Medieval Lunch. Scribal Protagonism in the Codex Albeldensis (975-976 CE)

The illuminated manuscripts of 10th-century Christian Iberia are remarkable not only for their beauty, but also for the insistence with which the people who made them draw our attention to their activity through explicit visual and linguistic representation. My book-in-progress, Remember the Hand, argues that, while of course serving the authoritative text that they copy and illuminate, these makers pursue a parallel agenda that gives protagonism not only to the authoritative text that the codex contains, but also to the codex itself as material object and the book worker responsible for its existence.

This talk will explore how this protagonism of codex and maker works in the great illuminated law compendium that is the Codex Albeldensis, completed by Vigila, his associate Sarracinus, and his student Garcia in 977 CE.