Lecture 5 of the 2023 Lyell lecture series A recent focus on practices and working methods in the history of science and of scholarship has revealed a gap between the representation that scholars worked alone, and the reality that their work was frequently carried out with the help of others.
This lecture series will focus on the role of amanuenses (literary assistants) in scholarly work in early modern Europe, particularly the Northern Renaissance ca 1500–1630, while noting parallels with both earlier and later European contexts.
Professor Ann M. Blair will focus on case studies including Erasmus, Martin Bucer, Adrien Turnèbe, and Petrus Ramus, among others to explore this recent research.

Lecture 5 of the 2023 Lyell lecture series A recent focus on practices and working methods in the history of science and of scholarship has revealed a gap between the representation that scholars worked alone, and the reality that their work was frequently carried out with the help of others. This lecture series will focus on the role of amanuenses (literary assistants) in scholarly work in early modern Europe, particularly the Northern Renaissance ca 1500–1630, while noting parallels with both earlier and later European contexts. Professor Ann M. Blair will focus on case studies including Erasmus, Martin Bucer, Adrien Turnèbe, and Petrus Ramus, among others to explore this recent research.

Shaping legacies

The Lyell readership in bibliography at Oxford University is endowed by a bequest from James Patrick Ronaldson Lyell (1871-1948), a solicitor, book collector and bibliographer. Each year since 1952, a distinguished scholar has been elected to deliver the lectures, usually six in number, on any topic of bibliography, broadly conceived.
J.P.R. Lyell lived in Oxford and (on his retirement) in Abingdon from 1927 until the end of his life. Even as a young man he was interested in collecting early printed books, and he made a study of early book illustration in Spain. In the 1930s he began collecting medieval manuscripts, eventually accumulating some 250 of these, of which one hundred were bequeathed to the Bodleian Library. A further series of some 65 manuscripts, mostly post-medieval, were bought by the Library from his executors. The first Lyell lectures, for the academic year 1952-3, were delivered by Neil R. Ker, university reader in palaeography and fellow of Magdalen College.

Education

The Lyell readership in bibliography at Oxford University is endowed by a bequest from James Patrick Ronaldson Lyell (1871-1948), a solicitor, book collector and bibliographer. Each year since 1952, a distinguished scholar has been elected to deliver the lectures, usually six in number, on any topic of bibliography, broadly conceived. J.P.R. Lyell lived in Oxford and (on his retirement) in Abingdon from 1927 until the end of his life. Even as a young man he was interested in collecting early printed books, and he made a study of early book illustration in Spain. In the 1930s he began collecting medieval manuscripts, eventually accumulating some 250 of these, of which one hundred were bequeathed to the Bodleian Library. A further series of some 65 manuscripts, mostly post-medieval, were bought by the Library from his executors. The first Lyell lectures, for the academic year 1952-3, were delivered by Neil R. Ker, university reader in palaeography and fellow of Magdalen College.

Share Shaping legacies

Sign up to save your podcasts

Shaping legacies

Shaping legacies

More shows like Lyell Lectures

Faculty of Classics

General Philosophy

Anthropology

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

Philosophy for Beginners

Critical Reasoning for Beginners

Approaching Shakespeare

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art lectures

The Secrets of Mathematics

Theoretical Physics - From Outer Space to Plasma