Notam superponere studui: The use of technical signs in the early Middle Ages

Abstract

Early medieval Latin manuscripts frequently contain marginal commentaries and annotations that refer to the text in these manuscripts. Such marginalia may have the form of texts or diagrams, but in other cases, they are symbols - crosses, dots, slashes and other more complex graphic signs. While scholars have been aware of the presence of technical signs in manuscript margins, we had until now no coherent understanding of their usage and in many cases we lacked the key to decipher their meaning. My PhD research provides the first detailed examination of technical signs used in the early medieval Latin West and attempts to map their usage in the Carolingian period. I first outline their history that goes back to Classical Antiquity. Technical signs devised by scribes and scholars to perform routine professional tasks, such as correction of faulty manuscripts or critical assessment of fellow scholars, were adopted by Christian scribes and scholars in Late Antiquity. Christian users also developed new uses for technical signs, for example to mark texts that contained theologically problematic passages. The practice of using technical signs was originally highly pragmatic, and we may assume sign users learned their trade from other users orally and by observing their behaviour. However, since the first centuries technical treatises that detailed how signs were to be used, gave them names and sometimes added details about their origin and known users began to be produced in Greek and Latin. These oldest technical texts provided the basis for the sign treatises surviving from the early Middle Ages. More than twenty sign treatises survive in medieval manuscripts. I transcribe and analyze them in my dissertation and also discuss other testimonies reflecting scholarly discourse on the subject of technical signs. My research showed that the majority of signs one can encounter in early medieval Western manuscripts were produced by monastic scribes who used them to perform simple operations connected with copying of manuscripts, their correction and readership. Nevertheless, some manuscripts also contain signs that reflect the activities of scholars and attest to a revival of interest in scholarly traditions of sign use outlined in sign treatises and in testimonies available to medieval readers. This revival can be connected with Carolingian Renaissance and the reforms that have their origin in the last decades of the eighth century. Most likely, Carolingian thinkers began to study the critical signs, one category of technical signs, because of their connection to the Psalter; however, their interest gradually developed beyond this single tradition and stimulated interest in sign treatises and their study. Ultimately, Carolingian scholars devised their own traditions of sign use that are captured by several works produced during this period.