Bernhard Bischoff (1906-1991) was one of the most renowned scholars of medieval palaeography of the twentieth century. In this book seven of his classic essays on aspects of eighth and ninth century culture appear for the first time in English. They include an investigation of the role of books in the transmission of culture from the sixth to the ninth century, and studies of the court libraries of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, as well as of writing centers and libraries associated with major monastic and cathedral schools. This rich collection provides a full, coherent study of...

Since the industrialization of fishing, fisheries scientists have been subject to intense economic and political pressures, which have affected the way the science has developed. The origins and effects of these pressures are traced in this book to concerns about determining the causes of fluctuations in fish and whale catches, and to resistance to regulation of fishing activity when populations are depleted. The development of partial theories of fish population dynamics are described using examples of both national and international fisheries. The causes of the difficulties encountered in...

Albert Derolez has developed new terminology for describing the different scripts in this detailed study of handwriting in manuscript books produced in western and central Europe from c.1100 to c.1530. This makes Derolez's survey unique and an ideal tool for all interested in late-medieval book and handwriting culture. The text is illustrated with 600 drawings of letter-forms and 160 photographs of parts of manuscripts reproduced to actual-size.

Alison Beach's book on female scribes in twelfth-century Bavaria is based on the belief that the scriptorium was vital to the intellectual revival of the Middle Ages and that women played a role in this renaissance. Beach's focus on manuscript production at three rather different religious houses, and the religious, intellectual, social and economic factors which influenced that production, enables her to draw wide-ranging conclusions of interest to palaeographers as well as others interested in religious and gender history.

Albert Derolez has developed new terminology for describing the different scripts in this detailed study of handwriting in manuscript books produced in western and central Europe from c.1100 to c.1530. This makes Derolez's survey unique and an ideal tool for all interested in late-medieval book and handwriting culture. The text is illustrated with 600 drawings of letter-forms and 160 photographs of parts of manuscripts reproduced to actual-size.

Learning to read in medieval Germany meant learning to read and understand Latin as well as the pupils' own language. The teaching methods used in the medieval Abbey of St Gall survive in the translations and commentaries of the monk, scholar and teacher Notker Labeo (c.950 1022). Notker's pedagogic method, although deeply rooted in classical and monastic traditions, demonstrates revolutionary innovations that include providing translations in the pupils' native German, supplying structural commentary in the form of simplified word order and punctuation, and furnishing special markers that...

Copied in southeastern Gaul around the end of the seventh and beginning of the eighth century, the Bobbio Missal is one of the most important liturgical manuscripts from that period. It is a unique combination of lectionary and sacramentary, to which much canonical and non-canonical material was added. The extent of specialized knowledge, provided by the scholars writing for this book, contributes considerably to our understanding of this complex manuscript, as well as of the broader field of early medieval liturgy and religious culture which it bears witness to.

A detailed study of the Trier Gospels, an important early medieval manuscript. Through an investigation of its production, Professor Netzer reveals the cross-cultural influences among the Insular, Continental and Mediterranean worlds in the eighth century, demonstrating in particular the complicated process of cultural interplay that took place in the scriptorium at Echternach. She traces the history of the production of the manuscript through a detailed analysis of its components: the individual texts, construction and arrangement of gatherings, scripts, ornamental initials, canon tables and...

This book centers on the copy of the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus produced in Constantinople around 880 for the emperor Basil I as a gift from the patriarch Photios. The manuscript includes forty-six full page miniatures, most of which do not directly illustrate the text they accompany, but instead provide a visual commentary. Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium deals with how such communication worked, and examines the types of messages that pictures could convey in ninth-century Byzantium.

Learning to read in medieval Germany meant learning to read and understand Latin as well as the pupils' own language. The teaching methods used in the medieval Abbey of St Gall survive in the translations and commentaries of the monk, scholar and teacher Notker Labeo (c.950 1022). Notker's pedagogic method, although deeply rooted in classical and monastic traditions, demonstrates revolutionary innovations that include providing translations in the pupils' native German, supplying structural commentary in the form of simplified word order and punctuation, and furnishing special markers that...