Medieval art is wordy; inscriptions and poems, commentaries and chronicles accompany and adorn it. The Art of Words presents a series of detective stories by a renowned explorer of medieval philological evidence who here examines the thought and objects of the Venerable Bede and Theodulf of Orleans. What physical objects did Bede have in mind, for example, when writing about the paintings of his monastic churches? How did he conceive of the division of biblical books into chapters? Why was the famous Libri Carolini made for Charlemagne never published? Indeed what did it mean in the Middle...