In medieval and early modern times, scribes, painters, illustrators, translators and authors obviously had specific ideas of what was meant by fidelity to the original; the modern observer frequently regards their transfers as imprecise and wilful. It would, however, be too simple to speak of a 'typically medieval' manner of reproduction. The papers in this volume show that the only sensible approach is to differentiate between the various forms and concepts of reproduction in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age. The interdisciplinarity of this volume results in a complex picture that brings out the different nature of medieval 'transfers' because it considers the particularity of each case. The volume sees itself as a contribution to a cultural history of artistic reproduction.

Starting from an analysis of practices of participation in contemporary print and other media, the volume opens up a historical perspective, probing the potential of the concept of participatory cultures for the exploration of past forms of collaboration between individual and collective actors (i.e. authors, editors, publishers, fans, critics etc.). In doing so, the volume sheds new light on the historically, culturally, and medially specific forms and functions as well as on the economic, political and institutional parameters that contributed to the emergence and transformation of what turn out to be precarious alliances.