for the original owners of books of Hours produced in the Low Countries for the English market’, in “Als ich can”. Liber Amicorum in memory of Professor Maurits Smeyers, eds. Cardon, B., Stock, J. and Vanwijnsberghe, D., Leuven.Google Scholar
Rouse, R. H. 2007 ‘Mahiet, the illuminator of Marie de St-Pol’s Breviary’, in The Cambridge illuminations conference proceedings, ed. Panayotova, S., London and Turnhout.Google Scholar
Rouse, R. H. 2000 Manuscripts and their makers: commercial book producers in medieval Paris 1200–1500, 2 vols., Turnhout.Google Scholar
Sandler, L. F. 1974 The Peterborough Psalter in Brussels and other Fenland manuscripts, London.Google Scholar
Scase, W. 1993 ‘St Anne and the education of the Virgin: literary and artistic traditions and their implications’, in England in the fourteenth century, Proceedings of the Harlaxton Symposium 1991, ed. Rogers, N., Harlaxton Medieval Studies 3, Stamford.Google Scholar
Sebastian, Brant: The Shyp of Folys of the world, tr. Barclay, A. 1509, London.Google Scholar
Smith, K. A. 2003 Art, identity and devotion in fourteenth-century England. Three women and their Books of Hours, London.Google Scholar
Steveler, P. A. and Tachau, K. A. (eds.) 1995 Seeing the future clearly. Questions on future contingents by Robert Holcot, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts, 119, Toronto.Google Scholar
Taburet-Delahaye, E. and Avril, F. (eds.) 2004 Paris 1400: Les arts sous Charles VI, Paris.Google Scholar
Thomson, R. M. 1986 ‘The Norman Conquest and English libraries’, in The book in medieval culture, ed. Ganz, P., 2 vols., Turnhout, II (rpt. Thomson 1998, xviii).Google Scholar
Vetus registrum Sarisberiense: the register of St Osmund, ed. Jones, W. H. Rich 1883–4, 2 vols., Rolls Series.
Ward, H. L. D. and Herbert, J. A. 1883, 1893, 1910 Catalogue of romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols., London (rpt 1961–2).Google Scholar
Warner, G. F. 1912 Queen Mary’s Psalter. Miniatures and drawings by an English artist of the 14th century reproduced from Royal ms 2.b. viiin the British Museum, Facsimile edition, London.Google Scholar
William, Langland: The vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman. The ‘Crowley’ text or text B, ed. Skeat, W. W. 1869, Early English Text Society (Original Series).Google Scholar
Wormald, F. 1957 ‘The Sherborne “Chartulary”’, in Fritz Saxl 1890–1948: avolume of memorial essays from his friends in England, ed. Gordon, D. J., London.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×