Workshop on the Medieval Bible in Scotland

This workshop will examine the unique features of the Late Medieval Bible, based on the Library's own manuscript collection.

Speaker: Dr Eyal Poleg, Centre for the History of the Book, University of Edinburgh

Hosted by: Special Collections Centre

Venue: Special Collections Centre Seminar Room
Lower Ground Floor, University Library

Late Medieval Bibles (1230-1500) are the first mass-produced pandects, or single-volume Bibles.  They were written by professional scribes and artists who produced a revolutionary small and portable books. These new Bibles spread quickly across Europe, and within few decades appeared from Spain to Bohemia, from Italy to Germany.  They follow a distinctive and remarkably similar layout, which was replicated in Gutenberg’s celebrated 42-line Bible and has influenced Bibles down to the present day. 

Their uniformity, length and the sheer number of surviving manuscripts (more than 1,500), have hindered their scholarly analysis.  This workshop will examine the unique features of the Late Medieval Bible, based on the Library's own manuscript collection.  It will then present new means for their analysis, part of an ongoing research project: The Medieval Bible in Scotland.

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