Personal Multiple-Text Manuscripts in Late Medieval Central Europe: The ‘Library’ of Crux of Telč (1434–1504)

Abstract

 Abstract: This study presents the case of the ‘library’ of a curious late medieval personality: Crux of Telč (1434–1504). During his lifetime, Crux was active in a variety of environments—local schools, university, churches and the Prague chapter, ending up in the Augustinian canonry in Třeboň. Since he was an avid copyist of basically any text he came across, and since he tended to add colophons to his copies, it is possible for researchers to reconstruct his career and his interests. The codices in his ‘library’ are all multiple-text manuscripts (MTMs), usually of an extremely miscella-neous character. His copies are usually ‘creative copies’, that is, manuscript versions with a substantial number of unique scribal interventions. The author suggests that Cruxʼs case exemplifies the way in which the boom in information and spread of knowledge in the second half of the fifteenth century were