IMC 2021: Sessions
Session 506: Anonymous Knowledge, I: No Author, no Trust? - Thinking about Anonymous Knowledge in Early Medieval Manuscripts
Tuesday 6 July 2021, 09.00-10.30
| Sponsor: | Anonymous Knowledge Network |
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| Organisers: | Irene van Renswoude, Huygens ING, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Amsterdam / Faculteit Geesteswetenschappen, Universiteit Utrecht Carine van Rhijn, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht |
| Moderator/Chair: | Carine van Rhijn, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht |
| Paper 506-a | The Holy Bible and Its Anonymous Explanations: On the Spread of This Combination in the Carolingian Era (Language: English) Index terms: Biblical Studies, Manuscripts and Palaeography |
| Paper 506-b | No One Knows How to Pray: Anonymous Texts on the Lord's Prayer in the Carolingian Empire (Language: English) Index terms: Education, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Religious Life |
| Paper 506-c | Unauthorised!: Editorial Strategies to Validate Anonymous Texts (Language: English) Index terms: Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Manuscripts and Palaeography, Religious Life |
| Abstract | Early medieval manuscripts are full of anonymous knowledge: texts and treatises that fail to mention an author. Even though papal letters and decrees clearly stated that anonymous texts should not be trusted, not all compilers and readers of these books seem to have been interested in questions of authorship. How did this work? Were early medieval readers and book patrons perhaps less obsessed with biblical, patristic or scholarly authority than we think? Moreover, how did the credibility of anonymous knowledge function if its authority was not anchored in authoritative names? In this first of two sessions, three papers will investigate questions of trust and authorship in manuscripts containing texts that especially required trustworthiness - or did they? |