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IMC 2015: Sessions

Session 1312: Criticism and Critical Reflections in the Margin

Wednesday 8 July 2015, 16.30-18.00

Organiser:Janneke Raaijmakers, Afdeling Middeleeuwse Geschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht
Moderator/Chair:Mary Garrison, Department of History, University of York
Paper 1312-aScientific Debate in the Margin of Early Medieval Manuscripts
(Language: English)
Mariken Teeuwen, Huygens ING, Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie van Wetenschappen, Den Haag
Index terms: Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Manuscripts and Palaeography, Science
Paper 1312-bManuscripts Don't Burn: Criticism and Censorship in the Margin of Heretical Texts, 6th - 9th Centuries
(Language: English)
Irene van Renswoude, Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, Koninklijke Nederlandse Academie van Wetenschappen, Den Haag
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Philosophy
Paper 1312-cIn the Margin: Reflections on the Cult of Relics in the Early Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Janneke Raaijmakers, Afdeling Middeleeuwse Geschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Hagiography, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Abstract

This panel will investigate the interaction between manuscripts and their users in the early Middle Ages by focusing on the margin of the manuscripts. Scholars used the margin to elaborate and reflect on, criticise, or confirm what was stated in the main text and to discuss and display contradictions and controversial thoughts, which they did not (yet) want to publish. Whether classical and non-classical texts, theological and scientific texts received the same kind of 'treatment' of critical reflection in the margin. By studying marginal annotations in manuscripts containing both classical and non-classical, and theological and scientific texts, we hope to see how the readers/scholars who studied these texts, actively engaged with their content by comparing authorities, adding diagrams or summaries, writing polemical comments, or adding graphic symbols of approbation of disapprobation etc. in the margin. One of the questions this panel addresses is how marginal annotations relate to, or reflect, public debates and controversies. Another question is if the methods employed to engage with theological texts, to deal with authorities and to establish knowledge and orthodoxy were similar to those used in relation to scientific texts. Did different types of texts allow for the same methods of annotation and the same measure of critical reflection?