Table Of ContentMEDIA TECHNOLOGIES AND THE
DIGITAL HUMANITIES IN MEDIEVAL
AND EARLY MODERN STUDIES
Through a multidisciplinary collection of case studies, this book explores the effects of the
digital age on medieval and early modern studies.
Divided into five parts, the book examines how people, medieval and modern, engage
with medieval media and technology through an exploration of the theory underpinning
audience interactions with historical materials in the past and the real-world engagement
of a twenty-first-century audience with medieval and early modern studies through the
multimodal lens of a vast digital landscape. Each case study reveals the diversity of medieval
media and technology and challenges readers to consider new types of literacy competen-
cies as scholarly, rigorous methods of engaging in pre-modern investigations of materiality.
Essays in the first section engage in the examination of medieval media, mediation, and
technology from a theoretical framework, while the second section explores how digitiza-
tion, smart technologies, digital mapping, and the internet have shaped medieval and early
modern studies today.
The book will be of interest to students in undergraduate or graduate intermediate or
advanced courses as well as scholars, in medieval studies, art history, architectural history,
medieval history, literary history, and religious history.
Katharine D. Scherff is Postdoc Lecturer and teaches for the School of Art and the
Medieval and Renaissance Studies Center at Texas Tech University.
Lane J. Sobehrad is Coordinator of Research and Innovation for Lubbock ISD.
MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES
AND THE DIGITAL
HUMANITIES IN
MEDIEVAL AND EARLY
MODERN STUDIES
Edited by
Katharine D. Scherff and Lane J. Sobehrad
Designed cover image: Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program
First published 2023
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Katharine D. Scherff and Lane J. Sobehrad;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Katharine D. Scherff and Lane J. Sobehrad to be identified as the authors
of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
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invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
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trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Scherff, Katharine, editor. | Sobehrad, Lane J., editor.
Title: Media technologies and the digital humanities in medieval and early
modern studies / edited by Katharine D. Scherff and Lane J. Sobehrad.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical
references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022046263 (print) | LCCN 2022046264 (ebook) | ISBN
9781032265735 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032280493 (paperback) | ISBN
9781003295082 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Middle Ages—Historiography. | Renaissance—Historiography. |
Mass media—History. | History—Methodology. | Digital humanities.
Classification: LCC D116 .M358 2023 (print) | LCC D116 (ebook) | DDC
302.2309/02—dc23/eng/20221214
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046263
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022046264
ISBN: 9781032265735 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032280493 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003295082 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003295082
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
CONTENTS
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
List of Contributors xiii
Introduction: Media Technologies and the Digital Humanities 1
Katharine D. Scherff and Lane J. Sobehrad
Framing the Book 7
Part I
Text or Tool? - Beyond the Narrative 11
1 From Audits to Confessionals: The Influence of Accounting
Technology on Medieval Penitential Pedagogy 13
Nancy Haijing Jiang
Accounting Technologies in Late Medieval England 16
Accounting for Sin in the Confessional Audit 20
Bibliography 29
2 As Nimble as the Pen of a Scribe: The Mediating Tongue in
Aquinas’s Commentary on the Psalms 32
Albert Marie Surmanski
Background 33
The Sword and Arrow: Tongue as Mediating Harm 34
The Tongue as a Mediator to Self and Others 37
Tongue as Mediating Taste 39
vi Contents
Tongue as Mediating the Divine 39
Conclusion 42
Part II
Interpretive Technologies – Viewing Culture and Society 47
3 Painted, Printed, and Digitized: The Commemorative
Images for the British “Worthies” 49
Anne Betty Weinshenker
Bibliography 61
4 Maps, Views, and Chorographies: An Examination of the Depiction
of Place and the Representation of Architecture in the Civitates Orbis
Terrarum (1572) 63
Brittany Forniotis
Defining Chorography 64
A Case Study in Choice-Making: Hospitals Depicted
in the Civitates Orbis Terrarum 67
Conclusion 73
Bibliography 76
Part III
Proximity – The Earthly and Divine Spheres 79
5 Ars combinatoria: Deciphering the Earthly and the Divine
in the Medieval World and Beyond 81
Beatrice Bottomley and Arianna Dalla Costa
Introduction 81
Ramon Llull’s Ars Combinatoria 82
Leon Battista Alberti’s Cipher Disk 86
The Zā’irja 88
Conclusion 90
Bibliography 94
6 “It’s Like I’m Actually There!”: Jumbotrons, Liveness, and the
Corpus Christi 96
Katharine D. Scherff
Medieval Mass and Live Performance 96
The Corpus Christi 97
Contents vii
The screen 99
“Show’s over folks?” 105
Bibliography 111
Part IV
Teaching “Tools” and Accessibility 115
7 Simulating the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art Market in the
Twenty-First-Century Classroom 117
Margaret Mansfield
Setting the Stage 119
With Greater Use of Technology Came More Potential for Learning 122
The Future of the Simulation 125
Bibliography 127
8 The Virtual Renaissance: Adopting Virtual Reality to Transform
How Art History is Taught 128
Eric R. Hupe and Caitlyn Carr
Introduction 128
Project Overview 129
Methods and Practices 130
Reimagining the Early Modern Classroom Teaching
the Virtual Renaissance, Eric Hupe 131
Creating and Learning in the Virtual Renaissance, Caitlyn Carr 134
Benefits and Considerations 135
The Future of Art History? 136
Bibliography 140
Part V
Digital Viewing and Reflections 143
9 Reflections: Relating Medieval Modes to Modern Multimodal
Literacies in the Digital Humanities 145
Lane J. Sobehrad and Susan J. Sobehrad
Multimodal Literacy 146
Modalities in the Learning Environment 149
Index 155
FIGURES
1.1 f. 231v of the Vernon Manuscript, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. poet. a. 1 15
1.2 A scene showing the Dublin Court of the Exchequer wherein accountants
and sheriff encircle a large reckoning board 16
3.1 Allegorical Tomb of Archbishop Tillotson. Grisaille, oil on canvas. Paris,
Muséedu Louvre 54
3.2 Allegorical Tomb of Archbishop Tillotson. Leaf 15 recto, Tombeaux des
princes, grands capitaines et autres hommes illustres…. Engraving. Los
Angeles, Getty Research Institute 56
3.3 Inscription page, Archbishop Tillotson, designed by François Boucher.
Leaf 14 recto, Tombeaux des princes, grands capitaines et autres hommes
illustres…. Engraving. Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute 58
4.1 Toledo, Franz Hogenberg and Georg Braun, 1572, paper in codex, in
Civitates Orbis Terrarum, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript
Library, Duke University 65
4.2 Milan, Franz Hogenberg and Georg Braun, 1572, paper in codex, in
Civitates Orbis Terrarum, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript
Library, Duke University 69
4.3 Istanbul/Byzantium now Constantinople, Franz Hogenberg and Georg Braun,
1572, paper in codex, in Civitates Orbis Terrarum, David M. Rubenstein
Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University 71
5.1 ‘A’ illustrates all the possible combinations of the divine names (dignitates) 84
5.2 ‘T’ employs three equilateral triangles to combine triplets of terms 85
5.3 Alberti’s cipher disk is made of two wheels are attached by a pin. This
allows the inner disk to rotate while the outer one remains fixed 87
6.1 R obert Campin (1378/1379–444). The Entombment, known as “The
Seilern Triptych,” ca. 1425. Oil on panel: The Courtauld, London 106
