The Triumph of the Codex: The Manuscript Book before 1100

The Triumph of the Codex: The Manuscript Book before 1100

Summary:

            During the rise of the Codex papyrus scrolls were popular at the time.  Scrolls were used as formal literary, and sets of wooden or wax tablets for informal and pragmatic uses.  A very early example of scrolls were used to hold the Psalms which was most likely scribed by a Priest who most likely used it for memorization purposes.  With the rise of religious literature and the rise of Christianity you then see the codex come to being.  Christians used the codex at an early stage to present the bible.  They used the codex because the book was no longer considered a cheap alternative and was not favored by the underclass anymore but now seen as a sacred text within a powerful religion.  The Christian church did not want to use a scroll because the Judaic Torah was already on a scroll.  The power of the codex and writing was reinforced by the nature of the book in a religious context.  It was able to represent more then a book for Christians and was symbol of their religion.  The rulers at the time used printed books to show power and present to the masses what they wanted the citizens to know.  With the greater use of the codex you see the progression of the alphabet and the way words were written.  You see the adaptation of the Greek alphabet and the use of spaces between words along with the use of upper and lower case letters. 

            Once religious books became popular rulers at the time saw that this was where literature was heading towards and away from the scroll.  You then see a rise in the use of the codex to present other types of literature not just religious.  You see such books as Cicero’s Aratea. The symbolic role of the book, as well as it spiritual, educational, and scholarly value, was evident and revived. 

Comment:

            Reading this really made me realize how important the rise of the codex is on modern literature today.  This chapter really makes great points on how it started as a way to present religious information but stood for more then just the words on the paper.  It is a visual representation of power and solid word which is what people as a whole take books for as today.  They take them seriously and believe in what they say because of its religious beginnings. 

Question:

            If the codex did not rise to the status that it stands for today, where would literature stand.  How would we view literature and how would we be presented this information.  If the Christian church did not use it to present the Bible would it still have became popular and replaced the scroll?

The Papyrus Roll in Egypt, Greece, and Rome Blog 4/5

Summary

1. Papyrus was the primary material used to record documents, scripts and texts in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Papyrus derives from the plant, which comes from marshes of the Nile Delta.  Because of its abundance in the region, the material was exported from Egypt all along the Mediterranean. The process of converting Papyrus into paper included the stripping away of the sheath from the stem, then the sheaths were laid down side by side which were glued together using the sap from the stem as an adhesive. As time went on and the codex form was introduced, Papyrus became a redundant material to use for the production of books. Egypt is still the only country to produce and sell Papyrus.
2. Writing materials from the Ancient worlds tell us about the social roles of the materials used. For men, a Papyrus roll indicated literacy and an ideal education. For women, wax tablets indicated a good house wife that kept records carefully.  Similarly, there was a hierarchy within the realm of scribes. In Rome and Greece, the act of copying was not a worthy act, as it was more worthy to read, and slaves were used to copy scripts. However, in Egypt scribes held the most honorable and prestigious position, as only the educated and elite few knew how to read and write. The materials used also varied between the empires. In Egypt, scribes used soft brush like pens. This may have been because they were usually sitting on the floor with the roll in their laps. In Greece and Rome, scribes used hard writing instrument, which may have been because they used wooden boards and tables to write on. 
3. The market of antiquity was different from the modern book market. In one way the market was limited to the elite and educated few. Because of this, there were very little people who would buy books. The second difference is that copying process required a master text which was either provided by someone who wanted the text copied for themselves or to sale. This made it difficult for the production and distribution of books. In addition there was no publisher in the modern sense of the word. In antiquity, usually bookshop owners were the focus of distribution and provided copies by using slaves to copy texts.
4. Books became a symbol of status. Their contents were indications of belonging to a the higher social and economic ranks in which only a few could read and write. The texts read determined the tastes and reading habits of adults. For instance, the most frequently read text was Homer. This was because Homer was the idea of a noble education for a good moral man. However, this changed with the introduction of novels. Novels were a form a text that allowed those who were less educated to enjoy the "great works". As the Christian era came along, Homer was seen more as a text that provided moral guidance, whereas the Bible was the primary source of formal education.

Comment

After some time, the papyrus roll was abandoned completely for the codex form. This was due to the fact that the codex was less fragile, had a greater capacity to hold information, and its pages were easily accessible. In addition, the different forms of books had to do with religion and ideology. As the Torah was more on a papyrus roll, Christians felt that their holy scriptures should be in the codex form in order. This was in an effort to separate themselves from Judaism and the Old Testament. What is most interesting to me is the idea of Homer becoming a text that was used for moral guidance while the Bible became a text of a formal education. It is interesting because as we have evolved as a civilization, the Bible too has now become a text which is used for moral guidance, whereas other forms of literature are used as a primary source for a formal education. 

Question

My question then is, with the digital age, what sources may then become the primary focus of a formal education? As we move away from traditional texts as the focus of a formal education, what will become of these old texts? Will the digital era allow these texts to reinvent themselves into circulation, or will they become mere objects of study?

The Papyrus Roll

Summary:Papyrus rolls were made and used by Egyptians, classical Greeks, and Romans. Papyrus was easy to make for these ancient people, but also was not very sturdy; one could not fold the paper or it would break. This is why we only find scrolls. Great thinkers of lost time like Thucydides and Plato used the papyrus as a medium of writing. Most of the first books like the Iliad were written on this paper. Most of these stories would be highly valued because writing on papyrus would be done by hand; therefore, it would take a long time for one to finish copying a story. Many writers or scribes would spend much of their time copying their work.

Comment: Papyrus was an easy way for people to make their own paper, but clay tablets are much more sturdy and was more readily available for people to use. Another fact is that erasing on clay tiles was a simple swipe of the finger. On the papyrus, there was no such thing as an eraser. If one were to make a mistake, they would have to start over.

Question: What changed the minds of people to switch from clay to papyrus? Was balancing the storing ability and the fragility a better for these people in the long run?

“The Papyrus Roll in Egypt, Greece, and Rome"

Many examples of papyrus rolls we have today come from Egypt. This is where the oldest know papyrus roll was found in the tomb of Hemaka in Saqqara. It dates to around 2900 BC. Papyrus is named after a plant that grew in the swamps of the Nile Delta. The stalks of plants were cut into pieces and their green sheaths were peeled away. Then they would produce multiple layers of strips to glue together in two layers. The papyrus was used throughout the Paranoiac, Greek, and Roman Period.

These papyrus rolls even demonstrated and classified by class. A woman would be holding a wax tablet in her hands to keep records of things in the house, while a man would be holding a papyrus roll showing off his education. The papyrus was meant to be kept and read for years to come, while other writing tools were meant to be read for a moment and then discarded. This shows the placement of not only the different sexes in society but the social classes as well.

The different writing instruments people used influenced the way they wrote and the way they sat. The Egyptian sat on his heels on the ground, holding the roll on his lap and writing. Greeks required a more solid surface to write on such as wooden boards on their laps. Greeks and Romans did not consider a scribe’s work meaningful until they began copying religious work. The Egyptians believed scribes were significant members of society and even depicted a scribe at work in art.

 Books became a symbol. Libraries arose, production increased, and the thirst for knowledge thrived. Booksellers would travel to specific clients, the book became one of the symbols for wealth and knowledge. The codex overruled the papyrus roll after the second century AD. The mediums are different, yet they both share that same basic goal: sharing knowledge. The codex has some practicality over the papyrus rolls. It is more durable and could be opened to any page. With a papyrus roll, however, you have to roll it all the way flat. To be able to see what the roll contained, little pieces of papyrus stuck out. This provided the reader with the name of the title and author.

Comment: It is amazing how this world has evolved. We continue to improve in every way. We went from writing on walls, to papyrus rolls, to making books, and now to writing on the computer. We continue to expand and grow and thrive for success. Times like these make me want to imagine how people will be writing their stories in 50 or 100 years. I know that some people talk about how much more can we advance the technique of text? Well that is probably how the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans felt like. Who knows how much more we can advance!

     

     

Question: The writer talked about how there is little evidence of real books from the Greek or Roman areas. Do you think they lacked in technique in any way from the Egyptians, or do you think we just haven’t discovered it yet? How, in your mind, did Greeks and Romans sell, copy, and exchanged their books compared to Egyptians? 

“The Papyrus Roll in Egypt, Greece, and Rome"

• The production of the papyrus roll was centered in Egypt, where papyrus was cultivated and produced. It was used through the Pharaonic, Greek, and Roman periods. The plant was cut into strips, which were then laid side by side and pressed to adhere and dry. They were then polished and sold as rolls.

•  Papyrus roll “books” were exclusively produced and consumed by an educated elite. More temporary writing mediums were used, such as wax topped wood blocks. These temporary and erasable writing mediums were used for administrative and receipt style writing. However, papyrus rolls were used for literary production, reserved for those who were of the intellectual and upper class. The quality of the scroll depended on the consumer. Some consumers treated the scrolls as luxury goods. These scrolls were made of high quality papyrus and showcased the latest popular handwriting. Other scrolls were written on the backside of receipts, and were intended for a serious readership genuinely concerned with content.

• The codex finally overtook the papyrus roll in the second century AD. The authors compare the two mediums to explain the practicality of the codex book over the papyrus scroll. The book lay flat, and can be opened to the same page without the need to unroll the whole book. Also, one the book can utilize bot sides of the page. Lastly, it is more sturdy and durable than the scroll.

Comment: I remember my American Lit professor telling us that Jack Kerouac wrote the first version of On the Road on a scroll, because he wrote so fast that constantly switching the pages of a typewriter was limiting. I think this is an interesting modern example of the benefits of scroll writing. I wonder if scribes held this same view of a scroll as “never ending”. I think that it was very possible for these individuals to have grievances toward the shift to a codex, because of this shift in the writing process itself.

Question: How much easier is the production of papyrus compared to cotton or wood pulp paper considering ancient technologies? What kind of trade impacts would have been made if papyrus wasn’t needed from Egypt?

Blog 3/5 "The Papyrus Roll in Egypt, Greece, and Rome"

Summary

1)    Where and how papyrus was made: Papyrus sheets originated near the beginning of Egypt’s Old Kingdom. It was made from the papyrus plant growing in the swamps of the Nile Delta using two methods. Both methods required cutting the stalk into 25-35 cm pieces and the removal of the outer, tougher green sheath of the plant. The simpler technique consisted of just cutting the pith into long strips to be joined later in order to form the flat page. The more complicated technique required a needle in order to cut along the outer edge of the stem, thus peeling a wider strip of papyrus.

2)    The difference of how scribes were viewed in the Greek and Roman worlds vs. the Egyptians: The Greeks and Romans did not find a scribe’s work meaningful or worthwhile (enough to even include the act of copying in paintings). The Egyptians, on the other hand, believed scribes to be significant members of society and show a scribe at work within their arts. Afterwards, the Greeks and Romans changed their viewpoint to match that of the Egyptians when scribes began copying religious works.

3)    Books became a symbol of knowledge, status, and power:  Only the wealthy had the ability to become literate, thus reading was associated with the upper class. Those that could be seen reading were of a better standing than those whom were illiterate, no matter the book content. Even King Aemilius Paullus marched the defeated King Perseus’ library collection though the town of Pydna triumphantly demonstrating, that not only is his power greater than Perseus’, but that he will be even greater with this new gain of knowledge.

Comment

The only suggestion I have, format-wise, considering the wide range of information covered, is to insert some subheadings into this chapter. It would separate the information a bit more making it visually easier on the eyes and easier to locate certain information. There were also certain facts that were thrown in, but not really expanded upon or made relevant afterward. For example, Roemer begins talking about a poet, Callimachus, in one paragraph and how his Pinakes is the first ever library catalogue then she switches to explaining how books were the status symbol of the monarchs.

Question

If a scribe’s work came, eventually, to be revered as it’s own form of art (enough so to be ornamented) were the illuminator seen as a step down from a scribe within the social ladder?

Was the disdain felt once by scribes relocated to the illuminators?

Companion Introduction Blog 3/5

Summarize

1. Simon Elliot and Jonathon Rose attempt to trace the history of the book. They believe that books make history, as they are the primary tools used to transmit ideas, record memories, create narratives, exercise power, and distribute wealth. However, they also believe that because books are shaped by economic, political, social, and cultural forces, they are also a product of history. Through their study, they hope to develop a more comparative history of the book, by surveying all historical periods, thus filling in any gaps.
2. According to Elliot and Rose, the term "book" covers virtually any piece of written or printed text that has been multiplied, distributed, or in some way made public. Because this term covers such a broad spectrum of texts, Elliot and Rose have created different ways in their approach of the history of the book. In the first approach, the authors introduce to the reader a number of techniques used to by book historians and specialist that range from many disciplines. The second approach offers a chronological survey of the forms and contents of books through different historical periods. However, their approach is different from most as they focus on texts outside of the West.
3. The third approach used by Elliot and Rose is "beyond the book." This approach looks at books that are less traditional and conventional. It takes a look at the development of periodicals and periodical publishing, and the emergence of new technology. The last approach deals with 'Issues.' This approach discusses the broader themes of books such as: the concept of literary property, the relationship between obscenity and censorship, and the nature and function of the library. The authors then conclude with what the book may look like in the future.

Comment

There is a common theme throughout the volume: the book has always been inextricably embedded in the material world. As a result,  Elliot and Rose posit that to the historian, the "book" always takes the embodied form. That is to say that the book becomes an object created out of certain materials and takes on a characteristic form. Because the materials used to create the book can influence the final product and even its meaning, embodiment has two contrary effects: it becomes fixed, and its distribution is limited depending on the historical period and region. 

Question 

Elliot and Rose say that a book always takes the embodied form. How could this be applied to something that is created digitally, without physical properties? Does it suffer the same contrary effects of becoming fixed and its distribution?

"Public Lettering".....and "Writing Without Paper" Blog 2/5

Summarize

"Functions of writing always correspond to the types of materials used, therefore those functions correspond to the typologies of the products created" -Armando Petrucci

1. Petrucci begins with noting the difference between writing in ancient Rome and Medieval Europe. In Medieval Europe writing had become absent outdoors as well inside the home. The reduction of literacy is tied to the fact that writing had become commemorative and symbolic as opposed to expressive and transmissive. Because epigraphy was reserved for the use of religious leaders and buildings, the daily use of writing by private citizens in public spaces had virtually disappeared.
2. Petrucci, traces the rise of the monumental inscriptions to the Archbishop Alfano and Robert Guiscard. These individuals developed a new way of using monumental writing to convey political messages, through the use of late antique models. The archbishop at the time had created a new monumental graphic language which incorporated the use of capital letters from Roman epigraphy. At first, Alfano used the script in traditional ways: on stone slabs that were placed inside the church. However, Guiscard wanted the script to be carved and placed on the outside of buildings (duomo). As a symbol of power, Guiscard had his name, title, and legitimacy to claim ruler ship carved on the outside of the Duomo.
3.  During the 12th century in Pisa, monumental writing had broken away from the limits of sacred areas and out into public spaces. This transition, was a result of Italian leader's taking advantage of the functions writing had to offer. The leaders began to use monumental inscriptions to commemorate the constructing of new buildings, immortalize memorable events, and set new laws. By placing these inscriptions outdoors, they became an essential part of the urban space and civic life. 
4. Monumental writing was a vital tool for the assertion and communication of shared public and political values. Petrucci links this to the wave of spontaneous mural art that appeared in Italy in 1968. The art was a form of private expression that represented the artist's discontent or opposition to the political apparatus that dominated that particular space. Like monumental writing, mural art, much like graffiti, is a tool which allows people to communicate and assert their political and social values. 

Writing without Paper

Purpose of the study is to review the tendencies and practices of civil literacy in Athens. In doing so, we make clear of the dimensions of writing and its function in Athens. Usually, Athenian writing survived because they were composed with a sense of value permanence, as the writing was a result of a conscious effort to preserve. However, the writing that Enos studies was used differently: it was composed of pragmatic purposes, they had a specific audience, and were not written with the thought of being an object of study. According to Enos, this type of writing reveals to us about the daily writing practices in Athens. Enos further argues that the fragmentary inscriptions such as list, voter decisions, and street signs, provide an important dimension of civil literacy- "the kind of writing necessary for the daily activity of community life."

Comment

It is interesting to see the transition of writing and its use transition from traditional models to ones that were more liberal and sporadic. In the same sense, it was interesting to see how the use of writing trickled down to the public and made its way into everyday use. In addition, I wasn't aware how much language and writing has been recycled and reused to take new meaning.

Question

If scholars such as Enos were to  study our current culture centuries from now, what could be said about the functions of writing in our culture? What fragmentary inscriptions would they find? Specifically, because we are a society that has become dependent on technology, would there be anything salvageable? Will there be anything of importance?