Manuscript Monday

Early materials from the Leiden collection

It is time for the fifth lecture in the series Manuscript Mondays. This lecture will take place in Leiden at Leiden University Library in the Vossius Room, on 23 March 2020, from 15.15 to 17.00 h. We shall have two speakers:

Jesse Keskiaho (University of Helsinki, Finland) will start with a talk about the soul. What was the nature and origin of the soul as imagined in the early middle ages? Augustine of Hippo (354–430) had formulated influential ideas about these issues, and it is often assumed that early medieval scholars simply repeated these. In fact, they queried the nature and origin of the soul throughout the period, actively employing inherited knowledge to answer new questions. Keskiaho will explore especially how manuscript evidence sheds light on these investigations.

In the second talk Evina Steinova will tell us more about the medieval encyclopaedia. Medieval readers, especially in the early Middle Ages, did not produce a new encyclopaedia every time they wanted to have a better or updated information. Rather, they used the Etymologiae of Isidore of Seville (d.636) as their basis, adding and removing as they saw fitting, re-organizing and dividing the text to serve new purposes. Steinova will show us some of the footprints left behind in the manuscripts of Etymologiae that go back to the Carolingian period and tell us about the Carolingian readers of Isidore’s influential work. What interested them and what caused their consternation? What did they found lacking in a text that was 200 years old in their days, and what needed updating or improvement in their eyes? What do various forms of appropriation reveal about their agendas and perspectives?

The talks will be followed by a pop-up exhibition, showcasing relevant manuscripts from the Leiden collection.