The Booklet in Medieval Manuscript Cataloguing

In the last half century, the catalogue presentation of medieval manuscripts has sought to offer extremely detailed bibliographical accounts of the books described. However, this plethora of information might be construed as rendering the books less, rather than more, approachable. As categories to be noticed proliferate, some of the most basic information about book production has become increasingly submerged. A very great many medieval books scarcely represent pre-planned and unified entities, and finding the information that would indicate such features has become increasingly difficult in the regimen of modern cataloguing. The essay, which takes as its subject two Rolle excerpts overlooked in a catalogue of the hermit’s works, highlights one important feature operative in the transmission of these bits, ‘the booklet’, and offers suggestions as to how cataloguers might, in future, indicate its importance.