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Manuscripts 'treated as fossils'
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Kay
Feb 28, 2005, 10:26:25 PM2/28/05
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[snip] A palaeontologist has come up with a novel way of studying
historical manuscripts, by treating them as fossils from an extinct
species. John Cisne, writing in Science magazine, says manuscripts
from the Middle Ages have a lot in common with animal populations. For
this reason, he claims, he can work out how many copies of a
manuscript once existed and how regularly they were destroyed, simply
by applying a biological model. Historians have cautiously welcomed
this rare link between the arts and sciences....
historical manuscripts, by treating them as fossils from an extinct
species. John Cisne, writing in Science magazine, says manuscripts
from the Middle Ages have a lot in common with animal populations. For
this reason, he claims, he can work out how many copies of a
manuscript once existed and how regularly they were destroyed, simply
by applying a biological model. Historians have cautiously welcomed
this rare link between the arts and sciences....
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