Occasional Papers
The Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures regularly hosts meetings to discuss the theory, terminology and other issues in manuscriptology. Several of its members – philologists, historians, art historians, linguists and others – collectively engage in contributing to the systematic and historical study of written artefacts. The documents uploaded to this page are individual contributions and drafts reflecting some of the provisional results of the Centre’s activities, especially its Theory and Terminology working group. Its members welcome comments on any of the documents published here. The Occasional Papers series is edited by Alessandro Bausi and Konrad Hirschler.
The following papers have been published:
- Searching for a definition of 'manuscript' by Vito Lorusso et al.
- Wordlists for Libraries and Closely Related Phenomena in Different Manuscript Cultures from Asia, Africa and Europe by Martin Delhey, Vito Lorusso et al.
- A heuristic tool for the comparative study of manuscripts from different manuscript cultures by Hanna Wimmer et. al.
- Questionnaire for the Study of Manuscript Collections Preliminary summary of the collaborative work in project area C towards a typology of manuscript collections by Janina Karolewski and Max Jakob Fölster
- Reconstruction of Early Chinese Bamboo and Wood Manuscripts: A Review (1900–2010) by Thies Staack
- Definition of ‘Paracontent’ by Giovanni Ciotti, Michael Kohs, Eva Wilden, Hanna Wimmer, and the TNT Working Group
- CSMC Scroll Matrix by Patrick Andrist, Alessandro Bausi, Michael Friedrich, Marilena Maniaci
- Definition of ‘Written Artefact’ by Alessandro Bausi, Dmitry Bondarev, Nadine Bregler, Sara Chiarini, Giovanni Ciotti, Janine Droese, Eliana Dal Sasso, Michael Friedrich, Agnieszka Helman-Ważny, Michael Kohs, Leah Mascia, Ann Lauren Osthof, Malena Ratzke, Ondřej Škrabal, Szilvia Sövegjártó, Thies Staack, Hanna Wimmer
- Multilayered Written Artefacts: Definition, Typology, Formatting by José Maksimczuk, Berenice Möller, Thies Staack, Alexander Weinstock, Jana Wolf
Multilayered Written Artefacts: Definition, Typology, Formatting
No. 9
José Maksimczuk, Berenice Möller, Thies Staack, Alexander Weinstock, Jana Wolf
Written artefacts (WAs), artificial or natural objects with visual signs applied by humans, are the central focus of the Cluster of Excellence Understanding Written Artefacts: Materiality, Interaction, and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures. The present paper considers the observation that WAs are shaped by complex processes of production and use, as well as by different settings and patterns. These factors might be subject to change, depending on where, by whom and how a WA is used after its creation. Hence, far from being stable or unchanging entities, many WAs evolve over the course of time, acquiring ‘layers’ akin to archaeological strata. Such layers either modify a WA’s contents and might serve to extend, delete or replace them or they are not linked at all to the WA’s contents. Yet they always affect the WA they are applied to on the material level, leaving identifiable traces that add to the WA’s complexity. This paper suggests calling such complex WAs ‘multilayered’ – a concept that is arguably best suited to capturing the outcome of continued, at times long-term, or intermittent uses of a WA. The paper also suggests further terms for a more precise analysis of the multilayered nature of WAs, including the distinction between ‘primary layer’ and ‘secondary layer(s)’, and between ‘closed’ and ‘open’ primary layers, as well as a taxonomy of the acts creating secondary layers (addition, subtraction and replacement of content and/or material).
Download the paper (PDF):
Definition of 'Written Artefact'
No. 8
Alessandro Bausi, Dmitry Bondarev, Nadine Bregler, Sara Chiarini, Giovanni Ciotti, Janine Droese, Eliana Dal Sasso, Michael Friedrich, Agnieszka Helman-Ważny, Michael Kohs, Leah Mascia, Ann Lauren Osthof, Malena Ratzke, Ondřej Škrabal, Szilvia Sövegjártó, Thies Staack, Hanna Wimmer
The suggested definition is the result of exchanges, reflections, and discussions in the TNT working group which took place during the regular meetings in the years 2021–2022. The short paper that accompanies the definition has no pretension to a systematic coverage of the topic: it has an empirical character, reflects the development of the discourse on and around the definition of written artefact, and does not pursue any ultimate limit. It only aims to provide an agreed basis for further reflection at a still intermediate stage of the research.
The working definition suggested by TNT is the following:
A written artefact is any artificial or natural object with visual signs applied by humans.
Download the paper (PDF):
CSMC Scroll Matrix
No. 7
Patrick Andrist, Alessandro Bausi, Michael Friedrich, Marilena Maniaci
The Matrix presented here orderly lists the main features of the book form scroll, and some other aspects to be considered in scholarly studies and descriptions. It can be used as an inspection checklist or as a backbone for an analytic description of a scroll. It is based on the presentations of case studies by specialists of various cultural areas, within the framework of the Permanent seminar on manuscript analysis, description, and documentation at the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures, and is the result of discussions between the authors.
Download the paper (PDF):
Definition of Paracontent
No. 6
Giovanni Ciotti, Michael Kohs, Eva Wilden, Hanna Wimmer, and the TNT Working Group
Core- and paracontent expressions such as “this manuscript contains …” or “the content of this manuscript is …” are ubiquitous and reveal much of how is perceived what is to be found in a specific manuscript. Usually, this would be a text, a group of texts (e.g. the Bible), a text with its commentary, but also pictures such as in sketch-books, or musical notation. This is called core-content.
However, a manuscript may contain further sets of visual signs related to the core-content, such as a preface, maybe written by someone else than the author of the core-text found in the manuscript, the notes of a reader or a cataloguer of the manuscript, a table of contents added maybe centuries after the production of the manuscript, a diagram, etc. This is called paracontent. This term is used in order to avoid ambiguities of the more familiar term paratext often used to refer to textual elements only.
Download the paper (PDF):
Reconstruction of Early Chinese Bamboo and Wood Manuscripts: A Review (1900–2010)
No. 5
Thies Staack
As integral part of the broader field of the study of early Chinese manuscripts, reconstruction efforts regarding bamboo and wood manuscripts from pre-imperial and early imperial China can be dated back to the first important finds of such manuscripts in the early 20th century. To explain the importance of the most recent developments and to be able to integrate these new perspectives into the frame of criteria and methods that have been developed over the past century, a review seems in order. As new stages in the development of criteria and methods were often enabled by new discoveries and the respective manuscript publications, this review will not try to draw a comprehensive picture of all research related to this topic. Instead it will highlight the most important trends and the manuscript discoveries they were based on. In conclusion it will provide a catalogue of the criteria that were applied for reconstruction until the year 2010 and point out remaining problems.
Download the paper (PDF):
Questionnaire for the Study of Manuscript Collections Preliminary summary of the collaborative work in project area C towards a typology of manuscript collections
No. 4
Janina Karolewski and Max Jakob Fölster
Collections of manuscripts can be of a very different nature. They can be in the possession of an indi-vidual, a group of people or an institution, who might use the objects in an exclusive manner or grant the right of access and use to others. Moreover, they can be situated in households or in edi-fices of particular communities, kept in shelves or stored in boxes, and so on. Surely, there are many more aspects that have to be considered when describing the nature of a collection, e.g. aspects related to its function or contents. In order to put an emphasis or generalize, one normally classifies a collection in regard to only a few of these aspects. Thus, among others, attributes such as private, public, imperial, monastic, scholarly and priestly are commonly used to describe a collection. But it is not evident at all on which aspect or combination of them a particular attribute bases. For instance, is a collection private in regard to its owner or to its user? And is a collection scholarly in regard to its contents or its use? Besides, at a closer look, some attributes proof less self-explaining as probably assumed. Do attributes like private, public, scientific and religious represent an academic (sometimes anachronistic) abstraction or do they reflect concepts actually existing in a given culture?
Download the paper (PDF):
A heuristic tool for the comparative study of manuscripts from different manuscript cultures
No. 3
Hanna Wimmer et. al.
Written and discussed as part of the ongoing collaborative work of the CSMC’s “Theory and Terminology” group, this paper presents a tool for the comparative study of manuscripts from different manuscript cultures. The model depicts a particular manuscript within a manuscript culture in relation to the various key factors which have shaped its content and appearance, and which continue to shape its use. Inspired by Andreas Hepp’s schematic rendering of Raymond Williams’ model of a culture as a “Bedeutungssystem” (semantic system), it represents a culture in which at least some types of knowledge and actions are preserved, transmitted, organised and performed by means of manuscripts. It is designed as a heuristic device a) for the analysis of the characteristics and functions of an individual manuscript within a manuscript culture and, most importantly for the purposes of the CSMC, b) as a basis for a systematic comparison of the characteristics and functions of manuscripts from different manuscript cultures.
Download the paper (PDF):
Wordlists for Libraries and Closely Related Phenomena in Different Manuscript Cultures from Asia, Africa and Europe
No. 2
Martin Delhey, Vito Lorusso et al.
In the present paper, we are collecting indigenous terms that are more or less equivalent to the English word “library.” With the word “library” we have mainly in mind the most usual way in which the English term is used, namely library as a collection of books and as a designation for the place that contains these books. We are taking into consideration institutionalized libraries as well as those that are not institutionalized (for instance, collections for private personal use). From the perspective of use, the quantity of books collected does not matter (Richardson 1914: 8), either.
In scholarly publications, the meaning of the word “library” is sometimes also extended to a multitude of texts collected into one volume (“one-volume library,” i.e. MTM). Moreover, Too (2010: 84), for instance, also speaks of types of libraries in which no physical objects are involved (“walking libraries” or “memory libraries”). In all these cases, we do not collect systematically indigenous equivalents. However, if in a specific culture a term for library can also be used in such a metaphorical way, this will be noted. For the time being, general terms for the actors involved, e.g. “librarian,” are only taken into consideration in the case of some manuscript cultures. Similarly, other terms for physical places where written documents are stored such as “archive” and “chests” are not systematically collected.
It is obviously far from easy to find a definition of the term “library,” which works equally well for all manuscript cultures. Rather than forcing all related phenomena into the Procrustean bed of a common definition, it seems to be more advisable to use other tools for a systematic comparison of all cultures. One possible way to approach this task is to collect indigenous terms for the sake of understanding how the manuscript cultures themselves conceptualise(d) book collections.
Download the paper (PDF):
Searching for a definition of 'manuscript'
No. 1
Vito Lorusso et al.
This document contains a list of working definitions of the term ‘manuscript’ taken from appropriate literature on the topic. The definitions collected here are the serendipitous result of an initial search and have been classified into four main sections: main sections:
- manuscript as a handwritten document
- manuscript as a codex
- manuscript as a book
- manuscript as a medium
Section C refers to a more general understanding of ‘book’ since codex books do not occur in all manuscript cultures. The various definitions are arranged in chronological order in each section.
This document served as a starting point for a lively discussion within the Theory and Terminology working group at the CSMC. Anyone is welcome to propose further definitions of relevance to our work and comment on the undertaking, which we regard as being work in progress. We look forward to hearing from you.
Download the paper (PDF):
