Medieval Multilingual Manuscripts: Case Studies from Ireland to Japan (Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 24)

Open Access Manuscripts provide rich documentary evidence for understanding the history of cultural life across the breadth of Europe and Asia down through the Middle Ages. Many illustrate engagement between and across languages, in both similar and contrasting ways from east to west. The demarcation of manuscript studies into single-language academic disciplines has often obscured this reality, privileging one constituent part or contributing language from each manuscript rather than exploring the combination as a nuanced and complex whole. This volume seeks to examine manuscripts as integrally united artefacts, respecting the diversity of their constituent elements. Case studies are presented of twelve manuscripts with evidence for various levels of inter-language exchange and collision, from horizons as diverse as the Atlantic West, Carolingian Europe, the Byzantine world, the Silk Road cultures, and east Asia. The essays function individually as discrete contributions, but together they highlight a range of overlapping themes, illustrating language interaction in global religions, pedagogical exchange, and secular society-building.The analogies as well as the concrete points of connection between them underline the value of a cross-disciplinary approach. Contents 6 Introduction 8 Language Interaction and Education 20 Contested Vernacular Readings, c. 800–830 CE: The Satō-bon Kegon mongi yōketsu and the Tōdaiji fujumonkō 20 Latin Grammar Crossing Multilingual Zones: St Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, 904 42 Medieval Wales as a Linguistic Crossroads in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 153 62 A Sanskrit-Khotanese Colloquy: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Pelliot chinois 5538 74 Language Interaction and Religion 90 The Bilingual Manuscript with the Irk Bitig: London, British Library, Or.8212/161 90 Fragments from the First Order of Fustat: Finds from the Cairo Geniza at Cambridge University Library 106 The Manuscripts of the Irish Liber Hymnorum, a Bilingual Anthology of Sacred Verse 126 A Greek Gospel of Luke for the Arabophone: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, suppl. gr. 911 158 Language Interaction and Constructing Polities 172 The Harley Trilingual Psalter, a Witness to Multilingualism at the Court Scriptorium of Roger II of Sicily 172 A Gateway to the Six Languages: Cambridge, University Library, MS Add.1698 190 Scribbling in Newar on the Margins of a Sanskrit Manuscript: Cambridge, University Library, MS Add.2832 206 International Vernacularisation, c. 1390 CE: The ‘Book of Ballymote’ 216 Indices 238 Contributors 246 "Manuscripts provide rich documentary evidence for understanding the history of cultural life across the breadth of Europe and Asia down through the Middle Ages. Many illustrate engagement between and across languages, in both similar and contrasting ways from east to west. The demarcation of manuscript studies into single-language academic disciplines has often obscured this reality, privileging one constituent part or contributing language from each manuscript rather than exploring the combination as a nuanced and complex whole. This volume seeks to examine manuscripts as integrally united artefacts, respecting the diversity of their constituent elements. Case studies are presented of twelve manuscripts with evidence for various levels of inter-language exchange and collision, from horizons as diverse as the Atlantic West, Carolingian Europe, the Byzantine world, the Silk Road cultures, and east Asia. The essays function individually as discrete contributions, but together they highlight a range of overlapping themes, illustrating language interaction in global religions, pedagogical exchange, and secular society-building.The analogies as well as the concrete points of connection between them underline the value of a cross-disciplinary approach."-- Provided by publisher

Manuscripts provide rich documentary evidence for understanding the history of cultural life across the breadth of Europe and Asia down through the Middle Ages. Many illustrate engagement between and across languages, in both similar and contrasting ways from east to west. The demarcation of manuscript studies into single-language academic disciplines has often obscured this reality, privileging one constituent part or contributing language from each manuscript rather than exploring the combination as a nuanced and complex whole. This volume seeks to examine manuscripts as integrally united artefacts, respecting the diversity of their constituent elements.

Case studies are presented of twelve manuscripts with evidence for various levels of inter-language exchange and collision, from horizons as diverse as the Atlantic West, Carolingian Europe, the Byzantine world, the Silk Road cultures, and east Asia. The essays function individually as discrete contributions, but together they highlight a range of overlapping themes, illustrating language interaction in global religions, pedagogical exchange, and secular society-building.The analogies as well as the concrete points of connection between them underline the value of a cross-disciplinary approach.