The body and the book, England 1350-1600: manuscripts and printed books at Wellcome Collection
Lead Research Organisation:
Birkbeck, University of London
Department Name: English and Humanities
Abstract
Since I first encountered manuscripts as an undergraduate, I have been captivated by the material aspects of medieval culture. My research encompasses manuscript study, physicality, and domesticity, where I have found the 'mundane', the 'unassuming', and the 'marginal' to offer the most productive sites for investigation. The signs of use in recipe manuscripts, medical collections, and even domestic records reveal the intimate associations between bodies and books, fostering a profound connection with the individuals whose interactions with their books endure to this day. Wellcome Library MS 632, a birth girdle stained with use and worn to the point of illegibility, encapsulates this intimacy. Pressed against skin and bound up in the protective rituals of birth, the talismanic comfort offered by this text is as relatable as its form is alien for modern readers. Texts for and about women's bodies can be both surprisingly familiar and tantalisingly strange, motivated by timeless fears and fascinations, and yet represented in varied and ever-developing ways. I wish to explore the changes in attitudes towards pregnancy in the late medieval/early modern period, and investigate how manuscript form was deployed to reflect the changing status of the female body across diverse discourses.
The pregnant body was a nexus for numerous concerns - about spirituality, morality, medicine, literature, and more. The material contexts of writing about pregnancy (from conception, through gestation, to birth) epitomise this, with pregnancy and birth amongst the various topics included in manuscript miscellanies. I would like to investigate the relationships between pregnancy and other topics as they appear alongside each other textually, to establish the boundaries (or lack thereof) between different discourses. My previous work on culinary recipes has used both codicological and archaeological approaches to evaluate the distinctions between culinary and medical texts, assessing palaeographical formality, mises-en-page, organisational strategies, and written content to understand the overlap between these genres, and re-evaluate their relative grades of formality. I will continue this methodology, understanding the place writers gave the female body and birth compared with other topics. Wellcome MS 510, for example, would be ideal for this evaluation. As a collection of extracts, MS 510 evinces a particular fascination with the body, containing several tracts on physiognomy and chiromancy (including illustrations), as well as a birth chart. I am curious to see how this manuscript, and similar examples, treat birth palaeographically and codicologically; whether it is afforded a similar status to topics separate from the female body, or whether this astrological table differs from the material surrounding it. More generally, how are these topics presented on the page? Are they central, or marginalised? Elaborate, or plain? Obviously, every manuscript is different, and they will undoubtedly complicate and contradict each other. However, I believe this evaluation will illuminate the shifting attitudes towards the female body, and its associated concerns, demonstrating broad trends in the presentation of pregnancy-related texts.
The pregnant body was a nexus for numerous concerns - about spirituality, morality, medicine, literature, and more. The material contexts of writing about pregnancy (from conception, through gestation, to birth) epitomise this, with pregnancy and birth amongst the various topics included in manuscript miscellanies. I would like to investigate the relationships between pregnancy and other topics as they appear alongside each other textually, to establish the boundaries (or lack thereof) between different discourses. My previous work on culinary recipes has used both codicological and archaeological approaches to evaluate the distinctions between culinary and medical texts, assessing palaeographical formality, mises-en-page, organisational strategies, and written content to understand the overlap between these genres, and re-evaluate their relative grades of formality. I will continue this methodology, understanding the place writers gave the female body and birth compared with other topics. Wellcome MS 510, for example, would be ideal for this evaluation. As a collection of extracts, MS 510 evinces a particular fascination with the body, containing several tracts on physiognomy and chiromancy (including illustrations), as well as a birth chart. I am curious to see how this manuscript, and similar examples, treat birth palaeographically and codicologically; whether it is afforded a similar status to topics separate from the female body, or whether this astrological table differs from the material surrounding it. More generally, how are these topics presented on the page? Are they central, or marginalised? Elaborate, or plain? Obviously, every manuscript is different, and they will undoubtedly complicate and contradict each other. However, I believe this evaluation will illuminate the shifting attitudes towards the female body, and its associated concerns, demonstrating broad trends in the presentation of pregnancy-related texts.
