Periodic Reporting for period 4 - NOTAE (NOT A writtEn word but graphic symbols. NOTAE: An evidence-based reconstruction of another written world in pragmatic literacy from Late Antiquity to early medieval Europe.)
Período documentado: 2023-01-01 hasta 2024-06-30
What kind of history could connect the combination of the Greek letters tau and rho traced by an anonymous hand in a Latin document written on slate in Visigothic Spain during the reign of King Recaredo (581-601 AD) and the same graphic device (a staurogram) drawn in 505 AD in Egypt by Theophanes, count of military affairs of the late Roman state, in an order on papyrus issued by himself in Greek, at the beginning of his signature written in Latin in his own hand? What kind of paths could be followed without running the risk of being naïve, in order to connect the crosses drawn all over the post Roman West by illiterates giving their consent, testifying their presence, expressing their identity on written records to similar signs drawn by illiterates in the late Roman state? What kind of interpretation could ever be possible to explain the similar complex sign we can observe in signatures written in Greek in byzantine Egypt by notaries and in signatures written in Latin in their own hand by laymen, not necessarily professional scribes, in Byzantine Italy or by Frankish aristocrats in Merovingian France or by bishops in Lombard Italy?
The project NOTAE – NOT A writtEn word but graphic symbols. An evidence-based reconstruction of another written world in pragmatic literacy from Late Antiquity to early medieval Europe – aims to answer to these and other similar questions: it represents the first attempt to investigate the presence of graphic symbols in documentary records as a historical phenomenon from Late Antiquity to early medieval Europe.
Graphic symbols are meant as graphic entities, composed by graphic signs, including alphabetical ones, drawn as a visual unit within a written text, but communicating something other, or something more, than a word of that text. We say 'symbol' and not 'sign', because there is no intrinsic prior relationship between the message-bearing graphic entity and the informations conveyed by it. Even when a graphic symbol seems to be to us, men and women of the 21th century, easy to understand (Fig. 1), the message is to discover, because that graphic entity is an object of historical investigation.
Our sources are texts generated for pragmatic purposes: petitions, official and private letters, lists, receipts, authentics from relics, contracts and so on, written on papyrus, wooden tablets, slates, parchment. In particular, legal documents enable to relate graphic symbols to illiterate people: the gradual introduction of signatures in the late antique documentary practice meant an increasing use of graphic symbols not only by literate people writing their subscriptions in their own hands but also by illiterate contract partners or witnesses, who performed graphic symbols by their own hands in the empty space left for it in the line of their subscription written by the scribe or by a delegated third-party literate person. In conclusion, NOTAE aims to investigate the graphic symbols in order to capture all the possible historical implications by studying their graphic execution as well as their models and cross influences, their context and transmission, with the purpose to frame also the category of illiterates in terms of gender and social status, for each significant period and region involved in the research; and studying evidences preserved in a problematic documentary transmission is where another challenge lies.
The project NOTAE – NOT A writtEn word but graphic symbols. An evidence-based reconstruction of another written world in pragmatic literacy from Late Antiquity to early medieval Europe – aims to answer to these and other similar questions: it represents the first attempt to investigate the presence of graphic symbols in documentary records as a historical phenomenon from Late Antiquity to early medieval Europe.
Graphic symbols are meant as graphic entities, composed by graphic signs, including alphabetical ones, drawn as a visual unit within a written text, but communicating something other, or something more, than a word of that text. We say 'symbol' and not 'sign', because there is no intrinsic prior relationship between the message-bearing graphic entity and the informations conveyed by it. Even when a graphic symbol seems to be to us, men and women of the 21th century, easy to understand (Fig. 1), the message is to discover, because that graphic entity is an object of historical investigation.
Our sources are texts generated for pragmatic purposes: petitions, official and private letters, lists, receipts, authentics from relics, contracts and so on, written on papyrus, wooden tablets, slates, parchment. In particular, legal documents enable to relate graphic symbols to illiterate people: the gradual introduction of signatures in the late antique documentary practice meant an increasing use of graphic symbols not only by literate people writing their subscriptions in their own hands but also by illiterate contract partners or witnesses, who performed graphic symbols by their own hands in the empty space left for it in the line of their subscription written by the scribe or by a delegated third-party literate person. In conclusion, NOTAE aims to investigate the graphic symbols in order to capture all the possible historical implications by studying their graphic execution as well as their models and cross influences, their context and transmission, with the purpose to frame also the category of illiterates in terms of gender and social status, for each significant period and region involved in the research; and studying evidences preserved in a problematic documentary transmission is where another challenge lies.
The project achieved all the stated objectives applying its novel approach both in the study of graphic symbols in their own documentary context and in comparative and diachronic investigations. And, most importantly, it has completed its primary objective: the creation of the NOTAE System. From the research stem 52 scientific writings in total: 21 publications, including 4 monographs, has been published within the duration of the action, the others are currently in print or under review or ready to be submitted (among all them, there are further 5 monographs): the situation of the publication activity is kept updated on the webpage
The novel methodology and the results of the NOTAE project have been disseminated also in international conferences, workshops and other scientific and academic events, by presenting 48 papers in total; and knowledge transfer has been promoted by hosting 3 series of lectures, to which also university students were expected to participate, and organizing an international conference, with the result of 41 internationally renowned scholars, including several PIs and team members of other ERC projects, invited by the project to communicate their researches and to discuss their results.
The novel methodology and the results of the NOTAE project have been disseminated also in international conferences, workshops and other scientific and academic events, by presenting 48 papers in total; and knowledge transfer has been promoted by hosting 3 series of lectures, to which also university students were expected to participate, and organizing an international conference, with the result of 41 internationally renowned scholars, including several PIs and team members of other ERC projects, invited by the project to communicate their researches and to discuss their results.
The project NOTAE aims to historicizing graphic symbols as material traces left by human hands on the border between written and oral culture, educated literacy and poor graphic abilities of illiterates. This means to be already beyond the state of the art, because there has so far been nothing comparable in historical studies.
The inspection of a relevant number of preserved evidences carried out by the researchers of the team meant not only studying for each document the presence of graphic symbols in their context, classifying and interpreting them, but also relating each symbol to a social, historical, geographical context. Since no research exists without comparison and a synchronic analysis implies always a minimum significant level of diachronicity, the project has achieved results also on case studies devoted to specific groups of sources, specific historical periods and areas, in which also silences and blanks concerning the use of graphic symbols are made clear and explained taking into consideration the documentary transmission; and since documents, scripts and signs are investigated in a novel perspective, such case studies have brought new knowledge and significant contributions in the specific field of palaeography and papyrology, both Latin and Greek. The whole research process generated numerous outputs, including publications in IT and Computer Science:
The analysis of about 3000 preserved evidences, the classification of about 6500 graphic symbols and the study of the handwriting of about 4000 writers carried out in the lifetime of the project, has provided a relevant number of data, which have been processed and linked to one another in the NOTAE System, which is one of the main expected results. The system embodies the sense of the interdisciplinary research carried out by the project and accomplishes its new methodological premises. Its public front offers the possibility to do queries on a significant collection of graphic symbols skillful linked to documents, 'hands' and persons, and, thanks to the introductory essays and instructions available, it allows the users to achieve data, that have never been systematically detected before in original documentary sources; they are, instead, crucial to investigate the literacy of the period.
The inspection of a relevant number of preserved evidences carried out by the researchers of the team meant not only studying for each document the presence of graphic symbols in their context, classifying and interpreting them, but also relating each symbol to a social, historical, geographical context. Since no research exists without comparison and a synchronic analysis implies always a minimum significant level of diachronicity, the project has achieved results also on case studies devoted to specific groups of sources, specific historical periods and areas, in which also silences and blanks concerning the use of graphic symbols are made clear and explained taking into consideration the documentary transmission; and since documents, scripts and signs are investigated in a novel perspective, such case studies have brought new knowledge and significant contributions in the specific field of palaeography and papyrology, both Latin and Greek. The whole research process generated numerous outputs, including publications in IT and Computer Science:
The analysis of about 3000 preserved evidences, the classification of about 6500 graphic symbols and the study of the handwriting of about 4000 writers carried out in the lifetime of the project, has provided a relevant number of data, which have been processed and linked to one another in the NOTAE System, which is one of the main expected results. The system embodies the sense of the interdisciplinary research carried out by the project and accomplishes its new methodological premises. Its public front