Geographical Studies in Early Medieval Europe: The Manuscript Transmission of Latin Geographical Texts and Commentaries, ca. 800-1100

00-80229 - Natalia Lozovsky（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校）-“近代早期欧洲的地理研究：大约800 - 1100年拉丁地理文本和评论的手稿传播”目的：传统的故事代表了拉丁西方中世纪早期科学衰落的时期。与传统的假设相反，地理学在中世纪的思想和教育中占有重要地位，并像所有早期中世纪科学一样，按照自己的规则和规范发展。天文学和历法计算等学科的平行证据加强了重新考虑我们对传统故事所称的“12世纪文艺复兴”之前一段时期科学的看法的理由。该项目将调查中世纪早期蓬勃的地理传统，这些传统在许多手稿中幸存下来，这些手稿传播了由Martianus Capella， Macrobius, Pomponius Mela， Pliny和Solinus撰写的权威古典地理文本。这些文本通常附有注释和图表，以澄清其含义并扩展其观点，为中世纪地理学的知识和社会参数提供了独特的证据。该项目将分析中世纪早期地理知识的内容、方法和功能，并展示对这一历史科学知识的重建如何丰富和改变我们的科学发展图景。利用初步研究的结果作为基础，该项目还将致力于创建一个适合中世纪科学研究的概念框架，并可能适用于一般的前现代科学。方法：该项目基于对欧洲图书馆保存的中世纪拉丁语手稿的研究。研究的主要对象将是对经典文本的学术解释，以及在不同的手稿中传播的文本的变化。这些都揭示了对古典传统的理解在不同的时间和地点是如何发展的。因此，在第一阶段的方法将是细读拉丁文手稿，其目的是：1)识别文本的变化，从一个手稿副本到另一个；2)识别和抄写行间和边缘的解释和图表。在第二阶段，该项目将测试其他历史学科的学者所使用的方法和概念工具是否适用于中世纪材料。意义：对这一重要的、以前被忽视的来源类别的分析将为我们对早期科学的研究提供一个主要的研究基础和一个概念框架，这两者目前在很大程度上是缺失的。因此，该项目不仅将为中世纪早期地理学的发展和意义开辟一个新的视角，而且在更广泛的意义上，它将对前现代科学史做出新的贡献，因为中世纪地理学可以作为其他研究领域的有用模型。

00-80229 - Natalia Lozovsky (University of Colorado at Boulder) - "Geographical Studies in Early Modern Europe: The Manuscript Transmission of Latin Geographical Texts and Commentaries, ca. 800 - 1100"Objectives: The traditional story represents the early Middle Ages in the Latin West as a period of scientific decline. Contrary to traditional assumptions, geography occupied an important place in medieval thought and education and developed following its own rules and norms, like all early medieval sciences. Parallel evidence of such disciplines as astronomy and calendric computation reinforces the case for reconsidering our picture of science in the period immediately preceding what the traditional story has termed "the Renaissance of the twelfth century."This project will investigate the vigorous geographical tradition of the early Middle Ages, which survived in numerous manuscripts transmitting authoritative classical geographical texts written by Martianus Capella, Macrobius, Pomponius Mela, Pliny, and Solinus. Often accompanied by commentaries and diagrams that clarified their meaning and expanded their ideas, these texts provide unique evidence about both intellectual and social parameters of medieval geography. The project will analyze the content, methods, and functions of early medieval geographical knowledge and demonstrate how a reconstruction of this historical variety of scientific knowledge enriches and changes our picture of scientific development.Using the results of the primary research as a foundation, the project will also aim at creating a conceptual framework appropriate for the study of medieval science and potentially applicable to pre-modern sciences in general.Methods: The project is based on the study of medieval Latin manuscripts preserved in the libraries of Europe. The principal objects of research will be scholarly explanations of the classical texts as well as the variations in the text transmitted in different manuscripts. All these reveal how the understanding of classical tradition developed at different times and places. Therefore, at the first stage the method will be close reading of Latin manuscripts, which aims at: 1) identification of variations in the text from one manuscript copy to another; 2) identification and transcription of interlinear and marginal explanations and diagrams.At the second stage, the project will test the methods and conceptual apparatus used by scholars in other historical disciplines for their applicability to medieval material.Significance: The analysis of this important and previously neglected category of sources will provide our study of early sciences with a primary research foundation and a conceptual framework, both largely missing at present. Thus not only will the project open a new perspective on the development and meaning of geography in the early Middle Ages, but, in a broader sense, it will be a new contribution to the history of pre-modern sciences, since medieval geography may serve as a useful model in other areas of study.