This paper explores the application of affordance theory to the interpretation of the material, visual and textual features of medieval manuscripts. A brief introduction concerns an unusual gospel manuscript that serves to problematise our assumptions about what we mean when we apply the term "liturgical" to a manuscript, and the dangers of too prompt inferences from form to function. We will then examine how considering affordance - that is, what the material features of the book-object make possible - can provide a different interpretation of the adoption and development of the multi-text codex as the liturgical book par excellence, and the entanglement of the codex format in developing ritual practice. A second case study examines the implications of a curious but compelling example of deceptive affordances in the Ottonian treasure manuscript known as the Uta Codex.
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