Objects of Affection

Myra Seaman's study examines why medieval books once held such a strong emotional pull on their owners. Its central case is a fifteenth-century anthology held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, known as Manuscript Ashmole 61. Seaman considers the many occupants of the book's pages, people and creatures, things both solid and abstract, and how they work together with readers across different periods. Her focus on the manuscript's physical allure follows how it attaches itself to changing cultural, historical and material surroundings.

The book also reconstructs the emotional education the manuscript gave a household in late medieval England. Its varied members are drawn into the book's own network of relationships, and through that participation they are shaped into people who are generous in their devotion and mindful of their duties to others.