More Leaves from the Book of Numbers in the Chudleigh Bible

March 19, 2026 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, Workshops on "The Evidence of Manuscripts"

More Leaves
in the Book of Numbers
from the Chudleigh Bible

in the Collection of Richard Weber

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 19 March 2026]

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 42, recto, top left. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Continuing our series of posts describing discoveries for the study of manuscript fragments (see Manuscript Studies Blog: Contents List), this post augments our post introducing two leaves which belonged to the Book of Numbers in the medium-format Latin Vulgate Bible now known as the Chudleigh Bible:

Two Leaves in the Book of Numbers from the Chudleigh Bible

Those are leaves (which we introduced as Leaves 1 and 2) are numbered in pencil as Folios 38 and 43, apparently once the outermost leaves of a quire.

Previous blogposts have celebrated portions of the collection of manuscripts of our Associate Richard Weber. For example:

Before

We quote from our previous blogpost:

The Two Leaves [Folios 38 and 43]

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.

That was then. This is now.

More Is More

Now we introduce four more leaves in the Collection of Richard Weber. Together they form a consecutive group from a former quire within the same Book of the Old Testament in the originally complete Latin Vulgate Bible. They came with an explanatory label, which describes in 7 lines of italic font some salient points about the leaves, their consecutive text (or testo consecutivo, however unidentified), features of layout, and notice of attributed origin.

Collection of Richard Weber. Seller’s Printed Label for Group of 6 Leaves (6 fogli) from the Chudleigh Bible. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Name by Association

As recap, the name of the dismembered and dispersed manuscript derives from one of its former owners, the eleventh Baron Clifford of Chudleigh. The place Chudleigh itself is an ancient wool town in Devon in Southwest England. About this Baron:

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

The name by which the fragmented book has become known does not celebrate or refer to its origin, artistry, creativity, or accomplishment in its own right, but attaches to an imposing nomenclature by association, attachment, or latter-day ownership. Current usage gives it the claim to ascendance in referring to this book and no other.

The Numbers Game:
Numbers of Leaves; Numbered Leaves,
and the Book of Numbers

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.

Our first interest in the manuscript arose through the gift of two leaves, generously donated to the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence by our Associate, Richard Weber. From within the Book of Numbers, they are Leaves 38 and 43, as numbered in pencil at the center of the lower margin of the rectos. Our research continues to investigate the growing evidence for surviving leaves from the original book, along with their journeys from that book to their current homes.

Our first blogpost about about survivors, in the light of the two leaves from the Book of Numbers, surveys some known cases and outlines the scholarly assessments about the probable date and place of origin of the manuscript. Those assessments center upon books or articles by art historians and manuscript scholars, and descriptions by owners, vendors, and their agents, including catalogues for auctions or a given collection. See:

Two Leaves in the Book of Numbers from the Chudleigh Bible

Since that blogpost, further developments were reported in some of our events:

Here we report some updates, with thanks to Richard Weber who shares information from his collection.

I. Two Leaves from the Book of Numbers

Previously we presented Folios 38 and 43. See below for their images and an account of their textual contents. These two leaves came apparently from the front back of a quire, to judge by their features.

II. Four More Leaves from the Book of Numbers
in the Collection of Richard Weber

With permission, we reproduce images of four more leaves, accompanied by details and observations. The modern pencil numbers of the leaves stand in the center of the lower margins. We use those numbers as reference points.

Folios 39–42

These specimens comprise Leaves 2, 3, 4, 5 in an original quire apparently of 6 leaves. Our previous blogpost introduced Leaves ‘1’ and ‘2’ of the pair of leaves which comprise Folio 38 and Folio 43; formerly they stood respectively at the front and the back of the quire. Together the group has significant evidence to show about the formation and construction of the original quire, manuscript, and its binding. We celebrate the opportunity to see the unit as a whole and to learn from its evidence.

1. Folio 39

Recto

The page continues and completes Chapter IV through column a and partway through column b, then opens Chapter V in the lower part of column b, with an enlarged decorative initial L embellished with pen-line flourishing.

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 39, recto. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Verso

The page completes Chapter V in column a, opens Chapter VI which it finishes partway through column b, then opens Chapter VII apparently mistakenly in the lower part of column b, as its rubricated chapter number is cancelled with a horizontal cross-stroke.

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 39, verso. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Detail

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 39, verso: lower. Photograph by Richard Weber.

2. Folio 40

Recto

The page completes Chapter VI in column a, opens Chapter VII in line 7 modestly with an enlarged in-line initial and the chapter number VII entered within a paraph in the inner margin, continues the chapter through the rest of the page to continue on the verso.

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 40, recto with guide. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Verso

The page completes Chapter VII in column a, opens Chapter VIII in the penultimate line of that column, and opens Chapter IX in the last line of column b; these chapters open with an initial L in each case, rendered respectively in red pigment or blue pigment, with pen-line flourishing in the opposite color.

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 40, verso with guide. Photograph by Richard Weber.

3. Folio 41

Recto

The page contains the end of Chapter IX in column a, completes its text in the first two lines of column a, and opens Chapter X directly with an initial L in red.

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 41, recto with guide. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Verso

The page completes Chapter X in the upper part of column a and opens Chapter XI with a blue initial L.

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 41, verso with guide. Photograph by Richard Weber.

4. Folio 42

Recto

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 42, recto with guide. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Verso

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 42, verso with guide. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Traces of Stitching, Ruling, Pricking,
and other Processes of Production and Use

The ability to see adjacent leaves reveals significant evidence of shared processes of production, along with various traces of use. We celebrate the ability, with thanks to the generosity and perspicacity of the collector and the quality of his photographs!

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 42, recto, top left. Photograph by Richard Weber.

The Outer Limits

We review the two known leaves which once directly preceded and followed the four leaves in the Weber Collection from the Book of Numbers in the Chudleigh Bible, as reported in our previous blogpost about them and their manuscript.

Two Leaves in the Book of Numbers from the Chudleigh Bible

Opening of Quire (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)

Text (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.]

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.

End of Quire (Leaf ‘6’): Folio 43

Text (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. ]

*****

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.

III. A (Disconnected) Quire as Witness

Thus we advance our on-going project to study the surviving witnesses to medieval manuscript fragments. As promised in our first blogpost on the Chudleigh Bible, we encourage and cultivate the study of the leaves and their context, in the quest to identify and virtually reconstruct the former volume. This second blogpost reports more information as more leaves are revealed.

The generic characteristics of the printed label accompanying the ensemble of 6 leaves (see above), giving no indication of the text to identify a particular part of the manuscript, implies that the seller may have prepared groups of leaves, such as intact quires, to sell in themselves. If so, there might be other quires or former quires which found their way through such a dealer and might, in time, surface among various collections around the world. We look forward to more discoveries.

IV. The Book

IV.1. A Single Volume

The subject of this quest? Notice of the manuscript whilst still intact, with some black-and-white images of its illustrated elements, appeared in print for its sale by successive owners, starting with Charles Oswald Hugh Clifford, the eleventh Lord Clifford of Chudleigh.

Formerly, as described in its sales catalogue descriptions while still intact (see our previous blogpost), the manuscript comprised a single volume of 411 vellum leaves (with its text laid out in double columns of 56 lines each). Mention is made of 139 illuminated initials, some of which are historiated. Initials opening Books of the Bible contained historiated scenes and decorative elements; some 90 or 91 of them were historiated. Mention is also made of some damage to the volume, including losses of leaves.

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.”

IV.2. 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

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.

An account especially of the illuminated components appears by Peter Kidd:

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

His companion blogpost seems to have disappeared, along with the blog as a whole:

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

IV.3. Some Specimens

Our previous blogpost has gathered a selective 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, 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.

*****

Further blogposts and/or other reports may offer more information about the manuscript and its identifiable fragments. The goal is to build towards a fuller recognition of the survivors, their characteristics, and their locations.

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)
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.

*****

Collection of Richard Weber. Chudleigh Bible Leaf 39, verso: lower. Photograph by Richard Weber.

No Comments »

2026 RGME Colloquium at The Grolier Club: Report

February 27, 2026 in Announcements, Bembino, Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evience, Manuscript Studies, Theme of the Year, Visits to Collections

Report

2026 RGME Colloquium
at The Grolier Club

“Transformations and Renewals”
Examining and Celebrating
Treasures of the Grolier Club Library

Wednesday 11 February 2026
Hybrid, in Two Events:
Workshop
+
Roundtable

[Posted on 18 February 2026, with updates, now including a link to a Recording of the Roundtable]

New York, New York. Front entrance of The Grolier Club. Photo courtesy of The Grolier Club.

We celebrate the successful accomplishment of the 2026 RGME Colloquium at The Grolier Club of the City of New York on Wednesday 11 February. We give thanks to Jamie Elizabeth Cumby, Grolier Club Librarian who offered to give the Workshop which set the plan in motion, the contributors, the staff of the Grolier Club, RGME advisers, and members of the RGME Production Team supporting both the hybrid and in-person aspects of the pair of events.

The events comprised two parts:

1) “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop in the upstairs Council Room

2) “Transformations and Renewals” Roundtable with Lightning Talks, open to the public, in the downstairs Exhibition Hall.

For a description and the Program, please see:

2026 RGME Colloquium at The Grolier Club

Here we celebrate the Colloquium, describe its characteristics as accomplished, and, with permission, share some photographs. For their photographs inside the Club, we credit and thank the photographers: Mildred Budny, Hannah Goeselt, Justin Hastings, and Beppy Landrum Owen.

Entering The Grolier Club (11 February 2026). Photograph by Hannah Goeselt.

The Nature of the Event

This first hybrid event for the RGME in the Year 2026 — for which we have chosen the Theme of “Transformations and Renewals” for exploration across our activities and projects — brought the RGME to The Grolier Club of the City of New York, in central Manhattan, for a curated set of hybrid events on Wednesday 11 February 2026. In keeping with the RGME’s dedication to accessibility for events reaching a wider audience, these events were designed to be available both in person and online.

We gathered a generous team of specialists, collectors, and curators of books — all Grolier Club Members and mostly RGME Associates— to examine, reflect on, and celebrate selected treasures of the Grolier Club Library. On offer: reports and conversations about research discoveries, work-in-progress, and the joys of experiencing the materials directly and also sharing their stories.

Speakers and/or Panelists

Participants offered comments and/or lightning talks. Speakers made comments at the afternoon workshop over original materials, and Panelists gave lightning talks at the early-evening roundtable:

Jamie Elizabeth Cumby (Grolier Club Librarian)
“ ‘Show-Off-and Tell’: A Curated Selection from the Grolier Club Library”
Beppy Landrum Owen (also Oral History Project: Beppy Landrum Owen)
“ ‘That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. . .’
Lost Stories of the Making of the Bremer Presse’s 1934 (but 1935) Vesalian Icones anatomicae”
John T. McQuillen (Morgan Library & Museum, Associate Curator of Printed Books & Bindings)
“Blockbooks Dismembered”
Note:
Watch for the coming exhibition at the Morgan later this year:

“Late Medieval European Blockbooks: The First Printed Picture Books” (6 November 2026 to 16 May 2027)
Mildred Budny (Director of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
“A Medieval Missal Fragment from the Otto F. Ege Collection and its Provenance”
Note:
“Break-Up Books and Make-Up Books: Encountering and Reconstituting the Legacy of Otto F. Ege and Other Bibliocasts” (See 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium on Fragments)
Reid Byers (Reid Byers, Author)
“Secrets in Secrets in Secrets”
Note:
Reid Byers, Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books (Oak Knoll Press and Le Club Fortsas, 2024)
Richard Kopley (Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus, Penn State DuBois, and Author)
“William Gowans, New York Bookman and Poe Family Boarder”
Note:
Richard Kopley, Edgar Allan Poe: A Life (2024)
Mark Samuels Lasner (Mark Samuels Lasner)
“A Gift from William Morris to the Grolier Club”
Note:
Wilhelm Meinhold, Sidona the Sorceress (Kelmscott Press, 1893), translated by “Francesca Speranza” / Jane Francesca Agnes Wilde, Lady Wilde—a novel drawn from the life of the Pomeranian noblewoman Sidonia von Borcke (1548–1620), accused of witchcraft and executed.
Mary Crawford (Co-Curator, current exhibition at the Grolier Club; Bio)
“From ‘By a Lady’ to Global Superstar: Curating 250 Years of Jane Austen”
Note:
Grolier Club Exhibition. “Paper Jane” (to 14 February 2026)
Online exhibition. Exhibition Gallery
Online curators’ tour. Tour of Paper Jane
Catalogue. Catalogue

Presider/Moderator for Roundtable

Anna Siebach–Larson

Book-Signings at Roundtable for Grolier Authors’ Publications

Reid Byers, Mary Crawford, Richard Kopley, and Mark Samuels Lasner

Beppy Landrum Owen prepares for her comments at the Workshop and Lightning Talk for the Roundtable. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

I. The “Transformations and Renewals” Roundtable
in the Grolier Club Exhibition Hall
(Hybrid, Live-Streamed)
6:00 to 7:30 pm EST (GMT-4)

Open to the public both in-person and online
Book-signings available

Overview

Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, a Princeton-based 501(c)(3) educational organization, visited the Grolier Club for an in-person/hybrid ‘Roundtable’. In lightning talks, several Club members discussed a curated selection of books, manuscripts, and prints on the RGME’s 2026 organizational theme of “Transformations and Renewals. Open to the public, this event offered offer book-signings for Club member guides who recently published works discussed.

Panelists for the Roundtable: Mildred Budny, Beppy Landrum Owen, John T. McQuillen, Reid Byers, Richard Kopley, Mark Samuels Lasner, and Mary Crawford

Presider: Anna Siebach–Larsen

The Panelists prepare

After the Workshop (see below), our panelists gathered for the “Transformations and Renewals” Roundtable with Lightning Talks in the ground-floor Exhibition Hall.

Here we see, at the front, beneath the display screen, and between the display cases for the current exhibition, the panelists take their seats in speaking order, from right to left.

2026 RGME-Grolier Colloquium Roundtable: Left-Hand Side with Podium. Photograph by Hannah Goeselt.

The RGME Executive Director introduces the Panel

2026 RGME-Grolier Colloquium Roundtable: Right-Hand Side with Podium. Photograph by Hannah Goeselt.

The Roundtable Presider introduces the Panelists

Anna Siebach-Larsen presides over the Roundtable. Photograph/Screenshot by Justin Hastings.

II. The “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop
in the Grolier Club Council Room
(Hybrid, Zoom Meeting)
2:30 to 4:30 pm EST (GMT-4)

Open to the public online;
In-person seats limited, for Grolier Members and invited RGME Guests

Overview

As a prelude to the Roundtable on “Transformations and Renewals”, Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence and Grolier Club Members had a hybrid “Show-Off-and-Tell’ Workshop to examine, up close, the original materials (as book, manuscript, print) to be discussed further at the evening Roundtable in lightning talks. The curated selections comprised favorites from the Grolier Club Library which have given rise to detailed study and discoveries for them and their contexts.

Like our pair of hybrid workshops recently over original manuscript and printed materials in Special Collections at the Princeton University Library, held by our Associate Eric White at the 2025 RGME Colloquium on Fragments (see below), this hybrid workshop took place over original materials at the Grolier Club, guided by the Librarian Jamie Cumby (see also Jamie Cumby).

We shared experiences of delight and wonder, to celebrate the joys of learning from original materials at the Club and their relatives in other collections, especially in combination, to learn more about the rich range of the Grolier Club Library, and to give thanks for responsible access to it and for its curators. Open to the public online and to an invited audience in person (limited seating), this event was designed to be accessible widely by interactive Zoom Meeting.

Speakers (in order of presentation):
Jamie Elizabeth Cumby, Beppy Landrum Owen, John T. McQuillen, Mildred Budny, Reid Byers, Richard Kopley, and Mark Samuels Lasner

Setting the stage

Reid Byers prepares for the RGME Workshop in the Council Room. Photograph by Beppy Landrum Owen.

Preparing the Projection

Setting up the projection and internet connection for the Workshop and its audiences both onsite and online. Photograph by Hannah Goeselt.

Describing the genre, challenges, and accomplishments of BlockBooks

John T. McQuillen describes characteristics of BlockBooks. Photograph by Hannah Goeselt.

The Table Laid for Display of Original Materials

Original Materials from The Grolier Club Library, laid out for display and examination. Photograph by Hannah Goeselt.

Checking details

Mark Samuels Lasner examines a Favorite Book for the RGME Workshop in the Council Room. Photograph by Beppy Landrum Owen.

Closer Looks

Mark Samuels Lasner and Jamie Elizabeth Cumby examine materials for the RGME Workshop in the Council Room. Photograph by Beppy Landrum Owen.

The Long View as the Table is Set

Participation at the RGME Workshop in the Council Room. Photograph by Beppy Landrum Owen.

Comparing Notes

Conversations following the RGME Workshop in the Council Room. Photograph by Beppy Landrum Owen.

Hybrid Access

Conforming with our two organizations’ shared commitments to hybrid access for events which take place in person, the two parts of the Colloquium were granted hybrid functionality to reach our wider audiences.

Taking into account the policies, practices, and arrangements in place for hybrid access

1) to public events at The Grolier Club and
2) for the RGME’s visits to Special Collections (since 2024),

both sponsoring organizations agreed to share the responsibilities for such access by covering one each of the two different rooms to be used for the Colloquium. Accordingly,

The Grolier Club provided hybrid access for the Roundtable through its Eventbrite registration and YouTube live-streaming, for which recordings become available on its YouTube channel.
The RGME provided hybrid access for the Workshop through our RGME Eventbrite registration and RGME Zoom Meeting.

For the Workshop, we took care to bring exactly the same RGME Production Team, to operate in-person and online, that had worked so well together for the widely-admired pair of Workshops held (in two sittings) in Special Collections at Princeton last November for the 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium on Fragments. For this new venue for a hybrid RGME visit to original materials, we arranged to bring additional, event-specific, equipment following the technical rehearsal in January for the Workshop.

Background and Foreground:
An Approach with Grounding

The plan for hybrid access by the RGME for the Workshop at The Grolier Club was grounded on our experiences, techniques, and teamwork (on-site and online) as has been developed and honed for our series of In-Person Visits to Special Collections. These visits have progressed from collection to collection, both private and institutional, by using equipment on site and in our mobile travelling kit, adapting from venue to venue, as the approach and implementation improves resourcefully. So far:

RGME Visit to the Collection of Steven Lomazow, M.D., in affiliation with the Student Friends of Princeton University Library, in November 2024 (with an updated, hybrid, visit to the Collection by our Director in January 2026)
RGME Meeting in association with the Princeton Bibliophiles & Collectors for a Guided Tour of selected highlights from the Collection of Ronald K. Smeltzer (brought to the Princeton Public Library for an illustrated talk by Ronald Smeltzer on Émilie du Châtelet, Woman of Science) in April 2025
2025 RGME Visit to Vassar College, to examine manuscript materials at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center and Special Collections of the Vassar College Library, in May 2025
RGME Visit to Special Collections at Princeton University Library, in association with the Friends of Princeton University Library, to examine a curated selection of “Fragments at Princeton” in Workshops in two sittings led by our Associate Eric White, as part of our 3-day hybrid 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium on Fragments in November 2025
and now the guided Workshop, led by the Grolier Club librarian and accompanied by selections and comments by Grolier Members and RGME Associates, for the 2026 RGME Colloquium at The Grolier Club in February 2026

Poster 3 for 2025 Autumn Colloquium. Workshops on “Fragments at Princeton”

In pursuing this generous goal for hybrid events, the RGME has striven to improve its methods, techniques, and travelling ‘kit,’ albeit with limited resources, as it continues to hold visits and other events at selected locations. Likewise it takes care to listen to feedback, suggestions, and requests by both in-person and online attendees, and respond as resourcefully as possible, as it works to grow its abilities for the purpose. Thus we thank our hosts, participants, and audiences, to learn and improve together, so as to offer a worthwhile experience of engagement as best might be.

Sometimes the process encounters circumstances beyond our control, despite careful, informed, and resourceful preparations. Such was the case for some parts of the plan here. (See Hybridities and Curiosities).

We commend all those in the Grolier Club and those members of the RGME Production Team who helped consistently before, during, and after the event, to shape the collaborative hybrid process and foster its collective experience, with the aim of a good, shared outcome.

Event Publications

The Recordings for both the Workshop and the Roundtable count as publications (or publications in progress) hosted respectively by the Grolier Club (Roundtable) and RGME (Workshop).

The RGME publications for the event, both digital and printed, including our website’s announcement and report (you are here), are set in RGME Bembino. The Posters, Program Booklet, and Colloquium Booklet can be downloaded freely as pdfs.

Program

The 4-page Program Booklet for both the afternoon Workshop and early-evening Roundtable

2026 RGME-Grolier Colloquium Poster 1. Set in RGME Bembino.

2026 RGME Colloquium at the Grolier Club: Program

Posters

Both Posters for this bipartite event can be downloaded:

Colloquium Booklet

The 64-page illustrated Colloquium Booklet offers a guide and souvenir for the event. You may download it here, in two formats according with your printing and viewing preferences.

2026 RGME Colloquium Booklet: Pages (as a series of individual pages on 8 1/2″ × 11″ sheets)
2026 RGME Colloquium Booklet: Foldable Booklet (laid out for printing on 11″ × 17″ sheets, ready for folding)

The Grolier Club, View of Exhibition “Paper Jane” (to 14 February 2025). Image: Grolier Club.

*******

Recording of the Roundtable

Follow this link for the Grolier Club’s Recording for the February 11 livestream of “Transformations and Renewals: The RGME and the Treasures of the Grolier Club Library.”

Transformations and Renewals: The RGME and the Treasures of the Grolier Club Library.”

Please note that the automated captions demonstrate some misrepresentations, such as by misspellings. We look forward to a corrected version, if possible.

We thank the Grolier Club for making this recording and making it available on the Club’s Vimeo account for wider access.

*******************

2026 RGME-Grolier Colloquium Poster 2. Set in RGME Bembino.

Questions? Suggestions?

Leave your comments or questions below
Contact Us

Join Us!

Join the Friends of the RGME

There is no charge to join our Friends. All are welcome. The Friends hold special meetings, competitions with prizes, and other activities, recognizing the wide range of interests among our audience, scholarly and more.

Register for our Events

RGME Eventbrite Collection

Donations and Contributions

We look forward to welcoming you to the special visit to the Grolier Club, whether you can attend in person or online!

Front of The Grolier Club. Photograph (4 April 2008) [cropped] by participant/team W. C. Minor as part of the Commons:Wikipedia Takes Manhattan project, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grolier_Club.jpg.

Tags: Access to Collections, Blockbooks, Curated Workshops, Giving Thanks, Grolier Club Library, Grolier Club Members, history of printing, manuscript fragments, Manuscript studies, RGME Visits to Collections, The Grolier Club
No Comments »

The Weber Leaf from Ege MS 61

February 21, 2026 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies

The Weber Leaf
from
Otto Ege MS 61

Small-Format Latin Vulgate Bible
Laid out in 2 columns of 32 lines
in Gothic Bookhand
with embellishments in red, blue, and purple pigments

Formerly part of Otto Ege Manuscript 61 (Gwara, Handlist 61)
Southern France, circa 1325

Mark 5:42 ([illi mandu-/]care) –
6:1 (Et egressus . . . ) – 6:38 (Quot panes ha[/-betis ite])

[Posted on 21 February 2026]

Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf from Otto Ege MS 61: Recto, top. Photograph by Richard Weber.

A leaf in the Collection of Richard Weber from Otto Ege MS 61 presents part of the Gospel of Mark, by laying out the text in brown ink in two columns and employing embellishments in red, blue, and purple pigments. The polychrome elements comprise the running title in both upper margins of recto and verso, the inset 1-line chapter numeral (VI for Mark 6:1) on the recto, the corresponding 2-line inset chapter initial E for Et, and its extended vertical bar of J-shaped segments rising above and below its rounded letter to edge the full length of the column finished by pen-flourishing in upper, lower, and inner margins.

Continuing our series of blogposts on leaves from that manuscript, found in a variety of locations, we present images and a description of this leaf, set into context. We thank our Associate, Richard, for the images and permission to study and reproduce them.

For our earlier posts on this fragmented manuscript, see especially:

A New Leaf from Otto Ege Manuscript 61 (Budny Handlist 7)
More Discoveries for Otto Ege Manuscript 61

Familiar features of this manuscript include the J-bar segments and delicate pen-work. For example:

Second Page of the Book of Zachariah. Courtesy of Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. Reproduced by permission.

The Weber Leaf from Ege MS 61

First we present the two sides of the leaf, in their full expanse, with color guide, in the collector’s photographs. The images show the leaf in full, within its mat, as the recto appears at the front, below the windowed front of Ege’s mat, and the verso may turn on the hinges of its pair of gauze tapes, characteristic of Ege’s positioning mechanism.

The Recto

Note that the chapter numeral VI and the enlarged chapter initial E for Et opening the phrase Et facto sabbato designate Mark 6:2 as the opening of the chapter. In the standard Vulgate, Chapter 6:1 opens with Et egressus inde abiit, continuing to discipili eius to close the verse. That verse occupies the first three lines on the page — ending with the inset chapter numeral and following the last part of the last word of the previous chapter (5:41, [mandu-/]care).

Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf from Otto Ege MS 61: Recto. Photograph by Richard Weber.

The Verso

The verso continues the text of the chapter through most of its course, in a chapter comprising 56 verses. It closes mid-word within chapter 38. Apart from the washes of red pigment in the verse initials, the embellishment on this page constitutes the polychrome running title: MAR– naming the evangelist author or his book.

Collection of Richard Weber, Leaf from Otto Ege MS 61: Verso. Photograph by Richard Weber.

Next, we will describe features of the leaf, its former manuscript, and characteristics of the settings in which its fragments appear.

Watch this space.

Other Fragments from this Book?

Do you know of other leaves from this manuscript? Please let us know.

********

No Comments »

Announcing the Launch of RGME Bembino WP

February 16, 2026 in Announcements, Bembino, Design, Events, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

“Announcing the Launch
of RGME Bembino WP:

A High-Quality Font
for Word-Processing”

Launch Date: 25 March 2026

[Posted on 14 February 2026 with updates]

The full, 16-file, professional, level of our digital font RGME Bembino has been available for a while, with several updates in response to requests for more languages or features. We are thrilled to announce the launch of BembinoWP, a 4-file subset bringing our font to the Mac and Windows Word-processing Communities at large (by request).

BembinoWP has been circulating in a provisional version over recent months, for review, feedback. and corrections. Now we launch it more widely, for all to try out and use.

Find it here:

Bembino WP for Word-Processing

This release enables the font to reach desk-top publishers and report-writers using widely-available text-processing tools including Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. The BembinoWP variant offers a migration path to the full version of the font for higher-quality typesetting through professional tools such as Adobe InDesign or Quark.

Watch for its official Launch on 25 March 2026. This date marks the anniversary of the very first printed text set in Bembino: a “Happy Birthday” greeting for our Director.

For the launch, the RGME offers some occasions where you could meet the font, hear from its maker and users, and join the Q&A.

Set in RGME Bembino

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Bembino Digital Font, history of printing, Launch Announcement, RGME Publications, The Research Group Speaks
No Comments »

2026 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program

February 1, 2026 in Announcements, Bāḥra ḥassāb: Knowledge Transmission in Ethiopia and Eritrea From Antiquity to Modern Times, Business Meeting, Conference, Conference Announcement, Event Registration, Events, ICMS, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Manuscript Studies, POMONA, Postal History at Kalamazoo, Rossell Hope Robbins Library at the University of Waterloo, Societas Magica

Program

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

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

Sequence of RGME Activities at the 2026 Congress

[Posted on 15 January 2026, with updates]

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

Here we list the Program of Activities of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (RGME) at the 2026 International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS).

First we collaboratively designed a suite of Sessions (Panels of Papers) to sponsor or co-sponsor at this year’s Congress and, when they were accepted for the Congress, issued the Call for Papers:

With the completion of the Call for Papers, the next stages followed: selecting among the proposals received, designing each session (assigning the presider, sequence of papers, etc.), and submitting the session programs to the ICMS. Upon the formation of the full Congress Program (see link below), we announce the RGME Program of activities at the 2026 Congress—including the Sessions and our annual Open Business Meeting. We describe the activities one by one in the assigned sequence in which they will occur.

Congress Program

The Program and information for the 2026 Congress appears on the Congress website.

There, to find the RGME Business Meeting and Sessions, search under Sponsoring (or Co-Sponsoring) Organization

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

RGME Blog for International Congress on Medieval Studies

Now we turn to the 2026 Congress and invite you to join our activities.

Read the rest of this entry →

No Comments »

2026 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program

February 1, 2026 in Announcements, Bāḥra ḥassāb: Knowledge Transmission in Ethiopia and Eritrea From Antiquity to Modern Times, Business Meeting, Conference, Conference Announcement, Event Registration, ICMS, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Koller-Collins Center for English Studies, Manuscript Studies, POMONA, Postal History at Kalamazoo, RGME Annual Appeal, RGME Library & Archives, Rossell Hope Robbins Library at the University of Rochester, Societas Magica

Program

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

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

Sequence of RGME Activities at the 2026 Congress

[Posted on 15 January 2026, with updates]

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

Here we list the Program of activities of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (RGME) at the 2026 International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS).

The Program for the 2026 Congress appears on the Congress website.

Call for Papers

With the completion of the Call for Papers, the selection of their proposals, the design of each session (with presider, sequence of papers, etc.), and the ICMS’s formation of the full Congress Program, we announce our Program of activities at the 2026 Congress (including sessions and our annual Open Business Meeting). We describe the activities one by one, now in the sequence in which they will occur.

The Program and information for the 2026 Congress appears on the Congress website.

To find our Sessions and Business Meeting 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

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

RGME Blog for International Congress on Medieval Studies

Now we turn to the 2026 Congress and invite you to join our activities.

Read the rest of this entry →

No Comments »

2026 RGME Colloquium on “Transformations & Renewals” at The Grolier Club

January 27, 2026 in Announcements, Event Registration, Events, Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evience, Manuscript Studies, Visits to Collections

2026 RGME Colloquium
at The Grolier Club

“Transformations and Renewals”
Examining and Celebrating
Treasures of the Grolier Club Library

Wednesday 11 February 2026 (Hybrid, in Two Events)
Workshop + Roundtable

[Posted on 15 January 2026, with updates
Now see also the 2026 RGME Colloquium at The Grolier Club: Report]

Front Entrance of The Grolier Club. Photograph (4 April 2008) [cropped] by participant/team W. C. Minor as part of the Commons:Wikipedia Takes Manhattan project, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license., via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grolier_Club.jpg.

For the Year 2026, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence chooses the Theme of “Transformations and Renewals” for exploration across its activities and projects.

Our first hybrid event of the year brings the RGME to The Grolier Club of the City of New York, in central Manhattan, for a curated set of hybrid events on Wednesday 11 February 2026. In keeping with the RGME’s dedication to accessibility for events reaching a wider audience, these events will be available both in person and online. For registration for the different events and functionalities (in person or online), see below.

With registration beforehand (see below), the day’s events comprise:

a “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop in the afternoon
2:30–4:30 pm EST (GMT-4)
1) online open to the public
2) in person privately with limited seating, open for Grolier Club Members and RGME invited guests
a “Transformations and Renewals” Roundtable in the early evening
6:00–7:30 pm EST
open to the public
1) online and
2) in person

We gather a team of specialists, collectors, and curators of books — all Grolier Club Members and mostly RGME Associates— to examine, reflect on, and celebrate selected treasures of the Grolier Club Library. On offer: reports and conversations about research discoveries, work-in-progress, and the joys of experiencing the materials directly and also sharing their stories. Join us!

2024 Beletsky logo of the Grolier Club of the City of New York.

Program

For information about the scope of the event, its Participants, its two parts as Workshop and Roundtable, and Registration for each part, see below. Both parts are hybrid, through the RGME for the Workshop and through the Grolier Club for the Roundtable.

The Program for both the afternoon Workshop and early-evening Roundtable can now be downloaded as a 4-page

2026 RGME-Grolier Colloquium Poster 1. Set in RGME Bembino.

Program Booklet, set in RGME Bembino.

2026 RGME Colloquium at the Grolier Club: Program

Posters

Both Posters for this bipartite event can be downloaded:

Colloquium Booklet

We offer the 64-page illustrated Colloquium Booklet as a guide and souvenir for the event. You may download it here, in two formats according with your printing and viewing preferences.

2026 RGME Colloquium Booklet: Pages (as a series of individual pages on 8 1/2″ × 11″ sheets)
2026 RGME Colloquium Booklet: Foldable Booklet (laid out for printing on 11″ × 17″ sheets, ready for folding)

Speakers and Panelists

Speakers with comments at the afternoon workshop over original materials and/or with lightning talks at the early-evening roundtable:

Jamie Elizabeth Cumby (Grolier Club Librarian)
“ ‘Show-Off-and Tell’: A Curated Selection from the Grolier Club Library”
Beppy Landrum Owen (also Oral History Project: Beppy Landrum Owen)
“ ‘That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once. . .’
Lost Stories of the Making of the Bremer Presse’s 1934 (but 1935) Vesalian Icones anatomicae”
John T. McQuillen (Morgan Library & Museum, Associate Curator of Printed Books & Bindings)
“Blockbooks Dismembered”
Note:
Watch for the coming exhibition at the Morgan later this year:

“Late Medieval European Blockbooks: The First Printed Picture Books” (6 November 2026 to 16 May 2027)
Mildred Budny (Director of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
“A Medieval Missal Fragment from the Otto F. Ege Collection and its Provenance”
Note:
“Break-Up Books and Make-Up Books: Encountering and Reconstituting the Legacy of Otto F. Ege and Other Bibliocasts” (See 2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium on Fragments)
Reid Byers (Reid Byers, Author)
“Secrets in Secrets in Secrets”
Note:
Reid Byers, Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books (Oak Knoll Press and Le Club Fortsas, 2024)
Richard Kopley (Distinguished Professor of English, Emeritus, Penn State DuBois, and Author)
“William Gowans, New York Bookman and Poe Family Boarder”
Note:
Richard Kopley, Edgar Allan Poe: A Life (2024)
Mark Samuels Lasner (Mark Samuels Lasner)
“A Gift from William Morris to the Grolier Club”
Note:
Wilhelm Meinhold, Sidona the Sorceress (Kelmscott Press, 1893), translated by “Francesca Speranza” / Jane Francesca Agnes Wilde, Lady Wilde—a novel drawn from the life of the Pomeranian noblewoman Sidonia von Borcke (1548–1620), accused of witchcraft and executed.
Mary Crawford (Co-Curator, current exhibition at the Grolier Club; Bio)
“From ‘By a Lady’ to Global Superstar: Curating 250 Years of Jane Austen”
Note:
Grolier Club Exhibition. “Paper Jane” (to 14 February 2026)
Online exhibition. Exhibition Gallery
Online curators’ tour. Tour of Paper Jane
Catalogue. Catalogue

Presider/Moderator for Roundtable

Anna Siebach–Larson

Book-Signings at Roundtable for Grolier Authors’ Publications

Reid Byers, Mary Crawford, Richard Kopley, and Mark Samuels Lasner

We look forward to welcoming you!

The Grolier Club, View of Exhibition “Paper Jane” (to 14 February 2025). Image: Grolier Club.

Registration for the 2 Hybrid Events

We give information for
I. the evening Roundtable first,
II. then the afternoon Workshop.

I. Hybrid Roundtable in the Grolier Club Exhibition Hall
6:00 to 7:30 pm EST (GMT-4)

Open to the public both in-person and online
Book-signings available

Registration through the Grolier Club

Grolier Club: Eventbrite

Overview

With Mildred Budny, Beppy Landrum Owen, John T. McQuillen, Reid Byers, Richard Kopley, Mark Samuels Lasner, and Mary Crawford

Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, a Princeton-based 501(c)(3) educational organization, will visit the Grolier Club for an in-person/hybrid ‘Roundtable’. In lightning talks, several Club members will discuss a curated selection of books, manuscripts, and prints on the RGME’s 2026 organizational theme of “Transformations and Renewals. Open to the public, this event will be live-streamed and will offer book-signings for Club member guides who have recently published works discussed.

Registration for the Roundtable
Virtual or In-Person Attendance

Public roundtable on “Transformations and Renewals” at 6:00-7:30 pm EST (GMT-4)
[although the registration portal lists the time as “6:00-7:00”]
All are welcome to attend in both functionalities.

1) Virtual
“Transformations and Renewals” Roundtable (Virtual)

2) In-Person
“Transformations and Renewals” Roundtable (In-Person)

2026 RGME-Grolier Colloquium Poster 2. Set in RGME Bembino.

II. Hybrid “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop upstairs
preceding the Roundtable
2:30 to 4:30 pm EST (GMT-4)
with Break at 3:15–3:30 pm

Open to the public online;
In-person seats limited, for Grolier Members and invited RGME Guests

Registration through the RGME

RGME Eventbrite Collection

Overview

As a prelude to the Roundtable on “Transformations and Renewals”, Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence and Grolier Club Members will have a hybrid “Show-Off-and-Tell’ Workshop to examine, up close, the original materials (as book, manuscript, print) to be discussed further at the evening Roundtable in lightning talks. The curated selections comprise favorites from the Grolier Club Library which have given rise to detailed study and discoveries for them and their contexts.

Like our pair of hybrid workshops recently over original manuscript and printed materials in Special Collections at the Princeton University Library, held by our Associate Eric White at the 2025 RGME Colloquium on Fragments, this hybrid workshop will take place over original materials at the Grolier Club, guided by the Librarian Jamie Cumby (see also Jamie Cumby).

We gather to share experiences of delight and wonder, to celebrate the joys of learning from original materials at the Club and their relatives in other collections, especially in combination, to learn more about the rich range of the Grolier Club Library, and to give thanks for responsible access to it and for its curators. Open to the public online and to an invited audience in person (limited seating), this event will be accessible widely by interactive Zoom Meeting.

Speakers (in order of presentation):
Jamie Elizabeth Cumby, Beppy Landrum Owen, John T. McQuillen, Mildred Budny, Reid Byers, Richard Kopley, and Mark Samuels Lasner

Registration for the “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop
Virtual or In-Person Attendance

Hybrid Workshop at 2:30-4:30 pm EST (GMT-4)
All are welcome to attend online; space is limited in person.

1) ONLINE (Open to the public)

- Workshop Online: Registration
  Note that, after you register, the RGME will send you the Zoom Link a day or so before the event. For security, the Zoom Link will be sent to you by the RGME, and NOT Eventbrite or Zoom.

2) IN-PERSON (Space is limited, by invitation)

- “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop IN PERSON for Speakers, Grolier Members, and Invited Guests: Registration
  In case of demand, we offer a Waiting List.

Willhelm Meinhold, Sidona the Sourceress (Kelmscott Press, 1893), Opening of Book I, Chapter 1, “Of the Education of Sidonia”. Photograph courtesy of Mark Samuels Lasner.

*******************

Questions? Suggestions?

Leave your comments or questions below
Contact Us

Join Us!

Learn about the RGME, its mission, and its activities

Who Are We?

Visit our Social Media:

our FaceBook Page (or 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. (There is no charge.) All are welcome. The Friends hold special meetings, competitions with prizes, and other activities, recognizing the wide range of interests among our audience, scholarly and more.

Donations and Contributions

We look forward to welcoming you to the special visit to the Grolier Club, whether you can attend in person or online!

Tags: Edgar Allan Poe, Exhibitions, Grolier Club Library, History of Blockbooks, history of printing, History of Provenance, Jane Austen, Kelmscott Press, Manuscript studies, Otto Ege Fragments, Responsible Access to Collections, RGME Visits to Special Collections, Transformations & Renewals, William Morris
No Comments »

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium Program Detailed

November 6, 2025 in Announcements, Conference, Conference Announcement, RGME Colloquia

Detailed Program

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium
of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

“Break-Up Books and Make-Up Books:
Encountering and Reconstructing
the Legacy of Otto F. Ege
and Other Biblioclasts”

Friday – Sunday, 21-23 November 2025
In Person, Hybrid, or Online by Zoom

Program: 1) Overview and 2) Detailed View

I. Program Overview

Program Overview itself is available also here:

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium on Fragments: Program Overview

Day 1. Friday 17 October. 9:00 am – 5:00 pm EST (GMT-5)
— NOTE TWO DIFFERENT VENUES FOR FRIDAY Morning and Afternoon —

Morning Sessions at Green Hall (accessibility information). 9:00 am – 12:00 pm
Washington Road, Princeton, New Jersey 08542

Lunch Break. 12:00–1:00 pm

Afternoon Workshops with original materials at Special Collections, Firestone Library
(accessibility information)

Choose 1 of 2 (space is limited for in-person attendance)
2 Sittings:

1) Workshop 1. 1:30–3:00 pm (arrive at Firestone Library at 1:15 pm)
2) Workshop 2. 3:30–5:00 pm (arrive at Firestone Library at 3:15 pm)

Day 2. Saturday 18 October. 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

All-day Sessions at Nassau Presbyterian Church
(see also Nassau Presbyterian Church)
61 Nassau Street, Princeton, 08542
Accessibility information.

(Note: The original portion of the present building was designed and built by Charles Steadman and dedicated in 1836.)

Day 3. Sunday 19 October at 10:30am – 12:00am

Morning Sessions online. 10:30 am – 12:00 pm

Registration

Note: If accessing the registration link by laptop or computer does not connect through to select your choice of category, please access the link through your phone. For questions, please contact:

director@manuscriptevidence.org or rgmesocial@gmail.com

Choices

1) ONLINE (Friday to Sunday)

- 2025 Autumn Colloquium: Online Attendance Tickets

2) IN PERSON (Friday and Saturday)

- 2025 RGME Colloquium IN PERSON: Tickets

3) IN PERSON WORKSHOPS 1 and 2 at Special Collections (Friday afternoon)
(Space IN PERSON is limited; the Workshops are also available ONLINE)
Choose 1. Registration is required.

- Workshop 1 (1:30 to 3:00 pm EST=GMT-5), First Sitting
  Workshop 1 IN PERSON: Tickets
- Workshop 2 (3:30-5:00 pm EST), Second Sitting
  Workshop 2 IN PERSON: Tickets

4) Optional Dinner (at attendees’ expense) at a local restauraut

- Friday 21 November (7:00–9:30 pm)
  and/or
- Saturday 22 November (7:00–9:30 pm)
- https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2025-rgme-colloquium-optional-dinner-friday-andor-saturday-tickets-1919146451699

Colloquium Booklet

The 64-page Colloquium Booklet, with abstracts and illustrations, will be available soon. When ready, it will be downloadable as a pdf in two formats:

Colloquium Booklet as consecutive pages (quarto-size 8 1/2″ × 11″ sheets)
Colloquium Booklet as foldable booklet (11″ × 17″ sheets)

For information and updates see the Colloquium HomePage

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium on Fragments

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Biblioclasts, history of printing, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Otto F. Ege
No Comments »

2025 Autumn Symposium on 17-19 October: Program

October 11, 2025 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, RGME Symposia

2025 Autumn Symposium
of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

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

Part 2 of 2 in the
2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia

Friday – Sunday, 17-19 October 2025
Online by Zoom

Preliminary Program

Overview

Day 1. Friday 17 October at 1:30 – 5:00 pm EDT (GMT -4)
Day 2. Saturday 18 October at 9:00 am – 5:00 pm EDT (GMT -4)
Day 3. Sunday 19 October at 10:30am – 12:00am EDT (GMT -4)

Registration

2025 RGME Autumn Symposium Registration

Symposium HomePage (information and updates)

2025 RGME Autumn Symposium on Readers, Fakers, and Re-Creators of Books

Symposium Booklet (40-page illustrated booklet, available in two formats for printing)

Consecutive pages (8 1/2″ × 11″)
Foldable booklet (11″ × 17″ sheets)

Program

* = Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (Trustees, Associates, Consultants)

Day 1. Friday 17 October at 1:30 – 5:00 pm EDT (GMT -4)

Session 1. 1:30 – 3:00 pm

Session 1
“A Life Imprinted:
From Life to Words to Print”

Presider. * Beppy Landrum Owen (Council Member, Grolier Club; Trustee, Rare Book School; Graduate Student, Master of Liberal Studies Program, Rollins College)

Speaker

* Eve Kahn (Independent Scholar)

“A Life in Print:
Zoe Anderson Norris (1860-1914) and Her Millions of Autobiographical Words”

Note: Eve’s new book: Queen of Bohemia Predicts her Own Death: Gilded Age Journalist Zoe Anderson Norris (Fordham University Press, 2025)

Break. 3:00–3:30 pm

Session 2. 3:30 – 5:00 pm

Session 2
“Now You See It, Now You Don’t:
Forgeries at Work and Play”

Presider. * Beppy Landrum Owen

Speakers

Tara Peterson (Medieval Studies, University of York)

““The Spanish Forger: 19th-Century Medievalism and the Value of Forgery”

* Reid Byers (President of the Baxter Society and Author of:
The Private Library: The history of the Architecture and Furnishing of the Domestic Book Room;
and Imaginary Books: Lost, Unfinished, and Fictive Works Found Only in Other Books)

““Collecting the Imaginary and The Fortsas Affair”

*****************

Day 2. Saturday 18 October at 9:00 am – 5:00 pm EDT (GMT -4)

Session 3. 9:00–10:30 am

Session 3
“Reading the Pages:
Witnesses Examined”

Presider. * N. Kıvılcım Yavuz (University of Leeds)

Speakers

Janie Wright (University of Leeds)
“A Textual Examination of Leeds, Leeds University Library, Ripon Cathedral Library MS 5:
Petrus Riga’s Aurora”

Mildred Budny
“Biblioclasts as ‘Editors’ and Re-Creators of Books:
A Scholar’s View of Otto F. Ege’s Oeuvre, Repurposing Specimens from Manuscripts and Printed Books”

Break. 10:30–11:00 am

Session 4. 11:00 am – 12:30 pm

Session 4
“(Re)Writing the Classics:
William Henry Ireland AKA Shakespeare”

Presider. * David Porreca (Department of Classics, University of Waterloo)

Speaker

Jack Lynch (Department of English, Rutgers University)

“The Shakespeare Phantom:
William Henry Ireland and Manuscript Evidence”

Lunch Break. 12:30–1:30 pm

Session 5. 1:30 – 3:00 pm

Session 5
“Books and Their Agents/Agencies”
A Roundtable Discussion

Presider. * Justin Hastings (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Panelists (Alphabetical Order)
* Mildred Budny
* Beppy Landrum Owen
* David Porreca
* N. Kıvılcım Yavuz
And Others . . .

Break. 3:00–3:30 pm

Session 6. 3:30 – 5:00 pm

Session 6
“Fashioning or Re-Fashioning Plates
and Scrap-Booking Stories”

Presider. * Jennifer Larson (Kent State University)

Speakers

Meghan Constantinou (Simmons University)

“Phoebe A. D. Boyle (1831-1923):
Work in Progress on a Forgotten Bibliophile”

* Beppy Landrum Owen

“More Tales from the Making of Andreas Vesalius’s Icones anatomicae:
A Progress Report for an Exhibition”

Irene Malfatto (Bruce McKittrick Rare Books, Philadelphia)

“Creating and Re-Creating Natural History in Early-Modern Europe:
The ‘Aldrovandi Scrapbook’ “

*****************

Day 3. Sunday 19 October at 10:30 am – 12:00 pm EDT (GMT -4)

Session 7. 10:30 am – 12:00 pm

Session 7
“Manuscript Remnants
Reused, Recovered, Collected, Reconsidered:
Agents and Agencies
in the History of Transmission”

Presider. * Hannah Goeselt (Massachusetts Historical Society Library)

Speakers

* David W. Sorenson (Allen G. Berman, Numismatist)

“Cahiers des Manuscrits Perdus:
From Codices to Covers via the French Revolution”

* Mildred Budny

And Others

Closing Remarks:

“Rounding out the Series of 2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia,
with a Preview of the 2025 RGME Colloquium on ‘Fragments’ ”

*************

Registration

2025 RGME Autumn Symposium Registration

For information and updates see the Symposium HomePage

2025 RGME Autumn Symposium on Readers, Fakers, and Re-Creators of Books

Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 947, ‘verso’. Images via https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:6517512$1i.

*************

Tags: 2025 Autumn Symposium, 2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia, Aldrovandi Scrapbook, Forgery, Fortsas Hoax, Icones Anatomicae of Vesalius, Manuscript studies, Petrus Riga, Phoebe A. D. Boyle, William Henry Ireland, William Shakespeare, Zoe Norris Anderson
No Comments »

Workshop 8: A Hybrid Book where Medieval Music Meets Early-Modern Herbal

October 11, 2025 in Announcements, Early-Printed Books, Event Registration, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Workshops, Workshops on "The Evidence of Manuscripts"

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

Workshop 8
“Face the Music, or,
Where Manuscript Meets Print
in a Hybrid Book:

An Early-Modern German Astrological Herbal
with a Reused Binding Fragment
from a Medieval Musical Manuscript”

Sunday 26 October 2025
Online by Zoom

[Posted on 15 September 2025, with updates)

Our series of Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts, Etc.” continues with an exploration of a hybrid book for Workshop 8.

The Hybrid Book

This workshop will examine a puzzling vellum fragment (or is it a set of patchwork fragments?) in a private collection. The fragment(s) come(s) from a single musical manuscript in Latin on vellum laid out in double columns with text and notation on 4-line staves. The reused medieval material forms the outer covering of a 17th-century printed book in German on laid paper.

Private Collection, Front Cover with Reused Medieval Musical Fragment on Vellum. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

The Musical Fragment and its ‘Find-Place’

For the musical fragment, we will work to decipher the visible parts of the text and music, identify the readings/lections and chants, and, if possible (given the fragmentary nature), determine the probable genre of original manuscript, such as lectionary, breviary, antiphonary, or missal. Perhaps, over time, we might find other survivors from the same despoiled medieval manuscript.

Narrowing down its possible origin—or location in the early 17th century or later when it came to be reused as a binding cover–might aid the quest to determine the circumstances of its reuse and whence other parts of it might have been disseminated, whether as reused binding materials or otherwise.

For the workshop, we will examine the features of the printed book. It includes multiple woodcut illustrations and occasional marginalia in forms of annotations demonstrating attention of several kinds to the contents of the herbal.

What brought this medieval musical fragment and early modern printed book together? Even if we might never know all the answers, won’t it be fun to question how and why? There is a story here.

We love the puzzles, and give thanks to the collector for lending the book to the RGME for study and teaching and for sharing it with our audience in this workshop and beyond.

Information

People who be participating at the workshop to offer observations, reflections, and suggestions about the composite volume include (in alphabetical order):

Phillip Bernhardt–House

Mildred Budny

Natalia Fay

Leslie French (represented by a report on the musical manuscript fragment)

Beppy Landrum Owen

David Porreca

David W. Sorenson (with some specimens of herbals mentioning astrological influences)

And others.

At our 2024 Spring Symposium at Vassar College, Natalia delightfully described her work for her exhibition on herbals then on display in the Art Library. She shares the poster and brochure for the exhibition with us, as she returns to our events in this workshop to report on her continuing interests in plants, books, manuscripts, and their transmission.

The Manuscript Fragments

The visible portions of the manuscript appear, with only one side facing and the other side hidden, on the outer sides of the front and back covers, spine, and fore-edges of the binding.

Their text and music on four-line staves stand upright on the volume. Written in Gothic script, the parallel lines of music and text have some elements in red and blue pigments. There are ten lines on the front cover and on the spine, but the back cover has an additional line of music at the bottom, amounting to 10 1/2 lines on this portion. Each portion of the fragment shows a single column, or part of one. At the right on the back cover, the right-hand side of the fragment extends beyond the column with an expanse of outer margin from its original extent.

Sections open with 2-line initials which span the full height of the paired lines of music-and-text, for which the staves separate their horizontal course. One initial comprises a blue capital I (front cover, line 7). Three band-like initials comprise decorative forms in black ink with a vertical twist at the left-hand side; red pigment fills the centers of their twists (front cover, lines 2 and 6; back cover, line 2).

1. Front Cover

Private Collection, Front Cover with Reused Medieval Musical Fragment on Vellum. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

2. Back Cover

Private Collection. Musical Manuscript Fragment, Back Cover with ruler.

Spine

Private Collection. Hybrid book with Musical Manuscript Fragment, Spine View.

The Printed Book

The printed text comprises the German Kreutterbuch (“Book of Herbs”), an astrological herbal, by Bartholomaeus Carrichter (1510–1574), in an early edition printed in Strasbourg in Alsace in 1606. The author, who wrote under the pseudonym of Philomusus Anonymus, was physician to Ferdinand I (1503–1564), Holy Roman Emperor from 1556, and his son Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor from 1564 to 1576. The first edition of his Kreutterbuch was printed in Strasbourg in 1517 by Chistian Muller. For later editions, the physician, poet, and alchemist Michael Toxites (1515–1581), whose birth-name was Johann Michael Schütz, added some material to Carrichter’s work and edited it.

One of various versions of the illustrated genre by different authors (see, for example the Kreutterbuch desz Hocgelehrten und Weitberuhmten Herrn D. Petri Andreae Matthioli . . . ), this book combines information about plants, use, and lore with astrological considerations.

Title Page

A catalogue description of the volume characteristically derives from information on the title page:

Philomusus Anonymous [Bartholomaeus Carrichter (1510–1574)], Horn des Heyls menschlicher Blödigkeit, oder Kreütterbuch, darinn die Kreütter des Teutschenlands auss dem Liecht der Natur nach rechter Art der himmelischen Einfliessungen beschriben / durch Philomusum Anonymum [Bartholomäus Carrichter], with a foreword by Michael Toxites, born Johann Michael Schütz (1514–1581), (Strassbourg: Anton Bertram, DCVI/1606).

An inscription in light black ink at the foot of the title page gives the initials “G. S.” Perhaps they refer to an owner.

Private Collection, Kreutterbuch, title page. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

For the first edition of 1576, printed in Straßburg, see an online digital facsimile of a copy in Augsburg, Staats- und Stadtbibliothek. For an edition of 1619 also printed by A. Bertram, see the copy in the Wellcome Collection.

Like the 1619 edition, this folio volume has 10 unnumbered pages, 180 numbered pages, and 5 unnumbered leaves, with a woodcut title page and outline illustrations. Interspersed within the columns of text, the book has 58 outline illustrations depicting the herbs which it describes. For example, borage (Borago officinalis) or starflower:

Private Collection, Carrichter’s Kreutterbuch (Strasbourg, 1604). Borage. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Up close:

Private Collection, Carrichter’s Kreutterbuch (Strasbourg, 1604). Borage. Photography by Mildred Budny.

For comparison: Borage ‘In The Wild’

Borago officinalis. Photograph by By Christian Orlandi (12 April 2025) – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0. Image via Wikimedia Commons via https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Borago_officinalis_(2025).jpg.

Some marginal annotations in brown ink amplify or comment upon passages.

Private Collection, Carrichter’s Kreutterbuch (Strasbourg, 1604). Textual opening with marginal Annotations. Photography by Mildred Budny.

*****

Registration for the Workshop

We invite you to join the quest.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/workshop-8-a-hybrid-book-with-astrological-herbal-and-medieval-missal-tickets-1340074201009

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

Leave your comments or questions below
Contact Us

Visit our Social Media:

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.

*************

Tags: astrological herbals, Bartholomaeus Carrichter, Early modern printing, history of herbals, history of printing, Kreutterbuch, manuscript fragments, Manuscript Fragments Reused in Bindings, Manuscript studies, medieval musical manuscripts, Michael Toxites
No Comments »

Archives

Featured Posts

More Leaves in the Book of Numbers from the Chudleigh Bible

in the Collection of Richard Weber

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

Before

The Two Leaves [Folios 38 and 43]

More Is More

Name by Association

The Numbers Game: Numbers of Leaves; Numbered Leaves, and the Book of Numbers

I. Two Leaves from the Book of Numbers

II. Four More Leaves from the Book of Numbers in the Collection of Richard Weber

Folios 39–42

1. Folio 39

Recto

Verso

Detail

2. Folio 40

Recto

Verso

3. Folio 41

Recto

Verso

4. Folio 42

Recto

Verso

Traces of Stitching, Ruling, Pricking, and other Processes of Production and Use

The Outer Limits

Opening of Quire (Leaf ‘1’): Folio 38

Text (recto and verso)

Recto

Verso

End of Quire (Leaf ‘6’): Folio 43

Text (recto and verso)

Recto

Verso

III. A (Disconnected) Quire as Witness

IV. The Book

IV.1. A Single Volume

IV.2. Individual Leaves or Groups of Leaves

IV.3. Some Specimens

Questions? Suggestions?

Report

2026 RGME Colloquium at The Grolier Club

“Transformations and Renewals” Examining and Celebrating Treasures of the Grolier Club Library

Wednesday 11 February 2026 Hybrid, in Two Events: Workshop + Roundtable

The Nature of the Event

Speakers and/or Panelists

Presider/Moderator for Roundtable

Book-Signings at Roundtable for Grolier Authors’ Publications

I. The “Transformations and Renewals” Roundtable in the Grolier Club Exhibition Hall (Hybrid, Live-Streamed) 6:00 to 7:30 pm EST (GMT-4)

Overview

The Panelists prepare

The RGME Executive Director introduces the Panel

The Roundtable Presider introduces the Panelists

II. The “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop in the Grolier Club Council Room (Hybrid, Zoom Meeting) 2:30 to 4:30 pm EST (GMT-4)

Overview

Setting the stage

Preparing the Projection

Describing the genre, challenges, and accomplishments of BlockBooks

The Table Laid for Display of Original Materials

Checking details

Closer Looks

The Long View as the Table is Set

Comparing Notes

Hybrid Access

Background and Foreground: An Approach with Grounding

Event Publications

Program

Posters

Colloquium Booklet

Recording of the Roundtable

Questions? Suggestions?

Join Us!

Learn about the RGME, its mission, and its activities

Register for our Events

Visit our Social Media

Join the Friends of the RGME

Register for our Events

Donations and Contributions

More Leaves
in the Book of Numbers
from the Chudleigh Bible

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

The Numbers Game:
Numbers of Leaves; Numbered Leaves,
and the Book of Numbers

II. Four More Leaves from the Book of Numbers
in the Collection of Richard Weber

Traces of Stitching, Ruling, Pricking,
and other Processes of Production and Use

2026 RGME Colloquium
at The Grolier Club

“Transformations and Renewals”
Examining and Celebrating
Treasures of the Grolier Club Library

Wednesday 11 February 2026
Hybrid, in Two Events:
Workshop
+
Roundtable

I. The “Transformations and Renewals” Roundtable
in the Grolier Club Exhibition Hall
(Hybrid, Live-Streamed)
6:00 to 7:30 pm EST (GMT-4)

II. The “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop
in the Grolier Club Council Room
(Hybrid, Zoom Meeting)
2:30 to 4:30 pm EST (GMT-4)

Background and Foreground:
An Approach with Grounding

The Weber Leaf
from
Otto Ege MS 61

Small-Format Latin Vulgate Bible
Laid out in 2 columns of 32 lines
in Gothic Bookhand
with embellishments in red, blue, and purple pigments

Formerly part of Otto Ege Manuscript 61 (Gwara, Handlist 61)
Southern France, circa 1325

Mark 5:42 ([illi mandu-/]care) –
6:1 (Et egressus . . . ) – 6:38 (Quot panes ha[/-betis ite])

“Announcing the Launch
of RGME Bembino WP:

A High-Quality Font
for Word-Processing”

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

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

2026 RGME Colloquium
at The Grolier Club

“Transformations and Renewals”
Examining and Celebrating
Treasures of the Grolier Club Library

Wednesday 11 February 2026 (Hybrid, in Two Events)
Workshop + Roundtable

I. Hybrid Roundtable in the Grolier Club Exhibition Hall
6:00 to 7:30 pm EST (GMT-4)

Registration for the Roundtable
Virtual or In-Person Attendance

II. Hybrid “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop upstairs
preceding the Roundtable
2:30 to 4:30 pm EST (GMT-4)
with Break at 3:15–3:30 pm

Registration for the “Show-Off-and-Tell” Workshop
Virtual or In-Person Attendance

2025 RGME Autumn Colloquium
of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

“Break-Up Books and Make-Up Books:
Encountering and Reconstructing
the Legacy of Otto F. Ege
and Other Biblioclasts”

Friday – Sunday, 21-23 November 2025
In Person, Hybrid, or Online by Zoom

2025 Autumn Symposium
of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

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

Part 2 of 2 in the
2025 Spring and Autumn Symposia

Friday – Sunday, 17-19 October 2025
Online by Zoom