Early Medieval Breton Manuscripts: An Introduction to BretPal

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

Abstract:

The Breton Palaeography project (BretPal) will provide the first palaeographic study of the early medieval manuscripts attributed to Brittany (c. 780‒1100). One of the goals of this project is to assist with future identification of Breton manuscripts and resituate early medieval Brittany within the wider scribal and intellectual traditions of early medieval western Europe, upon which Brittany drew and to which it greatly contributed. Once seen as a ‘Celtic backwater’ during the expansion of the Carolingian empire, early medieval Brittany blended cultural and intellectual traditions from Ireland, Britain, and Carolingian Europe, a mixed heritage made manifest in the work of scribes active in the region. In this paper, I will present a series of case studies demonstrating the wider corpus of manuscripts that can (or cannot) be attributed to early medieval Brittany.