Workshop: Manuscripts with Sample Letters in Late Medieval Eurasia
Wann: Mo, 08.04.2024, 13:00 Uhr bis Di, 09.04.2024, 14:00 Uhr
Wo: Warburgstraße 26, 20354 Hamburg
Letter-writing manuals were prevalent throughout late medieval Eurasia. They were called munshaʾāt in Arabic and Persian, shuyi in Chinese or the summa dictandi in the Latin West. Many include sample letters, or standard phrases adapted for specific contexts or recipients.
Such manuscripts have been studied by specialists within their respective areas, but rarely in comparison with similar artefacts from other manuscript cultures, and never at the scale of Eurasia. This workshop will be a first endeavour to bridge this gap by bringing together experts from various area studies.
This first meeting will primarily focus on the materiality, formatting, and structure of manuscripts from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. Research questions include: What do these manuscripts look like? How is the page visually organized? How are the sample letters (or sample sentences) combined with didactic explanations or lemmata? Do the authors offer explicit guidance on the graphical aspects of letter writing? What are the categories for different types of letters, and how are they presented?
Participate in person:
Please register here:
https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/en/register/workshop51
Participate online (ZOOM):
https://uni-hamburg.zoom.us/j/66589328884?pwd=T0l4clJrZ0VDRGlBNzJTWnQ5VlB1QT09
Meeting ID: 665 8932 8884
Passcode: 48654931