The Hand with the Pen: Martin of Loka, Matjaž Jurčič of Kapela and Herman Talner of Trebnje and their Colophons

Abstract

Beginning with expressions such as ideographs, the author’s autograph, and the copyist’s autograph, this paper explains the dilemma of some Late Medieval Manuscripts in Slovenian collections that were mistakenly identified as being the author’s own textual creation. The main part of this paper focuses on three mid-15th-century copyists: Martin of Loka, Matjaž Jurčič of Kapela, and Herman Talner of Trebnje. Because each of them added the name of their hometown to their signature, all three can be recognized as hailing from Slovenian places. Martin of (Škofja) Loka was an erudite man, and this is evident from his texts he wrote in German, Slovenian and Latin, as well as from his many forms of scripts. Matjaž Jurčič of Kapela was probably a freelance artist, and the colophon to his copy of an epic poem contains an inscription in Latin, German and Provençal. Working in a remote location, the third, Herman Talner, copied a lengthy politically-oriented poem for Lord Ludvik of Castle Kozjak. At the end of their work all three added colophons which provide valuable information about these individuals and the conditions in which they worked.

Keywords

• Mediaeval manuscripts
• author’s autograph
• copyist’s autograph
• ideograph
• prosopography
• Martin of (Škofja) Loka