For example, is a leaf of the Beowulf manuscript, salvaged from the Cotton fire, a 'leaf' or a 'fragment'? (Arguably, if it is complete then it is still a 'leaf', but if it is incomplete it should be considered as a 'fragment').īeowulf: a series of fragments bound as a codex? The mental process of considering which term is most appropriate is itself a useful exercise in understanding a manuscript, especially when confronted by an item that does not neatly fall into one of these categories. Portion/section, etc. An incomplete manuscript - such as a series of quires, or a volume with all the decorated leaves removed - is often described as a fragment but to avoid confusion words and phrases such as 'incomplete codex', 'sequence of quires', 'portion', 'section', etc. Not 'gathering' or 'booklet': 'quire' is a technical term with a specific well-understood unambiguous meaning within manuscript studies, whereas 'gathering' and 'booklet' are everyday words with a variety of different meanings. Not 'folio', which in most cases is incorrect Latin or ambiguous English: in the words of Wikipedia, 'The term ' folio', from the Latin folium (leaf), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing.'īifolia.

a 'fragment' can - sizewise - be almost anything from a thumbnail-sized piece of parchment to a bifolium'. But even then, the items in question can seem to have little in common. In the context of this book, 'fragment' is used in the latter sense. in general terms a 'fragment' can mean a manuscript with less than half its leaves left or it can refer to detached leaves or pieces of parchment from a manuscript. Ommundsen, Nordic Latin Manuscript Fragments: The Destruction and Reconstruction of Medieval Books (2017), pp. The problem of using the ill-defined everyday word 'fragment' has been touched on by T. The Wikipedia article on Fragmentology does not distinguish between cuttings, leaves, etc., treating them all as 'fragments'. Likewise, 'fragment', as a word used in everyday language, I suggest, should be clearly distinguished from a series of different concepts that can be more accurately conveyed using more precise terminology. Similarly, it is appropriate to use technical terms like 'recto' and 'verso' instead of imprecise everyday equivalents such as 'front' and 'back'. For example, when speaking or writing about medieval manuscripts it causes unnecessary and easily-avoided confusion to use the word 'pages' (as used in everyday language) to convey the more accurate concept of 'leaves'.

In a specialist field, such as manuscript studies, it is therefore helpful to use words in their technical sense, not their everyday non-specialist sense: the use of terminology should be appropriate to the context in which it is used. In the field of manuscript studies there are very specific meanings for technical terms such as 'signature', 'autograph', 'page', and 'illumination', which are quite different from the meanings of those words in everyday language. In fact, there are several distinctly different types of object which are all 'parts of incomplete codices', and it is unhelpful to label them all with the same single term, just as it is unhelpful to indiscriminately refer to a poodle, a labrador, and a terrier as 'quadrupeds'.Īs suggested above, another issue is that some words have meanings in everyday language, and very distinct meanings when used as technical terms in particular fields of study: the way in which the word 'canine' is understood depends on its context, and it is not always clear whether it is being used as a noun or an adjective. While it can serve a useful purpose as an umbrella term to refer to a whole range usually very different types of study, I think the use of this term has an unfortunate effect: it implies that all the objects of those studies can, or should, be called 'fragments'. 'Fragmentology' is a word that is increasingly used as a term to refer to the study of parts of incomplete codices.

Deliberate fragment definition