Gripla - 2023, Blaðsíða 181
THE GENESIS OF A COMPOSITE 179
Methodology
To better understand the genesis of a given codex, codicologists have de-
veloped a method to systematically analyze its production units.20 The
term “production unit” (PU) describes an entity of a manuscript that was
produced as a continuous body of work without visible breaks or disconti-
nuities.21 Production units are identified through the systematic analysis of
a codex, and while scribal hands are an important aspect, other production
features such as the collation, pricking and ruling must also be considered
in order to capture the full picture. Changes in production methods are of
particular importance, especially when several occur simultaneously in the
same location, as such breaks can indicate a new production unit.
In their book La syntaxe du codex (2013), Patrick Andrist, Paul Canart and
Marilena Maniaci classify different types of production units: the first and
most basic production unit is independent from others in both its material
and content (a production unit MC). The second type of production unit
adds content to an already-existing unit without adding any form of material
support (a production unit C). The third type of production unit adds con-
tent to an already-existing unit, while also adding more material (a produc-
tion unit C-MC). The aim of the syntactical description of a manuscript is
[…] to reconstruct, as far as reasonably possible, the probable
stages of the history of this codex by analysing the types of its
production units, even when we cannot assign a date to the ma-
terial support or the writing.22
20 The term “production unit” was originally coined by Erik Kwakkel, see Erik Kwakkel,
“Towards a Terminology for the Analysis of Composite Manuscripts,” Gazette du livre
médiéval 41 (Autumn 2002): 12–19. Other terms for entities in manuscripts include
“booklet,” see Pamela Robinson, “The ‘Booklet’. A Self-Contained Unit in Composite
Manuscripts,” in Codicologica: Towards a Science of Handwritten Books = Vers Une Science
Du Manuscrit = Bausteine Zur Handschriftenkunde, eds. A. Gruys and J. P. Gumbert,
Litterae Textuales (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1980), 46–69, and “codicological unit,” see Marilena
Maniaci, Terminologia del libro manoscritto, Addenda 3 (Roma: Istituto centrale per la
patologia del libro, 1996) and Johann Peter Gumbert, “Codicological Units: Towards a
Terminology for the Stratigraphy of the Non-Homogeneous Codex,” in Il codice miscel-
laneo: tipologie e funzioni; atti del convegno internazionale, Cassino, 14–17 maggio 2003, eds.
Edoardo Crisci and Oronzo Pecere, Segno e testo 2 (Cassino: Università degli studi di
Cassino, 2004), 17–42.
21 Patrick Andrist, Paul Canart, and Marilena Maniaci, La syntaxe du codex: Essay de codicologie
structurale, Bibliologia, volume 34 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 8.
22 Patrick Andrist and Marilena Maniaci, “New (and Renewed) Resources in the Field of