Abstract
Chapter 8 examines the structure of the Black Books by focussing on three recurring elements: tables of contents; headings; and paragraph headings. These elements structure the books, organise their content and help to guide the reader in the reading process. This chapter demonstrates how the structure is a response to conceptual ideas about why the books should be read and points to how the books were built, which further reveals their overall concept. It argues that the way tables of contents, headings and paragraph headings are organised and appear in the manuscripts indicates that the Black Books were intended as practical handbooks. The knowledge is organised in ways that make it easily identifiable and accessible to the reader, encouraging practical use, not contemplative reading.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This is also the case in another manuscript from Fron dated to 1750, of which only one third of the first page of the table is intact. The first four paragraph headings listed the advice for livestock and for cows in particular, see NFS Moltke Moe 106 II.
- 2.
‘58. at gjöre sig usÿnlig/ 59. At en Pige skal tage sig Baren/ 59. At Læge godt et Skadesaaer/ 59. For Tandpine for en ung/ 59. do do Midalder/ 60. do do Gammel/ 60. At alle skal sove i et Huus/ 61. At en skal sove i 9 Dage/ 61. At vinde i Kort og Tærningspill/ 62. At see om en Sÿg bliver Frisk eller Döed/ 62. Et Sÿmpatisk Raad for Tandpine/’, see NB MS 4 18 19.
- 3.
‘10 At Stille Blod/ 11 At Døve Ormæder/ 12 At Døve Værk/ 13 At Stille Blod/ 14 Anderledes Blodflod paa N: N:/ 15 At Støbe kugler saa de tager blod ud/ 16 At Døve Varmme/ 17 At Ulve og Biørn ey skal skade Creature/ 18 At Stille Blod/ 19 At Mane alt Ont frem Menesker og Qveg/ 20 At Døve Værk i Saar og Andet/’, see NFS Svartebok fra Aremark.
- 4.
See Wendy Wall, ‘Reading the Home: The Case of the English Housewife’, in Renaissance Paratexts, ed. Helen Smith and Louise Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 165–84.
- 5.
See the comprehensive study by Ann Blair, Too Much to Know: Managing Scholary Information before the Modern Age (New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press, 2010). See also Lucia Dacome, ‘Noting the Mind: Commonplace Books and the Pursuit of the Self in Eighteenth-Century Britain’, Journal of the History of Ideas 65, no. 4 (2004): 603–25; Richard Yeo, “A Solution to the Multitude of Books: Ephraim Chambers’s ‘Cyclopaedia’ (1728) as ‘the Best Book in the Universe’”, ibid. 64, no. 1 (2003): 61–72.
- 6.
Cham bers’ cyclopedia was published in two volumes in 1728, and in 1753 came two supplementary volumes (after Chambers’ death), see Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopædia, or, an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: Containing the Definitions of the Terms, and Accounts of the Things Signify’d Thereby, in the Several Arts, Both Liberal and Mechanical, and the Several Sciences, Human and Divine: The Figures, Kinds, Properties, Productions, Preparations, and Uses, of Things Natural and Artificial : The Rise, Progress, and State of Things Ecclesiastical, Civil, Military, and Commercial: With the Several Systems, Sects, Opinions, &C: Among Philosophers, Divines, Mathematicians, Physicians, Antiquaries, Criticks, &C: The Whole Intended as a Course of Antient and Modern Learning, 2 vols. (London: Printed for J. and J. Knapton [and 18 others], 1728). For further reading on the use of the tree as an encyclopaedic divider, see the chapter ‘Philosophers trim the tree of knowledge: The epistemological strategy of the Encyclopédie’ in Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, rev. ed. (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1984), pp. 191–256.
- 7.
See Richard Yeo, ‘Reading Encyclopedias: Science and the Organization of Knowledge in British Dictionaries of Arts and Sciences, 1730–1850’, Isis 82, no. 1 (1991): pp. 24–49; Tone Bratteteig and Anne Beate Maurseth, ‘Kart, trær, labyrinter. Kunnskapsorden i gamle og nye encyclopedier’, in All verdens kunnskap: Leksikon gjennom to tusen år, ed. Siv Frøydis Berg, et al. (Oslo: Nasjonalbiblioteket Universitet i Oslo, 2012), p. 18.
- 8.
For studies of knowledge management and classification practices in the eighteenth century, see Richard Yeo, ‘Classifying the Sciences’, in The Cambridge History of Science: Eighteenth-Century Sciences, ed. Roy Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 241–66; Linn Holmberg, The Forgotten Encyclopedia: The Maurists’ Dictionary of Arts, Crafts, and Sciences, the Unrealized Rival of the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D’Alembert, Historiska Studier: Skrifter Från Umeå Universitet, vol. 7 (Umeå: Umeå: Umeå Universitet, 2014). See also the short introduction ‘Classifying’ to later classification systems in Peter Burke, A Social History of Knowledge II: From the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia (Cambridge: Polity, 2012), pp. 52–56.
- 9.
Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, Richard N. Schwab, and Walter E. Rex, Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot, Discours Préliminaire Des Editeurs (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 3–140.
- 10.
For more on the publication of the French Encyclopédie, see Robert Darnton’s comprehensive biography of these publications in Robert Darnton, The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie 1775–1800 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1979).
- 11.
Quote from Prospectus from 1750, pp. 285–286, here quoted in the English translation from The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, p. 196.
- 12.
Quote from Prospectus from 1750, here quoted in English translation from Yeo, ‘Classifying the Sciences’, p. 250.
- 13.
See the discussion of serial writing in Chap. 2.
- 14.
These are NFS Moltke Moe 106 II and NFS Jon Guldal 3.
- 15.
NB MS 8 3136.
- 16.
Blair.
- 17.
See e.g. DHS-k75o28, NB MS 8 640c1, NB MS 8 2124 and NFS Moltke Moe 106 I.
- 18.
See NB MS 8 640c1.
- 19.
‘Den Natturlige Troldom Deel een’, see DHS-k75o28.
- 20.
Cf. the study of headings and running titles by Matthew Day, ‘“Intended to Offenders”: The Running Titles of Early Modern Books’, in Renaissance Paratexts, ed. Helen Smith and Louise Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 34–47.
- 21.
‘At skaffe Snee om Sommeren’, ‘At vende et glas Viin og dog intet spildes deraf’, ‘At Skrive et Brev inden i et Ægg’, and ‘At faae et Brød eller Æble at danse’, see DHS-k75o28.
- 22.
See NB MS 8120.
- 23.
‘Sephrianus Konste Bog/ Skreven paa Wittenbergske/ Academie, Anno 1345 og si=/ den funden paa Kjøbenhavn/ Sloot, 1665 udien Marmor/ Steen Kiste, skreven paa/ Pergament./’, see AAKS Svartebok. A signature on the inner cover informs us that the writer was the school teacher Arne Larsen (1793–1871).
- 24.
Brian Cormack and Carla Mazzio, ‘Book Use, Book Theory: 1500–1700’, ed. University of Chicago (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Library, 2005), p. 61.
- 25.
With one important exception represented by the already mentioned DHS-k75o28.
- 26.
Cormack and Mazzio, p. 61.
- 27.
‘Naar en Trold Hex har forgiort en Mand eller Qvinde Dreng Karl eller Pige og de deraf ere blevne meget siuge krumme og skiæve lamme krogede og Værkbrudne’, see NB MS 4 832 from c. 1750.
- 28.
‘Hæxere at drive fra smaae Børn’, see NFS Moltke Moe 106 II from c. 1750.
- 29.
‘Raad for Tandpine. For en Ung; For en Midalder; For en Gammel’, see NB MS 4 1819 from c. 1800.
- 30.
‘Een formaning at læsse i Salt og Rendende vaade vand, at give et Menneske ind som er kast ondt paa eller er forgiort af troldfolck’, see the Danish Black Book from Copenhagen from the late eighteenth century, NB MS 8 3136.
- 31.
In Norwegian, the expressions are: ‘om samme’, ‘ditto’, ‘en anden kunst’, ‘anderledes’ and ‘ittem’.
Bibliography
Blair, Ann. 2010. Too Much to Know: Managing Scholary Information before the Modern Age. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.
Bratteteig, Tone, and Anne Beate Maurseth. 2012. Kart, trær, labyrinter. Kunnskapsorden i gamle og nye encyclopedier. In All verdens kunnskap: Leksikon gjennom to tusen år, ed. Siv Frøydis Berg, Øivind Berg, Sine Halkjelsvik Bjordal, and Helge Jordheim, 17–77. Oslo: Nasjonalbiblioteket Universitet i Oslo.
Burke, Peter. 2012. A Social History of Knowledge II: From the Encyclopédie to Wikipedia. Cambridge: Polity.
Chambers, Ephraim. 1728. Cyclopædia, or, an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences: Containing the Definitions of the Terms, and Accounts of the Things Signify’d Thereby, in the Several Arts, Both Liberal and Mechanical, and the Several Sciences, Human and Divine: The Figures, Kinds, Properties, Productions, Preparations, and Uses, of Things Natural and Artificial: The Rise, Progress, and State of Things Ecclesiastical, Civil, Military, and Commercial: With the Several Systems, Sects, Opinions, &C: Among Philosophers, Divines, Mathematicians, Physicians, Antiquaries, Criticks, &C: The Whole Intended as a Course of Antient and Modern Learning. 2 Vols. London: Printed for J. and J. Knapton [and 18 others].
Cormack, Brian, and Carla Mazzio. 2005. Book Use, Book Theory: 1500–1700. Edited by University of Chicago, 124. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Library.
d’Alembert, Jean Le Rond, Richard N. Schwab, and Walter E. Rex. 1995. Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot. Discours Préliminaire Des Editeurs. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Dacome, Lucia. 2004. Noting the Mind: Commonplace Books and the Pursuit of the Self in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Journal of the History of Ideas 65 (4): 603–625.
Darnton, Robert. 1979. The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie 1775–1800. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
———. 1984. The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History. Rev. ed. New York, NY: Penguin Books.
Day, Matthew. 2011. ‘Intended to Offenders’: The Running Titles of Early Modern Books. Chap. 2 in Renaissance Paratexts, ed. Helen Smith and Louise Wilson, 34–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Holmberg, Linn. 2014. The Forgotten Encyclopedia: The Maurists’ Dictionary of Arts, Crafts, and Sciences, the Unrealized Rival of the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D’alembert. Historiska Studier: Skrifter Från Umeå Universitet. Vol. 7. Umeå: Umeå Universitet.
Wall, Wendy. 2011. Reading the Home: The Case of the English Housewife. Chap. 10 in Renaissance Paratexts, ed. Helen Smith and Louise Wilson, 165–184. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yeo, Richard. 1991. Reading Encyclopedias: Science and the Organization of Knowledge in British Dictionaries of Arts and Sciences, 1730–1850. Isis 82 (1): 24–49.
———. 2003a. Classifying the Sciences. In The Cambridge History of Science: Eighteenth-Century Sciences, ed. Roy Porter, 241–266. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2003b. A Solution to the Multitude of Books: Ephraim Chambers’s “Cyclopaedia” (1728) as “the Best Book in the Universe”. Journal of the History of Ideas 64 (1): 61–72.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ohrvik, A. (2018). Organising Knowledge. In: Medicine, Magic and Art in Early Modern Norway. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46742-3_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46742-3_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-46741-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-46742-3
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)