The Uses of Script and Print, 1300-1700

The Uses of Script and Print, 1300–1700 Edited by Julia Crick and Alexandra Walsham Hardcover (with dust jacket). Cambridge University Press, 2003. Ex-library, but other than the remnants of a sticker on the spine and some stickers/stamps inside the cover (see photos), the copy is in excellent condition. RRP £99. 314 pages. *** This volume builds upon the widening interest in the connections between culture and communication in medieval and early modern Europe. Focusing on England, it takes a critical look at the scholarly paradigm of the shift from script to print, exploring the possibilities and limitations of these media as vehicles of information and meaning. The essays examine how pen and the press were used in the spheres of religion, law, scholarship, and politics. They assess scribal activity both before and after the advent of printing, illuminating its role in recording and transmitting polemical, literary, antiquarian and utilitarian texts. They also investigate script and print in relation to the spoken word, emphasising the constant interaction and symbiosis of these three media. In sum, this collection helped to refine the boundaries between cultures of speech, manuscript and print, and to reconsider the historical fissures which they have come to represent.…