• News
    • News & Views
    • RGME Activities for 2024 and 2025
    • Around & About with the RGME
    • Reviews
    • Highlights
  • Blogs
    • Manuscript Studies
      • Manuscript Studies: Contents List
    • International Congress on Medieval Studies
      • Abstracts of Congress Papers
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Author
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Year
  • About
    • Mission
    • Who We Are
      • Officers, Associates & Volunteers
      • RGME Committees
      • Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
    • Policies & Statements
      • RGME Privacy Policy Statement
      • RGME Intellectual Property Statement & Agreements
    • People
      • Mildred Budny — Her Page
      • Adelaide Bennett Hagens
    • Activities
      • Events
      • Congress Activities
        • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
          • Panels at the M-MLA Convention (from 2016)
        • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • History
      • Seals, Matrices & Documents
      • Genealogies & Archives
    • Contact Us
  • Bembino
    • Multi-Lingual Bembino
  • Congress
    • 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 (2016-2019)
      • Abstracts of Papers for the M-MLA Convention
      • Panels at the M-MLA Convention (from 2016)
  • Events
    • RGME Activities for 2024 and 2025
      • 2023 Activities and 2024 Planned Activities
    • Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia (1989–)
      • Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series (2001-)
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Program: The Roads Taken
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
      • RGME Symposia: The Various Series
      • The Research Group Speaks: The Series
      • Meetings of the Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
      • RGME Online Events
    • 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
  • Galleries
    • Watermarks & the History of Paper
    • Galleries: Contents List
    • Scripts on Parade
    • Texts on Parade
      • Latin Documents & Cartularies
      • New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian
    • Posters on Display
    • Layout Designs
  • Donations and Contributions
    • RGME Donor Promise
    • 2023 End-of-Year Fundraiser for our 2024 Anniversary Year
    • 2019 Anniversary Appeal
    • Orders
  • Links
    • Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases: A Handlist of Links
    • Handlist of Resources for Manuscript Studies and Fragmentology
    • Manuscripts & Rare Books
    • Maps, Plans & Drawings
    • Seals, Seal-Matrices & Documents

  • News
    • News & Views
    • RGME Activities for 2024 and 2025
    • Around & About with the RGME
    • Reviews
    • Highlights
  • Blogs
    • Manuscript Studies
      • Manuscript Studies: Contents List
    • International Congress on Medieval Studies
      • Abstracts of Congress Papers
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Author
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Year
  • About
    • Mission
    • Who We Are
      • Officers, Associates & Volunteers
      • RGME Committees
      • Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
    • Policies & Statements
      • RGME Privacy Policy Statement
      • RGME Intellectual Property Statement & Agreements
    • People
      • Mildred Budny — Her Page
      • Adelaide Bennett Hagens
    • Activities
      • Events
      • Congress Activities
        • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
          • Panels at the M-MLA Convention (from 2016)
        • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • History
      • Seals, Matrices & Documents
      • Genealogies & Archives
    • Contact Us
  • Bembino
    • Multi-Lingual Bembino
  • Congress
    • 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 (2016-2019)
      • Abstracts of Papers for the M-MLA Convention
      • Panels at the M-MLA Convention (from 2016)
  • Events
    • RGME Activities for 2024 and 2025
      • 2023 Activities and 2024 Planned Activities
    • Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia (1989–)
      • Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series (2001-)
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Program: The Roads Taken
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
      • RGME Symposia: The Various Series
      • The Research Group Speaks: The Series
      • Meetings of the Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
      • RGME Online Events
    • 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
  • Galleries
    • Watermarks & the History of Paper
    • Galleries: Contents List
    • Scripts on Parade
    • Texts on Parade
      • Latin Documents & Cartularies
      • New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian
    • Posters on Display
    • Layout Designs
  • Donations and Contributions
    • RGME Donor Promise
    • 2023 End-of-Year Fundraiser for our 2024 Anniversary Year
    • 2019 Anniversary Appeal
    • Orders
  • Links
    • Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases: A Handlist of Links
    • Handlist of Resources for Manuscript Studies and Fragmentology
    • Manuscripts & Rare Books
    • Maps, Plans & Drawings
    • Seals, Seal-Matrices & Documents

Log in

Archives

Featured Posts

Episode 21. “Learning How to Look”
A “Beatus Manuscripts” Project
2025 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program
2025 RGME Visit to Vassar College
2025 International Medieval Congress at Leeds: RGME Program
Two Leaves in the Book of Numbers from the Chudleigh Bible
Delibovi on Glassgold on Boethius: A Blogpost
Ronald Smeltzer on “Émilie du Châtelet, Woman of Science”
A Latin Kalendar Leaf for February from Northern France
2025 Spring Symposium: “Makers, Producers, and Collectors of Books”
Starters’ Orders
The Weber Leaf from the Saint Albans Bible
Workshop 4. “Manuscript Fragments Compared”
Episode 20. “Comic Book Theory for Medievalists”
Episode 19: “At the Gate: Starting the Year 2025 at its Threshold”
2025 Annual Appeal
Favorite Recipes for Lemonade, Etc.
RGME Visit to the Lomazow Collection: Report
2024 Autumn Symposium: “At the Helm”
Medieval Women’s Networks
A Latin Vulgate Leaf of the Book of Numbers
The RGME ‘Lending Library’
Florence, Italy, Ponte Vecchio from Ponte alle Grazie. Photo: Ingo Mehling, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Episode 17. “RGME Retrospect and Prospects: Anniversary Reflections”
2024 Anniversary Symposium: The Booklet
2024 International Medieval Congress at Leeds: Program
Jesse Hurlbut at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. Photograph Jesse Hurlbut.
Episode 16: An Interview with Jesse D. Hurlbut
To Whom Do Manuscripts Belong?
Kalamazoo, MI Western Michigan University, Valley III from the side. Photograph: David W. Sorenson.
2024 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Report
2024 Spring Symposium at Vassar College
Puente de San Martín: Bridge with reflection over the River Targus, Toledo, Spain.
2024 Grant for “Between Past and Future” Project from The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation Research Libraries Program
2024 Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut: Program

You are browsing the Blog for Research Group Speaks (The Series)

Episode 21. “Learning How to Look”

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

“The Research Group Speaks”
Episode 21

“Learning How to Look”
A Roundtable

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

[Posted on 17 January 2025]

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

  • “The Research Group Speaks”: The Series

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

The Plan

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

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

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

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

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

Speakers include (in alphabetical order):

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

Vitas Patrum Folio 5A. Photography © Mildred Budny

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

Registration

See the registration portal for our events.

  • RGME Eventbrite Collection

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

  • Episode 21 “Learning How to Look” Tickets

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

We welcome Voluntary Donations with your registration. See also:

  • Contributions and Donations
  • 2025 Annual Appeal

Thank you for joining us!

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

  • Leave your comments or questions below
  • Contact Us

Visit our Social Media:

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

Join the Friends of the RGME.

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

  • Donations and Contributions
  • 2025 Annual Appeal

*****

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

Tags: Manuscript studies
No Comments »

Episode 20. “Comic Book Theory for Medievalists”

January 16, 2025 in Manuscript Studies, Research Group Episodes for The Research Group Speaks, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

“The Research Group Speaks”
Episode 20

“Comic Book Theory
for Medievalists:
The Poetics”

Jesse D. Hurlbut

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

[Posted on 20 January 2025]

Our series wherein “The Research Group Speaks” continues with its Twentieth Episode in an exploration of the phenomenon of dynamic interactions between words and images found in books from widely distant centuries, yet in compellingly similar modes of presentation.

BnF, Fr, 1141, fol. 140v, detail.

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

This Episode follows Episode 19 in January 2025 “At the Gate: RGME Activities for 2025” to launch our Theme for this Year, “Thresholds and Communities”, with reflections on the theme and an introduction to the suite of our multiple activities for 2025.

Episode 20 takes a look at an engaging didactic genre of illustrated books, whether in manuscript or print, which displays an unfolding story as the pages take their turns.

Which genre is that? Comic books, par excellence, along with their popular forerunners in medieval narratives of many kinds in which sequential series of images accompany or take over the story.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: BnF MS Fr. 1141, Comic Book Theory, Comic Books, Dream Visions, Guillaume de Diguillevile, Jesse D. Hurlbut, Jimmy Corigan, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts, Pèlerinage de la Vie Humaine, Words and Images
No Comments »

Episode 19: “At the Gate: Starting the Year 2025 at its Threshold”

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

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

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

[Posted on 28 December 2025, with updates]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Theme for 2025:
“Thresholds and Communities”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Panelists and Subjects

Panelists for our Roundtable include:

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

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

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

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

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

Reflections on the Theme

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

1) Liminal Deities

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

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

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

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

2) Thresholds as Emblems

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

  • Gathering At the Threshold: A Celebratory Symposium

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

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

— Propyläen

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

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

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

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

In German:

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

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

—— Preface to Propyläen

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

Registration

Please register to attend this online Episode. Registration is free, and we invite you to make a volunteer donation when you register, to help support our nonprofit educational corporation powered principally by volunteers.

After you register, the Zoom Link will be sent to you before the event.

Eventbrite Registration

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

Thank you for joining us!

*****

Questions? Suggestions?

  • Leave your comments or questions below
  • Contact Us

Visit our Social Media:

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

Join the Friends of the RGME.

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

  • Donations and Contributions
  • 2025 Annual Appeal

*****

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

*****

Tags: "Thresholds and Communities", Friends of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, Gates and Gateways, Janus, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Liminal Deities, Manuscript studies, Propylaen, RGME Roundtable, RGME Theme for the Year, The Research Group Speaks
No Comments »

Patrick Wormald (1947–2007): A Memoir by David Ganz

August 12, 2024 in Announcements, Bembino, Manuscript Studies, Memoirs, Research Group Episodes for The Research Group Speaks, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

Patrick Wormald (1947–2007):
A Memoir by David Ganz

2024 RGME Anniversary Recollections
Part 2

[Posted on 12 August 2024]

Patrick Wormald at one of Wendy Davies’s charter weekends of the Bucknell group at Bucknell, Shropshire, in the late 1980s. Photograph by Rosemary Morris.

Our series of 2024 Anniversary Reflections continues its tributes for people who have contributed to our formation, progress, and the mission over the years.

Part 1 focused on Giles Constable (1929—2021), RGME Honorary Trustee, Colleague, Friend, and Mentor.

  • Recollections for the 2024 RGME Anniversary, Part 1: Giles Constable

Part 2 turns to our long-term Associate Patrick Wormald (1947–2007), Angl0-Saxon Legal Historian, with a Memoir by our Trustee David Ganz. We offer it as a booklet freely for download.

Anniversary Reflections

In 2024, with our year’s theme of Bridges, the RGME celebrates:

  • 25 years as a nonprofit educational organization incorporated in Princeton, New Jersey, and
  • 35 years as an international scholarly organization founded as part of a major research project on “Anglo-Saxon and Related Manuscripts” at The Parker Library of Corpus Christi College in the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Among the ways to mark our anniversary, the RGME continues with its series of Memoirs (including these Parts 1 and 2 in 2024) and prepares an Episode in our online series “The Research Group Speaks” to consider

  • Episode 17. “RGME Retrospect and Prospects: Anniversary Reflections”

To register:

  • Episode 17. Retrospect and Prospects: Anniversary Reflections
    Saturday 21 September 2024, 1:00–2:30 EDT (GMT-4) online via Zoom

The Episode aims to include recollections of people who have gone before us, and whose memory we wish to honor with informal conversation and a roundtable.

Memoir of Patrick Wormald
Angl0-Saxon Legal Historian

In preparation for the Episode in September 2024, David Ganz has offered this Memoir.

“The Schartz–Metterhulme Method:
A Memoir of Patrick Wormald (1947–2007)”
by David Ganz

David began its composition years ago, following the Memorial Service for Patrick in Oxford.  He returned to it recently for us in preparing for our Episode 17.  Additions for the publication include

  • photographs of Patrick, generously provided by Rosemary Morris;
  • David’s description of Patrick’s attention to and use of manuscript evidence and contributions to some RGME events;
  • bibliographical references; and
  • an Afterword by Mildred Budny.

The title takes its name from a short story with that name by Saki, the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916). First published in 1911, “The Schartz—Metterklume Method” appeared in the volume of Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914).

In conjuring up the world and horizons of historians at Oxford in an earlier generation when Patrick Wormald embarked upon his studies, giving shape to their pursuit across a lifetime at the University of Oxford and elsewhere, the Memoir by David Ganz offers perspectives from a near-contemporary of that life’s work, which continued to engage with various of those historians and their antecedents, not least Frederic William Maitland (1850–1906). The Memoir signals Patrick’s attention repeatedly to the evidence of manuscripts, as part of his research, teaching, and publications. Some of his publications long-planned found fruition posthumously after Patrick’s death too soon at the age of fifty-seven.

We publish this Memoir as an RGME Publication, following the principles of our Style Manifesto, set in our digital font Bembino, and freely available for circulation.  (For information about download or printed copies, see below.)

Patrick Wormald on a charter weekend at Bucknell, Shropshire, in the late 1980s. Photograph by Rosemary Morris.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: All Soul's College, Anglo-Saxon legal history, Christ Church University of Oxford, David Ganz, Elizabeth A.R. Brown, Frederic William Maitland, Memoirs, Oxford Historians, Patrick Wormald, Peggy Brown, RGME Anniversary, RGME Colloquia, RGME Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts, University of Glasgow, University of Oxford
No Comments »

Memoirs

July 23, 2024 in Announcements, Bembino, Manuscript Studies, Memoirs, Research Group Speaks (The Series), RGME Recollections, RGME Symposia, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence

Remembering
Those Who Have Gone Before

[Posted on 22 July 2024]

In our 2025 Anniversary Year, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence reflects on people who have gone before us and whom we wish to recollect as companions or mentors, advisers, colleagues, and friends contributing to the origins, history, and growth of our organization across the years.

Part of that process has yielded the formation of our own nonprofit educational publishing house.  Our books and booklets in printed form and digital formats include Memoirs, to which we add this year.

1. Oleg Andreevich Grabar

The first of these Memoirs appeared quietly in 2015 as a 4-page booklet.  It offers a Memorial for Oleg Grabar, art historian and archaeologist:

In Memory of
Oleg Andreevich Grabar
[Олег Андреевич Грабар]
(3 November 1929 – 8 January 2011)

Composed by Leonid A. Beliaev, the text was published first in Russian. By request, it was translated from the Russian into English, set in multi-lingual RGME Bembino, provided with a photograph by permission, and laid out as a booklet corresponding with our RGME Style Manifesto.

Although Oleg did not participate in RGME activities, he generously gave advice for our research over several years while our Director worked as a part-time research assistant for his colleague Giles Constable (see below).  The translation and publication of the English version of the Memoir in Russian were carried out for its author, an RGME Associate, at the request and with the assistance of a long-term supporter and advisor of the RGME.  Note that the RGME font Bembino supports the Cyrillic font appropriate for portions of the text of the published Memoir.

The booklet can freely be downloaded:

  • Memorial for Oleg Grabar.

*****

2. Vivien Anne Law

For our blog on Manuscript Studies, in 2014 our Director, Mildred Budny, provided a blogpost called Memorials.  Principally it shares recollections of friend, colleague, and long-time RGME participant (first as Associate of our international scholarly organization in England and then as Trustee of our non-profit corporation), Vivien Anne Law (1954–2002). This forms part of a larger report or Memoir responding, in part, to the opportunity to examine and advise on Vivien’s archives in late 2005 at the request of her widower, Sir Nicholas Shackleton (1937–2006).

Our Director’s paper for our 2002 Colloquium at the British Museum in London in March (a month after Vivien’s death) is dedicated to her memory, as well as that of another, dear, friend and mentor.

  • 2002 Colloquium on “Shaping Understanding: Form and Order in the Anglo-Saxon World (400–1100)”.
Vivien Law in her Garden in Cambridge, England,June 1996 Photograph © Mildred Budny

Vivien Law in her Cambridge Garden in June 1996 (Photograph © Mildred Budny)

*****

3. Giles Constable

Also for our blog Manuscript Studies, this year we posted a set of recollections about of Giles Constable (1 June 1929 — 17 January 2021), friend, colleague, mentor, and RGME Associate and Honorary Trustee.  These recollections do not comprise an obituary as such, because Giles often and firmly expressed his wish for no such thing, nor any Memorial Service or Festschrift for him in his honor.

Instead, after an interval of mourning, we record appreciation for his contributions as a presence and guiding force for our organization since its early years in the United States, following the move of our principal base from the United Kingdom to Princeton, New Jersey, in October of 1994.

  • Recollections for the 2024 RGME Anniversary Year, Part 1. Giles Constable.
Giles Constable reading in his office at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Giles Constable reading in his office at the Institute for Advanced Studies. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Also, his generous encouragement of our work for manuscript studies by long-term loans or gifts made it possible closely to examine, over time, groups of original specimens of medieval manuscripts, manuscript fragments, documents, seals in metal or wax, early printed materials, bindings, and associated records.  The work included conservation, photography, research, seminars, display, and publication in our blog and other forms.

Discoveries abounded, and found expression in those publications as well as in various of our RGME events. For example:

  • 2014 Seminar on Manuscripts and Their Photographs, held at the Index of Christian Art of Princeton University in its Seminar Room.

*****

5. Patrick Wormald

Now, in preparation for our Episode 17. “RGME Retrospect and Prospects: Anniversary Reflections” in September 2024, our RGME Associate and Trustee David Ganz offers a Memoir of our RGME Associate Patrick Wormald (1947–2004).

Coffee Break at the 2002 British Museum Colloquium.

Patrick Wormald at the 2002 Colloquium

*****

In Memoriam

See also RGME Officers, Associates, and Volunteers: In Memoriam.

Another Memoir composed by our Director in booklet format, published in a limited edition:

  • “The Guessing Game:  A Memoir of My Uncle Bob, Robert Roger McEwan (1918‒2007)” (Princeton, New Jersey:  Milly Budny Designs, 2017)

*****

Others?

Are there others whom you wish to remember?  Please let us know.  Would you like to contribute a Memoir of some kind about someone you recall with appreciation and seek to record?

For example, you could Contact Us or write to the [email protected] with your requests or suggestions.

*****

Episode 17 of “The Research Group Speaks”

As part of our anniversary celebrations, the RGME prepares an Episode in our online series “The Research Group Speaks” to consider our past, present, and future.

  • Episode 17. “RGME Retrospect and Prospects: Anniversary Reflections”

It will, for example, offer recollections of people who have loomed large in our history, and whom we remember with affection, admiration, and gratitude.  Among them are Giles Constable, Vivien Law, and Patrick Wormald (see above).  Please join us.

To register:

  • Episode 17. Retrospect and Prospects: Anniversary Reflections
    Saturday 21 September 2024, 1:00–2:30 EDT (GMT-4) online via Zoom

See you there?

*****

Tags: Giles Constable, Memoirs, Oleg Grabar, Patrick Wormald, Vivien Law
No Comments »

Episode 18. “Women as Makers of Books”

May 5, 2024 in Anniversary, Book, Design, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Episodes for The Research Group Speaks, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

“The Research Group Speaks”
Episode 18
“Women as Makers of Books”

Saturday 14 December 2024
1:00–2:30 pm EST (GMT-5) by Zoom

Jaclyn Reed, Hannah Goeselt, Linda Civitello,
Mildred Budny, and Others

[Posted on 3 May 2024, with updates]

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

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

By its focus upon the agency of women in and for books, this Episode offers a pendant at the end of our 2024 Anniversary Year for the Episode which opened the year.

  • See Episode 15. Women Writers from the Medieval to Post-Modern Periods

Then, in January, scholars, teachers, and writers spoke about their interests, long-term work , and current projects concerned with the writings of women authors across a long span of time. Reflecting women’s roles, opportunities, constraints, and resourcefulness, the writings cover a wide range of spheres, subjects, approaches, and styles. The works range from literary creations to recipes for cookery.

Now, in December, the same speakers from that Episode return to offer reflections, presentations, or responses on the subject of women who contributed in one or more ways to the production of books in various forms during a range of periods across history. Other speakers and respondents join them, along with our audience engaging in the discussion with questions, comments, and observations.

For the January Episode, Mildred Budny was the presider. For the December Episode, Justin Hastings will preside.

We thank all our contributors, presiders, and attendees.

Lewistown, Pennsylvania, Old Stone Arch Bridge spanning Jack’s Creek. Built by Philip Diehl in 1815. Photograph by KAATMAAN (August 2011) via Wikimedia Commons via CC BY-SA 3.0 License.

A Bridge for, or across,
Our 2024 Anniversary Year

In keeping with the Theme of our Anniversary Year, Bridges, this Episode brings the opportunity to round out the year by means of a bridge across the RGME’s year with a return or expansion upon the theme of women responsible for contributions to the making of books. Now, we think of them not only as writers of texts, as at the beginning of the year in Episode 15, but also, or instead, as makers of the images, scripts, bindings, and/or other materials which make up books themselves as carriers of knowledge, art, expressions,  explorations, and manifestations of human aspirations.

Genres and Styles

Womens’ contributions to the “making of books” also extend to manuscripts or other forms of presenting the written word in material form. These makers chose to work in spheres ranging from calligraphy to illustrations and the designs which governed the layout or production of the works themselves.

Periods under consideration might range widely across centuries and cultures.  Examples include the Arts and Crafts Movement which flourished in Europe and North America circa 1880–1920, the Art Nouveau Movement of circa 1890–1910, and the Art Deco Style of the 1910s to 1930s.

Update:
Since we began to plan this Episode, more of our events in our 2024 Anniversary Year address the subject.

For example, in October, online by Zoom:

  • the co-sponsored set of webinars on Medieval Women’s Networks” on Thursday and Friday 17–18 October by Zoom
  • and the Autumn Symposium 2024 Autumn Symposium “At the Helm: Spotlight on Special Collections as Teaching Events”
    on Friday and Saturday 25–26 October by Zoom; its first session showcases contributions to book-production in the Victorian period Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Ali Smith, Art Nouveau, Arts & Crafts Movement, Calligraphers, Cheap Repository Tracts, Cookbooks, Élisabeth Sonrel, Hannah More, History of Book Production, Illustrators, Lucy Maynard Salmon, Mary Mape Dodge, Muriel Spark, Recipes, RGME Publications, Saint Nicholas Magazine, Seasons Personnified as Women, The Little Red Hen, Women as Makers, Women in Books, Women Printers, Women Writers
No Comments »

Episode 17. “RGME Retrospect and Prospects: Anniversary Reflections”

April 30, 2024 in Interviews, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Episodes for The Research Group Speaks, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

Episode 17 (Saturday 21 September 2024)
“RGME Retrospect and Prospects:
Anniversary Reflections”

[Posted on 30 April 2024, with updates]

This Episode in our online series The Research Group Speaks” offers Anniversary Reflections for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, as we draw on highlights of our history, reflect on memories and people, and bring forth observations from living memory.

Florence, Italy, Ponte Vecchio from Ponte alle Grazie. Photo: Ingo Mehling, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Florence, Italy, Ponte Vecchio from Ponte alle Grazie. Photo: Ingo Mehling, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

In keeping with the Theme of our Anniversary Year, Bridges, this Episode gives the opportunity to share recollections, with series of comments in a roundtable conversation.

Subjects include recollections of people, events, and landmarks in the history and legacy of the RGME as we celebrate our heritage and achievements during the 2024 Anniversary Year and beyond.  For example, we wish to bring forth the memories preserved in Oral Tradition, with their stories to tell and people’s memories to preserve and share.

James Marrow and Giles Constable at the Meeting of the Honorary Trustees of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, 13 December 2013

James Marrow and Giles Constable at the Meeting of the Honorary Trustees of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, 13 December 2013 Photography by Mildred Budny

In Memoriam

People to remember include

  • our Trustee Vivien Law
  • our Honorary Trustee Giles Constable
  • our Associates
    C. Patrick Wormald
    Roger E. Reynolds
    Elizabeth (“Peggy”) A.E. Brown
  • and others.

Would you like to suggest more names as memorials?

Survey Questions as Recollections, Souvenirs, and Records

In preparation, we would circulate a survey asking people if they would like

  1. to propose ideas beforehand for an open discussion, such as recollections of particular events and/or people in our history;
  2. to share some reflections or comments in the roundtable; and
  3. to make suggestions.

Also, might you have some souvenirs or photographs from RGME events that you would like to share with the audience of the Episode and/or with the RGME Library & Archives?  We would be glad to see them.

We encourage you to join the conversation and celebrations.

Awards

Would you like to propose someone for an Award for contributions to the RGME?  Please let us know your nominations, with a description of the reasons for them.

A delightful pair of Awards, both earnest and lighthearted, with an Award Ceremony, can be seen in the Certificates or ‘Diplomas’ which our late Associate, James P. Heidere, displayed by turns on the walls of his dental office and his kitchen at home.

James Heidere with his RGME Associate's 'Diploma' with Photography by Mildred Budny

James Heidere with his RGME Associate’s ‘Diploma’

See Heidere: Diplomas and Investiture (2002).

Information about our Episode 17:

  • Episode 17. “RGME Retrospect and Prospects: Anniversary Reflections”.

For this event, we celebrate RGME history, impact, and potential.

Register for the Episode:

  • Episode 17. Eventbrite Tickets

*****

Suggestion Box

Please Contact Us or visit

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

*****

Tags: Elizabeth A.R. Brown, Giles Constable, In Memoriam, Living Memory, Memorials, Oral Tradition, Patrick Wormald, Ponte Vecchio, RGME Anniversary, RGME History, RGME Origins, RGME Surveys, Roger E. Reynolds, Vivien A. Law
No Comments »

Episode 16: An Interview with Jesse D. Hurlbut

February 14, 2024 in Announcements, Event Registration, Manuscript Studies, Research Group Episodes for The Research Group Speaks, Research Group Speaks (The Series)

The Research Group Speaks
Episode 16

Saturday 22 June 2024 online
1:00–2:30 pm EST (GMT-5) by Zoom

“Trailblazing the Medieval Digital Humanities:
An Interview with Jesse D. Hurlbut”

Interviewer:  Mildred Budny, Director of the RGME

[Posted on 10 February 2024, with updates]

Jesse Hurlbut at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. Photograph Jesse Hurlbut.

Jesse Hurlbut at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. Photograph Jesse Hurlbut.

We invite you to attend Episode 16 in our series:

  • The Research Group Speaks

In this Episode, Jesse D. Hurlbut, RGME First WebMaster Emeritus, will speak informally about his contributions to manuscript studies, websites, digital access, and other interests.

Among them are his contributions to medieval manuscript studies, photography, and digital access; his teaching and research on French studies; his websites for himself and others (academic and non-profit organizations); his interests in promoting online communities for manuscript study and enjoyment; and more.

Update: Jesse returns for Episode 20 in March 2025 to report on his project on comic books and medieval manuscripts, as mentioned in this Episode.

  • Episode 20. “Comic Book Theory for Medievalists”

The Anniversary Symposium
in February 2024

Save-the-Date Poster for 2024 Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut. Poster set in RGME Bembino.

This event follows upon the 2024 Anniversary “Manuscript (HE)ART”, held online on Saturday 24 February 2024, as the first in the RGME’s set of Symposia for the 2024 Anniversary Year:

  • 2024 Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut.. co-organized by Katharine C. Chandler and Jessica L. Savage

Taking its title from Jesse’s website Manuscript Art: Taking a Closer Look, the Symposium is designed to gather Jesse’s former students, colleagues, and friends, to consider subjects in manuscript and other studies of interest to him.

The Episode

Now, the Episode gives the chance to hear him, learn more about his interests, and join the conversation.  For example, in particular, he proposes to describe the early digital years. These recollections may record experiences viewed in hindsight and with foresight.

The Q&A to follow — or, if we wish, interlink — with the conversational interview gives the opportunity for feedback and participation.

Jesse Hurlbut holds his newly won manuscript leaf at the Kalamazoo Congress on 10 May 2014. (Photography by Mildred Budny)

Jesse Hurlbut holds his newly won manuscript leaf at the Kalamazoo Congress on 10 May 2014. (Photography by Mildred Budny)

Information about Jesse:

  • Jesse D. Hurlbut: Curriculum Vitae
  • Jesse Hurlbut (LinkedIn)
  • Manuscript Art: Taking a Closer Look

In His Own Words:

  • Interview with Medieval Scholar Jesse Hurlbut (Friday, 21 August 2009)
  • Beatus Vir (December 5, 2015)

Information about the Episode:

  • Episode 16. Trailblazing for the Medieval Digital Humanities: An Interview with Jesse Hurlbut
    You are Here.

Register for the Episode:

  • Episode 16: An Interview with Jesse D. Hurlbut; Tickets

Registration is free.

We offer the option for Registration with a voluntary Donation, which we welcome.

Donations, which may be tax-deductible, help us to continue with our activities and sustain our mission for an organization principally powered by volunteers. See:

  • Donations and Contributions

After registration, the Zoom link will be sent a few days before the event.

If you have questions or issues with the registration process, please contact

  • [email protected].
Jesse Hurlbut and others at the RGME Reception at the ICMS 9 May 2024. Photography Mildred Budny.

Jesse Hurlbut and others at the RGME Reception at the ICMS 9 May 2024. Photography Mildred Budny.

See you at the Episode!

*****

Future Episodes

Future Episodes are planned.  See:

  • “The Research Group Speaks”: The Series.

Other Events

We plan various other events for the 2024 Anniversary Year.

  • 2023 and 2024 Activities

For example:

  • 2024 Anniversary Symposium in Thanks to Jesse Hurlbut (online)
  • 2024 Spring and Autumn Symposia-plus-anniversary-symposium
  • 2024 Spring Symposium at Vassar College (hybrid)
  • 2024 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program (severally in-person, online, and partly hybrid)
  • 2024 International Medieval Congress at Leeds (hybrid)

Questions or Suggestions?

Please leave your questions or comments here (below), Contact Us, or visit

  • our FaceBook Page
  • our Facebook Group
  • our Twitter Feed (@rgme_mss)
  • our Bluesky nest @rgmesocial.bluesky.social)
  • our LinkedIn Group
  • our Blog on Manuscript Studies and its Contents List

We invite you to join:

  • Friends of the RGME.

Donations and contributions, in funds or in kind, are welcome and easy to give.  Given our low overheads, your donations have direct impact on our work and the furtherance of our mission.  For our Section 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization, your donations may be tax-deductible to the fullest extent permitted by law.  Thank you for your support!

  • Contributions and Donations
  • 2024 Anniversary Appeal

We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at our events.

*****

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.

*****

 

Tags: Interview, Jesse D. Hurlbut, Manuscript studies, Medieval Digital Humanities, Medieval manuscripts, RGME Webmaster, The Research Group Speaks, Trailblazing
No Comments »

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.

Read the rest of this entry →

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
No Comments »

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.

Read the rest of this entry →

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
No Comments »

« Older Entries
  • Top
©2024 Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.


is proudly powered by WordPress. WordPress Themes X2 developed by ThemeKraft.