IMC 2022: Sessions

Early medieval manuscripts are full of anonymous texts, and even if we now know who their authors were (often thanks to the hard work of editors), it is important to wonder what, to early medieval compilers and readers, the difference was between a text with, and without an author. Why would 9th-century compilers with their pre-occupations with trustworthy and correct knowledge, for instance, not mention a highly respected intellectual when they were copying one of the latter's writings? Under what circumstances, on the other hand, did copyists ascribe interesting texts of unclear origins to some famous author? Moreover, if authors were usually not mentioned, how should we imagine that readers and students evaluated the trustworthiness and authority of all this material? This session will explore how known authorship and the authority of a text were two different things, and try to pinpoint what difference the presence of the author's name actually made.