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    • Kalamazoo Archive
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    • 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
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      • Abstracts of Papers for Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Abstracts of Papers for Symposia, Workshops & Colloquia
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        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
      • The Illustrated Handlist
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Two Ege Leaves and Two Ege Labels in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez
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2021 International Congress on Medieval Studies Report
J. S. Wagner Collection, Leaf from Ege Manuscript 22, verso, bottom right: Ege's inscription in pencil.
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Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, End-Leaf 01, Left.
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Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 1: folio '1'r, Top Left. Photography Mildred Budny.
Specimens of Ege Manuscript 40 in the Ege Family Portfolio
Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, Printed Label, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.
Otto Ege Manuscript 40, Part II: Before and After Ege
rivate Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Front of Leaf. Reproduced by permission.
Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books’ and ‘Ege Manuscript 53’ (Quran)
J. S. Wagner Collection, Early-Printed Missal Leaf, Verso. Rubric and Music for Holy Saturday. Reproduced by Permission.
Carmelite Missal Leaf of 1509
Private Collection, Castle Cartulary Fragment, Inserted Folded Sheet, Opened: Top Righ
Fragments of a Castle ‘Capbreu’ from Catalonia
Grapes Watermark in a Selbold Cartulary Fragment.
Selbold Cartulary Fragments
Smeltzer Collection, Subermeyer (1598), Vellum Supports Strip 2 Signature Surname.
Vellum Binding Fragments in a Parisian Printed Book of 1598
Set 1 of Ege's FOL Portfolio, Leaf 14 recto: Lamentations Initial.
Some Leaves in Set 1 of Ege’s FOL Portfolio
Church of Saint Mary, High Ongar, Essex, with 12th-Century Nave. Photograph by John Salmon (8 May 2004), Image via Wikipedia.
A Charter of 1399 from High Ongar in Essex
View to the Dorm at the End of the Congress.
2019 Congress Behind the Scenes Report
Opening of the Book of Maccabees in Otto Ege MS 19. Private Collection.
A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices
2020 Spring Symposium: Save the Date
At the Exhibition of "Gutenberg and After" at Princeton University in 2019, the Co-Curator Eric White stands before the Scheide Gutenberg Bible displayed at the opening of the Book of I Kings.
“Gutenberg and After” at Princeton University Library
J. S. Wagner Collection. Leaf from from Prime in a Latin manuscript Breviary. Folio 4 Recto, Initial C for "Confitimini" of Psalm 117 (118), with scrolling foliate decoration.
A Leaf from Prime in a Large-Format Latin Breviary
J. S. Wagner Collection. Detached Manuscript Leaf with the Opening in Latin of the Penitent Psalm 4 or Psalm 37 (38) and its Illustration of King David.
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Revisiting Anglo-Saxon Symposia 2002/2018
The red wax seal seen upright, with the male human head facing left. Document on paper issued at Grenoble and dated 13 February 1345 (Old Style). Image reproduced by permission
2020 ICMS Call for Papers: Seal the Real
Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 1183. Photograph courtesy Kristen Herdman.
2019 Anniversary Symposium Report: The Roads Taken
Detail of illustration.
Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts
Detail of recto of leaf from an Italian Giant Bible. Photography by Mildred Budny
2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program Details
Thomas E. Hill stands at the entrance to the Vassar College Library. Photography by Mildred Budny
Another Visit to The Library Cafe
Leaf 41, Recto, Top Right, in the Family Album (Set Number 3) of Otto Ege's Portfolio of 'Fifty Original Leaves' (FOL). Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’
Augustine Homilies Bifolium Folio IIr detail with title and initial for Sermon XCVI. Private Collection, reproduced by permission. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
Vellum Bifolium from Augustine’s “Homilies on John”
Rosette Watermark, Private Collection. Reproduced by Permission
2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
Libro de los juegos. Madrid, El Escorial, MS T.1.6, folio 17 verso, detail.
2018 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
Poster Announcing Bembino Version 1.5 (April 2018) with border for Web display
Bembino Version 1.5 (2018)
Lower Half of the Original Verso of a Single Leaf detached from a prayerbook in Dutch made circa 1530, owned and dismembered by Otto F. Ege, with the seller's description in pencil in the lower margin. Image reproduced by permission.
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214’?
Slice of Brie. Photograph by Coyau via Wikipedia Commons.
Say Cheese
Verso of the Leaf and Interior of the Binding, Detail: Lower Right-Hand Corner, with the Mitered Flap Unfolde
A 12th-Century Fragment of Anselm’s ‘Cur Deus Homo’
Reused Leaf from Gregory's Dialogues Book III viewed from verso (outside of reused book cover) Detail of Spine of Cover with Volume Labels. Photograph © Mildred Budny.
A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues Reused for Euthymius
Detail of the top of the verso of the fragmentary leaf from a 13th-century copy of Statutes for the Cistercian Order. Reproduced by permission.
Another Witness to the Cistercian Statutes of 1257
Initial d in woodcut with winged hybrid creature as an inhabitant. Photography © Mildred Budny
The ‘Foundling Hospital’ for Manuscript Fragments
Decorated opening word 'Nuper' of the Dialogues, Book III, Chapter 13, reproduced by permission
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’
Close-Up of The Host of 'The Library Cafe' in the Radio Studio. Photography © Mildred Budny
A Visit to The Library Café
Invitation to 'Canterbury Manuscripts' Seminar on 19 September 1994
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (September 1994)

You are browsing the Blog for Photographic Exhibition

More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’

November 27, 2018 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Family Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves ("FOL") of Medieval Western Manuscripts, Leaf 41, recto, column b, top. Medieval Contents List for the Volume in the upper margin, above the concluding line of the Chaper List for Book I and the Opening of that Book. Photography by Mildred BudnyOtto Ege’s
Dismembered Manuscript 41

A Latin copy of the
Dialogues of Gregory the Great,
Epistles and Homilies of John Chrysostom,
Meditations of Anselm,
And Maybe More

Double columns of 40 lines with some embellishment

Produced probably in Flanders, perhaps circa 1450

Plundered in World War I
From the Library of the Van der Cruisse de Waziers, near Lille in France

Sold circa 1925 through the Bookseller Thorpe in Surrey, England

Brought to the United States Intact, Then Dismembered and Distributed in Pieces

Continuing our series on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny (see Her Page) adds new evidence to her earlier reports of some leaves from medieval manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951). Further research and newly revealed materials augment our knowledge of these manuscripts (and others). 

This report updates our earlier blogpost on parts of Otto Ege Manuscript 41.  See also the posts for Ege Manuscripts 8, 14, 51, and 61, plus updates (More Discoveries for Ege Manuscript 61), as well as the Report for our 2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’, with an illustrated Program Booklet. 

This report, drafted following a first visit in 2017 to view examples in the Otto Ege Collection now at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, benefits from updates following a new visit in October 2018, with my thanks for permission to examine and to photograph the materials, especially while they remain mostly uncatalogued.

Picking Up The Piecework

As more pieces of the manuscript come to light, and/or become recognized for what they are, the process of virtually picking up their pieces toward a reasonable reconstruction of their original contents can or must proceed piecemeal.  More discoveries advance that process considerably.  Here we report new stages.  Some of them, naturally enough, may revise the received understanding about the manuscript.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Epistles of John Chrysostom, Homilies of John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews, library of the Van Der Cruisse de Waziers family, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Meditations of Saint Anselm, Otto Ege Manuscript 41, Otto Ege Manuscripts
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Design & Layout of “The Illustrated Catalogue”

October 12, 2018 in Bembino, Design, Interviews, Manuscript Studies, Parker Library, Photographic Exhibition, Reports, Uncategorized

Gold stamp on blue cloth of the logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence. Detail from the front cover of Volume II of 'The Illustrated Catalogue'Continuing our series of interviews and reports, we explore the processes by which Mildred Budny’s 2-volume Insular, Angl0-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge:  An Illustrated Catalogue (“The Catalogue” or “The Illustrated Catalogue”) was designed, laid out, and typeset to camera-ready copy for its publication as a set of 2 volumes of “Text” and “Plates”.

Now we present a joint interview with the Author and the Layout Designer of “The Illustrated Catalogue”.

For information about that publication see Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: An Illustrated Catalogue.

Our interview appears in the new Booklet describing “The Design and Layout of ‘The Illustrated Catalogue’ “.  This 16-page booklet is available freely as a pdf for quarto-size pages:

  • As a series of consecutive pages.
  • In foldable booklet form suitable for printing on 11 1/2 in. × 17 in. sheets.

Front Covers for Volumes I & II of 'Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge: An Illustrated Catalogue' by Mildred Budny, with the title of the publication and the gold-stamped logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, co-publisher of the volumes

 

Some of the background for preparing this ground-breaking publication is described in the “Interview with our Font & Layout Designer” (published in print on 25 September 2016 and online on 6 October 2016), with illustrations, and downloadable here.

For the progress and development of our Research Group Publications, please see our Publications. We invite your contributions, suggestions, and feedback.

*****

Tags: Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, Manuscript Illumination, Medieval manuscripts
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Updates for Some “Otto Ege Manuscripts”

March 23, 2018 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition, Reports

More is More

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

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

Continuing our series on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny (see Her Page) adds new evidence to her earlier reports of some leaves from medieval manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951).

Revisions are now in order.  As we continue to look at, and for, evidence of the dispersed materials, the old and new evidence shows more.  While giving some answers, the observations also raise new questions. 

Time now for more Updates for Some “Otto Ege Manuscripts”.

[Published on 15 December 2017, with updates]

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Ege Memorial Microfilm, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege, Otto Ege Manuscript 14, Otto Ege Manuscript 41, Otto Ege Manuscript 51, Otto Ege Manuscript 61, Otto Ege Manuscript 8
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Starter Kit

February 13, 2018 in Announcements, Photographic Exhibition, Uncategorized

Would You Like
Your Very Own Collection of
Medieval Seal Matrices?

Now is your chance

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence has been offered a starter collection to examine, photograph, and offer for sale. With the donation of proceeds to support our nonprofit educational corporation’s mission.  A generous contribution!

Generosity?  You bet.  That’s how we roll: Contributions and Donations.

*****

About this new Medieval Matrix offering.

Sneak preview here.

Medieval Seal Matrices 1-14  in Tray with color guide at 72 dpiDescriptive booklet coming soon. Ooh!

To Have & To Hold, For Real

Would you want your very own collection of Medieval Seal Matrices to have and to hold? We confidently say that it is a treat to hold these specimens from medieval life.

While we prepare the Sale Catalogue, with photography by our in-house photographer, with layout by our in-house designers, and with research by our resident specialist, we can say that we’d love to sell this collection as a whole, as the complete ensemble.

That is how the collection, they tell us, came to become available.  Through a generous, well-meaning donation, it can be offered for sale with proceeds to support our nonprofit educational mission.

Wouldn’t you love to have this collection, and its specialist booklet showcasing its qualities and varieties, for your very own?

Please Contact Us.

*****

Tags: medieval seal-matrices
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More Discoveries for “Otto Ege Manuscript 61”

May 23, 2017 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition, Uncategorized

Initial I of 'In' opening of the Book of Zachariah. Courtesy of Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. Reproduced by permission.

Zachariah. Courtesy of Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA.

More Fragments are Revealed
from a Dismembered and Dispersed
32-line French Vulgate Pocket Bible
Made Probably in Southern France
circa 1325 C.E.
= “Otto Ege Manuscript 61”

Probably Southern France, circa 1325

Circa 186 × 126 mm
< written area circa 119 × 81 mm >
Double columns of 32 lines, with embellishments and running titles

[Posted on 23 May 2017, with updates]

Updating an earlier blogpost reporting A New Leaf from “Otto Ege Manuscript 61” in our series on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny (see Her Page) describes further progress in locating and identifying more parts from that little book.  It should be said that, after the initial discovery and draft write-up, in the excitement of new discoveries, some long illnesses and a wrenching death in the family, with some gratuitous onslaughts from so-called family members, made it difficult to return on course.  Back again.

These new discoveries go hand-in-hand with a rapid pace of strides further in continuing research on some other dismembered “Ege Manuscripts”, owned and dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), as well as on some other manuscript fragments – which turn out to have unexpectedly interlocking patterns of transmission by 20th-century sellers.  The advances are described in Updates for Some ‘Otto Ege Manuscripts’.

Read On, Dear Reader, Read On. To say that “The Plot Thickens” would take the words right out of our mouth.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Budny Handlist, Dawson's Bookshop, Ege Memorial Microfilm, Manuscript studies, Otto Ege, Otto Ege Manuscript 61, Philip Duschnes, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Vulgate Pocket Bible, WorldCat
1 Comment »

Say Cheese

May 21, 2017 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition, Uncategorized

Survey of Rents for Plots of Land
circa 1530s
from Brie in France

Single-Sheet Document
Undated
in French on Vellum
with mostly Blank Dorse

[First published on 21 May 2017, with updates]

Continuing our series on Manuscript Studies, our Principal Blogger, Mildred Budny (see Her Page) briefly describes a single-sheet vellum document, which lists in French the rents for various plots of land concerning the region of Brie (renowned for, among other things, its distinctive Cheese).

Detail of "Brie Champenoise" from the "Atlas Moderne" by Rigbert Bonne (1771). Via Wiki Commons.

Detail of “Brie Champenoise” from the “Atlas Moderne” by Rigbert Bonne (1771). Via Wiki Commons.

Face Front

The document in question, now in a private collection, measures at the most circa 298 × 149 mm. The script of the document uses the whitish flesh side of the animal skin.  The written side presents a description in French in 22 1/3 long lines of fields and rents from various properties in the area.

By a single hand, the text is skillfully and swiftly written in faded brown ink.  The lines are not uniformly horizontal.  They stand upon an unevenly trimmed sheet, whose contours perhaps conform partly to the shape of the sheet as it emanated from the initial preparation of the writing material.

The dorse (not shown here; no image is yet available) is mostly blank, although apparently black light reveals some scarcely decipherable traces of script which has been rubbed or effaced.  To quote the collector’s report:  the document “has nothing obvious written on the verso, although a black light shows what may possibly be faint text that has rubbed out.  The recto text is mostly readable with the black light.”  Glad for image enhancement, wherever possible.

Single-sheet document in Latin on vellum, circa 1530s, listing rents for plots of land, from Brie in France. Private collection, reproduced by permission.

Face of the document.

The document is undated.  A sensible assessment of its probable date of origin must depend, for example, upon the style of its script.  Given points of comparison (in Latin:  comparanda), let us suggest that it probably dates from the 153os.  An earlier post in our blog considers 16th-century script by more than one skilled French hands: Scrap of Information.

That post illustrates a large single-sheet charter from Vienne in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, also in a private collection, emanating from the 1530s.  Seen here:

1530 document from Vienne. Reproduced by permission

Different hands, stylistic differences, but some similar approaches in both these documents.  Plus, the Vienne document contains entries by several different hands.  Shared features.

Closer Up

A few closer views, first the left-hand half:

Left-hand half of face of Single-sheet document in Latin on vellum, circa 1530s, listing rents for plots of land, from Brie in France. Private collection, reproduced by permission.

Left-hand Half of the Brie Document. Reproduced by permission.

Now the right-hand half:

Right-hand half of face of Single-sheet document in Latin on vellum, circa 1530s, listing rents for plots of land, from Brie in France. Private collection, reproduced by permission.

Right-hand Half. Reproduced by permission.

What Up?

To put it mildly, much of the vocabulary is more than a bit unfamiliar.  Let’s take a sampling, and you might take it from there.

For example, one line (guess which one?) reads “. . . Les courres des godeaux situes du ladite paroisse de brye contenans trois journaulx ung quart de journaul et ung quar de carreau ladit bernardeau promo . . .”  Presumably the terms ‘carreau’ and ‘journaul’ are land measures. 

To state that this is “not exactly our field” applies both to the fields in the region of Brie, not possessed by anyone we know, and to our own fields of expertise (so far).  Way to go?  Bien sur!

Way to Go

Do you know, perhaps, of other extant monuments of script from this scribe, from this region at the same point in time, or locations indicated in the span of the document?  We would be glad to know more.

Piece of Cake?  Piece of Cheese?

Slice of Brie. Photograph by Coyau via Wikipedia Commons.

Slice of Brie. Photograph by Coyau via Wikipedia Commons.

Over to you.  Please let us know your comments.

*****

Next stop:  More Manuscripts, Of Course.

Keep sight of the Contents List for this Blog.

*****

Update July 2020

For reports on other 16th-century documents in French on vellum, see

  • Scrap of Information, from a document including the date or number 1538,
    and also a document of circa 1530 from Vienne, Isère
  • Vellum Binding Fragments in a Parisian Printed Book of 1598, from a legal document of circa 1510 to 1520

Please let us know if you know of other documents like these.

You might reach us via Contact Us or our Facebook Page. Comments here are welcome too.

*****

Tags: documents in question, French documents, List of Fields and Rents, manuscript fragments, Manuscript Photography, Manuscript studies, Region of Brie
No Comments »

Fit to Be Tied

May 9, 2017 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition, Uncategorized

1320 Letter of Berengarius
Concerning a Dispute at Calahorra

Or Not!

Single-Sheet Document
of Cardinal–Bishop Bérengar de Frédul
dated 13 July 1320
in Latin on Vellum
with Red Cord Tie
and Docketing on the Dorse in Spanish

Budny Handlist 21

Budny Handlist 21 Dorse of Document of Berengar Fredul of 1320 with red cord tie and Docketing in Spanish. Photography by Mildred Budny.

Document of Pope John XXII for Berengarius, unfolded. Photography by Mildred Budny

Continuing our series on Manuscript Studies, our Principal Blogger, Mildred Budny (see Her Page) describes a single-sheet vellum Latin document, plus cord, which came within the span of her conservation, photography, and research for the Illustrated Handlist.

There, the document holds Number 21.  Unlike the other items (so far) in the Illustrated Handlist, this one appears to be a forgery, albeit skilled.  In a word:  Curious.

The Thing as Such

First some ‘statistics’.

Cameo of Pope John XXII. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons.

Cameo of Pope John XXII. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons.

Epistolary Document of
Bérenger Fredoli (circa 1250 – 1323),
Cardinal–Bishop (1309–1323)
of Frascati near Rome,
Issued Purportedly during
Year 4 of the Reign
of the Avignon Pope John XXII (1316–1377)
and dated 13 July 1320,
with knotted red cord tie

Circa 230 × 423 mm with flap closed; full height counting flap = circa 169 × 316 mm
Single column of 18 long lines
< written area circa 169 × 316 mm >
plus red knotted cord tie laced through the flap
with docketing in Spanish on the dorse

Provenance Interrupted

The document was acquired by gift in 1955.  The method and appurtenances of presentation provide the name of the donor, Philip Hofer, (1898–1984), his letter announcing and accompanying the gift as a thank-offering, and his custom-made box for the offering.

However, it provides no information whatsoever about the provenance, source of acquisition, the presentation provides other useful elements of information which the intermediary would have had.  We are stuck with those gaps.  Shame.

About those lamentable and noxious with-holdings of information in the transmission of materials between modern handlers, some of our blogposts already document the miseries in trying to piece together the traces.  See the blog’s Contents List.

We are entitled to wonder, also, about the caliber of the gift, which, itself doubtless well-meaning between equals at Harvard with stature and means, carries questionability in its own ‘right’ (or ‘wrong’), considering the dubious nature of the document itself.

Information about where and how the donor acquired the document is much to be wished.  Or what he thought it constituted.

As a Gift

Folded in half horizontally and then in thirds across, along its medieval folds, the document was contained in its custom-made 20th-century lined clam-shell box for presentation to the Owner by Philip Hofer, along with the letter describing that presentation, signed by Hofer and dated 14 December 1955.

With that presentation enclosure, I first came to know the shape and features of the object.  It took a while before the oddities came pressingly into the forefront.

Happy as a Clam-Shell

The Presentation Box

In and Out.  All About.

1.  Outside

Unfolded exterior of Custom Clam-Shell Box

2.  Inside
Unfolded Interior of Custom Clam-Shell Box with Donor's Presentation Letter

Unfolded Interior of Custom Clam-Shell Box with Donor’s Presentation Letter and Folded Document

CenterFold

Opening of Indulgence from Pope John XXIII for Berengarius, Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati. Photography © Mildred Budny

Who, What, Where, Wherefore?

The text of the document begins with an enlarged and decorated ink initial B, which stands upon the baseline of the first line of script and rises firmly into the upper margin.  The other letters of the name Berengarius ascend as a clustered, narrow group, before the document settles into the main script, which provides an upright, neatly written Gothic Textualis, with some curved, hook-like tips ascending or descending into the interlines.  Although the lettering, which employs some abbreviations, is, for the most part, clearly decipherable, the sense of the phrasing overall proves a puzzle.

A transcription and attempted translations of the text reveal that the Latinity leaves something to be desired in terms of clarity or comprehension.  Several of us looking at its challenges wonder about its command of the language.  Neatly put, as one scholar declared in a message:  “I cannot make out much of your document; the Latin is awful!”

The Bishop addresses the recipient of the letter, the Thesaurius (“treasurer”) of Calahorra in the province of La Rioja in northeastern Spain, with an appeal on behalf of the clergy of its churches of Saint Andrew and Saint Christopher.  The clergy claimed that they had “at one time” made a deal with the Thesaurius, who possibly had given them property to administer (or something).  The deal went sour.  They claimed that the Thesaurius had pulled a fast one on them; they appealed to the Bishop, who had authority from the Pope; and the Bishop turned to the official.  To whit, this Letter.  To quote our scholar again:  “That’s the best I can do.  I find most of the Latin incomprehensible.”

Panorama view of the historical district of Calahorra. Photograph: Own Work by De Zarateman via Creative Commons.De Zarateman - Trabajo propio, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50474431

Panorama view of the historical district of Calahorra. Photograph: Own Work by De Zarateman via Creative Commons.

Cameo of Pope John XXII. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons.The letter declares its issue during the reign of Pope John XXII (1244–1334), the second Avignon Pope (reigned 1316–1334).  The issue of the letter relates to the span of “political and administrative correspondence of the Avignon popes, 1305–1378”, as surveyed, for example, by Patrick Zutschi in a paper presented in 1988 (published in 1990).  As such, it would hold interest as a relic of that contested period in the papacy.

*****

When the Dust Has Settled

An interior view of the fold:

Detail of Document of Berengarius, viewing the interior of the right-hand side of the folded flap at its bottom, to reveal the gathered dust and glimpse part of the red silk cord. Photography © Mildred Budny

We plan to write some more about this questionable document, but other tasks and challenges (including illnesses and a death in the family) have interfered with the completion of the report.  Returning somewhat to health, I decided that it might be useful to send forth these observations, questions, and images, to set the discussion going.  Do you have any views on this matter and material?  Please let us know.

Meanwhile, feast your eyes on its features.  Photography by Mildred Budny.

 

Document of Pope John XXII for Berengarius, unfolded. Photography by Mildred Budny

*****

Budny Handlist 21 Dorse of Document of Berengar Fredul of 1320 with red cord tie and Docketing in Spanish. Photography by Mildred Budny.

*****

Some Background Reading

Patrick Zutschi, “The political and administrative correspondence of the Avignon popes, 1305–1378:  a contribution to papal diplomatic”, in Actes de la table ronde d’Avignon (23-24 janvier 1988).  Publications de l’École française de Rome, 138 (1990), 371–384

*****

More to come.  Please watch this space.

Tags: Avignon Popes, Bérengar de Frédul, Budny Handlist, Calahorra, Document with Cord Tie, Documents of 1320, Forgeries & Imitations, Medieval Documents, medieval forgery, Pope John XXII
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A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues Reused for Euthymius

December 24, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition, Uncategorized

A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues
Reused for Binding
A Copy of
Euthymius Zigabenus’s On the Psalms

Budny Handlist 3

In our blog on Manuscript Studies (see its Contents List), Mildred Budny (see Her Page) continues to report the results of research for her Illustrated Handlist.

Here, we focus upon a leaf plucked from its 12th-century manuscript and pressed into service, with trimmed edges and mitered folds, as the vellum covering for a binding for a different text of small format.  Both texts, primary and secondary in the life of the leaf, concern religious subjects, but they emanate from authors of different dates, locations, and languages in the Latin West and the Orthodox East respectively.  The primary text represents a remnant of a text and an author familiar in some other blogposts, which consider the Dialogues, the Sermons or Homilies, and other texts by Pope Gregory the Great (pope from 590 to 694 CE).

Reused Leaf from Gregory's Dialogues Book III viewed from recto (inside of reused book cover) with text upright and with guides. Photograph © Mildred Budny.

Handlist 3, Recto

Reused Leaf from Gregory's Dialogues Book III viewed from verso (outside of reused book cover) with text upright and with guides. Photograph © Mildred Budny.

Handlist 3, Verso

Part of Gregory’s Dialogues, Book III, Chapter 7

(on Andreas, Bishop of Fondi/Fundi):
Sections 2 (Hic namque uenerabilis uir) –
8 (uel quae in conuentu)

Present measurements:
Circa 357 × 237 mm
< written area circa 266 × 133 mm >
Single column of 28 lines
in revived Caroline minuscule
without embellishments
Germany, circa 1175

Reused for some time as the vellum cover for the binding of a copy of
Euthymius Zigabenus‘s Commentary on the Psalms
in Greek or in Latin translation?
(now lost or preserved elsewhere in a location unknown)

For this secondary use, the remnants of a set of titles on the outside of the spine of the cover (the original verso of the reused leaf) remain in place, albeit abraded and fragmented, as both a pasted, inscribed paper label (orientated along the ‘horizontal’ across the spine) and an ink inscription on the reused leaf itself in Capitals (‘vertical’, with the tops of those letters turned toward the ‘front cover’).  Another, smaller and fragmentary pasted label with a broad rectangular border stands near the bottom of the broad spine of the cover and partly overlies the ‘vertical’ spine inscription.

Reused Leaf from Gregory's Dialogues Book III viewed from verso (outside of reused book cover). Photograph © Mildred Budny.

Acquired, probably by purchase (according to the Owner’s recollections), in France in the past 15 years or so, but before 2007 when I first saw and began to photograph the leaf.   This item and others in the Illustrated Handlist acquired in France at various times and by various means (purchase, gift, or exchange), came from a single source in the Département of Saône-et-Loire, from about 1999 onward.  Because the leaf does not carry indications of its original place and time of production, apart from its materials, layout, design, script, orthography, and punctuation, those unknowns must depend upon evaluations of the style of the script, lacking any forms of embellishment, such as decorated initials, which might have provided possibly more closely datable symptoms than the letters “alone”.

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Tags: 'Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts', Binding History, Bishop Andrew of Fundi, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, Ege Manuscript 41, Euthymius Zigabenos, Fondi, Gregory the Great, Gregory's Dialogues, manuscript fragments, Manuscript Fragments Reused in Bindings, Manuscript studies, Psalter Commentary, Saki, Temple of Apollo
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Another Witness to the Cistercian Statutes of 1257

December 2, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

Detail of the top of the verso of the fragmentary leaf from a 13th-century copy of Statutes for the Cistercian Order. Reproduced by permission.Part-Leaf from a Dismembered Witness
to the 1257 Codification of the Statutes
for the Cistercian Order

A Part-Leaf, now on its own, carries parts of the Chapter De Conversis (“On the Lay Brothers”)
from Distinctio (“Section”) XIV (out of XV in total)
in the Codification of 1257 of Statutes for the Cistercian Order

This installment of our blog on Manuscript Studies identifies a fragmentary 13th-century leaf on vellum with monastic rules in Latin.  Now reduced to a single column of its original double columns of text, the fragment carries parts of the Statutes of the Cistercian Order, in a mid-–13th-century version — or, rather, extension — of those Statutes.  That extended version appears in full in a few other extant manuscripts.  Mildred Budny describes the fragment and its testimony.

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Tags: British Library Additional MS 11294, Cistercian Statutes, Cistercian Statutes of 1257-1258, Fontanay Abbey, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts
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It’s A Wrap

October 3, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

Initial I of Idem for Justinian's Novel Number 134, with bearded human facing left at the top of the stem of the letter. Photography © Mildred Budny

Q for ‘Quem’

Laying Down the Law

A leaf from the Novellae Constitutiones (or Authenticum)
of the Emperor Justinian’s Corpus Iuris Civilis
with Parts of ‘Novels’ Numbers 159.2 and 134.1–3
plus Embellishments

Reused as a Wrapper, with Added Vellum Tie,
for Some Other Material (now lost)

Still preserved in this folder form

Budny Handlist Number 7

 

Continuing our series of blogposts on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny reports on manuscripts and fragments dispersed in various ways.  Now we unveil a leaf reused as an wrapper-style enclosure or tied folder, with its own story to tell.

Legal Manuscript Leaf in Latin on Parchment
Made probably at Bologna, circa 1300 CE,
with Medieval Additions and Modern Alterations

Purchased in Florence, Italy, in June 1972

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Tags: Bolognese Legal Manuscript, Budny Handlist, David Immerman, Emperor Justinian I, Glossed Manuscripts, Justinian's Novellae Constitutiones, Legal Manuscripts, Libreria Leo S. Olschki, Manuscript Fragments Reused in Bindings, Scott Gwara, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Susan L'Engle, Valerio Cappozzo, Vellum Wrapper
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