HIST 223 Medieval Europe: History Illuminated: Get Medieval: Write in Your Books

Will your class coursepacket look like this?

As we start our first weeks together, and for some of you, your first week of college life, I want to turn to medieval gloss to entice you to implement some of the traditions of the Middle Ages into your study habits. First, it goes without saying that you’re a student at a university—in Latin, universitas, meaning corporation. By entering into Drury, you’re following a nearly thousand-year old tradition that began in the Middle Ages, and represents a community of shared learning. Drury’s Latin motto is Christo et Humanitati, urging the study of the humanities as a link to the Christian world, something that was set as an ideal in the twelfth century [by 1500, around 80 universities existed in European cities from London to Rome]. Books were expensive and sparse, but lectures were held, libraries existed, and faculty read from books, which students copied. Part of student life, and even private life, was the medieval gloss, a commentary on the book itself, within the book.

Reading was not just reading in the Middle Ages, nor should it be today. 2014 reading: head-phones, computer on, phone on, texts coming in, what are books? 1255 reading: a concentrated study of the written word as an intimate way to connect with the sacred text, and a written commentary next to the words, full of quotations, ideas, questions, and sometimes fun marginalia [lots of “ass trumpets,” see below]. My basic point is that in the Middle Ages, writing around the text was common practice, as it used up the empty space of parchment that was expensive, but more importantly furthered the learning community. This was known as a gloss. The act of interpreting the text is known as an exegesis.

Each medieval reader might add new and different commentary. The space was a center for further learning. They might quote an additional scholarly quote, ask a question, or at times express dissent. Your Drury faculty do not expect you to become a monk or nun and work in a scriptorium, laboring over the copying of text; we do expect you to read and interact with your reading in a way that you may never have done previously. Make a point to try to mark in your text, using some of the same traditions, for every class. Perhaps it is a hand-arrow like below to emphasize an important point; or perhaps an extended commentary on what you are reading with questions. A critique would be OK too [I do a lot of this when reading textbooks!]. Medieval scholars have much to teach us about applied reading as a method of active engagement. The posted images [only one is necessary for class] link to the idea of continual scholarship, making notations as a form of active engagement, and fun too.