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rivate Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Front of Leaf. Reproduced by permission.
Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books’ and ‘Ege Manuscript 53’ (Quran)
Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. Dutch Book of Hours made for a female patron in the mid 15th century. Opening page of the Hours of the Virgin: "Here du salste opdoen mine lippen". Image via Creative Commons. At the bottom of the bordered page, an elegantly dressed woman sits before a shiny bowl- or mirror-like object, in order, perhaps, to perform skrying or to lure a unicorn.
2021 Congress Program Announced
J. S. Wagner Collection, Early-Printed Missal Leaf, Verso. Rubric and Music for Holy Saturday. Reproduced by Permission.
Carmelite Missal Leaf of 1509
Set 1 of Otto Ege's FOL Portfolio, Leaf 19 recto: Deuteronomy title and initial.
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Private Collection, Castle Cartulary Fragment, Inserted Folded Sheet, Opened: Top Righ
Fragments of a Castle ‘Capbreu’ from Catalonia
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Selbold Cartulary Fragments
Smeltzer Collection, Subermeyer (1598), Vellum Supports Strip 2 Signature Surname.
Vellum Binding Fragments in a Parisian Printed Book of 1598
Set 1 of Ege's FOL Portfolio, Leaf 14 recto: Lamentations Initial.
Some Leaves in Set 1 of Ege’s FOL Portfolio
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A Charter of 1399 from High Ongar in Essex
View to the Dorm at the End of the Congress.
2019 Congress Behind the Scenes Report
Opening of the Book of Maccabees in Otto Ege MS 19. Private Collection.
A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices
Private Collection, "Margaritas" fragment back side, lines 2-5.
The Pearly Gateway: A Scrap from a Latin Missal or Breviary
Preston Charter 7 Seal Face with the name Gilbertus.
Preston Take 2
The Outward-Facing Cat and a Hand of Cards. Detail from Adèle Kindt (1804–1884), The Fortune Teller (circa 1835). Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Keeping Up: Updates for Spring 2020
New York, Grolier Club, \*434.14\Aug\1470\Folio. Flavius Josephus, De antiquitate Judiaca and De bello Judaico, translated by Rufinus Aquileinensis, printed in Augsburg on paper by Johannn Schüsseler in 2 Parts, dated respectively 28 June 1470 and 23 August 1470, and bound together with a manuscript copy dated 1462 of Eusebius Caesariensis, Historia ecclesiastica.
2020 Spring Symposium Cancelled or Postponed
2020 Spring Symposium: Save the Date
At the Exhibition of "Gutenberg and After" at Princeton University in 2019, the Co-Curator Eric White stands before the Scheide Gutenberg Bible displayed at the opening of the Book of I Kings.
“Gutenberg and After” at Princeton University Library
Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. Dutch Book of Hours made for a female patron in the mid 15th century. Opening page of the Hours of the Virgin: "Here du salste opdoen mine lippen". Image via Creative Commons. At the bottom of the bordered page, an elegantly dressed woman sits before a shiny bowl- or mirror-like object, in order, perhaps, to perform skrying or to lure a unicorn.
2020 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program Announced
J. S. Wagner Collection. Leaf from from Prime in a Latin manuscript Breviary. Folio 4 Recto, Initial C for "Confitimini" of Psalm 117 (118), with scrolling foliate decoration.
A Leaf from Prime in a Large-Format Latin Breviary
J. S. Wagner Collection. Detached Manuscript Leaf with the Opening in Latin of the Penitent Psalm 4 or Psalm 37 (38) and its Illustration of King David.
The Penitent King David from a Book of Hours
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2019 M-MLA Panel Program
Coffee Break at our 2002 British Museum Colloquium. Our Director, Dáibhí Ó Cróinin, and Giles Constable. Photograph by our Associate, Geoffrey R. Russom.
Revisiting Anglo-Saxon Symposia 2002/2018
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2020 ICMS Call for Papers: Seal the Real
Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 1183. Photograph courtesy Kristen Herdman.
2019 Anniversary Symposium Report: The Roads Taken
Heidere Diploma 2 in the Unofficial Version, with puns aplenty. The Diploma has an elaborate interlace border around the proclamation.
Heidere Diplomas & Investiture
2019 Anniversary Symposium: The Roads Taken
Detail of illustration.
Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts
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2019 M-MLA Call for Papers
Detail of recto of leaf from an Italian Giant Bible. Photography by Mildred Budny
2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program Details
Thomas E. Hill stands at the entrance to the Vassar College Library. Photography by Mildred Budny
Another Visit to The Library Cafe
Leaf 41, Recto, Top Right, in the Family Album (Set Number 3) of Otto Ege's Portfolio of 'Fifty Original Leaves' (FOL). Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’
Augustine Homilies Bifolium Folio IIr detail with title and initial for Sermon XCVI. Private Collection, reproduced by permission. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
Vellum Bifolium from Augustine’s “Homilies on John”
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Design & Layout of “The Illustrated Catalogue”
Rosette Watermark, Private Collection. Reproduced by Permission
2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
Libro de los juegos. Madrid, El Escorial, MS T.1.6, folio 17 verso, detail.
2018 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
Poster Announcing Bembino Version 1.5 (April 2018) with border for Web display
Bembino Version 1.5 (2018)
Lower Half of the Original Verso of a Single Leaf detached from a prayerbook in Dutch made circa 1530, owned and dismembered by Otto F. Ege, with the seller's description in pencil in the lower margin. Image reproduced by permission.
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214’?
© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso. the initial 'd' for 'Domini'.
2018 M-MLA Call for Papers
Fountain of Books outside the Main Library of the Cincinnati Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.
2017 M-MLA Panel Report
Leaf 41, Recto, Top Right, in the Family Album (Set Number 3) of Otto Ege's Portfolio of 'Fifty Original Leaves' (FOL). Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
2017 M-MLA Panel
Poster for 'In a Knotshell' (November 2012)with border
Designing Academic Posters
Opening Lines of the Book of Zachariah. Courtesy of Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. Reproduced by permission.
More Discoveries for “Otto Ege Manuscript 61”
Slice of Brie. Photograph by Coyau via Wikipedia Commons.
Say Cheese
Alcove Beside Entrance to Garneau at AZO 2017. Photography © Mildred Budny.
2017 Congress Report
Duck Family at the 2007 Congress. Photography © Mildred Budny.
2017 Congress Program
Verso of the Leaf and Interior of the Binding, Detail: Lower Right-Hand Corner, with the Mitered Flap Unfolde
A 12th-Century Fragment of Anselm’s ‘Cur Deus Homo’
Reused Leaf from Gregory's Dialogues Book III viewed from verso (outside of reused book cover) Detail of Spine of Cover with Volume Labels. Photograph © Mildred Budny.
A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues Reused for Euthymius
Detail of the top of the verso of the fragmentary leaf from a 13th-century copy of Statutes for the Cistercian Order. Reproduced by permission.
Another Witness to the Cistercian Statutes of 1257
Initial d in woodcut with winged hybrid creature as an inhabitant. Photography © Mildred Budny
The ‘Foundling Hospital’ for Manuscript Fragments
A Reused Part-Leaf from Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels
Detail of middle right of Verso of detached leaf from the Nichomachean Ethics in Latin translation, from a manuscript dispersed by Otto Ege and now in a private collection. Reproduced by permission.
More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’
Running title for EZE on the verso of the Ezekiel leaf from 'Ege Manuscript 61'. Photography by Mildred Budny
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 61’
Decorated opening word 'Nuper' of the Dialogues, Book III, Chapter 13, reproduced by permission
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’
Private Collection, Leaf from Ege MS 14, with part of the A-Group of the 'Interpretation of Hebrew Names'. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
A Reused Part-Leaf from Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels
Photography by David Immerman.
Radio Star
Close-Up of The Host of 'The Library Cafe' in the Radio Studio. Photography © Mildred Budny
A Visit to The Library Café
Booklet Page 1 of the 'Interview with our Font & Layout Designer' (2015-16)
Interview with our Font & Layout Designer
Initial I of Idem for Justinian's Novel Number 134, with bearded human facing left at the top of the stem of the letter. Photography © Mildred Budny
It’s A Wrap
The Brandon Plaque. Gold and niello. The British Museum, via Creative Commons.
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (January 1992)
© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Tiberius A III, folio 117v, top right. Reproduced by permission.
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (August 1993)
Invitation to 'Canterbury Manuscripts' Seminar on 19 September 1994
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (September 1994)
Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence in Monochrome Version
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (May 1989)
Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)
2016 Report for CARA
Heading of Blanked out Birth certificate after adoption completed.
Lillian Vail Dymond
Initial C of 'Concede'. Detail from a leaf from 'Otto Ege Manuscript 15', the 'Beauvais Missal'. Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Lisa Fagin Davis. Reproduced by Permission
2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’
Detail with Initial G of Folio Ivb of Bifolium from a Latin Medicinal Treatise reused formerly as the cover of a binding for some other text, unknown. Reproduced by permission
Spoonful of Sugar
Detail of Leaf I, recto, column b, lines 7-12, with a view of the opening of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 23, verse 3, with an enlarged opening initial in metallic red pigment
New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian
Decoated initial E for 'En' on the verso of the Processional Leaf from ' Ege Manuscript 8'. Photography by Mildred Budny
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 8’
Cloth bag, now empty, for the original seal to authenticate the document, which remains intact, for a transaction of about the mid 13th-century at Preston, near Ipswich, Suffolk, UK. Photograph reproduced by permission.
Full Court Preston
The Date 1538 on the Scrap, enhanced with photographic lighting. Photography © Mildred Budny
Scrap of Information
Lower half of Recto of Leaf from the Office of the Dead in a Small-Format Book of Hours. Photography © Mildred Budny
Manuscript Groupies
Detail of cross-shaft, rays of light, and blue sky or background in the illustration of the Mass of Saint Gregory. Photography © Mildred Budny
The Mass of Saint Gregory, Illustrated
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You are browsing the Blog for Bembino Digital Font

Keeping Up: Updates for Spring 2020

April 4, 2020 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Announcements, Bembino, Business Meeting, Conference, Conference Announcement, ICMS, Index of Medieval Art, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Manuscript Studies, Princeton University, Societas Magica

Keeping Up:

Updates for Spring 2020

Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. Dutch Book of Hours made for a female patron in the mid 15th century. Opening page of the Hours of the Virgin: "Here du salste opdoen mine lippen". Image via Creative Commons. At the bottom of the bordered page, an elegantly dressed woman sits before a shiny bowl- or mirror-like object, in order, perhaps, to perform skrying or to lure a unicorn.

Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. Scrying, Perchance? Image via Creative Commons.

This Spring, the cancellation of 2 of our major events planned for this year, and intended to take place in mid-March and mid-May, produces perforce a redirection of energies and activities.  Call it “Regrouping”.

We report updates.

1.  Our 2020 Spring Symposium:  “From Cover to Cover”

Planned for 13–14 March at Princeton University
But Cancelled or Postponed

As preparations were proceeding apace, the event was cancelled by Princeton University — along with other events — on 9 March, in response to growing concerns for the spread of COVID-19 on a global scale.  Although at short notice, it was possible swiftly to cancel reservations for the venue, catering, and other services before participants had begun their journeys.

What We Planned

  • 2020 Spring Symposium: Save the Date
2020 Symposium "From Cover to Cover" Poster 2

2020 Symposium Poster 2

We aimed to consider, “From Cover to Cover”, activities dedicated to manuscripts, early printed materials, and beyond, from collecting and cataloguing to deciphering and beholding.  We prepared to gather specialists, teachers, students, and others engaged or interested in activities such as “Collecting, Curating, Conserving, Cataloguing, Deciphering, Reading, Reconsidering, Editing, Teaching, Displaying, Accessing, Beholding, and More”.

The focus was designed to center primarily upon medieval and early modern materials, both Western and non-Western.  The presentations would include reports of discoveries, work-in-progress, cumulative research, and collaborative projects by specialists from multiple centers, including independent scholars and younger scholars.

Included were workshops over original materials in manuscript and early print, a demonstration of materials and processes for medieval scripts, discussions about databases devoted to manuscripts and rare books, and sessions addressing multiple activities approaching medieval, early modern, and other textual resources.  Subjects would span a wide range geographically and chronologically, and take care to attend to the material and bibiographical evidence.

What We Can Do

There are requests for rescheduling the Symposium, or parts thereof, when conditions might permit.

Meanwhile, we can publish the Symposium Booklet.  At the time of cancellation, it had come close to completion for printing and distributing at the event and then afterward, as is our custom.  For example:

  • 2019 Anniversary Symposium on “The Roads Taken”
  • 2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds”
  • 2014 Symposium on “Recollections of the Past”
  • 2013 Symposium on “Identity & Authenticity”

For all these and our other Booklets (see our Publications), the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence is the nonprofit publisher and distributor.  The design and layout conform with our Style Manifesto and employ our own digital font Bembino .

Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Anonymous, Still Life of an Illuminated Book, German School, 15th century. Oil on Wood. Opened book with fanned pages. Image via Wikimedia, Public Domain.

Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Anonymous, Still Life of an Illuminated Book, German School, 15th century. Image via Wikimedia, Public Domain.

The new 44-page Symposium Booklet contains the 2020 Symposium Program, Abstracts of the Papers and Masterclasses, and a set of accompanying Illustrations (some published for the first time).  The Booklet includes corrections and revisions offered by several of the authors as we completed the layout and editing, after the cancellation of the event.

It is the longest so far of all our Symposium Booklets. The 2019 Booklet for “The Roads Taken” has 28 pages, and the 2016 Booklet for “Words & Deeds” has 24 pages.  Only the Booklet for our multi-lingual digital font Bembino is longer, at 56 pages, including all the font tables for the different styles and languages. That Booklet and the font itself (now in Version 1.6) are freely available for download and use (commercial use included).  Here:  Bembino .

Our illustrated 2020 Spring Symposium Booklet is likewise freely available for download. As with other cases, for your convenience, we make it available in 2 versions, which may suit different printing arrangements, as wished.  The versions are:

  • printable in consecutive quarto-sized pages (8 1/2″ × 11″)
    2020 Spring Symposium Booklet as Consecutive Pages
  • printable as double sheets (11″ × 17″) which can be folded into the booklet, nesting the bifolia within each other
    — a design which does not require staples for closure and perusal
    2020 Spring Symposium as a Foldable Booklet

We thank our hosts, sponsors, contributors, owners and donors of images, editor, copy-editor, and layout designer. The publication is our gift to all who aimed to participate in the event and to follow its ‘ripples’ after the accomplishment of the Symposium. We offer it as a ‘souvenir’ of what our contributors, and the spirit of generous participation, intended for the event.

While we may explore plans to reschedule the event, or its parts, in some way or ways, the Booklet stands as a place-holder, and as a vivid glimpse of what could be and, indeed, can be. The gathering energy and enthusiasm for the event, as the weeks and days advanced toward it, remain a testimony to the constructive collective spirit which inspired it.

2020 Symposium "From Cover to Cover" Poster 1

2020 Symposium Poster 1

_____

With these observations, I am reminded of the Motto which I chose, years ago, for the 2-volume Illustrated Catalogue, co-published by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

For Books are not absolutely dead things,
but doe contain a potencie of life in them
to be active as that soule was whose progeny they are;
nay, they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction
of the living intellect that bred them.

John Milton, Aeropagitica (1644)

Perhaps same as it ever was.

_____

Cover Page for Sorenson (2020 Spring Symposium Paper as Draft for Comment), with an array of illustrations and the title "Introduction to Indian Manuscripts"

Cover Page for Sorenson (2020 Spring Symposium Paper as Draft for Comment)

P. S.  Already one of our speakers, David W. Sorenson, has provided a draft version of his intended Symposium Paper for feedback. It expands the Abstract which appears in the 2020 Spring Symposium Booklet.

The paper provides “A Quick Introduction to Indian Manuscripts for the Non-Specialist”, with examples and illustrations.

With permission, we offer here his pdf.

Please contact us with your questions or suggestions.  (Contact details below.)

*****

2.  Our Activities at the 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies

Planned for 7–10 May at Kalamazoo
But Cancelled or Postponed

On 17 March, this year’s International Congress on Medieval Studies in May was cancelled, and with it all the activities which we were to sponsor and co-sponsor there, including Sessions and other meetings.  The Congress organizers declared that “We invite the organizers of sponsored . . . sessions approved for the 2020 Congress to re-propose them for the 2021 congress.  If proposed, they will be approved automatically”.

Unlike some organizations, who have declared this intention to re-present for the 2121 Congress, we do not know automatically if such a course would be appropriate for us, or for each and every one of our sessions.  Time will tell.

2019 Anniversary Reception Invitation. set in RGME digital font Bembino.

2019 Anniversary Reception Invitation.

Poster for our Session co-sponsored with the Societas Magica on "Celtic Magic Texts", organized by Phillip A. Bernhardt-House 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

The cancellation came in time before all reservations for the journey had been set into place.  Because our customary year-long preparations for the Congress had not reached the last weeks of its approach, we had not yet prepared the customary Posters for our Sessions or the Invitations to the Reception and Business Meeting, nor had the Agenda for that Meeting yet been drawn up.  Posters for previous Congresses show the standards.

However, we did in place have a series of posts on our website (You Are Here) announcing the plans for our 2020 Congress Activities, in stages with updates:

  • the Call for Papers for our approved Sessions, with descriptions of their aims and with selected Images (poster-worthy when the time would come) to exemplify their subjects and scope
  • the 2020 Congress Program, with the authors and titles of the selected Papers for each Session — including a permitted extra Session, given the strength of the responses to the Call, for our proposed Session “Seal the Real”
  • the 2020 Congress Program Announced, with the times and rooms assigned by the Congress Committee for our Program Activities, and with some of the Abstracts for the Papers.

In keeping with custom, we had begun, one by one (starting with the New Year), to post the Abstracts, as a foretaste for the presentations and discussions to come.

The cancellation of the Congress brought these stages to a halt, for a while, during which time we turned to other tasks — including the on-going follow-up from the cancellation or postponement of our Spring Symposium, and the completion of its Booklet.

Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. Dutch Book of Hours made for a female patron in the mid 15th century. Opening page of the Hours of the Virgin: "Here du salste opdoen mine lippen". Image via Creative Commons. At the bottom of the bordered page, an elegantly dressed woman sits before a shiny bowl- or mirror-like object, in order, perhaps, to perform skrying or to lure a unicorn.

Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. mage via Creative Commons.

What We Planned

  • 2020 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program Announced

We prepared for 5 Sessions with Papers, an Open Business Meeting, and a Reception.

These resemble the numbers and sorts of our activities in recent years at the Annual Congress.  For example:

  • 2019 Congress
  • 2018 Congress
  • 2017 Congress
  • 2016 Congress
  • 2015 Congress

This year’s plans also involved our 2 co-sponsors in recent years for Sessions and/or Receptions.

A.  Sessions

We prepared for 5 Sessions this year.

3 Sessions Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

1–2. Seal the Real: Documentary Records, Seals & Authentications

organized by Mildred Budny

Part I.  Signed & Sealed
Part II.  × Marks the Spot

3. Prologues in Medieval Texts of Magic, Astrology, and Prophecy

organized by Vajra Regan

Logo of the Societas Magica, reproduced by permission

Logo of the Societas Magica

2 Sessions Co-Sponsored with the Societas Magica
in the 16th year of this collaboration

4–5. Revealing the Unknown

organized by Sanne de Laat and László Sándor Chardonnens

Part I.  Scryers and Scrying in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period
Part II.   Sortilège, Bibliomancy, and Divination

B.  2020 Open Business Meeting of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

1-Page Agendas customarily provided at the time.  This year we send it out already.  (See below.)

C.  Reception co-sponsored with the Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University
in the 3rd year of this collaboration

_____

P. S.  Part of Mildred Budny’s on-going research on the subject of seals and signatures, which would have figured in her Response to Session II of our “Seals” Sessions, now appears on our blog, Manuscript Studies, presenting Preston Take 2.  (See the Contents List for the blog, as more discoveries await publication.)

_____

P. P. S.  It is not lost on us that some of our planned Sessions for 2020 were to consider aspects of the history of divinatory skills across time and place.  But when we collectively chose these, as well as other subjects, last year for our sponsored and co-sponsored Sessions this year, it was not easy to guess then that this year’s Sessions would not take place, after all, at their appointed time and place.

Adèle Kindt (1804–1884), The Fortune Teller (circa 1835). Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. Image via Wikimedia Commons. A young lady, brightly lit and beautifully dressed, looks outward as an older woman, beneath a dark hood, holds a set of cards and stares at them with intent.

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

What We Can Do

A.  Abstracts for the 2020 Congress Papers

Detail of opened book with schematic text. Photography © Mildred BudnyOur custom is to post on our website the Abstracts for the Papers of our Sessions at the Congress.  (See our Abstracts for Congress Papers.)  This year is no different.

In the winter of 2019–2020, we had begun to post the 2020 Abstracts, one by one, as is our custom.  They are linked to our announced Program: 2020 Congress Program Announced. The Abstracts function as a foretaste of the ‘Menu’ of the Sessions, and can provide a record of their subjects, aims, and scope of the presentations.

Already in earlier years (as with the 2016 Congress and the 2014 Congress), as a sign of appreciation, we chose to adopt the tradition of posting Abstracts even when a contributor was unable to travel to the Congress and to present the paper in person.  The publication of such Abstracts states that, although proposed, accepted, and scheduled within the Session and Congress Program, the paper was not, in the event, presented.

Before March 2020, only once before, in more than 30 years of activities in many centers in the United States and elsewhere (see our Events and Congress Activities), has the Research Group had to cancel an event itself.  That case was only 1 Session among 7 sponsored and co-sponsored Sessions at the 48th International Congress on Medieval Studies in May 2013.

This year, after the cancellation of both our 2020 Spring Symposium (see above) and the 2020 Congress, we first turned to completing the Symposium Booklet, and then to completing the posting of the 2020 Abstracts.

Those tasks are now accomplished.  For these Congress Abstracts, see

  • 2020 Congress Program Announced and Abstracts of Congress Papers Listed by Year.

For the Symposium Booklet, see

  • 2020 Spring Symposium: Save the Date

Thus we honor the intentions of our participants and their readiness to contribute to our events.

Next, we might turn to contemplating further activities, and perhaps rescheduling some of these ones.

[Update:  In the summer and autumn of 2020, we advance with planning to hold the same Sessions, albeit with a few changes, at the 2021 Congress.  See the 2021 Congress Program in Progress.]

B.  Agenda for the 2020 Business Meeting

Meeting to be rescheduled:  Time and Place to be Determined

The Annual Agendas for our Open Business Meetings, customarily held at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, remain available for consultation.

  • 2019 Agenda
  • 2018 Agenda
  • 2017 Agenda
  • 2016 Agenda
  • 2015 Agenda

These 1-page statements serve as concise Reports for our Activities, Plans, and Desiderata.  After the Meetings, the Abstracts are available for download on our website.  Some of them remain among the most popular downloads here.

Normally, the Agenda is presented at the Meeting.  This year, we send it out ahead of time.  It incorporates the updates of Spring 2020 and their constructive measures.

  • 2020 Agenda

It is not yet clear when this year’s Meeting, which had to be postponed, will take place.  Under present circumstances, we may contemplate a virtual meeting, say via online conferencing in some form.

Please let us know if you wish to participate in the Meeting.  We invite your comments, questions, and suggestions.  (See below.)

C. More

We thank all our contributors to the 2020 events.  The continuing momentum for such activities is a tribute to you all.

Please Contact Us with your questions and suggestions, for example to items on our  2020 Agenda.

For updates, please visit this site, our News & Views, and our Facebook Page .

For our nonprofit educational mission, with tax-exempt status, your donations in funds and/or in kind (expertise, materials, time) are welcome. Join us!

Tags: 'Manuscript Studies' Blog, 2020 Congress, 2020 Symposium, Bembino, Bembino Digital Font, Business Meeting, Early Printing, History of Documents, Manuscript studies, Medieval Studies, Seals and Signatures, Style Manifesto
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The Plot Thickens

June 7, 2019 in Manuscript Studies, Reports

A New Leaf Found at the University of Pennsylvania
from the
“Kurdian/Chicago New Testament Praxapostolos[?]
in Old Armenian”

The “Find-Place” of this Fragment
is a Surprise
also for Our Research on “Otto Ege Manuscripts”

[In our series of blogposts on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny (see Her Page) reports the unexpected discovery of another leaf from the same dismembered manuscript with portions of the New Testament in Old Armenian featured in an earlier blogpost, published on 28 September 2015, with an illustrated Report available for download.  Now we prepare for an updated, downloadable Report by describing the New Find and its location.]

Cover for the Report on 'Two Detached Manuscript Leaves containing New Testament Texts in Old Armenian' by Leslie J. French for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, with a detail of Leaf I verso, column a lines 10-12, with the opening of Acts 23:12First the Report So Far. As part of the process of exhibiting images from manuscripts, documents, and other written materials — for example in our Galleries of Scripts on Parade and Texts on Parade, and in our Reports on Manuscript Studies — we offered a Report on ‘Two Detached Manuscript Leaves containing New Testament Texts in Old Armenian’ by our Associate, Leslie J. French.  The Report focuses upon the evidence of some New Leaves (as they came into our view), considering their materials, layout, text, apparatus, and language, with reference to the knowable features of other remnants of the manuscript, particularly the Chicago Leaf, and some relatives among other representatives of New Testament texts in Old Armenian written in bolorgir script and accompanied in the margins by the Euthalian apparatus.

The Report booklet is available for download in 2 versions. They respect options for printing which might be available to you.

  • ArmenianPages set out in individual letter-sized (or quarto) pages
  • ArmenianBooklet laid out on 11″ × 17″ sheets for folding into a 20-page booklet in consecutive reading order

Specifically for that Report, Armenian characters in both lower case and upper case were added to the multi-lingual digital font Bembino of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.  For information about the font and its current version, free for download and use, see Bembino.  A booklet demonstrates specimens in multiple languages, Armenian included, of the appearance on the page of Multi-Lingual Bembino.

Booklet ‘On Demand’

Old Armenian "New Leaf I", Verso. Fragment with part of the Acts of the Apostles (to Acts 23:19)

Folio Ir of Armenian New Testament fragment. Acts of the Apostles

This Report is available below for download as PDF. In the form of a booklet, it presents its materials laid out in the official font of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, Bembino, a multilingual digital font (which you see on this website), and in accordance with the principles of our Style Manifesto. Such an approach resembles the presentation of our Newsletter ShelfMarks in booklet form, likewise available freely for download — as are the Style Manifesto and the descriptive booklet, with specimens, for Bembino. The font itself is also FREE for download here (now in Version 1.3).

The Report examines and illustrates two detached leaves in Old Armenian which came to our attention when preparing their presentation among other specimens in various languages in our Gallery of Scripts on Parade. Then, identifying the passages of text and the elements of textual apparatus on the leaves proceeded hand in hand with an exploration of the available evidence, or records, for other parts of the same manuscript dispersed in several collections. Designing Armenian characters, lowercase and uppercase, for Bembino (in its next version, still in progress, responding to requests) allowed for the collation of the texts in full, as an aid to decipherment for readers who may be unfamiliar with the language or the medieval script forms. And so the booklet took shape.

The Manuscript in Question

These leaves, now in several collections, both private and institutional, preserve parts of dismembered manuscript in Old Armenian written in bolorgir minuscule script of the 15th or 16th century CE. The remnants contain parts of the New Testament (some observers say a Lectionary), plus a Prayer (or its opening line) and a Scribal Colophon (of unknown contents), now dispersed in parts among several collections worldwide.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Bembino Digital Font, Dawson's Bookshop, Goodspeed Manuscript Collection, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, New Testament Manuscripts, Old Armenian, University of Pennsylvania Libraries
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Bembino Version 1.5 (2018)

April 18, 2018 in Announcements, Bembino, Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

The Newest Version of Bembino (Version 1.5)

Poster Announcing Bembino Version 1.5 (April 2018) with border for Web display

Poster Announcing Bembino Version 1.5

Years in the making, through consultation with scholars, students, and readers in a wide range of fields, Bembino is designed to allow multiple languages to live in harmony on the same page.

We offer Bembino Version 1.5 (2018), together with an updated version of the companion Booklet.

Available FREELY for download here.

Enjoy!

Would you like further elements? Please Contact-Us .

****

Tags: Bembino, Bembino Digital Font
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2017 Zodiac Cards Promotional Offer

August 19, 2017 in Bembino, Uncategorized

An Exclusive Set of Greeting Cards
Especially Designed
Birthdays and Year-Round Included

Greetings!

mbd logoCelebrating the new version of our copyright font Bembino, now with its especially requested Zodiac and Astrological Signs (and other elements), we have been given generous permission for a special Promotional Offer for the Greeting Cards designed expressly by Milly Budny Designs.

Wishing to use the font, and experiencing its creation from the Get Go (see our Director’s Memoirs, in progress), the artist/creator/designer of Milly Budny Designs especially requested the zodiac and astrological signs for that font.  She says that she loves celebrating birthdays, friendships, and celebrations in general as well as particular.  Cards, real cards — the kind that you can have and hold (no offense to any other kinds) — can have a good place in these recollections and celebrations.

You might have noticed that a recurrent hashtag on the Research Group’s Facebook Page is this: #notgoingpaperlessanytimesoon (no offense to vellum and parchment).  There is something special about having the object with greetings to hold in your hands, to display on your mantlepiece, and to enjoy years later, if you keep them, as you look upon the records of your friendships.  (I speak as someone engaged in this very activity this year, with some soft tears of recollection and happiness.  To be commended as a record.)

About the Design

The request for the zodiac signs in Bembino sought to blend all the design for the text on the cards into a complementary whole.  After all, those are the principles and the practices of our multilingual font Bembino, designed for different languages and styles of text to “live in harmony on one page”.  Why not apply them to everything that we design?  Indeed, why not.  Love it when it works.

And so, approaching the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse (on 21 August) and the Autumnal Equinox (on 22 September), we celebrate the seasons with reasons and greetings.  By special and generous arrangement with the designer (see Her Page), all profits from this promotion will be donated to the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

Every Birthday Has A Card

Which is your sign?  Every one has its place here.

Zodiac Cards Poster for Full Zodiac Covers with border

Year Round Greetings Included

The designs recognize every Birthday Sign.  They also celebrate the full set of signs in a universal Greeting Card. Thus, they feature the individual Birthday Signs and also embrace the full set of Signs in a year-round Greeting Card.  Something for everyone, and for every time of the year!

Which do you choose?  One or more?  Maybe a full set, for all your Friends and Family and many Occasions, Birthdays and Best Wishes Opportunities included?

Zodiac Cards Poster Interiors with border

Order Form

A Special Offer deserves a Special Offer. The 5″ × 7″ cards are printed on 110 lb card stock, plus envelope (32 bond).  The artist selects and ensures quality-control, so that you can expect well-printed cards.  Good greetings deserve good expressions, don’t you think?

Usually, the cards sell for $4.00 apiece, plus (where applicable) shipping and handling, and (in New Jersey, our home base) sales tax.

For this celebratory Promotion, their special price is $3.00 apiece, or $30 per dozen — in any mix of birthdays and/or all-year greetings.  Remember, the profits go to our organization!

Details here:
2017 Promotional Order Form

Zodiac Cards Promotional Order Form August 2017 with border

The Designs, By Design

The set of zodiac signs in our font Bembino were designed by special request for the astrological signs. With those additions to the font, the cards were designed as a full suite by Milly Budny Designs.

Bembino-booklet-cover with border

Information about ordering the them can be found on their Zodiac Cards Form for the Research Group. Also, you might contact director@manuscriptevidence.org.

By arrangement, all the profits from this promotional offer — and not only some part of the proceeds for the sales — will be donated to the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, a recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

Our Home Page describes our Mission for educational purposes. Also, your Contributions and Donations are easy to offer, both in funds and in kind.

There are many ways to help us, as an organization powered by volunteers. Because the organization does not have buildings, paid staff, and a large infrastructure, your donations may directly support our organizational running costs and minimal fund-raising expenses, and mainly our program activities. Lean but not Mean!

This collaborative generosity has led, among other gains, to the Promotional Offer for the especially designed Zodiac Cards. We thank the designer for contributing their sets to our cause.  Here we see them from the outside, Front-and-Back.  Pretty, don’t you think?

Zodiac Cards Poster Interiors with border

Enjoy!  Please contact us with your questions, requests, and suggestions. We look forward to your orders. Sign on!

*****

Tags: Bembino Digital Font, Zodiac Cards
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Designing Academic Posters

May 29, 2017 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies

Steady on the Page

Gold stamp on blue cloth of the logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence. Detail from the front cover of Volume II of 'The Illustrated Catalogue'Continuing to reflect on the values of presenting materials, whether text, image, or both, upon a page or writing surface, we have decided to proclaim the principles which guide our approach to layout of posters. You may have noticed some of them at our events, on the Posts of Pages pertaining to them, and/or in the Poster Gallery on this website.

You may know already about our views about design and layout, for example in the Illustrated Catalogue (our own design throughout, apart from the front covers and the promotional booklet), in our Style Manifesto (we are not so shy, uncommitted, or wimpy, as to call it a “Style Sheet”), and in all of our Publications.

Page 1 of the 'Style Manifesto' of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence in the version of April 2014 (4 pages)

Version of April 2015

Principles and Principled

Now we offer a similarly clear, and polemical, description of principles which we believe should govern the processes, and products, of Designing Academic Posters. The 4-page Booklet, set in RGME Bembino, describes and illustrates the aims.

You may download our booklet in whichever form you prefer:

  • Designing Academic Posters set out in 4 individual letter-sized (or quarto) pages
  • Designing Academic Posters as Booklet laid out on 11″ × 17″ sheets for folding into a 4-page booklet in consecutive reading order

We adopted this dual form of publishing our Booklets for some earlier cases, as with the Report on some New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian.  Its 20-page Report appears both as

  • Armenian Pages set out in individual letter-sized (or quarto) pages
  • Armenian Booklet laid out on 11″ × 17″ sheets for folding into a booklet in consecutive reading order

Experience shows that some of you may prefer the second option, so we continue the provision.

Enjoy!

Examples from our Poster Gallery

2014 Poster/Program for the Colloquium on 'When the Dust Has Settled, Or, When Good Scholars Go Back . . . ', laid out in RGME Bembino

What do you think? We invite your comments. We’d be glad to improve.

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

And another favorite:

Poster for 'In a Knotshell' (November 2012)with border

Please let us know your favorites!  We’d be glad to hear from you!

Comments here or Contact Us.

*****

Tags: Bembino, Bembino Digital Font, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, design layout, Research Group designs, Research Group Posters, Style Manifesto
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Interview with our Font & Layout Designer

October 6, 2016 in Interview, Interviews, Reports, Uncategorized

Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence in Monochrome VersionInterviews:  Number 1

Here we begin a Series of Interviews with people involved in the origins, formation, development, and life of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

First comes an interview with our Font & Layout Designer, Leslie J. French.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Bembino Digital Font, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, Leslie J French, Manuscript studies, Profile of the Research Group, Research Group designs, Research Group Logo, Research Group Posters, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, ShelfLife: Bulletin of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, ShelfMarks: RGMEnewsletter, Style Manifesto
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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (August 1993)

September 11, 2016 in Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Uncategorized

“British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius A.iii:
An Eleventh-Century Miscellany of Latin and Old English Texts
Owned by Christ Church, Canterbury”

The British Library, 9 August 1993

© The British Library Board, Cotton MS Tiberius A III, folio 117v. Frontispiece for the 'Rule' of Saint Benedict, showing Benedict and his Monks.

© The British Library Board, Cotton MS Tiberius A III, folio 117v

In the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
The British Library, London

Invitation in pdf (3 pages including RSVP Form)

The previous Seminar in the series considered

“Corpus Christi College MS 201:
An Eleventh-Century Collection of Homiletic, Legal, and Other Texts”

in Latin and Old English
(Parker Library, 19 June 1993)

[First published on 11 September 2016 by Mildred Budny]

For the first time in this Series of Seminars and other forms of scholarly meetings, a Workshop took place at the British Library, London.  Customarily they were held at the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College in the University of Cambridge.  Already sessions in the Series had taken place in Oxford (20 June 1992 and 13 March 1993) and in Tokyo (November and December 1993).  Now the Series turned to the British Library, as the subject and the opportunity invited.

Invitation to Workshop on "Cotton MS Tiberius A.iii" at the British Library on 9 August 1993, Page 1

Invitation Letter Page 1

Invitation to Workshop on 'Cotton MS Tiberius A III' at the British Library on 9 August 1993.

Invitation Letter Page 2

Invitation to Workshop on 'Cotton MS Tiberius A III' at the British Library on 9 August 1993. RSVP Form.

RSVP Form

Organised by Mildred Budny, Malcolm Godden, and Andrew Prescott — all of whom issued the 2-page Invitation Letter — the Workshop at the British Library was designed to gather specialists and students, including some from abroad (Germany, The Netherlands, the United States), who would be attending the 6th biannual conference of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (ISAS). That conference took place on 1–7 August at Wadham College, Oxford.

Therefore we planned for “a Saturday before / after ISAS”, and entertained the possibility of holding the event in “Cambridge, Oxford, London”.  These logistical considerations are recorded at the head of a 1-page planning outline in the set of 3 undated pages of pencil notes by Mildred Budny within the file for this event in the Research Group Archives.

The selected Saturday suited the speakers whom we hoped to hear and a number of participants whom we hoped to include.  The stage was set.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Abingdon Chronicle, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Ælfric's Colloquy, Ælfric's Grammar, Bembino Digital Font, Biblioteka Narodowa MS I. 3311, British Library Cotton MS Claudius B.iv, Christ Church Canterbury, Cotton Collection, Cotton MS Claudius B IV, Cotton MS Faustina B III, Cotton MS Galba E IV, Cotton Tiberius A VI, Franciscus Junius, Interlinear glosses, John Obadiah Westwood, Manuscript Miscellany, Manuscript studies, Monasteriales indicia, Old English glosses, pre-photographic reproduction, Regula Sancti Benedicti, Regularis Concordia, Research Group designs, Royal MS 1 E vI, Saint Augustine's Abbey Canterbury, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, The British Library
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“Imaging Aids in the British Library” (December 1993)

September 5, 2016 in Seminars on Manuscript Evidence

Cover for Preliminary Report of the January 1994 Workshop on 'Image Processing and Manuscript Studies'A Visit
to the British Library
by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

15 December 1993

In preparation for the Workshop
on Image-Processing and Manuscript Studies”
at the Parker Library on 15 January 1994

in the Series of
Research Group Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’

The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

[First published on our website on 5 September 2016]

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r. Frontispiece with Gregory the Great enthroned in a niche and reverent monks at his feet. Reproduced by permission

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r. Reproduced by permission

A 1-day visit to the British Library in December 1993 prepared for the Research Group’s January 1994 workshop on optical imaging techniques as aids for manuscript studies.

Organised by Mildred Budny and Tony Parker and held at the Parker Library, that approaching workshop on Image-Processing for Manuscript Studies” aimed to consider developments in imaging through photographic and computerised methods, as a means of gathering information and feedback about techniques of image processing, both existing and planned, with a view toward applications, capabilities, limitations, desiderata, and future potential.

Participants at the workshop would include experts in manuscript studies, conservation, photography, imaging aids, computing, radio astronomy, engineering, forensics and medical imaging.  The speakers would come from the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, the University of Cambridge, the British Library, the University of Kentucky, the Questioned Documents Section of the Metropolitan Police Forensics Laboratory, Ipswich Hospital, and Keith & Pelling Ltd.  The other participants would come from both near and far.

Meanwhile, there were elements of information to gather and materials to prepare.

Fact-Finding, Demonstrations, and Explorations

Postcard with frontal view of The British Museum.

Viewing the Front of The British Museum via Postcard.

The Visit took place in the Manuscripts Conservation Studio of the Collection and Preservation Directorate of The British Library.  At the time, remember, The British Library (created on 1 July 1972 as a result of the British Library Act 1973) still remained in its “old” building, before the move in 1999 to the new building, specially built for the purpose, on the Euston Road, Number 96. That is, the British Library remained in the same building as The British Museum, out of which it had emerged as an entity of its own.  The Department of Western Manuscripts remained in its domicile, in the East Wing of the building (designed in Greek Revival Style by Sir Robert Smirke and completed in 1852), facing Great Russell Street and the Front Entrance.  The Manuscripts Conservation Studio occupied quarters in the Basement below.

During the years of her long-term research on manuscripts at The British Library for the Ph.D. (London 1984), Mildred Budny (a founder member and by now Director of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence) had been a frequent visitor to the Manuscripts Conservation Studio, at Tony Parker’s invitation, to learn about new equipment, new techniques, and new discoveries as part of the conservation work on many forms of materials, manuscript and other. As a result both of such visits and meetings elsewhere, conferences included, it was “natural” to learn, for example, about the Beowulf Digitisation Project (1992–) already as it was beginning to take shape and form.

Here, thanks to that Project (and other developments), you may see, right now, here and now, how the sole surviving medieval copy (partly burnt) of Beowulf begins:

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 132r. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 132r. Reproduced by permission.

On the day, we could inspect the Real Thing, viewed with the relevant equipment, and guided by a founder of the Beowulf Digitisation Project in a formative period.  At the January Workshop on “Image-Processing for Manuscript Studies”, Kevin Kiernan also joined the presentations, although that time not in the presence of the manuscript itself, but represented by proxy, and moreover by computer transmission of images via the University of Kentucky to Cambridge. (You may take such representation for granted, nowadays, but we report an earlier stage in the worldwide transformation of the transmission of images of manuscripts, etc . . . )

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 140r. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 140r. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 163v. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 163v. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 139r. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 139r. Reproduced by permission.

*****

Report of the Visit, Now with Illustrations

'Imaging Aids' on 15 December 1993. Photography © Mildred Budny

‘Imaging Aids’ on 15 December 1993. Photography © Mildred Budny.

Front cover of the assembled booklet with the Profile of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence and the full set of 5 Annual Reports to the Leverhulme Trust, which funded the 5-year major Research ProjectA report of this December Visit appears as an Appendix to the “Preliminary Report” of the 15 January Workshop, printed and circulated as a Booklet after its event.  A similar Report for the December Visit to the British Library appears in the Fifth, and Final, Annual Report to the Leverhulme Trust (1993–4) on the 5-year Research Project at The Parker Library on “The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts” (Leverhulme Trust ref. F665).  On the series of Annual Reports, see our Publications.

We now transcribe the Report here, for you to see both on our website and in our Research Group font Bembino — our own copyright font, designed over more recent years by one of the participants of this Visit.  (You may download this font for FREE here.) You may also view the Appendix on its original page in the downloadable Booklet.  Here, we add some links and, by permission from The British Library, several images from the relevant manuscripts examined during the Visit.

*****

The “Appendix”

© The British Library Board, Cotton MS Vitellius A. XV, folio 147r. From the epic poem 'Beowulf', setting the stage impressively for the sole surviving copy of this major monument of Old English language and literature. Reproduced by permission

© The British Library Board, Cotton MS Vitellius A. XV, folio 147r. Reproduced by permission.

“Organised by Dr Budny and Mr Parker, a Research Group visit to the British Library took place in December, in preparation for the workshop at the Parker Library in January.  The meeting was attended by Dr French, Dr S.L. Keefer (Trent University, Ontario) and Mr R.M.Keefer (consultant specialist to the Alcan corporation, Canada).

“Dr Prescott demonstrated developments in the new Digitisation Project at the British Library devoted to the Beowulf manuscript.  Mr Parker surveyed the history, development, range and uses of advanced viewing aids in the Manuscripts Conservation Studio of the Collection and Preservation Directorate of the British Library, notably as applied to the Western Manuscript collection since the early 1970s.  Mr Parker demonstrated uses of microscopy, borescopy, infrared and ultra-violet lighting, fibre-optic lighting and the Video Spectral Comparator (VSC), with examples from British Library materials.

“Mr Parker and Dr Budny then conducted a joint project between the British Library and the Research Group. It was devoted to a problematic page selected by Dr Budny in Cotton MS Claudius A. iii, a collection of pontifical and other fragments mainly from Christ Church, Canterbury. Portions of the page, containing inscriptions, decoration and illustration, were examined under the VSC screen and under microscopy, using both indirect and transmitted lighting with cold fibre optic lighting and a glow-panel. Mr Parker took photographs for display in the January workshop. Dr Budny and Dr French recorded the day’s proceedings with both still and video cameras.”

*****

Test Case:  Cotton MS Claudius A III

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r. Frontispiece with Gregory the Great enthroned in a niche and reverent monks at his feet. Reproduced by permission

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r. Frontispiece with Gregory the Great enthroned in a niche and reverent monks at his feet. Reproduced by permission

A specimen selected for forensic examination involved some questioned passages on the layered, and probably altered, frontispiece image within Cotton MS Claudius A.iii.  The quest had arisen through long-term work on manuscripts and images associated with Saint Dunstan (909–988 CE), successively Abbot of Glastonbury, Exile to Flanders, and Archbishop of Canterbury. Some earlier fruits of that work — which included forensic analysis at The British Library (with Tony Parker) in October 1984, just before the opening of the British Museum / British Library exhibition for which that Oxford treasure of a manuscript had come to London — had been published regarding the layered frontispiece in “Saint Dunstan’s ‘Classbook’ and Its Frontispiece: Dunstan’s Portrait and Autograph” (1992).  This one:

Frontispiece image, with the prostrate figure of Saint Dunstan beside Christ, in Saint Dunstan's Classbook, MS. Auct. F. 4. 32, folio 1r, tenth century. Photo: © Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (2015)

Saint Dunstan’s Classbook, MS. Auct. F. 4. 32, folio 1r, tenth century. Photo: © Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (2015).

As for this “specimen” page in Cotton MS Claudius A.iii, which depicts the full-length enthroned figure of Pope Gregory the Great (plus inspiring dove) with an ecclesiastic and 2 monks at his feet, and which includes a revised inscription naming Dunstan at the top in lighter ink and thinner strokes written with a different pen (and hand), there gather several questions regarding the layers and the pigments — not least, the thickly painted black habit of the lowermost monk.  Invading its space (like some other parts of the scene), he seems to overpower the polychrome inhabited scrolling foliage which fills the rectangular frame for the frontispiece.  Might he, or his black pigment, constitute an addition to the frontispiece?

If so, it wouldn’t be the first time for an image which includes, or which an addition to the page asserts that it includes, a representation of Dunstan.  For such, as forensic analysis had already established, constitutes the complexly layered frontispiece of Saint Dunstan’s so-called Classbook, a chief treasure of the Bodleian Library. Except that in the Classbook Case, the inscription identifying as Dunstan (in the first person, no less) the “portrait” of a reverential monk facing an imposing figure (a monumental Appearing Christ) is apparently the work of Dunstan himself, along with a few added elements (retouches of sorts) for the frontispiece drawing in red pigment.

In that case, the “portrait” would be contemporary, whereas, in the Gregorian Case, it belongs to a later date and, it seems, to a center at which Dunstan came to hold sway as the culmination of his career. Perhaps the image copies or takes inspiration from an illustration dating to his own time, whether during his function as monk, as abbot, or as archbishop? Further research may illuminate the sequence of transmission. Meanwhile, the visit to the Manuscript Conservation Studio provided some forensic evidence regarding the frontispiece in Cotton MS Claudius A.iii itself.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r, top. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r, top. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r, bottom. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r, bottom. Reproduced by permission.

*****

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r, middle. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r, middle. Reproduced by permission.

Participants

In sum:

  • Andrew Prescott
  • Tony Parker
  • Mildred Budny
  • Leslie French
  • Sarah L. Keefer
  • R.M. Keefer

All but Richard Keefer are members or Associates of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence; he is married to one of them, and has participated in our conversations over several years about imaging issues as the Research Group was taking shape and form.

The visit to the Manuscripts Conservation Studio functioned both as a form of gathering and updating information about current techniques and their applications, in the sphere of manuscript studies and beyond, and as a way of preparing photographic materials and conducting research on selected passages for the January Workshop on “Image-Processing”.

*****

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 142r. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 142r. Reproduced by permission.

The next meeting in the Series on “The Evidence of Manuscripts” considered

Image-Processing for Manuscript Studies”
Parker Library, 15 January 1994

Most of the participants in the December Workshop gave presentations, including elements, techniques, and discoveries of that workshop.  Digital Beowulf included.

Soon after, there followed a Workshop/Visit similar to this “Imaging Aids” visit to the British Library in December.  In March, implementing a plan set into place over the course of the previous year, a team of specialists from the Chemistry Department of University College London brought expertise and equipment to examine closely:

“Pigment-Analysis of Selected Corpus Manuscripts”
Parker Library, 4 March 1994

*****

Tags: Bembino Digital Font, Beowulf Digitisation Project, Beowulf Manuscript, British Library, Cotton MS Claudius A III, Cotton MS Vitellius A.xv, digitization of manuscripts, Gregory the Great, Illustrated Old English Hexateuch, Imaging Aids, Manuscript Conservation Studio, Saint Dunstan, Saint Dunstan's 'Classbook', Seminars on Manuscript Evidence
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Doctor Who-Done-It

June 24, 2016 in Conference, Events, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Reception, Reports

Behind the Scenes
at the 2016 International Congress on Medieval Studies

Who Done It? We Did Good!

(With the Useful Discovery that Our Director Apparently Drives a Tardis)

Our Director continues the Reports for our Activities at the 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies, starting with the 2016 Congress Report.

Now, as a second installment for the Report, for the first time in our history, we tell about some experiences Behind the Scenes.  With Thanks, Naming Names.

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Tags: Archaeology of Manuscripts, Bembino Digital Font, Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida, History of Magic, History of Paper, Index of Christian Art, Manuscript studies, Manuscripts & Early Printed Books, Medieval Writing Materials, Pont Neuf, Societas Magica
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Center Fold

May 21, 2016 in Conference, Events, Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

The CopyCat Editor Lying Down On The Job. Photography © Mildred Budny, reproduced by permission.CopyCat Editor

Our Editor in Chief, also our Principal Blogger (see Her Page), gives credit to an expert adviser, who shows paws-on attention, even while lying down on the job.
P.S. That’s some of our text that she’s working on.  You could view and download its completed version below.

Published on 21 May 2016 (with a couple of updates in April 2017).

We pause (paws) for an exclusive interview with our CopyCat Editor In Residence.  She gives expert advice and encouragement for the preparations of our Events.

Recently, we have begun to gather interviews with experts who help — pro bono, of course — with our activities, events, publications, and other productions.  (Starting here.)  A series of interviews with our Graphic & Layout Designer is in the course of preparation.  (He is shy, and works at many tasks, so it takes time to find the right time.  Update:  Now here.)

That our blog on Manuscript Studies may allow for some light-hearted views can be seen already, for example, in the installment on Manuscript Groupies.

Wonderful to learn about the people behind the scenes.  Critters too.

Cats first.  Cats as Cats Can.  And Will.

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Tags: 2016 Symposium, 2016 Words & Deeds Symposium, Bembino Digital Font, Cat-a-Lan, CopyCat Editor, Interview, Mistie
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