The body and the book, England 1350-1600: manuscripts and printed books at Wellcome Collection

《身体与书本，英国 1350-1600 年：威康收藏中的手稿和印刷书籍》

• 批准号: 2278428
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Birkbeck, University of London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2019 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2278428
• 关键词: body; book; England; 1350; 1600

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.

自从我第一次遇到本科生的手稿以来，我一直被中世纪文化的物质方面所吸引。我的研究涵盖了手稿研究，身体和家庭性，在这里我找到了“平凡”，“谦虚”和“边缘”，以提供最有生产力的研究地点。食谱手稿，医疗收藏甚至家庭记录中使用的迹象揭示了身体与书籍之间的亲密关联，从而与与今天与书籍的互动持续的个人建立了深远的联系。 Wellcome Library MS 632是一种用使用并磨损到算不可知的出生腰围，封装了这种亲密关系。贴在皮肤上并束缚在出生的保护仪式中，此文本提供的护身符舒适感与现代读者陌生一样相关。关于女性身体的文字和周围的文字可能是令人惊讶的熟悉和诱人的奇怪，这是由永恒的恐惧和迷人的动机，但以多种多样，不断发展的方式代表。我希望探讨中世纪晚期/近代早期对怀孕的态度的变化，并研究如何部署手稿形式以反映女性身体在各种各样的话语中的状况变化。怀孕的身体是许多关注的联系 - 关于精神，道德，医学，医学，文学等的许多关注。关于怀孕（从构思，妊娠到出生）写作的物质背景表明了这一点，在手稿杂项中包含的各种主题中的怀孕和出生。我想调查怀孕与其他主题之间的关系，因为它们在文本上彼此出现，以建立不同话语之间的界限（或缺乏）。我以前关于烹饪食谱的工作既采用了复杂的和考古学方法来评估烹饪和医学文本之间的区别，评估了古学形式，评估了古迹，页面，组织策略和书面内容来了解​​这些类型之间的重叠，并重新评估其形式相对的相对渐变。我将继续这种方法，了解作家与其他主题相比，作家给女性的身体和出生。例如，Wellcome MS 510将是此评估的理想选择。作为提取物的集合，MS 510表现出对身体的特别着迷，其中包含几条有关相术和chiromancy（包括插图）以及出生图。我很想知道该手稿和类似的例子是如何在古生地和编白上对待出生的。它是否具有与与女性身体分开的主题相似的状态，还是该占星术桌子与周围的材料有所不同。更一般地，这些主题在页面上如何介绍？它们是中央还是边缘化？精心设计，还是平原？显然，每个手稿都是不同的，毫无疑问，它们将使彼此复杂化和矛盾。但是，我认为这项评估将阐明对女性身体的转变态度及其相关的关注，这表明了与妊娠相关文本的呈现方面的广泛趋势。