In medieval architecture, a category which comprises primarily churches, doors were inscribed with biblical texts which thrust users into metaphorical worlds. Indeed, medieval authorities considered art to be the books of the people, using every surface -- lintel, column, window and floor -- for the presentation of image and text. The phenomenon of inscribed doors was well studied by Bede scholar Calvin Kendall. So having spent most of my life reading medieval texts and studying medieval art, perhaps it is not surprising that when someone compares the pages of a book to windows, as Andrew Piper did in his study investigating the shift to digital reading, I would also visualize doors.
Thinking more about my misconstruing of the original metaphor, I am certain that someone ought to seriously consider the concept of book or page as door. When reading, especially in digital format, it is true that we peer through a screen as if through a window into an outside world, while our bodies remain stationary. However, digital resources can be doors. At a time in my life when I had little access to research materials and happened upon a useful online resource, my computer very much became a door to a different place, a portal to a library filled with volumes of all kinds.
One such resource that I discovered was the digital Monumenta Germaniae Historica, the online version of this series of critically edited Latin primary sources that is a monolithic resource in the research of almost any medieval topic.
The series began in the nineteenth century and many of the texts were chosen with a nationalistic bias. The books themselves are works of printing art, so that I was thrilled to see that the site, sponsored by the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, presents scanned pages from the original editions with all their critical apparatus. Volumes can be searched by keyword and texts can be freely downloaded in pdf format.
The beauty of these pages is their minimalism. The generous white borders funnel one's attention in a liquid manner to the sediment of the text. One can read without straining the eyes, without the distraction of odd structures or flashy layout. As Piper said, "the crowdedness of the digital page" is a hindrance to reading. Yet, here, one can also read with the affordances of digital text, zooming in, turning pages and flipping to different sections with the click of a mouse. In no way is this a reinvention of the page, but it certainly is a monumental one. Best, Laura
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