Touching Parchment: How Medieval Users Rubbed, Handled, and Kissed Their Manuscripts

In the late middle ages (ca. 1200-1520), both religious and secular people used manuscripts, was regarded as a most precious item. The traces of their use through touching and handling during different rituals such as oath-taking, public reading, and memorializing the dead, is the subject of Kathryn Rudy’s research in Touching Parchment.

This second volume, Social Encounters with the Book, delves into the physical interaction with books in various social settings, including education, courtly assemblies, and confraternal gatherings. Looking at acts such as pointing, scratching, and ’wet-touching’, the author zooms in on smudges and abrasions on medieval manuscripts as testimonials of readers’ interaction with the book and its contents. In so doing, she dissects the function of books in oaths, confraternal groups, education, and courtly settings, illuminating how books were used as teaching aids and tools for conveying political messages. The narrative paints a vivid picture of medieval reading, emphasizing bodily engagement, from page-turning to the intimate act of kissing pages. Overall, this text offers a captivating exploration of the tactile and social dimensions of book use in late medieval Europe broadening our perspective on the role of objects in rituals during the middle ages. Social Encounters with the Book provides a fundamental resource to anybody interested in medieval history and book materiality more widely.