Transforming the Medieval World: Uses of Pragmatic Literacy in the Middle Ages (review)

Transforming the Medieval World has an unusual format – CD-ROM and accompanying book – deliberately selected to illustrate a central theoretical thesis. Namely, that 'the concept of an "authorised original", which was to be preserved as far as possible in its unchanged state, was largely foreign to medieval written culture' (p. 5). It is clear from the introduction that the editors consider this thesis and their chosen electronic medium to be inextricably related. They argue that the fixed nature of the written word intrinsically obstructs the full explication of 'mouvance', the 'fluid and open nature' (p. 3) of medieval manuscript culture, while multimedia platforms are freed from the necessity of 'a system of comments and notes to present variations' (p. 7). Indeed, given this position, it is unclear why a print version was produced at all. The editors are very excited by the possibilities of the new medium, spending 16 pages of introduction (in the print version) justifying their choice and extolling its virtues. In some ways they are vindicated; the CD-ROM is a handsome vehicle, but it is not without flaws, most of which arise from the decisions of the editors rather than the medium itself.

The core work comprises eleven multimedia presentations; nine cover various document genres from account books to world chronicles, while the remaining two focus on 'Book Communities' and illumination respectively. The digital presentation is impressive and has evidently been carefully considered to emphasise key points and encourage readers to form new associations, whilst discouraging interrupted attention to essential ideas. This is at least partially successful. The presentations are richly illustrated and make effective use of moving images to show texts being taken apart and reassembled, adapted, and rewritten. Menus are cleverly designed so that readers can choose whether to pursue the information by document genre, geographical region, period or thematic subheading. There are engaging spoken introductions to each section, and some useful interactive features such as clickable transcriptions and translations, and zoom function on most images. The option for printable text versions will be appreciated by anyone wanting to use the materials in class.

This being said, the problems are not insignificant. The division of presentations into standardized subheadings (Introduction, Production, Reception, Form, Technology, Abstract) is a major achievement of organization, but generally disrupts the flow of argument. The abstract is often the only place wherein the vision of the author can be recovered in full. There is repetition and a strange disorderliness that results from authors being required to 'postbox' their ideas in this way. The expressed aim of the template is to enable the reader to access the materials thematically (e.g., following the subheading of 'Technology', rather than the genre of 'Encyclopaedias'), but since free reign has been given to contributors to distribute their material among the subheadings, this 'thematic' relevance is undermined.

More significantly, the lack of any standard critical apparatus of footnotes or references, which was adopted in order to increase 'fluidity', manifestly detracts from the scholarly authority of the work. It is surprising that this was not foreseen, given that one presentation actively engages the worrying question of how trust in and authority of documents were guaranteed in medieval times. The 'select' bibliographies appended to each presentation are shockingly brief and in no way compensate. The editors discuss and are obviously aware of the requirements of form in written articles, but they do not apply them even to the printed version, which is essentially a script for the CD-ROM. It retains irritating, redundant references to images in the digital presentation, none of which are reproduced, and gives no signposts to the appendices into which some contributors have collected the transcripts and other 'clickable' extras from the CD-ROM.

As to content: this is a study of dynamic textual transmission, beginning from the documents as...