Dr Laure Miolo

I am a historian of late medieval Europe, specialising in manuscript studies and history of early libraries with a special focus on scientific books and practices.

Research Interests

My research focuses on medieval scientific manuscripts and book collections in France and England between the late twelfth century to the end of the fifteenth century. My approach is based on a detailed analysis of manuscripts and scripts together with the edition of unpublished texts. It explores the intellectual practices and the diffusion of scientific knowledge in different milieux, the reception of Arabic science and its assimilation in the Western world. My present research focuses on the scientific manuscripts and works of a group of fourteenth-century astronomers in Oxford, such as Simon Bredon and William Reed, and their reception by fifteenth-century practitioners, such as Lewis of Caerleon.

For my PhD, which will soon be published, I reconstructed the scientific collection of the early library of Sorbonne, and investigated its owners and users. I pursued my research at postdoctoral level by exploring the manuscripts and works of several medieval scholars and their networks who played a significant role in the diffusion and the renewal of mathematical sciences, more particularly in astronomy and astrology.