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English Professor Peter Stoicheff, right, shows the U of S Library's facsimile 'Wenzel Bible' to students in his uniqe new course on 'The History and Future of the Book'. Photos by Lawrence McMahen |
Students in Stoicheff's 'History and Future of the Book' course don gloves and get a close-up look at rare original pages from 12th- to 16th-century manuscripts, penned by monks. |
U of S English Professor Peter Stoicheff thought what better way to stimulate the interest of the 50 students in his unique new second-year course on 'The History & Future of the Book' than to show them firsthand some of the most wonderful examples of original book pages ever made.
And he was right.
Stoicheff happened to know that the U of S Library's Special Collections area has a rare compilation called '50 Original Leaves From Medieval Manuscripts, Western Europe, 12th-16th Century'.
The pages - all originals on animal-skin vellum hand-scripted by monks and some illuminated with gold and silver - "are the most gorgeous texts in the world, particularly the illuminated ones," Stoicheff says.
On Oct. 8 and 9 he showed the 50 manuscript pages, as well as the Library's high-quality facsimile of part of the famed illuminated 14th-century 'Wenzel Bible' whose original was owned by King Wenceslas, to his students. "It really shows the height of visual manuscripts throughout," Stoicheff says.
After donning light cloth gloves, the students each got to touch the pages and examine them close-up.
The pages are sacred texts such as parts of the Bible, the Psalms, or hymns. The collection was presented to the U of S Library in 1957 by the Dr. Walter Murray Chapter of the International Order of Daughters of the Empire (IODE).
"Seeing the manuscripts was a turning point for the students," says Stoicheff. It brought home much of what he has been teaching for the past six weeks in the September through April course.
He believes this course is one of the very few, or possibly the only undergraduate course in Canada on the history and future of the book.
He got the idea for the course two years ago when he and former U of S English Professor Andrew Taylor organized a conference on 'The Future of the Page'.
"I started to think, we're in a transitional time in our culture, and a course on the book and where it's going would be a good idea."
The course covers from cave paintings and papyrus scrolls, through medieval manuscripts by monks, through development of the printing press, right to digital text.
"We've gone through clay tablets, papyrus scrolls, the invention of paper, and how monasteries produced manuscripts - with animal skins for parchment - the chemical development of ink, goose-quill pens, and how scribes worked."
Stoicheff says this first year's offering of the course, which is one of the English Department's three "foundation courses" at the 200-level, is just for English students - but it could open up to other students next year.
And he thinks it's relevant to many students: "The printing press made modern science possible ... there's a strong link between the development of the book after the printing press, to science and medicine."
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