Coloring Outside the Lines: New Perspectives on the Borders of Manuscripts, session at 27th International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 6–9, 2020

The word "border" connotes a fixed line, a boundary that distinguishes between what is inside and what is outside. Borders can also place value judgements: elements of lesser importance are cordoned off from those with a greater intrinsic value. For many years the study of medieval manuscripts understood  borders in this manner, placing emphasis on the text and "primary" image cycles found within the borders and defining art beyond them as "marginal" and therefore marginalized. While scholars of marginalia have worked over the past several decades to dispel such notions, the physical borders themselves have received less attention.

What is the true distinction between the margins and the borders of a manuscript page? Do manuscript borders operate as stable boundaries or are they better defined by their permeability? Art that we have defined as marginalia can appear both inside and outside the physical line of the border, often interacting with it. Borders become groundlines that figures dance over and around. They erupt into vines, or into people and animals. Some painted borders mark the edges of the textual field and others dive in and out of it, converging with illuminated initials and line-endings alike. The margins of the manuscript page seem to surround and interact with the border-line to become sites allowing for great freedom in expression, movement, and exchange.

Moreover, the construction of the border and the spaces beyond it are radically different depending on the culture and time period in which the manuscript was produced. What is the site of whimsical drolleries in one context becomes an allusion to the divine or a world beyond in another. How do we understand the function of a medieval manuscript's border space given these changing contexts?

We invite proposals for 20-minute papers on all aspects of the borders and margins of medieval manuscripts. We welcome papers that engage with manuscript material spanning the entire geographical medieval world, and from the Late Antique and the Early Modern period.

Topics could include but are not limited to:

• Changing definitions of what constitutes a "border"
• Interaction between text, "primary" image, border, margin/marginalia
• Pervasiveness of the margins as "marginal" spaces
• The difference between the use of manuscript borders in different temporal (i.e. early medieval, late medieval, etc.) and geographical (i.e. Byzantine, Islamic, Western European, etc.) contexts
• Freedom of expression and invention in spaces beyond the border

Session organizers
Emily Shartrand, University of Delaware
Christine Bachman, University of Delaware