Lindsay Rudge PhD Thesis - University of St Andrews

whether any given section was or was not a ‘booklet’ prior to being incorporated into its
current manuscript. These are:
1. The dimensions of its leaves may differ from those in other parts of the
manuscript.
2. The hand or mise-en-page may differ.
3. The style of decoration or illustration may differ.
4. Any catchwords may run only within the booklet.
5. It may have its own series of quire signatures.
6. Its outer leaves may be soiled or rubbed.
7. The number of leaves may differ between quires.
8. There may be a relatively large or small final quire, where the scribe has had to
modify the quire structure in order to ensure that the final text finishes at the end
of the quire.
9. The last page(s) may be blank because the text did not fill the booklet. There may
be evidence of such leaves having been cut away.
10. Text may have been added to such a space at the end of the quire, by the scribe or
subsequent collator. This may bear no relation to the previous contents. 102
In 1986, however, Ralph Hanna proposed a number of qualifications to this list. 103 He
began by adding three further determining factors:
11. The material from which different parts of the manuscript are made may differ.
12. The sources of the different sections of the manuscript may differ.
13. The subject matter in different parts of the manuscript may differ. 104
He then sought to determine whether the presence of any of the thirteen factors could be
taken as conclusive evidence for the identification of a given section in a manuscript as a
102
P.R. Robinson, ‘The ‘Booklet’, 47-8
103
R. Hanna, ‘Booklets in Medieval Manuscripts: Further Considerations’ Studies in Bibliography 39
(1986) 100-111.
104
Hanna, ‘Booklets in Medieval Manuscripts’, 108.
152