Journal of Historical Network Research

The pseudo-Augustinian S. App. 121 and its medieval textual connections

Iris Denis, Shari Boodts — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This article investigates the benefits and challenges inherent in using networks to visualize and analyze the textual connections between Latin patristic sermons as transmitted in medieval manuscripts. Patristic sermons, which had a dynamic reception in the Middle Ages and were the subject of an extensive and complex scholarly tradition, are an ideal test case for an inquiry into the manipulations of texts as part of the process of textual transmission in the Middle Ages. Using the Pseudo-Augustinian sermo 121 as a case study, first we will describe the textual history of the sermon. Subsequently, we will translate this narrative of the scholarly history of PS-AU s 121 into network visualizations of increasing complexity and reflect on the accuracy, usefulness and challenges of this method for the study of the myriad textual connections between patristic sermons in medieval contexts. This case study on network visualizations is part of a larger project to develop a digital application and database, the PASSIM Research Tool, to chart the dissemination and manipulation of patristic preaching in the Middle Ages.

Parallel Glosses, Shared Glosses, and Gloss Clustering

Evina Stein — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Glossing was an important element of medieval Western manuscript culture. Yet, glosses are notoriously difficult to analyze because of their philological triviality, fluid nature, heterogeneity of origin, complex transmission histories, and anonymity. Traditional scholarly approaches such as close reading and genealogical method often do not produce satisfactory results, especially in the cases of gloss corpora that are highly organic, i.e., display the traits listed above to a significant degree. This article outlines a method for analyzing organic corpora of glosses based on their treatment as networks. The theoretical model for the proposed method is the co-occurrence network, a network model in which relationships between entities (nodes) are established based on sharing certain properties or constituent elements (edges). In the case of corpora of glosses, glossed manuscripts are assumed as nodes and glosses that particular manuscripts share in common constitute edges between them. Since gloss parallelism can arise through different processes, including randomness, the article describes two strategies that reduce such noise so that the transmission of glosses can be effectively examined. The method is demonstrated on a representative corpus – the early medieval glosses to the first book of the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville.

Scribal networks

Katharina Kaska — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This paper tests the application of network analysis for the visualization and analysis of palaeographical data. In recent years the 12^th century scriptoria of the Austrian Cistercian monasteries of Heiligenkreuz, Zwettl and Baumgartenberg have been thoroughly investigated. A vast amount of data on scribes and their contributions to various manuscripts has been published in analog publications as well as online on the website www.scriptoria.at run by Alois Haidinger. The presentation of the data mainly in the form of lists makes it difficult for researchers to appreciate the possibilities this groundbreaking work provides. For this paper the data is instead presented as networks of manuscripts and networks of scribes within and between the monasteries. These networks highlight the development and interconnectedness of 12^th century Cistercian book production, point out potential research questions and can disseminating the results to a wider audience.

Books of hours as codified compilations of compilations

Dominique Stutzmann, Louis Chevalier — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Books of hours were the medieval best-seller. Imitating the model of liturgical books and intended for the faithful, these devotional manuscripts contain a common core of offices and texts, and they seem to have a standardized content. However, the order of the main sections as well as, within the offices, the choice and the order of the chants, readings and orations, vary according not only to the liturgical source, but also to the place of production and certainly to the market targeted and the choices of the client. This contribution analyses networks of manuscripts and of texts. At the level of texts and liturgical uses, we highlight that geographical proximity or farther-reaching communications produced textual commonalities (e.g. Germany and Southern France for the Hours of the Virgin, Flanders and Scandinavia for the office of the Dead). At the level of the manuscript, patrons could not only juxtapose texts for different uses, but also modify the expected contents. Codes specific to one institution may be reproduced faithfully, but also give way to hybridization. This phenomenon is characterized, for example, by switches between pieces, by insertions of pieces from another use into a well-identified set, or by the implementation of textual variants.

From Networks of Texts to Networks of Topics?

Ina Serif — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

As medieval manuscripts often consist of more than one text, the application of network analysis can show textual connections between codices and therefore shed light on the circulation of texts, of manuscripts, and thus of knowledge. But a text-based analysis often faces difficulties that result from insufficient manuscript descriptions and lacking normalization of work titles. A broader view that would compare not particular texts, but rather genres, areas of interest or fields of knowledge may on the one hand help circumvent these problems, but has to deal, on the other hand, with problems regarding classification. Instead of finding connections between subjectively classified texts, one can make use of topic modeling as a method to computationally classify and hence characterize miscellany manuscripts. On the basis of automatically detected topics, topic-based networks can be generated which help to further investigate the connections between the codices of a specific corpus and to develop a better understanding for the copying and transmission of premodern manuscripts.

Connecting Chronicles

Catherine Emerson — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

In examining the network of owners associated with manuscripts of fifteenth-century French histories and the material connections between the manuscripts themselves, a clear distinction emerges between a group of male historians associated with the French court whose manuscripts were privately owned and other texts subject to public consumption.

Introduction: Fitting Manuscript Studies into the Historical Network Research

Evina Stein, Gustavo Fernández Riva — Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000