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    • News & Views
    • Reviews
    • Highlights
  • Blogs
    • Manuscript Studies
      • Manuscript Studies: Contents List
    • International Congress on Medieval Studies
      • Abstracts of Congress Papers
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Author
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  • About
    • Mission
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      • Mildred Budny — Her Page
      • Adelaide Bennett Hagens
    • Activities
      • Events
      • Congress Activities
        • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
          • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
        • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
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      • Genealogies & Archives
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    • RGME Privacy Policy Statement
  • Bembino
    • Multi-Lingual Bembino
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    • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
    • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • Abstracts of Congress Papers
      • Abstracts Listed by Author
      • Abstracts Listed by Year
    • Kalamazoo Archive
    • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
      • Abstracts of Papers for the M-MLA Convention
  • Events
    • The Research Group Speaks: The Series
    • Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia (1989–)
      • Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Program: The Roads Taken
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
    • Abstracts of Papers for Events
      • Abstracts of Papers for Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Abstracts of Papers for Symposia, Workshops & Colloquia
    • Receptions & Parties
    • Business Meetings
    • Photographic Exhibitions & Master Classes
    • Events Archive
  • ShelfLife
    • Journal Description
    • ShelfMarks: The RGME-Newsletter
    • Publications
      • “Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge” (1997)
        • Mildred Budny, ‘Catalogue’
        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
      • The Illustrated Handlist
      • Semi-Official Counterfeiting in France 1380-1422
      • No Snap Decisions: Challenges of Manuscript Photography
    • History and Design of Our Website
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    • Galleries: Contents List
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      • New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian
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    • Orders
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Episode 13: Bridget Whearty on “Digital Codicology”
Berlin, Gemäldegalerie. Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/1498 - 1543), oil on oak wood. Portrait of the merchant George Gisze, 1532. Image via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
2024 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Call for Papers
“Bridges” for our 2024 Anniversary Year, with a Call for Papers for the 2024 IMC at Leeds
2024 International Medieval Congress at Leeds: Call for Papers
Martin, Slovakia, Slovak National Library, Fragment of the Picatrix, circa 1400 CE. Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Episode 12: Vajra Regan on Engraved Magic and Astrological Images
Rhythmomachy Simulation (Player 1's turn). Image © 2023 Michael A. Conrad.
Episode 11: Michael Allman Conrad on “Gamified Numbers”
Façade of the Celsus library, in Ephesus, near Selçuk, west Turkey. Photograph (1910): Benh LIEU SONG, via Creative Commons.
2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program
Photograph of the stems and white blooms of Snowdrops emerging from a patch of bare ground in the sunlight. Photograph Ⓒ Mildred Budny.
2023 Spring Symposium: “From the Ground Up”
2023 Pre-Symposium on “Intrepid Borders” before the Spring Symposium
Barbara Heritage on Charlotte Brontë’s Fair Copy of “Shirley”
ShelfMarks Issue 2 (Volume 2, Number 1 for Winter 2022–2023)
Two Pages from a Roman Breviary in Gothic Script
Donncha MacGabhann at work on his close study of letter forms in the Book of Kells. Photograph via his publisher, Sidestone Press (Leiden 2022)
Donncha MacGabhann on the Making of “The Book of Kells”
2022 Autumn Symposium Program Booklet
The Weber Leaf from “The Warburg Missal” (Otto Ege Manuscript 22)
Folio 4 with Latin Blessings for Holy Water and an Exorcism for Salt
Portfolio 93 of Ege’s “Famous Books in Eight Centuries” in the Collection of Richard Weber
Two Ege Leaves and Two Ege Labels in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez

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Episode 14: “Translating the Latin Hermetica by Committee”

September 19, 2023 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

The Research Group Speaks
Episode 14
Sunday 19 November 2023 online
1:00–2:30 pm EDT (GMT-5) by Zoom

“Translation by Committee:
The Latin Hermetica“

David Porreca, Dan Attrell, and Brett Bartlett

[Posted on 18 September 2023, with updates]

We invite you to attend Episode 14 in our series.

The Series:

  • The Research Group Speaks

The Eventbrite Portal for this Series:

  • The Research Group Speaks

Meet the Committee

This time, a team of scholars — including two of our RGME Associates — will speak about their current project of translating a complex occult text from Latin to English.

They are:  The Teacher, his Former Student, and his Student.

  • David Porreca
  • Dan Attrell (see also Congratulations and Podcasts with Dan Attrell)
  • Brett Bartlett (see also Brett Bartlett)

Over the years, David Porreca has organized or co-organized Sessions for the RGME and our frequent co-sponsor, the Societas Magica, at the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies. He has presented Papers for them or other Sessions which we have sponsored or co-sponsored.  He has contributed regularly to our online Symposia and Episodes of “The Research Group Speaks”.  A good number of his students and former students have contributed, and continue to contribute, to RGME activities, including our events and work behind the scenes enabling them.

Poster for "Visualizing Learned & Popular Magic" Congress Session (May 2014)Some of his contributions:

  • Porreca (2023 Congress)
  • Porreca (2022 Congress)
  • Porreca (2021 Congress)
  • Porreca (2020 Congress)
  • Porreca (2018 Congress)
  • 2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
  • 2022 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
    (Etc.)

David serves on the RGME Editorial Committee, where his experienced advice about texts and handling them effectively for publication comes in handy.

Dan Attrell also has presented reports on his work for the RGME.

  • Attrell (2018 Congress)

Brett Bartlett, when we first met years ago in Kitchener, Ontario, demonstrated quick and erudite acumen when, almost at once, he pointed out a small mistake in the Old English portion of our then-new publication of Multi-Lingual Bembino; it was swiftly corrected in a next issue, which we, as the publisher, could make very soon.

In this context, we will be able to see that, when it comes to the demands of (and for) the translations, “Not Two but Three [Talking] Heads are Better Than One”.

Martin, Slovakia, Slovak National Library, Fragment of the Picatrix, circa 1400 CE. Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Martin, Slovakia, Slovak National Library, Fragment of the Picatrix, circa 1400 CE. Image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

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Tags: History of Magic, History of Translation, Latin Hermetica, Manuscript studies, Marsilio Ficino, Textual Studies, The Research Group Speaks
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Episode 13: Bridget Whearty on “Digital Codicology”

September 4, 2023 in Interviews, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Episodes for The Research Group Speaks, Research Group Speaks (The Series), Uncategorized

The Research Group Speaks
Episode 13

Decretum Gratiani plus sleeved Manicule, via gallica.bnf.fr from Bibliothèque municipale de Rouen. Ancien fonds, Ms E 1a, folio 195v.

Saturday 21 September 2023 online
12:00–1:30 pm EDT (GMT-4) by Zoom

“Making Digital Codicology:
Research and Writing in Community”

Bridget Whearty

[Posted on 4 September 2023, with updates]

We invite you to attend Episode 13 in our series.

  • The Research Group Speaks

The Eventbrite Portal for this Series:

  • The Research Group Speaks

To register for This Episode:

  • Episode 13. Bridget Whearty

Bridget Whearty: Faculty Profile via https://www.binghamton.edu/english/faculty/profile.html?id=bwhearty.

Episode 13 showcases the work of Bridget Whearty, Associate Professor of English, General Literature and Rhetoric at Binghamton University, State University of New York (see her Curriculum Vitae).  She will speak informally about her work and research interests, focusing upon her recent book on Digital Codicology: Medieval Books and Modern Labor (Stanford University Press, 2022).  About the work, see, for example, her observations for the Coding Codices Podcast.

We learned about her work toward the book in an earlier stage, well before it appeared in print, in 2018, when we met as audience members at the 11th Annual Symposium of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies. It was inspiring to hear her then, and to have the opportunity to meet and talk more — as it happened, walking to the conference and in the parking lot as we were both preparing to leave. I found this meeting wonderfully memorable. Our subjects of discussion then included not only books, but also cats and cooking.

Fast forward.  As the RGME began its series of online Episodes in 2021, and their momentum came into place across the series, which now reaches Number 13, the suggestion that we invite Bridget came naturally.  Responding to the suggestion, I made the invitation, Bridget generously responded, we explored what she might like to focus on — and so, now, we welcome her gladly to our series.

We look forward to hearing more about Bridget’s quest, along with its challenges, discoveries, and recognition of the people behind the books in whichever ways they become known to us — by presenting themselves, in one and/or other ways, materially or by representatives, including digitally.

Come to think of it, that meeting of the people in (or of) the books is what we try to do with medieval and other books, only without being able to meet them in person . . .

Now is our chance with Bridget, and, through her, others who work behind the scenes in the study and presentation of books for our inspection, study, instruction, reflection, and questions.

You can register for this event by our RGME Eventbrite Collection. To register for Bridget’s Episode 13, visit this portal.  Information below.

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Tags: Anonymous Hands, Anonymous Labor, Bibliothèque nationale de France MS 12476, Digital Codicology, Digital Codicology The Book, digitization of manuscripts, Digitizers' Hands, Henry Noel Humphreys' Specimens of Illuminated Manuscripts, Johanna Green, Le Champion des Dames, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Research and Community, Stanford University Libraries MSS Codex MO379CB, The Research Group Speaks
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Episode 12: Vajra Regan on Engraved Magic and Astrological Images

May 30, 2023 in Manuscript Studies, Research Group Speaks (The Series), Uncategorized

The Research Group Speaks
Episode 12
Saturday 12 August 2023 online
1:00–2:30 pm EST (GMT-5) by Zoom

“The Sources of the Engraved Magic and Astrological Images
in the Book of Sigils (Liber Sigillorum)
and the Ghāyat al-Hakīm (The Goal of the Wise)”

Vajra Regan

[Posted on 30 May 2023, with updates]

We invite you to attend Episode 12 in our series.

  • The Research Group Speaks

Our Associate, Vajra Regan will speak about the subject of his new joint publication, which has now appeared in early August 2023, a few days before our event.  Vajra’s presentation about this project and the process towards its publication explores explore the subject of visual imagery for astrological magic as transmitted across time, languages, and cultural settings.

Over the years, Vajra has presented papers and organized Sessions for the RGME and our co-sponsor, the Societas Magica, since 2019.

  • Regan (2019 Congress)
  • Regan (2020 Congress)
  • 2022 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program

These activities allow us to continue to learn about Vajra’s research as it continues to expand, to deepen, and to unfold.  We are glad for his offer to talk with us for the Episode.

Vajra’s Plan for the Episode, in his Own Words

The Title

“The Sources of the Engraved Magic and Astrological Images
in the Book of Sigils (Liber Sigillorum)
and the Ghāyat al-Hakīm (The Goal of the Wise)”

The Abstract

The twelfth century saw the translation into Latin of a group of Arabic texts on astrological image magic with titles such as The Book of Planets (Liber Planetarum), The Stations of the Cult of Venus (De stationibus ad cultum Veneris), and The Book of Venus (Liber Veneris). These texts, usually attributed to Hermes or one of his retinue, provided detailed instructions relating to the liturgy of the planets and the fabrication of engraved astrological images or talismans. Unfortunately, in the following centuries, they were systematically suppressed to such an extent that today many survive in only one or two late manuscripts.

Although long recognized as important to the history of learned magic in the West, these texts have so far received little scholarly attention.  Consequently, the precise nature and extent of their influence have remained largely a matter of conjecture.

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Tags: Alfonso X, Astrological Images, Engraved Magic, Firenze Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale II.III.214, Ghāyat al-Hakīm, History of Magic, Jupiter Enthroned, Lapidaries, Liber Planetarum, Liber Sigillorum, Picatrix, The Research Group Speaks
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Episode 11: Michael Allman Conrad on “Gamified Numbers”

May 26, 2023 in Manuscript Studies, Research Group Speaks (The Series), Uncategorized

The Research Group Speaks
Episode 11
Saturday 8 July 2023 online
12:00–1:30 pm EDT (GMT-4) by Zoom

“Gamified Numbers and Digitalized Castles:

Digital Reconstructions of Medieval Board Games
and Other Forms of Data Visualization
as Methods in the Humanities
“

Michael Allman Conrad

[Posted on 5 June 2023, with updates]

For Episode 11 in the online series of The Research Group Speaks, our Associate Michael Allman Conrad will talk about his ongoing work on games, board games, and interrelations between gameplay and numbers.

Left: Rhythmomachy Simulation (Player 1's turn). Image © 2023 Michael A. Conrad. Right: Bibliothèque interuniversitaire, Section Médecine, Montpellier, H 366, f. 13v, with rhythmomachy pyramids at the top flanking a lion's mask. Image via Creative Commons, via https://portail.biblissima.fr/fr/ark:/43093/mdata268b7df0d12be6fa155f802fd66b4123b9ddd65a.Left: Rhythmomachy Simulation (Player 1's turn). Image © 2023 Michael A. Conrad. Right: Bibliothèque interuniversitaire, Section Médecine, Montpellier, H 366, f. 13v, with rhythmomachy pyramids at the top flanking a lion's mask. Image via Creative Commons, via https://portail.biblissima.fr/fr/ark:/43093/mdata268b7df0d12be6fa155f802fd66b4123b9ddd65a.

Left: Rhythmomachy Simulation (Player 1’s turn). Image © 2023 Michael A. Conrad.
Right: Bibliothèque interuniversitaire, Section Médecine, Montpellier, H 366, f. 13v, with rhythmomachy pyramids at the top flanking a lion’s mask. Image via Creative Commons.

Recently, Michael spoke about some aspects of this work for a Session co-sponsored by the Societas Magica and the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence at the 2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies in May.  See the Program for our activities there (2023 Congress Program) and the illustrated Abstract for Michael’s paper.

In our co-sponsored Session on “Teaching Astrology and Other Liberal Arts”, Michael’s topic was “Gamified Numbers:  Board Games as Educational Instruments for Teaching Astrology and Other Quadrivial Arts”.  In the short time-span permitted by a full Session with four individual presentations, he briefly examined the game of rhythmomachy (rhitmomachia or “Battle of Numbers”), an early mathematical board game, and described his project of studying and preparing a computer simulation for its play.

Now we have the opportunity to hear Michael describe this complicated game, its origins, and its intricate relationship with knowledge of Boethian theories on the mathematical arts. That is, its structure is grounded in the understanding of those arts expounded by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (circa 480 – 524 CE) in his influential manual De Institutione arithmetica Libri duo, based upon his loose translation of the treatise on the subject composed in Greek by the Neopythagorean philosopher Nicomachus of Gerasa (circa 60 – circa 120 CE).

More than that, Michael’s explorations of the game and its underlying theories build a bridge to a more general debate on the use of digital methods in the humanities, which he is also exploring in different ongoing data projects of his, some of which he is also going to introduce briefly in the course of his paper. The discussion will start with reflections on his experiences with using these methods, their requirements, benefits, and downsides.

Please register to attend this online event (see below).

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Tags: Alfonso X of Castile, Anicius Manilius Severinus Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae, De institutione arithmetica, Gameplay, History of Board Games, Mathematical Games, Nichomachus of Gerasa, Rhythmomachy, Ritmomachia, Scholasticism, The Research Group Speaks
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2023 Spring Symposium: “From the Ground Up”

January 12, 2023 in Conference, Conference Announcement, Manuscript Studies, RGME Symposia

Photograph of the stems and white blooms of Snowdrops emerging from a patch of bare ground in the sunlight. Photograph Ⓒ Mildred Budny.

“From the Ground Up”. Photograph Ⓒ Mildred Budny.

2023 Spring Symposium
“From the Ground Up”

Part 1 of 2 in the
2023 Spring and Autumn Symposia
on “Materials & Access”

[Posted on 12 January 2023, with updates]

With its chosen Theme of “Materials & Access” for the Year 2023, the Research Group prepares a pair of Symposia, continuing its expanded pattern of paired day-long virtual Spring and Autumn Symposia launched in 2022.   Until then, RGME Symposia had occurred on occasion at one per year, sometimes annually and sometimes at intervals.  Whereas previously they occurred in person, at various centers (like the 2020 Spring Symposium, which had to be cancelled on account of lockdown for Covid), the Symposia in 2022 and 2023 take place online by Zoom.

This year, the Spring and Autumn Symposia will take place by Zoom on:

  • Saturday, 25 March 2023
  • Saturday 21 October 2023 (“The Sweetest Day” 2023)

And There’s More

In a further expansion, the 2023 Spring Symposium will be preceded by a half-day Pre-Symposium which presents a series of Lightning Talks.  They will emerge from the Call for Proposals, issued on 10 January 2023, with a deadline of 12 February 2023.

  • 2023 Pre-Symposium Call for Papers: “Intrepid Borders” Lightning Talks.

Following that deadline, the Program of Talks for the Pre-Symposium has been selected and is now announced.

  • 2023 ‘Pre-Symposium’ on “Intrepid Borders”

The New Ensemble:  Pre-Symposium and Symposium

This year, with the Theme of “Materials and Access”, we not only prepare a pair of Symposia, but also extend the Spring Symposium with an accompanying ‘Pre-Symposium’ of Lightning Talks on the afternoon before. Selected through a Call for Proposals, these Talks explore the challenges of “Intrepid Borders: Marginalia in Medieval and Early Modern Books”. The plan for such sessions, their subject, the Call for Proposals, and the selected Program for the Lightning Talks are due to the initiative, enthusiasm, and organizational expertise of Jessica L. Savage and her co-organizers Katharine C. Chandler and Jenifer Larson. The fresh combination of exploratory Lightning Talks on Friday and the invited Symposium Presentations on Saturday opens our Symposia more widely.

The extended Symposium presents new and cumulative work, with reports of discoveries, work-in-progress, and collaborative projects. Some build upon work presented for the Symposia in 2022 (2022 Spring Symposium on “Structures of Knowledge” and 2022 Autumn Symposium on “Supports for Knowledge”).

We consider evidence from the medieval to modern periods and across a wide geographical, historical, and cultural range, both Western (Europe and North America) and non-Western (Ethiopia, Yemen, and Western India). From multiple centers, the Symposium plus Pre-Symposium gathers specialists, teachers, students, collectors, and others engaged or interested in activities relating to manuscripts, printed books, other media, and mixtures of them.

Program Booklet

To accompany the event and celebrate its contributors, we publish a combined Pre-Symposium/Symposium Program Booklet, with Abstracts of Presentations and companion Images.  See below for information how to receive a copy in print or by download on this site.

*****

2023 half-day Pre-Symposium and full-day Symposium (online)

I.   “Pre-Symposium of Lightning Talks” on Friday afternoon 24 March 2023

“Intrepid Borders:
Marginalia in Medieval Manuscripts and Early Modern Books”

A Virtual Lightning Talks / Half-Day Symposium
of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Co-Organized by Katharine C. Chandler, Jennifer Larson, and Jessica L. Savage

2023 RGME ‘Pre-Symposium’ on “Intrepid Borders”

Registration for this event is required, and can be made through its portal:

  • https://www.eventbrite.com/e/intrepid-borders-pre-symposium-for-2023-spring-symposium-tickets-512253994487

Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS. W.148, folio 33v, bottom. Image via Creative Commons.

II.   Symposium on Saturday 25 March 2023

“From the Ground Up”

Following the models of the 2022 Spring and Autumn Symposia, the 2023 Spring and Autumn Symposia will showcase some of our ongoing series of subjects, as well as introduce new ones.  We explore challenges and opportunities for approaching and accessing materials of many kinds in the history, production, transmission, study, and display of manuscripts and books, across time and place.

Registration for this event can be made through its portal:

  • 2023 RGME Spring Symposium “From the Ground Up”

Speakers, Respondents, Presiders, and Moderators (in alphabetical order):

  • Linde M. Brocato, Mildred Budny, Katharine C. Chandler, Hannah Goeselt, Justin Hastings, Zoey Kambour, Atria A. Larson, Jennifer Larson, Ann Pascoe-van Zyl, Ronald Patkus, Jaclyn Reed, David W. Sorenson, and others.

Occasion:

This Symposium occurs on 25 March, a day for, among other celebrations, the liturgical Feast of the Annunciation.  (See below.)  This manuscript image represents the decisive event with a rich interior, landscape exterior and inhabited foliage in the margins, and bookish features such as a speech scroll and an opened book on a table at the back.

Within a foliate border, the verse of Psalm 50:17 (Domine labia mea aperies et os meum annuntiatbit laudem tuam) fits between a framed image of the Annunciation above, with an opened book on a lectern and and inscribed unrolled scroll. The foliate border includes an ‘inhabited’ scrolling stem at the right, with angels, humans, and birds; and a garden scene below, where human couples play musical instruments and backgammon.

Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS M.269, folio 16r. Book of Hours, France, circa 1460. Image courtesy The Walters Art Museum by CC0 License via https://www.thedigitalwalters.org/Data/WaltersManuscripts/html/W269/.

Program

Saturday 25 March 2023

9:30 am – 5:00 pm EDT (GMT-4) online by Zoom
with registration through Eventbrite
via 2023 RGME Spring Symposium “From the Ground Up”

Session 1.  “Laying the Groundwork”
9:30 – 11:00 am EDT (GMT -4)

Welcome and Introduction

Mildred Budny (Director, Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Opening Keynote Presentation

Linde M. Brocato (Cataloging & Metadata Librarian, University of Miami Libraries)
“Grounding the Work, Making the Book”

Presider:  Mildred Budny

Coffee Break
11:15 – 11:30 am EDT

Session 2.  “The Lay of the Land”
11:30 am – 1:00 pm EDT

Presider:  Jennifer Larson (Department of Classics, Kent State University)

Ann Pascoe-Van Zyl (School of English, Trinity College, Dublin)
“Landscape and the Mind in Exile: Four Old English Elegies”

Justin Hastings (The John Dickinson Writings Project, University of Delaware)
“The Horatian Ground of John Dickinson’s Farmer Persona”

Hannah Goeselt (Library and Information Science (MS): Cultural Heritage Informatics, Simmons University, Boston)
      and
Zoey Kambour (Post Graduate Fellow in European & American Art at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the    University of Oregon)
“Where Are We Now?  Informal Updates since Last Year’s RGME Symposia”

Lunch Break
1:00 – 1:45 pm EDT

Session 3.  “Materials & Margins”
1:45 – 3:15 pm EDT

Presider:  Jaclyn Reed (Department of English and Writing Studies, University of Western Ontario)

Atria A. Larson (Associate Professor of Medieval Christianity, Saint Louis University)
“Gallery of Glosses:
An NEH-Funded Digital Humanities Project that Cultivates Scholarly Attention to Manuscript Margins”

David W. Sorenson (Allen G. Berman, Professional Numismatist)
“Examples of Paleography and Paper in dated Jain Manuscripts of the 15th through 19th Centuries”

Private Collection, Jain manuscript on paper, dated Vikrama Samvat (VS) 1552 = AD 1496 by colophon.

Private Collection, Jain manuscript on paper, dated Vikrama Samvat (VS) 1552 = AD 1496 by colophon.

Tea Break
3:15 – 3:30 pm EDT

Session 4.  “The Living Library (Part III):
Manuscripts & Collections as Sources for Teaching & Research”
3:30 – 5:00 pm EDT

Presider:  Justin Hastings

Ronald Patkus (Head of Special Collections
          and Adjunct Associate Professor of History on the Frederick Weyerhaeuser Chair, Vassar College)
“Nicholas B. Scheetz’s Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at Vassar:
A Teaching Collection for a Teaching Collection”

Katharine C. Chandler (Special Collections and Serials Cataloger, University of Arkansas Libraries)
“Sister Manuscripts from the Carthusian Monastery of Chartreuse de Champmol”

Concluding Remarks:

Mildred Budny (Director, Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
“Material Grounds for  Teaching, Study, and Varieties of Access”

*****

In keeping with the 2023 Theme of “Materials & Access” and the focus of attention in the Spring Symposium “From the Ground Up”, we may celebrate the emergence of fresh shoots and blooms as Winter turns to Spring, and the earth revives its cycle of growth and renewal.

We note that the date selected for this Spring Symposium, 25 March, represents the celebration of, among other things, the Feast of the Annunciation in the Christian liturgical calendar and the occurrence of the spring (or vernal) equinox (see also March equinox.

Image of illumination of earth by the sun on the Spring or Autumn Equinox (Vernal and Autumnal)

Depiction of the llumination of Earth by the Sun on the Spring or Autumn Equinox (Vernal and Autumnal) Image by Przemyslaw “Blueshade” Idzkiewicz via cc-by-sa license.

This is the second time that a RGME Spring Symposium included the date of 25 March in its events stretching over more than one day.  See the 2012 Symposium on “Words and Deeds” Report, for our Symposium on 25–26 March 2016 at Princeton University.

We thank the contributors and advisers for help in organizing this event, as well as its new companion the Pre-Symposium.

  • 2023 RGME ‘Pre-Symposium’ on “Intrepid Borders”
  • 2023-spring-symposium-from-the-ground-up (You are Here)

*****

Registration

Registration for the Pre-Symposium and the Spring Symposium is required for each event.

Registration for these events can be made through their portals:

  • “Intrepid Borders” Pre-Symposium for 2023 Spring Symposium
  • 2023 RGME Spring Symposium “From the Ground Up”
Photograph of the stems and white blooms of Snowdrops emerging from a patch of bare ground in the sunlight. Photograph Ⓒ Mildred Budny.

The blooms of Snowdrops emerging “From the Ground Up”. Photograph Ⓒ Mildred Budny.

The Program Booklet

Printed copies of the 2023 Spring Symposium Program Booklet can be distributed on request to participants and others.  If you wish a printed copy, please contact please contact director@manuscriptevidence.org and provide your mailing address.

The digital version can be downloaded freely here.  We provide two formats, or ‘flavors’, of the digital Program Booklet, in consecutive pages and as a foldable booklet.  The choice depends upon your printing facilities and preferences.  Experience shows that the choice can be helpful.

  • Consecutive Pages (quarto size, or 8 1/2″ × 11″ sheets)
    consecutive pages
  • Foldable Booklet (11″ × 17″ sheets), to be folded in half, producing a nested group of bifolia
    foldable booklet

Please note that some images are included in the booklet through the License or Contract stipulating their reproduction for this publication alone.  We ask you to respect these conditions.

We thank the contributors, private collectors, and institutions for the images and the permission to reproduce them.  We wish also to extend thanks to these individuals, for their extra efforts in this quest:  Ágnes Kelecsényi and Judit Jabloknay of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; and Graham Fereday and Gary Stringer of the Digital Humanities – Library and Culture Services of the University of Exeter; Exeter Cathedral Library.

Thanks also are due to the authors, photographers, owners and providers of photographs, organizers, compilers, editors, copy-editors, images and permissions researcher, typesetter, layout designer, proof-readers, printer, web-editor, and others.

That most of these tasks required for producing and publishing the booklet are carried out — and to the level of proficiency manifested on the pages — by one or two volunteers is a tribute to the collegial collaboration and dedication of our nonprofit educational organization, which has no paid staff whatsoever, and which has a shoestring budget.  That budget is itself the product almost entirely of the generosity of volunteer donations, year by year.

These results can be accomplished mostly because of the pro-bono donations by so many contributors, who help to make the events possible, and for whom we give steady thanks.

*****

2023 RGME Events

Other Events are planned for the Year.  See

  • “The Research Group Speaks”: The Series
  • 2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program for Thursday 11 to Saturday 13 May 2023
  • 2023 Autumn Symposium “Between Earth and Sky”
    Registration here: 2023 Autumn Symposium Tickets for Saturday 21 October 2023 by Zoom
Philosophy personified as female figure, wearing headveil and mantle, holding at both sides a raised book and a foliate-topped scepter. Frontispiece figure for Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.

Trinity College, Cambridge, MS O.3.7, fol. 1r, top. Philosophy Personified, with book and scepter. Frontispiece figure for Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy. Image via CC 4.0 International License, via https://mss-cat.trin.cam.ac.uk/Manuscript/O.3.7. Image cropped here to detail (unchanged otherwise).

Suggestion Box

Please Contact Us or visit:

  • our FaceBook Page
  • our Twitter Feed (@rgme_mss)
  • our Blog on Manuscript Studies and its Contents List

Donations and contributions, in funds or in kind, are welcome and easy to give.  See Contributions and Donations.

We look forward to hearing from you.

*****

"Centered". Photograph Ⓒ 2014 Mildred Budny. Image of Dew at the center of Sedum.

“Centered”. Photograph Ⓒ 2014 Mildred Budny.

*****

Tags: Annunciation, Chartreuse de Champmol, Early Books, Glossing Glosses, History of Paper, Jain Manuscripts, John Dickinson, Manuscript Decoration, Manuscript Illustration, Manuscript studies, Manuscripts at Vassar College, Materials & Access, Nicholas B Sheetz Collection, Old English Elegies, Palaeography, RGME Symposia
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2023 Pre-Symposium Call for Papers: Intrepid Borders Lightning Talks

January 9, 2023 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, RGME Symposia

Call for Papers

Intrepid Borders:
Marginalia in Medieval and Early Modern Books

A Virtual Lightning Talks / Half-Day Symposium
of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Proposals due by Sunday, 12 February 2023

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence seeks proposals for lightning talks (between 15–18 minutes each) for a half-day virtual symposium to be held on the afternoon of Friday, 24 March 2023.

This exploratory event about book marginalia and borders (including drolleries, glosses, inscriptions, and annotations) will kick off the Research Group’s virtual Spring Symposium to be held the next day on Saturday, March 25th. As part of the RGME’s Theme for the Year 2023, “Materials & Access”, the pair of 2023 Spring and Autumn Symposia considers interlinked areas “From the Ground Up” (Spring) and “Between Earth and Sky” (Autumn).

The set of Sessions on “Intrepid Borders” for the afternoon Pre-Symposium leading to the Spring Symposium are co-organized by Katharine Chandler, Jennifer Larson, and Jessica L. Savage.

Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS. W.148, folio 33v. Detail: Bottom, with fighting creatures. Image via Creative Commons.

Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS. W.148, folio 33v. Detail: Bottom, with fighting creatures. Image via Creative Commons.

Vision for the Lightning Talks

The borders of books are usually narrow places where reader-viewers of manuscripts touched, turned, and lingered on pages. As a space to develop writing and decoration, marginalia, or “things in the margin,” might be integral to the design of a manuscript, or their marks could be extraneous additions to the page.

Papers might explore the interaction of readers with texts through annotations and glosses, and investigate the many varied inscriptions and their purposeful inclusion in book borders. Papers might also zero in on the iconographic programs and decorative surrounds in manuscripts, which evolved over the late Middle Ages and into the early modern period, and which contain compelling visual evidence of the whimsical and fantastic.

Proposals for Talks

We seek short abstracts (~200–250 words) detailing your title and topic as it fits with the above parameters, to reach us by the end of Sunday, 12 February 2023. Speakers will be notified in the following week of their acceptance.

Research works-in-progress and work from emerging scholars in manuscript studies are especially encouraged to submit their ideas for inclusion in the program.

Please send your abstracts through the linked Call for Papers Google Form.

More information about the 2023 Spring and Autumn Symposia can be found at: 2023 Spring and Autumn Symposia.

We look forward to your proposals.

*****

Fantastic fighters in the lower margin, Douce–Walters Homiliary, Walters Art Museum, MS. W.148, folio 33v.  On the manuscript, see The Digital Walters.

Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS. W.148, folio 33v. Opening of Sermon of St. Augustine on Easter, with Crucifixion illustration and border imagery. 14th-century German Homiliary. Image via Creative Commons.

Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS. W.148, folio 33v. Opening of Sermon of St. Augustine on Easter, with Crucifixion illustration and border imagery. 14th-century German Homiliary. Image via Creative Commons.

*****

Tags: Borders, Lightning Talks, Manuscript Illumination, Marginalia, Medieval manuscripts, RGME Symposia
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2023 Spring and Autumn Symposia

December 5, 2022 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies

2023 Spring and Autumn Symposia

on “Materials & Access”

2020 Symposium "From Cover to Cover" Poster 2

2020 Symposium Poster 2

[Posted on 5 December 2022, with updates]

The Research Group prepares a pair of Symposia in 2023, continuing the pattern of paired Spring and Autumn Symposia launched in 2022.

The New Tradition

Before then, up to 2022, there would be only one Symposium in a given year, although the span could vary from one to three days, and the Symposia occurred only in person.  Also, previously, the pattern of Symposia did not always appear each year, except notably for our first Symposia, beginning in 1995 at Barnard College, which occurred for five years as a series of Annual Symposia on “The Transmission of the Bible”.  After an interval when we focused instead on other activities and tasks, including the incorporation of the RGME as a nonprofit educational corporation (1999), our resumption of Symposia (along with the adoption of other forms of Events such as Colloquia and Workshops) would examine a wide variety of themes in turn.

In this way, now, with paired Symposia for 2023, we affirm the momentum of our series of Symposia after the Covid-induced hiatus  Formerly, the Symposia were held at various centers, before the cancellation of our 2020 Spring Symposium, “From Cover to Cover”, intended for Princeton University. The illustrated Program Booklet for that Symposium reports its intentions.

In resuming the series in 2022, we are able to return to some of its subjects, as the contributors make presentations, as their timetables allow, for one or other Session in the revived Symposia.  Some of those contributors propose to participate in our 2023 Symposia.

In 2020, the pair of Symposia addressed the year’s Theme of “Structured Knowledge”, for which the Spring Symposium considered “Structures of Knowledge”, and the Autumn Symposium considered “Supports for Knowledge”.  The webposts for them describes their scope and coverage.  The illustrated Program Booklet for the Autumn Symposium, available freely for download as a booklet of 54 pages in quarto (‘letter-size’) format.  The Symposia for 2023 and for 2024 already have their Year’s Theme as an overarching guide and a central focus, while other subjects also may be explored, sometimes interconnected.

“Materials & Access”

For 2023, the Year’s Theme is “Materials & Access”.

The Spring Symposium has this focus: “From the Ground Up”.
The Autumn Symposium:  “Between Earth and Sky”.

"Centered". Photograph Ⓒ 2014 Mildred Budny. Image of Dew at the center of Sedum.

“Centered”. Dew at the Center of Sedum. Photograph Ⓒ 2014 Mildred Budny.

Themes and Subjects for Sessions include some in our continuing series and others.  For example, we could explore further aspects in our continuing series on

  • “Catalogues, Metadata, and Databases”
  • “Hybrid Books”
  • “The Living Library”
  • “Teaching With (and Through) Manuscripts”
  • “Materials and Margins”.

We might also explore some deferred or new subjects, such as

  • “Manuscripts and Photography”
  • “The History of Paper”
  • “Emblems”, etc.

Our interests in exploring these subjects (and more) are described, for example,

  • for our 2022 Symposia and
  • the Episodes for our series “The Research Group Speaks”.

Each Symposium will have the span of one day and take place on a Saturday.  The selected time-zone is Eastern Standard Time (GMT-5) / Eastern Daylight Time (GMT-4), depending upon time of year.  That is, this year, EDT for the Spring Symposium and EST for the Autumn Symposium.  The Symposia would take place online, by Zoom.

Perhaps, conditions permitting, the Autumn Symposium might be hybrid, with attendance both in person and online.

The date for the Spring Symposium has been set.  It is planned for Saturday 25 March 2023, to span a full day (like the two Symposia in 2022) on the timezone of EST (GMT-5) and to take place online via Zoom.

We gather participants for the Presentations (of about 20 to 25 minutes each) and Responses (about 10 to 15 minutes each), for Sessions of 1 1/2 hours duration, with scope within them for Discussion (Q&A) and with Breaks between Sessions.

Participants, variously as Presenters, Respondents, Presiders, Moderators, and Advisers, include:

  • Linde M. Brocato, Mildred Budny, Katharine C. Chandler, Justin Hastings, Atria A. Larson, Ann Pascoe-van-Zyl, Ronald Patkus, David W. Sorenson, and others.

We look forward to your suggestions and participation.

The Program

As the Program for each Symposium gathers, we can post more information both here and on the individual webposts for the two Symposia.  Their webposts appear as

  • 2023 Spring Symposium
  • 2023 Autumn Symposium

If you have questions or comments, please Contact Us or leave your Comments Here.

Now see the developed Program for the 2023 Spring Symposium “From the Ground Up” on Saturday 25 March 2023.  It also has a half-day Pre-Symposium of Lightning Talks on “Intrepid Borders”, organized by Katharine C. Chandler, Jennifer Larson, and Jessica L. Savage, on Friday 24 March 2023.

See the webposts for these companion events, with their Programs and registration information:

  • 2023 Spring Pre-Symposium on “Intrepid Borders”

Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS. W.148, folio 33v, bottom right, with fighting creatures. Image via Creative Commons.

  • 2023 Spring Symposium “From the Ground Up”
Photograph of the stems and white blooms of Snowdrops emerging from a patch of bare ground in the sunlight. Photograph Ⓒ Mildred Budny.

The blooms of Snowdrops emerging “From the Ground Up”. Photograph Ⓒ Mildred Budny.

2023 Spring Pre-Symposium/Symposium Program Booklet

The 64-page illustrated Program Booklet is published ‘on the day’ or first day of the event (24 March 2023).

2023 Spring Pre-Symposium/Symposium Booklet Front Cover with photograph of snowdrops flowers rising from the earth.

2023 Spring Pre-Symposium/Symposium Booklet Front Cover.

See 2023 Spring Symposium “From the Ground Up” for information about how you could receive, order, or download a copy of this Booklet free of charge.

2023 Autumn Symposium

Plans advance for the 2023 Autumn Symposium “Between Earth and Sky”.

  • 2023 Autumn Symposium “Between Earth and Sky”

2023 RGME Events

Other Events are planned for the Year.  See

  • “The Research Group Speaks”: The Series
  • 2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program

Suggestion Box

Please Contact Us or visit

  • our FaceBook Page
  • our Twitter Feed (@rgme_mss)
  • our Blog on Manuscript Studies and its Contents List

Donations and contributions, in funds or in kind, are welcome and easy to give.  See Contributions and Donations.

We look forward to hearing from you.

*****

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Volume II of Ege MS 51, View toward Gutter with Reused Manuscript Fragments. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Volume II of Ege MS 51, Displaced Folios 29v-26r. View toward Gutter with Reused Manuscript Fragments. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

*****

Tags: Catalogues & Metadata & Databases, Grounded, Hybrid Books, Manuscripts and Photography, Materials & Access, RGME Autumn Symposium, RGME Spring Symposium, RGME Symposia, Teaching with and through Manuscripts, The Living Library
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Two Pages from a Roman Breviary in Gothic Script

November 26, 2022 in Manuscript Studies, Reports

Two Framed Pages
from a Roman Breviary
on Vellum in Latin in Gothic Script

containing
Hours for First Sunday after Easter
and
Vespers for Holy Trinity Sunday

Private Collection, Roman Breviary Leaf in Frame: Page with Part of Vespers for Holy Trinity Sunday. Photography By Mildred Budny. Reproduced by permission.

Single-Column Pages
laid out in 27 lines of Gothic Script
with
Rubrications,
Minor Initials in Red or Blue Pigment,
and
Enlarged Initials
embellished with Pen-line Decoration

[Posted on 27 November 2022]

Two separate leaves, now in frames, in a Private Collection contain parts of a Latin Breviary for Roman Use, that is, the Church of Rome, or Breviarum Romanum. (See, for example, The Roman Breviary and Roman Breviary.)

Some earlier blogposts have considered fragments of Latin Breviaries or related liturgical books.

  • Two Vellum Leaves from a Large-Format Breviary in Gothic Script
  • The Pearly Gateway: A Scrap from a Latin Missal or Breviary
  • A Leaf from Prime in a Large-Format Breviary
  • Written in the Stars: Roman Breviary Fragment with Latin Lections on Astrology

For example, from a different Private Collection, several leaves from a Roman Breviary:

Private Collection. Breviary Fragment, Folios IIv/Ir, with Revised Title and Penultimate Page of the Lections. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Private Collection. Breviary Fragment, Folios IIv/Ir, with Revised Title and Penultimate Page of the Lections. Photography by Mildred Budny.

The Pages from Two Leaves

Private Collection, Roman Breviary Leaf in Frame: Page in the Hours for First Sunday after Easter. Photography By Mildred Budny. Reproduced by permission.

The visible sides of the vellum leaves, on one page per leaf, contain parts of the text from the Hours for the First Sunday after Easter (see Second Sunday of Easter) and from Vespers for Holy Trinity Sunday (see Trinity Sunday).  Let us call the  Leaves 1 and 2, taking them in the sequence of their seasonal occasions in the cycle of the liturgical year, which extends from Advent to Trinity.

In the Western liturgical calendar, Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost; it is intended to celebrate the doctrine of the Trinity, the three Persons of God, namely the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Easter (or Resurrection) Sunday commemorates Jesus’ resurrection from the dead; the event is reported in the canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and some other sources.  As the start of Eastertide, or the Paschal season, Easter Sunday is followed by seven weeks to the fiftieth day on Pentecost Sunday.

The contents of the other sides of the leaves are unknown, apart from show-through onto the visible sides.  The text establishes that the two leaves were non-continuous in their former manuscript.

The vellum material of both leaves is evident in the texture of the visible surfaces as well as undulations across the expanse of the stretched animal skins. The smooth, whitish appearance makes it appear that both pages stand on the flesh sides of their skins.

Bringing the Leaves to light, we report the contents of the Pages, with descriptions and photographs.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Breviarum Romanum, Fragmentology, House of Heydenryk, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Roman Breviary
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Donncha MacGabhann on the Making of “The Book of Kells”

November 1, 2022 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

The Research Group Speaks
Episode 9
Saturday 19 November 2022 online

“The Book of Kells:  A Masterwork Revealed”

Donncha MacGabhann at work on his close study of letter forms in the Book of Kells. Photograph via his publisher, Sidestone Press (Leiden 2022)

Donncha MacGabhann at work on his close study of letter forms in the Book of Kells. Photograph via his publisher, Sidestone Press (Leiden 2022)

– An informal Interview/Conversation with Donncha MacGabhann, Associate of the RGME, about his newly published book

[Posted on 31 October 2022 by Mildred Budny, with updates]

For Episode 9 in the online series of The Research Group Speaks, we present an informal Conversation or Interview with the author about his new book on The Book of Kells:  The Making of a Masterwork (Leiden, 2022).

The Book has emerged from Donncha’s detailed study for the Ph. D. dissertation (London, 2016), as well as his own experience as an artist.  For our Episode, he will tell us about the making of his Book on the making of the Book of Kells . . .

To Register for the event, see Below.

The Book of Kells

One of the chief treasures of the Library of Trinity College Dublin (since at least 1661), and the subject of widespread fame, the Book of Kells might need no introduction.

The Long Room of the Old Library, Trinity College Dublin, seen from the entrance (2015). Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0.

  • Dublin, Trinity College Library, MS A. I. [58], the Codex Cennanensis, now comprising 340 vellum folios, bound (since 1953) in four volumes, one for each Gospel.

The online Library catalogue offers concise descriptions.  About the contents, for example, some essential facts:

The Book of Kells (Leabhar Cheanannais, Trinity College Dublin MS 58) contains the four Gospels in Latin based on the Vulgate text which St Jerome [circa 342 – circa 347 – 30 September 420] completed in 384AD, intermixed with readings from the earlier Old Latin translation. The gospel texts are prefaced by other texts, including “canon tables”, or concordances of gospel passages common to two or more the Evangelists; summaries of the gospel narratives (Breves causae); and prefaces characterizing the Evangelists (Argumenta).

A different approach can be found, for example, in a concise guide for the curious:

  • Ten Things You Should Know about the Book of Kells, or the Book of Columba
    — along with, say, 10 Things You Should Know About The Gutenberg Bible.

Have a Look:

  • The Book itself, in online facsimile: Book of Kells. IE TCD MS 58
  • Its introduction: Book of Kells

For my part, one of the principal highlights — not the only one — of my long study of early medieval manuscripts from the British Isles, their companions, and their contexts (for example, British Library, Manuscript Royal 1 E. vi: The Anatomy of an Anglo-Saxon Bible Fragment and Deciphering the Art of Interlace), was the opportunity to examine directly, turning the pages, two volumes of the Book of Kells. That experience, over some days, augmented and amplified the observations of the volumes on display, along with other treasures, in the imposing Long Hall of the Library. The opportunity, with permission, to look at the Book itself took place in the Director’s office, with the clear light of natural light during an unusually dry summer with cloudless skies. Memorable indeed.  #turnedthepages.

A few years later, while part of the Book came on tour among the travelling Treasures of Ireland (1982 and 1983), I could see part of it again, in museums in Paris and in New York, under subdued light and behind the glass case. Different views, same astonishing monument.

Very, very many people can say that they have seen the Book of Kells.  Attracted by its fame, visitors to the Library, where it has been displayed since the nineteenth century, number on average some 500,000 each year.  On her visit, Queen Victoria (1819–1901) was encouraged to sign it — as an extraordinary form of ‘Visitors’ Book’.

Over the centuries, many have commented upon the Book of Kells.  They include scholars, historians, palaeographers, art historians, authors, artists, and others.  Some observers have taken inspiration from it in multiple ways, verbal and visual, to form creative works of their own, ranging from, say, Finnegans Wake (1939) to The Secret of Kells (2009).

Donncha MacGabhann’s long-term study, considering detail after detail of script and ornament, of the original Book of Kells as a whole brings fresh views of its process of creation, as the scribes worked their way across the pages and into an accomplishment truly worthy of curiosity, admiration, and wonder.  Aware of Donncha’s study for some years, I have looked forward to his book revealing the results of his research.

Donncha MacGabhann’s Book on Kells

About Donncha, see, for example,

  • Donncha MacGabhann Curriculum Vitae
  • Curriculum Vitae.

His Book, just about to appear in print, examines

  • The Book of Kells. A Masterwork Revealed: Creators, Collaboration, and Campaigns
    (Leiden: Sidestone Press, 2022).
    Paperback ISBN: 9789464261226 | Hardback ISBN: 9789464261233 |
    Ebook only (pdf) and Ebook (read online for free)Format: 210x280mm | 324 pp. | Language: English | 11 illus. (bw) | 109 illus. (fc) |
    Keywords: Book of Kells; insular manuscripts; insular art; palaeography; Early Medieval gospel books; Early Medieval Christianity; art history; calligraphy |

 

From the publisher comes this description:

Front Cover of Donncha MacGabhann, “The Book of Kells: A Masterwork Revealed” (2022).

Sublime calligraphy, marvelous art, and amazing initials, have charmed and captivated the audience of the Book of Kells for over twelve hundred years. This remarkable illuminated Gospel book attracts the attention of scholars as well as those more generally interested in the fabulous artifacts of the past.

Everybody knows it was made by an extensive team of scribes and artists. Donncha MacGabhann knew that too. However, he was certain that a thorough examination could clearly identify the various contributions of its creators.

His life and work as an artist and teacher inspired the belief that a close visual study could solve some of its enduring puzzles. The deeper he delved, the more he was convinced that Kells is entirely the work of two individuals. This evolved into a novel paradigm through which he came to know and understand the manuscript. Following years of meticulous research, this book tells the story of Kells’ two Masters and their collaboration to create a Gospel book of unprecedented magnificence. Most poignantly, it reveals the struggle of the lone survivor of the two-man team to attempt the completion of their magnum opus.

The most important outcomes of this book go far beyond the simple attribution of work to different hands. Much more significantly, it affords insights into the imagination which inspired its creators, especially the unique vision of Kells’ great Scribe-Artist. Collectively, these new perspectives reveal a previously unknown ‘Book of Kells, ‘ one which, as it were, has remained hidden in plain sight.

Descriptions of Donncha’s book and its contents, approach, discoveries, and significance appear among various booksellers, as with

  • https://www.bookdepository.com/Book-Kells-Donncha-MacGabhann/9789464261226

The Process of Research and Discovery

In Donncha’s own words, as the research unfolded:

Dublin, Trinity College, MS A. 1 (58), folio 34r. Chi-Rho Initial Page (Matthew 1:18). Image via Wikimedia Commons; Public Domain in the US.

Key research interests include Insular palaeography and illumination. My current focus is to extend and develop the research which was the basis for my PhD (2016). My thesis investigation was concentrated on the makers and the making of The Book of Kells. This provides the first in-depth and comprehensive analysis of both the illumination and the scribal work in the manuscript.

My research was significantly informed by the experience gained in my career as an Artist and Art-Teacher. Complementary to the more traditional modes of academic enquiry this enabled me to draw on a skill-set which was integral to the development of my research methodology. This methodology of close visual analysis was central to my approach.

My immediate aim is communicate, through publication, the results of my doctoral research to the scholarly community. It is also my intention to extend the application of the methodology developed in my thesis to a number of other Insular manuscripts and to consider the implications of the revision of hands in the material culture of the Insular world more broadly. (Donncha MacGabhann)

Donncha’s Ph.D. dissertation is freely available for download:

  • The making of the Book of Kells: two Masters and two Campaigns (Doctoral thesis, University of London, 2016)  https://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/6920/ (via Creative Commons)

Its Abstract:

This thesis investigates the number of individuals involved in the making of the Book of Kells. It demonstrates that only two individuals, identified as the Scribe-Artist and the Master-Artist, were involved in its creation. It also demonstrates that the script is the work of a single individual – the Scribe-Artist. More specific questions are answered regarding the working relationships between the book’s creators and the sequence of production. This thesis also demonstrates that the manuscript was created over two separate campaigns of work. The comprehensive nature of this study focuses on all aspects of the manuscript including, script, initials, display-lettering, decoration and illumination.

Detail from Front Cover of Donncha MacGabhann, “The Book of Kells: A Masterwork Revealed” (2022): Black-and-white reproduction by the author of the ornamented center of the Chi-Rho Initial Page (Dublin, Trinity College, MS 58, folio 34r).

Previews

We met Donncha when he spoke for the RMGE about a facet of the Ph.D. research on the manuscript for one of our Sessions at the 49th International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2014).  The Session considered “Individual Style or House Style?  Assessing Scribal Contributions, Artistic Production, and Creative Achievements”.

Donncha’s paper examined the scribal uses of two forms or grades of late-antique and early-medieval script, Half-Uncial and Uncial, for the letter a at line-endings, where options for compression and variation could call for choice and artistic expression.

Half-Uncial a and Uncial a at Line-Ends:
The Division of Hands in the Book of Kells
and an Insight
into the ‘Calligraphic Imagination’ Evident in the Script

The abstract for Donncha’s paper appears on our website: MacGabhann 2014 Congress.

At the Congress, although we had corresponded earlier, we could meet Donncha, learn about his careful studies, his approaches to the creation and understanding of forms of the written word, and his observations about the original materials, in manuscript and in print, offered for display at some of our sessions.

David Sorenson and Donncha MacGabhann examine manuscript materials

David Sorenson and Donnach MacGabhann examine manuscript materials after the RGME Writing Materials Session at the 2014 Congress. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Several papers published in the course of the research spell out the methodological approach.  For example,

Palaeographer Erika Eisenlohr has stated that ‘the similarity or dissimilarity of hands in Kells has so far mainly been based on more general impressions of the scripts’ (1994). My research attempts a more comprehensive investigation of the evidence including illuminated pages, script and illumination of the canon tables, mise-en-page, punctuation, display script, decorated initials, regular script and elaborations to the script.

— Donncha MacGabhann, Abstract for “The et-ligature in the Book of Kells (Revealing the ‘calligraphic imagination’ of its great scribe)” (2017), in Conor Newman, Mags Manion, and Fiona Gavin, eds., Islands in a Global Context. Proceedings of the seventh Conference on Insular Art, held at the National University of Ireland, Galway, 16–20 July, 2014 (Dublin, 2017), pp. 138–48.

The Script(s) of Kells

Discussion of the varieties of script, ornamented letter forms, and other forms of ornament in the Book of Kells continues in its own right over time.  It also forms, or should form, an integral part in an ongoing consideration of many features of the book, both individually and in combination.  That is:  the various texts (Gospel texts, their companion texts including prefaces, summaries, and canon tables with numerals and titles, as well as added texts such as Irish charters), illustrations, canon arcades and frameworks, scribal characteristics, writing materials (animal skins, inks, pigments, their binding agents, traces of layout marks, and so on), layers of accretion, condition, sewing patterns, binding history, library history, layout, design, artistry, and more.

Many features figure, to varying degrees, in assessments of the likely place and date of production of the manuscript.  Those assessments may remain open to exploration and refinement, as research advances, methods of exploration expand, attitudes may direct, and discoveries emerge.

Reproductions, Photographic and Pre-Photographic

Poster for lecture on 'Manuscripts versus Photography: Image and "Imago" in a Digital Age' by Mildred Budny at Princeton University on 19 November 2010. Photograph by Mildred Budny of MS 10, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque des Annonciades,reproduced by permission.

Poster, designed by the RGME, for a lecture on 19 November 2020. Image: Photograph by Mildred Budny of Boulogne-sur-mer, Bibliothèque des Annonciades, MS 11, reproduced by permission.

With restricted access nowadays to the treasured original, and with the proliferation of digital means of reproduction and dissemination, close study of the multiple features of the manuscript would mostly rest upon consultation of such reproductions, however high in quality or ‘fidelity’.  That those reproductive materials would, in no small measure, determine, affect, or direct the nature of the forms of study — as well as, it may be, the interpretations of that (indirect) evidence — should be evident.

Such factors in the study of manuscripts under current, prevailing, conditions in the age of photographic reproduction and the age of the internet remain a subject of considerable interest for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.  For example:

  • Mildred Budny, “No Snap Decisions:  Challenges of Manuscript Photography”.  Paper delivered at the Session on “Imaging Manuscripts for the Twenty-First Century:  Photographs and Beyond” (1994), sponsored by the RGME at the 1994 International Congress on Medieval Studies.
    Published, with its Abstract, Text, and Images, here.
  • “Manuscripts versus Photography:  Image and Imago in a Digital Age”.  Lecture for the Program in Medieval Studies, Princeton University (19 November 2010).

Our events continue to consider such factors of manuscript studies, whether as, perhaps, part-and-parcel, bread-and-butter, or meat-and-potatoes.  That is, as Food for Thought.

As always, our interest in the processes of production and the people behind the books, keenly explored in cases of the medieval objects, extends also to the processes which underpin, sustain, and shape the studies themselves of those materials.  These interests are manifest in many RGME activities, as with continuing explorations of relationships between “Manuscripts and Photography” in Seminars, Workshops, Conference Sessions, and Symposia; and in Episodes of our series wherein The Research Group Speaks.  On such occasions, we might have opportunity to hear the authors of close studies of manuscripts or other materials speak about the origins, progress, and processes of their research, as well as its results.  Such is the case for this Episode with Donncha MacGabhann, as his new book, long in the making, reaches publication.

Drawings of elements in the Book of Kells — as appear among Donncha’s figures — belong to a venerable tradition which reaches back to pre-photographic means of reproduction.  Notable examples in that tradition include images from the manuscript carefully prepared by the observant entymologist and antiquarian John Obadiah Westwood (1805–1893).  Examples appear in these of Westwood’s publications:

  • Palaeographia sacra pictoria: Being a series of illustrations of the ancient versions of the Bible, copied from illuminated manuscripts, executed between the fourth and sixteenth centuries (London, 1845)
  • Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts (London, 1868)
    Also, in excerpts: Facsimiles of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts (London, 1868)

Close examination fostered by line-by-line reproduction, from one surface to another, may develop a keen awareness of specific details, in much the same way that detailed verbal descriptions can do, as with a catalogue or ‘inventory’ of features within a manuscript (or other monument).  I myself learned the lasting value of preparing such descriptions — from the originals, aided by my photographic reproductions including macro-photography — for features of manuscripts in the Illustrated Catalogue, one of the co-publications of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

From observations of the evidence, by various means and methods, the interpretations may follow, redirect, or revise.

In the new book, the choice of methodology of palaeographical examination, centered upon photographic reproductions and drawings, focuses upon excerpts of specimen letters and initials.  Arrayed on these pages (printed or digital) in groups or rows of related letter-forms, the specimens stand removed or isolated from the ebb-and-flow of their naturally-occurring lines and columns of running texts upon their pages, and their openings, across the unfolding of the original book as a whole.

Mostly at a distance perforce from that original (even when viewed through the glass case of its exhibited pages), and very exceptionally in a direct encounter, we might find ways variously to imagine, to ‘reconstruct’, or to recollect, the process of turning its very pages and sensing the feel of the width of its leaves as their edges are turned.

Donncha’s Book on The Book of Kells
in our Episode for 19 November 2022

The publication of Donncha MacGabhann’s book is expected on 31 October 2022.  The book can be ordered in print and pdf forms from the publisher and other booksellers.  From the publisher’s website, it can be read online free of charge.  See:

  • The Book of Kells. A Masterwork Revealed: Creators, Collaboration, and Campaigns

Episode 9 in the online series of “The Research Group Speaks” is planned for Saturday 19 November 2022, via Zoom, at 12 pm EST (GMT – 5) for about 1 1/2 hours, with discussion and Q&A.  You are welcome to join us.

Registration for the Episode

If you wish to attend, please register here:

  • The Research Group Speaks, 9: Donncha MacGabhann on Making the Book of Kells

If you have questions or issues with the registration process, please contact director@manuscriptevidence.org.

Future Episodes

Future Episodes are planned.  See

  • “The Research Group Speaks”: The Series.

Suggestion Box

Please leave your Comments or questions here, Contact Us, or visit

  • our FaceBook Page
  • our Twitter Feed (@rgme_mss)
  • our Blog on Manuscript Studies and its Contents List

Donations and contributions, in funds or in kind, are welcome and easy to give.  See Contributions and Donations.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Lisbon, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga: The mid 15th-century Saint Vincent Panels, attributed to Nuno Gonçalves. Image (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Nuno_Gon%C3%A7alves._Paineis_de_S%C3%A3o_Vicente_de_Fora.jpg) via Creative Commons.

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Front Cover of Donncha MacGabhann, “The Book of Kells: A Masterwork Revealed” (2022).

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Tags: Book of Kells, Donncha MacGabhann, Early Medieval Gospel Books, early medieval manuscripts, Finnegans Wake, Manuscript Photography, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Palaeography, The Research Group Speaks, The Secret of Kells, Trinity College Dublin, Trinity College Dublin MS A 1 [58]
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Program for 2022 Autumn Symposium on “Supports for Knowledge”

October 6, 2022 in Announcements, Conference Announcement, Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

2022 RGME Spring and Autumn Symposia
on “Structured Knowledge”

© British Library Board, London, British Library, Add. MS 1546, folio 262v, detail. Opening of the Book of Sapientia (“Wisdom”).

2 of 2: 2022 Autumn Symposium
“Supports for Knowledge”
Saturday, 15 October 2022

Symposium Program
9:00 am – 5:30 pm EDT
Online via Zoom

Sessions with Presentations and Discussion (“Q&A”)
Breaks for Coffee, Lunch, and Tea
Closing Keynote Presentation and Concluding Remarks

For Registration see below

[Posted on 5 October, with updates]

On the pair of Symposia, see 2022 Spring and Autumn Symposia
On Part 1 of this pair, see 2022 Spring Symposium on “Structures of Knowledge”
On Part 2, see 2022 Autumn Symposium on “Supports for Knowledge”

Here we present the Program for Part 2 on “Supports for Knowledge”, held on Saturday 15 October 2022 by Zoom
— Registration is required, with a limited number of places (see below).

The Program Booklet (in preparation) will present the Program and Abstracts of the Presentations and Responses, with multiple Illustrations.  In accordance with our tradition of Program Booklets for our Symposia and some other events (see our Publications, it will be issued in printed form as well as digital form, with a downloadable pdf.

Timetable

Session 1.    9:00–10:30 am EDT
Brief Introduction to the Symposium and Welcome
“Teaching with (and through) Manuscripts, Part II”
Q&A

Break.          10:30–10:45 am

Session 2.   10:45 am – 12:15 pm
“Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases, Continued (Part III)”
Q&A

Lunch Break.   12:15–1:15 pm

–– During the Break.  12:30–12:50 pm

Presentation (at the time when the Speaker could attend)

David W. Sorenson (Allen Berman, Numismatist)
“A Jain Manuscript of the Seventeenth Century on Imported Watermarked Paper: An Early, Dated, Witness to Imported Paper Stocks in Indian Manuscripts”
As a contribution to our series on the “History and Uses of Paper”

Session 3.    1:15–2:45 pm
“The Living Library (Part II)”
Q&A

Break.          2:45–3:00 pm

Session 4.   3:00–4:30 pm
“Hybrid Books (Part I)”
Q&A

Break.         4:30–4:45 pm

Session 5.   4:45–5:30 pm EDT
“Books and Their Structures”
Closing Keynote Presentation and Concluding Remarks

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Sessions

Session 1.  “Teaching with (and through) Manuscripts, Part II”
— continuing the series begun at the Spring Symposium on “Structures of Knowledge”

Presider

David Porreca (Department of Classical Studies, University of Waterloo)

Speakers

Caley McCarthy (Research Associate and Project Manager, Environments of Change, University of Waterloo)
and
Andrew Moore (Research Fellow, Environments of Change, and Associate Director, DRAGEN Lab, University of Waterloo)
“Collaborative Pedagogy with Medieval Manuscripts in a Digital Lab”

William H. Campbell (Director, Center for the Digital Text, University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg)
Amber McAlister (Assistant Professor, History & Architecture, University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg)
and
Connor Chinoy (Student at the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg and member of the “History of the Book” class)
“Books in the Flesh: An Interdisciplinary Undergraduate Class with Medieval Manuscripts”

Q&A

*****

Mid-Morning Break

*****

Session 2.  “Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases, Continued (Part III)”
— continuing our series
This is Part III in our series on these subjects, building upon Parts I and II, and leading to further Parts in 2023

  • our Roundtable in February on Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases, Part I and
  • the Session on “Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases, Part II” in the Spring Symposium

See the Links of Interest (Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases: A Handlist of Links)
— for which suggestions and additions are welcome.

Presider

Jessica L. Savage (Art History Specialist, Index of Medieval Art)

Speakers

Jessica L. Savage
“Cataloguing Manuscript Iconography between Digital Covers at the Index of Medieval Art”

Barbara Williams Ellertson (The BASIRA Project and Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)
“A Painter, a Printer, and a Search for Shared Exemplars”

Katharine C. Chandler (Special Collections and Serials Cataloger, University of Arkansas Libraries)
“Manuscripts from Print: The Schwenkfelders and their Dangerous Books”

Respondent

David Porreca (Department of Classics, University of Waterloo)
“My $0.02 Worth”

Moderator for the Questions-and-Answers

Derek Shank (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Q&A

*****

Lunch Break

Perhaps — TBD — during part of the Break
Presentation (from about 12:15–12:35 pm), if the Speaker might attend, depending on short-notice work timetables:

David W. Sorenson (Allan Berman, Numismatist)
“A Jain MS of the Seventeenth Century on Imported Watermarked Paper:  An Early, Dated, Witness to Imported Paper Stocks in Indian Manuscripts”

*****

Session 3.  “The Living Library (Part II)”

— continuing the series begun at the Spring Symposium on “Structures of Knowledge”

Presider

Jaclyn Reed (Department of English and Writing Studies, University of Western Ontario)

Speakers

Christine E. Bachman (Department of Art & Art History, University of Colorado at Boulder)
“Unbound, Dispersed, Resewn:  The Flexible Codex in Eighth-Century Northwestern Europe”

Zoey Kambour (Post Graduate Fellow in European & American Art at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon)
“Textual Interaction Through Artistic Expression:  The Marginal Drawings in the Decretales Libri V of Pope Gregory IX (University of Oregon MS 027)”

David Porreca (Department of Classical Studies, University of Waterloo)
“The Warburg Institute Library:   Where Idiosyncracy Meets User-Friendliness”

Respondent

Thomas E Hill (Art Librarian, Vassar College)
“Some Early Background to Warburg’s Project in Post-Wunderkammer Systematic Catalogues of the European Baroque and Enlightenment Periods”

Le Parc Abbey, Theological Volume, Part B and added Part-Leaf between folios 103–104 (or folios "7"–"8").

Private Collection, Le Parc Abbey, Theological Volume, Part B and added Part-Leaf (or Bookmark) between folios 103–104. Photography Mildred Budny.

Q&A

*****

Mid-Afternoon Break

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Session 4.  “Hybrid Books (Part I)”

— beginning a series for which more sessions are planned

Presider

Justin Hastings (University of Delaware)

Speakers

Hannah Goeselt (Library and Information Science (MS): Cultural Heritage Informatics, Simmons University, Boston)
“Structures of Art and Scripture in Otto Ege’s ‘Cambridge Bible’ (Ege Manuscript 6)”

Jennifer Larson (Department of Classics, Kent State University)
“Printed and Scribed:  A Collector’s View of Hybrid Books”

Linde M. Brocato (Cataloging & Metadata Librarian, University of Miami Libraries)
“Paths of Access and Horizons of Expectation, II:  From Book-In-Hand to Catalog(ues)”

N. Kıvılcım Yavuz (Lecturer in Medieval Studies and Digital Humanities, School of History, University of Leeds)
“Bound With:  Towards a Typology of Hybrid Codices”

Q&A

*****

Tea Break

*****

Session 5. “Books and Their Structures”

Presider

Mildred Budny (Director, Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Closing Keynote Presentation

Linde M. Brocato (Cataloging & Metadata Librarian, University of Miami Libraries)
“Hybrid Books: Fragments and Compilatio, Structure and Heuristic in Richard Twiss’s Farrago”

Discussion & Brief Concluding Remarks

Mildred Budny
“Structured Knowledge, Structures of Knowledge, and Supports for Knowledge:  A Framework for the Year”

*****

Closing Keynote Presentation

“Hybrid Books:
Fragments and Compilatio, Structure and Heuristic in
Richard Twiss’ Farrago“

In the group of artists’ books from the Ruth and Marvin Shackner Archive of Concrete Poetry purchased by the University of Miami Special Collections, there is an extraordinary volume, sold by a vendor as late 19th century, anonymous, and an artist’s book avant la lettre.  Careful analysis for bibliographical cataloging revealed the error in all these assertions.

In this presentation, I will lay out both the process of that analysis, and its results, along with reflections on hybrid books of various kinds.  My reflections will encompass the kinds of structured information that make their way into databases, and structuring codes of cataloging and bibliography, all of which are necessary but not sufficient for our understanding and convivencia with books, which are always already hybrid.  In these reflections, I will bring together many of the strands of thinking we have all worked to weave together in the symposium.

Richard Twiss, Farrago, held in the Unversity of Miami Special Collections, Artists’ Books Collection. Sidelong View. Photograph Linde M. Brocato.

Glimpses of the volume comprising Farrago compiled by the writer, traveler, chess-player, and would-be paper manufacturer Richard Twiss (1749–1821) can be seen in our blogpost called “I Was Here”, with photographs by Linde M. Brocato.

Concluding Remarks

Mildred Budny
“Structured Knowledge, Structures of Knowledge, and Supports for Knowledge: A Framework for the Year”

© British Library Board, London, British Library, Cotton MS Cleopatra C. viii, folio 36r, top: Sapientia in her Temple. Prudentius, Psychomachia, in a Canterbury copy of the late tenth or early eleventh century.

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To register for the Symposium, visit 2022 Autumn Symposium Registration. Places are limited.

Questions? Contact director@manuscriptevidence.org.

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Suggestion Box

Do you have suggestions for subjects for our events, or offers to participate? Please let us know.

If you wish to join our events, please contact director@manuscriptevidence.org.

For updates, watch this space, and visit:

  • 2022 Spring and Autumn Symposia
  • The Research Group Speaks: The Series;
  • our FaceBook Page and
  • our Twitter Feed (@rgme_mss).

Please leave your Comments below, Contact Us, and visit our FaceBook Page and Twitter Feed (@rgme_mss).  We look forward to hearing from you

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  • Contributions and Donations .

Floral Motif as Lower Border in a Book of Hours. Photography Mildred Budny.

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Tags: Catalogs & Metadata & Databases, Decretals of Pope Gregory IX, DRAGEN Lab, Fragmentology, History of Paper, Hybrid Books, Index of Medieval Art, Jain Manuscripts, Les Enluminures, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Medieval manuscripts, Miniature Books, Otto Ege Manuscript 8, Otto Ege Manuscripts, RGME Symposia, Richard Twiss's Farrago, Schwenkfelder Books, Structured Knowledge, Teaching with and through Knowledge, Teaching with Manuscripts, The Living Library, University of Oregon MS 027, Warburg Institute Library, Watermarked Paper, Watermarks
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