Less is More? What Fragmentology can do to Mitigate Survivorship Bias in German- and Dutch-language Medieval Manuscripts
Abstract
The Book Historical Law shows that for printed works, having fewer exemplars surviving today paradoxically indicates there were more originally. The study of European medieval handwritten manuscripts is hindered precisely by this kind of survivorship bias. What if this law also applies to medieval manuscripts, and survival was less random than assumed, dominated by identifiable patterns like widespread distribution reducing survival chances? Many medieval sources survived only as fragments–binding waste from discarded books. If the Book Historical Law applies here, greater demand implies fewer intact survivors, making fragments more representative of original abundance than complete manuscripts. While scholars have identified various factors that might influence a manuscript's fate (intact, fragmentary, or destroyed), such as size or material, these remain largely untested. In this research, I aim to quantitatively and qualitatively identify the factors that predict the ratio fragmentary-to-intact witnesses. The methodology will first be optimized using the comprehensive German Handschriftencensus database, and then be expanded to Dutch manuscripts after necessary bibliographical refinement, producing an updated database of the Dutch corpus. This analysis also estimates the extent of textual and material losses in fragments, enabling new ways of doing reconstructive codicology grounded in empirical evidence rather than untested assumptions.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Kestemont Mike
- Co-promoter: Sleiderink Remco
- Co-promoter: Verhoeven Gerrit
- Fellow: Moors Sofie
Research team(s)
Funding
- FWO
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Constrained. A Comparative Study of the Influence of Form on the Material Transmission of Middle Dutch Literature.
Abstract
Recent international research increasingly focuses on the spread and survival of medieval literature. During the Middle Ages, the material transmission of texts depended entirely on the manual transcription of literature, granting texts a fluid character. This project will investigate which coping mechanisms helped to guarantee the sustainable exchange of information in textual cultures that are characterized by unstable transmission modes. An important aspect of the survival of literature that deserves further empirical research is the text form. To examine whether formal aspects can be labelled as 'constraints' that limit changes, the complete transmission of two short 13th-century Middle Dutch texts will be compared in a digitally supported way, namely: the Martijn trilogy of the Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant, and Dietsche Catoen, a translation of the Latin Distichs of Cato. The results will be controlled with a control corpus, namely Maerlant's voluminous Scolastica (1271). Because the texts differ significantly in terms of formal characteristics, this project wants to examine whether and which formal aspects of a text (such as rhyme and text structure) can be considered as 'coping mechanisms' in the transmission. It can be expected, for instance, that the Martijn trilogy, which is built according to complex rhyme schemes, shows less variation in the transmission than Dietsche Catoen, in which the only formal requirements are the four-line stanzas and the paired rhyme.Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Sleiderink Remco
- Co-promoter: Kestemont Mike
- Fellow: Moors Sofie
Research team(s)
Funding
- FWO
- FWO
Project type(s)
- Research Project
Fixed forms. The material transmission of the strophic poems by Jacob van Maerlant.
Abstract
Fixed forms. The material transmission of the strophic poems by Jacob van Maerlant In the middle ages the material transmission of texts depended completely on the copying by hand of manuscripts (copies of copies). This gave the texts a fluid character. In this project we want to research how the use of fixed forms influenced the stability of the text transmission. We focus on all text witnesses of the ten strophic poems by the Flemish poet Jacob van Maerlant (active in the 2nd half of the 13th century).Researcher(s)
- Promoter: Sleiderink Remco
- Fellow: Moors Sofie
Research team(s)
Funding
- BOF
Project type(s)
- Research Project