New Approaches to the Archive in the Middle Ages: Collecting, Curating, Assembling

This volume brings together scholars of history, manuscript studies, and art and architectural history to examine in conversation the varieties of medieval archival acts, the heterogeneity of collections, and the motivations of collectors. It is united by the historically flexible concept of the archive, and contributors examine material from Seville to Prague, from the early Christian period through the Reformation.

Premodern collections and archival practices are increasingly becoming the subject of academic inquiry. Chapter authors investigate how institutional, communal, and familial identity accrued to material culture, including illuminated manuscripts, ecclesiastic vestments, ancient sarcophagi, and reliquaries. Others examine the social impulses behind the documentation of such collections, namely through the creation of inventories, but also in the production, management, and use of parchment records, including cartularies, estate records, and legal documents. Finally, contributors question how medieval people evaluated historical age and outmoded artistic styles; shaped and promoted collective memory through preservation, display, and ritual; and attached value, both monetary and symbolic, to their collections.

The volume is cross-disciplinary and will appeal to a variety of readers, both in and out of academia. Curators, librarians, and archivists working with medieval collections will find it valuable, as will heritage professionals and charities involved in the care of properties which presently or formerly contained medieval treasuries, libraries, and archives.

Emily N. Savage is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Art History, University of St Andrews. She received her PhD from the same institution in 2017 and also holds degrees from the University of York and New York University. Her research and teaching encompasses, broadly, the material culture of late medieval devotion, and she has previously published on the object lives of devotional manuscripts. She is currently leading the development of a new postgraduate program at the intersection of digital humanities and art history for St Andrews.