Mildred Budny
(Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
“Where Words Collide:
Metadata versus Scholarship in Manuscript Studies”
Abstract of Paper
presented at the 58th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(Kalamazoo, 2023)
Session on “Words as Agents”
Organized by Phillip Bernhardt-House
Co-organized by Mildred Budny
Co-Sponsored by the RGME and
Polytheism-Oriented Medievalists of North America (P.-O.M.o.N.A.)
2023 Congress Program
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Summary
Metadata for manuscripts can sometimes clash with the original materials, for example by misstatements or mistaken assumptions about features and character of the book. Cases abound with fragments dispersed in Portfolios or Leaf-Books, issued with generic labels copied in library catalogues and WorldCat. We explore examples among Otto Ege fragments.
Abstract
As manuscripts or their fragments increasingly emerge into view, in discoveries, sales, online catalogue entries, and other descriptive accounts, the discourse between those words and the original materials can offer a match, challenge, or outright impediment to research, study, and recognition. The question is which form of testimony do the metadata embody: verity or inaccuracy, or somewhere on a sliding scale between those opposites? How to sort the wheat from the chaff?
This presentation explores selected cases in which the available metadata — especially with no image of the original available — obstruct the progress of research. Egregious examples include specimens of leaves dispersed from individual fragmented manuscripts into multiple collections in (or removed, it may be without notice, from) Portfolios or Leaf-Books containing multiple specimens from a variety of books in some genre or other.
Such is the fate of specimens dispersed by Otto Ege (1888–1951) and his widow and associates, for such Portfolios as Famous Bibles, Famous Books, Fifty Original Leaves from Western Manuscripts (FOL), and others. Both in the sets of Portfolios and as separate entities (‘left-overs’ from that selection process), specimens were issued only with generic labels, designed to pertain to any or all leaves from one book. The approach might save time and effort in the process of assembling the items for sale or other forms of re-distribution, but the results can impact and impede scholarship in the long run.
Not only do such labels ignore or (perhaps worse) misstate significant information about the manuscript, date and place of origin, former binding, provenance and use, and material evidence. Moreover, they can create misleading information, through incomplete evaluations or incorrect assumptions.
Often these labels are the main or sole identifiers in catalogue entries for current collections, regardless of the span of text or other diagnostic information on the individual entity. Here, as cases indicate, and despite approaches in many library catalogues and WorldCat, One Size Does Not Fit All.
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Some examples (inter alia) include:
Ege MS 14
Portions of Ege Manuscript 14 on exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Photography Mildred Budny.
Genesis Leaf ‘Repaired’ with Patch from Cutting from another Leaf
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Detail of Patch.
“The Warburg Missal”
Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf from ‘The Warburg Missal’, Verso with guide. Reproduced by Permission.
Ege MS 20
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 2 = folio 216v (turned to the front in Ege’s Mount: Top Left. Photography Mildred Budny.
Ege MS 41
Recto of Leaf 41 in the FOL Portfolio. Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Reproduced by permission. Photography by Mildred Budny.
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Other contributions by Mildred Budny to RGME Sessions at the ICMS are recorded among the Reports for the relevant years and among the Abstracts Listed by Author.
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