History

Drawing upon knowledge in the arts and sciences, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence emerged through a major seven-year Research Project in England at The Parker Library of Corpus Christi College in the University of Cambridge.  Starting with a Senior Research Associate in 1987 and expanding to a team in 1989, the project was funded for the first two years by an international group of individual as well as corporate donors, and then, as it expanded, for five years by the Leverhulme Trust.

Under the broad heading of "The Archaeology of the Book," the project considered, in close detail, a group of Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts, as well as early printed books, from Late Antiquity to the present.  Some of the materials were undergoing conservation, and so could be examined, recorded, and photographed extensively while disbound, as if during an archaeological excavation revealing evidence normally hidden.

These circumstances gave a remarkable opportunity to gather expertise in many fields, apply it to evidence both known and newly discovered or recovered, and derive significant results from this integrated perspective, research, and knowledge.  The project demonstrated the importance of approaching manuscripts, both as individuals and as groups, from as wide a range of perspectives as possible.  It also worked to develop a methodology for distinguishing evidence from interpretation, or "facts" from "opinions."  Extending these principles beyond the immediate project led to the formation of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

The Group was founded in 1990 from the core researchers of the project and other specialists contributing their expertise from centers in Europe, Japan, and North America.  The Group was established as a private, international nonprofit organization devoted to research on manuscripts and other forms of texts and their contexts across the centuries.  Mildred Budny, one of its founders, has been Director since 1994.

Since 1994 the Group has been based mainly in Princeton, where it has expanded its mission to encompass many subjects in the transmission of texts and their accompaniaments through the ages.  The growth of its Annual Symposia on "The Transmission of the Bible" and other activities led the Group to organize more formally, with a Board of Trustees and invited Honorary Associates, whose number grows with the expansion of our mission and our work.  Their names appear on our Officers page.

In 1999 the Group registered in the State of New Jersey as a nonprofit corporation for educational purposes.  In 2001 the United States Internal Revenue Service granted it official Recognition of tax-exemption as an nonprofit organization, as defined in Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.  In 2004 the I.R.S. granted it Reaffirmation of this status upon the first five-year Reassessment from the date of incorporation.  Having focused most of our efforts on reaching these goals, the Group now seeks funding to consolidate its achievements and carry on its mission.  Our new Bulletin ShelfLife describes and illustrates these initiatives and related activities.

Rather than aiming to found a school as such, requiring buildings and staff, the Group exists specifically for lectures, discussions, and other forms of publication.  It is devoted primarily to the pursuit of education as a vital, and essential, collaborative endeavor across the generations, between students and teachers in many centers and in many areas of interest and importance, and between academic communities and the wider world.  Our approach offers a span across time and space.