Portable Manuscripts and their Utility in the Late Middle Ages

This volume uncovers the role of manuscripts in shaping the premodern social fabric of which they were part.

This book explores the mobility of merchants’ manuscripts—understood as written records in various forms—and their role in shaping and reflecting late medieval social structures. Focusing on merchants as key agents of manuscript circulation, it highlights their impact across fairs and markets in the Holy Roman Empire. Blending cultural and economic history, the chapters span fifteenth- and sixteenth-century case studies that challenge conventional periodization. Drawing on interdisciplinary methods, the book traces manuscripts from production to dissemination and the formation of reading communities. It argues that the history of the premodern economy is incomplete without accounting for the movement of manuscripts as material and social objects.

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