Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books’ and ‘Ege Manuscript 53’ (Quran)

January 27, 2021 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Ege’s Famous Books

and

A New Leaf from Ege Manuscript 53

Qur’an or Koran written in Arabic on paper

Egypt, dated 1122 CE (500 AH), but later: Probably Mamluk Dynasty, 14th or 15th Century

Circa 391 × 299 mm <Written area circa 285 × 220 mm>

Single column of 15 lines in Arabic

Surah 4:163 – Surah 5:4

With rubricated titles, textual dividers, and rosettes for verse markers

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Back of Leaf, Detail. Reproduced by permission.

[Published on 27 January 2021, with an update]

Here we begin to showcase a newly revealed set of one of the Portfolios of specimen Leaves from books and manuscripts assembled by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951). This set presents a selection of specimens of Famous Books, in the longer, or deluxe version, of Nine Centuries. The shorter version covers Eight Centuries.

The version in Nine Centuries was issued in 50 sets, with 40 specimen Leaves extracted from manuscripts and printed books. The shorter version in Eight Centuries was issued in 110 sets of 25 Leaves.

In earlier blogposts, some sets in both versions have come into our view — mainly on account of the specimens from a 14th-century manuscript in Latin on paper with Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics or its commentaries. Our study of that manuscript began with an isolated leaf in a private collection, then moved to examine more of its relatives surviving elsewhere.

Opening for 'Genus dividitur in genus'. Detail from Recto of Aristotle leaf in Set 47 of Ege's Portfolio of 'Famous Books'. Kent State University Libraries, reproduced by permission.

Kent State University Libraries, Set 47 of Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books’, Aristotle Leaf, detail: ‘Genus dividitur in genus’. Reproduced by permission.

Now, we consider the Portfolio in Nine Centuries as such more fully, in the light of the ‘new’ set. This post first examines the nature of the Portfolio (and its fraternal twin in Eight Centuries), then turns to look at its Leaf 1, extracted from a Quran/Koran manuscript in Arabic on paper. That manuscript presents its text in single columns (unframed) of 15 lines, with some rubricated elements and embellishments in gold and other pigments.

Further posts may examine other leaves in the Portfolio, in their manuscript and printed forms.

Broad in vision, the range of specimens come from religious and secular texts over the course of centuries and from a wide range of places of production. As an indication, see Ege’s Contents List (shown below) and his individual Labels for all 40 specimens — displayed online from another set (at Case Western University).

The specimens represent texts in various languages (mostly Western) and by many notable, and even world-class, authors. Represented in their own language or another, they include Homer, Aristotle, Cicero, Ovid, Pliny, Virgil, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Erasmus, Chaucer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Milton, Montaigne, the Beowulf poet, and the translators of the King James Version. The specimens represent many renowned printers in Western Europe and the United States, such as Nicolas Jenson, Aldus Manutius, Robert Estienne, Lucantonio Giunta, Bodoni, the Kelmscott Press, and the Riverside Press. Not forgetting, among others, a specimen from the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493 and from the Fourth Folio of 1685. A few specimens include illustrations.

The selection and design of the Portfolios of Famous Books correspond both neatly and closely with some central interests of Otto Ege throughout his career. (See, for example, Introducing Otto Ege and Otto F. Ege.) As a long-time teacher of graphic design and the history of the book (and later a Dean) at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and as a graphic designer (and printer) in his own right, here Ege was in his element.

The ‘New’ Set in a Private Collection

The ‘new’ set in Nine Centuries resides in a Private Collection. The owner, noticing our webposts (see their Contents List) and mentioning to us the set of Ege’s Famous Books Portfolio, has kindly taken photographs, which we can show for inspection and research — with our thanks.

The set came from this sale: Fall Fine & Decorative Art Auction on October 4, 2015. It was offered (out of Willoughby, Ohio) by Fusco Auctions as lot 81: Ege Portfolio Original Leaves Famous Books, with an Estimate of $2,500 – $3,000, and a realized price of $2,600.

The online catalogue for the sale of that lot presents 4 photographs of a few highlights. They show views of the Portfolio Front Cover, Ege’s printed full-page Contents List, both sides of the First Leaf (from the Koran in Arabic), and Ege’s printed Label for that specimen Leaf.

The set, unnumbered, contains the full set of 40 specimen Leaves, as cited in the 1-page Contents List printed on a single companion leaf of paper.

Samples of Ege’s Portfolios

Some collections possess more than one of Ege’s Portfolios, dedicated to a variety of focused themes on the arts of the book in manuscript and in print across time and place. The nature and themes of his multiple Portfolios are surveyed in several publications. (See below.)

Occasionally, as I have found, it is possible, with permission, to examine more than one of the Portfolios side by side. The opportunity has occurred, for example, at the Houghton Library at Harvard University in Massachusetts and at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County in Ohio. At the former, the consultation addressed 2 sets of the Portfolio of Famous Bibles; at the latter, 3 different Portfolios — all of which come under consideration for our present purposes:

Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Western Europe (“FOL”)
Original Leaves from Famous Bibles
Original Leaves from Famous Books

Three Ege Portfolios. “Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts”, “Original Leaves from Famous Books” (Series A in “Eight Centuries”), and “Original Leaves from Famous Bibles” (Series B in “Nine Centuries”). From the Collection of The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Two of these Portfolios, Famous Bibles and Famous Books, were issued in 2 versions, shorter and longer, in Eight Centuries and in Nine Centuries.

For present purposes, another of Ege’s Portfolios also comes into view. It is devoted to

Fifteen Original Oriental Leaves of Six Centuries: Twelve of the Middle East, Two of Russia, and One of Tibet, amounting to 15 Leaves in 40 Sets.

For that Portfolio, Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, Appendix V (on page 103), lists 13 located sets; worldcat.org lists some of these as well as other sets. Some sets can be viewed online, Leaf by Leaf, as with the set in the Brooklyn Museum:

New York, Brooklyn Museum Libraries, Special Collections, Call Number Z109 Eg7.

Earlier blogposts have considered aspects of all these Portfolios, but for the Oriental Leaves. Within those reports, we have considered in particular Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, 29, 41, 51, and 61, along with Ege’s Workshop Practices. (A post on Ege MS 22 is coming soon.) See our Contents List.

Now, turning to the ‘new’ set of Famous Books, it seems clear that our previous explorations of the several different Portfolios come in handy as background — perhaps especially because there is some cross-over between different Portfolios in Ege’s distribution of individual copies of books and manuscripts. We start with the Koran/Quran manuscript (‘Otto Ege MS 53’), with its specimens found in both Famous Books in Nine Centuries and in Oriental Leaves, as well as elsewhere.

The Portfolio in Question

By the title on its front cover and the Title-Page with Contents List, the ‘new’ Famous Books Portfolio proclaims itself as a set of Original Leaves from Famous Books, Nine Centuries, 1122 A. E. – 1923 A. D., with a List of 40 unnumbered Leaves. This is the longer, deluxe, series in Ege’s 2 versions of the Portfolios of Original Leaves from Famous Books. The shorter version spans only Eight Centuries, 1240 A. D. – 1923 A. D. in 25 leaves.

For short, some sources refer to these Portfolios as FBNC and FBEC, as in Scott Gwara’s account of Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (2013). The close resemblance of these 2 acronyms, differing only partway through (N versus E), may require close inspection. In context, referring to the variants as “Nine Centuries” or “Eight Centuries” might be clearer at a first glance, where concision of space or numbers of characters is not a primary consideration.

Gwara considers these 2 Portfolios as entities on his pages 36–37 and in his Appendixes III and IV (on pages 100–102), which list some current locations of their sets. His “Handlist of Manuscripts and Fragments Collected or Sold by Otto F. Ege” (Appendix X on pages 116–201) lists the manuscripts in numerical order by assigned numbers (1–325 and counting), indicates their position in any of Ege’s Portfolios, and cites current locations, sales catalogues, and other information, as available.

Another invaluable resource for these and other Portfolios, or Leaf-Books, by Ege (and by others):

Christopher de Hamel and Joel Silver, with contributions by John P. Chalmers, Daniel W. Mosser, and Michael Thompson, Disbound and Dispersed: The Leaf Book Considered (Chicago: The Caxton Club, 2005), Catalog-Checklist no. 14/68 (pp. 74–75 and 116) and no. 20/98 (pp. 79–81 and 120), and Checklist nos. 21 (p. 110) and 51 (p.114)

This book doubles as an exhibition catalogue. It contains a set of essays about Leaf Books in general and in particular, the “Catalog of the Exhibition” (pp. 62–101), and “A Checklist of Leaf Books” (pp. 102–137). That both the Catalog and the Checklist have their own series of numbers (items 1–46 and 1–230 respectively) might prove ambiguous, so reporting their page-numbers as well as their section- and item-numbers can be helpful.

On one opening (pages 81–82), there are illustrated 6 sample plates of “Six leaves from Otto Ege’s 1949 boxed set of original leaves from famous books” in nine centuries (Catalogue number 20 / Checklist number 98), in the collection of Michael Thompson. The sampling shows the specimens of 5 printed books and 1 manuscript — the Koran manuscript which opens the Portfolio. From that photograph of one of its sides (the recto), it is possible to identify its location within the former manuscript.

The Contents

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC, Title and Headpiece for the Contents List.

In a single page, Ege’s Contents List, which he called an “Annotated Chronological Index”, arranges the specimens in groups by chronological order and by medium:

Manuscript Leaves
Incunabula Leaves, and
Imprints, in 2 subgroups: XVI Century and XVI–XX Century

Private Collection, Contents List in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Chronological Index. Reproduced by permission.

The 4 groups commence with the Manuscripts.

First the Manuscript Specimens

There are six Specimens in total, with texts all in Latin but for the first in Arabic. (The Portfolio in Eight Centuries has only three — and does not include the Arabic.) They are written variously on paper or on animal skin (parchment or vellum).

Their list:

Note that Ege’s title or summary for each leaf customarily employs a title in English, regardless of the language of the specimen text.

1122 Egypt. Mohammed, Koran on paper
1240 France. St. Jerome, Vulgate Bible
1365 Germany. Aristotle, Nichomachian Ethics on paper
1436 Italy. Livy, History of Rome
1466 Italy. Book of Hours
1470 Italy. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences

That is, according to the numbering assigned to Ege’s manuscripts in Gwara’s Handlist:

1122 Egypt. Mohammed, Koran on paper [ = Ege MS 53, here Surah 4:163 – 5:14]
1240 France. St. Jerome, Vulgate Bible [= Ege MS 54, here from the Book of Job chapters 8–12]
1365 Germany. Aristotle, Nichomachian Ethics on paper [= Ege MS 51, here folio 35/35]
1436 Italy. Livy, History of Rome [ = Ege MS 52; here folio 41]
1466 Italy. Book of Hours [ = Ege MS 55; here folio 53]
1470 Italy. St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard [ = Ege MS 40; here folio 300, turned back-to-front in Ege’s mat]

These contents differ somewhat from the selection of Manuscripts in the Portfolio version of Eight Centuries, as seen in its Contents List with 3 Specimens in the set at Kent State University.

Otto Ege’s Contents List of the Manuscripts in his FBEC Portfolio at Kent State University Libraries, reproduced by permission.

Note that the components which Ege assigned to the individual sets of the Portfolio display some variation. A look at individual Portfolio sets reveals certain changes, for which the data have yet to be examined in full, while the process of tracking the Portfolio sets, their dispersal, and their components remains ongoing.

Let us remain aware of the subsequent rearrangements and substitutions which owners might effect. A documented case of such adjustments to the contents by Ege’s widow herself is vividly illustrated in a blogpost by our Associate, Lisa Fagin Davis, as part of her series Manuscript Road Trip, reporting a visit to Cincinnati, Ohio, and to a private collection which holds a set of the Famous Bibles in Nine Centuries, replete with annotated Contents List and substituted Contents (shown here). The recorded replacement substitutes the specimen of one 13th-century Vulgate Bible for another, exchanging, as Leaf 2, a leaf from Ege MS 76 for one from Ege MS 59, and noting the substitution in annotations to the Contents List.

The Spread Across Portfolios

Specimens from some of these manuscripts served within more than 1 of Ege’s different Portfolios. Such is the case with all but the Book of Hours. Some of the selected manuscripts appear in both versions of Famous Books; some appear both there (both versions of the Portfolio in Eight or Nine Centuries) and elsewhere; and some appear in the longer version of Famous Books, as well as elsewhere.

Appearances in 5 ‘flavors’:

1) Some manuscripts served in both versions of the Portfolios of Famous Books, in Nine Centuries and in Eight Centuries (FBNC + FBEC). Such is the case with

The Aristotle specimen (as Leaves 3 and 2 respectively in these two Portfolios) = Ege MS 51
The Livy specimen (as Leaves 4 and 3 respectively) = Ege MS 52

Private Collection, Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Leaves’, Livy MS Leaf, Back, Top. Reproduced by permission.

2) Selections from the dismembered copy of the Koran appear in both the Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries (as Leaf 1) and the Portfolio of Oriental Leaves (likewise as Leaf 1). That is,

The Koran specimen served as Leaf 1 in both FBNC and the Portfolio of Oriental Leaves = Ege MS 53

3) The dismembered Vulgate Bible of 1240 circulated in both FBNC and FBEC (as Leaves 2 and 1 respectively), although sometimes in FBEC its place was taken by a very similar pocket-sized Vulgate Bible used in the FOL Portfolio as its Leaf 9 ( = Ege MS 9).

The Vulgate Bible specimen of 1240 = Ege MS 54

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC Portfolio, Vulgate Bible Leaf, Verso, Mid Right. Reproduced by Permission.

4) The Aquinas specimen in Humanist Script circulated both in the FBNC (Leaf 6) and the more famous FOL (Leaf 40), from which position comes its number in Scott Gwara’s Handlist. Its dismembered Leaves in some FOL sets are illustrated, for example, on the website ege.denison.edu.

The Aquinas specimen in Humanist Script = Ege MS 40

Note that this manuscript, although distributed in the same 2 Portfolios as the Vulgate Bible manuscript (FBNC + FOL) to which Gwara assigned 2 different Handlist numbers, holds only 1 number in Gwara’s Handlist, corresponding squarely with the position assigned to it in FOL. The differential treatment in the Handlist of the Vulgate Bible specimen on the one hand, with 2 assigned numbers, and the Aquinas specimen on the other can lead to some confusion or conflation. (As observed above.)

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC Portfolio, Aquinas Leaf, Recto, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.

5) So far as we know, among Ege’s Portfolios, the Book of Hours specimen in FBNC appears only in this one Portfolio (as Leaf 5).

The Book of Hours specimen from a manuscript dated 1460 = Ege MS 55 (see Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, figure 63 on page 271)

Private Collection, Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Book of Hours Leaf, Front, Lower Portion of Text. Reproduced by permission.

All these leaves deserve attention in their own right and in the context of their dispersed relatives. Already some studies consider one or other of them, particularly in the setting of the FOL Portfolio. Examples include the website ege.denison.edu, showcasing “The Ege Manuscript Leaf Portfolios” and exhibiting images from each Leaf (not necessarily both sides) in specific sets of FOL at 14 institutional collections in the United States and Canada.

Printed Leaves

Whereas Scott Gwara’s Handlist in Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (2016) provides the standard for citing Ege’s Manuscripts, apparently there has appeared no comparable Handlist of Ege’s Printed Books — or even of his 15th-century Incunabula — and their distribution patterns and current locations. Efforts toward this goal gather momentum, however, as part of the wider work on Ege’s books and their impact overall.

The full series of Ege’s Labels for the 40 specimens of textual materials in the Portfolio in Nine Centuries is displayed online for some sets, as at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio. Set within rectangular borders resembling captions for an exhibition, the printed Labels expand the information in the Contents List into several paragraphs of observations about the genre of book, authorship, impact, and other generic features, with a few comments about the specific book from which the specimen derives.

In Ege’s 1-page Contents List, the 6 Manuscript Leaves (items 1–6) are followed by 5 Incunabula Leaves (items 7–11), then the groups of Leaves from XVI Century Imprints (items 12–26 with 14 specimens) and Leaves from XVII–XX Century Imprints (items 27–40 with 13 specimens).

Alongside the manuscript fragments, the printed specimens in the Portfolio hold interest also in their own right. A special ‘subset’ is their group of leaves from early printed books, or Incunabula.

Private Collection, Ege’s Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Laertius Leaf (1475), Front, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.

For the printed materials, by definition other copies, more-or-less identical, may survive in other collections retaining the book in full (more-or-less). Some copies are reproduced online in full or partial facsimile. Some copies might still be available for direct inspection in their collections, for loan, or for purchase.

However, Ege’s leaves comprising printed matter sometimes carry marginalia and other forms of additions or alterations — as the case with some of the Incunabula — which ‘lift’ their status into unique witnesses to the transmission of the given book and edition.

In all cases, the patterns of location for the given titles as distributed within given sets (and in other settings) can contribute to the knowledge of Ege’s workshop practices in dismembering books and relocating their isolated elements for broader scattering into very many collections, which themselves might change hands — sometimes more than once. See, for example, A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices.

A challenge to finding the location and character of other sets of the Portfolio (in one or other version), or perhaps dispersed parts of them, is the tendency of some institutional cataloging practices to separate the individual items into different departments or categories (literally or virtually), and, on occasion, to omit to mention, or to bury, the connection between the given Leaf or Leaves on the one hand and Ege and his Famous Books (or some other) Portfolio on the other.

We have encountered such problems with other parts of Ege’s oeuvre — as we might call his work and his works in the forms of dismembered and repositioned books of many kinds. The problems multiply with the widespread dispersal of the Portfolios in whole or in part, as well as of individual Specimens. Upon these conditions are piled the many challenges to identifying and locating them through library catalogues and websites (as well as sales catalogues). We have reported on such constraints, for example, in our blogpost on More Discoveries for “Otto Ege Manuscript 61”. See also below.

That some success is possible engaging with this challenge derives in no small measure from paying close attention to the terms in which Ege himself described the items, whether in print or in handwritten notes upon the leaves or their mats. The attention can yield some results discoverable in roundabout, but effective, ways.

As always with researching materials dispersed in multiple collections, some of which have online information (sometimes including images of the materials), any results may have to depend upon the nature (and extent) of the information and metadata provided for the objects — and upon access to such materials and information.

Incunabula

Ege’s Contents List for the Incunabula (“Incunables“) in the Portfolio describes their Specimens in succinct terms. They concern printed books produced in the early age of printing in the West — that is, by conventional agreement, up to the year 1500. See, for example, surveys of the History of Printing and Incunables. All are the products of printing by moveable type, rather than, say, blockbooks, a genre which Ege’s Portfolio ignores.

Private Collection, Ege FBNC Contents List, Detail: Incunabula.

After the 6 specimen Manuscripts, the Incunabula are represented by 5 Specimens. All on paper, their texts occur in Latin, Italian, or German.

Ege listed them thus:

1472 Italy. Cicero, On Duty, printed at the de Spira Press (Venice)
1475 Italy. Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, printed by Nicolas Jenson (Venice)
1480 Italy. Voragine, The Golden Legend, printed by Antonio de Strata (Venice)
1491 Italy. Dante, Divine Comedy, printed by Petrus de Plasio (Venice)
1493 Germany. Hartmann Schedel, Nuremberg Chronicle, printed by Anton Koberger (Nurenberg)

That is, according to the numbering assigned to these publications in the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC), they are:

1472 Italy. Cicero, On Duty, printed by Johann and Wendelin of Speyer / Giovanni and Vindelino da Spira (Venice, 1472), folio 41
= ISTC ic00058000
1475 Italy. Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers), printed by Nicolas Jenson (Venice, 1475), folio 131 (with marginalia)
= ISTC id00022000
1480 Italy. Voragine, The Golden Legend, printed by Antonio da Strata (Venice, 1480)
= ISTC ij00095000
1491 Italy. Dante, Divine Comedy, printed by Petrus de Plaisio (Venice, 1491)
= ISTC id00033000
1493 Germany. Hartmann Schedel, Nuremburg Chronicle, printed by Anton Koberger (Nurenberg, 1493)
= ISTC is00309000

To these specimens from Incunabula, as well as others among the later Imprints, we might return in other posts.

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC Portfolio, Dante Leaf, Verso, Detail. Reproduced by permission.

Manuscripts, One By One

First we consider the manuscript fragments.

Already our blogposts have begun to consider parts of Ege MS 51, as distributed in Ege’s Portfolios and by other means. The alternate means include the circulation of individual leaves on their own (sometimes in an Ege mat with his label), and the several portions of the ‘Residue’ (a binding included), after Ege’s extractions, now in the Otto Ege Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University. See:

My first introduction to the manuscript came from Leaf 96, in a Private Collection. The leaf number appears at the bottom right of the recto, in pencil. Acquired by itself, without any Label, the leaf is firmly recognizable as one of Ege’s by its correspondence in format, layout, textual contents, style of script, material, and other features which establish its position formerly within Ege Manuscript 51.

Private Collection, Rectos of Single Leaves from Ege MSS 41 and 51, with guide. Photography Mildred Budny.

Some of the ‘Residue’ of Ege Manuscript 51, binding included, but with despoiled innards, has come into view in the Otto Ege Collection at the Beinecke Library.

The damaged binding of Volume II, viewed from the spine:

Beinecke Manuscript & Rare Book Library, Otto Ege Collection, Volume II of Ege Manuscript 51, Spine View.

A view of the interior of the volume, opened to show its gutted gutter between folios 9v/27r (following the removal of folios 10–26 between them) and the results of water or liquid damage at the top of the book. In the outer margin on the verso, accompanying the text, there stands a square-shaped diagram drawn in ink, with inscribed labels.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Ege MS 51, Volume II, opened at the gap between folios 9v/27r. Photography Mildred Budny.

Now we consider the manuscript leaves in the newly revealed set of Famous Books in Nine Centuries which came from a sale in Ohio and entered a Private Collection. With permission to show its images, we begin with the first Leaf in the set.

The Koran Leaf = Ege MS 53

In its mat, with its identifying label at lower left:

Koran 1 Ege MS 52 in Famous Books Portfolio in Mat

Closer up, behind the window of the mat, we can glimpse the full extent of the leaf, with trimmed or cropped margins which removed part of the script and other elements. Patched repairs at the bottom of the leaf employ 2 overlapping pieces of paper.

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Front of Leaf. Reproduced by permission.

The other side of the leaf, lifted partway from the backing mat on the hinged gauze tapes characteristic of Ege’s mountings:

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Back of Leaf. Reproduced by permission.

Note that the leaf has a pasted repair, sub-triangular in shape, at the lower inner corner, remedying a lost portion. An added entry of script supplies the missing or covered elements on one side of the patch, pasted to the back of the leaf. Pasted to the front of the leaf, a longer strip of paper across the width of the leaf repairs or strengthens its undulating lower edge.

The Text

The text starts on the front, or recto, of the leaf. It begins within the middle of verse 162 (of 176 verses) of Surah ٱلنساء‎ / An-Nisāʾ (“The Women”). On this Surah, Chapter 4 of the Quran, see, for example, An Nisa or An-Nisa. It considers issues relating to women, marriage, inheritance, orphans, rights, and more. The text here differs slightly from the online version which we found (for example, Quran; see also Sacred-texts), in that the words occur in a different order. Continuing through An-Nisa, the page ends in the middle of verse 174. The text continues on the other side of the leaf, on which Line 3 ends An-Nisa.

Next comes the rubricated title, spanning a full line, for Surah Al-Ma`idah (“The Table”, “The Table Spread”, or “The Table Spread with Food”), that is, Surah 5 which spans 120 verses. See, for example, the opening and bilingual text of this Surah in Sacred-texts.

With a broader nib than the main text, the title is written in a single line of red pigment, spread the full width of the column (line 4). Red dots above and below the characters provide the letter identifiers. Marks in black ink indicate the vowel- and length-marks for reading.

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Title for Surah 5. Reproduced by permission.

Spread across another full line, in the same ink and script of the main body of text, there follows the Basmala, the standard invocation

بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ) (bi-smi llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīmⁱ , “In the name of Allah the merciful . . . “).

This phrase leads to the Surah text, starting at verse 1 and ending within verse 4 at the bottom of the page. Thus, the span of text on the leaf extends from within Surah 4:163 to within 4:175 on the recto, and from thence to Surah 5:1–4 on the verso.

The polychrome verse-markers take the form of 6-petalled rosettes, usually raised above the baseline of script. The group of petals surround a circular center of red pigment. Smaller circular motifs, 6 in number, alternating in color (red and green?), nestle between, or emerge from, the outer tips of each pair of petals.

The addition of script at the lower right on the patch supplies the missing elements لَهُمۡۖ from the severed, covered, and repaired section at the beginning of the line of text.

Textual Divisions

Upside-down in the right-hand margin below the title, at an angle leading toward (‘descending to’) line 10, and partly trimmed away at the edge of the leaf, there stands an inscription to indicate the opening of a section. Written in red, with letter-identifiers in red and vowel- and length-marks in black ink, it has a similar prominence and style as the title. It appears to be the work of the same scribe.

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Back of Leaf, Detail. Reproduced by permission.

Seen right-way up, that is, inverted with relation to the text, the marker reads thus:

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Back, lines 8-10, Inverted. Reproduced by permission.

The partly severed entry marks a division in the text. The first word is نصف (nsf), meaning ‘half’. There follow the letters z b (‘b’ certainly; ‘z’ is less certain), which might be read as زب — presumably a contraction of حزب (ḥizb’), meaning ‘group’. (Elsewhere the manuscript, as we can discover, preserves in full a comparable marking, so as to confirm this conjectured reading.)

The other side of the ‘new’ Leaf carries a second form of indicator for textual division. Entered solely in black ink apparently by a different hand than the scribe of the text, it forms a descending angle in the outer margin at the end of line 4. Upright with relation to the main text, it begins with the word ربع (rubuʿ, rubʿ, or rubue), “quarter”. In its full form, it designates: ربع حزب (‘quarter-hizb‘).

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Front, lines 1-6. Reproduced by permission.

The 2 marginal entries on recto and verso belongs to a graded system of inscriptions marking textual divisions in the Quran, intended to facilitate its recitation. Briefly, the elements of the system, as it has evolved over time and place, comprise a variety of units.

Surah, or “Chapters”, 114 in number (of varying lengths), provided with titles
— divided into verses, or ayah ʾĀyāt (of varying numbers), on which see ayah
Juz’ ( جُزْءْ, ), or “Part”, 30 in number (of varying lengths)
Hizb ( حزب , ḥizb), or “Group”, 60 in number (roughly equal lengths)

Further divisions also pertain. For example (see, among others, Rub el Hizb):

A juzʼ is divided into ḥizbāni (“two Groups”)
A ḥizb is one-half of a juz’
Each ḥizb is subdivided into four quarters, making eight quarters per juzʼ
Each of these is called Arba (ارباع) “quarter”, or alternately maqraʼ (“Reading”), making 240 Ahzab or ‘quarters’ in the full Quran.

Moreover, longer chapters among the surah might receive other forms of subdivisions for purposes of recitation, without breaking the flow of the topic.

Ruku (رُكوع‎, Rukūʿ), “Passage” or “Stanza”, denoting a group of thematically related verses in the Quran, and amounting to 558 rukūʿs within it.

Each Hizb is subdivided into four equal parts, that is, a ‘quarter’ or Arba (ارباع). The three middle quarters of a ḥizb have these names:

First quarter of Hizb: Rub ul Hizb (ربع الحزب)
Second quarter of Hizb: Nisful Hizb (نصف الحزب)
Third quarter of Hizb: Thalathatu (ثلاثة ارباع الحزب)

The ‘new’ leaf has diagonal entries in the margins marking both a ‘first’ and a ‘second’ quarter (without the ‘ul’). The second is inscribed in rubricated, polychrome form similar to the Surah title and of an equivalent prominence. The first appears less formal, inscribed only in ink and by a different, less polished, hand. One marker is upright; the other is upside-down in relation to the Quran text.

According to the site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juz%27 , the first-quarter of Hizb 11 (spanning the text of Surahs 4:148 to 5:26) should occur at 4:163 (within An-nisah, as here). The first verse on the leaf stands within 4:163. Might we, perhaps, expect its marking (‘Hizb‘?) to stand at the bottom of the previous leaf? Now dislocated from this one, perhaps it survives in some other collection.

In sum

To sum up the contents of the leaf:

Recto: Surah 4:163 to 4:175 (in An-Nisa, “The Women”)

Verso: Surah 4:175 to 4:176 (end of the Surah)

Rubric title for 5 Al-Ma`idah (“The Table Spread”) and the Bismallah

Surah 5:1 to 5:4 (halfway through the verse)

Margins:

Quarter-hizb near 4:166

Half-hizb near 5:3

From the Wikipedia site ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juz’), the divisions of hizb 11 are:

4:148–4:162 (ḥizb)

4:163–4:176 (quarter-ḥizb)

5:1–5:11 (half-ḥizb)

5:12–5:26 (three-quarter-ḥizb)

The annotations on the leaf do not line up exactly with the WebSite ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juz%27), if they are to mark the start of the section specified there. However, the interval between them is consistent with the length of the passages.

The pattern(s) of textual division-markers applied to this Koran manuscript dismembered by Ege for his Portfolios may show its intentions for use in its original shape, its signs of use and adaptation, and perhaps also its position within the ‘evolution’ over time and place of practices of such markings — both upside-down and upright — for purposes of recitation.

Recto and Verso

By TAKASUGI Shinji - Own work, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Right-to-left Language Books. Diagram by Takasugi Shinji (Own Work), via Wikimedia Commons.

It is possible, perhaps probable, that the prominent smear across the middle section of the rubricated line of script of the title led Otto Ege to chose to place this side of the leaf on the hidden side within the mat, with the unsmeared page facing outward through the window. The placement turned the original recto of the Arabic leaf into a Western recto, reversing its location within the original manuscript, properly to be read from right to left on the page and from front to back on its leaf.

Note that the terms ‘recto’ and ‘verso might mean different things, depending on the reading direction and the point of approach to the ‘start’ of the leaf. See, for example, Recto and Verso (“Front” and “Back”). Here we use ‘recto’ to indicate the first side of the leaf intended to be read in the course of the text, and ‘verso’ to indicate the second side in the direction of reading.

Ege’s positioning of the selected leaves from whatever book within their windowed mats customarily masks from view the full contours of specimen. As a result, it is often impossible to tell from the windowed front of a framed Specimen alone whether the Leaf comes from an original recto or verso. In some exceptions, as with some specimens in the ‘new’ set, the framed view shows a folio-number, with one number to the leaf, or 2-sided folio. Sometimes, instead, the number in view can pertain instead to a page-number, applying one number to each side of a leaf, or page. Unless the observer is familiar with the edition in question, or has access to a view of the other side of the leaf, it could be unclear whether the number seen within the mat pertains to one folio (both recto and verso), or to only one side (either recto or verso).

A couple of cases in the ‘new’ Portfolio exemplify the range.

First, a manuscript, showing folio-number “35” (twice) within the mat (in ink at top right and in pencil at bottom right):

Private Collection, Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Aristotle Leaf within Mat. Reproduced by permission.

(As it happens, the presence of these folio-numbers can significantly aid the virtual reconstruction of the manuscript in question, and contribute to the study of its history. As shown in this blogpost: More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’.)

Second, a printed specimen, showing page “118” at the front (with page “117” turned to the back):

Private Collection, Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books in Nine Centuries’, Jovius, ‘Illustrious Men’ (1577) Specimen Front in mat. Reproduced by Permission.

The practice of selecting, and visually cropping, a seemingly privileged side of a leaf — and not necessarily its original ‘recto’ — governs the presentation of Ege’s Specimens, regardless of whether they come from Western or other writing systems.

The Leaf and Its Manuscript

Private Collection, Ege FBNC Koran Leaf Label.

On this manuscript, and the individual specimen, Ege declared in his Label:

The Koran, the book of laws and religion of over 200 million Moslems, was dictated by the prophet Mohammed after extensive travels to Syria and Palestine with a wealthy uncle. It was on these expeditions that Mohammed gained his concepts of monotheism and star worship. The 114 chapters of the Koran, arranged according to their length, have strange titles such as The Ant, The Spider, The Greeks, and The Sun. The followers of Mohammed believed that the text contained revelations from the angel Gabriel, given to Mohammed in dreams after the year 600 [CE]. The Koran gave all believers equality and eliminated the priestly class. It is held in great respect by Moslems, who, according to George Sale, the first translator of the Koran into English, do not dare to touch it without first being washed, nor to hold it below their girdles, nor knowingly suffer it to be in the possession of any person of a different persuasion. They swear by it and carry it into battle.

With religious fervor rivaling that on the medieval monks, and with an alphabet surpassing the European one in artistic possibilities, the Moslem calligraphers of the Koran gained just honor and lasting renown. The art of writing is regarded by the Moslems as the finest of the arts, but few wrote before the time of Mohammed; in his own tribe, the Koreishites [Qyarysh], only seventeen knew how to write. The prophet is not numbered among these. This leaf was written by the Egyptian calligrapher Mohammed ibn Kuzel Al Isawai with a reed, on egg-glazed paper that antedates any European-made paper by half a century. [Emphasis added.]

Ege’s entry for the Leaf in his Contents List identifies the work as

Mohammed, Koran Manuscript on paper, written by the calligrapher Mohammed ibn Kuzel Al Iswai. Small illuminated rosettes.

Private Collection, Ege FBNC, Contents List, Manuscripts 1 & 2.

The Manuscript and Its Date

The date, place of production, and name of the scribe must derive from a scribal colophon which the manuscript contained, but which Ege’s dismemberment dislocated from the other leaves. Those pieces of information had to circulate with Ege’s notes and his labels, without our ability by direct observation to challenge or to affirm the claims of the colophon, its manner of execution, and other means.

Alongside Ege’s attribution, Scott Gwara’s Handlist (p. 137) provides a different assessment:

Ege Description: “Manuscript written in Egypt (Cairo), 1122 A. D. (500 A. H.)”.

Gwara Description: “MS on paper. Egypt, dated 1122 but Mamluk dynasty, s. xv”

The span of the Mamluk Sultanate extended from 1250–1517. At the purported date of the manuscript (or its exemplar), Egypt belonged under the control of the Western caliphate and the Fatimid dynasty (969–1174), followed by the Ayyubids. Many studies and reference works examine manuscript production for these periods. See the suggestions for Further Reading at the end of this post.

When I asked our Associate, David Sorenson, what view he might have about the date-range of the “new” leaf and its manuscript, he replied:

Re. Quran — Boyd Mackus had one at K[alama]zoo [i. e. one year or other at the Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies; see its Archive]. It looked to me like a typical Mamluq leaf, 14th–15th century, as Scott says. The easy way is to check the paper; if it has any chain lines it’s got to be after 1250 or so. [Emphasis added.] The writing style looks later, anyway. You can look through Blair to see examples. 1100 or so would be an earlier type (late Fatimid) with a quite different script style.

The reference here to “Blair” indicates Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy (Cairo, 2006). Suggestions for further references and links to manuscript collections online appear at the end of this post.

Recently, in working to create a Gallery dedicated to Watermarks and the History of Paper, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence has published the updated and downloadable version of David’s illustrated conference paper on “Paper-Moulds and Paper Traditions: What Mould-Patterns in Near Eastern and Indian Paper Suggest Regarding Origins of Local Papermaking” (2020). (See Paper Moulds and Paper Traditions and the downloadable paper.) It includes observations about the importation and manufacture of paper in Egypt, or with Egyptian provenance, from about the ninth and tenth centuries (CE) onward (see especially pp. 5–7, with specimens).

Ege’s Portfolio of Oriental Leaves perhaps has a different Label for specimens from this Koran manuscript than its Label for Famous Books in Nine Centuries (as shown above). So far, I have not yet seen an example of either the Contents List or “explanatory caption” for the Oriental Leaves, apart from quotations of information which accompanied the Leaf in some form. The title of that Portfolio describes itself thus:

Fifteen Oriental Manuscript Leaves of Six Centuries:
Twelve of the Middle East, Two of Russia, and One of Tibet
from the Collection of and with Notes Prepared by Otto F. Ege

The online images of both sides of the Koran Leaf in the Oriental Leaves Portfolio at the Brooklyn Museum are accompanied by a caption quoting “Printed material” in these terms (presumably Ege’s?):

“Koran by Mohammed: Egypt, Cairo, early 12th century 1122 A. D.; Arabic Mohammedan text, Arabic script, Nashki style.” (Koran Leaf)

On the style of script, see, for example Naskh (Script).

Leaves in Other Sets

Some other leaves from this manuscript appear online. Under current conditions of bibliographical research, with access to many libraries closed or limited, exploring Ege’s Portfolios and their dispersal mainly requires resorting to online resources and the books and other materials which I have to hand, or can find. Among them are stores of photographs from visits to multiple collections on the track of research on Ege’s Portfolios and other quests.

Some leaves from the Quran manuscript belong to one or other set of Ege’s Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries (as at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh). Some belong to a set of Ege’s Portfolio of Oriental Leaves (as at the Brooklyn Museum in New York ). Some appear to be separate leaves. The appearance, or apparent condition, of separate leaves might in some cases (many?) reflect their institution’s label, the removal of the individual leaves from the set and the mats, and/or the distribution into different divisions of the larger collection or into different collections altogether. As a result, for various reasons, the labelling or cataloguing by the collection or institution can mask, bury in ‘fine print’, or outright ignore the connection with Ege, or with one or other of his Portfolios.

Needless to say, such factors can impede or interfere with research to recognize different leaves from the manuscript now in different locations.

My consultation and photography, with permission, of the set (Number 20) now at the Princeton University Library several years ago provides the opportunity to re-examine it virtually offline, and to identify its place within the former manuscript.

Princeton, Princeton University Library, Firestone Library, Special Collections, Oversize 2008-007E;
The recto, beginning midway through Surah 13:40, Ar-Ra’d (“The Thunder”), carries the rubricated title for Surah 14, Ibrahim (“Abraham”); the verso carries the rubricated upside-down marker ‘half-hizb’ in the outer margin opposite 14:10, and closes within 14:22.

A few examples of leaves as seen in print or online:

New York, Brooklyn Museum, Koran Leaf within Ege’s Portfolio of Oriental Leaves

Recto

Brooklyn Museum, Libraries and Archives, Z209 Eg7, Koran Leaf, Recto. No known copyright restrictions.

The recto starts with verse 74 within Surah 11, “Hud“. Note that the rubricated entry in the outer margin (partly trimmed, like the one on the ‘new’ leaf) marking the textual division of a “Half-Hisb“, or “Half-Group”, stands upright with relation to the text (unlike the orientation on the ‘new’ leaf). Note also the modern paper repair across the bottom of the leaf.

Verso

Brooklyn Museum, Libraries and Archives, Z209 Eg7, Koran Leaf, Verso. No known copyright restrictions.

Private Collection, Koran Leaf within a set of the Famous Books Portfolio, illustrated (one side only, cropped) in Disbound and Dispersed: The Leaf Book Considered (2005), page 82.
Its red title opens Surah 13: Ar-Ra’d (“The Thunder”).

Memphis, Tennessee, Rhodes College, Archives and Special Collections, Hanson Collection, Ege Box 3, Leaf 1
(identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10267/20164) – a leaf which, it is said, arrived within Ege’s mat for it.
The red title, on the verso, opens Surah 28: Al-Qasas (The Stories”).
Note the pair of paper patches at the lower edge, with a subtriangular patch at the outer margin and a longer horizontal patch across the bottom, like the ‘new’ leaf.

Recto

Rhodes College Archives and Special Collections, Memphis, TN. Hanson Collection 3, Koran Leaf, original recto, via http://hdl.handle.net/10267/20164.

Verso

Rhodes College Archives and Special Collections, Memphis, TN. Hanson Collection 3, Koran Leaf, original verso, via http://hdl.handle.net/10267/20164.

Queens, NY, Saint John’s University, Archives & Special Collections, FBNC, verso only; otherwise [access restricted]
The text on this page extends from Az-Zumar (“The Groups”) at the start of Surah 39:63 ‘لَهُ مَقَالِيدُ السَّمَاوَاتِ’ to the end 39:75, followed in the last line by the title for Ghafir (“The Forgiver”) ‘غَافِر‘ (Surah 40).
The rubricated inscription for the textual division of a “Half-Hizb” stands upside-down in the outer margin (see above).

Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Near Eastern Department, Leaf from a Koran, showing only the recto and citing the date 1122.
(This leaf and its Portfolio set of Famous Books in Nine Centuries is not recorded in Gwara’s Handlist.)
The rubricated inscription for the textual division of a “Half-Hizb” in the outer margin (see above) remains in full, uncropped; at an angle, it stands upright with relation to the text.

Columbia, South Carolina, University of South Carolina, Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library, Early Ms. 128 (the gift of Scott Gwara)
— with no image, but with the information that “the word ḥizb is written upside down on the margin of the verso”, indicating a textual division.

In this latter case, the online catalogue entry not only refrains from identifying the span of the text, but also leaves uncertain whether the Leaf belongs to, or came from, one or other of Ege’s Portfolios, or circulated in some other way instead. It states:

“[The leaf] Relates to a Qur’an leaves [sic] included in Otto F. Ege’s Fifteen original [Oriental] manuscript leaves of six centuries and Original leaves from famous books. This leaf was attributed to Mohammed ibn Kuzel Al Isawai by Otto F. Ege. Ege dated the ms. ca. 1122.”

More research, and more available information, would reveal further details about the structure of the manuscript as a whole, its context, its scribal attribution, and other features.

The Scribe and the Date

With accompanying labels or notes, the variously circulated leaves have mostly traveled to their current locations with a report of the name of the calligrapher as “Mohammed ibn Kuzel Al Iswai”, the date of “1122 [CE]”, and the place of origin as Egypt, and particularly Cairo. This knowledge would have travelled with the leaf, whether in some note, label, or contents list by Ege. Sometimes, alas, the specific form of transmission is not reported, or is only inconsistently or ambiguously mentioned, by the institution in its cataloguing or the accompanying metadata.

Sometimes the information about the leaf may have appeared in, or also in, handwriting — as seems to be the case with the leaf at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (to judge by part of the online catalogue description). It was not uncommon for Ege to have inscribed such information in pencil at the bottom of the mat and/or on one side of a detached leaf itself, as the leaves from a book were separated and dispersed variously on their own or in company with severed leaves from other books or manuscripts, Portfolios and other means included. Examples are illustrated in other blogposts about Ege’s manuscript fragments. (See our Contents List.)

For the Koran manuscript, presumably we must assume that Ege derived the name of the calligrapher and the exact date from a scribal colophon within the manuscript — if not from some extra-textual information which came to him with the book, say on an endleaf or the binding, or in some other form from the seller.

As stated in his Label for the Nine Centuries Portfolio (seen above):

This leaf was written by the Egyptian calligrapher Mohammed ibn Kuzel Al Isawai with a reed, on egg-glazed paper that antedates any European-made paper by half a century.

So far, a scribal colophon has not come into view on any leaf as yet recognized as part of the same book. Occasionally for some of Ege’s manuscripts, a colophon surfaces somewhere in a dispersed leaf, as the case with 2 other manuscripts deployed as specimens in the Famous Books Portfolios:

the Aristotle manuscript (Ege Manuscript 51) and
the Livy manuscript (Ege Manuscript 52).

The latter case survives at Rhodes College, with the colophon reporting the date as 12 September 1456; it is shown here. Multiple colophons in the former are described and illustrated in More Parts of ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’ .

One wonders what other information a colophon in Arabic might have conveyed, not only in terms of its textual contents, but also in terms of its script, its location within the book, and other material evidence.

As for a different date between the wording of a colophon and the apparent date of the manuscript, it is not unknown in manuscript production, both Eastern and Western, that the colophon of an earlier scribe, with its earlier date, could be copied unchanged in the process of transcribing the exemplar.

Presumably, Ege took the colophon at face value, without recognizing other features which could signify a much later date for the script, paper, textual markings, and other features.

Coda: Reed or Pen

It is uncertain whence Ege derived his belief that “This leaf” (namely, whichever one accompanied his Label) “was written . . . with a reed”. The use of a reed pen, especially for papyri (and cuneiform), is well attested. The images available for view from the Koran manuscript show rapid gradations in widths of strokes more characteristic of quill pens.

Perhaps Ege drew his inference from his belief that the manuscript represented an early, pre-European form — replete with egg-glaze as a finish.

*****

2021 Congress Program in Progress

October 14, 2020 in Announcements, Business Meeting, Conference, Conference Announcement, Index of Medieval Art, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Societas Magica, Uncategorized

Activities of the
Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
Planned for the
56th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(13–16 > 10–15 May 2021)

Preparations

Following the Call for Papers due by 15 September 2020
and now the Announcement by the Medieval Institute on 16 October 2020

[Posted on 15 October 2020, with updates]

Update on 16 October 2020:

Today the Medieval Institute announced on its Congress page these changes for the 2021 Congress, which affect both the date-span and the activities, to occur only “virtually”:

Due to the ongoing health crisis, the 2021 International Congress on Medieval Studies hosted by Western Michigan University’s Medieval Institute will be held virtually, Monday to Saturday, May 10 to 15, 2021. More details will be released as they become available.

We will miss the camaraderie of the in-person experience. We look forward to hosting a vibrant and intellectually engaging virtual conference that offers plenty of opportunity for stimulating interaction at a distance. Please mark your calendar for these revised dates.

Watch this space. We await instructions from the Congress Committee regarding the revised approach to Sessions.

Update on 5 November 2020:

As the plans advance for the now-virtual Congress, we announce that we continue to plan for the Sessions and the Open Business Meeting, but not for a Reception. We co-sponsors for the Reception agree that it would make sense to wait for such an event under conditions in person. We look forward to the new stages in preparing for a fully online presentation of the 2021 Congress.

*****

After the cancellation of the 2020 Congress (see our 2020 Congress Program Announced), preparations for the 2021 Congress permitted re-submitting the sessions which had been designed to take place in May 2020. By popular request, we performed that re-submission for all 5 Sessions. With approval by the Congress Committee, these Sessions joined the listings of all sessions on call on the Congress website — with additional details on our website, in our own 2021 Congress Call for Papers. #kzoo2021.

New for this year, all proposals (or re-proposals from 2020) had to be made through a Confex system, as directed on the Congress website. The new system imposed some teething problems for prospective participants, Session Organizers, and Sponsors. These challenges emerged in several forms at various stages, including close to the several deadlines for submission of proposals for papers and of the proposed programs of the Sessions.

Especially under such conditions, it was helpful to have the benefit of collaborative consultations, among all our Organizers, and with our Sessions Co-Sponsor. We thank Dr. Elizabeth Teviotdale of the Medieval Institute especially for her swift responses directly along the way, when our Director had to turn to her repeatedly for help, information, and advice.

In time, we will announce the Programs which we have chosen for the Sessions, now that the Call for Papers has completed on 15 September 2020, and following our choices for those Programs by 1 October 2020. Before announcing our plans in detail, we await their Confirmation or adaptation by the Congress Committee. We thank our Participants and Organizers for their contributions.

Adèle Kindt (1804–1884), The Fortune Teller (circa 1835). Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The Plan We Had for the 2020 Congress

The Announcement for our Sessions and other Activities at the 2020 Congress describes what we planned. As customary, we published the Abstracts of Papers, so as to record the intentions of speakers for their presentations. The Abstracts are accessible both through that Announcement and through the Indexes of published Abstracts by Year and by Author.

The Sessions included 3 Sessions sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence and 2 Sessions co-sponsored with the Societas Magica, in the 16th year of this co-sponsorship at the International Congress on Medieval Studies.

Like the 2015–2019 Congresses, we also planned for

an Open Business Meeting and
a co-sponsored Reception.

Even so, the Agenda for the postponed 2020 Business Meeting is available. It takes into account the changes for Spring 2020:

2020 Agenda.

The Plan We Have for 2021

We contemplate a similar approach to the 2021 Congress, conditions permitting. [See Update above.]

For the 2021 Congress, we present the same Sessions, with a few changes. Our pair of Sponsored Sessions dedicated to “Seal the Real I–II” remain as before. The pair of co-sponsored Sessions dedicated to “Revealing the Unknown I–II” have some changes in the line-up. One Session has a revised title (“Medieval Magic in Theory: Prologues in Medieval Texts of Magic, Astrology, and Prophecy”). For 2021, the Societas Magica has agreed also to co-sponsor this Session, so that the alignment of sponsorship has adapted to changing opportunities.

The 2021 Congress will be the 17th year of our co-sponsorship with the Societas Magica, in a constantly constructive partnership of friends, students, and colleagues.

As before, we have planned for an Open Business Meeting and a Co-Sponsored Reception.

For 2021, the co-sponsorship for a Reception joins the Research Group with the Societas Magica and The Index of Medieval Art, combining all 3 Sponsors in recent years.

[The virtual presentation of the Congress may allow for some form of Business Meeting and Reception. Watch this Space.]

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Divination, History of Documents, History of Magic, Index of Medieval Art, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Manuscript studies, Medieval Seals, Skrying, Societas Magica
No Comments »

Carmelite Missal Leaf of 1509

October 6, 2020 in Bembino, Manuscript Studies, Reports, Uncategorized

Single Leaf on Paper from an
Early-Printed Latin Missal (Missale Romanum)
For use in a Carmelite Monastery

Part of the Mass for Holy Saturday (Sabbato Sancto)

Printed in 1509
by Lucantonio Giunta in Venice
in 2 columns of 36 lines
With Music on 4-Line Staves

J. S. Wagner Collection

Another leaf from the J. S. Wagner Collection takes center stage as we examine its features. We thank the collector for allowing us to see and to show the material.

Other leaves from this collection are reported in earlier posts. They came from medieval manuscripts and stand on vellum.

*****

This time, the single leaf stands on paper and came from an early-printed Latin Missal. On paper. The form of book contains all the instructions and texts necessary for the celebration of the liturgical year.

We offer a description, identification, and 12-page downloadable Report. The Report, by our Associate and Font Designer, Leslie J. French, is available below. It is set in our copyright digital font Bembino (of course).

Worth saying that the printed leaf has sparked the interest of our Font Designer. Glad for his expert examination and exploration. This blogpost serves as a foundation, counterpart, and compliment to his report.

J. S. Wagner Collection, Single Leaf from a Latin Missal containing part of the Mass for Holy Saturday for use in a Carmelite Monastery, printed in 1509 Lucantonio Giunta in Venice. Recto, detail. Reproduced by Permission.

Other Materials from the Same Collection

The collector has generously shared with us images of some fragments, manuscript and printed. They include a leaf from a dismembered Vulgate Bible manuscript, now known as ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’, which occupied center stage in earlier blogposts.

J. S. Wagner Collection, Ege Leaf 19, verso, detail.

Other leaves carry illustration or decoration (or both) as well as text. For example, The Penitent King David from a Book of Hours:

J. S. Wagner Collection. Detached Manuscript Detached Leaf with the Opening in Latin of the Penitent Psalm 37 (38) and its Illustration of King David.

J. S. Wagner Collection. Detached Manuscript Leaf with the Opening in Latin of the Penitent Psalm 37 (38) and its Illustration of King David.

And A Leaf from Prime in a Large-Format Breviary :

J. S. Wagner Collection, Leaf from from Prime in a Latin manuscript Missal. Folio 4 Recto, with the end of Psalm 53, the title for the Gloria Patri, and the opening of Psalm 117 (118), set out in verses with decorated initials..

J. S. Wagner Collection. Leaf from from Prime in a Latin manuscript Breviary. Folio 4 Recto.

The Leaf in Question

The text on the leaf to which we turn now contains part of the Mass for Holy Saturday (Sabbato Sancto), including music with notation on staves, for use in a Carmelite Monastery, that is, Carmelites, known as the “Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel” (Ordo Fratrum Beatissimæ Virginis Mariæ de Monte Carmelo). The spiritual focus) of the Carmelite Order is contemplation, encompassing prayer, community, and service.

Pietro Lorenzetti, Predella panel. Carmelite Hermits at the Fountain of Elijah (1328-1329). Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale di Siena. Image Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The features of the Missal Leaf, including fonts, demonstrate that it was printed by Lucantonio Giunta in Venice, Italy. That is, Lucantonio Giunti (or Giunta), prolific book publisher and printer, born in Florence and active in Venice from 1489.

The Numbers Game

The recto of the leaf carries the printed folio number cij. Numbers in pencil in the outer corners at top and bottom label it as folio 148 and as an item-of-some-kind number 49991. The unevenly cut inner edge more-or-less follows the fold-line between the leaf and its mate in the former bifolium, or pair of leaves which nested within the gathering of leaves. The inner edge retains the 5 more-or-less regularly spaced notches which were cut into the fold of the gathering in preparation for stitching the text-block into the binding. (According to Ligatus: The Language of Binding, such features are to be known as “knife-cut recesses”, thus defined.)

The top of the Recto, with alternate Folio numbers in print and in pencil:

The bottom of the recto, with a large number very close to 50,000:

J. S. Wagner Collection, Single Leaf from a Latin Missal containing part of the Mass for Holy Saturday for use in a Carmelite Monastery, printed in 1509 by Lucantonio Giunta in Venice. Recto, detail: Bottom Portion. Reproduced by Permission.

The Leaf in Full

Recto and Verso, one by one. Let us have a look and turn the page.

Recto of Leaf Number CII/148

Verso of Leaf, with Catchword

J. S. Wagner Collection, Single Leaf from a Latin Missal (‘Missale Romanum’) containing part of the Mass for Holy Saturday for use in a Carmelite Monastery, printed in 1509 by Lucantonio Giunta in Venice, Italy. Verso of Leaf. Reproduced by Permission.

Features to note: Well, everything. (It’s what we do.)

Including: the Running Title, the Text, the Initials, the Music; and the Yellow Wash. Etc. For example, as showcased in our accompanying Booklet (See Below):

In passing, we note that other blogposts have had occasion to observe the placement of a wash or fill of yellow pigment within minor initials of manuscripts. Some authorities regard the feature as Italian or ‘Italianate’. See, for example

Private Collection, Le Parc Abbey, Theological Volume, Part B, opening page: Peter the Venerable.

Other Leaves From This Dispersed Book

It took a while to find some comparanda, as we continued to explore. You know, we might now wonder (story be told), if that dearth of close comparanda might indicate a rarity, we’d be prepared to agree.

The Report (see below) and this blogpost tell that story.

To start, where we began, once trying to fine some bearings among online resources.

Here is a close relative, exhibited online for sale at one time on ebay and now shown via worthpoint.com as
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/1509-giunta-missal-leaf-woodcuts-172119411 . It is described thus:

A Leaf From a rare, Giunta Missale, (secundum usum Carmelitarum), numerous woodcuts of New Testament scenes and saints, facing pages with composite borders of figured vignettes, profusion of woodcut historiated and decorative initials. Text and music printed in red and black throughout. The Missal contains the prayers said by the priest at the alter [sic] as well as all that is officially read or sung in connection with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the ecclesiastical year. This particular leaf features two woodcuts as well as the text for the Mass that is celebrated during Passion Week for The Easter Season. Verso: Text and music printed in red and black throughout. (Venice: Lucantonio Giunta, 13 January 1509). Condition of this leaf is under fine[F-] and this leaf measures 6.75″ x 4.5″.

Note the generic description that addresses a single “Leaf”, but cites multiple leaves from the same source-volume, as it mentions “numerous woodcuts”, “facing pages with composite borders”, a “profusion of woodcut historiated and decorated initials”, “text and music printed in red and black throughout”, etc., and then refers to features on “this particular leaf”. To whit:

This particular leaf features two woodcuts as well as the text for the Mass that is celebrated during Passion Week for The Easter Season.

Even so, the description could serve for any leaf within the portion dedicated to Passion Week, provided that it has “two woodcuts” and carries music on the verso. Perhaps that is the idea.

(We have become familiar with such a generic approach to identical labels circulated with different individual leaves from a single book in our investigations of manuscripts and other textual materials dispersed from the collection of Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), as considered in multiple posts on our blog; see its Contents List.)

We note the seller’s grading of the condition of that leaf: “under fine” or “F-“, according to recognized book-selling terminology for “used books”. Presumably, if that grading is correct, it could aptly apply to other leaves from the same book, unless, that is, other parts of the book suffered different and more extensive forms of damage.

J. S. Wagner Collection, Single Leaf from a Latin Missal printed in 1509 Lucantonio Giunta in Venice. Recto, detail: Bottom Portion. Reproduced by Permission.

According to the image exhibited online in the sales offering, its recto (with a single woodcut) carries the printed folio number liv, and 2 more numbers in pencil: another folio number (“109”) in Arabic numerals in the top right corner, and another number in the bottom right corner (“49952”) — the latter in the same hand as the number 49991 on the Wagner Leaf.

Customarily we could think of such large numbers at bottom right as an inventory number in a seller’s marker. Given the specificity of the number, in a high number not always evenly rounded off, it seems clear that the number is not a price, in whatever currency. Identifying the ‘code’ particular to a given seller might aid in deducing the provenance of the piece. Thus might progress a hunt for a particular seller’s style.

That is how we first regarded the high number on the Wagner Leaf. Further exploration, and the discovery of other leaves carrying similar numbers in a sequence which can be revealed to have a specific import relating to the volume itself, is explained in the Report downloadable below.

Spoiler Alert: We still think that these numbers are inventory numbers, which pertain to the individual leaves of the given volume. But they also appear to stand within a very large inventory which could or would involve very many individual leaves extracted from very many individual books.

The Leaf and its Provenance

The present owner reports that the Leaf came to him in a collection, with no identification of its contents or a source for the item.

And so, exploring aspects in turn of the Missal Leaf — as described here and in the 12-page Report by our Associate (and Font Designer), Leslie J. French (see below) — we have discovered that this very Leaf was listed for Sale via faginarms.com, where it was presented as an Italian Missal Page [Update of 17 November 2020: that post appears to have been removed], with an image clinching the identification:

Straight from the heart of the Renaissance! Printed page, 6 3/4″ x 4 1/2″, by Lucantonio Giunta, Venice, 13 January, 1509. This page with the prayers and songs for Holy Saturday. Excellent and suitable for framing.

Stock Number: FNS3583

Sold

Discovering, if wished, which individual copy of the Missal was dismembered and dispersed, from which collection, and by whom, would require further research.

Other Leaves from the Same Book

Suffice it to say that we have seen online a few other leaves which must have come from the same copy. Mostly, it appears, they passed through eBay. For example, a 1509 Giunta Missal Leaf, described as:

(Venice: Lucantonio Giunta, 13 January 1509).

More leaves are described in our booklet, for which see below.

The Edition and Its Components

Thus, identifying the printer and the date of the edition led us to consult standard bibliographical resources for the genre of book, the printer, Missals printed by the same printer, and other aspects.

First:

William H. James Weale and Hanns Bohatta, ed., Bibliographica Liturgica: Catalogus Missalium ritus latino ab anno M.CCCC.LXXIV Impressorum (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1928).

An earlier version of the catalogue appears online:

William H. James Weale, ed., Bibliographica Liturgica: Catalogus Missalium ritus latino ab anno M.CCCC.LXXIV Impressorum (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1886), online via archive.org.

Both versions mention this Missal among the Missals for Use of the Order of the Fratres B. V. Mariae de Monte Carmelo.

But they differ.

In the 1886 version, this Missal is no. 1509 (p. 251), listed only briefly, with the mention of the date and place of publication, and the existence of a copy at “Frankfurt a. M. : S”. I give this detail because you can see its evidence online. I can also report the extra text in the 1928 book, which I possess.

In the 1928 version, this Missal is no. 1887 (p. 319), with more information:

1509, ID. Ian. (13 Jan.) Missale secundum ordinem fratrum Carmelitarum. In Uenetorum ciuitate, Lucas antonius de giunta. 8vo. 44 nn., 299 n., 1 vac = 344 Fol. . . . 2 col. 36 lin.

Frankfurt a. M. : S.

Rivoli 311, 274

That is, in 3 stages:

1) Bibliographical information about the publication itself, its date (the Ides of January, or 13 January, 1509), title, place of printing (“In the City of Venice” or In Uenetorum ciuitate), printer, colophon, format, number of leaves (344), layout in number of columns (2) and lines per page (36), etc.;
2) A known copy of the book, in this case at Frankfurt am Main in the “S[tadtbibliothek].”, however with unspecified pressmark; and
3) The reference to another bibliographical resource, namely “Rivoli” with the numbers “311, 271”.

The 3rd stage refers to a substantial publication by the 3rd Duc de Rivoli (also the Prince d’Essling), Victor Masséna (1836–1910), bibliophile and scholar (see also Essling, Victor Masséna):

Duc de Rivoli (Victor Masséna), Les Missels imprimés à Venise de 1481 à 1600: Description — Illustration — Bibliographie. Études sur l’art de la Gravure sur Bois (Paris: J. Rothschild, 1894), p. xviii and no. 274 on pages 311–312, online via 1894.

There we find a more detailed description of the volume, according to the single copy examined or known (“l’exemplaire que nous avons vu”) — albeit lacking its title page and some other pages. As a result, the title for the Missal is not reported. The description includes a list of 22 woodcut illustrations, which appear in a cycle from the Immaculée Conception to Christ de pitié — including some which seen to appear also in other Missals printed by or for L.-A. Giunta. Also noted by the description are:

Nombreuses petites vignettes, dont une certaine quantité a fond noir criblé, principalement dans les encadrements qui se trouvent au recto des pages en regard des grands bois. — Initiales ornées.

No mention of the music, but presumably that is to be taken as a given for the genre of book?

The colophon (on R. 288):

Explicit missale per ordinem fratrum gloriosissime dei genitricis semperque virginis marie de monte carmello : … quod impensa sua ac solerti cura Lucasantonius de giunta florentinus in Venetorum ciuitate floretissima impressit. Anno natalis domini. M. d. ix. idibus ianuarij.

(“Here ends the Missal for the Order of the Brothers of the Most Glorious Mother of God and eternal Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, . . . which, at his expense and by the diligence of skills, Lucas Antonius de Giunta, the Florentine, printed [or caused to be printed?] in the city of Venice. In the year of the Lord, 1509, on the Ides of January.”)

Rivoli identified the sole copy under his consideration as belonging to the city library at Frankfurt, with a pressmark: “Francfort, B[ibliothèque]. de la Ville, Rit. cath. 512”.

In Frankfurt, the Stadtbibliothek now combines with another major institutional library, as the Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main (since 1945). So far, we have not been able to learn about its copy of this Missal (pressmark “Rit. cath. 512”) through the library website.

The apparent rarity of appearances of copies (or fragments) online or in some standard reference works might show a small-scale printing to start with, or a wider disinterest in the edition as such, given some with earlier dates and/or heightened extents of illustration. If it was a rare issue, then the dismemberment of the volume sold piecemeal online (perhaps not very recently) would represent an even more lamentable loss, with the destruction of the integrity of an early-printed object not easily to be found or replaced elsewhere.

Because Rivoli does not illustrate any of its woodcuts in this edition, we may glimpse their character and perhaps their style from other illustrations of the same subjects in other of Guinta’s Missals which appear among Rivoli’s figures and descriptions. Some of these correspondences or resemblances which Rivoli noted in his entry for this 1509 Missal, by referring to other Missal numbers and to other pages (as with “Missel 59 et p. 167” for the Annonciation XVI, the Assomption (“Cf. pp. 22, 25), and the Nativité de la Ste Vierge (“Cf. p. 113”) — subjects centering upon the Virgin Mary presumably of especial interest to the Carmelites.

Some examples:

1509 Giunta Missal Leaf Medieval Music Leaser Lent
Recto only of Leaf 49952, with a part-page woodcut. An opportunity described in these glowing terms:

A Wonderful Leaf for The Manuscript Collector and A Great Gift Idea! Purchase Three or More Individual Auctions and There Will Be No Charge For Shipping We Now Accept PayPal WE SHIP WORLDWIDE – PLEASE CONTACT US FOR A FREE SHIPPING QUOTE! for more information.

The Printer and His Works

The printer’s career is surveyed in Lucantonio Giunti or Giunta (1457 – 1538), or in English via Lucantonio Giunti. We learn, for example:

Lucantonio Giunta or Giunta (1457–1538) was a Florentine book publisher and printer, active in Venice from 1489, a member of the Giunti family of printers. His publishing business was successful, and among the most important in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Through partnerships, often with members of his family, he expanded the business through much of Europe.

It is useful to note that for some works he served directly as printer in the production, and for others indirectly as publisher in the distribution.

The Printer, His Devices, and Examples of Title-Pages

Over the course of his output, Giunta employed several forms of printer’s device. Some are gathered and displayed online via Luca Antonio Giunta. Examples appear in Missals both earlier and later than the 1509 Carmelite Missal, in various formats, and for various Orders, as well for the practices of various Churches — as with the Church of Rome in the Missal Romanum. Some title-pages for his Missals are illustrated in Rivoli (1894).

Here follow a few specimens.

Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Missale Romanum printed by Lucantonio Giunta (1521), Title-page, detail: Printer’s Device. Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

1) From the Roman Missal of 1501 in Folio Format

The title-page of the Missale Romanum nouiter impressum, printed by Lucantonio de Giunta on 20 November 1501 in Venice.

Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Missale Romanum printed by Lucantonio Giunta (1501), Title-page. Image via Creative Commons.

The end-page with the colophon displays a mostly full page of text printed in black and red.

Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Missale Romanum printed by Lucantonio Giunta (1501), End-page. Image via Creative Commons.

The edition is listed in Weale and Bohatta (1928), no. 964 (p. 169); and Rivoli (1894), no. 59 (pp. 167–168).

2) For the Dominican Order of 1504 in Folio Format

The title-page of a folio Missale secundum ordinem fratrum Predicatorum, printed by Lucantonio de Giunta on 30 June 1504 in Venice.

The full title, citing the “most beautiful figures (figuris)” describes the work thus:

Missale predicatorum nuper impressum ac emendatum cum multis missis: orationibus pulcherrimisque figuris in capite missarum festiuitatum solennium de nouo superadditis: ut inspicienti patebit.

The edition is listed in Weale and Bohatta (1928), no. 1828 (p. 311); and Rivoli (1894), no. 256 (pp. 300–301).

The tapered title is surmounted by a woodcut illustration of a full-length and haloed figure holding flowers and an edifice, in a depiction of the founder and patron of the Order, the Castilian Saint Dominic (1170–1221). At the bottom of the page appears the printer’s device in an upright rectangular frame, including the initials L and A. The whole volume appears online from a copy still in Venice, at the Biblioteca nazionale Marciana: here. The title-page, from Biblioteca nazionale Marciana – Venezia – IT-VE0049 :

First page of the ‘Missale predicatorum’ (1504), printed by Lucantonio de Giunta in Venice. Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

3) From a Missal Romanum of 10 May 1521 in Folio Format

That is, Missale romanum nuper adoptatum ad commodum. Venetijs in aedibus Luce antonij de giunta.

The Title page carries a variant version, within a paneled border.

Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Missale Romanum printed by Lucantonio Giunta (1521), Title-page, detail: Printer’s Device. Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The page in full:

Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Missale Romanum printed by Lucantonio Giunta (1521), Illustrated Title-page. Image via Creative Commons.

The detailed title:

Missale Romanum ordinarium. Missale romanum nuper ad optatum comodumquorumcumque sacerdotum summa diligentia distinctum et ortographia castigatum atqueita ex nouo ordine digestum . . .

The edition is Weale and Bohatta (1928), no. 1046 (p. 182); Rivoli (1894), no. 92 (pp. 196–198).

From the copy in Florence, Biblioteca nazionale centrale, shelfmark MAGL.2.109 (identifier info:sbn/CNCE011532), some specimen pages are shown in the Biblioteca digitale italiana via www.internetculturale.it, specifically here. The colophon:

Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Missale Romanum printed by Lucantonio Giunta (1521), End Page with Colophon. Image via Creative Commons.

4) From a Missale Nouum of 21 April 1537 for the (Hungarian) Order of Saint Paul the First Hermit in Quarto Format

From a copy in Budapest, National Széchényi Library, I. II, 66:

Budapest, National Széchényi Library, I. II, 66, Title-page. Missal (1537). Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

This edition is Weale and Bohatta (1928), no. 1814 (p. 308); Rivoli (1894), no. 247 (p. 296).

*****

In sum, the Wagner Missal Leaf belongs to a dispersed copy of Guinta’s Missal of 1509 for Carmelite Use.

We offer more information about the leaf and its edition in this 12-page illustrated booklet prepared by our Font and Layout Designer. Free to download. Enjoy!

Leslie J. French, “A Detached Printed Leaf containing Part of The Mass for Holy Saturday for Carmelite Use: A Process of Discovery” (Princeton: Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, 2020), available here.

We thank the owner for permission to examine the material and to present it here. We thank Leslie French for his research and booklet.

*****

Camelite Booklet Cover Page with New Front Cover with border

Suggestions for Further Reading

More information about this printer, his Missals, and their Music:

Mary Kay Duggan, Italian Music Incunabula: Printers and Type (Berkeley, etc.: University of California Press, 1992)
Lesley T. Stone, From Chapel to Chamber: Liturgy and Devotion in Lucantonio Giunta’s Missale romanum, 1508 (M. A. dissertation, Department of Art and Art History, University of South Florida, 2005), examining the edition of 3 October 1508 (especially its woodcuts),
online via https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1877&context=etd = University of South Florida Scholar Commons
Leslie J. French, “A Detached Printed Leaf containing Part of The Mass for Holy Saturday for Carmelite Use: A Process of Discovery” (Princeton: Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, 2020), freely available for download here.

*****

Do you know of other leaves from this Missal? Do you have information about the provenance of this copy?

Please let us know.

Add your Comments here, Contact Us, and visit our Facebook Page.
Follow our blog on blog for further research on dispersed books, and watch its Contents List.

*****

Tags: Carmelite Missal of 1509, Dominican Order, Duc de Rivoli's Missels, Early Printing, Early Printing in Venice, history of printing, Holy Saturday, J.S. Wagner Collection, latin Missal, Lucantonio Giunta, Roman Missal, Weale and Bohatta
No Comments »

Patch Work in ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

September 10, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Patched Repairs in ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
With Pieces
of Text and Decoration
Extracted From the Same Manuscript

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Detail of Patch.

In a nutshell: Patches Work. Cut-Outs and Patches are recognized genres (sadly) in the history, transmission, plunder, and showcasing of medieval manuscript glories, plus efforts in some cases to cover the tracks.

Tracking those Traces? Call it Forensics. Detection Works.

Continuing our series of reports for some of the manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), we focus upon a little-recognized feature in one of them, which incorporates reused pieces from leaves in the same book for filling holes in other leaves. Previous accounts of the manuscript have taken scare notice of the feature; it could be more widespread in the book than their individual reported cases would indicate.

About this manuscript see, for example:

Updates for Some ‘Otto Ege Manuscripts’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 41, and 61)

Some Leaves in Set 1 of ‘Ege’s FOL Portfolio’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, and 41)

See also The Illustrated Handlist (Number 4).

We look forward to further publications about this manuscript by other scholars, including Joseph Bernaer and Peter Kidd. Joseph has kindly responded to our invitation to contribute his discoveries for publication, and Peter Kidd offers photographs which aid the quest. Peter’s publication of Volume 3 of The McCarthy Collection: French Miniatures (forthcoming, 2020) is eagerly anticipated.

Patchwork

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, ‘Ege Family Album’, Leaf 14 verso, detail.

Some leaves of ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’ have patches which fill gaps made in excising decorative elements, presumably for display in their own rights as cuttings.

Many Western medieval manuscripts survive either with cuttings or from cuttings, which forcibly extracted portions of a leaf, resulting in a hole within its original expanse. Although very many of Ege’s leaves themselves constitute cuttings in the form of “whole leaves”, I distinguish these fragments from the related phenomenon of “snippets of decorated borders and isolated initials”, as described and illustrated from collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Library, and the Walters Art Museum.

So far as I know, studies of the manuscript and attempted reconstructions of the extant pieces of Ege Manuscript 14 do not take much account of the patches, apart from occasional mentions for some individual leaves.

While working to update an account of surviving parts of the manuscript, presented in More Discoveries for ‘Ege Manuscript 14’, I took care to inspect anew images of the leaves available for viewing online. In the process, I was struck by the references to patches on a couple of different leaves described by catalogue entries. Those references call for attention.

Their notices appears in 2 catalogue entries known to me. Both are “Rogue Leaves”, a term applied to some pieces of Ege’s manuscripts. That is, they were distributed otherwise than through the customary sets of Ege’s FOL Portfolio (Fifty Original Leaves from Western Medieval Manuscripts), in which specimens from Ege MS 14 — usually single leaves, but rarely a pair of leaves in a bifolium — were selected for Leaf Number 14.

An example, within its Ege mat:

The original manuscript is mostly known as Ege Manuscript 19 (Gwara, Handlist, No. 19, page 124). The numbering follows Ege’s numbering for his FOL Portfolio. Some identified parts are listed in Scott Gwara’s Handlist, by which we cite them here.

Via the Handlist

1. Gwara, Handlist 14.1.

Boston University = Judith H. Oliver, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular (1985), number 36 [but no plate]

End of Kings, Prologue to I Chronicles, and beginning of I Chronicles,
with a ‘patch taken from another illuminated page of the same manuscript’ covering the cut-out from the ‘theft of initial for I Chronicles’.

One wonders which other page yielded its riches to patch up this leaf. (See below.)

2. Gwara Handlist 14. Ref 14.

Sold at Sotheby’s 10 July 2012, lot 2(b)

The leaf carries the Opening of the Catholic Epistle of James on its verso; I have not seen an image of its recto (But see below).

The leaf is described in the Sotheby’s catalogue thus:

leaf from a lectern Bible, 400mm. by 270mm., with a large initial ‘I’ (opening “Iacobus ihesu christi seruus …”, the epistle of James) in burnished gold with a coloured architectural roof and arch, enclosing a bearded James with a golden halo pointing at the opening of his epistle, angular foliage forming text-frame around all sides of one text column, terminating in golden leaves and a dragon, 3-line initial enclosing ivy-leaf, similar text-frame on verso with a dragon and a 5-line initial containing a sprig of foliage ending with a dragon’s head, double column, 50 lines in a regular gothic hand, area of one column cut away (90mm. by 95mm., presumably once with a large initial), now repaired with another cutting from same volume [highlights added], once mounted on card with remains of tape on recto, France or southern Flanders, early fourteenth century

Its contents:

Part of the Prologue to the Catholic Epistle of James (from [ut quia Petrus /] est primus in ordine apostolorum) and the opening of this Book, with 1:1–2:4 (nonne iudacitis [/ apud vosmet])

— plus a replacement patch with lines of script from 2 columns of text

Pasted to the recto of the leaf, on the verso the patch shows through the acquired hole, which functions as a form of ‘windowed mat’, across the end of column a and most of column b in their lines 25—37 on the damaged verso of the leaf. Viewed from the recto, the more-or-less rectangular patch, which has unevenly trimmed edges, can be seen to its full extent. Viewed from the verso, the extent and shape of the cut-out itself is known.

The mention of “remains of tape on recto” by which the leaf was “once mounted on card” shows that Ege’s matting turned the leaf front-to-back to display the verso. This is the same side as showcased in the Sotheby’s view online for its auction. The removal of part of the leaf presumably addressed an attractive historiated initial which began the Prologue on the recto.

The text on the patch identifies the leaf from which it was extracted in turn. (See below.)

In the “Otto Ege Collection” now at Yale

Another case has emerged in the Otto Ege Collection. This “find-place” demonstrates that the patch was in place within Ege’s collection, not in some subsequent handling after it left his hands.

3. First leaf of Genesis

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

Genesis opens with a full-page initial I (for Initium) and carries the text from Book 1:1 to 3

Recto

Opening page of the Book of Genesis, with a full-page illustrated initial I for 'In' ('In Principio'), showing scenes from Creation to the Crucifixion. Dismembered leaf from 'Otto Ege MS 14'. Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Manuscript and Rare Book Library, Yale University. Reproduced by permission.

First page of Genesis from ‘Otto Ege MS 14’. Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Manuscript and Rare Book Library, Yale University. Reproduced by permission.

Verso

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Verso.

The Patched Repair

Recto

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Detail of Patch.

Verso

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Verso, Detail of Patch.

From Which Leaf?

Without (apparently) text on the patch to serve as a guide, it is uncertain to which leaf this decorated element belonged. At least, to judge by the animated decoration, with a dragonesque biped and branching, scrolling foliate tail, the element belonged to part of a major decorated initial.

The blank side of the patch could be suggestive. Can we know if originally the decorated element stood on a recto, with a blank verso, or the reverse?

As it now stands on the Genesis leaf, the decorated portion of the patch stands on the recto, with the blank side on the verso. If the pasted portion of the patch, hidden from view at the edges of the patch where it is pasted to the verso of the leaf, carries any text, the quest might become easier.

Might the hidden side of the patch itself, wherein the pasted parts of its ‘recto’ attach to the verso of the Genesis leaf, hold further clues in any other elements of script or decoration?

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Detail of Patch.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Patch Rotated.

At present, in its patched position, the supplied decorative feature stands with the head of its dragonesque creature facing left with opened jaws. Seen in profile, the biped spreads both legs — appearing as hindlegs — in a striding pose, appearing to march forward, while its elaborate foliate tail creates a nest of branching, coiling scrolls below its body, plus an extension which descends into the lower margin. There, the tail branches again to form an opposed pair of foliate terminals.

On this side of the leaf, the patched portion neatly fits into the gap. The supplied segment with its creature nestles below the flat base of the initial I (for Initium). The letter comprises a vertical row of 8 block-like panels containing figural scenes illustrating episodes which culminate in the Crucifixion.

The tapering downward curve of the creature’s tail in the supplied portion appears to flow more-or-less seamlessly into an existing part of the decoration on the patched page, namely the downwards extension of a foliate strand which produces the pair of foliate terminals. Thus, the supplied patch and the existing decoration form a new, remedied, form of elaborate terminal for the full-page initial.

Who can say at present from which leaf came the patch? Might its decorative creature have stood in some other alignment on its original page (for example, as shown on the right)? That alternative, however, seems unlikely, given the orientations of similar decorative terminals to major initials in other parts of the book.

It is appropriate to wonder which major decorated element within the book was mostly ‘sacrificed’ for the sake of taking a patch from it. And what forms, perhaps, of damage which that element and its leaf had undergone already to be deemed to ‘merit’ such treatment. Relevant cases of significant damage could be, for example, the leaf near or at the front of the volume and now at Randolph College, with part of Jerome’s 2 Prologues to the Vulgate Bible.

The Patch for the “Sotheby Leaf” Sold on 10 July 2012
(Now in a Private Collection)

Viewed from the Verso

On the verso of the Sotheby leaf from the opening of the Epistle to James — seen online via Sotheby’s 10 July 2012, lot 2(b) — the patch ‘fills in’ parts of 13 lines of text on the patched page. Pasted onto the recto, on the verso the patch supplies the right-hand side, or end, of column a and most of column b on the page, as it peeps through the irregularly-shaped ‘window’ cut into the leaf. In column b, the framed view of the patch covers most of the column between its line having mun-/tiam et habundantiam malitiae in man-[suetudine] of James 1:21 and its line with religio / Religio munda et immaculata apud deum et pa-/trem of James 1:27. The patch covers most of the lines in between, leaving visible the last few letters of the original column.

The patch provides the text of 13 lines from parts of 2 columns of text, presenting the narrow portion of a right-hand column and the wider portion of a left-hand column from some other leaf. Its own column b carries most of the lines of text from James 3:5 to to 3:9. Here I separate those transcribed lines into groups of 5, for convenience in keeping track of their span. Square brackets enclose the lost, or hidden, letters at the ends of lines, as spaced within the original column.

Verso of Patch: Text in parts of 2 columns from the Catholic Epistle of James 2:8–12+ (in one column) and 3:5–9 (in the next)

Column b:

lines ‘1–5’

quidem membrum est, et magna ex[altat. Ecce]
quantus ignis quam ignis quam magnam [silvam incen-]
dit. Et lingua ignis est universitas [iniqui-]
tatis. Lingua constituitur in mem[bris nostris]
quae maculat totum corpus, et inflamm[at ro-]

lines ‘6–10’

tam nativitatis nostrae inflammata [a genen-]
na; Omnis eni natura bestia[rum et volu-]
crum et serpentium, et ceterorum do[mantur,]
et domita sunt a natura humana: li[-nguam]
autem nummus hominum domare potest: [?]

lines ’10–12′

inquitum malum, plena venendo [mortifer-]
o . In ipsa benedicimus Deum et Patrem [et in ipsa]
maledicimus homines, qui ad simili[tudinem . . . ]

The portions of column a on the patch show a few letters at the ends of lines of text apparently from James 2:8 to 12 and beyond. For example, starting opposite line ‘2’ of the column b of the patch:

Column a:

lines 2–5

[ . . . proximum tuum sicut teipsum bene facitis]: si au–
[tem personas accipitis, peccatum operam]ini, re–
[darguti a lege quasi transgressores] Quicum–
[que autem totam legem servaverit, offendat] autem in

lines 6–7

[uno, factus est omnium reus. Qui enim] dixit
[Non moechaberis, dixit et: Non occides. Qu]od si

[Etc.]

The other side of the patch would show the flow of text in its course either from or to these columns, so as to establish which side represents the original recto, and which the original verso. (See below.)

Rate of Text-per-Column or Text-per-Page on the Manuscript Leaf
Versus the Printed Vulgate Edition

However, even without seeing that side of the patch, estimating the rate of text-per-column which the script and layout of the Vulgate text customarily accomplished on its pages in the manuscript, apart from decorated initials of various sizes and opening or closing titles, allows for an educated guess as to where the patch would once have stood on its original page, and to which leaf it would have belonged.

The span of text missing between the bottom of the verso on the “Sotheby’s Leaf” (which ends within James 2:4) and the top of its inserted patch (beginning within James 3:5) amounts to some 3 columns of text as printed in a standard edition of the Latin Vulgate.

I chose as standard the “Weber” critical edition, also known as the “Stuttgart Vulgate”, edited by Robert Weber, Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem (Stuttgart, 2 volumes, 2nd revised edition, 1969), although that edition exists in later forms. My copy has served faithfully over the years since I purchased it in Dublin in the early years of my postgraduate research dedicated to a magnificent large-format Vulgate Bible manuscript, also despoiled, made in Canterbury in the 9th century and surviving in fragments in different places. That manuscript, too, has patched portions which remedy cut-out holes and corner-sections. (See below).

A note on available Vulgate editions (from Wikipedia, “Stuttgart Vulgate”):

Weber, Robert; Gryson, Roger, eds. (2007). Biblia sacra : iuxta Vulgatam versionem. Archive.org. Oliver Wendell Holmes Library, Phillips Academy (5th ed.). Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft. ISBN 978-3-438-05303-9.
Weber-Gryson (Stuttgart) Vulgate – text only
Latin Vulgate with Parallel English Douay-Rheims and King James Version, Stuttgart edition, but missing 3 and 4 Esdras, Manasses, Psalm 151, and Laodiceans.

In the Weber edition, like some other editions of the Vulgate version of the Bible, the double columns of text per page are laid out per cola et commata, as arranged by its translator Jerome. That is, the lines are set out in clause- and phrase-units, as an aid to readers, in accordance with long-standing tradition — rather than in continuous lines or paragraphs, as happens in Ege Manuscript 14. The printed pages have critical textual apparatus in the lower margin to report significant variants found in certain manuscript witnesses and some earlier printed editions. Note that the textual apparatus, reporting certain variants from the standard edition, can be useful in approaching late-medieval copies of the Vulgate, as I have found in examining portions of text in Ege Manuscript 14, including the ones here.

In Ege Manuscript 14, other cases of the rate-per-page can be seen on the first leaf of Genesis (also patched). Its recto, with a full-page initial at the left-hand-side of its column a, introduces that significant decorated variable or disruption in the standard rate. In contrast, its verso, without such major interruption or diversion within one of the columns, carries the text from Genesis 2:2 (et requirevit / de septimo ab universo) to within 3:19 (in pulverem reverteris et uo-[cavit Adam]). That span corresponds roughly to 3 1/2 columns of printed text (set out per cola et commata).

So, counting the rate of coverage in the manuscript, roughly 3 columns of text, as printed, would have stood between the “Sotheby’s Leaf” and the top of the patch on that leaf when still part of its own leaf. Which means the leaf following the Sotheby’s Leaf.

The patch extracted from James and 3:5 to 3:9 (on one of its sides) came conveniently from the very next leaf in the Bible; the recto of the patch served to remedy the recto of the cut-out portion on the restored leaf. The cutting from the Sotheby Leaf itself would have carried the decorated, and perhaps or probably historiated, initial on its recto.

Viewed from the Recto

And now, in a development for the unfolding research, Peter Kidd has kindly sent me a photograph of the recto of the Sotheby Leaf, now in a Private Collection, and photographs of both sides of the patched leaf in Boston University.

Sotheby Leaf

Recto of Patch: Text in parts of 2 columns from the Catholic Epistle of James2:8–12(+) and 3:5–9

The Patched Leaf at Boston University

As described in Judith Oliver’s Catalogue of Manuscripts Sacred and Secular (1985), the leaf with a patch at Boston University has the

End of Kings, Prologue to I Chronicles, and beginning of I Chronicles (as above)

It is now possible to refine the description, with thanks to Peter Kidd’s photographs.

The leaf is Boston University, School of Theology Library, MS Leaf 38. The leaf itself contains, albeit with gaps front and back from the cut-out section:

the end of IV Kings 25:17 [cubitor altitudinis/] habeat columna) to the end (verso 30),
the text of Jerome’s Prologue to Paralipomenon (Chronicles) [however numbered as XXVI in the margin], including the decorated initial S of Si, and
the beginning of I Chronicles to 1:41 (Dison filii [/ Dison Amaran]), but without the decorated initial of the Book and parts of its column b (cut out and lost)

On the verso, seen in full, the patch covers part of column a, between the last few lines of the Prologue, following the words ipsi et / meis iuxta], and the first lines of Book 1 up to the last line of the column, preceding [Rif-]ath et Thorgorma filii autem Ie[-van Elisa].

The Patch carries portions of text from the same Catholic Epistle. The framed recto of the patch shows 12 lines of text, while the full, unframed, extent of the verso shows 14 lines. Seen in full, the verso demonstrates that the patch came from the bottom of its column, as it retains not only the last line of text but also the upper portion of the lower margin (some 2 lines’ worth of space), including parts of the foliate ornament of the lower terminal descending from the vertical band which frames the left-hand-side of the column. The expanse of margin at the left beyond that border bar demonstrates that the column stood at the left in the pair of columns on its original page, and not in the narrower intercolumn between the pair.

Recto of Patch: Catholic Epistle of James 3:17 ([sucedib-/il[is] bonis consentiens) to 4:4 (est Deo Quicum[/-que ergo]), including the opening initial U of Unde for Chapter 4
Verso of Patch: Catholic Epistle of James 5:4 ([uestras qui] fraudata est) to 5:10 (patientiae prophetas [quo locuti])

Note: The reading sucedibilis + bonis consentiens in James 3:17 corresponds to a variant attested in some other witnesses, shown in the textual apparatus for the Weber edition (1975), volume II, page 1862.

The Source Leaves

The gap in text between Patch ‘1’ from the Epistle of James and Patch ‘2’ — that is, the text between James 3:9 and 3:17 — amounts to roughly 3/4 of a printed column in the Weber edition.

It appears that the patch on the Boston University Leaf may have come from the same leaf as the one sacrificed to patch the ‘Sotheby Leaf’.

We might presume that the work of patching both these leaves belonged to a single operation. Perhaps the patch for the Genesis opening leaf now at Yale likewise belongs to the same operation?

Styles of Cutting and Styles of Patching

It might be true that “A Rose is a Rose is a Rose”. But the same does not pertain to “A Patch is a Patch is a Patch”. Patches in medieval manuscripts come in many different shapes and sizes, and their styles of application vary, too.

Exhibit A

The 9th-century Royal Bible of Saint Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury: London, British Library, Royal MS 1 E. vi., available for view in a digital facsimile. It is the subject of my Ph. D. dissertation, “British Library Manuscript Royal 1 E.vi: The Anatomy of an Anglo-Saxon Bible Fragment” (University of London, 1985), published online.

The large-format Vulgate Bible has been reduced to a fragment of its former splendor. Originally a Bible of some 1,000 leaves in large format, it has lost very many leaves, as well as some part-leaves. At least some of them were apparently severed at knife-point for elements of illustration, decoration, and decorated text. The losses belonged to more than one campaign of spoliation, which took place apparently at the home of the manuscript in the medieval period, Saint Augustine’s Abbey.

Here we consider the surviving patches, of uncertain date, which inelegantly fill the gaps introduced when portions of decorated script were cut out, perhaps to serve as specimens.

Patches adhere to 3 surviving leaves. Each patched leaf has decorated text on its recto, while the verso was originally blank.

Folio 1

Folio 1 at the front of the Gospel or New Testament unit is a purple-dyed leaf written in lines of monumental capitals which alternate between lines of gold and (oxidized) silver pigment. The centered last line of the inscription was cut out at some stage; presumably its letters were gold. Its gap was filled with a stained and now darkened patch pasted to one side.

The process of cutting involved drawing the point of a knife along the surface of the leaf while it lay against the following leaves. The cutting mark incised a corresponding flap in folio 2; the severed lines were stitched back into place.

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 1v. Reproduced by permission

The next leaf has a stitched repair for the cut-out flap which resulted from the drawing of the knife point against the sought-after recto of the preceding folio while the book lay open. The stitching is visible just above the British Museum stamp centered below the columns of text.

© The British Library Board. Royal MS 1 E VI, folio 2r.

Folio 28 (with a Patch similar to Folio 68)

The unevenly cut-out lower outer corner of the leaf with the Chapter List for the Mark Gospel was filled with an unevenly trimmed patch, similar to the patched repair on the John Chapter List. In both cases, the Chapter List occupies the recto of the leaf; the verso is blank. Presumably the tapered text of column b led to an embellished element of some kind, for which the excision was effected. The patch is pasted to the verso.

Recto

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 29r. Reproduced by permission

Verso of Patch

On the back, the full extent of the patch shows itself.

An Example of the Decorated Titles

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 28v. Reproduced by permission

The patches at least fill gaps on the leaves of the Bible, but their function solely replaces pieces of parchment. In the case of Folio 1, the patch offers an attempt to colorize the patch, so as to try to match or mask the purple-dyed original leaf. Over time, the color on the patch has faded or changed to brown, revealing its different stage in the non-original work on the manuscript.

Cuttings Galore

Specimens of cut-outs, once they are extracted from their original books, sometimes gather in collections dedicated to specific dates, regions (say, Italy), and types of decoration. For example, The British Library’s collection of Italian illuminated cuttings. Described thus:

The British Library’s collection of Italian illuminated cuttings consists of around 675 initials, miniatures, and single leaves. These were predominantly cut from liturgical manuscripts of northern and central Italian monasteries and churches that were suppressed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Cuttings from non-religious manuscripts, such as miniatures from law text-books, and frontispieces from doge’s commissions of the Venetian Republic, are also represented in the collection.

The Victoria & Albert Museum has many such specimens, besides its collection of manuscripts. The range is summarized thus:

The National Art Library at the V&A holds over 300 Western illuminated manuscripts dating from the 11th to the early 20th century, including books of hours, bibles, missals, choir books, classical works, patents of nobility, and grants of arms and illuminated addresses.

In addition to these, the museum’s collections also include about 2,500 manuscript cuttings representative of different styles, periods and regions. While a few Islamic and Ethiopian manuscripts are held in the National Art Library, most of the non-Western material is part of the museum’s Asian collections.

Etc. Somewhere, perchance, the cuttings from Ege Manuscript 14 might survive, awaiting discovery. Perchance might the leaves from which the patches were extracted also survive?

The Extant Patches in Ege Manuscript 14 as Cuttings
and Its Extant Leaves with Cut-Outs

So far, we know of no extant leaves from Ege Manuscript 14 which have holes left-over from decorated elements cut out from them, say in the form of cuttings for display on their own.

Perhaps it is worth considering scrapbooks or collections of cuttings as possible locations for dispersed parts of the book. Peter Kidd’s website for Medieval Manuscripts Provenance reports admirable cumulative research on these subjects.

Are we in a position to know when the cuttings were extracted from Ege Manuscript 14? All at once? Neither of the sales catalogues which showcased the manuscript while still intact, at Sothebys in 1936 and at Parke Bernet in 1948, mention such cuttings, nor such repairs. Does that omission indicate an unremarked or unmentioned feature, or did the cut-outs exit later? Are we certain that the sale in 1948 went directly to Ege, or instead to some intermediary?

Clues toward the ‘workshop’ which patched the cuttings might reside in the ‘style’ of patch work. That is, the choices of patches and their methods of placement and positioning upon the leaves exhibit an elevated degree of attention to design and layout.

The recto of the patched Sotheby’s leaf shows pencil markings in the form of arrows which guide the placement of the patch to fit within the ‘window’ of the hole. See its image: Sotheby’s 10 July 2012, lot 2(b) . Might we guess whose marks are these?

More research on the fragments of Ege Manuscript 14, as more become visible to study, may help to answer such questions. They may, for example, reveal further aspects of Ege’s workshop practices in dismembering his manuscripts or other books and presenting them for display and distribution.

Contributions to that research is presented on our blog. For example:

A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices
Contents List for the blog on Manuscript Studies

*****

Do you know of other patched leaves in this manuscript? Do you know of cuttings from it?

Please let us know.

Add your Comments here, Contact Us, and visit our Facebook Page.

Watch this space and follow our blog for further research on dispersed manuscripts, those of Otto Ege included. See the Contents List.

*****

Tags: Cut-outs from Manuscripts, Despoilated Manuscripts, Otto Ege Manuscript 14, Patches in Manuscripts, Royal Bible of Saint Augustine's Abbey
No Comments »

Updates for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’

August 12, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

A Glimpse of
‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’
While It Was Still Intact

Portable Quarto Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version
Italy, circa 1275, with Illuminations made apparently in Paris

Double columns in 48 lines
circa 235 × 170 mm <written area circa 153 × 107 mm>

[Posted on 12 August 2020]

Opening of the Book of Maccabees in Otto Ege MS 19. Private Collection.

Continuing to explore the tracks of manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), we gain access to the Sotheby’s catalogue for the auction in 1936 from which the manuscript mostly known as ‘Ege Manuscript 19’ came to him. For the name, see Scott Gwara, Handlist, Number 19 (page 124).

For access to the elusive catalogue, we thank Stephen Massey, Bruce McKinney, and our Associate, Eric White, for help with the quest while libraries remain closed through months in 2020.

We began to study the manuscript when the owner of one of its leaves, J. S. Wagner, contacted us on account of our blog, which reported discoveries for some other Ege manuscripts. For example,

A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices

Updates for Some ‘Otto Ege Manuscripts’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 41, and 61)

Some Leaves in Set 1 of ‘Ege’s FOL Portfolio’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, and 41)

More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’

More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

Our discoveries for Ege MS 19 are reported here:

A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices

Some Leaves in Set 1 of ‘Ege’s FOL Portfolio’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, and 41)

Now we examine the written record for the Provenance and the state of the volume before Ege.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Ege Manuscipt 51, Ege Manuscript 14, Ege Manuscript 19, Fragmentology, History of Binding, Interpretation of Hebrew Names, Interpretationes Hebraicorum Nominum, Latin Vulgate Bible, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto F. Ege, Sothebys
No Comments »

More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

August 3, 2020 in Uncategorized

Some Known Leaves
from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
In Sequence

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Family FOL Portfolio, Leaf 18 original recto, opening of Apocalypse Prologue.

We offer an updated and illustrated list of some of the leaves — not all — which have come to light from the dismembered and widely dispersed copy of the Vulgate Bible in large format now known as “Otto Ege Manuscript 14”.

It takes its name from the owner, Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), who took it to pieces and destroyed its integrity as an intact volume which had been purchased at auction in New York after World War II. It takes its Number from the number which Ege assigned to it in the series of specimens from similarly dismembered medieval manuscripts arranged in his Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves from Western Manuscripts (FOL for short), numbered 1–50.

There the specimens are presented in matted frames of uniform size and provided with a printed label which cites the Leaf Number and offers a paragraph with some generic observations about the manuscript, the author, the type of script, the genre of text, and suchlike. The label was worded so as, presumably, to suit many different leaves from a given book.

Within the frame, the manuscript leaf would stand behind the windowed mat which obscures some of its exterior features. The hinged mat allows (if permitted by the owner) for opening the frame to inspect the full extent of the leaf and, it may be, to lift the leaf so as to observe features on its other side. Not infrequently, Ege turned the original rectos of the leaves to the verso position in the frame, so as to display whichever features might be deemed preferable for display.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Leaf with the opening of the Book of Revelation within Ege’s mat, which turns the original verso to the front.

The former manuscript had many more leaves than the number required for the 40 numbered Sets of the FOL Portfolio — plus any unnumbered Sets, of which perhaps 1 or 2 are known. As characteristic of Ege’s distribution strategies, individual leaves could have their own mats and, often, their own labels.

The current locations of a number of Sets have been identified, and more may come to light. So too, many other leaves have turned up in various collections. The work of identifying them as belonging to Ege Manuscript 14 and discovering where they are preserved represents a significant stage in the recovery process. That many have passed through the sales rooms of auction houses and book-sellers, sometimes more than once, introduces challenges to that process of discovery.

“The Long Shot”

On display among “New Acquisitions” Exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library in November 2016, separate sections of the Bible stand in a row, accompanied by 2 Beinecke exhibition labels on paper boards. From left to right: “Lectern Bible” Label; 1 detached Board from the former Binding, with marbled endpaper and an effaced blue label or bookplate; 2 “stacks” or “piles” of segments of loose leaves in nested bifolia; “Family Album” Label; and 1 leaf from the “Family Album” in its Ege mat, with its Ege label for Leaf 14.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, New Acquisitions Exhibition (2016). Ege MS 14 in pieces.

A closer view of the 2 “stacks” or “piles” of disbound leaves. They display respectively 3 and 4 segments of manuscript leaves or bifolia. Let us call them, from left to right, Stack 1 (× 3 Segments) and Stack 2 (× 4 Segments).

New Acquisitions Exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in November 2016: View of Some Parts of "Otto Ege Manuscript 14". Photograph by Mildred Budny.

“A Long Shot”. New Acquisitions Exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in November 2016: View of Some Parts of “Otto Ege Manuscript 14”. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Stack 1

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14 Segments, with verso for Numbers 5:88 – 6:26 on top. Photograph Mildred Budny.

Segments of Leaves from left to right

Segment 1.1: Esther 2:19 ([Mordocheus manebit /] ad regis) – 3:8 in column a on a recto (seen in part here)

Segment 1.2: Proverbs 13:22 ([et ne-/]potes et) – 14:28 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Segment 1.3: Numbers 5:18 ([cum execra-/]tione)– 6:26 (convertat dominus [/ ultum sum]), plus catchwords (ultum sum) at the bottom, on a verso (seen in full)

Stack 2

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14 Segments, with recto for Psalms 68:28 – 71:14 on top.

Segments of Leaves from left to right

Segment 2.1: 1 Samuel 16:16 ([spiritum dei /] psallat manu) – 17:10 in column a on a recto (seen in part here)

Segment 2.2: Tobias 4:5 ([compleverit tempus /] uite sue) – 5:4 in column b on a verso (seen in part)

Segment 2.3: Numbers 13:1 ([est Maria /] Profectus est) – 13:29 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Segment 2.4: Psalms 68:29 ([deleantur /] de libro) – 71:14 (honorabile non [/ eorum coram]) on a recto (seen in full)

Some Known Remnants

Here follows an updated, but still partial, list of the Remnants, based on some materials to hand. The identifications of textual contents offer corrections for the published reports of a few leaves.

Please note that this list is not complete, even for the records that I know about, let alone the ones yet to emerge into view. For example, some of the sales catalogues remain elusive, but they may surface.

In this list, the order of the scattered leaves from the Books of the Bible mostly follows the standard Vulgate edition, but their order in the manuscript seems to have differed somewhat. Where it differs, the actual order can be determined, at least in part, by the Known Folio Numbers (see above) and the text on some survivors which end one Book of the Bible and begin another. A case in point here is the leaf which begins Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, directly followed by the Acts of the Apostles.

I cite all the Known Numbers as locators in the series, even where the survival of those very leaves might remain uncertain. For emphasis, they are shown in *red, together with their asterisk. In the analysis following this list, any conjectured, rather than recorded, folio numbers are preceded by a question mark, also in the red (?*300). As I hope you might see, keeping track of these details has a purpose, sometimes (as here, hurray) with a payoff.

It is useful to track leaves according to their “find-place” or distribution method, that is:

in an individual numbered Set of Ege’s Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves of Western Manuscripts (“FOL”), in which the specimens from this dismembered Bible are Leaf number 14, set in a windowed frame and accompanied by a printed label
as a “stray” or “Rogue” Leaf distributed on its own, with or without a mat and a label, or with a pencil description by Ege in the lower margin
as a “Residual” batch of multiple leaves (sometimes with the binding or a part of it) seemingly left over from the phases of disbinding, selling, and distributing leaves in the Portfolio sets, in the matted frames, or in loose-leaf form

Complete Vulgate Bible
accompanied by Prologues
and the Glossary of Interpretationes Nominum Hebraicorum

Several sellers or collections list groups of leaves which include, or might include, non-consecutive leaves and/or leaves acquired at different times from different sources. Sometimes they cite the contents in some detail, sometimes not.

Examples include non-continuous leaves listed in a single lot number, gathered in a single collection, or grouped in a large batch in a single collection. As here:

3 non-continuous Rogue Leaves = Gwara Handlist 14.9.
Metropolitan Museum of Art = William D. Wixon et al., Mirror of the Medieval World (1999), pages 118–119 (number 141),Leaves ‘1’, ‘2’, and ‘3’,
with Portions respectively ofEzdra > Nehemiah [?]
Joshua
Ephesians 1:1 – 2
102 Residual Leaves = Gwara Handlist 14.7.Oslo and London, The Schøyen Collection, MS 223.
Its full contents are not known to me.
Requests for further information have yielded no details.The specimen image on the collection’s website shows a detail of the page withPaul’s Epistle to Philemon and the beginning of his Epistle to Hebrews

A Preliminary Reconstruction of the Original Sequence of Leaves

Poster 2 for the 2016 'Words & Deeds' Symposium at Princeton University, with 2 images from the Otto Ege Collection, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photography by Lisa Fagin Davis. Reproduced by permission. Poster set in RGME Bembino

2016 ‘Words & Deeds’ Symposium Poster.

Here I list the contents in their Biblical places, insofar as they are revealed. Some leaves do not have available photographs, or available photographs for the other side (whichever side of the leaf that might be). Some leaves I know only through the sales catalogues, not their destinations.

This list represents an advance on the earlier version posted in my first post on parts of this manuscript: A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’. Here, by gathering my notes and photographs from on-going research on Ege manuscripts and other materials, the list might accompany others’ reconstructions based on their familiarity with other collections.

Thanks are due to scholars, collectors, curators, and students, including Barbara Shailor, Giles Constable, Lisa Fagin Davis, Raymond Clemens, Diane Ducharme, Peter Kidd, Joshua Benaer, the staff at the Morgan Library & Museum, Kent State University Library, the Cincinnati Public Library, and many others.

Important discoveries have emerged in the past several years. Examples include the deposit of the Otto Ege Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library of Yale University and the beginnings of its detailed study. A report on some of its features appeared in the Research Group Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’ in March 2016, with illustrations from Ege MS 14 on the Posters and in the Symposium Booklet.

With generous permission, I have been able to consult some parts of that Collection in visits to New Haven, in connection with the symposium celebrating it and subsequently. While continuing to wait for the Collection to be catalogued and made accessible for outside readers, I examine my photographs as records or glimpses of parts of its materials for, and from, ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’. Recently, the work by Joshua Benaer on the lection marks and their signifcance has inspired me to advance with work on other aspects of the book, including its material evidence.

Some discoveries for the manuscript are reported in our blog.

A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices

Updates for Some ‘Otto Ege Manuscripts’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 41, and 61)

Some Leaves in Set 1 of ‘Ege’s FOL Portfolio’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, and 41)

See also The Illustrated Handlist (Number 4).

Note that Leaf 4 at Stony Brook University has a ‘starring role’ in the video of Unscattered Leaves: Digitizing the Otto F. Ege Manuscripts (2018).

The Former Bindings

See below.

The Manuscript Leaves

According to the Beinecke exhibition label for parts of this “Lectern Bible” (see above), a note entered “at the end of this Bible”, written by “a later hand”, states it had “502 folios”. It is not clear (at this distance) if the count included any endleaves apart from the original medieval manuscript. The leaves themselves are not numbered, apart from some quire-numerals.

The Sotheby’s sale catalogue of 1931 for this book, while intact, cites 15 specific folio numbers for some significant decorative elements, and adds “B” to the number to indicate a verso. Here I indicate them in red. Although those numbers do not appear on the leaves themselves, they locate 10 historiated initials — among a total of “Seventy-eight large miniatures” — in these places: folios 46 (Book of Numbers), 155 (II Chronicles), 191 (Judith), 220 (Psalm 54), 253 (Ecclesiasticus), 266B (Isaiah), 308B (Ezekiel), 345B (Nahum), 440 (Acts of the Apostles), and 457 (Apocalypse).

Old Testament with Prologues

Prefatory Texts

Jerome’s Prologues for the Vulgate Bible and the Pentateuch

The Bible opens with 2 of Jerome’s epistolary Prologues for his Vulgate Version. His Epistle to Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, serves as a general preface, beginning Frater ambrosius tua mihi minuscola preferens. Beginning Desiderii mei desideratas accepi epistulas, Jerome’s Epistle to Desiderius serves as preface to the Pentateuch, the first 5 Books of the Old Testament.

These prefatory texts spread across 3 leaves.

Rogue Leaf (1 of 2 from the Esther Rosenbaum Collection).
Sotheby’s, Catalogue of Single Leaves and Miniatures from Western Illuminated Manuscripts, 25 April 1983, lot 83(a), without plate
— described in the catalogue as the

‘Opening leaf of the Bible, with the [First] Prologue of St. Jerome’ beginning Frater Ambrosius,
and extending to labiis personaret, ‘which shows the secundo folio to have begun’ with the words ignorabat eum

Location unknown

[1 leaf in this Prologue, with the text from ignorabat eum in Chapter ‘VI’ to et regna in Chapter ‘VII’]

Rogue Leaf = Gwara Handlist 14.8. Randolph College (available via the Internet Archive)
Part of Jerome’s 2 Prologues to the Vulgate Bible (that is, 2 of his own Epistles applied to his translated work as guides and explications):

Part of Frater Ambrosius, from within Chapter ‘VII’ (omnia subvertentem) to the end,
all of Jerome’s [Second] Prologue Desiderii mei,
and Opening Title for the Book of Genesis

Opening page for Genesis in 'Otto Ege Manuscript 14'. Photograph Courtesy of Sotheby's, Inc. © 29 November, lot 326, plate on page 119

Photograph Courtesy of Sotheby’s, Inc. © 29 November, lot 326, plate on page 118

Old Testament with Prologues

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

Opening of Genesis on a recto

The recto was reproduced as the fold-out plate for the Sotheby’s catalogue of 6–7 July 1931, lot 389;
and as the first of two plates for the Parke-Bernet catalogue of 29 November 1948, lot 326 (plate on page 118)
— in both cawhile the manuscript remained whole.

The plate from the Parke-Bernet catalogue is also reproduced in Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, figure 79.

The leaf disappeared from view until resurfacing in the Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

First page of Genesis from ‘Otto Ege MS 14’. Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Manuscript and Rare Book Library, Yale University. Reproduced by permission.

Verso

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Verso.

Rogue Leaf. Maggs Bros, Papyrus to Paper. Catalogue 1059 (1985),
number 49, ‘a leaf with four dragons’ (with plate on page 28, of top half of verso)

Genesis 32:29 ([interroga–/]uit to 34:6 and beyond in the lower half of that verso (out of frame in the plate)

Rogue Leaf. Maggs Bros, Papyrus to Paper. Catalogue 1059 (1985), number 42 (no plate)

Genesis ‘end ch. 42, ch. 43 & most of ch. 44’ with ‘drawing of a rabbit with calligraphic flourishes’ in the upper margin of the recto

Location unknown: Rogue Leaf (2 of 2 from the Esther Rosenbaum Collection)
Sotheby’s, Catalogue of Single Leaves and Miniatures from Western Illuminated Manuscripts, 25 April 1983,
lot 83(b), with plate from the upper part of one side (unspecified)

including the Prologue to Exodus and the opening of Exodus 1 with historiated initial

Rogue Leaf (3 of 3) sold by Bruce P. Ferreni, Catalogue One: Important Western Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts & Illuminated Leaves (1987),
number 27 (page 44), without plate

Exodus 9 – 11

Location unknown

Leviticus

Location unknown

[Numbers initial = folio *46r]

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

“Segment 1.3” (see photograph): Numbers 5:18 ([cum execra-/]tione)– 6:26 (convertat dominus [/ ultum sum]), plus catchwords (ultum sum) at the bottom, on a verso (seen in full in the “New Acquisitions” exhibition display as “Stack 1 Segment 3”)

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, “New Acquisitions Exhibition”, Ege MS 14: Recto of Leaf from the Book of Numbers (5:88 – 6:26).

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

Leaf with Numbers 13:1–29 in column b on a verso (partly visible in the “New Acquisitions” exhibition display as Stack 2 Segment 3 = 3rd from the left)

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14 Segments, with recto for Psalms 68:28 – 71:14 on top.

Set 27. University of South Carolina, reproduced also here

Numbers 8.10 (suas) – 11.13 (ut co-[/medamus])

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collecdtion

‘Segment 2.3’ (photograph above): Numbers 13:1 ([est Maria /] Profectus est) – 13:29 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Rogue Leaf (1 of 2). Sotheby’s, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures (21 June 1994), lot 10(a.1), without plate

Numbers 19–21

Set 19. Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves, Leaf 14, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries

Deuteronomy 17:14 ([dabit ti-/]bi et possideris) – 20:19 (nec per circuitam se[sic for de-][/bes vastare])

Recto of leaf

Otto F. Ege, “Fifty Original Leaves”, Leaf 14 recto, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University. Image Public Domain.

Verso of leaf

Otto F. Ege, “Fifty Original Leaves”, Leaf 14 verso, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University. Image Public Domain.

Spectator Included

Otto F. Ege, “Fifty Original Leaves”, Leaf 14 verso, detail top left. Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University. Image Public Domain.

Location unknown

[Joshua initial = folio *73v]

Rogue Leaf (2 of 3) = Gwara Handlist 14.9. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1994.539
= Wixom et al. (1999), no. 141, Leaf ‘3’ with plate on page 119, column b

Joshua 8:32 ([la-]/pides] – 10:1 (sicut enim fecerat) on verso

Location unknown

Judges

Location unknown

Ruth

Location unknown

[Prologue initial for I Kings (1 Samuel) = folio *93r]

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

“Segment 2.1” (photograph above): 1 Samuel 16:16 ([spiritum dei /] psallat manu) – 17:10 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Rogue Leaf. RMGYMss Bible Leaf Ref 560: RMGYMss BIBLE LEAF Ref 560 recto and RMGYMss BIBLE LEAF Ref 560 verso

I Kings (1 Samuel) 26:7 ([et Abi-/]psae ad populum nocte) – end of 28:25 (noctam illam [/ Congregata sunt])

Location unknown

II Kings (2 Samuel)

Rogue Leaf. RMGYMss Bible Leaf Ref 180

III Kings 11:20 ([et nutrivit /] eum ahias) – end of 13:15 (comedas panem [/qui ait])

Rogue Leaf = Gwara, Handlist 14.1.
Boston University = Judith H. Oliver, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular (1985), number 36 [but no plate]

End of Kings, Prologue to I Chronicles, and beginning of I Chronicles
with a ‘patch taken from another illuminated page of the same manuscript’ covering the cut-out from the ‘theft of initial for I Chronicles’.
[One wonders which other page yielded its riches to patch up this leaf.]

2 Rogue Leaves = Gwara Handlist 14.10. Hollins University
These leaves include

a page with the End of I Chronicles, Prologue for II Chronicles, and beginning of II Chronicles
[= folio *155r]
(reproduced in Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, figure 51)

Rogue Leaf. Stanford University
[Formerly available at http://artsinstitute.stanford.edu/sites/scriptingthesacred/gallery/case-bible/ via Stanford Arts Institute],
purchased from Bernard Quaritch, Medieval Manuscripts. Catalogue 1396 (2010),
number 10, with color plate of recto

II Chronicles 4:12 ([episty-/]lia) – 6:10 (super thronum Israhel)
with quire number xiiii on bottom of the recto
[= say folio ?*157, as reckoned below]

Set 13. University of Minnesota

Prayer of Manassas Chapter 15 (quoniam),
Prologue to I Ezra,
I Ezra 1:1 – 2:62 (eiecti sunt)

Rogue Leaf (1 of 3) = Gwara Handlist 14.9. Metropolitan Museum of Art
= Wixom et al. (1999), no. 141, Leaf ‘1’ with plate on page 118, column a of one side of the leaf (unspecified)

Ezdre I > Ne[he]miae as indicated in the running titles
I Ezra 10:13 (in sermone) – 44 (end),
beginning of II Ezra [= Ezra 11:1–10 (manu tua)] on one side of the leaf

Rogue Leaf. Maggs Bros, European Bulletin 13 (1986), number 52 (with plate of lower half of recto)

Nehemiah 5:18 – 7:3 (porte clausae) on that portion of the page

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

“Segment 2.2” (photograph above): Tobias 4:5 ([compleverit tempus /] uite sue) – 5:4 in column b on a verso (seen in part)

Location unknown

[Judith initial = folio *191r]

Set 30. Denison University

Judith 16:31, Jerome’s Prologue to Esther, and Esther 1:1–2:19

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

“Segment 1.1” (see photograph above): Esther 2:19 ([Mordocheus manebit /] ad regis) – 3:8 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Rogue Leaf. formerly Boston, Endowment for Biblical Research = Judith H. Oliver, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular (1985), number 35, without plate

Job 31:1 – 33:20

Location unknown

[Psalms 54 initial = folio *220r]

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Psalms 68:29 ([deleantur /] de libro) – 71:14 (et honorabile nomen [/ eorum cora]) on the recto

Viewed while on exhibition (Top leaf here = “Segment 2.4”):

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14 Segments, with recto for Psalms 68:28 – 71:14 on top.

Parke-Bernet Galleries, Sale Catalogue of 29 November 1948, lot 326, plate (apparently a verso): Psalms 109 initial (“Holy Trinity”)

Psalms 108:13 (generatione) – 112:4 (do-[/mine super caelos]) on the verso

Page with the text of Psalms 108:13 to 112:4 on the New Leaf from 'Otto Ege Manuscript 14'. Photography © Mildred Budny

Psalms 108:13 to 112:4 on a verso. Photograph Courtesy of Sotheby’s, Inc. © 29 November, lot 326, plate on page 119

[Maybe here in the original sequence?]
Rogue Leaf. Christie’s, Illuminated Manuscripts, Continental and English Literature . . . ,
Sale Catalogue of 16 December 1991, lot 2, plate on page 14 with detail of initial (on a verso?)

Proverbs (Book of Wisdom) initial 1:1 (full span of leaf unreported)

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

“Segment 1.2” (see photograph above): Proverbs 13:22 ([et ne-/]potes et) – 14:28 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Location unknown

[Ecclesiasticus initial = folio *253r, reproduced in the Sotheby’s 1931 Catalogue, as reported above]

University of Kansas, Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Ecclesiasticus 12:16 ([in foream /] in oculis suis) – ([et inter-[rogatio omnium]), with catchword –rogatio

Set 5. Ohio University

Ecclesiasticus 39:25 – 42:26

Recto

Ohio University, Ege MS 14, Recto. Image Public Domain.

Verso

Ohio University, Leaf from Ege MS 14, verso. Image Public Domain.

Location unknown

[Isaiah initial = folio *266v]

Rogue Leaf (2 of 3) sold by Bruce P. Ferreni, Bruce P. Ferreni, Catalogue One: Important Western Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts & Illuminated Leaves (1987),
number 26 (page 44), without plate

Isaiah 50 – 54; full span unreported

— These leaves presumably are consecutive

Rogue Leaf for sale via Charles Edwin Puckett

Isaiah 54:10 ([montes enim /] commovebuntur et) – 59:3 on recto; verso not shown

Set 2. Ohio State University

Jeremiah 7:27 ([patres eorum /] Et [with tamen crossed out] loqueris) – 10:11 (caelis sunt [/ Qui facit])

Set 24. Lilly Library

Jeremiah 37:20 (Ieremias in uestibulo) – 40:15 (peribunt)

Rogue Leaves. Bifolium with non-consecutive leaves at the Cleveland Museum of Art

Leaf 1, recto?
verso. End of Baruch 6: 6:61 ([perficiunt quod /] imperatum est),
Jerome’s Prologue to Ezekiel,
Ezekiel 1.1 – 13 (et quasi aspec-[/tus lampadarum]) on verso
[= folio *308v]

> Location unknown

Leaves between Ezekiel 1:13 ([aspec-/]tus lampadarum) and Ezekiel 8:2 (et ecce [/ similitudo quasi])]

Leaf 2, recto. Ezekiel 8:2 ([et ecce /] similitudo quasi) – 9:9 (habebat attramentarium [/ in dorso])
on the verso?

Cleveland Museum of Art, Bifolium from a Bible: (Ege MS 14), with parts of Ezekiel,via https://clevelandart.org. /art/1959.271. Image Public Domain via Creative Commons..

Set 35. Rochester Institute of Technology

Ezekiel 18:21 – 20:11 (recto).
verso: ‘A scan of the verso is not currently available.’

Set 38. University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Ezekiel 24:25 ([et di-/]siderium oculorum eorum) – 27:30 (et clamabunt [/ et superiacient])

— These 2 leaves are consecutive

Set 37. Case Western Reserve

Ezekiel 27:30 ([clamabunt /] amare) – 30:20 (in un-[/decimo])

Set 32. University of Colorado at Boulder, recto and verso

Ezekiel 33:31 ([ingrediatur popu-/]ulus meus) – 35:3 (meam [ / super te])

Set 1. Private collection. See Some Leaves in ‘Set 1’ of Ege’s FOL Portfolio

end of Jeremiah (52:21 ([quattuor de-/]gitorum) to 52:34) and Lamentations 1:1 – 2:19 (qui defecerunt [/ in fame])

Recto of leaf

Set 1 of Otto Ege’s FOL Portfolio, Leaf 14 recto.

Verso of leaf

Set 1 of Ege’s FOL Portfolio, Leaf 14 verso.

Set 4? [Or a Rogue Leaf?]. Cleveland Museum of Art

End of Prologue 1 to Jonah [Sanctum ionam . . . et quo /] a facie tua fugiam], all of Prologue 2 to Jonah (Iona[s] columba . . . ),
all of Jonah (1:1–4:11),
Prologue to Michah, and Michah 1:4 (vales scindentur [/ sicut cera])

Recto of Leaf

Cleveland Museum of Art, Single Leaf from a Bible: Initial E with Jonah Swallowed by the Whale via https://clevelandart.org. /art/1959.271. Image Public Domain via Creative Commons.

Verso of Leaf

Cleveland Museum of Art, Single Leaf from a Bible: Initial U of Uerbum with Prophet Micah, via https://clevelandart.org/art/1959.271. Single Leaf from Ege MS 41, Verso. Image Public Domain via Creative Commons.

— These 2 leaves are consecutive

Set 22. Cleveland Public Library

Micah 1:4 (sicut cera) – 6:2 (iudicum do-[mini])

— These 2 leaves are presumably consecutive

Rogue Leaf. Maggs Bros, Papyrus to Paper. Catalogue 1059 (1985), number 46 and plate on page 27 with detail of initial

‘The final chapter of the Book of Micah and the opening two chapters of the Book of Nahum’,
plus Mirmelus’s inscription in the first person
[Nahum initial = folio *345v]

Rogue Leaf (1 of 3) sold by Bruce P. Ferreni, Catalogue One: Important Western Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts & Illuminated Leaves (1987),
number 25 (page 44), with plate of verso

Habakkuk 1 (span unreported) – 3, Prologue to Zephaniah (“Sophonias*), and Zephaniah 1:9 (super om-[/nem qui arrogantur])

Set 15. Kent State University

Zachariah 7:7 ([ad austrum /] et in campestribus) – 11:10 (cum omnibus / [populis]), reproduced here by permission

Recto of Rogue Leaf in I Maccabees from Ege Manuscript 14 at Kent State University. Reproduced by permission

Recto of Rogue Leaf from Ege Manuscript 14 at Kent State University. Reproduced by permission

Rogue Leaf. Kent State University = Gwara, Handlist, Number 14.5

I Maccabees 12:29 (lumina ardentia) – 14:4 (et quesiuit), reproduced here by permission

Verso of Rogue Leaf from Ege Manuscript 14 at Kent State University. Reproduced by permission

Verso of Rogue Leaf with part of I Maccabees from Ege Manuscript 14 at Kent State University. Reproduced by permission

New Testament with Prologues

Location unknown

[Gospel of Matthew 10 = folio 388B]

Two details at top and bottom of the page are reproduced in the Sotheby’s catalogue of 6–7 July 1931, lot 389, plate facing the description.The figural elements among the marginal decorations on this ‘one very outstanding page’ without ‘historiated initials of miniatures’, but with a rich repertoire of ‘grotesques’, are described in some detail in the Parke-Bernet catalogue of 29 November 1948, lot 326, page 120.

Set 29. Lima Public Library

Matthew 27:46 ([Iesus voce /] magna dicens) – 28:19, Prologue to Mark, and Mark 1:1–38 (eamus [/ in proximo])

Location unknown

Gospel of Mark

Location unknown

Gospel of Luke

Location unknown

Gospel of John

Rogue Leaf. Maggs Bros, Papyrus to Paper. Catalogue 1059 (1985),
number 41 with plate on page 22 of top half of the verso

End of I Corinthians (from 15:56) and Opening of II Corinthians on the portion visible in the plate
[and not the opening of I Corinthians as stated in the catalogue]

Rogue Leaf (3 of 3). Gwara Handlist 14.9. Metropolitan Museum of Art
= Wixom et al. (1999), no. 141, Leaf ‘II’ with plate on page 119, column a]

Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, 1:1 – 2:10 (end) plus opening title for Chapter 3 on verso

Among the Residual Leaves = Gwara Handlist 14.7. Oslo and London, The Schøyen Collection, MS 223.
Its full contents are not known to me.
The specimen image on the collection’s website shows part of the page with

Paul’s Epistle to Philemon and the beginning of his Epistle to Hebrews

[Might these 2 leaves have been consecutive? That depends upon what the verso of the specimen leaf contains.]

Set 6. University of Massachusetts at Amherst (both sides in black-and-white) and recto in color

Hebrews 1:13 (quando) – 6:20 (aeternum).

Set 23. Kenyon College

Hebrews 10:20 (iniciauit) – 13:4 (conui-[/bium])

— These leaves are consecutive

Rogue Leaf? Detroit Public Library [?]

Hebrews 13:4–25, Prologue to Acts, Acts of the Apostles 1:1–30
[Acts initial = folio *440r]

Set 25. University of Saskatchewan and here and here

Acts 4:1 – 5:11 on verso

Set 9. Cincinnati Public Library

Acts 13:37 ([quem uero /] deus suscitauit) – 16:2 (et Ychonio [/ fratres hunc])

Recto of leaf

Recto of Leaf 8 in Portfolio Set 9. From the Collection of The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Reproduced by permission.

Verso of leaf

Verso of Leaf 14 in Portfolio Set 9. From the Collection of The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Reproduced by permission.

[Or do the Catholic Epistles follow Acts? If so, maybe they come here in the series?]

Rogue Leaf.
Gwara Handlist 14.Ref 14. Sotheby’s 10 July 2012, lot 2(b)
[Current location unknown to me]

Opening of the Catholic Epistle of James on verso

described in the Sotheby’s catalogue thus:

(b) leaf from a lectern Bible, 400mm. by 270mm., with a large initial ‘I’ (opening “Iacobus ihesu christi seruus …”, the epistle of James) in burnished gold with a coloured architectural roof and arch, enclosing a bearded James with a golden halo pointing at the opening of his epistle, angular foliage forming text-frame around all sides of one text column, terminating in golden leaves and a dragon, 3-line initial enclosing ivy-leaf, similar text-frame on verso with a dragon and a 5-line initial containing a sprig of foliage ending with a dragon’s head, double column, 50 lines in a regular gothic hand, area of one column cut away (90mm. by 95mm., presumably once with a large initial), now repaired with another cutting from same volume [highlights added], once mounted on card with remains of tape on recto [therefore, turned front-to-back in Ege’s matting to display the verso], France or southern Flanders, early fourteenth century.

Verso:

Part of the Prologue to the Catholic Epistle of James (from [ut quia Petrus /] est primus in ordine apostolorum) and the opening of this Book, with 1:1–2:4 (nonne iudacitis [/ apud vosmet])

* Despoiled Leaf.
Preserved in part on the patch for the Sotheby’s Leaf opening the Catholic Epistle of James (see previous item); perhaps the rest of the leaf is lost?

Irregularly-shaped Patch containing parts of at least the Catholic Epistle of James 2:8–13 and 3–9 (on one side of the patch)

Rogue Leaf.
Maggs Bros, Papyrus to Paper. Catalogue 1059 (1985), number 44
with plates on pages 24 and 25, respectively of the verso and the top right-hand side of the recto

End of the Catholic Epistle I of James, all of his Epistles II and III, and the beginning of the Epistle of Jude (to verse 18[+])

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

End of the Epistle of Jude (from verses 19 (? animales spiritum) to 25)
Prologue to the Apocalypse
Apocalypse 1:1 – 2:10 (coronam vitae [/ verse 11 qui habet])[Apocalypse initial = folio *475r]

Original recto

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Family FOL Portfolio, Leaf 18 ‘verso’. Original recto.

Another view

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Apocalypse Prologue Opening Leaf: Original recto.

Original verso

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Leaf with the opening of the Book of Revelation within Ege’s mat, which turns the original verso to the front.

Set 17. Massey College, recto + verso

Apocalypse 2:27 (qui habet) – 6:9 (altare)

Interpretation of Hebrew Names

The leaves so far recognized from the Interpretatio Nominorum Hebraeorum (“INH” or “IHN”) for this Bible represent different parts of the partly alphabetized version of this Glossary, beginning Aaz apprehendens (that is, ‘Aaz means “seizing” ‘) — or one of its variants. So far I have discovered only 3 leaves, from 2 letter groups: the A-Group and the I-Group. They are laid out in triple columns, unlike the double-column format of the Bible text.

Location unknown

[Opening initial A[az] = folio *465r]

Rogue Leaf: The ‘New Leaf’ (Private Collection). See A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

Alcath . . . Ananias

Private Collection, Leaf from Ege MS 14, with part of the A-Group of the ‘Interpretation of Hebrew Names’. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Rogue Leaf: Enchiridion 21: Medieval Fragments for University Teaching & Research (2015), Item 2g

Asseremoth . . . Azer

Rogue Leaf (2 of 2). Sotheby’s, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures (21 June 1994), lot 10(a.2), without plate

with part of ‘the letter “I” ‘ (span unreported)

It is uncertain at present how many leaves intervened in the original sequence between the two identified so far in the A-Group. At least one leaf. It is also uncertain (to me) how the glossary ended, and if it was complete to Z.

More leaves could indicate to which variant the Glossary belonged.

The record of 1931 (Sotheby’s lot 329) reveals that this text spanned an impressive part of the volume. It stretched from folio *465r onward, perhaps fully to as far as folio *503 (recto? verso?), in 38 leaves at most. Also, like ‘the first three leaves’ of the volume’, the last leaves (number unspecified) of the book were damaged: ‘a few leaves of the Table at end are somewhat stained’.

Presumably ‘the Tables’ means the Interpretationes Nominorum Hebraeorum. (Unless, say, some other accompanying texts as well?) The stains perhaps represented the same sort of moisture damage visible on the Randolph College leaf at the front with part of the First Prologue for the Vulgate Bible and, probably, on the preceeding, first, leaf of that Frater Ambrosius prologue.

Because, so far, so few leaves from the Glossary portion of Ege MS 14 are identified, it seems probable that more await recognition. However, the leaves with multiple columns of text, without much if any of the decoration which charactizes most known leaves from the Bible portion — whether in historiated initials, extensions into the margins, foliage, creatures, and the like — may rule out a ready identification, or, for that matter, much interest among those collectors, curators, or scholars who would focus upon the “art” of the book, never mind the “boring” lists.

The first impetus for my interest in Ege Mauscript 14 came from a long acquaintance with the solitary leaf with the Alcath . . . Ananias portion of the INH. But, then, I have a long interest in the history, development, transmission, and adaptations of glossaries, proto-dictionaries, and dictionaries, as witness The Illustrated Catalogue.

It did take time to recognize which large-format Bible formerly held this text, where the text stood (whether before or after the Bible text), and so on. A clincher came in identifying the pencil inscription at the foot of the page as the work, and the wording, of Otto Ege for this dismembered book.

Pencil Inscription at the lower front of a manuscript leaf. Photography © Mildred Budny

Pencil Inscription (Budny Handlist 9)

All Bound Up

At the time of the 1931 sale, the sale catalogue reported that the volume still had its binding of “17th Century calf over stout wooden boards”, with the “binding worn and upper cover loose”. We might conjecture that the damage to the front and back of the text block arose from an exposed state, with water or other liquid damage affecting those front and back leaves as well as, if the book was bound rather than unbound, the covers of an earlier binding.

Such a condition of water or other liquid damage at the outsides could have led to a 17th-century rebinding or repair. It is a pity that the modern binding, with all its evidentiary value of whatever kinds, was removed and discarded from sight in the 20th-century dismemberment of the monument.

A Binding at the Beinecke

As with some other Ege manuscripts, the residue of the book, left after the process of selection of choice Specimens, remains to some extents. Such seems to be the case with the sale of many leaves of Ege MS 14 en bloc which mostly reached the Schøyen Collection, and with the acquisition of the Otto Ege Collection by the Beinecke Rare Books & Manuscript Library.

Part of the former cover of Ege MS 14 was exhibited along with other portions of the volume when they reached the Beinecke.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, New Acquisitions Exhibition (2016). Ege MS 14 in pieces.

From what I could see through the glass case, it appears to be the front cover, turned to show the inside, with its marbled pastedown, beyond which extends the edges of the leather-covered board. The worn surfaces of the rounded corners expose the backing, which seems to resemble layers of cardboard. A rectangular blue slip (paper?) is pasted to the midsection of the pastedown. The slip is probably a bookplate, although any image or text across its center seems too rubbed to reveal its intended message.

The 1931 description of the binding, with its “upper cover loose”, implies that the front cover would easily have been lifted away in Ege’s hands, to surface decades later in the exhibition case along with other remnants of the volume.

Because the front cover does not show signs of damage similar to the Randolph College Leaf, we could reasonably conjecture that those effects occurred at an earlier stage in the life of the book, before it received the modern trade binding.

To that binding work we should attribute the red stain at the outer edges of the manuscript leaves, applied to the book-block as a unit.

Seen from the side:

Viewed straight on, through glass:

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Ege ME 14 Binding Board and Endpaper with bookplate(?).

Without seeing the front of the board or its other parts, we have the evidence of the inside cover and outer edges.

Perhaps the marbled paper, within the tradition of this genre of bookbinding materials, might help to narrow down the location and date of this cover. Image-enhancement might reclaim features of the book-plate.

Meanwhile, it is possible to consider features of the marbled paper. Convenient guides, often with specimens. appear in print and online. Among many:

Richard J. Wolfe, Marbled Paper: Its History, Techniques, and Patterns, with special reference to the relationship of marbling to bookbinding in Europe and the Western World (New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2nd edition with corrections, 2018)
Einen Miura, The Art of Marbled Paper: Marbled Patterns and How to Make Them (Kodansha, 1991)
Carina Greven, “The Development of a Standard Nomenclature for Marbled Paper”, Ink & Gall, 7:2 (Winter, 1993), pp. 10–113
The Phoebe Jane Easton Bibliography: Marbling Bibliography
Essay: Marbled Papers and Marbled Paper Patterns, University Libraries, University of Washington, Digital Collections
We Love Endpapers: Public Group on Facebook

Among pattern types, as exhibited, for example, here, the design on the former cover for Ege MS 14 corresponds to the “Turkish” pattern (also known as “Spot”, “Stone”, “Agate, “Stein”, “Achat”, and Caillouté Simple”).

This is the oldest of Western marbled patterns and date back to as early as the middle part of the 15th century. The pattern is created when one or more colors are thrown onto the surface of the bath using a marbling brush. The first colors through tend to constrict as others follow and become the ‘vein’ colors for the latte thrown inks.

. . . Since this pattern is probably the earliest and the most simple it also is the base or jump off point for a large number of other patterns.

Specimens are exhibited in Wolfe, Marbled Paper, plate XXVI, 44–48 and Muira, Art of Marbled Paper, pages 47–49, and Turkish Patterns. In the latter gallery, an example similar to the front endpaper from Ege MS 14 is listed as Vintage 17th c. marbled paper, Turkish pattern, from a book cover. dating “between 1800 and 1899” [sic].

In consultation, Simon Beattie, founder of We Love Endpapers, suggested this in an email communication:

that marbled paper makes me say ’18th-century, English’. It certainly doesn’t look 17th-century (that’s not to say the binding wasn’t 17th-c., but with later endpapers).

Further research may uncover more secrets of the binding history of the book. Perhaps the most recent of its bindings, represented by the remnants, endpaper(s) included, in which it travelled to Ege can shed light on the transmission of its ownership to and through the unnamed “Italian gentleman” who consigned it for sale in London in 1936.

*****

The Stitching Patterns

The patterns of holes for the stitching(s) of the volume are visible in the gutters, or inner folds, of bifolia. Likewise, most of the single leaves, which have been severed from their mates in former bifolia, retain holes or notches from the same patterns.

Some bifolia or groups of leaves retain dark, thick, stains and ‘encrustations’ at the outside of their spines from the glued back of the leather-covered binding. A thickly crusted case can be seen on the recto of the single leaf from II Chronicles 4–6 at Stanford University, at the front of Quire xiiii.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, New Acquisitions Exhibition (2016). Ege MS 14 in pieces. Stack 1, Segments 1-3.

A few leaves retain pieces of the yellowish thread, twisted twine, and cord used for the stitching threads which linked quire to quire for the bound unit in a ladder-like structure of horizontal rows across the spine of the book, and for the raised bands at the back, or outside, of those rows.

For example, near the top of the recto of the Ecclesiastes Leaf at Ohio University, the frayed ends of a pair of severed threads rise from the uncut hole alongside the nicked, open-sided hole in the fold of the gutter. The markedly uneven cut edge of this gutter, which contrasts with the straighter edge of many severed single leaves from the manuscript, attests to a rougher approach.

Ohio University, Leaf from Ege MS 14, recto, detail: Top left. Image Public Domain.

The inside of some bifolia show their stitching patterns clearly. Such is the case with the bifolium from Ezekial at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Cleveland Museum of Art, Bifolium from a Bible: (Ege MS 14), with parts of Ezekiel via https://clevelandart.org/art/1959.272. Image Public Domain via Creative Commons.

The patterns derive from holes made in different approaches to binding or rebinding the volume. A close-up view shows differences in size, shape, and coloration between different ‘strata’ or sequences of stitching.

Cleveland Museum of Art, Bifolium from a Bible: (Ege MS 14), with parts of Ezekiel via https://clevelandart.org/art/1959.272. Image Public Domain via Creative Commons.

A detailed study across quires, insofar as they might be accessed, could determine the probable number of sewing interventions which the manuscript underwent in its history, from its original production, to individual ownership (Mirmellus Arnandi), to communal ownership (an unidentified Dominican convent), and back again (its “Italian” owner consigning the Bible to sale in London in 1936, and some other owner consigning it to sale again in New York).

*****

The Patched Repairs for Cut-Out Initials

In passing, we have noticed that a few leaves are said to have patched repairs taken from “the same” manuscript or volume. Such is the case for 2 catalogue entries.

1) Rogue Leaf = Gwara, Handlist 14.1.
Boston University = Judith H. Oliver, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular (1985), number 36 [but no plate]

End of Kings, Prologue to I Chronicles, and beginning of I Chronicles
with a ‘patch taken from another illuminated page of the same manuscript’ covering the cut-out from the ‘theft of initial for I Chronicles’.
[One wonders which other page yielded its riches to patch up this leaf.]

When first noting the case in the leaf opening I Chronicles (A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’), I observed that “One wonders which other page yielded its riches to patch up this leaf”.

2) Rogue Leaf = Gwara Handlist 14.Ref 14.
Sotheby’s 10 July 2012, lot 2(b)

Opening of the Catholic Epistle of James on verso (illustrated online for the catalogue)

described in the Sotheby’s catalogue thus:

(b) leaf from a lectern Bible, 400mm. by 270mm., . . . area of one column cut away (90mm. by 95mm., presumably once with a large initial), now repaired with another cutting from same volume [highlights added], once mounted on card with remains of tape on recto [therefore, turned front-to-back in Ege’s matting to display the verso], France or southern Flanders, early fourteenth century.

The text presents the end of the Prologue to the Catholic Epistle of James (from [ut quia Petrus /] est primus in ordine apostolorum) and the opening of this Book, with 1:1–2:4 (nonne iudacitis [/ apud vosmet]).

Even though the catalogue does not specify the position and nature of the patch, it is possible to make some educated guesses.

Next, we examine these patches.

*****

We thank the owners for the opportunity to study and to reproduce the leaves.

Do you know of more leaves from this manuscript? Do you recognize the hands of these scribes, artists, and annotators in other manuscripts?

You might reach us via Contact Us or our Facebook Page. Comments here are welcome too. We look forward to hearing from you.

Watch our blog on Manuscript Studies for more discoveries. Please visit its Contents List.

*****

No Comments »

2021 International Congress on Medieval Studies Call for Papers

July 13, 2020 in ICMS, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Societas Magica, Uncategorized

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(13–16 May 2021)

Call for Papers

Proposals Due by 15 September 2020

[Posted on 13 July 2020, with updates]

After the cancellation of the 2020 Congress, the preparations now for the 2021 Congress permit re-submitting the sessions which had been designed to take place in May 2020. By popular request, we performed that re-submission for all 5 Sessions. With approval now by the Congress Committee, we announce the Call for Papers. This announcement augments the brief listings of all Sessions on call on the Congress website. #kzoo2021.

Update: 5 August 2020:

Please note these updated instructions for submission of proposals for papers. New for this year, all such submissions must be made through the Confex system, as directed on the Congress website. However, the Congress’s plans for Session Organizers to access any proposals were overly optimistic. Exploring this problem, we have now learned that it is uncertain when (or if?) such access would be enabled. So we ask that, when you submit your proposal by that method as required, you inform the Session Organizer as well. Here we list each Session’s Organizer and contact address.

Sorry for the inconvenience, not of our making.

Perhaps an easy way of informing the Organizer of your proposal would be to forward thence the confirmation email which the Confex system would send for your completed proposal (title, abstract, contact information). We look forward to hearing from you.

Adèle Kindt (1804–1884), The Fortune Teller (circa 1835). Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The Plan We Had for the 2020 Congress

The Announcement for our Sessions and other Activities at the 2020 Congress describes what we planned. Note that we published the Abstracts of Papers, so as to record the intentions of speakers for their presentations. The Abstracts are accessible both through that Announcement and through the Indexes of Abstracts by Year and by Author.

Our tradition regularly has been to post on our website the Abstracts before the Congress, as a foretaste of the Menu. Years ago, as a sign of appreciation, we adopted the custom of posting the Abstract of one or other contributor who became unable to attend to present in person (as with the 2016 Congress and the 2014 Congress ). Thus we honor the intentions of our participants to present the results (or interim results) of their research and reflections, even when they could not do so at the event.

The Papers and their sequences within the intended Sessions were selected through the responses to the 2020 Call for Papers, which described the aims of the individual Sessions, both sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (3 Sessions), and co-sponsored with the Societas Magica (2 Sessions). The 2020 Congress would have been the 16th year of this co-sponsorship at the International Congress on Medieval Studies.

Like the 2015–2019 Congresses, we also planned for

an Open Business Meeting and
a co-sponsored Reception.

Even so, the Agenda for the postponed 2020 Business Meeting is available. It takes into account the changes for Spring 2020:

2020 Agenda.

The Plan for 2021

We contemplate a similar or suitably revised approach to the 2021 Congress, conditions permitting.

For the 2021 Congress, we aim to re-present the Sessions, and we invite proposals for Papers or Responses.

The sponsorship and co-sponsorship remains as before — with only 1 change. For 2021, the Societas Magica has agreed to co-sponsor 1 of the Sessions which the RGME sponsored on its own in 2020: “Prologues in Medieval Texts of Magic, Astrology, and Prophecy”. Now with an adapted title, this Session now joins the already co-sponsored pair of sessions dedicated to “Revealing the Unknown I–II”. The 2021 Congress will be the 17th year of our co-sponsorship with the Societas Magica, in a constructive partnership of friends, students, and colleagues.

Read the rest of this entry →

No Comments »

A Charter of 1399 from High Ongar in Essex

May 11, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

A Charter of
23 Richard II (=1399)
Issued on 17 July 1399
at Alta Aungre (High Ongar)

London, British Library, Royal MS 14 E IV, folio 10 recto. “Recueil des croniques” by Jean de Wavrin. Coronation of Richard II at the age of 10 in 1377.

[Posted on 12 May 2020, with updates]

Mildred Budny continues the series of posts on medieval and early modern charters from England in a private collection. See our Contents List.

First we examined the numbered group of documents mainly from Preston in Sussex. Then we turned to documents from other places.

From the Time of Richard II

Once again, we examine a charter from the time of King Richard II (6 January 1367 – c. 14 February 1400), who reigned from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399.

6 Richard II

Previously we considered a charter from this king’s Regnal Year 6, issued at an unnamed location on the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, that is, on 19 September 1382. That one is Charter 1 in the numbered series in that private collection which opens the section devoted to English charters. Charter 1 made its appearance in casting More Light on English Charters.

6 Richard II (= 22 June 1382 – 21 June 1383)
“On the Feast of Saint Michael Archangel” = 19 September
I. e. 19 September 1382

Private Collection, “Charter 1”: 6 Richard II Face.

The document retains its original seal, more-or-less intact, with its Legend in Lombard Capitals and its Device in the form of a (partly rubbed) heraldic shield. The Legend begins with a customary star (*) and the word SIGILLUM (“Seal”).

Charter 1: 6 Richard II Charter Seal.

The Document in Question: 23 Richard II from High Ongar

The later specimen from the reign of Richard II which we showcase here is not only later in date of origin, but also a later addition to the private collection; we had the chance to see it soon after its acquisition.

Like “Charter 1”, this document specifies both the Regnal year and a certain day within the year, upon a specific saint’s feast day. Unlike Charter 1, it names its place of issue.

Single Sheet with Tag and Seal

Like all those others in the series (from Full Court Preston onward), this document in Latin on vellum stands on a single sheet. It places the hair-side of the animal skin to the outside, folds its lower edge inward to form a flap, and holds between slits a pendant vellum tag upon which to attach the wax seal.

On the face of the sheet, the text forms a single column of 11 long lines, professionally written in Anglicana Formata script. (See another in similar script, by a different scribe: Preston Charters Continued.) The dorse, originally blank, carries a few docketing inscriptions. The uncolored seal survives in part.

Private Collection, Document of 23 Richard II, Face.

The Dorse

The dorse is creased and stained. The fold-lines and their directions demonstrate that the sheet was folded in half horizontally, then into thirds to form a packet, from which the tag extended.

Originally blank, the dorse acquired 3 docketing inscriptions. They stand in a “vertical row”, with their tops turned to the right-hand side of the sheet in one of its folded sections. It would appear that they gathered upon that section as it lay or stood ‘upright’, and with the seal and its tag extending to the right.

23 Richard II Dorse with Tag and Seal.

The Docketing

The 3 lines of docketing entries on the dorse include a mostly erased line in brown ink, a statement of the Regnal Year (“23 R 2”) in dark brown ink with arabic numerals, and the date in pencil in arabic numerals (“1399”).

23 Richard II Dorse

Back-lighting reveals a few more traces of the erased inscription and the differences of in width and smoothness between the strokes in the first and second ‘halves’ of the arabic numeral.

23 Richard II Docketing under Back-Lighting.

The Face

The text is laid out in a single column of 11 long lines written by a single scribe in a professional version of Angicana Formata documentary script (see Charter 6 in Preston Charters Continued). Mostly the ink is light brown in color, but in some places, where the freshly dipped pen left darker strokes, it looks almost black.

Such is noticeably the case in line 2, where one personal name stands out jarringly in darker color than the flow of the script to either side. Perhaps this effect resulted from a space left in the course of the transcription, to be filled upon a return (line 2) once the scribe had ascertained the name of this tenant (Nich’o) among the group of 4.

To the left of the first line and its enlarged initial, there stands a flourished mark, likewise in ink, forming an n-shaped feature rising to a clockwise loop. The text concludes with a separate flourish, which forms an undulating hook-like motif suspended after the conclusion of the text.

23 Richard II Face with Tag and Seal.

The Tag and Seal

Part of the uncolored wax seal survives upon the partly crumpled vellum tag.

Private Collection, Document of 23 Richard II, Tag and Seal.

The wax by now is friable, as a close view shows. To judge by the remnant of the seal, its matrix was round. The imprint of its face retains about half of the rimmed border containing an illegible legend or inscription. At the center the device has an oblong central element of some kind.

23 Richard II Seal Now.

The Script

The document presents its record entirely in ink, the work of a single scribe. It begins with an enlarged initial S which rises both above the line and into the left-hand margin, opening the process with minimum fanfare. Along with such customary features of Anglicana Formata script as a double-compartment a, this scribe consistently used a rounded, closed, theta-like e formed in a single looped stroke, with the tongue descending to the right within the closed bow.

23 Richard II Face: Left-Hand Side.

Of all the enlarged initial letters, the repeated N of the name Nich’o (lines 2 and 6) is both broad and distinctive, with a descending first stem, a slanted top leading to the second stem, and a backward-descending diagonal cross-stroke.

23 Richard II Face

The Text

The text of the document exhibits similar wording and formulae to some charters in our earlier posts. (For example, Preston Charters Continued.) Into such a formula, the scribe would enter the relevant particulars:

Sciant presentes et futuri quod ego . . . dedi concessi et hac praesenti carta mea confirmavi . . . presenta carta sigillum meum apposui hiis testibus . . . Anno regni . . . etc.

Thus, with those ‘supplied’ particulars highlighted here in BOLD, with abbreviations expanded between square brackets ([so]), with superscript letters indicated between inverted commas [‘so’], and with the text transcribed line by line, the document declares:

[Line 1]

Sciant pr[e]sentes et ffuturi q[uo]d Ego Thomas Herde alias Tobere dedi concessi et hac p[rae]senti carta mea co[n]firmaui

Joh[a[n]i Passelewe de Aungre ad Castrum Will[el]mo atte Bregga de Stanford Ryi’r’us Nich[el]o Atte Style de Dodyng[-]

herst R[i]c[ardo Barne de Kelwedon[e] om[n]ia illa t[err]as et ten[ementa] que h[ab]ui ex dono et foeffamento Joh[an]is Marden[is]

Et Joh[a]ne ux[o]’r’is eius cu[m] accederint post decessu[m] p[rae]dictor[um] Joh[an]is et Joh[an]e in hameletto de marden[e] de alta

[Line 5]

Aungre h[ab]end[um] et tenend[um] o[mn]ia pr[ae]dict[as] t[err]as et ten[emena] cu[m] accederint p[raed]ict[i]s Joh[an]i Passelewe Will[e]mo atte

Bregge Mich[el]o atte Style R[i]c[ard]o Barne heredib[is] et assign[antis] eor[um] de capital[ibus] d[o]m[ini]s feod[i] illius p[er] S[e]’r’uicia

inde debit[ur] et de iure consuet[a] Et ego p[rae]dict[us] Thomas et hered[es] mei o[mn]ia p[rae]d[i]cta t[e]r[ra] et ten[ementa] cu[m] accederint

p[rae]dict[is] Joh[an]i Will[el]mo Nich[el]o R[i]c[ar]o heredi[bus] et assign[antis] eoru[m] contra omnes gentes Warrantizabim[us] in p[er]petu[m] In cuius

rei test[i]m[onium] huic p[rae]senti carte sigillu[m] meu[m] apposui hiis testib[us] Steph[an]o P[ar]ker Herico Symms Roberto

[Line 10]

Taylor Rob[er]to Muskh’a’m Joh[an]e Smyth et alis Datur apud alt[am] Aungre die Iovis p[ro]x[ime] post festu[m] t[ra]nslatio[ni]s

S[an]c]t]i Swithini Anno Regno regis R]i]c[ard]i Secundi post conquestu]m] vicesimo tercio.

In Sum

Supplied particulars:

Where & When

23 Richard II (= 22 June 1399 – 29 September 1399)
“On the First Thursday after the Feast of the Translation of Saint Swithin” (= 15 July in England)
I. e. 17 July 1399
at Alta Aungre (High Ongar, Essex)

From

Thomas Herda alias Tobere

What

Omnia terras et tenementa (“All lands and holdings”)
received of the late John Marden and his wife Johanna
in the Hamlet of Marden of Alta Angre

To a Group of 4 Tenants

John Passelewe of Aungre ad Castrum (Chipping Ongar, Essex)
William Atte Bregge of Stanford Ryirus (Stanford Rivers , Essex)
Nicholaus Atte Style of Dodyngherst (presumably Doddinghurst, Essex)
Richard Barne of Kelwedon (Kelvedon Hatch, Essex)

Witnesses

John Parker
Henricus Symms
Robert Taylor
Robert Muskham
John Smyth
Et Aliis

How do we know? Read on, Dear Reader, Read On.

The Day and the Date of Issue

Among Richard II’s Regnal Years, Year 23 was his last, brief, Regnal Year, spanning 22 June 1399 – 29 September 1399. The dating clause at the end of the charter spells it out, as pertaining to Anno regnis regis Ricardi Secundi post Conquestum vicesimo tercio (“in the 23rd year of the reign of King Richard II after the Conquest”).

This clause also specifies the place and the day: Datum . . . die Jovis proxime post festum translationis sancti Swithini (“Issued . . . on the day of the first Thursday after the feast of the Translation of Saint Swithin”). The feast-day of one of the principal English saints, Saint Swithin (circa 800 – 2 July 863), Bishop of Winchester from 852 to 863, is celebrated on 2 July or 15 July, marking the date of his death or the date of the translation of his relics.

The choice of the latter in the document commemorates the translation on 15 July 971 of Swithin’s body to the newly restored basilica at Winchester, newly dedicated to him as its patron saint (in place formerly of the Apostles, Saints Peter and Paul). The Benedictional made for the Anglo-Saxon reformer, Saint Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984, for whom the translation was effected, takes care to include an image of this patron among its magnificently illuminated pages. There, the full-page image faces the opening of the text for the celebration of Swithin’s Deposition (2 July).

London, The British Library, Add MS 49598, folio 97v. Saint Swithin. Image Public Domain.

The document of 23 Richard II specifies the Feast of Swithin’s Translation. In 1399, Saint Swithin’s Day on 15 July fell on a Tuesday. The first Thursday after that would have been 17 July. By such calculations can we find the day upon which the document was issued, and not only the year.

23 Richard II Face

Names and Places

The place-name Aungre appears thrice in the document. First it qualifies the name of the first tenant: Johannis Passelewe de Aungre ad Castrum (line 2). Next it refers to a finding point in the boundary clause: in hameletto de marden’ de alta Aungre (lines 4–5). Then it specifies the location at which the document itself was issued: apud alt’ Aungre (line 10).

23 Richard II Face

The name Aungre stands for Ongar (meaning “Grassland” in Old English) in Essex. Aungre is an oft-recorded spelling for that place.

Its appelation ad castrum (“at or by the castle”) relates to Chipping Ongar, which still has a a castle — albeit now in ruins.

Church of Saint Mary, High Ongar, Essex, with 12th-Century Nave. Photograph by John Salmon (8 May 2004), Image via Wikipedia.

The appelation alta (“tall” or “high”) designates High Ongar (see also High Ongar) — at the time probably only a hamlet. High Ongar lies about 1 mile (1 1/2 km) to the south and east from Chipping Ongar.

The “hamlet of Marden of High Ongar” (in hameletto de Marden’ de alta Aungre) appears to have a modern incarnation in Marden Ash, which formerly formed part of the parish of High Ongar. Here “the name Marden goes back at least to the 11th century and means ‘boundary valley’: it suggests that this was the boundary between Chipping Ongar and High Ongar even at that time”.
— — P. H. Reamey, The Place-Names of Essex. English Place-Name Society, Vol. 12 (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1935), page 73; also British History Online: High Ongar.

In this context, it may accord with long-standing practice that the document locates boundaries with reference to Marden as one of them.

Stanford Rivers is also near by, only about 2 miles (3 km) south of Chipping Ongar. The common place-name Stanford derives from “a stone, or stony, ford” in Old English. A Stanford survives in Norfolk as a deserted village. As with some other Stanfords, the place called Stanford in the document both received and retained an appelation. Stanford Rivers is listed in the Doomsday Book as Stanfort, but in 1289 as Stanford Ryueres, adopting the name of the 13th-century manorial family Ryueres. See, for example, Anthony David Mills, A Dictionary of British Place Names (Oxford: Oxford University Press, revised edition, 2011: ISBN 019960908X ), p. 432. The document spells the name as Ryi’r’us (line 2), with a superscript r between the 3 minims (i and u); a similar superscript r stands above ux’r’is in line 4.

Dodyngherst is presumably Doddinghurst, in Essex, to the southeast of High Ongar and close to Stanford Rivers. Across time, its recorded spellings varied, for example with Duddingeherst in 1218. Pertaining to an early layer of Old English place-naming patterns in the early medieval migrations to England, the Old English name means “the wooded hill of Dudda‘s people”. (For example, the Dictionary of British Place Names, page 146.)

Richard Barne of Kelwedon came also from Essex. Villages in Essex among medieval settlements still extant with such a name are Kelvedon (Kelvedon) in northeast Essex and Kelvedon Hatch (Kelvedon Hatch). The latter stands within the Hundred of Ongar and considerably closer than the former to the other places cited in the document, pertaining to Aungre in its several manifestations, both on higher ground and near a castle, and now known as High Ongar and Chipping Ongar. Kelvedon Hatch lies 3 miles south of Chipping Ongar.

The Hundred of Ongar comprised 26 parishes, including Kelved Hatch, Stanford Rivers, Cheping Ongar, and High Ongar. Some Ongar parishes are picturesquely described and illustrated in “The Hundred of Ongar” by the English antiquary Elizabeth Ogborne (1763/4 – 1853) in The History of Essex from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (London: R. H. Kelham,1 814), pages 235–280, with the full list of parishes on page 236. The subtitle of this work advertised it as being Illustrated with accurate Engravings of Churches, Monuments, Ancient Buildings, Seals, Portraits, Autographs, &c., With Biographical Notices of the most distinguished and remarkable Natives. Alas, the work was unfinished, with only Volume I, in which the illustrated descriptions of the individual parishes of this Hundred cease before they reach any of those names within whose reach the place-names of the document come to rest.

Spellings very similar to those in the document are recorded in the Essex Poll Tax for 1377, which dates only some 20 years earlier. The modern edition of that record notes the modern equivalents.

Stanford Rever = Stanford Rivers
Alta Aungr = High Ongar
Kelwedon = Kelvedon Hatch
Aungr ad Castrum = Chipping Ongar

— — The Poll Taxes of 1377, 1379, and 1381, Part I: Bedfordshire–Leicestershire, edited by Carolyn C. Fenwick. Record of Social and Economic History, New Series, 37 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998–2005), “Essex 1377: Ongar and Rochford Hundreds”, at E179.

Such close, and even precise, correspondences for the individual place-names — as their records adapted across time — and for the cluster of names recorded within the transaction appear to establish their identities in the document beyond doubt as pertaining to the Hundred of Ongar in Essex.

23 Richard II Face: Text.

Location, Location, Locations

These places, with a few variants in spelling, appear on Old Maps of Essex, available among the Old Maps Online and other digital resources:

Map of Essex among the 35 colored maps published by Christopher Saxon in the Atlas of England and Wales (1579).
Interactive version of the Map of the County of Essex from the atlas of 25 engraved sheets by John Chapman & Peter André (1777).
Map of Essex actually surveyed with the several Roads from London, etc. (London [1678]).

The latter, via Public Domain, comes from the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library:

Boston Public Library, Map of “Essex actually surveyed with the several Roads from London, etc.” (London [1678]), Image via Public Domain.

With a detail of Ongar Hundred:

Boston Public Library, Map of “Essex actually surveyed with the several Roads from London, etc.” (London [1678]), Detail of Ongar Hundred. Image via Public Domain.

The Transaction as Record

From its details, the document yields information about a set of individuals and their interrelationships regarding landscapes, both which they have been associated — Aungre ad castrum, Alta Aungra, Stanford Ryirus, Dodyngherst, and Kolwedon — and over which they formally transfer custodianship on Saint Swithin’s Day, 1399. In the case of the land at the center of the transaction, we learn also about its previous transfer (at an unspecified date) from a named couple after their death.

Private Collection, Document of 23 Richard II, Tag and Seal.

*****

Do you recognize other examples of this scribe’s work? Do you know more about the history of these features, places, and persons?

Please contact us via Contact Us or our Facebook Page. Comments here are welcome too.

*****

More to Come. See the Contents List for this blog.

*****

P. S. On a Personal Note (17 May 2020). Although I don’t remember if I visited any of the places mentioned in the document, I vividly recall visiting Greensted close by. The purpose of the visit was Greensted Church, located about one mile west of Chipping Ongar town center. My interest resided in seeing the wooden structure of the building, because of its age and its Anglo-Saxon construction.

This was while I lived in London and engaged in long-term postgraduate study of Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts and their broader context — leading from the M. A. in English Language and Literature before 1525 (University of London, 1972) to the Ph. D. in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (London, 1985). An important component of the research was travel to examine material evidence first hand.

It was natural that part of the observation attended to building structures, given their settings for the production, viewing, and use of the manuscripts and other media, and given my studies in seminars with archaeologists and building historians, among others. Apart from archaeological excavations and ruins, many of the viewing opportunities allowed for more imposing architectural structures, but I wished also to see the “only remaining example of the many timber churches” of the Anglo-Saxon period before the Norman Conquest, as Greensted Church is described in a standard reference work on the subject.
— — H. M. and Joan Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3 volumes, 1965 and 1978), Volume 1, pages 262–264, at page 263.

North Side of Wooden Church at Greensted-juxta-Ongar, Essex. Photograph by Simon Garbutt via Wikimedia Commons.

The Church of Saint Andrew at Greensted is regarded as “the oldest wooden building in Europe still standing, albeit only in part, since few sections of its original wooden structure remain”. The nave, made of large split oak tree trunks, is mostly original. The official name of the place is Greensted-juxta-Ongar (“Greensted adjoining Ongar”), to distinguish it from another Greenstead, also in Essex, but some 30 miles distant, in Colchester.

My visit took place on a sunny day, in a day trip by car from London. I forget which year, but having a car places the date in the later 1970s. I remember well the warm sunshine outside the building and the dark wooden interior, so it would probably have been in the spring or summer. There are photographs from the visit, so others’ available photographs might serve.

From the distance of this blogpost, I survey the distance travelled across time and space by the document from its origins in Essex to my view of it as it first entered its current collection in the United States several years ago, and by my understanding of the subjects from immersion in study for the M. A. onward. The “papers” selected for that M. A. in London were dedicated to Language, Palaeography, Archaeology, and English Place-Names.

In all the travels and studies over the years devoted to such subjects (see, for example, Her Page and (Selected Publications), I might not have guessed that they would have come to include a close look at place-names centered upon one of the central areas of Ongar Hundred.

*****

Tags: Alta Aungre, Anglicana Formata, Aungre ad Castrum, Chipping Ongar, Dodyngherst, High Ongar, History of Documents, History of English Place Names, Hundred of Ongar, Kelvedon Hatch, King Richard II, Kolwedon, Medieval English Documents, Medieval Seals, Place Names of Essex, Preston Charters, Saint Swithin, Stanford Rivers, William Herde alias Tobere
No Comments »

Simurgh and Zal from a Persian “Shahnameh”

May 7, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Simurgh and Zaal
from a Persian Shahnameh

[Posted on 7 May 2020]

Continuing to examine manuscripts or manuscript fragments and related materials in our blog, we turn to an illustrated paper leaf, now in a private collection, from a Persian Shahnameh or ŠĀH-NĀMA (“Book of Kings”).

The Contents List for our blog shows the range of our explorations. Our Galleries of Scripts on Parade include specimens of script in Persian as well as other languages, Western and non-Western.

The Paper Leaf

The leaf was purchased in the Portabello Road in London circa 1985. The paper is typical of Persian paper from at least the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries CE. One side has text, and the other has both text and inset illustration. The ensemble probably dates from the 19th century, with acquired damage of various kinds, including unevenly trimmed edges.

Private Collection, Leaf from a Persian Shanameh. Simurgh and Zal.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Freer Gallery, Houghton Library, Illustrated Manuscripts, manuscript fragments, Morgan Library & Museum, Shahnameh, Simurgh, Simurgh and Zal, Tahmasp Shahnameh, Zal
No Comments »

2019 Congress Behind the Scenes Report

May 6, 2020 in Anniversary, Conference, Events, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Reception, Societas Magica, Uncategorized

Light at the End of the Corridor

Behind the Scenes

RGME Activities
at the 2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies

[Posted on 6 May 2020]

At the End of the 2019 Congress. A view down the dorm corridor, with Light at the End of the Tunnel.

At the End of the 2019 Congress: “Light at the End of the Corridor”.

Following the successful completion of our activities at the 2019 Congress, we offer an informal glimpse Behind the Scenes. Customarily, the completion of the Congress is followed by its Report. Occasionally, there also follows a Behind-the-Scenes Report. For the 2019 Congress, we planned already then to offer such an additional, informal Report, but events and tasks arising along the way back from the Congress pushed back its timetable for completion. Then, in steady succession, other tasks and activities occupied attention.

Some are reported in our blog about our Congress Activities, as we prepared for the 2020 Congress, while others have their say in our blog about Manuscript Studies, and in our reports about other Events, including the 2020 Spring Symposium. The required cancellation in March and April 2020 of that Symposium and the 2020 Congress as a whole led to further re-arrangements. Among other things, we attended to publishing the 2020 Symposium Booklet and the Abstracts for all our 2020 Congress Sessions as “souvenirs” of what had been planned. Research Group plans and adaptations, including possible rescheduling of parts of those events, are reported in the announcement about Keeping Up: Updates for Spring 2020. Now, as the appointed time would have come to travel to the 2020 Congress as formerly intended, we revisit the 2019 Congress with its Behind-the-Scenes Report, including some hindsight.

Earlier Reports from Behind-the-Scenes

Tardis

For the 2016 Congress Report, its Follow-Up Report took shape under the title of Doctor Who-Done-It. That term had its inspiration from a conversation on the way from one of the Research Group co-sponsored Sessions to our Reception, likewise co-sponsored with the Societas Magica. Then it was revealed that our Director, Dr. Mildred Budny, drives an equivalent of the Tardis (a conveyance for “Time and Relative Dimension in Space”).

As described on the official website for Doctor Who (see also Doctor Who), the Tardis is the “Doctor’s method of travel through both time and space — all Gallifreyan Time Lords use TARDISes for getting from A to B — and from then to now.” Who knew that this conveyance would also figure among the activities behind the scenes at the 2019 Congress?

The conversation at the 2016 Congress had to do with transporting some copies of the Illustrated Catalogue to the Reception for collection by their new owners. 2016 was the first year that our Director elected to drive, rather than to fly, to Kalamazoo for the Congress — because of the new arrangements by which the Research Group, as its co-publisher, took over the distribution of that Publication, and through which our Director had identified prospective owners, who wished to collect their copies at the Congress (rather than, say, to have to cover the international shipping costs). At that Congress, our Director could be seen with some of these copies in tow, on a wheeled luggage cart, on the way from one Session or Meeting to another. On the way to the Reception, there came the question if the ones that time were the only ones that had been brought. “Oh, no! These are not the same ones that you have seen on earlier days of the Congress. These are new, and there are more where they came from, for tomorrow.””

“Ah”, said Collin. “Where do they [meaning the new ones] come from?”
“Ah”, said our Director, “They come from the back of my car. There are the refills.”
“Oh! So your car is the Tardis”.

And so came the title Doctor Who-Done-It.

At the next Congress, the 2017 Congress Report included an image of that conveyance, again in the company of the Illustrated Catalogue and one of its new owners.

Book Signing for Mildred Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, on a Sunny Afternoon outside Fetzer at the 2017 International Congress on Medieval Studies, Tardis Included.

Book Signing Scene outside Fetzer at the 2017 Congress. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Gathering

Arriving at the Congress base to register on the Eve of the Congress, some of us gathered, as customary, at Bilbos Pizza. Then it was time to place the Research Group Posters on billboards, where permitted and where space allowed.

RGME and Other Posters at the 2019 Congress.

The landscapes also await Arrivals. Here, outside one of the Dorms — inside which, on occasions, we visit the Board Room (see below).

Plant Life to Greet the Congress Attendees. Row of Hostas alongside the Walkway. Photograph Mildred Budny.

Plant Life to Greet the Congress Attendees. Photograph Mildred Budny.

Setting the Stage

Preparing to start the Sessions and to engage in their Question-and-Answer discussions, our participants engaged in arranging the projection and other aims. The official Report for this Congress includes some Group Portraits of contributors to the different Sessions. Here, two Speakers set up the projection for their joint paper at our first Session of the Congress, the Organizer of one of our co-sponsored Sessions participates in its discussion, and the Respondent for that Session strokes his beard as he delivers his paper.

Ian Cornelius and James Eric Ensley prepare to tell us about “The Lost Medieval Exemplar of Beinecke Library, Takamiya MS 23”

Eric and Ian Check the Projection for their Joint Paper at the 2019 Congress.

Vajra Regan listens to the progress of his Session on “Embedded in the Mainstream: Ritual Magic Incorporated in ‘Legitimate’ Texts”, one of the 2 Sessions co-sponsored by the Research Group and the Societas Magica .

Vajra at his Session at the 2019 Congress.

Michael A. Conrad offers an erudite Response to Vajra’s Session by his observations “In Plain Sight: The Promotion of Astrology and Magic at Royal Courts in the Thirteenth Century in Transcultural Perspective”.

Michael Presents His Paper at the the 2019 Congress.

It was then that we learned that often, giving Papers, Michael ponders while he holds his beard — an observation which he readily confirmed.

Michael Presents His Paper and Beard at the the 2019 Congress.

2019 Reception and Business Meeting Invitations.

Our Business Meeting

This year’s Open Business Meeting was an outstanding success. So many attendees — newcomers gladly included — that we had to bring in more chairs. Our Associate, William H. Campbell, volunteered to find those arrangements. As customary, Derek Shank recorded the Minutes. Constructive suggestions abounded.

Scheduled for lunchtime (lunch provided) on the first full day of the Congress, and right after our first Session (only 1 building away), the Meeting offered an excellent way to launch our activities at the Congress and beyond. Apparently there are no photographs of the occasion, but the 1-page Agenda not only sets the stage, but also provides a concise record of our achievements and aims for 2017–2018 and beyond, with requests for suggestions and contributions in funds and in kind.

The 2019 Agenda is now downloadable. Please join us!

Our Reception

As in some previous years, our Reception was co-sponsored with the Societas Magica . Conversation flowed, and some manuscript materials were examined.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

Dan Attrell heads the table.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

Groups hold conversations.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

Greeting the gatherers.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

Showing some specimens.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

Pondering.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

*****

The Board Room

At the end of the day, as in previous years, it was possible to retreat to one of the Student Lounges, where we gathered to talk, relax, and, on occasion, play board games. Hence my customary term for that Room. (Never “Bored”.)

In the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

Making a Move.

In the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

Engaging in the Game.

Options.

In the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

The customary Shedding of Shoes.

Bare Feet in the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

Conversing in the Board Room.

In the Board Room 2019 Congress.

Telling Stories.

In the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

Not forgetting Refreshments.

In the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

Happy Traditions in Good Company among Colleagues and Friends.

*****

Book Signing

At last, the edition and translation has appeared. The Picatrix: A Medieval Treatise on Astral Magic, translated with an introduction by Dan Attrell and David Porreca (2019). The authors sign copies. Hurray!

Congratulating the achievement, we join the company of admirers with the happy awareness that we have heard about the research for this publication over the years, including in some of our Sessions at the Congress.

Dan and David at Their Book-Signing at the 2019 Congress.

For example, at the 2018 Congress, Abstract of Paper included.

Poster for our Session co-sponsored with the Societas Magica on "Occult Blockbusters of the Islamicate World", Part I: The Piccatrix (A Magical Bestseller)", organized by David Porreca and sponsored by both the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence amd the Societas Magica at the 2018 International Congress on Medieval Studies. Poster set in RGME Bembino.

2018 Poster for “Occult Blockbusters” Session.

Displays, Dragons Included.

Display at the 2019 Congress.

*****

Sunday Lunch, Plus Some Manuscript Materials

As customary in recent years, some of us gather at the cafeteria for Sunday lunch, as the Congress draws to its close and we prepare for return journeys. As in recent years, the gathering gives the opportunity to look afresh at some manuscript materials.

Here.

Sunday Lunch at the 2019 Congress.

With some improvised, reclaimed materials, Michael wraps his newly won Manuscript Facsimile Page for safe transit.

Michael at Sunday Lunch at the 2019 Congress.

Travelling T-Shirts as Selected and Modelled by Research Group Associates.

Derek and David with T-Shirts at Sunday Lunch at the 2019 Congress.

*****

Heading Home

As the Congress shuts down, participants, exhibitors, staff, and employees, hurry to pack and depart. Then comes a quiet time, as some await their transport. Among them is Ilona.

Ilona Awaits at the End of the 2019 Congress.

As packing is completed, there is pause to look around the setting and reflect upon the completion of another Congress.

1) Looking out from a ground-floor dorm room toward the Parking Lot as its spaces have cleared.

View from the Dorm at the End of the Congress.

2) A view of the Corridor leading to and from that room shows some “Light at the End of the Corridor”.

At the End of the 2019 Congress: Light at the End of the Tunnel.

Now is the time to drive away.

The Empty Parking Lot after the 2019 Congress.

The grey weather following the Congress made a contrast with the sunny days along part of its course. By some of that sunlight might we remember it.

Central Rock Garden at WMU International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo May 2019. Photograph Mildred Budny.

Central Rock Garden at WMU Kzoo 2019

*****

“Le Chariot” Hitches a Ride and Comes to the End of the Line

Remember the Tardis-like conveyance driven by our Director? See Above and also the Reports for the 2016 Congress and the 2017 Congress .

Our lamented Associate, Michel Huglo, named this selfsame vehicle “Le Chariot de Milly” when he caught first sight of it. That was when our Director came to collect him for brunch in Princeton following our 1998 Symposium on The Bible and the Liturgy, at which he had spoken. That name has proved as trusty as, for years, did the car. With the Director, it has ventured to conferences — including those in which the Research Group participated as organizer and sponsor or co-sponsor — in various states, including MA, CT, PA, OH, and MI.

This time, on the way back from the Kalamazoo Congress, the car gave up with a pop on the Ohio Turnpike. In the middle lane, at that, but with no traffic, so that it was possible safely to move to the side of the road, where conveniently stood a layby.

Le Chariot at the Side of the Ohio Turnpike Returning from the 2019 Congress.

Le Chariot at the Side of the Road.

It took some time for help to arrive, but then Le Chariot was able to hitch a ride.

Le Chariot Hitches a Ride on the Way Back from the 2019 Congress.

This car had come to the end of the line, so had to remain in Ohio. Another means of conveyance could be found for the return to home base, but that car has now passed into history. Legend, some might say?

*****

With hindsight, it seems somehow fitting that my thoughtful photographs in leaving the Congress rooms and spaces included choices to record them in the absence of people within the frame, but not without their presence, and their presence of mind.

*****

The grey weather following the Congress made a contrast with the sunny days along part of its course. By some of that sunlight might we remember it.

Central Rock Garden at WMU Kzoo 2019

Or, as I also wish to think about it, there might be some “Light at the End of the Corridor”.

*****

Now see the 2020 International Congress Program Announced.

Although some of our Sessions planned for the 2020 Congress considered aspects of Divination and other approaches to “Seeing the Unknown” (in Parts I & II), we did not guess that the Congress itself would have to be abandoned. And so now, on the day which would have been devoted to travel to the 2020 Congress, I reflect on the forms of light which presence and hindsight — perhaps also forethought — might offer for our explorations across time and space, guided by experiences and reflections.

At the End of the 2019 Congress: Light at the End of the Tunnel.

*****

Tags: Board Room, Business Meeting, Reception, Targis
No Comments »

Featured Posts

Archives

Ege’s Famous Books

and

A New Leaf from Ege Manuscript 53

Qur’an or Koran written in Arabic on paper

Egypt, dated 1122 CE (500 AH), but later: Probably Mamluk Dynasty, 14th or 15th Century

Circa 391 × 299 mm <Written area circa 285 × 220 mm>

Single column of 15 lines in Arabic

Surah 4:163 – Surah 5:4

With rubricated titles, textual dividers, and rosettes for verse markers

The ‘New’ Set in a Private Collection

Samples of Ege’s Portfolios

The Portfolio in Question

The Contents

First the Manuscript Specimens

The Spread Across Portfolios

Printed Leaves

Incunabula

Manuscripts, One By One

The Koran Leaf = Ege MS 53

The Text

Textual Divisions

In sum

Recto and Verso

The Leaf and Its Manuscript

The Manuscript and Its Date

Leaves in Other Sets

The Scribe and the Date

Coda: Reed or Pen

Further Reading

Further references

Activities of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence Planned for the 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies (13–16 > 10–15 May 2021)

Preparations

Following the Call for Papers due by 15 September 2020 and now the Announcement by the Medieval Institute on 16 October 2020

The Plan We Had for the 2020 Congress

The Plan We Have for 2021

Single Leaf on Paper from an Early-Printed Latin Missal (Missale Romanum) For use in a Carmelite Monastery

Part of the Mass for Holy Saturday (Sabbato Sancto)

Printed in 1509 by Lucantonio Giunta in Venice in 2 columns of 36 lines With Music on 4-Line Staves

J. S. Wagner Collection

The Leaf in Question

The Numbers Game

The Leaf in Full

Other Leaves From This Dispersed Book

The Leaf and its Provenance

Other Leaves from the Same Book

The Edition and Its Components

The Printer and His Works

The Printer, His Devices, and Examples of Title-Pages

Suggestions for Further Reading

Patched Repairs in ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’ With Pieces of Text and Decoration Extracted From the Same Manuscript

Patchwork

Via the Handlist

1. Gwara, Handlist 14.1.

2. Gwara Handlist 14. Ref 14.

In the “Otto Ege Collection” now at Yale

3. First leaf of Genesis

The Patched Repair

From Which Leaf?

The Patch for the “Sotheby Leaf” Sold on 10 July 2012 (Now in a Private Collection)

Viewed from the Verso

Rate of Text-per-Column or Text-per-Page on the Manuscript Leaf Versus the Printed Vulgate Edition

Viewed from the Recto

The Patched Leaf at Boston University

The Source Leaves

Styles of Cutting and Styles of Patching

Exhibit A

Cuttings Galore

The Extant Patches in Ege Manuscript 14 as Cuttings and Its Extant Leaves with Cut-Outs

A Glimpse of ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ While It Was Still Intact

Portable Quarto Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version Italy, circa 1275, with Illuminations made apparently in Paris

Double columns in 48 lines circa 235 × 170 mm <written area circa 153 × 107 mm>

Some Known Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’ In Sequence

Some Known Remnants

Complete Vulgate Bible accompanied by Prologues and the Glossary of Interpretationes Nominum Hebraicorum

A Preliminary Reconstruction of the Original Sequence of Leaves

The Former Bindings

The Manuscript Leaves

Old Testament with Prologues

Activities of the
Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
Planned for the
56th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(13–16 > 10–15 May 2021)

Following the Call for Papers due by 15 September 2020
and now the Announcement by the Medieval Institute on 16 October 2020

Single Leaf on Paper from an
Early-Printed Latin Missal (Missale Romanum)
For use in a Carmelite Monastery

Printed in 1509
by Lucantonio Giunta in Venice
in 2 columns of 36 lines
With Music on 4-Line Staves

Patched Repairs in ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
With Pieces
of Text and Decoration
Extracted From the Same Manuscript

The Patch for the “Sotheby Leaf” Sold on 10 July 2012
(Now in a Private Collection)

Rate of Text-per-Column or Text-per-Page on the Manuscript Leaf
Versus the Printed Vulgate Edition

The Extant Patches in Ege Manuscript 14 as Cuttings
and Its Extant Leaves with Cut-Outs

A Glimpse of
‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’
While It Was Still Intact

Portable Quarto Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version
Italy, circa 1275, with Illuminations made apparently in Paris

Double columns in 48 lines
circa 235 × 170 mm <written area circa 153 × 107 mm>

Some Known Leaves
from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
In Sequence

Complete Vulgate Bible
accompanied by Prologues
and the Glossary of Interpretationes Nominum Hebraicorum

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(13–16 May 2021)

A Charter of
23 Richard II (=1399)
Issued on 17 July 1399
at Alta Aungre (High Ongar)

6 Richard II (= 22 June 1382 – 21 June 1383)
“On the Feast of Saint Michael Archangel” = 19 September
I. e. 19 September 1382

23 Richard II (= 22 June 1399 – 29 September 1399)
“On the First Thursday after the Feast of the Translation of Saint Swithin” (= 15 July in England)
I. e. 17 July 1399
at Alta Aungre (High Ongar, Essex)

John Passelewe of Aungre ad Castrum (Chipping Ongar, Essex)
William Atte Bregge of Stanford Ryirus (Stanford Rivers , Essex)
Nicholaus Atte Style of Dodyngherst (presumably Doddinghurst, Essex)
Richard Barne of Kelwedon (Kelvedon Hatch, Essex)

Simurgh and Zaal
from a Persian Shahnameh

RGME Activities
at the 2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies