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Researching the origin of medieval manuscriptsBackground Medieval manuscripts
Researching the origin of medieval manuscriptsBackground Medieval manuscripts
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2024-01-05
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Researching the origin of medieval manuscripts
Background
Medieval manuscripts — handwritten books produced between the fifth and fifteenth centuries
Origin of many manuscripts unknown until 2009; scientists started using DNA testing
Animal hides — two types
Parchment
Sheep skin: white in colour and【L31】________
Greasy — writing can’t be erased so often used for【L32】________
Vellum
Calf skin: most popular for prestigious work because you can get【L33】________ lettering.
Preparation of hides
Treated in barrels of lime — where this was not available, skins were【L34】________
(removed hair — more flexible)
Stretched tight on a frame
Scraped to create same【L35】________
Vellum was【L36】________
Genetic testing — finding origins
Previously — analysed handwriting and【L37】________used by the writer
Now — using genetic data from ’known manuscripts’ to create a【L38】________
Uses of new data
Gives information on individual books
Shows the【L39】________of the book industry
Helps define【L40】________in medieval period [br] 【L35】
My presentation today is on how the science of genetics is being used to shed light on the origin of manuscripts — anything written by hand — produced in the medieval period... that is... the period between the fifth and fifteenth centuries AD.
As many of you know, thousands of medieval handwritten books still exist today. Some of them have a clear provenance, that is, we know exactly where and when they were written, but the origin of many manuscripts has been a complete mystery, that is, until 2009 when geneticists started using DNA testing to shed light on their origins.
But before looking at the new research, I need to explain something about the way the manuscripts were produced — particularly what they were written on. Virtually all were written on treated animal skins and there were essentially two types. The first was parchment, which is made of sheepskin. It has the quality of
being very white but also being thin.
It has a naturally greasy surface which meant it was hard to erase writing from it.
This made it much sought after for court documents in medieval times.
The second type is vellum, which is calfskin This was most often used for any very ’high-status’ documents because
it provided the best writing surface, so scribes could achieve lettering of high quality.
So, once the animal hides had been chosen, they had to be prepared. Where the right materials were on hand, the skins were put into large barrels or vats of lime, where they were agitated or stirred frequently.
But if lime wasn’t available, then the hides were buried.
Both these techniques were designed to cause the hair to slough off, and the skins to become gelatinous and therefore more flexible.
The next stage was to put the hides on stretcher frames and pull them very tight. While on the frame
they were scraped with a moon-shaped knife in order to create a uniform thickness.
For parchment, that was the end of the process,
but for vellum there was an additional stage where it was bleached,
in order to achieve the desired colour.
So, what does all this preparation mean for the quest to identify the origins of ’mystery’ manuscripts? Well, until recently the only way historians and other academics were able to guess at origins was
either through the analysis of the handwriting style or from the dialect in which the piece was written.
But these techniques have proven unreliable, for a number of reasons.
It was thus decided to try to look at the problem from a different angle... to start from what is known, that is, the small number of manuscripts whose origins we do already know. Because these parchments and vellum are both made from animal hides, it was possible to subject them to DNA testing and to identify the genetic markers for the date and location of production.
From this was created what is known as a ’baseline’.
The next stage was to test the mystery manuscripts, finding their DNA characteristics and then making comparisons between the known and the mystery scripts. Genetic similarities and differences enabled the scientists to gain more information about the origins of the many manuscripts we had known virtually nothing about up to that point.
Now you might ask — what are the potential uses of this new information? Well, obviously, it can shed light on the origin of individual books and manuscripts. But that’s not all. It can also
shed light on the evolution of the whole of the manuscripts production industry
in medieval times. And because that was such a thriving business, involving very large-scale movements right across the globe, the new data, in turn,
help historians establish which trade routes were in operation
during the whole millennium.
Now if anyone has any questions...
选项
答案
thickness
解析
空格前为same,推测应填入名词。录音中的uniform是题目same的同义替换,故空格处填入thickness。
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