Gautier De Coinci: Miracles, Music, and Manuscripts (Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe)

Gautier de Coinci (c. 1777-1236) was a Benedictine prior, poet and author of several very popular religious works, including a large collection of Miracles of the Virgin in French, which enjoyed a wide circulation during the Middle Ages. Gautier drew on multiple Latin sources for his work, embellishing and personalizing them as he adapted them to his poetic design. Conceiving of his collection of miracle tales as a complete work, Gautier carefully organized the tales into two books, framing each with authorial exordia and lyrics praising the Virgin. In addition to its obvious literary interest, the subsequent manuscript tradition offers a remarkable panorama of medieval manuscript production, in particular due to the fascinating combination of text, music and illustration. Bringing together a select group of scholars from multiple disciplines (including art history, musicology, and literary studies), the collection explores complementary aspects of Gautier, his works, and his manuscripts, which have never been considered from all these different perspectives at once.