This thesis examines the production of the Middle English poetic manuscript. It analyses the mise-en-page of manuscripts created during a crucial period for book production, immediately after 1400, when there was a sudden explosion in the production of vernacular manuscripts of literary texts, when the demand for books increased, and the commercial book trade swiftly followed. It offers a close analysis of the mise-en-page of the manuscripts of three central authors: Chaucer’s, Gower’s, and Hoccleve’s manuscripts were at the heart of this sudden flourishing and were, crucially, produced when scribal methods for creating the literary page were still unformed. Previous studies have focused on the localised readings produced by single scribes, manuscripts, or authors, offering a limited examination of broader trends. This study offers a wider comparison: where individual studies offer localised analysis, the multi-textuality of this thesis offers broader perceptions of book production and of scribal responses to the new literary texts being produced. In analysing the layout of seventy-six manuscripts, including borders, initials, paraphs, rubrics, running titles, speaker markers, glosses and notes, this thesis argues that scribes were deeply concerned with creating a manuscript page specifically to showcase texts of poetry. The introduction outlines current scholarship on mise-en-page and defines the scribe as one who offers an individual response to the text on the page within the context of the inherited, commercial, and practical practices of layout. The three analytical chapters address the placement of the features of mise-en-page in each of the seventy-six manuscripts, each chapter offering three contrasting manuscript situations. Chapter 1 analyses the manuscripts of Chaucer, who left no plan for the look of his page, causing scribes to make decisions on layout that illuminate fifteenth-century scribal responses to literature. These are then compared to the manuscripts of Gower in Chapter 2, directly or indirectly supervised by the poet, which display rigorous uniformity in their layout. This chapter argues that scribes responded in much the same way, despite the strict control over meaning. Chapter 3 focuses on Hoccleve’s autograph manuscripts which are unique in demonstrating authorial control over layout. This chapter compares the autograph to the non-autograph manuscripts to argue that scribal responses differed from authorial intentions. Each of the three chapters analyses the development of mise-en-page specifically for literary texts. Focussing on the mise-en-page, this thesis is able to compare across a range of texts, manuscripts, scribes, and authors to mount a substantial challenge to current perceptions that poetic manuscripts were laid out in order to assist readers’ understanding of the meaning of the texts they contain. Instead, it argues that though there was a concern with representing the nuances of poetic meaning, often scribal responses to poetry were bound up with presenting poetic form.

The musical notation of the northern Italian Benedictine abbey of St Sylvester in Nonantola has hitherto been neglected by most scholarship on early music scripts, mainly because of the paucity of surviving music manuscripts and their limited geographical diffusion. A new study was needed in order to develop a full understanding of the abbey’s role and importance in the first phases of development of the writing of music in the early Middle Ages. A Lombard foundation, Nonantola acquired much of its prestige from the links with the Carolingian court as early as the late eighth century. From the first decades after its foundation, the Po Valley abbey also benefited from an active scriptorium; this shaped a local type of text script that endured until after the fall of the Carolingian empire, when the abbey, including most of its library, was destroyed by the Hungarian invasion in 899 (§1). The study of the earliest surviving notated liturgical manuscripts revealed that, by the late ninth century, Nonantola already developed an institutional type of musical notation, making it the earliest known music script ever to be written in the Italic peninsula and, thus, among the earliest in Carolingian Europe (§§2–3). The unique design and use of musical signs showed that this northern Italic notation developed, for the most part, independently from a basic repertory of graphs derived from grammatical accents (§4). Finally, observations of the influences of the central Italic nota romana, which this study only began to explore, opened up the possibility that Nonantolan notation may preserve the oldest traces of graphic conventions for the representation of sound that can be associated with the city of Rome (§5). Placed between the northern and southern fringes of the Carolingian empire, the Benedictine abbey of Nonantola played an important role in the early history of music writing, and this study contributes to the breaking of new ground for further explorations.

In starting the Demotic Palaeographical Database Project, we intend to build up an online database which pays special attention to the actual appearance of Demotic papyri and texts down to the level of the individual sign. Our idea is to analyse a papyrus with respect to its visual nature, inasmuch as it shall be possible to compare each Demotic sign to other representations of the same sign in other texts and to study its occurrences in different words. Words shall not only be analysed in their textual context but also by their orthography and it should be possible to study even the papyrus itself by means of its material features. Therefore, the Demotic Palaeographical Database Project aims for the creation of a modern and online accessible Demotic palaeography, glossary of word spellings and corpus of manuscripts, which will not only be a convenient tool for Egyptologists and researchers interested in the Demotic writing system or artefacts inscribed with Demotic script but also will serve the conservation of cultural heritage. In our paper, we will present our conceptual ideas and the preliminary version of the database in order to demonstrate its functionalities and possibilities.

O Traicitié de la forme et devis comme on fait les tournois (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. Français 2695) escrito por volta de 1460 pelo duque René dAnjou (1409-1480) merece destaque por sintetizar em um único trabalho práticas da cultura de corte principesca tardo-medieval e pela originalidade em combinar material textual e iconográfico para transmitir a mensagem pretendida pelo autor. Optamos pelo trabalho com o códice em questão devido à difusão de documentos através dos meios eletrônicos, pela singularidade da obra e carência de edições modernas. Manuscritos medievais são objetos foco de diferentes campos de pesquisa, o que nos leva a restringir o escopo do nosso trabalho à análise textual a partir da nossa transcrição paleográfica. O objetivo desse trabalho será examinar a dupla funcionalidade do ms. Fr. 2695 por meio da análise do discurso. Mediante o exame qualitativo e quantitativo do corpus lexical, e da comparação com fontes externas, investigaremos primeiramente a função do códice em registrar a prática do torneio para estabelecer como seria o combate idealizado pelo duque e quão longe estaria da prática corrente. Em seguida, procuraremos decifrar o influxo de escritos corteses, cavaleirescos e principescos no interior do tratado para determinar a construção ideológica, de maneira a persuadir o leitor a adotar um determinado comportamento frente à sociedade. / The Traicitié de la forme et devis comme on fait les tournois (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. Français 2695) written around 1460 by the Duke René d\'Anjou (1409-1480) is noteworthy for synthesizing in a single work practices from princely court culture of the Late Middle Ages and the originality of combining textual and iconographic material in order to convey a message intended by the author. We opted for working with the codex in question due to the dissemination of documents by electronic means, by the uniqueness of the work and lack of modern editions. Medieval manuscripts are objects focus of different research fields, which leads us to narrow the scope of our work to textual analysis from our paleographic transcription. The aim of this study is to examine the dual functionality of the ms. Fr. 2695 through discourse analysis. Through qualitative and quantitative examination of the lexical corpus, and the comparison with external sources, first we will investigate the function of the codex to record the practice of the tournament, and then establish how the fight would be devised by the Duke and how far was from current practice. Second, we will try to decipher the influence of courtly, knightly and princely literature within the treatise in order to determine the ideological construction to persuade the reader to adopt a certain behavior in society.

O Traicitié de la forme et devis comme on fait les tournois (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. Français 2695) escrito por volta de 1460 pelo duque René dAnjou (1409-1480) merece destaque por sintetizar em um único trabalho práticas da cultura de corte principesca tardo-medieval e pela originalidade em combinar material textual e iconográfico para transmitir a mensagem pretendida pelo autor. Optamos pelo trabalho com o códice em questão devido à difusão de documentos através dos meios eletrônicos, pela singularidade da obra e carência de edições modernas. Manuscritos medievais são objetos foco de diferentes campos de pesquisa, o que nos leva a restringir o escopo do nosso trabalho à análise textual a partir da nossa transcrição paleográfica. O objetivo desse trabalho será examinar a dupla funcionalidade do ms. Fr. 2695 por meio da análise do discurso. Mediante o exame qualitativo e quantitativo do corpus lexical, e da comparação com fontes externas, investigaremos primeiramente a função do códice em registrar a prática do torneio para estabelecer como seria o combate idealizado pelo duque e quão longe estaria da prática corrente. Em seguida, procuraremos decifrar o influxo de escritos corteses, cavaleirescos e principescos no interior do tratado para determinar a construção ideológica, de maneira a persuadir o leitor a adotar um determinado comportamento frente à sociedade. / The Traicitié de la forme et devis comme on fait les tournois (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. Français 2695) written around 1460 by the Duke René d\'Anjou (1409-1480) is noteworthy for synthesizing in a single work practices from princely court culture of the Late Middle Ages and the originality of combining textual and iconographic material in order to convey a message intended by the author. We opted for working with the codex in question due to the dissemination of documents by electronic means, by the uniqueness of the work and lack of modern editions. Medieval manuscripts are objects focus of different research fields, which leads us to narrow the scope of our work to textual analysis from our paleographic transcription. The aim of this study is to examine the dual functionality of the ms. Fr. 2695 through discourse analysis. Through qualitative and quantitative examination of the lexical corpus, and the comparison with external sources, first we will investigate the function of the codex to record the practice of the tournament, and then establish how the fight would be devised by the Duke and how far was from current practice. Second, we will try to decipher the influence of courtly, knightly and princely literature within the treatise in order to determine the ideological construction to persuade the reader to adopt a certain behavior in society.

Après plus de cent ans de recherche sur les inscriptions gravées sur os et écailles de tortue datant de la fin de la dynastie Shāng, ce matériel graphique réévalue la paléographie chinoise qui est née au fur et à mesure de l’évolution de l’étude des inscriptions sur bronze entamée par les lettrés Sòng. Cette discipline à part entière qui est désormais inscrite dans l’étude de l’écriture chinoise, est marquée par le caractère interdisciplinaire qu’implique une approche multilatérale au vu de l’emploi de cette écriture en Chine antique du XIIIème au XIème siècle av. J.-C. dans un contexte de divination de la maison royale Shāng. Le présent travail se concentre sur l’identification et la compréhension de cette écriture, dont le déchiffrement constitue la tâche principale. Le déchiffrement graphique est soumis à l’épreuve visant à le définir et, tout particulièrement, à le systématiser dans un contexte philologique et culturel spécifique. La présente thèse se consacre à la tâche de repérer une méthodologie de base du déchiffrement de l’écriture sur os et écailles dans le cadre de l’avancement de son étude tout au long du XXème siècle et jusqu’à nos jours. / The inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells of the late Shāng dynasty have been studied for more than one hundred years. These graphical materials have given a new value to Chinese palaeography which was developed gradually from the studies of bronze inscriptions by Sòng scholars. This independent discipline has now become part of the science of Chinese writing and is marked by its interdisciplinary character and multilateral approach. Such an approach is required in the investigation of a writing system that goes back to the 13th-11th centuries BC period, when it was used for divinatory purposes in China during the rule of the Shāng royal dynasty. This paper focuses on the identification and comprehension of this script with the ultimate objective of deciphering it. Graphical deciphering is tested in order to define and systematize it in a specific philological and cultural background. The main thrust of the paper is the search for a fundamental methodology of the deciphering process of oracle bone inscriptions in the framework of the advancement of this process in the course of the 20th century and until now.

Coptic is the latest stage of the indigenous Egyptian language written in the Greek alphabet with some additional characters taken from the Demotic script. Due to climatic conditions many manuscripts have survived from Egypt. The bulk of Coptic manuscripts of the 1st millenium A. D. is preserved in fragmentary condition and the remains are scattered – often as single leaves or small groups of leaves – over collections on three continents. So a major aim of scholarly work is the virtual reconstruction of codices. Assigning a fragment to a specific manuscript is often not easy. It’s not only necessary to compare the script for similarities but also to take into account the contents in order to identify the manuscript of origin and the position of the leave therein. In the case of known texts which have been recorded in a manuscript as full texts a mathematical approach can be used to estimate the position of a fragment. Special problems arise with manuscripts of uncertain arrangement, e.g. liturgical codices that do not have one continuous text. They combine texts from the scriptures, hymns, prayers, or lifes of saints. In these cases reliable estimates can only be given by comparing the identified text / texts on a single leave with a representative amount of data: this means collecting and indexing as much known material as possible and arranging it according to liturgical usage. The lecture presents ways of assigning fragments by use of palaeography to known codices. An important tool is the “palaeography data base” developed in the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung at Münster (INTF) as a base instrument for virtual reconstructions in the Virtual Manuscript Room (VMR) of the INTF. Furthermore, electronic tools will be shown that are a by-product of the lecturer’s PhD for identifying texts, the order of manuscripts as well as for further research.

The hieratic script has never been studied systematically regarding its peculiarities in abbreviations, orthography, functions or historical development, nor in comparison with cursive and monumental hieroglyphs as well as Demotic signs. After Möller’s Hieratic Palaeography volumes I to III, being based on merely 32 sources, Egyptologists compiled several more or less complete palaeographies on single texts, groups of texts or time spans. However, the comparability of signs is often hindered or impossible due to the heterogeneity of writing surfaces, the quality of facsimiles and photos or the choice of examples and the degree of detail. Furthermore, the word or sign context is often lacking. Since April 2015 a long-term project for a possible maximum of 23 years is located at the universities of Mainz and Darmstadt, being financed by the Union of German Academies of Sciences and Humanities. The lecture presents the aims and methods of this project and discusses the state of affairs with regard to the development and structuring 1) of a digital palaeography of the cursive scripts, including all stages of hieratic, abnormal hieratic and cursive hieroglyphic scripts from the Early Dynastic period through to Roman times, and 2) of a database with extensive metadata that allows the study of various topics among which the emergence, development, regional use, context and economy of scripts as well as the identification of individual scribes’ hands. The project shall be understood as being decisively open for any cooperation among international experts.

The Conduct of Life, also known as the Poema Morale, is a verse-sermon that has been largely ignored by literary histories, and despite the longevity of its textual tradition its various texts have never been the subject of extended study. This dissertation brings together the seven manuscript versions of the text, which date from the end of the twelfth to the end of the thirteenth centuries, and re-examines them individually and as a cohort exhibiting variance. It therefore offers a revealing indicator of how continuity and change actually operated through the interaction between preceding tradition and scribes and audiences. This is achieved through a three-fold analysis of the verse sermon which highlights the fluidity of the manuscript culture during this period and the willingness of scribes to adapt texts to suit new purposes, to create differences due to dialect and comprehension, or copy variants from a now lost exemplar. First, an edition of the text, based on the version found in Cambridge, Trinity College MS B. 14. 52, folios 2r-9v , explores, through the accompanying notes, the themes, style and phraseology which not only reflect the influence of earlier English literary and hortatory texts but also represent a living tradition which found popularity within diverse writing and social environments. Secondly, a diplomatic edition of each text is presented, preceded by an introduction to the text, grammar and dialect, with full codicological and palaeographic notes. Finally, a parallel text edition bears witness to the copying and reshaping of the text throughout its history. It is accompanied by extensive linguistic notes which highlight the adaptation and textual variance between each version of the Conduct of Life. Each new variant has not only been read in relation to the other versions of the same work but also in relation to the manuscript context it newly occupies as a result of its transmission. Each copy reshapes the material within an established structure of rhythm and metre and, therefore, the dissertation concludes that the sermon is recreated as a series of individual texts, which might be individually analysed, because each is different, particularly within their specific physical and historical moments. This fluidity or mouvance suggests for the Conduct of Life and, for that matter, the texts that preceded it in the historical narrative of the twelfth century that there is no authentic text; that the instability of the manuscript 'tradition' moves from manuscript to manuscript.

The linguistic analysis of The Apostle of Skopje Štefan Pilát The Apostle of Skopje (Skop) is a Macedonian Church Slavonic manuscript, which contains a short Praxapostle. The scribal inscription on the last page places its compilation to the city of Skopje in the year 1313 thus allowing for its inclusion among the north-Macedonian texts. The goal of the present thesis was to evaluate its paleographic, orthographic and phonological characteristics and its morphological and syntactic peculiarities. The established facts were then compared with other north-Macedonian manuscripts and writing traditions of the Ochrid, Preslav, Tarnovo and Raška schools. Another aim was to evaluate how much could the reception of individual scribal norms be impacted by the north-Macedonian dialect and identify the dialect elements of Skop. On this account, I conclude that Skop, while belonging to the circle of north-Macedonian manuscripts and reflecting rather evident influence of the local dialect, remains conservative, especially from the perspective of paleography, orthography and phonology, a feature typical of the older tradition of the Ochrid School. In the Apostle pericopes, Skop however rather consequently receives the standardized use of the full scope of the iotified vowels, which is the norm most probably taken...