Biography
M.B. Parkes (1930 - 2103) was Professor Emeritus of Palaeography in the University of Oxford, and Fellow emeritus of Keble College. He was a Senior Fellow of the British Academy, a Corresponding Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, and had been Visiting Professor at the University of Konstanz (1974 and 1980), James T. Hill Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota (1991), and Visiting Professor of Latin at Harvard University (1997). He is the author of Their Hands Before Our Eyes: A Closer Look at Scribes and his other publications include Pause and Effect: An Introduction to the History of Punctuation in the West; both books are also available from Ashgate.
'Few palaeographical handbooks achieve the status of classics, but Malcolm Parkes's English Cursive Book Hands 1250-1500 is beyond doubt one of them. Since it was first published in 1969 the accuracy of its judgements and the lapidary manner in which they are expressed have rendered it the touchstone for the description and analysis of later medieval English handwriting. It is a work of permanent significance, and its reappearance in a second reprint will be universally welcomed.' Richard Beadle, University of Cambridge, UK 'This is avowedly a teaching book, one from which a teacher can teach others, or a learner can teach himself.' Speculum 1971
