Tracing Manuscripts in Time and Space Through Paratexts: Perspectives from Paratexts (Studies in Manuscript Cultures) (Studies in Manuscript Cultures, 7)

As records of the link between a manuscript and the texts it contains, paratexts document many aspects of a manuscript’s life: production, transmission, usage, and reception. Comprehensive studies of paratexts are still rare in the field of manuscript studies, and the universal categories of time and space are used to create a common frame for research and comparisons. Contributions in this volume span over three continents and one millennium. Contents 5 Preface 7 Exploring Paratexts in Old Mande Manuscripts 13 Locating Tai Lü and Tai Khün Manuscripts in Space and Time through Colophons 47 Certain Times in Uncertain Places: A Study on Scribal Colophons of Manuscripts Written in Tamil and Tamilian Grantha Scripts 71 Looking Inside the Cover: Reconstructing Space and Time in Some Donglin Manuscripts 143 ‘Traces in Red’: Chinese Book Collectors’ Seals as a Means to Track the Transmission History of a Manuscript 173 ‘When the living envied the dead’: Church Slavonic Paratexts and the Apocalyptic Framework of Monk Isaija’s Colophon (1371) 197 Locating Greek Manuscripts through Paratexts: Examples from the Library of Cardinal Bessarion and other Manuscript Collections 235 Travelling Books: Changes of Ownership and Location in Ethiopian Manuscript Culture 281 Indexes 313 The series Studies in Manuscript Cultures (SMC) publishes monographs and collective volumes contributing to the study of written artefacts. This field of study embraces disciplines such as art history, codicology, epigraphy, history, material analysis, palaeography and philology. SMC encourages comparative approaches, without regional, linguistic, temporal or other limitations on the objects studied; it contributes to a larger historical and systematic survey of the role of written artefacts in ancient and modern cultures, and in so doing provides a new foundation for ongoing discussions in cultural studies. As records of the link between a manuscript and the texts it contains, paratexts document many aspects of a manuscript's life: production, transmission, usage, and reception. Comprehensive studies of paratexts are still rare in the field of manuscript studies. In this book, contributions span over three continents and one millennium.