SCRIPTORIUM: Understanding the Medieval Page

How was a medieval manuscript page made? Before a single word was written, pages had to be planned, ruled, and prepared; texts copied; decorations designed; and illuminations completed by a range of specialists working together. The medieval book was not the product of a solitary artist, but of a carefully organised process.

Using manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries, this session explores the stages behind the creation of the medieval page, from pricking and ruling to writing, rubrication, illumination, and iconographic design. Participants will discover how evidence of these processes survives in the manuscripts themselves and how medieval images functioned as a sophisticated visual language. To explore these questions, the session uses a selection of medieval manuscripts in different stages of completion, as well as examples from the nineteenth-century Arts and Crafts movement created by William Morris and digital facsimiles of contemporary manuscript-inspired illuminations by Caitlin Fitzgerald. These objects highlight the stages of manuscript production and invite reflection on the continuous use and enduring power of iconographic conventions created in the Middle Ages, and still understood by contemporary readers.

To bring these ideas together, the session then turns to Scriptorium: Master of Manuscripts, a videogame inspired by medieval book production, where participants will experiment with the same questions faced by medieval makers: how should a page be laid out, what images should accompany a text, and how can an idea be communicated visually?

Speaker

Elena Caetano Álvarez works in Academic Engagement at the Bodleian Libraries and is Lecturer in Peninsular Studies at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on medieval intellectual history and manuscript culture, with particular interest in the cultural production of medieval Iberia. She is also interested in how digital scholarship, videogames, and interactive experiences can contribute to the study, interpretation, and teaching of manuscript culture and book history.

Alongside her work at the Bodleian and Bristol, she is co-applicant and researcher on the SSHRC-funded Digital Edition of the General Estoria (DEGE), an international project dedicated to the digital editing, study, and dissemination of Alfonso X's encyclopaedic world history.