Good morning, all. I hope you’re all staying safe. In today’s #BreakfastPaleography, I’m going to attach the third leg to the barstool that is paleography (I just came up with that metaphor. Hear me out).

Leg #1: Literacy, as in “How do you read Beneventan script?” We talked about this, remember? https://twitter.com/lisafdavis/status/1246037708549640199

Leg #2: Connoisseurship, as in “Is this manuscript from the 12th or 15th century? It is from Italy or France?” We talked about this a little bit, too. https://twitter.com/lisafdavis/status/1240660053440573441v

Leg #3: Description, as in “Why is this scribe different from all other scribes?” Ma nishtanah, my friends. In other words, are these manuscripts written by the same person? Are these LEAVES written by the same person? This is the hill upon which paleographers will fight and die.

n.b. if you want to watch two paleographers fight, ask them how many scribes wrote the Book of Kells and then slowly back out of the room. https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/home/index.php?DRIS_ID=MS58_003vv

If you can read a script, figure out when and where it was written, and describe distinctive and identifying features of the scribal hand, you will have built a stable piece of furniture upon which your work can sit without wobbling. OK, that’s as far as I’m taking that metaphor.

As a case study in describing and distinguishing scribes, I’m going to focus on the scribe/artist who was the subject of my dissertation and first book, Gottschalk of Lambach. https://brbl-dl.library.yale.edu/vufind/Record/3432952

Medieval monastic scribes rarely signed their work. After all, they were producing books for God's glory, not for their own. But sometimes you get lucky. Meet @StaBi_Berlin Theol. Lat. q. 140: https://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/werkansicht?PPN=PPN838355358&PHYSID=PHYS_0009&DMDID=DMDLOG_0009&view=picture-double