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        • Mildred Budny, ‘Catalogue’
        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
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2026 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program
Episode 24. “Life with Books” (Interview with John Windle)
Announcing the Launch of RGME Bembino WP
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Medieval Missal Fragment as Early-Modern Cover
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A Leaf with Patchwork from the Saint Albans Bible
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A Little Latin Vulgate Bible Manuscript Leaf in Princeton
J. S. Wagner Collection. Leaf from from Prime in a Latin manuscript Breviary. Folio 4 Verso, with part of Psalm 117 (118) in the Vulgate Version, set out in verses with decorated initials.
2026 Annual Appeal
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Private Collection, Ege's FBNC Portfolio, Dante Leaf, Verso, Detail. Reproduced by Permission.
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Starters’ Orders
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To Whom Do Manuscripts Belong?
Kalamazoo, MI Western Michigan University, Valley III from the side. Photograph: David W. Sorenson.
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Puente de San Martín: Bridge with reflection over the River Targus, Toledo, Spain.
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2017 M-MLA Call for Papers

March 14, 2017 in Conference, Conference Announcement, M-MLA, Manuscript Studies

Poster for CFP RGME Sponsored Panels for 2017 M-MLA ConventionCall for Papers

“Artists, Activists, and Manuscript Evidence”

2017 Theme for the

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
Permanent Panels
at the
Midwest Modern Language Association

2017 Convention
Cincinnati, Ohio
November 9-12, 2017

Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)[Update:  At our recent Open Business Meeting (see our 2017 International Congress on Medieval Studies Report), the organizer of these panels reported that the deadline for proposals for papers has been extended to 1 June.  Please send your proposals to Justin Hastings, as described below.  We hope to see you at the panels.]

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, in keeping with the 2017 M-MLA Convention’s theme of “Artists and Activists,” is sponsoring panels on manuscripts and printed books and the illuminators, scribes, editors, and other artists who created them and the scholars and readers who used them. The session invites all approaches, including textual, art historical, codicological, and paleographical.

Possible foci include but are by no means limited to:

  • Scriveners, the Book Trade, and Early Modern Printed Editions
  • Textual Transmission and Reception: Inscribing Alterity and Change
  • On the Margins: Glosses, Illustrations, and Illuminations

Interested panelists should send brief abstracts of no more than 300 words to the organizer by 5 April 2017:

Justin Hastings
Department of English
Loyola University Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60626
jhastings@luc.edu .

*****

A New Tradition

Initial D for 'Domine' with inset bearded human head seen in 3/4 view peeping toward the left, on the recto of a detached leaf in a private collection. Reproduced by permission.For information about the Events of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, to which these Sponsored Panels belong, please see our Events and Events Archive.  For convenience, we distinguish between these Events elsewhere and our many Congress Activities over the years at the Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies, likewise with a Congress Archive, held at Western Michigan University each May in Kalamazoo.

Our Associate, Justin Hastings, generously offered to organize panels for the 2016 M-MLA Convention to be sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence. The Call for Papers yielded not one, but two panels, with contributions spanning a wide range of materials, texts, periods, and regions. These sponsored panels represented the first time, apart from the Kalamazoo Congress, that the Research Group sponsored meetings within an existing conference held in North America, although we have co-organized and co-sponsored Events afresh in various centers in North America and elsewhere, as described in the Events Archive.

Poster 2 of 2 for the RGME Sponsored Panels at the 2016 M-MLA Convention

2016 Poster 2 of 2

Poster 1 of 2 for the RGME Sponsored Panels at the 2016 M-MLA Convention

2016 Poster 1 of 2

The plan to sponsor the 2017 Panels follows our first appearance as a Sponsor at the 2016 M-MLA Convention — with 2 Panels on Marginalia in Manuscripts and Books in response to the Call for Papers for 1 Panel alone. See the 2016 M-MLA Report for these Panels, with the published Abstracts of the Papers and a view of the Posters.

The continuation of the tradition of Permanent Panels at the M-MLA Convention is most welcome, and we thank our organizer, Justin Hastings, and the Midwest Modern Language Association.  We congratulate Justin for his expert organizational skills and outstanding collegiality, and we applaud his willingness to continue to organize the panels for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.

Further information about the Convention can be found in the 2017 M-MLA Convention Permanent Section Call for Papers .

Another First

This year, responding gladly to Justin’s initiative, we issue a Poster for the Call for Papers.

"Bembino" Booklet CoverSeal of Approval, as logo for the 'Style Manifesto' of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, with red border, yellow ground, and capital 'S' in the RGME font BembinoAs customary, the design of the Poster corresponds with the Research Group’s Style Manifesto, and employs our very own copyright font Bembino — available freely for download, along with the booklet describing its reasons and range.  (Tip:  The next version of Bembino is advancing toward its launch very soon, in the next few weeks!  Update:  It is now available!  See Bembino .)

Up to now, our Posters in recent years have accompanied our Congress Activities and Symposia, Colloquia, Workshops, and the like.  Circulated at those events or activities, the Posters now illustrate the Pages or Posts devoted to them on our website.  Also, a Gallery illustrates the sequence of our Posters on Display. They exemplify aspects of our multiple Layout Designs, which have a Gallery as well.

Sometimes, we issued a Poster for the Save-the-Date Announcement of an approaching Symposium.   Those specimens likewise appear in the Poster Gallery.  However, this is the first time for a Poster for the Call for Papers.  Nice!

Thank you, Justin.

Poster for CFP RGME Sponsored Panels for 2017 M-MLA Convention

Join the Event

Remember, please send your proposals by April 5th to Justin:
jhastings@luc.edu .

Many subjects and approaches may suit the themes of

“Artists, Activists, and Manuscript Evidence”

What do you think?

You might Contact Us and visit our FaceBook Page for further conversations.

*****

Update: Following the Call for Papers, we now announce the program. Please see the plan for our 2017 M-MLA Panel.

Tags: Book Trade, Early Modern Printed Editions, Glosses, Manuscript studies, Marginalia, Midwest Modern Language Association, Scriveners, Textual Transmission
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2016 M-MLA Report

March 14, 2017 in Announcements, Conference Announcement, Manuscript Studies, Reports

Border States:
Marginalia in North American Manuscripts and Printed Books

Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)Two Panels
Sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
and Organized by Justin Hastings
(Department of English, Loyola University Chicago)

at the Convention of the Midwest Modern Language Association (M-MLA)
held on 10-13 November 2016 at St. Louis, Missouri

[Report for our Panels on Marginalia in Books for 2016 M-MLA]

Invitation Letter, Plus Marginalia, for 24 June 1994.

Invitation Letter, Plus Marginalia, for ‘Marginalia in Manuscripts’, 24 June 1994

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, in keeping with the M-MLA conference’s theme of “Border States,” sponsored its pair of Special Session Panels examining materials in North American collections. The responses to the Call for Papers for our sponsored Special Session yielded two panels rather than one, and extended their scope both temporally and geographically.

The subjects, and their range, accord well with the Research Group’s long-term interest in the physical characteristics of books, their modes of production, and their processes of use across time. The subject of “Marginalia in Manuscripts” formed the focus of one of the Seminars on “The Evidence of Manuscripts” in our early years based in the Parker Library of Corpus Christi College. Our blog on “Manuscript Studies” — plus some printed books — includes reports of discoveries grounded in close analysis of their surfaces, marginalia often included.

Do we practice what we preach? Well, we prefer to refrain from writing in books belonging to others, as we recommend to you, but our own pages? That might be different. Witness the Master Copy of the Invitation Letter to that Seminar (see here). Marginalia Lives On!

For the 2016 Panels, we publish the Abstracts for the Papers.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Aesop's Fables, Book of Hours, California Gold Rush, Curricular Romulus, Dance of Death, Danse Macabre, J H Gybon Spilsbury, John Ker Duke of Roxburghe, John Ldgate, Justin Hastings, Manuscript Marginalia, Manuscript studies, Marginalia, Midwest Modern Language Association, Newberry Library, Office of the Dead, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M 359, Thomas Hoccleve
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2017 Congress Program

March 8, 2017 in Announcements, Conference, ICMS, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Uncategorized

Duck Family at the 2007 Congress. Photography © Mildred Budny.

Photography © Mildred Budny

The Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
at the
52nd International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan
11–14 May 2017

We announce the Programs for our Activities

Upon the publication of the complete Schedule for the 2017 International Congress on Medieval Studies, we now announce the Programs of our 5 co-sponsored Sessions and other Activities.

Upon completion of last year’s International Congress on Medieval Studies, we gave both a 2016 Congress Report and a special Behind the Scenes Report (Also Known As “Doctor Who Done It”).  Then we turned to preparing for this year’s Congress.

Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)After our proposals for the 2017 sessions were accepted, our 2017 Call for Papers described the scope and aims of the sessions and invited proposals for their papers for consideration. Next, after the official closure of the Call for Papers on 15 September 2016, we selected the programs of the sessions, submitted them to the Congress Committee, and, in due course, announced these 2017 Congress Preparations.

As the preparations for the Congress shift into the next phase, we will also, as customary, post the Abstracts for the Papers, as their authors permit. Note that our site conveniently lists the published Abstracts not only for the individual years of the Congress, but also in the Indexes both by Author and by Year.  Thus we invite you to discover, even at a distance across time and space, the subjects, aims, and accomplishments of the presenters at the Sessions.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Adelaide Bennett Hagens, Business Meeting, Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Florida, History of Magic, Index of Christian Art at Princeton University, International Congress on Medieval Studies, Magical Materials, Medieval Central Europe, Medieval Rulership, Medieval Tools, Military Orders and Crusades, Reception, Societas Magica
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A 12th-Century Fragment of Anselm’s ‘Cur Deus Homo’

January 31, 2017 in Manuscript Studies, Reports, Uncategorized

Verso of the Leaf and Interior of the Binding, Detail: Lower Right-Hand Corner, with the Mitered Flap Unfolde

Verso of the Leaf and Interior of the Binding, with the Mitered Flap Unfolded.

Tied Down

Fragmentary Leaf with Part of Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo

Book II, Chapters 17–18 or 18a–b
(sumpsit eam . . . Nam cum uirg[/initatis melior])
in Latin on vellum
measuring at the most circa 307 mm tall × circa 182 mm
< written area (including ascenders and descenders) 148 mm wide
with each column circa 65 mm wide
flanking the intercolumn of circa 18 mm wide >
laid out in double columns of 35 lines
written in brown ink in skilled ProtoGothic script
without embellishments

Continuing our series on Manuscript Studies, our Principal Blogger, Mildred Budny (see Her Page) reports the discovery of a reused fragmentary vellum Latin manuscript leaf extracted from a copy of Anselm’s masterwork Cur Deus Homo.  Whether as a text on its own or in the company of other texts, it was made probably in about the third quarter of the 12th century, to judge by the script, perhaps in France.  Norman, maybe?  Identifying the text and its sequence makes it possible to recognize which side of the leaf was the original recto, and which the verso.  The fragment joins the select known cast of 12th-century manuscript witnesses to this significant philosophical–theological text.

Anselm’s texts mostly took the forms of meditations or dialogues. Already our blog has showcased a manuscript with another text by Anselm: A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’, which formerly contained a copy of the Prayers and Meditations. Now we focus upon one of his principal dialogues, cast between master and follower, as they debate the natures of divinity and necessity.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Anselm's Cur Deus Homo, Archbishop Anselm, Bodleian Library Bodley MS 271, Bodleian Library MS Auct D 2 6, Budny Handlist, Canterbury Cathedral, Landscapes, Manuscript Fragments Reused in Bindings, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, ProtoGothic Script, R W Southern, Theodore Phyffers, Thionville, Trinity College Cambridge MS B 1 37
1 Comment »

A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues Reused for Euthymius

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

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

Budny Handlist 3

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

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

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

Handlist 3, Recto

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

Handlist 3, Verso

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

December 2, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

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

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

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

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: British Library Additional MS 11294, Cistercian Statutes, Cistercian Statutes of 1257-1258, Fontanay Abbey, Manuscript studies, Medieval manuscripts
2 Comments »

A Reused Part-Leaf from Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels

October 30, 2016 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Manuscript Studies

Bede on the Gospel of Mark

asdcv1 cropped to leaf improved

Recto of the Part-Leaf

A Part-Leaf from a 14th-Century Large-Format Copy
of Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels
(Perhaps Other Texts Too)
in Double Columns of 26 or More Lines
in Latin,
Perhaps Made in France,
Reused as a Part-Cover for Something Else, Now Discarded & Lost

Yes, we know.  Don’t know much about this part-leaf.  Why should we bother you?

You might know something, and/or, you might like to know something.  (My Kind of Person.)

I’m going ahead on the principle that Something Is Better Than Nothing.  (Ever the Optimist.  Gotta Hope For Something Good.)

Here Goes.

[Continuing our series on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny reports the identification of a reused and cut-down vellum Latin manuscript leaf extracted from a copy of Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels, made probably in the first half of the 14th century, perhaps in France.  Identifying the text makes it possible to recognize which side of the leaf was the original recto, and which the verso.  And there’s more to tell.]

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 BembinoThe extracted and reduced leaf was converted through reuse into part of the cover or wrapper for some volume or other, now unknown.  At some point, at least by the year 2016, the part-leaf was removed from that interim position and offered for sale on its own online.  It has come to its present owner recently, without record of the provenance of the leaf, or the nature and contents of its former volume, let alone of its original manuscript.

As characteristic for the problems presented by such discarded and commercially transferred medieval manuscript materials, we must resort to examining the evidence of the material itself.  Good thing, it may be, that we and other colleagues have some experience with such tasks.

Have a look, for example, at the discoveries reported in our our blog on Manuscript Studies and our colleagues’ contributions to meeting the challenges which dismembered and dispersed fragments pose, as for our 2016 Symposium on Words & Deeds and its downloadable Program Booklet.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Aquitaine, Bede, Bede's Homilies on the Gospels, Bede's Homily II Number 6, Bede's Homily XXXVIII, Gregory the Great, Holy Saturday, Lectionary, ledger, Lesquenn, Life of Saint Blaise, Maine-et-Loire, manuscript fragments, Manuscript Fragments Reused in Bindings, Mark 7:31, Mios, Otto Ege MS 14, Terres de Losquonn
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Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (November 1993)

October 22, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Uncategorized

“Professionals’ Views of Manuscript Writing: A Workshop”
Parker Library, 1 November 1993

Page 1 of Invitation Letter for Workshop on 1 November 1993 at the Parker Library on 'Professionals' Views of Manuscript Writing'

Page 1 of Invitation Letter for 1 November 1993

Page 2 of Invitation Letter for Workshop on 1 November 1993 at the Parker Library on 'Professionals' Views of Manuscript Writing'

Page 2 of Invitation Letter for 1 November 1993

In the Series of Seminars and Workshops on “The Evidence of Manuscripts”
The Parker Library
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
2-page Invitation in pdf with 1-page RSVP Form

The previous Workshop in the Series considered

“British Library, Cotton MS Tiberius A.iii”
The British Library
9 August 1993

Face to Face

This special occasion brought together manuscript scholars, practising calligraphers inspired by medieval manuscripts, and some of the manuscripts themselves.  What’s not to love?

Show&Tell Op:  Bury Bible, Eadmer’s manuscripts, Missal of Saint Augustine’s Abbey, and some other beautiful books:  Meet Your Fans!  To seek Your Autographs is What We Do!  P.S.  We know what Your Handwriting Looks Like.

Read On, Dear Reader.

[First published in 22 October 2016, as Mildred Budny reviews the event and its setting among the many events and activities of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Update: A Research Group Seminar the next year examined challenges of manuscript fragments, including some specimens on loan from the collection of our Associate Toshiyuki Takamiya:

  • Medieval Manuscript Fragments (19 August 1994).

More than 2 decades later, the Takamiya Collection moved to the Beinecke Library at Yale, where it finds a welcoming home.

  • an exhibition at the Library showcases highlights of this collection together with selected manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library: Making the Medieval English Book, on display from 1 September to 10 December 2017,
  • an associated conference on 6–7 October 2017 focuses on the scope of the collection, with contributions by numerous experts (including some Associates of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, among them Toshiyuki Takamiya himself): Conference, and
  • a published catalogue illustrates and describes the collection:  Raymond Clemens, Diane Ducharme, and Emily Ulrich, A Gathering of Medieval English Manuscripts: The Takamiya Collection at the Beinecke Library (Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University, 2017).]

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Tags: Alexander R. Rumble, Book of Kells, Bury Bible, Corpus Christi College MS 2, Corpus Christi College MS 271, Corpus Christi College MS 3, Corpus Christi College MS 389, Corpus Christi College MS 4, Corpus Christi College MS 41, Corpus Christi College MS 86, Eadmer of Canterbury, Emiko Kinebuchi, Gareth Colgan, Gaynor Goffe, Gerald Fleuss, Missal of Saint Augustine's Abbey, Parker Library, Peter Kidd, Seminars on Manuscript Evidence, Toshiuki Takamiya
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Update for 2016 Symposium Booklet

October 15, 2016 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Announcements

Poster 1 for the 2016 'Words & Deeds' Symposium at Princeton University, with 4 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 BembinoPoster 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 BembinoUpdate:

We have fixed the broken link for downloading the Program Booklet, with Abstracts and Illustrations, for our Symposium in March on “Words & Deeds”, exploring a rich array of subjects. The subjects range from the Late-Antique Theater to Gutenberg, by way of (among others), the Abbey of Saint-Denis, charters, and amulets. For example, we celebrate, and illustrate, recent researches and discoveries among the medieval manuscript remnants from the collection of Otto F. Ege.

The 2016 Symposium Announcement and the  2016 Symposium Report provide additional details.

You may find the Booklet here.  Laid out on our copyright font Bembino, it conforms with the principles of our Style Manifesto and celebrates the contributions of experts in various fields of study and interest.

2016 Symposium Program Booklet Cover Page with Border

2016 Symposium Booklet Cover Page

*****

Tags: "Words & Deeds", 2016 Symposium, Abbey of Saint-Denis, Amulets, Bembino, Charters, Gutenberg Press, Late-Antique Theater, Otto F. Ege, Style Manifesto
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Radio Star

October 13, 2016 in Announcements, Reports, Uncategorized

Radio Interview with our Director

Photography by David Immerman.

Photography by David Immerman.

In a newly available broadcast, Mildred Budny is interviewed for The Library Cafe series, hosted by our Associate Thomas Hill.

We invite you to listen, at your leisure, to the newly broadcast radio interview with our Director. Recorded in association with a Class Reunion in June 2016 at her alma mater, Vassar College, it offers the occasion, and the setting, to reflect upon the formative examples of good teachers and a long-term immersion in studying the original sources, manuscripts of course included.

Broadcast live on Wednesday 12 October 2016, the interview can be heard on the web through the website of the Library Cafe. Hear Here.

Our Director’s accompanying blogpost gives some further reflections, adds a glossary of Names mentioned in the interview (People, Places, Libraries, Books, and Manuscripts), with links and illustrations, and examines the processes by which dedicated research and the changing world of educational opportunities (or the reverse) led to the formation and development of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence. See Here.

Thomas Hill explains the iconography of the cycle of tapestries adorning the entrance hall to the Vassar College Library. Photography © Mildred Budny

Thomas Hill and Sally V. Kiel stand in the Vassar College Main Library on a sunny day in June. Photography © Mildred Budny.

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Booklet Page 1 of the 'Interview with our Font & Layout Designer' (2015-16)This radio interview, joining the recorded Oral Tradition stands alongside the first interview (in written form) published on our own website. We asked some pertinent questions, and received detailed, reflective answers from our Associate Leslie French. Because he prefers not to appear in photographs (his chosen attribute is said to be the Tarnhelm), we illustrate the introduction to his interview with his designs for the Research Group. See here.  That interview takes the form of a freely downloadable booklet, accessible through that link.

*****

These several interviews, for which we give thanks, represent a development in our history, as we turn the spotlight onto the People who stand within the books, the research, the collaborations, and the Group.

More interviews are planned.  They may take the forms which the available and preferred recording media invite.

We welcome suggestions for further subjects. Please let us know. Do you think that this is a good plan?

*****

The Host of 'The Library Cafe' in the Radio Studio. Photography © Mildred Budny

Tom In the Recording Studio before we begin the Interview. Photography © Mildred Budny.

Tags: Interviews, Leslie French, Mildred Budny, Sally V. Kiel, Tarnhelm, The Library Cafe, Thomas Hill, Vassar College, Vassar College Library
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