Updates for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’

August 12, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

A Glimpse of
‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’
While It Was Still Intact

Portable Quarto Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version
Italy, circa 1275, with Illuminations made apparently in Paris

Double columns in 48 lines
circa 235 × 170 mm <written area circa 153 × 107 mm>

[Posted on 12 August 2020]

Opening of the Book of Maccabees in Otto Ege MS 19. Private Collection.

Continuing to explore the tracks of manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), we gain access to the Sotheby’s catalogue for the auction in 1936 from which the manuscript mostly known as ‘Ege Manuscript 19’ came to him. For the name, see Scott Gwara, Handlist, Number 19 (page 124).

For access to the elusive catalogue, we thank Stephen Massey, Bruce McKinney, and our Associate, Eric White, for help with the quest while libraries remain closed through months in 2020.

We began to study the manuscript when the owner of one of its leaves, J. S. Wagner, contacted us on account of our blog, which reported discoveries for some other Ege manuscripts. For example,

A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices

Updates for Some ‘Otto Ege Manuscripts’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 41, and 61)

Some Leaves in Set 1 of ‘Ege’s FOL Portfolio’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, and 41)

More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’

More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

Our discoveries for Ege MS 19 are reported here:

A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices

Some Leaves in Set 1 of ‘Ege’s FOL Portfolio’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, and 41)

Now we examine the written record for the Provenance and the state of the volume before Ege.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Ege Manuscipt 51, Ege Manuscript 14, Ege Manuscript 19, Fragmentology, History of Binding, Interpretation of Hebrew Names, Interpretationes Hebraicorum Nominum, Latin Vulgate Bible, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto F. Ege, Sothebys
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More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

August 3, 2020 in Uncategorized

Some Known Leaves
from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
In Sequence

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Family FOL Portfolio, Leaf 18 original recto, opening of Apocalypse Prologue.

We offer an updated and illustrated list of some of the leaves — not all — which have come to light from the dismembered and widely dispersed copy of the Vulgate Bible in large format now known as “Otto Ege Manuscript 14”.

It takes its name from the owner, Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), who took it to pieces and destroyed its integrity as an intact volume which had been purchased at auction in New York after World War II. It takes its Number from the number which Ege assigned to it in the series of specimens from similarly dismembered medieval manuscripts arranged in his Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves from Western Manuscripts (FOL for short), numbered 1–50.

There the specimens are presented in matted frames of uniform size and provided with a printed label which cites the Leaf Number and offers a paragraph with some generic observations about the manuscript, the author, the type of script, the genre of text, and suchlike. The label was worded so as, presumably, to suit many different leaves from a given book.

Within the frame, the manuscript leaf would stand behind the windowed mat which obscures some of its exterior features. The hinged mat allows (if permitted by the owner) for opening the frame to inspect the full extent of the leaf and, it may be, to lift the leaf so as to observe features on its other side. Not infrequently, Ege turned the original rectos of the leaves to the verso position in the frame, so as to display whichever features might be deemed preferable for display.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Leaf with the opening of the Book of Revelation within Ege’s mat, which turns the original verso to the front.

The former manuscript had many more leaves than the number required for the 40 numbered Sets of the FOL Portfolio — plus any unnumbered Sets, of which perhaps 1 or 2 are known. As characteristic of Ege’s distribution strategies, individual leaves could have their own mats and, often, their own labels.

The current locations of a number of Sets have been identified, and more may come to light. So too, many other leaves have turned up in various collections. The work of identifying them as belonging to Ege Manuscript 14 and discovering where they are preserved represents a significant stage in the recovery process. That many have passed through the sales rooms of auction houses and book-sellers, sometimes more than once, introduces challenges to that process of discovery.

“The Long Shot”

On display among “New Acquisitions” Exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library in November 2016, separate sections of the Bible stand in a row, accompanied by 2 Beinecke exhibition labels on paper boards. From left to right: “Lectern Bible” Label; 1 detached Board from the former Binding, with marbled endpaper and an effaced blue label or bookplate; 2 “stacks” or “piles” of segments of loose leaves in nested bifolia; “Family Album” Label; and 1 leaf from the “Family Album” in its Ege mat, with its Ege label for Leaf 14.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, New Acquisitions Exhibition (2016). Ege MS 14 in pieces.

A closer view of the 2 “stacks” or “piles” of disbound leaves. They display respectively 3 and 4 segments of manuscript leaves or bifolia. Let us call them, from left to right, Stack 1 (× 3 Segments) and Stack 2 (× 4 Segments).

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

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

Stack 1

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14 Segments, with verso for Numbers 5:88 – 6:26 on top. Photograph Mildred Budny.

Segments of Leaves from left to right

Segment 1.1: Esther 2:19 ([Mordocheus manebit /] ad regis) – 3:8 in column a on a recto (seen in part here)

Segment 1.2: Proverbs 13:22 ([et ne-/]potes et) – 14:28 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Segment 1.3: Numbers 5:18 ([cum execra-/]tione)– 6:26 (convertat dominus [/ ultum sum]), plus catchwords (ultum sum) at the bottom, on a verso (seen in full)

Stack 2

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14 Segments, with recto for Psalms 68:28 – 71:14 on top.

Segments of Leaves from left to right

Segment 2.1: 1 Samuel 16:16 ([spiritum dei /] psallat manu) – 17:10 in column a on a recto (seen in part here)

Segment 2.2: Tobias 4:5 ([compleverit tempus /] uite sue) – 5:4 in column b on a verso (seen in part)

Segment 2.3: Numbers 13:1 ([est Maria /] Profectus est) – 13:29 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Segment 2.4: Psalms 68:29 ([deleantur /] de libro) – 71:14 (honorabile non [/ eorum coram]) on a recto (seen in full)

Some Known Remnants

Here follows an updated, but still partial, list of the Remnants, based on some materials to hand. The identifications of textual contents offer corrections for the published reports of a few leaves.

Please note that this list is not complete, even for the records that I know about, let alone the ones yet to emerge into view. For example, some of the sales catalogues remain elusive, but they may surface.

In this list, the order of the scattered leaves from the Books of the Bible mostly follows the standard Vulgate edition, but their order in the manuscript seems to have differed somewhat. Where it differs, the actual order can be determined, at least in part, by the Known Folio Numbers (see above) and the text on some survivors which end one Book of the Bible and begin another. A case in point here is the leaf which begins Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, directly followed by the Acts of the Apostles.

I cite all the Known Numbers as locators in the series, even where the survival of those very leaves might remain uncertain. For emphasis, they are shown in *red, together with their asterisk. In the analysis following this list, any conjectured, rather than recorded, folio numbers are preceded by a question mark, also in the red (?*300). As I hope you might see, keeping track of these details has a purpose, sometimes (as here, hurray) with a payoff.

It is useful to track leaves according to their “find-place” or distribution method, that is:

in an individual numbered Set of Ege’s Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves of Western Manuscripts (“FOL”), in which the specimens from this dismembered Bible are Leaf number 14, set in a windowed frame and accompanied by a printed label
as a “stray” or “Rogue” Leaf distributed on its own, with or without a mat and a label, or with a pencil description by Ege in the lower margin
as a “Residual” batch of multiple leaves (sometimes with the binding or a part of it) seemingly left over from the phases of disbinding, selling, and distributing leaves in the Portfolio sets, in the matted frames, or in loose-leaf form

Complete Vulgate Bible
accompanied by Prologues
and the Glossary of Interpretationes Nominum Hebraicorum

Several sellers or collections list groups of leaves which include, or might include, non-consecutive leaves and/or leaves acquired at different times from different sources. Sometimes they cite the contents in some detail, sometimes not.

Examples include non-continuous leaves listed in a single lot number, gathered in a single collection, or grouped in a large batch in a single collection. As here:

3 non-continuous Rogue Leaves = Gwara Handlist 14.9.
Metropolitan Museum of Art = William D. Wixon et al., Mirror of the Medieval World (1999), pages 118–119 (number 141),Leaves ‘1’, ‘2’, and ‘3’,
with Portions respectively ofEzdra > Nehemiah [?]
Joshua
Ephesians 1:1 – 2
102 Residual Leaves = Gwara Handlist 14.7.Oslo and London, The Schøyen Collection, MS 223.
Its full contents are not known to me.
Requests for further information have yielded no details.The specimen image on the collection’s website shows a detail of the page withPaul’s Epistle to Philemon and the beginning of his Epistle to Hebrews

A Preliminary Reconstruction of the Original Sequence of Leaves

Poster 2 for the 2016 'Words & Deeds' Symposium at Princeton University, with 2 images from the Otto Ege Collection, The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photography by Lisa Fagin Davis. Reproduced by permission. Poster set in RGME Bembino

2016 ‘Words & Deeds’ Symposium Poster.

Here I list the contents in their Biblical places, insofar as they are revealed. Some leaves do not have available photographs, or available photographs for the other side (whichever side of the leaf that might be). Some leaves I know only through the sales catalogues, not their destinations.

This list represents an advance on the earlier version posted in my first post on parts of this manuscript: A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’. Here, by gathering my notes and photographs from on-going research on Ege manuscripts and other materials, the list might accompany others’ reconstructions based on their familiarity with other collections.

Thanks are due to scholars, collectors, curators, and students, including Barbara Shailor, Giles Constable, Lisa Fagin Davis, Raymond Clemens, Diane Ducharme, Peter Kidd, Joshua Benaer, the staff at the Morgan Library & Museum, Kent State University Library, the Cincinnati Public Library, and many others.

Important discoveries have emerged in the past several years. Examples include the deposit of the Otto Ege Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library of Yale University and the beginnings of its detailed study. A report on some of its features appeared in the Research Group Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’ in March 2016, with illustrations from Ege MS 14 on the Posters and in the Symposium Booklet.

With generous permission, I have been able to consult some parts of that Collection in visits to New Haven, in connection with the symposium celebrating it and subsequently. While continuing to wait for the Collection to be catalogued and made accessible for outside readers, I examine my photographs as records or glimpses of parts of its materials for, and from, ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’. Recently, the work by Joshua Benaer on the lection marks and their signifcance has inspired me to advance with work on other aspects of the book, including its material evidence.

Some discoveries for the manuscript are reported in our blog.

A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices

Updates for Some ‘Otto Ege Manuscripts’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 41, and 61)

Some Leaves in Set 1 of ‘Ege’s FOL Portfolio’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, and 41)

See also The Illustrated Handlist (Number 4).

Note that Leaf 4 at Stony Brook University has a ‘starring role’ in the video of Unscattered Leaves: Digitizing the Otto F. Ege Manuscripts (2018).

The Former Bindings

See below.

The Manuscript Leaves

According to the Beinecke exhibition label for parts of this “Lectern Bible” (see above), a note entered “at the end of this Bible”, written by “a later hand”, states it had “502 folios”. It is not clear (at this distance) if the count included any endleaves apart from the original medieval manuscript. The leaves themselves are not numbered, apart from some quire-numerals.

The Sotheby’s sale catalogue of 1931 for this book, while intact, cites 15 specific folio numbers for some significant decorative elements, and adds “B” to the number to indicate a verso. Here I indicate them in red. Although those numbers do not appear on the leaves themselves, they locate 10 historiated initials — among a total of “Seventy-eight large miniatures” — in these places: folios 46 (Book of Numbers), 155 (II Chronicles), 191 (Judith), 220 (Psalm 54), 253 (Ecclesiasticus), 266B (Isaiah), 308B (Ezekiel), 345B (Nahum), 440 (Acts of the Apostles), and 457 (Apocalypse).

Old Testament with Prologues

Prefatory Texts

Jerome’s Prologues for the Vulgate Bible and the Pentateuch

The Bible opens with 2 of Jerome’s epistolary Prologues for his Vulgate Version. His Epistle to Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, serves as a general preface, beginning Frater ambrosius tua mihi minuscola preferens. Beginning Desiderii mei desideratas accepi epistulas, Jerome’s Epistle to Desiderius serves as preface to the Pentateuch, the first 5 Books of the Old Testament.

These prefatory texts spread across 3 leaves.

Rogue Leaf (1 of 2 from the Esther Rosenbaum Collection).
Sotheby’s, Catalogue of Single Leaves and Miniatures from Western Illuminated Manuscripts, 25 April 1983, lot 83(a), without plate
— described in the catalogue as the

‘Opening leaf of the Bible, with the [First] Prologue of St. Jerome’ beginning Frater Ambrosius,
and extending to labiis personaret, ‘which shows the secundo folio to have begun’ with the words ignorabat eum

Location unknown

[1 leaf in this Prologue, with the text from ignorabat eum in Chapter ‘VI’ to et regna in Chapter ‘VII’]

Rogue Leaf = Gwara Handlist 14.8. Randolph College (available via the Internet Archive)
Part of Jerome’s 2 Prologues to the Vulgate Bible (that is, 2 of his own Epistles applied to his translated work as guides and explications):

Part of Frater Ambrosius, from within Chapter ‘VII’ (omnia subvertentem) to the end,
all of Jerome’s [Second] Prologue Desiderii mei,
and Opening Title for the Book of Genesis

Opening page for Genesis in 'Otto Ege Manuscript 14'. Photograph Courtesy of Sotheby's, Inc. © 29 November, lot 326, plate on page 119

Photograph Courtesy of Sotheby’s, Inc. © 29 November, lot 326, plate on page 118

Old Testament with Prologues

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

Opening of Genesis on a recto

The recto was reproduced as the fold-out plate for the Sotheby’s catalogue of 6–7 July 1931, lot 389;
and as the first of two plates for the Parke-Bernet catalogue of 29 November 1948, lot 326 (plate on page 118)
— in both cawhile the manuscript remained whole.

The plate from the Parke-Bernet catalogue is also reproduced in Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, figure 79.

The leaf disappeared from view until resurfacing in the Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Opening page of the Book of Genesis, with a full-page illustrated initial I for 'In' ('In Principio'), showing scenes from Creation to the Crucifixion. Dismembered leaf from 'Otto Ege MS 14'. Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Manuscript and Rare Book Library, Yale University. Reproduced by permission.

First page of Genesis from ‘Otto Ege MS 14’. Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Manuscript and Rare Book Library, Yale University. Reproduced by permission.

Verso

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Verso.

Rogue Leaf. Maggs Bros, Papyrus to Paper. Catalogue 1059 (1985),
number 49, ‘a leaf with four dragons’ (with plate on page 28, of top half of verso)

Genesis 32:29 ([interroga–/]uit to 34:6 and beyond in the lower half of that verso (out of frame in the plate)

Rogue Leaf. Maggs Bros, Papyrus to Paper. Catalogue 1059 (1985), number 42 (no plate)

Genesis ‘end ch. 42, ch. 43 & most of ch. 44’ with ‘drawing of a rabbit with calligraphic flourishes’ in the upper margin of the recto

Location unknown: Rogue Leaf (2 of 2 from the Esther Rosenbaum Collection)
Sotheby’s, Catalogue of Single Leaves and Miniatures from Western Illuminated Manuscripts, 25 April 1983,
lot 83(b), with plate from the upper part of one side (unspecified)

including the Prologue to Exodus and the opening of Exodus 1 with historiated initial

Rogue Leaf (3 of 3) sold by Bruce P. Ferreni, Catalogue One: Important Western Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts & Illuminated Leaves (1987),
number 27 (page 44), without plate

Exodus 9 – 11

Location unknown

Leviticus

Location unknown

[Numbers initial = folio *46r]

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

“Segment 1.3” (see photograph): Numbers 5:18 ([cum execra-/]tione)– 6:26 (convertat dominus [/ ultum sum]), plus catchwords (ultum sum) at the bottom, on a verso (seen in full in the “New Acquisitions” exhibition display as “Stack 1 Segment 3”)

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, “New Acquisitions Exhibition”, Ege MS 14: Recto of Leaf from the Book of Numbers (5:88 – 6:26).

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

Leaf with Numbers 13:1–29 in column b on a verso (partly visible in the “New Acquisitions” exhibition display as Stack 2 Segment 3 = 3rd from the left)

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14 Segments, with recto for Psalms 68:28 – 71:14 on top.

Set 27. University of South Carolina, reproduced also here

Numbers 8.10 (suas) – 11.13 (ut co-[/medamus])

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collecdtion

‘Segment 2.3’ (photograph above): Numbers 13:1 ([est Maria /] Profectus est) – 13:29 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Rogue Leaf (1 of 2). Sotheby’s, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures (21 June 1994), lot 10(a.1), without plate

Numbers 19–21

Set 19. Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves, Leaf 14, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries

Deuteronomy 17:14 ([dabit ti-/]bi et possideris) – 20:19 (nec per circuitam se[sic for de-][/bes vastare])

Recto of leaf

Otto F. Ege, “Fifty Original Leaves”, Leaf 14 recto, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University. Image Public Domain.

Verso of leaf

Otto F. Ege, “Fifty Original Leaves”, Leaf 14 verso, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University. Image Public Domain.

Spectator Included

Otto F. Ege, “Fifty Original Leaves”, Leaf 14 verso, detail top left. Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University. Image Public Domain.

Location unknown

[Joshua initial = folio *73v]

Rogue Leaf (2 of 3) = Gwara Handlist 14.9. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1994.539
= Wixom et al. (1999), no. 141, Leaf ‘3’ with plate on page 119, column b

Joshua 8:32 ([la-]/pides] – 10:1 (sicut enim fecerat) on verso

Location unknown

Judges

Location unknown

Ruth

Location unknown

[Prologue initial for I Kings (1 Samuel) = folio *93r]

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

“Segment 2.1” (photograph above): 1 Samuel 16:16 ([spiritum dei /] psallat manu) – 17:10 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Rogue Leaf. RMGYMss Bible Leaf Ref 560: RMGYMss BIBLE LEAF Ref 560 recto and RMGYMss BIBLE LEAF Ref 560 verso

I Kings (1 Samuel) 26:7 ([et Abi-/]psae ad populum nocte) – end of 28:25 (noctam illam [/ Congregata sunt])

Location unknown

II Kings (2 Samuel)

Rogue Leaf. RMGYMss Bible Leaf Ref 180

III Kings 11:20 ([et nutrivit /] eum ahias) – end of 13:15 (comedas panem [/qui ait])

Rogue Leaf = Gwara, Handlist 14.1.
Boston University = Judith H. Oliver, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular (1985), number 36 [but no plate]

End of Kings, Prologue to I Chronicles, and beginning of I Chronicles
with a ‘patch taken from another illuminated page of the same manuscript’ covering the cut-out from the ‘theft of initial for I Chronicles’.
[One wonders which other page yielded its riches to patch up this leaf.]

2 Rogue Leaves = Gwara Handlist 14.10. Hollins University
These leaves include

a page with the End of I Chronicles, Prologue for II Chronicles, and beginning of II Chronicles
[= folio *155r]
(reproduced in Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, figure 51)

Rogue Leaf. Stanford University
[Formerly available at http://artsinstitute.stanford.edu/sites/scriptingthesacred/gallery/case-bible/ via Stanford Arts Institute],
purchased from Bernard Quaritch, Medieval Manuscripts. Catalogue 1396 (2010),
number 10, with color plate of recto

II Chronicles 4:12 ([episty-/]lia) – 6:10 (super thronum Israhel)
with quire number xiiii on bottom of the recto
[= say folio ?*157, as reckoned below]

Set 13. University of Minnesota

Prayer of Manassas Chapter 15 (quoniam),
Prologue to I Ezra,
I Ezra 1:1 – 2:62 (eiecti sunt)

Rogue Leaf (1 of 3) = Gwara Handlist 14.9. Metropolitan Museum of Art
= Wixom et al. (1999), no. 141, Leaf ‘1’ with plate on page 118, column a of one side of the leaf (unspecified)

Ezdre I > Ne[he]miae as indicated in the running titles
I Ezra 10:13 (in sermone) – 44 (end),
beginning of II Ezra [= Ezra 11:1–10 (manu tua)] on one side of the leaf

Rogue Leaf. Maggs Bros, European Bulletin 13 (1986), number 52 (with plate of lower half of recto)

Nehemiah 5:18 – 7:3 (porte clausae) on that portion of the page

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

“Segment 2.2” (photograph above): Tobias 4:5 ([compleverit tempus /] uite sue) – 5:4 in column b on a verso (seen in part)

Location unknown

[Judith initial = folio *191r]

Set 30. Denison University

Judith 16:31, Jerome’s Prologue to Esther, and Esther 1:1–2:19

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

“Segment 1.1” (see photograph above): Esther 2:19 ([Mordocheus manebit /] ad regis) – 3:8 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Rogue Leaf. formerly Boston, Endowment for Biblical Research = Judith H. Oliver, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular (1985), number 35, without plate

Job 31:1 – 33:20

Location unknown

[Psalms 54 initial = folio *220r]

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

Psalms 68:29 ([deleantur /] de libro) – 71:14 (et honorabile nomen [/ eorum cora]) on the recto

Viewed while on exhibition (Top leaf here = “Segment 2.4”):

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14 Segments, with recto for Psalms 68:28 – 71:14 on top.

Parke-Bernet Galleries, Sale Catalogue of 29 November 1948, lot 326, plate (apparently a verso): Psalms 109 initial (“Holy Trinity”)

Psalms 108:13 (generatione) – 112:4 (do-[/mine super caelos]) on the verso

Page with the text of Psalms 108:13 to 112:4 on the New Leaf from 'Otto Ege Manuscript 14'. Photography © Mildred Budny

Psalms 108:13 to 112:4 on a verso. Photograph Courtesy of Sotheby’s, Inc. © 29 November, lot 326, plate on page 119

[Maybe here in the original sequence?]
Rogue Leaf. Christie’s, Illuminated Manuscripts, Continental and English Literature . . . ,
Sale Catalogue of 16 December 1991, lot 2, plate on page 14 with detail of initial (on a verso?)

Proverbs (Book of Wisdom) initial 1:1 (full span of leaf unreported)

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

“Segment 1.2” (see photograph above): Proverbs 13:22 ([et ne-/]potes et) – 14:28 in column a on a recto (seen in part)

Location unknown

[Ecclesiasticus initial = folio *253r, reproduced in the Sotheby’s 1931 Catalogue, as reported above]

University of Kansas, Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Ecclesiasticus 12:16 ([in foream /] in oculis suis) – ([et inter-[rogatio omnium]), with catchword –rogatio

Set 5. Ohio University

Ecclesiasticus 39:25 – 42:26

Recto

Ohio University, Ege MS 14, Recto. Image Public Domain.

Verso

Ohio University, Leaf from Ege MS 14, verso. Image Public Domain.

Location unknown

[Isaiah initial = folio *266v]

Rogue Leaf (2 of 3) sold by Bruce P. Ferreni, Bruce P. Ferreni, Catalogue One: Important Western Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts & Illuminated Leaves (1987),
number 26 (page 44), without plate

Isaiah 50 – 54; full span unreported

— These leaves presumably are consecutive

Rogue Leaf for sale via Charles Edwin Puckett

Isaiah 54:10 ([montes enim /] commovebuntur et) – 59:3 on recto; verso not shown

Set 2. Ohio State University

Jeremiah 7:27 ([patres eorum /] Et [with tamen crossed out] loqueris) – 10:11 (caelis sunt [/ Qui facit])

Set 24. Lilly Library

Jeremiah 37:20 (Ieremias in uestibulo) – 40:15 (peribunt)

Rogue Leaves. Bifolium with non-consecutive leaves at the Cleveland Museum of Art

Leaf 1, recto?
verso. End of Baruch 6: 6:61 ([perficiunt quod /] imperatum est),
Jerome’s Prologue to Ezekiel,
Ezekiel 1.1 – 13 (et quasi aspec-[/tus lampadarum]) on verso
[= folio *308v]

> Location unknown

Leaves between Ezekiel 1:13 ([aspec-/]tus lampadarum) and Ezekiel 8:2 (et ecce [/ similitudo quasi])]

Leaf 2, recto. Ezekiel 8:2 ([et ecce /] similitudo quasi) – 9:9 (habebat attramentarium [/ in dorso])
on the verso?

Cleveland Museum of Art, Bifolium from a Bible: (Ege MS 14), with parts of Ezekiel,via https://clevelandart.org. /art/1959.271. Image Public Domain via Creative Commons..

Set 35. Rochester Institute of Technology

Ezekiel 18:21 – 20:11 (recto).
verso: ‘A scan of the verso is not currently available.’

Set 38. University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Ezekiel 24:25 ([et di-/]siderium oculorum eorum) – 27:30 (et clamabunt [/ et superiacient])

— These 2 leaves are consecutive

Set 37. Case Western Reserve

Ezekiel 27:30 ([clamabunt /] amare) – 30:20 (in un-[/decimo])

Set 32. University of Colorado at Boulder, recto and verso

Ezekiel 33:31 ([ingrediatur popu-/]ulus meus) – 35:3 (meam [ / super te])

Set 1. Private collection. See Some Leaves in ‘Set 1’ of Ege’s FOL Portfolio

end of Jeremiah (52:21 ([quattuor de-/]gitorum) to 52:34) and Lamentations 1:1 – 2:19 (qui defecerunt [/ in fame])

Recto of leaf

Set 1 of Otto Ege’s FOL Portfolio, Leaf 14 recto.

Verso of leaf

Set 1 of Ege’s FOL Portfolio, Leaf 14 verso.

Set 4? [Or a Rogue Leaf?]. Cleveland Museum of Art

End of Prologue 1 to Jonah [Sanctum ionam . . . et quo /] a facie tua fugiam], all of Prologue 2 to Jonah (Iona[s] columba . . . ),
all of Jonah (1:1–4:11),
Prologue to Michah, and Michah 1:4 (vales scindentur [/ sicut cera])

Recto of Leaf

Cleveland Museum of Art, Single Leaf from a Bible: Initial E with Jonah Swallowed by the Whale via https://clevelandart.org. /art/1959.271. Image Public Domain via Creative Commons.

Verso of Leaf

Cleveland Museum of Art, Single Leaf from a Bible: Initial U of Uerbum with Prophet Micah, via https://clevelandart.org/art/1959.271. Single Leaf from Ege MS 41, Verso. Image Public Domain via Creative Commons.

— These 2 leaves are consecutive

Set 22. Cleveland Public Library

Micah 1:4 (sicut cera) – 6:2 (iudicum do-[mini])

— These 2 leaves are presumably consecutive

Rogue Leaf. Maggs Bros, Papyrus to Paper. Catalogue 1059 (1985), number 46 and plate on page 27 with detail of initial

‘The final chapter of the Book of Micah and the opening two chapters of the Book of Nahum’,
plus Mirmelus’s inscription in the first person
[Nahum initial = folio *345v]

Rogue Leaf (1 of 3) sold by Bruce P. Ferreni, Catalogue One: Important Western Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts & Illuminated Leaves (1987),
number 25 (page 44), with plate of verso

Habakkuk 1 (span unreported) – 3, Prologue to Zephaniah (“Sophonias*), and Zephaniah 1:9 (super om-[/nem qui arrogantur])

Set 15. Kent State University

Zachariah 7:7 ([ad austrum /] et in campestribus) – 11:10 (cum omnibus / [populis]), reproduced here by permission

Recto of Rogue Leaf in I Maccabees from Ege Manuscript 14 at Kent State University. Reproduced by permission

Recto of Rogue Leaf from Ege Manuscript 14 at Kent State University. Reproduced by permission

Rogue Leaf. Kent State University = Gwara, Handlist, Number 14.5

I Maccabees 12:29 (lumina ardentia) – 14:4 (et quesiuit), reproduced here by permission

Verso of Rogue Leaf from Ege Manuscript 14 at Kent State University. Reproduced by permission

Verso of Rogue Leaf with part of I Maccabees from Ege Manuscript 14 at Kent State University. Reproduced by permission

New Testament with Prologues

Location unknown

[Gospel of Matthew 10 = folio 388B]

Two details at top and bottom of the page are reproduced in the Sotheby’s catalogue of 6–7 July 1931, lot 389, plate facing the description.The figural elements among the marginal decorations on this ‘one very outstanding page’ without ‘historiated initials of miniatures’, but with a rich repertoire of ‘grotesques’, are described in some detail in the Parke-Bernet catalogue of 29 November 1948, lot 326, page 120.

Set 29. Lima Public Library

Matthew 27:46 ([Iesus voce /] magna dicens) – 28:19, Prologue to Mark, and Mark 1:1–38 (eamus [/ in proximo])

Location unknown

Gospel of Mark

Location unknown

Gospel of Luke

Location unknown

Gospel of John

Rogue Leaf. Maggs Bros, Papyrus to Paper. Catalogue 1059 (1985),
number 41 with plate on page 22 of top half of the verso

End of I Corinthians (from 15:56) and Opening of II Corinthians on the portion visible in the plate
[and not the opening of I Corinthians as stated in the catalogue]

Rogue Leaf (3 of 3). Gwara Handlist 14.9. Metropolitan Museum of Art
= Wixom et al. (1999), no. 141, Leaf ‘II’ with plate on page 119, column a]

Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians, 1:1 – 2:10 (end) plus opening title for Chapter 3 on verso

Among the Residual Leaves = Gwara Handlist 14.7. Oslo and London, The Schøyen Collection, MS 223.
Its full contents are not known to me.
The specimen image on the collection’s website shows part of the page with

Paul’s Epistle to Philemon and the beginning of his Epistle to Hebrews

[Might these 2 leaves have been consecutive? That depends upon what the verso of the specimen leaf contains.]

Set 6. University of Massachusetts at Amherst (both sides in black-and-white) and recto in color

Hebrews 1:13 (quando) – 6:20 (aeternum).

Set 23. Kenyon College

Hebrews 10:20 (iniciauit) – 13:4 (conui-[/bium])

— These leaves are consecutive

Rogue Leaf? Detroit Public Library [?]

Hebrews 13:4–25, Prologue to Acts, Acts of the Apostles 1:1–30
[Acts initial = folio *440r]

Set 25. University of Saskatchewan and here and here

Acts 4:1 – 5:11 on verso

Set 9. Cincinnati Public Library

Acts 13:37 ([quem uero /] deus suscitauit) – 16:2 (et Ychonio [/ fratres hunc])

Recto of leaf

Recto of Leaf 8 in Portfolio Set 9. From the Collection of The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Reproduced by permission.

Verso of leaf

Verso of Leaf 14 in Portfolio Set 9. From the Collection of The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Reproduced by permission.

[Or do the Catholic Epistles follow Acts? If so, maybe they come here in the series?]

Rogue Leaf.
Gwara Handlist 14.Ref 14. Sotheby’s 10 July 2012, lot 2(b)
[Current location unknown to me]

Opening of the Catholic Epistle of James on verso

described in the Sotheby’s catalogue thus:

(b) leaf from a lectern Bible, 400mm. by 270mm., with a large initial ‘I’ (opening “Iacobus ihesu christi seruus …”, the epistle of James) in burnished gold with a coloured architectural roof and arch, enclosing a bearded James with a golden halo pointing at the opening of his epistle, angular foliage forming text-frame around all sides of one text column, terminating in golden leaves and a dragon, 3-line initial enclosing ivy-leaf, similar text-frame on verso with a dragon and a 5-line initial containing a sprig of foliage ending with a dragon’s head, double column, 50 lines in a regular gothic hand, area of one column cut away (90mm. by 95mm., presumably once with a large initial), now repaired with another cutting from same volume [highlights added], once mounted on card with remains of tape on recto [therefore, turned front-to-back in Ege’s matting to display the verso], France or southern Flanders, early fourteenth century.

Verso:

Part of the Prologue to the Catholic Epistle of James (from [ut quia Petrus /] est primus in ordine apostolorum) and the opening of this Book, with 1:1–2:4 (nonne iudacitis [/ apud vosmet])

* Despoiled Leaf.
Preserved in part on the patch for the Sotheby’s Leaf opening the Catholic Epistle of James (see previous item); perhaps the rest of the leaf is lost?

Irregularly-shaped Patch containing parts of at least the Catholic Epistle of James 2:8–13 and 3–9 (on one side of the patch)

Rogue Leaf.
Maggs Bros, Papyrus to Paper. Catalogue 1059 (1985), number 44
with plates on pages 24 and 25, respectively of the verso and the top right-hand side of the recto

End of the Catholic Epistle I of James, all of his Epistles II and III, and the beginning of the Epistle of Jude (to verse 18[+])

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

End of the Epistle of Jude (from verses 19 (? animales spiritum) to 25)
Prologue to the Apocalypse
Apocalypse 1:1 – 2:10 (coronam vitae [/ verse 11 qui habet])[Apocalypse initial = folio *475r]

Original recto

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Family FOL Portfolio, Leaf 18 ‘verso’. Original recto.

Another view

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Apocalypse Prologue Opening Leaf: Original recto.

Original verso

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Leaf with the opening of the Book of Revelation within Ege’s mat, which turns the original verso to the front.

Set 17. Massey College, recto + verso

Apocalypse 2:27 (qui habet) – 6:9 (altare)

Interpretation of Hebrew Names

The leaves so far recognized from the Interpretatio Nominorum Hebraeorum (“INH” or “IHN”) for this Bible represent different parts of the partly alphabetized version of this Glossary, beginning Aaz apprehendens (that is, ‘Aaz means “seizing” ‘) — or one of its variants. So far I have discovered only 3 leaves, from 2 letter groups: the A-Group and the I-Group. They are laid out in triple columns, unlike the double-column format of the Bible text.

Location unknown

[Opening initial A[az] = folio *465r]

Rogue Leaf: The ‘New Leaf’ (Private Collection). See A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

Alcath . . . Ananias

Private Collection, Leaf from Ege MS 14, with part of the A-Group of the ‘Interpretation of Hebrew Names’. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Rogue Leaf: Enchiridion 21: Medieval Fragments for University Teaching & Research (2015), Item 2g

Asseremoth . . . Azer

Rogue Leaf (2 of 2). Sotheby’s, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures (21 June 1994), lot 10(a.2), without plate

with part of ‘the letter “I” ‘ (span unreported)

It is uncertain at present how many leaves intervened in the original sequence between the two identified so far in the A-Group. At least one leaf. It is also uncertain (to me) how the glossary ended, and if it was complete to Z.

More leaves could indicate to which variant the Glossary belonged.

The record of 1931 (Sotheby’s lot 329) reveals that this text spanned an impressive part of the volume. It stretched from folio *465r onward, perhaps fully to as far as folio *503 (recto? verso?), in 38 leaves at most. Also, like ‘the first three leaves’ of the volume’, the last leaves (number unspecified) of the book were damaged: ‘a few leaves of the Table at end are somewhat stained’.

Presumably ‘the Tables’ means the Interpretationes Nominorum Hebraeorum. (Unless, say, some other accompanying texts as well?) The stains perhaps represented the same sort of moisture damage visible on the Randolph College leaf at the front with part of the First Prologue for the Vulgate Bible and, probably, on the preceeding, first, leaf of that Frater Ambrosius prologue.

Because, so far, so few leaves from the Glossary portion of Ege MS 14 are identified, it seems probable that more await recognition. However, the leaves with multiple columns of text, without much if any of the decoration which charactizes most known leaves from the Bible portion — whether in historiated initials, extensions into the margins, foliage, creatures, and the like — may rule out a ready identification, or, for that matter, much interest among those collectors, curators, or scholars who would focus upon the “art” of the book, never mind the “boring” lists.

The first impetus for my interest in Ege Mauscript 14 came from a long acquaintance with the solitary leaf with the Alcath . . . Ananias portion of the INH. But, then, I have a long interest in the history, development, transmission, and adaptations of glossaries, proto-dictionaries, and dictionaries, as witness The Illustrated Catalogue.

It did take time to recognize which large-format Bible formerly held this text, where the text stood (whether before or after the Bible text), and so on. A clincher came in identifying the pencil inscription at the foot of the page as the work, and the wording, of Otto Ege for this dismembered book.

Pencil Inscription at the lower front of a manuscript leaf. Photography © Mildred Budny

Pencil Inscription (Budny Handlist 9)

All Bound Up

At the time of the 1931 sale, the sale catalogue reported that the volume still had its binding of “17th Century calf over stout wooden boards”, with the “binding worn and upper cover loose”. We might conjecture that the damage to the front and back of the text block arose from an exposed state, with water or other liquid damage affecting those front and back leaves as well as, if the book was bound rather than unbound, the covers of an earlier binding.

Such a condition of water or other liquid damage at the outsides could have led to a 17th-century rebinding or repair. It is a pity that the modern binding, with all its evidentiary value of whatever kinds, was removed and discarded from sight in the 20th-century dismemberment of the monument.

A Binding at the Beinecke

As with some other Ege manuscripts, the residue of the book, left after the process of selection of choice Specimens, remains to some extents. Such seems to be the case with the sale of many leaves of Ege MS 14 en bloc which mostly reached the Schøyen Collection, and with the acquisition of the Otto Ege Collection by the Beinecke Rare Books & Manuscript Library.

Part of the former cover of Ege MS 14 was exhibited along with other portions of the volume when they reached the Beinecke.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, New Acquisitions Exhibition (2016). Ege MS 14 in pieces.

From what I could see through the glass case, it appears to be the front cover, turned to show the inside, with its marbled pastedown, beyond which extends the edges of the leather-covered board. The worn surfaces of the rounded corners expose the backing, which seems to resemble layers of cardboard. A rectangular blue slip (paper?) is pasted to the midsection of the pastedown. The slip is probably a bookplate, although any image or text across its center seems too rubbed to reveal its intended message.

The 1931 description of the binding, with its “upper cover loose”, implies that the front cover would easily have been lifted away in Ege’s hands, to surface decades later in the exhibition case along with other remnants of the volume.

Because the front cover does not show signs of damage similar to the Randolph College Leaf, we could reasonably conjecture that those effects occurred at an earlier stage in the life of the book, before it received the modern trade binding.

To that binding work we should attribute the red stain at the outer edges of the manuscript leaves, applied to the book-block as a unit.

Seen from the side:

Viewed straight on, through glass:

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Ege ME 14 Binding Board and Endpaper with bookplate(?).

Without seeing the front of the board or its other parts, we have the evidence of the inside cover and outer edges.

Perhaps the marbled paper, within the tradition of this genre of bookbinding materials, might help to narrow down the location and date of this cover. Image-enhancement might reclaim features of the book-plate.

Meanwhile, it is possible to consider features of the marbled paper. Convenient guides, often with specimens. appear in print and online. Among many:

Richard J. Wolfe, Marbled Paper: Its History, Techniques, and Patterns, with special reference to the relationship of marbling to bookbinding in Europe and the Western World (New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 2nd edition with corrections, 2018)
Einen Miura, The Art of Marbled Paper: Marbled Patterns and How to Make Them (Kodansha, 1991)
Carina Greven, “The Development of a Standard Nomenclature for Marbled Paper”, Ink & Gall, 7:2 (Winter, 1993), pp. 10–113
The Phoebe Jane Easton Bibliography: Marbling Bibliography
Essay: Marbled Papers and Marbled Paper Patterns, University Libraries, University of Washington, Digital Collections
We Love Endpapers: Public Group on Facebook

Among pattern types, as exhibited, for example, here, the design on the former cover for Ege MS 14 corresponds to the “Turkish” pattern (also known as “Spot”, “Stone”, “Agate, “Stein”, “Achat”, and Caillouté Simple”).

This is the oldest of Western marbled patterns and date back to as early as the middle part of the 15th century. The pattern is created when one or more colors are thrown onto the surface of the bath using a marbling brush. The first colors through tend to constrict as others follow and become the ‘vein’ colors for the latte thrown inks.

. . . Since this pattern is probably the earliest and the most simple it also is the base or jump off point for a large number of other patterns.

Specimens are exhibited in Wolfe, Marbled Paper, plate XXVI, 44–48 and Muira, Art of Marbled Paper, pages 47–49, and Turkish Patterns. In the latter gallery, an example similar to the front endpaper from Ege MS 14 is listed as Vintage 17th c. marbled paper, Turkish pattern, from a book cover. dating “between 1800 and 1899” [sic].

In consultation, Simon Beattie, founder of We Love Endpapers, suggested this in an email communication:

that marbled paper makes me say ’18th-century, English’. It certainly doesn’t look 17th-century (that’s not to say the binding wasn’t 17th-c., but with later endpapers).

Further research may uncover more secrets of the binding history of the book. Perhaps the most recent of its bindings, represented by the remnants, endpaper(s) included, in which it travelled to Ege can shed light on the transmission of its ownership to and through the unnamed “Italian gentleman” who consigned it for sale in London in 1936.

*****

The Stitching Patterns

The patterns of holes for the stitching(s) of the volume are visible in the gutters, or inner folds, of bifolia. Likewise, most of the single leaves, which have been severed from their mates in former bifolia, retain holes or notches from the same patterns.

Some bifolia or groups of leaves retain dark, thick, stains and ‘encrustations’ at the outside of their spines from the glued back of the leather-covered binding. A thickly crusted case can be seen on the recto of the single leaf from II Chronicles 4–6 at Stanford University, at the front of Quire xiiii.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, New Acquisitions Exhibition (2016). Ege MS 14 in pieces. Stack 1, Segments 1-3.

A few leaves retain pieces of the yellowish thread, twisted twine, and cord used for the stitching threads which linked quire to quire for the bound unit in a ladder-like structure of horizontal rows across the spine of the book, and for the raised bands at the back, or outside, of those rows.

For example, near the top of the recto of the Ecclesiastes Leaf at Ohio University, the frayed ends of a pair of severed threads rise from the uncut hole alongside the nicked, open-sided hole in the fold of the gutter. The markedly uneven cut edge of this gutter, which contrasts with the straighter edge of many severed single leaves from the manuscript, attests to a rougher approach.

Ohio University, Leaf from Ege MS 14, recto, detail: Top left. Image Public Domain.

The inside of some bifolia show their stitching patterns clearly. Such is the case with the bifolium from Ezekial at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Cleveland Museum of Art, Bifolium from a Bible: (Ege MS 14), with parts of Ezekiel via https://clevelandart.org/art/1959.272. Image Public Domain via Creative Commons.

The patterns derive from holes made in different approaches to binding or rebinding the volume. A close-up view shows differences in size, shape, and coloration between different ‘strata’ or sequences of stitching.

Cleveland Museum of Art, Bifolium from a Bible: (Ege MS 14), with parts of Ezekiel via https://clevelandart.org/art/1959.272. Image Public Domain via Creative Commons.

A detailed study across quires, insofar as they might be accessed, could determine the probable number of sewing interventions which the manuscript underwent in its history, from its original production, to individual ownership (Mirmellus Arnandi), to communal ownership (an unidentified Dominican convent), and back again (its “Italian” owner consigning the Bible to sale in London in 1936, and some other owner consigning it to sale again in New York).

*****

The Patched Repairs for Cut-Out Initials

In passing, we have noticed that a few leaves are said to have patched repairs taken from “the same” manuscript or volume. Such is the case for 2 catalogue entries.

1) Rogue Leaf = Gwara, Handlist 14.1.
Boston University = Judith H. Oliver, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular (1985), number 36 [but no plate]

End of Kings, Prologue to I Chronicles, and beginning of I Chronicles
with a ‘patch taken from another illuminated page of the same manuscript’ covering the cut-out from the ‘theft of initial for I Chronicles’.
[One wonders which other page yielded its riches to patch up this leaf.]

When first noting the case in the leaf opening I Chronicles (A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’), I observed that “One wonders which other page yielded its riches to patch up this leaf”.

2) Rogue Leaf = Gwara Handlist 14.Ref 14.
Sotheby’s 10 July 2012, lot 2(b)

Opening of the Catholic Epistle of James on verso (illustrated online for the catalogue)

described in the Sotheby’s catalogue thus:

(b) leaf from a lectern Bible, 400mm. by 270mm., . . . area of one column cut away (90mm. by 95mm., presumably once with a large initial), now repaired with another cutting from same volume [highlights added], once mounted on card with remains of tape on recto [therefore, turned front-to-back in Ege’s matting to display the verso], France or southern Flanders, early fourteenth century.

The text presents the end of the Prologue to the Catholic Epistle of James (from [ut quia Petrus /] est primus in ordine apostolorum) and the opening of this Book, with 1:1–2:4 (nonne iudacitis [/ apud vosmet]).

Even though the catalogue does not specify the position and nature of the patch, it is possible to make some educated guesses.

Next, we examine these patches.

*****

We thank the owners for the opportunity to study and to reproduce the leaves.

Do you know of more leaves from this manuscript? Do you recognize the hands of these scribes, artists, and annotators in other manuscripts?

You might reach us via Contact Us or our Facebook Page. Comments here are welcome too. We look forward to hearing from you.

Watch our blog on Manuscript Studies for more discoveries. Please visit its Contents List.

*****

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2021 International Congress on Medieval Studies Call for Papers

July 13, 2020 in ICMS, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Societas Magica, Uncategorized

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(13–16 May 2021)

Call for Papers

Proposals Due by 15 September 2020

[Posted on 13 July 2020, with updates]

After the cancellation of the 2020 Congress, the preparations now for the 2021 Congress permit re-submitting the sessions which had been designed to take place in May 2020. By popular request, we performed that re-submission for all 5 Sessions. With approval now by the Congress Committee, we announce the Call for Papers. This announcement augments the brief listings of all Sessions on call on the Congress website. #kzoo2021.

Update: 5 August 2020:

Please note these updated instructions for submission of proposals for papers. New for this year, all such submissions must be made through the Confex system, as directed on the Congress website. However, the Congress’s plans for Session Organizers to access any proposals were overly optimistic. Exploring this problem, we have now learned that it is uncertain when (or if?) such access would be enabled. So we ask that, when you submit your proposal by that method as required, you inform the Session Organizer as well. Here we list each Session’s Organizer and contact address.

Sorry for the inconvenience, not of our making.

Perhaps an easy way of informing the Organizer of your proposal would be to forward thence the confirmation email which the Confex system would send for your completed proposal (title, abstract, contact information). We look forward to hearing from you.

Adèle Kindt (1804–1884), The Fortune Teller (circa 1835). Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The Plan We Had for the 2020 Congress

The Announcement for our Sessions and other Activities at the 2020 Congress describes what we planned. Note that we published the Abstracts of Papers, so as to record the intentions of speakers for their presentations. The Abstracts are accessible both through that Announcement and through the Indexes of Abstracts by Year and by Author.

Our tradition regularly has been to post on our website the Abstracts before the Congress, as a foretaste of the Menu. Years ago, as a sign of appreciation, we adopted the custom of posting the Abstract of one or other contributor who became unable to attend to present in person (as with the 2016 Congress and the 2014 Congress ). Thus we honor the intentions of our participants to present the results (or interim results) of their research and reflections, even when they could not do so at the event.

The Papers and their sequences within the intended Sessions were selected through the responses to the 2020 Call for Papers, which described the aims of the individual Sessions, both sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (3 Sessions), and co-sponsored with the Societas Magica (2 Sessions). The 2020 Congress would have been the 16th year of this co-sponsorship at the International Congress on Medieval Studies.

Like the 2015–2019 Congresses, we also planned for

an Open Business Meeting and
a co-sponsored Reception.

Even so, the Agenda for the postponed 2020 Business Meeting is available. It takes into account the changes for Spring 2020:

2020 Agenda.

The Plan for 2021

We contemplate a similar or suitably revised approach to the 2021 Congress, conditions permitting.

For the 2021 Congress, we aim to re-present the Sessions, and we invite proposals for Papers or Responses.

The sponsorship and co-sponsorship remains as before — with only 1 change. For 2021, the Societas Magica has agreed to co-sponsor 1 of the Sessions which the RGME sponsored on its own in 2020: “Prologues in Medieval Texts of Magic, Astrology, and Prophecy”. Now with an adapted title, this Session now joins the already co-sponsored pair of sessions dedicated to “Revealing the Unknown I–II”. The 2021 Congress will be the 17th year of our co-sponsorship with the Societas Magica, in a constructive partnership of friends, students, and colleagues.

Read the rest of this entry →

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A Charter of 1399 from High Ongar in Essex

May 11, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

A Charter of
23 Richard II (=1399)
Issued on 17 July 1399
at Alta Aungre (High Ongar)

London, British Library, Royal MS 14 E IV, folio 10 recto. “Recueil des croniques” by Jean de Wavrin. Coronation of Richard II at the age of 10 in 1377.

[Posted on 12 May 2020, with updates]

Mildred Budny continues the series of posts on medieval and early modern charters from England in a private collection. See our Contents List.

First we examined the numbered group of documents mainly from Preston in Sussex. Then we turned to documents from other places.

From the Time of Richard II

Once again, we examine a charter from the time of King Richard II (6 January 1367 – c. 14 February 1400), who reigned from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399.

6 Richard II

Previously we considered a charter from this king’s Regnal Year 6, issued at an unnamed location on the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, that is, on 19 September 1382. That one is Charter 1 in the numbered series in that private collection which opens the section devoted to English charters. Charter 1 made its appearance in casting More Light on English Charters.

6 Richard II (= 22 June 1382 – 21 June 1383)
“On the Feast of Saint Michael Archangel” = 19 September
I. e. 19 September 1382

Private Collection, “Charter 1”: 6 Richard II Face.

The document retains its original seal, more-or-less intact, with its Legend in Lombard Capitals and its Device in the form of a (partly rubbed) heraldic shield. The Legend begins with a customary star (*) and the word SIGILLUM (“Seal”).

Charter 1: 6 Richard II Charter Seal.

The Document in Question: 23 Richard II from High Ongar

The later specimen from the reign of Richard II which we showcase here is not only later in date of origin, but also a later addition to the private collection; we had the chance to see it soon after its acquisition.

Like “Charter 1”, this document specifies both the Regnal year and a certain day within the year, upon a specific saint’s feast day. Unlike Charter 1, it names its place of issue.

Single Sheet with Tag and Seal

Like all those others in the series (from Full Court Preston onward), this document in Latin on vellum stands on a single sheet. It places the hair-side of the animal skin to the outside, folds its lower edge inward to form a flap, and holds between slits a pendant vellum tag upon which to attach the wax seal.

On the face of the sheet, the text forms a single column of 11 long lines, professionally written in Anglicana Formata script. (See another in similar script, by a different scribe: Preston Charters Continued.) The dorse, originally blank, carries a few docketing inscriptions. The uncolored seal survives in part.

Private Collection, Document of 23 Richard II, Face.

The Dorse

The dorse is creased and stained. The fold-lines and their directions demonstrate that the sheet was folded in half horizontally, then into thirds to form a packet, from which the tag extended.

Originally blank, the dorse acquired 3 docketing inscriptions. They stand in a “vertical row”, with their tops turned to the right-hand side of the sheet in one of its folded sections. It would appear that they gathered upon that section as it lay or stood ‘upright’, and with the seal and its tag extending to the right.

23 Richard II Dorse with Tag and Seal.

The Docketing

The 3 lines of docketing entries on the dorse include a mostly erased line in brown ink, a statement of the Regnal Year (“23 R 2”) in dark brown ink with arabic numerals, and the date in pencil in arabic numerals (“1399”).

23 Richard II Dorse

Back-lighting reveals a few more traces of the erased inscription and the differences of in width and smoothness between the strokes in the first and second ‘halves’ of the arabic numeral.

23 Richard II Docketing under Back-Lighting.

The Face

The text is laid out in a single column of 11 long lines written by a single scribe in a professional version of Angicana Formata documentary script (see Charter 6 in Preston Charters Continued). Mostly the ink is light brown in color, but in some places, where the freshly dipped pen left darker strokes, it looks almost black.

Such is noticeably the case in line 2, where one personal name stands out jarringly in darker color than the flow of the script to either side. Perhaps this effect resulted from a space left in the course of the transcription, to be filled upon a return (line 2) once the scribe had ascertained the name of this tenant (Nich’o) among the group of 4.

To the left of the first line and its enlarged initial, there stands a flourished mark, likewise in ink, forming an n-shaped feature rising to a clockwise loop. The text concludes with a separate flourish, which forms an undulating hook-like motif suspended after the conclusion of the text.

23 Richard II Face with Tag and Seal.

The Tag and Seal

Part of the uncolored wax seal survives upon the partly crumpled vellum tag.

Private Collection, Document of 23 Richard II, Tag and Seal.

The wax by now is friable, as a close view shows. To judge by the remnant of the seal, its matrix was round. The imprint of its face retains about half of the rimmed border containing an illegible legend or inscription. At the center the device has an oblong central element of some kind.

23 Richard II Seal Now.

The Script

The document presents its record entirely in ink, the work of a single scribe. It begins with an enlarged initial S which rises both above the line and into the left-hand margin, opening the process with minimum fanfare. Along with such customary features of Anglicana Formata script as a double-compartment a, this scribe consistently used a rounded, closed, theta-like e formed in a single looped stroke, with the tongue descending to the right within the closed bow.

23 Richard II Face: Left-Hand Side.

Of all the enlarged initial letters, the repeated N of the name Nich’o (lines 2 and 6) is both broad and distinctive, with a descending first stem, a slanted top leading to the second stem, and a backward-descending diagonal cross-stroke.

23 Richard II Face

The Text

The text of the document exhibits similar wording and formulae to some charters in our earlier posts. (For example, Preston Charters Continued.) Into such a formula, the scribe would enter the relevant particulars:

Sciant presentes et futuri quod ego . . . dedi concessi et hac praesenti carta mea confirmavi . . . presenta carta sigillum meum apposui hiis testibus . . . Anno regni . . . etc.

Thus, with those ‘supplied’ particulars highlighted here in BOLD, with abbreviations expanded between square brackets ([so]), with superscript letters indicated between inverted commas [‘so’], and with the text transcribed line by line, the document declares:

[Line 1]

Sciant pr[e]sentes et ffuturi q[uo]d Ego Thomas Herde alias Tobere dedi concessi et hac p[rae]senti carta mea co[n]firmaui

Joh[a[n]i Passelewe de Aungre ad Castrum Will[el]mo atte Bregga de Stanford Ryi’r’us Nich[el]o Atte Style de Dodyng[-]

herst R[i]c[ardo Barne de Kelwedon[e] om[n]ia illa t[err]as et ten[ementa] que h[ab]ui ex dono et foeffamento Joh[an]is Marden[is]

Et Joh[a]ne ux[o]’r’is eius cu[m] accederint post decessu[m] p[rae]dictor[um] Joh[an]is et Joh[an]e in hameletto de marden[e] de alta

[Line 5]

Aungre h[ab]end[um] et tenend[um] o[mn]ia pr[ae]dict[as] t[err]as et ten[emena] cu[m] accederint p[raed]ict[i]s Joh[an]i Passelewe Will[e]mo atte

Bregge Mich[el]o atte Style R[i]c[ard]o Barne heredib[is] et assign[antis] eor[um] de capital[ibus] d[o]m[ini]s feod[i] illius p[er] S[e]’r’uicia

inde debit[ur] et de iure consuet[a] Et ego p[rae]dict[us] Thomas et hered[es] mei o[mn]ia p[rae]d[i]cta t[e]r[ra] et ten[ementa] cu[m] accederint

p[rae]dict[is] Joh[an]i Will[el]mo Nich[el]o R[i]c[ar]o heredi[bus] et assign[antis] eoru[m] contra omnes gentes Warrantizabim[us] in p[er]petu[m] In cuius

rei test[i]m[onium] huic p[rae]senti carte sigillu[m] meu[m] apposui hiis testib[us] Steph[an]o P[ar]ker Herico Symms Roberto

[Line 10]

Taylor Rob[er]to Muskh’a’m Joh[an]e Smyth et alis Datur apud alt[am] Aungre die Iovis p[ro]x[ime] post festu[m] t[ra]nslatio[ni]s

S[an]c]t]i Swithini Anno Regno regis R]i]c[ard]i Secundi post conquestu]m] vicesimo tercio.

In Sum

Supplied particulars:

Where & When

23 Richard II (= 22 June 1399 – 29 September 1399)
“On the First Thursday after the Feast of the Translation of Saint Swithin” (= 15 July in England)
I. e. 17 July 1399
at Alta Aungre (High Ongar, Essex)

From

Thomas Herda alias Tobere

What

Omnia terras et tenementa (“All lands and holdings”)
received of the late John Marden and his wife Johanna
in the Hamlet of Marden of Alta Angre

To a Group of 4 Tenants

John Passelewe of Aungre ad Castrum (Chipping Ongar, Essex)
William Atte Bregge of Stanford Ryirus (Stanford Rivers , Essex)
Nicholaus Atte Style of Dodyngherst (presumably Doddinghurst, Essex)
Richard Barne of Kelwedon (Kelvedon Hatch, Essex)

Witnesses

John Parker
Henricus Symms
Robert Taylor
Robert Muskham
John Smyth
Et Aliis

How do we know? Read on, Dear Reader, Read On.

The Day and the Date of Issue

Among Richard II’s Regnal Years, Year 23 was his last, brief, Regnal Year, spanning 22 June 1399 – 29 September 1399. The dating clause at the end of the charter spells it out, as pertaining to Anno regnis regis Ricardi Secundi post Conquestum vicesimo tercio (“in the 23rd year of the reign of King Richard II after the Conquest”).

This clause also specifies the place and the day: Datum . . . die Jovis proxime post festum translationis sancti Swithini (“Issued . . . on the day of the first Thursday after the feast of the Translation of Saint Swithin”). The feast-day of one of the principal English saints, Saint Swithin (circa 800 – 2 July 863), Bishop of Winchester from 852 to 863, is celebrated on 2 July or 15 July, marking the date of his death or the date of the translation of his relics.

The choice of the latter in the document commemorates the translation on 15 July 971 of Swithin’s body to the newly restored basilica at Winchester, newly dedicated to him as its patron saint (in place formerly of the Apostles, Saints Peter and Paul). The Benedictional made for the Anglo-Saxon reformer, Saint Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984, for whom the translation was effected, takes care to include an image of this patron among its magnificently illuminated pages. There, the full-page image faces the opening of the text for the celebration of Swithin’s Deposition (2 July).

London, The British Library, Add MS 49598, folio 97v. Saint Swithin. Image Public Domain.

The document of 23 Richard II specifies the Feast of Swithin’s Translation. In 1399, Saint Swithin’s Day on 15 July fell on a Tuesday. The first Thursday after that would have been 17 July. By such calculations can we find the day upon which the document was issued, and not only the year.

23 Richard II Face

Names and Places

The place-name Aungre appears thrice in the document. First it qualifies the name of the first tenant: Johannis Passelewe de Aungre ad Castrum (line 2). Next it refers to a finding point in the boundary clause: in hameletto de marden’ de alta Aungre (lines 4–5). Then it specifies the location at which the document itself was issued: apud alt’ Aungre (line 10).

23 Richard II Face

The name Aungre stands for Ongar (meaning “Grassland” in Old English) in Essex. Aungre is an oft-recorded spelling for that place.

Its appelation ad castrum (“at or by the castle”) relates to Chipping Ongar, which still has a a castle — albeit now in ruins.

Church of Saint Mary, High Ongar, Essex, with 12th-Century Nave. Photograph by John Salmon (8 May 2004), Image via Wikipedia.

The appelation alta (“tall” or “high”) designates High Ongar (see also High Ongar) — at the time probably only a hamlet. High Ongar lies about 1 mile (1 1/2 km) to the south and east from Chipping Ongar.

The “hamlet of Marden of High Ongar” (in hameletto de Marden’ de alta Aungre) appears to have a modern incarnation in Marden Ash, which formerly formed part of the parish of High Ongar. Here “the name Marden goes back at least to the 11th century and means ‘boundary valley’: it suggests that this was the boundary between Chipping Ongar and High Ongar even at that time”.
— — P. H. Reamey, The Place-Names of Essex. English Place-Name Society, Vol. 12 (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1935), page 73; also British History Online: High Ongar.

In this context, it may accord with long-standing practice that the document locates boundaries with reference to Marden as one of them.

Stanford Rivers is also near by, only about 2 miles (3 km) south of Chipping Ongar. The common place-name Stanford derives from “a stone, or stony, ford” in Old English. A Stanford survives in Norfolk as a deserted village. As with some other Stanfords, the place called Stanford in the document both received and retained an appelation. Stanford Rivers is listed in the Doomsday Book as Stanfort, but in 1289 as Stanford Ryueres, adopting the name of the 13th-century manorial family Ryueres. See, for example, Anthony David Mills, A Dictionary of British Place Names (Oxford: Oxford University Press, revised edition, 2011: ISBN 019960908X ), p. 432. The document spells the name as Ryi’r’us (line 2), with a superscript r between the 3 minims (i and u); a similar superscript r stands above ux’r’is in line 4.

Dodyngherst is presumably Doddinghurst, in Essex, to the southeast of High Ongar and close to Stanford Rivers. Across time, its recorded spellings varied, for example with Duddingeherst in 1218. Pertaining to an early layer of Old English place-naming patterns in the early medieval migrations to England, the Old English name means “the wooded hill of Dudda‘s people”. (For example, the Dictionary of British Place Names, page 146.)

Richard Barne of Kelwedon came also from Essex. Villages in Essex among medieval settlements still extant with such a name are Kelvedon (Kelvedon) in northeast Essex and Kelvedon Hatch (Kelvedon Hatch). The latter stands within the Hundred of Ongar and considerably closer than the former to the other places cited in the document, pertaining to Aungre in its several manifestations, both on higher ground and near a castle, and now known as High Ongar and Chipping Ongar. Kelvedon Hatch lies 3 miles south of Chipping Ongar.

The Hundred of Ongar comprised 26 parishes, including Kelved Hatch, Stanford Rivers, Cheping Ongar, and High Ongar. Some Ongar parishes are picturesquely described and illustrated in “The Hundred of Ongar” by the English antiquary Elizabeth Ogborne (1763/4 – 1853) in The History of Essex from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (London: R. H. Kelham,1 814), pages 235–280, with the full list of parishes on page 236. The subtitle of this work advertised it as being Illustrated with accurate Engravings of Churches, Monuments, Ancient Buildings, Seals, Portraits, Autographs, &c., With Biographical Notices of the most distinguished and remarkable Natives. Alas, the work was unfinished, with only Volume I, in which the illustrated descriptions of the individual parishes of this Hundred cease before they reach any of those names within whose reach the place-names of the document come to rest.

Spellings very similar to those in the document are recorded in the Essex Poll Tax for 1377, which dates only some 20 years earlier. The modern edition of that record notes the modern equivalents.

Stanford Rever = Stanford Rivers
Alta Aungr = High Ongar
Kelwedon = Kelvedon Hatch
Aungr ad Castrum = Chipping Ongar

— — The Poll Taxes of 1377, 1379, and 1381, Part I: Bedfordshire–Leicestershire, edited by Carolyn C. Fenwick. Record of Social and Economic History, New Series, 37 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998–2005), “Essex 1377: Ongar and Rochford Hundreds”, at E179.

Such close, and even precise, correspondences for the individual place-names — as their records adapted across time — and for the cluster of names recorded within the transaction appear to establish their identities in the document beyond doubt as pertaining to the Hundred of Ongar in Essex.

23 Richard II Face: Text.

Location, Location, Locations

These places, with a few variants in spelling, appear on Old Maps of Essex, available among the Old Maps Online and other digital resources:

Map of Essex among the 35 colored maps published by Christopher Saxon in the Atlas of England and Wales (1579).
Interactive version of the Map of the County of Essex from the atlas of 25 engraved sheets by John Chapman & Peter André (1777).
Map of Essex actually surveyed with the several Roads from London, etc. (London [1678]).

The latter, via Public Domain, comes from the Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library:

Boston Public Library, Map of “Essex actually surveyed with the several Roads from London, etc.” (London [1678]), Image via Public Domain.

With a detail of Ongar Hundred:

Boston Public Library, Map of “Essex actually surveyed with the several Roads from London, etc.” (London [1678]), Detail of Ongar Hundred. Image via Public Domain.

The Transaction as Record

From its details, the document yields information about a set of individuals and their interrelationships regarding landscapes, both which they have been associated — Aungre ad castrum, Alta Aungra, Stanford Ryirus, Dodyngherst, and Kolwedon — and over which they formally transfer custodianship on Saint Swithin’s Day, 1399. In the case of the land at the center of the transaction, we learn also about its previous transfer (at an unspecified date) from a named couple after their death.

Private Collection, Document of 23 Richard II, Tag and Seal.

*****

Do you recognize other examples of this scribe’s work? Do you know more about the history of these features, places, and persons?

Please contact us via Contact Us or our Facebook Page. Comments here are welcome too.

*****

More to Come. See the Contents List for this blog.

*****

P. S. On a Personal Note (17 May 2020). Although I don’t remember if I visited any of the places mentioned in the document, I vividly recall visiting Greensted close by. The purpose of the visit was Greensted Church, located about one mile west of Chipping Ongar town center. My interest resided in seeing the wooden structure of the building, because of its age and its Anglo-Saxon construction.

This was while I lived in London and engaged in long-term postgraduate study of Anglo-Saxon and related manuscripts and their broader context — leading from the M. A. in English Language and Literature before 1525 (University of London, 1972) to the Ph. D. in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (London, 1985). An important component of the research was travel to examine material evidence first hand.

It was natural that part of the observation attended to building structures, given their settings for the production, viewing, and use of the manuscripts and other media, and given my studies in seminars with archaeologists and building historians, among others. Apart from archaeological excavations and ruins, many of the viewing opportunities allowed for more imposing architectural structures, but I wished also to see the “only remaining example of the many timber churches” of the Anglo-Saxon period before the Norman Conquest, as Greensted Church is described in a standard reference work on the subject.
— — H. M. and Joan Taylor, Anglo-Saxon Architecture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 3 volumes, 1965 and 1978), Volume 1, pages 262–264, at page 263.

North Side of Wooden Church at Greensted-juxta-Ongar, Essex. Photograph by Simon Garbutt via Wikimedia Commons.

The Church of Saint Andrew at Greensted is regarded as “the oldest wooden building in Europe still standing, albeit only in part, since few sections of its original wooden structure remain”. The nave, made of large split oak tree trunks, is mostly original. The official name of the place is Greensted-juxta-Ongar (“Greensted adjoining Ongar”), to distinguish it from another Greenstead, also in Essex, but some 30 miles distant, in Colchester.

My visit took place on a sunny day, in a day trip by car from London. I forget which year, but having a car places the date in the later 1970s. I remember well the warm sunshine outside the building and the dark wooden interior, so it would probably have been in the spring or summer. There are photographs from the visit, so others’ available photographs might serve.

From the distance of this blogpost, I survey the distance travelled across time and space by the document from its origins in Essex to my view of it as it first entered its current collection in the United States several years ago, and by my understanding of the subjects from immersion in study for the M. A. onward. The “papers” selected for that M. A. in London were dedicated to Language, Palaeography, Archaeology, and English Place-Names.

In all the travels and studies over the years devoted to such subjects (see, for example, Her Page and (Selected Publications), I might not have guessed that they would have come to include a close look at place-names centered upon one of the central areas of Ongar Hundred.

*****

Tags: Alta Aungre, Anglicana Formata, Aungre ad Castrum, Chipping Ongar, Dodyngherst, High Ongar, History of Documents, History of English Place Names, Hundred of Ongar, Kelvedon Hatch, King Richard II, Kolwedon, Medieval English Documents, Medieval Seals, Place Names of Essex, Preston Charters, Saint Swithin, Stanford Rivers, William Herde alias Tobere
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Simurgh and Zal from a Persian “Shahnameh”

May 7, 2020 in Uncategorized

Simurgh and Zaal
from a Persian Shahnameh

[Posted on 7 May 2020]

Continuing to examine manuscripts or manuscript fragments and related materials in our blog, we turn to an illustrated paper leaf, now in a private collection, from a Persian Shahnameh or ŠĀH-NĀMA (“Book of Kings”).

The Contents List for our blog shows the range of our explorations. Our Galleries of Scripts on Parade include specimens of script in Persian as well as other languages, Western and non-Western.

The Paper Leaf

The leaf was purchased in the Portabello Road in London circa 1985. The paper is typical of Persian paper from at least the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries CE. One side has text, and the other has both text and inset illustration. The ensemble probably dates from the 19th century, with acquired damage of various kinds, including unevenly trimmed edges.

Private Collection, Leaf from a Persian Shanameh. Simurgh and Zal.

The Shahnameh

This long epic poem, which the Persian poet Abul-Qâsem Ferdowsi Tusi or Ferdowsi (circa 329 – 411 AH / 940 – 1010 CE) began to compose circa 977 and completed on 8 March 1010 CE, forms a major work of world literature. It recounts in more than 50,000 couplets the history of the kings and heroes of Persia from mythical times to the overthrow of the Sassanids by the Arabs in the middle of the 7th century.

Several episodes describe encounters between the benevolent mythical, phoenix-like creature Simurgh and Zāl or Zaal, the legendary prince who, born with white hair, grew into a heroic warrior king. This illustration shows the gigantic creature with the man in adulthood.

This creature had rescued him as an infant when his parents, in fear of his albino appearance, had abandoned him on the mountain Alborz, where Simurgh dwelled. She raised him as her own and taught him wisdom. After Zāl’s return to his kingdom and the world of mankind, he summoned Simurgh’s expertise for aid when his wife Rudaba was undergoing prolonged labor in childbirth — leading to the birth of the great hero Rostam. That aid took the form of instructing Zāl how to perform a caesarean section.

Illustrations in Manuscripts

The long tradition of illustrations for the Shahnameh or Šāh-nāma is richly varied, in books and other visual arts, and in Persian and other spheres. We learn that the documented history of its illustration in manuscripts begins circa 1300 “in the Il-khanid period (1256–1353), coinciding with the start of the canonical history of Persian painting”. There developed varied approaches to the choices of episodes illustrated, the positioning of the illustrations upon the leaves and at regular or irregular intervals through the course of the volumes, the manner of depicting a given episode, and artistic license. In sum, “there was no prescribed manner for depicting the same episode”, and “there was no fixed set of Šāh-nāma illustrations”. From these rich origins developed the unfolding traditions of manuscript illustration for this text in later dynasties and regions, Persian and other.

Among the very most magnificent representatives of the tradition is the now-dismembered and dispersed Shahnamen of Shah Tahmasp, made at Tabriz by many artists circa 1525–1530 CE and completed for Shah Tahmasp (1514–1576). That manuscript, preserved in multiple collections, probably originally comprised two volumes with some 280 large folios and 190 illustrations. Some collections exhibit online a range of its illustrations, as with the 10 folios in the Houghton Shahnameh and some of the 78 illustrated pages at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

That the manuscript tradition could continue to flourish into the 19th century (and beyond) is demonstrated by the copy at the Morgan Library & Museum, as MS H. 9, made probably in Shīrāz, Iran, between 1852 and 1856.

Perhaps needless to say, at various times in the widespread transmission of the text of the Shahnameh and its illustrated versions, non-royal patronage and commercial production also flourished, up to and beyond the history of printing. Given the history of collecting, it seems inevitable that specimens of any standard of quality or otherwise might find their way to fragmented and widely dispersed states of existence or survival. As such, the leaf presented here stands in a very large but vastly separated crowd.

Simurgh and Zāl

The fabulous story of Simurgh and Zāl offers ample scope for vivid depictions. Many expert examples reside in major collections, as with this case at the Metropolitan Museum in New York of circa 1300–1330 CE, aattributed to Northwestern Iran or Baghdad (MMA Rogers Fund 1969, 69.74.1).

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Folio from a Shahnama, circa 1300–30 CE. “Zal is Restored to his Father Sam by the Simurgh”. Image Public Domain.

Or this elaborate version from the famous Tahmasp (or Ṭahmāsp) Shahnamah (see above) at the Freer Gallery in Washington D. C., in which a passing caravan sights Zal with Simurgh as she brings food for him and her nesting chicks.

Washington, D. C., Freer Gallery of Art, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, LTS1995.2.46: Tahmasp Shahnamah, folio 62v. Iran, Tabriz, circa 1525 CE. “Zal is Sighted by a Caravan as Simurgh Feeds Her Chicks”. Image Public Domain.

The Illustration on Its Page

On the page of “our” leaf, the illustration stands within the text. The fully painted illustration contrasts with the open background of the script, written in black ink with rubrication in red pigment and set out in 4 columns, with 2 to a couplet and 12 lines of text altogether. The heading in red occupies the space of 2 couplets at the center of line 7. Above the illustration stand 10 lines of text, in which the last line spreads to either side of the stepped riser of the illustrated frame, yielding only the 2 outer columns. Below it stand 2 more lines, of which the first similarly spreads around the stepped descender of the frame.

Both the lines of text and the illustration are partly enclosed by an open-topped framework of ink outlines, which form single (or retraced) vertical bounding lines at both sides and a horizontal line at the bottom. Inset within that frame, the painted illustration stands within its own outlined stepped frame which has block-like risers at top and bottom.

Private Collection, Leaf from a Persian Shanameh. Simurgh and Zal.

Zāl’s name figures in the rubric, and his identifying white hair appears to emerge, like an ear-flap, below his helmet. Simurgh assumes a recognizable but perhaps non-standard form, with huge size, spread wings, long tail dividing into streamer-like tips, and red rooster-like crest.

In the illustration, the pair of figures, man and avian, appear against a painted landscape. Descending from the sky, the creature swoops down from the right to nip or clamp the waistband or sash of the fleeing warrior king, whose outstretched right hand reaches beyond the frame partway into its interspace. With helmet and mustache, the man wears boots, trousers, and a knee-length tunic which partly exposes his white undergarment.

Private Collection, Leaf from a Persian Shanameh. Simurgh and Zal.

Mostly, the recounted relationship between the creature and her adopted Zāl appears benign, but here she grabs him — with both of them poised in mid-flight.

Private Collection, Leaf from a Persian Shanameh. Simurgh and Zal.

*****

Detached from its former manuscript, for now this illustrated leaf must stand for the original whole. Do you know of other leaves from this book and by the same scribe and artist?

Please leave your comments here or Contact Us. Watch this space and the Contents List for more discoveries in our blog.

*****

Tags: Freer Gallery, Houghton Library, Illustrated Manuscripts, manuscript fragments, Morgan Library & Museum, Shahnameh, Simurgh, Simurgh and Zal, Tahmasp Shahnameh, Zal
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2019 Congress Behind the Scenes Report

May 6, 2020 in Anniversary, Conference, Events, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Reception, Societas Magica, Uncategorized

Light at the End of the Corridor

Behind the Scenes

RGME Activities
at the 2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies

[Posted on 6 May 2020]

At the End of the 2019 Congress. A view down the dorm corridor, with Light at the End of the Tunnel.

At the End of the 2019 Congress: “Light at the End of the Corridor”.

Following the successful completion of our activities at the 2019 Congress, we offer an informal glimpse Behind the Scenes. Customarily, the completion of the Congress is followed by its Report. Occasionally, there also follows a Behind-the-Scenes Report. For the 2019 Congress, we planned already then to offer such an additional, informal Report, but events and tasks arising along the way back from the Congress pushed back its timetable for completion. Then, in steady succession, other tasks and activities occupied attention.

Some are reported in our blog about our Congress Activities, as we prepared for the 2020 Congress, while others have their say in our blog about Manuscript Studies, and in our reports about other Events, including the 2020 Spring Symposium. The required cancellation in March and April 2020 of that Symposium and the 2020 Congress as a whole led to further re-arrangements. Among other things, we attended to publishing the 2020 Symposium Booklet and the Abstracts for all our 2020 Congress Sessions as “souvenirs” of what had been planned. Research Group plans and adaptations, including possible rescheduling of parts of those events, are reported in the announcement about Keeping Up: Updates for Spring 2020. Now, as the appointed time would have come to travel to the 2020 Congress as formerly intended, we revisit the 2019 Congress with its Behind-the-Scenes Report, including some hindsight.

Earlier Reports from Behind-the-Scenes

Tardis

For the 2016 Congress Report, its Follow-Up Report took shape under the title of Doctor Who-Done-It. That term had its inspiration from a conversation on the way from one of the Research Group co-sponsored Sessions to our Reception, likewise co-sponsored with the Societas Magica. Then it was revealed that our Director, Dr. Mildred Budny, drives an equivalent of the Tardis (a conveyance for “Time and Relative Dimension in Space”).

As described on the official website for Doctor Who (see also Doctor Who), the Tardis is the “Doctor’s method of travel through both time and space — all Gallifreyan Time Lords use TARDISes for getting from A to B — and from then to now.” Who knew that this conveyance would also figure among the activities behind the scenes at the 2019 Congress?

The conversation at the 2016 Congress had to do with transporting some copies of the Illustrated Catalogue to the Reception for collection by their new owners. 2016 was the first year that our Director elected to drive, rather than to fly, to Kalamazoo for the Congress — because of the new arrangements by which the Research Group, as its co-publisher, took over the distribution of that Publication, and through which our Director had identified prospective owners, who wished to collect their copies at the Congress (rather than, say, to have to cover the international shipping costs). At that Congress, our Director could be seen with some of these copies in tow, on a wheeled luggage cart, on the way from one Session or Meeting to another. On the way to the Reception, there came the question if the ones that time were the only ones that had been brought. “Oh, no! These are not the same ones that you have seen on earlier days of the Congress. These are new, and there are more where they came from, for tomorrow.””

“Ah”, said Collin. “Where do they [meaning the new ones] come from?”
“Ah”, said our Director, “They come from the back of my car. There are the refills.”
“Oh! So your car is the Tardis”.

And so came the title Doctor Who-Done-It.

At the next Congress, the 2017 Congress Report included an image of that conveyance, again in the company of the Illustrated Catalogue and one of its new owners.

Book Signing for Mildred Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, on a Sunny Afternoon outside Fetzer at the 2017 International Congress on Medieval Studies, Tardis Included.

Book Signing Scene outside Fetzer at the 2017 Congress. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Gathering

Arriving at the Congress base to register on the Eve of the Congress, some of us gathered, as customary, at Bilbos Pizza. Then it was time to place the Research Group Posters on billboards, where permitted and where space allowed.

RGME and Other Posters at the 2019 Congress.

The landscapes also await Arrivals. Here, outside one of the Dorms — inside which, on occasions, we visit the Board Room (see below).

Plant Life to Greet the Congress Attendees. Row of Hostas alongside the Walkway. Photograph Mildred Budny.

Plant Life to Greet the Congress Attendees. Photograph Mildred Budny.

Setting the Stage

Preparing to start the Sessions and to engage in their Question-and-Answer discussions, our participants engaged in arranging the projection and other aims. The official Report for this Congress includes some Group Portraits of contributors to the different Sessions. Here, two Speakers set up the projection for their joint paper at our first Session of the Congress, the Organizer of one of our co-sponsored Sessions participates in its discussion, and the Respondent for that Session strokes his beard as he delivers his paper.

Ian Cornelius and James Eric Ensley prepare to tell us about “The Lost Medieval Exemplar of Beinecke Library, Takamiya MS 23”

Eric and Ian Check the Projection for their Joint Paper at the 2019 Congress.

Vajra Regan listens to the progress of his Session on “Embedded in the Mainstream: Ritual Magic Incorporated in ‘Legitimate’ Texts”, one of the 2 Sessions co-sponsored by the Research Group and the Societas Magica .

Vajra at his Session at the 2019 Congress.

Michael A. Conrad offers an erudite Response to Vajra’s Session by his observations “In Plain Sight: The Promotion of Astrology and Magic at Royal Courts in the Thirteenth Century in Transcultural Perspective”.

Michael Presents His Paper at the the 2019 Congress.

It was then that we learned that often, giving Papers, Michael ponders while he holds his beard — an observation which he readily confirmed.

Michael Presents His Paper and Beard at the the 2019 Congress.

2019 Reception and Business Meeting Invitations.

Our Business Meeting

This year’s Open Business Meeting was an outstanding success. So many attendees — newcomers gladly included — that we had to bring in more chairs. Our Associate, William H. Campbell, volunteered to find those arrangements. As customary, Derek Shank recorded the Minutes. Constructive suggestions abounded.

Scheduled for lunchtime (lunch provided) on the first full day of the Congress, and right after our first Session (only 1 building away), the Meeting offered an excellent way to launch our activities at the Congress and beyond. Apparently there are no photographs of the occasion, but the 1-page Agenda not only sets the stage, but also provides a concise record of our achievements and aims for 2017–2018 and beyond, with requests for suggestions and contributions in funds and in kind.

The 2019 Agenda is now downloadable. Please join us!

Our Reception

As in some previous years, our Reception was co-sponsored with the Societas Magica . Conversation flowed, and some manuscript materials were examined.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

Dan Attrell heads the table.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

Groups hold conversations.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

Greeting the gatherers.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

Showing some specimens.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

Pondering.

Our Reception at the 2019 Congress.

*****

The Board Room

At the end of the day, as in previous years, it was possible to retreat to one of the Student Lounges, where we gathered to talk, relax, and, on occasion, play board games. Hence my customary term for that Room. (Never “Bored”.)

In the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

Making a Move.

In the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

Engaging in the Game.

Options.

In the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

The customary Shedding of Shoes.

Bare Feet in the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

Conversing in the Board Room.

In the Board Room 2019 Congress.

Telling Stories.

In the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

Not forgetting Refreshments.

In the Board Room at the 2019 Congress.

Happy Traditions in Good Company among Colleagues and Friends.

*****

Book Signing

At last, the edition and translation has appeared. The Picatrix: A Medieval Treatise on Astral Magic, translated with an introduction by Dan Attrell and David Porreca (2019). The authors sign copies. Hurray!

Congratulating the achievement, we join the company of admirers with the happy awareness that we have heard about the research for this publication over the years, including in some of our Sessions at the Congress.

Dan and David at Their Book-Signing at the 2019 Congress.

For example, at the 2018 Congress, Abstract of Paper included.

Poster for our Session co-sponsored with the Societas Magica on "Occult Blockbusters of the Islamicate World", Part I: The Piccatrix (A Magical Bestseller)", organized by David Porreca and sponsored by both the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence amd the Societas Magica at the 2018 International Congress on Medieval Studies. Poster set in RGME Bembino.

2018 Poster for “Occult Blockbusters” Session.

Displays, Dragons Included.

Display at the 2019 Congress.

*****

Sunday Lunch, Plus Some Manuscript Materials

As customary in recent years, some of us gather at the cafeteria for Sunday lunch, as the Congress draws to its close and we prepare for return journeys. As in recent years, the gathering gives the opportunity to look afresh at some manuscript materials.

Here.

Sunday Lunch at the 2019 Congress.

With some improvised, reclaimed materials, Michael wraps his newly won Manuscript Facsimile Page for safe transit.

Michael at Sunday Lunch at the 2019 Congress.

Travelling T-Shirts as Selected and Modelled by Research Group Associates.

Derek and David with T-Shirts at Sunday Lunch at the 2019 Congress.

*****

Heading Home

As the Congress shuts down, participants, exhibitors, staff, and employees, hurry to pack and depart. Then comes a quiet time, as some await their transport. Among them is Ilona.

Ilona Awaits at the End of the 2019 Congress.

As packing is completed, there is pause to look around the setting and reflect upon the completion of another Congress.

1) Looking out from a ground-floor dorm room toward the Parking Lot as its spaces have cleared.

View from the Dorm at the End of the Congress.

2) A view of the Corridor leading to and from that room shows some “Light at the End of the Corridor”.

At the End of the 2019 Congress: Light at the End of the Tunnel.

Now is the time to drive away.

The Empty Parking Lot after the 2019 Congress.

The grey weather following the Congress made a contrast with the sunny days along part of its course. By some of that sunlight might we remember it.

Central Rock Garden at WMU International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo May 2019. Photograph Mildred Budny.

Central Rock Garden at WMU Kzoo 2019

*****

“Le Chariot” Hitches a Ride and Comes to the End of the Line

Remember the Tardis-like conveyance driven by our Director? See Above and also the Reports for the 2016 Congress and the 2017 Congress .

Our lamented Associate, Michel Huglo, named this selfsame vehicle “Le Chariot de Milly” when he caught first sight of it. That was when our Director came to collect him for brunch in Princeton following our 1998 Symposium on The Bible and the Liturgy, at which he had spoken. That name has proved as trusty as, for years, did the car. With the Director, it has ventured to conferences — including those in which the Research Group participated as organizer and sponsor or co-sponsor — in various states, including MA, CT, PA, OH, and MI.

This time, on the way back from the Kalamazoo Congress, the car gave up with a pop on the Ohio Turnpike. In the middle lane, at that, but with no traffic, so that it was possible safely to move to the side of the road, where conveniently stood a layby.

Le Chariot at the Side of the Ohio Turnpike Returning from the 2019 Congress.

Le Chariot at the Side of the Road.

It took some time for help to arrive, but then Le Chariot was able to hitch a ride.

Le Chariot Hitches a Ride on the Way Back from the 2019 Congress.

This car had come to the end of the line, so had to remain in Ohio. Another means of conveyance could be found for the return to home base, but that car has now passed into history. Legend, some might say?

*****

With hindsight, it seems somehow fitting that my thoughtful photographs in leaving the Congress rooms and spaces included choices to record them in the absence of people within the frame, but not without their presence, and their presence of mind.

*****

The grey weather following the Congress made a contrast with the sunny days along part of its course. By some of that sunlight might we remember it.

Central Rock Garden at WMU Kzoo 2019

Or, as I also wish to think about it, there might be some “Light at the End of the Corridor”.

*****

Now see the 2020 International Congress Program Announced.

Although some of our Sessions planned for the 2020 Congress considered aspects of Divination and other approaches to “Seeing the Unknown” (in Parts I & II), we did not guess that the Congress itself would have to be abandoned. And so now, on the day which would have been devoted to travel to the 2020 Congress, I reflect on the forms of light which presence and hindsight — perhaps also forethought — might offer for our explorations across time and space, guided by experiences and reflections.

At the End of the 2019 Congress: Light at the End of the Tunnel.

*****

Tags: Board Room, Business Meeting, Reception, Targis
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A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices

May 1, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

An Old Testament Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’

And Ege’s Workshop Habits
in Assembling His Portfolios

Portable Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version
Italy, circa 1275, with Illuminations made apparently in Paris

Double columns in 48 lines
circa 235 × 170 mm <written area circa 153 × 107 mm>

End of Malachi (within 2:13 – 4:10),
Jerome’s Prologue to Maccabees, Argumentum,
and Opening of I Maccabees (1:1 – within 1:21)

J. S. Wagner Collection

[Posted on 1 May 2020, with updates]

A detached leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’, now in the J. S. Wagner Collection, provides the transition from one Old Testament Book to the next. In reporting its survival and setting it into the context of its former manuscript and the known patterns of Otto Ege’s distribution of his dismembered manuscripts, we examine the leaf, its presentation as part of a larger series (initially as Ege’s Number 19, altered for some reason to a Number 13), and Ege’s evolving “workshop practices” in mounting and distributing manuscript leaves to wider audiences.

[Note: This post began as the report of a Leaf from one of the manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege, to follow our earlier reports for some other manuscripts of his. It grew into a report also of Ege’s varying workshop practices over time in assembling or reassembling his Portfolios of specimen Leaves extracted from manuscripts and other books. Selected specimens would be mounted in mats, often with identifying labels or inscriptions in print or pencil, arranged in groups (notably in the Portfolios, but also in other batches) or distributed as left-overs, and sold far and wide. Mercifully, apart from cutting the individual leaves out of the books, Ege did not crop them except by the rectangular windows of their mats.

As reported in other posts on this blog (see the Contents List), our cumulative examination of various Portfolios, individual sets thereof, and individual leaves either extracted from Portfolios or distributed on their own (as “Strays”), has yielded detailed grounds for conjectures about Ege’s evolving and revolving practices over an extended period of intense activity dedicated to maximizing the teaching (and commercial) potential of his collection. We share some results of that research here.]

Opening of the Book of Macabees in Otto Ege MS 19. Private Collection.

Wagner Leaf from Ege Manuscript 19, verso, detail.

With thanks to the present collector, J. S. Wagner, who drew this find to our attention on account of our blog (You are Here), we present the images, front and back, of a detached leaf from a small-format 13th-century Vulgate Latin Bible dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951). The leaf was formerly part of Ege Manuscript 19 (Gwara, Handlist, No. 19, page 124).

Already, in our blog on Manuscript Studies (You are Here), we have considered leaves from other manuscripts distributed by Ege. See our Contents List for the series of discoveries, which so far principally concern Ege Manuscripts 8, 14, 41, 51, 61, and 214; we begin work also on Ege Manuscript 56 in Armenian.

This new opportunity opens the possibility to consider another of Ege’s dismembered manuscripts showcased in his Portfolio of Fifty Original Manuscripts (= “FOL”), for which a core study was developed with the website devoted to a group of its survivors as ege.denison.edu, and for which work has continued to advance apace in multiple centers.

This Portfolio is one of several which Ege devoted to specific titles or genres of books in manuscript and/or print (such as the Bible in several languages). Ege gave this one the title of Fifty Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, XII–XVI Century [sic for the plural]. Ege numbered its Leaves as “1–50”, in the sequence which he chose for their presentation there. Their source manuscripts, accordingly, in Scott Gwara’s Handlist of Ege’s manuscripts are known as “Ege Manuscripts 1–50” (of at least 1–325, and counting). A provisional summary of the contents of this Portfolio and some of its known sets appears online in The Otto F. Ege Palaeography Portfolio: Towards a Virtual and Interactive Reconstruction of Fifty Dismembered Manuscripts. Virtual reconstructions of one and another of its manuscripts continue to emerge, as with FOL Leaf 15, the 14th-century Beauvais Missal.

Already, in this blog, we have presented 2 leaves from the J. S. Wagner Collection:

Now we turn to the Ege Leaf in that Collection.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: "Fifty Original Manuscripts", Bible Manuscripts, Charles Carmichael Lacaita, Ege's Portfolios, Ege's Workshop Practices, J.S. Wagner Collection, Latin Vulgate Bible, manuscript fragments, Otto Ege, Otto Ege Manscript 61, Otto Ege Manuscriipt 23, Otto Ege Manuscript 13, Otto Ege Manuscript 14, Otto Ege Manuscript 19, Otto Ege Manuscript 41, Otto Ege Manuscripts, Portable Bibles, Sir Joseph Lacaita
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The Pearly Gateway: A Scrap from a Latin Missal or Breviary

April 26, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

The Pearly Gateway:
A Scrap from a Latin Missal or Breviary

[Published on 25 April 2020]

A scrap of a late-medieval Latin manuscript joins the company of fragments from religious texts for collective use, including missals and breviaries, and also that of medieval manuscript fragments retrieved from secondary reuse in binding other forms of text. See the Contents List for this blog.

Recently a small fragment of a leaf was acquired for a private collection from an unknown Latin manuscript. We had the opportunity to examine and photograph the fragment, and we offer images of it here, along with preliminary observations. Perhaps you recognize the script or text?

The scrap retains part of a single column of text, including some of the upper margin of the leaf. The text amounts to one side of the column and 7 of its lines, plus the top of a next line. One side of the scrap holds the opening, or left-hand side, of the column of text; the other holds the ending, or right-hand side, of its column.

The shape of the scrap shows that it was excised or trimmed down to its present limited extent by an uneven vertical slice both at the left of the column and through its middle, and an uneven horizontal slice through the top of its line 8. It may have seemed unnecessary to cut through the upper margin, so perhaps the present height of the margin is the same as it was when the spoliation occurred.

Other forms of damage affect the scrap, including fold-lines, creases, tears, stains, and pigment offsets. The patterns of folds, rubbed portions of text, and the losses probably from a mitred corner may show that this scrap came from a reused piece of vellum which served as the covering of a binding for some other text. If so, the trimming of the part-column would have followed the retrieval of that reused vellum and its division into smaller portions for individual distribution, that is, sale.

Fuller leaves deformed by reuse in bindings have passed through our blog. They show more of the folding and mitering patterns which such reuse would have entailed. For example, A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues Reused to Bind Euthymius:

Verso of Leaf from the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Book III, chapter 7. Photography by Mildred Budny

Script and Layout

It is not clear whether the original leaf originally held a single column or double columns of text. The margin to the right of the column might represent part of the inner margin of the leaf or part of the intercolumn separating the 2 columns (let us call them ‘a’ and ‘b’ from left to right). If it came from a double-column format, this scrap would represent the first part of column a or b on one side, and the last part of the reverse (column b or a) on the other. The distance textually between those remnants, as yet unknown, could help to assess the length of the columns as well as their number per page.

The text is written in ink, with rubricated elements in red pigment. That pigment remains bright, without discoloration, probably indicating its vegetal (rather than metallic) origin. Line 1 stands below the top ruled line of the framework for the text. The ladder-like framework has outlined ‘rungs’ upon which the lines of script stand. The lines of the framework are made in ink on one side of the scrap, but partly in ink and partly (in the lower part) in red pigment on the other side.

The text is written clearly in upright Gothic textura, with a few capitals. The script employs a few abbreviations, low points for punctuation, and diagonal hairline strokes rising to the right as the dots over the i‘s. The letter a has a firmly closed double-compartment bow.

Side 1

Private Collection, “Margaritas” fragment back side.

Lines 1–3 on Side 1 correspond to part of De Uirgine que Martyr Fuerit in the published Missal of Saint Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, Appendix B, page 167. Here. Andreas Falow observed that the passage belongs to the Responsonium
Simile est regnum caelorum homini negotiatori.

From these sources we supply, within square brackets [thus], the missing parts of each line opening the column. Line 1 begins mid-word.

Line 1

[ne-/]gociatori queren[ti bonas]

margaritas. [inuenta u-]

[-]na preciosa ma[rgariti]

dedit omnia sua [et conp-]

Line 5

[-]aruit eam. ¶ [ . . . ]

[]ue erineit ?est i[ . . . ]

[-]te us’ op die feria [ . . . ]

[ . . . ]

The passage in full would begin on at the bottom of the preceding column of text, either on the same page (in column a for column b in 2-column layout) or on the preceding page (in the single column in 2-column layout or in column b for 2-column layout). Depending upon the location of this damaged column, it if stood at the left on the recto, the preceding column would have belonged to the preceding leaf. By these words, we might recognize it, if it comes to light among surviving fragments.

The Response:

Simile est regnum caelorum homini negotiatori,
quaerenti bonas margaritas;
inventa una pretiosa margarita,
dedit omnia sua
et comparavit eam.

In German:

Das Reich der Himmel gleicht einem Kaufmann,
der schöne Perlen suchte.
Als er eine kostbare Perle fand,
gab er all das seine
und kaufte sie.

As Chris Nighman observes, the passage refers to the Parable of the Pearl, related in Matthew 13:45–46:

45 iterum simile est regnum caelorum homini negoiatori quaertenti bonas margaritas
46 inventa autem una pretiosa margarita abiit et vendid omnia que habuit et emit eam

In the King James Version:

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

That passage, known as the Parable of the Pearl, or the Pearl of Great Price, alludes to the rarity and value of pearls both as physical and as symbolical treasures.

Washington, D. C., National Gallery of Art. Jan Vermeer, “The Pearl Merchant” or “Woman Holding a Balance” (circa 1665). Image Public Domain via Wikimedia.

Side 2

Private Collection, “Margaritas” fragment front side.

Line 1

[ . . . ]s et [ . . . ] eligit eam

[ . . . ]tare [ . . . ]au[?]i facit

[ . . . ]uaci [ . . . ]o suo In

[ . . . ]le uii[ . . . ] Au’ de lau-

Line 5

[ . . . ]feria [.]s. Cap[itu]l[um] in

[ In] ecclesiis altissi[-]

[ -m]i apieret os su-[um . . . ]

In the Breviarium Remense (1830), In ecclesiis altisimi apieret os suum is a Response in Dominica I post Epiphianium in II Nocturno.

The Columns of Text Reconstructed

The portions of text which we can so far reconstruct through their recognition in other sources establish that each column had short lines, of which the scrap retains about one-half to one-third the former width. Such presentation may indicate that the original manuscript had double columns.

Front & Back

It is not yet clear which side of the scrap was the front, or recto in the manuscript. More research may clarify the issue.

But we can see which side of the skin is which.

The whitish flesh side of the animal skin stands on the side of the fragment which opens its column of text and places the word margaritas (“pearls”) in line 1.

Private Collection, “Margaritas” fragment back side, lines 2-5.

The darker hair side includes a few short hairs from the animal on the partly-healed hole which interferes with the lower part of the o of os in the last line. The slice through the leaf below this line bisects the hole.

Private Collection, “Margaritas” fragment front side, lines 4-7.

It was the hair side which the leaf turned outside when it was reused to cover a binding.

*****

Do you recognize this scribe or the texts?

Please leave your Comments here, Contact Us with your questions and suggestions, and visit our Facebook Page.

Also, watch this blog for more discoveries.

*****

Tags: Breviary, manuscripts reused in bindings, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Missal, Parable of the Pearl, Pearl of Great Price
2 Comments »

More Light on English Charters

April 16, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

2 More English Charters
“English Charters 1–2”

6 Richard II (19 September 1382)
10 Henry VII (7 December 1494)

[Published on 16 April 2020]

Having completed the round of posts about a set of charters pertaining mostly to Preston in Suffolk, England, we turn to 2 more English charters in that private collection, as now revealed to our view.

Group of 8 Preston Charters: Front. Photograph Mildred Budny.

The first round considered the group in stages, pair by pair:

Charters 5 and 7: Full Court Preston and Preston Take 2

Charters 6 and 9: Preston Charters Continued

Charters 10 and 11: Charter the Course: More on Preston Charters

Charters 12 and 13: Preston Charters: The Chierographs

(Remember, Charter 8 is missing.)

Now we turn to a new pair: Charters 1 and 2 in the same set.

These documents have the owner’s numbers 1 and 2 entered on their dorse in black ink, at top left. The numbers on the “Preston” group as we considered them show their placement clearly.

Preston Charters: Dorse with Guide. Photograph Mildred Budny.

For Charters 1 & 2, the first purchased among the collector’s English charters, we can at present show you their face, not dorse. These 2 were purchased as single items.

Charter 1

6 Richard II (= 22 June 1382 – 21 June 1383)
“On the Feast of Saint Michael Archangel” = 19 September
19 September 1382

From Juliana X [Name to be deciphered], Wife of John of Saint Andrew, Miles (“Soldier”)

To Thomas Merdeleye of Sutton and others

Charter 1: 6 Richard II Face.

Richard II (6 January 1367 – c. 14 February 1400), who reigned from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399.
Among his Regnal Years, Year 6 spanned spanned 22 June 1382 – 21 June 1383.

London, British Library, Royal MS 14 E IV, folio 10 recto. “Recueil des croniques” by Jean de Wavrin. Coronation of Richard II at the age of 10 in 1377.

The document specifies the date of the Feast of Saint Michael the Archangel — namely 19 September. Within the span of this king’s regnal years, crossing from one June to the next, that feast fell in the first calendar year.

Damage to the document by liquid, smears, folds, and holes imposes strategic impediments to deciphering some of the names. Examples include the surname or appelation of the vendor

Ego Juliana ??? uxor Johannis de sancto Andrea milities

“Juliana [???], wife of John of Saint Andrew, miles” (line 1 and again line 6, both times disrupted after her first name)

and the names of some buyers and witnesses.

Charter 1: 6 Richard II Face top center.

Image enhancement by the owner improves the legibility. For example, viewing with Black Light reveals more of the text through the water damage.

Charter 1: 6 Richard II Charter Face with black-lighting of water damage.

Similar for other portions of the water-damage, lower down on the document.

Charter 1: 6 Richard II Charter black-lighting of water damage midway down.

Charter 1: 6 Richard II Charter with black-lighting of water damage.

Docketing

Another method, Back-lighting, reveals more of the docketing inscription on the dorse. That inscription, for what it is worth, had the benefit of viewing the text before the water damage, which affected the docketing as well.

Charter 1: f 6 Richard 11. Docketing Inscription under back-lighting.

All the same, the inscription exhibits some variations from the text of the document.

A Deede from Julian [sic] . . . wife of John S[. . .] A[.]nd[ . .]/
to Thomas Mo[?]edoley, of Sutton, to John d[. . . ] /
au to John de Bredon capellan [. . . ] /
dated on . . . sct[. . . ] /
[ . . . ]

People

The names might find identifications with persons recorded in other sources — provided, of course, that the dates are correct and the identifications are secure. For example, records survive for

a Johannis de sancto andrea at Byfield, in 1428 (Way too late)
a Thomas de Merdeleye and Thomas de Merdeley, and
a John de Bredon.

More work to do. Would you like to join the quest?

And the Seal

Charter 1: 6 Richard II Charter Seal.

Charter 2

10 Henry VII (22 August 1494 – 21 August 1495)
“Seventh Day of December” = 7 December 1494

From Thomas X
To X
At “Kymbaston”

Charter 2: 10 Henry VII Face.

Date and Place

The text closes with its dating clause.

Charter 2: 10 Henry VII Face, lower left.

Apud Kymbaston . . . septimo die mensis decembris anno regni Regis Henrici septimi post conquestum Anglis decimo.

“At Kymbaston . . . on the seventh day of the month of December in the tenth regnal year of King Henry VII after the conquest of the English.”

Henry VII (28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509) reigned from 22 August 1485 until his death. Among his Regnal Years, Year 10 spanned 22 August 1494 – 21 August 1495.

So: 7 December 1491, at a place then called Kymbaston.

London, National Portrait Gallery, Portrait painted 29 October 1505. Henry VII wearing the Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece and holding a rose.

Who, What, Where

The forcible removal of much of the document by excision prevents a clear view of the transaction entire.

The vendor was a Thomas. That much is clear.

Charter 2: 10 Henry VII Face top left.

More research may reveal more about the persons and places.

Do you recognize any of these features, places, and persons?

Please contact us via Contact Us or our Facebook Page. Comments here are welcome too.

*****

More to Come. See the Contents List for this blog.

*****

Tags: Hency VII, Henry VII, History of Documents, John of Saint Andrew, Kymbaston, Medieval English Documents, Medieval Seals, Richard II, Saint Michael Archangel
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Charter the Course: More on Preston Charters

April 13, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Charter the Course

More on Preston Charters:
Charters 10 and 11
from Regnal Years 12 and 18 of Edward II

[Published on 13 April 2020, with Updates.]

Following our 3 previous blogposts on the group of charters from Preston in Suffolk, England, now in a private collection, we advance with further reports about them. Those blogposts focused upon 4 of the group of 8 charters. Employing the owner’s numbering system, they considered

Preston Charter 9 Face.

Charters 5 and 7: Full Court Preston and Preston Take 2
Charters 6 and 9: Preston Charters Continued

(Remember, Charter 8 is missing.)

Now we turn to others. Here we focus upon Charters 10 and 11.

Both of these are dated, like Charter 9; all 3 of these have dates within the reign of King Edward II, spaced at 4-year intervals. Charter 9, already examined (also see its image to the right here), is dated to Year 8 of the reign.

The Group of Preston Charters

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/Church_at_Preston_St_Mary_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1598436.jpg

Church at Preston St Mary. Photograph by Andrew Hill via Wikimedia Creative Commons

The owner purchased the group of 9 documents in the 1980s in London, probably — according to his recollection — in the Portobello Road, a renowned location of markets and shops of many kinds, including used goods, curiousities, and antiquities. The group has a consecutive series of modern Arabic numbers, running from 5 to 13. The individual number is entered in black ink at the top left corner of the dorse (or back) of each document.

Of that original group, only 8 survive in the “Preston” collection, because Charter 8 went missing after a class some years ago, considerably before the group came into our view. Consequently, we know now only of Charters 5–7 and 9–13.

Charters 5 and 7 have figured already in 2 previous blogposts, with an introduction, photographs and descriptions, transcriptions and translations of their texts, and some observations about their characteristics and contexts (Full Court Preston and Preston Take 2). Next, Charters 6 and 9 took the stage (Preston Charters Continued).

We continue here to Charter the Course.

Now is the time for Charters 10 and 11. Both carry the dates of their transactions during the reign of King Edward II, who lived from 25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327, and reigned from 7 July 1307 until his deposition in January 1327.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: History of Documents, King Edward II, Portobello Road, Preston, Preston Saint Mary, Reused Documents, Seal Tags
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A Glimpse of ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ While It Was Still Intact

Portable Quarto Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version Italy, circa 1275, with Illuminations made apparently in Paris

Double columns in 48 lines circa 235 × 170 mm <written area circa 153 × 107 mm>

Some Known Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’ In Sequence

Some Known Remnants

Complete Vulgate Bible accompanied by Prologues and the Glossary of Interpretationes Nominum Hebraicorum

A Preliminary Reconstruction of the Original Sequence of Leaves

The Former Bindings

The Manuscript Leaves

Old Testament with Prologues

Prefatory Texts

Jerome’s Prologues for the Vulgate Bible and the Pentateuch

Old Testament with Prologues

New Testament with Prologues

Interpretation of Hebrew Names

All Bound Up

The Stitching Patterns

The Patched Repairs for Cut-Out Initials

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence at the 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies (13–16 May 2021)

Call for Papers

Proposals Due by 15 September 2020

The Plan We Had for the 2020 Congress

The Plan for 2021

A Charter of 23 Richard II (=1399) Issued on 17 July 1399 at Alta Aungre (High Ongar)

From the Time of Richard II

6 Richard II

6 Richard II (= 22 June 1382 – 21 June 1383) “On the Feast of Saint Michael Archangel” = 19 September I. e. 19 September 1382

The Document in Question: 23 Richard II from High Ongar

Single Sheet with Tag and Seal

The Dorse

The Docketing

The Face

The Tag and Seal

The Script

The Text

In Sum

23 Richard II (= 22 June 1399 – 29 September 1399) “On the First Thursday after the Feast of the Translation of Saint Swithin” (= 15 July in England) I. e. 17 July 1399 at Alta Aungre (High Ongar, Essex)

From

Thomas Herda alias Tobere

To a Group of 4 Tenants

John Passelewe of Aungre ad Castrum (Chipping Ongar, Essex) William Atte Bregge of Stanford Ryirus (Stanford Rivers , Essex) Nicholaus Atte Style of Dodyngherst (presumably Doddinghurst, Essex) Richard Barne of Kelwedon (Kelvedon Hatch, Essex)

The Day and the Date of Issue

Names and Places

Location, Location, Locations

The Transaction as Record

Simurgh and Zaal from a Persian Shahnameh

The Paper Leaf

The Shahnameh

Illustrations in Manuscripts

Simurgh and Zāl

The Illustration on Its Page

Light at the End of the Corridor

Behind the Scenes

RGME Activities at the 2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies

Earlier Reports from Behind-the-Scenes

Gathering

Setting the Stage

Our Business Meeting

Our Reception

The Board Room

Book Signing

Sunday Lunch, Plus Some Manuscript Materials

Heading Home

*****

“Le Chariot” Hitches a Ride and Comes to the End of the Line

An Old Testament Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’

And Ege’s Workshop Habits in Assembling His Portfolios

Portable Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version Italy, circa 1275, with Illuminations made apparently in Paris

Double columns in 48 lines circa 235 × 170 mm <written area circa 153 × 107 mm>

The Pearly Gateway: A Scrap from a Latin Missal or Breviary

Script and Layout

Side 1

Side 2

The Columns of Text Reconstructed

Front & Back

2 More English Charters “English Charters 1–2”

6 Richard II (19 September 1382) 10 Henry VII (7 December 1494)

Charter 1

A Glimpse of
‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’
While It Was Still Intact

Portable Quarto Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version
Italy, circa 1275, with Illuminations made apparently in Paris

Double columns in 48 lines
circa 235 × 170 mm <written area circa 153 × 107 mm>

Some Known Leaves
from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
In Sequence

Complete Vulgate Bible
accompanied by Prologues
and the Glossary of Interpretationes Nominum Hebraicorum

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies
(13–16 May 2021)

A Charter of
23 Richard II (=1399)
Issued on 17 July 1399
at Alta Aungre (High Ongar)

6 Richard II (= 22 June 1382 – 21 June 1383)
“On the Feast of Saint Michael Archangel” = 19 September
I. e. 19 September 1382

23 Richard II (= 22 June 1399 – 29 September 1399)
“On the First Thursday after the Feast of the Translation of Saint Swithin” (= 15 July in England)
I. e. 17 July 1399
at Alta Aungre (High Ongar, Essex)

John Passelewe of Aungre ad Castrum (Chipping Ongar, Essex)
William Atte Bregge of Stanford Ryirus (Stanford Rivers , Essex)
Nicholaus Atte Style of Dodyngherst (presumably Doddinghurst, Essex)
Richard Barne of Kelwedon (Kelvedon Hatch, Essex)

Simurgh and Zaal
from a Persian Shahnameh

RGME Activities
at the 2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies

And Ege’s Workshop Habits
in Assembling His Portfolios

Portable Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version
Italy, circa 1275, with Illuminations made apparently in Paris

Double columns in 48 lines
circa 235 × 170 mm <written area circa 153 × 107 mm>

The Pearly Gateway:
A Scrap from a Latin Missal or Breviary

2 More English Charters
“English Charters 1–2”

6 Richard II (19 September 1382)
10 Henry VII (7 December 1494)

6 Richard II (= 22 June 1382 – 21 June 1383)
“On the Feast of Saint Michael Archangel” = 19 September
19 September 1382

10 Henry VII (22 August 1494 – 21 August 1495)
“Seventh Day of December” = 7 December 1494

From Thomas X
To X
At “Kymbaston”

More on Preston Charters:
Charters 10 and 11
from Regnal Years 12 and 18 of Edward II