Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis. Jaargang 20

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Jos A.A.M. Biemans
Book history and manuscript studies at the University of Amsterdam
A personal story

At the website of Project muse - Book History the editors of the journal Book history published a rather broad specification of our scholarly field. ‘Book History is devoted to every aspect of the history of the book, broadly defined as the history of the creation, dissemination, and reception of script and print. It publishes research on the social, economic, and cultural history of authorship, editing, printing, the book arts, publishing, the book trade, periodicals, newspapers, ephemera, copyright, censorship, literary agents, libraries, literary criticism, canon formation, literacy, literary education, reading habits, and reader response.’ Personally, I regard literary criticism, canon formation and literary education for the greater part as aspects of philology and literary history. On the other hand I am inclined to incorporate textual criticism in this specification, for to those without a good knowledge of book history and manuscript studies the practise of text editing should be forbidden. Anyway, to me such an extensive and open or including enumeration is preferable to a usually limiting or excluding definition, speaking about the mission, the goals etcetera of the book history. I think there is no such thing as the book history. Book history in my view is an extensive scholarly field, more or less divided into many different plots, often with much ground in common with other disciplines such as philology, art history etcetera, and with numerous bridges between as many plots as possible.

The implication of this point of view is that in their activities and publications scholars in this field should always formulate an operational definition of what they are doing, or at least explain the specific nature or framework of their book historical approach. In this small contribution I will amplify my personal aims with book history or rather, with manuscript studies. For a clear understanding of the following, some information about my position and opportunities may be useful. For many years I have had one day a week for teaching and research. Since September 2004, I have spent two days a week on these activities, thanks to the Professor Herman de la Fontaine Verwey Foundation in Amsterdam and the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague, that generously finance my extraordinary professorship in Book History and Manuscript Studies. Meanwhile, since the retirement or passing away of some colleagues, as a professor of palaeography and codicology I have been the Last of the Mohicans in our country

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(though at the universities of Groningen, Leiden and Nijmegen courses in manuscript studies are taught as well).

During the more than twenty-five years of teaching palaeography and codicology I may of course have stimulated one or two students to become professional palaeographers/codicologists. In the Netherlands, however, chances for obtaining an academic position devoted to this field of scholarship are very few, so each sensible student in Humanities will wisely choose another discipline in order to find a job. In addition, we do not have institutions or courses for the education of manuscript and rare book curators, antiquarians and book auctioneers. Acquiring an ma-degree in Book History, however, improves the chance of becoming such a rara avis. Some of my former students indeed fulfil such a position.

An annual number of about fifteen ba-students follow my course on the archaeology of the medieval book. Apart from seven to ten ma-students in Book History & Manuscript Studies attending my more advanced lectures there often are some additional students from departments of classical and modern languages, history and art history, both from Amsterdam and elsewhere (including Belgium). Usually a twenty person table proves to be large enough. Most of the ma-students of course are medievalists, and all of them show a very special interest in the medieval book. Sometimes we meet a student in physics, medicine or law, interested in the history of their own discipline and studying medieval sources. Almost every year a PhD student in philology or art history pulls up a chair to our table. In short, my teaching is meant for book historians but serves everyone who comes across medieval books in his or her own field.

The kind of research I do and, as a result, the nature of my publications correspond to my teaching. First of all, I hope to contribute to the development of manuscript studies. Secondly, however, and for the greater part I study phenomena that are of course relevant to book history but at the same time prove to be especially important for philologists and occasionally art historians. A third subject of research and writing is manuscripts in the possession of the Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam. The first aspect needs no explanation. The third aspect is also evident: from 1991 to 2011 I was curator of manuscripts at the Special Collections and curators are expected to write about their collections. Explaining the second aspect needs some more words.

Originally I am both a philologist - specialized in medieval Dutch literature - and a palaeographer/codicologist. Hence I particularly study the manuscript tradition of medieval Dutch literature. For instance, researching some hot items in the editing of medieval Dutch texts - the transliteration of medieval i/j (i.e. short respectively extended i) and u/v/w to their modern equivalences - made it plausible that these questions did not have a linguistic or phonological but a palaeographical background and should be solved from that point of view. Studying both the quantitative and qualitative features of the manuscript tradition of a certain text may reveal the book historical part of its reception during the Middle Ages. To give one example: with regard to the world chronicle by Jacob van Maerlant (c. 1225/1235-c. 1300), one of the most important medieval Dutch authors, I studied 64 manuscripts with - parts of - this text. In a history of Dutch literature Maerlant of course has to be treated as a thirteenth-century poet.

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The manuscript tradition, however, surprisingly demonstrates that in the first half of the fourteenth century, so post mortem, Maerlant must have been a greater literary phenomenon than during his lifetime.

Finally, I assist anyone who grasps the sleeves of my academic gown. I am happy to receive the most unexpected and sometimes fascinating questions. The most interesting problems come from PhD students, who during their education never got round to manuscript studies. They all make my life colourful. It is a pleasure to help - and to learn! - and I am usually glad to demonstrate the surplus value of codicological research in relation to philological or art historical investigations.

Figure 1. Jos Biemans with some of his students. Photo: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague