Describing Spaces: Topologies of Interlace in the St Gall Gospels

Abstract

The ways in which ideas of the book intersect with notions of space are manifold from Antiquity onwards. As vessels of ideas and knowledge, books and their use invited spatial metaphors based on notions of collecting and storage which were closely bound to the idea of memory.1 The notion of the book as space surfaces in metaphors of the book as a garden, library or building throughout the Middle Ages. For Christian writers, notions such as the ‘inner library,’ the heart as a library of Christ are central, and they pervade patristic texts.2 Accordingly, the metaphorical realm of books connects the book and the body, and is not necessarily spatial in a dimensional sense. It goes beyond the specific object of scroll or codex, aiming instead at the texts and their use and reception.