Latin Palaeography of the Gothic Period

or - let's unlock together the thoughts of monks, knights or burgers

Subject taught by: Prof. PhDr. Juraj Šedivý, MAS, PhD.

Form: Lecture with seminar (L:1 / S:1)

ECTS: 4

Objective:

The course is intended for those who would like to learn to read as well as to date and critically assess the authenticity of written texts (codicological and pragmatic literacy) from the 12th to the 15th century (book texts as well as letters, charters and official books). The course is chronologically related to Latin Palaeography of the Antiquity and Early Middle Ages, but it is not a prerequisite for the course (the introduction to this course includes a brief review of the essential knowledge from the previous course). Theoretical lectures are combined with practical reading of contemporary texts in Latin, German and Slovak (but knowledge of the languages is not necessary – we do not translate, we just read them). This is a practically oriented course, which gives graduates direct access to the gothic sources.

Brief outline:

Introduction (written culture, origin of the Latin script, development in antiquity /-600 to 5./7. 5-7th C. and the Carolingian period /ca. 800-1200/).
Historical background of the development of written culture in the 12th century.
The process of Gothisation in written culture and the nomenclature of Gothic scripts
Gothic book minuscule
Process of cursivisation, Gothic book semi-cursive and cursive
Process of hybridisation, Gothic book bastard
Documentary scripts of the Carolingian period and the process of their Gothisation
Documentary scripts of the Gothic period
Scripts of texts in vernacular languages

Graduation Requirements:

Attendance - 3 hours may be missed without excuse,
completion of ongoing activities = 10% of the grade (consists of the student's activity in class, his/her ongoing homework for reading the inscriptions),
final assessment during the exam period = 90% (assessment of theoretical and practical knowledge in the form of a test).

Recommended reading:

ŠEDIVÝ, Juraj: Úvod do latinskej paleografie II. Obdobie karolovské a gotické, Bratislava 2019 (Skriptá na www.Academia.edu)
https://www.gda.bayern.de/DigitaleSchriftkunde/index.html

Optional literature:

PÁTKOVÁ, Hana: Česká středověká paleografie, Praha 2008
BISCHOFF, Bernhard: Lateinische Paläographie des römischen Altertums und des abendländischen Mittelalters, Berlin 1979 (2. vyd.) – or the English or French version of his book.