Skip to main content
codicology

codicology

1 9.9
The study of old handwritten books and how they were made
  • noun
  • /ˌkɒdɪˈkɒlədʒi/
  • Specialized
: codicología
  • The study of codicology reveals much about the culture and practices of past societies through their manuscripts.

Examples

  • This thread hopes to bring together scholars working in any of the following areas: codicology, palaeography, book history.

    Blog text (16)
  • We seek proposals for sessions that might address genre and the form of confession, sin in works by Chaucer and his contemporaries, catechism and codicology, or remedial virtues and their sustainment of communities.

    Blog text (16)
  • On a more popular level, his Manuscripts of the Greek Bible (Oxford, 1981) is an album of photographs of manuscripts with his explanatory notes that introduced the disciplines of palaeography, codicology, and papyrology to a public who previously may have thought such subjects belonged to hospital wards.

    Academic text (2007)
  • In her research on codicology, she focused on the physical materials used in medieval bookmaking.

  • Codicology involves the examination of ancient manuscripts to understand their production and history.

Synonyms

textual scholarship
vscodicology
  • Specialized
1 9.9

Study of original texts and documents, including describing, copying, editing, and adding notes

focuses on physical features of books and manuscripts rather than text editing
bibliotics
vscodicology
  • Specialized
9.9

The study of documents and handwriting that finds who wrote them or if they are real

focuses on physical construction and material features rather than proving authorship

Surface Forms

codicology singular
codicologies plural

Morphology

codicology = codic + ology

Although the word ends with the recognizable scholarly suffix -ology, the base codic- is not a transparent standalone English word for most learners, so the meaning is not readily inferable from the form.

Etymology

The word codicology comes from the Latin word codex, which means 'book', and the ending -ology, which means 'study'. So codicology is the study of old, often handwritten books and how they were made.