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Modes of Modification

This project examines the manuscript culture of the Middle Ages and investigates the modes of modification in the transmission of texts.

A page in an old book. Photo.
Photo: The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies. Handrit.is

About the project

Variance and change is central to this research project. The manuscript culture of the Middle Ages has been characterised as constituted by variance on all levels, from palaeography and ortography to the transmission of motifs and larger textual units. An important contention at the outset of the program is that this variance plays perhaps the most significant role in our understanding of norms and change in the establishing of a literate culture. We therefore intend to carry out investigations of the modes of modification on various levels in the transmission of texts in order to establish a systematic synthesis.

Two central perspectives within the program concern time and space. Within the project we will operate with rather open definitions of both the time period covered by the program and the delimiting of the geographical area, something that may prove challenging but is essential to our approach. As for the time period relevant for the program the preliminary time-frame will be c. 900 to c. 1600, but this period will be transcended in both directions when necessary to achieve the synthesis we wish to establish. Primarily we will study the literate output of the Nordic region, but our perspective must inevitably lead us into European comparison.

Strands

Strand 1: Texts in the Open and Out of Sight: Public and Private Communication in Epigraphy 

This strand discusses epigraphic texts – inscriptions. These are texts that often were written on objects or buildings in a manner that made them publicly accessible for the medieval audience. They have had a great influence on literacy in the Middle Ages, and their impact were more demographically varied than most manuscripts. Being interested in the medieval textual communication networks, this strand also discusses other, less publicly available epigraphy. These are inscriptions of a more private nature, inscribed on personal objects or household utensils, and even inscriptions that are hidden – at least from the human eye – and here the communication is of a more transcendent kind. Medieval Scandinavia had two scripts: runes and Roman script, and both were used in inscriptions. There were two languages in play as well: Old Norse and Latin (as well as some Middle Low German). These resources, discussed in combination with the kinds of texts written, and their communicative horizon, give us a better understanding of the larger textual universe they belong to, because they present examples of uses of texts that are both more public, and more private, than most manuscript texts.

Strand 2: Texts to Rule and Regulate. Legal and Administrative Texts in the Medieval Manuscript Culture 

A central objective of this strand is to investigate the implications of the introduction, use and reception of legislative and regulative texts, like laws, legislative amendments (réttarbǿtr), judicial records, and charters, from a synchronic and diachronic perspective and in relation to the overall literary system of the Nordic Middle Ages. The primary function of all these texts can be stated to be of a pragmatic, normative and regulative nature, rather than entertaining as the more canonical types of texts generally treated in scholarship on medieval literature. Our contention, however, is that they are in many ways parts of the narrative traditions in the vernacular, and that they in this respect are also providing important insights into the general use of manuscript texts and the modes of modification involved in the emerging vernacular literacy. Research so far supports the contention that the development of a literate culture in the vernacular and the modes of use, and changes in these modes, how texts interact with other texts and how new texts and genres are formed in the emerging vernacular literacy in full were in many ways pushed forward by the use of legal and administrative texts.

Strand 3: Texts in the Insular Distance. Narrative Concepts in Medieval Icelandic Literature

Medieval Icelandic narrative literature is for a large part anonymously transmitted, quite often in different versions circulating at the same time. Even though some texts have been attributed to specific authors this attribution only occurs in single manuscripts usually from a later stage of transmission. In poetry, however, we have anonymous transmission for epic poetry and attributed authorship for skaldic poetry. It thus seems that in medieval Iceland named authorship was not as important as for other European countries or for the modern concept of literature. On the other hand, meta-poetic comments and remarks about the quality of narratives and poems prove that there was a lively discourse about how to produce a text and which conventions to follow. To understand the nature of these literary conventions, the concepts of authorship involved and to compare them to other European literatures is in the centre of strand 3.

Strand 4: Text as resource and affordance in social space

This strand aims at formulating a synthesis concerning the emergence and development of documentary literacy in the Scandinavian Middle Ages and its social implications. With the introduction of Latin writing in the centuries after 1000, the Scandinavian societies became part of a European technical and highly specialized literacy. Writing with runes had existed in Scandinavia since the beginning of the common era, and at least from the 12th century there is evidence of a wide-spread epigraphic runic writing in some towns with short inscriptions of everyday communication on pieces of wood or bone. Latin writing arrived integrated in different domains, like liturgy, education, economical administration, visual arts etc. In the case of economical and juridical documents, writing offered a stability that transcended the temporary social structures, and offered protection if something was questioned that once had been agreed upon, a resource valuable in particular for those who had the least access to means of force. A tentative conclusion is that literacy and writing should be understood as affordances of new rooms of action for both individuals and social groups.

Strand 5: Texts New and Old. The Dynamics of Texts and Genres in Manuscript Transmission 

The fifth strand is devoted to the investigation of the role of intertextual dynamics in a number of late medieval Nordic manuscripts from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, both from the West Norse and the East Norse areas. In particular, this strand aims to analyze two aspects of the composition and use of multi-text manuscripts: the role of the codicological context to interpret the possible ways in which texts or clusters of texts would have been read, and the role of multi-text manuscripts to approach questions of genre perception and affiliation. Therefore, the investigation aims to contribute to providing new insights into the modes of use of texts as part of text collections and their modification throughout their transmission, either as a result of changes at the level of the textual fabric or in terms of meaning.

Strand 6: Text and Agency. The Networks of Textual Transmission and Change

The sixth strand encompasses more or less the whole period treated by the project. The earliest institutions relevant for our investigations are the emerging Church institutions of the 11th century and the old aristocracy. New institutions and new techniques generally can be expected to contribute to social mobility and changes in traditonal social structures and networks. A study of the emerging literate system will inevitably need to address questions concerning relations between old and new institutions as well as old and new social relations and the interplay between tradition and innovation. The emerging monasteries can be expected to invite individuals to make social journeys. The old aristocracy also form the social base for the emerging institution of medieval kingship. By the mid-13th century, Scandinavian aristocracy is well on its way to forming a new group identity dependent on the court of the king, often being administrators of the king’s realm. The new aristocracy will eventually form a literate elite relying on their knowledge of writing. These changes are therefore related to the emerging and changing literate system we scrutinise in this programme. Throughout the Middle Ages we must expect a great deal of geographic mobility with aristocratic families interrelated in marriages without boundaries, and count with monastic orders more considerate of their own organisation than with any given region.

Strand 7:  Texts between Vernacular and Latin. Function and use of the Latin script and the Latin language in the early medieval Nordic region

This strand has a focus on the earliest Latin texts in the medieval North, mostly epigraphy,  but also other types of texts, and relate them to Latin written culture in medieval Europe. During the eleventh century, the Latin language and the Latin alphabet arrived to the Nordic region, travelling along the paths that were paved by religion, education, administration, trade contacts and the literary networks of the elite. The first part of the Nordic Middle Ages saw a huge and manifold development of literacy and written culture in the region. This study is thematically divided into the following parts: Writing and individuals – networks of power; Monasteries and writing; Wandering writers; Writing and alphabets; Writing and belief; and Poetry, education, and public writing. 

Aims

The overall aim of the program is twofold. Our first objective is to form a new synthesis in the view of texts in transmission in the Nordic realm. A second objective is to explore the theoretical and methodological issues further in order to contribute to the debate. We suggest the following hypotheses about central phenomena in the Europeanisation process:

  • Our overall hypothesis is that the establishment of Latin literacy in Europe is a pre-requisite for the Europeanisation. This will be tested with reference to the Scandinavian material, but our results will, we expect, be significant for the understanding of the processes of  Europeanisation as a common European phenomenon
  • In order to establish a vernacular written language there must be an indigenous production and re-production of Latin works. The earliest Latin works produced in Scandinavia play an important role for the emerging written vernacular
  • The early translations are highly relevant for our understanding of the vernacularisation of Roman script, providing not only a system of script but also models of writing for the emerging vernacular literature
  • The translations were significant in opening the way for a secularisation of written culture, where individuals of the indigenous elite could take part. This transfer of an institutional Latin book culture into a more secular literate culture in the vernacular has its starting points in the earliest period we are studying and is active throughout the period under scrutiny

Background

The overall theoretical frame-work of the program is provided by the polysystem theory developed by Itamar Even-Zohar. This notion of networks, primarily by Even-Zohar applied to the role of translations in modern literary traditions, will however need to be adjusted in a number of ways to account for our intended work. In our understanding of the polysystem it will consist of networks not only of works in a literate system.

We are interested in the representations of works in an on-going transmission in manuscript tradition, i.e. the text witnesses of works found in various contexts over time will be treated individually as sources to variation and modes of modification. We intend also to incorporate the material artifacts, that is the manuscripts and other written documents and their representation of the texts, as well as institutions, social groups and individuals.

This expanded system will enable us to connect the modes of modification of the literate culture on a number of levels. In order to control this network of interrelated systems we need to establish nodes, or what we choose to refer to as observation points.

Each of the strands will provide a number of observation points, that is, points in time and space from which it is possible to relate to other points. This will allow us not only to provide a number of individual studies, but rather to connect the six strands to the overall system over time.

Financing

The program is funded Riksbankens Jubileumsfond - The Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences (rj.se)

Events

No upcoming events

Published Nov. 19, 2018 3:06 PM - Last modified Dec. 7, 2023 1:37 PM