Remembrance and Redemption: The Unique Legacy of Medieval Armenian Colophons

Medieval Armenian manuscript colophons constitute one of the richest bodies of first-person evidence for the study of the medieval world. Although they have long been utilised by scholars with knowledge of Classical and Middle Armenian, they remain largely inaccessible to a wider international readership. Preserved in their thousands, these texts offer vivid insights into the lived experiences, beliefs, anxieties, and aspirations of scribes, sponsors, clergy, and laypeople throughout historical Armenia and the wider Armenian world, from Crimea to Jerusalem and from Asia Minor to the Caucasus. This book introduces readers to the Armenian tradition of colophon writing and demonstrates its value as a distinctive literary genre and as a source for historical, social, religious, and cultural research. Combining philological analysis with insights drawn from manuscript studies and the fields of social, religious, and women's history, it explores how colophons illuminate the mentality of medieval people, their perceptions of the sacred, and their understanding of memory, redemption, and communal identity. An appendix of annotated English translations of forty-seven colophons and ten related inscriptions provides direct access to a representative selection of these remarkable texts. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of medieval history, manuscript and book history, religious studies, literary studies, art history, Armenian studies, and the history of the medieval Caucasus and Near East. More broadly, it offers anyone interested in the Middle Ages a unique opportunity to encounter the medieval world through the voices of ordinary people whose experiences rarely found expression in official historical narratives.

About the Author

David Zakarian is the Haig and Isabel Berberian Professor of Armenian Studies at California State University, Fresno, USA. His research focuses on early Christian and medieval Armenian literature and history, with particular interests in the representation of women, manuscript colophons as sources for the social and cultural history of medieval Armenia, and Armenian intellectual and religious history. He is the author of Women, Too, Were Blessed: The Portrayal of Women in Early Christian Armenian Texts (2021) and has published extensively on Armenian history, literature, and manuscript culture.