Book excerpt: This book throws new light on the question of authorship in the Latin literature of the later medieval and in the early modern periods. It shows that authorship was not something to be automatically assumed in an empathic sense, but was chiefly to be found in the paratextual features of works and was imparted by them. This study examines the strategies and tools used by authors ca. 1350-1650, to assert their authorial aspirations. Enenkel demonstrates how they incorporated themselves into secular, ecclesiastical, spiritual and intellectual power structures. He shows that in doing so rituals linked to the ceremonial of ruling, played a fundamental role, for example, the ritual presentation of a book or the crowning of a poet. Furthermore Enenkel establishes a series of qualifications for entry to the Respublica litteraria, with which the authors of books announced their claims to authorship.