The Addition and Use of Running Titles in Manuscripts Containing Old English

As a feature of manuscript layout, running titles play an important part in restructuring and improving accessibility for English manuscripts at the turn of the eleventh to the twelfth century. The phenomenon seems to be related to the Worcester scriptorium. This article discusses the motivations and procedures used for adding the first running titles to books in English. The evidence shows that, despite the backdrop of Latin books, the development of this new peritextual feature was a learning process, as early running titles still mixed features of proper headings, subtitles or marginal comments, and show uneasy relations with tables of contents.