Gothic manuscripts

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Royal and courtly patrons took their place in this period alongside churchmen and women and layfolk from the burgeoning bourgeois class, many of whom are known from ownership notes or inventories. Yet some of the finest books of the period were made for people whose identity remains obscure. Similarly the names of craftsmen-scribes, decorators, illuminators-are often known from their signatures in the books they made or from payments and other records, yet many distinguished works are the products of anonymous creators. These years witnessed an explosition in the range of texts that were deemed worthy of illustraton, extending far beyond the usual liturgical and devotional material to include works of science, medicine, law, philosophy, history and literature in verse and prose, offering a wealth of material for comparative study which is only beginning to be exploited in modern scholarship.