Between Manuscript and Print

Transcultural Perspectives, ca. 1400–1800

Sylvia Brockstieger, Paul Schweitzer-Martin, Sylvia Brockstieger, Paul Schweitzer-Martin

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9783111242309
• eBook ISBN:
  9783111243009
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: Literature

A cross-cultural, comparative view on the transition from a predominant 'culture of handwriting' to a predominant 'culture of print' in the late medieval and early modern periods is provided here, combining research on Christian and Jewish European book culture with findings on East Asian manuscript and print culture. This approach highlights interactions and interdependencies instead of retracing a linear process from the manuscript book to its printed successor.
While each chapter is written as a disciplinary study focused on one specific case from the respective field, the volume as a whole allows for transcultural perspectives. It thereby not only focusses on change, but also on simultaneities of manuscript and printing practices as well as on shifts in the perception of media, writing surfaces, and materials: Which values did writers, printers, and readers attribute to the handwritten and printed materials? For which types of texts was handwriting preferred or perceived as suitable? How and under which circumstances could handwritten and printed texts coexist, even within the same document, and which epistemic dynamics emerged from such textual assemblages?

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Between Manuscript and Print — Introduction
• The Risk to Print History in the Late 15th Century Johann Koelhoff’s Chronicle Project in 1499
• Medial Translations and Material Manifestations The Fasciculus Medicinae in Physician-Patient Interaction
• A Good Book is an Old Book? Hebrew Manuscripts and Prints in 16th-Century Christian Book Collections
• Title Pages in Icelandic Post-Medieval Manuscripts and Books
• Behaving like Print On the Graphic and Performative Adaptation of Printed Letters in Early Modern Handwriting
• ‘Bilderfahrzeug’ of the Rosicrucians Daniel Mögling’s Speculum Sophicum Rhodostauroticum (1618) in Print and Manuscript
• Manuscript Features of Early Japanese Movable Type Books On the Intersection of Eastern and Western Typesetting Techniques
• The Media Trajectory of Kano Naganobu’s Merrymaking under Cherry and Aronia Blossoms
• Notes on Contributors
• Index of Names and Locations