Susana Zapke and Elisabeth Gruber (eds.),A Companion to Medieval Vienna. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021. 611pp. 72 figures. Bibliography. €202.00 / $243.00 hbk.

Abstract

also indispensable to research of guilds or material objects as it includes a description of the manuscript’s physical characteristics, including how folios were constructed and moved over time. Perhaps most importantly for guild historians, a list of the names entered into the guild book, alongside a key to their guild careers, is included. This book is an informative and comprehensive guide to Egerton MS 2572 that sheds light on both the construction and demonstration of medical knowledge alongside more unusual displays of guild recording keeping. The volume is ambitious in its aims to both show the archaeological assessment of the book alongside a full transcript, which is particularly useful for research into guild records, both generally, and for those interested in medical guilds. Placing the guild in the wider medical, civic, and urban context, it shows how multiple approaches can be brought together to explain the wider role of texts as material objects.