Media

Anglo-Saxon Frames of Reference: Framing the Real in the Wonders of the East

“…The wonders dwell in a fittingly marginal zone, very similar to that of the mappaemundi, "occupying an uneasy liminal space between representation and reality, at least in part constructing the world they seek to represent." 35 While the maps have a theoretically "real" basis (the actual world) and many of the wonders do not, as a mere sign of God's plan, as a lesser reality when compared with the greater truth of the divine, the "real world" we all know was, in the end, no more real than the wild fantasies of the Wonders. But while the mappaemundi frame and reframe the image of the world, the world of the Wonders, in this manuscript, like the image of its burning hens, is only ever partly framed, and hence is only ever "partly framed in."…”

Introduction

“…19 Martin Foys demonstrates that early medieval media were native, consciously referenced, temporally thick and vitally interrelated to each other in A Handbook to Anglo-Saxon Studies (2012). 20 This renewed attention to material 'things' has also addressed the physical and sensory experience of manuscripts. Articles by Bruce Holsinger and Sarah Kay, for example, have explored the impact on readers of the fact that medieval books were produced in a context involving the slaughter and transformation of animals and written on parchment that is made from animal skins.…”