Author Description

The ways in which we search for information today often differ from the ways literate individuals in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages interacted with manuscripts in search of knowledge. At some stage in the development of western literacy, the need to find written information led to the invention and propagation of consultation aids that we now take for granted, including page numbering, indices, and cross-references. This volume seeks to enhance our understanding of an important aspect of medieval literacy and of the western literate mentality by addressing some crucial questions. What are the differences and similarities between early and late medieval ways of finding written information? How and why were the manuscript page and the organisation of written texts altered? How and why did 'consultation literacy', as we now know it, develop?