Christine de Pizan
and
The Scribal Fingerprint
A Quantitative Approach to Manuscript Studies
J.F.A. Aussems
Christine de Pizan and The Scribal Fingerprint
A Quantitative Approach to Manuscript Studies
J.F.A. Aussems
0115185
31 August 2006
Utrecht University
Research Institute for History and Culture
Research Master Medieval Studies
First supervisor: dr. R.E.V. Stuip (Universiteit Utrecht)
Second supervisor: prof.dr. J.C. Laidlaw (University of Edinburgh)
2
~
To my parents, for their
unfailing love and support
~
3
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
7
CHAPTER 1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
CHRISTINE’S AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPTS
Introduction
Description and analysis of the discussion
Output analysis of scribe X
A palaeographical description of hands P, R, and X
1.4.1 Hand P
1.4.2 Hand R
1.4.3 Hand X
Conclusion
12
12
14
27
32
32
32
33
33
CHAPTER 2 QUANTITATIVE CODICOLOGY
2.1
Introduction
2.2
Book production in Christine’s atelier
2.3
Defining speeds
2.3.1 Speed of creation (vcr)
2.3.2 Speed of transcription (vt)
2.3.3 Speed of personal transcription (vpt)
2.3.4 Speed of correction (vcor)
2.3.5 Working time
2.4
Calculations
2.4.1 Case I: Mutacion de Fortune
2.4.2 Case II: Chemin de long estude
2.5
Conclusion
34
34
36
39
40
40
41
42
42
44
45
46
48
CHAPTER 3 THE SCRIBAL FINGERPRINT
3.1
Introduction
3.2
General overview
3.3
Burgers’s method
3.3.1 Angle of inclination
3.3.2 Angle of writing
3.3.3 Contrast and quality of the strokes
3.3.4 Modulus
3.3.5 Size of the charters
3.3.6 Width of the margins
3.3.7 Ruling and course of the base line
3.3.8 Decoration
3.3.9 Text structure
3.3.10 Abbreviations
3.3.11 Degree and type of cursivation of connected letters
3.3.12 Cursivation of letter forms
3.3.13 Characteristic letter forms
3.4
Creating a template for hand identification
51
51
53
56
57
58
59
61
64
64
64
64
65
65
65
67
67
69
1.5
4
Table of Contents
3.5
CHAPTER 4
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
3.4.1
3.4.2
3.4.3
3.4.4
3.4.5
3.4.6
3.4.7
3.4.8
3.4.9
3.4.10
3.4.11
3.4.12
3.4.13
Conclusion
Angle of inclination
Angle of writing
Contrast and quality of the strokes
Modulus
Material aspect of the charters
Width of the margins
Ruling and course of the base line
Decoration
Text structure
Abbreviations
Degree and type of cursivation of connected letters
Cursivation of letter forms
Characteristic letter forms
EXAMINING THE QUEEN’S MANUSCRIPT
Introduction
Codicological description
Analysis of the handwriting
Using quantitative palaeography on the Queen’s Manuscript
4.4.1 Comparing templates of the same hand
4.4.1.1
4.4.1.2
4.4.1.3
4.4.1.4
4.5
Hand A
Hand B
Hand C
Hand D
4.4.2 Comparing hands A, B, C, and D
Conclusion
70
71
71
71
72
72
73
73
74
74
75
75
76
76
79
79
80
83
88
90
90
90
91
91
91
93
CONCLUSION
96
BIBLIOGRAPHY
100
APPENDIX A ATTRIBUTIONS OF HANDS TO THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS OF
CHRISTINE DE PIZAN
A-1
APPENDIX B CHRONOLOGICAL OVERVIEW OF DATED AND ATTRIBUTED ORIGINAL
B-1
MANUSCRIPTS
APPENDIX C CITATIONS FROM OUY & RENO 1980
C-1
APPENDIX D TEMPLATE FOR HAND DESCRIPTION
D-1
APPENDIX E
GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THE QUEEN’S MANUSCRIPT
E-1
APPENDIX F
APPENDIX F: FOLIO 1R SHOWING THE NAMES AND
F-1
MOTTOS OF PREVIOUS OWNERS
APPENDIX G IMAGES OF FF. 46R, 48R, AND 51R
G-1
5
Table of Contents
APPENDIX H TEMPLATE FOR HAND DESCRIPTION – HAND A
H-1
APPENDIX I
TEMPLATE FOR HAND DESCRIPTION – HAND B
I-1
APPENDIX J
TEMPLATE FOR HAND DESCRIPTION – HAND C
J-1
APPENDIX K TEMPLATE FOR HAND DESCRIPTION – HAND D
K-1
6
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
In the year 1070, Stigand, the archbishop of Canterbury, is found guilty of usurping the
Archbishopric and imprisoned in Winchester. His successor is the Italian Lanfranc, who only
recently moved from his abbey in the French town of Bec to England at the request of his
friend William the Conqueror. Not long after his appointment as Archbishop, Lanfranc writes
a letter to the prior of his former abbey, requesting a copy of Pope Gregory’s work Moralia in
Job. In Bec, a scribe is hired to transcribe the text. Soon afterwards, as we learn from the new
Prior Anselm’s letters to Lanfranc, the transcription of the codex has been considerably
delayed: several people have examined the scribe’s writings, but
“nullus eorum fuit, cuius non aut manum reprobarent aut tarditatem inexpectabilem
iudicarent.”
(there was nobody among them who did not either disapprove of his handwriting, or
condemn his unexpected slowness.)
Apparently, the scribe in question is fired because his writing are close to being illegible and
his speed of writing is unexpectedly slow…1
This story may not be representative of all periods, places, and situations, but it contains at
least two general laws of manuscript production: time is money and planning is essential.
Producing a handwritten text involves a great many processes, each demanding time, scribes
or other artists, material supports, supervision; in short: money. The production process of a
manuscript is a carefully planned operation, limited in time by an often tight time schedule,
and limited in space by a fixed transcription programme. Often, the size of the text that is to
be copied influences the difficulty of the transcription process; in larger scriptoria, for
instance, it was common usage to have several scribes work on the same transcription
simultaneously. This kind of co-operation asked for an even more detailed and rigid planning:
which scribe is transcribing which part of the text? How can the different parts be joined
1
See Gullick 1995, p. 39 for this anecdote. His note 3 mentions the Latin text in Anselm’s letter.
7
Introduction
without wasting too much parchment? Where do we leave blank spaces for decoration? And,
not unimportant in commercial scriptoria, how are we going to pay the scribes?
The scriptorium of Christine de Pizan may well have been one of the numerous
ateliers in Paris where these questions were of the order of the day. However, it also provides
us with a different view on the making of manuscripts. That is, Christine de Pizan is often
thought to be not only the first female author who could make a living from her writings, but
also a professional scribe in her own scriptorium. Of the fifty-one original manuscripts of her
works that have survived the test of time, thirty-four are supposed to have been supervised,
copied, or corrected by Christine herself, thereby showing brilliant scribal abilities alongside
her literary skills.2 During the twenty years of her active literary life, Christine de Pizan wrote
thirty-seven works, treating numerous and very diverse subjects and displaying her love of
philosophy, her passion for mythology, her belief in the moral defence of women, and her
interest in many other fields.
Christine’s hunger for knowledge has probably been stimulated very early in her life. Born in
1364 in Venice, Christine and her family move to Paris in 1368, where her father, the famous
astrologer and doctor Tommasso di Benvenuto, was working at the court of King Charles V
of France. In her first years in France, Christine receives an education that is unusually rich
and broad for girls in the fifteenth century.3 In 1379 or 1380, she marries Etienne du Castel,
King Charles’s secretary. After the death of the king in 1380, Christine’s father is no longer
welcome at the court; he dies in 1387. Three years later, in the autumn of 1390, Christine also
loses her husband. At twenty-five, she has to take care of her three children, her mother, and a
niece. She appears in court several times to attempt to re-claim her husband’s properties and
his unpaid salary.
Perhaps around the same time, Christine starts reading works by Ovid, Boethius,
Boccaccio, Dante, and many other philosophical, moral, mythological, and historical works;
around 1394, she begins to write lyric poetry. Quite soon after her first publications, she
seems to be able to make a living from the payments and gifts she receives; among her
patrons are Louis d’Orléans, Jean de Berry, Philippe le Hardi, and the royal family including
2
The list of original manuscripts in Appendix A lists fifty-five manuscripts; I consider the Duke’s Manuscript
(codices Paris, BnF f.fr. 605, 606, 607, 835, and 836) to be a single manuscript, which makes the total number of
original manuscripts fifty-one.
3
See a.o. Stuip, René, “Christine, kennis en boeken”, in: Stuip 2004, pp. 141-58, as well as the introduction of
this work (pp. 7-13).
8
Introduction
the new king Charles VI and his wife, Isabeau of Bavaria. To them, she dedicates educative
texts like the Epistre Othea, books about the moral defence of women (Livre de la cité des
dames, Livre des trois vertus), philosophical works like the Livre du chemin de long estude
and the Livre de la mutacion de Fortune, and political texts (Epistre a la reine). Between
1399 and 1417, Christine is supposed to have possessed an atelier of her own, a scriptorium
where a number of scribes copied her texts in presentation manuscripts that were subsequently
offered to her patrons, often containing lavishly executed miniatures and decoration. The
apogee of manuscript making in the atelier must have been the famous Queen’s Manuscript,
ms London, British Library Harley 4431, offered to Queen Isabeau around 1413-4: consisting
of nearly 400 folios and containing thirty works by Christine, the codex has been illuminated
with 132 miniatures.
Around 1415, the political situation in France deteriorates. The Duke of Burgundy
joins forces with the English and a civil war between Burgundians and the house of Orléans,
lead by the Duke of Armagnac, is the result. When the Bourguignons occupy Paris in 1418,
Christine leaves the city, probably finding shelter in the abbey of Poissy, where her daughter
is a nun. In July 1429, Christine disrupts the silence surrounding her to glorify Jeanne d’Arc,
saviour of the French kingdom; she probably dies not long afterwards.
The belief that some of Christine’s original manuscripts are also autographs encountered quite
some opposing views. The famous hand X, often attributed to Christine herself, has been the
subject of many studies into the original manuscripts of Christine’s works. The discussion
concerning the autograph manuscripts has been, and still is, focused on evidence that was
found by using the so-called palaeographer’s eye; experts in the field of palaeography and
codicology have carefully examined the handwriting in the original manuscripts of works of
Christine de Pizan and concluded that hand X is that of the author herself.
In this Thesis, I propose to re-examine this question from a different perspective.
Leaving aside the technical descriptions of a handwriting, I will analyse hand X by using a
quantitative approach, along the lines of quantitative codicology, which, since its introduction
in 1980, has made inspiring progress and has become a movement within palaeography. In
quantitative codicology, the production process of a manuscript is subdivided in several
stages, each having its own speed and its own characteristics. By quantifying these stages
(meaning by estimating their duration), we can learn something about the duration of the
production process as a whole and about the working speed of the scribe in question.
9
Introduction
In the present study, the emphasis will be on the quantifiable aspects of a handwriting
rather than on that of a codex, a subject which is closely related to quantitative palaeography.
This branch of palaeography proposes to examine, describe, and identify scribal hands by
quantifying their most important and characteristic features.4 A description of a handwriting
that is made by using quantitative palaeography will ideally be a scribal fingerprint, a unique
set of quantifiable characteristics that only apply to the examined hand.
To summarise, the question I would like to answer in this Thesis is the following: Is it
possible to use the approach of quantitative palaeography to create a description of a
handwriting that only applies to that specific handwriting? In other words: Can we divide a
handwriting in a number of quantifiable aspects whose results produce a unique set of
characteristics for a handwriting?
Evidently, such research cannot do without a proper analysis of the considerations and
choices that others have made whilst describing and identifying the hands in Christine’s
original manuscripts. Thus, CHAPTER 1 presents an overview of the discussion about the
autograph character of Christine’s original manuscripts. A thorough analysis of several
contributions will shed light upon the descriptions of the hands that have been discovered.
CHAPTER 2 proposes a digression towards the field of quantitative codicology to
examine whether it is physically possible for one person to execute all tasks – both scribal and
creative – that have been attributed to Christine. By means of quantifying core stages in the
production process of manuscripts in Christine’s atelier, I will attempt to assess the validity of
the so often expressed hypothesis X = Christine.
CHAPTER 3 opens with a critical survey of existing methods of hand description,
focusing on the important aspects of a handwriting according to these methods. Subsequently,
a new method of hand description will be created by combining existing ideas with specific
insights concerning the original manuscripts of Christine’s works. The method will then be
translated into a ready for use hand description template which facilitates a comparison
between various hands.
Finally, CHAPTER 4 shows the template in action: the designed method for hand
description will be tested on a manuscript that is said to be written by scribe X; the results will
4
For a lucidly written overview of existing literature on quantitative palaeography, see Derolez 2003.
10
Introduction
be analysed and will teach us something about the practicability of the method and the
probability of hand X being one single hand, belonging to one single person.
Much of the research that I conducted in connection with this Thesis was funded by the
Research Institute for History and Culture of Utrecht University; I thank Marco Mostert for
recognising the importance of a research internship at the University of Edinburgh.
I thank my colleagues in the Special Collections department of Edinburgh University
Library; in particular I am grateful to my friend Charlie Mansfield for providing me with
stimulating dialogue and new, challenging insights concerning the subject of this study.
I owe a large debt to Professor James Laidlaw, who shared with me his groundbreaking ideas, and who greatly stimulated my research into quantitative palaeography; I have
particularly benefited from our conversations about the idea of a scribal fingerprint. Also, his
very useful comments to earlier drafts have helped to eliminate errors.
My parents supported me throughout my studies, and particularly during the writing of
this Thesis. Their continuous love and pep talks always stimulated me to bring out the best in
me. This work is fondly dedicated to them.
I am very grateful to my friends for patiently hearing out my brain waves about ‘my’
Christine, and for energising me in moments of depression and desperation.
I am, above all, indebted to my master, tutor, and dear friend René Stuip. This Thesis
would not have existed without his advise, criticism and constant guidance. His invaluable
comments to earlier drafts of this study helped me improve the text, and the many
conversations we had over the years greatly inspired me to embark on what has been quite a
chemin de long estude; I could not have wished for a better Sibylle!
M.A.
11
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
CHAPTER 1
CHRISTINE’S AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPTS
1.1
Introduction
Giving an overview of the entire discussion concerning the manuscript tradition of the works
of Christine de Pizan is not an easy task: it involves a great many studies, articles, remarks in
forewords, and lecture notes compiled between the second half of the nineteenth century and
the beginning of the third millennium. Many great minds and experienced scholars have
contributed to the discussion by adding new elements from their respective fields of study.
Thus, for instance, palaeographical and historical evidence has been combined to date some of
Christine’s manuscripts.5 Both palaeography and codicology have opened up a new approach
to Christine’s manuscript tradition6 – that of the autograph character of a number of original
manuscripts of Christine’s works.7
The discussion about the different hands that occur in Christine’s original manuscripts has
brought about a lot of debate about the autograph character of certain of these manuscripts.
Several contributions to the discussion have shown that there are many reasons to assume that
Christine was involved in the making of the manuscripts that were produced during her
lifetime. Evidence from very different fields of study has been combined to arrive at this
conclusion. For instance, in his 1983 article “Christine de Pizan – An Author’s Progress”,
James C. Laidlaw studies the alterations made to several original texts before they were recopied in later manuscripts. Laidlaw points out that
“it is beyond doubt that, as new manuscripts of her works were prepared, she revised
the texts which were to be included.”
(Laidlaw 1983, p. 550)
5
See a.o. Laidlaw 2005.
See a.o. Willard 1965.
7
According to Denis Muzerelle’s Vocabulaire codicologique, an original manuscript is a “première mise par
écrit d’un texte, ou, plus généralement, mise par écrit réalisée par l’auteur lui-même ou sous sa direction.” The
second, more general description reflects my use of the term in this study. See Muzerelle 2002-3, par. 441.03.
6
12
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
He even goes so far as to put forward that Christine might have kept a personal copy of every
text she had composed, comparable to the Livre ou je met toutes mes choses of Guillaume de
Machaut, to facilitate the process of changing a text.8
From Christine de Pizan as an author, Laidlaw turns in 1987 towards the publishing
skills of Christine. He discusses the layout and changes in three important collections of
Christine’s works and concludes that Christine often decided to add texts – or parts of a text –
at a late stage, often at the end of the collection.9 She was thus not only author of the texts, but
also acted as publisher of collections of her works, now changing a passage, now removing a
text or adding a new one. All in all, Christine seems to have been constantly aware of the
changing world around her and did her best to adapt texts and to change the contents of some
collections in order to create a set of texts whose message would always be up to date and
never offensive for its intended patron.
From a completely different field of study is the very interesting 1988 article “Les hésitations
de Christine: Etude des variantes de graphies dans trois manuscrits autographes de Christine
de Pizan” by Gilbert Ouy and Christine M. Reno. By means of studying differences in
spelling in three autograph manuscripts, they very lucidly draw a picture of “Christine,
éditrice débutante de ses premières oeuvres, à la recherche d’une orthographe”.10 In 1999,
Gabriella Parussa re-examines Christine’s spelling and comes to the conclusion that the
differences in spelling of, for instance, manuscripts London, BL Harley 4431 and Chantilly,
Musée Condé 402, are so significant that it would be impossible for one scribe (Christine) to
have written both manuscripts.11
Without denying the importance of literary, textual, and orthographic studies – which, as
shown, have greatly contributed to the discussion about the autograph character of some of
Christine’s original manuscripts – the scope of the present study is limited to palaeography,
obliquely assisted by some codicology. Therefore, in this Chapter, as in the other parts of this
8
See Williams 1969 and Laidlaw 1983, p. 550.
The three collections Laidlaw discusses are: Chantilly, Musée Condé 492-3, Paris, BnF f.fr. 604, 12779; Paris,
BnF f.fr. 835, 606, 836, 605, 607; London, BL Harley 4431.
10
See Ouy & Reno 1988, p. 277.
11
See Parussa 1999, p. 154.
9
13
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
Thesis, the emphasis will be on the contributions concerning the palaeographical nature of the
original manuscripts of Christine’s works.
Firstly, I will describe and analyse the discussion about the autograph question: the
different contributions will be discussed and some questions will be asked as to their
assertions. Furthermore, I will undertake an output analysis of one of the scribes in Christine’s
scriptorium, followed by a first attempt to create a scribal profile for all three scribes in the
atelier.
1.2
Description and analysis of the discussion
In 1842, Paulin Paris puts forward the possibility that one or more of Christine’s original
manuscripts had been copied by Christine herself. In his description of ms 7087/2 of the
Bibliothèque du Roi (now manuscripts Paris, BnF f.fr. 605, 606, 835, and 836), he states that
“Ce précieux volume pourroit bien avoir été écrit par Christine elle-même, et, dans
tous les cas, on ne peut douter que la première partie n’ait été exécutée sous ses
yeux et que chacune des pièces qui le composent n’ait été relue par elle.”
(Paris 1842, t. V, p. 148)
His statements are based on the opening text of the manuscript, where Christine says that the
book has been “fait, compilé par χρīne de Pisan demoiselle”.12 Moreover, Paris tells his
readers that Christine has brought together the Cent Ballades at a friend’s request and stresses
the last line of the stanzas in the very last ballade:
“en escrit y ay mis mon nom”
(Paris 1842, t. V, p. 149)
Thus, one is inclined to think that textual elements in the original manuscripts of Christine’s
works are interpreted as signs of autography, or at least surveillance on the part of the author.
The French editor Maurice Roy repeats this argument in his 1886-96 edition of the
poetical works of Christine de Pizan: when discussing the layout and contents of manuscripts
Paris, BnF f.fr. 835, 605, 836, and 606 – the codices now known as the Duke’s Manuscript –
he refers his reader to the inventories compiled by Léopold Delisle13 and concludes that
12
See Paris 1842, t. V, p. 149.
See Delisle 1868-1881, vol. III, p. 193: “Un livre compilé de plusieurs balades et ditiés, fait et composé par
damoiselle Christine de Pisan (...).”
13
14
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
“l’exécution en fut préparée et surveillée par Christine elle-même.”
(Roy 1886-1896, vol. I, p. V)
Unlike Paris, Roy suggests that Christine was only indirectly involved in the production
process of her manuscripts, meaning that she didn’t actually copy texts herself. By using the
verb surveiller, Roy seems to assert that Christine supervised the production of the
manuscripts. The exact meaning of préparer, however, remains somewhat unclear. What does
Roy mean by using this verb? That Christine decided on the order of the texts? That she
lineated the folios? That she herself wrote a first version of the texts, which was then used as
exemplar by the scribes in a scriptorium?14 Unfortunately, Roy does not explain his use of the
verb in question.
For almost seventy years, Maurice Roy’s observations were the final word about Christine’s
original manuscripts and their possible autograph character. In 1965 Charity Cannon Willard,
one of the most renowned scholars in the field of études christiniennes, was the first to
actually use the word autograph in relation with Christine’s original manuscripts. In her
article “An Autograph Manuscript of Christine de Pisan?”, she states that
“a number of the people who have worked on her manuscripts have suspected that
she was indeed her own scribe on occasion.”
(Willard 1965, p. 452)
She goes on to locate an important and interesting remark in Christine’s Epistre a la reine de
France. Surviving in five manuscripts, the version in ms Paris, BnF f.fr. 580 is the only one to
contain a rondeau at the end of this text, on f. 54r:15
“Prenez en gré, s’il vous plaist cest escript
De ma main fait apres mie nuit une heure,
Noble seigneur pour qui je l’ay escript,
Prenez en gré
Quant vous plaira mieulx vous sera rescript ;
Mais n’avoye nul autre clerc à l’eure.
Prenez en gré, s’il vous plaist.”
(Willard 1965, p. 452)
14
I will return to the intriguing question of Christine’s scriptorium in another part of this Chapter.
The Epistre a la reine is a text of a single folio, written in 1405 by Christine to ask Queen Isabeau to intervene
in the civil war between the Dukes of Burgundy and Orléans.
15
15
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
Willard shows that other contemporary authors use a similar phrase to show the autograph
character of a text. Moreover, she cites the only other instance of a similar utterance in the
oeuvre of Christine de Pizan: ms Paris, BnF f.fr. 24786, containing the only copy of
Christine’s Pèlerinage de la vie humaine and dating from January 20, 1417/18, bears a note
on f. 96r: escript a Paris par moy χρīne de Pizan.
Willard also stresses the importance of the remark mais n’avoye nul autre clerc à
l’eure. Indeed, this is a highly intriguing phrase and Willard seems to be correct in stating that
it shows traces of a relation of some kind between Christine de Pizan and a particular
scriptorium. However, this remark seems a bit ambiguous to me. The verb n’avoye normally
means je n’avais pas. However, if we assume with Peter Rickard that there is an alternative
meaning il n’y avait pas, Christine’s remark is even more interesting.16 In the first case, it
seems safe to put forward the hypothesis that Christine indeed had her own atelier. Ms Paris,
BnF f.fr. 580 would have been a rush job – perhaps due to an incorrect time schedule or
because of difficulties obtaining the different writing materials ? – and the scribe, or scribes,
that worked for Christine had already gone home, leaving the text unfinished. Christine would
have seen no other option than to write the text herself; in the additional rondeau, she humbly
apologises for this flaw in the production.
In the second case, the scriptorium might not have been Christine’s. It suggests that
she had a copy of her work brought to an atelier in order to create this manuscript. Some
miscalculations were made in the course of the production, due to which the manuscript could
not be delivered at the agreed moment. Christine was informed and decided to write the text
herself. Again, she apologises for the rush job. In this case, one could also argue that Christine
might have been a part-time scribe in this scriptorium, based on the assumption that she had to
make a living to support her family. Her use of the word autre would add weight to this
theory: there was no scribe available other than she herself. However, given the course of her
literary career, this seems highly unlikely. By the year 1405, Christine had already written
major works like the Livre du chemin de long estude, the Epistre Othea, the Livre de la
mutacion de Fortune and perhaps also the Livre de la cité des dames. Would she still have
been incapable of supporting her family after having received payments for producing
manuscripts of these texts?
16
See Rickard 1976, p. 70, vv. 9, 17.
16
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
Moreover, we know from Christine’s writings that there were servants at her disposal. In
1402-3, when Christine is writing her Livre du chemin de long estude, someone is around to
serve her and brings her light:
Ainsi fus la enserree,
Et ja estoit nuit serrée ;
Si huchay de la lumiere
Pour le dueil qui ennuy m’iere
(Tarnowski 2000, p. 98, vv. 195-8 ; my emphasis)
Also, in her Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, Christine explains how she
went to see the Duke of Burgundy with her servants to receive the commission for the
Charles V:
“Voirs est que cest present an de grace mil IIIIc et III, (...) me fu dit et raporté par la
bouche de Monbertaut, tresorier du dit seigneur, que il lui [le duc de Bourgogne, MA]
plairoit que je compillasse un traittié, touchant certaine matiere, laquelle entierement
ne me declairoit, si que sceusse entendre la pure voulenté du dit prince ; et, pour ce,
moy, meue de desir d’acomplir son bon vouloir selon l’estendue de mon petit enging,
me transportay avec mes gens où il estoit lors, à Paris, ou chastel du Louvre (...).”
(Solente 1936, pp. 7-8 ; my emphasis)
In both cases, it is clear that Christine has people around her that help her in her daily tasks; it
is likely to assume that these servants were paid by Christine, which implies that she had
enough money to not only support her family, but also to hire other people. Would she have
seen the need to copy texts herself at a time when she obviously had sufficient financial
means?
On a lighter note, these remarks could also imply that Christine had her own
scriptorium where, together with her scribes, she worked on the production of manuscripts.
Unfortunately, little is known about that atelier. Some have romanticised this aspect by
suggesting that Christine might have had the scriptorium in her house, but concrete
information as to the exact location of the scriptorium is not available. The fact that Christine
worked with a relatively small group of scribes, as we will see below, could mean that the
original manuscripts of Christine’s works were indeed made in one single scriptorium.
Going back to the rondeau, another possible argument that would explain the presence of the
rondeau in the manuscript could be that it was not written by Christine in this specific
manuscript, but copied by a conscientious scribe who considered it to be a part of the regular
17
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
text. However, this means that the rondeau would have been present in Christine’s exemplar,
which is highly unlikely. There seems to be no reason to insert a text like this in a first
version, probably written some time before the actual copying of the manuscript. Moreover,
since the Epistre a la reine has survived in five manuscripts17 and ms Paris, BnF f.fr 580 is
the only one to contain the rondeau, it would be unlikely that the other manuscripts were
copied from the same exemplar.
Although it seems difficult to determine the real course of events, both cases do have
something in common: they share the idea that Christine performed scribal activities and that
she was experienced enough to write texts in presentation copies of her works.
In her article, Charity Cannon Willard identifies another nine manuscripts as autographs,
based on similarities in handwriting.18 Two of these manuscripts are very interesting: both
contain a version of the text Réponses de Pierre Salmon à Charles VI, one written in 1409
(ms Paris, BnF f.fr. 23279), the other slightly later (ms Geneva, BPU 165). If the hand of
these texts is indeed that of Christine herself, why would she have copied these texts?
Wouldn’t she be occupied enough with writing her own texts? And besides, why would she
make a double copy of a text that is not hers? The only plausible answer to the latter question
would be that she received a reward for copying the text, but one really asks oneself whether
she would have either needed the money or had enough spare time to copy these two
manuscripts.
One of the manuscripts mentioned by Willard was the subject of part of the 1970 study by the
Belgian palaeographer and codicologist Léon Gilissen. In his work La librairie de Bourgogne
et quelques acquisitions récentes de la Bibliothèque Royale Albert 1er, which I have had to
consult in its Dutch translation, Gilissen gives a description of ms Brussels, BR 9508 (which
contains Christine’s Livre de la mutacion de Fortune, and pinpoints an intriguing Latin note:
“Op folio 190 verso heeft de scriptor twee Latijnse gezegden aangebracht, waarvan
het tweede uitgeschrapt en onleesbaar is: ‘Det deus actori bona maxima carminis
huius’ (Moge God veel goeds aan de auteur van dit gedicht schenken). Werd deze
wens geuit voor de auteur of voor de kopiist? Is het een aanwijzing te meer dat het
een autograaf is? Zo we dit laatste beamen, moeten we toch opmerken dat het
tweede gedeelte, vanaf folio 50, door een tweede kopiist uitgevoerd werd. Deze
17
The five original manuscripts of this text are: Paris, BnF f.fr. 580, 604 and 605; Chantilly, Musée Condé 493;
Oxford, All Souls 182.
18
See Appendix A for a detailed list of all autograph manuscripts.
18
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
tweede kopiist is voor de specialisten van de handschriften van Christine geen
onbekende: het gaat hier ongetwijfeld om een assistent.”
(On f. 190v, the scribe has written two Latin proverbs, the second of which is scraped
out and illegible: ‘Det deus actori bona maxima carminis huius’ (May God give all the
best to the author of this poem). Was this wish adressed to the author or to the scribe?
Is it another indication that the manuscript is an autograph? When endorsing this, we
have to mention that the second part, beginning on f. 50, has been written by a
second scribe. Specialists of the manuscripts of Christine will recognise this hand: it
will undubitably be an assistant.)
(Gilissen 1970, p. 10)
Earlier in his work, Gilissen already calls attention to folio 26r of the same manuscript, where
the scribe gives some information about the speed of writing: Ci commence .j. quayer escript
en un jour trestout. Combining these phrases with a short analysis of some of the opening
miniatures in which Christine is depicted while writing her texts or illuminating a manuscript,
Gilissen puts forward the theory that, besides author, Christine might also have been a scribe,
an editor, and a miniaturist. He thereby not only supports Willard’s ideas, but also enlarges
Christine’s hypothetical skills in her scriptorium.
In the years following the articles of Willard and Gilissen, more scholarly attention was
devoted to the question of the autograph manuscripts. In 1976, Eric Hicks presented a paper at
the Second Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies. He summarised research
conducted in collaboration with Gilbert Ouy and the CNRS in Paris. For the first time
mention is made of three different hands in the original manuscripts of Christine de Pizan. All
three hands occur in ms Paris, BnF f.fr. 835; one has written the titles, another has taken care
of the regular text, and the third hand has made some corrections in the text of this
manuscript. Of these hands – named P, R, and X – this last stands a good chance of being
Christine, according to Hicks. Furthermore, this hand is the same as the one appearing in
manuscripts Paris, BnF f.fr. 12779, London, BL Harley 4431, and Paris, BnF f.fr. 580, all of
which had been mentioned by Willard.
Also stemming from this research by the CNRS is a groundbreaking and highly
innovative study by Gilbert Ouy and Christine M. Reno. In their 1980 article “Identification
des autographes de Christine de Pizan”, the two scholars examine the ideas and assertions of
Charity Cannon Willard. According to Ouy and Reno, it may very well be that Christine was
indeed a scribe of her own manuscripts, since she uses a vocabulary – when speaking of
manuscripts and their makers – that alludes to technical knowledge of book binding and book
production. She speaks, for instance, of .lxx. quaiers de grant volume in the Advision
19
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
Christine; in a copy of her Livre de la mutacion de Fortune, a note at the foot of the page says
Ci commence .j. quayer escript en un jour trestout;19 finally, in chapter 41 of Book 1 of the
Livre de la cité des dames, Christine tells her readers that
“je congnois au jour d’uy une femme que on appelle Anastaise, qui tant est experte et
apprise a faire vigneteures d’enlumineure en livres et champaignes d’istoires qu’il
n’est mencion d’ouvrier en la ville de Paris, ou sont les souverains du monde, qui point
l’en passe (…). Et ce sçay je par experience, car pour moy mesmes a ouvré
d’aucunes choses qui sont tenues singulieres entre les vignettes des autres grans
ouvriers.”
(Ouy & Reno 1980, p. 222)
Like Eric Hicks, Ouy and Reno discern “trois mains bien reconnaissables”20 that have written
by far the biggest part of the original manuscripts of Christine’s works: P, R, and X.21 Scribe
P would have been the least skilful and also the least active of the three; the hand of scribe R
is more elegant, but also straighter than that of P; scribe X is omnipresent in the manuscripts
of Christine and his writing is much more deft and of a more changing nature.22 Moreover,
hand X often intervenes in the writings of hands P and R, whereas the opposite does occur,
but sporadically. Scribe X could therefore have been the most active scribe and maybe even a
kind of supervisor of the atelier, according to Ouy and Reno.
Besides these three regular hands, the two palaeographers also distinguish a more
rapid variant of hand X, which they call X’. After a lengthy analysis of the differences and
resemblances between spelling and style of both hands X and X’, in which the
aforementioned inscription Ci commence .j. quayer escript en un jour trestout is attributed to
“une écriture semi-hâtive dont les caractéristiques se situent, en quelque sorte, à mi-chemin
entre celles de X et celles de X’”23, it is concluded that
“aucun argument sérieux ne s’oppose plus désormais à ce que X et X’ soient
considérés comme deux avatars d’une seule et même main.”
(Ouy & Reno 1980, p. 231)
This is a so-called double orthographe, meaning that one scribe is able to write in several
hands, according to the wishes of the patron or the demands of the text.
19
This remark is very important, as I will show below, because Ouy and Reno attribute the hand in which this
note has been written to Christine herself.
20
See Ouy & Reno 1980, p. 224.
21
See Appendix A for a schematic overview of the manuscripts that Ouy & Reno 1980 and others attribute to
these hands.
22
I will return to the idea of describing hands P, R, and X below.
23
See Ouy & Reno 1980, p. 230.
20
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
What then follows is a thorough study of a hitherto unknown manuscript, ms ex-Phillipps
128, now preserved in a private collection in France.24 The codex contains a copy of
Christine’s Advision Christine, preceded by a preface of 6 folios that was added to the
manuscript when it had already been finished. The text of this preface is written in hand X,
according to Ouy and Reno; moreover, in the margins of ff. 7v to 17v (the first sixteen
chapters of the work), notes can be found that summarise the text and that are almost identical
to the description in the preface. The notes are executed in hand X’, which Ouy and Reno,
earlier in their article, attribute to scribe X.25 The two scholars conclude that the notes were
added to serve as “un brouillon et une sorte d’aide-mémoire en vue de la rédaction de la
préface qui allait être ajoutée en tête du volume”.26 Scribe X, responsible for writing the text,
the notes, and the preface, can be no other that Christine herself.
A number of questions can be asked about the theories in this interesting article. First of all,
would it not be extremely difficult to compare the hand of a piece of regular text (hand X)
with that of a much faster correcting writing (hand X’)? Surely, the cursive character, smaller
letters and growing amount of ligatures in hand X’ would make it very hard to ascertain
whether it is derived from hand P, hand R, or hand X – assuming that hand X’ is in fact a
variant of one of these hands. In other words, the supposed speed with which scribe X’ writes
his short corrections and additions causes too much generalisation in the script to be able to
indicate with a sufficient degree of certainty its ‘mother hand’.
The following images will clearly show the difficulty of such an analysis. Figure 1.1
shows a detail of f. 168a of ms London, British Library Harley 4431, of which the
handwriting is attributed by Ouy and Reno to hand X. Figures 1.2 to 1.4 contain examples of
corrections and later additions in the text.
24
For reasons of clarity, I will refer to this codex as ms Phillipps 128.
See Ouy & Reno 1980, p. 231.
26
See Ouy & Reno 1980, p. 235.
25
21
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
Figure 1.1: Harley 4431, f. 168a.
Figure 1.2: Harley 4431, f. 378a.
22
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
Figure 1.3: Harley 4431, f. 391b.
Figure 1.4: Harley 4431, f. 234b.
When analysing these images, the size of the corrections alone makes it very complicated to
compare them to other pieces of handwritten text. Furthermore, even if one attempts such a
comparison, there seem to be differences in the hands that would be inexplicable if one
assumes that all were written by the same scribe. For instance, the hand in Figure 1.2 seems to
be very pointed, much more than the regular hand in Figure 1.1; even the other corrections do
not seem to have the same degree of pointedness. Does it mean that we have to conclude that
the scribe of this manuscript could not only write in a different way when applying
corrections to the text, but also had the ability to use different hands for different corrections?
Or is there perhaps no relation between the regular hand X and the corrective hand X’?
Secondly, how exactly can we define the handwriting of scribe X? Ouy and Reno invite us to
look at the tendencies or tactical changes in the hand of the scribe rather than use the letter
forms as the clearest guide to which scribe is at work at any point. This opens the field of
enquiry for the proposal of this Thesis; their description leaves scope for speculation:
“Mieux vaut caractériser cette main par des tendances que par des formes: en effet,
beaucoup plus habile que les deux autres, elle est, par voie de conséquence,
également plus changeante, adoptant des styles d’écriture assez variés qui relèvent
tous, néanmoins, de la cursive livresque.”
(Ouy & Reno 1980, p. 226)
Certainly, a scribe’s handwriting is never exactly the same. Differences can, for instance, be
seen when comparing work that has been copied in the morning to texts that have been
written at the end of the day. Sometimes the way a scribe’s pen has been cut influences his
23
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
handwriting; also, the colour of the ink can change our perception of it. However, in putting
forward the argument that Christine’s scribe X has mastered reasonably diverse styles of
writing, Ouy and Reno seem to keep their options open; no detailed explanation of these
styles is given, neither in this article nor in the following contributions of either of them to the
discussion. Moreover, one could ask oneself, given the fact that hands P and R are also
derived from the cursiva libraria, what have been their criteria for distinguishing between
hands P and R on the one side and hand X on the other side, and – more importantly – why a
similar distinction has not been made for the different variants of hand X.
On a lighter note, it seems striking that Willard’s observations concerning the similarities
between the hand in the original manuscripts of Christine’s works and the two Salmon
manuscripts are refuted by Ouy and Reno on account of scribal experience. While they
describe hand X as “surtout plus habile que les deux autres” – which has to imply a certain
degree of experience – the handwriting in the two other manuscripts cannot possibly be that of
Christine:
“S’il s’agit bien, en effet, d’un style d’écriture que Christine a souvent pratiqué, la main,
en revanche, est nettement plus habile et surtout plus régulière que la sienne.”
(Ouy & Reno 1980, p. 224)
Finally, attention should be directed to the assertions of Ouy and Reno when they describe the
way in which the marginal notes have been added to ms Phillipps 128 and their function. The
two eminent scholars suggest that Christine would have inserted the notes in the margins of
chapters 1 to 16 so that they could serve as an aide-mémoire when she would write the
preface to the text. Two reflections come to mind.
Firstly, would Christine herself have needed these reminders? We know, for instance,
that Phillipps 128 is not the first copy of the Advision Christine that Christine prepared.27 The
three known original manuscripts of the Advision all date from 1405-6, which implies that
Christine would have completely internalised the text by then. It seems strange, in this light,
that Christine would have needed the help of rather concise marginal notes to remember the
text she had composed very shortly before.
27
Reno & Dulac 2001 shows that at least two manuscripts were made prior to ms Phillipps 128: Paris, BnF f.fr.
1176 and Brussels, BR 10709. Both have been prepared by Christine.
24
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
Secondly, the idea that Christine would have needed the notes conflicts with the theory
that she had a Livre ou je met toutes mes choses. For if she had a copy of the Advision in her
own collection, why would she have used a presentation copy of the text to make these notes?
Are we perhaps dealing here with Christine’s own copy?
The article evoked much scholarly debate, but the discussion lost its focus on the
palaeographical element of this research. In 1985, Gilbert Ouy discussed the subject once
more and published a short study of the quire signatures in Christine’s original manuscripts.
Although Ouy very lucidly explains the problem of the lack of order in these quire signatures,
this new perspective does not lead to new insights or conclusions.
Some articles contribute only partially to the palaeographical aspect of the discussion.
In his 2002 article “Christine’s Lays – Does Practice Make Perfect?”, James Laidlaw analyses
the irregularities that occur in some of Christine’s lays and comes to the conclusion that
“If Scribe X, who copied many of them, is Christine de Pizan, as has been argued,
then she must be accounted an inattentive copyist and corrector. […] If she herself
copied her lays, would she not have remembered with quiet satisfaction those lines,
rhymes, rhythms which had proved stubbornly difficult initially, but for which inspiration
and application had finally yielded the solution she sought? And would these
recollections not have kept her mind more closely on the task in hand?”
(Laidlaw 2002, pp. 475-6)
In their article “X + X’ = 1. Response to James C. Laidlaw”, Reno and Ouy repeat their points
of view from their 1980 study and explain that, in their view, the numerous changes and
corrections of both hand X and hand X’ in many original manuscripts can only point to the
conclusion that “Christine’s manuscripts provide abundant evidence of the interchangeable
roles of X and X’ and clearly link both with the author.”28 They also draw up a list of all
manuscripts that have been copied by scribe X. In Appendix A, a schematic overview of this
list is provided, along with other manuscripts that have been identified as original.
Having analysed the palaeographical discussion concerning the original manuscripts
of Christine de Pizan’s works, I will now turn to this list in order to try and see whether some
more information can be drawn from it. One of the most interesting tasks is to find out during
what period scribes P, R, and X were working for Christine; if that information is compared to
information concerning the different periods in which Christine shows signs of extreme
literary production, one might be able to draw conclusions as to the specific function of a
28
See Reno & Ouy 2002, p. 730.
25
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
scribe. In other words: one can vividly imagine that in times of extreme pressure of work,
Christine’s atelier would have hired an extra scribe to make sure all commissions would be
finished in time; moreover, she could have stepped in herself in the scriptorium, copying her
own texts into empty quires.
A chronological list of all original manuscripts needs to be drawn up in order to be able to
make a similar comparison. In Appendix A, the column production date shows the year in
which the manuscripts seem to have been copied.29 Appendix B contains also a list of
manuscripts – but now only consisting of the manuscripts of which we have both a production
date and an attribution to one or more scribes – chronologically arranged and only showing
the information relevant to our analysis: the shelf mark, the text, the dimensions, the scribe(s),
and the production date.
One fascinating observation can be made from Appendix B, related to the apparent activity of
scribe P. His hand is present in all but one codices of the former Duke’s Manuscript, as well
as in a copy of the Cité des dames; all these manuscripts have been copied between 1407 and
1410. This would imply that hand P was perhaps not a regular scribe in Christine’s atelier, but
an artist hired to help out in this period of intense activity. Does this mean that the only other
manuscript attributed – albeit partly – to hand P, the Chemin ms Brussels, BR 10983, is
incorrectly dated or incorrectly attributed to hand P? Or did Christine hire scribe P as well in
that period of extreme production?
When analysing the entire palaeographical discussion described above, including the lists of
manuscripts and attributions, an interesting reflection comes to mind. What is striking, is the
inconsistency with which hands have been attributed to the original manuscripts of Christine’s
works. Appendix A clearly shows these inconsistencies, some of which have been reproduced
here in Table 1.1.
29
For some manuscripts, the exact production year is unknown; in those cases, I have used either a production
period or the date of presentation to the patron.
26
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
Signature
Contents
Ouy & Reno
1980
R
Ouy
1985
R+X
Reno & Ouy
2002
? + Xi
Paris, BnF f.fr.
Livre du chemin de long
1188
estude
Paris, BnF f.fr. 606
R + Pi + Xi
R+X
The Duke’s Manuscript
(Duke’s MS)
Paris, BnF f.fr. 835
R+P42-4+Xi
P+R
R
The Duke’s Manuscript
(Duke’s MS)
Table 1.1: Schematic overview of three inconsistencies in attributing hands to manuscripts.
In my view, the only conclusion can be that the criteria that have been used to distinguish
between hands P, R, and X are not consistently formulated; that is, if, at all, they have been
specifically mentioned. I will return to this problem below.
1.3
Output analysis of scribe X
When studying the list of original manuscripts and their scribes, the amount of manuscripts
that have been attributed to scribe X is astonishing. Of the fifty-one original manuscripts
known to us today, no less than twenty-one would have been written entirely by scribe X. In
total, these twenty-one manuscripts contain nearly 2500 folios. Moreover, scribe X has made
corrections and interventions in another thirteen manuscripts, comprising some 1250 folios.
Furthermore, if one assumes that hand X’ also belongs to scribe X, this person would have
had to make corrections in still more manuscripts, bringing the total amount of folios very
close to 4000.
These assertions demand some explanation. Of course, copying a text into a manuscript is in
itself an entirely different task from reading and correcting a text. The process of writing a
text is very demanding and exhausting, whereas correcting an already copied text would have
been a much lighter task. In conclusion, one could argue that the writing speed of a scribe is
much slower than the correction speed and that, consequently, in the case of scribe X, the
process of correcting 1250 folios would not have taken half the time it took to write 2500
folios.
Moreover, the total amount of 4000 folios does not seem to be very much when spread
out between 1399 and 1417; on the whole, scribe X would have to copy some 140 folios and
correct about 80 folios every year to achieve this aim. In their study Pour une histoire du livre
manuscrit au Moyen Age, dating from 1980, Carla Bozzolo and Ezio Ornato analyse the
27
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
production process of a corpus of sixty-three manuscripts and calculate an average writing
speed of 2.85 folios per day.30 For our scribe X, that would come down to almost 880 days of
continuous writing to be able to finish his 2500 folios.31
However, it just may not be as simple as that. When looking at the list of original manuscripts
in Appendix B, a number of periods of extreme scribal activity become apparent. During
these periods, Christine’s scribes produce an amount of manuscripts far above average. It is
clearly visible, for instance, that in the short period of time between the end of the year 1402
and the spring of the year 1404, Christine’s scriptorium produces five copies of the Chemin de
long estude, one copy of the Dit de la pastoure and three large volumes containing the
Mutacion de Fortune.
The three manuscripts containing the Mutacion are both presentation copies; Ms
Brussels, BR 9508 is offered to the Duke of Burgundy on the 1st of January of the year 1404,
whereas ms The Hague, KB 78 D 42 is presented to the Duke of Berry in March of the same
year.32 Ouy and Reno state that both are entirely written by hand X. In the text of the
Mutacion, Christine explains that she ended work on the text on 8 November of the year
1403.33 Assuming that scribe X did not work simultaneously on both codices, this implies that
the 170 folios of the Berry manuscript have to be written between January and March 1404,
which at first sight seems to be a quite reasonable and attainable deadline. However, the 75
days between the finishing of the Burgundy manuscript and the presentation of the Berry
volume are not entirely reserved for writing the text. Both manuscripts contain six miniatures,
which were added to the separate quires after they had been copied; moreover, the quires had
to be bound together in a single codex. These processes are time-consuming – especially the
illumination – and would have considerably lowered the number of days available for the
writing process. Furthermore, the text had to be corrected as well within this period of 75
days.34 One could even question the number of available days to be 75. If we assume that
Sundays and holidays would not have been working days, only about 60 days are left for the
aforementioned tasks, resulting in a very tight schedule for the production process.
30
See Bozzolo & Ornato 1980, pp. 46-7.
The figures used here are based on the surviving manuscripts; there is no information about the number of
manuscripts that have not survived. See also below, p. 49.
32
A third copy of the Mutacion survives, ms Chantilly, Musée Condé 494. It is not clear for whom the codex
was prepared, neither do we have exact information as to the date of presentation.
33
The Burgundy manuscript speaks of 18 November, whereas the Berry manuscript mentions 8 November.
34
Since the manuscripts were made during the winter months, the 75 days must have been short days; see below,
p. 35, for a similar argumentation.
31
28
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
If, indeed, scribe X was the sole scribe of this manuscript, it must have been a real
rush job and one might even argue that it is impossible for one person to copy a volume as
large as the Berry manuscript in such a short period of time. Therefore, it cannot be a
coincidence that both Léon Gilissen and Charity Cannon Willard, in their aforementioned
articles, notice the presence of a second hand, beginning on f. 50r.35 Stemming from an
entirely different approach, the calculations made here support their observations and
conclusions.
From the work analysis of scribe X, we now turn to the interesting hypothesis of scribe X
being Christine by analysing the production process of the five copies of the Chemin de long
estude. These copies were all made between October of the year 1402 and Spring of the year
1403.36 Of these five manuscripts, one was copied by scribe X; the others were written by the
two other scribes and display corrections by hand X’.37 Consequently, in less than six months,
scribe X would have copied 94 folios and – for the moment still assuming that X’ belongs to
scribe X as well – corrected 484 folios. Of course, the illumination and binding process
demand quite some time as well, especially since the atelier had to deal with five manuscripts
in this case; altogether, nineteen miniatures had to be inserted in the manuscripts. However, it
seems plausible to assert that the writing process of all five manuscripts could have been
executed within the available time: all texts take about a hundred pages, which makes a total
of around 500 folios that had to be divided among the three scribes P, R, and X.
This calculation changes the moment the hypothesis X = X’ = Christine is added to the
existing information. We know, for instance, that Christine has begun the creation process of
the Chemin after 5 October of the year 1402; in the text of the Chemin, she writes that, on a
certain night, she was trying to get rid of a certain déplaisir by reading some books.
Le jour que j’os cel oprobre
Fu le .v.e d’octobre
Cest an mille .cccc.
Et .ii. […]
Ainsi fus la enserree,
Et ja estoit nuit serree;
Si huchay de la lumiere
Pour le dueil qui ennuy m’iere,
Veoir s’en fusse delivre
35
See Gilissen 1970, p. 10 and Willard 1965, p. 454.
See Tarnowski 2000, pp. 63-4 and vv. 185-7; see also Laidlaw 1987, p. 51
37
The five manuscripts are Brussels, BR 10982 and 10983; Paris, BnF f.fr. 1643 and 1188; Chantilly, Musée
Condé 493. Only the Chantilly manuscript has been copied by scribe X.
36
29
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
En musant sus quelque livre
Ou pour passer temps au mains.
(Tarnowski 2000, p. 98, vv. 184-7 and 195-201)
While going through some of her books, Christine comes across a copy of Boethius’s
Consolatio Philosophiae. In it, she finds some inspiration for what is to become her Livre du
chemin de long estude.
Christine probably reads or re-reads Boethius in October of the year 1402 and it is
assumed that she starts composing the Chemin simultaneously.38 Thus, the process of creating
the text also falls within a period of about six months. Furthermore, it is argued that Christine,
like Guillaume de Machaut, had a Livre ou je met toutes mes choses, in which she kept a copy
of every work she created.39 Ultimately, the hypothetical production process of the five
Chemin copies can be summarised as in Table 1.2.
October 1402
January – April 1403
•
•
•
•
Christine begins the creation of the text of the Chemin.
Christine writes her own copy of the text in her Livre ou je met
toutes mes choses.
The separate quires of Christine’s Livre serve as exemplar for
scribes P and R; Christine (X) herself copies the Chantilly
manuscript and corrects the other copies.
The manuscripts are being illuminated and bound together.
Table 1.2: Schematic overview of the production process of the five Chemin manuscripts.
Two observations can be raised. Of course – and unfortunately – it is very difficult to
determine exactly how long it would have taken Christine to create the text (the narrative) of
the Chemin. From the various studies into the changes Christine has made in the different
editions of her works, we can conclude that she must have been a very careful writer,
cautiously weighing her words and constantly aware of the message she wants to convey.
Therefore, one is inclined to argue that this creation process would have taken considerably
longer than the writing process of one manuscript.
Secondly, in the hypothetical case that Christine is indeed scribe X, the creation
process, the writing process of scribe X, and the correcting phase of hand X’ could not have
coincided, since all three tasks would fall on the shoulders of Christine herself. Even without
making a calculation of the time available for each process in this case, it seems very unlikely
that a single person created a text of a hundred folios, made a copy for personal use, copied it
38
39
See Tarnowski 2000, pp. 63-4.
See Williams 1969 and Laidlaw 1983, p. 550.
30
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
into a presentation manuscript and corrected four other copies of the text within a period of
about five months, if not less.
Fascinatingly, the Chantilly manuscript of the Chemin is part of a collection of five works that
was added to ms Chantilly, Musée Condé 492-3 only after its initial completion in June
1402.40 All five works have been written in the same hand (X). Therefore, in the light of the
previous discussion, it seems plausible to put forward that in the first months of the year 1403,
Christine would not only have been involved in the production process of the Mutacion and
the Chemin manuscripts described above, but that she was also busy working on this
collection at the same time.41
As we have seen, the immense proportions of the work scribe X had to deliver in these
months include the composition, transcription, and correction of the Mutacion and the Chemin
manuscripts. The question arises if this scribe could have been one single person and if scribe
X is the same as scribe X’. Even if scribe X/X’ is not to be identified with Christine, the
amount of folios he would have to write and correct would be so immense that it seems to be
impossible for one person to have done all of the work within the given time span.
Interestingly, this hypothesis has been raised before on several occasions. James Laidlaw
speaks of two scribes visible in ms London, BL Harley 4431 when discussing three lays
included in that volume:
“In the Queen’s MS [Harley 4431, MA] Stanza 7 has undergone radical change: the
structure remains heterometric, but combines two metres rather than three, and the
stanza has been shortened from sixteen lines to twelve. Lines 6-12, all entirely new,
are in the hand of the second, correcting scribe who worked on the text of the Lays in
the Queen’s MS, and they are copied in the spaces which the first scribe had left
blank.”
(Laidlaw 2002, p. 473)
Already in 1987, Laidlaw speaks of two hands in Harley 4431; also, Gianni Mombello calls
attention to the fact that two scribes worked on the Harley manuscript.42
Moreover, as mentioned before, both Léon Gilissen and Charity Cannon Willard have
put forward a similar hypothesis concerning scribe X when discussing the Mutacion in ms
40
See Tarnowski 2000, p. 61.
See Laidlaw 1987, p. 51: “The Livre du chemin de long estude was completed a little earlier, on 20 March
1403.”
42
See Laidlaw 1987, p. 62 and Mombello 1967, pp. 189-99.
41
31
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
Brussels, BR 9508.43 Again, the observations and ideas put forward here strongly corroborate
their view. In Chapter 2, an extensive analysis will be made of the production process in
Christine’s atelier, including considerations of time.
1.4
A palaeographical description of hands P, R, and X
As we have seen above, some manuscripts have not always been attributed to the same hands.
It seems to be difficult – even for very able and experienced palaeographers – to distinguish
between the various hands in the original manuscripts of Christine de Pizan. In this light, it
will be interesting to look into the descriptions that have been made over the years of hands P,
R, and X. On the one hand, I will focus on the criteria that have been used to distinguish
between the three hands; on the other hand, attention will be paid to the characteristics that
have been attributed to these hands. Thus, I will try to create a scribal profile of every hand, a
set of characteristics that apply to that specific handwriting. In Appendix C, citations from
Ouy & Reno 1980 are listed for the sake of clarity.
1.4.1 Hand P
Scribe P is the least skilful and the least active scribe of the three: only three manuscripts have
been entirely copied by his hand. His script can be qualified as mediocre. His most
remarkable characteristic is the letter p, which has a descender turning towards the left. Ouy
and Reno observe that scribe P often tried to imitate the specific form of the letter x of hand
X, but he was never entirely successful.44
1.4.2 Hand R
Hand R is a somewhat more regular and much more elegant handwriting than hand P, but
rather straight. Its characteristics include a letter j with a closed loop and a letter g with a long
and virtually horizontal tail. Intriguing is that scribe R did not work exclusively for Christine,
he also copied ms Paris, BnF f.fr. 24232 which contains a version of the Archiloge Sophie by
Jacques Legrand. According to Ouy and Reno, it is very well possible that this copy was
made at Christine’s request.45
43
See above, p. 16.
See Ouy & Reno 1980, p. 227.
45
See Ouy & Reno 1980, p. 225.
44
32
Chapter 1: Christine’s Autograph Manuscripts
1.4.3 Hand X
Hand X is present in nearly all examined original manuscripts of Christine’s works and its
scribe is therefore the most active of the three. Scribe X is much more skilful, quick and
elegant than both P and R. Because of his experience and skill, scribe X is capable of writing
in different styles, all based on the cursiva libraria. The trademarks of this hand are his
exuberance, decoration and jeux de plume. Scribe X extends the letters a and d at the
beginning of a word and stretches them out into a point or a loop. Also characteristic for this
handwriting are its tailed x and a special form of the letter e (e cornu).
Hand X appears regularly in the manuscripts copied by scribes P and R, applying
corrections or additions. Therefore, it may not be illogical to suppose that scribe X was a
regular scribe in Christine’s atelier and that he seems to have had Christine’s confidence to
check the output of both P and R.
1.5
Conclusion
In this Chapter, I have summarised the debate surrounding the autograph manuscripts of
works of Christine de Pizan. Some contradicting views seem to exist around the question of
Christine being scribe X and/or scribe X’. Gilbert Ouy and Christine Reno are convinced that
X and X’ belong to Christine, whereas James Laidlaw, Gabriella Parussa, and others have
reached different conclusions in their research.
Christine’s orthography and punctuation, the corrections in her original manuscripts,
changes in later versions of her texts, specific elements in the handwriting of scribe X; almost
every single aspect of the production of Christine’s manuscripts has been studied in great
detail. Almost, because until now, the question of whether or not it is possible for one person
to execute all the tasks attributed to scribes X and X’ has only indirectly been addressed. In
the next Chapter, I propose to analyse the production process of manuscripts in Christine’s
scriptorium; based on this examination, I will try to quantify the most important elements in
this process, which means that I will attempt to determine the speed with which different
stages in the production process of a manuscript could have been executed. This approach
may lead to new insights into the physical possibility of scribes X and X’ being one and the
same person.
33
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
CHAPTER 2
QUANTITATIVE CODICOLOGY
2.1
Introduction
In 1980, Carla Bozzolo and Ezio Ornato published their study Pour une histoire du livre
manuscrit au Moyen Âge. Trois essais de codicologie quantitative, which aims to approach
the medieval book from a quantitative point of view:
“tout notre intérêt est concentré sur la foule anonyme des manuscrits qui peuplent les
rayons de nos bibliothèques. Combien de livres a-t-on écrit à telle ou telle époque du
Moyen Age ? A quel prix ? Par quelles techniques ?”
(Bozzolo & Ornato 1980, p. 9)
In short, quantitative codicology proposes to express certain aspects of the medieval
manuscript book in figures, including the price of parchment, paper, and copying; dimensions
of folios; production of manuscripts in a certain region or at a certain time. Since 1980,
quantitative codicology has attracted a great deal of attention from scholars in the field of
manuscript studies. Such a statistical approach results in a more scientifically approved basis
for distinguishing manuscripts by scribe, scriptorium, and date than the rather intangible
experienced eyes of a palaeographer.
In the first of their three essays, “La production du livre manuscrit en France du nord”,
Bozzolo and Ornato try to give a general overview of the production process of a manuscript
in Northern France, including considerations of time, costs, and productivity.46 Part of their
considerations of time is a calculation of the average writing speed of a scribe. After having
analysed sixty-three manuscripts dating from the beginning of the thirteenth century to the
sixteenth century, the two scholars conclude that the average writing speed of the different
scribes involved in the production of the sixty-three manuscripts is 2.85 folios per day.47 They
explain that this figure can vary per manuscript, depending on the dimensions of the
parchment or paper and the number of lines per folio. They stress, however, that the figure of
46
47
See Bozzolo & Ornato 1980, pp. 13-121.
See Bozzolo & Ornato 1980, pp. 46-7.
34
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
2.85 folios per day is a fairly good and accurate estimation for codices with a width between
200 and 260 mm and an average number of lines of about 37. When converting this speed to a
smaller unit, the number of lines, it can be concluded that a scribe generally copies a little bit
more than 100 lines per day.
Of course, this method of calculation has to be used with some caution. First of all, writing a
line of prose is not the same as writing a line of verse. Evidence from fifteenth-century
scribes, as presented for instance in Michael Gullick’s excellent article “How Fast Did
Medieval Scribes Write? Evidence from Romanesque Manuscripts”, clearly shows that they
charged more for copying a prose text than for copying a verse text, presumably because of
the shorter lines in a poem.48 Therefore, expressing a scribe’s writing speed as a number of
lines per day can be quite misleading. Indeed, the general problem seems to be that there is no
unit of measuring that is free of ambiguity. When expressing the writing speed as a number of
folios per day, as Bozzolo and Ornato have done, the difference in dimensions between a
large codex (in-2o) and a smaller one (in-8o) has to be taken into account, while expressing it
as a number of words, letters, or even minims per minute could increase the likelihood of
error.49
Secondly, external factors can influence a scribe’s productivity. Lack of parchment,
cold weather, and dark days with little daylight will indubitably have seriously slowed down
the production process of a manuscript. Thus, manuscripts produced during the months
October to February are likely to have had a slower production process that took more time
than that of manuscripts produced in the summer: the ink could freeze, the writing speed per
day would drop as a result of a lack of daylight, and the cold would slow down the scribe’s
writing hand.50
Finally, the average writing speed is a rough estimation. Bozzolo & Ornato 1980
mentions writing speeds of up to four or five folios per day, and even as much as nine or ten
for smaller folios. On the other hand, there are records of extremely slow scribes. As we have
seen, Michael Gullick describes how a scribe was fired for writing with “unexpected
slowness”.51
48
See Gullick 1995, p. 47, n. 13.
Gullick 1995 agrees, see p. 49.
50
One might even conclude from this argumentation that the geographic location could affect a scribe’s output
as well.
51
Gullick 1995, p. 39.
49
35
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
If records existed of temperatures and hours of daylight for every single day in a given area or
town during the period 500-1500 and of the amount of time it took a scribe to write a certain
amount of text – with a specific remark about the nature of the text – it would be possible to
create a mathematical formula that would take into account all possible factors (both internal
and external) that influence a scribe’s productivity and thus to calculate an accurate average
writing speed. Unfortunately, detailed records and accurate outcomes are reserved for the hard
sciences; codicology is never that easy. In this specific case, the available evidence resembles
a handful of pieces of a 1500 piece jigsaw puzzle; we know we will probably never see the
whole picture, but we do our best to substantiate our choices of which piece goes where as
accurately as possible.
In order to try to locate the pieces of the Christine puzzle, it will be interesting to apply
this quantitative approach to the production of scribe X to see whether it would have been
possible for one scribe to copy all the manuscripts that have been attributed to this hand. If we
assume, with Ouy & Reno 1980, that both hand X and hand X’ belong to Christine herself,
this case is even more interesting because of her triple role as author-scribe-corrector in the
production process of many of her original manuscripts. In this Chapter, I will first give a
general overview of the production process in Christine’s scriptorium. Subsequently, I will try
to quantify the different stages in this production chain. Finally, two case studies will be
conducted to gain new insights into the validity of the so often expressed hypothesis X + X’ =
Christine.
2.2
Book production in Christine’s atelier
There is a great deal of information available about manuscript production in the late Middle
Ages; for Parisian scriptoria in particular, the monumental study by Richard and Mary Rouse,
Illiterati et uxorati: Manuscripts and their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval
Paris 1200-1500 gives a very richly documented overview. In general, the production chain –
to use an anachronism – of a manuscript is largely the same in every scriptorium, excluding
small differences. In chronological order, the different stages in Christine’s atelier, where she
was author, supervisor, scribe, and corrector, may well have been the following:
36
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
(1) Christine receives a commission for either a new work or a copy of an already existing
work,52 or she decides to develop a personal idea or theme into a text.53
(2) Christine starts composing the text, perhaps by using leftovers from cut parchment
leaves? No remains survive of these first attempts to create a text.
(3) Christine writes a first version of the text in her Livre ou je met toutes mes choses,
possibly the exemplar for the illuminated presentation manuscript that is to be made.
(4) Christine makes preparations for the transcription: parchment is ordered depending on
its price and availability and the format of the codex.54 Upon reception of the
parchment, she prepares the layout of the manuscript and the repartition of work
between the available scribes; the folios are ruled and the positions marked for
miniatures and other decoration.
(5) The transcription phase. Either Christine or one of the other scribes copies the text
written in the Livre ou je met toutes mes choses into the new folios. If the text is long,
several scribes co-operate on the transcription. The text is copied, rubrics and
paragraph marks are inserted, and space is left for the initials, capitals, and miniatures
to be added. Catchwords and signatures are inserted to make sure that all leaves and
quires are bound in the correct order.
(6) Each finished quire is taken to a miniaturist, who illuminates the folios. In some cases
border decoration and initials are added.
(7) Christine proofreads and corrects the text. Ideally, this is done after execution of the
illumination programme so that Christine can check the miniatures and capitals as
well.
(8) After illumination and correction, the quires are taken to a bookbinder, where they are
cut and bound.
Evidently, the production chain described above would have been less extensive in some
cases. When a copy of an already existing text is ordered, for instance, stages (2) and (3) can
52
As we have seen, Christine sometimes visits one of her patrons to personally receive the commission; in the
prologue of her Livre des fais et bonnes meurs du sage roy Charles V, Christine explains how she visited the
Château du Louvre to accept from the Duke of Burgundy the task to write a text about the life of his brother, the
late king Charles V; see above, p. 17.
53
This was the case with, for example, Christine’s Livre du chemin de long estude.
54
None of the surviving presentation manuscript of works of Christine de Pizan are on paper.
37
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
be left out of the chain.55 Moreover, a manuscript that did not require illumination and
decoration would not have undergone phase (6). Also, some minor elements might have been
skipped. For instance, the ordering of parchment would not have been necessary if the
scriptorium still possessed enough empty folios.
Stages (2) and (3) of the production process are as intriguing as they are interesting.
As shown in Chapter 1, it is very likely that Christine kept a personal copy of every work she
had written. Therefore, it could be argued that she used these copies as models in the copying
process. In what other way could Christine’s atelier have made a copy of a text when no other
manuscripts were around? A different question is the way in which Christine composed her
texts: might she have been so brilliant an author that she could compose her texts directly into
her Livre ou je met toutes mes choses? In that case, stages (2) and (3) would be executed
simultaneously. The question is, however, whether Christine was really capable of writing a
first version of her text that was legible enough to serve as exemplar for the production of a
presentation manuscript. Since no evidence exists in favour of this theory, it will not be taken
into account in the calculations below.
In the production of a new manuscript, the extremely time-consuming stages (2), (3), (5), and
(7) are executed by Christine herself. In Table 2.1, these tasks are presented in a schematic
overview. This process was followed for every new text Christine composed – obviously,
steps (2) and (3) were left out when Christine’s atelier copies an already existing text. In
general, there seem to be four stages during which Christine performed either literary or
scribal activities, each of them having its own characteristics and its own speed of execution.
In the following paragraphs, attention will be directed towards these four important stages and
an attempt will be made to attribute different speeds of execution to each stage. In addition, a
separate paragraph will consider Christine’s working time, meaning the number of working
days in a year available to her.
55
In many cases, however, Christine still makes changes to the text before the copy is made; see Laidlaw 1983
and Laidlaw 1987.
38
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
2. Christine composes a text;
3. Christine writes a first version of the text in her
Livre;
5. Christine copies the text into the quires of the
presentation manuscript;
7. Christine corrects the written text.
Table 2.1: Four stages of the production process executed by
Christine
2.3
Defining speeds
As argued above, defining speeds is extremely difficult when it comes to the production
process of the medieval book. Nevertheless, some general rules seem to apply to this process:
Rule 1: Composing a text is a slower process than copying a text into a
presentation manuscript;
Rule 2: Correcting a text is a faster process than copying a text into a
presentation manuscript;
Rule 3: Copying a text into a presentation manuscript is a slower process than
copying a text in a first draft, not intended to serve as presentation
manuscript.
Table 2.2: Three general rules for the production of a manuscript.
The logical conclusion would be that, in the case of the four steps I have defined in the
previous paragraph, step (2) would be the slowest, followed by steps (5) and (3); step (7)
would be the fastest stage. This implies that the speed of creation of a text is slower than the
speed of transcription into a presentation manuscript, which is not as fast as the speed of
personal transcription into the Livre ou je met toutes mes choses; finally, the speed of
correction will be the fastest. Table 2.3 schematically presents the different steps, the
corresponding speeds, and the abbreviations that will be used below.
Stage
Speed
Abbreviation
Creation
Personal transcription
Transcription
Correction
Speed of creation
Speed of personal transcription
Speed of transcription
Speed of correction
vcr
vpt
vt
vcor
Table 2.3: Four stages and their corresponding speeds and abbreviations.
39
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
In pursuing the attempt to use quantitative codicology in this case, I will now define the
speeds with which the calculations will be made. I will do this in ascending order.
2.3.1 Speed of creation (vcr)
Determining the speed with which Christine has composed her texts is very difficult. Creative
processes are different for every person and in every situation; they will change according to
the mood of the writer and they depend on the nature of the text that is being produced. In his
1984 article “Hoe snel dichtten middeleeuwse dichters? Over de dynamiek van het literaire
leven in de middeleeuwen”, the Dutch medievalist Frits van Oostrom estimates the averages
production of a part-time author in the Middle Ages to be about 550 lines of poetry per week,
which comes down to about four folios. This would imply that a full-time author would be
able to compose up to 8 folios of text per week, meaning a little over 1.5 folios per day. If we
take into account that one folio ruled in double columns of 35 lines will contain 140 verses of
poetry and just as many lines of prose, it seems indeed unreasonable to expect an author to
compose more than 200 lines. Therefore, vcr will be set to 1.5 folios per day.
2.3.2 Speed of transcription (vt)
The speed of transcription is probably the speed about which we have the most information.
In her texts, Christine sometimes mentions the date on which she began or finished the
composition of a work; moreover, for some manuscripts we know the presentation date,
meaning the exact day the manuscript was offered to one of Christine’s patrons. In these
cases, therefore, it is possible to calculate how long the operations took. One of them is the
production of two manuscripts of the Livre de la mutacion de Fortune: Brussels, Bibliothèque
Royale 9508 (ms B) and The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek 78 D 42 (ms H). Both are
presentation manuscripts; B was offered to the Duke of Burgundy on January 1st, 1404, and H
was offered to the Duke of Berry in March of the same year. It is not clear whether the dates
mentioned in the manuscripts – 8 November in ms H and 18 November in ms B – are the
dates when the manuscripts were completed and ready for presentation, or the date when
Christine finished the transcription in her Livre ou je met toutes mes choses. If the dates refer
to the completion of the manuscripts, there is a gap of about 40 days between this date and the
date of presentation. Given the fact that evidence from the decoration and corrections in the
Brussels manuscript shows that the illumination – and perhaps also the transcription – were
40
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
executed in haste, it seems unlikely that the making of the Brussels manuscript was finished
in early November. If we assume that the mentioned dates refer to the completion of the
personal transcription, the difference between 8 and 18 November can be explained as the
result of a misreading by scribe X, or a late change by Christine. Table 2.4 gives a schematic
overview of the production process of manuscripts B and H.56
Since it is unlikely that scribe X has worked on the two manuscripts at the same time – and
even if this scribe did work simultaneously on the two codices, it would have been impossible
to speed up the production process, since only one scribe is involved – manuscript H
(containing 170 folios) must have been written between January and March of the year 1404,
which comes down to a speed of transcription of almost 3.5 folios per day. This is quite close
to the 2.85 folios per day observed by Bozzolo and Ornato; the calculated speed of
transcription for Christine is a little higher, because Bozzolo and Ornato speak of an average
scribe, whereas Christine is supposed to be a rather experienced scribe. Therefore, vt will be
set to 3.5 folios per day.
Date
Production process
8/18 November 1403 Completion of the creation and transcription
into the “Livre” of the Livre de la mutacion de
Fortune
↕ 190 folios
January 1404
Presentation of manuscript Brussels, BR 9508
(B), containing the Livre de la mutacion de
Fortune
↕ 170 folios
March 1404
Presentation of manuscript The Hague,
Koninklijke Bibliotheek 78 D 42 (H), containing
the Livre de la mutacion de Fortune
Table 2.4: Schematic overview of the production process of the Mutacion de Fortune.
2.3.3 Speed of personal transcription (vpt)
After creating her poems, Christine probably copied the texts into her Livre ou je met toutes
mes choses, from which the presentation copies could be made. This copy had to be legible,
but did not require decoration, illumination, or calligraphic writing, which implies that this
56
Another copy of the Mutacion has survived in ms Chantilly, Musée Condé 494; it is probably the earliest of
the surviving copies. Christine was probably working on that copy as well when she prepared manuscripts B and
H. However, since no information has survived about either the patron for whom the Chantilly ms was made, or
the date of production of this ms, it has not been inserted in the calculations here.
41
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
process was less time-consuming than the transcription of a text into a presentation
manuscript. I will set vpt to 4 folios per day.
2.3.4 Speed of correction (vcor)
Besides creating and copying works, Ouy & Reno 1980 also claims that the corrections in
copies by the other scribes were mostly done by Christine herself, and in a hand they have
called X’. The correction is an important part of the production process of manuscripts in a
scriptorium, and, therefore, needs to be taken into account as well. Assuming that correcting
an already written text is a much faster process than creating or copying a text, a rough
estimation leads to a vcor of 10 folios per day.
2.3.5 Working time
The working time represents the amount of days that were available to Christine to compose,
write, copy, and correct her texts. It seems logical to assume that Christine would work as
much as five days a week, the money she earned being the most important income for her
family; moreover, Christine was a very religious and devout woman, which could imply that
she did not work on Sundays or feast days. It is also suggested that she had to appear at the
French court on numerous occasions to keep in touch with the people that would have the
financial means to pay for her work; also, she visited her patrons to deliver presentation
manuscripts. All in all, it seems reasonable to assume a number of working days of 250 per
year.
I will illustrate the determined speeds by means of a short analysis of the production process
of Christine’s Livre de la paix. At the beginning of the second part of this text, Christine
explains that she began composing this part and the third (and last) part of the text, altogether
80 folios, in September of the year 1413.57 It is known that at least one copy of the complete
text of 108 folios – probably ms Brussels, BR 10366 – was offered by the author to the Duke
of Berry in February 1414. This implies that Christine must have composed the text of parts
two and three between early September 1413 and the beginning of 1414, which comes down
to about five months. Moreover, ms Brussels, BR 10366 having been written by hand X, she
probably made two copies of the text: one for her personal archive in the Livre ou je met
57
See Willard 1958, p. 25, and p. 88: “Cy commence la table des rubriches de la ij.e partie de ce livre, laquelle
ij. partie fu commenciée la iij.e jour du mois de septembre […] en l’an de grace mil iiij. cent et xiij.”
e
42
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
toutes mes choses (80 ff.)58 and the Brussels manuscript (108 ff.). If Christine is to be
identified as scribe X, the composition
transcription of the Brussels ms
(
f
vt
(
f
vcr
)
)
= 180.5 , the personal transcription
(
f
vpt
=
80
4
), and the
= 108
would have taken Christine 103 days. The number
3. 5
of working days available to Christine is 104
(125 ⋅ 250), which would imply that the speeds are
correctly determined.
Unfortunately, as I have put forward earlier, only the speed of transcription can be defined
with a reasonable amount of certainty, based on direct evidence from Christine’s atelier. Even
in this case, it is unsure whether this speed would have been ‘normal’ for Christine. The only
real remark made by her is written at the bottom of f. 26r of ms Brussels, BR 9508. At this
place in the manuscript, which coincides with the beginning of a new quire, scribe X’ has
added the remark Ci commence .j. quayer escript en un jour trestout. The message is clear:
this quire was written in an extremely rapid pace, for had this been the normal speed of
transcription of the scribe, there would have been no need to insert this remark. Remarkably,
the speed with which this quire – consisting of eight folios – would have been written, would
be 8 ff / day, more than twice the speed calculated above. Does this imply that the speed of
3.5 ff / day has to be adjusted? Or is it simply a remark that shows the extreme speed that
could be reached in this extraordinary case? In other words: is the difference between 3.5 ff /
day and 8 ff / day, given the circumstances of the latter, significant enough to suppose a faster
speed of transcription?
Another interesting aspect of this remark is its position on the page. Surely, scribe X’
would have known that, normally, the remark would not have survived the cutting process.
This leaves us with the question why and for whom the remark was inserted. It seems unlikely
to suppose that the remark was inserted to be read by the intended patron of the work:
presumably, his knowledge of the production process of manuscripts would have been quite
restricted. Given its location, the only people who could have read the notice, would have
been the miniaturist, the bookbinder, and Christine, as the corrector. Was the remark
addressed to them? It seems hard to imagine why a scribe would want to communicate this
information to a miniaturist or a bookbinder. If the remark was meant to show Christine just
58
It seems likely to assume that Christine had already made a personal copy of the first part of the Livre de la
paix.
43
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
how fast the scribe had worked, the implication has to be that scribe X’ could not possibly
have been Christine herself, since in that case she would have written the remark to herself.
Leaving behind this interesting case – unfortunately unanswered – I now turn to the
application of the defined speeds to two known production processes of Christine’s
manuscripts. In the next paragraph, I will analyse the production process of the Mutacion de
Fortune and the Chemin de long estude and try to apply the aforementioned speeds to these
processes, in order to calculate the number of days it would have taken to complete these
processes. Moreover, the calculations will provide new insights into the probability of the
hypothesis X + X’ = Christine.
2.4
Calculations
Of all the manuscripts of Christine’s works the atelier produced between 1399 and 1417, fiftyone survive. With an average of a little over three manuscripts per year, the atelier did not
have to work very hard to meet its targets, or so it seems. However, there are at least two
periods during which the scriptorium shows an unusually large production of manuscripts.
One of these periods is the time between October 1402 and March 1404. Table 2.5 presents a
graphic overview of the production in this period.
Date
October 1402
20 March 1403
May 1403
Production process
Christine begins the creation of the Chemin de
During these eight
long estude
months, Christine’s
scriptorium
Presentation of ms Paris, BnF f.fr. 1188,
containing the Chemin
produces five copies
of the Chemin
Christine finishes the Dit de la pastoure
8/18 November 1403 Finish of the creation and transcription into the
“Livre” of the Livre de la mutacion de Fortune
↕ 190 folios
January 1404
Presentation of manuscript Brussels, BR 9508
(B), containing the Livre de la mutacion de
Fortune
↕ 170 folios
Presentation of manuscript The Hague,
Koninklijke Bibliotheek 78 D 42 (H), containing
the Livre de la mutacion de Fortune
Table 2.5: Schematic overview of the production in Christine’s atelier between October
1402 and March 1404.
March 1404
44
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
In this paragraph, I will take a closer look at the production of the two already mentioned
original manuscripts of the Livre de la mutacion de Fortune and the five copies of the Chemin
de long estude, as presented in Table 2.5.59 The calculations will all have the format
f
v
,
meaning f (the number of folios of the manuscript in question) divided by v (the corresponding
speed); the number of working days will be calculated by using the formula
x
12
⋅ 250 , where x
represents the number of months.
2.4.1 Case 1: Mutacion de Fortune
As mentioned above, three original manuscripts of the Livre de la mutacion de Fortune are
known to us: Brussels, BR 9508 (ms B), The Hague, KB 78 D 42 (ms H), and Chantilly,
Musée Condé 494. All manuscripts are based on the text of the Mutacion that Christine had
created and copied into her Livre in November of the year 1403. Given the information in
Table 2.5, it is safe to conclude that:
(1) scribe X has copied and scribe X’ has corrected manuscript B (190 folios) between
November 1403 and January 1404;
(2) scribe X has copied and scribe X’ has corrected manuscript H (170 folios) between
January and March 1404.
Let us take a closer look at conclusion (1). If scribe X and correcting scribe X’ are one and the
same person (Christine), she would have copied and corrected manuscript B between
November 1403 and January 1404. The calculation that needs to be made in order to
determine the time it took to execute these two tasks is
(
f
vt
f
)
+ vcor = 190
+ 190
; the outcome is
3. 5
10
73 days. Strikingly, Christine only had 42 working days during that period of two months
(122 ⋅ 250), the difference being more than four weeks. Thus, there seems to be quite a large
gap between the 42 working days available to Christine and the number of days it took to
copy and correct manuscript B.
59
For a full reference to the manuscripts, see Appendix A.
45
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
2.4.2 Case 2: Chemin de long estude
The surviving copies of Christine’s Chemin will make an interesting case for a second
calculation. Christine’s scriptorium finished five copies of the Chemin between October 1402
and the spring of 1403: Brussels, BR 10982; Paris, BnF f.fr. 1643; Paris, BnF f.fr. 1188;
Brussels, BR 10983; Chantilly, Musée Condé 493. Of these five manuscripts, only Chantilly,
Musée Condé 493 has been written by scribe X, but all five have been corrected by hand X’.
If we presuppose once more that scribes X and X’ can both be attributed to Christine, the
result would be that she would have created the text
(
f
vt
=
94
3.5
f
vcr
)
= 196.5 , copied it into her Livre ou je
), made a transcription of it in Chantilly, Musée Condé 493
) and corrected this manuscript and the other four ( = ). The calculation shows
met toutes mes choses
(
(
f
vpt
=
96
4
f
vcor
484 60
10
that Christine would have needed 163 days to finish this job, whereas there were only 125
days
(126 ⋅ 250) available to accomplish these tasks. In this case, the difference between the
two values is more than seven weeks.
Again, we come across an interesting problem. In both calculations, the outcomes do not
correspond with the available time; the differences are respectively 31 days and 38 days. Four
solutions seem capable of bridging this gap:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
increasing the defined speeds
omitting the idea of the Livre ou je met toutes mes choses
increasing the number of working days
supposing that hands X and X’ do not belong to one single
person.
Figure 2.1: Four solutions to improve the method of calculation.
At first sight, solution (1) seems to be the most plausible answer to the problem. Indeed, there
is little information available about the speeds of the different stages in the production chain
of a manuscript, so it is likely that that the estimations in paragraph 2.3 are too modest.
However, the question is how to change the speeds in such a way that the gap is bridged and
without them becoming too high.
60
In these calculations, 96 folios is the average size of the text of the Chemin; 94 is the exact number of folios of
ms Chantilly, Musée Condé 493; the five Chemin manuscripts contain a total of 484 folios.
46
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
Although it is not totally absurd, the second solution does seem very unlikely. If the
Livre ou je met toutes mes choses did not exist, it would have been impossible for Christine’s
scriptorium to produce a copy of a text, be it either a personal copy or a presentation copy,
without being able to use any exemplar. In this light, it seems perhaps even more unlikely that
a presentation copy would have been used as exemplar before it was offered to its intended
patron. Moreover, the absence of the Livre means that all copies of a work had to be made at
the same time, when at least one complete version of the text was still present and circulating
in the atelier. All in all, it is hard to imagine this scriptorium being able to function without its
own working copies of texts by Christine.
Solution (3) is hardly feasible. In the second case, the number of working days has to
be raised to over 300 to bridge the difference; in the first case, Christine even has to work
more than 400 days a year, which is of course impossible.61 A combination of solutions (1)
and (3) might also bridge the gap between the available time and the production time; in this
case, the speeds could be raised slightly and the number of working days increased a little.
However, the speeds defined in paragraph 2.3 are, I think, soundly based: they not only relate
well to one another, but the basis speed on which the other speeds have been calculated (vt) is
founded on reliable and direct evidence from Christine’s atelier. Therefore, in my view, there
is no reason to change the speeds.
Solution (4), the last one left, is more revolutionary: scribe X would be a person other
than scribe X’, implying that it is impossible that both hands belong to Christine.
Consequently, Christine could have been either scribe X – in which case she took care of the
transcription of texts – or scribe X’, involved in correcting the final version of texts. This
approach enables us in the calculations to have the transcription and correcting phases being
executed simultaneously: scribe X finishes the transcription of a quire, and while he (or she)
starts copying a new quire, scribe X’ corrects the text of the finished quire. If we assume that
X and X’ are two different scribes, the Mutacion manuscript B could have been made in 54
days
(
f
vt
)
= 190
, which is considerably closer to the available 42 days than the original 73 days.
3. 5
In the case of the five Chemin manuscripts, the calculations are a bit more difficult, because
61
If Christine really worked 73 days producing the Mutacion, the equation 2 ⋅ number of working days would
12
result in 73; thus, the number of days is 438. For the production of the Chemin, the equation 6 ⋅ number of
12
working days has to result in 163 in order to increase the number of working days to the extent that Christine
could have executed all tasks attributed to her; the result is 326 days.
47
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
of the complexity of the production chain. Figure 2.2 gives a graphical representation of the
two possible scenarios:
Scenario 1
Christine
■
■
personal
transcription
creation
■
transcription
Other scribe
Scenario 2
Christine
correction
■
■
■
personal
transcription
creation
■
transcription
Other scribe
correction
■
Figure 2.2: Overview of two possible scenarios for the hypothesis X ≠ X’ in the
case of the production of the Chemin.
In both scenarios, the transcription and the correction are executed simultaneously. Scenario 1
could have been finished in 115 days
(
f
vcr
f
)
f
+ vpt + vt = 196.5 + 96
+ 394.5 , whereas the execution of
4
scenario 2 would have taken Christine 136 days
(
f
vcr
f
f
+ vpt + vcor = 196.5 + 96
+
4
484
10
). Again, the
outcomes are very close to the available working time of 125 days.
2.5
Conclusion
In this Chapter, I have presented a new approach to dealing with quantitative questions and
problems concerning the speed of the production process of a manuscript. Unfortunately, the
method used to calculate the time span of the different steps in this process is not flawless: the
calculated time exceeds the available time to execute the process. As mentioned in the
previous paragraph, a possible solution would be to assume that hands X and X’ are not mere
variant handwritings of one scribe, but two different scribes. Other evidence presented in this
Chapter seems to corroborate this assumption.
The available time presented in the calculations cannot be entirely reserved for making
a personal copy, transcribing the text and correcting it. Obviously, in this period time also had
to be allowed to insert the miniatures and other decoration and to have the book bound. Since,
in fact, these stages have to be taken into account as part of the available time, the time
Christine had for the copying and the correcting phases is even less than the time presented
48
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
here, making it even more unlikely that one single person could have managed to finish all
tasks of both hand X and hand X’ during periods of extreme literary and scribal pressure.62
Another aspect that supports this hypothesis concerns the number of surviving original
manuscripts of Christine’s works. As is the case with virtually every other medieval author,
the number of original manuscripts that have survived the ravages of time never equals the
total production of original manuscripts of that author; it is only a fraction (fifty percent?) of
the total number of original manuscripts that have been made.63 This implies that many more
original manuscripts of works of Christine de Pizan were produced, thus making the periods
of literary and scribal activity even more intense and thereby arguing against the hypothesis X
+ X’ = Christine.
From the quantitative question of the physical possibility that one scribe could have executed
the tasks attributed to both hand X and hand X’, we now return to the palaeographical aspects
and characteristics of hand X and the manuscripts in which this hand occurs. In Chapter 1,
descriptions of hands P, R, and X have been presented and discussed. Although they seem to
be a good start, they are nowhere near to containing a unique set of criteria on the basis of
which we can perform an objective comparison of hands. In the case of the description of
hand P, it is unimaginable that only one scribal hand will fit exactly into the given
characteristics; ‘a mediocre script with a rather curious letter p’ must be applicable to tens, if
not hundreds, of scribal hands. The same argument goes for the descriptions of scribes R and
X, albeit to a lesser extent because their descriptions contain a bit more information.
Amazingly, this has been the information on the basis of which palaeographers have
attributed manuscripts to them for so many years. Given the fact that the descriptions of hands
P, R, and X contain hardly enough information to serve as basis for aptly comparing hands,
there have to be more criteria and characteristics specialists use to distinguish between hands.
The palaeographer’s eye plays a key role in the process of analysing handwriting. Based on
intuition, experience, and unconscious arguments – or at least arguments that often are not
explained in a written description of the analysis – it is often as intangible as it is intriguing.
Because of the diverse nature of a manuscript, its most important palaeographical element –
the script – needs to be “reduced to a prototype for classification and study”,64 meaning that
62
This argumentation does not only apply to the two case studies we have just undertaken, but also to the
example calculation concerning the Livre de la paix in paragraph 2.3; see pp. 42-3.
63
Gilbert Ouy has recently expressed similar thoughts; see Laidlaw 2006, p. 297, note 2.
64
See Ciula 2005, §7.
49
Chapter 2: Quantitative Codicology
an abstract graphical representation of the most prominent and characteristic aspects of the
letter forms in a particular scribal hand should facilitate hand analysis and identification.
However, this necessary generalisation of the script can also be obtained by means other than
trying to reproduce essential letter forms.
Continuing the attempt to solve the quantitative puzzles within the disciplines of
medieval codicology and palaeography, the next Chapter will focus on another intriguing –
and hopefully also quantifiable – aspect of medieval handwriting: its singularity and
identification. By means of a quantitative method designed to express characteristics of a
hand in figures, I will analyse and investigate the feasibility of a scribal fingerprint: a unique
set of quantifiable aspects that apply to only one single hand.
50
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
CHAPTER 3
THE SCRIBAL FINGERPRINT
3.1
Introduction
Just like a fingerprint, a person’s handwriting is unique; no two human beings have exactly
the same way of writing, just as no two human beings have exactly the same fingerprint. Or at
least that is to be expected, given the enormous amount of points on which two handwritings
can theoretically differ. Indeed, within a given hand there are a great many parameters which
can be defined or adjusted – be it consciously or unconsciously – by its ‘user’. Some of these
parameters are measurable and can be expressed in values and numbers, while others can only
be specified by means of a technical description. For instance, the angle that the shafts of
longer letters make with the base line is perfectly expressible in a value (e.g. 40°), whereas
the presence of a specific letter form (e.g. f with a looped ascender) cannot be expressed in
the same way. Ideally, a palaeographer should take into account both the measurable and the
immeasurable elements in order to provide a description that is as complete as possible. In
earlier days, these descriptions involved mostly the creation of graphical representations of
the analysed script. In recent times, there has been a change towards what might be called
quantitative palaeography: the study of a hand by focusing on its measurable elements, those
that can be expressed in figures.
The methods that have been developed in this light, however, are scarcely out of the egg and
open to improvements. It is, for instance, difficult to visualise just how big the actual
difference is between an angle of writing of 40° and an angle of writing of 45°; when
analysing the values, there is obviously a difference of 5°, but is it also visible with the naked
eye? In other words: when is a difference significant enough to be taken into account?
Moreover, a disadvantage of the calculative method may lie in its attempt to express a human
process that is executed mostly unconsciously and liable to many external influences, in
values that seem to leave no room for interpretation and reflection. Furthermore, analysing
51
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
many measurable parameters means ending up with a great number of possible combinations.
Supposing, for instance, that the angle of writing of the general bastarda script can be
anywhere between 50° and 70°, and that the relation between the height and the width of the
letters lies anywhere between values 1 and 2, we will end up with an unimaginable (and even
almost infinite) amount of possible combinations of those values. In addition, most
handwriting changes not only over the years, but also during a day’s work; a similar
difference can be observed when the scribe in question uses different writing supports, and
even the way in which the tip of the pen has been cut influences the style of writing.
Some of these problems can be solved by using a relatively large sample of
handwriting in the process of calculating its measurable elements. Thus, for instance, the
difference between text written in the morning and at the end of the day will be incorporated
in the values, which makes them more accurate and more reliable when it comes to describing
the hand of a scribe. Nevertheless, it seems necessary to be cautious when applying a
calculative method to hand analysis.
On the other hand, the great advantage of this approach is that it enables a more
accurate and scientifically based comparison between several hands. In the case of the three
scribes in Christine’s original manuscripts, it is probable that the difference between hands P,
R, and X will be much more obvious when the information gathered in the previous Chapters
is corroborated by evidence based on measurable elements of the hands. Of course, depending
on the nature of that evidence, the conclusions of the calculative approach may also contradict
the rather concise information contained in the verbal descriptions of the hand.
A combination of measurable and descriptive elements of a certain hand can be sufficient to
create a unique set of criteria that apply only to the hand in question. The important question
that needs answering is: when does a method of analysis contain enough parameters to
provide such a scribal fingerprint? To this and to all other questions, problems, and ideas
raised above, I will pay attention in this Chapter. After an overview of existing ideas and
studies on the subject of hand identification, an attempt will be made to create a template
which includes all the features of a hand that are important for creating a scribal fingerprint.
This template will be used in Chapter 4 to describe and identify hands in ms London, British
Library, Harley 4431.
52
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
3.2
General overview65
Over the years, much scholarly attention has been devoted to the study of the identification of
handwriting. In his 1952 book Paléographie romaine, Jean Mallon describes seven aspects of
handwriting that have to be studied when trying to distinguish between several hands. His
seven aspects are:
(1) form, the morphology of the letters;
(2) angle of writing in relation to the base line;
(3) ductus, the sequence and direction of a letter’s different traces;
(4) modulus, by which Mallon means the dimensions of the letters;
(5) contrast, the difference in thickness between the hair lines and the shadow lines;
(6) writing support;
(7) internal characteristics, the nature of the text.
According to Mallon,
“c’est seulement par l’étude combinée de tous ces éléments que le paléographe peut
espérer discerner des catégories et établir des filiations valables.”
(Mallon 1952, p. 23)
Mallon’s list of seven elements has withstood the test of time and his theory has amply proven
its validity and use for palaeographical examination. The idea of dividing a handwriting into
several components is perhaps the most revolutionary idea in his theory; thus, a more
structured description of the hand in question can be given, which facilitates both comparison
between and identification of scribal hands.
Later studies on the subject of hand identification have attempted to enlarge Mallon’s theory
by adding new elements to the list. Walter Prevenier, for instance, in his work De oorkonden
der graven van Vlaanderen, 1191-aanvang 1206, adds the categories type of script and weight
of the letters to the existing seven aspects in Mallon 1952. Burgers 1995, however, points out
that this addition is unnecessary, because the aspects Prevenier wants to describe have already
been included by Mallon in his categories (1) and (5) respectively.
65
For the contents of this paragraph, I have made extensive use of Burgers 1995, which contains a lucidly
written and highly detailed overview of the existing literature on the subject of hand identification. See Burgers
1995, pp. 27-38.
53
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
The importance of Prevenier’s study lies in its description and application of a
calculative method: Prevenier has tried to express in values certain relations like the angle of
writing and the modulus of a handwriting.
In 1973, Mallon’s method and Prevenier’s ideas were combined in a ground-breaking attempt
to objectify the existing methods of hand identification. In his book L’expertise des écritures
médiévales, Léon Gilissen focuses on five aspects: angle of writing, modulus, contrast,
ductus, and morphology; also, he adds an eighth category to the list in Mallon 1952: style.
Furthermore, Gilissen tries to come up with a more scientific approach to describing scribal
hands. He creates formulas to express the angle of writing and the modulus in figures.
Moreover, he corrects some of the definitions used by Mallon and takes a different view
regarding some other parts of his theory.
Although Gilissen’s attempt receives a good deal of critical comment, it is extremely
commendable for its innovative approach.66 Ever since the publication of this study, there has
been a debate about the use of a calculative, quantitative approach for palaeography.
The methods of Jean Mallon, Walter Prevenier, and Léon Gilissen contain similar approaches
to the process of hand description and identification. Therefore, they can be considered to be a
group, which we will call the Mallon group after its originator. Besides this group, there are
several other studies that take a different position on the subject. One of the most conspicuous
approaches is that of Lothar Michel. In his 1982 work Gerichtliche Schriftvergleichung,
which is tailored to hand analysis in a judicial context, he draws up a list of ten aspects of a
hand to which attention must be given in a comparison of scripts.67
66
67
See a.o. Ornato 1975 and D’Haenens 1975.
See Michel 1982, pp. 237-61.
54
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
quality of the strokes
change of pressure exerted on the pen
writing speed
movement and form
direction of movement
a.
ductus
b.
angle of inclination
c.
form and direction of the base line
(6) vertical proportions
(7) horizontal proportions
(8) vertical division
(9) horizontal division
(10) other characteristics
Figure 3.1: Schematic overview of the ten characteristics used
in Michel 1982.
Although the method of Michel is designed for distinguishing between modern-day writings,
some of the aspects he uses have been mentioned by studies in the Mallon group: Michel’s
aspect (2) seems to coincide with their idea of contrast, aspect (5) mentions ductus, and (4) is
Michel’s description of morphology. Moreover, his categories on proportions and division
contain calculations and measurements which Gilissen ranged under the term rapport
modulaire.
Worth noting and discussing, however, are Michel’s remarks about the quality of the
strokes and his subdivision of the aspect other characteristics, aspects that have not been
taken into consideration by the Mallon group. Michel’s aspect Strichbeschaffenheit (literally
meaning nature of the strokes) is divided in four categories: tension of the strokes, confidence
of the strokes, texture of the strokes, and Bewegungsvorschlage und -rückschlage. By tension
of the strokes, he means the extent to which the execution of the script is fluent and elastic:
Michel distinguishes between weakly strained strokes – meaning a hand that is so fluently
written that it becomes almost illegible – normally strained strokes, and strongly strained
strokes – resulting in a hand that lacks fluency and can be characterised as contorted. The
confidence of the strokes means the extent to which a stroke has been executed directly and
purposefully. A lack of confidence can result in Verzitterungen, disruptions in the course of
the strokes. The texture of the strokes can also be interesting, according to Michel. Although
he argues that the stroke itself is hardly dependent on the scribe but rather on the pen and the
writing support, he does stress that differences in the texture of the strokes can facilitate the
55
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
identification of texts added afterwards. Lastly, Michel proposes to analyse the different little
dashes that precede or follow the writing of a letter, as indicated in my letters e and g in
Figure 3.2. Such strokes are highly scribe-specific and their direction and form need to be
taken into account when analysing a handwriting, Michel argues.
Figure 3.2: Two examples of little dashes in the
Dutch word enig (unique, only; nice).
In his category Other characteristics, Michel treats graphical aspects of a hand that do not
belong to the script in itself: for instance underlining, crossings-out, and palimpsests. Also, he
pays attention to aspects of spelling like punctuation, abbreviations, numbers, corrections, and
footnotes. Finally, he mentions stylistic characteristics, meaning similarities in syntax,
grammar, and vocabulary, as an important aspect of hand and scribe identification.
3.3
Burgers’s method
From this general overview of available literature on the subject of hand description, I now
propose to examine a similar study published by Jan W.J. Burgers in 1995. In his dissertation
De paleografie van de documentaire bronnen in Holland en Zeeland in de dertiende eeuw,
Burgers has dedicated twelve pages to the existing methods of hand identification.68 He
explains the difficulty of designing a sound theory that enables palaeographers to identify
hands beyond reasonable doubt, the most difficult problem being the fact that every scribe
practises a personal style of handwriting with specific characteristics of which he is mostly
unconscious. Moreover, the author puts forward that it is impossible for a scribe to reproduce
a written letter with 100% accuracy. This implies that, even within one piece of writing,
considerable distinctions can occur. Also, scribes have often mastered more than one script,
which hampers, and even obstructs, scribal identification.69
68
69
See Burgers 1995, pp. 27-38.
See Burgers 1995, pp. 42-3.
56
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
For his research into the script of all preserved documentary sources – mostly charters –
written in the county of Holland and Zeeland during the thirteenth century, Burgers has
developed a palaeographical method, based on his own ideas and observations and on a
thorough analysis of existing methods. He creates a list of thirteen script elements that have to
be taken into account when trying to identify a hand. In this paragraph, each of these elements
will be dealt with separately.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
Angle of inclination
Angle of writing
Contrast and quality of the strokes
Modulus
Size of the charters
Width of the margins
Ruling and course of the base line
Decoration
Text structure
Abbreviations
Degree and type of cursivation of
connected letters
(12) Cursivation of letter forms
(13) Characteristic letter forms
Figure 3.3: The thirteen elements listed in Burgers
1995.
3.3.1 Angle of inclination
The angle of inclination is the angle between the base line and the vertically descending
strokes (also called shafts). Gilissen was the first scholar to take this element into account in
his terminology; it is called angle d’inclinaison des hastes and measured in degrees. He also
mentions that this angle is the result of several elements: the positioning of the writing
support, the angle of the tip of the pen and the angle of the desk. Gilissen argues, however,
that this is of little importance:
“Le scribe cherche, par tous les moyens, la combinaison d’angles la plus commode à
sa main, pour réaliser une morphologie déterminée, y compris l’inclinaison régulière
des hastes.”
(Gilissen 1973, p. 19)
Burgers suggests that one should measure the angle of inclination at the right hand side of the
shaft of the letter. Expressing this element of a script as a number of degrees leads to a
57
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
representation in figures of the inclination70 of the script in question; moreover, it enables a
scientific comparison with other hands.
3.3.2 Angle of writing
The angle of writing has been, and indeed still is, the subject of much discussion and
opposing opinions. In 1952, Jean Mallon defines the angle of writing as
“la position dans laquelle s’est trouvé placé l’instrument du scribe par rapport à la
direction de la ligne.”
(Mallon 1952, p. 22)
Gilissen, however, does not agree with Mallon; he explains that the way in which the tip of
the pen has been cut influences the angle of writing: an obliquely cut nib produces an angle
that is different from that of a nib which has been cut in a straight way, assuming that the
angle between the pen and the base line is the same.71 Consequently, he stresses that the angle
between the pen and the base line is not necessarily the same – as Mallon incorrectly argued –
as the angle between the thickest strokes and the base line.
Figure 3.4 explains that the angle between the thinnest hairlines and the thickest strokes is
always equal to 90º; a smaller angle would mean that either the hairlines are not as thin as
they possibly can be, or that the thickest strokes are not as thick as they possibly can be. In
Figure 3.5, line X indicates the direction of the thinnest hairlines; lines Y and Z indicate the
direction of the thickest strokes, which makes t the width of the tip of the pen. Lines X and Y
form a triangle with the base line B. This triangle is right-angled for reasons explained in
Figure 3.4. Since mathematics require the total sum of all angles in a right-angled triangle to
be 180º, it follows that ∠ α + ∠ β = 90º. In Burgers’s view, the angle of writing is the result
of the angle between the pen and the base line and the angle between the nib and the axis of
the pen. Therefore, he proposes that one should measure the angle between the hairlines and
the base line (∠ α in Figure 3.5); the angle of writing is then equal to ∠ β = 90º – ∠ α.
70
Inclination, in this perspective, means the extent to which the letters slope. It is not to be confused with
cursivation, a term used below to indicate the extent to which a hand belongs to the family of cursive scripts (as
opposed to book hands).
71
See Gilissen 1973, pp. 15-6 and p. 14, fig. 1-3.
58
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
Figure 3.4: The angle between the thickest strokes
and the thinnest hairlines is always equal to 90°.
Figure 3.5: The angle of writing.
To be precise, in fact Mallon and Gilissen are incorrect in indicating the angle between the
base line and the pen in their graphical representations. The figures they produce are twodimensional and it is therefore impossible to indicate the three-dimensional direction of the
pen in these figures. Figure 3.6 shows that the ‘pen’ Mallon and Gilissen have drawn is in fact
the reflection of the pen, its graphical projection on the plane in which the writing support is
also situated.
-
AT = pen
AT’ = graphical
projection
- ∠ CAT ≠ ∠ CAT’
Figure 3.6: Difference between the angle of writing and its graphical projection.
3.3.3 Contrast and quality of the strokes
Listed by Mallon and Gilissen as poids de l’écriture, the contrast between the strokes is the
difference in width between the hairlines and the thicker strokes. According to Mallon,
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
“une écriture lourde est celle qui est exécutée avec un instrument doux faisant
fortement contraster les gras et les maigres, et (…) une écriture légère est celle qui
est exécutée avec un instrument dur qui ne marque pour ainsi dire aucune différence
entre les pleins et les déliés.”
(Mallon 1952, p. 23)
Gilissen strongly disagrees with Mallon on this point: apart from the fact that he disapproves
of the rather negligently chosen terms lourde and légère, Gilissen aims at expressing the
contrast of a hand as a specific index number. The formula he uses to arrive at this value is
Contrast =
S
(B×R ) , in which:
-
S = (180º – angle of writing) + (180º – angle of inclination – angle of writing)
-
B = (average height of letters : width of the tip of the pen)
-
R = modulus of the hand72
Gilissen explains that, in his view, the width of the tip of the pen plays a vital role in the look
of a script: a broad tip produces broader strokes than a very thin pen. Moreover, Gilissen
argues, the writing angle is also very important in giving lourdeur or légèreté to a script. In
his own words:
“Puisqu’un angle d’écriture aigu, c’est-à-dire de peu de degrés, alourdit l’écriture,
faisons entrer dans la formule de recherche du poids, le supplément de cet angle,
supplément qui s’agrandit au fur et à mesure que se réduit l’angle d’écriture.”
(Gilissen 1973, p. 35)
The same can be said, according to Gilissen, of the relation between the angle of writing and
the angle of inclination: the more the latter approaches the angle of writing, the more contrast
is visible in the hand. Because a smaller difference between the angles entails a more
contrasted writing, Gilissen, again, uses the complementary angle in his calculations.
Burgers for his part disagrees with Gilissen; in his view, the contrast of a hand cannot
be expressed accurately enough in numbers, because of it being the result of four factors, of
which three are immeasurable: the direction of the strokes, changes in the pressure the scribe
exerts on his pen, and the width and flexibility of the tip of the pen. He therefore leaves
Gilissen’s calculations for what they are and describes the contrast of a hand by using the
categories pronounced contrast, little pronounced contrast, and moderately pronounced
72
Gilissen’s approach to modulus will be examined below.
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
contrast; the difference between the width of the hairlines and that of the thick strokes is the
indicator.
Burgers also argues that the quality of the strokes can be very meaningful when it
comes to identifying hands. In this light, the Dutch palaeographer uses the two categories
regular and rhythmical and applies the adverbs very, moderately, and little to respectively
indicate the thickness of strokes in a similar direction (regular) and the way in which that
thickness shows a particular pattern that is identical to those of strokes in a similar direction
(rhythmical). This means that, in a very regular and very rhythmical hand, strokes in the same
direction are almost everywhere equally thick and show an identical pattern in the course of
their thickness. Burgers stresses that a close relation exists between the regularity and
rhythmicality of a script, explaining that rhythmical strokes normally only occur in a
sufficiently regular script.73
3.3.4 Modulus
Modulus, in Jean Mallon’s view, means the dimensions of the letter forms. The width and the
height of the letters has to be brought in proportion to the average height of the short letters –
meaning letters that do not extend below the base line or above the upper line for writing –
because that is the only way to compare large scripts to smaller ones.
Gilissen develops the ideas of Mallon and presents several difficult formulas that
enable him to calculate what he calls rapport modulaire, meaning the relation between a
letter’s width and its height. In a more simple – and perhaps also more understandable –
rendition, the different steps Gilissen takes are the following.74 Firstly, he calculates the width
of a single letter form (W) by measuring the width of 1000 letters forms and dividing the
outcome by 1000; for obvious reasons, Gilissen leaves out forms like tilde, accents,
punctuation marks, and abbreviations. If, for instance, 1000 letter forms occupy a space of
2700 mm, the average width of a single letter will be 2.7 mm. Secondly, Gilissen calculates
the line spacing (S) by measuring the total height of all lines and dividing that value by the
number of lines on the page. Thirdly, the average height of the short letters (H) is estimated
by means of an index number, expressing H as a fraction of S.75 If, for instance, the average
73
See Burgers 1995, p. 36.
In his modulus calculations, Gilissen works with index numbers. For the sake of clarity, I will use another
method for calculating the rapport modulaire; the outcomes of my calculations are, however, identical to the
results of Gilissen.
75
Surprisingly enough, given the amount of detail with which Gilissen presents his rapport modulaire, this
element of the calculation is indeed estimated. See below, note 76, for two critical studies on this subject.
74
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
height of the short letters is about half the size of the line spacing, Gilissen uses the value 0.5
to indicate H.
Finally, Gilissen calculates the rapport modulaire by using the formula:
Rapport modulaire =
H
( )
W
S
=
(H × S )
W
Gilissen presents his results to four significant figures, which is surprising, given the fact that
most of his measurements contain only two significant figures.76 Burgers, too, is amazed by
the amount of detail in Gilissen’s outcomes and proposes a somewhat different approach.
Instead of combining these important data in one single number, he presents averages of the
height of the ascending letters, the width of a single letter and the line spacing in relation to
the average height of the short letters. If we let A be the average height of the ascending
letters, Burgers’s notation is
H : A : W : S
In this notation, H is always 1 and the values of the other elements have been divided by the
original value of H for the sake of the proportion.77 Figure 3.7 gives a graphical explanation
of this relationship.
Figure 3.7: Graphical explanation of H, A, W, and S. Detail from ms London, BL Harley 4431, f. 41r.
76
In this perspective, see Ornato 1975 and D’Haenens 1975 for two critical reflections on Gilissen’s
calculations.
77
See above, p. 61.
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To elucidate matters, the approaches of Gilissen and Burgers will be illustrated by an
example. Let us suppose we want to examine the writing on f. 41r of codex London, BL
Harley 4431. The input for the calculation would be the following:
H = 2 mm (in Gilissen’s notation: 0.4)
S = justification height of 230 mm / 39 lines = 6.0 mm.
W=
by Gilissen’s method: on this page 2400 characters on 5000 mm = 2.1 mm.
by Burgers’s method: 36 characters on line 15 (f. 41a) + 38 characters on line 37 (f.
41a) + 34 characters on line 31 (f. 41b)) / 3 lines of in total 220 mm = 2.0 mm.
A (only Burgers) = (letter l of 6 mm + l of 5 mm + l of 4 mm) / 3 = 5 mm.
Gilissen’s calculation would then be:
(H × S)
W
=
(0.4 × 6.0) =
2.1
1.14.
Burgers’s notation would be: H : A : W : S = 2 : 5 : 2 : 6 = 1 : 2.5 : 1 : 3.
The advantage of the approach which Jan Burgers proposes seems obvious. Not only do four
numbers generally provide more information than a single value, but his method is also more
accurate. In Gilissen’s approach, the outcome of (H x S) can remain the same when the
individual elements S and H change. Thus, a hand with H = 2 mm and S = 6 mm (see Figure
3.8a) will produce the same outcome as a hand with H = 3 mm and S = 4 mm (see Figure
3.8b), provided that values A and W do not change. When applying Burgers’s method to the
given numbers, the outcomes are expressed in four figures; therefore, they do show the
difference.
a
b
Figure 3.8: Examples of two hands that produce the same outcome in Gilissen’s calculations.
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
3.3.5 Size of the charters
Since the study of Burgers involves mostly charter hands, he included a category called size of
the charters in his list of aspects concerning hand identification. He suggests examination of
the hair side and flesh side of the parchment, its thickness, size, colour, roughness, and the
way in which it has been treated with chalk. Mallon listed a category named la matière
subjective in which he proposes to take into consideration the nature and form of the writing
support. Gilissen pays little, if any, attention to the writing support, because, as he argues, he
works with “des textes rigoureusement homogènes”.78 Therefore, examining the support is not
useful when trying to identify hands in such a homogeneous context.
3.3.6 Width of the margins
This element falls within Mallon’s and Gilissen’s category of caractères internes: the nature
and the diplomatic, historical and philological background of both the text and the codex.
Burgers made the width of the margins into a separate element because of the fact that, in
charters, the dimensions of the margins can often be an indication of the scriptorium in which
the charter was produced.
3.3.7 Ruling and course of the base line
Again one of the caractères internes of Gilissen and Mallon, Burgers discusses separately the
ruling and irregularities in the course of the line of writing. He argues that hands can be
identified by looking at the distance between the base line and the line of writing, the line –
imaginary or not – that connects the underside of the short letters: in his view, different
scribes may use different distances. He uses the qualifications straight and waving, round and
hollow, ascending and descending and overlapping to describe this line of writing.79
3.3.8 Decoration
By using the element decoration as one of the criteria of hand identification, Burgers
emphasises the importance of rich letter forms in a scribe’s handwriting. He mentions: the
presence and form of enlarged and/or decorated initials; the decoration of capitals within the
text; the decoration of shafts, hooks, and abbreviations; any possible other forms of decoration
78
See Gilissen 1973, p. 11.
An overlapping line of writing means that the scribe places a new word a little higher above the base line than
the end of the preceding word; see Figure 3.13.
79
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
like rubrication, chrismon, and oblong script; finally, line-fillers. Both Mallon and Gilissen do
not explicitly mention decoration as a way of identifying scribal hands.
3.3.9 Text structure
Again an element that Mallon and Gilissen included under the umbrella term of internal
characteristics, Burgers specifically mentions the text structure as an important aspect of hand
identification. The structure of the text, in his view, means the form and placement of
articulation signs like the full stop, the virgula, and the comma. Moreover, Burgers also
examines the function of capital letters in the text. The questions he tries to answer are: do
articulation signs and capital letters delimit different parts of the text? Are capital letters also
used at the beginning of proper names? Concerning the placing of the articulation signs,
Burgers examines their positioning in relation to the base line and the distance between the
words surrounding the articulation signs.
3.3.10 Abbreviations
Although they are not taken into account by Mallon and Gilissen, abbreviations can indeed
teach us something about scribal differences, according to Burgers. He explains that in his
study of charter hands in Latin and Dutch documents, he has only examined Latin
abbreviations that deviate from the generally accepted patterns, while he makes mention of all
abbreviations in the Dutch parts.
3.3.11 Degree and type of cursivation of connected letters
First mentioned by Burgers, this element of hand identification involves an examination of the
connections between letters in a text. Burgers distinguishes between four types of
connections:
(1)
upper connection: a connection between two letters that occurs near the top of the
small letters; see Figure 3.9a.
(2)
lower connection: a connection between two letters at the base line; see Figure 3.9b.
(3)
combined connection: two letters have been connection by means of both an upper
connection and a lower connection; see Figure 3.9c.
(4)
curved connection: two letters are connected by a round stroke; see Figure 3.9d.
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
Figure 3.9: Examples of (a) upper connection; (b) lower connection; (c) combined connection; (d) curved
connection. Details from ms London, BL Harley 4431, f. 41r.
In a cursive script, these connections can be executed either in a cursive way or in a ‘normal’
way. In this case, the term cursivation is applied to connections that show that the scribe did
not want to lift his pen from the parchment: he avoids interruptions and angles, and joins
letters together. This difference can be illustrated by means of two figures showing the same
handwritten text. Figures 3.10a and 3.10b show two manuscript notes containing the same
text, the beginning of Chapter 2 of Régine Pernoud’s Christine de Pisan. Note (a) has been
written slowly and with the intention to create a neatly written and legible piece of text for a
greetings card. Note (b) has been written quickly and with the intention to serve as a scribbled
note for someone. The difference in the degree and type of cursivation of the connected letters
in clearly visible in, for instance, the words royaume and sensible: the letter combination ns in
sensible goes from being a normal lower connection in Figure (a) to a cursive lower
connection in Figure (b); the same can be said of the combination au in royaume. Also, the
letters in the word un are not connected in note (a), whereas they are cursively connected in
note (b).
(a)
(b)
Figure 3.10: Two figures showing the same sentence in a formal script (a) and a
cursive script (b).
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
In his examinations of cursivation, Burgers counted the number of letter combinations in ten
randomly chosen lines. In his view, a letter combination is a group of two adjacent letters;
thus, the word amours consists of five letter combinations: am, mo, ou, ur, and rs. Letter
combinations do not necessarily have to be letter connections. In Figure 3.11, the word
accroisce consists of eight letter combinations, but it contains only six letter connections
because the letter combinations o-i and s-c do not touch.
Figure 3.11: Examples of a letter
combination that is not necessarily a
letter connection: o-i and s-c. Detail
from ms London, BL Harley 4431, f.
41r.
Burgers then divides the connected letter combinations into the categories normally connected
and cursively connected and expresses them as a percentage of the total amount of letter
combinations.80 Furthermore, he describes which type of connection the particular scribe uses
in which letter forms, while clarifying whether the connection in question is made with the
preceding or the following letter form.
3.3.12 Cursivation of letter forms
In general, studying charter hands means studying formal scripts rather than cursive scripts.
Burgers explains that, in the scripts he examines, cursive elements like cursively written
shafts, tails with loops, and cursively connected abbreviation signs can reveal a great deal
about a scribe’s habits. He therefore includes this category in his list of the aspects that can be
taken into account when trying to identify scribal hands.
3.3.13 Characteristic letter forms
In his Paléographie romaine, Jean Mallon stresses the importance of letter forms. He
describes his category les formes as “l’aspect extérieur des lettres que le scribe a eu à
80
Burgers distinguishes between a normal connection and a cursive connection by judging the speed of
execution of the connecting strokes.
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
exécuter”.81 Gilissen, too, recognises the importance of this aspect, which he calls la
morphologie. In his words:
“Pour distinguer un scribe de ses collègues, il faut observer quelques signes
complexes, c’est-à-dire qui réunissent plusieurs éléments différents et enchaînés, et
les signes pour lesquels les risques de confusion sont pratiquement nuls et dont la
forme par conséquent paraît avoir été laissée au libre choix de celui qui écrit.”
(Gilissen 1973, p. 47)
Furthermore, Gilissen explains that a number of characteristic letter forms is enough to aptly
describe a hand and identify its scribe; all other aspects are only useful in order to confirm
what these typical letter forms tell the palaeographer. He proposes to examine complex letter
forms like g and x and ligatures like & and ct, because he believes that “plus un signe est
simple, moins seront nombreuses les possibilités de formes variées.”82
Burgers completely disagrees with this point of view. He stresses that it is of the
utmost importance to take into consideration all the letter forms of a particular hand, rather
than focusing on the few remarkable letters or on ‘difficult’ letters like g and w. First of all,
Burgers argues, it is rather the inconspicuous and unconsciously or automatically written
letters that matter the most. Elements like base strokes and letter connectors are not subjected
to fashion or local usage, as is the case with decoration and more complex letter forms.
Secondly, often those typical letters will be more diverse morphologically than simpler
elements because of the complexity of their ductus. Burgers mentions that many hands tend to
change just these complex letter forms, simply because there does not seem to be a set ductus
for them.
As mentioned earlier, the Burgers method that has been analysed in this paragraph will serve
as the basis for the method of hand identification that I will use in Chapter 4 of this Thesis.
Burgers’s method has been chosen for several reasons. Firstly, Burgers has designed a
convincing mix of elements from other methods drawn from various fields of study; he does
not limit himself to the ideas of renowned scholars such as Mallon and Gilissen, but dares to
use analyses from judicial experts to introduce new elements into his theory. Secondly, in my
view, Burgers has succeeded in finding an approach that produces a detailed and accurate
quantitative output for the elements he expresses in figures. He has not only extracted from
81
82
Mallon 1952, p. 22.
Gilissen 1973, p. 46.
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
the approach of Léon Gilissen the ideas of how to quantify the aspects angle of inclination,
angle of writing, and modulus, but he has also improved them significantly; furthermore,
Burgers has added a category degree and type of cursivation of connected letters which also
produces a quantitative output. Finally, the outcomes of his categories contrast and quality of
the strokes and ruling and course of the line of writing in a way also provide quantitative
evidence because of the limited possible subdivisions Burgers has added to these categories.
In the following paragraph, the elements in Burgers’s method will be analysed and judged by
the use of their application to Christine’s original manuscripts. Some aspects will prove to be
more useful than others; an attempt will be made to modify the latter so that they can be
incorporated in the method that is to be designed. Subsequently, a template will be created
that includes all the aspects which have been shown to be of value, This template will be used
in Chapter 4 in the identification of scribal hands.
3.4
Creating a template for hand identification
Research into the existing literature on hand identification, as conducted in the previous
paragraph, has resulted in a list of the thirteen aspects that Jan Burgers uses in his dissertation
to identify scribal hands. Burgers’s theory and method have been tailored to conducting
palaeographical investigations in charters; this implies that some of the aspects he uses may
be less, or not at all, applicable to the original manuscripts of Christine de Pizan. Therefore,
rather than use his method as it is, I have chosen to critically examine each aspect and to
judge whether it is useful, needs some changes, or is of no interest to the specific research
question I intend to answer in this Thesis. Every aspect will be discussed in a separate
subparagraph, copying the structure and the order of the previous paragraph.
The template that will be designed, will enable the user to gather and process
information about a hand in an systematic way. The outcomes of the aspects in the template
will produce a profile that applies only to that specific hand. Therefore, we can speak of a
scribal fingerprint: a description of the characteristics of a particular scribe’s handwriting that
is unique for the scribe in question.
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
3.4.1
Angle of inclination
I agree with both Gilissen and Burgers that the angle of inclination can be a good means of
distinguishing between scribes. Graphical evidence from the Harley manuscript clearly shows
that the angle of inclination is not the same throughout the nearly 400 folios of the two
codices: Figure 3.12a, a detail from f. 79b, shows an angle of inclination that seems to be
more acute than that in Figure 3.12b, showing f. 186b. Whether this is the result of a change
of hands or of other factors, remains to be seen. 83
Figure 3.12a: Detail from ms London, BL Harley 4431, f. Figure 3.12b: Detail from ms London, BL Harley
79b.
4431, f. 186b.
I propose to measure the angle of inclination at the right hand side of ten different shafts. The
angle of each of these ten shafts will be entered in the template; an average angle will be
calculated and indicated as well. If the measured angles are too far apart for an average value
to be useful, it may be more informative to mention the highest and the lowest value.84
83
As I will explain in Chapter 4, some images from the Harley manuscript have been taken with a sloping
camera. I have adjusted Figure 3.12a slightly for these different angles of inclination to become more apparent.
84
See Burgers 1995, pp. 33-4 for a similar argument.
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
3.4.2
Angle of writing
As explained in the previous paragraph, Burgers recommends measuring the angle between
the thinnest hairlines (for instance accents on the letter i and connection strokes between
minims) and the base line; in this case, the angle of writing is the complementary angle. As
with the angle of inclination, I will measure this angle ten times and, if it is useful, indicate
the average angle in the template.
3.4.3 Contrast and quality of the strokes
Burgers argues that the contrast and quality of the strokes of a scribe cannot be expressed in
numbers because of the immeasurability of its factors: the flexibility of the tip of the pen, for
instance, will probably never be known. Since these factors influence the contrast and the
quality of a stroke and, indeed, are immeasurable, it seems dangerous to express this aspect in
figures, let alone in a single value, as does Léon Gilissen. The contrast of the strokes made by
the hand will therefore be expressed according to Burgers’s subdivision pronounced,
moderately pronounced, and little pronounced; input for this division will be five
observations.
As for the quality of the strokes, exactly the same approach will be used too assess
both the regularity and the rhythmicality of the hand that is being analysed. For the sake of
clarity, contrast and quality will be two separate entries in the template.
3.4.4
Modulus
In the previous paragraph, I explained in some detail the advantages of the way in which Jan
Burgers calculates and expresses the modulus of a handwriting. Therefore, this method will be
used in the template; the following approaches will be used to calculate the four elements of
which modulus consists. For the average height of the short letters (H), ten shafts of the letter
i will be measured; the average value will also be calculated and indicated in the template.85
The average height of the ascending letters (A) will be determined in the same way by
measuring ten shafts of the letter l – not at the first line of a folio, because the scribes in
Christine’s atelier tend to write quite exuberantly on first lines. However, whereas Burgers
proposes to calculate the average by using only the two extreme values, I will take into
account all ten measurements to calculate A. The average width of a single letter form (W)
85
Measurements will not be done at the first line of a folio. Also, if a scribe’s i is too irregular to provide an
accurate picture of H, the minims of m and n will be measured instead.
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
will be calculated by measuring the length of five lines of writing and dividing these values
by the corresponding total number of characters on that line; the average value will then be
calculated and indicated in the template. Finally, the line spacing (S) will be determined by
measuring the distance between the first and the last base line of a column and by dividing
that value by the number of lines minus one.86
The four average values for H, A, W, and S will then be expressed in the form H : A :
W : S and converted to H = 1, meaning that the values A, W, and S will be divided by the
value that is attributed to H. Thus, for example, the formula 2 : 5 : 3 : 6 will be converted to 1
: 2½ :1½ : 3. All of these steps will be indicated in the template.
3.4.5
Material aspect of the charters
In his dissertation, Jan Burgers explains that the characteristics of the parchment used in the
production of charters can be quite revealing as to the place where the parchment was made or
treated. In the case of the original manuscripts of Christine, it is generally believed that all the
manuscripts were written in the same scriptorium. Changes in the thickness, colour, or
roughness of the parchment are therefore only an indication of either a change in supplier, a
decrease in the quality of the available parchment, or a deliberate choice of Christine or one of
her helpers, and do not tell us anything about the different scribes that worked in the atelier.
Consequently, I will not take the characteristics of the parchment into consideration as a
criterion for identifying hands.
3.4.6
Width of the margins
As with the size and characteristics of the parchment, the width of the margins can often
reveal a lot as well about the scriptorium in which the folios were prepared for transcription.
However, since the scope of the present study is palaeographical more than codicological, this
element will not be taken into account here. Moreover, all texts are supposed to have been
written in the atelier of Christine, so there is no need to distinguish between different
scriptoria. Furthermore, the sizes of the manuscripts that were produced under Christine’s
supervision are too diverse to be of any use when it comes to hand identification.
86
See Chapter 4, p. 94 for a discussion of the relevance and statistical background of the number of
measurements.
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3.4.7
Ruling and course of the base line
In my analysis of ms London, BL Harley 4431, which will be discussed in Chapter 4, I have
remarked a good many irregularities in the course of the line of writing: at times, the line of
writing seems to be identical to the base line, at times there is a clearly visible distance
between the bottom of the short letters and the base line. Since it seems very difficult to try to
quantify this difference – the distance in itself not being a very accurate factor because of its
irregularity even in one and the same line – I have adopted Burgers’s categories straight,
waving, round, hollow, and ascending, descending, as well as overlapping, to describe the
course of the line of writing as accurately as possible. Figure 3.13 gives a graphical
representation of the different categories.
straight
waving
round
hollow
ascending
descending
overlapping
Figure 3.13: Graphical representation of the seven possible categories concerning the
ruling and course of the base line.
3.4.8
Decoration
By using the term decoration, Burgers means among other things enlarged or decorated
initials, decorated letter shafts, rubrication, and line-fillers. He does not take into
consideration illumination and border decoration. Although neither Gilissen nor Mallon
mentioned this aspect in their studies, I consider that Burgers is correct in emphasising the
importance of rich letter forms in a scribe’s handwriting. Unfortunately, the nature of this
category does not allow for a quantitative approach: a technical description of the decorative
elements, if necessary combined with a graphical representation of these rich letter forms, will
be the most accurate way of analysing this aspect. In the template, an empty space will be
created that is divided into the categories decorated capitals, decorated initials, decorated
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Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
shafts and abbreviations, rubrication, and other. The user will express his observations in
words, by giving a description of his findings.
3.4.9
Text structure
Mallon, Gilissen, and Burgers are right in stressing the importance of an analysis of the
structure of a text to ensure accurate hand identification: the scribes they want to localise and
identify are working in different places, with different materials and different habits. In the
case of the original manuscripts of works of Christine de Pizan, however, the source of the
text is clear – it has been composed by Christine herself –, as seems to be the place where the
copies were made. Therefore, it seems obvious to suggest that the scribe was not entirely free
to choose where to use virgulae, full stops, and capital letters for example; Christine must
doubtless have given her scribes an example, a model of the punctuation of a text in the
version she wrote in her Livre ou je met toutes mes choses. The intriguing question in this
light is: to what extent is copying a text really imitation, and to what extent is it a process of
internalising a handwriting and producing the text in one’s own hand? In other words, if
Christine, in her Livre ou je met toutes mes choses, writes a letter d like the one in Figure
3.14a, would the scribe then have been tempted to write the same letter form, or would he
have preferred to write his ‘own’ letter d, for instance the one in Figure 3.14b? The process of
internalising a handwritten text before copying it seems capable of greatly influencing the
form of the output – the handwriting – of a scribe. Unfortunately, the amount of literature that
is available on this subject is very limited; lack of information has made me decide to leave
the aspect of text structure aside in this Thesis.
(a)
(b)
Figure 3.14: Two different letter forms d in ms London, BL Harley
4431; detenu (a) and doulcour (b). Both are visible on f. 42v.
3.4.10 Abbreviations
The study of abbreviations in a text that has been copied from an exemplar raises once again
the question I posed in my discussion of the text structure; are the abbreviations inserted by
the author (meaning in the exemplars) or by the scribe? In the case of the abbreviations, the
74
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
answer seems to be a little bit easier to formulate. One could imagine, for example, that a first
version of a text, written to serve as exemplar, would have been executed rather quickly, thus
containing a lot of abbreviations – almost like a text written in shorthand. This implies that it
was up to the scribe, the ‘copier’, to decide which abbreviations were to be used and which
were not. If this were the case in the production process of Christine’s original manuscripts,
the abbreviations teach us only very little about the habits of the scribes in this matter.
Therefore, abbreviations will not be taken into account in the method of hand identification
designed in this Thesis.
3.4.11 Degree and type of cursivation of connected letters
Connecting letters is a scribal process which can be described as automatic; the scribe is not
aware of every single connection he makes. Since automatically and unconsciously executed
letters and letter forms can teach us a lot about a scribe’s habits, it seems safe to assert that the
same goes for letter connections. As we have seen in his description of letter connections,
Burgers distinguishes between normally connected and cursively connected letters, in order to
highlight the difference between nicely and neatly executed connector strokes and more
quickly written connectors. Since the case of Christine de Pizan only involves presentation
manuscripts, written with considerable care and executed in the most legible way, it seems
unnecessary to take this distinction into account. Therefore, in the template, a table will be
inserted to distinguish between connected and not connected letter combinations; within the
first category, subdivisions will include the four aforementioned types of connections: upper
connections, lower connections, combined connections, and curved connections. Five lines
will be examined in this way and the outcomes will be given in figures and percentages.
3.4.12 Cursivation of letter forms
By inserting this category in his list of aspects that need to be taken into account when
identifying scribal hands, Burgers stresses the importance of the occurrence of cursively
written letter forms in the charters he examines. As we have seen, he proposes to examine the
degree of cursivation found in shafts, tails with loops, and abbreviations, thereby implying
that different scribes have different habits when it comes to the cursive elements in their
handwriting.
Although Burgers seems to be correct, there is an overlap between this category and
the next category, Characteristic letter forms. Obviously, if we assume that a scribe always
75
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
writes the letter d like the one in Figure 3.14a, then the occurrence of the form in Figure 3.14b
is characteristic. The same goes for the difference between formal and cursive letters within
one handwriting: when a scribe uses – not exceptionally, but throughout his entire
transcription – a cursive form of the letter l, then the most intriguing aspect is not the mere
fact that this letter is executed in a cursive style, but rather its deviation from the style of the
other letters – be it based on its cursivation or on something else. Therefore, cursive letter
forms will be taken into account in the template as a subcategory of the aspect characteristic
letter forms.
3.4.13 Characteristic letter forms
As explained in paragraph 3.3.13, Burgers considers that automatically and unconsciously
written letter forms are just as important as the complex letter forms. I completely agree with
this point of view: the automatic elements in a hand – representing the instances in which a
scribe is not aware of the ductus of a letter or of the execution of a specific element – reveal
the scribe at his most unselfconscious, the artist whose work is not influenced by the
exemplar, by the prevailing views on how to execute a bastarda script, or by the wishes of his
master, but reflects his own, unconsciously determined habits. More complex letters can also
teach us a lot about the way in which a scribe deals with a complicated ductus and about the
choices he makes in the process of writing these complex letter forms.
Therefore, an empty space will be inserted in the template, enabling its user to
describe characteristic letter forms as freely and as accurately as possible; no attempt will be
made to quantify this aspect, for it is so closely related to the graphical representation of the
letters that it seems impossible to express characteristic letter forms numerically.
3.5
Conclusion
In the previous thirteen paragraphs, I have analysed each of Jan Burgers’s aspects, thereby
assessing their relevance for the study of Christine de Pizan’s original manuscripts. Due to the
limitations of the present study and the incompatibility of certain aspects in Burgers’s list, the
template that will be used to describe the hand – or hands – in Chapter 4 contains eight
elements, listed in Figure 3.15.
76
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
Angle of inclination
Angle of writing
Contrast and quality of the strokes
Modulus
Ruling and course of the base line
Decoration
Degree and type of cursivation of
connected letters
(8) Characteristic letter forms
Figure 3.15: The eight aspects present in the template.
The template for the description of a hand has been designed in accordance with the points
made in the previous paragraphs and is included in Appendix D. It consists of four pages, laid
out as uniformly as possible, and contains room for remarks after every element, as well as
empty lines for general remarks at the end of the template. A digital, easy-to-fill-in copy of
the template is saved onto the CD accompanying this Thesis, as well as a version of the
template in the Adobe Portable Document File (PDF) format. It is important to stress once
more that the template is tailored to the specific needs that are required for the accurate
description of Christine’s original manuscripts. Since some aspects have been – and indeed
had to be – left out, the template may not be able to provide sufficiently accurate descriptions
of handwriting other than that of literary texts from the beginning of the fifteenth century.
The idea of creating a generally applicable template for the description of scribal
hands is a fascinating thought and, in my view, an idea that demands further research and
investigation; the debate it would cause amongst scholars may influence palaeographers and
codicologists, as well as the way in which they look at manuscripts and handwriting.
Moreover, a universally used, set template will create a certain amount of uniformity in
descriptions of scribal hands and will greatly facilitate a comparison between these hands.
When pushing the boundaries of this subject even further, one might observe, at the horizon
of our palaeographical world, a uniform digital format for the description of scribal hands,
whose data can be read and stored by a computer database and made available on CD or on
the internet. Together with a similar format for codicological descriptions, this database
would contain nearly all available and useful information about the examined manuscripts.
77
Chapter 3: The Scribal Fingerprint
From this somewhat futuristic digression, we now return to the main argument of this Thesis.
In Chapter 4, I will, after an introduction and analysis of ms London, BL Harley 4431 (the socalled Queen’s Manuscript), apply the template for hand description to several parts of the
manuscript; from the outcomes of this analysis, I hope to be able to draw conclusions as to the
number of hands that occur in this manuscript.
78
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
CHAPTER 4
EXAMINING THE QUEEN’S MANUSCRIPT
4.1
Introduction
From the rather technical and theoretical descriptions in the previous Chapters, we now turn
to a more practical area, one to which we can apply the template that was created in Chapter
3: the analysis of one of Christine de Pizan’s original manuscripts. The choice of the
manuscript was an easy one, for several reasons. First of all, analysing a manuscript in the
way I propose, requires a lot of measuring in the manuscript itself, which – needless to say –
is not really encouraged by curators; the best solution to this problem is to work with highly
detailed digital images of the manuscript. Secondly, choosing not only an original manuscript,
but also one that has created contradictory views among scholars as to the number of hands
that occur in it, would make an interesting case even more interesting. Lastly, information
about and studies on the manuscript that is to be investigated need to be easily accessible.
Given these three desiderata, only one manuscript was available in digital images: the
famous and most interesting work of all, ms London, British Library, Harley 4431, the socalled Queen’s Manuscript. During a nine-week research internship at the University of
Edinburgh, I have been involved in the research project Christine de Pizan: the Making of the
Queen’s Manuscript, directed by Professor James Laidlaw. During my stay, I had the chance
to analyse high-detail images of the Queen’s Manuscript87 and to discuss my findings and
ideas with members of the research team, leading authorities in the field of études
christiniennes and adjacent disciplines. The description of the manuscript and the
observations in the first part of this Chapter are the outcome of my internship in Edinburgh.
In this Chapter, I propose to apply the hand description template as set out in Appendix D to
several parts of the Queen’s Manuscript. First, I will provide a concise description of the
manuscript and its history, including an overview of the codicological units and the general
87
See Laidlaw & Mansfield 2006, particularly p. 184 for information about the Harley images.
79
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
structure of the manuscript. Subsequently, I will undertake a technical analysis of the
manuscript, in which I will pinpoint folios in the manuscript where, according to my
palaeographer’s eye and that of others, changes of hands seem to occur. Finally, the template
will be filled in for each of these folios, and the outcomes will be analysed and interpreted.
Since, in this Thesis, I propose to examine the possibility and the feasibility of a quantitative
approach to hand description and identification, the use of the template will be restricted to
the quantitative aspects rather that the descriptive elements.
4.2
Codicological description
Manuscript London, British Library, Harley 4431 (hereafter: the Queen’s Manuscript, or
Harley 4431) is the largest and most famous original manuscript of the collected works of
Christine de Pizan. It consists of two separate volumes; the manuscript was originally one
codex, but after its acquisition by the British Museum (now British Library) in 1753, it was
rebound in two volumes. The first volume contains nineteen works, including a table of the
contents of both volumes and a prologue dedicating the manuscript to Queen Isabeau, the wife
of King Charles VI of France. The second volume consists of twelve works together with a
text called Epistre a la reine which has been scraped out. Altogether, the text has been written
on 399 folios divided into fifty-three quires. These quires – twenty-four in the first volume
and twenty-nine in the second – can be divided into ten codicological units, a term created by
the Dutch palaeographer and codicologist J.P. Gumbert to identify a section of a manuscript
which could be repositioned within the manuscript without disturbing the continuity of any of
the texts. In general, places where the transition between two texts coincides with the
transition between two quires (meaning that the end of a text coincides with the end of a
quire), delimit these codicological units.88 Table 4.1 shows the structure of the Queen’s
Manuscript, including the codicological units. A more detailed overview is included in
Appendix E.
88
See Gumbert 2004, pp. 12-6.
80
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
Unit
1
Folios
1a-3d
Quires
0
2
4a-94d
1-12
3
4
5
6
7
95a-142d
143a-177d
178a-220d
221a-236d
237a-254d
13-18
19-23
1-6
7
8-10
8
255a-289d
11-15
9
10
290a-377d
376a-399d
16-26
27-29
Texts
0. 2c-d, Table des dictiez en general
1. 3a-d, Prologue adreçant a la royne
2. 4a-21b, Cent balades
3. 21b-24b, Virelays: 16 poems
4. 24b-25a, Balades de plusieurs façons: 4 poems
5. 25b-27a, Une assemblee de plusieurs rimes auques
toutes leonimes en façon de lay (Lay de vers leonimes)
6. 27a-28d, Ung Aultre Lay
7. 28d-34b, Rondelz: 67 poems
8. 34c-37c, Gieux a vendre: 71 poems
9. 37c-48a, Plusieurs Balades de divers propos (Aultres
Balades): 50 ballades and 1 rondeau
10. 48b-49c, Une Complainte Amoureuse
11. 49c-51a, Encore aultres balades: 5 ballades and 4
rondeaux
12. 51b-56c, L'Epistre au dieu d'Amours
13. 56d-58b, Une Autre Complainte amoureuse
14. 58c-71b, Le Livre du debat des .ij. amans
15. 71c-81a, Le Livre des .iij. jugemens
16. 81b-94a, Le Livre de Poissy
17. 95a-141c, L'Epistre Othea
18. 143b-177d, Le Livre du Duc des vrays amans
19. 178a-219c, Le Livre du chemin de lonc estude
20. 221a-236c, Le Livre de la pastoure
21. 237a-254a, Le Livre des epistres du debat sus le
Rommant de la Rose
22. 255d-257a, Une Epistre a Eustace Morel (Deschamps)
23. 257b-259b, Une Oroison de la vie et passion de Nostre
Seigneur
24. 259c-261c, Proverbes moraulx
25. 261c-265b, Les Enseignemens (moraux) que Cristine
donne a son filz
26. 265b-266d, Une Oroison de Nostre Dame
27. 267a-267c, Les .xv. joyes Nostre Dame rimees
28. 268a-287c, Le Livre de Prudence
288c-289b, Table des rubriches du Livre de la cité des
dames
29. 290a-374a, Le Livre de la cité des dames
30. 376a-396b, Cent balades d'amant et de dame
396b-398b, Lay de dame (Lay mortel)
Table 4.1: General overview of the structure of Harley 4431.
From Appendix E we can conclude that Quire 7 of volume II is a codicological unit on its
own, because it can be placed anywhere between two other units without disturbing the
continuity of the texts, whereas Quire 8 cannot be moved, for the simple reason that the text it
contains continues in Quire 9 and its continuity would therefore be disturbed.
The manuscript is dated 1413-1414 by James Laidlaw, because of Christine’s allusions – in
one of the poems that was added to the manuscript at the very last minute – to the Duke of
81
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
Bourbon’s recapturing of the town of Soubise in late November of the year 1413.89 As
mentioned earlier, the Queen's Manuscript was dedicated and offered to Queen Isabeau of
France, perhaps in January 1414.90 In 1425, during the regency of John, Duke of Bedford over
the kingdom of France, the Englishman acquired the manuscript.91 After his death, it belonged
to his wife Jacquette of Luxemburg; her motto sur tous autres is visible on ff. 1r and 387r, as
well as her name in the margins of ff. 1r, 51v, and 52v.92 Her son Anthony Woodville, owner
of the book after his mother’s death, also left his signature and motto on f. 1r. He then gives
away the book as a gift to Louis Gruuthuse, also named Louis de Bruges, in the late fifteenth
century; his motto plus est en vous and his signature can also be found on f. 1r.93 After the
death of Louis in 1492, we lose track of the book. In the late seventeenth century Henry
Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, added his ex libris to the existing signatures on f. 1r. Through
his granddaughter Henrietta, the Queen's Manuscript entered the Harley family in 1713, when
she married Sir Edward Harley. In 1753, the Harley collections were acquired by the State
and the Queen's Manuscript became part of the library of the British Museum. The date
10.9.62, mentioned on the inside of the back cover, might be the date of separation of the two
volumes, leaving the question in which century this rebinding took place.
Gilbert Ouy and Christine Reno argue that the manuscript is entirely autograph;94 some other
scholars, however, have presented evidence that points towards a production process during
which multiple scribes worked together on the transcription of the texts. Gianni Mombello for
instance, in his 1967 magnum opus La tradizione manoscritta dell’“Epistre Othea” di
Christine de Pizan: prolegomeni all’edizione del testo, argues that the copy of the Epistre
Othea in the Queen's Manuscript was both transcribed earlier than the production of the
manuscript, and was written by two different hands.95 He bases his assertions on the
composition of the sixth quire of volume I, which is elaborately treated in Laidlaw 1987; the
latter scholar arrives at the same conclusion:
89
See Laidlaw 2006, p. 298, especially note 4.
See Laidlaw 2003, p. 344.
91
Summerfield 2004, p. 177, mentions the year 1425.
92
Appendix F shows f. 1r and indicates the different names and mottos that are visible.
93
See Summerfield 2004, p. 177.
94
See Ouy & Reno 1980, p. 227.
95
See Mombello 1967, pp. 199-200.
90
82
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
“The Queen’s Manuscript was copied by two scribes; a third hand may, however, be
responsible for some of the corrections which were made when the texts were being
‘proof-read’.”
(Laidlaw 1987, p. 66)
As explained earlier, I will attempt to provide a convincing answer to the problem of the
number of hands in the Queen's Manuscript by using the hand description template designed
in the previous Chapter. In order to apply the template to the right areas in the manuscript –
meaning the places in which a possible change of hands might occur – we must first
thoroughly examine the handwriting throughout the Queen's Manuscript.
4.3
Analysis of the handwriting
In his 1987 article “Christine de Pizan – A Publisher’s Progress”, James Laidlaw asserts that
the Queen's Manuscript has been written by at least two different scribes, thereby
contradicting Sandra Hindman’s views. In her article “The composition of the manuscript of
Christine de Pizan’s collected works in the British Library: A reassessment”, when analysing
ff. 48 and 51 of Quire 6, she claims that the shape of the letters in the parts where Mombello
found evidence that led him to believe that two hands were involved, reveals that
“both folios were written by Christine who, according to Gilbert Ouy, formed her letters
differently as her calligraphy evolved.”
(Hindman 1983, p. 109)
Laidlaw, however, observes a difference in the style and ductus of the initials in the
manuscript. Moreover, he pinpoints visible changes of hands on ff. 46, 48, and 51, describing
the difference as follows:
“The first hand is crisper and lighter than the second, which is more cursive and more
exuberant; particularly characteristic of the second hand are the long flourishes
associated with initials such as A.”
(Laidlaw 1987, p. 62)
Appendix G contains images of ff. 46r, 48r, and 51r. All three pages clearly contain texts
written in two different sorts of ink; moreover, the hand responsible for writing ff. 46b, 48b,
and 51a seems to be different from the writings on ff. 46a, 48a, and 51b. I agree with Laidlaw
in his concise description of these hands: the handwriting in the pale ink is much more neat,
concise and restrained than the darker looking and more exuberant handwriting. For the sake
83
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
of clarity, the hand in which ff. 46b and 48b-51a are written will be named A; the hand that
occurs in the other folios of Quire 6 is hand B.
The textual contents of Quire 6 and its history can be connected to the fact that two
different hands appear in this quire. Table 4.2 presents the contents of the quire, as well as our
observations about the different hands.
Folios
44a-48a
48b-49c
49c-51a
51b-56c
Text
Aultres Balades
Une Complainte Amoureuse
Encore aultres balades
Epistre au dieu d’Amours
Hands
B (46b = A)
A
A
B
Table 4.2: Overview of the contents of Quire 6.
Two conclusions have to be drawn from Table 4.2. Firstly, it seems as if hand A interrupts the
transcription process of hand B, who executes the beginning and the end of the quire.96 The
folios copied by A contain the texts Une complainte amoureuse and the Encore aultres
balades, consisting of five ballades and four rondeaux. Laidlaw 1987 shows that both texts
were added to the manuscript “at a late stage”,97 thus corroborating the possibility that they
were written by a hand other than the one who copied the earlier parts of the quire. The
material composition of the quire provides us with even more evidence pointing towards the
same conclusion. Figure 4.1, a slightly altered reproduction of the quire diagram as presented
by Laidlaw 1987 on page 63, shows the structure of the quire.
96
Below, we will see that hand B is also responsible for the transcription of quires 2-5 and 7-12, which
emphasises the interruption of hand A.
97
See Laidlaw 1987, p. 64.
84
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
Figure 4.1: The structure of Quire 6 of volume I.
According to Laidlaw, Quire 6 originally seems to have consisted of a quaternion (ff. 44-48
and 50ter-52); it was then enlarged by the bifolium 49-50bis, of which the third leaf was cut
away. Both the Complainte amoureuse and the Encore aultres balades have partly been
copied on these inserted folios, proving that these were the texts that Christine – being
supervisor of the preparation of the collection – wanted to add. Laidlaw puts forward a theory
that explains the cancelled folio:
“The Aultres balades end on fol. 48a and the Epistre au dieu d’Amours begins on fol.
51b, leaving eight blank columns [= 2 ff., MA] between the two items in the original
quire. The two new items are copied in different ink, the Complainte amoureuse on
fols 48b-49c and Encore autres balades on fols 49c-51a. However, between the
eighth poem on fol. 50d and the ninth and last on fol. 51a are two ruled leaves (50bis)
and (50ter), which are unnumbered and blank. The most likely explanation of this
curious state of affairs is that a gap was left by the scribe so that additional material
could be inserted between the Aultres balades and the Epistre au dieu d’Amours, and
the gap then proved to be too small; too many additional leaves were then added.
That the gap was left deliberately is shown by the absence of page titles on fols 47r48v and 50v-51r; elsewhere in the collection the sequence of page titles is almost
unbroken […].”
(Laidlaw 1987, p. 64)
85
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
Given the textual, palaeographical, and material evidence discussed above, it seems plausible
to assert that, indeed, two hands can be discerned in this quire: hand A, a steady, plain, and
rather light handwriting, and hand B, a much more heavy and exuberant handwriting. The
Figures in Appendix G clearly present the differences between the two hands.
A meticulous examination of the other texts in the Queen's Manuscript reveals that
both hands have transcribed other parts of the volumes as well. The first quire, containing the
Table des dictiez en general (ff. 2c-d) and the Prologue adreçant a la royne (ff. 3a-d), as well
as the following quire, consisting of ballades 1 to 45 of the Cent Balades (ff. 4a-11d), are the
work of hand A. Hand B takes over the transcription of the volume from f. 12a – where,
curiously enough, before beginning the transcription of Ballade 46, he recopies the last four
lines of f. 11d and subsequently scores them out in red – apart from the aforementioned
interruptions by hand A in Quire 6 – until f. 94a, the end of the Livre du dit de Poissy. The
Epistre Othea (ff. 95a-141c) has been copied in a hand that, at first sight, seems to differ
slightly from hands A and B; especially its exuberance is of a level that is intermediate to
hands A and B. The suggestion that this copy of the Epistre Othea was made independently
and perhaps originally not intended to be inserted in the Queen's Manuscript, as put forward
by Hindman, does seem to be strengthened by the presence of this unknown hand. Following
this hypothesis of Hindman, it may well be that the Epistre Othea was transcribed prior to the
transcription of the Queen’s Manuscript; thus, we may be confronted here with an early
variant of either hand A or hand B. Or does the Othea-hand belong to a third scribe, hired
prior to the making of the Queen's Manuscript? The Livre du Duc des vrays amans, the last
text in the first volume (ff. 143b-177d), was also copied by hand A. A detailed examination of
every single folio in the second volume of the Queen's Manuscript (ff. 178a-398b) has led me
to conclude that the entire volume was written in a single hand, which closely resembles the
hand of the Livre du Duc des vrays amans. Since, given the similarities between this hand and
hand A, it might be unjustifiable to attribute the transcription of both the Vrays amans and the
entire second volume of the Queen's Manuscript to hand A, I will consider this hand to be a
different one for the moment. The fact that this hand (which I will call hand D) has
transcribed ff. 143b to 398b seems incontestable to me – in my view, judging by my
palaeographer’s eye, the consistency of the handwriting is so remarkable that it seems
impossible that more than one scribe has transcribed the aforementioned folios. The
possibility of hand D being the same as hand A, however, is a question that I would rather
want to solve by using quantitative palaeography.
86
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
Unit
1
2
3
4
Quire
0 4+1
18
28
38
48
58
6 12-1
Folios
1-3
4-11
12-19
20-27
28-35
36-43
44-52
78
88
98
108
118
122
138
148
158
168
178
188
197
208
218
228
234
53-60
61-68
69-76
77-84
85-92
93-94
95-102
103-110
111-118
119-126
127-134
135-142
143-149
150-157
158-165
166-173
174-177
Hand
A
A
B
B
B
B
44-46a: B
46b: A
46c-48a: B
48b-51a: A
51b-52: B
B
B
B
B
B
B
C
C
C
C
C
C
D
D
D
D
D
Unit
5
6
7
8
9
10
Quire
18
28
38
48
58
63
716
88
98
102
113
128
138
148
158
168
178
188
198
208
218
228
238
248
258
268
278
288
298
Folios
178-185
186-193
194-201
202-209
210-217
218-220
221-236
237-244
245-252
253-254
255-257
258-265
266-273
274-281
282-289
290-297
298-305
306-313
314-321
322-329
330-337
338-345
346-353
354-361
362-369
370-377
376-383
384-391
392-399
Hand
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
Table 4.3: General overview of the hands in the Queen's Manuscript.
Table 4.3 presents a schematic overview of the yet-to-be-confirmed conclusions I have
reached through my analysis of the handwriting of the Queen's Manuscript: we have
encountered four hands in the manuscript, two of which might prove to be the same. Every
change of hands occurs at the end of a codicological unit, except for the interruptions in the
sixth quire and the change from hand A to hand B between Quires 1 and 298; some of these
rather unexpected changes have been explained, others have not yet been sufficiently
analysed. By means of the template for hand description, our quantitative approach to
palaeography will now be unleashed, so to speak, in order to describe, compare, and identify
the different hands in the Queen's Manuscript.
98
It is noted that the first quire, containing the table of contents and the prologue, has been given the number 0
because of its introductory nature and its independence from the rest of the codex.
87
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
4.4
Using quantitative palaeography on the Queen's Manuscript
The previous paragraphs have provided us with a number of very interesting problems and
questions concerning the number of hands that can be discerned in the Queen's Manuscript. In
this paragraph, quantitative palaeography will be applied to all of these questions in order to
try to come up with convincing answers. The present paragraph is divided in two
subparagraphs, in which the two following research questions will be addressed:
(1) Is there enough coherence in the folios and parts of folios that have been attributed to
one hand to assert that they do belong to one hand?
(2) Is the difference between hands A, B, C and D significant enough to speak of four
different hands or should that number be reduced?
The first question demands a comparison of different occurrences of what appears to be the
same handwriting to be able to verify the hypothetical division of hands. On the other hand,
the second question demands a comparison between hands which appear to be different to
enable us to determine whether that is or is not the case.
Different comparisons obviously demand different approaches. Therefore, I will
choose a number of folios for every hand; these folios will be analysed separately for every
hand and for every folio and their outcomes will be compared to provide the answer to the
first question. Subsequently, the completed templates for each hand will be compared to one
another to formulate an answer to the second research question.
The folios that will be examined, are chosen on the basis of several criteria. First of all, they
are spread out over the entire range of a hand which has been provisionally identified to make
sure the description will be as accurate as possible and reflect as many aspects of the hand as
possible. Secondly, the folios contain a significant amount of text; folios with a lot of blank
space or folios that contain miniatures will not normally be chosen.99
The scope of this process of description and identification is enormous. Analysing the
different hands places a huge demand on the user in question and his palaeographical skills.
Moreover, filling in the template for one single folio takes as much as four hours of
99
An exception will be made for the folios of hand C; the Epistre Othea contains 101 miniatures on forty-seven
folios, making it impossible to choose non-illuminated folios.
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Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
concentrated and painstaking examination. Since the present study is limited in both time and
space, it does not allow for an exhaustive analysis of the four discerned hands which have
been provisionally identified. Where an examination of five folios would seem to be enough
to describe a hand accurately, I have to limit myself to only two folios in this Thesis. In the
case of hand D, whose output appears to be considerably larger than that of the other hands, I
will examine three folios. Table 4.4 gives an overview of the folios that will be analysed.
Hand
A
B
C
D
Folios
ff. 3r, 3v *
ff. 10r, 10v
f. 46b **
ff. 69r, 69v
ff. 82r, 82v
ff. 108r, 108v
ff. 128r, 128v
ff. 201r, 201v
ff. 275r, 275v
ff. 354r, 354v
Table 4.4: Overview of the folios that have been chosen for the analysis.
Notes:
* Folio 3r contains a very large miniature showing Christine offering her
book to Queen Isabeau of Bavaria; despite the miniature, the folios will be
examined in a template.
** See above, pp. 83-6, for an explanation of why this folio is present.
The folios that are to be examined, were chosen at random and without a pre-analysis of their
usefulness or suitability. Each folio is examined following the same procedure. First, the recto
side is loaded onto the screen. Two or three lines are picked out at random, on the basis of
which the contrast and quality of the strokes are judged (aspects three and four in the
template).100 These lines are also used to determine the average width of a single letter form
(W), the degree and type of cursivation of connected letters, and the ruling and course of the
line of writing. Subsequently, five letters i are singled out and used to determine the angle of
writing and the average height of the short letters (H). Then, five letters l are chosen to
analyse the angle of inclination and the average height of the ascending letters (A). Finally,
the line spacing is determined for either column a or b, and the decorative elements are
described, followed by the characteristic letter forms. The entire procedure is then repeated
100
One could argue that the lines near the middle of the page are the best lines to use because they are not
influenced by the scribe’s psychological urge to complete a column or a page (as is the case near the bottom
lines), nor by his re-start near the top lines of every folio. These (perhaps) less regular lines are, however, a
genuine part of the scribe’s hand – or at least of his way of writing; leaving them out would therefore diminish
the accuracy of the method.
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Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
for the verso side of the same folio. In choosing the lines and the occurrences of i and l to be
examined in a particular folio, care is taken to ensure that the examples are as widely
separated from one another as possible.
4.4.1 Comparing templates of the same hand
The templates for hand description that have been filled in for hands A, B, C, and D are
included in Appendices H, I, J, and K respectively. Each template consists of four pages; each
Appendix contains all templates for one of the hands. I will discuss the outcomes for each
hand separately, in order to determine any similarities and differences in the descriptions.
4.4.1.1 Hand A
The quantitative outcomes of the analysis of hand A are strikingly similar. There is a
difference of only 1° in the average angles of inclination, and just 4° in the average angles of
writing. Moreover, the modulus is virtually the same in all three templates. Also, the average
percentages of not connected letter combinations are close: 11.4% for f. 3, 9.6% for f. 10, and
8% for f. 46b. Thus, all the quantitative arguments point towards the conclusion that our hand
A is, indeed, one single hand. The contrast and quality of the strokes are also almost perfectly
equal. The only real difference between the three templates lies in their outcomes for the
ruling and course of the line of writing. Whereas the templates for ff. 3 and 10 are identical,
the outcomes for f. 46b are close to being the opposite: the line of writing on f. 46b seems to
be round and descending, whereas the other templates have observed a hollow, ascending line
of writing. This difference may be explained by referring to the special character of f. 46b,
being in the middle of Quire 6.101
In conclusion, we can say that the folios that have been examined in Appendix H are
written in one single hand, thus corroborating the hypothesis that Quires 0, 1, and a part of
Quire 6 were transcribed by this hand A.
4.4.1.2 Hand B
The two templates that describe the characteristics of hand B are nearly identical. Their
moduli and angles only contain fractional differences, as do the descriptive elements. The
difference between the average percentage of not connected letters (6.2% on f. 69 and 15% on
f. 82) seems to be quite large at first sight; however, this difference of about 9% can also be
101
See above, pp. 83-6 for a discussion on Quire 6.
90
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
observed in almost every separate folio, judging by the templates. On these grounds, it seems
plausible to assert that both folios were written by the same hand.
4.4.1.3 Hand C
Hand C has been described virtually identically by both templates. Their angles of writing are
similar, and their angles of inclination show a difference of only 1°. As for the connected
letter combinations: the average percentages of the not connected combinations are 10.8% on
f. 108 and 19% on f. 128, the difference being a little more that 8%. The moduli of both
templates are almost identical as well, as are the descriptions of the decorative elements and
the line of writing. Therefore, all these findings serve to confirm the hypothesis that both
folios were written by the same hand.
4.4.1.4 Hand D
The arguments used to prove the similarities between the templates of the three other hands
also apply to hand D. All quantitative aspects corroborate the hypothesis that the examined
folios are in the same hand: the angles are nearly identical, as are the moduli. Moreover, the
percentages of not connected letter combinations are almost the same: 4.8% on f. 201, 8% on
f. 275, and 8.6% on f. 354. The descriptive elements only confirm the hypothesis that all three
folios are written in the same hand.
It seems safe to conclude that the provisional division between the four hands, as presented in
paragraph 4.3, has been confirmed by the outcomes of our analyses based on using
quantitative palaeography. The question is now whether the four hands are completely
different from each other, or whether one or more of these hands may prove to be the same.
4.4.2 Comparing hands A, B, C, and D
Let us begin by making the most obvious observation: the differences between the four hands
are very small. Virtually all aspects show the same averages in the different templates; at first
sight, no remarkable ‘outsiders’, no obvious distinctions. In a way, this was to be expected; all
hands use the bastarda script, the scribes were trained in the same way and are believed to
work in the same scriptorium, on the same materials and exemplar, in short, in virtually
identical conditions. Therefore, it cannot be considered a surprise that no startling differences
come to light.
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Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
By focusing on the similarities, the hand description templates of hand C differ less from
those of hands A and D than I expected. The angle of inclination and the height of the
ascending letters are strikingly similar in the three hands. Given these similarities, and
considering that there are no startling differences, it can be concluded from our examinations
using quantitative palaeography that hand C is the same hand as hands A and D.
Two intriguing differences can be observed through a careful examination of the quantitative
aspects, both related to hand B. Firstly, the angle of inclination of hand B shows averages of
79° and 82°, making a total average of 81°, whereas the average angles of hands A, C, and D
are 89°, 88°, and 87°. This difference of 6° is significantly more than the general 3° or 4° we
encounter in other comparisons. Interestingly enough, this corresponds to our assertions in
Chapter 3 about the visible differences in inclination between the various hands. Moreover,
the observed angles of inclination lead us to conclude that hands A, C, and D can be attributed
to one single scribe; hand B belongs to a second scribe.
Secondly, another distinction can be observed when comparing the average height of the
ascending letters (A). The averages of hands A, C, and D are 3.5, 3.6, and 3.5 mm, whereas
the total average of hand B is 3.9 mm. At first sight, the difference of 0.4 mm might not seem
significant; I, however, would claim that it is significant and indeed relevant, because the
normal difference in this category is 0.1 mm, as we can deduce from the total averages; a
difference of 0.4 mm means a deviation of 400% from the normal difference and does seem
significant enough to be taken into account. Again, it seems safe to conclude from this
observation that hands A, C, and D are different from hand B; in addition, given the
similarities in the height of the ascending letters between hands A, C, and D, it is likely to
assert that hands A, C, and D are the work of one scribe.
The case of hand B is very intriguing. The quantitative evidence resulting from the outcomes
of the templates of this hand corroborates our findings in earlier paragraphs of this Chapter.
Given the significance of the differences between hand B on the one hand and hands A, C,
and D on the other hand, and taking into account the obvious difference between hands A and
B following our discussion of Quire 6, it seems in every way plausible to conclude that the
Queen's Manuscript is written in two different hands. Hand A (formerly A, C, D) has
transcribed the largest part of volume I and the entire second volume; hand B intervenes at the
92
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
beginning of the second quire (at f. 12) and continues the transcription of the volume until f.
94 (the end of the Livre de Poissy), interrupted by hand A in Quire 6.
This conclusion leaves us with one intriguing question which quantitative palaeography is
incapable of answering: why does hand B take over the transcription process at f. 12, in the
middle of the Cent Balades? In the concluding paragraph, a review of the method of
quantitative palaeography and its outcomes will be undertaken by means of evaluation. Some
general issues, as well as a number of case-specific problems, will be discussed.
4.5
Conclusion
In this Chapter, the method of quantitative palaeography – as described in Chapter 3 – has
been used for the first time. It has been applied to a difficult case – it is not very easy to
distinguish between several hands that use the same script and work in virtually identical
conditions – and has proven its usefulness in clearly distinguishing between hands A and B.
Thus, the quantitative approach has provided us with enough evidence to question the
existence of hand X: our conclusions clearly show that hand X can be subdivided in hands A
and B. This revolutionary conclusion raises a great many questions: what does this mean for
the thirty-four other codices that have been attributed to hand X? Is it possible to attribute one
of the new hands to Christine? Can the difference between hands A and B be explained by
assuming that they belong to the same scribe, but represent different periods in the active
career of the scribe in question? Can it be that one of the new hands is to be identified as hand
P or R? Each of these questions merits a separate and in-depth study of the exact differences
between hands A and B, and their possible resemblance to other hands.
The quantitative aspects of our method for the identification of scribal hands have been of
great importance concerning the hand identification, and their detailed outcomes are highly
satisfying. The angles of writing and inclination and the modulus calculations have created
results that specifically facilitate comparison between hands. However, no method is perfect
upon its first application. The outcomes of some aspects in the template are less satisfying
than I had anticipated. First of all, it has turned out to be extremely difficult to judge a writing
on the contrast and quality of its strokes. Not only does this aspect demand a very trained eye
and much knowledge of palaeography, it is also quite difficult to interpret the results of these
93
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
categories. The rhythmicality of the strokes is especially hard to judge; the same can be said
of the ruling and course of the line of writing. It seems that the outcomes of this category are
not very relevant in the case of Christine de Pizan because of the fixed geographical location
in which she produced all her manuscripts, and because of the apparent uniformity of her
team of scribes. That is, the course of the line of writing is often dependent on the course of
the ruled base line. Although this line may vary from place to place and from person to person
– as is the case with charters – it produces more information about the ruler than it does about
the scribe; to a certain extent, the scribe is obliged to follow the ruling, thus shaping his line
of writing as he goes along.
Another element that needs to be discussed in this light is the difficulties resulting
from the use of digital images. Although the Harley images are exceptionally detailed and
using them has provided me with an enormous amount of data, the photos have sometimes
been taken with a fairly sloping camera, which complicates a judgement on the line for
writing. Moreover, the camera has not been fixed at a certain distance from the manuscript,
which greatly hampers measurements, for instance those concerning the modulus. Finally, the
tightness of the binding of Harley 4431 means that a lot of pages near the centre of both
codices have not been opened very well, which causes the lines to curve towards the inner
margin of the folios; this hinders a good measurement of the width of the lines. All these
parameters have to be taken into account when applying quantitative palaeography to digital
images.
This brings us to the last aspect of the method: significance. Since this Thesis presents the
very first application of our method of quantitative palaeography, it is impossible to gauge the
significance of some of the findings. The differences that have been presented as significant in
the previous paragraph deviate from the norm to such extent that they can indeed be
considered significant and relevant enough to be taken into account, but what conclusions
should we draw from smaller differences? When is a difference statistically significant
enough in the perspective of this method? And to what extent does that depend on the ways of
measuring? Again, how many measurements have to be executed to ensure a valid corpus of
data? And does this depend on the nature of the measurements?102 These problems
102
For the statistical part of the method, I have made use of Burgers 1995, who on pp. 33 (note 79) and 34 (note
82), pays attention to mathematical statistics in relation to his method of hand description; see also Michel 1982,
p. 258.
94
Chapter 4: Examining the Queen’s Manuscript
unfortunately fall outside the scope of the present study, but will have to be addressed in order
to improve the method.
Despite the shortcomings and recommendations mentioned above, this short evaluation of the
method of quantitative palaeography can only be very positive. In my view, the new approach
offered by quantitative palaeography merits a thorough rethinking and reshaping – perhaps
along the lines set out above. Combined with expertise in palaeography, and indubitably with
a little help from the computer, it has the potential of earning itself a place alongside the
discipline of quantitative codicology, proving its validity to the entire palaeographical
community.
95
Conclusion
CONCLUSION
In returning to the poor scribe of the Moralia in Job, it becomes clear that the scriptorium in
which Christine de Pizan’s original manuscripts were copied, did probably not suffer from
slowly working scribes. Given the unusually high pressure on the artists, they must often have
been pushed to their limits to ensure the completion of one of the countless transcriptions that
were produced in the atelier. As we have seen in Chapter 1, Christine’s scriptorium and its
production process was, and still is, the centre of interest of palaeographers and codicologists.
A careful examination of the production of several original manuscripts has provided us with
evidence to question the hypothesis that hands X and X’ can both be attributed to Christine. In
addition, an output analysis of scribe X even casts doubt upon the existence of scribe X, as the
amount of work attributed to this scribe cannot possibly have been done by a single person.
Chapter 2 further investigates this hypothesis by examining the physical possibility that all
tasks of scribes X and X’ were executed by one person. A quantitative approach to this
problem, which aims at determining the speed with which the most important stages in the
production process of a manuscript might have been executed, results in even more evidence
arguing against the hypothesis X + X’ = Christine. An interpretation of the outcomes of this
quantitative approach learns that, from this codicological perspective, it is likely that hands X
and X’ belong to two different scribes.
This conclusion probably raises more questions than it answers: what about the
apparent literary relation between scribes X and X’? If Christine was involved in the making
of her manuscripts, can she be identified as either scribe X or the correcting scribe X’? Or is
there no reason to suspect that either of them is Christine?
The last two Chapters provide us with a zoom on the palaeographical characteristics of hand
X, while presenting at the same time a broader view on hand description and analysis in
general. In Chapter 3, a thorough analysis of the available literature about hand description
96
Conclusion
and identification leads to the creation of a new method for hand description, based primarily
on the work of the Dutch palaeographer Jan Burgers. This method focuses on quantifiable
aspects of a handwriting and helps the user to correctly register them in a specially designed
template that facilitates a comparison between hands.
In Chapter 4, the template is applied to the Queen’s Manuscript, aiming at a better
understanding of the number of hands that appear in the manuscript; during the filling-in of
the templates with data from different parts of the manuscript, the emphasis was on the
quantitative aspect, for that element of a palaeographical analysis is the main research subject
of this Thesis. An examination of the templates reveals that, according to the method used
here, two different hand seem to be present in the manuscript, which would imply that at least
two scribes worked on the transcription of the Queen’s manuscript.
This may very well be the most controversial result of this Thesis: if, indeed, hand X is
the work of two scribes (for the sake of clarity, I have named them A and B), all manuscripts
that have been attributed to hand X will have to be re-examined in order to cast light upon the
exact number of hands that occur in these manuscripts.
This brings us back to the research question of this study: can we divide a handwriting in a
number of quantifiable aspects whose results produce a unique set of characteristics for a
handwriting? Is the concept of a scribal fingerprint of any use to palaeography?
There are two sides to this story. Firstly, I believe that the approach presented here can
be very useful to researchers in the field of palaeography. In a way, quantitative palaeography
is less dependent on the palaeographer’s eye than traditional methods of hand identification:
the numerical aspects ensure a more scientific and more easily comparable set of arguments
on the basis of which other hands can be identified. I would, therefore, be inclined to say that
the results from the analysis in Chapter 4 are promising in every way. However, as mentioned
in paragraph 4.5, the method for hand description – and consequently also the template – are
not perfect. A number of improvements and investigations will have to be carried out in order
to improve the significance of the output. This is not to say that the current results are not
significant, but rather to stress that even more detail and accuracy in the measurements will
result in an even more significant output.
Accuracy and ease of use are two key words for improving the method of quantitative
palaeography. The quantitative aspects of the templates in this Thesis have been measured by
97
Conclusion
using a setsquare on a computer screen – which, by the way, is not advisable: if it does not kill
your screen, it will surely kill your eyes. This way of determining heights and widths of letter
forms evidently needs improvement. For several reasons, the computer seems to be the most
obvious solution to this problem. Firstly, the most important feature of a computer is that it
can measure digital images in pixels, a unit of measurement that is independent from the
original size of the image in question. Thus, there is no need to adjust an image to a specific
zoom level before measuring. Moreover, several software packages already offer the
possibility to digitally measure elements of an image by selecting them or by using a
measuring tool; this would not only improve the accuracy of the measurements, but also the
user-friendliness of the template.
Secondly – pushing the pixel approach even further – it would be a brilliant
improvement if a software package is designed that is capable of transforming a handwritten
page into a binary setting: black pixels for handwriting (or ink) and white pixels for places
where parchment or paper is visible. Isolating a handwriting in this way will open up a whole
range of new possibilities. For instance, one could vividly imagine a tool connecting the
bottom of all letters on a line by means of a digitally drawn line and analysing the course of
this line: the output would be our category Ruling and course of the line of writing. In
addition, existing software could be combined to provide a vectoring tool that calculates the
angle of inclination of a letter by analysing the distance and angle between pixels at, for
instance, the left and right hand side of the letter l.
Finally, a programme that executes some of the aforementioned operations and
measurements automatically and reports its findings in a digital form – perhaps in an HTML
file or in a Microsoft Excel template – will indubitably be the apogee of quantitative
palaeography. However, given the fact that expertise in the field of graphical analysis has not
very often been applied to palaeographical problems, this idea may sound futuristic, and,
indeed, it may very well be an overoptimistic view. At any rate, one thing is clear: the
computer will never take over the entire field of palaeography, primarily because a computer
is simply not capable of performing some palaeographical tasks with the same success as the
palaeographer’s eye. A computer demands input to be given before it can undertake an
analysis; this choice of input – meaning the selection of digital images to be examined – is,
for instance, a task that will probably always be executed by an experienced palaeographer. In
my view, however, computer software can play a vital role as a tool in performing
palaeographical examinations. By means of this quantitative approach, I not only hope to have
98
Conclusion
proven the usefulness of a numerical method of hand description, but I also want to encourage
further research into the promising co-operation of computer and codex, mouse and
manuscript, hard disk and handwriting.
99
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103
Appendices
APPENDICES
104