Indisputably, Caroline Minuscule script was one of the greatest and longest-lasting achievements of the Carolingian project. It far out-lasted the architects of that project, ensuring a long afterlife of their priorities and influences, even once it was detached from the legacy of a relatively short-lived political entity, the Carolingian empire. The Network for the Study of Caroline Minuscule (NSCM) is therefore organising panels at Leeds IMC 2018 on this phenomenon, welcoming papers on any aspect of its usage, reception, dissemination, engagement and historiography. Significant avenues of study have been opened up by recent developments: the publication of the final volume of Bischoff’s *Katalog* and ongoing digitisation projects (the Vatican Library, the Polonsky Project at the British Library and BNF etc.), as well as new resources in the digital humanities, which our ongoing work on a database of scribal centres will complement. We would be particularly interested in talks that engage directly with the aims of that project, perhaps allowing for a recognition of how local centres working in parallel processed the script from its origins, or discussing how it developed and evolved in each hub within and beyond the time-scale of the Carolingian political order. A wide scope is encouraged, within c. 800-1500, and a broad geographical distribution across and beyond the boundaries of the Carolingian empire warmly welcome.
Potential papers might also engage with:
- The influence of discredited historiographical notions of ‘reform’ and ‘Renaissance’, and how engagement with the script’s complexities might nuance what replaces them.
- The practice of scribal memory within manuscripts: palimpsesting, copying, misinterpreting, glossing and deleting, marginal notation and signs.
- Relationship of Caroline minuscule to other scripts: within a single manuscript or school, with issues of its authority and hierarchy, or direct comparison of Caroline minuscule as a phenomenon with antecedents, descendants and scripts of parallel, lesser or (arguably!) greater influence.
- Use of Caroline minuscule within a broad ‘type’ of manuscripts, say the liturgical or ‘priestly handbooks’, and how it affects and reflects the use and reading of the contents.
- Practices of cataloguing (medieval and modern), digitisation and terminology.
Papers should be 20 minutes, and there will be some time for questions and discussion. Those interested are encouraged to send:
Name/Affiliation/Position A basic 100 word abstract (there will be time to refine the talks before the Congress) A note of any equipment required.
to Arthur Westwell and Anna Dorofeeva at carolineminuscule@gmail.com by 26 September 2017, which would allow some time to organise before submitting an application to the Leeds IMC.