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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.
Updates for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’
Private Collection, Castle Cartulary Fragment, Inserted Folded Sheet, Opened: Top Righ
Fragments of a Castle ‘Capbreu’ from Catalonia
Grapes Watermark in a Selbold Cartulary Fragment.
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
Church of Saint Mary, High Ongar, Essex, with 12th-Century Nave. Photograph by John Salmon (8 May 2004), Image via Wikipedia.
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
Bust of the God Janus. Vatican City, Vatican Museums. Photo by Fubar Obfusco via Wikimedia Commons.
2019 M-MLA Panel Program
Coffee Break at the 2002 British Museum Colloquium.
Revisiting Anglo-Saxon Symposia 2002/2018
The red wax seal seen upright, with the male human head facing left. Document on paper issued at Grenoble and dated 13 February 1345 (Old Style). Image reproduced by permission
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
Poster announcing the Call for Papers for the Permanent Panels sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, to be held at the 2019 MMLA Convention in Chicago in November. Poster set in RGME Bembino and designed by Justin Hastings.
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”
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'
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
Penwork extending from a decorated initial extends below the final line of text and ends in a horned animal head which looks into its direction. Photography © Mildred Budny
Lost & Foundlings

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Monthly Archives: June 2015

2016 Congress Call for Papers

June 29, 2015 in Call for Papers, Conference Announcement, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo

Call for Papers

for Sessions Sponsored and Co-Sponsored
by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the 2016 International Congress on Medieval Studies

12–15 May

[Updating our Post of 10 June 2015, now with the Call for Papers for Our Sessions on 29 June 2015, and additionally with further updates after the timely links regarding the Congress have become obsolete]

For the 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies [“http://wmich.edu/medieval/congress/sessions.html” link no longer valid] at Kalamazoo next May, the Research Group will sponsor and co-sponsor Sessions, as part of our continuing activities at this Congress. For example, at the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies, the Research Group had 2 sponsored and 3 co-sponsored Sessions.

As before, we co-sponsor sessions with the Societas Magica (since 2006) and with the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida (since 2014).  Here we announce the Call for Papers for all our Sessions for the 2016 Congress.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Balkan Studies, Byzantine Studies, Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida, Editing Magical Texts, History of Magic, History of Paper, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Medieval Writing Materials, Shaping Identity via the 'Other', Societas Magica, The Late Crusades
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Report for the CARA Newsletter

June 27, 2015 in Reports, Uncategorized

Our First Report for the CARA Newsletter

The June 2015 Newsletter for CARA (Committee on Centers and Regional Associations of the Medieval Academy of America) has now appeared. In this Newsletter online, the Report for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence appears on page 12. This year, the Research Group has become an official CARA Affiliate (as recorded on page 13).

As one of the 28 representatives present, our Director attended the Annual CARA Meeting on 15 March 2015, following the Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting at the University of Notre Dame.  The Report of our activities for 2014-2015 is published in the CARA Newsletter.  Here we reprint the Report, with the addition of active links to its items.

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Tags: CARA (Committee on Centers and Regional Associations), Medieval Academy of America
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Lost & Foundlings

June 26, 2015 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

The Tainted Legacy of ‘Biblioclasts’
The Case of Otto F. Ege as Collector and Despoiler

As Part II in a series on ‘Manuscript Fragments’, now part of a larger series on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny reflects on the predicaments and potentials of dispersed, deliberately detached randomly dispersed leaves from medieval manuscripts collected and dismembered by Otto F. Ege in the first half of the 20th century.
Part I in this series considered the ‘Foundling Hospital’ for Manuscript Fragments, as exhibited in earlier ages of manuscript despoiliation.  The issue calls for further exploration, bringing it up to date in an unhappy continuing state of dispersal.

[Part III (next) will reveal ‘A New Leaf from Ege Manuscript 41’]

The Foundling Hospital: The main buildings seen from within the grounds. Coloured engraving by J. Henshall after T. H. Shepherd. Via http://welcomeimages.org/ under Creative Commons

The Foundling Hospital: The main buildings seen from within the grounds. Coloured engraving by J. Henshall after T. H. Shepherd. Via http://welcomeimages.org/ under Creative Commons

Outcasts Flung into a Wider World
With Uncertain Hopes for Finding Foster Homes

This series of posts continues to celebrate the legacy of the Foundling Hospital in London.  We take inspiration from its complicated legacy of a brave endeavour to provide sustenance to lost and abandoned creatures.  And so, we consider the implications for reconstitution regarding medieval manuscripts which have been dispersed and, in some ways, abandoned for future rescue, if possible.

In recent years, keeping up with developments in various areas of manuscript studies, I have paid attention to the research discoveries of various scholars, including some Associates of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, in their efforts to examine, collate, and reconstruct the traces of medieval and other manuscript fragments let loose onto the world by such agents as the book-destroyer Otto F. Ege (1888‒1951), teacher, lecturer, graphic artist, bookseller, and professed ‘biblioclast’ active mainly at Cleveland, Ohio.

Invaluable contributions to this painstaking research and reconstruction (for the most part virtually) of his dismembered books appear in print, exhibition, or online.  They encourage me to report my own contributions, guided by their progress.

Little did I know that paying attention to those generous postings would prove to be valuable, not only in order to learn about progress in manuscript studies as such, but also to provide breakthroughs in some of the research I was already developing.  It can help to pay attention, huh?

More ‘Foundlings’ Identified

In preparing the Handlist of medieval and early modern manuscript and early printed materials in a private assemblage, as reported earlier, I reflect upon the precarious fates of original written materials in their uncertain transmission across the ages and through the hands of different custodians or predators, by turns – not necessarily in that order.  The first post in this series described such effects in the Middle Ages, at a center prepared to despoil and dismember, by turns across the centuries, one of its most splendid and illustrated manuscripts. The central case involved the magnificent Royal Bible of Saint Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, with partial dispersal or dismemberment at several stages and subsequent attempts to restore the remnants in some fashion.

Perhaps it is one thing for the creator of a monument to re-create it in various ways as the changing centuries might dictate. It may be something else again for others who take the materials into their own hands to decide how to dispose of them, with the operative word being ‘dispose’.

And so, now I turn to the methods of some 20th-century plunderers and distributors of medieval manuscript fragments. Within the Handlist, a few items are identifiable (after the fact) as leaves which passed through the hands of Otto Ege in the fuller form of their former manuscripts.

For example, one leaf, which carries the Arabic numeral 4 in black ink on its original recto, was contained within a glass-fronted frame when I first saw it, nearly a decade ago, as part of the initial stage of photographic work on the assemblage (in its state at the time). For conservation, I removed the frame and then photographed the leaf, recto and verso, while still attached to its existing cardboard mat. In consultation with the owner of the leaf, we decided to remove the mat and conserve the leaf separately. Those practices for the Assemblage as a whole, in stages, will be reported elsewhere. Meanwhile, I can show a first photograph (under flourescent lights) of the leaf lifted at an angle from its ‘original’ mat.

Because of my training, and awareness of the importance of respecting the evidence of manuscripts (and other materials), even if, at first sight, the value of specific clues might not be recognized, I have taken care to try to keep them in mind, while my experience might widen into areas which they require for decipherment.

I didn’t know it at the time, but the style of matting itself turns out to be a potentially diagnostic feature in the quest for identifying the fragment, its context, and its provenance. Call it a forensic clue in this complex detective work. Another post will focus upon this leaf, but, for now, we focus upon the clues in question.

Folio 4r still attached to the mat. Photography © Mildred Budny

A detached folio 4r still attached to a cardboard mat with Ege-style tapes asymmetrically aligned (Budny Handlist 9)

Bits & Pieces, Reassembled

The cumulative contributions are worth celebrating, as we collectively move forward with their clues and directions.  Some examples of these contributions (mostly freely available) set the scene, with observations, discoveries, illustrations, references, and suggestions for further discoveries:

Barbara A. Shailor (our Associate)

“Otto Ege: His Manuscript Fragment Collection and the Opportunities Presented by Electronic Technology”

Lisa Fagin Davis (our Associate and former Trustee):

“In Otto Ege’s Footsteps”
“Otto Ege, St. Margaret, and Digital Fragmentology”
“Manuscript Road Trip to Virginia”
“Reconstructing the Beauvais Missal”

Peter Kidd:

“A Newly Discovered Leaf”
“Ege’s 12th-Century Italian Lectionary”
“Ege Leaves at Glencairn Museum” (with specimens of the handwriting of Otto Ege and of his wife Louise)

Scott Gwara (our Associate):

Otto Ege’s Manuscripts: A Study of Ege’s Manuscript Collections, Portfolios, and Retail Trade (a book for sale),
with a survey of the evidence for the acquisition and dispersal of his manuscripts,
including a “Handlist of Manuscripts and Fragments Collected or Sold by Otto F. Ege” (Appendix X).

An important part of these processes of investigation and discovery is the ability to examine the originals, whether in person or by proxy, through images reproduced in print or otherwise. Digital facsimiles of all or parts of their Ege materials are available online for some collections, as here:

The Ege Manuscript Leaf Portfolios in several collections, gathered virtually by the Denison University Library
Fifty Original Leaves . . . From the Otto F. Ege Collection at Case Western Reserve University
Otto Ege Collection in the Public Library of Cinncinati and Hamilton County
Fifty Original Leaves From Medieval Manuscripts (Otto F. Ege Collection) at the University of Minnesota
50 Medieval Manuscript Leaves at the University of Sasketchewan
Pages from the Past: Ege at the University of South Carolina
Massey College Medieval Manus . . . at the University of Toronto.

Examining and comparing these specimens, together with the scattered evidence for the distribution and identification of the sundered portions of the original manuscripts, which apparently survived more-or-less intact into the 20th century before their ‘repurposing’, may help to recognize more of their separated parts. Such is the case here.

Way to Go

More discoveries await recognition, as the news spreads about research and discoveries relating to the dispersed manuscripts and the processes of acquisition, dismemberment, and piecemeal distribution. While deploring the vandalism of monuments of the past, we admire the dedicated efforts to assemble the virtual ‘reconstitution’ of their fragments. At least it is something.

That it is less than perfect, and less than it could have been, is not the responsibility principally of the despoilers who dismembered the materials and failed to record the crucial contextual information as they let the fragments loose onto the world. Orphans by intent. Foundlings by goodwill, dedication, and good fortune. Sometimes, it seems, we find them without notice. Sometimes, it may be, they call out to us.

Lost & Foundlings

Penwork extending from a decorated initial extends below the final line of text and ends in a horned animal head which looks into its direction. Photography © Mildred Budny

A whimsical creature at the bottom of the page faces the music. Budny Handlist 4

And so, now, as I round out the preparations of illustrated reports on the private ‘Assemblage’ of medieval manuscript fragments and documents, now with a Handlist assigning numbers to the items, the rapidly advancing research on Otto Ege’s manuscripts and fragments by scholars, librarians, catalogers, and book-sellers can enable the further recognition of other stray fragments which came from (or through) his holdings, set loose into the world with little information to record their origins, state their contexts, or signal the survival of any other siblings from the same original volume. Such recognition often comes only in pieces, that is, as we individually or collectively might find the relevant expertise and discover some firmer information about the original whole that may reside in one or another of its other surviving or recorded parts, with a colophon naming the maker.

In some cases, the identification of a stray leaf as having formerly belonged to a known Ege Manuscript might be secured by the continuity of textual sequences between it and another in that book (as listed occasionally here), by offsets of pigment from the formerly adjacent page onto it, or similar clues. In contrast, in some cases, while the processes of research and recovery continue to advance, such specific establishing indicators might not survive, or come yet to light, so that the identification might have to remain tentative, perhaps at least for the time being, or as having belonged to a volume in the same style, by the same hand(s), from the same center at about the same period of production, or the like.

It’s a shame that we have to restore some sense of continuity and context to these ‘waifs’ so laboriously and sometimes haphazardly, at best.

Otto Ege cut into pieces many medieval and early modern manuscripts of various types, dates, and places of origin, for assembly as individual leaves into various unique sets, as with the series of portfolios entitled Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts. Mounted on individual mats, given identifying labels, and numbered in sequence, the selected leaves were placed into boxes and distributed mostly by sale to museums, institutions, and private book-collectors. Only a generic descriptive label, printed on a slip, accompanied each of these individual representatives of a former unique whole. Other leaves from the same manuscripts – the rejected ‘random or rogue’ leaves as described by Lisa Fagin Davis and by Barbara Shailor – were circulated in various ways through gift or sale. Some of those leaves, if they are ‘lucky’, carry brief inscriptions written by Ege or his helper(s) in the lower margins of their rectos. Over time, the ownership and locations of some sets, parts of sets, and individual leaves have changed. The current locations of some of this Portfolio of Fifty and other Portfolios (focusing upon other themes) assembled by Ege are known; some of them have lost some of their individual components. It remains a tedious task for scholars to attempt to pick up the pieces, even if only virtually.

It is an asset that some collections offer digitized views of their representatives of these fragments. The form or appearance of such representatives can vary greatly. Those variations, some cumbersome, merit another reflection or review. Now let’s look briefly at what the individual ‘Orphans’, ‘Waifs’, and Strays’ might bring with them when they come into our view. I think of them as Foundlings, left upon our doorsteps. Here is why.

Babies & Bathwater

Approaches to abandoning babies — human babies, snatched from their birth-mothers and birth-families — can vary enormously, (un-)naturally. Across the centuries, such approaches might range from inexorably casting the new-born, naked, into the mouth of the lair of wolves, at one extreme, to placing them, lovingly, wistfully, at the other extreme, at the entrance of the forum, church, or sanctuary, say at dawn at the beginning of the day’s commerce and traffic, and setting them on to their new, uncertain, course, with a basket or cradle, a tender supply of clothing, a blanket, jewelry of some kind, a toy perhaps, maybe a bit of food, to hope to smooth the safe passage of the living being into the hands and care of strangers, who might be prepared to offer them foster homes or even adoption.

Clues or Clueless

Babies are different, true, from manuscript fragments, but the point is clear. What traces do their occasional owners, masters, agents, or purveyors choose to hand on, or hand over, to the adoptive homes or ‘adoptive agencies’ so as, perchance, to allow for some awareness of the parentage, ‘birth certificates’, genetic tendencies, family contexts, and other relevant information about their origins and upbringing?

In a nutshell: Not Much, in many cases. Ah well, sometimes the results may be due to negligence, indifference, or haste, but in some cases the effects as well as the methods appear to resemble the actions of ‘criminals’ who have the sense to destroy as much evidence as possible, take the money, and run. At ‘best’, the conveyers of altered, fragmented manuscript materials might be little aware of how much forensic evidence can reside in the substances, surfaces, and accretions of those materials.

Forensics in Manuscript Studies

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).

Permitting those seemingly insignificant traces of many kinds to remain in place (provided, for example, they do not actively harm the artefacts) may allow them to be observed, recognized, and deciphered by appropriate expertise.

An example of such discoveries applied to a renowned early medieval manuscript, or rather composite manuscript (assembling into one volume several different portions containing different texts, languages, dates, places of origin, annotations, scribbles, and other alterations), can be observed for the so-called ‘Classbook’ of Saint Dunstan and its ‘signed’ frontispiece image.  For centuries that image has been believed — wrongly, it turns out, through forensic examination – to be the saint’s self-portrait.  Yet it does have his own ‘autograph’ in the form of a prayer in his own hand and in his own name, added to the drawing of a monk before Christ made by a different scribal artist.  Appropriation may be a sincere form of flattery, but it does not necessarily constitute (when detected) the authentication of the appropriator as the creator of the artwork in full.

‘ID Bracelets’ and ‘Identity Marks’

In the absence of explicit testimony, both within or upon the fragment itself, it can be appropriate or expedient to turn to forensic and other forms of evidence, implicit or indirect. Such testimony, when properly recognized, can work wonders.

The ‘Seller’s Tell’

The ‘Identity Marks’ or tags made by many sellers of manuscript fragments may take distinctive, recognizable forms. The styles and methods may be telling. The statements may serve as concise cues identifying the item in some way, say with a verbal description or an inventory number. Some may function as cryptic notation, perhaps including codes denoting the expected price or price-range in a manner obvious to the seller but not the buyer. When entered in pencil discreetly at the bottom of a page, the tag might seem unobtrusive, possibly erasable without much trace, and readily ignored — especially when covered by the overlap of a mounting frame.

Exhibit A

A cryptic form of seller’s mark appears in the cryptic string of numbers and letters on the recto of the leaf with the Gregory Mass, purchased by its present owner from a major international bookseller in the 1990s.

Seller's Mark in Code. Budny Handlist 13. Photography © Mildred Budny

Seller’s Mark in Code (Budny Handlist 13)

Exhibit B

A different form of Seller’s Mark characterizes the approach to marking many of the ‘Rogue’ leaves dispersed from Otto Ege’s collection. Not all such leaves carry this form (which has some variations). But where they do, they may give significant, if compacted, information besides the price.

A simple form, reduced to the presumed date and genre of book, labels a pocket-sized leaf with text from the Book of Exekiel as ‘1310 French Bible’, tout court. By itself, the inscription might hold little promise, but a detailed comparison indicates the identity of the hand and the conditions of the ‘Tagging’.

Ezekiel recto with pencil inscription. Photography © Mildred Budny

Pencil inscription (Budny Handlist 7)

The discovery of the connection of this fragment to Otto Ege’s collection and its former manuscript had to await the recent research on the ensemble of manuscript materials as a whole. It is both fortuitous and beneficial that my ongoing research on the ensemble and its components coincided with the plenitude of reports of rapidly advancing discoveries about many of Ege’s dispersed fragments, their current locations, their marks of Ege’s handling, and their interrelations.

Various of the reports listed above identify and illustrate these marks, including specimens of Ege’s handwriting, the characteristics of his his mats for many of the leaves both within and beyond his Portfolios, and his form and uneven style of mounting tapes for the leaves and their mats. More about those mounting tapes in a moment, but first, a closer look at another pencil inscription which clinches the deal.

Exhibit C

One leaf which, according to his recollection, the present owner purchased at the shop of the Cleveland Museum of Art in or about 1953, carries on its recto the price of ‘$2.—’ and, spaced at an interval to the right, the brief description of the item as ‘French Bible 1300 – List of Hebrew names’. The owner purchased the leaf on its own, unmounted, and without any further description. A future post will tell more about this leaf and its former manuscript, a massive Bible now dispersed in many directions and collections, with confusingly inconsistent seller’s and cataloguers’ descriptions.

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

‘List of Hebrew Names’ in a ‘French Bible’ of ‘1300’, price ‘$2’, purchased circa 1953 at the Cleveland Museum of Art shop (Budny Handlist 8)

Exhibit D

A leaf now identifiable on other grounds as an Ege ‘Rogue’ Leaf appears to have a pencil inscription characteristic for the varied genre, starting with a price of ’10 –’ (presumably in dollars), followed perhaps by some more information entered at the same time, by the same hand, and in the same medium. However, the subsequently applied masking tape, with unevenly torn edges, which served to adhere the leaf to a mat by 1959 when the leaf was given to its present owner (and which has recently been removed in conservation) also mostly masks (presumably) the rest of an inscription. When the leaf was conserved recently, it was decided to allow the masking tape to remain, as a record of the history of the leaf. And so the rest of the inscription (if any) could remain for future revelations.

The pencil inscription at the bottom of a manuscript fragment names the price ($10) but the rest is veiled by a masking tape mount from a former frame. Photography © Mildred Budny

Pencil Inscription Partly Veiled (Budny Handlist 12)

‘Baby Blankets’, ‘Swaddling Clothes’ & ‘Cradles’
Mats & Mounting Tapes

Some telling, or ‘diagnostic’, features might seem insignificant at first glance, but they could provide evidence of the hand at work. Where other clues have been removed, such traces may be essential and solitary in their attestations as witnesses. And so they might have to testify (see above) as Tips of Icebergs. Let us consider the often dismal evidence of mounting tapes, that is, the adhesive tapes found on manuscript fragments — which, in some cases, they not only accompany, but also enslave.

At most glances, such tapes might easily be ignored. Who cares? Well, some of us do, although not everyone has to. It’s enough to recognize that someone might find them worth examining. To forensic examination, their features can sometimes reveal significant testimony.

Exhibit E

A simple example can set the scene. Non-archival masking tape is sometimes readily employed in framing materials, presumably for its convenience, ignorance about its interactive characteristics, and awareness that its presence will be hidden under the mat or the edges of the frame. In recent conservation, the removal of the frame, glass, and mat from a detached leaf of an 11th-century Giant Latin Bible purchased in 1951 in Florence, Italy, and subsequently framed in the United States has revealed some strips of tape, with unevenly torn edges.

Masking Tape added after 1951 to the reframed fragments of a single large-format 11th-century leaf. Budny Handlist 1.

Masking Tape added after 1951 to the reframed fragments of a single large-format 11th-century leaf (Budny Handlist 1)

Exhibit F

Now we turn to examples of Ege’s mounting tapes within the Handlist. The pair of unevenly cut and unevenly placed mounting strips of gauze tape glued along one long side of ‘Folio 4’ of Handlist Number 9 (shown above still attached to its former mat) is representative of his style of application, given the cases already attested.

On various grounds, even apart from the tapes, this leaf can be identified as one of Ege’s ‘reject’ leaves from a manuscript deployed among the Fifty Original Leaves. Known Ege examples are illustrated, for example, here and here.

A detached Folio, which carries the Arabic number ‘4’ in black ink at the top of its recto (inscribed on the leaf while it still stood in place in its former manuscript), retains its asymmetrically placed whitish gauze mounting tapes attached to the outer edge. The non-archival cardboard mount for this leaf, to which the tape strips formerly adhered in the form of hinges, has been detached during recent conservation, and is kept separately. On the mat, the leaf was mounted with its original recto turned to the verso.

The type of tape and its style of placement corresponds with known Ege methods. A ‘stroll’ or ‘scroll’ through the digital facsimiles of mounted Ege materials (as in the Massey College Medieval Manus . . . series) reveals many cases of such mounting tapes, not infrequently positioned asymmetrically. Same as here:

Pieces of gauze mounting tips in a pair along the long edge of a detached manuscript leaf, with Photography © by Mildred Budny

The outer edge of a detached Folio ‘4’ recto and its 20th-century ‘Ege’ mounting tapes (Budny Handlist 9)

Exhibit G

In another case, such mounting tapes were removed some time ago by some agent or other, without record. Similar traces appear, for example, here.

Ezekiel recto White cropped to tape traces rotated with branding at 5 percent

Remnants of a pair of gauze mounting tapes (Budny Handlist 7)

 

Fortunately, it turns out, the gummy substance resisted the removal of all trace of the tapes, whose material, form, and alignment are familiar to observers of Ege’s methods of mounting the detached leaves, whether for his Portfolios or other forms of dispersal.

Even so, many of his dispersed leaves ‘rejected’ for inclusion in the Portfolios have wandered without the addition of mats. In their cases, the brief (or briefest) pencil inscriptions might have to serve alone as a clue to his intervention in the history of the artefact. In other cases, Ege’s dispersed leaves might have to roam without any of his recognizable marks, until, say, the identification of the text, the scribe, the workshop, or some other means of connection with the original manuscript might be accomplished. Meanwhile, every step forward, by whatever clues, may count as progress.

Next we report the discoveries for another detached ‘Ege Manuscript Leaf’, which has wandered on its own, without label, identifying inscription, or other explicit mark of Ege’s ownership. For such a case, other detective methods also are required.

A Virtual ‘Orphanage’

How the different ‘Foundlings’ among manuscript fragments might sometime find a proper, albeit virtual, home so as to acknowledge, to record, and to welcome their familial connections in former whole manuscripts as a form of ‘genealogical recovery’ remains to be determined in the concerted quest in various centers to establish and to foster such projects. While they find their fuller footing, with larger institutional supports, we will turn to the next report on our findings.

Next stop: ‘A New Leaf from Ege Manuscript 41’, from a different collection.

We welcome your comments, questions, and feedback. Please leave a comment or Contact Us.

*****

 

 

Tags: Budny Handlist, Foundling Hospital, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Collecting, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege's Manuscripts
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The ‘Foundling Hospital’ for Manuscript Fragments

June 26, 2015 in Book & Exhibition Reviews, Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition, Uncategorized

Gathering Waifs and Strays among Manuscript Fragments
Dispersed to the Winds of Change

Their Recognition for What They Are
Can Emerge Through Chance Discoveries as Well as Dedicated Expertise

As Part I in a series, Mildred Budny reflects on recognizing the familial connections of ‘orphans’ among dispersed manuscript leaves. Part II considers a group of them as ‘Lost and Foundlings’.

Initial d in woodcut with winged hybrid creature as an inhabitant. Photography © Mildred Budny

Initial D on a detached bifolium, printed on vellum. Photography © Mildred Budny

‘Do the right thing’, we often hear.  Yes, presumably, that seems worthwhile, given the chance, ability, or will.   But how to do it and what to do?

Doing the Right Thing for Historical Records?  Hmm.  Preserving artefacts and monuments from the past is not always straightforward, nor always deemed desirable.  The issues remain subject to controversy and concern.  When it comes to old manuscripts and their fragments, the set of choices could depend upon opportunities, determination, and intention, as well as, on occasion, serendipity.

Foundlings, Given the Chance

Recently I have been thinking about the humanitarian purpose and activities of the 18th-century foundation of the Foundling Hospital, whose grounds I used to visit during my long postgraduate years in London.   Now my thoughts focus on that place, and its place in history, not only in its own right, but as a metaphor or model for the challenges and opportunities in gathering together the orphans, waifs, and strays among despoiled manuscripts and books of earlier ages.

Coloured engraving of a bird's eye view of the Courtyard of the Foundling Hospital, Holbourne, London, with scenes of humans and other creatures both within and without.  Coloured engraving by T. Bowles after L.P. Boitard (1753).  Image via Wikimedia Commons from Wellcome Images (http://wellcomeimages.org

The Foundling Hospital, Holbourn, London: A bird’s eye view of the courtyard. Coloured engraving by T. Bowles after L.P. Boitard (1753). Wellcome Images (wellcomeimages.org) via Wikimedia Commons

These reflections have come to mind as I work to shape the illustrated Handlist of a group of medieval and early modern manuscript fragments and documents, plus some early printed materials, which I have had the opportunity to photograph, conserve, and study for some time (as reported, for example, on this website and in a close-up).  By its owner’s wishes, for now the group is called an ‘Assemblage’ because its group was assembled over decades less specifically or purposefully than a ‘Collection’ as such might imply.

Recently, during the accelerated course of the work on the materials as a group, there has appeared the poignant illustrated blogpost by Erik Kwaakel showcasing a group of handwritten tags intended to identify, and to accompany, children who passed through the Holy Spirit Orphanage (Heilige Geest- of Arme Wees- en Kinderhuis in Dutch) in Leiden in The Netherlands in the 15th century.  These brief slips can or must stand now for their bearers, long gone into the past, perhaps with little or no other written record for their living existence.

Manuscripts and Foundlings:  somehow they interrelate.  Manuscripts as Foundlings, and Human Foundlings with Manuscript Tags.  Poignant predicaments, and poignant traces.  It seems a mercy that any traces may remain to bear witness to the lives, and also the books which any lives have produced, owned, read, perhaps enjoyed, and lost.  The time has come for finding, and for caring.

A New Handlist for a Group of Manuscript and Early Printed Materials

Leaf with Gregory Mass illustration on black background. Photography © Mildred Budny

Budny Handlist 13

Although few in number, the fragments in the Handlist come from a varied range of types of texts, dates and places of origin, and modes of descent into modern times — not least through their dismembered reuse as binding materials of several kinds or for individual display as specimens of script, decoration, or illustration.  Mostly they comprise single leaves (folia), pairs of conjoined leaves (folded bifolia), or scraps.  Mostly they come with few, if any, indications of either their former ‘families’ within their original volumes and their former ‘homes’ in libraries or collections, or the identity of their despoilers.  That is, apart from the clues which they carry upon their very surfaces or on materials which may have migrated with them, whether by chance or by design.

Those indicators, written or unwritten, may reveal their testimony principally in connection with the evidence preserved in other materials in other collections, provided that researchers might find it or learn about it.  We have described and illustrated the interim results for one of the Handlist items recently (‘Handlist 13’, shown here), a detached 15th-century leaf with an intricate illustration on its verso of the Mass of Saint Gregory the Great, at which the celebrant of the Mass experiences a vision of Christ surrounded by the Instruments and Agents of the Passion.

The widespread dispersal, across the centuries and even — alas — nowadays, of scraps, leaves, or bits of manuscripts without regard, usually, to their complete original context within a whole manuscript, collection, or body of work by their given creator(s) can give rise to mixed feelings.  The degree of mixture may depend upon the circumstances of dispersal or the disposition of the viewer, in various measures.  On the one hand, the phenomenon constitutes a trashing of cultural heritage to be deplored.  On the other, we might have some slender sense of relief that something, at least, has remained, if only by the skin of its teeth.

Following that toothy metaphor, we might lament or marvel, by turns or in combination, that any traces whatsoever might remain of past achievements, however down in the tooth, toothless, or plagued with perhaps ill-fitting artificial teeth they might now be.   Let’s chew on that.

The Tips of Icebergs

In recent years, much attention in medieval manuscript studies (for example) has considered the despoliation, usually willful, of whole manuscripts so as to extract the juicy bits, such as illustrations, decoration, and choice specimens of script.  Mostly without bothering to record their context and companions. Such practices have occurred across the centuries in many situations and for varied purposes, sometimes laudable.

The Magnificent, Despoiled,
Royal Bible of Saint Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E.VI, folio 43r. Reproduced by permission

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E.VI, folio 43r. Reproduced by permission

Years ago, in embarking on manuscript studies in earnest as a graduate student at University College London, I encountered this tendency, at a safe distance removed by centuries, in deciphering the evidence of the remnants of a superb manuscript made in the 9th century C.E. at St. Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury. The manuscript contained a large-format copy of the full Vulgate Bible in Latin, with some prefatory texts and illustrations.Its remaining treasures include some richly purple-dyed leaves with full-page monumental inscriptions in gold and silver lettering and the majestic opening to the Gospel of Luke, which enshrines the intricately decorated opening words Quoniam quidem (‘Foreasmuch as’) within a full-page arcade with panels of ornamental interlace, geometrical, foliate, and animal patterns and with the half-length figures of both the evangelist’s symbol (a winged bull) and Christ holding books and appearing within heavenly clouds.

That monument, whose remnants survive mostly in London, British Library, Royal MS 1 E.vi, formed the subject of a detailed, holistic study, entitled ‘British Library Manuscript Royal 1 E. VI:  The Anatomy of an Anglo-Saxon Bible Fragment’ (London, 1984), available freely online.  Further discoveries about the manuscript and its astonishing Late-Antique model, the now-lost Biblia Gregoriana of the abbey, are reported here.

The process, progress, and discoveries of this cumulative work, demonstrating the value of a detailed, holistic study integrating multiple forms of evidence and fields of expertise, helped to lead to the formation and practices of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.  Such fruits appear, for example, in the largest co-publication to date of the Research Group:  the 2-volume Illustrated Catalogue of Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 4r. Reproduced by permission

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 4r. Reproduced by permission

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taking It Out

Why the medieval abbey — one of the principal centers of book-production in England — which had created so splendid a manuscript as the Royal Bible would choose to strip it of samples of illustrations and exemplary script within a mere two centuries of its creation (as the evidence establishes) remains a mystery, although there are some possible explanations.  Explanations are not necessarily tenable justifications, of course.

By about the middle of the 11th century, some leaves and parts of leaves were cut from the manuscript at knifepoint, mostly with uneven cuts which appear to manifest disdain or haste — or both — in the process of excision.  Thus were removed:

  • numerous whole leaves with illustrations, leaving no gaps in the Bible text
  • some frontispieces with illustrations for individual Books of the Bible (as with each of the four Gospels and the Gospel unit itself)
  • some of the full-page monumental inscriptions which provided descriptive captions (tituli) for those illustrations (as with Matthew and John)
  • some elaborate openings of Books of the Bible (as with the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John)
  • some specimens of one or more elaborate lines of script (as with the last line of the Gospel frontispiece titulus on folio 1 and the complete concluding titles for the Mark and John chapter lists on folios 29 and 69)
  • and perhaps more sorts of elements.
© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 29r.  Reproduced by permission

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of those removed leaves or parts of leaves left offsets of their pigments on the pages which they formerly faced.  Such are the case, for example, with the concluding title for the Mark chapter list and both the titulus and opening page for John.

Sometimes the removed portion introduced a gap within a leaf or at a lower corner of a leaf left behind.  They occurred in excising specimens of elaborate script from it:  taking the last line, in gold, from the descriptive titulus for the frontispiece to the Gospels (folio 1) and the elaborate concluding titles for the Mark and John chapter lists (folios 29 and 68).

The gaps were replaced with patches of parchment pasted onto the bare backs of the leaves. For a purple leaf, the patch was colored, somewhat inefficiently, with a pigment that has now faded to brown.

Taking Advantage, with Restorations of Sorts, in the 11th Century

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 30v. Reproduced by permission

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 30v. Reproduced by permission

The cutting lines along part or all of some leaves adjacent to fully excised leaves, resulting from the slits of the knife drawn along the inner margin of the book, as the plunderer faced the wanted page, have been stitched together in a set of repairs following the spoliation and, it seems, following the retrieval of some of the fully severed leaves.  For example, the leaf with the titulus for the Mark Gospel frontispiece (now folio 30) was completely severed, but it was resewn to its resulting ‘stub’.  The following leaf received the same treatments, that is, severance by knife followed by reconnection with needle and thread.

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 30v, detail.  Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 30v, detail. Reproduced by permission.

That this spoliation occurred by the mid-11th century or so is established by the white pigment overlay and overflow onto one of those stitching lines, along the inner margin of verso of that leaf  which carries the Mark titulus on its recto.  The overlying pigment belongs to the added frontispiece on the verso, which provides a framed frontispiece in a different style and with a different structure.  In outlining the roundel at the bottom right of the paneled rectangular frame, the brush caught onto the repairing stitch, which tugged part of its tip and dragged some of the pigment, leaving the track which establishes the sequence of accretions.  First came the cuts to excise leaves and parts of leaves.  There followed the repairs to stitch some severed parts back into the book.  Then came the addition of the painted frontispiece for the Mark Gospel, perhaps in an effort to refurbish the book, replace the lost Mark frontispiece in a new style, and/or try out an approach to painting on a purple-dyed leaf on an available expanse.

The artist of that Mark addition is identifiable as an artistic active in Canterbury, and at Saint Augustine’s Abbey, in about the mid-11th century.  I have identified his work in some other manuscripts in my detailed long-term study.  Among them are

  • contributions to parts of the Illustrated Old English Hexateuch
  • the 2 added frontispieces for the Rule of Saint Benedict and the Regularis Concordia
    in British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius A. iii and
  • the added frontispieces in the Corpus Eremetical Saints’ Lives.

Within the Royal Bible, in applying an outline of white pigment to the border roundel at the lower right-hand corner of the frame, his brush caught onto the stitching repair and left its traces there. Caught in the act.

Taking More, with Some Further Repairs, by the 14th Century

By the late Middle Ages, the manuscript had lost many more of its leaves — while still at the abbey — for reuse as binding material for other texts.  Two of those reused leaves have surfaced at Canterbury Cathedral (as a folder for some unknown materials, removed from them without record in the 19th century) and in the Bodleian Library in Oxford (as a folded pair of endleaves for a 10th-century manuscript, removed from it in the 19th century).  This form of despoilation of leaves for reuse in binding texts of other kinds occurred apparently by the 14th century.  The forms of evidence which point to this date-range include the abbey librarian’s inscriptions, entered in stages at the top of one of the flyleaves added to the Royal portion by the 14th century.  They provide the library ownership inscription, the library pressmark, and a brief description of the contents as an ‘old’ (vetera) and ‘bare’ or ‘despoiled’ (nuda) copy of the ‘4 Gospels with [the lettermark] A’.   As on other books from the library, the lettermark stood on the binding (now lost in the rebinding at the British Museum in the 18th century).  The rough parchment patches on the flyleaves, like the flyleaves themselves, belong to a recognizable stock of parchment leaves used for flyleaves, patches, and other work on the manuscripts in the abbey library during the 14th century.

Useful to know.  And that knowledge about those tell-tale features of the parchment itself comes from having looked at very many of the many manuscripts which survive from the abbey library and show signs of refurbishment and other forms of alteration during this period (among others).

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

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

Altogether only 79 leaves remain of more than 1,000 leaves originally, plus the 2 endleaves added in the 14th-century to the front and back of the London portion, then reduced to a fragment of the Gospels.  The Canterbury leaf, with its part from the John Gospel, formerly followed the last leaf in the Royal portion directly, as the first leaf of the next quire.  Formerly placed at the distance of a few leaves from the Gospel portion, perhaps halfway through the quire after that, the Oxford leaf holds part of the Acts of the Apostles.

A small, but significant, remnant.

Competition

Few full Bibles survive from the Latin West up to the time of this 9th-century Royal Bible, and only one made in England:  the early 8th-century Codex Amiatinus, but with fewer illustrations and less magnificent decoration.  (No offense to that Bible, an astonishing witness in its own ways.)  That somewhat distant relative, from Northumbria, and from the double monasteries of Monkwearmouth–Jarrow, home of the Venerable Bede (who may have had a hand in the production or design), helps to gauge the former stature of the monument, when complete.

The nearly contemporary Continental competition for our Royal Bible among large-format illustrated Carolingian Bibles or Spanish and other Bibles is another story.  Have a look, for example at one of the earliest.  These are big books, worth standing up to view them and, when chance arises, turn their pages.

‘The Ozymandias of Early Anglo-Saxon Book-Production’

About the Royal Bible, it is worth remembering that the despoiled carcass (shall we say) which remains of that vibrant whole, although dispersed between London (now with online facsimile), Canterbury, and Oxford, continues to bear witness to a former monument of extraordinary magnificence, albeit reduced to the floating tips of a once-weighty and mighty iceberg. Having worked to identify its significance as a precarious, but vigorous, witness, both to its original monument and to its majestic Late-Antique exemplar, the lost Biblia Gregoriana, I find some solace in the recognition by a sympathetic colleague, Richard Gameson  (our Associate), that this 9th-century Royal Bible of St. Augustine’s Abbey, “still majestic despite truncation and mutilation,” might rightly be regarded as “the Ozymandias of early Anglo-Saxon book-production” (Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (2011), no. 2).

In order words, this fractured, but still magnificent, monument must and can carry the weight of centuries. Fortunate it might be to find the opportunity, after all, to regain some of its eloquence. It is a privilege to spend time in its company, and I continue to remember, with affection, the very many days, months, and years on end of turning its pages, inspecting its details, learning to know its features, reflecting upon its character and contexts, and becoming familiar with its variety, complexity, and beauty as one of the most significant manuscripts of its age.

*****

And so now, with this case study freshly in mind, we turn to another group of ‘Lost and Foundlings’ among manuscript fragments, this time from dispersals of books from various centers, periods, types of texts, and styles of medieval book production, in ‘The Case of Otto F. Ege’, selfstyled ‘Biblioclast’. We invite you to have a look, as we unveil some newly recognized fragments among those dispersals.

Penwork extending from a decorated initial extends below the final line of text and ends in a horned animal head which looks into its direction.  Photography © Mildred Budny

A whimsical creature at the bottom of the page faces the music. Budny Handlist 4

 

A Virtual ‘Orphanage’

How the different ‘Foundlings’ among manuscript fragments might sometime find a proper, albeit virtual, home so as to acknowledge, to record, and to welcome their familial connections in former whole manuscripts as a form of ‘genealogical recovery’ remains to be determined in the concerted quest in various centers to establish and to foster such projects.  While they find their fuller footing, with larger institutional supports, we will turn to the next report on our findings.

Next stop:  ‘Lost and Foundlings’.

We welcome your comments, questions, and feedback.  Please leave a comment or Contact Us.

*****

 

 

Tags: Biblia Gregoriana, Illustrated Old English Hexateuch, Mass of Gregory the Great, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, Otto F. Ege, Royal Bible of St. Augustine's Abbey Canterbury, Saint Dunstan's 'Classbook'
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2016 Congress Events Proposed

June 12, 2015 in Conference, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo

Events to be Sponsored and Co-Sponsored
by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the 2016 International Congress on Medieval Studies (12–15 May)

[Published on 10 June 2015]

For the 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo next May, the Research Group hopes to sponsor and co-sponsor Sessions, as part of our continuing activities at the Congress. For example, at the 50th International Congress on Medieval Studies, the Research Group had 2 sponsored and 3 co-sponsored Sessions, plus a Business Meeting and co-sponsored Reception.

Logo of the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida, reproduced here by permissionSocietas Magica logoAs before, we seek to co-sponsor sessions in 2016 with the Societas Magica (since 2006) and with the Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida (since 2014). During and after the 50th Congress, we collectively considered plans for sessions for next year. By the 1 June deadline, the Research Group submitted its proposal for sessions to the Congress Committee. We hope for approval for these plans.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida, Medieval Studies, Societas Magica
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Curiouser & Curiouser

June 10, 2015 in Documents in Question, Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

Document on Paper from Grenoble,
Dated 22 February 1345 (Old Style),
With a curious Seal

Mildred Budny reflects upon a fragmentary document, its enigmatic wax seal, and the mid-14th-century owner of the seal.

Today we showcase the fragment of a documentary record on paper which has traveled across time and space to find renewed attention.  Among its curiosities, it carries a seal in red wax depicting a male human head accompanied by creatures and part-creatures drawn from the animal, avian, and insect realms.  Now in a private collection, the document was recently purchased online from a seller in Isère, France, not far from its place of origin in or near Grenoble nearly seven centuries ago. Document in 5 lines on paper, dated 22 February 1345 (Old Style), with red wax seal. Image reproduced by permission.Reproduced here by permission, the fragmentary document written in Latin on paper records a transaction conducted apud Gratianopolis (‘at Grenoble’) in the Dauphiné” (now France), with the date of 22 February 1345 Old Style.  The left-hand side of the document has been roughly torn away, with the loss (of uncertain extent, probably about half) of the first part of the lines of text.

'Carte du Dauphiné' by Christophe (or Nicolas) Tassin, printed in 1630. Private Collection, reproduced by permission.

‘Carte du Dauphiné’ by Christophe (or Nicolas) Tassin, printed in 1630. Private Collection, reproduced by permission.

Govvernement du Grenoble. 'Plans, vues et cartes du Dauphiné' by Christophe Tassin (1634). Via gallica.bfn.fr: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b53152793f/f2.item.r=Christophe%20TassinDauphine%20Dauphine.

Govvernement du Grenoble. ‘Plans, vues et cartes du Dauphiné’ by Christophe Tassin (1634). Via gallica.bfn.fr.

Seal the Deal

Written in an expert cursive documentary script in brown ink by a single scribe, the 5-line record is ‘signed’ or attested by the double names of Henricus in full (‘Henri’) and the abbreviated Joha[nnes?] (‘Jean’?), accompanied by a tall monogram or cypher to their right.  Both the single names and the cypher are flanked or surrounded by dots, setting them off as names and/or signs as such.

The names and cypher are written in 2 lines by a single hand, perhaps different from the main scribe, in a more compressed upright script.  The names are flanked by dots.  The cypher, both flanked and surmounted by dots, perhaps combines their initial letters h and J in an elegant flourish.

If the names pertain to a single individual, during this period the combination implies a person of some importance worthy of a first and a second name together.  Both the names and the cypher manifest an accomplished hand.  If written by their named individual, they manifest his scribal training to proficiency and, perhaps as well, a commensurate degree of literacy.

Detail of red wax seal on Latin document issued at Grenoble and dated on 22 February 1345 Old Style, with human head in profile facing left. Image reproduced by permission.The names may hold some clue(s) to the meaning of the Device (that is, images) on the Seal, which bears no Legend (that is, inscription) to aid, compound, or delight the process of its decipherment. Perhaps deciphering the one in time may speed the decipherment of the other.

Whoever their owner, the complexity of the design on the Device and the manifest skill of its execution demonstrates an imposing, and perhaps comparably idiosyncratic, identity for this Henricus Joha[. . . ], whose second name could be Johannes (or the like).  It is worth recognizing, however, that, given late medieval naming practices in many regions, the abbreviation for a second name or surname could stand for a place-name, an occupational name, a nickname, or some other appellation, rather than a personal name.

The seal in red wax affixed directly to the page to the lower right of these 2 names depicts within a now-fragmentary roundel the image of a male human head seen in profile with a straight nose, both beard and moustache, and either a conical helmet (albeit without any rim) or an elongated, distorted skull formation.  As it stands on the page, sealed in wax, the head faces downward, but when it is seen upright, the head faces left.

On the page to the left of the names Henri and Jean[?] there appear the remnants in red of a rimmed element and other elements pertaining either to the offset of this seal (for which no folds on the document bear obvious witness) or perhaps to another attestation of unknown identity, now mostly effaced.

Paper Trail

The paper itself carries no watermark, unfortunately, but the surviving remnant of the document is a small portion of the original sheet of paper.  The lines within the paper, however, are very different from those found on later samples, so that the specimen merits interest as an unusual survivor in the history of the development of European paper.

Back-lighting, as seen here, reveals the structure of the lines more clearly.  More posts about this subject, plus a gallery of specimens of European paper across centuries, are in preparation for our website.

Back-lit view of the paper of the Grenoble document of 22 February 1345 Old Style, showing the lines of the paper. Image reproduced by permission.

Wax Lyrical

The red wax seal seen upright, with the male human head facing left. Document on paper issued at Grenoble and dated 13 February 1345 (Old Style). Image reproduced by permissionClose-up of the seal with side-lighting. Image reproduced by permission.Close-up of the seal with lower side-lighting. Image reproduced by permission.Different levels of side-lighting, shown here, reveal more of the details of the Device on the seal.  Its features are curious, to say the least.

At the base of the human neck appears the frontal face (or ‘mask’) of a lion-like creature, which grips in its jaws the base of the long neck of a wide-eyed, winged goose-like creature, seen in profile, crouched beneath the human head.  Fanned plumes or a crest rise(s) above and in front of the head or, it may be, helmet.  Details to the fore of the face seem difficult to discern, perhaps an indication of some wear and age to the seal matrix.  Such ‘blurred’ or fragmented features could suggest that the matrix had received much use, perhaps from being handed down within a family.

A knob-like extension at the crest of the head-or-helmet leads to the base of some formation lost in the damaged ‘apex’ of the field. Behind the rounded back of the head stretches a skinny lizard-like creature, seen from above, rising or crawling above the goose’s head toward the ‘top’ of the scene.  Damage to the seal (or imperfection in its impression) at the right of the lower half of the ‘lizard’ perhaps removed some element in the scene.  The goose’s closed beak clamps onto the remnant of lizard’s right hind-leg.  A curious combination.

The depicted food chain appears to defy biology.  But it does pique curiosity.  Human Neck —> ‘Lion’ Mask —> ‘Goose’ —> ‘Lizard’.  Huh?

Homo sapiens sapiens - Deliberate deformity of the skull, "Toulouse deformity"

«_déformation_toulousaine_»_MHNT (Author Unknown / restoration and digitization. Didier Descouens / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain)

Skull-Duggery

Curious, too, is the elongated shape of the skull, which might or might not be ‘natural’.  The shape appears deformed, like the cranial deformation of human heads or skulls observed in many parts of the world across the centuries or millenia, whether biological or artificial. Widely ranging examples include many ancient Peruvian skulls (from circa 6000–7000 BCE onward), ancient Egyptian examples from the sphere of the Pharoah Akhenaten (1375–1358 BCE), manifestations in art and the archaeological record through many periods of Mesoamerican Mayan culture, and recognized cases of skulls among East Germanic and Huns peoples in migration in the early medieval period in the West.

[Update: Newly discovered is a ‘Conehead’ skeleton, approximately 2,000 years old, of a woman of the Sarmati tribe excavated at Arkaim, near Chelyabinsk, in the southern Urals.]

Such practices reshaped the heads of some humans, for whatever reasons, perhaps or apparently involving prestige.  Both the evidence and the issues remain subjects of fascination and controversy. For example, not all cases which have been considered as representatives of the habit still qualify, as with a Proto-Neolithic skull from Shanidar (circa 300,000–30,000 BCE), previously believed to comprise the earliest known example but now differently reconstructed. But the amplitude of the bodies of evidence for alteration of the shape of skulls through human intervention provides a source of wonder. The practice of intentional cranial deformation, in different manifestations across the centuries in many parts of the world, could produce a ‘permanently visible symptom of social affiliation’. So prominent a feature is hard to miss.

It seems that, in certain contexts, head shape demarcates membership and hierarchies within social or ethnic groups among larger societies, with some apparent manipulation of shapes in the pursuit of demonstrating, or cultivating, affiliations with groups or individuals in power.  The wide range of observable cases of skull deformation globally has been the focus of medical study and classification, for example by Eric John Dingwall (1931) (freely available in full online) and by Amit Ayer, Alexander Campbell, et al. ‘The Sociopolitical History and Physiological Underpinnings of Skull Deformation’ (2010).

Not all cases of strange skull shapes are deliberate, of course, but, whatever the case here in the wax seal, the outcome — if it represents head-shape rather than helmet (which might, presumably, be removed at will) — would be permanently, irrevocably visible for all to see.  Perhaps for some it would have been a source of awe, if not admiration.

Such aspirations for altering physical characteristics of a specific, and visible, part of the human body seem to have governed, for example, the practices of Chinese foot-binding.  The late survivors of that practice make it possible to interview, as well as to photograph in the flesh, some living witnesses.

In a way, the seal of Henry J. itself might give us a glimpse, close-up, of his particular, if not peculiar, characteristics, along with some choices of his own about elements outside his body (animal, etc.) to express his identity on the page.

A Medieval Case of the ‘Toulouse Deformity’?

« Crane déformé 1905 MHNT » par Didier Descouens — Travail personnel. Sous licence CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Déformation toulousaine – Muséum de Toulouse. « Crane déformé 1905 MHNT » par Didier Descouens (Own work), via Wikimedia Commons

Curiouser for the presence of our seal on a Grenoble document is the persistence of such a custom, altering the shape of the human cranium by artificial distortion, in parts of Southern France until rather recently, as described and illustrated, for example, in the Wiki articles on Artificial Cranial Deformation or Déformation volontaire du crâne.  This ‘deliberate deformity of the skull’ is known as the ‘Toulouse deformity’.  In this style or type of cranial deformation, a tight cap is placed upon the head, or a band is wrapped around the cranium to compress it into a circular shape, which expands upwards into a cone.

The study of ‘Later Artificial Cranial Deformation in Europe’ (1931) observes that such practices in recent centuries centered upon France.  Perhaps the elongated conical shape of the head on the wax seal formed in 1345 bears witness to the custom as a revival or survival of earlier practices, in their transmission variably across time within or across regions.

It’s a Stretch

It seems not inappropriate to consider in this connection the condition — not entirely a predicament — of being ‘stretched tall’, in which Alice found herself to appear in Wonderland (1853), under the heading of Curiouser and Curiouser.

©The British Library Board, Add. MS 46700, pgs 10-11

©The British Library Board, Add. MS 46700, pgs 10-11. Reproduced by permission

“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice, (she was so surprised that she quite forgot how to speak good English,) “now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Goodbye, feet!”

The author’s original manuscript of the first version of the text, now in the British Library, illustrates Alice’s elongated form as envisioned by her creator ‘Lewis Carroll’ (1832–1898), whose pen-name itself is a confection.

The similarly elongated neck on the seal enters a world of fantasy and imagination with its combination of creatures somehow integrated with the human world, both seemingly easily and not so much.

Skull-asticism

Whether the image on the seal represents, or is intended to represent, a given human individual rather than some fanciful being, the combination of creatures clustered around his head suggests a puzzle or word-play.  Within the complex, wide-ranging world of medieval seals and their molds or matrices, there were multiple forms of presenting, or combining, images of one kind and/or another, with or without text.  Many other medieval seals, too, draw upon non-heraldic structures — that is, elements not specifically assigned (as yet) in the time-honored code of heraldry, according to specific rules for devising heraldic coats of arms of rank for persons, families, dynasties, towns, cities, and other organizations.

Non-heraldic forms on seals can indicate in less formally codified, but not necessarily less rigorously chosen, elements to indicate, or to suggest, the identity, name, occupation, preoccupations, predilections, or other characteristics of the owner of the seal.  Many cases, which we in the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence have had the opportunity over recent years to study in detail on site over time, occur within the remarkable selection of medieval seal matrices and documents assembled in the Collection of our Associate John H. Rassweiler and now presented in part as the Rassweiler Collection Online.

The red wax seal seen upright, with the male human head facing left. Document on paper issued at Grenoble and dated 13 February 1345 (Old Style). Image reproduced by permissionThe ensemble in Henricus J.‘s seal confirming a transaction in Grenoble in 1345 may, for example, function as a form of rebus, with an allusion to the owner or his identity in some way, or as the visual illustration of some proverb, in a motto for his or anyone’s consideration.  Such practices are not uncommon in shaping the Devices of medieval European seals.

Or, could we say, such practices may be most uncommon, although widespread.  Common and Uncommon:  that combination could be right for this seal’s Device.  Its designer may have smiled to think of the curious combination.

Within the genre, this Device seems remarkably ingenious.  The script of its owner’s ‘signature’ could indicate that he was well educated.

Dare we say Cerebral?

Its answer, or solution, may yet come to light.

You Think?

More research might illuminate the context of this document, reveal more of its original text, identify the person(s) involved in its record and attestation, and provide the key to its curious seal.  Perhaps you could help with suggestions and information.

We invite you to contribute to the exploration – and its adventure.

Please leave a  Comment here, Contact Us, or join the conversation on our Facebook page.

P. S.  In the conversations about this Post, one of our friends called it a case where ‘Codicology Meets Craniology’.  Cool.

*****

[Published on 10 June 2015, with updates]

Tags: 'Toulouse deformity', 22 February 1345 Old Style, Alice in Wonderland, Artificial cranial deformation, Cranial deformation, Grenoble, History of Paper, Medieval Dauphiné, Medieval Latin documents, medieval seal, Red wax seal
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