IMC 2019: Sessions

Texts are at the same time an idea and a form. The latter is the result of a combination of inherited social uses and specific intentions by the various actors involved in transmitting the text as idea. All textual artefacts are concerned: manuscripts, charters, inscriptions, tapestries, seals, coins, etc. The connection between text and object is reflected by specific requirements for the written object in the fields of diplomatics, epigraphy, codicology (layout, material structure), art history (iconography, decoration), and palaeography (script types, abbreviations, script size and degree of formality). This session explores how materiality can be analysed to reinterpret the texts, ranging from the very choice of writing an orally performed text (E. Krotz) to choosing a writing medium (A. Nievergelt) or a specific form by inserting a letter into a book (C. Egger), or modulating the decoration and its hierarchy (P. Carmassi). P. Carmassi studies the hagiographical and historiographical production at Fleury (9th century onwards) and how the material elements could enhance the importance of the hagiographical legend and single aspects of the narrative. C. Egger reopens the case of one of the most spectacular and at the same time most mysterious documents of the higher middle ages is the so-called 'murder letter' of Count Siboto IV of Falkenstein to offer a new interpretation of this tantalizing text. A. Nievergelt questions when and why paratexts as scholia and glosses were written by an alternative technique, esp. without ink and with a stylus. The fourth paper will explore the difference between amuletic texts and verbal charms, and between exemplar and copy, which are not as clear in the extant material as in theory.