Merry Christmas 2013

British Library MS Additional 42130 (the Luttrell Psalter), detail from fol. 87v.

This is from the Luttrell Psalter: a picture in the bottom margin of fol. 87v, one of a series of scenes from the life of Christ. On the left are the Magi, represented as three kings, and on the right a shepherd with bicoloured mittens points the travellers toward the star of Bethlehem. Merry Christmas from 14th-century England.

Yin Liu

Interactive medieval media

Interactive is a positive buzzword in the digital world today; the Oxford English Dictionary records it as being applied from the 1960s onward to computing devices that respond to user input. When used of digital media or devices, interactive carries positive connotations because it stands against passive: instead of presupposing a one-way flow of information from a smart device to a stupid user (a model that supports the familiar technology-makes-you-stupid topos), interactivity is engaging, stimulating, perhaps even enhances intellectual ability. Leaving aside, for now, the question of whether interactivity is desirable, we might recognise three ways in which medieval textual interfaces can be said to be interactive.

Brendan Missal, University of Saskatchewan Special Collections

Antisocial media

We’ve heard it all, repeatedly: social media, ironically, is (are?) making us more antisocial. Technology (especially, again ironically, communications technology) is separating us rather than bringing us together. We have ‘relationships’ conducted entirely online. We stare at our mobile phones rather than make eye contact with the people in front of us. We text each other rather than engage in face-to-face conversations. Try doing a Web search of the word antisocial and any combination of media, technology, and phone, and you will find numerous opinions on the debate. And every time I come across yet another rant on any side of the issue, I am reminded of this classic passage from Geoffrey Chaucer’s House of Fame (lines 644-660). The Eagle is lecturing the hapless Geoffrey:

British Library MS Lansdowne 851, fol. 2r (detail).

. . . thou hast no tydynges
Of Loves folk yf they be glade,
Ne of noght elles that God made;
And noght oonly fro fer contree
That ther no tydynge cometh to thee,
But of thy verray neyghebores,
That duellen almost at thy dores,
Thou herist neyther that ne this;
For when thy labour doon al ys,
And hast mad alle thy rekenynges,
In stede of reste and newe thynges
Thou goost hom to thy hous anoon,
And, also domb as any stoon,
Thou sittest at another book
Tyl fully daswed ys thy look;
And lyvest thus as an heremyte,
Although thyn abstynence ys lyte.

Models for Text

The paper I gave in New York recently, at an INKE conference, tentatively explored the idea that multiple models for text are desirable because humans use text in various ways. The four models for text I proposed, by way of example, are summarised in this table:

Punctuating Manuscripts

MS. Junius 11, pg. 5. Image: Oxford, Bodleian Library 

Have you ever considered what a text would look like without punctuation? In what way would an author ensure that they successfully conveyed the appropriate meaning to their audience and how would the audience identify meaningful units, or senses, within a text? Punctuation is, and always has been, a useful way of dividing text into smaller units of meaning, dispelling ambiguity and developing a specific meaning. In approaching text as a model of information it is important to consider not only how information was encoded but also how it was decoded – a process in which punctuation has been, and continues to be, a powerful tool.