Project ASH: Paleography Professors

This article contains information about paleography professors and the reading material they recommended for beginners. If you know of any paleography professors that I did not list below, please notify me so I can reach out to them. Please do not misuse the information provided below.

Professors

Bárbara Santiago Medina
Professor of Paleography and Diplomatics @ Universidad Complutense de Madrid
bsantiago@ucm.es
https://www.ucm.es/directorio?id=23167

Daniel Wakelin
Jeremy Griffiths Professor of Medieval English Palaeography @ Oxford
daniel.wakelin@ell.ox.ac.uk
https://www.english.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-daniel-wakelin#/

David T. Gura
Associate Professor of Paleography @ University of Notre Dame
dgura@nd.edu
https://directory.library.nd.edu/directory/employees/dgura
https://apply.interfolio.com/63202

Eef Overgaauw
Honorary Professor of Palaeography and Codicology @ Freie Universität Berlin
eef.overgaauw@sbb.spk-berlin.de
https://www.geisteswissenschaften.fu-berlin.de/we04/aedls/mitarbeiter_innen/prof/overgaauw/index.html
http://www.brepols.net/Pages/ShowProduct.aspx?prod_id=IS-9782503578750-1

Jan Just Witkam
Emeritus Professor of Codicology and Paleography of the Islamic World @ University of Leiden
j.j.witkam@hum.leidenuniv.nl
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/jan-just-witkam#tab-1
http://janjustwitkam.nl/index.html

Jesus Alturo Perucho
Professor of Palaeography, Codicology and Diplomatics @ Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
https://portalrecerca.uab.cat/en/persons/jesus-alturo-perucho-4
https://www.uab.cat/web/newsroom/news-detail/uab-awards-honorary-doctorate-to-palaeographer-jean-vezin-1345668003610.html?noticiaid=1288159798354

Julia Crick
Professor of Palaeography and Manuscript Studies @ King’s College London
julia.crick@kcl.ac.uk
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/people/julia-crick

Lisa Fagin Davis
Visiting Professor of Palaeography @ Yale University
lfd@themedievalacademy.org
https://medieval.yale.edu/people/faculty?page=2

Marcela Borelli
Professor of Paleography and Ecdotics @ Universidad de Buenos Aires
marcela.borelli@gmail.com
http://www.glossing.org/register/#9

Marilena Maniaci
Full Professor of Paleography @ Università degli studi di Cassino e del Lazio meridionale
m.maniaci@unicas.it
https://www.manuscript-cultures.uni-hamburg.de/PetraKappertFellow_e.html
https://www.csmc.uni-hamburg.de/about/people/maniaci.html

Paola Degni
Professor of Palaeography @ the University of Bologna
paola.degni@unibo.it
https://www.unibo.it/sitoweb/paola.degni/en
https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004394353/front-10.xml?language=en

Teresa Webber FBA
Professor of Palaeography @ University of Cambridge
mtjw2@cam.ac.uk
https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/people/professor-teresa-webber-fba

Responses

Lisa Fagin Davis was the first to respond and gave two recommendations:

1 – The Oxford Handbook of Latin Palaeography
https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195336948.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195336948
https://www.vhmmlschool.org/latin

2 – Virtual HMML School
https://www.vhmmlschool.org/

Teresa Webber:

Best Paleography introduction:

1 – The Oxford Handbook of Latin Palaeography, ed. Frank T. Coulson and Robert Babcock (Oxford University Press)

For the field of medieval MSS studies:

2 – Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Medieval Manuscript Studies (Cornell University Press)

3 – Orietta da Rold and Eliaine Treharne, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Medieval British Manuscripts (Cambridge University Press)

Additional link:

4 – What is palaeography?: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/what-is-palaeography/

Julia Crick thanked me for my inquiry and then informed me that the answer to my question is dependent “on the kind of date, region, and writing system” that I’m interested in. Regardless of that, she did provide four starting places.

General principles:

1 – Teresa Webber’s What is palaeography?: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/blog/what-is-palaeography/

2 – Julian Brown’s What is paleography?: http://www.mlab.uiah.fi/simultaneous/Text/Paleography.html

The standard work on European Latin palaeography:

3 – Bernard Bischoff, Latin Palaeography: Antiquity & The Middle Ages: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/latin-palaeography/8EE728CA672A3FF0ED55B89DB7AB1EE6

Daniel Wakelin expressed a similar difficulty to that of Julia Crick. He offered two general recommendations but mentioned at the end of his email that even these only cover about a millennium of Western European history, meaning they are limited in scope.

1 – Michelle P. Brown, A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600

2 – Ray Clemens and Timothy Graham, An Introduction to Manuscript Studies

Jan Just Witkam responded by telling me that my question was so wide that it is impossible to answer.

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