ViGOTHIC · Towards a typology of Visigothic script: the Beatus British Library Add. 11695 and its potential for dating and localising Visigothic script manuscripts

Towards a typology of Visigothic script: the Beatus British Library Add. 11695 and its potential for dating and localising Visigothic script manuscripts

The main aim of the project ViGOTHIC was to establish a point of reference for the digital analysis of Visigothic script, the primary carrier of Latin writing in the Iberian Peninsula from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries. To date, most palaeographical analysis of Visigothic script has been conducted using a traditional manual methodology and following not standard but heterogeneous criteria which has led to subjective results that are difficult to share or evaluate. In contrast, my research created a computerised database of quantitative data by applying an efficient and specially designed method, a starting point that allows codices written in Visigothic script to be described, compared and placed in their socio-cultural context. Innovative techniques for digital analysis of manuscript sources acquired in the host institution, as well as continuous training in palaeography among other skills, has allowed me to gain new insights into the analysis of the script, its regional graphic characteristics and evolution, and its environment, while opening new avenues of research by applying digital tools to its study. The knowledge generated results of great practical importance for future palaeographical and textual research establishing criteria upon which advanced studies can build. It offers a means of understanding the script, the manuscripts produced in it, and its chronological, geographical and cultural context. At the same time, it constitutes a significant contribution to society for it offers an OA online platform through which the general public can access and understand better the extant medieval sources. Project ViGOTHIC built on the systematic analysis of one of the few codices written in Visigothic script that can be dated and geographically located with certainty: the copy of the Apocalypse of Beatus of Liébana kept at the British Library (BL Add. 11695). Project ViGOTHIC proposed two main tasks. First, by applying traditional methods of palaeographical research, to revise the state-of-the-art on the codex BL Add. 11695 aiming at determining who were the scribes involved in the process of copying the manuscript, when and where did they do it. Second, by applying new digital methods of palaeographical research, to evaluate how the implementation of a specifically design software, VisigothicPal, could benefit palaeographical analysis using as test the aforementioned codex and its study. Both tasks were completed. The first part of the project also offered crucial evidence to (i) reconstruct one of the most prominent scriptoria of the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages, analysing the scribes who worked in that center, the patrons, and the relationships with other Iberian and European centres; (ii) re-evaluate the dating and placing of manuscript sources produced in northern Iberia from the eighth until the twelfth centuries and the division of this written production by scriptoria, institutions, areas and regions. The second part, once finalised, also offered significant results, (i) allowing a thorough evaluation of the pros and cons of digital versus traditional palaeographical analysis, (ii) setting the basis of an online database of Iberian manuscripts classified by writing system, chronologically and geographically. The results of the project have been disseminated in several national and international events, published or in the process of being published in OA peer-reviewed journals, and in the website www.LitteraVisigothica.com as blog posts. Likewise, the online platform developed, VisigothicPal, is being promoted in Spain and is going to be adapted to form part of current (RecerCaixa, Juan de la Cierva) and future projects (ERC).

Data: CORDIS, © European Union