Preliminary Program – International Conference ‘Medieval Documents as Artefacts, 1100-1600’
Maastricht, The Netherlands, February 5-6, 2014
organized by the working group ‘Writing and Writing Practices in the Medieval Low Countries’, (Schrift en Schriftdragers in de Nederlanden in de Middeleeuwen – SSNM) in collaboration with the Huygens Institute-ING and the Regional Historic Centre Limburg
This conference is devoted to the physical appearance of documents in the High and Late Middle Ages. Artefacts that survive from medieval written culture can roughly be divided into two categories. On the one hand there are manuscripts – historical, literary and other – which are usually kept in libraries. These objects are carefully catalogued, not just for their contents but also for their material features. Moreover, they frequently feature in studies that are exclusively interested in their physical appearance, discussing, for example, the codicology or palaeography of manuscripts from the same genre (liturgical books, Bibles), location (monastic house, region, country) or scribe. On the other hand, a wide range of documentary material survives from the Middle Ages, which is kept in the archives – charters, registers, cartularies, account books and rolls, and the like. Of these archival documents, mainly charters have been traditionally studied in much detail, quite often combining the research of the external features – palaeography, writing supports, tags and seals – with the study of the internal features, such as language and text structure.
Hitherto, scholars studying the material forms of documents kept in libraries and those researching the records preserved in archives seem to have been living in separate worlds. This conference aims to bring them together by encouraging a material-based focus in the study of documentary sources. Through a broad range of papers it will be shown what kind of studies may be most fruitful, what methods may be used, and how the physical features of documentary sources may impact our understanding of their production and use.
Key lectures will be given by:
Prof. dr. Peter Gumbert (Leiden University)
Prof. dr. Benoît-Michel Tock (Université de Strasbourg)
Programme :
Day 1 (February 5)
9.30-10.15 : Registration and coffee
10.15-10.30 : Welcome and introduction – Drs. L. Wiggers, director of the Regional Historic Centre Limburg & Em. Prof. Th. de Hemptinne (Ghent University), member of SSNM
10.30-11.30 : Keynote: Prof. B.-M. Tock (University of Strasbourg) – The making of a charter.
11.30-12.00 : Coffee/tea
11.45-13.00 : Excursion for foreign participants to the St Servaas church
12.00-13.00 : Public lecture (Auditorium, in Dutch language) – Erik Kwakkel (Leiden University) and Truus Roks (Regional Historic Centre Limburg)
13.00-13.50 : Lunch for the participants of the conference (coffee area)
13.50-14.50 : Session 1 A (Auditorium) – Writing support (1)
E. Dijkhof (Huygens ING) – Sheep and goatskin as material for parchment in the thirteenth and fourteenth century.
A. Stuckens (University of Namur) – The first uses of paper in the government of the county of Flanders (end of the 13th – early 14th c.). New thoughts.
Session 1 B (Chapel) – Archival practices: shaping ecclesiastical and monastic identities (1)
A. Smith (independent scholar, Bonn Germany) – Rethinking Medieval Cartulary Production through an Exploration of Forgery in the Kelso Abbey Charter Collection.
D. Belmonte Fernàndez (University of Sevilla) – Material strategies for the chaplaincy endowments management in the Cathedral of Seville (15th century).
14.50-15.15 : Coffee/tea
15.15-16.45 : Session 2 A (Chapel) – Scribal practices (1)
E. Danbury (University of London) – Medieval English illuminated charters: scripts, scribes and illuminators.
A.-M. Van Egmond (University of Amsterdam) – Clerks and illuminators working the same pages: decorated initials in the The Hague account books (1414-1421).
J. Berenbeim (University of Oxford) – Documents and Decoration.
Session 2 B (Auditorium) – Material aspects of production, purpose and transmission of documents and manuscripts (1)
J. Keßler (Radboud University Nijmegen) – The reading culture of Xanten monastery.
M. Williams (University of Groningen) – Ad Regem: Diplomatic Documents as Artefacts of Early Modern Foreign-Policy Making.
T. Hodel (University of Zürich) – Dorsal notes: Looking at backs of charters as a mode of analyzing use and transmission of written documents (Königsfelden Abbey, 1300-1600).
16.45-18.00 : Reception at the RHCL
19.00 : Dinner at ‘Le Petit Bonheur’
Day 2 (February 6)
9.00-9.30 : Registration and coffee
9.30-10.30 : Keynote: Em. Prof. P. Gumbert
10.30-11.00 : Coffee/tea
11.00-12.00 : Session 3 A (Auditorium) – Writing support (2)
J. Burgers (University of Amsterdam/Huygens ING) – Ruling the registers: a codicological aspect of the registers of the counts of Holland 1299-1345.
J. Vnoucek (Royal Library of Copenhagen) – The language of parchment – learning the history of manuscripts with the help of visual assessment of the parchment.
Session 3 B (Chapel) – Archival practices: shaping ecclesiastical and monastic identities (2)
A. Puglia (University of Siena-Arezzo) – The episcopal power in western Tuscany between acts and books (XI-XII centuries).
C. Rey (University of Dijon) – Jean de Cirey, abbot of Cîteaux (1476-1501) and the reorganization of archives and manuscripts: archival filing, cataloguing, binding and printing.
12.00-13.00 Lunch
13.00-14.30 : Session 4 A (Auditorium) – Scribal practices (2)
J. Biemans (University of Amsterdam) – Monastic scriptorium or municipal workshop?
B. Van Hofstraeten (Maastricht University) – The emergence, use and nature of the humanistic cursive in the Southern Netherlands (ca 1600).
M. J. Oliveira e Silva (University of Porto) – Traces of (mis)use: practicing writing in medieval Portuguese documents.
Session 4 B (Chapel) – Computer-aided methodological approaches
M. Driscoll / T. Lanzing (University of Copenhagen) – Text density: quantification and application.
J. Smit (University of Amsterdam) – A good hand is hard to find? Automatic writer identification and the chancery of Holland, 1299-1345.
P. Samara (University of Amsterdam/Huygens ING) – Constructing a medieval palaeographic scale.
14.30-15.00 : Coffee/tea
15.00-16.30 : Session 5 A (Auditorium) – Material aspects of production, purpose and transmission of documents and manuscripts (2)
E. Ramos Rubert (Archdiocese of Granada) – Some observations about non original material in illuminated manuscripts.
K. Strinnholm Lagergen (Catholic University of Leuven) – The Birgittine abbey Maria Refugie – manuscript production during five hundred years.
J. Love (University of Copenhagen) – Árni’s Archives: Medieval Documents from the Copenhagen Arnamagnæn Collection.
Session 5 B (Chapel) – Archival practices: shaping secular (urban) identities
V. Van Camp (University of Namur) – From rotulus to codex. The layout of the accounts of the massard of Mons, 1279-1500.
F. Roldão (University of Coimbra) – A municipal archive in the late Middle Ages (Évora, from 1415 to 1536): methodological approaches for a reflection on
the documents.
T. Van Gassen (Ghent University) – City cartularies in late medieval Ghent: a sign of urban identity?
16.30-16.45 : Conclusion (Auditorium) – Prof. dr. J.W.J. Burgers (University of Amsterdam/Huygens ING), chair of SSNM
Informations pratiques :
February 5-6, 2014
Maastricht, The Netherlands
Regional Historic Centre Limburg
Sint Pieterstraat 7
6211 JM Maastricht
T +31 (0)43 328 55 00
Scientific and organizing committee :
Prof. dr. Olivier Guyotjeannin (École Nationale des Chartes, Paris)
Prof. dr. Marco Mostert (University of Utrecht)
Prof. dr. Jan Burgers (University of Amsterdam)
Dr. Jean-François Nieus (University of Namur)
Em. Prof. dr. Walter Prevenier (Ghent University)
Em. Prof. dr. Thérèse de Hemptinne (Ghent University)
Prof. dr. Els De Paermentier (Ghent University)
Dr. Erik Kwakkel (Leiden University)
Dr. Geertrui Van Synghel, Dr. Eef Dijkhof (Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis)
Dr. Hildo Van Engen (Streekarchief Langstraat Heusden Altena).
Executive commission :
Jan Burgers (University of Amsterdam)
Eef Dijkhof (Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis)
Els De Paermentier (Ghent University).
L'Agenda des Médiévistes 