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.

自从我在本科时代第一次接触手稿以来，我就被中世纪文化的物质方面所吸引。我的研究包括手稿研究、身体和家庭生活，在这些领域，我发现了“平凡”、“谦逊”和“边缘”，为研究提供了最有成效的场所。在食谱手稿、医学收藏甚至家庭记录中使用的迹象揭示了身体和书籍之间的密切联系，培养了与个人的深刻联系，他们与书籍的互动一直持续到今天。惠康图书馆（Wellcome Library）的MS 632，一条因使用而变得难以辨认的分娩腰带，浓缩了这种亲密关系。紧贴在皮肤上，在出生的保护性仪式中捆绑，这篇文章提供的护身符安慰与现代读者的形式一样陌生。关于女性身体的文本既可以是令人惊讶的熟悉，也可以是诱人的陌生，其动机是永恒的恐惧和迷恋，但却以多种多样和不断发展的方式表现出来。我希望探索中世纪晚期/现代早期对怀孕态度的变化，并研究手稿形式如何在不同的话语中反映女性身体地位的变化。怀孕的身体是众多关注的纽带——关于灵性、道德、医学、文学等等。关于怀孕写作的材料背景（从受孕，通过妊娠，到出生）集中体现了这一点，在手稿杂记中包含的各种主题中，怀孕和出生。我想研究怀孕和其他话题之间的关系，因为它们在文本中彼此相邻，以建立不同话语之间的边界（或缺乏边界）。我以前在烹饪食谱方面的工作使用了法典学和考古学的方法来评估烹饪和医学文本之间的区别，评估古生物学的正式性、页面布局、组织策略和书面内容，以了解这些类型之间的重叠，并重新评估它们的相对正式程度。我将继续这一方法论，了解作家给予女性身体和出生的地方与其他主题的比较。例如，惠康MS 510将是这个评估的理想选择。作为摘录的集合，MS 510显示了对身体的特别迷恋，包含了几张关于面相和手相术的小册子（包括插图），以及出生图表。我很想看看这份手稿，以及类似的例子，是如何用古文字学和法典学来看待出生的；它是否被赋予与女性身体分开的话题类似的地位，或者这个占星表是否与周围的材料不同。更一般地说，这些主题是如何在页面上呈现的？他们是处于中心地位，还是被边缘化？精心制作还是简单明了？显然，每一份手稿都是不同的，它们无疑会使彼此复杂化和相互矛盾。然而，我相信这一评价将阐明对女性身体及其相关问题的态度的转变，显示出与怀孕有关的文本呈现的广泛趋势。