Seminars on Manuscript Evidence Archives

Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (5 June 1992)

September 8, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence

“Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MSS 23 and 223:
A Workshop” on
The Corpus Prudentius and the Saint-Bertin Prudentius

Prudentius MSS Seminar Invitation 2 June 1992 with border

Invitation Letter for 2 June 1992

RSVP Form

5 June 1992
In the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Invitation in pdf.

The previous Seminar in the series considered
“Anglo-Saxon Writing Materials and Practices”
Parker Library, 11 January 1992

[First published on 8 September 2016]

Focused on the 2 early medieval manuscripts at the Parker Library with collections of the works of the Spanish poet Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348 – after 405 CE), this workshop considered the evidence of Corpus MS 23 and MS 223 in the light of their relatives and their contexts, and in the company of gathered specialists, who had come from England and abroad.

The month of June in 1992 — during the 3rd year of the 5-year Research Project on “The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts” funded by the Leverhulme Trust, and during the 5th year of full-time research at the Library by its outside-funded Senior Research Associate, Mildred Budny, specifically directed toward an integrated approach toward the Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts in the collection — was the first, and only, time during the full Series of Research Group Seminars (and Workshops) on the Evidence of Manuscripts (1989–1995) that 2 workshops or seminars were held in the same month.

The work of the Research Project is described in the detailed Annual Reports to the Leverhulme Trust. As listed among our Publications, the Reports were reprinted and circulated, together with the then-current Profile (updated as appropriate during those years) of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

*****

The Plan

© The British Library Board. Additional MS 24199, folio 18r. Reproduced by permission.

Issued in the name (and with the abbreviated signature) of R.I. Page, the 1-page Invitation Letter sets out the parameters.

We plan to hold a workshop on Friday, 5 June, concerning Corpus Christi College, MSS 23 and 223, which contain collections of works by Prudentius, with many glosses. MS 223, a medium-format copy made in Northern France in the late ninth century, apparently belonged to the Abbey of St. Bertin. It reached England by the late tenth century, to judge by entries by various Anglo-Saxon hands. MS 23, Part I, a luxurious large-format copy made in Southern England in the late tenth or early eleventh century, apparently belonged to Malmesbury Abbey by the mid-eleventh century. It contains a magnificant cycle of illustrations for the Psychomachia, rendered in coloured outline drawing and accompanied by some Latin and Old English titles. Both its place of origin and function, whether as a ‘classbook’ or meodu-borde book, remain controversial.

Both manuscripts have been the subject of detailed study in the course of our research at the Parker Library. We hope to produce a facsimile of MS 23, and we are preparing studies of particular aspects, to analyse its texts, layout, language, codicology, palaeography and art. As part of this exploration, the workshop will discuss the problems of both manuscripts and related subjects. We hope you might attend to give your advice and help.

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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (August 1994)

September 7, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence

“Medieval Manuscript Fragments:
A Seminar”
Parker Library
15 August 1994

Invitation to 'Medieval MSS Fragments' Seminar on 19 August 1994 Page 1

Invitation Letter Page 1

Invitation to 'Medieval MSS Fragments' Seminar on 19 August 1994 Page 2

Invitation Letter Page 2

In the Series of Seminars on “The Evidence of Manuscripts”
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Invitation in pdf, with 2-Page Invitation Letter and 1-page RSVP Form

The previous Seminar in the Series considered
“Marginalia in Manuscripts”
(Parker Library, 24 June 1994).

[First published on 6 September 2016]

This seminar was “devoted to medieval manuscript fragments at the Parker Library and elsewhere, in both public and private collections.” As usual, the existence of manuscripts in other collections relevant to the theme under consideration was taken into account, but now, thanks to their collector, our Associate Toshiyuki Takamiya, some of those manuscripts came to the Library for Seminar to see and to compare.

[Update in September 2017: See the end of this post for news about the Takamiya Collection now at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.]

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Tags: Arch Selden B.26, Bible Fragments, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, Corpus Christi College EP-O-6, Corpus Christi College MS 111, Corpus Christi College MS 144, Corpus Christi College MS 197B, Corpus Christi College MS 214, Corpus Christi College MS 270, Corpus Christi College MS 321, Corpus CHristi College MS 557, Corpus Christi College MS 6, Cotton MS Otho A I, Eusebian Canon Tables, manuscript fragments, Manuscript studies, Matthew Parker, Medieval Music, Musical Manuscripts, Parker Library, Pontifical Fragment, Royal MS 7 C XII, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Stowe MS 1061, Takamiya MS 21, Thomas Astle, Toshiyuki Takamiya Collection
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“Imaging Aids in the British Library” (December 1993)

September 5, 2016 in Seminars on Manuscript Evidence

A Visit
to the British Library
by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

15 December 1993

In preparation for the Workshop
on Image-Processing and Manuscript Studies”
at the Parker Library on 15 January 1994

in the Series of
Research Group Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

[First published on our website on 5 September 2016]

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Claudius A III, folio 8r. Frontispiece with Gregory the Great enthroned in a niche and reverent monks at his feet. Reproduced by permission

A 1-day visit to the British Library in December 1993 prepared for the Research Group’s January 1994 workshop on optical imaging techniques as aids for manuscript studies.

Organised by Mildred Budny and Tony Parker and held at the Parker Library, that approaching workshop on Image-Processing for Manuscript Studies” aimed to consider developments in imaging through photographic and computerised methods, as a means of gathering information and feedback about techniques of image processing, both existing and planned, with a view toward applications, capabilities, limitations, desiderata, and future potential.

Participants at the workshop would include experts in manuscript studies, conservation, photography, imaging aids, computing, radio astronomy, engineering, forensics and medical imaging. The speakers would come from the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, the University of Cambridge, the British Library, the University of Kentucky, the Questioned Documents Section of the Metropolitan Police Forensics Laboratory, Ipswich Hospital, and Keith & Pelling Ltd. The other participants would come from both near and far.

Meanwhile, there were elements of information to gather and materials to prepare.

Fact-Finding, Demonstrations, and Explorations

Postcard with frontal view of The British Museum.

Viewing the Front of The British Museum via Postcard.

The Visit took place in the Manuscripts Conservation Studio of the Collection and Preservation Directorate of The British Library. At the time, remember, The British Library (created on 1 July 1972 as a result of the British Library Act 1973) still remained in its “old” building, before the move in 1999 to the new building, specially built for the purpose, on the Euston Road, Number 96. That is, the British Library remained in the same building as The British Museum, out of which it had emerged as an entity of its own. The Department of Western Manuscripts remained in its domicile, in the East Wing of the building (designed in Greek Revival Style by Sir Robert Smirke and completed in 1852), facing Great Russell Street and the Front Entrance. The Manuscripts Conservation Studio occupied quarters in the Basement below.

During the years of her long-term research on manuscripts at The British Library for the Ph.D. (London 1984), Mildred Budny (a founder member and by now Director of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence) had been a frequent visitor to the Manuscripts Conservation Studio, at Tony Parker’s invitation, to learn about new equipment, new techniques, and new discoveries as part of the conservation work on many forms of materials, manuscript and other. As a result both of such visits and meetings elsewhere, conferences included, it was “natural” to learn, for example, about the Beowulf Digitisation Project (1992–) already as it was beginning to take shape and form.

Here, thanks to that Project (and other developments), you may see, right now, here and now, how the sole surviving medieval copy (partly burnt) of Beowulf begins:

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 132r. Reproduced by permission.

On the day, we could inspect the Real Thing, viewed with the relevant equipment, and guided by a founder of the Beowulf Digitisation Project in a formative period. At the January Workshop on “Image-Processing for Manuscript Studies”, Kevin Kiernan also joined the presentations, although that time not in the presence of the manuscript itself, but represented by proxy, and moreover by computer transmission of images via the University of Kentucky to Cambridge. (You may take such representation for granted, nowadays, but we report an earlier stage in the worldwide transformation of the transmission of images of manuscripts, etc . . . )

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 140r. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 163v. Reproduced by permission.

© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Vitellius A XV folio 139r. Reproduced by permission.

*****

Report of the Visit, Now with Illustrations

‘Imaging Aids’ on 15 December 1993. Photography © Mildred Budny.

A report of this December Visit appears as an Appendix to the “Preliminary Report” of the 15 January Workshop, printed and circulated as a Booklet after its event. A similar Report for the December Visit to the British Library appears in the Fifth, and Final, Annual Report to the Leverhulme Trust (1993–4) on the 5-year Research Project at The Parker Library on “The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts” (Leverhulme Trust ref. F665). On the series of Annual Reports, see our Publications.

We now transcribe the Report here, for you to see both on our website and in our Research Group font Bembino — our own copyright font, designed over more recent years by one of the participants of this Visit. (You may download this font for FREE here.) You may also view the Appendix on its original page in the downloadable Booklet. Here, we add some links and, by permission from The British Library, several images from the relevant manuscripts examined during the Visit.

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Tags: Bembino Digital Font, Beowulf Digitisation Project, Beowulf Manuscript, British Library, Cotton MS Claudius A III, Cotton MS Vitellius A.xv, digitization of manuscripts, Gregory the Great, Illustrated Old English Hexateuch, Imaging Aids, Manuscript Conservation Studio, Saint Dunstan, Saint Dunstan's 'Classbook', Seminars on Manuscript Evidence
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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (September 1994)

August 30, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Uncategorized

“Canterbury Manuscripts:
A Seminar”

In the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
(16 December 1989)
Invitation in pdf.

The previous Seminar in the series considered
“Medieval Manuscript Fragments: Their Problems and Challenges”
Parker Library, August 1994

[First published on 30 August 2016]

Focused on the evidence and challenges of medieval manuscripts from Canterbury, this was the last Seminar in the Series on “The Evidence of Manuscripts” organized by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence while the Group was still resident at The Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. September was the last month of the 5-year Leverhulme Trust Research Project based at the Library, with a team of specialists; the term of the Project extended from 1 October 1989 to 30 September 1994. The course and subjects of its research work are described in the detailed Annual Reports to the Leverhulme Trust. As described among our Publications, the Reports were reprinted and circulated, together with the current Profile (updated as appropriate) of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

View Toward the Entrance to the Parker Library in mid-1989. Photograph © Mildred Budny.

The specialist research work at the Library had, however, officially begun with the 2-year appointment (1987–1989) of an outside-funded full-time Senior Research Associate (Mildred Budny), dedicated to research on Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts — emanating naturally from her comprehensive Ph.D. study of the Royal Bible of Saint Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, and applying its holistic methodology to relevant (as well as other) manuscripts at the Parker Library, including those undergoing conservation. Observing the value of such integrated dedication, photography included, to the study of manuscripts archaeologically revealed in disbinding and rebinding, the Librarian and the Senior Research Associate determined to apply to the Leverhulme Trust for outside funding both to continue and to extend this work, next with the full-time employment also of a Research Assistant (to be identified), as well as more photography of the unfolding evidence. The first Seminar in the Series of Seminars on “The Evidence of Manuscripts” took place several months before the Leverhulme Trust Research Project began, and considered “Manuscript Illustrations as Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Life”.

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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (20 June 1992)

August 28, 2016 in Photographic Exhibition, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Uncategorized

“Research on Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Cambridge and Oxford”
20 June 1992

Anglo-Saxon MSS in Cambridge & Oxford Invitation 20 June 1992 Page 1 with border

Invitation Page 1

Invitation to 'Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Cambridge and Oxford' Seminar Invitation 20 June 1992 Page 2

Invitation Page 2

In the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
Mostly at the Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
20 June 1992

Invitation in pdf.

The previous Seminar in the series considered

“Corpus Christi College MSS 23 and 223: The Corpus Prudentius and the Saint-Bertin Prudentius”
Parker Library, 5 June 1992

For the first time, the Seminar met in Oxford University. And not for the only time. Two more such Seminars followed in Oxford, before the close of the Series. They took place March 1993 and in April 1994.

Photographic Exhibition Included

Each time, the Oxford meetings of the Series had a travelling exhibition of photographs from manuscripts and other materials, mostly from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, home of the Research Group. This first Seminar at Oxford established the custom, which extended to the Research Group’s visit to Japan several months later, in November and December 1992, and to its activities at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in both 1993 and 1994, of bringing the manuscripts, at least in the form of photographic reproductions, to the people.

*****

Entrance to Pembroke College. Photo by Jakob Leimgruber (JREL) via Wikipedia Commons

Entrance to Pembroke College in Pembroke Square. Photo by Jakob Leimgruber (JREL) via Wikipedia Commons.

Plan

With the subject of “research on Anglo-Saxon manuscripts in Cambridge and Oxford” — and with the characteristics of the venue as well as the willing assembly of interests and expertise — the Invitation Letter describes the aims and elements of the meeting.

We will consider current work at the Parker Library and explore links with Oxford. In the morning the Cambridge members of the Research Group will describe work on Corpus and related material. In the afternoon speakers from Oxford will talk on their current research on manuscripts.

Ray Page will begin by surveying how the Parker Library project came into being and how it now feeds into work elsewhere. He will address the importance of detailed study of primary material, focusing on letters, word division, punctuation and layout in manuscripts (with examples from Gerefa and Brunanburh in Corpus MSS 383 and MS 173A and elsewhere).

Catherine Hall will discuss how evidence derived from archival materials can cast light on manuscript contexts: for example, Matthew Parker’s working habits in manuscripts and papers alike, his signature as it changed according to his office (as in Misc. Doc. 25 and MS 44) and his lists of his predecessors in office (as in MSS 108, MS 183 and MS 232).

Tim Graham will report on how detailed examination has yielded discoveries and recoveries of unknown, or only partially deciphered, texts and glosses: notably the faded rubricated titles in MS 422B and many unsuspected drypoint glosses in MS 173B. He will also report on identifying hands of early modern and modern readers in Corpus manuscripts, including Abraham Whelock and William Stanley.

Leslie French will consider connections between fields of the arts and sciences. He will examine approaches to recording manuscript features, from letters to layout, in transcriptions, editions and other forms; and report on his study of MS 352 (Boethius’ De Arithmetica).

Milly Budny will survey results of the Group’s integrated approach to manuscript studies. Examples include collaborative monograph studies (MSS 197B and 383), a new catalogue of Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts at Corpus, a palaeographical and textual handbook, colour facsimiles of manuscripts (as with MSS 23A and 173 A+B) and research on material shared between Cambridge and Oxford (as with Corpus MS 389 and St John’s College, MS 28; and Corpus MS 23 and Junius 11).

In the afternoon Malcolm Parkes will discuss the evidence of manuscripts for the reading of texts, and Patrick Wormald will talk about MS Hatton 42.

Images of Originals

The Letter points to the presence of photographic reproductions as part of the proceedings.

Slides will illustrate features in the manuscripts and other materials. Cases of linked material, such as books annotated by the ‘Tremulous Worcester Hand’ and books handled by Parker and his circle, and problems particular to Oxford material will be considered in the afternoon. We hope that participants will contribute to the discussion from their own experience with the sources and areas of interest.

Also, an exhibition of photographs mounted on foamboards travelled to Oxford for the purpose. The Research Group Archives for this Seminar retain the set of printouts used for the captions for the display boards and a set of snapshots of the layout of the display on this occasion.

Place, Time, People, Lunch

The meeting will take place in Lecture Room 8 at Pembroke College. Coffee will be served from 10:30. The seminar will begin promptly at 11. A buffet lunch will be provided at Pembroke, and we will continue until about 4:30 p.m. To let us know whom we may expect, please fill out the enclosed form and return it to me as soon as possible.

Invitations sent to:

R.I. Page, Mildred Budny, Tim Graham, Catherine Hall, Leslie French, Nicholas Hadgraft, Nigel Wilkins, Patrick Wormald, Malcolm Godden, Andrew Watson, Malcolm Parkes, Bruce Mitchell, Martin Kauffmann, Nigel Ramsay, Terry Hoad, John Blair, Jeremy Griffiths, David Howlet, Henry Mayr–Harting, Richard Gameson, Marilyn Deegan, Stuart Lee, Joy Jenkyns, Richard Sharpe, Chris Fell, Carole Hough, Richard Buck, Katie Cubitt, Marlene van Arkel, Elizabeth Tyler, Fiona Gameson and Rohinie Jayatilaka.

It was agreed that the experience of a Seminar in the Series was worth repeating at Oxford. The generous hospitality which Professor Godden, his wife Julia, and others extended to the whole travelling band of the Research Group for the visit and its overnight stay deserves long-term thanks.

Entrance to Pembroke College. Photo by Jakob Leimgruber (JREL) via Wikipedia Commons.

*****

The next set of Seminars, Workshops, or Sessions in the Series took place in Japan. Similarly accompanied by photographic exhibitions, they considered:

“The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence and Its Work”
November 1992
“Aspects of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence”
December 1992
“The Integrated Approach to Manuscript Studies”
December 1992

The next Seminar in England considered:

“Corpus Christi College MS 44: The Corpus Canterbury Pontifical”
Parker Library, 27 February 1993

Before long, the Seminar revisited Oxford:

“Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts from Worcester”
Pembroke College, 13 March 1993

*****

The design and layout, as well as some of the images, of the exhibition of photographs which the Research Group brought to this first Seminar in Oxford in mid-1992 served as the template for its exhibitions in Japan in November–December and then in the United States in both May 1993 and May 1994, respectively for the 27th and 28th International Congress on Medieval Studies. For the latter Congress, the exhibition accompanied the opening of a new center for Anglo-Saxon Manuscript Studies, modeled in part upon the work of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

*****

Some Publications Arising

Besides the other publications which emanated from some presentations at this Seminar — for example, from within the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, Timothy Graham‘s careful work on the drypoint glosses and the annotating habits of Wheelock and Stanley — some of the manuscripts considered and exhibited photographically figure in one or more of the Research Group publications or planned publications. From the beginning, we understood the importance of reproducing, insofar as possible, photographic reproductions (preferrably high-quality) of the material evidence of the manuscripts.

And so, much of our energies were dedicated to photographic work, guided by scholarly interests and expertise, and to the preparations to disseminate its results to the wider world of scholars, students, and others interested in the transmission of learning, language, history, literature, and many other elements of human experience across time and space. That other challenges, some practical, some not, interfered with the accomplishment of all those plans (published facsimiles included, despite the completion of the photographic work for them) may be partly due to the conditions of a dedicated and talented research project subjected to insufficient resources and contextual support, given the nature of the world at large in a crucial transitional period in the history of scholarship and research in the British Isles and elsewhere.

Those reflections may deserve another forum. Here, let us celebrate the collaborative activities between centers and fields of study, and the forms of publications which did emerge, in the welcome for the integrated approach to manuscript studies, Anglo-Saxon manuscripts included, in Cambridge and Oxford (and elsewhere), which the Series of Seminars on “The Evidence of Manuscript” was able to find, to enjoy, and to extend, even into other parts of the world.

“Matthew Parker in Cambridge” Exhibition & Booklet

Catherine Hall’s examination of scripts and documents relating to “Matthew Parker in Cambridge” turned into an exhibition at the Parker Library itself, as well as a Catalogue Booklet, with Mildred Budny’s photographs. The exhibition extended from October 1993 to February 1994. Its booklet was reprinted as an Appendix to an issue of the Old English Newsletter (Volume 27:1) for Fall 1993, and now it is available online with the digitization of the Old English Newsletter Archives. Its plates reproduce part of Misc. Doc. 25 (Catalogue Item 5) demonstrated in her presentation for the Seminar at Pembroke College.

The Palaeographical and Textual Handbook
and the Illustrated Catalogue

Besides the photographs painstakingly prepared for many of the Corpus manuscripts, and intended for analogue facsimiles (remember, this was before digital photography came to dominate as more-or-less viable, let alone admirable, methods of communicating images), some of them found places in the prototype of the Palaeographical and Textual Handbook (previewed in an early Seminar in the series). A larger group of them reached print at last in the 2-volume Illustrated Catalogue of Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge co-published by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (2 volumes, 1997).

In both cases, the photographs are accompanied by, and intended to illustrate, it may be to confirm, detailed observation and analysis.

The Illustrated Catalogue (2 volumes, 1997) emanated from the long-term, integrated research work on selected Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts at The Parker Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The stages of the research work are recorded, for example, in the Annual Reports to the Leverhulme Trust, described in our Publications. Many of the catalogue entries, as noted therein, report the results of discoveries and discussions emerging in our series of Seminars, including this one.

The manuscripts in the Catalogue which we examined, at a distance, in the first Oxford Seminar are:

MS 23, Part I = Budny Number 24 (The Corpus Prudentius)
MS 44 = Budny Number 46 (The Corpus Canterbury Pontifical)
MS 144 = Budny Number 6 (The Corpus Glossary)
MS 173, Part I [or A] = Budny Number 11 (Parker Chronicle and Laws)
MS 173, Part II [or B] = Budny Number 4 (The Corpus Sedulius)
MS MS 183 = Budny Number 12 (King Athelstan’s Presentation Copy of Bede’s Vita Sancti Cuthberti and Other Texts)
MS 197, Part I [or B] = Budny Number 3 (The Cambridge Portion of the Cambridge–London Gospels)
MS 352 = Budny Number 20 (Boethius’s De Instituione Arithemetica)
MS 389 = Budny Number 23 (The Vitae of Saints Paul and Guthlac by Saint Jerome and Felix)

Also, specimens from all of these manuscripts were selected for the Palaeographical and Textual Handbook, along with MS 383.

*****

Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (November 1991)

August 26, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Uncategorized

“Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 383”
20 November 1991

16 November 1991

In the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Invitation in pdf.

The previous Seminar in the Series considered:

“Sixteenth-Century Transcripts of Ango-Saxon Texts”
Parker Library, October 1991

*****

The Subject

The “workshop” was designed to focus on one manuscript: “Corpus Christi College, MS 383, a collection of legal and other texts”. A small-format volume, but its texts pack a punch (not that our Invitation Letter put it so emphatically).

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Tags: Anglo-Saxon legal history, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, British Library, British Museum, Corpus Christi College MS 173A, Corpus Christi College MS 383, Manuscript Exhibitions, Manuscript Photography, Manuscript studies, Parker Chronicle and Laws, Parker Library
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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (April 1994)

August 26, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Uncategorized

“King Alfred and His Legacy”
20 April 1994

Statue of King Alfred the Great in the Market Place at Wantage, Oxfordshire. Photograph by Steve Daniels via Wikipedia Commons.

Statue of King Alfred the Great. Photograph by Steve Daniels via Wikipedia Commons.

In the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
Faculty of English, University of Oxford
(20 April 1994)
Invitation in pdf.

The previous Event in the series comprised a Workshop, which considered

“Pigment-Analysis of Corpus Manuscripts”
Parker Library, 4 March 1994

and which followed the Workshop on
“Image-Processing and Manuscript Studies”
Parker Library, 15 January 1994

[First published on 26 August 2016]

This was the third of the Seminars in the Series on “The Evidence of Manuscripts” to be held at the University of Oxford and hosted by our Associate, Professor Malcolm R. Godden.

The Alfred Jewel, as depicted by Henry Shaw, ‘Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages’ (1843) via Wikipedia Commons.

The 2 previous Seminars at Oxford had considered:

“Research on Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Cambridge and Oxford”
Pembroke College, University of Oxford, June 1992

“Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts from Worcester”
Pembroke College, Oxford, March 1993

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Tags: Alfred Jewel, Asser, British Library Additional MS 43703, Burghal Hidage, Corpus Christi College MS 100, Corpus Christi College MS 322, Cotton Fire, Cotton Library, Cotton MS Otho B XI, Cotton MS Otho C VIII, Cotton MS Vitellius A.xv, Faculty of English at the University of Oxford, John Leland, King Alfred, Lawrence Nowell, Matthew Parker, Nomenclature, Parker Library, R.I. Page, Sir Robert Cotton
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Workshop on Medieval Manuscripts (October 1991)

August 26, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Uncategorized

“The Production, Make-Up and Handling
of Medieval Manuscripts:
A Workshop”

5 October 1991

MS Production & Handling Workshop Invitation 5 Oct 1991 with border

5 October 1991 Prospectus

Invitation Cover Letter for Research Group Workshop on 'The Production, Make-Up and Handling of Medieval Manuscripts' on 5 October 1991 at the Parker Library

Cover Letter for 5 October 1991

Accompanying the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Invitation in pdf in 3 pages with Cover Letter, Prospectus, and RSVP Form.

The previous Seminar in the series considered
“Technical Literature and its Form and Layout in Early Medieval Manuscripts”
(Parker Library, July 1991).

[First published on 26 August 2016]

Issued on Research Group letterhead, the 1-page description of the workshop (the “Prospectus”) accompanying the 1-page Invitation Letter, dated 14 September 1991, describes the plan. The Invitation Letter lays the ground work.

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Tags: Alexander R. Rumble, Binding History, Douglas Cockerell, History of Bookbinding, Medieval Bindings, Medieval manuscripts, Medieval Studies, Nicholas Hadgraft, Parker Library, Roger Powell, Sandy Cockerell, Sewing Structures for Bookbinding
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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (May 1989)

August 25, 2016 in Seminars on Manuscript Evidence

1. “Illustrations in Manuscripts
As Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Life”

© The British Library Board, Cotton MS Claudius B IV, folio 19r: Genesis 11. Reproduced by permission.

First in the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
20 May 1989

[Published on 25 August 2016, with updates]

With invitations to colleagues in various fields, a full day’s seminar took place on Saturday, 20 May 1989 at the Parker Library. This was long before the rise of digital imaging, digital facsimiles of manuscripts, and the proliferation of manuscript images on the internet. Let alone a website devoted to that manuscript collection. We had to, and wished to, look at the books.

That wish, plus application and dedication, had led to the gathering of resources, funding included, for full-time research in that place, alongside its major conservation programme. In the Spring of 1989, as the first 2 years of this research were rounding out, we were poised to begin, on 1 October, a five-year Research Project on “Anglo-Saxon and Related Manuscripts” supported by the Leverhulme Trust.

The Approach

On the day of the Seminar, there gathered specialists in archaeology, linguistics, library history, architectural history, manuscript studies, Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, and related fields. There came R.I. Page (Parker Librarian), David Wilson, Christine Fell, Richard Gem, Martin Carver, James Graham-Campbell, Leslie Webster, and Mildred Budny (Senior Research Associate at the Parker Library and now the Director of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence). The aim was to bring together different forms of expertise, both “bookish” and practical, to consider illustrations in the manuscripts themselves as witnesses for daily life, Anglo-Saxon in particular.

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Tags: Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, Archaeology, British Library Cotton MS Claudius B.iv, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, Caedmon Manuscript of Old English Poetry, Corpus Christi College MS 183, Corpus Christi College MS 23, Corpus Christi College MS 389, Corpus Christi College MS 41, Eadwine Psalter, Illustrated Old English Hexateuch, Junius MS 11, Leslie Webster, Manuscript Illustrations, Manuscript studies, Parker Library, Psychomachia, Scribbles and Sketches, Sutton Hoo
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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (October 1991)

August 25, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence

“Sixteenth-Century Transcripts of Anglo-Saxon Texts”

In the Series of Seminars on the Evidence of Manuscripts
The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
(12 October 1991)
Invitation in pdf.

The previous Seminar in the series considered
“Technical Literature and its Form and Layout in Early Medieval Manuscripts”
Parker Library, July 1991

(A Workshop on “The Production, Make-Up and Handling of Medieval Manuscripts”
intervened on 5 October 1991.)

An earlier Seminar considered a related theme:
“Sixteenth-Century Interventions in Anglo-Saxon and Related Manuscripts”
Parker Library, April 1990

*****

The Invitation explains the plan, reports the speakers and their subjects, invites discussion from the participants, and sets out a provisional list of manuscripts available for consultation.

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Tags: 16th-Century Transcripts, Anglo-Saxon legal texts, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts, Asser, Corpus Christi College MS 100, Corpus Christi College MS 111, Corpus Christi College MS 178, Corpus Christi College MS 188, Corpus Christi College MS 197A, Corpus Christi College MS 383, Corpus Christi College MS 449, Early Modern Studies, King Alfred, Life of Alfred, Matthew Parker, Parker Library, Thomas Talbot
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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (5 June 1992)

“Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MSS 23 and 223:
A Workshop” on
The Corpus Prudentius and the Saint-Bertin Prudentius

The Plan

Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (August 1994)

“Medieval Manuscript Fragments:
A Seminar”
Parker Library
15 August 1994

“Imaging Aids in the British Library” (December 1993)

A Visit
to the British Library
by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

15 December 1993

Fact-Finding, Demonstrations, and Explorations

Report of the Visit, Now with Illustrations

Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (September 1994)

“Canterbury Manuscripts:
A Seminar”

Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (November 1991)

“Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 383”
20 November 1991

The Subject

Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (April 1994)

“King Alfred and His Legacy”
20 April 1994

Workshop on Medieval Manuscripts (October 1991)

“The Production, Make-Up and Handling
of Medieval Manuscripts:
A Workshop”

Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (May 1989)

1. “Illustrations in Manuscripts
As Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Life”

The Approach

Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (October 1991)

“Sixteenth-Century Transcripts of Anglo-Saxon Texts”

Archives

Featured Posts

“Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MSS 23 and 223: A Workshop” on The Corpus Prudentius and the Saint-Bertin Prudentius

The Plan

“Medieval Manuscript Fragments: A Seminar” Parker Library 15 August 1994

A Visit to the British Library by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

15 December 1993

Fact-Finding, Demonstrations, and Explorations

Report of the Visit, Now with Illustrations

“Canterbury Manuscripts: A Seminar”

“Research on Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Cambridge and Oxford” 20 June 1992

Photographic Exhibition Included

Plan

Images of Originals

Place, Time, People, Lunch

Some Publications Arising

“Matthew Parker in Cambridge” Exhibition & Booklet

The Palaeographical and Textual Handbook and the Illustrated Catalogue

“Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 383” 20 November 1991

The Subject

“King Alfred and His Legacy” 20 April 1994

“The Production, Make-Up and Handling of Medieval Manuscripts: A Workshop”

1. “Illustrations in Manuscripts As Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Life”

The Approach

“Sixteenth-Century Transcripts of Anglo-Saxon Texts”

“Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MSS 23 and 223:
A Workshop” on
The Corpus Prudentius and the Saint-Bertin Prudentius

“Medieval Manuscript Fragments:
A Seminar”
Parker Library
15 August 1994

A Visit
to the British Library
by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

“Canterbury Manuscripts:
A Seminar”

“Research on Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts in Cambridge and Oxford”
20 June 1992

The Palaeographical and Textual Handbook
and the Illustrated Catalogue

“Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS 383”
20 November 1991

“King Alfred and His Legacy”
20 April 1994

“The Production, Make-Up and Handling
of Medieval Manuscripts:
A Workshop”

1. “Illustrations in Manuscripts
As Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Life”