From Fragment to Whole: Interpreting Medieval Manuscript Fragments, University of Bristol, September 18, 2020

This conference, hosted by the Centre for Medieval Studies, is devoted to the study of manuscript fragments, and what these fragments can tell us about lost books, medieval and post-medieval book history, and textual history.

Research questions may include, but are not limited to:

• What difference does the manuscript fragment make to the textual tradition of the text it contains?
• What can manuscript fragments tell us about the lost literature of the Middle Ages and about changing tastes?
• How can we use evidence from manuscript fragments to piece together the lost book from which it derives and what means do we have at our disposal to do so?
• How should we catalogue and preserve manuscript fragments?
• What do manuscript fragments tell us about the history of manuscript fragmentation and its agents (e.g. early printers, book collectors, auctioneers, book vandals)?

We invite papers that address these questions on the basis of a particular case (or particular cases) as well as papers on broader methodological issues involved in the explication and contextualization of manuscript fragments. A volume of conference proceedings is anticipated.