Punctuation and the aural dimension of Latin texts in the Middle Ages

This seminar is hybrid, held in-person and online via Zoom.

Abstract:

This paper examines the role played by the oral delivery of texts in the liturgy in the development of punctuation in the medieval Latin West between the late eighth and thirteenth centuries. It draws upon the work of scholars from different disciplines to re-examine the subject of Peter Clemoes’s pioneering paper, Liturgical Influence on the Punctuation in Late Old English and Early Middle English Manuscripts (1952). It focuses upon Latin manuscripts from England dating from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, to explore and account for the diversity of practices of punctuation both before and after the widespread adoption of a general repertoire of punctuation around the beginning of the twelfth century.