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      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
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        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
      • RGME Symposia: The Various Series
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        • Mildred Budny, ‘Catalogue’
        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
      • The Illustrated Handlist
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2026 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Call for Papers

July 2, 2025 in Announcements, Bāḥra ḥassāb: Knowledge Transmission in Ethiopia and Eritrea From Antiquity to Modern Times, Call for Papers, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Koller-Collins Center for English Studies, POMONA, Postal History at Kalamazoo, Princeton Bibliophiles and Book-Collectors, Rossell Hope Robbins Library at the University of Waterloo, Societas Magica

Call for Papers

Sessions Co-Sponsored by the RGME
at the
61st International Congress on Medieval Studies
May 14–16, 2026

(Sessions variously online, in-person, and hybrid)

Proposals due by 15 September 2025

[Posted on 1 July 2025, with updates]

Sounding the Call

View from Fetzer Lounge at the 2017 Congress. Photography © Mildred Budny.

View from Fetzer Lounge at the 2017 Congress. Photography © Mildred Budny.

We announce the Call for Papers for the Sessions (Panels of Papers) co-sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence at the 2026 International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS). We describe the sessions one by one below, with direct links for you to submit proposals for each of our sessions.

The general Call for Papers appears on the Congress website.

  • Call for Papers

To find our Sessions there, search under Sponsoring Organization

  • Sponsor List

Search for the RGME (or our Co-Sponsor for the given session). In the Sponsors’ list, you will find our sessions as a group:

  • Sponsor: Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Please submit your proposals for papers through the Congress Confex system through its Call for Papers, as described there. The deadline is 15 September 2025.

The participation by the RGME at the Annual ICMS over the years is chronicled in our blog.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Bāḥra ḥassāb at the University of Hamburg, Divination, Grimoires, History of Alchemy, History of Magic, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Material Culture, Medieval Studies, Medieval Writing Materials, Pedagogy, Postal History, Rossell Hope Robbins Library, Solomonic Magic
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Two Leaves in the Book of Numbers from the Chudleigh Bible

April 22, 2025 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, RGME Library & Archives

Two Leaves
in the Book of Numbers
from the Chudleigh Bible

Latin Vulgate Bible
Northern France
Sant-Vaast Abbey?
Circa 1220–1230

Text written in Gothic Bookhand
Laid out in Double Columns of 56 lines
with Running Titles, Rubrication,
Text-Initials in Red and Blue,
and Marginalia within Frames

[Posted on 17 April 2025, with updates]

Continuing our series of posts describing discoveries for the study of manuscript fragments (see Manuscript Studies Blog: Contents List), we introduce two leaves which belonged to the Book of Numbers in the medium-format Latin Vulgate Bible now known as the Chudleigh Bible. The name derives from one of its former owners, the eleventh Baron Clifford of Chudleigh.

  • Charles Oswald Hugh Clifford (1887–1962), Lord Clifford of Chudleigh (Devon, England)
    See also:
  • “We Remember Charles Oswald Hugh Clifford”

The place Chudleigh itself is an ancient wool town in Devon in Southwest England.

First we introduce the two leaves. Then we describe the original manuscript, insofar as it is known from surviving fragments and the descriptions in catalogues (of sales, collections, and genres of medieval French manuscript production). A preliminary list of surviving leaves, including not only the seemly more significant and financially valuable leaves with illustrations, is offered, as a compliment or companion to existing lists.

Further blogposts will offer more information about both forms of experience for the manuscript and its identifiable fragments, whether indirectly by catalogue or other surrogate representative, or more directly by in-person inspection. The goal is to build towards a fuller recognition of the survivors, their characteristics, and their locations.

I. Two Leaves from the Book of Numbers

These two leaves come to the RGME as a donation by our Associate, Richard Weber. Previous blogposts have reported portions of his collection of manuscript fragments, starting with Set 93 of the Portfolio of Famous Books assembled by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951).

  • Portfolio 93 of Otto Ege’s Famous Books in Eight Centuries in the Collection of Richard Weber
  • The Weber Leaf from the Warburg Missal: Otto Ege Manuscript 22
  • The Weber Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible

1. That first post has set in motion a continuing study of that portfolio and its different components representing manuscript and printed materials alike. One development recently focuses upon a collaborative study of the dismembered volume of Dante as we prepare for the 2025 Autumn Colloquium on “Break-Up Books and Make-Up Books: Encountering and Reconstructing the Legacy of Otto F. Ege and Other Biblioclasts”. Richard has generously agreed to speak about his collecting interests for that event.

  • 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium at the University of Waterloo

2. The Weber Leaf from Otto Ege Manuscript 22 inspired us to examine closely the evidence of origin, provenance, and genre of book for this leaf and other survivors of the same volume, set against Otto Ege’s labels of attribution based upon incomplete and misrepresented knowledge. The resulting Research Booklet, freely available, presents the evidence. You can find it here:

  • The Weber Leaf from the Warburg Missal: Otto Ege Manuscript 22

3. Richard shared photographs of his leaf from the Saint Albans Bible in response to our new series of Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”, which took inspiration from the loan of a leaf from that Bible from the Collection of Jennah Farrell to the RGME for photography, study, and publication. We decided to turn to crowd-sourcing and mentoring in these workshops as a collaborative, collective way to learn about manuscripts together, including beginners, experts, and others in between. It was a good choice.

  • RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

As the Workshops developed, they considered fragments from different Latin Bible manuscripts pertaining to similar periods, styles of production, and various sizes or formats. By Workshop 5, we could survey their range and the progress which the workshops and their collaborative approach had attained.

  • Workshop 5. “Identifying Medieval Latin Bible Manuscript Fragments”

At this Workshop, Richard Weber generously offered to give a couple of medieval Latin Bible leaves to the RGME for our Research Library & Archives.

Soon, the leaves arrived, which Richard had had beautifully framed in a pair of matching frames with windowed mats and easily removable backs. Protecting the leaves, these frames both showed each leaf to advantage and allowed for access from the back of the frame to allow us to see the other side of the leaf and its full extent.

Companion sheets of paper report details of the leaves, their seller, and the original manuscript, the Chudleigh Bible.

For this gift, we created a bookplate recording Richard’s donation. We give thanks for his characteristic generosity and thoughtfulness.

The Two Leaves

And so, we introduce a pair of non-consecutive leaves from the Book of Numbers in the Chudleigh Bible. The modern Arabic numbers written in pencil at the center directly below the columns of text label them as “38” and “43” respectively. Presumably they designate the folio numbers for them in a consecutive sequence entered before the separation of the leaves from each other.

So far we have not identified any surviving leaves which formerly stood between them or adjacent to them within the same Biblical Book.

Leaf 1: Folio 38

This leaf must have directly followed the opening leaf of the Book, as it starts partway within Chapter 1. That leaf would have carried the opening initial for the Book, with L for Locutusque. Its present location is unknown, but the contents of its illustrated initial have been recorded to indicate a depiction of the figures of God, Moses, and Joshua at an altar. (p. 69 and 72 note 8)

Recto

Formerly Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf 1 from the Chudleigh Bible: Recto.

Verso

Formerly Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf 1 from the Chudleigh Bible: Verso.

Leaf 2: Folio 43

Recto

Formerly Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf 2 from the Chudleigh Bible: Recto.

Verso

Formerly Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf 2 from the Chudleigh Bible: Verso.

Note that there has been some correction/adjustment in the Chapter Numbering. In the intercolumn for the left-hand column there stands a second XVI on the verso, duplicating the same number on the recto. It has been crossed out with a horizontal stroke. The numbering continues below with XVII and XVIII for the left- and right-hand columns respectively.

 

Contents: Text

Leaf 1 (recto and verso)

Numbers 1  36 [De filiis Benjamin per generationes et familias ac domos] cognationum suarum recensiti sunt nominibus singulorum a vigesimo anno et supra, omnes qui poterant ad bella procedere, 37triginta quinque millia quadringenti.
Numbers 2 1 Locutusque est Dominus ad Moysen et Aaron, dicens
Numbers 3  1 Hæ sunt generationes Aaron et Moysi in die qua locutus est Dominus ad Moysen in monte Sinai.
7 et observent quidquid ad cultum pertinet multitudinis coram taberna // culo testimonii,
Numbers 4  1 Locutusque est Dominus ad Moysen et Aaron, dicens
14 ponentque cum eo omnia vasa, quibus in ministerio ejus utuntur, id est, ignium receptacula[, fuscinulas ac tridentes, uncinos et batilla.]

Leaf 2 (recto and verso)

Numbers 15 9 [dabis per singulos boves similæ tres decimas consper]sæ oleo, quod habeat medium mensuræ hin
Numbers 16 1 Ecce autem Core filius Isaar, filii Caath, filii Levi, et Dathan atque Abiron filii Eliab,
28 Et ait Moyses : In //hoc scietis quod Dominus miserit me ut facerem universa quæ cernitis, et non ex proprio ea corde protulerim :
[Possibly struck through incorrect marking for chapter 16 at]
Numbers 16 36 Locutusque est Dominus ad Moysen, dicens
Numbers 17 1 Et locutus est Dominus ad Moysen, dicens
Numbers 18 1 Dixitque Dominus ad Aaron
11 Primitias autem, quas voverint et obtulerint filii Israël, tibi dedi, et filiis tuis, ac filiabus tuis, jure perpetuo : qui mundus est [in domo tua, vescetur eis. ]

*****

As part of the RGME’s Research Library & Archives and our ongoing project on medieval manuscript fragments, we begin the study of this leaf and its context, as part of the quest to identify and virtually reconstruct its former volume. Another blogpost will report more information about these two leaves.

Now we survey reports about the original volume and some of its identified survivors.

II. Once Upon a Time:
A Single-Volume Vulgate Bible

Formerly, as described in its sales catalogue descriptions while still intact, the manuscript comprised a single volume of 411 vellum leaves, with its text laid out in double columns of 56 lines each. Initials opening Books of the Bible contained historiated scenes and decorative elements; some 90 or 91 of them were historiated.

The volume as such was sold at auction in London several times first by Sotheby & Co and then by Christie’s. Its appearance on the market began at the hands of its former owner, Charles Oswald Hugh Clifford, the eleventh Lord Clifford of Chudleigh. By that ownership it acquired its modern name.

I. As a Single Volume

For an overview of the former “Parent Volume” from which came dispersed leaves, see Peter Kidd, McCarthy Collection, Volume III: French Miniatures (London, 2021), No. 17 (pp. 69–73).

Notice of the manuscript, with some black-and-white images of its illustrated elements, appeared in print three times, corresponding with its sale by successive owners, starting with Lord Clifford of Chudleigh himself.

1) Sold by Sotheby & Co, London,
7 December 1953, lot 51
(pp. 00 in catalogue)

Catalogue of fine Western and Oriental manuscripts and miniatures . . . :  which will be sold by auction by Messrs. Sotheby & Co. . . . at their large galleries 34 & 35 New Bond Street, W.1

Bought by Maggs Bros., London, for £680.

2) Sold by Sotheby & Co, London,
Wednesday, 8th July 1970 as Lot 104 (pp. 78–79 in catalogue)

Catalogue of important Western manuscripts and miniatures . . . : which will be sold by auction by Sotheby & Co. . . . at their large galleries, 34 and 35 New Bond Street, W.1 . . . ; day of sale: Wednesday, 8th July, 1970

The entry cites 139 illuminated initials, some of which are historiated. It mentions some defects, including many margins “to some extent stained” and damage to some initials, of which “5 are badly damaged and 15 slightly damaged.” Some losses were discernible, with “the first two leaves largely defective” and “a few leaves missing at the end of the Interpretations [of Hebrew Names]”.

Facing the catalogue entry, the companion page of “Illustration” shows 8 cropped images with historiated initials (sometimes two in succession on the same page), encompassing 10 initials altogether. Their locations in the manuscript are not indicated.

“The text is the normal text of a thirteenth-century Bible, i.e. the modern Vulgate with the addition of Esdras III, which is called Esdras II, the modern Estras II being called Nehemiah. Acts follows the Pauline Epistles. . . . Marginal annotations in red and plummet are fairly numerous. Many are enclosed in red cartouches.”

3) Sold by Christie’s, London,
Thursday, July 11, 1974, lot 18
(pp. 00 in catalogue)

Important Western manuscripts and miniatures from various sources: which will be sold at auction by Christie, Manson & Woods Ltd. . . . 8 King Street, St. James’s, London, SW1Y 6QT . . . on Thursday, July 11, 1974.

While still intact, the codex was reported in print:

  • Robert Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris: A Study of Styles. California Studies in the History of Art (1997), as Number 17 (page 30), described as made in Northern France and related to Parisian examples.

See also:

  • Lilian M.C. Randell, assisted by Judith Oliver, Christopher Clarkson, Jeanne Krochalis, and Jennifer Morrish, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery, I: France, 875–1420 (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press in association with The Walters Art Gallery, 1989), Number 17 (MS W. 61), 40–44, at p. 43. Illustrations of MS W. 61 appear in color in Pl. IVb (from fol. 96r) on p. 290 and in black-and-white in Figs. 33–36 (from fols. 1r, 88v, 228v, and 236r) on p. 303.”The flair exhibited in the figural illustrations from Genesis through Psalms [in MS W. 61, assigned to “Northeast France, s. XIII 2/4″ on p. 40] is most closely paralleled in another Bible of undetermined provenance indubitably produced in the same workshop,” namely “the manuscript formerly owned by Lord Clifford of Chudleigh,” sold at Sotheby’s in 1970, “assigned an English provenance” in that sales catalogue, and “more recently cited in passing as one of a group of manuscripts known to have belonged formerly to Saint-Vaast at Arras” by Robert Branner (1997).

    Further, “Another Bible containing illustrations related to this first style in Walters 61 is Lille 37 [5],” assigned to the “Guines Atelier” by Branner (1977), fig. 130 on p. 00.Note that Walters MS W.61 does not yet appear in the Digital Walters suite of online digital facsimiles. See https://www.thedigitalwalters.org/.

Afterward the manuscript was dismembered in the 1980s and resold as leaves. The dispersal of the leaves has progressed piecemeal. At various intervals, the pieces surface for sale or transfer ownership as gifts.

II. As Individual Leaves or Groups of Leaves

Thereafter leaves appeared in various catalogues, including these (which I have not yet seen):

  • Quaritch cat. 1147 (1991), no. 15
  • Maggs Bros, Fine Books and manuscripts, cat. 1167 (1993), no. 2
  • Sotheby’s, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures, 6 December 2005, lot 16

For some others, see below.

Sometimes the manuscript might receive notice on its own account. For example:

  • Christopher de Hamel, Scribes and Illuminators. Medieval Craftsman Series (Toronto, 1992), page 43 and plate 36.

The Collection of Robert McCarthy
(No. 17)

A set of leaves assembled from different sources belong to the McCarthy Collection in London. They have been described by Peter Kidd in his catalogue of the French Miniatures in the collection, with color illustrations from them (initials or their pages only).

  • Peter Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, III: French Miniatures (London, 2021), no. 17 (pp. 69–73)

Leaf 17a. End of Exodus and beginning of Leviticus (initial on recto)

Leaf 17b. End of Nehemiah and beginning of I Esdras (initial on verso)

Leaf 1c. End of Psalm 25 and beginning of Psalm 26 (initial on recto)

In his blog, Peter Kidd listed more leaves, with their sources:

  • Manuscript Provenance: McCarthy Catalogue, Volume III (French Illuminations).

The list cites the sales catalogues for the opening leaves from Joshua, Sapientia/Wisdom, II Samuel, Ecclesiastes, and the Epistle to the Philippians.  See below.

Some Specimens

We gather a list of specimen leaves which have circulated through the marketplace on their own or in groups. To some extent, this list follows the order of the Books in the Vulgate manuscript; sometimes a catalogue listing groups into one entry a set of several leaves from the manuscript.

In time, in combination with other resources such as the list of illuminated leaves by Peter Kidd (see above), this list might aid a full virtual reconstruction of the manuscript, not only of its illustrated leaves, but also leaves of text like the Weber/RGME leaves from within the text of the Book of Numbers.

Old Testament

Leaves of Text from the Book of Numbers (Folios 38 and 43)

See above, with images of both recto and verso for two leaves, bearing the pencil numbers 38 and 43 on their rectos.

Currently on Sale: A Leaf from Ezekiel 41–44 (Folio 269)

  • https://www.abebooks.com/paper-collectibles/Leaf-Chudleigh-Bible-Latin-manuscript-parchment/31517694881/bd#&gid=1&pid=1 (Seller Inventory # ABE-1685363877355)
    — for sale for $1,022.24 from the United Kingdom
Highlights of the seller’s description, wrongly identifying the text as I Samuel:
Single leaf with three columns of 53 lines of a delicate French university bookhand, small initials in red or blue with undulating lines in same forming line-fillers, larger initials in same with contrasting penwork, running titles a or b in red with blue penwork twirls at their sides, slight cockling and discolouration at edges from use, small holes in corner of one leaf, else excellent condition, 285mm x 190 mm. (written space: 187 by 125 mm.) Text is 1 Samuel 2-3.

Openings of Prologue and Book of Joshua

These two openings stand on the recto of the leaf.

  • Hartung & Hartung, Munich, Auktion 148, 3 November 2020, lot 8 (page 9 and color illustration of recto.)
    (See http://www.mdcom.de/Hartung/PDF/HH_A148_locked.pdf)
  • Pirages, Catalogue 78: New Acquisitions (2021), no. 11 (pages 12–13, with color illustration of recto).
    (See An Illuminated Vellum Manuscript Leaf from the Chudleigh Bible)

Opening of the Book of Esdras

Sold at Sotheby’s, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts, 8 July 2014, lot 13

  • https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/medieval-renaissance-manuscripts-l14240/lot.13.html

“. . . with a 12-line historiated initial ‘E’ in light pink and blue with white penwork decoration on contrasting grounds, enclosing Josias celebrating the Passover with the inhabitants of Jerusalem against a burnished gold ground (for the opening of the Book of Esdras), . . . capitals stroked in red, rubrics in red, running headers and chapter numbers alternately in red and blue, 2-line initials in red or blue with contrasting pen-flourishing, with wide margins, small stains, else in excellent condition. . . .

“This is an appealing leaf from the profusely decorated Chudleigh Bible, sold by Baron Clifford of Chudleigh in our rooms, 7 December 1953, lot 51, reappearing again, 8 July 1970, lot 104. . . .

“The Bible fits into a group of illuminated manuscripts associated with the abbey of St.-Vaast in Arras and was perhaps made there, although cross-references with the Alexander atelier in Paris are also apparent [citing Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris, p.30, n.17; see also L.M.C. Randall, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, I, 1989, p. 43].

“The monumental size and the abundant use of burnished gold attest the high prestige of a grand commission.”

Opening of Prologue for the Book of Malachi

Sold at Sotheby’s, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts, 8 July 2014, lot 14 (see previous item from Esdras)

  • https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2014/medieval-renaissance-manuscripts-l14240/lot.14.html?locale=en

Three Leaves with Historiated Initials:
Openings of Prologues for the
Books of Tobit, Zephaniah, and I Samuel

Sold at Christie’s sale of Script and Illumination: Leaves from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, 3 December 2019 (Online Sale 12584), lot 9.

  • https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/script-illumination-leaves-medieval-renaissance-manuscripts/three-leaves-3-historiated-initials-chudleigh-bible-north-eastern-8/22915

Highlights of the seller’s description:

Three leaves from what would doubtless have been a monumental and prestigious 13th-century illuminated Bible. The style of illumination is derived from that of the early Parisian Moralised Bible ateliers, and particularly the Alexander atelier, which takes its name from the inscription at the top of a Bible, now Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. lat. 11930–11931. That said, this particular production fits into a group of illuminated manuscripts associated with the abbey of St-Vaast in Arras and was perhaps made there: a testament to early regional collaboration in manuscript illumination.

The illuminated initials are:

(i) ‘C’ opening the prologue to the book of Tobit; historiated initial ‘T’ with Tobias plucking the white spots out of Tobit’s eyes, relieving him of his blindness (surely one of the earliest depictions of cataract surgery?), opening the book of Tobit;

(ii) ‘T’ opening the prologue to the book of Zephaniah; historiated initial ‘U’ with Zephaniah, opening his book;

(iii) ‘U’ opening the prologue to the first book of Kings (I Samuel); historiated initial ‘F’ with Hannah, kneeling in prayer before the priest Eli, her husband Elkanah standing behind her, opening 1 Samuel (or 1 Kings).

Opening of II Samuel

  • Hartung & Hartung, Munich, Auktion 146, 5 November 2019, lot 22 (pages 16–17, with color illustration of verso)
    (See http://www.mdcom.de/Hartung/PDF/HH_A146_locked.pdf.)
    Beginning of II Samuel; presumably text of End of I Samuel on recto

Prologue and Opening of Sapientia/Wisdom

Initials on recto.

  • Hartung & Hartung, Munich, Wertvollebücher, Manuskripte, Autographen, Grafik. Auction 150, 2 November 2021, lot 19 (page 15, with color illustration of recto).
    (See http://www.mdcom.de/Hartung/PDF/HH_A150_locked.pdf)
    Prologue and Beginning of Ecclesiastes; initial on recto

Opening of Ecclesiastes

Initial on verso.

  • The Hartung & Hartung, Munich, Auktion 152, 8 November 2022, lot 5 (page 9, with color illustration of verso)
    (See http://www.mdcom.de/Hartung/PDF/HH_A152_locked.pdf)
    Beginning of Ecclesiastes on verso; presumably End of Canticum Canticorum on recto.

New Testament

Opening of Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians

Initials for Prologue and Epistle on recto, preceded by closing text of Epistle to the Galatians.

Sold at Sotheby’s, Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern, 19 July 2022, lot 3

  • https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/books-manuscripts-from-medieval-to-modern/st-paul-giving-his-letter-to-the-ephesians

Opening of the Epistle to the Philippians

Initial on recto or verso?

  • The Philippians leaf was in the collection of John Feldman [1957–2021] in 1989, “depicting Paul preaching in the Synagogue at Damascus” ‘ See Kidd, Medieval Manuscripts Provenance (above).
    Beginning of Epistle to the Philippians (recto or verso?)

Epistle to the Hebrews 8–18

Sold at Sotheby’s, Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern, 19 July 2022, lot 4

  • https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/books-manuscripts-from-medieval-to-modern/part-of-hebrews-8-11-on-a-leaf-from-the-chudleigh

Companion Textual Apparatus

Interpretation of Hebrew Names
(Leaf with Glossary for Da–Du Entries)

Sold at Addison & Sarova, Auctioneers (Macon, Georgia), 2017-11-18, lot 1

  • https://addisonsauction.hibid.com/lot/35711434/chudleigh-bible-leaf–manuscript-on-vellum?ref=catalog

*****

Watch for another blogpost with more information about this research.

Do you know of other leaves from this manuscript? Do you know of other work by its scribal hands?

We look forward to hearing from you.

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

  • Leave your comments or questions below
  • Contact Us

Visit our Social Media:

  • our Facebook Page
  • our Facebook Group
  • our X/Twitter Feed (@rgme_mss)
  • our Bluesky nest @rgmesocial.bluesky.social)
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Join the Friends of the RGME.

Please make a Donation in Funds or in Kind for our nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers. Your donations and contributions are welcome, and can go a long way. They may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent provided by the law.

  • Donations and Contributions
  • 2025 Annual Appeal

*****

Tags: Chudleigh Bible, Collection of Richard Weber, Latin Vulgate Bibles, manuscript fragments, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, RGME Research Library & Archives
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Workshop 6. “What’s In a Name?”

April 16, 2025 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Workshops

RGME Workshops
on
“The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

Workshop 6
“What’s In a Name?
Guides to Nomenclature
for Manuscript Studies”
Sunday 27 April 2025

Jan Van Eyck, The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele, 1434–36, Bruges, Groeningemuseum (detail), image from the Closer to Van Eyck project (https://closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be/)

[Posted on 16 April 2025]

Continuing our series of RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”, we move from the first series, Workshops 1–5 devoted principally to identifying selected Medieval Latin Vulgate Bible Manuscript Fragments.

The Name ‘Game’

By request, for Workshop 6 we will consider ‘best practices’ with regard to the use of Nomenclature for Manuscript Studies.

We explore the range of terms in use (in English and other languages) for different parts of books, from the outside in. In this way, we consider the merits — or otherwise — of terms in use for different parts of manuscripts, books, bindings, and other features of the material evidence of written sources. How helpful and comprehensible are the systems of terminology?

Examples of reference works online and in print will be examined, with observations on their usefulness for various purposes, types of books, problems, and approaches.

Do you have specific questions? We can help.

Add-On

Since Workshop 5, a new discovery of a medieval Latin Bible leaf has come to light, so that we might briefly introduce it to our ongoing project on those materials.

The owner contacted us because of our blog on Manuscript Studies, which featured some leaves from the same Bible manuscript despoiled and distributed by Otto F. Ege, biblioclast. His work, its widespread legacy, and multiple projects dedicated to identifying and reconstructing (at least virtually) the fragments of manuscripts inspired us to prepare our 2025 Autumn Colloquium on “Break-Up Books and Make-Up Books”.

  • 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium at the University of Waterloo

Can you guess which manuscript this fragment came from?

We show one side, as it stands in the glass frame which at present contains it. Visible within the window of the mat is the leaf with part of the running title (MA-) and the text laid out in two columns of thirty-two lines. In the intercolumn, a segmented frieze-like vertical series of J– or reverse L-shaped bar motifs in alternating red and blue pigment extends above and below the 2-line inset initial A (for Anno) for Chapter VII.

Private Collection. Leaf from a Medieval Latin Vulgate Bible, Manuscript, ‘Verso’.

Registration

  • Workshop 6. “What’s In a Name?” Tickets

After registration, we will send the Zoom Link shortly before the event.  The Link will come from the RGME, not Eventbrite or Zoom.

With registration, we invite you to make a Voluntary Donation in support of our nonprofit educational organization powered principally by volunteers. Your donation for our Section 509(c)(3) nonprofit organization might be tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law.

We thank you for your support for our organization and interest in our activities.

We hope to see you there.

*****

Jan Van Eyck, The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele, 1434–36, Bruges, Groeningemuseum (detail), image from the Closer to Van Eyck project (https://closertovaneyck.kikirpa.be/)

Tags: Manuscript studies, Nomenclature for Manuscript Studies, RGME Workshops on the Evidence of MSS Etc.
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Ronald Smeltzer on “Émilie du Châtelet, Woman of Science”

April 9, 2025 in Announcements, Event Registration, Events, Manuscript Studies, Princeton Bibliophiles and Book-Collectors

The RGME and
Princeton Bibliophiles & Collectors
present a hybrid meeting

Ronald Smeltzer speaks about
“Émilie du Châtelet, Woman of Science”

Wednesday, 23 April 2025
5:00–6:30 pm EDT (GMT-5)

Princeton Public Library
Conference Room
Witherspoon Street
Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In Person and By Zoom
Registration Required

[Posted on 8 April 2025, with updates]

Partnership for the Meeting

Frontispiece to the Institutions de Physique (1740). Image Public Domain.

Co-sponsored by the Princeton Bibliophiles & Collectors
and the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

This special event produces a Hybrid Visit in partnership between the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (RGME) and the Princeton Bibliophiles & Collectors (PB&C), an affiliate of the Friends of the Princeton University Library (FPUL).

The meeting will take place in the Conference Room of the Princeton Public Library, Witherspoon Street, Princeton 08540. Parking is available in the Spring Street Parking Lot nearby.

The PB&C, led by Ronald Smeltzer, and the RGME, directed by Mildred Budny, have collaborated before with some RGME Symposia held at Princeton University (2018, 2019) before the Covid Pandemic. Now we move forward with a new form of collaboration.

With this event, the Meetings of the PB&C resume after a hiatus. The RGME shares the organizational tasks, manages the registration, and adds an online functionality for a fully hybrid event. This practice reflects RGME practices for its online events since 2021 and developments since 2024 for its In-Person Visits, with a hybrid feature, to Special Collections of various kinds, both private and public. This meeting represents the first in this year’s RGME In-Person Visits, for which several are scheduled for later this year.

The meeting will take place, as customary in recent years for the PB&C, at the Princeton Public Library, for which the Conference Room has been reserved. The RGME will bring the online function, through an interactive Zoom Meeting. This step corresponds with the RGME’s tradition since 2021 of providing online access for our events. This meeting also represents a development in Princeton for the RGME to hold an In-Person Visit — with online access for a fully hybrid occasion — to Special Collections of various kinds, private and public, as we resumed in November 2024.

The Speaker and Subject

Private Collection, Choisel, Château de Breteuil. Portrait of Emilie du Chatelet st her desk by Maurice Quentin de la Tour (1704–1788). Oil on canvas, 1750. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Ronald K. Smeltzer will describe highlights of his years’-long interest in collecting and researching materials relating to Émilie du Châtelet (1706–1749), French mathematician and physicist. Some results of this work have appeared in the landmark exhibition at the Grolier Club,

  • Extraordinary Women in Science & Medicine: Four Centuries of Achievement, co-curated by Ronald K. Smelzer, Robert J. Rubin, and Paulette Rose (2013).

Now, Ronald will speak informally about reflections on this subject, with a view to Du Châtelet’s life, life’s work, collaboration with Voltaire (1694-1788), and early death at the age of 42. Among her many scholarly accomplishments are the Instutitions du Physique (Paris, 1740, with a second edition in 1742, translated also into German and Italian in 1743) and her translation into French of the Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy by Isaac Newton (1643-1727).

Ronald’s collecting interests and discoveries concern a variety of published and unpublished materials, gathered over many years. Ronald’s collecting interests and discoveries concern a variety of published and unpublished materials, gathered over many years. His talk illustrates merits of gathering into one collection an ensemble of materials about a particular subject, including different copies of a given edition, which may, upon inspection and comparison, exhibit significant differences. As he says about the discoveries, “It is important to look.”

At our meeting, we have the opportunity to hear from the scholar-collector about his experiences in forming the collection and bringing their discoveries to wider knowledge. Among the sources are manuscript materials. It might be possible, in person, to see several examples from the collection. Here we might learn more about them, in person and online, from Ronald himself.

Please join us if you can. We look forward to welcoming you.

Thanks

We thank the Friends of the Princeton University Library and also the Princeton Public Library for help with arranging and hosting this landmark event for the RGME in association with the PB&BC.

Registration

Please register to attend the event. There are two registration portals, for attendance in person or online.

Registration to Attend IN PERSON
Space is limited for the In-Person Event.

Please be sure to register so that we can know whom and how many to expect to attend in person. Registration is free. We invite Voluntary Donations for the RGME, a Section 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization principally run by volunteers.

  • https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ronald-smeltzer-talks-about-emilie-du-chatelet-woman-of-science-online-tickets-1310959468059

Registration to Attend ONLINE

  • https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ronald-smeltzer-talks-about-emilie-du-chatelet-woman-of-science-online-tickets-1310959468059

After registration, the RGME will send the Zoom Link to registrants a few days before the event.  To safeguard the security of our online events, the Zoom Link will not be sent by Eventbrite or by Zoom. Please do not share the Zoom Link with others; ask them to register for their own Zoom Link, so that we can keep track of attendance and monitor access to the Zoom Waiting Room.

If you have issues with the registration or Zoom Link, please turn to us for help. Send your questions to [email protected].

*****

Frontispiece to the Institutions de Physique (1740). Image Public Domain.

Image: Frontispiece for the First Edition of the Institutions de Physique (Paris, 1740), center, with an image of female figure in classical dress climbing to the Temple of Truth. Image Public Domain.

*****

 

Image: Title Page for the First Edition of the Institutions de Physique (Paris, 1740). Image Public Domain.

*****

Private Collection, Choisel, Château de Breteuil. Portrait of Emilie du Chatelet st her desk by Maurice Quentin de la Tour (1704–1788). Oil on canvas, 1750. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Image: Portrait of Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, marquise du Châtelet (1706-1749), French mathematician and physicist. Oil on canvas. By Maurice Quentin de La Tour – http://enlenguapropia.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/emilie_chatelet.jpg viahttps://gallica.bnf.fr/essentiels/du-chatelethttp://classes.bnf.fr/pdf/Chatelet.pdfhttps://web.archive.org/web/20211016012211/http://classes.bnf.fr/pdf/Chatelet.pdf, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29159624

*****

Tags: Émilie du Châtelet, Friends of the Princeton University Library, Institutions du Physique, Isaac Newton, Princeton Bibliophiles and Book Collectors, Ronald K. Smeltzer, Voltaire, Women of Science
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Starters’ Orders

February 25, 2025 in Announcements, Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evience, Manuscript Studies, RGME Competition, RGME Friends' Meetings, RGME Recipes

“Starters’ Orders”
Competition for Favorite Recipes

Appetizers, Hors d’Oeuvres,
Canapés, and Starters

Round 2
of the Competition
for the Favorite Recipes of the Friends
of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Logo (2024) of the Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

[Posted on 25 February 2025]

Following the completion of Round 1 and the awards of its Prizes and the creation of its Award Certificates for the Prize Winners, we turn to Round 2.

For Round 1 and its Entries, see:

  • Three-Step Program, Lemonade Included
  • RGME Favorite Recipes for Lemonade, Etc.

 

After exploring recipes for Lemonade, Etc., and awarding prizes for the winning entries in our Friends Meeting 3 (27 January 2025), we sought suggestions for the subject of Round 2 in our Competition for Favorite Recipes (and stories about them) for the RGME Friends Favorite Recipes Cookbook.

Prizes for the Favorite Recipes for “Lemonade, Etc.” Wrapped and ready to send. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Our Favorite Recipe Competition now turns to Round 2. The theme for this round was chosen at our Fifth Meeting (23 February 2025).  We wondered: Shall we move from drinks such as lemonade to hors d’oeuvres, entrées, soups, salads, etc., or go straight to desserts? At once came the collective answer: “Starters!”

Starters’ Orders

So we order Starters for our next Round of Recipes.

For this round, we consider Appetizers, Hors D’Oeuvres, Canapes, Finger Food, and Starters of many kinds.

Whatever they are called, this multi-form and multi-purpose variety of foodstuffs is designed to perk the appetite (as “amuse-bouches” or the like), serve as bite-size morsels of deliciousness, stave off hunger in place of a meal when time or opportunity constrains, start a round of courses for a full meal, or stand in between courses as a sort of intermission within an elaborate meal.

Their creation can draw upon a wide range of ingredients and culinary traditions, along with time-tested recipes perhaps handed down in the family. They might also take inspiration from improvisations drawing together what is on hand in the pantry, in the fridge, on the shelves, in the garden or orchard, in the market, or in the shop. They might comprise single ingredients or types of ingredients — such as a handful of nuts, a selection of olives, a piece or pieces of cheese, a nibbling of crudités — or combinations of flavors, textures, and tastes, such as with sauces or dips for fruits and vegetables, raw or cooked.

They serve many purposes and take multiple forms. For example, one widespread genre, Canapes, might be described as:

“a type of starter, a small, prepared, and often decorative food, consisting of a small piece of bread (sometimes toasted) or cracker, wrapped or topped with some savoury food, held in the fingers and often eaten in one bite.”

————— Canapes

What are some of your favorites, and do you have stories about them? Let us know!

As for this Round on the ride to our RGME Friends’ Favorite Recipes Cookbook, shall we call it “Starters’ Orders”?

“Angels on Horseback”. Photograph by Lana via e Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic lic.

Given the name of this game, might there, among the entries, be room for one or other of these offerings, which involve sticks or skewers?

  • Devils on Horseback
  • Angels on Horseback

Prizes and Incentives

As with Round 1, prizes (provided by a donation) await the winning entries. Please send in your entry, with title, description, and story. Sending more than one entry is allowed, indeed encouraged.

We will review the entries and award prizes at one of our Friends’ Meetings. See their schedule:

  • Meetings of the Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Also please visit our Eventbrite Registration Portal for information about our events and registration for them.

  • RGME Eventbrite Collection

A list of customary or popular offerings in this broad category might jog your memory and perk your interest.

  • Category: Appetizers

*****

From Soup to Nuts

We aim, over time, to gather recipes and stories to fill a cookbook. In this way, we can compare notes and share experiences reflecting the range and breadth of our RGME community. A full-course meal, perhaps, in a veritable Feast.

13-Course Place Setting. Photograph (2019) By Hopefulromntic21 – Own work, via Wikimedia Commons via CC BY-SA 4.0.

*****

Comments, questions, or suggestions?

Send your entries and contact the Friends via

  • [email protected]

*****

Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, Still Life with Fruits, Nuts, and Cheese (1613) by Floris Claesz van Dyck (1575–1651). By Floris van Dyck – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150586

Note on the Image: Haarlem, Netherlands, Frans Hals Museum, “Still Life with Fruits, Nuts, and Cheese” (1613) by Floris Claesz van Dyck (1575–1651). Credit: By Floris van Dyck – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150586.

*****

Tags: Appetizers, Friends of the Reaearch Group on Manuscript Evidence, Hors d'Oeuvres, Lemonade, Recipe Competition, Starters
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Workshop 4. “Manuscript Fragments Compared”

February 16, 2025 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Workshops

RGME Workshops
on
“The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”
(Formerly: “Examining Original Sources”)

Workshop 4
“Manuscript Fragments Compared”

Sunday 23 February 2025
1:00- 2:30 p.m. EST (GMT-4) by Zoom

We cordially invite you to join us for our next RGME Workshop on the “Evidence of Manuscripts Etc.” The series gives the opportunity collectively to examine original sources, in manuscript and other written forms. Beginners and experts are welcome; we can learn together.

The Series

Originally this series was planned as a two-part series of workshops to consider the medieval “Farell Leaf” on loan to the RGME Library and Archives from the Collection of Jennah Farrell. After rich discussions concerning the fragment and evidence for its production and provenance, most probably as part of the Saint Albans Bible (dismembered in 1964), our workshops have turned into a series for teaching manuscripts and related studies.

Collection of Jennah Farrell, Single Leaf from the Book of Numbers in a Medieval Latin Vulgate Bible manuscript: Recto, top. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Workshop 4

Workshop 4 introduces a comparative study. The plentiful genre of medieval Latin Vulgate Bibles is a rich field in Manuscript Studies. Work on cases of deliberately disbursed manuscripts has yielded in the last two decades a selection of stand-out works. Among them is the Saint Albans Bible, known through numerous studies in print and online. Examples include

  • “Breaking Bad: The Incomplete History of the Saint Albans Bible” (1 Nov 2019)
  • The Book, The Leaf, The Knife, and Some Bother
  • The St Albans Bible (20 June 2021)

Since Workshop 3, another leaf from the medium-format Saint Albans Bible has come to our attention. It stands in the collection of our Associate, Richard Weber – from whose collection our blog on Manuscript Studies has reported other discoveries. Its portion from the Acts of the Apostles offers comparison with the Farrell Leaf from the Book of Numbers, with a view toward the presentation of both Old and New Testaments within its former single volume.

Now see:

  • The Weber Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible

Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible, Recto: Top Right. Photograph by Richard Weber.

In our workshop, the case of that manuscript is joined by another fragmented Bible, dismembered instead by the biblioclast Otto F. Ege: namely his large-format Ege MS 14, represented by a leaf now on loan to the RGME for teaching purposes. Over the years, our blog has contributed discoveries to knowledge of that manuscript (see Manuscript Studies). For our workshop, Richard Weber reports his leaf from that manuscript as well.

Private Collection, Leaf from ‘Ege MS 14’. Part of the Book of Jeremiah, Recto, Detail. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Resources for the Quest

The different agents of destruction for these two books provide instructive case studies for the different but overlapping resources available in print and online for the detective work of fragmentology, in the quest to trace the steps of re-distribution of leaves from these Bibles, with a view toward identifying the locations of survivors and virtually reconstructing their original books, insofar as possible.

We welcome participants to join the quest and come forward with questions, updates on any work they have been doing on the Farrell Leaf, or suggestions for potential avenues of study in future workshops.

Registration

Registration is required and free. We are grateful for Voluntary Donations accompanying your Registration to help support our nonprofit educational organization powered principally by volunteers.

  • Workshop 4. “Manuscript Fragments Compared”: Tickets

Note that our Workshop series now appears on our Eventbrite Registration Portal:

  • RGME Workshops on “Examining Original Sources”: Tickets: Tickets

If you have issues with the Zoom Link or connecting, please contact

  • [email protected] or [email protected] .

Information about the series

  • RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”

  • The Bridge of Signs

  • Handlist of Recources for Manuscript Studies and Fragmentology

Workshop 5 is planned for Sunday March 2025 at 1:30-2:30 pm EST (GMT-5) by Zoom.

Please join us if your timetable allows. We look forward to welcoming you.

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

  • Leave your comments or questions below
  • Contact Us

Visit our Social Media:

  • our Facebook Page
  • our Facebook Group
  • our X/Twitter Feed (@rgme_mss)
  • our Bluesky nest @rgmesocial.bluesky.social)
  • our Instagram Page
  • our LinkedIn Group

Join the Friends of the RGME.

Please make a Donation in Funds or in Kind for our nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers. Your donations and contributions are welcome, and can go a long way. They may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent provided by the law.

  • Donations and Contributions
  • 2025 Annual Appeal

We look forward to seeing you at our events!

*****

Tags: Collection of Richard Weber, Fragmentology, Jennah Farrell Collection, Latin Vulgate Bibles, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Otto Ege MS 14, Otto F. Ege, RGME Workshops on the Evidence of MSS Etc., Saint Albans Bible
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Episode 21. “Learning How to Look”

January 18, 2025 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

“The Research Group Speaks”
Episode 21

“Learning How to Look”
A Roundtable

Saturday 24 May 2025
1:00–2:30 pm EST (GMT-5) by Zoom

[Posted on 17 January 2025]

As the series wherein “The Research Group Speaks,” we respond to suggestions and requests as the series unfolds. For information about the series, please see:

  • “The Research Group Speaks”: The Series

London, British Library, Yates Thompson MS 5, fol. 12r. Book of Hours, 15th century, France, perhaps Tours. Saint Matthew, Evangelist, with book, spectacles, and lion attribute. Image via https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2019/02/medieval-spectacles.html

The Plan

For this Episode, by request, a group of experts, scholars, students, and interested observers will compare notes and share experiences. We examine the painstaking yet rewarding quest to learn how to look at objects or materials.

Cases in point will come from the detailed study of manuscripts and printed books, photographs, human anatomy, numismatics, prints and drawings, textual transmission, the natural world, and other spheres. From personal experience, our speakers may report on how they learned how to look, at various stages in their lives and studies, and what tips or methods they find helpful in the process.

We might provide some references as guides or handbooks for this instruction, whether self-taught, mentored, or a combination. For example, to what extent does the process of learning carefully how to look at one body of material transfer to another, that is, to another body of material or to another observer?

Related to this quest for learning how to look more fully at objects and original sources, so as better to understand them, is the need to consider how to describe what it is that we see. Describing can develop understanding the nature of the object more clearly. Putting that recognition into words with precision calls upon accuracy of terminology or nomenclature.

That complex subject might itself call for another Episode of its own. Let us see how this Episode take shape, and where it might lead.

Speakers include (in alphabetical order):

Nan Anantharaman, Mildred Budny, Michael Allman Conrad, David W. Sorenson, and others.

Vitas Patrum Folio 5A. Photography © Mildred Budny

Private Collection, Vitae Patrum, Folio 5A. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Registration

See the registration portal for our events.

  • RGME Eventbrite Collection

For this Episode, you can register through its own portal:

  • Episode 21 “Learning How to Look” Tickets

Registration for the Episode is free. The Zoom Link will be sent to you directly shortly before the event.

We welcome Voluntary Donations with your registration. See also:

  • Contributions and Donations
  • 2025 Annual Appeal

Thank you for joining us!

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

  • Leave your comments or questions below
  • Contact Us

Visit our Social Media:

  • our FaceBook Page
  • our Facebook Group
  • our X/Twitter Feed (@rgme_mss)
  • our Bluesky nest @rgmesocial.bluesky.social)
  • our Instagram Page
  • our LinkedIn Group

Join the Friends of the RGME.

Please make a Donation in Funds or in Kind for our nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers. Your donations and contributions are welcome, and can go a long way. They may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent provided by the law.

  • Donations and Contributions
  • 2025 Annual Appeal

*****

London, British Library, Yates Thompson MS 5, fol. 12r. Book of Hours, 15th century, France, perhaps Tours. Saint Matthew, Evangelist, with book, spectacles, and lion attribute. Image via https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2019/02/medieval-spectacles.html

Tags: Manuscript studies
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2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium at the University of Waterloo

January 5, 2025 in Announcements, Conference, Conference Announcement, Event Registration, Events, Manuscript Studies, RGME Colloquia, University of Waterloo

NOW OLD:
Plans have changed.
See
2025 RGME Autumn Colloqium on Fragments

—————

[Note: This outdated post remains as a record
of the first intentions for the event
and its first six months of preparation
]

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium
at the University of Waterloo

“Break-Up Books
and Make-Up Books:

Encountering and Reconstructing
the Legacy of Otto F. Ege
and Other Biblioclasts
“

Friday to Sunday 21–23 November 2025
in Hybrid Format (pending funding)
or Online by Zoom

Colloquium ‘Home Page’
for information and updates

[Posted on 5 January 2025, with updates. As of June 2025, the University of Waterloo is not a co-sponsor or host for the event, which retains its structure, but not that location or partner. See the newer link listed above.]

“Yet will I leave a remnant, that ye may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations, when ye shall be scattered through the countries”
— Ezekiel 6:8

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf from a Book of Hours, Recto.

By request, in collaboration with the University of Waterloo, the RGME prepares a special 2025 Autumn Colloquium on the phenomena of widely dispersed remnants of dismembered manuscripts and other written materials scattered at the hands of biblioclasts such as Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), for a variety of purposes more and less laudable. We will showcase work being done in various centers and by many individuals on these materials, as part of long-term, laborious, significant, and sometimes dispersed research to identify, reclaim, and, insofar as possible, virtually reconstruct the originals and place them in context.

We seek to gather perspectives on the challenges and opportunities presented by the dispersed manuscript or other materials which survive, albeit disordered or reordered, after passing through the hands of collectors-turned-biblioclasts, for whatever reasons.

A main focus, given the number and variety of projects dedicated to them, will be the manuscripts and other materials dispersed by Otto F. Ege and his collaborators, notably his wife/widow Louise and the New York book-dealer and book-breaker Philip C. Duschnes (1897–1970). Yet, not least because many of their remnants have joined or become intermixed with fragments dispersed by others and through diverse processes in varied collections, it is worthwhile to consider that complex factor for their effective study as well.

We seek to showcase the work of these projects, compare notes about issues and methods of research, and set the legacy of those biblioclasts in the context of others working as predecessors, contemporaries, or followers, as they also redirected the course of manuscript and related studies by disrupting and dislocating its evidence.

The ‘delivery methods’ of dispersal range from assemblages of sets of fragments as specimens in Portfolios, Leaf-Books, Albums, Scrapbooks, or Loose Leaves which might circulate in mats with or without labels, on their own, or in groups sans identifying information. In effect, many of these remnants were cast out on their own as no-name ‘orphans’ whom expertise, serendipity, and circumstance might recognize as ‘foundlings’ or find forever homes, whether virtual or actual. (See The “Foundling Hospital” for Manuscript Fragments.)

Our Colloquium highlights the processes of recovery by multiple, interlinked, and interlocking means, as we gather representatives from the fields of manuscript studies and fragmentology to share their stories, processes, progress, and accomplishments.

New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Otto F. Ege Collection, Leaf in Ege’s Mat from ‘Ege MS 14’. Opening page of the Apocalypse / Revelations in a large-format Lectern Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Scope

The University of Waterloo and the RGME propose to co-host an international Colloquium with hybrid functionality, for access by a wide audience with interests in multiple subjects. Our two educational organizations in Canada and the United States respectively combine experience and skills to produce a scholarly event with companion publications pre- and post-event, to promote and disseminate research work and discoveries in multiple, interrelated fields of study.

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf with music and notation for liturgical chants: Recto.

Our plan takes its starting point from the wish to gather expertise and perspectives from a different collections of manuscript materials — such as at the Medieval DRAGEN Lab (Digital Research Arts for Graphical & Environmental Networks — and the rich variety of new and long-term projects (both institutional and individual) dedicated to research on the medieval Western manuscripts despoiled and dispersed by Otto F. Ege and his collaborators.

These initiatives include the new project by the Cantus database (Cantus: A Database for Latin Ecclesiastical Chant – Inventories of Chant Sources) to produce a database of the musical manuscript fragments in Ege’s Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves from Western Manuscripts (FOL). This notorious Portfolio was issued in multiple sets now widely dispersed in public or private collections through North America and beyond. Like others of Ege’s Portfolios, some sets are lost, or lost track of; some have themselves become fragmented, as parts have been removed, as specific manuscript specimens were further disjointed from their relatives, original or newer companions in the biblioclasts’ assemblages. Some of these ‘orphans’ or cast-offs have lost their identifying Ege mats or labels, further to complicate the issues of identification, recognition, and retrieval.

The RGME’s long-term project of research in these fields focuses on the variety of Ege’s Portfolios overall.  Dedicated to specific genres of books, such as Famous Books or Famous Bibles, they include not only manuscript fragments but also a multitude of printed materials ranging from incunabula (up to the year 1500) to the twentieth century; all were selected and arranged by Ege and his circle as specimens of the graphic arts and book arts for instruction and display. (For examples, see our blog on Manuscript Studies and its Contents List for Ege materials.)

Private Collection, Leaf from ‘Ege MS 14’. Part of the Book of Jeremiah, Recto, Detail. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Research on the surviving evidence on many fronts and in multiple centers can bring expertise to bear upon specific genres (such as manuscripts containing music). So, too, it reveals the processes of workshop practices over decades in the destruction, re-constitution, and further distribution of the original books. For example, such elements have bearing upon the provenance of individual fragments and potential impact upon that of other fragments whose provenance might not otherwise be known.

Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf from Otto Ege MS 14, recto. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Given the progress of these and other projects in various centers concerned with Ege’s legacy, the time is right to bring their representatives (established scholars, curators, collectors, and others, as well as younger scholars) together to compare notes, showcase their work, and strengthen contacts between individuals and centers across borders.

By examining the book-breaking practices overall by “Ege & Co.” in the wider context of biblioclasts over time, including many of Ege’s contemporaries, predecessors, and followers, we might gain fuller knowledge of the individually as well as collectively destructive habits and their legacy. Likewise by comparing notes, surveying the results so far of different projects, and, it might be, identifying more of the seemingly lost fragments in unknown or unexpected places, our Colloquium could cross thresholds and open more gateways to wider knowledge.

Such larger contexts provide wider horizons and more comprehensive awareness of the destructive tendencies towards books in given times and places. They can demonstrate, by examination and comparison, the particular characteristics or ‘style’ of the collector, book-breaker, book-seller, and the resulting forms as altered pieces or bodies of evidence for the lost and damaged originals. Among notable predecessors for the genre can be counted the albums of “visually appealing” manuscript fragments created by Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) or the cuttings prepared by John Ruskin (1819-1900) and others.

Examining the complex legacy of these various re-creators of medieval manuscripts and other written materials and the range of projects dedicated to them from perspectives and fields of many kinds, sometimes integrated across a broad spectrum encompassing expertise in the arts and sciences, can advance knowledge in individual projects as well as in wider discourse relating to the transmission of written evidence from generation to generation and century to century, with losses, discoveries, and reconstitutions along the way.

Our focus for the co-sponsored Autumn Colloquium is the legacy of book-breakers, book-destroyers, and book-recreators active in multiple centers in Europe, the British Isles, and North America (at least), with the fragments produced by their activities and transmitted to diverse locations worldwide, often without appropriate identifying information. Our task, as receivers of the evidence from such disruptions, is to make sense of the evidence, identify it appropriately, recognize its characteristics as bodies of witnesses with a complex history, compare information about diverse projects (in many centers) relating to these materials, gather feedback, and disseminate the results to a wide audience.

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf from a Book of Hours, Recto, detail.

Purpose

This 2025 Colloquium stands within the long tradition of symposia, colloquia, workshops, and other scholarly events of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, now entering its second quarter-of-a-century as a nonprofit educational corporation based in Princeton, New Jersey. The RGME is dedicated to the study of manuscripts and other written records across the centuries. This year our theme is “Thresholds and Communities”.

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf with music and notation for liturgical chants: Verso.

For the 2025 Autumn Colloquium on 21–23 November, the RGME collaborates with the University of Waterloo and its range of programs and projects, including the Cantus Database and the DRAGEN Lab.

The Advisory Committee for the Colloquium comprises:

  • Mildred Budny, Director, Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
  • Debra Lacoste, Cantus Database, University of Waterloo; The Institute of Mediaeval Music; Digital Analysis of Chant Transmission, Dalhousie University
  • David Porreca, Associate Professor; President, Faculty Association of the University of Waterloo; Co-Director, Medieval Studies Undergraduate Program; Department of Classical Studies and Department of History, University of Waterloo

Spanning three days with half-days on Friday and Sunday, the Colloquium will include a series of sessions with presentations and Q&A, roundtable discussions/panels, hands-on workshops, and exhibitions of several kinds.

To augment the scholarly sessions of presentations and discussions, we plan for displays of original materials in manuscript or other forms and demonstrations of the sounds of music represented in medieval manuscript fragments. Among them is a SoundWalk which allows passersby to access audio recordings of specific musical passages preserved on medieval leaves in collections including the DRAGEN Lab and the Cantus Database.

A Reception ending each day’s sessions will lead from the scholarly program to further conversations.

Participants

Participants represent a wide range of interests, approaches, subjects, centers, and materials.

Speakers, Respondents, Panelists, Hosts, and Presiders

Rejoined Pieces of a Leaf from a Book of Hours. Private Collection, reproduced by permission.

Rejoined Pieces of a Leaf from a Book of Hours. Private Collection. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Participants include (in alphabetical order):

Alison Altstatt (University of Northern Iowa)
Steven Bednarski
(DRAGEN Lab, University of Waterloo)
Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
John P. Chalmers (Retired)
Katharine C. Chandler (University of Arkansas)
Lisa Fagin Davis (Medieval Academy of America)
Juilee Decker (Rochester Institute of Technology)
Augustine Dickinson (University of Hamburg)
Scott Ellwood (Grolier Club Library)
Steven Galbraith (Rochester Institute of Technology)
Hannah Goeselt (Massachusetts Historical Library)
Scott Gwara (University of South Carolina and King Alfred’s Notebook LLC)
Elizabeth Hebbard (Indiana University Bloomington and Peripheral Manuscripts Project)
Josephine Koster (Winthrop University)
Debra Lacoste (University of Waterloo, Cantus Database, and Dalhousie University)
David Porreca (University of Waterloo)
Eleanor Price (University of Rochester)
Agnieszka Rec (Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library)
Irina Savinetskaya (Syracuse University)
Kate Steiner (Conrad Grebel University College and University of Waterloo)
Anna Siebach–Larsen (University of Rochester)
Richard Weber (Independent Scholar)
N. Kıvılcım Yavuz (University of Leeds)

And others . . .

Some Results

RGME tradition produces illustrated Program Booklets for major events such as this Colloquium, with participants’ abstracts and selected accompanying illustrations, to grant insider glimpses for our audience (at the event and after) not necessarily familiar with the wide range of subjects and materials under discussion.

A recent example from our 2024 Autumn Symposium “At the Helm” can be downloaded from the RGME website: 

  • 2024 Autumn Symposium Booklet

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf from a Book of Hours, Recto, with the Opening of the Liturgical Kalendar for the Month of February.

We explore sources of funding and sponsorship for the event as a whole.  Information about the results would emerge as these explorations advance. Our aim is to have an in-person event with online access (for speakers and audience) for a fully hybrid colloquium; the online functionality would occur by Zoom Meetings (rather than Webinars with closed access). If funding proves elusive for the in-person facets as well, the event will take place online by Zoom.

We hope to welcome you to the Colloquium.

*****

Note:  For information about the RGME Autumn Colloquium as it develops, please continue to visit this ‘Home Page’.

For related RGME events, please see, for example:

  • 2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia

Registration

To register for RGME events, please visit:

  • RGME Eventbrite Collections

To register for the Autumn Colloquium, we offer portals to attend online or in person respectively.

1) Register for ONLINE Attendance

  • 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium: Tickets for ONLINE Attendance

2) Register for IN PERSON Attendance

  • 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium: Tickets for IN PERSON Attendance

Registration Fees

Circumstances lead us to charge a modest registration fee to attend this 3-day event. The extra costs for preparations in several formats and from different locations require a registration fee to help to offset them.

When you register, we ask you please to add the Eventbrite handling fee for the transaction, as a contribution to the RGME’s costs for this event.

1) General Attendance: $60 US per person

2) Student Discount for Official Students: $35 US per person. When registering for the discount, please let us know your registered affiliation as a student.

The registration fee is waived only for Speakers and Presiders, for whose contributions we give thanks.

We also encourage you to consider adding a Voluntary Donation in support of the RGME, a Section 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization principally powered by volunteers.  See:

  • 2025 Annual Appeal
  • Donations

We thank you for your support and your interest in the Colloquium.

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

  • Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf from a Book of Hours, Recto, with the Liturgical Kalendar for the Month of February: Top.

    Leave your comments or questions below

  • Contact Us
  • Sign up for our Newsletter and information about our activities.
    Send a note to [email protected] or [email protected]

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Join the Friends of the RGME.

Register for our Events by the RGME Eventbrite Collection.

Among them are the

  • 2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia (online or hybrid)
  • Episodes of “The Research Group Speaks” (online)
  • RGME Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.” (online, in person, or hybrid)
  • Meetings of the Friends of the RGME (online)

Please consider making a Donation in Funds or in Kind for our nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers. Your donations and contributions are welcome, and can go a long way. They may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent provided by the law.

  • Donations and Contributions
  • 2025 Anniversary Appeal

We thank the hosts, co-organizers, advisers, and participants for generously contributing to this Colloquium.

*****

Waterloo, University of Waterloo, DRAGEN Lab, Vellum Leaf from a Book of Hours, Verso.

 

Tags: Albums of Manuscript Fragments, Biblioclasts, Broken Books, CANTUS Database, Dispersed Manuscripts, DRAGEN Lab, Early modern printing, Fragmentology, Leaf-Books, manuscript fragments, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Otto Ege Portfolios, Otto F. Ege, Philip C. Duschnes, RGME Colloquia, University of Waterloo
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2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia

December 31, 2024 in Announcements, Conference Announcement, Manuscript Studies, RGME Symposia

2025
RGME Spring & Autumn Symposia

Agents and Agencies
in the Shaping
or Re-Shaping of Books

[Posted on 30 December 2024]

As in 2023 and 2024, for 2025 the RGME prepares an integrated pair of Spring and Autumn Symposia (as Parts 1 and 2 for the year). For those predecessors, see:

  • 2023 Spring and Autumn Symposia,
    with the year’s Theme of “Structures of Knowledge”
  • 2024 Spring and Autumn Symposia”,
    with the year’s Theme of “Bridges”

This year, they respond to our Theme for the Year, “Thresholds and Communities”.

First Steps

London, British Museum. Door-sill carved as a carpet. From Room I, door c, the North Palace of Ashurbanipal II at Nineveh. Photograph (2014) Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

First, in January 2025, to set the stage, our first Episode for the year for our online series “The Research Group Speaks” explores the theme of “Thresholds and Communities” and describes the year’s planned projects and activities. Their centerpiece is the pair of Spring and Autumn Symposia. For this episode and the theme, see:

  • Episode 19. “At the Gate”

This event and other activities through the year prepare the ground, follow-up, and follow-though for the Spring and Autumn Symposia.

The Interlinked Pair
of Symposia

British Library, Royal MS 14 E. v, vol. 1, fol. 3r. Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Following the momentum of activities and enthusiasm in our 2024 Anniversary Year, the pair will draw upon the customary informal, but structured, approach of our events, symposia included.

These Symposia will take place online (like both our 2023 Symposia and our 2024 Autumn Symposium). Perhaps parts of them will also occur in-person (like our three-day 2024 Spring Symposium at Vassar College in hybrid format and our 2025 Autumn Colloquium at the University of Waterloo planned for hybrid format).

The dates and titles for these Symposia have been set. Details of their Programs are taking shape, as we continue to make preparations.

Agents & Agencies

As principal focus, our 2025 Symposia consider the myriad aspects and impact of agents and agencies (human and other) in the creation, dissemination, use, abuse, re-creation, safe-guarding, and enjoyment of books across time and place.

I. Spring Symposium (Part I of 2)

“Makers, Producers, and Collectors of Books:
From Author/Artist/Artisan to Library”

Friday to Sunday
28–30 March 2025 by Zoom

We explore the genesis and gestation of books, from first thoughts to processes of production leading to the finished product, and then to their owners and users.

For example, for the first stages, we might consider the author alone in his or her study, putting pen to page or thought to written word. Around him might, naturally, whether close at hand or in his memory or imagination, stand other books as examples or sources of inspiration, imitation, or perhaps plagarism.

British Library, Royal MS 14 E. 1, vol. 1, fol. 3r. Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Note on the Image. Frontispiece/headpiece for the first volume of the Speculum Historiale (or Miroir historial) by Vincent of Beauvais (1184/1194 – c. 1264) in the Old French translation by Jean de Vignay (circa 1282/1285 – c. 1350). Bruges, circa c. 1478–1480, for Edward IV (1442–1483, king from 1461–1470 and again from 1471-1483). On this page, at the front of Vincent’s text, above its opening columns of script, the author sits as scribe in a book-furnished study, framed within an architectural arcade and set within an elaborate border containing the king’s arms below.

The work of composing, copying, revising, and producing draft, fair, or final copies of the texts (with images where and as indicated) could be undertaken by more than one author, artist, and/or artisan. If so, would they work in tandem, sequence, or competition? Well, that might depend.

Aachen, Schatzkammer, Aachen Gospels, fol. 13r. The Four Evangelists at Work. Circa 820. Image via Karolingischer Buchmaler um 820, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

As the work progresses, there arrive further stages which create the issue or publication of the book, which then may enter the world in processes of dissemination, instruction, and incorporation within an individual or collective collection — or, it might be, from collection to collection, in one shape or another. The changed shapes could, of course, pertain to the book itself and/or the ownership.

In the image below, we draw attention to the large, closed volume being held diagonally by a figure at far right, as he faces toward the king at the center. Given its context within the book and its historical setting, that very volume would contain as its frontispiece the image which we see here. Designed and engraved by Sébastien Le Clerc (1637—1714), the scene depicts an idealized visit by the king, Louis XIV of France (1638–1715, ruled from 1643), to the Académie Royale des Sciences founded in 1666.

Sébastien Leclerc I, Engraving on paper. King Louis XIV visits the Académie Royale des Sciences in an idealized view. Image Public Domain.

Note on the Image. Engraving on paper by Sébastien Leclerc I (1637–1714), 1671. Within a large room overlooking the gardens and containing a multitude of specimens, scientific apparatus, and other materials for study, Louis XIV (1638–1715, King of France from 1643) visits his Royal Academie des Sciences in an idealized view. Image Public Domain.

Various large-scale publications by this Academy employ Le Clerc’s image as their monumental frontispiece. Among them would be one held in this image by its author, as identifiable from images during his lifetime.

*****

II. Autumn Symposium (Part 2 of 2)

“Readers, Fakers, and Re-Creators of Books:
From Page to Marketplace and Beyond”

Friday to Sunday, 17–19 October 2025 by Zoom

In the Autumn Symposium, we follow up the explorations of the Spring Symposium as we turn to consider the ‘afterlives’ of books once they reach their audience, whether through the marketplace or other modes of presentation and distribution. Such conditions may acquire a life of their own, as readers, annotators, users, owners, thieves, despoilers, and others had or took a hand in shaping or reshaping their destinies — that is, of the books, those agents, and book history.

As examples, we may point to readers who would reshape the pages by placing their comments, revisions, scribbles, or sketches upon them. So, too, forgers as well as plagarists might appropriate others’ work as their own, say by reshaping its structure, grafting on other pieces, or extracting parts to re-assemble and redistribute in other forms for their own purposes. Such might occur, for example, as leaves or scraps were extracted, cut into further pieces, perhaps refolded, and reused as coverings or parts of bindings for other texts (manuscript or printed), or for other repurposed materials.

Justinian Wrapper folded from back with flap.

Budny Handlist 7: Medieval Leaf reused as Folder. seen from Back with Flap and Tie. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

A different form of reuse concerns the fragmentation of books for the purpose of extracting leaves or part-leaves to serve as specimens of script, decoration, illustration, and/or graphic design.

The 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium at the University of Waterloo in November 2025 is designed, picking up the pieces, to showcase the legacy of such despoilers or ‘biblioclasts’ who dispersed the fragments of manuscripts and printed books far and wide. The 2025 RGME Autumn Symposium considers such phenomena within the larger context of the ‘afterlives’ of books in many other forms as well.

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

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

The rôles of forgers, fakers, and frauds as agents in the production, re-creation, and distribution of books looms large in the history of books, perhaps from time immemorial. Our Symposium sets their activities or accomplishments into the context of “Agents and Agencies” as we examine the broad setting of books overall.

*****

Watch this space as the plans take shape.

For our activities planned for 2025, see:

  • 2024 Activities and 2025 Planned Activities

*****

Registration

To register for each symposium or both, please visit the RGME Registration Collection.

  • RGME Events

Registration is free. We encourage you to make a volunteer donation when you register, to help support our nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers.

After you register, the Zoom Link for the online event or the online functionality of a hybrid event will be sent to you before the event.

Eventbrite Registration

  • Episode 19. “At the Gate: RGME Activities for 2025”

Thank you for joining us!

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

  • Leave your comments or questions below
  • Contact Us

How to Join our Community

Visit our Social Media:

  • our FaceBook Page
  • our Facebook Group
  • our X/Twitter Feed (@rgme_mss)
  • our Bluesky nest @rgmesocial.bluesky.social)
  • our Instagram Page
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Join the Friends of the RGME.

Please make a Donation in Funds or in Kind for our nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers. Your donations and contributions are welcome, and can go a long way. They may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent provided by the law.

  • Donations and Contributions
  • 2025 Annual Appeal

*****

Christine de Pizan, La cité des dames, in the copy in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Français 1179, folio 3 recto. Image Public Domain via gallica.bnf.fr.

*****

 

Tags: "Thresholds and Communities", Books as Agents, Manuscript studies, RGME Symposia, The Agency of Books
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Episode 19: “At the Gate: Starting the Year 2025 at its Threshold”

December 27, 2024 in Announcements, Event Registration, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Episodes for The Research Group Speaks, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

“The Research Group Speaks”
Episode 19
“At the Gate:
RGME Activities for 2025”
A Roundtable

Saturday 18 January 2025
1:00–2:30 pm EST (GMT-5) by Zoom

[Posted on 28 December 2025, with updates]

London, British Museum. Door-sill carved as a carpet. From Room I, door c, the North Palace of Ashurbanipal II at Nineveh, Iraq. 645-640 BCE. Photograph (2014) Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg), CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.

To open our events for 2025, our first Episode of the year in the online series wherein “The Research Group Speaks” positions us “At the Gate” as we embark on a year with a Theme dedicated to “Thresholds and Communities“.

Here we discuss the aims and structures of our series of activities and projects for 2025, as their organizers, co-organizers, advisors, and participants join an informal roundtable.

We invite you to join us to learn about the plans as they develop, and contribute feedback as we start the year’s program.

Following Episode 18 in December 2024 on “Women as Makers of Books” at the close of our Anniversary Year, this next Episode introduces the Theme for the New Year, as it launches the suite of our multiple activities for 2025.

We introduce our Theme for the Year and present the plan for our events and publications.

Our Theme for 2025:
“Thresholds and Communities”

Our activities will address a wide variety of subjects, fields of study, and genres of materials as we focus especially upon original sources, representing witnesses to writing in multiple forms. They include manuscripts, printed books, maps, music, works of art, epigraphy, and other forms, in keeping with our interests in a rich variety of sources from the past and recent past.

Some activities continue strands and momentum from 2024 activities. For example, the 2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia build upon the accomplishments of the highly successful series in 2024 by focusing upon Special Collections and original materials and their uses for study, teaching, and more.

London, British Library, Harley MS 4431, fol. 4r.Christine de Pisan sits at work writing in an interior accompanied by a dog. France (Paris), c. 1410 – c. 1414. Image via https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/06/christine-de-pizan-and-the-book-of-the-queen.html.

London, British Library, Harley MS 4431, fol. 4r. Christine de Pisan sits at work writing. France (Paris), c. 1410 – c. 1414. Image via https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/06/christine-de-pizan-and-the-book-of-the-queen.html.

Similarly we build upon the inspiration of two Episodes for “The Research Group Speaks” which formed bookends or pendants for our Anniversary Year in January and December. The former considered the roles of Women Writers from the Medieval to Post-Modern Periods. The latter addressed Women as Makers of Books, by considering not only functions as authors but also activities as authorial book-designers or as calligraphers, illustrators, compilers, and editors, such as for successful serial publications.

The pair of Episodes focused upon the agency of women in and for books.

  • Episode 15. Women Writers from the Medieval to Post-Modern Periods
  • Episode 18. Women as Makers of Books

In 2025, we propose to examine, among other subjects, the multiple types and forms of agents and agencies in the making, producing, disseminating, collecting, reading, using, abusing, re-creating, and transmitting of books across time and place. Our programs shape accordingly.

Watch this space, and come to our Episode 19 to hear about the plans. We welcome your feedback and participation.

Panelists and Subjects

Panelists for our Roundtable include:

Phillip Bernhardt–House, Mildred Budny, Hannah Goeselt, Justin Hastings, and others.

Topics to consider include the processes of choosing the subjects, approaches, and structures of the events in their interconnected series. Our Speakers may describe the thought-processes, explorations, research, and consultations which underpin this creativity.

Plans for the year work to shape individual events or their series, and to integrate them into the full suite of events and publications of the RGME for the year round. Attendees are invited to offer suggestions and volunteer to participate in the events and their organization as well as their follow-up.

  • Episodes of “The Research Group Speaks”
  • Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.”
  • In-Person (and hybrid) Visits to Collections
  • Co-Sponsored 2025 Digital Medieval Studies Institute in Boston/Cambridge (March)
  • 2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia
    — Spring Symposium. “Makers, Producers, and Collectors of Books, From Author/Artist/Artisan to Library”
    — Autumn Symposium. “Readers, Fakers, and Re-Creators of Books, From Page to Marketplace and Beyond”
  • 2025 Autumn Colloquium
  • 2025 Conference Activities:
    — 2025 International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS) at Kalamazoo in May
    — 2025 International Medieval Congress (IMC) at Leeds in July
  • Meetings of the Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
  • Competitions for the Friends (such as Favorite Recipes for an RGME Recipe Book),
    — Prizes Included
  • Masterclasses (by Request)

Rome, Capitoline Museums, Front panel of a sarcophagus representing the four seasons. Marble, Roman artwork, middle of the 3rd century CE. Photograph by Jean-Pol GRANDMONT. Image via Capitoline Museums, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via

Reflections on the Theme

In this living context, our Speakers may address the Year’s Theme of Thresholds in wider ramifications.

1) Liminal Deities

Vatican City, Vatican Museums, Museo Chiaramonti, section XIV, no.17. Janus-type Double Herm. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek original. Image via Wikimedia via Creative Commons 3.0 Unported.

For example, Phillip Bernhardt–House might survey some rituals and divinities or beings whose charge or domain occupies, or relates to, thresholds of various kinds from antiquity onward. Among them are numbered

  • Janus, the Roman “God of all beginnings, gates, transitions, time, choices, duality, doorways, passages, and endings” (Janus)
  • Hecate, the Greek goddess of boundaries, crossroads, doorways, and city walls
  • Cardea, the Roman goddess of health, thresholds, and door hinges and handles
  • Heimdall, the Norse god associated with boundaries, borders, and liminal spaces
  • Hermes, Greek god of roads, merchants, travelers, trade, thievery/thieves, cunning, and animal husbandry; messenger of Zeus and psychopomp (“guide of souls). In particular, Hermes is associated with particular types of oracles (the Astragalomanteia and the Kledones; see also Cledonism and Cleromancy), as well as with words, language, and magic — comprising some of the most liminal but connective and ‘commercial’ activities of all.
  • Mercury, Roman messenger god and psychopomp; equivalent to the Greek Hermes, sharing some of his functions, such as being a god of commerce, travelers, merchants, and thieves.

London, British Museum, Drawing of a Hekate Triformis, perhaps as a Hekation or shrine, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

2) Thresholds as Emblems

Our Director would briefly describe characteristics of Thresholds/Portals/Gateways, as exemplified or embodied in language, literature, art, architecture, religion, ritual, and imagination. Such reflections have sometimes guided RGME and related activities, as with the Symposium held at Princeton University for our 2009 Anniversary Year.

  • Gathering At the Threshold: A Celebratory Symposium

As motto, she proposes a quotation from the introduction to the first issue of a short-lived periodical by the polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) under the name Propylaen (July 1798–1801). Regarding that enterprise, it can be observed that:

Through its German name, “Propyläen” (from the Greek προπύλαιον, propylaion, pl. προπύλαια, propulaia, an entryway to a building), which can be translated to English as “Propylaea“, the periodical, including its various themes, was to represent a uniquely cultural “entryway”; and thus, it symbolized the building that is life into which the artist is required to enter.

— Propyläen

Goethe’s Birthplace: Goethe-Haus, Grosser Hirschgraben, Frankfurt-am-Main, Innenstadt. Image: Dontworry, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Selected as a motto at the start of her own Ph.D. Dissertation (London, 1985), Goethe’s classic “Introduction” (Einleitung) to his serial publication states a sobering observation from eloquent and perhaps prescient experience.

THE YOUTH (Jüngling), when Nature and Art attract him, thinks that with a vigorous effort he can soon penetrate into the innermost sanctuary; the Man, after long wanderings, finds himself still in the outer court.

Such an observation has suggested our title. It is only on the step, in the gateway, the entrance, the vestibule, the space between the outside and the inner chamber, between the sacred and the common, that we may ordinarily tarry with our friends.

In German:

Der Jüngling, wenn Naur und Kunst ihn anziehen, glaubt mit einer lebhaften Streben bald in das innerste Heiligtum zu dringen; der Mann bemerkt, nach langem Umherwandeln, daβ er sich noch immer in den Vorhõfen befinde.

Eine solche Betrachtung hat unsern Titel veranlaβt: Stufe, Tor, Eingang, Vorhalle, der Raum zwischen dem Innern und Ausern, zwischen den Heiligen und Gemeinem kann nur die Stelle sein, auf der wir uns mit unsern Freunden gewönlich aud halten werden.

—— Preface to Propyläen

Sesterce of Nero, 54-68 AD, Reverse: Temple of Janus with Closed Doors. Patrick H. C. Tan Collection. Image: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons

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  • Episode 19. “At the Gate: RGME Activities for 2025”

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Paris, Porte Saint-Denis, from the South. Image: Photograph (10 September 2011) by Coyau / Wikimedia Commons/ via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Porte_Saint-Denis_01.jpg.

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Tags: "Thresholds and Communities", Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, Gates and Gateways, Janus, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Liminal Deities, Manuscript studies, Propylaen, RGME Roundtable, RGME Theme for the Year, The Research Group Speaks
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