Women’s Contribution to Manuscript Textbook Production in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Bologna

After a brief overview of the role played by women as scribes in manuscript production since Antiquity, the chapter, by means of analysis of documentary sources such as contracts for undertaking the writing of a certain text, or business partnerships, discusses to which extent women participated to the medieval Bolognese manuscript trade as scribe and/or stationer. Next, the article focuses on the types of manuscripts produced and/or sold by women and used by masters and students in the civil and canon law curricula. The manuscripts they produced were legal texts (i.e., textbooks for law curricula) almost always showing a challenging page layout, displaying two columns of text enclosed by two columns of commentaries (glosses). Finally, the roles of female scribes, illuminators, and other female artisans involved in the book production of medieval Bologna, is compared to women contributions to manuscript production as found in other university cities and towns. A complete list of individuals discovered during research can be seen in the Appendix.