A beautifully illustrated, full color history of scrolls and their uses in medieval life.
Why make a scroll when you can make a book? This is the key question that music historian Thomas Forrest Kelly answers in The Role of the Scroll. Scrolls were the standard form of book in Western antiquity, but from the fourth century onward, the codex began to outnumber scrolls. And yet, people in the Middle Ages continued to make them.
In these colorful pages, you'll discover remarkable scrolls that range from showy court documents for empresses to tiny amulets for pregnant women, from pilgrimage maps to small, portable actors' scrolls. An alchemical recipe for gold will give you a glimpse into medieval life as a metalsmith, and surveying a lengthy list of gifts for Queen Elizabeth I enables you to observe a royal court party. Lively and accessible, The Role of the Scroll is essential reading-and viewing-for anyone interested in how people have kept record of life through the ages.
A beautifully illustrated, full color history of scrolls and their uses in medieval life.
Why make a scroll when you can make a book? This is the key question that music historian Thomas Forrest Kelly answers in The Role of the Scroll. Scrolls were the standard form of book in Western antiquity, but from the fourth century onward, the codex began to outnumber scrolls. And yet, people in the Middle Ages continued to make them.
In these colorful pages, you'll discover remarkable scrolls that range from showy court documents for empresses to tiny amulets for pregnant women, from pilgrimage maps to small, portable actors' scrolls. An alchemical recipe for gold will give you a glimpse into medieval life as a metalsmith, and surveying a lengthy list of gifts for Queen Elizabeth I enables you to observe a royal court party. Lively and accessible, The Role of the Scroll is essential reading-and viewing-for anyone interested in how people have kept record of life through the ages.
Thomas Forrest Kelly is professor of music at Harvard University. The author of The Role of the Scroll, Capturing Music, and Music Then and Now, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"We all supposed that scrolls had more-or-less died out in the
ancient world, to be superseded by the codex. This fascinating book
unfolds a parallel universe of manuscripts throughout the Middle
Ages. The living fossils from antiquity were actually still there,
alive and invisible, in every aspect of medieval book production.
They just keep rolling, they keep on rolling along."
*Christopher de Hamel, author of Meetings with Remarkable
Manuscripts*
"There is much to admire in Kelly's concise, well-illustrated, and
vivid account."
*Bernard Meehan, Research Fellow, Trinity Medieval History Research
Centre, Trinity College Dublin*
"This is a wonderful introduction to the medieval scroll. A
thoroughly enjoyable reading with numerous insights on this very
popular form and exceptionally illustrated with key examples and
explanatory caption."
*Orietta Da Rold, Fellow at St. John’s College, Cambridge*
"... lively book... There are many beautiful images here: we are
able to study scrolls containing recipes—culinary, medical, magical
and alchemical (some of them were lavishly illustrated); rolls of
arms; maps for pilgrimages; and royal genealogies."
*Times Literary Supplement*
"This lavishly illustrated survey provides a superb overview of
these important and often beautiful artefacts."
*Times Higher Education*
"This book sets out to set the record straight by instancing the
scroll in various forms throughout the Middle Ages into the
Renaissance."
*The Art Newspaper*
"... well-illustrated and highly readable volume... decades of
research into scrolls by the author has resulted in a fascinating
glimpse of their use throughout history..."
*The Catholic Herald*
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