Synopses & Reviews
This volume builds upon the widening interest in the connections between culture and communication in medieval and early modern Europe. Focusing on England, it takes a critical look at the scholarly paradigm of the shift from script to print, exploring the possibilities and limitations of these media as vehicles of information and meaning. The essays examine how pen and the press were used in the spheres of religion, law, scholarship, and politics. They assess ascribal activity both before and after the advent of printing, illuminating its role in recording and transmitting polemical, literary, antiquarian and utilitarian texts. They also investigate script and print in relation to the spoken word, emphasising the constant interaction and symbiosis of these three media. In sum, this collection will help to refine the boundaries between cultures of speech, manuscript and print, and to reconsider the historical fissures which they have come to represent.
Review
"...timely and provocative..." Seventeenth-Century News
Synopsis
This volume investigates written communication before and after the introduction of printing. Focusing on England, it considers the uses of script and print by various individuals, groups and communities in the spheres of religion, law, scholarship and politics, and makes a reassessment of the impact of printing.
Synopsis
This 2003 volume investigates written communication before and after the introduction of printing in England.
About the Author
Julia Crick is Senior Lecturer in History, University of Exeter.Alexandra Walsham is Senior Lecturer in History, University of Exeter.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: Script, print and history Alexandra Walsham and Julia Crick; Part I. Script, Print and Late Medieval Religion: 2. Publication before print: the case of Julian of Norwich Felicity Riddy; 3. Printing, mass communication and religious reformation: the middle ages and after David d'Avray; 4. Print and pre-Reformation religion: the Benedictines and the press in early Tudor England James G. Clark; Part II. Script, Print and Textual Tradition: 5. Law and text: legal authority and judicial accessibility in the late middle ages Anthony Musson; 6. The art of the unprinted: transcription and English antiquity in the age of print Julia Crick; 7. The authority of the word: manuscript, print and the text of the Bible in seventeenth-century England Scott Mandelbrote; Part III. Script, Print and Speech: 8. The functions of script in the speech community of a late medieval town, c.1300-1550 Andrew Butcher; 9. The sound of print in early modern England: the broadside ballad as song Christopher Marsh; 10. Communicating with authority: the uses of script, print and speech in Bristol 1640-1714 Jonathan Barry; Part IV. Script, Print and Persecution: 11. Preaching without speaking: script, print and religious dissent Alexandra Walsham; 12. Publish and perish: the scribal culture of the Marian martyrs Thomas S. Freeman; 13. Print, persecution and polemic: Thomas Edwards' Gangraena (1646) and Civil War sectarianism Ann Hughes; 14. Epilogue Margaret Aston.