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In:The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena: Historical approaches to paratext and metadiscourse in English
Edited by Matti Peikola and Birte Bös
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 317] 2020
► pp. 91–114

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Chapter 4
Threshold-switching

Paratextual functions of scribal colophons in Old and Middle English manuscripts

 | University of Birmingham
Published online: 18 November 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.317.04sca
Abstract
This chapter offers a new, material analysis of medieval scribal colophons, the brief writings that scribes added to manuscript texts. Gérard Genette saw the scribal colophon as the ancestor of ‘paratext’, the ‘threshold’ (‘seuil’) to the printed text. Contributing to current modification of paratext theory, this chapter considers what Genette’s model reveals about manuscript culture. It proposes that the scribal colophon turns the spotlight on the graphic properties of the scribe’s work rather than simply or predominantly serving as a threshold to reading the text. The chapter proposes that threshold-switching, a term in digital electronics for a process that causes oscillation between one state and another, may be a more appropriate metaphor than the threshold for this important function of the medieval scribal colophon. The colophon is evidence that, as in digital media today, in manuscript culture writing was not regarded simply as a transparent medium that one looked through to access the meaning beyond.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Approaches to paratexts in medieval manuscripts
  • 3. Genette’s framework: Applications and adaptations
  • 4.Genette’s model and medieval scribal colophons
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Primary sources
  • Secondary sources
References (43)
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Manuscripts
Aberystwyth
National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 356B
Cambridge
Corpus Christi College, MS 41
Corpus Christi College, MS 140
St John’s College, MS E.34 (137)
Trinity College, MS B.14.39
University Library, MS Ff.1.5
Glasgow
University Library, Hunter MS 197
London
British Library, Additional MS 29729
British Library, Arundel MS 57
British Library, Cotton Nero MS D. iv
British Library, Cotton Otho MS C.i(1)
British Library, Cotton Vitellius MS E.xviii
British Library, Harley MS 1205
British Library, Lansdowne MS 348
British Library, Royal MS 17 A.xxvii
Wellcome Collection, MS 405
Manchester
John Rylands Library, MS Eng. 51
New York
Pierpont Morgan Library, Glazier MS 39
Oxford
Bodleian Library, MS Arch. Selden. B.10
Bodleian Library, MS Fairfax 16
Bodleian Library, MS. Gough Liturg. 19
Bodleian Library, MS Junius 121
Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. Poet. 138
Philadelphia
University of Pennsylvania Library, MS Codex 196
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